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Jewels of Aptor

<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> Geo rolled over and out of sleep, stones and moss beneath his shoulder. He grabbed his sword and was on his feet instantly. Iimmi was also standing with raised blade. The river sloshed coldly behind them. The thin screaming came again, like a hot wire drawn down the gelid morning. Snake and Urson were also up, now. The sounds came from the direction of the ruined barracks. Geo started forward, cautiously, curiosity drawing him toward the sound, fear sending him from the relatively unprotected bank and into the woods. The others followed him. Abruptly they reached the edge of the forest's wall, beyond which was the clear space before the broken building. They crouched now, behind the trees, watching, fascinated. Between ape and man, it hovered at the edge of the forest in the shadow. It was Snake's height, but more of Urson's build. An animal pelt wrapped its middle and went over its shoulder, clothing it more fully than either of the four humans were clothed. Thick-footed, great-handed, it loped four steps into the clearing, uttered its piercing shriek, and fell on a hunk of flesh that last night's beasts had dropped from the sky. Its head rocked back and forth as it tore at its food. Once it raised its head and a sliver of flesh shook from its teeth before the face dropped again to devour. They watched the huge fingers upon broad flat palms, tipped with bronze-colored claws, convulse again and again, reflexively, into the gray, fibrous meat while the fanged mouth ripped. Whether it was a shift of breeze, or a final reflex, Geo couldn't tell, but one of the membranous sails raised darkly and beat about the oblivious animal that fed on its corpse. "Come on," Urson said. "Let's go." A thin scream sounded behind them, and they whirled. It crouched apishly, the bronze-clawed fingers opened and closed like breathing, and the shaggy head was knotted with dirt and twigs. The breath hissed from the faintly moving, full lips. Urson reached for his sword, but Iimmi saw him and whispered, "No, don't." The Negro extended his hand and moved slowly forward. The hulking form took a step back, and mewed. Geo suddenly caught the idea. Coming up beside Iimmi, he made a quick series of snaps with his fingers and said in a coaxing, baby voice. "Come, come, come." He laughed softly to Urson back over his shoulder. "It won't hurt us," he said. "If we don't hurt it," added Iimmi. "It's some sort of necrophage." "A what?" asked Urson. "It only eats dead things," Geo explained. "They're mentioned in some of the old legends. Apparently, after the Great Fire, so the story goes, there were more of these things around than anything else. In Leptar, though, they became extinct." "Come here, cutie," said Iimmi. "Nice little, sweet little, pretty little thing." It mewed again, bowed its head, came over and rubbed against Iimmi's hip. "Smells like hell," the Negro observed, scratching behind its ear. "Watch out there, big boy!" The beast gave a particularly affectionate rub that almost upset Iimmi's balance. "Leave your pet alone," said Urson, "and let's get going." Geo patted the ape-like skull. "So long, beautiful," he said. They turned toward the river again. As they emerged on the rocky bank, Geo said, "Well, at least we know we have seven days to get to the Temple of Hama and out again." "What do you mean?" asked Iimmi. "Don't you remember the dream, back on the ship?" "Who was thinking that?" asked Iimmi. "Jordde, the first mate." "He makes everybody look dead. I thought I was having a nightmare. I could hardly recognize the captain." "You see one reason for believing he's a spy?" "Because of the way he sees things?" Again he smiled. "A poet's reason, I'm afraid. But I see." The thin shriek sounded behind them, and they turned to see the hulking form crouched on the rocks above them. "Uh-oh," said Urson, "there's your cute friend." "I hope we haven't picked up a tag-a-long for the rest of the trip," said Geo. It loped down over the rocks and stopped just before them. "What's it got?" Iimmi asked. "I can't tell," said Geo. Reaching into the bib of its animal skin, it brought out a gray hunk of meat and held it toward them. Iimmi laughed. "Breakfast," he said. "That!" demanded Urson. "Can you suggest anything better?" Geo asked. He took the meat from the beast's claws. "Thanks, gorgeous." It turned, looked back, and bounded up the bank and into the forest again. With fire from the jewels, and wooden spits from the woods, they soon had the meat crackling and brown and the grease bubbling down its sides and hissing onto the hot stones they had used to rim the flame. Urson sat apart, sniffed, and then moved closer, and finally scratched his big fingers through his hairy stomach and said, "Damn it, I'm hungry." They made room for him at the fire without comment. Sun struck the tops of the trees for the first time that morning and a moment later splashed copper in concentric curves on the water by the rock's edge, staining it further with dull gold. "You seem to know your way around awfully well. Have you ever been on Aptor before?" Iimmi asked Snake suddenly. Snake paused for a moment. Then he nodded, slowly. They were all silent now. Finally Geo asked, "What made you ask that?" "Something in your first theory," Iimmi said. "I've been thinking it for some time, and I guess you knew I was thinking it too, Four Arms. You thought Jordde wanted to get rid of me, Whitey, and Snake, and that it was just an accident that he caught Whitey first instead of Snake. You thought he wanted to get rid of Whitey and me because of something we'd seen, or might have seen, when we were on Aptor with Argo. I just thought perhaps he wanted to get rid of Snake for the same reason. Which meant he might have been on Aptor before, too." "Jordde was on Aptor before," said Urson. "You said that's when he became a spy for them." They all turned to Snake who stood quietly. "I don't think we ought to ask him any more questions," said Iimmi. "The answers aren't going to do us any good, and no matter what we find out, we've got a job to do, and seven, no—six and a half days to do it in." Snake quietly handed the metal chain with the pendant jewel back to Iimmi. The dark man put it around his neck once more and they turned up the river. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> By twelve, the sun had parched the sky. Once they stopped to swim and cool themselves. Chill water gave before reaching arms and lowered faces. They even dove in search of their aquatic helpers, but grubbed the pebbly bottom of the river with blind fingers instead, coming up with dripping twigs and smooth wet stones. Soon, they were in a splashing match, of which it is fair to say, Snake won—hands down. Hunger thrust its sharp finger into their abdomens once more, only a mile on. "Maybe we should have saved some of that stuff from breakfast," muttered Urson. Iimmi suddenly broke away from the bank toward the forest. "Come on," he said. "Let's get some food." The building they suddenly came upon had tongues of moss licking twenty to fifty feet up the loosely mortared stones. A hundred yards from the water, the jungle came right to its edges. The whole edifice had sunk a bit to one side in the boggy soil. It was a far more stolid and primitive structure than the barracks. They scraped and hacked in front of the entrance where two great columns of stone, six feet across at the base, rose fifty feet to a supported arch. The stones of the building were rough and unfinished. "It's a temple," Geo suddenly said. And again they fell back to work. What spots of light spilled through the twisted net of jungle stopped at the total shadow beneath the great arch. A line of blackness up one side of the basalt door showed that it was ajar. Now they mounted the steps, moving aside a fallen branch which chattered leaves at them. Geo, Iimmi, then Snake, and at last Urson, squeezed through the door. Ceiling blocks had fallen from the high vault so that three shafts of sun struck through the continual shift of dust to the littered floor. "Do you think it's Hama's temple?" Urson asked. His voice came back in the stone room, small and hollow. "I doubt it," said Iimmi. "At least not the one we're supposed to find." "Maybe it's an abandoned one," said Geo, "and we can find out something useful from it." Something large and dark suddenly flapped through a far shaft of sun. They stepped back. After a moment of silence, Geo handed his jewel to Snake. "Make some light in here," he said. The blue green glow flowed from the up-raised jewel in Snake's hand. As the light flared, and flared brighter, they saw that the flapping had come from a medium-sized bird that was perched harmlessly on an arch that ran between two columns. It ducked its head at them, cawed harshly, and then flapped from its perch and out one of the apertures in the ceiling, the sound of its wings still thrumming in echo seconds after it was gone. There were doors between the columns, and one far wall had not withstood time's sledge. A gaping rent was nearly blocked with vines except for a dim, green-tinted shimmer that broke in here and there through the uneven foliage. Behind a twisted metal rail and raised on steps of stone, the ruins of a huge statue sat. Carved from black rock, it represented a man seated cross-legged on a dais. An arm and shoulder had broken off and lay in pieces on the altar steps. The hand, its fingers as thick as Urson's thigh, lay just behind the altar rail. The head was completely missing. Both the hand still on the statue and the one in front of them on the steps looked as though they had once held something, but whatever it was had been removed. Iimmi was moving along the rail to where a set of stone boxes were placed like foot stones along the side of the altar. "Here, Snake," he called. "Bring a light over here." Snake obeyed, and with Geo's and Urson's help, he loosened one of the lids. "What's in there?" Urson asked. "Books," said Iimmi, lifting out one dusty volume. Geo peered over his shoulder while the dark fingers turned the pages. "Old rituals," Iimmi said. "Look here," and he pointed to one of them. "You can still read them." "Let me see," Geo said. "You know I studied with Eadnu at the University of Olcse Olwnh." Iimmi looked up and laughed. "I thought some of your ideas sounded familiar. I was a pupil of Welis." "You were at Olcse Olwnh too?" Geo asked. "Um-hm," said Iimmi turning the pages. "I signed aboard this ship as a summer job. If I'd known where we'd end up, I don't think I'd have gone, though." Stomach pangs were forgotten. "These rituals are not at all like those of the Goddess," Iimmi observed. "Apparently not," agreed Geo. "Wait!" Iimmi had been turning pages at random. "Look there!" Geo pointed. "What is it?" Iimmi asked. "The lines," Geo said. "The ones Argo recited." He read out loud: <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Forked in the heart of the dark oak the circlet of his sash rimmed where the eye of Hama broke with fire, smoke, and ash. </div> <div class="stanza"> Freeze the drop in the hand and break the earth with singing. Hail the height of a man and also the height of a woman. </div> <div class="stanza"> The eyes have imprisoned a vision. The ash tree dribbles with blood. Thrust from the gates of the prison smear the yew tree with mud." </div> </div> "It's the other version of the poem I found in the pre-purge rituals of Argo. I wonder if there were any more poems in the old rituals of Leptar that parallel those of Aptor and Hama?" "Probably," Iimmi said. "Especially if the first invasion from Aptor took place just before, and probably caused, the purges." "What about food?" Urson suddenly asked from where he now sat on the altar steps. "You two scholars have the rest of time to argue. But we may starve before you can enjoy the leisure." "He's right," said Iimmi. "Besides, we have to get going." "Would you two consider it an imposition to set your minds to procuring us some food?" Urson asked. "Wait a minute," Iimmi said. "Here's a section on the burial of the dead. Yes, I thought so." He read out loud now: <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "Sink the bright dead with misgiving from the half-light of the living ..." </div> </div> "What does that mean?" asked Urson. "It means that the dead are buried with all the accoutrements of the living. That means that they put food in the graves." "Over here," cried Iimmi. With Snake following, they came to the row of sealed doors behind the columns along the wall. Iimmi looked at the inscription. "Tombs," he reported. He turned the handles, a double set of rings, which he twisted in opposite directions. "In an old, uncared-for temple like this, the lock mechanisms must have rusted by now if they're at all like the ancient tombs of Leptar." "Have you studied the ancient tombs?" asked Geo excitedly. "Professor Eadnu always considered them a waste of time." "That's all Welis ever talked about," laughed Iimmi. "Here, Urson, you set your back to this a moment." Grumbling, Urson came forward, took the rings, and twisted. One snapped off in his hand. The other gave, with a crumbling sound inside the door. "I think that does it," Iimmi said. They all helped pull now, and suddenly the door gave an inch, and then, on the next tug, swung free. Snake proceeded them into the tiny stone cell. On a rock table, lying on its side, was a bald, shriveled, sexless body. Around the floor were a few sealed jars, heaps of parchment, and a few piles of ornaments. Iimmi moved among the jars. "This one has grain," he said. "Give me a hand." Geo helped him lug the big pottery vessel to the door. Suddenly a thin shriek scarred the dusty air, and both boys stumbled. The jar hit the ground, split, and grain heaped over the floor. The shriek came again. Geo saw, there on the edge of the broken wall across the temple from them five of the ape-like figures crouched before the thickly shingled leaves, just visible in the uneven light. One leapt from the wall now and ran wailing across the littered temple floor, straight for the door of the tomb. Two others followed, and then two others. More had mounted the broken ridge of stone. Only a greenish rectangle of light fell through the tomb's door as the loping forms burst into the room, one, and then its two companions. Claws and teeth closed on the shriveled skin. The body rolled beneath the ripping hands and mouths, for one arm swept into the air above their lowered heads and humped backs. It fell on the edge of the rock table, broke at the mid-forearm, and the skeletal hand fell to the floor, shattering like china, into a dozen pieces. They backed to the temple door. Then they turned and ran down the temple steps. The sunlight on the broad rocks touched them; they became still, breathed deeply. They walked quietly. Hunger returned slowly after that, and occasionally one would look aside into the faces of the others in attempt to identify the horror that still pulsed behind their eyes. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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