An oil lamp leaked yellow light on the wooden walls of the ship's
forecastle. Geo wrinkled his nose, then shrugged.
"Well," said Urson, "this is a pleasant enough hole." He climbed one of
the tiers of bunked beds and pounded the ticking with the flat of his
hand. "Here, I'll take this one. Little wriggly arms, you look like you
have a strong stomach, so you take the middle. And Geo, sling yourself
down in the bottom there." He clumped to the floor again. "The lower
down you are," he explained, "the better you sleep, because of the
rocking. Well, what do you think of your first forecastle, Geo?"
The poet was silent. As he turned his head, double pins of light struck
yellow dots in his dark eyes, and then went out as he turned from the
lamp.
"I put you in the bottom because a little rough weather can unseat your
belly pretty fast if you're up near the ceiling and not used to it,"
Urson expanded, dropping his hand heavily on Geo's shoulder. "I told you
I'd look out for you, didn't I, friend?"
But Geo turned away and seemed to examine something else.
Urson looked at Snake now, who was watching him from against one wall.
Urson's glance was puzzled. Snake's only silent.
"Hey." Urson spoke to Geo once more. "Let's you and me take a run around
this ship and see what's tied down where. A good sailor does that first
thing--unless he's too drunk. But that lets the captain and the mate
know he's got an alert eye out, and sometimes he can learn something
that will ease some back-bending later on. What do you say?"
"Not now, Urson," interrupted Geo. "You go."
"And would you please tell me why my company suddenly isn't good enough
for you. This sudden silence is a bilgy way to treat somebody who's
sworn himself to see that you make the best first voyage that a man
could have. Why, I think ..."
"When did you kill a man?" Geo suddenly turned.
The giant stood still, his hands twisting into double knots of bone and
muscle. Then they opened. "Maybe it was a year ago," he said softly.
"And maybe it was a year, two months, and five days, on a Thursday
morning at eight o'clock in the brig of a heaving ship. Which would make
it about five days and ten hours."
"How could you kill a man?" Geo asked. "How could you go for a year and
not tell me about it, and then admit it to a stranger just like that?
You were my friend, we've slept under the same blanket, drank from the
same wineskin. But what sort of a person are you?"
"And what sort of a person are you?" said the giant. "A nosy bastard
that I'd break in seven pieces if ..." he heaved in a breadth. "If I
hadn't promised I'd make no trouble. I've never broken a promise to
anyone, alive or dead." The fists formed, relaxed again.
Suddenly he raised one hand, flung it away, and spat on the floor. Then
he turned toward the steps to the door.
Then the noise hit them. They both turned toward Snake. The boy's black
eyes darted under twin spots of light from the lamp, to Urson, to Geo,
then back.
The noise came again, quieter this time, and recognizable as the word
_Help_, only it was no sound, but like the fading hum of a tuning fork
inside their skulls, immediate, yet fuzzy.
_... You ... help ... me ... together_ ... came the words once
more, indistinct and blurring into one another.
"Hey," Urson said, "is that you?"
_... Do ... not ... angry_ ... came the words.
"We're not angry," Geo said. "What are you doing?"
_I ... thinking_ ... were the words that seemed to generate from the
boy now.
"What sort of a way to think is that if everyone can hear it?" demanded
Urson.
Snake tried to explain. _Not ... everyone ... Just ... you ... You ...
think ... I ... hear ..._ came the sound again. _I ... think ... You ...
hear._
"I know we hear," Urson said. "It's just like you were talking."
"That's not what he means," Geo said. "He means he hears what we think
just like we hear him. Is that right, Snake?"
_When ... you ... think ... loud ... I ... hear._
"I may just have been doing some pretty loud thinking," Urson said. "And
if I thought something I wasn't supposed to, well, I apologize."
Snake didn't seem interested in the apology, but asked again, _You ...
help ... me ... together_.
"What sort of help do you want?" Geo asked.
"And what sort of trouble are you in that you need help out of it?"
added Urson.
_You ... don't ... have ... good ... minds_, Snake said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Urson asked. "Our minds are as good as
any in Leptar. You heard the way the priestess talked to my friend the
poet, here."
"I think he means we don't hear very well," said Geo.
Snake nodded.
"Oh," Urson said. "Well, then you'll just have to go slow and be patient
with us."
Snake shook his head. _Get ... hoarse ... when ... shout ... so ...
loud._ Suddenly he went over to the bunks. _You ... hear ... better ...
see ... too if ... sleep._
"Sleep is sort of far from me," Urson said, rubbing his beard with the
back of his wrist.
"Me too," Geo admitted. "Can't you tell us something more?"
_Sleep_, Snake said.
"What about talking like an ordinary human being?" suggested Urson,
still somewhat perplexed.
_Once ... speak_, Snake told them.
"You say you could speak once?" asked Geo. "What happened?"
Here the boy opened his mouth and pointed.
Geo stepped forward, held the boy's chin in his hand and examined the
face and peered into the mouth. "By the Goddess!" he exclaimed.
"What is it?" Urson asked.
Geo came away now, his face lined in a sickly frown. "His tongue has
been hacked out," he told the giant. "And not too neatly, either."
"Who on the seven seas and six continents did a thing like that to you,
boy?" Urson demanded.
Snake shook his head.
"Now come on, Snake," he urged. "You can't keep secrets like that from
friends and expect them to rescue you from I don't know what. Now who
was it hacked your voice away?"
_What ... man ... you ... kill ..._ came the sound.
Urson stopped, and then he laughed. "All right," he said. "I see." His
voice rose once more. "But if you can hear thoughts, you know the man
already. And you know the reason. And this is what we'd find out of you,
and only for help and friendship's sake."
_You ... know ... the ... man_, Snake said.
Geo and Urson exchanged puzzled frowns.
_Sleep_, said Snake. _You ... sleep ... now._
"Maybe we ought to try," said Geo, "and find out what's going on." He
crossed to his bunk and slipped in. Urson followed and hoisted himself
onto the upper berth, dangling his feet against the wooden support.
"It's going to be a long time before sleep gets to me tonight," he said.
"You know the rituals and about magic. Aren't the Strange Ones some sort
of magic?"
"The only mention of them in rituals says that they are ashes of the
Great Fire. The Great Fire was back before the purges, the ones I spoke
to the priestess about, so I don't know anything more about them."
"Sailors have stories of the Great Fire," Urson said. "They say the sea
boiled, great birds spat fire from the sky, and beasts rose up from the
waves and destroyed the harbors. But what were the purges you
mentioned?"
"About five hundred years ago," Geo explained, "all the rituals of the
Goddess Argo were destroyed. A completely new set were initiated into
the temple practices. All references to them were destroyed also, and
with them, much of Leptar's history. Stories have it that the rituals
and incantations were too powerful. But this is just a guess, and most
priests are very uncomfortable about speculating."
"That was after the Great Fire?" Urson asked.
"Nearly a thousand years after," Geo said.
"It must have been a Great Fire indeed if ashes from it are still
falling from the wombs of healthy women." He looked down at Snake. "Is
it true that a drop of your blood in vinegar will cure gout? If one of
you kisses a female baby, will she have only girl children?" He laughed.
"You know those are only tales," Geo said.
"There used to be a one with two heads that sat outside the Blue Tavern
and spun a top all day. It was an idiot, though. But the dwarfs and the
legless ones that wheel about the city and do tricks, they are clever.
But strange, and quiet, usually."
"You oaf," chided Geo, "you could be one too. How many men do you know
who reach your size and strength by normal means?"
"You're a crazy liar," said Urson. Then he scrunched his eyebrows
together in thought, and at last shrugged. "Well anyway, I never heard
of one who could hear what you thought. It would make me uncomfortable
walking down the street." He looked down at Snake between his legs. "Can
you all do that?"
Snake, from the middle bunk, shook his head. Urson stretched out on his
back, but then suddenly looked over the edge of the berth toward Geo.
"Hey, Geo, what about those little baubles she had. Do you know what
they are?"
"No, I don't," Geo said. "But she was concerned over them enough." He
looked up over the bunk bottom between himself and Urson. "Snake, will
you give me another look at that thing?"
Snake held out the thong and the jewel.
"Where did you get it?" Urson asked. "Oh, never mind. I guess we learn
that when we go to sleep."
Geo reached for it, but Snake's one hand closed and three others sprang
around it. "I wasn't going to take it," explained Geo. "I just wanted to
see."
Suddenly the door of the forecastle opened, and the tall mate was
silhouetted against the brighter light behind him. "Poet," he called.
"She wants to see you." Then he was gone.
Geo looked at the other two, shrugged, and then swung off the berth,
made his way up the steps and into the hall.
On deck it was completely dark. As he walked, a door before him opened
and a blade of illumination sliced the deck. He jumped.
"Come in," summoned the Priestess of Argo, and he turned into a
windowless cabin and stopped one step beyond the threshold. The walls
rippled tapestries, lucent green, scarlet. Golden braziers perched on
tapering legged tripods beneath plumes of pale blue smoke that lent thin
incense in the room, pierced faintly but cleanly into his nostrils like
knives. Light lashed the polished wooden newels of a great bed on which
sat swirls of silk, damasked satin, brocade. A huge desk, cornered with
wooden eagles, was spread with papers, meticulous instruments of
cartography, sextants, rules, compasses, and great shabby books were
piled on one corner. Above, from the beamed ceiling, hung by thick
chains, swayed a branching candelabra of oil cups, some in the hands of
demons, the mouths of monkeys, burning in the bellies of nymphs, or
between the horns of satyrs' heads--red, clear green, or yellow-white.
"Come in," repeated the priestess. "Close the door."
Geo obeyed.
She walked behind her desk, sat down, and folded her hands in front of
her veiled face. "What do you know of the real world, outside Leptar?"
"That there is much water, some land, and mostly ignorance."
"What tales have you heard from your bear friend, Urson? He is a
traveled man and should know some of what there is of the earth."
"The stories of sailors," said Geo, "are menageries of beasts that no
one has ever seen, of lands for which no maps exist, and of peoples whom
no man has met."
She smiled. "Since I boarded this ship I have heard many tales from
sailors, and I have learned more from them than from all my priests.
You, on the docks there, this evening, have been the only man to give me
another scrap of the puzzle except a few drunken seamen, misremembering
old fantasies." She paused. "What do you know of the jewels you saw
tonight?"
"Nothing, ma'am."
"A common thief hiding on the docks had one; I, a priestess of Argo,
possess another; and if you had one, you would probably exchange it for
a kiss with some tavern maid. What do you know of the god Hama?"
"I know of no such god."
"You," she said, "who can spout all the rituals and incantations of the
white goddess Argo, you do not even know the name of the dark god Hama.
What do you know of the Island of Aptor?"
"Nothing, ma'am."
"This boat has been to Aptor once and now will return again. Ask your
ignorant friend the Bear to tell you tales of Aptor; and blind, wise
poet, you will laugh, and probably he will, too. But I will tell you:
his tales, his legends, and his fantasies are not a tithe of the truth,
not a tithe. Perhaps you will be no help after all. I am thinking of
dismissing you."
"But, ma'am ..." Geo began.
The priestess looked up, having been about to begin some work.
Geo regained himself. "Ma'am, what can you tell me about these things?
You have scattered only crumbs. I have extensive knowledge of
incantation, poetry, magic, and I know these concern your problem. Give
me what information you have, and I will be able to render mine in full.
I am familiar with many sailors' tales. True, none of Aptor, or Hama,
but I may be able to collate fragments. I have learned the legends and
jargon of thieves through a broad life; this is more than your priests
have, I'll wager. I have had teachers who were afraid to touch books I
have opened. And I fear no secret you might hold."
"No, you are not afraid," admitted the priestess. "You are honorable,
and foolish--and a poet. I hope the first and last will wipe out the
middle one in time. Nevertheless, I will tell you some." She stood up
now, and drew out a map.
"Here is Leptar," she pointed to one island. Then her finger moved over
water to another. "This is Aptor. Now you know as much about it as any
ordinary person in Leptar might. Aptor is a barbaric land, uncivilized.
Yet they occasionally show some insidious organization. Tell me, what
legends of the Great Fire have you heard?"
"I know that beasts are supposed to have come from the sea and destroyed
the world's harbors, and that birds spat fire from the sky."
"The older sailors," said the priestess, "will tell you that these were
beasts and birds of Aptor. Of course, there is fifteen hundred years of
retelling and distortion in a tradition never written down, and perhaps
Aptor has simply become a synonym for everything evil, but these stories
still give you some idea. Chronicles, which only three or four people
have had access to, tell me that once five hundred years ago, the forces
of Aptor actually attempted to invade Leptar. The references to it are
vague. I do not know how far it went nor how successful it was, but its
methods were insidious and very unlike any invasion you may have read of
in history. So unlike, that records of it were destroyed, and no mention
of it is made in the histories given to school children.
"Only recently have I had a chance to learn how strange and inhuman they
were. And I have good reason to believe that the forces of Aptor are
congealing once more, a sluggish but huge amoeba of horror. Once fully
awake, once launched, it will be irrevocable. Tendrils have reached into
us for the past few years, probed, and then withdrawn before they were
recognized. Sometimes they dealt catastrophic blows to the center of
Leptar's government and religion. All this has been assiduously kept
from the people. I have been sent to clear perhaps just one more veil
from our ignorance. And if you can help me in that, you are welcome."
"What of the jewels, and of Hama?" inquired Geo. "Is he a god of Aptor
under whom these forces are being marshaled? And are these jewels sacred
to him in some way?"
"Both are true, and both are not true enough," replied the priestess.
"And one more thing. You say the last attempted invasion by Aptor into
Leptar was five hundred years ago? It was five hundred years ago that
the religion of Argo in Leptar purged all her rituals and instituted new
ones. Was there some connection between the invasion and the purge?"
"I am sure of it," declared the priestess. "But I do not know what it
is. However, let me now tell you the story of the jewels. The one I wear
at my neck was captured, somehow, from Aptor during that first invasion.
That we captured it may well be the reason that we are still a free
nation today. Since then it has been guarded carefully in the temple of
the Goddess Argo, its secrets well protected, along with those few
chronicles which mention the invasion, which ended, incidentally, only a
month before the purges. Then, about a year ago, a small hoard of horror
reached our shore from Aptor. I cannot describe it. I did not see any of
what transpired. But they made their way inland, and managed to kidnap
Argo herself."
"You mean Argo incarnate? The highest priestess?"
"Yes. Each generation, as you know, the youngest daughter of the past
generation's highest priestess is chosen as the living incarnation of
the white Goddess Argo. She is reared and taught by the wisest priests
and priestesses. Her youngest daughter, when she dies, becomes Argo. At
any rate, she was kidnaped. One of the assailants was hacked down;
instantly it decayed, rotted on the floor of the convent corridor. But
from the putrescent mass of flesh, we salvaged a second jewel from
Aptor. And before it died, it was heard to utter the lines I quoted to
you before. So, I have been sent then, to find what I can of the enemy,
and to rescue or to find the fate of my sister."
"I will do whatever I can," said Geo, "to help save Leptar and to
discover the whereabouts of your sister priestess."
"More than my sister priestess," said the woman softly, "my sister in
blood. I am the other daughter of the last Argo: that is why this task
fell to me. And until she is found dead, or returned alive ..." here she
rose from her bench, "... I am the White Goddess Argo Incarnate."
Geo dropped his eyes as Argo lifted her veil. Once more that evening she
held forth the jewel. "There are three of these," she said. "Hama's sign
is a black disk with three white eyes. Each eye represents a jewel. With
the first invasion, they probably carried all three jewels, for they are
the center of their power. Without them, they would have been turned
back immediately. With them, they thought themselves invincible. But we
captured one, and very soon unlocked its secrets. I have no guards with
me. With this jewel I need none. I am as safe as I would be with an
army, and capable of nearly as much destruction. When they came to
kidnap my sister a year ago, I am convinced they carried both of their
remaining jewels, thinking that we had either lost, or did not know the
power of the first. Anyway, they reasoned, they had two to our one. But
now, we have two, and they are left with only one. Through some complete
carelessness, your little thief stole one from me as I was about to
board when we first departed two months ago. Today he probably
recognized me and intended to exact some fee for its return. But now, he
will be put to a true thief's task. He must steal for me the third and
final jewel from Hama for me. Then we shall have Aptor, and be rid of
their evil."
"And where is this third jewel?" asked Geo.
"Perhaps," said the woman, "perhaps it is lodged in the forehead of the
statue of the dark god Hama that sits in the guarded palace somewhere in
the center of the jungles of Aptor. Do you think your thief will find
himself challenged enough?"
"I think so," answered Geo.
"Somewhere in that same palace is my sister, or her remains. You are to
find them, and if she is alive, bring her back with you."
"And what of the jewels?" asked Geo. "When will you show us their power
so that we may use them to penetrate the palace of Hama?"
"I will show you their power," said Argo, smiling. With one hand she
held up the map over which she had spoken. With the other she tapped the
white jewel with her pale fingernail. The map suddenly blackened at one
edge, and then flared. Argo walked to a brazier and deposited the
flaming paper. Then she turned again to Geo. "I can fog the brain of a
single person, as I did with Snake; or I can bewilder a hundred men. As
easily as I can fire a dried, worn map, I can raze a city."
"With those to help," smiled Geo, "I think we have a fair chance to
reach this Hama, and return."
But the smile with which she answered his was strange, and then suddenly
it was completely gone. "Do you think," she said, "that I would put such
temptation in your hands? You might be captured, and if so, then the
jewels would be in the hands of Aptor once more."
"But with them we would be so powerful...."
"They have been captured once; we cannot take the chance that they be
captured again. If you reach the palace, if you can steal the third
jewel, if my sister is alive, and if you can rescue her, then she will
know how to employ its power to manipulate your escape. However, if you
and your friends do not accomplish _all_ these things, the trip will be
useless; and so perhaps death would be better than a return to watch the
wrath of Argo in her dying struggle, for you would feel it more horribly
than even the most malicious torture of Aptor's evil."
Geo did not speak.
"Why do you look so strangely?" asked Argo. "You have your poetry, your
spells, your scholarship. Don't you believe in their power? Go back to
your berth, and send the thief to me." The last words were a sharp
order, and Geo turned from the room into the night's darkness.