by Mark Jeffrey
“And we found skeletons inside the armor. It appeared that there had been a battle here at the settlement long ago, and these men had been slain. As I inspected one skull, I recognized the teeth of one of my men — it was unmistakable, his grin and the teeth he was missing were the identical to the skull I held in my hand.
“It was clear that our men had made their homes here — and they had lived for some time before something had slain them — or they had slain each other in madness. A short way from the huts we found graves. Two were marked, both with names we knew all too well.
“A curious thing about these graves, however: they indicated that the men buried there had died in their sixties. None of us had such age: centurions are old at thirty — sometimes forty at the very most. At thirty-one, I was the oldest among us. We brushed off the markings on the graves as the ravings of a madman.
“When at last we had seen all that was seeable, we set to the task of building ourselves a new boat. This we accomplished in small months, as our dead companions had left all manner of makeshift stone tools in their huts. And when our hearty craft was finished, we set sail once again — and to my surprise, we left the enchanted isle with no further incident.
“As we did so, the moon at last released the sun from her cold embrace, and sunlight spilled down upon our glad faces for the first time in countless days. The sun and the moon sped away from each other until at last the moon could be seen no more and the sun lay still in the sky, having found its proper way in the heavens once again.
“The winds were kind, and no storms lashed at use on the open seas, and the waves frolicked with us rather than crossing contrary to our way. And the constellations were bright and pointed out way true and clear, and soon we spied the cliffs out yonder. We would go to our homes, here in the village you now call Cyranus, we thought. We would visit our wives and our families. And then we would journey to Rome and give account of our battles in Britannia and our time on the isle of the faeries.
“Only we beheld a much-changed town, as you now know. Strangers and strange buildings now stood where our own homes had been, of which there was no sign or reckoning. You must imagine our surprise and horror as we learned the truth, especially after the ordeal we had just been through. Only eight of us remained, ragged and broken, anticipating the respite and solace of our homes — only to have that one comfort also torn from our bosom. We only pray to Jupiter that our trials are at last at an end.”
Here Appius bowed his head and spoke no more.
Giovanni took all of this in with rapt attention. He scribbled tiny, tiny notes furiously on parchment, going through several pieces over the course of the story.
“A tale well told,” Giovanni said, eyes wide. “Thank you, father. I thank you for this knowledge, more than you can know. And I believe that is enough for one evening. But tarry only a moment while I ask you one last detail: Could you show me on a map the way back to this isle? Do you know the way?”
“Aye,” Appius said. “To the ends of the earth could I sail back there, and tell another such as you the markings in the stars to light and point their way.”
Giovanni nodded feverishly, a greed for knowledge burning in his eyes.
THE NEXT FEW months were passed pleasantly in the quaint hamlet of Cyranus.
The eight centurions all received new homes, courtesy of the generosity of the villagers. In four of the cases, abandoned dwellings were refurbished and provided; and in the other four, simple one-room dwellings were built for them from scratch. And each man of the Lost Legion found their way into some nook of hamlet life. Everyone was eager to have one of the centurions as an apprentice or laborer: a skilled warrior was then around to protect the shop or field at all times, and that was a rare skill in Cyranus.
One of the centurions had even already married a local girl.
Appius became a steady fixture at the Cyranus Villa; he and Giovanni and Ragazzo spent many a day and night together before the fire, in the vineyards, and down in Giovanni’s workroom where he painted Appius and showed him all of his other studies and crafts and arts.
And for a time, all was quite well indeed.
But then came a sort of split. It happened when Giovanni found he no longer needed Ragazzo to speak to Appius; he was hearing the meaning of the words himself. Before a translation could be delivered, Giovanni would would simply say something like, “Tell him that what he says is true and now ask him about such and such.” And not long after that, Giovanni simply started asking the questions himself directly while Ragazzo fell asleep out of boredom.
After that, Ragazzo stopped showing up altogether whenever Appius was present.
Appius and Giovanni became nearly inseparable. They could be seen together nearly always, laughing, arm in arm, in the vineyards, or down in Giovanni’s workroom, marveling over this or that painting.
But late one night, after Appius had left the Villa for his own home, Giovanni happened to notice Ragazzo slip out of his room and dash into the vineyard.
Curious, Giovanni followed.
Ragazzo went deeper and deeper into the rows and rows of twisting grape vines. Had Giovanni not seen him enter the labyrinth of vegetation initially, he would have never found him again.
After a time, Ragazzo came to a clearing at the edge of the fields where a sharp edge of mica jutted strangely from the otherwise smooth, hilly volcanic ground. And waiting for him there was a girl dressed in rags.
Ragazzo produced a small bundle of breads and cheeses that he had undoubtedly stolen from the Villa kitchens. The girl appeared to be the same age as Ragazzo, and she was emaciated. Her eyeballs seemed to pop from skin stretched across prominent cheekbones. She snatched the food from Ragazzo’s hands and began tearing into it savagely.
“Not so fast,” Ragazzo said. “I’ve been starved before as well, you know. You can die from eating too much too quickly after starving for so long.”
“Shut up,” she said between bites. “You don’t know what this feels like.”
“Oh, but I do,” Ragazzo said, old pain dancing in his eyes. “Here. Drink some springwine.” He produced a flask from his garments and offered it to her. “It will ease the digestion, and possibly keep you from killing yourself by consuming too much food too quickly.”
The girl took the flask from his hands and drank deeply. Her long, oily, straggly hair hung like spider legs about her face.
“That’s enough,” Ragazzo said, pulling the flask away from her. “Enough, Jane!” he shouted.
Giovanni squatted amongst the winding vines, flinching, even though Ragazzo’s rebuke was not directed at him.
Jane verbally wretched when he pulled the flagon from her. “I wasn’t done —!”
“You are now,” Ragazzo snarled. “So. What news?”
Wiping the latest from her mouth and scowling, Jane said, “The mounds are safe enough,” she said, seemingly reluctant to divulge this.
“How safe?” Ragazzo said.
Jane waved away his comment. “Oh, you. Always worrying about nothing. Nobody has discovered any of them. And the one here in Cyranus is safe enough.”
Giovanni shifted in his hiding place. A mound? Here, in his town? What did that mean?
Slowly Ragazzo nodded. “That is well. As you know, I have taken up residence with the chief curio here.”
“Yes,” Jane replied. “That Giovanni. He is much too curious for his own good.”
Ragazzo nodded. “And there is another thing. This Appius. Roman centurions from ages ago have arrived. Did you know that?”
Giovanni stirred in the bushes. There was a strange cadence to Ragazzo’s voice. He did not even sound like a child. It was like the child-voice was an act, and this person, this mature person he was hearing now, was the real person inhabiting that body.
“Yes,” Jane said. “I heard from the villagers. Well. What is to be done about Giovanni?” Jane asked.
“I don’t know,” Ragazzo said. “He has been kind to me …”
/>
Jane snarled. “Yes. Kind enough to blind you. Have you forgotten Atlantis? Or Mu?”
“No,” Ragazzo said, eyes looking earthward. “I have not. I promise you, Jane, that I have not.”
“Well. Must we kill him?”
“No!” Ragazzo shouted at once. “No, no. No. It has not come anywhere near that! He has not discovered the mound, nor does he suspect that such a thing is here in his very town. If he did he would have dug it up ages ago.”
Jane nodded in between bites. “Well. That’s up to you, I suppose.”
“Yes,” Ragazzo said. “It is. Don’t forget that. Giovanni is my friend.”
“Men with Niburian knowledge become very different men very quickly,” Jane said.
Ragazzo sighed. “I know.” After a moment of reflection, he said, “So what of you? What will you do now?”
Jane shrugged. “I thought I might stay here for a bit. If you’re okay with that. I need food and rest.”
Ragazzo nodded. “You’ll live in the woods, then? And I should bring you food at night?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “For a bit. Until I regain my strength. Then I will go to Egypt. Several mounds there need to be looked in upon.”
Troubled, Giovanni withdrew from his hiding place and slinked away into the night.
THE PLAGUE HIT the small town of Cyranus very quickly.
In fact, it happened to fast that Giovanni did not even have time to confront Ragazzo immediately as he had planned to do.
One the centurions was the first to die. He had been whole and hale just days earlier: then he was in his bed, shivering, covered in boils. Then, he was dead.
And the bodies multiplied from there. Fear and horror filled the empty streets. Nobody dared leave their homes.
Giovanni was the closest thing to a doctor in Cyranus, so it was he who made the house calls and tried to heal the sick. But he was at a loss. The plague was like nothing he had seen before; his usual tinctures and potions were effectless against it.
He took Ragazzo with him on his rounds, barking orders at the boy. But he seldom looked him in the eye or even registered his presence. Ragazzo was a thing that carried his boxes and books; Giovanni could barely see straight as he trudged from door to door, tears ever present in his eyes.
The graveyard began filling with the old and the young alike. Children especially were vulnerable to the plague’s ravages. The sound of wailing parents become commonplace in the usually quaint hamlet of Cyranus.
It was Eleonora, the youngest daughter of Giovanni, who first succumbed to the plague.
She had been fine three days previous — she went from fine to dead within seventy-two hours. Giovanni was inconsolable — until Bonfilia also came down with the symptoms. Oriana followed not long after that, and then Jina.
Only Venetia and Allesandra, the eldest, seemed well. Both tended to their sisters round the clock — bringing fresh linens, washing them, trying to cool the fever. Ragazzo helped with the other errands, such as bringing them food and even cooking it on occasion as best as he could manage.
Working like a madman, Giovanni mixed potions and elixirs of every sort imaginable in his workroom. Even Appius was not shown his usual consideration: Giovanni barely registered his existence. Yet Appius would not leave the villa with the state that Giovanni was in. And the old Roman mourned the loss of Eleonora as though it were his own daughter.
“She must be burned,” Giovanni said, his face a mask of wrenched misery. “Like the others.”
“The Church will not —” Venetia said.
“The Church does not understand. If we do not burn the dead, if we bury them, the disease will multiply.”
And at the thought of his daughter’s body burning on a pyre like a heathen, Giovanni tore at his clothes, his hair, and even the flesh of his face and wailed at the moon like a stricken animal.
RAGAZZO WOKE to find Giovanni staring at him,
It was nearly three o’clock in the morning. Giovanni did not say anything. He simply stood there in the dark, watching, watching. Ragazzo fell awake the way one often does, when heavy eyes lie upon them as they slumber.
“The mound,” Giovanni said softly. “What is in the mound?”
Ragazzo sat him. “Mound, sir? What mound?”
“And you sleep. And you never are sick. How is that possible?”
“Sir … I don’t know what you are —”
“I followed you.” Giovanni growled the words. “In the vineyard. You spoke with a girl, you called her Jane. You spoke of keeping knowledge of a mound from me. You’ve been feeding her from my kitchens. At least I have a right to know who it is that eats my food.”
Ragazzo did not look stunned. He did not look like one who had been caught. Rather, he got up from the bed and lit a lantern.
Giovanni studied his face in the lamplight. “Your eyes,” Giovanni said. “They are the eyes of an old man. I don’t mean rheum. Your eyes are physically healthy and young. I mean the gaze, the intellect. The person who looks at me from those eyes is not a young boy.”
Ragazzo sat. He sighed and seemed to be weighing his options. Then his entire demeanor changed. “You’re right, of course. I am old — far older than I appear.” Stunning, full intelligence flooded his eyes: Ragazzo allowed himself to be truly seen for the first time.
“This explains your wisdom … far beyond your years, it is. But tell me. How old are you?”
“Older than Rome. Older than the pyramids.”
Giovanni stared at him, astonished, as though seeing him for the first time. “I paint the faces of men, of boys, of girls. But to really paint someone, you have to see into their soul, to know them. Do you realize, Ragazzo, that I have never asked to paint you? Why do you think that is? It is because I cannot fathom your depths! You are … bottomless! Your eyes are pools of space … they go on forever!”
“Appius knows,” Ragazzo said. “He told you something about me.”
Giovanni nodded, astonished again. “One of his men thought he recognized you, when he first laid eyes upon you — and you spoke the language of the Centurions perfectly. The man said you had been here in the village before, when they left one thousand and four hundred years ago. I paid it no heed: he was mistaken, it was merely a passing resemblance. How could that be? And neither did Appius believe it. But is that true?”
Ragazzo nodded. “It is.”
Giovanni gaped. “How?” he hissed. “Are you … immortal? Do you know the secret of life? Did the Egyptians teach you?”
“No!” Ragazzo said, shaking his head. “You misunderstand. No. It’s not like that.”
“But … you do not age! You do not grow sick!”
“That is true, but —“
“And here people are dying — dying, Ragazzo! My daughters! My sweet, sweet daughters, my blood! And you! You do nothing! You —“
“Stop it!” Ragazzo shouted, closing his ears. “Stop! Please, sir. It is not like that! I cannot cure death! I cannot cure illness! I have no power to help you.”
“What is in the mound?”
Ragazzo opened his mouth and then closed it.
“You have been protecting it. Haven’t you? All this time?”
Ragazzo nodded slowly. “It must be never be entered by men.”
And then something else occurred to Giovanni. His eyes widened as he put it together. “And you tricked me. When you arrived in this town. You were not lost or wayward at all! You starved yourself — and — and then you placed yourself in my path! Because you knew I would take you in!”
Ragazzo nodded again. “Yes. I admit that is true.”
“You have been false with me from the very beginning, Ragazzo.”
“Yes.”
“But … why?”
Something flared in Ragazzo’s eyes. Then he nearly shouted, “You are too greedy for knowledge! You do not know what such knowledge will do to you.”
“You think it will destroy me,” Giovanni said, his intuition leaping. “You th
ink --”
“No! I think it will destroy far more than just you!” Ragazzo strove to calm himself. “I have witnessed the Sea swallow whole cities and continents and kill millions, because of knowledge in the wrong hands.”
Giovanni considered this for a moment. “So. The mound. It is the Tree of Knowledge, and it is within my grasp. And you will not let me eat of its fruit.” Their eyes met in the lamplight. “And is there knowledge in that mound which could help me cure my daughters? My town?”
And then, a wail could be heard above them in the Villa. A wail that could only mean one thing.
Another one of Giovanni’s daughters was dead.
“No,” Giovanni said, shaking his head. He lurched out and grabbed Ragazzo’s nightshirt. “No, no, no, NO, NO, NO! You have no right to keep these secrets from me! You, who are ageless! You, who must have these secrets! You must share them with me!”
But Ragazzo only shook his head.
“What are you?”
“I am one of the gods of old,” Ragazzo said. Giovanni released him and stepped back, quaking, not in fear, but astonishment … because in that instant, he knew — he knew in his bones — that Ragazzo spoke the truth. The evidence was in the boy’s eyes — those ancient, ageless eyes. No painter worth his salt could fail to miss it. “One of the ones you wished to meet, Giovanni. The people of the flying shields. You hear of us in every legend in every far-away land in the world.”
“What is your name?”
“There, at least, I was not false. I do not know my name. And some of my early memory is hidden from me. But the one to whom I have sworn an oath is named Enki, and he is one of the Sumerian gods of old — yes, older than the Egyptians. You were right about that, Giovanni.
“And Enki commands that the mound may not be opened. I cannot gainsay him, not even to save your life, your daughter’s lives, or even my own life.”
