It took a long time to make any cut in the tight cords. At last a strand parted, and another, and he was able to unwind the rest. With deadened hands he rubbed the binding from the gag and spit the choking cloth from his mouth, able to breathe a welcome gasp of the chill foggy air.
Now he could move, and in the concealment of the night and the fog he had a chance. His way lay uphill—he had no choice in that. The gate would be the logical place for his enemies to lay their ambush. It was the only way through the defense wall that ringed the upper town.
When he reached the wall, he was greatly relieved. It was not difficult to find a place where illicit debris had piled up against the ancient fortification. Sheds and buildings proliferated here, crowding into narrow gaps between the permitted buildings and the former defense of the high town. He scrambled by the roofs of three of them up to the crest and found the situation unhappily tidier on the other side. He walked the wall, dreading the jump; and in a place where the erosion of centuries had lessened the height perhaps five feet, he lowered himself over the edge and dropped a dizzying distance to the ground on the high town side.
The jolt did not knock him entirely unconscious, but it dazed him and left him scarcely able to crawl the little distance into the shadows. It was a time before he had recovered sufficiently to try to walk again, at times losing clear realization of how he had reached a particular place.
He reached the main street. It was deserted. Kurt took to it only as often as he must, finally broke into a run as he saw the door of Osanef. He darted into the friendly shadow of its porch.
No one answered. Light came through the fog indistinctly on the upper hill, a suffused glow from the temple or the Afen. He remembered the festival, and decided even Indras-influenced Osanef might be at the temple.
He took to the street running now, two blocks from Elas and trusting to speed, not daring even the other Indras houses. They had no love of humans; Kta had warned him so.
He was in the final sprint for Elas’ door before he realized Elas might be watched, would logically be watched unless the Methi’s guards were about. It was too late to stop. He reached its triangular arch and pounded furiously on the door, not even daring to look over his shoulder.
“Who is there?” Hef’s voice asked faintly.
“Kurt. Let me in. Let me in, Hef.”
The bolt shot back, the door opened, and Kurt slipped inside and leaned against the closed door, gasping for breath in the sudden warmth and light of Elas.
“Mim,” said Hef. “Lord Kurt, what has happened? Where is Mim?”
“Not—not here?”
“No. We thought at least—whatever had happened—you were together.”
Kurt caught his breath with a choking swallow of air and pushed himself square on his feet. “Call Kta.”
“He is out with Ian t’Ilev and Val t’Ran, searching for you both. Ai,my lord, what can we do? I will call Nym—”
“Tell Nym—tell Nym I have gone to get the Methi’s help. Give me a weapon,—anything—”
“I cannot, my lord, I cannot. My orders forbid—”
Kurt swore and jerked the door open again, ran for the street and the Afen gate.
When he reached the Afen wall, the great gates were closed and the wall-street that led to the temple compound was crowded with Sufaki—drunken, most of them. Kurt leaned on the bars and shouted for the guards to hear him and open them, but his voice was lost in the noise of the crowds, with all Sufak Nephane gathered into that square down the street and spilling over into the wall-street. Some, drunker than the rest, began also to shake at the bars of the gates to try to raise the guards. If there were any on duty to hear, they ignored the uproar.
Kurt caught his breath, exhausted, far from help of Kta or Djan. Then he remembered the other gate, the sally port in the far end of the wall where it touched Haichema-tleke, and opened onto the temple square. That would be the one for them to guard, that nearest the temple. They might hear him there, and open.
He raced along the wall, jostling Sufaki in his exhausted weaving and stumbling. A few drunk ones laughed and caught at his clothing. Others cursed him, trying to bar his way.
A cry began to go up, resentment for his presence. Jafikn-wearing Sufaki barred his path, turned him. Someone struck him from the side, nearly throwing him to the pavement.
He ran, but they would not let him escape the square, blocking his way out,—t’Tefur’s men, armed with blades.
Authority, he thought, sensible authority would not let this happen. He broke to one side, racing for the temple steps, sending shrieking women and cursing men crowding out of his way.
Hands reached to stop him. He tore past them almost all the way to the very top of the long temple steps before enough of them seized him to hold him.
“Elas’ doing!” a hysterical voice shrieked from below. “Kill the human!”
Kurt struggled around to see who had shouted, looked down on a sea of alien faces in the torchlight and the haze of thin mist. “Where is Shan t’Tefur?” Kurt screamed back at them. “Where has he taken my wife?”
The babble of voices almost hushed for a moment: the nemet held their women in great esteem. Kurt drew a great gasp of air and shouted across the gathering. “Shan t’Tefur! If you are here, come out and face me. Where is my wife? What have you done with her?”
There was a moment of shocked silence and then a rising murmur like thunder as an aged priest came from the upper steps through the men gathered there. He cleared the way with the emblem of his office, a vine-wreathed staff. The staff extended till it was almost touching Kurt, and the priest spat some unintelligible words at him.
There was utter silence now, drunken laughter coming distantly from the wall-street. In this gathering no one so much as stirred. Even Kurt was struck to silence,—the staff extended a degree further and with unreasoning loathing he shrank from it, not wanting to be touched by this mouthing priest with his drunken gods of earth. They held him, and the rough wood of the staff’s tip trembled against his cheek.
“Blasphemer,” said the priest, “sent by Elas to profane the rites. Liar. Cursed from the earth you will be, by the old gods, the ancient gods, the life-giving sons of Thael. Son of Yr to Phan united, Aem-descended, to the gods of ancient Chteftik,—cursed!”
“A curse on the lot of you,” Kurt shouted in his face, “if you have any part in t’Tefur’s plot! My wife Mim never harmed any of you, never harmed anyone. Where is she? You people,—you! that were in the market today—that walked away—Are you all in this? What did they do with her? Where did they take her?—Is she alive? By your own gods you can tell me that at least. Is she alive?”
“No one knows anything of the woman, human,” said the aged priest. “And you were ill-advised to come here with your drunken ravings. Who would harm Mim h’Elas, a daughter of Sufak herself? You come here and profane the mysteries—taught no reverence in Elas, it is clear. Cursed be you, human, and if you do not leave now, we will wash the pollution of your feet from these stones with your blood.—Let him go, let go the human, and give him the chance to leave.”
They released him, and Kurt swayed on the steps above the crowd, scanning the faces for one that was familiar. Of Osanef, of any friend, there was no sign. He looked back at the priest.
“She is lost in the city, hurt or dead,” Kurt pleaded. “You are a religious man.—Do something!”
For a moment pity or conscience almost touched the stern old face. The cracked lips quavered on some answer. There was a hush over the crowd.
“It is Indras’ doing!” a male voice shouted. “Elas is looking for some offense against the Sufaki—and now they try to create one! The human is Elas’ creature!”
Kurt whirled about, saw a familiar face for the first time.
“He is one of them!” Kurt shouted. “That is one of the men who was in the market when my wife was taken. They tried to kill me and they have my wife—”
“Liar,” shouted another man. “Ver has been at the temple since the ringing of the Inta.I saw him myself. The human is trying to accuse an innocent man.”