“Do what the Goddess requests as best we can,” said Iimmi. “Find the Temple of Hama, secure the third stone, rescue the young Goddess, and die before we let the jewels fall into the hands of Aptor.”
“From the way you describe this place,” muttered Urson, “that may not be far off.”
“Still,” Geo mused, “there are things that don’t mesh. Why were you saved too, Iimmi? Why were we brought here at all? And why did Jordde want to kill you and the other sailor?”
“Perhaps,” said Iimmi, “the God Hama has a strange sense of humor and we shall be allowed to carry the jewels up to the temple door before we are slaughtered, dropping them at his feet.” He smiled. “Then again, perhaps your story is the correct one, Geo, and I am the spy, sent to sway your reason.”
Urson and Geo glanced at each other.
“There are an infinite number of theories for every set of facts,” Geo said at last. “Rule number one: assume the simplest theory that includes all the known conditions to be true until more conditions arise for which the simplest no longer holds. Rule number two: then, and not until, assume another.”
“Then we go into the jungle,” Iimmi said.
“I guess we do,” said Urson.
Geo stood up. “So far,” he said, “the water creatures have saved us from death. Is there an objection to following the river inland? It’s as good a path as any, and it may mean more safety to us.”
“No objection here,” said Iimmi.
“What about the jewels?” asked Urson. “Perhaps we ought to bury them someplace where no one could ever find them. Perhaps if they were just completely out of the way…”
“It may be another ‘poet’s error,’ ” said Geo, “but I’d keep them with us. Even though we can’t use them, we might be able to bluff our way with them.”
“I’m for keeping them too,” said Iimmi.
“Though I’m beginning to wonder how good any of my guesses are,” Geo added.
“Now don’t be like that,” cajoled Urson. “Since we’ve got this job, we’ve got to trust ourselves to do it right. Let’s see if we can put one more of those things around your neck before we’re through.” He pointed to the two jewels hanging at Geo’s chest. Then he laughed. “One more and you’ll have as many as me.” He rattled his own triple necklace.
Chapter Five
Light lowered in the sky as they walked beside the river, keeping to the rocky bank and brushing away vines that strung into the water from hanging limbs. Urson broke down a branch thick as his wrist and tall as himself and playfully smote the water. “This should put a bruise on anyone who wants to bother us.” He raised the stick and drops ran the bark, sparks at the tips of dark lines.
“We’ll have to go into the woods for food soon,” said Geo, “unless we wait for animals to come down to drink.”
Urson tugged at another branch, and it twisted loose from fibrous white. “Here.” He handed it to Geo. “I’ll have one for you in a moment, Iimmi.”
“And maybe we could explore a little before it gets dark,” Iimmi suggested.
Urson handed him the third staff. “There’s not much here I want to see,” he muttered.
“Well, we can’t sleep on the bank. We’ve got to find a place hidden in the trees.”
“Can you see what’s over there?” Geo asked.
“Where?” asked Iimmi. “Huh.” Through the growth was a high shadow. “A rock or a cliff?”
“Maybe,” mused Urson, “but it’s awfully regular.”
Geo started off into the underbrush; they followed. The goal was farther and larger than it had looked from the bank. Once they crossed an area where large stones fit side by side, like paving. Small trees had pushed up between some of them, but for thirty feet, before the flags sank in the soft jungle, it was easier going. Then the forest thinned again and they reached a relatively clear area. Before them a ruined building loomed. Six girders cleared the highest wall. The original height must have been eight or ten stories. One wall had completely sheared away and fragments of it chunked the ground. Broken rooms and severed halls suggested an injured granite hive. They approached slowly.
To one side a great metal cylinder lay askew a heap of rubbish. A flat blade of metal transversed it, one side twisting into the ground where skeletal girders showed beneath ripped plating. Windows like dark eyes lined the body, and a door gaped in an idiot oval halfway along its length.
Fascinated, they turned toward the injured wreck. As they neared, a sound came from inside the door. They stopped, and their staves leaped a protective inch from the ground. In the shadow of the door, ten feet above the ground, another shadow moved, resolving into an animal’s muzzle — gray, long. They could see the forelegs. Like a dog, it was carrying a smaller beast, obviously dead, in its mouth. It saw them, watched them, was still.
“Dinner,” Urson said softly. “Come on.” They moved forward again. Then they stopped.
The beast sprang from the doorway. Shadow and distance had made them completely underestimate its size. Along the sprung arc flowed a canine body nearly five feet long. Urson struck it from its flight with his stick. As it fell, Iimmi and Geo were upon it with theirs, clubbing its chest and head. For six blows it staggered and could not gain its feet. Then, as it threatened to heave to standing, Urson rushed forward and jabbed his stave straight down on the chest: bones snapped, tore through the brown pelt, their blue sheen covered a moment later by blood. It howled, kicked its hind feet at the stake with which Urson held it to the ground; then it extended its limbs and quivered. The front legs stretched and stretched while the torso pulled in on itself, shrinking in the death agonies. The long mouth, which had dropped its prey, gaped as the head flopped from side to side, the pink tongue lolling, shrinking.
“My God!” breathed Geo.
The sharp muzzle had blunted now and the claws in the padded paw stretched, opened into fingers and a thumb. The hairlessness of the underbelly had spread to the entire carcass. Hind legs lengthened and bare knees bent as now human feet dragged through the brown leaves and a human thigh gave a final contraction, stilled, and one leg fell out straight again. The shaggy, black-haired man lay on the ground, his chest caved in and bloody. In one last spasm, he flung his hands up and grasped the stake to pull it from his chest; too weak, his fingers slipped back down as his lips snarled open over his perfectly white, blunt teeth.
Urson stepped back, then back again. The stave fell, pulled loose with a sucking explosion from the ruined mess of lung. The wolf man had raised his hand to his own chest and touched his triple gold token. “In the name of the Goddess!” he finally whispered.
Geo walked forward now, picked up the carcass of the smaller animal that had been dropped, and turned away. “Well,” he said, “I guess dinner isn’t going to be as big as we thought.”
“I guess not,” Iimmi said.
They walked back to the ruined building, away from the corpse.
“Hey, Urson,” Geo said at last. The big man was still holding his coins. “Snap out of it. What’s the matter?”
“The only man I’ve ever seen whose body was broken in that way,” he said slowly, “was one whose side was struck in by a ship’s spar.”
They decided to settle that evening at the corner of one of the building’s ruined walls. They made fire with a rock against a section of rusted girder. After much sawing on a jagged metal blade protruding from a pile of rubble, they managed to quarter the animal and rip most of the pelt from its red body. With thin branches to hold the meat, they did a passable job of roasting. Although it was partially burned, partially raw, and without seasoning, they ate it, and hunger abated. As they sat at the fire by the wall, ripping red juicy fibers from the bones, night swelled through the jungle, imprisoning them in the shell of orange flicker.