The Burning Isle

by Will Panzo

  Cassius found the rooms on the second floor ransacked. Beds stripped bare and footlockers overturned.

  He kicked through piles of clothes until he found a tunic large enough to fit over his legion uniform, the tunic olive green. He searched the rest of the rooms but found nothing worth taking.

  On the fourth floor, he found a cloak with a hood to obscure his face and found also a box embossed with a death’s-head skull, the kind sometimes carved into Antiochi gravestones. He opened the box and what he found inside made his heartbeat quicken.

  The only defeat was death. That’s what the Masters taught. Anything less was a setback, an inconvenience. But what of a man such as he? A man who had cheated death, who refused to die.

  The Masters had no such lessons to guide him. But there were other words that he recalled, the general’s words.

  He was an agent of great forces, the general had said, beyond the ken of normal man. He was the equal of Death, and they would meet as such in the end.

  Cassius ran his fingertips across the embossed skull of the box. Equals.

  He gathered the box, the tunic, and the cloak, and then returned downstairs.

  The spellcaster with the wounded hand was gone, as was Galerius’s body. Piso’s body still lay facedown. He found the large knife on the floor, next to the overturned table. He snatched it up and approached the body, his free hand working to undo the knot in the drab pouch.

  When he finished, he exited through the front door and discovered that the legionnaires had killed Piso’s guards. They had dragged Galerius’s dead body out of the front room, using one of the white truce flags to lift it, and had laid it in the plaza. They stood ringed around the body, looked down at it as though it were a sleeping Galerius and the men afraid to wake him.

  He passed them and headed for the mouth of an alley.

  “Hey,” one of the men called. “Hey, what happened in there?”

  Cassius did not acknowledge the question. As he walked, he threw the large cloak over his armor.

  “To hell with him,” another man said. “Never trusted that one at my back anyway.”

  • • •

  The cloak smelled of urine and of a sharp body odor. The hood obscured Cassius’s vision, but the streets were mostly quiet, and he kept to the shadows. There were few streetlamps in these lanes, and when he crept into alleyways, there were none at all. He passed scores of bodies, most dead but some calling out to him for aid or for release.

  He was a block outside of Hightown, back in legion-occupied territory, when he shed the cloak and the green tunic to reveal the legion uniform and armor underneath.

  He returned to the Market and scanned it in the dark. Where tents and merchant stalls had once stood, now lay the remains of legionnaires and civilians, Antiochi and Khimir, men and beasts. The entire square was slick with blood, and above it all floated a cloud of oily smoke.

  The Market moved. Shapes thrashed in the light of the fires, and the cries of the wounded were loud. Small skirmishes still raged, spells flashing and the air shaking with explosions. Creatures stalked through the carnage, wolves and lithe jungle cats and apes with ponderous brows.

  The council hall was in flames, two of its pillars smashed and one corner of the roof collapsed. Bodies lay prone on the steps, locked in grotesque poses, reaching or hunched forward or with arms spread cruciform, like some grim painting.

  Cassius could see the goddess erect above it all, so white she seemed to shine. He knew there were pools of blood at her feet, and he waited for her to awake, to sweep those blank eyes over this terrible scene and acknowledge a sacrifice unrivaled in all the history of the world.

  But instead, she stood and stared.

  • • •

  Cassius found the bar undamaged. Farther up the street, a crowd had formed to fight a house fire, but otherwise, the lane was deserted and the houses mostly untouched by flame or violence. The entrance through the stables was unlocked.

  In the dark, Cassius scanned the bar until he found a candle. He lit the candle with the smokeless spell fire, and by the cornflower-blue light, he checked each of the rooms and saw that they were empty.

  He found a shaving mirror in the drawer of Lucian’s nightstand and found also a small bar of soap, a straight razor, and a scissor. He took these to the guest room.

  He set the box on the bed and the items from the drawer as well.

  He walked downstairs and wet his hair with water from an earthenware pitcher and filled a small bowl with water and returned with it to the room. He shuttered the window and locked the door.

  Cassius stripped naked, discarding the armor, setting aside the drab pouch, and then opened the box. He removed three large clay jars, each one stopped with a massive cork, and lined them on the floor. He pulled out the white tunic and placed this on the bed, still folded, then removed the white short cloak and the white belt.

  He sat on the floor. Using the scissors, he cut the bandages off his arms. He wet his face and lathered up a handful of soap and dabbed it along his cheeks and neck and shaved in the light of the candle.

  He cut his hair with the scissors. Then he lathered up more soap and worked it through the remaining stubble on his head and shaved himself bald. He shaved his eyebrows and the fine hair of his arms, doing his best to avoid the scabbed wounds there. He shaved his armpits, his pubic hair, his legs.

  After this, he inspected himself in the mirror. The face, while different, was still recognizable. The bent nose. The deep-set, bruised eyes, heavy with discolored bags.

  He opened the first jar. It contained a matte white paste. He spread the paste along his legs, to the tops of his thighs, covering each leg in white completely, then spread more along his feet and the bottoms of his feet. He opened a second jar and painted his arms and shoulders, his chest to his sternum. He covered his neck and the back of his neck, then covered his face totally, front to back, his eyelids and inside his ears. He left his lips uncolored and his hands.

  The third jar contained a blackberry dye. He poured this into his mouth and swished it over his teeth for a time and spat it out. He dipped two fingers into the dye and smeared the dye over his lips. He wiped his fingers dry on the bedsheet.

  He donned the white tunic and the white short cloak. He tied the white belt around his waist and hitched his gauntlets to it. Finally, he painted both hands.

  He picked up the hand mirror and gazed into it and there, for the first time, he saw his true face.

  • • •

  He was sitting at the table in the far corner when Lucian returned. He sat with his back to the wall, his hands under the table. The drab-colored pouch lay before him on the tabletop and next to it stood the candle lit by the blue flame.

  Lucian entered through the front door. He crossed the room slowly, dragging his feet in the dust of the floor. He saw the figure in white, and he stopped. He stared. His face was like the face of a man looking on some small animal wounded beyond his abilities for repair.

  “I was out helping with a fire,” he said, as though offering an excuse for arriving late.

  “It’s good to see you, Lucian.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s . . . it’s good to see you, too. Are you hungry? Can I get you a drink?”

  He shook his head.

  “All right, then. I’m going to get a drink. For me. A big one.” Lucian walked behind the bar. He moved slowly, deliberately, like a man might move before the face of a reared snake. He checked under the counter and came up with a brown-glass bottle and poured himself a measure of something from this and mixed in water from a nearby pitcher. He drank the mixture in a single gulp, then took a swig from the bottle. He returned to the table.

  “Can I sit?” Lucian asked.

  “I’d like that.”

  “All right.” Lucian pulled up a chair. He sat. “I was worried I wasn’t ever go
ing to see you again. And then all this tonight.”

  “I’ve brought you a gift.”

  He reached for the pouch, and Lucian rocked back. When Lucian accepted the pouch, their hands touched briefly, a bit of white rubbing off on Lucian’s fingers.

  Lucian peered inside the pouch, then dropped it.

  “By the gods, are those—”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh hell.” Lucian nudged the pouch away with his foot. “Goddamn it.”

  “You don’t seem pleased.”

  “Of course I’m not pleased. Why would you bring that to me?”

  “I came to thank you.”

  “With that?”

  “Have you been to the jungle, Lucian? Have you moved through it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe when I first got here.”

  “You’d remember.”

  “Then no. All my time here, I lived in the city.”

  “It’s a different world.”

  “I’d imagine.” Lucian wiped his hand on the underside of the table.

  “I still meant what I said.”

  “And what’s that?” Lucian asked.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything.”

  A look of discomfort came over Lucian. “Don’t say it like that. Not everything.”

  The room fell silent. “I should be going.”

  “Going where?” Lucian asked.

  “Home.”

  “And where is that exactly?”

  “You know.”

  “Do I?”

  “Besides me, you’re the only one who knows.”

  Lucian nodded. “Of course.”

  He stood from the table, and Lucian stood with him. He gathered up the drab pouch and headed for the door. He stopped before stepping out into the street, his back still turned.

  “Do you regret it?”

  “Regret what?” Lucian asked.

  “What you did for me?”

  “Don’t ask me that.”

  “Would you take it back if you could?”

  “I can’t.” Lucian waved his hand.

  “But if you could.”

  “I had to do it then, given the circumstances. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t do it?”

  He was silent.

  “I didn’t know what would follow,” Lucian said.

  “And if you could take it back? Could undo all that has happened these last weeks?”

  “How?” Lucian asked. “By denying shelter to a scared, helpless boy all those years ago? I wouldn’t.”

  He considered this. “Thank you.”

  “Cassius?”

  He did not respond but continued out into the night.

  It was near to sunrise before Lucian realized that the room upstairs was afire with blue flame, and by then, too late to stop it, time enough only to flee.

  21

  The road was dark, and to light his way, Cassius set fire to the jungle. He hurled fireballs into the overgrowth, summoned clouds of glowing embers and great streams of liquid flame. Swarms of jungle birds took flight from the assault, and sometimes he caught glimpses of ghostlike people in the sudden flashes.

  There were five guards posted at the entrance to the fort. When the figure in white appeared, they shouted for him to halt, leveled spears at his face.

  “What are you?” a legionnaire asked.

  “I’m here to see Quintus. He’s expecting me.” The figure in white offered the drab pouch to the nearest guard. “This is for him.”

  The guard looked to the bag. “What is it?”

  “It’s for the general.”

  The guard sniffed and grimaced. “Smells awful.”

  “Just take the damn thing,” another man shouted.

  The guard set his spear to rest upright in the cradle of his shoulder. He took the pouch and opened it.

  “Can’t see a damn thing in the dark.”

  “What is it?”

  The guard turned so that he was standing in the light of the moon. “I can’t believe this.”

  The guard passed the bag to another of the legionnaires, and the second man recoiled at the sight inside.

  “Someone has to see these,” he said.

  “The general,” the figure in white said. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “The general.”

  “I didn’t ask who sent for you,” the guard yelled. “I asked who made you come here.”

  “The general.”

  “Listen to me, you loopy bastard—”

  He tossed aside his short cloak and shook his gauntleted fist at the guards. There was a sound like air squeezing from a bellows. A cloud of yellow smoke rose from the ground. The figure in white lifted his short cloak to cover his mouth and to cover his nose and stepped back.

  The guards froze. They clutched their throats, and one man loosed a slow, rattling gurgle, and then they toppled.

  He summoned a gust of wind that blew the cloud clear. He retrieved the drab pouch and continued through the front gate.

  The fort was quieter than he remembered. The men who normally patrolled at night were now in the city, some probably looting in Hightown or fighting in Lowtown, and some with their guts spilled over the Market calling to gods for mercy. The mess hall was deserted and all the barracks.

  He passed under the gray likeness of General Sabacus, the statue with its eyes focused on the jungle.

  The door to the general’s quarters was locked. He shattered it with a concentrated shock wave, the door bowing inward under a hail of splinters.

  He heard a high-pitched scream, then heard fumbling. He stepped into the room and found the general with his servant girl.

  “Get out.”

  The girl stood and covered herself and slipped past him out the door, her head lowered.

  The general reclined nude in his chair. He rubbed his paunch, scratched at his ribs. His eyes were half-closed, and he was sweating in the light of the hearth, his hair soaked and his face very pale.

  “So it has come to this.” The general wiped at his mouth. He closed his eyes.

  “I bring gifts from the city.”

  The general opened his eyes slowly. He looked around the room as though seeing it for the first time. He motioned for him to bring the bag.

  The figure in white crossed the room and presented the general with the drab pouch.

  “A gift for me?” Quintus asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “I can’t remember the last time someone brought me a gift.”

  “You’ll remember this time.”

  Quintus opened the pouch. He stared inside for some time. It was clear that he recognized the contents, but he seemed to be considering an appropriate response. His face was calm, almost sleepy.

  “Beautiful,” he said flatly. And then the general closed the pouch and set it on the floor very near to his feet, next to his gauntlets.

  “What do you think?” the figure in white asked.

  “I think that’s the end of that,” the general said. “I also think I told you not to come back here. Didn’t I say that? What were my words to you?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “This is no safe place for you. You don’t belong here.”

  “This is the one place I belong.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because my work is not done,” the figure in white said.

  Quintus looked down. “Who sent you? I’d have thought it was Cinna or Piso, but we know now that can’t be so.”

  “No one sent me.”

  “You came on your own.”

  “As you see.”

  “To do what exactly?”

&
nbsp; “Will you step outside with me?”

  “No.” Quintus pushed himself out of his chair with great effort. He spat into the hearth. He shuffled to the back of the room and began to pick through baubles arranged on a bookcase.

  “Dress yourself,” the figure in white said. “Come outside.”

  “This is what killed my father. This small thing.” Quintus held up an obsidian arrowhead, pointed with it across the room. He raised up his little finger next to the arrowhead for comparison. “You see? Nothing. Just some small thing.”

  “I see it.”

  “It pierced through his throat. Lodged in the bones of his neck.” Quintus crossed to the figure in white, the arrowhead in his open hand and the hand held before him like an offering. “Do you want to hold it?”

  The figure in white took the arrowhead and held it by the pointed tips of its base. Quintus stood close to him.

  “Was it painful?”

  “Oh, I’d imagine so,” Quintus said. “He was a long time dying. And once he died, the healers wanted to leave it in him. Just cut off the shaft of the arrow so he could be buried.”

  “But you wanted it.”

  Quintus nodded. “Made them cut him open. You should have seen the cowards. Grown men, witnesses to every death in existence, weeping while at their work. They loved him.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.” Quintus laughed to himself.

  “Why?”

  “Different reasons. Father and son things. I remember once he beat me so hard, he couldn’t close his hand the next day.” Quintus smiled. “It swelled up, thick and stiff. I was almost proud of myself for that.”

  “A hard man, then.”

  “Of the sort they no longer make. A hard man and crazy. Built for this place.”

  “What does that mean?” the figure in white asked.

  “He told me the secret to the savages once. I wasn’t much older than you at the time.”

  “He ruled here then?”

  “He did. There had been legion commanders here before him, but it wasn’t a popular assignment. They cycled through a lot of generals. But when he arrived, old Sabacus knew this was it. Right man, right place. I wouldn’t use the term destiny, but you get the gist.”

  A sharpness had come into Quintus’s eyes.