The Temples Of Ayocan

Chapter 15

Blade had nothing to do for more than a week, except sit in the chamber assigned to him, eat the lavish meals served to him, and plan the best method of teaching the Gonsaran temple mounds' Holy Warriors. He toyed with the idea of picking out some of the best and making them loyal above all to him, but rejected it. Most of the men assigned to him for training would probably be genuine believers in Ayocan-Isgon would see to that. And the Elder Brother would no doubt also have some of these true believers spy on Blade. Isgon might be ambitious, but he would not let his ambitions lead him into carelessness.

At the end of the week the first ten men arrived for training. Blade looked them over, rejected two as unwilling to accept discipline, and agreed to start training the other eight. He asked and received permission to train them in not only the Chiribuan axe and sword, but in the use of the Gonsaran spear. Otherwise they would be at a fatal disadvantage against Gonsaran soldiers, as far as reach went. Blade would not deny any soldier he was training anything that might save the man's life. Besides, it would hardly make much difference what training he gave Isgon's private army.

He threw himself into the training, for it was a job he had done often, enjoyed, and did well, no matter what the circumstances. None of the eight men he was training had any arms training. Most of them had been common laborers. At first they brought nothing to their training but enthusiasm, strong backs, and apparent devotion to Ayocan.

They responded rapidly, however. Within two weeks Blade knew that he could soon turn over to the eight the training of the next batch of recruits. It was a system that he had used before to create an army-or at least a fighting force — out of nothing. Train a handful of men himself, then have each one train another handful, and so on-a pyramid with himself at the peak (or base).

As much as he threw himself into the training, Blade did not forget his real mission. He did indeed keep his eyes and ears open, and by doing so learned a good deal. Some of this merely confirmed what he had already suspected. But some of it was entirely new.

Isgon was indeed ambitious-and not merely for making the Gonsaran temple mounds largely independent of the Supreme Brother in Tzakalan. He wanted to build a base of power from which he could infiltrate the mother cult in Chiribu and eventually achieve his own election as Supreme Brother. He knew of the present Supreme Brother's ambitious plans for embroiling Chiribu and Gonsara in a war of mutual destruction. But what he could not see was why the present Supreme Brother should be the only one to reap that rich harvest.

So Isgon wanted his own force of Holy Warriors. He was already accumulating a considerable force of the Death-Vowed-hence his willingness to expend four of them in testing Blade's qualities as a warrior. But the Death-Vowed were only useful for assassination and sowing terror. A regular and disciplined force of Holy Warriors would be needed to follow behind the Death-Vowed. The Holy Warriors would strike through the chaos the Death-Vowed had created, bringing the cult of Ayocan to power in Gonsara.

That was Isgon's plan. When he had a good force of the Holy Warriors available, he would call up his two hundred-odd Death-Vowed. They would scatter through Dafar, some having specific targets, such as the king, queen, and army commanders, others told only to strike and slay as widely as possible. Chaos among the rulers and terror among the people would follow. There would be frantic efforts to bring soldiers back from the frontiers to deal with the suddenly rampant cult of Ayocan.

But in the meantime Blade's force of Holy Warriors would seize control of Dafar. Messages would go off up the river to Tzakalan, calling for Holy Warriors from the temple mounds of Chiribu. King Hurakun would not dare to stand in the way of their being sent, for the people of Chiribu would tear him apart if he tried to prevent the just punishment of the impious Gonsarans. A steady stream of Holy Warriors would come down the river, and in a few weeks Isgon would rule in Gonsara. Not over its ruins, either, or at least so he hoped. He would be ruling over a largely intact kingdom, its population and wealth available for the cult's use-and for his own use as well. He would be more than an Elder Brother, he would be a king in all but name. And then how could his Brothers in Chiribu refuse to make him the next Supreme Brother of Ayocan?

The plan was breathtakingly bold and full of gambles. In fact, it was hardly short of the schemings of a megalomaniac. But certainly it was a spectacularly attractive alternative to merely sitting and accepting one's status as a poor relation of the mother cult in Chiribu. And it might just possibly work. Even if it failed, many innocent people might die, and much damage would be done. This Blade wanted to prevent if possible. But for the moment-and the moment lasted better than two weeks-he saw no way to do it.

There were no drugs in his food-he checked every bit of food and drink brought to him for the telltale odor. So they trusted him at least that much. But on the other hand, when he had finished his day's work and his evening meal, they locked him firmly in his chamber. It was forbidden, they said, for any person not a Vowed Brother of the House of Ayocan to be at large in the House by night. So Blade had no chances for any of the night-time ramblings that had brought him so much information on other occasions. There was nothing for him to do at night except sleep. And since the day's work was tiring, he usually slept well. But he slept with a knife under his pillow.

One night early in the third week, he was just drifting off to sleep when he heard a faint click at the door of his chamber. Instantly he was fully awake and alert. As slowly as a cat stalking a bird, his hand crept under the pillow and grasped the hilt of his knife. Otherwise he moved no part of his body except his eyes, which swung toward the door. It was solid rock like most of the chamber doors in the temple mounds, but so well balanced and greased that it moved almost soundlessly. The faint click came again. Unmistakably, someone was moving the lever that opened the door. And then the door began to slide quietly open.

Blade drew his knife slowly out from under the pillow and held it ready. The door continued to open, until there was a gap wide enough for a man to slip through. In the next moment a dimly seen figure darted through the gap on soundless feet. As it approached the bed, Blade recognized it. It was the same one he had seen slipping away down the corridor into the shadows, the day of his meeting with Isgon. The spy, now turned assassin? Perhaps.

The figure moved silently toward the bed until it was just outside Blade's striking range. Through half-closed eyes he watched it. It was small and slim. Blade wrinkled his nostrils slightly as he caught a new odor in the air. Perfume, cutting through the heavy air of the underground warren. Perfume?

As his brain completed the thought, he moved. A tremendous jerk of thigh and stomach muscles snapped him into a sitting position. At the same time his powerful hands closed on the blanket, whipping it into the air and letting it drop down over the figure. A squeal of dismay came from inside the dark hood as the blanket settled down over it, enveloping it. As the stranger raised futile arms to ward off the blanket, Blade rolled hard out of the bed, landing on the floor with a thud. He kept on rolling, sweeping the figure off its feet. It let out another squeal of dismay and pain as it landed, and still another squeal as Blade's massive body slammed down on it, pinning it to the floor.

Blade jerked the blanket away with one hand while he held his knife to the stranger's throat with the other. «Now, my friend, who are you? And what are you doing slipping into my chamber by night?»

«You're hurting me,» was the whimpered reply.

«Yes, and I'll hurt you a damned sight more if you don't tell me who you are.»

«What kind of bully are you, anyway?» An aggressive protest.

That question was so unexpected that for a moment Blade couldn't come up with a proper answer. Then he said, «Not a bully. Just a warrior who has lived a long life by being short with people who invade his chambers by night. Now-are you going to answer my questions?»

Silence. Blade sighed wearily and began slitting through the cloth of the hood with his knife. Soon enough the face under the hood was revealed. And then Blade stopped cutting, and stared hard at it.

His visitor was a young woman. The heavy cosmetics worn by Gonsaran women made her seem older. But they did not disguise the firm, smooth curves of cheek and neck. And there were other firm, smooth curves, which Blade's searching fingers detected under the robes. A young woman. Not the likeliest of betrayers or assassins, but a possible one. Blade did not relax his alertness.

«What are you doing?» said the woman. Her voice was sharp now. She had recovered her confidence.

«Finding out if you're armed,» replied Blade. His fingers continued their search, slipping down under the neck of the robe. He felt the woman stiffen as his searching fingers brushed across a breast-and he also felt the nipple of the breast stiffen. He looked at her face. Her eyes were wider now, and a small pink tongue crept out to moisten her lips.

«All I have are women's weapons,» she said. Her voice was lighter now as she added, «And with those I think I am well equipped.»

Blade was well on the way to finding that out for himself. His hands moved on down the woman's body inside the robe. She wore nothing under it, and the satiny skin was smooth and soft under Blade's fingers. They drifted down past the breasts, which were small, almost girlish, but as firm as perfectly ripened fruit. Both nipples were fully erect before Blade left off stroking them.

A slim waist, firm muscles under the skin, with a small navel set neatly in the middle. The woman giggled and wriggled like a happy baby as Blade's fingers probed there. Then he kept on moving. As he did so, the robe began to loosen from the woman's body, and his hands found more room to do their work. As her slim neck and bare shoulders came into view, dark as old honey in the dimness, his hands reached her thighs. She gave a little whimper as he softly worked around from the satiny skin over her hipbone, down to her knee, then bit by bit up the insides of her thighs.

He moved upward inch by inch, and with each inch his fingers moved the woman moved also. At times she writhed back and forth with small moans and gasps, at other times she stiffened and her eyes went blank and hard. In her mind there was obviously something drawing her toward what her body wanted, and something else pulling her back. Perhaps she was a virgin? Perhaps, but she would not be one for long. The call of her body was too insistent for her to deny it, and it was sounding loudly in Blade as well.

But he took his time, gradually stripping the robe off her with one hand while his other roamed up and down her body. Several times she gave little sobs as his moving hand closed on her mound, playing in the thicket of wiry hair that covered it. Twice she tried to clamp her thighs together, to trap the hand that was working at the seat of her passion. Once Blade snatched his hand away just in time, and she clenched her fists and writhed her hips toward him in search of that maddeningly desirable hand. The second time, he let the solid warm flesh of her inner thighs trap his hand, because he felt the hairs between them already dripping wet with her mounting arousal. There was no holding back in her mind any more, only the urgent call of her body to go ahead.

Blade decided it was time for him also to listen to that same call. With his free hand he stripped the robe entirely away. For a moment he let his eyes rove over the naked body on the floor before him, gleaming darkly. Her breasts were as small and perfectly formed and firm as his hands had suggested. Her waist would have been narrow but for a neat little belly-roll, and her thighs were plumply well formed. She made him think of a small but perfectly matured little bird, with just the right amount of flesh in just the right places. As his swollen phallus plunged between her legs, she moaned and heaved her hips upward, spreading her thighs apart. Blade drew his hand free and lifted her onto the bed. She did not move, did not speak a word, made no sounds except more little whimpers.

For Blade there was no reason at all to wait, and every reason imaginable to go on. But he was slow and careful in his movements as he raised himself above her. And he was even slower and more careful as he let himself down into her.

She was indeed a virgin, but would not be for long. There was little resistance as Blade slipped inside her wet vagina, no cries, only a little quivering of the fleshy thighs as he entered. But as he plunged deeper, her legs came up steadily, as though they were attached to balloons, and locked around his back. Her hips began to wriggle and twist back and forth as she tried to lock Blade as deeply as possible inside her.

It was often a chancy business, trying to satisfy a virgin. But not this time. The woman was ready to be satisfied — spectacularly ready. And spectacular, also, in her climaxes. She sobbed and moaned and howled so loudly when the first one tore through her body that Blade nearly lost his erection on the spot, fearing they would be heard all over the temple mound.

But solid stone walls will block even the sounds of a woman half-mad with passion. Blade's instincts told him that the woman was not remotely satisfied. But the sensations tearing through his own groin told him that he was terribly close to his own release. The combination of her tightness and wetness around his large, swollen, fast-stroking member was becoming rapidly more and more unbearable.

But he had always found the strength to keep going on, and he managed to find it again. A second climax tore through the woman beneath him, as her hips slammed upward against his with almost bruising force. Her mouth writhed and poured out fierce animal noises. Then she went limp, as suddenly as a snapped rubber band. In almost the same moment, Blade also went limp, as he flooded and poured and cascaded into her, his wetness and hers now mingling. He very nearly went limp all over and sagged down on her with his full weight. But he managed to roll off, to lie beside her on the bed.

He lay there until his head had cleared. But even before that his eyes were fixed on the woman again, and his reflexes alert for any threat from her. More than one woman had taken advantage of what she had hoped would be a let-down in his alertness at such times, to try to drug or kill him. None of them had succeeded. He didn't want this woman to be the first one.

But she did nothing, and in fact she was probably beyond doing anything. She lay on her back, legs still spread, her limbs still limp. Her mouth sagged open and her eyes stared blankly upward in exhausted satiation. Blade doubted if she could have flogged either her mind or her body to make any move, either to save her own life or to threaten his. But he remained alert.

Gradually life returned to the woman, and her eyes lost their glazed air and focused on Blade. One hand crept out and gently patted his now limp member. Her lips curled in a faint smile.

As long as the woman was in this mood, Blade decided to return to his original question.

«Who are you?»

«My name is Natrila.»

«What are you doing in a temple of Ayocan?»

«I–I serve in the temple. I-«

«I think you are not telling the truth, Natrila. The women I have seen who serve in the Houses of Ayocan feed on the tree of death. Their eyes are blank, their minds are dull, and they do not throw themselves upon a man the way you did. You are a woman whose mind at least is free. You are not a temple servant. So I ask you again-what are you doing in a House of Ayocan? If you do not tell me what you are and what you were doing coming to my chamber, I will call for Isgon. And I will tell him what you have done.»

Natrila stiffened suddenly and gave a little gasp of surprise-or fear. But she was still silent. Blade repeated his question. «Natrila, I do not want to hurt you. But I cannot serve mighty Ayocan properly if I do not know what goes on around this House. You must tell me, or I shall speak to Isgon.»

Natrila stiffened again, but this time she gave a small snort of defiance. «You want to serve Ayocan properly. Hunh! Do you think that matters to me?»

Blade realized he had accidentally struck a vulnerable spot. But he maintained his severe face and tone. «Perhaps I should also tell Isgon that you do not care for the service of mighty Ayocan. And if you do not, why are you polluting this House of the god with your presence? That must be displeasing to Ayocan. And Ayocan shall not be displeased.»

Natrila stared at Blade as though he had suddenly started gibbering and drooling like a madman. «I don't understand you, warrior. I just don't understand you. How could you do what you have just done-so well-and yet believe in that bat-winged bloodsucker Ayocan?»

«You blaspheme!» said Blade sharply. The sharpness he put in his voice was largely to help him keep his face straight. He was finding it harder and harder to present the image of a fanatical warrior-worshiper of the bat-god. But if he let the mask drop- even once, the shoe might suddenly be on the other foot. Instead of him threatening to tell Isgon of the woman's behavior, she might then threaten to tell tales of his disloyalty.

Natrila stiffened at the edge in Blade's voice. There was a pleading note in her voice this time as she spoke.

«For the love of whatever gods there are, please don't tell Isgon! He-he would not be pleased at what we have done.»

«Why?» Blade put ice into that one word.

«Isgon is my father.» Natrila sagged down onto the rumpled bed and let her head drop into her hands. Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. Blade would have liked to be sympathetic, but for the moment he had to press his advantage.

«Your father? How is it that an Elder Brother of the Houses of Ayocan has a daughter? He must have most wickedly violated his obligation to celibacy.»

«Oh, the devil take obligations to celibacy and you too! Nine out of ten of the priests of Ayocan stick it into any woman they can catch whenever they can catch her. And then if the woman conceives a child or breathes a word of what happened, the priests send the Death-Vowed out after her. She winds up lying rotting in the street with a batwing carved on her guts»

«You will not turn me aside by attacking the sworn serving Brothers of Ayocan! And you have not answered my question. How did your father come to have you-and to keep you here, in the holy House of Ayocan!» Blade found it hard to keep his face and voice under control as he said this. He hoped Natrila would mistake the contortions of his face for an almost uncontrollable rage.

Apparently she did. In a small voice she said, «He is a good man in some ways, for all his ambitions. When my mother said that she was carrying me, he did not send the Death-Vowed out against her. Instead he sent her gold, and told her to raise me until I was eighteen, and then send me to him. She did all this, and I came to him, and here we are. I pass as one of the servants. Only a few of my father's most trusted men know who or what I am.»

«Indeed,» said Blade, to cover his momentary uncertainty. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable about pushing this wretched girl any further. It took all the detachment he had learned in twenty years in the intelligence business to keep him going. «I can see that he would be displeased to learn what you have done. But I think I can see my way to not telling him.»

Natrila raised red eyes to stare at Blade. «You can?»

«Under one condition,» went on Blade. «That you tell me what goes on in this House of Ayocan, starting at once. Your father has made me the trainer and leader of his Holy Warriors. But he tells me little or nothing of what I need to know about the Houses of Ayocan in Gonsara, that I may defend them well. If you will tell me what he does not, my mouth remains closed. And perhaps my bed will even remain open to you.»

That last offer made Natrila wriggle uncontrollably. «Oh, yes, yes. Please. That was why I came to you. I knew that I was a woman, but my father thought me only a girl. And I would trust none of the other Brothers. But you-you are such a man-and I thought I could trust you-«Her voice broke again.

Blade sat down beside her and held her until she stopped crying. «You can trust me, Natrila, as long as you keep telling me what goes on in the temple mound here.» He had to fight back the temptation to tell her what he was really here to do. Certainly she seemed to hate the cult of Ayocan and its priests enough so that she would never deliberately betray him. But there were always slips of the tongue-and there could always be torture.

Eventually Natrila gave Blade the promise he wanted, and slipped out. Alone, Blade sat on the bed, a sour expression on his face. He felt dirty over what he had done to Natrila, as though he had abused a child's trust. And he felt a terrible fury at the cult of Ayocan, that had put him in this position. Natrila's shame was one more thing he would avenge on the cult as thoroughly as possible.

A desire for vengeance was unprofessional, he recalled all his instructors (including 3 himself) saying over and over again. Be calm, cold, detached. Don't let emotions get in the way of doing what needs to be done-or let them push you into doing more than is needed to accomplish your mission.

Yes, but when vengeance pushes you in the same direction as your professional standard? The more the priests Ayocan suffered, the better his mission would be accomplished. And the more they suffered, the more they would also pay for what they had done, and forced Blade to do. On that thought he became calm, lay down, and went to sleep.