Ignoring it, Garth stepped inside.
He was in a small kitchen; a stone sink stood against one wall, and tables and cabinets abounded. There was no sign of life, but it was reasonably clean, with no accumulation of dust; the house was not abandoned. Perhaps the owner was deaf; Garth could not imagine any other reason not to investigate such noise as he had just made, if the occupant were there at all and capable of movement.
Perhaps he or she had gone out and not bothered to close the shutters; perhaps he was bedridden. In any case, Garth was not particularly concerned; he had merely wanted some other route out of the stable. He crossed the kitchen, and strode through the open archway that led to a large front room. Unlike the kitchen, this room was the full width of the house, about twenty feet; it was slightly longer than that from front to back, and the low ceiling made it appear even broader. Garth found that he had to stoop. The kitchen had allowed him to stand upright so long as he avoided the beams that supported the upper floor, but this larger room had a plank ceiling.
There was a door in the wall behind him, which he guessed led to a storeroom of some sort beside the kitchen, and along the left-hand wall a stairway led to the upper level. Assorted chairs, rugs; and tables were scattered about; a broad hearth and massive fireplace occupied the right wall. The far side had two wide bow windows, with curtains drawn across them, and a heavy oaken door between.
He crossed to the door, drew the lockbolt, and opened it slightly, peering out; it appeared to be a residential neighborhood, with no shops or public buildings visible. He opened the door and stepped out.
The sun had broken through the clouds; the street was deserted. He closed the door behind him but left it unlocked, and headed to his right, the direction he judged would best bring him to the Street of the Temples.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He had been very fortunate in emerging on an empty street; he found few others as he made his way across Dыsarra, but. somehow he reached his goal without being accosted. Several people had cast curious gazes in his direction and a mutter of conversation had frequently followed him, but no one had dared to stop him. Now, he strode openly along the Street of the Temples, hoping his luck would hold.
He was approaching a temple, the third from the overlord's palace; it loomed before him, a huge cube of black stone, dotted with dark windows and topped by a broad dome. Seven shallow steps led to its, open portals; there were no gates, no courtyard, no indication which deity was worshipped here. He was only a few paces from the bottom step when someone behind him cried, "Hold, overman!"
He hastened his pace, hurrying up the steps; he heard running, feet somewhere behind him as he stepped through the doorway into an antechamber.
The room was small, with a wooden floor that gave dangerously beneath his feet, and walls hung with moldering, faded tapestries. He wondered briefly if the place was abandoned; since the daylight cults were secret, one might have died out without anyone knowing it.
There was a door in the inner wall with a rusty iron handle; Garth grabbed it, only to have it crumble in his grasp. He raised a fist to pound on the door, in hope that someone would admit him; to his astonishment, the door burst inward at his first blow, its hinges screaming in protest. Dust flew up in clouds, and a paroxysm of coughing overtook him, but he managed to stumble through. As he did, he realized there were no further sounds of pursuit behind him; instead, a voice exclaimed in dismay, "We can't go in there!"
He stopped. If he were not pursued, there as no need for haste. He wiped the dust from his stinging eyes and looked about.
The door he had entered through stood beside him, and it was immediately obvious why it had yielded so quickly; it had been eaten away from within by termites and rot, so that his blow had merely finished their work. The latch that had held it remained where it was, rusted to the frame, and the wood had turned to powder around it, so that the door's edge now had a gaping hole in it.
He was in a room perhaps fifteen feet across and twenty feet long; like the antechamber, and unlike any of the other temples he had yet visited, it was floored in wood, wood which sagged visibly at the center beneath the weight of a thick carpet. The walls, too, were wooden, except for one end; that was stone and obviously one of the temple's outer walls, since three narrow windows pierced it, providing the chamber with light.
The room's ceiling was upholstered in silk, silk that was discolored with half a hundred old and new stains, that was black with rot in spots. Like the floor, it sagged in the center. Cobwebs hung from every corner.
There were furnishings; two ornate tables adorned the far wall, flanking a doorway, and an assortment of faded, dusty chairs were strewn about.
Over everything hung the smell, the stench of rot, mold, and decay; Garth suddenly felt quite certain he knew which temple he had entered.
He took a cautious step forward into the room; the floor creaked ominously, and new odors of corruption assailed his nostrils. He put a hand on a woodpanelled wall, only to snatch it away quickly when he felt the wood start to give; like the door, it was riddled by worms and rot. There could be no doubt that this was the shrine of P'hul, goddess of decay.
"Greetings, stranger." The soft voice came from somewhere to his right; the usual guttural Dыsarran accent was modified by a curious lisp. He turned, to see that a gray-robed figure had entered the room.
He started to speak, but stopped as the figure threw back its hood, revealing the reason for the lisp.
"Is something wrong?" The priestess' voice was solicitous.
"No. I was just startled."
The woman's lower lip was a twisted mass of oozing, festering flesh, and much of her face and neck was swollen and shapeless; one of her hands lacked a finger. Garth recognized the human disease of leprosy and shuddered slightly. His pursuers had had reasons other than religious respect for declining to enter this place.
The priestess smiled, the friendly expression made hideous by her affliction. "Of course. It is customary that the servants of P'hul bear her handiwork upon their flesh, but I suppose it might well startle those not accustomed to such sights. Why have you come? What brings a healthy overman to the temple of decay?" Garth noticed that she was aware of her lisp, and struggled particularly hard to be sure she pronounced the name of her goddess correctly. He felt a twinge of pity.
"I was merely curious."
"I am surprised. We see few strangers here. How may I help to satisfy your curiosity?"
"Tell me of your goddess, if you would." Garth was not particularly interested in learning about P'hul, but he wanted time to think, and guessed that the priestess, absorbed as she was with her beliefs, would be quite willing to talk for hours about them with only minimal encouragement. Where he would have raised suspicion by questioning her on more mundane matters, he was sure that in the enthusiasm of the true believer she would not find anything strange in his willingness to listen to endless blather about her religion.
"If you wish, gladly! I am sure you know the basic nature of P'hul; she is the cause and essence of all disease and decay throughout our world. She ages us all, she makes us easy prey for death, so that the old will make way for the young. She turns the leaves green to brown, pulls them from the trees; and makes them rot, so that they will feed the earth. She eats away fruit, that the seeds within may flourish. By plague and disease, she removes the unfit and unworthy. The worms of the earth and the lowly insects serve her, devouring all that she gives them, and in turn they feed the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field. She is the handmaiden of death."