followed the messenger into the cool, starry night.
CHAPTER TEN
Their guide led Moriana and Darl from the camp up the slope to the fumarole over which the Ullapag had stood guard. A forest of torches around a sprawling building that had served the inhabitants as school, temple and assembly hall showed where the Zr'gsz guarded the captive Watchers.
Arrows and slung stones had greeted the Watchers when they tried to come to the aid of their fellows and the Ullapag. The Ullapag had given throat then and the Hissers surrounding the camp had collapsed in agony. Before the Watchers could slay more than a handful of the helpless lizard men, the Ullapag's song had been stilled. Shocked by the Hissers' return to activity, the Watchers had emotionally crumbled when Moriana and Darl called on them to surrender. The fact that their immortal co-guardian was dead, and that humans had aided Zr'gsz in slaying it, shattered their morale. They threw down their weapons and obeyed.
Khirshagk's control over his folk was good. Less than a score of the Watchers were killed or injured. The other encampments would send patrols to investigate when no word came from the main village; Moriana was worried but Darl assured her their small detachment could hold until reinforcements summoned by Khirshagk's sorcery arrived from Thendrun. Moriana was puzzled by this – she had been under the impression that so few Zr'gsz had accompanied them because there were so few alive. The great crystal keep had fairly rattled from emptiness, and she had scarcely seen a soul other than the Instrumentality and a few silent servants until they were ready to march. But Khirshagk told her more men were on the way, and she deemed it impolitic to question her ally too closely.
A dozen Zr'gsz stood around the fuming lava pit holding torches.
The sun was down but this didn't keep the People from their chores, whatever they were.
'1 greet you,' said Khirshagk from the platform that had been the resting place of the monster. 'You have done a great service for my People this day. It is fitting that you witness this, the culmination of years of waiting, of longing.'
Moriana and Darl looked at one another. Stepping forward as near as they dared to the fumarole, they stopped and waited. Their hands found one another.
Still in loincloth and mace-belt, Khirshagk no longer looked the rude savage he had appeared by day. In the smoky torchlight and lit below by the hellglow of melted stone, he was weird and magnificent, the king-priest of an ancient people, an ancient faith. Moriana wondered what ritual he enacted here. She tensed in anticipation, feeling forces all around her.
Khirshagk raised his arms and threw back his head. A wind rush of syllables blew from his lungs. Moriana couldn't understand the words, not fully. But the clicks and hisses and unvoiced vowels struck strangely half-familiar chords within her mind, tantalizing her with hints of understanding. She stole a look at Darl. He watched with curiosity but with no trace of comprehension. Moriana forced the name to form in her mind: Ziore?
I can make nothing of this speech, child, nor can I read the emotions behind it.
That negative reply caused Moriana's unease to grow. Powers definitely beyond the pale surged in this stony amphitheatre,
Moriana sensed excitement growing in the Zr'gsz though their expressions remained unreadable behind masks of torchlight and alien musculature. Khirshagk finished his oration in a cry that was almost a sigh, a breath expelled toward the stars, expressing transcendent passion. The Zr'gsz thrust their torches into the face of the night with a wild sibilance.
Moriana's nose wrinkled from the brimstone fumes drifting out of the fumarole. A crust of partially cooled lava rode the turbulent surface of the pool and cracked in a not quite regular pattern like mud dried on a flat. Yellow- orange glare burned along the fracture lines. Bubbles of gas rose from the depths of the mountain popping loudly to vent noxious vapors and spit glowing hot gobbets in all directions. One struck the ground near her boot. The heat stung her even through the thick leather.
Khirshagk stood silent, looking from one Zr'gsz to the next. In spite of the undercurrents of emotion about her, Moriana suppressed a yawn. It had been a long day, and her body demanded rest. Darl squeezed her hand.
'I hope they finish soon with whatever they're doing.' She caught his eye and grinned. Perhaps she wouldn't rest so soon.
'My friends.' Almost guiltily they looked at the Instrumentality who had called to them in manspeech across the seething pit. 'You are about to witness an epic moment in the history of the People: the recovery of their Heart, lost to us these ten thousand years.'
A tall, slimly built Zr'gsz cast away his cloak. He walked to the edge of the pit, looked down a few seconds, turned to face his leader. She couldn't be sure, but the princess believed the look on his face to be the pure rapture of a religious experience.
Khirshagk pointed with an arm circled in rings of obsidian and jasper. The youth nodded and waded into the lava.
Darl gasped. Moriana stared. Step by step the young lizard man descended into the fumarole. The tendons on his neck stuck out like columns. 'Gods, is he immune to heat?' Moriana whispered.
Darl didn't reply. He only licked dried lips and continued staring at the sight.
The lizard man raised one leg high to wade over an irregularity in the bottom of the lava pool. The meat hung loose on his bones. The bubbling lava reached his groin, his waist, his sternum. His face never lost its look of transfiguration, not even when the liquid stone reached to his chin, his lips. Steam poured from his nostrils as he cooked inside from the awful heat. He went deeper.
Moriana looked away as the lava reached his eyes. The stench of burned meat clutched at her stomach like a groping hand.
She forced herself to look back. There was no sign of the youth. No creature could desire to survive after having been cooked alive like that. The other Zr'gsz gazed eagerly at the roiling surface, Khirshagk among them. The princess knew she would never let him touch her again, not in exchange for any or all powers, magical or temporal.
A plateful of solidified lava slid to one side. A hand thrust from the lava – or the remnant of a hand. Naked bone gleamed in the torchlight but the skeletal hand clutched a jewel, an immense black diamond that smoked from immersion in the molten stone. Great Ultimate! Ziore cried in Moriana's mind.
Moriana couldn't respond, either with mind talk or vocalized words. She was too stunned by what happened.
Hand and diamond sank from view. The watchers hissed consternation. At a nod from Khirshagk a second lizard man plunged into the fumarole, eyes fixed on the spot where the gem had disappeared.
He brought the diamond five feet nearer shore before he succumbed. Six more Zr'gsz made the horrendous journey into the boiling hell of the fumarole before the last handed the great diamond to the Instrumentality and fell back to sink in a cloud of steam.
Khirshagk cradled the gem in both hands. His mighty arms trembled as if it were too massive to hold. He spoke to it fervently in his own hissing tongue, and then turned to Darl and Moriana to address them in their language.
'Ah, this day shall live as long as night comes to cover the land! The Heart is returned to us!'
The diamond glittered darkly from a hundred facets. Smoke streamed from it. The surviving Zr'gsz threw themselves down and writhed in rapture.
Unspeaking, Moriana?. nd Dar! backed off and then almost ran down the stony path. The princess felt anguish emanating from Ziore's jug, a mental keening. She pitied the genie. It would be horrible to have been cloistered all one's life and then be subjected to such a spectacle.
She saved some pity for Darl and herself. The sight of the young lizard men wading deeper into the killing heat of the lava would live in their dreams as long as they lived. Tomorrow Moriana would attempt to evaluate this shocking demonstration of the gulf that existed betwen the human owners of the Realm and their inhuman predecessors. Tonight they would cling to one another to maintain their sanity and would seek forgetfulness in the
