Vergil in Averno vm-2

by Avram Davidson

  Clutching fast the cross-spar, the man peered round about. Then he ceased to move his head, looked steadily toward Averno. Then he gave a cry, lurched. “Turno!” his mates called. “Turno, what see thee?”

  “I be giddy; bring me down!”

  Someone murmured, near to Vergil, “Bring him down, then; slowly, steady, bring him down, so.”

  On the ground, as they undid his harness, the man, pale, staggered, fell into a comrade’s arms, was gently laid upon the ground. “Turno, what thee did see, soldier? Tell us, man.”

  “I saw blood and fire and someone. . more than one. . transfixed by an arrow. . I be giddy, bring me down. Bring me down, mates.” There was a brief convulsion. Turno became incontinent. There was a call for warm water, clean rags, a clean tunic. And, while one man went to get these, at once the others began to dismantle the jury-rigged mast. The soldiery was seldom idle.

  One of them, the youngest it would seem, asked, as he grunted and tugged at the bolts, “If he did see ‘Verno indeed, how dids he see an one man and one arrow? For it be greatly far.” Someone, someone older, said something, low, to the lad, and the lad said nothing more.

  But someone else had something more to say. “Raven. . raven. . I speak nothing of this here man and that there rank, but as merely of the bird, the raven-bird, it power of sight, it power — I say — be far, but I questions, be it clear? For this sight ‘tis due alone to the dread diet of the raven: for the raven eateth naught but dead men eyes.”

  Another: “Quiet, lest thee fright the lad; he will learn them thing soon enough. In the lodge, or out.”

  To Turno, he having been swiftly, gently, washed, and hastened into a clean tunic: “What else did thee see, man? Did thee see other soldier coming, mate?”

  From Turno: “I be giddy. Bring me down.”

  Casca crouched in his curule chair, listening to Vergil’s report of what had just happened. The Legate muttered something; as Vergil leaned toward him, cupping an ear, Casca, with an effort, cleared his throat, spoke again. “Seven kings select the Emperor,” he said. “Yet, if all eight were here now, it could not affect what might be happening, there.” He gestured in the general direction of the Very Rich City. Then, slowly, he straightened his slack back, began, slowly, waving aside a gesture of assistance, to rise.

  “In general,” he said, “I consider the teachings of Zeno not adequate as a basic principle of rule. Still. . there is the fundamental Stoic saying: There are things which may be helped and there are things which may not be helped, and one must learn which are which. It is close in here, and it may be less close outside. Let us see.”

  Scarcely had they moved outside and settled their seats when the soldiery, who had been working in the far end of the walled yard, gave one great wordless cry; Vergil at that moment thought it must be one of those shouts such as men, soldiers or not — workmen, for example — use when they bend themselves to a sudden effort. No. Casca clutched at the bosom of his garment, half-rose from his seat, fell back, and, with his quivering hand, pointed.

  Vergil jerked his head around. There, behind, beyond the fortress wall, a huge. . something. . like a red-hot lance-head. . towered and trembled, high against the sky.

  “Vesuvio!”

  “No! Not — ”

  The earth gave a shivering movement.

  “Then what?”

  The chairs, as though of their own motion, or as though moved by men invisible, began to slide. Even one slight second before this, Vergil had begun to shout his answer, was still shouting it even when the chairs were flung against the wall (wall which quivered but, marvelously, did not fall), even while the last elements of his cry were swallowed up by some other sound. As though every lion in every arena had roared at once. Fell silent. Roared again. Fell silent. Roared again. Fell silent.

  In this last silence he heard the silent echo of his voice still crying answer within his mind.

  Vesuvio?

  Averno.

  As when some great ship be found wracked ashore, evidence of what befell her may be deduced from such details as: Were her timbers scorched? Were they stove? Was her cargo jettisoned as though to lighten the vessel lest she stoop beneath a storm, or was her cargo found intact within her sand-filled hold? Such bodies as lay strewn upon the strand, were they but drowned or did they bear wounds? Was her apparel all in place or had her sails been stowed….

  But as for Averno, there were no witnesses — certes, none who ever did come forward — to tell of her very last hours. The testimony of those who had fled early, of those who had seen the preparations, the testimony of the intentions of the magnates as writ in hard black ink, and such testimony as that provided by the soldier of Raven rank (was it clear-seeing, clairvoyance of something then going on though past possible sight by normal vision? Was it prophecy? Was it. . whate’er it was) — these, bit by bit, and word by word, built up a certain scene.

  There were no witnesses to tell of the last hours of Averno, of who had gone first to the slaughter, who second. . and who last. Cadmus, no doubt, they had saved till last. It would have been their way, the way of the magnates to have done so. As to how others had gone to death, the ways no doubt must have been various: some screaming and flailing, some praying, some cursing, some in Stoic acceptance and in Stoic silence. And Cadmus? What had his Sibyl said? Cadmus was a mart, therefore Cadmus was mortal. Which is but to say that water wets and fire burns. If they had not bound his feet, and who knows if they had or had not, Cadmus had doubtless gone dancing; if they had not gagged his mouth, and who knew if they had not or had, Cadmus had likely gone singing. This perhaps mattered not much (though much, perhaps, it had mattered to Cadmus). One thing mattered much. . to Vergil. Mostly Cadmus had been mad, sometimes he had been sane. Vergil, knowing that he would never know, Vergil hoped with all his heart that Cadmus had not, then, been sane.

  I see Cadmus, transfixed by an arrow: thus the vatic message. Vergil, a hundred years (so it seemed) after, was to ask himself, How had he kenned this soothsaying, at the time that first he heard it? Beneath the rose. . Images of possible meaning had flashed across his mind like bolts of lightning, new one succeeding before old one had left off; as (1) literally: an archer shall let loose an arrow from a bow and it shall pierce Cadmus’s body — (2) metaphorically: arrows are symbolic of many things, as one speaks of the arrow of Eros, perhaps Cadmus in love — (3) allegorically: mayhap some stroke of state or fate shall bring his “reign” to sudden end —

  But the vision might have been a Sibylline saying or a Delphic oracle for all that any tincture or impression of the truth had entered Vergil’s mind. How had one such story gone? the Emperor Marius sent the customary rich gifts to Delphi, asking, When shall I die? And the Pythonessa, sitting cross-legged in her shallow, fireless caldron on its tripod, had drooled and babbled and then, head jerking upright, clearly cried, Beware the sixty-third year! The sixty-third year, beware! Scarcely had Marius, then in the full flush of his maturity, finished chuckling — half-scornful, half-elated — when he had, in his royal tent, fallen, dozing, then sleeping; see him awaken to find himself alone and the tent alone, legions having, one after the other, in the night silently struck their own tents and vanished. To the one faithful servant who remained, Marius cried out asking whither had his armies fled, and why? The servant, loyal indeed but neither perceptive nor sharp, groping after any crumb of comfort, answering: They have gone to join General Sulla, who has proclaimed rebellion; but, sure your Imperial Highness need not fear that Sulla: he is old, he is old, he is sixty-two years old!

  But at that moment (nor when as it were the echo of that moment had recurred when the Raven soldier called from aloft) had no tincture of impression been distilled into Vergil’s mind that the arrow might or could be an enormous drill intended to be lifted by immense engines akin to those that worked a catapult, and then dropped: a gigant pile driver driving the arrow into the surface and beneath the surface of that area beneath which (Vergil had revealed; he,
Vergil, had revealed!) lurked and burned the “father-fire”; that this immense javelin, colossian dart, intended to pierce the Averninan earth’s integument and free the pent-up flames therein beneath: not for any fleeting second had Vergil conceived this herculean steel could exist, let alone that it would enclose as, partly, in a cage, the body of the mad misfortunate entitled or mistitled King. Horrid vision. Dreadful thought. Arms and legs protruding as the enormous drill went up. . and up. . up. . to pause some dreadful moment as the engine-workers slipped their stops and let it fall — ah, that fall! Like that of Icarus!

  Transfixed! Oh, fatal word. . and weak.

  And to what end? For one, that the gigant drill should pierce new openings whence might flower the flames which alone constituted the gardens of Averno. (No real thought, ever, had been given to Vergil’s plan that the hot vapors might be piped like water to wherever needed, there to be lit like lamps, to fire forges wherever forges be set up; no real thought given, ever, to his notion that the hot upquellings of boiling water be conveyed as common cold waters were conveyed via common aqueducts whither it would be convenient to receive and use them.) The only new thoughts in the minds — the common mind, one might say — of the magnatery was that new holes be pierced for new fires to be used in the same old ways. Thus: one end, one purpose. First.

  Second, for another (some rhetor, silent as in a mime-show, accounting on his fingers the points to be made, in classic mode, appeared in Vergil’s mind; whilst the most of the mind writhed in torment, this silent figure mimed and mowed, and moved its fingers as calmly and even as though the slightest bit bored to be demonstrating once again, Thus, Citizens and Conscript Fathers, we will recapitulate the reasons why study of the arts philosophical as well as martial be beneficial for the state: firstly. . secondly …). Second, that the good gods of hell be pleased to accept this plan and that it be hecatombs as should please them: not as Vergil — ignorant as a maiden before whom oblique talk is made of maidenheads — had assumed meant hecatombs of oxen; and Vergil had approved, thinking only that it could not hurt and the slaves would for more than once in an annum or in a lustrum have flesh-meat-roast to eat: nothing such like: It had been hecatombs of human sacrifices the hobgob magnates had meant; nothing else? Nothing more than Cadmus? Many more than Cadmus. Hecatombs. Plural. How many hundreds were to die, one after another, pierced, shattered, as the gret drill came down time after time to pierce the places within the rough ovoid that Vergil’s diligence had calculated and reported upon, that neat reticulated grid he had draw, Sisyphean, almost, time after time, upon his maps?

  For this? Only for this?

  In effect: yes.

  Only for this.

  Thirdly, magnates and master workmen of the Very Rich City of Averno, as such sacrifice, essential and profitable as we ourselves know it to be, be full illicit and damnably forbidden by the Empire’s Laws, and as it must be somehow excused and as it were “written off” on the accompt-books in which be listed all which pertains to the relations of the Very Rich City with the Very Rich Empire; therefore …

  (Iohan’s therefore! And the lad knew as much, which is to say as little as, on this, his master….)

  Fourthly, ah, what a good and slyly clever way to wipe clean the lists, wipe them free of many and many a score of aged sick and weak slaves and serfs and thralls whose fumbling labor does not earn their keep in moldy millet, spoiled spelt, and bad barley, with now and then some sop of broth boiled of rotten bones; as well, magnates, as well, as well! magnates, of all such whom we have known to be disaffected of our stern and meritorious rule, and all whom we suspect of interloping, too. We shall not only offer them like slaughtered oxen to the good gods of hell, Demogorgon and his devil-hosts, but we shall denounce them as criminals justly put to death for having committed sedition, treason, rebellion, lese-majeste, conspiracy against Emperor and Empery by reason that they had nominated, selected, elected, coronated, approbated, and cooperated with aforesaid Cadmus, a subject daring to hold a title royal and without royal Imperial assent….

  Fifthly, may it please the Emperor, his Crown and Staff, the Senate, and the People of Rome to forgive the Very Rich City in its corporate entity, inasmuch as said Very Rich City has not alone escheated, confiscated, seized the estates of the rebels (on another list named by names), and does herewith assign, return, and pay unto the Treasury Imperial the proper halves and fourths and fifths and tenths, but also that the said Very Rich City does contritely fine itself for having taken even so short a time to contain and put down said rebellion; and said fines, richly appropriate to the Very Rich City, are also herewith produced and paid; may it please -

  It must have been that final moment, the very final beat of the beat beat beat of the everlasting pulse-beats of that Very Rich and very damnable city; it must have been that final moment when the final drill was dropped, and much they must have sharpened it and likely more than once; it must have been but seconds after that final drill was dropped, weighted well, perhaps weighted more than the other times it had fallen, that Demogorgon, the chieftain of the good gods of hell, had shown at last the responsum to all the offerings, the (oft-repeated, often heard, never comprehended phrase!) hecatombs! hecatombs! Witnesses from below, there were none; witness from above, afar, more than a few.

  The wily magnates had falsified the dates on their documents in more ways than one; there had been no time for any troops, legions, to reach the black gates in the black walls; even the three men with Casca’s message had had scarce time to make scarce way through the rugged roadways, when -

  The concussion of the drill’s last drop had been faintly felt, yet that far away; first felt, then heard; then one immense lance of flame and fire was seen shooting skyward; then -

  Had the walling mountains round about Averno not stood where they had been standing since before forever, what would have remained of all that part of the land? As it was, the mountains flung back what had been flung against them. Those who had seen the first flash and flush of flame from afar atop the hills had not seen the second, the force of the first explosion had flung them backward (as it had flung Vergil and Casca down from their chairs and against the walls and onto the floor), off their feet. Some had had the sense to lie where they had fallen. It was said that fragments of the torn and tortured earth had fallen as far away as Rome; certainly some had fallen into the Parthenopean Bay, great Bay of Naples, between the mainland and the Isle of Goats, hissing as they sank. How fortunate for Naples and all its suburbs and exurbs that these lapides had, as it were, overshot those cities. And all other cities.

  Tremors continued for a while. Presently, as Casca — bruised a bit in body, but, oddly, seemingly much more his old and pre-Avernian self in spirit — and Vergil, and the Viceroy himself, climbed the now again-firm mountains. And dared look down.

  Where Averno had stood (stood? say, rather, squatted), nothing stood now. No fragment of its black walls remained to view. Down the bed of the canal, propelled by a fierce and scouring flood, still rolled one great torrent of boiling mud, though slackening as they watched, and poured into the sea, hissing as it poured; and yet a second, smaller sea of it remained. . remained forever: Lake Averno, it came to be called, a lake of not-quite-lava, a vast bog of bubbling muck, a surrounding swamp of seething earth and slime and stinking gas, with here and there and there and now and then a spurt or jet of flame. And bubbles, like bubbles of black blood.

  What “the good gods of hell” had given, and given to make the Very Rich City very rich, they had, it seemed, given ever grudgingly. And now they had claimed it all and taken back again.

  They. And “Sissie and cruel Erichtho.”

  “The revenues of the South will never recover,” the Viceroy had said, bleakly. Doubtless never. As for the Viceroy’s own revenues, the following year for the first time he was to decline his exemption from the pro-consular lots. Into the urn with the other names had his own name gone, as (he having been of course at least once a consul) go i
t otherwise must have gone long before. He had (it was said) not even bothered to see of which province he had drawn the governance — grain-great Sicily, Aspania deep with silver, Chaldea the Far with its femminate men and bearded women, or distant, misty Picti-Land — but had merely handed the summons to his secretary with the single word, “Prepare.”

  Admirable.

  No doubt.

  But that was for the next year, and that was for the Viceroy. As for Vergil, and for now, what? For as for Averno: nothing.

  Iohan had stood with them, so pale and drawn that Vergil would have been shocked, had not the greater, the unspeakably greater shock been spread out before them in what they had not yet learned to speak of as “Lake Averno.” Casca was long silent (Vergil, totally silent, though his mind screamed several names, and over and over again); then Casca said, “It is just as well that I find I do not remember the name of whatever philosopher it was who said that the truest happiness possible for a man was to stand safely on a cliff in a storm and, watching a ship being sunk beneath the cliff, thank his guardian genius he was not aboard. I. . somehow. . I do not feel such happiness. Or any happiness at all.” And at this Iohan had given a shuddering sob, then turned away his face and covered it with one hand.

  On their way back to the small port city that was now, once again, home, Iohan — save for the few short questions and replies required by the performance of his usual work — had said nothing. It was not until (with no cry at all of thalassa!) they once again espied the sea that Iohan, having once looked back at the thin smudge of smoke which alone now marked upon the sky, murmured something else. It being too low for his master to hear, his master, after an abstracted moment, turned his face and raised his brows. “They did be canny things, them arts of fire and metal,” the boy said. Then, an instant later, in a dogged tone different from the tone of puzzled memory, remarked, “They do be canny things. . them arts of fire and metal.”