Even so, she wondered what her reception would be. She remembered the day she had left. It was only a few days after her mother’s burial, and King Avallach’s unreasoning hostility toward her had made it clear that she could no longer stay. He blamed her for Briseis’ death. It was not until much later that Charis learned that Seithenin, acting in concert with Nestor, was responsible for the attack. It was Seithenin’s duplicity in the act that had precipitated the war which now engulfed half of Atlantis.

Charis blamed herself too, though not in the same way as her father. Her guilt was more basic: she had survived, while her mother had died. She had always felt that she should have been cut down that day instead. Avallach had lost a wife, yes, but Charis had lost her mother.

“You chose the bull pit-you chose death,” the High Queen had told her, and she had spoken the truth.

But life is such a tenacious gift. No matter how hard Charis had tried to throw it away, it had persisted. And if life in the bullring had taught her anything, it had taught her that nothing worthwhile came without pain. Therefore, first, before anything else, she would break open those old scarred-over wounds and allow genuine healing to take place at last.

Day by day the hills lifted the road higher, bearing the carriage beyond the green-clad highlands, while mighty Atlas grew until it filled the horizon. Charis watched as the clouds worked their endless shadowplay over the lower slopes. She slept a good deal and felt her strength returning.

One day, however, Charis could not sleep. Every pebble beneath the wheels became a jarring jolt; a hard white sun beat down will sullen rancor; the sultry wind stirred up gritty dust; the mountain loomed aloof and unfriendly, its upper reaches shrouded from view by dull gray clouds. She stared out at broken, barren hills straining toward the rocky shoulders of the great mountain and seemed to see a figure standing atop a hill in the distance.

She closed her eyes deliberately and when she opened them again the figure was gone. She settled back but could not rest. Her mind kept returning to the hilltop. She looked again; and again, dark against the pale outline of the mountain, she saw the figure on the hill.

“Stop the carriage!” she shouted. The carriage ground to a halt, and two servants ran up from the chariot behind to peer at her anxiously.

“What do you require, Princess?” asked one.

“I want to get out.”

The two looked at one another briefly and one of them disappeared. “The Mage will be summoned,” explained the remaining servant.

“Good,” she said, descending gingerly from the carriage. “Tell him to wait here until I return.”

She started up the hill. It felt good to stretch unused muscles and she climbed with ease, feeling only an occasional twinge-a lingering hint of her injury.

Upon gaining the crown of the hill, she paused and surveyed the road below. The two servants were talking to the Mage, who stood staring after her. She turned and continued up the hilltop. The figure, a man, stood facing away from her, motionless, arms flung wide as if in supplication to the mountain. The wind combed the hairs on the filthy black pelt that covered him. She froze.

Throm!

There was something shining at his bare feet: sunlight blazing in the yellow gem bound to the top of the leather-bound staff. There was no doubt that it was the mad prophet.

“Throm,” she said and surprised herself at how naturally the name came to her lips. She had only heard it once and that was a long time ago. She stepped nearer.

“Throm, it is Charis,” she said, realizing as she spoke that her name could have no meaning to him.

He did not move or acknowledge her presence in any way. It occurred to her that he might be dead, his tough sinews locked in a rictus that would not let him rest even in death. She stretched forth a hand to touch him, then hesitated and withdrew it.

“S-sister of the sun,” he said in a sepulchral voice that cracked from his throat. “Dancer with Death, Princess of Gulls, I, Throm, greet you.”

As he made no move to turn toward her or look at her, Charis stepped around him. The prophet continued, speaking in his odd, staccato bursts, as if words were torn from him painfully, by force. “Do you not think it strange? Do you not wonder that of all of Bel’s children you alone have been chosen?”

“Chosen? I was not chosen.”

“Why are you here?”

“I saw you-saw someone standing up here,” Charis said, her certainty fading. Why was she here? She had known that it was Throm; some part of her knew it the moment she glimpsed the figure from afar.

“Many have passed by. You only have come.”

“I did not know it was you.”

“Did you not?”

“No,” Charis insisted. “I just saw someone.”

“Then I ask again, Why did you come?”

“I do not know. Maybe I thought you were someone in trouble.”

“Maybe you thought I was a bull to dance with you.”

“No. I-I just wanted to get out of that carriage for a moment. Nothing more. I did not know you were up here. I just saw someone and I thought to come. That is all.”

“That is enough.”

“What do you want from me?” Was it fear or only the cold wind on the hill that made her voice quaver?

“Want? I want what any being wants; I want everything and nothing.”

“You talk in riddles. I am leaving.”

“Stay, Dancer with Bulls. Stay yet a little.” He turned to her and Charis gasped. His face was burned and blistered from the sun and wind, his skin cracked and raw; his scalp with its ragged wisps of brittle hair was dark and tough as tanned leather; his scruff of beard was matted and wet with spittle. His eyes were two black cinders in his head, sunken, shriveled, burnt. From the way he stared-without blinking, with wind-blown tears seeping down his wrinkled, weather-beaten cheeks-Charis knew he was blind. “I, Throm, would speak with you.”

Charis made no reply.

“Much wisdom in silence, yes, but someone must speak. Before the final silence a voice must cry out. Someone must tell them. Yes, tell them all.”

“Tell them what?”

The mad prophet swung his head around to peer sightlessly into the wind. “Tell them what I have told them. Tell them that Throrn has spoken. Tell them that the stones will speak, that the dust beneath their feet will shout, yes, with a mighty cry! Tell them what you already know.”

Charis shivered again but not with cold. Once again she was on the hill of sacrifice outside the palace. There was her mother, and Elaine, her father and Belyn, her brothers, the Magi. The sun was going down and there was Throm suddenly in their midst. She heard again his voice inside her head-Throm’s voice saying, “Hear me, O Atlantis!… The earth is moving, the sky shifts… Stars stream from their courses… The waters are hungry…”

“Make ready your tombs,” whispered Charis. “I remember. Seven years you said-and are those seven years fulfilled?”

“Ah, you do remember. Seven years have come and gone while you danced in the pit with the servants of Bel, and once with Bel himself, yes. Seven years, Daughter of Destiny, and time grows short. Time is fulfilled, yes, and yet there is still time. “

“Time for what?” asked Charis. “Tell me. Time for what? Can the catastrophe be averted?”

“Can the sun rise on yesterday?”

“What then?”

“Time for the tree to be uprooted and the seed to be planted.”

Desperation closed over her like angry waters. “Speak plainly, you fool! What tree? What seed? Tell me!”

“The tree of our nation, the seed of our people,” Throm said, turning his wind-eaten features toward her. “The seed must be planted, yes, in the womb of the future.”