“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?”
George knew sending for the bishop was the last thing Father Luke wanted. The guard didn’t. Hastily, he said, “All right, Your Reverence. You know what you’re doing, I’m sure.” He unbarred the postern gate and pulled it open. Perhaps because it had been opened not long before to admit George, the hinges did not squeak much.
Father Luke got between the guard and the open gate for a moment. That let George slip out ahead of the priest The postern gate shut behind Father Luke. “Well, well,” he murmured, peering this way and that. “How best to get past the Slavs and into the woods?”
“Would you like to wear the cap yourself, Your Reverence?” George asked. “I got past them once in the daylight. I expect I can do it again.”
“No, don’t worry about it.” Father Luke stepped away from the sheltering shadow of the wall. “We’ll just go on and trust in God.”
In every church in Thessalonica, in every church in the Roman Empire, in every church in Christendom, priests preached sermons on the glory of martyrs. St. Demetrius was a martyr for the faith. George felt horribly certain Father Luke was about to become another one.
As Father Luke had stood between the guard and the postern gate, so now George stood between the priest and the encampment of the Slavs and Avars. He told himself that was useless: if he was invisible, the barbarians would see right through him and spot Father Luke. He kept on doing it anyhow, on the notion that it couldn’t hurt and might possibly do a little good. He didn’t know exactly how the invisibility worked. If it made people see around him instead of turning him transparent, maybe it would make the barbarians see around Father Luke, too.
With every step he took, he expected a hoarse shout from a Slavic sentry. He glanced back at Father Luke. The priest’s lips were moving in prayer. Maybe that was why the Slavs and Avars faded to spot him as he walked across the open ground toward the woods. Maybe George-- and Perseus’ cap--did help shield him. Whatever the reason, no outcry came.
In among first brush and then trees, George murmured, “Thank God.” Father Luke heard that. The shoemaker thought he smiled, though in the darkness he had trouble being sure. “Did I not say the Lord would provide?” the priest said quietly. “If He sent a chariot and horses all for fire for Elijah, surely He could manage something rather less dramatic for me.”
George wondered what sort of miracle God had worked. Had He cloaked Father Luke in a separate bit of invisibility, or had He used Perseus’ cap to His own ends? Could He do that with magic not His own? George had no answers, but those were intriguing questions.
He wondered what Father Luke thought. If he ever had the chance in a place where making noise mattered less, he resolved to ask him. Of one thing he was certain: this was not the moment.
Having been this way before, he guided Father Luke north. He did not think, though, that he could find the hills beyond those he knew without help from Ampelus or one of the other creatures out of legend. He would have to get to the encampment of the centaurs and satyrs on his own.
Somewhere ahead in the woods, a wolf-demon howled. George knew the creature could not sense him, not when he wore the cap. The Slavs and Avars hadn’t been able to sense Father Luke’s presence, but they were only men. He wondered what the wolf-demon would do, and remembered what Ampelus had said of the one that encountered a priest in the woods.
No sooner had he whispered a prayer that none of the wolf-demons would find Father Luke and him than one of them, eyes glowing even in forested night, strode out onto the game track the two men from Thessalonica were using. It snarled--it knew the priest was there.
George drew his sword and started to advance on the wolf. If it could not see him, he might hurt it badly-- that was how Perseus had slain Medusa. But before he got close enough to slash, Father Luke made the sign of the cross and said, “Depart, in the name of God.”
The wolf howled. It sat back on its haunches in absurd surprise, as if the priest had hit it in the muzzle with a stick. Then, awkwardly, it turned and ran, tail between its legs--again, for all the world like a beaten dog.
“How--how did you do that, Your Reverence?” George asked in a low voice. “These creatures, they--”
“I have faith,” Father Luke said calmly. “I need nothing more.”
Remembering Father Gregory, whom the water-demigod had killed, George slowly nodded. The other priest, the one Ampelus had watched, must have been uncertain or arrogant, too. Father Luke, as far as the shoemaker could tell, had neither arrogance nor uncertainty in him.
They went on, stumbling through the undergrowth. More wolf-demons gave cry, but none came near. He’s put the fear of God in them, George thought. Most of the time, that was only a phrase. Not here. Not now.
And then, instead of the wolf-demon Father Luke had routed, Vucji Pastir blocked his way through the woods. As he had with the wolf, the priest crossed himself and said, “Depart, in the name of God.”
Vucji Pastir’s eyes, always protuberant, almost popped out of his head. Their glow, and that of his hair and beard, dimmed a little. But he did not depart, nor even retreat. “You are strong, priest,” he said, “but not strong enough to defeat the shepherd of the wolves.” As it had in Georges earlier meeting with him, his voice sounded directly in the shoemakers mind, and no doubt in that of Father Luke as well.
“Depart,” Father Luke repeated. “In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the name of the holy Virgin Mother of God, in the name of St. Demetrius the chief martyr, in the name of gentle St. Catherine, in the name of St. Elias whom I serve--depart, depart, depart!”
Now Vucji Pastir’s eyes blazed. He opened his mouth wide, showing his own fierce teeth. A great laugh burst from him. “Are you deaf, foolish priest? You have not the strength to make me do your will. I shall not leave if you tell me once, if you tell me three times, or if you tell me three hundred. Flee now, I tell you in the name of great Vucji Pastir--flee or be my meat.”
As had been true when George came down to Thessalonica with Perseus’ cap on his head, the shepherd of the wolves could not tell he was there. If anything, Vucji Pastir was less concerned now than he had been before, for George’s presence on the way down had troubled him. Now, intent on making Father Luke his victim, he heeded nothing less.
The priest stood his ground, defiant but weak. George wondered what he thought he could do against an angry demigod his spiritual force had proved unable to rout. Whatever it was, Father Luke never got the chance to try it. Vucji Pastir had come within a couple of paces of the priest when George drove his sword into the small of the Slavic demigod’s back.
Vucji Pastir screamed, a great bellow of mingled astonishment and anguish. George pulled out the sword and stabbed the demigod again, this time in the side. He said nothing, not wanting to give the shepherd of the wolves any clue about where or what he was beyond the wounds themselves.
He stabbed Vucji Pastir for a third time. He tried for the demigod’s throat, but succeeded only in striking his shoulder. “Murder!” Vucji Pastir cried, to whom or what the shoemaker did not know. “This vile priest does murder!”
“Depart, in the name of God,” Father Luke said again.
And Vucji Pastir ran, screaming still. Maybe the holy name had more effect on him once he was hurt, as had been true with the wolf-demon. Maybe he was simply afraid of the holy man who had hurt him so horribly without moving from where he stood. George did not think Vucji Pastir slain, despite his shrieks. Had he struck off the demigod’s head, then--perhaps. But perhaps not, too.
Father Luke said, “He would have done better had he hearkened when I bade him leave. I would have left him in peace, other than having him gone. As it was, he suffered for his stupidity.”
“What would you have done if I weren’t along?” George asked.
“I don’t know,” Father Luke answered. “I expect I would have managed, one way or another. God provides. How He provides will differ according to the circumstances, I am sure. He is not wasteful, but uses whatever He has handy.”
George thought about that. To his way of looking at the world, it was taking a long chance. Irene would have said--Irene had said--he lived too much in the world of the ordinary senses and not enough in the world of the spirit. Most of his experience with the world of the spirit since the Slavs and Avars laid siege to Thessalonica had frightened the whey out of him.
Lessons came from the world of the ordinary senses, too. He drew one now: “We’d better get going, before something else dreadful happens to us here.”
“That makes excellent sense,” Father Luke said. He and George moved deeper into the hills. The quiet struck at George. All the wolf-demons had left off their terrifying howling after their shepherd was hurt. Maybe that meant they’d all fled back to their lairs. But maybe not, too. George did not want to find out the hard way.
When dawn began making the hillsides go from black to gray, a large bush by the side of the path quivered. At first George, who by then was so tired he had trouble putting one foot in front of the other, thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. Then he realized another of Vucji Pastir’s wolves might have found Father Luke and him after all. But from behind the bush stepped not a wolf-demon but Ampelus and Ithys.
Quickly, George spoke to Father Luke: “Don’t frighten them off, Your Reverence. They’re the people, uh, powers we’re looking for.”
“I see a mortal here.” Ampelus pointed to Father Luke, who was staring back at him with frank fascination. The satyr turned and pointed in the direction from which George’s voice had come. “I hear a mortal there. These are the mortals we seek, then.”
If the satyrs had dared come so far down in the hills, George thought he could safely take off Perseus’ cap. “Ha!” Ithys said. “Is--are--two mortals, for true.” As Ampelus had done, he pointed to Father Luke and George in turn, but he used phallus rather than forefinger. George had seen enough of satyrs’ ways not to be surprised or offended. He wondered what Father Luke thought.
Whatever it was, the priest kept it to himself. To the satyrs, he said, “Take us on to your friends, so we can all talk about how we are going to fight against the Slavs and the Avars and the powers they’ve brought into this country.”