Rhavas didn't laugh, not out loud. But it was funny just the same. The people on the street and most of the people inside the tavern were on the same side. They didn't know it, though, and they lit into one another too ferociously to give either group the chance to find out.
After spending a little while watching the chaos he'd helped spawn, Rhavas went back to the stables. He planned to tell the attendants that he'd decided to lodge somewhere else. He found nobody to tell, though. The stable boys and hostlers had all rushed up to join the fighting. Rhavas rode away.
Instead of choosing another inn, he rode out of town. He was too likely to be recognized and remembered if he stayed. He'd ridden for a bit before realizing he was likely to be remembered even after he left.
Too late to worry about that now. He had to hope the Avtokrator's backers would soon have more urgent things on their minds than a priest around whom strange suspicions accrued. It was spring. The campaigning season was about to begin. Maleinos' men would be on the move. So would Stylianos'. And so would the invading Khamorth.
With all that going on, who could get too excited about one priest? Nobody—or so Rhavas hoped.
Villages, towns, and fair-sized cities clustered ever more closely together as Rhavas neared Videssos the city. More people were on the road in that populous, relatively secure part of the Empire, too. Rhavas had no trouble losing himself in the crowds. He rode on in high spirits. He'd escaped, and the capital awaited him.
No one challenged him when he got to the next town. He was just another priest there, nobody to get excited about. By now, he was far enough inside Maleinos' territory that no one even thought he might have come from Stylianos', let alone the rude northeast. His accent played no small part there. Even after so many years in Skopentzana, he still talked like what he was: a native of Videssos the city. And Videssos the city still belonged to Maleinos.
"Hello, holy sir," an innkeeper said when Rhavas stuck his head into the man's establishment. "Looking for a meal and a bed?"
"And a cup of wine," Rhavas answered.
The fellow smiled and put his hand on a dipper that would go down into a big jar of wine set under the bar. "Well, I think we just might be able to arrange something along those lines."
"Good." Rhavas came in. The taproom wasn't too crowded. That was a point in its favor. Nobody in it was arguing theology right this minute, either. That was another point, though Rhavas didn't know how long the lull would last—even in a small, nondescript town like this, you never could tell.
No barmaid took his order, but a downy-cheeked youth who looked a lot like the innkeeper. The youth brought him wine and bread and cheese and then left him alone—something not every server had the wit to do.
As Rhavas ate, he pored over the grimoire he'd taken from Koubatzes. The more he learned, the better off he would be. For one thing, he wanted to be able to do more than simply curse people and watch them fall over dead. Archers used different kinds of arrowheads, depending on whether they were after birds or deer or men in mail. The more different weapons he could use, the less he would have to rely on the single brutal one.
And neither Koubatzes nor the mages who'd ridden up to join Himerios had fallen over dead as fast as he'd wished they would. They'd had some kind of defense against his weapon. It hadn't saved them, but it might have if they'd been better prepared—or if they'd been stronger sorcerers.
He couldn't guarantee he wouldn't run into a wizard like that. He flipped through the parchment pages of the codex, looking for warding spells and for what to do about them.
As usual with Koubatzes' grimoire, Rhavas had to try to piece together the things the mage wasn't saying and add them to those he was. Koubatzes had been a man of considerable sorcerous knowledge. He'd known enough to take a lot for granted. That made things harder for an inexperienced would-be mage like Rhavas to follow.
"Excuse me, holy sir, but would you like a lamp for your table?" the innkeeper's son asked. "It's getting dark out."
"Why, so it is," said Rhavas, who'd been putting his nose ever closer to the pages. He got to his feet. "Why don't you take me to my room instead, and give me the lamp there?"
"I'd be glad to," the youth said, and he did.
The room—hardly more than a cubicle—was what Rhavas had expected. It had the usual bed, stool, chest, pitcher, basin, and—under the bed—the usual chamber pot. If smaller than most of the rooms in which he'd slept lately, it was also cleaner than most.
Back in Skopentzana, Rhavas would have lit as many candles and lamps and torches as he pleased. Even then, reading after sunset hadn't been pleasant. By the feeble light of one oil lamp, it proved impossible.
All at once, he laughed at himself. If he couldn't make light, what kind of wizard was he? He remembered a charm early in the grimoire for doing exactly that—and when he remembered something, he remembered it completely and accurately.
One of the things he remembered was that the spell called on Phos. His lip curled. Fixing that would be easy enough. The spell as Koubatzes had written it suited the mage's ignorance. Rhavas, convinced he knew better, intended to revise the cantrip to focus it on the real chief power in the world.
He began to chant. At the appropriate times, he substituted Skotos' name for that of the good god. He held his hand out over the grimoire, so that light could flow from it once he finished the incantation—and that moment was fast approaching. "Let it be accomplished!" he declared.
Darkness flowed out from his hand.
He had always thought of darkness as a mere absence of light, something to be dispelled by sun or moon or torch or lamp or candle. He had thought that way—but now he found himself mistaken. The darkness his spell called up swallowed the lamplight, swallowed whatever moonlight and torchlight came in through the shuttered windows, and left him in night absolute. For all that he could see, his eyes might have been plucked from his head.
No, that wasn't true—he did see one thing. He saw the mistake he had made: if he wanted light, he should not have called on the dark god to produce it.
He wondered if this palpable, aggressive darkness held sway in his room alone or if it somehow spilled out and covered the whole inn, the whole town, the whole Empire. What had he done? After a moment, he realized he heard no screams of terror and dread, so the darkness seemed his alone. That was something, if only a small something.
He began the spell again, this time exactly as it was written in the grimoire. He had no idea what he would have done if he hadn't had it memorized. Either stayed blind forever or gone to a mage and confessed what he'd done, he supposed. In that case, the last light he saw would have been that from the flames consuming him for heresy.
"Let it be accomplished!" he said again, and hoped something, at any rate, would be accomplished. And something was. Light returned to the chamber: lamplight and what little filtered in through the shutters. He breathed a sigh of relief. He had, at least, managed to cancel what he'd done.
Now . . . Would repeating the spell the right way give him the light he'd craved from the beginning? He yawned. A day's travel and the magic he'd already worked had taken too much out of him. He closed the grimoire, lay down on the bed, and blew out the lamp.
Darkness descended again, but not darkness absolute, not darkness impenetrable. He could still make out the spaces between the slats of the shutters. A little light came in under the bottom of the door. Normally, he might not even have noticed it. Now, though, every tiny scrap of light seemed precious.
Rhavas closed his eyes. Even that darkness was less inky, less pitchy, than what he'd conjured up. He knew there was light on the other side of his eyelids. Before, it might have vanished from the universe. Knowing it would be there when he woke up helped him drop off.