Var was amenable. As long as the god was with him, Soli was safe. He wondered what would have happened had he attacked Minos while the god lifted the rock. That boulder might have come flying at him.
They sat on crude chairs fashioned of bone tied with tendon, in another chamber. 'Have a bite to eat,' Mines said. 'I have nuts, berries, bread-and meat, of course. But you know where that comes from.'
Var knew. But the notion was not as shocking to him as he knew it was to others, for he had eaten many things in his wild childhood state. 'I will share your food.'
Mince reached into a pit and drew out a meaty rib. 'I roasted these yesterday, so they remain wholesome,' he explained, handing it to Var. He lifted a second for himself.
Var gnawed the rib, finding it far more tasty than raw rat meat. He wondered to which maiden it had belonged. Probably the last one; she had cried endlessly as they staked her out, and hadn't been very pretty. A bit fat-as this morsel vetifled. Momentarily queasy, Var washed his first mouthful down with the tepid water Mines provided.
'Where do you originate?' the god inquired.
Var explained about the circle culture.
'I have heard of it,' Mines said. 'But I must confess I thought it a myth, a fabrication, no offense intended. Now I see that it is a marvelous land indeed. But why did you and the girl depart?'
Var explained that, too. It was remarkably easy to talk to this enemy giant, and not entirely because of the stay it granted Soli.
'And you say her father is a castrate? When did that happen?'
'I don't know. No one spoke of it. I don't see how it could have been while he was Master of Empire, and Soli says it wasn't in the underworld.'
'Then it must have been before. Perhaps in childhood. Some tribes, I have heard, practice such things. But in that case-'
Var shrugged. 'I don't know.'
'Is it possible-I am postulating from ignorance, understand-that the Nameless One is in fact her father?'
Var sat and chewed the maiden-meat, and diverse things began to fall into place in his mind, as though bees were settling into a hive. The Master thought Var had slain his natural daughter!
'Ironic,' Minos said. 'If that is the case. But the solution is simple. You have merely to show her to him when next you meet.'
'Except-'
'Unfortunately, yes.'
'Do you have to take her?' It was hard to believe' that so affable, reasonable a creature could balk on this point.
Mines sighed. 'I am a god. Gods do not follow the conventions of man, by definition. I wish it were otherwise.'
'But surely you have enough meat here, to last another month?'
'I do not, for it spoils and I am not a ghoul. Some day I must require them to install refrigeration equipment. 'But that is not the problem. It is not primarily for the meat that I take the sacrifices.' ,
Var chewed, not understanding.
'The flesh is only an incidental product,' Mnos said. 'I use it because it is handy and I dislike waste. I make the best of the situation foisted on me by the temple.'
'The temple makes you do this?'
'All temples, all religions make their gods perform similarly. So it has always been, even before the Blast. The New Crete priests pretend that they serve Minos, but Minos serves them. It is a method of population control, in part, for the birthrate is governed by the percentage of nubile girls in the population. But mostly it is a way to retain power that would otherwise drift with the winds of politics and time. The common people have an abiding fear of me. I lurk near the bedstead of every disobedient child, I breathe misfortune on every tax-evader. I impregnate the wanton wives. Yet I am single and mortal. The temple produced me by mutation and operation-'
