The thick stone walls of the temple muffled the bustling sounds from without as they muffled the oppressive heat. Fost and his companions wandered along the cool flagstone-paved aisles, glimpsing here and there priests robed in the color of the deity they served, or worshippers laden with small offerings to plead their petty cases, seeking the mending hearts or the winning of good luck for themselves and bad luck for their enemies.
'What I want to know,' said Erimenes the Ethical, laying a long, vaporous blue finger beside his beaky nose, 'is why the Temple of All Gods, by rights the fairest in all the Sundered Realm, should be so prodigiously ugly.'
Fost laughed, winning him a dirty look from a pinch-faced priest in a white and yellow robe. The pillared hall swallowed the sound without a trace, however, so that only those nearby heard. It might have been that among the deities whose likenesses were housed here were those who did not disapprove of voices raised in laughter.
'You can thank the Northblood Barbarians for that,' he said. Ziore tilted her head, partly in respect for the sundry deities and mostly to hear his words, which were spoken now with decorously lowered voice. He saw Moriana looking on with apparent interest, and his heart lifted. There were times since the battle when she seemed to be drifting into another world, a world divorced from this one. Anything that captured her interest and took her away from her own problems merited his approval. That Ziore likewise appeared interested also heartened him. The nun's ghost and Moriana had become closely linked in a way that he could not truly fathom. Their emotions merged into something beyond telepathy. If Ziore smiled, that communicated directly to Moriana's mind.
He nodded polite acknowledgement to a statue of Ust the Red
Bear as they passed. The god was one of Fost's patrons, entrusted with guarding the Realm Roads, and he felt an obligation to pay slight obeisance since he had called upon Ust so many times in the past. In spite of his reflexive invocations of the bear god, he wondered if it did any good. He had no proof one way or the other, yet the hetwoman of the Ust-alayakits, Jennas, believed in the god. The time he had spent with Jennas getting through the Rampart Mountains and crossing the length of the Sundered Realm had instilled in him a healthy respect for – if not belief in – Ust. Jennas had predicted this War of Powers long before he had seen the signs forming. Whether her knowledge came from shrewd insight into the ways of man or true revelation by Ust, Fost couldn't say. Either way, Jennas was a superior woman of rare courage and even rarer abilities.
'The barbarians knew only a few of the Wise Ones when they invaded nearly five thousand years ago. Like most barbarians who pride themselves on virile vigor and their superiority to effete civilized folk, the first thing they did on conquering Medurim was to settle down to emulating the Medurimin citizen in earnest. They somehow decided that gods prefer ostentation. So, they rebuilt the Temple of All Gods according to their own ideas of splendor fitting for a house of deities.' Fost waved a scarred hand. 'These are the results of that wild, misguided fit of building.'
They looked about. Some of the statues stood free on pedestals, while others were sheltered in alcoves, the gods' and goddesses' preferences determined by their devotees. But the statues mostly predated the barbarian dynasty and were not what captured the eye.
In his youth, the unschooled and half-wild street urchin named Fost thought that the Temple was ugly. From the outside, its hewn granite blocks were set in massy tiers appearing to form crude steps in the ultimate shape of a pyramid. Now that Fost was grown and had seen other architectures offered by cities in the Realm, he knew the place was an eyesore.
Inside was no better. High up, where the tiers jutted together, crossed and criss-crossed a spiderweb of struts and supports of wood and iron. The Temple's original plan called for the stepping-in to continue until the ranks of stone met. Planning exceeded expertise in construction. The huge blocks were poorly balanced and would fall if the building had continued upward as intended. The Emperor Gotrag II had ordered his artificers to roof over the partially finished upper structure. The lofty courses were dangerously unstable, as a result, and the latticework of joists and struts grew more complex with every passing year. Should one single succeeding Emperor fail to add bracing, the Temple roof would certainly collapse.
'But whoever heard of square columns?' demanded Erimenes on a rising note of outrage. The genie whirled about in a tight vortex of blue mist as he pointed out the offending supports. Ziore wavered nearby, her substance lightly mingling with his and giving the philosopher silent approbation. 'And who saw fit,' he continued, 'to build them of alternate blocks of rose granite and whatever that ghastly chartreuse stone is?'
'It's a type of limestone,' explained Fost. 'And in answer to both the other questions – the Northern Barbarians.' Ziore looked puzzled and slightly pained.
'Forgive my asking, Fost, but I thought the Northern Barbarians founded High Medurim, and that the residents were descended from them.' She bit at her non-existent lip, fearful of giving offense. Fost laughed.
'They did; I'm descended from them, just as you and Erimenes and Moriana are mostly descended from the Golden Barbarians. The Golden Barbarians have achieved a static society while the Northern ones have locked themselves into a cycle of renaissance and regression; every few centuries they work themselves up to the level of barbarism, then they fall to fighting and knock themselves back to savagery. They call it progress.'
They stopped in front of an alcove containing still another of the seemingly endless statues of a goddess. It was a conventional enough rendering of a lovely, slender woman bearing sword and lyre. Fost was struck by the resemblance between the chiselled stone features and those of the illusion Moriana had brought forth in the Black March. The exiled Sky City princess had duplicated well, never having set foot in this Temple before. If she had duplicated, Fost found himself thinking.
Wordlessly, Moriana slipped the strap of the satchel containing Ziore's jug from her shoulder and handed it to Fost. She stepped forward and fell to her knees in front of the statue, placed a sprig of blue wildflowers at the statue's feet and bent her head in prayer. Fost held his breath, half-expecting and half-dreading some sign. But the statue remained stone.
Moriana finally uttered a small sigh and rose. 'The goddess thanks you, milady,' came a voice behind Fost.
Fost turned to see a stout, short man dressed in green and gold, with a fringe of gray hair hanging lank from the base of his bald head. Around his neck rode a gold chain supporting a medallion struck with the signs of sword and lyre. His eyes shone surprisingly green and youthful from a leathery, seamed face. 'It's I who have come to thank her,' Moriana said.
The priest's brow knit, then his face underwent a remarkable migration of lines and wrinkles that eventually sorted out into a broad beam of joy.
'But you, Princess Moriana, are the one who called her down to succor our folk at the Black March!' He dropped to his knees and reached an arthritic hand out to catch the hem of her gown and raise it to his lips. He fumbled a moment, uncertain when he found no skirt, then took the hem of her suede tunic and kissed it instead.
'This is the happiest day of my life! All my devotions are rewarded. I come at last into the presence of one truly touched by blessed Jirre!' Great tears of happiness rolled down his round cheeks. Even Fost, skeptical of priests and politicians, was moved by the intensity of the emotion displayed.
Tears gleamed at the corners of Moriana's eyes as she reached down and helped the little priest to his feet.
'You need not kneel to me,' she said. Fost thought she was going to tell him it hadn't been Jirre at all but rather an illusion she had summoned to confound the Zr'gsz. But her eyes caught Fost's, a corner of her mouth quirked upward, and she said nothing.
'They cried at the portal that you were within,' the priest babbled in rapture. 'But I did not dare hope. Joy, joy!'
'Wait a minute,' Fost said. 'Who was crying at the portal that Moriana was within?' 'The mob.'
Fost swallowed. He exchanged bleak looks with Moriana. There was no need to ask which mob it was. News of the way Moriana had brought the battle to a conclusion had preceded the returning army by a full day. Coming between that news and the first tired riders had been the tidings borne by Zak'zar of Kara-Est's destruction and Moriana's lineage. When Moriana had entered High Medurim, she had been beset by two masses of people, one throwing flower petals and naming her holy and the other naming her witch and traitor to her kind. It was even rumored old Sir Tharvus wandered the streets dressed in a mendicant's rags and egged on the violent taction. He had lost brothers in battle and blamed Moriana. If a mob truly gathered at the Temple door crying Moriana's name, she and her companions were in danger.
As the priest hopped from one foot to the other pleading to be told what troubled the holy lady, Fost corralled
