The Throne of Scone by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

Author:Patricia Kennealy-Morrison [Kennealy-Morrison, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 0312944241
Publisher: Roc
Published: 1987-10-22T05:00:00+00:00

-- 18 --

It was full dark when Aeron stepped out of the mountain-cave's high door, to stand beside her friends under the great blue vault of the Kholcan sky. No moon circled that world, so that the stars held sway unchallenged in the dark. A cool breeze fingered her hair, and stirred the embroidered sleeves of the black robe she had been given to wear.

Sargus, coming up to them, bowed formally, then led them in silence down a path like a long flight of wide and shallow steps, its uneven length lighted by alum torches stuck into the ground at regular intervals. As they walked, they could see in the torchlight that the path was lined by Salamandri robed and hooded, four and five deep in places. Elathan reached for Camissa's hand, squeezed it briefly to give her encouragement; her answering clasp drove his coronation ring into his fingers.

After perhaps five minutes' walk, they came to an open place, where a glow rose up as if from many torches, or a great lowe or giant quartz-hearth. They could sense tremendous heat not far away; every now and again the ground trembled beneath their feet, and there came a faint far-off rumble.

Sargus halted where the path came to an end, and turning to Aeron he drew her forward; the others came cautiously after.

They were standing on the lip of what appeared at first glance to be a river, rolling slow and dark in its own wide channel. Then their perspective shifted, and they realized, with a jolt of sickening horror, that it was no river but a stream of lava, many feet across and near as many thick, a flume of molten stone running between banks of harder stone. It moved slowly along the edges, eddying and backing much as a true stream might do; in its center there seemed to be swifter currents, tidestrings where the blazing stone raced like water under a thin crackling crust.

Morwen was seized with ambiguous dread. "Aeron--"

"What is this place, Sargus?"

"It is our holy place, the Kasulathra, our place of testing here at the Ras of Salhi. It is said that only truth can live in flame, and whoso would speak the truth and be believed must be willing to put it to the fire. The folk have been told that you claim a right to the knowledge we spoke of earlier, and now they demand that you prove that right. For you see it is not your doom alone, and this is the price of your quest."

"This is reasonable," said Aeron at once. "I accept."

"Will you not wait one moment, Aeron!" snapped Elathan in a savage undertone, then aloud to Sargus: "If we refuse to allow this?"

"Then all your lives are forfeit," said Sargus. "That is the penalty for sacrilege and blasphemy."

"And if I fail?" asked Aeron, though already she knew the answer.

But Sargus said nothing.

"What is permitted to me?" she asked after a while. "What means may I use; what is it, exactly, that is asked of me?"

"You must walk the fire," said Sargus.

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