The Realms of God--A Novel of the Roman Empire (The Shards of Heaven, Book 3)

by Michael Livingston

  Behind them, the roof at last gave way, kicking glowing embers and bits of flame up into the sky.

  “Selene!” Juba shouted. He tried to get up, his mind swirling with panic and pain, but Abdes Pantera held him down by the shoulder.

  “She’s not here!” the archer shouted.

  Juba looked up in confusion. “Where?”

  But Pantera didn’t answer him. Vorenus and the big man were coming up, but the Roman archer was ignoring them, too. He was staring back at the Roman who lay facedown in the street with two of his arrows rooted in his back and head. “I think I’m out of the legion for sure now,” he said.

  Juba followed his gaze and saw that as the townsfolk swarmed past them with buckets of water, there were three Nabataeans kneeling beside the riddled corpse. Two of them were clearly town guards. The other was an old woman. She looked up and locked eyes with the archer.

  “It’s you,” she said.

  “Dorothea,” Pantera replied. “I—”

  “Not a word,” she snapped. She wearily stood, helped by one of the two men. She whispered something in his ear, and he nodded. Then, using a walking stick, she hobbled over the blood to stand before them. Her eyes took them all in—the two other dead Romans, the unconscious woman, Vorenus and the other man, his own free-bleeding wounds—before she blinked and leaned forward on the stick. “For once, I don’t think I want to know,” she said. “Just run. We’ll burn the bodies, but the reach of Rome is long.”

  “Dorothea—” Vorenus started to say.

  The old woman turned to Vorenus, and her gaze was full of pity. “Your girl,” she said, “someone said they saw the Romans taking her through the streets.”

  “Where?” Pantera asked. The desperation in his voice was palpable.

  The fire was spreading quickly around them. A wind had arisen from the south. It rushed up against the inferno and pushed the flames ever higher. They wouldn’t be able to stay long. Behind the old woman, the town guards had picked up the first of the dead Romans. One holding his feet and one holding his arms, they swung him into the hungry heat of the fire.

  Dozens of men were storming up the road on horseback, weapons drawn as if they were looking for a fight. One of them pointed with a sword in the direction of the Roman encampment beyond the fires. “The legion is attacking!”

  The people of Petra froze at the shout. They turned and stared, and as if in response, there was a new din over the roar of the fires. Clashing metal. Marching feet. And terrified screams.

  Dorothea shook herself into motion, straightening her back and pointing with her walking stick back into the heart of the city. “Let it burn, children! Pull back to the colonnade!”

  People screamed, dropping buckets, and churning into a panic. Vorenus reached out for the old woman’s arm. “Where’d they take Miriam?”

  Dorothea turned back around, her face full of fury and vengeance. But she met the Roman’s eyes and nodded quickly, then shouted back at some of the horsemen. “Horses are no good in the city, and these men need them. Off! Now!”

  The younger men of Petra seemed to know better than to argue, and several began to hurriedly dismount. The panicked citizens were a rush of fire-lit terror coursing around them.

  “Where?” Vorenus pleaded.

  Dorothea looked back to him, and her walking stick shot forward to point toward the black hulk of the mountain above the city. “There,” she said.

  They all turned to look. The world had been still only moments before, but now they faced into a terrible wind. Upon the summit, lights flashed. Yellow. Green. Violet. Red.

  Beneath their feet, the ground suddenly shook like a dying beast. Dorothea started to fall, but Vorenus caught her. Buildings rattled. The stones quaked. But none of them looked away. They saw orange light. And where the sky had been cloudless they saw thick bands of black that were suddenly there, swirling around the summit. Lightning flashed within them, like veins pumping with serpentine life, and torrents of rain slashed down upon the mountain.

  Something flashed in pale blue, and in that same moment a shaft of the purest indigo light pulsed down from the heavens like a spear sent down by a defiant god. It struck the Mount of Moses, and from on high came new sounds of screaming.

  26

  THE SECOND GATE

  PETRA, 4 BCE

  Standing beside Tiberius at the northern edge of the lowered courtyard atop the Mount of Moses—flanked by two of the legionnaires who weren’t standing beside a Shard—Thrasyllus and Didymus could only stare as Antiphilus walked to the litter that he’d directed to be placed upon the altar of sacrifice. He knelt beside her, and the girl stirred as if in a feverish dream, but did not awaken.

  While he did so, the demon Acme floated to the legionnaire who stood beside the Seal of Solomon, opposite the altar across the courtyard. She ran her fingers along the man’s cheek and she spoke soft words. He smiled, and then her hand slipped to the back of his neck and his face froze like the puppet he now was.

  Tiberius was fretting with his hands, rubbing at them in nervous anticipation, like a child awaiting a great gift. He was whispering things to himself, but so quietly that Thrasyllus could not hear.

  Antiphilus nodded to Acme, and then they began. Antiphilus placed his hands on the Shard of Life upon the girl’s chest, and the puppet in Acme’s grip reached out and took hold of the Shard of Aether. The demons spoke something—a thread of song in a language Thrasyllus did not know—and he saw a ghostly, shimmering line of energy crawl out from the Seal of Solomon. Like a living thing, visible as the thinnest yellow fog, it wriggled out from the Shard and made its way across the paved stones—stretching out to the other side, searching its way up the steps—until at last it found the Shard upon the Aegis of Zeus. It straightened and stiffened until it was a throbbing line of power along the ground between the two Shards.

  In the very moment it did so, green light welled up from the Shard in the breastplate of Alexander the Great. It threaded along the line that had formed, shifting its yellow light into a verdant green. Halfway between the Shards, the powers seemed to come to balance. The yellow and green sparked and rose into a ball of light in the air there, directly above the ornately tiled rectangle of stone that sat amid the paved courtyard.

  Antiphilus nodded, smiling, and Acme let go of the man in her grip. The Roman remained as he was, and she drifted across the stones to the slab on which sat the Palladium. The man there couldn’t look away from her perfect form, her perfect grace. Then he was looking at nothing, and he reached out to engage the Shard of Air. Sudden wind swept across the summit, spinning in a funneling rush that picked up dirt and debris and lifted it away into space.

  Thrasyllus had to shield his eyes, but when he managed to peer through the gale he saw that a violet light now traced the ground between the Palladium of Troy and the point where the lights all met. The atmosphere was crackling with static.

  “She’s using the men as conduits,” Didymus whispered. “Using their lives to activate the Shards.”

  “What’s he doing?” Thrasyllus asked, looking to where Antiphilus knelt beside the girl.

  “He seems to be gathering it all, focusing and controlling it.”

  “To do what?”

  Didymus sighed. “I don’t know.”

  Acme moved now to the slab that stood directly in front of the two scholars and the man who thought they were doing his bidding. The legionnaire beside the Shard there started to object, and she nodded in understanding before her hand shot out—quicker than thought—and had hold of his being. Now smiling for the benefit of the men still to come, he reached down to what remained of the Lance of Olyndicus and activated the Shard of Fire. Fierce heat rolled across the courtyard as red light now extended out to join the others.

  Already Acme was moving again, this time to the Ark of the Covenant. The man there, entranced by the power of what he was witnessing, needed no charm before she took her grip and he placed his hands on the Shard mounted betwe
en the angels upon its top.

  The earth beneath them trembled. Thrasyllus felt a wave of power pass beneath him, radiating out from the Ark, and then something broke in the mountain. The astrologer collapsed into Didymus, and together they fell to the ground, still staring at what was happening. Paving stones were shattering like glass sheets, and a crack snapped open across the side of the courtyard, right across the front of the altar. Another crack split the rock nearly at their feet, crossing the summit from side to side.

  The demons were making a keening noise like they were in pain, but then an orange light was there, extending out from the Ark to join with the others in the air between them.

  Antiphilus was panting, and the girl on the litter had now opened her eyes. She was staring up into the night sky, and her face was frozen in a soundless scream of horror.

  The man Acme left behind was trembling but still standing. She was moving faster now, and she passed to the Roman beside the Shard from the Trident of Poseidon. Above the mountain the storm appeared in a flash, thick and angry. Many of the lamps had collapsed to the ground in the quake—their burning oil spread in hellish pools about the earth—and flashes of lightning now helped to illumine the summit as a blue line joined the others.

  The rain was sheeting into his eyes, but Thrasyllus hardly dared to blink. The colors were swirling where they impacted each other above the tiled rectangle. He heard the girl and the men attached to the Shards suddenly scream as one, as if their souls were being ripped from their bodies, and the wind shifted inward, as if that point of dancing light above the summit was taking in a deep breath. Tiberius staggered forward a step, covering his ears and screaming in fear of the terrible din.

  The astrologer suddenly felt a horrible and unnatural yawning sensation in his stomach, and something about it made him look up. Through the shrieking clouds of wind and dust and rain that sparked and swirled above the mountain, he found he could see a perfect circle of clear, still sky. And through that eye into the heavens it appeared that the stars themselves were no longer fixed. They were dancing.

  “Didymus,” he started to say, but then that circle above filled with a pulse of blinding indigo light that fell down from the chaos far above.

  The impact tumbled Thrasyllus backward into the earth. His head hit the stones, and the world spun in a ringing blackness.

  Bit by bit his senses returned. The sound of Didymus telling him to wake up. The hazy flashes of color that slowly resolved themselves into the beams of the power of the Shards upon the ground. And then he was back, and as his fellow scholar helped him to his feet he saw what had been done.

  Whatever had split the sky, whatever primordial power had been awakened, it had left in its wake an indigo monolith standing in the middle of the courtyard, perfectly smooth, perfectly still. The beams of the Shards were still linked to it, still feeding it from below. Their colors were twisting around its edge like snakes cursed to chase each other around its frame forever. The storm was gone. The wind was gone. The stars no longer danced.

  “My gods,” Didymus whispered.

  Thrasyllus could only nod.

  Antiphilus, his eyes tight in concentration—he’s holding all the powers in check, the astrologer abruptly realized—sang something to Acme, and she was floating outward onto the courtyard. She moved around the glowing thing, taking care to step over the lines of power on the ground, until she was facing it from the same side as Tiberius and the scholars. She sang back to her companion.

  The son of Caesar seemed at last to gain control of himself. He came forward, striding like a man of authority. “What is this?” he demanded.

  Antiphilus ignored him, but Acme turned. She was smiling. And she was looking at Tiberius with a look that Thrasyllus could not quite place. “A gate,” she said.

  Tiberius gaped. “Gate? You promised me power. Power over all men. You aren’t meant to open a gate!”

  Acme’s smile was wider now. Her teeth were very white. And there was a sharpness to them that Thrasyllus had never seen before. “Who are you to tell us what we were meant to do, human?”

  Abruptly, the astrologer recognized how she was looking at Tiberius. Not as the son of Caesar. Not as a man at all. Like a wolf might look upon a startled rabbit, she was looking at him as if he were food. And she was hungry.

  Tiberius, who’d been seething like a petulant child, stuttered his complaint to a fearful halt, and he took a step backward.

  “But it is true that we said we would find power,” Acme said, her voice sounding a song once again. “Power over all men. We said we would get it and we will. As promised. Power over all.”

  “Over all?” Tiberius said in a small voice.

  “Oh not for you,” she said, laughing lightly. “Why, when we have the Book I think yours may be one of the first names we erase.”

  “The Book?” Tiberius asked. “What Book?”

  Acme was ignoring Tiberius now, singing to Antiphilus, who was nodding and singing back.

  Tiberius had taken another step backward. He was looking around at his men, frozen to the Shards in their grips. They were dying, all of them, their lives drained to open the gate.

  At the astrologer’s side, Didymus suddenly gasped as if he’d been struck. “Oh gods,” he said.

  Thrasyllus reached over to him. “What?”

  “The Book of Life and Death,” Didymus said. He was staring, wild-eyed, at the indigo thing before them. “It’s a gate. Oh gods … It’s really a gate.”

  Thrasyllus blinked. But before he could say anything more there was shouting and the clash of metal from the other side of the summit. Men were yelling. He looked, and he saw a horse pounding into the light. A young man upon its back had a bow drawn. He loosed, and a high whistle sang through the air. One of the men guarding the scholars fell backward—an arrow in his chest—and Acme was shrieking for the Romans to stop them. The horse reared up at the sound of her scream, and the archer slid down from its back onto the ground not far from the Ark of the Covenant. Four legionnaires on that side of the courtyard answered the demon’s command and rushed the intruder, who was already putting his bow to his back and pulling a gladius to meet them. Behind the young man, Thrasyllus saw Juba getting down from the horse, too. One half of his body was bloodied and useless, but he had a short sword in the other and he limped forward into the fray with determination and tears upon his face.

  Thrasyllus took a hesitant step forward, but a heavy hand grabbed him by the shoulder and he felt cold and sharp metal at his throat. “Stay,” one of the guards said.

  It was four legionnaires against one young archer and a wounded Juba. Thrasyllus felt a surge of despair, but then one of the legionnaires, preparing to swing at the Numidian, stepped on the throbbing orange beam of power that extended from the Ark to the gate. He screamed in unnatural agony, spouting blood as his body seemed to crush in upon itself. Thrasyllus wanted to throw up, but he also wanted to smile. Three against two was at least better odds.

  “Vorenus!” Didymus suddenly shouted.

  And there he was, on foot, running into the light on the opposite side of the courtyard from where Juba and the archer were fighting the three legionnaires. A legionnaire still guarded that side, and Vorenus took him at a run, their swords sparking as they met. Then from out of the shadows behind the old Roman came Lapis, running. “Stargazer!” she shouted.

  Thrasyllus struggled at the sight of her, felt the guard’s blade biting into his skin. “Said to stay,” the man said.

  Between them, Tiberius was drawing his own blade. He jumped over the pulsing beam of Air upon the ground to intercept her.

  Lapis didn’t notice or didn’t care. She ran with her eyes fixed on Thrasyllus, and as Tiberius swung at her with a killing blow she didn’t flinch. Only when the blade of Vorenus turned it aside did she even blink. But she didn’t stop running. And Thrasyllus could see she had a small dagger in her hands.

  “Kill her!” his guard barked from behind him, and the
man’s companion nodded and turned in her direction. He took two steps, his gladius drawn and ready to strike.

  Didymus fell upon the man’s back, scrambling at his sword arm and holding it in check just enough for Lapis to rush by.

  Thrasyllus felt the blade at his neck pull away, moving out and away to meet Lapis with its shining point.

  He had always been a coward. At times in his life he thought he always would be. But not now. Not for her.

  He reached up and caught hold of the man’s wrist, fighting to turn it away from the center of her onrushing chest. The man was stronger, though. It wavered but did not move. In desperation, the astrologer jumped backward, his head crashing into the man’s face and staggering him back a step. That did it.

  Then Lapis was there. She pounced upon them as they fell. Thrasyllus looked up into her face, and he saw that she was screaming as her little blade came down again and again into the Roman. Her eyes were far away, and Thrasyllus did not know what faces she saw in her mind.

  “Lapis!” he cried, reaching up to shake her. For a moment she startled and raised the blade as if she meant to kill him, too, but then their eyes met and she started to cry. Thrasyllus pulled himself up to grab her and hold her in the chaos, and he saw that Didymus was weeping, too. The librarian was kneeling, and the other legionnaire was dead at his feet.

  Didymus was looking at his own bloodied hands. “Not again,” he was saying. “Not again.”

  Tiberius and Vorenus were fighting upon the lowered courtyard, dancing between beams of power. Vorenus was a good fighter, but he was growing tired. And Tiberius fought with the fury of a man possessed. Vorenus already had several wounds. It was only a matter of time.

  Thrasyllus looked to the other side. The young archer was fighting valiantly, trying to make his way to the altar where Antiphilus still knelt beside the girl on the litter. The demon’s eyes were closed in concentration, and he was singing a song that Acme matched as she swayed before the indigo gate.

  Juba, struggling to fight beside the archer, stumbled on the quake-cracked stone. Thrasyllus watched as he lost his balance and began to fall over into the pulsing green line of power upon the ground.