Bridge of the Separator

XI

"No," Maleinos said, looking Rhavas in the eye.

"But—" Rhavas began. They sat in the small audience chamber where Rhavas had made the mistake of talking about calling for a synod. Their wine—or at least Rhavas' wine—was noticeably less fine today.

"No," his cousin repeated. "You've already gone and made yourself into a scandal. I don't want scandal on the patriarchal throne. I can't afford it, not when I'm going to take the field against the rebel in a few days. And so I'll pick someone safe. Do you—did you—know Sozomenos?"

"I knew him, yes, your Majesty," Rhavas replied. "He is a most holy, most pious man." He spoke nothing but the truth there. Sozomenos was a man of the sort Kveldoulphios the martyr must have been: one whose holiness would be remembered and honored for centuries after he died. What amazed Rhavas was that he hadn't died long since. "He must be . . . close to ninety now, yes?"

"Somewhere around there." Maleinos shrugged. "So what? His wits are still sound. No one can possibly question that. And he's a safe choice. No one can possibly question that, either." He glowered at Rhavas. "On the other hand, anybody—especially Stylianos—could question you. I don't aim to give him the chance."

Rhavas had never been wounded on the battlefield. He imagined that had to feel something like this. He bore it as bravely as he could, inclining his head and saying, "You are the Avtokrator."

"I aim to stay the Avtokrator, too, by the good god." No matter what Maleinos had said in a casual chat, at bottom he still followed Phos. "Once I hang Stylianos' ugly head on the Milestone . . . Well, if Sozomenos walks the Bridge of the Separator after that, maybe I can think things over again. Maybe. If you can learn to keep your mouth shut in the meantime." Maleinos looked Rhavas straight in the face again.

There it was: the bargain. Keep quiet now, become ecumenical patriarch later. But what would happen then? Slowly, Rhavas said, "You would expect me to keep my mouth shut—about that—after you put me on the patriarchal throne, too."

"Hasn't the Empire seen enough trouble the past few years to last for the next fifty?" Maleinos returned. "Why do we need more?"

"Because of the truth?" Rhavas suggested.

Maleinos shook his head. The sunlight coming in through the window played on the lines and shadows around his eyes, making him look older than his years. Thinking about it, Rhavas decided Maleinos' eyes made him look older than his years anyhow, even if the rest of his face seemed young. Wearing the red boots ground a man down before his time, and Maleinos' eyes were where it showed. The Avtokrator said, "If it is the truth, someone else is bound to find it one of these days. Why hurry to shove it down people's throats?"

"Because it is the truth," Rhavas replied. His cousin was a political animal, one who worried about what would work, what was expedient, what was practical. Rhavas wasn't, never could be, never would be. Here again he discovered his inability to compromise even when compromise would have done him a lot of good.

Being a political animal, Maleinos saw the same thing, and likely saw it before Rhavas did. Sighing, the Avtokrator shook his head once more. "No, I'm sorry—I don't think it will do. You are a man who will eat fire even if you have to kindle it yourself. I can't have that kind of man presiding over the High Temple. It's more trouble than it's worth." There was that word again.

"Even with Kameniates dead, the synod will go forward," Rhavas said stubbornly. "I had the right to demand it. Sozomenos himself would not deny that."

"Let it go forward." Maleinos sounded altogether indifferent. "It will fall down on you like a brick building in an earthquake. It will serve you right, too." He paused, eyeing Rhavas. "There have been some funny reports out of the north. I don't suppose you . . ." He shook his head. "No. I'm just saying that because I'm not happy with you."

Funny reports out of the north? Rhavas wondered. Ingegerd? Kaboutzes? The priest who'd fallen over dead in that town?—Rhavas couldn't even remember his name. Himerios and the mages? Rhavas knew the trail he'd left behind him. Fortunately, his cousin didn't connect Kameniates' sudden death with any of the others.

"We have given all the time we can spare," Maleinos said. When an Avtokrator started using the imperial we, that was a sure sign he didn't want to listen any more. Maleinos didn't have Rhavas escorted from the imperial residence this time, but that was the only sign of greater warmth he showed.

As Rhavas left, the Vaspurakaner steward led a sun-darkened man with a scarred face toward the audience chamber. The officer—for such he obviously was—dipped his head and made the sun-sign as he walked past Rhavas. Ironic that a man whose trade was slaughter should have more faith than a prelate.

Rhavas laughed, appreciating the joke. He doubted whether the scarred and leathery general would. And he was sure the Avtokrator wouldn't.

As Maleinos had said he would, he rode off to war a few days later. He sent Rhavas no special invitation to watch him go. But criers went through the imperial city, calling on the people to come to the parade that would see him off. Videssians in general—and those who dwelt in Videssos the city in particular—went wild for spectacles of any sort.

Although Rhavas got to Middle Street before sunup, he had to elbow his way to somewhere near the front of the crowd so he could see the street itself. If he hadn't been taller than average, even the place he won wouldn't have helped him.

"Wine! Anybody want some wine?" "Sweet cakes!" "Get your chickpeas here! Hot off the grill!" "Fried squiiid!" Vendors made their way through the crowd. When the fellow selling fried squid came near Rhavas, he spent a couple of coins for the morsels. He hadn't eaten squid in all those years in Skopentzana. They were as chewy as he remembered, and as nearly tasteless.

Roofed colonnades helped shield Middle Street from the sun. People scurried about up on the roofs, jostling one another for a better view. It sometimes happened that people—usually young men—fell off and landed on their heads on the cobblestones below. Rhavas heard no shrieks today. People were being careful.

The adventurous ones atop the colonnade got the first glimpse of the approaching procession. "Here they come!" they called, and jostled even more. "They're on the way!" A blast of bugles and flutes and drums from the direction of the palace confirmed that.

A herald came first, to tell the people what they'd see—as if they didn't know. "Forth comes Maleinos, Avtokrator of the Videssians!" the leather-lunged man roared. "Forth comes the Avtokrator, to punish the wicked rebel and usurper!"

Men and women near Rhavas burst into applause. Did that mean they favored Maleinos, or just that they wanted to be seen favoring Maleinos? Rhavas wondered how many of them even knew, and how many of them cared.

Standard-bearers carried the Videssian banner: gold sunburst on blue. Behind them marched the royal bodyguards. Some of those men were Videssian archers and pikemen. Others were Haloga soldiers of fortune. The big blond men carried long-handled war axes. They wore their hair in long blond braids bobbing behind them. Ever since Stavrakios' day, the guards had had a Haloga contingent. From the imperial point of view, that made good sense. The barbarians were personally loyal to the ruler, who was also their paymaster. Other ambitious Videssians were less likely to seduce them away from their allegiance to the Avtokrator.

Their pale eyes, pale hair, pale or sunburned skins, and blunt features set them apart from the Videssians among whom they dwelt. So did their inches and the scowling suspicion with which they eyed the crowd. To them, everyone was a potential assassin. In a time of civil war, they might well have been right. They watched their Videssian counterparts, too, and the Videssians watched them.

"Maleinos! Maleinos! Maleinos!" The rhythmic chant had every sign of being started by a claque to impress the larger crowd. "Many years to the Avtokrator! Dig up Stylianos' bones!"

Some of the ordinary people around Maleinos joined the chanting, but more didn't, though some of the ones who didn't chant did clap for the Avtokrator. Maleinos wore gilded mail and a gilded helm with a gold coronet soldered to it. A scarlet cape shimmered out behind him. His red boots were very red indeed, and showed up all the better because he rode a white horse.

Beside him and half a pace to the rear rode the scarred general. He looked tough and capable. Past that, Rhavas didn't know who he was. Back when Rhavas was last in Videssos the city, he hadn't been anybody in particular. Rhavas wondered how he liked going up against Stylianos, who had been somebody for a very long time. No way to ask him, of course, not without risking arrest for treason.

More horsemen in blue surcoats rode after the Avtokrator and his general. The horses' hooves clattered on the cobbles. At an officer's signal, the men all shouted, "Maleinos!" together.

And if Stylianos won the war, would they shout his name just as enthusiastically? Most of them probably would. Pikemen on foot followed. The foot soldiers also roared out the Avtokrator's name. Were they also likely to roar out any Avtokrator's name with equal zeal? Again, it looked that way to Rhavas.

Then they were gone, heading off toward the Silver Gate, off toward Stylianos' army, off toward civil war. What had they left behind? A memory of loud shouts and a lingering aroma of horse manure—not that that wasn't a strong motif in Videssos the city at any season of the year.

If they cut down Stylianos' men . . . Videssos suffered. If the rebel's men slaughtered them instead . . . Videssos suffered anyway. Civil war was a nasty business. Whichever side won, the Empire lost.

Somewhere off beyond the Paristrian Mountains, would Khamorth khagans laugh when they heard the Avtokrator and the rebellious general were going at each other again? Without the civil war, the barbarians couldn't have got into Videssos in the first place. Rhavas had no doubt they were all for it.

They warred against one another, too. Back in happier days, Videssos had used bribes and gifts of weapons and trade to keep the nomads squabbling among themselves, and to keep them too busy and embroiled to cause the Empire trouble. Now the Khamorth would play the same game with Videssos.

Beside Rhavas, somebody said, "Well, you can call that a parade if you want to, but I've seen plenty better."

That seemed to be the general mood. Maleinos wouldn't have been very happy had he heard what his subjects were saying. Odds were he would hear, sooner or later. If he didn't have agents in the crowd listening to what ordinary people said, he was missing a trick. Rhavas didn't think his cousin missed many tricks of that sort.

The crowd slowly dispersed. The vendors headed back to the several squares in the city, where they could always find crowds of people who might want to buy. Pickpockets and cutpurses probably did the same.

"Holy sir?" a nondescript little man said to Rhavas.

"Yes?"

"Holy sir, are you a healer, by any chance? I've got this nasty ulcer on my shin, and I was wondering—"

"I'm not a healer. Sorry."

"Could you try?" the little man whined.

"I wouldn't do you any good," Rhavas told him. "Go look for a priest who really is a healer, if you want help."

"Oh, come on. You can do it." The man had found a priest. Finding another priest must have seemed like too much trouble to him—this in a city where you could hardly walk a block along Middle Street without running into one.

Rhavas' temper began to fray. "I told you, I am not a healer-priest. Please go away and leave me alone."

"But my leg . . ." the man whimpered.

He seemed spry enough to Rhavas. But he went on whining and fussing. He wouldn't take a hint and go away. At last, Rhavas lost patience altogether. "All right," he said, exhaling angrily. "All right. Come in the alley with me, and I'll give you what you deserve."

"Took you long enough," said the man with the sore on his shin, not noticing the way Rhavas put that. Into the alley he went, limping only a little if at all. "Here. Bend down and you can see it."

Rhavas did bend down. The alley was narrow and dark. Moss and something slimier than moss grew on the bricks of the houses to either side. Middle Street had cobbles, but the alley was all dirt and mud. Flies buzzed. The city stench seemed stronger here than on the main boulevard.

"See?" the man said. That was the last word that ever passed his lips. He let out a soft sound of surprise and then fell over dead. Rhavas did not even bother to rifle his belt pouch. He left it there to surprise and please some scavenger who would stumble across it.

On the way back to his inn, he found himself whistling. He had a marvelous talent there in the ability to curse. And if he couldn't use it every now and again to rid himself—and the world—of an annoying nuisance, what good was it, anyway?

In due course, Sozomenos was installed as ecumenical patriarch. Rhavas went to the High Temple to watch his investiture. Sozomenos hardly seemed to have changed since Rhavas left for Skopentzana. He'd been an old man then, his face lined, his beard long and tangled and white as snow. He looked just the same now.

The patriarchal robes were heavy with cloth of gold and their encrustations of semiprecious and precious stones. Sozomenos' shoulders, already stooped, had trouble bearing the weight. He looked out at the crowd in the Temple.

When he spoke from the pulpit, his voice was clear and strong despite his years: "My friends, I never expected or wanted the honor his Majesty has chosen to bestow upon me. I would rather contemplate the lord with the great and good mind than seek to govern unruly men. But, this having been asked of me, I shall bear the burden to the best of my ability."

He looked out over the crowd. Rhavas remembered his gaze as being almost as penetrating as that of the image of Phos in the dome above him. So it still seemed now. "We live in troubled times," Sozomenos continued. "Some would say the times are troubled because the dark god puts forth his strength to make them so. Even some respected ecclesiastics have been heard to make such claims. They will have their chance to prove them—if they can."

Did he know Rhavas was in the High Temple? Rhavas had no trouble recognizing him, but would he know Rhavas after so long? The new patriarch did know Kameniates had had to order a synod convened, and did not seem to object to it. That was all to the good, as far as Rhavas was concerned.

"Myself, I have no truck with such newfangled notions," Sozomenos said. "I believe in the faith I learned at my mother's knee a lot of years ago. I trust in that faith. It has held me up through thick and thin. I think it always will."

He smiled then. Light didn't radiate from him, the way it did from the windows set into the base of the dome. It didn't, but it might as well have. He was not lying when he spoke of his faith. It shone on his face.

Smiling still, he said, "I could be wrong. I admit I could be wrong. If the synod decides I am . . . I expect I will lay this burden down, and gladly." Did he mean he would resign the patriarchate? Or did he mean he would quietly die? With a man of his years and his obvious determination, either seemed possible.

Rhavas wanted to persuade him. He called on the patriarchal residence the next day, and was admitted in due course. After bowing to Sozomenos and congratulating him on his accession, he said, "Most holy sir, I was lucky enough to escape the fall and the sack of Skopentzana. What I saw there, and what I saw afterward . . . You don't know how lucky you are to live in Videssos the city. Much of the evil in the world has passed this city by—so far."

"There is a struggle. I would not deny it. How could I, when the faith ordains it?" Sozomenos seemed content with the world as he found it. "But the faith also ordains that goodness and light shall triumph at the end of days, and darkness be cast down. This I still believe."

"Even after our own evil allowed the Khamorth to enter the Empire and work their outrages?" Rhavas demanded.

"Even then," the patriarch said placidly. "Men can be knaves and fools. Men often are knaves and fools. But even knaves and fools have Phos' light within them. It raises them above brute beasts."

"Does it?" Rhavas told Sozomenos some of the things he'd seen. He almost told him some of the things he'd done, but held back at the last minute. Not even holy Sozomenos needed to hear that. Rhavas finished, "If you ask me, these things do show us to be separated from the beasts. We are below them. They act as they must, but we act as we choose."

"Yes, as we choose. And we can choose the light. We must choose the light." Sozomenos sent a gesture of benediction toward Rhavas. "You must choose the light, very holy sir. It is there, for you as for anyone. That you have known hard times should not make you shove your faith aside."

"The world knows hard times," Rhavas insisted. "Times are so hard, Phos cannot hope to triumph. The idea that he could is a snare and a delusion."

Sozomenos sadly sketched the sun-sign over his breast. "I will pray for you. I will pray for you with all the strength in me. May the lord with the great and good mind grant you peace in the end."

Rhavas almost cursed him where he sat, just for being so secure and comfortable in what was obviously—but, it was clear, not obviously enough—an outworn creed. But no; it would not do. Sozomenos was an old, old man. His passing would not astonish anyone . . . most of the time. If two ecumenical patriarchs died within days of each other and within hours of quarreling with Rhavas, though, eyebrows would be raised. And rumors from the north had already reached the capital. So far, not even Maleinos connected those rumors to his cousin. Two dead patriarchs, however, and plenty of people might start making that connection.

Rising, Rhavas bowed to the white-bearded man who seemed so out of place in his gaudy robes. "Most holy sir, I will see you at the synod. The assembled ecclesiastics will be there."

"So they will," Sozomenos agreed. "But I hope to see you before that. I hope you will come and worship at the High Temple and pray for your faith to be restored. Sometimes sitting under the eye of that marvelous mosaic Phos will work a miracle of its own."

"Perhaps you will see me there." Rhavas did not care to refuse or insult Sozomenos to his face—such was the personal power the patriarch had. With another bow, the younger man strode out of the patriarchal residence.

A secretary of some sort was waiting for an audience with Sozomenos. "Holy sir," he murmured politely as Rhavas walked past him.

Rhavas nodded back. The pen pusher knew only that he was a priest, not that his beliefs were at odds with everything the temples taught. Somewhere out there, though, couriers were riding through the Empire (or that part of it not lost to the Khamorth, or maybe just that part of it not lost to the Khamorth and to Stylianos). They were summoning priests and prelates, monks and abbots to the city for this synod. After it was done, Rhavas told himself, things would be different.

But what if they weren't different? What if the synod just ratified the faith as it stood now? Bright sunlight made Rhavas blink. He scowled up into the sky—Phos might have been telling him he wasn't as smart as he thought he was. Phos might have been, but he didn't think Phos was.

If the assembled ecclesiastics didn't go along with him . . . In that case, there would be some sudden and unexpected demises. There might even be some at the synod itself. If people refused to look at what was obviously true, he would just have to rub their noses in it. After that, with a little luck, the survivors would have better sense.

If there were any survivors, of course.

The patriarchal residence opened on the plaza of Palamas. Rhavas had to make his way through it to go down Middle Street to his definitely less than fashionable inn. As far as the city's great market square went, the civil war might as well not have existed. Somewhere not far away, a vendor hawked fried squid. Rhavas' stomach growled, though the last one he'd eaten hadn't been especially good.

Fish caught in nearby waters gleamed under the sun. Customers sneered at the quality. Fishmongers swore at customers. A thieving cat ran off with a fat prawn hanging out of its mouth. The man who owned that stall flung a rock after the cat. He missed. The rock bounced off the cobbles, skipping crazily before coming to rest at last.

A juggler kept a fountain of balls and knives—and another fountain of stale jokes—in the air. A bowl with a few coins in it sat at his feet. Rhavas wondered if he'd put the money in there himself to encourage others. A singer accompanied himself on the lute. He used a hollowed-out calabash instead of a bowl. A scribe wrote a letter for an angry-looking peasant. A soothsayer offered to tell anyone anything—for a price. Rhavas turned away from him. He wanted nothing to do with soothsayers anymore. And if this soothsayer really could see the future, he probably wouldn't want anything to do with Rhavas, either.

Stolid grandmothers (some, actually, grimmer than stolid), their heads covered in bright scarves, sold green beans and onions and asparagus and dill and thyme and fennel and a dozen other vegetables and spices from baskets in front of them. They haggled with customers and gossiped among themselves. A couple of them watched Rhavas thread through the crowd. One sketched the sun-sign. In the interest of remaining a chameleon, he returned the gesture. Satisfied, she nodded.

He could have bought books or knives or puppies or rope or jewelry or a woman or a boy or an icon or olives or olive oil or a charm guaranteed to make him do better with the woman or boy he could have bought or a medicine guaranteed to cure whatever he caught from the woman or boy he could have bought or a belt or a belt pouch to wear on it or a tunic or the dye to change a tunic's color or (had he been a secular man and not an ecclesiastic) a trim for his beard or a manicure or a chicken or a toy oxcart or a full-sized one or a ball or a pair of stout boots with which to kick it or a pound of prawns or the scale to weigh them on and a set of weights to go with it or prunes or dried apricots or poppy juice to close up his bowels after the fruit opened them or . . .

The square had been like that before Rhavas left Videssos the city, too. If you wandered around cataloguing everything you could buy, you might end up spending all your time wandering and none of it buying. Plenty of people did. Their glazed eyes gave them away. There wasn't another place to shop like this in all the Empire.

Rhavas resolutely worked through it. He felt like patting himself on the back when he reached Middle Street and started up it. The main boulevard was itself lined with shops and with buildings devoted to the imperial administration. Though it had temptations of its own, it wasn't a patch on the plaza of Palamas.

When he turned off Middle Street and found his inn, the innkeeper gave him a peculiar look. "Ask you something, holy sir?" Lardys said.

"You can always ask. I don't promise to answer," Rhavas replied.

"Well, I'll see if I can loosen your tongue a bit." The taverner dipped up a mug of wine and slid it down the bar to Rhavas. "Have some of that, why don't you?"

"Let me get you a mug, too." The coin Rhavas set on the bar ensured that the taverner wouldn't regret his own generosity or resent Rhavas as the object thereof.

"You're a gent, holy sir." Lardys wasn't shy about drinking on the job. He poured wine for himself, spat in rejection of Skotos (so did Rhavas), and drank. After a long pull at the mug, he inquired, "Is what people say about you true?"

"I don't know," Rhavas said. "What do people say about me?" He tried to keep his tone light, but could not help a stab of fear. If news from the north had attached itself to his name after all . . .

But what Lardys said was, "I heard you were some kind of kinsman to the Avtokrator. Is that so? Can that be so?"

"Anything can be so." As usual, Rhavas was relentlessly precise. "As a matter of fact, though, that does happen to be so."

Lardys stared at him in owlish amazement. "Phos, man, in that case what are you doing here?"

"Staying here. Sleeping. Eating. Drinking wine. The kinds of things people usually do at an inn," Rhavas answered. Taking a barmaid to bed now and then. But his tonsure kept him from talking about that, if not from doing it.

The innkeeper went right on staring. "But . . . But . . . Why are you doing it here, holy sir? Why aren't you in a fancy room in the palace quarter eating suckling pig off golden plates? Doesn't the Avtokrator need all the help he can get? Kinsmen, now, kinsmen are beyond price, on account of he can be pretty sure they'll stay loyal. So why aren't you there?"

"Well, for one thing, his Majesty isn't all that fond of suckling pig," Rhavas said. Lardys made an impatient—and very rude—gesture. With a shrug of his own, Rhavas went on, "For another, his Majesty isn't all that fond of me."

"Oh." Having digested that, and having decided Rhavas was serious, Lardys said, "That's pretty stupid."

"Of his Majesty? I doubt it." Rhavas knew how much he'd done to antagonize his cousin, even if a lot of it had been inadvertent.

Impatiently, the other man shook his head. "No, no, no—of you, for throwing a connection like that over the side. Think of everything you could have done with it." Glorious dreams of what was probably larceny made his face shine.

"You may be right," Rhavas answered, which was one of those things you could always say without offending anyone, but which had no real meaning. It could also be a polite way of saying, Well, to the ice with you, which was how Rhavas intended it this time.

Not realizing that, Lardys said, "You'd better believe I am. How could it not matter? Tell me that, my brilliant friend."

Rhavas didn't care to be baited. He said, "If Stylianos wins the civil war, my connection with his Majesty won't matter a counterfeit copper—unless it sets me up for the headsman's sword."

"Oh." The taverner looked foolish. "Well, there is that, isn't there?"

"You might say so. Yes, you just might." Rhavas went upstairs with the satisfaction of the last word. He didn't tell Lardys that associating with the Avtokrator's cousin could set him up for the headsman's sword if Stylianos won the civil war. If the fellow couldn't figure that out for himself, he was in the wrong place and the wrong line of work.

With some ecclesiastics cut off from Videssos the city by barbarian invasion and perhaps slain, with others unable to cross from land Stylianos held to that controlled by Maleinos, and with still others caught by marching and countermarching armies, priests and prelates, monks and abbots were slow to come into the capital for the synod Kameniates had convened.

Delay, here, worried Rhavas not at all. It gave him more time to pore over Phos' holy scriptures to find texts that would bolster the examples the world provided only too abundantly. And it let him study the late Koubatzes' grimoire. Little by little, he began to gain control of the magic the wizard had been able to work.

He even began to alter and improve the spells Koubatzes had devised. The mage, he slowly started to realize, hadn't been such a clever fellow after all. The grimoire might as well have been a cookbook; Koubatzes had his recipes, but he'd rarely got playful with them.

By contrast, Rhavas enjoyed variations on a theme. He not only used the dead mage's spell to rout cockroaches from his room, he improved it so that the bugs left marching in formation, as Maleinos' soldiers had when they tramped along Middle Street on the way to war against Stylianos.

Of course, Maleinos' soldiers had marched down Middle Street only once. Rhavas had to expel the bugs from his room again and again. Even when he worked another spell to keep roaches expelled once from returning, enough new ones got in to keep him busy repeating the cantrip.

He also used the conjuration that filled a room with darkness rather than light to persuade moths and flies and other insects fonder of illumination than was the most pious priest to go elsewhere. As with the other one, he had to repeat that charm again and again. He minded less than he might have; he knew he could use practice with his sorcery.

A few at a time, ecclesiastics did come into the capital. Most traveled in from the westlands, where the civil war burned less fiercely, or from the countryside close to the capital, which still lay in Maleinos' hands. A few priests and prelates did reach Videssos the city from towns that Stylianos held. Maybe they'd sneaked out in spite of the rebel's garrisons—or maybe his men had let them go to make sure the Empire stayed religiously united even while politically split. Did Stylianos and his officers have that much sense? Rhavas could hope so without being convinced or certain.

He wondered whether Arotras would come to the capital for the synod. He didn't see why the priest shouldn't. Arotras' temple was in a town not far away, and Rhavas' former seminary colleague had also had his doubts about Phos' ultimate triumph. Wouldn't he try to see that the temples' theology reflected his own? Rhavas dared hope so, anyhow.

Along with the priests and prelates, monks started coming into Videssos the city. Rhavas had never had much use for monks or monasteries. To his way of thinking, monks didn't pull their weight. They withdrew from the world without devoting enough of themselves to the divine. Their scholarship, when they had scholarship, struck him as narrow.

When they had scholarship, indeed. Monks didn't always reason their way toward the truth. Sometimes—often—they decided what it was and then thumped everyone who presumed to disagree with them. That had happened at more than a few synods.

It didn't look unlikely here, either. A swarm of monks paraded up Middle Street toward the High Temple. Some of them brandished bludgeons. Others held up jars of wine. Quite a few were drunk. They all bawled out hymns proclaiming Phos' glory. Some of them yelled curses aimed at anyone who might have another idea.

"Anathema to the accursed heretics!" they shouted. "Anathema! Anathema! Let them be anathema! Dig up their bones! Curse them all to Skotos' ice!" People cheered as they went by, whether from agreement or in relief at having them gone, Rhavas could not have said.

A monk who reeked of wine glared at him out of eyes as bloodshot as a boar's. "You're not one of these accurshed—accursed—heretics, are you, holy sir?" the man demanded blearily.

"What if I were?" Rhavas asked in mild tones.

"Well, in that case, pal, to the ice with you." The monk, a stout—even beefy—man, raised his club as if to send Rhavas there on the instant. "In that case, pal, curse you and everybody who thinks like you."

Rhavas looked around. Nobody seemed to be paying any special attention to the monk or to him. Why should people in Videssos the city notice one monk or one priest more or less? Why, indeed? Still mildly, Rhavas said, "No, curse you, pal."

Outrage started to form on the monk's face. Then surprise replaced it. And then his features went blank. The club slipped from his hand. It landed on his foot, which should have made him jump and swear and hop . . . if he weren't already a dead man. Rhavas waited to see if anyone would pay attention to his collapse. But no one did. If anyone saw the fall, it was doubtless taken for just another drunken monk going down.

Whistling, Rhavas went on his way. He wondered what would happen if he had to do something like that at the synod to get his point across. Would the assembled priests and prelates, monks and abbots, pay attention to him then? Would they decide his theology had something behind it after all?

He whistled some more. If they didn't, they'd be sorry.

Soldiers kept laymen away from the High Temple. "Phos!" one of the pikemen complained. "This is liable to be more dangerous than going out and fighting Stylianos' boys. Leastways you know what you're up against with them."

The soldiers did not keep club-swinging monks from crossing their line. Rhavas hadn't expected them to. The monks belonged in the synod. So they were convinced, anyway.

When Rhavas walked into the High Temple, he found priests and monks arguing with one another. Here a priest wagged a finger under a prelate's nose. There an angry monk brandished his bludgeon. The priest at whom he shook it told him it would have an unlikely final resting place if he presumed to swing it. The monk expressed a certain amount of disbelief.

The commotion made Rhavas smile. For one thing, this was what synods were supposed to be like. And, for another, the mere fact of at least some disagreement encouraged him. He'd wondered if everyone would automatically oppose him. It didn't seem that way, anyhow.

Behind the pulpit stood Sozomenos. He watched the assembled ecclesiastics, and listened to them. He did not try to bring them to order, not just then. Maybe he couldn't. Maybe he simply didn't want to. Rhavas wasn't sure which the answer was, though he hoped for the former.

More and more priests and prelates and monks and abbots came in. Sozomenos waited and watched. At last, for no reason Rhavas could see, the ecumenical patriarch raised both hands in a gesture of benediction, and also—not incidentally—one that brought every eye to himself. An imperial commissioner heading up an important assemblage would have had a gavel with which to control his group. Sozomenos had only the strength of his will. As things turned out, that was more than enough.

"We are ready to begin," Sozomenos said. They hadn't been. They hadn't been anywhere close. Suddenly, though, they were, for no better reason than that the patriarch said they were. In spite of himself, Rhavas was impressed.

Another small group of ecclesiastics walked into the High Temple. Seeing everyone in front of them quiet and orderly, they ducked into pews not too far from the altar and sat ready for whatever would come next. They might have been schoolboys not quite late but not anxious to draw the master's eye even so, lest he reach for a switch.

Sozomenos had no switch, any more than he had a gavel. Plainly, he did not need one, either. "I thank all of you for your presence here this morning," he said. "One of our brethren had called upon my illustrious predecessor, the most holy Kameniates, to convene this synod to examine our faith and its most fundamental workings. That is his privilege, and, Kameniates no longer being among men, I have the honor of conducting this resulting assemblage. On your prayers, on your belief, and on your reasoning rest our direction for years if not centuries to come. I am confident you are up to the job."

He said nothing about what Rhavas' challenge really meant. He also said nothing about his own view of Rhavas' belief. Again, Rhavas was impressed. Sozomenos presented at least the appearance of scrupulous fairness. He would, no doubt, find some way to make his views felt—but then, so would every other ecclesiastic at the synod. That was what synods were for.

Hands still upraised, Sozomenos began to intone the creed: "We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind, by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor."

All the clerics in the High Temple repeated the words after him. They came echoing back from the dome, as if the image of the good god picked out in mosaicwork there were also saying them. A tight smile on his face, Rhavas joined in the creed. Sozomenos had ways of showing which side he was on, sure enough.

But then the ecumenical patriarch said, "The task before us is nothing less than to decide whether that is still an appropriate summary of belief for us in this day and age. Think well on it, my colleagues: has goodness failed?"

"Of course not!" The prelate who boomed out that response was a plump, red-faced man in regalia almost as magnificent as Sozomenos'. He seemed much more accustomed to it than the ecumenical patriarch did, too; he wore it as if entitled to it, not as if surprised by it. Rhavas did not know him. He must have risen to prominence since Rhavas went to Skopentzana, and by his accent came from the westlands, which had not suffered barbarian attack, and which had had only a limited share in the current civil war. Since he knew little of suffering, he thought the same had to be true for the Empire of Videssos as a whole.

Fool. Fat, pompous fool, Rhavas thought. You'd sing a different tune if you ever set eyes on a Khamorth.

More than a few other ecclesiastics were nodding along with the pompous prelate. His was the comfortable road, the safe road. If they went along with his views, they wouldn't have to change their own.

Sozomenos held up a hand. "Do not decide too soon. Consider that you may be mistaken. Consider that we all may be mistaken. Consider well, my friends, my colleagues. Decide on the basis of the faith of our holy scriptures, not on account of your own prejudices."

Rhavas heard that with astonished respect. He knew Sozomenos disagreed with him—disagreed with him down to the very core. Yet the ecumenical patriarch could not have presented the case more evenhandedly. He urged, he invited, the assembled ecclesiastics to settle it on its merits, not on their preconceptions. Rhavas wondered whether he could have, would have, done the same had some other prelate come before him with a doctrine of which he so strongly disapproved. He had his doubts.

Would it matter, though? That plump, powerful prelate rumbled, "This is all a waste of time, most holy sir."

"Time spent studying the faith is never wasted, very holy sir," Sozomenos replied. "We shall examine the truth, we shall define it, and we shall refine it. May the lord with the great and good mind . . . and, ah, any other interested deity . . . aid us in our deliberations. So may it be." He lifted his hands to the heavens once more.

"So may it be," intoned most of the ecclesiastics in the High Temple. Several of them, however, spat in rejection of Skotos instead.

A couple of men who stood by the outer wall did not, to Rhavas' eyes, seem to be ecclesiastics at all. It was not so much that they dressed in nondescript mufti. It was the way they watched the proceedings. They were more interested in the ecclesiastics as people than as priests or as theologians.

Who are they? What are they doing here? Rhavas wondered. Are they keeping an eye on things for Maleinos? But the Avtokrator would surely have priests here to keep him up to date on what was going on—and to help keep things from going wrong.

One of the strangers happened to meet Rhavas' gaze. Swords might have clashed, there in the quiet under the dome. Power rang off power. Whatever else he is, he's a mage, Rhavas realized.

The man leaned toward his comrade and whispered something to him. The other layman stared at Rhavas. He was also a sorcerer. Rhavas did not think of himself as any such thing. How his power might seem to a pair of wizards . . . He would find out.

He did not fear them. He had cursed mages before, cursed them and watched them die. If he had to, he could and would do it again.

"Dig up the heretics' bones!" a monk shouted.

In an instant, the cry filled the High Temple. It echoed from the dome, as the creed had before. Phos himself might have condemned heresy.

Sozomenos raised a gnarled hand. Silence fell. In due course, even the echoes faded. "Whoever shall not agree with what this synod decides, whoever shall fail to accept it, will be a heretic indeed," the ecumenical patriarch said. "But until someone says that he will not accept it, we are all brethren together. This being so, I expect we shall all act toward one another as toward brethren. Do I make myself plain?"

No one told him he did not. The sway he held over Videssos' unruly ecclesiastics made Rhavas marvel once more. Could I ever lead them so? He hoped the answer was yes, but was too remorselessly honest with himself to find that likely.

"Question, most holy sir, if I may?" Even the plump prelate from the westlands was polite with Sozomenos.

"Go ahead, Arkadios," the patriarch replied. "Questions are always welcome. They help clarify the faith."

"It seems to me, most holy sir, that the question before us here does not clarify the faith, but rather undermines it. If we do not take the good god's ascendance on faith, what have we got left?"

"Well said!" The words came from half a dozen men scattered all over the High Temple.

"I shall not try to answer that. Instead, I shall yield the floor to the prelate who caused this synod to be convened," Sozomenos replied. He gestured toward Rhavas. "Here is the very holy Rhavas of Skopentzana. I trust he will be able to give you what you require. Very holy sir?"

"Thank you, most holy sir." Rhavas got to his feet. He bowed to Arkadios. "Very holy sir, my view is simple. A faith that goes unexamined, unquestioned, is in fact no faith at all. Only examination yields truth. We have gone a very long time without a proper examination of what we believe. The times we live in argue that this examination is long overdue."

Arkadios snorted. "You want to bow down to the dark god"—he spat between his feet—"and you are looking for a synod to tell you it's all right."

"No. That is not true." Rhavas shook his head. "I have never wanted anything less in my life. But I have the nerve to follow the truth wherever it leads me. Can you say the same?"

"I know what the truth is. I don't need any fancy examination to tell me," Arkadios declared. "And I don't need somebody who hides corruption behind a lot of fancy phrases."

Rhavas bowed again. "Thank you, very holy sir. Your objectivity does you credit."

"Do you mock me?" Arkadios demanded angrily. "Do you dare mock me? You have your nerve, all right, you heretic dog!"

"That will be enough of that." Sozomenos did not raise his voice, but had no trouble making himself not only heard but heeded. "Arkadios, you were the one who first resorted to personal attack. You cannot—or at least you should not—be surprised if you find it coming back at you. And if you resort to it again, you will find you are not too prominent to be expelled from this gathering. Do I make myself plain? Please apologize so we may proceed."

The prelate from the westlands bowed his head. "I am truly sorry, most holy sir." For a wonder, he sounded as if he meant it.

Even so, he did not satisfy Sozomenos. "You need not apologize to me, for I did not suffer under your harsh words. The very holy Rhavas, on the other hand, did."

Arkadios turned red with anger. He managed a most perfunctory bow toward Rhavas and muttered, "Very holy sir, I'm sorry."

"I'm sure you are." Rhavas answered one untruth with another. He bowed to Sozomenos once more. "Most holy sir, I believe the relevant passage from which we should begin our discussion is the third verse of the thirtieth chapter of our holy scriptures. I will quote it for the benefit of any who cannot call it to mind without help."

"How generous of you," Sozomenos murmured. Rhavas hadn't thought he had such sarcasm in him. Some priests and prelates muttered angrily at Rhavas' assumption that they could not quote chapter and verse for themselves. Others showed by their blank and anxious expressions that they needed all the help they could get. The ecumenical patriarch must have seen as much, for he added, "Well, go ahead, then, very holy sir."

"And so I shall." And Rhavas did: "'Now at the beginning the two gods declared their nature, the good and the evil, in thought and word and deed. And between the two, wise men choose well—not so the foolish.'"

"There!" Arkadios cried. "Out of your own wicked mouth you convict yourself!" He shouted toward Sozomenos: "Let him be anathematized now, so we can go home and tend to our own business."

"What have you to say to this?" Sozomenos asked Rhavas.

"Why, that the very holy Arkadios has proved himself . . . foolish, of course," Rhavas replied calmly.

Arkadios was anything but calm. "To the ice with you, Rhavas!" he roared. "I curse you in Phos' holy name!"

If Rhavas cursed Arkadios in return, there would be a death on the floor of the High Temple. That would give those two mages something to think about! But he was not ready to do that, not yet. In fact, he consciously restrained himself from doing anything of the sort. All he said was, "The very holy sir needs to consider whether he has in fact chosen well in choosing Phos. That is what we all need to consider today."

He would have gone on, but shouts of fury from every corner of the High Temple drowned out whatever he might have said. Then Sozomenos raised his hand again. Again, he won silence from the assembled ecclesiastics. Into it, he said, "You are welcome to disagree with the very holy sir. But you must do it through reasoned argument. Bellowing like a bull has no place here."

Rhavas wondered what the bludgeon-bearing monks thought of that. Bellowing had had its place at a great many synods in Videssian history. So had breaking heads. No matter what the ecumenical patriarch had to say, such things might also come into play at this one.

For now, though, Sozomenos' force of character—his holiness, to use a word Rhavas increasingly mistrusted—carried the day. He said, "The prelate of Skopentzana has the floor. He may speak as he wishes. Should you think it wise, you will have the opportunity to rebut him: of that, you may rest assured. For now, though, very holy sir, you may proceed."

"Once more, most holy sir, I thank you." Rhavas looked out at the sea of hostile faces around him. "I am going to ask you, gentlemen, holy sirs, to consider the state of the Empire of Videssos in deciding whether choosing Phos was wise or foolish. Which god has shown himself to be the more powerful?

"How many bloody battles have the Avtokrator and the rebel general fought against each other? How much have those fights accomplished, except in killing Videssians who would better be left alive? Who laughs, who triumphs, in a civil war? Phos? Give me leave to doubt it."

Arkadios, who seemed to have decided that he was the chief spokesman for orthodoxy, threw back his head and laughed theatrically; his big gray-streaked beard bounced up and down. After the theatrics were done, he said, "The Empire has had trouble before. Trouble is not enough to turn all of us into accursed Skotos worshipers." He spat again. So did most of the ecclesiastics in the High Temple.

"When there is room to doubt, I am in favor of giving the benefit of the doubt," Rhavas said. "I do not see that there is room to doubt anymore. Can you, Arkadios—can any of you, holy sirs—deny that Videssos today rules only half the land she ruled a year ago? Can you deny she is liable, even likely, to lose more land still?"

"Half the land?" Now Arkadios shook his head, for all the world like a bull bedeviled by flies. If he could have flicked his ears back and forth, he would have done that, too. "You lie, very holy sir."

"In saying this, very holy sir, you prove two things. First, you come from the west, and do not understand the north and the east. And, second"—Rhavas planted his barb with a certain ferocious glee—"you are an ass, and an ignorant ass at that."

Now Arkadios bellowed like a bull, a bull one of those flies had bitten. How long had it been since anyone presumed to stand up to him in argument? Quite a while, plainly; and, as plainly, he did not relish the experience now. "Why, you bald-arsed son of a whore!" he roared. "I'll thrash you with my own hands!"

He stormed toward Rhavas. No doubt he could have done it. He was taller than Rhavas (who was not short), twice as wide through the shoulders, and twice as thick through the chest. Rhavas, however, did not intend to take a beating. If Arkadios swung on him, that would be the last thing the prelate from the westlands ever did.

"Stop!" Sozomenos' voice was as sweet and clear as a silver bell. And Arkadios did stop. That made Rhavas wonder for a moment—but only for a moment—if Phos still could work miracles after all. The ancient ecumenical patriarch pointed a trembling forefinger at Arkadios. "Resume your place, very holy sir. I told you before that no unseemly violence would mar this synod. Resume it, I say!"

"But, most holy sir, he—" Arkadios pointed toward Rhavas. Even as he did, though, he began to obey Sozomenos' command.

"I had not finished." Sozomenos himself turned in Rhavas' direction. "Neither will there be any crude and crass insults heard. As much as violence, they taint our holy faith. Do you understand me, very holy sir?" He sounded very stern indeed.

"Yes, most holy sir. Please recall that I was insulted before I gave back the same coin," Rhavas said.

"That will be enough from both of you," Sozomenos said. "Are we ecclesiastics, or only so many squabbling tradesmen? If reason cannot prevail, why did we come together here?"

I don't know. Why don't you ask the monks with clubs? But Rhavas didn't say it out loud. He bowed to the ecumenical patriarch and said, "I shall remember your wise words, most holy sir."

Sozomenos looked in Arkadios' direction. With obvious bad grace, the prelate from the westlands mumbled, "And I, most holy sir."

"Excellent. I thank you both." From most men, that would have been nothing but a polite, insincere phrase. Sozomenos obviously meant it: one of the character traits that made him so impressive. He nodded to Rhavas. "You still have the floor."

"Thank you." Rhavas looked around the High Temple. "I say again that more than half the Empire is lost to us. I say also that it will be difficult if not impossible to win it back. Think on how many priests and prelates are not here, for their cities and towns were overrun by the Khamorth.

"I could speak for hours about the atrocities and massacres the barbarians have perpetrated against the people of Videssos, and this despite the countless prayers for thanksgiving and salvation those people offered up to the lord with the great and good mind. I know whereof I speak. I led many services calling on Phos to save his people from the onslaught of these savages who know him not. I led them, yes, and what good did they do us? Why, no good at all, as anyone can see, for I also watched the Khamorth sack Skopentzana. I watched them kill. I watched them rape. I watched them plunder. I saw nothing to make me think the lord with the great and good mind restrained them in any way.

"And how was it that they were able to enter the Empire in the first place? Was it because the lord with the great and good mind invited them in? Do any of you think so, my fellow priests and prelates, monks and abbots?"

He waited. No one shouted out such a belief. Only silence came echoing back from the good god's image in the dome. Rhavas dared hope it was a troubled silence.

Into that silence, he continued, "You also know how and why the barbarians came into the Empire. The rebel emptied the frontier fortresses, leaving the border bare so he could better battle the Avtokrator. And how did the savages win such successes once they were inside? Why, the Avtokrator had emptied the city garrisons so he could fight the rebel. Tell me, holy sirs, is this a truth or am I trying to deceive you?"

Rhavas paused again. Again, no one screamed that he was a liar. Nobody screamed at him for criticizing Maleinos and Stylianos impartially, either. In the Videssian civil war, there was plenty of blame to go around. No one with eyes to see could doubt that.

Since no one was screaming at him, Rhavas continued, "We have to ask ourselves what this means, don't we? Does it mean the lord with the great and good mind truly is watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor? If it does mean that, how do we demonstrate it?"

Another pause. More silence. Maybe the assembled ecclesiastics of Videssos were thoughtful. Maybe they just thought Rhavas was a madman. Either way, no one tried to respond.

And he went on, "To my way of thinking, holy sirs, any explanation of these events that involves Phos also involves much convoluted thinking, much twisting of the facts to fit preconceived notions. I am not saying these notions are ignoble; on the contrary. But I am saying that notions which fail to fit the facts must be viewed with suspicion.

"What seems to me to be the truth may be—is—less pleasant to contemplate, but does that make it any less true? How better to explain the events of the past couple of years than in the most obvious way? We have given reverence to the lord with the great and good mind for centuries, but what has he done for us? Anything at all? If he has, is it visible? The works of his opponent are all too visible, for better and—mostly—for worse. Is it not the plain truth, then, that Skotos is stronger than Phos?"

There. He'd said it. He waited for the storm to burst around his head. And this time, he did not have long to wait.

"Heretic!" was the kindest thing the priests and prelates and monks and abbots yelled at him. They went on from there. "Infamous heretic!" was popular. So was "Apostate!" Quite a few liked "Skotos-lover!" and "Filthy Skotos-lover!" Some of the more ingenious ecclesiastics invented obscene variations on that theme. Other men, less clever or more furious, roared out wordless rage, like so many wild beasts.

Rhavas had looked for nothing different. Hoped, yes; looked for, no. No one physically attacked him. Sozomenos must have impressed the other ecclesiastics no less than he'd impressed Rhavas.

But, though the assembled clerics obeyed the ecumenical patriarch's injunction against violence, they would not come to order when he tried to calm them. Their rage had to break loose, it seemed. Had they held it in, they would have done themselves an injury.

To Rhavas' astonishment—and, he thought, to that of everyone else in the High Temple—the patriarch pulled a bugle from a shelf under the pulpit, raised it to his lips, and blew a long, not particularly musical note. The noise pierced the hubbub of human voices and bought Sozomenos a moment of something close to silence.

"Holy sirs, you have made your opinion plain," Sozomenos said. "You have, perhaps, made it too plain. The very holy Rhavas argues from Phos' holy scriptures, and from his interpretation of recent events. You may find his interpretation erroneous. Shouting insults at him, however, will not demonstrate that it is."

"Why do we even need to refute him, most holy sir?" Arkadios cried. "He refutes himself out of his own mouth. He shows himself to be accursed by Phos." He pointed a dramatic finger at Rhavas. "Accursed you are, and accursed you shall be forevermore, until the eternal ice at last takes you for its own!"

A storm of applause followed his impassioned words. Like the earlier outrage, it echoed from the High Temple's dome. Phos himself might have cheered on Arkadios' curse. The good god might have, yes, but Rhavas remained upright. He went on breathing, he went on thinking, not affected in any way he could sense by what the other prelate had said.

"How do you intend your curse to strike, very holy sir?" Rhavas inquired with exquisite, ironic politeness. "Will it perhaps bore me to death? It seems incapable of doing anything else."

Arkadios shouted angrily and waved his fist at Rhavas. "Let's see you do better, you lying sack of turds!"

Rhavas bowed to him. "As you say, so shall it be." He bowed to Sozomenos. "He has claimed a power—arrogated a power to himself, I should say. I too claim a certain power, or claim that it is stronger than the one he embraces. His demonstration, I believe, failed. Now for mine." He pointed to the other prelate. "Curse you," he said.

And Arkadios fell over dead.

Now there was silence in the High Temple: absolute, complete, horrified silence. A moan broke it, a moan from someone standing only a few feet from Arkadios' crumpled form. "He's . . . gone," the man quavered. He too fell over, Rhavas hoped only in a faint.

Tumult erupted. All the ecclesiastics close to Rhavas edged away from him, as if afraid he might level one of them next, or maybe more than one. Priests and prelates automatically sketched Phos' sun-sign. Some of them stared at their hands afterward. They might have wondered if the gesture was as apotropaic as they'd always believed.

The two mages at the outskirts of the gathering were arguing with each other, and getting hotter moment by moment. One of them pointed at Rhavas. That wasn't a curse—or if it was, it didn't bite. But Rhavas thought the man was only identifying him. And he still wasn't afraid of wizards: less so than ever, now.

Ecclesiastics also began pointing at Rhavas. "Sorcery!" one of them shouted. In a moment, many took up the cry: "Sorcery!"

"No." Rhavas shook his head. "I used no special wizardry. Arkadios claimed his god spoke through him. When he was put to the great test of life, though, all he found in truth was emptiness—wind and air. I have told you, holy sirs, that I believe the other god to be stronger. I asked him to speak through me, to answer Arkadios' lies and insults. I asked him to, and he did."

"Sorcery!" They hadn't listened to him at all. He hadn't really expected them to. He kept looking at the two wizards. One of them was nodding, Rhavas thought in agreement with what he'd said. The other kept shaking his head, though with less conviction than he'd shown before.

To Rhavas' surprise, Sozomenos was looking toward the mages, too. "Well, gentlemen?" the ecumenical patriarch asked them.

"Most holy sir, it is at least possible that he speaks the truth," said the one who'd been nodding. The other one looked very unhappy, but didn't disagree with him, at least not out loud. The mage who had spoken continued, "I found him to have used no ordinary spell, at any rate."

"I see," Sozomenos said heavily. "Or perhaps I see." He spoke to the assembled ecclesiastics: "Holy sirs, I adjourn this session of the synod. We shall convene again in three days' time. In the meanwhile, I charge you to speak to no one of what has passed here today."

That, Rhavas knew, was asking waves not to roll in from the sea or the sun not to rise in the east. What had happened in the High Temple would be all over Videssos the city before an hour went by. He supposed Sozomenos had to make the effort, though.

The ecumenical patriarch turned his way. "Will you do me the courtesy of staying to discuss this matter?"

"Of course, most holy sir," Rhavas said. "I am at your disposal."

Ecclesiastics flooded—they fairly flew—out of the High Temple. A couple of the priests who had attended Arkadios dragged his body away. The other man who had fallen must have got up again during the chaos, which meant he had only passed out. Rhavas was more pleased than not. He hadn't intended that priest to die.

Sozomenos descended from the pulpit. He seemed to abandon some of his patriarchal dignity as he did so. Approaching Rhavas, he seemed only a sad old man. "You did not have to kill Arkadios," he said in a deeply mournful voice.

"I am sorry it upset you, most holy sir," Rhavas said—he would not say he was sorry for what he had done. "The man insulted me and called me a liar. How else was I to show him to be mistaken?"

"Killing is easy." Sozomenos sighed. "If we have learned anything lately, we have learned that. When you can give back life as readily as you take it, taking it may perhaps be justified. Until then?" He shook his head. "Until then, no."

"We see things differently," Rhavas said.

"In many ways," the ecumenical patriarch agreed. "If you think you can frighten people into reverencing the dark god, I must tell you that I believe you are wrong."

"That is not why I did it," Rhavas answered. Not all of why I did it, anyhow. "He said I did not have the power. He said the dark god did not have the power. He cursed me. I cursed him. You see which of our curses was the more decisive."

"No, not yet," Sozomenos said. "Sometimes these things play out more slowly than it seems at first."

"Have it your way, then, most holy sir," Rhavas said dismissively. "I am alive. He is dead. I draw my own conclusions from that."

"I suppose you would." Sozomenos eyed him. "I suppose you are also the priest who has left a trail of blood in his wake from the northeast down to Videssos the city. I prayed it was not so, but I fear there is no longer much room for doubt, is there?"

"I admit nothing," Rhavas said. "Nor do I think your assertion is susceptible of proof."

The ecumenical patriarch let out another sad sigh. "I wish you had simply said, 'No, I am not the man.'"

Rhavas wished he had said that, too. He could say it now, but Sozomenos would not believe it. Sozomenos probably would not have believed it had he said it before. What he did say was, "I wish life were as we wished it. I wish I had not been forced to the conclusions I have reached. But life is as it is, and I believe what I believe—and I believe I have the evidence for that belief."

"There we differ," Sozomenos said. "The dark god may speak through you." He spat in rejection of Skotos—but he did it almost apologetically, as if to remind Rhavas it was his duty. "He may speak through you, yes, but you must always remember that he lies."

"I have other evidence of his strength than what he does through me," Rhavas said, "and those who oppose him would naturally say he lies."

"Perhaps you will persuade the assembled clerics," Sozomenos said. "Perhaps—but I would not care to bet on it."

"We shall continue, as you commanded, in three days' time." Rhavas bowed to the ecumenical patriarch. "Until then."

"Yes," Sozomenos said, sadly still. "Until then."

When Rhavas came to the High Temple for the next session of the synod, the two wizards who'd been there before waited in the narthex. He bowed to them as he'd bowed to the patriarch. "Do you want something of me, sorcerous sirs?"

One of them flinched. The other one asked, "How did you do what you did to that other prelate? It was no ordinary spell." He looked daggers at his colleague, as if defying the other mage to tell him he was wrong.

"The god spoke through me," Rhavas said. Let them make of that what they would. He bowed again and went on into the High Temple.

A few priests came up to him and even fawned on him. That he had some supporters warmed him. But they were not the men he wished they would have been. He knew only a couple of them. One was a drunk, the other notorious for taking his vows lightly. The rest struck him as being of similar stripe. The sober, sensible prelates he would have wanted at his side did not care to join him. He shrugged. As he'd told Sozomenos, life was the way it was. Expecting it to be otherwise was asking for disappointment.

Sozomenos called the session to order with the usual prayers. Most of the ecclesiastics seemed more eager to offer them up than they had when the synod opened. Rhavas found that funny. He'd frightened them into piety.

Debate resumed. No one insulted him to his face, as Arkadios had done at the first session. No one insulted him, no, but next to no one spoke in agreement with him, not even the men who'd fawned on him.

He argued on. If he was to be alone against the world, then he was, that was all. It made the challenge larger. The ecclesiastics who argued against him kept on being much more polite than the late Arkadios had been. They would not agree, but they would not revile him for his opinions. He almost wished they would have. Killing a couple of them might have taken the edge off his own rising temper.

Those two mages kept watching him and muttering back and forth. He wondered what they were saying. He didn't worry overmuch—he'd told them the unvarnished truth—but he did wonder.

Some sort of commotion started outside the High Temple late in the afternoon. Occasional shouts and outcries made their way into the immense building, though Rhavas could not make out words in them and didn't think anyone else could, either.

Then a man burst into the temple, crying, "Holy sirs! Holy sirs! I have news, holy sirs, important news!"

"Say on," Sozomenos told him from the pulpit, as if warning it had better be important.

And it was. "There's been a battle north of here," the man shouted, his voice filling the High Temple. "There's been a battle, and Stylianos has beaten and slain Maleinos! The new Avtokrator is marching on the city!"