Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1) Read online

  If only. Comfort was something she'd almost found for a time with Gould, before Fran had come home, bringing Torr Montgomery with her. For a whole year she'd felt—adequate—almost. Gould had done that for her. She owed him for that alone. Debts came with accounts rendered. Accounts rendered came with pay-by dates. Her time had just run out.

  Picking up the crystal, she walked through to the kitchen, filled the kettle and switched it on. Crossing to the pyramid pit, she sank down on the banquette to watch the sun rise above the lake. Absently she rubbed the smooth facets of the crystal between thumb and forefinger and oddly enough it did bring a strange kind of relief.

  Then again, she thought hazily, that could just come from `watching the day grow' as Gould called it, and as he liked to do most mornings. It was as if there was something of his essence in the thought to comfort her, sitting where he so often sat, resting her arm along the back of the seat as he was wont to do, closing her eyes and feeling the sunrise—

  The Era of the DragonBlood Kings of Atlantis

  How she envied Phryne!

  Gynevra of Poseidonia stood motionless at her half-sister's side, fingers curled like talons round a gold phallic ampulla. It was unseemly in one who was both princess and priestess yet envy flared in her heart as she watched the lethal dance of the two greatest warriors of Atlantis across the black and white mozaics of the Temple Plaza. Sun-fire glistened from rippling oiled muscle and flashed from the honed edges of iron broadswords.

  One of them would play Rafid to Phryne's Adonai.

  Gynevra gnawed the inside of her lip and tried to focus on her role in this important annual ritual. How could she offer Phryne support if her heart was filled with resentment? As if in response to the thought, Phryne of Gadeirus placed one henna-decorated hand over Gynevra's. Her fingers were icy and Gynevra felt the nervous tremors the Adonai couldn't control. It was this she must concentrate on, not her own unwarranted sense of betrayal and sacrifice.

  ‘Don't hate me, Gyn'a. I'd have served Yazid had he chosen me but it was you he needed for his healing miracle—which was a success if rumor is to be believed.’

  Gynevra grimaced. Yazid, the aging Magus of Oralin, had certainly been flaunting his renewed virility, gained at the expense of her precious virginity—and pain. Pain for which she'd been amply prepared but which would have been more easily accepted had his youth and vigor matched her own, she thought bitterly. Her fingers tensed beneath Phryne's.

  ‘It's a wonder he didn't decide he should perform for Asar today,’ she muttered resentfully, then flinched at the violent resonance of metal from the Plaza below.

  Phryne exhaled convulsively and withdrew her hand to lay it protectively over her heart. ‘I wish he had then the outcome of this fight would be foregone!’

  ‘Not necessarily, Phree,’ said her other half-sister, Meryan of Nyalda, who stood to her right holding the golden chalice of nuptial nectar. ‘Yazid is old but he has powers beyond any ordinary High Priest. At the New Year celebrations he moved the great altar stone clear across the Plaza and back by the power of his gaze alone.’

  Tossing her fall of golden hair, Phryne muttered, ‘All I know is I want Prince Gotham to win today.’

  Gynevra dragged her attention from the Rafid Arena. She and Mery must keep Phree focused on the divinity and sanctity of her evocation of the Goddess in the Rite.

  ‘It can't be allowed to matter, Phree,’ she responded tersely, knowing the comment was as much for her own benefit as her sister's. Dragging in a deep calming breath and raising her voice to be heard above the raucous shouts of the vast crowd packed onto the palm-shaded terraces, she added, ‘It's only for one night in the sacred ritual of the Joining of the Gods. You're not making a Life Union with him. If you conceive a child, as we devoutly hope you will, it'll be sired by the Essence of the God and will carry the Blood of the Dragon—whichever of them wins.’

  ‘I want the Prince to win,’ Phryne reiterated. ‘Cadal Isidor’s so dark and fierce. I'll only ever join with a man in Temple ritual for the purpose of conceiving. Is it so wrong that I prefer to choose the sire of my firstborn?’

  ‘I could hate you, Phree,’ Gynevra snapped, unable to suppress her resentment any longer. ‘I almost could!’

  Appalled by the intensity of the emotion, she gripped the balustrade and focused on the warrior-lords below. The honed perfection of their bodies, the skill and artistry with which they wielded the huge swords was breath-taking. How would such a one move in the dance of procreation? The thought started a quivering in her legs.

  Inhaling deeply of the sweet perfume of frango flowers that hazed the air, she reminded herself she didn't hate her sister and called on the Goddess to help banish the bitter envy. She and Phryne had always known they were destined to become Archinus in their home provinces. Their Life Paths lay within the Temple. But unlike Gynevra, Phryne had embraced her destiny as if she'd chosen it for herself. Her handmaidens should be keeping her focused on this now. Turning her back on the battle that aroused her on so many levels, Gynevra spoke more calmly to Phryne.

  ‘As Adonai you'll gift your virgin blood to the Gods and your maidenhead to a virile Rafid. I gave mine for a bumbling old priest.’ Yazid had needed to show he could still perform in the Temple rituals to prove he was fit to hold the high position of Magus. Her only consolation was the qim in her stadrac. At the time she'd thought it enough but now her healthy young DragonBlood body was rebelling. Nor could she keep her gaze from the violent action down in the Plaza. As she turned to watch once again, her voice took on a censorious note. ‘Whichever wins, any child you bear will be sired by the bravest, the strongest, the most beautiful of men.’

  Phryne reached for Gynevra's hand again, the determination in her sea-green eyes softening a little.

  The three sisters had shared learning and laughter all their lives. ‘Hate’ wasn't a word they used with each other. Phryne understood Gynevra's sense of loss as if it were her own. Hadn't they speculated, for as long as they'd understood the sacredness of their virgin blood, on how it would be expended? Dreamed of the mystical power and sacrament of the gift and how it would be taken?

  ‘I hear what you say, I feel what you feel, Gyn'a, bu—I can't help hoping.’

  Gynevra forced a smile for Phryne. Her own feelings were of no import this day. She leaned towards her sister so as to be heard above the chanting from the tower of the Temple.

  ‘As your handmaidens, Mery and I must keep you focused on Ist's joining with Asar. Whoever plays Rafid, you've to welcome him so he can symbolically fertilize the Earth Mother's womb with the Earth Father's rain. The more times he's able to accomplish that, the more plentiful will be the crops for the coming year. You don't want people to say it was your fault the crops failed, do you?’

  Phryne sank onto the polished onyx bench with a sigh.

  ‘Gyn'a's right—as usual,’ Meryan offered gently from Phryne's other side. ‘I didn't conceive at the Winter Solstice Joining and though it wasn't as important as Spring Fertility, I still feel as if I failed.’

  The three fell silent as once again they followed the slash of the swords and the consummate skill of the legendary warriors wielding them. Resting her arms on the stone coping Gynevra found herself again imagining how it would be to know such a man as either in the fullness of his virility. As a priestess, and as the Archinus she’d one day become, she'd join with many such men on the altar in Temple ritual but would never take one to her bed or share a meal or conversation with him. Would never know the real man or share the essence of who she was with him as a sacred partner.

  The wish to rebel was rapidly becoming a need, its strength frightening. And try as she might she couldn't keep her attention from the arena below. King Cadal Isidor II of Nyalda, the northern province of Atlantis, was commonly known as Taur the Black Bull for his dark coloring and the bull-horned helmet of Nyalda he wore. Gotham, heir to the throne of Trephysia in the southwest, and often referred to as the Golden Stallion, was
as fair as his opponent was dark and wore the domed Trephysian helmet adorned with a golden horse tail. With the priestly power and warrior prowess that had earned them renown throughout Atlantis, Gynevra knew she wouldn't have cared which man won if she were to play the part of Adonai.

  She didn't resent Phryne's honor, for her own had been as great in a different way. It was just that lately she'd begun to wish she'd been born to an ordinary Paggi family instead of the Archinus of All Atlantis which meant she was bound by codes and expectations, edicts and Temple laws.

  By prophecy.

  She longed to be able to take a man such as either of the combatants below, as a sacred partner; to share his bed, bear his children.

  Make her own choices.

  ‘They're both Sons of the Dragon,’ Phryne murmured, just as intent at her side. ‘If you could have either one for a sacred partner, which would you choose?’

  As usual, Gynevra acknowledged wryly, Phryne was attuned to her fantasies. Gotham at thirty-two was the elder of the warriors by five years. His hair, curling luxuriantly to his shoulders, was a deep shining gold. Golden hair glistened also on muscular thighs beneath a brief leather war kirt and across the hard sculpted wall of his chest. Droplets of sweat glistened on the sun-gold expanse of his broad, oiled back.

  She'd heard it said he had a vast qim from the inordinate number of siring contracts he'd filled. His sacred partner would want for nothing. Gotham of Trephysia was the epitome of every maiden's dream. Yet her eyes were drawn constantly to the darkly compelling Taur of Nyalda.

  Powerful as a virile bull in comparison to the gilded magnificence of Gotham, his skin bore the dark sheen of polished sword-iron. Shoulder-length hair gleamed like a raven's wing in the sun, a dark mat of it covering his chest, arrowing down under his wide, gold and obsidian bossed belt in a way she found intensely unsettling. Anatomically he resembled the Prince but the darkness of his visage made him appear much more fearsome, an aspect compounded by the horned gold helmet he wore. Yet lowly bargi were reputed to fight for the privilege of marching into battle under his command.

  Phryne interrupted her reverie.

  ‘If you chose Taur you'd have to live in Nyalda, many stades away over the mountains. They say it's primitive. And freezing!’

  ‘But I'd get to see Merwin's Crystal which is said to be kept somewhere at Castle Heceuda and use the energy of it to astral-travel anywhere I wanted,’ Gynevra countered in an effort to deflect Phryne from the true attraction.

  ‘No one's seen that crystal in years. Old Queen Hypatia probably took it to her grave.’

  ‘Then I could go on a treasure hunt with a handsome warrior king thrown in,’ Gynevra answered triumphantly.

  Sighing in exasperation, Phryne said, ‘You've been obsessed by that crystal ever since you had that dream of disappearing into it.’

  So she had. In her heart she knew Merwin's Crystal would someday be important to her. But she’d not expose that belief to Phryne's mockery or Meryan's gentle skepticism.

  ‘If you joined with Gotham,’ she said hurriedly, ‘you'd have to live in the Glass City—and I think that prospect more frightening than Nyalda.’

  She shivered despite the heat of the day. Fyr Heceuda, capital of Nyalda, was snow-bound three months of every year, unimaginable to one used to swimming in the sea all year round. But to live in Fyr Trephyr, the only habitation in the now desolate far west, was to live like an insect trapped under a glass bowl. The entire city existed under the protection of a vast glass terrarium and in dangerous proximity to the constantly rumbling Dorian Mountains. Three months of freezing temperatures seemed less daunting than the knowledge that prolonged living under the glass pyramids of Fyr Trephyr, killed. The incurable disease, levon, thought to be caused by excessive exposure to crystal energy, was more prevalent in Fyr Trephyr than in any other city in Atlantis.

  ‘That's where I'll live with Prince Hadan,’ put in Meryan, turning a soft blue gaze on her sisters. ‘He says it's not so bad if you travel often. And we won't have to stay there if I prefer not to, since he isn't to be King.’

  Gynevra met Mery's gaze. Again, to her shame, envy roiled in her gut. Under no restraint to choose a Life Path within the Temple, Meryan had elected to take a sacred partner and live the life of an ordinary Paggi citizen.

  ‘But why Prince Hadan?’ Gynevra couldn't help asking. ‘He's so—so—such an untypical Son of the Dragon!’

  ‘Because he's not a warrior,’ Meryan responded readily. ‘Hadan of Trephysia was sired by Taur's pavuon on Gotham's movuon which makes him half-brother to both of them down there—but he's not like either of them. Being a teacher-priest, he'll not go to war. He's gentle and caring. I think we'll be very happy.’

  Mery was probably right. Her gentle temperament would suffer around aggressive warrior natures. A scowl creasing her forehead beneath the emerald studded headband, Gynevra fiddled with the knotted end of her belt. Mery had had a choice, there being no constraints on her to return to Nyalda. Phryne wanted no choice. When her training was completed she’d return to Gadeirus where her movuon, Archinus of Temple Medilica, was already ailing with the mysterious pirate's sickness, which had killed an alarming number of people in the capital of that province. Ianthe had never offered Gynevra a choice, and yet she wasn't her movuon's only daughter. There was Alienor—

  A sharp outcry from the crowd stayed the heretic thought. The three strained to follow the action in the arena below. A slash of red had appeared above the gauntlet on Prince Gotham’s sword arm. The lethal blades were wielded with purpose and parried with skill though not with intent to kill or maim. The victor became Rafid, donning the persona of Asar, Great Sky Father. Before the gathered citizenry, he’d join his body with she who represented the Goddess Ist to symbolize the fertilizing of the Earth Mother by the spring rains of the Sky Father.

  If Ist and Asar smiled, the sacred coupling would be fruitful, a happy omen for King Ahron and his troubled kingdom. The victor would also be assured of many contracts to sire children for those of the Paggi who didn't have Dragon Blood in their veins, and swell the mountain of gold in his stadrac. Each man had much to gain by winning.

  Bidding for the right to perform as Rafid had been brisk once it was known the fair and virginal Phryne of Gadeirus would perform as Adonai. The many Sons of the Dragon with the sole right to sire Paggi children were keen to advertise their virility and sexual stamina. On this occasion the King of northern Nyalda, Cadal Isidor II, had won the bid. But as always, the warrior who won Champion of Champions after three days of battle games also won the right to challenge the chosen Rafid. Prince Gotham of Trephysia had shown by a series of convincing wins in all sections from hand-to-hand combat to sword battles on horseback that he intended to do just that.

  Phryne, daughter of the Archinus of the eastern Province of Gadeirus by Ahron, paramount King of Atlantis, was a highly desirable Adonai and guaranteed high uson to the Temple from profligate bidders. Outbid by his cousin and best friend, Gotham now had to best Taur in a final sword-fight in order to don the Mantle of Asar. They were well matched and had fought often against each other in the Rafid Arena and never could the outcome be predicted.

  ‘Gotham's bleeding!’

  Phryne's wide gaze was fixed on the scene below, bloodless fingers curled round the Goddess ankh. Gynevra and Meryan moved closer, sliding their arms about her waist.

  Blood ran freely down Prince Gotham's arm, spotting the stones. Yet he appeared unaffected unless it be that he fought even more fiercely. Phryne scarcely breathed, her eyes never leaving the Prince. Gynevra on the other hand, had eyes only for the honed copper torso and muscular limbs of Cadal Isidor. The northern king exuded a charisma to make women yearn and men tremble. Phryne desired her virgin blood to be spilled by the Golden Stallion but Gynevra knew her choice, had she been called to make it, would have been the King of Nyalda.

  A gasp of shock exploded round the plaza. In the hush that followed, the clatter of Gotham’s fall
ing sword echoed hollowly off the stone walls of the Temple. Clasping a hand to his groin, the Golden Prince fell to the mosaics in a bright, spreading pool of blood. Suddenly the crowd was clamoring louder than ever while the Champion of Warriors stood as if carved from the stone beneath his feet.

  Why wasn't Taur thrusting his sword in the air in the gesture of victory? Taught from an early age to read energy vibrations, Gynevra stared fixedly at the victor's aura. She felt oddly confused by the evidence she saw of shock and horror. He seemed to be struggling to play the victorious hero the crowd demanded while a man lay bleeding at his feet. A man who was friend, not foe. Turning to a pair of Temple Giants watching stoically from the door of Temple Qrazil, he barked an order. The servitors lumbered forward, deftly rolled the Prince in a linen sheet and removed him from the arena.

  Then the victor, now rightly the greatest warrior in all Atlantis, strode across the Plaza and down the polished marble staircase to where the royal barge tugged gently against its golden moorings on the Inner Ring Canal. King Ahron, enthroned in regal splendor among the brilliant silken gowns and elaborate coiffures of Queen Agapa and her court ladies, waited to accept his homage.

  ‘Arise Cadal Isidor II of Nyalda, Supreme Warrior of Atlantis, he who has shown himself worthy to be Rafid. Arise. The Adonai awaits. The fertile and untouched womb of She who holds the Ankh of Ist, Earth Mother and Goddess of the Moon, awaits your vital seed. The blessings of the Gods be with us.’

  Taur stood upright and the crowd rose with him, filling the air with their appreciation of his prowess and virility. The potent fertile tension simmering through the capital all tonn was nearing the climax. The Sacrament of the Joining of the Gods was the most holy of all the Temple rituals. It was also the most public. All fervently believed the ritual joining of Ist, the Great Mother Goddess with Asar, her Beloved Consort, would ensure a season of fertility and plenty. Yet few could remain unmoved by the act performed on the Most Holy Altar of the Gods and accompanied by ritual chanting and feasting.