Air and Darkness

by David Drake

  Corylus stepped around them. He murmured, “Thank you, Cousins,” out of courtesy, but he didn’t think they paid any attention to him.

  “Now, steady,” he said to Bion. Aura bent and gripped the sailor by the waist while Corylus reached up with the knife.

  The keen blade slipped through the tail of hair as though through sunlight. Bion slumped into Aura’s arms. She and Corylus lowered the sailor carefully to the sod.

  “Good morning, Master Bion,” Corylus said, smiling. “I hope that your life will be less stressful from now on.”

  * * *

  GOVINDA LOOKED AT VARUS WITHOUT EXPRESSION. After a moment the king said, “I will show you what I want, Westerner.”

  Govinda reached into the right side of his tunic and placed the half tablet there. Varus saw a slight bulge on the left side also—the black speculum, he judged.

  With his hands freed, Govinda bent and reached under a concealed lip in the parquet floor. The king grunted with effort that Varus understood when a section hinged up: beneath the wood was a layer of gray metal, probably lead.

  “Go down,” the king said, breathing hard. “There’s a ladder. We can’t stay long or the air will become stale, but it is the only safe place to show you.”

  Varus thought for a silent moment. There was no latch on the trapdoor. Govinda could put a weight on top of it or simply stand on the closed lid if he wished, but there was no point in considering possible disasters.

  Fire demons could rise from the depths of the Underworld … as I have seen them do in the past. He grinned, which seemed to take Govinda aback.

  “All right,” Varus said, peering through the opening into a vault like the one beneath the Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest on the Capitoline. Instead of a chest holding treasures similar to the Sibylline Books, this was an empty room lined with the same gray metal as the door.

  Varus climbed down the bamboo ladder and waited as Govinda followed him. The room was low; Varus didn’t have to duck, but Corylus would have, and the king took off his tight turban before closing the lid above him.

  For a moment, the room was completely dark. Varus found it difficult to breathe, but that was probably a trick of his mind. An unpleasant trick.

  A disk of gray light appeared in the air. Either it brightened or Varus’ eyes were adapting to the darkness. It came from the speculum of polished cannel coal, held between Govinda’s left thumb and forefinger. Shadows moved in the black surface, then sharpened into buildings.

  “This is Anti-Thule,” Govinda said. Varus could make out his features faintly in the gray glow. “This is where you will go.”

  Varus eyed the scene of destruction. The buildings of the Tyla had been mostly paper over frames of withies. All that storms had left of these were broken sticks, sometimes still lashed together. Occasionally he saw tatters of paper clinging to the remnants of a framework.

  The Tyla had left their bones also. Rarely were they articulated. Mice or creatures like mice had gnawed them, though there was no evidence that larger scavengers had been at work on the corpses.

  “Why aren’t we in your room on the surface?” Varus said. “You work magic there, and the panels show distant places.”

  The king scowled. Varus expected him to snarl that it was none of the Westerner’s business—whereupon Varus expected to treat Govinda as a noble of Carce treated uncultured foreigners.

  Pulto would call Govinda a wog. Very likely Lenatus would also, though not in the hearing of members of the cultured family that employed him.

  “Anti-Thule at the time you will visit it,” Govinda said calmly, having mastered his temper, “is a place of great magic. I cannot view it in the chamber above without special precautions, any more than I could stand in the Dardanelles and stop the current. I use this vault because it allows us to view the place safely, as I would use black glass to observe the sun.”

  He moved his right hand, again holding the broken tablet. The scene in the speculum shifted also, to the ruins of a stone building. It had been circular with a domed roof like the Temple of Vesta in the Forum.

  “This was the Temple of the Moon,” Govinda said. “The Godspeaker lived here and his power kept Anti-Thule warm. The tablet the Godspeaker brought from beneath the Hyperborean ice made him immortal, or almost immortal. When he was killed—”

  “How was he killed?” Varus said.

  Govinda looked at him. “I don’t know,” he said, “and I hope never to learn.”

  He paused, perhaps to see if Varus would reply. His tone had left Varus with nothing to say beyond, “Go on, then.”

  “When the Godspeaker was killed,” Govinda said, “the tablet that was the source of his power broke. I have half here—”

  The king did not gesture with the incised soapstone in his hand, but his meaning was obvious.

  “—while the remainder stayed in Anti-Thule.”

  Now he moved the tablet. The image in the speculum shrank to one of the curved blocks of the temple cornice, now lying on the ground in front of the base. Beneath it was a rectangle of stone, the broken end of a block that would fit against the break in the tablet that Govinda held.

  “You will go to Anti-Thule and retrieve this portion of the tablet,” Govinda said. “At the moment in the world’s age which you see here and to which I will send you, the Tyla are dead—all but those priests whom I preserved as my minions. The ice has not yet covered Anti-Thule, however. When you come back with the half tablet, I will release you.”

  “Why are you sending me for this, this thing?” Varus said. He turned his eyes away from the speculum. The view of Anti-Thule had been bleak enough before, but in close-up he could see flakes of snow scudding across the ruins. “You didn’t know I existed a day or two ago, did you?”

  Varus wasn’t sure that was true. He hadn’t known he would be in India until he had stepped out of the Otherworld with Bhiku, but perhaps magic had told Govinda more.

  “The messenger must be a wizard, even with my ancestor as guide,” Govinda said calmly. “I had planned to send the woman Rupa who serves my vassal Ramsa Lal, but she remained in Italy. I will deal with her later, but for now that left me with only the beggar-sage who serves Raguram. I doubted he had the power to succeed. You appeared providentially, so I chose you, Westerner. If you fail, then I’ll send the beggar after all.”

  “You’re a wizard, aren’t you?” Varus said, letting a note of challenge color his tone. “Why don’t you go yourself rather than send a vicar?”

  “I am the only one who can open the portal,” Govinda said. “Besides, there is danger, even for so great a wizard as myself. A servant may better take the risk than me.”

  I am not your servant, Varus thought. But if the choice were between him and Bhiku, then certainly he would go.

  “Do you have anything further to show me?” Varus said aloud. “If not, let’s get out of this place.”

  The lead-lined vault threatened him by its presence. So far as he could tell the location gave the king no advantage over him; but Varus was uncomfortable and he preferred to change that if he could.

  “All right,” said Govinda. The flickering gray light vanished, though Varus’ eyes still held afterimages of the bleak destruction. The king’s slippers whispered on the floor. There was a squeak and a welcome line of light through the crack; then Govinda banged the lid fully open and started up the ladder.

  Varus had an urge to thrust the king aside and climb out of the vault ahead of him. That would be cowardly. I am a citizen of Carce. He waited.

  “You!” Govinda shouted. “Who are you!”

  The king lurched out of the vault with all the speed he could manage, reaching under his tunic for the portion of soapstone tablet that he already had. Varus jumped to the ladder to follow.

  * * *

  “IS THAT THE TEMPLE OF JANUS?” Alphena said, gesturing ahead as they walked past the front of the Temple of the Divine Julius.

  “Well, it would be if it was a temple
,” said the upturned face of her baton. “Which it isn’t, right, Teacher?”

  “I would scarcely have the temerity to correct a god,” said Pandareus. “Though—”

  He grinned.

  “—I can imagine circumstances in which I might suggest that my previous understanding must be at fault—and cite my sources. Here, however, I’m in complete agreement with Lord Janus. The structure has no statue, nor is there an altar in front of it. It is an ornamental gateway, not a temple.”

  “‘Lord’ Janus, you say,” the baton said with a laugh. “I’m the doorkeeper. Do you call your doorkeeper ‘lord,’ Teacher?”

  “You have a romantic notion of the teaching profession if you imagine that my income permits me to own a doorkeeper,” Pandareus said. “Or to buy meat for ordinary meals, if it comes to that.”

  Alphena grimaced. Pandareus and this little iron head are mocking me.

  But they weren’t. They were playing word games, much as Varus and his teacher might have done. By saying “Temple” she had given them a chance to play, but they didn’t care about her.

  Anyway, she couldn’t expect a god to care about her noble birth, and Pandareus hadn’t even disagreed with her. Besides, I need them both.

  The gate, not temple, stood open on both ends. It was a square stone building with an arched doorway on the right side of the wall facing the Forum, and a similar arch and double doors at the other end, ten feet away. Four men, probably public slaves assigned to the structure, sat inside what would be the guardroom on a real gate; they were dicing and drinking straight from a wineskin.

  “I’ll handle it,” Lenatus said—to the escorts, not to Alphena. He sauntered to the nearer archway and said, “You lot. Out!”

  Alphena watched in surprise as the slaves got to their feet and left. One turned in the direction of Lenatus, but a comrade grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out the back way with the rest of them.

  “I expected an argument, even a fight?” Alphena said. The question was in her tone, not the words.

  “I didn’t,” Lenatus said, returning to her. He was obviously angry about what she was about to do, but he realized there was no point in bringing up the matter again. “I wasn’t in the mood for a discussion, and I guess they heard that.”

  “Well, are you ready, lady?” Janus said. “It’s nothing to me—I just spent thirty years standing in a flower bed since Sentius didn’t know what I was.”

  “Could Sentius have used you as Lady Alphena is doing, Janus?” Pandareus said. He had accepted the baton’s objection to being addressed as “lord.”

  “Sentius?” said the baton. “Not him, not in a million years. But that Rupa sure could have if she’d known about me.”

  “It’s as well that she didn’t, then,” Alphena said. Her mouth seemed dry. Then she said, “Master Lenatus, I don’t know what I’ll find where I’m going. I’ll take your cape, now, if you please.”

  “Why do you want the cape, Your Ladyship?” Pandareus said.

  “She doesn’t,” said Lenatus curtly as he opened a buckle under the cover of his cape. He reached up with one hand and undid the clasp at his throat while his other hand gripped something hidden by the fabric.

  Alphena took the bundle of cape and sword in the crook of her left arm. She would belt on the weapon when Janus had taken her to a place beyond the hundreds of people who might be watching her now.

  “All right,” she said to the double-faced iron. “I’m ready.”

  She stepped forward, through the gateway and on into the Otherworld.

  * * *

  “WHERE ARE WE GOING?” Hedia said. She didn’t trust Ampelos, but it appeared that they had similar aims.

  I wouldn’t mind dallying here longer, she thought. I wouldn’t mind dallying a very long time. The danger to Varus is real, though, and family duty comes first.

  “You must be unseen to enter Govinda’s sanctum,” Ampelos said. “Since you’ve agreed to save your son’s life, I will arrange for you to use the Lamp of Darkness. We will visit the Cabiri, who forged it.”

  They had reached his chariot. Attendants were already yoking the leopards. The cats twisted when they saw their master and made noises in their throats like angry stones rubbing. Hedia assumed the sound was their equivalent of a happy purr, but she was happier when they fell silent.

  Ampelos stepped into the car and took the reins in his hands. Hedia hesitated a moment.

  “Well, get in,” the youth said curtly. “After you have the lamp, we will go directly to the vine. I want to get this over with as quickly as possible.”

  Hedia got in and gripped the railing with both hands. It was as well she did. Though the chariot was identical to the one in which she had ridden with Bacchus, she swayed violently when the leopards sprang ahead. When the god himself drove, she hadn’t felt the motion.

  Hedia smiled, though she decided not to speak aloud. She had thought of putting her arm around Ampelos during the drive, but it was clear that wouldn’t be a good idea. She’d hoped that the youth would be more friendly since they had begun acting as allies. She now realized that Ampelos regarded her not with hatred but with disgust.

  The chariot bounced through the camp. There were scores of dance rounds, each about a bonfire. The figures capering in opposite circles occasionally combined to make monstrous silhouettes … and sometimes the monsters were not tricks of the shadows.

  It was my choice to come here, Hedia thought. She smiled. Many of the things she had chosen to do had proved less than great ideas, but she would continue to take chances.

  The yoked leopards had a rangy lope different from horses Hedia had seen or mules behind whom she had been driven. They were clear of the camp and racing across a landscape like nothing Hedia had seen in the Otherworld. There was no grass and the low clumps of spiky vegetation were only scattered over the surface of the clay soil.

  A creature raised its scaly head from a hole in the ground ahead. The leopards curled their lips back and snarled, the threats syncopating one another.

  “You’ve got no business here!” the reptile shrieked in a perfect Athenian accent. It vanished back into its hole before the cats reached it.

  The Moon was bigger than Hedia expected, but dim and sulfurous. Red light flared on the tops of several mountains on the horizon. She wanted to ask how much farther they were going, but that would suggest to Ampelos that she was weak.

  He wouldn’t answer anyway. That’s an even better reason not to ask.

  Without warning Ampelos swung the chariot to a halt at what Hedia had taken for a circular pond. It was a pit with no water in it, though the shimmer over the opening continued the illusion even at close range.

  Ampelos got down without acknowledging Hedia’s presence. “Brothers!” he called, facing the pit. “I have come for the Lamp of Darkness!”

  A figure climbed through the opening, followed by his near twin. The screen of light at the opening blurred their figures, but under the sickly moon the Cabiri were even uglier than the distorted versions had been.

  “So, you’ve come back, handsome,” said the first. “You’re ready to meet our terms?”

  From a distance the Cabiri would have appeared to be dwarfs, but either of the pair was as tall as Ampelos; they were actually giants with stumpy legs. They had long faces with shaggy beards and hair; they wore leather aprons, and their arms were as muscular as the forelegs of lions. Wherever their skin was exposed, sparks had scarred it. A stench of burned hair clung to both of them.

  “Yes,” said Ampelos. “After I’ve delivered the woman—”

  He nodded toward Hedia without ever letting his eyes rest on her.

  “—to the vine.”

  “Now,” said the second dwarf. He held an oil lamp of ordinary shape—a flat pitcher with a hole in the middle for filling, a spout where the wick would lie, and a loop handle opposite the spout. It was iron, however, rather than molded earthenware or bronze. “We don’t trust you, handsome.”
<
br />   “Why should we?” said the first. “We will turn over the product of our labor, after you pay us for it.”

  “I will come back and pay you,” Ampelos said. “I swear.”

  “What do you swear by?” said the Cabiri together. Their voices were like rusty iron.

  “I swear by my lord and god Bacchus!” Ampelos said. “I will come back and pay my debt to you. I swear it!”

  “An earnest,” said the dwarf holding the lamp. His hands were broad and long, suggesting paddles when the fingers were closed together. “A kiss to each of us, and then we will wait for your return.”

  Instead of replying, Ampelos stepped to the first brother and kissed him on the mouth. The dwarf hugged Ampelos closer; his dark, scarred arms encircled the youth like streaks of tar over an ivory statue.

  The arms opened. Ampelos stepped away, his face as stiff as that of a badly carved bust. The second dwarf gave the lamp to his brother and kissed the youth in turn. He released Ampelos, chuckling deep in his huge chest.

  “Take the lamp, handsome,” said the first of the Cabiri, offering it on the shelf of his fingers.

  “Give it to her!” Ampelos said, again without looking toward Hedia.

  “Our arrangement…,” said the other dwarf, “is with you. Take the lamp … or complete the bargain and leave it. That’s fine too.”

  “What would we want with a woman?” said the first. They laughed again.

  Ampelos accepted the lamp. He turned to Hedia and said, “Here, you’ll need it.”

  Hedia took it by the handle with her left hand alone. She would need one hand for the railing if they were going to travel in the chariot.

  “How does it work?” she said. The lamp was heavier than earthenware would be, but it wasn’t too heavy to easily hold.

  “I’ll light it, missy,” said one of the Cabiri. He leaned forward and snapped his fingers over the spout. The crack! sounded like an oak limb breaking.

  Where the flame should be Hedia saw a distortion like that over the mouth of the cave, but that was all. “Is it working?” she said. “Nothing has changed?”