They were inside the sanctum, he saw, where he'd been left when he had first been brought to the city by the Dra Dur. The huge radioactive statue of the Anolyn was the only source of light. It shed a chill greenish pallor through the circular temple room.
The room itself was at least a hundred feet across, surrounded by pillared cloisters. They had come up behind the pillars where the feeble light from the idol scarcely reached.
The rhythmic chant came from the other side of the floor. Jupiter sucked in his breath. A procession of humans was filing out of the darkness.
A scrawny, naked Caligan was in the lead, making cabalistic signs with a phallic instrument resembling the Egyptian sistrum as he moved in front of the idol.
Behind him came the others, two by two—wild Kagans fresh from the jungle, a man with four arms, several with prehensile tails, some with fur and some hairless. They walked with the same dreamy preoccupied air of the humans that Jupiter had seen in the courtyard, and prostrated themselves before the glowing idol. They were possessed, dominated by the lone Anolyn who brought up the rear.
Lete was the fourth from the end.
The cymbals suddenly clashed and fell silent. The ritual was about to begin.
Jupiter brought the rifle to his shoulder, took careful aim at the purple-shelled octopod directing the ceremony, pulled the trigger.
VII