There was a pleasant odor in the immaculate and windless streets. The smell of women.
Blade was fascinated and missed nothing, though mindful of the time. Kronos were ticking away and soon the Sacer would begin. A vastly different Sacer, so Honcho said, than the one of the Pethcines.
Sometimes the women were alone, sometimes accompanied by a ceboid or a neuter. Sometimes they were in twos, or groups, and some went hand in hand. The air was filled with bright badinage, in the high Tharnian that Blade understood, and he closed his mind to it less it distract him from his task. There was very little time now. Honcho had waited until the very last microkronos and Blade knew why. To cut down on the chances of matters going wrong.
Blade saw that all the women were now streaming toward a great slim pencil of a building that loomed in the exact center of the city. The Palace. It was here that Sacer was held and the twenty Lordsmen were sacrificed.
Blade had noticed, in his tour of Urcit, that phallic symbols were everywhere. In every square, place and crescent, were replicas of the male organ mounted on plinths. It was in shop windows. The women wore the same symbol on charm bracelets and necklaces. The gargoyles on the buildings were in the form of sharp thrusting phalli.
Engraved on the base of every image was the letter: M. Mazda. The symbol, the personification, of the male power.
The Palace stood in a great square. Before the main entrance was a huge phallus, sculpted from transparent teksin, that towered a hundred feet into the air. Flanking it on either side was the statue of a woman, each dressed in flowing white robes and each exactly resembling the other. Twins. Astar and Isma. Twin rulers of Tharn. Astar, the Queen-Goddess. Isma, the High Priestess. Astar clutched a phallic shaped scepter. Isma held aloft a half-rolled scroll. The Word.
The irony did not escape Blade. Honcho had pointed it out. Tharn was a dying civilization. Beautiful women, magnificent specimens that they were, were not enough. They worshiped the male organ as a symbol of fertility, of resurrection and immortality, of continuity. It was not enough.
Blade entered the Palace. The women were streaming along ramps towards a central arena. It was circular and covered with a pinkish-white sand, and illuminated by the nebulous drifting lights. There were no wires, no cables, no fixtures. Blade understood now that power was transmitted from some central source by means of invisible laser beams, that in some way the Tharnians could tap into magnetic fields and drain and harness the energy. There was a master Power Pool, and part of his mission for Honcho was to find it and render it useless. Then the great magveils would not work, the Red Storms could not be sent, and the Pethcines would sweep in like a scourge and devour the land.
If Blade willed it so.
The arena was full of women now. Quiet, waiting, only a low hum of conversation as obbligato to a waiting, haunting silence. The odor of the assembled females was overwhelmingly sensuous. Blade studied the two empty thrones that stood in the very center of the arena. The music that was everywhere, and nowhere, suddenly altered. There was a muted strain of trumpets. Astar and Isma, walking hand in hand, entered the arena. They were clad in golden breastplates and purple mini-tunics and were followed by a group of chanting Maiduke maidens. Many of the Maidukes strongly resembled Zulekia. Blade, hovering, observed that the sealed chastity belts were unbroken. Good Maidukes, these. No karno committed. Or they had been cleverer than Zulekia?
Astar and Isma halted in the middle of the arena. They kissed each other lightly, then each ascended her separate throne.
Blade was watching Astar, the Queen-Goddess, and he saw something that puzzled him. She stared straight ahead, her eyes half closed, and she might have been alone in Tharn. She was withdrawn, silent, distant.
It was Isma, the High Priestess, who raised her hands high and clapped them. The music altered, the trumpets more brazen now.
Isma's voice was sweet and high and commanding. "Let the Sacer of Tharn begin," she said. "Bring in the Lordsmen."
There was a hush over the vast arena. The trumpets died to whispers. Somewhere a vast door slid open and the Lordsmen marched into the arena in a column of twos. And Blade understood why Tharn was dying, and why Honcho had picked this time for its overthrow. The Lordsmen were only travesties of men. They were runts, spindly and scrawny, some ugly and misshapen, all standing under five feet. The male strain in Tharn had weakened and run out, and this was all that was left.
Marching music now. The Lordsmen circled the arena, still in twos, raising their swords to the thrones as they passed. They were dressed bravely enough in tinted armor and helmets and greaves, and each carried a square shield and a short sharp sword. Recognition clicked in Blade's mind. The Roman gladiator games. This scene was much akin.
The music died again. The Lordsmen stopped marching and formed a double rank near the thrones. The crowd of women buzzed and hummed. There was a moment of waiting. Then Isma clapped her hands again.
An old man began to materialize between the thrones. Blade knew that he was seeing simlu and for a moment his mind chilled, then he cast it off. Honcho had admitted that he could not, in person and without permission, penetrate the magveils around Urcit. He could send simlu, yes, but a simlu was harmless, lacking real power. And Honcho's spiscreens did not work in Urcit. For a time Blade had nothing to fear.
He saw now that the old man was also a neuter. The slimness, the neutral cast of features, the long green eyes were unmistakable. Yet this neuter must be very old. Its hair was gray and the face a mass of wrinkles. It was richly dressed.
The neuter was fully materialized now. It made obeisance to both Astar and Isma. Blade noted again that the Queen-Goddess did not respond, only sat unmoving and staring straight ahead. It was the High Priestess who nodded and spoke: "Hail to you, Sutha. King of Neuters. You know your duty well. Perform it."
Sutha bowed again, then faced the column of Lordsmen. The voice was like an ancient document, raveled and cracked and weak with age. He began to walk up and down the line of Lordsmen. Blade, watching closely, sensed that some sort of a decision was to be made. Yet it did not seem to be a serious one, for the old neuter had a half-mocking smile on his face. Blade glanced at the throne. Astar was paying no attention, but Isma was leaning forward, amusement on her face, like one who anticipates entertainment of a lighter sort.
Sutha selected the largest and strongest of the Lordsmen and placed him squarely in the center of the arena. The man stripped off his armor and weapons and piled them at his feet. He was naked now. Blade felt amusement and a trace of pity - the Lordsman was a puny thing but, such as it was, he was certainly in an erectile state. And now Sutha was positioning the other Lordsmen, one here, one there, somewhat in the manner of chessmen on a board. All stripped down as soon as they took their positions.
Blade saw and heard it then. The women! They had stopped talking and laughing among themselves, and yet there was no silence. It took him a moment to puzzle it out, then he understood: it was the sound of breathing. Just that. Hushed, expectant, excited breathing. The women kept their seats, not one arose and he supposed there was a rule about that, but each one of them was tensed and ready, an arrow on a bow string, a coiled spring. And then Blade could also smell them. Not the perfume, not the clean bodies, but women exuding the musky odor of lust.
Blade could anticipate. This was a once a year thing, and while it had comic overtones it would be deadly serious to the women involved. And, he thought with amusement, it might be dangerous to the Lordsmen. He did not think they had long to live in any case, but even that little time might be cut short.