«Who has been giving me this test besides yourself?» said Blade.
«The women of the Valley of the Hashomi,» she replied. «The women who cannot live as they wish because of the ways of the Hashomi.»
Blade started to laugh at the idea of the women of the valley testing his virility, then sobered. Behind Mirna's cryptic words was a very real meaning-and perhaps a very real opportunity.
«The ways of the Hashomi?» he repeated slowly. «You think particularly of their ways with women?»
«Yes. Or of their not-ways,» she said, her face twisting bitterly. «They are taught, and exercised, and drugged until they are less than men, as far as the women are concerned.»
«How many women?» said Blade. The opportunity was taking firmer shape in his mind.
«More women than there are men who can help them live as women ought to,» said Mirna. The way she hammered out the words told Blade clearly that he wasn't going to learn any more-at least not yet.
Mirna bent with swift grace to retrieve her robe and tie it about herself. Then she bent again, and her lips ran warmly and lightly down Blade's stomach into his groin. He could feel desire stirring again, but before it had time to do more than that, Mirna's lips were no longer there. Blade sighed. As she said, the time and place were not the best, but still-
She laid a hand lightly on his cheek. «Blade, I must go. The women of the valley will hear of this-«
«Not the men?»
Her voice hardened. «They keep their secrets from us. We keep ours from them.» Again Blade understood that she would tell him no more tonight. «The women will hear, and then in time I shall come to you again.»
«Not alone?» Blade hinted.
She hesitated for a moment, then-
«No. Not alone»
A moment later she was gone, and the door slid into place. Blade lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He suspected he'd found not only willing women, but perhaps willing allies as well. With the eyes and ears of even a few of the valley's women at his command, his ability to penetrate the secrets of the Hashomi could be multiplied many times over.
Could be. How long would it be before he knew for certain?
As long as the women want it to be, said a firm voice in his mind.
After a moment, Blade was forced to agree with that voice. Trying to hurry one woman was seldom wise. Trying to hurry several dozen was almost always stupid.
Blade turned on his side, pulled the blankets over himself, and drifted off to the easiest sleep he'd had in this Dimension.
Chapter 8
The women of the valley were eager to get Blade's services, but didn't forget caution or common sense. It was several days before Blade heard from Mirna again, and more than a week before she led him to his first rendezvous.
Even then Blade was not quite as well-off as he'd hoped to be. It was entertaining to dream of satisfying hundreds of sex-starved women while learning all the secrets of the Hashomi from what the women babbled or moaned. Things didn't work out that way.
Mirna had said there were more eager and lusty women than there were eager and lusty men. Blade met less than a hundred. Doubtless there might be more, but Mirna seemed to be a cautious soul. Blade suspected she was bringing to him only those women she could trust to be totally discreet and possibly only those who were her personal friends-and allies. Mirna quite obviously had some plans beyond giving a few dozen of her friends a few happy hours in bed with Richard Blade.
Blade was careful not to inquire about those plans. If Mirna was deep in some dangerous game, she would be quite ready to denounce him to the Master if he did anything but keep his mouth shut and his loins busy. She couldn't afford to be less than ruthless where her own survival was concerned.
Blade did learn a good deal from the women in spite of all this. Unfortunately, most of it was kitchen gossip, domestic scandals, or which Hashomi were usually impotent, drunk, or more than normally sadistic. A vast amount of petty detail, which would no doubt be useful if he ever decided it was worth trying to blackmail some of the Hashomi.
Somehow, Blade could not see much sense in that.
He realized after a few days that he should have expected this. The place of women among the Hashomi was so low that even in his most unguarded moments a sworn adept would hardly reveal very many secrets to one. Most of the leaders high enough to be in the confidence of the Master were celibate or so old they'd lost interest in women.
Not that Blade's passing among the women was a complete waste of his time and energy. From what he saw and from what they told him, he was able to work up a map of the whole valley, with all the important towns and camps and many of the guard posts clearly marked. He was also able to find out where much of the gear he badly needed could be obtained, without the Master's consent or knowledge.
So night after night Blade made his rounds to the places where the women waited. Night after night he slipped into unguarded storehouses, arsenals, and shops, to come out with what he wanted. Night after night, a hidden cache grew in a forest near the northern wall of the valley. Before long he had everything he needed to make his way safely out of the valley and through the mountains that hid it from the world.
Apart from all this, there was a great deal of lusty pleasure to give the women, and to take from them. That was quite all right with Blade-there was nothing of the ascetic in him!
The Master and the senior Treases were more informative. They told Blade very little, but they showed him a lot. From what he saw, Blade was able to draw a good many conclusions on his own.
There were at least nine separate drugs involved in the cult of the Hashomi, ranging from the healing to the lethal. The basic drug was a mildly addictive one that was given to the Hashomi from the moment they entered the ranks of the order. Its main effect was to make them more sensitive to the other eight drugs.
Three of these were more important than the others. There was the huma, the poison the Master had injected into the two men defeated by Blade. A full dose of it could kill a strong man in a few seconds. Even a grain or two finding its way through a cut or scratch could kill a man within a few agonizing hours.
There was the ken, the drug the leader had injected into the two disobedient Hashomi after the fight by the bridge. It made a man passive, almost without a will of his own, incapable of acting without orders and equally incapable of disobeying any order given him. While a man had the ken in him, he was little more than a puppet.
The final member of the deadly trio was the nad. This was not made from the handr flower, but compounded according to a highly secret formula from certain mineral salts and vegetable juices. Its effects reminded Blade of what he'd seen among victims of massive doses of LSD. The nad reacted in any warm-blooded creature to produce madness paranoia, uncontrollable rage, catatonic withdrawal, furious convulsions that ended in death from the rupturing of muscles and internal organs.
Any warm-blooded creature-animals as well as men. Seared into Blade's memory was a demonstration, of the nad he watched one day. He stood beside the Master on the edge of a steep-walled pit dug in the earth almost at the foot of the White Mountain. Together they watched three armed Hashomi lead a man and a woman into the pit. Their hands were bound behind their backs, and both were naked. The man was gray-haired and pot-bellied, while the woman was hardly more than a girl.