Eilan was aware enough to hang back for a moment when she saw the three-legged stool. There had been some reason why she should not sit there; some sin upon her soul. But her attendants drew her forward, and she thought that if she could not remember it, perhaps it made no difference.
They had sacrificed the sacred bull already and shared its meat among the people. The priests had played out the ritual in which the young god wrested the harvest from the old. Now it was time to seek omens for the autumntide. In the east the harvest moon was rising, golden as the ornaments that her Priestess wore.
Look down on me, Lady, Eilan fought to form the prayer. Ward me well!
One of the attendant priestesses had placed in her hand the little curved golden dagger of ritual. She raised the dagger, and with one swift movement plunged it into her fingertip. She felt a sharp pain, and one heavy drop of blood gleamed on the surface; she held it over the golden bowl, letting three drops of blood fall. The bowl was filled to the brim with water from the Sacred Well, and floating on the surface were leaves of the sacred plant, the mistletoe. Planted by no human hand, and growing between air and earth, it partook of the very nature of the lightning which had engendered it.
Now they were turning her; she felt the hard wood against the backs of her knees and sat down. There was a moment of dizziness as the priests lifted her and carried her to the mound. The attendant priestesses had drawn back.
As the priests began to sing Eilan felt as if she were falling, or perhaps rising, borne away by the song in some direction that had no relation to ordinary reality. She wondered why she had been afraid. In this place she floated; needing and wanting nothing, content simply to be…
A blaze of torches assaulted her eyes; below her all the assembled crowd seemed to blur into a single face. Their eyes, upon her were like a weight, a positive physical pressure drawing her back to a place that was in, and yet not of, the world.
“Children of Don, why have you come here?” Ardanos’s voice seemed very far away.
“We seek the blessing of the Goddess,” a male voice replied.
“Then call Her!”
Eilan’s nostrils flared as smoke swirled around her, heavy with the scent of sacred herbs. Involuntarily she breathed in and her breath caught; the world whirled and she fought for balance; she heard a voice whimpering and did not know it was her own. From below rose the sound of many other voices, calling, calling:
Dark Huntress…Bright Mother…Lady of Flowers, hear us…Come to us, Lady of the Silver Wheel…
I am Eilan…Eilan… She clung to her own identity, crying out as the need in those voices assaulted her until she felt their pressure as a physical pain. At the same time, another pressure was building up behind her, or perhaps within her, demanding that she let it in. Spasms shook her body as she fought; she felt terror as the Self that she knew was constricted between them; she could not breathe. Help me! her spirit cried.
She slumped forward, seeing the glimmer of water before her, and a voice that seemed to come from within her said then:
“Daughter, I am always here. To see Me, you have only to gaze into the Sacred Pool.”
“Look into the water, Lady—” a voice that was very near commanded. “Look into the bowl, and see!”
An image was forming in the troubled surface of the water, but as it cleared Eilan saw that the face reflected there was not her own. She jerked back in panic, and heard the voice once more.
“My daughter, rest now. Your spirit will be safe with Me…”
With the words came a tide of love that Eilan remembered, and with the same trust with which she had given herself to Gaius she sighed and slid away into the warm comfort of the Lady’s arms.
As if from a great distance, she was aware that her body was straightening, she was putting back her veil, lifting her hands to the moon.