The Redemption of Althalus (23 page)

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Bheid,” Eliar said, grasping the priest’s hand.

“Aren’t you a bit young to be a holy man?” Bheid asked. “Most holy men I’ve known are much older.”

Eliar laughed. “Nobody’s ever called me a holy man before, and I’m not, really. I’m just a soldier who happens to be working for God right now. I don’t really understand what’s going on, but that’s all right. A soldier doesn’t have to understand. He just has to do as he’s told.”

Bheid started to rise, but Eliar put one hand on his shoulder. “It might be better if you sat still for a while,” he suggested. “If you’re feeling at all the way I did when I first read the Knife, you’re probably a little wobbly right now. God’s got a very loud voice. I’m sure you noticed that.”

“Oh, yes,” Bheid replied fervently. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“You’ll have to ask Althalus here. He’s the only one who can talk to Emmy, and Emmy’s the one who makes the decisions.”

“Who’s Emmy?”

“As I understand it, she’s the sister of God, but right now she sort of looks like a cat, and she spends all her time sleeping in that hood Althalus has on the back of his cloak. It’s sort of complicated. Emmy’s older than the sun, and she’s very sweet, but if you make a mistake and cross her, she’ll swat the end of your nose right off.”

Bheid looked at Althalus. “Is this boy all right?” he asked.

“Eliar?” Althalus replied. “I think so. Of course he hasn’t had anything to eat for an hour or two, so he might be a little light-headed.”

“I don’t understand any of this at all,” Bheid confessed.

“Good. That’s the first step toward wisdom.”

“This might all make more sense if I knew your sign, Althalus—and Eliar’s as well. If I can cast your horoscopes, I’ll probably know just who you are.”

“Do you actually believe that, Bheid?” Althalus asked.

“Astrology’s the core of all religion,” Bheid told him. “Deiwos has written our destinies in the stars. The duty of the priesthood is to study the stars so that we can give man the word of God. What’s your sign? When were you born?”

“A very long time ago, Bheid,” Althalus said with a faint smile. “I don’t think you’d have much luck trying to cast my horoscope, because the stars have changed a lot since then. They had different names, and the people who looked at the skies didn’t see them in the same combinations that you do. Half of the Wolf was the bottom of something the old sky watchers called the Turtle, and what astrologers call the Boar now was the top half.”

“That’s blasphemy!” Bheid exclaimed.

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Bheid. Those astrologers all died, so they won’t be able to accuse you.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know, but
they’d
see it that way, wouldn’t they?” Althalus put his hand on Bheid’s arm. “There aren’t
really
any pictures in the sky, you know. As I said before, the stars aren’t connected to each other to make pictures for us to look at, but you’ve already guessed that, haven’t you? That’s why you’re having your crisis of faith. You
want
to believe that there’s a wolf and a boar and a dragon up there, but when you look, you just can’t really see them, can you?”

“I
try.
” Bheid almost wept. “I try so very hard, but they just aren’t there.”

“Things have just been rearranged, Bheid. You won’t have to look at the sky anymore, because Eliar’s got the Knife of Deiwos. The Knife will tell us where to go next.”

“Are we going to leave Awes?”

“I’m sure we are. We have a long way to go, I think.”

You’re wasting time, Althalus.
Emmy’s voice crackled inside his head.
You and Bheid can speculate about the stars on the way back to Osthos.

“Osthos!” Althalus protested out loud. “Emmy, we just came from there!”

Yes, I know. Now we have to go back.

“Were you talking with Emmy just now?” Eliar demanded. “Did she say that we have to go to Osthos again? I can’t go back there, Althalus! Andine would have me killed if I went back!”

“Is there something wrong?” Bheid asked, sounding very confused.

“We just got our marching orders,” Althalus told him. “Eliar’s a little bit unhappy about them.”

“Did something happen just now that I missed?”

“Emmy just told me that we have to go to Osthos.”

“I’m not sure I understand all this talk about somebody named Emmy.”

“Emmy’s the messenger of Deiwos—sort of. It’s a bit more complex than that, but let’s keep it simple for right now. Deiwos tells Emmy what he wants done. Then she tells me, and I pass it on.”

“We’re taking orders from a cat?” Bheid asked incredulously.

“No, we’re taking orders from God. We can talk about that on our way to Osthos, though. Emmy wants us to start getting ready to leave.” Althalus glanced about. “Let’s pile some more rocks on top of that dead man so that he’s not quite so visible. Then we’ll go pick up your belongings, and I’ll buy you a horse. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

They concealed the body more thoroughly and started off through the ruins toward the northern end of Awes. “Who’s this Andine person you were talking about?” Bheid asked Eliar.

“She’s the ruler of Osthos,” Eliar replied. “She wants to kill me.”

“Whatever for?”

“Well,” Eliar replied with a slightly pained expression, “I
did
sort of kill her father, I guess, but it was during a war, and that kind of thing happens during wars. I was just doing my job, but Andine took it personally. I didn’t really mean anything by it. I was just following orders, but she can’t quite understand that, I guess.”

“Did any of that make any sense to you?” Bheid asked Althalus with a perplexed look.

“You almost had to have been there,” Althalus told him. “It was all very complicated. We can talk about it on our way to Osthos.”

They went to the northern end of Awes where the black-robed priests stayed, picked up Bheid’s blankets and his few other belongings, and then returned to the rudimentary camp where Althalus and Eliar had spent the previous night. Then Eliar and Bheid went to the corral of a horse trader and returned with a mount for their newest member.

“I’m awfully hungry, Althalus,” Eliar said hopefully. “Could we have beef tonight instead of fish?”

“I’ll make a fire,” Bheid offered.

“That won’t be necessary,” Althalus told him. Then he called up a fairly large beef roast and several loaves of bread.

Bheid jerked back with a startled oath.

“Makes your hair stand on end, doesn’t it?” Eliar chuckled. “I was almost afraid to eat the first supper he made that way, but the food he makes with words is really very good.” Eliar started to eat with a great deal of enthusiasm.

“How do you do that?” Bheid asked Althalus in an awed voice.

“Emmy calls it ‘using the Book,’ ” Althalus replied. “She taught me how to do it back in the House at the End of the World where the Book is.”

“Which Book?”

“The Book of Deiwos, of course.”

“You’ve actually
seen
the Book of Deiwos?”

“Seen it?” Althalus laughed. “I
lived
with it for twenty-five hundred years. I can recite it from end to end, forward or backward, and from side to side, if you’d really care to hear it that way. I think I could even recite it upside down if I put my mind to it.”

“Exactly how is it that the Book of Deiwos makes it possible for you to perform miracles?”

“The Book’s the word of God, Bheid. It’s written in a very antique language that’s sort of like the language we speak now, but not exactly. The words from the old language make things happen. If I say ‘beef,’ nothing happens, but if I say ‘
gwou,
’ we get supper. There’s a little more involved in the procedure, but that’s the core of it. I spent a lot of years committing the Book to memory.” He tapped his forehead. “I’ve got it in here now, so I don’t have to carry it with me—which isn’t permitted, of course. The Book has to stay in the House. It wouldn’t be safe to carry it out into the real world. You’d better eat your supper before it gets cold.”

Eliar had several more helpings, then they talked a bit more before rolling up in their blankets to sleep.

It was Awes. Althalus was sure that it was Awes, but it had no buildings. He could clearly see the fork of the River Medyo, but a grove of ancient trees had somehow replaced the ruins. He wandered for a time under those mighty oaks, and then he looked toward the west and saw people far off in the distance. As he watched them coming across the grassy plain toward the place where he stood, he seemed to hear a faint wailing sound coming from very far away. There was a lost, despairing quality to that wailing that seemed to wrench at his very soul.

And then the people he’d seen reached the far bank of the river, and he could see them more clearly. They were dressed in the skins of animals, and they carried spears with stone points.

He rolled over, muttering and groping under his blanket for the rock that had been gouging his hip. He finally located it, threw it away, and slid easily back into sleep.

There were crude huts under the oak trees now, and the fur-clad people moved among those huts, talking, talking, talking in hushed and fearful tones. “He comes, he comes, he comes,” the people said. “Make ready for his coming, for he is God.” And the faces of some of the people were exalted, and the faces of others were filled with terror. And still they said, “He comes, he comes, he comes.”

And Ghend moved among them, whispering, whispering. And the people pulled back from Ghend with fear upon their faces. But Ghend paid no heed to their fear, and his eyes burned, burned.

And Ghend lifted his face and looked upon Althalus with his burning eyes. And the eyes of Ghend seared at the soul of Althalus. And Ghend spoke then, saying, “It is of little moment, my thief. Run, Althalus, run, and I shall pursue you down the nights and down the years, and the Book shall avail you not, for I shall deliver you up to the throne of Daeva, and you—even as I—shall serve him down all the endless eons. And when the eons end, we shall turn and follow them back to their beginning. And then shall we turn again, and behold, they shall not be as they were before.”

The wailing sound rose to an awful shriek.

Althalus started up, sweating profusely. “God!” he exclaimed, trembling violently.

“Who was he?” Bheid’s terrified voice came out of the darkness. “Who was that man with eyes of fire?”

“You saw him, too?” Eliar asked, his voice also trembling.

Step aside, Althalus.
Emmy’s voice inside his head had a crisp, no-nonsense quality about it.
I need to talk to them.

Althalus felt himself being rather rudely thrust aside. “Eliar,” Emmy said, “tell Bheid who I am.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Eliar responded. “Bheid,” he said, “that’s Emmy talking. She does that now and then. Althalus might still be there, but she’s using his voice.”

“The cat?” Bheid said incredulously.

“I wouldn’t think of her as a cat, exactly,” Eliar advised. “That’s just the way she hides what she really is. Her real form would probably blind us if we looked at her.”

“Hush, Eliar,” Emmy said gently.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What you’ve all just experienced, gentlemen, wasn’t exactly a dream,” Emmy told them. “Althalus has met Ghend before, so he’ll be able to tell you about him—after I’ve finished using his voice. What you saw just now wasn’t a dream, but it wasn’t real, either. It’s what Ghend—and Daeva—want to
make
real.”

“Who were those people we saw?” Bheid asked in a trembling voice.

“The Medyos—the first ones who came to this part of the world ten thousand years ago. They brought the worship of Deiwos with them when they came here, but Daeva’s trying to change that. He’s trying to alter things so that the first Medyos worship
him
instead of his kinsman Deiwos.”

“But that’s impossible,” Bheid protested. “Once something’s happened, it
can’t
be changed.”

“Keep a very firm grip on that thought, Bheid,” she advised. “It might help. Daeva doesn’t seem to agree with you, though. He believes that he
can
change the past—by changing the present. That’s why we’re being gathered together. We’re supposed to prevent what Daeva’s trying to do. This
will
happen again. You’ll see things that didn’t really happen, and you won’t always be asleep when you see them.”

“This just stopped being fun, Emmy,” Eliar complained. “If these wide-awake dreams come popping out of nowhere the way
that
one did, how can we tell what’s real and what’s not?”

“Because of the wailing,” she replied. “When you hear that wailing off in the distance, it’s a sure sign that Ghend’s trying to alter the past. You’ll
also
know when the wailing starts that you’re not in the present. You may be in the past or in the future, but you aren’t in the place called now.”

Althalus looked off to the east where the first faint hint of the new day was touching the horizon. “It’s almost daybreak,” he told his companions. “Let’s gather up our things and get ready to start.”

“We
are
going to have breakfast, aren’t we?” Eliar asked in a worried tone.

Althalus sighed. “Yes, Eliar, we’ll have breakfast.”

The sun was just coming up when the barge ferried them across the west fork of the river, and they rode toward the west. After they’d gone a few miles, Bheid trotted his horse up beside Althalus. “Can we talk?” he asked.

“I guess that’s permitted,” Althalus replied.

“How did you find out where the Book of Deiwos was located?” Bheid asked. “I’ve been hearing stories about it for years now. Arguments about that Book have been going on for centuries. Most of my teachers said that the Book was actually the night sky, but some said that it really did exist. Evidently those were the ones who were right.”

“Yes,” Althalus replied, “there really
is
a Book.”

“How did you find it? Did God come to you in a vision?”

Althalus laughed. “No it wasn’t God who came to me. It was Ghend.”

“Ghend?”