Free The Reluctant Swordsman by Dave Duncan Page B

The temple grounds were much larger than the town, the noise of the falls louder.
    Then the road turned a corner, and he had arrived.   Ahead was a great courtyard like an airport runway. To his right it was flanked by a few trees and a wide, still pool, almost a small lake. On his left was the temple. His head went back as he looked up at it, and it was breathtaking. A high flight of steps ran the full width of the front, topped by seven huge arches, and above that were gold spires. He thought it was probably bigger than any church or cathedral on Earth, a set of seven blimp hangars side by side. The pilgrims ahead were wending their way up the steps, spreading out along the top like bubbles rising in a glass.
    He marched straight ahead along the courtyard until he was level with the center arch, then he swung around and started up the steps, not sure if he was doing this because he was a Seventh and that felt right for a Seventh, or because this was his personal illusion and therefore he should exert his uniqueness.   As he climbed, he noticed that the huddled pilgrims at the top were all kneeling, facing into the temple. He decided that he was not going to kneel, but he was not sure what he was going to do. Grab a priest and ask to speak to Mr.   Honakura, perhaps. Then what? The little boy had warned him that he was going into a trap. Yet he certainly ought to be safe from sudden death within the temple itself, oughtn’t he?
    He was almost at the top when a bell began to toll, deep and menacing and louder than the rumble of the falls. The pilgrims rose at once and turned around. More people came drifting out of the temple to stand beside them. At first he thought they were all looking at him, and that was comforting because it was the sort of impossible thing that happened in dreams, but soon he saw that he was not the attraction—arms were pointing.
    He stopped and turned around also. The view was spectacular: the court, the lake, and straight up the canyon to the white wall of the falls, framed in rainbow. He thought momentarily how thrilled Neddy would be to see that—Neddy liked waterfalls.
    He wished that he had a camera. All his life Wallie Smith had worn glasses, but now he could see every detail of this view. That also was typical of dreams.   What was the big excitement about, though? Was someone going over the falls in a barrel, perhaps?
    Not quite.
    Halfway up the face of the falls a lip of rock protruded from the face of the cliff to make a green-coated shelf, and his startlingly sharp vision could see people on it. As he watched, one of them floated out into space; at first slowly, then gradually gathering speed until it vanished into the spray below.   Human sacrifice?
    The bell continued to toll.
    Down by the water’s edge stood a small group of men and a few women. Another body sailed out from the rock. The River would bring it down into the pool, for now he could see the swirl of the current. And there came the first one already, drifting face downward and turning slowly. The watchers on the beach ran along the shingle with long poles, apparently reluctant to get their feet wet. The body eluded them, swung around out of reach, and was carried away by the River, past the end of the courtyard and off behind the temple. The second came closer.   It was pulled in for examination, but then pushed out again, obviously dead.   In all there were five murders while Wallie watched, and none of the victims survived. All five bodies were removed by the River. The remaining figures on the green lip formed up and marched away out of sight, so they were undoubtedly swordsmen. A nice profession you chose, Walter Smith! He was disgusted. First slavery and now human sacrifice! Could he not have fantasized a better world than this? Yet his dilemma remained—if this world was real, then there was no explaining how he came here, not in his terms, nor in the terms of this world itself, for Honakura and Jja had been