Rome: Sword of the Legion (Sword of the Legion Series)

by R. Cameron Cooke

  The road above the marsh was not perfect, and from time to time it dipped into the shallow water forcing the camels to wade through the stagnant putrid liquid, stirring up a swarm of mosquitoes with every step. The priest led the way, evidently the only one who had been to this long lost shrine. Scanning the hazy horizon as far as his eyes would allow, Lucius could see nothing but swamp and low brush. It surprised him, then, when Khay steered his own camel away from the road and down into the marsh. He beckoned for the others to follow.

  “Down there? Are you sure?” Ganymedes asked skeptically, his face now swollen red from insect bites. “How can you be certain?”

  “This is the way,” Khay said simply, and then coaxed his mount on into the shallow muddy water. His voice was not nearly as imposing without the amplification of the mask. He still turned from time to time to stare at Lucius, as if he was uncomfortable with the idea of the Roman riding behind him.

  When they had reached a point well away from the road, such that the road could scarcely be seen beyond the long path of churning mud left by their mounts, Khay began to steer toward a clump of brush much larger than the others. As they drew closer, a bright structure with a rounded dome could be seen rising out of the reeds. From a distance it would have been dismissed as a mound of dry land, and Lucius now understood why the structure had remained a secret for so long. Pushing the tall reeds aside, they rode onto a wide stone staircase that was half-submerged in the murky water. At the top of the staircase they came to an open gate in a rundown stone wall. There they dismounted, and Lucius got his first good look at the structure within.

  The shrine was immense, at least two stories high, and standing inside a partially flooded courtyard that was surrounded by a wall as high as two men, though the wall had crumbled in several places where the erosion of the ages had taken its toll. A century of ebbs and floods of the Nile had not left the shrine untouched either. At one time, the structure must have been a small wonder to those who frequented it, but now it sat tilted on its foundation. It was slowly sliding into the mud and would someday be lost forever, like so many other constructions of the ancients.

  Demetrius took a step toward the open gate that led into the courtyard, but Khay outstretched a bony hand to stop him.

  “No!” snapped the priest. “Only the Roman and I go on from here. No one else may come.”

  “But why are you to go, Khay?” asked Demetrius. “The curse says no Egyptian can go inside the shrine.”

  “I do not intend to go inside,” Khay said irritably. “I will wait just outside the threshold. In the event that this Roman finds some inscriptions he cannot read, he can call them out to me.”

  Demetrius seemed to accept this answer. Ganymedes appeared to care little, and was already sitting in the shade of a crumbling column, fanning his face and slapping at mosquitoes.

  Lucius checked the pouch they had given him containing the papyrus and ink that he would use to reproduce the map, should he find it. He also checked his torch and finally his gladius to make sure it was there. He had no idea what he might face inside – anything from crocodiles to evil curses. Either way, he was only steps away from earning the promised gold, and that spurred him onward.

  “Lead on, priest,” he said.

  Khay looked back at him briefly, and then entered the courtyard, with Lucius close behind. The courtyard was not the kind that one might play ball in. It was covered with large stone monuments and steles bearing inscriptions of all kinds. Lucius could only guess what might be buried beneath them, but he had to keep up with the suddenly nimble priest who jumped from one dry patch of land to another, like a frog crossing a pond. They finally reached the tilted, entrance to the shrine. Inscriptions, now weathered and fading, had been carved into the stone periphery of the doorway. Lucius could not read them, but he assumed they portended doom to all who entered the off-kilter structure. A few paces beyond the doorway there was nothing but blackness, a dark void with flies buzzing in and out of the unseen space.

  “In there?” Lucius asked the priest.

  “Yes. You must go in there.”

  Striking a flint against one of the stone walls, Lucius puffed his torch to life, and then unsheathed his sword. He looked again at the foreboding entrance. There was no way of knowing how far he would have to go. The map could be anywhere.

  “Any words of counsel?” he asked.

  Khay looked somewhat surprised at the question, but then surprised Lucius back with his brimming answer.

  “You will no doubt encounter several snares, Roman. The priests of Horus knew how to protect their secrets well. Never let your guard down, even for an instant. Oftentimes, escape from one trap leads directly into another. By my estimation, the map room will be deep in the rear of the shrine, far down that passage.”

  “My thanks, priest. Anything else?”

  The intense eyes suddenly appeared hesitant before Khay added. “Just this. These shrines are often sought out by thieves, bent on finding treasure. Do not be disturbed if you find the remains of …others…who went before you.”

  As Lucius ducked into the doorway, his torch held before him, he wondered why the Khay had bothered to mention that. He truly doubted that the priest was in any way concerned for his peace of mind, let alone for his safety. Perhaps Khay thought the warning might improve Lucius’s chances of succeeding. Lucius let his mind be satisfied with that explanation.

  Once Lucius was through the door, the passage took a series of jagged turns. It was remarkable how the outside light was suddenly and completely swallowed up, even to the point where the torch seemed to afford little light. The pitch blackness through which he now groped smelled of putrescence and mildew. As stalwart a warrior as Lucius was, even he was forced to cover his mouth and nose with the skirt of his turban to avoid breathing in the foul air. Holding his gladius ahead of him, he proceeded cautiously, stepping once, and then stopping to look and listen. He repeated this over and over again until he came to a long, straight passage where the darkness finally abated. The passage was lit by glowing beams of sunlight emanating from large square holes in the ceiling, but these were not skylights as he had originally thought. It was dull, indirect light. Whether the outside world was but a single turn of the shaft above, or the light had been piped through a series of mirrored shafts from far away, he could not tell. He guessed the latter, judging from the putrid odor that hung in the air like a heavy blanket, and the fact that the flame in his torch was so starved of air that it was barely the size of a candle now.

  The passage before him appeared harmless enough. It led on for fifty paces or more, with shafts of light illuminating the corridor at even intervals. The space between the intervals was pitch black, but judging from the emptiness of the illuminated spaces there appeared to be no dangers here. That fact alone made him sharpen his senses. He withdrew the fabric from his mouth that he might smell any danger, if necessary. Then he began to move slowly, creeping toward the first dark space. He slowed considerably, checking every place he put his feet, forcing his eyes to adjust from the brightness of the beam he had just passed through. But there was nothing there, and he was through to the next shaft of light. Again, he approached the darkness with trepidation. But again, the passage in the dark space was no different than it had been in the light. He breathed easier, and cursed himself for being too cautious. The priest’s words had set an anxiety in him, and he now wished the bastard had said nothing at all. But just as he was about to casually step out of the light and into the next area of darkness, the priest’s words resounded in his head.

  Never let your guard down, even for an instant.

  Lucius stopped abruptly, catching himself before placing one foot in the dark space. Instead of stepping into the dark section of the passage, he crouched low and advanced cautiously, holding the scant light of the torch in one hand while he prodded the floor ahead with the sword. And then just inside the escarpment of dark shadow, his probing sword suddenly met with no resistance
at all. It was stabbing at a black void. He strained his eyes to discover that the floor disappeared just where the edge of the dark shadow started. There was no telling how deep the pit was or how far he would have to jump to clear the chasm. He had to assume the pit encompassed the entire dark section of passage, and if that were the case, there was no way he could make that leap. No less than ten paces separated him from the next shaft of light farther down the passage. At least he could see that the floor there was as intact as the one on which he now stood. But how could he get there?

  He tore a small piece of wool from the hem of his robe and coaxed the torch flame onto it. Then he tossed the flaming material into the blackness, fully expecting it to fall out of sight. He was surprised when it came to rest only a few feet down, and he certainly had not expected to see what the flame now revealed. Glimmering, three-foot spikes covered the floor of the pit, each one bearing a point that looked sharp enough to draw blood at the touch. But that was not all. Impaled upon five or six of these deadly spikes were the decaying remains of three men.

  After first dismissing the grisly bodies as mere thieves like the ones Khay had warned him about, Lucius realized that there was something odd about these corpses. Looking past them, at the floor of the pit, he could see a scattering of human bones. There were enough to have once comprised one or two human skeletons at the most, as one might expect to find inside a shrine that had lain hidden for a century, only occasionally discovered by an overly curious traveler. The bodies of the three men on the pikes, however, were relatively fresh, appearing to have only been dead for a few weeks at the most. What’s more, they each wore black tunics of similar make, the same kind Lucius had seen worn by many of the religious acolytes in Alexandria.

  While studying the bodies, Lucius discovered the way past the pit. A narrow ledge no wider than a hand’s breadth, projected from one wall affording a small foothold that the dexterous could nudge along while clutching the wall for support. Of course, the ancient priests of Horus would have needed a way to get safely past their own trap, and this ledge must have been it. With the agility of a velite, Lucius moved out onto the narrow space, and quickly made it across. He had spent enough time in his career balancing on the rails of a galley about to collide with an enemy vessel, that he had little problem negotiating the path, even with his torch in one hand.

  Once past the pit, he approached the next dark section of the corridor with caution, but to his relief, it hid nothing but the solid stones of the passage floor. And he soon discovered this to be the case for the remaining dark areas in the corridor.

  At the end of the hall, he came to an open portal. Peering inside, the torchlight revealed what appeared to be a great round room. A small glow of light emanated from an arched doorway on the opposite side. It appeared to be natural light, and it had the effect of luring one to move toward it, as if the outside world lay just beyond. But Lucius was still smarting from his encounter with the spike pit and was now on the lookout for such things. Directing the torch low, near his ankles, he once again could see that he was faced with some kind of open pit, for the room had no floor. Again, he tore off a bit of wool, lit it, and tossed it into the dark hole. As the burning fibers descended he could see that he stood on the precipice of a circular shaft encompassing the entire chamber, nearly twenty paces across. Not only was it much wider than the last, it was much deeper. He watched the tiny flame float down and farther down the shaft until it was nothing more than a flicker and was finally swallowed up by the blackness. Out of curiosity, Lucius grabbed a crumbled piece of brick on the floor and tossed it into the pit. He counted to fourteen before any echo of an impact made its way to his ear. It had sounded like a splash. There was no telling what vast underground lake this tube led to, nor how many unwary thieves had met their ends in this fashion, but one thing was certain – anything that fell into this pit would never again see the light of day.

  Lucius was wondering how he might get across it when he discovered that two ropes had already been provided for this. Like the strings of a lyre, the cords had been stretched tightly across the mouth of the chasm. One end of each rope was securely fastened to a great stone brick on Lucius’s side. The massive brick had probably fallen out of the ceiling decades before, and had evidently been chosen as an anchor for the ropes because of its size. It looked as though it weighed as much as a newborn elephant and certainly would not budge. The other ends of the ropes were attached to the opposite side by two grappling hooks that Lucius could only make out if he held the torch just right. He ran his fingers along the ropes and was further surprised. They were not old and frayed from years of decay, but newly stranded. Someone had been here before him, and somewhat recently. Perhaps the three dead men impaled in the passage had companions that had pressed on and made it this far. If so, Lucius could only assume that the map had already been discovered and the bandits were now far away. If they had already discovered the hidden location of the jewel, Lucius’s whole purpose for being here was now nullified.

  But, he could not turn back now.

  There was no reason for him not to trust the ropes, and he did not have any other means of crossing the gulch. He sheathed his sword and perched the torch in a holder on the wall, for he would have no means of carrying it from this point onward. After testing one of the ropes with nearly his whole weight, he stretched out under it and propelled himself along with hands and feet, like a worm upon a branch. As he passed over the center of the pit, he felt a chilling wind wafting up from the darkness below, like the exhale of a sleeping giant. But he did not look down.

  Once on the other side, he crouched in the arched doorway and paused. The dull light inside was created by a series of holes in the high stone ceiling, similar to those he had encountered in the corridor. Most of the room was dark, but there was enough light for him to make out its general size and shape. It was circular, with a large open area just inside the door, obstructed only by a few shadowy objects on the floor. Farther inside, a series of shoulder-high pedestals formed a narrow lane leading up to a tapered brick altar. It was here that most of the light was directed. Many of the pedestals were topped with falcon-faced masks, similar to the one Khay had worn in the queen’s house, and just as sinister looking. A few masks lay on the floor, thrown there either by disinterested thieves or the settling of the shrine’s foundation over the centuries. The altar at the end of the lane of pedestals was taller than a man and held a circular metallic object which appeared to be an ornate shield in the old Egyptian fashion. Remarkably, it still managed to reflect light through the layer of silt adorning its face. Beyond the altar, a high wall encrusted with jewels and hieroglyphics stretched from floor to ceiling. There appeared to be no other passage leading off from this chamber, and Lucius suspected that he had found the shrine’s inner sanctum.

  So, this was it, Lucius thought. This had to be the room containing the map. But one thing puzzled him. If other thieves had made it this far into the shrine – presumably the thieves that had left the ropes – why had they not stripped the room bare? Why had they left the shield atop the altar and the fortune’s worth of jewels adorning the wall? Even the falcon masks would fetch something in Alexandria’s markets.

  But as Lucius’s eyes grew further accustomed to the dim lighting, and the shadowy portion of the room just beyond the door, he suddenly realized what the dark clumps were that he had seen on the floor. His eyes had not registered them at first because they defied the mind’s instinctive logic. There were four clumps on the floor, but now Lucius realized with horror that he was looking at two men – two men that had been cleaved in twain at the waist with torsos and twisted legs flung several paces apart. The remains of these thieves appeared to be in the same early state of decomposition as the men in the pit, and they wore the same black guise of acolytes.

  Now Lucius fully understood why the treasures had not been touched. None of his predecessors had made it out of this place alive. He also understood that, no matter how qu
iet and serene that chamber appeared now, some kind of savage death awaited him just beyond the threshold.

  He thought for a moment, peering into the doorway, arching his head to try and see if any danger lay in waiting just out of sight, but the stone-brick door frame extended slightly into the room such that he could not see beyond it without putting his head fully inside the room. At that moment, he thought he heard something behind him, in the passage on the other side of the chasm, as if someone – or something – had stepped on a crumbling brick. He waited and listened intently, but did not hear it again, and dismissed it as one of the bats he had seen fluttering about the ceiling.

  Turning his attention to the chamber before him, he resolved to go inside the room and face whatever danger awaited him there. He had come to Egypt for gold, either that promised by Caesar or that he could make on his own, and here it was, before his eyes. He no longer cared if he found the map. Arsinoe, Ganymedes, and even Caesar, for that matter, could go to Hades and be damned. If he could make it to that beautiful, twinkling far wall, and pry loose a few of the jewels embedded there, his own quest would be fulfilled. Even a small bag-full of those rare gems would be enough for him to retire on.

  Crouching low with sword in hand, Lucius crept past the arched threshold and into the chamber. As he picked his way across the open area, he tried not to focus on the bodies on the floor but to keep a vigilant eye out for what had killed them. He could not help but notice that both men had been torn apart in exactly the same way. Both pairs of legs lay on the path in front of him and both torsos lay off to the right, as if flung there. The realization that both men had died at the same moment, after taking the same fatal step, did not occur to him until a moment too late, when he stepped on a blood-spattered stone brick near the dead men’s feet. The brick gave way beneath his hob-nailed boot, sinking a hand’s breadth into the floor and starting a great clamorous thunder of vibrations that ran through the floor and spread to the walls behind him. He turned to see that a great rectangular stone had come down from the ceiling and now blocked the doorway and his only escape route. An instant later, he heard a great snap as that of a giant ballista chord being released. A quick thought came to him – that if the torsos had been flung to the right, the danger was coming from the left. He spun around just in time to see a long glimmer of light emerging from the shadows on the left side of the room at lightning speed. In the briefest of glimpses, he saw a giant scythe-like curved blade, as long as two men standing on end, coming at him. Lucius’s speed and agility were the only things that could save him now. He moved with a swiftness that could only be attained from a lifetime spent dodging the arrows and javelins of Rome’s enemies. Instantly dropping to the floor, he escaped certain vivisection, but he did not avoid the giant blade altogether. The slicing, twelve-foot-long scythe tore the turban from his head, taking a few pieces of scalp with it. He pressed his belly harder into the stone floor, not daring to rise, somehow sensing that the danger was not over. He soon found that his instincts were correct. A rush of air brushed past his neck as the backstroke swing of the deadly blade passed a finger’s width above him. A great scraping sound then filled the room, and again tremors ran through the wall and floor as the great killing machine withdrew into the shadows.