SECRET OF THE TURTLE MEN, CHAPTER 22
"The Secret of the Three Ways"
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
However much jizz the Angels needed, it took hours and hours for Pavel and his small army to provide it. The rest breaks were longer and longer, as if their passion drenched bodies were being monitored as well as enhanced, for they were being milked most expertly, allowed the bare minimum time to recover, and then milked some more. The dew harvesters were implacable, growing larger as they stored the human jism inside themselves, until they were roly-poly balls of green fuzz some four inches around, that could just barely squirm around on their bodies as they cleaned up the jizz and sweat. Then they were gathered and replaced and more took their places.
How could his body, even this body born and tempered on Desire, handle such an incredible outpouring of his semen? Pavel had lost track of his orgasms, for the first time since the grunkel had initiated him into manhood, he had come again and again, and he was as soaked, exhausted and sweaty as he had been on the day he had become a man.
The Angels came in and gathered the dew harvesters once more, and Pavel noticed that they picked up one which was still quite flat and supple.
"Are we done?" He asked wearily.
"You are done." the Angel said. "We shall bring in your clothes and you may gather yourselves for transport back to your valley."
An Arab man muttered something to the Angel which Pavel didn't hear, but it was clearly uncomplimentary.
But the Angel was much more audible as he glared angrily down on the Arab who had insulted him. "If you are angry, you have a right, but we also have a right to our anger, for you have doomed my people! Serving us in this is a small enough price to redeem your lives!"
"How have we doomed the Angels?" Pavel asked.
The Arab man turned to see who had interfered, recognized him, and bowed from a sitting position. "My sovereign, I did not realize you were near." he said.
"That's all right." Pavel said to the abashed man. "This is interesting. How have we doomed your people?" he asked the Angel again.
"Without the special Djinni larvae to renew our people, we shall perish, die without sons." the Angel said sullenly.
"But you have your own humans, the Turtle Men." Pavel said. "Why not use them? Why did you have to take the Djinni captives to use on the blanks?"
"Who are you?"
"He is our sultan and leader." the Arab man burst out. "Speak to him with respect or we shall tear your wings from your body and you may flap about on the ground like an injured bird!"
"No need for that." Pavel said. "But I would like an answer to my question. If you hadn't been using our people, we would have never needed to rescue them. Why not use just the Turtle Men? I know you used my friend Pelen in that way. And there aren't that many Angels. Or are there?"
"I may not speak of this."
"Then get permission to speak of this." Pavel said. "If you want any chance to save your people, you need my people's cooperation, that much is clear."
"Without the Djinni's help, we have no need for you at all." the Angel said.
"In that case, you have no secret worth protecting, do you?" Pavel said, smiled mirthlessly. "And without our understanding, how can we help you?"
The Angel looked at him. "I will ask the Tribunal."
"Fine. You ask while they are bringing us our clothes." Pavel said. "I want to talk to them myself. Things here have changed and it sounds like the Angels have come out the worse for it. Maybe we can help."
Pelen had come over during this exchange and as the Angel left, he grabbed Pavel and hugged him fiercely. Pavel stroked the smooth back of his lover, and then kissed the gentle lips. "It's a shame we weren't close together for all this, wasn't it?" he said.
"I looked for you, as much as I could." Pelen said. "But I was on the other side of the room, and I couldn't get through to you."
"Hey, that was a fine ending for a battle, though, eh?" Jethro strode through the throng of men like a pale god. He wore his nudity like a fine uniform, his dong waving lazily back and forth as he stepped closer. "Far more satisfying than the war we fought with you, for me at least."
"You find battle satisfying?" Pelen said in horror. "Did you not see what was happening, the men falling and dying around us?"
Jethro shrugged. "I don't know about you, but I went there knowing that I would see bloodshed, and maybe get hurt or die myself. Did you think the Djinni were going to welcome us with open, uh, antennae?" Jassem came forward and slipped himself under Jethro's arm. Jethro smiled down at his brown lover and they kissed.
"At least I shed no blood." Pelen said. "I only carried the shield that protected Pavel."
"Well, without Pavel along, we couldn't have fought at all, so you aren't that clean, are you?" Jethro retorted. "The support staff have to take the blame the same as the warrior, if there's blame going to be passed around. Takes more than guns to run a war."
"We ran a rescue mission." Pavel interjected wearily. "And I wish we could have done it while avoiding all the lost lives, Djinni as well as human." The weight of his knowledge of guilt would be upon his shoulders for many years to come, he knew. Now he understood the sadness sometimes in his father's eyes as he spoke of war. It was such a waste, no matter how much good came out of it. They had won, but that didn't bring the dead back to life. And for all that they had won in the war with Connobar, his brother Mikhy still lay buried on the family farm. Yet what had been their other choice then? Or their other choice now?
"Where is that Angel!" Pavel said almost angrily. "We need our clothes, damn it!"
They were clothed and fed and Pavel was wondering if they were going to be sent back to Medina Jadeed without him speaking to the Tribunal, when the Angel he had spoken with returned.
"The Tribunal has spoken. You are to come with me, and we are to show you everything you wish to see. Then the Tribunal will speak with you if you wish."
"Just me, or my friends?" Pavel asked.
"Any who wish to come are welcome. Truth is our only hope, the Tribunal has declared. Come, we will show all who wish to see, now or at a later date. The doors between our valleys are open and we will grant all who come here honorable and safe passage."
"Well, it's about fucking time." was Jethro's grunted comment.
Pavel spoke to Salim. "Get the men back to Medina Jadeed, while I see what they have to show me. Then come back and we'll check on your father and my husband together."
Salim moved to rally the troops and organize them for the trip back home, and Pavel smiled. He was a very competent young man; Mahmoud had taught him well. He'll guide the people of Medina with justice and honor when he takes the throne, Pavel realized. Certainly better than I have, for Salim was born and raised to leadership.
With Pelen, Jethro and Jassem as his companions, Pavel followed the young Angel from the building. He looked back at it, a large, rounded structure.
"This building!" Pelen was shocked.
"What of it?"
"When we were last here, this was an empty lot." Pelen said. "That was only a handful of days ago! How did they build it so quickly? Even the Angels are not capable of such."
"It appeared, overnight." the Angel said without being asked. "We know not how it was done, save that we paid for it and it was done for us."
Again Efram's people showed their almost god-like power. Pavel knew he would have to learn more of this, one day. He had enough problems on his plate right now, though.
"We are going to the Temple of the Future!" Pelen said in almost horror, as they walked up the steps of what was undoubtedly a venerated structure, built of finely polished stone and decorated with frescoes and a row of columns supporting a narrow porch above the front of the building. Men had always built their most central structures in this style, as if this one form of building signified that important and revered things lay within.
"What's wrong with that?" Jethro asked him.
"Only those who are married and wish to have children are allowed within!" Pelen said.
"No longer." the Angel said sourly. "The Tribunal has spoken."
Pelen reached and clung to Pavel's side. It was obvious that whatever lay within had an element of terror for Pelen, but Pavel had no time to find ask why this was. He would have to see for himself.
Inside, a curving corridor lined with marble. The sides were not curved in unison, a large, rather fat crescent-shaped open area was just within the doors, and here stood a man dressed in robes that reminded Pavel of the Priests of the Temple of Children back in his home valley, rose and greeted them with a beaming expression. As they neared, Pavel saw with some surprise that his eyes were a vivid purple color, and were twice the size of his own.
"Welcome grandchildren, young lovers, to the Temple of the Future!" It was obviously a rote greeting.
"They are not here to bear children." the Angel stated. "The Tribunal has decreed that all who wish to see within the Temple may do so. Go with them, show and explain everything, and answer any questions that they may ask of you."
The man was shocked, but did not demur, he bowed to the Angel and then led the way within. Beyond the first curve was a dimpled area perhaps some four feet across, and covered by a flickering light Pavel recognized as a form of force-shield.
"This...this is the Alcove of Evaluation." the man gestured to the telephone-booth-sized area. "We have our married couples step inside it one at a time, and...and this tells us which of the three ways of children they are suited for."
"Suited for?" Pavel asked. "It's not a matter of their choosing?"
"Only one of the three ways works for any one couple." the priest said.
"Grandfather?" Pelen said tentatively.
"Yes, my grandson?" the priest responded.
"You're related?" Jethro asked.
The priest smiled. "It is the title of my office."
"Grandfather, is...would it be possible for me to use the Alcove? Just...just to see what it says?"
The priest frowned, then smiled. "An evaluation is usually reserved for those who are married, but it seems that all the rules have been changed. Yes, if you will step inside the Alcove, I will operate it for you."
Whatever the trapping surrounding it, the Alcove was a machine. When Pelen stepped inside, a transparent shield slid down to box him in, and then the entire alcove glowed for some ten seconds.
The priest gazed at a readout that glowed from a marble wall, an area only slightly clearer than the rest of the wall, as the process completed. "It is done. Now, we must evaluate one of you so that we may run the comparison."
"Pavel?" Pelen said. "Please?" The simple plan was obvious upon his face. Pelen was sizing Pavel up for a husband after all.
Pavel smiled, and stepped into the alcove. The light blurred his vision, he noticed, quite a lot more than it had with him outside. But it was over in a moment and he stepped out.
"Ah, a fine matching!" the priest said. "You could take the first way at a risk of losing the child of only some one-in-two, but the second way would be assured. I would ask such a couple as you to attempt the first way at least once for the sake of the future. Ah, so many these days must take the second or third way. It saddens me."
"Why is that?"
"Because children conceived in the third way are unable to have children of their own." the priest said. "It is a process, a cumulative progression. Children conceived in the first way are born with genetic variations so that they usually must choose the second way, children of the second way have even more genetic variation and must choose the third, and those of the third way have no choice at all, but must live without children."
"I...I see." Pavel said. And he did! The Angels' "three ways" were flawed!
"But how is this possible?" Pelen asked.
"You, my grandson, were conceived in the first way. Yes?" the priest asked.
"Yes." Pelen agreed.
"I knew that when I saw you. Your hair, such a bright color, is an unmistakable mark of the first way. All who are born in the first way show some such mark of their birth, the hair or the eyes or the skin."
"You're a child of the first way." Pavel ventured.
"Indeed I am." the priest beamed. "As you can tell by my eyes. Other than for my eyes, I show no variations from my birth parents."
"My hair?" Pelen felt it as if it were a stranger to him of a sudden.
"Your fathers have a different color hair, yes?"
"Ye--es." Pelen said. Pavel nodded himself, for Pelen's father's hair was a dark brown.
"And you know that things such as color are inherited."
"Yes." Pelen said. "I had wondered about that while in school, my hair and my fathers' hair, brown and black, and mine being orange."
"Well, now you have the answer, and it is one that we used to hold until the time of children." the priest said. He was being communicative, but his face sagged with the strain; you could tell he was distressed by the secrets he was telling, but obeying the Angel's instructions; he was telling everything.
The corridor narrowed then expanded again, and now the area was more nearly a half-circle with a bite taken out of the flat end. It seemed a wasteful way to make rooms, since no doors had been seen so far, vast areas of the building were totally shut off from this corridor behind the marbled walls. But the area that was available...held two men lying upon tables slanted at a forty-five degree angle with the bottom nearly resting on the floor and a ledge there to let them half-stand, half-lie upon the table. Between and above them sat a large glass-like container which was part of the wall, welded to it, filled with some form of effervescing liquid. Nearby an Angel stood, his claw-like feet sprawled awkwardly upon the marble-tiled floor, poised as if supervising carefully one part of the wall.
"Here is the first way." the priest gestured. "We are fortunate that it is being used at this time. Watch and you will see it at work."
Pavel looked carefully. He had expected to see what he had always seen on Desire, some plant or animal that aided in birth. But it was mechanical, entirely. The hum of a machine gaining in tempo while lights on the walls lit up in sections, obviously the device was building up speed to operation.
The two men lay with long tubes stuck onto their penises, their bodies bare and well-muscled, their faces were simple and bore the signs of hard work throughout their life. Common laborers of the field, here in this place their bodies took on a certain dignity and pride. One of the men's hair had a purplish hue to it, the other had an orange tint to his skin. Pavel would have hardly noticed either no more than he had noted Pelen's bright hair, except that he now knew what to look for.
"These are both children of the first way, but their variations are so slight that we have talked them into trying this." the priest said. "We think they have only a one-in-ten chance of having a child in the first way, but it would be such a blessing if they succeed that they have agreed. This is their third attempt."
The whine of the machines reached a feverish pitch, the lights were now all lighted, and the men constricted in sudden gyrations. At first, Pavel thought they were being shocked, but then they reached for each other and Pavel realized that they had been brought to orgasm. Pavel waited for it to be over, but the machine went on and on and the men writhed and gasped and groaned in a frenzy of orgasmic bliss. Moaning and clutching each other, they gripped and fumbled at each other. Groaning, gasping and sighing, after nearly a minute, they were finished and lay exhausted on the slanted table.
Inside the glass container above them, the liquid reached a boiling pitch, and a glob formed in the central area. The men noticed the change in the liquid and sat up, eagerly staring at the mixture. Pavel realized that it must contain their unborn child, in the process of being created.
The Angel touched places on the walls, and Pavel wondered how he knew where to touch.
After a time, the Angel shook his head. "It has failed again. If you will return in three days' time, we will try once more."
One of the men worked his lips hard. "Not again."
"Mikra...." the other man said, laying a hand upon his arm.
"No! Not again. We shall take the second way."
"Come, this way, if you please." the priest said. And they left the two lovers struggling with their hard choice.
"And now we move to the second way." the priest took them to another section of a size with the one before, save that instead of being to the left, it was to the right. Pavel realized that this curving corridor must actually mask the equipment that was being used for the corridor changed direction and shape so widely; it was graceful yet made no sense otherwise.
"The second way's use is so common that we have a couple waiting their turn here."
Pavel was surprised, in that they were not merely waiting. They had some wired caps attached to their heads, and were in the process of having sex, one fucking the other while a younger robed human stood by holding a cup and a bored expression on his face. The skin of the man being mounted was bluish hued, and his partner had arms that seemed one-third again as long as they should be, as if when he stood erect, his arms would hang to his knees. Now they were wrapped around his partner while still some space existed between them, and he was humping his lover with an air of a duty to be performed.
As the man reached his climax, the young acolyte moved quickly, he grasped the man's prick and guided it to the cup, and the man blasted his load into the waiting receptacle. They were collecting semen!
Pavel would have asked, but then he saw the men using the second way.
At first he thought it was the Waters of Life, but then he saw how the water bubbled. It was that same water as he had seen in the smaller container of the first way. Inside this frothing mixture, the men lay masturbating each other. Pavel saw something else within the water, something obscured by the water but looking horribly crablike.
One of the men gasped, groaned and jetted his load, the crab within the water moved quickly (and now Pavel could see it was machinery of some kind) and the jism was suctioned into its maw.
"They cannot stop at a single use, as can those of the first way." the priest said. "They must be within the water for four hours, and in that time they must reach climax ten times and the machine must catch it all. It is reliable enough in its way, provided the sperm interacts sufficiently with the elixir-of-life formula and can be combined. But as I have said, the result can suffer a wide variation in its genetic makeup, due to the elixir-of-life's reaction. The combination is usually markedly altered from the human norm. The most common of these, although a minority in fact, is the increased size."
"Like the Guards at the Tribunal." Jethro said.
"Of course." the priest replied.
"Then what is the third way?" Pavel asked.
The priest looked sad. "I have always felt it is better if those who must take the third way would forego children. So often the real variation does not show up in time, and the parents are burdened with a child that needs constant care. But hope is powerful and many try at least once."
For a last-ditch choice, it was well-patronized. Five couples were here, many looking haggard or desperate as the priest had said, but present.
Guards, too, were here, some score of them, and Pavel was surprised to see them all masturbating, arrayed about the central pool of elixir-of-life, this was a large pool that filled the entire back end of the building, enough that a couple could and did submerge themselves in the water, and engaged in mutual oral copulation, sucking each other in the bubbling water.
"How does this work?" Pelen asked with a horrid fascination.
"The water is allowed to do its work unhampered or unguided by our tools." the priest said. "The child is allowed to form within the waters entirely. So often we must take the malformed infant and either give it care or a proper burial, but sometimes--oh, too rare, less than one in five times--the child will come out an approximation of its parents. It is wrong, so wrong, for us to offer this choice, I have complained about it to the Tribunal at every opportunity."
"But they have no other way to get children." Jethro said. "They know their chances?"
"Yes." the priest said. "We explain it very carefully."
"So they made their choice, let them do it." Jethro said pragmatically.
The priest regarded Jethro's resolved face, then shook his head in sadness. "Spend a week here dealing with the progeny of the third way, and then say that again." he said. "The hardest is when the child lives but should not. We use the Guards to aid the child's creation, they are strong and healthy, they give the child its best chance, but sometimes...sometimes we must choose to ease the child's exit from this world."
"You kill it." Jethro stated flatly.
"We release it." the priest said. "From its burden of life."
"The waters use the sperm of the Guards as well as the parents?" Pelen asked. "It's not just the child of the two?"
"No." the priest said. "The parents predominate, but the Guards add their modicum to the genetic combination."
"So why not use regular people?" Jethro interjected.
The priest shook his head. "There are none left. None within this valley."
"Except for me and my men." Pavel said.
"Just you." Jethro opined. "The army will be back in Medina Jadeed by now. They used Angels to fly them to the doorway. Pelen has that fireplace hair, and you know how...limited I am."
"You are a true-human?" the priest asked Pavel.
"I'm a clone-child of a true human, yes." Pavel said.
"Then please, for the love of mercy, help these men." the priest begged. "Tarry here a short while, the Waters will partake of your genetic gifts for days."
Now? So soon after the wracking extended orgasms of that room?
"You expect Pavel to get over there next to those goons of yours?" Jethro said. "Why, they fucked the ever-loving shit out of him and me the last time we visited this valley."
"They shall serve you, not you them." the priest said.
"I would help." Jassem spoke up. He had been so quiet, Pavel had nearly forgotten him, glued to Jethro's side as he was.
"Over my dead body." Jethro said. "You've done been altered by some Water, unless you forgot."
"I wish to, if I can be of help." Jassem said. "It is a small thing to do." His face grinned impishly, teasingly. "Besides, these large men are quite attractive."
"You wouldn't say that if they'd been sticking their dicks up your ass for eight hours straight." Jethro said emphatically.
"But this time they shall not, no?" Jassem looked at the priest.
"No. Guards! These are true-humans. Come and assist them to enhance the elixir-of-life pool."
The Guards were uniformly large, broad, oversexed and dim-witted. The ones nearest them turned and walked toward Pavel and his friends, cocks flopping back and forth, still erect, as they approached the group.
"Hey, I know these guys." one of them said.
"And I remember you." Jethro said. "You get away from us!"
"Aw, come on, you weren't that bashful back when we were fucking your ass. You moaned real pretty-like." the big broad, dark-skinned guard grinned down at him, teeth shining like a shark's grin in the dark face.
"The hell I did!"
Pavel had to laugh. Maybe the mist was entering this room, maybe the waters gave off some power of turgidity, but sex again didn't sound so bad right then.
"Well, if these guys will keep their pricks to themselves, we'll do it." Pavel decided.
"Certainly." Jassem said.
"Not me!" Jethro said. "Jassem, please...."
"The day will come when we will want children." Jassem reminded him. "We may need the help of another to achieve it, as you yourself have said. By helping now, we build up karma to deliver us help when we need it."
"Well...okay, but I get to fuck that one!" Jethro pointed at the grinning guard. "Good and hard, too! Make him 'moan real pretty' too, I'll bet."
If he expected a protest, he didn't get one. The guard just grinned on and said, "Welcome and let us hurry, for this couple could use our help."
Pavel let the big, broad, huge men lead him to the water's edge. He would not enter this time, he would merely stand on the edge and let his jism fly out into the water.
"Why don't you use the men you have in those soak pits?" Jethro asked of a sudden.
"How do you think they make this stuff?" the guard with him said. "They make it, we finish priming it. When we're done with it, we ship it off to the Djinni, who turn it into royal jelly. Nothing is wasted, including all the jizz that we shoot into this. Now, come on and stick it in me. I bet you haven't got four inches there. I won't even feel it!"
A large paw of a hand grabbed Pavel's crotch and his specially-tailored pants fell open almost obligingly under that heavy impact.
Another pair of big hands scooped under his arms from behind, a big body crushed against his and huge lips began to smother his neck and shoulder with kisses and sucking, licking, slathering caresses with mouth and tongue.
"Yeah, come on, little man." the guard said who had a grip on Pavel's pud and was yanking it. "Let's see you juice that thing. This tiny thing can't hold more'n a few ounces, I'll bet."
"You'd be right." Pavel gasped. He was certain now there was mist in the air. Perhaps piped in deliberately, perhaps it was just the vagary of the winds in these mountains that concentrated the mist and sent it in lumps here and there, so that you were free of it entirely one minute, and inundated the next. No matter, he was turned on at a time when he needed to be. Pavel rested his head against the enormous chest behind him and opened his mouth and groaned.
"Yeah, come on little man, squirt that juice." the guard at his feet said. At his feet. Yes, the guard who was pumping his prod had slid down to his knees and was now moving his face over to...oh, God! To slip Pavel's balls into his mouth and work them with a rolling, wet tongue that juggled them in their ballsac while the hand still churned away at him.
"Ah, hah!" came a Guard's call, followed by Jethro's triumphant yell.
"Yeah, take it all, you loud-mouthed scum! Call me tiny, will you! Take it all and shut up!"
"Ah, hah, hunkh!" the Guard groaned.
"That'll learn you, you smart-mouthed bastard." Jethro grunted in satisfaction. Pavel could just see Jethro's smaller form behind the bent-over guard. Beside him, Jassem was being plied as Pavel, by two Guards who were holding him dangerously close to the water, almost suspending him outwards over it. Jassem was relaxing into their grip and looked like he was enjoying himself immensely, even though one Guard's hand had obviously found and jammed a thick finger up his ass and another one had discovered the depths of his navel with another. No wonder Jassem was liking this!
"Come on, shoot it now or this couple'll miss out." the Guard pointed out. Pavel looked, the men in the water were thrashing about in obvious pre-orgasmic gyrations. The Guard was right, he'd better shoot it soon.
"Come on, pump it hard." he coaxed the Guard.
Then Pavel felt the huge prick that pressed against his ass. It felt slick, from water or lubrication or sweat, no matter, he leaned over, and the Guard chuckled and Pavel felt the huge schlong slip into him. It filled Pavel, filled him to the brim, the huge cockhead bumped his prostate, the hand on his cock was sending urgent messages all through his body, and Pavel felt the familiar risings of climax.
"Oh, come on, harder, harder!" Pavel grunted. The Guard behind him took that as leave to fuck Pavel, and Pavel felt the huge pud pull out of him, almost turning his asshole inside out in the process, then it plunged into him again, and Pavel felt the heavy balls slap his butt. Jeez, this Guard was big even for the Guards! Pavel looked at the men in the water with passion-bleared eyes and they were jerking, releasing each other to send pearl streamers into the water, and Pavel groaned, his cock rose up hard as steel and larger than life, and then he burst his load out into the waters being churned by the two lovers.
He watched with glazed eyes as silvery streams shot from his cock, which was a blur in the Guard's hand, arcing high out onto the churning waters, and as it touched the water glowed. This was definitely related to the Waters of Life of the Arabs in some way, the glow was the same essence of life itself, and his jizz turned golden in the light as he pumped more after that first heavy blast, and Pavel watched the final dribbles hit the water at his feet, for in the time previous he had been leaned out over the water the same as Jassem. Pavel gasped, panted, caught his breath, as his world rocked and reeled, threatening to rise up and slap him in the face. Gradually, he regained some sense of his self once again.
He was being fucked hard now, the Guard grunting and heaving, and Pavel felt the cock turning poker-hot in his ass, and he grunted, "No, pull out now!"
The Guard groaned and ignored him, but his buddy moved in and Pavel was almost roughly jerked off of the huge pud and pulled out of the way by a third pair of hands, and the Guard who had been fucking him staggered over to the water, angry-red prick in his pumping hand, and he blasted his wad into the glistening waters.
"Watch now, watch!" the priest said with gleaming eyes.
Pavel looked over, Jassem was just now reaching his climax, to spew his Arab jizz into the water, and it gleamed once again, for Jassem was a true son of Earth. Jethro continued to butt-fuck the arrogant Guard who had challenged him, and it took two of the Guards to watch him and, when he reached his climax, they rudely jerked him off his prostrate companion and held him over the waters, struggling and yelling in pleasure and offense, and his cock, untended, sprayed the waters with his Aryan-born seed.
"Watch the waters!" the priest chanted again. Pavel did, but couldn't see much of anything. The waters were so agitated that he couldn't see the men save as their heads were above water and their bodies below were fractured globes of flesh-color.
No, that wasn't a part of them! One of the globes was a true globe that grew, became oblong, and then, as Pavel watched, it formed a head, legs and arms, and the priest waded into the water, reached into the boiling mass and pulled out in triumph...a child!
"Hah!" the priest crowed. "See! The third way is not flawed! It is the use which is incomplete!"
"That's what I said." Jethro panted.
The priest waded out of the water with the proud parents. "See, his hair will be azure-colored, perhaps, but that is all." the priest said. "A child of the first way could ask for no better!"
"So why don't you use the men from the soak pits in here?" Jethro asked.
The priest turned, looked at Jethro. "You have awakened these waters. We must move fast. You may leave now. I must summon as many as I can to use these waters while they can."
"Should we stick around?" Pavel asked.
"No, the water is done with you." the priest said. "Any further action by you would negate it, turn it into useless sludge. You may go, please!"
Such an odd combination of order and begging. Pavel caught his friends' eyes and they left.
"I still don't see why they don't use some of the men in there." Jethro complained. "Hell, they had plenty of them. I saw."
"The soak pits require many men to be brought to life." Pelen said. "I never knew this use for it, but I know that they have trouble getting enough men into the pit."
"Or maybe they just didn't think about it." Jethro put in. "Angels aren't very smart, I've noticed."
"Let's go the Tribunal." Pavel said. "We'll just ask them."
The time for answers was at hand.
END OF CHAPTER 22
THIS STORY WILL CONCLUDE WITH CHAPTER 24