Var the Stick (20 page)

    "Like the Master!" Var exclaimed.

    "So it seems. I should like to meet that man some day."

    And in the course of that adaptation to godhood, they provided me with-this." Mines opened his garment. Var was impressed. "The opposite of castration, you see. My appetite differs correspondingly from that of the normal male. But it waxes only with the moon."

    "Then Soli-and the others-"

    "You will note that I have stayed well within my domidile. Should I go near enough to the entrance to pick up the nuptial odor I should immediately lose control of myself. That is the way I have been designed; it is in my blood, my brain, my gonad. My onslaught is such that my partner does not survive."

    Var pictured the member he had just seen, and the force with which it would be wielded, and shuddered to remember that Soli awaited this. Better a full under hand smash by a club!

    "Why don't they provide-old women?"

    "Who would die soon anyway? Because they are not virgins. Minos must have chastity. This is part of it. My glands simply do not tolerate any other condition."

    This seemed remarkable to Vat, but no more so than other things he had seen and learned in his travels. "What happens if a mistake is made if the sacrifice is not chaste?"

    Minos smiled hideously, all his teeth exposed on one side. "Why then I betake myself to the temple and I raise a fuss. And it is said that bad luck follows for a month."

    Var attacked the last of his repast. He remembered something. "Do you know about the amazons-the hivewomen?"

    "Oh, yes. Fascinating subculture there. I had them in mind when I mentioned ritual mutilation."

    "The men-how do they do it?"

    "No problem at all. The women do it. Simple manipulation of the prostate and seminal vesicles so as to force out the ejaculate at the critical moment. Not the most comfortable mode for the man, particularly if he has hemorrhoids or if she has a broken fingernail, but effective enough."

    Var nodded, not caring to admit that this explained nothing to him. He had never heard of a prostate, and obviously babies were not conceived by fingernails, whole or broken.

    The meal was done. "I must fight you," Var said.

    "Surely you know I would kill you. I should think you would find a more romantic solution, pun intended. I would not like to have the blood of both of you on my horns-not when you have traveled so far, and worked so hard, and suffered such ironies already. Particularly when it is so easily avoided."

    Var looked at him, not understanding. "She won't go with me. Not until the sacrifice."

    Minos stoad up. "There are things a god does not tell a man. Go now, or assuredly we shall fight, for the need is rising in me."

    Var drew his sticks.

    Minos knocked them numbingly from his hands with one lightning swipe. "Go! I will not reason with a fool."

    Var, seeing that it was hopeless, picked up his sticks and went. This time he found the proper passage.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

    Soli remained at the rock. Var ran to her. "You must go with me. Minos is coming!"

    She hardly seemed surprised to see him alive. "I know, it is nearly noon." Her fair face was reddening in the slanting sun, and her lips were cracked.

    "He doesn't want to kill you! But he has to, if he finds you here."

    "Yes." She was crying again, but he could tell from her expression that she had not changed her mind.

    "I can't stop him. I'll try, but he will kill us both."

    "Then go!" she screamed at him explosively. "I did this to save your stupid life. Why throw it away?"

    "Why?" he screamed back. "I would rather die than have you die! You gave me nothing!"

    She glared at him, abruptly calm. "Sosa told me all men were fools."

    Var didn't see the relevance. But before he could speak again, there was a bellow from the labyrinth.

    "Minos!" she - whispered, terrified. "Oh, Var please, please, please go! It's too late for me now."

    The shape of the giant loomed at the cave entrance. Vapor snorted from the god's nostrils.

    Var threw himself on Soli as though to shield her from the onslaught of the god, knowing this to be futile but determined not to desert her. He held her close and tight though she fought him, tearing his clothing with her feet and teeth. Finally he got her body pinned firmly against the wall so that her legs split and kicked behind him ineffectively while she hung by the manacles. "I will not leave you," he panted in her tangled hair.

    Then her resistance collapsed. "Oh, Var, I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "I love you, you idiot."

    There was no time to be amazed. He kissed her savagely, hearing the tramp of Mines' hoofs, the blast of Minos' breath.

    Desperately they embraced, experiencing what had been building for three years; compressing it all into these last moments. Sharing their love absolutely, exquisitely, painfully.

    And Minos came, and stopped, and paused, and made a noise half fury and half laughter, and passed on.

    Only then did Var realize what had happened. What Minos had tried, subtly, to suggest to him.

    He had, indeed, been a fool. Almost.

    There were screams from the temple as Var yanked and pried and banged at the manacles still pinning Soli's bruised wrists against the stone. If he could get even one prong out, her hand would be free-but the stone and metal were, too strong.

    He found a corroded spike in the dirt just beyond the canyon and wedged it under one bond and pounded it with a stone-and finally, reluctantly, one prong pulled out. But his spike snapped as he pried up, and was useless for the other manacle.

    The furor at the temple subsided. After an interval Minos came back, carrying two bodies. Var and Soli waited apprehensively.

    The god halted.. "This one's the high priestess," he remarked with satisfaction. "She deserved this, if anyone does. Poetic justice." He looked at Soli, who averted her face.

    "Hold this," Mines said, handing Var a dead girl. Var took her, not knowing how to decline. She was about Soli's age, still warm, and blood dripped from her. There was something incredible about her posture, even in death; it was as though her guts had been pulped, leavng a humanshaped shell. He knew how close this corpse had come to being Soli herself. -

    Minos reached forth with the hand thus freed and grasped the stubborn manacle. The muscles of that great arm twitched. The metal popped out of the wall with a spray of stone and fell to the ground. Soli was free.

    Then the god fished a small package from his torn clothing and gave It to Soli, forcing it into her reluctant band. "A gift," he said. "There never was anything personal about this-but i'm glad you became ineligible."

    Soli did not answer, but she held on to the package. Mines took back the second corpse and marched into his labyrinth, humming a merry tune. He bad reason to be happy: he would eat well this month.

    'We'd better get out of here before the temple recovers," Van said. "Come on." He took Soli's hand and led her away.

    Once they were In the forest he took off his tattered shirt and put it about her. It formed into a short, baggy, but rather attractive dress, for her exposed legs were firm, her torso slender, and her face, despite the sunburn, lovely.

    Soli, mutely curious, opened the package Mines had given her. It contained two keys and a paper with writing on it. She stared.

    "What good are keys?" Var demanded. "We have no house."

    "They belong to a powerboat," she said, reading the paper.

    There were sea-charts aboard the craft, and numerious tanks of gasoline and fresh water and canned goods. How Mines had arranged this they could not guess, but the boat had obviously been ready long before the two of them had entered the picture. Perhaps he had intended to escape himself, but had given up the notion because of his biological urgencies. 'Or maybe he was less a slave to the temple than he had admitted. He could have many luxurious boats tucked away....

    From the maps they learned that they were far south of where they had supposed. The tunnel to China-actually, to Siberia-left from farther along. They had taken the Aleutian series, that led nowhere. However, with this stout craft it should be possible to make the crossing, following the island chain to the Kamchatka peninsula. From there they could either trek overland north and west and south around the Sea of Okhótsk, or continue island hopping directly southwest toward Japan.

    Var's head spun with the unfamiliar names Soli pieced out. This weird map was like the Master's books: it predated the Blast, and so contained much nonsense. Some of the islands might not be there any more.

    Somehow neither person suggested that they go back- back past the amazon hive, on to Alaska, north to the true crossing. Or even back to America. China had become a fixed objective, for no good reason now. Obviously they were not going to be satisfied with anyone's culture but their own. And if the Master were still on their trail, he should have caught up by this time.

    They could go home and soli could rejoin whichever father she chose, and Var could be a warrior again, and their relationship would be over. They would never need to see each other again. Yet they continued, west, nonsensically.

    A storm blew up and they hastily docked the boat on the shore of a deserted islet. Then fair weather, and they moved through deep water at top speed, letting the fine engine do the work. -

    They did not discuss the implications of what they had done to escape Minos, and after a time it became as though it had not happened. Indeed, the entire New Crete residence of two years tended to exist itself as a thing apart, an unreal memory. Soli was the child again, Var the ugly warrior.

    But with a difference. Hide it as they might, Soli was nubile and Var male. They could no longer embrace with complete innocence and candor, for now an embrace implied an adult relationship and inspired adult reactions that neither cared to admit. Nor could they talk quite so frankly, for the frankest subject of all was sex.

    They were not ready for love. For a moment it had been forced upon them, emotionally and physically, but that moment had faded like the storm tide, and they were left to their unfridged isolation. Two people united by a common purpose and an unspoken affection.

    This was, at any rate, the way Var saw it, though he did not work it out neatly or consciously. More than once he observed Soli staring at his bracelet. Perhaps she was remembering the way she had preserved it for him, at the near sacrifice of her own life. He was sorry that he had told her this was foolish, for that must have hurt her feelings-but it was true. Had the bracelet been sold, they need never have suffered those two years on New Crete.

    That reminded him circularly of another point, the one Minos had made. Could the Master be Soli's natural father? Now this seemed less reasonable than it had in the cave, and Var could not bring himself to present the notion openly. How would Soli react, having the paternity of Sol questioned? She loved Sol dearly, and hardly knew the Master. And if it were true, how would the Master react, knowing that Var had lied to him, making him believe his daughter had been slain? And when he learned what had happened on New Crete, what Soli had been set up for, how she bad been reprieved....

    The wide expanse of the sea went on and on, hypnotic, beautiful, boring. The sparse islands were barren, and did not conform exactly to the indications of the map. They took turns steering, following a marking on the compass- a dial that always pointed north. The sun and the stars also sewed, and whenever they encountered a feature recognizable on the map, they corrected course accordingly.

    And a few days after they thought the ocean would never end, they sighted the mainland of Asia.

    And the people spoke incomprehensibly.

    "Yes, of course," Soi said in response to his bewilderment. "They speak Chinese. Or they will, when we reach China. The map says' it's-well, see, we have a long way 'to go yet."

    Two thousand miles or more, it seemed to Var. Months of travel.

    They were sick of the ocean, but the overland route looked worse. They searched out a place to buy gasoline, paying for it with artifacts from the boat, and hopped southwest along what the map called the Kuril islands, then north inside of Sakhalin, and finally back to the mainland of Manchuria. The preposterous pre-Blast names were fascinating.

    Now the land route promised to be more direct and safe. They had either to use the boat or dispose of it, and they remained more at home afoot. So, regretfully, they decided to sell it. They went to a place that had similar craft and inquired until an old man was brought who spoke a little American.

    "America?" he asked, amazed. "Destroyed-Blast."

    By and by they conducted a party to the boat, and the sale was completed. Soli was cynical about the value, expecting to be cheated, but there seemed to be little choice. At any rate, they obtained enough currency to buy local outfits and equipment, and some Written primers in the language-including an ancient, pre-Blast text with American equivalents.

    They hiked again and drilled each other on the written symbols. Soli-said they were not like-the writing-she knew, but that they made sense once she got used to them. And though there were many spoken dialects, so that travelers like them would be constantly confused, the Written, language covered the entire region. With these symbols they could always communicate-provided they met someone literate.

    Overall, the landscape resembled what they had known on the other continent-mountainous, wild, and riddled by patches of badlands radiation. The natives near the coast were civilized in the fashion of New Crete-without human sacrifice, but with other cultural problems. Those inland were more primitive-like the American nomads, but without the substantial benefits of crazy technology or supplied hostels. Most left the strangers alone, but some were belligerent, and no circle circumscribed the combat.