The Shadow of Ararat (26 page)

The sorcerers and wizards he had approached, particularly those on the Street of the Magi in the Forum Boarium, had either refused to speak to him outright or had sent him away when he began to explain that the city was infused with some terrible power that could kill men or corrode metal. The last, a Jewish numerologist, had listened patiently to him for over an hour, then spread his hands and said that he had no experience in such matters. But, he continued, there was a man known to him, a Nabatean, who might be able to help.

And so Maxian was here, at this darkened oak door, at nightfall.

The sound of a sliding bolt rasped through the thickness of the door, then another noise, like a pin being drawn out of a metal socket. The door creaked open a crack, and a startling blue eye gleamed out at the Prince.

"Good evening," Maxian said in a very polite voice. "I seek the wise man, Abdmachus, who lives here. I am Maxian Atreus. I seek assistance in a delicate matter."

The eye disappeared and the door opened the rest of the way, revealing a short, thin man with a wisp of white hair showing from underneath a small felt cap. The fellow was dressed in a trailing robe of narrow blue-and-white stripes, bound at his waist with a dark-green sash.

"Come in, young master. I am Abdmachus. Welcome to my house."

The house of the Nabatean was long and narrow in its plan, wedged between two larger buildings. The tiny front room was bare with a tile floor. A second, heavy door led from the atrium into the rest of the house. It had no lock, but Maxian felt a tugging sensation as he passed through it. Beyond that portal there was a sitting room with a small fire in a brazier. Unlike the homes of the poor, the smoke was well behaved, swirling into a corner of the ceiling and vanishing up a partially exposed pipe of fired clay. The floor was thick with heavy rugs, all in muted browns and reds. Two low couches faced each other, making a triangle with the brazier at the head of each.

Abdmachus gestured Maxian to the rightmost couch and settled himself on the other. Maxian chose to sit rather than recline. The olive-skinned foreigner continued to regard him steadily.

Maxian coughed, clearing his throat. "Sir, I am in need of assistance. I understand from a fellow I met yesterday that you may be able to help me. Are you familiar with the, well, the unseen?"

Abdmachus cocked his head to one side, regarding the young man.

"If you mean," said the old man, "am I of the
magi
, then yes, I am experienced with the unseen world. I am confused, however, by your coming to me. You show unmistakable signs of being possessed of power as well, of the ability to see the unseen. I can feel the pattern of defense you have raised around you even now. Why have you come to me?"

Maxian raised an eyebrow; the elderly man was no fool, and well skilled to boot.

"I am not a sorcerer," he said in reply, "I am a priest of Asklepius. I have found something, however, that is far too strong for me to affect with my own powers. I need the advice, perhaps the help, of someone more... experienced."

Abdmachus smiled, showing small white teeth.

"Ah, experience I have," the old man said, "I no longer have the strength of youth such as you possess. But I do know a trick or two that gets me by in my dotage. I am no longer as strong as I once was—but as the Greek said, with a long-enough lever one might move the world! Now, this thing that you have found—it is a dangerous thing, and something that you have come across in your work? But if you are a priest of the healing art and you have not been able to defeat it, it must not be a disease, but something... something that causes disease?"

Maxian spread his hands, his face even grimmer than before. "Master Abdmachus, I beg you to hear me out fully before you make up your mind. I have gone to other wizards before you, and all of them, save Simon the Numerologist, have turned me away or told me that I am insane. There is an affliction upon this city that only I, as best I can tell, can see. A corruption and a bane that brings disease, death, insanity upon the inhabitants. Now that I have perceived it, I see it everywhere—in the broken stones of the street, upon the faces of the people in the markets, all around us. I know this sounds absurd, but it is as if a terrible curse has been laid upon the city of Rome."

The old man, much to Maxian's surprise, laughed softly, his eyes twinkling. Maxian's face clouded with anger; he had expected better of the Nabatean. He stood up.

The old man stopped laughing and held up a wizened hand.

"Wait, wait, my impetuous guest. I am not laughing at your theory. I am laughing at myself, for wasting so much time of my own. I believe you. I think that I know what you speak of. Sit, sit."

Maxian returned to the couch, not sure that he believed the old man.

"What you
see
," the old man said, "is like a tide of dark power, one that pervades the city, all unseen, almost unnoticed unless one knows what to look for. It is subtle and powerful, and it is so prevalent that to one raised here, or a long-term resident, it would seem... natural. Yes?"

Maxian nodded. "Yes, but it is inimical, deadly. Do you know what curse has spawned it?"

Abdmachus laughed again and shook his head slowly.

"It is no curse, young master, it is a blessing, a boon to Rome."

"How can you say this?" Maxian sputtered. "It has caused the deaths of eleven people that I know of! I have seen its ability to destroy, to erode and deform even metal, with my own eyes!"

Abdmachus shook his head again and stood up, going to the opposite wall of the room. There he passed his hand over a section of the brickwork, and it folded silently out to reveal a hidden space. From this space, he took a leather bag of coins. He returned to the couch and carefully removed a single golden coin from the bag.

"Look, young sir. This is a coin I accepted in payment yesterday from a noble of the city, a patrician, an officer of the state. Only now have I touched it, and only long enough to show it to you and to place it here."

The old man placed the coin on the small table that lay between the two couches. The pale gold gleamed in the firelight.

"The last man to touch it was this officer, who came to me seeking a favor. He is still
close
to the coin and it is still
close
to him. It is freshly minted, so almost entirely clean of the impressions of others, only his
shape
is upon it. Do you understand my meaning?"

Maxian nodded. The school in Pergamum had touched upon the theories of contagion and similarity, though more in the light of mending broken limbs and curing fevers than working power upon a hale person.

Abdmachus put the bag of coins behind his couch and leaned over the single coin. He looked closely at Maxian. "Now, I know that maintaining the pattern of defense is draining, so I shall make a new one, one that encompasses both of us. When I am done, please lower your own so that they do not interfere with one another."

Maxian nodded and almost without thought his sight expanded to fill the room. Now he could see the trembling aura around the old man, a stolid, burnished bronze color. The rest of the room was a tracery of fine blue lines of fire. His own shield glittered in the air between him and the Nabatean. The old man too was still and quiet. For a moment nothing happened, and then the blue fire began to wick up into the air. The brazier sputtered and went out, though Maxian could still see clearly in the darkness. The walls, floor and ceiling gave up their energy to a coalescing sphere that spun out, slowly, from the figure of the old man to pass over Maxian and then halt just beyond him. The blue fires slid, glutinously, to the sphere and at last it was complete.

The Prince relaxed for the first time in days, and his own shield flared and went out. He slumped backward on the couch, the low-level headache that he had been fighting while the shield was up passing away.

"Better, is it not?" the old man whispered, his eyes still closed in concentration. "Now I will show you the blessing of Rome... but be prepared to raise your pattern again at an instant. This will be quite dangerous."

The Nabatean reached out a thin hand and plucked at the air above the gold coin. Bidden by his hand, it rose up to spin slowly in the air between the old man and the prince.

"By the
shape
of the man who held this coin, I can influence him for good or ill. I can harm him, so..."

The old man twisted his hand in the air, and a virulent crimson tendril sparked in the air in front of him. Maxian sat up straighter, his own hand raised in an involuntary ward. The tendril of fire crept through the air and twisted around the coin. The air around the coin flexed, becoming cloudy, and for a moment the image of a stern, patrician face appeared around the coin.

"Easy, easy, young master, I will not actually harm the officer, but look, beyond the pattern of defense..."

Maxian turned his attention outward and his face froze at the sight beyond the pale-blue barrier. Acidic darkness surged against the blue sphere, filled with deep-purple fire and an eye-dizzying eddy of contorting shapes. The power that lay throughout the city, in the stones, in the air, in the war, englobed them and hissed and spit against the blue wall.

"You see the blessing? As I raise evil intent against a steward of the state, against an officer who is a very pillar of the Empire, the blessing moves against me. The pressure upon the pattern is incredible... even here, in a place where I have lived for many years and invested much power, it is almost enough to overcome me. I withdraw the threat."

The crimson tendril faded away and the coin spun gently down to rattle on the tabletop. Abdmachus opened his eyes, breathing heavily. Beyond the flickering blue wall, the darkness surged and spun about, beating against the invisible wall. Then slowly, inch by inch, it receded and flowed back into the walls, into the air, into the earth. Maxian let out a long slow breath when the last vestiges were gone.

The old man also slumped against the back of the divan in exhaustion, but his eyes were still bright. "It has always puzzled me that no Roman mage has written of this effect, or that the Empire has not trumpeted its protection to the four corners of the world. But seeing you here, now, with an equally puzzled expression tells me that no
Roman
has ever come athwart it and lived to tell of it to another."

Maxian pursed his lips and slowly nodded.

"Any who provoked the power," the Prince said, "would be destroyed were they not ready. No one would know..." He looked up sharply at the old man. "Then how did I survive discovering it? How did you survive discovering it?"

Abdmachus ignored the question for a moment, wearily levering himself up from the couch and disappearing behind a curtain at the back of the room. He returned in a few moments with jugs of wine and water and two broad-mouthed cups. He poured the heavy wine and then added a liberal dose of water to each. After he had drained the cup, he spoke.

"When I first came to the city, I was... so to say... not officially welcomed. I sought no license to practice my craft and I did not make myself well known. I took these rooms and set about assiduously minding my own business. I was younger, but still careful, so when first I essayed a commission such as I just demonstrated, I took many extra precautions."

He paused and poured another cup of wine, motioning to Maxian to drink himself. The Prince sniffed the wine and put forth a small fraction of his ability to see if it was safe. It was, and so he drank.

"It is common knowledge among the practitioners of the craft, at least it is outside of Rome, that the Empire is all but inviolate to sorcery and magic of all kinds. The widespread presumption is that the Imperial thaumaturges are so powerful that they detect or repel all attempts to do ill to the state. But my time here in the city has told me otherwise. Your sorcerers are strong, true, but they could not do this.

"Has it never struck you, or any other Roman, that your enemies have not slain your Kings or Emperors by magic? That the priest-kings of Persia or the witch-men of the Germans have not shriven your armies to ruin in the field of battle? These enemies can summon horrific powers and, I assure you, have done so in the past. But their efforts were for nothing. Such an attempt is a sure path to ruin for the practitioner. And this, what we have seen this evening, is why."

Maxian put the empty cup down. By parts he was greatly relieved that he had found someone who not only believed him but had considered the same problem himself. The perspective that he brought, however, was disquieting. He rubbed his face again, trying to urge his mind to motion. Abdmachus saw this and smiled again, though the young man did not see.

"Young master, you are gravely tired. There is nothing that can be done tonight about this. If you would care to, you may sleep here tonight. Here, at least, you can sleep free of troubling dreams and the effects of the power."

Maxian had fallen asleep within moments of his head hitting the thin pillow. The little storeroom behind the sitting room was crowded with bags of herbs and odd-smelling boxes, but the Prince had paid no notice. He was snoring within a minute, the thin blanket pulled tight around him.

Abdmachus stood in the doorway for a little while, his hands warmed by the "copper lantern he held before him. The old Nabatean considered the young man carefully. The Roman was exhausted and emotionally drained.

Why, after all these years, should such an opportunity fall to me?
he wondered. He had come to enjoy living in the barbarian city, even if his dress was mocked by the laborers who frequented the
taverna
on the corner. His brow furrowed in concentration and he raised a single finger, quickly tracing the glyph for
friend
in the air before him.

On the cot, Maxian moaned a little and turned over, hiding his face.

Great cypress trees folded over the top of the lane as they turned off the Via Appia. A suffocating darkness surrounded Maxian, and he shivered though the summer night was still warm. He could smell the richness of the fields on either side of the hedgerows. The lane descended and then turned to the left. The lantern ahead jogged to the right and the horsemen entered a small clearing.