But Phos would do as he pleased, not as mere mortals wished him to do. Rhavas had to remind himself of that. The thought was chastening. He cared for being chastened no more than any other man would have.
Koubatzes eyed him now as if he had never seen him before. "You truly believe that, don't you?"
"What sort of priest would I be if I didn't?" Rhavas returned. "A sorry one indeed, I assure you. Shall we go back to Skopentzana and do what we can to get the city ready to defend itself?"
"I suppose we'd better," the mage said. "I don't think it will do much good, though."
"Do you say that as a man or as a foreteller?" Rhavas asked.
"As a man. I have not tried to look into the future. Sometimes one is better off not knowing." Koubatzes gave Rhavas a different kind of glance now, this one speculative. "What did you ask poor Eladas when he fell over dead trying to answer your question?"
"Whatever it was, I dare hope he crossed over the Bridge of the Separator and now enjoys eternal bliss with Phos." Rhavas sketched the sun-circle. The look of terror that had filled Eladas' face in his last living moments outdid even the fright the Khamorth shamans had just inflicted on his comrades and him.
Koubatzes grunted. "Did it have to do with the civil war?"
"Of course not." Rhavas did his best to sound offended at the very question. "Anyone who seeks foreknowledge about the Avtokrator stands to lose his head—a good law, I think, and a just one. I would not break it."
"All right, very holy sir. Don't get in a temper at me, please." Koubatzes made a placating gesture. His eyes, though, his eyes remained sharp and shrewd. He had no great physical potency, but lived by his wits—and they were formidable. "So you didn't aim to go against the law? Did you aim to go around it?"
Rhavas didn't answer right away. By not answering right away, he learned the truth of a proverb. He who hesitated was lost. "What I asked—whatever it was—is my business and not yours, sorcerous sir," he said, too late.
"Uh-huh," Koubatzes said. Rhavas had never heard such a disagreeable agreement. The mage added, "You made it Eladas' business, too, didn't you? Except Eladas took one look, and that was the last look he ever took."
"You don't know that. I don't know that, either." Rhavas was trying to convince himself more than Koubatzes. "Anything could have happened to him, anything at all. It didn't have to have anything to do with . . . with whatever I asked."
"Uh-huh," Koubatzes repeated, even more devastatingly than before. "Eladas was healthy as a horse. I happen to know."
"Horses die, too," Rhavas said. "Ours almost did, just now."
"So did we," the wizard pointed out. "But it didn't just happen to us. Somebody made it happen—those accursed Khamorth shamans. Are you telling me you don't believe something made it happen to Eladas?"
Not for the first time, Rhavas wished he were a better liar. He would have loved to tell Koubatzes he didn't think the one had anything to do with the other. He would have loved to—but he couldn't.
"What did you ask him, then?" Koubatzes rapped out.
"Whether I would become ecumenical patriarch." The answer flew from Rhavas' lips. He wondered whether the wizard had used some small spell to suck it out of him.
By the way Koubatzes blinked, that wasn't the question he'd looked for. He asked, "And did he answer it before he died?"
"No." Rhavas shook his head. "He may have seen the answer, but he did not give it."
Koubatzes grunted. "Too bad."
"Yes, I think so, too," Rhavas said. The question had eaten at him ever since Eladas expired in his study. What had the soothsayer seen? Would he be patriarch? Would he not? What disaster would spring from whatever the answer was?
He'd thought about giving gold to another soothsayer. Maybe Eladas' death was nothing but a coincidence. Maybe. Try as Rhavas would, he couldn't make himself believe it. The folk of Skopentzana assumed Eladas' passing had been a coincidence. They wouldn't think so if a second man died on the same errand.
With a worn, weary sigh, Rhavas urged his horse ahead. Koubatzes rode on after him. Neither of them said much after that till they came to Skopentzana.
Tears stung Rhavas' eyes. No, it wasn't Videssos the city. No other place in the world came close to Videssos the city, not even Mashiz, the capital of Makuran. Rhavas doubted even the Makuraner King of Kings would have quarreled with that. But, even if it wasn't what he had left, it was an outpost of civilization.
Men in helmets with spears on their shoulders tramped the walls. They weren't soldiers, not in any real sense of the word. They were artisans taking one morning or afternoon a week off from their regular work to keep up the illusion that Skopentzana was garrisoned. From a distance, they resembled the warriors who'd gone off to fight in Videssos' civil war. Maybe the Khamorth would take one look at them, decide Skopentzana was ready to fend off any attack, and go away to bother the nearby farms and villages. In that case, the local militia would more than have done its duty.
But what if the barbarians didn't?
Would the militiamen fight? Probably. Would they fight bravely? Some would, no doubt. Would they fight well enough to keep the Khamorth out of Skopentzana? How could anyone tell before they were tested?
Rhavas murmured Phos' creed, bearing down slightly on watchful beforehand and the great test of life. He'd spoken the creed when Koubatzes and the other mages aimed their spell against the Khamorth, too. Much good it had done him—or them—then. He prayed now that the good god would spare Skopentzana, which had had small part, if any, in the sins of those farther south.
The gates were closed. That relieved Rhavas' mind. Someone—probably Zautzes—was taking all this seriously. The great valves swung open wide enough to admit the prelate and the mage. Then, grunting with effort, the amateur gate crew swung them closed again and awkwardly lowered the heavy bars that secured them.
"How did it go, sorcerous sir?" one of the militiamen called cheerfully to Koubatzes. Rhavas knew the man, at least by sight. He made dishes and clay pots. He was very good at that. What sort of soldier he made . . . was all too likely to be a different sort of question.
Before replying, Koubatzes flicked a questioning glance toward Rhavas. The prelate nodded—not a showy nod, but a firm one. If Koubatzes didn't tell the truth now, it would come home to roost soon enough anyhow.
Perhaps seeing the same thing, Koubatzes sighed and said, "It went not well at all, I fear. The barbarians not only repelled our sorcery but struck back at us with strength we could not match. It was an evil day, and the nomads even now move toward the city."
The potter stared at him. "How could that happen?"
"It was easier than any of us dreamt it might be," Rhavas answered. "Easier for them, I should say." Ruefully, Koubatzes nodded agreement.
All the gate crew murmured. Another man—this one a woodworker famous not only for fine furniture but also for oars—said, "But what do we do now, if this be so?"
Wizard and prelate looked at each other. "Pray," Koubatzes said before Rhavas could speak. "Pray, and hope even prayer suffices."
"If prayer does not suffice, nothing ever will," Rhavas declared.
Koubatzes refused to back down. In light of the disaster that had befallen the sorcerers and their companions, that was perhaps less startling than it might have been otherwise. "So I said, very holy sir," he replied. "By what we have seen, it may be that nothing suffices."