Like the High Temple, the walls still stood. Again, Rhavas had to swallow his disappointment. He couldn't do anything about it now. The Silver Gate was open. He joined the throng of men, women, and children streaming out through it. "We're safe!" someone said once outside the city.
Rhavas knew he wasn't safe yet. But neither was Videssos safe from him.
XIII
The miserable excuse for a horse that Rhavas rode made him long for the steppe ponies he'd had to leave behind in Videssos the city. Not for the first time, he wondered if he should have tried to retrieve them. Also not for the first time, he shrugged. Too late to worry about such things now.
His hoofed snail approached one of the more northwesterly gates in the Long Walls. He eyed the gateway, and the soldiers at it, with some trepidation. Orders to seize him on sight might well have got here before he did. Considering the quality—or lack of same—of his mount, anything at all might have got here before he did.
But the gate guards didn't seem unduly concerned. "Hello, holy sir," one of them called. "Where are you bound?"
"Imbros," Rhavas answered; if he followed the road ahead, it would lead him there. Taking a chance, he added, "I'm on my way home from the synod."
"Phos!" The guardsman sketched the sun-circle. Rhavas gravely imitated the gesture. The soldier went on, "We've heard something about that, we have. They ought to string the stinking heretic up by his toes and roast him upside down over a slow fire."
"That's too good for him." Another gate guard came up with an even more ingenious—and even more appalling—torture.
"He will get his just deserts in the world to come," Rhavas said gravely. That was bound to be true, but his view of what those deserts were surely differed from that of the gate guards.
They all nodded. "No doubt you're right," one of them said, "but we'd like to see him catch it in this world, too." He paused for a moment, then added, "You're heading to Imbros? You'll want to be careful on the road, holy sir. There's Khamorth loose, and they like sporting with travelers they catch. They like it, but you wouldn't."
"Thanks for the warning. May you be blessed for your kindness." If Rhavas was going to play the role of a priest who believed in Phos, he would play it to the hilt. "Perhaps I can even convert them to the worship of the lord with the great and good mind." He drew the sun-circle over his heart again.
All the guards who heard him started to laugh. "Don't try it unless you aim to end up dead in a hurry," one of them said. "Most of these fellows are from the clan of Kubrat, and that's about the meanest bunch of Khamorth there are. They suck up to Skotos, they do." He spat in the dirt of the roadway.
So did Rhavas. If he hadn't, he might have roused suspicion. "May I pass through?" he asked.
"Go ahead, holy sir," one of the soldiers answered. "Don't say we didn't warn you, though. That road's not safe—not even close."
"My faith will protect me," Rhavas said. This time, several gate guards sketched the sun-sign. He supposed that meant they admired his piety. And he was pious, or so he felt himself to be. But the god he revered and the one to whom they clung were not the same. "Get up!" He booted his horse forward. It plodded through the gate and out past the Long Walls. The guardsmen smiled behind their hands at the miserable beast.
"His faith better protect him," one of them said, not quite softly enough. "The good god knows he can't run away from trouble."
"We told him," another one replied. "If he doesn't want to listen, that's his funeral—and it's liable to be."
Rhavas rode on. He wondered whether the Kubrati really were more ferocious than other Khamorth, or whether they were simply the barbarians the guards knew best. After what he'd seen in the far northeast, he would have bet on the latter.
He also wondered whether, before very long, grim-faced horsemen would ride up the road after him. Though word hadn't got to this gate, he was outlawed in the Empire of Videssos, fair game for anyone who might bring him down. He was far more dangerous than any single pursuer—he was a host in himself, in fact—but he was only one man. He had to sleep, and he couldn't look every which way at once. The clout in the head he'd taken in the High Temple brutally reminded him of that. He still got headaches more often than he wanted.
Despite those headaches, he wondered if the monk hadn't done him a favor. When he first woke up in the cell under the patriarchal residence, he'd thought of the dream he'd had while unconscious as nothing but . . . a dream.
The longer he contemplated it, though, the greater its importance seemed to grow. He slowly became convinced it was more than a dream: a vision, even a covenant. Some very holy men claimed to have found a mystical communion with Phos. Rhavas, always hardheaded, had had trouble believing those claims, chiefly because he'd never experienced anything like that himself. Now . . .
If he hadn't come to an agreement, made a bargain, with Skotos after the monk's truncheon let—made—him slip the bonds of consciousness, what had he done? Years, many years, in exchange for dedicated service to the dark god's cause . . . That struck him as fair enough, and more than fair enough.
He would have given Skotos dedicated service even without the promise of more years with which to do it. He was loyal, unless forced not to be by overwhelming weight of circumstance. He would give the dark god the same fierce allegiance he had formerly lavished on the lord with the great and good mind. Skotos could surely see that. And it was in Skotos' interest to grant him as much time as he needed to carry out his work.
The horse paused, looking longingly toward some tall grass by the side of the road. Rhavas glanced back over his shoulder. No Videssian cavalrymen pounded up the road after him. No Khamorth in sight, either, come to that. He slid down from the saddle, led the horse over to the grass, and let it graze. Why not? It wasn't much slower standing still than in alleged motion.
As the animal grazed, Rhavas wondered whether pursuers could do anything to him: whether he needed to worry at all, in fact. If Skotos had promised him many years, wouldn't he get them come what may?
He didn't need long to decide not to take foolish chances. Sozomenos' warning that the dark god lied had nothing to do with his decision, either. So he told himself, and he thought it was true. If he found a cliff and jumped off it, he wasn't so foolish as to imagine Skotos would take him in his arms and bear him up. He would hit the ground and die, regardless of any promises. If Stylianos and his soldiers and mages caught him, he might also die. That seemed only too clear. He could live for many years, but he would have to earn them.
When he mounted once more, the horse snorted indignantly and sent him a resentful stare—the most animation he'd seen from it. If it had been more animated when he wanted it to move, he would have liked it better. It didn't want to leave the grass, any more than a man would have wanted to leave an eatery where he was enjoying himself. With reins and bit and stirrups, Rhavas had means of persuasion he couldn't have used on a man. Still unhappy, the horse went north.
A breeze carried the salt tang of the Videssian Sea to Rhavas. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed it in Skopentzana till he had it back. He wondered if he would have to leave it behind again. He hoped not.