"You have heard our Keeper," said the Priest-Mayor. "And you have heard me. Your way lies clear, Nibro peSyg." And then he, too, was gone.
Nibro peSyg glared malevolently at the muzzles of the leveled rifles before him, and mounted his deest, his teeth clenched in silent rage.
They rode darkly through the countryside, back from the barricade. Nibro peSyg was in a black mood, and no one dared approach him.
Finally, when they were well away from the barricade, Drelk peShawm matched the pace of his deest with Nibro's, drew alongside, and asked, "What can we do now, Elder Leader?"
"There's more than one way through to Sugon," snarled Nibro. "We'll go around the Mountains of the Morning, and move up through Pelvash Province. Sugon is wide open from that angle. And we'll get money for a bigger army. I'll see Korvin peKorvin's head mounted on the palisade round the new Temple before the season's end!"
"Very good, sir."
"Have Drosh peMarn ride with me," Nibro said. "I want to make sure he understands where we're heading and why, the old fool."
Drelk peShawm dropped back, and a few moments later Drosh peMarn Yorgen, the Officer-in-Charge, drew near the Elder Leader.
"Light's blessings, Nibro peSyg."
"Oh ... it's you. Listen, Drosh peMarn, here's the plan by which I mean to thrash Sugon. We—"
"Sir," the elderly soldier interrupted. "Uh ... Elder Leader ... uh, well, the men have been talking to me."
"So?"
"Uh ... well, if you intend to go back through that pass, Nibro peSyg, you'll have to go by yourself." Drosh peMarn took a deep breath and added decisively, "They feel it would be certain death for us to go, but maybe they wouldn't fire on a priest."
Livid with rage, Nibro lashed out with his fist, knocking the older man from his saddle. Drosh peMarn went spinning to the ground, landing fairly skillfully despite his years, and sat in an insulted-looking heap at the feet of his deest.
"Ignorant, stupid old fool!" Nibro raged. "Of course I won't go through that pass! Mount up! You're not hurt!"
Behind him, he heard a steady, insistent murmuring; the black-clad soldiers obviously did not care to have their Officer-in-Charge thrashed before their eyes. Nibro wheeled his deest around and signaled for a halt.
"We're heading for Pelvash!"
Later that afternoon, someone spotted a dust cloud on the road ahead.
A rider galloped up. He was clad in the robes of an acolyte, but they were damp with perspiration and gray with dust. He had ridden hard and long.
"Well? You have a message for me?" Nibro asked impatiently. He was still smarting from his defeat at the Pass, and expressed his irritation at every chance he had.
The acolyte's voice came in a hoarse gasp. "I was afraid you had gone on to Sugon, Elder Leader. I did not know—"
"We return from Sugon," Nibro said. "Speak up!"
"It is well that you have finished your work in Sugon, then," the messenger said.
"What do you mean?"
"You must ride for Pelvash immediately!"
"We are going to Pelvash!"
The acolyte smiled in relief. "Then you have heard, Elder Ghevin?"
"Heard? Heard what?"
Fright crossed the messenger's face. His eyes widened. "The Keeper of the Bank of Pelvash has said that he does not intend to carry more than his share of the cost of building the Temple," the acolyte stammered. "If Sugon won't pay—he says—he won't pay, either."
Nibro blinked in astonishment. His poise deserted him for a moment, and in a pained whisper he said, "Pelvash, too? And after that the other provinces must go!"
"The Keeper of the Bank of Pelvash has given his orders," said the acolyte. "They've cut off every road between the Mountains of the Morning and the sea!"
Nibro was stunned.
Drosh peMarn turned to look at the Elder Leader as he heard the words. The swelling on one cheek twisted his angry smile.
"You have botched everything, Elder Leader," the old soldier said bitterly. "We of the Hundred have had enough of this crusade. We're going home to Tammulcor."
Nibro spun and summoned what little authority he had left. He snapped a quick, crisp order to Gwyl peDrang: "Shoot me that traitor!"
Gwyl went for his gun.
Drosh peMarn, though, was ready for the attack. Gwyl's pistol was scarcely out of his belt when the weapon of the Officer-in-Charge roared out a cloud of flame and smoke. The deests whinnied in terror; Nibro was hard put to keep his tired animal under control.
A spreading stain of blood appeared on Gwyl peDrang's chest. He held himself upright in his saddle for a moment, still groping for his own weapon, and then toppled heavily to the road. The ex-acolyte twitched a moment, and lay still. The Clan Lokness was again without an Elder.
"Well, Nibro peSyg?" asked Drosh peMarn. "Your decision?"
Nibro peSyg did not turn. He knew what was behind him: the leveled muskets of the black-clad men, anxiously defending their Officer-in-Charge against the bungling Council leader.
He did not need to turn. The pistol muzzle of Drosh peMarn was plainly visible—and the Officer-in-Charge seemed perfectly ready to fire again.
Nibro realized with a sudden cold chill that these men had lived through a period which was only history to him. These were men of the original Hundred, men who had helped to slaughter priests and acolytes alike during the Burning of the Temple. They would not stay their hands when it came to killing him.
He glared at the acolyte who had brought the fatal message. There had been a time when Nibro peSyg would order a man shot for shouting such news aloud. Now, he knew, if he raised a hand against the acolyte his own men would cut him down.
It was a bitter moment for the enterprising Sugonese priest. He had clawed his way to the highest power in Nidor—and, now that he had attained it, he had found it was no power at all. He was a ruler of words; words had no effect without backing.
First Sugon, now Pelvash, slipping from his grasp as positively as if they had glided from the continent and drifted off into the shoreless sea. No doubt within hours word would come from the other provinces that they had done the same. Fie would be supreme only in Dimay, and even there his rule would be shaky.
Could I have avoided this? He wasn't sure. The words of the New Lawyer, half-forgotten, buried deep in his mind, now stood out in awful clarity. The disaster could not have been avoided. Whatever course of action he had undertaken, Sugon would have rebelled. He had never been free to act; he was the slave of implacable forces outside him.
His fingers tightened on the reins. There would be no new temples built in Gelusar. The old ways were forever dead. The chaos of the last five generations could not be undone.
Well, he thought, I tried. And, in trying, merely hastened the process along its irreversible course. Thanks to his attempt at wielding power, Nibro peSyg thought gloomily, a wedge had been driven between the Five Provinces.
"Very well," he said slowly. "We will not march to Pelvash. We will return to Gelusar." He threw back his shoulders, looking very proud and straight in the saddle of his deest. "To the Holy City of Gelusar—and the Great Temple that was."
He said it, but it didn't really matter what he did.
The End