Pearl Of Patmos

CHAPTER 5

Four days passed. In this time Richard Blade wrought a miracle. He brought Juna and her retinue-old men and women, children, ladies in waiting, four emasculates whose former duties included guarding the lady in her bath, and one stout young lad for whom he had some hopes-over a hundred miles of desolate and treacherous salt marsh. He bullied and begged, threatened and cajoled, had at times beaten them, at times carried some of the children and old women and in the end. had come to the wild coast with a loss of only four.

He pitched a rude camp in the dunes, near where a row of tall and weirdly convoluted stones followed the surf line. These were the Singing Stones and it was here that Juna had guided him. Juna had sent a messenger to the Isle of Patmos, asking for help, and it was to the stones that the help would come, if it came at all. Blade was not sanguine.

Juna-Blade still called her so, and so thought of her, though she was no goddess to him-avoided him as much as possible. She kept her gaggle of servants and eunuchs and ladies close about her and, now and again, sent him imperious commands by messenger. Blade usually ignored the messages, scowling or laughing as the mood took him, but on occasion they caught him in particular ill humor and he booted an eunuch or two back to her goddessship.

Blade squatted on the sand, accompanied by the youth, Edyrn, and listened to the eerie skirling of wind through the Singing Stones. They did sing, in a way, an eldritch tirl of sound, a high threnody as the never ceasing wind blasted through the holes and crevices in the tall standing rocks. The constant wail was beginning to get on Blade's nerves. He glanced at the gray, sullen sea and scowled. Several times, when the mist and scud lifted, he had spotted sails out there. One sail, glittering in a rare shaft of sun, and borne the snake with its tail in its mouth. Samostan ships. Waiting, Blade guessed, for a change in the weather. For days now it had been miserable, with the surf running too high to risk a landing. He kept his little company concealed in the dunes as best he could, for what it was worth. That was not much. As soon as the weather changed they would corn6 in and kill or capture them all.

Blade had an inkling of what might lie in store for him. By now Ptol, unless he was dead of his wound, would have told Hectoris of Blade. The leader of the Samostans would be curious and Blade could guess at the orderstake the big stranger alive.

Right at the moment Blade was not too concerned-his stomach was knotted and gnawing. He had had his fill, forever, of roots and swamp berries. He was conjecturing on the possibility of catching fish when the lad beside him pointed with his lance and spoke, «Yonder comes the hag, sire. She who is called Kron. She has been listening to the stones and comes to make a prophecy, I wager.»

Blade nodded grumpily. Edyrn was a good lad and, at the moment, Blade's right hand. He had honest blue eyes and a flaxen poll and knew how to handle a sword and lance. He was short and bandy-legged, but well muscled and something of a favorite with Juna's ladies. There was something of a mystery as to how Edyrn had become attached to the party, but Blade did not press it. The boy had brains and he was loyal-so far, at least-and Blade looked no further. He badly needed a lieutenant, a man who could understand and carry out orders, and Edyrn was the only such person available.

At the moment Blade was in no mood to talk to a crazy old woman. He pointed his sword at the ancient figure making her way so painfully toward them and nodded at the boy. «Go see what she wants, Edyrn. Keep her away from me. I have more important things to do than listen to tales told by stones-chiefly to get some fish from this ocean so that, when and if, help comes from Patmos we will be strong enough to board ship. Not that I put much faith in that tale, either, for I cannot see how ships from Patmos can break through the Samostan coast patrol. Go, boy. Leave me to think on matters.»

Edyrn went off to do as he was bid. Blade scratched his ragged black beard and watched with a grim smile as the boy took the old woman's arm and led her away. She went under duress, hanging back and wailing and pointing again and again at Blade.

He forgot her and went back to gazing at the sea. He scratched again. He had bathed in the sea, and so gotten rid of many layers of sewer slime, but now he itched intolerably. He scratched and listened to the wail of the wind in the stones and thought that they could make a net of rushes and so catch enough fish to keep from starving. He did not fear attack from the rear-Hectoris had not bothered to send troops, either foot or cavalry, into the marshes after the little party. Possibly the Samostan chief had reckoned on the marsh, the quicksands and the snakes and insects and wild animals doing the job for him.

There came a momentary break in the mist. Blade, who chanced to be staring straight out to sea, saw the flicker of a sail. That, the coastal patrol set up by the Samostans, was no accident. Blade doubted that Hectoris had thought of it himself. Ptol. The fat priest. Blade had bilked him, cheated and humiliated him and cut off his hand in the bargain. Blade had snatched Juna from the fiery helmet-there had been times during the past four days when he had had second, and dubious, thoughts about that-but he had done it and Ptol was still alive. He had not seen the last of Ptol. Blade, amid the desolation of sky, sea, sand and marsh, cursed himself heartily. He should have killed the little bastard when he had the chance. But for sudden misadventure, the other black robe flinging an arm and tripping him-

Blade jabbed his sword fiercely into the sand. No use crying over blood that had not been spilled. He must pull himself together. Get matters organized and moving again. He had a mission, a duty to perform, and so best get on with it.

Again, as he had many times in the past few days, he pushed back the thought that he would not greatly mind, would in fact welcome, the head pains that presaged a return through the computer to Home Dimension. He roused himself, stood up and stretched his massive limbs. He did not like the way he felt-it bordered on shirking duty, even on disloyalty and, if you stretched it a point, treason. Yet there it was. His heart was not in the mission; over him there hung a strange lethargy and, name it, fear! He did not understand it at all-yet knew it was unhealthy, could be fatal, and something must be done at once. What he needed was action, to be rid of his role of nursemaid to women and eunuchs and a beautiful, and impossible, female who still thought of herself as a goddess.

He thought of Nob and could grin. There was a man he could have used. The words came unbidden to his lips and he flung them into the scouring wind. «By Juna's tits, Blade, snap out of it. Do what you must do and stop feeling sorry for yourself!»

He felt better already. Edyrn found him smiling when he returned with the message from old Kron. Blade still smiled, but he listened. He had been making mistakesmistakes he must not repeat. He had been forgetting that he was in Dimension X, where anything was possible.

The message sent by Kron, that ancient witchlike creature, was cryptic. Edym, his blue eyes wide with wonder and something of awe, repeated it word for word.

«The singing stones have sung to me and on the winds there came these words-seek you on the sands for him who was sent but did not go. Seek for the house that contains a message that will not be delivered. Seek not far from here a new house, built of bone from the old, and now inhabited by clawed things. Seek this and find this and you shall also find doom and hope. The stones are silent. .»

Blade listened carefully. He made Edyrn repeat it three times. Blade ran his big fingers through his black jungle of beard and shook his head. «I make no sense of it, lad. Do you?»

Edyrn, in turn fingering the silky down on his cheeks, likewise shook his head. «None, sire. But it must have meaning-old Kron has been future-sayer to Juna since Thyme was only a village of mud in a desert march. She has more years than she can remember and she is never wrong. There is truth in her words if we can but fathom it, sire.»

Blade nearly said, «Bah-humbug,» or a more profane version of the same, but remembered in time his promise to himself. He was in DX. Very well. Act like it.

«Fetch me the goddess Juna,» he told Edym. «I wish to see her at once. Here.»

Edym was back in a few minutes. «Juna sends her greetings, sire, and-«

Blade exploded. «I did not send you for her greetings! Where is she?»

The lad shrank from the blast, retreating a pace. But he spoke up bravely enough. «Juna says she cannot come to you. She is no servant to be summoned thus. She commands, if the matter be really important enough, that you come to her. She hopes that it is important-she is with her ladies now and does not wish to be disturbed for a trifie.»

Blade opened his mouth, then closed it. He narrowed his eyes at Edym. The boy took another step back and waited, flinching visibly. But when Blade spoke his tone was calm.

«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 sup-

port. 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 boulders 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?»

For the moment, as least, she was defeated. He sensed it in her and let go of her wrist. She rubbed it and gave him a sullen look.

«You hurt me, you great oaf. For which you will pay. None of this is your affair. Why do you poke and pry so? If you are a demon, and I believe this, you must have many strange powers. Use them, then, to get you back to your own land and away from me.»

Blade grinned and tickled her under the chin. She jerked away and struck at him with a small hand. «Do not dare to touch me!»

He laughed. «I like you better this way, Goddess. When you show spunk and spirit.»

Blade hefted the baton in his hand, laughing at her sullen helplessness as she watched, her fingers curled into Uttle cat claws. He screwed a cap off one end of the baton. There was a roll of parchment within.

«Now,» said Blade, all agrin, «now I think we begin to get somewhere. Who knows? — we may even get at a truth or two.»

Juna spat and would not look at him. He began to read aloud from the parchment:

To Izmia, Pearl of Patmos-to inform your Graciousness that my task is near finished in Thyrne. 1 car' do no more, must look to my own life and those of my people, and beg you send us transport to a place that Tudd-he who brings this-will know of. 1 plead you make all speed, for things are very chancy here. Our plan has succeeded in the main, in that 1 have encouraged battle between Samosta and Thyrne-so that both may be weakened thereby, especially Hectoris-and so gain for Patmos precious time in which to prepare for the invasion we know will come. 1 am suspect by Ptol, who judges rightly that Thyrne will fall and already seeks to curry favor with Hectoris. 1 know that Ptol is traitor to Thyrne, but cannot prove it and there is no time. 1 will explain all else when 1 see you. Now, as 1 have done the task assigned, great Pearl of Patmos, do 1 ask you to send succor to me at once. Your obedient and loving Yiljm

«Oh, ho,» said Blade, waving the parchment at her. «Ptol had some of it right after all. You did betray Thyme.»

She set her jaw; her eyes flashed. «Not so. I am no Thyrnian, so could not betray her. I never served her. I am of Patmos and serve only her-and my Queen, Izmia, Pearl of Patmos.»

Blade saw it then. As clearly as though he were reading a blueprint. Provocateurl An agent of Patmos paid to instigate war between Thyme and Samosta. He tapped the parchment scroll against his teeth and surveyed her with new understanding and admiration-as one professional to another. This was, after all, his own line of work.

«A spy,» he gibed, hoping that in anger she would give him more information. «A spy posing as a goddess!

Juna conspiring to bring Thyme and Samosta to battle so that Patmos will emerge the winner and be secure on her island. Clever girl. Cunning Izmia, whoever she is.»

Blade was familiar with the technique, an old standby back in Home Dimension. England had practiced it for centuries.

Juna, or Vilja, did not answer him for a moment. She studied his face instantly and Blade knew what she sought there-could she trust him and so unmask herself com pletely? Both understood the situation-she was com pletely in his power and at his mercy. When she took a step toward him he knew she had opted for candor and he felt relief. His own task was just beginning and he wel comed any easing of it. He would rather have her as friend than enemy. And there was the other thing he in tended to have her body and rape was not natural to him.

She extended her hand. Blade took it. «Let us go into the temple,» she said. «I will answer your questions with truth.»

She pointed to the remains of the unfortunate Tudd. «I need your help if I am to live and escape Ptol. Izmia has not had my message and will send no ships. But you, Blade, also need my help. You are a stranger-and, I still think, a demon-and vastly ignorant of matters. I will guide you.»

He nodded in agreement. And reminded himself that everything she told him he must accept with grain of salt. With that in mind, it could be a fair enough exchange.

They skirted the poor sundered body and climbed the plinth to the temple floor. Blade saw now that the structure was not put together in any ordinary manner, but had been carved out of living rock. Volcanic glass not black, as is obsidian, but burnished to a dull milky color. Blade had seen the great ruins of his own world; he had never seen workmanship like this. It must have taken centuries to complete. There was not a peg, a nail, nor a joint, and time had smoothed and obliterated the tool marks.

Two altars stood directly beneath a pyramidal vent in the ceiling. Mist condensed and dripped to fall on an antique statue of Juna carven from the same milky glass stone as the temple. They stood, hand in hand, contemplating it.

Her nose was missing, as was one ear and a hand which had been shorn by time or vandals. Yet the resemblance was there, the likeness to the flesh and blood beside him now, and Blade felt a chill along his spine. He countered it by concentrating on the lesser altar nearby. It was smooth; the size of a bed, and he marked it for use. Brown stains deep in the stone did not deter him.

But that could wait. He could wait and in the end be better pleasured for it. He pulled her down beside him on the small altar and put a big arm around her. And noticed, just opposite him, a rectangular dark hole in the temple wall. There would, he thought, be a boat of sorts concealed in there. Later.

He kissed her lightly. She clung to him and would have put her tongue in his mouth, but he pulled away. Business first.

«Now: Juna, Goddess or Vilja? Which is it to be?»

She nestled her head on his shoulder. «Vilja is my birth name. I am fourth grandchild to Izmia, Pearl of Patmos.»

He would be dealing with an old woman, a grandmother. It did not disturb Blade. He could handle old women as well as young ones.

«I will call you Juna,» he said. «I like it better and it was so that I first knew you. But only Juna-we will forget that you are, were, a goddess. But tell me-how came you to be a goddess in the first place?»

As she explained he admitted that it was a masterpiece of foresight and planning. An astute move in the Triangular War and that had been waged for over a century between Thyrne and Samosta and Patmos; a war that flared the fiercer because of long periods of peace. Of the three countries Patmos was the weakest-for reasons which Blade, to his infinite disgust, would soon find out-and the most blessed because Patmos was an island. Heretofore this had saved her from invasion.

«But now,» said Juna, breathing a bit faster and nestling closer to Blade, «now the sea is no longer a barrier on which Patmos can depend. Hectoris, chief of Samosta, began years ago to build a vast fleet of invasion craft.»

Blade nodded and nibbled on her soft fragrant ear. «I know already that Patmos has good intelligence. You knew of this ship building and took steps to counter it. I 3 understand all that, but you evade me-how came you to be the goddess Juna?»

She held out a small hand and counted on her fingers. «Four years I have been Juna. I have nineteen summers now and, when I had but fifteen, was secretly smuggled into Thyrne and eventually «found» by an old priest named Clystis. He saw in me the reincarnation of Juna and so said to all of Thyrne. I was brought into the city and given to the care of the priests and, after my nova time, proclaimed Juna the goddess.» `

Blade said, «And this old priest, this Clystis? He would not, perchance, have been in the pay of your Izmia, this Pearl of Patmos who you call grandmother?»

Juna put her fingers to stroking Blade's inner thigh.

Blade had to struggle to keep from reacting. «Of course,», she said. «He is dead now and no harm can come of telling. Clystis was one of us, though he had not lived in Patmos for years, and for gold he proclaimed me to be Juna. Surely you know the rest?»

Blade smiled at her. «Surely I do, Juna. I look forward to meeting this old lady, your grandmother, for she is an old woman after my own heart. Why do you smile, girl?»

«Do I smile, Blade? Perhaps. But it is nothing-or perhaps I smile only in anticipation. Have we not talked enough, Blade? There will be time later, you know. And I long for you as I said-that was not all a lie. So have done with talk for now and gratify me-if I am, as you say, a temple whore.» She opened his breeches and bent swiftly and he felt the hot caress of her tongue.

Blade put his hand into the front of her shift and toyed with the white velvet fruit he found there. His fingers touched a chain and he traced it back to a small scabbard dangling between her shoulder blades. He drew forth a tiny golden dagger and held it up to the light. He laughed at her.

«You would not, by chance, have planned to put this in my back as I lay on you?»

«Nay, Blade. Nay. I swear not.» She suckled him a moment, her mouth a sweet vacuum, and then looked up into his face. Her eyes were wild, alight with green fires, and her mouth moist and scarlet. She rubbed her lips against his chest. «It is true, you know. You spoke of me in the right, Blade. I am a temple whore! I do not belie my nature. I would not if I could. My grandmother, and old Clystis chose well when they picked me for Juna. Ahhh, Blade! How long must I wait?»

He tossed the little dagger to one side and unfastened his sword belt. If he were beset now it would go hard, but he did not hesitate. He needed this ielief, this cleansing, and thought that he would think the clearer and fight the better for it. He lifted her head gently and put this face to the softness of her breasts and laid her back on the altar, the stone of which seemed warm from her body. Her cloak was tossed aside and she herself lifted her shift up over her waist and disposed herself for his comfort. She closed her eyes and extended her arms, her fingers twitching, and softly said, «Come to me, my demon. Enter the house of Juna. I will show you how a goddess loves. Now, Bladel I command it-I want it-IOhhhhhhhhhhhh-demon-demon!»

As he thrust hard into her Blade chanced to look up. The statue was watching with blank eyes, painted once but now veneeriess stone, yet seeming to know and understand. It occurred to Blade that the broken nose was still haughty, the stone lips curled in disdain, the mamoreal breasts defiant and virginal. She, this stone Juna seemed to say, had stood inviolate for all the centuries and now must witness such a coarse and common coupling. Blade gave her an enigmatic wink and set about his work. The moist underparts of the living Juna had him in thrall, engulfed him, squeezed and milked him with a frenzied play of expert muscles to the accompaniment of many sobs and cries. As he felt the challenge and bent to satisfy her Blade admitted that, if she was indeed a temple whore, she was of the best. Juna, in brief, knew her business. Already he was laved in her body juices and always she pressed on for more and more and more. He recognized her type, a difficult one for mere man to cope with, and knew that with each outcry she climaxed and that each climax led to the next and the next.

Juna's slim thighs crept up his body and locked, her an-

kles crossed over the small of his back, holding him in the trap of her vagina, her hands clutching at his buttocks and her nails tearing him. A never ceasing moan came from her parted lips as she sought for the impossible-to pull Blade's giant body entirely into her own. That, and only that, would have satisfied her.

When Blade spent with a mighty lurch and groan she cried out and was stubborn and would not release him. She squeezed and compressed her legs, narrowing herself, striving to the bitter end to keep him, to hold the helpless small worm of flesh she had just defeated. In the end she lost and he slipped out and away from her. Juna sighed and lay inert, her eyes closed, and did not bother to pull down her shift. Blade did it, and then reached for his sword belt and watched her as he buckled it on. She was near to sleep, in limbo, and no danger to him for a time. He smiled and left her so. For the moment he was master and they both knew it.

He went to explore the dark orifice in the temple wall. It was nothing more than a barren room in which lay the parts of a small boat. It took Blade a moment or two to puzzle it out, then he nodded in pleasure and admiration. The boat could be taken apart and assembled again. It was a simple thing, made of withes and rushes and caulked with dried mud, and when he visualized it in one piece he saw that it would resemble an oversize bathtub. It might hold as many as three, or perhaps four, and it would be good only in calm water. There was but a single double-ended oar and steering would be a hazard.

Blade plucked at his beard and considered. The thing reminded him of coracles he had seen back in HD; the Welsh used them for fishing and did well enough as long as there was no wind or surf.

He went back to where Juna was stirring on the altar. She opened her eyes and licked her lips and looked for all the world like a contented cat. She coaxed him with a finger. «Ah, Blade! If you are a demon I will have none but demon lovers from this day on.»

She extended her arms. «Come to me again?»

Blade laughed and tugged her off the altar. «I begin to see why the men of Thyme would be heroes. But forget that now-we must get back to camp and I must countermand an order. It is not nets I want, but boats. And I will have them.»

Reluctantly Juna arranged her clothing and looked at him in puzzlement. «Boats? I do not understand. How are we to come by boats?»

He tossed her the cloak and, retrieving the little dagger, gave her that also. «See that you do not sheathe it in my flesh. Now come and see.»

Juna was not impressed by the crude. disassembled boat. She made a moue of disgust. «We are to cross the open sea in that?»

Blade nodded. «We are. Our bellies can wait. We will make boats instead of nets. I can use this one for a model and make them larger and, by means of a centerboard and outrigging, more stable. But we must hurry. This mist will lift and the sea will calm, and we must be ready when that happens. We will go at night and try to sneak past the patrol boats. We will need all our luck, but I think it can be done. I have a sword and Edyrn had a lance-they can be made to do for axes. But there are problems-many problems. Will you hurry, Juna!»

They had left the promontory by now and Blade was striding along at a great pace. Juna ran to keep up.

«You change like sunlight on water,» she complained. «But a moment gone you were my lover, a great demon in me and tender with it, and now I do not know you at all.»

He reached back a hand to tug her along. «Come, woman. We will speak of that another time. This bad weather, which has been our friend, is going to desert us soon. We must be ready.» He added, with intentional cruelty, for he did not like her dwelling on what was past, «Do not forget what will happen to you if Ptol takes you. And those ships are out there by Ptol's command, make no nustake.»

For a moment she trotted along beside him in humble silence. Then, «Until we come safe to Patmos it would be as well if I. were the goddess Juna. You do not believe, but my people do. I have more authority than you think. It may be of some help in this thing you plan.»

There was truth in her words and Blade nodded. «You do that, Juna. Play the goddess as much as you like, so long as you do not do so with me, and as long as you do not plot against me.»

After a moment he said, thinking no harm done to throw a little scare into her, to let her know that because he had enjoyed her body, and she his, it in no way made him her serf, «I found you to my liking just now. I will again when the mood is on me. You, if sounds are any gauge, found it the same. Keep it in mind, but do not presume on it. I have had your body, Juna, and if you cross me I will have your head.»

By then she had fallen behind him again sand so he did not see the look she directed at his back.