She swung open the great doors and the pair stepped into the chamber beyond.

Garth found it necessary to hold his breath until the dust had subsided somewhat.

The chamber seemed vast, larger than it actually was; it extended up the full remaining height of the temple and included the entire inside of the dome. It was approximately square, about forty feet on a side, but its dimensions were distorted by smoke and dust swimming thick in the stagnant air. Dim colored light seeped through dirt-caked stained glass, painting murky patterns on the worn wooden floor and on the intricately carved railings that adorned three tiers of balconies. These extended completely around all sides. A brighter patch of untinted light flooded the center of the room, pouring from a ring of windows at the base of the dome; in the middle of this circle stood the altar, Garth saw hazily. The brilliant sunlight lit it in a blaze of splendor, but simultaneously obscured it behind a wall of equally well-lit cobwebs, incense smoke, and drifting dust.

The altar was a broad, square platform, raised two or three feet off the floor, built of carven wood, its sides upholstered in silk, its edges clad in corroded copper thick with verdigris; the top had strips of faded, moldering carpeting along each side, and a square of plain mahogany in the center.

There was nothing upon it except a thick layer of dust.

Garth stared at it resentfully.

"This, of course, is the temple sanctuary. It is here that we perform our rituals, affirming our devotion to the goddess, asking her to remember us and deal mercifully with us."

She paused, expecting Garth to comment; the room was beautiful, or had been once, and she seemed sure the overman would appreciate this. He, however, was not paying complete attention, and said nothing. Unsure whether this was rudeness, or whether he was too taken by the room to respond, she added, "Many of us like to come here often, aside from the ceremonies, and simply enjoy it."

Garth recovered himself. "Forgive me. I was distracted." He looked at the rest of the room: the webstrewn galleries, the cracked and dirtied colored windows, the smoke-softened column of sunlight. Despite the universal decay, the room was lovely, warm and inviting; perhaps the decay even helped, softening harsh colors, rounding sharp edges, blurring the flaws. It struck him that there was something very strange about such beauty in such a place. Should not the temple of decay be foul and malodorous? Should it not be slimy and rotting?

"It is not what I had expected," he said truthfully, when he saw that the priestess was still awaiting some comment.

"Oh?"

"No. I...I had thought there would be an idol."

"Perhaps there was, once; much of the original interior fell to dust long ago. As is inevitable for our faith, every part of the temple has been refurbished at least once; since we are required to use only perishable materials and to do what we can to promote their decay, eventually they fall away completely and must be replaced if the temple's usefulness is to continue. Save for the stone and some of the glass, I doubt any of the present structure is more than four or five centuries old."

"Four or five..." Garth was dumbfounded; his native city of Ordunin was less than three hundred and fifty years old, the most ancient surviving overman community. "How old is the temple?"

"Oh, it's only about two or three thousand years old, but of course it's not the original either; there has been a temple of P'hul ever since Dыsarra was founded."

"When was that?"

"Nobody really knows."

"Oh." It had not occurred to Garth that the city, or any city, could be more than two thousand years old. He struggled to accept such a concept.

"In any case, there has been no idol in my lifetime."

"Oh." Garth had hoped to somehow bring the conversation to the empty altar unobtrusively, but seemed to be meeting with no success-although these digressions were informative. He decided that a more direct approach was in order.

"I see your altar is empty, while the other temples in the city keep precious objects or ceremonial devices there."

"I know nothing of what the others do. We keep nothing upon the altar. It serves merely as a centerpiece for our rituals. Supplicants sometimes pray atop it; it is said such prayers are especially heeded."

"Has there ever been anything kept upon it, then?"

"Not that I know of, save for the dust; that, of course, is everywhere. Why do you ask?"

Garth saw no reason to deny the truth. "I was asked-by a philosopher of sorts-to see if I could obtain what stood upon your altar."

"Oh, I see." She smiled, the expression all the more horrible in the wash of green light that fell across her from a nearby window. "It must have been a surprise to see it empty."

"Yes, it was."

"You are welcome to take the dust, if you wish."

"Thank you; I appreciate this courtesy."

"It makes no difference to us; we sweep off the altar every few months anyway."

"Oh." Garth pulled the bag from his belt and looked at it dubiously; it was of a moderately coarse weave. It was quite likely it wouldn't hold dust very well.

But then, how much could that matter? It was, all in all, only dust. He knew nothing of magicks, but surely dust was dust. Feeling foolish, he scraped up a heap of dust from the altar, gray fluff of no distinction whatsoever, and stuffed it into the bag. That done, he knotted it shut and shoved it back under his belt.

"Thank you," he said again.

"Is that all you came for, then?"

"Yes."

"So I have spoken to no purpose?"

Garth did not like the tone of the priestess' voice. "I have found your words very interesting, woman. Do not feel that you have wasted your time."

"Have I not?"

"No. This visit has been most informative, truly."

"It may be more than that, of course." Her smile had returned.

"How mean you?"

"You have been in our temple for some time; perhaps the hand of the goddess is already upon you."

"What do you mean?"

"All those who serve P'hul here bear her signs; her priests are the senile, the diseased, those with leprosy and cancer and tuberculosis and all the other wasting sicknesses. The very air of this shrine is rich in disease. You have spoken at length with a leper, where most men flee from my slightest touch. It is very likely that you already carry some illness within you; if not my own, then one of the others."

Garth said nothing; he felt a brief instant of panic, but suppressed it immediately, reminding himself that, despite what this creature might believe, no overman had ever contracted leprosy. Nor were most other diseases worth his concern; very few human diseases could affect overmen, and those that could were either not contagious, or of the more virulent and fast-acting sort, not wasting sicknesses. Overmen had their own ills.

"Shall I escort you out, then? You have what you came for."

"I am in no hurry. I do not wish to offend your goddess by so quickly shunning her shrine."

"Truly? Perhaps I have wronged you in my thoughts."

Garth shrugged.

There was a sound behind them; both turned to see a bent, shuffling figure at the head of the stair, on the far side of the antechamber beyond the still-open doors.

It was a man, clad in the soft gray robes of a priest of P'hul; he was shriveled with age and moved slowly, as if in pain. His hair was white and unkempt, straggling down about his face, tangling indistinguishably with his beard. He blinked at the overman and the priestess.

"Greetings, Tiris. This overman is a visitor to our temple." The priestess spoke loudly, slowly, enunciating every word as carefully as she could with her deformed lip. The old man shuffled nearer; she said softly to Garth, "His hearing is poor. Tiris is the oldest of our priests; he is said to have the special favor of the goddess, to see things that others do not."