The Redemption of Althalus (65 page)

“That’s the way it’s always been,” Bheid told the young shepherd.

“That doesn’t mean that it’s right, Brother Bheid,” Salkan declared. “If somebody wants to talk with God, he should be able to do it anytime or anyplace he wants to. He shouldn’t have to go to a temple and pay some greedy priest to carry his messages for him. I’m not trying to insult you, Brother Bheid, but from what I’ve seen, the priests are more interested in money than they are in God—or in the well-being of the people.”

“I think he’s got you there, Bheid,” Eliar said. “Priests always seem to have their hands out for money.”

“Not the
real
priests,” Bheid objected.

“Maybe not,” Salkan conceded, “but how can you tell the
real
priests from the false ones? They all wear the same clothes, don’t they? I’ll stick to taking care of my sheep. I don’t think I’d make a very good priest. I’ve never learned how to cheat.”

I wouldn’t push it, Bheid,
Althalus suggested silently.
Salkan’s not ready
yet—and neither are you.

What’s that supposed to mean?
Bheid demanded.

Your theological position changed quite a bit last summer, as I recall. I
think you’d better have a long talk with Emmy before you dash out to start con
verting the heathens.
Then Althalus looked across the table at Eliar. “Your Sergeant needs us, Eliar,” he said, speaking aloud.

“All right,” Eliar agreed, standing up and coming around the table.

“What’s Bheid up to in there?” Althalus asked once they were out in the hall.

“I’m not really sure,” Eliar admitted. “His thinking’s sort of scrambled right now. Emmy left a big hole in his mind when she told him that astrology’s pure nonsense, and things got a lot worse for him when Leitha dragged him into the family.”

“That ‘family’ notion might have been a mistake,” Althalus conceded.

“It’s fairly accurate, though. I didn’t really think it was such a good idea at first, but after Leitha, Andine, and I got back to the House, I started getting more comfortable with it.”

“You’ve changed a bit since you got swallowed up, Eliar.”

“Didn’t
you
change after Emmy swallowed you?”

“I suppose I did at that. It takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yes,’’ Eliar said fervently. “You had it easy, Althalus. The only one
you
had to deal with right at first was Emmy. I had
three
of them crawling around inside my head.” He changed the subject. “Just exactly what is it that Sergeant Khalor needs me for?”

“He wants to talk with Kreuter and Dreigon, and he isn’t sure just exactly which part of the House they’re wandering through. You don’t need to make an issue of this, Eliar, but I think the House still makes your Sergeant a little uncomfortable. Your doors are fine—as long as
you’re
the one who opens them. I don’t think Khalor wants to take any chances. He got a quick glimpse of Nahgharash when Gelta ran up behind you with her ax, and he’d
really
rather not make a mistake and open
that
particular door.”

“They believe that they’re camped on the west shore of Lake Daso in Equero,” Althalus told Sergeant Khalor as Eliar led them along the east corridor toward a fairly extensive encampment. “We probably shouldn’t say anything that disagrees with that. Let’s not confuse them.”

“
I’m
fairly confused,” Khalor said. “Why should
they
be any different?” Then he smiled. “Sorry, Althalus. I couldn’t resist that one.”

They met with Kreuter and the kilted Dreigon in a canvas tent in the center of the corridor, and Khalor handed over the map he’d carefully prepared for them.

“You draw good maps, Khalor,” the silver-haired Dreigon noted. “Are these distances close?”

Khalor nodded. “As close as I could get them. The map I was working from wasn’t
too
accurate, so I had to make a few corrections.”

“Can those three cities hold out?” Kreuter asked.

“Kadon’s good for probably three months,” Khalor replied. “Laiwon’s holding that one, and he knows how to make things expensive for besiegers.”

“That he does,” Dreigon agreed.

“I’m going to put Koleika Iron Jaw in Mawor,” Khalor continued. “The Duke of Mawor evidently decided to make his city stand out as the best-fortified place in the world. The houses inside are a little shoddy, but you wouldn’t want to take a run at those walls. I think the combination of walls like that and Koleika, the most stubborn man in the world, should stop the invaders dead in their tracks.”

“What about that other city—Poma?” Kreuter asked.

“That’s where we’ve got a problem” Khalor admitted. “A light spring breeze would probably tumble the walls of Poma. I’m going to put Twengor there. I’m positive that there’s going to be house-to-house fighting in Poma, and Twengor’s very good at that sort of thing.”

“If he’s sober,” Dreigon added.

“Does this Twengor have problems with drink?” Kreuter asked.

“No, not really,” Dreigon replied. “He can usually polish off a barrel of good ale before lunchtime. Of course, he can’t stand up in the afternoon, but he doesn’t see
that
as a problem. He has a tendency to wreck every town he enters, though. He’s as big as a house himself, and he bumps into things when he walks. Usually, whatever he bumps into falls down.”

“I
hate
working with a drunkard,” Kreuter said.

“I’ll sober him up,” Althalus promised.

“I don’t know,” Kreuter said dubiously. “I’ve never known a confirmed drunk who was able to put it aside.”

“Trust me on this one, General Kreuter,” Althalus said.

“How’s Astarell?” Kreuter asked Sergeant Khalor.

“Oh, she’s doing just fine, Kreuter. My Chief’s absolutely smitten with her.”

“Really?
That’s
something we might want to think about. I suppose I
could
just go ahead and kill her rascally brother and the old fool who tried to buy her, but that’d probably start wars all over Plakand. Maybe I should talk with her and see how
she
feels about the idea. Your Chief
is
a handsome sort of devil, and maybe she has feelings for him as well. Let’s keep it in mind, Khalor. It might just solve a lot of our problems.”

“My thought exactly, Kreuter. If I can get my Chief married off, maybe he’ll stay home and get out of my hair.”

Chief Twengor was roaring drunk when Althalus and Khalor came down the north corridor of the House the following morning. The burly Arum Clan Chief was sprawled out in a massive chair at the head of a long plank-and-trestle table in the center of his encampment with an open ale keg in front of him, and he was singing—sort of.

“It’ll take us all day to sober him up,” Khalor muttered to Althalus as they were escorted into the drunken man’s presence.

“Maybe not,” Althalus disagreed, rummaging back through his education.

“Ho, Khalor!” Twengor bellowed, waving his drinking horn. “Sit you down and get started! You’ve got some catching up to do!”

“You’ve got quite a big head start, Chief Twengor,” Khalor agreed.

“I should have.” Twengor chortled. “I’ve been working on this one for three days now.”

That
was useful. If it had taken Twengor three days to drink himself into his present condition, it might be quicker to take him on out through the far end than it’d be to turn him around and take him back. Althalus looked at Twengor’s beet-red face and muttered
“egwrio”
under his breath.

Chief Twengor’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he slid limply out of his chair. His snores began to rumble under the table.

“I think our Chief just outran you altogether, Khalor!” one of Twengor’s sub-Chiefs declared, roaring with drunken laughter.

Althalus expanded the idea—and the ancient word—that had just struck down the vast-bearded Twengor, and a sudden silence, punctuated only by snores, fell over the encampment in the north corridor.

“What did you just do?” Khalor demanded.

Althalus shrugged. “I think it’s called ‘speeding things up,’ ” he replied. “They were all wandering off in this direction anyway, but it might have taken them the rest of the day to get where they are now.”

“It’ll still take them a day or so to sleep it off,” Khalor pointed out.

“No, not really,” Althalus disagreed. He turned to look back along the corridor. “You can come on in now, Eliar,” he called.

The blond young fellow joined them. He waved one hand in front of his face. “They don’t smell too good, do they?” he said.

“Take shallow breaths,” Althalus suggested. “Which door would put us on the road right outside Poma?”

Eliar pointed to a nearby door. “That one right there.”

“Go ahead and open it. I’ll start these men moving.”

“They’re all asleep, Althalus.”

“You and I know that, Eliar, but
they
don’t.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all, Althalus,” Khalor protested.

“It will in a minute, I think.” Althalus squinted at Eliar. “I’m going to need the door to last week as well as the door to the Poma road,” he said.

“Last week?” Eliar asked in a puzzled tone.

“Time’s the only thing that’ll sober a drunk man up, so I’ll need a week at least. I’m going to start our sodden friends here to walking in their sleep. Then I want you to lead them into last week and back.
Then
we’ll take them through the Poma road door.”

“Wouldn’t it be simpler to just make it the same door?”

“Can you
do
that?” Althalus was startled.

“I think so,” Eliar said. He put his hand on the hilt of the Knife and concentrated. “Yes,” he said confidently. “Now I remember how to do it. It’s the door frame. I always have to remind myself about that. Place is in the door, but time’s in the door frame.”

“Do you have any idea at all what he’s talking about?” Khalor asked Althalus.

“Sort of,” Althalus replied. “Twengor and his men will go to last week and back while they’re passing through the doorway. They’ll be drunk as lords
here,
and sober as judges
there,
because they’ll have had two weeks to get sober during that single step through the doorway.
And,
since they’ll be walking in their sleep, they won’t really know what’s happened.”

“Just
do
it, gentlemen; don’t explain it,” Khalor said. “Sometimes you two are as bad as Gher is.”

“They’re not
serious
!” Chief Twengor exploded when he first caught sight of the walls of Poma.

“Duke Bherdor doesn’t have much in the way of a backbone, Chief Twengor,” Sergeant Khalor admitted. “The local merchants don’t really want to pay taxes, and Bherdor’s too spineless to
insist.”

“I want a free hand here, Althalus,” the now-sober Twengor said flatly. “Don’t interfere with me.”

“Just exactly what did you have in mind, Chief Twengor?”

“I’m going to make those merchants pay their taxes in sweat.
They’re
the ones who are going to reinforce those walls.”

“I don’t think they’ll agree to that.”

“I’ve got a whip someplace,” Twengor said darkly. “They’ll agree, Althalus. Believe me when I say they’ll agree. Let’s go talk to this jellyfish Duke.”

They entered the city, and Chief Twengor grew more and more irritated as they passed through the commercial district, where the shops more closely resembled palaces than places of business. Twengor’s face was steel hard when they entered Duke Bherdor’s run-down palace.

“This is Chief Twengor, your Grace,” Khalor introduced the hulking Arum to the weak-chinned Duke of Poma. “He’ll be defending your city.”

“Praise the Gods!” the young Bherdor exclaimed in his tremulous voice.

“I’m going to need a few things, your Grace,” Twengor said brusquely. “We
are
going to cooperate with each other, aren’t we?”

“Oh, of course, Chief Twengor. Of course.”

“Good. I want every citizen of Poma in that square in front of your palace in half an hour. I need to talk with them.”

“I don’t know if they’ll come, Chief Twengor. The merchants don’t like it when I do anything that interrupts normal business.”

“Oh, they’ll come, Duke Bherdor,” Twengor said confidently. “Tell them that my clansmen will hang anybody who refuses—right from the signs that stick out over the front doors of all those fancy shops.”

“You
wouldn’t
!”

“Watch me.”

“He’s a different man when he’s sober, isn’t he?” Eliar said quietly to Sergeant Khalor.

“Oh, yes,” Khalor agreed. “This is the way he
used
to be—before he started swimming down to the bottom of every ale barrel he came across. His mind hasn’t been this clear for the past ten years.”

Twengor sent some of his men to accompany the palace guards out into the city to summon the citizens to the square, and by noon, more or less everybody in Poma had gathered there. The richly dressed merchants seemed quite indignant, for some reason, and they were talking among themselves angrily.

“Ah—excuse me,” Duke Bherdor said weakly from the balcony at the front of his palace. “Excuse me.”

The crowd ignored him.

“Let me do this, your Grace,” Twengor said. Then, ax in hand, he stepped to the front of the balcony. “Be silent!” he roared in a huge voice.

All sound in the square stopped immediately.

“The lands of the Arya of Osthos have been invaded by the Kanthons,” Twengor announced briskly. “Some of you may have heard about that, but no matter. I’m Twengor of Arum, and I’ve been hired to defend your city. This means that
I
give the orders, and I’ll hang any man who doesn’t obey.”

“You can’t do that!” one of the merchants exclaimed.

“Try me. Look around you, city man. The men with swords and axes are
my
clansmen, and they do as I tell them to do. This puts
me
in charge of Poma, and our first order of business is to do something about your walls.”

“That’s Duke Bherdor’s responsibility, not ours,” another merchant declared.

“What town do you live in?” Twengor asked bluntly. “If the Kanthons break down the walls, they’ll burn Poma to the ground and kill everybody who lives here. Doesn’t that make those walls
your
responsibility?” Twengor paused to let that sink in. “You all cleverly advised your Duke that you couldn’t afford a ten-percent tax. The Kanthons are likely to impose a one hundred–percent tax. After they’ve looted the city, you won’t have anything left. But dead men don’t need anything, do they? Now, let’s go to work on the walls.”