by Ben Bova
I felt the warmth of golden sunlight seeping into my flesh. My eyes were still closed, but instead of blackness I saw a red glow brightening my lids.
Opening my eyes, I sat up and found myself on a grassy hillside dotted with wildflowers. White puffs of cumulus clouds dotted a deeply blue sky. A warm breeze made the flowers nod their colorful heads, the distant trees sway and murmur.
But there was no city. No ocean. No Creators. Nothing but an empty land stretching out to a rolling hilly horizon.
Slowly I climbed to my feet, looking for some sign of them. The Creators had to be here. Otherwise why would I have come to this placetime?
“Because you’re something of a clod, Orion.”
I whirled and there stood the Golden One with the sun at his back. He wore a short-skirted robe that seemed to gleam with a radiance of its own. His handsome face was frowning with annoyance.
“Orion, what are you trying to do? Don’t you realize that every time you disturb the continuum like this we have to work to repair the damage you’ve done?”
“Where is Anya?” I asked.
“Far from here.”
“What’s going on? Why am I being held in Pella if there’s a crisis so grave—”
“Stop this chatter!” Aten snapped. “You’ve been told more than once, Orion: your task is in the placetime where you’ve been sent. Do as Hera commands. Is that clear?”
“Not clear enough. I want to know what you are trying to accomplish.”
His narrow nostrils flared angrily. “You want to know, do you? All right, I’ll tell you. You ruined my plans for Troy. Do you remember that?”
He had wanted Troy to beat the Achaian Greeks and go on to establish an empire that would link Asia and Europe. I had thwarted him out of spite.
“That little game of yours unravelled the continuum so badly that we had to exert all our efforts to bring things back together again.”
Good, I thought. Aten had gone insane then; he neglected to recall that little fact.
“We are still trying to repair the damage you’ve done. There must be an empire that unites Europe and Asia, even if it lasts only for a few generations. It is important. Vital!”
“So Alexandros—”
“Must succeed. If you ever expect to see Anya again, you must do as Hera commands. Do you understand that?”
I bowed my head and heard myself mutter, “I understand.”
Aten shook his head and grumbled, “I must say, Orion, that you’ve been more trouble than you’re worth. But you’re strong, I’ll grant you that much. I sent you to the Mesozoic again, back among the dinosaurs, just to get you out of our way until we needed you again. But somehow you showed up at Pella.”
“Anya did that,” I replied, with a certainty that surprised me.
He gave me a sharp look. “Perhaps she did,” he mused. “Perhaps she did. When I wanted to put you in suspension, she insisted that I let you live out a life somewhere in the continuum.”
“So I was to be stored away like a toy that you had grown tired of playing with.”
“Like a tool that I wanted to keep available until I needed it again,” the Golden One corrected.
“And now?” I asked.
“Now we face the gravest crisis of all, thanks in part to your infernal meddling.”
“That is what Anya is doing, fighting against this crisis?”
“Orion, that is what we all are doing. We have no energy to spare on your antics.”
“And Hera is manipulating the events in Macedonia?”
“That is her part of the crisis. Again, because of your stubborn resistance to our will.”
“So what am I to do?”
He smiled thinly. “Nothing at all, Orion. You should have been put in cryonic storage, but I think your cell in Pella will do almost as well. Enjoy your new playmates.”
He meant the rats, I knew.
Chapter 30
I opened my eyes in the darkness of my cell and saw the red hateful eyes of the rats surrounding me. Only a few heartbeats of time had elapsed since I had lain myself down on the moldy straw pallet, I reckoned. The rats were approaching me warily, sniffing at the odor of fresh meat but not yet excited into a feeding frenzy.
I sprang to my feet and they scattered to the corners of the cell, chittering with fear and disappointment.
Thus I spent my days, pacing the narrow confines of the cell, not daring to sleep. The only mark of elapsed time came when the jailor slid my gruel through the slot in the door and collected my chamberpot. Gradually I began to look on the rats as companions.
Using the skill I had learned long ago from the Neanderthals, I tried to put myself into the consciousness of the rats. Gradually I learned to see my cell through their eyes. I felt the gnawing hunger that drove them, so much so that I started to leave my miserable bowl of gruel unfinished and let them lap up the remains.
Day after day I perfected my rapport with them, to the degree that I could sit on the floor of my cell and go with them through the cracks between the cell walls, into their nests, along the tunnels that honeycombed the palace’s cellars. Through the eyes of the pack’s leader I visited the guard room and saw the giant humans lounging carelessly, dropping crumbs of bread and scraps of meat onto the floor—a feast for the pack, once the humans had left the chamber.
I even listened to the guards’ conversations, although their voices sounded strangely deep and booming in the ears of my rats. It took some while for me to learn how to transduce the tones they were capable of hearing into words of understandable human language.
Another royal wedding was drawing near, I learned. But the more they spoke, the more bawdy jokes they made about the impending nuptials, the more confused I became. Alexandros was marrying Kleopatra, they said. Those were two of the most common names among the Macedonians. Did they mean Alexandros, the king’s son? The Little King himself? And Kleopatra was the name of Philip’s most recent wife, although he called her Eurydice.
It was Pausanias who cleared up the puzzle for me.
He came to visit me in my cell. One day I heard footsteps coming down the hall, and recognized that there was someone accompanying the shuffle-footed old man who brought me my food. Someone wearing boots. One of the rats happened to be near a crack in the corridor wall and I looked up through its eyes. Pausanias loomed like a moving mountain, shaking the rat’s sensitive whiskers with each booted step.
The guard pulled the door open on its squeaking hinges and Pausanias ducked through the doorway into my cell. He carried a sputtering torch in his right hand. He had left his sword at the guard room, I saw.
“Leave us,” he told the old man. “I’ll call when I’m finished here.”
The old man wordlessly closed the door and shot its bolt home.
“You’ve lost weight,” Pausanias said, looking me over.
I saw his nose wrinkle. “And I must smell pretty bad, too,” I said.
“That can’t be helped.”
“Why am I here?” I asked. “Why haven’t I been allowed to see the king? Or to have a trial, at least.”
“It will be over soon,” he said. His face was grim, his eyes evasive.
“What do you mean?”
“After the wedding we can let you go.”
“The wedding?”
Pausanias’ lips turned down into a frown. “The king is giving his daughter to his brother-in-law.”
“His daughter Kleopatra? Olympias’ daughter?”
“She is to marry Alexandros, King of Epeiros.”
“Olympias’ brother?” I felt shocked.
He nodded sourly. “It smacks of incest, doesn’t it? Marrying off his fourteen-year-old daughter to her own uncle.”
“I thought that Olympias was living in Epeiros with her brother.”
“She was. She has been returned to Pella.”
Philip’s statecraft, I realized. He was binding the king of Epeiros to Macedonia by marrying his daughter to him. Alexandros of
Epeiros would no longer side with Olympias in their marital squabbles because he was marrying a Macedonian princess. Olympias no longer had a brother to take her side, to give her shelter, to possibly go to war against Philip for her sake.
“The One-Eyed Fox has outsmarted her,” I muttered.
“Has he?” Pausanias made a bitter smile. “We’ll see.”
“And what of our Alexandros, the Little King? How is he reacting to all this?”
“He ran off to Epeiros with his mother when Philip married Eurydice. But the king called him back to Pella and he came, obedient to Philip’s command.”
“He’s chosen his father over his mother’s wishes,” I said.
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Orion,” said Pausanias. “Alexandros will be king one day. That’s why he returned to Pella, to reinforce his claim to the throne. You know that Eurydice has born Philip a son.”
“I heard.”
“The babe will never become king of Macedonia. Alexandros is determined to succeed his father, no matter what.”
I nodded my agreement. Then I asked again, “But what has this to do with me? Why am I being kept locked in this cell?”
“You deserted your duty,” Pausanias answered crisply. “You ran away from the Persian capital and disappeared into the desert. Do you deny that?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Deserters are usually hanged, Orion. I’m allowing you to live. You’ll even have your freedom, once the wedding is over.”
“What’s the wedding got to do with it?”
He looked away from me again, as if there was something in his eyes that he did not want me to see.
“What’s the wedding got to do with it?” I repeated.
“You’re loyal to Philip,” he muttered. “It’s best that you’re kept out of the way until it’s finished.”
I stared at him for a long, wordless moment. Kept out of the way, my mind echoed. Until it’s finished.
I grabbed Pausanias by the shoulders and stared into his eyes. “You’re going to assassinate the king!”
He did not deny it.
“Olympias has swayed you. The witch has you in her spell.”
Pausanias laughed bitterly. “Jealous, Orion? She’s thrown you aside for me. Does that bother you?”
“It frightens me. I’m frightened for your sake. And for Philip’s.”
“Philip.” He spat the word. “That man deserves to die a dozen times over.”
“You loved him once.”
“Yes, and look what he did to me! He knew what Attalos had done to me and he did nothing about it. Nothing! I went to him for justice and he ignored me.”
“He made you captain of his personal guard,” I said. “That is high honor.”
“Honor my ass! He didn’t punish Attalos. After what that stinking hyena did to me he didn’t lift a finger to punish him. Not even a harsh word.”
“The king must avoid blood feuds.”
But Pausanias did not want to hear reasonable words. “He threw a sop at me and let Attalos get away without a word. Then he marries the bastard’s niece and makes a new princeling with her. And all the while he’s laughing at me; him and Attalos, laughing at me every night, every time they see each other—”
His chest was heaving, his eyes wild with rage. His hands shook so badly that I feared he would drop the torch he was carrying and set my pallet afire. I knew he was speaking Olympias’ words now. She was filling his ears with poison even deadlier than the venom her snakes carried.
Pausanias slowly pulled himself together. “None of this is your affair, Orion. You’re not a Macedonian; perhaps you should be glad that you’re not. You are an honest man and you feel loyal to the king, so I’m keeping you locked safely here until it’s all over. Then you will be freed and you can go your own way.”
“Don’t do it,” I urged. “Don’t let her destroy you.”
His twisted, bitter smile returned. “I was destroyed a long time ago, Orion. I have nothing to lose.”
Weakened though I was by long days of imprisonment, I knew that I could overpower Pausanias. Perhaps I could force him to call for the guard to open my cell door. Perhaps I could overcome the other guards loitering in their chamber down the corridor. Perhaps I could reach the king and warn him.
Too many perhapses. There was no way I could protect Philip if I were cut down by the palace guard before I could reach his side.
Pausanias called for the jailer to open the door. I was tempted to try to force my way to freedom, but then I heard the tramp of a half-dozen men accompanying the old man. They were taking no chances.
I had learned to mark the passage of time through the rats. They were mostly nocturnal animals, although how they told the difference between night and day in the windowless cellar of the castle was beyond me. Still, when I peeked in at the guard chamber through their eyes, I could tell it was nighttime when the men there crawled into their bunks and slept. There were always at least six guards on duty, although they had little to do, even during the day.
I had no idea of when the royal wedding was to take place; only that it would happen soon. By listening to the guards’ conversations I learned that it would not be at Pella, but at the ancient capita up in the mountains, Aigai. Apparently Philip was to depart for the old citadel within a day or so.
I needed more information. And help. Tentatively, I tried to control a few of my rat pack. Not merely use their senses as extensions of my own, but actively control them, make them do my bidding. I needed to find Harkan. Of all the soldiers and guards in Pella, only Harkan and Batu could I trust to help me.
I sent my rats ranging through the palace and barracks. It was dangerous for them; other packs attacked strangers in their territory. But I sent one “scout” after another scurrying along the warren of tunnels and hollows that honeycombed the palace. At last I found Harkan and Batu, still quartered together in the main barracks that adjoined the palace proper.
Now that I knew where they were, I had to reach them. That meant breaking out of my cell. But stealthily, without rousing the palace against me. Somehow I had to release the iron bolt that held my cell door locked. But how?
I knew that I could probably release myself from this placetime and travel across the continuum to the realm of the Creators, but then I would undoubtedly return to the same point in time and space that I had left; I would return to my cell. It was bitingly ironic: I could travel through uncounted ages and even span the distances between stars, but that ability was useless to me now. All I wanted to do was to get past my cell door. My barely understood powers of moving through the continuum could not help me. I had to rely on my own strength and wits.
I still had my dagger strapped to my thigh, so much a part of me that I took it for granted. One small dagger was not much of a weapon against all the guards of the palace. But it might make an effective tool.
Using the point of the iron blade I chiselled away at the wooden door at the point where the bolt slid into its iron groove on its other side. The wood was tough and old. I wondered how long my iron blade would hold an effective edge. All through the night I worked, forcing the blade’s point into the iron-hard wood and working it back and forth until another splinter fell loose. From time to time I used the rats’ eyes to check on the guards. They were snoring away in their bunks; even the jailor sat with his head down on the table, his evening’s flagon of wine drained and empty.
After hours of unceasing effort, my blade scraped the hard iron of the door’s bolt. I jerked back, shocked by the noise. It sounded loud enough to wake the sleeping guards, to me. But that was only my own fear and surprise; the guards snored on, undisturbed. Now the trick was to worm the blade into the bolt’s slot and slide it open without snapping the dagger itself. My hands grew sweaty with the effort. Four or five times I felt the blade bending dangerously and withdrew it. The bolt remained stubbornly in place.
I stopped a while and tried to think of another way to get the stubborn
door open. I tried using the edge of the blade to catch some surface roughness on the bolt and slide it out of its slot that way. But the blade merely scratched along the bolt without finding any real purchase, nothing but iron sliding across iron.
Finally I hacked at the wood to make a wider opening and then wormed my index finger into the rough opening. I felt the cool round iron of the bolt, pressed my finger against it and then slid my finger back a fraction of an inch.
The bolt moved. I pulled my finger out, moistened it slightly on my tongue, and tried again. Again the bolt slid back a bit. Slowly, slowly, I pulled it out until I felt the door give slightly under my pressing weight. Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door open. The hinges groaned and I froze. But none of the guards stirred, down the corridor. I placed my chamberpot in its usual spot, then opened the door only enough to squeeze through. I shut it and slid the bolt home again. From out here in the corridor it was impossible to tell that the door had been damaged. They would not know I had escaped until the jailor realized that I had not touched the next bowl of gruel he brought.
I was free! Almost.
Holding my dagger before me I tiptoed past the slumbering guards and up the stairway that led to the ground floor of the palace. Keeping to the shadows, I managed to avoid the few guards who stood sleepily on duty. I made my way to one of the courtyards and quickly decided that the safest and swiftest way to travel was across the rooftops.
It was difficult to recognize which part of the palace I was crossing, and where the troop barracks was, especially in the dark of night. But I saw that the sky to the east was turning milky gray; soon it would be too light for me to go scampering across the roof tiles without being seen. So I found a spot where a fig tree’s branches shaded the roof. I gobbled a dozen of the ripe green figs, then settled in the tree’s shade there on the hard tiles of the roof and had my first restful sleep in weeks.
Chapter 31
I slept without dreams, although when I awoke, late in the afternoon, I had the disturbing feeling that I had been discovered in my hiding place.