City of Sorcery by Bradley Marion Zimmer

Author:Bradley, Marion Zimmer [Bradley, Marion Zimmer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Usernet, Science Fiction, C429, Extratorrents, Kat, Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 112540891X
Publisher: Daw
Published: 1984-10-01T06:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Jaelle pointed through a light flurry of falling snow.

“The City of Snows: Nevarsin,” she said. And Magda picked up her thought - they were almost frighteningly open to one another now - Will we find Rafaella and Lexie there? And if we do not, what then? It was beyond belief that Jaelle, at least, would be willing to turn around and go home again. In her mind this journey took on unreal and dreamlike proportions, it would go on forever, farther and farther into the unknown, in pursuit of robed figures, the sound of crows calling, the shadow of the Goddess brooding over them with great dark wings…

Camilla’s horse bumped gently into hers. “Hey, there! Are you asleep on your feet like a farmer at spring market, gawking at the big city?”

Nevarsin rose above them, a city built on the side of a mountain, streets climbing steeply toward the peak, where the monastery rose, naked rock walls carved from the living stone of the peak. Above the monastery were only the eternal snows.

They entered the gates of Nevarsin late in the day, and found their way through snow-covered streets, which angled and climbed and sometimes were no more than flights of narrow steep steps, up which their horses had to be urged and their chervines led and sometimes manhandled upward. Everywhere there were statues of the cristoforo prophet or god - Magda knew little about the cristoforo sect - the Bearer of Burdens, a robed figure with the Holy Child on his shoulders surmounted by what could have been a sun or a world or perhaps merely a halo. Bells rang out at frequent intervals, and once as they climbed toward the top of a narrow street, they met a procession of monks, robed in austere garments of sacking, barefoot in the snow-covered streets. (But they seemed as comfortable, their feet as pink and healthy, as if they were dressed for a more amenable climate. )

The monks, chanting as they came - Magda could make out very little of the words of their hymn or canticle, which was in an obscure dialect of casta - looked neither to left nor to right, and the women had to move their horses and pull them to one side of the street, dismounting to hold the reins of the pack animals. The monk at the head of the procession, a balding old man with a hook nose and a fierce scowl, looked crossly at the women, and Magda supposed he did not approve of Renunciates.

So much the worse for him, then; she was going about her own business just as he was, and really with far less trouble to other people; at least their band were not expecting everybody to get out of the middle of what was, after all, a public thoroughfare.

There were a great many of the monks, and by the time they had all passed by, dusk was falling, and the snow was coming down heavily.

“Where are we going, Jaelle? I suppose you know?” Camilla asked.

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