Part 12 (1/2)
I heard the monkeys scream at almost the same moment I opened my eyes and saw shadows fall across the stone floor, each crack now distinct in the muted light of early morning. When the intruders stepped into the room, I was initially relieved to see that they were not the false princes nor anyone else I knew, but several men of Sindupore, dressed similarly to the villagers near Selima's shrine in dingy white loin cloths. On closer scrutiny, they were no less strange and far more alarming, for their brows beetled fiercely and they muttered to each other, sharp phrases and words exploding through the general hubbub now and then. Though I gathered that they were pilgrims to the skull-girded idol, their expressions bore no gentle reverence or even a reasonable degree of the practical self-absorption of the supplicant to such Yahtzeni deities as Fanya the Fertile Fodder Finder.
”Desecrated,” one of them spat, and though I had the sense that his words were not spoken in any of the tongues I knew, I understood them as clearly as I did the Simurg, monkey or snake languages, no doubt through the benefit of Selima's headcloth. Perhaps because the newcomers were fellow human beings, no preliminary sniffing of the cloth on their part was required for me to understand what was in their hearts-if they possessed any.
”Indeed, indeed,” said the largest among them, a hulking man whose torso and face hung with flab but whose arms and legs were corded. He smiled unamiably through a mouth devoid of teeth, and whistled most of his words. ”But who would dare to desecrate the shrine of The Terrible One?”
”A fool!” another blurted, scowling at the rubble and emptiness as if it was a personal insult. ”Only a fool would desecrate the shrine of the G.o.ddess of death and torture! Only a new sacrifice will redeem us.”
With those words my suspicions were confirmed that despite the nubile maidens covering the temple walls, the resident G.o.ddess had nothing to do with fertility. I briefly considered a fresh application of the vanis.h.i.+ng cream and a fast retreat, but hesitated.
”Are you volunteering, Gobind?” the husky man asked, smiling even more unpleasantly.
”To perform the sacrifice? a.s.suredly,” the angry man replied. ”Come, let us see if the G.o.ddess's image has been outraged.”
The men crowded the door to the idol's chamber, taking turns entering and kneeling to the hideous figure. Those awaiting their turns s.h.i.+fted angrily and continued muttering. After a considerable time with one group wailing, cajoling, and apologizing at the idol, the groups traded places.
Those renewed by commune with their G.o.ddess milled restlessly outside the door, and I rose cautiously to the b.a.l.l.s of my feet, poised to flee into the jungle the moment every back was turned and all eyes were intent upon the new group of wors.h.i.+ppers. Such a moment did not come.
A monkey's scream cut through the human voices, joined at once by the cries of other monkeys. Two of the waiting pilgrims detached themselves from the group and wandered over to the doorway, gazing first toward the river and then to the right before disappearing, the noise of their bare feet slapping mud and splas.h.i.+ng through puddles following soon afterward. Just as the slappings and splas.h.i.+ngs grew faintest, they began to grow louder again and both men padded back inside, gesticulating frantically to their fellows and whispering excitedly. The expressions of the others changed from hostile boredom to active hostility, and the lot of them, including those closeted with the idol, followed the first two outside and down the path. By the time they were well away enough that I felt it safe to pop out into the jungle and follow at a discreet distance, it was too late.
They had been gone for but a heartbeat or two when from the distance came the surging voices of the angry wors.h.i.+ppers, a m.u.f.fled curse, general scuffling noises, and a heartrendingly familiar bray.
That bray caused me to leap to my feet, my hand flying to my dagger, but I caught myself and jumped back behind the rubble just as the wors.h.i.+ppers led the donkey and its limply flopping rider through the door. Against all probability, the donkey was indeed Aman Akbar. And his rider, when pulled down and thrown onto his back, where his bleeding head lolled upon the stones, was none other than Marid Khan.
”What shall we do with him?”
”What do you suppose? The G.o.ddess is great. She not only demands a sacrifice, but practically delivers one to us personally”
”Such a sacrifice must be performed in a special way,” the husky man, who seemed to be something of a leader, said consideringly. ”A very special way indeed.”
The face of the one called Gobind softened into a smile of childish delight. It did not make him especially appealing. ”Ahh, I think I know,” he said, rubbing his hands together briskly. ”You will recall the tale of the proud beauty who tried to escape her marriage to the Rajah of Kinjab on muleback?”
”No,” the big man said flatly, plainly prepared to reject any idea not of his own devising.
”You'll like it,” Gobind a.s.sured him. ”What we do, you see, is kill the a.s.s, slit it open, stuff the desecrator inside and force his head out the a.s.s's bung hole. Then we let the flies and mosquitoes at his face, from which we will not have bothered to wipe the dung and a.s.s's blood.”
”I think I may be sick,” said one sensitive soul. ”It's wonderful! The G.o.ddess will be very pleased. We'll kill the a.s.s upon her altar, won't we?”
”Yes, that will teach these foreigners to mess with our our G.o.ddess.” G.o.ddess.”
Aman brayed breathlessly, his eyes rolling and his knees trembling, his hind legs dug into stone as the wors.h.i.+ppers tried to drag him to the altar.
I could not let them do it, whatever the cost. They should know the truth. ”Wait!” I cried. ”These two are not the ones who defiled your temple. Rather it was three Divs seeking to-” I got no further, of course, before I too was seized and disarmed. I expected no better, really. I was hardly such an innocent that I truly thought an appeal to justice would interest these particular pilgrims. A Yahtzeni is taught from birth that there are two kinds of people. There are our people and then there are those those people. One cannot even trust all of our people, much less any of the others. Still, I had married one of those untrustworthy outsiders, and now traveled among many others. Having gone so far, there seemed no choice but to go a step further and attempt to win over these new ones if it was possible thereby that I might preserve my lord from harm. people. One cannot even trust all of our people, much less any of the others. Still, I had married one of those untrustworthy outsiders, and now traveled among many others. Having gone so far, there seemed no choice but to go a step further and attempt to win over these new ones if it was possible thereby that I might preserve my lord from harm.
I did not change the minds of his would-be slayers, but I did delay them.
”Excellent idea, Gobind,” the large fellow said, scanning me contemptuously. ”But now what?”
Gobind's enthusiasm was not so easily quenched. ”Why, we kill the woman too-the G.o.ddess is hungry for blood.”
”I'm not a virgin,” I said hopefully. ”I'm a married woman.”
”The Terrible One is not particular about that, being a female G.o.d,” Gobind rea.s.sured me. ”Your pain will be a sufficiently pleasing contribution.”
Oh.
”That is all very well, Gobind,” a man with a rather squeaky voice and a nervous manner said. ”But we have only one donkey. Do we put him inside as we originally planned or shall we subst.i.tute her? I say watching the insects destroy a woman's face will be more entertaining than turning them loose on him.”
”This is for the G.o.ddess's appeas.e.m.e.nt, not our entertainment,” his friend reminded him sternly.
”If we are more entertained by one mode of sacrifice than the other, it stands to reason that the G.o.ddess will be similarly entertained,” the squeaky one argued.
”What we really need is another donkey,” someone else said reasonably.
”Ahh,” the large one said, with leering wigglings of his black and wormlike eyebrows. ”But if it is entertainment that is needed, there are far more entertaining ways of killing women than stuffing the best parts inside of beasts.”
Having blundered on the side of honor enough for one day, I declined to make matters easier for them by explaining that Aman Akbar was my husband, in case they were sentimental sorts who would decide that we ought to be reunited.
They shoved me into the altar room, loading Marid Khan upon the back of Aman Akbar and pus.h.i.+ng and pulling the pair in behind me.
”The G.o.ddess shall decide,” Gobind declared, and, clas.h.i.+ng the knife he had captured from me against his own, laid both before the idol.
”You know how she hates to be disturbed,” the squeaky fellow said fearfully.
”For trivial matters only. This is her sacrifice. She shall determine the mode of death.”
”Yes, only by the right and proper sacrifice can this desecration be avenged. These conquerors must learn they simply can't go about treating other people's G.o.ddesses in such a fas.h.i.+on.”
I was out of sympathy with them completely. In fact, I didn't think they were religious fanatics at all-not sincere ones, anyway. They just liked to hurt people, but being mere villagers instead of soldiers or bandits were too respectable or cowardly to indulge their vice without some sort of religious sanction. This G.o.ddess probably was invented just to give them the license to do what we Yahtzeni have always had the courage to take upon our own heads, instead of blaming our actions upon the G.o.ds, who, as everybody who is at all honest with themselves will admit, have better things to do.
Thus I maintained a brave sneer upon my face as Gobind lit the brazier and dropped powders upon the fire and implored the idol to speak.
Thus my teeth all but fell from my gums when the G.o.ddess said, her voice echoing in properly doom-laden tones, ”Grovel when you speak to your mistress, oh vile vomit of a deformed offspring of a monkey's slave and her master.”
The wors.h.i.+ppers at once and in unison groveled. If they had not been true believers before, they were instant converts. They slammed me down with them-an unnecessary gesture, for I was almost too frightened to stand. But something in that voice, for all of its stony, otherworldly overtones, was familiar.
”Is that any way to be, Terrible One, when we've brought you such nice sacrifices?” Gobind whined. ”We realize you are naturally upset about the desecration of your temple but-”
”Silence! What sacrifices?”
”Why, this woman-you can see what a rare offering she is with light hair, for all that she seems uncommonly stupid. And this excellent donkey and his rider.”
”How can I see them with you standing right in front of me? Have the woman stand.”
My captor released my shoulders and I stood. I hoped the G.o.ddess was unacquainted with vanis.h.i.+ng cream and its properties, for while lying on the ground, I had worked the little pot loose from my sash and had it ready.
”Turn around,” the G.o.ddess commanded. I did so, thinking that this was a very fussy G.o.ddess. I was also stabbing my finger in the open ointment pot. Bringing forth a small gob, I reached out to Aman Akbar and, before those lying beside him noticed, swabbed around each of his eyes and down his muzzle. Abruptly, Marid Khan hung suspended, collapsed across thin air. None of the wors.h.i.+ppers stopped trembling or looked up long enough to realize that they now had only two sacrifices instead of three.
”Won't do,” the G.o.ddess said as I turned back toward her. ”Temple desecration is most serious business. If you think I'll be pacified by a big dumb blond and a dead man, you're wrong. Nothing less than the personal sacrifice of each of your lives will please me.”
”But great G.o.ddess, who will serve you if we all die-who will-”