Resisting that sacrilegious temptation, the stranger mumbled the same curt prayer and went on to the next god, a naked young man with a dove on his shoulder, smiling down at a fawn held in the crook of his elbow. Oh gods! That face! That smile! Was it Finar? Or Fitel? His brothers had looked exactly like that early in their Werist training, before their teeth and noses got smashed in the roughhousing. Finar, probably, but even their mother had been mistaken sometimes. The sculptor must have known which twin he was depicting, but how could he possibly have remembered them so well? “I honor You, holy Nastrar, give me Your blessing.”
Seething with fury now, the stranger strode on. Beyond the next entrance was the idol he especially wanted to see. Or not to see. But there He was, holy Weru Himself, holding a sword, His emblem. He differed from all the others in that He was shown seated. Seated, and yet the same height as all the others! The implication took a moment to register-that Weru was twice the size of all the other gods.
That was what Satrap Horold had ordered. But Horold had died long before that statue was made. Why had the artist obeyed a dead man’s instructions at the cost of spoiling the symmetry of the Pantheon? Why should a Hand so honor the war god?
The Terrible One deserved a longer prayer. “I honor You, most holy Weru, my lord and protector, mightiest of gods. I will live in Your service and die to Your honor.”
“I promised I would be generous,” said a quiet voice behind him.
The stranger’s fists clenched into mallets of bone. He knew that voice. It was the last voice he wanted to hear. The face he would see if he turned around was the very face he had been trying so hard not to meet.
“Go away!”
There was no reply. He continued to study holy Weru. Weru studied him. The god’s nose had never been flattened, his ears had not been bloated out like tubers. Otherwise their faces were the same face. The god was perhaps a few years older. Wide shoulders, thick calves… everything as it should be. More or less. More, probably.
“You were not stingy,” the stranger admitted, just to discover if his unwelcome companion was still there.
“I was sent to fetch you.”
The stranger turned around.
The Florengian was still big and hairy and dark of hide. He wore a leather smock smeared with clay and paint. If anything, he had grown even broader in the last three years or so. Life had left marks on his face, and robbed his smile of some teeth, but it had also given him more confidence-possibly even arrogance. Werists did not take kindly to extrinsics putting on airs.
Not even homeless hungry Werists didn’t.
“It’s wonderful to see you, Cutrath! We thought you were dead. Where have you been?” Benard whipped his great stonemason’s arms around the stranger and crushed all the breath out of him. “Thank the gods!”
Cutrath tried to break free and was dismayed to find that he couldn’t-not without using a wrestling trick or two, and that was not proper behavior in a temple. Masterless Heroes who disturbed the peace by brawling soon found themselves in serious trouble.
“Let me go,” he whispered in the sculptor’s ear, “or I will tear out your guts and strangle you with them.”
Benard released him with a puzzled look. “Only trying to be friendly! I really am overjoyed to see you. Ingeld has been going out of her mind for days, staring in the fire day and night. Half a pot-boiling ago she started screaming, ‘He’s here! He’s here! He’s going to the Pantheon!’ So we came to get you.”
Dismayed, Cutrath said, “We?” Not his mother here too? Then he saw that the third person present was very small.
The Hand bent and raised her. She was another Florengian, with dark curls and very large, dark eyes. Thumb in mouth, she stared at the stranger from the safety of her father’s arms.
“Your sister Oliva. This is your brother Cutrath who Mommy’s been telling you about. What do you say to him?”
Oliva thought for a moment, then took her thumb out of her mouth. “Twelve blessings!”
“That’s very good. Cutrath?”
“Twelve blessings on you too, Oliva. Now, why don’t you run outside and catch pigeons while I break your daddy’s neck?”
Benard set the girl down. “Pardon me,” he said, and brazenly reached out to untie the rag hiding Cutrath’s collar. “You don’t need to wear this in Kosord-not you. You are not a masterless out-of-work unwanted Werist here, you are the dynast’s son. You are also-if you will pardon my mentioning it-her consort’s stepson. Old Guthlag is too old and I need to find a new hordeleader. Cutrath Horoldson is the logical man.”
If Cutrath did not hit this mucker soon he would explode. He must smash him into rubble or die of frustration. Unfortunately the priests were nosily watching this encounter between the vagrant Werist and the consort, not to mention the dynast’s heir apparent.
“ You need a hordeleader? Oh, isn’t that kind of you! You killed my father. You raped my mother. And now you have the gall to offer me a job? To work for you?”
The Florengian raised heavy black eyebrows. “Work for her, actually. Kosord belongs to your mother. I was not the one who raped her, Horold was. Repeatedly. I rescued her and took her away where he could not abuse her. And yes, I led him into the ambush that killed him. He came two eyelashes short of beating me to death while I was at it.”
“My ambition is to finish the work my father started.”
Benard sighed. “I should warn you that Ingeld forbids me to travel anywhere outside the palace without a bodyguard, a full flank of Werists. They are an accursed nuisance. Or have been up until now. Suddenly they feel sort of useful to have around. Why didn’t you come straight home to the palace? Did you find religion? Develop a sudden interest in art?”
“I’m not staying. I won’t go to the palace. I’m leaving as soon as I have walked around this craft shop of yours.”
Infuriatingly, the Florengian laughed. Laughed at a Werist!
“That won’t make my life any easier. Ingeld will order me to order the hordeleader to run you down and bring you back. What’s the matter, really, my lord? Whatever it is, you’re safe here in Kosord. How can we help you?”
Cutrath swallowed a mouthful of bile. A Hand offering to help a Hero? The world had gone mad. “You can’t. I’ve been having bad dreams is all, terrible dreams. I keep dreaming I’ve become your Weru idol. I dream that instead of carving my likeness, you somehow turned me into stone, and there I am, sitting here in the Pantheon in Kosord, and people are going in and out and worshiping me-worshiping Weru I mean, but offering me the sacrifices. And nobody can see that it is really me! I can’t cry out or move or anything. I finally went to an oneiromancer. He said the dreams were a sending from holy Cienu. Don’t ask me how he knew that. His job to know. He said they meant I should come to Kosord and pray in the Pantheon. And when I had done that, the nightmares would stop.”
Benard shrugged. “Go ahead and do it, then. If we keep your mother waiting too long, she’ll spoil all your fun by strangling me herself.”
Cutrath turned and strode on to the next god. “Holy…” The figure wore a robe and held a deck of clay tablets in his hand, but he was far younger than the Lawgiver as traditionally represented. Color him brown instead of pink…
“You are getting mighty uppity, aren’t you, showing your own brother as holy Demern?”
“Orlad’s a fine figure of a man,” Benard protested, but he looked a little guilty at Cutrath’s accusation. “He feels very strongly about oath-breaking. I had to use mortal models, you know. Gods don’t do modeling. I used you, and your brother Finar, and my other brother, and Hiddi… and Orlad looks the part!”
His expression certainly looked stubborn enough. “I honor You, holy Demern, give me Your blessing.”