Harry Turtledove - 7th Chapter

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2024-11-24 0 0 29.42KB 13 页 5.9玖币
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HARRY TURTLEDOVE
THE SEVENTH CHAPTER
Rules were made to be broken, so the adage goes. But what about vows? A vow
should never be broken--but observe how far they'll sometimes bend ...
The snow was falling harder now. Kassianos' mule, a good stubborn beast, kept
slogging forward until it came to a drift that reached its belly. Then it
stopped, looking reproachfully back over its shoulder at the priest.
"Oh, very well," he said, as if it could understand. "This must be as Phos
wills. That town the herder spoke of can't be far ahead. We'll lay over in --
what did he call it? -- Develtos till the weather gets better. Are you
satisfied, beast?"
The mule snorted and pressed ahead. Maybe it did understand, Kassianos thought.
He had done enough talking at it, this past month on the road. He loved to talk,
and had not had many people to talk to. Back in Videssos the city, his clerical
colleagues told him he was mad to set out for Opsikion so late in the year. He
hadn't listened; that wasn't nearly so much fun as talking.
"Unfortunately, they were right," he said. This time, the mule paid him no
attention. It had reached the same conclusion a long time ago.
The wind howled out of the north. Kassianos drew his blue robe more tightly
about himself, not that that did much good. Because the road from the capital of
the Empire to Opsikion ran south of the Paristrian mountains, he had assumed
they would shield him from the worst of the weather. Maybe they did. If so,
though, the provinces on the other side of the mountains had winters straight
from the ice of Skotos' hell.
Where was he? For that matter, where was the road? When it ran between leaf-bare
trees, it had been easy enough to follow. Now, in more open country, the pesky
thing had disappeared. In better weather, that would only have been a nuisance
(in better weather, Kassianos reminded himself, it wouldn't have happened). In
this blizzard, it was becoming serious. If he went by Develtos, he might freeze
before he could find shelter.
He tugged on the reins. The mule positively scowled at him: what was he doing,
halting in the cold middle of nowhere? "I need to find the town," he explained.
The mule did not look convinced.
He paused a moment in thought. He had never been to Develtos, had nothing from
it with him. That made worthless most of the simpler spells of finding he knew.
He thought of one that might serve, then promptly rejected it: it involved
keeping a candle lit for half an hour straight. "Not bloody likely, I'm afraid,"
he said.
He thought some more, then laughed out loud. "As inelegant an application of the
law of similarity as ever there was," he declared, "but it will serve. Like does
call to like."
He dismounted, tied the mule's reins to a bush so it would not wander off while
he was incanting. Then, after suitable prayers and passes, he undid his robe and
pissed -- quickly, because it was very cold.
His urine did not just form a puddle between his feet. Instead, impelled by his
magic, it drew a steaming line in the snow toward more like itself, and thus,
indirectly, toward the people who made it.
"That way, eh?" Kassianos said, eyeing the direction of the line. "I might have
known the wind would make me drift south of where I should be." He climbed back
onto his mule, urged it forward. It went eagerly, as if it sensed he knew where
he was going again.
Sure enough, not a quarter of an hour later the priest saw the walls of Develtos
looming tall and dark through the driving snow. He had to ride around a fair
part of the circuit before he came to a gate. It was closed and barred. He
shouted. Nothing happened. He shouted again, louder.
After a couple of minutes, a peephole opened. "Who ye be?" the man inside
called, his accent rustic. "Show yerself to me and give me your name."
"I am Kassianos, eastbound from Videssos the city," the priest answered. He rode
a couple of steps closer, lowered his hood so the guard could see not only his
blue robe but also his shaven head. "May I have shelter before I am too far gone
to need it?"
He did not hear anyone moving to unlatch the gate. Instead, the sentry asked
sharply, "Just the one of you there?"
"Only myself. In Phos' holy name I swear it." Kassianos understood the
gate-guard's caution. Winter could easily make a bandit band desperate enough to
try to take a walled town, and falling snow give them the chance to approach
unobserved. A quick rush once the gate was open, and who could say what horrors
would follow?
But Kassianos must have convinced the guardsman. "We'll have you inside in a
minute, holy sir." The fellow's voice grew muffled as he turned his face away
from the peephole. "Come on, Phostis, Evagrios, give me a hand with this bloody
bar." Kassianos heard it scrape against the iron-faced timbers of the gate.
One of the valves swung inward. The priest dug his heels into the mule's flanks.
It trotted into Develtos. The sentries closed the gate after it, shoved the bar
back into place. "Thank you, gentlemen," Kassianos said sincerely.
"Aye, you're about this far from being a snowman, aren't you, holy sir?" said
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