“That must be the pair just arrived,” said Ystalverdh, “whom Yaedh was sent to fetch. Oh, Garnedh!”
The other guard was already approaching. When the newly arrived priestess had given her message, Garnedh said:
“The Master says for the two Avtini to come in also.”
“One surprise after another!” said Ystalverdh. “It never lets common visitors see its face. But go on—go on.”
Garnedh led the way into an anteroom, then into the temple, with golden statues of the old gods around the sides and a smoking altar in the middle. Thence she conducted them through a curtained portal on the far side. As she neared the curtain Iroedh’s nose caught the familiar scent of Bloch’s pipe-tobacco.
The air in the chamber was stiflingly hot. Bloch sat on a cushion on the floor with his back to the portal, and at the sound of footsteps rose to his feet. Barbe remained upon her cushion, as did the third occupant of the room.
The third occupant was a roly-poly creature which if it had stood up would have come waist-high. It was covered all over with grizzled fur, and twiddled all fourteen digits of its seven-fingered hands. Iroedh would have thought it a mere pet had she not known it must be the Oracle.
The Oracle said, in fluent Avtinyk delivered in a high squeaky voice: “Come in and make yourselves comfortable, Iroedh and Antis. You shouldn’t have been held up outside had I known the whole story. What is it, Lhuidh?”
The priestess who had just arrived in the chariot gave her report.
When she had finished, the Oracle said: “By Dhiis, nothing is ever simple! Here I’ve promised myself another sight of my native world, and this complication comes up. I get along with most drone bands well enough, but this Wythias is impossible.”
He gave the two priestesses a rapid series of orders to put the temple in condition for defense and to round up all the other priestesses in the neighborhood. During this harangue Bloch showed increasing signs of agitation and finally burst out:
“Gildakk, old man, don’t you think it would be better to run for it? With a few hours’ start we could lose ourselves in these hills—”
“And have them track us down in the open, when we have here one of the best natural defenses this side of Tvaar? Anyway, I’m too old and fat for racing up and down hills. We have a good stout wall and supplies for a long siege; my only worry is that I may not be able to round up more than twenty or thirty of my sisters. The rest are away on missions, but your guns should make up the difference.”
Bloch said: “I have only about seventy rounds left, counting the pistol.”
The Oracle twiddled its many fingers. “I should have liked more, but if you make every one count we may be able to hold them.”
Antis said: “Why not get out the temple’s chariots, head for Gliid, and shoot our way through the host?”
“Oh no!” cried Bloch, paling. “They’d block the road, or ambush us in the Gorge of Hwead and roll down rocks—”
“I fear my Terran colleague is right,” said Gildakk, “considering my own age and infirmity, though if conditions were a little more favorable I’d chance it.”
“Excuse me,” said Iroedh.
“To be sure, you don’t know me. My name is Gildakk, from the planet Thoth in the Procyonic system. I had just started to tell these Terrans how I became Oracle. When the party from my ship was held up by the road block, I drove right over it, but the next in line stopped and the rogues got the lot. When I arrived here I saw that the building was a public structure of some sort, so I hitched my ueg out of sight and hung around a couple of days, nearly starved, until I found what was going on. Then I walked up to the guard and demanded to see the high priest or whatever they had inside. I figured it was an even chance whether they sacrificed me to some god or made a god of me.”
“Thothians,” Bloch put in, “are notoriously the worst gamblers in the Galaxy.”
“Thank you. As it happened, the Oracle was a neuter-male named Enroys who’d been stolen as a child by the Arsuuni of Denüp and reared on a meatless diet as a slave. He’d escaped to Ledhwid, become an assistant to the previous Oracle, and taken the latter’s place when she died.
“As for me, since I spoke no Avtinyk, the guards took me for somebody’s pet. When I could get nothing from them save a pat on the head, I went back to my chariot. As it happened, my vehicle carried the party’s load of signal pyrotechnics and little else. So I fetched a mine back up the hill, set it in front of the temple, and touched it off. The noise and the colored lights scared the wits out of the guards, and by the time they stopped running I was inside talking sign-language with Enroys. In due course I became his assistant and succeeded him. And I’ve put the Oracle on a business basis. I’ve made the priestesses into the best spy corps you ever saw, and I’ve filed and cross-indexed the prophecies properly. You should have seen them! All mixed up and written on leaves and potsherds and things.”
Bloch, who had been looking around uneasily, said: “Shouldn’t we—ah—”
“No, no, I’ve already done what needs doing. Unless that helicopter of yours shows up, in which case we’ll use it.”
Bloch said: “I have about given Kang up. I’ve watched for him every day, and I have a signal mirror, but no sign of him. Maybe he’s crashed, or maybe they’ve given us up, or maybe they’ve flown away without us.”
“Winston!” cried Barbe. “What a horrible idea!”
“Cheer up,” said Gildakk. “If that’s so, you may have to run the Oracle after I die. Since there’s a pair of you, you won’t find it so lonesome as I have. I admit I should like to see the gray seas of Thoth again. This insipid weather bores me.”
“You should see its planet,” said Bloch to Iroedh. “Practically one continuous hurricane. That’s why it has all those fingers, to keep from being blown away.”
“Excuse me, Gildakk,” said Iroedh, “but are you a he or a she?”
“Both.”
“You mean a neuter worker?”
“No; I’m a functional male and female at the same time, I both beget and bear—that is, when there’s another Thothian to share the task. We are viviparous but not mammalian. Bloch was telling me about your metamorphosis, by the way. Enroys also discovered a meat diet, but too late in life to do him any good. He never did develop, poor fellow.”
“Is it true that Wythias feeds his band on a mixed diet?”
“That’s a secret I was holding out to make him behave, but yes, he does. He had ideas of conquering the planet that way, but now he knows of Bloch’s guns I suppose he thinks that would be even quicker—” Gildakk snapped several fingers at once. “That gives me an idea! Instead of sitting here while Wythias besieges us, why not take the offensive?”
“How?” said Antis eagerly.
“If we could use Iroedh here, and some of the prophecies I have on file—if we could use them right we might take Wythias’s band away from him. Then you could march through Avtinid knocking queens off their little thrones and setting up bisexual Communities—”
Iroedh protested: “But I don’t want to be a conqueror! I just wish to settle down with Antis and lay his eggs and collect antiques! If anybody wishes to join us voluntarily—”
“You haven’t much choice,” said Gildakk. “It’s the only way to beat Wythias, and then you’ll find that who rides the noag cannot dismount. Besides, it will enable your race to resume their progress in the civilized arts.”
“There is that, but—”
“Of course,” said the Thothian. “All this fuss about sex seems silly to me, who am a whole complete individual and not a mere half-person like you one-sex beings; but I’m trying to be helpful. Here, let’s see which pronouncement would work best…”
The Thothian rolled to its feet and limped over to a set of drawers. It pulled one out and began fingering through a file of bark cards, humming to itself.
“Here’s one,” it said:
“The High Queen rides in a chariot bright
With a P
rincess Royal between the shafts,
While the Arsuuny soldiers in panic flight
Abandon their rafts.”
“What does it mean?” asked Iroedh, looking over Gildakk’s shoulder.
“Oh, it doesn’t mean anything! Or, rather, it means whatever the hearer wishes it to mean. I issued that one a few years ago to the envoys from Yeym, when the Arsuuni were attacking that Community.”
“But Yeym was destroyed!”
“Of course it was; but I saw no harm in encouraging the poor things when they were fighting for their lives.”
“Why rafts?”
“Because it rhymes and fits the meter. Here’s another:
“When the Rogue Queen wears a crown of light
The Golden Couch shall be overthrown;
When the gods descend from heaven’s height
Shall the seed be sown.
“See? You’re the rogue queen; the golden couch is the present sex-caste system with its oversexed queens and neuter workers; Bloch and the other Terrans are the gods; and the seed is that of these drones we’re trying to win over. It couldn’t be better if I had composed it specially for the occasion. Of course I’ve already applied it to other events a couple of times, but nobody will remember that.”
Iroedh asked: “How about the crown of light?”
“Hmm, crown of light, crown of light. Garnedh! Get one of the sisters to help you drag Chest Number Four from the cellar, will you?”
Iroedh said: “Then it’s all just an imposture? There’s no real prophetic knowledge? The Oracle doesn’t go into a mystic trance and interpret the sound of the bells?”
“Of course it’s a fake! Since I hope to leave here soon, I have no reason to deceive you. The sooner you and Antis learn to rely upon yourselves alone, and not on any of this mummery, the better off you’ll be. Ah, thank you, sisters. Now. let’s see…”
Gildakk opened the chest, in which lay a litter of unfamiliar-looking tubular objects.
“Signal flares,” he said. “I hope they haven’t deteriorated too much in all these years.”
X. The Temple Grove
Toward evening, looking south from the portico of the temple, Iroedh saw dust rising from the Gorge of Hwead. Preparations for defense speeded up. From the temple came the sounds of a grindstone sharpening spearheads, and a general hammering and sawing mingled with the ever-present sound of the bells of Ledhwid.
Some of the priestesses had piled logs on the slope just above the gate, behind a pair of stakes driven into the ground, so that if the stakes were removed the logs would roll down and pile up in a heap against the inner side of the gate to lend it additional strength. Others stacked arrows and spears, or erected wicker mantlets to protect the defenders against arrow fire. For the twentieth time Iroedh felt the edge of her machete. It was as sharp as whetting could make it, and with the handsome armor provided by the temple she should make an effective warrior.
Still, there was no blinking the fact that Gildakk had been able to round up only eighteen priestesses, of which two or three were too old to be of real use in fighting. With the addition of her party, therefore, they had at most twenty effectives. No doubt the Terrans’ gunfire would account for the first attackers and discourage the rest, but if Wythias pushed his attack regardless of losses…
It seemed to Iroedh that of the three alternatives they had discussed—to flee, to shoot their way through the host, or to stand their ground—they had chosen the worst. Why hadn’t she put up an argument? She had become so wrapped up in her love for Antis that she was getting into the habit of blindly following his lead.
The band of Wythias was now in sight, crawling up the road from the gorge like creeping things after a sweet. As they came nearer, Iroedh’s dilating pupils could see several ueg chariots at the head of the column. No doubt they were those the band had stolen from Bloch’s party.
The drones came nearer and nearer, then spread out around the base of the Hill of Ledhwid like a trickle of water that meets an obstacle. A trumpet sounded back in the temple, and Iroedh went to her assigned place near the gate.
A drone in full panoply marched up the path to the gate, threw back his head, and bawled: “O Oracle!”
“Yes?” squeaked Gildakk, peering beadily over the gate with a shawl around his head.
“Are you indeed the Oracle of Ledhwid?” asked the herald, eyes bulging.
“Absolutely. Don’t you remember the prophecy:
“When knaves to Ledhwid Temple shall come
With impious hands to plunder her,
They’ll be scattered like chaff by an Oracle small
And covered with fur”?
“I did not know that one,” said the herald. “But to get down to business: Our leader demands that you give up to him the people from the sky ship who have taken refuge with you, together with their magical weapons.”
“What people?”
“There’s no use lying, Oracle. A worker of Khwiem passed them on the road this morning, and told us about it before we slew her; and a scout we left to watch the Gorge of Hwead told us a party answering the same description passed through the gorge around noon and entered the temple grounds. So render them up or take the consequences.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“How do you mean?”
“These strangers have godlike powers. They can blast you with lightning and thunder as easily as they can look at you.”
“We know.”
“Then how shall I coerce them, even if I were willing?”
“That’s your problem,” said the herald.
“Then you will have to catch them yourselves. I can do nothing.”
“Will you and your people leave the temple grounds while we come in after the sky folk?”
Iroedh had a bad moment; it would be easy for Gildakk to sell them out in exchange for his personal safety.
“No,” said the Thothian. “This sacred enclosure shall not be profaned by armed invasion.”
“Then you and yours shall perish, I warn you.”
“Wait, herald,” said Gildakk. “If Wythias would care to parley, I have a counteroffer—”
“No proposals! My leader knows how clever you are and will not be drawn into negotiations. You shall either give us the fugitives, or get out of the way while we get them.”
“We defy you. Your leader shall find that trying to take this place with a mob of brigands is like a new-hatched babe trying to crack a dairtel nut with its gums.”
The herald went away. Those in the enclosure braced themselves.
The red sun sank below the ridges. Iroedh knew now that there was no hope of help from the Paris, for Bloch had assured her that it was against the Terrans’ policy to try to land the helicopter in strange places at night.
Though there were over two hundred drones in the band, they had to spread themselves out in a pretty thin line to surround the Hill of Ledhwid. At the sound of the trumpet they started forward. When some of them broke into a run their officers called them back. As the rogues came closer and their circle contracted, their line became denser, though at the base of the hill there was still some arms’ lengths between individuals. Up they came, first walking, then half crawling as the slope became steeper.
The trumpet sounded from the temple. Priestesses picked up great round stones from the poles behind the wall and heaved them over.
“Iroedh, throw your stones!” said a voice behind her.
Iroedh pulled herself together and hurled a stone as big as her head. It ricocheted down the slope, bounding clear over the head of an advancing drone. A second flew between two of them. Crash! One had struck a drone off to Iroedh’s right. As the attacker’s body rolled back down the slope, other drones stopped to watch. The line became disordered. Another drone went down under the bombardment. The officers ordered the line forward; some obeyed.
In front of Iroedh a little group of rogues struggled up the slope. She poised a stone and hurled it. Two
spear lengths’ away they paused and looked as the stone came at them, then flinched aside. The stone struck with a smack into the midst of them; there were bodies flying and bodies rolling and bodies running. When the confusion abated one drone lay still on the slope, another dragged himself along the ground, and the rest ran back down to the base of the hill.
The drones’ trumpet sounded recall. The rest of the drones ran back down the slope in great bounds.
“How’s it going, Iroedh?” said Bloch behind her. He was prowling up and down with the gun under his arm.
“Have we won?”
“Not by a jugful! They’ll be back. I wish they had got close enough to warrant shooting; the gun becomes less effective as it gets darker, in spite of this infrared viewer. I wish I had your night vision.”
“This wall doesn’t look like much protection.”
Bloch shook his head. “In most places it’s only breast-high; they can boost each other over it. Gildakk tells me the builders never meant it for a defense, but merely to keep wild animals out of the grove and the tame animals in.”
The rogues’ trumpet sounded again, this time to call them together. They formed a solid black mass on the plain below, the mutter of their leaders’ instructions wafting up to Iroedh at her post.
They organized themselves into a rectangular phalanx and, at another trumpet blast, headed up the slope toward the gate, all two hundred of them. Those behind the front rank held their shields over their heads so that the mass looked like a scale-backed creeping thing.
Iroedh called: “Daktablak! Bring your gun! The rest of you fetch more stones!”
The scaly monster swept up the slope, slower as it became steeper. Inside the enclosure priestesses grunted as they staggered along the wall with stones in their arms.
Then the stones began to fall again. One bounded over the entire testudo; others clanged against the shields. A few drones went down, but the rest closed up and came on. Some priestesses began shooting arrows into the mass. A great stone crashed into the front rank and its impact swept a whole file of drones sprawling, but the others untangled themselves and struggled on.
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