The Jewels of Aptor Part 28

She glanced at the flame through the door once more and then recited:

"_By the dark chamber sits its twin, where the body's floods begin; and the two are twinned again, turning out and turning in._

_In the bright chamber runs the line of the division, silver, fine, diminis.h.i.+ng along the lanes of memory to an inward sign._

_Fear floods in the turning room; Love breaks in the burning dome._"

"It is not one that I have heard before," Geo said. "I'm not even sure I know what the question is. I'm familiar with neither its diction nor style."

"I doubted very much that you would recognize it," smiled Argo.

"Is it part of the pre-purge rituals of Argo?"

"It was written by my youngest daughter," Argo said. "The question is, can you explain it?"

"Oh," said Geo. "I didn't realize...." He paused. "By the dark chamber sits its twin, moving in and out; and that's where the floods of the body begin. And it's twinned again. The heart?" he suggested. "The four-chambered human heart? That's where the body's flood begins."

"I think that will do for part of the answer."

"The bright chamber," mused Geo. "The burning dome. The human mind, I guess. The line of division, running down the lane of memory--I'm not sure."

"You seem to be doing fairly well."

"Could it refer to something like 'the two sides of every question'?"

Geo asked. "Or something similar?"

"It could," Argo said, "though I must confess I hadn't thought of it in that way. But it is the last two lines that puzzle me."

"_Fear floods in the turning room_," repeated Geo; "_Love breaks in the burning dome._ I guess that's the mind and the heart again. You usually think of love with the heart, and fear with the mind. Maybe she meant that they both, the heart and the mind, have control over both love and fear."

"Perhaps she did," Argo smiled. "You must ask her--when you rescue her from the clutches of Hama."

Before turning back to the room with his companions, he looked once more out at the fires of the volcano. Light whirled white and red. Blue tongues licked at black rock siding. He turned away now and went back into the darkness.

CHAPTER X

Dawn light lay a-slant the crater's ridge. Argo pointed down the opposite slope. A black temple was visible at the bottom among trees and lawns. "There is Hama's temple," Argo said. "You have your task. Good luck."

They started down the incline of cinders. It took them an hour to reach the first trees that surrounded the dark buildings and the great gardens. Entering on the first lip of gra.s.s, they heard a sudden cl.u.s.ter of notes from one of the trees.

"A bird," Iimmi said. "I haven't heard one of those since I left Leptar."

Suddenly, bright blue and the length of a man's forefinger, a lizard ran halfway down the trunk of the tree. It's sapphire belly heaved in the early light with indrawn breath; then it opened its red mouth, its throat warbled, and there was another burst of music.

"Oh well," said Iimmi. "I was close."

They walked further, until Iimmi mused, "I wonder why you always think things are going to turn out like you expect."

"Because when something sounds like that," declared Urson, "it usually is a bird!" Suddenly he gave a little s.h.i.+ver. "Lizards," he said.

"It was a pretty lizard," said Iimmi.

"Going around expecting things to be what they seem can get you in trouble--especially on this island," Geo commented.

The angle at which they walked made one of the clumps of tree before them seem to fall apart. A man standing in the center raised his hand and said briskly, "Stop!"

They stopped.

He wore dark robes, and his short white hair made a close helmet above his brown face.

Urson's hand was on his sword. Snake stood with his feet wide, his hands out from his sides.

"Who are you?" the dark man declared.

"Who are you?" Urson parried.

"I am Hama Incarnate."

They were silent. Finally Geo said, "We are travelers in Aptor. We don't mean any harm."

As the man moved forward, splotches of light from the trees slipped across his robe. "Come with me," Hama said. He turned and proceeded among the trees. They followed.

They pa.s.sed into the temple garden. It was early enough in the morning so that the sunlight lapped pink tongues over the giant black urns that sat along the edges of the path. Now they pa.s.sed into the temple.

As they pa.s.sed, Hama turned, looked at the jewels on Iimmi's and Geo's necks, and then looked up at the gazing eye of the statue at the end of the altar. He made no other sign, but turned again and continued. "The morning rites have not yet started," he said. "They will begin in a half an hour. By then I hope to have divined your purpose in coming here."

At the other side of the stairway they mounted a stairway, and then entered a door above which was a black circle dotted with three eyes.

Just as they were about to go in, Geo looked around, frowned, and caught Iimmi's eye. "Snake?" he mouthed.

Iimmi looked around and shrugged.

The man turned and faced them, apparently unaware of Snake's departure.

As he closed the door, now, he said, "You have come to oppose the forces of Aptor, am I right? You come to steal the jewel of Hama. You have come to kidnap the Incarnate Argo. Is that not your purpose. Keep your hand off your sword, Urson! I can kill you in a moment. You are defenseless."

"d.a.m.n! I'm sleepy." She rolled over and cuddled the pillow. Then she opened her eyes, one at a time, and lay watching the nearly completed motor of metal bars and copper wire that sat on the table beside her bed. She stood up.

Then she collapsed on the bed and jammed her feet under the covers again. With thirty feet of one and a half inch bra.s.s pipe, she mused sleepily, I could carry heat from the main hot-water line under the floor which I would estimate to be about the proper surface area to keep these stones warm; let me see, thirty feet of one and a half inch pipe have a surface area of 22/7 times 3/2 times 30 which is 990 divided by 7 which is ... Then she caught herself. d.a.m.n, you're thinking this to avoid thinking about getting up. She opened her eyes once more, put feet on the stone, and held them there while she scratched vigorously at her uneven mop of red hair.

She looked at the clock. "Yikes!" she said softly, and ran out the door, and slammed it behind her--almost. She whirled around, caught it on her palms before it banged shut, and then closed it with gingerly care the final centimeter and a half of the arc. Are you trying to get caught?

she asked herself as she tiptoed to the next door.

She opened it and looked in. Dunderhead looks cute when he's asleep, she thought. There was a cord on the floor that ran from under the table by the priest's bed, over the stones, carefully following the zigzag of the crevices between them, and at last the end lay in the corner of the door sill. You really couldn't see it if you weren't looking for it, which had more or less been the idea when she had put it there last night before the priests had come back from vespers. The far end was tied in a knot of her own invention to the electric plug of his alarm clock.