Priestess of the Dragons' Temple

Chapter 6: The Ambassadress Returns-1

Chapter 6: The Ambassadress ReturnsThe Ambassadress paid her passage to the dragons’ realm with the offerings and life force of the princes, and with the strength from her own heart’s blood. The years of her life were given to the ancient ones.

– The Chronicles of Theranis

The sky grew pale with the coming day as the priestesses of Ara’s Landing gathered to process to the harbor, to bring their ambassadress back to the safety of the surface of the earth. On this last leg of her journey, their fellow priestess clung to the dragon’s back, weakened by her time in the other realm. Outside the gates, citizens of Anamat lined the processional way, silent like the priestesses. There were watchmen, tradesfolk, and even a few valley farmers. Through the gate, Iola noticed a small clutch of youngsters who looked like beggars, like scrapplings, but that couldn’t be right, it was Midwinter. They should all be gone, shouldn’t they?

“Hurry up.” Sunna nudged Iola. “You’re going to help carry the ambassadress’s palanquin.”

“I am?” Iola said.

“Of course,” Sunna said. “How are the people going to know you’re strong enough, otherwise?”

“Strong enough for what?” Iola asked.

Sunna put her hands on her hips. “To be ambassadress, if it comes to that, not that I think any of you are exactly promising, but they’re not asking me.”

The Aralel appeared over Sunna’s shoulder. Sunna bowed and stepped back.

“Do not speculate,” the Aralel scolded her.

Iola noticed the dark circles under Sunna’s eyes, as if she’d been drinking clazan with the dragon-blind peresi, but Sunna wasn’t dragon-blind any more than Darna was.

“Come along,” the Aralel said. Iola followed. As they wove through the gathered priestesses, the Aralel beckoned for Tiagasa to join her, followed by Ganie and Savasa. She led the four young priestesses to a wide door at one corner of the front courtyard that opened into a small room. Inside it was the ambassadress’s palanquin.

“One to each pole,” she said. “You’ll follow me with it as far as the harbor’s edge, then you’ll set the basket down where I indicate, on four short pillars there. You will join me on the raft. I will not look back to see that you are there. You must be there. Is that understood?”

They all nodded. Iola looked at the others. Tiagasa stifled a yawn and Ganie tried to do the same, but less successfully. Savasa rolled her eyes, as if she weren’t just as tired as the others from the night’s vigil. Iola hadn’t slept, but with the energy gathering around her she didn’t feel tired. The ambassadress was about to return, and she would see Anara close by again. She looked for Myril but didn’t see her and then it was time to go.

In the dim, dusty storage closet, the four young priestesses took their places around the palanquin and lifted. Until now, Iola had only seen the ambassadress’s conveyance from a distance. It was a long basket of gilded and painted wood with light wool curtains concealing a reclining chair. It was lighter than she expected.

All eyes turned to them as they stepped back out into the early morning light. Iola felt the elder priestesses’ scrutiny more keenly than she’d noticed it before, but of all of them, only Sunna looked displeased. Then again, Sunna often looked displeased. The Aralel took her place at the head of the procession and those carrying the palanquin followed. Behind them, the other priestesses fell into line, the peresi followed by the elders, the novices taking up the rear.

The Aralel gave her signal and the elders began their chant. The procession moved forward, leaving the confines of the temple walls. Along the streets, the citizens of Anamat kept their eyes turned down, waiting for Anara, waiting for the ambassadress, knowing that not every ambassadress survived.

The priestesses chanted as they walked. Iola imagined what it must be like to ride with Anara through the earth, to touch the dragon’s body in those concealed ways, far from the world of the city, far from the surface of the earth. She did not fear death, not a death that might happen on that glorious journey. The dragons filled her with wonder, not fear.

Despite Darna’s urging, Iola had remained inside temple walls all through the waning year. She’d had no desire to go out, but now she had to, if only for this ceremonial occasion. Around her, the city seemed to be a strange, dull world. There was nothing out on those streets to tempt her. Even with the evergreen garlands strung from rooftops and windowsills it was not as colorful as the temple sanctuary, not even as fine as the novices’ dormitory. Maybe its ways were as intricately woven as the life of the temple, but it seemed so much less luminous, less lovely. Iola didn’t understand how Darna could wish for it when she could be part of the temple.

At the waters’ edge, the ambassadress’ raft waited on the shore. Its prow and tail imitated a dragon’s form but it had always been called a raft despite its long, slender shape. Iola wondered why, and where it was kept for most of the year. Perhaps it was kept in another dusty closet, or at the back end of a hidden canal like the ones Darna had talked about sometimes. The oarsmen surely knew, but they went masked, in long robes, and with gloves to hide any distinguishing marks on their hands. Who were they, these men entrusted with ferrying the Most Blessed One to Anara’s gate?

A chilly gust of wind blew Iola’s robe half open and she shivered, feeling eyes on her that were not all reverent. She had no hands free to close the cloth over her legs because she was holding up one corner of the palanquin. She felt exposed in front of all those eyes, even the downcast eyes of the oarsmen and the reverent people of Anamat.

The palanquin shifted. Ganie was looking at her and gesturing awkwardly with her chin. They’d reached the four pillars where they were to rest the palanquin. Fumbling, Iola set it down and stepped back into place behind the Aralel. The breeze had stilled and her robe hung properly again. The leader of the oarsmen handed the Aralel aboard the waiting raft and two of the others reached out to help Iola to a seat.

As the first rays of sun hit the mountains’ snowy peaks, the raft glided out. Water rushed underneath. Iola’s tiredness came at her all at once, her fatigue amplified by the uneven jerk of the oars and the watery sway of the raft. She felt queasy. Behind her, Tiagasa looked ill and Savasa was clenching her jaw as if to hold back her nausea. Only Ganie – most likely dragon blind and possibly the least well-suited of any of them to become ambassadress – took the voyage across the water in stride. She looked calm and happy in the cool morning light. Iola wondered if she was more of a priestess than she appeared to be and if Ganie had seen dragons after all now that they were peresi.

The harbor waters rolled underneath them and the sky brightened, washing out the last tones of peach and purple from the horizon. The sun blazed up over the eastern hills. The dragon’s gate burst open. Anara shot up into the sky, alone, glorious, unbound. The ambassadress was nowhere to be seen. Had Anara brought her back?

The raft jolted against the island’s shore. The Aralel motioned them all to keep silence and beckoned for Iola and Tiagasa to follow her. Savasa fixed her eyes on the broad back of the oarsman in front of her. Iola stepped over the side of the boat onto the wet and slippery stones. Frigid harbor water seeped up through her slippers, staining them with salt. Tiagasa almost stumbled. Iola concentrated on walking, on not falling. At least the people on the shore were too far away to notice if she stumbled, but if any of them fell, the people would see it and take it as an ill omen.

A small tower stood at the center of the island, made of gray stone with an ancient tiled roof. It was built to mirror the lookout tower at the end of the western breakwater and it hid the dragon’s gate from prying human eyes. The ambassadress would be waiting inside – at least they hoped so. The Aralel gestured for Iola and Tiagasa to stop. She entered the tower alone. Iola peered into the shadowed doorway, but she could see nothing in the darkness within. Besides, the Aralel would have invited them to follow if she’d wanted them to know what lay inside. Tiagasa fidgeted; Iola’s toes ached with the cold. Near the tail of the ceremonial raft, a few of the oarsmen prepared a tent for the ambassadress.

Finally, the Aralel emerged leading a limping, emaciated woman on one arm. Was that the ambassadress? Iola wouldn’t have recognized her as the beautiful priestess they’d seen at Midsummer. Her garments had been tattered to rags by the journey. Tiagasa paled, closed her mouth tightly, and swallowed.

“Help the ambassadress to the raft,” the Aralel ordered. “Prop her up for the others, so she looks strong.” She handed the ambassadress’s arms to the two young priestesses. “There, Jasela,” she said soothingly. “You’ll be all right, we’ll see to it.”

Jasela looked older than the Aralel herself, almost as old as the oldest of the kitchen priestesses. She hadn’t looked like that when she left at Midsummer. She’d been beautiful then: strong, radiant, and smooth-skinned. Her hair had been auburn, not gray. Iola took her right arm, and Tiagasa moved gingerly into position on the other side. They supported Jasela between them, not looking at each other.

“The stones are slippery,” Iola said gently, as though it would help.

Jasela nodded faintly, then she straightened her head and stepped forward with them.

The oarsmen averted their eyes as the four women boarded the raft. The Aralel and the ambassadress disappeared into the tent, leaving their attendants to face the crowd as they floated to shore. The raft backed around so that the tent faced the beach. The men rested their oars and with one perfectly timed motion they stepped over the side into the harbor’s chilly waters. They waded onto the shore, dragging the raft between them until the priestesses could step out onto the dry sand. Iola and Tiagasa stood in front of the tent, waiting for whatever came next.

The elder priestesses gathered on either side of the palanquin, forming a line between it and the raft. Then they raised their arms, unfurling broad sheets of purple cloth on either side of the way, forming a perfect curtain between one conveyance and the next. The Aralel opened the tent from the inside.

“Help the ambassadress into the palanquin, then follow me as you did before,” she said quietly. “We’ll have you carry her right into her quarters.”

Iola and Tiagasa bowed. The Aralel walked out of the other side of the tent to face the crowd in the light of the risen sun.

“All is well,” she proclaimed. “The Ambassadress is with us again. The dragons have sent their bounty to seed our harvests for the coming year.”

The crowd cheered. Between the cloth walls, Iola and Tiagasa hustled Jasela’s shaking body from the tent to the waiting palanquin. Iola wasn’t convinced that all was well, despite the Aralel’s loud reassurances. She respected the Aralel, to be sure, but Jasela looked anything but well. Her eyes were dim and sunken, surrounded by dark shadows. Her skin hung loosely from her bones like thin parchment drying on a rack. Iola felt for her pulse. It was steady, if not strong, and Jasela could walk with a little help. Perhaps she would be all right. Iola had never seen the effects of the other-realm journey so near at hand. Was that journey truly what she wanted, what she’d dreamed it to be?

At Jasela’s other side, Tiagasa clenched her jaw, determined. She probably hadn’t imagined that the Ambassadress’s journey could be so terribly draining either, to judge by the expression on her face. She didn’t look back to see what Savasa and Ganie were doing. Iola smoothed the tatters of Jasela’s Midsummer robe, then they lifted her shrunken body into the palanquin. Tiagasa stepped away as quickly as she could, eyes averted.

“I can’t do it again,” Jasela whispered hoarsely.