The Quest - Smith Wilbur (читаем книги онлайн бесплатно TXT) 📗

I am ready for her, as ready as 1 can ever be. But will that be enough?

The gates to the gardens were wide open, but as he stood in front of them a hush fell over the crater. The soft wind died away. A pair of bulbul shrikes that had been calling a duet to each other fell silent. The high branches of the trees froze and remained as motionless as a painting against the blue canopy of the sky. For a moment longer he listened to the silence, then he stepped through the gates.

The earth moved under his feet. It trembled, the branches of the trees quivering in sympathy. The tremble became a harsh juddering. He heard rock groan under his feet. A section of the crater wall split away and fell with a roar into the forest below. The earth tipped under him like the_ deck of a ship caught in a gale. He almost lost his balance and reached1 out to grab one of the gate's bars to prevent himself being cast down.

The wind rose again, but it came from the direction of the imp's grotto.

It swept over the tops of the trees and swirled round him in a vortex of dead leaves. It was as cold as the hand of a corpse.

Eos is trying to intimidate me. She is the mistress of the volcanoes.

She commands the earthquakes and the lava rivers that flow up from hell. She is showing me how puny I am in the face of her might, he thought. Then he shouted aloud, 'Hear me, Eos! I accept your challenge.'

The trembling of the earth ceased, and once again the mysterious hush fell over the crater. Now the pathway lay clear and inviting before him. When at last he passed through the gap between the tall boulders he heard ahead the chortling of the waters that flowed out of the grotto.

He pushed his way through the screen of greenery and stepped into the clearing beside the pool. All was as he remembered it. He took his

customary seat on the grass with his back to the fallen tree-trunk, and waited.

The first warning he received of her approach was an icy breeze that tickled the back of his neck, and he felt the hair rise on his forearms. He watched the opening of the grotto and saw a fine silver mist billow from it. Then a dark figure appeared through the mist, coming down the lichen covered ledges towards him with stately grace. It was the veiled woman he had last seen in Hannah's rooms, dressed in the same voluminous, translucent robe of black silk.

Eos stepped out of the silver mist, and he saw that her feet were bare.

Her toes peeped out from under the hem of her robe, the the only part of her that was visible. They were wet and shining from the spring water that spilled over them, small and perfectly shaped, as though carved by a great artist from creamy ivory. Her toenails were pearly bright. Those feet were the only part of her body he had ever laid eyes on, and they were exquisitely erotic. He could not tear his gaze from them. He felt his manhood swell, and stilled it with an effort.

If she can affect me thus with a glimpse of her toes, what chance have I of resisting her if she reveals the rest of herself?

At last he was able to lift his eyes. He tried to see beyond her veil but it was impenetrable. Then he felt the touch of her regard as though a butterfly had landed upon his skin. She spoke, and he caught his breath.

He had never heard a sound to match the music of her voice. It was as silvery as the chiming of crystal bells. It shivered the foundations of his soul.

'I have waited through the aeons for you to come to me,' said Eos, and although he knew that she embodied the great Lie, he could not help but believe her.

Fenn and Meren had kept Sidudu hidden for many long months after Taita had been taken away by Captain Onka to the Cloud Gardens. At first she had been so enfeebled by her ordeal that she was confused and distraught. Meren and Fenn were gentle and soon she became pathetically reliant upon them. One or other had to stay with her at all times. Slowly she rallied and her confidence began to return. At last she was able to describe her experiences and to tell them of the Temple of Love.

'It is dedicated to the one true goddess,' she explained. 'All the temple virgins are chosen from the incomers, never the noble families. Each arriving family must offer up one of their daughters, and it brings great honour and privilege on those whose daughters are chosen. All the people in our village held a festival of praise to the goddess and dressed me in the finest robes, placed a crown of flowers on my head and took me to the temple. My father and mother went with me, laughing and weeping with joy. They gave me to the mother superior and left me there. I never saw them again.'

'Who chose you for the service of the goddess?' Fenn asked her.

'They told us it was the oligarchs,' she replied.

'Tell us about the Temple of Love,' Meren said. She was silent for a while as she thought about it. Then she went on, speaking softly and hesitantly: 'It was very beautiful. There were many other girls when first I arrived. The priestesses were kind to us. We were given lovely clothes and delicious food. They explained that when we had proved ourselves to be worthy we would go up into the mountain of the goddess and be exalted by her.'

'You were happy?' Fenn asked.

'At first I was. Of course I missed my mother and father, but each morning they gave us a delicious sherbet to drink that filled us with joy and high spirits. We laughed, sang and danced.'

'Then what happened?' Meren asked.

She turned away her face and spoke so softly that he could hardly hear her. 'The men came to visit us. We thought they were to be our friends.

We danced with them.' Sidudu began to weep silently. 'I am ashamed to tell you more.'

They were silent, and Fenn took her hand. 'We are your true friends, Sidudu,' she said. 'You can speak to us. You can tell us everything.'

The girl let out a heart-wrenching sob and threw her arms round Fenn's neck. 'The priestesses ordered us to have congress with the men who visited us.'

'Which men were they?' Meren asked grimly.

'The first was Lord Aquer. He was horrible. After him there were others, many others, then Onka.'

'You need tell us no more.' Fenn stroked her hair.

'Yes! I must! The memory is a fire inside me. I cannot keep it from you.'

Sidudu took a deep, shuddering breath. 'Once a month a woman doctor named Hannah came to examine us. On each occasion she chose one or more of the girls. They were taken away to the mountain to be exalted by

the goddess. They never returned to the temple.' She stopped speaking again, and Fenn passed her a square of linen on which to blow her nose.

When she had finished, Sidudu folded the cloth carefully and went on: 'One of the other girls became my dearest friend. Her name was Litane.

She was very gentle and lovely, but she missed her mother and hated what we had to do with the men. One night she ran away from the temple. She told me she was going and I tried to stop her, but she was determined. The next morning the priestesses laid her dead body on the altar. As a caution, they made each of us walk past it. They told us that the trogs had caught her in the forest. Lying on the altar, Litane was no longer lovely.'

They let her cry for a while, and then Meren said, 'Tell us about Onka.'

'Onka is a nobleman. Lord Aquer is his uncle. He is also Aquer's chief spy-master. For all these reasons, he has special privileges. He was taken with me. Because of his position he was allowed to see me more than once. Then they allowed him to take me away from the temple to live with him as his house slave. I was a reward for the services he had performed for the state. When he was drunk he beat me. It gave him pleasure to hurt me. It made his eyes sparkle and he smiled when he was doing it. One day while Onka was away on military duty a woman came secretly to see me. She told me that she worked in a great library in the Cloud Gardens. She told me what happened to the girls from the temple who were taken up into the mountain. They were not exalted by the goddess. Their babies were cut from their wombs before they were born and given as food to the goddess. That is why the goddess is known secretly as the Devourer of Infants.'