* * *
Kethry laced herself into the only dress she owned, a sensuous thing of forest green silk, a scowl twisting her forehead. "Why do I have to be the one pawed at and drooled over?"
Tarma chuckled. "You were the one who decreed against using any more magic than we had to," she pointed out.
"Well, I don't want to chance that mage detecting it and getting curious!"
"And you were the one who didn't want to chance using illusion."
"What if something should break it?"
"Then don't complain if I can't take your place. You happen to be the one of us that is lovely, amber-haired, and toothsome, not I. And you are the one with the manner-born. No merchant-lord or minor noble is going to open his doors to a nomad mercenary, and no decadent stripling is going to whisper secrets into the ear of one with a face like an ill-tempered hawk and a body like a swordblade. Now hurry up, or the market will be closed and we'll have to wait until the morrow."
Kethry grumbled under her breath, but put more speed into her preparations. They sallied forth into the late afternoon, playing parts they had often taken before, Kethry assuming the manners of the rank she actually was entitled to, playing the minor noblewoman on a journey to relatives with Tarma as her bodyguard.
As was very often the case, the marketplace was also the gathering-place for the offspring of what passed for aristocracy in this borderland trade-town. Within no great span of time Kethry had garnered invitations to dine with half a dozen would-be gallants. She chose the most dissipated of them, but persuaded him to make a party of the occasion, and invite his friends.
A bit miffed by the spoiling of his plans (which had not included having any competition for Kethry's assets), he agreed. As with the common folk, the well-born had taken to closing themselves behind sturdy doors at the setting of the sun, and with it already low in the west, he hastened to send a servant around to collect his chosen companions.
The young man's father was not at home, being off on a trading expedition. This had figured very largely in his plans, for he had purloined the key to his father's plushly appointed gazebo for his entertainment. The place was as well furnished as many homes: full of soft divans and wide couches, and boasting seven little alcoves off the main room, and two further rooms for intimate entertainment besides. Tarma's acting abilities were strained to the uttermost by the evening's events; she was hardput to keep from laughing aloud at Kethry's performance and the reactions of the young men to her. To anyone who did not know her, Kethry embodied the very epitome of light-minded, light-skirted, capricious demi-nobility. No one watching her would have guessed she ever had a thought in her head besides her own pleasuring.
To the extreme displeasure of those few female companions that had been brought to the festivities, she monopolized all the male attention in the room. It wasn't long before she had sorted out which of them had actually been to one of the infamous "Rites of Dark Desires" and which had only heard rumors. Those who had not been bold enough to attend discovered themselves subtly dismissed from the inner circle, and soon repaired to the gardens or semi-private alcoves to enjoy the attentions of the females they had brought, but ignored. Kethry lured the three favored swains into one of the private rooms, motioning Tarma to remain on guard at the door. She eventually emerged; hot-eyed, contemptuous, and disheveled. Snores echoed from the room behind her.
"Let's get out of here before I lose my temper and go back to wring their necks," she snarled, while Tarma choked back a chuckle. "Puppies! They should still be in diapers, every one of them! Not anything resembling a real adult among them! I swear to you -- ah, never mind. I'd just like to see them get some of the treatment they've earned. Like a good spanking and a long stint in a hermitage -- preferably one in the middle of a desert, stocked with nothing but hard bread, water, and boring religious texts!"
No one followed them out into the night, which was not overly surprising, given the fears of the populace.
"I hope it was worth it," Tarma said, as casually as she could.
"It was," Kethry replied, a little cooler. "They were all very impressed with the whole ritual, and remembered everything they saw in quite lurid detail. It seems that it is the High Priest who is the one truly in command; from the sound of it, my guess was right about his plans. He conducts every aspect of the ritual; he calls the 'god' up, and he sends him back again. The god selects those of the females brought to him that he wants, the male followers get what's left, or share the few female followers he has. It's a rather unpleasant combination of human sacrifice and orgy. The High Priest must be the magician that summoned the demon in the first place. He's almost certainly having the demon transform himself, since the god is almost unbearably attractive, and the females he selects go to him willingly -- at least at first. After his initial attentions, they're no longer in any condition to object to much of anything. Those three back there were positively obscene. They gloated over all the details of what Thalhkarsh does to his 'brides,' all the while doing their best to get me out of my clothing so they could demonstrate the 'rites.' It was all I could do to keep from throwing up on them."
"You sleep-spelled them?"
"Better, I dream-spelled them, just like I did with our 'customers' when I was posing as a whore back when we first met. It's as easy as sleep-spelling them, it's a very localized magic that isn't likely to be detected, and it will keep our disguises intact. They'll have the best time their imaginations can possibly provide."
Kethry looked suddenly weary as they approached their inn. "Bespeak me a bath, would you, dearheart? I feel filthy -- inside and out."
* * *
The next night was the night of moon-dark, the night of one of the more important of the new deity's rituals, and there was a pair of spies watching the streets that led to Temple Row with particular care. Those two pairs of eyes paid particularly close attention to two women making their cautious way through the darkened and deserted streets, muffled head-to-toe in cloaks. Though faint squeals and curses showed that neither of them could see well enough to avoid the rocks and fetid heaps of refuse that dotted the street, they seemed not to wish any kind of light to brighten their path. Gold peeked out from the hoods; the half-seen faces were old before their time; their eyelids drooped with boredom that had become habit, but their eyes revealed a kind of fearful anticipation. Their destination was the Temple of Thalhkarsh. They were intercepted a block away, by two swiftly moving figures who neatly knocked them unconscious and spirited them into a nearby alleyway.
Tarma spat out several unintelligible oaths. The dim light of a heavily shuttered dark-lantern fell on the two bodies at her feet. Beneath the cloaks, the now unconscious women had worn little more than heavy jewelry and a strategically placed veil or two.
"We'll be searched, you can bet on it," she said in disgust. "And where the bloody Hell are we going to hide weapons in these outfits?"
In truth, there wasn't enough cover among the chains and medallions to have concealed even the smallest of her daggers.
"We can't," Kethry replied flatly. "So that leaves -Warrl?"
Tarma pursed her lips. "Hmm. That's a thought. Fur-face, could you carry two swords?"
The kyree cocked his head to one side, and experimentally mouthed Need's sheath. Kethry took the blade off and held it for him to take. He swung his head from side to side a little, then dropped the blade.
:Not that way,: Tarma heard in her mind. :Too clumsy. Won't balance right; couldn't run or jump -- might get stuck in a tight doorway. I want to be able to bite -- these teeth aren't just for decoration, you know! And anyway, I can't carry two blades at the same time in my mouth.:
"Could we strap them to you, somehow?"
:If you do, I can try how it feels.:
Using their belts they managed to strap the blades along his flanks, one on either side, to Ward's satisfaction. He ran from one end of the alley to the other, then shook himself carefully without dislodging them or getting tangled by th
em.
:It'll work:, he said with satisfaction. :Let's go.:
They left their victims sleeping in a dead-end alley; they'd be rather embarrassed when they woke stark-naked in the morning. They'd come to no harm; thanks to Thalhkarsh not even criminals moved about the city by night, and the evening was warm enough that they wouldn't suffer from exposure. Whether or not they'd die of mortification remained to be seen.
The partners left their own clothing hidden in another alley farther on. Muffled in the stolen cloaks, they approached the temple, Warrl a shadow flitting behind them.
On seeing the entrance, Tarma gave a snort of disgust. It was gaudy and decadent in the extreme, with carvings and statuary depicting every vice imaginable (and some she'd never dreamed existed) encrusting the entire front face.
The single guard was a fat, homely man who moved slowly and clumsily, as if he were under the influence of a drug. He seemed little interested in the men who passed him by, other than seeing that they dropped their cloaks and giving them a cursory search for weaponry. The women were another case altogether. Between the preoccupation he was likely to have once he'd seen Kethry and the shadows cast by the carvings in the torchlight, Warrl should have no difficulty in slipping past him.
Kethry touched the swords woman's arm slightly as they stood in line and nodded toward the guard, giving a little wiggle as she did so. Tarma knew what that meant -- Kethry was going to make certain the guard's attention stayed on her. The Shin'a'in dropped her eyelids briefly in assent. When their turn came and they dropped their cloaks, Kethry posed and postured provocatively beneath the guard's searching hands. He was so busy filling his eyes -- and greasy paws -- with her that he paid scant attention to either Tarma or the shadow that slipped inside behind her.
When he'd delayed long enough that there was considerable grumbling from those waiting their turn behind the two women, he finally let Kethry pass with real reluctance. They slipped inside the smoke-wreathed portal and found themselves walking down a dark corridor, heavy with the scent of cloying incense. When the corridor ended, they passed through a curtain of some heavy material that moved of itself, as if it sensed their presence, and had a slippery feel and a sour smell to it. Once past that last obstruction, they found themselves blinking in the light of the temple proper.
The interior was almost austere compared with the exterior. The walls were totally bare of ornamentation; the pillars upholding the roof were simple columns and not debauched caryatids. That simplicity left the eye only one place to go -- the altar, a massive black slab with manacles at each corner and what could only be blood-grooves carved into its surface.
There was no sign of any bottle.
There were huge lanterns suspended from the ceiling and torches in brackets on the pillars, but the walls themselves were in shadow. There were braziers sending plumes of incense into the air on either side of the door. Beneath the too-sweet odor Tarma recognized the taint of tran-dust. This was where and how the guard had acquired his dreamy clumsiness. She nudged Kethry and they moved hastily along the wall to a spot where a draft carried fresher air to them. Tran-dust was dangerous at best, and could be fatal to them, for it slowed reactions and blurred the senses. They would need both at full sharpness tonight.
There was a drumming and an odd, wild music that was almost more felt than heard. From a doorway behind the altar emerged the High Priest, at this distance, little more than a vague shape in elaborate robes of crimson and gold. Behind him came an acolyte, carrying an object that made Kethry's eyes widen with satisfaction; it was a bottle, red, that glowed dimly from within. The acolyte fitted this into a niche in the foot of the altar near the edge; the place all the blood-grooves drained into.
They worked their way closer, moving carefully along the wall. When they were close enough to make out the High Priest's features, Kethry became aware of his intensely sexual attraction. As if to underscore this, she saw eager devotion written plainly on the face of a woman standing near to the altar-place. She tightened her lips; evidently this was one aspect of domination that both high priest and demon-deity shared. She warded her own mind against beglamorment. Tarma she knew she need not protect; by her very nature as Sword Sworn she would be immune to this kind of deception.
A gong began sounding; slowly, insistently. The music increased in tempo; built to a crescendo -- a blood-red brightness behind the altar intensified, echoing the rising music. At the climax of both, when the altar was almost too bright to look at, something appeared, pulling all the light and sound into itself.
He was truly beautiful; poisonously beautiful. Compared to him, the priest's attraction was insignificant. The line of women being brought in by two more acolytes ceased their fearful trembling, sighed, and yearned toward him.
He beckoned to one, who literally ran to him, eagerly.
Tarma turned her eyes resolutely away from the spectacle being presented at the altar-place. There was nothing either of them could do to help the intended sacrifice; she was thanking her Goddess that Need was not at Kethry's hand just now. The sorceress had been known once or twice to become a berserker under the blade's influence, and she was not altogether sure how much the sword was capable of in the way of thought. It wasn't mindless -- but in a situation like this it was moot whether or not it would prefer the long term goal of destroying the demon as opposed to the short term goal of ending the sacrifice's torment.
At least the rest of the devotees were so preoccupied with the victim and her suffering that they scarcely noticed the two women slowly making their way closer to the altar. Tarma looked closely into one face, and quickly looked away, nauseated. Those glazed eyes -- swollen lips -- the panting -- it would have been obvious even to a child that the man was erotically enraptured by what he was watching. Tarma caught Kethry's eyes a moment; the other nodded, lips tightly compressed. The Shin'a'in swordswoman was past hoping to end this quietly. She had begun to devoutly wish for a chance to cleave a few skulls around here, and she had a shrewd suspicion that Kethry felt the same.
The young High Priest looked up from his work, and saw the anomalous -- two women, dressed as devotees, but paying no attention to the rites, and seemingly immune to the magical charisma of Thalhkarsh. They had worked their way nearly to the altar itself.
He looked sharply at them -- and noted the fighter's muscles and the faint aura of the god-touched about the thin one, then the unmistakable presence of a warding spell on the other.
His mind flared with sudden alarm.
He stepped forward once --
He was given no time to act on his suspicions. Tarma saw his alerted glance, and whistled shrilly for Warrl.
From the crowd to the left of her came shouts -- then screeches, and the sound of panic. Warrl was covering the distance between himself and Tarma with huge leaps, and was slashing out with his teeth as he did so. The worshipers scrambled to get out of the way of those awful jaws, clearing the last few feet for him. He skidded to a halt beside her; with one hand she snatched Need from her sheath and tossed her to Kethry, with the other she unsheathed her own blade, turning the operation into an expert stroke that took out the two men nearest her. Warrl took his stand, guarding Tarma's back.
Need had sailed sweetly into Kethry's hand, hilt first; she turned her catch into a slash that mirrored Tarma's and cleared space for herself. Then she found herself forced to defend against two sorts of attack; the physical, by the temple guards, and the magical, by the High Priest.
While the demon unaccountably watched, but did nothing, the priest forced Kethry back against the wall. As bolts of force crashed against the shield she'd hastily thrown up, Kethry had firsthand proof that his magics had been augmented by the demon. Even so, she was the more powerful magician -- but she was being forced to divide her attentions.
Warrl solved the problem; the priest-mage was not expecting a physical attack. Warrl's charge from the side brought him down, and in moments the kyree had torn out his throat. That left Ket
hry free to erect a magical barrier between themselves and reinforcements for the guards they were cutting down. She breathed a prayer of thanks to whatever power might be listening as she did so -- thanks that the past few months had required so little of her talents that her arcane armaments and energy reserves were at their height.
Tarma grinned maliciously as a wall of fire sprang up at Kethry's command, cutting them off from the rest of the temple. Now there were only two acolytes, the remaining handful of guards, and the oddly inactive demon to face.
"Hold."
The voice was quiet, yet stirred uneasiness in Tarma's stomach. She tried to move -- and found that she couldn't. The guards were utterly motionless, as lifeless as statues. Only the acolytes were able to move, and all their attention was on the demon.
His gaze was bent on Kethry.
Tarma heard a rumbling snarl from behind the altar. Before she could try to prevent him, Warrl leaped from the body of the high priest in a suicidal attack on the demon.
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