"More than my sister priestess," said the woman softly, "my sister in blood. I am the other daughter of the last Argo: that is why this task fell to me. And until she is found dead, or returned alive ..." here she rose from her bench, "... I am the White G.o.ddess Argo Incarnate."
Geo dropped his eyes as Argo lifted her veil. Once more that evening she held forth the jewel. "There are three of these," she said. "Hama"s sign is a black disk with three white eyes. Each eye represents a jewel. With the first invasion, they probably carried all three jewels, for they are the center of their power. Without them, they would have been turned back immediately. With them, they thought themselves invincible. But we captured one, and very soon unlocked its secrets. I have no guards with me. With this jewel I need none. I am as safe as I would be with an army, and capable of nearly as much destruction. When they came to kidnap my sister a year ago, I am convinced they carried both of their remaining jewels, thinking that we had either lost, or did not know the power of the first. Anyway, they reasoned, they had two to our one. But now, we have two, and they are left with only one. Through some complete carelessness, your little thief stole one from me as I was about to board when we first departed two months ago. Today he probably recognized me and intended to exact some fee for its return. But now, he will be put to a true thief"s task. He must steal for me the third and final jewel from Hama for me. Then we shall have Aptor, and be rid of their evil."
"And where is this third jewel?" asked Geo.
"Perhaps," said the woman, "perhaps it is lodged in the forehead of the statue of the dark G.o.d Hama that sits in the guarded palace somewhere in the center of the jungles of Aptor. Do you think your thief will find himself challenged enough?"
"I think so," answered Geo.
"Somewhere in that same palace is my sister, or her remains. You are to find them, and if she is alive, bring her back with you."
"And what of the jewels?" asked Geo. "When will you show us their power so that we may use them to penetrate the palace of Hama?"
"I will show you their power," said Argo, smiling. With one hand she held up the map over which she had spoken. With the other she tapped the white jewel with her pale fingernail. The map suddenly blackened at one edge, and then flared. Argo walked to a brazier and deposited the flaming paper. Then she turned again to Geo. "I can fog the brain of a single person, as I did with Snake; or I can bewilder a hundred men. As easily as I can fire a dried, worn map, I can raze a city."
"With those to help," smiled Geo, "I think we have a fair chance to reach this Hama, and return."
But the smile with which she answered his was strange, and then suddenly it was completely gone. "Do you think," she said, "that I would put such temptation in your hands? You might be captured, and if so, then the jewels would be in the hands of Aptor once more."
"But with them we would be so powerful...."
"They have been captured once; we cannot take the chance that they be captured again. If you reach the palace, if you can steal the third jewel, if my sister is alive, and if you can rescue her, then she will know how to employ its power to manipulate your escape. However, if you and your friends do not accomplish _all_ these things, the trip will be useless; and so perhaps death would be better than a return to watch the wrath of Argo in her dying struggle, for you would feel it more horribly than even the most malicious torture of Aptor"s evil."
Geo did not speak.
"Why do you look so strangely?" asked Argo. "You have your poetry, your spells, your scholarship. Don"t you believe in their power? Go back to your berth, and send the thief to me." The last words were a sharp order, and Geo turned from the room into the night"s darkness.
CHAPTER III
Geo walked down into the forecastle, still deserted except for Urson and Snake. "Well?" asked Urson, sitting up on the edge of his berth. "What did she tell you?"
"Why aren"t you asleep?" Geo said heavily. He touched Snake on the shoulder. "She wants to see you now."
Snake stood up, started for the door, but then turned around.
"What is it?" Geo asked.
Snake dug into his clout again and pulled out the thong with the jewel.
He walked over to Geo, hesitated, and then placed the thong around the older boy"s neck.
"You want me to keep it for you?" Geo asked.
But Snake turned around and was gone.
"I wonder what they do?" said Urson. "Or did you find out. Come on, Geo, give up what she told you."
"Did Snake say anything to you while I was gone?"
"Not a peep," answered Urson. "I came no nearer sleep than I came to the moon. Now come on, what"s this about?"
Geo told him.
When he finished, Urson said, "You"re crazy. Both you and her."
"I don"t think so," Geo said. He concluded his story by recounting Argo"s demonstration of the jewel"s power.
Urson fingered the stone on Geo"s chest. "All that in this little thing?
Tell me, do you think you can figure out how it works?"
"I don"t know if I want to," Geo said. "It doesn"t sound right."
"You"re d.a.m.n straight it doesn"t sound right," Urson reiterated. "What"s the point of sending us in there with no protection to do something that would be crazy with a whole army. What"s she got against us?"
"I don"t think she has anything against us," Geo said. "Urson, what stories do you know about Aptor? She said you might be able to tell me something."
"I know that no one trades with it, everyone curses by it, and the rest is a lot of rubbish not worth saying."
"What rubbish?"
"Believe me, it"s just bilge water," insisted Urson. "Do you think you could figure out that little stone there, if you had long enough, I mean? She said that the priests five hundred years ago could, and she seems to think you"re as smart as some of them. I wouldn"t doubt if you could work it."
"You tell me some stories first," said Geo.
"Oh, they talk about cannibals, women who drink blood, things neither man nor animal, and cities inhabited only by death. Sailors avoid it, save to curse by."
"Do you know anything more than that?"
"There"s nothing more to know," shrugged Urson.
"She said the stories you"d tell would not be one tenth of the truth."
"She must have meant that there wasn"t even a tenth part of the truth in them. And I"m sure she"s right. You just misunderstood."
"No, I heard her correctly," Geo a.s.sured him.
"Then I just don"t believe it. There are half a dozen things that don"t match up in all this. First, how that little four-armed fellow happened to be at the pier after two months just when she was coming in. And to have the jewel still, not have traded it, or sold it already...."
"Maybe," suggested Geo, "he read her mind too, when he first stole it, the same way he read ours."
"And if he did, maybe he knows how to work the things. I say let"s find out when he comes back. And I wonder who cut his tongue out. Strange one or not, that makes me sick," said the big man.
"About that," Geo started. "Don"t you remember? He said you knew the man it was."
"I know many men," said Urson, "but which one of the many I know is it?"