Chapter 9

Snake reached down, picked the beads up from Urson’s hand. The sound of wings had stopped.

“Where do we go now?” Urson asked.

“Follow the general rule, I guess,” said Iimmi. “Since we know Hama does have a temple somewhere, we try to find it, get the third jewel, and rescue Argo Incarnate. Then get back to the ship.”

“In three days?” asked Urson. They had related the rest of what they had found to him by now. “Well, where do we start looking?”

“The Priestess said something about a band of Hama’s disciples behind the fire mountain. That must mean the volcano we saw from the steps in the City of New Hope.” Iimmi turned to Snake. “Did you read her mind enough to know if she was telling the truth?”

Snake nodded.

Iimmi paused for a moment. “Well, since the river is that way, we should head,” he turned and pointed, “ ... in that direction.”

They fixed their stride now and started through the moon-brushed foliage.

“I still don’t understand what was going on back at the monastery,” Geo said. “Were they really priestesses of Argo? And what was Jordde doing?”

“I’d say yes on the first question, and guess that Jordde was a spy for them for an answer to the second.”

“But what about Argo--I mean Argo on the ship?” asked Geo. “And what about Snake here?”

“Argo on the ship apparently doesn’t know about Argo on Aptor,” said Iimmi. “That’s what Jordde meant when he reported to the priestesses that she was bewildered. She probably thinks just like we did, that he’s Hama’s spy. And this one here,” he gestured to Snake, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

In the distance was a red glow in which they could make out the faint lines of the volcano’s cone. Snake made lights with the jewels, and once more they began to pick their way over the terrain, barer and barer of vegetation. The earth became cindery and the air bore the acrid smell of old ashes.

Soon the rim of the crater hung close above them.

Iimmi gazed up at the red haze above them. “I wonder what it’s like to look into that thing in the middle of the night?” Twenty feet later Snake’s light struck a lava cliff that sheered up into the darkness. Going on beside it, they found a ledge that made an eighteen-inch footpath diagonally up the face.

“We’re not going to climb that in the dark, are we?” asked Geo.

“Better than in the light,” said Urson. “This way you can’t see how far you have to fall.”

Thirty feet on, instead of petering out and forcing them to go back, the lip of rock broadened into a level stretch of ground and again they could go straight forward toward the red light above them.

“This is changeable country,” Urson muttered.

“Men change into animals,” said Geo, “jungles turn to mountains.” He reached around and felt the stub of his arm in the dark. “I’ve changed too, I guess.”

Iimmi recited:

“_Change is neither merciful nor just.

They say Leonard of Vinci put his trust

in faulty paints: Christ’s Supper turned to dust._”

“What’s that from?” Geo asked.

“That’s one of my bits of original research,” Iimmi explained. “It comes from a poem dating back before the Great Fire.”

“Who was Leonard of Vinci?” Geo asked.

“An artist, another poet or painter, I suppose,” said Iimmi. “But I’m not really sure.”

“Who’s Christ?” Urson asked.

“Another god.”

There were more rocks now, and Geo had to brace his stub against the walls of fissures and hoist himself up with his good hand. The igneous structures were sharp in his palm.

Through the night the glowing rim dropped toward them. With it came a breeze that pushed sulfa powder through their hair and made the edges of their nostrils sting.

The earth became scaley and rotten under their feet. Fatigue tied tiny knots high in their guts so that their stomachs hung like stones.

“I didn’t realize how big the crater was,” Iimmi said. The red glow cut off at the bottom and took up a quarter of the sky.

“Maybe it’ll erupt on us,” Urson muttered. He added, “I’m thirsty.”

They climbed on. Once Urson looked back and saw Geo had stopped some twenty feet behind them at a niche in the ledge. He turned around and dropped back himself. There was sweat on the boy’s up-turned face as the big man came toward him. He could see it in the red haze from the rim.

“Here,” Urson said. “Give me a hand.”

“I can’t,” Geo said softly, “or I’ll fall.”

Urson reached down, now, caught the boy around the chest, and hoisted him over the cropping of rock. “Take it easy,” Urson instructed. “You don’t have to race with anybody.” Together they made their way after the others.

Iimmi and Snake cleared the crater rim first; then Urson and Geo joined them on the pitted ledge. Together they looked into the volcano as red and yellow light fell over their chests and faces.

Gold dribbled the internal slope. Tongues of red rock lapped the sides, and the swirling white basin belched brown blobs of smoke which rose up the far rocks and spilled over the brim a radion away. Light leapt in wavering pylons of blue flame, then sank back into the pit. Winding trails of light webbed the crater’s walls, and at places ebon cavities jeweled among the light.

Wind fingered the watchers’ hair.

Iimmi saw her first, two hundred feet along the rim. Her drapes, died red and orange in the flame, blew about her as she walked toward them. Iimmi pointed to her, and the others looked up.

As she neared, Geo saw that though she stood very straight, she was old. Her short white hair snapped at the side of her head in the warm breeze. Firelight and shadow fell deeply into the wrinkles of her face. As she approached them, light running like liquid down the side of her winded robe, she smiled and held out her hand.

“Who are you?” Geo suddenly asked.

“_Shadows melt in light of sacred laughter,

Hands and houses shall be one hereafter._”

recited the woman in a calm, low voice.

She paused. “I am Argo Incarnate, of Leptar.”

“But I thought...” Iimmi started.

“What did you think?” inquired the elderly woman, gently.

“Nothing,” said Iimmi.

“He thought you were a lot younger,” Urson said. “We’re supposed to take you home.” Suddenly he pointed in to the volcano. “Say, this isn’t any of that funny light like back in the city that burned our hands, only this time it made you old?”

She glanced at the pool of light. “This is natural fire,” she assured them, “a severed artery of the earth’s burning blood. But wounds are natural enough.”

Geo shifted his feet and rubbed his stump.

“We were supposed to take the younger sister of the present Argo Incarnate and return with her to Leptar,” Iimmi explained.

“There are many Argos,” smiled the woman. “The Goddess has many faces. You have seen quite a few since you arrived in this land.”

“I guess we have,” Urson said.

“Are you a prisoner of Hama?” asked Iimmi.

“I am with Hama,” said the woman.

“We are supposed to secure the third jewel and bring it back to the ship. We don’t have much time...”

“Yes,” said Argo.

“Hey, what about that nest of vampires down there,” Urson said, thumbing viciously toward the black behind them. “They said they worshiped Argo. What have you got to do with them? I don’t trust anything on this place very much.”

“The nature of the Goddess is change,” said the woman, looking sadly toward the slope, “from birth, through life, to death,” she looked back up at them, “to birth again. As I said, Argo has many faces. You must be very tired.”

“Yes,” said Geo.

“Then come with me. Please.” She turned, and began to walk back along the rim. Snake and Iimmi started after her, and then came Geo and Urson.

“I don’t like any of this,” the big man whispered to Geo as they came along. “Argo doesn’t mean the same thing in this land like she means on Leptar. There’s nothing but more evil to come out of this. She’s leading us into a trap, I tell you. I say the best thing to do is take the jewels we have, turn around, and get the hell out of here. I tell you, Geo...”

“Urson,” Geo said.

“Huh?” the big man asked.

“Urson, I’m very tired.”

They walked silently for a few steps more. Then Urson heaved up a half disgusted breath, and put his arm around Geo’s shoulder. “Come on,” he grunted, supporting Geo against his own great form as they progressed along the rocky ledge, following the new Argo.

At last she turned down a trail that dropped into the crater. “Walk carefully here,” she said as they turned into the huge pit.

“Something is not right,” Urson said softly. “It’s a trap I tell you. How does that thing go? I could use it now. Calmly brother bear... “

“_Calm the winter sleep,

Fire shall not harm, _”

continued Geo.

“Says who,” mumbled Urson glancing into the bowl of flame. Geo went on:

“_water not alarm.

While the current grows,

amber honey flows,

golden salmon leap._”

“Like I once said before,” mused Urson, “In a...”

“In here,” came the voice of Argo. They turned into the dark mouth of one of the caves which pocked the crater’s inside wall. “No,” she said to Snake, who was about to use the jewels for illumination. “They have been used too much already.”

With a small stick taken from a pocket in her robe, she struck a flame against the rock, then raised it to an ornate, branching candelabra that hung from the stone ceiling by brass chains. Flame leapt from cast oil cup to oil cup, from the hand of a demon to a monkey’s mouth, from a nymph’s belly to the horns of a satyr’s head. Chemicals in the cups caused each flame to burn a different color; green, red, blue, and orange white light filled the small chapel and played across the tops of the benches. On the altar sitting on one side of the room were two statues of equal height: a man sitting, and a woman kneeling. Iimmi looked at the altar. Geo and Urson stared at the candelabra.

“What is it?” Iimmi asked when he saw where their eyes were fixed.

“There’s one of those things in Argo’s cabin on board the ship,” Geo said. “And look over there. Where did we see one of those before?” It was a machine with an opaque glass screen, identical to the one in the monastery of Argo.

“Sit down,” Argo said. “Sit down.”

They sank to the benches; the climb, once halted, knotting their calves and the low muscles on their backs.

“Hama has allowed you the privilege of a chapel even in captivity,” commented Iimmi, “but I see you have to share your altar with him.”

“But I am Hama’s mother,” smiled Argo.

Geo and Urson frowned.

“The rituals say that Argo is the mother of all things, the begetter and bearer of all life. I am the mother of all gods as well.”

“Those blind women down in the ground,” asked Urson, “they aren’t really your priestesses, are they? They wanted to kill us. I bet they were really dupes of Hama.”

“It isn’t so simple,” replied Argo. “They are really worshipers of Argo, but as I said, I have many faces. Death as well as life is my province. The dwellers in that convent from which you escaped are a--how shall I say, a degenerate branch of the religion. They were truly blinded by the fall of the City of New Hope. To them, Argo is only death, the dominator of men. For not only is Argo the mother of Hama, she is his wife and daughter.”