After the seventh bell had rung its closing, the temple of the Merciless One lay quiet. The night's rain had not yet come, and the wind had settled. Only the streaming waters of the river could be heard, all manner of voices melding together in that watery chorus, some deep, some high, some constant and some heard at intervals like complaints. The ginnies slept. A few nocturnal night-reed birds patrolled for flies and midges, and their throaty ooloo calmed those who woke with disturbed dreams. There were many such dreamers in these days, who had before slept soundly.
All at once, erupting out of the drowsy night, a dog began its clamor, joined by a second and a third until the whole rude pack of them were howling and yammering the alert. Lanterns and candles flared to life. Folk stumbled sleepily from their beds, rubbing their eyes, cursing under their breath, whispering questions to the other hierodules and kalos as they emerged in ones and twos onto the verandas.
The dogs hushed as abruptly as if they'd all been throttled. The folk standing in their bare feet in the cool air hushed as well, if not quite as quickly. It seemed that half of them saw him immediately, and the other half felt an inchoate fear, enough to slow their chatter until they spotted him for themselves.
A man stood beside the courtyard's fountain. A spray of raindrops and grit swirled around him and settled, as though a wind had eddied through the vegetation, caught up this chaff, and now died.
'How did you get in?' called Walla, boldest of those already awake and present. 'You can't have come through the gate. It's locked for the night. And my good, dear, aged uncle, I just don't see how you could have climbed over the wall!'
Nervous laughter followed this sally, because everyone knew there were bells tied along the wall to discourage amorous young folk from climbing over to seek satisfaction at an inappropriate time of night. The Merciless One offered her favors freely, but on her own terms.
Their visitor remained silent. After Walla's outburst, none of the temple folk spoke. They waited, glancing at intervals toward the sky as if expecting the wind to wash him away. The moon rode high, but it was the many lamps and lanterns brought into the courtyard that illuminated him most clearly. He was a man beyond his prime but not yet elderly. He held a stout staff in his right hand, but he did not need it to lean on because he was so obviously a vigorous, healthy individual. Dressed in the manner of an envoy of Ilu, he wore exceptionally gaudy colors: a voluminous cloak of peacock blue, wine-red pantaloons, and a tunic dyed the intense yellow gotten only from cloth dyed with saffron.
At length, the Hieros appeared on the veranda. She was pinning back her white hair and looking truly irritated, although it could be said that she usually looked that way. When her hair was fixed back with two polished sticks, she strode into the courtyard and halted a prudent distance from the intruder.
'It is late, uncle. Here on the eve of the Ghost Festival that separates the years, we do not accept worshipers, as I'm sure you know.'
He smiled amiably. His voice was clear and courteous and so pleasant that everyone there smiled to hear his apology.
'I am sorry to disturb you. I am not here to worship the Merciless One.'
The old woman, as always, was immune to any person's charm. 'Then what do you want?' she snapped.
He had a friendly grin, yet there was a quality in his face that made a few of the hierodules shudder and others gasp and feel suddenly like succumbing to tears. Even the ginnies, hiding in the shadows, made their lizard bows as to authority. Even the Hieros, most merciless of all except for the goddess Herself, took a step back, although he made no threatening move and spoke in the mildest voice imaginable.
'You have something I've been looking for, for a very long time. I've come to get it.'
The wind sighed through the garden foliage.
She turned to her deputies. 'Go and get her,' she said in a low voice.
They hurried away with scarcely any noise, for they were trained to move about soundlessly.
'The treasure is mine,' she said to the man. 'I paid for it, a fair exchange.'
'You cannot buy what this is,' he said kindly, 'and I am sorry if it came into your hands in any manner which led you to believe you could own it.'
'Who are you?' she asked.
He raised both hands in the opening gesture of the talking line. 'My nose is itching,' he said. 'Many whispers have tickled my ears these last few nights. Listen!'
Acknowledging his right to speak, they listened.
'This is my tale. It is one you all know.'
'Go on,' said the Hieros, but now she seemed afraid, and all those who lived under her care and her rule found that her fear rang like a bell whose resonance made their own fears tremble and wake.
He told the story, punctuated by the most basic of gestures, enough to suggest the tale's outlines.
'Long ago, in the time of chaos, a bitter series of wars, feuds, and reprisals denuded the countryside and impoverished the lords and guildsmen and farmers and artisans of the Hundred. In the worst of days, an orphaned girl knelt at the shore of the lake sacred to the gods and prayed that peace might return to her land.
'A blinding light split the air, and out of the holy island rising in the center of the lake appeared the seven gods in their own presence. The waters boiled, and the sky wept fire, as the gods crossed over the water to the shore where the girl had fallen.
'And they spoke to her.
' 'Our children have been given mind, hand, and heart to guide their actions, but they have turned their power against themselves. Why should we help you?'
' 'For the sake of justice,' she said.
'And they heard her. They said, 'Let Guardians walk the lands, in order to establish justice if they can.'
' 'Who can be trusted with this burden?' she asked them. 'Those with power grasp tightly.'
' 'Only the dead can be trusted,' they said. 'Let the ones who have died fighting for justice be given a second chance to restore peace. We will give them gifts to aid them with this burden.'
'Taru the Witherer wove nine cloaks out of the fabric of the land and the water and the sky, and out of all living things. These granted the wearer protection against the second death although not against weariness of soul.
'Ilu the Herald, the Opener of Ways, built the altars, so that they might speak across the vast distances each to the other.
'Atiratu the Lady of Beasts formed the winged horses out of the elements so that they could travel swiftly and across the rivers and mountains without obstacle.
'Sapanasu the Lantern gave them light to banish the shadows.
'Kotaru the Thunderer gave them the staff of judgment as their symbol of authority.
'Ushara the Merciless One gave them a third eye and a second heart with which to see into and understand the hearts of all.
'Hasibal gave an offering bowl.
'Now it so happened that the girl had walked as a mendicant in the service of the Lady of Beasts, and when the other gods departed, the Lady of Beasts remained behind.
' 'They are content,' the Lady said, 'but I see with the sight of eagles and I listen with the heart of an ox, and so I know that in the times to come the most beloved among the guardians will betray her companions.'
' 'Is there no hope, then, for the land and its people?'
' 'One who is an outlander may save them, but I prefer to put my trust in what I know. Therefore, I give to you, my daughter, a second gift, so that ordinary folk who live and die in the natural way can also oversee the law of the land.'
'And she brought out the eagles, so great in size that they might carry a person.
'The girl asked, 'If even the holy guardians can be corrupted, what of ordinary folk?'
'But the Lady of Beasts had already departed.
'Yet Hasibal the Formless One waited half in darkness and half in light, unseen until now.
' 'That is the nature of the offering bowl, child, that it can be full, or empty, or partially full, and yet change in an instant from any of these states to another. Thus do corruption and virtue wax and wane within the heart. Yet it is the dutiful strength and steady hand of those who live and die while about the ordinary tasks of the world that creates most of that which we call good and harmonious.'
'After this, she was alone.
