by Assaph Mehr
“Only one way to find out,” he said at last and shuffled towards the gates. I limped behind him.
***
As soon as we crossed the threshold, the sensation of magia was palpable, visceral. The force of it hit us full in our faces like a thousand screaming barbarians. The most immediate sensation was the stench. Smells of death and decay assaulted our noses, making me retch. Torches were torn from their sockets and braziers overturned, giving the place a dim fiery glow, as though we entered the domains of the underworld. Strange noises emanated from random directions, making my heart jump. But the worst thing was the feeling on my skin. I cannot put into words the feeling of invisible insects that ran all over me, tingling and itching and almost driving my reason away. I could not imagine — nor did I wish to — what Araxus was seeing with his visus verum.
The fluttering flock of Cornelia’s ancestors’ wax masks dove straight at us from the dark heights. I covered my head with my arms, afraid one would latch on and choke me to death. I drew my dagger and waved it over my head to keep them at bay. Araxus kept his calm and bent down to pick up a dying torch. He whispered to it, and its flame sprang to roaring life. It gave off far more light and searing heat than a torch’s natural wont. He waved it around and the wax masks withdrew, fearing the magnified fire.
“That’s better,” said Araxus. “Let’s go.”
As he led us deeper into the house, I walked close behind, afraid to find myself cut off from him. My legs were shaking, and not solely due to my throbbing ankle. We skirted the impluvium in the atrium. The water spirit had caught three more slaves, drowned them, and arranged their bodies in grotesques postures on the edges. It sat in the middle, humming to itself, its translucent, girlish body reflecting the torch light. Occasionally, it sent tendrils of water to rearrange this corpse or that, like a child playing with clay models. It didn’t seem interested in us, and Araxus didn’t stop to examine it. I made sure to not step in any wet patch on the floor as I passed by.
The atrium opened to the first of the gardens, ringed by a colonnade. The triclinium where we dined was on the other side and I knew beyond it lay the inner parts of the mansion, the family’s private quarters. The statue of the boxer was seated on the stone ledge around a fountain. It had removed the bloody bandages from its hands and was washing them in the basin at the base. In the firelight, the waters acquired a deep and menacing red.
Blood spatters covered everything. A few battered corpses were scattered around the garden, only recognisable as once-human by their general shape.
When the statue spied us, it smiled without a trace of guile and began to wrap the bandages around its hands again in the classic boxer’s wrap. I remembered Borax dispatching the last animated statue with his iron skillet, but then that one had been made of cheap plaster. This one was bronze, and even with a proper hammer I doubted Borax would have dented it.
Araxus stood quietly, facing the boxer. What he saw I could not fathom. It was then that the similarities between the boxer and the water spirit struck me. Though their actions were horrifying, there was a quality of childlike wonder to them. A child without reason to be sure, playing with some poor insects without understanding the torment it was causing them. It didn’t do much to my mood knowing I was one of those insects.
Bandaging completed, the statue stepped towards us. On its third step, the flagstones under its feet shifted and it found itself facing to the side. It stopped, turned back to us, and tried to take another step. The flagstones shifted, and again it was facing away. It cried in frustration, a grating noise that no human throat could make, and tried to charge us. The stones under its feet slid rapidly, rearranging themselves in a tight geometric pattern, causing the statue to run in a little circle. With each step, it sunk lower until it was up to its knees in the ground beneath the floor. It flailed its arms and bellowed in rage and frustration.
Araxus winked his green right eye at me, his left eye never wavering from the animated figure. As we walked away, the statue sat down heavily in place, its legs immersed in the solid floor as though sitting on the side of a pool. As we left it behind, it’s fading bellows became lost, forlorn.
We made our way past the peristyle garden to the triclinium where the curse tablet exploded. Icilia’s body lay where it had fallen, her skin cracked and blackened. Occasionally, a new pustule would pop and burst, oozing pus and blood. She looked deflated, as though her bones had melted inside her body, like a wax model of a woman left in the sun. When Araxus’ staff clicked on the tiled floor, a whimper escaped her lips and she shuddered in ragged breaths. She wasn’t dead, but trapped inside a decaying body.
Araxus navigated the mess on the floor and extended his staff towards the tabula defixionis to draw it to him. Crouching next to Icilia, he considered the tablet. I found it hard to concentrate on anything with the sensations of wild magia buffeting my skin. Instead, my mind was filled with thoughts about poor, dim-witted Icilia still alive in her own rotting body.
Araxus’ black eye scanned the tablet, reading the inscription through the folded lead. “Do me a favour, will you?” he said. “Go back to the family’s lararium at the entry and see if there are any ashes and crumbs left from the offerings to the lares. Bring whatever you can find there.”
To say I did not wish to leave his side and wander alone in the cursed domus would be an understatement. I drew a deep breath, picked up a discarded napkin, and made my way back. The boxer was sitting where Araxus has trapped him, picking up pebbles and throwing them listlessly at the columns. Not taking any chances, I hobbled as close to the walls and as far from it as possible. In the atrium, the nymph was still absorbed with the cadavers, like a girl enacting a dinner party with dolls. I skirted her, too, as widely as I could.
The lararium was tucked in a corner. It was done in the traditional way of such shrines. An indentation into the wall at waist height, about three feet tall and one foot deep, with an arched top. On the flat stone at the bottom were remnants of candles, ashes from burnt offerings, stains of wine libations, crumbs of broken salt cakes — all the things a family offers its ancestors daily as provisions in their afterlife, and as gifts when beseeching their protection. I gathered all I could into the napkin, folded it carefully, and made my way back.
Araxus was still crouching next to the curse tablet, oblivious to the whimpering Icilia and the rotting mess around him. He handed me the torch and took the folded napkin.
He gently unfolded it, pinched up some of the contents and sprinkled them on the tablet. They sizzled and popped like water sprayed on hot iron. Araxus hummed a happy tune.
“I was right,” he said, “you need a priest.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Earlier tonight. I came to you and told you you’ll need a priest. I was right.”
“Yes, I understood that,” I said, though our meeting at the tavern seemed days ago. “But can you please explain why I need a priest?”
“The way he crafted the tabulae defixiones was quite ingenious. Both for effect and his innovative triggering, but mostly for the way he concentrated them inside a single house. Most curse tablets petition the gods above and below, to strike someone wherever they may be. Instead, he petitioned the gods of the household, the di penates and the lares.”
“We knew that from the other tablets,” I said. “Why would the household gods and the ancestral spirits turn on the ones they are revered to protect? And how come this curse exploded in full force, while the previous ones built up slowly?”
“That is the second part of his genius. He didn’t just petition the household gods but gave them extra vim and vigour by channelling magia through spirits which are not used to it. He borrowed the drifts from the major numina, gave them to a sleepy little spirit, then poked it with a sharp stick, as it were, to enrage it. Here, he managed to codify in the tablet a quantum of magia heretofore unheard of. I dare say,
we have barely begun to see the full extent of the curse’s effects.”
It took me a moment to digest all that. I wanted to query him further, but Araxus cut me off. “Shall we perhaps defer the philosophical discussion about celestial matters to another day? We have some more pressing things to attend to.” As if in emphasis, a loud crash came from deeper in the house.
“So how do we deal with it?” I asked. “And what does any of it have to do with priests?”
“Because this time he gave the household spirits too much power. Rather than merely making the extant spirits annoyed, he — intentionally or not — created something bigger. We are witnessing, my dear Felix, something few mortals have ever seen. The birth of a god.”
***
I admit I gaped at him with slack jaws, like a country bumpkin. When I found my wits I said, “I doubt our Collegium Sacrorum would have much knowledge of this either. First, they’ll argue, then they’ll confiscate everything, and finally a temple will be erected here. We’ll see the start of a new cult. None of which particularly helps anyone. Well, except the neighbours, but you know who I mean.”
“All we need,” Araxus said, “is to appease the god. Right now, he’s like a babe — an angry babe, stronger than Hercules, but still just a newborn. Give him the right offerings and keep him sleeping.”
“We’d need a priest to do that.”
“Which is what I came to tell you about,” he beamed up at me.
“And we’re back to dealing with the priests of the Collegium Sacrorum.”
“You could do it,” Araxus said.
“I’m no priest,” I replied.
“Isn’t every man the master of his own household?”
It took me a moment to understand what he was talking about. When realisation dawned on me, Araxus added, “Think like the big spectacles, but choose something appropriate for a newborn. I’ll hold things at bay here, while you gather the necessities.”
With that, he sat cross-legged and leaned his shoulder on his walking stick. He closed his eyes, though I knew it would not stop his black eye from seeing. With a smile, he started to hum a childhood ditty softly. And, like a strange puzzle with moving pieces, floor tiles, wall dados, and discarded miscellanea, moved and slid and rearranged themselves continually. It was like being inside a paper as it is folded; inside a kaleidoscope.
I rushed off to collect what I needed.
Chapter XXXIII
My first stop was Valerius’ domus. It was not far away from Cornelia’s and I got there at the beginning of the second hour of the day. The house was in uproarious commotion. Valerius had taken Cornelia, Aemilia and their entire household into his home. The more hysterical of Cornelia’s slaves had run off, but even those who stayed behind were finding it hard to function. Valerius’ own staff were trying to find places for everybody, people were running around, and gossip was rampant.
I found Cornelia ensconced with Valerius, Aemilia, Aquilius, and Valerius’ wife in the master’s study, hiding from the ruckus.
“Felix!” Cornelia exclaimed. “Have you been able to remove the curse from my home?”
“Not yet, but I know what needs be done. I’ll need to officially rent your house. I’m afraid I can’t pay its worth, but this is only for a night or two.”
“What are you talking about?” Aemilia asked.
I took a deep breath. “This curse is not like the others. Ambustus managed far greater damage. It’s not just about removing the tablet and rendering it inert. I’m afraid I will need to consecrate your house.”
“Why not get a priest to do it?” Asked Aquilius.
“Because then there will be too many questions,” I replied, “and Cornelia might be forced to donate her house to become a temple. If, on the other hand, I am the man of the house, it is within my right to sacrifice to the gods inside it. I’ve spent the night there before, but only as a guest. This time, I should do so as a paterfamilias.”
“Have you thought of the other half of your promise?” Valerius asked. “Did you find a good story for us to spread about those events?”
“I’m still working on it,” was all I could respond.
“What do you need, then?”
I addressed Valerius, “Ask one of your scribes to draft a simple rent agreement. Let’s say two nights, just to be on the safe side. I’ll pay Cornelia a single gold aureus,” I smiled meekly, “which, symbolically, should be a high enough price. Then we sign it here in front of you all as witnesses. That will give me the moral right under human and divine law to carry out the necessary duties.”
“And what are those?” Asked Aemilia.
“That’s the other thing I need to ask of you, Lucius Valerius. Please dispatch a slave to the market, and buy me a piglet, a lamb, and a calf. They should be as perfect, as unblemished, as possible. The younger the animals your slaves can find, the better. Alive, of course — not a carcass from a butcher. I need young, flawless, male lamb, piglet, and calf.”
There was a moment of quiet as the implications of my request sunk in.
Aemilia broke the silence. “I thought this was done with adult ram, pig, and bull, and for the lustration of the temple of Iovis Pater.”
“It’s actually performed quite often. Farm owners do it routinely to consecrate their farms and beseech Mars for protection.”
Aquilius cleared his throat. “I may not be an expert on these matters, but might I suggest something? Cornelia, if you trust this man, then best make the contract not for rent but for the sale of your domus. It’ll give Felix more rights and powers within it, which surely will give his actions more legitimacy over the property — in this world and otherwise. For your protection, we would also draw a counter-sale contract, to be fulfilled in a day or two, when Felix will sell you back the house.”
“And probably a will too, leaving the house to Cornelia,” added Valerius. “Just in case.”
***
And so, I found myself the owner of a lucrative city mansion worth a million times more than what I paid for it. I liked to think Valerius was merely being methodical when we drafted my new will as I certainly had no plans to test it by refusing to sell the house back. Assuming my survival, of course.
I stopped at my house briefly to pick up some personal belongings, enough to symbolise my residency and ownership. I got my toga, that most conspicuous symbol of Egretian citizenship. I didn’t have any wax masks — none of my ancestors achieved noble status to earn the rights of ius imagines — but I picked up a plate painted with a dancing child and a dog that belonged to my grandfather’s grandfather; my family’s lares.
Valerius had lent me some bodyguards, some of whom I left in the care of Dascha, to ensure Numicius wouldn’t lay a curse — or plain old violence — on my home.
I led the slaves in a procession back to Cornelia’s house: a couple of guards at the front; myself, riding as master and leader in a sedan chair carried by four hefty men; two more guards; a slave holding a squealing piglet; one carrying a lamb, frantically trying to jump off so it could prance around; a third, leading a calf with a rope — the calf was quite interested in the wares of every flower merchant we passed, and the slave had to tug the rope to keep it from munching their produce and my money; a last slave carrying some wrapped packages of what might have appeared as kitchen utensils; and a final pair of guards brought up the rear.
Processions are an important part of our life. Every event worth mentioning begins with a procession, from a bride travelling to her husband’s house to priests making a show of their offerings as they make their way to a temple. I tried instead to appear as merely a man of eccentric tastes in pets or cuisine. What we were about to do was borderline between religion and magic, and neither side of that equation liked the other much.
When we reached the domus, things in the street had calmed down. I didn’t glean any gossip — trave
lling by chair or litter removes one from the street — but I got the impression none of the neighbours had yet picked up on anything beyond some wild party. Araxus had been keeping everything under wraps. Regrettably, those errant runaway slaves would spread unsavoury rumours. Perhaps there was still a chance to claim it was just the wrong kind of mushrooms in the soup.
The time was past midday and we still had a lot to perform before nightfall. I left my entourage on the street. I didn’t want to bring the animals in until it was their time and there was no point in the slaves and guards coming in at all. The constant shifting of tiles and walls was still going on inside, but at a more languid pace. A picture of a young couple left the wall on which it was hanging and slid in front of me as I crossed the atrium. It moved from the wall to the ceiling, then down a fluted column, and even its wooden frame acquired the contours of whatever surface it was sliding along. Yet, it moved in an almost listless manner, as though unsure of its destination. It finally came to rest half-skewed at the bottom of another wall, one of its corners folded unto the floor. Whatever Araxus was doing to direct and redirect the flow of magia around the house was slowing down.
I found Araxus exactly where I had left him. His countenance, never healthy since the curse, had taken on a grey pallor, worse than I’d ever seen. Keeping the forces of magia at bay in the house was taking a heavy toll on him. Since the curse had begun at night, the coming darkness would cause a resurgence of its power. I needed to complete the ceremony before sundown, lest Araxus would be overwhelmed and the wild magia consume us.
I reached out to touch his shoulder, but he opened his eyes before I did. The pupil of the right green eye, the sane one, was dilated so only a thin ring of green was visible. The black curse inside him was taking over his mind, his spirit.
“I have what we need,” I said. “It will take me some time to set up and perform the suovetaurilia properly.”