Biton spun and searched. A moment later, he said triumphantly, ' Aye, I do, you sozzled ne'er-do-well. What of those?'
Mavrix must have stretched his senses in the direction the farseeing god gave him, for he said, 'And they are vanished, too, and so am I. Even with these few drops of wine to ease the path for me here, the northlands are a place I'd sooner leave than come to.' He fixed his black, black eyes on Gerin. 'Clever man-you were right. There are things uglier than you and your kind. Who would have thought it?' With that, he vanished.
Gerin found he could speak again. Being a politic man, the first thing he said was, 'I thank you, lord of the sweet grape, and bless you as well.' Then he turned to Biton. 'Farseeing one, may I ask a question of you?' When the god did not say no, he went on, 'Did Mavrix truly rid the northlands of the creatures that dwelt so long under your temple?'
He waited nervously, lest Mavrix hear him and return in wrath at having his power questioned. But the lord of the sweet grape evidently had been only too glad to leave the northlands for good.
Biton started to nod, then searched once more. When he stopped, he looked annoyed. 'That wine-soaked sponge of a Sithonian god is too inept to deserve his divinity,' he said.
The Fox took that to mean a monster, or a handful of monsters, still survived somewhere in the northlands. He wondered if Mavrix had left behind the cubs he'd spared-and if he would ever find out. In his humblest tones, he went on, 'Lord Biton, would you be generous enough to complete what the lord of the sweet grape began?'
To his dismay, Biton shook his head. 'I do not see myself doing that,' the farseeing one said. 'It is a task for men if they so choose. No, my duty now is to restore Ikos to what it was before the earth trembled beneath my shrine. Everything there shall be as it waseverything. The temple shall stand again without the agency of man, and the Sibyl shall be restored to her rightful place there, to serve as my instrument on earth.' He gazed fondly at Selatre.
She looked from the god to Gerin and back again. Her voice trembling, she said, 'But lord Biton, I no longer qualify to serve you in that way. In your last prophetic verse, you yourself called me an oracle defiled. Since that day, I have known the embraces of a man'she glanced nervously toward Gerin once more-'and my courses have begun. I am no longer a fit tool for your work.'
'Everything shall be as it was-everything,' Biton repeated. 'If I can rebuild my fane from tumbled stones, do you think I have not the power to restore your maidenhead, to make you a fit vessel for my voice?'
Selatre looked down at the ground. 'I am certain you have that power, lord Biton,' she murmured.
Gerin wished desperately for some way to attack Biton, but could imagine none. Unlike Mavrix, the farseeing god could not be duped into losing his temper, not by a man; he was far less vulnerable to earthly concerns than the earthy lord of the sweet grape. The Fox stared over at Selatre. Of course she would choose to go back to the god. How could she not? She had been consecrated to him since she became a woman, had served him as Sibyl since her predecessor died. Sibyl was all she'd wanted to be; she'd resented being rescued from her residence by the temple after the earthquake; she hadn't been able to abide even the touch of a man for a long time after she was rescued.
True, she'd come to love him and he her, but what was that brief brightness when measured against the course for which her life had been designed? Now that she had the chance to return to that course, how could he blame her if she chose to take it?
Truth was, he couldn't. Having her go back to Ikos would tear him worse inside than he'd been torn when Elise left him. No matter what he'd felt about Elise, she'd no longer cared for him, else she'd not have gone. But he knew Selatre loved him still, as he'd come to love her. Only being certain she would be happier back at Ikos let him bear up under the thought of losing her. Even with that certainty, it was hard, hard.
Biton turned his farseeing eyes on Selatre. 'You say nothing. Are you not honored, are you not pleased, that all shall be restored? Even as I speak to you, the shrine at Ikos returns to its proper state. It awaits your coming.'
'Of course I am honored, lord Biton,' she answered, very softly. ' Whether I am pleased… Lord, have you the power to see what might be as well as what shall be?'
For a moment, Biton seemed a stone pillar to Gerin, and altogether unfathomable. Then he resumed his human appearance. 'Even for me, a god, this is difficult,' he replied, his voice troubled. 'So many paths branch off from the true one, and then from one another, that losing oneself grows quickly easier the farther ahead one seeks to see. Why do you ask?'
'Because I would have you look down the path I would choose for myself,' Selatre said. 'You are a god; if you wish your will to be done, done it shall be. How can I, who shall live for a little and then die, oppose it? But-' She did not go on. Even thinking of declining an honor a god would confer on her took something special in the way of courage.
It also filled Gerin with hope as wild and desperate as his despair had been a moment before.
Biton's head began its boneless spin. This time it did not just revolve, but also grew misty, so Gerin could see the far wall of the shack through it. The farseeing god searched for what seemed a very long time; now and again, he would almost disappear altogether. Gerin started when Biton fully returned.
'You may live your life as you will,' the god told Selatre. 'My Sibyl is my bride, not my slave. I shall mark another, one who will be willing to serve me. I shall not tell you what may spring from your choice, but I say this: as with any other, make the best of it. And a word of warning-for mortals, there is no such thing as living happily ever after.'
'I know that, lord Biton. Thank you. I will try to make the best of it.' Selatre started to prostrate herself to the god, but Biton disappeared before her knees could touch the ground.
She and Gerin and Rihwin stared at one another, dazed. 'I think we may have won,' Gerin said in a voice that sounded disbelieving even to him. Then he remembered something more important to say than that. He turned to Selatre. 'Thank you. I'll try never to make you sorry for choosing me over, over-' For one of the few times in his life, words failed him. She'd known what she was giving up. At last, huskily, he managed, 'I love you.'
'I've noticed that,' she said, and smiled at his startled expression. 'It's why I chose to stay with you, after all. You love me, while for Biton I'd just be-oh, not a tool, not quite, maybe something more like a favorite pet. It's not enough, not now that I've known better.' Her own voice went soft. 'And I love you, which did, mm, enter into my thinking.' She smiled again, this time with a touch of mischief.
Rihwin said, 'We have two jars of the blood of the sweet grape here, waiting-indeed, all but crying-to be drunk in celebration of our triumph.'
'How right you are, my fellow Fox.' Gerin picked up the jar they'd opened to summon Mavrix-and poured it out over Rihwin's head. The redpurple wine splashed him and Selatre, too, but it drenched Rihwin, which was what he'd had in mind. The southerner spluttered and squawked and flapped his arms-which just splattered the wine more widely-and rubbed at his eyes. Gerin didn't doubt they stung fiercelyand didn't regret what he'd done, either.
'A waste, a criminal waste,' Rihwin said, sucking at his mustache so as to swallow every precious drop he could. 'Had it not been for my wine-bibbing, we would not have seen the northlands freed from the vicious and horrible curse of the monsters.'
'Had it not been for your wine-bibbing,' Gerin said grimly, 'we wouldn't have had to put our fate in the hands of two gods, one of whom was already angry at me and the other ready to get angry because I'd taken his voice on earth as my woman. Aye, it turned out well. That's not why I gave you the one jar of wine as I did-it was for forcing us to take such a dreadful chance.' He picked up the other, unopened jar. 'Because we succeeded, this one is yours to do with as you will.'
Rihwin bowed, dripping still. 'You are a lord among lords, my fellow Fox.'
'What I am is bloody tired of having to worry every moment of every day,' Gerin said. 'The gods willing'-a phrase that took on new and urgent meaning after the evocation-'I'll have maybe three days of peace now before the next thing, whatever it is, goes horribly wrong. Come on, let's tell Aragis and the rest what we've done here today.'
Along with Van and Fand and Drago and Marlanz and Faburs, Aragis the Archer stood at what Gerin thought of as a 'safe' distance from the shack. The word was a misnomer, of course. Had the gods truly released their wrath, nowhere in the northlands would have been far enough from Fox Keep to escape-as the monsters had discovered.
