Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [232]
Whatever I do now, I am in the dark—I might better have gone to Raven, who would have answered me only with silence!
But if Morgaine had indeed gone into the arms of death, or was lost to Avalon forever, there was no other priestess fit to carry the weight. Raven had given her voice to the Goddess in prophecy . . . was the place of the Goddess to go unserved because Raven had chosen her silent path?
Viviane sat alone in her dwelling, staring at the wall, pondering Niniane’s cryptic words again and again in her heart. Once she rose and went alone up the silent path to stare again into the unmoving waters, but they were grey, grey as the unyielding sky. Once indeed it seemed to her that something moved there, and Viviane whispered, “Morgaine?” and looked deep into the silence of the pool.
But the face that looked out at her was not Morgaine’s face—it was still, dispassionate as the Goddess herself, crowned with bare wicker-withes. . . .
. . . Is it my own reflection I see, or the Death-crone? . . .
At last, weary, she turned away.
This I have known since first I trod the path—a time comes when there is only despair, when you seek to tear the veil from the shrine, and you cry out to her and know that she will not answer because she is not there, because she was never there, there is no Goddess but only yourself, and you are alone in the mockery of echoes from an empty shrine. . . .
There is no one there, there was never anyone there, and all the Sight is but dreams and delusions. . . .
As she trudged wearily down the hill, she saw that the new moon stood in the sky. But now it meant nothing to her save that this ritual silence and seclusion were done for the time.
What have I to do with this mockery of a Goddess? The fate of Avalon lies in my hands, and Morgaine is gone, and I am alone with old women and children and half-trained girls . . . alone, all alone! And I am old and weary and my death awaits me. . . .
Within her dwelling the women had lighted a fire, and a cup of warmed wine sat steaming beside her usual chair so that she might break the moon-dark fast. She sank down wearily, and one of her attendant priestesses came silently to draw off her shoes and put a warm shawl about her shoulders.
There is no one but I. But I have still my daughters, I am not wholly alone. “Thank you, my children,” she said, with unaccustomed warmth, and one of the attendants bowed her head shyly without speaking. Viviane did not know the girl’s name—why am I thus neglectful?—but she thought she must be under a vow of silence for the time. The second said softly, “It is our privilege to serve you, Mother. Will you go to rest?”
“Not yet awhile,” Viviane said, and then on an impulse said, “Go and ask the priestess Raven to attend me.”
It seemed a long time before, with silent step, Raven came into the room. Viviane greeted her with a bending of the head, and Raven came and bowed, then, following Viviane’s gesture, went to the seat across from Viviane’s own. Viviane handed her the cup, still half filled with the hot wine, and Raven sipped, smiling thanks, and put it from her.
At last Viviane said in entreaty, “My daughter, you broke your silence once before Morgaine left us. Now I seek for her and she cannot be found. She is not in Caerleon, nor in Tintagel, nor with Lot and Morgause in Lothian . . . and I grow old. There is none to serve. . . . I ask of you as I would inquire of the oracle of the Goddess: will Morgaine return?”
Raven was silent. At last she shook her head and Viviane demanded, “Do you mean that Morgaine will not return? Or do you mean that you do not know?” But the younger priestess made an odd gesture of helplessness