The Seven Altars of Dusarra

CHAPTER SEVEN

The temple of Tema was a massive, imposing structure; most of its area was covered by a looming black dome, which Garth thought was probably the one he had first seen from ten leagues' distance, and the entrance was through the base of a tower that stood a good hundred feet in height. The entire building was constructed of huge blocks of black stone, finely polished, and with elaborate carvings on either side of the wide, open doorway. The door was reached by climbing a flight of thirteen black stone steps, flanked by balustrades carved into a maze of intertwined black serpents. Garth did not particularly care for the place; although undeniably impressive, he did not like the impression it gave of looming over one, black in the moonlight, and the way its size served to diminish its inhabitants. The robed and hooded figures entering the dark portal looked like little children, out of proportion with their surroundings.

He also didn't like the darkness within; not the slightest glimmer of light showed through the door. That was appropriate for the temple of the goddess of night, but he still didn't like it.

The tavern girl was beside him as he mounted the steps; it occurred to him suddenly that he didn't know her name. Of course, she didn't know his name, either. Ahead of them three other worshippers, robed in midnight blue, vanished into the darkness of the doorway.

A moment later, he and the girl also stepped into the gloom of the interior. Garth paused for a moment, to let his eyes adjust, and realized he could detect no trace of the three who had entered just ahead of them; no sound of rustling clothing, no footsteps, no odor. His psychic discomfort increased.

The girl had not hesitated, as he had, and was across the room, an antechamber about forty feet square; he heard her whisper, "Come on!" He came, and rejoined her, standing a pace or two from the inner wall. He had expected a draped doorway, or some other opening into the temple proper, but could make out no sign of one; there seemed to be merely a blank stone wall. Then, with startling abruptness, a portion of the stone wall swung inward; the heavy scent of incense drifted out to him. He made out a figure in the opening, darkly clad, but with-pale skin and white hair that gleamed in the faint moonlight that reached it. The darkness within that opening seemed no more absolute than in the antechamber; that was some comfort, anyway. The girl stepped through the opening, and he followed, to find himself in the main temple.

The odor of incense was almost overpowering; its smoke swirled in great clouds, almost invisible in the darkness. Moonlight filtered in from somewhere, though he could see no windows; the walls were blank and dark behind him, and he could not see the far side. The room he found himself in was obviously huge; all about him were constant indefinable whisperings and rustlings, which were distorted by distance and echoes and which seemed to drift in the smoke. He could not make out either the far wall or the roof; his eyes had not yet had time to adjust.

A change in the movement of the air prompted him to turn, and discover that the opening he had entered through had vanished; the wall seemed solid once more. The white-haired apparition had also disappeared. He turned to face the interior again, and was relieved to see, dimly, the figure of the tavern-girl, still only a few paces in front of him.

She motioned for him to follow, and led the way across the chamber; he obeyed, carefully maintaining his stooped posture, and noticed that where she moved silently, his boot heels tapped loudly on the stone floor.

They went perhaps a hundred feet, then stopped; the girl turned slightly, and knelt in a curious submissive position, head lowered, hands in front of her. Garth imitated her, and waited for his eyes to adapt themselves.

He was kneeling at the back of a crowd of humans, all in a similar devotional posture; the chamber, he saw, filled the entire interior of the great dome, easily two hundred feet across and sixty or seventy feet high at the center. The moonlight came from hundreds, perhaps thousands of tiny holes that pierced the dome, and which he realized after a moment's study were intended to resemble stars, arranged in the constellations that could be seen in the middle of a winter night.

The great circular floor was cluttered with people, both kneeling and prostrate, but none were speaking, not even in a whisper; the constant sounds that echoed and reechoed from the dome were the inevitable rustlings of the worshippers' clothing, no more. Or at least, nothing more he was sure of; some of the sounds seemed too strange to be so readily explained.

All these people, whether prostrate or upright, faced in the same direction; as his eyes continued to adjust, he gradually made out the object of their adoration.

The figure of a human female was carved from the same black stone as wall and dome; it was thirty feet or so in height, and a masterpiece of sculpture. She stood against the wall, upright, but not stiffly erect; her arms were upraised, spreading her stony cloak above the worshipping throng. The cloak itself blended into the wall and dome indistinguishably, and Garth saw, looking around, that its folds were continued indefinitely, so that the entire chamber was contained within it, "stars" and all. The figure itself was depicted as clad in a loose robe such as all Dыsarrans seemed to wear, but arranged so that the graceful curves of the woman's body could be seen. The face was oval, smooth and serene, and surrounded by a halo of drifting hair that blended into the dome in the same manner as the cloak. The overall impression, to the overman, was one of grace and soothing calm; he was not equipped to appreciate the goddess' sensual nature and although the symbolism of the goddess spreading her cloak of night across her followers was plain to him, he did not fully comprehend the comforting motherliness that the worshippers of Tema found in that image. Still, he understood, in an intellectual way, that humans would have little trouble in putting their faith in such a deity. No wonder the girl had been upset when he called the goddess evil.

He was so involved in his study of the magnificent idol that it was several minutes before he even noticed the altar that stood at her feet.

It was a great chunk of meteoric iron, its sides still burned and twisted from its fall, but with the top sheared off and polished to a gleaming metallic shine perceptible even in the darkness of the temple. There was no mistaking that this was the altar that Garth had come to rob, and there upon it was what he must steal; he could make out only a vague round shape, a foot or so in diameter.

There was a spot of light on its surface, he noticed; one of the pinholes in the dome was directly in line with the moon, and a beam of its light was now falling directly upon that thing upon the altar. He wondered whether it was intentional.

Then, so suddenly that he almost lost his balance in his startlement, the room was filled with chanting; the incense swirled more thickly than ever, billowing forth from a dozen niches spaced around the wall. Priests appeared behind the altar, completely hidden in black robes that exaggerated the usual looseness to near parody; one reached forward, and what Garth suddenly realized was a cloth cover vanished from the thing on the altar.

It immediately blazed up into scintillating light, so bright in the darkness as to seem almost blinding; it was a great crystal, a sphere with a million facets, which trapped the thin beam of moonlight and reflected and refracted it into a glittering display of pure white light. Garth thought for a moment that it was a diamond, but dismissed that as absurd; no diamond could be so large, and he doubted that even diamond could catch the light like that. This was some sort of gem or crystal that was totally unfamiliar to him.

It was also a gem he would have to steal, if he were to perform his errand in Dыsarra.

He knelt, listening to the priests chant, and wondered how he was ever going to manage it.