By this time it was late afternoon. The line of sledges moved slowly forward and Steq watched each one halt before guards at the gate. One guard examined the cargo of each sledge, counting small, rounded pebbles into a pouch at his waist as he did so, and then waved the man who had towed the sledge through the gates. Other guards appeared and pulled the sledge to the side, where yet others unloaded it and then left it empty in front of the building. A trickle of villagers came back out of the gates, the sledgemen done with their business in the Place of the God and making with all speed for the square where their fellows crowded.
By the time Steq’s commandeered sledge arrived at the gate the sun was setting. The guard looked over the cargo, counted his pebbles, and then waved Steq past with hardly a glance. As he had seen the man before him do, he dropped the tow line and walked into the Place of the God, straight ahead into light and the smell of sweat and burning oil.
The room was small — a dozen people would have crowded it. On the floor were woven grass mats, much scuffed and dirtied. The walls were plain and dark. In the center of the room was a low, blocky table on which sat a single black stone. The man who had preceded Steq in line stood before this, his back to Steq, facing another man, presumably a priest, who spoke at length and then brought out a disk of polished bone from inside his skin shirt and handed it to Steq’s predecessor, who turned and left without another word.
Steq stepped forward. “God of Au,” he said, before the priest could speak. “I am here, as you instructed me.”
The priest frowned, and opened his mouth to say something, and then his eyes grew wide and his body stiffened. “Were you last?” he asked in a dead monotone, in Steq’s language.
“Yes.”
“You have done well,” he said. A tremor passed through the body of the priest. “I am not surprised.”
“How long do we have?”
“Not long,” the priest answered. “I have withdrawn into the stone once more, and we are in danger until we depart Au.” The man then turned and picked the black stone up from the table. “We go.”
“What, do we merely walk through the streets of Ilu?”
“Yes. No one will stop us. But you must find a boat, and bring us to your fleet.”
“Could you not have taken control of the priest and had him bring us the stone?” Steq asked.
“No. I could not have.”
“I wonder why not.” Steq followed him back out into the night. The guards seemed not to see them, and the area in front of the Place of the God was empty of anyone else.
The priest walked ahead without looking left or right, away from the Place of the God and into the square where that afternoon so many of Steq’s traveling companions had crowded. It was empty now, and dark — there was no light but the glow of an oil lamp from a doorway here and there. In the center of the square the priest stopped abruptly, and Steq nearly ran into him. “Find someone,” the priest said without turning around.
“Someone in particular?”
“Anyone will do,” said the priest. “Between here and the water, where the boats are, is the place where the villagers are camping for the night. Someone strong and healthy would be best, but take anyone you can alive.”
Steq knew without being told what the god wanted with a live person from the camp. “Can we not sacrifice the priest you’re possessing?”
“He has been dead for the last several minutes.”
“That’s inconvenient,” Steq said. “You expect that I will just walk off with someone in the middle of the camp?”
“Yes,” said the priest, and he walked forward again.
“You said nothing of this, when last we spoke.”
“I said you would know more when you came to me in Ilu,” the priest said, still walking forward. Steq hurried to catch up to him. “You accepted that.”
“You promised there would be no difficulties.”
“There will not be if you follow my instructions.”
Steq had known from the day the god had first spoken what food it preferred, and what they would be required to give it, if they accepted its offer. He was not ordinarily a sentimental man. But he thought of the people he had walked with in the last few days. They had been a smiling, happy lot, had offered him food and beer without stinting, even though they could not have had any idea who he was.
They had also killed twelve of his people, had only been prevented from killing more by the protection of the god, and would not hesitate to kill Steq himself if they knew he was not of Au. Steq was not unaccustomed to the idea of human sacrifice, or shocked by it. It was only that he could not avoid some small sympathy; the Godless were well used to being required to pay gods with their lives. Still, he had not come this far to quail at the last moment.
The camp of the pilgrims was a noisy, sprawling affair. Here and there a few tents had been raised, but mostly the men sat in the open, passing the ever-present skins of beer. What light there was came from three or four campfires, though what fuel they burned, since there seemed to be little or no wood anywhere, Steq had no idea. Everyone seemed to be near someone else, to be in conversation or sharing food or drink. If Steq had known more of the language, he could conceivably have taken a likely prospect by the arm and said something like, “Come aside, I must tell you something.” But he could not, and he reached the far edge of the camp without seeing how he could do what the god required. The thought crossed his mind that one of his own people would be made to pay, if he could not find someone of Au.
He would not allow it. He stopped at the far edge of the camp and looked more carefully at the people around him. The two nights he had spent with the pilgrims he had taken care to stay at the edges of the camp where darkness would hide his foreign features, and where others would not pay him too much unwelcome attention. If anyone in the crowd wished to be alone he would likely do the same.
He walked the perimeter of the camp, just outside the edges of the light cast by the several fires, and when he had nearly made a circuit he found what he sought. A single shadowed figure sat motionless on the sand, just outside the camp. He stood quietly, watching, and the man didn’t move. After a few minutes Steq walked slowly behind him, any sound he might have made covered by the raised voices of the celebrating pilgrims. He knelt behind the man and threw one arm around him, the other hand clapped across the man’s mouth.
Steq realized immediately, with a mixture of regret and relief, that it was a boy he held, not a grown man, and in the same instant the boy bit his hand, hard. Steq did not dare let go and let the boy shout for aid, and did not dare cry out himself. He raised the arm circling the boy, meaning to strike him on the back of the head, and instantly the teeth were loosed and the boy was up and running across the beach. Steq ran after.
He caught up quickly, and brought the boy down to the sand. Steq pinned his arms behind and wrestled him up, dragged him, as he struggled ineffectually, down the beach to the water where the dim shadow of the priest stood. In all this time, though he fought Steq ceaselessly, the boy made no sound.
The god-possessed priest did not turn as Steq came up. “You took too long,” he said in his flat monotone. “Get a boat.”
“And in the meantime, what about this one?” Steq asked. “I can hardly just let go of him. And you don’t want me to kill him yet.”
Before the god could answer a sharp, thundering crack echoed across the sky. The encamped pilgrims cried out and then were silent a few moments. “We are in great danger,” said the god. “We must leave immediately.” Behind, in the camp, someone laughed and the voices started up again as though nothing had happened.