Air and Darkness (39 page)

“Master Pandareus,” Alphena said. “What is the rod that you have there?”

“Ah!” said the teacher, holding the object out in both hands for Alphena to take. “It was a bed marker in the garden. The others were wooden palings with carved tops, but this was iron and I took it when Rupa and her companions appeared.”

He smiled faintly. “I suppose I was thinking of it as a weapon,” he said. “When I got a better look at it, I found it more interesting. It seems to be the head of Janus.”

The rod was the length of her forearm and hand with the fingers extended. Except for the knob on one end, it was about the thickness of her thumb. The single piece of iron was forged rather than being drawn or turned: the marks of the hammer were visible along its full length. The knob was a double face, chiseled into the metal.

“It was stuck in the ground?” Alphena said. She took the rod. “There's some rust, but not as much as I'd expect of iron left out in the weather.”

“I'm not pure iron,” said one of the miniature faces. It turned toward Pandareus. “Any more than those bronze coins in your purse are pure copper, Teacher. The wizard Mamurcus made me from a fragment of the same meteor that he used for the locket you're wearing, Lady Alphena.”

“This?” said Alphena, pulling the amulet out from beneath her tunics. “The man who made this is named Mamurcus?”

“Well, he was,” said Janus. “He's been dead a thousand years, near enough. He made me in Anti-Thule. He took a piece of the meteor back to Italy with him when he fled and forged it into a case for the Godspeaker's ear.”

“The Godspeaker was a Tylon!” Pandareus said in obvious delight. “The ears of the Tyla accompanying Rupa were pointed and furry, so of course someone hearing the description would think of satyrs. Even if Mamurcus himself didn't call them that.”

He sounds as pleased to have figured that out as he would have been to learn that our friends had all returned to us,
Alphena thought. Then she realized that her brother would have been equally thrilled.

“I suppose,” said Janus. “Mamurcus knew they weren't satyrs, anyway. I didn't think any Tyla had survived, because the ice started coming down on Anti-Thule as soon as the Godspeaker died. Maybe the Indian wizard came back for them, but they weren't with him when he ran.”

Janus shook his little iron head. “That Indian was powerful, let me tell you,” he said sadly. “And Mamurcus and me were even better. I was his wand, you see; the Indian had an ivory one. But the Godspeaker was greater yet with the tablet which the Eternals had left under the northern ice, and we all together weren't enough to stop the Blight. After the Godspeaker died, we and the Indian ran. Mamurcus took the ear with him; that was all that was left of the Godspeaker. That locket you've got, that's really powerful if you can handle it.”

“It appears to me that Lady Alphena handled it, so to speak, last night,” Pandareus said. “Otherwise Rupa would not have let us go.”

Janus turned to look at him; the other face was as still as Alphena normally expected a lump of iron to be. “You've got a point there, Teacher,” he said. “You wouldn't think it to look at her, would you?”

“I scarcely know what to think, these past few months,” said Pandareus. “I have learned not to discount Lady Alphena's resources, however.”

Alphena held the amulet firmly in her left hand, though it had seemed to work the same when it was lying between her breasts. She thought in silence, then said, “Janus, do you know how to find Master Corylus?”

I should have said
Mother
or
Varus
! I keep thinking about Corylus!

“Of course,” said Janus. “I'm the god of openings. I can open the way to your Corylus, if that's what you want.”

The little head nodded toward the south. “My gate is there at the end of the Forum and the doors are open. If you'll take me there and step through the doors, we'll get on with it.”

Alphena let out her breath. She was feeling relief for the first time since she had been forced to flee from the Bacchic rout at Polymartium. She had something to do!

“Yes,” Alphena said aloud. “We'll do that now.”

*   *   *

V
ARUS EXPECTED TO DISMOUNT
in front of Govinda's palace from the platform on the elephant's back, a luxurious room with wicker walls. Instead the great beast paced through the arched gateway and into the hall beyond before stopping.

Varus looked up. The ceiling was forty feet high, supported on pillars of colored marble. Light entered through a clerestory of thin alabaster panels cut into filigrees. Their curves, he suddenly realized, matched the swirling patterns of the tapestries on the walls.

“You may get down, please,” said the attendant who had ridden on the platform with Varus and four Tyla, as Govinda called the bipedal creatures. The fellow had been silent except when offering water from a silver flask chilled by wet moss. He wore silk and spoke good Greek, but his eyes had been on Varus throughout the journey.

What did Govinda expect me to do if he'd left me alone?
Varus thought. Then,
What does Govinda
want
me to do?

Attendants had brought a ladder to the elephant's side. There were scores of servants in the hall, easily visible despite the muted light because their white garments shone against the wall hangings. Varus climbed down carefully because his legs were stiff from having been crossed during the journey.

It was only when he was on the carpeted floor that he really appreciated how big the elephant was. When Varus had climbed a less ornate ladder to mount, he had been too caught up in events to pay much attention to the animal. Now he saw that the animal was bigger than even the gigantic beast he had seen in Puteoli. That one had come down the Nile from the forests to the south of the Libyan desert and was ten feet high at the shoulder.

This elephant and the similar one on that Govinda had ridden were probably two feet taller. Their tusks grew from the lower jaw and curved down, not outward.

Wealthy men in Carce would pay enormous amounts for elephants like this, to display to the public and to kill in the arena. It would demonstrate their wealth, much as Cleopatra had dissolved a pearl in wine and drunk it.

Varus smiled faintly. He wished Pandareus or Corylus were here to talk with.
I could make my observation to the attendant, but he wouldn't understand and he wouldn't care if he did.

Mind, Hedia and Alphena wouldn't have cared, either. It would still be good to see them back in Carce.

King Govinda and the four Tyla with him had already dismounted from the leading elephant; their mount was being led through the archway at the far end of the hall. Govinda held not the speculum as before but rather a tablet of greenish soapstone. It was about the size of a man's palm, but the slanting break at one end showed that it was a portion of a longer original.

“Come with me, Westerner,” the king said. “You have seen my Tyla servants, whom I brought from Anti-Thule. I will show you what else I brought from that place and time, lest you doubt my power.”

Varus looked at him and considered.
If he were really so confident of his power, he wouldn't have to brag about it.
Aloud Varus said, “Lead, then.”

Govinda turned and walked into the palace courtyard, flanked by the eight Tyla and probably a hundred of the dismounted horsemen who had accompanied him at Raguram's palace. Varus followed without being prodded, as the guards beside and behind him were certainly willing to do.

Perhaps I should change them into toads,
Varus thought, smiling. He wondered where Bhiku was.

The palace was a quadrangle. The walls were four stories high in the front through which Varus had come and three stories for the two ends. The final side, the back, was a reservoir much larger that the one standing behind Raguram's complex.

Instead of being open, Govinda's tank was surrounded by a high iron fence with spikes on top and pointing inward, like the wall of saplings that soldiers in the field stacked with the sharp-cut trunks facing the enemy. At both ends were masonry platforms thirty feet above the water. Twenty or more bound prisoners—men, women, and children—stood on each platform, hedged in by the drawn sabers of an equal number of guards.

“I sent a messenger ahead to prepare this demonstration,” Govinda said. There was something oily in his voice, like the scum floating on the surface of a swamp. “If you fail to carry out my orders, you will get a closer view yet.”

He waved the hand holding the broken tablet. Trumpets blatted from the tower behind them.

The guards jabbed forward the first two prisoners. The woman on the left side had worked a hand loose. She grabbed at the sword blades and so pitched off the platform slinging blood behind her.

Neither prisoner hit the surface. Great blunt heads lifted in sunlit sprays of water, their mouths open. Either could have swallowed the Egyptian obelisk that Augustus had erected in front of his tomb.

The
clop!
of the mouths shutting was like that of a dray of wine casks rolling into a cliff. The mouths opened again as more prisoners fell, kicking with their legs.

“Are those fish?” said Varus. By concentrating on knowledge, he could avoid the horror of what he was watching. He didn't look away: that would imply that this sadistic monster had power over him.

“Their ancestors were fish,” Govinda said, watching raptly as a woman tried to throw her infant to the side so that it would be clear of the creature's jaws. She wasn't strong enough to grant her child the clean death of smashing onto the masonry. “My power brought them too from Anti-Thule.”

The last of the prisoners flew from the platforms and were devoured. “You see how hopeless you would be if you tried to disobey me!”

We'll see, if and when I do decide to disobey you
, Varus thought. Keeping his voice flat, with only a hint of the disgust he felt, he said, “What is it that you want me to do?”

“I want you to fetch something,” Govinda said. “I was going to send the beggar-magician who serves Raguram, but my ancestor said that you would be more suitable. Come!”

The palace courtyard was remarkably open compared to the cluttered interior of Ramsa Lal's smaller palace. There were two permanent structures, one to either side of the arch through which Varus had come. On the left was an open-sided pergola over which an ancient grapevine twined. The base of the vine was almost two feet in diameter, thicker than Varus had imagined a grapevine could grow.

To the right was an eight-sided kiosk with walls of translucent alabaster like the clerestory of the hall. These were solid sheets, however.

Govinda led Varus to the door of carved wood. Though it was braced with bronze straps, the door panel itself had been sawn as a single plank.

A boy hung by his hair across the room from the doorway. His eyes were closed, and his face was very pale. The faint pulse in his throat showed that he was alive.

The alabaster walls were creamy white from outside, but from this direction Varus saw separate scenes in each of the six panels. Two were familiar to him: the shrine outside the jungle-covered ruin that Bhiku had called Dreaming Hill, and the hills outside Polymartium where Govinda's delegation had planted the vine shoot. A third panel was covered with black, roiling clouds.

Govinda closed the door behind them. Varus turned to the king and said, “The shoot there—”

He pointed.

“Did it come from the vine just outside?”

“Watch your tone when you speak to me, Westerner,” Govinda said.

“I am a citizen of Carce,” Varus said. He didn't raise his voice, but he heard in his words the snap of command that Hedia would have given them. “I will grant you the courtesy that I deem you to have earned. Now, is the huge vine in the courtyard the source of the shoot your servants planted in Polymartium?”

Govinda stared at him. The king held the soapstone tablet in one hand and stroked it with the index finger of the other. After a moment, he said, “Lord Bacchus planted that vine when he conquered India. It is a focus for magic generally and for Lord Bacchus.”

“This is the messenger you sought,” said a rusty voice behind them.

Varus turned. The hanging boy had spoken. His eyes had opened and were focused on Varus.

“Good,” said Govinda. He turned to Varus and said, “Now, Westerner, I will set you your task. When you have accomplished it, you and I will never have to see one another again.”

“Tell me what you want,” Varus said. He didn't bluster and he tried to keep the tension out of his face, but he was well aware that the next moments were likely to be dangerous regardless of what he decided.

*   *   *

H
EDIA WAS DANCING.
They were all dancing, she thought … but she didn't think much or care much. She was tipsy, and she was as happy as she had ever been in her life.

It was a circle dance, the outer round moving sunwise as the inner dancers rotated widdershins. Hedia couldn't remember how often she had linked arms and changed direction as a satyr played the shepherd's pipe in the center of the circle.

Her current partner offered her a wineskin. As she sucked greedily on the wooden teat, he said, “Will you come with me to see the future, Lady Hedia?”

It's Ampelos.
He's
Ampelos.

“Of course I'll come with you, handsome,” Hedia said, allowing the youth to spin her out of the dance with him. The circle shifted, either closing slightly or admitting another pair of revelers.

She didn't know what Ampelos had in mind, but she hoped it was the breakthrough in their relations that she had wanted from the first. It was possible that he had something hostile in mind, but Hedia had honed her judgments of men in a harsh school. Twice she had refused an offer that she would have cheerfully accepted if her instincts hadn't warned her.