Harry Turtledove - Thessalonica

“What if he won’t go, Father?” Theodore said. “Will you stay here then?”

“Yes, then I will stay,” George said. “If we come through the siege, I’ll have to go up into the hills afterwards and give the cap back to Gorgonius. But for now, I’ll stay.” He held up a hand. “But if I do go with Father Luke, don’t let anyone know I’ve come back into the city now. just say you hope I’m all right and you think you’ll see me again.”

“What I hope,” Irene said fiercely, “is that Father Luke tells you he wants nothing to do with this scheme, and hat it’s mad, pagan wickedness. And I hope you listen o him, too.”

“If he says that, I will listen to him,” George promised. If he says that, I’ll be back here in an hour or so, and we’ll go on about our business and hope for the best. I don’t know what else we can do.”

“We’ll wait up for you,” Irene said. Sophia and Theodore nodded.

“All right.” George would sooner have told them to go back to bed, but he knew they wouldn’t listen. He said, “In case I don’t come back here, remember, don’t let anyone know I was in the city. If people are gossiping up on the wall, the Slavs and Avars are liable to hear them and find some way to stop Father Luke and me.”

His son and daughter nodded again. At last, reluctantly, so did Irene. George embraced her, knowing he was using up a marriage’s worth of faith in a night, and going into debt besides. If it didn’t come out right--if it didn’t come out right, he doubted he’d be in any position to apologize.

He hugged Theodore again, and then Sophia. “Everything will be fine,” he said. Words had power. They were magical things. Saying that made it likelier to come true. After a last awkward nod, he set Perseus’ cap on his head. His wife and children exclaimed again, so he knew he’d vanished He opened the door and went back out into the night.

St. Elias’ church was only a few blocks away. Its doors stood open, as they always did. It was dim and dark inside, though, with but a handful of candles burning. George’s shadow flickered and swooped like an owl after mice as he walked down the aisle toward the altar, in front of which Father Luke stood praying. Probably still at his penance, George thought.

At the sound of George’s footsteps, the priest turned. Even in the semidarkness, Father Luke’s smile glowed. “George!” he exclaimed. “Thank God you’re safe!”

“Yes, I--” George stopped in confusion as he realized he was still wearing the cap. “You can see me?”

“Of course I can.” Now Father Luke gave him a quizzical look. “Shouldn’t I be able to?”

“This is hallowed ground,” George muttered, reminding himself He hoped that meant nothing more than that the magic in Perseus’ cap was overcome by a stronger power here, not gone for good. Only one way to find out. “Your Reverence, will you please not think I’m a crazy man if I ask you to step outside with me for a minute or two?”

“George, I could think you were a great many things,” the priest answered, “but I’m hard-pressed to imagine you crazy. I’ll come with you.”

George couldn’t feel anything different happen when he left the holy precinct. Father Luke, though, suddenly jerked in surprise. George let out a sigh of relief. He took off the cap. His reappearance startled Father Luke again. “You see, Your Reverence,” George said.

“Yes, I see,” Father Luke said. “Or rather, I didn’t see you for a little whole there. I suppose you’re going to tell me there’s a story attached to this, this--vanishing trick.”

“There certainly is,” George said, and proceeded to tell it. Only the faintest light leaked out of the church. Shrouded in darkness and shadow, Father Luke’s face was unreadable as the shoemaker went through the strange things that had happened to him since Menas slammed the postern gate in his face.

When he’d finished, Father Luke stood silent for a while, then said, “This village of Lete and others like it up in the hills, they sound as if they’re ripe for evangelizing one day soon.”

“That may be so, Your Reverence,” George said in some alarm, “but--”

The priest held up a hand and laughed quietly. “But one day soon isn’t quite yet,” he said. George nodded. Father Luke stood in thought for another little while, then said, “Well, let’s go.”

“Just like that?” George said in surprise.

“Just like that,” Father Luke agreed. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, but--” Only a couple of days before, George had been thinking about the difference between what he wanted and what life commonly handed him. Something else crossed his mind, too: “What will Bishop Eusebius do to you after you come back from consorting with pagan powers again?”

“I don’t know,” the priest answered. “Whatever it is, he will do it and I will accept it. If we save the city, he’ll be able to do it. If Thessalonica falls to the Slavs and Avars, what Bishop Eusebius might want to do to me becomes a bit less important, wouldn’t you say?”

Since that was exactly what George would have said, he didn’t say it. Instead, he nodded again. “Thank you, Your Reverence.”

“For what?” Now Father Luke sounded startled. “You’ve been risking your life, and maybe your soul as well, for the sake of the city. Wouldn’t you call me mean-spirited if I did anything less?” Without giving George a chance to reply, he started west along the street on which St. Elias’ church lay. “You did say you came in at the Litaean Gate?”

“That’s right.” George hurried after him. If the priest was worried about traveling through Thessalonica by night without even a torch to light his way, he showed no sign of it. George said, “Uh, Your Reverence, the one thing I haven’t been able to figure out is how to get you out of the city and past the Slavs and Avars without them spotting you.”

“God will provide,” Father Luke said serenely. “His plans are hidden from mortal eyes, but never from His own thought. Now, I suggest you put on that extraordinary headgear you borrowed. You won’t want to leave the fellow at the postern gate any more confused than he is already.”

“You’re right about that,” George said. He and Father Luke were walking past the cistern where the priest had defeated the Slavic water-demigod. Seeing it reminded George how urgent their mission was. He set the leather cap on his head. He’d carried it till then, out of a vague sense that vanishing in front of Father Luke would be rude.

“Extraordinary,” the priest repeated when he did disappear.

No footpads came leaping out of deep shadow to assail Father Luke. That was as well for them, since he now had more unseen protection than the power of the Lord alone. On a cosmic scale, George supposed his using Perseus’ cap to baffle robbers would be only slightly more important than Gorgonius’ using it to spy on good-looking women, but, as a mere man, the shoemaker found the cosmic scale too large to worry about anyhow.

When he and Father Luke got to the Litaean Gate, he discovered a new crew of guards had come on duty since he’d entered Thessalonica. He was glad of that; as things were, the fellow who’d admitted him wouldn’t be faced with the improbability of Father Luke’s wanting to go out along with the flat impossibility of his own arrival.

The new man at the postern gate was surprised enough as things were. “Why on earth do you need to go out there, Your Reverence?” he asked Father Luke.

“Because I have reason to believe the Slavs and Avars are planning something particularly devilish, and I have the chance to forestall it,” the priest answered: all true, but none of it very informative. Father Luke put some snap in his voice, saying, “Are you going to listen to me, or shall we send for Bishop Eusebius to tell you what he thinks?”