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By Root 1182 0

ways of a priestess since the age of seven, had she loved like this. Only once had she felt this fierce love, this inner pain as if every breath of the beloved were agony—for the daughter she had borne in her first year as sworn priestess, who had lived a scant six months and whom, weeping for the last time, Viviane had buried before she had completed her fifteenth year. From the moment they had laid that daughter in her arms, until the frail child’s last breath had ceased, Viviane had drawn her every breath in a kind of mingled delirium of love and pain, as if the beloved child were a part of her own body, whose every moment of contentment or suffering was her own. That had been a lifetime ago, and Viviane knew that the woman she had been born to be had been buried within the hazel grove in Avalon. The woman who walked tearlessly away from that tiny grave had been another person altogether, holding herself aloof from every human emotion. Kind, yes; content, even happy, at times; but not the same woman. She had loved her sons, but from the moment of their birth she had been resigned to the thought of giving them up to foster-mothers.

Raven she had let herself love a little . . . but there were times when Viviane had felt in the innermost depths of her heart that her own dead daughter had been sent back to her by the Goddess in the form of Igraine’s child.

Now she weeps, and it is as if every tear burns into my heart. Goddess, you gave me this child to love, and yet I must give her up to this torment. . . . All of mankind suffers, the Earth herself cries out under the torment of her sons. In our suffering, Mother Ceridwen, we grow nearer to thee. . . . Viviane raised her hand swiftly to her eyes, shaking her head so that the single tear vanished without trace. She too is vowed to what must be; her suffering has not yet begun.

Morgaine stirred and turned on her side, and Viviane, suddenly fearful that Morgaine would wake and that she must confront again the accusation of those eyes, stole quickly out of the room and silently returned to her own dwelling.

She lay down on her bed and tried to sleep, but she did not close her eyes. Once, toward morning, she saw a shadow move across the wall, and in the dimness she made out a face; it was the Death-crone, waiting for her, in the form of an old woman clothed in rags and tatters of shadow.

Mother, have you come for me?

Not yet, my daughter and my other self, I wait here that you may remember I await you, as I await every other mortal. . . .

Viviane blinked, and when she opened her eyes again the corner was dark and empty. Surely I need no reminding that she awaits me now. . . .

She lay silent, waiting as she had been trained to wait, until at last the dawn stole into the room. Even then she waited until she had dressed herself, though she would not break the moon-dark fast until the crescent could be seen tonight in the evening sky. Then she called her attendant priestess and said, “Bring the lady Morgaine to me.”

When Morgaine came, she noted that the younger woman had dressed herself in the garb of a priestess of the highest rank, her hair high and braided, the small sickle-shaped knife hanging from its black cord. Viviane’s mouth moved in a dry smile, and when they had greeted each other and Morgaine sat beside her, she said, “Twice now the moon has darkened; tell me, Morgaine, has the Horned One of the grove quickened your womb?”

Morgaine looked quickly at her, the glance of some small frightened thing in a snare. Then the younger woman said, angry and defiant, “You told me yourself that I should use my own judgment; I have cast it forth.”

“You have not,” said Viviane, steadying her voice to complete detachment. “Why should you lie to me? I say you shall not.”

“I will!”

Viviane felt the power in the girl; for a moment, as Morgaine rose swiftly from the bench, it seemed to her that she had grown suddenly tall and imposing. But it was a priestess-trick and Viviane knew it too.

She has outstripped me, I cannot overawe her any longer. Nevertheless she said, summoning