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.Shelooked around, her eyes and mind, searching the Temple Net and the people, butall the energy lines and sources she reached for were as expected.The three officiating Priests stopped next to the Salin, waiting for them tocontinue.All Camerat, the best the echo-line had to offer, one of them the dark blue of a breeding male and the other two, mature females.One of the few linesthat remained fertile after Initiation, the females had the same runs of color in the scales of their throats, like jewels on a necklace, showing they shared a single Household, and the breeding male the same, but the colors in the scales on either side of his erect head crest.“Close the area,” Mullaki said, and with difficulty, took the first step into the room.By gesture, she indicated the form of the ritual -- Empire common, thelocal variations allowed, nothing unusual.The familiar should help to settle them all, and for all their outward composure, she could feel the others picking up on her unease.Smoke from the torches rose gray then blood red as the stream crossed thelast of Grandfather before escaping from the open top of the dome.Mullaki stayed in the walkway as Net leads disappeared, the inner spiral isolated from anyexterior interference by energy sources, and with the blocked wall of Temple Net like feathers on the skin to those who passed.There were no structures within the inner Temple itself to encourage Net leads to organize into nodes or evenfacilitate linking systems.Only passive eyes were allowed, the Rigyant systemsand her own.Laurel Hickeywww.2morrow.bc.caEye of the Ocean – Book 1: RiThe drums -- one in from each pillar -- were silent, the drummer’s poised.Asingle dancer stood near each pillar, looking like fragments of the stone in their gray silks.“Mullaki, would you like anything before they begin?” Clanny had Ispin in tow,the aide carrying a tea service.He poured her a bowl of steaming tea eventhough she hadn’t answered.A swallow only, the greenish liquid, thick as boiled honey and normally assweet, was bitter in her mouth.The bowl would have fallen but for Clanny.Turning the motion into a smoothing of her braid ends, he murmured, “The wrongcolor blood would be spilled.” Ispin chuckled.Clanny’s bowed head reflected the light of the torches, yellow and red, thedarker tips shiny with the fragrant oil he had dressed it with.Her braids had the same scent, to ease the working he had said, and to make the silk lie smooth inthe heavy moisture of the air here.“Are they testing only tea bushes?” she asked, welcoming his comfort.“Better for them if they were, I think.” He stepped back, sipping on the tea she had left in the bowl, smiling with his eyes.“Send the Rigyant’as of the HighCouncil a chest of the sitilin leaves instead of the body of an Altasimic Priest.It would leave a better taste in their mouths.” With a wink, Clanny included Ispin in the joke.She answered him with her first step towards the center, leaving them behind.The chanting matched her movements, more perfect in the return of the echoesas she came closer to the mound.Resin from the torches and the warmth of thefire mixed with the smell of a dozen or more species, creating sensory echoes of another sort, and all familiar through centuries of serving Empire.Still feeling the strangeness, Mullaki reached for pattern for the settling effect it had on her, for the sense of order, but not enough to force the shape of what would grow here.The singing matched the change, electric, and she could feelthe three Camerat Priests in the spiral reaching in turn.Camerat and Poultat in harmony.Other noises had stopped, and the movement as well.High-formal, words and a dancing form of the signs -- she repeated it six timesin a procession around the center.“Prepare for Initiation.” The drums started, one by one as she passed, a rapid but very soft beat of hands on hard leather.Stopping to one side of where the double spiral fed into the mound, Mullakilooked back the way she had first come.The door had cleared of people, guardsformed a double row, the shortest distance possible.She tucked her hands high and repressed a shudder.Something was wrong;everything was doubled, slow and fast at the same time.When she steppedforward, the singers nearest to her faltered, many of them poorly trained youngAcolytes.Cam’lt Temple wasn’t prepared for what they had been asked to do,couldn’t have prepared for it if given years of notice.Laurel Hickeywww.2morrow.bc.caEye of the Ocean – Book 1: RiThe drummers never hesitated, deep into their own kind of pattern.The beathad changed, the chanting following it.Almost Simic she thought, then bothchanged again just as she managed to place the sound.Altasimic and new.Camerat Priest Samp d’Clivhk stood to meet her, the deep blue of his headcrest frosted with distress at the break in the ceremony.“Overpriest?” he said, signing confusion.“Is something wrong? Has this Temple done something inerror?”But she was looking past him to two people in the walkway, at the pillarclosest by the service area.She blinked and didn’t see them.Blinked again anddid.The wrongness was there, not in the music, but in the fabric of reality itself.“You do this Temple honor, loom-master,” she called loudly over the drums.He bowed as much with a mark of familiarity as with the formal acknowledgmentof her words [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]