Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1) (54 page)

‘I will never allow you into the Star Path, Gyn’a,’ he said flatly, as if days had not passed since he’d refused her request. ‘The risk of losing you is too great. You will not move me from that. I understand how it frustrates you and your need to vent that frustration—hit me. I am yours to do with as you will. Yell at me, curse me, fight me but
don’t shut yourself off from me.’

The pain in his voice sloughed away the miasma of anger that had shrouded her for days. Gradually her legs buckled beneath her and she sank to the ground, her hands out in helpless supplication. Slowly, as if afraid of startling her, Taur dropped down in front of her and took her hands in his.

‘I’ve missed you, Golden One. I need you,’ he whispered. ‘Only you.’

Gynevra raised her eyes to his, then sucked in a shuddering breath.

‘I’ve had a fire in my belly all day thinking of how to tell you I needed you—without having to apologize for my cruel words.’

‘And here I am,’ he smiled at her. ‘What do you need of me?’

‘Kurn me, you great useless padopan oaf!’

‘I shouldn’t go visit a delilah?’

Remorse flowed through her and suddenly apologizing was easy.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘Taur, please love me. I really, really need you!’

It was nigh on dark when he wrapped her in his cloak and carried her through the forest and past the stables back to the Castle. Knowing looks and smug grins greeted them on all sides but Taur strode through to the royal apartments with never a care for what his people thought. He had his woman back in his arms.

Laying her gently in the bath and sliding in beside her, he took her face in his hands and slowly kissed her unresisting mouth.

‘Gyn’a? Don't ever do that to me again, hmm? It wasn't that you denied me your body or your bed. You denied me your mind. That was the most painful. Promise me, no matter what or how we disagree, you'll keep talking to me. Even if it's only to call me all those choice names you think up! Alara? Promise me. Please?’

‘Mmm,’ she murmured drowsily. ‘Clod.’

With a deep, satisfied chuckle he drew her head onto his chest and settled back into the water.

For a few moments there was only the faint sound of their combined breaths to disturb the steamy golden ambience of the bathing cave. Then Gynevra lifted her head a little and raised a dripping hand to caress the hard, square jaw.

‘I love you,’ she murmured. ‘I don't ever want to feel like that again. I felt—alien to myself and to everybody but most of all to you. It was worse than death. Sweet Ist, it's so good to feel your arms around me again.’

‘Alara, you know it's only because I love you that I won't risk you in that place. If you were gone from me I would not want to live.’

Those last words were spoken in little more than a harsh whisper but Gynevra heard them and locked them in her heart with the same fierceness she locked her arms about his body.

Chapter 31

For a month or two the mood of the city quietened but in the way life has of mirroring nature it proved to be merely the lull before the storm. Two elderly priests were found dead in the Star Path one morning. Efforts to return them to their bodies were futile and suddenly rumor was rife once more.

The Star Path was a killing machine and the King had built it to get rid of those who didn't believe in his philosophy or politics. It was difficult to find the power behind the rumors but they raced through the city like fire through barley with the wind at its back. It was unfortunate the deaths coincided with the report back to Council of the findings of the working party on the behavior patterns of Paggi children, confirming the assumptions already made. This gave impetus to the boycotting of Dragon Blood sires and even encouraged some to suggest they should reverse the law to veto any siring by Sons of the Dragon.

In the solace of their rooms after yet another heated Council meeting Taur confided to Gynevra his belief Maden was causing a lot of the trouble.

‘He was appalled when I seceded from Atlantis and he's bitter because the abolition of the Ramegram comes too late for him. He feels deprived because I no longer travel abroad and despite all evidence to the contrary he thinks I've lost my nostum. We had some pretty harsh words when I first brought you here, while you were recovering at Hecanil. He said I'd allowed a woman to bewilder me and he didn't believe Nyalda could survive as an independent state. I gave him a choice then. I'm beginning to think I was a fool in that at least.’

‘What choice did you give him?’ Gynevra asked, massaging the back of his neck with lavender oil.

‘Support me or quit.’

‘Sounds like his choice is starting to choke him. What are you going to do about it?’

Taur rolled his head round on his neck and sighed from deep down in his belly.

‘Let him go. We've come to the end of the road together. He's getting on and I'd have had to break in a new rabon soon anyway. But I don't like sacking a man who's given me good service.’

Gynevra kept kneading and rolling her knuckles into the muscles of his neck. This was the King's decision and he must make it in his own way.

Within a month Lord Maden had bought a ship and sailed for lands across the ocean, taking Magus Marek and Archinus Varia with him. It didn't surprise anyone but it gave tongues plenty to wag about and those in positions of authority plenty to sort out. Dogon was the obvious candidate for Magus and Gynevra recommended the Lady Loganda for Archinus. Taur was inclined to argue with this choice.

‘She's a lolly-gown!’ he exclaimed with typical Paggic impatience with those who didn't display obvious traits of strength and power. ‘She's pretty enough but not exciting and she doesn't carry that aura of omnipotence an Archinus needs. Put her beside Ianthe for instance, and you wouldn't see her. I don't believe anyone, women especially, will respect her.’

‘Obviously you've had very little to do with Loganda. It's true she has no ego.’

‘That's not what I said,’ Taur argued. ‘I said she's a lollygown who appears to have little respect for herself.’

‘What Loganda has is an iron-willed humility which doesn't allow her to step over anyone. By the same token, she won't allow anyone to step over her either, as you'll find to your cost if you try it. Trust me Taur, Loganda is exactly what our people need at this time. She has a deep inner strength and absolute integrity.’

Dogon and Loganda were inducted into office in a joint ceremony held in the City Square below the Temples. At her first meeting of the Inner Council Archinus Loganda showed the King that metal which Gynevra had long seen in her.

‘The first business I want to deal with is the safety of my priestesses in Hecanil with regard to the priests in Zedanil. Our two Temples have established a very good rapport in years past and there's been no cause to fear for our safety. Here in Nyalda we've never subscribed to the supremacy of the priests over priestesses—and we never will. I require absolute assurance from you, Sire, that any priestess passing between Hecanil and Zedanil will be perfectly safe at all times
whoever she is.
I know you were dealing with a personal issue between the Queen and yourself when you had her abducted but you involved several other priests in your nefarious plan. What concerns me is, it may give them the idea they can perpetrate such a deed for their own purposes on the assumption that if it's all right for their King it must be all right for them.

‘Sire, I request you to make absolutely clear to the priests of Zedanil that this is not so.’

Taur's face was a study. Gynevra longed to look but dared only a peep under her lashes. As he told her later, it patently made no difference to Loganda whether he were King or stable boy. In a concise and tellingly gentle way, she'd made him feel like a lowly worm. He had to agree she would make excellent Archinus material.

The replacement of the King's rabon took a little longer to decide. An obvious candidate with all the qualifications for the job was Lord Caronad, a young Son of the Dragon who'd been very critical of the King's decision to abolish the Flabria. Lord Geran on the other hand, whose qualifications equaled those of Caronad, was a nervous young man who lacked confidence.

‘He'll gain it,’ Gynevra said. ‘It may take time and effort on your part but I believe Geran's by far the better choice. He practically worships the ground beneath your feet now. Give him that kind of responsibility and he'll be yours for life—even if you become a clod.’

‘Wash your mouth, woman!’ Taur growled, but acted on her advice. Geran's appointment over Caronad and Dogon's over Lord Talwud was seen as a further slur on the Sons of the Dragon.

Passions were running high and those who sought to bend one trouble to their ends were generally found to be stirring deepest in the cauldron of the other. Among these was a rabble-rousing Son of the Dragon, by the name of Barmond who'd taken to haranguing people on street corners and from the steps in the City Square about the dangers of the Star Path Pyramid and the King's hidden agenda in building it.

When Gynevra, who'd discovered Barmond to have been a close associate of Lord Reggo, who had falsely accused the now mute Foab, suggested he may have his own hidden agenda, Taur said, ‘He hasn't broken the law by stating his views. Every citizen has that right. Until he steps over the mark in some way I have other more pressing concerns to deal with. I don't believe in inviting trouble. I prefer to let it come and find me.’

Gynevra knew she would have to be content with that. Her King would always be a warrior at heart. Warriors knew they had no need to seek out trouble, for if it were brewing it would find them in due course, and dealing with trouble head-on was what they'd trained for. Taur not only kept his body in a state of battle readiness but he was training his mind as well. He was a Warrior King, yet also a Warrior Priest and it was becoming obvious if he hadn't been so grounded in the physicality of his being, he'd have been an awesome Magus.

One morning in late autumn as Gynevra was returning to the Castle from the Temple she became aware of a great gathering of people before the Star Path Pyramid. Calling to her bearers to set her down, she sent one of her personal guards to see what was happening. When Sondon reported back that the crowd was sitting about the entrance to the pyramid with the expressed intention of preventing anyone from entering it and Barmond was haranguing them on the evils of the building and the King's intentions in constructing it, Gynevra knew the trouble she'd been fearing had arrived.

When she arrived in the lower courtyard, she found the King with a bevy of courtiers and city dignitaries watching the activity on the peninsula. Moving to his side, she noted the stern line of his jaw and the heavy crease across his brow denoting deep thoughts and intense concentration.

‘What will you do?’ she asked.

‘Nothing. It's a peaceful demonstration. They're harming no one and come night they'll be seeking warm beds.’

General Umen came striding up, chest puffed with importance. ‘Sire, let me send a troop of warriors down there. We'd have them routed in no time.’

‘The people would also have more reason for complaint than before and we'd have a bloody mess to clean up. I don't believe in sending Nyaldans against Nyaldans unless the situation truly warrants it and until it does we'll hope for a peaceful solution.’

Umen stalked off muttering about `clod-ish solutions' and how it would've been different in his father's day.

Over the next two days it became apparent freezing nights and frosty mornings weren't a deterrent to the protesters. In the face of mounting pressure from the Council for him to make a show of force, the King finally accepted the need to act.

Nevertheless he was still determined to find that peaceful solution and to this end called a meeting of himself and Gynevra with Magus Dogon and Archinus Loganda. It was time, he felt, to show the people the spiritual strength of their King. On the afternoon of the third day of the protest the King and Queen with Magus and Archinus and a troop of forty warriors marched down the walled roadway from the Castle to the parapet overlooking the pyramid.

A few slipped away from the crowd at the appearance of the warriors and though none on the parapet could hear a word, Barmond from his perch on the base of one of the statues of past Kings lining the entry-way to the pyramid, became more vocal than ever. It was clearly time for the King to prove to his people he wasn't the clod they were saying he'd become and order the warriors to crack heads. As the crowd watched in fearful fascination for the moment the King would give the order, he disappeared, along with Queen, Magus and Archinus.

All four vanished before their eyes and amid startled cries of fear and amazement re-appeared just as suddenly in a ring around Barmond, who'd thought himself inviolable by reason of the large crowd of people between himself and authority. His face a strange pasty yellow, he began to sway alarmingly on his high perch. King and Magus leapt nimbly to his side and helped him to the ground. White and shaking, he stood as if stunned senseless between the Queen and the Archinus while the King leapt back onto the plinth.

‘People of Nyalda! My people!’ he shouted, and all stared up at him with wide startled eyes. ‘I am your King. I pledged my life to you. I make my vow to you again this day that all I do will be for the betterment of life in Nyalda. Old Davinadad and Mago were weary of their aged and suffering bodies and chose the ancient option of transcending them. You all think this is something only the ancients did and that it has no place in our modern society. Wrong! We're just as much masters of our bodies, our minds and our destinies as our ancient forebears were. Open your minds, people, and understand the true purpose of the Star Path. It
will
return us to the stars—in spirit—and for most it will be a return journey, a wondrous out-of-body experience. But the option is there for those old ones who've made their peace and farewells to leave their worn-out body shells and return home to Sirius.

‘But you should all know as you've been told, nothing can happen in the Pyramid that one doesn't will for oneself. No one can impose their will on you in this place. You have been told this many times before and still you don't believe.

‘To prove this to you I'll take Barmond into the Star Chamber. I'll concentrate on his death and he can concentrate on mine. In the morning we'll stand before you again and you'll see neither has been able to influence the other.’

Barmond suddenly found energy and voice, and leaping onto another plinth, cried, ‘People of Nyalda! Help me! The King intends to murder me!’

As a wave surges toward the shore the crowd moved toward Barmond but this had been expected and planned for with twelve priests in Zedalin and twelve priestesses in Hecanil creating a power source any of the four could attune to as needed. To project a force-field was but the work of a second for priest or priestess of the level of Dogon, Loganda and Gynevra. As those in front came up against it they found they couldn't move. Panic spread rapidly as those at the back continued to press forward. Immediately the force-field was increased to hold people further back so those in front weren't crushed. Then the three used the force to push the people back and the King led a terrified yet unresisting Barmond into the pyramid.

Gradually the crowd settled to watch the three who stood between them and their leader; only three, yet they were inviolable. The force-field had become a wall many could actually see shimmering in the late afternoon light and those who couldn't see it felt the need to test it, unless they'd been in the front line during that first terrifying rush.

As night settled, many from the crowd drifted home but many more stayed to watch in fascination the true abilities of the highest Temple initiates. All knew they had such powers but these were rarely displayed outside the Temple. That the King thought this occasion important enough to use them, impressed many and they stayed to see what other wonders would be manifested before the night was out. They were not left without spectacle.

For over a tonn now the night temperatures had dropped below freezing and a thick frost rimed the ground in the mornings. Charcoal braziers had been burning throughout the last two nights among the crowd and these were lit again but none anywhere near the three who stood in trance holding the force-field. Many believed they'd freeze and the energy would dissipate allowing them to enter the pyramid to save Barmond. A few hardy ones who watched through the night reported not one of the three moved as if indeed they'd been frozen where they stood. That they were protected by the energy many could see, for the aura of each shimmered, huge and golden about them and the wall remained solid. In the dancing firelight fragments of the energy were visible from time to time.