Empire of the Eagle

30

Down they swung from the tower, Quintus ready to curse every time his feet, unfamiliar with the footholds, kicked loose a tile or chunk of masonry. Manetho moved fast and far more silently, a scout expert in his own terrain, aware of every hiding place.

How many Naacals, Quintus wondered, ventured out into the ruins and never returned to the black sanctums?

The air thickened still further. The night sky took on the color of onyx appearing to settle, inexorably, upon his shoulders as if he were being tortured, pressed beneath its weight. Heavier and heavier it grew, together with the sense that something was amiss, someone watched him as he might watch a snake before he struck its head off.

Confess and your punishment is less than if your crime is discovered, he had always been told. They lied, oh they lied. But the temptation to run from the path into bright lights and bargain for some shreds of a miserable life added to the oppression of his spirit.

"Quickly!" hissed Manetho.

You are not at risk, at least with me, Quintus thought, but dismissed that as ignoble. It might be that Manetho's people needed him to put heart in them, the way a good leader must. Or it might be that he did not want to decrease their numbers by staying away, protecting himself if the Black Naacals claimed a victim by lot.

And it might—oh gods, there were strangers in their midst. His Legionaries. Rufus. Lucilius. Ganesha, or even Draupadi—priests taken as sacrifices after their many years of struggle and survival. That was nefas, blasphemy so vile that Quintus could not imagine it.

"My comrades..."he muttered.

"You brought Naacals of the light among us," snapped Manetho as he hastened back toward the ruin. "Children of the Sun, in the fullness of their power. If the Dark Ones take them, they take that power, too. Do you understand? It is not just wiped out; it is absorbed."

A tremor shook the earth. Manetho gasped out something that might have been oath and prayer combined.

"I have to get to them!" Quintus gasped. The Eagle was there, safe—if anything here could be safe—in Rufus's care. But Draupadi—she was young-seeming, fair, almost unmarked by hardship. The Black Naacals would see her and, having seen, how could they do aught but choose her?

"It is sacrifice, not lust. Or just lust alone," hissed Manetho. "Will you for the love of the undying sun come on? You sacrifice not just to give honor, but to get, to compel the spirits to give you of their power to use as you see fit."

And you believe that? Quintus scrambled for a grip on the rocks.

Of course Manetho did. This was not a matter of feeding a horse snake or the python at Delphi—or of bowing before the lares and penates of his home. It was a sacrifice more evil than any he had heard of, and it brought such power that, years ago, the Black Naacals had cracked the very face of the earth and allowed the sea to drain away.

What would they choose if they found such power available to them once more in the persons of the two White Naacals?

What would they not do? That was the question.

Twist; turn; tramp back. They had reached the precincts of the Temple itself. Now Quintus could somehow recall the topped columns he had seen before on the half-broken archways through which he had come. Past that toppled wall lay the entrance to the hall where he had sat before. He headed toward it, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

After all, how many Black Naacals could there be? He had fought them; they could die—and once he could lay his hand upon the Eagle ... he could feel the jolt of energy it sent through him the times when it had worked through him to protect their people. Surely, it would serve him—or he would serve it—now.

Manetho seized his arm. "Not there. Not now. I will take you to a place where we can watch. From which we must watch, the Light shine upon us all."

The castaway steered Quintus to a sort of gallery overlooking the meager fire and the hall where his people had assembled. Several had encircled Draupadi.

"You ask many questions, Lady. You and the old man. You wear the robes; you speak the words that we long to hear, but..."

In a glance, Quintus saw what must have happened. They had spies in their midst before, Manetho had told him. How could they think that Draupadi and Ganesha were among them?

They are terrified; they can think anything when the thunder peals and the ground rumbles.

The priestess shook her head. "Ganesha and I... we do not steal power, but have learned it... year after year, life after life..."

That had been the wrong thing to say, obviously.

The others drew back. Draupadi held out her palms. "Look at me," she cried.

They hissed at her to keep her voice down.

"Look!" she continued in an urgent whisper. "Test me by any ordeal you choose. But I tell you, I have seen what the Dark Ones do, and I swear to you by the flame that the only way I would go to their altars is as a sacrifice!"

The ground trembled. A fine dust filtered from the rock overhead and dropped before Quintus's face, momentarily obscuring the people on whom he spied.

Then, from outside the broken hall came measured, sardonic' applause. "Excellent, my lady priestess. A noble speech. Shall we go now?"

"This girl, a priestess?" Ganesha rose to his feet more quickly than even a man of his apparent age should. "She is but a—" his voice seemed to change as he spoke what must surely be a title in the long-gone language of the Motherland.

"He just gave himself away," Manetho whispered. "Why?"

Quintus looked at him briefly, bleakly, then turned his eyes back to the hall.

"All the better," said the Black Naacal. His eyes glinted beneath his hood. Quintus shuddered at the pressure of the thickened air and the hunger he saw in the man's face as he looked at Draupadi. He moved forward a step, extending his hand as if to claim her. Ganesha brought his own hand down, barked out a word or two, and the Dark One stopped, and laughed.

"You would protect your—student, is that all she is? Just a student still, after all these endless years? And what of the others? All of the others, Father. I believe your oath...." He too switched into the ancient mellifluous tongue Ganesha had used.

Three others of the Black Naacals entered the room, their staffs ready in their hands. Slowly, as if enjoying the terror they created, they pointed their staffs spear-fashion at the slaves. One man jerked away. A black-robe chuckled wetly and let the staff tilt upward to tap him on the shoulder. At that touch, the man screamed and fell back.

The others sank down.

Beside Quintus, Manetho drew a deep, sobbing breath.

"Cease!" commanded Ganesha. "That man has not harmed you. Leave him be."

"He is meat," said the Black Naacal, "like all of these, for our altars."

To Quintus's shock, Ganesha laughed. "What do you need such—forgive me, my friends—cattle for?" he asked. Then he drew a deep breath and steadied himself. "Not when you have the Wise themselves. And what need of a very young illusionist—when you have me."

Manetho's knees buckled. Quintus bore him up, though he longed to drop the man and race down to stand between the Black Naacals and the White.

"Better yet," said the Black Naacal, all but purring. "A willing sacrifice? It is long since we have had one of such power. And perhaps ... perhaps you need not be a sacrifice but a celebrant. We have other meat, as I told you."

Ganesha jerked up his chin. "No."

"Fool, for all your learning. Take him," he gestured to his fellows. "Take the woman, too!"

"I would not stain my lips with even the lie that I would work with you," Ganesha said. "I know what you are. I know what you seek. And I pledge not to hinder you from taking what you will from me. Just let the others go."

The Black Naacals moved together. Their eyes beneath their hoods were alight, and their whispers were eager. Two approached Ganesha and pointed at him with their staffs.

"Up with you, old man!" commanded the eldest. "The slaves can live. Your girl, too."

For now. Everyone in the room heard that unspoken threat.

They would take Ganesha's power and Ganesha's life, and then they would be back for more. His sacrifice would be meaningless.

"No!" Draupadi was at the old man's side, her hand on his arm. "You shall not go."

Carefully and with surprising strength, Ganesha pried loose her hands. "Child," he said, "for you have been daughter as well as student to me all the years of our exile, obey me in this last thing as you have in all else. By our oath..." he bent and whispered.

She nodded.

Ganesha squeezed her hands together. He jerked his chin once at Rufus, who rose. Probably the centurion was the only man who could have moved at that moment. Ganesha placed her hands in the Roman's.

"Guard them well," he whispered.

Then the old priest straightened himself. His white robe blazing, he allowed the two black-robed priests to take charge of him. Serenely, as if going to officiate in some rite, he left the room, the last of the Black Naacals sullen at his back.

The room, boiled. Men darted from it, while women gathered up children, and girls and youths pressed back from the Romans who stood bewildered.

Quintus turned away from his vantage point. He had seen the Naacals stare about the room. It had not only been Draupadi and Ganesha the Black Naacals had sought: It was himself.

"Where are you going?" Manetho hissed.

"We have to stop them!"

"Wait!"

Draupadi sank against Rufus's shoulder, the image of a woman distraught at the loss of one who had been like a father to her. The sight tore at Quintus's heart, even though he suspected her weakness was an illusion born of acting, not of her powers. As the last dark robe swept out, she pushed herself free of the centurion.

"The Eagle," she demanded. "Let me take it."

Rufus froze.

"He is an old man," Draupadi pleaded. "And I can use it well."

"Lady, I have my orders."

"For him, too!" Draupadi cried. "We must fight now. Don't you think they'll be back? Don't you think they'll take the strongest, the fittest? They took Ganesha away quickly enough!"

She tried to dart to one side and grasp the standard. Wrong move, Draupadi.

"I have my orders."

"With power like that," Manetho said, "they'll have it all. We cannot wait. I must rouse the people, and we must fight. What if they come back for her? What if they seize your Eagle? It may not be..."

"Rufus," Draupadi pleaded, "listen to me. You have no idea how strong Ganesha's power is. It may be enough. How would you feel if you gave your enemies a weapon that could crack this world like an earthen plate?"

Rufus shook his head, stubbornly.

"And what about him? He is not back yet," Draupadi told Rufus. "What if they have him already?"

Him? She was speaking of Quintus!

"Come on!" said Manetho. "Now, while we have the chance...."

Rufus shook his head back and forth. No.

"What do you mean, 'no'? You are the flesh of Rome itself," she told Rufus. Now, I am going to find my friend and my kinsman. Can you do less for your officer?"

Manetho turned to go.

Quintus gestured. A moment more. Rufus walked over to the Eagle, gleaming even in the shadow. He saluted it, put out his hand to take it—and Draupadi darted forward and caught it up. The bronze Eagle poised atop its standard did not blaze up, as if it too sensed how great their peril was and that it must stay hidden. But its brightness seemed to subtly intensify, to take on a richness akin to the saffron that Draupadi wore.

She looked upon the Eagle and her lips moved as if she spoke to it in a whisper, or a prayer. Then she nodded. Was it a trick of the light that made Quintus think that the Eagle had dipped its head in assent to whatever she had told it?

"Man, move it! Do you want your people facing the Dark Ones without you!?" Manetho's voice cracked.

He pulled at Quintus's arm. This time, the tribune allowed himself to be drawn through the ruins at a speed he would not have dared by himself. It was too fast, through unfamiliar terrain: He had fears of falling, terrible images of writhing, the yellow bone piercing the flesh of his thigh, crippling him for the rest of his life—assuming he had a "rest of his life."

"Faster," Manetho gasped. He passed a gap in the wall and gestured, once and then again. "In here."

"Where are you taking me?"

Quintus planted his feet, good old Roman stubbornness warming him for the first time, as he thought, for days. Even a dozen Legionaries, with Roman discipline and their swords outthrust, should be able to wreak terror on the Black Naacals—and he, standing with his men, would finally pay Rome the death he owed.

Hot pain lanced into his arm, and he spun around in shock.

Manetho had his dagger out. Fool, to let yourself be gulled by fear and a sad story!

"Your men's lives lost? Your lady stolen? And you think that is all we have faced?"

Quintus clapped hand to the wound Manetho had made. Not serious. "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you."

"You will never find your way back," Manetho's teeth shone in the darkness. "And your blood will leave a spoor for the Dark Ones to follow."

Quintus's arm had begun to sting as if Manetho had smeared the little blade with poison. Perhaps he has. Perhaps those gestures were signals for his followers to strike you down, you and all the others. Who knows? Perhaps he has sold you to the Black Naacals himself?

Temptation threatened to overwhelm him. Kill this traitor. Find your men. Take the Eagle and fight your way in to reclaim Ganesha and Draupadi. And then get out of this trap, leaving these fools and slaves behind.

Manetho folded his arms over his chest. "They're in your mind," he said. "Pain helps. You can kill me now, you know. You might be able to find your way back: Who knows? You found your way here, didn't you? Or you can come with me and give us all a chance to fight."

The desert wind blew, but Quintus was drenched in sweat.... After Carrhae, they crouched, betrayed in the dark swamp. Some of his men drank the foul standing water and shuddered with fever and flux—to the cross with this madman and dying in this place.

"Come on," Manetho almost taunted him. "Decide. Kill me or help us. But do it quickly. We have run out of time. They are moving to attack, and it will be as it was the last time—and they will overwhelm the whole world. Well, which is it?"

From the rags of his tunic, Manetho pulled out a dagger with a bone hilt, curiously bright. Light welled from the blade's point. If he's fool enough to arm you, quench us that knife in the slave's blood. We would welcome news. We would welcome you. Come to us....

"It will get worse, you know," Manetho told him. His voice was almost kind. "I will forgive you, too, if you kill me, strange as it sounds. Life like this has been no great blessing. I have seen so many of my brothers dead in ways—do it. Do it quick. I may even thank you. This way, I would die as a warrior at a warrior's hands— you're even giving me a chance at a decent rebirth!"

Quintus looked wonderingly at the dagger.

"And leave your people?"

"What have you left for them? You came in as you did with White Naacals and a weapon that cast trails of power like a comet from halfway across the waste. You think the Dark Ones don't want that? That they wouldn't spend all of us to get it? The best any of us can hope for is a quick death before they make the entire world their slave."

Manetho raised his chin to allow Quintus the easy, fast blow to the blood vessels in his throat.

He was so thin! Quintus thought he had never seen such a poor specimen passing for a fighting man. But he stood, trembling only slightly, waiting at a time when waiting was perhaps the riskiest thing in the world to do. What gave him the courage?

Only hope. In hope, Quintus had marched across the desert and reclaimed his Eagle. And now? Taking on the Black Naacals would be like a single cohort toppling The Surena's forces when the Legions of Rome had failed...

...but he had the Eagle, and with it, a weapon that would alter the balance of power.

Kill the wretch now and come to us!

The intensity of that attack made him sway as if he had taken a blow to the jaw. The carvings on the ruined rock walls seemed to drift in and out of focus. In his mind, processions of White Priests moved toward an altar surmounted by the many-headed serpent that meant—coils, crushing and constricting, squeezing the life from their victim, draining him, before the great jaws gaped wide for the flesh that remained....

The serpent seemed to writhe in his consciousness, its eyes stark with ancient malice. Its tongue flickered back and forth.

Use the blade, fool!

Lightning went off inside Quintus's skull. A nail-sticker like that to take out a giant serpent? He laughed, the coarsely cheerful mirth that Rufus reserved for the most awkward Legionary-in-training.

Not a serpent. Another illusion. The friezes and the broken walls turned firm again. Once more, the White Naacals marched over the roughened stone toward their altar, and power sluiced out like warm water pouring down an aching back, healing, comforting....

It was all a lie, wasn't it?

He let the dagger drop from his hand. Manetho wavered and sagged, and Quintus reached out to steady him—almost in the embrace of brothers.

"I've wasted time we can't spare," Quintus said. "Lead on."

He followed Manetho at a near run through what quickly seemed so like a maze that he expected a Minotaur to bellow and charge them at every crossing of the ways they passed. He had no thread, though, to mark his passage, and his Ariadne—to whom he would be faithful, unlike Theseus—lay in the grasp of their enemies.

Draupadi was, he reassured himself, a mistress of illusion, able to dispel hallucinations that might have finished off him and the Legionaries. Just as he must trust Manetho, he must have faith in them and their inborn strength to hold firm until he could retrieve the Eagle and lead them.

Now, he and Manetho raced through a narrow passageway. On either side, he heard a rushing sound. Water, perhaps, coursing through hidden channels as if through an aqueduct? Or air singing through tunnels set into the thick walls? Romans were engineers. These walls, though, made anything built by Rome seem like a shed flung up out of flat stones.

As they hastened on, it became easier and easier for Quintus to see the path up ahead. Some trick of the light, perhaps? He thought he saw a glow welling from the floor wherever Manetho stepped.

"They are coming," he said.

Was this to be a full rising of the slaves, then? Quintus's belly clenched. Was this how the gladiators had felt, turning on their masters, who were vastly more numerous and powerful than they? And yet, they had put Rome in such fear that it would never forget them. Given the Eagle, given its power, how much more could he—

"This used to be a place where the underpriests robed...." Manetho told him.

How long ago? Don't ask, Quintus. Don't even think of asking.

His foot brushed something, and he stumbled. What was that?

Something bulky sprawled against the rock. Quintus swerved, but could not avoid it. He went sprawling and fell hard against the wall, the carvings bruising his flesh. And his arm, dropping over what had tripped him, landed hard enough to bring a moan out of the man he had stumbled across.

It was Rufus's voice.

Jupiter Optimus Maximus and all the lesser gods, Quintus thought, as he knelt beside the centurion, feeling for wounds on the man's hard skull. Rufus groaned repeatedly. The light rising from the floor showed his eyes, glazed now, with the pupil of one eye larger than that of the other.

"Lad ... I mean, sir ... by all the gods, didn't know you had a twin. You'll need to be Castor and Pollux both to take on ... to the crows with that little bastard. His father should have exposed him at birth or thrown him from the Tarpeian rocks, which is what I'd do if I ever got him home.... Damn, my head, my head..."

Rufus gagged, doubling over and retching. Quintus supported his shoulders.

"Come on!" whispered Manetho.

Up ahead, Manetho might fume that they were out of time, but Rufus carried my stretcher. He forbade that I be abandoned on the desert or killed quickly when they thought I could not see. He taught me. And Manetho wasn't a man to abandon a comrade, either.

"Who?" Quintus asked, his heart sinking to depths he would have judged impossible.

"He came up behind us ... the lady and I... Edepol, sir, I'm glad you're here to take charge...."

"Draupadi?" Quintus asked. "What happened?"

"Poor girl never had a chance. That useless traitor, that Lucilius ... I'd like to have the purple stripe off their togas and them nailed up to a cross...."

In the ruined hall, Lucilius had crouched at first with the Legionaries and the slaves, but then gone outside, pleading restlessness and the need to breathe untainted air.

And that was all that was clean about him! Quintus let his hands rest on Rufus's shoulders, trying to reassure the older man: but there was no reassurance for either of them.

Even as Lucilius had slipped outside, were the voices already eating away at his resolve? He had always been apt for treasons, as long as Quintus had known him. And this was not the first time he had tried to strike a bargain with an enemy.

It had been hard enough for Quintus with his old Roman grandsire and—as Lucilius thought—his ludicrous respect for loyalty to resist the voices that the Black Naacals sent out to tempt those who would stand against them.

What had they promised the patrician? Gold, it went without saying, and perhaps Draupadi, compliant or not.

"He hit me first, sir," Rufus said. "I went down. And then he grabbed for the Eagle—our Eagle! The lady snatched it away before he could lay his rotten hands on it, and I tried, so help me Minos and Rhadamanthus, I swear I tried to go to her aid. But he grabbed her by one arm and told her that he wouldn't kill me if she went along without using her magic on him. That was bad enough. And then he kicked me, and I went crashing into the wall, a real tyro's trick.... Gods, I've been a fool, bungled everything. Oh, Dis, to the cross with this head of mine...."

"Steady there," Quintus muttered absently. "It's all right."

It would have been the cross or worse for all of them. The Black Naacals had Ganesha, with his great strength and power. And, while the old man had held out all these lifetimes and while he might well have endured until the final death that he had escaped in the whelming of his home, could he endure seeing a dear friend put to torment? Especially when the friend had been not just a student, but a daughter to him for all that time?

"She has the Eagle, sir," Rufus said. He stifled a groan—a sign he might recover if he concealed his pain. "I should be flogged, broken ... one woman and I could not even protect her...."

"Come on!" snapped Manetho. "They will betray us. Now we must hasten."

No! Do not think of Ganesha or Draupadi in torment. Do not think of the sacrifices of the Black Naacals. The priestess of the sun had power enough to use the Eagle; he only hoped that she would.

"The longer we stay here, the worse the chance.... Do you know what those priests do to their victims?"

Don't think of Draupadi's amber skin dappled with her blood or turned the color of chalk. Don't think of Ganesha's towering spirit quenched. And don't think of them.... They would put their hands on Draupadi. Maybe even Lucilius, who had wanted her and she had rebuffed him.

"First there will be a sacrifice. Then, they will begin," Manetho spoke, his voice hollow with dread.

Quintus had never expected to return to Rome, much less to return with the Eagle. He had, however dimly, begun to hope for some shreds of a life. Now, though, now, he must take the Eagle and wield it. A whole world hung in the balance.

"If they die, they die as soldiers." He heard his voice, so hoarse it was hard to recognize the words as his lips shaped them. "Rufus, you go back. Manetho, I'm with you. We will catch them in a circle. No one will get out alive."

Least of all ourselves.

But the idea of Romans, their eyes alight with anger and relieved tension, and the bloody drill of their short swords, advancing deliberately on the Black Naacals and cutting them asunder had its own attraction and even carried its own healing. Rufus struggled to his feet. What began as an unsteady walk finished up as a march.

Quintus turned to Manetho. "I know you would rather be with your own men," he said. "But with your help..."

"You must take care. It is you they want!" cried Manetho. "They know who brought in the strangers. You are young, strong.... They may wish to make you one of their number.... Sometimes it happens when one of our sons grows too strong and they have a vacancy in their ranks...."

Now that was damnable—suborning sons as well as killing them. Let a strong man rise, and the slaves would never know if they could rely on him, or if, at the moment of sacrifice, they would look up at the Black Naacal holding the knife and see in his face the man who had once been son or brother or friend.

"They will have to content themselves with the terror they have already wrought," Quintus snapped. He would like to execute Lucilius himself: The patrician had betrayed not only his city and his caste, but all his world.

However, Quintus's first responsibility must be to rescue the Eagle. To wield it, if he could; and if not, to afford Draupadi and Ganesha a clean death before the Black Naacals unleashed their power. Perhaps he would even have time to fall on his own sword.

And the Eagle? If he could not wield it, he must destroy it. Most likely, that would eliminate the need to fall on his sword—or for any of the others to try it.

He had come, he realized, to the end of the skein of time allotted him by the Fates. With that realization came the death of hope—and the end of his fear. His sword gleamed in his hand, but did not quiver.

Abruptly he laughed. "Morituri te salutamus!" he cried, saluting the darkness.

Manetho glared at him. The poor bastard probably feared him almost as much as the Black Naacals. Yet he must lead his men and work with Quintus, whom he clearly found a strange creature if he could face death laughing.

But Manetho was brave. He led. And Quintus followed, his senses keyed up for this final battle.

Again, the banging of gongs and now, the braying of horns and the sound that Quintus feared even more—the blowing of bone flutes, higher and more shrill than the priests' horns. Manetho shuddered. So long a slave, and now he was forcing himself to face worse than death. Quintus opened his mouth to utter the comforting words he himself had heard before his first battle. Again came the clamor of the priests' instruments. Energy thrilled in his blood. He felt stronger, fairly matched, and he no longer needed to place his feet with such care. The fear was gone, all of it. He wanted to share that comfort, for such it was, with Manetho, but the slave was a dark blot up ahead.

Even through the walls, Quintus heard the thunder. Lightning played across the gaps in the walls and danced in the waste, turning salt flats and stone slabs white. A wind blew. Remembering the storms he had endured with Ganesha and Draupadi—and the whirlwinds they had survived—he was not dismayed.

The lightning flashed once more. Now, the very walls themselves seemed to glow. Flames seemed to brush the hands of the figures in the battered friezes. Krishna had danced that way. But Quintus's talisman lay buried in the waste. Quintus decided that the sight was a good omen, if a fearsome one. Fare forward, Krishna had told him so very long ago. Told Arjuna, who faced armies, not a man with the blood of princes in his veins and the soul of a felon. Not Dark Priests. Your battle is harder than mine, came a voice in his head. Arjuna's this time, not the Dark Ones.

Quintus would fare forward, as he had been taught. It was relief. It was rebirth. And it was deadly danger.