by David Drake
He waved the hand holding the broken tablet. Trumpets blatted from the tower behind them.
The guards jabbed forward the first two prisoners. The woman on the left side had worked a hand loose. She grabbed at the sword blades and so pitched off the platform slinging blood behind her.
Neither prisoner hit the surface. Great blunt heads lifted in sunlit sprays of water, their mouths open. Either could have swallowed the Egyptian obelisk that Augustus had erected in front of his tomb.
The clop! of the mouths shutting was like that of a dray of wine casks rolling into a cliff. The mouths opened again as more prisoners fell, kicking with their legs.
“Are those fish?” said Varus. By concentrating on knowledge, he could avoid the horror of what he was watching. He didn’t look away: that would imply that this sadistic monster had power over him.
“Their ancestors were fish,” Govinda said, watching raptly as a woman tried to throw her infant to the side so that it would be clear of the creature’s jaws. She wasn’t strong enough to grant her child the clean death of smashing onto the masonry. “My power brought them too from Anti-Thule.”
The last of the prisoners flew from the platforms and were devoured. “You see how hopeless you would be if you tried to disobey me!”
We’ll see, if and when I do decide to disobey you, Varus thought. Keeping his voice flat, with only a hint of the disgust he felt, he said, “What is it that you want me to do?”
“I want you to fetch something,” Govinda said. “I was going to send the beggar-magician who serves Raguram, but my ancestor said that you would be more suitable. Come!”
The palace courtyard was remarkably open compared to the cluttered interior of Ramsa Lal’s smaller palace. There were two permanent structures, one to either side of the arch through which Varus had come. On the left was an open-sided pergola over which an ancient grapevine twined. The base of the vine was almost two feet in diameter, thicker than Varus had imagined a grapevine could grow.
To the right was an eight-sided kiosk with walls of translucent alabaster like the clerestory of the hall. These were solid sheets, however.
Govinda led Varus to the door of carved wood. Though it was braced with bronze straps, the door panel itself had been sawn as a single plank.
A boy hung by his hair across the room from the doorway. His eyes were closed, and his face was very pale. The faint pulse in his throat showed that he was alive.
The alabaster walls were creamy white from outside, but from this direction Varus saw separate scenes in each of the six panels. Two were familiar to him: the shrine outside the jungle-covered ruin that Bhiku had called Dreaming Hill, and the hills outside Polymartium where Govinda’s delegation had planted the vine shoot. A third panel was covered with black, roiling clouds.
Govinda closed the door behind them. Varus turned to the king and said, “The shoot there—”
He pointed.
“Did it come from the vine just outside?”
“Watch your tone when you speak to me, Westerner,” Govinda said.
“I am a citizen of Carce,” Varus said. He didn’t raise his voice, but he heard in his words the snap of command that Hedia would have given them. “I will grant you the courtesy that I deem you to have earned. Now, is the huge vine in the courtyard the source of the shoot your servants planted in Polymartium?”
Govinda stared at him. The king held the soapstone tablet in one hand and stroked it with the index finger of the other. After a moment, he said, “Lord Bacchus planted that vine when he conquered India. It is a focus for magic generally and for Lord Bacchus.”
“This is the messenger you sought,” said a rusty voice behind them.
Varus turned. The hanging boy had spoken. His eyes had opened and were focused on Varus.
“Good,” said Govinda. He turned to Varus and said, “Now, Westerner, I will set you your task. When you have accomplished it, you and I will never have to see one another again.”
“Tell me what you want,” Varus said. He didn’t bluster and he tried to keep the tension out of his face, but he was well aware that the next moments were likely to be dangerous regardless of what he decided.
* * *
HEDIA WAS DANCING. They were all dancing, she thought … but she didn’t think much or care much. She was tipsy, and she was as happy as she had ever been in her life.
It was a circle dance, the outer round moving sunwise as the inner dancers rotated widdershins. Hedia couldn’t remember how often she had linked arms and changed direction as a satyr played the shepherd’s pipe in the center of the circle.
Her current partner offered her a wineskin. As she sucked greedily on the wooden teat, he said, “Will you come with me to see the future, Lady Hedia?”
It’s Ampelos. He’s Ampelos.
“Of course I’ll come with you, handsome,” Hedia said, allowing the youth to spin her out of the dance with him. The circle shifted, either closing slightly or admitting another pair of revelers.
She didn’t know what Ampelos had in mind, but she hoped it was the breakthrough in their relations that she had wanted from the first. It was possible that he had something hostile in mind, but Hedia had honed her judgments of men in a harsh school. Twice she had refused an offer that she would have cheerfully accepted if her instincts hadn’t warned her.
She didn’t think Ampelos had any dangerous ideas. If she was wrong, well, she would deal with it.
Once, a man decided to take by force what she had not given of her free will. He had found himself screaming and bleeding on the floor a moment after his grip on Hedia’s right hand had become carelessly loose.
“My bower, shall we?” the youth said, his fingertips lightly guiding her arm toward an arbor covered with twisting grapevines and their leaves. The sides were open from knee height to the ground, but no one in Carce expected privacy for sex. A wealthy home was full of servants, while poor families were crammed into single rooms.
“Yes, lovely,” said Hedia, wriggling her shoulders slightly in preparation for dropping her tunic to where the sash would catch it at her waist.
Ampelos did not have an erection. Well, that too was something she had dealt with before.
They entered the arbor. The skin of a bear with white, silky fur covered the couch in the center. Hedia seated herself near the middle, waiting for her host to tell her how he wanted her disposed.
Ampelos poured wine into a gold-mounted crystal goblet, then stoppered the skin and sat down beside her. Hedia smiled, expecting him to hold out the wine to her or even to kiss the rim before offering it.
Instead he moved his left palm over the cup and said, “Look in the surface, Lady Hedia. I haven’t the powers that our lord and god has, but in this place I can scratch some of the patina off the future so that we can look at it.”
Hedia dutifully bent forward to peer into the clear scarlet wine. This wasn’t what she had expected, but it wasn’t harmful. Ampelos was being courteous, and she herself was always courteous when the circumstances allowed.
The wine swirled, though Ampelos held the goblet steady. An image formed in the spirals of bubbles, slowly at first, then suddenly and with startling clarity:
Varus reclined on a couch in an octagonal room.
“That is your son, is it not, Lady Hedia?” said Ampelos.
“It is,” said Hedia, her eyes still on the image. “Where is he now?”
On the table beside Varus was a cup that had been carved from ruby or from ruby red glass. It seemed to be empty. A steel pry bar lay across the table also, and a disk that seemed to shimmer as she watched: sometimes dull black but shifting to a hole into infinity.
“This is the sanctum of King Govinda,” Ampelos said. “This is what will happen in a day’s time or even a few hours from now.”
“That’s Govinda in the gold suit?” Hedia said. She tried to keep her tone neutral, but she heard the touch of harshness creep in. That didn’t disturb her.
The man wit
h the diadem, wearing pantaloons and a puffy tunic made of cloth of gold, was younger than she had expected the wizard-king to be. There didn’t seem to be any doubt, though. He held a block of stone carved with letters in a script unfamiliar to Hedia.
Varus might be able to read it, though, or even Corylus. She respected the young men’s erudition, though it appeared to her as pointless as trying to determine how far the moon was from the Earth. Which Varus had assured her that very learned scholars were doing …
“That is Govinda,” Ampelos said. “The tablet he holds is a tool of great magical power, carved before mammals lived on earth, and discovered thousands of thousands of years later by the Tylon wizard who became the Godspeaker.”
“What is my son doing?” Hedia said, though it was obvious that Varus was taking the goblet in his hands and raising it to his lips. “It’s empty, isn’t it? There’s nothing in it!”
“Govinda will use the tablet to force your son to drink poison,” Ampelos said calmly, “to free his spirit to visit the far past. The poison is clear, but it is not less virulent for that.”
Varus set down the goblet and took the black disk and the pry bar, one in either hand. He lay back on the couch and composed himself as if for sleep. His eyes closed.
“It hasn’t happened yet?” Hedia said. Her lips were dry. “There’s still time to stop it?”
“Govinda leaves the Godspeaker’s tablet on the table in his sanctum,” Ampelos said. “Where you see the goblet now. If you were to steal the tablet, you could force Govinda to surrender your son and to send you both back to Carce.”
The figure of Varus in the wine cup was stiffening. His complexion turned gray. Hedia wasn’t sure how much of what she thought she saw was really her imagination painting the tiny image, but it was likely enough anyway.
“How?” Hedia said. She straightened and looked straight at Ampelos. “How do I get to where the thing is? The tablet.”
“A grapevine grows beside Govinda’s sanctum,” the youth said, his tone carelessly flat—as it had been throughout this conversation. “They are both in the courtyard of the king’s palace. Our lord and god Bacchus planted it. The vine is the same as the one growing beside his chariot, wherever that may be. If you climb the vine here in the Otherworld, you will come down the vine beside Govinda’s sanctum.”
Hedia stood. “Take me to the vine,” she said.
Ampelos stood also. He poured the wine onto the ground, then tossed the goblet onto the couch. He started across the twilit encampment with Hedia behind him.
CHAPTER XIII
The rolling plain Aura was leading Corylus over was pleasant enough, but the occasional trees drew his attention. Their course had taken them close to a chestnut, a dogwood, and a small grove of walnuts, but apart from greeting the nymphs who chose to show themselves, they had passed on. Aura showed no interest in socializing, and Corylus was willing to focus on reaching the Cave of Zagreus.
I wouldn’t have minded chatting with the family of walnuts, though. The nymphs of saplings had waved with a grace attractively at variance with the straitlaced majesty of their mother.
The grass half a furlong in front of Corylus twitched as something raced toward them. “Aura,” he said, touching his guide’s hand. “Something’s coming and I can’t see what it—”
A long-legged hare wearing a laurel diadem and a purple tunic burst from the grass twenty feet ahead and stopped, spraying a cloud of light soil in front of him. “Oh my goodness!” he said. “Oh, dear me. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb—”
He disappeared into the high grass again at an angle to his previous course. Corylus thought he heard the word “… late…” coming from that direction, but he wasn’t sure of the word and the speaker may not have been the hare.
“Occasionally,” Corylus said, “I forget that I’m in the Otherworld. But then something reminds me.”
The ground to their left sloped gently upward; they were following the base of a knoll. Above them were a pair of oaks—a white oak and an ilex—as well as a tall beech. A man hung by his hair from the lowest branch of the white oak; a woman stood near and was jabbing him with a stick.
“Wait,” said Corylus.
“That’s Calaia,” said Aura. She hung back for a moment, then followed when she realized Corylus was walking toward the grove with her or without her. “She’s an air spirit. I don’t know who the man is.”
Calaia turned when she saw Corylus approaching. When she did, he called, “Greetings, mistress. I’m Publius Cispius Corylus!”
He thought of adding a question about what was happening, but that could come later if the nymph didn’t volunteer the information.
“I am Calaia,” the nymph said. “Aura, take your friend away. I don’t need his help.”
She held not a club but a switch, an oak twig with a spray of many-pointed leaves on the end. She’s been tickling him, not beating him!
The man rotated slowly. His arms were bound, and his long chestnut hair was tied around the branch above him.
When he turned enough to see Corylus he called, “You, Corylus! You’re human, aren’t you? Help me get away from this witch! I wouldn’t sleep with her, so she’s torturing me!”
“Sister, take him away or I’ll have to deal with him myself,” Calaia said peevishly to Aura. Looking at Corylus, she went on, “I want him to play with me, sure. What’s the harm? He doesn’t want to. As soon as he changes his mind, I’ll put him back in the Waking World.”
“I can’t sleep with her!” the man said. His face had rotated away from Corylus again, but he was shouting loudly enough to be heard. “My betrothed in India has put a spell on me and I can’t touch another woman!”
Calaia shrugged. “Then eventually he’ll die, I suppose,” she said. “I think it would be easier to decide to have sex with me, but it’s his choice.”
The hanging man was about thirty and muscular, though his legs were relatively thin compared to his mighty arms and shoulders. A pod of leaping dolphins was tattooed on his chest.
A sailor, Corylus thought. An oarsman.
“My name’s Bion!” the hanging man said as he turned farther. “Please, Corylus! As a fellow human!”
Corylus drew his dagger and stepped forward. The keen orichalc edge could easily cut Bion’s hair, and that would free him.
Calaia pointed an index finger. A miniature whirlwind wrapped Corylus’ right ankle and tugged him back like an elephant’s trunk. Though he fought the pressure, he found his sandal slipping backward.
“Aura!” Calaia said. “I warned you. I’ll roll your boy down the hill if you don’t take him away.”
“Aura, can you help me?” Corylus said, straining against the wind. “I’m not going to leave her to torture this poor bastard!”
Aura stepped between him and the other nymph, holding out the blue ring she wore on her thumb. “Sister, let him go,” she said. “This is my lover Zetes’ ring. Corylus slew Zetes’ slayer and gained me the revenge I’ve waited for ages to have.”
“I have nothing against your boy,” Calaia said. “Just keep him out of my business, sister. You have no power over me.”
Aura turned to Corylus. “I’m sorry,” she said. “She’s right. We’d better get along.”
“If we’re talking about power…,” said the tall blond dryad who stepped from the white oak. She grinned broadly and glanced toward Corylus. “Did you want help, Cousin?”
“Very much, Robur,” Corylus said. “And you too, Ilex”—for the other dryad had appeared also, slender and dark with very fine features—“if you care to.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” said Calaia, backing angrily from Robur’s advance. “Don’t you dare!”
Ilex took the switch from the air sprite’s hand. “I was going to let it be, even when you broke off a twig,” the dryad said. “I thought, ‘Well, Calaia can’t help being a nasty bitch.’ But since you’ve decided to threaten Cousin Corylus—”
Rob
ur caught a handful of Calaia’s blue-blond hair and lifted her, kicking and screaming. Ilex slashed Calaia across the face with the pointed leaves.
“Don’t you dare!” the air sprite repeated, though Corylus couldn’t imagine what she thought the pair of dryads wouldn’t dare, given what they were already doing.
“There was a time you might have twisted me about, Calaia,” Robur said. She wore a satisfied smile, and there was a smile in her sultry voice as well. “There may be another time when I’m very old. But not now, I think.”
“Say, can I join the fun?” said the beech nymph, walking over to join the dryads. She was more slender than the statuesque Robur, but her supple strength was obvious to anyone who watched her move.
Ilex tried to tickle Calaia, but the air sprite grabbed at the switch; her arms weren’t pinioned. She tried to kick the dryads, without any result except to sway back and forth in Robur’s grip.
Corylus was free of the wind’s clutch, but he backed slightly away. He didn’t want to go to Bion with a sharp knife in his hand when at any moment one or another of the sprites might come flying at him. The sailor had hung for some time; hanging a little longer wouldn’t be fatal.
The beech nymph stepped in quickly and grabbed one, then the other, of Calaia’s ankles. Ilex smiled at Robur and said, “Down the hill on three, shall we?” The dryad smiled in agreement.
Calaia was screaming in wordless rage as the nymphs swung her back. Robur hadn’t changed her grip from the hair, but Calaia’s blind attempts to scratch the dryad’s arms were futile.
“One!” said Ilex, She reached in with the switch, then jumped back so that she wasn’t in the way.
“Two!” said Ilex, remaining where she crouched. Calaia swung back again. By now she seemed to be crying, though Corylus suspected they were tears of fury.
“Three!”
Calaia sailed off the top of the knoll, tumbling wildly. She hit at the bottom and rolled into a stand of rhododendrons at the bottom of the swale. She scrambled into the brush on all fours and disappeared.
The tree nymphs hugged and laughed in a tight group. “Oh! That was fun!” Ilex wheezed through her laughter.