“Nothing, ma’am.”
“This boat has been to Aptor once and now will return. Ask your ignorant friend the Bear to tell you tales of Aptor; and blind, wise Poet, you will laugh, and probably he will too. But I will tell you: his tales, his legends, and his fantasies are not a tithe of the truth. Perhaps you will be no help after all. I am thinking of dismissing you.”
“But, ma’am — ”
The Priestess looked up, having been about to fall to some work.
“Ma’am, what can you tell me about these things? You have scattered only crumbs. I have extensive knowledge of incantation, poetry, magic, and I know these concern your problem. Give me what information you have, and I will be able to make use of mine in full. I am familiar with many sailors’ tales. True, none of Aptor or Hama, but I may be able to collate fragments. I have learned the legends and jargon of thieves through a broad life; this is more than your priests have, I’ll wager. I have had teachers who were afraid to touch books I have opened. And I fear no secret you might know. If all of Leptar is in danger, you owe each citizen the right to try to save his brothers. I ask for that right alone.”
“No, you are not afraid,” admitted the Priestess. “You are honorable and foolish…and a poet. I hope the first and last will wipe out the middle one in time. Nevertheless, I will tell you some.” She stood up now and drew out a map.
“Here is Leptar.” She pointed to one island. Then her finger crossed water to another. “This is Aptor. Now you know as much about it as any ordinary person in Leptar might. It is a barbaric land, uncivilized. Yet they occasionally show some insidious organization. Tell me, what legends of the Great Fire have you heard?”
“I know that beasts are supposed to have come from the sea and destroyed the world’s harbors, and that birds spat fire from the air.”
“The older sailors,” said the Priestess, “will tell you that these were beasts and birds of Aptor. Of course there are fifteen hundred years of retelling and distortion in a tradition never written down, and perhaps Aptor has simply become a synonym for everything evil, but these stories still give you some idea. Chronicles, which only three or four people have had access to, tell me that once, five hundred years ago, the forces of Aptor actually attempted to invade Leptar. The references to the invasion are vague. I do not know how far it went or how successful it was, but its methods were insidious and unlike any invasion you may have read of in history, so unlike that records of it were destroyed and no mention of it is made in the histories given to schoolchildren.
“Only recently have I had chance to learn how strange and inhuman they were. And I have good reason to believe that the forces of Aptor are congealing once more, a sluggish but huge amoeba of horror. Once fully awake, once launched, it will be unstoppable. Tendrils have reached into us for the past few years, have probed, and then have been withdrawn before they were recognized. Sometimes they dealt catastrophic blows to the center of Leptar’s government and religion. All this has been assiduously kept from the people. For if it were made known, we would also have to reveal how staggering our ignorance is, and there would be a national paralysis. I have been sent to clear perhaps just one more veil from the unknown. And if you can help me in that, you are welcome more than I could possibly express.”
“What of the jewels and of Hama?” inquired Geo. “Is he a god of Aptor under whom these forces are being marshaled? And are these jewels sacred to him in some way?”
“Both are true, and both are not true enough,” replied the Priestess.
“And one more thing. You say the last attempted invasion by Aptor into Leptar was five hundred years ago. It was five hundred years ago that the religion of Argo in Leptar purged all her rituals and instituted new ones. Was there some connection between the invasion and the purge?”
“I am sure of it,” declared the Priestess. “But I do not know what it is. However, let me now tell you the story of the jewels. The one I wear at my neck was captured somehow from Aptor during that first invasion. That we captured it may well be the reason that we are still a free nation today. Since then it has been guarded carefully in the Temple of the Goddess Argo, its secrets well protected, along with those few chronicles that mention the invasion — which ended, incidentally, only a month before the purges. Then about a year ago, a small horde of horror reached our shore from Aptor. I cannot describe it. I did not see any of what transpired. But they made their way inland and managed to kidnap Argo herself.”
“You mean Argo Incarnate? The highest priestess?”
“Yes. Each generation, as you know, the first daughter of the past generation’s highest priestess is chosen as the living incarnation of the White Goddess Argo. She is reared and taught by the wisest priests and priestesses. She is given every luxury, every bit of devotion; and she is made Argo Incarnate until she marries and has daughters. And so it is passed on. At any rate, she was kidnapped. One of the assailants was hacked down: instantly it decayed, rotted on the floor of the convent corridor. But from the putrescent mass of flesh, we salvaged a second jewel from Aptor. And before it died, it was heard to utter the lines I quoted to you before. So I have been sent to find what I can of the enemy, and to rescue or find the fate of our young Argo.”
“I will do whatever I can,” said Geo, “to help save Leptar and to discover the whereabouts of your sister priestess.”
“Not my sister,” said the woman softly, “my daughter in blood, as I am the daughter of the last Argo: that is why this task fell to me. And until she is found dead or returned alive”—there she rose from her bench — “I am again the White Goddess Argo Incarnate.”
Geo dropped his eyes as Argo lifted her veil. Once more that evening she held forth the jewel. “There are three of these,” she said. “Hama’s sign is a black disk with three white eyes. Each eye represents a jewel. With the first invasion, they probably carried all three jewels, for the jewels are the center of their power. Without them, they would have been turned back immediately. With them, they thought themselves invincible. But we captured one and very soon unlocked its secrets. I have no guards with me. With this jewel I need none. I am as safe as I would be with an army, and capable of nearly as much destruction.
“When they came to kidnap my daughter a year ago, I am convinced they carried both of their remaining jewels, thinking that we had either lost or did not know the power of the first. Anyway, they reasoned, they had two to our one. But now we have two, and they are left with only one. Through some complete carelessness, your little thief stole one from me as I was about to board when we first departed two months ago. Today he probably recognized me and intended to exact some fee for its return. But now he will be put to a true thief’s task. He must steal for me the third and final jewel from Hama. Then we shall have Aptor and be rid of their evil.”
“And where is this third jewel?” asked Geo.
“Perhaps,” said the woman, “perhaps it is lodged in the forehead of the statue of the Dark God Hama that sits in the guarded palace somewhere in the center of the jungles of Aptor. Do you think your thief will find himself challenged?”
“I think so,” answered Geo.
“Somewhere in that same palace is my daughter, or her remains. You are to find them, and if she is alive, bring her back with you.”
“And what of the jewels?” asked Geo. “When will you show us their power so that we may use them to penetrate the palace of Hama?”
“I will show you their power,” said Argo, smiling. With one hand she held up the map over which she had spoken. With the other she tapped the white jewel with her pale fingernail. The map suddenly blackened at one edge, flared. Argo walked to a brazier and deposited the flaming paper. Then she turned once more to Geo. “I can fog the brain of a single person, as I did with Snake, or I can bewilder a hundred men. As easily as I can fire a dried, worn map, I can raze a city.”