And the high priestess stopped.
She stared into the space beyond the acolyte’s head, perhaps into the darkness of the chamber beyond. What she saw, no one watching could discern. Was it the sword, standing cold in its black stone? Did something else unseen amid those shadows stay her killing hand?
However it was, the high priestess withdrew, her mouth open and her eyes wide. Then she shook herself and spoke in a voice as crackled as an old woman’s.
“What’s this, little Mouse? Will you betray me for a stranger?”
The words cut Mouse to the heart. She bowed her head, ashamed, horrified. But she did not move.
The high priestess turned away. Slowly, unsteady on her feet, she passed through the throng, drawing her blindfold down over her face as she went. Tears dampened the dark fabric, but no one could see them.
The Silent Lady touched Mouse’s shoulder. Catching her breath, the girl turned to look into those solemn eyes that were so dreadfully familiar. The stranger gave her a look of gratitude and also some sort of mysterious understanding.
The high priestess’s voice came through the shadows. “I must consult the goddess,” she said. “I must bring her word of what has transpired and learn her will. Let a guard be set over this doorway, and see that the prisoner is locked away.”
She put out a hand then, searching for a strong arm on which to lean, a strong form to guide her through the Diggings. But Stoneye was not there.
Another eunuch hastened to her side, offering himself. She refused to acknowledge him. Instead, she removed the blindfold from her face and, open to the darkness around her, made her way up the long passage. Over her shoulder she called, “Bring the bodies of the slain!”
She spared not another backward glance. She was Speaker for the Flame; she would not mourn.
The world was swiftly falling into twilight when the procession emerged through the crack in the stone and climbed back up to the temple itself. The Silent Lady was dragged beyond Mouse’s sight, away to the dungeons. Mouse wanted to follow, but her mistress spoke a sharp command, and she dared not disobey. She tailed behind the high priestess up to her chambers and there helped her prepare to stand before the goddess.
“I must tell her what has happened,” the Speaker said, talking to herself, unaware, it seemed, of Mouse’s presence. “She will know what to do. And then we can kill that wretch.”
Mouse’s blood ran cold. Kill the Silent Lady? She stared at the Speaker’s face, and she saw murder there. Murder and vengeance.
The Speaker turned to Mouse suddenly, eyes flashing. “What?” she demanded. “Are you going to defend her again? Will you demonstrate your disloyalty even now?”
Mouse couldn’t breathe. But the high priestess said no more. Mouse finished the usual preparations, and the Speaker, gorgeous in her ritual garb, left the room, making for the Spire and the presence of the Flame.
For several long heartbeats, Mouse stood alone in her mistress’s chambers.
And the Silent Lady was imprisoned below.
No one noticed Mouse as she hastened down from the Speaker’s chambers, along the quiet halls. She was a mouse; she was a shadow. She was as insignificant as a passing fancy. So she made her way down the steps of the tower, down and down farther still until she reached the dungeons themselves. Even here the guards paid her no heed, and she entered that stifling gloom unimpeded. Mouse snatched a torch from its holder and plunged down the passage dug beneath the lower temple grounds. After the darkness of the Diggings, the dungeons held no horrors for her. She ran lightly, her sandaled feet slapping on the cold stone.
“Who’s there?” came a voice from a not-too-distant cell. “Who’s there with that light?”
“It’s . . . it’s me.” Mouse hurried toward that voice, then knelt down, looking through a stone grate.
In a tiny crawl space where she could neither stand nor sit upright, huddled the prophetess. She peered up through the grate, and Mouse saw her eyes glitter in the torchlight. One hand reached out and grabbed the stone barrier. “I hoped you would come,” she said.
Now that she was here, Mouse hardly knew what to say or do. It was all too strange and terrible! “You are the Silent Lady,” she whispered. “Please, tell me you are.”
But the prisoner shook her head. “I cannot tell you what I do not know. Who is this Silent Lady?”
“The harbinger of our freedom,” Mouse answered as she had been taught. “The forerunner of the Flame.”
The prisoner’s face was earnest but not frightened in the torchlight. “Tell me what she did,” she said. “Why do you revere her so?”
“She killed the Wolf Lord,” said Mouse.