Now where was D'ward?
Dosh rose on tiptoe as he walked, peering through the jungle of heads. Gone! No! There he was.
He had stepped into an arched doorway, and Dosh was almost past him. He pushed his way across the stream of the crowd, bumping and apologizing, being shoved and cursed and threatened. Thargians never apologized. He reached the wall and was flattened against it by the crush, then began edging his way back to the arch.
A flash of color above it caught his eye, a festoon of faded blue ropes. Blue was the color of the Maiden, and a net was the symbol of justice. He had always thought that was inappropriate. In his experience, the little ones got caught and the big ones got away. That wasn't what it meant, of course.
D'ward was speaking through a grille in the door. Ysian stood at his side, her face pale and rigid. She looked up at Dosh and bared her teeth. D'ward passed the abbot's letter through the grating. Dosh eased nearer in the hope of hearing what was being said. As he squeezed by Ysian, a sharp pain stopped him. He glanced down and confirmed his gut feeling that the problem was her dagger.
"Go!” she whispered.
He stammered and then decided that he had seen that expression in her eyes once before, when she had threatened to club him senseless. D'ward was still talking, pleading for haste. The pain came again. She could puncture Dosh's bowels with one swift jab. He stepped back. She followed, urging him on at knifepoint.
"Go!” she insisted. “Move!"
He turned into the crowd and was swept away. He felt her hand grab hold of his belt, but at least the dagger was making no more holes in his hide. In moments they were being rushed along the street by the sweaty tide.
"What do you think you are doing?” he demanded, twisting around to see her.
She was smirking triumphantly. “I am not entering any flea-infested convent! D'ward will go on to the temple. We are going to catch him before he gets there and stop him making a fool of himself!"
It wasn't a fool he was going to make of himself, it was a corpse. “By the five gods, girl, how do you ever expect—"
"Don't you call me a girl!"
"I call you an idiot! We'll never find him in this—"
The crowd had slowed to a crawl. Dosh stumbled into the man in front of him, and a vicious elbow rammed into his solar plexus, knocking all the breath out of him. He staggered.
"Watch where you're going,” Ysian said, pushing him forward again.
In all cities, the holy places tended to huddle together. Temple Square was just around the corner from the convent. It was now full. Refusing to be balked, the mob in the street continued to press onward.
It occurred to Dosh that women might well be prohibited by law from entering the Man's holy place. If Ysian's deception was discovered, then he would be held responsible. On the other hand, he was more likely to die in the crush. It was already hard to breathe, and the crowd continued to squeeze tighter and tighter. It oozed ahead like a human glacier, a paste of compressed bodies. He wished he were taller.
"This will kill us!” he groaned, feeling the start of panic. Two hands gripped his arms and pulled them behind him. “What in eternity are you doing?"
"Cup your hands!"
"What?"
Ysian pushed his hands together. Somehow she squirmed and struggled and got one foot in them. Then she wriggled up his back and seated herself on his shoulders, her fingers locked in his hair and her weight threatening to buckle his knees.
"There!” she said. “Now I can see. Keep moving!"
The ancient temple of Karzon in Tharg, dating from the days of the kings, had been built of wood. During the Fifth Joalian War, it had been struck by lightning and burned to the ground. This evil omen had caused great despair among the Man's Men on the eve of the final campaign, but the famous Goztikon, thirteen times ephor, had declared the sign to be one of hope. He had publicly pledged his life and the lives of his seven sons that the god was promising renewal for Thargia; the Man's Men would prevail, he swore, and would return to build a new and mightier temple to the glory of their god.
So it had transpired. The armies of the Joalian Coalition had been crushed in the bloody battle of Suddopass. The survivors had worked out their lives in the quarries to further the building of the temple. Artisans and craftsmen from all over the Vales had spent twenty years on it. The indemnities levied on Joalia by the peace treaty had included the greatest artist of the age, K'simbr Sculptor, who had been specifically requisitioned so he might raise fitting images of the god.
Gods. Whereas the Man in his primary aspect had always been god of both creation and destruction, he had hitherto been represented by a single likeness. In the new great temple, he was shown twice. One giant image was plated with copper, which would weather to the green of his color. The other was of silver, to turn black. Officially both were Karzon, but the ignorant multitude soon spoke of the second image as being that of Zath, his aspect of Death. The avatar had been promoted to equality.
Eased forward irresistibly by the bodies pressed in all around him, Dosh shuffled into the southwest corner of the square. Over the shifting oceans of heads he saw the temple towering into the sky, two walls of stupendous pillars running off to east and north. They were so thick and the gaps between them so narrow that from his angle they completely blocked the interior from view. They were oppressive, domineering, overwhelming. The temple of Karzon was a giant gray granite cage, the ugliest structure he had ever set eyes on.
The crowd pushed relentlessly at his back, urging him closer.
"Not yet!” Ysian proclaimed, having to shout over the din. She twisted Dosh's head around. “Wait over there!"
"I can't get out."
She took hold of his ears and pulled. He yelled, causing his nearest neighbors to look at him in surprise. He blinked away tears.
"I shall pull them off!” Ysian said, kicking him with her heels.
She probably meant it. He began to fight his way out of the crowd.
He broke free of the main current after a considerable struggle and reached the shallows at the edge of the square. There were many people there too, but they were mostly not moving, just staring at the temple, fearing to risk their lives in the compacted mob. He leaned back against the wall, gasping and sweating. His shoulders were breaking.
"Get down!” he groaned. “You're crushing me."
"Stop whining! You said you were the toughest man in the army, didn't you?"
"I'm not a fornicating moa!"
Other children in yellow tunics floated above the crowd, riding their fathers’ shoulders. None was anywhere near Ysian's size. He would wager that none was a girl, either. Many older youths had clambered upon the plinths of the columns, and some had scrambled even higher, apparently finding toe-and fingerholds within the carvings, clinging there like human lichen. Every few minutes one would lose his grip and fall, dragging others with him, down into the melee. Whatever screams or oaths resulted were lost in the steady, torrential roar.
Dosh was farther from the corner now. He could see through the closest pair of pillars, and what he saw was the back of the statue of Zath. Silvery black, it stood ten times the height of a man, muffled in a reaper's cloak and ominously stooped, as if to study the multitude huddled around its feet. He was happy not to be there, looking up at the face of Death. Beyond it he could see an edge of the statue of Karzon, mostly just the great hammer he held, his symbol.