by Andre Norton
They would do well, Quintus thought, to rest and to let their beasts rest and to attempt the gate by full light.
He ached. And he knew that if he suffered, the men behind him had suffered worse and the beasts worse yet. And Draupadi—he ought not to think of her as gentler than he, weaker than he, but he did—until he saw her face, which hardships had refined, instilling dignity and power into already-great beauty.
A flicker of memory lit his consciousness: In the wilderness, when his brother had lost kingdom, crown, freedom, and wife by his gambling, Draupadi had only screamed once—when they had tried to take her. And then she had vowed to wash her hair in the blood of the man who had dared—and kept that vow, as he recalled.
No, it was folly to fear she was too frail for this.
Behind him a horse screamed, and rocks clattered down the slope. Oaths rose, followed by Rufus's rasping shout for quiet. The coppery tang of blood touched the air. One of the dazed men laughed, then sobbed, muffling his face in his hands. Hurry, fool, he told himself, or you'll have no one left at your back but corpses and madmen. The two magicians. Rufus, until that great heart of his burst. And probably Lucilius, yoked together as they seemed forever to be.
But it was only another pack animal fallen. It might be best to leave all of the beasts here and go on, though what the beasts would do if no one returned.... Gods, he was his troop, man and beast: Every loss hurt as if it had been carved out of his own flesh and bone, even after so many deaths. The Eagle's standard felt comforting in his hand. And it made a fine staff as they climbed up toward the crumbling arch.
Ssu-ma Chao caught his eye, and Quintus was all attention. He would never forget that he had lived and kept his weapons only by the Ch'in officer's goodwill. He gestured for Quintus to go on ahead. Rufus leaned against the rocks, waiting for the weakest men and beasts to pass. (He would straighten up when they came in sight, of course, lest they see him doing anything that looked like easing up.) The column was, in fact, as carefully guarded as he could make it. The gods only send that it survive to reach what lay beyond the arch. One rockfall, for example... gods avert.
And then what? This journey was all "if's." If they survived. If this place in the center of a desert more fearsome than Tartarus proved to hold the spring of sweet water that travelers' tales had spoken of. If they met the Black Naacals and were not blasted into the kind of glossy black stone that littered the sides of a mountain that spat up rock and fire. And finally if they were able to retrace their path and be granted safe return out of this desolation.
Keep your head down, he reminded himself. Watch your footing. Watch the rocks up above for what might crawl out from beneath one of them, or come hurtling down. He dug the butt of the standard into the grit and gravel. It bit strongly, and he started up the slope.
And as he climbed, even as he struggled to keep his mind on the immediate problems, Quintus's thoughts wandered. They had been wrong, his father, his grand-sire, even the Vestals and the entire college of priests, all the way up to the Pontifex Maximus. It was not the Fates that guided a man's life and wove the thread of it. That was just a pretty story. It was the "if's" that determined within any age of the world whether a man would or would not go on living or whether he would achieve what had been set down—by whomever—for him.
So why try? The question struck with the force of lightning, blinding force followed by darkness. He blinked and looked up. No storms anywhere around. No thunder. No lightning. He shook his head to clear it. He had been warned to expect attacks.
No, he said.
One of the madmen whimpered. The camel bearing him twitched, then plodded onward. Limping. They would have to check all the camels' feet for cuts—a real pleasure to anticipate. When this was over, the kindest thing they could probably do for the wretched creatures— camels and madmen—would be to slit their throats. Then they could fall on their own swords.
No, he said again in his mind, more firmly than before. If I die, and I do mean if, let me do it in the open, fighting. Or marching east under the Eagle.
That sense of oppressive blackness pressing down on his mind. The sky was clear, but the smell of salt filled his nostrils. Salt, not sweat. Abruptly—not again! he moaned inwardly—sky and land flickered. A shadow loomed up before him. Entering it created an instant of blessed coolness. The gate shone in that moment, its statues intact and magnificent.
Did Chronos blink again? Are we adrift? A madman's sobbing confirmed his suspicions. After a while, even wonders grew tedious, and this one was a nuisance.
"Ought to knock him on the head," Rufus muttered. "No! You don't have to hit him that hard. Did you kill him? No thanks to you. if you didn't."
In and out of focus the arch wavered. He blinked hard, not wanting to be blinded when he emerged from its shadow. He rested his hand on his sword, painstakingly sharpened once more. Gods save them if they had to fight even as time and place wavered about them.
"Quintus..." Draupadi moved to his side. He flinched as a particularly strong tremor made the entire arch waver and even vanish for a dizzying instant.
"Please tell me," he began, despising himself for what was almost a plea in his voice, "that it gets worse this close to the gate."
She laid a hand on his shoulder. Some of the vertigo and fear drained from him. "I hoped you would not feel it so strongly."
Quintus moved his shoulder out from under her hand. He loved her touch, but to be reassured by it, while his men struggled with their fear? That was not right.
She nodded, knowing his mind. "Quintus, do not concern yourself to stay hidden. They know we have come. Otherwise, you would not feel under attack once more." She raised her hand like a sailor, sniffing the air. "They will surely have greater magics prepared. Let Ganesha and I face them first."
An old man and a woman—to lead Romans into battle? Impossible! he started to say.
"We are weapons in your hands," she cut into his objections. "Who knows better than we what they might do, and how to fight them? They destroyed our home! They destroyed our world! We have a right, Quintus!"
Draupadi's eyes grew huge and dark. A man could fall into them. And how many fools has she beguiled? A man could be bespelled, besotted.... She will pass beyond the gate with that old man of hers, and then be gone. And you will die here.
She has never tricked me and never will! he retorted to the treacherous voice that insinuated itself into his thoughts.
She and Ganesha served the Flame. They were Naacals. White against Black. They had as much right to oppose the Black Naacals as he had had to seek the Eagle.
"Even now, they seek to reach you," Draupadi said, looking into his face. "Even now, don't they?"
His thoughts were more traitorous than any trick of Lucilius. He loved her. He must trust her. He shook his head. Hard enough to fight. Worse, if he had to reassure her.
She held up her hand on which the ring he had given her shone. "This has power in it, the power of your pledge. I could not wear it if I were false."
Those eyes of hers... he could see a tiny version of himself, watching her, watching a slender, tired woman as if she were about to launch an attack he could not withstand. Was he always so solemn? The idea forced a chuckle from him, then a real laugh. "A throw of the dice," he said. "Trust you or lose all."
Gods send it wasn't "trust you and lose all."
Draupadi nodded. "Let this sign of yours, this weapon, blast me if I lie." She reached out and laid a hand on the staff that upheld the Eagle.
Thunder rumbled overhead. For a moment, Quintus forgot to breathe. If she were struck down, he would not survive to mourn long, he vowed. But a wave of good feeling flowed up his arm.
"You see?" Draupadi whispered in triumph. "You see I am not false?"
A beam of sunlight seemed to shoot beneath the arch and strike the Eagle. How it glowed! He almost believed that it would wake, mantle, and call out.
"Thank you," he said. "As you have asked, you and Ganesha shall
lead."
Mercifully, the madmen were silent, sinking back into unquiet sleep. The Naacals moved to the front of the column and led it out from beneath the Arch of Memory into what had, in years beyond memory, been their refuge.
27
THE TREMORS THAT had cracked the ancient sea basin through which they had marched for so long had dealt more gently with the land here—or perhaps some lingering virtue of the White Naacals had spared it from the worst of the devastation. Perhaps he had picked the memory from Draupadi's thoughts. The water here had been shallow, tricky for mariners. He could all but smell the salt, hear the snap of commands and the song of ropes as a ship neared port, coming about sharply before the arch. Water... desire possessed him.
Draupadi and Ganesha marched on ahead. From one of the packs, they had withdrawn robes long stored away, shaken them free of dust, and now led, robed in the white of their old offices.
At a cry from Rufus, the Romans hailed them as they emerged from the great arch and the sunlight touched their robes to flame. The light blazed up, restoring priests and archway briefly to their ancient splendor. For that moment, even the desecrated statues high overhead seemed haloed in light. Even the Eagle glowed as if in homage as Quintus held it aloft.
As the sun sank lower, a trick of the light made Draupadi and Ganesha's forms seem to be a size larger than life. As the soldiers watched, their white robes kindled into pure light. Two white figures glided over the darkening land beyond the arch, leading them.
"They will leave us," Lucilius's hiss echoed the fears of which Quintus was now ashamed. "You had to trust them...."
The very stillness of the waste and the soldiers' awe in the presence of those gleaming white robes silenced him for the moment.
Thunder pealed in a clear sky, a desolate place, a dry month. The Naacals paused, halting the column, raising their arms in homage to the setting sun as it dropped, like fire into a sea of oil, setting the horizon ablaze.
Some portion of that light shone even beneath the great arch. It seemed to tremble. Chunks of rock and masonry—later additions, perhaps by the Black Naacals—toppled from the ancient stone. Again the thunder pealed.
The Eagle warmed in Quintus's hands. Use it, use the weapon, whispered the tempter inside his skull. It is Pasupata, which you have sought. Do you thirst? Strike the rock and draw water. What did you win power for, but to wield it?
To use it wisely! he retorted. Now quiet! I promised, and I shall keep my faith.
The ground trembled underfoot, as if they stood on some great bubble that grew larger and larger and that would inevitably burst. Ssu-ma Chao cleared his throat. Was this going on too long? And what was "this"?
You are a Roman, a fighter, a soldier, not a client to mages, hissed the voice. Shall you bow and scrape to them as you did to the senators? They will take you and you will be worse than a client, worse than a slave—and it will be for all times.
"Steady there, men," Rufus growled. "For the Eagle."
As the sun sank, the light beneath the arch flashed and went out. And then it rekindled, brighter than before, as if struck from the two flames that were the figures of the White Naacals. Their robes grew so brilliant that it hurt to look on them. Then the pain passed, and vision returned. And are we ourselves turned to eagles, Quintus asked himself, that we can stare at the sun and not go blind?
The Eagle he bore was a glory overhead. Now he could make out Draupadi's and Ganesha's faces. Under the radiance, they were worn, the eyes deeply circled. Ganesha's jowls drooped as if he were melting, and Draupadi's proud straightness seemed to waver.
"Come now." Only the stillness of the night let him hear her words.
He brought up the Eagle. Rufus gave the command to march. Rome's pace, Rome's race. Left, right; left, right. You have marched beneath an arch. This is your triumph. Now, get on with you.
Remember thou art mortal. Thou fool and slave!
Quintus moved to stand beside Draupadi.
"Tell them to hurry." she gasped. "We cannot hold this forever...."
And then the sun set. They had entered the arch in daylight and emerged in night. The wind blew around the peaks, striking eerie sounds from the rocks it had hollowed over the centuries, like invisible owls.
The ground trembled. Oh gods, this time, it would swallow them all up, and then it would snap shut, and they would be buried alive. Draupadi's fire would go out, but he would see her gasp for air before they died. Quintus stiffened. He heard a splitting sound. That bubble they stood on—it had expanded to breaking, and now it would burst, spraying them with molten rock, fire all over them. They would see each other burn. Reality whirled, fragments of forgotten nightmares and new horrors.
The Eagle's light dropped, a flame swallowed by what fed it.
And Quintus remembered. They had stood on the field of battle, and he had unleashed Pasupata. The price had been paid, and he had earned the right to wield it. And they had stood, very quietly, as its deadly danger passed over them to strike their enemies. He had the right. But there was one who could wield it, he thought, even more fully. However, there was another weapon to be used.
"Take the Eagle," he ordered Draupadi now.
She grasped it, and the standard flared up with the same fierce joy that shone in her eyes. Quintus's hand went to his breast as if in salute, but instead he found the tiny bronze figure that had been his guard.
"Now," he told it, "dance for us. Lead us."
And Krishna danced. Light blossomed on Quintus's palm, and the tiny figure danced its mourning and its joy. Leaping from his hand, it grew in size, leaping and spinning as it danced away from the arch and toward the ruins on the hill.
"Come, lads," Quintus said, his voice gentle. "Hand in hand, like we were back on the farm."
Rufus grasped the tribune's hand. That grip could crush, had been Quintus's thought when he had first met the centurion. He had been a boy then, even though permitted to call himself a tribune. Now he met that grasp with a matching strength.
"Don't look," he whispered. "Don't feel. All about you—it's all lies. Look to the light. Look only to the light."
"The light," Rufus whispered hoarsely. And then, with a shout of strength, "I see flame!"
He grabbed the next man's hand and pulled him along. "See that light, look at it! What are you afraid of? I'll give you something to be afraid of," he shouted.
Someone laughed, which should have gotten him at least one blow—but for the present, Quintus and the big centurion were only too happy to hear it. Laughter, like light, pushed back fear and darkness.
Draupadi laughed and joined hands to link a Ch'in armsman to a Legionary. Hand in hand, the Romans and the Ch'in scrambled past the arch and upslope. If the ragged line lacked the dignity of a parade, it was at least on its feet and refusing to despair. It followed the figure of Krishna, no longer trapped in immobile bronze.
"You too, lad!" Rufus reached for Lucilius's hand. The tribune jerked it away. He had always been distrustful of closeness, but this looked like real revulsion.
They couldn't let him be lost, though. Quintus grimaced.
Having struck off Rufus's hand, Lucilius reeled, his eyes rolling up in his head as if driven nigh-mindless by what his mind—or voices within it—told him he saw. Sweat poured down his face, as he started after his fellows. Each footstep—what did he think he was setting feet to? The very idea made Quintus shudder—was a battle won against deadly illusion, but he made it past the barrage.
"Drive the beasts along!" Ssu-ma Chao shouted. Camels and horses, eyes rolling, came along, many blindfolded.
One man suddenly cried out and pulled free of the handholds. Not having Lucilius's strength—or stubbornness—he screamed. They heard his body hit the ground.
"His fear devoured him," Draupadi said. "Let us go. Hurry!"
"Go on ahead," Ganesha wheezed. He leaned against the rock. "I'll follow you. No, go on. I promised."
"You heard him!" Quintus told Draupadi. She
stared at him with a kind of frantic grief. "Go on!"
He turned to Ganesha. The old adept's face was gray. "Come on, old man. Take my arm. You may not be able to dance, but you can stagger. And you will!"
The magician sagged, but Quintus bore him up and forced him upslope. The hallucinations weakened and failed, and they found themselves standing in the clean night air with all the other men—except the one who had fallen—and their beasts waiting.
Draupadi knelt to one side, her hand reaching for something that lay on the ground.
"Look," she said sadly, holding up what had served them so faithfully. The figure of Krishna was a bronze statuette again. But now its arms drooped as if weary after too-long dancing. First one, then the other broke off. It seemed to shrink in upon itself and turn to dust in her palm. "Your talisman has danced its last dance," she said. She laid down the tiny handful of dust and covered it with a flat stone.