2: Servants of the Crossed Arrows (8 page)

“It is the lady’s immense compassion that got her shipped out to this freezing backwater,” Pivan spat. “And as much as I wish it were not the case, it is my duty and the duty of my commander to see that she does not leave this place. She has humiliated her good husband too many times.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with me,” John said.

“It doesn’t. Not yet. But it will if you stay in the lady’s company. You clean up too nicely for her to keep away from you.” Pivan’s eyes moved over him slowly as if cataloging the changes that a bath and a shave had made. “You’re young and well-made. I would hate to have to hang you.”

Pivan stood up and returned to the shelf. The morning light pouring in from the window cast hard shadows across his face, making his frown seem gouged into his mouth. Again, he chose a stone from the small silver dish. “They tell me that you came here to pray at the foot of Rathal’pesha. Is that true?”

“Yes. I wanted to pray for my sister’s husband,” John answered warily, discomfited by Pivan’s suspicious change of subject.

“I’m not sure how such a sickly man managed to chain your sister’s hands. Perhaps she didn’t give him much of a fight.” Pivan smiled as he said this. “But I can see why you would worry about his ability to care for her. Is that why you stay with her?”

“I stayed to help them both. Behr isn’t just my sister’s husband. He’s a friend of mine.” John didn’t know if he’d actually answered Pivan’s question, but it was all he felt safe saying. He knew very little about Basawar marriage rituals, except that men could and often did take more than one wife and that divorce was unheard of.

“But if they were protected? If they were assured of food and shelter?” Pivan came back to the table. “Then what would you do?”

“What would I do?” John repeated the question. Pivan regarded him calmly, waiting.

“I don’t know. It’s been so long that I haven’t really thought about it. It may never happen.” John didn’t have to work to inject weariness into his voice. He spoke the truth. They might never find a way home. And then what? What would he do if they had to spend the rest of their lives here?

“But you don’t have a woman waiting back in your village?” Pivan’s voice broke into his thoughts.

“No,” John said quickly. “I don’t have anyone.”

More truth. This conversation was turning out to be among the most depressing of his life.

Pivan nodded and then placed the polished stone down onto the tabletop between them. He performed the action so deliberately that John knew it must carry some great significance. But he had absolutely no idea what that might be. The white quartz was cloudy at the bottom and then grew more transparent towards the top. It looked almost like a piece of ice sitting in front of him.

Pivan said, “If I swore that I would provide for your sister and her husband and see that they would never be without shelter or food, would you be willing to leave them behind?”

“Behind here?”

“Yes.” Pivan kept his eyes on the stone. “Young Fikiri’in’Bousim must have an attendant to accompany him to Heaven’s Door. Ali
das was chosen, but you’ve seen his leg yourself. He can’t possibly climb the Thousand Steps.”

Suddenly all of Pivan’s questions made perfect sense to him.

“You’re willing to take care of Loshai and Behr if I go in Alidas’ place?” John asked.

“I have offered you my word,” Pivan said. “Will you take it?”

John realized that physically taking the stone somehow symbolized his agreement to the proposition.
    

“You would have to live in Rathal’pesha as a priest,” Pivan continued, apparently ready to argue against what he imagined was John’s reason for hesitation. “You would leave no son after you, but your sister’s sons will be safe in the Bousim house and they will each know what you did for them. Your name will not die with you.”

None of what Pivan said mattered, beyond the knowledge that he would protect Laurie and Bill and that John would get inside Rathal’pesha. He would have access to the holy keys as well as Ravishan and his teachers. John’s heart raced at just the thought of finding a way back home. Could it really be this easy?

“Lady Bousim will be furious,” John murmured.

“She will be angry with me, not with you,” Pivan said. “She doesn’t need to know that you agreed to this. She can believe that I forced it on you.”

“Could you do that?” John was thinking of the legal aspect but instantly he realized that his question could also be taken as a personal challenge, which of course Pivan did.

He smirked at John.

“I’ve broken demons. I could break you,” he stated flatly. “But I couldn’t give you the strength to climb the Thousand Steps to Heaven’s Door. A man’s whole will has to be behind that kind of work.”

“What if my will isn’t enough? What if I fail?”
    

“I’m a bad man to disappoint.” Pivan smiled at him. “But I’m sure that Lady Bousim would be greatly pleased with you.”

John nodded and then accepted the polished quartz.

“A wise choice,” Pivan told him.

•••

The next afternoon John found himself following Pivan through the narrow streets of Amura’taye. The last rays of afternoon sun cast long shadows and felt pleasantly warm on John’s face. His new coat hung over his shoulder, giving off a faint odor of sheep. John didn’t take much note of it anymore. Every man, woman and child he passed on the streets was swathed in the scent of wool. It clung to their bodies and hair.
   

The very streets were full of the animals. Shepherds drove herds of sheep and goats past. A breed of tiny goats seemed to wander the streets in packs like feral dogs. Once or twice one of them charged John’s shins, butting him and then leaping away. Often they left behind a little steaming pile of droppings. John took consolation in the fact that they missed his boots.

At last they reached the Payshmura shrine where John would practice the prayers Pivan needed him to know. John drew in a deep breath of the cool air. His head was still full of the prayers that Lady Bousim’s servant, Bati’kohl, had taught him earlier that morning.

John found it a little ironic that Pivan would want to teach him one set of prayers so that Lady Bousim could have no objection to him, while the lady sent her servant to teach him another set of prayers to win Pivan’s approval. Neither of them knew of the other’s plans.

John kept it that way. He didn’t even mention the bargain he had struck with Pivan to Laurie or Bill. It was the only way he could ensure that both Laurie and Bill were genuinely surprised when Pivan sent him up to take Fikiri to Rathal’pesha. Lady Bousim was observant enough that she would know from their faces if they had been part of the deception against her.

Dim lamps filled with sheep fat illuminated the simple wooden shrine. The flames popped and sputtered as the mountain winds swept through the flimsy wooden walls. An old man offered both John and Pivan their own warm clay cup full of daru’sira.
   

Unlike the pale, sweet tea he’d enjoyed with Lady Bousim, this was unadulterated, dark and bitter.

“It tastes like goat’s piss, but it will make your voice strong when you call prayers on the steps to Heaven’s Door,” Pivan told him. John drank it. If nothing else, it kept him warm while he knelt before the rough stone statue of the god Parfir and repeated the prayers again and again.

After only an hour, his knees ached. Next to him, Pivan seemed unaware of any discomfort, his expression rapt as he whispered prayers.

Townspeople came and went, paying little attention to John or Pivan. Most of them simply bowed their heads before the rough stone statue and chanted their own prayers, then stood and departed. Many of them placed clay cups of goat’s milk at the foot of the statue or left balls of rough yarn.

Their prayers, unlike the ones John repeated, were simple and often just pleas for better health or greater harvests.

“Parfir,” Pivan whispered at John’s side, “the earth is your flesh, the rivers your blood, the skies your breath. I honor your body with my own. I honor your soul with my own...”

John joined in his prayer, gazing up at the stone figure of the Payshmura god. Years of soot and the deep shadows made it hard to see the statue’s features clearly. But occasionally, when the lamp flames leapt high, John caught a clear view.

The stone was dark and rose up into a man’s body, arms outstretched. In places his muscles seemed to melt into carvings of branches, flowers and leaves. Lichen had colonized the figure and John thought that he saw birds moving up in the darkest corners.

John found it odd that the figure gazed downward and not up. He supposed he had seen too many pictures of Christian martyrs and saints staring glassily up at the heavens. It made a kind of sense that an actual god should be depicted looking downward at his mortal followers.

“Your flesh is my earth. Your blood is my river. Your breath is my sky. Your body, my world. Your will, my life...”

John repeated Pivan’s words more slowly this time, familiar enough with them now to be able to consider their meaning. Parfir embodied the land itself.

Peering up into the shadows, John noticed that the Parfir’s face had been more delicately carved than the rest of him. His handsome countenance wore a benevolent smile.

Oddly, the people who came in to pray didn’t look at Parfir. Instead they, like Pivan, bowed their heads before him. Many closed their eyes. John thought it was too bad that they didn’t look up. It might have reassured them to see that Parfir smiled over them.

That handsome smile made him think of Ravishan.

It had been two days since John had seen him. Today was the day that Ravishan had promised to bring medicine for Bill. Ravishan would be searching for them and they wouldn’t be there for him to find.

A panicked feeling rushed through John as he tried to think of a way to send word to Ravishan. Nothing came to mind. He would just have to hope that Ravishan stayed sensible and didn’t get himself in trouble looking for them. If he could wait one more day then John would be there in Rathal’pesha with him.

They continued repeating the prayers over and over until John’s throat was rough. Then, at last, Pivan decided that they had done enough.

“Any more and I’ll begin to regret that I didn’t become a priest myself,” Pivan said. Seeing his expression, John didn’t think he was joking.

After the long walk back, John gladly dropped down to his bed. When he closed his eyes, he thought he could still hear Pivan whispering prayers.

The morning air was cold and the sky colorless as water. The sun had not risen high enough to burn away last night’s chill and frost still clung to ceremonial stones and iron statues like prickly white lichen.

John flexed his fingers inside his fur-lined gloves to draw a little more feeling into them. He resituated the sheepskin of daru’sira that Pivan had given him, slinging it over his shoulder.

The Thousand Steps to Heaven’s Door began at the highest point at the north end of the city. The steps themselves were unremarkable. Plain gray stone, they were only a little more narrow and tall than the steps leading up to the college library back at home. Each step taken alone was simple and unimpressive. But one look up the mountainside and their monumental scale became clear.

Carved into the face of the mountain, the steps rose like an immense scar. John craned his neck back, following the straight line of the stairs up to where they were lost from sight in the white wisps of clouds. The two huge iron statues of Parfir standing at either side of the first step seemed tiny by comparison.

“One thousand,” John muttered. His breath came out in white puffs.

He glanced over to where Pivan stood. The tip of his nose and his cheeks were red from the cold but he didn’t seem to care. Pivan’s features were set in an expression of stern confidence. He gazed down the road behind them, only narrowing his eyes slightly as a distant group of men staggered drunkenly into his view.

“Maybe we should go to the house—” John began but Pivan cut him off with a shake of his head.

“You have to be here for him. Once the candidate arrives, he cannot wait. If you are not here for him, then he will have to go without you,” Pivan said. “And Gaunan
 
Fikiri’in’Bousim cannot make the climb without an attendant. Even I wouldn’t be callous enough to force that on him.”

“Well, he can’t make the climb with an attendant if he’s not here,” John replied. “We’ve been waiting for an hour.” Despite the thick socks and new, heavy boots, his toes had gone numb.

“These things take time.” Pivan sighed and turned to John. “You remember everything?”

“The first and last step have to be his own. No food, only daru’sira to drink, and we have to be inside before the sun goes down.”

“And the prayers?” Pivan asked.

John gave Pivan a look of sheer disbelief. He had done nothing but repeat prayers for two solid days: prayers obviously crafted for easy recall. They had a catchy kind of rhythm that stuck in his head even better than the Beer Barn radio jingle had.

He said, “Do you really have to ask that?”