The Sea is Full of Stars

Ambora

Jaysu was no longer empty, nor was her loyalty and devotion in the least bit questioned by her people. In the morning, after devotions, she would often be chosen to go to those readying for the dawn patrol, and fly with them as their blessing and messenger to the gods.

The people, too, now accepted her as an acolyte of the temple and loyal member of the clan, an orphan foundling who had been taken in and raised as one of them, with the Most Ancient God as father and the High Priestess as mother, and the other priestesses, adepts, and acolytes her sisters.

Like them, she had no doubts about their primacy among all the clans of Ambora, nor that their faith was the true one. She saw and felt the gods and spirits in all things, and acknowledged and accepted their power and primacy over all of them. They were to a one the willing servants of all the gods, and dependent upon them for all that was good. The prayers were always simple ones, for those the gods appreciated. For enough food so that all of the clan might eat and be in strength, for enough skill and faith so that no enemy might overcome them, for forgiveness from all sins, for health so that they could serve their gods and their clan, and for shelter against the night. Everything had a prayer of its own, everything had a power and a purpose.

Although the men could not fly, they did have some gifts from the gods that were uniquely theirs, including the music. Women could chant and intone tunes for the rituals, but the men composed and played music on harps of their own designs, and on flutes carved from the same reeds that, carved a different way, could be used as blowguns by the warriors.

She liked some of the men and particularly liked to listen to their music, but she’d felt no urge to mate. Some of the acolytes had done so and borne children, and it had been most wonderful and fascinating, but the more pleasurable it appeared to mate and to bear and raise children, the higher the value of the sacrifice. She had seen the gifts the Grand Falcon bestowed on the High Priestess, and felt that her calling and destiny lay in that direction.

This in fact disappointed the High Priestess, who didn’t want to face the possibility of training Jaysu in the higher levels. It involved a great deal of prayer and fasting, ordeals and rituals that could drive one to the brink of madness and exhaustion, and it also involved drugs that did terrible things to the mind. Many died in that kind of training; the others went mad. Only one would do it.

The High Priestess knew that Jaysu could make it; her abilities and devotion were so absolute, it was a thing of awe. But what, if anything, was still in Jaysu’s mind, buried so deep down that it could not be reached by normal methods? The High Priestess concurred with the Grand High Priestess in Zone and those with whom the Most Holy had spoken to there. She was told that Jaysu was probably one of the two women, subsequently identified by interviews with the others as Angel Kobe, a onetime acolyte of some other alien religion. It fit nicely with her personality and devotion to assume this.

But might that old faith emerge and conflict with the new and destroy her?

Worse, what if they were wrong and she wasn’t this Angel Kobe? And what sort of monster might the process create in either case?

The High Priestess would have liked to put off the decision, but knew she could not. The gods of the volcanoes were restless; many troubles were coming for the clan from that score. Worse, all that she took to attain and maintain herself in this high position for so long had taken a grave toll. The pain was now there more often than not, and it was getting harder to find anything strong enough to deal with it. The Most High had sent her special drugs from other hexes that helped a great deal, and upon which she was now absolutely dependent, but even they had less effect as the days and weeks and months went by.

She was dying. And the pain would rise to levels she couldn’t control at some point. When that happened, she would go to the cliffs, pray to the setting sun to receive her spirit, and jump.

Flying was one of the things you had to sacrifice to become a High Priestess, and while fishing was part of the lifestyle, none of the Amborans swam very well.

Now she sat in the Inner Chamber, where none other could come, inside the Circle of Fire, facing the Grand Falcon herself, as only a High Priestess could do. After days of prayer and fasting and little sleep, and ingesting special drugs and potions, she was ready to take even more years off her life by diving the patterns. She understood that these were not preordained, but mere possibilities, but they tended to prove out more often than not. They could answer questions no other could answer, and give keys to the future that might well save her people.

The High Priestess swayed to a rhythm only she could hear, surrounded by the steam vents and sulfuric gases of the Inner Chamber, her sight failing as she took the last and strongest of the potions, which would almost certainly kill anyone not prepared for it. She screamed as it burned its way down and seemed to consume her body and even her very soul in a white-hot fire.

But out of that fire and out of the mists came visions. Visions formed inside and with the mists and gases, but primarily within her own mind.

What she saw in those visions were monsters.

Monsters of the sea, rising up, engulfing all that their giant tentacles could grasp. She saw two long, sticky tentacles shoot out like a tree frog’s tongue and snare low-flying birds and Amborans and other flying races as well.

Monsters of the land; huge translucent, sluglike creatures without even mouths to eat, moving slowly, ponderously, over land and through forests and up and down rocks, leaving slime as they went, absorbing any animal and most plant life they contacted, then slowly dissolving them inside themselves while the prey was still alive but helpless. Drawing larger prey to them by saucerlike eyes that seemed to swirl in patterns and radiate an eerie dance for the eyes of others that you could not avoid, drawing you in, making you walk directly into them without even knowing until you were inside that jellylike flesh…

She watched them come out of a boiling dark sea and horrible black skies filled with storms and violence, coming out of the west and covering nation after nation, hex after hex, until the Overdark was not merely a name but a description.

And at the heart of that darkness, something totally evil, something that looked like the tentacled ones but was not; something alien and awful, the enemy of light and the source of all madness. An entity so awful that it was willing, even eager, to take on and massacre even the gods themselves.

Bodies… all over, the blood and the screams of the dying everywhere, and even the volcanoes obeyed the darkness…

Surely this was not the future! Surely this was not the end of all things! The apocalyptic vision was so horrible that she refused to accept it.

And something seemed to whisper to her, not in words, but in flashes of inspiration and understanding.

Until now, life has been service to the gods and spiritual development of the soul. That time is past. This is what you were preparing for, although you did not know it. Now there is only one task, to fight the evil, to stop it, to crush it. Those who do may die. Those who do not will have fates worse than death.

“But how?” she screamed. The pain! The pain was growing as unbearable as the visions, and she dared not yet pass out! “What can Amborans do in this fight against such power?”

But in response came only a riddle. The Avenger must strike the blow that is the reason for his existence. The Avenger can strike only when the five are one through the North, and when all are willing to pay the price…

There was one last brief vision, of the investiture of Jaysu as High Priestess, just one brief glimpse, and it was gone. The priestess didn’t even have the time to plead for more information, for more detail. She passed out, and for many hours, alone on the platform, she lay there as the radiation and fumes did their worst to her and her body struggled with the poisons that gave both wisdom and pain.

When she finally awakened, it was to a body still in pain, but a different sort of pain, in which every joint and muscle in her body ached. She could not see; that last encounter had robbed her of what was left of her failing eyesight. Still, she managed to find her staff of office and use it to rise, and with memory of a place she knew better than any other, and the cues of heat and loud, rushing steam, she managed to make her way off the platform, past the veil, through the small maze and into the great room of the cave.

There was momentary shock from the priestesses there, some of whom had been keeping vigil and sympathetic prayer and fasting rituals for two days. Then they heard gasps and rushed to help her.

Jaysu was among them, feeling deep guilt for having involuntarily passed into sleep several times in the past few hours, but then just concerned for their Holy Mother, the only mother she remembered.

A mother who had been pretty if middle-aged when first they’d met only a year earlier, and who looked not much different when she’d gone into the Inner Chamber, but emerged old and wrinkled and wizened, blind and partly deaf, and barely recognizable to any of them.

They carried her to her chamber, where she was propped up on soft pillows and allowed to lie on her side. They watched, fearful that she would die at any moment, but after passing into a trancelike sleep, the High Priestess awoke and said, in a weak, low, old woman’s voice, “I do not have much longer.”

“Please, Mother, you must rest,” Gayna, one of her most senior adepts, said. “We can talk later.”

“No! We must speak now. I do not know how much time I have, and if I do not speak, then all this was for nothing! There is a great evil coming, and soon, from the west. An evil that will destroy all our people, our whole race, unless we become its mindless slaves. The Blessed Grand Falcon showed it to me, at great price, yet I would rather be like this than to not have seen and so be consumed by it!”

“Oh, no, Mother!” they began crying, but she silenced them with a contemptuous wave of her hand.

“Stop it! There will be enough anguish and tears in the tribulations to come! This is an evil as powerful as any god we know. This is an evil force so incredibly foul that it dreams of taking on the God of Gods itself!”

They all gasped. It was inconceivable to any of them that anyone would think they could take on and then win against the God of all Gods who lived in the center of the world.

“Can any such force exist that could actually do this?” Jaysu asked her, coming closer.

The old priestess nodded. “Yes, my child. Others have found a way into the Seat of the God who is behind all things, who sits at the center of the Well of Souls and decides all. Most have been thwarted by gods who appear to save us all in those times, but I feel no such god who can walk the entire world and commune with the God of Gods is here. There is an ancient legend of one party that entered, but discovered that even though they saw the whole of creation and its powerful linkages, they could not know what they were doing nor who they would destroy and were thus stopped. This one, though, does not care. This one would have no problems in blowing out the stars, in wiping out all life but its own and recreating all in its own foul image. It is here to destroy the very Well of Souls and proclaim itself the one true god. Whether it can do so is beside the point; it can make the whole of our race, not just our clan, less than a memory, and it can do the kind of evil that none but it could dream of.”

“But surely the most holy Grand Falcon and all the gods and spirits will combine against it!” another said, horrified. “Or the One Behind It All shall raise or summon a champion!”

“No! We have been given the task of dealing with this one ourselves! All that we have studied, believed, become, and all that any other races have become, is to this purpose. Our people who are now divided must unite. The Grand High Priestess knows this. Trust her counsel and her judgment. We must learn not to be clans, but to be a nation and one of many nations.”

They were shocked, stunned, and confused by all this, but they were at least listening.

“Jaysu?”

“Here, Mother!”

“You will remain with me. All others must leave. I have visions which concern Jaysu alone.”

“But Mother—” Gayna said, objecting.

“Do you not hear? Gayna, you must accept what the Grand Falcon has decided, just as I must also obey. If you do not, then your faith is nothing, your life is nothing, and all that you believe is hollow. Go!”

Gayna didn’t accept the logic and didn’t want to go, but with a sulking expression and with the others eyeing her, she had no choice but to leave. The others followed, leaving only the dying priestess and the new acolyte.

Jaysu knelt down and drew close to the wizened High Priestess, fighting to hold back tears. It was so awful to see her like this!

“Help me to a kneeling position facing you,” the High Priestess commanded. “Hurry, child!”

Jaysu helped the old woman up, then knelt facing her, almost nose-to-nose. The old woman reeked of sulfur and other chemicals, but it didn’t matter.

“Gayna believed that she was to be High Priestess after me,” the old one said, knowing that Jaysu already understood as much. “She will not take kindly that I pass the staff and authority to one who was not born and raised here.”

“Then do not give it to me!” Jaysu cried. “I do not want it! I would follow Gayna as I follow you!”

“But she would not follow you as she follows me, and that is why she is not worthy. The Grand Falcon allowed me the vision. It is her choice, not mine, that you succeed me. I can no more object or disobey than I can deny my own responsibilities and my life! Nor can you, precisely because you are worthy of the task. I had wondered why you were sent to us, and why as an empty vessel, a blank slate, but now I know. Your innate spirituality shines through. I am convinced that you were sent to us to save our people. Many of the visions, the nightmares, I am going to place as a stain on your soul will repulse you, but so, too, will I transfer the riddle and enigma that are entwined with hope. You must find the meaning, but I am certain they are meant for you.” She reached down into a basket near her bed without bothering to look, being unable to see it anyway, and brought out a vial with a waxy seal across it. “Is this vial red and violet in color?”

“Yes, Mother, it is.”

Wizened, clawed hands pried at the seal, then broke it and lifted it up, then tossed it aside. “I had wondered if this was a wise thing to do. Now I know it was what I was supposed to do.” She drank from the vial, shuddered, and held it out. “Drink what remains.”

Jaysu took the vial, hesitated a moment, then drank it. It was fiery on the way down, yet had a sweet aftertaste. Within a minute she could feel its effects flowing through her veins, giving her a sense of enormous well-being.

Ancient hands came out and grasped her head, and she found herself doing the same, until their mouths met in a near lover’s embrace. Their wings extended all the way out, until the muscles ached from being drawn so far forward that the wingtips of each touched.

Jaysu felt a jolt of electricity that stunned her, and then the whole world seemed to drop away and she had no thoughts, no control. She was in a dream of sorts, locked in an embrace that was all sensual, all emotional, with no thought on her part.

This culminated with a massive orgasm unlike anything she had imagined, and then there was a deep sleep filled with visions, some wonderful, some quite ordinary, some terrifying. But all these dreams and nightmares had in common someone, something, whispering something over and over again, and only to her.

The Avenger must strike the blow that is the reason for his existence. The Avenger can strike only when the five are one through the North, and when all are willing to break the bonds and pay the price…

When she awoke, she found the High Priestess was nothing more than a wizened corpse, almost mummified, looking grotesque in repose. A huge pile of feathers had fallen from her outstretched, stiffened wings, and it seemed there was no fluid in her tiny-looking body.

Jaysu felt incredibly saddened and humble all at once, yet realized that the sadness was because she would not be with the Mother again.

She was soon to discover, though, that this wasn’t precisely the case.

She walked out from the High Priestes’s chambers to see the others standing there, waiting worriedly. Gayna appeared less worried than resentful, but held it in.

“Our Mother has passed on and is carried by the Great Falcon to the Well of Souls,” Jaysu announced. “We must prepare her body for the public farewell. Zida, you will blow the great conch and announce this to the people. Someone else must travel to the Center and go to the Gathering Place and inform the other clans and the Grand High Priestess.”

Although they had all suspected it, there were still many tears and even sobs from the eleven priestesses who comprised the clergy of the clan.

“Who will go to the Gathering?” Jaysu asked them. “It must be done quickly, out of respect.”

“Why don’t you go?” Gayna asked curtly. “We have spent our lives devoted to her. You came from outside the clan and have been here but a year.”

She expected that. “Because the Holy Mother commanded me not to, and because I have other things I must do here. If you truly loved her and understood her teachings, you will not dishonor her now, particularly not now, with pettiness and infighting. Like you, I swore an oath of absolute obedience. I am carrying out that oath.”

A couple of the other priestesses didn’t seem to like Jaysu’s take-charge attitude, either; she had never been particularly popular, especially after the High Priestess took her in and so highly favored her over her old acolytes. Still, they looked at one another and then at the surly Gayna, and one of them, Azia, said, “In this she is correct. Let us ensure her proper return to the Well. Then we may speak of other things.”

It wasn’t the sentiment Gayna had in her heart, but it was not something she could fight. She nodded, postponing the clash between them.

Still, it was a difficult next day. The ceremonies, rituals, and sacrifices had to be carried out within one full day of a death, which required coordination among the priestesses, and somebody had to oversee it. Jaysu tried to accommodate the others by letting them do much of the work, particularly the wrapping of the body, but only one could lead the prayers and carry the staff to the great pit, and Jaysu made certain that she alone kept the staff in her possession. Thus she alone led the prayers and chants to the dead, and led the procession that walked, did not fly, along the ancient trail to the Pit That Always Burns. As the other priestesses lifted up the surprisingly light body wrapped in its funerary ware, it was Jaysu who pronounced the spells and sacred words and gave the signal that bade them tilt the board so the body slid from it and down toward the bubbling red and black surface of the volcanic pit.

For a moment the High Priestess appeared to be flying once more, then she crashed against the hot but solidified rock floating on the lava layer, again seemingly on her own as the slab shifted. Then a stab of red separated the crust from the rest and slowly began to remelt what had just formed, eventually reaching and covering the body, which me churning molten lava turned back into the elements from which it had once come.

Now the warriors spread their wings and took to the air, flying in ritual procession around the pit and then off into the darkening skies. Now, too, the priestesses took wing and flew the same pattern, but then headed back toward the lava cave and its shrine. Most continued their devotions there, the period of fasting and mourning lasting yet two more days, but one at least had to always be on duty to perform those things that the job entailed for the people, and another to follow the prescribed rituals of the temple itself.

Jaysu went into the High Priestess’s chambers once more, feeling as if she would be meeting the now departed occupant but knowing she would not. Though she didn’t know why she was there, once inside she made for the small jars and potions and began to apply colorful ceremonial paints to her face and body. When done, she had virtually covered all parts that were not feathered, and looked a fearsome sight. She emerged then, walking past the others and out onto the platform, and took a kneeling position facing the village, grasping the old High Priestess’s staff of office with both hands as she meditated and prayed, swaying back and forth. No one who saw her could break her concentration, and most feared to do so. Jaysu remained like this, in full view of both her fellow priestesses and the village, until sundown of the third day of mourning, when there was the fluttering of wings, and Macwa, who had been sent to the Center, landed on the platform and regarded her swaying form with puzzlement.

Jaysu then got painfully to her feet, her knees chapped and bloody from the swaying on the rocks. “All of the others are notified?” she asked, her voice barely functional after not drinking anything for almost thirty hours. She was dehydrated and on the brink of starvation, but refused to allow it to affect her.

“Yes. They were not surprised. I do not understand this. It was as if they all, everyone, knew.”

“They did. The notification was purely formal.” She arose and used the staff as a cane to get her inside.

Most of the others were there, and looked surprised when she entered, followed by Macwa. Now all were staring at Jaysu, some in fear.

“What is it?” she demanded of them. “Why do you look on me so?”

“You—You glow,” one of the priestesses responded for them all.

She herself could not see it, but all the others could. It had begun only in the last few moments, but as she moved among them it grew stronger and could not be denied as a real phenomenon.

All around her a soft golden light shimmered, beginning centimeters over her skin and feathers and extending out in a series of connective golden rays for perhaps five centimeters, but ending irregularly and thus giving the sense of a burning aura. Jaysu looked at her hand, pressing on the staff, and saw a barely perceptible milky sheen. It was odd, but clearly they were seeing far more.

She managed to sink down, not on her sore knees but on her side, and on impulse priestesses ran about, one getting a thin, sweet drink that was high in sugar to help her, another bringing light cakes that were supplemental staples along with the fish and meat. Jaysu accepted them graciously, and though having difficulty getting them down, forced herself, knowing she needed to get something inside her to live.

“How do you feel?” Macwa asked, tired herself but in awe of the glowing priestess and the total fast she’d obviously been on.

“Strange,” Jaysu responded. “Light-headed, but that may just be the fast. I have grown incredibly thin. Both exhausted and highly energized, as if there was a power within me, a power I do not understand and do not have the training to use. I fear I have been chosen to become that which I neither desired nor sought, and for which I am most unworthy and, too, unqualified. This—aura. You have not seen it on anyone before?”

“No, never,” Macwa responded, and the others nodded or muttered their agreement.

“Well, I shall sleep now, perhaps a long sleep. Let us see if these things are still there when I awaken. Thank you, my sisters. Thank you all.”

She was out cold in moments, and remained unconscious for two more days.

During that time rumors spread of her devotion and her mark of the gods, and much was made of it. Within the priesthood, a majority of priestesses decided it proved that the Grand Falcon desired her to be the next leader of the clan. While Jaysu slept, they hand bathed her, kept her forehead moist, and shifted her and propped her here and there, very gently, to ensure she did not hurt herself.

She had a fever, and when it broke her color seemed stronger and the aura, if anything, more brilliant. Too, after the fever broke, her knees healed with remarkable speed. Within hours all the scabbing and bruising was gone.

Gayna was not impressed. “It’s all trickery!” she insisted to any of her sisters who would listen. “Just potions and either great ambition or just ignorance.”

“You studied at the highest levels of alchemy,” one of the others pointed out. “What potions or drugs could cause the glow?”

She was stumped, but didn’t admit it. “Who knows what was in that stuff she mixed? We all know that much of what we do is for show, to keep and hold the faithful. I don’t know how she found this, but, new or not, it is no godlike blessing. What is more suspicious is that our Mother died while only she was there, and, although in bad shape, she was not as we found her only minutes later, wizened and drained of all fluids.”

“You’re not saying she—” They were aghast at the mere suggestion.

“I say nothing of the sort,” Gayna responded cleverly. “What I do say is that we do not know where she came from. Our Mother once said to me that she believed Jaysu was an alien creature from the stars, changed by the Well and reincarnated. How do we know that she has no memories? How do we know they did not return? How can we know that she is not in fact one of those monsters in reincarnated flesh that are now ravaging the far end of the great ocean? Could any of us have endured the ordeal she just subjected herself to? Would any of us still survive it? Perhaps now the alien spirit inside is come to the fore, and through blasphemous miracles and mock piousness intends to lead all of our people into slavery or slaughter. Don’t you see? High Priestess here, then after a while a visit to the elderly Grand High Priestess, another sad demise, and where are our people then?”

“I for one do not believe it!” Azia, one of the fence sitters up to now, exclaimed. “I have flown with her and prayed with her and I do not believe she is capable of these things! It is you who are spouting blasphemies here!”

Gayna smiled. “Yes? And you are so certain, with no doubts, that you would risk all our clan, perhaps all our people, on your—intuition? Would you, sisters? I say we simply cannot take the chance.”

“And who would be raised as High Priestess in her place?” Macwa challenged. “I do not believe that you yourself are exhibiting any faith in the gods and spirits to whom we have pledged our lives. You are saying they would deliver us into the hands of a monster? If they would, then perhaps we deserve it. I do not believe it. I have been at the palace of the Grand High Priestess; I have spoken with the worldly priestesses and their trusted agents in the Gathering Place. There is a darkness coming, there are alien monsters in the flesh of beings native to here, but in every case they have infected races that were already evil and already had these horrors. They called down the evil on themselves, as we could as well! But we do not call on evil. Our god is good and just. If you believe we serve the Grand Falcon, then you must have faith that She has chosen what is right and good as always. Or are you saying that the god we follow, the god our Mother followed, the god we pledged to suffer and die for, is false and powerless?”

Gayna saw the trap, and that there was no gracious way out. “I accept all that you say,” she responded carefully, “but I also point out that we are given a choice here. Native born, a lifetime of devotion, no fancy tricks, what you see is what you get, or one who may be a demon. With the alien evil coming, with us possibly being called to face it, perhaps we are now being judged whether we are worthy of being saved. This is, perhaps, what our Mother was training us to face. Have you thought of that?”

They hadn’t, but the seed of doubt planted by Gayna gave them pause, and for a moment there was silence.

Suddenly, and to everyone’s shock and surprise, Jaysu walked into the room carrying the staff. She glowed brightly, looked remarkably fit, and was staring at Gayna. “So, a meeting of the sisterhood? Am I not one of you?” She paused. “Or is that what this meeting is deciding?”

“You are one of us,” Gayna responded, “but the question is whether or not you are the best one to lead us. You yourself know that your training at the higher levels is minimal. Your knowledge of rituals, prayers, spells, and potions is not sufficient to manage the whole of the High Priestess’s responsibilities, and by your own admission your knowledge of what goes on beyond our clan boundaries is next to nothing. Even you admit you do not know your origins or the true nature of your spirit. I just do not believe you are qualified, and I say so in love and fellowship.”

Jaysu suppressed a smile. “Very well. I agree with most of your points, although I know more than you believe. I seem to have some sort of—power. I cannot explain it. But when I look at potions, their names and purposes and composition are instantly available to me. When a ritual is proper, it comes to me, it consumes me. And while I knelt out there during the period of mourning, it seemed that all the High Priestesses, all of those now of the clans, and many who have passed on, were with me, teaching me. Still, I will not lead any who lack faith in me. I cannot. Any who cannot accept me as their Mother must challenge my right, and leave if they cannot do so should their arguments lose. We are not warriors. I will not battle for this, and I have too much faith to debate it. If the sisters are not willing to place their faith and minds and bodies at my bosom, then someone else who can command this should be chosen. And, in that case, sister, you must realize that with our polarized followings, we must both step aside and accept someone who is undoubtedly and universally acknowledged as guided entirely by faith. I therefore suggest that we lay our doubts aside and select someone, perhaps Azia here, who has been guided in these matters only by faith and her own heart.”

Gayna knew she could not argue with this, and yet was too infuriated to agree. She reached to her neck, pulled off the beads that identified her priestly function and rank, and threw them on the cave floor. Then she glowered at the others. “Mark me well! I have spent my life in preparation for the work you now so callously throw away to an—an alien creature! I have studied rigorously, and denied myself all pleasures of the flesh. And this is how my life, my devotion, is repaid! I curse you! I curse all of you! I shall be gone with the sun!”

And with that she walked out, leaving them silent, and some of them stunned.

Finally Azia said, “I believe we have been given our answer. I, for one, will pledge all that I have to Jaysu and call only her my Mother from this moment on. Who will bare her neck and kiss the feet of their Mother as I shall do?”

There was some hesitancy, but before long the rest of the priestesses all did so, even those who had originally stood with Gayna.

“I feel very sad for Gayna,” Jaysu told them when it was done. “Her knowledge and skills would be most valuable to us, and it saddens me to see someone of such devotion leave with such a stain left on her spirit. Those of you who are her friends please try and seek her out tonight and minister to her and try and bring her back to the fold. I fear for her if you fail.”

“It will be done, Mother,” several responded.

“I shall introduce myself to the Grand Falcon,” she told them. “If she disapproves of your choice, then Gayna will be all the easier returned to our fold.”

But the Grand Falcon did not disapprove. Jaysu entered the Inner Chamber, where none but a High Priestess could go, and saw for the first time the grand and ancient inner chapel with its whooshing fumaroles, sulfurous jets, bubbling multicolored mud pots, and, facing the altar, the huge and awesome idol of the Grand Falcon, whose form was Amboran perfection but whose face was that of a great and powerful bird’s.

And before she was even proclaimed to the assembled clan, her tail feathers began to fall out, and she began to molt, with old feathers falling away to be carefully saved and used in rituals. Within a month she had a new set of bright white wings that lacked sufficient power and lift for her to actually fly. The aura remained and continued to strike awe and reverence in all her flock, but while she looked very much the angel now, she would never fly again.

In fact, her grand and beautiful appearance, and the added wonder of the aura, which was even visible in bright daylight, if lessened, made the clan feel they had been singled out, that they were indeed the clan of clans, the highest of all the clans of Ambora.

Meanwhile, after Gayna stalked out of the assembly of the priestesses, she could not be found. Inquiries to other nearby clans brought no clue, either. Many feared she had killed herself. Others believed she had exiled herself beyond Ambora, although exactly how and where was not known.

The ceremony of investiture was a grandiose one, held one month to the day after the death of the old High Priestess, in front of the entire assembled clan and with many high-ranking members of other clans attending. It was three days of joy and feasting, although also a great religious show as well. Even the Grand High Priestess had come, borne by four strong warriors of four different clans upon a grand bamboo platform designed for the purpose. While Jaysu had been functioning as High Priestess since the night she was elected by her peers, she only now was officially so. She was no longer Jaysu, but Holiness to the flock and Mother to the priestesses. She already seemed to radiate the confidence and power of the old one, and the same sort of radiance the others from the other clans who could attend also had, perhaps even stronger.

Now the High Priestesses met, alone, for the first time as equals and without anyone else present, on the evening before they were to journey back to home.

The Grand High Priestess looked at them, and at their newest member, and came straight to the point.

“There is going to be a grand council in Zone,” she told them. “It will be like nothing in any living memory. The last time one was held was to face down the threat of an earlier empire now lost in legend. If one looks over the great and long history of this world as it is recorded in the grand libraries of the nation Czill, repository of this knowledge and existing for it, we see that there have been many crises over the millennia. Evil ones have come with the keys to the Well of Souls, but the Well has summoned the watchers to deal with them time and again. But when it is conquerors, when the evil is native grown, even if nurtured and encouraged by those from Beyond, there is no call. Then it is up to us. We do not know or understand the logic of it, but we are certain of this. The evil that spreads now in one area will begin to march out, perhaps within a year. Much of the plans and preparations were already under way; the evil that came to infect them further only has the skills and experience to know just how to use them to best advantage. It cannot be reasoned with. It cannot be dealt with. It desires only absolute power. It only understands power. It arose once somewhere in the stars, and, somehow, at great loss, they beat it back. Now it has been chased here. Now we must do the same.”

“How will it come?” one of them asked her.

“By sea, by ship, by any means necessary. It does not march, it engulfs. By the time it reaches here, they will probably have subjugated and turned a flying race or two as well. They would like to engulf and turn us as well for that very reason. There is no hope of us fending them off alone, not with all the power of our gods. They, too, have gods of the most horrible sort. For the first time in our history we will have to ally with each other and with other races as well. Otherwise we either perish or, far worse, become another part of their army. I should like four of you to come with me to the Grand Council as my staff, one from each of the cardinal points, so that you may then deliver the news and decisions to the others nearby. I will talk to everyone before this is done. The one from this western district will be the High Priestess of the Grand Falcon.”

Several others gasped, and a lot of pride was wounded. The new High Priestess felt like she was going through the Gayna business all over again.

The surprised reaction was soon silenced by the Grand High Priestess. “I choose her not because she is new, but because this clan territory directly faces the westernmost point of land in Ambora and is very likely to be a target for them before any others, first in attempts to weaken, demoralize, and undermine, then to invade. It would not matter who was High Priestess for the Grand Falcon. Whoever it was, she would be my choice.”

That cut them short, at least for now.

“Most High, when do you wish me at your side?” Jaysu asked the older woman. “I am new enough here that I feel as if I will be deserting them before they are even used to me.”

“The council takes some preparation, and we feel we have some time. Plan on six weeks from today to begin your journey to me. Use the gate at the Center. It will bring you to me instantly, and return you there when done. I assume you can get transport of some kind from here to there and back? I, too, do not want you away any longer than you have to be.”

“I can do it, Most High. But surely one of the others, the Frog to the north or the Rodent to the south, would be equally likely targets and would serve as well, and they are both more experienced than I.”

“Enough!” the Grand High Priestess snapped. “It is decided!” And that, of course, was that.

It was not necessary that she explain her actions, and the Grand High Priestess had no desire to show weakness by doing so. It might not ever be necessary for any of them to know that the new High Priestess had been specifically requested.