Description: Chapter One Initiation "Seeker, why have you come here?" Sunlight blazed suddenly through the moving leaves, overwhelming sight, but the voice of the priest who guarded the Gate carried clearly. Sombra strained to hear the response of the red-headed boy who stood before it. The late-summer sun released the sweet smell of ripe grass from the golden hills, though there was a brisk bite to the wind. The blue summit of the Lady Mountain rose above the trees, watching over the province of Seagate as she watched over the young people who had come here to seek initiation into Westria''s mysteries. Sombra repeated the words she knew he must be saying now-- "I come to seal myself to the Covenant of Westria." They had drilled each other on the responses all the way from Seahold to the initiation grounds, using their anxiety to mask deeper fears. "What is your name?" The voice of the warden came once more. Wind rustled the leaves of the live oaks and firs that grew among the laurel trees as if to whisper an answer. Since his birth the boy had been called Phoenix, but here they all must leave their milk-names behind them. Beyond those gates, Sombra thought, Phoenix will not be the son of the king of Westria, and I will not be the granddaughter of the sorcerer who tried to destroy him. But Sombra''s other grandfather was Eric of Haven, Lord Commander of Seagate, and her father was King Julian''s seneschal. We carry our histories with us, she thought, even here. She shivered, and told herself her chill came from the fog bank that was rolling in from the sea. Phoenix leaned forward to warm his hands at the campfire. They had scarcely had time to stow their bedrolls in the shelters and put on the anonymous tunics of undyed cotton everyone wore here before the teaching began. It would continue for the full month of the Retreat, except for the hours each afternoon that were given over to exercise. For those brought up on outlying holdings, who knew only the rites by which their parents honored the spirits of their own woods and fields, this intensive education might be necessary, but the story of how the sorcerer Caolin stole the Four Jewels of Westria, and King Julian won them back again, were part of his own family history. "Take up a handful of earth. Hold it, feel its texture, reach out to its energy . . . ," said the priestess. Her name was Mistress Larissa, and her stocky body had the solid strength of the earth she held. Obediently he scooped up a little dust, then sat back, shifting in a vain search for comfort. A folded cloak was not much protection from the hard ground, but he had already overheard a few comments about spoiled princes. He was surrounded by girls and boys with whom he had played every summer on the docks of Seahold when Queen Rana brought him to visit her kinfolk there. They should have sent him to some remote gathering in the Ramparts where no one knew him--but no, his father had been kidnapped by slavers on his Retreat in those hills. Julian would never have risked his only child there. Perhaps the southern part of Las Costas? But that was no good either. King Julian took a personal interest in every corner of his kingdom, and his family had accompanied him on too many of his journeys for his red-headed son to be anonymous in any part of the land. As it was, Phoenix had put off facing this test until he was nearly eighteen, when he could do it the same year as Sombra, who was a year younger than he. "Live in this moment," said Mistress Larissa. "This earth you hold is the ground of being, just as the radiance beyond all understanding is manifest in the simple light of day. There is no need to turn from the world to search for meaning. The Creator is not separate from her Creation. Look for Spirit here, in the fire, in the wind and water, in a single grain of sand--" She opened her hand and a little wind set the dust swirling to mingle with the smoke from the fire. "Here, with the holy earth of Westria, is where it all begins." "Do you mean that there is no life beyond this one?" asked a fisherman''s son. "I mean that the Otherworld is in this one, as our spirits are in our bodies, for those who have eyes to see." "But we die, and our bodies decay," said the boy. "The tide recedes, but it always returns," said the priestess. "Everything changes, but nothing is lost. When you leave this gathering your names will be changed, though your bodies seem the same. As you grow older, both body and spirit will grow and change, and yet there is something that endures through all the transformations. That is the paradox and the mystery." Phoenix sighed. Sometimes he felt as if his body were the only thing that did stay the same, while his spirit hid behind the masks that others expected to see. "Words cannot convey this meaning," she said sharply as someone giggled in the shadows. "It is something you must know. Look into the fire!" The sudden note of command compelled attention. There was no sound but the crackling of the flames. "Look into the light. . . ." The voice of the priestess modulated to a hypnotic murmur. "Listen to the voice of the fire and the wind in the trees. . . . Feel your weight supported by the earth. . . . Live in this moment, this point of time that is all time. This, this is reality. . . ." For a moment, then, the light surrounded and consumed him. He was all things; he was nothing; he knew eternity. And then someone gasped and laughed, and he was jerked back to ordinary reality. Heart thudding, he gazed around the circle. Some were stirring and looking about, while others appeared to have gone to sleep. But as the flames flared, he saw Sombra sitting at the edge of the circle, her soft hair a cloud of shadow around a face smoothed to an incandescent purity by trance. Her dark eyes, half concealed by thick lashes, looked at--no, through--the fire. She is there, he thought. Only a few words were enough for her to reach the place of vision . . . and stay. I am going to fail my testing and shame my father. She should have been heir to the Jewels of Westria, not me. Mistress Larissa had resumed her lecture, but Phoenix did not hear her. He gazed across the fire at Sombra, his spirit straining to get free. "Sombra! There you are!" Phoenix sounded as if he had been running. Sombra was already turning. She had felt his presence even before he called. The girls with whom she was sitting giggled, but Sombra frowned. Didn''t he know how quickly gossip could grow? Already she had heard her own name linked with his--just because they had been childhood friends. To single her out this way would only add fuel to the fire. To be sure, he looked like a flame himself in the white tunic the boys wore on this night when they all claimed their status as men and women. As she greeted him, she straightened the folds of her own black gown. We are Fire and Smoke, she thought, Sunlight and Shadow . . . but after my vigil I will have another name! "Maidens, my apologies for taking this fair flower from among you--" Phoenix swept a bow that would have suited his father''s court, and Sombra rolled her eyes. "Fix, be serious!" Deliberately she called him by the nickname that was all she had been able to manage as a child. "I am serious--" Now she could see the worry in his blue eyes. "I have to talk to you!" Still scowling, she let him lead her away from the campfire and past the dancers who circled it. Behind her, she could hear the other girls whispering, and then laughter. Drums throbbed like a heartbeat, vibrating through the soil. "What''s wrong?" "It''s what will be wrong if you don''t help. Sombra, come with me up onto the hill!" For a moment she simply stared at him. It was inevitable, when this many young people were thrown so closely together, that some would pair off. The night of the dance was the traditional time for them to consummate their bonding. Some couples had left already, hand in hand. "Are you mad? It would be like sleeping with my brother!" "I doubt that." Phoenix grinned. "I''m pretty sure that Lenart likes boys. But I didn''t mean that we should actually do anything. That girl from Seahold is after me, and there''s one from across the Bay right behind her, and my father will kill me if I get involved." "I had no idea you were such a stallion!" Sombra said scornfully, but in fact she believed him, having seen how girls fluttered when they realized he was the son of the king. "They want my seed, not me." He looked over his shoulder at the blond girl who was pushing through the dancers, and seized Sombra''s hand. "Come on!" "Would it be such a chore to make her happy?" she said breathlessly as they halted in the shadow of a fir tree. "You wouldn''t have to--you know. . . ." The lessons they had just received had included some very explicit instruction on how to achieve pleasure without pregnancy. "I suppose not--" He tried to hide behind her, not entirely successfully, as his last growth spurt had left him four inches taller than her. "If you must know, I don''t want my first time to be with someone who looks at me as if I were a side of beef in the market square!" Sombra''s ey

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