When Ierii was a young child it was still possible for people to honour both the Goddess and the God, though even then they were thought of as separate beings representing separate and irreconcilable forces. She had once seen Queen Nya-an, chief priestess of the Bull Cult, carried up the Holy Mountain of the Lady, to visit the sanctuary of the Goddess. The child had been impressed to see the Queen step down from the portable throne of wood and ivory, to stand like any ordinary suppliant with hand to forehead before the invisible Presence, pleading for the life of her son. But though the boy had lived on he was constantly in such sickly health that the Queen’s heart had hardened against the Divine Lady and the worship of the Goddess on the mountaintops was discouraged, all public religious
