The Redemption of Althalus (22 page)

Maybe not. He might have just spread his agents out to watch for us. Fix
Khnom’s face in your mind. We’ll probably run across him again.

“Was there anything in particular you were looking for, friend?” the ostensible merchant asked. He was a small-sized man, and he seemed to be very careful not to look Althalus in the eye.

“Actually, I need some information, neighbor,” Althalus replied. “I’m not familiar with the proprieties here in Awes. Can I just set up shop in any ruined building that’s empty?”

“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” the merchant advised. “Most of the business that goes on here in Awes takes place in this middle part of town, and the White Robes who control it sort of expect a ‘donation’ from you before you open for business.”

“A bribe, you mean?”

“I wouldn’t use that word to their faces. Pretend to be some religious simpleton. All priests love feeble-minded parishioners.” Khnom cast a sly, sidelong glance at Althalus to see how his somewhat sacrilegious remark had gone over.

Althalus kept his face bland. “What are their feelings about us pitching our tents at the back of the shop?” he asked.

“They’d rather that we didn’t—and you probably wouldn’t want to. They pray a lot, and they’re noisy about it. The rest of us businessmen have a sort of community over by what’s left of the east wall of the city.”

“How do these priests get the money to buy anything?”

“They sell horoscopes to gullible people who believe in that nonsense, and they charge a fairly steep price.”

“Good. They swindle their parishioners, and then we swindle them. I love doing business with a man who devoutly believes he’s more clever than I am. Thanks for the information.”

“Glad I could help. Do you need any pots or pans?”

“Not right at the moment, no. Thanks all the same.”

He knows who you are, Althalus,
Emmy’s voice warned.

Yes, I know. He’s clever, I’ll give him that, but he’s not really a merchant.

How did you know that?

He didn’t once ask me what line I was in. That’s the first question
any
merchant asks. No merchant wants a competitor right across the street. Should
we get rid of him? Eliar and I could kill him right now.

No. You two aren’t the ones who are supposed to deal with Khnom. Just
be careful around him, that’s all.

“Where do we go now?” Eliar asked.

“There’s a merchant community over by the east wall,” Althalus replied. “We’ll set up camp there and start looking for the one we want first thing in the morning.”

“Could you make me some soap?” Eliar asked as they led their horses off down the rubble-strewn street.

“Probably. Why?”

“Emmy wants me to take a bath. Is that the first thing that pops into every woman’s mind? Every time I’d visit my mother back home, those were usually the first words that came out of her mouth.”

“You don’t like bathing, I take it?”

“Oh, I’ll bathe if it really gets necessary, but once a week’s usually enough, isn’t it? Unless you’ve been cleaning the stables, of course.”

“Emmy’s got a very sharp nose, Eliar. Let’s neither of us go out of our way to offend her.”

You, too, Althalus,
Emmy’s voice murmured.

I don’t need a bath, Em,
he silently protested.

You’re wrong. You definitely need a bath. You’ve been riding for several
weeks now, and you’ve got a very horsey fragrance about you. Bathe. Soon.
Please.

They started out early the following morning, and after a few awkward starts Eliar became more proficient. His open, boyish face helped quite a bit as he hopefully approached each hooded priest with his question. Most of the priests, Althalus noticed, refused to come right out and admit that they couldn’t read the alien script carved into the Knife’s blade. Their usual response was a brusque, “I’m too busy for that kind of nonsense.” Several they encountered, however, offered to translate—for a price. One hollow-eyed fanatic launched a blistering denunciation, declaring that any script he couldn’t read was obviously the handwriting of the devil himself.

Althalus and Eliar left him in the middle of the street still preaching to nobody in particular.

“Here comes another one,” Eliar said quietly. “Maybe we can start making wagers about what they’ll say when I show them the Knife. This one looks like an ‘I’m too busy’ sort of fellow to me.”

“I’d put him in the ‘I’ll have to charge you for a reading’ crowd,” Althalus replied, grinning.

“What gives him away?”

“He’s cockeyed. He’s got one eye on the sky watching for Deiwos and the other on the ground looking for a penny that somebody might have dropped.”

“I just hope he’s not like the last one. The next one who calls my knife an instrument of the devil is going to get my fist in his face.”

The priest approaching them up the empty street had a gaunt, hungry look about him, and his disconnected eyes and wild hair gave him the appearance of a lunatic. His shabby brown robe was filthy, and there was a powerful odor about him.

“Excuse me, your Worship,” Eliar said politely, going up to the cockeyed holy man. “I just bought this knife, and it seems to have some kind of writing on the blade. I never got around to learning how to read, so I can’t tell what it says. Could you help me out?”

“Let me see it,” the priest growled in a harsh, rasping voice.

Eliar held out his laurel-leaf dagger.

The sudden scream was shockingly loud, echoing from the ruined walls of nearby buildings. The ragged priest stumbled back, covering his eyes with his hands and screaming as if he’d just been dipped in boiling pitch.

“I hope you won’t take this personally, your Worship,” Eliar said, driving the Knife directly into the shrieking priest’s chest.

The scream cut off abruptly, and the dead man collapsed with not so much as a twitch.

Althalus spun, his eyes searching every vacant window and doorway. As luck had it, they were alone. “Get him out of sight!” he barked at Eliar. “Hurry!”

Eliar quickly put the Knife away, seized the fellow’s wrists, and dragged him behind a partially collapsed wall. “Did anybody see us?” he asked just a bit breathlessly.

“I don’t think so,” Althalus replied. “Come here and keep watch. I want to search the body.”

“What for?” Eliar stood up. His hands were trembling slightly.

“Calm down,” Althalus told him. “Get a grip on yourself.”

“I’m all right, Althalus,” Eliar said. “It’s just that he startled me when he started screaming like that.”

“Why did you apologize before you killed him?”

“Just trying to be polite, I guess. Mother taught me to mind my manners. You know how mothers are.”

“Watch the street. Let me know if somebody happens along.” Althalus roughly searched the body, not really knowing what he might be looking for, but the dead man’s pockets had absolutely nothing in them. He kicked a bit of rubble over the body, and then he came back out into the street.

“Did you find anything?” Eliar asked. His voice still sounded a little excited.

“Calm down,” Althalus told him. “If you’re going to do this, do it right. People who are all worked up make mistakes.”

Then a black-robed priest came striding up the rubble-littered street toward them. He was a fairly young man, and his hair was a rich auburn color. His dark eyes were flashing indignantly. “I saw what you just did!” he said. “You men are murderers!”

“Shouldn’t you get a few details before you start making accusations like that?” Althalus said calmly.

“You killed him in cold blood!”

“My blood wasn’t particularly cold,” Althalus said. “Was yours, Eliar?”

“Not really,” Eliar replied.

“The man was
not
a priest, Reverend Sir,” Althalus told their accuser. “Quite the opposite—unless Daeva’s set up a priesthood of his own here lately.”

“Daeva!” The youthful priest gasped. “How did you know that name?”

“Is it supposed to be a secret?” Althalus asked mildly.

“That information is
not
supposed to be in the hands of the general population. Ordinary people aren’t equipped to deal with it.”

“Ordinary people are probably much wiser than you think they are, Reverend,” Althalus told him. “Every family has a few black sheep. There’s nothing really unusual about it. Deiwos and Dweia aren’t really happy that their brother went astray, but it wasn’t really
their
fault.”

“You’re a priest, aren’t you?”

“You make it sound almost like an accusation,” Althalus said, smiling slightly. “Eliar and I sort of work for Deiwos, but I wouldn’t go quite so far as to call us priests. The man Eliar just put to sleep was one of the people who work for Daeva. As soon as we discovered that, we killed him. There’s a war in the works right now, Reverend. Eliar and I are soldiers, and we’re going to fight that war.”

“I’m a soldier of Deiwos, too,” the priest asserted.

“That hasn’t been established yet, my young friend. There’s a little test you’d have to take first. That’s what you just saw happen here. The fellow lying over behind that wall didn’t pass the test, so Eliar killed him.”

“The stars haven’t said anything about a war.”

“Maybe the news hasn’t reached them yet.”

“The stars know everything.”

“Maybe. But maybe they’ve been told to keep the information to themselves. If I happened to be the one who’s running this war, I don’t think I’d be scrawling my battle plans across the sky every night, would you?”

The priest’s eyes grew troubled. “You’re attacking the very core of religion,” he accused.

“No. I’m attacking a misconception. You look at the sky and imagine that you’re seeing pictures up there, but they aren’t really pictures, are they? They’re just disconnected points of light. There isn’t a raven up there, or a wolf, or a serpent, or any other imaginary picture. The war’s right here, not up there. But this is all beside the point. Let’s find out if you really
are
one of the soldiers of the Sky God.”

“I have taken a vow to serve him,” the priest asserted devoutly.

“Did he ever get around to telling you whether or not he accepted your vow?” Althalus asked slyly. “Maybe you don’t qualify.”

The auburn-haired young man’s eyes grew troubled.

“You’re filled with doubts, aren’t you, friend?” Althalus said sympathetically. “I know that feeling very, very well. Sometimes your faith falters and everything you want to believe seems to be nothing but a mockery and a deception—some cruel joke.”

“I
want
to believe! I try so hard to
make
myself believe.”

“Eliar and I are here to make it easier for you,” Althalus assured him. “Show him the Knife, Eliar.”

“If you say so,” Eliar said obediently. He looked at the troubled priest. “Don’t get excited about this, your Worship,” he said. “I’m going to show my Knife to you. I’m not threatening you with it or anything. There’s some writing on the blade that you’re supposed to read to us. If you can’t read it, we’ll shake hands and part friends. If you
do
happen to see a word on the blade, you’ll be joining us. This is that test Althalus was talking about.”

“Just show him the Knife, Eliar,” Althalus said. “You don’t have to make a speech to him.”

“He gets grouchy sometimes,” Eliar told the now-baffled priest. “He’s the oldest man in the world, and you know how grouchy old men get sometimes. We’d better get down to business before he starts jumping up and down and frothing at the mouth.”

“Eliar!”
Althalus almost shouted. “Show him the Knife!”

“You see what I mean about him?” Eliar said. He took the Knife out from under his belt and pointed at the complex engraving on the blade. “This is what you’re supposed to try to read,” he explained. “The word sort of jumps right out at you, so you don’t really have to work at it too hard.”

“Eliar!” Althalus almost pleaded.

“I’m just trying to help him, Althalus.” Eliar held the hilt of the dagger firmly in his fist and turned his hand to hold the blade directly in front of the trembling priest’s pale face. “What does it say, your Worship?” he asked politely.

The youthful priest went paler still, as if every drop of blood had drained from his face. “Illuminate,” he replied so reverently that it seemed almost a prayer.

The dagger in Eliar’s fist broke into joyful song.

“I
knew
he was the one, Althalus,” Eliar said in an offhand sort of way. “That’s why I was trying to sort of ease him into it. You’re a fairly good Sergeant, but sometimes you’re just a little rough. You ought to work on that, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Thanks,” Althalus replied in a flat, almost unfriendly way.

“It’s part of my job, Althalus,” Eliar replied, tucking the Knife back under his belt. “I’m sort of your second in command, so if I see a way to do things better, I’m supposed to suggest it to you. You don’t have to listen if you don’t want to, of course, but I’d be letting you down if I didn’t say it, wouldn’t I?”

Don’t say anything, Althalus,
Emmy silently commanded.

Althalus sighed.
Yes, dear,
he replied in a resigned tone.

C H A P T E R     T W E L V E

T
he auburn-haired young priest had sunk limply down onto a mossy stone, and he sat staring at the ground in a kind of distracted wonder.

“Are you all right?” Eliar asked their new companion.

“I have seen the word of God,” the priest replied in a trembling voice. “Deiwos has spoken to me.”

“Yes,” Eliar replied. “We heard him, too.” Then he amended that. “Well, actually we heard the Knife, but since it’s God’s Knife in the first place, it sort of amounts to the same thing, I guess.”

“Why did the Knife make that sound?” The priest’s voice was still shaking and filled with awe.

“I think that’s God’s way of letting us know that you’re the one we’ve been looking for. My name’s Eliar.”

“I’m known as Bheid,” the priest replied, looking into the young Arum’s face with a puzzled expression.