The Lost Ten

by Harry Sidebottom

  Valens grinned. ‘Really?’

  ‘It is not a laughing matter.’ The Hatrene looked shocked. ‘My uncle encountered one out in the desert, south of Singara. Only just got away alive.’

  ‘For the sake of all the gods, you do not believe this stuff?’

  Lucia broke in. ‘Listen to Hairan. The disappearances had begun before I left with my husband for Adiabene. A labourer in the top meadows and a boy herding goats in the woods both vanished. The lair of the djinn is in the caverns up beyond the treeline.’

  Was there no end to superstition? ‘If we go up and scour these caves, will it give one of the villagers the courage to come with us as a guide?’

  ‘We cannot all go,’ Hairan said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The djinn is a shape-shifter, like an empusa. It can transform itself into an animal or bird. We will not find it.’

  ‘These are stories to frighten children.’

  Hairan ignored the interruption. ‘The djinn never appears if there are more than two men.’

  This was ridiculous. ‘Then tomorrow I will take just one man with me to chase away your djinn, or empusa.’

  CHAPTER 19

  Matiane

  THEY RODE UP ACROSS THE MEADOWS and through the dappled shadows under the walnut trees and the poplars. It was one of those glorious mornings as summer began to turn to autumn. The sun shone from an almost cloudless sky, and a warm breeze whispered through the trees.

  Despite the beautiful weather, Valens’s head was thick with the fumes of the wine he had drunk the night before. The slave girl he had taken to bed – the headman was a generous host – had seemed distressed when he left. Like the rest of the village, most likely she did not expect him to return. How could people be such fools? Still, the exercise would dispel his hangover. And when he came down from the mountain unharmed, the locals would have no excuse not to furnish them with a guide.

  As they came out of the trees, the sun was hot on his shoulders and back. Hairan had tried to persuade him to wear armour. Valens had pointed out that climbing a cliff in a mailcoat would put him in more danger than some imaginary empusa or djinn.

  They halted at the foot of the rock face. The horses could go no further. Dismounting, Valens handed his reins to Iudex. Valens would go on with Aulus. The others would stay here with the horses, their mounts loaded with food and drink. Although he subscribed to the reality of the daemon, Hairan had suggested they bring a slave girl or two to help pass the time. In the daylight, even he did not seem to be taking the threat with any great earnestness. However, none of the girls had been willing to accompany them. And there was a limit to hospitality – the headman had not ordered them.

  An experienced mountaineer, Aulus had been the obvious choice for the expedition. Valens had a good head for heights, but the Gaul might be an aid if the climb was difficult. They had brought ropes and metal spikes to act as pitons. They coiled the former over their shoulders, and secured the latter, along with a torch each, on their sword belts. The long swords themselves would have been an encumbrance, but it was unwise to be entirely unarmed. They kept their daggers. This high in the mountains there was always the chance of encountering a leopard or bear.

  ‘Shout if you see an empusa,’ Clemens said. ‘They do not like loud noises. Philostratus recorded that was how the holy man Apollonius of Tyana scared one away.’

  ‘The Life of Apollonius is fiction,’ Valens said. ‘At one dinner the utensils and serving dishes start moving by themselves.’

  ‘This is a fool’s errand,’ Iudex said.

  At least, Valens thought, one of the men does not share the general superstition.

  ‘There is no empusa here.’ Iudex said with complete certainty. ‘Last night, while you all squandered the divine light in your semen on slave girls, my spirit-twin searched the whole mountain. It found nothing.’

  Gods below, Iudex was the worst of the lot.

  At first the ascent was easy. They were able to step around more of the large boulders that had fallen from above than they had to clamber over. When the rock under their feet was not solid, the scree was bound together by tough mountain grass. Aulus set a fast pace for a man who must have been in his forties, probably approaching retirement from the army. Soon, Valens was sweating and blowing hard.

  When they came to the steeper slopes, Aulus called a halt and sat down. He regarded Valens with his rheumy eyes, a smile on his ill-favoured face.

  ‘Tired yourself out with that serving girl,’ he said.

  Valens shrugged. ‘Only inclination held you back.’

  Aulus nodded, accepting the truth of the statement. ‘It is strange. Among us no one thinks the worse of a man for enjoying a slave boy. No harm done, no one gets hurt. But these Persians call it an unnatural lust or sinful copulation. Their laws are harsh: a whipping or death. Apparently, in their underworld, such sinners are punished with snakes crawling up their arses and out of their mouths. Not a pleasant way to pass eternity.’

  ‘You speak Persian?’

  ‘A little, and some Aramaic. I was stationed in the east for a time. If you are rested, we should get on.’

  The cliff was steep, but nowhere close to vertical. The rocks were dry, and fissures offered hand- and footholds. The tall, thin figure of Aulus led the way, taking it slowly. They never needed the pitons or ropes. Only once did Valens slip, when a projecting rock came away in his hand. Gripping with his other hand, his boots wedged in a crevice, he waited for a moment. He did not look down. Soon his heart returned to something near its normal rhythm.

  Although the climb was not that demanding, Valens was relieved when they reached a wide ledge. Aulus reached down to help him up. They flopped down on a broad path which graded up to the mouth of the caves.

  From where they sprawled, getting their breath back, the enclosed world of the settlement was spread out like a painting. Below were the woods. They could see the horses grazing, but their companions must have retreated to the shade. Beneath the woods were the fields; neat rectangles bounded by loose drystone walls formed by the stones lifted over generations from the thin soil. At the bottom of the valley was the village itself. The houses and the walls of the compounds were bright in the sun. The inhabitants, going about their mundane tasks, were no bigger than ants, but clearly visible. The white line of the road crawled across the vista. Beyond the village the scene was repeated, as the land lifted again. All around, the horizon was limited by the peaks of the towering mountains.

  It was, Valens thought, the ideal lookout. Nothing could move in the valley without being seen.

  The path on which they sat caught his attention. Its surface was hard, compacted by traffic over the centuries. His gaze followed it to the east, where it was hidden by a shoulder of the rock. Given the high and unbroken crags to the south, it must zigzag down to the floor of the valley. Probably it descended into the woods not that far from the settlement. None of the locals had mentioned its existence.

  Valens heard the rasp of Aulus drawing his knife. He turned. Aulus tested the blade on his thumb, then carefully paired a broken nail.

  Looking away, Valens gazed up at the entrance to the caves.

  ‘Do you believe in daemons?’

  Aulus sheathed the dagger. ‘Socrates had a daemon.’

  ‘I thought that was more a philosophical image of the soul.’

  ‘Maybe so, maybe not,’ Aulus said. ‘Philosophers talk bollocks, but we all worship the genius of our Lord the Emperor. Yet no one seems sure if that is the divine aspect of his soul, or some supernatural guardian that watches over him.’

  Talking to a frumentarius, even on this remote mountainside, Valens thought that it best not to be drawn into such potentially treasonous speculation. ‘When I was a boy, the slave of a neighbour on the Esquiline had these strange marks on his skin: circles, like those made by a cupping glass. My nurse said they were caused by a daemon.’

  ‘Dangerous things, daemons.’

  ‘
She always said lots of them lurked in the baths.’

  ‘Maybe they like the dark and the steam.’

  ‘She said they smelt bad.’

  ‘That would account for them making their homes in the baths.’

  ‘You have never seen one?’

  ‘No, but that does not mean they do not exist.’ Aulus frowned with thought. It accentuated the sunken cheeks of his tired, pouched face. ‘If I meet one, I will try shouting, like Clemens said. If that does not work, I will see how it gets on with a dagger in its guts.’

  Valens sat in silence, rather admiring this practicality.

  ‘Where on the Esquiline was your parents’ place?’ Aulus asked.

  ‘The Carinae.’

  ‘Nice district,’ Aulus said.

  ‘We better go and hunt for our daemon.’

  The entrance to the caves was as tall as a man, and as wide as a farm gate. The floor sloped upwards, which would keep out the rain and the snow in winter. A short passage opened into a chamber the size of the atrium of a moderately well-to-do house.

  Scattered around was evidence of occupation by goats and their herders: a hearth, a rough wooden bench, some hurdles to pen the animals, and piles of their ancient droppings.

  ‘Welcome to the cave of the Cyclops,’ Aulus said.

  ‘They were sheep.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Not goats, sheep. Odysseus and his crew escaped by tying themselves under the bellies of sheep.’

  ‘If you say so,’ Aulus said. ‘I don’t care for poetry.’

  Valens remembered the lines where Odysseus escaped.

  Dear old ram, why last of the flock to leave the cave?

  In the good old days you would never lag behind the rest . . .

  Are you sick at heart for the eye of your master

  Gouged out by a coward and his wicked crew?

  Valens put his hand on the hearth. The ashes were cold, but did not look as if they had been there very long.

  ‘The daemon appeared before Lucia and her husband left for Adiabene,’ Valens said. ‘This fire has been lit since then.’

  ‘Would get chilly up here at night, even in summer,’ Aulus said. ‘Maybe daemons feel the cold?’

  ‘That would account for their predilection for bathhouses.’

  Aulus snuffled the dusty air. ‘No feral smell. No bear or the like has made this its den.’

  ‘Is that better or worse than a daemon?’

  ‘Maybe better.’

  A passage opened at the rear of the cave. This was low, and they had to go on hands and knees.

  To give him his due, Aulus did not hesitate to go first.

  Crawling after, Valens noticed that Aulus’s knife was again in his hand. In this enclosed tunnel, nothing could get at Valens past Aulus. He left his dagger in its sheath.

  The tunnel was long and it was not straight. After a time it divided into two. Aulus looked back for instructions. There was nothing to choose between the passages. Valens shrugged, then pointed to the left. They crawled on over the smooth rock. Eventually the enclosing walls fell back.

  Very little light filtered into the next chamber, but they could sense its echoing size. From somewhere in the darkness came the sound of fast-running water. Valens crouched and took the box of fire-making tools from his belt. He struck sparks from the flint and steel into the tinderbox. When they caught, he lit his torch. Aulus lit his from that of Valens.

  Standing, they could see the huge extent of the cavern. The flickering light of the torches barely illuminated the vault of the roof. Long stalactites hung down, and there were galleries opening in the rock high above. To their left, a shadowed chasm yawned in the floor. From there issued the roar of rushing water. The gloomy vastness reminded Valens of the interior of a temple.

  A shelf, perhaps thirty paces long and some five wide, led past the abyss to an outcrop which partly masked the mouth of another tunnel running deeper into the mountain. Thank the gods they had lit the torches. Without them, one misstep and they would have plunged into the void.

  Suddenly they were surrounded by dozens of dark winged shapes. Both ducked and waved their torches as the bats flitted, squeaking fearfully around their heads. Equally suddenly, the bats were gone.

  ‘The air is still good,’ Aulus said. The flames of the torches sawed, the smoke streaming back the way they had come. ‘Further in there must be a shaft leading to the surface.’

  Aulus was right; Valens could feel a cold breeze on his face. It came from yet deeper in the caverns. Aulus led the way to the shelf. Above the noises of the water and their own movements, Valens thought that he half heard a chink of metal on stone.

  ‘Listen,’ he hissed.

  Aulus stopped.

  They cocked their ears, straining to catch any alien sound.

  Another chink of steel on rock. It seemed to come from the galleries above.

  Then there was nothing but the subterranean river and the rasp of their own breathing.

  Valens was beginning to think the noises were nothing but an echo of their own movements, a trick of the cavern walls, when he heard a low grating sound.

  ‘Run!’ he shouted.

  True to his training, Aulus instantly obeyed.

  The noise intensified to a deep grumbling as Valens launched himself after the older man. Small pebbles and a fine rain of dust fell. The noise reverberated around the vast space. Aulus was at the entrance to the next tunnel when the first boulder crashed into the shelf just behind Valens.

  The younger man sprinted, arms pumping, as fast as his legs would go. A small rock glanced off his shoulder. He staggered, almost off balance. The lip of the gorge was horribly close. Another stone caught him between the shoulder blades. He stumbled, then gathered himself and dived after Aulus into the shelter of the outcrop by the next passage.

  In the confined space, the avalanche deafened them, stunned their senses. A thick wave of dust surged into the tunnel, gritting their eyes, choking them.

  The silence that followed was unnaturally deep. The river was muted. Now it sounded very distant.

  Aulus helped Valens to his feet. Valens doubled up, coughing. His hands and knees were grazed, and his back hurt. Aulus picked up the torch the officer had dropped. It had gone out, and he relit it from his own before handing it back.

  Together they stepped out from the outcrop and looked back. The dust was dispersing. Most of the rockslide had tumbled down into the abyss. Three substantial boulders had lodged on the shelf, although, thankfully, none of them totally blocked the path.

  ‘Do you think . . .’

  Through Aulus’s words Valens heard a sharp twang. He hurled himself sideways, knocking the soldier to the ground. He felt rather than saw the shaft whip past, heard it snick off the wall of the tunnel.

  ‘Not a daemon then,’ Aulus said, once they were safely behind the rocks that stuck out like the jamb of a door.

  ‘Not unless they use a bow and arrow.’ Valens gathered their dropped torches, which were thankfully still alight. ‘I am no expert, but I have never heard of that.’

  They were both laughing with shock or relief.

  Valens peeked around the entrance to the tunnel, ducking back before their unseen assailant could get his aim. With a sinking heart, the reality of their position dawned on him.

  ‘There must be a passage down from the galleries. After levering the rocks loose, he has got down between us and the entrance.’

  Aulus crawled to glance quickly back along the shelf. Scuttling back, his dusty face was grim. ‘From the opening of that tunnel he can shoot us down if we try to cross the ledge.’

  ‘Then we are at his mercy.’ Valens heard the note of rising panic in his own voice. ‘We are trapped.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Aulus said. He pointed at the flaring torches. The smoke drifted towards the cavern they had left, and ultimately to the entrance to the complex. ‘Stay here, and I will go and find the source of that.’

  Valens was se
ized by a great reluctance to be left alone.

  Aulus put a hand on his shoulder. ‘The bowman is as trapped as us. If we go back, he can shoot us. But if he comes after us, you will put a dagger in his guts.’

  ‘But he can get out any time he likes.’

  ‘Leaving us free to escape, and tell the world there is no daemon. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to convince the natives that these caves are haunted by some supernatural menace.’

  Without further ado, Aulus set off.

  This passage through the hillside sloped upwards, running away at an angle to the right. Aulus’s torch cast bizarre patterns on the sides and ceiling as he went.

  Valens took another quick look around the outcrop into the big cavern. There was no sign of the archer. He must be hidden in the outer tunnel.

  Wedging the torch into a crack between himself and the opening, Valens drew his dagger, then sat with his back to the rocks.

  The light of Aulus’s torch had completely disappeared.

  Now his breathing was under control, Valens could hear nothing but the hiss of his torch and the subdued roar of the water. No sooner was he settled than he was up again. What if the man took the initiative? Would he hear the attacker coming? Again he peered out at the ledge. Its surface was covered with a carpet of small stones from the avalanche. That would betray any stealthy approach.

  Valens settled himself to wait.

  The dark hole in the cavern tugged at his thoughts, like an entrance to the underworld.Valens pictured a fanged daemon, its claws clicking on the rock wall, seeking purchase, as it hauled itself gradually up the side of the chasm.

  This was nonsense. He was a rational man. There was no underworld, no realm of the dead, no daemons. The Epicureans were right. Beyond this life there was nothing but eternal unconsciousness.

  Anyway, his nurse had said daemons had wings.

  A faint glow heralded the return of Aulus. When his ugly features reappeared, he beckoned Valens to leave his torch burning where it was lodged, and follow. They moved quietly, hoping the archer would not hear them depart. Valens could not help looking nervously back over his shoulder.