The Maiduke maidens had a special section to themselves, under the watchful eyes of monitor neuters. There were special ceboid patrols everywhere. Such of the Bearer maidens as were not fertilized, and thus incarcerated in the baby plants, were also on hand. The long conveyor belts, bearing the neuter decanters, had ground to a stop. All of them, every level of Tharnian society, were there unless duty prevented. From the lowliest to the highest, from the most humble ceboid street cleaner to Isma herself, they were all avid to see the God perform. And along with the flower smell of women was another, nearly as tangible, miasma that lingered in the air. Lubricity. Tharn was not an inhibited state.
Richard Blade had been bathed and perfumed by a company of Maiduke girls watched over by a neuter. They chattered incessantly as they worked, in a Tharnian patois that he could not entirely understand, but what he did understand was hard on his composure. They stared. How they stared! One, bolder than the rest, actually reached and tweaked until harshly reprimanded by the neuter. Blade was glad when it was over.
Blade was not to take his great sword into the arena. With reluctance Blade entrusted the weapon to the care of a neuter called Xeno. Xeno was young, only 16 kronos out of decantment, and husky for a neuter. He was Blade's personal servant and filled with awe at the assignment, and at Blade.
Blade wore only a purple loincloth. He was unarmed. Now he paced the floor of his sumptuous chamber impatiently, anxious for Sutha to arrive and conduct him to the amphitheater, to have it over with. The image of Honcho, with his clever, aborted and not so neuter brain, haunted him. Surely Honcho had more arrows to his quiver than Blade knew of. And what of Totha? Of Org? Nothing could be done until this ceremony was over and Blade officially received as Mazda. Blade chafed and fretted for action.
Sutha came and conducted Blade through a tunnel beneath the arena. Xeno, staggering under the weight of the sword, followed along behind.
Blade asked a question that had been bothering him.
'How much of this ceremony is mock, Sutha, and how much real? Astar and Isma are to be armed and I am not? Will they really try to kill me?'
Sutha nodded. 'They will really try to kill you, Blade. They must. If they can, if they do, then it is a false prophecy and you are not Mazda. You, in turn, will try to slay them. But only symbolically! You do have a weapon.'
The old neuter pointed to Blade's groin. 'Your phallus! That is your weapon. I warned you. You must disarm them and ravish each separately. So do you consummate with the dual Goddess and you all become as ONE. Tharn.'
Sutha touched Blade's arm. 'You will not fail. You must not fail. Do you understand my meaning? Even if you disarm them, Astar and Isma, and subdue them, which you will, and then are not capable of entering them, then you will still have failed. It will be symbolic death. And actual death will not be far behind.'
Blade did not think he would fail. He had always been enormously potent. And yet there was no guarantee that in the excitement, the frenzy, in the stress of performing publicly, he pushed the thought away. That would be all right.
They reached a gate leading into the great arena. Sutha flicked a hand at Xeno and the young neuter dropped back and fell to his knees, making slaveface. Sutha drew Blade into a corner. Through the gate they could hear the sound of the waiting crowd.
Sutha squeezed Blade's great bicep. 'I do not think you will fail, Blade. But if you do I cannot help you. Isma will order the soldier-ceboids to kill you. This they will do, though you slay many of them first. But it is not that I worry about, much. It is Isma. She has a secret. I can always tell. And being Isma it is a dangerous secret. I do not know if it concerns you, or Astar, or even myself. But be warned. Watch her. Isma is High Priestess and a woman of all women, and not to be trusted for a minikronos. Go, Blade. I invoke fortune on thee.'
Blade strode into the arena.
There was no welcoming roar. There was gathering silence as the whispering died away and the assembled People, all of THEY who really counted, feasted their eyes on Blade.
Blade stood tall, his heavily muscled legs planted like columns in the earth. His heavy black beard had been washed and combed. It was thick and wiry and glistened in the evanescent soft light bathing the huge space.
Blade's shoulders were wide, his chest massive, his waist lean and hard muscled. Playing to the audience, as Sutha had instructed, he raised his arms above his head and turned slowly around, inspecting them and letting them see the confidence and arrogance he exuded. Even if Sutha had not given him meticulous instructions, Blade was far too good a natural showman to play it humbly.
So he stood for a moment. The whispers came back now, and a long collective exhalation from the women of Tharn. The neuters were apathetic. The ceboids, with slow animal curiosity, watched his every movement.
Blade smiled at them. He put his hands on his hips and laughed, loudly and triumphantly, his white teeth flashing through the black beard. Some of the women began to laugh, a nervous growing titter.
Blade began to walk toward the transparent teksin cage in the center of the arena. It was cube shaped and the walls were solid. Inside, each lying on a separate couch, were Astar and Isma. They were naked. Beside each couch was a shield and a sword with a keen, phallus-shaped blade. As Blade approached Isma raised herself on her elbow and watched him. Astar did not move. Only the rise and fall of her sharp breasts showed that she lived.
A door, reached by a short flight of steps, opened into the cage. By the steps a fire burned on a teksin grate. It was attended by a high ranking neuter. As Blade drew near the neuter cast a handful of powder on the flame and it swirled upward in a cloud of red and yellow.
Blade watched the moiling fire from a corner of his eye. He knew why the fire was there, what it was waiting for. If he failed, if he was not man enough, Isma - or would it be Astar? - would hack off his manhood and toss it to the greedy flames.
The music began. It crept into the arena from nowhere, low and sinuous, gaining in sensuality with every note. Blade halted at the foot of the steps.
Through the teksin his eyes met those of Isma. Their stares locked and held. Something glittered in those obsidian depths and the red mouth moved a bit over pearly teeth. Isma moved on the couch, twisting, thrusting her breasts at Blade like daggers. She crooked a finger and her lips moved. Come. Come to coi...or death.
Blade glanced at Astar. She was still unmoving, silent and distant on her couch, staring straight before her. Would she fight him? Could she, as retarded as she was? Her body, revealed in every detail, was as lovely as that of
