The Temble of Truth

Chapter Ten

The man with cancer was Nakam Stura, a merchant, he explained and, from his clothing, Dumarest guessed he had been successful. The robe covered soft fabrics of expensive weaves and he wondered why the man hadn't used his wealth to buy medical treatment.

"We all follow the Wheel." Stura answered his unspoken question. "The Mother knows what is best. To fight against what is to be is to act the child. Better to accept with dignity and to serve as one is able. As you chose to do, my friend. As Pollonia and Reigan. In submission lies contentment."

They waited in a room to which a priest had guided them. One with bare stone walls and a floor of tessellated segments of black and amber. Light shone from sources beyond tinted panes: a luminous glow enhanced by the minute flames of vigil lights set before various places on the walls. Reigen knelt before one, hands clasped, head lowered, words a soft mumble as he prayed before the stylized depiction of a quartered circle. A man like the woman, old, drawn, his face ravaged by time. One with eyes lost in a vision of things Dumarest couldn't discern.

"He lives only for the Mother," said Stura. "Always he has longed for her embrace."

As had they all-if they were what they purported to be.

Dumarest edged away, sensing danger, not knowing when a word or remark would reveal him for what he was. Lauter, big, solemn, sat to one side, his face blank, eyes glazed as if lost in a world of his own. Dietz, small, restless, paced to one side. He slowed as he caught Dumarest's eye and turned to concentrate on a vigil light, the round, blotched circle it illuminated.

Sanchez said, softly, "How long are we supposed to wait here?"

He had drifted close and spoke without looking at Dumarest but, even so, he was being unwise. As he had been willful when dedicating himself to the Temple. He should have followed Altini; instead, greed for loot had made him ignore the plan.

Now he said, "We could break out. Grab a few of the priests and find out what they know. Gather what we can and get on with what we came to do."

Dumarest said, "The Mother is merciful."

"What?"

"If you have sinned then there will be forgiveness."

"Earl-"

"Be patient." Dumarest glanced at the ceiling, the tinted panes, the frieze cut into the wall of the chamber. Who knew who could be watching? Listening to every word? In a whisper he added, "Act the part you chose to play. Settle down. Pray. Look blank and wait. Damn you, wait!"

Beyond the chamber there would be ceremonies under way. Priests busy with the function of the Temple. The worshipers who would leave needed to be attended to-those who had dedicated themselves could be left for a time. He sat, hearing the soft mumble of Reigan's voice. Pollonia sighing as she sat in an apparent trance. Even the merchant was silent, head lowered, chin resting on his chest.

What would happen if he should change his mind and buy the treatment which would save his life?

A question Dumarest knew he dare not ask. He leaned back, shoulders against the wall, forcing himself to relax as he had done so often before when waiting to enter the arena. He drifted into a calming detachment during which his powers were conserved and vital energies husbanded.

In his mind he saw the model of the Temple, the plans of its interior. Guesses, but better than nothing and, so far, they had confirmed Karlene's memory. The great entrance doors, the altar, the passage which must have lain beyond, the one they had followed to this room-a chamber set on a lower level; others would adjoin it. Halls, more chambers, more passages. Places where she had worked and others where those serving the Temple had eaten, cooked, slept. A lot of people, a lot of rooms-but still the inner chambers posed a mystery.

How long had it been?

Dumarest glanced at the chronometer strapped to his wrist; an instrument which was more than it seemed. Time had moved faster than he had guessed and he inhaled, filling his lungs with air drawn through his nose, catching a pungent sweetness, a hint of acridity. Incense and something else, a truth-inducing vapor of some kind, perhaps, if they were under test it would be natural.

Lauter must have scented it too. He rumbled and sat upright and snorted as if to clear his nose. Rising, he crossed the room and checked the door. It resisted his pressure.

To Dumarest he whispered, "I don't like this. We're in a cage. The air stinks and I've the feeling trouble's on its way."

"So?"

"Why wait for it? We've got to do something."

Dumarest said, softly, "Use your head, man. We're outnumbered by the priests. We don't know where the treasure lies. We don't even know the way out and, even if we did, where would we go?"

"But!"

"They have to make the first move. Until then we wait." He added, "And watch Sanchez. He's as jumpy as you are."

As Dietz could be but, if so, he didn't show it. A gambler who had learned to mask his features. An assassin who knew that he could be his own worst enemy. He glanced at Dumarest as if about to speak, then changed his mind as the door swung open.

Girls like angels stepped into the room.

They were young, lithe, nubile, neatly dressed in gowns which fell to just below the knee. Each had the left shoulder bared and on the soft flesh the imprint of a tattoo shone in reflected splendor. Each bore a tray on which rested a bowl, a plate, a steaming cup.

"Food." Sanchez smiled at the girl who proffered him her tray. "At least they aren't going to starve us. And what of you, my dear? Are you also a gift of the Mother?"

A fool, careless with his tongue, Dumarest saw the stiffening of Stura's face, the expression in Pollonia's eyes. Only Reigan, lost in his private world, seemed not to have noticed.

"All things are gifts of the Mother." The girl lifted her tray. "Eat so as to gain strength to serve her."

"And after?"

"Eat!" Dumarest took the tray from the girl and thrust it into the fighter's hands. To the girl he said, "How long must we wait before we can serve?"

"The ceremonies are almost over. When the worshipers have left, the priests will come for you." Her hand reached out and rested on his own. "You are strong and that is good. You must stay strong for the Mother needs you. Now eat and be patient."

The bowl held a thin stew composed of stringy fibers which could have been meat together with an assortment of vegetables. The plate bore a portion of hard, dark, gritty bread. The cup held hot water into which herbs had been infused.

"Today is a special day," said the girl who had given Dumarest his tray. "And so we eat the feast of celebration."

"Will you share it with me?" He read the answer in her eyes. "Here."

He watched as she spooned up the stew and dug sharp teeth into the bread. Not drugged, then, or if it was she didn't know it. And there was no mistaking her pleasure. He remembered what Ellen Contera had told him and wondered if the girl thought she was eating rare and expensive viands, drinking fine and special wine.

"Where will the priests take us?" Dumarest smiled as she stared at him. "After the meal," he urged. "Where will we go?"

"Down toward the inner chambers."

"And?" As she didn't answer, he said, "Do all those who dedicate themselves to the Temple go down to the inner chambers?"

"Of course. The old and flawed and those who are ill." She glanced at Pollonia. "Those who seek comfort and to rest. And the strong." Her eyes met his own. "Those who are not young."

"What is down there?" He saw the sudden blankness of her eyes. "Do you know? Can you tell me?" Then, quickly, knowing he had pressed too hard, he said, "Forget it, my dear. Just finish the wine."

It was night before the priests came. Five of them, tall, their robes adorned with the sigils of convoluted circles. The eldest, a man with a face ravaged with pits and lines, stared at them with deep-set, burning eyes. A fanatic who strode from one to the other as if reading their secret thoughts. The woman he ignored as he did Reigan who was still on his knees.

To Nakam Stura he snapped, "What ails you?" He nodded at the answer, turned to Dumarest. "You?"

"My lungs." Dumarest coughed and fought for breath. "A parasitical spore. I guess I haven't long to go."

"You?"

"I am fit," said Ramon Sanchez. "Strong and eager to serve."

Dietz whispered that he had an affliction of the heart. Lauter complained of his wounds.

"A laser burn in the gut," he explained. "Plates in both legs. A bullet still riding near my spine. I could get fixed, I suppose, but what's the point? I'd rather serve while I still have something to offer."

"You come from where?"

"Chalcot. I was a mercenary."

A mistake-the Original People did not follow paths of violence. Lauter had betrayed himself by volunteering his profession. Yet the priest made no comment and Dumarest wondered at his indifference as he led the way from the room down winding passages which fell in a spiraling decline beneath his feet.

A long journey ending in a gallery flanked with doors. Light blazed from the ceiling, a cold, blue luminescence which drained the natural color from flesh and left it the grim hue of lead.

"Later you will be given instruction," said the priest. "Now you will rest. You," his finger stabbed at the woman. "In there." The finger stabbed again as Pollonia moved toward a door. "You and you in there." He moved on as Reigan and Stura hastened to obey. At the end of the gallery stood wider doors, the air tainted with an acrid stench. "You in there and you," the finger pointed at Lauter, "in there."

A division Dumarest didn't like, for it had separated the false from the genuine and had split the mercenary from his companions. At his side Dietz murmured, "He spotted Kroy for a fake."

"Us too, maybe."

"Does it matter?" Sanchez looked up at the glowing ceiling, down at the room, the long row of cots it contained. "The priests are fools. They didn't even trouble to search us."

"What would you have done had they tried?"

"Fought, what else?"

"They could have guessed that. Why risk their skins when there is no need?" Dumarest looked at the nearest of the cots. "We don't seem to be alone."

A man lay on the fabric stretched on a frame. His face was mottled with sores as were his hands, his arms and naked torso. Ugly, oozing pustules which had stained the cot with crusted smears. He was asleep or drugged, moaning a little, a thin skein of white hair fringing the dome of his skull.

Another, not so badly afflicted, lay beyond him. A third lower down. As Dumarest walked along the cots a man reared toward the end of the room, turning his head, blinking eyes glazed with a nacreous film.

"Master? Is that you, Master? Am I again to serve the Mother?"

"Not yet," soothed Dumarest. He touched the man's naked shoulder. "Rest while you may and peace attend you in your dreams."

As they moved on, Sanchez said, softly, "They stink. They all stink of sickness and disease. Why the hell did the priests put us among them?"

"To serve."

"Not me. I'm no nurse."

Dietz said, patiently, "You do not understand, Ramon. We, they, are all of a kind. You heard the blind man. He yearns to serve. He must have offered himself for that." Pausing he added, "Just as we did."

To be used as the needs of the Temple demanded offering their hearts, spirits, lives, bodies. Dumarest remembered the meal, the thin stew with the stringy shreds of meat. The Temple was on a harsh world and those running it could not afford to indulge in the luxury of waste. Those dedicating themselves would be used to the full and, even when dead, they would still be of value.

He strode down the length of the room, counting the sick, the empty cots. About half and half which, if some were now working, explained the apparent carelessness of the priests. Labor was in short supply, especially the kind which was provided by those on the cots, and soon he and the others would be swallowed among them.

"It's crazy," said Sanchez. "If they suspect us why leave us free?"

"They suspect Kroy," said Dumarest. "We were separated from the others because we are more fit. But they don't know we arrived as a group."

"Are they stupid?"

"No," said Dietz. The assassin knew the strength of the established habit-patterns better than most. Knew too the encysting effect of established authority. He said, "We're operating on momentum. They take us for what we claim to be. We'll get by if we don't draw attention to ourselves as Kroy did."

"Or unless he betrays us." Sanchez looked at the door, scowling. "They could be working on him now. Coming for us at this very moment. I say we move."

"When they come for us," said Dumarest.

"Now."

"No. We wait."

"Like hell!" Sanchez strode toward the door, halted as Dumarest stepped before him. His teeth shone white between his snarling lips. "Get out of my way, damn you. Shift or-"

Dumarest moved, his left hand darting forward, catching the fighter's right forearm, jerking it from his body, the weapon he guessed the man was reaching for. His right hand stabbed forward and upward, fingers closing on the other's throat, fingers gouging deep to rest on the carotids.

"Relax," he said, coldly. "Kick or struggle and I'll close my hand." His fingers tightened in warning. Tightened more as Sanchez lifted his free hand. "Don't try it!"

"Don't!" Dietz was beside them. "Earl! Ramon! This is madness!"

Dumarest said, not looking at the assassin, "I agree, but so is running blind in the Temple. The place must be thick with priests. We could get some but the others would have us trapped. We must wait until they come for us. If necessary we'll defend ourselves but, if they've come to guide us, we play along." He eased the pressure on the fighter's throat. "I'm running this operation, Ramon. If you don't like it too bad. Do you play along or not?"

"I-" Sanchez swallowed as Dumarest lowered his hand. "You-"

"Forget the threats. I want an answer." He would get the answer he wanted or the fighter would lie dead on one of the cots. Sanchez recognized this. "Good." Dumarest glanced at his wrist as the man yielded. If the priests left them alone they would have to move but there was time yet. "Get some rest."

As Sanchez, smoldering with rage, moved to an empty cot Dumarest added, "That goes for you too, Pinal."

"You're a fool, Earl." Dietz spoke in a whisper. "Ramon will never forgive how you shamed him. You should have killed him. Give me the word and I'll do it for you."

"We can use him."

"Then, at least, give me the word." A different word, one which would free his mental restraints, and Dumarest wondered how the assassin knew he had been chained. "I tried," he explained, anticipating the question. "It wasn't hard to figure out how Ishikari had tricked me. Twice I tried to even the score. Twice I failed. The second time he told me why."

"Did you expect him to trust you?"

"He made me eat dirt," said Dietz bitterly. "Had me sweating with fear. But, worst of all, he trod on my pride." He looked at his hands, the minute quivering of his fingers. "He left me less than a man. I want to be whole again."

To use his skills, his drugs, his poisons, his trade. Hampered, he was safe but a tool which had lost its temper. A knife which had lost its edge. And no man should be a cripple.

Dumarest said the word.

And watched as a veil seemed to fall from the assassin's eyes. He straightened a little, breathing deep, the quiver now absent from his hands. A man as deadly as a serpent.

"Get some rest now," said Dumarest.

He felt the sting of the chronometer against his wrist as the man obeyed. Altini was on his way.

It was hard to move in the night. There was no moon but starlight cast a silver sheen and created deceptive shadows which masked stones and potholes and uneven footing. Terrain over which the thief raced with trained grace, sensing obstacles, avoiding them, moving on until he reached the outer complex of the Temple. His path was already plotted: not through the maze but over it. Dust gritted beneath the soft soles of his shoes as he ran along the tops of the walls, crouching, dropping to run over bare spaces, jumping gaps, moving like a flitting shadow toward the flanking buildings, the dome, the squat towers.

They would hold defenses, watchers, weapons to burn down unwanted rafts, to sear the bodies of any trying to gain unauthorized entry to the sacred precincts. Flattened against stone he studied them, the black grease on his face and neck merging with the color of the clothing he wore, the gloves hiding his hands. Carefully he lifted an arm, his fingers moving with the delicacy of spiders traversing shattered glass, pausing as they felt an invisible strand. An alarm, one he avoided as he climbed, a second he left behind him, a third which he neutralized with small instruments he took from a pouch at his waist.

Cracked stone provided easy holds and he rushed upward to move into the inward facing side of a tower, to freeze as he strained both eyes and ears.

He saw nothing but the loom of other towers, the silent barrenness of sloping roofs and the sweeping curve of the central dome. Were the towers deserted? He climbed higher and froze again at the sound of a shuffle, the drone of a voice.

It stilled, yielded to silence, commenced again as if it were a repetitive recording played on a machine. A routine prayer mumbled so often it had become as normal as breathing to the man on watch.

Altini climbed higher to where openings gaped in the stone toward the summit of the tower. Hanging by one hand he dipped the other into his pouch, found a small cylinder, thrust his thumb hard against an end and threw it into an opening.

He heard it hit, a startled exclamation, then the sound of something heavy slumping to the floor. One impact which meant a solitary guard and he guessed the other towers would be as sparsely manned. It was tempting to climb up and into the tower. There would be a door of sorts giving to the lower levels and access to the main body of the Temple but to try that route was to take too big a gamble. To maintain efficiency single guards would need frequent reliefs and a change could be due at any time. It would be safer to descend and cross the roofs in the "blind" spot he had created. Shadows clustered thick beneath the eaves and gave good cover.

Altini reached it, avoiding alarm wires and pressure points which would have bathed the roof in revealing light. Stone pierced with grills ran beneath the eaves and he crouched beneath one, sniffing, catching the heavy odor of incense. Air vented from the hall below as he had suspected; now he needed to find a way into the heart of the Temple, the inner chambers where the loot would be found.

Thieves' work and he was good at it. Like an insect he moved from place to place, sniffing, questing, careful of wires and traps. The openings in the towers were like blind eyes, the stars distant, hostile, indifferent to sacrilege and the impending rape of cosseted treasures. Soon now he would have forced a way in, the Temple violated, the priests impotent in their power to protect their charge.

"Ahmed!" The voice whispered in his ear. Ellen's voice from where she waited with the raft. "Answer, damn you!"

"Trouble?" silently he moved his lips.

"Maybe. How are things going?"

"Well." He looked at the chronometer on his wrist. A twin to the one carried by Dumarest. "Is that what you called to ask about?"

"No. There's a raft heading your way. From the Hsing-Tiede Consortium, we think."

"Close?"

"Too close for comfort. It might be expected. Best to take cover."

"Out!"

Talking was dangerous in that it took concentration as well as time. Altini moved, eyes wary, feet and hands moving in neat precision. Grit made small, scratching sounds and something shifted to roll down the slope with a fading rattle. Broken stone or a shard of aged mortar but enough to betray him, and Altini tensed, his stomach tight to the anticipated challenge, the blaze of revealing light, the searing burn of a laser.

Then, abruptly, the raft was above him.

It rode high and straight, circling, bearing lights which flickered in a recognition pattern. It lowered, hovering, as searchlights bathed it. Lower until it passed the summits of the towers, the flanking buildings, to land in the outer complex close to the great doors. Watching, Altini could see the men it carried, the scarlet of the robe one of them wore.