by Will Panzo
When he woke the next morning, he found Master Tarek standing over him.
Master Tarek was a short man, bronze-skinned, with a long, thin mustache and curly hair. He wore a purple robe with a high collar trimmed in gold thread. A long scar snaked up the side of his neck and the back of his head, ending just behind his right ear.
“I did not expect to see you breathing this morning.” Master Tarek eyed Spider curiously.
Spider made to respond, but his mouth was dry, his throat raw, and he could muster only a croak.
“Easy now.” Master Tarek patted Spider’s arm. His hand was cold and his touch made Spider’s skin crawl. “Don’t strain yourself, you’ve been through enough already. The initiates worked on you for the better part of a day.”
Spider could barely recall drifting in darkness, but the agony that had nearly overwhelmed him in the place between was still fresh in his memory. Anger built inside him, and he made to sit up, eager to choke the smug smirk from Master Tarek’s face. But as he reached, leather restraints dug into his wrists, bound him to the table.
“You forget yourself, my little Spider.” Master Tarek squeezed Spider’s forearm, his fingernails digging thin half-moons into flesh. “It’s death to touch a Master. Would you endure all that suffering, clinging defiantly to a flicker of life, only to see yourself snuffed for such a transgression?”
Spider breathed deep and lay back on the cool stone. He shut his eyes, unable to bear the sight of Master Tarek.
“You think I’ve done you harm, but you’re wrong.” Master Tarek’s voice sounded harsh and piercing, like a mistuned lyre. “I’ve taught you a great lesson these last days, and if you wish to become something more than you are, you’ll heed it.”
Spider licked his cracked lips. If his mouth were not so dry, he would have spat.
“You heard a voice in your head. Did you not?”
Spider remained still.
“Answer or don’t, it matters little. I know you’ve heard it because I’ve heard it as well. All the great Masters have. It’s the voice of madness, worming through the dark of your mind. It will eat you if you let it.”
A voice. Spider had the faintest memory of a voice. He could not recall what it said, but it was there, just beneath the memory of pain.
“Look at me, boy.”
Spider felt cold fingers grip his face. He opened his eyes.
“It speaks to all of us who have endured pain, who have slipped through Death’s grasp.” Master Tarek’s face twisted with rage. His skin flushed red, the long scar on his neck shining white. “It is the voice of madness, but also the voice of greatness. It will eat you if you let it, but only if you let it. If you survive it, if you listen, there is much to learn. Do you understand me?”
Spider closed his eyes. Master Tarek released his face.
“You hate me now, boy. And maybe you’re right to hate me. But there aren’t many people in this world willing to teach you such a lesson.” Spider heard the Master’s sandaled feet scrape across the stone floor. His voice grew distant. “Get some rest. And when you wake, you’re welcome to come to my chambers. You may thank me or try to kill me, the choice is yours. That is our way.”
16
They made a place for him in the barracks. There were forty men in the room and forty cots. Cassius was offered a pile of blankets near the door. It was late, and all were asleep.
In the time between sleeping and waking, he thought he heard a voice calling to him. Sometimes he could understand its speech and sometimes it was like listening to an unfamiliar tongue. It was addressing him, though, that much was clear.
He left just before dawn, the legionnaires still asleep except for the few who departed to man early posts. Flies had gathered over his wounded arms and he shook these off now and rose and folded his bedroll and wandered out into the fort. He watched the mist retreat from the jungle under the approaching light of the sun.
He wondered how he had arrived here. He had pictured himself in this place many times, but now he was here although the odds against that were staggering. He could trace his steps back, but following his trip, point to point, was only a partial answer. He was aware of the disparity between what he was now and what he had been, and his transformation from one to the other was closer to what he sought although still incomplete.
Growth was the wrong word for it. It was more akin to a diminution. He had shed something of himself many times along the way and what was left was here because there was no place else it could be.
Looking back, he wondered where lay the line past which he could not return. Had he even noticed when crossing it and what had he forfeited there?
A handful of legionnaires were about, but no one asked his business. Camp attendants scurried from building to building, emptying chamber pots, feeding dying hearth fires, carrying laundry. Most of these were Native women or young Native girls. They spoke their own tongue and he listened to it in the quiet of the morning and his stomach knotted to hear it.
He moved deeper into the complex. There was a small clearing to the side of the general’s quarters and here stood a large stone statue of a spellcaster in full legion battle dress, segmented steel cuirass, greaves, wide-brimmed helmet, short cloak, gauntleted hands raised to the sky, a swirl of sculpted fire at his feet. He was advancing, head upturned, as though prepared to climb over the outer wall and march into the jungle.
Someone called his name, and he turned to see Galerius walking with a man who held a ledger.
“Early to rise I see,” Galerius said. “In another life, you could have made a good legionnaire.”
“Maybe in this life,” Cassius said.
“Admiring the statue.”
“It’s quite a piece of work.”
“It’s of the general’s father, in his younger days.”
“Is the resemblance any good?”
“It captures his spirit at least.”
Galerius produced an oilskin bundle from the pouch on his hip and handed the parcel to Cassius without naming it although Cassius knew its contents by the way his fingers warmed to touch it.
“These are a gift from the general.”
“Does the general often make a habit of gifting people with their own property?” Cassius unwrapped the gauntlets and hitched them to a thin chain on his belt, the jewels rainbowing in the dawnlight.
“I was referring to your right to carry them in the fort.”
“I’m grateful. I had a coin purse, too.”
Galerius seemed surprised by this. He opened his hip pouch and rooted inside and produced a few silver coins, offering them to Cassius.
“I had more than that when I was taken,” Cassius said.
“It’s all I can spare.”
Cassius accepted the coins and slipped them into a small pocket in his tunic.
“How was your talk with the general last night?” Galerius asked.
“Informative.” Cassius scratched at his bandaged arms. “We spoke of the city.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“What are his intentions?”
“Only the general knows his thoughts.”
“And yours? Do you plan to stay idle while Piso and Cinna sit unpunished?” Cassius voice was edged with challenge.
Galerius stiffened. He had the reserve of a well-trained soldier, his anger hidden behind a stoic face.
“I won’t discuss that with you,” he said.
It was clear Galerius was not a man accustomed to insolent tones. Still he had not dressed down Cassius, a subtle sign but an important one. Cassius held no rank here, wore neither the legion colors nor the mark of either boss, yet Galerius, a man of considerable authority, did not speak freely to him. Power was in flux here, flowing, shifting. It was a familiar feeling to a spellcaster, one Cassius relished.
“Any word from th
e bosses?” Cassius asked.
“That’s none of your concern.”
“And how is Vorenicus?”
“Progress has been slow.”
“I’d like to pay a call on the general this morning.”
“I’ll see about that. He hasn’t been feeling well today.” Galerius nodded stiffly and began to walk off, the man with the ledger at his heels. “There’s a physician’s tent by the eastern granary. See that those arms are tended to before they rot off.”
• • •
At the physician’s tent, he stripped naked and washed himself with buckets of cold water. The physician was a young Native man with a long, sharp face. He had an old woman for an assistant, and they spoke the Khimir tongue openly while he bathed, mocking him.
They called him skinny and sickly and they made an informal wager as to how long before one of his wounds infected and killed him.
“Are you sure you won’t see a healer?” The physician’s Antiochi was impeccable.
“No healers,” Cassius said.
“Some of these wounds are beyond me.”
“Do what you can.”
The physician smeared the wounds on Cassius’s arms with a cool salve, then held Cassius’s arms while his assistant wrapped them in fresh bandages.
“How much will this cost?” Cassius asked.
“Three silvers,” the physician said.
“That’s a bit steep.”
“The general wants you in fighting shape, so he’s picking up the tab.”
“Can you give me something to ease the pain?”
“Kaota leaves. Chew them for a few hours. Don’t swallow them, though, or you’ll get sick.”
“I’d like something else as well,” Cassius said. “If you have it to sell.”
“What exactly?”
“Garza root.”
The physician dropped a pair of bloody scissors into an earthenware bowl. He wiped his hands with excess bandages.
“When’s the last time you slept?” he asked.
“I slept last night,” Cassius said.
“It doesn’t look like you did.”
“Are you saying I’m lying?”
“I’m saying you look like a man who hasn’t slept in a month. And the last thing someone like that needs is Garza root.”
“What do you care, I’m a dead man anyway.” Cassius heard the words as though they had been spoken by someone else. He was unsure if he had said them aloud, or if they had even come from him, but the physician’s look was proof enough.
“I don’t think that’s something the general will pay for.”
“I’ll cover it, then.”
“It will cost you.”
“It always does.”
• • •
He watched a thousand legionnaires drill in the early afternoon. Separated into three squads, they marched from one end of the fort to the other. They presented their arms. They formed themselves into a wedge, then re-formed into an inverse wedge, a diamond. They made themselves into a tortoise, a circular formation in which each man held up his shield and the men in the middle ranks lifted their shields overhead and spears bristled from all angles. Above them, disks of whirling fire spun and shed sparks.
When they fell back to marching formation, they filed out of the fort. They passed the barricades and moved out into the clearing before the jungle and there split into smaller groups, to skirmish with wooden weapons. The sound of their boots in lockstep made him uneasy.
“It’s a beautiful thing.”
He turned and found the general two paces behind him. He looked ill. He stood with his shoulders stooped, head lowered. His wide brows were furrowed and sweaty. He was wearing the same tunic as yesterday although he had shed the short cloak. His clothes seemed too big for him, as if his body had shrunk beneath their folds.
“What is?” Cassius spat a wad of bitter Kaota leaves and wiped his mouth.
“War.”
“Do you believe that?”
“It’s not a popular thing to say. But it’s true. And if you speak to someone who talks truthfully about war, they’ll tell you as much.”
“What about spilled entrails?” Cassius asked. “That’s a part I’ve always found unpleasant.”
“It’s not only beautiful. It’s other things as well. It’s horrific and frightening, mean, cruel. But if you talk about it completely, then you have to be thorough as well as honest. And if you are both these things, you will admit it is beautiful. Troop formations. Glistening weapons, armor. The effects of spells. The martial beat of the drums. Flags and standards. There’s nothing like it.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
The general reached into a pocket and brought out a wide green leaf, rolled and wrapped with twine. He untied it and peeled open the leaf carefully. It was filled with a brown powder like the kind he had poured into the tea. He tilted the leaf’s contents into his mouth, swallowed, then licked the leaf, crumpled it, and tucked it into his cheek.
Cassius looked away. “Are you okay, sir?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t look well.”
“I’m fine.” The general’s cheek bulged from his chewed leaf. “Forgive me for mistaking you for a man cultured enough to hold a conversation.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“When a man talks with you, it’s a violation of his trust to dismiss what he’s saying.”
“I’m sorry,” Cassius said.
“You harden your heart to a man when you won’t listen to him.”
“Forgive me. I’ve forgotten my manners after my time here. I’ve found cities will do that to a man.”
The general licked his dry lips. “I haven’t left this island in years. The mainland is just a memory now. And I’ve never been to the capital. I fear I’ll never make it now.”
“Why?”
“My father died on this island. His last command. Same for my grandfather in the Jutlander wastes. My great-grandfather in the Fathalan borderlands.”
“You’re not dead yet.”
“Last night, I dreamed you killed me.”
“Sir?”
“You were a spider.” The general’s eyes were locked in a faraway stare. “You wore your web for a mask, and you crawled through my window while I slept.”
“That was just a dream.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
“Sir, please.”
“The Natives believe the dream world is as real as this one. More real in some senses.”
“Do you believe that?” Cassius asked.
“Maybe.”
“And if it is true, what does it mean? That I’m a spider? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I don’t know. But there’s someone I can ask.”
• • •
They had been traveling north for an hour when the sun set. They were six men in total. The general and Cassius, four guards. The road, which leading from the fort had seemed crowded by jungle life, had ceased to be a road, devolving into a footworn path through brush. The feeling Cassius had experienced on his first trip into the brush, of being pressed in on all sides, was gone now. They had passed into the tangle completely.
The overgrowth seemed to writhe as Cassius moved through it, everything wet and dripping. Bushes shook and buzzed. Strange cries echoed overhead. Twice he thought he heard drumming in the near distance, but each time that he stopped to listen, it faded.
The general muttered to himself as he walked, angry whispers the guards pretended not to hear. He fought his way forward, shaking vines, snapping branches, yet seemed surefooted and comfortable in his movements.
They came across a young Native boy, but before they could speak he fled, slinking away in a crash of jungle noises,
birdcalls, monkey howls, the rustle of leaves. Later, a wild boar crossed their path and a guard hurled his spear at it but missed and lost the spear.
When they reached the clearing, Cassius saw the huts first, then saw the body. A wide opening in a wall of pricker shrubs led to a clearing, and here stood the body. It hung impaled through the chest, head down, arms tied behind its back. It looked shriveled, little more than a skeleton wrapped in skin, blackened and dried. Its hair swayed stiffly in a breeze.
“What is that?” he asked.
No one answered. They continued walking, diverting around the gruesome marker, and now he saw two more bodies impaled behind and to either side of the first. One of these, a body so small it might have been a child’s, was missing its head. The stench seemed a physical presence.
The general shouted that he was come to see the wise grandfather, shouted this in the Native tongue. There were three mud huts in the clearing, each roofed with jungle leaves. From the two closest huts emerged four legionnaires, their faces painted red. They had long hair and wore mantles of bright feathers and bone. At first, Cassius thought them Natives dressed in the colors of the legion but he could see that they were Antiochi when he looked closely.
They saluted the general in the manner of the legion, tapping a fist to their heart. He acknowledged them with a nod, then two of the men entered the hut farthest from the opening. They returned moments later, dragging an old Native man between them.
“Good day to you, grandfather,” the general said, still speaking in the Khimir tongue.
The guards forced the Native man to his knees before the general, forced him to bow his head till it touched the ground. They released him, and he rose slowly and with great effort.
“Why have you called on me?” The Native man was short and fat. He had slender arms and a distended belly, wide hips leading down to wide, stubby legs. His hairline had receded to the middle of his head, and his gray hair hung to his shoulders, straight and thin. He was shirtless, his soft chest painted with swirls of red and black, and he wore long shorts and was barefoot.
“I need your eyes to see what I cannot.”
“What troubles you?” The Native man was missing most of his bottom teeth and all but two of his upper teeth, which were black, separated by a wide space.