The storm of Heaven ooe-3

by Thomas Harlan

  "A few centuries of garbage, centurion." Sextus' face was filled with shadows. "Just walk easy-there are soft spots."

  "Delightful." Nicholas reached the wall and stepped onto the brick terrace with relief. "Where to now?"

  "This way," Frontius said, squinting furiously in the bad light. "There's a second passage…"

  The entrance shaft led down from the heating room of an old Roman bath house just off the decumanus, right in the middle of the city. Now the northerner bent down to pass under a crumbling arch. Some scratch-built steps followed and he found himself standing on the floor of a long, arched tunnel, easily twelve feet high. He breathed easier, looking around. "A hidden road?"

  Sextus nodded, grinning like a fool. The engineer pointed off to the left. "It runs two hundred feet west, almost to the tetrapylon at the middle of town. Just like this, broad as a street."

  "It was a street," Frontius muttered.

  "Maybe," Sextus allowed, turning in the other direction. "This is the way we want to go. Another hundred feet to the wall, then we turn."

  Nicholas followed them, walking quickly. The floor was covered with dirt, but he could see big round stones fitted together to make the roadway. Despite the vaulted roof, the workmanship did not look Roman. Greek? They walked on, passing under many arches, then the tunnel ended abruptly in a wall of cyclopean blocks.

  Frontius stopped, running a hand over the smooth stone. "Each of these blocks, centurion, is twenty feet long, twelve high and who knows how deep. Massive, truly massive."

  Nicholas looked up. The blocks ran up past the roof of the tunnel. "What are they above?"

  "This is the platform holding up the Temple of Jupiter and the Perforated Stone. Not small, are they? That whole platform is artificial, built on this foundation over a hill and valleys on either side. The damned thing must be a mile long and a half-mile wide. Excellent work. We don't know how deep the foundation runs, either."

  Nicholas nodded, duly impressed. If he didn't, the engineers would keep bending his ear until he admitted it was spectacular. They were like that.

  "Sadly," Sextus continued, rubbing his nose, "there's no more time for poking about. Let's go this way." He turned right, entering a narrow corridor that ran along the base of the massive foundation. Smooth-cut blocks formed the left wall, while the right was dirt or brick or mixed round stones. The floor became uneven and descended sharply. After a bit, Nicholas had to bend down, for the passage roof became too low.

  "We've excavated this," Sextus said, his voice muffled by his body. "It's a bit narrow. There seems to have been a passage here before, but construction in the city above caused it to be filled in."

  They descended another seventy or eighty feet, then the narrow passage broke out into the side of a large room. Nicholas stood up, groaning with relief. Crawling about in these tunnels was a chore if you were in full armor.

  "Fine-looking, isn't it?" Sextus was smiling.

  Nicholas looked around, taking in smooth, plastered walls slanting inward at the floor. The room was large, easily seventy feet long and thirty wide. The floor was covered with the same loose dark soil filling the tunnels, but the walls were a creamy white, covered with irregular brown stains. To his left, just next to the exit of the tunnel, was the foundation of the temple platform, but here it was plastered as well. "What is it?"

  "Another cistern," Frontius said, climbing out of the tunnel. "Once it was open to the sky, like one of those pools by the north market. Look up."

  Nicholas followed the surveyor's pointing finger. Brick ribs vaulted the ceiling and slabs of stone had been laid down to make a roof.

  "Someone decided that they could build something on top of the cistern, so they covered it over. Which is the very luck for us, centurion, because they could have just filled the whole thing in. Then where would we be?"

  "I would be in bed, sleeping," Nicholas snapped. Despite repeated admonitions, the engineers had pressed ahead with their survey of the city waterworks and underground places. He couldn't fault them; the work on the walls and gates continued unabated.

  "Please, sir, just give us a moment. Do you see this wall? See the curving brick?"

  "Yes." Nicholas leaned close, for the wall-to the left of the tunnel as one entered-seemed a little strange. Its plaster had flaked away, leaving the arched courses of thin bricks exposed. "It's not like the other walls."

  "Just so," Frontius said, shifting excitedly from foot to foot. "Once, when the cistern was open to the sky, this was a drain opening into the side of the pool. I figured a stream ran beneath the city from a spring north of the temple platform, parallel to the foundations, past here. Once, the stream filled this cistern. However, when they covered over the cistern they had to divert the water or the cistern would overflow."

  "It's under our feet now?" Nicholas looked dubiously at the floor.

  Sextus nodded, pacing his way across the cistern. "Yes, sir. We noticed the drain, then Frontius decided they ran a channel under the floor, then out again on this side. See this?" He pointed at his feet. Nicholas stepped closer, peering in the dim light. There was a large inset rectangular block in the floor, marked by two square holes, each about a hand's-breadth wide.

  "I see it. Tell me what it is." Nicholas was getting snappish.

  "It's a drain cover. Vlad, bring me those pry bars."

  The Walach had been following along, quiet in his bare feet, but now he grinned in the darkness and hefted two long iron bars. Sextus took one, slid it into the square hole, then waited for Frontius to do the same with the other. Together they leaned on the pry bars and the stone, groaning and rasping, tilted up and away from the floor. Nicholas looked down into darkness, feeling cold, wet vapor rising up.

  "How appetizing," he said, feeling clammy. "So?"

  Frontius and Sextus shared a look, then shook their heads in despair. Officers!

  "We sent one of our lads, one of the Roman lads, mind you, down into the tunnel. It's the stream right enough, and it runs down a brick-lined channel under the southern wall. Now, before you give me that look, centurion, the channel leads into the top of a shaft bored through the rock of the hill, spilling down in a waterfall. That shaft plunges down forty feet or so and into a tunnel. That tunnel, which is outside the southern wall, goes downhill quite a ways to a hidden spring that sits at the junction of the Hinom and Kidron valleys, almost a mile from the southernmost point of the outer wall."

  Nicholas pursed his lips, considering the possibilities. His grim look faded slightly.

  "Well, now," he said, scuffing his boot against the edge of the manhole. "These Arabs seem to have left the southern valleys alone. I'd say they didn't have the men to throw a cordon around the whole city. Can a body of men make their way through this whole mess of tunnels and shafts?"

  Sextus nodded slowly, watching the centurion carefully.

  "You've not told the locals about this, have you?"

  Frontius and Sextus shook their heads.

  "All Legion business down here," the surveyor said. "We've put about that we're looking for hidden treasure. Only our men are allowed down into the bath house and we've not found any side tunnels that led to anything."

  The centurion frowned but let it pass. If the locals wanted to dig around in their cellars, let them. Hopefully they wouldn't stumble across the excavation. "You say there's a spring at the other end? Can we get out?"

  Sextus grinned merrily, rubbing his hands together. "We can, indeed. The tunnel comes out in a basin, just above the spring room, inside a ruined building. It's almost impossible to find the tunnel entrance. We've posted a watch, to make sure that the bandits don't find it without us knowing."

  "How long does it take to get out?"

  "About an hour and a half." Frontius raised a finger in admonition. "The only problem is this, centurion. If it rains, the tunnel floods."

  "Rain? Here? There's little likelihood of that."

  Nicholas turned to Vladimir, who was squatting at the
edge of the pit, sniffing the cold air. "What do you think?"

  "Me?" Vlad looked up, his dark eyes shining in the lamplight. He grinned, showing fine white teeth. "I like living better than dying or being a slave. When do we leave?"

  "Not now," Nicholas mused, motioning for the engineers to close the stone lid. "We have to get ready. It would be best if we waited until the Arabs launched an assault, then they'd not notice us leaving. That will take a bit of planning."

  The centurion turned away, thinking. The two engineers turned to each other and solemnly shook hands, then broke out in quiet grins.

  – |A wasteland of stars filled the sky, clear and distinct in the cold desert air. Straight overhead they didn't even sparkle or shimmer. Dwyrin lay on the roof of the praetorium, head cupped in his palms, the bricks warm with the day's heat against his back. A guard leaned against the outer wall of the tower, watching the ramp and the roadway below, ignoring the Hibernian.

  He had been coming here for days, spending hours lying under the glorious velvet sky. The nights were growing warmer, making it far more comfortable to lie out here than sweat in the stifling rooms below. It was quiet, too, without the racket of snoring and coughing in the barracks.

  Dwyrin turned his attention from the sky and its burning, infinite depths. There was some work to be done before he let sleep take him. He was still troubled by exhaustion and a fading sense of solidity. He had difficulty paying attention to the centurion. Sometimes, if he didn't pay close attention, Nicholas became a transparent, shifting cloud of light, buzzing and whispering. The masters of his old school had warned against this. He needed to ground himself, to keep a steady anchor in physicality. Despite his growing power, he still needed to eat and sleep and shit, like other men.

  It was difficult to remember, sometimes.

  He brought forth the Entrance of Hermes in his mind. There was a brief sloughing sensation and then he was fully aware of the hidden world shimmering and flickering around him. Dwyrin frowned. The passage had become too easy, too swift. He needed a sharp division, requiring concerted effort to pass. How else would he know which world he walked in? With an effort, he retreated from the ghost realm, focusing on the solid feeling of the stones, the brush of night air on his hair, the darkness enfolding him.

  Solidity returned, grudgingly, in fits and starts. It was difficult to make his mind see the mundane. He cursed, letting liquid sound flow out of his throat and across his lips. It seemed remote, unreal. Disgusted, he cracked his elbow against the bricks. Pain flashed bright and he was suddenly all too aware of his body.

  "Too slow," he muttered to himself. "I need a discrete anchor."

  He considered a peculiar vision that had come to him, soon after they had arrived in the city. He had woken from sleep, aware of the sky filled with pure white radiance. Dogs were barking. The watch had turned out to investigate. A half-familiar man had been sitting in Dwyrin's tent, watching him in the darkness. That memory had faded like a dream, but it had left behind a burning sign in his mind. It was always close to him now, drawing his thought like a lodestone.

  The old man said it was "the sign of fire." Dwyrin let it assume a place in his mind, flowering from a bright point, unfolding an infinite array of bright geometric surfaces. The sign constantly transformed itself, wavering like a flame. Dwyrin could call fire from it with tremendous ease. The pattern let him smash the siege towers of the bandits, crush their feeble wards, rip the sky with bolts of flame. It felt good and right, as if he stared into a warm mirror.

  "Are you my anchor?" he whispered at the night, letting the warm radiance of the sign drive the chill from his skin. "Should I look outside myself for solidity?"

  It seemed to quiver, constantly unfolding in bright shape after bright shape.

  "Are you what I need?"

  The guard by the wall stirred, walking along the parapet. The night was getting colder, but Dwyrin was warm, even hot, in the effect of the sign. He smiled at the dark sky.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The Forum Boarium, Roma Mater

  Night crept into Rome, making the alleys and narrow streets dim and gray. Gaius Julius walked quickly through the massive central hall of the Big Market. Despite the hour, the market was still bustling and alive, lit by many hanging lamps. The old Roman hurried; the merchants were preparing to close their shops to common trade and begin their nightly dealings. Wagons and wains were forbidden in the city by day, so at sunset the streets filled with great-wheeled vehicles, hauling all of the goods of the countryside into the markets. In this hour between the setting of the sun and full darkness, Gaius knew that he could cross the city swiftly, while other men were sitting at their suppers.

  The day had passed in fruitful pursuits amongst the owners of the four great gladiatorial schools south of the Flavian. He had received news from one of his agents that his "package" had been acquired. Gaius had been torn, wanting to look in on his captive, but convinced himself to stay away. There were three cutouts between himself and the kidnapping. His position was still a little too raw to risk any impropriety.

  He turned left when he reached the colonnades and temples of the Forum, and passed under dark arches and down a tunnel. Beneath the remains of the ancient inner wall of the city, he turned right, following a long, narrow alleyway along the base of the crumbling ramparts. He remembered it from his lost youth, and was obscurely pleased that it was still here, even though six and a half centuries had passed. He would be home in a few grains.

  He bent his head, quick mind considering the plans and plots he had in motion like a jewel raised to the light. There was much to consider, and too many hours passed in each day-even without sleep!-in negotiation and conference with his allies, servants or superiors.

  – |Gaius Julius slid an L-shaped key into the door to his rooms. It clicked in the heavy internal lock and he went inside, being careful to close and relock the panel behind him. He had taken up residence in a private insula on the Quirinal Hill, not too far from Gregorious' mansion. Most important, the apartment was located at the rear of the building, with easy access from the alley. Gaius entertained many visitors at night and he did not want to disturb the well-to-do families occupying the other flats.

  He turned, frowning. Warm lamplight spilled from his study. Quietly, he stepped to the arched doorway. His books and correspondence were in their usual sprawl across an oaken table and two desks.

  "You've been busy, I see." The voice came from his right, and he turned, hand on the haft of a knife he wore on the leather belt under his toga. The circumstances of his untimely death were a constant irritant. Then his hand dropped and he made a half-bow.

  "My lord Maxian, you cannot believe how surprised and happy I am to see you."

  "I wonder," the Prince said in a harsh voice. Maxian reclined on one of the couches placed in the corner of the room, close by an iron brazier filled with coals. Gaius Julius did not notice any chill in the air, but he supposed that such things might slip his mind in his current condition. "I have been looking over your papers while I waited for you to return."

  Gaius paced to his seat, a heavy curule field chair he had bartered from a cashiered Legion officer. It was comfortable and reminded him of old times. He missed being with his men. Rebellious Gauls were much easier to deal with than Roman building contractors. Gaius sat, sighing with relief to be home. "Do my efforts displease you?"

  Maxian scowled and raised a cup to his lips. Gaius Julius tsked to himself. The remains of a rare amphora of Neapolitan wine sat by the couch. Such vintages were hard to come by, now that the vineyards were buried in ash or burning stone. He would have to hide the rest, he supposed.

  "I confess," the Prince said, putting down the cup and sitting up, "I cannot fault your energy or activities. You seem to have set yourself to assist and aid the state in all ways. Given what you have told me before, however, I am puzzled. Where are your grand plans to overthrow the Emperor and set me in that place? Where is the cunning and guile that yo
u offered to use for my promotion?"

  Gaius Julius looked up, surprised at the bitter anger in Maxian's voice. "My lord! When we last parted, you told me rather forcefully that you were returning to your brother to seek his forgiveness, to attempt some reconciliation! With that in mind, I have bent my every effort to improving your patrimony and his. Have things changed? Have I misread your intent?"

  "No." Maxian waved a hand negligently, swaying slightly with the motion. "I thought worse of you. I am very pleased with your work-particularly this effort to restore the highways in the lands around the… in the south.

  "Gaius, when you left me, I intended to go straightaway to Rome, to make a clean breast of it with my brother. As perhaps you have guessed, this did not occur. I was… I tarried on the mountain. There was sanctuary there from the constant assault of the Oath. I waited too long-murderers came. I was attacked in the crater at night. They were very strong and well prepared. I barely escaped."

  Gaius Julius leaned closer, straining to hear the Prince's soft voice. The red light from the coals shone on Maxian's face, making him seem old and tired.

  "Really, they killed me, there at the end. Krista… Krista shot me with her spring-gun, right here…" The Prince's fingers rubbed a space above his left ear. It seemed unmarked and undamaged to Gaius, but he said nothing. "I died, just for a moment. But the mountain was waiting. I took what it offered-then the structure of the Oath began to break down."

  The old Roman felt a chill steal over him, remembering fragments of long discussions between the Prince and the Persian wizard Abdmachus.

  "Gaius, the mountain should have erupted ages ago! But the Oath held it back, like a cork in a bottle. There was so much power built up behind the barrier. It was enough to restore me, and destroy them all. I escaped. The Engine took me away, far from the explosions and the fire. I was in the high air when… everything happened."

  Gaius Julius stared at the Prince in horror. He had never considered such an outcome. "You… you were responsible for this disaster?"