“Is he trying to tell us they can’t see?” whispered Urson.
They whirled on the big sailor, fingers against their lips. At the same time there was a rustling like wet paper from the sack as one wing defined itself, and in the uncovered upside-down face, a blind red eye blinked…then closed. The wing folded, and they tiptoed back across the chamber and into the sunlight. No one spoke until they could see the river again.
“What were you — ” began Geo; his voice sounded annoyingly loud. More softly he said, “What were you trying to tell us?”
Snake pointed to Urson.
“What he said? That they can’t see, just hear.”
Snake nodded.
“Gee, thanks,” said Geo. “I figured that out last night.”
Snake shrugged.
“That still doesn’t answer his questions,” said Iimmi.
“And another one,” said Geo. “Why are you showing us all these things? You seem to know your way around awfully well. Have you ever been on Aptor before?”
Snake paused for a moment. Then he nodded.
They were all silent.
Finally Iimmi asked, “What made you ask that?”
“Something in that first theory,” Geo said. “I’ve been thinking it for some time. And I guess Snake here knew I was thinking it too. Jordde wanted to get rid of Iimmi, Whitey, and Snake, and it was just an accident that he caught Whitey first instead of Snake. He wanted to get rid of Whitey and Iimmi because of something they had seen or might have seen when they were on Aptor with Argo. I just thought perhaps he wanted to get rid of Snake for the same reason. Which meant he might have been on Aptor before.”
“Jordde was on Aptor before too,” said Urson. “You said that’s when he became a spy for them.”
They all looked at Snake again.
“I don’t think we ought to ask him any more questions,” said Geo. “The answers aren’t going to do us any good, and no matter what we find out, we’ve got a job to do, and seven — no…six and a half days to do it in.”
“I think you’re right,” said Iimmi.
“You are more trouble than you’re worth,” Urson addressed the boy. “Get going.”
Then Snake handed the metal chain with the pendant jewel back to Iimmi. The black youth hung it on his chest once more. They started up the river.
By twelve, the sun had parched the sky. They stopped to swim and cool themselves. Chill water gave before reaching arms and lowered faces. They even dove for their aquatic helpers, but grubbed the pebbly bottom of the river with their fingers, coming up with dripping twigs and wet stones. Soon they were in a splashing match, of which it is fair to say, Snake won — hands down.
Later they lay on the mossy rocks to dry, slapping at small bugs, the sun like gold coins warm on their eyelids. “I’m hungry,” said Urson, rolling over.
“We just ate,” Iimmi said, sitting up. “But I’m hungry too.”
“We ate five hours ago,” Geo said. The sun curved loops of liquid metal in the ripples. “And we can’t lie around here all day. Do you think we can find one of those things we got from the…wolf, yesterday?”
“Or some nice friendly necrophage?” suggested Iimmi.
“Ugh.” Urson shivered.
“Hey,” Iimmi asked Geo, “does not asking Snake questions mean not asking him where the Temple is?”
Geo shrugged. “We’ll either get there or we won’t. If we were going wrong and he knew about it, he’d have told us by now if he wanted us to know.”
“Goddamn all this running around in circles,” Urson exclaimed. “Hey, you little four-armed bastard, have you ever seen where we’re going?”
Snake shook his head.
“Do you know how to get there?”
Snake shook his head.
“Fine!” Urson snapped his fingers. “Forward, friends, we’re off for the unknown once more.” He grinned, doubled his pace, and they started once more behind him.
A mile on, hunger again thrust its sharp finger into their abdomens. “Maybe we should have saved some of that stuff from breakfast,” muttered Urson. “With no blood in it, you said it wouldn’t have spoiled.”
Geo suddenly broke away from the bank toward the forest. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get some food.”
The vines were even thicker here, and they had to hack through with swords. Where the dead vines had stiffened in the sun, it was easier going. The air had been hot at the river; here it was cool, damp, and wet leaves brushed their arms and shoulders. The ground gave spongily under them.
The building they came upon: tongues of moss licked twenty and fifty feet up the loosely mortared stones. A hundred yards from the water, the jungle came right to its base. The edifice had sunk a bit to one side in the boggy soil. It was a far more stolid and primitive structure than the barracks. They scraped and hacked to the entrance, where two columns of stone, six feet at the base, rose fifty feet to support an arch. The stones were rough and unfinished.
“It’s a temple!” Geo said suddenly.
The steps were strewn with rubbish, and what spots of light spilled from the twisted jungle stopped at the total shadow below the great arch. A line of blackness up one side of the basalt door showed that it was ajar. Now they climbed the steps, moving aside a fallen branch. Leaves chattered at them. They kicked small stones from the cracks in the rock. Geo, Iimmi, then Snake, and at last Urson squeezed through the door.
Ceiling blocks had fallen from the high vault so that shafts of sun struck through the slow shift of dust to the littered floor.
“Do you think it’s Hama’s Temple?” Urson asked. His voice boomed in the stone room, magnified and hollow.
“I doubt it,” whispered Geo. “At least not the one we’re supposed to find.”
“Maybe it’s an abandoned one,” said Iimmi, “and we can find out something useful from it.”
Something large and dark flapped through a far shaft of sun. With raised swords they stepped back. After a moment of silence, Geo handed his jewel to Snake. “Make some light in here. Now!”
The blue-green glow flowed from the upraised jewel in Snake’s hand. Columns supported the broken ceiling along the sides of the temple. As the light flared, then flared brighter, they saw that the flapping had come from a bird perched harmlessly on an architrave between two columns. It ducked its head at them, cawed harshly, then flew out one of the apertures in the ceiling. The sound of its wings still thrummed seconds after it had gone.
They could not see the altar, but there were doors between the columns, and as their eyes grew sensitive, they saw that one section of wall had not withstood time’s sledge. A great rent was nearly blocked with vines. A green shimmer broke here and there through the foliage.
They started forward now, chips and pebbles rolling before their toes, down the great chapel toward the altar.
Behind a twisted railing, and raised on steps of stone, sat the ruins of a huge statue. Carved from black rock, a man sat cross-legged on a dais. One arm and shoulder had broken off and lay in pieces on the altar steps. The hand, fingers as thick as Urson’s thigh, lay just behind the altar rail. The idol’s head was missing. Both the hand still connected and the one on the steps looked as though they had once held something, but whatever it was had been removed.
Geo walked along the rail to where a set of stone boxes were placed like footstones along the side of the altar. “Here, Snake,” he called. “Bring a light over here.” Snake obeyed, and with Iimmi’s and Urson’s help, he loosened one of the lids.
“What’s in there?” Urson asked.
“Books,” said Geo, lifting out one dusty volume. Iimmi reached over his shoulder and with dark fingers turned the pages. “Old rituals,” Geo said. “Look here.” He stopped Iimmi’s hand. “You can still read them.”