“It is locked,” said Kore’s voice, from inside.

“Please unlock it,” I said, wondering. “It’s only me.”

“I know it is you,” Kore said. “I cannot unlock. Jürgen has the key.”

“He locked you in?” It was a stupid question; she didn’t bother answering it. Then, belatedly, I realized that from the first she had spoken in English.

“How did you know it was me?” I asked.

From behind the locked door came an uncanny chuckle.

“I knew.”

I had been about to offer to let her out. The lock wasn’t very complicated; I could have picked it easily. The queer laugh made me reconsider. Keller might have a darned good reason for locking her up.

“Are you all right?” I asked. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Not now.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “If…anything…happens, I’ll make sure you get out. You’re as safe in there as anywhere.”

“I am safe,” Kore repeated. Only it didn’t sound like a simple repetition of my reassurance; it sounded like a statement of fact.

I retreated. Even the two silent men in the parlor would be better company than that voice.

They were still sitting there when I returned. They reminded me, not of clubmen now, but of those plaster casts archaeologists have made of the victims of the Vesuvius eruption. Hardening ash made a perfect mold of the bodies before they fell into dust; centuries later, scholars poured plaster into the cavities and recreated the dead of Pompeii, men and women, children and dogs, lying as they had died in the last futile struggle for breath.

It was not the most comfortable thing to recollect just then. I poured myself a glass of brandy and drank. Then I went to the window and peered out through a crack in the draperies. I thought the air was a little clearer. It was hard to tell because the sun was setting, up there beyond the clouded skies.

I turned back to my silent companions and lifted my glass.

“Morituri te salutant,” I said. “That’s what the gladiators used to say to the emperor, remember? ‘We who are about to die salute you.’ I bet you wonder how I know that. Me, the semiliterate. Well, one of the girls on the hockey team thought that was a cute motto. She used to say it to the coach before-”

“Put that brandy down,” Frederick interrupted. “You have no business drinking at your age.”

“Ah,” I said. “It can talk. Go on, Frederick, lecture me some more. Even your croaking is preferable to silence.”

Frederick didn’t respond, so I tried again.

“You ought to show a little concern, you know. If I don’t live through this adventure, it will be your fault. You got me here.”

“You came of your own free will.” Frederick ’s voice sounded livelier.

“You conned me,” I said. “Don’t you feel a little, teeny bit guilty? Come on, Frederick. Feel guilty.”

“Guilty.” The word made me jump. I had almost forgotten Keller, silent in the shadows. “We are all guilty. Guilty of mankind.”

The reverberant pounding that followed the speech sounded like a symphonic accompaniment. Doom, knocking at the door. Then I got hold of myself.

“It’s Jim,” I said, with a long breath of relief. “I forgot, I locked the door when he left.”

I ran to open it. Jim didn’t say hello; he pushed me out of the way and bolted the door again before leading the way into the living room.

“You didn’t find Sir Christopher?” I asked.

“No. I looked everywhere. Damn it, can’t we have some light in here?”

I gave him the flashlight. It wasn’t much help.

“What is the situation?” Frederick asked, blinking as the beam focused on his face.

“The volcano is quiescent, for the moment. The air is clearing a little.”

“Good,” I said. “Then the village should be calming down.”

“No.” Jim flicked the light across his body, and I gasped. His shirt was torn and streaked with blood. “When I found no sign of Chris at the dig, I had to go back to the village,” he went on. “I had a few words with the priest. He wasn’t too coherent, but the gist of the speech was ‘Get out and stay out of sight.’”

“The priest,” I exclaimed. “But he, of all people-”

“He was trying to help,” Jim said. “If I had followed his advice, I wouldn’t have gotten these bruises. It was my old landlord, Angelos, who started the fight. He seems to blame us for the damage to his damn hotel. Half a dozen of them jumped me then. Not all the men are crazy; your foreman Nicholas was one of the guys who intervened so I could get away. The women… Thewomen are gone.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t see a single female,” Jim said. “Not one.”

“In their houses, like good Greek ladies,” I said. “Tending the wounded, praying…”

“They aren’t praying,” Jim said. “At least… Where’s Kore?”

“Upstairs. Locked in her room.”

“You locked her in?”

“No,” Keller said. “I did.”

“Then you know,” Jim said. “You know what she’s doing.”

The flashlight beam struck Keller full in the face, but he made no move to shield his eyes. The pinpoint pupils, shrinking against the light, gave him a ghostly look.

“I know,” he said, barely moving his lips. “There is no harm. She does no harm, it is only a game-”

“Then why did you lock her in? You know it’s no game. It’s dangerous as hell.”

“So Kore’s fantasies have found an outlet.” Frederick ’s face was illumined now, as Jim turned the light in response to his voice. “What a fitting occasion. The old gods are angry; they must be propitiated. But Kore’s self-appointed role must have been useful all along. By convincing the women of her powers, she controlled the entire village. It always was a woman’s cult-”

“You cold-blooded bastard,” Jim said. “Perched on your academic pedestal lecturing about cults… You know what your blasted cultinvolves, don’t you? The details are obscure, ofcourse-” His voice was a savage mockery of Frederick ’s pedantic tone. “But we can be sure that a vegetation cult involved some form of sacrifice. The victim was killed in order that his blood might bring about the resurrection of life in spring. The dying god, Osiris and Attis, Persephone… Kore can choose between several versions of the ritual. Which one does she fancy, Keller? The myth of Persephone, who died and was reborn yearly? It’s one of the oldest myths, older than the Greeks, older than ancient Crete, and Sandy makes a perfect patsy, doesn’t she? Ariadne, the Most Holy, who was the Cretan equivalent of Persephone. Or is it the Dionysian rite Kore follows? In that case any warm male body will serve the purpose. Is Chris being chased around the hills right now, by a crowd of howling maenads?”

“Absurd,” Frederick said. “Hysterical nonsense.”

I only wished I could believe it. I knew Jim was right about the cult. What I had not known was the complex and perilous meaning of the role Kore had selected for me. The women of Zoa, filing past my bed that night, in a solemn, ritual viewing of the new “goddess”-Kore’s daughter-substitute in a ritual so old that its hoary antiquity weighed down the mind. The priestess was the incarnation of the goddess, and She was the mother, the oldest of all the gods, the Earth herself-dying in winter, born again in spring with the new leaves, the young lambs, the sprouting corn. The women were the food gatherers and the ones who brought forth life. Yes, it was a woman’s cult, and the women of Zoa were only following tradition, revering a mother far older than the bright and tender Virgin.

Not all the women were involved, of course, only the more susceptible and superstitious. But there were enough of them, and their influence was great enough to keep Kore and her lover safe all these years. No doubt that was how the game had begun. But now… How far would Kore goto fulfill the demands of her votaries? Was she entirely sane?

Keller’s mind was apparently running along the same line. He got up and left the room, almost running. His footsteps pounded up the uncarpeted stairway. He was back very quickly.