by Barry Sadler
By midday, it felt as if Vulcan himself was pounding at his temples, trying to forge some strange weapon in his eternally burning furnace. The glare of the sun was a piercing, fiery dagger that lanced Casca's eyes. Every step was heavier than the last, but to stop was perhaps to never be able to go on. He stumbled blindly toward the mountains. A rock caught his dragging feet. It tore one sandal off and he fell to the earth, mouth open and panting, gulping in breaths of oven-baked air. He lay there for some time, trying to gather his inner resources together for the tremendous effort it would take to rise to his feet again. He lay still, mouth open and panting, eyes focused on a small gray stone, inches from his nose. A shadow moved over the stone. His eyes flicked up to meet another pair of goggle-wide eyes watching him. A large gray-and-brown-mottled lizard, the length of his foot, lay on its belly, mouth opening and closing like a fish. It was attracted by the flies beginning to gather around the form of the fallen man. Once and again, a long tongue flicked out and snared a victim faster than an eye could blink. It moved closer to his face and lay still, watching, one eye moving independently of the other. Casca's right hand, near his face, moved before he even thought of it and he held the lizard in his hand. He could feel the sinuous strength of its body squirming in his hand. Through silent lips he apologized for what he was about to do, then tore the beast's head off and placed the neck of the bleeding carcass between his cracked lips and sucked. He sucked the thin blood until the body of the lizard was drained, then tore it into pieces and chewed the meat slowly, squeezing every drop of moisture from the small cadaver. It wasn't much, but it was enough to give him the strength to rise once more to his feet.
He tossed what was left of the drained body of the lizard away and forced his mind on the hazy mountains.
He had to draw on every bit of his inner strength to take the first stumbling step. Fear aided him, too-the fear of what he would go through if he fell once more and was unable to rise. What would happen to him? He wouldn't be permitted to die; the Jew had seen to that. Would he just lie there and become a dried, desiccated husk that refused to die, condemned to a never-ending thirst and suffering?
That fear gave him a degree of increased fortitude and determination to go on. One dragging step after another, forcing his mind to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, he drifted into a semidrugged state that helped to ease the pain of his cut and blistered feet. He tried to lick his lips but found he couldn't force his tongue out of his mouth. It had swollen to twice its normal size and threatened to cut off his gasping and labored breathing.
His eyes were swollen almost completely shut and he thought for a time he was going blind when the day became darker and what little he could see began to fade from sight. He stumbled into a nearby bush and fell over onto his back. The bush was in a dry riverbed. Feebly, he reached up to its branches and felt them. They were hard to see. A chill rushed over him from the evening breeze. At least, he thought, I'm not blind. It's just the night coming on. He touched the leaves, feeling their soft green suppleness under his torn fingers.
Soft..? Up till now, everything in this pit of fire that he had seen or touched had been dry and rough! He tried to force his mind to work. It was difficult! His mind kept wanting to slide off into distant disjointed thoughts. With a tremendous effort he forced his concentration back to the bush. It's green; the leaves are soft. It must be getting moisture. Rolling over onto his belly, he began to push the sand away from the roots of the bush.
Slowly, with an almost impossible effort, the hole deepened. Casca put his face down into the bottom of it and breathed deeply, ignoring the bits of sand that were sucked up into his nostrils. He could smell moisture. No! Smell wasn't quite right; he could taste it with his mind. He tore a limb from the bush to help him dig. Hours passed as he worked in slow motion, but the hole deepened, and soon he could feel the moisture with his fingers. The rains that came so seldom to this region would turn this dry bed into a raging torrent, and then would disappear as fast as they had come. But some of the water remained for this plant to feed on and a few others.
The darkness was on him now, and still he scooped out the sand until at last he could feel real wetness. Sandy mud slid between his raw ringers. He scooped up a handful of it and placed it in his mouth, letting the wetness ease the pain and soak into his gums and tongue. He fought back an impulse to swallow the mud and sand. It helped, but it wasn't enough: he needed to drink. The hole wasn't filling with water; it was just wet sand muck.
Tearing off a patch of his tunic, he filled it with the sand and mud. Tying it into a bundle, he strained his neck, held the cloth to his mouth, and squeezed, forcing every ounce of strength remaining into his right hand and finally, through the cloth, came… water! A slow, sweet wetness that increased as he gained strength from the moisture. Again and again he refilled his rag and drank, nursing the wetness. As a child feeds at its mother's breasts, he sucked and was eventually filled.
He lay back then and slept, as his stomach dispersed the life-giving wetness throughout his body, feeding the cells and bringing back suppleness to dried tissue that had shrunk under the hammer of the sun. Two days he stayed by his miniature oasis, gathering his strength. At night, he found that if he stayed away from the hole for a while, other creatures would come to it, drawn by the smell of moisture in the night air. Rodents, lizards, snakes, and other vermin appeared. All were food and he wasted nothing. What he didn't eat was sliced into strips and put into the sun to dry. There wasn't much, but it was a great deal more than he had eaten for some time and would be enough, he hoped, to see him through.
He used much of his time squeezing his rag to fill his water skin, controlling the urge to drink it dry, and contenting himself with his damp rag. The water skin would be needed when he left, for he didn't know how long he would have to go before finding more. The mountains rose over him. They were stark, craggy, uneven piles of raw rock that reached to the clear desert heavens. They seemed like Hercules, carrying the weight of the world on their granite shoulders.
Four days he stayed by his hole until he knew it was time to leave. He was as strong as he would ever be with the lack of real food. If he waited too long the hole might run dry and the few animals that came would disappear, and then he would be back right where he started.
He waited for the dusk and once more began his trek across the wastelands of the Persian desert. But now, the mountains were his travel companions, and the wind that came from them in the night talked to him of lost caravans and vanished armies that had once followed this path. Some had made it, but most lay forgotten under the shifting, whispering dunes behind him. Their stories were covered by the ever-changing sands that each year claimed a little more of the arable lands, until one day they would reach clear to the sea.
Several days passed as he made his way along the boundary of the mountains heading west. He knew he would have to come out of the desert at some point; it could not be much further. He found small springs in the shelters of the crags, which kept his water skins filled. And… where he found water, he found food.
At one such lonely watering hole he found two horses grazing on the brush. A man, who Casca presumed had been their owner, lay facedown near the waterhole. Rolling the body over, the cause of death was evident. The man's face was swollen to half again its normal size, and there was a purple color from the poison that had been injected into his face through the two puncture marks on his cheek. Probably a desert snake, lying near the hole, had struck him while he'd been drinking. And, Casca figured, it hadn't been too long ago. The body showed no signs of decay yet and the horses looked to be in fair shape.
He dug a shallow grave and covered the body with stones. He said a general prayer for the man's sake to whatever gods there were in this place, and thanked him for the gift of the horses.
He rode out from the spot that night after checking the packs. There was little in them but the things a lonely traveler would need on the trail. There were new
clothes for him, though, and packets of food to insure his reaching civilization with at least a minimum of comfort. He followed the trail back the way the man had come, moving easily, letting the swaying of the horse rock him into a light sleep as the miles were covered.
He felt a tingling up his spine on several occasions after the first two days. It was a tingle that says one is not alone, that eyes are watching.
But he never spotted anybody and put it down to nerves. But the feeling still lingered, and from time to time he thought that if he could just turn around fast enough, he would be able to catch sight of the watchers.
At night, he would search out crevices in the rocks in which to build his lonely camp. A small fire and saddle blankets provided him with all the creature comforts he needed. The distant yapping of a desert jackal would punctuate his thoughts, and the isolation became almost a friend. He gathered it around him as he did his saddle blankets, often spending long hours sitting on a rise looking out over the panorama of deserts and mountains. The wind was shifting and the cooler nights spoke of the end of summer. More frequently now, clouds would gather and let loose in the distance some of their jealously hoarded, life-giving rain. The few times it rained where he was, the Roman would raise his face to the drops, letting them clean the grit from his eyes and face, making no attempt to seek shelter.
There, standing on a ridge in the rain, overlooking the edge of the world, he felt as if he were the only man left in all creation. Would he in fact be that one day? Would he be all that was left of mankind? Or would the Jew claim him before that time came?
He shook the thoughts away; they were much too complicated for his mind. It would be better if he used his time to try and find out who had been following him. He was sure now. The feelings were just too strong. He knew they were out there somewhere.
That night Casca made camp in the open. He could not take shelter among the rocks because the trail he had been following had swung out some distance from them. The day had been long. He made a dry camp and contented himself with what was available. That night he sat close to the fire, made of dried horse droppings and dead twigs from the surrounding brush. His mind was drifting, but he tried to keep one ear cocked for any sound that wasn't natural. The fire and a half-full gut, though, soon lulled him into a nodding sleep. It was a sleep that ended in a flash of lights and pain as a thrown club smashed into the back of his head, sending him down into darkness.
As consciousness slowly returned, he wondered why the constellation of the Hunter whirled so rapidly in the heavens. It took a moment to shake his head free of the flashing, whirling lights and let it settle down into a deep throbbing, reminding him of several really bad hangovers he'd had over the years.
He got his first look at the new owners of his horses and property. They were two wild, scabby looking creatures with dark, weathered faces and coal-chip eyes that gave them the look of the Asian.
Small in size, their hair hanging in knotted masses to their waists, they grinned at him through black, gapped teeth that had been worn down almost to the gums from years of eating sand mixed in with their food. One was playing with Casca's sword while the other grinned a slant-eyed, death's-head leer at his trussed-up captive.
The smaller of the two gave him a kick and turned his attention to devouring everything remaining in the saddle bags that was edible. Their speech, if it could be called that, was mostly a series of grunts and gestures. They quickly got into an argument over the spoils, meager as they were, though to them it was a great treasure.
From the gestures they were making and the repeated looks in his direction, Casca figured that they were trying to decide what to do with him. One kept pointing to him and then to the small stack of silver and copper coins they had taken from his pack. The smaller of them obviously was trying to talk the other into selling him into slavery. His companion shook his head in the negative and made slashing movements with the short sword. The one holding his sword went to Casca, gave him a kick in the side, and pulled the Roman up to His feet by the hair, poking and jabbing him with the sword point. The other came over and the two were quickly involved in a game of tug of war over the sword.
Casca figured he'd better do something. The idea of being sold back into slavery didn't particularly appeal to him. He'd already, to his thinking, spent entirely too many years in that miserable condition and didn't look forward to a repeat performance.
Though his hands were bound behind him with leather thongs, his feet were free, and he made good use of them. While the two were determining his fate, he gave one a snap kick to the balls that raised the savage's testicles almost up to his belly button. The other suffered a milder fate with a heel to the jaw that splintered a few already rotted teeth and probably saved him from a future toothache.
While the two thieves were wrapped up in their own problems, Casca made use of the time to free himself from his bonds, nicking himself only slightly in the process of handling a sword behind his back.
When the two were able to motivate under their own power, he sped them on their way with a few well-placed slaps on the ass from the flat of his blade. The two men wasted no time in putting as much distance as possible between them and what was to have been their victim. Casca gave his first laugh in weeks at the sight of the bobbing heads heading for the high ground.
The action of the attack and its subsequent outcome served to break him out of the dangerous, mind-drugging lethargy that had been creeping over him. He was wide awake and ready for some living. Gathering his gear, he mounted his horse and with a kick to the flanks headed back into the wastelands, but this time his blood was racing and alive. There was a world to see, and, thanks to the Jew, he had what looked to be more than enough time to do it all. By the great brass balls of Jupiter, he would try.
Three more days and he reached the first signs of civilization. He came upon neat rows of cultivated fields and groves of olive trees. He spent a few scarce denarii for fresh meat and grain. After eating, he questioned the farmers and found that he had gone in a long half circle to the South and was now near the city of Aphrodisias.
He had heard of the city. It was well known throughout the empire as an artists colony, whose sculptures were to be seen in the finer domus of the empire. The city, as was obvious, was named for its patron goddess, Aphrodite, goddess of love and artists.
The farmers told him the city boasted of having the most liberal attitude toward sex of any in the empire, and also claimed to have more homosexuals to the square foot than any city in the world.
He spent four days in the city lying on his butt and taking it easy. He didn't have sufficient silver for the more plush boardinghouses, but after selling one of his horses he did have enough to raise a little hell and get laid a couple of times. He had some minor luck with dice, playing against Arab traders heading for Bithynia and won enough to cover the expense for part of the trip. He paid for the rest of it by renting out his sword as a guard for the caravan of Izmael Ben Torzah, a hawk-nosed old patriarch of the desert who looked like some great graying bird of prey, riding over the desert on his horse with his white robes flying loose about him in the wind.
The old man had taken a liking to the scar-faced Roman. When they were to leave the fleshpots of Aphrodisias, he went to the trouble of locating Casca and liberating him from the attentions of a widow, who was interested in having his knotted, muscled body carved into a likeness of marble. It would have been something new in the art field. It would have been called stark realism, since Casca was not one of the pretty boys of the Greek school but a real man with all his bad points-and, as she said when examining him in the nude, also his one good point.
Izmael paid the protesting woman no heed as he threw the half-naked and drunk carcass of his new guard over the back of one of his pack animals and rode off to join his caravan, already far outside the city and heading north.
When Casca finally sobered up, he wasn't sure whether to be grateful or not. He was sure he could
have had a fairly decent existence as a male model. Hell, he had been getting into the thing. Learning to pose and twist his body into awkward positions while the matron supervised the sculpture. Too bad he had had to leave before it was finished. But what the hell, maybe another tune.
After a little time passed, he realized that the life of a male model wasn't really what he was cut out for and forgave Izmael for hauling him off-especially when Izmael, himself feeling somewhat contrite, let Casca grade and sample the eight slave girls he was taking to the markets in Bithynia. On a scale of one to ten, two of them were threes, and the best one he gave an eight. The others fit somewhere in the middle. But all in all, they served their purposes well enough.
Casca didn't make it all the way with the caravan. When they stopped at Halicamassus, on the coast, he got drunk with some sailors and woke up to find he had signed on as a crewman. The creaking of the timbers brought him staggering to the upper deck of the bireme, where he emptied the remains of the previous night's revelry into the Mediterranean. Being a fatalist, he reconciled himself to the change in his mode of travel. As long as they didn't try to chain him to an oar, he was as well pleased as could be expected.
The captain was fair and the food not too bad. They were carrying an amphora of grain and olive oil as well as hauling precut slabs of marble to be used as facings for public buildings in Rome. These they used as ballast to settle down the tendency of the galley to pitch and roll.
When they finally put into the port of Ostia, he chose to stay on board rather than take the time to visit the city of the Caesars. The last time he'd been here they had first put him in the arena, and then "Mad Nero" had sentenced him to life as an oar slave on the galleys of Rome. No, the Imperial City still had a bad taste for him and he stayed close to the ship, not venturing much further than the nearest tavern for a drink now and then. Finally they had reloaded their cargo holds and made sail. They sailed first to the west, then north, this time to Messilia in Gaul, where he had first enlisted as a boy in the legions.
