Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [9]
Feena picked up the lighter circlet and settled it over the high priestess's hair. Dhauna looked at herself in the mirror that hung over the table.
"Good enough."
"Why did you call me here, Mother Dhauna?" asked Feena. "What's wrong?"
In the mirror, Dhauna's eyes shifted to look at her. "Selune has been sending me dreams, Feena." She looked at the mirror again. "Though it seems that the Moon-maiden measures her sendings by the strength of my faith rather than the strength of my body."
Feena knelt beside the wizened priestess's chair. "What are these dreams?"
"Warnings," Dhauna said as she wrapped her hand around Feena's. "Impending danger-great danger-from within the faith, I think. Possibly even from within Moonshadow Hall." She smiled at Feena's look of alarm. "Or so I have come to believe. The wisdom of gods is a mystery to mortals. I'm still searching for the deeper meaning of the dreams."
"The books in your sitting room," said Feena.
Dhauna nodded and said, "Guidance from those who came before us. The books come from the archives. I have even more spread out there. I don't believe I've read so much in my entire life."
"What have you found?"
"Nothing yet. Scraps. Clues." She released Feena's hand and brushed fingers through Feena's hair. Feena could smell old parchment and fresh ink on them. "Julith helps me. I couldn't hide the dreams from her for long. But if;he danger is within Moonshadow Hall, I need help from lomeone outside the hall. Someone I can trust. Someone vho isn't afraid of controversy."
Feena closed her eyes and said, "I should have come looner."
"It would have been better if you had," said Dhauna. Will you help me?" "Yes."
"Thank you." Dhauna's hand rested briefly on Feena's lead in a blessing gesture-then the high priestess ighed and struggled to sit upright. "Though I think the irst thing you could help me with is getting out of this hair!"
The High Moonmistress's ornate vestments were beau-iful and in times past Feena had known her to wear hem as easily and as casually as an old shawl. She found terself holding billows and bustles out of the way as)hauna eased herself out of the chair and reached for a wir of canes. Feena took one from her and offered the old triestess her arm instead. Dhauna accepted it gratefully. Pheir progress along the corridor outside her quarters md down the ramp to the temple's ground floor was still low, however. Just inside the door that led out to the loisters and the temple courtyard, Dhauna paused, her lead bowed for a moment in prayer, and Feena sensed the [ivine surge of the goddess's touch. Dhauna breathed a igh. Releasing Feena's arm and shifting her grip on her ane, she stood solidly on her own two feet.
"For ceremonies only," she told Feena with a smile. Such is the price of vanity."
She strode through the door a little awkwardly, but rith renewed strength. Feena followed in her wake.
Outside, the temple courtyard was filled with the lergy and novices of Moonshadow Hall, as well as with hose citizens of Yhaunn who paid honor to Selune.)hauna circled around the cloister to the full moon ate. During the day, the courtyard could be entered reely through any of the seven open gates that led into it, but tradition dictated that by night only the gate corresponding to the phase of the moon could be used-and since the closed gate of the new moon was nothing more than a brick-filled arch, the courtyard was never entered during the dark of the moon. Feena remembered youthful frustration at being forced to walk all the way around the cloisters when cutting across the shadowed courtyard would have saved her precious time. Having grown older, she found the walk strangely comforting, a moment of contemplative transition between outside world and sacred ceremony.
As Dhauna stepped through the full moon gate, clergy and worshipers parted before her, making a wide aisle across the moonlit grass to the sacred pool at the courtyard's far end. The High Moonmistress proceeded down the grassy aisle at a stately, measured pace. On either side,