"If I refuse to let Khaleen give herself I must end my opposition to him," he said. "He knows this. It would be a matter of personal honor."
"And if you don't refuse, you're tossing Khaleen to God knows who," I said. 'Tell him to go to hell. I'll find some other way to get to him."
"The devil in monk's robes has struck at the heart of honor and belief," the patriarch murmured. Suddenly I heard the swift movement at my side, a flash of orange silk whipping through the air. I turned to see Khaleen rushing to the platform. I called to her, but she didn't even pause. As she climbed onto the platform a cheer rose from the crowd. The music increased in intensity and a sudden evocative odor was released from urns along the walls, a strangely stimulating odor. I felt the heightened emotionalism in the audience and saw that some women were already casting aside silk scarves and veils and outer robes. Khaleen was onstage, standing quietly, and Ghotak withdrew, moving down the side of the platform. The phallic symbols were burning down, each with its own hue of bright flame. I caught Khaleen's eyes as she looked at the nearest phallus, and they shone with a strange brightness. Now the music was beating its pulsating rhythm in almost deafening volume, and the sound and the rhythm were impossible to escape. They washed over me like the waves of the ocean, immersing, absorbing, demanding. I watched Khaleen begin to dance, slowly at first, then with increasing sensuousness. I'd seen exotic dancers all over the world but they'd all been making believe. Khaleen was transformed, her eyes half-closed, head tilted back. She approached each phallus, lightly caressing the waxen images, then moved around each one, thrusting her breasts at each. She swayed back and forth and now her belly began to heave in and out and she moved to the center of the platform. The blue sheath she wore quickly shredded as the fury of her movements increased and her legs, fine-limbed and slender, pulsed and swayed.
The incense and the heat was reaching the audience, and I felt them swaying, heard moans and half cries. Khaleen thrust her belly out at them, spread her legs and arched backwards. I heard a woman scream and looked back to see a man rolling on the floor with her, legs kicking up and down. Men and women were clutching at each other. A few feet away a woman arched her body backwards and began to writhe in self-induced hypnotic eroticism. A frightening ecstasy had seized the crowd, and low moans and eerie sounds filled the air. I saw Hilary Cobb pressed flat against the wall, watching with wide, frightened eyes. I smiled as I saw her wipe a hand across her brow and cheek, and even in the half light I could see her skin glistening with sweat.
Khaleen had sunk to the floor of the platform, legs outstretched, back arched, her belly leaping in the spasmodic movements of rapture, and the waxen phalli continued to burn down. I could feel the sweat of my own palms, and the back of my shirt was damp. As Khaleen continued to rise and fall to the insistent beat of the music, a man leaped from the audience onto the platform. He stood over her, legs outspread, his torso working. Khaleen rolled over and he jumped away and fell from the platform to lie panting on the floor. Another figure leaped onstage and danced before Khaleen, now rolling back and forth on the stage. She turned her head away, never ceasing her own erotic movements, and he retired. Khaleen, I could see, was caught up in her own frenzy, and she slithered and rolled about the stage, moving her back and shoulders in sensual rhythm, lifting her belly in eager, thrusting motions, as the waxen phallic symbols continued to burn down.
In front of me, a woman half screamed and fell backwards across my legs. Immediately, she rolled over and began to move her body, serpent-fashion, over my legs. Another woman and a man joined her and they rubbed their bodies across one another in slow frenzy. More men were offering themselves to Khaleen and each one was rejected by a twist of her head or a turn of her body. The phalli were not much more than a few inches from their bulbous waxen bases. I heard her father's hoarse whisper.
"She cannot refuse much longer," he said, his voice strained. "She must choose someone. Time runs out for her."
The wails and screams now resounded as one continuous din, and I realized that Khaleen, carried away by her own frenzy, had nonetheless held off the terrible moment as long as she could. My own hands were wet, and the perspiration trickled down my arms. I leaped to my feet, vaulted over writhing, prostrate forms, and ran for the platform. I saw Hilary Cobb, transfixed, pressed against the wall, watching the scene of unbridled erotic desire. I caught her startled glance as I flashed past. Khaleen's eyes were closed as I leaped onto the platform, stood over her and called her name. She opened her eyes and her writhing body continued its sensual rhythm. Standing over her, I felt my loins swell with desire, and I shook my head and clenched my hands. God, the contagion of the place was overpowering. I wanted to drop onto her beautiful body, to seize that perfectly formed little shape and make it my own. But that wasn't why I'd come here, I reminded myself. I was here to prevent something, not perpetrate it. Suddenly Khaleen rose, reached up and grabbed my legs. She pressed her face into my groin, rubbing her head against me and then, throwing her head back, she let out a piercing scream of release.
The noise ended with a frightening suddenness, and for a long moment there was dead silence. The waxen images sputtered out and near darkness settled over the hall. Now only the sounds of spent breathing and stifled sobs broke the stillness. I looked down at Khaleen. She had fallen backwards to the floor, unconscious. I picked her up and carried her from the platform, past Ghotak's burning eyes. I threaded my way out of the hall and found her father at my side. I kicked open a door and walked out into the cool wind of the night, a clean, refreshing wind. Khaleen was a feather in my arms, a beautiful, sleeping doll. As I walked off with her, I saw a blonde head emerge from the hall, and I glanced back to see Hilary Cobb leaning against the wall of the building, eyes closed, composing herself.
Khaleen stirred and I stopped. She opened her eyes and a wonderfully soft smile crossed her face. I set her down on her feet, and her deep eyes held mine.
"Can you walk?" I asked. She nodded and her father put an arm around her waist "It is over and you're all right," I said. I saw deep relief and gratitude in the old man's eyes, and Khaleen leaned a head on his shoulder. I walked on and left them alone. The erotic excitement had temporarily erased the real dangers, but only temporarily. They were still there, perhaps more so. But once more, they had been covered up in the infuriating way of this strange land. A challenge had been flung and answered and then obscured by an eruption of sexual frustration on a mass orgy scale. Tomorrow, an old man would go into the mountains to prove he wouldn't be slain by something that didn't exist to prove a mythological god didn't communicate through a power-mad monk. I shook my head and tried it again, but it still came out the same way. Everything wore a mask in this place, and I had the uneasy feeling that death was hiding behind one of them.
Chapter IV
I'd walked on in the cool of the night air and let Khaleen and her father go home first. Finally I slipped into the silent house and up to my room. The events I'd just witnessed would leave a marble statue disturbed, and I found myself tossing and turning in the stillness of the night. The fur blanket was warm and soft, too damned much like a woman. I was awake when I heard the faint sound of my door opening. I sat up, naked except for my shorts, and Wilhelmina was in my hand, ready to blast, my finger pressing tensely on the trigger. A soft, blue light came through the window as I waited, watching the door open further. Suddenly the figure appeared inside the room, a petite shape beneath a loose, voluminous silken robe.
"Nick, are you awake?" the small voice asked softly.