Flight to Opar Read online

  He murmured a prayer to Khukhaqo, Our Lady of the Leopard. But he could not help thinking that she could consider her first duty was to the leopard.

  That thought hastened his pace. And then, after an hour or so—he wasn't sure of the time at all—he saw a light.

  It was straight ahead and small, but within fifteen minutes it had gotten much larger. He was at the edge of the forest; the lake was before him, separated by a narrow dirt road and twenty feet of cut grass. The fire turned out to be three huge bonfires, all close together. They blazed in front of the white temple he had seen from the ledge. Shouts and screams traveled three-quarters of a mile over the stretch between the shore and the island, the voices of women mingled with the shrilling of trumpets, the beating of drums and the twanging of a harp. Now and then a bullroarer throomed.

  The hair on the back of his neck seemed to rise; a chill raced over his neck and down his back.

  The priestesses were holding one of their orgiastic rites. And he, as a man, was not even supposed to be looking at the fires and the tiny figures which danced before the flames. Any male passerby was obligated to avert his eyes and pass by swiftly. This road was probably forbidden to men at this time. The locals would be staying in their homes tonight and they would not venture out until dawn.

  He looked down the road from behind a tree. About a hundred feet down, near the edge of the lake, a statue loomed. He could not make out its details; the light of the full moon and the glimmer from the fires did not furnish enough illumination.

  Unable to repress his curiosity—pleading to himself that he had to investigate because of the urgency of his mission—he went along the edge of the forest toward it. Closer, he could see that it was about thirty feet high and was carved from wood. It represented a being which was half-woman, half-tree. Carved leaved branches crowned her head; her widespread arms were branches ending in gnarled fingers. Her breasts were huge; one suckled a squirrel. From holes here and there the heads of birds and animals protruded, civet cats, servals, deer, pigs, ravens, bustards, oak-monkeys and lemurs. The largest carving was that of a baby, extending halfway from the enormous vagina.

  Hadon walked to the idol and made a closer inspection. The baby held an acorn in one hand, symbolizing, he supposed, the gifts of the goddess to the inhabitants of the oak forest.

  The idol was of Karneth, deity of the oak. He did not know much about her, since there were no oaks around Opar.

  Though Opar was in the mountains, it was too far south and hence too hot for this tree to flourish.

  So the temple was dedicated to Karneth, and the priestesses Were conducting their secret ceremonies under the full moon.

  Awineth and Abeth could be on that islet now. The male members of the group would be forbidden to touch the sacred soil of the isle. Where were they?

  He looked up and down the shore. Nearby was a long wooden dock, but there were no boats tied to it. They had been taken to the islet to prevent any foolish—no, mad—males from using them to spy on the rites.

  Hadon felt a chill again when he remembered tales of what happened to nosy men who had been caught where they had no business. They had lost more than their noses.

  He sat down and considered the situation. If Awineth was on the island, she would have to attend the rites as the chief priestess. But Abeth, now that he thought about it, would not be there. Only adult women participated. She would be with the men. Since he could see no houses along the shore, it was reasonable to assume that the men had been sent, with the child, to the fishing village on the other lake.

  That would be so if the group had actually arrived here. For all he knew, it had not.

  He sighed and rose. There was only one way to find out. He must go the long way to the village. This road undoubtedly led to it, but it would take at least five hours to get there. And dawn would be here in two.

  He was not about to swim to the island and ask Awineth. No excuse would be accepted for violating the sanctity of the temple.

  At that moment he heard a noise to his right. He stepped out into the road and looked to the east. He groaned. A shadowy mass was moving along the road toward him. Faint voices reached him. As the dark bulk came closer, it separated into men. And dogs!

  The dogs were silent, though, which meant they must be muzzled.

  The soldiers had moved even faster than he had expected.

  Now the moonlight flashed dully on spearheads.

  Hadon froze into a half-crouch. The dogs would soon smell him. Their frantic whinings and growling would notify the men that someone was in the neighborhood. The muzzles would be taken off, the leashes unsnapped… and the dogs would be after him.

  He was too tired to outrun them. Even if he was fresh, he did not have a good enough head start.

  He groaned again. There was only one escape route—the lake.

  There was no time to lose. Still crouching, he entered the water behind the dock. It was cold, though not nearly as cold as the mountain stream. It lay at the bottom of the valley and had been soaking in the heat of the summer sun. But not nearly enough, not nearly enough.

  For a moment he contemplated caching the sword under the dock. It was heavy, and he needed all the buoyancy he could get. It would be foolish to insist on taking it and then be dragged under, drowned, just because he could not bear to part with it.

  Very well, so it was foolish. He did not want to be without it when he got to the other shore. Who knew how soon he would desperately need it?

  He began dog-paddling. He had to get far enough out so the soldiers would not see him. Using a fast stroke would disturb the water and possibly catch their eyes.

  He went steadily, swimming at a northwest angle because the current would otherwise move him eastward toward its outlet. But his fatigue, plus the weight of the sword, slowed him down too much. He was being carried past the island.

  Perhaps he was far enough away from the shore to swim now. He began using his arms to pull and his legs to propel. The moon shone whitely on the disturbed water, but perhaps the soldiers would think it was caused by fish leaping from the surface.

  No. A shout carried over the water. He turned and treaded water to look at the shore. The men were on the edge and on the dock now, looking out at him, some pointing. They had spotted him. In this light and at this distance, however, they could not identify him. And even if they did, then what? He had a lead on them, and they would be just as tired. They had no boats, so they would have to shed their armor and all arms, except for daggers. That would take a few minutes, which would enable him to get even more distance between himself and them. They would never catch up.

  Of course, they could send men around the lake to intercept him on the other side. He would still get there before they did.

  Then despair seized him. He was not going to get to the other side. He was just too tired. His legs and arms felt like they were made of solid bronze, and he was breathing heavily. The sword was an arm reaching up from the bottom, trying to drag him down.

  Though continuing to crab, heading to the northeast, he was actually going in a straight path to the island. After a few minutes he realized that this too had changed, that his course would take him past the island. That did have one advantage: if he could make it to the leeward side, he would find the current diminished.

  He resumed dog-paddling, the water just below his nose, sometimes above. As a result, he was swept ever more swiftly past the island, but he had no alternative. To continue his stroking was to exhaust himself utterly.

  Soon he was about twenty yards past the islet. Summoning the last of his strength, he made progress northward and then was on the east side. The current was noticeably weaker here; it became even weaker as he neared the land. Then, during one of his exploratory ventures, his foot touched bottom. He managed to keep on going for a few more feet and he could stand up, the surface just below his chin. He stood there for several minutes until his gaspings eased off into heavy breathings. Then he pushed forwa
rd until the water was to his knees.

  He sat down, feeling the cold ooze close around his buttocks. He would rest here, then continue to the other side. Why swim? he thought. He would steal—borrow, rather—one of the boats docked on the west shore. He would not even have to commit blasphemy, since he was not setting foot on the island. He would stay offshore.

  When he felt that he had strength enough, he rose and trudged through the water a few feet from the grassy edge. The music and the shouts, screams and chants were loud. He kept his head turned away. As long as he did not see the ritualists he was not spying on them, so Karneth and her worshipers would have no reason to be angry at him.

  He was about a hundred yards from the dock when he looked across the lake. He froze. There were boats on it. Six. Long craft with at least ten men in each.

  6.

  Now he could see that a line tracing back down their path led to a shadowy clump under some trees on the southeast corner of the lake. There had to be buildings and a dock there, probably used by fishermen who supplied the temple with their catches. The soldiers had found them after sighting him. Or perhaps they had noticed them on the way in. It made no difference. They were coming after him.

  Or did they only suspect that he was a refugee, their main purpose the seizure of Awineth? Would they be invading the island even if he hadn't been seen?

  They must be driven by powerful motives. No man would venture or this taboo soil unless he was in great fear or in great desire of reward. In this case, the soldiers would be compelled by both. Minruth would brook no obstacles, accept no excuse. He would execute anybody who pleaded religious sanctity—after some suitable torture, of course. And he would have offered an enormous sum for the capture of his daughter. Given this double incentive, the soldiers were ignoring their fears.

  He still found it hard to believe that anyone would deliberately violate a sacred isle and temple.

  Yet here they came.

  What was worse, personally speaking, was that he would be seen when he found a boat and rowed away. And those longboats, paddled by ten men each, could catch up with him before he got halfway across the rest of the lake.

  Gritting his teeth in frustration, he went under the shadow of a tree growing out over the water. He sat down, careful not to touch shore.

  All was not lost—not yet.

  The boats headed for the dock, passing within thirty feet of him. Each held eleven men, ten paddlers and an officer at the steering-sweep. The moon shone on strained faces. Though fatigue could account for part of their expressions, fear, Hadon was sure, made the other part. King Minruth proclaimed Resu the chief deity now and Kho his subordinate. But Minruth's men had been conditioned from infancy to worship Her as the Creator and the Replenisher of all things. That this island was not sacred to Her made no difference. Karneth was Her daughter. Besides, they were preparing to attack in the name of Resu and so were attacking Her.

  Hadon wondered if these men had been ordered to man the boats or if they were volunteers. It was one thing to chase the high priestess and another actually to lay hands on her. The commander, if he was wise, had probably asked for volunteers. There were always some men who put greed above religion, and there were also men who had secret doubts about the reality of the deities.

  Hadon watched them put up their paddles and allow the boats to ground gently on the beach. Then they climbed out and drew the craft up.

  The commander, a tall man whose helmet bore three parrot feathers, walked to a tree which grew at the top of a stone staircase. He crouched by it, looking out from behind it at the spectacle.

  Hadon looked also—he could not restrain his curiosity—and his eyes bugged. In front of the three fires was a weaving, dancing, leaping crowd of naked women. They ranged in age from twelve to a withered, shuffling crone who had to be at least eighty. Their faces were contorted, expressing savagery and ecstasy; black spittle ran down from their chins to their breasts. Their hair was unbound, flying every which way. Sweat polished their bodies, and they made frantic clawing gestures. They whirled and pranced and swung back and forth and forward and backward.

  The musicians were naked also, the same dark saliva covering their mouths and breasts. One played a tortoiseshell harp of seven strings of goat-gut; three blew on brass trumpets; six beat on drums; nine twirled bullroarers over their heads.

  The wind carried an acrid odor, which he supposed came from the stuff they were chewing. Some said this was laurel leaf, though others claimed it was ivy. Still others guessed it was something else. No man knew; they just speculated about this in guarded talk when women were not present.

  Whatever it was, it was supposed to drive them into an insane frenzy, to enable them to see Karneth herself. It was also said that it gave them the power to detect male spies.

  Thirty feet from the largest fire, the central one, was a cage of wooden slats. Inside it crouched a frightened male leopard. This, Hadon assumed, was to be the sacrificial beast. In the old days, over five hundred years ago, a man would have been in the cage, imprisoned until time for him to be torn apart by the nails and teeth of the worshipers. It was said that human males were still victims of such rites in outlying areas. Though the practice had been outlawed, not many had been executed as punishment for its infraction. Male police were forbidden to enter the site of the alleged crime, and investigating priestesses were likely to be lenient.

  Except for the night's activities, no male animals were kept on such islands. But tonight, a male beast had been brought in, and would be ripped apart. The leopard would surely kill and injure some women, but they would be fearless, not caring about what happened to them in their frenzy.

  The ceremony was going to be interrupted, which was, in a way, regrettable. As long as he was guilty of watching anyway, Hadon would have liked to have seen just how the leopard handled himself. How many would the cat take with him?

  Hadon had expected the troops to spread out then, at a signal from their commander, to charge in on the women. But the officer apparently had different thoughts. He was still watching, waiting for something.

  Suddenly Hadon knew what it was. Of course! Awineth was not present! There was no reason to attack if she was not there.

  Where was she? Probably somewhere in the wilderness, perhaps in the fishing village, perhaps still in the valley beyond the western range. Or she might have continued with the others in the eastern mountains, but this did not seem likely. They would have left tracks, and the soldiers would have followed them.

  The officer left the tree and went back to the beach.

  Hadon looked back at the fires and saw why the man had acted. Awineth was now standing in front of the central fire, screaming so loudly it carried above the music and the cries of the others.

  She was a wild but beautiful figure of medium stature, her hair long and jet black. Her face was striking and bold, her eyes large and dark gray but looking black at this distance. Her skin was white as milk. Her breasts were large but shapely and bore scarlet-painted nipples; her thick pubic hair was dyed green in honor of Karneth. Sweat filmed her; black spittle covered her face and breasts and thighs. Blood stained her hands, which meant that she had been making a preliminary sacrifice in the temple, attended only by the most select of the priestesses. The victim would be a raven, if what Hadon had heard was true.

  Behind her were the high priestesses of the island, a young woman, a middle-aged woman with many birthmarks and an ancient, white-haired, wrinkled woman, her breasts hanging almost to her navel. Blood smeared her mouth; she must have drunk from the neck of the beheaded bird. Yes, she was holding the head in one claw.

  The music stilled, the voices dying away as everybody turned toward Awineth. She continued her screaming chant, but Hadon, though he could distinguish the syllables, did not understand a word of it. She must be speaking in the secret ritual language, which his friend Hinokly had said was actually the language spoken when the hero Gahete landed on the then uninhabited island o
f Khokarsa.

  Hadon moved closer to the soldiers, keeping within the shadows of the trees, floating, pulling himself along with handfuls of mud and weeds. He stopped when he was about forty feet away from the nearest spearman.

  "We'll move in in ranks of six, running," the commander was saying. "We'll seize Awineth, and then you, Tahesa, and your squad will search the temple for the child. I don't think she'll be in there. It's not customary, as far as I know, to permit girl-children here. But she may have been locked in a room so she couldn't witness the rites. These women will attack you, so defend yourselves."

  "After we've grabbed Awineth, we'll proceed to the temple itself and form a ring at the entrance while Tahesa looks for the little girl. I give you two minutes, Tahesa; it's not a big place. Then we move back to the boats."

  Hadon, his ear close to the water, heard the man nearest him mutter, "I don't like it, Komseth."

  Komseth said, "I don't either, but what the hell, we are under Resu's protection, aren't we? And what can naked, unarmed women do against us? Besides, look at the reward. We can retire, get out of this chicken army."

  "It's still sacrilege," the first speaker said.

  "Quiet back there!" the commander said. "Tahesa, get those men's names. No, never mind, they'd just deny it anyway. No time for that."

  The soldiers stood up and waited for the order to charge. Hadon looked at the women. Awineth, wailing a chant, was walking to the cage. The women, formed a circle around her, blocking her and the cage from view. The commander said, "Good! They won't even see us until we're on them."

  Awineth had stopped chanting. There was silence except for the growls of the leopard, then a scream from Awineth and the women closed in on it, shouting, yelling.

  The commander roared "Follow me!" He leaped forward, the soldiers at his heels, between the two oaks framing the top of the steps.

  Hadon waited until the last six men had gone up the steps. He rose and ran to the beach—no way to work for Awineth and Kho unless he stepped on the soil, mighty Kho and Karneth forgive him—and seized the prow of the nearest longboat. It slid into the water, where he pushed it to set it adrift.