by Kris Schnee
A worker swung his hammer at the basement wall and it broke through the stones, making him stagger and yelp in surprise. Opus grabbed him. "Careful!"
"Sorry, master. There's a cave or something."
Opus had someone bring a lantern. The miner had found a thin place in the wall and exposed a natural cave beneath the temple. The revealed space was around five paces across, with a pool of water lined with some fallen stones. On second look, the ring of rock around the underground pond was finely cut and fitted. "Did we just break into some noble's secret bath?"
"There's nothing on the chart, master." Of course he was right; Opus had planned this excavation.
"Tablet," Opus said, and held out his hand. One of the freemen handed him a wax-covered tablet and a stylus. Opus scrawled a note about the find, then handed it back. "Take this to His Holiness and get him to come and look."
"He'll be busy praying all day."
Opus sighed and fished out some coins. "Probably. Try to get his attention though. Buy us some wine on the way back. In fact, everyone can take a quick break."
He paced the basement while the crew filed out. One slave stayed behind, saying, "It doesn't look like a bath. May I have a closer look?"
The man had one of the lamps, so Opus coaxed him closer. Together they peeked into the dark hidden room. Opus crouched. There were markings in an unknown script carved into the stone.
The world shook. He and the slave yelped in fright as stones rained on them. Pain flashed through Opus' head and he staggered against the wall, spinning just in time to see the rock that had hit him. There was blood on it, though his vision had blurred and he could hardly stand. A low wall of rubble now separated him from the exit. He croaked, "Help!"
The slave reached for him, or maybe for the coin purse on his belt, but shook his head. "I'm not staying here to die with you, master! May your spirit at least find rest!" The slave judged the timing of the falling rocks, zigzagged back toward the stairs, and fled.
Opus had no plan to die here either, but even when the latest tremor faded he continued to shake. He let go of the broken wall, wobbled, and tumbled backward into the cold pond. All light departed from the world.
* * *
Opus tried to scream but no sound came. He was in the dark. He struggled and pushed at the stones around him, fainted again, and gradually felt them moving away. How long had he been out? Why hadn't the other diggers rescued him? He couldn't even shout for help. He kept forcing his way through the broken rocks that filled his vision, painfully slowly, until he broke through into a larger space. The tunnel he'd helped expand was utterly dark, giving him only the sense of open space and still air. When he tried to walk toward the exit he couldn't move at all. How had he been pushing the stones? Opus looked down and tried to feel his own body, but he'd gone numb. Trapped in this dark and silent space, mute and paralyzed, Opus began to panic. Light; he needed light!
And there was light. A spark just in front of him barely showed him the surrounding rock, but it was far better than nothing. Where had it come from? There was no lantern. Yet he could slowly push and pull the thing as though carrying it. With painful slowness he used it to survey the walls, floor and ceiling. The entrance had collapsed -- no. Rocks seemed to be jammed in the stairway, but it was intact.
"Here; come back," he tried to say to the light. He tugged it backward to get a better look at how he was pinned in the collapse. He could shift his perspective a little as though he were riding just behind the spark, yet he couldn't see himself. No arms or legs, only a dim view of the pond into which he'd fallen. He'd bled into the water like a sacrificial animal. How was he able to look around without seeing himself? All he could find were the pool's circle of stones and their ancient, unreadable inscriptions.
Opus had indeed been sacrificed, by accident, by a slave seeking his freedom and requesting a blessing for Opus' spirit. Could it be that unknown gods had taken pity on him?
He seemed to have no body. There were not even bones in the water. He had only his tiny force and the light. He moved his spark slowly over the temple floor and found spilled coins. There were discarded tools that had rusted to uselessness, too. How long...? Opus moved his light to the stairs and began trying to clear them, finding that he could exert a push this way. Now and then he shifted a rock and a cascade of others tumbled down after it. Sometimes his spark guttered like a dying flame and he had to rest for some unknown time before he could try again. After what felt like ages, he'd cleared the stairs and the way was open for his light to explore farther, carrying his viewpoint along.
The little light was his errand-boy, it seemed. His cursor, literally meaning "runner".
Upstairs, the temple was equally dark and silent. The once-fine tapestry on the wall was tattered with age. A skeleton in what remained of an acolyte's toga sat with a ceremonial sword in one hand, stained red-brown. The entrance was blocked with fallen stones... and a very thick layer of ash. There was no sound from outside. It was as though all of Pontus had been buried with a single belch from the mountain of fire.
Opus dug frantically through the ashes. If he'd had hands they would've been clawing at the crumbly grey stuff. It fell away in clumps. He climbed higher and higher through the endless, suffocating grave his home had become, until he broke through to a blood-red sunrise. He tried to push past the last of the ash, but his cursor wouldn't rise quite to ground level. Even this odd spiritual tool was trapped underground!
He exhausted himself trying to rise higher, then felt his energy falling so low that unbidden, his viewpoint shifted back to the sacrificial pond. He "slept" for a while.
* * *
Excited voices woke him. Someone was outside. Opus floated as high as he could go and discovered two boys and a dog wandering around the ash-field. In the daylight he had a better view of the landscape: almost nothing but empty ground. There had been a full volcanic eruption, then, ironically just after the annual holiday of Vulcanalia. Though a few bits of stone stood out above the ashes like bones, the land was partly overgrown with grass. Why, you could walk here and have no idea that the entire town of Pontus had even existed!
Opus tried to call out, but he could make no sound to attract the wanderers' attention. They were going to walk right on by! In frustration, Opus feebly threw a pebble. The simple act left him reeling with fatigue.
The dog barked at the noise and the children came closer, pointing toward the exposed temple entrance. Good! They'd find him trapped here and... and then what? Opus didn't understand their language, and if his physical body was gone, what was he supposed to do? Get help from one of their priests, maybe.
The travelers were dressed like barbarians in pants and shirts; maybe they were Gauls. He tried to get their attention with his cursor, making it dance right in front of them, but they paid it no heed. Were they blind? Apparently not, because the dark pit he'd opened seemed to deter them. The kids egged each other on until the dog, bounding around excitedly, fell down the steep slope of ashes and landed in a moaning heap. One of the boys slid down after it. The other babbled in fright and refused to follow.
The dog had taken a bad fall. A cut on its side bled into the stones of Opus' prison. Opus sensed the flow... and felt stronger. What magic was this? His people had been known to occasionally bury a human sacrifice to beg the gods for help in war, and they often slew animals for fortune-telling and general blessings. The seeping blood gave him greater control over the cursor. Was there something he could do with it? Excitedly, Opus explored the temple again and found a scrap of cloth that'd once been part of the tapestry. He could tug it slowly across the floor.
There was enough light in the doorway for the boy to notice the moving scrap while comforting his dog, and to scream. Opus instantly lost his mental grip on the thing. The intruder scrambled to his feet, grabbed the dog, and darted up along the ashen slope. The steep and crumbly path gave way under him, sending him tumbling back down and cutting him in several places. Opus tried to int
erfere, to get the outsiders' attention, but they were focused on escaping. The boy above called out, then ran off and abandoned the other.
Opus decided it was probably best not to frighten the remaining boy and his dog any further. He conserved his strength and left them alone. After a few minutes of huddling at the entrance, the dog got up and trotted a little ways into the pool of light that reached into the temple. The boy called it back, then sighed and followed. The few drops of blood he'd shed made Opus feel more alive.
The young explorer looked around as far as he could see, as if to assure himself there were no monsters lurking deeper. If even he was curious, then hopefully the other visitor would be coming back with help and not just fleeing the scene. Opus took no action for now. Soon the boy's fear got the better of him and he retreated to the ash-pit's edge.
At last there was shouting in the distance. Opus' captive called out. Sure enough, the other child had returned, leading three men who had iron lanterns, shovels and rope. They spotted the temple entrance and talked excitedly. These definitely weren't people of the toga; they were fair-haired and dressed in nicer fashions than any barbarian had a right to. There was a trace of civilized language in their words. There was a gulf of years or even longer between "yesterday" and now. He imagined great Rome having been taken and sacked and the ancestors of these people picking through her bones, but becoming partly Roman in the process. If he was right and much time had passed, then it was some comfort to think that his people weren't forgotten, nor completely gone.
While the rescue party set up a sturdily anchored rope, Opus thought about how to make contact. He rummaged deep in his lair and spotted the stray coins. If he could gather some of these and coax the people to go deeper, they could find him. It'd be best to let them see the pond itself and not just a spooky moving bit of cloth. He'd leave a whole trail leading to the bottom... and ideally he'd make them bleed along the way, to make himself stronger.
Opus fiddled with the coins and pondered whatever magic he'd been given. Just then he had a moment of double vision, and one of the coins split in half! There were two silver denarii now, of standard weight and with the same profile of the Emperor. The effort of making money taxed him, but he felt he could do it some more. Gleefully Opus grabbed a few more coins to try. The copper as was easier to multiply, so he made several more of those and scattered them across the floor where they might catch the people's attention.
Just in time. The people were arguing now. The boys obviously wanted to explore now that the adults were around, but he could guess that they were being told "It's too dangerous!" by the men who were itching to look around for themselves.
The men let the kids come along behind them. Opus watched them proceed slowly into the temple, looking around at everything. He tried to memorize the words they were using, but as a mute he'd need to see their writing to learn how to communicate. If they were even literate. They found the trail of coins and as most people would, grew more interested in the money than in the trappings of the gods. Good; they were coming downstairs.
With a mighty effort, Opus shifted the rocks over their heads and dropped sharp fragments. The four explorers yelped and covered themselves as bits of the ceiling collapsed. Aha; he'd drawn a little blood! As soon as the fallen chunks struck the floor Opus felt the trickle of power he'd drawn from his unwilling sacrifices. If only he could get in a more serious blow, he could do more.
The men argued, then sent the kids back to the entrance. Opus was glad for that. Shedding barbarian blood wasn't wrong, exactly, but it was only a means to an end; he wasn't out to cause these people harm for harm's sake.
His cursor trailed behind the men, watching them. They picked up the coins one at a time, and at last found the pond in the depths. He couldn't understand what they were saying about it, but they found it interesting enough to lean over and peer into by lamplight.
Maybe this would be a good moment to drop a rock on their exposed necks. No; his goal shouldn't be to kill. He let the opportunity pass, and was satisfied when the men left talking excitedly. Just like the boys, these men would bring others who might be more helpful.
* * *
In the meantime, Opus used the power and skill he'd gained. He needed to attract literate visitors' attention and get them to take notes in his presence where he could learn how to write in their tongue. He also needed better ways to wound people that wouldn't risk collapsing the temple's whole ceiling, and some way to attract a priest specifically who might sense his plight as a trapped spirit.
Opus experimented. He was able not just to pull cloth around but to move the very stones, making the fallen fragments creep up along the walls and rejoin the ceiling. He multiplied his remaining coins again, holding a few back. To his delight he found he could shape the stonework without tools. He made it flow around his coin reserve to form a hidden compartment so that he'd always have raw material to copy. It seemed that he could duplicate anything he already had in his lair, including the ruined mining picks and other trash. What about the bones?
Alarmingly, Opus learned how to move the bones of a dead rat and make it scurry around as though it still had flesh. He did the same thing to the human skeleton he'd found upstairs. He offered a prayer of apology to the former acolyte's spirit as he made the collection of bones rise up and lurch around the temple like a puppet. With great effort he even made copies of the rat and human skeletons and hid them away behind another pocket of stone, and gave his shambling servant a pick to swing in its dead hands. And then, he slept.
He woke up when another barbarian invasion came. This time there were two newcomers with ridiculous moustaches and overstuffed backpacks as though they'd been marching with an army. With them were one of the boys, and a woman dressed much like the stuffy explorer types. What were these fools doing letting a woman into a dangerous underground ruin? Opus imagined shaking his head.
He spotted the group just above the entrance, anchoring several ladders so that they could come and go. They had a large tent as though meaning to stay for a while. From his vantage point trapped beneath the ashen surface he couldn't see much inside the tent, but the fact that they had iron tools and brass instruments and well-made clothing suggested that the modern folk weren't so primitive as he'd first thought. They'd even brought rugged broad-brimmed helmets in case of loose ceilings.
That was fine. When the party climbed down into his lair and began poking around, he listened to their talk once more. To his delight, the woman took out a strange folding scroll and began writing in it with a quill. Opus moved his cursor to watch closely, learning the markings. The others called her Marie.
When they entered the inner room of the temple, he bid his skeleton to stand and charge at them with its pick. They screamed. Opus had little direct control over the creature, as though it had slipped from his grasp, but it was enthusiastic in its wild swings. One of the men shoved the woman backward and got slashed badly along one arm. Ah, good! The boy threw a rock and the other man swung his walking-stick at the skeleton, staggering it. That little rat skeleton skittered into view on its own, which startled the boy and made him trip.
Opus watched the brawl unfold. The rusty blade gashed one of the explorers again but the walking-stick was taking its toll on the dusty bones. That was fine; it was best if they won with no deaths. Opus felt his heart freeze as the monster got a clear view of Marie. He tried to "grab" the skeleton with his full attention, to yank it back, and managed to stay its hand and make its next slash half-hearted. The distraction was enough for one of the men to tackle the creature and slam it to the ground, where the other man pounded it until its arms and legs broke. The animating force went out of it and left only a pile of dead bones on the floor.
The explorers stepped back, swearing and chattering. Opus had his best blood sacrifice yet, and the visitors had gotten the message that there was something supernatural at work. To his disappointment, though, they turned around and left. Regrouping for weapons, maybe.
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That night, the boy came back on his own with a lantern in one trembling hand and a heavy branch in the other. He called out, probably "Hello?" The explorers had called him Daniel.
Opus had nothing ready to hurt him with. It would be better to try to talk, or at least write. He brought his cursor up to the nearest wall and tried to inscribe letters in the barbarian script, which was obviously based on proper Latin. But the marks wouldn't take; the stone didn't move. He couldn't do more than maybe wave another scrap of cloth, which had done no good last time.
Daniel left again, shaking his head.
* * *
Once he was gone, Opus puzzled over what had happened. He tried marking the wall again and found that he could write on it after all, if only very slowly. What; had his power been too bashful to do that in someone's presence? Was he going to have to make a skeleton dance in front of them to convey his plight by mime? He'd barely been able to control the thing once he'd set it loose, so that was no good either. He fumed and experimented.
Since he still had his coin trail, he made two more skeletons and several bone rats, scaling them up to the size of cats. While fooling with the stonework he managed to enlarge the temple's interior and add a new hallway to one side, reachable by a nicely arched doorway. He was rather proud of it. At the hall's end he began trying to write, realized he had no useful words based on what little he'd seen of the woman's journal, and instead tried drawing pictograms showing the pond and someone falling into it. On second thought, maybe they would know his own language? He began carving letters at the dead end to say, "A spirit --"
But just then, the next expedition entered. Opus' control faltered, suppressed by the people's presence. He gave a silent mental growl of frustration, then returned his cursor to the entrance to watch. The same explorers had come back with clubs, a finely made long knife, and a cobbled-together attempt at armored clothing. Sensibly they kept the woman in back.
