Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

"Like when you're on your back with someone else, you mean?" said Sednil, spitting into the peel-bucket.

"Well, that might turn out to be a good time, yes. You must be realistic, darling. I shan't miss any opportunity I get, I promise you."

Sednil made no reply, only continuing to gaze at her like a man looking through the barred window of a cell.

"Sednil, it will be all right--you wait and see! And look, I've brought two charming friends of mine to meet you-- Maia and Occula. They both belong to Sencho, poor girls."

"Cran help them!" said Sednil. "Why aren't they squashed flat?"

"Well, there you are, you see; there's always someone worse off. They want to go in and watch the ceremony. You'll help them, won't you?"

Sednil said nothing.

"Won't you?"

"It's risky," said Sednil.

"I'm sure they'd really appreciate it. They'd show themselves very very grateful, I expect."

At this moment there rang across the city the clangor of the gongs striking noon, and from the steps of the temple a trumpet sounded.

"Yes or no?" said Nennaunir. "I'll have to be quick: I've got a friend waiting."

"Oh, twenty, I dare say," answered Sednil bitterly. "All in line." He turned to the girls. "Well, come on, then!"

By this time Maia, who had not been paying much attention to the talk, was as much agog as a child being taken to a treat. Smiling at the young man and taking his arm, she thanked Nennaunir warmly and then set off with him through the door, across an untidy, deserted kitchen and along a stone-floored passage.

"You're a friend of Nennaunir?" she asked conversationally.

"I used to be," said he.

"Before you came to the temple, you mean?" Maia was puzzled.

"How long did you get?" asked Occula from behind them.

"Five years. Oh, she's not a bad sort, I suppose. All the same, she knew the truth of it and never said a word. Oh, never mind! What's the use?"

Maia still felt none the wiser.

"You mean you're here against your will? Couldn't you-- well, run away or something? I mean, all these crowds of people from all over the empire--"

"Run away? Where d'you come from, lass? Look!" Sednil, pausing by a window on the staircase they were now climbing, stretched out one hand. Across the back extended a white scar, fully three inches broad, in the shape of a pair of crossed spears. In parts the flesh was proud, and in one place the wound had not entirely healed.

"M'm--so that's the forced service brand, is it?" said Occula, craning over Maia's shoulder. "I've never seen one before. Did it hurt?"

" 'Course it basting well hurt!" replied Sednil irritably. "What d'you think?"

"I don't understand," said Maia. "You mean it's--"

"If a man who's been branded like that can't show a token--either from whoever he's workin' for or else a 'released' token once his time's up--it's death straight away," said Occula. "That's why he doesn' run, banzi. He'd have to run to Zeray." She turned back to Sednil. "I didn' know they sent people like you to the temple. It's usually the Gelt mines, isn' it, or somewhere like that?"

"Yes, but Nennaunir persuaded one of the priests to ask for me, on a promise of good conduct. She's got friends everywhere, that girl--priests and all. I've seen one or two things while I've been here, I can tell you."

They had reached the top of the staircase and now Sednil, turning to the left, led them into a gallery which ran the length of the back of the temple. About thirty yards along this was a door set in the inner wall. As he opened it the girls could hear from below the murmur and movement of a crowd.

"Now, we've got to keep quiet," whispered Sednil, "and mind you do."

Maia followed him into what seemed for a moment to be darkness, the more so as he immediately closed the door behind them. Then, as she stood still in uncertainty, she became aware of light, its source, however, somewhere below them. Sednil, taking her hand, led her forward until she found herself looking down, from the rather alarming height of a roof-level balcony, into the interior of the Temple of Cran.

Fifty feet below lay a circular, tessellated pavement, some nine or ten yards across, slightly sunk below a surround of veined, gray marble. Immediately within this surround the tiles formed a border depicting a crested serpent with red, green and blue scales, which stretched entirely round the edge of the pavement until, at the eastern point, it grasped its own tail between its jaws. Round its body was twined an intricate design of vines, fruit and corn, the various motifs being repeated at regular intervals throughout the circle.

Within this again was a variant of the divine group represented on the inner sphere of the Tamarrik Gate.

Upon a ground of green malachite inlaid with colored blooms and with animals, birds and fishes, the golden-bearded figure of Cran stretched out its arms, whilst opposite, Airtha of the Diadem ex

tended hers towards him. Each of their hands rested upon the base of one corner of a rectangular marble slab, about two feet high, standing in the center of the pavement.

Maia was so much fascinated by the design and by the brilliant colors in the pavement--of which, of course, looking directly down from above, she had the best possible view--that it was some little time before she began to notice the less ornate central altar-slab and the figure lying upon it. When she did so, however, her first reaction was one of bewilderment and disappointment. Somnolence and passivity was not what she would have expected at the very core of the empire's worship. She had always imagined the god in his temple armed with lightning, majestic, vigilant and mighty to protect the empire. The reality was much unlike.

The low, marble slab was carved in the form of a couch resting upon scrolled clouds. Upon this lay a life-sized, bronze figure of Cran; but very different from that of the Tamarrik dial with its attendant circle of ecstatic nymphs. The god, his head and shoulders raised on marble pillows, was supine, in the posture of one asleep. Indeed, he plainly was asleep, for his eyelids were closed, giving him--since his body was unmoved by breathing--the appearance al-most of one dead. He was naked, and his flaccid zard, like any mortal man's, lay across the hollow of his thigh. Something about its appearance puzzled Maia, though from this height she could not quite make out what it might be: it was flexed, and seemed to be fashioned out of narrow, overlapping, cylindrical scales. But apart from this, she had never before seen the god represented without his attributes--crown, lightning and serpent torques. She would hardly have recognized him. The figure, in fact, displeased her. It seemed an unworthy, almost impious, representation, not at all god-like, inappropriate in its resemblance to mere humanity.

The three of them were standing, she now realized, near the top of an octagonal lantern tower, the whole of the interior of which was open to and visible from the floor of the temple. This was supported upon the lintels and square columns of a circular arcade surrounding the pavement below. At a height of about thirty feet, a narrow gallery ran round the lantern (their own standpoint was a mere box just below the roof), and below it were narrow windows admitting daylight to the floor of the temple below. This was augmented by eight branched candlesticks, each carrying some twenty or thirty candles, which had been placed round the edge of the pavement, one in front of each column.