Hammer of the Earth

by Susan Krinard

  “Yes,” Quintus said, snatching his arm free. “The empire took my family.”

  “And do you know what it is to be condemned to death because your love is forbidden?” Her eyes glistened with anger and sorrow. “The priests give to the Stone God any man, woman or child who does not submit to their order. They deemed Hylas’s lover defective because he failed to conform to the accepted ways of men and women. When Hylas learned that the priests had exposed Danel, he begged the emperor to intervene.”

  “Did he?”

  “At great risk of the High Priest’s wrath. Nikodemos sent soldiers to escort Danel to the citadel, but it was the night of Festival, and they could not find him. Hylas endangered his own life to search for his lover. But they were reunited only when Hylas found Danel dying in the street, torn apart by the mob.”

  Quintus stopped, his throat thick and tight. “I understand why Hylas has no sympathy for the common people.”

  “Danel was a commoner, Lord Alexandros. Hylas knows what they suffer. Many of us came to Karchedon to petition the emperor on behalf of the people in our own homelands, and we remained with him willingly when we recognized his true greatness.” She met Quintus’s gaze. “I lived in Aigyptos. I saw what the Stone priests did to the ancient gods of Khemet and any who dared worship them. The emperor will restore what the priests took away from us. We would die for him.”

  Quintus shook his head, but he could not deny Galatea’s passion. She and Hylas were not merely posturing sycophants eager to win their lord’s favor by bringing the emperor’s brother into the fold. They were believers, as devoted to Nikodemos as the priests were to their One True God.

  Galatea led Quintus back to join the others in their return to the citadel. Gently angled winter sunlight gave the day a cheerful cast, sullied only by the beams emitted by the obelisk atop the great Temple of the Stone. Quintus walked ahead, desperate for a chance to think.

  If he allowed his suspicions to run away with him, he might have believed that today’s excursion to the fruitful Karchedonian countryside, and then to the harbor with its laden ships, had been undertaken only to turn his thoughts from the Tiberian prisoner in Nikodemos’s dungeon. He and Danae hadn’t spoken in the two days since their visit to Briga’s dormitory, when Quintus had asked for her help in learning more about Buteo’s capture and ultimate fate. She must know Quintus would not forget that he’d found a means to set the rebel free.

  He had thought of little else, by day or night. Now his time was nearly up.

  He reached the citadel gates and strode through, ignoring the salutes of the guards. They treated him like the emperor’s brother, a man of power and influence. A man who might turn the tide on the Stone God’s rule. And he could risk it all with one toss of the dice, testing Tiberian courage and conviction against the feast of possibilities his newly discovered Alexandrian blood laid out before him.

  You have come too far to turn back now….

  Soldiers cut across Quintus’s path, marching in lockstep with a bound prisoner in their midst. The prisoner turned his head as he passed, cool eyes locking on Quintus’s. The eyes widened in shock and recognition. Lips moved to form a single word.

  Quintus.

  Then the soldiers and the prisoner were gone. Quintus stood frozen, his heart slamming against his ribs. He knew that face.

  Buteo. Leader of Tiberian rebels, patrician, soldier. A man who had sacrificed everything to fight the empire. Who had held Quintus captive for four years, waiting for the ideal moment to strike with the most powerful weapon in Tiberian hands.

  “My lord,” Hylas said. “Are you well?”

  Quintus shook himself and continued toward the palace. “Perfectly well,” he said.

  Hylas stared after the soldiers and ran to catch up with Quintus. “If you are not too weary, my lord, there is something more I would show you.”

  Quintus almost dismissed Hylas before he remembered what Galatea had said of the courtier’s loss. “What is it, Hylas?”

  “Patience, my lord.” He turned to speak briefly with his friends, bade them farewell and took possession of Quintus’s arm. He led the way into the palace and the emperor’s wing, where most of Nikodemos’s Hetairoi kept their rooms. They entered a courtyard with which Quintus was not familiar, desolate and bare of greenery or fountain.

  In the center of the courtyard stood a pedestal surmounted by the head and shoulders of a man, sculpted in marble and painted in lifelike tones from golden hair to piercing gray eyes. It was a hero’s face, handsome and noble, but that was not what made Quintus stare. Save for the color of the hair and a few small, Quintus might have been looking at his own reflection.

  “Your eyes do not deceive you,” Hylas said. “This is your uncle, Alexandros, founder of the empire.”

  Alexandros the Mad, Quintus thought. He studied the sculpture with a shiver of unease. “When Nikodemos first came for me in the Temple he said he had never seen Alexandros.”

  “Not in the flesh, of course,” Hylas said. “Yet he knew you for his brother as soon as he saw you.”

  No one who had seen this likeness could doubt the kinship, but the bust was hidden away where few would view it, and then only those loyal to the emperor.

  “Nikodemos often comes here to contemplate his uncle’s deeds,” Hylas said.

  “And you brought me here to remind me who I am.”

  “More than that, my lord.” Hylas touched the perfectly shaped curls of Alexandros’s hair with gentle reverence. “They called him ‘The Mad’ because near the end of his life he turned his back on the vast territories he had conquered and fled to his home in Makedonia. At the peak of his power, he retired to a life of solitude and would see no one, not even his most trusted generals. Only the loyalty of his troops kept his spear-won territories from falling into the hands of rivals and enemies.”

  “But he was not mad?”

  Hylas smiled sadly. “He was the one who discovered the Stone, recognized its power and moved it from the Great Desert. He founded the priesthood, little knowing what he had begun. And he carried a piece of the Stone, as the priests do now. It was this that drove him to insanity. He recognized that he lacked the strength to hold the Stone’s influence at bay and took his own life rather than become a slave to the Stone God.”

  Quintus stared into the statue’s tranquil eyes. “How do you know this?”

  “Alexandros left a papyrus to Arrhidaeos, declaring that he had committed a terrible error in releasing the Stone. But Arrhidaeos ignored his brother’s warnings. He let the priests take even more power, so that he could maintain control over Alexandros’s empire.” Hylas moved closer to Quintus, his voice low and urgent. “Nikodemos had no choice but to arrange for Arrhidaeos’s death. His father was becoming a puppet king, as Alexandros would have been. Only Nikodemos saw this clearly. But he was forced to invade Tiberia in order to distract the priests and soothe their fears of rebellion.”

  “My people did not agree to make such a sacrifice.”

  “Would they have refused if they knew their suffering might check the Stone’s power on the earth?”

  Quintus turned away, remembering the brave and stoic Tiberians who had given their lives in the fight for freedom. There had been times when he hated them for their harsh judgment of anything they perceived as weakness…hated the rebels for refusing to let him wield a sword in Tiberia’s defense, hated Buteo for holding him captive. They had rejected him even without knowing he was not of their blood.

  “You could be the new Alexandros,” Hylas whispered, his breath warm on Quintus’s ear. “Not the Mad, but the Great. Alexandros the Great…”

  Quintus bolted from the courtyard. After several wrong turns he found his way back to his own rooms. He paced the tiled floor for the remaining hours of daylight, rejecting the food servants brought to him. Danae did not come, and even Hylas stayed away. Midnight passed before Quintus fell into an exhausted sleep, tossing and turning on his luxurious couch.

 
And he dreamed.

  “Remove his hood.”

  Hard, brisk hands whisked the cowl from Quintus’s head. He blinked, his eyes adjusting to the darkness.

  A group of men stood before him, men he knew only by their voices and the bynames they gave each other. Hoods shadowed their faces. Illumination came from a single torch bracketed to the curving wall. The heavy scent of wet stone and earth filled Quintus’s nose, along with the sweat of men long in hiding.

  “Corvinus.”

  The voice came from the depths of a hood like all the others, but Quintus could not mistake its authority. This man was the leader called Buteo, the one to whom he must prove himself.

  “You have come to the end of your journey,” Buteo said, the edges of his cowl fluttering with each breath. “Either you will leave this place as one of us, or leave not at all.”

  “I agreed to your terms,” Quintus said. “It was I who came to you.”

  “Yes.” Buteo signaled with an upraised hand. His sleeve fell back to reveal a battle-scarred wrist and long, capable fingers.

  He was a veteran of the Invasion, like most of the rebels—men of all classes who had set aside their differences to defend Tiberia against overwhelming odds. So many of them had fallen. So many were slaves to the Stone God, helpless as children.

  Quintus had been too young to fight in the War. He had been hunting high in the mountains the day Corvinium fell. He had seen the smoke, heard screams like the calls of birds across the valley. The Stone God’s priests had done their work by the time he scrambled down to the village, legs and arms scored with cuts and bruises in a mockery of battle wounds honorably won.

  His father and brothers had died defending Corvinium. He had been left with the ashes.

  “You seek revenge,” Buteo said. “We seek no less than the destruction of our enemy, no matter what the cost.” He took a step forward, radiating the force of banked rage and power. “You will surrender all personal desires to our cause…if you survive the test.”

  Quintus stood very straight. “I will do what must be done.”

  “We shall see.” Buteo inclined his head. A man came forward, bent with age. A wiry fringe of white beard projected from the jet oval of his hood.

  “The auspicia are favorable,” he said.

  The wall of men about Corvinus broke apart. Just beyond them lay a pedestal and, upon that, a featureless wooden box. Light came from the box—not the hot, clean brilliance of fire, but a pulsing crimson, like blood.

  Quintus knew what it was. His stomach knotted and tried to expel its meager contents.

  Coward. Would you surrender now, when the sword is all but in your hand?

  “The augur will conduct the initiation,” Buteo said, unmoved. “You will not speak again until permission is given.”

  Quintus bit his lower lip and stared at the box. The augur shook his sleeves away from palsied hands and spoke words of ritual, summoning Tiberia’s forbidden gods. He trembled so violently that his hood slipped away from his forehead, revealing brows heavy as sheep’s wool. He thrust his hand inside the box.

  A strange little sound came from his throat. He gripped a small object between his thumb and forefinger as if it were something vile.

  A ring. A ring that shed unnatural radiance, bright enough to paint dark cloaks with splashes of red.

  The augur lifted the ring. Its faceted stone shone in Quintus’s eyes, compelling all his attention.

  “This ring was bought with many lives,” Buteo said. “It will decide your fate.”

  Even had he wished to run, Quintus could not have moved. His legs had become marble pillars sunk into the cave’s floor. The augur approached, flanked on either side by the rebel fighters. The ring’s luminescence seemed to shine through the flesh of the old man’s hand, exposing muscle and bone. Crimson filled Quintus’s vision. A sword’s edge of pain cleaved his skull. He cried out.

  As if driven to expiate his shameful weakness, his legs refused to give way. He bore the agony, and his imagination turned the sinister light into a thousand javelins thrown by a mortal enemy’s hand. He raised his shield. The javelins struck and rebounded from good Tiberian oak. The enemy screamed in rage.

  Quintus braced for another attack. There was only silence.

  “Hold him,” Buteo said.

  Had he failed? Quintus struggled to clear his vision. The red light had vanished. The hush was so profound that Quintus could hear water dripping deep in the earth.

  Buteo held the ring in his cupped palm. Dull gold caught the firelight. He turned it about so that the stone was visible to all.

  What had been bright was now cracked and dull, as if it were common glass struck by a blacksmith’s hammer.

  “It is not possible,” the augur whispered.

  Buteo dropped the ring into the box and closed the lid. “Consult your auspicia again, pater.” He raised his hands to his hood and pushed it back. “Quintus Horatius Corvinus. Do you know what you have done?”

  “I have passed your test.”

  “You have destroyed it.”

  It was neither accusation nor praise, but the soldier’s words filled Quintus with dread. They must not reject him now.

  “I offer apology,” he said stiffly. “Tell me where to find another and I will bring it to you.”

  Buteo’s face froze in astonishment, and then he began to laugh.

  “Silence!” The augur pushed forward, his quavering voice gaining strength. “If the gods have spoken at last—”

  “He has ruined our only means of testing,” a new voice said. “He could be an agent for the priests.”

  A rumble of agreement echoed through the chamber. Buteo raised his hand. “The priests would surely not permit such a man to live,” he said. “He might become a powerful weapon against the empire.”

  “You see clearly, Buteo,” the auger said. “This one must be protected.”

  “I have no need of protection,” Quintus protested. “Let me fight beside you and I will destroy every stone in Tiberia, in all Italia.”

  Both men stared at Quintus, and their eyes held an emotion he had almost forgotten.

  Hope.

  “Do not let him go,” the augur said. “The gods will tell us when and how he is to be used. Until then—”

  “Until then,” Buteo repeated. “I understand.”

  Quintus also began to understand. “No. I came to fight. Only show me what I must do.”

  Buteo shook his head. The soldier’s men closed in around Quintus, a cage of bodies hard as iron.

  “‘Tiberia has no children,’” Buteo quoted softly. “You are no longer boy nor man, Quintus Horatius Corvinus, but a gift of the gods. Will you swear the sacred oath to serve Tiberia, to obey without question, to give your life for the cause of freedom?”

  Corvinus reached for the sword they had taken from him and clenched his fists on empty air. “I will see the Arrhidaean Empire fall,” he said, “even if I must tear it down with my own hands.”

  A muffled stillness fell within the cave, as if someone had shaken out a vast shroud of black linen. The torches flickered and shrank to near embers.

  Buteo’s eyes narrowed to slits in his sunburned face. “I believe you will,” he said. “But not yet.”

  Not yet.

  Quintus cast off his furs and sat up on the couch, breathing hard. He wiped the perspiration from his upper lip and went to the window.

  The world was silent. The red beams of the obelisk pierced the darkness, but no priests stirred in the vast square between Palace and Temple.

  Quintus threw on a woolen chiton and listened at the door. He opened it with care, watching, hearing nothing but the splash of the courtyard fountain.

  Go, his heart insisted. He shut off the rational protests of his mind and stepped out into the corridor. As with every night since Nikodemos’s feast, his room was unguarded. He called into memory the route he had memorized on his venture with Danae, retracing their steps to the abandoned section of
the palace and the room with its secret entrance. Not so much as a mouse crossed his path.

  He slipped into the room and pressed the wall to open the hidden portal. The dank smell of the tunnel took him back to the cave in the dream, and he paused on the threshold, shaking with mingled fear and pride, like the boy he had been nearly five years ago.

  I am Tiberian.

  He closed the portal with the weight of his body and felt his way along the tunnel to the first torch. He counted them as he passed, took the side passages Danae had shown him and slowed his pace to a near-crawl. Disembodied sounds echoed from invisible chambers behind the tunnel wall. He stopped a hundred paces short of the last torch before the portal to the dungeon, clinging to the darkness with sweat-damp palms.

  This was the moment of decision. He had always known there was a strong possibility that his learning of Buteo’s capture and imprisonment was an elaborate ruse, a deliberate attempt to catch him in an act of treason, with Danae as an unwitting pawn laying the trap. When he opened the portal he would commit himself in a way that might destroy any future chance of using his power under the emperor’s aegis. If it was a ploy to expose him and he failed, Nikodemos would never trust him again.

  The gods knew he had no cause to love Buteo, who had imprisoned a naïve, grieving boy for four lonely years. But Buteo was badly needed in Tiberia, where he had the love and loyalty of his people.

  Hylas had said that Nikodemos had been compelled to invade Tiberia to distract the priests and soothe their fears of rebellion. He had asked if Tiberia would have agreed to bear the invasion if her suffering might check the Stone’s power. Would not Buteo, too, be willing to give up his own life to save the rebels’ greatest hope?

  Quintus laughed silently. Such justification made him no better than Nikodemos. If he turned away now—if he agreed with Hylas that the greater good must be served by his concession to his brother’s subtle schemes for the Stone God’s undoing—then he would lose any right to call himself Tiberian. He would live with the knowledge that he had chosen not to save a man who had made his youth a misery. And he would forever wonder if his decision came of wisdom…or simply of the desire to preserve his own life.