Her fingers fumbled at the cords of her trousers. Eagerness was pushing her on, desire was distracting her and making her clumsy. Finally she snapped the last cord and hastily shoved her trousers down her hips. They wadded around her ankles; she stepped free and kicked them aside. Naked, open, her breath coming fast, she came toward Blade.

She knelt before him, highlights chasing each other up and down her broad straight back as it curved down. She unknotted Blade's loincloth and threw it aside. Then her head swooped down on his manhood like a falcon on its prey. Warm, wet lips closed around him, swallowed him up, began to slide up and down on him.

Blade gasped, arching his back, knotted his jaw and throat muscles. Chara was no expert at this, but she was enthusiastic. Her enthusiasm was doing everything that skill could have done.

He reached down and locked his hands in her hair, then raised her head. Those maddening lips slid up and away, and Chars raised half-glazed eyes to stare at him.

«Enough,» he said firmly. He let go of her hair and raised her to a standing position. She pressed against him. He could feel the triangle of fine, straight hair between her thighs already damp and rapidly getting damper.

He curled an arm around her, cupping one breast and stroking the nipple, then led her toward his sleeping couch. She seemed almost too eager to take him into herself to be willing to walk that far.

Eventually he lowered her onto the furs. Her body arched as she lay down, her eyes closed, and her hips thrust up and out toward him. He did not have far to go to slide into her.

She was warm and wet and ready, so ready that her body twisted and writhed almost at once. Blade let the spasm pass, then continued his own thrusts. He drove in faster, drove in deeper, locked his hands around her to pull himself all the way into her.

Again she bucked and thrashed and heaved back and forth, tightening her legs about his hips in a bone-cracking hold as ecstasy tore through her. Blade felt himself on the edge, kept on thrusting, felt himself reaching the edge, arched his body forward until his lips were brushing Chara's nipples. He went over the edge. Now it was his turn to heave and thrash and gasp as he poured himself, poured the seed of Mazda, into the woman who was so ready and willing to receive it.

A desire to relax struck Blade all over. His head sagged down to pillow itself between Chara's full breasts. He lay there for a moment, until he realized that his weight must be flattening the woman under him into the furs. Slowly he rolled off, and lay on his back beside her.

A moment later her eyes flickered open, and she sighed long and deeply. «Mazda,» she murmured. «I have taken into me the seed of Mazda.» For the first time there was a note of awe in her voice.

It passed quickly. She raised herself on one elbow and looked Blade up and down. «You are not as large as the tales I heard as a child made you out to be.»

«No doubt.» Blade laughed. «I imagine that I grew a bit every time my adventures were retold, until people began to think of me as ten feet tall.»

Chara nodded. «You did. When the lot fell on me to be the first one to come to your bed, I was frightened for a moment. You were a god in my mind, but also a monster. Then I realized that you could not have been a monster, for I had seen Zulekia, your Beloved, and she was as other women are. If she had not suffered, then I would not.»

«I don't think you suffered at all, Chara,» said Blade. «And neither did I.»

«No,» she said, smiling and resting her head on his chest. «No,» she repeated, sleepily, her eyes flickering several times and finally falling shut. «No,» she murmured, as her breathing grew regular and gentle.

After a while Blade reached down and pulled the furs over both of them. Then he too drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 14

Several days and several women later, Blade appeared before the Council of the People. It took time for King Rikard to summon the members of the council from far and wide across Tharn.

King Rikard also had to call out a good part of the army to guard the King's House from people who wanted to see and hear and touch Mazda. The people accepted being shut out. But few of them went home. Every house in the New City was crammed to the roof, while an improvised city of tents and lean-tos sprang up outside the walls to shelter those who could not be accommodated inside.

Anyara threw up her hands in disgust at the spectacle. «The herds will go untended and unmilked, the weeds unpulled, the babies unbathed, and the roofs unpatched all over Tharn as people wait for Mazda to perform miracles.»

«They're going to have to wait a long time,» said Blade. «As I have said-I must learn more, and then teach the people. Even then we may not know enough to fight the Looters.»

«We know this,» said the king. «It is still good that you have returned to Tharn.»

«It will be far better when people get used to your being among us and get back to work,» said Anyara, with a sour expression on her face.

«Anyara keeps her mind on the plain, ordinary things,» said the king with a smile.

«On the essential things, you mean,» the woman corrected him.

«True. And Tharn owes you much for that.»

Eventually the council gathered and Blade went before it. He spoke briefly of what he had done and where he had been since he left Tharn. Then he went on to describe his experiences since his return.

This took him longer than he had intended. Chara had not been in awe of him, but the councilors certainly were. Most of them were old enough to remember his first appearance. The thought of what he might do this time apparently had their minds reeling. About every third sentence someone would interrupt Blade to intone, «Mazda has spoken,» or «It is the will of Mazda.»

This went on and on and on. Finally King Rikard rose to his feet and thundered, «Yes, Mazda has spoken! But have any of you listened to him, or heard as much as a single word he has said? This is a meeting of the Council of the People that may have to decide the fate of Tharn, not a chorus to sing songs in praise of my father! There will be other times and other places for that if you and he both wish it. In the meantime, silence, and let Mazda speak!»

After that Blade finished speaking in a silence where a hiccup would have sounded like an explosion.

«So we must do three things. We must find out more about the Looter machines, and their strengths and weaknesses. For that we must use the machine I captured, until its power is gone.

«Then we must train the best fighters of the people how to attack the Looter machines-and live to do it again and again. We must train many of them, and quickly, for the Looters are strong and they are on the march.

«Then I will lead forth the trained fighters against the machines of the Looters, and destroy them.»

He had half-expected applause, but instead met dead silence. Everyone seemed to be looking from him to his son and back again. Finally the king spoke.

«Mazda-father. Is-do you-must you lead our fighters against the Looters?»

«I will not send any fighter of the people where I am not willing to go myself,» said Blade quietly. «That is not my way-not Mazda's way.» Time to put that awe to some use!

King Rikard bowed his head. This time it was he who intoned

«Mazda has spoken.»

The first thing to do was find out if the purple ray could be harmless to human beings, and if so, under what conditions. Anyara volunteered to play guinea pig for this test before Blade could say a word.

As Anyara herself explained it to King Rikard:

«I am old. I have borne my share of children to the people. I have done all the work I had to do. If I die, the people will have lost little. If I live, we will have gained useful knowledge. If one as old as I survives the ray, then the younger and stronger fighters that Mazda will lead forth should be even safer.»