Destiny's Lovers (18 page)

“I release you from all your vows except the
vow of complete obedience to me,” Tamat said. When Philian would
have objected, Tamat added, “The reason for this will soon become
apparent to you. Now, go.”

When she was alone, Tamat turned to face the
sea. In the shallow water just beyond the oozing mud of the exposed
harbor bottom, a small fishing boat lay at anchor. Investigating it
with her mind, Tamat found it well-stocked with food and other
supplies. She lifted one hand, pointing toward the boat. Using all
her concentration, she commanded the anchor chain to rewind itself.
Slowly, silently, the heavy anchor lifted until the boat was free
and had begun to move into the windless fog. Tamat sent it straight
out, toward the swift current, and waited until the current caught
it.

Then, releasing the boat to move on its own,
she gathered her strength once more and let her thoughts leave her
body to fly swift as a great seabird along the current, searching
in the thick fog, listening, watching, until she found what she
sought.

Reid would probably notice that the tiny
craft in which he and Janina rode had stopped moving. He knew how
to sail and would be alert to such things. Janina, shaking with
terror and cold, would not know.

A wisp of fog brushed Janina’s cheek, soft as
a kiss. Tamat saw Janina lift one hand to touch the spot, then
relapse into her former huddled posture. Reid leaned forward,
watching her.

It’s up to you now, Reid,
Tamat sent
her thought to him.
I’ve done all I can, but I must save my
remaining strength for one last task. Treat her gently, my
friend.

Reid looked up, searching the fog as though
he felt her presence. Then Tamat’s mind returned to her body, and
she was back on the wharf, dizzy with fatigue, her head aching.

“Now,” she muttered aloud, “it is time to
hasten the inevitable before Sidra can cause any more pain.”

All was ready. Philian and the others were
safe. By casting her senses outward, Tamat could feel them making
their way through the ravine on the far side of the mountains.

The planet itself would help her. The tide
was lower than it had ever been before. The mountains belched
clouds of steam. The pool in the sacred grove was hot and bubbling.
With her senses still open, Tamat reached toward the spirit that
had inhabited the sacred grove since long before the first
telepaths had come to Ruthlen. She waited patiently for the
contact. When it came, she knew with mingled sorrow and relief that
she had been right. Sidra had broken the harmony that had lain
between Ruthlen and the grove for six centuries; she had perverted
the meaning of her most solemn vows, had used the Gift to invade
the minds of others without permission, had violated her oath of
chastity in her mind if not in her body, and her evil desire for
complete power had reached outward from the temple to contaminate
all of Ruthlen.

There was only one cure, for Sidra and for
Ruthlen. And for Tamat, who had failed to keep her sacred charge,
Ruthlen, safe from defilement. What Tamat planned to do was no more
than fair retribution. Sidra, with her mind not yet expanded by the
Sacred Mind-linking, would remain incapable of understanding the
consequences of her deeds, or the need for a terrible
Cleansing.

The contact with the Other was broken now,
leaving Tamat still standing at the sea end of the wharf. She put
her back to the water, to face the simmering, molten mountains. For
just an instant she felt young again, and strong, as she had been
eighty years before when she had first become a priestess. Then she
raised her arms over her head one last time and called down all her
power.

A stone-faced Janina had remained in one
position since she first sat down in the boat. She was drenched in
cold moisture from the fog. Periodically she shook with long
tremors brought on by cold and fear. She stared straight ahead,
knowing that at any moment a terrible death would come to her out
of the thick grey fog. The sea monster that had once taken her
parents would return for her.

She deserved what would happen to her, but
that did not make it any less horrible. Reid did not deserve his
cruel end, for everything that had happened was her fault. She had
prophesied his coming, and by that prophecy had brought him to
Ruthlen. She had not warned him immediately that she was
unattainable, but instead had allowed him to kiss and caress her,
thereby awakening in him the desire that had led to his downfall.
She, and she alone, was responsible.

And how badly she had hurt Tamat, who loved
her, who must be suffering silent anguish right now because of
foolish, wicked Janina.

A wisp of mist brushed against her cheek. Her
deep depression lifted a little, and Janina had the strangest
feeling that Tamat was there with her, touching her with love and
telling her not to lose courage.

Save Reid,
whispered a voice in her
mind.
Help Reid, Janina.

The prickly sensation lasted only a moment.
When Janina raised one hand to touch her cheek, the feeling faded,
and her hand fell listlessly back into her lap. She knew she had
imagined the whisper because she wished so strongly that Tamat
could forgive her. But what she had done was unforgivable, and
there was no hope for her, or for Reid.

The little boat felt as if it wasn’t moving
at all, though it was difficult to tell in the heavy fog. Janina
noticed Reid looking around curiously. Then she heard what he must
have heard, the sound of a large body slipping through the water,
and she knew the sea monster had come to claim them. Deep
apprehension stabbed through her.

A dark, indistinct shape loomed through the
mist. Seated as she was in the stern of the boat and close to the
water’s surface, the thing approaching them looked immense.

She did not cry out. No one would hear or
help, and with a faint glimmering of nearly destroyed pride, she
knew she did not want Reid’s last thoughts to be of her cowardice.
She would accept her just punishment with as much bravery as she
could manage. She caught her lower lip in her teeth, biting down
hard to help her remember to keep silent. Squaring her shoulders,
she braced herself to meet horror and unendurable pain.

Reid was standing up, something Janina knew
should never be done in a small boat. She almost told him to sit
down before she heard him laugh aloud. She thought for a wild
moment that perhaps Reid planned to tip over the boat, to dump them
into the sea to drown before the monster could eat them. Her heart
swelled with a strong resurgence of tenderness for him, for his
brave, laughing attempt to make their end more merciful.

Reid did not tip the boat over. Instead, he
reached out to touch the approaching monster. He grasped some
dangling part of the creature’s body and held on, moving so quickly
that their boat almost did tip. Janina sat numbly, rocked by the
sudden motion, while Reid’s laughing voice sounded around her.

“Tamat!” Reid shouted into the fog. “Thank
you, Tamat! Thank you!”

Janina did not understand why he was so
elated, or what he was doing, not until he picked her up with one
arm and rather roughly tossed her onto a wooden deck. Then she saw
that what had nearly run them down was no sea monster but one of
the fishing boats from Ruthlen.

Reid finished tying their smaller boat so it
would trail after the larger one, then came back to Janina, who was
still crumpled upon the deck where he had left her.

“It’s no use,” Janina cried. ‘The fisherfolk
will throw us into the water for the monsters to eat. They have to,
Reid. They dare not save us for fear of their own lives when they
return home. Don’t you understand that?”

“There are no fisherfolk,” he replied,
lifting her to a sitting position and holding her in his arms.
“There is no one else aboard. Tamat would not have sent us a manned
boat.”

“Tamat?” Janina pulled away to stare at his
damp, shining face. “Tamat would never -” She bowed her head in
grief at the thought of Tamat and of what she had done to that
kind, beloved old woman.

“She did send the boat to us. I know it.”
Reid held her so she had to look at him. “When I told Tamat to
enter my mind, I filled my thoughts with anything that might be
useful to her. I told her what Sidra and Osiyar had been doing, and
I told her I remembered sailing when I was a boy. I let her know
that if she could provide a boat, I could sail it.”

“Do you know what Sidra is doing? She and
Osiyar whisper together all the time. I worry about Tamat.” Janina
had seized upon the one statement that made sense to her. Reid
shook her a little, stopping the flow of her words.

“Sidra and Osiyar are irrelevant just now.
I’ll tell you all about it some time later. The important thing is
that Tamat sent us this boat.”

“She did not,” Janina stated firmly. “We have
broken the law and must be punished. We must die, Reid. The sea
monsters must eat us.”

“Didn’t you feel the little boat stop? We
were dead in the water, becalmed, yet the current flowed all around
us. For a while, I almost believed one of your sea monsters had
caught hold of us, until I saw this boat. Janina, all of the
fisherfolk stayed home today, because of the festival. All the
boats were moored at the wharf or anchored off-shore, and all but a
few of them were on their sides in the mud because the tide was so
low. Yet this boat followed us, and found us. Tamat did this. She
is powerful enough, isn’t she?”

“Reid,” Janina insisted, “we have been so
wrong. We have broken the law. We deserve to be punished.” She
stopped trying to convince him of that simple fact when she was
overcome by another spasm of shivering.

“Come below.” Reid pulled her toward the
cabin. “There should be at least a blanket to warm you a little.
Come on, Janina.”

Reid’s hasty search of lockers and the hold
revealed not only blankets but several changes of clothing in
waterproof bags, along with a full store of preserved food in the
galley. Reid wrapped Janina in a heavy blanket, toweled her
dripping hair, then brewed herbs and made her drink two large cups
of strong dhia. Finally, he pushed her down on one of the bunks and
covered her with a second blanket.

“Sleep,” he ordered.

“I can’t sleep. The sea monsters -” She
stopped, afraid she would begin to cry. He bent low to kiss her,
his mouth warm and tender on hers. He was still naked, as he had
been since they had removed their garments in passion in the sacred
grove. When he straightened, she caught at his hand. Though she was
close to tears, and ashamed to have him see how cowardly she was,
she did not want him to leave her.

“Janina.” He sat down beside her. When he
tried to put his arms around her she cringed in renewed shame and
guilt.

“Very well,” he said sternly. “I will tell
you now what I had planned to tell you much later - or perhaps
never tell you. I believe Tamat wanted me to escape from Ruthlen. I
also believe she wanted me to take you with me. She knew you would
never be safe with Sidra in power. I think Tamat understood what we
did today in the grove, and despite what she had to say in public,
she did not condemn us, for she certainly sent us this boat.” He
told her all that had been said during his last interview with
Tamat, and why he thought she had given him an unspoken
directive.

“If she had implanted the idea in my mind,
which would have been the easiest way to make me do what she
wanted, Sidra might have discovered what Tamat had done and could
turn the information against her. But this way, even if Sidra were
to invade my thoughts, it would seem to her that I had thought of
it myself, which was true. Thus, Sidra could not hold Tamat to
blame. Do you understand this, Janina?”

“Yes.” She was not so agitated now. Reid’s
words had calmed her enough to allow her to think more clearly.
“What you say makes good sense. Tamat would think that way.”

“Don’t ever forget that Tamat wants us to
live.” Reid pushed gently on her shoulders, forcing her backward
onto the bunk. “You need to sleep. I’ll wake you if anything
important happens.”

She almost told him that if the really
important event - the arrival of a sea monster - happened, he would
have no time to waken her, but she knew that if she started to
think about the sea monsters again, she would never sleep, and he
was right; she needed to rest, so she could help him.

She lay back, mulling over his account of his
meeting with Tamat. She knew Tamat had a reason for everything she
did. If Tamat had saved Janina and Reid, it was because she wanted
them alive for some specific purpose.

She touched her cheek, recalling the fleeting
sensation of a kiss, and the whisper in her mind: Save Reid. Help
Reid. And she knew, as certainly as she could have known if she had
truly been a telepath, that Tamat’s purpose in saving them had been
to send Reid back to his own people. Tamat had found a way to grant
Janina’s plea to save him, and to answer Reid’s frequently repeated
request to let him leave Ruthlen. Therefore, Janina was duty-bound
to do everything in her power to help him. It was what Tamat
wanted.

Sighing, almost asleep now, she turned over
onto her side. Through half-closed eyes she saw Reid rubbing
himself dry. His body was so beautiful, so large and
strong-muscled, so utterly masculine. She felt a thrill of pleasure
just watching him draw the rough towel across his naked skin. She
thought with a drowsy smile that what they had done earlier that
day wasn’t such a terrible crime after all. She wanted to put out
her hand to touch him, but she was too weary even for that small
gesture.

Her last conscious thought was that she did
not know what she could do to help Reid, because she was such a
coward, and as Sidra had so often told her, she was not very
intelligent. But she would try. She would do her best, for Tamat,
and for Reid.