The Seven Altars of Dusarra

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Garth had no idea how long he was unconscious. When he awoke he lay sprawled on the stone floor, the sword of Bheleu at his side. The red glow shone unobstructed from the tunnel, lighting the gem in the sword's pommel with a murky crimson fire. Pools of gelid slime were scattered about, and his mail was thick with the stuff. He lay still for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

He reached out and grasped the sword; as his fingers closed around the hilt, he realized that they no longer hurt. He sat up, released the sword, and looked at his palms.

There was a slight puckering of the flesh, as of wounds almost fully healed, but no other trace of burns or blisters. Horrified, he wondered how long he had lain senseless.

He tested his sensitivity, pressing his fingers to various surfaces, and knew a moment of panic when his first trial, feeling the texture of his chain armor, seemed dull and blunted; it was with great relief he realized it was the coating of slime that deadened his sense of touch. Running his fingers across the carved walls he could detect no lessening of his tactile sense. He was fit, then.

But how long had he been here? What had become of Koros, who had been due for a feeding? Or Frima, who had been left with the hungry warbeast? Of the booty taken from the first five temples? Had anything come of the threats of the Aghadite priest?

He clambered to his feet.

As if on cue, as he turned his gaze toward the metal door that sealed the entrance, the barrier slid silently into the wall, and a stooped figure entered, garbed in a robe of such a dull black that it reflected none of the red light whatsoever. The man's face was hidden by his hood, as was customary for Dыsarran priests, so that in his almost invisible garments he appeared to be an animated shadow, deeper and darker than the others that lay about the cave.

No light entered with this apparition, and at first Garth assumed this to mean that it was night outside; he did not immediately recall that the passage was long and winding enough to admit virtually none of the sun's light whatever the time of day.

The robed figure was small and frail in appearance, despite the complete lack of visible detail. Garth thought at first that it might be a girl or young boy, despite the slowness and caution of age in its movements; but when the priest spoke, although his voice was high and broken, there was no doubt that he was an old man, despite his childish stature.

"I hear you breathing," he said.

Garth made no reply.

"Can you not speak? I know you are there, and alive."

"Yes, I am here. What would you have me say?" Garth picked up the sword as he spoke; the little old man appeared harmless, but he did not care to take any unnecessary chances.

"Whatever you care to say."

"There is nothing I care to say to you."

"Would you answer a few questions, from courtesy?"

"Perhaps. Ask what you will." Garth noticed that the priest had turned his head toward him only when he had spoken; that, and the man's words, made it seem fairly definite that, like the priests of Andhur Regvos, this feeble old man was blind. It seemed curious that such a decrepit and harmless person should be the sole servant of the most feared of deities-assuming that there was, as he had been told, only one priest of the Final God. Feeling that the priest need not occupy his full attention, he looked over the chamber, noting the already-rotting chunks and slices he had cut from the monster, the still-wet slime star, the great pool of ichor where he had finally reached the thing's viscera, and the skull-topped altar that stood undamaged and unplundered.

"Have you seen what takes most who enter here, leaving no trace?"

"Yes."

"It did not take you."

"It tried hard enough."

"What happened?"

"It name up from the tunnel; I dodged. We fought, and I managed to injure it. I was struck unconscious, but its wound was severe enough that it preferred retreat to finishing me." That, he thought, was a succinct and accurate summary of his desperate battle; he guessed that such a simple account would serve him better than any elaborate boasting, at least until her fully understood the priest's attitude toward the monster. It might well be considered blasphemous to have defended himself at all.

"What is it?"

"You don't know?" Garth's astonishment got the better of him and was plainly revealed in his tone.

"No. I am but the caretaker of the temple; I know nothing of the god's mysteries. The true servant of the Final God has not yet returned. What was it you fought?"

Garth was suddenly reluctant to speak, though he knew no logical reason not to tell the man the nature of the temple's inhabitant. "Tell me first more of your cult. Are you not the high priest of The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken?"

"No. I am a lesser priest. The books of prophecy say that the one true high priest of death has not been in Dыsarra in four ages or more, and will not return until the dawn of the Fifteenth Age."

An uneasiness filtered into Garth's mind at this new mention of the human system of numbering the ages. "This is the dawn of the Fourteenth Age, I was told."

"Yes. When this new age grows old, the high priest will return."

"If he has been gone for four ages…the Thirteenth Age lasted three hundred years. Your high priest must have died centuries ago. Is it his heir you await?"

"Oh, no! It is the one true high priest of the god of death. It is in the nature of his service that he himself cannot die."

There was a pause as Garth, digested this information, He recalled mention made of immortality in the King's Inn of Skelleth. An unpleasant theory crept into his thoughts.

The Forgotten King had assured him that he sought to fulfill the purpose that the gods had given him, but which gods were they he spoke off?

He looked again. at the unnatural skull that grinned atop the altar. "What else do you know of your high priest?"

"Oh, there are many legends! He was a king of old, in a land so ancient that its existence is forgotten; he made a bargain with the gods of life and death, whereby he shall live until the end of time, but he came to regret this and abandoned the service of his kingdom and his gods to wander the earth clad in rags. He will return when the Fifteenth Age, the Age of Death, begins, to complete his agreement. He alone has spoken to the Final God and lived; it is part of his task to be certain that The Name That Is Not Spoken is not lost. He commands all the world's ancient magic, but has no use for it. There is much more in the sacred texts-his name, which I cannot pronounce truly, and the records of his doings."

"Do your sacred books speak of the Sixteenth Age?"

"No, they cover only the current cycle, which ends with the Fifteenth."

"What do they say of the Fourteenth, then?"

"The Age of Destruction? It shall begin with the decimation and defilement of Dыsarra, and be an age of fire and sword. There is mention of a mighty servant of Bheleu who shall do the bidding of the Forgotten King."

"The Forgotten King?"

"Another name for the high priest of Death."

"The high priest of Death." Garth stared at the skull as he resolved that the prophecies would not come true.

"Yes." The old priest's voice sounded less certain.

"The thing from the tunnel was just a worm." Garth marched out, shoving the blind priest aside, leaving the horned skull on its perch.

The priest ran after him, calling for him to wait; Garth stopped and allowed the old man to catch up, as he had thought of another question he wanted to ask. He saw that the man's hood had fallen back, but took no notice.

"How long was I in there?" he demanded.

"The priest of Aghad said you entered at dawn; the sun is now almost setting."

"Only one day?"

"Yes." The priest's voice was now timid.

Garth stared at his hands. How had they healed so quickly? The sword of Bheleu was still clutched in his right fist; he had a momentary impulse to fling it away, but stopped himself. His dagger had stayed stuck in the monster worm; his axe was lost somewhere within; his old sword had shattered on the gates of Aghad. This infernal blade was his only weapon, and he had no intention of attempting to escape Dыsarra unarmed; after all, the priests of Aghad had promised to kill him.

He continued up toward the mouth of the cave, slowly enough that the priest could keep up with him; as the ruddy volcanic light faded behind him, a faint glow of a paler pink grew ahead.

The priest was babbling at him, asking question after question about the worm; he did not bother to answer most of them, but replied that yes, the slime on the altar came from the worm; no, he had not been able to see all of it; no, it had not all fit into the chamber; no, he did not think he had killed it; yes, it ate people, probably swallowing them whole.

At last the mismatched pair emerged into the gray light of gathering dusk; Garth kept the sword at ready as he stepped out onto the pavement of the Street of the Temples. He glanced at the priest, and saw the man's face for the first time.

His hair was pure white; one eye was gone, the other was pink under a frosting of cataracts; some sort of growth covered one side of the face. From one of the dead-black sleeves protruded the smooth stump of an arm, the loss of the hand long since healed over. He was the most repulsive human being Garth had ever seen.

That, of course, was appropriate for a priest of something as repulsive as death.

As Garth noticed these details the priest talked on, marveling at the idea of a monster worm, speaking of all the people it had devoured, unmindful of the overman's scrutiny. Garth interrupted him.

"Old man, how were you able to read your books?"

"What? Oh. I was not always blind, and I have an acolyte, who reads to me when I wish to be reminded."

"You have no powers of second sight?"

"No. I am just a caretaker."

That was, Garth thought, unfortunate; it would have been very convenient had the old fool been able to foresee the actions of the Aghadites. He had encountered enough seers on this quest that another would scarcely have been surprising; but as it was he would have to rely on his own abilities. He started to speak a farewell, to take his leave of the man, but was interrupted by a familiar voice from somewhere in the rocks behind him.

"We offer a final chance, traitor. Kill the old idiot and you may yet be allowed to live."