If he remembered straight, more mountains would lie in his path as he went on toward Videssos the city. The Paristrians were a more formidable range than these overgrown hillocks, too. They might even serve as a barrier to keep the Khamorth out of what lay beyond them. Or, of course, they might not. Rhavas could only guess now. He wouldn't know till he crossed them.
A few days later, a troop of horsemen came north up the road toward him. Khamorth, he thought, and resolved to curse them one at a time, as he had with the last band, till the survivors got the idea that he and the power protecting him were too dangerous to toy with.
He needed longer than he should have to notice that these men wore chain mail, not leather boiled in wax. They had iron helmets on their heads, not fur caps. They rode full-sized horses, not steppe ponies. And their standard-bearer carried a blue banner with a golden sunburst. They weren't plainsmen but Videssians—Videssian soldiers, in fact.
Rhavas had thought that breed all but extinct. They didn't seem to know what to make of him, either. They pointed ahead when they spotted him. Some of them kicked their horses up from walk to trot. They seemed bemused when he didn't try to get away.
Only afterward did he realize they might have robbed him even though they wore the Empire's livery. The line between soldiers and brigands was a fine one, especially in times of civil strife. They wouldn't have got much if they had taken everything he owned, but they might have tried to kill him as part of the sport. They might have succeeded, too, because they would have taken him by surprise.
One of them called, "Halt, in the name of the Avtokrator!"
He reined in. Which Avtokrator? he wondered. He almost asked them, but checked himself at the last moment. If they favored Stylianos, they might want to seize him—or worse—because he was Maleinos' cousin. Instead, he raised his right hand in a gesture of benediction and said, "Blessings upon you." If he had to, he would name Phos—hypocrisy could be useful. If he didn't, he wouldn't.
Some of the troopers sketched the sun-circle. The man who'd ordered him to halt asked, "Where are you from, holy sir?"
"Skopentzana," he answered truthfully.
"Skopentzana!" the soldier exclaimed. "You're a cursed long way from home, then, aren't you?"
"A cursed long way indeed," Rhavas said. Even naming the northern city could have been dangerous if they were after its prelate. But Skopentzana was big enough to have—to have had—many priests. He could easily have lied about his own name and station.
"Is it true what they say? Has Skopentzana fallen to the barbarians?" the soldier asked.
"That is true. The barbarians sacked it and an earthquake laid it low," Rhavas replied. "I do not know when it will rise again, or if it ever will. Many other cities and towns and villages have also fallen."
The soldiers muttered among themselves. The man who did the talking for them said, "That's hard news, holy sir. I feared it would be so, with all the garrisons gone from that part of the Empire. To the ice with Stylianos for starting his cursed rebellion."
Rhavas almost acclaimed Maleinos then. At the last moment, he held back. Civil wars were hard times, and times full of trickery. These men might revile Stylianos to see if he would agree with them—and then seize him or kill him if he did. He didn't think that was likely, but he didn't think it was impossible, either. Instead of declaring himself, he just asked, "You favor Maleinos, then?"
"By the lord with the great and good mind, we do," the soldiers' spokesman said. "Stylianos stinks of Skotos—doesn't he, boys?" As he spat in the dirt, his comrades shouted obscene agreement. He glowered at Rhavas. "And what about you, holy sir? Whose side are you on?"
Had he come out for Stylianos after that, Rhavas would have been a fool—and, in short order, a dead fool. But he didn't intend to. "I told you before I knew which side you leaned to that I come from Skopentzana. I am Rhavas, who was prelate there, and cousin to his Majesty, the Avtokrator Maleinos."
"Very holy sir!" The horseman bowed in the saddle. "Will you bless us before we go on?"
"Gladly," Rhavas lied, and did what the soldier asked. He laughed at himself as he spoke the words and made the gestures. If he'd said what he wanted to say, it would have had more effect. But if he'd said what he wanted to say, the men would have done their best to kill him.
"We thank you, very holy sir," the soldiers' spokesman said when Rhavas had got through his ordeal. "Where are you bound, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Videssos the city," Rhavas answered. "How far have the plainsmen penetrated? And where is the fighting between the Avtokrator and the rebel?"
"You're liable to run into Khamorth almost until you get down to the Long Walls, maybe even beyond 'em," the cavalryman answered, and Rhavas grimaced. The Long Walls lay only a couple of days' journey outside the capital, and protected the farmlands close to it. The soldier went on, "And who knows where our men and Stylianos' are at? They want to get at each other, yes, but they've got all the cursed barbarians in the way. You'd better be careful—that's all I've got to tell you."
"I've come this far," Rhavas said. "If my prayers are answered, I'll make it the rest of the way."
"Phos will heed you. I'm sure of it," the soldier told him. Rhavas had said nothing about to whom he might pray. He said nothing now, either, and nothing on his face showed what he thought. The soldier looked back at the rest of the troop. "Come on, boys! We've got our own job to do. We don't need to bother the very holy sir anymore."
Away they rode. Their horses' hooves thudded. Their chain mail jingled. The sunburst banner snapped in the breeze. Rhavas watched them over his shoulder for some little while before kicking his own horse into motion once more. They were the past, the dead past. The future?
He laughed and set a hand above his heart. "I make the future. I make it right here!" he said softly. And what would he make it into? Why, whatever he wanted, of course.
Laughing still, he went on toward Videssos the city.
Rhavas had never seen the Paristrian Mountains till they heaved themselves up over the southwestern horizon: he'd traveled up to Skopentzana by sea, and sailed around the peninsula whose northern rampart they were. They proved less impressive than he'd expected. They were taller and sharper than the ranges farther north, but not the grand, jagged things he thought of when the word mountains came to mind.
Khamorth roamed near the Paristrians. Videssian soldiers—some loyal to each claimant to the throne—also patrolled that part of the countryside. Here, at least, the land was debatable. Farther north, Rhavas doubted whether the Empire's sovereignty would ever return. The barbarians had simply swamped that part of Videssos.
When Rhavas went into a town, he mostly just said he was a priest coming down from the north. Sometimes he would talk about the adventures he'd had getting to wherever he chanced to be. He steered clear of arguments with local priests. The tale of what had happened to Tryphon hadn't come south with him or ahead of him. He suspected it was on its way, though. He didn't want to add anything to it.
Part of him felt more at home as he traveled through lands that hadn't been so badly ravaged. This was what the Empire of Videssos was supposed to be like. So his old way of thinking said, anyhow. But was that so? Wasn't all of this doomed to fire and destruction, whether at the hands of the barbarians or of those who battled in the mad and endless civil war?
Now that Rhavas was in the midst of green, growing springtime, believing in ice for all eternity came harder. It came harder, but he managed—especially after he rode up to a battlefield where the armies of Maleinos and Stylianos had clashed the year before.