The Dragon Waiting

by John M. Ford

  A few miles up the road, when he knew unaided eyes could not spot them from the house, Dimi signaled a halt.

  "We'll have to ride hard for Seigny," Alain said.

  "We're not going any further." Dimi swung out of the saddle and led Luna from the road, talking softly to the white mare. He found some grass for her, then sat down on a rock. He could see the top of Mont-Alise, golden-bright against the eastern sky. The others watched him, then followed him.

  "Captain..." said Leon, who almost never spoke.

  "When Mithras slew the bull," Dimi said slowly, "he cut its throat, so its blood would give life to all the Earth. But Ahri- man... the Enemy... sent his servant the snake, to drink the bull's blood up." Dimi looked around. Surely the Mysteries would not be damaged by this. He told them for the sake of Mithras, after all. And for his father's soul. "The Raven saw the snake, though, and pecked at it. And the Dog, who is friend to men, bit the snake. And Mithras crushed it with his heel. Still the snake swallowed a mouthful of the bull's blood, and crawled away alive... but its wounds came from a god and the friends of a god, and ever after it must drink blood to stay alive."

  Dimi said "My father would have cursed us all—" and he stopped, because his voice was trembling.

  Charles said "Then I suppose it is a good thing that there is no vampire in Seigny."

  They all stared at him. Then Dimi smiled. So did the others. They understand, Dimi thought. That was enough.

  "How long shall we wait?" Jean-Luc asked.

  Dimi looked to the east. "Till sunset, I think..." Then, sharply, "No. Mount up now."

  Atop Vercingetorix's redoubt, the heliostat was flashing, the whirling mirror sending to the channels of the Empire that one of its strategoi was dead.

  The artificial cavern glowed with firelight, echoed with the voice of the Solar Courier, initiate just below the Father: "O Lord! I have been born again and pass away in exaltation. In exaltation I die. Birth that produces life brings me into being and frees me for death. I go my way as you have ordered...."

  The casket hung in a net of wires, suspended above the dais at the end of the Mithraeum. Inside his robe and black Raven hood, Dimitrios smelled naphtha and his own sweat.

  The Courier of the Suri read the Invocation of Julian the Wise, Emperor of Byzantium: "... a fiery chariot shall bear you to Olympus, tossing in a whirlwind; you shall be free from the curse and weariness of your mortal limbs. You shall reach your father's courts of ethereal light, from which you wandered to enter a human body."

  Fire blossomed up from the floor, mixed with wind that made the flames dance and roar, like lions devouring the casket and the dead Lion within it.

  Dimi gave silent thanks for the cowl that hid his eyes.

  The Empire was far too organized to be severely disturbed by the death of any one man. Caractacus, the commander of horse, became general military commander; Lucian took over the Governor's administrative tasks. The treasurers and clerks mourned for three days and went back to work. A new strategos would be dispatched by the City as soon as possible. And that was all, on the Imperial level.

  On a lower level, Dimitrios saw less of his family and more of his friends. His mother went daily to the temple of Cybele; she insisted on preparing her own meals, and sprinkled every dish with the gritty alicorn, more precious than gold dust. Uncle Philip smiled darkly when he saw Dimi, and was silent and secretive—easier to live with than his wildness had been, but not reassuring.

  And in December, Charles and Robert would become Ravens. There was no longer any reason against it.

  In October the new palace was finished enough for occupancy. Lucian had arranged for the Ducases and their personal servants to stay in the old house as long as they desired; there seemed to be an administrative delay in reoccupying their Greek estates.

  Of course, many of the old palace's furnishings were already destined for the new building, but the family did not need more than a few of the rooms. The tapestries, including the Partition of Gaul, were rolled and removed; plain cloths kept out draft and chill in the rooms still in use. Lucian needed direct access to much of the library, and rather than disturb the Ducases at all hours the books were taken up the hill. Thanks to an architectural quirk, the one privy it was found convenient to keep in use was also the least pleasant one.

  On the last night in November, Dimitrios had gone from his room to the kitchen for a piece of bread and a little warm wine. Coming back, he paused before the Alesia fresco. The single light in the hall was low and wavering, and shadows seemed to animate the painted figures. The Gauls fought, in broken ranks, with their crude farmers' weapons. The Legionaries marched, hammer of Empire. Vercingetorix stood on the mountain, wind wild in his hair, leading his men on to death as free men; Julius's cape fluttered in the same wind, as with infinite patience he tore down all his enemy's defenses.

  A black shadow fell across the divine general. Dimi turned, saw Philip standing there. A book, the Digenes Akritas, was open in his hands, and in the bad light he looked like his dead brother.

  "Your hair is dark, like a Syrian's or a Gaul's, yet I know you are a Ducas," Philip said. His voice was firm, not like his usual babbling, though the words were just the same. "Gome with me."

  Dimi followed. He did not know why. Perhaps it was the resemblance to his father.

  They went to the old Governor's Office. The room had been empty for weeks, the door unopened. So Dimi thought.

  He was wrong. Within were chests, and armor, and weapons piled up; on the walls were military maps of the area around Alesia, and a copy of the plan of the new palace.

  "What is this?" Dimi said, not quite believing what he saw, feeling as if he had walked into a bad, bad dream.

  "This is the great work of this house," Philip said. "The work my young brother could not finish." He put down the book, pointed to one of the maps. "This is the restoration of a Ducas to the Throne of the World.. .starting here, in the same mud where the divine Julius began."

  Dimitrios shook his head. It was a dream in fact, the old insane dream, and now Cosmas Ducas was sleeping as well, and there was no one to end it.

  "Cosmas won them with words, and I won them with gold and words." Philip opened a chest, picked up a handful of coins, let them run through his fingers. He seemed like some kind of demon from a legend, showing the hero his magic, evil wealth.

  Dimi wondered where all the gold had come from... if there was still a white villa on the blue Aegean Sea.

  Philip said "Do you know what he said, of you? He said, 'This is my son, whom the Gauls love. He will be a king, my son, if he must begin as a king in Gaul.' And you will. But it will not end in Gaul. It will not end in Greece. It will end in the City of Constantine. .. and perhaps not there.

  "Your father and I read to the leaders of the Gauls, from the book of Digenes; and they believed us."

  Dimi did not, would not believe his father had had anything to do with this; he tried to think what Cosmas could really have said about him that crazy Philip was twisting so.

  Cosmas Ducas had stopped calling the people Gauls.

  Philip was saying "... they will rise at your command, Dimitrios Ducas, Digenes."

  Dimi turned away, walked out of the room. The bread in his hand tore, and the wine sloshed over his fingers onto the floor.

  "I know why you turn down the crown on the sword," Philip said from the doorway. "Of course Mithras is your crown." His voice was calm and reasonable as he blasphemed the Mysteries, and so like Cosmas's that Dimi's neck prickled. "But there are kings and emperors on Earth, and our Lord was their second crown. The divine Julian the Wise—"

  Three figures stood before Dimi in the dark hall: his mother and his sisters, fully dressed in the middle of the night.

  "You may have denied him while he lived," Iphigenia said, "and deserted him at his death, but you will honor your father now, or I swear by Ishtar I will cut your throat and bathe in your blood as the bull's—for you are no man at all, but a beas
t sent to me for sacrifice."

  Dimitrios looked down. Livia and Zoe clutched their mother's gown, and Dimi could see their terror rising like heat. He stood barefoot and cold and ridiculous in the hallway, crumbs and wine spilling from his hands, and knew that he was weak. He closed his eyes, saw in his mind's darkness the battle fresco: Vercingetorix standing with his Gauls alone.

  But I will remember thee, O Caesar.

  The cohors equitata met on foot, on the top of Mont-Alise, on a December night that was cold and hard and clear. They wore their leather, for silence and speed: they must enter past basilisks, seeking out the enemy sorcerer in his fortress.

  "But it'll be different from the game," Dimitrios said, his breath white. "The guards can't really knock us down with just a look, so our best chance is to stay together. And they've only been in the new palace for a little while; we know every block and corner, and especially all the good hiding places. And we know one place they don't know about at all." Charles smiled. The others had been told of the secret stairs but had never actually seen them.

  "We'll go in through the upper apartments, by the door to escape fire. Lucian's is the end room. If he's not there, he must be in either the library or the office. So we go down the narrow stair to the library hall; then to the west gallery, where the secret panel is." Dimi paused, his hands frozen in a gesture. "There's a drapery in front of the panel now, so once we're through they won't even see where we've gone."

  Dimitrios was aware of his friends' nervousness; he had compared it to his own and thought nothing further. But now there was something else present, something more than worry.

  Jean-Luc said, "When we've taken the deputy... he'll stop all the soldiers?"

  "Of course, or we'll—" Dimi came up short. The idea of killing Lucian had never really entered his mind, and it did not come easily now. "But by then the townspeople will be at the gates, calling for a new governor "

  Looking at their faces, long and grave in the light of their small lantern, Dimi realized what that strange emotion was. He had only just been fully introduced to it himself. It was guilt.

  "My father... was not arming when I left the house." Charles sounded as had Mithras, when he agreed to kill his friend the Bull.

  "Nor ours," Michel Remy said, in his piping voice.

  Robert said "I was told to stay at home tonight."

  Dimi almost demanded to know why they had all still come, but he knew the answer, and would not insult them by asking it.

  You do not lead men with metal, Cosmas Ducas had told Dimitrios, and gold was as much a metal as steel.

  "If I ordered you to go home," Dimi said, "would you obey?"

  They all, one by one, swore they would. Then Charles said "If we left you, would you still attack the palace, alone?"

  "Yes." At certain times one must charge regardless—

  "Then do not order us to leave."

  Dimi saw the fresco again, much clearer than something of paint could be, Vercingetorix standing with his Gauls. Alone.

  But I will remember thee.

  They swore oaths on drawn knives then, and started down the hill, brothers in glory, fifteen years old. Dimitrios wondered, as they slipped across the crackling soil, whether death came all at once or slowly, and if it was hot or cold.

  There was no handle on the outside of the wooden exit door, but a knifeblade easily lifted its catch, and a fortunate wind covered its creak.

  "Swiftly now," Dimi whispered, and they ran to the door of Lucian's room; big Alain Remy flung it open and Dimi and Robert charged through.

  The room was crowded with Egyptian art, books, scrolls in wooden racks; the air was thick with incense. No one was there.

  Dimitrios heard a voice from the hall: "Up here! Come on, upstairs!" It was not one of his men, and he knew that they were certainly betrayed. No one would be crying, "Give us a Ducas!" tonight.

  Unless, he thought very clearly as he ran into the hall, unless he could make Lucian say it.

  A guard stood at the top of the stairs, spear held out, keeping Charles and Le6n at a distance. But he turned when Dimi came running, and little Michel Remy dove to the floor, under the spear; he smashed the hilt of his knife on the guard's instep and stabbed up to the inside of the thigh. The man howled and fell backward, down the curving stairs, out of sight.

  Michel stared at his arm, which was covered in blood not his own; he raised it to show the others, and they all had to look. Then Dimi's thoughts cleared a little. "On. On!"

  The guard lay at the bottom of the stairs, his head thrown back crookedly. His mouth and eyes were wide open. The boys looked - at him. So did the squad of soldiers at the other end of the hall.

  "That changes matters," the serjeant of the guard told his men. "Take 'em for what they are."

  There were two doors off the hall to the left, both leading to the library, both open. Dimi signaled, pushed, and the boys moved as a unit toward the nearer door. Long-legged Robert and Jean-Luc got through; the rest met the guards' spearpoints and stopped.

  "Rear rank turn," the serjeant said, "they'll get behind—"

  Robert and Jean appeared at the far door. "Keep going!" Dimi shouted, but they came back instead, and as three guards tried to bring their spears around in the hallway, the two boys each got behind a man and slit a throat. The blood flowed incredibly red on gold and red.

  The rest of Dimi's group tried to press the sudden advantage. Michel Remy stepped like a dancer, until his toe skidded in blood; a guardsman thrust once, glancing off Michel's jacket, then drew back and thrust again with his whole weight. The spear went into Michel just below the ribs and came out his back, the eagle hilt pressed against his chest. Michel did not scream as he fell.

  Alain did, and grasped the spear still sunk into his brother, pulling it from the guard's hands. Alain was half a head taller than the soldier, who stood paralyzed until Alain rammed his knife through the man's neck and spine, almost severing his head.

  Spears were useless in the closeness and tangle. If the soldiers could have drawn their swords they might still have won the fight, but they did not. Charles killed a man, and Robert hacked off a sword hand, but as the man fell his spear caught Leon in the hip, and went deep. One soldier got a dagger out and punched it into Jean-Luc's chest; as he recoiled, the blade caught in Jean's ribs and leather jacket, and Jean-Luc fell on top of him, swearing and shouting for a few more moments until both of them were silent. Dimitrios threw the serjeant against the wall and cut his throat three times, realizing on the third stroke that he had learned bowshooting with the man, and that it did not matter at all.

  Leon's leg was cut nearly off, and Jean-Luc was dead, and Michel. Alain stood over his brother, guarding him, with a knife in one hand and a soldier's sword in the other.

  "We'll go on," Dimi said to Alain. "You cover our rear." Alain nodded without speaking, his eyes fixed as a blind man's.

  "The library's empty," Robert said. "Now we know where he is."

  He went quickly to the end of the hall, where it turned to the west gallery. His eyes widened, and his knife hand moved too fast for the eye to follow. There was a thump from the gallery, and a cry, and another thump. Robert whirled on the ball of his left foot to face Dimi and Charles.

  His hand scrabbled at his chest, where the finned end of a crossbow bolt stuck out of his leather jacket. His fingers clamped on the bolt. He fell down.

  There was silence.

  Charles and Dimi looked at each other. Charles said, "We must go on." Dimi nodded, held Charles back with the edge of a borrowed sword, then went out into the open corner. Charles was instantly at his side.

  Tertullian stood huge and black in the center of the gallery, just by the drape that hid the stairway panel. He wore black leather armor with plaques of white steel. He held a crossbow, loaded and cocked and absolutely steady. Next to him, on the floor, was a man with a crossbow on top of him; he was sprawled as Dimitrios now knew dead men to lie, though Dimi could not tell where
Robert's knife had struck.

  "Must I kill you good young men?" Tertullian said, in an iron voice to match the iron rest of him.

  "You can only shoot one of us," Charles said, "and it should be me." He took a step.

  "I'll kill you both. Shoot one, cut one. Or use my hands. It won't matter."

  Charles took another step, and Dimitrios two to catch him. Tertullian did not even move his eyes.

  Dimitrios looked at the wall hanging, at the arched ceiling, then at Tertullian again. "I know I cannot kill you," he said carefully, in the middle-class Greek he knew Charles did not understand. "But you must let me try. For the Lion's sake."

  Everything was frozen for a moment more. Then Tertullian pointed his crossbow at the floor, and without even a shrug turned and walked away.

  When he had gone, Dimi pulled the drapery aside, found the crack in the stone with his knifeblade and lifted the catch. The panel opened silently. Dimi gestured with his eyes; Charles nodded, and they went up the stairs, through the dark and the cold, stale air.

  The upper door's latch made the faintest of clicks; the panel swung in.

  Lucian stood less than ten steps away, on the other side of a cluttered table; he was looking out the bay window, at Alesia spread below. A heating-vent in the floor rippled his white gown.

  The bald head turned, the sharp nose wrinkling. Lucian held a double-barrelled hand-gun against his chest; with startling speed he leveled it and twitched a trigger. Fire erupted.

  Charles's head burst backward like a melon on pavement, splattering and streaking down the wall.

  Dimitrios lunged; as his feet left the floor, he very distinctly saw Lucian take aim again, his finger move, the second striker fall. There was a little brassy click. No flash. No explosion.

  Dimi skidded over the tabletop, sending papers and ink flying, and struck the Egyptian in the chest. Lucian's head slammed against the window and cracked the glass; he groaned, and groaned again as Dimi landed on top of him. Dimitrios thrust his knee to the man's crotch, then swore; he pressed his knife against Lucian's throat.