Flaminius clapped his hands then held out a coin. The youth snatched it up but peered at it in puzzlement. ‘This is an obol,’ he complained.
‘What did I tell you?’ Flaminius said. Ozymandias and Nitocris had joined them and they were watching his antics open mouthed. ‘You tried to cheat me, didn’t you, lad? I’m a magician. The coin always knows.’
The other youths laughed uproariously. ‘It’s the third left,’ said the biggest of them. ‘And it’s the Alley of the Nile Perch. Now give me my coin! Or can’t you magic it back? What kind of magician are you, anyway? I’ve seen better.’
‘Flaminius…’ Ozymandias said warningly. A group of civic guards had appeared on the far side of the square. Flaminius flung the youth the coin—and it had miraculously transformed itself into a drachma again.
They hurried away. ‘See how easy it is to be a miracle worker?’ Flaminius said smugly, as the civic guards forced their way through the truculent crowd. ‘Superstitious barbarians are easily fooled.’
‘And the civic guards?’ Ozymandias said. ‘You can convince a street gang that you’re a thaumaturge, but what about several hardened flatfoots?’
‘Yes, well,’ said Flaminius. ‘We’d better try to shake them again. Have they seen us yet?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Nitocris, looking back. ‘They’re questioning people, describing you by the looks of it. Rather insultingly, if those gestures are anything to go by.’
‘What was it the youth said?’ Ozymandias asked. ‘Third left, then up the Alley of the Nile Perch. I know it. Quick, run!’
Flaminius put a hand on his arm. ‘No wonder you were caught, you old tomb robber,’ he said. ‘Running would only bring them after us. We leave the square casually, like this.’
He sauntered from the place. As they followed, Nitocris looked over her shoulder again. The civic guards were still asking questions. Two of them were speaking to the youths, but they were getting nowhere. The biggest one was facing them down in a belligerent manner. Just as she followed the others around the corner, she saw him swing a punch at the first civic guard.
‘Hurry up,’ Ozymandias scolded her as she joined them. ‘If those civic guards catch us up…’
She smiled impudently. ‘I don’t think we’ve got much to worry for a while.’ The noise of fighting came from behind them. ‘They’ve been asking the wrong people the wrong questions.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Flaminius. ‘Now if you don’t mind, the empire is still at stake.’
They turned a corner, then followed an alley whose entrance was marked by an emblem of a large fish. After a dingy and winding way, it opened up into a smaller square. Deserted, this court was dominated by a dark walled temple on the far side. Flaminius paused in the entrance to the square.
‘Is this it?’ he asked Nitocris.
She nodded, biting her lip. ‘I was lost for a while,’ she said. ‘Clara and I only came here at night. But yes, this is the temple where we saw Skimbix work his miracles.’
‘I tell you,’ said Ozymandias in a small voice. ‘It’s all just trickery.’
The temple was low roofed, only one storey in height, but an avenue of granite pylons flanked its entrance, marked with the mysterious glyphs of the Egyptian priests, rumoured by the Greeks to be magical in nature. Over the single entrance, with its doors of blackened pine, an eye was carved, which Nitocris identified as the eye of Ra, the Egyptian sun god. But there was nothing sunny about this temple to Flaminius’ mind, it was a place of darkness.
He tried to remember all he knew of the Egyptian superstition. They worshipped animals, and animal headed gods, a fanatical belief at odds with the intellectual rigour of civilised creeds like that of the Romans. What he knew disturbed him.
‘Do we go in?’ asked Ozymandias, indicating the doors which stood slightly ajar.
Flaminius blew out his cheeks. He shrugged. ‘I don’t even know if this is going to get us anywhere,’ he said, ‘but I should think it’s the last place the civic guards will come after us, even if they get out of the mess they’ve got themselves into.’
‘The mess that we got them into,’ said Nitocris.
He glanced at her. The girl’s high spirits had vanished. She gazed at the dark temple as if it was something she feared. He touched her arm gently and she looked at him.
‘You don’t have to go in,’ he said. ‘Neither of you do. I’ll go in alone.’
‘You’ll go nowhere alone,’ said Ozymandias hotly. ‘Arctos’ agents are looking for you. They want to know what you know.’
‘What does Gaius know?’ asked Nitocris.
‘I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘If you knew, and they found out you knew, they would be after you as well.’
‘Well, I’m coming in with you,’ she said. ‘I’ve been there before, even if it was at night and there was a large congregation present. I’m not scared.’ But her voice shook.
‘Come on,’ said Ozymandias. ‘We haven’t even seen these magic tricks and you’re already afraid.’
He waddled up to the doors and pushed them open. After checking inside, he glanced back at Flaminius and Nitocris, and beckoned them.
‘It’s just a temple,’ he said. ‘The outer sanctum. Statues and murals and such.’
He went inside. Nitocris slipped a hand into Flaminius’ and together they walked up to the doors.
The outer sanctum was a large room, its walls ornamented with religious frescoes showing mythological scenes and reaching high up into a darkness unlit by the flickering cressets that thrust out from the walls at head height. Somehow it seemed that this was a different place from the temple exterior. It was too large. Those blocky pillars were too massive, like the work of cyclopes. The statues that stood on plinths between them were eerie, too; made of some black stone or perhaps metal, like Nubian slaves, but they seemed to watch the intruders with their bone white eyes.
In the centre was a large pool of dark water.
‘Priest!’ Ozymandias shouted suddenly. His voice echoed and re-echoed round the room, but it was his only answer.
Flaminius took a step forward. The floor beneath his feet seemed to give way; for an instant he expected to be tipped into a hidden pit full of snakes. Then the doors hissed shut behind him. They all whirled round, and Ozymandias went to try them.
He looked back. ‘Tight shut,’ he said grimly. ‘There’s no way out until we find that priest.’
‘Well,’ said Nitocris, ‘we won’t die of thirst.’ She went to a wall mounted statue showing the face of an aegipan or similar fantastic beast. ‘Gaius, do you have that drachma?’
With a shrug, Flaminius handed it to her. She slid it into a slot in the side of the statue. There was a grinding and a gurgling and water poured from the mask’s mouth into a small cup. She lifted it up and encouraged Flaminius to drink from it.
He wrinkled his nose. It tasted brackish, like water that had been kept too long in a barrel. ‘What is this?’ he asked.
‘It’s holy water,’ she said. ‘You make your offering and the god creates another miracle. It will purify you, too.’
‘Holy water!’ Flaminius said. ‘I should hope so, at a drachma a time.’ That was a day’s wages for most men. ‘Couldn’t this magician make something really useful, like wine?’
‘Oh, he can do that,’ Nitocris said seriously. ‘I told you I’ve seen him turn water into wine.’
‘Nonsense,’ muttered Ozymandias.
A smaller door on the far side must lead to the inner sanctum. Perhaps this Skimbix was through there. Flaminius licked his lips. His mouth was dry. The slamming of the doors had been uncanny. Perhaps there really was something in these tales of Egyptian magic. Or was he losing his mind…?
‘He must be further inside,’ he said at last, his voice breaking like ice in some northern spring. ‘I’ll go and find him and ask him to let us out of here.’
As he crossed the room, sidling round the black pool, Ozymandias called, ‘We
came here to ask him to help find Arctos. Now you only want to get out of here.’
Flaminius looked back over his shoulder. Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed to be getting colder in this mausoleum of a temple. He heard a sudden sibilance, as of a giant serpent, and the cressets began flickering. Steam hissed from the walls. Ozymandias and Nitocris stood beside the doors watching him.
‘When we find Skimbix,’ Flaminius told them both, ‘we’ll be able to discuss both—the doors and Arctos.’
Nitocris shrieked. ‘The statue!’ she cried out. ‘Oh, Gaius! The statue!’
Flaminius whirled round. One of the images, a tall Nubian slave wearing a silken loincloth and a pshent of solid gold, had begun to move, lifting its arms and turning its head; its white eyes followed his movements. Flaminius moved as if to run. Jerkily, it thrust out an ebon leg, as if about to climb down from the plinth.
‘It’s between you and us!’ Ozymandias yelled. ‘Go the other way!’
‘Gaius! Run!’ Nitocris shrieked. ‘Through the other doors!’
The statue moved once again. Flaminius turned and ran to the door. It slid open. Beyond it was a firelit chamber, smaller than the outer sanctum. He dashed through it.
And the door slid shut behind him with a loud clang.
—13—
The statue stilled into immobility, standing there on its plinth as if it had never moved. As if it had all been a dream. Ozymandias rubbed at his eyes. He felt like thousands of tiny snakes were swimming beneath his skin.
‘I told you,’ Nitocris said. ‘Skimbix is a magician.’
He turned. ‘What’s this magician done with Flaminius?’
When she didn’t answer, he went to examine the statue. It was motionless, lifeless, as if it had never moved. He reached out an impious hand to touch it. To his surprise it was not made of stone but some kind of metal.
Ozymandias was an Egyptian born and bred, and the blood that ran in his and his sister’s veins contained a heritage of thousands of years of dark civilisation and superstition. Long before Rome was established as an encampment of outlaws on the Seven Hills, the kingdom of Egypt had brooded in silent majesty upon the banks of the Nile, ruled over by god-kings and priests who wielded uncanny powers.
Their degenerate descendants, under the yoke of foreign rulers, had only the mighty and enigmatic ruins to demonstrate the power of the old ones, those people who had built the pyramids, carved the Sphinx… Surely it was sorcery that had heaped those stone blocks on top of each other. Even regiments of slaves could not have built such edifices…
Nitocris was investigating the doorway into the inner sanctum. ‘It’s sealed shut,’ she reported.
‘Let me.’ Ozymandias joined her and pounding upon the sliding door. ‘It’s all trickery, I keep telling you.’ He gnawed his lip and slammed his fist against the unmoveable door. ‘Oh, it’s hopeless,’ he said immediately.
Nitocris looked upset. ‘I don’t know why Skimbix is doing this,’ she said. ‘He is a good man who heals the sick and cures the lame…’
Ozymandias pounded on the door with both hands. ‘Flaminius!’ he bellowed. ‘Flaminius!’
All Flaminius knew of his Egyptian friend’s efforts to aid him was a distant booming sound on the edge of hearing. But his attention was focused elsewhere.
On the far side of the cresset-lit space stood the statue of the god, tall and mighty, with the head of a dog or baboon. Lambent flames guttered on either side of that carved and painted face, giving the impression that it was grinning at Flaminius, leering bestially. Beneath it stood the open door of a furnace, like the one that had burned in the temples of the Carthaginians—for the sacrificial offering of the first born. Momentarily he expected this idol to step down from its plinth and stride in his direction. But it did not move.
A great bell-like voice tolled out. ‘Blasphemers! Intruders in the holy of holies!’ The lights flickered, the face of the idol writhed, and the voice rolled round and round the chamber. ‘Infidels! You shall all die!’
Flaminius’ blood froze in his veins. He turned to run. But that door cut off his retreat, the one that had opened and closed so mysteriously… as if by magic. He was trapped.
This was impossible, he reminded himself. Like Ozymandias said, there must be some trick. He was a Roman, after all, not some superstitious barbarian. He had been brought up to believe in the power of Almighty Jove, and Minerva, and all the other gods of Rome. Magic was trickery, using poisons and drugs to achieve foul ends. Besides, the gods didn’t exist, or else they existed in some other plane far beyond this one...
He was making no more sense than an animal-worshipping Egyptian.
The voice had stilled, and now all was quiet again in the inner sanctum. For a while a noise had been audible from beyond the door, as if someone was trying to get in, but it had gone. He looked wildly around the shadowy room. Pillars marched along either side, flickering lights cast eerie green shadows on the mosaic pavement. An altar stood before the baboon headed idol…
Now a voice resounded from the far corner. ‘Draw closer, blasphemer,’ it said. ‘Why do you come hither?’
Flaminius took a step forward, peering into the shadows. It sounded like someone was there; it wasn’t the booming voice of the idol, it was the pleasant tones of a middle-aged man. But he could see no one.
‘I’m sorry if I’m trespassing on holy mysteries. I came here to ask for help. I’m looking for someone.’
‘Looking for someone?’ The voice came from behind him, louder this time. He spun round to see nothing but his own quaking shadow.
‘Who are you looking for?’ The voice came from another corner now, as if the speaker walked unseen from place to place. ‘And how will you pay?’
Flaminius turned. ‘All I know is that Skimbix is a wonder worker. If you are he, why not drop this pretence and talk to me straight. Show yourself. Then we can discuss payment, if that’s what you want.’
A voice roared from the idol. ‘Seek you the Bear?’
Flaminius examined the unmoving granite face. ‘The Bear?’ he echoed. ‘I’m looking for a man who calls himself Arctos. That’s Greek for bear. So, yes—maybe I am.’
‘I know, I see,’ crooned the voice. ‘He is your enemy.’
Flaminius swallowed. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said. ‘He threatens the peace and security of the entire empire.’
‘Egypt is far older than your empire,’ boomed the voice. ‘It has seen many empires. They have flourished and grown strong, then fallen back into the empty darkness. Empires are things of chaos, evanescent and fleeting.’
‘Not Rome,’ said Flaminius determinedly. ‘Rome will endure. As long as its rule is in the hands of men of justice and foresight.’
‘And is it now?’ the voice of the god asked. ‘Is it ruled by a man of justice? Or is it corrupt and evil, doomed to destruction?’
‘What is that noise? Is Gaius talking to someone?’
Puzzled, Ozymandias scratched his head without answering immediately. This side of the door the voices were muted, and it was impossible to be certain what they were saying. But it did sound like Flaminius was talking to someone—to this Heliopolitan magician?
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You tell me. You’ve been here before.’
Nitocris shuddered delicately. ‘It wasn’t like this,’ she said with a scowl. ‘There were more people, and there were sacrifices and miracles.’
Ozymandias squinted up at the statues. They showed no sign of moving again, but he didn’t trust them. Didn’t trust his own senses. ‘We’ve seen wonders of our own,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Nitocris, ‘but last time I was here, the lame walked, a man walked across the water of that pool.’ She frowned. ‘It was truly wonderful. It’s all been spoilt now.’
Beyond the door, the conversation rolled endlessly on and on. Ozymandias wished he knew what they were talking about. He tried to open the door again.
‘Help me!’ he urged h
is sister.
‘Never mind the rights and wrongs of the Roman Empire,’ Flaminius was saying. ‘I want to speak to Skimbix. Is he here? If not, let me go back to my friends. You can’t keep me a prisoner here.’
‘And why not?’ the god replied cunningly. ‘You were a fool to enter into my domain.’
‘So it seems,’ said Flaminius. ‘You’ve certainly got a lot of trickery at your hands, Skimbix, but if you’re not going to help me, why not let me go?’
‘I am not Skimbix,’ the voice replied. ‘I am the Hidden God. I am the maker of miracles.’
Flaminius took another step forwards. ‘I bet you are,’ he said cynically. ‘And if I have a look behind that statue, what am I going to find? An Egyptian priest who’s learnt a few tricks of voice projection from a Greek actor? Who uses them to trick the credulous out of their hard-earned drachmas?’
‘Keep back!’ boomed the voice. ‘Blaspheme the sacred stone with your presence and you will be struck down!’
‘I doubt it,’ said Flaminius. ‘There are no gods, and this is just the trickery of a priest. Where are you, Skimbix? Behind the idol, or somewhere else? There’s no hidden god, but there’s a hidden coward. Come out and face me like a man, and not a spineless barbarian.’
He approached. Despite his bravado, he was more than half convinced that he was indeed about to be struck down, whether by the gods or by some trickery of the priests of Heliopolis he didn’t know. Gritting his teeth, he mounted the steps.
‘You!’ he cried out on recognising the man behind the image. ‘I’ve seen you before! You were…’
The small man held a wand in his brown hands. He flung it at Flaminius and the Roman saw it transformed into an asp that began coiling around his arm.
‘Help me with this!’
Ozymandias had left the door and was now struggling to detach one of the black statues from its plinth. Nitocris stood beneath him. ‘What are you doing?’ she hissed. ‘You can’t just wreck the temple! The gods will be angry with you!’
The Archimedes Stratagem Page 10