Black Priestess of Varda Dominant

  The leading Luvan climbed stolidly to the platform. Syn turned, unfastening and tossing aside his cloak. His bare skin gleamed yellow-green in the Gateway's glow. Then he and the Luvan met in the middle of the platform and merged in an indescribable way that stopped the breath in Marion's throat, became one in a kinship of alienness. The faces of the watchers writhed in ugly loathing.

  'Sassa comes! Great Sassa comes!' The words began as a mutter and swelled to a concerted roar that shook the sphere. It was a cry of exultation, but mingled with it was an unspoken, questioning longing strong enough to make itself felt.

  'Tonight?'

  The gateway was no longer formless light. Something was there. Marion shuddered and had to lower his eyes.

  The Syn-Luvan form on the platform leaped and flowed in wild contortions of a significance that made Marion grow faint, yet held his enthralled. The thing in the Gateway became clearer in outline, larger, as though approaching from an immense distance. For an instant it seemed about to break the bonds of the Gateway, to enter into the world of Varda itself. An expectant, thrilled hum went up. Then the thing recoiled and the throng muttered in disappointment.

  Syn spread his arms and arched his nude body backward, a living green-ivory statue as he gazed up into the Gateway. And the thing—Sassa—twisted as though communicating with his by its motions.

  The priest made a slight motion to Wyr. Instantly her hands moved. Marion had almost forgotten the cable attached to his wrist, but as Wyr touched her levers force flooded his body. For a few seconds it was excruciatingly painful, as if it were liquid fire, but gradually through the pain he felt alive, fully and abnormally alive. He was acutely aware of every fiber of his body, of each separate hair, each pore of his skin, each muscle and tendon and bone.

  That too changed, became an ecstasy of utterly alien vileness that overwhelmed and submerged his own consciousness. He was no longer himself alone. He was a part of Great Sassa and yet himself more than ever. He was powerful, and nothing was impossible or wrong. Only for an instant did he struggle, more startled than inherently repelled by the strange sensations. Then he surrendered himself completely and utterly—and gladly. He was floating in the exultation of an alien, unguessable obscenity. He had become Of the Faith.

  And in that oneness many things became clear. He knew that Sassa the Conqueror, Sassa the Incomparable, came from afar to bring her boon to the Faith of Varda. And he knew that the machine and its cables were merely a temporary expedient, until Great Sassa should burst through the Gateway to her destined supremacy. Then they of the Faith, like Syn, the high priest who was already old in the service of Sassa, could merge and become one more directly.

  And he knew what bonds barred Great Sassa's way. The inimical thoughts of the Rebels, those ungrateful wretches who had not only rejected Sassa the Wonderful but through the concerted power of their thoughts managed to do something to prevent the passage of the Supreme One through the Gateway. The Rebels must be destroyed! They must! They must! His only wish was that Sassa come through! He could sense the thoughts of Sassa's other worshipers, their intense desires so exactly like his own.

  But oneness with Sassa was not without cost. He could feel himself weakening. His knees sagged and his vision blurred.

  Syn at last gave Wyr a signal. The flooding force stopped abruptly and Marion sank weakly to a sitting position. Around his many others did likewise.

  The slave boy's thin scream of despair caught Marion's attention as Wyr touched the controls and the hoist raised him, swung his over the Vat. He was no longer a mindless automaton as he was lowered toward the seething lavender fluid, but a human fully aware of his impending doom. Marion watched in horrified fascination.

  The boy screamed again as his feet touched the surface, this time in agony, and drew his legs up in a convulsive spasm. Slowly, inexorably Wyr kept lowering him. He screamed again and this time was unable to raise his legs clear.

  Deeper and deeper he was plunged into the pale liquid. The slave boy seemed to dissolve as he touched, for although Marion could see through the transparent Vat no part of his body was visible below the surface. Finally the screaming stopped.

  The boy had vanished utterly. Wyr raised the empty hook.

  The cable and wristband led a new force into Marion's body, a force that left his refreshed, replenished. The worshipers around his straightened and their dulled eyes grew brighter. Even the nebulous image of Sassa within the Gateway glowed with a more vivid fire, as though she too had fed.

  Then once more the power of Sassa flowed, bringing dreams. Alien dreams—dreams of vileness so deep it became enthrallingly beautiful—dreams of conquest, world after world—dreams of great and very precious rewards for those who were Of the Faith.

  Again the form of Sassa bulged at the Gateway, and once more drew back. Angry, frustration entered the projected dreams—and yet the knowledge that an eternity of ageless tomorrows lay ahead.

  Through his trance Marion sensed the grey and boneless form of a Luvan beside him. It touched his tentatively, then withdrew, and he could feel its thought.

  'Not yet—but soon for this one.'

  Seven times in all a slave was awakened from mindlessness by a pellet of restoring drug and lowered into the lavender fluid of the Vat to feed the Sassa-entity and revive its worshipers with the very essence of life. To Marion the slaves were not human beings at all. He was now Of the Faith.

  And then the last dream faded. The Gateway dimmed to a formless yellow-green glow as Sassa retreated. Syn wrapped the cloak around his white body. The Observance of Sassa had ended. All around his there was an awakening, a stirring.

  Wyr left her place and pushed her way, toward him. She eyed his approvingly, for she had been watching and had found his suitable. He had not resisted Great Sassa. But her brows were creased in thought.

  * * * *

  Outside the fresh night air brought his brain to full activity, thrusting forward half-memories of things he had not consciously noticed during the Observance.

  At one time, cutting through the oneness of the group, had come a thought of different, more penetrating quality than the others. A thought not of the wondrousness of Sassa but of the beauty and desirability and irresistible attraction of Sassa's priest. And he had seen Syn half turn, even in the very presence of that he worshiped, to locate its source. Oh, Victoria was a sly one. Marion frowned uneasily. Her look when he chose Wyr had been laden with malice, and she could become dangerous. Syn had been pleased by her thought.

  Wyr was silent until they were in the air.

  'Soon—as soon as I am ready—the resistance of the Rebels will be crushed. Their forests can not protect them forever from the Forces that I, Wyr, command.' Her eyes were alert for the effect of her words.

  'Why don't you wipe them out immediately then?' Marion asked, thinking of Sassa's coming through.

  'For one thing, they are clever.'

  Something in her words made his realize she meant more than she had said, that her motives were not as simple as they appeared.

  'You mean-?'

  Wyr looked at his searchingly. 'One person, or two of opposite sexes, will acquire supreme power when Sassa comes through. Syn thinks because he is so old in the Faith that it will be he alone. But I have labored harder, devoted myself to the Faith even more wholeheartedly than he.'

  'But wouldn't that be treason against Great Sassa?' The thought left Marion aghast.

  Wyr shook her head. 'Sassa is far too great to care who receives the Power. With my knowledge of the Gateway and the Machine of Life, with your Earth brain that can project thoughts with such powerful intensity—'

  'But—'

  'Do you think you are safe?' Wyr broke in angrily. 'You are enough like Syn himself to know that she—'She did not need to complete her sentence. Marion understood. He was well treated now—but Syn could change his mind.

  'You and I—together,' he agreed. Marion was an ambitious man.

  With casu
al ease Wyr landed on the fortress roof. Marion started down the ramp toward his quarters but the big woman seized his elbow.

  'No,' she corrected. 'This way.'

  * * * *

  In the morning Syn sent a messenger to Wyr's rooms. The priest of Sassa had known exactly where Marion had spent the night. But he did not know of the things he and Wyr had discussed in quiet whispers.

  'Did you find Wyr a satisfactory companion?' Syn greeted him.

  Marion eyed his steadily. 'She's scarcely a mental giant,' he replied. 'A bit uncouth, but otherwise adequate.'

  The answer seemed to amuse Syn. 'And did you like the Observance of Sassa?'

  'It's—it's—'Marion was at a loss for words but his face betrayed the tremendous hunger to wallow once more in Sassa's alien vileness, 'How soon again?'

  Syn smiled at his enthusiasm.

  'You are one of us now, and the inherent character of your Closed World brain will help overcome the Rebels all the sooner,' he declared.

  A nagging worry gnawed at Marion's mind. 'How about Victoria?' he asked.

  Syn's face became mask-like and unreadable. 'She has become Of the Faith too. She may amuse me—for a while. Something new, you know.'

  Marion nodded. He dared not probe too deeply.

  'Just remember that I am Syn, and that in Varda my word is law.'

  Marion wondered whether the ruler was suspicious or had uttered the warning on general principles.

  CHAPTER V

  For several days Krasno was out most of the time, and when home he was usually exhausted. Eldyn was aware she was sharing his dwelling on sufferance only, because he pitied her maimed body and abysmal ignorance of this strange world, so in consideration she repressed most of the insistent questions pushing at her lips.

  She spent many lonely, idle hours—when not indulging in orgies of self-pity—studying the scrolls she had found.

  One dealt in scholarly fashion with the history of Varda, telling of a relatively small but highly civilized group, the Superiors, and a much larger number of uncivilized, barbarian Puvas. Most of the scroll dealt with the efforts of the Superiors to teach the Puvas the arts of civilization. It told of a populous, fairly happy world with a highly integrated culture of which Eldyn had seen no trace, and it ended abruptly in the midst of a discussion, of the economic system. The ending puzzled her. It was so—unfinished.

  Whenever she tired of reading she investigated the marvelous mechanisms the boy used so casually. They left her perplexed, for they had no manual controls and she could not make them work at all. She dared not go out, for the boy had warned her that for his safety as well as her own she should remain underground. He had not explained.

  The luminous walls bothered her particularly, and finally she asked him about them. He seemed surprised she did not understand.

  'Just put your hand on a wall anywhere, so,' he directed. 'Now think of light. With your Closed World brain you should have no trouble.'

  Nothing happened.

  'Think harder,' he admonished. 'Believe it will shine.'

  After a dozen attempts a wall suddenly flared into brilliance at her thought and touch. After that it became progressively easier.

  'But why? How does it work?' she asked, still a scientist.

  He frowned. 'The detailed knowledge was lost many woman-lives ago, when the Luvans came through and caused the Collapse.' There was bitterness in his voice. 'But of course it is by thought.'

  Eldyn asked what he meant by the Collapse. He shook his head sadly and refused to discuss it, but before going out again he pointed out a small scroll she had overlooked. It was hastily written, an incomplete and fragmentary continuation of Varda's history.

  The progressive civilization of the Superiors had been interrupted by alien creatures, Luvans, who had opened a Gateway from another world. They were few in number and the Superiors had not realized their danger until they had corrupted several individuals—the first of whom was a man called Syn—to the worship of their vile deity. Then a deadly, devastating conflict had ensued, with those who refused to embrace the Faith at a terrible disadvantage.

  For something in the nature of the Luvans had caused the Superiors’ radiation-type power weapons to backfire whenever used near them. And with horror the Superiors had discovered that no matter how cut or bullet-punctured, the gross grey bodies of the Luvans repaired themselves within hours. They utterly refused to remain dead.

  Most of the Superiors had been destroyed during the first few months. The survivors had been forced to scatter, taking to the forests.

  Then the Luvans, lacking sufficient converts to establish an effective cell of their Faith and unable to corrupt more of the Superiors, had deliberately caused mutations to take place among the savage Puvas, breeding individuals more suited to their plans. The mutants were intelligent, but they lacked some of the Superiors’ telepathic ability.

  Eldyn added up what she had read. Krasno was obviously one of the surviving Superiors, the hunted folk whose coordinated thoughts and mental powers held Varda against the Faith of Sassa. She remembered the lighted walls and the other devices without manual controls. Evidently thought was a tangible force here in Varda. Anxiously she awaited Krasno's return, one question uppermost in her mind.

  * * * *

  She blurted it out as soon as she saw him. 'Will you take me to your people? Perhaps they could return me to Earth.'

  His body grew rigid and he stared at her in a silence suddenly grown hostile. His hand hovered momentarily over the deadly radiant blast rod in his belt.

  Then his eyes misted and his lips trembled. She knew she had unwittingly inflicted a deep hurt upon him, that somehow her words must have sounded like a taunt. She did not understand why, but she felt deeply apologetic and tried to tell his so. Finally the unfriendliness died from his eyes, but the hurt remained.

  'My people?' he said in bitter unhappiness. 'I have no people. I am an exile.'

  With an angry gesture he ripped his jacket aside, exposing the crescent-shaped red scar on his breast. 'See this? It is the slave-mark of Syn.'

  Eldyn stared blankly.

  Jerkily, with words deliberately held to matter-of-factness, he told her. He had been captured by a raiding party of the Faith, gassed into unconsciousness, and had awakened in the slave pits beneath the Fortress of Syn. There he had been mistreated and tortured, dosed with a drug to reduce his to a mindless automaton, and in a bestial ceremony branded with the slave-mark. His fate would have been eventual oblivion in the Vat.

  But he had succeeded in poisoning himself before the drugs took full effect, and two mindless slaves under the direction of a mutant Puva guard had tossed his dying body on a rubbish heap outside the walls.

  He had intended suicide, meaning to thwart the Faith, but a spying party of Rebels had found his barely breathing and rushed his to the Chamber, the only person ever to escape the clutches of the Faith.

  'I went to the Thin World while the Chamber repaired the effects of the poison,' he told her. 'But even the Chamber could not remove this. Not so long as Sassa lurks at the Gateway.'

  Before Eldyn could interrupt with questions he continued.

  'They would have been kinder to let me die, even in the Vat.'

  The Forest People remembered the havoc traitorous adherents of the Faith had wrought among them, and would take no chances. Because he bore the slave-mark and was therefore suspect, Krasno had been sent into exile by the Council.

  'The others can occasionally gather in small groups and fight their loneliness together,' he sobbed. 'But for two years they have even kept their minds closed against me. I'm completely alone, always.'

  Eldyn felt a great longing to comfort the weeping boy. But even in his solitary exile he regarded her only as an object for pity, not as an equal and a friend. So there was nothing she could do but leave his alone with his grief. It made her feel more sorry for herself than ever.

  * * * *

  Next day the a
larm in the passage way hummed unexpectedly and Krasno leaped up as a woman entered. Her clothing was of the same blue-green material as his, evidently intended to match the forest tints, and a bulging weapon belt encircled her waist. A long sword swung at her side, and she looked capable of using it well.

  'Bolan!' Krasno greeted her with a happy cry and ran to her arms. She held his affectionately.

  'How do you dare—'he asked through tears of joy.

  The woman made a disparaging remark about the Council. 'After all, you are my brother.'

  Eldyn felt a relaxation of the tension within herself. Her hostility toward the woman ebbed.

  But Bolan glowered at the Earthwoman with black dislike.

  'You certainly aren't helping yourself with the Council by keeping this Outworldling here,' she told the boy. 'You'd be well advised to send her into the forest.'

  'To die? But Bolan, she's harmless,' the boy protested.

  The woman raised her eyebrows. 'You think so? The other two have not appeared in the slave pits. You know what that means. And with their Closed World minds...'

  Eldyn interrupted in sudden anger. 'Listen here. Marion would never join that Faith. The woman, perhaps, but not the boy. If he's there it is as a prisoner.'

  Bolan turned on her contemptuously. 'Be quiet!'

  Krasno intervened. 'Your loyalty is touching—but I fear sadly misplaced,' he said quietly.

  Furious words surged to Eldyn's lips, but Krasno refused to argue. He treated her like a sickly and petulant child. Enraged self-pity filled Eldyn's mind. If she had both arms she'd show that big oaf a thing or two.

  'Don't be a fool, brother, even if you have made a pet of this thing,' Bolan said with brutal abruptness. 'Get rid of her.'

  Krasno's mouth set in a stubborn line and his eyes flashed. Bolan shrugged, knowing the signs.

  'There's a raiding party near,' she changed the subject. 'I'm going to try an ambush.'

  At once the boy brightened. 'I'm going too,' he announced, gathering his weapons.

  Bolan looked startled, then worried, and finally actually frightened.

  'Don't worry,' Krasno reassured her bitterly. 'I'll go alone. I have no desire to be seen with you and make you an exile too.'

  'You know I don't believe—'his sister protested.

  'Perhaps not. But the Council does.'