by Джеффри Лорд
«Go to Juna again, lad. Say this, my exact wordsshe is to come to me at once at this place. If she does not I will come for her, and she knows what that means. I doubt that she has a mirror in this wilderness, but remind her to use a pool of water or the eyes of one of her ladies, and to look again at the mark she carries on her backside. My mark! Say that if she does not come immediately she will have a mate for it. Go and tell her all that.»
As he waited Blade fell to thinking on the hag’s cryptic words. «. . seek you on the sands for him who was sent but did not go. .»
Blade snapped his fingers, grinned and stared up and down the strip of beach. Nothing moved on the lonely sands, they stretched away to desolation in either direction, there was only the sound of wind and water with no dirt or call of seabirds.
«. for him who was sent but did not go. .’.’
It might be all mumbo-jumbo, still Kron was an ancient witch who would not risk her reputation as a seer for a whim. Blade combed his beard with his fingers and was thoughtful-Kron had been wandering aimlessly about since their arrival on the coast. No one paid her much attention, much less did Blade. She could have found something. But what? Where? He stared down the beach again, this time to his left and just as the haze shifted a bit. There was a point of land there, a promontory shouldering out into the sea. It was just possible- ‘
Edym came back with the girl. She wore a purple cloak over a simple shift of white, and high laced sandals. Her ladies had bathed her and arranged her hair and bound it with ribbons. Blade had seen the leather chests carried by her retainers and had permitted it because the eunuchs were good for nothing else. We have gewgaws and ribbons, he thought bitterly, and powders and face paint, but no arms or food and no fighting men.
He bowed solemnly, keeping his face impassive, and said, «I am glad to see that you had second thoughts, Juna. Or did you perhaps glance in a mirror after all?»
She flushed and her sensuous mouth tightened, but the gray violet eyes met his steadily. The lad Edym, making nothing of the words, glanced from one to the other in bewilderment. Blade jerked a thumb at him. «Get you back to the camp, boy, and put the eunuchs to work gathering rushes and withies in the marsh. Set the women, all of them, to making a great net. Do you supervise, lad, and see that it is a net and not a sieve. I will expect to find the work well along when I return. It may be that we will have something to put in our bellies soon. Off with you.»
The girl, her pale and lovely face expressionless, said: «I would have him stay. It is not proper that a goddess should be alone with a strange man.»
Blade looked at Edym and when he spoke his voice was soft. «Go, boy.»
Edym left hurriedly. Blade and the girl watched each other in silence broken only by the weird music of the lyre stones. She was the first to speak.
«You sent for me, Richard Blade. I have come, though against my better judgment. What do you want of me?»
«I want to talk,» he said bluntly. «Of many things. Among them your shortness of memory-I do not understand it or your attitude. But for me you would be dead now, or you would be a faceless thing wishing for death. I have risked much for your pack of idlers and ball-less men. You owe me your life, Juna. I ask no payment, but I will have courtesy and cooperation. You have avoided me and offered neither. Why is this?»
The wind tugged her cloak open. Her shift was low cut and he could see her breasts nearly exposed. She saw his glance and hastily gathered the cloak around her throat.
«In serving me you only serve yourself,» she said. «You ask too much credit. Your life was in danger as well as mine. Ptol is your enemy as well as mine. As is Hectoris. You are no Thymian, you are no Samostan, and certainly you are not of Patmos. You are like no man I have ever seen before and after much thought on the matter, I can find no reason why I should like or trust you. If I seek to use you for my purposes it is equally true that you seek to use me for yours. With this difference-you know my motives. To escape and seek sanctuary in Patmos. I do not know your motives in helping me.»
This was a different girl. This was not the terrorstricken girl of the torture chamber. This was a shrewd and articulate wench who had her wits about her. Blade nodded and gave her a little smile. There was sense in what she said, but no time to go into it now.
He woud have changed his tone, and perhaps his tune, had she not ruffled him again by adding, «Another thing is your attitude toward me. You forget that I am Juna. I am a goddess, the physical incarnation of the everlasting spirit of Juna of Thyme. You struck me as though I were a common kitchen maid. You do not address me properly, you do not make yourself humble before me, you do none of the things you should when in the presence. of a goddess. Already my people have noticed. It sets a bad example, Blade, and I would have you remedy this if we are to be better friends.»
She extended her hand. «They are watching now. If you were to fall on your knees and kiss my fingers it would do much to atone for your past manner.»
Blade barely kept his temper. He did not even curse her, much less strike her, though the temptation boiled in him. He glared and his teeth flashed white in his dark beard as he bit off each word. «Very well, goddess! Persist in this flummery if you will, but expect nothing from me but laughter-when I feel like laughing, which is not at the moment. Come. We will stroll down the beach together. We do have matters to discuss and I do not mean such cursed nonsense. Do you come willingly or do I drag you? In full view of those idiots of yours?»
She put her hands deep into the sleeves of her cloak and crossed her arms on her full breasts. Her eyes were angry, but there was a glint of mischief also, a taunt. She nodded. «I must obey you, Blade. I have no armed men to my back. You are the only warrior among us, and my only protection. In such a situation even a goddess must make concessions.»
Blade snorted. He took her arm, a bit roughly, and they began to walk toward the promontory he had seen. She flinched at his touch and he thought she gasped deep in her throat.
Because he was still angry, and because of another emotion which he did not want to acknowledge, he said, «Goddess again? Immortal Juna? Temple whore is more like, is it not? Come to that, I am something of a hero myself. Am I not then entitled to your bed? Can you lie and say that I would not be a better mate than Ptol?»
His hand was still on her arm and he felt her shudder. She went pale and would not look at him, yet her voice was firm. «I have done what a goddess must. It is no sin to give-oneself to heroes of Thyme. The mother spirit Juna knows and approves.»
Blade closed his big fist about her slim arm. He hurt her and for the moment did not care. «And the fat priest? Ptol?» He was a good mimic and he spoke now as he had overheard Ptol speak in the tunnel.
«… you have enjoyed her favors? You know her beauty and her skill in giving pleasure. .»
She stumbled and would have fallen but for his support. She tried to pull away from him and there was no mockery in her eyes now. She stared at him in terror and clutched at her breasts. «Who are you? What are you? How came you to know such things? Are you in truth a demon come to destroy me!»
He let go of her and stepped away. He felt no remorse, but she was after all only a woman and helpless. He strode on down the beach, saying roughly, «Enough foi now. I have a riddle for you.»
He repeated the words of Kron, not entirely without sarcasm. «Can you make sense of it, Juna, in your infinite wisdom?»
She shook her head. A tear fell and Blade pretended not to notice. She wiped it away with the sleeve of her cloak and said, «But Kron is wise. If she spoke thus it must have meaning. The wind stones, the singing-«
«Forget that,» Blade said harshly. «She did not bear it from the wind. But she had been up and down the shore and it may be that she found something and chose wind song as a means of telling me. It does not matter now. We are going to have a look.»
He pointed to the headland, now about a half a mile distant. It was barren and rocky, towered by castellated by great bou
lders whose pinnacles were concealed by swirling mist.
Juna had caught up with him and now matched his stride. Her eyes were dry and so was her tone. «For what do we search, Blade?»
«I am not sure,» he admitted. «But you sent a messenger to Patmos? Did you not tell me that?»
She nodded. «I did. His name was Tudd-a faithful servant of mine. When I knew that Thyme was lost, and heard that Ptol intended to arrest me, I sent Tudd at once to this place. I mean, of course, the Singing Stones. He was to cross to Patmos and bring aid, ships from the island to ferry me across the sea.»
Blade regarded her, fingers in his beard, eyes narrowed. She misunderstood and, flushing, said tartly, «Tudd was an emasculate. I did not bed him, if that is-«
Blade shook his head. «Enough of that, I said. But this Tudd, this eunuch, he had made the same trip before? For you? With messages to Patmos? And, I have no — doubt; bringing messages back from Patmos?»
She refused to meet his eyes. Finally she nodded. «Yes. I–I did use him as a messenger.»
«. . seek you on the sands for him who was sent but did not go.
He repeated the words aloud. Then he looked at her and laughed. «There, unless I am much mistaken, is part of your riddle. A messenger is sent, is he not? But, if that old hag, and the wind of course, is right, this one did not go.
They reached the base of the promontory, a triangular finger of rock jutting into the sea. The land rose precipitously to a wall of boulders. Blade studied the stone barricade for a moment; it might be an accidental, a natural, configuration, but be doubted it. Men had built it.
Juna hung back. She shivered and pulled her cloak closer against the dank mist. «I do not like this place.»
Blade pushed her up on the slope. «To get back-if your messenger did not go he may still be here. We’ll have a look.»
She stumbled over a rock and Blade caught her. For a moment they were close, her unbound breasts touching his massive chest. She disengaged herself, not meeting his eyes, but her breath quickened and a fine tremor ran through her.
«You are mad,» she said. «Why would Tudd, my messenger, come to this place?»
He helped her over a rock stile. «I am guessing, of course. But he must have had a boat of some kind, and he would need to conceal it. He could not do that on an open beach. This is the only place for miles in which anything could be hidden. It will do no harm to look. Just as old Kron did.»
She shook her head. «I do not believe that Kron was here.»
«I do. I think she was here and found something and wanted to tell me about it. Being a future-sayer, of course, she had to pretend that she had it from the lyre stones.»
Juna halted for a moment to catch her breath. The slope was steeper just before the wall and littered with jagged slabs of glassy black stone. She gathered the cloak over her heaving breasts and looked at Blade with a mingle of awe and anger. «I am right to fear you. You hold nothing sacred. You mock and scoff at everything.»
Blade stared at her. «Not everything,» he said quietly. For a moment their eyes met and Blade felt himself lost in those luminous depths, those gray-violet pools. He desired her. He meant to have her. He longed to be kind and yet knew that he must be stern. She was an unknown quantity to him, just as he was to her. The only thing they had in common was their flesh. And she was, he reminded himself reluctantly, little better than a temple whore. He did not like thinking about that.
He extended a hand to her. «Come on. A little more and we’ll be on the wall. This eunuch of yours, Tudd, must have had a boat and I expect to find it. Unless he swam the thirty miles to Patmos and back, which I doubt.»
They reached the wall. Smaller rocks had been arranged in stairsteps and a moment later they gained the top. Blade smiled as he pointed down to what appeared to be a small volcanic crater.
«You see! You never know what you’ll find until you go looking.»
He watched her closely. By her expression she was as surprised as he was. More, because he had expected something.
The miniature temple appeared to be floating in the mist. It stood at the bottom of the crater, on a broad plinth of glossy stone, open on all four sides, with three slender fluted columns facingin each direction. The roof was pyramidal and open at the top.
Juna shivered and moved closer to him. He put an arm about her slender waist and she did not object. There was a brooding beauty, an aesthetic perfection, about the little temple floating in its sea of dank white mist, and there was also an evil about it. Blade felt it also, but when she turned and tried to go back he stopped her.
«Come on!» He guided her down a path of crushed stone. «I think this place has something to tell us. Let’s find. it.»
«Oh-Oh-no-no-«
She spun about and buried her face in his chest. He held her and gazed over her shoulder at the body.
It’ lay just where the path ended at the temple plinth. The body of a man, dismembered and with each quarter indicating a cardinal point of the compass. The severed head was in the middle.
Juna clung to Blade and sobbed, holding him tightly. He wondered at this. As a goddess she surely must have seen worse. Was this the same girl who had flared so defiantly at the fat Ptol?
He stroked her hair and felt her body sag against his. «Your messenger? The eunuch TWO»
She nodded against his chest. Her hair was a fragrant cloud brushing his face, sparkling with mist gems, and her body was soft and warm and enticing as she moved still closer. Blade wondered at all this, too, but did not question. He was on his guard and in time she would reveal herself. In the meantime he meant to be the gainer.
He held her and looked closer at the body, recalling the old hag’s words and smiling. He was right. Kron had been here.
There was sand around the body. Neat killers, they had used sand to blot up the blood. The «house» was the body, of course, and it was now built of bone because crabs had been at it. Some of the arm and thigh bones had been picked bare.
«… you shall find hope and doom. The stones are silent. .»
They had found the doom. Where was the hope?
Juna moved against him. Her lips brushed his face and her breath was sweet. Her tender body was against his from knee to shoulder and he felt a surge of desire in his loins.
Juna whispered. «I have a sudden great longing for you, Richard Blade. I have feared this moment and did not wish it. It was so that I pretended coldness and anger. I am afraid of you, you fill me with terror, and all the while my heart and my body cry out for you. My mind says no-that you are a danger to me-but my body will not listen to wisdom. Let us go from this place, my love.
Quickly. This moment. We will find a bed on the white sands and-«
Blade silenced her with a kiss. Her mouth was hot and wet, her tongue a rasp of flesh invading and inflaming him. Blade kissed her and gazed over her shoulder and wondered. Why the sudden sexual con? What did she know, what had she seen, that he did not know and had not seen? There had to be something. He stared at the dismembered body of the eunuch Tudd. What? Something had frightened her into using her body to lull him. Something she did not want Blade to see.
There it was. Near the stiffened fingers of one hand was an ivory baton. It must have been left in the hand, for someone to find, but the dead fingers had twitched in reflex and dislodged it.
Juna moved her body against him. «Let us go, Blade! I cannot abide this place. And I swoon for you.»
He stroked her hair and caressed her slender throat with his big fingers. He thrust himself against her, let her feel the throbbing hardness of him through her clothing. Her fingers slid down and found him, caressed, and the tempo of her breathing increased. He doubted she was faking it now. The lady, in arousing him, had aroused herself.
«We will go,» he whispered tenderly. «I long for you also, Juna. You are a goddess, though not as they think of you in Thyme. But first there are things to be done. Our bodies, and our love, must wait.»
She
pressed harder against°him. Her fingers were busy. «Why? I cannot-I will not wait. I want you now.»
He kissed her again. «Just a question or two,» he soothed. «When did you send Tudd with your message to Patmos?»
She tried to pull her mouth away from his, to look at him, but Blade held her tight. At last she mumbled, «A week gone.»
Blade thought back. That would have made it two days before the Samostans stormed Thyme. He, undreamed of in their state of things, had still been in Home Dimension.
Juna moved her pelvis against his. «Cannot we go?»
«A week ago, Juna? You sent Tudd two days before
Hectoris attacked through the sewers. You knew he would attack, — you knew that the sewers would be opened to him by Ptol-the real reason why Ptol would have you killed is because you knew he was the traitor-and yet you gave no warning to the Thymians. You said nothing to their high command. You stood by while the city died, and you sent a messenger to insure your own safety.»
She tried to struggle away from him, aware too late that he was not fooled. She sought to be the goddess once more. «Lies! How dare you speak to me so? And whywhy speak so now when I was ready, when I was longing so for-«
Blade also dropped the mask. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her roughly toward the quartered body and the slender ivory baton. She fought him, trying to break away, but when he picked up the baton she snatched at it. Blade held it high out of her reach and mocked her.
«I think, my Goddess, that you and Ptol are two of a kind. And Ptol outsmarted you. I think this is the work of his men, for you to see had you ever managed to arrive this far without me, and I think that Ptol would have had his little joke and have been waiting for you in a ship offshore. The killing of Tudd was insurance, no more. Ptol never expected you to get here. There is no help coming from Patmos, Goddess, none at all, and I advise you to be content with what you have, namely me, and leave off your airs and lies. And now tell me true-goddess! Do you still long for me?»