The cult of Rashan was spared the purges of the new, harsh masters of Seven Cities, for it was a recognized religion. Other temples did not fare as well. She recalled seeing smoke in the sky above Ehrlitan and wondering at its source, and she was awakened at night by terrible sounds of chaos in the streets.
Lostara was a middling Caster. Her shadow seemed to have a mind of its own and was a recalcitrant, halting partner in the training. She did not ask herself if she was happy or otherwise. Rashan's Empty Throne did not draw her faith as it did the other students'. She lived, but it was an unquestioning life. Neither circular nor linear, for in her mind there was no movement at all, and the notion of progress was measured only in terms of mastering the exercises force upon her.
The cults destruction was sudden, unexpected, and it came from within.
She recalled the night when it had all begun. Great excitement in the temple. A High Priest from another city was visiting. Come to speak with Master Bidithal on matters of vast importance. There would be a dance in the stranger's honour, for which Lostara and her fellow students would provide a background sequence of rhythms to complement the Shadow Dancers.
Lostara herself had been indifferent to the whole affair, and had been nowhere close to the best of the students in their minor role in the performance. But she remembered the stranger.
So unlike sour old Bidithal. Tall, thin, a laughing face, remarkably long fingered, almost effeminate hands-hands the sight of which awakened in her new emotions.
Emotions that stuttered her mechanical dancing, that sent her shadow twisting into a rhythm that was counterpoint to that cast by not only her fellow students, but the Shadow Dancers themselves-as if a thitd strain had slipped into the main chamber.
Too striking to remain unnoticed.
Bidithal himself, his face darkening, had half risen-but the stranger spoke first.
'Pray let the Dance continue,' he said, his eyes finding Lostara's own. 'The Song of the Reeds has never been performed in quite this manner before. No gentle breeze here, eh, Bidithal? Oh no, a veritable gale.The Dancers are virgins,yes?' His laugh was low yet full. 'Yet there is nothing virginalabout this dance, now, is there? Oh, storm of desire!'
And those eyes held Lostara still, in fullest recognition of the desire that overwhelmed her-that gave shape to her shadow's wild cavort. Recognition, and a certain pleased. but cool... acknowledgement. As if flattered, but with no invitation offered in return.
The stranger had other tasks that night-and in the nights that followed-or so Lostara would come to realize much later. At the moment, however, her face burned with shame, and she had broken off her dance to flee the chamber.
Of course, Delat had not come to steal the heart of a caster. He had come to destroy Rashan.
Delat, who, it proved, was both a High Priest and a Bridgeburner, and whatever the Emperor's reason for annihilating the cult, his was the hand that delivered the death-blow.
Although not alone. The night of the killings, at the bell of the third hour-two past midnight-after the Song of Reeds, there had been another, hidden in the black clothes of an assassin...
Lostara knew more of what had happened that night in the Rashan Temple of Ehrlitan than anyone else barring the players themselves, for Lostara had been the only resident to be spared. Or so she had believed for a long time, until the name of Bidithal rose once more, from Sha'ik's Apocalypse army.
Ah, I was more than spared that night, wasn't I?
Delat's lovely, long-fingered hands...
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