The Legions of Fire (31 page)

“But what did Corylus do?” Alphena asked, no longer in a tone of hectoring rage. She blinked instinctively at the bright reflection of the disk's smooth side, then slitted her eyes so that the woman wouldn't make her blink again.

“What he might have done …,” said Persica, “is to stand on the ancient stones, and when the rhythm of the light—” She broke off, then snapped, “Stand on the curb, child. You won't learn unless you stand on—yes, that's right.”

Alphena wore cleated military sandals. They scrunched on the stone, but she didn't slip as she turned to stare at Persica; her balance was perfect. She wished now that she'd taken the shield off before she left the gymnasium, though.

“Does the spring lead somewhere?” she said. “Did Corylus go through it?”

“No, nothing like that,” said the other woman. She spun the oscillum just a hair faster now. “Stand where you are until the rhythm is—”

The world blurred. Alphena felt herself falling
somewhere
. She tried to throw herself forward, but she was standing on emptiness.

“You're done with your Corylus now, child!” Persica shrieked in triumph.

The last thing she saw before the blur became darkness was Hedia entering the garden. Alphena felt a surge of joy in her despair.
She'll take care of that bitch Persica!

W
HEN
V
ARUS HAD FIRST READ
The Gallic Wars
, he'd envied Caesar so much that he'd ached. It wasn't that loot had made Caesar rich, nor that he'd used his victories to become in all but name the sole ruler of Carce. What Varus had longed for was the personal experience of great events. No historian since Thucydides had been so lucky. If only Gaius Varus could have been at Caesar's side while the great man conquered Gaul!

Though in truth, Varus knew that he wouldn't have been able to write as clearly and effectively as Caesar had. But oh! for the chance.

He had the chance now. Varus knew something was happening, even before the light in which the chickens and Herennianus plunged took on a yellow-green cast.

He sprinted faster, feeling the notebook and loose stylus jounce wildly against his chest. He hoped he wouldn't lose them, but there hadn't been time to pack them safely in a satchel.

Varus grinned despite himself. He wasn't used to carrying a satchel either: one of his servants would normally do that. He wondered if any of those servants would have been willing to follow him into this hazy light. More likely, they'd have grabbed the young master and dragged him back if they'd realized what he was about—and Saxa would have rewarded them for their good judgment.

I wish Corylus were here,
he thought. But this was a chance for Gaius Varus to report on a unique and marvelous event. He wasn't going to pass it up just because he had to do it alone.

Well, almost alone. The fat chickenkeeper had halted thirty feet ahead and was looking around in horror. He bleated, “Where are you? Isis help me, birds, come back! You're ruining me!”

Varus finally took stock of his surroundings. He couldn't see the chickens, but that had become minor. He couldn't see the temple, the crowd, or anything else that had been on the top of the Capitoline.

On the stony ground about him, brush and occasional birches grew at the bottom of a steep-sided crater. Varus thought he glimpsed the mouth of a tunnel with an arched roof a hundred feet away in the wall of black rock, though the slender white trunks obscured it. Perhaps something fluttered there. Herennianus started toward the tunnel, calling, “Birds? Come, birds, I'll feed you! Birds!”

Varus turned, instinctively looking backward to see if he'd somehow
missed the Temple of Jupiter frowning down on him from the edge of the cliff. Instead he found Pandareus coming toward him, breathing hard.

“Master!” Varus said. He felt enormously relieved at his teacher's presence. It probably didn't make any practical difference, but he was no longer alone. “Do you understand what's happened, sir? Why the light has this yellow color?”

“I didn't know that it was yellow,” Pandareus said, stopping beside Varus. He didn't wheeze, but that was through an obvious effort of will. “I do see that the trees have changed, and”—he smiled and looked over one shoulder, then the other—“so has everything else. Except for you and the knight Herennianus. Do you have any additional knowledge yourself, Varus?”

“I just followed the chickenkeeper,” Varus said. He tried to reach down the front of his tunic to retrieve the notebook, then pulled his sash out and let book and stylus both fall to the ground. He picked them up. “I, ah, wanted to be able to record the event. As though I'd been at Caesar's side.”

“I see,” said Pandareus. “I might point out that while Caesar doesn't dwell on the matter, quite a number of those at his side must have been killed because of where they were standing. Though here I am with you, so I can't object to your logic.”

“Come, chickens!” Herennianus called. He wasn't trying to run anymore. Though he continued toward the tunnel, he kept turning his head in hope of seeing his birds.

A chicken squawked. “Oh, bless you, Isis!” Herennianus cried, stumbling forward again. The chickenkeeper was a hundred feet ahead of Pandareus and Varus and by now very close to the mouth.

Varus started to follow. Pandareus touched his arm and said, “Let's wait here. We have an adequate view of Caesar, I would say.”

Varus frowned slightly, but by reflex he deferred to his teacher. Besides, Pandareus had made his point before the fact when he mentioned how dangerous it must have been to be close to Caesar in a battle.

A chicken rushed out of the tunnel with raucous determination. The bird's flapping wings no longer had enough strength to lift it, but it was certainly running as fast as it could.

“Blessed Queen Isis, I'll sacrifice a bull to you!” said the chickenkeeper as he tried to grab the bird. His religion appeared to be Egyptian, like his accent.

Varus frowned more deeply. The worship of Isis and Sarapis was legal for
a citizen of Carce, but calling on a foreign god was in poor taste for a senior functionary of Jupiter.

The hen dodged to the right. Herennianus stumbled as he tried to follow it. A forked tongue as thick as a man's thigh licked out of the tunnel and licked back with the bird. White feathers floated behind it, drifting toward the ground.

Herennianus screamed. He stumbled again as he tried to get to his feet, then began scrambling away on all fours like a child playing a game.

“Come, sir!” Varus said, tossing the notebook down. If he'd been alone, he might not have known what to do. Now his first thought was to save his teacher. The slope behind them was climbable for at least some distance upward.

The snout of something lizardlike thrust out of the tunnel and kept coming. The head alone was at least six feet long. The skin was wrinkled and had a pebbled gray surface. Fangs from the upper and lower jaws of the lipless mouth crossed one another.

Pandareus jogged, but he must have spent himself in following Varus to this place. He dodged around a low bush that Varus would have jumped over and Corylus might have dashed through. His foot turned on a slick rock; he would have fallen if Varus hadn't caught his arm and kept him upright.

Varus glanced over his shoulder. Herennianus had gotten to his feet and was running. His eyes were open, but fear had blinded him.

The creature watched Herennianus from the tunnel mouth, its head cocked slightly to the left. When he was twenty feet away and starting to find his stride, it lunged forward like a snake striking. Its splayed forelegs were short for the length of the body, but they still raised the creature's chest six feet above the ground. It was a lizard, but a lizard that could prey on elephants.

The jaws clopped shut on the chickenkeeper's hips. Herennianus screamed like a mother in despair.

“Come
along,
master!” Varus said. He wished he could pick the old man up and run with him. Corylus could have done that.

The lizard tossed Herennianus in the air like a spinning doll. As he fell, he shrieked, “Isis help me!”

The upturned jaws closed again, this time with the victim's head and torso within them. The lizard's throat sac bulged and squeezed. The creature cocked an eye toward the two men.

Pandareus had reached the crater wall and started up, grasping the stems of brush that had sprouted from the cracked black lava. The slope grew steeper near the top, but even here at the base it was a stiff climb for an old man.

Varus wasn't an athlete, but he threw the ball well and hard. He picked up a fist-sized rock and hurled it. His missile hit the brow ridge protruding over the lizard's left eye and bounced away.

The lizard's head didn't move, though its tongue licked out. A glittering inner lid slid sideways across the visible eye, then withdrew as the creature's throat continued to work.

Varus considered the choices—and giggled, a sound that his intellect found distressing. Under the circumstances neither fighting nor fleeing was a very practical option. Still, if the lizard stayed where it was for long enough, he and Pandareus might be able to get to safety. Perhaps there was a crack in the rock too narrow for the creature to follow them into.

Varus climbed.
Since it had to happen, it's a good thing that Herennianus was so fat. He'll take a while to digest, even for a monster as big as this
.

Pandareus had reached a ledge some seventy feet up the lava wall and turned. He hunched to aid his breathing as he watched Varus climbing toward him.

“Lord Varus,” Pandareus rasped through harsh sobs, “you must go on without me. I am bony, I'll admit, but between me and the late knight of Carce, we may sate the creature until you've reached the crater rim.”

Varus climbed onto the ledge. Slabs had cracked off the walls at various spots within eyesight, leaving black patches against the deep gray of rock that had weathered longer. It would be harder and maybe impossible for them to climb higher; perhaps that was why Pandareus had stopped.

“I don't think so,” Varus said, trying to catch his own breath. “And anyway, I'm not going to leave you.”

The lizard started forward again, finally bringing its full length out of the tunnel. Its even more powerful hind legs were the same sprawling length as the forelegs; its back swayed slightly and the great belly almost rubbed the ground. With the long, stiff tail the creature was the length of a five-banked warship, over 150 feet.

“Come, Master Varus,” Pandareus said tartly. “A student must leave his teacher someday if he's to amount to anything. Present circumstances are merely a special instance of a general truth.”

“If you want to climb further, I'll brace you,” said Varus. “And then you can give me a hand up.”

The lizard came toward them in the sinuous curves of a fish swimming. It cocked its head up; its eyes glittered beneath the prominent brow ridges as one, then the other, considered its next victims. Brush cracked to its passage, and the rock trembled when each clawed foot came down.

“I think not,” said Pandareus. He cleared his throat. “There are philosophers who would claim it's a blessing if you never know the pains and weakness of old age, Lord Varus, though I suspect they would be trying just as hard as I am to extend that old age for themselves. I regret if my presence costs you your life.”

He turned to the wall behind them. “However,” he said, “I noticed before you reached me that the rock”—he patted it—“appears to have cracked, like the slab that slipped downhill to create this ledge. If you'd been willing to continue climbing, I'd have tried to work it loose. I doubt I would have succeeded alone, but since I'm
not
alone—”

“Yes!” said Varus. The lava had flowed out and cooled in layers over months or centuries.

He touched the vertical crack behind him, then bent down and found a pebble to work into it. “Sir?” he said. “If you'll do the same, then if it goes wrong we at least won't crush our fingers.”

“It's commendable that you're thinking of the future after our escape,” said Pandareus drily. He blocked his side of the crack, though.

The lizard started upward, its claws scrabbling like battering rams against the side of the crater. Bits broke off and clattered down.

The fractured slab behind their ledge was about three feet wide and the height of the layer of rock—a little taller than Varus or the teacher. He couldn't tell exactly how thick it was, but it was so massive that it barely wriggled when he strained with the fingertips of both hands.

“Sir?” he said. “If you can pull from your side too, then maybe …”

“Wait,” Pandareus said sharply. He'd removed the sash of his tunic and held one end out to Varus. “Help me work this over the top, just far enough to catch. That will give us the most leverage to tip it forward. Ideally without following it ourselves, but I don't think we'll survive long anyway if we don't drop the stone on that creature.”