quickly, knowing he had pressed too hard, he said, 'Forget it, my dear. Just finish the wine.'
* * *
It was night before the priests came. Five of them, tall, their robes adorned with the sigils of convoluted circles. The eldest, a man with a face ravaged with pits and lines, stared at them with deep-set, burning eyes. A fanatic who strode from one to the other as if reading their secret thoughts. The woman he ignored as he did Reigan who was still on his knees.
To Nakam Stura he snapped, 'What ails you?' He nodded at the answer, turned to Dumarest. 'You?'
'My lungs.' Dumarest coughed and fought for breath. 'A parasitical spore. I guess I haven't long to go.'
'You?'
'I am fit,' said Ramon Sanchez. 'Strong and eager to serve.'
Dietz whispered that he had an affliction of the heart. Lauter complained of his wounds.
'A laser burn in the gut,' he explained. 'Plates in both legs. A bullet still riding near my spine. I could get fixed, I suppose, but what's the point? I'd rather serve while I still have something to offer.'
'You come from where?'
'Chalcot. I was a mercenary.'
A mistake-the Original People did not follow paths of violence. Lauter had betrayed himself by volunteering his profession. Yet the priest made no comment and Dumarest wondered at his indifference as he led the way from the room down winding passages which fell in a spiraling decline beneath his feet.
A long journey ending in a gallery flanked with doors. Light blazed from the ceiling, a cold, blue luminescence which drained the natural color from flesh and left it the grim hue of lead.
'Later you will be given instruction,' said the priest. 'Now you will rest. You,' his finger stabbed at the woman. 'In there.' The finger stabbed again as Pollonia moved toward a door. 'You and you in there.' He moved on as Reigan and Stura hastened to obey. At the end of the gallery stood wider doors, the air tainted with an acrid stench. 'You in there and you,' the finger pointed at Lauter, 'in there.'
A division Dumarest didn't like, for it had separated the false from the genuine and had split the mercenary from his companions. At his side Dietz murmured, 'He spotted Kroy for a fake.'
'Us too, maybe.'
'Does it matter?' Sanchez looked up at the glowing ceiling, down at the room, the long row of cots it contained. 'The priests are fools. They didn't even trouble to search us.'
'What would you have done had they tried?'
'Fought, what else?'
'They could have guessed that. Why risk their skins when there is no need?' Dumarest looked at the nearest of the cots. 'We don't seem to be alone.'
A man lay on the fabric stretched on a frame. His face was mottled with sores as were his hands, his arms and naked torso. Ugly, oozing pustules which had stained the cot with crusted smears. He was asleep or drugged, moaning a little, a thin skein of white hair fringing the dome of his skull.
Another, not so badly afflicted, lay beyond him. A third lower down. As Dumarest walked along the cots a man reared toward the end of the room, turning his head, blinking eyes glazed with a nacreous film.
'Master? Is that you, Master? Am I again to serve the Mother?'
'Not yet,' soothed Dumarest. He touched the man's naked shoulder. 'Rest while you may and peace attend you in your dreams.'
As they moved on, Sanchez said, softly, 'They stink. They all stink of sickness and disease. Why the hell did the priests put us among them?'
'To serve.'
'Not me. I'm no nurse.'
Dietz said, patiently, 'You do not understand, Ramon. We, they, are all of a kind. You heard the blind man. He yearns to serve. He must have offered himself for that.' Pausing he added, 'Just as we did.'
To be used as the needs of the Temple demanded offering their hearts, spirits, lives, bodies. Dumarest remembered the meal, the thin stew with the stringy shreds of meat. The Temple was on a harsh world and those running it could not afford to indulge in the luxury of waste. Those dedicating themselves would be used to the full and, even when dead, they would still be of value.
He strode down the length of the room, counting the sick, the empty cots. About half and half which, if some were now working, explained the apparent carelessness of the priests. Labor was in short supply, especially the kind which was provided by those on the cots, and soon he and the others would be swallowed among them.
'It's crazy,' said Sanchez. 'If they suspect us why leave us free?'
'They suspect Kroy,' said Dumarest. 'We were separated from the others because we are more fit. But they don't know we arrived as a group.'
'Are they stupid?'
'No,' said Dietz. The assassin knew the strength of the established habit-patterns better than most. Knew too the encysting effect of established authority. He said, 'We're operating on momentum. They take us for what we claim to be. We'll get by if we don't draw attention to ourselves as Kroy did.'
'Or unless he betrays us.' Sanchez looked at the door, scowling. 'They could be working on him now. Coming for us at this very moment. I say we move.'
'When they come for us,' said Dumarest.
'Now.'
'No. We wait.'
'Like hell!' Sanchez strode toward the door, halted as Dumarest stepped before him. His teeth shone white between his snarling lips. 'Get out of my way, damn you. Shift or-'
Dumarest moved, his left hand darting forward, catching the fighter's right forearm, jerking it from his body, the weapon he guessed the man was reaching for. His right hand stabbed forward and upward, fingers closing on the other's throat, fingers gouging deep to rest on the carotids.
'Relax,' he said, coldly. 'Kick or struggle and I'll close my hand.' His fingers tightened in warning. Tightened more as Sanchez lifted his free hand. 'Don't try it!'
'Don't!' Dietz was beside them. 'Earl! Ramon! This is madness!'
Dumarest said, not looking at the assassin, 'I agree, but so is running blind in the Temple. The place must be thick with priests. We could get some but the others would have us trapped. We must wait until they come for us. If necessary we'll defend ourselves but, if they've come to guide us, we play along.' He eased the pressure on the fighter's throat. 'I'm running this operation, Ramon. If you don't like it too bad. Do you play along or not?'
'I-' Sanchez swallowed as Dumarest lowered his hand. 'You-'
'Forget the threats. I want an answer.' He would get the answer he wanted or the fighter would lie dead on one of the cots. Sanchez recognized this. 'Good.' Dumarest glanced at his wrist as the man yielded. If the priests left them alone they would have to move but there was time yet. 'Get some rest.'
As Sanchez, smoldering with rage, moved to an empty cot Dumarest added, 'That goes for you too, Pinal.'
'You're a fool, Earl.' Dietz spoke in a whisper. 'Ramon will never forgive how you shamed him. You should have killed him. Give me the word and I'll do it for you.'
'We can use him.'
'Then, at least, give me the word.' A different word, one which would free his mental restraints, and Dumarest wondered how the assassin knew he had been chained. 'I tried,' he explained, anticipating the question. 'It wasn't hard to figure out how Ishikari had tricked me. Twice I tried to even the score. Twice I failed. The second time he told me why.'
'Did you expect him to trust you?'
'He made me eat dirt,' said Dietz bitterly. 'Had me sweating with fear. But, worst of all, he trod on my pride.' He looked at his hands, the minute quivering of his fingers. 'He left me less than a man. I want to be whole again.'
To use his skills, his drugs, his poisons, his trade. Hampered, he was safe but a tool which had lost its temper. A knife which had lost its edge. And no man should be a cripple.
