"Well, well, well," the priest said. "What seems to be the trouble? My goodness. It must be important, sure enough--certainly important." His little round red eager face seemed to shine as he went on. "Hermes himself transported me here just as soon as you called!"
"Really?"
"Oh, my, yes," the priest said. "Just as soon as ever. Yes. Hm. And you can believe me when I tell you--believe me, Your Concupiscence--take my word when I tell you--"
"Yes?"
"Hermes," the priest said. "Hermes doesn"t often take such an interest--I may say such a _personal_ interest--in a mortal, I"ll tell you. And you can believe me when I do tell you that. I do."
"I"m sure," the High Priestess said.
"Yes," the priest said, waving his caduceus gently. He blinked. "Where"s the patient? The mortal?"
"He"s over here," the High Priestess said, motioning to Forrester sitting awestruck on the couch. Priests of Hermes were common enough sights--but a priest like this was something new and strange in his experience.
"Ah," the priest said, twinkling at him. "So there you are, eh? Over there? You _are_ sitting over _there_, aren"t you?"
"That"s right," Forrester said blankly.
"Now listen to me carefully," the High Priestess said. "You"re not to ask his name, or mention anything about this visit to anyone--understand?"
The priest blinked. "Oh, certainly. Absolutely. Without doubt. I"ve already been told that, you might say. Already. Certainly. Wouldn"t think of such a thing." He moved over and stood near Forrester, peering down at him. "My goodness," he said. "Let me see that eye, young man."
Forrester turned his head wordlessly.
"Oh, my, yes," the priest said. "Black indeed. Very black. A fight. My, yes. An altercation, disagreement, discussion, battle--"
"Yes," Forrester cut in.
"Certainly you have," the priest said. "And what"d the other fellow look like, eh? Beaten, I"ll bet. You look a strong type."
Forrester relaxed. It was the only thing to do while the priest babbled on, touching his wounds gently as he did so with various parts of his caduceus. The pain vanished with a touch of the left wingtip, and the lacerations healed instantly as they were caressed with first one and then another of the various coils of the snakes.
But Forrester now was free to worry. Arrest was out of the question. As the High Priestess had said, on the evidence it was clear that Aphrodite intended to honor him in some way. And there was nothing at all, he thought, wrong with an honor from the G.o.ddess of Love.
But another sacrifice? After the sacrifice to Aphrodite he"d made earlier, and the fight he"d gotten into, he just didn"t quite feel up to it. It wouldn"t do to refuse, but ...
"Well," the priest said, stepping back. "Well, well. You ought to be all right now, young fellow--right as rain."
Forrester said: "Thanks."
"Might feel a little soreness--tenderness, you might say--for a day or so. Only a day or so, tenderness," the priest said. "After that, right as rain. Right as you"ll ever be. _All_ right, as a matter of fact: all right."
Forrester said: "Thanks."
The priest went to the door, turned, and said to the High Priestess: "Hermes" blessing on you both, as a matter of fact, as they say.
Blessings from Hermes on you both."
The High Priestess nodded regally.
"And," the priest said, "merely by the way, as it might be, without meaning harm, if you would ask a blessing for me--Aphrodite"s blessing?
Easy for you. Of course, it would be nice curing--curing, as they say--stupidity, plain dumbness, as they call such things--curing stupidity as easily as I can cure small ills. Nice."
"Indeed," the High Priestess said.
"But there," the priest went on. "Only the G.o.ds can cure that. Only the G.o.ds and no one else. Yes. Hm. And not often. They don"t do anything like that in the--ah--regular course of things. As a matter of fact, you might say, I"ve never heard of--never heard of such a case. Never. Not one. Yet ..." He opened the door, spat: "Myrmidons!" and disappeared into the hallway.
The door banged shut.
Forrester sighed heavily. The High Priestess turned to him.
"Feel better?" she asked.
"Much," Forrester said, dreading the ordeal to come.
The High Priestess came over to the couch and sat down next to him. She put a hand on his shoulder. "Shall we prepare for the--sacrifice?"
Forrester sighed again. "Sure," he said. "Naturally."
When she was locked in his arms, it was as if time had started all over again. Forrester responded to the eagerness of the woman as he"d never dreamed he could respond; all his tiredness dropped away as if it had never been, and he was a new man. He touched her bare flesh and felt the heat of her through his fingers and hands; with his arms around her nakedness he rolled, locked to her, feeling the friction of skin against skin and the magnificence of her.
The sacrifice went on ... and on ... and on into endless time and endless s.p.a.ce. Forrester thrust and gasped at the woman and her head went back, her mouth pulled open as she shivered and responded to him....
Forever....
Until finally they lay, panting, in the magnificent room. Forrester rose first, vaguely surprised at himself. He found a towel in a closet at the far end of the room and wiped his damp forehead slowly.
"Well," he said. "That was quite a sacrifice. What next?"
The High Priestess raised herself on one elbow and stared across the room at him. "There is no need for such familiarity, Forrester," she said. "Not from a lay acolyte."
Forrester tossed the towel onto a couch. "My apologies, Your Concupiscence. I"m a little--light-headed. But what happens next?"
The High Priestess reached into the diaphanous pile of her clothing and came up with a small diamond-encrusted watch she wore, usually, on her wrist. "Our timing was almost perfect," she said. "It is now twenty-hundred hours. The G.o.ddess expects you at twenty-oh-one exactly."
A hurried half-minute pa.s.sed. Then, fully dressed, Forrester went with the High Priestess to a golden door half-hidden in the hangings at the side of the room. She made a series of mystical signs: the circle, the serpent and others Forrester couldn"t quite follow.
She opened the door, genuflecting as she did so, and Forrester dropped to one knee behind her, looking at the doorway.
It was filled with a pale blue haze that looked like the clear summer sky on a hot day. Except that it wasn"t sky, but a curtain that wavered and shimmered before his eyes. Beyond it, he could see nothing.
The High Priestess rose from her genuflection and Forrester followed suit. There was a sole second of silence.
Then the High Priestess said: "You are to step through the Veil of Heaven, William Forrester."
Forrester said: "_Me?_ Through the _Veil of Heaven_?"