The Second Randall Garrett Megapack. Randall Garrett

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СКАЧАТЬ golden baritone carried for blocks.

      He grabbed the two nearest girls by their hands and helped them to their feet. They blushed and lowered their eyes.

      “Come, all of you!” Forrester shouted. “We are about to begin the revels!”

      The girls rose and Forrester gestured them in closer. Then, surrounded by all seven, he threw back his head again.

      “A revel to make history!” he roared. “A revel beyond the imagination of man! A revel fit for your God!”

      The crowd cheered wildly. Forrester picked up one of the girls, tossed her into the air and caught her easily as she de­scended. He set her on her feet and put his hands solidly on his hips.

      “My cup!” he shouted. “Fill you my cup!”

      Behind the stage was a corps of Priests guarding a mountainous golden hogshead of wine, adjudged the finest wine produced during the year.

      “We shall have drink!” Forrester shouted. “We shall let the revels roar on!”

      Two priests came forward, staggering under the weight of a gigantic crystal goblet containing fully two gallons of the clear purple liquid. They bore it to Forrester with great pomp, and before them came a dozen players on the gahoon and the contra-gahoon, making Forrester’s ears ring with deafening fanfares.

      Forrester took the great goblet in one hand and held it with ease. Then he lifted it into the air with a wordless shout, filled his lungs and laughed. He put the goblet to his lips and drained it in a single long motion. A mighty hurrah shook the trees and rocks of the park.

      Forrester waved the goblet. “Again. Fill you my cup once more!” He embraced the seven girls with one sweeping gesture of his arms. “My little beauties must have drink! Fill you the cup!”

      He passed it back to the Priests carefully. They received it and went back to where the others were waiting to fill it. Then they staggered forward again and Forrester picked up the brimming goblet. He held it for the girls, each of whom tried to outdrink the others. But it was still more than half-full when they were finished.

      Forrester raised it again. The crowd shouted. “Observe your God!” Forrester roared. “Observe his powers!” He threw his head back and emptied the goblet. Then, holding it in one hand, he faced the assemblage and delivered himself of one Godlike belch.

      The crowd shrieked its approval. Forrester had the goblet filled once more and put three of the girls in charge of it. Then he came down the steps from the platform and began the long march back to the Temple-on-the-Green.

      The shouting, carousing revelers followed him joyfully. Half­way back, one of them stumbled forward and caught at the trailing edge of his robe. There was an immediate crackle and burst of static electricity, and the stumbler fell back yelping and shaking his arms. The Myrmidons came and took him away.

      Dionysus couldn’t be touched by anyone except those authorized to do so—the seven girls and the Priests. But Forrester barely noticed the accident; he was too happy on top of his world, laughing and hugging the girls close to him.

      Behind him, the Priests at the golden hogshead, now set free to taste the wine themselves, had lost no time. They were dipping in busily with their own goblets—a good deal smaller than the two-gallon crystal one for Dionysus himself. There was not even any need for libations; enough ran over the brimming edges of the goblets to take care of that detail, and the Priests were soon well on the way to becoming sozzled.

      The musicians, now joined by the corps which had waited on the uptown stage, struck up a new tune, and drowned out even the shouting crowds as they cheered their God. After a little while, the crowds began to sing along with the magnificent noise:

      “Dionysus wrapped his hand around the goblet,

      Around the goblet—around the goblet—

      Dionysus wrapped his hand around the goblet,

      And we’ll all get—stinking drunk!”

      It was by no means an official hymn, but Forrester didn’t mind; it was sung with such a great deal of honest enthusiasm. He himself did not join in the singing; he was otherwise occupied. With his arms around two of the girls, drinking now and then from the great goblet three more were holding, and winking and laughing at the extra two, he made his joyous way down the petal-strewn paths of Central Park.

      The Procession wound down through the paths, over bridges and under tunnels, singing and playing and marching and danc­ing madly, while Forrester, at its head, caroused as merrily as any four of them. They reached a bridge crossing a little stream and Forrester sprang at it with a great somersaulting leap that carried the two girls he was holding right along with him. He set them down at the slope of the bridge, laughing and giggling and the other girls, with the Procession behind them, soon caught up. Forrester let go of one of the girls, grabbed the goblet with his free hand and swung it in a magnificent gesture.

      “Forward!” he cried.

      The Procession surged over the bridge, Forrester at its head. He grabbed the girl again, handing the goblet back to his corps of three carriers, and bowed and grinned at his worshippers behind him, surging forward, and at some others standing under the bridge, ankle-deep, shin-deep, even knee-deep in the rushing water, craning their necks upward to get a really good view of their God as he passed over. There were over a hundred of them there.

      Forrester didn’t see a hundred of them.

      He saw one of them first, and then two more. And time seemed to stop with a grinding halt. Forrester wanted to run and hide. He clutched the girls closer to him with one instinctive gesture, and then realized he’d made the wrong move. But it was too late. He was lost, he told himself dolefully. The sun had gone out, the wine had lost its power and the celebration had degenerated to a succession of ugly noises.

      The first face he saw belonged to Gerda Symes.

      In that timeless instant, Forrester felt that he could see every detail of the soft, small face, the dark hair, the slim, curved figure. She was smiling up at him, but her face looked a little bewildered, as if she were smiling only because it was the thing to do. Forrester wondered, panic-stricken, how she, an Athenan, had managed to get entry to a Dionysian revel—but his wonder only lasted for a second. Then he saw the second and third faces, and he knew.

      The second face belonged to an absolute stranger. He looked like an oafish clod, even viewed objectively, and Forrester was making no efforts in that direction. He had one arm around Gerda’s waist and he was grinning up at her, and, sideways, at Forrester with a look that made them co-conspirators in what was certainly planned to be Gerda’s seduction. Forrester didn’t like the idea. As a matter of fact, he hated it more than he could possibly say.

      But all he could do was trust to Gerda’s own doubtless sterling good sense. She couldn’t possibly prefer a lout like her current escort to good old Bill Forrester, could she?

      On the other hand, she thought Bill Forrester was dead. She’d had to think that; when he became Dionysus the Lesser, he couldn’t just disappear. He had to die officially—and, as far as Gerda knew, the death wasn’t just an official formality.

      With Bill Forrester dead, then, had she turned to the oaf for comfort? He didn’t look very comforting, Forrester thought. He looked like a damned outrage on the face of the Earth. Forrester disliked СКАЧАТЬ