Steve's patience snapped.
"He is a Man, O priestess—even as I am a Man, and my comrades also!"
The priestess Beth fell back a pace, her eyes glazed with something akin to horror. "Thou art ... a ... Man?"
"Not only I," Steve told her, "but the very gods you worship, O puzzled one. You cannot believe? Then come!" He spoke gently. "Come with me to the Mother, Beth. You cannot doubt her. She will tell you I speak the truth. You, Jon—come with us!"
Eager to settle this matter once and for all, he led the way back into the citadel, down the corridors to the hoam of the Mother. Under stern command to maintain a truce they left the warrior band and the knot of captive Wild Ones. Jon followed hopefully, the priestess like one stricken. At last they reached the room wherein waited the matriarch. She rose and hobbled forward to greet them.
"The battle is done, O Wise Ones? You have destroyed our foes? Aye, I see it is so. But—but you bring one with you? Why is this?"
The priestess broke her silence, bursting forward to kneel trembling before the old woman.
"Mother, doom is upon us! The legends erred. These are no Deliverers who have risen from the tomb to aid us, but mocking demons! He, the one called Dwain, has confessed that he is no god, but a Man! And with horrid blasphemy—forgive me, O Mother!—he said that, yea, even our gods were Men!"
The eyes of the Mother clouded, her lips moved in an unintelligible phrase that might have been a prayer. And she stared at Duane beseechingly.