“Tothax,” the abbot mused, bringing him roughly back to himself.

“If somewhat to the north.”

“So it is not Tothax that burns.”

“No.” Regrettably. “There is nothing there that should burn for so long.”

“Without moving,” agreed the abbot, tapping the back of one hand broodingly with his fingertips. “A plains-fire would move in this wind.”

“And swiftly die in this rain,” added Meoraq. His clothing was now plastered unpleasantly to his scales. “And no plains-fire would ever burn so tall.”

“Yet still it burns. And beckons.”

Meoraq grunted.

“It is a true sign of Sheul, then.”

“So it would seem.”

They watched. Another hour was tolled and the fire waved, feebly but still with some life, as it slipped lower and lower.

“He has set a mighty banner,” the abbot remarked. “But for whose eyes, I wonder?”

Meoraq flattened his spines. The elderly priest gazed benignly straight ahead and did not acknowledge his narrow glance.

“I should have journeyed on to Tothax many days ago,” Meoraq admitted at length.

The abbot bent his head at a polite angle, flexing his spines forward with interest. “Perhaps the message is meant for you.”

“Perhaps.” But now he felt certain it was. Meoraq had trained a lifetime to hear Sheul’s voice and feel His touch. Now he saw His waving arm. It would be a foolish thing to pretend he did not know what it meant.

Or what he had to do.

“I leave for Tothax immediately,” he said. And naturally, it was raining. “I require provisions for the journey.”

“Name them and be met, honored one,” said the abbot mildly. “Shall you take a bed until the morning?”

“No.” Meoraq turned away as the burning arm, its work done, finally slipped behind the horizon and returned the night to uninterrupted black. “Sheul has lit His lamp for me at this hour. I can only trust it is the hour He wishes me to follow. It would seem I have lingered too long already.”

“We shall pray for you,” said the abbot, bowing. The other priests remaining on the rooftop bowed as well. “Go in the sight of Sheul and serve Him well.”

* * *

Meoraq descended the stair and beckoned indiscriminately to the crowd of youths and low-born priests still clustered in the upper halls hoping for a glimpse of the miraculous fires. Several came forward at once. He took the first to reach him for his usher, made his few demands to the others, and allowed himself to be led back to the room he had been given for his own upon his first night’s arrival. He did not have many preparations to make, but it was the polite thing to give the temple’s provisioner time to arrange his supplies so that they would be at the temple gate when he did leave. Rushing out at once only to wait around where all could see him would only embarrass Xi’Xheoth and those who lived there. Meoraq knew he was not always as patient as he ought to be, but he tried not to be rude. Sometimes he tried.

The boy bowed in ahead of him and lit the lamp, then waited, his small head pressed to the floor and back stiff with pride at being made usher for so prestigious a guest. Meoraq dismissed him with a silent tap to the shoulder and, knowing that little eyes would be on him and little ears listening, kept his back to the door until he heard it shut and catch.

He was alone.

“Fuck,” said Meoraq, and gave the cupboard where he ought to be sleeping even now a solid kick. He hit the supporting framework rather than the lower door as he’d intended, so that instead of a resounding thump as his boot struck home, he damned near broke a toe. He swore again, limping over to the simple chair provided for his simple needs.

It was raining. It would be raining. Thirty days he’d passed in Xheoth and it had not rained once in all that time. Thirty days, but now he was leaving and the water poured out of the sky as from a cattleman’s pump.

He sat there in his soaked leather breeches and the city-soft tunic the priests had given him while his own was laundered, dripping puddles on the floor, and cursed the rain, which did no good. He had dry clothing in his pack, but could see no point in donning it only to have it drenched ten steps out of the city gate. The rain fell and he would just have to walk in it as just punishment for staying so long in Xheoth.

“A refinement to my sense of humility, I suppose,” muttered Meoraq, glancing heavenward. “And I thank You for it, O my Father. It is so comforting to know that You take so personal an interest in the improvement of my character.”

Sheul did not reply. Not here, at any rate, although it might be raining even harder outside.

Meoraq tightened his bootstraps and loin-plate and finally glared at the table where his weapons awaited him. The abbot had requested, as all of them did, that he not go armed within Sheul’s House. Meoraq’s usual reply to this was that all the world was Sheul’s House and he went where directed ever-ready to do Sheul’s work, but having the right to be an arrogant ass whenever the whim took him did not make it an obligation and this abbot was a better man than most.

He put his travel-harness on over his wet tunic and clipped the great hook of his beast-killing kzung at his hip. Its weight was an immediate comfort to him. Next came the long, wide samr, sheathed and slung across his back to be drawn against those whose crimes either did not merit or could not wait for trial. Last of all, his honor-knives, the slender sabks, buckled high on his arms. They were meant only for the arena in the sight of Sheul and frequently used in the wildlands for all manner of menial work. If his years of service had taught Meoraq nothing else, it had taught him that one could not skin a saoq with a blade as long as one’s arm. If Sheul saw it as disgrace, He had never let Meoraq know.

A soft knock upon his door. A familiar sound these past many nights. Not a priest.

“Enter,” Meoraq called without turning. “And stand.”

She had already taken her first steps toward him. Now they faltered to a stop. Her voice was as hesitant as her footsteps. “Sir?”

“Sheul calls and I go to answer. You have done well in your service to me,” he added, damned generously. “Go in my favor.”

She retreated one step, but only one. Her hands clasped, trembling, at one another. “Have I offended you, sir?”

She had not. Nor had she gone to any great effort to please him. Indeed, she had done little to make any impression on him whatsoever. She hadn’t even told him her name.

Nor should she, in all honesty. She was not a friend to him, only one of the many women who came to the temple after being turned away by their husbands for want of children. They haunted the halls of the temples in every city, veiled shadows in the shape of women, offering themselves in solemn rituals in the hopes that Sheul’s sons would heal their wombs. She did not come to him for pleasure and he should not expect to find any in her.

She was neither young nor beautiful, but Meoraq had been compelled to have her all the same when he had passed her in the hall, returning from his first judgment in this city. As Sheulek, he had the right to any woman he was given to desire, but it was this one who lit the spark in him that night and every other night that she came to him. The marks of many Sheulek before him scarred her from neck to mid-arm, but she had not burned for Meoraq and his own did not stand among them.

He had not decided yet how this made him feel. His masculine pride was, in truth, somewhat insulted, although he knew it was Sheul who had the ultimate judgment over each mortal coupling and therefore His will that she not conceive of him, but only receive Meoraq’s fires. If that was enough to heal her barren womb, so be it. If not, well, Meoraq didn’t particularly want her haunting the halls at House Uyane anyway. Sheul had blessed him at each coupling, sometimes twice, but the sex itself had been as unpleasant as sex could be. Her way of bending silent and motionless beneath him disturbed him. He had given her permission to move, to speak, even to struggle, but she did nothing except to whisper her prayers and drift away when it was over.