“If you choose to strike out on your own,” she said, “I give you my word you will not be harmed. But if you do, I ask you to remember that you carry my life in your hands.”
I had not wanted to agree under threat, but now that she’d assured our safety, I didn’t hesitate in agreeing. It wasn’t that I felt so much the Angels had the right of it; to be honest, I had no idea who did. Very few people usually do, and those who claim otherwise are often fooling themselves. No, I agreed for two other reasons. The first was that I liked it better than the alternative (that is, Ali and I trying to make it on our own in an unfamiliar Sphere); the second was because Ignatius, Kite, and Meussin had taken up the cause, and I was willing to trust their judgement. After I had declared my intentions, Ali followed suit. I suspected she had already pledged as much to Kite before we’d even reached Rome, and I was both right and wrong on this count—later I learned Ali had indeed pledged her service, only long before we’d ever met Kite.
We followed the manservant up a crooked set of stairs at the back of the cellar and out into an alleyway, and thence onto a narrow street where dozens of other inns, indistinguishable from ours, stood cheek by jowl. Moving through back lanes, we made our way to the the outskirts of the city. Here, in a street of merchants, we entered a Liturgical shop; it was filled with dusty reliquaries containing artifacts of a dubious origin. At the end of the store’s sole aisle, a balding proprietor rose from a stool, where he’d been fanning himself.
“Good day and God bless,” he began, squinting at us. “Is there something—” Then stopped as he took in our guide. “Bator,” he said, “come to collect your goods?”
The squat man nodded.
The shop owner walked behind one of the displays and hoisted the gunnysack containing our weapons onto the counter.
“Pay him,” Bator said, his voice pitched surprisingly high for someone so barrel-chested.
Ali did, extracting a silver Bishop from the purse that Cardinal Adolfo had flung at Kite. I didn’t see Kite drop it, nor had I seen Ali pick it up, but there it was all the same. The proprietor’s eyes lit up.
“Too much,” Bator said, sticking out his thick palm. “Give back six deacons.”
The proprietor balked, and it appeared he was weighing his options; but when Bator narrowed his eyes and took a step forward, his hand still extended, the owner returned the difference at once.
Bator and I stopped at a second merchant’s to replace the rucksacks we’d lost at our audition, and then at two others to provision ourselves; Ali, meanwhile, visited several other merchants, entering and leaving each empty-handed, until she finally emerged from an ironmonger’s shop carrying a chisel and hammer. She stuffed them, without comment, into the backpack we’d bought for her. I couldn’t imagine what those tools might be for, yet thought it best not to ask.
From the street of merchants, it was half an hour’s march until we passed over a busy bridge and left the city proper. We found ourselves in the midst of a steady stream of travellers on a broad, well-maintained brick road. There were stone walkways for pedestrians on either side, which proved a good thing, for the central lanes were travelled by large, heavily laden carts and drays rumbling past in either direction. I noticed that each wagon, no matter the size, had at least one armed passenger in addition to the driver. When the second prison wagon (and its reek of stale urine and feces) passed us mid-afternoon—filled to capacity with sullen-eyed prisoners, their backs pressed against the bars—I recalled what Kite had told me about the troubles reaching here, to the highest of all man’s Spheres.
Houses gave way to estates, and these to fields. We continued straight, while many others turned left or right at the numerous junctions, and it wasn’t long before the walkways petered out and we had to take to the road. The cart traffic had thinned somewhat, although there was still a steady stream, and occasionally we were forced to the side of the road by larger wains. As the day progressed, the traffic diminished, until at last there was only a single wagon far ahead of us. Then we were alone.
Just before sun-off, when the road entered a forest, we followed a narrow path into a glen, where we settled for the night. Ali made a fire, and Bator cooked us stew; I think it was good, but I was too distracted to enjoy it. We ate in silence, each lost in our own thoughts.
I delayed when the others spread out their bedrolls, waiting for them to settle for the night. When they had, I opened my backpack and drew out Meussin’s parting gifts: the small lamp Kite had given her years ago, and a black, leather-bound book. The gilt lettering declared it to be The Bible. I’d thought it odd when she gave it to me, only later to discover that a different text was hidden inside. I lit a small stick from the dying embers of the fire, and used that to light the lamp. Then I opened the book and began to read: When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him.
We marched along that highway the entire second day. In the afternoon, the road broadened, and changed from brick to rectangular stones embedded in mortar. Though the road was still as wide as it had been just outside Rome, weeds had eaten into its margins, cracking the mortar and canting the stones, so that now there was a lane only wide enough for a large cart. The number of travellers on foot had dwindled to nothing; the wheeled traffic had fallen off, too, so that for long stretches no carts were in sight. As sun-off approached, we turned right off the road, and descended a deer run into an unpopulated valley; we halted when our path crossed a disused stone road, not unlike the one on which we’d been travelling that morning. Only this one was unserviceable, its entire surface cracked and askew, weed-choked, impassable save for those on foot. We followed Bator down this ancient highway for a kilometre or so, until we entered a clearing next to the rocky shores of a brown, slow-moving river. On either side, and in the middle of the river, were stone pilings and piers, the remains of a long-gone bridge.
Bator threw off his rucksack, and Ali and I followed suit, then set about gathering fuel for a fire. As soon as we had coaxed some flames to life, Bator pulled a square of paper from his shirt, and unfolded it to reveal a map. He placed it on the ground in front of me.
“Can you see?” he asked.
The sun was nearly off, and some of the smaller words were hard to read, but in the unsteady incandescence of the fire I thought I could make them all out, and said so.
He held a stubby thumb and forefinger about five centimetres apart. “Ten kilometres. Get it?”
I nodded.
He crouched and stabbed his index finger near the bottom of the map, on a line representing a meandering river. A second line, added in pencil, intersected the first beneath his fingertip, and I assumed this was the ancient road on which we stood. A shaky hand had labelled it Vetus Via—the Old Road. “We’re here.” He ran his finger along the pencil line to the upper edge of the map where someone had scratched a small X in charcoal. “Where you want to be.”
The distance looked to be roughly a hundred kilometres, as the crow flies. Between our location and the X, the general direction of the rivers and lakes suggested a series of intervening valleys. On a maintained road this would have been no more than three days’ travel; but on this dilapidated highway, with several rivers to ford, it would take at least twice that. I noticed a line, this one labelled Novus Via, that represented the road we’d been on earlier; it was about ten kilometres distant, and ran roughly parallel to the Vetus Via, but curved in at the top of the map where the two met just before the X. I asked him why we couldn’t take the New Road.
“Not safe,” he said. A string of circles had also been drawn on the map along the Novus Via, the first a few kilometres from where we’d turned off. He tapped them, one after the other, all the way to a cluster near the X. “Church pickets,” he said, speaking with the pride of someone who’d spent time mapping them out. “Most at bridges. No one passes—unless bearing a letter from the Holy See.” He pointed across the river to where the Vetus Via b
ored into the gloom of the forest. “No one watches the Old Road.”
I was confused. “Meussin said you’d guide us to a sanctuary. If it is here,” I tapped the X, “it makes no sense that the Church should have sentry posts along the route.”
Bator lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug. “Meussin said you would understand when you got there.”
I stared into his broad face, but could detect no hint of deception; I was sure he believed what he told us. Still, I was uneasy. “Why does no one watch this road?”
“No need,” he said, his smile exposing yellow teeth as wide as the nails on my fingers. “Chimeras.” He sketched a square on the map that was bordered on the left by the Novus Via, and on the bottom by the river in front of us. He tapped in the centre of the square. “They hunt in here.”
Belief in such mythical creatures was a sin, and I told him so.
He pointed across the river again. “Tell them.”
I couldn’t be certain, but where the road swept into the trees, the shadows seemed to shift.
I almost jumped when Ali spoke; I hadn’t heard her approach and squat next to me. “They won’t cross the river.”
Bator nodded his agreement.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Bones of the Saints,” he answered, pointing to the opposite shore. It took me a moment to realize he was indicating a series of steles, each about a metre high, strung along the bank. They looked like nothing so much as miniature obelisks. I had taken them to be the remnants of the bridge, but the last two in sight were too far from the bridge to serve any functional purpose. On the map, Bator traced the outline of the box again. “They won’t come near the bone fence.”
I considered as the three of us crouched around the map in a semi-circle. I didn’t believe in Chimeras, nor in any kind of monster, save for the demons of The Bible. But those were spiritual creatures, not blood-and-bone animals, and I was now sure there was something in the shadows over there, pacing back and fourth, on four long legs.
“And what’s to protect us when we cross?”
Before Bator could answer, Ali said, “My Angel.”
Incredulous, I looked from her to the squat man and back. Chimeras, Saint’s bones, and now an Angel. Not to mention a sanctuary guarded by the Church.
Bator clapped a wide hand on my shoulder. “Boy,” he said, “it’s the Old Road or back to Rome.”
I looked at Ali. “If I choose to go back to Rome, what will you do?”
She was staring across the river and into the black tunnel where the road entered the forest; her eyes, always better than mine, could probably make out more. “Keep on.”
“Then so will I.” Having said that, I lifted the map and slid it into the fire.
Bator raised his eyebrows in surprise, and for an instant his fingers dug into my shoulder so hard I let out a gasp. The pressure of his grip relented. I saw a flicker of distress on his face as the edges of the map darkened and crumpled, but he didn’t make a move to retrieve it. I knew he took pride in his scouting, and likely had spent weeks, perhaps months, mapping out the sentry posts. I also guessed that this wouldn’t be his only copy; and as I now had my own copy in my head, carrying his would have served no purpose other than to implicate us should we be taken.
When the last bit had turned to ash, he released my shoulder, and rose to prepare our meal.
The Old Road
That night I couldn’t focus on my book; after reading and rereading the same page, and not remembering a word of it, I gave up and stretched out on my bedroll. I drifted into a restless sleep, waking three times.
The first, I sat upright from a dream in which unnatural beasts had backed us against the river. Ali was waist-deep in the water behind me, while Bator stood in front, sword drawn. Horrified, I watched a grotesque creature—with the body of bear and the head of a vulture—fall upon him, clamping one claw about his shoulder, while its beak tore mercilessly at his eyes and the flesh of his face, stripping it off the bone. Bator’s shrieks threw me out of this horrific dream.
Around the periphery of our campsite, the bushes rustled, and at first I thought that behind every movement was a slavering animal. But it was only the gusts of a wind that had arisen. I looked to my companions to reassure myself. Ali slept on, undisturbed. But Bator, and his things, were gone. I wondered if he’d never intended to take us farther. Or whether he’d just run off. I hoped it was the former. Briefly, I considered waking Ali, but could not think what it would accomplish other than to disturb her sleep, so I lay back down.
The second time, I awoke confused, thinking for a moment I was back in Meussin’s bed, lying between her and Ali. I was careful not to move, for fear I’d disturb them. Then the sound of the river and the rustle of the trees drew me back, and I remembered where I was. Yet I lay completely still; when this became unbearable, I turned very slowly under Ali’s arm lest I disturb her. She mumbled something in her sleep, the warmth of her breath spreading across my neck like a balm.
The third time cold drops woke me.
“We must go.” In the first light of day, Ali knelt next to me, naked. From her short hair, water dripped onto my face. “It comes up to my neck in the middle, but only for a step, and the current isn’t too strong.”
I gathered my things, and waded into the dark water where Ali waited, hand shading her eyes, scanning the opposite bank. However, whatever had stalked the shadows last night was gone. We stood thigh deep, but the bottom was already lost in the clouds of silt our feet had stirred.
Ali had slipped her sword through the harness on her backpack to keep it dry, and I had done likewise. Unlike her, I removed my shirt but kept my pants on—my shame prevented me from doing otherwise. Despite my best efforts to not look at her or think about her, I had become aroused. Even so, when she turned, my trousers failed to conceal my state. She stared unabashedly, and her lips curled in disgust. Then she turned and slogged deeper into the water. Red-faced, I followed, feeling relief as the chilly water washed around me, extinguishing my ardour. When the river rose above Ali’s breasts, she lifted her backpack and balanced it on her head. I followed suit.
The current was mild, as she said; but Ali was taller than me, and near the middle, where it was up to my chin, I slipped on a rock. With the extra weight on my head, the insistent tug of the current drew me under. Almost immediately I felt her grab hold of my hair and drag me up. I sputtered and coughed for a moment, but was otherwise fine.
One-handed, Ali dragged me to a point where I could regain my footing, then waded to the shore and dumped her gear; she squinted in the dim light, watching something in the river. I pulled myself out of the water and, following her gaze, caught sight of my backpack as it, and Meussin’s gifts, floated serenely downriver, sinking lower and lower. I made a move towards it, and Ali grabbed my arm and shook her head. We watched, until my backpack dipped under the surface as it rounded a bend. Then Ali splashed back into the water and, after diving three times near where I slipped, came up with my sword. When she handed it to me, she said, “Wipe it as best as you can, and don’t return it to its scabbard until both are dry.”
My clothes were, of course, soaked, so I used dried leaves, though they didn’t seem to do much good. I laid the blade on a flat rock; then I took off my belt and hung the scabbard from it, looping the whole thing over my bare shoulder. While I was doing this, Ali pulled out the hammer and chisel she’d bought, and made her way over to one of the obelisks Bator had indicated the previous night, a few metres from where we’d climbed from the river. From the other side of the river, the steles appeared featureless; on this side, however, I could see each had been etched with a cross within a circle just below its pyramidic cap.
I watched as she slipped the chisel into the bottom of the cross, and realized the thin black lines of the cross were not shadows of an etching, but were, in fact, slits. She swung the hammer smartly against the chisel, driving its blade a centimetre deep. Tapping the shaft of the chisel, she
wiggled it free, then repeated the process on the two arms of the cross. When she hammered it into the top of the cross, there was a distinct snap, and the circle of stone, containing the cross and her impaled chisel, fell away from the post and onto the rocky shore.
She reached inside the hole thus created and pulled out something; she tossed it to me.
I snatched it from the air, and opened my hand. It was the size and shape of a robin’s egg, but its surface was ebon and smooth as glass, and it exhibited none of the delicacy of an egg or the brittleness of glass—it was hard as stone. Warmth emanated from it, as if somewhere inside a tiny fire burned. When I closed my fingers around it, I felt a slight tingling, like the sort one feels when striking a tuning fork. Yet there was no sound.
I looked up to find Ali watching me as she buttoned her shirt.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Put it in your pocket,” she said. “And keep it close.” She picked up the circular piece that had fallen, and pulled her chisel free. Then she stuck the piece back in the post where it seated with a click, and the post looked exactly as it had before. She put the chisel and hammer away and, hoisting her backpack, started up the Vetus Via towards the margins of the forest—
—and five of the largest dogs I’d ever seen.
Only they weren’t dogs, because they were half again the size of any dog I’d ever seen, and their coats were an unlikely grey. Their heads were also broader at the top, tapering to long, blunt muzzles, and powerful-looking jaws. When the animal in the front flicked out his tongue, I caught sight of large teeth and long curved canines, the sort you see on predators. Even so, I was slightly relieved, for they were real and looked nothing like Bator’s mythical creatures. Rather, they matched a description I’d once read, of an animal I’d never seen: canis lupus lupus— a wolf. All sat on their haunches, regarding us impassively with pale, grey eyes that reminded me of nothing so much as Meussin’s.
The Book of Thomas - Volume One: Heaven Page 19
