by David Drake
She felt the shaman touch the curl again; then he must have lowered his hand. "I will never break the bounds of this place, little one," he said quietly. "This is my universe. I would have to go outside everything that exists for me to escape it; which I cannot do, no matter how great a magician you think me. No magician, no god even, can do that."
Perhaps there was sadness in his measured tones as he added, "It is good of you to visit me, Alphena."
She blinked, then rubbed her eyes fiercely with the backs of her hands before opening them again. They still stung, but she could see.
Alphena could see people beyond where the fish circled. Their figures were hazy, and they didn't sharpen when she focused on them the way everything else in this place did.
They aren't in this place!
"Uktena!" she said in excitement. She pointed toward the figures, still visible though they were fading into a greater distance. "Who are they? Could they help you?"
The shaman laughed. "Little one, little one," he said. "They perhaps could, for only one who remembers much of the arts which the spirits whispered to him could even be in the place between universes. But they will not help me."
Alphena clenched her fists and squeezed her eyelids almost closed. "They might," she said. "They may!"
"Alphena, look at me," the shaman said in a voice of command. She turned without thinking.
The monster of heads and arms and legs beyond number filled her awareness. There was nothing in this place that was not it. Typhon was all.
Instead of screaming, Alphena closed her eyes and began to cry. Hands took hers gently; arms drew her cheek against a human chest.
"Don't cry, little one," Uktena said softly. "There is no reason for sadness. What is, is. What other kind of universe could you or I be content in?"
Instead of rubbing her eyes, Alphena put her arms around the shaman. It was like hugging a muscular tree trunk.
"I'll free you!" she said. "Some way, some how, I will!"
But her voice faded and her arms dissolved. Very faintly she heard, "Farewell, little one…"
Alphena awakened from her dream. It was dawn, and Uktena had risen to do battle.
***
Hedia saw nothing and heard nothing as she dropped into the blue light, not even the screams she tried to force through her throat. She felt Lann's hand, however, so she clung to it as a shipwrecked sailor does to a floating spar.
With a coldness in her heart beyond any previous fear, Hedia knew there were worse dangers in this place than mere drowning. How long could she be trapped in this place before oblivion replaced even madness?
Her feet touched-the ground? Something solid, at any rate. Her eyes flew open; she hadn't realized that she had closed them to shut out the terror of nothingness.
Lann was looking at her in concern, but he hooted cheerfully when she smiled. They stood on a plane that was the same almost-blue neutrality as the disk into which he had drawn her. She thought there were bulks in the far distance, but they had no more shape than clouds on a moonless night.
The ape-man grunted, then turned and started forward. Hedia felt an instant's terror when he let go of her hand, but she didn't vanish into gray limbo again. She caught her breath and strode after him.
I wish he'd warned me before he did that.
She grinned away her scowl. If he had given her any warning, she would have clung to him in fear and despair.
An arrow with red fletching and an orichalc point dangled from Lann's left hip, wobbling as he walked. It had pierced loose skin, apparently without touching muscle.
Hedia had been vaguely aware of a zip! zip! as the ship drove into the shielding canopy, but only now did she realize that bowmen aboard the vessel had been shooting at them.
Shooting at the ape-man, more likely. Though the Minoi might have been willing to cripple Hedia in the hope that they wouldn't nick an artery in the process.
The arrow was a quivering reminder of how nearly she had been recaptured. It was possible, of course, that before long she might think being in the hands of the Minoi would be preferable to having escaped to this place.
Hedia grinned again. That seemed unlikely. And so long as she was with Lann, there were compensations.
She had believed that they were walking along a level plane. That might be true, but the strain on her thighs suggested that she was climbing. There was nothing to judge their progress against; she had only her faith in the ape-man that they were actually going somewhere instead of just going on.
Movement jerked her attention to the right. What had been foggy distortion when she first reached this side of the disk now resolved to people, or- Hedia started back. "Lann!" she said.
She tugged the ape-man's wrist till he turned to face her, then pointed with her whole arm. "What is that? I thought I saw-"
She would either have finished the sentence with "-my daughter Alphena," or with, "-the terrible monster I saw in the theater." In the event she said neither, because Lann snatched her arm down with a haste that was just short of violence. Hooting, he swung her around him so that his body was between her and the shifting images. It was the closest thing to anger that he had yet displayed toward her.
He's afraid of that, whatever it is, Hedia realized. Or anyway, the ape-man was afraid of what might happen if she called attention to them by pointing. That might be a real concern or just the sort of superstition that made a peasant unwilling to claim that his crop was shaping toward a good harvest.
She wouldn't make that mistake again.
Lann released her and started forward again. Hedia followed submissively, keeping her arms by her side. When she had reached out to point, her hand had met a resistance which it couldn't feel. There had been nothing visible between her and the beings that she glimpsed, but she was sure that the place her arm went was not really toward what she saw.
After a dozen paces, Hedia became sure that the ape-man wouldn't turn around to check on her. She glanced to her right.
Alphena was no longer present. Where there had been a monster indescribable in its vastness and complexity, now stood a man in a loincloth who wore his hair in two braids. He wasn't young, but he was very well set up. Large fish of varied colors circled him at a distance.
A reflexive smile started to lift the corners of Hedia's mouth. The man's eyes flicked toward her. She could see him as clearly as if they were facing one another at dinner.
She stiffened; her face, unbidden, set itself into regal lines. I am Hedia, wife of Gaius Saxa and a noble of Carce…
For this man was a noble also. She didn't know where he came from, but she accepted at a glance that he was her equal in every fashion; and, being male, was possibly a little more equal in some fashions.
That was all right with her. Hedia's smile was slight but real. In its place.
When she focused on the man, Hedia had the impression of courtiers standing nearby in obsequious silence. Her eyes followed the motion.
She saw fish, the same colorful fish as before. When she didn't focus on the nobleman, she saw around them, filling existence, Typhon: a writhing, swollen horror which hungered to grow for all eternity.
Hedia faced away, grimacing. All this business had started with the vision of Typhon destroying what she now knew was the city of Poseidonis. If that had really happened instead of it being a mirage in the bowl of the theater, she would have been spared these recent days of unpleasantness.
Though she would have missed Lann also, which would have been a shame. Not tragic, but a shame nonetheless.
Lann turned. Hedia gave him an impish smile, her reflex when she feared she had been caught in some wrongdoing, but the ape-man wasn't concerned with whether she had continued to look at the figures to their right. Instead he stared past her, back-she could only assume this, as she saw empty gray on all sides-the way they had come.
The ape-man hooted in concern. He started to go on, then stopped without warning and squatted over his disk.
; One of her first husband's friends had an ape trained to play the dice game Bandits. Lann looked so much like that animal peering over the game board that Hedia half-expected to see him react as the ape had-by suddenly flying into a rage and hurling the board, the counters and all in every direction.
That had been unexpected and exciting; and dangerous, but danger added spice to life. She giggled, as she had giggled when she watched the screaming ape knot a bronze lamp stand as easily as a man might have done a blade of grass.
New images appeared around Hedia and the ape-man, replacing their gray surroundings with a blankness indistinguishable to her-save for the pair of Atlantean ships which flew out of a spiraling blur. Their sails beat, driving them forward here just as they had on the other side of the portal.
The Minoi pursuing Hedia in the jungle had not given up when Lann took her through the portal. They would never give up.
Armored figures stood in the sterns of the vessels. The human servants holding wooden bows and spears were huddled against the railings. Their eyes were closed and many seemed to be mumbling prayers. Several even curled their knees against their chests and wrapped their arms around them.
The Servitors-four on one vessel, two on the other-were upright and alert; their weapons were orichalc. Hedia couldn't imagine that even Lann's strength would prevail against those odds.
The ape-man dropped his lens; its images dissolved like sand ramparts in the tide. Facing the Minoi in the unseen distance, he rose into a bandy-legged posture of threat, his head cocked forward and his great fangs bared. He roared loudly, even with no walls to echo from. He roared again, then drummed his broad chest with fists like mauls.
There was no response. That would come soon enough, Hedia knew, in the form of fiery swords or arrows.
The ape-man dropped to all fours. Hedia thought he planned to run in his chosen direction until the ships caught them; and perhaps that was all that had been in his bestial mind until his knuckle touched the crystal disk.
Lann paused, as motionless as a statue covered with shaggy fur. Then, with the deliberation of a torturer raising the poker he had heated, he turned with the disk toward the unseen barrier between them and Typhon.
Hedia wrung her hands. She shifted her eyes from the crouching ape-man, back to the way they had come. She couldn't see the Minoi, but expectation of their arrival frightened her less than what the ape-man was doing.
She couldn't bring herself to look at what was happening beyond the barrier. Even so she was aware at the corners of her eyes that something twisted and flowed. It moved like a serpent or a thousand serpents, and she knew what it was even without looking; what it was, and how huge it was.
The ape-man grunted with angry satisfaction. He was using both hands to force the edge of the disk against nothing. The crystal suddenly lurched forward against his pressure.
He drew back quickly and got to his feet. The lens swung in his left hand; it appeared unharmed.
"Lann, what have you done?" Hedia said. Tiny cracks were running across the surface of the unseen, like tendrils of mold through bread.
The ape-man grunted and gestured her on. When she hesitated, he caught her shoulder with his free hand and dragged her. She stumbled for a dozen steps before she properly got her feet under her so that she could keep up. Lann released her only when he was sure that she would follow at his own best speed.
Hedia glanced over her shoulder as she trotted beside the ape-man. The cracks were expanding swiftly.
And the immensity beyond writhed closer.
***
Varus stood in a corner of the Forum, looking up at the Citadel and the Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest. It was past the close of business, but the pavement was still crowded.
The son of Gaius Saxa wasn't being jostled, of course. A contingent of servants faced outward around him, shoulder to shoulder. That kept him clear to the length of his arm.
No one, including Candidus who was in charge of the escort, had asked Varus why he wanted to stand by himself in the Forum. He wasn't sure that any of the servants had even wondered.
Everyone in Saxa's household knew that the master's son was a literary sort who pondered things that no ordinary person could even imagine. A reputation for being unfathomably strange seemed to buy one a degree of tolerance for acts that would have aroused comment if committed by someone normal.
Varus smiled wistfully. He wasn't sure himself why he had chosen the Forum for what he had come to do. This wasn't where Carce had first been settled: traditionally, that had been the Palatine Hill, behind him. The Citadel would have provided a better view of present-day Carce, and it had been the religious and military core when the city first came to prominence.
But the Forum had been and to a degree remained the civil heart of Carce, and a city was its citizens. The first great act of the citizens of Carce had been to drain the Forum through the Cloaca Maxima, transforming a marshy pasture into a plain in which they could assemble and decide their laws. Rather than to look down on the Forum from the Citadel, Varus had chosen to stand where his forefathers had gathered in times of peace.
His vision had shown him Typhon engulfing the Forum. But Typhon, the Sibyl had told him, was not the business of Gaius Varus…
Varus unrolled the book of Egyptian magic in his mind. He found the verse and read in a loud voice, "I open the doors of heaven!"
A jagged gash tore soundlessly through the sky, splitting it down to the pavement beside Varus-where the Sibyl was now standing. There were no stars in the gaps between halves of cloud-swept blue.
"Sibyl?" he said in surprise. "I thought… that is, you've never come to me this way before. In Carce. I thought I'd be climbing the hill to see you as usual."
The Sibyl sniffed. "All this is mummery, Lord Varus," she said, gesturing toward the crack in the sky. "I am a shadow of your will, no more. How shall a shadow direct the wizard who casts her?"
She gave him one of her unreadable smiles and patted his arm. Looking about the Forum, she said, "In my day, Evander pastured his cows in this valley. Everything changes, Lord Varus. Everything changes, and eventually everything ends."
If you're not real, then how can you talk about Evander? Varus thought.
He grinned in sudden realization. The statement had brightened his mood by posing him the kind of question he understood: a literary question. Now he could smile as he considered the matter that had brought him-brought them-here.
"Sibyl," he said, "what is Procron doing that I should stop? If he simply lives in that barren world, what harm can he do to Carce?"
"That place, that barren world…," the Sibyl said. She turned away from him to view the huge hall which Aemilius Paullus had built from the spoils of conquered Greece. "Is this world, this Earth, Lord Varus. In the distant future when there are no men save Procron himself in exile, but still the Earth. He hates his fellow Minoi, because they drove him out of Atlantis."
She paused to look up at the Citadel. Seemingly off the subject, she said, "You thought Evander was a myth, did you not, Varus?"
Varus felt his smile spread wider. "I thought you were a myth, Sibyl," he said. "I have made other mistakes besides that."
"If it is a mistake," the Sibyl said musingly. "If it really is."
In a businesslike, relatively firm, voice, she went on, "Procron cannot return from his place of exile, but his powers gain him agents in other times. He works to loose Typhon from the place he was bound. Typhon will destroy Atlantis and the Minoi; but he will destroy all things, save Typhon himself."
Varus took a deep breath. Members of a family-two families, he realized-were sacrificing at the altar in front of the ancient Temple of Saturn. The heads of house were probably consecrating a marriage contract. They were planning for the future; a future which would not exist, for them or for anyone, unless Gaius Varus prevented an Atlantean sorcerer from freeing the greatest of the Earthborn Giants.
The Sibyl looked at him and smiled again, this time
without the gentle humor she had shown before. "You cannot prevent Procron from loosing Typhon," she said, responding to Varus' unvoiced thoughts, "because Typhon is already loose. What you must do is to slay Procron before he does further harm. And you see-"
Her lined face was suddenly grim, as fearsome as a bolt of lightning.
"-Procron is no more. His body is dead, and the skull that rules him is in a dimension that nothing human can reach; not even the Sibyl, who once was human and is now the shadow of a great wizard."
A small fire smoked on the altar. The families watched in satisfied silence as the priest, his arms lifted, prayed to Saturn… the king of the gods before his son Jupiter supplanted him. Saturn, who presided over the Golden Age, when all men were happy and the world was at peace.
From the crack in the sky oozed Typhon in hellish majesty: swelling, spreading, devouring all things and crushing all things. Destroying the great buildings of Carce, then destroying the very hills on which the city had been founded. All things for all time-dead and gone.
"Strong necessity demands-" the Sibyl cried.
"-that these things be accomplished!" Varus concluded in a thin, cracked voice.
Candidus turned, frowning as he tried to understand the words. Whatever he saw in his master's face prevented him from speaking.
***
Corylus felt the railing grow firm again beneath his gauntleted grip. He breathed a sigh of relief that reminded him of how disconcerted he had been when reality dissolved.
He wasn't a good sailor. The way a ship's deck moved even when it was tied up in harbor affected a part of him beyond the real danger involved. He liked to keep one hand on a rope or, better, the mast or a railing. What was true on water was doubly true on this vessel, floating several hundred feet above the ground.
Except that the ship was on water, snugged to a bollard in the stern and with the bow anchor hooked into a niche in the quay. They were in Ostia, the old port at the mouth of the Tiber, at one of the berths on the breakwater which Corylus remembered were generally used by small trading vessels from the West. The sunlit stone pavement reeked with the odor of Spanish fish sauce, the residue of decades of jars dropped during unloading.