Even if the Avtokrator did venture forth, what could he accomplish? How many soldiers had the civil war eaten up? How many had the Khamorth already slain? How many could Videssos put in the field? Enough? Rhavas didn't know. He didn't think his imperial cousin—or, for that matter, the rebel general—did, either.
A peasant weeding in a field waved to Rhavas. He waved back. A blackbird swooped down on a clod of earth the peasant's hoe had thrown aside. The bird flew off with a worm in its beak. The peasant called, "Bless me, holy sir."
Rhavas sighed. He was getting sick of that request. But the peasant was bound to come after him with a hoe if he gave the kind of blessing he really thought fitting. And so, mindful of his own hypocrisy, Rhavas sketched the sun-circle and intoned, "May the lord with the great and good mind watch over you, my son."
The peasant presented arms with the hoe as if it were a foot soldier's pike. "I thank you for your kindness, holy sir," he said, and went back to grubbing out weeds.
Kindness? Rhavas shook his head as he rode away. That wasn't what he would have called it. And yet . . . Didn't a lot of priests feel like hypocrites when they delivered a blessing? They had to know people took sick and died or committed horrible crimes in spite of their well-meant words. They seldom paused to wonder what that might mean. I have the courage to go where logic leads me, Rhavas thought.
Going there was one thing. Now he had to persuade others to follow him. He looked toward the capital again. That was why he was on his way.
Quite a few peasants worked in the fields. If they didn't plant and plow and weed and harvest, neither they nor the townsfolk would eat. Because Rhavas saw them, he needed a while to realize he didn't see many cattle or sheep in the meadows. He wondered why not, but he didn't wonder for long. Armies had been marching and countermarching along this highway since the civil war began. Either they'd already eaten or driven off the local livestock or the peasants were hiding it so they wouldn't.
As they would have anywhere, the farmhouses had vegetable plots nearby. Most of the time, the peasants' wives and daughters would have tended them. Rhavas also needed a while to notice he saw next to no women. What he did not see, armies going by would not see, either.
He sadly shook his head. How long would it take for life in the Empire of Videssos to come back to normal once this miserable war finally ended? Over how much of the Empire would it never come back to normal? How could the victorious Avtokrator, whoever he was, hope to expel the Khamorth with the straitened resources he would have at his disposal?
"And they say this is the good god's will," Rhavas murmured scornfully. "They say this is the great test of life." His laugh was all vinegar. "They cannot see what lies in front of them. This is a god at work, yes. But which god is stronger? I am not afraid to face the truth."
He rode through the next town without stopping for the night. Dolikhe was a sorry place, barely big enough to boast a wall, full of people who would have been failures anywhere bigger. By the rundown state of the shops and taverns, a lot of them were failures here.
Stylianos' small garrison seemed to care only about the gates—where the highway came into town and went out again. The soldiers questioned Rhavas, who gave them the same answers as he'd used before at the checkpoint. None of these men seemed to have any trouble understanding why he didn't want to linger here.
"Go on, then, holy sir," one of them said. "By the good god, I wish I was going with you, too."
Rhavas camped for the night in oak woods off the highway. He had bread and cheese. A small stream chuckled through the forest. Its water was sweet and cold. He had no doubt it was healthy.
He made no fire. Flames might draw bandits. Besides, nothing that he ate needed cooking, and the night was mild. Next to some of the nights he'd been through after Skopentzana fell, almost any night south of the Paristrian Mountains was mild. He would have thought this one pleasant even when he lived in Videssos the city, though. Oh, a few mosquitoes whined through the air, but mosquitoes always whined when the weather was warm. He wrapped himself in a blanket and went to sleep.
As he twisted to try to find a position where no pebbles dug into his torso and legs, he remembered how uncomfortable he'd been sleeping in a bedroll when he and the mages from Skopentzana so spectacularly failed to drive the Khamorth away from the city. Now he took it in stride. He took all sorts of things in stride now that he hadn't been able to imagine last Midwinter's Day. One last twist, a grunt of satisfaction, and his eyes closed. In mere minutes, he was snoring.
When he began to dream, it was one of those dreams where he did not know he was dreaming. Everything seemed perfectly real, perfectly distinct. The landscape was golden, the most beautiful he'd ever seen. A few clouds floated by. He noted without much surprise that they floated by below him, not above. That he was drifting through the air felt as natural as anything else.
Other people—men, women, children—drifted along with him. He took that in stride, too. They were going somewhere. He knew where—knew well enough so he didn't need to call out to anyone else and ask. Even the idea of calling out seemed strange. He wasn't sure he could. But it didn't matter. He wasn't supposed to.
Ahead, something appeared in the goldenness: a thin line leading upward. Even as Rhavas drew closer to it, it grew no wider. He accepted that as readily as anything else. It was part of the way things should be.
He and the others drifting along with him formed themselves into a queue. No one bumped or shoved or elbowed. They all had their places, and they all accepted them. That was as least as remarkable as anything else here, but Rhavas also took it in stride.
Shapes that were not men or women flashed around that never-widening line ahead. Instead of drifting, they truly flew. Some were so bright, they left glowing afterimages on his sight. The others were blacker than midnight, blacker than charcoal, blacker than soot.
A chill ran up Rhavas' spine. Now he knew where he was, and why that line always stayed so narrow. It was the Bridge of the Separator. Those who crossed it attained to paradise, and Phos' shining messengers would escort them thither. But those who fell off . . . For them, Skotos' demons awaited, and so did the eternal ice.
One after another, the assembled souls essayed the Bridge. A few, it seemed to Rhavas, succeeded in the crossing. The demons seized far more, though.
Inexorably, his own time of trial grew ever closer. As it did, panic seized him, panic not only over what would happen to him but also over why he was here at all. This is where souls are judged, he yammered frantically, there in the fortress of his mind. I am no soul! I live! I breathe!
But he still could not call out. If some cosmic mistake had been made, only he knew about it. No one else, not the souls drifting forward with him, not the bright messengers, and not the demons out of the darkness, seemed the least bit interested. He might as well have been a merchant trying to persuade tax assessors to lower his required payment without documents to support his claim.
The soul ahead of his stepped onto the Bridge of the Separator. Onward and upward it went, but not for long. Its despairing wail as it tumbled off chilled Rhavas to the marrow. So did the demons' laughter as they bore it away.
And then Rhavas set foot on the Bridge. It seemed infinitely long, infinitely narrow. He swayed. If he stayed where he was, he was lost. He could sense that. To have any hope of crossing it, he had to go ahead.
Go ahead he did. He heard, or thought he heard, encouraging whispers from Phos' messengers. They wanted him to pass into paradise. The demons did not whisper. They shouted. They screamed. They cursed. Every sin Rhavas had ever committed dinned in his ears now. And every time a demon named one, Rhavas wobbled on the Bridge. Those encouraging whispers helped steady him, but less and less after each demonic shriek.