The Jewels of Aptor - (7)

Then it stopped, quivering. It boiled, it burned, it writhed, sinking, smoking through the spaces in the naked girder work. It tried to crawl backwards. Human figures leaped from its mass toward the edge of the road, missed, and plummetted like smoking bullets. It hurled a great pseudopod back toward the safety of the road; it fell short, flopped downward, and the whole mass shook beneath the smoke that rose from it. It pulled free of the support, tentacles sliding across steel, whipping into the air. Then it dropped into the shadows, breaking into a half dozen pieces before they lost sight of it below.
    Geo released his hand. "My arm hurts," he said, shaking it.
    They climbed up to the road again, carefully. "Any ideas what happened?" asked Iimmi.
    "What ever it was, I'm glad it did," said Urson.
    Something clattered before them in the darkness.
    "What was that?" asked Urson, stopping.
    "My foot hit something," Geo said.
    "What was it?" asked Urson.
    "Never mind," said Geo. "Come on."
    Fifteen minutes brought them to the stairway that went to the lower highway. Iimmi's memory proved good, and for an hour they went quickly, Iimmi making no hesitation it turnings.
    "God," Geo said, rubbing his forearm with his other hand. "I must have pulled hell out of it back there. It hurts like the devil."
    Urson looked at his hand and rubbed them together.
    "My hands feel sort of funny too," Iimmi said. "Like they've been wind-burned."
    "Wind-burned nothing," said Geo. "This hurts."
    Twenty minutes later, Iimmi said, "Well, this should be about it."
    "Hey," said Urson. "There's Snake." As they ran forward, now, the boy jumped off the rail, grabbed their shoulders, and grinned. Then he began to tug them forward.
    "You lucky little so and so," said Urson. "I wish you'd been with us."
    "He probably was, in spirit, if not in body," Geo laughed.
    Snake nodded.
    "What are you pulling for?" Urson asked. "Say, if you're going to get headaches like that, you'd better teach us what to do with them beads there." He pointed to the jewel at Iimmi's and Geo's necks.
    Snake nodded and tugged forward again.
    "He wants us to hurry," Geo said. "We better get going."
    The road finally tore completely away, and four feet below them, over the twisted rail, was the mouth of a street that led into the waterfront. Snake, Iimmi and then Urson vaulted over. Urson shook his hands painfully when he landed.
    "Give me a hand, will you?" Geo asked. "My arm is really shot." Urson helped his friend over.
    Almost as though it had been in wait, thick liquid gurgling sounded behind them. Like a wounded thing it emerged from behind the broken highway, bulging up into the light which shone on the ripples in its shriveled membrane.
    "Run it!" bawled Urson, and they took off down the street. In the moonlight, the ruined piers spread along the waterfront to either side of them, some even slanting into the silvered water.
    Turning once, they saw it bloat the entrance of the street, fill it, and then pour across the broken stones, slipping across the rubble of the smashed wharf.
    When Geo hit water, he was aware of two things immediately as the hands reached for his body. First, the thong was yanked from around his neck. Second, pain seared his arm as if the bones and ligaments were suddenly replaced by white-hot cords of steel, and every vein and capillary had become part of a webbing of red fire.
    It was a long time before consciousness. Once he was lifted. And when he opened his eyes, the white moon was moving incredibly fast above him toward the dark shapes of leaves. Was he being carried? And his arm hurt. There was more drowsy half consciousness, and once a great deal of pain. When he opened his mouth to scream, however, darkness flowed in, swathed his tongue, and he swallowed the darkness down into his body and into his head, and called it sleep--
    *       *       *       *       *
    A spool of copper wire unrolled over the black tile floor. Scoop it up quick. Damn, let me get out of here. I run past the black columns, glimpsing the cavernous room, and the black statue at the other end, huge, and rising into shadows. Men in dark robes are walking around. (Not only could they see, this time; they could hear the thinking.) Just don't feel up to praying this afternoon. I am before the door, and above it, a black disk with three white eyes on it. Through the door, up black stone steps. Wonder if anyone will be up there now. Just my luck I'll find the Old Man himself. Another door with a black circle above it. Push it open slowly, cool on my hands. A man is standing inside, looking into a large screen of glass. Figures moving on it. Can't make them out, he's in the way. Oh, there's another one.
    "I don't know whether to call it success or failure," one says.
    "The jewels are ... safe or lost?"
    "What do you call it?" the first one asks. "I don't know any more." He sighs. "I don't think I've taken my eyes off this thing for more than two hours since they got to the beach. Every mile they've come closer has made my blood run colder."
    "What do we report to Hama Incarnate?"
    "It would be silly to say anything now. We just don't know."
    "Well," says the other, "at least we can do something with the City of New Hope since they got rid of that super-amoeba."
    "Are you sure they really got it?"
    "After the burning it received over that naked atom pile? It was all it could do to get to the waterfront. It's just about fried up and blown away already."
    "And how safe would you call them?" the other asks.
    "Right now? I wouldn't call them anything."
    Something glitters on the table by the door. Yes, there it is. In the pile of strange equipment is a U-shaped scrap of metal. Just what I need. Hot damn, adhesive tape too. Quick, there, before they see. Fine. Now, let the door close, real slow. Ooops. It clicked. Now come on, look innocent, in case they come out. I hope the Old Man isn't watching. Guess they're not coming. And down the stairs again, the black stone walls moving past. Out another door, into the garden, dark flowers, purple, deep red, some with blue in them, and big stone urns. Some priests are coming down the path. Ooops again, there's old Dunderhead. He'll want me inside praying. Duck down behind that urn. Here we go. What'll I do if he catches me? Really sir, I have nothing under my choir robe. Peek out.
    Very, very small sigh of relief, now. Can't afford to be too loud around here. They're gone. Let's examine the loot. The black stone urn has one handle above. It's about eight feet tall. One, two, three: jump, and ... hold ... on ... and ... pull. And try to get to the top. There we go. Cold stone between my toes. And over the edge, where it's filled with dirt. Pant. Pant. Pant.
    Should be just over here, if I remember right. Dig, dig, dig. Damp earth feels good in your hands. Ow! my finger. There it is. A brown paper bag under granules of black earth. Lift it out. Is it all there? Open it up, peer in. Down at the bottom, beyond the folds of the edges where the top had been twisted tightly together, are the tiny scraps of copper, a few long pieces of dark metal, a piece of board, some brads. To this my grubby little hand adds the spool of copper wire and the U-shaped scrap of metal. Now, slip it into my robe and--once you get up here, how the hell do you get down? I always forget. Turn around, climb over the edge, like this, and let yourself down. Damn, my robe's caught on the handle.
    And drop.
    Skinned my shin again. Some day I'll learn.
    Now let's see if we can figure this thing out. Gotta crouch down and get to work. Here we go. Open the bag, and turn the contents out in the lap of the dark-colored robe, grubby hands poking.
    The U-shaped metal, the copper wire, fine. Hold the end of the wire to the metal, and maneuver the spool around the end of the wire to the metal, and maneuver the spool around the end of the rod. Around. And around. And around. Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush. Here we go round the mulberry bush; I'll have me a coil by the morning.
    Suddenly a harsh voice in the distance: "And what do you think you're doing?"
    Dunderhead rides again. "Nothing, sir," as metal and scraps and wires fly frantically into the paper bag.
    The voice: "All novices under twenty must report to afternoon services without fail!"
    "Yes, sir. Coming right along, sir." Paper bag jammed equally frantically into the folds of my robe. Not a moment's peace. Not a moment's! Through the garden with lowered eyes, past a dour-looking priest with a small paunch. There are mirrors along the vestibule, huge slabs of glass that rise thirty feet, reflecting the blue and yellow light back and forth from the colored windows of the temple. In the mirror I see pass: a dour-looking priest, proceeded by a smaller figure with short red hair and a spray of freckles over a flattish nose. And as we pass into prayer, there is the maddening, almost inaudible jingling of metal scraps, muffled by the dark robe.
    *       *       *       *       *
    Geo woke up, and almost everything was white.
    CHAPTER VIII
    The pale woman with the tiny eyes rose from over him. Her hair dropped like white silk threads over her shoulders. "You are awake?" she asked. "Do you understand me?"
    "Am I at--at Hama's temple?" he asked, the remnants of the dream still blowing in at the edges of his mind, like shredding cloth. "My friends, where are they?"
    The woman laughed. "Your friends are all right. You came out the worst." Another laugh. "You ask if this is Hama's temple? But you can see, can you not? You have eyes. Don't you recognize the color of the White Goddess Argo?"
    Geo looked around the room. It was white marble, and there was no direct source of light. The walls simply glowed.
    "My friends...." Geo said again.
    "They are fine. We were able to completely restore their flesh to health. They must have exposed their hands to the direct beam of the radiation for only a few seconds. But the whole first half of your arm had apparently lain in the deadly rays for some minutes. You were not as lucky as they."
    Another thought rushed Geo's mind now. "The jewels ..." he started to say, but instead of sounding the words, he reached to his throat with both hands. One fell on his naked chest. And there was something very wrong with the other. He sat up in the bed quickly, and looked down. "My arm," he said.
    Swathed in white bandages, the limb ended some foot and a half short of where it should have.
    "My arm...?" he asked again, with a child's bewilderment. "What happened to my arm?"
    "I tried to tell you," the woman said, softly. "We had to amputate half of your arm. If we had not, you would have died."
    "My arm," Geo said again, and lay back in the bed.
    "It is difficult," the woman said. "It is only a little consolation, I know, but we are blind here. What burned your arm away, took our sight from us when it was much stronger, generations ago. We learned how to battle many of its effects, and had we not rescued you from the river, all of you would have died. You are men who know the religion of Argo, and adhere to it. This another of your party has told us. Be thankful then that you have come under the wing of the Mother Goddess again, for this is a hostile country." She paused. "Do you wish to talk?"
    Geo shook his head.
    "I hear the sheets rustle," the woman said, smiling, "which means you either shook or nodded your head. I know from my study of the old customs that one means 'yes' and the other 'no.' But you must have patience with us who cannot see. We are not used to your people. Do you wish to talk?" she repeated.
    "Oh," said Geo. "No. No, I don't."
    "Very well," the woman said. She rose, still smiling. "I will return later." She walked to a wall in which a door slipped open, and then it closed again, behind her.
    He lay still on the bed for a long time. Then he turned over on his stomach. Once he brought the stump under his chest and held the clean bandages in his other hand. Very quickly he let go, and stretched the limb sideways, as far as possible away from him. That didn't work either, so he moved it back down to his side, and let it lay by him under the white sheet.
    After a long while, he got up, sat on the edge of the bed, and looked around the room. It was completely bare, with neither windows nor visible doors. He went to the spot through which she had exited, but could find not seam or crack. His tunic, he saw, had been washed, pressed, and laid on the foot of the bed. He slipped it over his head, fumbling with only one arm. Getting the belt together started out to be a problem, but he hooked the buckle around one finger and maneuvered the strap through with the other. He adjusted his leather purse, now empty, on his side. Then he saw that the sword was gone.
    An unreal feeling, white like the walls of the room, was beginning to fill him up like a pale mixture of milk and water. He walked around the edge of the room once more, looking for some break.
    There was a sound behind him and the tiny-eyed woman in her white robe stood in a triangular doorway. "You're dressed," she smiled. "Good. Are you too tired to come with me? You will eat and see your friends if you feel well enough. Or, I can have the food brought."
    "I'll come," Geo said.
    She turned, and he followed her into a hall of the same luminous substance. Her heels touched the back of her white robe with each step, but she was silent. His own bare feet on the cool stones seemed louder than those of the blind woman before him. Suddenly he was in a larger room, with benches. It was a chapel, obviously of Argo because of the altar at the far end, but its detail was strange. Everything was arranged with the white simplicity that one would expect of a people to whom visual adornment meant nothing. He sat down on a bench as the woman said, "Wait here." She disappeared down another hall.
    Suddenly the woman returned from the other hallway, followed by Snake. Geo and the four-armed boy looked at each other, silently, as the woman disappeared again. A wish, like a living thing, suddenly writhed into a knot in Geo's stomach, that the boy would say something. He himself could not.
    Again she returned, this time with Urson. The big man stepped into the chapel, saw Geo, and exclaimed, "Friend, what happened?" He came to him quickly and placed his warm hands on Geo's shoulders. "What ..." he began, and shook his head.
    Geo grinned suddenly, and patted his stump with his good hand. "I guess jelly-belly got something from me after all."
    Urson held his own forearm next to Geo's and compared them. There was paleness in both. "I guess none of us got out completely all right. I woke up once while they were taking the scabs off. It was pretty bad, and I went to sleep again fast."
    Iimmi came in now. "Well, I was wondering ..." He stopped, and let out a low whistle. "I guess it really got you, brother." His own arms looked as though they had been dipped in bleach up to the mid forearms.
    "How did this happen?" Urson asked.
    "When we were back doing our tightrope act on those damn girders," explained Iimmi, "our bodies were in the shadow of the girders and the rays only got to our arms. I've got something you'll be interested in too, Geo."
    "Just tell me where the hell we are," Urson said.
    "We're in a monastery sacred to Argo," Iimmi told him. "It's across the river from the City of New Hope, which is where we were."
    "That name sounds familiar; in the ..." began Urson. Snake gave him a quick glance, and he stopped, and then frowned.
    "We knew of your presence in the City of New Hope," explained the blind Priestess, "and we found you by the riverside after you swam across. You managed to cling to life long enough for us to get you back to the monastery and apply what art we could to sooth the burns from the deadly fire."
    Geo suddenly saw that there was no jewel around Iimmi's neck either. He could almost feel the hands ripping it from his neck in the water. Iimmi must have made the same discovery, because his pale hand raised to his own chest.
    The Priestess beckoned and started down another hall, and again they followed. They arrived at an even larger room, this one set with white marble benches and long white tables. "This is the main dining room of the monastery," their guide explained. "One table has been set up for you. You will not eat with the other priestesses, of course."
    "Why not?" asked Iimmi.
    Surprise flowed across the blind face. "You are men," she told them, matter of factly. Then she led them to a table where wine, meat, and bowls piled with strange fruit were placed. As they sat down, she disappeared once more.
    Geo reached for a knife. For a moment there was silence at the table as the nub of the arm jutted over food. "I guess I just have to learn," he said after the pause.
    Halfway through the meal, Urson said, "What about the jewels? Did the Priestess take them from you?"
    "They came off in the water," said Iimmi.
    Geo nodded corroboration.
    "Well, now we really have a problem," said Urson. "Here we are, at a temple of Argo's where we could return the jewels and maybe even get back to the Priestess on the ship, and out of the silly mess, and the jewels are gone."
    "I guess that also means our river friends are working for Hama," said Geo.
    "Well," Iimmi said, "Hama's got his jewel then, and we're out of the way. Perhaps he delivered us into Argo's hands as a reward for bringing them this far?"
    "Since we would have died anyway," said Geo, "I guess he was doing us a favor."
    "And you know what that means," Iimmi said, looking at Snake now.
    "Huh?" asked Urson. Then he said, "Oh, let the boy speak for himself. All right, Four Arms, are you or are you not a spy for Hama?"
    A pained expression came over Snake's face, and he shook his head not in denial but bewilderment. Suddenly he got up from the table, and ran from the room. Urson looked at the others. "Now don't tell me I hurt his feelings by asking."
    "You didn't," said Iimmi, "but I may have. I keep on forgetting that he can read minds."
    "What do you mean?" Urson asked.
    "Just when you asked him that, a lot of things came together in my mind that would be pretty vicious for him if any of it were true."
    "Huh?" asked Urson.
    "I think I know what you mean," said Geo.
    "I still--"
    "It means that he is a spy," explained Iimmi, "and among other things, he was probably lying about the radio back at the city. And that cost Geo his arm."
    "Why the--" began Urson, and then looked down the hall where Snake had disappeared.
    They didn't eat much more. When they got up, Urson felt sleepy and was shown back to his room.
    "May I show my friend what you showed me?" Iimmi asked the Priestess when she returned. "He is also a student of rituals."
    "Of course you may," smiled the Priestess.
    A door opened and they entered another room similar to the one in which Geo had awakened. As she was about to leave, Iimmi asked, "Wait. Can you tell us how to leave the room ourselves?"
    "Why would you want to leave?" she asked.
    "For exercise," offered Geo, "and to observe the working of the monastery. Believe us, we are true students of Argo's religion."
    "Simply press the wall with your hand, level at your waist, and the door will open. But you must not wander about the monastery. Rites which are not for your eyes are being carried out. Not for your eyes," she repeated. "Strange, this is a phrase that has never left our language. Suddenly, confronted by people who can see, it makes me feel somehow ..." she paused. "Well, that is how to leave the room."
    She stepped out, and the door closed behind her.
    "Here," said Iimmi, "this is what I wanted to show you." On his bed were a pile of books, old, but legible. Geo flipped through a few pages. Suddenly he looked up at Iimmi.
    "Hey, what are they doing with printed books?"
    "Question number one," said Iimmi. "Now, for question number two. Look here." He reached over Geo's shoulder and hastened him to one page.
    "Why it's the ..." began Geo.
    "You're darn right it is," said Iimmi.
    HYMN TO THE GODDESS ARGO
    Forked in the eye of the bright ash there the heart of Argo broke and the hand of the goddess would dash through the head of flame, and the smoke.
    Burn the grain speck in the hand and batter the stars with singing. Hail the height of a man, and also the height of a woman.
    The eyes have imprisoned a vision, the ash-tree dribbles with blood. Thrust from the gates of the prison, smear the yew-tree with mud.
    "That must be the full version of the poem I found the missing stanza to back in the library at Leptar."
    "As I was saying," said Iimmi, "Question number two: what is the relation between the rituals of Hama and the old rituals of Argo. Apparently this particular branch of the religion of the Goddess underwent no purge. And no one at Olcse Olwnh was supposed to know about them."
    "I wonder why?" Geo asked.
    "That is question number three."
    "How did you get a hold of them?"
    "Well," said Iimmi, "I sort of suspected they might be here. So I just asked for them. And I think I've got some answers to those questions."
    "Fine. Go ahead."
    "We'll start from three, go back to one, and then on to two. Nice and orderly," said Iimmi. "Why wasn't anybody supposed to know about the rituals? Simply because they were so similar to the rituals of Hama. You remember some of the others we found in the abandoned temple? If you don't, you can refresh your memory right here. The two sets of rituals run almost parallel, except for a name changed here, a color switched from black to white, a switch in the vegetative symbolism. I guess what happened was that when Hama's forces invaded Leptar five hundred years ago, it didn't take Leptar long to find out the similarity. From the looks of the City of New Hope, I think it's safe to assume that at one time or another, say five hundred years ago, Aptor's civilization was far higher than Leptar's, and probably wouldn't have had too hard a time beating her in an invasion. So when Leptar captured the first jewel, and somehow did manage to repel Aptor, the priests of Leptar assumed that the safest way to avoid infiltration by Hama and Aptor again would be to make the rituals of the two as different as possible from the ones of their enemy, Hama.
    "The ghouls, the bats, they parallel the stories I've heard other sailors tell too closely to be accidents. How many people do you think have been shipwrecked on Aptor and gotten far enough into the place to see what we've seen, and then gotten off again to tell about it?"
    "I can think of two," said Geo.
    "Huh?" said Iimmi.
    "Snake and Jordde," answered Geo. "Remember that Argo said there had been spies from Aptor before. And Jordde is definitely one, and I guess so is Snake."
    "True enough," said Iimmi. "I guess that fits into Rule Number One." He got up from the bed. "Come on. Let's take a walk. I want to see some sunlight." They went to the wall. Geo pressed it and a triangular panel slipped back.
    When they had rounded four or five turns of hallway, Geo said, "I hope you can remember where we've been."
    "I've got a more or less perfect memory for directions," Iimmi said.
    Suddenly the passage opened onto steps, and they were looking out upon a huge, unrelieved white chamber. Down a set of thirty marble steps priestesses filed below them in rows, their heads fixed blindly forward.
    At the far end was a raised dais with a mammoth statue of a kneeling woman, sculptured of the same effulgent, agate material. "Where do these women come from?" whispered Geo. "And where do they keep the men?"
    Iimmi shrugged.
    Suddenly, the figure of the blind Priestess was beside them.
    "Excuse me, ma'am," Iimmi said, sensing her disapproval of their presence, "we didn't mean to be disrespectful, but we are creatures who are used to natural day and night. We are used to fresh air, green things. This underground whiteness is oppressive to us and makes us restless. Is there any way that you could show us a way into the open?"