"As well, perhaps. The mysteries define it as something unwholesome. Weakening. Treacherous. A sin that causes much rot and trouble. It has always puzzled me."
Blade put his hand on the jeweled hilt of the sword. Not in threat, but to emphasize the way he felt. "So you will not help Zulekia? Very well. I must find a way to do it myself."
"Before you even think of that," said Sutha, "listen to my real reason for refusing to try. The reason I brought you here so soon, to the Sacred of Sacreds, where we could not be overheard. The reason is Isma. The High Priestess!"
Blade nodded, getting the point at once. "She would be displeased that I thought of another woman?"
Sutha leaned to pat the big man's shoulder. The expression on his face was a mingle of approval, exasperation, impatience and something else that Blade thought might just be a genuine liking for himself, dolt though Sutha obviously thought him.
Sutha cast a glance upward, as thought to call on a minor Tharnian God or two, and clasped his hands in resignation.
"You begin to see it, Blade. Isma! She is High Priestess and her authority is absolute. Even I cannot go against her. Astar is nothing. She, and her child's brain, do not count. I have, as a matter of fact, had great difficulty in restraining Isma from slaying Astar and ruling alone. She will do it yet. And I tell you something else about Isma: she has known coi, has committed karno many times with the Lordsmen. Only I know this, and Isma does not care that I know. But of all the times she has gone to the Cage, or had the Lordsmen sent to her, never once has she known coi as it is written it should be. Coi between a God and a Goddess!"
Blade was stubborn. He clung to a thought once it had lodged securely.
"You say that only you and Isma know of her actions, that she has coi? How can this be? The Lordsmen must know. The ones involved. Or are they in a trance?" And Blade laughed.
Sutha did not laugh, nor even smile.
"The Lordsmen involved are immediately put to death following the event, Blade. They are killed and a substitute brought in from the Breeding Grounds.
story is put out, for the People, or THEY if you choose, that there has been an accident."
Blade's smile faded. "I see."
"Then see this: if Isma has one suspicion, any faintest inkling, that you are so much as thinking of this girl, this Maiduke Zulekia, then the girl is dead. You are dead. And very likely I am dead. About the girl I care nothing. About myself I care little. I am a very old neuter, I am entitled to a painless destruct, and my kronos have already been extended many times because I please Isma and serve her well. But you, Blade? I would have you live. I have hopes and plans that, but none of that now. Come. We must get you to your quarters. Isma will be impatient and there is much to do. You must make ready for the Ceremony of Ravishment."
As they left the Sacred Chamber Blade glanced once again at the corpse of Astar I. He knew it was impossible, yet her smile seemed to have altered, to have become a little more mocking than it had been.
Then he forgot Astar I as he listened to Sutha explaining the Ceremony of Ravishment and what he must do. Blade was appalled.
Chapter Ten.
The women were assembled. The People, as Sutha called them, and as Blade had come to think of them. They rustled and craned and chattered and filled the great amphitheater with their effluvia, with their laughter, and most of all, it was a palpable thing, with their expectations. The word had gone out. Mazda had come. Tharn could be saved. Snatched back from a slow, withering, agonizing death. The God had come, and from his loins would spring a new Tharn.
The Maiduke maidens had a special section to themselves, under the watchful eyes of monitor neuters. There were special ceboid patrols everywhere. Such of the Bearer maidens as were not fertilized, and thus incarcerated in the baby plants, were also on hand. The long conveyor belts, bearing the neuter decanters, had ground to a stop. All of them, every level of Tharnian society, were there unless duty prevented. From the lowliest to the highest, from the most humble ceboid street cleaner to Isma herself, they were all avid to see the God perform. And along with the flower smell of women was another, nearly as tangible, miasma that lingered in the air. Lubricity. Tharn was not an inhibited state.
Richard Blade had been bathed and perfumed by a company of Maiduke girls watched over by a neuter. They chattered incessantly as they worked, in a Tharnian patois that he could not entirely understand, but what he did understand was hard on his composure. They stared. How they stared! One, bolder than the rest, actually reached and tweaked until harshly reprimanded by the neuter. Blade was glad when it was over.
Blade was not to take his great sword into the arena. With reluctance Blade entrusted the weapon to the care of a neuter called Xeno. Xeno was young, only 16 kronos out of decantment, and husky for a neuter. He was Blade's personal servant and filled with awe at the assignment, and at Blade.
Blade wore only a purple loincloth. He was unarmed. Now he paced the floor of his sumptuous chamber impatiently, anxious for Sutha to arrive and conduct him to the amphitheater, to have it over with. The image of Honcho, with his clever, aborted and not so neuter brain, haunted him. Surely Honcho had more arrows to his quiver than Blade knew of. And what of Totha? Of Org? Nothing could be done until this ceremony was over and Blade officially received as Mazda. Blade chafed and fretted for action.
Sutha came and conducted Blade through a tunnel beneath the arena. Xeno, staggering under the weight of the sword, followed along behind.
Blade asked a question that had been bothering him.
"How much of this ceremony is mock, Sutha, and how much real? Astar and Isma are to be armed and I am not? Will they really try to kill me?"
Sutha nodded. "They will really try to kill you, Blade. They must. If they can, if they do, then it is a false prophecy and you are not Mazda. You, in turn, will try to slay them. But only symbolically! You do have a weapon."
The old neuter pointed to Blade's groin. "Your phallus! That is your weapon. I warned you. You must disarm them and ravish each separately. So do you consummate with the dual Goddess and you all become as ONE. Tharn."
Sutha touched Blade's arm. "You will not fail. You must not fail. Do you understand my meaning? Even if you disarm them, Astar and Isma, and subdue them, which you will, and then are not capable of entering them, then you will still have failed. It will be symbolic death. And actual death will not be far behind."
Blade did not think he would fail. He had always been enormously potent. And yet there was no guarantee that in the excitement, the frenzy, in the stress of performing publicly, he pushed the thought away. That would be all right.
They reached a gate leading into the great arena. Sutha flicked a hand at Xeno and the young neuter dropped back and fell to his knees, making slaveface. Sutha drew Blade into a corner. Through the gate they could hear the sound of the waiting crowd.
Sutha squeezed Blade's great bicep. "I do not think you will fail, Blade. But if you do I cannot help you. Isma will order the soldier-ceboids to kill you. This they will do, though you slay many of them first. But it is not that I worry about, much. It is Isma. She has a secret. I can always tell. And being Isma it is a dangerous secret. I do not know if it concerns you, or Astar, or even myself. But be warned. Watch her. Isma is High Priestess and a woman of all women, and not to be trusted for a minikronos. Go, Blade. I invoke fortune on thee."
Blade strode into the arena.
There was no welcoming roar. There was gathering silence as the whispering died away and the assembled People, all of THEY who really counted, feasted their eyes on Blade.
Blade stood tall, his heavily muscled legs planted like columns in the earth. His heavy black beard had been washed and combed. It was thick and wiry and glistened in the evanescent soft light bathing the huge space.
Blade's shoulders were wide, his chest massive, his waist lean and hard muscled. Playing to the audience, as Sutha had instructed, he raised his arms above his head and turned slowly around, inspecting them and letting them see the confidence and arrogance he exuded. Even if Sutha had not given him meticulous instructions, Blade was far too good a natural showman to play it humbly.
So he stood for a moment. The whispers came back now, and a long collective exhalation from the women of Tharn. The neuters were apathetic. The ceboids, with slow animal curiosity, watched his every movement.
Blade smiled at them. He put his hands on his hips and laughed, loudly and triumphantly, his white teeth flashing through the black beard. Some of the women began to laugh, a nervous growing titter.
Blade began to walk toward the transparent teksin cage in the center of the arena. It was cube shaped and the walls were solid. Inside, each lying on a separate couch, were Astar and Isma. They were naked. Beside each couch was a shield and a sword with a keen, phallus-shaped blade. As Blade approached Isma raised herself on her elbow and watched him. Astar did not move. Only the rise and fall of her sharp breasts showed that she lived.
A door, reached by a short flight of steps, opened into the cage. By the steps a fire burned on a teksin grate. It was attended by a high ranking neuter. As Blade drew near the neuter cast a handful of powder on the flame and it swirled upward in a cloud of red and yellow.
Blade watched the moiling fire from a corner of his eye. He knew why the fire was there, what it was waiting for. If he failed, if he was not man enough, Isma - or would it be Astar? - would hack off his manhood and toss it to the greedy flames.
The music began. It crept into the arena from nowhere, low and sinuous, gaining in sensuality with every note. Blade halted at the foot of the steps.
Through the teksin his eyes met those of Isma. Their stares locked and held. Something glittered in those obsidian depths and the red mouth moved a bit over pearly teeth. Isma moved on the couch, twisting, thrusting her breasts at Blade like daggers. She crooked a finger and her lips moved. Come. Come to coi...or death.
Blade glanced at Astar. She was still unmoving, silent and distant on her couch, staring straight before her. Would she fight him? Could she, as retarded as she was? Her body, revealed in every detail, was as lovely as that of Isma. Their breasts, their faces, were alike. Only the body hair was different: Isma's a darkest curling jet, Astar's fine and straight and golden bronze.
A great phallus, bearing the initial M, curved over the door of the cage. Blade made obeisance to it, then bounded up the stairs, and flung open the door and stepped inside. The crowd was silent, intent, waiting.
Isma leaped to her feet and picked up her sword and shield. Her breasts, the smooth velvet woman muscles of her shimmered and writhed beneath the tawny hide. Blade, incongruously at that moment, remembered that the People had once been great warriors under Astar I.
Isma snapped a command at Astar. "Fight, Astar! On your feet and fight. Kill this one who claims he is Mazda." Isma's mouth was thin and angry, imperious. She leaped at Blade and thrust with the sword. Blade moved skillfully away.
Isma did not follow. She retreated still talking to Astar. "Fight, Astar! Fight!"
Blade knew then that Sutha had been right. Something was amiss. Isma was up to some mischief. He watched, ready and tense, as Astar got slowly off the couch. She picked up her shield and weapon and began to move toward Blade. Her eyes were vacant and staring and she looked not at Blade, but through him. In a flash it came to him. Astar was drugged!
So much the easier. He waited as Astar approached, concentrating on her body, feeling himself begin to react to the sexual excitement that clogged the air like smoke. He kept an eye on Isma, who was slowly circling around to get behind him. Obviously she intended that he subdue Astar first. Why? And why drug Astar? It must be Isma's doing. Was Sutha wrong and Astar not retarded, brain damaged, at all? Had Isma been drugging her for a long time?
Astar seemed to come alive for a moment. She saw Blade, as if for the first time, and her eyes narrowed and flamed. She leaped at him with a scream. "Kill - kill! I am Astar. I am virgin. I will not be taken. I will kill... "
She swung wildly with the sword. Blade ducked under it and moved in to grab her around the waist. He backhanded her wrist and the sword fell. He pulled the shield off her arm and flung it away. She struggled in vain as he picked her up and carried her to the couch. Isma moved in closer behind him. He was suddenly aware that there was no sound in the cage other than the breathing of the three of them. The cage was soundproof. He glanced through the teksin, saw the open red throats of the howling mob of women, crazed by anticipation and empathic coi.
Astar's struggles were feeble now, her breathing harsh and tortured. She slumped against Blade, her breasts mashed against his great chest. Blade was conscious of an intense and growing excitement. He was ready! With Isma at his back, waiting.
Isma spoke for the first time. "Hurry," she said. "Hurry and take her and have done with it. She is nothing. I have seen to that. A token will be enough, just enter her and then leave her. Come to me! Save all of yourself for me, to take me. If you can! If you dare!"
Blade tossed Astar sprawling on the couch. He was breathing hard and his voice was harsh. "And you, Isma? And you...when my back is to you?"
She laughed. "Is Mazda afraid, then?"
Astar was sprawling on the couch, her eyes closed, her breasts heaving, her long golden legs flung wide. Yet Blade hesitated. "They cannot hear us?"
"Of course not. Would I speak so else! Hurry with her and come to me."
Blade fell atop Astar and thrust hard into her. Astar screamed. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she died. Blade had seen much of death and he knew she was dead. For a second he did not understand. It was not possible that he... Then he knew. Astar had been murdered, drugged, poisoned, by Isma. It had been a masterpiece of timing.
So was Isma's attack on Blade. While he was still in the trance of shock, of trying to understand, she leaped at him with a cry of defiance. She thrust hard at his naked back. Her teeth were bared and she was panting.
"If I can kill you, Mazda-Blade, I do not want you! I am sick to death of creatures that are not men. I'll kill you, Blade. Kill you!"
Her red mouth was dripping saliva as she attacked him. She was good with the sword. Blade rolled away, off the couch, and she slashed him in the side. Blood welled down his leg. He leaped away from her with a wolfish grin.
"You do mean to kill me, Isma!"
She feinted at his throat, then lowered her blade to slash at his still rigid manhood. "I'll kill it, Blade. Kill it! I'll burn it and the ceboids can have your carcass to toss on the dung heap. Mazda? A God? Prove it!"
He wondered if there was a word for insanity in Tharnian. He had not yet come across it. But whether or not, Isma was insane at this moment. She was devoured with double lust. For killing and for coi, and one fed the other.
Blade retreated slowly around the cage. Isma followed, feinting and thrusting, silent now, her dark eyes blazing at him. Blade too was being overcome with lust. He was also losing his temper. He made no effort to restrain it. He felt it sliding and let it go. If this bitch-Goddess, this High Priestess of coi wanted coi, he could damned well give her coi. He would kill her, all right. He would slay her with the only weapon he had.
He slithered back past the couch where the dead Astar lay still sprawled in an attitude of love. Isma followed, trying to work him into a corner. At any moment Blade could have picked up Astar's sword and shield and killed Isma. He did not want to. Not that way. And he was not thinking of the consequences of such an act, whatever they might be. No. He was going to kill Isma symbolically, as Sutha had said he must, and it was going to be a slaying she would remember for the rest of her life. She would, thought Blade as his rage towered and grew, beg him to slay her over and over and over.
Isma slashed at him and missed. Blade smiled in mockery. It was time. He stepped in swiftly and caught her sword wrist and twisted. She screamed and he smiled and twisted again. He hurt her and enjoyed doing it. She dropped the sword.
Isma tried to brain him with the shield. Blade struck her hard across the face with his open hand. She reeled back, stifling another scream, staring at him in disbelief. Then she leaped, screaming, spitting out the words in fury.
"You dare strike Isma!"
"I dare." He struck her again, backhanding her the opposite way across those lovely features.
She clawed at his face and tried to bite him. Blade got his big hand into her thick hair and twisted. She screamed. He kicked her legs out from under her and she fell heavily. He had forgotten the crowd now. They were not there. He was intent on his fury and his lust.
He pulled the shield off her arm and flung it violently away. She tried to fight her way up and he kicked her feet away again. She was sobbing and screaming and cursing, her eyes wild with rage and her scarlet mouth drooling spittle.
Blade dragged her across the cage by her hair. As they passed Astar's fallen sword she reached for it and he slashed hard at her wrist. She screamed in pain.
Blade pulled her on the couch by the hair. She lunged up at him and he yanked her head back.
Blade laughed down into her face, bitterly and furiously. "Now, Isma! Now you shall find out who is Mazda! Are you ready?"
She spat in his face. "Never...never...never. I forbid it. I am Isma, High Priestess of Tharn! I rule now. Only I-I will have you torn apart by ceboids."
Blade's rage had begun to cool. He was still angry, but the red mist was clearing. He mocked her. "I know you are the High Priestess, Isma. I also know that you murdered Astar so you could rule alone. You must have planned it for a long time. But you are wrong. I am Mazda and you are going to rule with me. Make up your mind to it, Isma! And now..."
She locked her thighs together, denying him entrance. She laughed wildly and he sensed the beginning of hysteria. "No. You see, I will not permit it."
Blade seized her firm left breast and twisted it cruelly. "You will not?"
She screamed shrilly but refused to open her legs. He twisted the breast again, repeating: "You will not, Isma? You will not?"
The long thighs parted. Blade plunged at her, stabbing, wanting to hurt her, to kill her.
She had, of course, never known a real man before. He did not lie close atop her, but raised himself so he could watch her face, see the mingled rage and fear slowly transformed to surprise and disbelief. She gasped and sighed Her mouth widened into a scarlet vacant and stayed that way. Her nails began to rake at his back, bringing blood, but there was no anger in her now.
Within a minute she convulsed for the first time. Blade had not even started. He plunged on, feeling that he was going to pierce her entrails, slay her once and for all, and he did not care what happened to him.
Minute followed minute. On and on. Isma began to cry and sob and ask for surcease.
"I am weary, My Lord. I would stop now. Please."
Blade kept on.
She was frantic again. "You are Mazda. You are my Lord. I am nothing - you are everything, my Lord... make slaveface - I make slaveface... I..."
Still Blade did not show mercy. It was not a Tharnian quality. It was not a Blade quality, either, at the moment On and on and on.
"Please, my Lord. Please! I cannot go on. I cannot. I am dying."
"Die, then."
"I cannot endure it, my Lord."
"You must endure it. I am master now. Is that not so, Isma?"
"Yes. It is so, Lord. Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes."
Blade convulsed and poured his seed into Isma, the High Priestess.
"Never call me Mazda again. Between us two. I am Blade. Blade of Tharn!"
"Yes, Lord. You are Blade of Tharn."
She was whimpering and crying now. The firm breasts had gone to mush beneath him and in her long dark eyes was a look of satiety and content.