Temple Trouble
Through a haze of incense and altar smoke, Yat-Zar looked down from
his golden throne at the end of the dusky, many-pillared temple.
Yat-Zar was an idol, of gigantic size and extraordinarily good
workmanship; he had three eyes, made of turquoises as big as
doorknobs, and six arms. In his three right hands, from top to bottom,
he held a sword with a flame-shaped blade, a jeweled object of vaguely
phallic appearance, and, by the ears, a rabbit. In his left hands were
a bronze torch with burnished copper flames, a big goblet, and a pair
of scales with an egg in one pan balanced against a skull in the
other. He had a long bifurcate beard made of gold wire, feet like a
bird's, and other rather startling anatomical features. His throne was
set upon a stone plinth about twenty feet high, into the front of
which a doorway opened; behind him was a wooden screen, elaborately
gilded and painted.
Directly in front of the idol, Ghullam the high priest knelt on a big
blue and gold cushion. He wore a gold-fringed robe of dark blue, and a
tall conical gold miter, and a bright blue false beard, forked like
the idol's golden one: he was intoning a prayer, and holding up, in
both hands, for divine inspection and approval, a long curved knife.
Behind him, about thirty feel away, stood a square stone altar, around
which four of the lesser priests, in light blue robes with less gold
fringe and dark-blue false beards, were busy with the preliminaries to
the sacrifice. At considerable distance, about halfway down the length
of the temple, some two hundred worshipers--a few substantial citizens
in gold-fringed tunics, artisans in tunics without gold fringe,
soldiers in mail hauberks and plain steel caps, one officer in
ornately gilded armor, a number of peasants in nondescript smocks, and
Genre: Thriller
Through a haze of incense and altar smoke, Yat-Zar looked down from
his golden throne at the end of the dusky, many-pillared temple.
Yat-Zar was an idol, of gigantic size and extraordinarily good
workmanship; he had three eyes, made of turquoises as big as
doorknobs, and six arms. In his three right hands, from top to bottom,
he held a sword with a flame-shaped blade, a jeweled object of vaguely
phallic appearance, and, by the ears, a rabbit. In his left hands were
a bronze torch with burnished copper flames, a big goblet, and a pair
of scales with an egg in one pan balanced against a skull in the
other. He had a long bifurcate beard made of gold wire, feet like a
bird's, and other rather startling anatomical features. His throne was
set upon a stone plinth about twenty feet high, into the front of
which a doorway opened; behind him was a wooden screen, elaborately
gilded and painted.
Directly in front of the idol, Ghullam the high priest knelt on a big
blue and gold cushion. He wore a gold-fringed robe of dark blue, and a
tall conical gold miter, and a bright blue false beard, forked like
the idol's golden one: he was intoning a prayer, and holding up, in
both hands, for divine inspection and approval, a long curved knife.
Behind him, about thirty feel away, stood a square stone altar, around
which four of the lesser priests, in light blue robes with less gold
fringe and dark-blue false beards, were busy with the preliminaries to
the sacrifice. At considerable distance, about halfway down the length
of the temple, some two hundred worshipers--a few substantial citizens
in gold-fringed tunics, artisans in tunics without gold fringe,
soldiers in mail hauberks and plain steel caps, one officer in
ornately gilded armor, a number of peasants in nondescript smocks, and
Genre: Thriller
Used availability for H Beam Piper's Temple Trouble