by J. E. Gurley
“Carted away for another purpose,” Flavius posed; then dismissed the question for a more practical one. “Do you think our unseen enemy resides within?”
“For what purpose?” Gaius asked, ignoring Flavius’ question.
“What does it matter where the rubble went,” Flavius growled, “unless our invisible enemy uses it as ammunition for invisible catapults?”
“I think it matters,” Gaius replied, though he could not say how. He did not like mysteries or unanswered questions.
Sevilius stared grimly at the cavern entrance. He pulled his cloak tighter around his body. After a while, he broke his long silence. “Only the dead dwell here.”
“The dead is who we seek,” Gaius replied.
After speaking his few words, Sevilius returned to the world in his head, ignoring all further attempts to draw him out.
A chill, dank breeze smelling of long dead things issued from the nearest opening with a ghostly sigh. The caverns gaped uninviting and threatening. The thick darkness within could, as Flavius suspected, hold an army of enemies ready to pour forth and overwhelm his small band of men. He felt exposed. A shudder passed through him.
“Come,” he said. “We must prepare for tonight.”
It was a difficult thing to turn his back on the openings and ride back to the dead city of Hamad Rus, but he had questions for Rashid he must ask in private.
§
That preparations proceeded as he had ordered pleased him. The men’s exhaustion did not impede their sense of duty. They had sealed the single door to the temple with a double mound of large stones. No more sacrifices would occur there. Oil-filled brass braziers burned at each window and in front of the solitary door of the building in which they camped. If the enemy feared fire and light, they should be safe. He posted no guards outside the building but doubled the guard inside. Large fires burned inside on both levels. Satisfied he could do nothing more, he settled down to dine with his men.
Men who should have been famished by the forced march picked nervously at their food, eating little. Gaius gnawed on a roasted pork cutlet, but the meat left a sour taste in his mouth and in his stomach. He dipped bread in honey and chewed it instead. He ordered wine distributed to the men to dull their apprehension. As he stared into his goblet, the dark red color of the wine reminded him of blood. He forced himself to take a sip, surprised that it tasted only of fermented grapes.
Sevilius alone sat huddled in a corner, his cloak pulled about him like a security blanket. After his dire warning at the caverns, he had once again retreated into stony silence. His men avoided him with their gaze. Sevilius did not notice their rejection of him. He seemed unaware of anything, lost in his growing insanity. Gaius feared he would become a hindrance inside the cavern, but he could spare no men to watch him and did not wish to bind him and leave him behind to almost certain death.
After the meal, as Gaius peeled an apple with his dagger, Flavius broached the subject he had so far avoided. “Why are we here?”
Gaius let the long peel drop to the floor. “Because the enemy is here.”
Flavius held his arms spread wide. “He seems to be everywhere. Why are we here?” He pointed to the floor, tapping it with his finger. “What is your plan?”
Gaius took a bite of the apple but found it tasteless. He frowned, wondering if any food would ever satisfy him again. He tossed the apple onto the fire and watched the flames devour it. “It is my intention to enter one of the openings in the cliff and seek out the enemy.”
Flavius’ jaw dropped. “Are you mad?” he bellowed.
Gaius frowned. “You dare call me mad?” he shot at Flavius.
Flavius squared his chin and confronted his superior. “I dare when the darkness is our enemy.”
“If the enemy ventures from his home at night, then night is when we should investigate his home.”
“That is like poking a stick into a bee’s nest just to lick the honey from the tip. I fear we shall stir up the nest and reap small reward for our troubles.”
Gaius was adamant. He knew Flavius dared not disobey an order, but he needed his optio to understand his reasoning. “We brought sufficient oil and torches. I will leave men under Marcellus’ command outside the entrance to keep a large fire burning to prevent the creatures from returning. If our enemy still dwells inside the caves, we must drive them out into the open, into the daylight where we might see their faces.”
“There are many caverns. Perhaps our enemy outnumbers us.”
Gaius could see Flavius mulling over the idea in his head. His objections became more specific – logistics rather than dissention over the idea of his plan.
“Protected by fire and with our backs to a stone wall, no one can defeat us. We will burn their homes, destroy their supplies, and kill their women.” He revealed the reason he felt comfortable confronting the enemy in his caverns. “We have the Berber and his amulet.”
Flavius’ sneer told him all he needed to know.
“You witnessed the amulet at work.”
“I witnessed a blue light and witnessed the creatures depart. Perhaps it was on the Berber’s orders. I do not trust him any more than I trust his magic.”
Gaius nodded. “Forthright and honest. Very well. Your job will be to kill the Berber at the first sign of betrayal. I think it is a task to which you would apply yourself with zeal.”
“Aye,” Flavius growled. “His death would please me, but I will abide by your wishes. He dies only if he deceives us.”
“We will leave Marcellus with sesquiplecarus Dracus and four seasoned men, as well as the native auxilia, outside the entrance. The Tebu would not enter the caverns even if we flogged them. If we fail, Marcellus’ task will be to report our deaths to Leptis Manga. We leave six hours before dawn.”
“What do think we will find there?”
“Redemption or death.” Gaius shook his head slowly. Sevilius’ strange behavior had driven his thoughts to darker levels. “I fear our Berber friend is right. We face no normal foe. Something evil resides within those deep caverns, something that has been waiting a very long time. Egypt, a once great nation fell mysteriously many centuries ago. Civilizations far to the east have disappeared just as quickly – Sumeria, Ur, Babylon, Hittite, Persia, and Akkad. Hamad Rus was once the beating heart of the Saharan desert. Now, like the others, it is a faded memory. I believe our enemy is a destroyer of nations. It has now tasted good Roman blood. I think it will leave its dark places and seek out Rome.”
Flavius stared at Gaius in shock. “You test these creatures, offering our lives so that Marcellus might determine the enemy’s true strength and purpose.”
Gaius admired the quickness Flavius displayed in divining his purpose. “If we cannot defeat them, we will not return. Our deaths will be the Emperor’s proof of the danger.”
Flavius glanced at the men, all sublimely unaware of what was to come. As a veteran military man, he could smell defeat. “I will sharpen my blade.” With that, he nodded curtly and turned to walk away.
Gaius stopped him. “I have one other trick that may work.”
Flavius lifted an eyebrow.
“The goats’ blood. The creatures do not attack animals. If we douse our bodies with the blood of the goats, perhaps it will mask our scent for a time.”
Flavius wrinkled his nose. “Cover ourselves in animal’s blood? That seems unwholesome.”
“Perhaps, but if it gives us any edge, however slight, it will be worth the discomfort. Inform the men of my plan.”
Flavius nodded. “I will tell them.”
As Flavius walked away, Rashid said, “He is right. We will not return.”
Gaius started at Rashid’s words; then scowled at him. He had not heard the Berber approach. “You walk like a cat.”
Rashid smiled. “Even cats fear too many rats. If we enter the aguram, the Tombs of the Dead, my amulet might not protect us. I do not know the limits of its power. I could not use it in time to save my people. It
is said the caverns run to the center of the earth, to hell.”
“Then we will meet Charon the boatman of the River Styx and pay him his copper coins to ferry us to Hades.”
Rashid stared at him, uncomprehending his reference to Roman lore. “If we encounter a river in this dry land, it will be a river of blood, Roman blood.”
“And yours, Berber,” Gaius reminded him, “yours as well.”
“I would hate to deprive your Flavius of his pleasure, but the Dark Ones might have other plans for me.”
“If you fail me, he might turn his blade on me.”
Rashid arched one eyebrow in mock surprise. “A Roman killing a Roman? That would be … barbaric.”
Gaius pointed a finger at Rashid. “Your tongue might be your death, Berber.”
“A man must speak what he perceives as the truth, or he is no man.”
“Then you believe there are versions of the truth?”
Rashid shrugged. “There is, of course, Roman truth, and then there is the Truth.”
“You speak like a politician. You would make a good Senator.”
“Were my skin not dark and my manners not so rough? Were I a Roman?”
This brought a smile to Gaius’ lips. “As I said a true politician. Are all Berber princes politicians?”
“All Berbers are politic. That is how we survive in a hostile land.”
“Will my plan with the goats’ blood work?” Gaius had doubts, but could think of no other subterfuge that might gain them entrance into the caverns.
Rashid paused. “I do not know. It seems logical to make the attempt. We might fool the creatures’ nostrils, but we will not fool their eyes.”
“A few minutes might be all we need.”
“We are entering their domain, the tabyni, the deep darkness. I know not your entire plan, but I fear it will prove inadequate for what we encounter. The dark wraiths that were once Inyosh waged war against the Kashites for many years. The Kashites are no more. These shadow creatures are not mindless beasts. They will work together to defend their domain.” Rashid uttered a soft hiss of disproval. “Do you think to surround them and subdue them with fire and sword? Do you think I alone with my amulet can defeat them?”
Gaius stared at Rashid. “I suggest you sleep. It might be your last.”
He watched Rashid cross the room and make a pallet with his blanket in the corner away from the others. The Berber intrigued him. If fate and birth had not made them enemies, Gaius thought he might have made a good friend. If he feared death, he did not show it. Gaius had dwelt upon death many times, during many battles, and most of all after his banishment from Rome when he had contemplated death by his own hands. Such an end would have pleased the Emperor but would have brought further disgrace to his family; therefore, he had meekly accepted his punishment. If death did not find him in this hostile, barren land, he would once again return to Rome and confront the Emperor, this time with a Legion at his back.
10
Gaius thought he had faced darkness before, both darkness within the mind and the darkness of the deepest night, but staring into the entrance of the ominous cavern was like gazing into a bottomless black pit. He felt it drawing him ever-downward in a dizzying spiral. He leaned farther over the edge … and felt a hand touch his shoulder.
“Why this particular one?” Flavius asked, leaning on Gaius’ shoulder to look past him into the depths of the cavern as nonchalantly as one might inspect a closet.
The goat’s blood splotching the optio’s face and arms and staining his tunic made him appear battle bloodied. The stench of days-old goat’s blood was far worse than most battlegrounds Gaius remembered, but if it tricked the creatures, it would be worth the discomfort.
Gaius shook his head to clear it. He pointed to the carving above the entrance. “It is the same as that of the temple in the city.”
Flavius motioned to the men surrounding them. They each lit a torch, beating back the darkness and revealing their own coating of goat’s blood. Each one also carried two more unlit torches thrust through their belts. Several men bore urns filled with oil. They had dipped each torch in oil mixed with sulfur and lime to waterproof it. The torches produced a unique stench of their own. Such precautions puzzled Flavius; fearing water in the desert seemed incongruous, but Gaius had explored caves in Gaul, damp, dripping, stalagmite and stalactite filled chambers that easily extinguished torches. He did not wish to risk such a possibility when faced with deadly wraiths.
The odor of goat’s blood and the burning sulfur worked together to gnaw at Gaius’ stomach, exacerbating the dull agony caused by the cancer. He wanted nothing more than to lie down in a cool place with a flagon of wine to allow it to settle, but matters were reaching a head. In a few hours, he would have all the time he needed or his discomfort would no longer matter. The dead feel no pain.
Marcellus and the men he had chosen had constructed an enormous pyre in front of the main entrance with wood carted from Rashid’s village and what little wood they could scrounge from the countryside. Gaius noticed Antonius Cossus, the old veteran, among them. He nodded to him, glad to see Marcellus had an experienced man he could depend on. Antonius nodded back.
Gaius’ orders to Marcellus had been simple. If he did not return, Marcellus would march back to camp, and then send riders to warn the garrison at Marzuq. To prepare, they had soaked the wood with oil. At each of the smaller entrances, they placed burning braziers. The Tebu natives helped, but stayed as far from the dark entrance as possible. They had balked at marking their bodies with goat’s blood. Only physical force would have convinced them, and Gaius needed them too badly to risk driving them away. Their allegiance to their new Roman masters went only so far.
Flavius stared at the carving on the lintel. “It looks as if it was once a man.”
That thought had crossed Gaius’ mind as well. The eyes bore a strikingly human quality, although they possessed no touch of pity or mercy. They were the eyes of a natural killer. He hoped the carving merely symbolic, some artist’s whimsy, but he suspected it once was the face of their enemy transformed upon their cursed deaths to shadowy form.
The flat ledge upon which they stood stretched from one end of the crimson bluff to the other, a distance of about 1,600 Roman pedes – almost half a league. Six entrances dotted the ledge, some too small for a man to enter on hands and knees. Peering inside each, Gaius saw that they sloped downward into the depths of the earth. Only the main entrance was wide enough to admit men. Strange carvings adorned the lintels and fluted columns set in front of them – nightmarish creatures, disfigured figures that might have been men, and runes that held the eye captive, revealing more malevolent detail the longer one stared. The relentless march of the eons had sand-etched their heavily pitted carved surfaces beyond recognition, but just their rough, blurred outlines troubled Gaius. They resembled nothing he had seen in Rome, in Greece, in Egypt, or in any building or temple in the Middle East. He wondered what manner of people once lived in these lands.
The men still thought of the caverns as tombs, but Gaius doubted they would find anyone buried within. However, that didn’t mean that men had not died there.
“All is ready,” Marcellus announced, wiping his hands on his tunic. “We have scrounged all the wood this desert has to offer.”
“Strip the wagons if necessary,” Gaius ordered, “but keep the fires burning until after dawn.”
He eyed Gaius for a moment. “I still think I should accompany you. You might need my sword. Dracus Armis can mind these native recruits and Sevilius’ men.”
Gaius smiled, touched by the veteran’s sense of duty. It was true that he wanted the veteran legionnaire’s sword by his side, but Dracus was young. If he arrived in Leptis Magna with a tale of deadly living shadows, dead cities, and a defeated legion, they would dismiss him as a coward, or worse, a deserter.
“You have your orders if we fail.”
Marcellus snapped to attention and saluted. “You will
not fail, Legate.”
“Centurion,” Gaius reminded him.
“In my mind, you will always be a commander.”
He spun and returned to his men. Gaius spotted Rashid sitting with his back against the cliff studying the amulet and went to him. Unlike the reluctant Tebu, the Berber had not hesitated dousing himself with goat’s blood. His eyes peered out from a blood-red mask.
“It is time,” Gaius said.
Rashid rose slowly, tucking the amulet carefully inside his robe. The blood had dried quickly in the desiccated desert air, making the robe stiff. He looked at the sky, and then at the desert around them as if fixing the image in his mind, or as if he expects never to see them again, Gaius realized grimly.
“I do not believe they have exited their lair as you hoped. I think they are waiting within for us.”
“Why do you believe this?”
Rashid shrugged. “Because they have not yet attacked us.”
Gaius could not refute Rashid’s logic. “Are they men or beasts?”
Rashid’s hand went to his breast as if to assure him the amulet still rested there. “Perhaps a bit of both originally many centuries ago, but now they are shadows of what they once were. They are evil itself serving a thing even more evil.”
Gaius chuckled. “I thought Romans were evil itself.”
The outer edges of Rashid’s lips turned up. “You are but a little evil. Your empire will crumble as others have, as Hamad Rus fell. The Dark Ones are eternal. Their evil god existed before time itself.”
In spite of himself, Gaius cast a quick glance over the ruins of Hamad Rus and shuddered. The ruined city was barely visible in the darkness but just as foreboding. Would Rome join it in its ignoble death? Not while I breathe, he swore. He grabbed a torch from one of the soldiers and marched into the darkness with resolute steps. “Let’s go.”
Flavius cautioned Gaius back, insisting that four men bearing torches lead the way. Gaius understood Flavius’ prudence, but the men moved too cautiously. He crowded them to urge them to move faster. They had to reach their destination, wherever that might be, before dawn. Rashid, vigilant but subdued, walked alongside Gaius. Flavius followed Rashid. “Where I can watch him,” he explained. Sevilius trudged along beside Flavius oblivious to his surroundings. His only expression was an occasional tic in his jaw. Gaius kept a close watch on the mad Tribune, hoping to use him as a bellwether to determine if the wraiths were near.
