“But surely you and the others have taken quantities of the stuff away from the Valley of the Geyser. Do you mean—”
“Because we gathered the Peyote does not mean that we have ever tasted it. We gather it for the Duca. To taste would be complete, utter sacrilege. Have you been eating it?”
Inwardly Kirby was chuckling at this added proof of the buncumbe with which the Duca—and other Ducas—had fooled all.
“Of course I’ve been eating the Peyote.”
“And—and nothing has happened to you?” Naida asked.
“Hardly. I certainly haven’t been blasted by the Lords of the Sun and Moon, or the Serpent either!”
Naida and all the others were silent. The conflict between their reverence for the food and their clear desire to eat it, now that it was become the food of their leader, was pathetic.
Kirby put one of the strips in Naida’s hand.
“Why not?” he asked. “We have bested the Duca in fair fight. We have seized his tower. Why not eat his food?”