Isma. Their breasts, their faces, were alike. Only the body hair was different: Isma's a darkest curling jet, Astar's fine and straight and golden bronze.
A great phallus, bearing the initial M, curved over the door of the cage. Blade made obeisance to it, then bounded up the stairs, and flung open the door and stepped inside. The crowd was silent, intent, waiting.
Isma leaped to her feet and picked up her sword and shield. Her breasts, the smooth velvet woman muscles of her shimmered and writhed beneath the tawny hide. Blade, incongruously at that moment, remembered that the People had once been great warriors under Astar I.
Isma snapped a command at Astar. 'Fight, Astar! On your feet and fight. Kill this one who claims he is Mazda.' Isma's mouth was thin and angry, imperious. She leaped at Blade and thrust with the sword. Blade moved skillfully away.
Isma did not follow. She retreated still talking to Astar. 'Fight, Astar! Fight!'
Blade knew then that Sutha had been right. Something was amiss. Isma was up to some mischief. He watched, ready and tense, as Astar got slowly off the couch. She picked up her shield and weapon and began to move toward Blade. Her eyes were vacant and staring and she looked not at Blade, but through him. In a flash it came to him. Astar was drugged!
So much the easier. He waited as Astar approached, concentrating on her body, feeling himself begin to react to the sexual excitement that clogged the air like smoke. He kept an eye on Isma, who was slowly circling around to get behind him. Obviously she intended that he subdue Astar first. Why? And why drug Astar? It must be Isma's doing. Was Sutha wrong and Astar not retarded, brain damaged, at all? Had Isma been drugging her for a long time?
Astar seemed to come alive for a moment. She saw Blade, as if for the first time, and her eyes narrowed and flamed. She leaped at him with a scream. 'Kill - kill! I am Astar. I am virgin. I will not be taken. I will kill... '
She swung wildly with the sword. Blade ducked under it and moved in to grab her around the waist. He backhanded her wrist and the sword fell. He pulled the shield off her arm and flung it away. She struggled in vain as he picked her up and carried her to the couch. Isma moved in closer behind him. He was suddenly aware that there was no sound in the cage other than the breathing of the three of them. The cage was soundproof. He glanced through the teksin, saw the open red throats of the howling mob of women, crazed by anticipation and empathic coi.
Astar's struggles were feeble now, her breathing harsh and tortured. She slumped against Blade, her breasts mashed against his great chest. Blade was conscious of an intense and growing excitement. He was ready! With Isma at his back, waiting.
Isma spoke for the first time. 'Hurry,' she said. 'Hurry and take her and have done with it. She is nothing. I have seen to that. A token will be enough, just enter her and then leave her. Come to me! Save all of yourself for me, to take me. If you can! If you dare!'
Blade tossed Astar sprawling on the couch. He was breathing hard and his voice was harsh. 'And you, Isma? And you...when my back is to you?'
She laughed. 'Is Mazda afraid, then?'
Astar was sprawling on the couch, her eyes closed, her breasts heaving, her long golden legs flung wide. Yet Blade hesitated. 'They cannot hear us?'
'Of course not. Would I speak so else! Hurry with her and come to me.'
Blade fell atop Astar and thrust hard into her. Astar screamed. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she died. Blade had seen much of death and he knew she was dead. For a second he did not understand. It was not possible that he... Then he knew. Astar had been murdered, drugged, poisoned, by Isma. It had been a masterpiece of timing.
So was Isma's attack on Blade. While he was still in the trance of shock, of trying to understand, she leaped at him with a cry of defiance. She thrust hard at his naked back. Her teeth were bared and she was panting.
'If I can kill you, Mazda-Blade, I do not want you! I am sick to death of creatures that are not men. I'll kill you, Blade. Kill you!'
Her red mouth was dripping saliva as she attacked him. She was good with the sword. Blade rolled away, off the couch, and she slashed him in the side. Blood welled down his leg. He leaped away from her with a wolfish grin.
'You do mean to kill me, Isma!'
She feinted at his throat, then lowered her blade to slash at his still rigid manhood. 'I'll kill it, Blade. Kill it! I'll burn it and the ceboids can have your carcass to toss on the dung heap. Mazda? A God? Prove it!'
He wondered if there was a word for insanity in Tharnian. He had not yet come across it. But whether or not, Isma was insane at this moment. She was devoured with double lust. For killing and for coi, and one fed the other.
Blade retreated slowly around the cage. Isma followed, feinting and thrusting, silent now, her dark eyes blazing at him. Blade too was being overcome with lust. He was also losing his temper. He made no effort to restrain it. He felt it sliding and let it go. If this bitch-Goddess, this High Priestess of coi wanted coi, he could damned well give her coi. He would kill her, all right. He would slay her with the only weapon he had.
He slithered back past the couch where the dead Astar lay still sprawled in an attitude of love. Isma followed, trying to work him into a corner. At any moment Blade could have picked up Astar's sword and shield and killed Isma. He did not want to. Not that way. And he was not thinking of the consequences of such an act, whatever they might be. No. He was going to kill Isma symbolically, as Sutha had said he must, and it was going to be a slaying she would remember for the rest of her life. She would, thought Blade as his rage towered and grew, beg him to slay her over and over and over.
Isma slashed at him and missed. Blade smiled in mockery. It was time. He stepped in swiftly and caught her sword wrist and twisted. She screamed and he smiled and twisted again. He hurt her and enjoyed doing it. She dropped the sword.
Isma tried to brain him with the shield. Blade struck her hard across the face with his open hand. She reeled back, stifling another scream, staring at him in disbelief. Then she leaped, screaming, spitting out the words in fury.
'You dare strike Isma!'
