“I still don’t …”
“I have a question for you, a poetic riddle. Will you try to answer it?”
“If you will answer a not too poetic riddle for me.”
“Will you do your best to answer mine?” Argo asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I will do my best to answer yours. What is your question?”
“Who is Jordde and why is he doing what he’s doing?”
“He was at one time,” Argo explained, “a very promising novice for the priesthood of Argo in Leptar, as well as a scholar of myths and rituals like Iimmi and yourself. He also took to the sea to learn of the world, but his boat was wrecked, and he and a few others were cast on Aptor’s shore. They strove with Aptor’s terrors as you did, and many succumbed. Two, however, a four-armed cabin boy whom you call Snake, and Jordde were each exposed to the forces of Argo and Hama as you have been. One, in his strangeness, could see into men’s minds. The other could not. Silently, one swore allegiance to one force, while one swore allegiance to the other. The second part of your question was why. Perhaps if you can answer my riddle, you can answer that part yourself. I do know that they were the only two who escaped. I do know that Snake would not tell Jordde his choice, and that Jordde tried to convince the child to follow him. When they were rescued, I know that the argument continued, and that Snake held back with childish tenacity both his decision and his ability to read minds, even under the hot wire and the pincers. The hot wire, incidentally, was something Jordde brought with him from the blind priestesses, according to him, to help the people of Leptar with. It could have been a great use. But recently all he has done with the electricity is construct a larger weapon with it. However, Jordde became a staunch first mate in a year’s time. Snake became a waterfront thief. Both waited. Then, when the opportunity arose, both acted. Why? Perhaps you can tell me, poet.”
“Thank you for telling me what you know,” Geo said. “What is your question?”
She glanced at the flame through the door once more and then recited:
“By the dark chamber sits its twin,
where the body’s floods begin;
and the two are twinned again,
turning out and turning in.In the bright chamber runs the line
of the division, silver, fine,
diminishing along the lanes
of memory to an inward sign.Fear floods in the turning room;
Love breaks in the burning dome.”
“It is not one that I have heard before,” Geo said. “I’m not even sure I know what the question is. I’m familiar with neither its diction nor style.”
“I doubted very much that you would recognize it,” smiled Argo.
“Is it part of the pre-purge rituals of Argo?”
“It was written by my youngest daughter,” Argo said. “The question is, can you explain it?”
“Oh,” said Geo. “I didn’t realize. …” He paused. “By the dark chamber sits its twin, moving in and out; and that’s where the floods of the body begin. And it’s twinned again. The heart?” he suggested. “The four-chambered human heart? That’s where the body’s flood begins.”
“I think that will do for part of the answer.”
“The bright chamber,” mused Geo. “The burning dome. The human mind, I guess. The line of division, running down the lane of memory—I’m not sure.”
“You seem to be doing fairly well.”
“Could it refer to something like ‘the two sides of every question’?” Geo asked. “Or something similar?”
“It could,” Argo said, “though I must confess I hadn’t thought of it in that way. But it is the last two lines that puzzle me.”
“Fear floods in the turning room,” repeated Geo; “Love breaks in the burning dome. I guess that’s the mind and the heart again. You usually think of love with the heart, and fear with the mind. Maybe she meant that they both, the heart and the mind, have control over both love and fear.”
“Perhaps she did,” Argo smiled. “You must ask her—when you rescue her from the clutches of Hama.”
Before turning back to the room with his companions, he looked once more out at the fires of the volcano. Light whirled white and red. Blue tongues licked at black rock siding. He turned away now and went back into the darkness.
X
Dawn light lay aslant the crater’s ridge. Argo pointed down the opposite slope. A black temple was visible at the bottom among trees and lawns. “There is Hama’s temple,” Argo said. “You have your task. Good luck.”
They started down the incline of cinders. It took them an hour to reach the first trees that surrounded the dark buildings and the great gardens. Entering on the first lip of grass, they heard a sudden cluster of notes from one of the trees.
“A bird,” Iimmi said. “I haven’t heard one of those since I left Leptar.”
Suddenly, bright blue and the length of a man’s forefinger, a lizard ran halfway down the trunk of the tree. Its sapphire belly heaved in the early light with indrawn breath; then it opened its red mouth, its throat warbled, and there was another burst of music.
“Oh well,” said Iimmi. “I was close.”
They walked further, until Iimmi mused, “I wonder why you always think things are going to turn out like you expect.”
“Because when something sounds like that,” declared Urson, “it usually is a bird!” Suddenly he gave a little shiver. “Lizards,” he said.
“It was a pretty lizard,” said Iimmi.
“Going around expecting things to be what they seem can get you in trouble—especially on this island,” Geo commented.
The angle at which they walked made one of the clumps of tree before them seem to fall apart. A man standing in the center raised his hand and said briskly, “Stop!”
They stopped.
He wore dark robes, and his short white hair made a close helmet above his brown face.
Urson’s hand was on his sword. Snake stood
