8400, Age of Creation, Early Spring
"He who rejects the gifts that the Lord of Sunlight gives him must ever wander in loneliness and aching of heart."
-Alalori Proverb.
A rustle of paper. Then Andra Lightweaver laid the sheaf of poems on the table and gazed directly at the High Priestess of Ava-Sunriver.
"I can see why you brought this to me," he said. "Do you think that it would help if you spoke to him?"
"I have. He won't listen."
Andra shook his head in silent fascination. The High Priestess was a tall, stately woman, with golden skin brightly marked with pink and blue, the rarest of the dawn-signs, and brilliant golden eyes, and long blond hair that hung to the middle of her back. In cases where her authority wasn't enough to intimidate someone, then her beauty would be, or else the aura that hung about her, the pure and serene look of someone clearly marked by the favor of the Dawn Lord. That someone so young could resist her was very strange, and Andra couldn't help wondering just how remarkable this young sacrilegious poet must be.
"Would it help if I spoke to him?"
"Yes, it would." The High Priestess took the offer so gratefully that Andra knew she must have come here in the first place to ask him just that. "All know the remarkable tale of your near-fall and your redemption. Yes, I think it would help if he heard your story, and realized how near he is to the fall himself. The poetry that he writes is sacrilegious?" she added, as though she had suddenly realized that she might be mistaken.
Andra looked back at the poetry on his desk and shook his head a little.
"It isn't?"
Andra started and looked up. "No, my lady, I was not disagreeing with you," he said. "I was only wondering just what kind of fall this young man is setting himself up for. His poetry is trained and bursting with gifts that he could put to good use in praising the Dawn Lord. Someone as skilled as he is cannot possibly not realize what he's doing. He's writing this blasphemy with full knowledge of his crime, and his eventual fate. I was acting mostly out of ignorance. I think that we shall have a hard time in converting him."
The High Priestess drew in her breath in distress. "We should go at once," she said. "If there is a chance that Ligal could yet be saved, or could tip headlong down the descent tomorrow-" She stood, her long golden robes rustling about her.
"I think it would be best if we approached him carefully," said Andra patiently. "I think that he's writing this poetry with the intent of attracting attention. If we come down on him like a thunderstorm, that would only confirm to him that he can manipulate us. No, I think that I would rather you arrange for a visit of mine to the Temple, and when I come, then I can seek him out and talk with him. He wouldn't miss a chance to hear my reading, would he?'
"No," said the High Priestess, relaxing a little. "He knows your poetry, and speaks of it often."
"Good. Shall I visit in, say, two dances? He's young, and nothing should happen to him before then," he added, seeing the High Priestess start to tense again. "At least, you said that he was young."
"Yes. Less than a thousand years old."
Andra nodded. "Then I will visit in two dances. That should be safe enough. And it will give me time to read more of his work, so that I will be prepared when I meet with him."
The High Priestess bowed her head, then turned and glided out of the room.
Andra turned back to the first of Ligal's poems and picked it up, shaking his head and chuckling a little as the precisely placed Liebi words shone in his mind.
I embraced she whom I loved and adored, And told her that we could not come together as she wished. When she asked if it was because of my dedication to the Lord, I told her, 'Of course not; what is love of a god before mortal love?' And she turned from me, spurned me for dedication to the God, And now she is like melting snow, and I am a flower in the spring.
Andra shook his head and put the poem down. It was impossible that the young man didn't know what he was doing. Andra just hoped that his own, gentle intervention could help, so that there wouldn't be harsher measures, later, to save Ligal.
Ligal wouldn't like the harsher measures. Andra didn't like them himself. He knew they were necessary to save lives, but he still didn't like them.
*****
"Ligal?"
Ligal turned around, a smile on his lips. He knew the voice, and he looked forward to another friendly struggle with her, if she had come to persuade him to stop writing his blasphemous poetry.
The High Priestess did speak to him, but she didn't say much, just telling him that Andra Lightweaver was coming to the Temple of Ava-Sunriver, and advising him to attend. Ligal eyed her back as she walked away, and wondered what the smug tone in her voice was for.
Ah. Of course. She must think that Andra Lightweaver's story would in some way be an example to him. Perhaps she was even bringing the great Lord's Poet to the Temple specifically to admonish Ligal.
Ligal laughed aloud and ran lightly up the steps to his room. He had a chamber in the highest part of the Temple, valuing the solitude and the sight of the clouds blowing by more than he hated the long climb, and now he flung himself down to write in a sunshaft that had wandered down through the open window.
He had to have a new poem ready by the time the Lord's Poet arrived. He would curse himself forever if he didn't.
*****
Andra rode through the gates of the Temple, nodding to the cheers and shouts of those about him as they would expect, though really his eyes were moving everywhere, shunning even the wonders of the Temple as he looked for some sign of the young poet whose headlong tumble he had come to stop.
Nothing, of course. Andra snorted lightly. Of course not. He wouldn't pick Ligal out of a crowd just by looking at him, and it was romantic folly to think he would. Blasphemy could hide itself behind a golden face that looked like a thousand others, or was even fairer than they were. He had known that, and when he had still been a young scapegrace, he had had reason to be grateful for it.
"This way, my lord."
Andra nodded to the High Priestess and followed her into the immense first room of the Temple- immense even though it was just an antechamber. The alalori knew that their Lord Sarastaa loved the heights, and so the ceiling soared into the sky, gleaming and shining. It was made of firegold, the stone that among all others came nearest to the pure ecstasy of flame in its color, and filled with glass windows that shed light in shimmering patterns on the floor and table in the center, where guests might be made welcome and given fruit juice and clear water to drink. Andra took the silver cup that awaited him with a nod of thanks, and looked to the High Priestess.
"Will he be there?" he asked.
"He will be," said the High Priestess, and she looked more relaxed than she had since she had come to his office twenty days ago, sipping at fruit juice without the agitated tremble that she had shown when Andra offered her his own hospitality. "I know him. In fact- yes, that is him! There he goes!"
Andra quickly exercised his own peace aura to keep her from pointing, and darted his glance around. He caught a quick glimpse of a young man entering the chapel, his long blond hair caught up behind him in a braid.
"He was carrying something," said the High Priestess in a distracted manner. "What was he carrying?"
"I doubt it matters," said Andra, and allowed a faint smile to curve his lips as he sipped at the apple juice again. "I will show him something today that will make him forget about whatever joke it is that he's likely to play. I will show him how to serve the glory of the Lord."
*****
Ligal took his place near the back of the chapel, far back from the golden altar that was decorated with lamps in honor of the Lord's Poet, even though it was still the middle of the day and the light poured through the windows with burning intensity. He looked around, making sure that no one who knew him was within a few arms' sweep. He didn't someone to try and restrain him. His friends greatly admired his daring in writing and handing out what he did, but they would want to hold him back if they knew what he was doing. Running glorious risks was one thing; getting caught in public was another.
Ligal didn't know how to make them understand that he was doing what he had to, what he wanted to do, and not just doing this for the sake of blasphemy, or the expressions on the faces of the crowd- though the Lord knew, there was some of that in it too.
Abruptly the murmuring all around him swelled, and he turned to see the Lord's Poet step through the door.
Ligal nodded. Andra Lightweaver looked as he had envisioned, slender but tall, with all the dignity of his position beating around him in a visible aura that rivaled the High Priestess's for power. He smiled and nodded at those he passed, but his violet eyes remained fixed forward, on the altar. His hair was a pale color, burnt rose, and though it could have shone against his dark golden skin with just a little encouragement, Ligal thought that he never took such pains with his appearance. After all, that would distract attention from Sarastaa to himself, and Ligal was almost sure that Andra didn't want them to happen.
"He is a glass," murmured Ligal, remembering a line from one of Andra's poems that he had read. "And through that glass the fire of the Lord shines when it will."
Ligal had to smile as he finished speaking the lines. It was so different from the way that he thought of himself, and his own poetic gift.
Andra mounted the altar, and swept the crowd with a quelling gaze. The murmurs would have died away without that, though; they had begun to die the moment that Andra passed the middle of the room. Everyone was anxious to please this man, who was said to like silence when he spoke, and not to miss a word he said.
At last, Andra spoke, and his first words were not the greeting that someone else might have said, but an injunction.
"Never forget the Lord of Dawn, the Lord of Brightness and Beginnings, for He is the source of all that we do," he said, his accent falling in odd places. Ligal smiled even more broadly. It should be quite a treat to hear him speak. "He is the one who gives us the breath that fills our lungs, and makes our lives sweet as long as we serve Him. Make no mistake. If your hearts do not burn with longing for the good, if you do not draw every breath in happiness, if you do not look on the sun as anything more wondrous than another star in the sky, then your heart has not turned to Him."
Ligal didn't bow his head with all the rest, but smiled back at the Lord's Poet. Yes, he might well say that, being who and what he was. Ligal wondered if Andra would think it an acceptable excuse that he, Ligal, was who and what he was, but didn't hope for it.
No, they would meet, flying above the ground like dragons, and even if it was not battle, which the Laws of Sarastaa forbade, then it would at least be a conflict.
Andra began to speak, and his voice rose and fell with surprising force. Even knowing who and what he was, Ligal thought, no one expected that powerful a voice to come forth from a man so slight.
"Thou art the source of all that we are and do, Lord Sarastaa, Lord of the Dawn! Our souls are full of a magnificent hue Do we but turn and look where Thou hast gone, Passing like a streak, a comet of burning flame, And ever do our voices rise and sing praise to Thy name!"But if we turn and gaze into Thy lowered face, The hands that are held out to help us ascend, Then we must nearly faint from the blast of savage grace, And the love that leaps upon us must our hearts rend, Just as we think our lesser loves will- our love of fame, Our love of mortal love, is as nothing before Thy name!
"Rend us, my Lord; cast out everything unworthy of Thee, Purify us, render us, pass us through Thy cleansing Light. Flame and light as separate entities and domains we see, But only because we have not joined Thee on the heart's height, Only because we have not learned the secret of the bright flame: That even the devouring Fire sings praises to Thy holy name! "Oh, Sarastaa, hear my prayer, as the prayer of a lover lifted To Thee, to ask Thy favor, the slightest glimpse of Thy face; From Thine hand I have with the gift of words been gifted, And that Thou art behind my words is all I shall know of grace. Oh, my Lord, come to me, set upon me like the devouring Flame, And teach me ever to honor and sing praises to Thy name!"
Ligal smiled as the man finished speaking and bowed his head, to enjoy the perfect silence of the chapel. This was his moment, and by happy coincidence- or the Lord's favor, he thought whimsically- Ligal had written his poem in the same form that the Lord's Poet had written his.
Actually, it hadn't been that difficult. Andra used the same form for almost everything that he wrote.
Ligal sprang up, jumping up and down and uttering the sweet, ecstatic call that was sometimes uttered by those overcome by the rapture of the Lord's worship. Andra turned his head with a gentle smile. Ligal didn't think the Lord's Poet recognized him; instead, he thought it was that Andra expected such things to happen after he had recited one of his poems.
Ligal fought his way forward, doubly glad that he had chosen to stand where he had. He wasn't immediately visible to the High Priestess, who stood on the opposite end of the altar, on the other side of Andra. And so she couldn't stop him from leaping onto the altar, turning to face the audience, and beginning to declaim. Ligal had brought the draft of his poem in case he needed it, but he didn't think he would. His own words were roaring along in his blood, igniting his brain.
"When I woke this morning, the sun was on the pane, And his light was more beautiful than the starlight That flashes in the night and with morn is gone again. I lay there, and my mind went roaming in the bright Shafts that fell upon me, and came calling to my heart. I lifted from my body, and in spirit roamed apart."Beneath me I could hear the market-goers calling, Bespeaking their wares with sharp impatient tongue, And I could hear the clanging bells behind me falling, The bells that call us to worship while the light is young. I rode the light, and so I rode as on a horse about the town, And the experience was as if I were the God himself looking down.
"I could see the children playing at a'lo with stick and stone, And each of them keeping on each other a greedy jealous eye That the best toy might come to be theirs alone, And sometimes swiping someone else's plaything on the sly, And then they would run about town in a mad and merry chase, And sometimes would forgive each other, and turn it into a race.
"I saw a priestess of the Temple shaking her long red hair, Braided with a dozen tiny sweet-tongued silver bells, Pretending not to notice that a young acolyte found her fair, Or that she was sending his soul to burn in the starhells With each moment that she pretended his feelings to ignore When she was perfectly aware that he looked but to adore.
"I saw a young man refusing the advances of a woman fond Who did not see that he was not worthy of her time or love. She watched him walk away, and in a slough of despond Turned away from comfort of the comfortless God above, And went to drown her sorrows in soulful food and wine, For to her the morning was no longer golden or fine.
"I saw a land Elwen practicing in the square with a sword That shone and flashed before the startled eyes of a child. The paleskin gave no heed to the bells singing for the Lord, But made movements as sweet and sharp as they were wild, Showing the child that there is some glory even in the war-dance, Something he would never have known if not for this slight chance.
"I saw a horse being beaten by its impatient master, Stamping and snorting, shying away from the blows and whip, Until someone behind him who wanted to go even faster Reached up, and tore away the weapon, and skin in a strip That came with it from the impatient rider's hand. The horse took off, running away like a brushfire fanned.
"I slid through the glass of a tavern, and there saw a bard Who was playing, lost in an intenser world of his own, Head bowed as though the melody he was composing were hard, Though his fingers flashed so that the harp-strings shone Like lightning striking through clouds, like stars beyond a storm. The air all around him with glory released was warm.
"And then I returned and woke in my bed, blinking my eyes, Wondering if that world beyond had been there all the time, Lying outside the Temple in the glory of each sunrise, And I had not known, with my narrow world in a sunny clime. I rose and went down, determined this new world to explore, And almost damning the prayer-summons I could not ignore."
Ligal opened his eyes- in his mind, he had gone riding on the sunlight again- and saw the Lord's Poet advancing towards him, his mouth set.
Well, this was the confrontation he had wanted.
Ligal set himself lightly on the balls of his feet, as though he were facing the land Elwen sword-dancer who had taught him so much, and waited.
*****
Andra could not recall being quite so close to the Lord's Fire before as he was when he strode the length of the altar to confront the impudent young acolyte. And Ligal stood there, smiling, and watched him come.
This was not a private room where they might have been able to come to terms, where Andra could have explained to Ligal the beautiful summons from the Lord's burning glass that had changed his life, and could have seen the dawnlight breaking on the young man's face, followed by repentant tears. This was open, where Ligal had thrown his blasphemy in Andra's face like broken glass, and where Andra had no choice but to respond as the Lord's Poet.
"How dare you."
The measured words made many in the crowd flinch and bow their heads. Ligal only looked at him with blue eyes that flashed a great deal of impudence, and waited.
"Answer me," said Andra.
"How dare I what?" Ligal's voice had a deep music to it, a music that Andra had noticed while he recited that damned poem, and which made his recitation all the more effective. "Use my gift the way it was meant to be used? The same way that you use your gift the way it was meant to be used. We only do as we have to do, my lord, as the strange things in our minds would have us do. We cannot do any other way."
"The strange thing in your mind," said Andra. "That is the apt way to name your curse. But my inspiration comes from the Lord, and I will not hear him mocked so. Unless you mean to tell me that you do not honor the Lord Sarastaa?"
"I honor him," said Ligal, quickly, even gleefully. Andra realized that the young heretic had wanted to be asked that question. "I come to the services, and I offer prayers to him, and I study his doctrines, and I give him credit for the preservation of our race. But I refuse to give him any credit where he has none, and he has none in the production of my poetry."
"He gave you that gift," said Andra. "And you use it only for dishonor, as you might cast a glass of good wine back in the face of your host because its vintage displeased you."
"No," said Ligal. "You understand me not, my lord. I don't know where this thing in my mind came from, but it is not his. I have felt the Lord's presence when I pray, and I even understand the sameness of Light and Flame that you speak of. But the fire that animates me when I create my poetry comes from another source."
"An evil one."
Ligal shook his head. "A different one," he said.
"Your poetry mocks the Lord."
"Not all the time."
"Often enough." Andra could feel himself shaking. It was part of the position that he held to punish those who used the arts to mock Sarastaa's name, but he had never done it before. He had never thought he would. Yet now the power trembled just behind his lips. "Repent now, or I will speak the words that take your gift from you."
Ligal laughed at him.
The crowd gasped and trembled as that deep laughter flowed forth, and Andra was glad of that. At least he could know that no others would follow Ligal down the terrible, stony path to blasphemy. He reached out with the power that had been conferred upon him when they laid the mantle of the Lord's Poet on his shoulders, and he grasped the shining light of the gift that lay in Ligal's mind, and he tried to pull it from his mind.
But the gift slipped through his fingers, exactly like the light it resembled- just like the light for which Ligal was named- and then turned and hovered around Ligal's shoulders in a burning mantle of glory. Andra had to squint through it, though he knew the radiance was visible to no one else there.
Almost he thought a golden dragon spread its wings around Ligal's head, snarled at him, and then settled back, tail wrapped firmly around the younger man's neck, before it melted into light again and ran back into Ligal's body. Ligal continued to smile at me.
"I told you," he said. "Whatever lives in me, it did not come as a gift from the God. You have no power over me."
Andra staggered as his own turned power came slamming back into him. For a moment, he thought the Lord might actually rip his own gift free, and he bowed his head, waiting for that to happen. But the power only shuddered a little, and then settled back into him in an echo of the way that Ligal's gift had done with him. As long as he was humble, the Lord would not revoke His blessing.
At last, Andra looked up, and the dominant emotion in the blue eyes of his adversary was pity.
"The Lord is truly the source of your gift," said Ligal, "and I am sorry for it."
*****
Ligal watched the Lord's Poet as he rode from the Temple later that day. Though no one else would perhaps have noticed it, the slump of Andra's shoulder bespoke his defeat to Ligal's eyes.
"I am sorry that it had to be this way," said Ligal.
"Ligal."
He turned. The High Priestess of Ava-Sunriver stood behind him, and she flinched a little when his eyes fell upon her.
"I will understand if you wish to leave the Temple," she said. "After all, whatever it is that lives in your mind is driving you to serve a different master."
Ligal laughed again, and this time she flinched even more, seeming to hide in her robe.
"I serve no different master," he said. "I shall stay here and become a priest, if I want to. And the gift that lives in me perhaps shall become bored and fade, or start driving me to write hymns. I do have a few hymns prepared. Would you like to hear them?"
"By the Lord's Light, no!"
Ligal laughed again and ran up the steps to his room, from which he could watch as Andra's horse made its beaten way north, to the city gates.
"I am sorry that you could not accomplish what you wanted with me, my lord," he whispered, though there was of course no chance that Andra could hear him. "But you may have taken a lesson to heart that will serve you well someday. And if it gives you back enough self-possession that you don't need to cower before him whom you name your Lord, then I will be glad."
It was just his imagination, he knew, but Andra's shoulders did seem to lift a little.
Ligal stared, wondering if, perhaps...
Then he laughed, and cast himself on his bed, and reached for quill and parchment. He had a new idea that he wanted to record, and the words flowed through his mind on the wings of dragons, striking as hard as living flame and as clear as light.
