Each part of the round wove into the complex spiral, a growing web of music that spun upwards until the whole hall vibrated.

The complexity of the polyphony generated from the single line of chant melody astounded Khassian. Its exquisite dissonances and resolutions made him want to weep – yet he knew he must keep singing, he must not lose the thread or the whole structure would unravel.

The floor beneath their feet had begun to vibrate in sympathy with the pulsations of the music.

And suddenly Khassian sensed that their voices had been joined by…

Others.

Now he could hear the rustling of many voices, intricate as the tremble of breeze-rippled windchimes, the buzzing of silver-winged bees.

A softspun light seemed to shimmer in the gloom; Khassian narrowed his eyes.

Orial was surrounded.

A phosphorescent glimmer lit the darkness of the Undercity with the eldritch light of marsh-fire.

Slowly the human singers fell silent, awed.

A wreathing circle of translucent, pulsing lights filled the chamber. From time to time a firebright thread of sound would coruscate outwards from the spinning circle. Dizzied, Khassian blinked.

They had come: a host of Eä-Endil, the Winged Ones.

It seemed the vibrations of light and sound mingled until Khassian could no longer distinguish one from the other; his senses were confused; he was hearing the colours, tasting the music. Green notes, acid-sharp, pierced his brain. Then a long, low, sustained pitch, rich as a gilded shaft of autumn sunlight. Now grey, crystalline drops of sound, cold as a spatter of winter rain…

Stones began to shift, ancient mechanisms, older than recorded time, creaking and groaning as the circular plinth on the floor on which Orial stood, slowly swung around. High above, a crack opened in the roof as daylight pierced the darkness, a shaft lighting up the gaping hole.

Steam rose hissing from the gulf below, and with it a spray of hot spring waters.

‘The springs! The springs!’ cried the Priestess.

The Priests fell to their knees. Others followed.

But Khassian still stood, staring transfixed at Orial.

Her pale face was suffused with an iridescent spectrum of light: translucent violet, rose, gold, glimmered in her hair, sapphire and emerald radiated from her eyes.

Khassian had seen the statues of Elesstar in the Temple. This was nothing like those blandly smiling figures of painted plaster. A river-spirit had risen from the reeds, a vernal goddess, ancient yet eternally young. She was the green sap pulsing, the wild fluting of the birds at dawn.

Slowly she raised her arms and a host of flying shadows appeared, clustering in the darkness.

Dragonflies… Huge dragonflies, as long as a man’s hand. Green as bottle glass, they darted around Orial’s head.

Clothed in living jewels, she stood motionless, her arms upraised.

Dragonflies swarmed over her bare breasts and arms, crowned her temples. Now her eyes reflected the colours of sky and water, the intense blue and green of her living adornments.