Lava flowed from pools of boiling magma. Flames writhed over molten rock, illuminating the cave in flickering light that cast red and orange shadows. Hot air shimmered in the heat, distorting outlines so the very stones seemed to dance in partnership.
Heat radiating from the magma should have burned off her skin and boiled the blood in Rhian’s veins, but she felt nothing. She was a ghost observing hell. A gleam of yellow-brown metal in the distance caught her eye. It came closer, expanding into a giant made from highly polished bronze, except that it didn’t move like a robot or any kind of machine. It flowed like living liquid metal.
The giant held a round shield on his left arm and a sword in his right hand. Silver and gold leaf patters radiated out from the center of the shield like a stylized sun. It gazed at them and its mouth curled.
“Women, the weaker vessel, in my sanctuary. What vile heresy is this?” it asked, voice booming and echoing off the walls.
Golden flames sprung along the sword as if someone had turned on a gas tap. Frankie dropped to her knees, pulling Rhian down beside her.
“Great Mithras, we beg pardon. We are travelers from a far country on an important errand for your worshippers,” Frankie said.
“My worshippers are soldiers, merchants, men of power and substance. What need have they of help from weak and feeble womanhood. Back to your homes and children, to await your husband’s pleasure.”
“There’s someone looking for a smack,” Rhian said under her breath.
“But we bring a gift, Great Mithras. To enhance your majesty and glory, we bring the gift of northern fire,” Frankie said.
“Show me,” the giant said.
Frankie’s lips moved in a soundless chant and she cupped her hands. When she opened them, blue flames sprung from a white ball resting on her palms. She threw the ball clumsily with both hands, like a schoolgirl. Rhian expected it to drop to the ground after a few feet, but it floated weightlessly across the courtyard. The ball splattered on the statue’s shield, cascading blue fire over the surface. The statue tilted the shield, seemingly mesmerized by the crawling flames.
“Come on, while it’s distracted. Don’t look back”
Frankie jumped up and pulled on Rhian’s arm and they were outside the cave, back in the courtyard.
They made a run for the courtyard exit, even the motherly witch managing to put on a fair turn of speed. Outside the courtyard Frankie stopped and bent over, panting and holding her side.
“What, in the name of all the sexist pigs rotting in hell, was that?” Rhian asked.
“That was a god, or a daemon if you prefer, Great Mithras by name.”
“God of what, women-hating?”
Frankie laughed, the laugh turning into a coughing fit as she was still out of breath. Rhian thumped her on the back. Eventually Frankie pushed her off and carried on.
“Mithraism was another of those Middle Eastern monotheistic religions, like Christianity or Islam. You may have noticed none of them is exactly keen on women, but Mithraism took it to its logical conclusion and banned them altogether. The Mithraics also prohibited slaves and even men from the lower orders joining. They had ranks and degrees, like Freemasonry, so were popular with the army for a while. They lost out badly against Christianity, which took anybody and everybody indiscriminately.”
“But walking metal giants waving flaming swords?”
“This is the Otherworld, honey, reality is mutable.”
“How did you know it was Mithras, so you could placate him with flames?”
“There were certain clues: the death of the sacred bull, the underground cave, but, most of all, the fact Mithraism’s London temple was discovered ages ago off Queen Victoria Street. I recalled Mithraism involved flame-worship. We need to press on.”
“Are you up to it?” Rhian asked.
“Oh, sure, I was just a bit winded from running. The magic was nothing, just a conjuring trick really, but I’m glad it worked. I would not have relished a thaumatological duel with a god.”
“If you’re ready, hotpants,” said the daemon in the phone. “Follow the brook.”
“I didn’t notice you offering much help in there,” Frankie said.
The mobile blew a raspberry at her.
The brook was the Walbrook, another of London’s lost underground rivers. It split Londinium in half. The women walked down to a wooden footbridge and crossed to the other side. They reached the Thames by the side of a complex of buildings in a low-walled compound. Clerks in tunics, soldiers with the wide military belts, and the odd official in a toga signified that they had found the governmental heart of the city. It was a sort of Roman Whitehall.
The riverbank was lined with wharves used by river boats, everything from a one-man coracle to a flat-bottomed sailing barge. The Thames was so much wider than in modern London, even allowing for the fact that the tide was in, and Southark, on the south bank, seemed to be an island among mud flats.
They stayed clear of the bank, which was an anthill of activity. In amongst the loading and unloading of river boats, slaves and masons were building a city wall along the river. Carts full of white Kent stone crossed the Walbrook by a wooden bridge on their way to the building area. Nobody paid the slightest attention to health and safety protocols.
“The riverside wall was put up much later than the land side, at the end of the third century,” Frankie said, half to herself. “That was an unsettled period.”
“Yeah,” Rhian said. “It would be. I mean you don’t spend money on military defense in peaceful times.”
London Bridge was downstream a hundred meters or so. The parts above water were made entirely of wood, even the pillars supporting the structure being layers of stout logs. The bridge was wide enough for carts to cross. High railings, supported on crossbeams, lined each edge. Only the entrance ramps at each end were stone, or more probably earth banks lined by stone.
The tide was on the ebb, and the river swirled around the wooden supports angrily as if Old Father Thames was trying to remove the interloper from his domain. Heavy wood piles broke the water in front of the supports.
The protective rails were essential, as there seemed to be no road rules, and carts and people jockeyed for position. While she watched, two carts collided amid much yelling and fist waving that took the attention of a small detachment of soldiers to resolve. They did this by beating both carters indiscriminately with the hafts of their spears.
To reach the bridge they had to walk back into the city to the start of the ramp. Crossing involved some fancy footwork to avoid pedestrians, carts, and the occasional bodyguards clearing the way for someone important and his hangers-on.
Larger fat-bodied ships, half as wide as long, were moored on the seaward side of the bridge in the main channel. A single mast in the center supported a crosspiece for the main sail. A smaller mast projected over the bows, holding a smaller crosspiece. The ships were decked and a large rectangular hatch gave access to the hold. Rhian was fascinated by the vessel’s alienness.
Two steering bars, connected to the side rudders, projected into a railed wooden platform at the stern. No doubt Master and helmsmen navigated from this position. Rhian noticed that the furled sails were dyed a pale browny-green that blended with sea and sky.
The ship immediately behind the bridge carried white Kentish stone. A gang of men unloaded the cargo into flat-bottomed river barges to ferry the blocks to the wharf. They swung the stone over the side of the ship slung under a wooden crane rigged on a temporary tripod. The work looked hard and dangerous.
“Okay, phone, we’re on the bridge, now what?” Frankie asked.
“Go to the Southwark end and place me on a vacant display pole, then you can bugger off.”
The south end of the bridge had spears lashed to the railings, upon which were stuck rotting heads. The first head looked at them, but not with eyeballs. They had long since rotted away or been pecked out by crows. Little orange sparks flickered deep in the blacke
ned sockets.
“I was Recinus, Governor of Londinium, who opposed the revolt of Carausius. Look on me and see the fruits of loyalty,” the head said, in a hollow voice.
“I was Carus, Commander of the Fort, who plotted with Carausius. Look on me and see the fruits of treachery,” said a second head.
“I was Carausius, Imperator, Lord of the North, Ruler of Britain and Gaul. Look on me and see the fruits of ambition.”
There were more but Rhian shut them out, since none of the names or events meant much to her. Frankie stopped at the first free spear.
“You didn’t by any chance bring some tape, Rhian?”
“’Fraid not.”
“Just put me on the top and say the words, you silly cow. I will do the rest,” said the phone.
Frankie gave it a filthy look but did as she was bid, holding it in place with outstretched hands while chanting a spell. The phone morphed into a head, just as rotten and decayed as the rest.
“Max said you’d guide us home without the need for me to open a gate,” Frankie said to the head.
“Just walk back along the bridge to London. Even you two bimbos should be able to manage that.”
Frankie opened her mouth to snarl a reply but was beaten to it by a rough voice.
“Oy, what’re you bints doing?”
“Just examining the traitors,” Frankie replied calmly. “As my Lord Allectus commands.”
“Oh well, right, sorry, ma’am,” the soldier dipped his head in a slight bow of respect. “But it’s not safe for a lady of quality this side of the bridge without an escort.”
“Indeed, no, thank you,” Frankie said, turning and walking away.
Rhian hurried to catch up, ignored by all and sundry. Apparently her lowly status rendered her invisible.
“Who the hell is Allectus?” she asked.
“I’ve worked out where we are. This is the fag-end of the Carausian revolt. Carausius set himself up as Emperor of northern France, the Low Countries, and Britain. He executed officials and officers loyal to Maximian, the western Emperor. He did okay for a while until he lost prestige when the new western Caesar, Constantius, recaptured Boulogne. Allectus was one of Carausius’ henchmen. He mounted a coup, assassinating Carausius and starting a new wave of purges, hence the heads. These are troubled times and it’s going to get worse.”
“Oh, why?”
“Allectus was a financial officer, a bean counter with no military experience. He will be soundly beaten in a battle somewhere on the south coast by an army sneaking ashore in thick fog. His defeated Frankish troops sack London before Constantius gets a fleet up the Thames.”
“Um, Frankie, have you noticed the weather?” Rhian asked, pointing downstream.
Thick banks of fog rolled across the water, spilling out across the marshy countryside. The east wind had got up and there was a distinct chill in the air.
“Oh goddess, it’s later than I thought. Come on!”
Frankie grabbed Rhian’s arm and started to run.
Something was on fire in the City, a house or other building, judging by the thick trail of black smoke that twisted into the sky before dissipating to the east. It solidified into a giant bronze figure of Mithras, who waved his sword and shield. He screamed something that Rhian didn’t quite catch about the whores of Babylon and thrust the sword towards London Bridge. Bolts of golden lightning flashed from the tip and headed in their direction.
Rhian screamed, put her arms out protectively and waited to die. A blue haze covered her and Frankie, a shield that caught the lightning and absorbed it, radiating the energy away over the city. Quanta of blue power shot over Rhian’s head like a stream of tracer bullets. Mithras raised his shield and they bounced off, but the impact forced him to his knees.
A giant figure of an ancient Egyptian queen stood over Southwark. A ribbon held back her black hair. Brick-red, it matched the color of her ankle-length dress. She held an ankh in her left hand and a long steel rod in her right. The ankh was the source of the blue energy. The strangest thing about the goddess was her hat, which resembled a stylised throne. She looked straight at Rhian. A deep calm soaked into Rhian’s soul like a cool breeze on a summer’s afternoon, like the smell of new baked bread, like the caress of a lover’s hand.
Oh, James, how I miss you, she thought but not with the usual bitter guilt and pain. Under the jet-black eyes of the goddess she felt regret and sadness rather than hurt. Mostly she experienced such joy that once she had been loved unconditionally, beautifully, by someone who sacrificed his life for her.
“Isis, Great Mother, Queen of heaven, we thank you,” Frankie said.
The goddess lowered her rod. The weird bifurcate end played silver flashes over Mithras. He snarled with rage and cowered under his shield.
The fog reached the bridge and rolled under. It piled up, higher and higher, until it spilled over the edge and the first tendrils flowed around their ankles. In seconds the mist covered Rhian and Frankie completely and they lost sight of the divine duel.
The bridge vanished from under Rhian’s feet. She fell into the river and water closed over her head. She wished she had learned to swim.
CHAPTER 24
OVER THEIR HEADS
Buildings with roofs that resembled giant plastic tents suspended on aluminium pylons no doubt looked just spiffing in Dubai or other desert sheikdoms, but whoever thought them appropriate for the ambience of East London had to be seriously deranged or an aficionado of wacky baccy.
Jameson was not surprised that Whitechapel University had long outgrown the Victorian building in Whitechapel that had housed Whitechapel Technical College. This was the name by which the seat of learning had been known when it trained competent plumbers and practitioners in similar essential trades. The University had long abandoned such mundane studies. Now it offered honors degrees in such groundbreaking subjects as kite design.
He parked the Jag in the visitors’ car park, took a deep breath, and headed for the plastic tent that housed the Department of Commercial Psychology and Investment Studies. He and Karla followed the sign to reception. There he flashed an identity card at the receptionist that identified him as a senior official in the Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills, one of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s more lunatic reorganizations that provided activity in lieu of actually having any ideas.
She and Karla were suitably equipped with little plastic ID cards to clip to their clothes. They were then allowed to penetrate the hallowed halls of Whitechapel University without being mistaken for Al Qaeda bombers. After observing some of the posters on the student noticeboard, Jameson decided that Al Qaeda would be more interested in recruitment opportunities than terrorist operations at the college. The management must be worried about someone trying to nick the computers.
A series of confusing directions had them process up and down endless identical corridors. Eventually, they located a door marked Professor Pilkington, Chairperson of Psychology and Economics, which seemed near enough to Commercial Psychology and Investment Studies to be their objective.
Pilkington was a round man with a beard and rather wild hair whose magnificent stomach strained the buttons of his short-sleeved shirt. Jameson had always distrusted people in short-sleeved shirts as trimmers. Halfway fashions were the preserve of people trying to suggest individuality but who were frightened to go the whole radical hog and don a T-shirt with an anticapitalist logo.
“I was not expecting someone from the Department or I’d have been more prepared,” Pilkington said.
“My name is Jameson, from the Assessment and Enforcement Section,” he lied, flashing a humorless grin. “We like to drop in unannounced.”
“Ah,” Pilkington said, nervously. “What would you like to know?”
Jameson opened his black civil service briefcase and took out a file. “You received a substantial private grant from Mr Shternberg to research mass psychology and its economic impacts.”
“Ah yes,” P
ilkington said, blinking.
“We would like to know how the project is proceeding.”
“I believe the Department has returned the normal reports,” Pilkington said.
“Yes, but it is quite unusual for a new university to be supported so handsomely for such a strategic research program. It has become something of a test case for us in DIUS, as the Minister is keen to support universities other than the traditional elitist Russell Group.”
“Indeed,” Pilkington said, brightening.
“Should the project go well, the Minister might be minded to divert research funds from Oxford, Cambridge, or London to energize new nonelitist colleges such as Whitechapel.”
“I see,” Pilkington said, eyes defocusing as dreams of untold riches floated across his mind.
Complete bollocks, of course, as no politician would want to take on the big three. They could call on too many allies and alumni in high places, but it sounded the sort of thing a chippy politician might say in the eternal quest for votes.
Pilkington pulled down one of those stiff cardboard boxes that only academics seemed to find useful and tipped the contents out on his desk. A few minutes of desperate scrabbling, and he had located a file.
“Yes, right, well, the project is on schedule. A substantial tranche of the capital outlay has been spent on the necessary computer equipment and software, notably a Beowulf Cluster for parallel processing.”
Pilkington looked at Jameson, who nodded as if he had a clue what the man was talking about.
“Data examination and input has been completed and initial statistical analysis undertaken. The project is on time and into stage three, model formulation and testing. Doctor Vocstrite is the project leader. He could no doubt tell you more.”
Wolf in Shadow-eARC Page 37