Still, he went forward. He tried to go faster, to cross as quickly as he could, so he might get to the other side before all his sins were named. Paradise awaited if he did. He was getting close. . . .
"Ingegerd!" a great black demon roared in a voice like thunder.
Rhavas swayed. His arms flailed. He felt himself tilting. He felt himself . . . falling. How the demons laughed!
He woke . . . in darkness. But before he started screaming, before he started the screams that would last for all eternity, he saw it was not the darkness that accompanied Skotos' ice. It was only the nighttime darkness of the woods, with moonlight and starlight filtering down through the leafy branches overhead.
"Oh," he said: one soft word full of wonder. "A dream. Nothing but a dream."
A mosquito buzzed by his ear. He welcomed the sound, as belonging to this world. He was also glad to be able to hear it above the frightened thudding of his heart. The longer he lay awake, the more the fear subsided. If he was right, if Skotos was stronger than Phos and would triumph at the end of days, wasn't the good god's heaven an illusion anyhow? Sooner or later, by that logic, everyone and everything was going to the ice. And if that was so, what difference did sooner or later really make?
He twisted again, almost the way he'd twisted on the Bridge in his dream. At last, he managed to get away from the little rock that was digging into his hip. He settled toward sleep again.
Even as drowsiness overcame him, though, he remembered how terrified he'd been when he began that endless fall into darkness.
Seeing the sun once more was a relief. Getting back on the road was a relief. He kept going over his dream again and again as he rode west. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that he'd interpreted it the right way. Skotos' power was coming. Nothing anybody could do would change that. The dream was both a foretaste and a reminder of it.
The terror? He shrugged and did his best to make light of it. The terror was part of the death throes of his old way of thinking. The sooner he got rid of it, the sooner everyone got rid of it, the better.
That almost made him forget how frightened he'd been. Almost.
A farm boy in a colorless homespun tunic ran across a meadow toward him, calling, "Holy sir! Please stop, holy sir!"
Rhavas reined in. "What is it? What do you want?"
The boy pointed back toward his house. A thin plume of smoke rose from the hearth through the hole in the middle of the thatched roof. "My mother's awful sick, holy sir. Will you pray over her? We don't have a lot of money, but we can give you food for the road."
Before his revelation, Rhavas knew he would have done it. He still had to pretend to be what he had been then. Hoping he didn't sound too reluctant, he nodded. "Lead me to her."
"Just follow me!" The boy dashed back the way he'd come. Rhavas tugged on the reins and led the steppe pony he was riding and the packhorse after him.
A man stood in front of the farmhouse: a bigger, bearded, anxious-looking version of the boy. "The lord with the great and good mind bless you, holy sir!" he said. "Anything you can do for my Rhipsine, I'll get down on my knees and thank you for it."
"No need for that," Rhavas said. "Take me to her."
"Come on, then." The peasant held the door open for him. He ducked inside. The house reminded him of some of the ones in which he'd sheltered on the way down from Skopentzana. No need to fear freezing to death here, though. The man pointed to the woman twisting feebly on the bed. "There she is. She's still breathing, anyway, Phos be praised." He drew the sun-circle over his heart.
"Yes." Rhavas was no healer-priest. Nor was he a physician. He needed to be neither to see at a glance that the woman was desperately ill. When he set his palm on her forehead, he had to fight to keep from jerking it away—she burned with fever. Her pulse was fast and weak and thready. She moaned, but it was only gibberish. She had no idea where she was or who was with her.
"What can you do, holy sir?" the peasant said. "She means everything to me and my lad."
"I do not think a healer can help her now," Rhavas said, and the man groaned as if stabbed. Behind him, the boy started to cry.
Gathering himself, the man asked, "What is there to do, then?"
"I see two choices," Rhavas answered. "You can let her go on as she is, let her go on suffering, or you can ease her pain."
"Knock her over the head like she was a horse with a busted leg?" The peasant made a horrible face. "I couldn't do that. I'd want to drown myself as soon as I did."
"I can," Rhavas said. "It would be very quick, very simple, and then she would be at peace."
"No." The farmer shook his head. "I wanted you to cure her, by Phos, not kill her. What kind of priest are you, anyways?"
That was a better question than the weathered man knew. Rhavas had to hope his face did not betray him. "Have it your way, then," he said, and stalked out of the hut. The peasant's question still burned in his ears. "Curse you all," he muttered under his breath.
The woman had been moaning, the man praying beside her, and the boy still snuffling. Sudden silence slammed down inside the house. Rhavas had been about to remount his Khamorth pony. Instead, he looked in once more. Now the woman lay quiet. Her husband sprawled beside her, equally still. The boy had fallen nearer the door.
Rhavas shrugged. Now they were all at peace. The farmer had asked what kind of priest he was. He couldn't tell the man, so he'd shown him instead. And none of the family would ever need another lesson.
This time, Rhavas did climb onto the steppe pony. He rode away without a backward glance. What were three more bodies behind him? Skopentzana lay on his conscience. On my head be it, he'd said, and on his head it was. Ingegerd lay on his conscience, unless she counted as part of Skopentzana. The same applied to Koubatzes. And that priest in Podandos lay on his conscience, too. Tryphon had also wanted to know what kind of priest Rhavas was. Like the peasant and his family, he'd found out. Also like the peasant and his family, he hadn't had and wouldn't have the chance to do anything with what he'd learned.
Wearing the blue robe of a priest of Phos when he no longer believed in the good god's primacy had irked Rhavas. Now, all at once, he laughed. There were spiders that looked like the flowers on and among which they sat. Insects never suspected them till too late. Was it not the same with him?
He came up to yet another checkpoint of Stylianos'. The soldiers there did not seem to want to let him go on. That bothered him not only because it was a nuisance but also because it upset his sense of logic and order. "Why hold me back when so many of your men have let me go forward?" he exclaimed.
"You say you've been through other checkpoints," one of the men said.
Rhavas resented being reckoned a liar over such a small thing, especially when he was actually telling the truth. "Look at me!" he said angrily. "Haven't I been traveling for some little while? Smell me, if looking at me won't give you clue enough. How could I have come along this highway and not gone through a swarm of your miserable checkpoints?"
Stylianos' soldiers muttered among themselves. Finally, with some obvious reluctance, they let him go. "You're not a spy," said the man who'd spoken before. "You wouldn't make such a mouthy nuisance of yourself if you was a spy."