The Reaver Road

by Dave Duncan

  "We have no time for all-night vigils, ninny!" the high priest shrilled. "The foe is upon us. The situation is quite terrifying!"

  Thorian knew the answer, or thought he did.

  Belhjes said something about vigils.

  "All right!" Nagiak agreed angrily. "All right! We can leave her here until dawn to do the vigil, if you must be so mulishly stubborn. You really are a terrible nuisance, you know? But in the morning she will be sworn!"

  A mutter from the woman signed a reluctant compromise.

  I rubbed my eyes and peered at Thorian again.

  "He wouldn't dare !" I said.

  "Are you so sure of that, Trader of Tales?"

  No, I wasn't. "Can he? Is it possible?"

  It was time to explore.

  I heaved my leaden body to its feet and headed toward the city, staying close to the wall. Thorian rose and followed. When I reached the end, I was beyond the lighted skylights of the chapel. A single aperture in the roof showed that another small room must lie beyond it, but no light showed. I wondered briefly about that room—how was it entered? It lay behind the altar, and there had been no door there. Was it approached from some other staircase?

  I peered around the corner and inspected the front face of the pyramid. The great ceremonial steps rose like a ramp up the center. Beyond that, Maiana had her shoulder to me, but I could just make out the jutting curve of her breast. Her horns were dark against the stars—I looked away quickly, not trusting myself among stars in my present bemused state.

  The pavement before me was an unbroken surface of smooth granite, gleaming like water in the night. There were no skylights. All the lower tiers, of course, were invisible beyond its edge.

  I started to creep forward, crouching so I could not be seen from the ground. My calf-length swath was a nuisance, and like to become more of one. After a moment I unfastened it and let it fall. The key to the Tharpit mansion struck the stone with a tiny metal chinking sound that I expected to waken the whole city. Free of my garment, I scrambled forward until I neared the edge, then dropped to crawl the rest of the way. In a moment Thorian lay beside me.

  No one has ever explained to me why heights always seem so much greater looking down from than looking up at. Old Thumbal of Thank used to insist that the gods arranged it that way to help them feel godlike, but I don't think I believe him. Be that as it may, Thorian and I were very high and godlike that night. I remember feeling astonished that the pyramid was so high.

  Far below us, scattered fireflies in the Courtyard of a Thousand Gods showed where the devout knelt at prayer. Beyond that the Great Way sloped away toward the gates, and flickers moved on it as the guard patrolled. A few lighted windows in houses located the sick and the guilty. But the city was not what we had come to see.

  The temple was. The next tier down was another unbroken plain of dark granite.

  I glanced at my companion. He nodded and said nothing.

  We worked our way back a short distance, and then I rose to a crouch again and hurried to the eastern edge. Balor was a great darkness against the moonrise, his golden sword aglint.

  Again I prostrated myself to peer over and view the tier below. The difference was obvious—many darker openings and a few brighter ones marked the rooms and corridors within it. I wished I could see all the lower tiers, but I could guess that they would repeat the same pattern.

  A sound of women chanting soared from the three bright skylights of the chapel and sweetened the night.

  I looked up at Thorian, who had joined me again.

  "We must go up to the top," I said.

  "Holy Foofang looks after his own."

  I smiled, reflecting proudly that my companion had begun to put more faith in the gods than in his own cunning and strong arm.

  There was little point in concealment. If anyone looked up from the Courtyard, we were going to be seen. The witnesses might not believe their own eyes, of course. The stonework was about the same shade as human skin, and we were both nude. That might help, however odd it felt. Together we stood up and ran to the great staircase.

  Side by side, we sprinted up the wide steps to the uppermost level. The tall House of the Goddess stood in the center, starkly beautiful—a smooth cylinder of granite roofed with a golden dome. Somehow its curves were enhanced by the square angularity of everything else. The only break in the walls was the archway in front. We did not break stride until we reached it.

  I entered, saw Maiana before me, and fell on my knees.

  Thorian went farther, throwing himself prostrate. "Forgive us!" he moaned. "Holy Lady, we seek only your glory."

  That was prayer, and I remembered with some difficulty that I disapproved of prayer. The goddess would know we were there and why we came. I sat back on my heels to adore her.

  From the ground, of course, the House seems tiny. Even within it, I had trouble appreciating its expanse because it is so high, yet I have known many kings' halls that were smaller. The empty floor was an unbroken expanse of shiny granite paving. Against the darkness of the far wall stood the Passionate One, wrought in silver, thrice my height.

  Of all the goddess images I have ever seen, this is the most gorgeous. That night she was clothed in traces of moonlight, which is her mystery. Dim as it was, it shone on her horns, sparkled on the diamonds of her hair, lit ruby flames on her lips and nipples, and burned with a dark seductive blue fire at her groin. Her eyes watched me closely, striking fear in my heart. Eternal mother, eternal consort! Fear, yes—but I also felt a rush of desire that stopped my breath. My limbs trembled before her challenge. Truly, in all my many days, never before had I been so presumptuous as to come naked and uninvited into the very house of a deity.

  Well, perhaps I had been invited? And there are some gods and goddesses who insist on nudity in their presence, regarding clothes as pretense and vanity. Or impediment, in other cases.

  I rose unsteadily to my feet and began to explore. When I had inspected the interior, I wandered out again and strolled around to the north edge of the platform, the back of the temple, dropping to my knees and crawling the last part of the way. I looked down at the level we had recently left. Again I saw skylights into rooms within it. Again the lower levels were hidden from me, but I felt certain that they would all show much the same—plus some glimmers of torchlight, likely, and perhaps courtyards upholstered with sleeping priests and priestesses.

  Behind the temple, the ground fell off steeply, pocked with a few precariously clinging buildings. The city wall was close on this side.

  I did not bother to inspect the west. Instead I went back to Thorian, who was still prostrate, crawling backward as the devout do when leaving sacred precincts.

  "It is as we thought," I said. "On holy days, priests and prominent citizens will march up the staircase. They will see nothing but plain stone. I conclude that the front of the temple must be solid. The other three faces are hollow, and inhabited, but the interior of the temple is never revealed to the laity, not even a glimpse of the skylights. Dirty laundry fails to inspire awe."

  "And up here?" he growled, rising to his knees.

  "Nothing. No way in. No doors. Nothing. The rock is solid beneath us."

  Thorian stood up, and even his mighty limbs seemed to move wearily. "There must be a way, and Nagiak will know of it."

  "I hope you are wrong. I am sure you are. We shall find out in a day or so."

  He uttered his lion grunt. "I think I shall kill that Fotius brute tonight, and be certain."

  A sudden stab of panic cut off my breath. "No! No! We are here as witnesses only and must not seek to alter the flow of events."

  "You may be only a witness. You are a man of words. I am a man of action."

  Needing time to think, I silently recited a vulgar poem that Illina taught me. Then I said, "Gramian Fotius is a hostage. If you kill him here, you will plunge the city into civil war."

  He grunted again—and then a third time, regretfully.

  "I
suppose you are right, although my thumbs itch for his throat. Now the moon is lighting the steps. How do we descend, Servant of the Gods?"

  "Let us go over the far side."

  With a respectful bow to the goddess we departed.

  We went around to the north side. We lay prone on the cold granite and stared down at the tier below us. It seemed a long way down. Perhaps we should risk the stair again?

  "I can lower you a little way," Thorian said. "If I had my swath, I could do better."

  "Don't expect me to catch you after."

  He chuckled. "Break a leg and relieve the monotony of our humdrum existence."

  I scrambled to the edge. Thorian took my wrists and lowered me as far down as he could reach. I discovered to my surprise that my toes were dangling in emptiness and my face was against an ornate cornice. Before I could find a grip on it, he let go and I dropped. I came down harder than I expected, falling prone with an oof! of shock. My knees and ankles burst into flame. I hoped that there were no light sleepers under the nearby skylights.

  A moment later Thorian swung over the rim above me. He, too, found that protruding frieze, and hung there for a moment, studying it. The overhang was slight, but the ornamentation ran all the way along the edge, and presumably all around the temple. I was annoyed that I had not noticed it sooner. We had not viewed the temple close-to in daylight, but I pride myself on my observation. It is the mainstay of my trade.

  Thorian clambered down the carvings like a fly until he was hanging from the bottom ledge. Thus he saved himself part of the drop. He landed more nimbly than I had and immediately stalked over to the edge of the tier. He lay down and peered over. By the time he returned, I was on my feet and more or less able to walk. We set off to recover our swaths.

  "None," he whispered. "Just the top one."

  "Why should there be a frieze around the top step and none on the others? If offends my sense of symmetry."

  "Because the carvings are there for a purpose."

  "What purpose?"

  Just then the skylight we were passing brightened.

  Of course we looked.

  The bedchamber below us was small, but not excessively so. It would be quite adequate for one person, and it was reasonably, if modestly, furnished with a cot and a table and perhaps a few more things out of our field of view. I have lived in worse many times. It became much less spacious as Gramian Fotius entered, already complaining in hectoring tones about the size of the bed.

  A soprano voice told him to sleep on the floor. The light faded out and a door slammed. I heard the lock click.

  I took hold of my companion's arm, although I had no illusions about being able to restrain him if he decided to seek a reckoning with the slaver.

  "If he lies down, I could jump on him," Thorian whispered longingly. "That would wreck his guts for starters."

  "The temptation is manifest, but I look forward to witnessing your performance. I can't admire your artistry if you operate in the dark."

  "Ah. There is that."

  "Come along." I led him away.

  We returned to our original starting point, above the hallway at the top of the stairs. A double line of priestesses was filing by below us and down the stairs. The chanting had stopped; apparently the ceremony was over. I flopped to my belly and leaned head and shoulders through the opening, catching a brief upside-down glimpse of crimson at the head of the procession, as fat Nagiak descended in his carrying chair on the shoulders of four young priests.

  The business of the night had been completed, and the temple would soon be quiet enough for us to venture departing. Indeed we must—the crescent moon had risen clear of the smoke, and at dawn everything would start up again. We did not have long.

  And we were balked. In the courtyard beside the hall, the ancient high priestess was being put to bed by three young attendant priestesses. Belhjes hovered alongside, perhaps hoping for some sign of wakefulness, but the old woman was as limp as a sack of tubers. We dared not walk along the narrow strip of roof above them.

  I pulled Thorian back to a safe distance and sat down. He settled beside me with a sigh of weariness. I was dizzy with fatigue myself, for it had been a long day since I awoke in the olive grove.

  "Squicalm?" I said. "Tomorrow she is paraded around. At sunset she goes to the House of the Goddess in solemn procession. What happens to her if Balor does not respond, though?"

  I was wondering how Belhjes' succession was arranged, and if a high priestess was deposed by execution, but Thorian's reply took me by surprise.

  "What happens to her if he does?"

  "You heard! By morning she is restored to youth and beauty and is consort to the god. Maiana does not incorporate, but the high priestess is her representative. Like Omia, they said, or Piala. There must have been others, in more ancient times. Doubtless not all the names are recorded."

  "But this time the living god bears a striking resemblance to Gramian Fotius and the priestess to Shalial Tharpit?"

  "And I say he would not dare!" I insisted. "Even if the gods would allow such a thing, the townsfolk will not be deceived. Shalial is not Squicalm."

  Thorian grunted. "Who remembers Squicalm in her youth, or recalls what beauty she bore then?"

  I squirmed, impaled by his logic. "But Tharpit is senior merchant of the city! Many people must be acquainted with his daughter."

  "Not necessarily. She has probably been sequestered most of her life, and his friends the burghers will not rouse the commonality against him. The Fotius thug has been secluded for years at some rural retreat. You heard that. He has only been back two weeks, and some of that time he has been out of town, slaving. Perfect, isn't he?"

  I did not answer.

  Thorian went on, "People believe what they want to believe, Omar."

  Sadly, that is often true. I have seen the sacred Well of Sailmok, where the god is said to perform cures. Thousands of people come to the well every year. They make offerings, drink the waters, bathe in them, buy trashy souvenirs, and then declare themselves cured, or many do. Yet I saw no credible miracles while I was there, and the well-documented cases all seem to be very old. The priests of Sailmok live well. I did not want to admit that.

  "Remember Tharpit giving gold to Nagiak?" Thorian growled. "What for, do you suppose? It is a crafty plot. The grandson of the war lord and the daughter of the leading merchant! Arksis believes he can control Fotius-Balor, and the god's consort will look after her father's interests. Those two will rule behind the scenes. Zanadon will be their milkcow. Nagiak must have been royally paid—I wager the bidding was ferocious."

  "But the Vorkans?"

  "You heard what Arksis said, that the army demands Balor as leader. Fotius is big and savage, a good figurehead to give them courage. His grandfather will do the thinking for him."

  It was unthinkable.

  Thorian thumped my shoulder in sympathy. "You came to Zanadon to see a god, but all you will see is priestly fakery."

  "Zanadon has never been conquered—"

  "And it will prevail against the Vorkans, also! The troops will believe themselves invincible, because they are led by a god, and because they very much want to believe themselves invincible. Of course the army of Zanadon is never defeated, with that kind of inspiration! I know warriors, Omar!"

  "What kind of tale is that for me to add to my collection?'' I moaned. "You are saying that Balor will be a hoax! Worse, you are hinting that he has always been a hoax?"

  Thorian sighed. "I suppose I am. Nagiak must know. He will have access to ancient annals, telling him how to organize the sham."

  "So the old woman is removed and killed?" I muttered. "And the imposters introduced in her place? But surely the whole population will keep an all-night vigil around the temple. How can the man pull off such a deception?"

  I was trying not to think about my showman friend Pav Im'pha. He would have accepted the challenge gladly—for a suitable share of the gate, or perhaps just for the chance to p
erform before such a house. Pav could pull a woman out of a hat on a stage. He would have produced Balor to order at the top of a pyramid very easily.

  "This place," Thorian said, "must be riddled with secret passages."

  "We went to the House of the Goddess. We saw no hidden door."

  "We went by night. Give me an hour up there in daylight, and I will find the way. And that frieze around the top tier? There are air holes hidden in it. That is why it is there."

  So the topmost step was also hollow, but not connected to the inhabited parts of the temple. Secret, in other words. I had to admit that intrigue had now moved very close to the House of the Goddess—directly below it, in fact.

  "I will not believe until I see," I said. "We must go."

  I leaned on his shoulder to rise and then gave him a hand up. Weary as old men, we shuffled back to where our swaths lay, pale excrescences on the granite. The priestesses had gone and the twisted old woman snored on her couch. Otherwise, the temple had fallen silent.

  As we went by the chapel, I saw a single lamp glowing, a single figure kneeling in prayer before the altar. Shalial Tharpit was keeping her vigil.

  Tomorrow she might be given to the brutal Gramian Fotius. Why else had the man been allowed to spy on her, except that her beauty might motivate him? It was all depressingly logical.

  "We need to find safe haven before daylight," Thorian said as we dressed.

  "Trust the gods."

  "If they can get us out of here safely, then I suppose they can provide soft beds … a substantial meal would not come amiss either. That goose has long flown."

  "Never complain," I said, and headed for the stairway.

  I stopped at the chapel and stared down at the small, pathetic figure of Shalial Tharpit before the altar. Whatever her sins, she did not deserve Fotius.

  Suddenly I realized that the gods had already provided!

  I knelt, then stretched out on my belly with my head and shoulders over the raised curb that ran around the opening.

  "It beats being married to Dithian Lius," I said.

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