The Altar at Asconel (10 page)

L
IKE MOST
of the towns and all the cities in Asconel’s northern hemisphere, Penwyr relied largely on water-borne transport; it was unusual, however, in being built astride a river instead of on the coast. They continued to follow the man whom Vix recognized until he reached the embankment paralleling the river, by which time they were sure he would take the bridge to the other side of the town, a quarter of low-built, rather mean houses.

He was becoming frightened by then, however, and had quickened his pace so much that it looked as if he might break into a run at any moment. People were about on the
river’s edge, some inspecting boats moored to rings in the stone wall, some working on repairs, some merely leaning over and watching. It was a choice between losing their quarry if he ran, and attracting a good deal of undesirable attention by running themselves.

“Shall I go and speak to him?” Vineta proposed. “He’s not likely to be afraid of a girl.”

Tiorin hesitated. “That might be the answer. Spartak, what do you think?”

“No use trying to talk to him,” Vix grunted. “He’s off mooning again.”

Tiorin looked dismayed. “Yes, Vineta, see if you can catch him up and get him talking—Eunora was quite sure he was not a Bucyon man, isn’t that right?”

The mutant girl’s eyes were on Spartak. She started. “What—? Oh yes! Yes, he’s not one of these miserable dupes, like all the others.”

“Go ahead,” Tiorin ordered, and Vineta hurried off, leaving them to stroll like any of the other idlers along the quay.

“It’s horrible,” Vix muttered. “Everything’s
stopped!
Even during the worst of the revolution here, we kept the main streets running, and the bridge yonder”—he threw up an angry arm. “It’s all going back to the mud now! What’s become of the engineers we had, the builders, the craftsmen?”

“Right now I’m more worried about Spartak,” Tiorin muttered. “Eunora, can you tell us what’s happened to him? I agree, the—the mental show, or whatever it was, that we had at the temple was pretty impressive, but I was on guard against some sort of tampering with my mind, and it’s mainly left me with the feeling I’d like to know how it’s done”

“Not so impressive,” Vix put in. “To people who haven’t flown space much, perhaps—especially to people who thought the Empire was all pure magnificence and got some of their illusions dented. But we’ve seen what it’s like nowadays, and made up our minds that’s not the best mankind can do.”

“If they spread the cult of Belizuek any further, it’s apt to be the only thing we ever did,” Tiorin said sourly. “Look,
Vineta’s beckoning. Spartak, hurry up, will you, instead of dawdling along like a dreamer?”

Tiorin kept one eye on Eunora as they approached Vineta and the man Vix recognized, but she gave no indication of altering her judgment, and it was with some confidence that he addressed the allegedly loyal citizen.

“Your name is Tharl, I understand. You won’t know us, but I assure you you’ll be very interested in what you hear from us.”

Tharl, a nervous man of early middle age, clad in old but carefully patched clothes and with a pinched expression on his face, looked from one to other of the people who had been following him. He said at length, “I took you for a party of Bucyon’s men set on my heels by the priests. But I should have known better, seeing the child with you. Well, what do you want with me?”

“We’ve returned to Asconel from traveling ten long years,” Tiorin said. “And—we’re horrified.”

Tharl let a quick smile come and go on his lips. “Say no more! I can provide you little hospitality—my wife and my son both offered themselves to Belizuek, and my two daughters are married and living away. But I have a home still, and some refreshment; come and join me there!”

“Luck’s with us,” Vix muttered, and they fell in behind Tharl to cross the bridge over the river. As they had foreseen, its formerly heated and moving surface was immobile beneath a covering of soiled snow, so they had to walk all the way.

Tharl’s house was less neglected than those which flanked it; those had snow on their roofs, whereas his was warm enough to melt it away, and the doors and windows still drew power instead of being converted to manual operation. But all he could offer by way of “refreshment” was some stale beer and bread and cheese.

“Ten years!” he murmured as he set out the food and drink, “Why, then I’d have offered you meat and fruit, even in dead winter.…Do you know that now they kill all their herds in the fall, salting the meat in sea-brine and keeping only enough stock to breed again in spring? The
priests taught them that! I was raised on a farm, and to me it makes no sense.”

“You—ah—you said your wife and son both offered themselves to Belizuek,” Tiorin ventured. “Since then you’ve lived on your own.”

“That’s what’s saved me from becoming like all these fools you saw at the temple.” Tharl’s brows drew together over his nose and he stared into the distance. “I learned to hate just in time. Those who didn’t have been duped, and betrayed, and ultimately they won’t be human anymore.”

He peered curiously at Tiorin; apparently his eyesight was failing. “Tell me, though, how did you know it was safe to address me? If I make myself so obvious the priests will catch me—it’s a crime even to think, let along speak, against Bucyon’s rule.” Alarm colored his words.

Tiorin hesitated, making a warning gesture to Vix who might have blurted out their true identity. “Ah—we took a chance. My friend here remembers meeting you during the campaign against the rebels hereabout in the time of the old Warden, Hodat’s father. You were loyal then, and we felt a man like yourself couldn’t have changed so much.”

Tharl pursed his lips. “Luck’s with you!” he commented, unconsciously echoing Vix’s remark of a short while earlier. “You can’t have been home long, or you’d know that anyone can be changed and made into a follower of Bucyon. Why, men I fought beside in the old days, Warden’s men as they were, have offered themselves to Belizuek since!”

“Does nothing withstand Bucyon, then?” Vix demanded.

It was Tharl’s turn for hesitation. Coming to a favorable decision, he leaned forward and spoke in a confidential tone. “There’s my old general, Tigrid Zen, who’s in exile on Gwo. He has forces, and ships—why, occasionally word comes to say there’s been a landing in a secret place, and a message is passed as to how those whom the priests are hunting may safely be hidden till a ship can fetch them to Gwo.…” He seemed to realize it was thin comfort to his hearers, and the words tailed away.

“You’re in touch with a resistance movement here, then?” Vix suggested.

“A movement—well …” Tharl sighed. “Put it like this. Over two or three years, I’ve sounded out those who
have a reason to hate Belizuek as I do, and perhaps ten or twelve have proved loyal to the old ways, and of them half have given themselves away, by attacking a priest or profaning the temple, and the rest of us serve to encourage each other. As for rising up against Bucyon, though—which I assume is what you hope to hear news of—I don’t see how it can be done.”

He pointed at Spartak. “Why, even your friend here has been so deeply affected by what happens in the temple that his mind’s adrift in space! First it was a wonder, and the curious talked about it and attracted the reluctant; then suddenly it became the only thing that mattered in the lives of the citizens. I escaped, as I said, because I already had a reason for hate—my wife and boy were the first of all to offer themselves in Penwyr. But that apart, I’d have become as bemused as he is.”

Worried, Tiorin nudged Spartak as he sat with pale face and staring eyes on the chair next to him.

“Tharl is wrong,” Eunora said timidly. “What’s affected him isn’t the power of Belizuek, but something else.”

“What?” Vix snorted, ready to fall back into his longtime assessment of Spartak as a dreamer and a ninny.

“He—Let him tell you himself,” Eunora said, and tugged at Spartak’s sleeve.

“Yes?” the bearded man said, coming to the present like a sleeper rousing. “I—I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking over what I learned down there at the temple.”

“That’s what we all want to discuss,” Tiorin said. “We know what’s being done to the people now, and if we can discover how it’s being done we can try to counteract it.”

“You’ve missed half the point,” Spartak said. “Don’t you know what Belizuek is, now you’ve seen what he can do?”

There was a blank silence. Eunora smiled to herself as though enjoying the secret knowledge she could pick from Spartak’s unspoken thoughts.

“Well, go on!” Vix burst out when the suspense had become intolerable.

Spartak shook his head. He seemed bewildered. “Then—well, possibly I’m mistaken, since you haven’t reached the same conclusion that I have.” He shivered, as if he were
still out in the street instead of in the comparative warmth of Tharl’s home.

“I must go back and make sure,” he added, rising without waiting for objections and on the point of starting for the door.

“Just a second!” Tharl jumped up and strode to stand in front of him. “Back to the temple? What for?”

“I shall have to get a direct look at Belizuek,” Spartak explained with the sweet reasonableness of one addressing a child.

“A direct look—!” Tharl was thunderstruck. “How do you propose to manage that? Nobody has ever gone behind the screen they keep around him, except for sacrificial victims and the priests who escort the poor fools. When the temple was new, there were several who tried, and rumor says they were killed by a deadly charge on the metal mesh.”

“When the temple was new,” Spartak repeated, apparently struck by a new idea. “Tell me, how was it—well—consecrated?”

Tharl curled his lip. “That I know only too well. Some priests came from Gard in a skyboat—Gard, the old royal island, is the site of the chief temple now—bringing some great chest or case affair which was unloaded with much ceremony. It was transported to the market—what’s now the temple—and they held the first big sacrifice, with two victims. My wife and my son.”

Tiorin, seeing the man was almost overcome, moved to his side to comfort him. He flashed a scowl at Spartak, who remained quite unaffected. Lost in his own thoughts, the other muttered, “It might be the oxygen.…If only I knew where we found the ships we appropriated! But there’s that blank wall of ignorance supposed to be because it was bad for our self-respect to admit the real source of our skills—”

“You’re maundering,” Vix cut in. “If you have a point to make, make it!”

“Shut up!” Spartak ordered. This was so different from the usual meekness of the younger man’s manner that Vix was taken aback; while he was recovering, Spartak rounded on Eunora.

“Do you think I’m right?” he demanded.

The girl blushed. She said, “I can tell you what I felt,
if that’s any help.…Well,” she licked her lips, “I thought there was somebody behind the screen who went—uh—who went an awfully long way. Like very old, but also very big. Sort of connected to other places. Do you see what I mean?”

Tharl’s puzzled eyes roamed around the strangers, but he said nothing.

“It fits, doesn’t it?” Spartak urged.

“I don’t know,” Eunora answered helplessly. “You’ve studied so many things I’ve never even heard about, and it would take ages to track down all the ideas and possibilities which you’re considering.”

“Then we must go back to the temple,” Spartak concluded. “As soon as possible. Tharl, you must have been there at other times than the—the duty services. Presumably you’ve wanted to appear to be a loyal Bucyon man, to divert suspicion.”

Tharl nodded dumbly.

“Then tell me what the routine of the temple is, and how we can get close to Belizuek without the priests driving us away.”

“Y
OU CAN
’
T
,” Tharl said shortly.

“But we must,” Spartak countered, making a movement as if to brush aside all objections. Eunora, however, caught his eye.

“He’s probably right,” she said. “Let him explain.”

More puzzled than ever at the attention they paid to this slip of a girl, Tharl did so. Listening, Spartak came back by degrees to the realities of the problem. Ceaseless supervision, eavesdropping by priests, traps for the unwary—it sounded as though the temple had been prepared to meet just such an intrusion as he had planned.

The solution, however, came from Vix. He gave a shrug. “How about remote detection devices? Won’t they do to settle your doubts? I have instruments aboard the ship which could probably be demounted temporarily, and you
could probe the back wall of the temple and get some hint of what lies beyond.”

“Of course,” Spartak muttered. “It must be the depressing effect of coming back to this ruined world, or I’d have thought of that myself. How long will it take us to get the equipment?”

Vix frowned. “We’d best move under cover of dark,” he suggested. “It’ll be hard to conceal the gear by day.”

“That’ll be still more difficult,” Tharl put in. “There are strict curfew laws now. Even street-lighting has been abandoned—every drop of power and fuel is devoted to Belizuek’s cult.”

“We’ll have advance warning of any patrols we run into,” Tiorin said, not offering to give details. “I wish you’d explain more fully, though,” he added, turning to Spartak.

But the bearded man was engrossed in some calculations conducted on a memo board from his belt-pouch.

With infinite care and in complete silence they stole back towards the dead-seeming town in the pitch blackness and icy cold of the winter’s night. Half the sky was cloudy, but in the other half the stars burned like the points of white-hot needles.

It had proved necessary to bring from the ship not only the instruments which Vix had mentioned, but means of powering them too—accumulators and a portable generator. When Tharl said all power went for Belizuek’s cult, he meant it; there would not be a power source for them to draw on for half a mile in any direction from the temple. Consequently they were all heavily laden, even Eunora, slipping and stumbling along gallantly at Spartak’s side.

They had had the greatest possible difficulty in dissuading Tharl from accompanying them, but he was already in possession of a good deal of information about them, and it was judged far better that he should remain at home. Undoubtedly he was both loyal and eager to help, but so—once—had Metchel been.

Reflecting on that traitor, Spartak realized that Tigrid Zen had been deceived even more thoroughly than he knew: he’d been told that the volunteers for sacrifice to Belizuek came forward of their own accord, yet he had
accepted Metchel’s tale of being a fugitive from a threatened sacrifice.

Or was sacrifice also the fate of the condemned criminal—defining crime in its current sense here, to include activity against Bucyon?

They reached the edge of the town and went between dark walls which afforded a little shelter from the wind. All the windows were shuttered, many with crude hand-carpentered wooden panels instead of the original plastic power-operated ones. An occasional handlamp gleamed through the cracks, or even a primitive candle.

Once, Eunora gave the faint whistle they had chosen as an alarm signal, and they dodged into an alley between two houses as a woman emerged to empty some foul-smelling garbage into a street drain. It seemed there was no limit to the degree people could regress under Belizuek’s domination, Spartak told himself wearily; next they’d be back to open-pit latrines and epidemic diseases.

He ached to find out whether his guess about the nature of this “diety” was accurate.

They had settled on a street behind the temple as the best site of operations; it was usually unfrequented at night, for this had formerly been Penwyr’s busy commercial quarter, and all the nearby stores were empty and neglected except one which had been turned into a comfortable residence for the temple staff. The curfew patrols, Tharl had assured them, were negligent in this area, for few people would risk going out under the priests’ very noses.

They reached it without trouble, and walked along the far side opposite the temple wall, on which the slogans glared luminously for the benefit of—of whom? Any priest who might glance out, Spartak decided with a curl of his lip.

As nearly as he could tell, he had come to a point opposite the end of the screen inside the temple. He beckoned to his companions to assemble the equipment. Metal stands clinked on the hard-frozen snow as they set down their burdens, and he fumbled with numb fingers to make connections between the power supply and the detectors themselves.

Tiorin headed towards one end of the street, Vix and Vineta towards the other, to keep wary watch. Eunora could
do that equally well from where Spartak stood; besides, her tiny hands were deft at the awkward work of organizing the equipment, and she did not have to be given spoken orders.

It was the eeriest task he had ever undertaken. His chief and burning hope was that Belizuek’s powers did not extend to the perception of the various probe frequencies he planned to employ.

He coupled in the last device and silently handed the long flex attached to it to Eunora, who dashed across the street and clamped its terminal to the wall of the temple.

That automatically reported the structure-phase of the wall to the other instruments; so guided, they could look through it almost as easily as through glass. Heart pounding, Spartak adjusted the controls and bent to peer at the tiny self-illuminated dials and screens before him.

The range was excessive. He was getting a trace which could only be the nearer side of the concealing screen—irregular metal, probably in mesh or link form. He turned a knob with stiff fingers, and began to get suggestions of something less commonplace.

A mass of complex organics—not quite protoplasmic, but similar. That fitted. He set another knob for the characteristic vibration-modes of oxygen, and read off the data from a quivering needle against an arbitrary scale.

Low oxygen pressure. Very low. But a good deal of carbon dioxide, and nitrogen and a blend of inert gasses.
Right!
He began to look for the walls which must enclose this humanly unbreathable atmosphere, and almost at once found the traces which defined it.

Beside him, Eunora was fascinated by the vast amount of information the instruments afforded through a featureless wall; every new conclusion he drew brought a gasp of excitement from her.

“It fits, doesn’t it?” he whispered, daring to make the sound which after all was no louder than the chinking and scraping that had accompanied the setting up of their gear.

She gave an enthusiastic nod.

Yes,
Spartak thought.
Enclosed in a special atmosphere—organic, but not giving the same traces as a creature from one of our planets—a Thanis bull, say, which would have
comparable mass and dimensions.…I wonder if I can get any of the internal structure!

Eunora’s teeth threatened to chatter from the cold; she clamped them firmly shut to avoid distracting him.

Two traces came up on the panel—similar, but not identical. An internal reflection, offering a clue to the details he was after? He checked again, and started. No: it was the same trace from two different points in space. In other words, the thing beyond the wall had moved.

I am right!
Jubilantly he recognized the final confirmation of his suspicions. Eunora could not repress a chuckle as he hastily continued his examination.

And that was why she failed to give him warning.

The first he knew of their discovery was when lights bloomed like suns all down the front of the building occupied by the temple staff, and a door opened to disgorge about a dozen frantic men. Spartak jerked upright, heart seeming to stop its beating.

The horrified Eunora let out a stifled cry of dismay.

“There they are!” a voice yelled, and feet hammered the icy ground.

The equipment would just have to be abandoned—there was nothing else for it. Spartak snatched Eunora into his arms and fled towards the end of the street at which Vix and Vineta had been standing guard. There was no sign of Tiorin; handlamps had been brought out by the emerging priests, and their dazzling glare concealed the far end of the street.

Nonetheless, he also must have been spotted. Two of the new arrivals were dashing in that direction while the rest came on.

“Spartak!” Vix hissed. He had drawn the concealed sidearm Tigrid Zen had provided, and was hiding in an embrasure that had once been the entry to a store. “Go around the corner and turn left—I’ll give them something to think about and then we’ll make off to the right. Split them up!”

“Where’s Vineta?” Spartak gasped.

“Right here!” the girl replied from the shadow behind Vix. “I’m staying with Vix, so don’t argue!”

Spartak hadn’t thought of arguing. He ignored the remark.
“Vix, try and destroy the equipment! Maybe they won’t learn just how much I now know!”

“You got what you wanted?” Vix was peering towards the brilliant lights, sighting along the barrel of his gun.

“Practically everything!”

At that instant a bolt seared along the street; why it had been so long delayed, Spartak could only guess—presumably the priests hadn’t expected to need weapons when they were alerted. Who had done the alerting was one of the many matters to be left over for later. He ducked reflexively as splinters of stone flew from the spot where the bolt struck.

“See you later at Tharl’s!” he whispered, and dived around the corner with Eunora. Behind him, Vix coolly took aim at the abandoned equipment, and fired his first bolt in reply to the priests’.

This district was laid out in conventional grid pattern, so that when Spartak came to the next intersection he could glance back and see clearly the end of the street near the temple. The light there was almost blinding by contrast with the general darkness, but he made out two figures ducking away in the opposite direction from that which he had taken.

Eunora had hidden her face against his chest, satisfied to perceive everything through his eyes.

Vix had obviously kept his promise to give the pursuers something to think about. It was long moments before anyone followed him and Vineta around the corner. The first person to do so was an armed man who fired one random shot; Vix let off another in reply, and provoked a scream, through whether it was of fear or pain Spartak could not tell. Then he ran on again, overtaking Vineta easily, and came to the intersection corresponding to the one at which Spartak himself had paused.

It was foolish, he told himself, not to make himself as scarce as time allowed, but something held him magnet-fashion; later, he decided it was a true premonition.

Vineta stumbled on the icy street. One of the pursuers loosed a bolt at her; it struck within arm’s length of her, and she went sprawling. Spartak gasped, and felt Eunora tense against him till she felt like a wooden doll.

From his inadequate cover Vix darted forward, gun in
one hand, the other outstretched to seize Vineta and drag her to safety. He fired twice, so that the pursuers held back, and by main force got the girl on her feet, her arm around his shoulder so she could use him as a crutch.

It was a brave thing to do, a good thing to do, but so foolhardy Spartak winced. For with the weight of the injured girl delaying him, they caught him up at the end of the street and he went down under a mob of yelling priests.

Sick at heart, but driven by cold logic to the decision that he could do nothing more practical than ensure that he at least got away, whether or not Tiorin did so, he ducked around the corner and made his way unchallenged into dark and empty streets. It was so unfair that he should get away; why not Vix, the brave fool?

“What shall I do?” he whispered to the stars. “On my own, what shall I do?”

And neither the stars nor the sobbing Eunora offered an answer.