Out of the Waters

by David Drake

The ship suddenly plunged at a steep angle. Corylus grabbed the railing, certain that the Ancient had lost control of the vessel. The sprite gave him a mocking smile, standing arms akimbo on the deck. The antics of the hull didn’t affect her any more than a branch feared to be shaken off a swaying tree trunk.

  They heeled as the ship curved upward. The sails slammed convulsively, once and again. The vessel lurched like a horse on its last strength. Corylus, looking over the bow, could see land beneath him but the stern with the Ancient was a hundred feet back: much lower and over the sea.

  The keel ground on the lip of the tor. The bow tilted down and they scraped to final safety. Only the curved sternpost stuck out over air and the clashing waters.

  The sun had dimmed to a bloody smear on the horizon. The ship toppled onto its starboard side. Corylus jumped to the ground, clumsy because he hadn’t been expecting what had happened.

  I expected to crash into the side of the pillar, drop into the sea, and drown. If the eel didn’t get me first.

  The moon was low but already so bright that it cast black shadows now that the sun had set. Corylus surveyed the top of the pillar where they rested. It was circular, about a hundred yards in diameter, and as flat as a drill field. In the middle was a tumble of rocks which must have been brought there: nothing else marred the sandstone surface.

  The sprite stepped away from the tilted vessel with far more grace than Corylus had managed. Reassured that she was right about the island being untenanted, he walked to the cliff edge and looked down. The helmet felt awkward, so he took it off and held it in his left hand.

  The sea around this spine of rock glowed. At first Corylus thought it was only froth from waves hitting the hard stone, but as he watched, he realized that the water was covered with luminescent seaweed. Eddies formed whorls which curled several hundred yards out from the base. He had a feeling that they formed a pattern, but it was beyond him what it might be.

  The great eel rose from the shimmering foam, its jaws open. The monster was silent save for the roar of contact as the huge body slid up along the stone flank of the island. Corylus shouted and drew his sword.

  The eel lifted halfway up the sheer rock face. It wriggled for a moment as the sinuous body lashed the water for purchase, then hurled itself another thirty feet upward.

  That was all. Still twenty feet short of the top, the jaws clopped shut. The eel arched downward and struck the water sideways with a cataclysmic splash. It dived for a moment, then rose to curl sunwise around the rock with another flick of its tail.

  Corylus stepped back from the edge, sheathing his sword. He looked critically at the ship and said, “If we could drag the stern in a little so that it wasn’t visible from below, maybe the eel wouldn’t be so agitated.”

  The great body hit the rock again and again slid back. Corylus wasn’t watching, but the splash as the eel returned to the ocean didn’t seem as loud. He presumed—he hoped—that it meant that the creature was tiring and hadn’t risen as high on its second attempt.

  The sprite shrugged. “I don’t think anything you can do would make the eel less angry,” she said. “Why? Do you suppose it can reach the top of this rock?”

  Corylus laughed—at himself, really. “I hope it can’t,” he said. “And I’m pretty sure that we can’t move the ship until daylight regardless, so it doesn’t matter. Except that it’s one more thing for me to fret about, which I’m good at doing.”

  The Ancient was prowling among the rocks, dropping occasionally to all fours. Is he searching for bugs? But that couldn’t be, because neither he nor Coryla ate.

  The Ancient squatted and turned his face toward the rising moon. He howled with bleak misery.

  The sound chilled Corylus, though he wasn’t disturbed by the splash and slapping waves as the eel tried again to mount the rock. He half-drew but released his sword as he ran to the rocks in the center of the island; the sprite was beside him.

  The Ancient cried out again. He remained oblivious of his companions when they reached him. Corylus looked at the ground to see if there was a material cause for the misery—a scorpion, some sort of trap that gripped even the being of an ancient ghost.

  The rocks had once had squared edges, though Corylus had to bend close to be sure of that after the long ages they had weathered. He couldn’t tell what the structure had been. There weren’t enough blocks to construct a dwelling, but a pillar or an altar could have been constructed from what was present. There might have been more originally.

  He reached down to turn a block over to see whether its protected underside was ornamented. Coryla stopped him with a hand and pursed lips.

  Oh, of course!

  Corylus backed away cautiously, then bowed low to the Ancient before turning to the ship. He hadn’t eaten—hadn’t wanted to eat—while it looked as though they would have to land on the waves at sunset. The rolls weren’t appealing, but he was very hungry; and anyway, he had to eat to live.

  The Ancient wailed again. Corylus could only guess, but he would bet his life on that guess: the magician’s golden-furred race had raised the structure from which the present ruins had crumbled.

  He tried to imagine what it would be like to stand in the Forum after the surrounding buildings had fallen and goats browsed among the scattered blocks. He couldn’t really feel that, but he could come close enough to shiver at the thought.

  Before he clambered aboard the ship, he looked down into the sea again. The eel was some distance out in the weed, but it drew a serpentine curve toward the rock when Corylus reappeared. Its leap was halfhearted, though; scarcely more than lifting its wedge-shaped head from the sea.

  A fragment of verse returned to him, from a manuscript Varus had found in the library of the Raecius family which had links to Gades and Spain more generally, going back before the Second Punic War. The document was very old and had been written on leather rather than parchment; it seemed to be a geographical description written in archaic Greek.

  Here weed floats in the water and great beasts swim, bringing terror to mariners.…

  Corylus mouthed the words as he remembered them. Then he climbed over the railing to get food.

  * * *

  VARUS HEARD THE MUSIC OF PIPES and sistrums, wishbone-shaped rattles whose bronze disks clinked together on the double arms. He might be imagining the Egyptian instruments because the book from which he had read the phrase was Egyptian also.

  He thought he heard the wind sighing also; but down where he walked on a stone pavement, the air was dead still. The light was like that of the moon above a thin overcast, enough to see the path but not to make out distant shapes.

  I wish the Sibyl were here to tell me what all this means.

  Varus laughed. He said aloud, “I even more wish Corylus were here. There probably won’t be anybody to attack with a sword, but I’d feel better if I knew I had a friend who could do that if needed.”

  His words didn’t echo, but they had a fullness which suggested he was in an enclosure rather than in the middle of a barren wilderness. That made him feel better, though as a philosopher he knew that the grave was an enclosure also.

  He could just as easily wish for a cohort of the Praetorian Guard. Though from comments he remembered, Corylus would probably protest that the Batavian auxiliaries were better combat troops.

  Varus walked on, his sandals busking against the flagstones. He grinned.

  A group of men stood to the right of the path. They wore togas and were arguing. He paused, but the men didn’t seem to notice him. Beyond them he could see the forms of buildings, softened as though by thick fog. The men talked on the steps of the Aemilian Hall, but the Julian Forum which Caesar had built more than seventy years ago wasn’t beside it.

  One of them turned from the group, hesitated, and stared at Varus. His features could have been the original of an ancestral death mask on the walls of Saxa’s office, but it was hard to compare flesh with age-blackened wax.

  The man shrugged and
stepped away. He and his companions vanished into the grayness. Varus nodded and kept on walking.

  He had learned that to keep on going was often the only choice. Well, the only choice besides lying down and waiting to die. Resignation to fate was a proper quality for a philosopher, but giving up most certainly was not. Not for a philosopher who was also a citizen of Carce, at any rate.

  The road had become a rural path. Varus walked beside a single track which had been worn by animal hooves. Not even a country cart with solid wooden wheels could navigate this hillside.

  A vista opened, this time to the left. A man struggled behind a crude plow being drawn by a single ox. The animal was small and shaggy, with a blotchy red-and-white hide and forward-curving horns. The farmer wore a simple woolen tunic and a broad leather hat with a low crown; he was barefoot. Between the field and the path was a wall piled from stones plowed out of the field in past years.

  The man looked up as Varus passed, then dropped his plow handles and lifted the brim of his hat. “Varus?” he called in accented Latin. “Gaius Varus?”

  His voice had become thin by the last syllable; the grayness was returning. Varus waved, but the fog grew thicker yet and there was nothing more to wave to.

  He trudged on. That was the only acceptable choice.

  Varus no longer had even a path to follow, so he kept to the center of the terrain that opened before him. For a time he walked through woodland, even crossing a narrow brook, but very shortly he found himself skirting the edge of a dry lake. A yellow-gray dog, scraggly and thin, ran off with its tail between its legs. It glanced back over its shoulder.

  There was a tree ahead. Someone sat at the base of it, apparently waiting. The trunk and branches curved, and the leaves dangled in long double rows from central stems. Corylus would know what it was.…

  Varus continued straight. The ground was a thin layer of leaves and yellow clay over limestone, with frequent outcrops and spreading roots.

  The seated figure was the corpse of a woman with a heavy jaw, prominent brow ridges, and black hair over all her exposed skin. The right half of her body was skeletal; it had been picked as clean as if it had been boiled. Ants might have been responsible; no beak nor jaws bigger than an insect’s could have done so neat a job without disarranging the bones.

  The woman’s arms and torso had been tied—wrapped—to the tree with vines. Her legs, one of flesh and the other bare bones, splayed out in front of her. Between them were a few fist-sized rocks which had been broken to a crude point on one end.

  “Greeting, child from the children of my womb,” the dead woman said. She chuckled.

  Her jaws worked normally though only half of them were clothed with flesh; Varus could see her black tongue moving; it had been sectioned lengthwise as neatly as a razor could have done. Her voice was low-pitched and rough, but not really exceptional.

  Varus swallowed. “Greetings, mistress,” he said. His mouth was dry. “Should I, that is, may I release you?”

  She laughed again. “Release me from death?” she said. “Do my descendents have such power, then? I think not, though I see that you are a great wizard. You are my worthy progeny, child.”

  “Mistress,” said Varus, “why have you brought me here? I will do whatever you wish, if I’m able to. But I don’t understand.”

  “Take a piece of my jawbone, child,” the corpse said. She couldn’t move either arm because of the way she was bound with vines, but the tip of her half-tongue thrust to the side and licked the bare mandible. “Take the bone, for the time will come when you will need it.”

  Varus had been standing at arm’s length. The dead woman wasn’t threatening, but the situation was too uncanny for him to approach unbidden. He stepped forward and squatted, putting his face more or less on a level with hers; he didn’t know what to do next.

  “Crack it, child,” she said in a testy voice. “Use the hand axe at your feet.”

  “But…,” Varus said.

  “Do it, boy!” the woman said. “End this business for both of us. Crack my jaw and take the splinter!”

  “Yes, mistress,” Varus said; meekly, as he would have responded to Pandareus when he was being called down for an error in class.

  There were several stones, all of a size to fit in the cup of his hand. He picked one that seemed to have started as a stream-washed pebble, dense and black. It had been egg-shaped, but the small end had been flaked to a point which was irregular but surprisingly sharp.

  The dead woman opened her jaws wide. “Forgive me, mistress,” Varus muttered as he moved to the side to get a better angle on the task. She chuckled.

  He struck. The axe clocked loudly, but it didn’t break the heavy bone.

  “Harder, child!” the corpse said. “End this!”

  Varus struck again with the full strength of his arm. The jaw cracked and a splinter flew away. Varus dropped the hand axe to catch the spinning bone. He held much of the right mandible including the teeth. It had split from front to back across the jaw hinge, forming a long spike beyond the massive final molar.

  “Well done, my child!” the dead woman cried. “You are worthy of me indeed!”

  She began to laugh again. The sound echoed as Varus felt himself spinning into gray fog.

  “Mistress?” he cried, but he could no longer hear her. He lurched bolt upright.

  He was on a couch in the library. The book he had been reading was on the floor; the lamps were lighted. His father was looking at him in concern while the servants kept to the background.

  “Son?” Saxa said. “What’s that in your hand? It looks like a bone.”

  Varus stared at the fragment of jaw, just as he remembered it from his dream. “Yes,” he said, “it is. But—”

  He smiled lopsidedly at his father.

  “—I’m not sure why I need it, my lord.” He took a deep breath and added, “Just that I do.”

  * * *

  ALPHENA WALKED INTO HER DREAM, a perfectly flat pavement that flickered red/orange/yellow as though it were the heart of a fire. It seemed boundless, but in the far distance a group of people stood about a throne. Almost before she could wonder what they were doing, she was among them.

  The people—women as well as men—with her at the base of the throne were dressed as imperial servants in vividly dyed tunics. Alphena didn’t recognize any of them, but they nodded and bowed as though she were known and respected.

  She felt awkward: her tunic was much the worse for wear, and even clean it had not been intended to be seen in august company. For that matter, her person was scarcely fit for the public either. Coiffeur had never been Alphena’s concern, but she knew that the events since she mounted the gryphon in her father’s garden had left her hair in a state that would have embarrassed a whore at the gate of the gladiator barracks after a hard night.

  The throne was made of ivory and gold. Its frame and high back were carved with the greatest delicacy. Alphena raised her eyes to the man seated on it in imperial splendor.

  “Uktena!” she said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  Then, as she heard her initial words, she added, “Where is your pipe, your talisman?”

  The man enthroned leaned toward her with a frown of wonderment. “I know you, do I not?” he said. “Or I knew you once, I believe. Who are you, little one?”

  “I’m your friend Alphena!” she said. Being called “little one” without any recognition in the shaman’s tone, hurt her to hear. “We fought—”

  That isn’t true.

  “I was with you when you fought Procron,” she said. “The Atlantean.”

  As Alphena spoke, a vision of Poseidonis formed to her left. She turned. This was a closer view than she had gotten when she approached on the gryphon’s back. Something was rising from the harbor—

  Alphena stifled a scream with both clenched fists. When she focused on the image of the city, the silent courtiers in the corner of her eye became brightly colored fishes swimming in a s
ea of fire.

  Beyond them was a horrific monster, all tentacles and heads and huge beyond fathoming. It was the creature other people had in the Pompeian Theater.

  It was the monster Alphena herself had seen Uktena turn into when Procron’s magic lashed him. It was horrible, horrible.…

  “Alphena?” the shaman repeated. Her name rolled softly from his tongue. “I have heard the name, or I think I have. Do you know how I came here, Alphena? I was in another place, but I cannot remember where that was.”

  “You were in Cascotan, my f-friend,” Alphena said. She had closed her eyes. Even when she forced herself to open them, she couldn’t bring herself to look up from the pavement to the enthroned figure. “You fought Procron. You fought for your people and for the world.”

  She looked up. Uktena’s was the same stern, steady visage that she had first seen in the theater. He looked puzzled but not worried. She wondered if anything could really worry him.

  “You fought for me, Uktena,” she said. “You drove the Atlantean back.”

  And almost died.…

  “I don’t remember,” Uktena said sadly. “But you are welcome here, Alphena. Anyone who says she is a friend of mine is welcome. I do not think I ever had friends; or not at least for many ages. Instead I have power.”

  His words echoed about her. Vast though it seemed, this was an enclosure, a prison. But as the sound trembled to silence, the shaman’s form began to quiver in turn. The human shape blurred and spread and became again the foul immensity of Typhon.

  “I am your friend, Uktena,” Alphena said. Her eyes stung with tears, but she wouldn’t look away, wouldn’t permit herself even to blink. “I am your friend!”

  “Little one?” said a voice from outside her. “Are you having bad dreams?”

  Alphena sat upright. She had been curled on the floor of the shaman’s kiva; the promise of dawn brightened through the reeds of the mat over the entrance. Uktena was looking down at her, his pipe in his hands.

  She got to her feet. “It was nothing that matters, Uktena,” she said. She looked at the axe in her right hand, then hefted it. “Is it time to go?”