Counting Up, Counting Down

by Harry Turtledove

  Skatval watched the small crowd of crofters and herders raise hands to the heavens. The sound of their prayers to Phaos reached him faintly. Save for the name of the Videssian god, the words were in the Haloga tongue. Skatval had heard worse poetry from bards who lived by traveling from chief to chief with their songs. Kveldulf’s work, no doubt, he thought; the blond-bearded priest was proving a man of more parts than he had looked for.

  Absent from the converts’ conclave was Skjaldvor. For that, Skatval sent up his own prayers of thanks to his gods. He had not asked what passed between her and Kveldulf, but where before she had gone to his services, looked on him with mooncalf eyes, now all at once the sight of him made her face go hard and hateful, hearing his name brought curses from her lips. She was in no danger of coming to follow Phaos, not any more.

  But the priests from the Empire had won more folk to their faith than Skatval expected (truth to tell, he’d thought his people would laugh Kveldulf and the rest away in disgrace, else he would have slain them as soon as they set foot on his soil). That worried him. Followers of Videssos’ faith would mean Videssian priests on his land henceforward, and that would mean . . . Skatval growled wordlessly. He stalked toward the prayer meeting. He would show his people what that meant.

  Kveldulf bowed courteously as he drew nigh. “The good god grant you peace, Skatval the Brisk. May I hope you have come to join us?”

  “No,” he said, biting off the word. “I would ask a couple of questions of you.”

  Kveldulf bowed again. “Ask what you will. Knowledge is a road to faith.”

  “Knowledge is a road around the snare you have set for my people,” Skatval retorted. “Suppose some of us take on your faith and then fall out over how to follow it. Who decides which of us is in the right?”

  “Priests are brought up from boyhood in Phaos’ way,” Kveldulf said. “Can newcomers to that way hope to match them in knowledge?”

  Skatval grimaced. The Haloga priest—no, the blond Videssian, that was the better way to think of him—was not making matters easy. But the chief bulled ahead regardless: “Suppose the blue-robes disagree, as they may, men being what they are? Who then says which walks the proper path?”

  “The prelates set over them,” Kveldulf said, cautious now. Skatval had probed at him before, but in private, not in front of the people.

  “And the priest against whom judgment falls?” the chief said. “If he will not yield, is he then an outlaw?”

  “A heretic, we name one who chooses his own false doctrine over that ordained by his elders.” Kveldulf considered the question, then added, “But no, he is not to be outlawed—excommunicated is the word the temples use—yet, for he has right of appeal to the patriarch, the most holy and chiefest priest, the head of all the faith.”

  “Ah, the patriarch!” Skatval exclaimed, as if hearing of the existence of a supreme prelate for the first time. “And where dwells this prince of piety?”

  “In Videssos the city, by the High Temple there,” Kveldulf answered.

  “In Videssos the city? Under the Avtokrator’s thumb, you mean.” Skatval showed teeth in something more akin to a lynx’s hunting snarl than to a smile. “So you would have us put to Stavrakios’ judgment aught upon which we may disagree, is that what you say?” He turned to the converts, lashed them with wounding words: “I reckoned you freemen, not slaves to Videssos through the Empire’s god. Your holy Kveldulf here is but the thin end of the wedge, I warn you.”

  “The patriarch rules the church, not the Avtokrator,” Kveldulf insisted. Behind him, his Videssian colleagues nodded vigorously.

  Skatval ignored them; without Kveldulf, they were nothing here. At Kveldulf, he snapped, “And if your precious patriarch dies, what then?”

  “Then the prelates come together in conclave to choose his successor,” Kveldulf answered.

  Skatval quite admired him; without lying, he had twisted truth to his purposes. Against many Halogai, even chiefs, his words would have wrought what he intended. But Skatval, mistrusting the Empire more than most, had learned more of it than most. “By the truth you hold in your god, Kveldulf, who names the three men from whom the prelates pick the patriarch?”

  Just for a moment, he saw hatred in those blue eyes so like his own. Just for a moment—and when it cleared, it cleared completely. Skatval also saw the Videssian priests visibly willing Kveldulf to lie. But when he answered at last, his voice was firm, if low: “The Avtokrator names those candidates.”

  “There, you see?” Skatval turned to the converts who had heard him argue with Kveldulf. “You see? Aye, follow Phaos, if you fancy the Avtokrator telling you how to go about it. Videssos has not the strength to vanquish us by the sword, so she seeks to strangle us with the spider’s silk spun by her god. And you—you seek to aid the Empire!”

  He had hoped forcing Kveldulf to concede that Phaos’ faith was dominated by the Emperor would of itself make his people turn away from the Videssian god. And indeed, a couple of men and women left the gathering, shaking their heads at their own foolishness. To the Halogai, Videssos’ autocracy seemed like a whole great land living in chains.

  But more folk than he expected stayed where they were, waiting to hear how Kveldulf would answer him. The priest, too canny by half to suit Skatval, saw that as well, and grew stronger for it. He said boldly, “No matter whence the faith comes, friends, its truth remains. You have heard that truth in Phaos’ holy scriptures, heard it in my own poor words, and accepted it of your free will. Apart from the cost to your souls in the life to come, turning aside from it now at your chief’s urging is surely as slavish as his imagined claim that you somehow serve the Empire by accepting the good god.”

  Skatval ground his teeth when he saw several men soberly nodding. People stopped leaving the field in which the returned Haloga was holding his service. Kveldulf did not display the triumph he must have felt. A Videssian would have done so, and lost the people whose respect he’d regained. Kveldulf merely continued the service as if nothing had happened: he was a Haloga at heart, and knew the quiet gesture was the quicker killer.

  Skatval stormed away. Forcing the fight further now would but cost him face. As he tramped into the woods, he almost ran over Grimke Grankel’s son. “Are you coming to cast your lot with Phaos, too?” he snarled.

  “A man may watch a foe without wishing to join him,” the servant of the Haloga gods replied.

  “At least you see he is a foe: more than those cheeseheads back there care to notice,” Skatval said. “A deadly dangerous foe.” His eyes narrowed as he looked back toward Kveldulf, who was leading his converts in yet another translated hymn. “Why, then, does he not deserve some deadly danger?”

  Grimke glanced at the sword he wore on his belt. “You could have given it to him.”

  “I wanted to, but feared it would set his followers forever in his path. If you, however, were to slay the southrons—and Kveldulf, their stalking horse—by sorcery, all would see our gods are stronger than the one for whom he prates.”

  Grimke Grankel’s son stared, then slowly smiled. “This could be done, my chief.”

  “Then do it. Too long I tolerated the traitor among us, long enough for his treachery to take root. Now, as I say, simply to slay Kveldulf and his Videssian cronies would stir more strife than it stopped. But you would not simply slay him, eh?”

  “No, not simply.” Grimke’s face mirrored anticipation and calculation. “Hmm . . . ’twere best to wait till midnight, when the power of his god is at its lowest ebb.”

  “As you reckon best. In matters magical, you know—” Skatval broke off, stared at his sorcerer. “Do you say that even you acknowledge Phaos a true god?”

  “This for Phaos.” Grimke spat between his feet, as a Videssian would in rejecting Skotos. “But any god is true to one who truly believes, and may ward against wizardry. Given a choice between sorceries, I would choose the simpler when I may. Thus, midnight serves me best.”

  “Let it be as
you wish, then,” Skatval said. “But let it be tonight.”

  Even at midnight, the sky was not wholly dark. Sullen red marked the northern sky, tracing the track of the sun not far below the ground. Seeing that glow, Skatval thought of blood. Only a few of the brightest stars pierced the endless summer twilight.

  A small fire crackled. Bit by bit, Grimke Grankel’s son fed it with chips of wood and other, less readily identifiable, substances. The fickle breeze flicked smoke into Skatval’s face. He coughed and nearly choked; it had not the savor of honest flames. Almost, he told Grimke to stamp it out and set sorcery aside.

  Grimke set a silver laut-bowl in the fire, which licked around it until the gods and savage beasts worked in relief on its outside seemed to writhe with a life of their own. Skatval rubbed his eyes. Heat-shimmers he knew, but none like these. The bowl held a thick jelly. When it began to bubble and seethe, Grimke nodded as if satisfied.

  Above the bowl he held two cups of similar work, one filled with blood (some was his own, some Skatval’s), the other with bitter ale. Slowly, slowly, he poured the twin thin streams down into the laut-bowl. “Drive the intruders from our land, drive them to fear, drive them to death,” he intoned. “As our blood is burnt, find for them fates bitter as this beer. May they know sorrow, may they know shame, may they forget their god and gain only graves.”

  Filled with assonance and alliteration, the chant rolled on. Hair rose on Skatval’s forearms and at the back of his neck; though the magic was not aimed at him, he felt its force, felt it and was filled with fear. The gods of the Halogai were grim and cold, like the land they ruled. As Grimke prodded them to put forth their power, Skatval wondered for a moment if Phaos would not make a better, safer master for his folk. He fought the thought down, hoping his gods had not seen it.

  Too late for second thoughts, anyhow. Grimke’s voice rose, almost to a scream. And other screams, more distant, rose in answer from the tents in which the priests dwelt. Hearing the horror in them, Skatval wondered again if he should have chosen Phaos. He shook his head. Phaos might make his folk a fine master, but the Avtokrator Stavrakios would not, and he could not have the one without the other.

  Grimke Grankel’s son set down the silver cups. The flickering flames showed sweat slithering down his face, harsh lines carved from nose to mouth corners. Voice slow and rough with weariness, he said, “What magic may wreak, magic has wrought.”

  Kveldulf woke from dreams filled with dread. The sun shining through the side of his tent made him sigh with relief, as if he had no right to see it. He shook his head, feeling foolish. Dreams were but dreams, no matter how frightening: when the sun rose, they were gone. But these refused to go.

  He had slept in his robe. Now he belted it on again, went outside to offer morning prayers to the sun, the symbol of his god. Tzoumas, Nephon, and Antilas remained in their tents. Slugabeds, he thought, and lifted hands to the heavens. “We bless thee, Phaos, lord with the great and good mind—” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Skatval bearing down on him, but took no true notice of the chief until he had finished the creed.

  “You live!” Skatval shouted, as if it were a crime past forgiving.

  “Well, aye,” Kveldulf said, smiling. “The good god brought me safe through another night. Am I such an ancient, though, that the thought fills you with surprise?”

  “Look to your fellows,” Skatval said, staring at him still.

  “I would not disturb them at their rest,” Kveldulf said. Tzoumas in particular could be a bear with a sore paw unless he got in a full night.

  “Look to them!” Skatval said, so fiercely Kveldulf had to obey. He went over to Nephon’s tent, pulled back the flaps that closed it, stuck his head inside. A moment later, he drew back, face pale, stomach heaving. Of themselves, his fingers shaped Phaos’ sun-circle. He went to Antilas’ tent, and Tzoumas’, hoping for something better, but in each he found only twisted death, with terror carved irremovably onto all the priests’ features.

  He turned back to Skatval. “Why did you spare me? I would sooner have died with my fellows.” He knew the chief did not favor his faith, but had not imagined he held such hatred as to do—what he had done to the Videssians. By his own standards, Skatval seemed a reasonable man. But where was the reason in this?

  Skatval supplied it: “The gods know I hoped Grimke’s wizardry would overfall you, too, you more than any of the others. They without you were nothing; you without them remain a deadly foe to all I hold dear: deadlier now, for having survived. Your god I could perhaps live with, or suffer my folk to do so. But with Phaos you bring Stavrakios, and that I will not have. Flee now, Kveldulf, while life remains in you, if you would save yourself.”

  Slowly, Kveldulf shook his head. He knew Skatval spoke some truth; half-overheard whispers from Videssian hierarchs said as much. In one of its aspects, the faith of Phaos was the glove within which moved the hand of imperial statecraft. If the Halogai served Phaos, they might one day come to serve Stavrakios or his successors as well.

  But that was not the portion of the faith to which Kveldulf had been drawn. He believed with all his soul in the lord with the great and good mind, believed others needed to believe for the sake of their souls, believed most of all his native people had been blind in spirit far too long, that too many of them suffered forever in Skotos’ ice because they knew not Phaos. That the good god might have singled him out to lead the Halogai to the light filled him with holy joy he had not known since the day when he first set eyes on Phaos, stern in judgment in the temple in Skopentzana.

  And so he shook his head once more, and said, “I shall not flee, Skatval. I told you as much when first I came here. You may slay me, but while I draw breath I shall go on glorifying Phaos to your folk. The good god demands no less of me. He is my shield, my protector, against all evil; if I die here, he shall receive my soul.”

  To his amazement, Skatval bellowed laughter. “You may follow the southrons’ god, but you have a Haloga’s soul. We are stubborn, not slippery or subtle like the Videssians. Those three priests dead in their tents, they would have given me all manner of lies, then tried to squirm around them. That way has served Videssos for centuries.”

  “It is not mine,” Kveldulf said simply.

  “So I have seen.” Skatval’s eyes narrowed, sharpened, until they pierced Kveldulf like blued blades. “And so, likely, you still live. Oh, I’ll not deny those Videssians served their god—”

  “My god,” Kveldulf broke in.

  “However you would have it. They served him, in their fashion, but they served Stavrakios as well. You, though, you’re so cursed full of Phaos, you have no room in you for anything else. Thus your faith warded you, where theirs, thinner, went for naught.”

  “It may well be so.” Kveldulf remembered how Skjaldvor had jeered, saying the three Videssian priests ignored their vows of celibacy. Remembering Skjaldvor, he remembered also her body pressed against his, remembered his manhood rising in desire. He said, “Yet I am no great holy man, to be revered by the generations yet to come. I am as full of sin as anyone, fight it though I may.”

  “To what man is it given to know in his lifetime how the generations yet to come will look on him?” Skatval said. “We do what we will and what we may with the time we have. Among men, that must be enough; the gods alone see how our purposes intertwine.”

  “There, for once, but for your choice of words, we agree.” To his surprise, Kveldulf found himself bowing to Skatval, as he might have before an ecclesiastical superior. More clearly than ever before, he saw the Haloga chief was also fighting for a way of life he reckoned right. That saddened Kveldulf, for he had always believed those who failed to follow Phaos were without any sort of honor. Yet he remained convinced his own way was best, was true. He said, “But for our choice of creeds, we might have been friends, you and I.”

  “So we might, though your unbending honesty makes you a dangerous man to keep by one’s side: you are a sharp sword without sheath
.” Skatval stroked his chin, considering. “It might still come to pass. How’s this? Instead of bidding us throw down our gods, give over your Phaos, grow out your hair, and live the rest of your days as a Haloga—as you were born to live.”

  Kveldulf shook his head, though startled at the sadness that surged in him. “Tell my heart to give over beating before you bid me abandon the lord with the great and good mind.”

  “If you do not, your heart will give over beating.” Skatval touched his swordhilt.

  Kveldulf bowed again. “If it be so, it shall be so. I will not flee, I will not cease. Do what you will with me on that account. My fate lies in Phaos’ hands.”

  “I would not slay a man I admire, but if I must, I will.” Skatval sighed. “As I say, by blood you belong to us. Many are the bold warriors sung of in our lays who chose death over yielding.”

  “I remember the songs from my boyhood,” Kveldulf said, nodding. “But Phaos’ faith has its martyrs, too, Videssians who gave all for the good god, and gladly would I be reckoned among their number. Will you give me a shovel, Skatval, that I may bury my friends?”

  “I will,” Skatval said. “And Kveldulf—”

  “Aye?”

  “Dig a fourth grave, as well.”

  Wearing helm and hauberk, ash-hafted spear at the ready, Skatval stalked toward the meeting in the field. Half a dozen chosen men, likewise armed and armored, tramped behind him. One also carried a length of rope. Kveldulf must have seen them, but preached on. By his demeanor, he might have thought they were coming to join his converts.

  Before long, perhaps warned by clanking byrnies, some of the converts turned away from Kveldulf. None of them wore mail, nor were they armed for war. Nonetheless, they moved to ring the priest with their bodies; those who bore belt knives drew them. Skatval’s jaw tightened. Slaughtering the priest was one thing, fighting his own folk quite another.