The Second Randall Garrett Megapack Read online

  But Forrester now was free to worry. Arrest was out of the question. As the High Priestess had said, on the evidence it was clear that Aphrodite intended to honor him in some way. And there was nothing at all, he thought, wrong with an honor from the Goddess of Love.

  But another sacrifice? After the sacrifice to Aphrodite he’d made earlier, and the fight he’d gotten into, he just didn’t quite feel up to it. It wouldn’t do to refuse, but…

  “Well,” the priest said, stepping back. “Well, well. You ought to be all right now, young fellow—right as rain.”

  Forrester said: “Thanks.”

  “Might feel a little soreness—tenderness, you might say—for a day or so. Only a day or so, tenderness,” the priest said. “After that, right as rain. Right as you’ll ever be. All right, as a matter of fact: all right.”

  Forrester said: “Thanks.”

  The priest went to the door, turned, and said to the High Priestess: “Hermes’ blessing on you both, as a matter of fact, as they say. Blessings from Hermes on you both.”

  The High Priestess nodded regally.

  “And,” the priest said, “merely by the way, as it might be, without meaning harm, if you would ask a blessing for me—Aphrodite’s blessing? Easy for you. Of course, it would be nice curing—curing, as they say—stupidity, plain dumbness, as they call such things—curing stupidity as easily as I can cure small ills. Nice.”

  “Indeed,” the High Priestess said.

  “But there,” the priest went on. “Only the Gods can cure that. Only the Gods and no one else. Yes. Hm. And not often. They don’t do anything like that in the—ah—regular course of things. As a matter of fact, you might say, I’ve never heard of—never heard of such a case. Never. Not one. Yet…” He opened the door, spat: “Myrmidons!” and disappeared into the hallway.

  The door banged shut.

  Forrester sighed heavily. The High Priestess turned to him.

  “Feel better?” she asked.

  “Much,” Forrester said, dreading the ordeal to come.

  The High Priestess came over to the couch and sat down next to him. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Shall we prepare for the—sacrifice?”

  Forrester sighed again. “Sure,” he said. “Naturally.”

  * * * *

  When she was locked in his arms, it was as if time had started all over again. Forrester responded to the eagerness of the woman as he’d never dreamed he could respond; all his tiredness dropped away as if it had never been, and he was a new man. He touched her bare flesh and felt the heat of her through his fingers and hands; with his arms around her nakedness he rolled, locked to her, feeling the friction of skin against skin and the magnificence of her.

  The sacrifice went on…and on…and on into endless time and endless space. Forrester thrust and gasped at the woman and her head went back, her mouth pulled open as she shivered and responded to him.…

  Forever.…

  Until finally they lay, panting, in the magnificent room. Forrester rose first, vaguely surprised at himself. He found a towel in a closet at the far end of the room and wiped his damp forehead slowly.

  “Well,” he said. “That was quite a sacrifice. What next?”

  The High Priestess raised herself on one elbow and stared across the room at him. “There is no need for such familiarity, Forrester,” she said. “Not from a lay acolyte.”

  Forrester tossed the towel onto a couch. “My apologies, Your Concupiscence. I’m a little—light-headed. But what happens next?”

  The High Priestess reached into the diaphanous pile of her clothing and came up with a small diamond-encrusted watch she wore, usually, on her wrist. “Our timing was almost perfect,” she said. “It is now twenty-hundred hours. The Goddess expects you at twenty-oh-one exactly.”

  A hurried half-minute passed. Then, fully dressed, Forrester went with the High Priestess to a golden door half-hidden in the hangings at the side of the room. She made a series of mystical signs: the circle, the serpent and others Forrester couldn’t quite follow.

  She opened the door, genuflecting as she did so, and Forrester dropped to one knee behind her, looking at the doorway.

  It was filled with a pale blue haze that looked like the clear summer sky on a hot day. Except that it wasn’t sky, but a curtain that wavered and shimmered before his eyes. Beyond it, he could see nothing.

  The High Priestess rose from her genuflection and Forrester followed suit. There was a sole second of silence.

  Then the High Priestess said: “You are to step through the Veil of Heaven, William Forrester.”

  Forrester said: “Me? Through the Veil of Heaven?”

  “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “And don’t try to touch the Veil. Just walk through as if nothing at all were there.”

  Forrester filled his lungs as though he were going to take a very high dive. He thought: Here goes nothing. That was all; there wasn’t time for anything else.

  He stepped into the blue haze, and had a sudden sensation of falling.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  There was a tingle like a mild electric shock. Forrester opened his mouth and then closed it again as the tingle stopped, and the sense of falling simply died away. He had closed his eyes on the way into the curtain, and now he opened them again.

  He closed them very quickly, counted to ten, and took a deep breath. Then he opened them to look at the room he was in.

  It was unlike any room he had ever seen before. It didn’t have the opulence of the High Priestess’s rooms. I am a room, it seemed to say, and a room is what I was meant to be. I don’t have to draw attention to myself like my poorer sisters. I am content merely to exist as the room of rooms, the very type and image of the Ideal Enclosure.

  The floors and walk of the place seemed to blend into each other at odd angles. Forrester’s eyes couldn’t quite follow them or understand them, and judging the size of the room was out of the question. There was a golden wash of light filling the room, though it didn’t seem to come from anywhere in particular. It was, in fact, as if the room itself were shining. Forrester blinked and rubbed his eyes. The light, or whatever it was, was changing color.

  Gradually, he realized that it went on doing that. He wasn’t sure that he liked it, but it was certainly different. The colors went from gold to pale rose to violet to blue, and so on, back to gold again, while little eddies and swirls of light sparkled into rainbows here and there.

  Forrester began to feel dizzy again.

  There were various objects standing around here and there in the room, but Forrester couldn’t quite tell what they were. Even their sizes were difficult to judge, because of the shifting light and shape of the room itself. There was only one thing that seemed reasonably certain.

  He was alone in the room.

  Set in one wall was a square of light that didn’t change color quite as much as everything else. Forrester judged it to be a window and headed for it. With his first step, he discovered something else about the place.

  The carpeting was completely unique. Instead of fiber, the floor seemed to have been covered a foot deep with foam rubber. Forrester didn’t exactly walk to the window; he bounced there. The sensation was almost enjoyable, he thought, when you got used to it. He wondered just how long it took to get used to it and settled on eighty years as a good first guess.

  He stood in front of the window. He looked out.

  He saw nothing but clouds and sky.

  It took a long while for him to decide what to do next, and when he finally did come to a decision, it was the wrong one.

  He looked down.

  Below him there were tumbled rocks, ledges of ice and snow, clouds and—far, far below—the flat land of the Earth. He wanted to shut his eyes, but he couldn’t. The whole vast stomach-churning panorama spread out beneath him endlessly. The people below, if there were any, weren’t even big enough to be ants. They were completely invisible. Forrester took a deep breath and gripped the side ledges of the window
.

  And a voice behind him said: “Welcome, Mortal.”

  Forrester almost went through the window. But he managed to regain his balance and turn around, saying angrily: “Don’t do that!” As the last of the words left his lips, he became aware of the smiling figure facing him.

  She was standing in a spotlight, Forrester thought at first. Then he saw that the light was coming from the woman herself—or from her clothing. The dress she wore was a satinlike sheath that glowed with an aura even brighter than the room. Her blonde hair picked up the radiance and glowed, too, illuminating a face that was at once regal, inviting and passionate. It was, Forrester thought, a hell of a disturbing combination.

  The cloth of the dress clung to her figure as if it wanted to. Forrester didn’t blame it a bit; the dress showed off a figure that was not only beyond his wildest dreams, but a long way beyond what he had hitherto regarded as the bounds of possibility. From shoulder to toe, she was perfection.

  This was also true of the woman from shoulder to crown.

  Forrester gulped and, automatically, went on one knee.

  “Please,” he murmured. “Pardon me. I didn’t mean—”

  “Quite all right,” the Goddess murmured. “I understand perfectly.”

  “But I—”

  “Never mind all that now,” Venus said, with just a hint of impatience. “Rise, William Forrester—or you who were William Forrester.”

  Forrester rose. Sweat was pouring down his face. He made no effort to wipe it away. “Were?” he asked, dazed. “But that’s my name!”

  “It was,” Venus said, in the same calm tone. “Henceforth, your name is Dionysus.”

  Forrester took a while to remember to swallow. “Dionysus?” he said at last.

  There was another silence.

  Forrester, feeling that perhaps his first question could use some amplification, said: “Dionysus? Bacchus? You mean me?”

  “Quite right,” Venus said. “That will be your name, and you’d better begin getting used to it.”

  “Now wait a minute!” he said. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but something occurs to me. I mean, it’s the first thing I thought of, and I’m probably wrong, but just let me ask the questions, if you don’t mind, and maybe some of this will make some sense. Because just a few hours ago I was doing very nicely on my own and I—”

  “What are your questions?” Venus said.

  Forrester swayed. “Dionysus/Bacchus himself,” he said. “Won’t he mind my—”

  Venus laughed. “Mind your using his name? My goodness, no.”

  “But—”

  “It’s all because of the orgies,” Venus said.

  Everything, he told himself, was getting just a little too much for him. “Orgies?” he said.

  Venus nodded. “You see, there are all those orgies held in his honor. You know about those, of course.”

  “Sure I do,” Forrester said, watching everything narrowly. In just a few seconds, he told himself hopefully, the whole room would vanish and he would be in a nice, peaceful insane asylum.

  “Well, it isn’t impossible for a God to be at all the orgies held in his honor,” Venus said. “Naturally not. But, at the same time, they are all rather boring—for a God, I mean. And that’s why you’re here,” she finished.

  Forrester said: “Oh.” And then he said: “Oh?” The room hadn’t disappeared yet, but he was willing to give it time.

  “Dionysus,” Venus said patiently, as if she were explaining the matter to a small and rather ugly child, “gets tired of appearing at the orgies. He wants someone to take his place.”

  The silence after that sentence was a very long one. Forrester could think of nothing to say but: “Me?”

  “You will be raised to the status of Godling,” Venus said. “You remember Hercules and Achilles, don’t you?”

  “Never met them,” Forrester said vacantly.

  “Naturally,” Venus said. “They were, however, ancient heroes, raised to the status of Godling, just as you yourself will be. However, you will not be honored or worshipped under your own name.”

  Forrester nodded. “Naturally,” he said, wondering what he was talking about. There was, he realized, the possibility that he was not insane after all, but he didn’t want to think about that. It was much too painful.

  “You will receive instructions in the use of certain powers,” Venus said. “These will enable you to perform your new duties.”

  Duties.

  The word carried a strange connotation. Dionysus/Bacchus was the God of wine, among other things, and women and song had been thrown in as an afterthought. The duties of a stand-in for a God like that sounded just a little bit overwhelming.

  “These—duties,” he said. “Will they be temporary or permanent?”

  “Well,” Venus said, “that depends.” She smiled at him sweetly.

  “Depends?”

  “So far,” Venus said, “our testing shows that you are capable of handling certain of the duties to be entrusted to you. But, for the rest, everything depends on your own talents and devotion.”

  “Ah,” Forrester said, and then: “Testing?”

  “You don’t suppose that we would pick a mortal for an important job like this without making certain that he was capable of doing the job, do you?”

  “Frankly,” Forrester said, “I haven’t got around to supposing anything yet.”

  Venus smiled again. “We have tested you,” she said, “and so far you appear perfectly capable of exercising your powers.”

  Forrester blinked. “Exercising?”

  “Exactly. As a street brawler, for instance, you do exceptionally well.”

  “As a—”

  “How does your face feel?” she asked.

  “My what?” Forrester said. “Oh. Face. Fine. Street brawls, you said?”

  “I did,” Venus said. “My goodness, the way you bashed that one bruiser with your drink—that was really excellent. As a matter of fact, I feel it incumbent on me to tell you that I haven’t enjoyed a fight so much in years.”

  Wondering whether he should be complimented or just a little ashamed of himself, Forrester said nothing at all. The idea that he had been under the personal supervision of Aphrodite herself bothered him more than he could say. The brawl was the first thing that came to mind. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing a Goddess of Love ought to have been watching.

  And then he thought of the High Priestess.

  He felt a blush creeping up around his collar, and was thankful only that it was not visible under the tan of his skin. He remembered who had ordered the sacrificial rites, and thought bitterly and guiltily about spectator sports.

  But his face remained perfectly calm.

  “So far,” Venus said, “I must say that you have come through with flying colors. You should be proud of yourself.”

  Forrester didn’t feel exactly proud. He wanted to crawl into a hole and die there.

  “Well,” he said, “I—”

  “But there is more,” Aphrodite said.

  “More?”

  The idea didn’t sound attractive. In spite of what one of the tests had involved, the notion of any more tests was just a little fatiguing. Besides, Forrester was not at all sure that he would be at his best, when he knew that dispassionate observers were chronicling his technique and his every movement.

  How much more, he wondered, could he take?

  And, he reflected, how much more of what?

  “We must be certain,” Aphrodite said, “that you can prove yourself worthy of the dignity of a Godling.”

  “Ah,” Forrester said cleverly. “So there are going to be more tests?”

  “There are,” Venus said. “After all, you will be expected to act as the alter persona of Dionysus. That involves responsibilities almost beyond the ken of a mortal.”

  Wine, Forrester thought wildly, women and song.

  He wondered if he were going to be asked to sing something. He couldn’t
remember anything except the Star Spangled Banner and an exceptionally silly rhyme from his childhood. Neither of them seemed just right for the occasion.

  “You must learn to behave as a true God,” Venus said. “And we must know whether you are fitted for the part.”

  Forrester nodded. The one thing keeping him sane, he reflected, was the hope of insanity. But the room was still there, and Venus was standing near him, talking quietly away.

  “Thus,” she said, “there must be further tests, so that we may be sure of your capacities.”

  Capacities? Just what was that supposed to mean? “I see,” he lied. “And suppose I fail?”

  “Fail?”

  “Suppose I don’t live up to expectations,” Forrester said.

  “Well, then,” Venus declared, “I’m afraid the Gods might be angry with you.”

  Forrester had no doubt whatever as to the meaning of the words. Either he lived up to expectations or he didn’t live at all. The Gods’ anger was not a small affair, and it seldom satisfied itself with small results. When a God got angry with you, you simply hoped the result would be quick. You didn’t really dare hope it would also be temporary.

  Forrester passed a hand over his forehead. If he had been doing his own picking, he thought a little sadly, the job of tryout stand-in for Dionysus was not the job he would have chosen. But then, the choice wasn’t his, and it never had been. It was the Gods who had picked him.

  Unfortunately, if he failed, the mistake wouldn’t be laid at the door of the Gods. It would be laid at the door of William Forrester, together with a nice, big, black funeral wreath.

  But it didn’t sound too bad at that, he told himself hopefully. After all, it wasn’t every day that a man was offered the job of stand-in for a God, not every day that a man was offered the chance of passing a lot of strenuous and embarrassing tests, and dying if he failed.

  He told himself sternly to look on the positive side, but all he could think of was the succession of tests still to come. What would they be like? How could he ever pass them all? What would be thought necessary to establish a man as a first-rate double for Dionysus?