The Shadow of Ararat (11 page)

Then there was a popping sensation and the pressure was gone.

"Slaves?" he croaked, barely able to speak. "The Senate will have a fit to hear of it..."

Galen smiled, his teeth glinting in the moonlight. "The prospect of Persian gold and estates and military commands pleases them more than the induction of slaves and non-citizens does. The beauty of Aurelian's plan is that the levy is not voluntary. Each province and city must provide its share, and since the levy is not upon the citizens, they will support it wholeheartedly. Sixty thousand fresh legionnaires in the West will make a great difference, both now and in the future, when they are done with their service."

Maxian shook his head. "I don't understand. What will happen when they are done with their service?"

"Why, then they will become citizens and will receive their grants in land and coin. Those half-empty cities will be filled again, my brother, with a new generation of Romans. Ones who will be loyal to me and to our house."

Maxian snorted in amusement. "The Legions are already loyal and have been from the time of Augustus. The legions in the west are loyal to you, the Emperor, today. You do not have to replace them." He paused, looking at his brothers in the dim moonlight.

"I do not think," he continued, "that this plan of yours and the Eastern Emperor's, is a good one. There is more to your effort than meets the eye. The relief of Constantinople would end this fighting in the East. The Persians would go home. Peace would return. If you are so worried about Egypt, you would send your armies directly there."

Galen raised a hand, shaking his head. "Your objection, brother, is noted. But our plan will proceed. There are great things at stake here, much greater than the simple issue of barbarians or Egypt. I have made up my mind. I will go to the East, to aid Heraclius and to destroy Persia."

Maxian shrugged, seeing only more death to come of it. "Well, then. That is that, I suppose."

The smile of Ra glittered back from the slow current of the river. The prow of the little ship cut through long troughs of deep-green water, spray falling back in languid waves from the pitted wood and tarred rope dangling from the front of the boat. Dwyrin's legs kicked idly inches from the swirling brown and green surface. The heat of the god was a heavy blanket upon him. His eyes were closed but the meditation of the masters had overtaken him and he saw the land sliding slowly past as a flickering vista of deep russet color and strong deep-blue currents under the earth. One hand rested lightly on a trailing guy-line, feeling the sinuous flex of the boat moving through the water flow back into his fingers. The footsteps of the crew on the deck trickled over his hand like rain spilling from the rope, itself a musty deep green.

Three days now the dhow had followed the father of rivers north, winding past the sunken tombs and the deserted, dead cities of the Old Kingdom. League after league of desert paced them, spilling down to the edge of the river, washing around the towns on the eastern bank and the narrow strips of cultivation that supported them.

Two weeks had flown past since the early-morning dream of the crane-headed man, weeks spent in close seclusion with Nephet. The little old man had shown him marvels and delights, ripping back the veils of ritual and ceremony around the path of the sorcerer. Dwyrin had been afraid at first, realizing that he was being inducted into mysteries that were denied to even the journeymen of the school. Secrets of fire, wind, and the slow hard energy of the earth were revealed. There was a constant hissing current of power that ran in the back of his mind now, occasionally leaking into his consciousness like the calling of many invisible birds. During the day he struggled to keep his vision clear of the shimmering coils of power that slithered and shifted within the captain and the sailors. The deck and rigging of the dhow had an unfortunate tendency to melt away, leaving him staring down into the surging blue-green deeps of the river at the flickering bright flashes of the fish within it.

After six days of travel the river began to swell, spreading out. The high hills that had bounded it from the narrows at Tel-Ahshar now fell back to the horizon. The fields grew, reaching back from the river. More boats began to appear, filling the waterway. Sleek long galleys passed them in either direction, the heaving backs of the rowers glittering with sweat under the eye of Ra. Towns grew more frequent and great ruins began to crowd the western bank. Barely a league passed without the stark white bones of palaces, temples or tombs rising above the olive trees and palms.

On the ninth day the dhow pulled ashore for the night just beyond a thriving village on the eastern shore. The captain and the crew tied the boat to a piling of stone jutting from the bank, and all the crew save one went off, laughing, toward the lights of the town. Dwyrin stood on the high raised deck at the back of the dhow, staring after them, seeing them shimmer and waver between the cool purple-blue of the sleeping trees. He blinked and the vision settled back, flickering, to the dimness of the starlight and the thick cane breaks that lined the shore. The sole crewman left behind settled onto a mat near the steering shaft at the end of the deck. Soon he nodded off.

For a long time Dwyrin sat in the darkness, feeling the river and the land breathe around him, his mind and eyes filled with the whispering of the wind, of the rocks and trees that lined the shore, the slow glittering passage of crocodiles in the deep water. As Neket, the guardian of night rose in the west, Dwyrin slid entirely out of conscious thought. The thin walls that he had raised up to constrain his vision fell away entirely, leaving his
ka
floating in air above his now-recumbent body.

The land was filled with dim radiance, the trees, palms, and brushy undergrowth damped down by the flight of Ra into the underworld. In the fields beyond the boat, sullen red flames marked the cattle asleep under the swaying trees. Dwyrin spun slowly up into the air, seeing the land in slumber, even the deep currents of the earth muted. The river itself rolled on into the north, filled with green radiance and slow pulses of blue-violet. He turned to the western shore.

There he recoiled, his
ka
shying back from a cold white radiance. Beyond the line of palms and tall sawgrass on the farther shore a rising mount, crushed in on one side, flickered and burned with a pearlescent light. Around and about the hill a great city lay, outlined in silver and white. Dwyrin garbed himself in the aegis of Athena, his mind tumbling over the weaving spell. Those parts of himself that had begun to fray and slide away in that harsh glare returned. He drifted forward over the river.

At the western shore he paused, the aegis beginning to buckle under the constant pressure of the light. Dwyrin settled within and drew down on the surging current of the river, filling himself with the slow solid power of Hapi, the father. The aegis expanded, blunting the light. In his heart Dwyrin smiled and flexed, surging across the elemental barrier at the edge of the river. He stepped over, halting in shock as his sandaled foot crunched on gravel. He looked down, his hands raised to his face in amazement. Strong and broad, they rose before him. A kilt of pleated white linen was bound around his waist, his feet in fine leather sandals. The heavy weight of a short stabbing sword hung at his waist. He shook his head, feeling long braids fall behind him. He reached back and fingered his hair. It was bound back by a fillet of metal.

Softly he padded forward through the trees and came to a broad avenue. Startled, he looked back to the river, seeing a broad piling bounded with obelisks running out into the water. He swung back the other way, spying a long curving road rising up toward the slumped mountain. Sphinxes and lions paced the sides of the road, and his feet were swift upon it. He came to a great arch, carved with the faces of kings and gods. He paused under it, his hand pale against the dark golden stone. Beyond the arch, great temples rose up on either side. Between them ran a narrow street of flagstones. Beyond the temples and their vast array of pillars, the slumped mountain now rose up with great clarity. Dwyrin could now see that it was stepped, and rose in tier after tier of hewn granite and sandstone to the summit, where a full third had been caved in, as by some massive stroke.

Dwyrin stepped through the arch and was brought up short. He reeled back, his body stunned by a stinging blow. A figure now stood beyond the gate.

"This is not for you," grated a voice like a millstone. "Go back to the land of the living."

Dwyrin, blinded by the glare seeping from the mountain, shook his head and stepped forward again. The figure raised a huge hand, its fingers curled. The shape of it was indistinct, fuzzed at the edges, but Dwyrin, blinking, made out the head of a wolf and deep burning red eyes. The hand rose, fingers outstretched. There was a slow burring sound and Dwyrin felt himself come apart, limbs dissolving. There was a sharp popping sound.

Dwyrin awoke on the deck of the dhow, the clamor of the sailors harsh in his ears. They had returned from the village, heads thick with wine and fermented corn ale. He rolled aside as their guttering blue flames sprawled around the pale-yellow flow of the decking. Dwyrin shuddered, closing his eyes against the sight. It did no good. No, if anything, his othersight was clearer and stronger. A yellow-blue flame approached him and low musical tones belled from it, hanging in the air like falling rain. Dwyrin groaned and rolled over, his distress spilling to the slow yellow deck in dull purple streams. The yellow-blue flame turned away. Dwyrin lay in the spreading pool of purple.

Delicate voices greeted Thyatis as she descended the stairs from the upper chambers of Anastasia's mansion. Below, in the atrium, a choir of young slaves was singing to welcome the visitors to the party. The hall of Poseidon was thronged with people, their voices and "the tinkle of glass and plates rising up like a cloud above them. Thankfully, none of the notables of the city—the bankers, the senators, the Legion officers, their wives, concubines, mistresses, or catamites—paid her the least attention. Anastasia's handmaidens had labored over her for much of the afternoon. Her hair was a sweeping red-gold cloud around her face, tied back near the end with a deep-violet silk tie that trailed down her back. Careful pigments had been applied, bringing forth her lips, her eyes, and the line of her cheekbones.

She wore a new gown, this one modeled upon the silk masterpiece Anastasia had worn that first day. The finest linen, with a gauze drape of silk above it, in a deep green with subtle gold and blue hues. Tiny gold slippers were carefully tied to her feet, with delicate copper wires ornamenting and outlining the curve of her calves. A lapis and dark-gold necklace lay between her breasts. By dexterous sleight of hand, she had secreted her throwing knife and a garrote upon her person without the notice of the slaves who had dressed her. Their solid presence lent her the calmness of mind to navigate the crowd, which spilled down the steps beyond the sea-green hall, through the inner garden, and out into the great garden at the back of the house. Weaving through the chattering throng, she deftly avoided the servants rushing in and out of the kitchen, bearing great platters of candied figs, iced sherbets, sliced up portions of roast on silver skewers, and sugar-coated wrens in aspic.

The trees of the great garden were ablaze with hanging lanterns, and torches were placed along the walkways. Here the younger set of the party had gathered in a brightly attired throng around the ornamental pools. Wine flowed freely from the amphorae carried by the house slaves. Two young men dressed as gladiators, patrician by the cut of their hair and the softness of their hands, brushed past Thyatis on either side. One wayward hand caressed her right breast. Her hand was lightning quick, trapping his thumb as it trailed away. There was a twist and a pop, and the noble youth stumbled into his friend, speechless in pain. Thyatis glided on, ignoring whispered suggestions from the young men and women loitering in the shadows under the pear trees. Beyond the ornamental pool lay a secluded glen in the garden, surrounded by high hedges and trellises of rose and hyacinth. Settled within the glen, Anastasia's gardeners had labored for years to build a Pythagorean maze.

Beyond sight of the house and its merry windows, filled with people and lights, Thyatis relaxed. In the gloom under the waxing moonlight she stepped carefully through the passages in the maze. Around her, softly, came cries and groans. More than once she stepped over half-sheltered couples on the walkway. At last she found the center of the geometry, and there, next to a tiny marble pool surmounted by a bronze faun, were two facing benches. In her time in the house of her mistress, Thyatis had come here often to escape the subtle tensions among the household as well as the training that Anastasia had placed her under.

Finding the bench by feel in the darkness, Thyatis sat, sighing in relief. The sandals were very pretty, but her feet were not used to their tight confinement. She unwound the golden cords from her feet and carefully set them aside. She gently rubbed her feet, hissing in pain at the unexpected blisters. In the quiet darkness, her thoughts fluttered about her head like night moths.

Perhaps I should just leave the city and go far away, somewhere without all this...

"I think the same thing, often. Almost every day." The voice was low and deep.

Thyatis froze, then slowly turned. All but invisible in the darkness, a figure sat at the other end of the bench. The hairs on the nape of her neck prickled up and her nostrils flared. She accounted herself uncommonly aware, yet this man had been sitting no more than three feet from her since she had reached the center of the maze and she had not noticed him at all.

"My apologies," she said, "I did not think that I had spoken aloud."

"No matter," he replied, his deep voice easy and tinged with weariness. "If my presence ruins the solitude, I will betake myself away." He moved on the bench, swinging one leg over. Gravel crunched under a boot.