David Drake - Balefires

Despite his intention to listen carefully-and his absolute need to stay awake if he were to survive the night-Vettius was startled out of a fog when Pyrrhus cried, "Depart now, in the love of God and his servants Pyrrhus and Glaukon!"

"God bless Pyrrhus, the servant of God!" boomed the crowd, as though the meaningless, meandering prayer had brought the worshipers to some sort of joyous epiphany.

Whips cracked. The musicians behind Pyrrhus clashed out a concentus like that with which they had heralded the Prophet's appearance Pyrrhus was gone, as suddenly and inexplicably as he'd appeared.

The crowd shook itself around the blinking amazement of Vettius and Dama. "I don't see…" the merchant muttered. The torches trailed sparks and pitchy smoke up past the pediment, but there was no fog or haze sufficient to hide a man vanishing from a few feet away.

"Is this all-" Vettius began.

"Patience," said Dama.

The attendants-who hadn't moved during the near riot-formed a double line up the stepped base of the building to where the drummer opened the door. Worshipers from the front of the crowd, those who'd paid for their places and could afford to pay more for a personal prophecy, advanced between the guiding lines.

Vettius's face twisted in a moue as he and Dama joined the line. He shouldn't have to be counseled in patience by a silk merchant…

The private worshipers passed one by one through the door, watched by the attendants. A man a couple places in front of Vettius wore an expensive brocade cloak, but his cheeks were scarred and one ear had been chewed down to a nub. As he stepped forward, one of the attendants put out a hand in bar and said, "No weapons. You have a-"

"Hey!" the man snarled. "You leave me-"

The attendant on the other side reached under the cloak and plucked out a dagger with a wicked point and a long, double-edged blade.

The pair of women nearest the incident squealed in horror, while Vettius poised to react if necessary. The man grabbed the hand of the attendant holding his dagger and said, "Hey! That's for personal reasons, see?"

The first attendant clubbed the loaded butt of his whip across the back of the man's neck. The fellow slumped like an empty wineskin. Two of the musicians laid down their instruments and dragged him toward the side of the building. Twittering, the women stepped past where he'd fallen.

Vettius glanced at Dama.

"I'm clean," the merchant murmured past the ghost of a humorless smile. He knew, as Vettius did, that the man being dragged away was as likely dead as merely unconscious.

That, along with what happened to the fellow who'd married his brother's wife, provided the night's second demonstration of how Pyrrhus kept himself safe. The Prophet might sound like a dimwitted charlatan, and his attendants might look as though they were sleepwalking most of the time; but he and they were ruthlessly competent where it counted.

As he passed inside the church, Dama glanced at the door leaves. He hoped to see some sign-a false panel; a sheet of mirror-polished metal; something -to suggest the illusion by which Pyrrhus came and left the porch. The outer surface of the wooden leaves had been covered with vermillion leather, but the inside showed the cracks and warping of age.

These were the same doors that had been in place when the building was an abandoned temple. There were no tricks in them.

A crosswall divided the interior of the church into two square rooms. The broad doorway between them was open, but the select group of worshipers halted in the first, the anteroom.

Crosswise in the center of the inner room, Pyrrhus the Prophet lay on a stone dais as though he were a corpse prepared for burial. His head rested on a raised portion of the stone, crudely carved to the shape of an open-jawed snake.

Behind the Prophet, against the back wall where the cult statue of Asklepios once stood, was a tau cross around which twined a metal-scaled serpent. The creature's humanoid head draped artistically over the crossbar.

Pairs of triple-wick lamps rested on stands in both rooms, but their light was muted to shadow by the high, black beams supporting the roof. A row of louvered clerestory windows had been added just beneath the eaves when the building was refurbished, but even during daylight they would have affected ventilation more than lighting.

Vettius estimated that forty or fifty people were allowed to enter before attendants closed the doors again and barred them. The anteroom was comfortably large enough to hold that number, but the worshipers-he and Dama as surely as the rest-all crowded toward the center where they could look through the doorway into the sanctum.

Bronze scales jingled a soft susurrus as the serpent lifted its head from the bar. "God bless Pyrrhus his servant!" rasped the creature in a voice like a wind-swung gate.

Vettius grabbed for the sword he wasn't carrying tonight. He noticed with surprise that Dama's arm had curved in a similar motion. Not the sort of reflex he'd have expected in a merchant… but Vettius had already decided that the little Cappadocian wasn't the sort of merchant one usually met.

"God bless Glaukon and Pyrrhus, his servants," responded the crowd, the words muzzed by a harshly echoing space intended for visual rather than acoustic worship.

"Mithra!" Dama said silently, a hand covering his lips as they mimed the pagan syllables.

He knew the serpent was moved by threads invisible in the gloom. He knew one of Pyrrhus's confederates spoke the greeting through a hole in the back wall which the bronze simulacrum covered.

But the serpent's creaking, rasping voice frightened him like nothing had since Like nothing ever had before.

Goods of various types were disposed around the walls of the anteroom. Sealed amphoras-sharp-ended jars that might contain anything from wine to pickled fish-leaned in clusters against three of the four corners. From wooden racks along the sidewalk hung bunches of leeks, turnips, radishes-and a pair of dead chickens. In the fourth corner was a stack of figured drinking-bowls (high-quality ware still packed in scrap papyrus to protect the designs from chipping during transit) and a wicker basket of new linen tunics.

For a moment, Vettius couldn't imagine why the church was used for storage of this sort. Then he noticed that each item was tagged: they were worshipers' gifts in kind, being consecrated by the Prophet's presence before they were distributed. Given the number of attendants Pyrrhus employed in his operation, such gifts would be immediately useful.

Pyrrhus sat up slowly on the couch, deliberately emphasizing his resemblance to a corpse rising from its bier. His features had a waxy stillness, and the only color on his skin was the yellow tinge cast by the lamp flames.

"Greetings, brothers and sisters in God," he said. His quiet, piercing voice seemed not to be reflected by the stone.

"Greetings, Pyrrhus, Prophet of God," the crowd and echoes yammered.

A pile of tablets stood beside the couch, skewed and colorful with the wax that sealed each one. Pyrrhus took the notebook on top and held it for a moment in both hands. His fingers were thin and exceptionally long, at variance with his slightly pudgy face.

"Klea, daughter of Menandros," he said. The elder of the two praying women who'd stood in front of Vettius during the open service gasped with delight. She stepped through the doorway, knelt, and took the tablet from the Prophet's hands."Remarriage," Pyrrhus said in the singsong with which he delivered his Verses, "is not for you but faith. You may take the veil for me in death."

"Oh, Prophet," the woman mumbled as she got to her feet. For a moment it looked as though she were going to attempt to kiss Pyrrhus.

"God has looked with favor on you, daughter," the Prophet said in a distant, cutting voice that brought the suppliant back to a sense of propriety. "He will accept your sacrifice."