You couldn't put off the inevitable. Because sooner or later, you reached the place when the inevitable just went and waited.
And this was it.
Fri'it stepped through the glow into a desert. The sky was dark and pocked with large stars, but the black sand that stretched away to the distance was nevertheless brightly lit.
A desert. After death, a desert. The desert. No hells, yet. Perhaps there was hope.
He remembered a story from his childhood. Unusually, it wasn't about smiting. No one was trampled underfoot. It wasn't about Om, dreadful in His rage. It was worse. It was about what happened when you died . . . the journey of your soul.
They said: you must walk a desert . . .
“Where is this place?” he said hoarsely.
THIS IS NO PLACE, said Death .
. . . all alone . . .
“What is at the end of the desert?”
JUDGEMENT .
. . . with your beliefs . . .
Fri'it stared at the endless, featureless expanse.
“I have to walk it alone?” he whispered. "But . . . now, I'm not sure what I believe-
YES?
AND NOW, IF YOU WILL EXCUSE ME-
Fri'it took a deep breath, purely out of habit. Perhaps he could find a couple of rocks out there. A small rock to hold and a big rock to hide behind, while he waited for Vorbis . . .
And that thought was habit, too. Revenge? Here?
He smiled.
Be sensible, man. You were a soldier. This is a desert. You crossed a few in your time.
And you survive by learning about them. There's whole tribes that know how to live in the worst kinds of desert. Licking water off the shady sides of dunes, that sort of thing . . . They think it's home. Put 'em in a vegetable garden and they'd think you were mad.
The memory stole over him: a desert is what you think it is. And now, you can think clearly . . .
There were no lies here. All fancies fled away. That's what happened in all deserts. It was just you, and what you believed.
What have I always believed?
That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.
You couldn't get that on a banner. But the desert looked better already.
Fri'it set out.
It was a small mule and Brutha had long legs; if he'd made the effort he could have remained standing and let the mule trot out from underneath.
The order of progression was not as some may have expected. Sergeant Simony and his soldiers rode ahead, on either side of the track.
They were trailed by the servants and clerks and lesser priests. Vorbis rode in the rear, where an exquisitor rode by right, like a shepherd watching over his flock.