In Numina: Urban Fantasy in Ancient Rome (Stories of Togas, Daggers, and Magic Book 2)

by Assaph Mehr

  As Aemilia stepped out from under the colonnade, she froze and made a strange gargling sound. I followed her gaze and saw her staring at my fountain. One can only imagine what she saw in her state of mind, but the thing was horrendous even without the heightened awareness of the psilocybe. The brass fountain was shaped like a faun, done in exquisite detail but horrible imagery. The faun was waving a lyre in his right hand and holding his erect member whence the water came in his left. It’s face, on which the nameless artist skilfully crafted each eyebrow and wrinkle, held a mad leer that would make even old goats fear for their virginity.

  But Aemilia’s artistic sensibilities were not the ones being offended right now. She stepped beyond the columns and started at the sky. “Why are there two suns?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “One is there,” she pointed to the westering sun, “and there must be one just above the horizon over there,” and she pointed north-east toward the bay’s entrance.

  “That would be the Pharos lighthouse. The sun is a natural source of magia. It’s where Sol resides and is the manifestation of his numen. But the Pharos with the eternal flame fixed at its peak is a local focal point as well. It radiates magia so strongly that our incantatores have learnt not to gaze directly upon it with the true sight.”

  “And it colours everything. I can’t see a single white cloud in the sky, but I see streaks of blue, and purple, and cyan, and pink, and lavender.” She had a smile of wonder on her face, like a child discovering coloured chalks. She turned her gaze down from the sky to me, and said, “Why are you green?”

  “Probably because I was handling the psilocybe mushrooms. Now, let’s get you back inside.”

  I took Aemilia’s elbow and gently guided her to the triclinium. I let her settle on a couch, pouring her water from a nearby pitcher. She kept babbling and staring at her hands as they moved and traced invisible patterns in the air. Eventually, her stream of chatter slowed. I called to Dascha, who brought us fresh bread, spicy olives, pickled cabbage, and semolina honey cakes. The trance the mushrooms induce leaves one thirsty, famished, and usually in a mood for strange combinations of food.

  When Aemilia had calmed down and was feeling well enough, I walked her up to the Vicus Petrosa. There on the main road it was easy to hire a single-person litter to carry her up the mount to her mother’s domus. The time was mid-afternoon, with plenty of light and traffic, and her girl and bodyguard would keep her safe.

  Throughout this, she was uncharacteristically quiet and pensive. The effects would have worn off by then, but the impact of sensing the energies that course through and power our world would stay with her for a long while.

  Chapter X

  It was late at night, the streets on the way nearly abandoned. Human noises still drifted around the city — a drunk argument spilling from a window and the noise of wagons delivering produce to city markets. And yet, the courtyard of the insula I chose for tonight was dead quiet.

  This was the one still sparsely populated. My choice was influenced by two factors. One, to prevent further harm to the remaining tenants; two, to face a curse not yet fully established. Though I believed Araxus’ direction, I was facing a largely unknown opponent. Tackling a malignant incantation that has taken firm hold of a whole tenement building while not sure of my methods was less-than-wise, even for my reckless norm.

  I imagined the tenants to be either sleeping, in the old lady’s case, or absent, in Elpis’ and maybe Memmia’s case. Yet the house did not feel sleepy, and as I stood there I realised it wasn’t as quiet as I first thought. There were noises. Different noises. Noises one would expect to hear in dark caves or under dense canopy of trees at midnight. No, that’s not quite the right description. The sounds were city sounds. Just not the kind that belong in a building at a lively neighbourhood at night. These were sudden, grating noises, coming from unexpected directions.

  Borax was standing beside me, looking apprehensive and trying to check all directions at once. He had his sword drawn, and the sack of supplies I brought was at his feet. His drooping red moustache was swinging, following his turning head. My instructions to him were simple. I was to concentrate on locating the source of the curse, but if anything appeared life-threatening and I wasn’t in a condition to deal with it, he was to drag me outside to the street.

  This insula was a slightly better affair than the others we had seen, with the inner courtyard dedicated as private gardens to the ground-floor apartments. This meant each apartment had to have its own cooking facilities. This kind of fire-hazard usually has landlords worried silly, so they put up their rents. A self-reinforcing cycle, ensuring only the upmarket ones have them.

  I walked to one of the ground floor apartments at random, lit some kindling in a kitchen’s hearth, and set up my skillet on it. I brought out the mushrooms and eggs and prepared them more carefully than I had earlier. Contrary to what I had told Aemilia, I put in some focused incantation, to build up the vision to desired effect.

  When the patina was ready, I took a large bite.

  Then another. And another.

  I didn’t have long to wait. What was black a moment ago, brightened. It wasn’t light per se, but I could see objects framed by some inner glow through the different shades of darkness that permeated the spaces between them. Every time I turned my head, the swam with the motion of a sea alive with phosphorescent algae, then settled back to the normality of bricks and cement.

  I needed to find the source of the paranormal occurrences, so I searched the inner courtyard until I reached the bas-relief of the house’s lar. The lararium was done in the way common to household shrines — two fluted columns mounted with a triangular pediment at about a short man’s height, projecting a hand’s width from the wall. The alcove inside was painted dirty white as opposed to the faded ochre splattered with mud that covered the rest of the inner courtyard walls of the insula. The image of the lar was sculpted in crude but unmistakable lines, a young boy symbolising the guardian spirit of this house. The altar served as a focal point to the spirit’s contractual obligation to protect the people who reside here in exchange for the appropriate sacrifices. In the statue’s right hand was a knife, and in his left he held a bowl like those used in religious ceremonies or by street beggars. He wore a tunic and a decorated conical cap, and at his feet were a dog and a snake.

  Under the influence of the psilocybe mushrooms my mind both heightened and mixed sensory perceptions, so that as I approached I could sense the residual energy imbued in the statue from years of services and libations. I touched the plaster image and my eyes were suddenly blinded by bright colours and scenes from years of human contact with that primal energy that powers our world.

  Snatches of events flashed before me in quick succession — births, childhood illnesses, marriages, work, money, and even death. Joys and sorrows. Decades and generations of people striving to gain what little control they could to steer their lives in directions slightly less miserable and dreary by appeasing the gods and begging for their favour.

  As these scenes whirled before me, I could sense something else — old, unfathomable — making its curious enquiry into my mind, my life. Intermixed with the scenes from the lives of those unknown strangers, images of past events in my own life rose unbidden in my delirious mind. My father flushed with wine, proclaiming to all how I would rise far beyond the reach of anyone else in my family; my mother, sitting on the last of our good couches in a room bare of any artwork, eyes red from tears, refusing to go on with life, even though it had been a year since my father took his own life to spare us from debt collectors and exile; the day I met Helena, her golden hair shimmering in the sunlight and her smile eclipsing the sun in brilliance; and the day I found her mutilated body, floating bloated down a well.

  I jerked my hand away as though the plaster snake at the lar’s feet had lashed out and bit me. But now, even without the
touch I had a connection to that representation of the household’s god. My mind flooded with images from its alien presence. It was seeking paths through the walls, seeking entry into our world. It skittered, fretted, and tried to communicate with those it encountered. These were the noises and screeches that the tenants heard.

  I scrutinised the lararium and noticed gossamer threads of magia leading away from it. They wrapped all around the insula, shimmering like a spider’s web revealed by a tilt of the head, sunlight glinting on what a moment ago appeared empty space. And like a spider, I traced the web to its centre, wary of what manner of thing I might encounter.

  The shimmering silver threads led me to one of the dried vegetable patches. Dropping on my knees, I scrambled to dig in the corner with a spoon instead of a trowel until I uncovered a folded sheet of lead. I lifted it with tongs, careful not to touch the folded metal with my fingers. I could sense the dark energy throbbing from it, like the red entrails of a gutted animal convulsing in the throes of death. In my feverish state, I could smell the tablet radiating its malevolent acrid energy, the tendrils of which were by now firmly rooted in the grounds and walls of the insula. Though the tablet was folded, the etched writing squirmed like salted slugs, first crawling out and on top of the lead sheet, then skirting back under the folds.

  A sudden crash made me jump.

  Borax fell to the ground next to me, grappling with the animated statue of the lar. As a gladiator trained to fight for his life on the arena sands, Borax knew every trick to fighting, but the childlike sculpture was animated by forces far greater than mere mortal strength. What was made of moulded plaster and should have crumbled, was suddenly as hard as granite. Borax managed to throw the statue off him and roll to the other side. Both rose to their feet. Borax’s sword lay a few paces away, bent to uselessness from hitting his stone opponent.

  “Use the skillet!” I yelled, as I ran to the sack of supplies lying next to the fire-pit. From the corner of my eye, I saw Borax grab the heavy skillet from the grill. Behind me came loud clanging as heavy iron met granite-hard limbs, the strikes interspersed with Borax’s grunts and muttered curses. While Borax sounded his frustration, the statue moved quietly, uttering not a single word. I busied myself with the necessities of what I had to perform, trusting Borax to keep the unnatural menace away from me. I had never advanced in my studies to the level of mastery required to bend the energies of magia purely by willing it, but I have studied enough theory and learnt much of the folk-ways so I could distil the semi-superstitious rituals to their essential elements. That way, with just a few crutches, I could achieve modest effects as I desired.

  I dumped the contents of the sack before me and by urgent necessity thought up the quickest way to dampen the energies animating the statue of the lar. Its muteness gave me the idea that its tongue was bound. I took a lump of tar and placed it next to the fire pit to soften and melt. Of the three sacrificial offerings I had brought — a bloody chop of lamb, a whole fish, and a dead pigeon — I selected the fish and gutted it. I mixed the guts with wine in a wooden bowl carved from the core of a dead willow tree, then cut off the fish’s head, stuffed the guts into its mouth, sewed it shut, singed it in the fire, and smeared the head with tar.

  I began my incantation, calling upon Dea Tacita, the mute goddess of the dead. Her silent and chthonic nature, as well as her association with curses, made her a natural focal point. I poured the blood and guts on the ground as a libation, gathering the forces to me and opening the channel to the underworld. The appropriate gestures and the right words of power transformed the fish’s head to a charged symbol of the silent goddess.

  The statue, meanwhile, was steadily pushing Borax into the corner. The gladiator was getting tired, using the pan now more as a shield against the lar’s fists than a weapon. I yelled and threw the empty wooden bowl at the statue. When it turned to me, I cried, “Catch this,” and threw the fish head. The lar caught the missile by reflex, and the black tar stuck to its white plaster fingers, sending dark tendrils snaking up its arms and over its shoulders, torso, and head.

  Borax didn’t hesitate. He brought the heavy iron skillet down on the head of the lar with all his might. The statue exploded in a cloud of choking white dust, as though it had dropped from the top of a tall building.

  ***

  Borax laid me gently next to the garden fountain at my house. I was weak, dizzy as a drunken lamb, and I vomited twice that I could remember on the way home. The daze induced by the psilocybe lasts far longer than their effects — one reason I hate using them.

  When a master in the Collegium guides a cadet with hallucinogenic mushrooms, they use them to give the aspirant a boost to their senses. They gently manipulate the energies of magia, so the cadet is not overwhelmed. The young men experiencing this are mere observers.

  Naturally, some students will try the mushrooms for themselves. Most who do find the results too intense and learn their lessons. Some react so badly they burn their minds, which acts as a lesson to others.

  Of the common folk who try psilocybe mushrooms without guidance, most will just experience vivid, colourful hallucinations and grow out of it. A few lose their sanity, while others claim to be oracles receiving visions from the gods. These groups are not mutually exclusive. Very, very few manage to walk the fine line that allows them to manipulate their perceptions according to their desires, directing delirious dreams to answer specific questions in a meaningful way.

  Naturally, as a youngster I experimented with the mushrooms, especially after being ejected from the Collegium for my inability to pay the fees. Perhaps because I had already developed some sensitivity under the guidance of a master, or perhaps because I was just as lucky as my cognomen implied, I managed to learn how to use them effectively. I had watched both Collegium masters and folk practitioners, experimented with preparation techniques, and found a recipe that worked for me.

  The amount I gave Aemilia was minuscule — just enough to make her hallucinate a bit. I could not guide her experience and I certainly did not want to risk her life or sanity. I imagine she saw nothing more than pink skies with purple clouds. The amount I took myself was far larger, plus I performed ceremonies and incantations, effectively forcing magia through my already sensitive skin.

  There was a price to pay for that.

  I was in no condition to do much the next day and sent a message saying as much to Aemilia at dawn. I expected a reply by mid-morning, but instead Aemilia herself came to my house. I must have looked worse than I felt, for what was undoubtedly a snarky remark died on her lips as she walked in. She spent the rest of the morning by my side, administering cold compresses to my forehead. I let her continue well after my dizziness passed.

  I gathered she did not suffer many after-effects beyond vivid dreams. In turn, I told her about the events of the previous night and explained about the lead tablet. I could not risk taking the tabula defixionis with me for fear it would bring the curse down on my own home. I left it at the tenement building inside a special pouch, the insides of which were coated with tar and the ashes from a funeral pyre where a dog had burned with its master. My plan was to find the locations of such tablets in all the other insulae first, contain them, then gather and dispose of them all during daylight, safely outside the city walls.

  I got her to agree it was far too dangerous for her to accompany me, and that I would tell her of my progress each day. I sent a message to Valerius Flaccus with her, indicating that security around his other insulae should be tightened. Now that we were certain it was a curse initiated by humans, no unknown guest should be allowed to wander into his other properties, lest they plant a curse tablet there.

  Chapter XI

  Women should never be trusted.

  I chose to tackle the insula at the Vicus Fabricii next. It didn’t matter which one I chose, but this one was a shorter walk from my house. I accompanied Aemilia a short distance and sa
w her depart, then Borax and I turned in the opposite direction

  We began like we had the night before. The building’s rectangular courtyard had a classic layout. There was a fountain in the centre with a cheap statue of a dolphin spraying waters that collected in a shallow pool. Around the pool were beds of earth for tenants to grow plants, which were now dried and dead. A shrine to the house’s guardian spirit stood behind the fountain and across from public fire-pits where tenants could cook their meals. These were built of brick and placed well away from the walls to reduce the chance of fire — a hazard in any city.

  With Borax keeping watch, I set up my pan and other necessities in one of these fire-pits, prepared the psilocybe in eggs and intoned the right words. I took one bite, then a second. It didn’t take long for their effects to take hold.

  A silvery, slimy trail like that of a slug led me to the apartment where the painting’s snakes had eaten a baby alive in his crib. The place was abandoned, everything gone except for the crib and the picture still hanging on the wall above it. I have only vague recollection of my baby sister. When she died of the ague during her second month of life, my mother had completely removed every trace of her from our home. Standing in that room, I was overwhelmed by the indescribable loss, a feeling I hope never to feel first hand.

  The walls shimmered, acquiring a liquid, multi-coloured quality, like the faint rainbow of oils floating on a river downstream from where the washerwomen do their chores. The painting attained a depth, grew larger, took on a life beyond what could have been accommodated by a recess in the wall. I looked at the forest glade where the baby Hercules had been painted, and now showed only a grassy patch fringed with ominously dark trees. One could almost hear the rustling of leaves against an absence of bird noises that was somehow alarming. It stood as a window unto another world, yet I was not in the slightest tempted to reach into it, expecting the snakes would come biting me soon enough.