Idolatry in Zalahar

            His prayers stopped once arrived at the town´s main square, at the same time as his surprise sprouted.  Making his way through the throng, he approached the vanished Slave´s Stable´s location.  Wherein the old coarse ashlar stone dais had been, accesible only from the rear stairs, the so-called Bid´s Place, the new God Mnibo the lavish´s magnificent effigy stood up proud now.  Its gold-skinned body, that of a ripe warrior with his sword sheathed four man´s size irradiated the might of a wise emperor, and his hamadryas silvery temples canine face smiled affable before future years of prosperity.  By its right side an immense three-storey spring poured out generously its limpid water over the Merania´s grained marble, wherein first the platform for execution of runaway or too haughty slaves had been, to which the inhabitants of Zalahar referred as the Chopping-Block Place.  In a city so sparing in water supplies, the fountain caught the eye as much as the god´s statue, and the water-diviners bowed ashamed.  Crossing the long corridor sumptuously carpeted with an intricate tapestry a lifetime worth, flanked by greening flower beds of never seen blooms, Aldor followed the crowd as far as the former Slave´s Stable´s gate, before a low structure of level roof and semisubterranean cells, and now a vaulted temple of marmoreal and purest whiteness, shining brilliantly under the desert sun, opened to worship.  The vast inner chamber of the recitation-place, open to starlight exhibited the Zalahar´s nubile maids, arrayed in finest silken laces which turned their movements as graceful as a dune gazelle´s, while playing zithers, harps and lutes around a table of veined alabaster which seemed to hold enough food to furnish the entire town for several weeks.  The idolatrous Zalahar´s offering to the new god.  The Mnibo´s immaculate white-robed officiants showed themselves to be friendly.  Aldor left unwillingly, mumbling inwardly.  Yalaud could not compete with that.  Perhaps the time had come to wonder wether his devoutness made him worthy of the fennec god.

            Arun did not turn a hair on hearing his apprentice´s ill-fated news.  Nor he did when two moons later scrawny raving-eyed spectres started to turn the town upside-down in search of foods for their heretical worship. They looted the dwellings of the first dead, placed traps using his days ago neighbour´s flesh to get hold of gerbils and poisonous snake tongue lizards, and excavated like possessed in broad daylight to disinter even the last toad and lungfish out of its viscous seclusion.  He and Aldor stood in the cool galleries of the sanctuary.  It was said Yalaud´s priests owned dreadful defence mechanisms against the desecrators, of which Aldor knew naught.  Somehow, the famished puppets kept their distance from the temple.  Anyway, he did know about the existence of the underground chamber below the altar, of which the entry had been revealed to him by Arun once the mandatory seven nights and days fast passed.  Arun had descended with him to guide him with a rope through a crossroads labyrinth in the darkest obscurity, walking with steadfast paces, amidst weird echoes like hissings until both came to a low ceiling roof, where by candlelight lighted by Arun as if by magic, the apprentice could see the fungi and the scum which grew clustered near a dripping thin trickle of water

            They ate fungi and drank frugally from the water of the cave for one, two weeks, and Arun kept on celebrating his solitary divine service as if nothing were happening, impassive in the face of both the shrieks coming from the outside and the sacrilegious litanies which the wind seemed to carry from Mnibo´s distant temple.  When Aldor was on the point of maddening of terror and cloistering, Arun talked to him close to the sacrificial altar stone:

            “Thou wilt go with the full moon to be witness of the apostates´ celebration in their enclosure.  Thou wilt be my eyes and my ears.”

            The initial rebelliousness withered as soon as a desert flower, but fear was still there, gripping the apprentice.

            “I— I don´t— what can I do? How can I reach to there?  The— they are prowling round the whole Zalahar.  I have seen them through the thick bars above.  They will catch me!”