Vargos lay on a perfectly decent cot in the next inn east from Morax’s and listened to snoring soldiers and laughter from the common room. They were still drinking there, Martinian and the tribune.
He lay quietly, unable to sleep, and thought of the Aldwood again. Of the zubir in the middle of the Imperial road in a swirling away of fog, then appearing-somehow-right beside them in the misty field an instant after. He would think of these things all his days, Vargos knew. And remember how Pharus had looked in the road when they came back out.
The stablemaster had been dead before they went into the wood, but when they stood above his body, after, they saw what else had been done to him. Vargos would swear by his mother’s life and his own soul that no man had walked up to where the dead man lay. Whatever had claimed the man’s heart had not been mortal.
He’d heard a lifeless bird speak aloud with a woman’s voice to the zubir. He’d led a man and a woman through the Aldwood and out. He’d even-and here, for the first time, Vargos smiled a little in the close darkness-struck a Sarantine officer, a tribune, and they’d only roughed him up a little, and then they had put him in a litter-a litter!-and carried him to this inn, because Martinian had made them. That memory, too, would stay with him. He would have enjoyed having his Jad-cursed father watch cavalrymen dismount to carry him along the Imperial road like some senator or merchant prince.
Vargos closed his eyes. An unworthy, vain thought, today of all days. Pride had no place in the soul tonight. He struggled to shape a proper prayer to Jad and to his son, the fire-bearer, asking guidance and forgiveness. In his mind’s eye, though, he kept seeing again and again that ripped-open chest of a dead man he’d known and the black zubir with blood on the short, curved horns. To whom did one pray?
He was going to the City. Sarantium. Where the Imperial Palace was and the Emperor, the Triple Walls and the Hippodrome. A hundred holy sanctuaries, he’d heard, and half a million people. He didn’t really believe that last. He wasn’t a northern lout any more, to be gulled with gross, exaggerated tales. Men told lies in their pride.
Growing up, he had never imagined himself living anywhere but in their village. Then, after that changed one mild, bloody spring night, he’d expected to spend his days going back and forth along the Imperial road in Sauradia until he grew too old for that and took a position at the stable or the forge in one of the inns.
Life did unexpected things to you, Vargos of the Inicii thought in the darkness. You made a decision, or someone else made one, and there you were. There you were. He heard a familiar rustling sound, then a grunt and a sigh; someone had a woman with him on the far side of the room-He turned over on his side, carefully. He’d been kicked in the lower back. That was why his piss was red, why it hurt to turn.
They had a phrase along the Imperial road. He’s sailing to Sarantium, they said when some man threw himself at an obvious and extreme hazard, risking all, changing everything one way or another, like a desperate gambler at dice putting his whole stake on the table. That’s what he was doing.
Unexpected, really. Not his nature. Exciting, he had to admit. He tried to remember the last time he’d felt excited. Perhaps with a girl, but not really, that was different. Nice enough, though. Vargos wished he felt a little better. He knew two of the girls here fairly well and they liked him enough. On the other hand there were soldiers here. The girls would be busy all night. Just as well. He needed his sleep.
They were still laughing-and starting to sing now-in the common room. He felt himself drifting off. Martinian was there with the burly, smooth-faced tribune. Unexpected.
He dreamt that night that he was flying. Out of the inn and across the road under both moons and all the stars. West first, over the chapel of the Sleepless Ones, hearing their slow chanting in the night, seeing the candles burning through the windows of the dome. He flew past that image of holy Jad and turned north over the Aldwood.