The Shadow of Ararat (60 page)

The Queen stared at the vial with a cold expression, then turned away and paced to the door. "Friendship cannot come of slavery, O Prince. We will not walk that path with you."

There was a flutter of dark robes in the doorway, and Maxian caught a glimpse of the face of the blond one as they departed, looking back in sorrow.

The room was quiet, and Maxian felt the three women depart through the garden door. When they were gone, he breathed a long shuddering breath and leaned back heavily on the table.

"They have departed," he said to the room. "Gaius, go and close the garden door."

Abdmachus sat down on the floor and curled his arms around his knees. "Lord Prince, that was... that was a very close thing."

Maxian looked over at the Persian and one side of his mouth twitched up in a tiny smile.

"We are strong enough," he said. "We could have held them off for a little while. Gaius and Krista would not have been affected by their power."

There was a clicking sound behind him. As Maxian turned, he saw Krista sliding the spring-gun back under the coverlet. She met his gaze with a solemn look, and then suddenly a smile lit her face.

"If you fancied her, Lord Prince," she said, "I would have killed you."

Maxian nodded and turned back to the homunculus, which had sat immobile in the middle of the room throughout the entire affair.

"So," he said to its impassive face, "you are the creature called Khiron..."

Slowly the head of the thing turned up and its yellow eyes met Maxian's.

"I am Khiron," it said in a rusty, dry voice.

"Who is your master, Khiron?" Maxian's voice was patient, as if he were speaking to a small child.

"My master is the Bygar Dracul," it said, though its features seemed puzzled.

Maxian leaned closer, staring into the flat reptilian eyes.

"The Bygar is dead," he said. "I am your master now. I am Maxian Atreus. I have given you life; I can withhold it as well. You serve me."

"I serve Maxian Atreus," it repeated back to him. Suddenly it twitched and stood up. Maxian backed away, folding his arms over his chest. He seemed pleased. The corpse man looked around, apparently aware for the first time. It surveyed the room slowly, pausing when it saw Abdmachus and Krista. Its gaze returned to Maxian. "You are my master."

"What do you remember, Khiron? What was the last thing that you saw?"

The homunculus paused, the muscles under the translucent skin bunching around its jaw. The sight of them sliding under the gelid skin filled Krista with a particular revulsion. This thing was like a skinless snake, abominable to look upon. She stole a glance at the Prince, but he seemed filled with a great good humor to see his power at work, reviving this corpse from the dead. Under the coverlet, her index finger curled around the trigger of the spring-gun. She knew that she could put the six-inch-long steel bolt through the side of his head, perhaps even straight through his ear. He would be dead in an instant. She knew that Gaius would die, a puppet with cut strings, and this Khiron creature as well. Only Abdmachus would be left to deal with. Her eyes slid to the Persian, but the sight of the dead thing walking and talking held him enraptured.

We have left the Western Empire,
she thought.
Perhaps we are far enough away to escape the curse of the city. No, I must be sure that I will live.

"I remember fire." The dead thing's voice was hollow and echoed with pain. "My master was speaking in the garden room with important visitors. I brought a boy for them to see; a precious little boy with hair of red gold. The dark one, he found the boy pleasing, he wished to purchase him... Then there were lights in the sky, and then fire, like the sun rising. Everything was aflame; I leapt into the dumbwaiter to escape. It was cold and dark there. Then the house shook and I was buried. Things fell and I could not move. I could not breathe. Water filled the shaft. It filled my mouth. It was dark."

The head of the creature slumped onto its chest. Its hands twitched with palsy. Maxian tipped its head back so that he might see its eyes. They were half closed.

"Khiron, you have life again. You live. You walk, you talk, and you see and hear. I am your master, I command you to live again." A dark-blue gleam shimmered on Maxian's hand and faded into the side of the homunculus's face. The eyes opened, aware.

"Your old master knew many secrets, Khiron. You must have learned many things in his employ. Tell me these secrets and you will live. Tell me these things and you shall have blood to drink, fresh blood."

The head of the thing rose up, a hungry look upon its face. The yellow eyes were filled with fire at last, no longer dead and pale. "Blood?" it whispered. A hand clutched feebly at Maxian's sleeve. "Blood for me?"

"Yes," Maxian said, his voice soothing, "blood. Hot and still pulsing with the fever of life."

Khiron collapsed to the floor, bowing his head before the prince. "O master, please, give me blood and I will serve you always! Ask of me, and I will tell!"

Maxian looked down, his face lit by a kind smile. He caressed the knobby skull of the thing. "Did you ever hear your master mention something called the Sarcophagus of the Conqueror? An old thing, long thought lost."

Khiron twisted his head around and smiled up at the Prince, his teeth sharp and black. "Yes, master, many times. My old master desired it greatly—it was this thing, this coffin of gold and lead, that brought the dark one to my master's house."

Krista felt Abdmachus tense and looked over at the little man. The Persian was staring at the homunculus with a dreadful look on his face.

"Say on, good servant," Maxian said.

"O master, the Dracul knew many things—he was a strong wizard—but he yearned for great power like a Roman for gold. He collected secrets and sold them for things that would make him stronger. The dark one came desiring a boon, and the master, O he would give it. The dark one had the secret the master wanted. The dark one had seen the coffin of gold and lead. They had come to arrange the exchange when the fire came."

Maxian held the homunculus's head between his hands. His voice was soft. "Where is the Sarcophagus, Khiron? What did your master learn?"

"O master, they sent me from the room! I only heard a snatch, only the tiniest bit of the speaking! Please, may I have the blood?" The voice of the creature was abject, begging. Maxian shook his head slowly.

"You must tell me," the Prince said, "then you may have blood, if I will it."

Khiron laid his head low and wept in anguish, tears of dust trickling down his cheeks. "Please, master, only a tiny sip, only a finger's worth!"

"What did you hear as you were leaving the room, Khiron?" Maxian's voice was harder now.

"I heard them only mention a place, master, some terrible place where no one could go and live. A city in the uttermost East. The dark one spoke of it, he named it Dastagird."

Abdmachus hissed in quiet surprise. To Krista's eye he seemed more fearful than ever.

"Good, good, Khiron," the Prince said. He drew the homunculus upright. "You shall have blood. Abdmachus, fetch more of the pig's blood from the kitchen."

Abdmachus did not move, staring instead at the corpse man with a dreadful expression on his face.

"Abdmachus?" Maxian stepped toward the Persian, concerned.

"What..." Abdmachus' voice quavered, "what name did this 'dark one' bear?"

Khiron turned, slightly crouched behind the Prince. He smiled to see the fear in the living man. "My old master named him, fellow servant. He named him Dahak."

Abdmachus turned utterly white and his legs quavered and gave way. Maxian was at his side in an instant, holding him up. The Persian clutched at his arm with clawlike fingers.

"What is it?" Maxian was anxious, for the old Easterner was in poor color. "What is this Dahak? Krista, is there any infusion left?"

Maxian lay the old man back gently on the floor and put a pillow of rolled cloth under his head. Krista brought the last of the hot infusion over from the table and knelt, brushing her gown behind her, to pour a cup. The Prince tipped the thin porcelain cup to Abdmachus' lips. The old man drank gratefully. His veins stood out on his forehead and his skin was chalky.

"O master," he whispered, "that is a terrible name. The name of an old demon, steeped in centuries of evil. In the books of the dead, he stands high in the councils of the lord of all darkness, Ahriman. A man who would take such a name for his own must be a powerful sorcerer. I had begun to fear that something very strong had been in the house across the street. Echoes of it are in the broken tile and bricks of the center of the house, like a foulness had taken root there."

Maxian looked down on the little sorcerer, his face tender. His fingers pressed the side of the Persian's neck, feeling his pulse race intermittently. "Fear not, my friend, you will not die. You need rest, though, and sleep. You have been working far too hard. I will complete what you have begun. Tell me this—where is this Dastagird? Is it far away? How long would it take to reach this place?"

Abdmachus sighed, his voice faint with pain and exhaustion. "Dastagird is the stronghold of the
magi
. It lies along the banks of the great river Tigris, barely twenty miles north of the Persian capital of Ctesiphon. It is a closed city, entered only by the
mobehedan
and their servants. Once, when I was very young, I was taken there to be initiated into the order, but all I remember are towering buildings of black basalt and green soapstone."

"Ctesiphon..." Maxian stood up and motioned for Gaius Julius and Krista to bring blankets and quilts for the old man. "Still very far away. We must make haste." He scowled. "Curse this war of my brothers! If there were peace upon the land, we could travel swiftly." He began muttering to himself.

"Left!" shouted Eric, ducking away from a spinning disk of blue fire.

The disk caromed off the rocks on the hillside and crashed into a scrubby tree. The juniper burst into flame, throwing long flickering shadows across the twilight-shrouded hill. Dwyrin, following the other boy's lead, weaved uphill between the boulders. His right hand tugged at the air and the juniper roared higher, burning to a white ash in moments. Fire, curling into spheres, darted away from the skeleton of the tree and hurtled downhill at the half-seen figures of the other cohort.

White light vomited up, briefly outlining a sphere of glittering green. Dwyrin felt a shock through the working he had sent out and stumbled against the crumbly stones. Eric halted, his young face drawn in concentration. The Hibernian clutched at the sharp-edged rocks, feeling blood ooze from his fingertips. With the pain came focus, and he could suddenly see the jagged byplay of powers that rippled and strobed in the air over the hill. Downslope, three separate groups of lights moved, darting from stone to stone. As one group moved, another laced the air above them with invisible lightning. Jagged white tendrils leapt from rock to rock, covering the advance.

Eric staggered, his shield taking the side blast of one burst. Dwyrin gulped, remembering that he was supposed to be covering too. Furiously he tried to calm his mind and add his own intent and will to the ragged, incomplete shield that the Northerner was sketching between them and the onrushing attackers. It seemed agonizingly slow work, not like drawing power from the flame of the tree. Bit by bit the Shield of Athena wavered into being between him and the men scrambling through the field of volcanic debris.

Another flare of light lit the sky, and a twisted flute of spongy black rock blew apart not fifteen feet from them. A cloud of fragments scythed out, smashing the delicate web of the shield Eric had thrown up. Dwyrin gasped in pain, feeling a sliver of rock slash across his cheek. He leapt forward in front of Eric, arm thrown up, and the hail of stones suddenly crashed to a halt against a shimmering wall of fire. Bits of broken rock rained down, smoking and bubbling, to clatter on the ground.

"Up! Up!" He dragged at Eric's arm, throwing it over his shoulder. The other boy was bleeding from cuts on his face and arms. Dwyrin jogged forward with the Northerner stumbling behind. The air hummed with power. More tiny stones pattered down out of the darkening sky. They had been about these exercises, as Blanco was fond of terming them, since the sun had risen over the grimy, fly-infested plain. North of the camp, a long low row of hills rose up. They were only barely covered with scrub and cactus and spindly trees. The stones and rocks were crumbly and porous. Some you could crush into dust with your bare hand. Others cut like flint, showing deep-green colors in their serrated surfaces. They were an evil place.

The tribune, then, was fond of sending his troopers out to exercise their powers among them. Today, starting with the dawn, Zoë's four had been sent out as prey for the journeymen in the other cohorts. It had been a long drawn-out affair. The four youngsters had flitted among the dry washes and narrow, boulder-choked canyons for hours. At Zoë's order, they had damped their powers down to a mute whisper. Zoë and Odenathus were at home among the spiny plants and sandy drainages, flitting invisibly from draw to draw. Eric had suffered in the heat, and Dwyrin had not done so well himself. The air itself drained them, hot and dry. Still, thanks to Zoë, they had eluded capture for a long time.

Now they had run out of places to run. The night air trembled with a dull rumbling.

Dwyrin pushed Eric ahead of him, feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand up. They staggered down a gravelly slope, their feet slipping and sliding. Pale ghost images followed the movement of their pumping arms and legs. Dwyrin's ears hurt. The sky lit with blue-green fire.

"Let's take a walk."

Dwyrin rolled over on his bunk, his stomach seething with a horrible burning feeling. Zoë stood over him, her dark hair falling over her shoulder in an open-weave pattern. He squinted at the coarse canvas wall of the tent, feeling bile at the back of his throat. The leader of their four had a grim look on her face, enhanced by the bandage tied with twine to the side of her temple. Groaning inwardly, the Hibernian tried to roll back over, his forearm thrown across his face.