Out of the Waters-ARC

by David Drake

  Alphena dried her right palm on her tunic, then gripped the sword again. She had thought of wearing armor and carrying a shield, but the weight would be a useless burden under most circumstances. She was going to find her mother, not to stand in ranks and battle Germans! Though it might be worse than Germans who were holding Hedia.

  At least if demons started rising from the ground, she wouldn't feel so useless. I don't want to just wait!

  Anna broke off her chant and rocked back on her seat, sighing. Instead of using a bench or having a stool brought out, she sat on a large upended mixing bowl from the kitchen. It wouldn't have been Alphena's choice, but--she grinned--it hadn't been her choosing.

  "Is it time, mistress?" Alphena said, trying very hard to keep the quaver out of her voice. I'll be fine when I have something to do.

  "It is not," the older woman said. Her tone made Alphena's breath draw in.

  Anna must have shocked herself to hear also. She grimaced, pausing with a miniature billet of maple wood in her hand, and looked up at Alphena; she would probably have risen if her knees had been up to it.

  "I misspoke myself, your ladyship," she said. "I'm tired to the marrow and the job isn't over yet. I'm tired and I'm frightened, may Venus protect me."

  "You have nothing to apologize for, Anna," Alphena said. That was a lie, but it should have been the truth. Anna was a freewoman doing a favor at great personal risk. Lady Alphena should have been ready to accept a certain lack of deference as a result of strain. "And I'm still your friend, not some 'ladyship', I hope."

  Anna sighed again and brought a skin of wine out from under her tunic. "I'm still sorry, dear," she said as she undid the lace clamping the wooden plug into the throat. "I'm old enough that I ought to be able to do better. And it's not like I've never done this before, though not often since I met Pulto."

  She took a deep draft of wine. Lowering the skin, she added, "And maybe not quite this far into the shadows as this time. Except for, you know, for your mother."

  Sending mother into the Underworld in order to save me. Alphena took a deep breath, feeling better. She wasn't taking any risk as great as what Hedia had taken for her.

  "Oh, Venus forsake me, where's my manners?" Anna said. She leaned toward Alphena, holding out the wineskin. "Here, girl, I wasn't thinking. Truly, I been that dry with saying the invocation over till I felt it start to take."

  Alphena took the wine. She knew her face stiffened momentarily, but thank Mercury! it seemed that Anna had missed the reaction. Raising the skin quickly to hide her expression, she took a reasonable drink and sluiced it around her mouth.

  The wine was as warm as she expected. Goodness knew where the grapes had been grown, but the vintage had been mixed with not only resin but also sea water--the salty tang was noticeable even through the tar flavor--to stabilize it for travel.

  Resin and the dash of sea water were the only things it had been cut with. It seemed much stronger than the unmixed vintages which Alphena had occasionally drunk with her mother.

  She lowered the wineskin, then returned it to Anna. The drink certainly had cured her dry mouth. Numbed it, she shouldn't wonder.

  "We're waiting for the moon now, child," Anna mused. She stroked the trussed rooster; it was part of the paraphernalia that messengers had brought when she started her preparations. "We can't hasten the moon."

  The rooster tried to peck her. Its legs, wings, and beak were bound with rye straw, but it had been squirming like a hooked fish ever since Anna began chanting.

  Six birds had arrived in response to Anna's summons--all cocks, and all white or mostly white. Alphena wasn't sure how Anna had picked the one she did, but it wasn't pleased by the honor.

  The other five had gone to the cooks, so it didn't matter. It probably didn't matter. For an instant, Alphena was uncomfortably aware that being cooked and eaten wasn't necessarily the worst thing that could result from this night's business.

  Anna took another drink--a very long one--from the skin, then looked about the garden. The moon was well up, but it was still short of mid-sky; Anna hadn't said, but Alphena supposed that was what she was waiting for now.

  The witch laughed. "No gawkers, tonight. I thought somebody might be up on the roof--"

  She gestured toward the house proper. Somebody standing on the parapet of the second floor could look down onto the back of this garden, though he wouldn't be able to see more than possibly the top of Alphena's head. Anna was more visible, even though she was sitting down.

  "--watching."

  She spat into a rose bed. "They're welcome to, if they like. Anybody who wants to try this theirself has my blessing."

  Anna turned her head quickly. Alphena followed her eyes and caught a glimpse of a female figure. It faded like fog into the peach tree.

  "Would ye like a closer look at this, girlie?" Anna snarled at the tree. "If not, then ye'd better keep your pointy little nose out of my way!"

  The garden was as still as street noise allowed it to be; the peach nymph didn't reappear. Anna grasped the rooster by its legs. She hunched, holding the bird out at arm's length, and rocked to her feet.

  "It's time if we're going to do it," she said with a lopsided smile. A small knife had appeared in her right hand.

  "Yes, of course," Alphena said. She was no longer gripping the sword hilt. Patting her hands together, she was pleased to notice that her palms were dry. "What would you like me to do?"

  "You just stand there, dearie," Anna said with a grim chuckle. "If this goes well, I'll summon something to take you to wherever her ladyship is. But girl?"

  She paused until Alphena looked up and met her eyes.

  "I can't do anything about it after you leave here," Anna said. "There's dangers, maybe worse ones than I know. And what I know is bad enough. That's for you alone to deal with, and I'm sorry to say that."

  "Yes, of course," Alphena said brusquely. "I don't expect others to fight my battles, mistress."

  Anna unexpectedly chuckled. "Spoken like a true officer," she said. "Line troopers have better sense."

  Before Alphena could respond--she had no idea of how to respond to that--Anna resumed chanting. Without changing the rhythm of the incantation, she brought her hands together and slit the rooster's throat. The bird continued to thrash as its blood gurgled into the glazed bowl.

  Drops splashed the animals molded onto the bowl's rim. It seemed to Alphena that a mist was starting to form.

  CHAPTER 12

  Anna wiped her knife on the cock's feathers, then flung its drained body to the ground. Her voice had become more resonant. Alphena couldn't be sure, but she thought the words of the incantation were the same as those she had heard earlier in the night.

  The blood settled at the bottom of the bowl. Anna was looking into it, so Alphena glanced down as well. The moon was reflected in the black fluid.

  The garden became dark. Alphena heard shouts and in the distance a wail of despair. Anna's voice had slowed and deepened into thunder through which other sounds sank.

  Alphena looked at the sky in surprise. The stars still sparkled, but the full moon had vanished--except for its reflection in blood. Anna continued to chant.

  The bowl was a window into another sky. A mist separated Alphena and the witch from the city outside. Anna's lips moved. Instead of hearing sound, Alphena felt the world tremble.

  The reflected moon swelled and blurred and suddenly coalesced into the figure of a coldly beautiful woman glaring at her with a furious expression. The garden was still, but a wind whipped the woman's garments.

  The woman held in either hand the leashes attached to a pair of three-headed vultures. When the birds opened their long beaks, their tongues quivered. Alphena heard no sound except the surrounding thunder.

  The woman and the vultures faded into pale light. The gryphon on the rim of the bowl shrieked and flapped its wings tentatively. It twisted its eagle head around to stare at Alphena.

  Light filled the bowl; Alphena coul
d no longer see blood or the glazed pottery, just the four animals hanging in the air. Three--the chimaera, basilisk, and mantichore--groomed themselves, but the gryphon seemed to be struggling to break free of unseen bonds.

  Alphena thought she could make out Anna's form on the other side of the window, but she wasn't sure; the light was swelling. An image formed within it: a series of ring islands nested within one another like ripples in a pond spreading from a dropped stone.

  The islands sharpened into focus. They were forested, but crystal buildings glittered on crags. The city of the vision in the theater spread along the shore of a deep bay.

  Mother's been taken to Atlantis. But how will I get there myself?

  The gryphon called in high-pitched triumph. Either it was growing or Alphena was shrinking. Atlantis hung in the unimaginable distance, though she still saw it clearly.

  Anna and the garden vanished, but Alphena and the gryphon stood on solid air. The creature's body was much larger than that of the lion it resembled; it was more the size of an ox.

  It lifted a birdlike foreleg and began cleaning the gaps between its toes, extending its great claws as it did so. It watched Alphena with eyes as bright as spearpoints. Her hand hovered close to her swordhilt, but she didn't draw the weapon.

  The gryphon lowered its paw. "Well?" it said, speaking in a haughty tenor voice. "Will you get on my back and ride, or shall I carry you to Poseidonis in my talons?"

  It laughed, opening a hooked beak that could have snapped the head off a calf--or a man. Despite the shrill overtones, the creature's voice reminded Alphena of the way Lenatus and Pulto discussing their army service.

  "You'll be more comfortable on my back, I think," it said. "But it's all one with me, mistress. I will serve you as you wish."

  "I...," Alphena said. "I'll ride you, then."

  She stepped close to the gryphon; it had a warm, animal odor, strong but not unpleasant. It hunched down, lowering its withers and folding its feathered wings tightly against its torso.

  "You'll need to sit just below my neck, I'm afraid," the creature said. "If I'm to fly, that is, and there's not much point in this excercise if I don't."

  Alphena put both hands on the gryphon's neck. The fur was as stiff as hog bristles, though the feathers into which it blended had a silky texture.

  This isn't going to be comfortable, she thought. She grinned wryly. But there may be worse to come.

  She vaulted aboard. The scabbard slapped her left leg, but she got her seat easily enough.

  Alphena straightened. The gryphon rose to its feet and stretched like a cat before looking back at her. "Hold tight, mistress," it said. "If you fall, it will be a long way."

  It laughed again; not cruelly, but with a hard carelessness. "A very long way," it added.

  "All right," Alphena said, digging her fingers into the fur. It was long enough to give her a grip, though not a very good one.

  What am I going to do when we reach Poseidonis?

  The gryphon sprang upward with the strength of all four legs. Its wings beat with a fierce suddenness, more like the release of a catapult than that of a bird flying.

  The ground fell away into a gray blur. The islands of Atlantis hung in the sky, seemingly as far as they ever had been.

  But first we have to reach the city.

  ***

  Because there were seven slaves to be freed at one time and Varus knew that other slaves would want to watch, he had suggested that his father hold the manumission ceremony in the courtyard instead of in his office. Saxa stood with his back to the central pool. His chief lictor was to his left holding one of the rods which, bound around the helve of his axe, were the symbol of his authority.

  Varus and Tardus were off to the right side, witnesses rather than participants in the process. The recording secretary sat cross-legged in front of them.

  The entire household, as well as Tardus' considerable entourage and very probably servants from nearby buildings, crowded around. They filled the courtyard, pressed against the second story railing, and--younger males in particular--sat on the roof looking in with their bare legs dangling.

  "I, ah...," said Tardus. He glanced toward Varus, then looked down again quickly when the younger man tried to meet his eyes. "I must apologize for the way I behaved when I visited the other day. I wasn't in control of my actions, of course, but even so I'm embarrassed at what I remember. The very little that I remember."

  Varus lifted his chin in solemn agreement. He hadn't been sure how Tardus was going to react to the invasion of his house by a gang of slaves. The wrath of a senior senator would be no slight thing, even if the senator was regarded as a superstitious fool by most of his colleagues. It appeared that Tardus primarily wanted to distance himself from the business, which Varus--and Saxa--were more than willing to help him do.

  "It must have been awful to be under the spell of foreign magicians that way," he said sympathetically. "I'm glad father was able to devise a way of freeing you--"

  Would Pandareus approve of me lying in that fashion? Still, an orator should phrase an argument in the fashion which his audience was best able to appreciate. That's all Varus was doing when he attributed the plan to another senator instead of to a youth from the frontier whose father was merely a knight.

  "--from their domination."

  "All present attend the tribunal of Gaius Alphenus Saxa, Consul of the Republic!" boomed the chief lictor. He had trained his voice to silence the crowd when court was being held in the forum, so the relative constraint of this courtyard was no challenge whatever. "Let the first petitioner state his business!"

  The first--the only, of course--petitioner was Agrippinus. The major domo stepped through the line of lictors arrayed in front of the consul and said, "I come to the magistrate to proclaim the formal manumission of seven slaves who are the property of myself alone."

  "I had understood that Saxa would be freeing his own slaves today," Tardus said in a puzzled tone.

  "That's correct," Varus explained, "but father first sold them to our major domo for a copper each. That way he can act as magistrate in the manumission without questions being raised about the owner and magistrate being the same person."

  Agrippinus took the first of the slaves by the hand and brought him in front of Saxa. He said, "I declare this man to be my slave Himilco."

  The lictor touched Himilco--a North African; short, swarthy, and muscled like a statue of Hercules--on the head with his rod and said in his resonant voice, "I declare Himilco to be free from this day onward!"

  "Surely no one would have objected?" Tardus said doubtfully.

  "I assent," said Agrippinus, releasing Himilco's hand.

  "My father is a stickler for the correct forms," Varus said. He started to smile, but that would have projected the wrong image. Tardus was if anything more focused on foolish detail than Saxa was... though apparently not the same details. "He deemed this to be the safest route."

  "It is hereby noted that the former Himilco, now Gaius Alphenus Himilco, is a free man," Saxa said. The secretary duly jotted the information down on a wax tablet.

  Himilco stood with his mouth open. Instead of showing enthusiasm, he looked as though he had been thrown bound into the arena with half a dozen lions.

  He'd probably be more comfortable with the lions. They would be more in keeping with his past experience than being stood before a pair of senators, one of whom was also consul.

  Agrippinus leaned over to whisper in Himilco's ear. A smile of understanding spread across the new freedman's face. He threw himself onto hands and knees, lifted the consul's foot and placed it on his neck, and then shambled back to where he had been before Agrippinus brought him forward. He hadn't overbalanced Saxa in his enthusiasm, as Varus had rather feared he might.

  "I would say...," Varus murmured to Tardus. "That the willingness to grasp a sword and charge armed enemies does not require a high intellect."

  Before he met Corylus, he would have said that
it couldn't be paired with high intellect. Still, he suspected that his friend was the exception.

  "You freed me, Gaius Varus," Tardus said. He made a small gesture with his left hand as the second slave was brought forward. "From a worse servitude than that. Me, a Senator of the Republic and a Commissioner for the Sacred Rites!"

  Varus considered the unexpected confidence. He said, "I'm glad we were able to offer you a service, Lord Tardus. That is, to a man of your stature, and to the Republic through you."

  That certainly didn't sound like the admission of a man who had invaded the house of a senator with a band of armed slaves. Pandareus would be proud to see the effects of his teaching.

  When we find Pandareus.

  Agrippinus was bringing the third slave forward now. After the ceremony was complete, Saxa would be providing each of the new freedmen with a gift of a thousand coppers, the amount the Emperor had given each legionary upon his accession at the death of Augustus. Lenatus and Pulto would be given property worth 400,000 coppers: the requirement for becoming a Knight of Carce.

  Corylus--when he returned--would be offered nothing, at Varus' insistence despite his father's protests. That saved his friend from embarrassment and saved Saxa from worse embarrassment when Corylus refused the gift.

  There wasn't enough money to have induced Corylus to plan and execute the raid on Tardus' home. By the same token, Varus knew Corylus wouldn't accept money for doing what friendship and the needs of the Republic had made necessary. Saxa, to whom money meant nothing, couldn't understand the logic of a principled man to whom money was important--but not overwhelmingly important.

  "The Sages brought me the murrhine tube," Tardus said, lowering his eyelids as he looked back in memory. "They said that it was an artifact of great power. They burned herbs in it, drawing the smoke out through a reed tube at one end."