that the Stone had been lost, with so much else, beneath the vengeful sea.
In a way, the lie was truth; but the deep place in which the Stone lay was this cavern beneath the temples and the city of Ahtarra. With the arrival of the Stone, this midsize island of the Sea Kingdoms of Atlantis had become the sacred center of the world. But though the Stone was far from lost, it was hidden, as it had always been. Even the highest in the priesthood rarely found cause to enter this shrine. Those few who dared consult the Omphalos knew that their actions could upset the equilibrium of the world.
The song changed tempo, growing more urgent.
‘Each season by the next is bound,
Meetings, partings, form the round,
The sacred center is our frame,
Where all is changing, all the same…’
Tiriki was losing focus again. If it was all the same, she thought in sudden rebellion, we wouldn’t be here now!
For months, news of earthquakes and rumors of worse destruction to come had been running. like wildfire throughout the Sea Kingdoms. In Ahtarrath, such terrors had at first seemed distant, but the past few nights, Temple dwellers and city folk alike had been plagued by faint tremors in the earth, and persistent, dreadful dreams. And even now, as the song continued, she could sense uneasiness in the other singers.
Can this truly be the prophesied Time of Ending? Tiriki wondered silently. After so many warnings?
Resolutely, she rejoined her voice to the rising architecture of sound, whose manipulation was perhaps the most powerful tool of Atlantean magic.
‘Moving, we become more still,
Impassioned, we are bound by will,
Turning in perpetuity
While Time becomes Eternity…’
The shadows thickened, contorting the swirls of incense that at last spiraled into the chill air.
The music stopped.
Light blazed forth from the Stone, filling the shrine as completely as darkness had before. Light was everywhere, so radiant that Tiriki was surprised to find that it carried no heat. Even the torches shone more brightly. The singers released a collective sigh. Now they could begin.
First to take off his hood and move toward the Stone was Reio-ta, governor of the Temple. Beside him the blue-robed Mesira, leader of the healers, lifted her veil. Tiriki and Micail stepped out to face them across the Stone. In that light, Micail’s red hair shone like flame, while the wisps that escaped Tiriki’s coiled braids glistened gold and silver.
Reio-ta’s rich tenor took up the invocation…
‘In this place of Ni-Terat, Dark Queen of Earth,
Now bright with the Spirit of Manoah’s Light,
Confirm we now the Sacred Center,
The Omphalos, Navel of the World.’
The richness of her husky contralto belied Mesira’s age. ‘The center is not a place, but a state of being. The Omphalos is of another realm. Many ages the Stone lay undisturbed in the sanctuaries of the Ancient Land, but the center was not there, nor is it in Ahtarrath.’
Micail voiced the formal response, ‘Mindful that all here have vowed that what is, is worth preserving, and to that end bending might and will…’ He smiled at Tiriki, and reached again for her hand. Together they drew breath for the closing words.
‘We arrive forever in the Realm of the True, which can never be destroyed.’
And the rest responded in chorus, ‘While we keep faith, Light lives in us!’
The otherworldly illumination throbbed as Mesira spoke once more.
‘So we invoke the Equilibrium of the Stone, that the people may know peace once more. For we cannot ignore the portents we have seen. We meet in a place of wisdom to seek answers. Seeress, I summon thee—’ Mesira extended both arms to the grey figure who now stepped forward. ‘The time is come. Be thou our eyes and our voice before the Eternal.’
The seeress drew back her veils. In the intense brilliance of the Stone’s light it was not difficult to recognize Alyssa, her black hair hanging loose around her shoulders, her eyes already dilated by trance. With strange, half-bowing steps, she moved into the altar’s radiance.
The singers watched nervously as the seeress rested her fingertips upon the Stone. Translucent patterns of power pooled and eddied within. Alyssa stiffened, but instead of retreating, she moved even nearer.
‘It is…it is so,’ she whispered. ‘One with the Stone am I. What it knows, ye shall know. Let the sacred song bear us to the doors of Fate.’
As she spoke, the singers began to hum softly. Micail’s voice soared in the cadence of Command, calling the seeress by her Temple name.
‘Neniath, seeress, dost thou know me?
I, Osinarmen, do address thee.
Part us from dreams as thou dost wake
By the answer thou wilt make.’
‘I hear.’ The voice was quite different from Alyssa’s, sharp and ringing. ‘I am here. What wouldst thou know?’
‘Speak if it please thee, and we shall attend.’ Micail sang the formal phrase in one sustained exhalation, but in his voice, Tiriki could hear the strain. ‘We come because the Stone has called us, whispering secretly in the night.’
A moment passed. ‘The answer, thou dost already know,’ the seeress murmured. ‘The question lies before the truth. Yet the door that was cast open will not be shut. Stone upon stone rises higher, doomed to fall. The forests fill with tinder. The power which has waited at the heart of the world shifts…and it hungers.’
Tiriki felt a momentary unsteadiness, but could not tell if it came from beneath the flooring stones, or from her own heart. She looked to Micail, but he stood frozen, his face a grimacing mask.
Reio-ta forced out words. ‘Darkness has broken loose before,’ he said with grim concentration, ‘and always, it has been contained. What must we do this time to bind it?’
‘Can you do aught but sing again while silence grows?’ Alyssa shook with unexpected, bitter laughter; and this time the earth shuddered with her.
A ripple of fright shook the singers. They cried out as one, ‘We are servants of Light Unfailing! The Darkness can never prevail!’
But the tremors did not cease. The torches flickered out. Scarlet lightnings shot from the Stone. For a moment Tiriki thought the cavern around them was groaning, but it was Alyssa’s throat from which those horrific sounds came.
The
