The Seven Altars of Dusarra

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

He awoke to moonlight in his face; it washed the stableyard in silver, fading to gray the hard yellow dirt, and blurring the several shades of gray wood and gray stone to a single paler hue outlined in black shadows.

With a growl, he climbed to his feet; he had overslept. It was obviously two or three hours past sunset.

Something moved in the dimness of the stall. He peered into the gloom, and realized it was Frima shying away from him. His growl had frightened her.

With a start, he noticed where she was; she stood beside Koros, her tiny hand on the warbeast's great black head, petting it. She had apparently gotten on friendly terms with the monster. Her other hand held the wire brush Garth kept for grooming his mount, and the beast's eyelids drooped in an expression of feline contentment; obviously the two were getting along very well indeed. Garth felt slightly sorry he had interrupted such a pleasant scene.

"Excuse me," he said, "I overslept. I meant to wake at sundown."

"Oh! I didn't know; I would have wakened you if I had." Frima sounded genuinely contrite, although she had not been at fault, and Garth felt a twinge of annoyance. This girl thoroughly confused him with her abrupt emotional changes that seemed to have no perceptible logic to them. He forbore to comment further, and instead readied himself for his assault on the temple of Bheleu. Straightening his mail-which was really quite uncomfortable to sleep in; once again he was stiff and sore-and checking his dagger and axe, wishing his sword were still intact.

He also wished his boots were still intact; he discovered that the mud in his right boot had dried to an abrasive grit. He removed it, and wiped it out as best he could with a spare sack. That reminded him to tuck one in his belt, which he did immediately after re-donning the boot.

His feet had gotten rather unsavory, he noticed; that came from sleeping shod, no doubt. He decided he owed himself a long, luxurious hot bath as soon as he could manage one.

Frima watched all this silently, her hand absentmindedly stroking the warbeast's neck. At last, she asked, "Where are you going?"

"To the temple of Bheleu."

"To rob its altar?"

"Yes."

"Is that the last one?"

"No; I still have to rob the temple of death."

"But you can't! No one has ever come out of there alive!"

"Except the old priest, and what he can do, I can do."

She was plainly unconvinced. "What am I to do when you are killed?"

"Whatever you please."

"But the beast won't let me leave!"

"You need not worry about that; if I do not return within a day or so, Koros will go hunting. It's due for a feeding, and when it's hungry enough it will hunt, regardless of anything else. I would suggest you find a weapon; there is a stiletto among my supplies, and of course the dagger from the temple of Sai. You may be able to convince it that other food would be more easily obtained than you, particularly since it knows I don't want you harmed."

"He eats people?" She snatched her hand from the warbeast's neck.

"It; it's a neuter, not a male. And yes, it eats people. It even ate a wizard once."

"Oh." Her voice was tiny.

"I wouldn't worry; it seems to like you"

She made a small wordless noise, as Garth looked himself over. Finally satisfied with his preparations, he ordered Frima and Koros, "Wait here," and marched out of the stall.

Dugger was on duty, as he had expected. There was, therefore, no reason to go clambering around the roof; besides, he was pretty well over the anger that had made him so reckless earlier. Simply recognizing its existence had helped considerably, and he was better rested now-though he was slightly annoyed at having overslept.

He strode to the archway and asked the drowsing stable-boy, "Have you arranged to feed my mount?"

The boy awoke with a start, and said, "It's you!"

"Yes."

"You're the temple-robber!"

"Am I?"

"Aren't you? I…they said it was an overman, and you're the only overman I've seen around in weeks."

"You don't see every stranger that comes to Dыsarra, though, do you?"

"No."

"So you can't be sure I'm the one who robbed the temple."

The boy hesitated, and admitted, "I guess not."

"And that being the case, I think you should give me the benefit of the doubt. Now, I told you last night that I wanted you to feed my beast; have you done anything about that?"

"I forgot."

"It's just as well." It had occurred to Garth that anyone taking the beast its meal would see, and wonder about, Frima. An overman had no business with a human female, especially not keeping her penned in a stable. Dugger had seen her enter, but there was no point in reminding him and letting him see she was still there. "Is the street clear? Others might mistake me for the temple thief, and I'd prefer not to be delayed."

"Oh." The boy leaned out and looked both ways. "I don't see anyone."

"Good." He stepped past the lad, looking about for himself, and set out toward the Street of the Temples.

He encountered no difficulty; he was becoming familiar with the city, and knew which streets were diurnal, which nocturnal, and which seemed to have traffic around the clock.

As it had been the night before, the Street of the Temples was as silent as death, not a single thing moving on its moonlit pavement. He made his way quickly to the ruined temple, only to halt abruptly as he approached; a faint murmur disturbed the silence, coming from the shattered dome.

He hissed in annoyance. Another ceremony; it seemed as if no matter what he did, he was fated to arrive during some silly ritual or other.

At any rate, he could approach this one cautiously and watch, and then decide what to do; whether to wait until it ended or interrupt it or simply go away and try again later. He crept onward, slipping stealthily through the blasted gates, into the littered courtyard beyond.

The firewood was gone from the doorway, which now gaped at him like a toothless mouth; orange light shone from within. He stepped to one side, and peered cautiously around the broken frame.

The interior of the ruin was a single vast space; if there had ever been any internal walls, they were nothing-now but part of the dust that served as a floor. The black stone walls and tattered metal frame of the demolished dome were lit by a great bonfire that blazed in the center of the temple, and around this conflagration danced a score or more of red-robed figures, prancing about and chanting eerily, casting long black shadows that writhed across red-lit walls and the deeper blackness of the cracks in the stone.

The scene had an odd fascination to it. Garth stared.

There was no sign of an altar, unless the bonfire could be considered that; it was certainly the focus of the worshippers' attention. Garth blinked, and studied the leaping flames more carefully. That was undoubtedly where the wood that had earlier blocked the entrance had gone. Logs of all sizes were heaped crudely together; in the center, a single slim, straight rod stood straight up, almost invisible through 'the flames.

He blinked again; the chant seemed louder. There was something about that single upright object that bothered him. It was not wood; it gleamed, it shone too bright a shade of red. There was a crosspiece near the top.

A dull rumble reached him, penetrating the chant that seemed to fill his head; distant thunder, he told himself. He glanced up, and saw that the stars had vanished, covered over by clouds. The brewing storm had blown up extraordinarily quickly, he thought, or else he had been watching the dance longer than he had realized. The moon was hidden, while it had been bright and clear when he entered the court; he had not noticed its loss in the brighter light of the fire. He looked back at the ceremony, if such it could be called; it was lacking in the pomp and dignity of more familiar rites, though it certainly had a power of its own. The chanting filled his ears again, and his gaze was absorbed in the flames. As he watched, there came a second low rumble; as if in response, the central portion of the bonfire fell inward, leaving a ring of flame where there had been a cone, and revealing that strange upright object, which now stood dimly glowing behind the flickering curtain.

It was a sword. An immense two-handed broadsword was thrust through the center of the pile of burning wood. A great, red gem blazed in its pommel. Id was straight and strong, a good yard of bare metal showing between the quillons and where the blade vanished into the flaring coals; the hilt was black, and long enough to give even an overman's hands plenty of room. Assuming it to be properly proportioned, Garth estimated its full length at six feet or more.

A truly magnificent weapon; it made the sword he had shattered appear little better than a pocketknife. He stepped into the doorway to see it better.

The devotees of Bheleu paid no heed, but whirled on in their dance; it grew more manic now, and the chanting rose in pitch, split into two antiphonal voices pursuing one another in hypnotic rhythm.

Altar or no, Garth knew that this sword was what he had come for. This was what he wanted, of all Dыsarra. A sword like that would make him invincible. His gaze was fixed upon it in fascination.

The steel gleamed in the firelight and the chant merged with renewed rumbling, washing over him in a wave of close-packed sound. He saw nothing now but the bonfire and the glowing sword; the dancers flicked across his field of vision with no more meaning than the flickering of the flames. He would take that sword; he would wait until the dance had ended and the fire died, and tear it free.

No! Why wait? He would burst into the chamber while the dancers remained lost in their chanting gyrations and snatch it out red-hot from where it stood! Then he would flee, he thought at first, but instantly other thoughts crushed that out; he would not flee! Flee? An overman flee before humans? He would not flee; he would wield that splendid blade among the worshippers until it shone as red with blood as it did now with heat.

Somewhere a part of him knew this was insane, this uncontrollable craving for the possession of the sword; that part struggled vainly to restore calm. It revolted at the thought of wanton and unnecessary bloodshed.

It was brutally suppressed by the unearthly power that now dominated him, erasing his conscious self; his rationality was drowned in a flood of unreasoning blood-lust, like nothing he had ever felt. He had known the wild and involuntary passion that consumes an overman when he scents an overwoman in heat; he had known the roaring blind fury of battle rage that made a mortal warrior a berserker; this new lust was so strong as to make those mere shadows, trivial wisps of emotion, though it partook of both in flavor. He could contain it no longer.

An instant later the reeling, semi-hypnotized dancers were delighted to see the great dark form of an armored overman stride roaring into their midst, red eyes ablaze; they knew at once, with the absolute conviction of the fanatic, that this was their god who confronted them. They screamed with ecstasy, the chant collapsing into chaotic raving; the earth rumbled beneath them, and lightning forked across the sky.

Boldly, unhesitatingly, as if unaware of the flames and heat, the apparition marched up onto the verge of the holy pyre and wrenched the sacred sword from its place; his hands smoked with the heat of the hilt, and the stench of burning skin filled the temple. The overman paid no heed, but, raised the blade above his head and whirled it about, so that it blazed and flickered in the firelight.

"I am Bheleu!" cried the monster in Garth's body; he thrust the blade upward at the heavens, to be answered by a crash of thunder and a blinding flash of lightning. The bolt struck, spattered, and sizzled across the spiderweb metal frame of the ruined dome; sparks showered upon the worshippers, who danced maniacally, screaming their devotion. A second bolt came on the heels of the first, leaping from the clouds to the peak of the dome, and thence to the point of the sword; it poured through Garth's body and blasted the bonfire apart at his feet, scattering burning wood.

The thunder was now a steady pounding as other bolts showered across the city; Garth's hands fell, the sword still clutched in them, and his eyes blazed crimson as the blade chopped through the skull of the high priest of Bheleu.

The worshippers screamed in frenzy, crying the name of their god.

The blade swung up, red with blood and gleaming gold in the firelight; lightning flashed, silver steel shone for an instant, and the sword came down, hacking through a man's neck, spraying blood into the scattered fire where it sizzled and stank.

"I am destruction!"

The worshippers cried hoarse approval, and surged toward him, forgetting their dance. The blade blazed upward, flashed down; blood showered unnoticed across fire, earth, and flesh. There was no trace of resistance; the eager worshippers flung themselves in the weapon's path as the earth shook and the sky raged, and the monster wielding it merely laughed.

For half an hour their god walked among his people, slashing aside all who approached him; for one insane half-hour he brought the total destruction their creed proclaimed holy. The priests of Bheleu had been warriors, for their faith required it. None shrank from the sight of blood, nor cringed away from the dismembered and disemboweled corpses of their comrades; instead they fought amongst themselves for the right to approach and be slain, their religious fervor blended with the old fighting fury, the death-wish of those who slay made manifest.

Throughout, the thunder rolled and roared, crashing arrhythmically about the ruins, and lightning blazed again and again across the open dome. Every so often a bolt would strike the exposed steel, and the temple walls would shake. With the agility of the warriors they once were, the worshippers kept their feet and pressed forward to the slaughter.

At last, as the dripping blade swung flashing upward for the final stroke, there came a crash of thunder like none before; the last devotee fell to his knees before his god, deafened and blinded, as the sword blazed red and silver against the sky, whirling about the head of the crazed overman-monster. It swooped down, like a hawk upon its prey, and struck the man through, entering the front of his throat and protruding between his shoulder-blades; no more metal showed, but only blood, red, brown, and black, coating the blade and spattered liberally across the temple floor.

The final lightning bolt's pealing echoed among the shattered walls, covering the sudden silence that fell with the death of the last screaming priest; overhead, the blasted dome sagged, twisted, and broke. Snapping sparks were strewn amid the dying remnants of the pyre, and drops of molten metal flew hissing downward. The framework continued to crumple, collapsing slowly, as the storm finally broke, whipping fat raindrops across the prostrate corpses and the upturned face of their slayer.

For long moments the overman stood motionless; rain filled his eyes and ran in cool streams across his face. The sword was still clutched in his hands, its hilt slimed with gore, its blade still thrust through his final victim. The madness was passing, fading, shrinking into itself somewhere within him; he blinked away the rain, and lowered his gaze from the storm.

He looked at the sagging, slack-jawed figure impaled on his sword, at the score of slaughtered men, at the scattered remains of the bonfire dying in the rain. His hands fell from the hilt, and sword and cadaver tumbled forward at his feet. He stepped back, appalled, and sank to his knees; then, for the first time in a hundred and forty years, Garth wept, as the shattered metal of the dome crashed to the ground around him.