Give Way to Night

by Cass Morris

  He looked at the pigeon’s suspiciously intelligent face. Not one of the fat birds common to the streets of Aven, thieving scraps and waddling their way through life. This bird was lean and keen, its beady eyes focused intently on Vitellius. ‘Creepy,’ he thought, ‘but useful.’

  “Mennenius, get the packet of letters in my room, quick. We’ll divide them between the birds, just in case, but if we’re fast enough, they might be able to travel the same route of safety they took to get to us.”

  * * *

  As they had on the march south from Segontia, the akdraugi hit the assembled men like fog rolling over a riverbank. At first only a gray haze, they coalesced into phantasmal shapes—not human, never fully distinct from one another, never holding the same form for very long. “Hold lines!” Sempronius Tarren bellowed, and the centurions echoed the order.

  All around him, fear began to take over his men: controlled fear, disciplined soldiers that they were, but fear nonetheless. Pallid cheeks, trembling hands, bewildered eyes. The akdraugi could not harm them directly, at least not in such ways as soldiers typically understood harm. But Sempronius could see the effect that the spirits had on their resolve, their courage, their very souls.

  Sempronius shared their apprehension, but he felt no gut-chilling fear. What he felt was more like . . . desire. The Shadow of his nature ached, like calling to like.

  The focale around his throat burned, like hot sunlight on his neck, searing through the compulsion. No longer the gentle tingle he had felt at his first encounter with the fiends; here, so close to the Lusetani magic-men, it had to work harder to counter the akdraugi’s effect.

  The even beat of the legionaries’ footsteps faltered; the rhythmic clank of swords and armor turned gradually more cacophonous. Men were staggering, the neat and practiced rows softening into an amorphous mob. ‘We may not have to feign much of the chaos of our retreat . . .’ Sempronius thought.

  The occasional pained groan, utterly human and in stark contrast to the wailing of the akdraugi, began to join in wretched harmony with the other noises of the march. Some of the men were doubling over, clutching their heads; a few had wrenched their helmets off and were rubbing furiously at their ears. Sempronius could only wonder at their agony; he felt still the draw of the akdraugi, the chill of their presence on his limbs, but the nigh-searing warmth of the focale around his neck continued to stave off the worst of the effects.

  “Enough.”

  With luck, the feint had held the Lusetani’s attention sufficiently to allow Hanath and her riders safe passage. Sempronius could no longer force his men to endure torment, and he did not want to risk giving the Lusetani warriors enough time to cross the forest to them.

  He whistled the command to break off the forward march and hoped that Hanath and good news would meet him back at the camp.

  XX

  Stabiae

  In the days that followed their ordeal in the wheat field, Latona braced herself for more of the same. But there was nothing. Even the umbrae she and Vibia had spent so much time unbinding seemed to have disappeared. Aula had gone on her usual rounds of gossip and heard nothing, either in the marketplace or in other ladies’ receiving rooms. Merula had done the same among Stabiae’s public slaves, the dockworkers, and the laborers bringing goods to the market. No one reported any more trouble.

  Not that Latona was sorry for it, but the sudden shift set her ill at ease. Her mind refused to settle to reading or weaving. Every time she heard a door open or close, she was sure it was someone coming to summon their help—but it never was. She asked Alhena, too frequently, if Proserpina had granted her visions of anything explaining the sudden vacuity of trouble, but Alhena only shook her head.

  By the fifth day before the Kalends of Sextilis, she was nearly frantic with anxious energy—so much so that Vibia had chased her out of her own villa. “You’re driving me mad with your pacing and fretting,” the other woman had snapped. “If you can’t sit still like a civilized woman, then go do something with that overactive girl of yours until you’ve exerted these nerves out of yourself.”

  So Latona went, down to the beach beneath the Vitellian villa. While Merula raced sprints up and down the wet sand, Latona walked, thoughts in tumult, with cerulean waters lapping at her toes. No gown trailed in the surf today; she had put on one of her bathing costumes, fabric wrapped firmly around her breasts and wound about her hips, leaving exposed a great deal more skin than would be appropriate anywhere except a beach or a gymnasium. The fashion was still relatively new: Aula had embraced it immediately, but Alhena still preferred a short, belted shift at the seaside. Latona hadn’t been sure, at first, ever wary of being seen as too racy, but the sensation of sunlight on nearly every inch of her body was too delicious to pass up. The warmth restored her more than any amount of pacing inside the villa had done.

  ‘I will need that,’ she thought, as Merula bounded past her, heels kicking up a spray of sand. ‘This is not over. Whatever was going on here, it’s not done.’ Latona didn’t have Alhena’s precognition, but something of her Spirit had tangled with the Fracture magic, and that resonance continued to thrum a low warning in her heart. ‘It’s not over, and my gods are not done with me.’ She just wished they would be more forthcoming with their expectations. ‘How in mercy’s name am I supposed to live up to their plans if I can’t figure out what it is they want?’

  Juno was everywhere. She governed so many aspects of Aventan life, especially for its women. She was in the triclinium and the bedchamber, the nursery and the kitchen. Here on the shore, with sea foam clinging to her ankles and eagerness for action heating her blood, it was Venus she called out for in her mind. ‘Lady Venus, make me strong enough for whatever will come.’

  Fire came in so many forms. The flame that forged iron into a sword—or a shield. The quiet hearth, the raging blaze, the flickering ember. But it lived inside people, too, in the spark of inspiration, the flair of creativity, and, more literally, in the blood that fueled the limbs. ‘Make me stalwart, make me unflinching, make of me a shield against the troubles that plague my people.’

  She felt the goddess’s hands on her, every time she used her magic, but Latona had never known what it was to hear the deity’s voice—neither Venus’s nor Juno’s. She ground the ball of one foot into the sand, feeling it squelch, until her toe came into contact with a buried shell. Sighing, Latona looked up, across the waters. The sun was falling, and its scattered light set a glossy sheen on the softly bobbing waves. Every so often, the water would sparkle as though dripping diamonds, as swiftly there as gone.

  ‘I will follow a path, if you can show one to me. Or, I can keep blundering about blindly and hope that I careen into the correct course of action.’ Latona’s lips twisted at the corner. ‘But I don’t think that method is working out quite so well as we might wish.’

  She looked down at her feet, where white foam frothed around her ankles. Somewhere above her, a gull cawed. Somewhere behind her, the Discordians plotted. And somewhere far across the water, hundreds of miles across the Middle Sea, her lover tried to rescue her brother from doom and defend Aven’s interests against an onslaught.

  ‘What a tangle.’

  * * *

  When Latona returned to the villa, she found herself in the mood to experiment. Aulus was out on business, Aula had gone to the market and Alhena to the temple, and Vibia had, according to her attendant, gone to bed with a headache, complaining of the stifling heat. Latona had the garden to herself. She settled down between wilting hyacinths and narcissi, with a small bronze lamp, ornamented with leaping dolphins, on the table beside her couch.

  The first thing every Fire mage learned was how to bank a flame. A safety precaution, more than anything else. Then came more detailed work: controlling a flame’s size or its heat. Many mages learned how to charm a hypocaust system to hold a desirable warmth, or an oven.

  Latona thoug
ht she could do more, though she wasn’t positive to what end. For the past year, ever since Dictator Ocella’s death invited her to loosen her strangling grip on her powers, fires had been particularly responsive to her—alarmingly so, in some cases. She was becoming more aware of the connection, and some days felt as though the flames were calling out to her, asking her to come play.

  A dangerous prospect, perhaps. But enticing.

  Latona’s fingers curled and pulled as though molding clay. The physical motion had no actual effect on the fire, and of course she kept far enough away not to burn herself, but Latona felt the action helped her to focus her mental energies. She took the leaping, flickering wisps and curled them first one direction, cupping them toward her hand, then pushed them out the other way. Again and again, undulating like a wave. Then she pulled her fingers back, folding them into her lap, spinning her magic with her mind alone.

  A tingling warmth spread over Latona’s skin, but in pleasure, not warning. As she nudged the flame into different shapes, the ever-tense muscles in her shoulders and back seemed to ease. A sense of rightness flowed in her blood. It called to mind the golden bliss she had felt in Sempronius’s arms, with all the gifts of Venus breathing in her. The memory brought a warm blush to her cheeks, and the flames burned brighter, but did not lose their carefully managed shape.

  ‘I should weave,’ she thought, ‘with this power dancing through me.’

  Before she could get up to move to her loom, however, Aula came into the garden with more than her usual bustle. “Juno’s mercy, where have you been?”

  Latona blinked in confusion. “Here.” She wasn’t sure for how long, but she was certain she’d returned to the villa before Aula had. “Where else were you looking?” Frowning, she channeled her magic back in the proper direction. She’d had a decent spiral going before Aula’s interruption, but distraction had caused the shape to falter. The world would not always provide her with peaceful sanctuary. She had to learn not to lose control even if chaos burst around her.

  “Well, you weren’t in your room or the bath or the sitting room, and all Vibia would say is that you were being ‘supremely irritating’ and so she sent you away.”

  Latona rubbed her thumb against the tips of her first two fingers, thinking of the flame like a bit of wool that needed threading. A gentle twist, slow and easy, so as not to pull it apart. “Yes, I’m afraid I was getting on her nerves. So I went for a walk.”

  “Well, you should’ve told someone.” Aula did not, as Latona expected, fling herself onto a chaise. Instead, she paced alongside Latona’s couch, hands on her hips. “You get into quite enough trouble without disappearing without a word.”

  “I told Helva,” Latona said lightly. “Did you ask her?”

  “Well, no, and I couldn’t find Merula, either.”

  “She wanted more exercise, so I told her to do as she pleased until dinner. She’s probably wrestling with the stable boys.”

  “You encourage that?” Aula asked, aghast. “What if someone gets hurt?”

  “Merula will be fine, I’m sure.”

  “Of course she will, I’m worried about the stable boys.”

  Latona snorted softly. Then, she smiled; she had re-established the gently swirling spiral, even through conversation. “Aula, come look at this.”

  A rustle of fabric as Aula came near, leaning toward the table. A moment of silence, then: “Latona, that’s beautiful.” Aula’s voice was softer than usual, holding a hint of awe. “How are you doing that? Well, I mean, obviously with your magic, but—”

  “Rubellia showed me some tricks before we left Aven.” Latona gave her finger a slow twirl, and the helix of flame spun in place. Then she released the energy, and with a slight whuff, the flame sank back into its natural form. Latona’s back fell against her cushions, and she rubbed at the center of her forehead. “I can’t hold it very long yet, but I’m making progress.”

  “I should say.” Aula laughed. “Keep this up, and you can perform feats of spectacle during the public games.”

  Latona rolled her eyes. Some mages did perform during the games, but they were usually gladiators and illusionists—rarely women, and never patricians. “So what had you all a-froth to find me?”

  “The games, actually. Or, rather, our need to go to them.”

  Latona quirked an eyebrow. Many of those who had left Aven for the summer would return for the Ludi Athaeci, held at the Ides of Sextilis. Latona had not intended to do so unless Herennius forced the matter, however—but then, she had also thought that the Discordian troubles would still be keeping her busy. “Does Father intend that we do so?”

  “He said something about it, yes,” Aula said, finally settling down next to Latona, the sky-blue linen of her gown poofing out around her. “I think we should go, and not return to Stabiae for the rest of the summer.”

  More concerning and confusing. “You really want to stay in the city, as hot as it’s been?”

  Aula gave her a wry smile. “Well, it means we’d be in the city for your birthday, for one thing.” Her expression rapidly turned serious again. “But no, I’ve been thinking about it, and I believe we must.” At the sound of footsteps, both women looked up. Vibia had come down into the garden. “Oh, good,” Aula said, and actually seemed to mean it. “You should hear this, too.”

  Vibia’s brow creased. “Hear what?”

  “She thinks we should go back to Aven before the Ludi Athaeci,” Latona said, “and stay there.”

  Vibia was quiet, considering, a moment. “I don’t know that we’ve finished what we meant to do here,” she said at last, “but I don’t know that we haven’t, either. Things have gone so quiet, but—”

  “That’s what concerns me,” Aula broke in. Vibia scowled at the interruption, but Aula, either unnoticing or uncaring, barreled on. “The general assumption in Stabiae is that the trouble—all of it, fiends and hauntings and spoiled grain and all—was caused by some young miscreants, or else some mage who didn’t yet know his power.” She flicked her eyes meaningfully to Vibia. “You felt its power. Do you believe it to be the work of an inexperienced or foolish mage?”

  Vibia shook her head, dark curls bobbing. “Certainly not. Everything we encountered here was not only intentional, but malicious.”

  “So why have they stopped?” Aula shrugged theatrically. “You didn’t catch them. We’d have heard if anyone else had. Logic dictates, then, that they haven’t stopped.”

  “You think they’ve moved.” Latona passed a hand over her brow. “Back to Aven.” She remembered the words the fiend had spoken through Vibia: ‘What life there is in cities. In your city.’

  “Wouldn’t you?” Aula asked. “Imagine yourself a devotee of Discordia, sworn to create strife and hostility. We’re about to enter the last third of the year.”

  “The elections,” Latona breathed. “You think they mean to interfere?”

  “I don’t know. But it seems a possible explanation for why activity here has suddenly ceased.”

  Latona pulled her hair over her shoulder and began combing through it with her fingers. “You may be right . . . But, oh, if we left here only for the madness to start up again . . .”

  “We could always come back, after the games, if needed,” Vibia said.

  “How would we know if we needed to?” Latona countered.

  “Someone would write us,” Aula said. “I’ll leave word with the villa staff.” She leaned in, speaking not so softly that Vibia could not hear, but words clearly intended for Latona alone. “And you can’t keep on like this in any case, my darling. We’ve been lucky to have Father so distracted with his work, but sooner or later, he’s going to notice you disappearing at odd hours. Or someone will tell him. And your husband—” She could not seem to frame suitable words regarding Herennius, instead pulling a face that spoke volumes.

  Latona diverted the c
onsideration. “Taius Mella must be missing you,” she said to Vibia, hoping the pang of envy stayed out of her voice.

  Vibia’s thin lips gave the hint of a smile. “And I him, to be sure.” She gave a little cough. “It will also be easier to receive news from my brother in Aven.”

  Latona nodded. Though messages sent with an Air mage’s birds traveled faster than those going by boat, Sempronius’s packets went directly to Aven and had to be dispersed from there; he could not spare a second bird to flap about all of Truscum seeking out other recipients. Vibia had sent her reply to Sempronius by way of his clerk, Djadi, in the city—as had Latona, little though Vibia knew of it. If Djadi had received letters in return, they had not yet made their way down the Via Appia to Stabiae.

  Latona curled a lock of hair around her middle finger and gave it a tug. She did not want to doubt her sister’s analysis of the situation, but she feared to leave a job half done. Still, in Aven it would be easier to seek counsel from other mages—Ama Rubellia, or Marcia Tullia. ‘And if Aula’s right, if the Discordians are moving in Aven, we will be needed there even more than here.’ Aven, with so many people crowded together, so many potential points of friction, would be so much more susceptible to a Discordian’s manipulation. They had gotten a taste of that the previous year, but the idea of a concentrated attack filled Latona with horror.

  She released her hair and gave a tight nod. “Very well. Home for the games. And then . . . then we’ll see.”

  XXI

  Camp of Legio II, Baetis River, Southern Iberia

  They were still, perhaps, a day or so from Hispalis, or so the scouts claimed. Rabirus sighed, pawing through his trunk at the end of another interminable day, searching for a long-sleeved tunic. Intolerable as the heat was, his arms could take no more abuse. Between the biting flies that seemed to prefer his flesh to any legionary’s and the relentless sun baking his flesh, his skin felt pocked and peeling all over. The lid of the trunk rattled when he slammed it shut. “Misery . . .” he muttered. That was what he’d had, since leaving Aven. Different breeds of misery.