Dramocles: An Intergalactic Soap Opera by Robert Sheckley Read Free Book Online

overlooking Lake Melachaibo, where Drusilla kept the mysteries of the Great Goddess. This religion had, since ancient times, been concerned with fertility, piety, and the strict observation of ritual. Drusilla, as high priestess for Glorm, was considered the living representative of the Goddess, and spoke for her in the drugged frenzy that is necessary for true prophecy. Drusilla was also the final authority on that distinctive feature of the religion known as The Great Decorum.
    They proceeded on foot through the castle gate and into gloomy stone corridors illuminated only by beams of light through narrow slit windows high overhead. Chuch turned up his collar, saying, “It likes me not, these women’s mysteries.” And Vitello said, “This isn’t the way I came last time.”
    When they reached the central keep a high iron door opened and Drusilla stepped forward. Of middling height she was, and deep-breasted beyond the common consideration. Her hair, a glistening cascade of tooled red bronze, fell in fiery wavelets around her shapely shoulders. Her face, haughty and beautiful, framed cold gray eyes.
    “Come in,” she said. “Sorry to have inconvenienced you. We’re having the main entrance hall recarpeted.”
    Vitello was sent down to the lesser banquet hall to get some dinner. Drusilla led Prince Chuch to the Willow Audience Chamber. Brother and sister faced each other for the first time in nearly two years.
    It was a long, narrow room with one side a wall of glass, affording a splendid view of Lake Melachaibo, with stripe-sailed dhows moving along its gleaming surface. Chuch seated himself upon a small couch, and Drusilla took a Biltong chair nearby. A maid brought out Salvasie wine and the little honey cakes for which Ystrad was famous. After these amenities had been observed, Drusilla said, “Well, Chuch, and to what do I owe this most unpleasant visit?”
    “It’s been a long time, Dru,” said Chuch.
    “Not nearly long enough.”
    “You’re still angry at me?”
    “I certainly am. Your proposal that I sleep with you was an unpardonable insult to a priestess who is a champion of normal sexuality, which is to say, one woman with one unrelated man, or its converse.”
    “We could have been so good together, Dru,” Chuch said softly. “And we would have been committing incest, the big one, and so achieving semidivine status.”
    “I’ve got that already,” Drusilla said. “It comes with my priestess job. I can’t help it if you can’t get anything divine together by yourself. As for sleeping with you, even without the incest taboo, I’d rather couple with a yellow dog.”
    “So you said two years ago.”
    “So I still say.”
    “No matter,” Chuch said. “I’ve come here for an entirely different reason. You know, of course, that Dramocles has taken Aardvark, and presently invades Lekk.”
    “Yes, I’ve heard.”
    “And what do you think?”
    Drusilla hesitated, then said, “Official explanations have been offered.”
    “Which bear the mark of Max’s fine imagination.”
    “They do seem farfetched,” Drusilla said. “Frankly, I have been most disturbed. Thirty years of peace, a new era of progress begun, and then this. I’ve tried to reach Father on the phone, but all I get is his answering service. This isn’t like him at all. There must be a reasonable explanation.”
    “There is,” Chuch said, “and it should be plain enough to a woman like yourself, educated in the movements of the planets.”
    “You know I don’t believe in astrology.”
    “Nor do I. But astronomy’s another matter, is it not?”
    “What are you driving at?”
    “The fact that this is the first time in thirty years that the planets have been so situated in their orbits as to favor invading fleets from Glorm.”
    “You think Dramocles has been waiting all this time for that?”
    “Yes, that, and for the great celebration that has put all the local kings into his power.”
    Drusilla considered it and