Empire of the Eagle

4

Quintus was bund. He would have been terrified, but fear had been pounded out of him by the Parthian wardrums and bells proclaiming victory. Nearer and nearer they seemed to come. A few paces more, and they would trample him.

And then he would join his comrades in death. He lowered his head like a beast before the altar of sacrifice. It was fated: Let it happen.

Death might be worth it, if only the dryness in his throat went away. They had fought for hours outside Carrhae in the hot sun, with the stinks of blood and dead men and horses, and the flies buzzing as loud as drums and bells.

"Damned if we're leaving him behind. I'm not losing one more." The voice was harsh. Your voice got that way when they kept you out fighting in the sun and wouldn't let you rest or drink.

"What's the worst they can do? Kill me? I'd fall on my own sword if I had one."

"Think it through, centurion! You'll have to get men to carry him. He'll slow us down. And he'll have no more wits than a babe if he lives...."

The voice was cultured and persuasive. Quintus decided he didn't like it. One more word and he'd silence it, if he could only get up, but even the effort of raising his head...

"Do you have to shout? He can hear every word you say, can't you, sir?"

The voices subsided to a muttering. Footsteps pounded, moving blessedly in the direction of away.

"Never fear, he'll live if he wants to. He's a countryman. His head's as hard as the rock that breaks your plow."

Long pause while the drums and bells pounded in Quintus's head as he fought to overhear the argument that went on somewhere above him. Other voices entered—too many more. He was tired. He let himself drift.

It was the heat and the thirst. They could strike you as dead as The Surena's arrows or a sword. He was dead, and they couldn't even let him lie in peace. He thought death meant stillness, rest—he had seen his grandfather and his mother laid out before the shrouds covered them up. Their faces had been strained and twisted during the ordeals of their last days, but death had smoothed the lines of care and anguish into the serenity of a country sculptor's tomb carving.

"Well, then you bring your imperial whatever-it-calls-itself over here, and I'll tell him myself! I'm not leaving this man to die. And if you don't like it, you know where you can shove it. Die fast; die slow—it's no difference. They're not giving the men they're sending—Mars watch them—to Merv, honorable retirement, land, and a mule. Or..."

Anger burst out of the voice in a sort of cough.... "Curse this sand to the pit! They're selling them. Selling free-born Romans, men of the Legions, as slaves. Do you really think those merchants—Persian merchants, mind you—are going to waste their time on a man they can't sell fast?"

More mutters. The sound of a language like horns and bells. Footsteps. Hoofbeats. A hand on his head. "Rest easy, lad, I mean, sir. I think Fortuna's going to let me pull this off...."

"I may have found a horse...."A new voice, heavily accented with the tones of Persia. Quintus tensed.

"How much ... never mind ... If you think it's sound enough."

A snort of scorn, a chuckle, broken off.

"Take my pouch.... Lad, the men need you.... Come on back to us."

So easy to drift away. Just leave.

Footsteps—the crunch of nailed boots on grit and sand, the quicker, softer stride of a horseman. He could even hear aging knees creak as someone settled massively by his side.

"Tribune, in the name of all the gods, don't leave me to lead them alone...."

The appeal was unfair; it drew him back to the world. He moaned, fighting its claim upon him.

They had left their wounded and their dead outside Carrhae, unburied, unattended. He had not consented to that decision, had had no choice in it. But it was nefas, and now he too must suffer for it.

Suffer it and what lay after—to lack the coin for Charon and to wander bodiless and moaning, on this side of the river Styx. His grandfather and mother would lack him forever, unless some pious soul dropped earth on him and mimed, at least, the rites of proper burial.

Quintus would wander? He was wandering now. Perhaps his father wandered unburied, too. Perhaps they would meet each other. But would they be able to embrace, there on the bank of the Styx, and take comfort in each other's presence? Or would knowing that the other suffered too add only to their pain? Perhaps they would not recognize each other at all. It would be a lonely eternity without kin, without rest.

Something caught him up, and he protested wildly.

"Quiet! Make me out to be a liar, when I said you just got knocked on the head a little? Good thing you had your helmet on. It'll never be good for anything again. Ought to make you pay for it. That was some fight you put up over his body, the poor old bastard. Funny to call him poor, but what's all his wealth brought him to? Butcher's meat, like the rawest recruit who didn't guard his back. Still, in the end, he fought like a Roman. Guess he had something in him after all."

The "something" that had caught him shifted and resolved itself into arms, awkward in how they bore him.

"Why am I talking to him? He may never hear me, and all that hard work wasted. Dis take them all, this one would have made a soldier, too."

Quintus's eyes rolled open; he caught a glimpse of the sun, spinning, as it seemed, overhead; and he gagged. Immediately, rough hands clasped his head.

"Have a care! That's a man you're lifting, not a sack of meal. Yes, you too, sir. Easy there."

The manhandling stopped. He felt himself bound to a padded surface. Perhaps now, the voices would leave him alone, and he could retreat into the blackness. It lured him.

Yet now he was rocked back and forward, as if he indeed lay on Charon's boat. Huge flies buzzed, and the drums and bells pounded. And thirst, as if he had drunk naphtha en the field of battle, burned him, so that he fought not to moan.

It was shameful to moan. But his throat burned. A sudden jolt at his breast made him cry aloud, forgetting shame, forgetting all but the pain. He thought he screamed to be let alone, to be taken down from the wheel, to be buried.... He screamed till his throat was even more raw than before. His lips cracked, but the blood brought him no relief.

Bitterness touched his lips. He longed for the moisture that underlay the bitterness, but he spat it away.

"He's not drinking." Again the cultured, hateful voice.

"Sometimes after a head wound, they can't. They just spew it back up. Waste it."

After a long pause, "I was thinking. We need all the Romans we can get. Now..." A new note crept into the light, patrician tones—self-conscious cleverness. "I've heard that these people have good physicians...."

"And have them come and knock the tribune on the head again so he doesn't thrash or throw a fit or slow us up? This time, they'll kill him for sure. He makes it out of the dark on his own, or not at all, I'm afraid."

And then, something blessedly cool, like freshly turned earth, overlay his eyes and throbbing brow.

He sobbed once, unashamedly, and felt a hand press his shoulder, a touch he took with him into a darkness that was now restful. The lurching from side to side that had sickened him before now lulled him as if, in truth, he rode Charon's boat toward peace. Gods ... water, rippling through shadows, bringing peace.

Animals screamed and fought while men's voices rose in entreaty and command. Quintus flinched, retreating into the blackness before his eyes until red lights erupted there and cautioned him to go carefully. A hot wind rose. Silence again. Someone had thrown the cake to Cerberus. At least, he hoped so. Already, he had made it farther than he dreamed—across the River. Soon, he would walk on asphodels....

...but there was the judgment. Dreadful names, clamorous as bronze, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one more. Which one? He must know the third judge, or his spirit would be hurled to the forges of Tartarus. Briefly he struggled from the blackness and found himself restrained.

Condemned already? He forced himself to think. The name of the third judge! He had to know the name!

Aeacus, came a voice. He will not harm you. The voice was gentle, like a hand laid on his brow.

He groaned and to his shamed relief, swooned.

Quintus awoke, if he could call it that, in darkness. He still lay on that warm, rocking surface. He still was bound. But he felt stronger. Carefully, he flexed one arm, then the other. Well enough. He slipped them free of the restraints and slid cautiously onto his feet. Better yet. Something damp slithered from his brow, and he caught it before he could think to flinch from what it might be.

It was a damp cloth. Even in the dusky light, it had the sheen of cloth brought from the farthest east.

So he was not blind, then? Thank all the gods for that. He glanced round as greedily as a man deprived of water plunges his head into a clean pool. What had he expected? The asphodels, certainly, of childhood tales ... long green meadows with heroes striding over them, or perhaps a bank, mounded with treeroots, overlooking the lazy ripples of the Tiber near his home.

He would have liked that. Instead, he found himself standing in a cave vast as an amphitheatre, with passageways stretching in five directions. He could smell water. Yes, that was right. He had passed over the Styx, had he not? He glanced quickly, a soldier's wary glance, at the other rock-hewn passageways.

He dared to touch his head. No helm. Yes, that was right. The voice of—Rufus, wasn't it?—in the waking dream that had been his life had said his helm would never be of use to anyone. It had saved his life for the moment. Waste of a good helm, perhaps?

His hair was crusted with what he decided must be blood. It was still wet, but the wetness was cool. Moving slowly, like an old man, he walked over to one of the passageways. His caution was well-founded: "Live" he might be, here in this anteroom to eternity, but he had not the strength he always had taken for granted. A few wounds and sprains—nothing compared with the devouring agony of the head-blow he had taken—ached. He ignored them and started down the passage.

Wailing rang out from the passageway, and he recoiled. Not that way. With more haste than he would have thought possible, he found himself back in the main cave. Red light flickered over its rocky ceiling and reflected from the huge gems, set into the living rock, that lit it.

The light came from yet another passageway. He started down it. Heat lashed at him, hungry as fire. Shadows leapt against the walls and were themselves consumed, as the white heat at a flame's core overpowers the reds and yellows that surround it. He looked down: Not sand but grit lay underfoot. He kicked at it, and saw more clearly: bones, calcined almost to powder by the heat that lay before him. He had suffered, when he first came to the East, from exposure to the desert. He had suffered at Carrhae, standing fully armed and afraid in the square, pressed in among the Eagles, as arrows, not rain, fell from the sky. And yet, compared with the heat that roared like a bellows through the passageway, that might have been a vision of Thule. Neither man nor shade could pass much further along that corridor, let alone cross the river, and emerge in any recognizable form. This was not forgetfulness: It was utter annihilation.

The flame shadows—red on gold on white—flickered up like The Surena's deadly banners. They formed into a figure that danced for Quintus, bearing inexhaustible torches. His hand went to his breast and withdrew his bronze talisman. It caught the light and glowed as if its metal had just been cast. Tiny fires sprang up on its palms, upheld forever in the motion of a funeral dance. A fire brushed against his own hand, and he stepped back. Warned again? Carefully, he brushed his boots against the rock, that no trace of burnt bone cling to the sturdy nails. Let the dead keep their own. What lay at the end of the passageway was Phlegethon, river of fire. What emerged from that crossing would be unrecognizable as man or shade. His head whirled at how closely his thoughts brushed the unthinkable, and he reeled back into the anteroom.

He was a Roman. The great ceremonies and great names of the gods were for the priests and senators, not the likes of him. He had come here to die and to be judged. Get on with it. Bad enough to be kept waiting, like a Legionary found drunk and sent in for discipline.

Air and darkness brushed his face like cool hands. Quintus sighed. Before common sense could tell him that there were no hands, there was no touch in this place, he reached to grasp what had soothed his parched brow and cheeks with that flicker of sensation. A ripple of sound in the air taunted his failure, drew him forward to yet another passageway.

"I ought to wait here until... whatever ... comes to summon me," he muttered.

But the air rippled again, a sound so sweet that he followed it. No white powder of ancient bone lay underfoot. Gradually the rock took on a familiar feel. He liked this path. Why did he like this path? Why did it feel as if he had always known it? It looked no different from any other cave floor. He shut his eyes. Now he had it: It was the pattern of stones and roots, the very shape of the path he had taken during his childhood to his favorite riverside lair.

Moving eagerly, a scout returning home after perils, he moved down the corridor and into his memories. The drowsy breeze that had fanned him asleep on the bank of the Tiber soothed him once again. The air was heavy with bees and birdsong. Leaves closed in overhead.

Light rippled on the walls and the roof of the caveway, glinting up from the river Quintus knew lay at the end of the passage. Surely no flowing water had ever smelled so sweet, and no summer sun had shone so kindly. How did sunlight pierce the earth to shine upon a river in the Underworld? He puzzled that question for a moment, then moved on.

He was a farmer and a soldier, not one of his Legion's engineers. It was not for him to say. He sighed again, then yawned, as he emerged from the passageway. Here the cave widened. He had the impression of a vast space through which a river ran. It looked like his river valley. Even the feel of the rock and earth underfoot was familiar—he knew, at this point in the path, to turn his foot this way because of a boulder; at that fork between the overhanging bushes, there was a slight depression in the earth so he didn't have to duck.

Merciful gods, was he home? Had he slept, unaware, and been judged in his sleep? Beyond him lay the river, glistening in the bright... it could not be sunlight, could it, striking down through a fissure in the very bones of the earth? This could not be the Underworld, could it? It looked so innocent, so peaceful.

He came out upon the bank from which he had so often fished as a boy and looked down into the summer haze. Here he sat and leaned against his favorite tree. His hand brushed something smooth, and he brought it, dappled with gold powder, up to his face. He rested not only on grass, but oh lilies, the very asphodels of Hades such as Achilles had strode upon. For a moment, he wanted to giggle like a boy: to think of him, lolling among flowers. He sniffed at the pollen. It smelled sweeter than the clovers and violets from which he had sucked the syrup on hot afternoons.

Tender amusement stroked his thoughts. His eyes filled. He was home. Even the genius loci had come out to greet him. "I thought I'd lost you forever," he told the voice. He thought he heard a rippling laugh, but it might have been a fish, leaping back into a blindingly bright circle at the middle of the river.

"Did you? So foolish, so tired—and dearest of all to me," the voice murmured.

Like a child who grasps everything to taste it, he raised his fingers to his lips.

"You must be hungry and thirsty. Here is food. Here is water. Never leave me."

The last time he had heard that voice, he had been a grieving boy, struggling to behave like a man as he went into exile. Now, against all hopes, he had returned. In death, perhaps; but he was home again. Here was the genius loci. She would take care of him. Cool hands touched his temples, eased the ache that had never left him since Crassus marched his legions at a cavalry pace and he began to know that he was not only mad but doomed.

The genius loci made a wordless sound of pain as those cool, cool hands stroked his face and hair. It was pain for him, for what he had suffered. He could feel even the hurt from the last blow from the signum, the one that had cast him into the Underworld, easing. Yes, it was an indignity to have been struck by one of the Eagles he was trying to defend. But it was so long ago; and he was here; and none of it needed to mean anything from now on.

It would be good to be young again. It would be good to forget all that had passed since the day that the stem-faced man had come to his grandfather and announced his father's death. And if he could not forget, well, then, he was man, not boy; and the genius loci's voice reminded him of that, too. His eyes filled once again, and he wept for the first time since he and his grandfather had been forced from their home. Wept without shame for sheer relief that the pressure was gone, that he was home again, loved again, protected once again.

After a fierce, brief spate of weeping, Quintus was silent, at peace as he had seldom been. He rubbed his hands across his eyes, breathing in the overpowering scent of the asphodels. Then he chuckled. For the first time since Crassus's Legions had entered the desert, he realized he was truly at rest.

The upper air seemed very far away. He had sunlight and growing things and fresh water here: He had his land. What more could he need? This was all his grandfather had taught him ever to want.

Rest with me, stay with me, crooned the spirit. How sweet her voice was. It was no longer mother, no longer sister or friend, but the wife he knew his poverty would never have let him take. And more still: "Wife" would have been a woman of a family equal to his, a practical woman, a keeper of his hearth. This voice promised him not just bread, but dreams.

The bout of weeping had made him thirsty.

There is water, there is even food. It all can be yours. And afterward...

"Why can I not see you? Why can we not touch hand to hand?" he asked. He was suddenly afire, athirst, and for more than water. He reached quickly behind his back, trying to capture the slender wrists of what seemed more woman now than spirit.

With a laugh and a fragrant breeze, she eluded him. The world was vanishing. Names ... Syria ... Armenia ... Crassus ... were fading from his consciousness. Another name ... Rufus? He ought to remember that one, he thought. A voice roughened by breathing grit and walking too long rang in his head, then faded. No, no point in remembering Rufus, who would soon find his own peace.

First, refresh yourself. Such a small thing I ask....

It was no small thing to Quintus. How long had it been since he could drink his fill in peace? He leaned out over the water, scooped out a palmful of it, raised it to his lips...

...and sneezed at the combined scents of the pollen of the immortal asphodels and the river water. The genius loci laughed playfully.

He scrubbed his hands and dried them against his tunic. Then he dipped again into the river, held up his hands, which dripped with water that smelled more intoxicating than unwatered Falernian, and pledged the woman he could not see.

No! Do not drink!

The water trickled out of his cupped hands, casting rainbows onto the asphodels. Their scent grew richer, and he felt his belly rumble with hunger.

That is real. That is alive, said this new voice. It too was a woman's voice, but deeper and more strongly accented than the voice of what Quintus thought was his genius loci.

And you can only satisfy it under the sun. All else is illusion.

He heard a scream overhead and looked up to see a flash of brazen wings. Eagle's wings. The great bird mantled and cried out a challenge. The cry echoed in the rock. Like the horns that called him to wakefulness or battle, it reminded him: a world. A river. Names and living faces, marred by cuts or sweat or tears. The dead, contorted, bloody, or bled out.

A shapely hand held water to his lips. He could see it now, could reach out and grasp it.

Fool! came the second voice. If you remember names, what is the name of this river?

"Why, Lethe, of course," he mumbled. The water spilled. Memory returned.

Lethe—river of forgetfulness.

No, you must trust me. Stay with me, love me, forget the rest.

Get away from him!

Scented air wafted about him, as if the woman who stood above him was roughly jerked away. Even her hand—which was all Quintus had ever seen—vanished.

A veiled figure appeared before him. Like the vanished spirit, she was scented, but with sandalwood, cinnamon, and cardamom, rather than the flowers he remembered from his childhood. Her perfume was strange, a little daunting, but he found it curiously refreshing. Her face was hidden by the saffron veil of a Roman bride, but the fabric was so thin, so delicate he could see her eyes clearly. They were long and dark, their almond shape marked with kohl. On The Surena, that had been frightening. On this newcomer, it intrigued him. A crimson gem glinted on her brow, and long gold earrings swung enticingly.

He looked up at her. Slowly, she removed the veil. Her hair flowed like a stream at night over shoulders held as straight as any soldier standing in the square, ready to fight. As she had fought for him, Quintus realized, against the creature he had hoped had been his boyhood's dream, restored to him.

"Why did you drive her away?" he demanded. "My lifelong friend, my companion..." And more, had Fortuna favored me.

"She was the companion of your childhood? That one? She who would have deluded you, given you drink to rob you of your mind, and kept you prisoner here before your time and with your work yet undone? She— your friend? As well go to the serpent mages..." the woman glanced around as if even here she feared danger, "... and ask for kindness."

Quintus rose. He was much taller than the woman he faced. Taller, but so insignificant compared to her, like a thousand other Romans with his dark hair and eyes, but so less dark than hers; his sturdiness, against her grace, his stubborn mouth against hers—oh Venus, that was a thought! At first, he had thought her a creature of Ch'in, like the officer who had laid arrogant claim to the Eagle with the signifer's blood still wet upon it. Now, he thought otherwise. He suspected her to be a woman of Hind, far to the south and east of any place Rome's Legions marched.

"Who are you?" he asked. He was certain he was going mad. Here in Erebus, he must face the judges Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus, not this woman with skin of amber and the carriage of a dark goddess.

Perhaps he had already drunk of Lethe. Perhaps he could find forgetfulness with this woman. He took a step forward, and she held up a hand.

She stood circled by fires that had sprung up amidst the asphodels. They burned with fragrance, as if she had scattered incense upon their tiny flames. Beneath her veil, she wore gauzes of amber and scarlet. Gems glinted at throat, fingers, wrist, and even on bare feet.

"Did she give you a gift? Was it she who led you to the figure you bear and that saved you when so many good men died?"

Quintus's hands went to his breast, and he drew out the tiny bronze dancer he had found so many years ago. She laughed with delight, her earlier fire vanishing.

"You gave me my luck piece?" he asked.

She reached out long fingers, tipped with some crimson stain, to touch it. Fires sprang up on the torches that the dancer eternally bore.

"I do not call Krishna luck," she whispered. "But necessity. And your fate.

"Krishna," she mused. "Once again, you return to drive us, as you have driven this man across half the world."

She handed him back the dancer. To his astonishment, the fires did not go out, not immediately. The sound of flute music went up, mingled with a thin, high drumming. As much as the bells and drums of the Parthians had repelled and frightened him, this music drew him. Drew him from this trap of Lethe and the asphodels that looked so much like his lost home back into consciousness. Other voices impinged, other sounds—the rustle of sand, the distant rattle and clang of tethered beasts. His sight went dim, as if he peered under water.

"Are you she—that spirit whom I once knew?" he asked.

"We are all reflections," she whispered. "Some of us are true, and some illusions."

Tears—shameful, un-Roman tears—threatened. "She said she had come back for me. Come to take me home."

The woman shook her head. Dark hair fell smoothly over shoulders the color of amber and the crimson and gold draperies that she wore.

"There is no going back for you. Krishna told you that on the battlefield. Remember? You told me: For a moment, fighting the sons of the man who reared you, you paused, unable to go forward. And Krishna spoke plainly, as he seldom does, and only to those he loves best. There is only the battle, only faring forward."

"Told me? Who are you?"

The woman's long eyes filled and her jeweled hands went out. "Do you not remember Draupadi? You—Quintus? You who are five in one, and those five the ones I wore this robe to marry? It was prophesied that Draupadi would have five husbands—and every one of them a prince or king.

"Long ago, and far away, I was Arjuna's prize. Your brother the king lost me; your brother the hero protected my name. We wandered, we fought, each side using forbidden weapons. We conquered, but we died. Now, we are reborn. Once again, I think, we must find each other."

Overhead the eagle screamed. Lethe and land wavered. Well enough: They had been deceits. But the woman—Draupadi—also wavered. With a final cry, the eagle flew overhead, effortlessly fleeing Erebus for the freedom of the outer air. Quintus raised his head to follow it. Sunlight broke through the light that had shone upon Lethe before, making it a sham and a counterfeit. He was aware of thirst again, but not for this draught of illusions and forgetfulness.

"What must I do?" he asked Draupadi.

"What you did before, without knowing. You must follow the eagle to where the water rises in the desert, where the rock gapes open, and where serpents grow from the stone. You must seek me and my guide. You will be commanded to bow to gods not your own and wield weapons unlike any you have ever known. Do you think you have suffered? In our last battles, we commanded armies. Now, we have only what we can win.

"My dearest, we need you, but I do not beg. Once, I begged not to be stripped before a court. They did not listen, so I never begged again. The only assurance I can give you is of pain worse than any you have known. Choose carefully. If you persevere, there, beyond the circles of the world, we may find triumph."

She stood challenging him like a statue of Roma Dea herself. "Or you can kneel and drink here, and she will have you in charge. It is pleasure," she said with faint disdain, "if not life or duty. But you will think you have your farm and your contentment. You may even enjoy it for as long as anything lasts. Which may not be long at all."

The fires at her feet flared, and smoke rose up from them to cover her. When it reached her head, he knew, she would be gone. The high sweet music of flutes and drumbeats grew shrill, but even more compelling. Draupadi hurled her veil over head and face.

"Or you can face trial and judgment in one," she murmured. "Follow me and follow the eagle—or remain here, for as long as 'here' remains."

She leaned forward and touched her lips to his. Even through the saffron veil, he sensed their warmth and sweetness.

The smoke wreathed up and snatched her from his sight.

"Lady! Draupadi, don't go!" he cried, reaching forward into the smoke. He brought his hands away scented with sandalwood—but empty. It seemed to him that he had spent his life with his hands empty of all but trouble. And now that seemed a grief intolerable to him.

"Come back," he whispered again. His voice broke, and this time the tears did fall upon the asphodels. They melted at his feet. He was blinded, as if the incense fires that swept Draupadi from his sight now enveloped him.

His whisper echoed, distorted by illusion. Once again, the eagle cried from high overhead.

Come back? That was no wisdom for a man, a Roman.

"I will follow you," he whispered with more fervor than he had sworn when the Legion's brand was set into his flesh.

"Well judged!" Three voices so closely linked that they might have come from one throat rang out. "You have passed sentence on yourself.

"You will be removed from Erebus and restored straightaway to the upper air. So let it be set down."

The eagle shrieked. And he was sinking from his knees onto his face lest he see his judges before his death. Flute music and drums went up again, and he lay in darkness. Beneath him, the land shook. He tried to grasp a rock, a root, then anything at all, but it was all illusion.

He cried out once, wildly, as the earth cracked and gaped open, and metal flamed far, far below in the rock that underlay desert deeper than he had ever seen. Then he was falling, falling through it ... past a blessed glimpse of clear water running over rock onto a woman whose cascade of night-black hair flowed over her wet body and hid it. Just as well, he thought, with other eyes glowing in the night, watching her, watching him. As he fell past them, too, he realized that others were watching them, and the eyes—the lambent hostile eyes—that spied upon the watchers themselves were even farther from being human than they were from being friends. Even the touch of those eyes was intolerable pain. He shouted once, and then the speed of his fall snatched thought and breath from him.