Dus - Seven Altars Of Dusarra Part 5

The boy was the youngest, probably well short of his full height, and still totally innocent of any beard; Garth was no judge of human ages, but the lad was plainly far from maturity. As such, he would probably be limited in his knowledge; among overmen, at least, religion and philosophy were not the concerns of children, so Garth guessed that the boy would know nothing of the temples.

Of the two girls, there seemed little to choose, from the overman's point of view; they were of about the same size, and presumably therefore near the same age. They were as tall as many adult human women; Garth wondered again at the quirk of nature that made men and women so different in size, unlike overman and overwomen. Women seemed such small, fragile things, things, a.n.a.l oddly proportioned, at that.

One girl seemed slightly the more active of the two; Garth decided she must be the younger. It was her older sister he had spoken to when he arrived, and it would presumably be the older who would bring his food. In that case, he would simply speak to her when his meal was ready.

Even as he decided this, the girl emerged from a door at the rear carrying a heaping plate and full mug, which she balanced easily as she crossed the room to set them on the table before him.

"My thanks." He kept his face hidden and his voice high as he looked at his meal; beside the expected slices of red meat were three chunks of some pasty yellowish substance, and a curious red fruit, like none he was familiar with, adorned one edge. "What are these?" he asked, indicating these strangers.

"Roast potato, sir. And our last good apple; we have no other fruit in store at present."

Both names were meaningless to the overman; he could not even be sure of their spelling, through the girl's thick Dusarran accent. At least Nekutta spoke the same language as Eramma and the other northern lands, even if they spoke it strangely. Still, the "apple" was plainly a local fruit; the potato was another matter.

"What is potato?"

"Ah? Oh, you're joking!"

"No; I have traveled far."

"It's...it's a root, a vegetable. Eat it, and see." The girl was fl.u.s.tered; Garth was not sure if that was desirable or not. He did have her talking.

"Here, sit down; I will try this root of yours, but I have some questions about your city. Perhaps you can answer them."

"But..."

"I am a paying customer, am I not? You can spare a few minutes." He tapped the table with a gold coin, then suddenly realized that it was a mistake to draw attention to his inhuman hands; he dropped the coin, and drew his hand back out of sight. The girl apparently hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary; she stared at the coin for a moment, then s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and dropped it down the neckline of her robe. Garth was amused. He had never before seen a human keep anything there, but it seemed a logical place for a woman to put a pocket. The coin had been a fullsized gold piece, not one of the little bits such as he had given the stable-boy, and he remarked, "That will cover the meal as well, will it not?"

"Oh, yes!" The girl dropped herself into the chair opposite him, smiling.

"Good. Tell me of your city; I am a wanderer from far to the east."

"What is there to say?"

"Ah..." Garth had not expected that response. He was not experienced in dealing with humans. "Why is the marketplace so busy in the middle of the night? And the gate wide open?"

"It always is."

That demolished the religious festival theory once and for all. "But why? In most cities business is a matter for daylight, and the night is given to sleep."

"But this is Dusarra!" Her tone implied, even to the untrained ear of an overman, that he was being purposely dense. He picked up a chunk of potato on his knife and ate it, while considering this; the stuff seemed edible, but not particularly tasty.

"And what is so special about Dusarra?"

"You do not know?"

"No."

"The very name tells you."

Garth had paid little attention to the name, a.s.suming it nothing but a noise that represented this particular place; he considered it a bit more carefully, and still saw nothing significant in it. The ending was a standard designation for a gathering place, and the root, Dus, was completely unknown to him.

"I do not understand."

"'Dusarra' means 'the place of the Dark G.o.ds' Here we worship the G.o.ds shunned by the outside world; mostly Tema, the G.o.ddess of night. Perhaps, stranger, you have made a mistake in coming here if you did not know that."

"Perhaps I have." He sat silently for a moment, thinking.

He should have expected something like this from the Forgotten King. He knew very little about human religions, beyond the fact that no two seemed to agree about anything, but he had heard of the Dark G.o.ds; they were supposed to demand human sacrifices, and to be wholly evil in nature. It had been rumored that the Baron of Skelleth was a secret devotee of theirs, and that had been considered sufficient grounds for immediate execution if proven; it remained only a vague rumor. It was said that, unlike most G.o.ds, they still interfered directly in mortal affairs, and would grant their followers special powers and abilities in exchange for gruesome payments of blood, death, and torture. Evil wizards were said to have sold themselves-their souls, to use the human term that overmen did not use-to the Dark G.o.ds.

And the entire city of Dusarra worshipped these deities? It seemed incredible. How could a thinking being worship evil?

"Tell me, then, about these G.o.ds." At least the conversation had taken a turn toward the temples without obviously being steered there.

"There are seven of them, the seven Lords of Dus, the counterparts to the seven Lords of Eir worshipped elsewhere. I know very little about most of them; I am a follower of Tema, like the rest of my family."

"How did you come to be such?"

"I was brought up in the faith, of course."

"How did the city come to worship these G.o.ds?"

"I don't know; it always has. My father told me once that it was part of a cosmic balance that these misunderstood and maligned G.o.ds should have one city of their own."

"Are they not evil?"

"Tema is not!" Her face was suddenly animated, and Garth was taken aback by her ferocity. "Tema is beautiful! The night is wonderful, cool and calm; I would never be a day worshipper! How can people live with all that glaring light? And all the sweaty heat? And all the beasts roam by day, and insects. The sun is so bright you cannot look at it, and it drowns out all the beauty of the flames. There are no stars in the daytime! I..." She subsided suddenly. "Forgive me."

"No, forgive me; I did not mean to offend you. In other lands I have visited, the Dark G.o.ds are thought to be the G.o.ds of evil."

She shrugged. "They are obviously ignorant heathens. There are no evil G.o.ds, really; evil is just misunderstandings between people, or between people and the G.o.ds. That's what the priests say."

"I see. You worship the night-G.o.ddess. What of the other six?"

"They have their followers, too, but I do not heed them. I sometimes think that some of them are evil, despite what the priests say. Aghad, for example; his followers make my skin crawl, and his priests frighten me. I have seen them gathering at his temple. And of course, no one worships The G.o.d Whose Name Is Not Spoken, though he has a temple."

Garth began to have a rather unsettled feeling; he had heard of The G.o.d Whose Name Is Not Spoken. That was the G.o.d of death, known throughout the world; it was said that to speak his true name was to die instantly. And they worshipped him here?

No, the girl had just said that they did not, but that there was a temple dedicated to him. Was it one of the seven he would have to rob?

It must be; everyone seemed to agree that there were only seven temples in Dusarra. Although he would not admit to being in any way superst.i.tious, and although his own people insisted that either there were no G.o.ds or they did not meddle in the affairs of mortals, he did not care to rob the temple of Death.

On the other hand, his practical sense told him, if there were no worshippers, it would be unguarded and the easiest of the lot.

"Tell me who the seven G.o.ds are."

"You mean the seven who have temples?"

"Are there others?"

"Oh, yes; there's Tema's daughter Mei, the lady of the moon, and any number of others."

"Just tell me the seven."

"Bheleu, P'hul, Sai, Aghad, Andhur Regvos, and Tema."

"That's only six, if I heard you rightly."

"Well and there's the Unnamed G.o.d. You know."

"Oh, of course." It was apparently considered bad luck to mention the death-G.o.d too often even by circ.u.mlocution. "I know him, and P'hul, and you have told me Tema is the G.o.ddess of the night; who are the others?"

"Bheleu is G.o.d of destruction and war, I think. Andhur Regvos is the G.o.d of darkness."

"Why has he got two names?"

"I don't know."

"Oh. Go on; what about the other two?"

"I don't know; Aghad and Sai are secret. Their temples admit no outsiders. They both...well, that's just a rumor. Never mind."

"And all the city lives by night, to accord with their religion?"

"Oh, no! Not all! Only the worshippers of night and darkness. But we're most of the city. I don't know anyone who lives by day, but of course that's partly because I'm asleep all day."

"I am interested in this; could I visit the temples?"

"I don't know about the others, but I can take you to the temple of Tema."

"Good. But first," he said, realizing that he had been talking while his food grew cold and that he was ravenously hungry, "I will eat."

He did so, and found the food and drink good; the girl laughed gaily when he tried to eat the apple core and all.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

The temple of Tema was a ma.s.sive, imposing structure; most of its area was covered by a looming black dome, which Garth thought was probably the one he had first seen from ten leagues' distance, and the entrance was through the base of a tower that stood a good hundred feet in height. The entire building was constructed of huge blocks of black stone, finely polished, and with elaborate carvings on either side of the wide, open doorway. The door was reached by climbing a flight of thirteen black stone steps, flanked by bal.u.s.trades carved into a maze of intertwined black serpents. Garth did not particularly care for the place; although undeniably impressive, he did not like the impression it gave of looming over one, black in the moonlight, and the way its size served to diminish its inhabitants. The robed and hooded figures entering the dark portal looked like little children, out of proportion with their surroundings.

He also didn't like the darkness within; not the slightest glimmer of light showed through the door. That was appropriate for the temple of the G.o.ddess of night, but he still didn't like it.

The tavern girl was beside him as he mounted the steps; it occurred to him suddenly that he didn't know her name. Of course, she didn't know his name, either. Ahead of them three other worshippers, robed in midnight blue, vanished into the darkness of the doorway.

A moment later, he and the girl also stepped into the gloom of the interior. Garth paused for a moment, to let his eyes adjust, and realized he could detect no trace of the three who had entered just ahead of them; no sound of rustling clothing, no footsteps, no odor. His psychic discomfort increased.

The girl had not hesitated, as he had, and was across the room, an antechamber about forty feet square; he heard her whisper, "Come on!" He came, and rejoined her, standing a pace or two from the inner wall. He had expected a draped doorway, or some other opening into the temple proper, but could make out no sign of one; there seemed to be merely a blank stone wall. Then, with startling abruptness, a portion of the stone wall swung inward; the heavy scent of incense drifted out to him. He made out a figure in the opening, darkly clad, but with-pale skin and white hair that gleamed in the faint moonlight that reached it. The darkness within that opening seemed no more absolute than in the antechamber; that was some comfort, anyway. The girl stepped through the opening, and he followed, to find himself in the main temple.

The odor of incense was almost overpowering; its smoke swirled in great clouds, almost invisible in the darkness. Moonlight filtered in from somewhere, though he could see no windows; the walls were blank and dark behind him, and he could not see the far side. The room he found himself in was obviously huge; all about him were constant indefinable whisperings and rustlings, which were distorted by distance and echoes and which seemed to drift in the smoke. He could not make out either the far wall or the roof; his eyes had not yet had time to adjust.

A change in the movement of the air prompted him to turn, and discover that the opening he had entered through had vanished; the wall seemed solid once more. The white-haired apparition had also disappeared. He turned to face the interior again, and was relieved to see, dimly, the figure of the tavern-girl, still only a few paces in front of him.

She motioned for him to follow, and led the way across the chamber; he obeyed, carefully maintaining his stooped posture, and noticed that where she moved silently, his boot heels tapped loudly on the stone floor.

They went perhaps a hundred feet, then stopped; the girl turned slightly, and knelt in a curious submissive position, head lowered, hands in front of her. Garth imitated her, and waited for his eyes to adapt themselves.

He was kneeling at the back of a crowd of humans, all in a similar devotional posture; the chamber, he saw, filled the entire interior of the great dome, easily two hundred feet across and sixty or seventy feet high at the center. The moonlight came from hundreds, perhaps thousands of tiny holes that pierced the dome, and which he realized after a moment's study were intended to resemble stars, arranged in the constellations that could be seen in the middle of a winter night.

The great circular floor was cluttered with people, both kneeling and prostrate, but none were speaking, not even in a whisper; the constant sounds that echoed and reechoed from the dome were the inevitable rustlings of the worshippers' clothing, no more. Or at least, nothing more he was sure of; some of the sounds seemed too strange to be so readily explained.

All these people, whether prostrate or upright, faced in the same direction; as his eyes continued to adjust, he gradually made out the object of their adoration.

The figure of a human female was carved from the same black stone as wall and dome; it was thirty feet or so in height, and a masterpiece of sculpture. She stood against the wall, upright, but not stiffly erect; her arms were upraised, spreading her stony cloak above the worshipping throng. The cloak itself blended into the wall and dome indistinguishably, and Garth saw, looking around, that its folds were continued indefinitely, so that the entire chamber was contained within it, "stars" and all. The figure itself was depicted as clad in a loose robe such as all Dusarrans seemed to wear, but arranged so that the graceful curves of the woman's body could be seen. The face was oval, smooth and serene, and surrounded by a halo of drifting hair that blended into the dome in the same manner as the cloak. The overall impression, to the overman, was one of grace and soothing calm; he was not equipped to appreciate the G.o.ddess' sensual nature and although the symbolism of the G.o.ddess spreading her cloak of night across her followers was plain to him, he did not fully comprehend the comforting motherliness that the worshippers of Tema found in that image. Still, he understood, in an intellectual way, that humans would have little trouble in putting their faith in such a deity. No wonder the girl had been upset when he called the G.o.ddess evil.

He was so involved in his study of the magnificent idol that it was several minutes before he even noticed the altar that stood at her feet.

It was a great chunk of meteoric iron, its sides still burned and twisted from its fall, but with the top sheared off and polished to a gleaming metallic shine perceptible even in the darkness of the temple. There was no mistaking that this was the altar that Garth had come to rob, and there upon it was what he must steal; he could make out only a vague round shape, a foot or so in diameter.

There was a spot of light on its surface, he noticed; one of the pinholes in the dome was directly in line with the moon, and a beam of its light was now falling directly upon that thing upon the altar. He wondered whether it was intentional.

Then, so suddenly that he almost lost his balance in his startlement, the room was filled with chanting; the incense swirled more thickly than ever, billowing forth from a dozen niches s.p.a.ced around the wall. Priests appeared behind the altar, completely hidden in black robes that exaggerated the usual looseness to near parody; one reached forward, and what Garth suddenly realized was a cloth cover vanished from the thing on the altar.

It immediately blazed up into scintillating light, so bright in the darkness as to seem almost blinding; it was a great crystal, a sphere with a million facets, which trapped the thin beam of moonlight and reflected and refracted it into a glittering display of pure white light. Garth thought for a moment that it was a diamond, but dismissed that as absurd; no diamond could be so large, and he doubted that even diamond could catch the light like that. This was some sort of gem or crystal that was totally unfamiliar to him.

It was also a gem he would have to steal, if he were to perform his errand in Dusarra.

He knelt, listening to the priests chant, and wondered how he was ever going to manage it.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

There were words to the chant, and the ceremony undoubtedly had some specific significance, but Garth made out none of it; he was too lost in his own thoughts to listen, and the echoing dome distorted the singsong enough to make it difficult to discern its meaning. It sounded to the overman like nothing more than a randomly shifting drone.

He paid little attention as the dark-robed priests lifted the great crystal and moved it ceremoniously through elaborate patterns in the air, alternately sprinkling the crowd with sparkles of reflected moonlight and plunging them into darkness; he was planning out his actions. There were questions he would have asked the tavern-girl, but she was lost in the chanting, her lips moving silently, her face enraptured. He saw instantly, when a stray glint of moonlight lit her features, that she would be of no use to him for awhile.

Since this was the temple of night, it seemed a safe a.s.sumption that all prayers and worship were nocturnal; by day the place should be almost deserted, though probably there would be a few priests about. It was already well after midnight; he had merely to wait until dawn, grab the crystal, and depart. If possible he would wait until no priests were about, but if necessary he could force his way through them. There was no sign that they carried weapons of any sort; a drawn sword should awe them into letting him pa.s.s, most particularly since most humans had an almost superst.i.tious fear of overmen, who were, after all, a good bit larger and stronger than humans, and by human standards hideous monsters.

It would be advisable to find some quiet hiding place where he could wait until daybreak; if he merely stayed where he was he might draw unwanted attention. He considered leaving and then returning at sunrise, but rejected it immediately. He had no idea how to open that swinging wall, or even whether it could be opened from the outside at all. Even if it could be, it might be kept locked by day.

The ritual, ended with a simple chant that the worshippers repeated along with the priests; every other word was the name of the G.o.ddess, and it was just six words, but Garth could not make out the other three. It was recited three times; then the priest lifted the crystal one last time, placed it on the altar, and lifted its cloth cover back over it. Its final gleam lit the priest's eyes, despite his overhanging cowl, and Garth started with surprise; the priest's eyes were as red as his own! For an instant he thought that perhaps the robed figure was another overman, but dismissed it; he was too small, by far, and like the person who had admitted him to the chamber, his hair was gleaming white, while all overmen had coal-black hair. Besides, that quick glimpse had shown him eyes with pupil, iris, and white, while overmen had only pupil and iris. No, the priest was just a freak of some sort.