“Why the hurry?” said Um Sat with a frown.
“Alas, travellers, even distinguished ones, cannot stay for long near the Dictator’s palace. Besides … it was Mada’s request.”
“There is no Faetess more beautiful and intelligent! She thinks of everything,” commented Kutsi Merc.
“Well, then…” Um Sat shrugged his shoulders. “The shrine is empty. And old men don’t need such a lot of sleep.”
Ave silently embraced his teacher. Um Sat gazed sadly at him for a long time.
The Blood Door opened once again. Mother Lua, as usual, was waiting for Ave and Kutsi in the half-ruined portico. The three of them went into the ancient monastery garden, lit now by the faint light of Lua. The dangling lianas didn’t look like snakes any more, they suggested the cords of costly curtains screening off the garden. The trees resembled colonnaded galleries.
There was a fragrance of rotting leaves and something strange and gentle—perhaps the flowers that Yar Jupi used to grow with such passion.
Mada was waiting for her beloved and rushed to meet him as soon as he walked through the Blood Door.
“Has he agreed?”
“Urn Sat has so far created reactions of disintegration, but now (may Kutsi Merc be forgiven for this!) he will have to accomplish the opposite,” joked the hunchback, and he grinned, but quickly changed the grin into an ingratiating smile.
It had grown dark in the garden. The silver light had faded. Lightning began flashing beyond the outer wall, casting dense black shadows onto the shrubbery. One of the trees seemed to leap out of the darkness and blaze up, its white bark shining.
A bellowing noise came from somewhere far away. It was as if an enormous, lumbering machine had gone out of control and had finally plunged down into an abyss, deafening and blinding all like a disintegration blast.
Mada huddled closer to Ave.
It was now totally dark; the avenue colonnades and the tree with the white bark had disappeared.
“What a thunderstorm!” whispered Mada ecstatically.
“We’ll be soaked as we go round the Dread Wall to the Temple of Eternity,” observed the hunchback.
“Should we put it off till tomorrow, perhaps?” asked Ave cautiously.
“Never!” exclaimed Mada. “Are we going to be stopped by the thunder of heaven? As for the rain wetting our clothes, my nanny can take care of them.”
“Of our clothes?” inquired Kutsi Merc. He held out his hand and felt the first raindrops fall on to his palm. “Yes, she’ll have to take care of them.”
“I can do without that care,” grumbled Mother Lua. “I’d do better to take you there under cover.”
“What d’you mean?” asked Kutsi Merc, suddenly on the alert.
“It’s all quite simple,” explained Mada. “An old underground passage leads from here to the Temple of Eternity. The priests used it once, but now we’re going to walk along it. Nanny knows everything and will open the doors as we come to them.”
“Does the passage run from the garden?” inquired Kutsi.
“Yes, we can go into it not far from here. Nanny will show us.”
The rain began, a downpour from the start. They all ran, stumbling over the tree roots. Lua went in front, with Kutsi, Mada and Ave following on behind.
“This way! It’s no darker here than outside. The old passage isn’t much to look at. I’m sorry to say,” said Mother Lua as she led them further.
“Still, it’s better than in the rain,” responded Kutsi.
Ave could smell the damp. When he touched the wall, it was wet and sticky. With the other hand he tightly squeezed Mada’s fingers.
“Wait,” came Lua’s voice from in front. “I must make an effort.”
“Does the good lady need a hand in lifting something?”
“I must concentrate.”
It turned out that Mother Lua had to use will-power to open a certain door that would obey her brain biocurrents.
The young Faetians saw a bright rectangle in front of them, with Lua and Kutsi sharply silhouetted against it.
Mada and Ave went into a spacious underground, plastic-lined corridor.
“Aha!” said Kutsi Merc. “The ancient priests knew their materials.”
“We turn left for the Temple of Eternity.”
Kutsi Merc stopped and felt a thick cable in red braiding.
Mada firmly squeezed Ave’s fingers in her little hand.
The footsteps of the Faetians rang under the low ceiling.
Ave looked back suspiciously to where the corridor made a turn. The light that had automatically come on when they appeared had already gone out.
Twice the Faetians were confronted by a blank wall, and each time, in response to Mother Lua’s mental command, the barrier disappeared to let them pass through.
“I wouldn’t like to be left here without our companion,” commented Kutsi Merc.
“Has the visitor from Danjab no more to say than that?” said Lua reproachfully.
The secret passage had branches, but Lua confidently walked past them, leading the others along a route with which she was thoroughly familiar.
Finally, she stopped again before a blank wall and looked intently into the centre of a spiral ornament. This was enough for the wall to divide, and Lua let the young Faetians go first with Kutsi Merc, then went into the familiar shrine herself.
Mada huddled closer to Ave. She had not been scared of going along the underground passage, but the ancient temple with its shrine and a roof that disappeared into unseen heights had a disturbing effect on her imagination.
Something stirred in the semidarkness and a voice rang out:
“I welcome the happy ones! I guessed that because of the bad weather you would use the tunnel by which the Dictator of Power-mania came to the session.”
Mada Jupi looked in agitation at the tall figure of the great Elder of learning, who was standing on a dais. She thought of the High Priest of the temple who used to deliver his invocations from that spot. And his voice had echoed under the dark vaults then as now, when Um Sat began addressing the young Faetians.
The Elder of learning tactfully performed a rudimentary wedding ceremony, ending it with the words:
“So be it!”
His voice echoed and re-echoed in the depths of the shrine, as if the ancient priests were chanting the responses.
Then Um Sat embraced each of the young Faetians and wished them happiness.
Ave wanted to take his leave of Mada, but Kutsi intervened, exchanging significant glances with Mother Lua.
“Isn’t it worth going by the underground passage so as to see the young bride off? She will let us out through the Blood Door.”
“Through our Blood Door!” said Mada, looking at Ave.
Mother Lua stood meekly beside Kutsi, as if entirely dependent on him.
And again Ave acted apparently of his own volition, expressing his willingness to go by the underground passage.
Mother Lua heaved a sigh. She had devoted her whole life to ensure that Mada took after her mother and not her father. What lay in store for the girl?…
Kutsi Merc was content and did not hide it.
Chapter Five
BLOOD
Yar Alt, Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard, was proud that, on his coming-of-age, his strength of character had earned him the name of his maternal uncle, Yar Jupi himself.
He lived up to his nickname in the contingents of the Blood Guard, to which he had been appointed by the Dictator. Coarse, hot-tempered, ready to strike and even to kill, he despised the views of others and could not bear objections.
That was why the Dictator had given him the more important assignments. And it had certainly not been by chance that Yar Alt had met on board ship the son of Danjab’s Ruler arriving with his secretary. Camouflaging himself with the rudeness typical of the security officers, he had been “checking” the new arrivals, having decided not to let them out of sight.