The Redemption of Althalus (79 page)

Bheid gave the Sergeant a startled look. “Is
that
why looted towns are always burned?” he asked.

“Of course, Brother Bheid. I thought everybody knew that. A dedicated looter wouldn’t even consider leaving a town until the flames are licking at his tail feathers. Fire’s just about the only way to start an army moving after they’ve taken a town.”

“Don’t worry about it, Althalus,” Dweia said.

“The numbers don’t match, Em,” he protested. “Eyosra’s messenger’s going to take several weeks to reach the Black Robe temple in Deika and even longer to get to Keiwon. If Emdahl and Yeudon arrive in Maghu tomorrow morning, Eyosra’s likely to start getting
very
suspicious.”

She sighed, rolling her eyes upward.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that, Em,” he complained.

“Then quit being so obvious, pet. I know all about the problem of elapsed time, and I’ve already taken care of it. We’ve been tampering with time and distance for quite a while now, so you should know by now that miles and minutes mean what I
want
them to mean. Nobody’s going to notice anything, Althalus, so stop worrying.”

He gave up. “All right, Em, anything you say. Is Aleikon still having nightmares?”

“Occasionally, yes. We want him to be nice and pliable when Emdahl and Yeudon start making some decisions.”

“What kind of decisions?”

“Watch, Althalus. Watch and learn.”

Exarch Emdahl was a burly clergyman with a deeply lined face and a harsh voice. He and Exarch Yeudon arrived in Maghu late one chill afternoon, and they went immediately into an extended conference with Scopas Eyosra and the other high-ranking Brown Robe clergymen.

“He’s like a bull, Daddy,” Leitha reported. “He’s overriding everybody in the temple, and he seems to know a great deal more than he really should.”

“Our order specializes in gathering information,” Bheid explained. “There’s very little that happens in the world that isn’t brought to the attention of my Exarch. I’m told that he tends to be just a bit abrupt in emergencies. I think we’ll want to step around him rather carefully.”

“Maybe,” Althalus said,” but then again, maybe not. If he just happens to want truth, I’m in a position to give him more truth than he can handle. Exarch Emdahl might be a bull, but I’ve got bigger horns than he has.”

The summoner arrived at Count Baskoi’s house the following morning with a document “requesting” the presence of the Duke of Kenthaigne at the temple.

“Do be a good fellow and run on back to the temple and advise the Exarchs that we’ll be along just as soon as it’s convenient,” Althalus told the somewhat self-important official in his haughtiest tone of voice.

Bheid winced.
You’re getting off to a bad start, Althalus,
he silently warned.

Not really,
Althalus replied.
I
want
to jerk Emdahl’s chain just a little.
Let’s give it about half an hour. Then we’ll drop by the temple. I think maybe
you should stay in the background just a bit, Brother Bheid. I’m going to pull
Emdahl up short, and I’d rather he didn’t take his dissatisfaction out on you.

They waited for a while in Baskoi’s comfortable parlor. “That’s long enough,” Althalus decided finally. “Let’s go to the temple and educate a few clergymen, shall we?”

“Aren’t you pushing things just a bit?” Andine suggested.

“Naturally,” Althalus replied gaily. “I want Emdahl’s undivided attention.”

They left the house and went across town to the temple, and there were a fair number of unfriendly looks cast in their direction as they entered. Althalus ignored the obvious hostility and marched through the temple to Aleikon’s private chapel. “Are they in there?” he demanded of the priest who’d originally come to Baskoi’s house.

“Ah . . . no, your Grace,” the priest replied nervously. “Exarch Aleikon’s still indisposed, and Exarchs Emdahl and Yeudon are conferring in the library.”

“I think you’d better take me to them at once,” Althalus said.

The priest scurried on ahead, and Althalus and the rest marched on behind, Althalus drawing an icy calm about himself.

“It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes, your Grace,” the nervous priest reported when they reached an arched door.

“You’ve been quite helpful in the past several weeks, young man,” Althalus said, “so I don’t want to get you in trouble. Isn’t there some important duty you just absolutely
must
see to in another part of the temple?”

“I’ll think of something, your Grace,” the priest replied gratefully, and then he scurried away.

What are you up to?
Dweia’s voice demanded.

I’m going to get their attention, Em. I’m going to ignore some customary
courtesies and bull my way into the presence of Yeudon and Emdahl. I’m not
going to dance to their tune as they most likely expect me to.
Then he slammed open the library door and marched into the presence of Emdahl and Yeudon. “Don’t get up, gentlemen. I’m told you want to see me,” he announced to the two startled clergymen. “Well, here I am. What’s your problem?”

“What kept you?” the harsh-faced Emdahl demanded.

“Courtesy, your Eminence,” Althalus replied with a florid bow. “Since it’s customary to keep visitors cooling their heels in an anteroom for a certain amount of time, I took care of that in more comfortable surroundings. We have a great deal to discuss, gentlemen, so let’s get down to business, shall we? What is it that you want to know?”

“Let’s start with everything,” Emdahl replied in his gravelly voice, “and we’ll go on from there. Just who
are
you? There’s been a great deal of turmoil in the world here lately, and you and your people seem to have been at the center of most of it. You’ve been running roughshod over people who outrank you everywhere you go, and that disrupts the natural order of things. The Church wants to know what your intentions are.”

Althalus seated himself at the opposite end of the table, motioned the others to sit, and leaned back in his chair. “How much truth are you prepared to deal with, Exarch Emdahl?”

“As much—or more—than you’re ready to give me. Let’s start with who you are.”

Althalus shrugged. “Is that all? This shouldn’t take very long, then. My name’s Althalus, but you already know that. I’m a thief and a swindler, and if the money’s right, a sometime murderer. I was born a very, very long time ago, and I was having a long spell of bad luck when this all started. I was approached by a man named Ghend—a disciple of the demon Daeva—who hired me to go to Kagwher to steal something he called a book. I went to the House at the End of the World where the Book was, and there was a cat there—except that she wasn’t really a cat. She’s the Goddess Dweia, the sister of Deiwos and Daeva.” He paused slightly. “You
did
know that Deiwos and Daeva are brothers, didn’t you, Emdahl? Anyway, the cat, who I call Emmy, taught me how to read the Book of Deiwos, and then about two years ago, she and I left the House to pick up certain people: a young Arum named Eliar; Andine, the Arya of Osthos; a Black Robe priest named Bheid; a boy-thief named Gher; and the mind leech Leitha. Then we all went to the House and saw the
real
form of the Goddess Dweia. She explained some things to us, and then we came out of the House to deal with Ghend and his underlings in the inevitable war between good and evil. That’s what we’re doing right now. We’ve already eliminated two of Ghend’s underlings—Pekhal and Gelta—and we’ve come to Perquaine to deal with Argan, who is a defrocked priest, and Koman, who is Ghend’s mind leech. You gentlemen can either lend a hand or back off and leave me alone. That’s entirely up to you, but I should probably advise you that if you try to interfere with me in any way, I’ll destroy you and anything you gather up to try to resist me. I can do things you can’t even begin to imagine, so get out of my way and let me get on with my work.” Althalus paused. “Was that bald enough for you, Emdahl?” he asked.

Exarch Emdahl’s eyes were bulging.

“Oh, one other thing,” Althalus added. “Dweia tampered with Exarch Aleikon just a bit to get your attention. The poor fellow hasn’t
really
gone crazy. Dweia’s been filling his dreams with visions of Nahgharash, that’s all. It only takes a little bit of Nahgharash to get somebody’s total attention.”

“Nahgharash is only a metaphor, Althalus,” Yeudon objected. “It’s a way to explain a spiritual condition.”

“I think you’ve got it upside down, Yeudon,” Althalus disagreed. “Nahgharash is much more real than your sometimes-obscure definition of sin. It’s
not
just a state of mind. I’ve caught a few glimpses of it—usually when Ghend was trying to surprise me.”

“Just exactly where is it?”

“It’s supposed to be a vast cave filled with fire under the mountains of Nekweros. Actually, it’s wherever Ghend wants it to be. It’s very similar to the House at the End of the World, which can be Everywhere and Everywhen all at the same time.” Althalus smiled faintly. “There’s an alternative to everywhere and Everywhen, but we aren’t even supposed to
think
about it. Gher started playing with the notion of ‘Nowhere and Nowhen’ once, and it sent Dweia right straight up the wall. I guess there’s a chaos out beyond good and evil that’s so hungry that it can swallow the universe. Let’s get back to the question of reality, though. When you get right down to the core of things, the House and Nahgharash are the ultimate realities, and what
we
call the real world is just a reflection of them. That almost suggests that
we’re
the metaphors—concepts, if you wish—designed to act out the realities of the struggle between Dweia and Daeva.” He laughed. “We could discuss that for several centuries, couldn’t we? Right now, though, we’ve got this little war on our hands, so maybe we should concentrate on that. In those other realities, time and distance aren’t constant in the same way they are in the ordinary world. Scopas Eyosra sent a message to you two gentlemen urging you to come to Maghu because Exarch Aleikon was starting to come unhinged. In
this
world, that message would have taken about six weeks to reach you, and it would have taken you another six weeks to come here to Maghu. If you wanted to investigate a little, though, I think you’d find that Eyosra’s message left here early last week. Emmy
could
have done it even faster, but she prefers not to make big splashes and all kinds of noise.” He looked at Emdahl and Yeudon. “I don’t seem to be getting through to you gentlemen,” he noted.

“I think you’re even crazier than Aleikon,” Emdahl rasped.

“Aleikon isn’t crazy, Exarch Emdahl,” Leitha told him. “He’s having nightmares about Nahgharash, that’s all, and those nightmares aren’t coming from his own mind. Dweia’s giving them to him. The whole idea was to make him
appear
to be insane so that the two of you would come here. It seems to have worked, so I’d imagine that Aleikon will recover almost immediately.”

“You’re the witch-woman, aren’t you?” Emdahl demanded.

“That’s beginning to make me
very
tired,” Leitha told him in a flat, unfriendly voice.

“I’d be awful careful right here, Mister High Priest,” Gher cautioned. “Leitha’s not afraid of anything—or anybody—and if you make her mad at you, she’ll melt your brains down into a mud puddle.”

“This is all nonsense!” Emdahl exploded. “I think you people all belong in a madhouse somewhere.
We
are the leaders of the faith, and
we
tell you what you can or cannot believe.”

“I think you’d better show him how wrong he is, Leitha,” Althalus suggested, speaking aloud.

“Yes, Daddy,” she agreed. “Maybe I should at that.” She looked at the harsh-faced Exarch of the Black Robes. Then she sighed. “How very sad,” she said. “Deiwos
is
real, your Eminence,” she told him. “He’s not just some fiction the priesthood invented to foist off on the gullible among the population. Your uncertainty and your anguish are unnecessary. Don’t keep punishing yourself about your doubts.”

Emdahl’s expression was suddenly stricken, and he began to tremble violently. “How . . .” he started, but left it hanging.

“Leitha is gifted, my Exarch,” Bheid explained gently. “She can hear your innermost thoughts.”

“I
do
wish you people would stop calling it a gift,” Leitha complained. “It’s more like a curse. I don’t
want
to hear most of what comes to me unbidden.”

Dweia’s voice crackled in Althalus’ mind.
This is tiresome as well as an
noying, Althalus. Stand clear. I’ll take care of it.

Then one wall of Aleikon’s high-vaulted library was no longer there. Where the wall had been was the perfect face of Dweia: calm, beautiful, and so enormous that Althalus flinched back in near panic. Her perfect arms were crossed on what had been the floor, and her chin was resting pensively on those arms. “I sometimes forget how small you people are,” she murmured. “So tiny, so imperfect.” She reached out with one vast hand and gently picked up the rigid body of Exarch Emdahl and placed him on the palm of her other hand. Then she took up Yeudon and stood him beside Emdahl. “Does this put things in perspective for you gentlemen?” she asked.

The two clergymen clung to each other, squeaking almost like mice.

“Oh, stop that,” she scolded in a voice that seemed oddly gentle. “I’m not going to hurt you. Althalus isn’t the most reliable person in the world, but this time he’s telling you the truth. I
am
who he told you that I am, and this is
not
an illusion or some kind of trick. I want you both to behave yourselves and to do exactly as Althalus tells you to do. We aren’t going to argue about this, are we, gentlemen?”

Emdahl and Yeudon, still clinging to each other in panic, both shook their heads violently.

“I knew all along that you were good boys,” she murmured. Then she reached out one enormous finger and touched each of them with a kind of gently stroking motion. “So tiny,” she murmured again. “So very, very tiny.” Then she took each of them in turn and set them back down in their chairs. “Bring them here, Althalus,” she said, “and fetch Aleikon as well. They have some decisions to make, and it might take them quite a while to make them. Once they’re in the House, I can give them as much time as they’ll need.”