“It will be difficult. The available couplers are in practically constant use as things are,” Iduane warned.

“Then Grevetz will have to get us some more,” the Deliverer replied.

Although the city of Orenash had been purged of its sorcerers, and the priests of all the major gods had performed rites of atonement, still there was no respite from its troubles. Brigands laid waste the farms to the north, burning the villages, slaughtering the males, and carrying off the women and their young to sell as slaves. Mountains fell from the sky into the sea, causing floods to sweep over the coastlands. An earthquake split the hills to the west, covering the land in rivers of fire, which was seen as a sign that Vandros, the underworld god, was still unappeased.

Ethendor, the high priest of Vandros, sacrificed a hundred prisoners who had been captured in battle and consulted with his oracles and seers. The answer they delivered was that because the currents that once had borne many aloft had waned, the gods were vying with one another for acolytes to serve them in Hyperia, the sacred realm beyond the sky. The followers of Vandros were not sending enough disciples, and that was why he was displeased.

“But disciples are not forthcoming,” Ethendor told the king when the king asked what should be done. “The faith of the people is eclipsed with the vanishing stars. Believers are overcome with terror and doubt. Send more young men to the temples to become initiates.”

“Plagues have claimed many. War has drained the lifeblood of the land,” the king replied. “Where shall I find the young men? A hunter can only bring home what the forest has spawned.”

Ethendor went away and thought about the problem. Later he returned and took the king to the temple of Vandros, with its tower bearing the emblem of the green crescent. There, he showed the king groups of novices in the grounds and about the temple chambers, tending plants, constructing icons, and engaged in other menial tasks.

“These could become the disciples who would placate Vandros and alleviate us of our woes,” Ethendor said. “But they have not the makings of true adepts. They aspire, but their power falls short of their ambition. So they serve each in his own lesser way as you can see, and if it is so decreed, true inspiration may one day seize them.”

The king grew puzzled. “Then why speak to me of them?” he asked the high priest. “Our need is for birds, but you show me fish that would fly.”

“When the forests spawn nothing, then the hunter, if he’s not to starve, must turn elsewhere,” Ethendor replied, speaking in a low, conspiratorial tone.

“Elsewhere?”

“Perhaps to the farms that are well stocked? A little poaching, maybe, if he has to?”

“Explain what you mean,” the king said.

Ethendor drew closer. “There are Masters who teach schools of their own, dedicated to Nieru, in the wilderness and elsewhere outside of the city. They pay no homage to the king, neither do they serve the king. But their acts steal currents from the skies for their disciples to ride, which should, by right, be drawn down to the consecrated temples.”

“So, tell me the meaning of this talk about poaching,” the king said. Ethendor indicated the menials at work about the temple. “Some of these novices that you see are inadequate, but not totally incapable. They couldn’t develop the ability to trap a current and rise with it by themselves. But, with help, they could probably grasp and stay with a current that had been tamed and brought down by others. You take my point?”

“That with economy to ourselves, we could avail ourselves of the efforts of these rogue Masters?” the king said, seeing the point.

“The novices would provide additional service to Vandros, while the circumstances of our own adepts and their capacity to satisfy him would remain unaffected.”

“But at the expense of Nieru,” the king pointed out. “Would Nieru not seek vengeance?”

“Vandros will protect us.”

“Can you be sure?”

“It is in the signs.”

The king pondered awhile. “Let it be done, so,” he pronounced finally.

Later, Ethendor summoned a number of the novices to him. “Prepare yourselves, for you have been chosen to ascend to Hyperia,” he told them. “The services that were rightfully Vandros’s due are being stolen by other gods. Yours will be the task of reclaiming them. We will go up into the wilderness accompanied by dragon-tamers and fire-knights, and there shall vengeance and justice be exacted.”

Among the novices who had been selected was Keyalo, the foster-son of Dalgren, who had denounced Thrax for heresy and sorcery.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Formally, Garuth’s terms of office required him to delegate the investigation of the Ayultha affair to Jevlenese agencies. This would have given little grounds for optimism of any quick result at the best of times; but with the disruptions caused by the loss of the deputy police chief-who carried the real authority in Shiban, since the office of chief had deteriorated to being little more than a ceremonial figurehead-it was practically a guarantee that nothing of any consequence was going to happen within the limited time frame that Garuth was concerned about. So, following the unofficial line that he had already opted for, he set Del Cullen to seeing what he could make of it. Cullen, in turn, involved Hunt and the UNSA group, since it was part of the problem that they had come to Jevlen to help Garuth solve.

Garuth’s other concern was for the rest of the Terran visitors who had arrived with the Vishnu. He issued a statement urging them to stay within the Thurien-controlled enclave at Geerbaine as much as possible while the unrest in the city persisted, which was about as close as a Ganymean could come to prohibition. He also sent a sharply worded note to the Thurien Central Governing Council, protesting the inappropriateness under the present circumstances of extending to Terrans the Ganymean open policy of shipping anyone who felt like it to anywhere they wanted to go. “This determination not to acknowledge real differences that exist between humans and Ganymeans has surely been a major factor in precipitating the situation on Jevlen that we are now having to deal with,” the note said in part.

The Council’s chairman on Thurien was Calazar. Calazar had headed the deputation that first made contact with Earth when suspicions of Jevlenese duplicity could be contained no longer. His experiences during the Pseudowar that followed, of watching from the inside how the Terrans demolished the Jevlenese pretensions by meeting deception with counter deception and treachery with even greater machinations, had brought home to him the utter inability of Ganymean minds to anticipate the twists of deviousness that these alien dwarves were capable of. When he received the communication from Garuth, he admitted to himself with characteristic Ganymean candor that perhaps the lesson had not been fully learned yet.

“Perhaps those Terrans on JPC were right, and our whole approach to Jevlen has been wrong all along,” he said after considering the matter. “I’m sure Garuth is doing as much as anyone could ask, but maybe we should have delegated the task to Terrans.”

Frenua Showm, the female ambassador who had also been one of the first to initiate contact with Earth, suspected all human motives, Jevlenese or Terran. “Giving them equal partnership in Thurien culture as if it were their right was a mistake from the beginning,” she declared. “Well-intentioned, no doubt, but falsely premised. Nobody can feel worthy of what they haven’t earned. Neither can races. Our ancestors thought that a model society could be created on Jevlen through benign intervention, and they wrote Earth off as a lost cause when it chose to be left to its own devices. The reality turned out to be very different from the vision. Let’s learn something from it and not walk straight into making the same mistake again. They are not like us. Their behavior isn’t governed by the same rules.”