Swords of the Legion (Videssos)

by Harry Turtledove

The circle of light behind them shrank, then abruptly vanished as the tunnel veered to the right. Before and behind the flickering glow of the torch was impenetrable black.

  Gaius Philippus led, holding the brand high. Marcus did his best to keep up. The cut along his ribs began to stiffen. He did not think he was bleeding any more, but the wound made him slow and weak. In spite of himself, he would fall behind, into the darkness.

  When he did, he saw the druids’ marks on his sword glowing faintly—magic somewhere, he thought. As long as the gleam stayed dim, he refused to let it worry him.

  The way branched every hundred paces or so. The Romans went now left, now right at random. At every turning they put three pebbles by the way they chose. “They’ll keep us from doubling back on ourselves,” Scaurus said.

  “Unless we miss ’em, of course.”

  “Cheerful, aren’t you?” Marcus thought they were deeper underground; his ears had popped again. There was no sign of pursuit behind them. They would have heard it a long way off; but for their own breathing and the faint sound of their feet on stone, the silence was absolute as the darkness.

  After a while they paused to rest. They drank a couple of swallows of water. Then, feeling like ants lost in a strange burrow, they wandered on. Once, far off, they saw a lighted corridor and shied away as if it were Avshar in person.

  “What’s that?” Gaius Philippus said—something was scratched into the side of the tunnel.

  “It’s in the Videssian script,” Marcus said in surprise. “Bring the light close. No, hold it to one side so shadow fills the letters. There, better.” He read: “ ‘I, Hesaios Stenes of Resaina, dug this tunnel and wrote these words. Sharbaraz of Makuran took me in the ninth year of the Avtokrator Genesios. Phos guard the Avtokrator and me.’ ”

  “Poor sod,” Gaius Philippus said. “I wonder when this Emperor Genesios lived.”

  “I couldn’t tell you. Alypia would know.” Her name sent a wave of loneliness washing over Scaurus.

  “I hope you get the chance to ask her, not that it looks likely.” Gaius Philippus shook a canteen. The tribune did not need the slosh to remind him they only had so much water. A couple of days after that was gone and it would not matter whether Avshar tracked them down or not.

  They pressed on. They no longer needed to mark a path. This deep in the maze, long-undisturbed dust held their footprints.

  Hesaios’ graffito went back to the night that had enfolded it for centuries.

  The Romans’ only pastime in the tunnels was talk, and they used it till they grew hoarse. Gaius Philippus’ stories reached back to the days when Scaurus was a child. The veteran had first campaigned under Gaius Marius, against the Italians in the Social War and then against Sulla. “Marius was old and half-crazy by then, but even in the wreck of him you could see what a soldier he’d been. Some of his centurions had been with him in every fight since Jugurtha; they worshipped him. Of course he made most of them—till his day, landless men couldn’t serve in the legions.”

  “I wonder if that’s better,” Marcus said. “With no land of their own, they’re always beholden to their general, and a danger to the state.”

  “So say you, who grew up landed,” Gaius Philippus retorted, the gut response of a man born poor. “If he can get ’em land, more power to him. What would they do without the army? Starve in the city like that Apokavkos you rescued in Videssos—and not many as bad at thieving as him.”

  Only women ranked with war and politics for hashing over. Despite his earlier try at sympathy, Gaius Philippus could not understand Marcus’ devotion first to Helvis and then to Alypia. “Why buy a sheep if all you want is wool?”

  “What do you know? You married the legions.” The tribune intended that for a joke, but saw it was true. It gave him pause; he went on carefully, “A good woman halves sorrows and doubles joys.” But he had the feeling he was explaining poetry to a deaf man.

  He was right. Gaius Philippus said, “Doubles sorrow and halves joy, you ask me. Leaving Helvis out of the bargain—”

  “Good idea,” Scaurus said quickly. The abandonment was fresh enough still to ache in him every time he thought of it.

  “All right. What has Alypia given you, then, that you couldn’t have for silver from some tavern wench? I take it you weren’t bedding her for ambition’s sake?”

  “Et tu? You sound like Thorisin.” From anyone else, the blunt questions would have angered Marcus, but he knew the centurion’s manner. He answered seriously. “What has she given me? Besides honest affection, which silver won’t buy, her courage outdoes any man’s I know of, to hold herself together through all she’s endured. She’s clever, and kind, and gives everything she has—wisdom, wit, heart—for those she cares about. I only hope to be able to do as much. When I’m with her, I’m at peace.”

  “You should write paeans,” Gaius Philippus grunted. “At peace, is it? Seems to me she’s brought you enough trouble for four men, let alone one.”

  “She’s saved me some, too. If not for her, who knows what Thorisin would have done after—” He hesitated; here came the hurt again—“after the Namdaleni got away.”

  “Oh, aye. Kept you out of jail a few extra months—and made sure you’d be in hotter water when you did land there.”

  “That’s not the fault of who she is; it’s the fault of who she was born.”

  Marcus had hardly noticed the druids’ marks stamped into his blade gleaming brighter, but now they were outshining Gaius Philippus’ torch. “Hold up,” he told the veteran. “There’s magic somewhere close.” They peered into the darkness, hands tight on their weapons, sure sorcery could only mean Avshar.

  But there was no sign of the wizard-prince. Scratching his head, Scaurus took a few steps back the way he had come. The druids’ marks grew fainter. “In front, then. Give me the lead, Gaius. The sword will turn magic from me.”

  They traded places. The tribune slowly moved forward, sword held before him like a shield. The glow from it grew steadily brighter, until the tunnel that had never known daylight was lit bright as noon.

  In that golden light the pit ahead remained a patch of blackness. It was three times the length of a man; only a narrow stone ledge allowed passage on either side. Scaurus held his sword over the edge of the pit and looked down. The bottom was wickedly spiked; two points thrust up through the rib cage of a skeleton sprawled in ungainly death.

  Gaius Philippus tapped Marcus on the shoulder. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Very funny. One more step and I’ll keep that fellow down there company.” The tribune pointed to what was left of the victim in the pit.

  Or so he thought. The senior centurion gave him a puzzled look. “What fellow? Down where? All I see is a lot of dusty floor.”

  “No pit? No spears set in the bottom of it? No skeleton? One of us has lost his wits.” Scaurus had an inspiration. “Here—take my sword.”

  They both exclaimed then, Marcus because as the sword left his fingers the pit disappeared, leaving what lay ahead no different to the eye from the rest of the tunnel, Gaius Philippus for exactly the opposite reason as he took the blade. “Is it real?” he asked.

  “Do you care to find out? Three steps forward and you’ll know.”

  “Hmm. The ledge’ll do fine, thanks. We see that with or without.” He held out the blade to Scaurus. “You take it in your left hand, I’ll hold it in my right, and we’ll sidle by crab-fashion, our backs to the wall. We’ll both be able to see what we’re doing that way—I hope.”

  As the tribune touched the sword hilt, the pit jumped into visibility again. The ledge was wide enough for the Romans’ feet and not much more. Some of the spikes below still gleamed brightly, reflecting the light of the sword; others had rusty points and dark-stained shafts that told their own story.

  The Romans were about two thirds of the way across when Marcus stumbled. His foot slipped off the edge, toes curling on emptiness. Gaius Philippus slammed him back against the tunnel wall with a
strong forearm. The jar sent anguish through him. When he could speak again, he wheezed, “Thanks. It’s real, all right.”

  “Thought so. Here, have a swig.” Even with his sudden sideways leap to save Scaurus, the veteran had not spilled a drop of precious water. Marcus’ stomach twisted at the thought of impalement.

  The druids’ stamps dimmed once more as the Romans put distance between themselves and the pit. Gaius Philippus returned to the lead, his torch a better light than the tribune’s blade.

  As the sword faded, though, excitement flared in Scaurus. He said, “The Makurani wouldn’t have dug that mantrap if it didn’t guard the way to something important—the escape route?”

  “Maybe.” With ingrained pessimism, Gaius Philippus added, “I wonder what else they used to keep unwelcome guests out.”

  Hope revived brought fresh anxiety. Every branching of the tunnel became a crisis; the wrong choice might mean throwing freedom away. For a while the Romans agonized over each decision. At last Gaius Philippus said, “A pox on it. The dithering doesn’t help. One way or the other, we just go.” That helped, some.

  Scaurus lifted his head like a hunted animal tasting the wind. “Stand still,” he whispered. Gaius Philippus froze. The tribune listened, then grimaced at what he heard. The corridors behind them were silent no more. Echoing strangely in the distance, now strong, now faint, came the cries of soldiers and, like the murmur of surf, the sound of trotting feet. Avshar had awakened to his loss.

  The Romans did their best to make haste but, battered as they were, could not match the speed of fresh men. The noise of the pursuit grew louder with terrible speed. The Yezda were not searching haphazardly; they must have come across the fugitives’ trail in the dust. Perhaps Avshar’s magic had led them to it. Marcus wasted a breath cursing him.

  But the wizard-prince was not master of all the secrets of the maze below the palace he now held, nor had he readied his minions for them. A dreadful scream reverberated through the tunnels, followed a moment later by two more. One of them went on and on.

  The wizard-prince’s minions must have probed round the edges of the pit and found at last the narrow ways by the trap. That was how Scaurus read the silence behind the Romans, a silence broken by a terrified shriek as another Yezda stepped onto deceitfully empty air and fell to his doom.

  The tribune shuddered. “They’re no cowards, to dare those ledges without being able to tell them from the pit.”

  “When they’re after me, I’d sooner they were cravens. But they’ve had enough for now, sounds like.” The loss of that fourth trooper must have dismayed the Yezda past the breaking point. They came no further; soon the only sounds in the tunnels were the groans of the dying men in the pit.

  Neither Marcus nor Gaius Philippus said what they both feared, that their respite would not last long. Either their pursuers would find a route that dodged the mantrap, or Avshar would reveal it with his magic so they could get safely past.

  When the druids’ marks sparked again, the tribune at first thought that had happened and that his sword was reacting to the backwash of the wizard-prince’s spell. But the light from the stamping brightened as he went farther and farther from the pit.

  “What now?” Gaius Philippus grunted.

  “Who knows? It started when that side tunnel joined this one, I think.” Scaurus took back the lead, trying to look every way at once. It might not be a pit this time, but vitriol from a spigot in the ceiling, or a blast of fire, or … anything.

  The uncertainty ate at him, made him start at the shift of his own shadow as he walked. He paused to rest a moment, letting his sword drag in the dust.

  Light fountained from the blade, so brilliant the tribune flung up his arms to shield his eyes. The dazzling burst lasted only an instant. Marcus leaped backward, wondering what snare he had tripped. Then he saw the line of footprints stretching out ahead in the dust.

  They were invisible to Gaius Philippus until he touched the hilt of the Gallic longsword. “So someone’s covering his tracks by magic, is he?” the veteran said. He made a menacing motion with his dagger. “Can’t you just guess who?”

  “Who else but Avshar?” Marcus said bitterly. How had the wizard-prince got ahead of them? No matter, the tribune thought grimly; there he was. The Romans could not retreat, not with the Yezda in the corridors behind them. No choice but to go on. “He won’t take us unawares.”

  “Or need to.” But Gaius Philippus was already moving forward. “We’ll stalk him for a change.”

  As it did all through the tunnel system, the dust went thick and thin by turns, now rising in choking clouds when the Romans scuffed through it, now only a film. The light of Scaurus’ sword, though, picked out the sorcerously concealed trail even at its most indistinct.

  “Branching up ahead,” Gaius Philippus said. “Which direction did the bastard go?” He spoke in a whisper; in these twisting passages, sound carried further than light.

  “Left,” Marcus answered confidently. But after continuing for about another fifteen feet, the trail disappeared, Gallic magic or no. “What the—” the tribune said. He heard a sudden rush of steps behind him. Knowing he had been tricked again, he whirled with Gaius Philippus for a last round of hopeless combat.

  He would remember the tableau forever—three men with upraised weapons, each motionless in astonishment. “You!” they all cried at once, and, like puppets on the same string, lowered their blades together.

  “I saw you dead,” Marcus said, almost with anger in his voice.

  “It was not me you saw,” Wulghash replied. The deposed khagan of Yezd wore an officer’s silk surcoat over a boiled-leather cuirass, and trousers of fine suede. Trousers and coat were filthy, as was he, but he still bore himself like a king. He went on, “I put my seeming—and my robes—on one of the traitors I slew and took his image for myself when I carried him out. In his arrogance, Avshar did not look past the surface.” The khagan spoke matter-of-factly of his sorcery; Scaurus could only imagine his haste and desperation as he had worked, not knowing whether more of the wizard-prince’s guards would fall on him before his spells were done. But Wulghash was looking at the Romans with like amazement. “How is it you walk free? I saw you taken by Avshar in truth, not seeming. You have no magic save your sword, and you had already lost that to him.”

  Marcus hid the blade behind his body before he answered. Wulghash’s eyes were watering; he had known little light in the tunnels. The tribune said, “There was no magic to it.” He explained what Tabari had done.

  “Gratitude is a stronger magic than most of the ones I know.” Wulghash grunted. “You conjured more of it from Tabari than I, it seems, if he obeys Avshar now.” Scaurus thought the minister of justice lucky he was nowhere near his khagan at that moment.

  With characteristic practicality, Gaius Philippus demanded of Wulghash, “So why didn’t you flee, once you were wearing another man’s face?”

  “I would have, but Avshar, his own Skotos eat him, saw fit to promote me for murdering myself, and to give me these gauds.” The khagan patted his draggled finery. “That meant I was in his henchmen’s company and could hardly up and go. Besides, the glamour I had cast was a weak one. I had no time for better, but it could have worn off at any moment. That would have killed me, did it happen while I was still in the palace for his slaves to spot. So when I was finally alone a moment, the best I could think of was to take to the tunnels.”

  He waved. “Here I am safe enough. I know these ways better than most. They must be learned on foot; masking spells hide much of them—and many traps—from sorcerous prying. Some go back to the Makuraner kings, others I set myself against an evil day; if you ride the snake, watch his fangs. And if you know where to search, there are cisterns and caches of Makuraner bread baked hard as rock to keep forever. Not fare I relish, but I can live on it.”

  The Romans looked at each other and at their canteens, which held a couple of swallows apiece now. How many times had they missed ch
ances to fill them? Tone roughened by chagrin, Gaius Philippus said, “All right, you escaped Avshar. But this moles’ nest must have its ways out. Why didn’t you use one?”

  Pride rang in Wulghash’s answer: “Because I aim to take back what is mine. Aye, I know Avshar has been pickling in his own malice like a gherkin in vinegar these many hundred years, but I am no mean loremaster either. Let me but catch him unawares, and I can best him.”

  Marcus and Gaius Philippus glanced at each other again. “You do not believe me,” the khagan said. “As may be, but with no hope at all I would still be here.” His voice, his entire aspect, softened. “Whom else has Atossa to rely on?”

  The Romans could not help starting. Wulghash did not miss it. “What do you know? Tell me.” He hefted his saber as if to rip the answer from them.

  “I fear she is dead,” Scaurus said, and told of the shriek from the court room that had been so suddenly cut off.

  Wulghash raised the saber again. Before the tribune could lift his own blade for self-defense, the khagan slashed his own cheeks in the mourning ritual of the steppe. Blood ran into his beard and dripped in the dust at his feet.

  He paid it no attention. Pushing past the Romans, he started down the corridor from which he had come. Now he made no effort to conceal his tracks; he cared nothing for magic any more. The sword in his hand was all that mattered to him. “Avshar!” he roared. “I am coming for you!”

  Near mad with grief and rage, he could not have stood against the wizard-prince for an instant. Gaius Philippus realized at once the only course that might stay him. He taunted the khagan: “Aye, go on, throw yourself away, too. Then when you meet your woman in the next world you can tell her how you avenged her by getting yourself killed to no purpose.”

  The jeer served where Marcus’ more reasoned tone would have failed. Wulghash whirled with catlike grace. He was close to Gaius Philippus’s age, but hardly less a warrior. “What better time to take the spider unawares in the palace than when everything is topsy-turvy after your escape?” He spat the words at the veteran, but that he argued at all showed reason still held him, if narrowly.