The Sky Lords

Book 314: Gateway Essentials

by John Brosnan

Genres: Humor & Satire; Science Fiction; Space Opera

Synopsis

The Gene Wars have turned Earth into a blighted wasteland. Mile-long airships patrol the skies, exacting crippling tribute from the scattered ground communities. Threatened by mutant vegetation and predatory creatures, forced to the brink of starvation by the Sky Lords, Minerva - a former feminist utopia - has had enough. Its rebellion is swiftly crushed and Jan Dorvin, a Minervan warrior, is winched aboard a Sky Lord; towards a fate worse than death. For as a ground dweller and slave - but above all, as a woman - she is now regarded as the lowest form of humanity and is consigned to a life spent serving the sexual appetites of male slaves. But no Minervan could be kept slave for very long.....

Release date: December 21, 2012

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 317

Sample

Not far away, something began to shriek in terrible agony. Jan looked at the guard. The guard shrugged her tanned shoulders and said, “Sounds like a big reptile’s been caught by a whip tree.”

Trying to ignore the nerve-jangling screeching, Jan turned her attention back to the panther. “I’ve told you,” she called down to it. “We don’t need a cat, but thanks anyway.”

The black panther made no move to go but remained sitting on its haunches looking up at her. “I work good for you, catch vermin, patrol your walls at night,” it said in its high-pitched, hissing voice.

Jan studied the animal more closely. It was a powerfully built beast seemingly in good health. Conditions in the blight lands must be getting really bad if such an animal was willing to demean itself by offering to work for humans. She noticed a long scar down its right flank. It looked fresh.

At her side Martha said nervously, “Don’t like. Make go away. Martha don’t like. …”

Jan patted the chimp on the head. “Don’t worry. It can’t hurt you.” The guard hefted her cross-bow. “Shall I put a bolt through its shoulder to speed it on its way?” she asked Jan.

Before Jan could answer the panther turned its head towards the guard and said, “Fire weapon and I be up wall very fast. Take your throat away with me. That mesh like grass to my claws.” Then, in a calculated display of indifference, it sprawled on its side, exposing its belly to them. Jan saw that it was male. She raised her hand to the guard, who had reddened at the panther’s threat and was likely to do something foolish. “Don’t, Carla. Leave this to me.” Martha, meanwhile, had started to whimper.

The panther eyed Jan with what might have been feline amusement. “You very young to be boss-man.”

“I’m not a boss-man,” said Jan. “I’m the daughter of Headwoman Melissa and it’s my turn to be in charge of the wall defences this week.”

The panther gave a human-like shrug of its powerful shoulders and said, “Like I say, you boss. So why you not let poor cat into settlement?” Its pronunciation of the word ‘settlement’ was preceded by a long hiss.

“We have a strict policy as to what animals we allow to live with us,” Jan told the panther. “You must know that.”

“Times are hard. Getting harder. We need to work together. Like old days. When my forefathers served your forefathers.”

“Foremothers,” corrected Jan indignantly. “And that was a long time ago. When you big cats could be trusted.”

“You don’t trust me?” The panther tried to look innocent.

“Of course not. I’d be foolish to. In the same way that a carrot could trust me not to eat it.”

“So,” said the panther. It quickly got up. “You make mistake,” it said as it turned and, swishing its tail in annoyance, stalked off down what remained of the trail that had led to the corn fields before the blight lands had overwhelmed them. The panther soon vanished from view. Martha jumped up and down with excited relief. “Nasty cat. Nasty. Martha don’t like. …”

Jan sighed and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. A glance at the sun revealed she had at least another hour of duty to go. She looked at Carla, who was frowning. “You should have let me shoot it, Mistress,” she told Jan. “Arrogant beast. Arrogant male beast.”

“You think it’ll come back?” Jan asked her.

“It had better not. It’ll get my bolt between its eyes instead of its shoulder.”

Jan doubted if Carla would find it so easy to despatch the sly carnivore, but she didn’t voice her reservations. The wall guards needed to indulge in such bravado—Jan knew it helped to keep up their morale in what was an increasingly discouraging task.

“Sound the alarm if it returns,” Jan told her. “I’ll be on the east side.”

Carla gave her a perfunctory salute as Jan, followed by the still excited Martha, headed off eastwards along the wooden parapet. It was only then that Jan realized that the reptile, if that’s what it had been, had stopped screaming. She wondered why the encounter with the panther had disturbed her so much. It was a bad omen, she told herself and whispered a quick prayer to Mother God.

There was only one more incident during Jan’s last hour of duty. An elephant creeper had penetrated the mesh barrier on the east perimeter and was threatening to bring down a section of the wall. Jan had supervised the squad of fifteen guards who, with flame throwers and axes, had destroyed the slowly writhing tendril, which measured over four feet in diameter at its widest point. Afterwards she watched as Martha and the other chimps clambered up the mesh fence and, with their customary speed, repaired the damage caused by the vine. Just as they were finishing, Alsa arrived to relieve Jan. Jan was only too glad to hand over to Alsa the gold-plated branch of authority which she’d kept tucked in her belt.

“It’s all yours,” she told Alsa gratefully. “I’m exhausted.”

Alsa surveyed the repair work in the fence. “Been busy?”

“No more than usual.” Jan beckoned to Martha who scurried down the mesh, putting her pliers away in the tool-bag tied around her waist as she came. “We go home?” she asked.

“Yes.” Jan patted her on the head. Then to Alsa she said, “You may have a visit from a smooth-talking panther. Wants to work for us in return of shelter. Be careful of him. He’s not a happy cat. He may try something desperate.”

Alsa smiled at her. “Don’t worry. You know me. I never take chances. Coward to the core.” She leaned forward and embraced Jan, kissing her on the lips. “Take care, little one.”

As Jan climbed down the ladder leading from the parapet she couldn’t help bridling over Alsa’s use of that embarrassing term. She knew that, as always, it had been meant affectionately but she was sensitive about her size. It hadn’t been bad when she was younger; she’d believed her mother when she’d said that she would eventually catch up with her contemporaries but now that she’d reached eighteen it was clear she was not going to grow any taller. Alsa and her other friends towered over her by some four or five inches. It was galling for her to be the same height as the average man.

The sky was clear of clouds and the sun was hot as Jan and Martha cut through the vegetable gardens that were crammed into every available space between the wall and the outer buildings of Minerva. Martha, Jan noticed, kept glancing nervously upwards.

“He’s not due for another two weeks,” Jan said, “so relax.”

“Can’t help it. Sky Lord scare Martha. Don’t like.”

“You’re not alone there,” said Jan grimly. She was dreaming about the Sky Lord almost every night now. The dream took the form of her first childhood memory of the Sky Lord Pangloth. It had seemed to fill the entire sky above Minerva and, as it descended closer to the town, its great eyes had fixed on the five-year-old Jan as she cowered beside her mother on the official dais in the tribute square. She had screamed and screamed in terror and had tried to bury herself under her mother’s kilt … but in the dream her mother disappeared, leaving her alone.

Jan found herself automatically scanning the empty blue sky. I’m being as silly as Martha, she told herself guiltily. Pangloth was nothing if not punctual. It was, as her mother said, all part of the Sky Lord mystique.

A shrill, shouted obscenity distracted her. They were passing near the male chimp compound and several of the male chimps had come to the bars to shout insults. Most of them were directed at Martha but a few of the more reckless chimps hurled abuse at Jan as well. Martha chittered angrily back at them, jumping up and down and waving her arms. Jan said, “Don’t waste your time on them. Come on, I’m in a hurry. I badly need a wash and a cold drink.” She continued on. Martha, after a final, angry riposte complete with gestures, followed her. It was a pity, Jan reflected, that the male chimps, unlike the female ones, became so unpredictable after a certain age. Not all of them, true, but enough to ensure that every adult male had to be segregated for safety’s sake. It hadn’t always been like that, she knew; once male chimps had remained as reliable as the females, but about forty or fifty years ago things began to change and the first signs of male chimp unpredictability had appeared.

How unlike human males, she thought. They remained totally predictable all their lives. Every man she knew was of a placid and cheerful disposition, forever being relentlessly optimistic. Even the approaching crisis with the Sky Lord didn’t seem to bother them over much. Why, she wondered—not for the first time—had the Mother God made Minervan men such uncomplicated creatures compared to women? When She had removed the evil from their souls surely She could have made them a bit more interesting at the same time.

As if to prove her point she saw Simon ahead of her. He was one of a party of six men working on a small potato patch. Seeing her he dropped his hoe and hurried to meet her, a wide grin on his handsome and totally open face. “Jan! How good to see you! How are you?”

She felt a flush creep up her neck. Simon was the only male she’d ever made love to. The experience had been interesting but not especially exciting, yet the memory of her intimacy with him made her uncomfortable. “Hello Simon,” she said brusquely. “Sorry I can’t stop to talk. I’ve just got off the wall and I’m dead tired.”

“That’s okay. Maybe we can meet in the tavern tonight.” He was staring at her with such undisguised pleasure he was making her feel even more uncomfortable. She frowned. “Have you forgotten the Council meeting tonight?” she asked him irritably. “There won’t be any time between it ending and your curfew.”

He looked momentarily crestfallen, then the grin was back on his face. “Tomorrow, then?”

“Possibly,” she said and walked past him. In two weeks Minerva might be destroyed and all he could think about was socializing. Men.…

She and Martha entered the town and hurried along the narrow, alley-like streets. There had been much more space until about four or five years ago when the inhabitants of the outer farming settlements had been finally forced to move into town after losing their long battle with the blight lands.

Now newer, and smaller, wooden dwellings jostled next to the older stone buildings, destroying the careful architectural harmony of the original town. But otherwise everything looked deceptively normal. There was no visible sign of all the preparations that were feverishly taking place throughout the town.

Jan and Martha parted company when they came to a long, low building with no glass in its many windows. It was the female chimps’ dormitory, housing over forty of them as well as several baby chimps of both sexes. They said their farewells and Jan continued on towards her home near the centre of Minerva.

Her mother was there when she arrived. She was hunched over a map of the town spread across the kitchen table. As Jan entered she looked up, brushed her silver-dyed hair from her face and gave Jan a weary smile. “Hello, darling. How were things on the wall today? Any problems?”

“Nothing serious.” Jan leaned over her mother and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll tell you later. First I must change out of these smelly clothes.” She poured a mugful of water, drank it quickly, then filled a bowl and took it into her bedroom. She wished there was still sufficient water for baths or showers but now that Minerva had been reduced to only three wells such luxuries were out of the question.

She hurriedly pulled off her thick gauntlets and then thankfully unstrapped and removed the heavy, steel breast plate. Next came the weapons belt with her short-sword, dagger and hatchet. Followed by her knee-length boots, vest, kilt and underwear. Then she washed herself all over using a wet cloth and one of her few remaining pieces of precious soap.

She didn’t have to towel herself dry. It was still so hot that the moisture swiftly dried on her skin, but by the time she donned her favourite blue cotton robe she was feeling greatly refreshed.

When she returned to the kitchen her mother had put away the map but the look of strain remained on her face. As she prepared a meal of potato cakes and salad Jan told her of the day’s events on the wall. She dwelt on the incident with the panther and her mother noticed her uneasiness. “What was it about the beast that troubled you so much?”

Jan frowned. “I don’t know. It was as if it was an. …” She didn’t continue. She didn’t want to tell her mother that she believed the black panther was an omen. It would only upset her and make her angry. She would again accuse Jan of being weak and negative, of letting her down in this time of crisis. Instead she asked Melissa how the preparations were coming along.

“On schedule. Just.” She rubbed the sides of her forehead with her fingertips. “The only problem now is getting the final decision from the Council. If it goes against us tonight everything will have been a waste of time and Minerva will be doomed.”

Hesitantly, Jan said, “I know you’re right, mother, but all the same I wish there was another way. When I think of what’s going to happen I get so, so. …” She stopped but it was too late.

Melissa came over to her and held her face between her hands. “Jan, you are my daughter. You have a position to uphold in Minerva. You cannot afford to be frightened. You mustn’t let yourself be frightened. And you must give me your full and total support!”

“But of course I will support you, mother. You know I will vote on your side tonight. …”

Her mother’s eyes were fierce. “That’s not what I mean. You must be behind me all the time. A few words of doubt to one of your friends and those same words will be used as ammunition against me in the council hall.”

“I haven’t said anything to anyone, mother,” protested Jan. She tried to pull free of her mother’s grip. “Mother, you’re hurting me. …”

Melissa released her but her eyes remained fierce. “I have to win the vote tonight otherwise all is lost. Don’t you realize that?”

Jan gave a fearful nod. “Of course I do. Don’t worry, mother, you’ll win the vote. I know it.”

“If I don’t we will return here after the meeting and fall on our swords together. Better a clean death such as that than what will happen to us if Minerva falls to the Lord Pangloth.”

Jan stared at her mother. Was she really serious about their committing suicide? She couldn’t be! … But the look in her eyes told Jan that she was.

After an uncomfortable meal eaten in silence Jan retired to her room. She’d intended to have a few hours sleep but found that impossible. Finally, she got up, put on a leisure tunic and went out. It was dusk now. In two hours’ time the Council meeting would begin but Jan wanted to put it, and its implications, out of her mind for a while.

She went to the men’s compound. She found her father in the workshop. He was soldering the seam along a sheet metal tube that was about six feet long and four inches wide. He put down the soldering iron when Jan approached his bench and smiled broadly. He was a handsome man with a wide, expressive mouth; attractive grey-blue eyes and thick black hair. Jan knew that, physically at least, she took after him more than she did Melissa. Her mother, under the silver dye of her office, was blonde and her body was long and slim, whereas Jan was short and dark like her father, with the same coloured eyes and black hair.

“Hello Jan,” he said happily and reached out to hug her. She didn’t resist his quick embrace even though physical contact between, fathers and daughters was socially frowned upon. In fact, any contact between them was socially frowned upon. It was never actively discouraged—that would have gone against the constitution of Minerva—but there were subtle, hidden pressures that Jan had been aware of ever since she was a small child. She knew that her mother disapproved of her relationship with her father even though Melissa had never explicitly said so.

Her father looked closely at her. “You’re tired,” he told her in a gently accusing tone. “Aren’t you sleeping properly?”

“I’ve been on wall duty. It’s always hard to relax afterwards. And there’s the meeting tonight. …”

For a few moments her father looked uncharacteristically troubled. Then he smiled reassuringly and said, “I’m sure everything will turn out for the best. Melissa and her supporters will win the day, you’ll see.”

Jan nodded. She wanted to tell him of Melissa’s threat to have them both commit suicide if she lost the vote but decided against it. He wouldn’t know how to handle such information. “Yes, I suppose so. But what then?” Jan ran her hand along the metal tube. “You really think these are going to work?”

Again he looked momentarily worried. Then he said firmly, “I have every faith in Melissa. She knows what she’s doing. If she said we can destroy the Sky Lord then we will. And don’t forget, we have the Mother God on our side. She will deliver us.”

“Of course she will,” said Jan, but without conviction. She knew the thought was blasphemous but she couldn’t help wondering why the Mother God had waited so long to deliver Minerva from the reign of the Sky Lord. It had lasted over three hundred years now.

Her father put his hand on her shoulder. “Poor Jan. You’re so young yet you act as if you carry the cares of the whole world on your back.”

She managed to give him what she hoped looked like a brave smile. Poor father, she told him silently. I may be only eighteen and you are over eighty but you are the child. And you always will be. She envied him the security of his trusting naivety and wished she’d been born a man.

Jan told her father she had to return home and prepare for the meeting. He embraced her again and repeated his belief that everything was going to be all right.

Outside it was getting dark. As she hurried homewards she couldn’t help glancing up at the night sky, expecting to see the stars blotted out by the bulk of the Sky Lord, who had somehow learned of their planned rebellion and arrived ahead of schedule to punish them.

Out in the blight lands something screamed. Whether from pain or rage she couldn’t tell.

The fungus that was slowly killing Headwoman Avedon was deceptively pretty. It was a bright red growth that covered the left side of her face like peach fuzz. Jan couldn’t help staring at it as Avedon, the oldest of the Headwomen and therefore leader of the Council, was summarizing Melissa’s plan and the opposition faction’s case against it. Jan forced herself to look away and transferred her gaze to the spectators’ gallery that encircled the Council chamber. She spotted Simon in the Men’s section. He was staring down at her with his usual puppy-like grin fixed on his face. She sighed inwardly.

Avedon completed her summing up and handed the Speaker’s baton to Headwoman Anna, who was Melissa’s chief opponent. Jan’s stomach gave a queasy flutter as Anna began to speak. If she managed to persuade the Council to overthrow Melissa’s plan Jan didn’t want to think of the consequences, yet at the same time she shared Headwoman Anna’s misgivings about the proposed action against the Sky Lord.

But Jan’s immediate survival was her main concern. Incredible as it seemed in the familiar surroundings of the Council chamber with its ancient murals on the walls, she knew that her mother was serious about them killing themselves that night if she lost. Jan thought about trying to drive the point of the sword, that now hung by her side, into her chest … No, she could never do it. It would be impossible! And when she refused what would Melissa do? Surely her mother wouldn’t kill her? It was unthinkable! But these were not normal times. Anything was possible. …

She suppressed a shudder and tried to concentrate on Anna’s words. Anna was standing in the centre of the circular floor of the chamber and pointing an accusing finger at Melissa, who glared back at her with grim eyes. “… And I say again that Headwoman Melissa’s plan will bring about the destruction of Minerva!” Anna was saying in ringing tones. “It is foolhardy in the extreme to think we can bring down a Sky Lord, or even drive him away. If it was possible it would have been done before by either our foremothers or by some other community. No, the Sky Lords have ruled the world for nearly three and a half centuries and it’s going to take more than Headwoman Melissa’s fireworks to alter that fact. I say we should scrap her plan immediately, halt the preparations and destroy the rockets before it’s too late!”

There was a murmur of approval from both the inner circle of seats where the Headwomen sat and from the outer circles where their daughters sat. Melissa’s expression grew more grim and for a second she locked eyes with Jan, who was sitting almost opposite her. Jan found herself looking into the eyes of a stranger. Her mother had vanished and in her place was someone else. Someone frightening.

Melissa raised her arm and was granted permission to speak by Avedon. She stood up and said, “We have no alternative but to follow my plan. Otherwise we will all die of starvation during the coming winter. You all know that if we meet the Sky Lord’s customary quota of tribute all our grain bins will be empty. As for the so-called invincibility of the Sky Lords, that is a myth. We all know that some fifty or sixty years ago a Sky Lord crashed during a storm in the north lands. It was struck by lightning. Well, we will strike Lord Pangloth with our own lightning!”

This brought Melissa her own murmur of approval and Jan saw several heads nodding in agreement throughout the chamber. But Anna waved the Speaker’s baton, which gave her the right to interject whenever she wanted. “We don’t know for sure that ever happened. It was just a rumour spread by travellers. But even if it did happen it was through the grace of the Mother God, who used her natural forces to destroy the Sky Lord. How can you know that your rockets will do Lord Pangloth any harm?”

Melissa turned to Avedon. “Permission for Sister Helen to address the chamber?”

Avedon nodded and Melissa then gestured to Helen, who was sitting in the front row of the gallery. Helen rose, looking uncomfortable. Small, though not as short as Jan, and wiry, she was in charge of the foundry and had been instrumental in making Melissa’s plan reality. She knew much arcane lore, including, it was suspected, too much about the forbidden and evil sciences of Man. As a result she was not popular, but this never seemed to bother her.

“Tell the Council again what I have tried to tell them on past occasions,” commanded Melissa. “Perhaps hearing it from you, the expert, will finally convince the doubters amongst us.”

Helen swallowed nervously and, in a thin voice, said, “The Sky Lords are kept aloft, as you know, by gases which are lighter than air. There are two such gases—hydrogen and helium. Once the Sky Lords were filled entirely with helium because it is safest. It is an inert gas whereas hydrogen is flammable. Over the years the Sky Lords have lost much of their helium, through natural leakage, accidents and so on, and haven’t been able to replace it. They’ve been forced to use hydrogen as a substitute in many of their gas cells. Hydrogen, unlike helium, can be manufactured relatively easily by means of a process called ‘electrolysis’ which is—”

Melissa cut her short with a wave of her hand. “Never mind the details,” she said. “What we want to know is whether the Sky Lords contain a great deal of the dangerous gas.”

Helen’s face went bright red. “Uh, yes, Headwoman Melissa, I would say that all the Sky Lords now contain much more hydrogen than helium.”

“Which makes them very vulnerable to fire?”

“Very vulnerable.”

“So our rockets with their fire bombs in their tips will inflict serious damage?”

Helen cleared her throat and said, loudly, “I believe we stand a very good chance of destroying the Lord Pangloth completely.”

An excited murmur spread through the chamber. But it stopped when Anna interjected with, “Can you be sure they haven’t found a way of making the safer gas? The helium? If they can make the other gas why can’t they do the same with the helium. Or maybe they have invented an entirely new gas?”

“No,” said Helen firmly with a shake of her head. “That’s impossible. Scientifically impossible. If you’d let me explain—”

This time Avedon herself interrupted her. “Enough talk of Man’s science in this chamber. We will take your word for it. Sit down, Sister Helen.”

She sat down hurriedly, her face redder than ever. Anna took advantage of the moment to declare loudly, “Man’s science … that is our problem here. Melissa’s plan is tainted with it. Rockets!” She spat out the word contemptuously. “Such weapons are not only against the constitution but are blasphemous. The Mother God will turn her face from us if we use Man’s weapons!”

“The same thing was said when we started using the flame throwers but there is no sign we have affronted the Mother God,” said Melissa.

“Really? If that it so how is it that our crop-lands have been overrun by the blight? What good did those weapons do us?” asked Anna.

“If we hadn’t used them the fungus would be growing all over the town by now. The flame throwers are the only effective weapon against the spores. Not to mention against many of the larger beasts that threaten our perimeter in increasing numbers.”

“Yet still Minerva is faced with destruction,” persisted Anna.

Melissa sighed. “If we can defeat the Sky Lord we will have enough grain to see us through the winter. Perhaps by then we will have managed to reclaim some of our land from the blight. But if we succumb to the Sky Lord our fate is sealed.”

“We could try talking to the Sky Lord. We could explain our situation. It will, after all, be, obvious to him from the air!” cried Anna. “We offer him, say, only a third of the expected tribute and promise to make it up to him later. We throw ourselves on his mercy.”

Melissa gave a bitter laugh. “When has a Sky Lord ever shown mercy? You know how they regard us land dwellers. Literally as the scum of the earth. We are less than human to them. Just a part of the blight left by the Gene Wars. Better to ask mercy from one of the giant lizards. No, our only chance is to burn the Lord Pangloth out of the sky. It is time that we, the sisters of Minerva, freed ourselves from the reign of Men!”

That did it. Jan could physically feel the tide of emotion in the chamber turn irrevocably in Melissa’s favour. She had won. And, a short time later, the vote confirmed it. A count of hands gave her a majority of twenty-three. Jan relaxed. She was not going to die. Not yet, anyway. She had at least another two weeks.

The two weeks went by with frightening speed. Jan had wanted to savour them but there had been no time. Melissa had kept her, and everyone else, working to exhaustion on the final preparations. Jan had been put in charge of one of the many three-woman groups that would fire the rockets. They practised the firing routine endlessly, positioning the rockets in their stands, removing the camouflaged netting that concealed the launchers and pretending to light the fuses before taking cover behind a makeshift barrier.

The rockets were, according to Helen, fairly simple devices. They were propelled by gunpowder and were capable, as the series of test firings had proved, of reaching a height of about a thousand feet. When they hit something a plunger was depressed, which activated a chemical fuse. This set off a charge that ignited the alcohol in the nose cone and spread it over a wide area. No one asked, publically anyway, how Helen came to possess the knowledge to make gunpowder, a substance that was high on the proscribed list. Jan suspected that Helen had probably invented the stuff from scratch.

Even though Melissa was now theoretically in charge of Minerva Anna kept up her campaign of opposition almost to the very end. The most significant confrontation between them occurred at the start of the second week. Anna, her daughter Tasma, Headwoman Jean and Adam, spokesman for the men, appeared that evening at Melissa’s house. Melissa admitted them with ill grace and told Jan to fetch drinks. Anna said not to bother as this was far from being a social call, so Jan remained in the hallway.

“Is it true,” Anna asked Melissa accusingly, “that you told Avedon you want the men armed?”

“It is true,” said Melissa, and waited.

“Is there no limit to your blasphemy?” cried Anna. “For a man to carry a weapon within the borders of Minerva is against everything we hold sacred. The founding sisters of Minerva must be crying with shame in heaven!”

“The founding sisters of Minerva were realists,” replied Melissa. “And so am I. We’re going to need everyone available to defend Minerva next Monday. Even if we set the Lord Pangloth on fire there may still be time for units of Sky Warriors to descend upon us.”

“Better that than to offend the Mother God in this fashion!” cried Anna. She turned to Adam, who was trying to keep behind Jean and T