The Virgin of Zesh & the Tower of Zanid Read Online Free Page A

his brows. He gripped his reins tautly, leaning to right and left as the road curved. The road followed the bend of the Pichidé River, as it wound across the Gazashtandu plain toward the Sadabao Sea. In the body of the vehicle sat Althea Merrick, Gottfried Bahr, and Brian Kirwan. Now and then, one or another looked apprehensively back along the road.
    Kirwan spoke above the noise. “I told you it would be easy. When the great Brian Kirwan turns on the blarney, neither man nor woman can resist him. Damned if I don’t make a poem about this rescue; something in heroic heptameters.”
    “I used to consider myself well-read, Mr. Kirwan, but I don’t remember coming across any of your poems. What have you had published?” asked Althea Merrick.
    “No crass best-sellers, if that’s what you’re thinking of,” said Kirwan. “My poems are published in five small volumes of limited editions. The first volume was put out in 2119 under the title The Seven Square Serpents, bound in limp lavender leather and limited to ninety-nine copies. That, my girl, is art—none of your swinish Boeotian commercialism.”
    “Then how do you live?” asked Althea.
    “Oh, various worthless ancestors of mine have conveniently crossed the Stygian ferry, and Ireland’s the one country left where a man can get a bit of a legacy without its all being taken away by taxes.”
    Gottfried Bahr spoke up. “Very interesting, but we had better give thought to Miss Merrick’s future. Do you wish all the way to Zesh to go?”
    “What else can I do?” she said. “I don’t know how I could make my living in Majbur.”
    “That she could not,” said Kirwan, “now that we’re all given this damned Saint-Rémy treatment that ties our tongues in knots when we try to impart useful information to the Krishnans.”
    A deep groan rolled across the plain. The ayas twitched their ears and increased their speed.
    “What’s that?” said Althea, shivering.
    “That would be a hunting yeki,” said Kirwan. “You know, one of those big brown things like a lion and a bear and an otter rolled into one, with six legs.”
    “Let us hope it does not hunt us,” said Bahr in a strained voice.
    “Ah, we wouldn’t let this Krishnan pussy-cat hurt the darling girl, now would we?” said Kirwan. “Anyway, she can pray to her E.-M. God.”
    “It is all very well to joke.” Bahr plucked the driver’s sleeve. “Can you not go faster?” he said in Gazashtanduu.
    “Any faster would overset us on these turns, my lord,” said the driver, leaning as they rounded a bend on two wheels.
    Althea asked, “Doctor Bahr, what’s your program? You said something about testing a strain of genius that has appeared on Zá. Is that near Zesh?”
    Bahr replied, “The Krishnanthropi kolofti live on Zá, between Jerud and Ulvanagh. Zesh is a much smaller island southwest of Zá.”
    “But all the other islands are inhabited by the tailless Krishnans, aren’t they?”
    “Yes, until one gets down south to Fossanderan.”
    “And what’s on Zesh? Do Mr. Kirwan’s Roussellians live with the tailed Krishnans?”
    “Not likely!” said Kirwan. “We’ve got an agreement with the king of the monkeys to leave us alone. The other monkeys all live on Zá, except one female they call the Virgin of Zesh—at least that’s what they call her—and come over only for ceremonies.”
    “Who’s this virgin?” asked Althea.
    “Oh, some kind of heathen priestess or oracle. When you get there, there’ll be two virgins, I suppose, unless you lose your status on the way, and a good thing, too.”
    Althea pressed her lips together but ignored the gibe. She asked Bahr, “Then why are you going to Zesh instead of to Zá?”
    “Because if one lands uninvited on Zá, the tailed ones knock one’s brains out.”
    “Hospitable fellows,” said Kirwan.
    “It is not surprising,” said Bahr. “The tailless Krishnans have been attacked so often by slavers that they are very, very touchy. So I