Bram Forest smiled. "Be not so sad. The fact that you prefer to keep the information to yourself is no reason for near-tears."
"I am not sad for that reason, sire."
"Then why?"
"Because you asked the question and are even more surely therefore, not our G.o.d."
Bram Forest was deeply curious and half-amused at the trend of this conversation. "Tell me this, then. Why does my asking the question eliminate all possibility of my being your G.o.d?"
"Because if you were the G.o.d we seek and yearn for, you would not have to ask where my people went. You would know."
"Instead of clarifying the situation," Bram Forest mused, "each question sends me deeper and deeper into a mental labyrinth."
"We risked our lives in going to the place you found us. It was forbidden to credit the ancient legend of our people. Therefore--"
"What legend?"
"That upon this day and at that place our G.o.d would appear to deliver us."
Bram Forest, now desperately seeking a question that would clarify rather than further befuddle, held up his hand. "Wait. If you expected a G.o.d to appear and I arrived on schedule, how can you be so sure that I am not he?"
"We thought so when you advanced upon the hideous Abarian and took his throat in your great hands. But when you not only allowed him to live but also suffered him to take up his whip-sword and come within an eyelash of killing you, we knew you were not our G.o.d."
Bram Forest nodded with understanding. "I can see now how stupid that act was. Certainly not a manner in which a genuine G.o.d would conduct himself." He glanced at the girl and smiled. "Please come closer that I may see you better."
She moved her head in the negative, reluctantly, Bram Forest thought, and replied, "If you were our G.o.d I would gladly place myself in your power to do with me as you would, but as you are mortal, I must remain away from you."
Bram Forest frowned. "Again things get murky."
"I am a virgin," the beautiful girl explained simply and with no self-consciousness whatever. "I must remain so until my time is ordained. If I lost my virginity, even through violation that I resist, I would immediately be delivered into the Golden Ape."
Bram Forest came upright, causing the girl to retreat a step further in alarm. "The Golden Ape, did you say?"
"Yes."
"And you are a virgin--"
This last was a statement rather than a question as Bram Forest sank back, his eyes misty with thought. "An ape, a boar, a stallion--" he pondered. "A virgin"s feast--"
The girl eyed him with concern. "Are you sure that your wound has not caused--"
"It is not that," he said, switching his mind back to things of the moment. "I"m just wondering--might you tell me your name without breaking any rules of reticence?"
"I am Ylia," she said with a childlike solemnity that touched Bram Forest.
"And does Ylia never smile?"
It seemed to him she made an effort to do this but was so unfamiliar with the expression that she could not manage it.
He extended a hand, not disconcerted that she did not come close and take it. He said, "Ylia, I would not again ask a question you did not wish to answer before. But I am mightily puzzled about the life you must have led--about that manner of males you have had contact with.
They are certainly a miserable lot if a female of their race must look to her virtue every waking moment.
"As for me, Ylia--and please believe--I would no more touch you in desire than I would knowingly injure a child. You are safe in my presence as in the most guarded room of a nunnery."
If he expected grat.i.tude or a pat on the back for his n.o.bility, he was rudely surprised. Ylia straightened, her young b.r.e.a.s.t.s protruding gracefully and if she did not react with anger, her face mirrored something close to it.
"Then I am not desirable?"
Bram Forest blinked. "I did not say that. You are one of the fairest I have ever set eyes upon."
This puzzled Ylia completely. "Then in the name of the Golden Ape, why--?"
Bram Forest raised his hand with a gesture of both interruption and surrender. "Please! Let us pursue this subject no further. The waters grow deep and I suspect quicksand at their bottom. There are questions in my mind. Allow me to bring them forth with the understanding that you do not have to answer any you do not wish to."
It was evident that Ylia"s mind was also a bag of conundrums relative to this late candidate for G.o.dhood who had insulted her desirability and yet complimented her upon it at the same time. She moved forward and sat gracefully down near the moss resting place of her patient.
Bram Forest was aware of her tenseness. She was like a beautiful animal ready to spring away at the first sign of hostile movement on his part. But he also got the impression that coming within reach of his arms thrilled her. He believed this even while knowing that she would have fought like a tigress against any advance upon his part.
He said, "Ylia, you are indeed a strange child. You remained here after your people left and brought me back from the brink of death even with the fear that I would rise up and violate you as soon as I acquired the strength to do so. Your thought processes are difficult to understand."
Ylia lowered her eyes. "You wished to ask some questions, sire."
"My name is Bram Forest. The _sire_ ill-becomes you."
"Bram--Forest," she murmured experimentally. Then she raised her eyes and there dawned upon her face the most brilliant of smiles. Her look was one of both dignity and grat.i.tude. "You do me much honor, Bram Forest!"
"Honor? I fail to understand."
Ylia"s eyes glowed proudly. "Why, you treat me with such respect that I could be even Volna herself!"
"And who is this Volna?"
Ylia was startled at this strange man"s ignorance. "Why, everyone on Tarth knows of Volna, Princess of Nadia, sister of Bontarc, who is Prince of Nadia and ruler of that great nation. She is the most exquisitely beautiful woman ever to be born on Tarth."
"Fancy that," Bram Forest said with a lack of enthusiasm that proved marked disinterest. "I"m afraid I"ve never had the pleasure of the lady"s acquaintance, nor of her ill.u.s.trious brother, either."
Ylia lowered her eyes in sadness. "She was also the sister of Jlomec."
"And who, pray is Jlomec?"
"I thought you knew since you tried to avenge his death. He was the Nadian the cruel Abarian Retoc slew under your very eyes."
"I"m sorry to hear that," Bram Forest said. But the cowardly death had been accomplished and Bram Forest"s mind did not dwell upon it as he could not see where it affected him one way or another.