The Redemption of Althalus (84 page)

“That’s probably because Emmy hasn’t really made up her mind yet,” Gher said. “I’d guess that a few more things are going to have to happen before she can be sure about the when part. She knows about what and where, but she can’t exactly nail down the when part until the bad people get to the town with the funny name.”

“Maghu,” Leitha supplied.

“I guess so,” Gher said. “Anyway, I think Emmy’s waiting until Argan and the other one walk into the church before she picks out the when. I kind of think it was like that time in Wekti when we all dreamed about somewhen when the bad lady’s ax was made out of a sharp rock.”

“I
love
this boy,” Leitha said fondly. “I could ponder the meaning of ‘somewhen’ for weeks on end. You should learn how to write, Gher. You have the soul of a poet.”

Gher flushed. “Not really,” he admitted. “It’s just that I don’t know the right words for what I’m thinking, so I have to make words up. Anyway, Argan and his friend—except that they aren’t really friends—are going to dash into the church, but when they go through the door, it won’t be now inside. The ordinary people who are coming along behind them are going to get a real big surprise, I think, because it’ll look like their leaders just got themselves turned into nothing. That’ll scare the teeth out of that crowd, I’ll bet, and they’ll probably decide that this revolution stuff isn’t very much fun anymore. Then they’ll all pack up and go back home, and we won’t have to kill hardly any of them at all. That’s really just about the best way there is to fight a war, don’t you think?”

“You should stop and take a breath once in a while, Gher,” Andine said fondly. “You get so enthusiastic sometimes.”

“Have you chosen which time you’re going to use, Emmy?” Eliar asked.

“A time when the temple is mine,” she replied.

“Back in the past?”

“Perhaps,” she said with a mysterious little smile, “or it might be in the future instead.”

“Are you planning to return to your temple, Dweia?” Bheid asked, sounding a bit worried.

“I never left, Bheid. The temple’s still mine, and it always will be. I’m just letting you use it for the time being.” She gave him a sly look. “Maybe someday when you’re not too busy we should take up the matter of the back rent your Church owes me for the use of my building. It’s been mounting up for quite some time, you know.”

“How did they change their faces, Emmy?” Gher asked curiously as they watched from the window while several scarlet-robed priests moved through the vast mob of peasants and day laborers camped outside the gates of Maghu about sixteen days later. “They had those steel things hanging off their helmets over in Equero, but their faces are right out in the open over here in Perquaine.”

“It’s just an illusion, Gher. Daeva’s very good at illusions, and he’s taught his priests how to do it.”

“How are we going to make them look the way they really are when the time comes?”

“
We
won’t have to,” she replied. “Eliar’s Knife will strip away the illusions when he shows it to them.”

“I sure wish
I
had a knife like that.”

“You don’t really need one, Gher. You can see and understand reality better than anyone else in the world.”

“Well, maybe not yet, but I’m working on it.”

“Have you managed to empty out the city yet, Brother Bheid?” Sergeant Khalor asked.

“More or less, Sergeant. There are quite a few hiding in cellars and attics in the shabbier parts of town.” Bheid smiled faintly. “Those are the ones who’ll join Argan’s people as soon as they come through the city gates. They’re just getting an early start on the looting, I guess.”

“Why must they always set fires?” Bheid asked Althalus as the two of them stood on the portico of the temple waiting and watching the columns of smoke rising from various quarters of the city.

“I’m not really sure, Bheid,” Althalus confessed. “It might just be accidental. Looters are usually fairly excited, and sometimes they get careless. My best guess, though, is that the fires are being set deliberately to punish the noblemen for their bad habits.”

“That’s pure stupidity, Althalus,” Bheid objected.

“Of course it is. It’s the nature of mobs to be stupid. A mob’s only as clever as its stupidest member.”

Bheid reached out tentatively as if to touch something directly in front of him.

“Quit worrying about it, Bheid,” Althalus told him. “The shield’s still in place, and nothing can penetrate it—except for your voice, of course.”

“You’re sure?”

“Trust me, Bheid. Nobody’s going to shoot you full of arrows or split your skull with a pickax. Leitha’d set my brain on fire if I let anything happen to you. Are your people in place?”

Bheid nodded. “They’ll filter into that crowd along with the local rebels.” He sighed regretfully. “I wish we didn’t have to do it this way, Althalus. It seems so dishonest.”

“So? Isn’t it better to control a crowd my way rather than Prince Marwain’s?”

“I can’t argue with that,” Bheid admitted.

“They’re coming,” Althalus warned, pointing toward the other side of the square, where several men armed with farm tools had just appeared. “I’d better get out of sight now. I’ll be at the window. It’s right behind you and about four feet above your head. If something starts to go wrong, I’ll pull you out. Let’s go over this one more time: it’s an elaborate little dance, so let’s be sure we’ve got the steps right.”

“We’ve been through it a dozen times already, Althalus,” Bheid said.

“Humor me, Brother Bheid. You start out on the portico to greet Argan and Koman when they reach the steps. Eliar’s going to be at the temple door. Argan and Koman will come across the square, and they’ll bluster at you.”

“And Koman will be listening to my every thought,” Bheid added.

“No, actually he won’t. Leitha’s going to blot him out. She’ll fill his other set of ears with noise. Now, here’s where it starts to get tricky. Argan demands to be admitted to the temple, and you invite him to go inside. That’s when you move back to your right, clearing the way for them.”

“Yes, I know, and that’s when Eliar opens the temple door and goes over to the left side of the portico.”

“You actually remembered,” Althalus said drily. “Amazing. The whole point of our little dance is to put Eliar between Argan and Koman and that mob that’s following them. When he raises the Knife, Argan and Koman are going to run one way, and the mob’s going to run the other. Emmy doesn’t want a crowd in the temple while she’s working. Then you get to preach your little sermon to the crowd, say ‘Amen,’ and join the ladies in the temple. Don’t dawdle, Bheid. Emmy can’t start evaporating Argan until you’re in place. Have you got it all straight?”

“As many times as we’ve been through it, I could probably do it in my sleep.”

“I’d really rather you didn’t, Brother Bheid. Keep your eyes and ears open. If something unexpected crops up, we might have to modify things a bit, and if I tell you to jump, just jump. I’m not inviting you to an extended debate.”

Aren’t you being just a bit obvious, love?
Dweia’s voice murmured.

Sometimes it’s necessary to keep Bheid on a tight leash, Em,
he replied.
Every so often he breaks out in a rash of creativity. How’s Leitha holding out?

She knows that what she has to do is absolutely necessary. Help her as
much as you possibly can, Althalus.

He nodded and took his place at the window.

Argan’s red-clad henchmen were in the forefront of the advancing crowd as the square before the steps of the temple filled with eager commoners. Then Argan and Koman pushed their way forward. “On to the temple!” Argan shouted.

“Hold steady, Bheid,” Althalus told his friend. “They can’t get to you, no matter what they do.”

“Right,” Bheid answered.

Then Althalus turned slightly. “You’d better go on down now,” he told Eliar. “Try to be sort of inconspicuous.”

“I know what to do, Althalus,” Eliar replied, drawing up the cowl of the priestly grey robe he wore. Then he opened the door beside the window and stepped through to a position in the entryway of the temple.

Argan and Koman reached the foot of the temple steps. “Stand aside if you value your life!” Argan shouted to Bheid.

“What is it that you want?” Bheid asked in an oddly formal tone.

“That should be obvious by now, old boy,” Argan replied sardonically. “We’re taking the temple. Now move aside while you still can. The Red Robes are now the Church of Perquaine!”

The belligerent crowd roared and began to surge forward.

“Are you certain that’s what you want, Argan?” Bheid asked.

“It’s what I will
have
! Maghu is mine now, and I will rule Perquaine from the temple.”

Bheid bowed slightly. “I am here but to serve,” he said. “The temple awaits you.” He stepped off to his right to leave the path to the temple door open for them.

Argan and Koman started up the steps with the commoners and the Red Robes close behind them.

Bheid turned slightly and nodded to Eliar.

The young Arum put his hands to the massive temple doors and opened them wide. Then he stepped to the left, his head bowed in apparent subservience.

Argan and Koman flinched back. Beyond the open door there was fire, and hollow, despairing screams came echoing out into the square before the temple. The commoners recoiled, their faces filled with horror.

“And will you enter now?” Bheid asked the now-terrified crowd.

“It’s a deception!” Argan declared, his voice shrill. “That’s nothing but an illusion!”

“You’ve been in Nahgharash before, Brother Argan,” Bheid said. “You know that what you’re seeing is reality, not an illusion.”

Eliar was moving unobtrusively among the columns on the left side of the portico. When he reached the spot Althalus had marked with paint on the marble surface, he glanced toward the window and nodded.

“Preach, Bheid,” Althalus commanded.

Bheid nodded and stepped back to his former position, placing himself between the crowd and Ghend’s two henchmen. He raised his voice to speak to the terrified crowd in the square. “Pay heed to this revelation, my children!” he warned. “Hell itself awaits you, and the demons are already among you!” He motioned to Eliar, and the young man joined him at the front of the portico. “Look around you, my children,” Bheid intoned, “and behold the
real
faces of the Red Robes.”

Eliar took out his Knife and held it out before him, turning slowly so that all in the square could see it.

Argan and Koman shrieked, covering their eyes with shaking hands.

There were other shrieks in the crowd as well, and Argan’s scarletrobed underlings recoiled in agony, their commonplace features dissolving like melting wax.

Althalus winced.
Is that what they
really
look like?
he demanded of Dweia.

They’re worse actually, love,
she replied calmly.
That’s only the surface
of what they really are.

The creatures in scarlet robes were hideous. Their skin was scaly and covered with slime, and dripping fangs protruded from their mouths as their bodies swelled and expanded into enormity.

“Behold the promise of Argan, my children!” Bheid thundered. “Follow him if you will, or come to the Grey Robes.
We
will guide and protect you from the demons of Nahgharash and from the injustice of those who call themselves your masters. Choose, my children! Choose!”

“It’s Exarch Bheid!” a disguised Grey Robe priest declared. “He’s the holiest man alive.”

“Listen to him!” another cried. “The Grey Robes are the only friends we have!”

The word spread quickly through the terrified crowd even as, one by one, the demons began to vanish.

Eliar turned, still holding the Knife before him, and advanced on the shrinking pair in front of the temple door.

With a despairing wail, Koman turned, and with his eyes still covered, he ran directly into the temple, with Argan close behind him.

But as they ran through the temple doorway, they vanished.

———

And the Knife sang in joyous fulfillment as it returned once again unto its home, and behold, the temple of Dweia was once more sanctified by the song of the Knife. And flowers bedecked the walls of the Temple, and offerings of bread and fruits and golden wheat did rest upon the altar before the titanic marble statue of the Goddess of fruit and grain and of rebirth also.

Althalus, still at the window in the House at the End of the World, tried to push away the lyricism of his perceptions of the temple.
It’s just a
building,
he muttered.
It’s made of stone, not poetry.

Will you
stop
that, Althalus!
Dweia’s voice in his mind sounded peevish, and, oddly, it seemed to be coming from the marble statue behind the altar.

One
of us has to keep a grip on reality, Em,
he replied.

This
is
reality, love. Stop trying to contaminate it.

And pale Leitha, her gentle eyes brimming with tears, did cast a beseeching look to the window. “Help me, Father!” she cried out unto the watching Althalus. “Help me, or I shall surely die!”

“Not while I have breath, my daughter,” he assured her. “Open thy mind unto me that I may join thee in the performance of this stern task.”

Much better,
Dweia murmured with the voice of a soft spring breeze.

You’re going to insist, I take it?
Althalus forced the words out in a flat tone.

Be guided by me in this, beloved. Better by far to be gently guided than
forcibly driven.

Methinks I did note a faintly threatening odor in thy voice, Emerald,
spake Althalus. If Dweia wanted to play, it wouldn’t really cost him anything to go along with her.

We will speak of this anon, Althalus. Now lend thy thought and all thy
care unto our pale daughter. Her need for thee is great in her dreadful task.

And so it was that the mind of Althalus was softly joined with the mind of his gentle and reluctant daughter, and their thoughts became as one.