Part 12 (2/2)
Observing the exchange, Derek turned hastily to his cousin. ”Who is she?” he asked, an eagerness betokening great admiration.
Silence was his answer.
”Deacon? ...Deacon, who is she?” Derek repeated, rather breathless. ”Who are they?” He turned to Cade, finding no response from the other.
Cade took a moment to answer. ”Dark priestesses, servants of death.” His voice was low and scornful.
”Priestesses?” Derek repeated, excitedly.
”Only in your dreams have you seen such beauty,” said Cade with a peculiar mixture of admiration and abhorrence.
Derek's persistent questioning broke the spell on Deacon. Coming to a sense of himself, he cast down his eyes. After a brief time he again looked up, but she had since turned her face and did not cast a single glance backwards. Down by the water's edge the priestesses waited with a reverence so still and silent that the night itself seemed to withhold its gentle breathing. The absence of sound about them was uncanny, not quickly forgotten. They were not left to stand here long before what they waited for made its presence known. A lonely boat, gliding through the black water, came toward the sh.o.r.e with secret purpose.
As the priestesses waited, their young admirers were straining their eyes to make out the features which the veils obscured. They each possessed a cryptic, evanescent beauty and a sombre grace that was more effective than beauty itself, an unnatural stillness in their bearing. Cedrik stared as long as politeness would permit, while Derek was shamelessly obvious in his interest.
”What do you suppose they do over there?” he asked.
”Unholy things,” answered Cade. ”Few that I know ever go there to wors.h.i.+p.”
”I think I might go and wors.h.i.+p,” said Derek.
Cedrik almost laughed. ”Since when do you pay homage?”
”I think now might be the time to start.”
”I wouldn't,” said Cade. ”Sometimes the men who do go over, don't come back.”
”Because they can't, or because they don't want to?” asked Derek. He couldn't help but notice the gowns the priestesses wore were more clinging and attractive than solemn wors.h.i.+ppers would usually wear.
”They belong to a black form of wors.h.i.+p,” said Cade. ”Some say they offer sacrifices.”
”Animal sacrifices?” asked Derek, scrunching up his face in disgust.
”Human.”
”Mustn't be,” said Cedrik, as if correcting him. ”Any living sacrificial offering is illegal.”
”I'm only telling you what I've heard,” said Cade. ”In any case they're ill news. It's best to steer clear from them entirely.”
”Why?” asked Derek, not convinced that the loveliness he saw before him could be as treacherous as proposed.
”Because they are evil,” said Cade. ”They aim to destroy you for the sheer pleasure of it. Take my word for it, those women will rip your heart clean out of your chest, then leave you to bleed to death like a whimpering little wretch. Why do you think no one goes into those d.a.m.ned woods!”
”Except you and your trouble-making friends,” Cedrik said.
Cade laughed. ”Well, can't hide behind our mother's skirts forever, can we?”
Cade had cast such a cloak of mystery about the priestesses that Derek craved to uncover it. His curiosity tortured him to such a degree that he could scarcely resist going and speaking to one of them. Nevertheless, he restrained himself. ”They're a little frightening,” he said, quietly.
”Isn't that what I have just been telling you, d.a.m.n it!” said Cade, frustrated.
”I have no doubt they're a great deal superior to you lot,” said Derek, wanting to go over.
”That fact alone hardly proves them saints,” said Cade. ”They have robbed men I thought impervious, of their senses. I had a friend who I once respected a good deal. It was pitiable to see the state he was reduced to when he became infatuated with one of those creatures. She played with his mind and tortured the poor beggar till he was senseless, out of his mind.”
”Where is your friend now?” asked Cedrik.
”He left several years ago. He sort of went mad. I haven't heard from him since. Take my word for it, it always ends badly. In any case, they're forbidden to the likes of us. Their order has taken the path of chast.i.ty. They're bound to certain peculiar vows. Not that it matters to me. I would sooner bed the mage.” He said this with shuddering disgust, looking over at Deacon, but he seemed little conscious of anything outside of her.
On its arrival the priestesses boarded the boat. Night-mist obscured the hems of their dark gowns which trailed behind them with haunting smoothness. Deacon stood tensely, watching with evident interest.
”I'm glad to see their witchery holds no power over you,” said Cade, his voice becoming dry and sarcastic. ”And after everything I've just told you.”
Deacon turned his eyes slowly upon him and said in a tone of remonstrance, ”I prefer to form my own opinion, based on my own observations.”
”What observations!” exclaimed Cade. ”That was a rare thing you just beheld. They never come out of that torture fortress, and they're as likely to poison you as they are to speak to you!”
As if not hearing what he had said, Deacon fixed his attention on the lonely boat, bearing the priestess toward the isle.
”It always ends badly.” Cade shook his head. ”Love her from a distance if you must, but don't touch.”
Chapter22.
Temple -hat night in his bed Deacon lay awake, his mind charged with thoughts of the dark priestess. It seemed the whole world was asleep but him, but far across the black water, within that terrible structure, the priestess who consumed all his thoughts was awake in her own bed.
Lying motionless, black hair unbound, Magenta gazed upward through the darkness. In her vast loneliness she was repressed and unreachable. Her entire being quivered with anguish. She was like a flower cast in darkness for too long, wilting for want of light and love of the sun. All her days were spent in concealment, forced to preserve a faith she abhorred. Like a blossom trying to bloom in deep shadow, she struggled against the life-denying principles by which they lived. Her imposed faith was a cruel form of martyrdom, devoid of truth and validity.
There was a deficiency of light in the chamber, as in all the chambers of the temple. Always she bolted her door. Strange inhuman things walked the corridors by night when all was still and lurked in the shadows by day. Sometimes she would hear them scratching and brus.h.i.+ng against the door, applying pressure as if they sought entry. Not even within her own chamber did she feel safe; the trapped night groaned with life, the darkness seeming a thing unto itself, alive and breathing. She could feel it pressing against her as though conscious, with its own awareness-possessive, malevolent, purposeful in its intent to get inside her.
”It is a frightful thing to permit a girl to grow up without knowledge of the G.o.ddess and the sacred principles which should be infixed in her conscience, if happiness is to be secured beyond death.” Those were the words uttered by the high priestess the day Magenta's father placed her in the maternal hands of the detestable woman. In giving her life, Magenta's mother had lost her own. The high priestess was the only semblance of a mother she had ever known, which was an unfortunate thing.
The woman was base and cruel, concealing her black nature behind righteousness and cold-hearted charity. This life was all about endurance and suffering. Then, when she had proved herself worthy, she would be taken into the dark comforting bosom of death.
There was a strange sanctification in death. The afterlife, the high priestess felt, would belong to her. She would be a G.o.ddess, and in bringing others with her, dark glories would be hers. This was her belief, fortifying her faith immovably with immutable ritual, preserving it, hardening it against every corrosive threat, extinguis.h.i.+ng the light of free-thinking among her priestesses and the flame of individuality as one might smother a fire.
Although they were to devote themselves to reflection and study, it was to be within the confines of the dark-orders methods, an imitation of individual thought. Their studies were intended not for enlightenment, but for solid immovable instruction. They were not to be free, but wholly under the high priestess's dominion.
The existence of a dark priestess was cruel and utterly subservient. Yet they were told not to be afraid; fear is faithlessness.
”Sorrow and affliction afford us an opportunity for growth,” she would say with careful certainty, before inflicting some inhuman method to ensure obedience and submission to her authority and thus deepen the impression she was supreme.
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