by Джеффри Лорд
The sight of the guards of the jade carts made Mirdon's face twist again. He spat into the dust, and Blade heard him clearly. «Damned Jade Masters! They think they can do anything as long as they have the jade. Even let us go down and make a peace with the Raufi, I'd bed If we could get their men-«He shrugged and fell silent. The patrol and Blade moved on, along a road that became more and more crowded, through a day that became hotter and dustier as the hours passed.
It was nearly sunset before they came within sight of the towers of Kano. By that time Blade was sweaty, thirsty, tired, and sore in a good many places beside his face and his leg. He promptly forgot all his discomforts when he saw the city. The men of Kano had praised their city as beautiful, and they hadn't lied.
Fifty towers and spires rose high above the walls, some rising more than three hundred feet. Every tower, every bit of the wall, every building Blade could see was faced with polished, shimmering black jade. Some of the walls had patterns picked out on them in colored stones or polished metals. At least one building had a mosaic three stories high sprawling across the entire base of its crowning spire. Stones in a thousand different colors blazed in the mosaic, blazed so brilliantly that it seemed the mosaic must be made of jewels.
The approaches to the city were heavily planted with shrubs and stands of trees, and laced with small streams and ponds that reflected the setting sun. Short humpbacked bridges carried the road over the streams. At both ends of each bridge was a massive arch, tall enough to let even the high-piled jade carts pass under. The arches were covered with slabs of black jade, and the jade was worked into a thousand different plant and animal shapes. Blade saw a lion with jeweled eyes and the hair of the mane and tail picked out in silver, a dragon with gold wings and claws and emerald eyes, a serpent, an eagle-and on and on, until his mind couldn't absorb any more.
They passed through a gate in the outer wall that was practically a tunnel. The outer wall rose on a stone-faced mound of earth twenty feet high and a hundred feet wide. The wall itself was forty feet high and fifty feet thick, built of blocks of stone the size of small houses, every bit of it faced with black jade. The sun glinted on the helmets of guards marching back and forth on top. The muzzles of cannon poked out from ports in towers set every hundred yards.
Inside the outer wall lay the Gardens of Stam, several miles wide and completely encircling the city. Who or what Stam was or had been, Blade didn't know. What he did know was that a thousand years of loving work must have gone into the Gardens. They were a breathtaking sight.
Whole acres were planted with shrubs in full blossom, millions of white and red and yellow and purple blooms. The breeze was so heavily perfumed that Blade found himself coughing whenever he took a deep breath. It was like passing through a colossal greenhouse.
They entered a long avenue where the trees arched so far over the road that they threw it into blackness. From far away to the left a flickering orange light crept through the trees. Not the sun, it was too low. The road was curving toward the orange light. Blade kept silent and waited.
They came out of the trees suddenly, less than a mile from the inner wall. Here the road curved around the rim of an enormous amphitheater, half a mile wide and three hundred feet deep. The bottom was floored with still more black jade, and in the middle an enormous jet of brilliant orange flame soared a hundred feet into the air. Blade could easily hear the roar of the flame, and he occasionally felt puffs of the heat on his skin.
Around the flame stood several tall railed platforms and a strange-looking cart. It was an enormous grill of steel bars, twenty feet on a side, set on wheels ten feet high so that it could be rolled back and forth. Back and forth-into and out of the flames that roared up so fiercely.
Suddenly Blade knew what the Mouth of the Gods was. It was that huge roaring flame-no doubt an ignited natural gas jet. He also knew what it meant to be thrust into the Mouth. He would be bound to the grill of the cart, and the cart would be rolled forward. A few seconds in the flame, and there would be nothing left of Richard Blade but a puff of greasy smoke and a few charred fragments of bone on the grill.
They were moving on toward the inner wall now. The towers of Kano were silhouetted against the blood-red western sky. The beauty was gone from them. Instead they had a sinister look of giants waiting for death-Blade's death, or perhaps their own? He couldn't keep from thinking of the irony in his situation. Here he was in Kano, where he had hoped to come, to avoid dying, in the heat of the desert. But here in Kano he might soon be burned to death in the Mouth of the Gods.
Quite literally, he had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.
Chapter Six
The main prison of Kano lay just inside the inner wall. Here the streets were a tangled, cramped, gloomy labyrinth, winding endlessly among black, blind walls and lit by occasional torches in brackets. The only people abroad were parties of soldiers stalking about the streets and starting nervously at shadows and at each other. Twice the whole patrol was nearly brought down by a volley from trigger-happy guards. The shots and Mirdon's answering curses echoed through the silent streets.
The prison was one of those towers that had looked so graceful and beautiful from outside the city. The patrol dismounted, and Mirdon, Jormin, Jormin's guards, and four other soldiers formed a square around Blade. They headed toward a flight of stairs that led upward into the gloom.
Half an hour later they were still climbing. The inside of the prison tower was an endless madman's nightmare of stairs that rose and fell, ramps that wound up and down, corridors that seemed to head in all directions at once. Here and there were clusters of iron-barred doors with dark chambers showing beyond them. Pale, hollow-eyed figures crept out of the shadows inside to stare at Blade and his escort.
There weren't many guards, and they seemed to be poorly trained. But there never had been and never would be much need for them in this prison. How do you escape from a prison where you are certain to get hopelessly lost between your cell and the door? Blade wondered if in some distant corridors lay the bleaching skeletons of poor wretches who had gotten out of their cells, only to wander aimlessly until death caught up with them.
Eventually they reached a corridor where the view through the windows lay toward the outer wall of the city and the open country beyond. There were no bars on the windows, but bars weren't needed. It was at least a hundred and fifty feet straight down from the window sill, and there were a lot of hard rocks at the bottom. Anybody who got out that way wouldn't need a guard, only a coffin and a burial party.
At the end of the corridor was a large chamber, and in the opposite wall of that chamber there was a door with an enormous gilded relief of a leaping flame carved on it. Four armed guards and a woman sat on cushions just outside the door. The woman wore a short, low-cut blue and silver tunic.
«Ho, Arllona,» said Mirdon. «I see you march forward in your career as a Free Prisoner. Now you can even dress as you please.»
Arllona smiled. «Or as pleases the Prison Keeper. I am much in his confidence, now.»
Mirdon laughed, a short, harsh laugh. «Or much in his bed. Well, I am not surprised. You had the soul of a whore when you served the Jade Masters. Doubtless you are now beyond the power of even the gods to change or improve you.»
Arllona's expression did not change at all. Apparently she was beyond caring about insults. She was short, only a few inches over five feet, and so sturdily built that she looked almost heavy. Gleaming dark hair flowed halfway down her back, and her tunic showed off firm full breasts and well-turned legs.
Jormin's voice cut through the chamber. «Enough of this unseemliness.» He stepped forward, half shoving Mirdon to one side, and faced the guards. «This Rauf was taken in the desert by Mirdon's patrol, in my presence. By my order he has been chosen to enter the Mouth of the Gods. He shall heal of his wounds, and then his time shall be decided.»
Three of the chamber guards surrounded Blade while the fourth unlocked the flame-decorated
door. A click, a grinding noise, and Blade was being hustled through an arched doorway into a large dim chamber beyond.
As the door swung closed behind him, Blade had a final view of the chamber. Mirdon was standing rigidly erect, hands clasped behind his back, trying not to glare at the calmly arrogant Jormin. The woman Arllona, on the other hand, was trying not to stare at Blade. Just as the door cut off his vision, he saw her eyes rise to meet his. Then the door thudded shut, and Blade was alone for the first time since his capture.
Blade was also alone most of the time for the next couple of weeks. He had visitors twice a day. One of Jormin's guards brought him his food, and a physician came to check the healing of his wounded leg and face.
The chamber where Blade was confined apparently dated from several centuries before, when a dozen people might feed the Mouth of the Gods in a single night. It was large enough to comfortably house twenty or thirty people.
The sacrificial victims were privileged characters, so the chamber was furnished with all the luxury that Kano's wealth could arrange. The floor and walls were mosaics, the ceiling gilded, the furniture massive, richly carved, and set with silver and jewels. Tapestries covered every patch of wall that wasn't covered with mosaics, and a delicately carved screen stood before the one window.
The screen could easily be folded aside to let in more light and air. Nothing else protected the window. A quick look told Blade that the window was quite useless as an escape route in any case. Below it lay a sheer drop of more than a hundred feet of smooth black wall falling to a roof garden far below. There was nothing in the chamber to make a hundred-foot rope strong enough to hold Blade's weight, and nothing to tie one to if he could make it.
Obviously, good treatment for the sacrificial victims didn't extend to making it easy for them to escape! Blade doubted that he had much chance of getting out of this chamber without help, or much chance of finding that help. Mirdon might not like his being in Jormin's hands, but the officer was just as determined to kill him as was the priest.
It looked like there was nothing to do but wait. He'd done it before and could do it again. Meanwhile, the food was good and his wounds were healing fast. He would be at his full strength and speed when they came to take him out of the chamber to the Mouth of the Gods. That was the one time Blade knew he would have a chance to escape, or at least take a few Kanoans with him as he went down.
Blade's window gave him a view clear out across the Gardens of Stam to the outer wall and the countryside beyond it. He could see many miles, out to where green fields and groves and yellow-brown hills met the luminous blue sky. The distance first blurred, then destroyed details. But he could easily see the glint of metal and the dust clouds as troops moved in and out of the city.
He could also see that the Raufi were striking harder and harder against Kano. Hardly a night went by without a distant spot of fire pulsing in the darkness. Hardly a dawn came without showing a thin pillar of smoke rising in the same place.
The strain on the Kanoans grew rapidly. The enforcement of the curfew grew more rigorous. By night the streets of the great city were as silent as a graveyard. Blade noticed that instead of six guards in the roof garden below his window, there were now four. A few days more, and there were only two. Blade wondered if the guards outside his door were also being taken away to reinforce the walls and the mounted patrols. Even if they were, it wouldn't help him much. Nothing lay beyond his door except the labyrinth of the prison. He would have to crack the secret of that labyrinth, then fight his way into the open past the guards at the main door.
So the waiting game would have to go on. It would not go on much longer, though. Every day the doctor nodded approvingly at the way Blade's wounds were healing. It was only a matter of time before he was a clean and unblemished sacrifice, fit for the Mouth of the Gods.
Chapter Seven
Blade awoke in darkness. He did not wake in silence. Softly, but unmistakably, a key was turning in the lock of the chamber door. Blade was instantly alert, but he lay motionless.
The faint metallic clicking continued. Whoever was trying to get in was obviously having a little trouble with the lock. For Jormin's guards or the doctor, the door always slipped open easily. Who else could be interested in entering the chamber, and at this time of night? Could Mirdon have decided to strike back at Jormin by striking down Blade? That would mean a deadly feud with the Consecrated; was Mirdon desperate enough for that?
More clicking, then a sharp, familiar clink as the bolt sprang clear. More metallic sounds-a key being withdrawn. Then Blade saw movement in the darkness as the chamber door opened.
The door opened slowly and silently. Whoever was pushing it hoped to sneak up on a sleeping Blade. At any time in any Dimension, that was something more easily hoped for than done. Blade continued to lie still, making his breathing regular and lowering his eyelids until he could just barely see.
Suddenly the door swung wide, with a faint creak of hinges. Blade saw clearly out into the chamber beyond. Pale moonlight and a dying torch showed that it was empty. The light also silhouetted a small figure standing motionless in the doorway. Blade caught a suggestion of long hair flowing down over square shoulders.
The figure moved forward, shutting the door behind it, then stood still once more. Blade's ears picked up the faint rustle of fabric sliding over skin, the even fainter whisper of clothes landing on the floor. A moment of silence, then bare feet started across the floor toward him.
Blade was no longer tense. He saw that it was Arllona walking across the chamber toward him. Arllona, completely nude. Blade continued to lie still and watch admiringly as Arllona materialized out of the darkness.
Her body was full and abundant. But there was no excess to any of it, no flabbiness, no softness. Her magnificent breasts quivered gently, delicately, with each step. Her nipples were large, dark, perfectly centered. Her waist was surprisingly slim, so trim and neat that her breasts looked almost out of proportion. Her hips flared out widely, so that her gracefully curved legs looked almost too short. Her thighs cradled a perfect triangle of dark hair that seemed almost too bushy. Everything about this woman was «almost» out of proportion. Nothing really was, when you looked more closely. Somehow it all arranged itself in harmony, and the result was a robust, earthy beauty. Blade found his breath quickening in anticipation. As Arllona moved still closer, he saw that anticipation-or something-must be working in her too. Her lips were slightly parted, and her nipples had risen to firm points.
Arllona stopped a yard from Blade's sleeping pad and looked down at him. He could hear her breath coming faster, hear her swallow. She squatted down and reached out one hand. A long, sure finger traced a line from Blade's shoulder, down across his massive chest and flat, muscular belly, and stopped at the edge of the quilt. Gently, with thumb and forefinger, she drew the quilt back from Blade. Her other hand descended lightly, almost floating down, into Blade's groin.
That was the moment Blade chose to sit up.
Arllona went completely rigid with surprise and terror. Her eyes and mouth widened. She looked as if she were going to either faint or jump up and dash for the door.
Then she did try to jump up and out of reach. She also tried to scream. Blade's hands were too quick for her. One closed over her mouth, the other dropped on one bare shoulder, pushing her back down into a sitting position. He kept both hands in place until he felt Arllona's taut lips and tense muscles relaxing under them.
As Blade took his hands away, Arllona made a gurgling noise deep in her throat and sagged forward against him. He felt the solid ripe masses of her breasts against his skin. Her nipples were still solidly, boldly erect. If Arllona had been frightened, her fright was certainly passing away, and desire was still working strongly in her.
Blade raised both hands now, running them over Arllona's shoulders and down her back. With firm but gentle fingers he traced the line of her spine down to the cleft in her buttocks. He felt her arms going around him a
nd her fingers doing the same gentle tracing on his skin. Desire began to bubble up rapidly in him too.
Suddenly the chamber seemed very warm. Blade kicked the quilt clear off the sleeping pad onto the floor. Arllona arched backward, stretching herself out on her back on the pad. As she drew back from Blade her fingers worked down between his legs. They did not linger there. Blade was fully aroused and fully ready without any more help from Arllona.
Arllona was ready too, Blade realized. Where she had found the desire that was making her whole body quiver, he didn't know or care. For now all he needed to do was meet and match her desire with his own.
Blade raised himself on his massive arms and hovered over Arllona. At first he teased her, holding himself high above her, only brushing the triangle of damp dark hair with his jutting erection. It took only a little of this before Arllona was murmuring incoherently deep in her throat, pleading to Blade to let her welcome him as he wanted to. A moment later Blade did what they now both so desperately wanted.
Inside Arllona was already hot, already wet. Together, she and Blade experienced the kind of snug, perfect fit the gods of love send to only one couple in a thousand. Nothing could have improved what Blade felt as he entered the woman under him. There is no improvement on perfection.
The feeling was mutual. Once again Arllona seemed ready to scream. This time she clamped her own teeth firmly on her lower lip to stifle the sound, biting down until drops of blood showed. She took Blade into her in a silence broken only by a deep groan.
The silence didn't last. Two passions blazing so strongly could never have met in silence. Blade gasped as he felt Arllona thrusting her hips upward. She kept on arching her back and her hips until her buttocks were completely clear of the mat. Her breathing came faster and faster, harder and harder, until it seemed a continuous roar in Blade's ear. Nothing could bother him or distract him now as he plunged into the woman under him. He had reached a point where the prison tower could have burst into flames or the Raufi come swarming over the walls into the city without his noticing. He had reached a point where the center of the world was where he and Arllona were joined together.
