She brought Manan back through the winding1 ways in the dark, and left him in the dark of the Undertomb, to dig the grave that must be there as proof to Kossil that the thief had indeed been punished. It was late, and she went straight to the Small House to bed. In the night she woke suddenly; she remembered that she had left her cloak in the Painted Room. He would have nothing for warmth in that dank vault2 but his own short cloak, no bed but the dusty stone. A cold grave, a cold grave, she thought miserably3, but she was too weary to wake up fully4, and soon slipped back into sleep. She began to dream. She dreamt of the souls of the dead on the walls of the Painted Room, the figures like great bedraggled birds with human hands and feet and faces, squatting5 in the dust of the dark places. They could not fly. Clay was their food and dust their drink. They were the souls of those not reborn, the ancient peoples and the unbelievers, those whom the Nameless Ones devoured6. They squatted7 all around her in the shadows, and a faint creaking or cheeping sound came from them now and then. One of them came up quite close to her. She was afraid at first and tried to draw away, but could not move. This one had the face of a bird, not a human face; but its hair was golden, and it said in, a woman's voice, "Tenar," tenderly, softly, "Tenar."
She woke. Her mouth was stopped with clay. She lay in a stone tomb, underground. Her arms and legs were bound with graveclothes and she could not move or speak.
Her despair grew so great that it burst her breast open and like a bird of fire shattered the stone and broke out into the light of daythe light of day, faint in her windowless room.
Really awake this time, she sat up, worn out by that night's dreaming, her mind befogged. She got into her clothes, and went out to the cistern9 in the walled courtyard of the Small House. She plunged10 her arms and face, her whole head, into the icy water until her body jumped with cold and her blood raced. Then flinging back her dripping hair she stood erect11 and looked up into the morning sky.
It was not long past sunrise, a fair winter's day. The sky was yellowish, very clear. High up, so high he caught the sunlight and burned like a fleck12 of gold, a bird was circling, a hawk13 or desert eagle.
"I am Tenar," she said, not aloud, and she shook with cold, and terror, and exultation14, there under the open, sunwashed sky. "I have my name back. I am Tenar!"
The golden fleck veered15 westward16 towards the mountains, out of sight. Sunrise gilded17 the eaves of the Small House. Sheep bells clanked, down in the folds. The smells of woodsmoke and buckwheat porridge from the kitchen chimneys drifted on the fine, fresh wind.
"I am so hungry... How did he know? How did he know my name?... Oh, I've got to go eat, I'm so hungry..."
She pulled up her hood18 and ran off to breakfast.
Food, after three days of semi-fasting, made her feel solid, gave her ballast; she didn't feel so wild and lighthearted and frightened. She felt quite capable of handling Kossil, after breakfast.
She came up beside the tall, stout19 figure on the way out of the dining hall of the Big House, and said in a low voice, "I have done away with the robber... What a fine day it is!"
The cold gray eyes looked sidelong at her from the black hood.
"I thought that the Priestess must abstain20 from eating for three days after a human sacrifice?"
This was true. Arha had forgotten it, and her face showed that she had forgotten.
"He is not dead yet," she said at last, trying to feign21 the indifferent tone that had come so easily a moment ago. "He is buried alive. Under the Tombs. In a coffin22. There will be some air, the coffin isn't sealed, it's a wooden one. It will go quite slowly; the dying. When I know he is dead then I'll begin the fast."
"How will you know?"
Flustered, she hesitated again. "I will know. The... My Masters will tell me."
"I see. Where is the grave?"
"In the Undertomb. I told Manan to dig it beneath the Smooth Stone." She must not answer so quickly, in that foolish, appeasing23 tone; she must be on her dignity with Kossil.
"Alive, in a wooden coffin. That's a risky24 thing with a sorcerer, mistress. Did you make sure his mouth was stopped so he cannot say charms? Are his hands bound? They can weave spells with the motion of a finger, even when their tongues are cut out."
"There is nothing to his sorcery, it is mere25 tricking," the girl said, raising her voice. "He is buried, and my Masters are waiting for his soul. And the rest does not concern you, priestess!"
This time she had gone too far. Others could hear; Penthe and a couple of other girls, Duby, and the priestess Mebbeth, all were in hearing distance. The girls were all ears, and Kossil was aware of it.
"All that happens here is my concern, mistress. All that happens in his realm is the concern of the Godking, the Man Immortal26, whose servant I am. Even into the places underground and into the hearts of men does he search and look, and none shall forbid him entrance!"
"I shall. Into the Tombs no one comes if the Nameless Ones forbid it. They were before your Godking and they will be after him. Speak softly of them, priestess. Do not call their vengeance27 on you. They will come into your dreams, they will enter the dark places in your mind, and you will go mad."
The girl's eyes were blazing. Kossil's face was hidden, drawn28 back into the black cowl. Penthe and the others watched, terrified and enthralled29.
"They are old," Kossil's voice said, not loud, a whistling thread of sound out of the depths of the cowl. "They are old. Their worship is forgotten, save in this one place. Their power is gone. They are only shadows. They have no power any more. Do not try to frighten me, Eaten One. You are the First Priestess; does that not mean also that you are the last?... You cannot trick me. I see into your heart. The darkness hides nothing from me. Take care, Arha!"
She turned and went on, with her massive, deliberate steps, crushing the frost-starred weeds under her heavy, sandaled feet, going to the white-pillared house of the Godking.
The girl stood, slight and dark, as if frozen to earth, in the front courtyard of the Big House. Nobody moved, nothing moved, only Kossil, in all the vast landscape of court and temple, hill and desert plain and mountain.
"May the Dark Ones eat your soul, Kossil!" she shouted in a voice like a hawk's scream, and lifting her arm with the hand stretched out stiff, she brought the curse down on the priestess' heavy back, even as she set foot on the steps of her temple. Kossil staggered, but did not stop or turn. She went on, and entered the Godking's door.
Arha spent that day sitting on the lowest step of the Empty Throne. She dared not go into the Labyrinth30; she would not go among the other priestesses. A heaviness filled her, and held her there hour after hour in the cold dusk of the great hall. She stared at the pairs of thick pale columns going off into the gloom at the distant end of the hall, and at the shafts31 of daylight that slanted33 in from holes in the roof, and at the thick-curling smoke from the bronze tripod of charcoal34 near the Throne. She made patterns with the little bones of mice on the marble stair, her head bowed, her mind active and yet as if stupefied. Who am I? she asked herself, and got no answer.
Manan came shuffling35 down the hall between the double rows of columns, when the light had long since ceased to shaft32 the hall's darkness, and the cold had grown intense. Manan's doughy36 face was very sad. He stood at a distance from her, his big hands hanging; a torn hem8 of his rusty37 cloak dangled38 by his heel.
"Little mistress."
"What is it, Manan?" She looked at him with dull affection.
"Little one, let me do what you said... what you said was done. He must die, little one. He has bewitched you. She will have revenge. She is old and cruel, and you are too young. You have not strength enough."
"She can't hurt me."
"If she killed you, even in the sight of all, in the open, there is none in all the Empire who would dare punish her. She is the High Priestess of the Godking, and the Godking rules. But she won't kill you in the open. She will do it by stealth, by poison, in the night."
"Then I will be born again."
Manan twisted his big hands together. "Perhaps she will not kill you," he whispered.
"What do you mean?"
"She could lock you into a room in the... down there... As you have done with him. And you would be alive for years and years, maybe. For years... And no new Priestess would be born, for you wouldn't be dead. Yet there would be no Priestess of the Tombs, and the dances of the dark of the moon would not be danced, and the sacrifices would not be made, and the blood not poured out, and the worship of the Dark Ones could be forgotten, forever. She and her Lord would like it to be so."
"_They_ would set me free, Manan."
"Not while they are wrathful at you, little mistress," Manan whispered.
"Wrathful?"
"Because of him... The sacrilege not paid for. Oh little one, little one! They do not forgive!"
She sat in the dust of the lowest step, her head bowed. She looked at a tiny thing that she held on her palm, the minute skull39 of a mouse. The owls40 in the rafters over the Throne stirred a little; it was darkening towards night.
"Do not go down into the Labyrinth tonight," Manan said very low. "Go to your house, and sleep. In the morning go to Kossil, and tell her that you lift the curse from her. And that will be all. You need not worry. I will show her proof."
"Proof?"
"That the sorcerer is dead."
She sat still. Slowly she closed her hand, and the fragile skull cracked and collapsed41. When she opened her hand it held nothing but splinters of bone and dust.
"No," she said. She brushed the dust from her palm.
"He must die. He has put a spell on you. You are lost, Arha!"
"He has not put any spell on me. You're old and cowardly, Manan; you're frightened by old women. How do you think you'd come to him and kill him and get your `proof'? Do you know the way clear to the Great Treasure, that you followed in the dark last night? Can you count the turnings and come to the steps, and then the pit, and then the door? Can you unlock that door?... Oh, poor old Manan, your wits are all thick. She has frightened you. You go down to the Small House now, and sleep, and forget all these things. Don't worry me forever with talk of death... I'll come later. Go on, go on, old fool, old lump." She had risen, and gently pushed Manan's broad chest, patting him and pushing him to go. "Good night, good night!"
He turned, heavy with reluctance42 and foreboding, but obedient, and trudged43 down the long hall under the columns and the ruined roof. She watched him go.
When he had been gone some while she turned and went around the dais of the Throne, and vanished into the dark behind it.
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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cistern
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| n.贮水池 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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fleck
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| n.斑点，微粒 vt.使有斑点，使成斑驳 | |
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hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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veered
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| v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的过去式和过去分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转 | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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abstain
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| v.自制，戒绝，弃权，避免 | |
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feign
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| vt.假装，佯作 | |
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coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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appeasing
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的现在分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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risky
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| adj.有风险的，冒险的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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enthralled
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| 迷住，吸引住( enthrall的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到非常愉快 | |
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labyrinth
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| n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路 | |
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shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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slanted
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| 有偏见的； 倾斜的 | |
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charcoal
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| n.炭，木炭，生物炭 | |
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shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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doughy
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| adj.面团的，苍白的，半熟的；软弱无力 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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owls
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| n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 ) | |
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collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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