Darkness
and aromas, numinous and shadowy, like Hagia Sophia in her prime.
Cinnamon-clove benga incense on the air, cutting through the musk of thousands
of alien foxes. And from below, the Hymn of Creation that began all Thalendri
liturgy echoed through the Great
Temple.
Father
Heidler, back in normal clerical garb, leaned over the gallery railing and
peered down into the half-domed side chapel. One of the Chapels of the Four
Seasons, named for Asar, Patron Saint of Winter. Four Saints for four seasons,
alternating two male and two female: Misha for Spring, Tavar for Summer,
Almarai for Autumn, and Asar for Winter, with hagiographies and accreted
legends as rich as any human saint's. Ten meters below, on a raised altar-dais
ringed by vestmented upright foxes and vixens holding oil candles, the Supreme
High Priest and Priestess near-waltzed in a liturgical dance. He wore a
ceremonial quiver like a codpiece, she an elaborate recurved bow like a
baldric.
"Echo
of the Eternal Dance, representing God and Goddess at the Beginning,"
Tolan whispered at his side, his eyes catching the oil-candlelight and shining
like a cat's. The vulpine "cultural advisor" was dressed even more
gaudily than at the audience, in an embroidered riot of para-silks that mixed
three centuries of Terry foppishness with a palette of what in any decent light
would be various earth-tones--after all, he was dressed for worship on a
major holy day.
More
like Easter Vigil pre-liturgy--blessing and lighting the Paschal Candle outside
the church proper--crossed with a solemn musical number. Thalendri liturgy
centered around the art of dance; the Davvashi word for someone specially
blessed--mikal/mikallai--literally meant "Sacred Dancer."
Around
the central dais, hundreds of Thalendri in their best finery lay couchant, on
their bellies like animals, facing the altar in concentric rings, ears up and
alert in the light of the oil candles, silks and satins rustling, the white
tips of their tails moving in Brownian motion. A sea of prone tods and vixens,
all focused on one spot like cats on a laser pointer.
Fur and
fabric crowded around the human cleric--including Tosan's wife Neryai, a petite
gray vixen wearing a mixture of styles best described as "Elizabethan
Flapper" topped by a single-plumed tiara, the greens and golds almost
colorless in the dim light
Below
in the side chapel, the Hymn of Creation ended in a responsorial from High
Priest and Priestess and the congregation, echoed by the skulk in the gallery.
As the echoes died away in the dimness, the vulpine couple stepped down from
the dais to the first row of the prone skulk, vestments glittering in the oil-candlelight.
They stopped before two congregants in the first row, High Priestess to tod,
High Priest to vixen. A pause, pregnant with solemnity, then the two reached
down and helped the tod and vixen to their feet; in a wave from center to rim,
three hundred Thalendri rose from four legs to two, as if from animals to
people.
A
chorus of Yips arose from below and around Father Heidler as Tosan,
Neryai, the skulks on the chapel floor and gallery, all joined in, tods making
the God's Arrow from crotch to chest to muzzle-tip, vixens making the Goddess's
Bow from shoulder to head to shoulder. Heidler joined in with the Sign of the
Cross as the yipping faded away.
The
Supreme Pontiffs embraced the two they'd first lifted to their feet, rubbing
cheek against cheek, leaving their scent; the tod and vixen did the same to
those around them, passing the scent to the entire congregation, like a
nuzzling Greeting of Peace at Mass.
The skulk in the gallery did the same, Neryai, warbling, giving Heidler a
sensuous stroke of her soft-furred muzzle and cheek.
The
jingle of staff-bells mixed with the yipping; acolytes stepped forward to hand
the High Priest and High Priestess their staves as a procession began to form. Easter
Vigil again, without the Paschal Candle...
