Lawrence Watt-Evans: The Seven Altars of Dusarra

Frima watched in astonishment; quite aside from the confusing events unfolding before her, she found herself wondering how a beast as large as Koros had managed to leap through the relatively narrow opening between the stall door and the overhanging roof. More of its height must be in its legs than she had realized.

Koros roared again and took a single step forward, toward the crowd of men; Frima saw that several had drawn swords, yet none dared approach any closer to the warbeast. In fact, they were gradually falling back.

Another roar and another step, and Koros sank into a crouch, like a cat preparing to pounce. The crowd's backward movement accelerated, and in a brief moment all were once again on the other side of the arch. Koros rose again, stretched itself, yawned, and stood calmly awaiting whatever might happen next.

The man in red stood out from the crowd once again and spoke; this time Frima could distinguish his words, as Koros had frightened the crowd into relative stillness.

"Fellow Dыsarrans, we are not cowed by this unholy monster, but merely cautious! It is not with this beast that we quarrel, but with its blasphemous master! Let us then wait here for his return, when we shall strike him down in our righteous anger, slaughter his monstrous pet; and return the sacrifice he has stolen to her rightful place! We will cleanse our city of this filth!"

This speech was greeted with rousing applause. Frima, hearing the line about restoring the sacrifice, found herself very glad that she had not called out for aid. She suddenly saw Koros not as her jailer but as her protector, and found herself waiting eagerly for Garth's return-while simultaneously dreading it, lest he be butchered or prove in the end as bad as the cult of Sai-and still suspecting that he might not return at all.

Garth had no idea how long he was unconscious. When he awoke he lay sprawled on the stone floor, the sword of Bheleu at his side. The red glow shone unobstructed from the tunnel, lighting the gem in the sword's pommel with a murky crimson fire. Pools of gelid slime were scattered about, and his mail was thick with the stuff. He lay still for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

He reached out and grasped the sword; as his fingers closed around the hilt, he realized that they no longer hurt. He sat up, released the sword, and looked at his palms.

There was a slight puckering of the flesh, as of wounds almost fully healed, but no other trace of burns or blisters. Horrified, he wondered how long he had lain senseless.

He tested his sensitivity, pressing his fingers to various surfaces, and knew a moment of panic when his first trial, feeling the texture of his chain armor, seemed dull and blunted; it was with great relief he realized it was the coating of slime that deadened his sense of touch. Running his fingers across the carved walls he could detect no lessening of his tactile sense. He was fit, then.

But how long had he been here? What had become of Koros, who had been due for a feeding? Or Frima, who had been left with the hungry warbeast? Of the booty taken from the first five temples? Had anything come of the threats of the Aghadite priest?

He clambered to his feet.

As if on cue, as he turned his gaze toward the metal door that sealed the entrance, the barrier slid silently into the wall, and a stooped figure entered, garbed in a robe of such a dull black that it reflected none of the red light whatsoever. The man's face was hidden by his hood, as was customary for Dыsarran priests, so that in his almost invisible garments he appeared to be an animated shadow, deeper and darker than the others that lay about the cave.

No light entered with this apparition, and at first Garth assumed this to mean that it was night outside; he did not immediately recall that the passage was long and winding enough to admit virtually none of the sun's light whatever the time of day.

The robed figure was small and frail in appearance, despite the complete lack of visible detail. Garth thought at first that it might be a girl or young boy, despite the slowness and caution of age in its movements; but when the priest spoke, although his voice was high and broken, there was no doubt that he was an old man, despite his childish stature.

"I hear you breathing," he said.

Garth made no reply.

"Can you not speak? I know you are there, and alive."

"Yes, I am here. What would you have me say?" Garth picked up the sword as he spoke; the little old man appeared harmless, but he did not care to take any unnecessary chances.

"Whatever you care to say."

"There is nothing I care to say to you."

"Would you answer a few questions, from courtesy?"

"Perhaps. Ask what you will." Garth noticed that the priest had turned his head toward him only when he had spoken; that, and the man's words, made it seem fairly definite that, like the priests of Andhur Regvos, this feeble old man was blind. It seemed curious that such a decrepit and harmless person should be the sole servant of the most feared of deities-assuming that there was, as he had been told, only one priest of the Final God. Feeling that the priest need not occupy his full attention, he looked over the chamber, noting the already-rotting chunks and slices he had cut from the monster, the still-wet slime star, the great pool of ichor where he had finally reached the thing's viscera, and the skull-topped altar that stood undamaged and unplundered.

"Have you seen what takes most who enter here, leaving no trace?"

"Yes."

"It did not take you."

"It tried hard enough."

"What happened?"

"It name up from the tunnel; I dodged. We fought, and I managed to injure it. I was struck unconscious, but its wound was severe enough that it preferred retreat to finishing me." That, he thought, was a succinct and accurate summary of his desperate battle; he guessed that such a simple account would serve him better than any elaborate boasting, at least until her fully understood the priest's attitude toward the monster. It might well be considered blasphemous to have defended himself at all.

"What is it?"

"You don't know?" Garth's astonishment got the better of him and was plainly revealed in his tone.

"No. I am but the caretaker of the temple; I know nothing of the god's mysteries. The true servant of the Final God has not yet returned. What was it you fought?"

Garth was suddenly reluctant to speak, though he knew no logical reason not to tell the man the nature of the temple's inhabitant. "Tell me first more of your cult. Are you not the high priest of The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken?"

"No. I am a lesser priest. The books of prophecy say that the one true high priest of death has not been in Dыsarra in four ages or more, and will not return until the dawn of the Fifteenth Age."

An uneasiness filtered into Garth's mind at this new mention of the human system of numbering the ages. "This is the dawn of the Fourteenth Age, I was told."

"Yes. When this new age grows old, the high priest will return."

"If he has been gone for four ages…the Thirteenth Age lasted three hundred years. Your high priest must have died centuries ago. Is it his heir you await?"

"Oh, no! It is the one true high priest of the god of death. It is in the nature of his service that he himself cannot die."

There was a pause as Garth, digested this information, He recalled mention made of immortality in the King's Inn of Skelleth. An unpleasant theory crept into his thoughts.

The Forgotten King had assured him that he sought to fulfill the purpose that the gods had given him, but which gods were they he spoke off?

He looked again. at the unnatural skull that grinned atop the altar. "What else do you know of your high priest?"