Tathea

by Anne Perry

  The rising moon was palely reflected on the polished black marble and the guards posted showed only as dense shadows against the gleam.

  One of them turned, hand to his sword as the first of Maximian’s men stepped forward, came to a halt, and saluted.

  “The Archon Maximian,” he said firmly.

  The guard was unperturbed. Like everyone else in the city, he knew who Maximian was, and his views on the Book.

  “What does the Archon want here?” he asked curiously. “There is no one inside, except the watch.”

  Maximian stepped forward, his face clearly visible in the moonlight. The gold glistened on his Archon’s robes.

  “I have a message for Captain Ramus. It concerns a matter of importance and secrecy. Please tell him I am here.” The name of the captain convinced the guard. He saluted and obeyed.

  Tathea and Sanobiel waited, shivering a little.

  The guard returned. He had no premonition of trouble. He conducted Maximian up the broad steps and made no objection when Tathea and Sanobiel followed. The others remained outside.

  The doors closed behind them and Maximian walked forward as if he had no fear. There were three men in front of the great bronze inner doors carved with scenes of battles and victories of long ago. Two of them stood motionless and awkward, a little sideways, and it was a moment before Tathea realized they were asleep, or drugged.

  The third man came forward and clasped Maximian’s hand.

  “Ramus,” Maximian said simply. “Thank you.” He gripped him hard.

  “Be quick!” Ramus said softly. “Ra-Nufis has the only key.”

  Maximian said nothing. He led Sanobiel and Tathea along a narrow passage to the side, under a heavy curtain, and through a small door. Behind this was a narrow stair leading downward into the dark.

  “Follow me,” he whispered and started down, step by step, fingers on the stone wall. At the bottom they went along a tunnel. It was completely lightless. They were deep underground. Tathea could feel the damp in the air. There was no sound whatever except that of their breathing and her own heart.

  Maximian came to a halt, feeling along the wall with his hand. Then he gave a little sigh of satisfaction and moved forward again. “Stairs up,” he warned, and they began to climb. At the top he found a door, and they were inside the painted chamber where Baradeus had planned his strategies. And in front of them, on a pedestal under a single torch, was the Book.

  Tathea felt a surge of joy so powerful she was dizzy with it. Whatever it had cost, however long or hard the path, just to see it again was worth anything she could have paid. She found she was trembling as she walked towards it. It was as if the Book gave off the light and the torch merely reflected the fire.

  She put out her hand, and her fingers touched the gold surface. It was warm, as it had always been, and the power of it sang through her veins, filling her heart. She picked it up and turned to Maximian.

  He was looking at the Book, curiosity in his face, and a slowly awakening surprise. “It’s beautiful.” He let out his breath. “It is hard to believe it is the cause of so much ... war.”

  “It is the truth,” she answered him. “It will always divide.”

  Sanobiel interrupted them. “We must hurry,” he urged. “We must catch the tide. The boat cannot wait. And the other guards will waken.”

  “Of course.” Maximian turned. Tathea wrapped the Book in the blue cloak and followed, holding it in her arms. Carefully they made their way back down the ancient passage, up the steps again and into the outer chamber.

  But it was not Ramus who awaited them, but Ra-Nufis with the two guards from outside the doors, and another, slender and fair-skinned, smooth-featured. He was as young as when Tathea had last seen him all those years ago, and with a chill of ice she recognized Ulciber. His lips curled back in a smile, and it was as if she had known him always.

  Ra-Nufis looked at the silk cloak in Tathea’s arms, as if he could see through it to the Book.

  “I knew you would come for it one day,” he said softly. “I always knew the power of it would call you. I didn’t want to kill you, Ta-Thea, but you leave me no choice.” His hand dropped to his sword hilt and tightened over it.

  Ulciber leaned gracefully against the wall, watching.

  The two guards drew their swords. Maximian drew his also, and Sanobiel his dagger.

  Tathea put down the Book, drew her dagger, and faced Ra-Nufis. He came towards her smiling, the torchlight gleaming gold and red on his blade. It was more than twice the length of hers, and he was taller, his reach longer.

  Maximian backed away from the guard facing him, over towards Tathea, ignoring Ra-Nufis.

  She thought he was going to fight back to back with her, so they could protect each other. It was not what she wanted. She needed room to move easily, to duck and feint.

  But when he was close enough he held out his sword, hilt towards her. “Take it!” he commanded, reaching for her dagger.

  As she turned, Ra-Nufis lunged. He only just missed her.

  Maximian snatched the dagger from Tathea’s hand and forced the sword on her. She took it and parried Ra-Nufis’s next blow. There was no time to think of Sanobiel or Maximian. She needed all her wits to fight. And all the time Ulciber leaned against the wall, smiling in the torchlight.

  They swung back and forth, blades clashing. She watched Ra-Nufis’s hand, his shoulders and the balance of his body shifting, as Alexius had taught her. She thought of all the battles she had fought across the Shinabari desert. Ra-Nufis had fought just as many, and probably just as skillfully. He had survived them all with few wounds. But after that his warfare had been of the intellect and the spirit. She had marched and fought with Merdic and the Lost Legion. She had faced the dark warriors of Yaltabaoth in that last, terrible battle on the western shore.

  She thought of it as she faced Ra-Nufis now.

  His blade passed close to her head. She stepped sideways and dropped back, then lunged low. The tip of her sword ripped open the flesh across his ribs. She saw the anger and surprise in his face. He redoubled his efforts. His blade scarred her left arm, drawing blood; He smiled with vicious pleasure.

  Ra-Nufis was far stronger than she was, but his magnificent robes hampered his movement. She did not want to kill him. Once he parried clumsily, a misjudgment, and the chance was there, a clean strike through the heart—and she hesitated.

  He saw her lose the moment and smiled, showing his teeth.

  “Kill her ...” Ulciber said softly, but his voice was as clear as a shout in the room where there was no sound but the slap of boots and sandals on the marble floor, the clash of blades, and the hiss of breath.

  Ra-Nufis lunged forward, sure of himself.

  She had expected it. He had thought she would move sideways again, but she stepped back and then to the other side, bringing her sword down hard on his, as close to the hilt as she could reach.

  It fell from his hand and slid across the floor. In a moment Maximian was on it, substituting it for his dagger. He was hard pressed, and it saved him from the soldier’s finishing blow.

  Ra-Nufis stood for an instant, his face slack with terror. Then jubilation as he remembered her hesitation. She could not kill him. She could not bring herself to strike the final blow. He whirled round to Ulciber.

  Ulciber took one of the torches from its wall bracket and threw it to him. He caught it perfectly and came forward towards Tathea, waving it in front of her, the flames and smoke weaving back and forth. It was a different but equally deadly weapon. If she were to strike it with her sword, her blade would chip or break against its iron, spilling fire over both of them, and she would be left all but disarmed.

  She backed away, unsure how to fight. He came after her, triumph in his eyes.

  To her right Sanobiel was struggling, blood on his clothes, his dagger too short to outreach the soldier he fought. To her left Maximian was doing better, armed with Ra-Nufis’s sword. He was moving towards Sanobiel,
ready to help him.

  Ra-Nufis swung the torch. She could smell the smoke and feel the heat of it scorching her face. She must win! She must take the Book back to the Lost Lands and give it again to God. Men were not ready for its power. They twisted and perverted it into a weapon to oppress, and it became the Enemy’s tool.

  Ra-Nufis swung the torch again. The flame burnt her arm. She thought of Yaltabaoth. She dropped to her knee and drove forward, catching him low on the thigh, feeling her blade strike flesh.

  He cried out in sudden pain and fell forward, hard onto the blazing torch in his hand. The flame caught his robes and flared upward in a sheet of fire. His screams filled the chamber. The other fighters froze.

  Ulciber lurched forward, his face aghast, but there was nothing he could do. There was no water, no sand. The flame roared upward in furnace heat, the contents of the torch held in the cloth of Ra-Nufis’s robes.

  The screams stopped. A blackened body lay smoking, wound in a smouldering shroud, hairless, skin charred.

  Maximian was the first to move.

  “Run!” he commanded, looking at Tathea, then at Sanobiel.

  Sanobiel hesitated, knowing as Tathea did that if they left Maximian it would cost him his life.

  “Run!” Maximian repeated, his voice rising high and sharp, “While you can! Take the Book! It is God’s, not man’s!”

  Sanobiel thrust his dagger back in his belt and stooped to pick up the Book. He almost pushed Tathea, his arm round her, as he made for the doors.

  She turned to look a last time at Maximian, sword in his hand as he strove to hold off both the soldiers. He could not do it for long. She saluted him, the old imperial salute that Drusus had raised to her as she left the western shore, then swiveled on her foot and ran after Sanobiel.

  As she went down the steps she heard a terrible sound behind her, high, thin, jubilant laughter. It was Ulciber’s laughter, as unmistakable as the darkness itself.

  They passed through the columns into the open space of the square, then into the shelter of the streets, going as fast as they could, stopping only to catch their breath.

  The moon was high and the tide full when they reached the wharves, black against the sharp, glittering sea and a sky so clear the very air seemed vibrant with the light.

  The ship was waiting for them and they boarded quickly. They went below into the cabins already prepared for them before any casual watcher might see them and wonder at a man and a woman huddled together, carrying some object close to their bodies and putting to sea at midnight.

  The crew raised the sails and loosed the moorings. Silently, like a ship in a dream, they pulled away on the silver, shifting tide and set the bow towards the harbor bar and the open water.

  They treated their wounds the best they were able with clean water, and bound them with strips torn from linen in the cabin.

  Afterwards Tathea lay alone on her bed. She had made one of the most momentous decisions of her life. She still did not doubt it was the right one. It was not the Book that had failed, but men. They were not ready for the light. And yet it must have been possible, or else why would God have given it?

  But there were the few: Alexius, Eleni, Tugomir, the knights of the western shore ... Sanobiel. Even one would have been enough, one soul to climb upwards and at last see the face of God.

  The pain was there too. How could Ra-Nufis, who had known so much, yet choose the darkness? Why had the great counterfeit been so beautiful to him? Why had the distortion of truth lit within him such a hunger that he had in the end consented to evil which would have horrified him only a few years before?

  Or had the seeds of damnation always been in him? She stared into the night, remembering. She thought of all the times they had spent together, of his loyalty and courage, his untiring energy and how he had given all of himself to the work. Nothing had been too much to ask of him. All for what? She could not believe he had planned to overthrow her even then. The shadow had come slowly, a step at a time. The love of beauty had turned into the love of power. He had seen how people grasped after that which promised hope, order out of confusion, redemption out of guilt. And then he had tasted their gratitude and the supreme power of being loved. He had allowed them to think it was he who had given the gift, and not God; and in time he had come to believe it himself.

  She turned over at last and fell asleep, exhausted and grieving, but no longer filled with confusion.

  When she woke, the sun was high. She was stiff, and every movement ached with bruises and the unaccustomed exertion of muscles she had not used in nearly two years. The cuts from Ra-Nufis’s sword blade needed to be re-dressed, and it hurt to wash away the dried blood.

  When she finally went on deck, it was noon and the city had long since vanished below the horizon. She looked up at the great sails bellying above her, white against a cobalt sky. It was a swift ship, elegant and keen through the water, leaving a long white wake behind.

  There were few men on deck. She saw one at the ship’s oar in the stern, his skill apparent in the ease and lightness of his hand. Another man stood forward, gazing at the water ahead. A third was lashing a rope to the rail, and a fourth bent his head over some weaving or splicing task. Sanobiel must be still below. She would not disturb him.

  She went back to her cabin, and shortly afterwards Sanobiel knocked gently on the door. He looked tired and anxious, and he stood awkwardly as if his body ached. He was holding bread and fruit in one hand.

  “Come in,” she said quickly, moving aside for him.

  They ate with hunger, then sat talking of things of the past, people they needed to or wanted to remember. Foremost in both their minds was Maximian, who had never believed the Book and yet who at the end had been willing to give his life so that it could be returned to God.

  “They will have killed him,” Sanobiel said quietly, staring at the close, wooden walls of the tiny cabin. “He must have known that when he first offered.”

  “He was a good man,” Tathea answered, eating the last of the bread. “Was it our fault that we never managed to show him the Book in such a way that he could believe it? Did we do something wrong, or omit something?”

  “I don’t think so.” Sanobiel poured more water for her. “He heard it all but he chose another way—a good way, but incomplete. Perhaps in the end he will know the Book is true.” A smile flickered across his tired face. “Of all the gifts of God, the one I am most grateful for is that He did not give us the right or the power to judge each other. That is His alone.”

  Tathea smiled back at him, touching his hand lightly where it lay on the small table between them. He reached out quickly and placed his other hand over hers.

  They talked of people they had loved, whose faith, honesty, and courage had lit their path. They remembered some in sadness, others only with joy.

  The following day was the same, and the day after. They occupied their time talking. He told her of some of the events in the beginning of the resistance, before she had returned, and she told him of the beauty of the island and the people she had known there.

  Lastly she told him of the Maelstrom and how they would smell it in the air, feel the shivering on the skin as they drew close to it, how they would hear the roar from over the horizon, dull at first, only a difference in the pitch of the wind in the rigging, before the ear detected the steady, sullen rumble of everlasting tumult.

  On the fourth day they went up on deck into clear sunlight, the water burning blue around them. Tathea looked south towards the expanse of the horizon, Sanobiel west, where he expected to see the haze of the Maelstrom in the distance.

  Tathea felt his grip on her arm, so hard it made her gasp with pain. She swung round and saw what he was staring at, his face bleached with horror: the shore of some, low-lying land, sharp and clear, on whose slopes a great city nestled, its stones rose-pink and ocher.

  “Tirilis!” he said between stiff lips.

  She turned and moved from the side of the ship
towards where the helmsman stood bent over the oar, his back to her.

  “Why are we going to Tirilis?” she demanded.

  He neither moved nor made a sound.

  “Why are we going to Tirilis?” she shouted at him, fear rising sharply in her voice. When he still made no response, she put her hand on his shoulder to force his attention.

  Slowly he swung round, and the face she saw was so fearful it was as if hell had opened in front of her. In the hollows of his eyes she saw corruption and the descent into chaos and the darkness which had no end. The face had the sunken cheeks and gaping mouth, the high Shinabari bones of a man who had been a thousand years dead.

  “Oh, God!” The words formed in her heart, but her lips were frozen, her pulse motionless.

  Sanobiel strode to the forward watchman and caught at his arm. As the watchman looked up, words gagged in Sanobiel’s throat also. The visage he beheld was so terrible, nothing could have prepared him for it. The eyes far back in the hooded sockets had given no mercy in life and in five centuries of death had not learned to find it.

  Sanobiel fell back, his heart beating wildly and a sick terror twisting within him.

  Another gaunt figure risen from the spirit prison descended from the mast and went about its careful business of lashing ropes and steadying the sail.

  Tathea crossed over towards Sanobiel slowly, her body lurching, her legs weak. The salt wind blew about them, clean on the skin. The sails billowed against the sky, and the sweet, bright water rushed past the white hull as they sped towards Tirilis.

  “Tiyo-Mah,” Tathea said hoarsely, remembering the suffocating oppression and the terrible weight of the dead in the underground room in Thoth-Moara. “She has learned from Asmodeus how to raise the unrepentant dead ...”

  “Unrepentant?” Sanobiel grasped the halyards to steady himself. The earth seemed to reel as if they had already entered the Maelstrom, though the sea was as calm as midsummer.