Var the Stick

Var explained that, too. It was remarkably easy to talk to this enemy giant, and not entirely because of the stay it granted Soli.

"And you say her father is a castrate? When did that happen?"

"I don't know. No one spoke of it. I don't see how it could have been while he was Master of Empire, and Soli says it wasn't in the underworld."

"Then it must have been before. Perhaps in childhood. Some tribes, I have heard, practice such things. But in that case-"

Var shrugged. "I don't know."

"Is it possible-I am postulating from ignorance, understand-that the Nameless One is in fact her father?"

Var sat and chewed the maiden-meat, and diverse things began to fall into place in his mind, as though bees were settling into a hive. The Master thought Var had slain his natural daughter!

"Ironic," Minos said. "If that is the case. But the solution is simple. You have merely to show her to him when next you meet."

"Except-"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Do you have to take her?" It was hard to believe' that so affable, reasonable a creature could balk on this point.

Mines sighed. "I am a god. Gods do not follow the conventions of man, by definition. I wish it were otherwise."

"But surely you have enough meat here, to last another month?'

"I do not, for it spoils and I am not a ghoul. Some day I must require them to install refrigeration equipment. 'But that is not the problem. It is not primarily for the meat that I take the sacrifices." ,

Var chewed, not understanding.

"The flesh is only an incidental product," Mnos said. "I use it because it is handy and I dislike waste. I make the best of the situation foisted on me by the temple."

"The temple makes you do this?"

"All temples, all religions make their gods perform similarly. So it has always been, even before the Blast. The New Crete priests pretend that they serve Minos, but Minos serves them. It is a method of population control, in part, for the birthrate is governed by the percentage of nubile girls in the population. But mostly it is a way to retain power that would otherwise drift with the winds of politics and time. The common people have an abiding fear of me. I lurk near the bedstead of every disobedient child, I breathe misfortune on every tax-evader. I impregnate the wanton wives. Yet I am single and mortal. The temple produced me by mutation and operation-"

"Like the Master!" Var exclaimed.

"So it seems. I should like to meet that man some day."

And in the course of that adaptation to godhood, they provided me with-this." Mines opened his garment. Var was impressed. "The opposite of castration, you see. My appetite differs correspondingly from that of the normal male. But it waxes only with the moon."

"Then Soli-and the others-"

"You will note that I have stayed well within my domidile. Should I go near enough to the entrance to pick up the nuptial odor I should immediately lose control of myself. That is the way I have been designed; it is in my blood, my brain, my gonad. My onslaught is such that my partner does not survive."

Var pictured the member he had just seen, and the force with which it would be wielded, and shuddered to remember that Soli awaited this. Better a full under hand smash by a club!

"Why don't they provide-old women?"

"Who would die soon anyway? Because they are not virgins. Minos must have chastity. This is part of it. My glands simply do not tolerate any other condition."

This seemed remarkable to Vat, but no more so than other things he had seen and learned in his travels. "What happens if a mistake is made if the sacrifice is not chaste?"

Minos smiled hideously, all his teeth exposed on one side. "Why then I betake myself to the temple and I raise a fuss. And it is said that bad luck follows for a month."

Var attacked the last of his repast. He remembered something. "Do you know about the amazons-the hivewomen?"

"Oh, yes. Fascinating subculture there. I had them in mind when I mentioned ritual mutilation."

"The men-how do they do it?"

"No problem at all. The women do it. Simple manipulation of the prostate and seminal vesicles so as to force out the ejaculate at the critical moment. Not the most comfortable mode for the man, particularly if he has hemorrhoids or if she has a broken fingernail, but effective enough."

Var nodded, not caring to admit that this explained nothing to him. He had never heard of a prostate, and obviously babies were not conceived by fingernails, whole or broken.

The meal was done. "I must fight you," Var said.

"Surely you know I would kill you. I should think you would find a more romantic solution, pun intended. I would not like to have the blood of both of you on my horns-not when you have traveled so far, and worked so hard, and suffered such ironies already. Particularly when it is so easily avoided."

Var looked at him, not understanding. "She won't go with me. Not until the sacrifice."

Minos stood up. "There are things a god does not tell a man. Go now, or assuredly we shall fight, for the need is rising in me."

Var drew his sticks.

Minos knocked them numbingly from his hands with one lightning swipe. "Go! I will not reason with a fool."

Var, seeing that it was hopeless, picked up his sticks and went. This time he found the proper passage.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Soli remained at the rock. Var ran to her. "You must go with me. Minos is coming!"

She hardly seemed surprised to see him alive. "I know, it is nearly noon." Her fair face was reddening in the slanting sun, and her lips were cracked.

"He doesn't want to kill you! But he has to, if he finds you here."

"Yes." She was crying again, but he could tell from her expression that she had not changed her mind.

"I can't stop him. I'll try, but he will kill us both."

"Then go!" she screamed at him explosively. "I did this to save your stupid life. Why throw it away?"

"Why?" he screamed back. "I would rather die than have you die! You gave me nothing!"

She glared at him, abruptly calm. "Sosa told me all men were fools."

Var didn't see the relevance. But before he could speak again, there was a bellow from the labyrinth.

"Minos!" she - whispered, terrified. "Oh, Var please, please, please go! It's too late for me now."

The shape of the giant loomed at the cave entrance. Vapor snorted from the god's nostrils.

Var threw himself on Soli as though to shield her from the onslaught of the god, knowing this to be futile but determined not to desert her. He held her close and tight though she fought him, tearing his clothing with her feet and teeth. Finally he got her body pinned firmly against the wall so that her legs split and kicked behind him ineffectively while she hung by the manacles. "I will not leave you," he panted in her tangled hair.

Then her resistance collapsed. "Oh, Var, I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "I love you, you idiot."

There was no time to be amazed. He kissed her savagely, hearing the tramp of Mines' hoofs, the blast of Minos' breath.

Desperately they embraced, experiencing what had been building for three years; compressing it all into these last moments. Sharing their love absolutely, exquisitely, painfully.

And Minos came, and stopped, and paused, and made a noise half fury and half laughter, and passed on.

Only then did Var realize what had happened. What Minos had tried, subtly, to suggest to him.

He had, indeed, been a fool. Almost.

There were screams from the temple as Var yanked and pried and banged at the manacles still pinning Soli's bruised wrists against the stone. If he could get even one prong out, her hand would be free-but the stone and metal were, too strong.

He found a corroded spike in the dirt just beyond the canyon and wedged it under one bond and pounded it with a stone-and finally, reluctantly, one prong pulled out. But his spike snapped as he pried up, and was useless for the other manacle.