by David Drake
It was the same phrase he had used to escape when Procron attempted to hold him. He was coming to realize that the words he used were not important. Hundreds or even thousands of Egyptians must have read the same phrase in past years. The words had power when he read them, because he read them with a particular intent.
The garden darkened. Varus stepped forward into a dark valley. The Sibyl waited for him at the base of a track up the hillside..
“Greetings, Lord Varus,” she said. Crinkling her face still further in a smile, she added, “Intent is important, of course; but it would mean nothing if you were not a wizard.”
She’s replying to what I thought.
“Why would I not know what goes on in your mind, Varus?” she said. “Since I am a part of your mind.”
Varus nodded politely. “Good morning, Sibyl,” he said, ignoring her question. “I am glad you have joined me. I’ve come here again, because if I’m to stop Procron, I know of no better way to do it than by facing him.”
Pandareus would appreciate the delicacy of his phrasing. Varus didn’t believe that facing the Atlantean would enable him to defeat him—but he knew of no better way. Sitting in the library and pondering endlessly would lead nowhere. Choosing to face his enemy at least meant that by dying Varus would avoid having to watch the results of his failure.
“Come then,” the Sibyl said. She started up the track, as she had done before.
She said, “Procron loosed Typhon on Atlantis in revenge for his exile, but he opened all paths when he did so. Typhon has chosen to attack Procon’s enclave on this aged world, putting Procron on his mettle to prevent the monster from entering.”
She cackled with amusement. “It is a struggle like no other in the history of the Earth,” she said. “But there is no one to watch it except you and me, Lord Varus; and I do not exist outside your mind.”
They reached the top of the low ridge. The sky was black with clouds congealing from the thin air. Procron’s keep rose from the chill moorland in the near distance. The air was clear directly above the tower’s peak, but a writhing mass of flesh tried to force entry against a net of violet lightning.
There was a continual thunderous hiss; the plain shuddered. Typhon’s heads and limbs lashed at the lightning. They blackened, vanished, and were replaced as quickly by others swelling from the gross body.
“What—” Varus said. He stopped, smiled grimly, and began hiking toward the beleaguered fortress.
I already know what to do: enter Procron’s fortress and stop him. Or die.
“Sibyl?” he said. “How long will this—” He waved. “—last if we don’t take a hand?”
“For eternity, Lord Wizard,” said the old woman, walking at his side. The air grew warmer as they approached the center of the struggle. The hoarfrost had melted, and the low vegetation was wilting. “Procron has pulled this world out of time, save for the one portal which his mind holds open to gain vengeance on the world that expelled him. Not even Typhon has the power to force that gate. Typhon will never cease trying, but—”
She shrugged.
“—if Typhon is blocked for very long here, it will enter Carce through another portal.”
“But I will be able to leave?” Varus asked. He licked his lips. “As I did before when Procron tried to hold us?”
“If you slay Procron, whose power holds the portal open, his power vanishes,” the Sibyl said. “Then only Typhon and Typhon’s power remain, and Typhon destroys all things.”
Varus was breathing fast as they approached the high arched doorway of the crystal fortress. The air is thin. I breathe quickly only because my lungs don’t fill as they ought to.
“I see,” Varus said. I am a citizen of Carce. I will carry out my duty.
He faced the spire and read out in a strong, steady voice, “May the doors of heaven be opened to me!”
* * *
IF I HAD MY AXE, Alphena thought, I’d take care of all three of those sages! Even without the axe, I’d—
Through the red haze of her anger, she glimpsed herself as she was: not only unarmed but stark naked. The hobnailed boots she had imagined grinding into Wontosa’s face lay on the shore. Her waterlogged tunic had probably sunk to the bottom of the sound, where the copper axe certainly was. And ever since the vulture-riding Minoi had attacked her, her hat and her sword drifted in the eternal gray between worlds.
Where she was now.
“How could they?” she shouted. No one but herself would hear, but the words were empty anyway. “He saved them all, he saved us!”
Alphena felt mild pleasure as she realized that she was angry but not afraid. Fear might come later; she supposed she would be here until she starved. For now, though, she was furious with the sages and the whole village of Cascotan for what they had done to Uktena.
To cast her into this drifting prison—well, she was a stranger and she had never pretended to like any of them. What they did to her was fair, though of course she would know how to repay them if she ever got the chance.
But Uktena was their champion. He had saved Cascotan and probably the whole Western Isles from what had been done to Mota … and instead, Mota’s mother blamed Uktena for not saving her daughter.
It’s not fair!
The Earth, or Alphena supposed it was the Earth, was the pale ball which she had seen reflected in the basin when Anna chanted her spell. That seemed infinitely long ago; everything that had happened since she mounted the gryphon’s back was another lifetime.
Alphena smiled again: a lifetime which had lasted longer than the life which had followed was going to. She had heard Lenatus talking about the army with Corylus and Pulto; so long as she kept quiet, the old soldiers had treated her as though she wasn’t there. At the time she hadn’t fully understood the stories of sudden death which they told, generally with laughter.
Now she understood. Alphena, daughter of Senator Gaius Alphenus Saxa, would never listen to stories in the exercise yard again.
She looked at the Earth, wishing that she could see it in detail as she had when the gryphon carried her toward Atlantis. Perhaps the omnipresent gray wouldn’t disturb her brother or Pandareus; they seemed to live in their minds more than she did.
More than I ever wanted to, Alphena thought; and smiled, but she wasn’t very cheerful at the moment.
Because she had nothing else to do save drift in emptiness, she considered again what had happened to Uktena. Resignation had replaced the anger, allowing her to look dispassionately at the situation.
No, what the villagers had done wasn’t fair, and the sages who led them had certainly acted out of envy as well as fear; but Alphena no longer pretended that they had no reason to be afraid. Uktena was her friend and he had saved them all from a cruel monster; but the thing Uktena had become to win the battle was a monster as well. Nothing and no one would have been safe if that monster had remained in the world he had saved.
She now understood where it was that she had visited her friend—and why he was there. The sages had robbed Uktena of his memories and placed him in a vast prison beneath the sea, cut off from the cosmos in which humans lived. By doing so they had preserved not only themselves but all men.
“I would kill you all…,” Alphena whispered to her memory of the villagers. She could understand how they thought, even Mota’s mother, blaming the hero because he hadn’t saved her daughter and thus excusing her own willingness to betray him.
But Uktena was her friend. The fact that she understood the villagers’ reasons didn’t mean that she was willing to accept what they had done.
Alphena laughed. Not that they knew or would care if they did know. But it made her feel better to have determined the truth to her own satisfaction.
She was rotating slowly as she drifted. She could see the lesser blur, now; the Moon, if the larger blur was the Earth as she assumed.
I’d take my chances with a magician riding a vulture, now, she thought, quirking a smile. She considered wavin
g, but she didn’t really believe that would rouse the attention of the Atlantean outpost. Besides, she would feel silly doing it.
Alphena thought she saw something. She squeezed her eyelids closed. She was afraid to hope, but she really thought she had seen something. When she opened her eyes again—
“It is!” she shouted. “It’s wings! I see wings beating!”
She didn’t see the glint of orichalc armor. If this was one of the vultures, would it attack without its rider?
She was seeing the gryphon. The gryphon was coming back for her!
Alphena waved and shouted, “Gryphon, it’s me!”
The gryphon had obviously already seen her, so flailing about didn’t help; she just spun a little faster. She didn’t care. She had to do something!
The great beast banked around her in a lazy circle. His brindled fur had a sleek sheen, but there was a long scratch on his right flank that could have been caused by either a sword or a vulture’s claw. The tuft of feathers over his right eye had been clipped off also.
“If you will stop pretending to be a rope dancer, girl,” the gryphon said, “I will approach you from the front and you can catch me at the root of my right wing. If you’re strong enough—”
He had swung out far enough that his deep voice was fading. He paused and with a quick, strong wing-beat angled back toward her again.
“If you are strong enough, as I say,” he resumed, “you can pull yourself onto my back as before. Saving me the necessity of catching you myself.”
Chuckling, he flared his foreclaws again. Like his beak, they were those of a giant eagle.
“I’m strong enough,” Alphena said. “I’m ready.”
The gryphon swept toward her. He looked huge, and however well-intentioned he was, the hooked beak really was capable of biting her head off.
He flared his wings like a hawk landing, bringing his great body to a near halt in space. Alphena, tense in expectation of the lion smashing into her, caught the gryphon’s neck and the base of his right wing. He flapped, and she used the renewed momentum to swing herself back into a safe seat on his back again.
Alphena felt relief so profound that it made her dizzy. Laughing hysterically, she threw her torso down on the gryphon’s neck and wrapped both arms around him.
“I am glad you find humor in your situation,” the gryphon said with a touch of pique.
“I don’t, please, I don’t,” Alphena said through her giggles. “I was afraid I was going to faint and make you do this all over again. You would have, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t leave me here?”
The gryphon snorted. “I hope I know my duty better than that,” he said. Then, in a tone that seemed to be apologetic, he added, “I’m sorry about the earlier trouble. I saw that pair off, right enough, but by the time I did, the wizard from the Western Isles had gathered you in. I didn’t try to take you away, because, ah … I wasn’t sure that I could. In fact—”
He paused long enough that Alphena thought he had decided not to finish the thought. Then he said, “In fact I was sure that I couldn’t remove you. But it seemed to be working out all right.”
“Yes,” said Alphena. “It was all right.”
My friend. She felt dizzy again. She hugged the gryphon’s warm neck and felt the play of muscles under the stiff fur.
“Lady Hedia isn’t in Poseidonis anymore,” the gryphon said. “I could take you there, but Typhon has destroyed the city and—”
“Wait!” said Alphena. “My mother isn’t in Poseidonis? Where is she, then?”
“I believe she has returned to Carce by now…,” he said in a clearly guarded tone. “Though it isn’t so simple as that, I’m afraid. I’m not avoiding your question, Alphena; I just don’t know.”
“Well, if you think Mother is in Carce, then take me there!” Alphena said. She heard her tone and added, “I’m sorry, gryphon. I’m tired and, and upset. And I spoke without thinking. I would appreciate it if you would take me back to Carce or wherever Lady Hedia is. Ah, if you can?”
“Lady Alphena,” the gryphon said. “It is not my place to advise you. I have agreed to serve you where I can, and I can certainly return you to the woman you refer to as your mother, if you wish. She is or shortly will be in the Field of Mars in Carce. But—”
“Go ahead, if you please,” Alphena said more sharply than she had intended. She noticed that though the gryphon’s wings were beating in a steady rhythm, neither Earth nor any other world was coming into focus the way it had when they flew up from her father’s garden.
“There is a place where, if I understand your thinking, you would wish to be if you were aware of facts which it is not my prerogative to tell you,” he said. “But if you direct me, I will take you to the Lady Hedia.”
“You’re as bad as my brother and his teacher, playing at words instead of saying what you mean!” Alphena said; but as she spoke, she knew she was wrong. The gryphon had said what he meant very clearly.
“I apologize again, master,” she said, hoping he understood the sincerity with which she was speaking. “I’m tired, as I said, which isn’t really an excuse. And I’m afraid my brother was the bright child of the family. I’m bright enough to take your advice, though. If you’re still willing, please take me to the place you think I should be.”
The gryphon gave his throaty chuckle. “With pleasure, little warrior,” he said.
He banked toward one of the lesser blurs to which Alphena hadn’t paid attention previously. She saw purple lightning crash.
I wish I had my sword, she thought. Or the copper axe.
But she felt excitement, not fear.
CHAPTER XIX
The sprite looked in disgust from the flame projector to Corylus. “That?” she said. “It makes fires. Why would I know anything about that?”
She shuddered theatrically. “It’s ugly,” she said. “You shouldn’t use it.”
Corylus felt a wash of frustrated anger, then despair. He gripped the starboard railing hard, wondering if his gauntleted hands would leave dimples in the wood.
He had no power over the sprite, no threat to offer that could force her to do what he wanted. More to the point, the worst torture imaginable wouldn’t give her knowledge that she didn’t possess. He didn’t imagine that she was lying when she said she didn’t know anything about the apparatus. Why would a tree nymph know how to operate a flame projector?
The ship circled as it rose, banking slightly to the right so that Corylus could look straight down if he wanted to. Wholesale establishments and market gardens lined the road into Carce, interspersed with the occasional tavern for travellers.
People looked up and pointed. A sailor was lazing on his back as mules hauled his wine barge against the current. He stared at Corylus, then shouted, “Baali!” He leaped to his feet and dived overboard.
The Tiber was a textured brown flood, trailing occasional lines of bubbles. Corylus had never seen the river from high enough up to appreciate its whole presence before. It wasn’t the Rhine, let alone the Danube, but it had a personality which compelled respect.
He visualized the river god rising from the stream with flowing brown locks and challenging him. Perhaps Father Tiber would know how to use this flame projector, Corylus thought. He felt better for the whimsy.
The Ancient spoke in a querulous, demanding voice, ending on an up note. Corylus turned, clinking the flare of his helmet against his armored shoulder.
The sprite said, “I don’t want—”
The Ancient spoke again, briefly but with a snap in his tone. He was glaring at her.
The sprite made a moue. “The place that makes it work is there in the back,” she said to Corylus. She gestured with her elbow toward a six-pointed star with curving tips imprinted in the back of the apparatus. “You turn it sunwise.”
The Ancient was grinning at him. “Thank you, master,” Corylus said. He turned his attention to the flame weapon.
The ship had risen higher than it had in t
he past. The ground was at least a thousand feet below, and Carce spread like a mosaic of tile roofs in the northern distance.
There was an unfamiliar shimmering disk in the sky beyond the Citadel; it seemed to rest on the granite pylon which Augustus had brought from Egypt for the gnomon of his sundial. As he watched, a bump in the center of the disk grew into the bow of a ship; a moment later, the whole vessel flew free into the air above Carce.
Corylus touched the star on his weapon with the fingers of his left hand, then turned it. He felt a clicking through the gauntlets.
The device had been as rigidly fixed to the structure of the ship as the mast itself; now it quivered into life, moving with greasy obedience when Corylus touched the left handgrip. A triangle of light four inches to a side appeared over the forward-pointing spout, framing a section of sky.
“When you push down with your thumbs,” the sprite said grudgingly, “fire comes out the front.”
She looked at the deck and shook her head. In a barely audible voice she said, “I don’t know how you can think of doing that, cousin. Using fire!”
Corylus closed the mesh visor of his helmet. The thin orichalc wires cast a soft blur over his vision, but they didn’t blind him as he feared they might.
He thought about what the sprite had said. For a moment, he visualized a world in which men recoiled in horror from the thought of burning other men alive; a world in which the Batavian Scouts didn’t dry the ears of Sarmatian raiders whom they had tracked down east of the Danube.
That world was almost real to him, but not quite. Now he sighted along the spout of the weapon as their ship slid down through the sky of Carce. A second Atlantean vessel was pressing through the disk of rainbow light.
The wings of Corylus’ own ship stroked hard, lifting the bow slightly. He tugged on the handgrips to keep the first of the two Atlanteans in the lighted triangle. The weapon was perfectly balanced, but it was heavy enough that adjusting the aim took some effort.
He kept the snout swinging, judging the Atlantean’s course and their own. It was a matter of figuring out where the target would be and aiming there. Like launching a javelin at a Sarmatian riding across our front.…