Van recognized what that meant, too. "Let's see the priests try to squeeze anything past their due out of us today," he said, laughing.

To their credit, the priests did not try. They took the suppliants one group at a time, leading away their animals to be seen to while they consulted the Sibyl. Everything ran as smoothly as the turning spokes of a chariot wheel. Gerin wished all his visits had gone so well. He also wished this particular visit hadn't been necessary.

A plump, beardless fellow in a robe of glittering cloth of gold approached the wagon. Bowing to Gerin and Van, he said, "Gentles, you may call me Kinifor. I shall conduct you to the Sibyl and escort you from her chamber once the god has spoken through her." His voice was pleasant, almost sweet, not a man's voice but not a woman's, either.

Thinking of the mutilation eunuchs suffered, Gerin always felt edgy around them. Because the mutilation was not their fault, he always did his best to conceal those feelings. He swung a plump leather sack into Kinifor's equally plump hand. "This is to help defray the cost of maintaining your holy shrine."

The eunuch priest hefted the bag, not only to gauge its weight but to listen for the sweet jingle of silver. "You are generous," he said, and seemed well enough pleased even without any special payment straight to him; Gerin wondered if the temple would see all the money in the leather sack. The priest went on, "Descend, if you will, and accompany me to the temple."

As Gerin and Van got down from the wagon, another priest, this one in a plainer robe, came over and led the horses away. The travelers followed Kinifor through the gate and into the fenced-off temenos surrounding the shrine. The first thing the Fox saw was a naked corpse prominently displayed just inside the gateway; hideous lesions covered the body. Gerin jerked a thumb at it. "Another would-be temple robber?"

"Just so." Kinifor gave him a curious look. "Am I to infer from your lack of surprise that you have seen others Biton smote for their evil presumption?"

"Another, anyhow," Gerin answered. "With the chaos that's fallen on the northlands since the last time I was here, though, I wondered if your god was up to the job of protecting the treasures here from everyone who'd like to get his hands on them."

"This is Biton's precinct on earth," Kinifor said in shocked tones. "If he is not potent here, where will his strength be made manifest?"

Perhaps nowhere, Gerin thought. When the Elabonians conquered the northlands, they'd taken Biton into their own pantheon, styling him a son of Dyaus. But the Trokmoi brought their own gods with them, and seemed to care little for those already native to the land. If they prevailed, Biton might fail for lack of worshipers.

Van cast an appraising eye on the treasures lavishly displayed in the courtyard before the temple: the statues of gold and ivory, others of marble painted into the semblance of life or of greening bronze, the cauldrons and mixing bowls set on golden tripods, the piled ingots that reflected the sun's rays in buttery brilliance.

The outlander whistled softly. "I wondered if I misremembered from last time I was here, but no: there's a great pile of stuff about for your god to watch over, priest."

"The farseeing one has protected it well thus far." One of Kinifor's hands shaped a gesture of blessing. "Long may he continue to do so."

The white marble temple that housed the entrance to the Sibyl's cave was in a mixed Sithonian-Elabonian style, a gift of Oren the Builder to win the favor of Biton's priesthood—and the god himself—not long after the northlands came under Elabonian sway. The splendid fane, elegantly plain outside and richly decorated within, was surely magnificent enough to have succeeded in its purpose.

Seemingly out of place within all that gleaming stone, polished wood, and precious metal was the cult image of Biton, which stood close by the fissure in the earth that led down to the cavern wherein the Sibyl prophesied. The temple was a monument to Elabonian civilization at its best, to everything Gerin labored to preserve in the northlands. The cult image was . . . something else.

As he had the last time he visited the shrine, the Fox tried to imagine how old the square column of black basalt was. As he had then, he failed. This was no realistic image of the god, carved with loving care by a Sithonian master sculptor or some Elabonian artist who had studied for years in Kortys. The only suggestions of features the column bore were crudely carved eyes and a jutting phallus. Yet somehow, perhaps because of the aura of immeasurable antiquity that clung to it, the cult image carried as much impact as any polished product of the stonecutter's art.

"Seat yourselves, gentles," Kinifor said, waving to the rows of pews in front of the basalt column, "and pray that the lord Biton's sight reaches to the heart of your troubles, whatever they may be."

The eunuch sat beside Gerin, bowed his head, and murmured supplications to his god. The Fox also prayed, though unsure how much attention Biton paid to petitioners' requests. Some gods, like Mavrix, seemed to listen to every whisper addressed to them, even if they did not always grant requests. Others, such as Dyaus the father of all, were more distant. He didn't know where in that range Biton fell, but took no chances, either.

As soon as he finished his prayer, he glanced up at the cult image. Just for a moment, he thought he saw brown eyes staring back at him in place of the almost unrecognizable scratches on the basalt. He shivered a little; he'd had that same odd impression on his last visit to the shrine. Biton's power might not reach far, but it was strong here at its heart.

Puffing a little, a plump eunuch priest climbed up out of the fissure in the earth that led down to the Sibyl's chamber. Behind him came a grizzled Elabonian with a thoughtful expression on his face. With a nod to Gerin, he strode out of the temple and away to reclaim his team and vehicle.

Kinifor said, "Nothing now prevents us from seeking the wisdom Biton imparts through his sacred Sibyl. If you will please to follow me, stepping carefully as you descend—"

On his previous visit, Gerin had had to fight for his life against Trokmoi dissatisfied with what they heard from the oracle. He looked down to see if bloodstains still remained in the cracks between the tesserae of the mosaic floor. He saw none, which pleased him.

Kinifor stepped into the cave mouth. Gerin followed. Darkness, illuminated only by torches not nearly close enough together, swallowed him. The air in the cave felt altogether different from the muggy heat he'd endured in the temple: it was damp but cool, with a constant breeze blowing in his face so that the atmosphere never turned stagnant.

Kinifor's shadow, his own, and Van's swooped and fluttered in the torchlight like demented birds. Flickering shadows picked out bits of rock crystal—or possibly even gems—embedded in the stone of the cave walls. One glint came red as blood. "Was that a ruby we just passed?" Gerin asked.

"It could be so," Kinifor answered. "Biton has guided us to many treasures underground."

"Is it your god or your greed?" Van asked. Kinifor spluttered indignantly. The outlander laughed at the priest's annoyance. Just then they came to a branch of the cave that had been sealed up with stout brickwork. "What about that? Didn't you have to wall it up because your prying roused things that would better have been left asleep?"

"Well, yes," Kinifor admitted reluctantly, "but that was long ago, when we were first learning the ways of this cave. The bricks say as much, if you know how to read them."

Gerin did. Instead of being flat on all sides, the bricks bulged on top, as if they were so many hard-baked loaves of bread. That style had come out of Kizzuwatna in ancient days, not long after men first gathered together in cities and learned to read and write and work bronze. He took a long look at those bricks. They couldn't possibly reach back so far in time . . . could they?