Mistress of the Night (3 page)

Mifano's eyes narrowed. "I was offering her hospitality."

"Which is my responsibility," said Velsinore. She glanced at Feena. "We have space in the acolyte's common room, of course. You're welcome to it."

"I don't think I'll be staying," Feena growled—at both of them. "I'm only here because Dhauna Myritar sent for me."

Both Mifano and Velsinore stared at her. "She sent for you?" asked Velsinore. "A prayer carried on the Moonmaiden's beams," said Feena. She crossed her arms. "Do you doubt me?"

Velsinore and Mifano exchanged a glance, then Mifano looked back to Feena and asked, "When?"

Feena bit her tongue. "Recently," she said, evading. "Where is she? I'll talk to her and be on my way."

"In her quarters, preparing for the Full Moon Blessing," Velsinore told her. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, then gestured for the priestess who had remained with her. "Tam, take Feena to the High Moonmistress."

Feena froze the younger priestess with a glare and said, "I know how to get there."

She strode off along the cloister, leaving the startled priestess in her wake. A heartbeat later, rapid footsteps followed her.

"Feena!" called Mifano. "Wait!"

"Why?" Feena swung through another door and back into the interior of the temple. The ramp that led up to the second floor and the high priestess's quarters was just beyond.

Mifano caught her hand. "You should know," he said hastily. "Dhauna has... things have changed at Moonshadow Hall. They're complicated."

Feena pulled away. "Things never change," she said. "They're always... complicated."

Feena raised her hand to knock on the carved wood of the High Moonmistress's quarters and was suddenly reminded of a precocious fifteen-year-old acolyte summoned before the high priestess of Moonshadow Hall for pummeling a silver:haired boy who had presented her with a collar and leash. She forced the memory aside. Some things did change. She rapped on the wood.

When there was no immediate response, she knocked again.

"Mother Dhauna, it's—"

The door opened partway before she could finish. A young, dark-haired priestess peered out. She wore a harried expression.

"Please," she said quickly, "this isn't a good time. Can you come back later?"

Feena blinked. "I'd rather-"

"Feena?" Dhauna's voice rose from somewhere inside. "Feena, is that you?"

The dark-haired woman winced, but Feena raised her voice and called back, "It's me, Mother Dhauna!"

"By Our Silver Lady!" The high priestess's voice was shrill and excited. "Finally! Let her in, Julith! Let her in!"

The dark-haired woman—Julith—sighed and swung the door wide. "She's in her bedchamber," she whispered. "Please, try to keep her calm."

Feena looked at Julith, but the other woman was already turning away. Feena stepped inside and shut the door. Dhauna's sitting room was cluttered with stacks of books and bundles of scrolls. Papers hid the desk. She stared at the mess in surprise as she passed on into the bedchamber.

"Feena!" Seated in a chair before a dressing table, Dhauna Myritar twisted around to greet her.

Feena only barely managed to bend in respect. Somehow, it seemed, her muscles had forgotten how to move and her eyes had forgotten how to blink.

The High Moonmistress of Moonshadow Hall was all but lost within the silver lace and blue silk of her vestments, her head and face overshadowed by a high, stiff collar. For as long as Feena had known her, Dhauna had been a cheerfully plump priestess often mistaken for a woman twenty years younger than her actual age. But no one would underestimate the woman's age again. Her brown skin had faded to the color of crumpled parchment, and her dark gray eyes had lost their luster. She was not merely thin, but so gaunt that her gown was loose on her wasted frame.

"Mother Dhauna..." Feena murmured in shock.

"Oh, stand up!" Dhauna's gesture was sharp, making her irritation plain. "It's the vestments. They make me look like a starving dwarf. Life waxes, life wanes—time

catches us all, eventually." She swatted at Julith's hands as the priestess attempted to brush her fine, white hair. "It looks fine, Julith!" Her eyes focused on Feena again. "You took your time."

Feena finally blinked and fumbled for the excuse she had spent so long fussing over. The shock of the changes in the high priestess had her shaken. Was that what Mifano had been trying to warn her about?

"I couldn't come any sooner* High Moonmistress," she managed. "It's been a busy month. Two of the village women were..." Her carefully rehearsed words began to slip away from her. She clutched at them desperately, "...were sick. And one was pregnant with a difficult boy."

Dhauna grinned and replied, "In my experience, all boys are difficult."

"He had a jaundiced leg," said Feena hastily. She grimaced as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

"And the rest of him?" asked Dhauna.

"Twisted," Feena said.

Dhauna laughed.

Julith stood behind the high priestess, a simple circlet of silver bearing the disk of the full moon in her hands, staring open-mouthed at their exchange. Dhauna stretched around and glanced at the circlet.

"Not that one," she ordered. "The moon's road tiara! You know that!"

"But Mother Dhauna-"

"The tiara!" As Julith laid down the circlet, Dhauna turned back to Feena. "Why didn't you come, Feena? The truth this time."

Feena looked down at her feet. Above the soles of her sandals, they were very dirty.

"I didn't want to face Moonshadow Hall and Yhaunn again," she confessed. She glanced up. "You know I don't belong here."

"You're happier in the fields and woods, I know. It's your nature, just as it was your mother's nature. Even more so, I suppose." Dhauna winced as Julith set an

ornate confection of a tiara—six crescent moons surrounding a full moon—on her head. The white puff of her hair sank under the weight and Julith reached for a comb to fix it in place. Dhauna ignored her, keeping her gaze on Feena. "But I called for you, Feena." A pleading tone entered her voice. "I called for you at every turning of Selune's face."

"I know," said Feena. "I heard every call."

"Then why didn't you come?"

"I couldn't just drop everything and abandon my village!" Feena protested. "The people do need me."

"I know that! I gave you time," Dhauna's voice rose in accusation.

Feena's rose as well. "Eventually!"

"When I realized you weren't going to come quickly enough."

" 'Be here for the full moon of Eleasias,' you said." Feena spread her arms. "Here I am!"

"Just barely! Ow!" The High Moonmistress let out a shriek. She clapped one hand to her head and whirled around in a cascade of silk and lace to snap at Julith. "What are you doing?"

The young priestess stood with the tiara in one hand the comb in the other, and a look of dismay on her pale face. "The moon's road tiara is too heavy, Mother Dhauna. Your hair's too fine to support it, even with a comb—"

Dhauna's face twisted and her eyes came back to life with sudden rage. "Then give me the full moon circlet, you stupid girl!"

Silence fell over the bedchamber like a shroud. Julith's eyes went wide and Feena was certain that she saw her hands tremble. There must have been surprise on her own face as well. Dhauna stared for a moment—then seemed to crumble.

"Julith," she whispered, "I'm sorry." She gestured with withered fingers. "Please—go on ahead to the courtyard. Feena will help me finish and walk with me to the Full Moon Blessing." She looked over her shoulder at Feena and asked, "Won't you?"

Feena nodded. "Of course."

Julith set the moon's road tiara on the dressing table and bent deeply to the high priestess, then fled the room. Dhauna sat back with a sigh. Feena stepped up to her cautiously. More had changed about the High Moonmistress than just her wasting body.

"Mother Dhauna," Feena asked, "are you all right?"

"No, Feena, I'm not," Dhauna replied, sitting up again. "There's not much time before the ceremony." She pointed to the dressing table. "If you could help me...."

Feena picked up the lighter circlet and settled it over the high priestess's hair. Dhauna looked at herself in the mirror that hung over the table.

"Good enough."

"Why did you call me here, Mother Dhauna?" asked Feena. "What's wrong?"

In the mirror, Dhauna's eyes shifted to look at her. "Selune has been sending me dreams, Feena." She looked at the mirror again. "Though it seems that the Moon-maiden measures her sendings by the strength of my faith rather than the strength of my body."

Feena knelt beside the wizened priestess's chair. "What are these dreams?"

"Warnings," Dhauna said as she wrapped her hand around Feena's. "Impending danger—great danger—from within the faith, I think. Possibly even from within Moonshadow Hall." She smiled at Feena's look of alarm. "Or so I have come to believe. The wisdom of gods is a mystery to mortals. I'm still searching for the deeper meaning of the dreams."

"The books in your sitting room," said Feena.

Dhauna nodded and said, "Guidance from those who came before us. The books come from the archives. I have even more spread out there. I don't believe I've read so much in my entire life."

"What have you found?"

"Nothing yet. Scraps. Clues." She released Feena's hand and brushed fingers through Feena's hair. Feena could smell old parchment and fresh ink on them. "Julith helps

ne. I couldn't hide the dreams from her for long. But if ;he danger is within Moonshadow Hall, I need help from lomeone outside the hall. Someone I can trust. Someone vho isn't afraid of controversy."

Feena closed her eyes and said, "I should have come looner."

"It would have been better if you had," said Dhauna. Will you help me?" "Yes."

"Thank you." Dhauna's hand rested briefly on Feena's lead in a blessing gesture—then the high priestess ighed and struggled to sit upright. "Though I think the irst thing you could help me with is getting out of this hair!"

The High Moonmistress's ornate vestments were beau-iful and in times past Feena had known her to wear hem as easily and as casually as an old shawl. She found terself holding billows and bustles out of the way as )hauna eased herself out of the chair and reached for a wir of canes. Feena took one from her and offered the old triestess her arm instead. Dhauna accepted it gratefully. Pheir progress along the corridor outside her quarters md down the ramp to the temple's ground floor was still low, however. Just inside the door that led out to the loisters and the temple courtyard, Dhauna paused, her lead bowed for a moment in prayer, and Feena sensed the [ivine surge of the goddess's touch. Dhauna breathed a igh. Releasing Feena's arm and shifting her grip on her ane, she stood solidly on her own two feet.

"For ceremonies only," she told Feena with a smile. Such is the price of vanity."

She strode through the door a little awkwardly, but rith renewed strength. Feena followed in her wake.

Outside, the temple courtyard was filled with the lergy and novices of Moonshadow Hall, as well as with hose citizens of Yhaunn who paid honor to Selune. )hauna circled around the cloister to the full moon ate. During the day, the courtyard could be entered reely through any of the seven open gates that led into

it, but tradition dictated that by night only the gate corresponding to the phase of the moon could be used—and since the closed gate of the new moon was nothing more than a brick-filled arch, the courtyard was never entered during the dark of the moon. Feena remembered youthful frustration at being forced to walk all the way around the cloisters when cutting across the shadowed courtyard would have saved her precious time. Having grown older, she found the walk strangely comforting, a moment of contemplative transition between outside world and sacred ceremony.

As Dhauna stepped through the full moon gate, clergy and worshipers parted before her, making a wide aisle across the moonlit grass to the sacred pool at the courtyard's far end. The High Moonmistress proceeded down the grassy aisle at a stately, measured pace. On either side, men and women bent in respect as she passed:

Feena, however, stopped just inside the gate. Julith stood at the back of the crowd, and Feena slipped in beside her.

"I'm sorry for what happened in Dhauna's bedchamber," Feena whispered.

The young priestess sighed and shrugged. "I'm getting used to it," she murmured back. "Some days she's better than others."

Her eyes were fixed on the other end of the courtyard. Dhauna had set aside her cane and was standing in front of the sacred pool, her back to the crowd. Overhead, the moon was almost perfectly aligned with the courtyard, the high priestess, and the pool. Dhauna raised her hands. "Selune," she called, "Moonmaiden, Bright Lady of Night, Our Lady of Silver—tonight we honor your fullest aspect and pray for your blessing of strength..."

As Dhauna continued her invocation, Feena leaned in closer to Julith.

"Some days?" she whispered. "Getting used to it?" She pressed her lips together, then asked, "The dreams?"

Julith started, then nodded.

Selune's warnings were taking their toll on more than Dhauna's body, it seemed.

Feena leaned back toward Julith and asked, "How long has she been having them?"

Julith's gaze darted to her. "Feena!" she hissed and nodded at Dhauna and the sacred pool.

Feena rolled her eyes and said, "We're not novices, Julith. No one is standing over us to make sure we follow the ceremony. How long?" Feena nudged the other priestess. "Gome on."

"A little bit less than a month." Julith managed to speak almost without moving her lips. "Since the waning gibbous moon."

The night she had first sent for me, Feena thought. She winced.

"Do you know what happened?" Feena asked.

Julith gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. "I found her barefoot in the courtyard in the middle of the night, almost at moonset. She's been barely eating since then. She's developed an obsession with the archives. And her moods..." The priestess fell silent for a moment, then added, "There are only a few of us in the temple who really notice the lapses of her mind, but it's clear that her health is failing." She glanced sideways at Feena. "If you're her friend, you should probably know that there's pressure on her to step down."