"When you have satisfied their curiosity regarding the ripeness of the foreigners for conversion, you might utter some leading remarks about the temple. Hint that you might be ready for conversion yourself, if you could but see its wonders. If I know Kylo, he will insist on showing the edifice to you in person. He redecorated it a few years ago and is monstrously proud of his handiwork.
"Armed guards are posted around the outside of the temple, and inside a couple of priests are supposed to keep a constant vigil, praying to Gorgolor and incidentally watching to see that nobody steals the furnishings. But in these degenerate days, one who suddenly intrudes upon these priests is likely to find them engrossed in dicing or draughts.
"As your party passes near the emerald statue, I wish you to display your storytelling talent. You must so fascinate all within earshot that the priests on watch will leave their posts and follow your party. Dear old Kylo will not, I am sure, rebuke them.
"Meanwhile, Karadur and I will slip behind the pedestal of the statue of Gorgolor. Whilst your party drifts out the main entrance, with you talking your head off, we shall try the shrinking spell. When we rejoin you, it will, the gods permitting, be with a much diminished Gorgolor in our pockets. Even if the theft transpire ere we leave the temenos, it is unlikely that we shall be searched, for the priests will be looking for a crew of twenty to thirty men and a team of oxen, which would be needed to rape away the statue in its present form."
As the party, consisting of Jorian, Karadur, Valdonius, the theocrat, four of his episcopals, and one ordinary priest who was his secretary, approached the main entrance to the temple of Gorgolor, its spear-bearing guards dropped with a clang to one knee. At a word from the high priest, they sprang to the great bronzen doors and pushed them groaningly open.
Kylo of Anneia was a short, stout man with a large, hooked nose, wearing a white silken robe and a tall headdress of white felt, trimmed with gold and gleaming with jewels. The episcopals were in crimson; the ordinary priest, in black.
Jorian, now barbered, sweet smelling, and clad in clean garments, was saying "… and so, I cannot extend much hope to Your Holiness in this matter. The nomads of Shven hold all sessors, as they call them, in such contempt that, if you send missionaries thither, they will either laugh at them or slay them out of hand.
"The Muivanians present no more hope, although their response would be more amiable. They would say: Welcome, O priests; we already have hundreds of gods but are always glad to add another. And they would enroll Gorgolor in their own teeming pantheon, where he would be lost in the throng. When you complained that they had perverted your meticulous theology, they would simply smile and promise to do better—and then go on doing as they have always done."
Jorian paused inside the temple to look around. "Marvelous!" he cried. "Incredible! Such taste! Such artistry! Surely, Your Holiness, your god must be a great and wise god indeed, to inspire men to such an achievement!"
"It is good of you to say so, my son," said Kylo, beaming and speaking with a broad Tarxian peasant accent. "You would be surprised at the trouble I had with some conservative members of my own hierarchy, who thought mosaics of mortals and spiritual beings in a state of nudity indecent."
The central portion of the temple was square, with a colossal stone pier at each corner of the square. Huge arches and pendentives sprang from the tops of these piers. From the pendentives a low drum arose, and above the drum, the central dome soared up into dimness. The interior of the dome and its flanking half-domes were covered with gilded, brightly colored mosaics illustrating scenes from Gorgolorian mythology. At the floor level, numerous lamps shed adequate lighting. Further up, the light became fainter, until it picked out only an occasional bit of gilding.
On the floor, an altar stood to one side of the square. From the square, three short arms projected, allowing space for the worshipers to stand; for in Gorgolorism the laymen were allowed inside the temple. On the fourth side of the square, where the altar rested, was the holy of holies to which only the priests had access. This side could be closed off from profane eyes by a sliding screen. This screen was now drawn back, showing the cubical plinth, about six feet on an edge, and on the plinth the image of Gorgolor, carved from a single boulder of emerald.
As the party approached, two black-clad priests hastily rose. One tucked something that might have been a gaming device into his robe. Then they genuflected.
"Incredible!" repeated Jorian, looking up at the lion-sized smaragdine frog, in whose depths green lights seemed to glow and waver. "My only reservation, if Your Holiness will pardon my saying so, is that so much beauty might distract a man from the contemplation of the higher truths."
'True, Doctor Maltho," said Kylo. "With some worshipers, it may have that effect. But with others, it predisposes them all the more to harken unto our edifying homilies. We cannot, alas, divide the faithful into categories and furnish each group with a temple of the most suitable kind. So we seek a moderate approach, which will save the greatest number of faithful souls."
"Ah yes, Holy Father," said Jorian. "In my city, we long ago decided that the best safeguard against such perils was moderation. Even beauty, we found, can be overdone. Know you the tale of King Forimar of Kortoli—Forimar the Esthete?"
"Nay, my son, albeit I recall the name from histories of Novaria. Speak, an you would."
Jorian drew a long breath. Moving a leisurely half-pace at a time towards the main entrance, so as to draw the clerical crowd—including the two priests on vigil—with him, he began:
"This Forimar was a predecessor of Fusinian the Fox, of whom so many tales are told. It seems a rule of royalty that, out of every six kings, a land gets one hero, one scoundrel, one fool, and three mediocrities. Forimar was one of the fools, as his great-grandnephew Filoman the Weil-Meaning was after him.
"But Forimar's folly took a special form. State business bored him to distraction. He cared little for law and justice, less for commerce and finance, and nothing at all for war and preparations therefor."
"Would that all sovrans and governments shared your king's distaste for war!" said the theocrat. "Then would men live in peace and devote themselves to leading good lives and worshipping the true god."
"True, Your Holiness; but the problem is, how do you get them all to give up war at once? Especially with so quarrelsome and factious a folk as the Novarians? And if one lay aside his arms before the rest, the rest reward his good example by leaping at his throat.
"Forimar, howsomever, was not a profound thinker about such matters. His passion for art and beauty overpowered all else. When he should have been reading state papers, he was playing the flageolet in the palace sextet. When he ought to have been receiving envoys, he was overseeing the building of a new temple or otherwise beautifying Kortoli City. When he should have been inspecting the troops, he was composing a sonnet to the beauties of the sunset.
"What made such matters more difficult was that he was really competent at all these arts. He was a fair architect, an accomplished musician, a worthy composer, a fine singer, and an excellent painter. Some of his poems are the glories of Kortolian literature to this day. But he could not do all these things and king it, too.
"Hence he left the governance of the polis to a succession of chancellors, chosen neither for probity nor for competence but for their admiration of their sovran's artistic achievements. After the kingdom had long suffered under a series of thieves and bunglers, Forimar's younger brother Fusonio took him to task.
" 'My dear brother and sire,' quoth Fusonio, 'this cannot go on.' After he had lectured Forimar on the iniquities of the recent ministers, he added: 'Furthermore, you are nearly thirty but have not yet chosen a queen, to provide legitimate heirs to the throne.'