by M. A. Mott
“You must go to Oolaht, the dark woman whom you have imprisoned,” she said. “She and the others are my children. They must not be harmed. They must not be taken away. Heed me, man of Rome.”
Maximus felt heavy, as if he could not move. All he wanted to do was pull the woman to him, fall into her, let their bodies become one.
“Bring them to this chamber. Give Oolaht anything she asks. Tell her this word: ‘Kashaa.’ It is my command. She will obey and you will be saved. It is the only way.” She walked back over to the bed, sliding back into it invitingly, turned to face him. “Go now, man of Rome. Heed your goddess.” She seemed to fade, like petals on the wind. “Go...”
Maximus started, suddenly regaining consciousness. His hand shot out toward the bed, now empty. The sleeve of his robe caught the wash basin, tipping it over. The clay bowl dashed against the floor, shattering loudly, water splashing over the room.
Tabor startled out of sleep, throwing aside the blanket with which he’d covered himself. Instantly he crossed the room to steady Maximus.
“Commander! What is wrong?”
“I must...see her.”
“See who? Commander, you need to lay down.”
“I must see the woman. The dark woman.”
Tabor frowned, uncertain what his leader meant. “You mean, the slaves we took yesterday?”
Maximus swayed. Tabor caught him. “Yes, you old fool! Take me to the dark woman!”
Tabor put Maximus’ arm around his shoulders and steadied the commander, then the two staggered to the doors. By this time, the hallway filled with guards alerted to the sound of the shattering bowl. Otho held a lamp, one hand on the knife at his belt.
“Commander, what is it?” he asked. He peered at Maximus as if reading him.
“....Aside...” Maximus said. His breaths came as gasps.
“Take us to the storeroom!” Tabor told the servants. He turned to Otho. “He asks to see that slave, that woman.”
“Why?”
“He doesn’t say.” He grunted as Maximus reeled into him. “Here—help me with him.”
Otho took the other arm and together the two men walked their stricken leader outside to the courtyard. Already, torches burned in the storeroom. Servants stood by the open doors. The men lurched through.
Inside, the five women stood in a small stable. The older woman, whose pleated, gold-trimmed robes were now wrinkled, stood before them on the other side of the wooden barrier marking the stall.
Maximus removed his companion’s arms from him, standing erect. He peered at the woman angrily.
“Tell me of this witchery,” he said to her, menace in his voice.
“My lord. I warned you that you are marked.” She reached through the slats of the stable to try and touch his face. Maximus grabbed her arm, causing her to cry out. “What does my lord want?”
“What is this that sickens me?” he demanded. “What poison courses through me? Answer, or I will have you nailed to a cross!”
She glared back at him, suddenly defiant. “My lord,” she said evenly, ignoring the pressure of his arm gripping hers. “You would do well not to drive the nails too deep. You might have to pull them out.”
“Speak, damn you!” he said. “What witchcraft is this? Who is she?”
“She? You speak of someone, my lord?”
“Green eyes. Dark hair. Tan skin. Gold robes.”
“That is Tanit, my Lord. She comes for you. You must—ah!”
He grabbed her arm harder. Her face darkened with pain and fury.
“She bid me tell you something,” he said. “She said...Kashaa.” He released his grip, tilting backward. His men caught him as he crumpled to the floor, spent.
Oolaht lowered her arm, staring down at him in contemplation.
Tabor, looking up from Maximus, glared at her. “What is that?” he asked.
“That is a command from my goddess,” Oolaht said. “She orders me,” she paused, sweeping her arm to indicate the other women, “all of us to heal your commander. We must hurry. There is no time to lose.”
Otho stood and reached out to open the stall door. Tabor stepped forward and grabbed his hand.
“Are you mad?” Tabor demanded. “She will poison him—again! She will finish the job this time.”
Otho frowned. “This time? Why do you think she did so in the first place?”
Tabor looked at him, astonished.
“Surely you don’t believe he’s been ‘chosen by a goddess?’”
“And why not?” Otho shrugged. “The Gods chose Rome to rule. And so it is. A goddess? Certainly.”
A groan escaped Maximus’ lips, even as the stable servants undid the gate and let the women out of the stall. They gathered around the stricken leader.
“We must staunch this fever. Bring water from the spring near the north wall,” Oolaht said. The soldiers hesitated. She looked at one of the legionnaires. “Your Commander ordered it.”
Otho squinted at the priestess, as if weighing whether to trust her. Then he turned to one of the soldiers.
“Do as she says.”
The man stood at attention, his hand across his chest, then stretched out his arm, saluting. Then he turned and barked orders at two standing near. They stomped out of the stables.
Otho motioned to two others. “Take the Commander to his chamber! Haste!”
The two men lifted Maximus between them and carried him forth. The rest followed.
Once upstairs, they stretched the leader on the queen’s golden bed. Oolaht looked around the room, searching.
“Where is the large chest?” She pointed to an empty spot on the floor along the wall. “It was there.”
There was silence. One of the soldiers cleared his throat.
“Well, out with it,” Otho ordered.
“Sir. The chest was taken by Wolf squad. Booty, sir.”
Otho turned to the woman. “Spoils to the victors. It’s a soldier’s right,” he explained.
Her face darkened with anger. “That chest has all my medicines. Your commander needs them.”
Otho turned back to the man. “You heard her. Fetch it back.”
“ALL of it,” Oolaht corrected. “Nothing must be missing. Your lord’s life depends on it.”
The soldier nodded to Otho. “They’ve had no chance to spend it, sir. I’ll have it in minutes.” He turned and left.
By this time the others returned with the water in a large copper bowl. Oolaht bade them set it into the washstand that previously held the now-shattered clay bowl. She reached down and fetched up a linen cloth on the hook beneath, drenched the cloth in the cold water, and returned to the bed.
Maximus’ breath now came in ragged gasps. Tenderly, she put the cloth to his head. As she touched the cool damp to his burning forehead, his eyes shot open and he cried out unintelligibly. He started violent, thrashing, and grabbed her arm.
“Hold him!” She ordered the men standing by.
This time, they did not wait for a confirmation from Otho. They stepped forward and grabbed his arms. Otho lurched forward to the bed and tried to push his commander’s heaving chest back into the blankets. Maximus’ head thrashed from side to side. His eyes stared unseeing. He moaned loudly.
“Lash him to the bed!” Oolaht said. She pointed to wide, white linen sashes hanging on a decorative rack behind the stead. “Those! Lay their width across his body and pull the ends through those rings.”
Otho took the cloth, tossed one to a solider on the opposite side, then pulled his end taught against the other, and bent down to the baseboard. There, he saw a succession of three iron rings along the side of the bed, from head to foot. He looked up at Oolaht.
“What is this?” he said, suspicion in his voice.
“Your lord is not the first. Now, do as I say, quickly.”
Otho glowered, but passed the end of the cloth through the ring, then above it, fastening it with a hook that seemed to be placed for just such an event. Then they repeate
d the effort for all three sashes, attaching the ends on each side to the hooks. He stood.
Maximus strained against the cloths, but his muscular form was held fast by the arraignment.
“If he dies, you will join him,” Otho warned her.
She shrugged. “I may yet die,” she said. “But if your master lives, he will be immortal.”
Otho glared at her uncomprehendingly, saying nothing.
Now the soldiers returned from the barracks with the chest. Oolaht noticed, her jaw set, that the ornate brass lock had been pried off. She commanded them to set it down, then rushed to it and opened it.
Inside, the once neatly-stacked boxes and bundles were a jumbled mess, as if it had been rifled. She began digging through it, muttering, pulling out small jars and cloth bags, handing them to one of her acolytes.
“Prepare the unguent,” she said to the smaller girl. She handed her a few small drawstring silk bags. “Take these to the mortar and grind in equal parts.” The girl walked away with the bags.
Oolaht turned to the bowl and poured a handful orange dust from one of the cloth sacks into her palm. She held it, as if weighing it, then poured more and sifted it into the water, stirring it.
A pungent odor of iodine wafted through the room. Tabor peered into the bowl. “What is this?”
“Salissa,” she murmured. “Much of what I have.”
Tabor frowned, stroking his beard. “And what is this...Salissa?”
Oolaht appeared to ignore the imperious tone in the surgeon’s voice. “It is the bark of a tree. Very ancient. It quiets fevers.”
“Oh?” Tabor suddenly sounded interested. “Where might one find this tree?”
She laughed under her breath, shaking her head.
“Speak up,” he said. “Perhaps we can fetch more of it.”
She looked him in the eye, a sad smile crossing her face. “That is impossible. Your Legions burned the tree where it stood on the temple grounds when they destroyed our city. Three thousand years old she was. She is gone forever.”
Tabor averted his gaze from her burning dark eyes. With that, she picked up the bowl and strode to the bed on which Maximus lay, writhing and moaning.
Chapter 5
TANIT AWOKE, STRETCHED on the matted ground cover beneath the rock overhang of the cave entrance. The cool mountain air was a refreshing change, and she awoke, staring at the branches of the tree that partially masked the entrance to this sacred place. In the crown of the tree, looking down on her, a brown-spotted eagle perched. What did Romans call them? The “Hieraaetus,” they had named them. Hawk-eagle. Romans did that, naming things by adding together other names. When they did, other names were soon forgotten, even by those who did not speak Latin. Why did it stare at her? Hoping she would die and become a meal? Not today.
She sat up, clutching her arms across her naked breasts. Shorn of her goddess form, and of her cloth-of-gold gowns she wore at the temple when walking as human, she was naked now. The cool morning was chilly, and she remembered her old ways, the ways of the green-eye desert girl. She was now that girl again, at least for a while. She ran her hand down to her side, where the spear had raked across her goddess’ leopard-skin, but the wound was gone, taken away by her immortal magic.
She glanced around the entrance, now in daylight. The mountain shepherds they usually hired to prepare the site for their priestly visits usually kept things staged there; a few water gourds, some simple tools, and...yes, she found it. Underneath an overturned wicker basket was a folded felt cloth. She shook it free of leaves and dust, then pulled the cloth over her head. The coarse cloth shepherd coat hung stiff on her frame, itching slightly, but was warm.
Her nakedness now covered, she searched through the items left there. She finally found the small bag. She opened it and pulled out the little iron knife and flint, along with the bundle of punk to start a fire. Then she moved around the entrance, gathering sticks, leaves, tufts of thistle blown and gathered there by the wind, and set them in the fire pit at the entrance. She arranged the sticks in the old way, the way she had learned millennia ago. In those days, there had not even been iron from which to draw sparks, just flint. After setting the punk underneath the dried leaves and sticks, she took the flint, and holding the knife just so, struck the flint against the tang. Clink! Sparks flew off into the punk. Clink! Again, more sparks this time. The punk started to smoke. Clink! Clink! Clink! Now, the sparks held their own in the punk. She picked up the bundle, careful not to lose the spark, and blew gently. The spark grew with each breath, until a gout of flame shot up in the bundle. Quickly, she replaced it in the sticks and blew more, until the wood finally caught as well. Soon, the fire crackled with life.
She sat back and admired her handiwork, watching the flames dance, feeling the warmth on her open face. She might be a goddess, but this morning, she was Ashia, the green-eyed desert girl, claiming again that heritage so long gone. She could build a fire! And in her, that tiny human spark grew, filling her eyes with remembrance of days long past, centuries like smoke in an ever-burning flame. Tears streamed down her face for the family she had known.
She had been Ashia the bright; Ashia the chosen; Ashia the laughing; Ashia the lonely, staring at the stars until her stepmother Mahai called her back to the tent; and Ashia the thoughtful. She thought of her flight from the slavers who took her, then of the fateful meeting with the one who changed her, the one named Damo, who turned her to save her. She remembered frenzied journey into Carthage.
Then...she remembered her change, when she stopped being Ashia and became Tanit forever.
She shut her eyes tight against the memory, dispelling it from her thoughts. Now was not the time to grieve. The decades, the accolades, the festivals when she rode the royal barge in glory, surrounded by her worshippers. Of the long, howling loneliness without lovers. The fall of the city. Her flight across the ocean. Her new start in these mountains. Her cries for a mate, month after month, year after year.
Now, she had one, if he lived; the enemy, a man of the nation that murdered her people and destroyed her world.
And yet—out of such things come glory. Her people lived in her. She could save them, carry them, even now as she carried in her the people of her long-vanished tribe. In her heart they lived. In the fire dancing before her they danced again, too. Because, even though she mourned that little girl who looked at the stars, she was the Goddess Tanit. She was a being greater than all those losses. She was one of the stars at whom the green-eyed desert girl used to marvel. As Tanit, she had given life to the great dream, the dream of all humanity, to rise up and shake off the bonds that tie them to death. She carried in her heart a greatness, a majesty, and in her animal form, a predator that once hunted humans for food, but now guided their children with fierce wisdom. There was still something more that she might do.
Tanit sat back, staring into the fire. She would continue to reach out to this man of Rome. She had already traveled to him in his delirium. How many times had she seen through the eyes of sickened men, only to watch their fever writhe within them, through them, and know death through them, a horrible, hot, mad death? This one was different. Rome was young. It had the assuredness, the stamina of a young man, convinced, privileged by Fortune, succored by Fate, childish with impunity. But strong and smart. Romans took things that worked for them—language, engineering, customs, even gods—and made them Rome. Such a man as this...Maximus. His family name intrigued her. Pantera. The Panther. Something long ago had chosen that name for him.
She got up from her fire, walked to the basket, and pulled out the jar of incense she knew was there. She brought the jar back, opened its wax-sealed wooden stopper, and poured some of the sparkling powder into her palm and threw it in the fire. Sparks flashed. An aroma of Myrrh, Lotus blossom and Patchouli wafted from the flames. She sat once again and stared into the fire. She relaxed and opened her feelings up. Hard thoughts—things she was worried about, anger or loss—she acknowledged but then let go.
They fell away. Instead, she thought of the look in his eyes, the man of Rome, and his defiance at the moment he thought he would die. No fear, but fierce. That would do. She let that image open her mind, flow into her. And she was with him again.
THIS TIME, THE DREAM that came to him was no longer hasty, jumbled and fevered. Instead, Maximus felt only a languid ease from the rock on which he sat, watching the auroch bull beneath him, munching on the grass in the meadow below the bluff. Its horned head bobbed up and down as it tore at the tufts of green, munching, inching ever so closer to his perch. He remembered them from Rome. They used the giant, bull-like beasts as monsters in the gladiatorial games, with men trained to leap them when the beasts charged, just escaping being gored. And the crowds cheered. Eventually the beasts fell beneath the swords and spears in the pit, and then the meat was served later at the celebratory banquet. Strong meat, good tasting. He slavered now, licking his fanged chops. Casually, he shifted from where he lolled lazily on the warm rock, rolled to his stomach, and the pads of his paws contacted the stone. He felt the pores of the rock engage his claws and ready him for the leap down on top of the beast’s back.
The bull drew near. The creature’s reddish hide showed glowing in the afternoon sun. He could smell its tannic scent mingled with the botanic tinge of the grasses it plucked and munched. Maximus readied, and felt a calm hand slide across his back. It was her. She whispered in his ear:
“Remember now. Fall full upon it. Cling to it with your claws, and bite it in the nape. There, the bones are weakest and you will kill it easily. If you miss, fall from it and give chase. Attack the tendons where they attach along the bones of the back legs. Either way, you will eat well tonight, man of Rome.”
