The Second Randall Garrett Megapack. Randall Garrett

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СКАЧАТЬ to draw away of its own volition, and the pain within him lessened.

      He opened his eyes.

      He was lying on a bed of soft, cool moss in a semi-dark cavern with the sound of tinkling water in the distance. He lay staring at the ceiling for a long time, wondering into what manner of place he had come and how. Then his keen ears caught the sound of breathing other than his own; a soft breathing that fell gently upon his senses and calmed rather than alerted him.

      He turned his head and saw a beautiful, naked brown-skinned girl kneeling nearby but beyond his reach. He was struck first by the beauty of her face and form and then by the fact that she was not as completely brown as his first impression had given him to believe. Her breasts and loins were of pure white and droplets of shining water ran down her body.

      She was in the act of replacing a sort of leather harness upon her person and Bram Forest realized she had just returned from bathing at whatever place the unseen water gurgled and laughed and that she was now dressing herself.

      He held his peace until the act was completed, not wishing to embarrass her by making his consciousness known while she was nude.

      After a few moments, the harness was in place and she rose to stand erect and shake out her dark shining hair. Bram Forest chose this time to speak. “I do not know who you are, but I am obviously in your debt. My gratitude.”

      The girl reacted like a startled fawn and drew back several paces. “You have regained consciousness?”

      “It seems so. Where is this place and how came I here?”

      “We brought you.”

      Bram Forest’s brow furrowed in thought. “Oh, yes. Now I remember. There were a group of people such as you at the place I tried to fight the dark swordsman with his own weapons.” Bram Forest chuckled ruefully. “It seems I did not fare so well.”

      “When we discovered you were not our god, the others wanted to leave you there to die but I resisted this as being inhuman and made them bring you here.”

      “Where are the rest?”

      “They have returned.”

      “Returned whence?”

      The girl lowered her beautiful head sadly. “That I cannot tell you.”

      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 god.”

      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 god?”

      “Because if you were the god 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 god 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 god 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 god.”

      Bram Forest nodded with understanding. “I can see now how stupid that act was. Certainly not a manner in which a genuine god 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 god 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 gratitude or a pat on the back for his nobility, he was rudely surprised. Ylia straightened, her young breasts 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 СКАЧАТЬ