Then she recalled the silver in her pocket. She was the only member of the troupe who had not made an offering that day, unless half a pie to a nun counted. She decided she would go to Tion's shrine and sacrifice some money there. If the crazy old priest was still there, she could reassure him that she was obviously in no danger and the reaper had left town anyway.
But why just the Youth? Why not visit all the shrines? She could pray to the Parent for comfort and the Maiden for justice and even to the Man for courage. She could ask them all to intercede with the Lady. She headed for the street behind the temple. The area was busy now, full of hurrying Narshian troglodytes.
She had often come along this street, so she knew the first shrine was Visek's, although she had never entered it before. Its imposing archway, which must once have been white, was now a grubby drab color and the faded sun symbol of the mother and father of gods was barely visible. She walked in boldly, to the small and shadowy courtyard, overgrown with somber trees and roofed by black branches and gray sky. The walls were smeared with lichen. Faint scents of stale incense cloyed the air. There was no one else present.
The statue of the Father opposite the entrance was crude, spattered with bird droppings and shedding flakes of white paint like dandruff. It depicted a stern, bearded man wearing a crown and long robes. The contorted Narshian script on the plinth was obscured by moss, but the god had only one eye and one ear, in his aspect as Chiol, god of destiny. She hoped he had his one ear turned her way now, to hear her prayer. Chiol had a very splendid temple in Joal, which she had seen but never visited—she never had problems with destiny.
She knelt before the figure. To pray to the All-Knowing, one should wear something white. Well, the inside of her fleece coat was sort-of white, so that was all right. She pulled out two of the silver coins Dragontrader had given her, unable to see what they were in the gloom.
There were other offerings lying on the plinth: a few coppers, two jars and a bottle, a cold leg of goose with flies crawling on it, a hank of wool, and a string of beads, which was probably somebody's most precious thing. She resisted a temptation to open the jars and sniff at the contents. She laid the silver beside them.
She bowed her head and repeated a prayer from the White Scriptures: “Father of Gods, Mother of Mortals, Giver of Truth, grant us comfort in our sorrows and forgive us our sins."
That was very appropriate, she thought, and in a moment she did feel better. Surprisingly better—but then she had never offered silver to a god before. She murmured the first thanksgiving she thought of; it was from the Blue Scriptures, but that would not matter.
Eleal limped out cheerfully, into a swirl of snow.
White flakes danced around in the streets, sticking only to people, it seemed, and not settling on the ground. They made it hard to see where she was going. Tugging her collar tighter, she set off between the hurrying pedestrians, the carts, and wagons. The high wall continued, marked by unwelcoming doors. Trees looked over the top in places, suggesting private gardens. The next shrine was Karzon's, in his aspect of Krak'th, god of earthquakes. She had rarely prayed to the Man before, and certainly never to Krak'th. She had no more problems with earthquakes than she did with destiny.
The afternoon was drawing to a close already; she was cold and weary. Her hip hurt. Blinking into the snowflakes, she saw a familiar figure stalking toward her. Anyone could recognize Dolm Actor at a distance by his height and rolling gait. Normally, of course, she would run to him. Dolm was a gangly, cheerful man, almost as tall as Trong Impresario, but much younger. He had a wonderful voice, although he moved poorly and his gestures were graceless. She could just remember when Dolm had been young enough to play the Youth. Now he usually portrayed the Man when the troupe performed tragedies, lovers or warriors in the comedies.
But Dolm would not be cheerful today, with Yama sacrificing in the temple. Dolm was very probably doing what she was doing—making a pilgrimage to all the shrines of Narsh—and in that case he was heading for Karzon's, as she was. She did not want Dolm to listen to her prayers.
She did not think she was wicked enough to listen to his. It wouldn't be easy to arrange, anyway. She stepped behind a parked wagon to let him go in unmolested. As he came closer, she decided that there was something strange about the way he was behaving. He passed by without seeing her, and without entering the shrine.
Curiosity is a sin, Ambria Impresario scolded.
Curiosity is a great talent, T'lin Dragontrader said.
So Eleal watched, and in a few minutes she decided that her hunch was correct, and Dolm Actor was being furtive. She stepped out from behind the cart and followed, keeping close to a rumbling wagon of bales. He walked faster than the yaks plodded, but every few minutes he would pause and look behind him.
He was tall and she was small. She could be a lot more inconspicuous than he could, and on a gloomy afternoon in a rio of snowflakes, she could be downright invisible.
Perhaps he was going to Chiol's shrine, to begin there, as she had. Why should he make such a mystery of it, though?
Without warning, Dolm vanished. Eleal caught a brief glimpse of a closing door. She stamped her heavy boot with annoyance.
Curiosity howled in frustration. Like her, Dolm visited Narsh only once a year, and briefly, yet he had obviously known exactly which door he wanted. As it was just a spread of timber in a featureless stone wall, with no name or marker on it, he must have been here before. The wall was too high to climb even had she dared try such a thing in a busy street. Shrubbery protruded over the top, so there was a garden beyond. It might be a back gate to the temple, or else another courtyard, like Chiol's shrine.
Another courtyard, next to Chiol's shrine!
Without pausing to think, Eleal sprinted back to the archway and through, into the gloomy shrine. There was still nobody there. Without a word of apology to the god, she hurried to the sidewall. Cursing her cumbersome boot and her heavy Narshian fleece, she scrambled up a tree until she could peek over.
Below her lay a larger courtyard, enclosed by high mossy walls, overgrown with old trees and gangly shrubs. It had an air of neglect and decay about it, as if no one ever came. It was another shrine, although never in her life had she heard of a sacred place being kept secret. Despite the snow swirling in the air, she had a clear view across the wet cobbles to the god.
The figure was so lifelike that it stopped her breath. She had never seen finer, even in the grandest temples. It was larger than mortal, wrought in bronze, a male in a loincloth. The Youth was usually shown nude and Karzon fully clad, but this must be the Man, for he was a heavyset mature adult, not a slim-waisted adolescent. Besides, he bore a skull in one hand and a hammer in the other. He was also weathered to a muddy green, and green was the color of Karzon, the Man. He stood in a sort of thicket of implements that stuck up around his feet: a spade, a word, a scythe, a shepherd's crook, and other attributes of his many aspects. All of those were also of green bronze, except the word, which was red with rust—she hoped it was rust.
That was no minor local god. That must be Karzon himself, god of creation and destruction. She had never been to his temple because it was in Tharg. So the Man had two shrines in Narsh—a public one to Krak'th and a private one of his own. Curious!
Then she saw Dolm, sitting on the ground below her, bare to the waist. While she watched, he hauled off his leggings and stood up, wearing nothing except a black cloth tied around his coins. He was visibly shivering as the snow settled on his shoulders and the prominent bald spot on top of his head, but the fact that he had stripped off everything except that one monocolored garment meant that he was about to perform some special ritual sacred to one god. Black meant Zath Karzon, the Man's avatar as god of death.