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 re-echoed 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 Dûsarrans 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 goddess’ sensual nature, and although the symbolism of the goddess 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 goddess 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 spaced 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 Dûsarra.
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 a while.
Since this was the temple of night, it seemed a safe assumption 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 pass, most particularly since most humans had an almost superstitious 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 goddess, 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.
The ceremony was over, and
the tavern-girl rose and motioned for him to follow her out; he shook his head. She frowned at him, and then shrugged and left. Almost all the worshippers, kneeling or prostrate, were getting to their feet and heading toward the entrance, but Garth remained where he was, to await the dawn.
It was a long, weary wait; he had not realized how tired he was, but the effects of a long day’s ride were catching up to him well before the night was over.
When the crowd had departed he was left alone in the middle of the stone floor, but the cowled priests, who moved with quiet rustlings but no words along the wall behind the altar, paid him no heed. Moments after the last of Tema’s devoted had departed, new ones began to trickle in; by the time a half hour had passed the chamber was becoming crowded once again with people kneeling with hands clasped before them, or flat on their bellies, all facing the magnificent black stone idol.
The scattered bits of moonlight that found their way through the holes in the dome shifted as the moon crawled across the heavens outside, and an hour or so after the tavern-girl’s departure a spot of light appeared on the cloth-covered sphere atop the altar. A priest withdrew the covering, and the chanting began anew.
This time it was not his planning that kept Garth from hearing the words; it was his efforts to stay awake. His knees hurt from kneeling so long without moving on hard stone, his eyes ached from the strain of seeing through the unchanging dark, and his whole body was weary from his long ride. He knew that to close his eyes would be to fall asleep. He had arisen early, before dawn, which meant that when the new day arrived he would have gone better than twenty-four hours without sleep; that was no remarkable feat, ordinarily, but after a day spent riding and now passing long, dull hours crouching in the dark, it began to seem impossible.
The second ceremony ended, the crowd dispersed, and newcomers trickled in; still he knelt there, and still no one paid any attention to him. The priests shuffled about at the goddess’ feet; all seemed to have long, pure-white hair, and at least two had the same strange red eyes. All were pale-skinned, unlike the other Dûsarrans Garth had seen; even those whose faces remained completely hidden showed their hands on occasion, and those hands were uniformly white and apparently hairless. There were few other similarities amongst them; some were tall, some short, some fat, some thin. There seemed to be at least one priestess among them, judging by what little could be distinguished through the flowing robes. Garth had once seen a white wolf, a beast with snow-white fur and blood-red eyes; a Kirpan scholar had referred to it as “albino.” These priests must be albino humans. He had not known such existed. And why should all the priests be such? It seemed a peculiar requirement, if such it was; why were albinos especially suited to serve the goddess of the night?
Wondering about such trivia managed to keep him awake through a third and final ceremony; this time, when the final simple chant ended and the gem was covered, the crowd moved more slowly, and for the first time Garth heard worshippers speaking amongst themselves. Likewise, the priests ended their apparently aimless wanderings; all but three of the half dozen or more he had seen vanished, though Garth could not see where they had gone. The remaining trio stood motionless behind the altar, the center one with his hands resting one on either side of the shrouded crystal.
Garth estimated it to be two hours before dawn still. Since this new behavior seemed to demonstrate that the temple’s services were through for the night, he got to his feet; his knees stung as circulation returned to the areas where it had been cut off. He gazed up at the idol, as if in adoration, so that no one would question his failing to depart.
His eyes had long since become adjusted to the faint illumination, but now he found himself unable to distinguish details of carving that had been clear before; he blinked, but it made no difference. The scattered moonlight was not evenly distributed; had it merely shifted? No, it was growing uniformly darker. He had a moment of irrational fear that he was going blind before he realized what was happening.
The moon was setting.
That, of course, was why there were to be no more ceremonies, and why everyone was departing; with the moon down, the temple would be far too dark for use. People would run into one another, face the wrong way, and generally be unable to behave appropriately; even night-worshippers recognized that. He wondered what they did on moonless nights; were there no services at all? The starlight was plainly inadequate. Or what of overcast nights? Would torchlight from the streets or the glow of the volcanoes reflected off the clouds be enough? There would be no beam of moonlight falling on the great crystal.
Well, interesting as they might be, such considerations were irrelevant, since this night had been clear and moonlit. The spreading darkness would actually work to his benefit, since no one would be able to see him steal the gem; he studied the altar, measuring the distance between it and himself, so as to reach it quickly in the dark.
The three priests still stood behind it; the last worshippers had drifted out, and Garth realized they were looking at him, noticing this last straggler. That was not what he wanted. He turned and headed for the door, but stopped a foot from it, and turned to look again, hoping that anyone who saw him would not think that unusual.
Apparently the priests didn’t, if they were able to see at all in the deepening gloom; Garth doubted they could see him any more, as he could no longer see them. Although he did not know for sure, it seemed unlikely that those squinty little human eyes could be as good as an overman’s—though of course the priests’ eyes were not quite normal.
A gong sounded somewhere, and the stone door swung slowly shut; whoever worked it thought Garth had left. He stepped away from it and lost himself in the darkness.
There were rustlings and whisperings in the blackness, which was now almost total; the moon was down. Although the dome made it very hard to locate sounds, Garth judged that the three priests were moving away from the altar. In a moment the sounds were cut off as if a curtain had dropped across a doorway; straining, Garth could hear faint footsteps departing. The priests were gone.
Moving with all the stealth he could contrive, Garth inched across the broad stone expanse that lay between him and the altar; he could not see more than a few inches in front of him, and the quiet shuffling of his boots seemed magnified into a low roar by the echoes.
After what seemed hours, his outstretched hand touched something; he studied it with his fingertips, and decided it was a fold in the idol’s cloak; he had missed the altar and hit the wall, off to the left. Cautiously, he felt his way along the fold until it swooped up out of reach, then moved on along the wall until he came to the idol’s slippered feet, which he knew to be immediately behind the altar. He turned until he faced directly away from the wall, and peered into the darkness; he thought he could see the dim outline of the altar. He took a step forward and felt in front of him, reaching down to the height he estimated the altar to be; his hand brushed against a polished surface. Using both hands he groped about the altar-top and found the cloth-covered stone. He picked it up, cover and all, and tucked it under his cloak. Now he had only to get out of the temple undetected.
He knew that the concealed door to the antechamber was directly opposite the altar. He considered feeling his way along the wall until he found it, but rejected that idea; he might walk right into priests reentering the chamber, or at the very least be heard through whatever doorways they had departed by. Instead, he aimed himself by dead reckoning and set out across the floor.
Again, it seemed to take hours to cross, but at last an outstretched hand touched stone. He came up within inches of the wall, but could see only blackness; he felt along it with his hand, seeking a latch or seam or hinge. His left hand was occupied in holding the pilfered altar-stone under his cloak; it took a long time to cover an area with only his unencumbered right. He worked his way along, first three paces to the right, then twice that distance to the left, then back to the right once more; a feeling of desperation crept into him as his fingers f
ound nothing but yard after yard of smooth stone.
Suddenly there was a sound behind him; he whirled, his right hand dropping automatically under his cloak to the hilt of his sword, but could see nothing in the darkness.
“If you return the stone you may go in peace, thief.” He recognized the voice as one of the priests. He made no reply.
“You cannot open the door; only the priests of Tema know its secret.”
Garth wondered how many were there, and how they had gotten so close to him without being heard; he judged the voice—for so far only one had spoken—to be ten, perhaps fifteen, not more than twenty feet away.
“Return the gem.”
He needed time to devise an escape. “And if I do not?” he asked.
“Then you will die here.”
Garth adjusted his grip, hugging the crystal closer to him, and drew his sword. “I have a counterproposal. You will open the door for me, or you will die, not I.”
There could be no doubt that the priest or priests had heard and recognized the scrape of steel on leather as the blade left its sheath; there was a pause before the voice spoke again.
“It is possible that you may kill one or two of us before you yourself perish; if so, we will die in the sure knowledge that we have served our goddess and will be admitted to her realm for all eternity. You, on the other hand, will die damned forever for your sacrilege. I ask again, return the stone; it is not too late. Return it, and we will yet let you depart peacefully, even though you have drawn a weapon in our sanctuary.”
The Seven Altars of Dusarra Page 8