The Temple of the Sun

1
The Warning and the Journey
The High Priest, the Lord Guiron, was in the great circle of the Temple of the Sun by himself, the dawn rituals over, the other priests and initiates departed. He too should have left and be attending to the business of the Temple.
Something held him back.
Something made him break his routine and pace the Tall stones around the circumference, not as a priest drawing energy from them, not as a suppliant speaking with spirits, not as Lord of the Sun in robes of splendour with the power to roam the world at will, but as an old man suddenly lonely and afraid.
It was as though the people leaving the circle after the ceremony this particular morning drained him of his significance. He had not felt this way before, or not for many years. He had been in the circle alone many times, as High Priest it was his right, but it had always sustained him in his confidence and strength.
Now he felt like a peasant who had wandered unwittingly into a Sacred Circle and was overwhelmed by his own smallness and in awe of the giant forces surrounding him.
He, Guiron, Lord High Priest, was afraid.
Afraid in his own Temple?
Afraid of what?
He did not know.
The shoulders he usually carried so straight and proud were bent.
'What is it?' he kept asking himself.
But for all his knowledge of the Mysteries, and for all the control of mind and body he had learned through the long years of priesthood, this time he was an ordinary man faced with an uneasiness to which he could not put a name, which he could not define.
He thought of entering one of the two inner circles within the great circle which were reserved for very special occasions. Perhaps their extra strength would give him back his stature as a Priest.
But as he approached the northern one, it was as though he were held back.
'Not now,' a voice that was not his own voice spoke within his head. 'Not now.'
Feeling himself an exile he stumbled slightly and returned to the outer circle. Beyond the immense standing stones that carried the flow of spirit power from earth to sky, from sky to earth, the high ridge, walled with rough chalk blocks, rose above him, cutting him off from the rest of his fellow men. It was designed to isolate the Temple for its work, to concentrate its energies and keep intruders out, and he now felt as much a prisoner as a small beetle would that had fallen on its back within a steep-sided hole.
There were things in his past that he did not wish to think about. He pushed them back into the darkness. Long years of service as Priest of light had surely undone whatever harm he might have done once long ago!
But from the crevices of darkness in his mind, unease was stirring and this time he could not put it down.
With no one to observe him he allowed himself the luxury of tears and put his head against a Tall stone to the east of the circle, a stone for which he had always felt a particular affinity. He put his arms around it as though it were a man and could give him comfort.
'Lord,' he whispered, 'Lord of light. Help me.'
He tried to clear his head of the irrational and disorderly murmurings of his mind.
Where was his training now?
Slowly order came.
Slowly the clamour of his fear died down.
He tried to visualize, to call before him a picture of what it was that threatened him.
He could feel a low drumming or throbbing in his head. Whether it was from within himself or from within the rock he pressed himself so closely against, he could not tell.
He listened to it and it seemed to him at last that it was the sound of the ocean, beating relentlessly against the shore, the ocean rising and falling, swelling and subsiding, and upon its vastness there was a small seed, a fragile boat tossed among the waves, that bore within it something that threatened change to him and the Great Temple that lay around him.
The image was not clear.
The menace was not strong.