The Temple

After a while, he noticed that the trees now grew closer together, leaving only a few pale shards of sky visible amid the branches overhead.  A creaking sound made him think of old floorboards until he realized it was the trees themselves, swaying in a gentle breeze above, while, on the forest floor, the air was still.  It had grown heavy with moisture too.  Ferns and thick leafy bushes began to line the path they were following, and saplings grew in neat rows from the decaying mossy trunks of fallen giants.  "Where are we going?" he said at last.

"A place that no longer exists on the physical plane," she said.  "My family’s ancestral temple."

"How do you find your way around?"

"By association."  As he took her hand to help her over a huge log that had fallen across the path, she studied him carefully, as if she were trying to see whether this answer made any sense to him or not, and in a way it did.  In a landscape of symbols and forms, how else would one arrange things?  It seemed reasonable.

"It must take concentration," he said.

"Lots of training."

"You come here often, then.  You must know it pretty well."

She shook her head.  "There is more to know here than any one person can imagine.  All the heavens and the hells that men have ever dreamed of.  All the mythic kingdoms.  One is lucky just to know a little of it."

"Which makes it very easy to get lost in, eh?"

"No," she smiled an impish smile.  "Not for the living.  We are always linked to the physical plane.  But knowing where everything else is—this can be more difficult."

As they continued down a little slope, the trees began to thin again, and he had the feeling they were nearing an ocean, though he had no idea which one.  Then, suddenly, the trees parted in a clearing to reveal a carefully laid out circle of upright stones.  At each of its four quarters stood two massive posts capped by a lintel.  Just inside the circle’s perimeter, beneath these huge gates, sat four more pairs of uprights, each supporting a flat sandstone slab on which various items had been laid out—candle holders, bowls, censers, talismans and charms.  It was an odd assortment, but still familiar enough to convince him that these four structures were altars.

In the center of the circle a large bronze cauldron hung suspended from a tripod over a big fire pit lined with smooth stones that paved the hearth.  Even from outside the circle, he could see the hearthstones were carved and inlaid with pieces of lapis, jade, coral, agate and other such gems in odd symbols he had no idea how to decipher, though some looked vaguely familiar, like the letters of a long-forgotten alphabet.

Taken as a whole, the place looked ancient, exotic and utterly pagan, he thought as they slipped between the smaller perimeter stones that linked two of the adjacent sets of uprights.  But once he crossed the threshold, a sense of quiet strength enveloped him, making him feel welcome.  Perhaps he felt even safer here than he had on Oreana’s hillside, he thought, recalling the crows or owls or whatever they were.  He hesitated to call them angels, though it occurred to him that maybe they would look a bit more inviting to someone who had been given last rites—or who had at least been to confession more recently.  He sensed they were still lurking nearby.  But this simple open ring of stones might easily have been the ribs of some great impregnable fortress.

Without knowing why, he walked over to the nearest altar, the one immediately to his left, and turned toward the huge gate.  Almost at once a gentle breeze began to stir, caressing the side of his face, drawing his attention to the feathers that fluttered on the stone before him.  They were carefully attached to the long hollow bone of some large bird, probably an eagle, he thought.  He started to pick it up but then changed his mind, recalling that this was, after all, a temple.

"Do you ever remember anything of your past lives?" he casually asked the girl as he felt her coming to stand beside him.

"Sometimes I think so," she said.  "It is hard to tell.  All the things that tie us to one particular time or place, these things die with our bodies."

"So what survives, then?"

"The things that link us to each other.  Love."

He nodded and slipped an arm around her as she picked up the fragile looking object.  "It is like this," she said.  "The bird from which this came died many hundreds of years ago.  But its spirit, its love of the light and the morning air—this lives on and is reborn over and over, even in us, as we remember how it feels to fly."  As she spoke, she turned the object until the wind caught it just right over a small carefully drilled hole, and it emitted a faint reedy note.  "This is the voice of love," she said.  "The voice of life coming from death.  It is a mystery."

For no apparent reason he found himself trying to catch his breath, as though he were on the verge of tears.  Then he felt as if he finally understood something that he would never be able to put into words, so for a while he said nothing.  At last, he went with her to stand in front of the next gate, where she picked up a piece of pitch-soaked pine bark, laid it in a small stone brazier and lit it with a spark struck from a flint.  Then, after lighting a candle, she used the bark to light the fire in the hearth.

At the next gate, while she bent to lift a large clay water jar and pour its contents into the cauldron, he gazed out past the two huge uprights and through a thinning stand of trees, down onto a sandy beach below.  Nearby a little stream tumbled down the edge of the cliff, then quickly melted into whatever ocean lay just beyond the piles of driftwood that had washed up against the cliff base.  Then he watched as, at the last gate, she rummaged through a collection of bottles and jars, taking a handful of dried twigs from one jar, then grabbing a few sprigs of another plant that had been hung by the altar to dry.  Finally, she spread them on a large stone metate, made a quick gesture over them, crushed them lightly and dumped them unceremoniously into the clear water.

As she grabbed a small bellows made of hide from where it lay beside the first altar, she said, "If we had come here to do a formal ritual, we would have brought an offering—something a little more suitable.  First fruits of the harvest or the hunt, perhaps.  But this will do."

Suddenly, Diego understood something he could put into words, and this time it made him smile.  "You’re making tea," he said.

Oreana laughed in obvious amusement, her eyes sparkling with mischief.  "Think of it as a sacrament," she said.  "Now the gods have given you knowledge of two mysteries."

He couldn’t help but laugh too.  "This whole place is like a kitchen."

"It is a kitchen," she corrected him, still giggling.  "It sustains life."

As he looked around him again, he realized that the sun was starting to set over the ocean.  But in the glow of the fire and the warmth of the laughter that seemed to be bubbling up from the earth itself, like the water in the cauldron, he felt he could easily stay here a long time.  "But what of these Watchers?" he said.  "Where are they?"

"Look around you."  She waved her hand, turning in a circle.  "You have met them all.  They seem to like you, especially the guardian of the east, the one who spoke to you."

His eyebrows went up, and he started to ask her what she was talking about, but then he knew.  The east corresponded to the element of air, and the breeze had not begun to blow just by chance.  She laughed again as she watched the realization move in stages across his face.

"You see," she said, "they do know you.  And you know them, eh?  When you fence, the guardian of the east steadies your breathing and speaks to you of strategy.  The guardian of the south, the one of fire, helps you to raise and focus the power that flows through your blade.  The guardian of the west makes you as fluid and graceful as a stream, yet as sensitive as the surface of a deep pool.  The guardian of the north, the one of earth, gives you the balance and stability that keep you grounded."  As she spoke, she gestured toward each altar in turn.

He couldn’t help but smile, trying to be modest, yet thinking how well her description fit his experience, as if the Watchers were simply the external symbols of his own mental and physical discipline.  Leaning back against the altar of the east, he shrugged.  Then, as she brought him a burnished earthenware cup filled with steaming tea ladled from the cauldron, he settled cross legged onto the ancient cobblestones that had by now been nearly overgrown with moss.  Zorro’s cape he laid carefully aside as she sank down next to him.  To his surprise, the tea tasted vaguely familiar.  "What is this?" he said.

"Romero," she shrugged.  "With a little regaliz thrown in to sweeten it. (1)  What did you think it would be?  Bats’ wings and lizard’s blood?"

"Well, I am starting to think that even if you told me it was lizard’s blood, I would realize I had always been used to calling it romero," he chuckled.  "But it tastes like something I think my mother used to make.  The leaves looked like the needles of fir trees."

She nodded.  "Romero.  Good for protection, and for bringing on the sight."  As she sipped the warm, mildly resiny potion, she watched him remember it, and her smile faded into tenderness.  "It must have been very difficult for her to leave you," she said.

He pursed his lips and shrugged, having been thinking more of his own difficulties.  "I do not think she had much choice," he said.

Oreana studied the shiny liquid circle of tea in her cup, tilting her head thoughtfully.  "She loved you very much," she said.  "It was the kind of love that does not die, that takes on a life of its own, sprouting up again in other times, other places, taking new forms.  Surely you must have felt it, even after she was gone.  She would have taken such delight in you."

As Diego looked up at her, a funny little feeling, almost a thought, ran through him.  "How do you know this?" he said.

Glancing up suddenly as if her mind had been wandering, the girl just shrugged and sipped her tea.  "Who would not?" she said.  "I know that if I ever had a son, I would want him to look just like you.  To be just like you."  Looking at her, he felt an almost overwhelming wave of affection sweep over him until, once again, he almost couldn’t catch his breath.

"One day perhaps we can arrange this," he said.

Pressing her lips into a flat line, she looked away, nodding.  "Perhaps."  Then after a moment she got to her feet and went to stand before the cauldron, gazing down into it, breathing softly but deeply as the gentle steam rose into the twilight air.  He felt a little tired, suddenly, as he got up and went to stand behind her, but not tired enough that he could disregard the rush of longing that welled up in him as he let his hands come lightly to rest on her shoulders.  She felt it too, he knew.  She gasped just a little as she leaned back, shrugging into his touch.

Bending to let his cheek brush against her hair, he whispered, "Please marry me."

Trying not to tremble, she caught her breath and nodded, "Sí."  But as she went on staring into the cauldron, he wasn’t really sure she had even been talking to him.  Nor was he sure how long they stood there, but he did understand, suddenly, what she was doing.  She was using this power, this energy that was rising up between them, to search for Alonzo del Valle.

As the realization hit him, he found himself remembering the young man he had found curled on a heap of skins in the dank cells below the tannery.  The gaunt empty face seemed to trigger another series of images.  In his mind’s eye, he saw flowers growing in neat rectangular beds and brimming from huge clay flowerpots that sat just under the edge of an ancient stone portico hung with baskets of flowering vines and the cages of songbirds.

Then, all at once, the scenes were gone.  With a quick gasp, Oreana stiffened, swallowed hard and turned away from the cauldron.  Not wanting to quit touching her, Diego slipped an arm around her shoulders as he studied her face.  "Where is he?"

The girl shook her head and sighed deeply.  "The one place Señor Magaña knew I would not want to confront him.  I should have known."

"The garden in your aunts’ house in Toledo.  The one where he . . . touched you— "

"Sí.  He wishes to finish what he started there."

"Well then you simply must not go.  There must be another way to—"

"I must."  Her eyes darkened.  "It is the only way that I will ever be completely free of him."

"Then let me go with you."

"Would you risk trading places with del Valle?"  She took his arms.  "Don’t you see?  Magaña would love nothing more than to bargain with me for your life."

"I see this all too well."  He caressed her shoulders.  "You know, it often seems the only way we can protect the ones we love is to keep them away from us.  And until I met you, this is what I did.  My father, he felt the same.  When my mother was ill, they tried to protect me.  I never knew anything was wrong.  When she died, he protected me from that too.  I never even got the chance to say goodbye."  Diego clenched his jaw, trying not to wince.  "Now, my father is in agony, and a captive—because I could not let him get too close.  I sent him away.  Oh of course it was only for his own protection."  He sighed deeply, then let her go and walked back toward the eastern altar.

"Once you said it was easier to kill with a blade than with sorcery.  Yet ever since you told me of the danger we were in, you have been trying to protect me.  Oh, I know."  He raised his hand as she started to protest.  "I know.  I have tried to do the same.  Treating you like a helpless child, never wanting to let you take the slightest risk.  But don’t you see?"

To punctuate the question he let his fists fall on the altar, then turned to her again.  "The answer is not to try to protect everyone but yourself, or to turn your back on those who love you.  The answer is to trust one another.  Your Watchers"—he waved his hand in a circle—"they let me come here.  But they also let me bring this."

As he drew the razor sharp blade from its scabbard at his side, it glinted in the red light of the setting sun, reflecting the glow of the hearth fire.  The girl started to speak, but Diego silenced her with a look.  "You are not the only one from whom Magaña took something," he said, fingering the weapon’s foible.  "Without my ability to use this, Zorro is dead.  You must let me go with you."

The girl said nothing for a moment, and in the gathering twilight it was hard to follow the series of feelings that rippled across her face: surprise blended with recognition, relief giving way to fear.  She swallowed hard, then said, "But you haven’t lost Zorro’s abilities.  Magaña—you heard what he said.  If you had killed Endicott, his spell would have insured Zorro’s capture.  But he has taken nothing from you."

"Then why . . . ?"  Before the question had coalesced in his mind, he knew the answer, and the look in her eyes only confirmed it.  "You. . . ."

Helplessly, she searched his face.

"But I saw— "

"The creature that protects Endicott?  Sí, you are beginning to develop the sight.  That was why it was so easy to distract you.  I simply asked the Watchers to— "

As Diego turned away, sheathing the sword, she broke off, knowing as well as he did that how she had done it was utterly beside the point.  Coming again to the altar of the east, he rested first his hands, then his elbows on it, raking his fingers through his dark hair, shaking his head.  At last, he said quietly, "You know, up until this very moment, I had always believed I was a willing participant in your . . . enchantments."

"I couldn’t let you kill Endicott," she said weakly.

"And how do you know I would have killed him?"

Oreana stepped back and grabbed the rim of the cauldron to steady herself.  "You would have had no choice," she said.  "He would have forced you to kill him or be killed."  But watching her eyes, Diego saw that by now she wasn’t entirely sure she was right.

"Perhaps," he said, making no attempt to hide the bitterness in his voice as he turned to face her, a faint but mildly ironic smile flickering across his face.  "But then, we will never know, eh?"

She shook her head.  Tears had started to run down her cheeks, but he was in no hurry to dry them.  "I’ve lost you, haven’t I," she whispered.

"I was never yours," he said, knowing it was the one thing he could say that would hurt her most.  "Not like that—not like some pet you can cage or set free as it amuses you.  My fate is my own.  You had no right to interfere."  And for a moment he wasn’t even sure how he did feel about her anymore.

"No."  She swallowed hard.  "Perhaps not."  Then, edging away from the cauldron and from him, she dried her own cheeks with the back of her fist and took a deep breath, regaining her eerie poise as she added, "So now you see that you can never really afford to trust me."

Diego took a deep breath as well.  "I did trust you," he said, "I trusted you to help me—not to make decisions for me."

"And I regret betraying that trust," she said with an apologetic shrug.  "But I would probably do it again.  And you could not stop me—not unless you learned to defend yourself the way a sorcerer would.  Magaña—he would simply have ignored me, or turned my own spell back on me.  But such abilities lie beyond the reach of the uninitiated.  And you will never join us, will you.  You will never betray your own faith."

Looking down, she winced, then sighed again.  "I have been a fool—a stupid, self-indulgent fool, wanting the one thing I should have known I could not have.  You should not even be here."

Diego hadn’t expected her to plead guilty to his accusations, so he found himself at something of a loss for words.  But then, as he noticed how she shifted her weight, lightly, her hands held down and out from her sides, he realized that he was also at a loss for actions.  He had given her far too much room to maneuver.

"I can see that your link to the physical world is stronger than my own," she added, still backing away.  "You must have more resistance to Magaña’s poison—or maybe you just didn’t drink so much of it.  At any rate, your body is recovering.  Soon you will return to it.  You do not yet have the personal power to come here, or to stay here, without help."

"Oreana . . . ."  As he started toward her, she edged even closer to the perimeter of the circle until he froze.  "I do realize that you were only trying to help me."

"My allies will help you now," she said.  "I have no further need of them.  I give them to you."

"Oreana, please do not— "

"Fight well.  Save your father.  I will free del Valle, if I can."

"Oreana— "

As he started after her again, he knew it was too late, even to say he was sorry.  All he could do was grab the rim of the cauldron to steady himself as he watched her slip between the perimeter stones and vanish into the darkness.