Elements 03 - Monsters of the Earth

by David Drake

  “I…,” Corylus said. “I had been told otherwise.”

  He had stopped himself from saying, “Are you sure?” which would have been insulting as well as foolish. Though dryads looked human to his eyes, they didn’t feel the human need to lie.

  “That one is no more a man than you are,” the pine mused. Dryads considered names superfluous; few of those whom Corylus had met could remember—see any reason to remember—what one human called another. “He’s as cruel as a man, though.”

  She looked at Corylus. He wasn’t sure whether or not there was emotion behind her lined features.

  “Are you cruel?” she asked.

  “Mistress,” Corylus said, bracing himself stiffly. “I’m not cruel by choice, but I’ve been trained as a soldier. In a hard situation, I’ll act as I must.”

  The sprite laughed. Like her speaking voice, the sound was more mellifluous than one would expect from someone so gnarled and ancient.

  “The lightning does the same,” she said. “Shall I complain about the lightning? All things die. But that one.…”

  Briefly behind her flashed a background of the garden in past years. Six fruit trees were in flower down the center, flanked by rows of hollyhocks and delphiniums.

  “The apples and the pear, they were silly things, but they did no harm,” the pine said. “I came to like listening to them chatter. That one had them cut down for no reason, just for another row of aconite and one of wormwood. He would have cut me down as well, but sometimes he sits on the bench and I shade him.”

  “You say that there is danger from the Worms, but Melino is not behind it?” Corylus said, wrenching his mind into the new direction. “Do you know who is behind it? Or what is?”

  “Does it matter?” the old dryad said. “This one is afraid to die, but all things die.”

  She smiled again. In a more urgent tone she said, “The man approaching you is not your friend.”

  Corylus was back in the world that his body had never left. He turned, ducking under the whistling spear shaft. The loaded butt hit the tree trunk and bounced back. The huge Sarmatian swinging it yelped as the shaft vibrated in his hand, stinging like a burning coal.

  Roxolanus, the guard captain who thought he was a god. The Sarmatian was in full-length armor as though he were riding his horse toward the army of Carce, as he probably had done in the past, and as Corylus had watched his fellows do.

  “Do you think Lord Melino pays you to stand around?” Roxolanus said. His long coat was of scales of auroch horn sewn to overlap on a backing of leather. The skirts fell to his boot tops while he was standing, but they were split in the middle so that he could fork his saddle. “After I beat you to an inch of your life, I’ll throw you out into the ditch where lazy bastards belong!”

  The gardeners were probably none of Roxolanus’ business, but Corylus had met his share of officious officers before. He’d met Sarmatians too.

  The gardeners and the other guards were running toward the trouble, so Corylus had to finish it fast. “Your mother’s too ugly for a whore so we use her for a toilet!” he said in Sarmatian.

  “What?” said Roxolanus. Corylus’ Sarmatian was rusty and he’d never been fluent in the language, but he’d clearly gotten his point across. “You little worm!”

  Roxolanus lifted the spear over his head, preparing to pin Corylus to the pine tree. Corylus lunged forward, putting all his weight behind the hoe whose blade he’d planted in the Sarmatian’s crotch, through the slit in his armor. He stepped aside as Roxolanus squealed, doubled up, and fell forward.

  “Keep away!” Corylus shouted. He tried to shout, anyway. He was gulping air and too focused on his immediate enemy to care what else was happening.

  The Sarmatian wore a peaked cap covered with boars’ tusks. It slipped askew when Roxolanus hit the ground with his face. Corylus kicked it away, reversed his hoe, and rapped the Sarmatian across the lower skull with the handle. He could have cut the man’s spine with the blade, but he’d caused enough trouble already.

  Roxolanus twitched and went still. Hercules! Maybe I killed him after all.

  Corylus backed away, gasping through his open mouth. He thrust the hoe into the ground to help support his wobbly knees. The whole business had taken only seconds, but it had taken all of him for those seconds.

  His surroundings came into focus again. To his surprise, the gardeners and the remaining guards had stopped at a distance from him. Roxolanus was moaning, so he would probably live. He might sing at a higher pitch, but that was all right.

  “And who are you?” said someone behind Corylus. “Since I don’t believe you’re a gardener.”

  Corylus turned and straightened. He had his breath back, or enough of it.

  Facing him was Melino, whom Corylus had seen in Lucinus’ visions. In the flesh Melino seemed older, though his face was even more boyish than Corylus had thought.

  Melino wore a long shimmering-white tunic. On his left hand was a ring whose ruby flared momentarily brighter than the sun. His fist was clenched, holding the ruby toward Corylus like a shield—or the point of a spear.

  “My name is Torquatus,” Corylus said. “When I’m attacked, I respond. I’ll leave your grounds now.”

  “Oh, no,” said Melino. “I have a much better use for you.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  “Come inside,” Melino said abruptly, gesturing toward the door through which he had appeared. The back porch of the house was walled with a carved wooden screen; it allowed someone inside to look onto the garden while remaining in shadowed anonymity.

  Corylus was still holding the hoe; he stretched it out so that Kurnos could take the hickory handle. He would have liked to keep it with him, but that would be impolitic, and he didn’t imagine that it would help very much against the ruby ring. Whatever the ruby did.

  Another man might have dropped the hoe on the ground. It had served Corylus well and deserved courteous treatment.

  Melino glanced at Roxolanus, then said to Glabrio, “Get him out of here.”

  “Ah, Your Lordship?” Glabrio called to the magician’s back. “Where should we put him?”

  Melino laughed. “Throw him in a ditch, why don’t you?” he said. “That was his suggestion, wasn’t it?”

  Corylus followed him onto the porch. Curved beams overhead had once supported grapes, but the vines were dead now; only gray tatters remained of the arbor.

  Melino closed the slatted door and gestured Corylus onto a wicker couch. “I ask you again, Torquatus,” he said, settling on the facing couch. “Who are you?”

  “At the moment…,” Corylus said. He sat instead of reclining, and he was on the edge of the couch. “I am a gardener. My father had an estate in the Po Valley; we’re Gauls.”

  Melino raised an eyebrow. “Your Latin is very good for a Gaul from the Po Valley,” he said without inflexion.

  “I had the best schooling,” Corylus said. He had given some thought to what his story would be if he needed one, though he hadn’t expected to use it. “I was taking lectures from Photius in Massillia when my father lost all his money.”

  Corylus shrugged. “My uncle Longus lives in Puteoli,” he said. “I hoped he’d help, but he’d gotten angry over Father’s dabbling in magic. He wouldn’t talk with me.”

  “Your father is a magician?” Melino said. His posture didn’t change, but he spoke in a slightly sharper tone.

  “He thought he was,” Corylus said. “It was all pretty harmless until he got involved with an Etruscan who called himself Teucer while I was in Massillia. That bastard took Dad for all he had—and all he could borrow from his brother, which is why Longus is so pissed off, I suppose. Then Teucer disappeared and our property disappeared—and I’m working as a gardener.”

  “Are you afraid of magic, Master Torquatus?” Melino said. “Real magic, I mean.”

  Corylus met his eyes. “I’m not afraid of anything,” he said. “I guess your boy Roxolanus has guessed that too, by now. But let me
tell you, if I ever meet Teucer again, he’d better be afraid.”

  “Roxolanus isn’t my boy,” the magician said mildly. He was no longer pointing the ring like a weapon; instead, he was rotating it idly with his right thumb and forefinger. “I have particular need of guards at the moment, and you have left me with no one to command them. Are you…”

  He paused till Corylus met his eyes.

  “… interested in taking the place of Roxolanus?”

  Corylus said nothing for a moment. If he had been here with no ulterior motive, he would have needed to know a great deal more about the job before he took it. Melino had started to frown with impatience before Corylus said, “What does ‘take the place of Roxolanus’ mean?”

  “Commanding twenty-four guards,” Melino said. “It was twelve until I got some troubling news this morning. I want half of them on duty at all times.”

  “If you want a full twelve, it’ll take more than twenty-four total,” Corylus said.

  “Then hire more!” said Melino. “Half the gladiatorial schools in Italy are here on the Bay!”

  “Go on,” Corylus said calmly. That was the first break in Melino’s facade of calm amusement. Staying calm was the best way to exploit it.

  “I’ll pay you five thousand coppers a month,” Melino said, regaining control of himself. “You’ll get a month in advance as soon as you accept the job.”

  “That’s centurion’s pay,” Corylus said approvingly. In practice, a centurion—even a reasonably honest one—could double his wages through various perquisites, but this wasn’t the time to quibble. “What are we doing to earn our money? Because if you want me to hunt lizards in your garden, you’re out of luck. You can get an eight-year-old boy to do that better than I can.”

  “Who told you about lizards?” Melino said, deathly still.

  “One of the guards,” said Corylus, “and he got it from Roxolanus. Look, what are you worried about? You’re offering too much money for anything I’ve heard yet, which makes me think that maybe I’d be underpaid if I took the deal after all. I’m still ready to walk out of here.”

  It was Melino’s turn to pause. A staff of black wood leaned against a pillar of the house proper behind his couch; he took it in his hand. Corylus watched, but the magician’s demeanor didn’t seem threatening.

  “You said you weren’t afraid of magic,” said Melino. Using his staff, he traced a wavy line on the ground between them. “People sometimes say things that they can’t back up when they’re tested.”

  “I don’t,” Corylus said. “Tell me what you’re guarding against or I’ll go back to opening irrigation channels. I don’t care which.”

  A wraith of light—for a moment Corylus thought it was rosy smoke—spurted from Melino’s ring and took shape as a nude female figure. The demon and Melino said together, “Devour his helpless limbs in your maw!” The wraith’s voice was cold and sexless.

  The line on the ground—across the marble chips of the path and the leaf litter and grass on the ends—squirmed and raised its horned head. It was a thick-bodied Libyan viper, about as long as a man’s arm. It looked at Corylus, then rippled sideways toward him.

  I should have kept the hoe after all.

  Corylus leaned sideways with his left arm out, wiggling his fingers. The viper stopped and focused on the movement. Its tail drew up under the rest of the body; its head cocked back.

  Corylus grabbed it just behind the head with his right hand.

  He didn’t know what to expect—smoke, sand; perhaps his fingers slipping through nothingness. The reality was dry strength beneath a cover of pointed scales. He leaped to his feet shouting, “Ha!” and tried to snap the snake’s body against the pillar behind Melino. The viper vanished from his grip.

  Corylus was breathing hard. He remained standing, looking down at the magician. The wraith from the ruby had disappeared when the viper did.

  “If you need me to kill snakes…,” he said, his voice harsh and unexpectedly loud. He didn’t try to lower it. “Then I’ll use a stick the next time, all right?”

  “Yes,” said Melino. His voice didn’t quiver, but he had swallowed twice before he got the words out. “I apologize, Torquatus. I—that was unnecessary and I apologize.”

  Corylus stepped back. He had been standing over the magician and shouting at him. The viper had felt real and Corylus didn’t doubt that its poison would have been real also; but it was over.

  If I’d wanted a quiet life, I would have planned to stay in Carce as a lawyer. And very possibly I would shortly be swallowed there by a giant worm.

  Melino lifted the lid of a small bronze chest on the table beside him; he took out five freshly minted gold pieces and placed them in an arc on the table. There seemed to be as many coins stacked within as there had been when the box opened.

  “This is your pay for the first month,” Melino said. He seemed to have regained his composure. “Now, if you’ll come with me, Captain, I’ll show you what your possible enemy is. I was afraid to do so with Roxolanus, so I tried to describe the danger to him.”

  He smiled faintly and added, “Unsuccessfully, it would seem. I believe your arrival this morning was providential.”

  Corylus followed the magician through the office and reception area, then up the stairs to the upper floor. He left the gold behind. He was a little embarrassed at being paid to spy on Melino, but he was beginning to wonder if he hadn’t been wrong about the man.

  He grinned ruefully. Except about Melino’s connection with Hedia, which didn’t endanger the Republic or the world.

  Melino opened the door to the right at the head of the stairs and walked through. The slatted shutters dimmed the room even more than Corylus had guessed when he looked up from the garden.

  Corylus saw the loops of quivering red light. It was a moment later before he realized they were bonds tethering a lizardman to a bed frame; Corylus grunted in shock.

  It’s a female. She’s a female.

  “This is a demon like those which a wizard is using to attack me,” Melino said. “This is a female whom I captured and use as a tool to thwart my enemy.”

  He leaned forward and ran the ruby down his captive’s thigh. She writhed, hissing: a welt sprang up as though the jewel had been a hot iron. The surface of her skin was lightly pebbled instead of being scaly.

  “You see?” Melino said. “I control her completely. She’s harmless so long as she remains in my power. If she should get free, though, she would help my rival to destroy the world.”

  “What do you mean?” Corylus said. He spoke in a carefully neutral tone, as though he was asking for clarification from his commanding officer … which in a manner of speaking was what he was doing. “Destroy the world, that is?”

  Melino looked soberly down at his captive. “She is a princess of her people and a great magician herself,” he said. “If her kinsmen were to free her, she would join my rival Lucinus and loose the Worms of the Earth.”

  Corylus said nothing. The pine nymph had told him that Melino wasn’t planning to loose the Worms. He believed her. That meant part of Lucinus’ story was false … and if the whole thing was false—

  Has Lucinus tricked me and Varus into helping him destroy the world?

  “My late master hid away a book of magic,” Melino said. “If I can retrieve it, as I will if I have a little time, I can save the world. That’s why I need you.”

  “You want me to find this book with you?” Corylus said slowly. He had entered Melino’s grounds with a clear intention. Now nothing was clear. He was particularly puzzled about what he should be doing.

  “No!” Melino said. Then, more mildly, “No, you’re not a magician. I need you to protect the house against the Singiri who have come to free their princess.”

  “Lizardmen like her?” Corylus said. He looked at the female—the Princess. She met his eyes with an expression that hid some emotion. He had no idea what that emotion was, however.

  “They’ll be males,” sa
id Melino, “but there are only four of them. How many men will you require to keep this house safe?”

  Corylus thought about the lizardmen he’d seen in Veturius’ beast yard. Three of them were warriors; the fourth was old … but again, perhaps not to be despised. The guards Melino had hired while Roxolanus was captain seemed a decent lot from what Corylus had seen. And there were twelve on duty.

  “I think we’ve got enough,” he said, speaking as Torquatus, the squire from the Po Valley, who had just been hired. “If I change my mind, I’ll tell you.”

  “Good,” said Melino crisply. He gestured Corylus toward the door and the stairs beyond. “I have a place nearby where you’ll sleep. Only men who are on duty stay on this property.”

  “I’ll introduce myself to the men,” said Corylus. “Then I’ll take care of my personal affairs and return here.”

  “Don’t worry about anything but guarding this house!” Melino said as they descended the stairs. “I am your only concern.”

  Corylus looked back over his shoulder. “You hired a guard, Master Melino,” he said. “You didn’t buy a slave.”

  He wondered what Varus was doing—and how Varus would advise him if they could discuss what he had just heard and seen.

  Corylus stepped into the garden, facing not only the guards but also Kurnos and his crew. The magician had followed him down. He needn’t speak, but his presence would confirm what the new guard captain was about to say.

  “All right!” said Corylus. “I’m in charge, now. Anybody who doesn’t like that can pick up his pay and leave. Or if they want to take it up with me, that’s all right too. Anybody?”

  In the silence that followed, Corylus glanced at the pine tree. He remembered that the sprite had called Melino cruel, and he remembered the cold brutality with which he had burned the leg of the Singiri princess.

  If the world depends on such a man to save it, he thought, perhaps the world isn’t worth saving.

  * * *

  VARUS STOOD ON TOP of the shovel to drive the blade’s full length into the ground. The soil itself was soft—boggy, even—but the garden was badly overgrown. They were having to cut through roots, which was much more difficult than he would have guessed.