by David Drake
“I’m here!” Corylus said. His plan had been to feel the bottom with his toes, but the rubble filtering down from the blockage was too varied for his feet to discriminate. He took a deep breath and submerged.
For a moment buoyancy tried to rotate his feet off the bottom, but he began dropping stones down the front of his tunic. After the fifth or sixth handful of ballast, he stabilized so that he could begin to feel his way around the edge. The shaft’s narrow diameter was an advantage now.
Corylus rose and blew out air before gasping repeated deep breaths. His friends were calling, but he ignored them for now. He folded himself back onto the bottom.
There was a layer of rubble, never more than a foot deep, over a rippling surface of living rock. If necessary Corylus would have a basket lowered so that he could put the rubble in it, but for the moment he simply moved each handful behind him as he worked his way around the bottom.
Corylus picked up a flat disk the size of his palm. Because the water was so cold, he almost dropped it onto the pile of other debris he was clearing. Just before he released it, his fingers felt a straight indentation around the edge. Only then did he realize that he held metal, not stone.
He raised the disk above the water. Where his fingers had rubbed the coating of slime there was smooth iron with only flecks of rust. For a moment Corylus thought he must have found a more recent object, because iron should have corroded more after seventy years at the bottom of a well.
The vision of a bearded, broad-shouldered man flooded Corylus’ mind. The figure wore only boots and an apron made from the hide of a dappled cow; the cowhide was speckled in many places where sparks had singed it. He used a smooth boulder as his anvil and held the work piece in bronze tongs as he forged it with a stone hammer.
He was forming the locket that Corylus now held, or at any rate half of it.
The smith chanted as he struck smooth, powerful blows, but Corylus couldn’t hear sounds to accompany the vision. In the background a boy with a frightened expression squatted behind a bellows, resting while the piece was on the anvil.
The vision faded. The locket felt warm in Corylus’ hands.
“I’ve found it!” he called. “I’m going to loop the rope so that I can stand in it; then you haul me up. I don’t trust my grip, the water’s so cold.”
Corylus placed the locket on the ballast in his tunic. He didn’t have anywhere else to put it that he could be certain of finding it again; the shaft was lined with well-fitted stones, and setting it anywhere underwater simply meant having to search for it again.
He lifted the end of the rope he’d descended by into a bight and closed it by two half hitches. After stepping into the loop, his left foot on top of his right, he called, “Haul!”
The rope rose with jerky suddenness, showing that his friends on the surface were bringing it up hand over hand instead of hauling it over the beam they had laid as a makeshift block. Corylus stepped off at the top, gripping Pulto’s shoulder as a brace.
His legs were trembling. Aloud he’d blamed the cold water for his weakness, but at the back of his mind was the question of how much of it was a reaction to the vision of the ice mountains. The ice was neither good nor evil, but it was inexorable and it obliterated everything in its path.
“Where is it?” said Alphena. Pandareus joined her, but the veterans moved back. They—Pulto at least, but probably both men—didn’t like magic.
Corylus gripped what he thought was the amulet through his sodden tunic, then loosed his sash and shook the rocks he’d taken for ballast out onto the ground. Though he leaned forward, one of the larger stones landed on his toes; that would hurt when the numbness of the cold water wore off.
He reached down the front of his tunic with his free hand, gripped the amulet, and brought it out. In bright daylight it looked like scrap from behind a blacksmith’s forge, but the line that separated top and bottom like the two halves of an iron clamshell was clearly visible. He handed it to Pandareus.
“I think this must be the amulet,” Corylus said. “When I picked it up, I saw the man forging it for a moment.”
Pandareus looked up from examining the piece. He said, “A priest?”
Corylus shrugged. “I thought he was just a smith,” he said, “but the marks on his arms and cheeks could have been tattoos. I thought they were smudges when I saw them.”
He pursed his lips and added, “I saw ice too, but it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the forge. We need Varus to tell us what the visions mean, I guess.”
“I certainly wish Lord Varus were here,” Pandareus said drily. “For the sake of his knowledge as well.”
“Why do they call it ‘the Ear of the Satyr’?” Alphena asked. “It doesn’t look like any kind of ear to me.”
There was a touch of pique in her tone; Corylus realized that he and his teacher had been ignoring her. Pandareus must have thought the same thing, for he handed the amulet—the lump of iron that they thought was an amulet—to Alphena.
“I don’t know,” Pandareus said. “There may be an ear of some sort inside the case, but I don’t see hinges or a catch.”
Frowning, Alphena rubbed the iron with the ball of her thumb, then held it to the sun at an angle. “It’s pinned shut,” she said. “Riveted.”
She looked from Pandareus to Corylus. “We could break it open with a chisel?” she said doubtfully.
“Why would you want to do that, lady?” piped a voice from behind her. Alphena spun around; Corylus stepped to the side to see past her.
A marble bench had been thrown into the well to block it. When the fragments were hauled out, they had been piled near the shaft. An arm support in the form of a reclining dog had just spoken.
“Well, I…,” Alphena said, cupping her palms over the amulet. “Shouldn’t I?”
“Mamurcus made the covering to protect the Godspeaker’s Ear,” said the stone dog. “Unless you want to destroy the ear, why would you take it out of the case? You can already talk to us.”
“He made it out of iron from the meteor that brought the Blight!” squeaked another voice, barely audible. “Mamurcus was a great wizard, though not so great as the Godspeaker, and even the Godspeaker could not save his world and his people.”
Corylus walked to the pile of rubble and shifted the curved slab that had formed the seat of the bench. Beneath it was the other arm support—this one in the form of a hen.
“Thank you!” the carving said, more clearly now.
The men who had come with Alphena and a score of farm personnel were listening with various degrees of interest. Those who were close enough to see that carvings were talking gaped with amazement, but most of the spectators seemed to take it for ventriloquism or other trickery.
“What should I do to find my brother and my mother?” Alphena said. “They went to Polymartium and disappeared. Something happened there, and something happened to them!”
“Oh, were they wizards?” said the hen.
“Polymartium is where Bacchus plans to return to the Waking World,” said the dog. “Do your relatives worship Bacchus?”
“Gaius Varus has, well…” Corylus said. He was stumbling to find the right word, then decided that the hen’s choice was good enough. “Varus is a wizard, yes. What does that mean?”
“Well, we don’t know…,” said the hen.
“We’re not wizards like you and your brother, lady,” the dog agreed.
“But perhaps your brother is still at Polymartium, preparing for the coming of Bacchus,” the hen said. “There is great magic going on there now, and greater still to come.”
“Even we could feel that, lady,” the dog said.
Alphena turned to Corylus and the teacher with a question in her eyes. Corylus said, “I think we should go to Polymartium.” Pandareus nodded.
Alphena said, “Candidus, is there a property of my father’s midway between here and Polymartium?”
“No, Your Ladyship,” the understeward said afte
r only a moment’s consideration. “But there’s an estate owned by your father’s client Gnaeus Fabrius, who lives on his land at this time of year. He would supply our needs, I’m sure, if you didn’t want to return to Carce.”
“Give the drivers instructions,” Alphena said crisply, heading for the mail coach with quick, short steps. “We’ll leave immediately.”
Corylus and Pandareus exchanged glances as they strode after the girl. I thought she was a bad-tempered brat, not so very long ago, Corylus thought.
And perhaps Alphena had been a brat not so very long ago. The times were bringing out the best in people and certainly the best in the sister of his friend Gaius Varus.
* * *
“I FELT VERY RIGHTEOUS in refusing a horse when Lal offered one,” Varus said as he trudged along beside Bhiku. “Now I find myself wondering just how far it is to where we’re going.”
He spoke in a normal voice. Ramsa Lal had ridden forward to check with the officers at the head of the column. Though the guards riding to either side might know enough Greek to eavesdrop on the conversation, they showed no sign of wanting to.
“Another mile, I believe,” Bhiku said, “but I don’t visit Lal’s domain often enough to be sure. I wouldn’t be in danger really; no one notices a mendicant sage—or a ragged beggar, to the degree there’s a difference. But there’s nothing in Lal’s library of interest to me, and I didn’t pass near the palace to reach Dreaming Hill. When I was going there.”
He gestured to the hedged fields bordering the road and said, “The landscape here is much the same as that in Raguram’s domain, or indeed anywhere within the majesty of our master Govinda.”
The fields to either side were separated from the road and from their neighbors by earthen walls that were overgrown with brush and occasional trees. Stumps of varying size showed where woodcutters had removed trees and woody shrubs, which left brambles in primary ownership.
The result was a very effective barrier, but it had little to recommend it for a sightseer. Occasionally a stile or gate gave Varus a glimpse into the fields themselves. A farmer might have found more of interest in the grain crops than Varus did, but even a farmer would have admitted that the crops were identical.
“How does this differ from your Italy, Lord Varus?” the sage asked.
“The only difference I see,” said Varus, “is that horns of your oxen curve up till they almost touch points over the animal’s head. The oxen I’m used to have horns that curve forward, so they’ve usually sawed off and capped for safety’s sake.”
He grinned wryly. “I’m not very familiar with them,” he said. “But I see them pulling carts on the road when I travel outside Carce.”
He smiled more broadly. “And I don’t travel outside Carce very much, either,” he said. “I never expected to see India.”
I didn’t expect to see fire demons rising through the floor of the Temple of Jupiter in Carce until it happened. Of the two, I prefer India.
A bubble of noise expanded, sweeping over the mounted soldiers. Troops cried out, but Varus wasn’t sure they were speaking meaningful words.
The sky ahead had become a roiling curtain of cloud—not black, but purple and shot through with pastel highlights. “Is that a storm?” said Varus. “I’ve never seen a sky like that.”
Something flew out of the clouds and curved back; its membranous wings shimmered with reflections from a sun lower in the sky than the one overhead in this world. Just before the creature disappeared—it was a winged snake a hundred feet long, by the look of it—it gave a melodious call like that of a dove, but greatly amplified.
Bhiku put his hand on Varus’ wrist to halt him. “Bacchus, our god and the King of Kings, is visiting the Waking World again,” he said. “I’ve never been so close to his progress in the past. Indeed, if he turns in this direction we may become part of that progress.”
The troops ahead were milling. A few riders came back along the line of march, looking over their shoulders and making halfhearted attempts to pretend that their horses were running away with them.
“I saw this at Polymartium,” Varus said. “The start of it, at any rate. When you and your fellows opened the portal to the Otherworld.”
“Ah, that was Ampelos,” Bhiku said. “This is the god himself, I believe.”
The clouds spread overhead, bringing not darkness but filtered light—now rosy, now a green as pale and pure as the undersides of new leaves. A horse screamed as if it were being disemboweled.
A lane cleared ahead as troopers rode into the fields or were bucked off their mounts. Instead of slaughter, Varus saw that a riderless horse was mounting another horse whose rider was still in the saddle. The Indian was pounding his bare hands on the muzzle of the would-be sire without affecting the grin of lustful delight that drew the horse’s lips back from square yellow teeth.
The “dam”—which Varus thought was a gelding—braced his spread hind legs to bear the unaccustomed weight. He didn’t appear to be distressed.
An east wind swept lightly over the scene, bringing humid air with the scent of flowers. The hedges to right and left writhed as grapevines sprouted, leafed, and flowered.
Two chariots rode out of the sky, drawn by yoked panthers. Both wore fawn-skin tunics, but Varus recognized the man in the nearer one as the leader of the band that had erupted after the ceremony to Mother Matuta.
The other man was not a man or not wholly a man: he was Bacchus. Varus, who had doubted the existence of gods, fell to one knee in shock and reverence.
Radiance flooded from Bacchus like the cloak of a comet. He wasn’t tall—no taller than Varus himself—or obviously muscular, but mere sight of him compelled reverence. The god’s hair flowed like flames from beneath a diadem of grapevines, and his eyes were sunstruck sapphires.
The chariots drove across the fields to the right of the road. The dikes separating plots shivered and flattened like piles of grain on a sieve. The great leopards bounded, each in unison with its yokemate, and the gleaming cars raced smoothly over the soft terrain.
Behind the chariots came the god’s entourage: the hundreds of Bassoi and Maenads who had been men and women, and the others who were part human or had never been human at all.
A goat-footed satyr and a Maenad rode a tiger as large as a bull. The satyr drank from a wineskin, then spurted a stream of ruby fluid onto the ground. Vines sprang up, twisting as they grew; in the space of a breath they bore grapes the size of hens’ eggs.
A centaur rode toward a woman who had been working in the field. She leaped to meet his arms and swung herself onto his withers. Holding the centaur’s shoulder with one hand, she used the other to sail away her bonnet and to pluck off her loose cotton garments.
Three of Lal’s cavalry charged the throng: one couched his lance while his companions drew their curved swords. Varus thought they were shouting, but he couldn’t be sure in the tumult.
A Maenad laughed and hurled her thyrsus at a swordsman. The pinecone head pierced the man’s breast like the sharp iron bolt of a ballista. The Indian tumbled over the hindquarters of his mount, the brittle fennel stalk sticking up from the center of his chest.
The bamboo lance of the middle rider leafed out with the suddenness of straw catching fire. The metal head winked as it fell, flung from the tip of the lance by swelling foliage. The rider pulled up, shouting in amazement, then tossed the lance away. Instead of lying on the ground, it rooted and twisted upright. The soil in a line to either side began to bulge as the bamboo sent up runners.
The onetime lancer tried to wheel his horse. It threw him off and galloped after the chariots, its silver-mounted reins dancing. A satyr lifted the rider to a sitting position and squirted wine into his mouth. The rider shook himself, then grabbed the wineskin and drank deeply.
A pair of Maenads lassoed the remaining horseman with loops of vine and pulled him off the back of his mount. They kept their nooses tight so that the man landed on his feet, though his knees immediate
ly buckled.
His curved sword sank to mid-blade in the soft ground. The women embraced the man from either side, kissing and fondling him. The trio danced off together, following the chariots and the runaway horse.
Varus stood slowly. His thigh muscles quivered as though he had been straining to lift a weight. Beside him, Bhiku sat cross-legged with his head bent. The sage lifted his head when Varus moved.
Varus blinked. He viewed his surroundings as if through thick glass, distorted by ripples and a green cast, but he could see for miles with perfect clarity in every direction.
Bacchus and Ampelos drove across a landscape that shivered flat to welcome them. The yellow of ripe grain, the gray of dead wood, and all other shades flared into bright greens in the chariots’ wake. Laborers dropped their tools and followed. A woman bathing her infant rose and ran after Bacchus. The child lay on the edge of the pond, giggling with happiness.
“How do you feel?” Bhiku said.
“Well, no different than…,” Varus said, but his voice trailed off as he realized that he did feel different. He was no longer hot and tired. His legs trembled, but he felt a glow of health, as though he were awakening the day after a good workout with Corylus.
Varus looked down at Bhiku and grinned broadly. “I feel an intense desire,” he said, “to understand what we just saw and what we’re seeing.”
He gestured in the direction Bacchus and his troupe had taken. The last members of the entourage were still running and leaping on the horizon, but Varus’ vision was clearing. The richly colored clouds had given way to the smears of fuzzy white that had been in the sky when he first arrived from the Otherworld.
Bhiku nodded agreement. “There are different kinds of lust,” he said.
The scattered horsemen were beginning to gather again. Only about half the escort was visible, however, and Varus suspected most of the rest would never return.
Some had fled down the road or into the fields to the left. Those who had ridden to the right or had been carried in that direction by their maddened horses had joined the motley rout that followed Bacchus. A few, like the man struck down by a thyrsus in the first moments of the incursion, were dead.