“I will,” Iimmi said.
“Me too,” said Geo.
“I guess so,” Urson said.
“Good.” Hama smiled. “Then come with me.” He turned from the screen and walked through the door. They followed him down the long stairway, past the stone walls, into the hall, and along the back of the church. He walked slowly and smiled like a man who had waited long for something to finally come. They left the Temple and descended the bright steps.
“I wonder where the kids are,” Urson said.
Hama led them across the garden. Black urns sat close in the shrubbery. Old Argo joined them at the crosswalk with a silent smile of recognition. They turned from the path and stepped between the urns.
Argo twisted two ends of wire together with sun-dappled hands. Snake, knees beneath his arms, set the jewel on the improvised thermocouple. Now Argo crouched too. They concentrated at the bead. The thermocouple glowed: current jumped in the copper veins, the metal core became a magnet, and the armature tugged once about its pivot, tugged once more. Brushes hissed on the turning rings. The coil whirled to copper haze. “Hey!” she whispered. “Look at it go, will you! Just look at that thing go!” Oblivious to the elder gods, who smiled at them from the sides of the stone urn, the young thieves gazed at the humming motor.
Chapter Eleven
Under the trees, she stood on tiptoe and kissed the Priest’s balding forehead. “Dunderhead,” she said, “I think you’re cute.” Then she blinked rapidly and knuckled beneath her eye. “Oh,” she added, remembering, “I was making yogurt in the biology laboratory yesterday. There’s two gallons of it fermenting under the tarantula cage. Remember to take it out. And take care of the hamsters. Please don’t forget the hamsters!”
That was the last of some twenty or twenty-five good-byes. There had been the entrusting of the shell collection, several exchanges of poems, the confession of authorship to a dozen practical jokes, and again respects to old Argo and Hama.
They started along the slope of the volcano. The Temple disappeared among the trees behind.
“Two days to get to the ship.” Geo squinted at the pale sky.
“Perhaps we had better put the jewels together,” said Urson. “Keep them out of harm’s way, since we know their power.”
“What do you mean?” Iimmi asked.
Urson took the leather purse from Geo’s belt. “Give me your jewel.”
Geo hesitated, then took the thong from his neck; Urson put it in the purse.
“I guess it can’t hurt,” Iimmi said, and dropped his chain after it.
“Here’s mine too,” Argo said. She had been carrying the third one. She had woven the cord she used to climb the statue into a small net sack, put the jewel inside, and hung it around her neck. Now she gave it to him.
Urson pulled the purse string and tucked the pouch at his waist.
“Well,” said Geo, “I guess we head for the river, so we can get back to your mother and Jordde.”
“Jordde?” asked Argo. “Who’s he?”
“He’s a spy for the blind priestesses. He’s also the one who cut Snake’s tongue out.”
“Cut his…” Suddenly she stopped. “That’s right — four arms, his tongue — I remember now, in the film!”
“In the what?” asked Iimmi. “What do you remember?”
Argo turned to Snake. “I remember where I saw you before!”
“You know Snake?” Urson asked.
“No. I never met him. But about a month ago I saw a movie of what happened. It was horrible what they did to him.”
“What’s a movie?” asked Iimmi.
“Huh?” said Argo. “Oh, it’s sort of like the vision screens, only you can see things that happened in the past. Anyway, Dunderhead showed me this film about a month ago. Then he took me down to the beach and said I should have seen something there, because of what I’d learned.”
“See something! What was it?” Iimmi took her shoulder and shook it. “What was it you were supposed to see?”
“Why —?” the girl began, startled.
“A friend of mine was murdered and I almost was too, because of something we saw on that beach! Only I don’t know what it was!”
“But…” began Argo. “But I don’t either. I couldn’t see it, so Dunderhead took me back to the Temple.”
“Snake?” Geo asked. “Do you know what they were supposed to see? Or why Argo was taken to see it after she was shown what happened to you?”
The boy shrugged.
Iimmi turned on Snake. “Do you know or are you just not telling? Come on, now! That’s the only reason I stuck with this so far. I want to know what’s going on!”
Snake shook his head.
“I want to know why I was nearly killed!” the black sailor insisted. “You know and I want you to tell me!” Iimmi raised his hand.
Snake screamed. Sound tore through the distended vocal cords. Then he whirled and ran.
Urson caught him and brought the boy crashing down among leaves. “No you don’t!” the giant growled. “You’re not going to get away from me this time.”
“Watch out!” cried Argo. “You’re hurting him. Urson, let go!”
“Hey, ease up,” said Geo. “Snake, you’ve got to give us some explanation. Let him go, Urson.”
Urson let the boy up, still mumbling. “He’s not going to get away again.”
Geo came over to the boy. “Let him go. Look, Snake, do you know what there was about the beach that was so important?”
Snake nodded.
“Can you tell?”
Now the boy shook his head and glanced at Urson.
“You don’t have to be afraid of him,” Geo said, puzzled. “Urson won’t hurt you.”
Snake shook his head again.
“Well,” said Geo, “we can’t make you. Let’s get going.”
“I could make him,” Urson mumbled.
“No,” said Argo. “I don’t think you could. I watched the last time somebody tried. And I don’t think you could.”
Late morning flopped over hot in the sky, turning to afternoon. The jungle grew damp. Bright insects plunged like tiny knives of blue or scarlet through the foliage. Wet leaves brushed their chests, faces, and shoulders.
At the edge of a rocky stretch, Urson suddenly drew his sword and hacked at a shadow, which resolved into a medium-sized cat-like animal. Blood ran over the rock and mixed with encrusted leaves in the dirt.
No one suggested using the jewels for fire. As Iimmi was striking stones over a handful of tinder, he suddenly asked, “Why would they show you a film of something awful before taking you to the beach?”
“Maybe it was supposed to have made me more receptive to what I saw,” said Argo.
“If horror makes you receptive to whatever it was,” said Iimmi, “I should have been about as receptive as possible.”
“What do you mean?” asked Geo.
“I had just watched ten guys get hacked to pieces all over the sand, remember?” The fire flickered, caught, and held.
As they ate, Argo got out a packet of salt from her tunic, then disappeared with Snake into the woods, to come back two minutes later with a purplish vine that she said made good spice when the bark was stripped and the pith rubbed on meat. “Back at the Temple,” she told them, sitting down in front of the fire, “I had a great herb garden. There was one whole section for poisonous plants: death angel, wolfsbane, deadly nightshade, monkshood, hebenon, the whole works.” She laughed. Then the laugh stopped. “I guess I won’t be going back there again. For a little while, anyway.” She twisted the vine. “It was a beautiful garden, though.” Then she let the stem untwist.