Chapter Four: THE LAWS OF THE TEMPLE

I

Elara, moving around the court and singing serenely at her work, dropped the half-filled vase of flowers and scurried toward the Guardian as he crossed the garden with his lifeless burden. Alarmed anxiety widened her dark eyes as she held the door, then ran around him to clear cushions from a divan and assist Rajasta to lay the inert body of Domaris upon it.

His face grey with exhaustion, the Guardian straightened and stood a moment, catching his breath. Elara, quickly taking in his condition, guided him toward a seat, but he shook her off irritably. "See to your mistress."

"She lives," the slave-woman said quickly, but in anticipation of Rajasta's command, she hurried back to Domaris's side and bent, searching for a pulse-beat. Satisfied, she jumped up and spent a moment seeking in a cabinet; then returned to hold a strong aromatic to her mistress's pinched nostrils. After a long, heart-wrenching moment, Domaris moaned and her eyelids quivered.

"Domaris—" Rajasta breathed out the word. Her wide eyes were staring, the distended pupils seeing neither priest nor anxious attendant. Domaris moaned again, spasmodically gripping nothing with taloning hands, and Elara caught them gently, bending over her mistress, her shocked stare belatedly taking in the torn dress, the bruised arms and cheeks, the great livid mark across her temples.

Suddenly Domaris screamed, "No, no! No—not for myself, but can you—no, no, they will tear me apart—let me go! Loose your hands from me—Arvath! Rajasta! Father, father ..." Her voice trailed again into moaning sobs.

Holding the woman's head on her arm, Elara whispered gently, "My dear Lady, you are safe here with me, no one will touch you."

"She is delirious, Elara," Rajasta said wearily.

Tenderly, Elara fetched a wet cloth and blotted away the clotted blood at her mistress's hairline. Several slave-women crowded at the door, eyes wide with dread. Only the presence of the Priest stilled their questions. Elara drove them out with a gesture and low utterances, then turned to the Priest, her eyes wide with horror.

"Lord Rajasta, what in the name of all the Gods has come to her?" Without waiting for an answer, perhaps not even expecting one, she bent over Domaris again, drawing aside the folds of the shredded robe. Rajasta saw her shiver with dismay; then she straightened, covering the woman decently and saying in a low voice, "Lord Guardian, you must leave us. And she must be carried at once to the House of Birth. There is no time to lose—and you know there is danger."

Rajasta shook his head sadly. "You are a good girl, Elara, and you love Domaris, I know. You must bear what I have to tell you. Domaris must not—she cannot—be taken to the House of Birth, nor—"

"My Lord, she could be carried there easily in a litter, there is not so much need for haste as that."

Rajasta signed her impatiently to silence. "Nor may she be attended by any consecrated priestess. She is ceremonially unclean."

Elara exploded with outrage at this. "A priestess? How!"

Rajasta sighed, miserably. "Daughter, please, hear me out. Cruel sacrilege has been done, and penalties even more terrible may be to come. And Elara—you too are awaiting a child, is that not so?"

Timidly, Elara bowed her head. "The Guardian has seen."

"Then, my daughter, I must bid you leave her, as well; or your child's life too may be forfeit." The Priest looked down at the troubled round face of the little woman and said quietly, "She has been found in the Crypt of the Sleeping God."

Elara's mouth fell open in shock and involuntary dread, and she now started back a pace from Domaris, who continued to lie as if lifeless. Then, resolutely, Elara armed herself with calm and met the Guardian's eyes levelly, saying, "Lord Guardian, I cannot leave her to these ignorant ones. If no Temple woman may come near her—I was fostered with the Lady Domaris, Lord Guardian, and she has treated me not as a servant but as a friend all my life! Whatever the risk, I will bear it."

Rajasta's eyes lighted with a momentary relief, which faded at once. "You have a generous heart, Elara, but I cannot allow that," he said sternly. "If it were only your own clanger—but you have no right to endanger the life of your child. Enough causes have been set already in motion; each person must bear the penalties which have been invoked. Place not another life on your mistress's head! Let her not be guilty of your child's life, too!"

Elara bowed her head, not understanding. She pleaded, "Lord Guardian, in the Temple of Caratra there are priestesses who might be willing to bear the risk, and who have the right and the power to make it safe! The Healer woman, Karahama—she is skilled in the magical arts... ."

"You may ask," conceded Rajasta, without much hope, and straightened his bent shoulders with an effort. "Nor may I remain, Elara; the Law must be observed."

"Her sister—the Priestess Deoris ..."

Rajasta exploded in blind fury. "Woman! Hold your foolish tongue! Hearken—least of all may Deoris come near her!"

"You cruel, heartless, wicked old man!" Elara flared, beginning to sob; then cringed in fright.

Rajasta had hardly heard the outburst. He said, more gently, "Hush, daughter, you do not know what you are saying. You are fortunate in your ignorance of Temple affairs, but do not try to meddle in them! Now heed my words, Elara, lest worse come to pass."

II

In his own rooms, Rajasta cleansed himself ceremonially, and put aside to be burnt the clothing he had worn into the Dark Shrine. He was exhausted from that terrible descent and the more terrible return, but he had learned long ago to control his body. Clothing himself anew in full Guardian's regalia, he finally ascended the pyramid, where Ragamon and Cadamiri awaited him; and a dozen white-clad priests, impassive, ranged in a ghostly procession behind the Guardians.

Deoris still lay prostrate, in a stupor of numbed misery, before the altar. Rajasta went to her, raised the girl up and looked long into her desperate face.

"Domaris?" she said, waveringly.

"She is alive—but she may die soon." He frowned and gave Deoris a shake. "It is too late to cry! You, and you!" He singled out two Priests. "Take Deoris to the house of Talkannon, and bring her women to her there. Let her be clothed and tended and cared for. Then go with her to find Karahama's other brat—a girl of the Grey Temple called Demira. Harm her not, but let her be carefully confined." Turning to the apathetic Deoris once again, Rajasta said, "My daughter, you will speak to no one but these Priests."

Nodding dumbly, Deoris went between her guards.

Rajasta turned to the others. "Has Riveda been apprehended?"

One man replied, "We came on him while he slept. Although he wakened and raved and struggled like a madman, we finally subdued him. He—he has been chained, as you said."

Rajasta nodded wearily. "Let search be made through his house and in the Grey Temple, for the things of magic."

At that moment, the Arch-priest Talkannon entered the chamber, glancing around him with that swift searching look that took in everyone and everything.

Rajasta strode to him and, his lips pressed tight together, confronted him with formal signs of greeting. "We have concrete evidence at last," he said, "and we can arrest the guilty—for we know!"

Talkannon paled slightly. "You know—what?"

Rajasta mistook his distressed disquiet. "Aye, we know the guilty, Talkannon. I fear the evil has touched even your house; Domaris still lives, but for how long, no one can tell. Deoris has turned from this evil, and will help us to apprehend these—these demons in human form!"