further as the pungent sweet smoke spiraled into the air.
Bowing her head, she touched her fingers to her brow and her lips and breast. Then her hands lifted in a gesture of adoration so familiar it had become involuntary.
‘Lady…’ the word died on her lips. The time for asking that this fate should pass was gone. ‘Mother…’ she tried again, and whatever words might have followed were borne away by a tide of emotion.
And in that moment, she became aware that she was not alone.
‘I am the earth beneath your feet…’ The Goddess spoke within.
‘But the island is being destroyed!’ A panicked part of Tiriki’s soul objected.
‘I am the burning flame…’
‘The flame will be drowned by the waves!’
‘I am the surging sea…’
‘Then you are chaos and destruction!’ Tiriki’s soul protested.
‘I am the night and the circling stars…’ came the calm reply, and Tiriki’s soul clung to that certainty.
‘I am all that is, that has been, that will be, and there is no power that can separate you from Me…’
And for a moment outside time, Tiriki knew that it was true.
When she returned to awareness of her surroundings, the incense had ceased to burn and the charcoal was grey. But as the lamp flickered, it seemed to her that the image of the Mother was smiling.
Tiriki took a deep breath and reached out to lift the image from its stand. ‘I know that the symbol is nothing, and the reality is all,’ she whispered, ‘but nonetheless I will take you with me. Let the flame continue to burn until it becomes one with the mountain’s fire.’
She had just finished wrapping the image and tucking it into her bag when the chimes at the doorway rang faintly. She ran to the entry, afraid Micail would wake. A few swift steps brought her to the door, where she waved the messenger back out into the hall with her finger at her lips.
‘Beg pardon, Lady,’ he began, red-faced.
‘No,’ she sighed as she cinctured her robe, remembering the orders she had left. ‘I know you would not come without need. What brings you?’
‘You must come to the House of the Twelve, Lady. There is trouble – they will listen to you!’
‘What?’ She blinked. ‘Has something happened to Gremos, their guardian?’ Tiriki frowned. ‘It is her duty to—’
‘Beg pardon, Lady, but it seems that the Guardian of the Twelve is – gone.’
‘Very well. Wait a moment for me to dress, and I will come.’
‘Be still—’ Tiriki pitched her voice to carry over the babble of complaint and accusation. ‘You are the hope of Atlantis! Remember your training! Surely it is not beyond you all to give me a coherent tale!’
She glared around the circle of flushed faces in the entryway to the House of the Falling Leaves and let her mantle slip from her shoulders as she sat down. Her gaze fixed on Damisa; red-faced, the girl came forward. ‘Very well then. You say that Kalaran and Vialmar got some wine. How did that happen, and what did they do?’
‘Kalaran said that wine would help him sleep.’ Damisa paused, her eyes briefly flicking closed as she ordered her thoughts. ‘He and the other boys went down to the taverna at the end of the road to get some. There was no one there, so they brought two whole amphorae back with them and drank all of it, as far as I can tell.’
Tiriki turned her gaze to the three young men sitting on a bench by the door. Kalaran’s handsome face was marred by a graze on one cheek, and water dripped down his companions’ necks from wet hair, as if someone had tried to sober them up by plunging their heads into the fountain.
‘And did it put you to sleep?’
‘For a while—’ Vialmar said sullenly.
‘He got sick and puked,’ said Iriel brightly, then fell silent beneath Damisa’s glare. At twelve, Iriel was the youngest of the Twelve, fair-haired and mischievous, even now.
‘About an hour ago they woke up shouting,’ Damisa went on, ‘something about being stalked by half-human monsters with horns like bulls. That woke up Selast, who was already mad because they didn’t get back here until all the wine was gone. They started yelling, and that got everyone else into it. Someone threw the wine jug and then they went crazy.’
‘And you all agree that this is what happened?’
‘All except for Cleta,’ Iriel sneered. ‘As usual, she slept through it all.’
‘I would have calmed them down in another few minutes,’ said Elara. ‘There was no need to disturb the Lady.’
Damisa sniffed. ‘We would have had to tell her in any case because Gremos was gone.’
Tiriki sighed. For the Guardian of the Acolytes to leave her post in normal times would have been cause for a citywide search. But now – if the woman failed to take her place in the boat, it would go to someone more deserving, or luckier. She suspected that the events of the next few days would effect their own winnowing of the priesthood and test their character in ways none of them could have foreseen.
‘Never mind Gremos,’ she said tartly. ‘She will have to take care of herself. Nor is there any point in casting blame for what happened. What matters now is how you behave during the next few hours, not how you spent the last.’ She looked at the window, where the approach of dawn was bringing a deceptively delicate pallor to the lurid sky.
‘I have called you the hope of Atlantis, and it is true.’ Her clear gaze moved from one to another until their high color faded and they were ready to meet her eyes. ‘Since you are awake, we may as well get a head start on the day. Each of you has tasks. What I want—’
The chair jerked suddenly beneath her. She threw out her hands, brushed Damisa’s robe, and clutched instinctively as the floor rocked once more.
‘Take cover!’ cried Elara. Already the acolytes were diving for protection under the long, heavy table. Damisa pulled Tiriki to her feet, and they staggered toward the door, dodging the carved plaster moldings that adorned the upper walls as they cracked and fell to the ground.
Micail! With her inner senses Tiriki felt his shocked awakening. Every fiber of her being wanted the strength of his arms, but he was half a city away. As the earth moved again she sensed that even their united strength would not have been enough to stop the destruction a second time.
She clung to the doorpost, staring outside as trees tossed wildly in the garden, and a huge column of smoke rose above the mountain. The shape of a great pine tree made of ashes, from whose mighty trunk a canopy of curdled cloud was spreading across the sky. Again and again the ground heaved beneath her. The ash cloud above the mountain sparkled with points of brightness, and glowing cinders began to fall.
