Slowly, the tall ebony and silver doors of the temple slid open, rolling soundlessly on bronze bearings. Adrian’s mind reflexively murmured three citations and an epic poem on the building of the Maiden’s Temple; all of them described the effect, and all of them inaccurately as far as he knew. The cult image came forth on brass rails set into the marble of the pronacs floor, gliding with oil-bath smoothness. It was hidden in a tall cedarwood and silver shrine, emblazoned with the full moon on all sides. At a touch the sides sank down to reveal a rock. Black, slagged and metallic-looking in spots with a trace of rust, a metorite and very ancient.
Adrian Gellert had long since been trained in the precepts of the Grove; that God was Number and Form, and all the lesser images merely avatars or imaginings of men unable to conceive of the One. God did not need to Do, only to Be—but he still felt a trace of numinous awe as he extended his hand. And of course a gentleman showed respect for the ancient cults.
“Scholar of the Grove—”
Adrian held up the scroll in his left hand.
“Scholar of the Blade—”
His brother Esmond raised his sheathed sword.
“Receive the blessing of the Goddess, your patron.”
Adrian closed his eyes and let the hand rest on the sacred rock. It was cool, cooler than it should have been, and—
* * *
Where am I? Where am I?
He thought he screamed the words, but he had no lungs. No eyes, for surely even the darkest night at the bottom of the silver mines of Flowerhill was brighter than this. He was nothing but Fear, adrift in a world of midnight. Stroke. Heart attack.
Compose yourself, he thought sharply. Remember that anything that can happen, can happen to you. All men are initiates of the mysteries of death.
That was the comfort of philosophy, but a little hard to remember when one was only twenty-one.
Light. He blinked . . . and saw a room around him. Furnished in an alien style, strange padded furniture, a fire burning in an enclosed brick space in one wall, tables and chairs of subtly foreign make. And a man standing there, a dark man with bowl-cut black hair. Odd clothes, something like those worn in the Western Isles, or even among the Southron barbarians; trousers, those marks of the savage, a curious tailored coat of blue with tails dangling behind. A curved sword and a holster with something rather like a carpenter’s tool were lying on one table.
Either I have gone mad, or something very strange has happened, Adrian thought. He was conscious of his own terror, but it was distant, muted. He looked down at himself, and he was there again—not in the snowy draped robe of ceremony, but in an everyday tunic, with inkhorn and pen case slung from his belt.
“Adrian Gellert,” the oddly-dressed man said; he spoke good Emerald, with a hint of a soft accent. “What is it that you desire?”
It was the manner of the Academy to teach with questions. He closed his lips on his own enquiries, on the fleeting ephemeral desires of every day, on the anxieties of his father’s untimely death. That question had asked for truth. Perhaps there was truth in the old stories of Divine intervention in the lives of men.
“I want to know,” he blurted.
The dark man nodded.
* * *
“An excellent dinner. Many thanks, Samul,” Esmond said, from his couch across the table.
Adrian nodded and murmured something. His brother-in-law Samul Mcson had been a catch for his sister Alzabeta. A catch of sorts; the Mcson family was important in the dye trade and had a fish-sauce works whose products were sold by name as far away as Vanbert, the Confederacy capital. He’d never liked the man, and the sneer on the heavy fleshy features showed the feeling was returned. Also there was honey-glaze sauce on the front of his robe, which was rose-colored silk from the Western Isles. Probably brought back on one of Father’s ships, he thought, smiling and nodding at his surly relative by marriage.