‘Things have just been rearranged, Bheid. You won’t have to look at the sky any more, because Eliar’s got the Knife of Deiwos. The Knife will tell us where to go next.’
‘Are we going to leave Awes?’
‘I’m sure we are. We have a long way to go, I think.’
‘You’re wasting time, Althalus,’ Emmy’s voice crackled inside his head. ‘You and Bheid can speculate about the stars on the way back to Osthos.’
‘Osthos!’ Althalus protested out loud. ‘Emmy, we just came from there!’
‘Yes, I know. Now we have to go back.’
‘Were you talking with Emmy just now?’ Eliar demanded. ‘Did she say that we have to go to Osthos again? I can’t go back there, Althalus! Andine would have me killed if I went back!’
‘Is there something wrong?’ Bheid asked, sounding very confused.
‘We just got our marching orders,’ Althalus told him. ‘Eliar’s a little bit unhappy about them.’
‘Did something happen just now that I missed?’
‘Emmy just told me that we have to go to Osthos.’
‘I’m not sure I understand all this talk about somebody named Emmy.’
‘Emmy’s the messenger of Deiwos – sort of. It’s a bit more complex than that, but let’s keep it simple for right now. Deiwos tells Emmy what he wants done. Then she tells me, and I pass it on.’
‘We’re taking orders from a cat?’ Bheid asked incredulously.
‘No, we’re taking orders from God. We can talk about that on our way to Osthos, though. Emmy wants us to start getting ready to leave.’ Althalus glanced about. ‘Let’s pile some more rocks on top of that dead man so that he’s not quite so visible. Then we’ll go pick up your belongings, and I’ll buy you a horse. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.’
They concealed the body more thoroughly and started off through the ruins toward the northern end of Awes. ‘Who’s this Andine person you were talking about?’ Bheid asked Eliar.
‘She’s the ruler of Osthos,’ Eliar replied. ‘She wants to kill me.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘Well,’ Eliar replied with a lightly pained expression, ‘I did sort of kill her father, I guess, but it was during a war, and that kind of thing happens during wars. I was just doing my job, but Andine took it personally. I didn’t really mean anything by it. I was just following orders, but she can’t quite understand that, I guess.’
‘Did any of that make any sense to you?’ Bheid asked Althalus with a perplexed look.
‘You almost had to have been there,’ Althalus told him. ‘It was all very complicated. We can talk about it on our way to Osthos.’
They went to the northern end of Awes where the black-robed priests stayed, picked up Bheid’s blankets and his few other belongings, and then returned to the rudimentary camp where Althalus and Eliar had spent the previous night. Then Eliar and Bheid went to the corral of a horse trader and returned with a mount for their newest member.
‘I’m awfully hungry, Althalus,’ Eliar said hopefully. ‘Could we have beef tonight instead of fish?’
‘I’ll make a fire,’ Bheid offered.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Althalus told him. Then he called up a fairly large beef roast and several loaves of bread.
Bheid jerked back with a startled oath.
‘Makes your hair stand on end, doesn’t it?’ Eliar chuckled. ‘I was almost afraid to eat the first supper he made that way, but the food he makes with words is really very good.’ Eliar started to eat with a great deal of enthusiasm.
‘How do you do that?’ Bheid asked Althalus in an awed voice.
‘Emmy calls it “using the Book”,’ Althalus replied. ‘She taught me how to do it back in the House at the End of the World where the Book is.’
‘Which Book?’
‘The Book of Deiwos, of course.’
‘You’ve actually seen the Book of Deiwos?’
‘Seen it?’ Althalus laughed. ‘I lived with it for twenty-five hundred years. I can recite it from end to end, forward or backward, and from side to side, if you’d really care to hear it that way. I think I could even recite it upside down if I put my mind to it.’
‘Exactly how is it that the Book of Deiwos makes it possible for you to perform miracles?’
‘The Book’s the word of God, Bheid. It’s written in a very antique language that’s sort of like the language we speak now, but not exactly. The words from the old language make things happen. If I say “beef”, nothing happens, but if I say “gwou”, we get supper. There’s a little more involved in the procedure, but that’s the core of it. I spent a lot of years committing the Book to memory.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘I’ve got it in here now, so I don’t have to carry it with me – which isn’t permitted, of course. The Book has to stay in the House. It wouldn’t be safe to carry it out into the real world. You’d better eat your supper before it gets cold.’
Eliar had several more helpings, then they talked a bit more before rolling up in their blankets to sleep.
It was Awes. Althalus was sure that it was Awes, but it had no buildings. He could clearly see the fork of the River Medyo, but a grove of ancient trees had somehow replaced the ruins. He wandered for a time under those mighty oaks, and then he looked toward the west and saw people far off in the distance. As he watched them coming across the grassy plain toward the place where he stood, he seemed to hear a faint wailing sound coming from very far away. There was a lost, despairing quality to that wailing that seemed to wrench at his very soul.
And then the people he’d seen reached the far bank of the river, and he could see them more clearly. They were dressed in the skins of animals, and they carried spears with stone points.
He rolled over, muttering and groping under his blanket for the rock which had been gouging his hip. He finally located it, threw it away, and slid easily back into sleep.
There were crude huts under the oak trees now, and the fur-clad people moved among those huts, talking, talking, talking in hushed and fearful tones. ‘He comes, he comes, he comes,’ the people said. ‘Make ready for his coming, for he is God.’ And the faces of some of the people were exalted, and the faces of others were filled with terror. And still they said, ‘He comes, he comes, he comes.’
And Ghend moved among them, whispering, whispering. And the people pulled back from Ghend with fear upon their faces. But Ghend paid no heed to their fear, and his eyes burned, burned.
And Ghend lifted his face and looked upon Althalus with his burning eyes. And the eyes of Ghend seared at the soul of Althalus. And Ghend spoke then, saying, ‘It is of little moment, my thief. Run, Althalus, run, and I shall pursue you down the nights and down the years, and the Book shall avail you not, for I shall deliver you up to the throne of Daeva, and you – even as I – shall serve him down all the endless eons. And when the eons end, we shall turn and follow them back to their beginning. And then shall we turn again, and behold, they shall not be as they were before.’
The wailing sound rose to an awful shriek.
Althalus started up, sweating profusely. ‘God!’ he exclaimed, trembling violently.
‘Who was he?’ Bheid’s terrified voice came out of the darkness. ‘Who was that man with eyes of fire?’
‘You saw him too?’ Eliar asked, his voice also trembling.