The Redemption of Althalus
‘They sell horoscopes to gullible people who believe in that nonsense, and they charge a fairly steep price.’
‘Good. They swindle their parishioners, and then we swindle them. I love doing business with a man who devoutly believes he’s more clever than I am. Thanks for the information.’
‘Glad I could help. Do you need any pots or pans?’
‘Not right at the moment, no. Thanks all the same.’
‘He knows who you are, Althalus,’ Emmy’s voice warned.
‘Yes, I know. He’s clever, I’ll give him that, but he’s not really a merchant.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘He didn’t once ask me what line I was in. That’s the first question any merchant asks. No merchant wants a competitor right across the street. Should we get rid of him? Eliar and I could kill him right now.’
‘No. You two aren’t the ones who are supposed to deal with Khnom. Just be careful around him, that’s all.’
‘Where do we go now?’ Eliar asked.
‘There’s a merchant community over by the east wall,’ Althalus replied. ‘We’ll set up camp there and start looking for the one we want first thing in the morning.’
‘Could you make me some soap?’ Eliar asked as they led their horses off down the rubble-strewn street.
‘Probably. Why?’
‘Emmy wants me to take a bath. Is that the first thing that pops into every woman’s mind? Every time I’d visit my mother back home, those were usually the first words that came out of her mouth.’
‘You don’t like bathing, I take it?’
‘Oh, I’ll bathe if it really gets necessary, but once a week’s usually enough, isn’t it? Unless you’ve been cleaning the stables, of course.’
‘Emmy’s got a very sharp nose, Eliar. Let’s neither of us go out of our way to offend her.’
‘You too, Althalus,’ Emmy’s voice murmured.
‘I don’t need a bath, Em,’ he silently protested.
‘You’re wrong. You definitely need a bath. You’ve been riding for several weeks now, and you’ve got a very horsey fragrance about you. Bathe. Soon. Please.’
They started out early the following morning, and after a few awkward starts Eliar became more proficient. His open, boyish face helped quite a bit as he hopefully approached each hooded priest with his question. Most of the priests, Althalus noticed, refused to come right out and admit that they couldn’t read the alien script carved into the Knife-blade Eliar showed them. Their usual response was a brusque, ‘I’m too busy for that kind of nonsense.’ Several they encountered, however, offered to translate – for a price. One hollow-eyed fanatic launched a blistering denunciation, declaring that any script that he couldn’t read was obviously the handwriting of the devil himself.
Althalus and Eliar left him in the middle of the street still preaching to nobody in particular.
‘Here comes another one,’ Eliar said quietly. ‘Maybe we can start making wagers about what they’ll say when I show them the Knife. This one looks like an “I’m too busy” sort of fellow to me.’
‘I’d put him in the “I’ll have to charge you for a reading” crowd,’ Althalus replied, grinning.
‘What gives him away?’
‘He’s cock-eyed. He’s got one eye on the sky watching for Deiwos and the other on the ground looking for a penny that somebody might have dropped.’
‘I just hope he’s not like the last one. The next one who calls my Knife an instrument of the devil is going to get my fist in his face.’
The priest approaching them up the empty street had a gaunt, hungry look about him, and his disconnected eyes and wild hair gave him the appearance of a lunatic. His shabby brown robe was filthy, and there was a powerful odor about him.
‘Excuse me, your worship,’ Eliar said politely, going up to the cock-eyed holy man. ‘I just bought this Knife and it seems to have some kind of writing on the blade. I never got around to learning how to read, so I can’t tell what it says. Could you help me out?’
‘Let me see it,’ the priest growled in a harsh, rasping voice.
Eliar held out his laurel-leaf dagger.
The sudden scream was shockingly loud, echoing from the ruined walls of nearby buildings. The ragged priest stumbled back, covering his eyes with his hands and screaming as if he’d just been dipped in boiling pitch.
‘I hope you won’t take this personally, your worship,’ Eliar said, driving the Knife directly into the shrieking priest’s chest.
The scream cut off abruptly, and the dead man collapsed with not so much as a twitch.
Althalus spun, his eyes searching every vacant window and doorway. As luck had it, they were alone. ‘Get him out of sight!’ he barked at Eliar. ‘Hurry!’
Eliar quickly put the Knife away, seized the fellow’s wrists and dragged him behind a partially collapsed wall. ‘Did anybody see us?’ he asked just a bit breathlessly.
‘I don’t think so,’ Althalus replied. ‘Come here and keep watch. I want to search the body.’
‘What for?’ Eliar stood up. His hands were trembling slightly.
‘Calm down,’ Althalus told him. ‘Get a grip on yourself.’
‘I’m all right, Althalus,’ Eliar said. ‘It’s just that he startled me when he started screaming like that.’
‘Why did you apologize before you killed him?’
‘Just trying to be polite, I guess. Mother taught me to mind my manners. You know how mothers are.’
‘Watch the street. Let me know if somebody happens along.’ Althalus roughly searched the body, not really knowing what he might be looking for, but the dead man’s pockets had absolutely nothing in them. He kicked a bit of rubble over the body, and then he came back out into the street.
‘Did you find anything?’ Eliar asked. His voice still sounded a little excited.
‘Calm down,’ Althalus told him. ‘If you’re going to do this, do it right. People who are all worked up make mistakes.’
Then a black-robed priest came striding up the rubble-littered street toward them. He was a fairly young man, and his hair was a rich auburn color. His dark eyes were flashing indignantly. ‘I saw what you just did!’ he said. ‘You men are murderers!’
‘Shouldn’t you get a few details before you start making accusations like that?’ Althalus said calmly.
‘You killed him in cold blood!’
‘My blood wasn’t particularly cold,’ Althalus said. ‘Was yours, Eliar?’
‘Not really,’ Eliar replied.
‘The man was not a priest. Reverend Sir,’ Althalus told their accuser. ‘Quite the opposite – unless Daeva’s set up a priesthood of his own here lately.’
‘Daeva!’ the youthful priest gasped. ‘How did you know that name?’
‘Is it supposed to be a secret?’ Althalus asked mildly.
‘That information is not supposed to be in the hands of the general population. Ordinary people aren’t equipped to deal with it.’
‘Ordinary people are probably much wiser than you think they are, Reverend,’ Althalus told him. ‘Every family has a few black sheep. There’s nothing really unusual about it. Deiwos and Dweia aren’t really happy that their brother went astray, but it wasn’t really their fault.’
‘You’re a priest, aren’t you?’
‘You make it sound almost like an accusation,’ Althalus said, smiling slightly. ‘Eliar and I sort of work for Deiwos, but I wouldn’t go quite so far as to call us priests. The man Eliar just put to sleep was one of the people who work for Daeva. As soon as we discovered that, we killed him. There’s a war in the works right now, Reverend. Eliar and I are soldiers, and we’re going to fight that war.’
‘I’m a soldier of Deiwos, too,’ the priest asserted.
‘That hasn’t been established yet, my young friend. There’s a little test you’d have to take first. That’s what you just saw happen here. The fellow lying over behind that wall didn’t pass the test, so Eliar killed him.’
‘The stars haven’t said anything about a war.’
‘Maybe the news hasn’t reached them yet.’
‘The stars know everything.’
‘Maybe. But maybe they’ve been told to keep the information to themselves. If I happened to be the one who’s running this war, I don’t think I’d be scrawling my battle-plans across the sky every night, would you?’
The priest’s eyes grew troubled. ‘You’re attacking the very core of religion,’ he accused.
‘No. I’m attacking a misconception. You look at the sky and imagine that you’re seeing pictures up there, but they aren’t really pictures, are they? They’re just disconnected points of light. There isn’t a Raven up there, or a Wolf, or a Serpent, or any other imaginary picture. The war’s right here, not up there. But this is all beside the point. Let’s find out if you really are one of the soldiers of the Sky-God.’
‘I have taken a vow to serve him,’ the priest asserted devoutly.
‘Did he ever get around to telling you whether or not he accepted your vow?’ Althalus asked slyly. ‘Maybe you don’t qualify.’
The auburn-haired young man’s eyes grew even more troubled.
‘You’re filled with doubts, aren’t you, friend?’ Althalus said sympathetically. ‘I know that feeling very, very well. Sometimes your faith falters and everything you want to believe seems to be nothing but a mockery and a deception – some cruel joke.’
‘I want to believe! I try so hard to make myself believe.’
‘Eliar and I are here to make it easier for you,’ Althalus assured him. ‘Show him the Knife, Eliar.’
‘If you say so,’ Eliar said obediently. He looked at the troubled priest. ‘Don’t get excited about this, Your Worship,’ he said. ‘I’m going to show my Knife to you. I’m not threatening you with it or anything. There’s some writing on the blade that you’re supposed to read to us. If you can’t read it, we’ll shake hands and part friends. If you do happen to see a word on the blade, you’ll be joining us. This is that test Althalus was talking about.’
‘Just show him the Knife, Eliar,’ Althalus said. ‘You don’t have to make a speech to him.’
‘He gets grouchy sometimes,’ Eliar told the now-baffled priest. ‘He’s the oldest man in the world, and you know how grouchy old men get sometimes. We’d better get down to business before he starts jumping up and down and frothing at the mouth.’
‘Eliar!’ Althalus almost shouted. ‘Show him the Knife!’
‘You see what I mean about him?’ Eliar said. He took the Knife out from under his belt and pointed at the complex engraving on the blade. ‘This is what you’re supposed to try to read,’ he explained. ‘The word sort of jumps right out at you, so you don’t really have to work at it too hard.’
‘Eliar!’ Althalus almost pleaded.
‘I’m just trying to help him, Althalus.’ Eliar held the hilt of the dagger firmly in his fist and turned his hand to hold the blade directly in front of the trembling priest’s pale face. ‘What does it say. Your Worship?’ he asked politely.
The youthful priest went paler still, as if every drop of blood had drained from his face. ‘Illuminate,’ he replied so reverently that it seemed almost a prayer.
The dagger in Eliar’s fist broke into joyful song.
‘I knew he was the one, Althalus,’ Eliar said in an off-hand sort of way. ‘That’s why I was trying to sort of ease him into it. You’re a fairly good sergeant, but sometimes you’re just a little rough. You ought to work on that, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
‘Thanks,’ Althalus replied in a flat, almost unfriendly way.
‘It’s part of my job, Althalus,’ Eliar replied, tucking the Knife back under his belt. ‘I’m sort of your second in command, so if I see a way to do things better, I’m supposed to suggest it to you. You don’t have to listen if you don’t want to, of course, but I’d be letting you down if I didn’t say it, wouldn’t I?’
‘Don’t say anything, Althalus,’ Emmy silently commanded.
Althalus sighed. ‘No, dear,’ he replied in a resigned tone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The auburn-haired young priest had sunk limply down onto a mossy stone, and he sat staring at the ground in a kind of distracted wonder.
‘Are you all right?’ Eliar asked their new companion.
‘I have seen the word of God,’ the priest replied in a trembling voice. ‘Deiwos has spoken to me.’
‘Yes,’ Eliar replied. ‘We heard him, too.’ Then he amended that. ‘Well, actually we heard the Knife, but since it’s God’s Knife in the first place, it sort of amounts to the same thing, I guess.’
‘Why did the Knife make that sound?’ The priest’s voice was still shaking and filled with awe.
‘I think that’s God’s way of letting us know that you’re the one we’ve been looking for. My name’s Eliar.’
‘I’m known as Bheid,’ the priest replied, looking into the young Arum’s face with a puzzled expression.
‘I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Bheid,’ Eliar said, grasping the priest’s hand.
‘Aren’t you a bit young to be a holy man?’ Bheid asked. ‘Most holy men I’ve known are much older.’
Eliar laughed. ‘Nobody’s ever called me a holy man before, and I’m not, really. I’m just a soldier who happens to be working for God right now. I don’t really understand what’s going on, but that’s all right. A soldier doesn’t have to understand. He just has to do as he’s told.’
Bheid started to rise, but Eliar put one hand on his shoulder. ‘It might be better if you sat still for a while,’ he suggested. ‘If you’re feeling at all the way I did when I first read the Knife, you’re probably a little wobbly right now. God’s got a very loud voice. I’m sure you noticed that.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Bheid replied fervently. ‘What are we supposed to do now?’
‘You’ll have to ask Althalus here. He’s the only one who can talk to Emmy, and Emmy’s the one who makes the decisions.’
‘Who’s Emmy?’
‘As I understand it, she’s the sister of God, but right now she sort of looks like a cat, and she spends all her time sleeping in that hood Althalus has on the back of his cloak. It’s sort of complicated. Emmy’s older than the sun, and she’s very sweet, but if you make a mistake and cross her, she’ll swat the end of your nose right off.’
Bheid looked at Althalus. ‘Is this boy all right?’ he asked.
‘Eliar?’ Althalus replied. ‘I think so. Of course he hasn’t had anything to eat for an hour or two, so he might be a little light-headed.’
‘I don’t understand any of this at all,’ Bheid confessed.
‘Good. That’s the first step toward wisdom.’
‘This might all make more sense if I knew your sign, Althalus – and Eliar’s as well. If I can cast your horoscopes, I’ll probably know just who you are.’
‘Do you actually believe that, Bheid?’ Althalus asked.
‘Astrology’s the core of all religion,’ Bheid told him. ‘Deiwos has written our destinies in the stars. The duty of the priesthood is to study the stars so that we can give man the word of God. What’s your sign? When were you born?’
‘A very long time ago, Bheid,’ Althalus said with a faint smile. ‘I don’t think you’d have much luck trying to cast my horoscope, because the stars have changed a lot since then. They had different names, and the people who looked at the skies didn’t see them in the same combinations that you do. Half of the Wolf was the bottom of something the old sky-watchers called the Turtle, and what astrologers call the Boar now was the top half.’
‘That’s blasphemy!’ Bheid exclaimed.
‘I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Bheid. Those astrologers all died, so they won’t be able to accuse you.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I know, but they’d see it that way, wouldn’t they?’ Althalus put his hand on Bheid’s arm. ‘There aren’t really any pictures in the sky, you know. As I said before, the stars aren’t connected with each other to make pictures for us to look at, but you’ve already guessed that, haven’t you? That’s why you’re having your crisis of faith. You want to believe that there’s a Wolf and a Boar and a Dragon up there, but when you look, you just can’t really see them, can you?’
‘I try,’ Bheid almost wept. ‘I try so very hard, but they just aren’t there.’
‘Things have just been rearranged, Bheid. You won’t have to look at the sky any more, because Eliar’s got the Knife of Deiwos. The Knife will tell us where to go next.’
‘Are we going to leave Awes?’
‘I’m sure we are. We have a long way to go, I think.’
‘You’re wasting time, Althalus,’ Emmy’s voice crackled inside his head. ‘You and Bheid can speculate about the stars on the way back to Osthos.’
‘Osthos!’ Althalus protested out loud. ‘Emmy, we just came from there!’
‘Yes, I know. Now we have to go back.’
‘Were you talking with Emmy just now?’ Eliar demanded. ‘Did she say that we have to go to Osthos again? I can’t go back there, Althalus! Andine would have me killed if I went back!’
‘Is there something wrong?’ Bheid asked, sounding very confused.
‘We just got our marching orders,’ Althalus told him. ‘Eliar’s a little bit unhappy about them.’
‘Did something happen just now that I missed?’
‘Emmy just told me that we have to go to Osthos.’
‘I’m not sure I understand all this talk about somebody named Emmy.’
‘Emmy’s the messenger of Deiwos – sort of. It’s a bit more complex than that, but let’s keep it simple for right now. Deiwos tells Emmy what he wants done. Then she tells me, and I pass it on.’
‘We’re taking orders from a cat?’ Bheid asked incredulously.
‘No, we’re taking orders from God. We can talk about that on our way to Osthos, though. Emmy wants us to start getting ready to leave.’ Althalus glanced about. ‘Let’s pile some more rocks on top of that dead man so that he’s not quite so visible. Then we’ll go pick up your belongings, and I’ll buy you a horse. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.’
They concealed the body more thoroughly and started off through the ruins toward the northern end of Awes. ‘Who’s this Andine person you were talking about?’ Bheid asked Eliar.
‘She’s the ruler of Osthos,’ Eliar replied. ‘She wants to kill me.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘Well,’ Eliar replied with a lightly pained expression, ‘I did sort of kill her father, I guess, but it was during a war, and that kind of thing happens during wars. I was just doing my job, but Andine took it personally. I didn’t really mean anything by it. I was just following orders, but she can’t quite understand that, I guess.’
‘Did any of that make any sense to you?’ Bheid asked Althalus with a perplexed look.
‘You almost had to have been there,’ Althalus told him. ‘It was all very complicated. We can talk about it on our way to Osthos.’
They went to the northern end of Awes where the black-robed priests stayed, picked up Bheid’s blankets and his few other belongings, and then returned to the rudimentary camp where Althalus and Eliar had spent the previous night. Then Eliar and Bheid went to the corral of a horse trader and returned with a mount for their newest member.
‘I’m awfully hungry, Althalus,’ Eliar said hopefully. ‘Could we have beef tonight instead of fish?’
‘I’ll make a fire,’ Bheid offered.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Althalus told him. Then he called up a fairly large beef roast and several loaves of bread.
Bheid jerked back with a startled oath.
‘Makes your hair stand on end, doesn’t it?’ Eliar chuckled. ‘I was almost afraid to eat the first supper he made that way, but the food he makes with words is really very good.’ Eliar started to eat with a great deal of enthusiasm.
‘How do you do that?’ Bheid asked Althalus in an awed voice.
‘Emmy calls it “using the Book”,’ Althalus replied. ‘She taught me how to do it back in the House at the End of the World where the Book is.’
‘Which Book?’
‘The Book of Deiwos, of course.’
‘You’ve actually seen the Book of Deiwos?’
‘Seen it?’ Althalus laughed. ‘I lived with it for twenty-five hundred years. I can recite it from end to end, forward or backward, and from side to side, if you’d really care to hear it that way. I think I could even recite it upside down if I put my mind to it.’
‘Exactly how is it that the Book of Deiwos makes it possible for you to perform miracles?’
‘The Book’s the word of God, Bheid. It’s written in a very antique language that’s sort of like the language we speak now, but not exactly. The words from the old language make things happen. If I say “beef”, nothing happens, but if I say “gwou”, we get supper. There’s a little more involved in the procedure, but that’s the core of it. I spent a lot of years committing the Book to memory.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘I’ve got it in here now, so I don’t have to carry it with me – which isn’t permitted, of course. The Book has to stay in the House. It wouldn’t be safe to carry it out into the real world. You’d better eat your supper before it gets cold.’
Eliar had several more helpings, then they talked a bit more before rolling up in their blankets to sleep.
It was Awes. Althalus was sure that it was Awes, but it had no buildings. He could clearly see the fork of the River Medyo, but a grove of ancient trees had somehow replaced the ruins. He wandered for a time under those mighty oaks, and then he looked toward the west and saw people far off in the distance. As he watched them coming across the grassy plain toward the place where he stood, he seemed to hear a faint wailing sound coming from very far away. There was a lost, despairing quality to that wailing that seemed to wrench at his very soul.
And then the people he’d seen reached the far bank of the river, and he could see them more clearly. They were dressed in the skins of animals, and they carried spears with stone points.
He rolled over, muttering and groping under his blanket for the rock which had been gouging his hip. He finally located it, threw it away, and slid easily back into sleep.
There were crude huts under the oak trees now, and the fur-clad people moved among those huts, talking, talking, talking in hushed and fearful tones. ‘He comes, he comes, he comes,’ the people said. ‘Make ready for his coming, for he is God.’ And the faces of some of the people were exalted, and the faces of others were filled with terror. And still they said, ‘He comes, he comes, he comes.’
And Ghend moved among them, whispering, whispering. And the people pulled back from Ghend with fear upon their faces. But Ghend paid no heed to their fear, and his eyes burned, burned.
And Ghend lifted his face and looked upon Althalus with his burning eyes. And the eyes of Ghend seared at the soul of Althalus. And Ghend spoke then, saying, ‘It is of little moment, my thief. Run, Althalus, run, and I shall pursue you down the nights and down the years, and the Book shall avail you not, for I shall deliver you up to the throne of Daeva, and you – even as I – shall serve him down all the endless eons. And when the eons end, we shall turn and follow them back to their beginning. And then shall we turn again, and behold, they shall not be as they were before.’
The wailing sound rose to an awful shriek.
Althalus started up, sweating profusely. ‘God!’ he exclaimed, trembling violently.
‘Who was he?’ Bheid’s terrified voice came out of the darkness. ‘Who was that man with eyes of fire?’
‘You saw him too?’ Eliar asked, his voice also trembling.
‘Step aside, Althalus,’ Emmy’s voice inside his head had a crisp, no-nonsense quality about it. ‘I need to talk to them.’
Althalus felt himself being rather rudely thrust aside. ‘Eliar,’ Emmy said, ‘tell Bheid who I am.’
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ Eliar responded. ‘Bheid,’ he said, ‘that’s Emmy talking. She does that now and then. Althalus might still be there, but she’s using his voice.’
‘The cat?’ Bheid said incredulously.
‘I wouldn’t think of her as a cat, exactly,’ Eliar advised. ‘That’s just the way she hides what she really is. Her real form would probably blind us if we looked at her.’
‘Hush, Eliar,’ Emmy said gently.
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘What you’ve all just experienced, gentlemen, wasn’t exactly a dream,’ Emmy told them. ‘Althalus has met Ghend before, so he’ll be able to tell you about him – after I’ve finished using his voice. What you saw just now wasn’t a dream, but it wasn’t real, either. It’s what Ghend – and Daeva – want to make real.’