ing throughout the deepest recesses of his being.
“I have taken all the strength, all the power, all the force, all of everything that made Sarpedion what he was,” the
god began. In part his pseudo-voice was the resonant clang of a brazen bell; in part the diapason harmonies of an
impossibly vast organ. “I will use them for good, not ill. I am glad, Tedric, that you did not defile my bearth-for this
is a hearth, remember, and in no sense an altar-in making this” the first and the only sacrifice ever to be made to
me. You, Trycie, are the first of my priestesses?”
The girl, shaking visibly, gulped three times before she could speak. “Yea, my-my-my Lord Llosir,” she managed
finally. “Th-that is-if-if I please you, Lord, Sir.”
“You please me, Trycie of Lomarr. Nor will your duties be onerous; being only to see to it that your maidens keep
my hearth clean and my statue bright.”
“To you, my Lord-Llo-Llosir, sir, all thanks. Wilt keep . . .” Trycie raised her downcast eyes and stopped short in
mid-sentence; her mouth dropping ludicrously open and her eyes becoming two round O’s of astonishment. The air
above the yawning abyss was as empty as it had ever been; the flesh-and-blood god had disappeared as instan-
taneously as he had come!
Tedric’s heavy voice silenced the murmured wave of excitement sweeping the bowl.
“That is all!” he bellowed. “I did not expect the Lord Llosir to appear in the flesh at this time; I know not when or
ever he will deign to appear to us again. But I know whether or not he ever so deigns, or when, you all know now
that our great Lord Llosir lives. Is not so?”
“‘Tis so! Long live Lord Llosir!” Tumultuous yelling filled the amphitheater.
“‘Tis well. In leaving this holy place all will file between me and the shrine. First our king, then the Lady Priestess
Trycie and her maids, then the Family, then the Court, then the rest. All men as they pass will raise sword-arms in
salute, all women will bow heads. Will be naught of offerings or of tribute or of fractions; Lord Llosir is a god, not
a huckstering, thieving, murdering trickster. King Phagon, sire” wilt lead?”
Unhelmed now, Tedric stood rigidly at attention before the image of his god. The king did not march straight past
him, but stopped short. Taking off his ornate headpiece and lifting his right arm high, he said:
“To you, Lord Llosir, my sincere thanks for what bast done for me, for my family, and for my nation. While ’tis not
seemly that Lomarr’s king should beg, I ask that you abandon us not.”
Then Trycie and her girls. “We engage, Lord Sir,” the Lady Priestess said, at a whispered word from Tedric, “to
keep your hearth scrupulously clean;.your statue shining bright.”
Then the queen, followed by the Lady Rhoann-who, although she bowed her head merely enough, was shooting
envious glances at her sister, so far ahead and so evidently the cynosure of so many eyes.
The rest of the Family-the Court-the thronging spectators-and, last of all, Tedric himself. Helmet tucked under left
arm, he raised his brawny right arm high, executed a stiff “left face,” and marched proudly at the rear of the long
procession.
And as the people made their way down the steep and rugged path” as they debouched through the city of Lompoar,
as they traversed the highways and byways back to the towns and townlets and farms from which they had come, it
was very evident that Llosir had established himself as no other god had ever been established throughout the long
history of that world.
Great Llosir had appeared in person. Everyone there had seen him with his own eyes. Everyone there had heard his
voice; a voice of a quality impossible for any mortal being, human or otherwise” to produce; a voice heard, not with
the ears, which would have been ordinary enough, but by virtue of some hitherto completely unknown and still
completely unknowable inner sense or ability evocable only by the god. Everyone there had heard-sensed-him
address the Lord Armsmaster and the Lady Priestess by name.
Other gods had appeared personally in the past . . . or had they, really? Nobody had ever seen any of them except
their own priests . . . the priests who performed the sacrifices and who fattened on the fractions . . . Llosir, now,
wanted neither sacrifices nor fractions; and, powerful although he was, had appeared to and had spoken to everyone
alike” of however high or low degree, throughout the whole huge amphitheater.
Everyone! Not to the priestess only; not only to those of the Old Blood; not only to citizens or natives of Lomarr,
but to everyone-down to mercenaries” chance visitors and such!
Long live Lord Llosir, our new and plenipotent god!
King Phagon and Tedric were standing at a table in the throne-room of the palace-castle, studying a map. It was
crudely drawn and sketchy, this map, and full of blank areas and gross errors; but this was not an age of fine
cartography.
“Talk, first, is still my thought, sire,” Tedric insisted” stubbornly. ” ‘Tis closer, our lines shorter, a victory there
would hearten all our people. Too, ‘twould be unexpected. Lomarr has never attacked Tark, whereas your royal sire
and his sire before him each tried to loose Sarlon’s grip and, in failing, but increased the already heavy payments of
tribute. Too” in case of something short of victory. hast only the one pass and the Great Gorge of the Lotar to hold
‘gainst reprisal. ‘Tis true such course would leave the Marches unheld, but no more so than they have been for four
years or more.”
“Nay. Think, man!” Phagon snorted, testily. “‘Twould fail. Four parts of our army are of Tark-thinkst not their first
act would be to turn against us and make common cause with their brethren? Too, we lack strength, they outnumber
us two to one. Nay. Sarlon first. Then, perhaps, Tark; but not before then.”
“But Sarlon outnumbers us too, sire, especially if you count those barbarbarian devils of the Devossian steppes.
Since Taggad of Sarlon lets them cross his lands to raid the Marches-for a fraction of the loot, no doubt-’tis certain
they’ll help him against us. Also, sire, your father and your grandfather both died under Sarlonian axes.”
“True, but neither of them was a strategist. I am; I have studied this matter for many years. They did the obvious; I
shall not. Nor shall Sarlon pay tribute merely; Sarlon must and shall become a province of my kingdom!”
So argument raged, until Phagon got up onto his royal high horse and declared it his royal will that the thing was to
be done his way and no other. Whereupon, of course” Tedric submitted with the best grace he could muster and set
about the task of helping get the army ready to roll toward the Marches, some three and a half hundreds of miles to
the north.
Tedric fumed. Tedric fretted. Tedric swore sulphurously in Lomarrian, Tarkian, Sarlonian, Devossian, and all the
other languages he knew. All his noise and fury were” however, of very little avail in speeding up what was an
intrinsically slow process.
Between times of cursing and urging and driving” Tedric was wont to prowl the castle and its environs. So doing,
one day, he came upon King Phagon and the Lady Rhoann practicing at archery. Lifting his arm in salute to his
sovereign and bowing his head politely to the lady, he made to pass on.
“Hola, Tedric!” Rhoann called. “Wouldst speed a flight with us?”
Tedric glanced at the target. Rhoann was beating her father unmercifully-her purple-shafted arrows were all in or
near the gold, while his golden ones were scattered far and wide-,and she had been twitting him unmercifully about
his poor marksmanship. Pbagon was in no merry mood; this was very evidently no competition for any
outsider-least of all Lomarr’s top-ranking armsmaster-to enter.
“Crave pardon” my lady” but other matters press. . . “Your evasions are so transparent, my lord; why not tell the
truth?” Rhoann did not exactly sneer at the man’s obvious embarrassment, but it was very clear that she, too, was in
a vicious temper. “Mindst not beating me but never the Throne? And any armsmaster who threwest not arrows by
hand at this range to beat both of us should be stripped of badge?”
Tedric, quite fatuously” leaped at the bait. “Wouldst permit, sire?”
“No!” the king roared. “By my head, by the Throne” by Llosir’s liver and heart and brain and guts-NO! ‘Twould cost
the head of any save you to insult me so shoot, sir, and shoot your best!” extending his own bow and a full quiver of
arrows.
Tedric did not want to use the royal weapon, but at the girl’s quick, imperative gesture he smothered his incipient