‘Never!’ Tempus howled. Then: ‘0 God, leave off! You are not increasing Your
reputation among these mortals, nor mine! This was an ill-considered venture
from the outset. Go back to Your heaven and wait. I will build Your temple
better without Your maniacal aid. You have lost all sense of proportion. The
Sanc-tuarites will not worship one who makes of their town a battlefield!’
Tempus, do not be wroth with Me. I have My own troubles, you know. I have to get
away every now and again. And you have not been warring, whined the god, for so
very long. I am bored and I am lonely.
‘And You have caused the death of my horse!’ Tempus spat, and broke free of
Vashanka, wrenching his mind loose from the mirror mind of his god with an
effort of will greater than any he had ever mounted before. He turned in his
steps and began to retrace them. The god called to him over his shoulder, but he
did not look back. He put his feet in the smudges they had left in the clouds as
he had walked among them, and the farther he trudged, the more substantial those
clouds became.
He trekked into lighter darkness, into a soft, new sunrise, into a pink and
lavender morning which was almost Sanctuary’s. He continued to walk until the
smell of dead fish and Downwind pollution assailed his nostrils. He strode on,
until a weed tripped him and he fell to his knees in the middle of a damp and
vacant lot.
He heard a cruel laugh, and as he looked up he was thinking that he had not made
it back at all – that Vashanka was not through punishing him.