Palace of Darkness

by Tracy L. Higley

  THIRTY-THREE

  CASSIA’S STRENGTH RETURNED BY DEGREES AS THE GUARDS dragged her by her arms through the palace halls. First, the memory of Alexander’s sweet face as he called out to her only moments ago lifted her head and opened her eyes. Then the hateful vision of her boy on the High Place altar strengthened her legs under her. She pulled herself to standing and held her ground.

  The two men paused to spin her around to walk with them. She noted with relief these two were not the ones whom she had wrestled with earlier, not the greasy brute whose arm she had sliced open.

  They pushed her along in front of them, down a corridor she’d never traveled, then stopped at a set of dimly lit steps. She could not see the bottom and knew they must end underground.

  She had existed in a haze of despair since the guards had grabbed her, but now the reality of descending into the earth, far from sunlight and from Alexander, wormed itself into her consciousness and stirred up a new fierceness.

  My last chance to save him.

  She rocked back on her heels at the top of the steps and yanked her arms from the guards. They had not expected her defiance, and she slipped from their grasp.

  A moment of triumph was followed by their angry shouts. They both reached out for her, and then she was fighting them, not with the trained moves of the arena Yehosef had taught her, but with a frantic, frenzied attack. She lashed out with arms and legs, kicked and clawed with the fury of an animal protecting its young. Her fingernails dug into flesh. The scene flashed light and dark before her as her hair tumbled about her face and blocked her vision.

  She heard the guards’ curses. Felt the rip of her clothes. Still she fought on, panting and thrashing. All the anger and futility of these past weeks exploded in a hundred pieces and she saw herself as from a distance, a tangled twist of tamarisk branches tossed in the wind.

  But it could not last. Her strength ebbed, her arms slowed, and then she was soaring, flying, over open space—they had cast her off and thrown her down the steps. Time slowed enough for her to remember the first time she had been thrown out of the palace, the beginning of this nightmare, and to realize with a crushing sadness that this was the end.

  The bottom of the steps rushed up to meet her and she thudded to the ground and lay still.

  She heard the laugh of the guards as from a great distance and heard the word jackal. For a delirious moment she thought she heard Alexander’s laughter float above their derision, but then it was gone and she knew it had not been real.

  Cassia was conscious of nothing until she found herself being carried by her wrists and ankles through the darkness. A fire burned in her wrist and shot up her arm and into her heart.

  Darkness again, then a scrape of iron and stone. The pain took her breath away.

  She felt her body swing between them like a sack of barley being tossed onto a pile, then felt the weightlessness yet again and the hard smack of the ground beneath her.

  When she woke, it was to solid darkness and utter silence.

  The dirt floor was cold beneath her, and she lay still a moment, focused on her breathing. She tested her wrist, then cried out in pain and brought her hand to her belly, cradling it with her other hand.

  The darkness was like the grave, complete and heavy, as though she had been buried while yet alive.

  Am I alive?

  The thought was like a wisp of smoke, and she fought to hold on to it. How could one be certain she still lived? Perhaps this was the underworld itself. She forced a picture of her cell into her mind, to hold on to sanity. Stone walls, no doubt. Iron bars across a small grate of a door.

  In the end, it was the searing pain in her wrist, too real, too earthbound, that convinced her she had fallen only to the depths of the palace, and not to the depths of the earth.

  And yet, what difference did it make?

  She was useless here, as surely as if she were dead. The Festival of Grain began tomorrow. How long would Hagiru keep her here? Would she ever send for her?

  If she ever frees me, it will not be before she has killed my son. This was truth.

  Cassia rolled to her side and curled herself into a ball, still cradling the injured wrist. Her cheek lay in the dirt, but she barely noticed.

  Memories washed over her, of happy times with Alexander, of her years with Aretas.

  Cassia sighed as a tear slid to the dirt beneath her cheek. She had thought she had come so far, changing into a woman of strength. And yet what had it accomplished?

  Strength had brought her to Petra. And Alexander was taken from her.

  Strength had pushed Julian away so she could stand alone. And now she lay alone in a cell.

  It would have been better to remain weak.

  She had pushed Julian away, refused to let him into her heart, unwilling to rely on a man again. But if she had let Julian take control, if she had never come to the palace and simply done what he told her, she would not be here now, where she had no chance to help her son. Relying on herself only brought failure.

  A scuffle in the darkness startled her. Something nearby and not human. She pulled herself to sitting and scurried backward, away from the scratching sound. Unthinking, she bore weight on her wrist. Flames shot through her arm and exploded in her head, and then the darkness grew even heavier and she slumped to the floor.

  Cassia awoke, eyes blinking slowly. She felt only a slight surprise to find herself standing on the bank of a rushing streambed, her bare feet sinking into the mossy ground and ferns tickling her ankles. The smell of damp earth and leafy growth filled her, a smell she had loved all her life and had greatly missed since coming to the desert city of Petra, with its grand gardens all enclosed in the courtyards of the wealthy.

  A huge acacia tree hung out over the stream, which she saw now was really a river. Its green boughs shaded her from the sunlight, still a pale yellow of early morning. The river rushed and tumbled here over smooth rocks, and somewhere nearby she believed she could hear it fall to a greater depth.

  She sighed, feeling a deep contentment for the first time in many years. The feeling of holding a newborn Alexander in her arms, of watching him take his first steps, of the first time he wrapped skinny arms about her neck and clung to her.

  “It is beautiful here,” a low voice nearby said.

  She sighed again, not caring to turn to the voice. “Yes, lovely.”

  The voice became the figure of a man beside her, but still she felt no curiosity about him, and rather than turn, she reached for the rockrose at her feet and ran her fingertips over its leaves.

  “I planted that rose especially for you.”

  She smiled at him. “Did you?” He was not tall, nor remarkable in any way. She had never seen him before, and yet he was familiar. As though she had been hearing stories about him for many years and now at last was seeing his face.

  He extended his arm along the riverbank. “Would you like to walk?”

  Cassia did not answer but fell into step with him, and there was comfortable silence between them. She felt strangely as though her feet did not touch the ground, did not disturb the moss or plants, and yet the river passed by as they walked.

  She tried to remember why she had been so sad earlier, but the memory eluded her, out of reach. She let it go.

  “We will speak of that later,” her friend said.

  She sighed once more. “Where are we going?”

  “To the truth.”

  They walked for some time without speaking again. A small wild hare darted in front of them and they slowed to watch. Another hare joined the first, and the two tumbled through the grasses like two siblings wrestling. Cassia laughed and her friend laughed with her.

  The hares scampered away and her laughter went on, until it swelled in her chest and turned to crying, as laughter sometimes did when one had held back tears too long.

  She turned to gaze at her friend through blurred eyes, the tears building until she sobbed as though her heart would break and yet did
not know why.

  It was like—like something else . . . she tried to remember. Yes, like the time Malik had laid his hands on her shoulder and brought forth a storm of emotion she did not understand.

  She did not know what her friend would say to such a display without cause, but he only wrapped her in strong arms and let her weep against his shoulder.

  “We have reached the truth.”

  She nodded, ready to hear it.

  “Cassia, you have spent many years seeking love through pleasing others. They have failed to love you well, for they were human and could not love you as you needed.”

  She sniffed against him, the sobs ebbing.

  “You must find the love you seek before you can love others from your strength. And you must love from strength, not from need.”

  She pulled back, looked up into his warm eyes. “You sound like Malik.”

  He smiled. “Ah, Malik. He is a special friend of mine.”

  A light breeze lifted Cassia’s hair and cooled her tears. She wrapped her arms about her waist. “How do I find the love that I seek?”

  The light around them wavered and flickered, as though it were a candle flame blown in the wind. He grew serious, but it was still with the intensity of love in his eyes. When he spoke, his voice seemed to flow over her heart like a healing balm.

  “Love has already found you.”

  She reached for Him then, because he seemed to be fading away, and because in that moment she knew His name, and the eyes of her heart opened and she wanted only to stay with Him and know Him more.

  Jesus.

  When she whispered His name and blinked again, she found herself back in the palace cell, still lying in the dirt, with visions of a grassy riverbank still hovering before her eyes.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  JULIAN LEFT THE PALACE TOO NUMB TO FEEL ANYTHING. Nahor and Niv followed behind, and somewhere Malik would be there, waiting to chastise him for his failure to trust in a power greater than himself. But he could only see Cassia’s eyes, bereft of Alexander once more, and Marta’s gray face and limp body sprawled on the floor of the throne room. He stalked down the main street, unwilling to speak.

  They reached the housing district, and Julian slowed long enough to let Nahor and Niv reach him. Malik was not in sight.

  The father and son pulled up and waited for his instructions.

  Only a fool would look to me to lead.

  “Go to the Siq. Find Cassia and tell her Alexander will not be coming.”

  “What will you do?” Nahor asked, his chin lowered.

  Julian looked down the street to the tomb site where he and Cassia had spent so many hours together. “Go back to the tombs.” I am good at nothing else.

  He left them quickly, before Malik would appear, before they could ask any more questions, before anyone would rely on him to say or do or be anything at all.

  It seemed to Julian the work site should have changed, should be different now that the world had shifted for him. But it was as he had left it, with little progress made in his absence. The crew worked near the middle of the facade, and no one had taken his place today on the highest stone ledge where his decorative figures would lend their beauty to the rock wall.

  Here is where I should be leading. Where I can accomplish something.

  He climbed the narrow steps carved for the sculptors and masons, ignoring the laborers who hailed him as he passed.

  His hammer and chisel felt solid and worthwhile in his hands, and he took his rightful place facing the rock and hacked at the newest niche as though he could make it feel pain. The rock split and chips flew with no one to gather them, and the ching of his tools rang out across the narrow valley.

  The physical release of attacking the rock did little to calm his spirit. Instead, his mind flew back to Rome, to the last time he had tried to take a stand and failed.

  Why did I think it would be different this time?

  No, it served no purpose to strive for greater things. Making a name for himself as a sculptor should be his focus.

  The gouges in the orange-red rock deepened, and Julian did not pause even to wipe the sweat from his forehead. It beaded and ran into his eyes, but he merely blinked at the sting and kept pounding, pounding. The sun slid across the sky and the salt of his sweat mixed with tears, though he did not know if he wept or if his eyes simply ran with tears from the effort he expended. Nor did he care.

  The midday call to eat echoed up from the ground and he ignored it. If he could keep up this pace, perhaps this niche would be hollowed out behind the small column of stone he left untouched, and he could begin the finer details of carving by tomorrow. Yes, that would impress the unskilled on the ground below, to see the newest sculpted capital, with its floral motif, take shape so quickly under his hands.

  He heard his name called but assumed it was only for the meal and waved away the distraction. But then he realized someone was climbing to him, and he glanced down, ready to scold for the interruption—and found Malik, gasping for breath and clinging to the rock wall.

  “What are you doing, old man?”

  The sun reflected on Malik’s balding head and his fingers scraped the stone for a hold. “Praying!”

  Julian huffed. “You should not be up here.”

  Malik squinted up at him. “Then you come down.”

  Julian dropped his shoulders, then his tools. “Return to the ground. I will come down.”

  Malik picked his way slowly back down the rock wall and Julian followed, nearly stepping on the man’s head. Finally in the street, Julian spoke. “I have much to finish before the end of the day. What do you need?”

  “The tombs will wait.” Malik’s gaze on him was somber. “The Lord will not.”

  Julian barked a mirthless laugh. “What does the Lord want with me?”

  “Everything.”

  Julian stalked away, not knowing where he walked but not wanting to remain. “I have tried that, and it has only brought others pain.”

  Malik kept up with him, panting slightly. “You have not given everything, Julian. Not yet.” His voice held an uncharacteristic note of anger.

  Julian slowed, then turned, shaking with the emotion he had held at bay since leaving the palace. “You have no idea what I have tried. You were not there, in Rome.”

  Malik gripped his arm and dug his fingers into Julian’s skin until it hurt. “Tell me.”

  Julian pulled away, crossed the street to an outcrop of rock at the base of the cliff, and flung himself onto it. Malik lowered himself onto the ledge a moment later.

  Julian searched for a place to begin, a place that did not feel like ripping open a barely healed wound. “The church in Rome is strong. I grew up there, in the midst of all of them, ready to take my place.”

  “Your parents are believers?”

  “Yes. Since before my birth.”

  “A blessing.”

  Julian snorted. “Yes, as much as growing up in the shadow of a great man is a blessing for any boy.” His father’s tall, athletic form appeared in his mind’s eye. “He is a senator, a well-respected one.”

  He felt Malik’s surprise. “A Christian senator?”

  “Exactly. It has not been an easy balance for him. But he has maintained his integrity, his witness, and his influence through all these years.”

  “Impressive, as you say.”

  Julian looked away, out over the sunbaked city. “Yes, until I managed to put all of that in danger.”

  “God is bigger than even our own impetuous mistakes.”

  Not surprising he assumes I was impetuous. “I did not believe that my father took enough of a stand when the persecutions began as a trickle. I felt if he were more vocal, he could stop it from becoming a flood.”

  “So you became more vocal for him?”

  Julian rolled a stone under his foot, creating a track in the sand, following the track as though it carried him backward through time. The memories were there, hardly buried.

>   The arena, its thousands cheering, celebrating, as believers were torn apart. He saw the Flavian Amphitheatre filled to capacity, yellow-and-red pennants at its upper tier snapping in the warm breeze, and the white-and-gold togas of thousands in the seats.

  And Vita, her blood soaking into the sand, nothing more than an afternoon’s entertainment for them.

  Later, when his father met with the others in the Senate House, Julian had burst into the building to speak his mind, convinced his father was too weak to say what should be said.

  “They were Roman citizens!” His voice slapped back at him as if each of the senators were also made of stone. Even his father’s face was unnaturally still. “We are not Gaulic barbarians!” he continued, his heart pounding. “We are Rome, and Rome has always shown respect for dissenting opinions, has always valued debate and discourse, as each of you in this room can bear witness to!”

  His father was beside him in a few moments, his face still a mask of stone. He put an arm around Julian’s shoulder and bowed to the Senate. “Forgive my son, gentlemen. He is young and hotheaded, with all the brashness that accompanies his youth.”

  “He shall make a fine senator someday!” one of his father’s friends called out generously, and the room laughed. Julian felt his face flame. His father led him out of the Senate House, to the marble steps that overlooked the city.

  “Go home, son.” He spoke as though Julian were a child who had interrupted him at work.

  “Father—”

  But his father held up a hand. “This is not the way we shall win this battle.”

  Julian went home then. Back to his mother, Ariella, who had seen her share of grief in the arena and had an angry crisscross of a scar on her upper arm to prove it. She had always told him she was proud to bear the shame of her Lord’s cross on her body as a reminder. That day she cried with him over the broken body of Vita, and the guilt that accompanied her death.

  Julian came back to the present, to Malik’s silent censure beside him. “My father has done much for the Christians in Rome. Not only despite his position but because of it, using his influence in elite circles.”