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UC.txt
"He says of course you can kill me," Sawyer said, almost with indifference.
"But you'll die first.
He's thinking of Klai, Alper. I don't "
Zatri said, "Tell him he must take his hand from his pocket. Tell him I'll
pull the noose if he doesn't. He fears death he'll do as I say. I think he
knows that no life, not yours or my own, can stand between me and what I must
do now."
Sawyer translated. Slowly, sullenly, Alper lifted his hand from his
pocket. Sawyer had a sudden spark of hope and said, "Zatri, make
him release me from the transceiver!"
Alper burst out violently, "No! I won't do that! As long as
I have that I've got even if you kill me no! "
"He would not," Zatri said. "I know. We're both old men, Alper and I, and we
understand each other." He chuckled softly. "I'll lead you to the Temple now.
Do you know why I changed my mind, why I'll give Alper his chance at the
Firebird and immortality?" "Why?" Sawyer asked.
"It takes more than the Firebird to make a man a god," Zatri said. "I'm too
old my mind wasn't clear about this until just now. Alper could achieve
immortality, yes but never invulnerability!"
He smiled. "Tell him that," he said.
Zatri said softly through the mask, "Beyond this point, we talk in whispers."
Sawyer looked back along the low tunnel twisting out of sight. They had come a
long and devious way underground since they left the noisy streets. Zatri,
still carefully holding the cord that noosed Alper's neck, was fumbling at the
wall. Rectangular stone blocks hewn perhaps a thousand years ago had been put
together with a luminous mortar that glowed with a clear, soft light, so that
they stood in what looked like an endless trellis of shining squares.
Zatri gave a little sigh of satisfaction and a door-sized square of the wall
before him went dead, the glowing mortar fading as if a switch had cut off a
flow of electrons through it. He pushed gently and the whole square receded,
letting a soft golden light shine into the trellised passage.
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"If we're lucky," Zatri said, turning his masked face to Sawyer, "there won't
be any guards outside. The ceremony's under way, and all the Isier who aren't
out fighting should be in the Hall of the Worlds. We're directly under it now,
and the cells of the sacrifices are just outside.
There's no danger of their escaping." He chuckled with a curious, sardonic
note Sawyer did not understand. "The only way they could escape," he said, "is
a way the Isier needn't worry about.
Come along, and be carefull"
Sawyer followed the two old men through the wall.
It seemed to him that he had stepped out at the foot of Niagara. He stood
half-stunned for a moment, his head craned back, staring up at the golden
waterfall which rose up, up, up into misty infinities overhead. They stood at
the foot of a long ramp that wound upward across the face of the waterfall in
gentle zig-zags like a streak of frozen lightning patterning the golden sway
above.
The sway was the motion of curtains that looked as if they were woven of
bright gold light, hanging straight out of a golden sky. Tier after tier of
them rippled slowly in deep, changing folds to no tangible breeze, brushing
the ramp with level after ascending level of golden hems.
"We go up," Zatri said in a whisper. "Keep still, both of you. If anyone
comes, get behind the curtains and pray!"
They went fast, stilling the noise of their feet on the ramps. At the third
level Zatri began to twitch the curtains aside and peer quickly behind them
without pausing in his climb. At the fifth
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UC.txt level they found her....
A tiny room like a bee's cell opened behind its curtain, hexagonal, walled
with a continual crawl of colors that flowed, merged, faded and renewed
themselves continually in a motion so compelling the eye followed them in
fascinated wonder.
"Don't look," Zatri warned them. "That's hypnosis. Tefl Alper. We need him."
Sawyer murmured his warning without turning his head, for he was staring
through the blurred wall at the dreaming figure of Klai, kneeling upon the
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