Priestess of the Dragons' Temple

Chapter 3: Ordinary Days-1

Chapter 3: Ordinary DaysThey sang of the young priestesses, of the power in their bodies as they formed the Great Rite. They did not sing of the years of study, nor of the time after, the deepening of wisdom too subtle for minstrels’ songs.

– The Chronicles of Theranis

The cool morning light had come and gone when Myril woke, feeling like the hollow shell of herself was scattered invisible to the ends of the earth and beyond.

“Is she awake?” she heard. It was Darna’s voice, at the door.

“She’s still in trance,” another woman answered. “We got her to take some water yesterday morning, after the descent.”

Myril tried to roll up from her position, but her arms collapsed under her. The priestess at the door hurried in. Myril dimly recalled that she was one of the ones who had dressed her for the dance, but surely that was only a moment ago. “I’m here.” Her voice faltered, but that much she could get out. Darna pushed past the older priestess and hurried to Myril’s side, to the edge of her shrine, kneeling just as … someone else had knelt there beside her in some misty memory.

“Darna,” she said.

“You’re awake, thank the ancient ones.” Darna helped her up to a sitting position. Darna felt solid and real, not like the foggy dreams that haunted her.

“You should be in your own chamber,” the older priestess chided Darna, but without much force. Darna stayed where she was. She sat beside Myril, propping her up so she could look around.

“Did I sleep through Midsummer night?” Myril asked.

“Midsummer night and another two whole days,” Darna said.

“Not slept,” the older priestess said, “a trance. The Aralel says she hasn’t seen one so heavy in many years. You’ll need to learn to control it.”

Myril shuddered and shook her head.

“Leave her alone,” Darna said.

The priestess frowned at Darna, but seemed too relieved to be angry. “All right,” she said. “Take her to the sleeping bench. I’ll go tell the Aralel she’s woken and I’ll have one of the other girls bring you both something from the midday meal.”

“Thank you, Irean,” Darna said. “Could you tell Iola?”

“I’d rather leave her to whatever she’s doing,” said the priestess Irean. “If you’re quick, you might be able to catch her between petitioners.”

Irean hurried out, leaving Myril and Darna alone.

“Is Iola seeing another petitioner already?” Myril asked. It seemed too soon, far too soon to go into trance again.

“Third one since yesterday morning,” Darna answered. “Tiagasa and Sunna placed bets on when she’d come up for air.”

Myril shuddered, not so much at the thought of placing bets as at the idea of taking three … no, it must have been four petitioners in less than three days. “Iola …” she began, but then she shook the thought away. “What happened to me?” she asked Darna.

Darna shrugged. “They said it was a deep trance. They didn’t tell me much. The important thing is that you’re awake now.”

Myril nodded. “I suppose so.” She swung her legs to the floor and stood up, leaning against Darna. As she looked around the chamber the image of Helana caught her eye. It locked her in its gaze and she began to sway.

Darna snapped her around to face the door. “Careful!” she warned. “Let’s go out to the garden. I think you’ll feel better there, or better yet outside the temple.”

Myril took a blanket and clutched it around her shoulders. “I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“You will be soon,” Darna said. “I know I am.”

Myril didn’t feel like pointing out that she and Darna had never felt the same about the streets of Anamat, not at all. Her head was still spinning. It was hard enough to pick her way across the soft carpet and up the even, smooth stair to the doorway. It would be far more difficult to brave the outside world with its unpredictable patterns and rough edges.

But the garden was lovely. The sun shone down on the fountain and the flowers bloomed brightly in their beds. Myril settled on the bench outside her door while Darna fetched two cups of tea.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Myril mumbled. She took the cup and sipped.

After a little while, Darna spoke again. “You really were spectacular in the dance,” she said. “I never thought – I mean, you’re as good as anyone, but I’d never seen anything like it. The people watching, the petitioners and all, they thought you were sure to be the greatest priestess ever. You should have heard them, you must have heard them.”

Myril tried to remember, but she could barely recall stepping up on the stage. She shook her head.

“In the morning we found out you hadn’t come back to yourself,” Darna continued. “I didn’t know that was even possible, to forget to come back.”

“I didn’t even know about coming back,” Myril said. “We must have been taught how.” She let out a hollow laugh. She couldn’t remember any such lesson. It seemed that she couldn’t remember much of anything.

“I guess the trance can be dangerous if you get in too deep,” Darna said. “I don’t think it’s a problem, most of the time. The elders seemed … You know how they always seem so calm, so sure of themselves? They didn’t even know what to do.”

Myril took a gulp of her tea. It was comforting, familiar, not like that sip of water two nights before that had somehow sent her spinning out of her mind into the dragon realms and the nameless places beyond.

“Didn’t you feel it?” she asked Darna.

“The trance? Not really. I stumbled through the dance all right, like I’ve been doing, and I had a petitioner. I went through the motions.” She stared out across the garden. Two of the slightly older peresi stood beside the tea cauldron. One of them leaned in to whisper to the other and they both looked at Myril, then turned away.

“I saw Thorat out there,” Darna said suddenly. “He came to see the dance. I think he recognized me, and of course he recognized Iola. He was looking at her, but at you, too. Everyone was looking at you.”

“They were?” Myril flushed. She’d never liked to be watched like that, but she didn’t remember feeling embarrassed. “So how was it for you, the rite?”

Darna fidgeted. “It was all right, I guess. I mean, I …” She stopped with an abrupt laugh. “I’m not a true priestess, you know.”

Myril peered at her, feeling a fog creep up around the edges of her vision. “Yes you are,” she said, in a sing-song voice.

Darna hit her. “Stop that!” she said.

“Ouch.” Myril clutched her arm. “It just happens.”

“Maybe to you, but not to me or any of the others.”

“It’s true, though,” Myril said. “You’re as much a priestess as almost any of them. We can’t all be Iola.” Then Myril remembered what they’d said about Iola earlier. “She’s had how many petitioners?”

“I don’t even want to count,” Darna said. “Do you want to hear about yours?”

Myril sighed. She didn’t, but Darna went on anyway.

“Everyone’s been talking about him. They say that he came out looking almost like a ghost, sometime around dawn,” Darna raised her eyebrows. “He told the elder at the gate that maybe someone should look in on you. He’s a terribly important trader.”

“Is he?” Myril puzzled. Her cup of tea was empty now. “I can only just barely remember. I thought he said something about the roper’s guild. That doesn’t sound so important. One of the lesser guilds, isn’t it?”

Darna shrugged. “He was the master roper by the time he’d passed twenty years then went over to Enomae where he … Well, they say he was the lover of the crown princess of Cerea. I didn’t even know that they let women take lovers in Cerea.”

“Oh,” Myril mused. She found that she didn’t care.

“Everyone’s been worried about you,” Darna said again.

Irean appeared at the sanctuary gate with a tray of food and brought it over to them.

“I think I’ll just eat alone,” Myril said when the food arrived. Darna wasn’t much of a gossip, but today she just seemed to want to go on and on. It was exhausting. Myril retreated into her dark audience chamber alone, staying as far as she could from the shrine. She watched the statue of Helana out of the corner of her eye as she ate, as if that imitation dragon might spring to life and drag her away to the other realm again. She didn’t want to get swept up in those currents, she wanted to stay in her own skin. She was hungry, ravenous, and dimly glad that there was no one there to remark on how roughly she devoured the food on the tray, scattering crumbs as she went.

When her stomach was full, she felt a little better, more grounded in her body. She went back up the stairs and sat on her bench. Two of the elder priestesses knelt under the roses, picking at the earth. Myril envied them, even envied the novices. Everything had been so simple until just a few days before, until the afternoon when she’d traded her novice’s tunic for the heavy red folds that pressed down on her. She went back inside and searched her chamber for plainer attire, something that wouldn’t make her feel so much like a priestess.

§

The next morning, Myril felt almost normal, but the aftermath of trance was like shifting sand beneath her feet. Sometimes the world seemed to go out of joint around her and she had to grasp the cold stone bench to anchor herself back to the present time and place. Ganie came and sat with her a while and even Savasa and Lenasa came by to visit, though not Tiagasa. Myril was grateful for their pretense of friendliness, shallow as it was. Iola hurried by once, on the far side of the courtyard, not looking at anyone or anything as she passed. Didn’t Iola know that she’d been halfway to death and back?

In the late morning, a few of the priestesses went out into the receiving yard for the dance of presentation – including, to Myril’s surprise, Darna.

“I’m trying the clazan,” Darna whispered as she brushed past on her way to meet her next petitioner. Myril wasn’t quick enough to answer, besides which she knew better than to try to dissuade Darna once she’d made up her mind to do something, however stupid. It seemed so foolish to court the trance. Myril almost hoped that the clazan wouldn’t work for Darna. The peresi weren’t supposed to use clazan, of course, but most of them did, at least some of the time. Ganie said it was all right apart from the sickness afterwards. Myril hoped she wouldn’t have to spend the next day nursing Darna through a sore and heaving stomach.

Darna reappeared some time later with a petitioner and led him to her chamber with his bath towel wrapped around his loins. Myril tried not to stare. He seemed like an ordinary enough man, from what she could see and from what little she knew of men. It was strange, hardly seeing any men at all for four years then suddenly being thrust into such an intimate, dangerous place with them. It unsettled her, trance or no.

The gong for the midday meal sounded a little while later and Myril followed the others to the refectory. She sat on the bench outside her chamber for the afternoon, comforted by the light of the sun and the weight of food in her belly.

§

Darna sent her petitioner on his way and cleaned herself up. When she woke from her nap later in the afternoon, her stomach felt uneasy but at least she didn’t have the headache. She took a sip of cold tea and it dribbled from the side of her mouth. She wiped it away with her sleeve and went outside to see Myril.

“Still no sign of the blessed Iola?” Darna asked as she sat down on the shaded bench.

“I saw her going to and from the presentation dance but that was all,” Myril said. She leaned back and yawned. “How are you?”

“Sick,” Darna grumbled. “Do you have any water?”

“I think there’s some in my chamber, but it’s from yesterday,” Myril said. “It might be a little stale.”

“That’s all right,” Darna said. She made no move to go get it. She was afraid she’d lose the last bit of bile in her stomach if she moved again before she had something to settle it. She shut her eyes against the sun. After a while, Myril went to fetch the water.

Darna looked up to see Iola dashing from her chamber door to the sanctuary gate. She hadn’t even looked to see if anyone else was around.

Myril returned with the water. She still looked pale.

“How was the clazan?” Myril asked.

“Bitter.” Darna took a sip of water and rolled it around in her mouth, then went and spat in the drain. “Useless.” It had been pretty unpleasant to drink, even with the honey. Ganie had warned her not to eat anything with it.