The Gates of Hell

by Michael Livingston

  The man blinked and looked him up and down. Whether he was wondering how he could possibly be from Macedonia or he was simply taken aback by the request to see Didymus, Vorenus could not tell. “And may I ask your name?” the librarian asked.

  Before embarking on this trip, Khenti and Vorenus had agreed that they could not use their real names near Alexandria. It would simply be too dangerous. “Philip,” Vorenus replied.

  The librarian disappeared into the building, and Vorenus turned back toward the trees to see if he could locate Khenti. It was no surprise that he could not. Besides being the best swordsman he’d ever met, the Egyptian, he was sure, could disappear on an empty street at midday.

  It was several minutes before the door of the Library opened once more. The first librarian had returned, accompanied by an older man who was clearly a man in charge: he appeared both flustered and exhausted, as if he’d already had his fill of a hard day, even though it wasn’t even noon.

  “Can I help you?”

  “My name is Philip,” Vorenus repeated. “I’ve come from Macedonia with a message for the chief librarian.”

  The man sighed. “And I am Apion, his assistant. Give me the message and I’ll see that he gets it.”

  “Apologies, sir,” Vorenus said, trying to be deferential even though he was much the elder man. “My instructions are very explicit about giving the message directly to Didymus himself.”

  Apion sighed again, and he rubbed at his temples while shielding his eyes from the bright sun. “Philip,” he repeated. “From Macedonia?”

  The tone of the librarian’s voice was filled with doubt, but it was also scratchy. Vorenus recognized the signs. He’d seen them often enough when Pullo had been too long at the cups. “That’s right,” he said, his voice suddenly far louder than it needed to be.

  Apion winced. Then, after a moment, his shoulders relaxed in a kind of defeat. Whatever doubts he had, he seemed to think that the old man posed no greater threat than the morning sun. “Very well,” he said. “Follow me. And please keep your voice down. So you don’t disturb the scholars, you know.”

  Inside, Vorenus found himself being led through a long entry hall lined with five pillars on each side of a long, narrow reflecting pool. He could see offices between the pillars, and there was a buzz of work coming from within them. As men came and went through the doors he saw into two of them, and he recognized them as scriptoria: lines of scribes hunched over desks, quills in hand, carefully copying old books onto new pages.

  “You know, you’re lucky, Philip,” Apion said over his shoulder, voice hushed. “Didymus didn’t go home again last night. Another couple hours and you would have found him asleep.”

  Vorenus nodded and allowed himself a smile. His friend had often burned the midnight oil. His life was his books. Always had been.

  The entry gave way to the main hall at the center of the Great Library: a six-sided room of towering walls broken only by the stairs that crawled up their surfaces and the heavy oak doors that led to the wings of the building beyond them, which were no doubt filled with scrolls and books. Between these walls and the high dome above were a line of massive windows that painted everything in a wash of warm sunlight.

  The reflecting pool in the entry hall tumbled down a few steps into a circular pool in the center of this larger room, providing a steady and calming patter behind the sounds of hushed voices and footsteps as scholars and their assistants moved around the busy space. Smoothly curved benches bent around the edge of the main pool, and here and there upon it men sat in thought. Vorenus noticed that one of them, a young man who looked up as they approached, had very clearly had the worse of a recent fight. His face was badly bruised, and blood stained the tattered front of his shirt.

  “Apion,” he said, his voice slurred by swollen lips and cheeks, “you need to let me see him.”

  Apion’s steps faltered and then stopped. Though he’d seemed genial enough with Vorenus, there was nothing but contempt in his face as he turned on the battered younger man. “I need do nothing of the kind, Thrasyllus. You quit, remember? You quit and proved once and for all why he was right to choose me.”

  “But I—”

  “You quit,” Apion repeated. A smile like a sneer crossed his face. “Thought you’d make a point, and all you did was prove why he chose me. Fool, you’re lucky I even let you in the building.”

  Each word was like another slap to the man’s face, but still he opened his mouth to say something more.

  “No,” Apion interrupted. “Not one word, Thrasyllus. You sit or you go. Didymus will see you when—and if—he wants to do so. Not one minute before.”

  Thrasyllus closed his open mouth, and Vorenus could see the mix of hatred and defiance and pained self-loathing in his eyes. Something of it reminded Vorenus of young legionnaires that he’d known who’d been subjected to the harsh correction of the lash. He pitied the young man, and when Apion began walking once more, Vorenus met his gaze. He nodded at him ever so slightly in acknowledgment of his difficulties. Thrasyllus stared back for a moment, then he nodded in return, and something like a smile creased the corner of his mouth.

  Apion, seeming even more tired now, led Vorenus up two flights of stairs that angled along the walls, where they entered a short, pillared hall not unlike the entry two floors below. At its end was a single door, and Apion knocked at it quietly.

  It had been so long since he’d heard the voice from within that when it spoke Vorenus broke into a grin behind Apion. “Yes?” Didymus asked.

  “Someone to see you, Librarian,” Apion said to the door. “A Macedonian named Philip. He says he has a message for you.”

  There was a pause of a few seconds before Didymus answered. “Very well. Send him in.”

  Apion opened the door, turning back to Vorenus as he did so. The pain of the previous night of drinking was even clearer on his face. “He’ll see you now,” he said.

  Vorenus gave him a nod, but before he entered the room he leaned in close to the scholar and whispered, “You don’t need to wait here. I can find my way out.”

  The look on Apion’s face was one of pure gratitude. “Thank you,” he replied quietly. “I’ll be downstairs in my office if I’m needed.”

  Apion turned and hurried off toward the stairs in the main hall. Vorenus did not doubt that he was hurrying to relieve himself one way or another.

  When he was gone, Vorenus stepped into the office of the chief librarian and closed the door behind him.

  It surprised Vorenus not at all to see that Didymus hadn’t even looked up. He was hunched over his desk, his face hidden behind the long locks of his gray hair. With his quill in hand, he was focused on reading one of the many scrolls strewn in what once might have been piles upon his desk. “Yes?” the scholar asked without moving his head. “What is this message?”

  Vorenus smiled happily, taking another step forward. He’d been in exile so long that it was hard to believe he was seeing such a familiar face once more. “That an old friend misses you,” he said.

  The quill scratched loudly to a halt, and the scholar’s head snapped up, the gray strands swaying in front of his eyes. He blinked as if he could not believe what he was seeing. Then he jumped up, overturning his chair behind him and scattering scraps of papyrus to the floor. “Vorenus!”

  The librarian had aged considerably in their time apart. The wrinkles were carved more deeply upon his Greek skin, and his back was more hunched than it once had been, but the warmth with which he embraced his friend was unchanged. It was as if time and the war had never parted them. “By the gods, Vorenus, it’s good to see you. It’s been far too long.”

  Vorenus patted his back. “So it has, my old friend.”

  Didymus abruptly pulled back out of the embrace, holding Vorenus at arm’s length. Sudden fear gripped his face. “What has happened? Is everything well? Is Caesarion—?”

  “He is fine,” Vorenus assured him. “All is well.”

  Didymus
let out a long breath. “Thank the gods. I worried, seeing you again.” He let go and stepped back, looking the Roman up and down. “And you certainly look well,” he said.

  “And you.”

  “Still a poor liar.” Didymus smiled.

  “I’ll not compliment you on your housekeeping, then.”

  Didymus laughed a little at that, then bent over to unceremoniously clear a haphazard stack of papers from a stool in front of his desk. As Vorenus sat down, the chief librarian walked around to set his own seat upright. “Well, I’m surprised to see you,” Didymus said. There was sadness behind his smile. “I confess I never thought I would do so again.”

  “Like Pullo always said, I’m a hard man to keep away.”

  Vorenus meant it in levity, but the mention of their old friend’s name was like the breath of a chill wind in the room. Both men fell silent at the memory.

  “You know,” Didymus finally said, “I never was able to tell you how Pullo died.”

  “You said he did it to save you. To protect Caesarion and the Ark. Isn’t that enough?” Truth be told, it had always been enough for Vorenus.

  The librarian’s eyes were turned down toward the desk, but he wasn’t looking at it. Vorenus could see that his friend was lost in a memory he’d too long kept to himself. “He was wounded, Vorenus. Juba, the Numidian who was looking for the Ark … he surprised us. We tried, but we couldn’t stop him.”

  “Pullo couldn’t stop him?” Vorenus tried to imagine something short of an angry bull stopping his big friend. Even that was hard to picture.

  Didymus shook his head as he looked up for a moment. “I told you, he surprised us. And it wouldn’t have mattered. He was wearing the Aegis of Zeus.”

  “Aegis?”

  “Armor,” Didymus said. “The armor of Alexander the Great.”

  At last Vorenus remembered. That night, that last night in Alexandria, the keepers of the Ark had summoned them all to the old Temple of Serapis. They had spoken of Alexander’s armor. What it really was. “Another Shard of Heaven.”

  Didymus nodded slowly, the long gray strands of his hair rising and falling in front of darkened eyes. “Pullo was so hurt, Vorenus. But he knew. He knew what had to be done. He … he gave his life to save us all.”

  Vorenus bit his lip to control his jaw. “A good man,” he managed to say. “A better man than I could ever be.”

  Didymus brushed aside his hair to look Vorenus in the eyes. “He would have said the same of you.”

  “He would have been wrong, then.”

  “As he would have said, once more, of you.”

  Vorenus couldn’t help but smile at that. It was true, after all. He knew it. Pullo would have clapped that big hand of his upon his friend’s back and laughed at how Vorenus was both the better man and the greater fool—as if such a paradox made all the sense in the world.

  Didymus was smiling, too, but then a shadow once more seemed to fall over his face. “And both better men than I could ever be,” he said.

  Years before they’d known each other, on the night after Julius Caesar was murdered, Didymus had helped an assassin infiltrate Caesar’s villa, where he’d nearly killed Caesarion, the son of Caesar and Cleopatra. Pullo had been the one to save the boy. But Didymus was a different man now. Vorenus knew it. Pullo had known it. Caesarion, too, had long since forgiven him. “It’s been so long, my friend. What’s done was done.”

  “It isn’t just that,” Didymus said. “I brought Juba to the Ark. Selene convinced me that he would help us protect the Ark. He wanted to destroy Octavian.”

  Vorenus thought on it for a moment. “You did what you thought was best,” he finally said. “You didn’t know what would happen.”

  “No. I didn’t. And I don’t think he did either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In the weeks afterward I spent time with Juba. He came here to the Library, seeking out information about the Shards. He knew so much, Vorenus. And he was—is, I suppose—a brilliant young man. A voracious appetite for knowledge, and he remembers seemingly everything he reads. I could have made him a fine scholar.”

  “High praise indeed.”

  “So it is,” Didymus agreed. “Well, I got to know him. And he isn’t the wicked man we feared. He truly wanted the Shards, but not to make himself great.”

  “He wanted to make Octavian great.”

  “No. Not at all. That’s what I’m saying. To the contrary, my dear Vorenus, he wanted to kill him. I imagine he still does, but the experience of using the Aegis of Zeus affected him deeply. It took control of him. It changed him.”

  Vorenus leaned forward. “How?”

  “How did it control him? I don’t know. Neither of us did.” The frustration in the scholar’s voice was palpable. Didymus was a man who thrived on knowledge. Not knowing something clearly rankled him. “But when he attacked us it wasn’t really Juba. Not anymore. He didn’t even remember what happened later. It was like he was under a spell. And later he wanted to understand how.”

  “You said he learned a lot.”

  “Yes. But you can be sure that I endeavored to see that he never learned too much. Certain books I hid. Certain paths I never let him follow.”

  “Did he still want the Ark?”

  Didymus frowned at the question, thinking. “He did and did not. Were he offered its power, he would have taken it. But he would not seek it out. He may not have remembered everything he did when he was under the spell of the Aegis, but he knows that it had much to do with his desire to get the Ark. I do not think he wants to ever kill again. But if he was freely offered the Ark, if he had the chance to use it, just once, to gain his revenge, his thirst for revenge against Caesar remains unquenched.”

  “So long as he’s no threat to us,” Vorenus said. He settled back into his chair, relaxing. “He can kill as many Caesars as he wants. He just can’t do it with the Ark.”

  “I do believe you are safe from Juba, my friend,” Didymus reassured him. “But he isn’t the only threat. You’re still a wanted man here, Lucius Vorenus. I’m glad you’re here, but it isn’t safe.”

  “I know it only too well. Caesar is not a man to forget.”

  “Indeed so,” Didymus agreed. “He would pay a great deal for your head.”

  Vorenus shrugged. “Flattering in its way,” he said.

  “An interesting way to look at it,” Didymus said. “You might have a touch of the philosopher in you. But if you knew this, and you are still here, then it is not for friendship that you’ve come.”

  Vorenus frowned, trying to appear disappointed. “Can that not be enough?”

  “No, my friend. Friends or not, you were never a fool. You need something. Otherwise there’d be no reason to risk a journey so deep into the city.” He leaned forward on his elbows. “So. What is it, Lucius Vorenus? What brings you to Alexandria?”

  Vorenus took a deep breath. “It’s about the Ark of the Covenant, Didymus. It’s about the Shards.”

  5

  THE CANTABRIAN WAR

  CANTABRIA, 26 BCE

  Selene was already gone when one of Caesar’s praetorian guards pushed aside the flap of Juba’s tent, bringing in the shock of morning light and the sounds of the vast Roman encampment.

  “Sir, Caesar requests the presence of the king of Numidia. I am to escort you.”

  Juba lifted himself up to his elbows and blinked into the light for a moment before resigning himself to closing his eyes and nodding firmly. “Thank you, praetorian.”

  The guard stepped away, and in the darkness once again, Juba rose from the bed he shared with the beautiful young daughter of Antony and Cleopatra. He readied himself as quickly but as properly as he could, taking extra care to don the uniform of his station. The wording of the invitation, after all, meant that he was needed not just as the stepbrother of Octavian—Juba refused to think of him by the name Augustus—but in his more formal role as ruler of the land of his birth, the land that his father had ruled b
efore Julius Caesar had destroyed him and made young Juba an orphan before adopting him in a display of that particularly Roman mix of arrogance and grace. Augustus Caesar had restored the title to Juba when he’d given him the hand of Cleopatra Selene, who was herself in title the queen of Egypt after her mother’s suicide. It was fitting, Octavian had said, that she be married to a king.

  Not that either title held substance: the lands of their birth were entirely under Roman control now. Their grand names were nothing but decrees that befit the plans of the increasingly powerful Caesar. Juba wondered sometimes if he’d been made a king only to show how one more king answered to the emperor of Rome.

  Just thinking about it made Juba want to spit.

  Instead, he straightened the purple sash that marked him as a member of the royal family and then pulled aside the flap of the tent.

  The first thing he noticed, as he blinked out of the darkness, was that part of the wooded hillside to the west was on fire.

  The siege of Vellica, the Cantabrian hillfort perched there, had met with little success over the past weeks, so on this morning the Roman assault had begun with pots of oil and flame. Heaved by catapults into the smoke-scattered sky, the bundles rose and fell like a dark, scattered rain, exploding into the enemy fortifications in bursts of red and brilliant orange.

  It wouldn’t work. Even the Roman legions, lined up in their rows at the foot of the hill of the encampment, ready to press an advantage across the little shallow valley should it appear, seemed to know it. Juba could see that many men hadn’t buckled their armaments, and even the standard of the golden eagle, emblem of the might of Rome, was held at the slightest angle, as if the bearer below was talking to another man in the ranks.

  Juba knew enough of Rome to know that such an act ought to bring the whip, but Octavian didn’t seem to mind such things so long as he got what he wanted in the end. Besides which, it was in the nature of a siege that the besieged and the besiegers alike both suffered in the stalemate.