‘Young women. Almost children.’
‘No, Lady. From Gerenhodh it is true, only the youngest were sent. We do not know why the older Sisters stayed behind. From the other Choirs, even the oldest came.’
‘So, with all your wisdom, with these devices salvaged from the ages, with these fortifications and weapons, with all this, you depend upon the songs of the Sisters of Taniel?’
Hazliah bowed deferentially and did not answer. After a long, silent moment, Leona stiffly apologized. ‘Forgive me, Hazliah. It is unbecoming for me to harangue you.’
‘Let me take you to the Temple of the Remnant, Lady. Then you may ask me again, or harangue me, as you choose.’
Raging within, Leona consented. ‘Menaced from all sides,’ she told herself. ‘Shut in like an animal in a trap. I twist in fury, longing to rise up, fly, fight. They walk calmly among their maps and pictures. By all that is yet holy, yes, I will go to their Temple. I may get answers there.’
The Temple coiled like a great shell upon the highest hill of the city. To reach it, they went through Orena, beside fountains which sparkled in the sunlight, beneath flags which whipped and snapped above them in silken parentheses. Groups of children in their red baby-shirts, only the five parent-beads around their necks, rushed by in babbling coveys herded by patient teachers. Old citizens, their beads of status woven into belts around their tunics, sat in the plazas in quiet conversation. Brown-clad archivists bustled to and from the windowless buildings in which all the world’s history was kept. All was purpose, calm, business. ‘Madness,’ whispered Leona. ‘Madness.’
Eyes followed her as she strode down the boulevards. She was dressed as she had been when she had first met Jaer, in white, pale hair drawn high through the silver circlet set with dark stones. She had left the great hounds with Bombaroba, and her hands twitched from time to time as though she felt for them beside her. On her belt was the flask Jasmine had given her. She glared at the citizens with the eyes of a falcon seeking its prey, and yet hardly saw them at all.
They entered the eastern segment of the Temple, passing through an arching portal beside still pools in which lilies bloomed. The colours of the Lady of the Waters were blue and silver, argent and pale amethyst, sea green and foam grey. From the inner wall of the Temple, water fell in a veil around the image. The air was warm and heavy, sounding of the distant surf mixed with the music of flutes and harps. The people scattered throughout the Temple moved quietly, or stood in meditative silence. Hazliah bowed before the image, leading their way around the curve of the Temple into the court of the south, the shrine of Earthsoul.
Here the rising walls were hidden by tree and vine. Flowers burst in pannicles from high boughs over the paths leading between plots of waving grasses, heavy grain, fruit-laden vines. The colours of Earthsoul were green in all its shades and hues, brown of stone and soil, gold of leaf and grain. The image of Earthsoul reached mighty, gnarled hands toward those who entered the precincts, smiled from beneath the hood of a carven robe which hid eyes and body. Here the perfumes were of warm leafmold, the pungency of resin and new wood, and the sounds were of strings bowed and plucked, reeds blown, the clash of cymbals. Again Hazliah bowed, and they passed to the right around the curve of the Temple into the Sanctuary of the Lord of Fire.
The roof curved higher, almost lost to sight among the smokes of the altar fires. The image of the Lord was lit from below, so that His eyes were in shadow. In one hand He held a hammer, in the other a sword. Around them were walls and half walls of iron and stones, of steel and basalt. The colours of the Lord were red, scarlet, orange and black, and His sounds were of trumpets and drums and the clang of hammers on anvils. The smell was of smoke and pungent incense and hot metal. Here few worshippers were found, and those present lay upon the fire-splashed pave as though stricken down. Hazliah knelt and bowed his head to the floor before leading her around the great curve once more into the northern segment, the place of the Spirit of Air.
The roof of the Temple vaulted away into invisible heights, blue and white into cool mists of driven cloud. Air moved around them from the far, empty spaces of the Temple of Air toward the image of the Spirit, a form impossibly tall, robed as though in mist, only a glittering hint of eyes beneath the hood saying that this Spirit might take form if it chose. The colours here were only hinted at, pale to transparency, uncoloured grey, the white of snow, the light blue to deeper blue of summer skies. Without knowing why or how, Leona found herself kneeling before the image, hearing the soft sounds of wind-struck bells and of air blown across stone jars to produce organ tones. After a time, Hazliah touched her shoulder, drew her up to lead her still further around the circle to its centre, the base of a tower spiraling above them to vertiginous height.
Here the shell form was drawn up into a coiled pinnacle, and they stood within the nacreous walls, lost in the tower’s immensity. Hazliah struck a silver bell which stood nearby, the sound rising around them to reverberate among the walls. Far, far above echoed an answering sound, a muted whine showing itself as a descending light. In the centre of the towering space was a transparent tube containing a little car similar in kind to that they had ridden to the cliffs. They rose within it into chill silence and emerged upon a shining
