Empire of the Eagle

33

"Wait!" Quintus flung up a hand. For the first time, he countermanded one of the senior centurion's orders. Despite their peril, the expression on Rufus's face made him grin.

"Sir, they've killed one man already. They're stronger, don't you feel it?" For the first time, the senior centurion questioned an order. And it was a good question.

The lights under the huge dome were fading to the sullenness of a dying oil lamp, and with a smell even more foul. The darkness was gathering in the form of mists, a black dampness that raised hackles and a cold sweat. The eyes of the Legionaries showed white and shining against it. Some of the slaves had begun to tremble. One or two tried to drop to their knees, but the Romans at their sides held them up. They were used to discipline. Quintus hoped they would not try to bolt; it was too cruel to blame and kill men for a cowardice they had never been taught to withstand.

Now the clangor of the gong seemed to shed ripples of darkness, too. They gathered and flooded upward, as if to touch the Eagle. The bronze, which had blazed so brightly before its captivity, appeared to tarnish before the Romans' very eyes: a bird in molt; a bird badly needing freedom from its confinement.

"I can pierce that." Draupadi moved her hands, even though they trembled, and her voice was hoarse from the spells she had already set that night.

She was exhausted, Quintus knew. But she would not rest until she had a chance to undo what she had done. In that regard, she was very like a warrior herself.

One of the Black Naacals strode toward Ganesha, passing by his previous victim with barely a glance at the pale, drained body. Then darkness covered it with a filthy pall. The Black Naacal's robe, where it touched the blood that had drained from the man, clung to his legs on one side.

The first time Quintus had seen Ganesha, they had fought, and Quintus had lopped off his head, or so it had seemed. The old sage had survived, for a wonder, and Quintus had always wondered thereafter if he had battled illusions. He had no such doubts about what they faced now and that there were some things that even demigods could not endure. Had not Bacchus been torn apart—or that strange Egyptian deity he had heard women whisper about? He owed Ganesha a life or a clean death. Rufus was right. Time, and past time, to advance.

"Wait!"

By all the gods of Hades, Lucilius? What did he want?

The waning light flickered on the patrician's face as he placed himself between the Black Naacal and Ganesha.

"I did not know you were so fond," said the Black Naacal. His chuckle was like a blow. Lucilius reddened, then blanched, mastering himself with a control he had rarely shown.

"Why cast away what might be a weapon in your hand?"

"Cast away? Little traitor, I use what comes to hand. See, this senile wineskin of a man is filled with power. Tapping it, I drink; and I take that strength for myself. And then..."

The ground rocked underfoot. Perhaps the Black Naacal would grow so confident of his powers that the earth would open and swallow this place: victory of a sort for the rest of the world.

"They are coming."

"Spies, slaves, and outlaws." So much for the remnants of a great Legion and a Ch'in army.

"You need her if you are to use the old man. He cherishes her."

Ganesha did not move. His eyes were shut. What odd byways of memory and power did the old man now travel?

"There speaks a man besotted. Can you not wait for your dainty?" The Black Naacal began to turn away. "He did not break when we drugged her. What folly makes you think he will control her now—or even that we can get her back? These traitors break, but they do not bend. So, we may as well take his power and bend it to our will. You have your gold, and the promise of more when we stamp the face of the earth into an image of our devising. Do not seek for more."

"You swore I could have her."

"There will be other women for you. Now, traitor, stand back lest we avail ourselves of what little virtue you possess."

The Black Naacal slapped Lucilius's face, then backhanded it. The blow looked light enough, but a bloody welt formed on the man's cheek, and he staggered, fetching up against the basalt wall closest to the Eagle.

Light and darkness flickered about it, making the Eagle appear to be attempting to move. Lucilius was a traitor. But whatever else he was, he was a Roman, and he had followed the Eagle and served it after his fashion.

"Forward at a walk," Quintus gestured. Far behind him, Ssu-ma Chao repeated the order.

Under the gongs and chants of the Black Naacals, the scrape of the Legionaries' boots, the pad of the slaves' bare feet or the Ch'in footgear made little sound. They might have been ghosts, advancing stealthily, but always in plain sight.

Lucilius was watching them. His eyes widened. Let him shout, and they would be under attack before need be. But Lucilius did not shout. His eyes brightened, as with the tears of shame that he should have shed long ago. Even as his former Legion advanced toward their standard and their enemies, the patrician straightened himself and saluted.

Rufus caught his eye and spat.

The darkness thickened about the traitor, seeking to touch his eyes and lips and ears, as if trying to control him utterly.

Traitor he certainly was. And he had laid hands upon Draupadi. He deserved death, many times over.

Memory stabbed at Quintus—Crassus, surrounded by Parthians, fighting until he died. Quintus had fought for him until a blow to the head had toppled him. The old proconsul had been a venal failure and a fool, but he had died like a man.

"Lucilius!" Quintus shouted. The echo rang in the vast shrine. "Join us! Remember, you are a Roman!"

Lucilius's mouth worked. Color flamed on his cheeks, almost as vivid as the welt from the Black Naacal's blow.

"Come on, man!" Mirabile dictu, now Rufus was shouting encouragement. Now, all the soldiers were taking it up. One even yelled the gladiators' salute, as if he were, for all the world, a barbarian fresh from the forests across the Rhenus.

"Do a Roman thing," Quintus shouted. "Come back to the patria. Follow the Eagle!"

The Eagle loomed over Lucilius's head. It was brighter now, seemingly poised upon its standard as if awaiting some sign. Quintus looked up at it. Maybe it was a trick of the guttering light, but that bird watched him with eyes that were more than craftily wrought metal.

He called for the salute. After a moment, the slaves and the Ch'in copied it. The Black Naacals' chant rose to a frenzy.

"Lucilius!" Quintus shouted. "The Eagle! Bring us the Eagle!"

Rufus's war-trained voice repeated the command, louder than his.

The Black Naacal held the dagger poised above Ganesha's throat. And the hissing began, that squamous threat that had followed them from Syria, a sign that evil was manifesting and about to strike.

"Now, man! There isn't any more time!" Why, you would think I love him like a brother!

"For Rome!" Rufus shouted.

"Roma!" voices boomed behind him. Even the slaves had taken it up. "Ro-ma! Ro-ma! Ro-ma!"

Lucilius's eyes darted around the shrine and focussed on the Eagle. Weighing the odds again, was he?

He hesitated...

... And the remnants of his Legion advanced.

Quintus saw the indecision on his face. No more to be called traitor, by either side. To regain his pride, even in death.

Do the Roman thing, Quintus urged him silently. Even if none of them survived, Lucilius's spirit might stand before Minos and Rhadamanthus unashamed. There must be words that he could use to push the patrician into action—and then he found them.

"Come on, lad! One last throw of the dice!" he shouted.

To his astonishment, Lucilius laughed. Light crowned his pale hair. He lunged for the Eagle and grabbed its staff.

The great bird mantled its shining wings like a living creature, while the Temple's foundations trembled at the beat of those wings.

Lucilius held the Eagle aloft...

...And the Black Naacal brought his dagger slashing down in a gleaming arc toward Ganesha's throat, a death from which there would come no awakening.

"Roma!" shouted Lucilius, and smashed the standard down on the Black Naacal's skull.

He twisted around, heading for the men who had once been under his command. They were cheering hoarsely now, even the slaves.

Was it only another illusion, or did the shrine seem brighter? No, that was not illusion at all. The dark mists were burning away under the glow of the Eagle. Now the pale light before dawn began to pierce through the lancets in the great dome. The idea of actually seeing another dawn brought a surge of hope into Quintus's heart. The light intensified. One long beam of light slashed through the narrow window into the shrine, past the crumpled body of the Black Naacal, and past the Romans as they charged to touch Lucilius and the Eagle he upheld.

Once again, the bronze bird mantled. This time it screamed anger and defiance. And the staff that had supported it for so long erupted into flame, hotter than naphtha, that licked out to enfold Lucilius.

He had no time to scream or even grimace in agony. One moment, he appeared to glow in the light. In the next moment, he was incandescent. His harness fell away, and they could see exposed, as the flesh was consumed, the pattern of his bones: ribs and skull and the stubborn articulation of the arm that upheld the Eagle's flaming staff until the bones too were consumed, dropping into a little heap of calcined fragments.

Beams of light stabbed through the windows and transfixed the Eagle, and it screamed once again. As if the Flame used it as a lens light darted from the Eagle's eyes toward the other Dark Ones and burnt them to ashes. Priests, servants, even the corpse of the first sacrifice ... all consumed.

Still the Eagle glowed with unspent force. And Quintus remembered ... Pasupata had been unleashed. It devastated the field, yet he who had used it and his army had remained very still, lest it turn on them, too.

Seizing Quintus's dagger, Draupadi ran forward toward Ganesha. Freed, the old man gazed up at the Eagle, then knelt as if he wished to touch earth before a superior being. Behind him, the slaves had gone prostrate in awe.

And the Romans drew themselves up and saluted their regained Eagle with a pride they were overjoyed to feel once more.

Some of that salute is for you, Lucilius, Quintus thought. I hope you know it.

With a last cry, the Eagle lifted from its perch, to circle the inside of the Temple three times. Dawn was coming in now, a rising tide of light and life and purification. Out of the nearest window, a streak of bronze fire, the Eagle winged—and was gone.

Now Romans, Ch'in soldiers, the two White Naacals, and former slaves stood free beneath the great vault of the old shrine. Even the smoke stains had been scoured from its walls by the sudden splendor of the Eagle's flight. The white rock of its vault glowed, and the great dome seemed to quiver on massive piers. Above the altar, the great serpent coiled in majesty, and the eyes of its many heads shone gem-bright.

Tears poured down Rufus's leathery cheeks. "Our Eagle," he said. "Just when we won it back, it's gone."

"It was never ours," said Quintus, "but Rome's."

"And now it is flying back," said Ganesha. Draupadi had flung one of her veils, toga-fashion, about him, and even in that unfamiliar garb, he contrived to look dignified.

"It is your time now, Romans," Ganesha said. "And your world. What shall you do with it?"

Quintus wanted to shrug. They all had felt the barriers go up. If they could not be removed, what would they do, with no way now of returning home?

Ganesha laughed. "And has your kind been exiled before? I tell you, what one magus has done another one—carefully—can undo. And even if I cannot, let me tell you, young Quintus, your Rome will thrive. For this is Rome's time, as long ago it was our Motherland's. As for us, we too shall thrive. Who knows? Perhaps, one day even your Rome may be astonished when it sends out men and they find not strangers but more Romans ready to clasp arms with their brothers!"

Quintus spared a look at the little heap of lime and ash that had been a Roman. Later, he would gather them up and give Lucilius an honorable grave so his tricky, volatile spirit might rest.

Draupadi knew his mind and handed him her headscarf to lay over them. Perhaps she and Ganesha could indeed free them from this place. But if not, there was food and the chance to grow more. There was water. There was stone to build with and, now that the Black Naacals were gone, allies to build with—possibly more powerful than any knew until they unlocked the secrets they had kept stubbornly hidden from the Dark for so long.

Ganesha and Draupadi bowed before the restored altar. Quintus no longer considered it an accident that the Serpent's eyes glittered in response.

Then, all of them left the Temple, hastening out into the open air. The wind, blowing through the Temple's vaults, pursued them down the corridors. It was like a fragrant breath. The sky shone more brightly than it had during all the days of their wandering.

Without, the Eagle still soared overhead, rivaling the sun. As it saw them, it shrieked acknowledgment. "Ave atque vale!" Quintus shouted at it. Hail and farewell.

Then it wheeled and flew westward, like a messenger returning home with news of a great victory.

They watched its path until it was only a gleaming speck in the dawn sky, and that speck, too, had vanished.

Then they stood staring at each other, all those survivors. Already, Valmiki, the closest thing that the former servants of the Black Naacals had for a priest, was in earnest conversation with Ganesha. And Rufus turned toward his officer.

"So this is where we get our land?"

"You'll have to wait for the mule, I'm afraid," Quintus told him, then laughed for the pure pleasure of it.

"From what I understand, I have the time to put in."

Quintus nodded and reached out for Draupadi's hand. Ganesha might be right in his predictions as he so often was. Perhaps he could indeed free them. And perhaps in another time, Romans might travel out into the desert and be astonished to meet their distant kin. But for now, Quintus had a farm to build and tend and a life to get on with, a life to share. How better to show this entire place's return to life but with a wedding? Draupadi turned to meet his eyes. She knew his mind now, as always, and smiled: no need for more now, before all these people, but later ... ah, later ... a life ... a child, maybe strong sons and dark-eyed daughters ... It was more than he had ever hoped. And more than Arjuna had been privileged to keep. With all my strength—for all my lives, he promised Draupadi in his deepest thoughts; and the seeress smiled.

He studied the ruined Temple. Those walls could be raised again, and some of the leftover stone would do well to build houses and, later on, aqueducts. There was no reason why this place could not flourish, and its people along with it.

Now he looked up to the sky. Desert sky though it was, he thought he saw a promise of rain.

Rome would prosper in the West, whether or not he ever saw its seven hills again. Here too in the East there was work to be done, and as Rufus might say, Romans to do it. By the honor of the Eagle, they would do it well.