Like the peaks of Thargwall, massacre and surrender loomed ahead, ever closer, and the survivors would go to the silver mines. The two misfits could hope for nothing better. Dosh was serving his chosen god, and to die for Tion would guarantee him an eternal place with the blessed among the constellations, but the girl had no reason to be there. She had been useful as a guide in Lemodvale—why had D'ward not left her there? Had he no gratitude at all? Dosh would have expected better of the Liberator, somehow. The Filoby Testament never mentioned any Ysian, as far as he could remember. That meant nothing; the prophecies were very patchy.
He was on top of the rise now, with Talba and his men in clear view ahead. He stared around at the countryside—half expecting, as always, to see a second Thargian army advancing in wrath. Specks in the far distance were some of their scouts, lancers on moas. They rode circles around the invaders, watching like buzzards, pestering like mosquitoes, and yet now they had stopped attacking at all.
A temple!
A cluster of trees and ancient stone buildings standing all alone, halfway up a hillside in the middle of a pasture, where there was no visible reason for any sort of settlement at all—that could only be a sanctuary of some sort. The trees’ spring foliage was beaten gold, but so was the glint of the central dome, and gold said Tion. Dosh could not resist that call. He did want to; he was eager to serve his master.
"Better see if D'ward needs me,” he muttered, and stepped to the verge.
Gos'vla and his men marched by; he gave them the finger and they shouted obscenities at him. As soon as they had gone past, he dived through the hedge. He sat down in the weeds and waited for the rear guard to pass. The last troop went by him singing lustily, which was reasonable evidence that D'ward was with them, encouraging and inspiring as only he could.
Dosh stayed where he was a little longer. Then he scrambled to his feet and began to run across the fields.
37
SMEARS OF DUST IN THE DISTANCE TOLD DOSH THAT THE THARGIANS were still skulking. They might very well intercept him before he could ever catch up with his companions again. He was neither Nagian or Joalian, so he could not guess how they would treat him. It was better not to speculate. No matter, he had news he must pass to his master.
Half a fortnight ago D'ward had asked an unsettling question: Why should a god need spies to tell him things? Dosh had puzzled over that a lot until he worked out the answer. A god did not need anything. Gods were omniscient. It was the act of service that was important, and it was important only to Dosh himself. As a huntercat was trained to fetch prey, so he was being trained to serve, so that his soul might be worthy of a place in the heavens. Sacrifice was of value to the worshipper, not the god. The more it hurt the better it was, whether the sacrifice was a scrawny chicken or an act of service. Tion did not need Dosh, but Dosh desperately needed Tion.
The settlement was an abbey, he decided as he drew close. A nunnery was possible but a monastery more likely for an avatar of Tion.
Gasping for breath, he trotted through the gateway, slowing to a respectful walk within the sacred precincts. The buildings were very old, thickly coated with moss—five of them crouching among the trees and one larger edifice standing off by itself in the open. From the size of its windows, that one was probably a scriptorium. The order could not be very large, a dozen monks at most, and he wondered what they did with themselves, all alone out here in the hills. He caught a glimpse of a gowned figure bent over, weeding a herb garden, but saw no one else around. Prosaic washing waved on a line.
The minster was recognizable by its dome and central location. His wet shirt flapped against his skin as he strode up the steps. One side of the double door stood ajar, and he stepped through into clammy dimness.
The little chapel was entirely barren of furniture, not even an altar. It held only the image of the god, lit by beams shafting down from high slits in the dome. It certainly represented some aspect of the Youth, but a chunky, unappealing carving in veined marble, with his customary nudity partly concealed by a scroll he held vertically in both hands.
Dosh had been given a personal ritual to summon his master. Gods always designed such ceremonial so that they would not be duplicated by any trivial accidental gesture, and in his case he had to begin by taking off his clothes. That required privacy. He stood on one leg to remove a boot and almost fell over as a tall figure floated forward out of the shadows. Where had he ... Oh, there was a door in the corner.
The monk was elderly, but his back was straight and his shaven face and head made his age hard to estimate. The bones were well shaped under the parchment skin; in his youth he would probably have been worthy to serve the lord of beauty. His yellow robe shone in the gloom; his sandals made a faint shuffling noise on the stone floor. A glittering necklace dangling to his waist suggested that he was the abbot himself. He was frowning.
"You come to pay reverence to Holy Prylis, my son?"
Fortunately, long winter nights of pillow talk with Anguan had given Dosh a grasp of Lemodian, and Lemodian was not unlike that dreadful Thargian croak. He understood, if only just. Prylis was god of learning—hence the scroll.
Clearly the holy father did not approve of sweat-soaked worshippers arriving out of breath, shirt unfastened, muddy boots. He probably expected Dosh to kneel and kiss that chain now, and then he would order the peasant off to some freezing pond to bathe before commencing his worship.
Dosh made the gesture of Tion, but he used his left hand and simultaneously extended two fingers of his right. It was probably a recognition signal of one of the Tion cults, although Dosh had never been sworn to a mystery. Just where he had learned that sign, he could not recall. Perhaps the god himself had instructed him. It always worked.
It did now. The old priest bowed low. He did not even raise his head fully, did not look directly at his visitor again. Murmuring, “I shall see that you are not disturbed, my son,” he departed, sandals whispering hurriedly on the flags. The outer door closed behind him with a thump, making the chamber even darker. Much better.
Dosh stripped, shivery in the dank cold. The series of postures he was required to assume would normally be regarded as utter blasphemy in a temple, but one of the Youth's attributes was Kirb'l, the Joker. Dosh bowed to the idol, turned his back, bent over....
"What in the world are you doing?"
He shrieked and jumped and twisted around. There was no one there. Furious enough to forget his nudity, he strode over to the little door in the corner and threw it open. Beyond it lay a small chamber containing a table heaped with books. There was no other furniture, no other door. The voice had not come from there.
Trembling now, he hurried back to the idol and abased himself on the cold stone floor.
"Well?” asked that same sepulchral voice. “You have not answered my question."
"Lord, I was merely performing the ritual that you taught me."
"Oh!” There was no doubt now that the voice was coming from the statue. “Tion did, you mean?"
Dosh gibbered for a minute. “But are you not Holy Tion also, Lord?"
The god uttered a peculiar tee-hee noise, almost a snigger. “Well, not always. Not at the moment. What is he up to now? What in the world are those scars on your face? Start at the beginning and tell me the whole story."
"But...” Dosh had performed his ritual several times, in shrines or temples, and always it had brought the Lord of Beauty himself. But of course this time he had not completed the ritual, had hardly begun it. Were not all Tion's avatars Tion? That was what the priests said. Why, then, did this one refer to the Lord of Beauty as “he"?