A poem he'd read likened the High Temple to a glowing pearl concealed within an oyster. He didn't care as much for that comparison. The Temple's exterior was not rough and ugly, as oysters were, just plain. And its interior outshone any pearl.
Phostis climbed the stairway from the paved courtyard surrounding the High Temple up to the narthex or outer hall. Being only a junior Avtokrator, he was less hemmed round with ceremony than his father; only a pair of Haloga guardsmen flanked him on the stairs.
Many nobles hired bodyguards; none of the other people heading for the service paid Phostis any special heed. The High Temple was not crowded in any case, not for an early afternoon liturgy on a day of no particular ritual import. Instead of going up the narrow way to the screened-off imperial niche, Phostis decided to worship with everyone else in the main hall surrounding the altar. The Halogai shrugged and marched in with him.
He'd been going into the High Temple for as long as his memory reached, and longer. He'd been just a baby when he was proclaimed Avtokrator here. For all that infinite familiarity, though, the Temple never failed to awe him.
The lavish use of gold and silver sheeting; the polished moss-agate columns with the acanthus capitals; the jewels and mother-of-pearl inserts set into the blond oak of the pews; the slabs of turquoise, pure white crystal, and rose quartz laid into the walls to simulate the sky at morning, noon, and eventide— for all these he had perspective; he had grown up among similar riches and lived with them still. But they served only to lead the eye up and up to the great dome that surmounted the altar and the mosaicwork image of Phos in its center.
The dome itself had the feel of a special miracle. Thanks to the sunbeams that penetrated the many small windows set into its base, it seemed to float above the rest of the Temple rather than being a part of it. The play of light off the gold-faced tesserae set at irregular angles made its surface sparkle and shift as one walked along far beneath it. Phostis could not imagine how the merely material might better represent the transcendence of Phos' heaven.
But even the glittering surround of the dome was secondary to Phos himself. The lord with the great and good mind stared down at his worshipers with eyes that not only never closed but also seemed to follow as they moved. If anyone concealed a sin, that Phos would see it. His long, bearded visage was stern in judgment. In his left hand, the good god held the book of life, wherein he recorded each man's every action. With death came the accounting: those whose evil deeds outweighed the good would fall to the eternal ice, while those who had worked more good than wickedness shared heaven with their god.
Phostis felt the weight of Phos' gaze each time he entered the High Temple. The lord with the great and good mind shown in the dome would surely grant justice, but mercy? Few men are arrogant enough to demand perfect justice, for fear they might get it.
The power of that image reached even the heathen Halogai. They looked up, trying to test their stares against the eternal eyes in the dome. As generations of men and women had learned before them, the test was more than any a mere man could successfully undertake. When they had to lower their gaze, they did so almost furtively, as if hoping no one had noticed them withdrawing from a struggle.
"It's all right, Bragi, Nokkvi," Phostis murmured as he sat between them. "No man can count himself worthy to confront the good god."
The big blond northerners scowled. Bragj's cheeks went red; with his fair, pale skin, the flush was easy to track. Nokkvi said, "We are Halogai, young Majesty. Our life is to fear nothing, to let nothing overawe us. In this picture dwells magic, to make us reckon ourselves less than what we are." His fingers writhed in an apotropaic sign.
"Measured against the good god, we are all less than we think ourselves to be," Phostis answered quietly. "That is what the image in the dome shows us."
Both his guards shook their heads. Before they could argue further, though, a pair of blue-robed priests, their pates shaven, their beards bushy and untrimmed, advanced down the aisle toward the altar. Each wore on his left breast a cloth-of-gold circlet, symbol of the sun, the greatest source of Phos' lights. The gem-encrusted thuribles they swung emitted great clouds of sweetly fragrant smoke.
As the priests passed each row of pews, the congregants sitting in it rose to their feet to salute Oxeites, ecumenical patriarch of the Videssians, who followed close behind them. His robe was of gold tissue, heavily overlain with pearls and precious stones. In all the Empire, only the Avtokrator himself possessed more splendid raiment. And, just as footgear all of red was reserved for the Emperor alone, so only the patriarch had the privilege of wearing sky-blue boots.
A choir of men and boys sang a hymn of praise to Phos as Oxeites took his place behind the altar. Their sweet notes echoed and reechoed from the dome, as if emanating straight from the good god's lips. The patriarch raised both hands over his head, looked up toward the image of Phos. Along with everyone in the High Temple save only his own two bodyguards, Phostis imitated him.
"We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind," Oxeites intoned, "by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor."
All the worshipers repeated Phos' creed. It was the first prayer a Videssian heard, being commonly uttered over a new-horn babe; it was the first prayer a child learned; it was the last utterance a believer gasped out before dying. To Phostis, it was as utterly familiar as the shape of his own hands.
More prayers and hymns followed. Phostis continued to make his responses without much conscious thought. The ritual was comforting; it lifted him out of himself and his petty cares of the moment, transformed him into part of something great and wise and for all practical purposes immortal. He cherished that feeling of belonging, perhaps because he found it here so much more easily than in the palaces.
Oxeites had the congregation repeat the creed with him one lust time, then motioned for the worshipers to be seated. Phostis almost left the High Temple before the patriarch began his sermon. Sermons, being by their nature individual and specific, took him out of the sense of belonging he sought from worship. But since he had nowhere to go except back to the palaces, he decided to stay and listen. Not even his father could rebuke him for piety.
The ecumenical patriarch said. "I would like to have all of vou gathered together with me today pause for a moment and contemplate the many and various ways in which the pursuit of wealth puts us in peril of the eternal ice. For in acquiring great stores of gold and gems and goods, we too easily come to consider their accumulation an end in itself rather than a means through which we may provide for our own bodily survival and prepare a path for our progeny."
Our progeny? Phostis thought, smiling. The Videssian clergy was celibate; if Oxeites was preparing a path for his progeny, he had more sins than greed with which to concern himself.
The patriarch continued, "Not only do we too readily value goldpieces for their own sake, those of us who do gain riches, whether honestly or no, often also endanger ourselves and our hope of joyous afterlife by grudging those who lack a share, however small, of our own good fortune."
He went on in that vein for some time, until Phostis felt ashamed to have a belly that was never empty, shoes on his feet, and thick robes and hypocausts to warm him through the winter. He raised his eyes to the Phos in the dome and prayed to the lord with the great and good mind to forgive him his prosperity.