The Temples Of Ayocan rb-14

by Джеффри Лорд

  She was indeed a virgin, but would not be for long. There was little resistance as Blade slipped inside her wet vagina, no cries, only a little quivering of the fleshy thighs as he entered. But as he plunged deeper, her legs came up steadily, as though they were attached to balloons, and locked around his back. Her hips began to wriggle and twist back and forth as she tried to lock Blade as deeply as possible inside her.

  It was often a chancy business, trying to satisfy a virgin. But not this time. The woman was ready to be satisfied — spectacularly ready. And spectacular, also, in her climaxes. She sobbed and moaned and howled so loudly when the first one tore through her body that Blade nearly lost his erection on the spot, fearing they would be heard all over the temple mound.

  But solid stone walls will block even the sounds of a woman half-mad with passion. Blade's instincts told him that the woman was not remotely satisfied. But the sensations tearing through his own groin told him that he was terribly close to his own release. The combination of her tightness and wetness around his large, swollen, fast-stroking member was becoming rapidly more and more unbearable.

  But he had always found the strength to keep going on, and he managed to find it again. A second climax tore through the woman beneath him, as her hips slammed upward against his with almost bruising force. Her mouth writhed and poured out fierce animal noises. Then she went limp, as suddenly as a snapped rubber band. In almost the same moment, Blade also went limp, as he flooded and poured and cascaded into her, his wetness and hers now mingling. He very nearly went limp all over and sagged down on her with his full weight. But he managed to roll off, to lie beside her on the bed.

  He lay there until his head had cleared. But even before that his eyes were fixed on the woman again, and his reflexes alert for any threat from her. More than one woman had taken advantage of what she had hoped would be a let-down in his alertness at such times, to try to drug or kill him. None of them had succeeded. He didn't want this woman to be the first one.

  But she did nothing, and in fact she was probably beyond doing anything. She lay on her back, legs still spread, her limbs still limp. Her mouth sagged open and her eyes stared blankly upward in exhausted satiation. Blade doubted if she could have flogged either her mind or her body to make any move, either to save her own life or to threaten his. But he remained alert.

  Gradually life returned to the woman, and her eyes lost their glazed air and focused on Blade. One hand crept out and gently patted his now limp member. Her lips curled in a faint smile.

  As long as the woman was in this mood, Blade decided to return to his original question.

  «Who are you?»

  «My name is Natrila.»

  «What are you doing in a temple of Ayocan?»

  «I–I serve in the temple. I-«

  «I think you are not telling the truth, Natrila. The women I have seen who serve in the Houses of Ayocan feed on the tree of death. Their eyes are blank, their minds are dull, and they do not throw themselves upon a man the way you did. You are a woman whose mind at least is free. You are not a temple servant. So I ask you again-what are you doing in a House of Ayocan? If you do not tell me what you are and what you were doing coming to my chamber, I will call for Isgon. And I will tell him what you have done.»

  Natrila stiffened suddenly and gave a little gasp of surprise-or fear. But she was still silent. Blade repeated his question. «Natrila, I do not want to hurt you. But I cannot serve mighty Ayocan properly if I do not know what goes on around this House. You must tell me, or I shall speak to Isgon.»

  Natrila stiffened again, but this time she gave a small snort of defiance. «You want to serve Ayocan properly. Hunh! Do you think that matters to me?»

  Blade realized he had accidentally struck a vulnerable spot. But he maintained his severe face and tone. «Perhaps I should also tell Isgon that you do not care for the service of mighty Ayocan. And if you do not, why are you polluting this House of the god with your presence? That must be displeasing to Ayocan. And Ayocan shall not be displeased.»

  Natrila stared at Blade as though he had suddenly started gibbering and drooling like a madman. «I don't understand you, warrior. I just don't understand you. How could you do what you have just done-so well-and yet believe in that bat-winged bloodsucker Ayocan?»

  «You blaspheme!» said Blade sharply. The sharpness he put in his voice was largely to help him keep his face straight. He was finding it harder and harder to present the image of a fanatical warrior-worshiper of the bat-god. But if he let the mask drop- even once, the shoe might suddenly be on the other foot. Instead of him threatening to tell Isgon of the woman's behavior, she might then threaten to tell tales of his disloyalty.

  Natrila stiffened at the edge in Blade's voice. There was a pleading note in her voice this time as she spoke.

  «For the love of whatever gods there are, please don't tell Isgon! He-he would not be pleased at what we have done.»

  «Why?» Blade put ice into that one word.

  «Isgon is my father.» Natrila sagged down onto the rumpled bed and let her head drop into her hands. Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. Blade would have liked to be sympathetic, but for the moment he had to press his advantage.

  «Your father? How is it that an Elder Brother of the Houses of Ayocan has a daughter? He must have most wickedly violated his obligation to celibacy.»

  «Oh, the devil take obligations to celibacy and you too! Nine out of ten of the priests of Ayocan stick it into any woman they can catch whenever they can catch her. And then if the woman conceives a child or breathes a word of what happened, the priests send the Death-Vowed out after her. She winds up lying rotting in the street with a batwing carved on her guts»

  «You will not turn me aside by attacking the sworn serving Brothers of Ayocan! And you have not answered my question. How did your father come to have you-and to keep you here, in the holy House of Ayocan!» Blade found it hard to keep his face and voice under control as he said this. He hoped Natrila would mistake the contortions of his face for an almost uncontrollable rage.

  Apparently she did. In a small voice she said, «He is a good man in some ways, for all his ambitions. When my mother said that she was carrying me, he did not send the Death-Vowed out against her. Instead he sent her gold, and told her to raise me until I was eighteen, and then send me to him. She did all this, and I came to him, and here we are. I pass as one of the servants. Only a few of my father's most trusted men know who or what I am.»

  «Indeed,» said Blade, to cover his momentary uncertainty. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable about pushing this wretched girl any further. It took all the detachment he had learned in twenty years in the intelligence business to keep him going. «I can see that he would be displeased to learn what you have done. But I think I can see my way to not telling him.»

  Natrila raised red eyes to stare at Blade. «You can?»

  «Under one condition,» went on Blade. «That you tell me what goes on in this House of Ayocan, starting at once. Your father has made me the trainer and leader of his Holy Warriors. But he tells me little or nothing of what I need to know about the Houses of Ayocan in Gonsara, that I may defend them well. If you will tell me what he does not, my mouth remains closed. And perhaps my bed will even remain open to you.»

  That last offer made Natrila wriggle uncontrollably. «Oh, yes, yes. Please. That was why I came to you. I knew that I was a woman, but my father thought me only a girl. And I would trust none of the other Brothers. But you-you are such a man-and I thought I could trust you-«Her voice broke again.

  Blade sat down beside her and held her until she stopped crying. «You can trust me, Natrila, as long as you keep telling me what goes on in the temple mound here.» He had to fight back the temptation to tell her what he was really here to do. Certainly she seemed to hate the cult of Ayocan and its priests enough so that she would never deliberately betray him. But there were always slips of the tongue-and there could always be torture.

/>   Eventually Natrila gave Blade the promise he wanted, and slipped out. Alone, Blade sat on the bed, a sour expression on his face. He felt dirty over what he had done to Natrila, as though he had abused a child's trust. And he felt a terrible fury at the cult of Ayocan, that had put him in this position. Natrila's shame was one more thing he would avenge on the cult as thoroughly as possible.

  A desire for vengeance was unprofessional, he recalled all his instructors (including 3 himself) saying over and over again. Be calm, cold, detached. Don't let emotions get in the way of doing what needs to be done-or let them push you into doing more than is needed to accomplish your mission.

  Yes, but when vengeance pushes you in the same direction as your professional standard? The more the priests Ayocan suffered, the better his mission would be accomplished. And the more they suffered, the more they would also pay for what they had done, and forced Blade to do. On that thought he became calm, lay down, and went to sleep.

  Chapter 16

  Natrila kept her part of the bargain as well as she could, and Blade kept his as well as he could. It was easy for him not to tell Isgon. It was less easy for him to meet Natrila's demands for lovemaking. Not impossible-Blade had never failed that way yet. He suspected that when he did, it would be wise to take him off missions into Dimension X. In each new dimension his life or at least his success seemed to depend at least once on satisfying a sex-hungry woman. But he also hoped that his virility would last much longer than his career as a traveler into Dimension X.

  Natrila's newly awakened appetites were large, and her desire to get more and learn more was enormous. Blade was kept busy when she visited him. In return, she kept him fairly well posted on the doings inside the temple. Not as well as he had hoped, because Natrila did not move around much. Nor did her father tell her very much. And of course she could hardly ask anything of the other priests, even the most trustworthy ones. But Blade learned that Isgon was rapidly pushing his plans forward. The ranks of the Death-Vowed were swelling steadily. Messages flowed regularly back and forth among the various temple mounds in Gonsara. The ones outside Dafar would have an important job- to do when the day came-that of creating spectacular diversions. And a small net of sympathizers in key places was being built up in Dafar itself. Were they really sympathizers, or merely men lusting after power and gold? Blade did not know, nor did he care at this point. One who served the cult of Ayocan was an enemy.

  Even without Natrila's information it would have been obvious that Isgon was getting impatient. The second set of Holy Warriors was now in training, which gave a total force of close to a hundred men. But Isgon was continuously after Blade to start the third and even fourth groups training. Visions of Holy Warriors obedient to his orders marching by the hundreds and thousands through Gonsara were beginning to dance in the priest's head. Blade found it increasingly hard to convince him that it would be several months at least before as many as a thousand Holy Warriors were fit to tackle King Thambral's troops.

  Twenty days passed, during which time Natrila came to Blade's chamber seven times. On the twenty-first evening, she came for the eighth time. And this time she brought some startling and even alarming news.

  «An Elder Brother is coming to this House all the way from the Supreme House in Tzakalan. It is said he is planning to inquire into the affairs of the servants of Ayocan here in Gonsara. It is also said he will bring seventy or more Holy Warriors of his own, the pick of those from the Supreme House.»

  This was a time for Blade to once more pretend to be a devoted and faithful servant of mighty Ayocan. «What can he hope to find in such an inquiry? We have done not the smallest thing to displease Ayocan. And why seventy Holy Warriors? Does he think to replace those we have trained here? Seventy Holy Warriors will not be enough to even seize Thambral's palace, let alone bring Ayocan to power in Gonsara.»

  Blade was more worried than he could afford to show. Did this sudden mission from Tzakalan mean that the cult of Ayocan was on his trail again? Or perhaps they were on Isgon's trail? Either meant trouble for Blade, but the second also meant trouble within the ranks of the cult. Blade could hardly think of a more appealing sight than the Holy Warriors of two different factions of the cult fighting it out in the main temple mound in Gonsara. He knew that his own men would certainly fight any attempt to disarm them unless both he and Isgon ordered them to submit. And certainly Blade was never going to give that order.

  Four days later at about dinner time, word came of the Elder Brother's arrival. Blade picked the fifty best fighters from his Holy Warriors and led them to the uppermost levels of the temple mound. He and Isgon did not want the new priest's Holy Warriors penetrating any deeper than necessary into the temple mound. If it came to a fight, the closer to the surface the better. And for Blade himself, the closer to the surface he was, the faster he could get out, if necessary.

  Blade distributed the men around the chambers and corridors and squatted on his haunches to wait. Within a few minutes a rumble floated down the stairs from the surface above. The sound of voices and the clank of weapons reached Blade. A troop of forty-odd Holy Warriors filled the stairs and lined up on either side of the door. Although they were disguised as porters and other manual laborers, their bearing gave them away, as did the swords and axes now worn openly on their belts. Next came the sound of sandaled feet briskly descending the stairs. Finally a small figure in yellow-orange robes stepped into sight.

  It was Pterin.

  As Blade stepped forward to greet Pterin, he recognized the man. He stiffened and stopped so abruptly that he nearly lost his balance and sprawled forward on his face at Pterin's feet. But he managed to stay upright, staring at the priest, searching for any sign of recognition on the thin face.

  For the moment, there was none. Instead Pterin turned to Isgon and glowered at him while another troop of Holy Warriors filed down the stairs. By the time they had all reached the bottom, the chamber was packed almost solid with warriors and priests. The only open space was a small circle around the two Elder Brothers. Blade also noticed that a solid mass of Pterin's Holy Warriors stood between him and the foot of the stairs.

  Now Pterin stepped up to Isgon and said coldly, «A strange greeting, Isgon. Whence come these men in the garb of the Holy Warriors of mighty Ayocan? I thought King Thambral had forbidden you such.»

  Isgon's hands fluttered nervously. Pterin's manner and the threatening force of tough fighters he had brought with him had the other priest much on edge. «They are being trained for me, in secret, by this warrior.» He pointed at Blade, and motioned him forward, into the open circle. Reluctantly, Blade stepped forward. Under the circumstances the last thing he wanted was to be singled out for Pterin's attention.

  Pterin's eyes swung toward Blade again. Their eyes met and locked, Blade once more searching for the slightest sign that Pterin saw through his disguise. Once more, he did not find it. And once more he still did not drop his alertness.

  Isgon was explaining how Blade had come into the service of Ayocan. «-and after he slew four of the Death-Vowed with his bare hands, I knew that he was a warrior we should not, could not, let escape us. Certainly not when he offered the promise of our being able to train our own Holy Warriors here in Gonsara, and-«

  «Perhaps,» said Pterin icily. «But you had no permission from the Supreme Brother to admit this man, who might be anyone.» Blade stiffened.

  «But when he can train Holy Warriors-«

  «For which you also have no permission from the Supreme Brother! What seek you here, Isgon? A private army of your own? What the House of Ayocan shall do in Gonsara is decided by the Supreme Brother, my ambitious friend. Not by you.»

  Isgon threw Blade a glance, appealing to him to order the local Holy Warriors into action. Blade shook his head.

  That was a bad idea at any time, and particularly now, with Pterin's forces united and obviously alert.

  Blade's shaking his head drew Pterin's eyes back toward him. «And who is this man y
ou have admitted to the House of Ayocan? What has he to recommend him, besides his ability to help you break the laws of the Brotherhood?»

  «I have already told you that-«

  «I care not if he converted ten thousand of King Thambral's subjects to the worship of mighty Ayocan! He has been admitted to a House of Ayocan without proper testing and rituals. And you even permit him to wear a beard. That is to fly in the face of Ayocan. And Ayocan shall not be displeased.» Pterin turned to his Holy Warriors and jerked a thumb at Blade. «Seize him, bind him, and shave him. His beard at least shall no longer pollute this house. After that I-«

  Pterin never finished the sentence. Blade's arm snapped up, and his spear point gashed in the lamplight. Then the arm snapped forward, and the spear plunged into Pterin's chest. The priest's head jerked up, and his eyes met Blade's. «It you-«he gasped. Then he choked on the blood welling up in his throat, reeled, and fell back ward onto the floor.

  Isgon and both groups of Holy Warriors stood in amazed shock for a moment. It was as if the spear that had killed Pterin had paralyzed all of them. In that moment Blade moved.

  His axe and sword sprang into his hands. Brandishing both, he charged the warriors blocking his path to the stairway. The first two did not even have time to draw their swords, nor did Blade bother to use his weapons on them. He ploughed into them like a charging bull, hurling the two smaller men aside by sheer physical impact, smashing them to the floor.

  Four more warriors stood between him and the stairs. One of them broke and ran from the spectacle of Blade coming at him. Blade let that man go. He had enough to do with the other three. His axe sang through the air and crunched into the first man's shoulder, disabling his sword arm. A kick to the same man's kneecap sent him to the floor, gasping with pain and obviously out of the fight.