"Then do not doubt Mazda because he comes in a machine that he has taken from the Looters, a machine whose secrets he has learned." That brought the woman's head up with a jerk and a gasp.

"He-"

Someone moved in the shadows of a doorway. Then a man stepped out into the light. A man standing well over six feet tall, with an athlete's build and muscles, red gold hair that flamed in the sun-and a face out of which Blade's own image stared at him.

The man wore a green tunic with a flaming golden sword embroidered on the chest, and two metal swords hung from a wide leather belt at his waist. On his feet-but Blade found that he could no longer notice such details. In his mind a voice was sounding.

This is my son.

The voice built to a roar. Blade opened his mouth and shouted out: "This is my son! This is my son, borne by Zulekia beloved of Mazda, King of the People!"

The tall young man flung his long arms wide and tossed his ma.s.sive head, making the long red-gold hair-Zulekia's hair-swirl about like a halo. Then he drew both swords, cast them on the ground in front of him, and knelt to Blade. "This is Mazda. This is my father, returned to his people. Hail father! Hail Mazda!"

Chapter 13.

Pandemonium followed.

People jumped down into the courtyard from the roof. They swarmed out of the doors and climbed out of all the windows. They ran into the courtyard from outside the house. There were hundreds of them, men, women, and children.

Everybody was waving something. All were jumping up and down and shouting, "Mazda, Mazda, Mazda!" with all the breath in their bodies. The roar of the crowd half-deafened Blade. His ears could pick up the cry spreading out beyond the King's House, out into the streets, through the city. No doubt it would go on out into the country, until the houses were too far apart for a shout to carry from one to another. Then people would run as fast as they could to their neighbors, bringing word that Mazda had come again to Tharn.

It was an awesome feeling. But it was not quite equal to the feeling of looking into the face of his son. Nothing could be quite equal to that.

Blade stepped down from the platform to the ground-and immediately rose into the air again. People swarmed forward, reaching out for him, grasping him, hoisting him up. He was tossed about wildly until he felt his joints protesting. He realized that he was in real danger of being torn apart or trampled underfoot by this mob of hysterical worshipers of Mazda.

King Rikard's voice boomed out above the crowd roar.

"Stop! Cease! Stand back and stand away from Mazda! This is not the way the people do him honor!"

Then the king plunged forward into the crowd, clearing a path toward Blade. Those the king's ma.s.sive hands didn't grab and pull aside scrambled out of his way on their own. After the king came half a dozen armed fighters, including the gray-haired woman. They kept the path open with shouts and glares and brandished weapons.

Blade finally felt solid ground under his feet again. He took a deep breath and stepped forward to embrace his son. Rikard's own arms went around his father. They stood there for a moment in silence that said more than either of them could have said with words.

Blade was glad he did not have to speak. He was closer to being completely overpowered by his emotions than he had ever been in his life.

Seeing father and son embracing set off the crowd again. For several minutes everyone in the courtyard and the house shouted themselves hoa.r.s.e even more furiously than before. Blade and his son could not have made themselves heard if they had wanted to.

The crowd finally ran out of breath. King Rikard stepped back, looked Blade up and down, and slapped him on the shoulder, as one warrior chief to another.

"Father, come. We have much to say and we have no hope of saying any of it out here."

He turned toward the door into the King's House. Blade followed, Krimon fell into step behind him, and the guards brought up the rear.

The inner chambers of the King's House were as cramped, dark, and stuffy as the chambers of any other building made of turf, stone, and hides. But they were much cleaner and less smelly. The people of Tharn might have to live for now in barbarians' houses, but their memories of what had been and their hopes of what might be again kept them from becoming barbarians themselves.

Blade sat on a bench of teksin slabs covered with furs, and was presented with a large bronze cup of strong beer. King Rikard swept a glance around the room, and all the guards except the gray-haired woman vanished like puffs of smoke. Krimon turned as if to follow them, but Rikard motioned him to a seat.

"No, Krimon, you stay. You have seen and heard the most since Mazda returned. Your advice is needed. Yours too, Anyara," he added, pointing at the woman.

"Of all the people Anyara was the one who did most to raise me, next to my mother Zulekia. She has proved herself strong in war and wise in council as well. I owe her much, and Tharn owes her more, over many years." Anyara bowed her head with sober dignity at the praise.

Rikard undid his belt, poured himself beer from another jug, and sat down on a pile of furs in one corner. He drank deeply, then grinned. "By law and custom I should call in the whole Council of the People to listen and speak out. I suspect they would do more speaking out than listening if I did." The grin faded. "But there is nothing in law or custom to say what shall be done on the day of Mazda's return. I think we shall listen to what Mazda has to say first."

Blade grinned. His son obviously had some of his own shrewdness. "I do not think so, either. But I will ask you to stop calling me Mazda, at least when we are alone. It makes me feel like an image set up in a temple, to be worshiped faithfully but not really much good to anybody."

"All right, Maz-father," said the king, smiling. The smile made him look quite a bit younger than his twenty-five years. The smile faded. "Krimon spoke of your having captured the Looter war machine and learned its secrets. I-I won't ask if this was true. I can't imagine you lying, at least not to the people. But tell us more. Tell us-have you found some way we can defeat the Looters? Is there any hope for us?"

"I honestly do not know," said Blade. "I myself need to learn much more. But let me tell you what I have learned already." He poured himself more beer.

"To start with, I believe there is a chance to make the purple ray of the war machines harmless. If we face the Looters wearing only things that once lived-wood, teksin, leather, cloth-the ray may not kill. I have seen things that make me believe this is so. But I cannot yet be sure. We must test this further."

King Rikard's eyes widened. Blade knew he now had his son's full attention, and would not lose it.

Hours pa.s.sed. So did much more beer and a large meal of roast meat and steamed porridge. The light that crept in around the leather curtains in the window began to fade and turn red. Blade went on talking, answering his son's questions and getting answers to some of his own.

Eventually darkness came down. King Rikard rose and stretched out his long muscular arms until his hands seemed ready to punch through the ceiling.

"Father, I know that you have more to say. But in a single day I can only hear so much of things that I can hardly believe. You do understand?" Blade nodded. "Then we can finish tomorrow. And after we have finished, will you speak to the whole council? They must all hear what you have learned, and decide what must be done."

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Father, it is obvious to me. I know it will be just as obvious to the council when they have heard it. But they must hear it. Otherwise it will be said in Tharn that the return of Mazda is making the king return to the old ways of ruling. None wish that." Anyara and Krimon nodded.

Blade grinned again. "I see you haven't much to learn in statecraft."

"Thank you, father. Now-there will be a chamber ready for you in a few minutes. Would you care to do us the honor of taking one of the women of the King's House to you this night?"

Blade hadn't expected this. Handing a woman over to a male guest for his amus.e.m.e.nt was a custom he hadn't expected to find among the people, who were trying so hard not to be barbarians. Had his son really become so much the barbarian warrior chieftain as that?

Except- Blade shot a look at Anyara. She was nodding enthusiastically, and so was Krimon. There was something definitely odd here.

"What does the woman have to say in this?"

Anyara and King Rikard both laughed out loud. "I see. You think we have gone back to the habits of the Pethcines, handing our women about as though they were swords or boots. It is not so. Even if I wanted to make it so, the first seven women I met would claw out my eyes and cut off my manhood with dull knives if I tried.

"But the seed of Mazda is precious and powerful. Many women of the people who are of an age to bear children would most gladly take that seed into themselves, in the hope of bearing a child of Mazda. Girl or boy, they would be happy with either. They know it will be a strong child. We need strong children, father. We need all the strong children we can get, so that in time we will have all the strong men and women we need."

"Even children of the seed of Mazda?" said Blade.

"I do not understand, father. Is-is there something wrong with your seed? Certainly I show no signs of it if there is."

Blade laughed. "You do not. But consider that you are King in Tharn because you are the only one sprung from the seed of Mazda. What will happen to you when there are a dozen or a score of such?"

"Or even hundreds. Why not be hopeful?" put in Anyara.

King Rikard shook his head. "It will be good for Tharn, even so. I am indeed the first. I am the son begotten from the Beloved Zulekia by Mazda during his first appearance. I am set apart from all others by this, and I always will be set apart. Also, I have already ruled a good many years. With luck and long life I will have ruled many years more before the first of your new children is old enough to bear a child or swing a sword. I cannot see what they can do before then that I need fear. What they do after that is far in the future. We have things much closer at hand to worry about."

Rikard rose. "It grows late." He reached out and clasped Blade firmly by one hand and the other shoulder. "It is time for sleep. Anyara will show you to your chamber, then leave you. Krimon, there will be a chamber in this house for you also." Rikard strode out, the neuter following him. Blade rose and followed the woman.

Blade's chamber was low and even more cramped than King Rikard's meeting hall. Smoke from the grease-soaked taper that was the only light hung in the air. The floor was covered with hide mattresses filled with straw and a spectacular array of furs. On the wall hung a magnificently jeweled set of armor and weapons, obviously from old Urcit.

Blade shook his head. It was going to take some getting used to, this mixture of crude living conditions, relics of one civilization, and hopes for another one. Here in Tharn it was hard not to live in three worlds at once.

The leather curtain swung aside and a young woman entered. She too was a mixture. She wore baggy trousers and a shapeless tunic of leather, and her feet were bare. But she was freshly scrubbed, and her dark hair flowed clean and glossy down her back.

The Pethcine blood in her showed in the olive complexion, the black hair, the slight tilt to her eyes. But she had a ma.s.sive, almost jutting nose, plump round cheeks tanned from many hours in the sun and the wind, and an even rounder bosom and hips that showed through her baggy garments. Around her hips was a rawhide belt, and from it hung a sheathed dagger. She moved with a st.u.r.dy grace, her stride long and free, her pose showing no sign of submission or fear.

She stopped as she saw Blade.

"So you are Mazda." Her voice was low and respectful, but she did not sound at all awestruck at being in Mazda's presence.

"I am Mazda," said Blade.

"Do you find me fit and pleasing for coi, Mazda?" Again her voice was respectful, but not submissive. She looked at Blade as she spoke, as if defying him to say that she was not fit and pleasing.

"I think you are both fit and pleasing," said Blade. She certainly seemed to be. Blade had been longer than he liked without a woman, but he hadn't lowered his standards. He never did, unless there was a sword pointed at his throat or some equally persuasive argument in favor of bedding a woman he would normally have ignored.

Blade rose, went over to the woman, and took her in his arms. She was taller than he had realized, at least five feet six. After a moment's hesitation her own arms went around him, and her hands began stroking the small of his back.

"What is your name?"

"Chara," she said softly. "My father was-" Blade bent down and kissed her before she could finish. For a moment her lips were taut under his, then flowered open, warm, wet, and clinging. Her arms tightened around him. He reached down and grasped her tightly by the hips, pulling her hard against him. He was erect now, and her eyes flickered open as she felt his maleness-Mazda's maleness-thrusting up against her.

"It is-I must-" she murmured, gently disentangling herself from him. She unbuckled her belt and let it slide to the floor. Then swiftly she reached down and drew her tunic over her head. She wore nothing under it. Her skin had a coppery glint to it in the faint lamplight, and her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s swayed gently as she moved. Her nipples were large and dark, and Blade could see that they had already sprouted into hard little points. He reached out and stroked those points with thumb and forefinger. Chara swallowed hard several times and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

Her fingers fumbled at the cords of her trousers. Eagerness was pushing her on, desire was distracting her and making her clumsy. Finally she snapped the last cord and hastily shoved her trousers down her hips. They wadded around her ankles; she stepped free and kicked them aside. Naked, open, her breath coming fast, she came toward Blade.

She knelt before him, highlights chasing each other up and down her broad straight back as it curved down. She unknotted Blade's loincloth and threw it aside. Then her head swooped down on his manhood like a falcon on its prey. Warm, wet lips closed around him, swallowed him up, began to slide up and down on him.

Blade gasped, arching his back, knotted his jaw and throat muscles. Chara was no expert at this, but she was enthusiastic. Her enthusiasm was doing everything that skill could have done.

He reached down and locked his hands in her hair, then raised her head. Those maddening lips slid up and away, and Chars raised half-glazed eyes to stare at him.

"Enough," he said firmly. He let go of her hair and raised her to a standing position. She pressed against him. He could feel the triangle of fine, straight hair between her thighs already damp and rapidly getting damper.

He curled an arm around her, cupping one breast and stroking the nipple, then led her toward his sleeping couch. She seemed almost too eager to take him into herself to be willing to walk that far.

Eventually he lowered her onto the furs. Her body arched as she lay down, her eyes closed, and her hips thrust up and out toward him. He did not have far to go to slide into her.

She was warm and wet and ready, so ready that her body twisted and writhed almost at once. Blade let the spasm pa.s.s, then continued his own thrusts. He drove in faster, drove in deeper, locked his hands around her to pull himself all the way into her.

Again she bucked and thrashed and heaved back and forth, tightening her legs about his hips in a bone-cracking hold as ecstasy tore through her. Blade felt himself on the edge, kept on thrusting, felt himself reaching the edge, arched his body forward until his lips were brushing Chara's nipples. He went over the edge. Now it was his turn to heave and thrash and gasp as he poured himself, poured the seed of Mazda, into the woman who was so ready and willing to receive it.

A desire to relax struck Blade all over. His head sagged down to pillow itself between Chara's full b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He lay there for a moment, until he realized that his weight must be flattening the woman under him into the furs. Slowly he rolled off, and lay on his back beside her.

A moment later her eyes flickered open, and she sighed long and deeply. "Mazda," she murmured. "I have taken into me the seed of Mazda." For the first time there was a note of awe in her voice.

It pa.s.sed quickly. She raised herself on one elbow and looked Blade up and down. "You are not as large as the tales I heard as a child made you out to be."

"No doubt." Blade laughed. "I imagine that I grew a bit every time my adventures were retold, until people began to think of me as ten feet tall."

Chara nodded. "You did. When the lot fell on me to be the first one to come to your bed, I was frightened for a moment. You were a G.o.d in my mind, but also a monster. Then I realized that you could not have been a monster, for I had seen Zulekia, your Beloved, and she was as other women are. If she had not suffered, then I would not."

"I don't think you suffered at all, Chara," said Blade. "And neither did I."

"No," she said, smiling and resting her head on his chest. "No," she repeated, sleepily, her eyes flickering several times and finally falling shut. "No," she murmured, as her breathing grew regular and gentle.

After a while Blade reached down and pulled the furs over both of them. Then he too drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 14.

Several days and several women later, Blade appeared before the Council of the People. It took time for King Rikard to summon the members of the council from far and wide across Tharn.

King Rikard also had to call out a good part of the army to guard the King's House from people who wanted to see and hear and touch Mazda. The people accepted being shut out. But few of them went home. Every house in the New City was crammed to the roof, while an improvised city of tents and lean-tos sprang up outside the walls to shelter those who could not be accommodated inside.

Anyara threw up her hands in disgust at the spectacle. "The herds will go untended and unmilked, the weeds unpulled, the babies unbathed, and the roofs unpatched all over Tharn as people wait for Mazda to perform miracles."

"They're going to have to wait a long time," said Blade. "As I have said-I must learn more, and then teach the people. Even then we may not know enough to fight the Looters."

"We know this," said the king. "It is still good that you have returned to Tharn."

"It will be far better when people get used to your being among us and get back to work," said Anyara, with a sour expression on her face.

"Anyara keeps her mind on the plain, ordinary things," said the king with a smile.

"On the essential things, you mean," the woman corrected him.

"True. And Tharn owes you much for that."

Eventually the council gathered and Blade went before it. He spoke briefly of what he had done and where he had been since he left Tharn. Then he went on to describe his experiences since his return.

This took him longer than he had intended. Chara had not been in awe of him, but the councilors certainly were. Most of them were old enough to remember his first appearance. The thought of what he might do this time apparently had their minds reeling. About every third sentence someone would interrupt Blade to intone, "Mazda has spoken," or "It is the will of Mazda."

This went on and on and on. Finally King Rikard rose to his feet and thundered, "Yes, Mazda has spoken! But have any of you listened to him, or heard as much as a single word he has said? This is a meeting of the Council of the People that may have to decide the fate of Tharn, not a chorus to sing songs in praise of my father! There will be other times and other places for that if you and he both wish it. In the meantime, silence, and let Mazda speak!"

After that Blade finished speaking in a silence where a hiccup would have sounded like an explosion.