The Sea is Full of Stars

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