Priestess of the Dragons' Temple

Chapter 3: Ordinary Days-2

“I’m sure there’s a reason we aren’t supposed to use it,” Myril said.

“Well, you obviously don’t need it. Some of the rest of us don’t trance so easily.” The taste lingered in Darna’s mouth, so she rinsed it out and spat again. “It just made me sick. I had a little glimmer of energy, but nothing worth going to a temple priestess for. The poor petitioner might as well have stayed home and dropped off his offering at a street corner shrine.”

“Are you sure of that?” Myril said. “There must have been something.”

Darna shrugged. “That’s what it felt like to me. I can’t tell what petitioners think.” She experimented with a tiny swallow of water. It felt all right.

They sat together in silence for a while. Sunna waved to them and a little while later Irean came in from the direction of the elders’ courtyard. She paused to talk to Sunna, then went to the door of Iola’s chamber. She called to Iola several times but there was no response. Next, she crossed over to talk to Darna and Myril. As she approached, Darna darted to the door of her own chamber.

“Greetings,” Irean said.

“Greetings to you,” Myril said.

“You are better, I hope?” Irean asked.

“I am,” Myril said.

Darna couldn’t hear them talking after that. She ran into her chamber and shut her eyes as her stomach turned itself out. She rinsed her mouth, splashed her face, and went back outside to rejoin Myril. Irean was still there.

“Is there some trouble?” Darna asked.

“I was looking for your friend Iola,” Irean said. “Sunna hasn’t seen her all day and she’s not in her chamber. I thought you two might know where she is.”

Darna shook her head. “She came through a while ago, but I haven’t seen much of her. Maybe she’s in the tower. She’s gone over that way before.”

“I’ll try that,” Irean said. She turned to Myril. “I do hope you start to feel better soon.”

“Thank you,” Myril said.

“And you,” she said to Darna. “You had better stay away from the clazan, or at least take less next time. I’ll show you a better way to brew it.”

Darna cringed, embarrassed. She knew it was obvious, but she didn’t like it being pointed out. “Thank you, I’d appreciate that,” she said. “It tastes awful.”

Irean looked at her knowingly then hurried away to talk to Sunna again. Myril and Darna lapsed into silence.

“Who’s the dragon in your shrine?” Myril asked.

“Igara, one of the sea dragons. Why do you ask?”

“Helena’s in mine. I thought maybe it was because… you know.”

“So you thought maybe mine was Tiada, because I came from Tiadun?” Darna asked.

Myril nodded. “But maybe it was just a matter of chance. I don’t know why it should be that we’d have our home realm dragons, but it must happen often enough.”

Darna peered into Myril’s chamber but it was too dark to see much of anything. “Do you think that’s why you went so deep in trance?” she asked. “Maybe I should ask them to bring me a statue of Tegana. It has to be easier on the stomach than –”

“I don’t think you should try it,” Myril said. “Trance is… I don’t think you’d like it. I know I don’t want to go there again.” She wrapped her arms around herself.

“You’re here now, anyway,” Darna said. “You’ll be all right.”

“Maybe,” Myril said. She looked up and around the courtyard. “I wonder why the Aralel wants to see Iola.”

§

Iola found Sunna waiting for her at the bottom of the tower.

“Anara’s back from the dragons’ realm!” Iola exclaimed. “I saw her this morning at dawn and –”

“The Aralel would like to see you,” Sunna said.

“Oh, well then I can tell her –”

“I don’t think it’s about Anara. Follow me.”

Iola, baffled, followed Sunna to the elder priestesses’ quarters. Flowering jasmine vines trailed along the upper balconies of the elders’ courtyard. A stream meandered through the garden, quieter than the peresi’s fountain. It was peaceful. A few of the elder priestesses sat outside their chambers studying scrolls or sewing. They whispered to one another as the two younger women passed, but Iola was too happy from the morning’s talk with Anara to feel self-conscious, although she was puzzled at being summoned.

The Aralel’s quarters stood in their own squat tower overlooking most of the the lower part of Anamat, from the residential quarter around the temple down to the small workshops and warehouses along the harbor. Iola marveled at the the fine pictures inlaid in the tiles and the sun reflecting off silver threads in the tapestries. Sunna hurried her on. They mounted a slow, wide stair up to an anteroom. Its windows faced toward the peresi’s garden and the tower where Iola had spent half the night. She’d gone back, but this time, in the midday, Anara had not come.

“Wait here.” Sunna peeked behind the curtain of a second chamber, then she waved Iola in ahead of her.

Iola entered the Aralel’s dark-draped study. Its walls were lined with scroll cases with shelves in between, filled with ancient chalices and bundled scarves. The Aralel at behind a long table, leaning forward on her elbows, her expression stern. She rolled up the scroll in front of her and pushed it aside.

“I hear things about you,” the Aralel said before Iola even had a chance to make the proper obeisance.

“I haven’t been out much,” Iola said. “I –”

“Yes, that’s what I hear.” The Aralel reached for a cup of water. After a moment’s hesitation, she offered a cup to Iola, too. “You might as well sit,” she said.

“Thank you, Your Holiness,” Iola said. She settled on a low stool in front of the table. Sitting there made her feel like a child. She’d never seen the Aralel angry before. Usually, she was calm and steady in her authority, or resplendent in the gauze of ceremony. Now, she leaned against the table between them, tapping her finger, teeth clenched.

“I hear that you’ve scarcely emerged from your chamber since Midsummer night, and that you have taken nearly half the petitioners who’ve come to the gate since then,” the Aralel said.

“I go out all the time,” Iola said, “up to the dragon tower. Anara’s back from the other realm. She says the ambassadress is –”

The Aralel cut her off with a gesture. She stood and began to pace. “Yes, thank you,” the Aralel said. “It is good to hear news of the dragons. We get so little these days.” She walked over to a scroll case and opened it. She searched through it but took nothing out. She closed the lid and turned back to Iola. “That does not help with your current situation.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Iola said.

The Aralel let out a deep sigh. “The problem is the other priestesses, your endurance, and a few other things.”

“I’m not tired at all,” Iola said.

The Aralel inspected her. “You may feel that way at the moment, but that’s the start of a shadow under your eyes. For your own health, you would do well to limit your audiences to, say, one every two or three days. It’s more the usual custom and it will be much better for you in the long run.”

“Oh,” Iola said. “Why so few? It’s so... it’s so wonderful.”

The Aralel took a deep breath. “It can be, but it isn’t always like that. I’m not saying this just for your own sake. The other peresi have noticed your unusual level of activity and they resent it. Some of your neighbors haven’t had a petitioner since Midsummer night. They’re watching you, even if you’re barely aware of them. There are rumors that your talents are unnatural, that you have made conspiracies with the guilds, and that you don’t do the rites properly.”

“Oh, no. But I do everything the way you taught us, and I haven’t made any conspiracy, and –”

“Yes, yes. It’s not just about what you’re doing or not doing. It’s also a matter of what the others are saying. I for one am sure that you conduct the rites as they were meant to be celebrated, probably better than most, or perhaps any of the others, including, if I may say so, our dear ambassadress, who couldn’t speak to a dragon in her waking state if her life depended on it.”

Iola’s eyes went wide. “But she must!”

The Aralel shrugged. “She trances well enough, and she’s a competent priestess, a little better than Tiagasa, and steadier than your poor friend Myril…”

“What’s wrong with Myril?” Iola asked.

“Blessed dragonlets! You really haven’t left your chamber! Have you even eaten since Midsummer night?”

“Not much.” For the few meals she’d attended, Iola had arrived at the refectory at the last possible moment then hurried back to her chamber to prepare for the next petitioner.

“She fell into an extremely deep trance which lasted almost two full days,” the Aralel said. “She woke yesterday. I’d have thought you would at least have gone to see her by now.”

Iola shook her head. She hadn’t thought of it.

The Aralel sighed again. “I think that I almost understand your situation. You’ve found your true gift, a calling you can immerse yourself in, something that comes so close to expressing your full being that it brings you a feeling of completion.”

Iola nodded.

Aralel paced as she spoke. “That’s a wonderful thing, but you can’t live in that state forever and you need to be better acquainted with your fellow priestesses and other aspects of life in the temple, not to mention the world beyond these walls. For now, you should go see Myril. We may be forced to find her some other work, possibly even outside this temple, though of course she can’t go anywhere until after Midwinter. Darna is restless, too. She’s a better priestess than many, but she’s comparing herself to you, so she thinks she’s not. Your chamber exists as part of the temple, and you are part of our order, no matter what your individual gifts may be.”

“I see,” Iola said, though she didn’t, not really.

“Besides, if you’re ever to have any chance of becoming ambassadress,” the Aralel circled closer to her, “you must learn to be politic, to be social, and to relate to the women around you, and men even when they are not petitioners.”

She went back behind her desk and rested her hands on it. “Incidentally, your petitioners do praise you highly, and the temple treasury is grateful for your work. You must have quite a collection of offerings in your chamber already, the portion that is yours.”

Iola thought. “I suppose I must. I haven’t looked.”

“Well, that rumor is false, then,” the Aralel said, “the one that says you are only gathering funds to support some unnamed outsider.”

“But why would anyone do that, and how?” Iola said.

“You really must leave your chamber more.” The Aralel sat back down and picked up a scroll. “Go sit and gossip with the others, for goodness’s sake. Be friendly and take time for other pursuits besides the great rite. I recommend…” The Aralel looked at the scroll in her hand. “Study this,” she said, handing it to Iola. “When you’re done, you can go up to the library for another. I’ll also have you help the first year novices with their dancing lessons in the afternoons. You helped teach your friend Darna to dance, didn’t you?”

“Only a little,” Iola said.

“She made great progress. You’ll help teach the novices.”

“Yes, Your Holiness,” Iola said. “I’ll try.”

“And you will take no more than one petitioner every three days until you hear otherwise from me. I understand that you wish to be our ambassadress someday, but remember that there are others in line before you.”

“Thank you,” Iola said. She wondered who was in line before her, though Anara had said she would be next. The Aralel wasn’t pleased, and even she knew better than to ask more now.

“You may go,” the Aralel said.

§

Darna was relaying Ganie’s latest gossip to Myril when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Iola approaching. She kept talking to Myril but before long Iola was standing in front of them and Myril had completely stopped listening.

“The Aralel says I can’t take so many petitioners,” Iola said.

“Nice to see you, too,” Darna said.

“Sorry.” Iola looked down. She bit her lip then looked over at Myril, somewhat bashful. “The Aralel told me you had a heavy trance,” she said. “How are you?” She sat down next to Myril and reached out for her hand, but Myril moved it away.

“I guess I’m getting better now,” she said.

“You should try it again – ” Iola said.

“She should not!” Darna said. “I don’t think it’s any great big deal anyway.” Darna’s stomach complained. “Neither is clazan.”

“What’s clazan?” Iola asked, as if she’d never heard the word before.

Darna laughed. Even Myril had smiled a bit. “I heard about clazan when we were first-year novices! Not that I had any reason to try it then.”

“Oh, maybe I just forgot,” Iola said. “So what is it?”

Darna told Iola about her nauseating bout with the allegedly trance-inducing herb. Iola and Myril listened, laughing as Darna mimicked her woozy state from earlier in the day.

Even though Darna was still angry at Iola for abandoning Myril, they all walked over to the evening meal together, and that night they sat by the fountain together, talking about times past while the stars blinked into the azurite sky.

“Do you remember you didn’t even want to come?” Iola asked Darna.

Darna snorted. “Of course I remember, it’s like yesterday. I think I might go out into the town tomorrow, now that we can.”

“We can?” Iola said. “I’m not sure I want to.”

“I’m not ready,” Myril said hastily.

“It would be good for you,” Darna said to Myril. “You should come with me.”

“No,” Myril said. “Not yet anyway.”

Iola was looking out at the stars. “I wonder what happened to Thorat,” she said. “I thought I saw him in the outer courtyard at our first dance of presentation.”

“I saw him there, too,” Darna said. “You could just ask Sunna.”

“What does she have to do with Thorat?” Myril asked. Iola looked bewildered, too.

Darna shrugged. “I think she sees him often, I’m not sure why. She mentioned him once, when I came across her wandering late one night about a year ago.”

“And you never told us?” Iola said.

Darna looked apologetically at Myril. “I thought you might not want to know.”

“I wish he’d come,” Iola said.

Myril and Darna looked at each other.

“For an audience?” Darna said after a long moment. “Were you really expecting him? You know he’s probably only still an apprentice, or just barely a journeyman. They’d turn him back at the gates.”

Myril was watching Iola carefully. She was tense, and too still. Darna frowned.

“I think we should all go to bed,” Darna said. She really did not want to talk about Thorat, or imagine him going to Iola. Now that she’d been with a few petitioners, she thought she could see why the elders told them not to cultivate special relationships. Anyone would want to have that with Thorat. Apparently Tiagasa wanted it with the governor’s son, and Savasa … poor Savasa, to be in Tiagasa’s sway and get her cast-offs.

“I’m not tired,” Iola said with a yawn. She was still perfectly preened, her skin luminous and clear, her dark hair mocking the lesser depth of the night sky’s color, her body perfectly poised. She had always looked that way.

“How is it for you?” Myril asked suddenly. “The trance.”

“I think we should all go to bed,” Darna repeated.

Iola looked into the distance, ignoring her. “Sometimes it’s deep, sometimes less. It seems to depend on the petitioner. I come back quickly enough. I don’t like to talk about it, though.”

“Mmm.” Myril dripped her hand into the fountain. Iola’s trances might not be like Myril’s, but they were obviously good enough, or else Iola’s conversation with the Aralel would have left her sulking. She was vain about that kind of thing.

Myril’s hand dipped further into the fountain and her eyes lost focus. Darna pushed past Iola and yanked Myril’s hand out of the water roughly.

Iola recoiled, but Myril came back to the present.

“Be careful!” Darna said.

“What happened?” Iola asked.

Myril stood up and shook herself. “It’s water, just plain water. Ever since initiation night it makes me … well, not every time, but most of the time it starts me back into trance.”

“Just water?” Iola said.

Darna yawned theatrically and tugged Myril away.

“Just water,” Myril confirmed.

“I can’t believe the Aralel is thinking of sending either of you away,” Iola said. “I don’t know how I’ll get by without you.”

“Sending us away?” Darna’s voice squeaked.

“Well, not until after Midwinter,” Iola said.

“But –” Darna began.

“Good night then,” Myril said. She looked as if she were chewing on some thought.

Iola glided away back to her audience chamber before Darna could ask her what the Aralel had said about her leaving.

“So the Aralel thinks she’ll send both of us away?” Myril mused. “I wonder where to?”

§