Champions Of The Gods

Chapter Nineteen

The third earthquake frightened everyone in Thessu. The new High Chief had promised that the wrath of the gods would turn aside if they killed Stul. Now Stul was dead and so was Geddo. Yet the trembling of the earth continued? People were bustling about nervously the next morning when Blade and Katerina awoke. Although he was greeted with deference, Blade caught some looks he didn't like at all.

Fortunately, the third earthquake was the last one. So the uncertain or suspicious looks at the new High Chief soon faded away. None of the quakes had done really disastrous damage, in any case. Thessu's houses and huts were built of logs, with light thatched roofs. They fell easily, but they hurt few people when they fell, and they could be rebuilt almost as easily. Most of the damage from the quakes was to everybody's peace of mind, and that faded away within a few days.

Blade soon found that being High Chief of the Ganthi was a comparatively easy job. He had to lead them in war. But there hadn't been a war in several years. He had to preside over the Feasts for the Warriors and Hunters. But there wasn't one of those scheduled for another three months. He had to accept any challenges that any lesser warrior or Hunter might issue. But after watching Blade fight Geddo and slay him, no one seemed at all interested in challenging the new High Chief.

It was also the custom for the High Chief to acquire and maintain a large harem of the loveliest women he could find among the Ganthi. Geddo had kept that custom very well, as Blade discovered. Most of the women in the harem he inherited were indeed beautiful. Too many of them also showed the marks of Geddo's «teaching»-scars, whip-welts, pulled teeth, missing toes, and even missing eyes. Even if Blade hadn't had Katerina, he would not have enjoyed living among these reminders of his predecessor's cruelty.

«You cannot set them all free, Blade,» said Kordu. «Then they would think you do not desire them. That would be to lay a great shame upon them. Their families would become your enemies.» He lowered his voice and added, «There are already enough who think evil things may come to the Ganthi from making a wandering stranger the High Chief.»

«The Ganthi have obeyed their laws in making me High Chief,» said Blade. «It is always wise to do that. I shall do the same. I shall not set any of the women aside. Neither shall I go to them for one year. I have taken Katerina of my own people as my first woman. By the laws of my own people, a man may not take other women for one year after he has taken his first.»

«Also, I think the woman Katerina would have things to say to you if you did not obey that law,» said Kordu, with a grin. «Am I right?»

«You are right, my friend,» said Blade. «Katerina and the women of my people are not as the women of the Ganthi. Neither gods nor men can make them so. I hope none among the Ganthi think otherwise.»

«I have heard none such,» said Kordu. «But I think I would do well to keep listening. I call you friend as well as Chief, Blade. Both as friend and Chief you may need an extra pair of ears in places where you may find it hard to go yourself..»

«I thank you, Kordu. You are a wise man as well as a friend.»

As hard as Kordu listened, he heard nothing for a long time. Blade settled into a quiet routine that would have swiftly become murderously boring, if it hadn't been for Katerina.

She was neither surprised nor frightened when he revealed that he knew who she was. In fact, a frank discussion revealed that she had come to many of the same conclusions he had about their relationship while in Dimension X. She was a highly intelligent and sensible woman, politically orthodox (the KGB wouldn't use any other kind), but not so fanatical that she insisted on playing spy games when they would be suicidally risky.

After settling that point, Blade was able to find excitement and pleasure in his relationship with Katerina. There was raw, hot joy in making love to her, taking his pleasure from her superb body and giving pleasure back just as generously. Their sex had begun almost by accident, but it had begun well. It grew better as Katerina recovered from her ordeal in the jungle and Blade recovered from his wounds.

There was also the novelty of not being absolutely alone in Dimension X. Blade always managed to find friends and allies in any Dimension, people like Kordu. But there had never been anyone from Home Dimension before, anyone who knew that this world was not the only one, anyone who could sit and talk of England and France, London and Paris, jet planes and computers.

It was almost an idyll there in Thessu for Blade and Katerina, at least for a while. Crops slowly ripened under the sun, and parties of Hunters returned with trophies of meat or fish. Babies were born and tattooed with clan marks. Old men and women died and were cremated, and their ashes were buried or thrown into the rivers to return to the sources of all life and to be reborn. There were rumors that other peoples in the jungle and around it had learned of Geddo's death.

«This could mean war by next year,» said Kordu. «Geddo was a cruel man and a dangerous enemy. But he was also a mighty leader in war. Now he is dead, and little is known of the new High Chief. The Ganthi have enemies who may wish to try their strength against us, now that Geddo no longer leads us.»

«I have done better than Geddo once already,» said Blade. «With the aid of the gods I shall do better than he again.» He did not feel quite that arrogant, but a High Chief had to strike the right poses! In any case, he would be long gone from among the Ganthi by next year.

What to do about Katerina, when he was called Home? On the one hand, if she returned with him she would be an enemy again, an enemy who knew dangerous secrets. On the other hand, if he deliberately left her here, her fate would be worse than he could wish even on a KGB agent. If she was left here to die, the secret of her successful trip to Dimension X would also die with her. Both personally and professionally, Blade rejected the idea of simply abandoning Katerina.

Could he repeat his success with Arllona with Katerina? That first time could have been sheer luck. Katerina was clearly far better able to make the trip. That didn't mean she would. He would try, when the time came. Once again, that wasn't enough, but it was all he could do.

With that decision out of the way, Blade was able to relax again. It was getting hard not to. This stay among the Ganthi felt at times more like a vacation than a trip to Dimension X,

The «vacation» did not last much longer. What brought it to an end was Drob-Log-«The Gods' Forge»-the great volcano in the mountains to the north that both Blade and Katerina had seen shortly after reaching this Dimension. The mountain had slept quietly since long before the oldest of the Ganthi could remember. Now it was awakening from that sleep. The three earthquakes at the time of Blade's defeat of Geddo had been the first sign.

The next sign was a new series of earthquakes. They were not strong at first, and once more there was little damage. They came frequently, though. For a solid week there was at least one a day.

Then there were two a day, and they grew stronger. People in Thessu began to wear haunted looks and to sleep outside at night, preferring the night damps and the insects to being caught in their collapsing houses, Then villagers from the north fled into the town, bringing tales that the smoke from the top of Drob-Log was turning from white to gray and rising higher and higher, that flames and liquid fire were appearing on the sides of the mountain. The gods were stoking up their forge.

Soon the cloud from the volcano rose high enough to dominate the northern horizon in Thessu itself. By night the base of the cloud glowed more fiercely every time Blade looked at it. He decided to go north and see Drob-Log in eruption with his own eyes. There was more than curiosity in this decision. A volcano that size could hurl ashes and deadly gas over hundreds of square miles of the hunting and farming lands of the Ganthi. The whole life of the jungle and perhaps of the people could fall into confusion.

By the time Blade approached the base of the mountain, it was in full eruption. His escort would not go closer than ten miles, and he himself did not risk going closer than five. The mountain belched out gas and ashes in a continuous cloud that spread across half the sky, sent lava cascading down its side, and made the ground underfoot vibrate like the head of a drum. For miles below the tree line the jungle was already ash-covered and dying, and all the animal life had fled away to the south.

That wasn't the worst of it. Not only was Drob-Log wide awake now, some of its neighbors were also coming alive. Blade would have called all of them extinct. But by the time he and his grim-faced escort turned south, seven other mountains were spewing out dark clouds by day and fire by night. The stretch of dead or dying jungle was more than a day's march wide.

When Blade returned to Thessu, he knew there was only one safe thing to do. He put it into plain words before a gathering of all the Elder Brothers and clan heads.

«The gods are hard at work on all of their forges to the north. I counted seven, and there will be more. The mountains throw out ashes and cinders, like the ones from your cookfires, but so many that they bury the land as deep as a tall man's waist. They throw out evil vapors, like those that rise from a dead animal, but far worse. The vapors from the volcanoes will slay any who breathe them. The trees and the bushes, the grass and the crops of the Ganthi will die. The animals and the fish will die, or flee away to the south, away from the mountains.»

«And the Ganthi?» That was Kordu, asking the question Blade had told him to ask.

«The Ganthi also will die if they do not flee away from the mountains, for in a year there may be nothing in all this land we call ours. Even if they stay, they will become so weak that their enemies may strike them down.»

His voice rose. «If the Ganthi march forth, across the Great River and into the lands to the south, they will live. As they march they will be so strong that none may stop them, or keep them from taking as much land as they need to live. For we are the Ganthi, and others go in fear of us.»

This appeal to the pride of the leaders did most of the work. The rest had already been done for him, by the earthquakes that by now had laid half of Thessu in ruins, and by the clouds to the north that grew more terrible each day. The warriors who had been with Blade were asked to speak, and they confirmed his tale of a land dead and still from the deadly breath of the mountains.

There was no discussion after that, and in fact no real need for it. They all knew that they must do as Blade urged, and after that there was nothing to do but scatter to their homes and start packing. It would be a long journey.

Blade went back to the High Chief's compound to warn the servants and the women. Then he and Katerina lay down and made love as fiercely as if they could somehow drive back the death that was stalking the jungle and its people.