Now the door to the right. The moment he pushed it open he sensed that this was the door he was meant to enter.
A short passage led to a blank wall of stone. There was another door with a square peephole cut in it. Light glowed through the orifice. Blade advanced and peered through the opening. Yes. This he was meant to see.
There was a square room. In the center of the room a bed. On the bed, naked, lay the Princess Hirga. She lay with arms and legs flung wide, her taut peaked breasts rising and falling, her eyes closed. If she sensed his presence she made no sign.
As Blade watched she began to fondle her breasts, stroking and kneading. Her fingers toyed with her nipples. Her mouth fell open and he saw the moist tongue protrude and glisten and a worm of saliva rolled from her lips. She began to moan. «Come to me. Hurry-hurry-Come to me.»
A travesty of the words Janina had spoken to Blade in fantasy. And not meant for him. Blade watched, narrow-eyed, and his scalp twitched. Not meant for him. Hirga had raised herself and was glancing around the chamber, impatient, looking, waiting. For what? Who?
First the odor. The stench smote Blade like an unclean fist.
The smell of death and shit and something worse than either.
It came. Whether from the floor or the walls he could not see, but it filled space that had been empty. It was there.
It stood near the bed and regarded the naked Hirga with eyes set deep in a face that was both animal and human. Horns curled from its forehead and it sprouted scales instead of hair. Silvery platelike scales covered its body. It had the breasts of a woman and the phallus of a man. The legs were short and crooked and ended in hooves. Cloven. It stood and glared at Hirga and slowly moved toward the bed.
Hirga held out her arms in welcome. Blade, sweating from every pore, watched her face. He had never seen such terror writ on a human face, or such anticipation. Hirga groaned and her eyes rolled as she beckoned the creature to her. It was slow, advancing a step at a time, making no sound.
It came at last to the bedside and stopped. Hirga clasped her hands in supplication. Blade shuddered and tried to close his nostrils. The odor was obscene.
The phallus. It had been limp and dangled to the creature's knee. It was thick, a meaty sausage covered with tiny scales. It began to swell, to grow, to gain rigidity and strength until it jutted enormous and threatening. Blade understood then, knew why no mere man could satisfy Hirga. The High Priest sent this thing to her, controlled her by means of it, and Hirga was addicted, like an addict crying for heroin. As she was crying now, sobbing and writhing on the bed and, her face wild, reaching with both hands for the giant phallus.
The creature moved swiftly. It mounted Hirga and thrust in. She screamed. She lifted her knees high and clasped the foul thing to her and screamed. The creature made no sound, only thrust and thrust that gigantic phallus into her, deeper and deeper. Blade marveled that she was not torn apart.
Gradually her screams subsides into groans. Soft moans. The thing was fully ensconced in her now and moving with a rhythmic beat. On and on and on. Hirga's eyes were open and staring. She drooled. Her belly pulsated and her nates quivered. Where there had been terror, fear, anticipation, there was now a growing ecstasy. Her face reddened and tears ran from her staring eyes. Blade, Blade the voyeur, looked down at his own penis and saw it iron hard. He cursed himself.
Hirga screamed in frightful joy. She threshed around on the bed and screamed and screamed and the sound filled the room and ripped at Blade's nerves. He was gripping the swordhilt so hard that his fingers cramped. He pushed against the door. It gave a bit. He must go in, he must kill the thing, end this foulness, for he could stand no more. Casta would know this. It was so planned. Bit by bit he was fraying away Blade's nerves, whittling at his courage.
The thing was gone. Blade pushed into the room and went to the bed. Hirga lay fainting, her face in repose again, her eyes dull and heavy-lidded, her mouth swollen and pouty. Moisture glistened in her pubic hair and trickled down her inner thighs. She did not seem to know he was there.
Blade glanced at the floor. A few scales. The foul smell was fading. Yet another illusion? No. This had been real. The creature had been there, just as it had been in the cavern cubicle before, and in the palace bedroom. Hirga was in bond to it, slave to it, to Casta's abominable creation.
Hirga opened her eyes and stared up at Blade. They were a soft and sleepy green and yet now they begged.
«Blade. You saw?»
«I saw.»
«Do you understand?»
Blade shook his head.
«Casta,» she told him with a weariness in her voice now. «He devises it and his priests obey-in the crypts below they copulate with beasts and so produce monsters. Half animal and half men-of many sorts. Casta seeks to produce a race of monsters with brute strength and small brains so he can control them and, through them, all of Zir and, eventually, the world.»
«The intent is not new to me,» said Blade. «The method is. But what of you, Hirga? Does your body have you so in thrall? Must you be Casta's creature always?»
Hirga rose on an elbow and looked at him. The green eyes pleaded. «When the desire, the madness comes over me I cannot help myself. But when the creature has come and gone I am, for a little time, satiated, and can think for myself. Now is such a time. So I beg a favor of you, Blade. Grant it to me and I will help you as much as I can-I will warn you of what lies ahead, though you must fend for yourself, and I will tell you of a way out of the maze should you live to use it.»
Blade felt mingled pity and revulsion. «And what is this favor, Hirga?»
«Kill me, Blade. Cut off my head and take it with you. It may be of some help when you meet Urdur.»
«And who is Urdur? Or what?»
Hirga began to weep. «A monster born of monsters. Casta mated a male with a female monster and they begat Urdur. He is Casta's familiar and guards him, and now that you have come this far into the maze you will meet him. If you can kill Urdur you will have defeated Casta. I do not think you can, Blade, but you cannot go back. Now, before the madness comes over me again, I ask you to kill me. I am vile and loathe myself beyond bearing. I grow old. Soon I will be a hag and Casta will use me to breed his monsters. And I have no courage to kill myself.»
Blade stepped away from the bed. «Find it, then. For this I cannot do.»
She was at his feet, clutching at his knees, begging with tear-filled eyes. «I beg it. I beg it! Please, Blade. It is no stain on you and a favor to me. Promise me this and I will tell you of the secret way out. There is only one. Without this knowledge you will die in the maze, even if you kill Urdur. Even if you slay Casta. The crows will wait until you are weak from hunger and thirst, dazed from searching a way out, then they will creep up and slay you. I know this.»
Blade stared long into the green eyes and saw truth there. She did wish this thing.
«Tell me of the way out, Hirga.»
«You promise to kill me?»
«I promise.»
«You were in Casta's private chamber?»
«He nodded.
«Then you saw a fire?»
«Aye. He sat before it.»
«Beneath the fire, when you scatter it, is a grate that can be lifted out. A hole leads into a passage and the passage out to the Plain. When the tomb is sealed, as it now is, it is the only way out.»