Out of the waters

CHAPTER 11

Corylus staggered. His feet were still planted firmly, but now they were on gritty soil with a slight downward slope instead of a flat mosaic floor. That had thrown him off balance.

The Cyclops was thirty feet away. It turned its head toward him with a bellow; the sound was like a huge wave smashing into the shore. At the same time it shuffled awkwardly to bring its body around, like a duck trying to rotate in tight quarters. Over its head, the boulder quivered.

Corylus knew from experience that stone weighed three or four times as much as flesh did, and he could see that the boulder was the size of the Cyclops' torso. No man he knew could have lifted an equivalent mass. Even for the monster, it was a strain to be balanced rather than a whim to be toyed with. Still, the sea 300 feet offshore-half the length of a foot race-bubbled and slapped where a similar missile must have landed.

The surface on which Corylus stood was a few hand-breadths higher than where the Cyclops' feet were planted. It wasn't much of a slope, but rather than turn and run uphill- "Ears for Nerthus!" Corylus screamed as he charged the monster. It was the war-cry of the Batavian Scouts; well, of the Scouts when they weren't slitting throats silently in the darkness. It wouldn't mean anything to the Cyclops, even if he wasn't a beast without language, but it put Corylus in the right frame of mind.

The Scouts had their own temple grove separate from the altars of the rest of the cohort which Publius Cispius had commanded on the Danube. An oak, a broad spreading wolf tree, stood in the center. They nailed to it the right ear-salted to preserve it-of every Sarmatian they killed.

The Cyclops grunted and hesitated, repositioning the huge boulder. The creature probably hadn't expected its victim to attack, which would have been justification for Corylus' tactics if he'd needed one.

He hadn't. The Batavians were a crack unit, as good as any non-citizen auxiliary cohort in the army-and better than the legions which were deployed in luxury in the eastern provinces, anybody on the Rhine or the Danube would have said. He could either have fled the monster or charged it. Neither seemed survivable, but of course you tried to cut the other guy's throat before he finished you.

I can't even reach his throat, Corylus realized. The thought made him grin.

The Cyclops strode forward, preparing to throw. Corylus stepped on a human arm bone. His foot flew out from under him and the bone-it was just the upper joint; the shaft had been cracked for marrow-sailed skyward.

The Cyclops gave the stone a savage push with both hands, not so much hurling it as snapping it forward in a straight line as though the springs of a catapult were driving it. Corylus landed on his back with a clang, skidding feet-first toward the monster. He had lost his helmet and there were certainly dents in his thin bronze back-plate.

The boulder hit the edge of the crag a dozen feet beyond where Corylus fell and bounced away in a cloud of dust and shattered gravel. He had thought-had imagined, though at the back of his mind-that he could dodge the missile.

He couldn't have. The monster's strength was beyond anything of which flesh should be capable. Only luck and the Cyclops' messy eating habits had gotten Corylus out of the way. The boulder would otherwise have struck him in the middle of the chest and splashed him into the ground like a fly clubbed against a brick wall.

The Cyclops bent, reaching for Corylus' outstretched legs. Corylus kicked, trying to roll himself away. The Cyclops closed a fist the size of a boar's ham over Corylus' left ankle. Corylus bent forward at the waist and thrust. The point of his short sword crunched through the gristle and small bones of the monster's wrist.

The Cyclops bellowed again-the sound felt like an avalanche of sand-and hurled Corylus inland. He wasn't sure whether the motion was deliberate or simply a twitch in reaction to the pain of the wound.

Corylus hit hard and bounced. He was twenty feet from where the Cyclops had grabbed him. He'd lost his sword. He rolled and looked back. The monster plucked the blade from the wound with his left hand and spun it far out to sea. Blood poured from the injured wrist and ran down the creature's dangling right hand.

The Cyclops turned toward Corylus, who drew the sturdy dagger from the scabbard on the right side of his equipment belt. The Cyclops strode forward, shaking the ground. Its eye was bloodshot and unwinking.

Corylus tried to curl his feet under in order to stand up. He wasn't sure that would be an advantage in this fight, but it would make him feel better. White pain exploded in his groin; he screamed and fell back. He may have lost consciousness for an instant. When the monster used his left leg as a handle, it had strained or torn the ligaments joining thighbone to pelvis.

The Cyclops seized Corylus by the shoulder and jerked him off the ground. Its body stank like a tanner's yard from the rotting blood and flesh tangled in its shaggy pelt. It crushed him to its chest and wrapped both arms around him.

Corylus stabbed. He couldn't see to place the point. It was like thrusting into a stack of bull hides.

The Cyclops continued to squeeze. Corylus couldn't see anything, but in the deepening shadows of his mind flickered a nude woman and a creature which stood on two legs but was utterly inhuman. It reminded him of a serpent, despite its fine golden fur and a triangular face like a fox.

The Cyclops was roaring. Corylus couldn't hear sound-any sound-but he felt the vibration of the chest against which he was being flattened like an olive in the press. He thought he still held the dagger, but he didn't know. All he could feel was the fiery pain which spread from his ribs and out through the skin.

Then the blackness was complete, until the woman and the slender, terrifying beast stepped from it and joined him.

Varus froze in the flood of light. He had come down from the mountain on which he had been standing with the Sibyl. Below them in the infinite distance, his body led his companions through the dwelling of Sempronius Tardus and up to the room where three magicians held Pandareus.

But even as his soul reentered his body, a flash had numbed and blinded him. He fell backward, blinking and stunned. When he shook himself alert, he found that Pulto gripped the back of his toga and was holding him upright. The sword in Pulto's other hand searched for something to stab.

"You may loose me, Master Pulto!" Varus said, speaking sharply. He was embarrassed to have stumbled, and he knew that he had been wandering and no doubt speaking without conscious awareness.

What did I say this time? They must all think I'm crazy!

And in the back of his mind: Maybe I am crazy.

"Where's the boy?" Pulto said on a rising note. He let go of Varus; tossed him aside, very nearly. "Lenatus, where's Corylus? Where's the bloody boy?"

"He couldn't have gotten past!" Lenatus said, but as he spoke, he rushed to the doorway. "You lot! Did you see Corylus? Did the tribune go out this way?"

Varus looked over the trainer's shoulder. The hallway was choked with servants in Praetorian armor, their swords out. No one could have pushed through them quickly, even if the squad had been willing to grant passage.

The three servants whom Corylus said were at the bottom of the trouble had vanished also. Varus had seen them clearly from the Sibyl's eyrie, squatting on the floor of this room where Pandareus sat facing them. Pandareus had vanished with them.

Tardus stood behind the counterfeit troops with an expression of frightened amazement. Varus snapped to a decision.

"Lord Tardus!" he said. "Come join me, please. You men there! Make way for Senator Tardus, our host!"

I'm giving orders to a man whose home I've invaded with a forged document and a band of armed slaves, Varus thought. He'd always had an analytical mind, but recently he'd become aware of the limits of analysis. Sometimes you simply had to act, whether or not reason told you that the act was courteous, legal, or even survivable. This was one of those times.

Not that Tardus was objecting. Quite the contrary: he paused nervously until he was sure that the "Praetorians" were really making way, then bustled through to the doorway of the room where Pandareus had been held

"Varus?" Tardus said. "You're Gaius Varus, aren't you, Saxa's son?"

"Yes," said Varus, puzzled at the nervous doubt in the older man's voice. Austerely he went on, "You dined with us the night before last. And after dinner, you abducted Master Pandareus."

"That wasn't me!" Tardus said, but the denial was a prayer rather than angry disbelief. "Please, you have to believe me. I-"

He paused and looked around him. "Please, Lord Varus," he said. "Can we speak in private without these soldiers around?"

"No," said Pulto. He didn't sound angry, but there was only flat certainty in his voice. "Not when my boy's gone somewhere and I figure this fellow had something to do with sending him there."

Lenatus lifted his chin in silent agreement. Neither of the old soldiers had sheathed their swords, though at this point that was probably a matter of theater rather than real concern that they would have immediate use for the weapons.

"Sending who?" Tardus said. "I've only been allowed out myself when the Sages sent me somewhere."

Varus gestured the thought away with his left hand. "Come," he said to Tardus. "This incense makes me want to sneeze. You and I will go into the library, but we'll leave the door open so that the centurions-"

He nodded to Lenatus. He and Pulto probably wouldn't have minded him using their names, but Varus felt that the less detail he gave about the others involved in this criminal enterprise, the better. He was doomed if things went wrong, but it was at least possible that the false Praetorians might escape.

"-can watch us, but you can speak privately."

Pulto snorted; Lenatus gave Varus a wry smile and said, "As your lordship wishes."

Varus remembered what Corylus had said about his behavior in the crisis after Hedia was abducted. Soldiers approved of clear, forceful orders, even if the orders themselves weren't what they wanted to hear. Confusion and hesitancy got people killed faster even than bullheaded courage.

He led Tardus across the hall and gestured him to the only couch in the library. That was partly out of respect for a man far his senior, but still more because that resulted in Varus looking down at-scarcely at his host; say rather, looking down at his potential enemy-as they spoke.

"Witnesses watched your servants abduct Master Pandareus outside my father's house," Varus said. He let the anger he felt as he spoke the words peek through in his tone. "There would be no point in you denying it, even if we hadn't seen them and Pandareus across the hall-"

He gestured.

"-a moment ago."

"They're not my servants!" Tardus insisted with a hint of fear. "They're Sages from the Western Isles. They're magicians, and they were-"

He gestured with both hands as if trying to pull words out of the air. His expression was anguished.

"They were working me like a puppet. You must believe me!"

Varus didn't speak for a moment while he considered what Tardus had said. Is that true? And whether it's true or not, what does it mean?

"I could see and hear what was happening," Tardus said. He sat rather than reclining on the couch and he rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers. "Mostly I could at least, but it was as though it was all behind a wall of glass. And what I remember seemed to be happening to someone else."

"Where did they go, the Sages?" Varus said. "And where did they take Pandareus and Corylus?"

"I don't know," Tardus said, speaking with apparent satisfaction. "So long as they were controlling me, I saw what they were doing and heard what they said, even among themselves when I wasn't present. But when you broke in on them, I was freed. Thank Venus and Mercury, I'm free again!"

The goddess from whom Carce's founder Aeneas was descended, Varus thought, and the god of luck. Good choices.

Then, smiling slightly, he thought, A pedant even now. Well, a scholar.

Tardus frowned and lowered his hands. Apparently realization that he was his own man again had freed the senator from some of his terror… which might make him less cooperative.

"Who is this Corylus?" Tardus said. "I saw Master Pandareus, of course, but I don't remember a Corylus."

"Never mind," Varus said with another dismissive flick of the hand. He had no intention of letting the older man take charge of the discussion. "How did you meet these Sages? Or how did they meet you?"

"I didn't-" Tardus said, alarmed again. He stopped and licked his lips. He was obviously willing to lie to Varus, but he seemed to be afraid to do so. "Well, perhaps I did… That is, I carried out some, ah, researches to gain knowledge about Atlantis. I didn't learn anything and thought I'd failed, but it may be that by asking in certain fashions, I lit a beacon of sorts for the Sages. They sailed here from the Western Isles and left their ship at Ostia."

He frowned and added, "Their ship flies through the air, like the ones I saw during your father's entertainment. I, ah…"

He lowered his face again and wrung his hands. In a barely audible voice, he continued, "They asked me questions. I couldn't deny them. Couldn't, no more than I could walk on air. They wanted to know who the magician was who caused the vision in the theater. I told them Pandareus did. I didn't realize it was you, Lord Varus."

Tardus gestured for words again, then locked his fingers together and stared at them. He said, "I had seen Pandareus in the Temple of Jupiter the night I was in charge of the Sibylline Books. I was asleep so I didn't see what happened, but I thought Pandareus must have been the cause. He's a great scholar, you know. Your father arrived, but he wasn't, well, wasn't a magician, and I never thought of a youth like you. So the Sages took Pandareus."

This is actually funny, Varus thought. Though he wasn't sure his father would have thought so.

He wondered what would have happened if these Sages had tried to abduct him. Varus had a considerable escort at any time he went out of the house, but these were magicians. He remembered how the Hyperborean wizard had put everyone in the Temple of Jupiter to sleep; including Tardus himself, now that Varus thought about it.

Instead of speculating about what had drawn the Sages to Tardus in the first place, Varus asked, "Why did they want Pandareus? Or me, or anyone? If they're magicians themselves."

As they clearly were, given the way they had vanished-and taken Pandareus with them.

"They're afraid of a monster named Uktena," Tardus said. "He has a connection with Carce, but I don't know what it is. I don't mean they hid it from me-I couldn't understand what I saw in their minds. Your father has the other half of the talisman that they use in their own magic, the murrhine tube. Perhaps that's what drew them."

He appeared to be getting his mental bearings again, but Varus no longer feared that the senator would be uncooperative. It seemed that imagining Saxa's son was a magician of untold power had frightened him as much as his earlier concern for the Emperor's torturers.

Tardus half-raised his arm, an orator making a gesture of emphasis. "When you showed a vision of the monster," he said, "they thought they could force you to help them. They thought Pandareus could, I mean. So they took me-forced me to take them-to Saxa's house when the teacher was present."

"Uktena?" Varus said, frowning. He knew what the monster of the vision was. The Sibyl told me… "You mean Typhon?"

Tardus shrugged with a look of irritation. "They called it Uktena," he said. "Called him Uktena; they said he used to be a man. But he's a monster, now, and they think he's about to break out of the prison they put him in."

Varus wished that Pandareus were here to discuss this with, for his wisdom. And I wish Corylus were here, because he's sensible and he makes the world around him seem solid. Even when the world clearly wasn't solid.

"What did your Sages have to do with my mother's abduction?" Varus said, attacking the problem from another angle.

"Your mother?" said Tardus in surprise. "You mean Lady Hedia? Has she disappeared also?"

He grimaced and made a gesture with both hands. "I don't know where she's gone," he said. "I don't know where the Sages went, or Pandareus or this Corylus. The others don't matter, but the Sages do."

Tardus looked up at Varus. The terror in his expression was unmistakable. This time it had nothing to do with the youth whom he thought was a magician.

"If the Sages can't control Uktena, they'll try to release him somewhere far away from their Western Isles," Tardus said. "You know what the monster will do-you showed us all the vision of what would happen if he got free."

He swallowed and said, "The Sages will release Uktena here in Carce."

Hedia turned. She was draped in three nets which were being dragged in slightly different directions, but she drew herself up as straight as she could. The hunters chattered excitedly to one another in-bad-Greek, so it was in that language which she said, "I am Lady Hedia, wife of Lord Gaius Alphenus Saxa, Consul of Carce. Take these cords off me at once and bring me proper clothing!"

It was a challenge to be regally disdainful while naked, limping, and covered with cuts and scratches, but Hedia had generations of noble ancestors to fall back on. She didn't expect her captors to pay attention, but at least she wasn't disgracing her family.

Somewhat to her surprise, the hunters-servants, obviously-fell silent and slacked the net ropes enough that Hedia could straighten fully. Along with tunics that left the right shoulder bare, they wore ankle-length boots of some supple material. Some of them glanced back to the taller man in fiery armor who was walking toward them.

"Are you in charge of this rabble?" Hedia said. "What do you mean by behaving in this fashion?"

The man smirked at her in a comfortable, arrogant fashion. That wasn't an unfamiliar expression on the faces of men who were seeing Hedia nude; though usually her appearance was less bedraggled.

"I am the Minos Serdain," he said. "Kalpos and I-"

He nodded toward the similarly armored man who remained in the more distant of the two ships.

"-were sent by the Council of the Minoi to bring you back when the Servitors botched the job."

Serdain made a sour face. "Using the Servitors was a bad choice but a necessary one," he said. "Even the most powerful of us couldn't have gone to the Underworld and returned… but you did, Minos Hedia. Which is why we need you."

He wasn't speaking bad Greek, she realized, but rather a very foreign Greek. Among Saxa's recent visitors had been a delegation from the ancient Greek colony of Vipasca in Lusitania. Their speech had some of the same rhythms as this Serdain's did; perhaps it was the Phoenician influence.

"Release me, then," Hedia said, sounding as haughty as she could while naked and looking-literally-like a sparrow which cats had been playing with. "When you've done that, we can discuss my terms for helping you."

She was no more a magician than she was Emperor, but if these Minoi wanted to think otherwise, then perhaps that would give her some bargaining power.

Serdain chuckled. "No, I don't think I'll do that, my dear," he said, "since I'm not a mindless automaton like the Servitors. We might not be lucky enough to get you back the next time. And you-"

His grin became suddenly cruel.

"-might not be so lucky either. The jungle can be dangerous, particularly where you were, in the ruins of Lann's keep after Procron destroyed it. Procron played with Lann's dependants, you see. Some of the results may still be alive, in which case they're worse than the creatures that nature herself created."

The ape with a human head, Hedia realized. But that- Aloud she said, "Your forehead."

She tried to point, but she couldn't raise her arm high enough to make the gesture more than a hint of her intention. "The tattoo there. What does it mean?"

"Mean?" said Serdain. He raised his free hand-the other held the flaring helmet that covered even his face behind a mesh of the same metal as the remainder of his armor. His gauntleted finger stopped just short of touching the pentagram. "It means that I'm a Minos, of course. It's a sign of the favor of Zeus. But I see-"

His eyes narrowed.

"-that you do not have the mark. Has the Council made a mistake, I wonder?"

"You'll learn what a mistake you've made if you continue to treat me with disrespect!" Hedia said.

Serdain chuckled. "No doubt, no doubt," he said in a mocking voice.

A pair of glass men-Servitors-had come from the nearer ship. They reached under the tangled nets and locked hobbles around her ankles.

The restraints appeared to be made of the same translucent substance as the Servitors themselves. To Hedia's amazement they weighed as little as silk leggings, but when she tried to kick, they were as constraining as steel. They would allow her to take only shuffling, eighteen-inch steps.

When the hobbles were in place, the servants began to remove their nets. Their task was more difficult because they seemed afraid to touch Hedia. Some of the cords were looped on her elbows and even chin.

She glared at Serdain, refusing to help or even recognize the servants. He continued to smirk. That appeared to be his normal expression.

The nets came free, one after the other in quick succession. The servants retreated in pairs and began to roll the nets without letting them touch the coarse grass. Serdain said, "Come to the ship and we'll be off, Minos Hedia. If you really are a Minos."

"Carry me," Hedia said, her arms crossed. It was a petty response, but she had noticed that the servants were afraid of her. "Since you've made it impossible for me to walk."

She could walk, of course, but she couldn't walk in a dignified manner. There was almost nothing she could do with dignity in her present condition, but she didn't intend to stagger along like a hunched beldame in addition to the other degradations.

Instead of responding, Serdain turned his back and stalked back toward the nearer vessel. The servants followed, murmuring among themselves again.

Are they going to leave me? Hedia thought. The two Servitors gripped her by the upper arms and lifted off the ground. The walked toward the ship in perfect unison; they could have been one another's mirror images.

Hedia drew her legs up under her to kick but restrained the reflex in time to save herself a broken toe-or worse. It'd be like kicking marble statues. She held herself silent and upright as the creatures paced on.

The ship lay on its port side, canted at about a thirty degree angle. That put the railing low enough for the servants to clamber aboard easily; despite his armor, Serdain mounted without apparent difficulty. He walked to the stern and used both hands to settle the helmet back onto his head.

With the helmet in place, Serdain took an object-it looked to Hedia like a simple pebble-out of a pouch of silvery cloth hanging from a stud on his breastplate. She had noticed it but had assumed it was simply a bangle.

The Servitors stepped aboard with Hedia between them and stood her against the single mast. One held her in place while the other bent at her feet. She heard a click and found her hobble was firmly attached to the mast step.

The ship trembled, then rocked upright on its keel. The crew didn't have anything to do with it, so far as Hedia could see. The humans, the hunters who had caught her, squatted along the rails. Other than shifting slightly, presumably for balance, and talking among themselves in low voices, they didn't seem concerned or even interested.

The Servitors-two on this ship with Hedia, but four on the deck of the other vessel-stepped into the bow and didn't move after that. She might have taken them for glass decorations if she hadn't seen them previously.

Serdain was motionless also, but the stone in his hands spat light which occasionally seemed to coat the stern. It faded from Hedia's sight as it wicked forward along the deck. She felt the hair on the backs of her arms rise for just an instant.

She grimaced. Alphena would understand-or at least experience-whatever was going on to make the ship move. The girl had a natural talent for magic, according to Anna.

To Hedia it was all a blank, like the literature Varus got excited about or the mathematics that the engineer planning an irrigation tunnel at her first husband's estate in Calabria tried to interest her in. She smiled, remembering the engineer; she hadn't thought of him in years.

Hedia had talents of her own. She wouldn't trade them for magic or literature or mathematics or anything in the world… nor, she was sure, would any of the men she'd gotten to know want her to trade.

The sails were carried on a pair of booms butted to opposite sides of the mast. Hedia hadn't paid much attention to ships, but that was unusual enough to have caught her eye when she first saw the ships flying above the city of the vision. There was a double thump above her and a gust of wind. She twisted-her body was free-and looked upward. The sails were beating like a bird's wings, just as she had seen them in the vision.

The ship hopped once and a second time on the ground, then lifted from the glade. The "wings" weren't big enough relative to the hull to do that, at least not as slowly as they were flapping.

But the ship is flying, she realized, looking over the side. There's no question about that.

Hedia itched. She was extremely hungry, and she would have liked something to drink. Thirst during the night had caused her to slurp water from the up-turned leaves of a plant rooted in the trunk of a great tree, but there hadn't been much even of that.

She wasn't going to beg, though; not yet. And if Serdain's apparent concentration was real-as it may well have been, if he was responsible for the ship flying-he might not have been able to respond to any request she made anyway.

She rubbed the deck with her big toe. It appeared to be ordinary wood, though with an oily slickness. Its broad grain showed sharp contrast between the white softer wood and the almost black divisions.

Does the kind of wood help the ship fly?

Hedia quirked a bitter smile. That question didn't matter in the least; except that it saved her from thinking about the questions that did matter.

How can I escape? How can I get back to Carce even if I do escape? Am I going to spend eternity being tortured in the Underworld alongside Calpurnius Latus…?

She had no answers to those questions either, of course. Still, her worst enemies-and there was a long list of them, for one reason or another-had never claimed Hedia was a coward. She would focus on escaping, and after that on return to Carce.

What happened after she died could take care of itself. As no doubt it would.

When she had been stumbling among the lightless tree trunks, Hedia had thought of the forest as degrees of blackness and greens so dark as to be black themselves. Looking down on the same expanse, she was delighted by the amount of color.

Several of the giants emerging from the canopy were sending up spikes covered with bright yellow flowers. Butterflies with blue, transparent wings flitted among them like chips of brilliant glass.

The second ship was paralleling theirs about fifty feet to the side. A tiny monkey looked up at them and flung itself to cover deeper in the foliage. The ships were so quiet that Hedia could clearly hear its cheep! of alarm.

They were flying at about the speed of a trotting horse-faster than Hedia had ever been carried on a ship, though within the capacity-for a brief dash-of the triremes she had seen exercising in the sea off Misenum. Under other circumstances, this could be a pleasant, mildly exciting interlude.

She giggled, causing the nearer servants to look at her with concern. It would be interesting to see what Serdain looked like stripped to the buff. He can't be more than forty, and he moves well despite that clumsy armor.

They passed within a long bowshot of crystal buildings surrounded by ordinary huts which spilled down the hill from them. People, dressed and looking like Serdain's human servants, were at their occupations in the terraced yards between the ordinary dwellings. Most of them didn't bother to look up at the ships.

One of the crystal structures was a squat dome. The other, attached to it, was a tall cylinder whose thin walls fully displayed the contents. A sloping ramp wound from the bottom to the top of the interior. In layered beds grew grains, vegetables and fruit, often of types which Hedia had never seen before.

She sniffed. Of course, to her food was something that appeared on serving tables, frequently in forms so modified that a farm manager wouldn't be able to determine the original.

Hedia turned to look off the right side of the ship; to starboard, seamen called it, though she had never understood why. She saw glints on top of a hill in the distance. Those must be the ruins where I escaped.

"What are those?" she said to Serdain in a crisp voice, pointing as much to emphasize her question as to indicate the shattered crystal.

The Minos seemed oblivious of all except the pebble in his hands. That continued to spit sparks like amber rubbed with silk.

As I expected, Hedia thought. She gestured to the servants along the railing. The ship was so narrow that if she had bent over and stretched out a hand, she could have touched several of them on the shoulder.

"You!" she said. "Why are those buildings broken that way? What happened there?"

The servants didn't move away-perhaps they couldn't without making the ship wobble in a dangerous fashion-but they lowered their eyes. One began singing a counting song as if to block out Hedia's voice.

"Do you want me to turn you all into toads?" Hedia said on a rising note. She was afraid, and she let that come out as anger in her voice. "Is that what you want? Is it?"

She straightened and pointed her right arm toward a hunter slightly astern of where she was fastened; her index and middle fingers were extended. He turned his head, but he couldn't help seeing the threat in the corner of his eyes.

I'm going to look like a complete fool if he calls my bluff.

"It's Procron's keep!" the servant blurted. Fear made his wretched dialect almost unintelligible, but at least he was trying. "Don't turn me into a toad. Don't turn me into a toad."

The rest of what he was trying to say was lost when he began to blubber. Hedia thought she could guess the words easily enough, though. She lowered her arm.

"It's not Procron's keep," said the hunter just ahead of Hedia's target. "It's Lann's, that Procron destroyed before the Council drove Procron out. Procron was a mile farther west."

He cleared his throat and risked looking directly at Hedia; from the scars on his chest and right shoulder, he must have tangled with a lizard like the one that she saw just before she was recaptured. The hunter added, "I was in the Council fleet."

I wonder what happened to the ape that saved me? Hedia thought. Aloud she said to the hunter, "Thank you, my good man."

That tiny bit of information raised her spirits enormously. The Minoi fought one another… and she already knew that at least some of the Minoi were male. She smiled kittenishly at Serdain, though he was too lost in his magic to notice her; for the moment.

There would be other times and other male Minoi. Hedia was no longer without resources.

They slanted out over water-one of the bands of water which separated the ring islands she had seen as she approached with the Servitors who had snatched her from her bed. That certainly provided Saxa with an unexpected thrill, she thought. She snorted a laugh which she throttled with her hand. I do hope Saxa is all right.

Mats of vegetation floated in the broad lagoon. At first she took them for islands, but they drifted in the sluggish current. Flowers rose on long stalks, following the sun; there were animals, too, popping up and vanishing to leave only green undulations behind.

And there were fish as well. Anyway, something was swimming so deeply under the water that Hedia saw only a huge shadow.

Ahead was the city of the vision in the theater, a jewel glittering against the dark green hills surrounding it. A dozen ships circled lazily over the crystal towers, their sails beating slowly; many similar ships bobbed in the lagoon, tied up at the seawall below the city.

The ships weren't in the wide plaza facing the temple, because that was full of spectators: many thousands of people, including as many as a hundred of the armored Minoi. Most of them had their helmets off. With each Minos was a band of retainers in distinct livery. The dyes were vivid enough to bring a fortune in Carce to anyone who was able to duplicate them.

Serdain's ship sank toward the sea front; the ship that had been escorting it joined those circling above the city. The hunters murmured in animation to one another, though Hedia couldn't catch words.

She drew herself up with as much dignity as circumstances allowed. More than when they caught me in the forest, she thought. I will get out of this and return home. I will!

Hedia had half-expected cheers from the crowd as the ship they waited for approached. Instead, she heard frightened whispers magnified many thousands of times.

She felt a touch of disquiet. They didn't bring me here for a human sacrifice, did they? The Gauls and Scythians did that, and Varus had told her that as recently as the war with Hannibal, the Senate of Carce had made human sacrifices.

I'll deal with the situation as it develops. And if some priest comes toward me with a golden sickle, I'll hope that my hands are still free.

The ship dropped below the seawall to settle into the lagoon. Hedia looked up. All she could see of the city was the top of the high temple. The ball gleaming there was the one she had last seen while shopping in Carce, on top of the obelisk of Psammeticus.

Rather than using a brazier on a tripod, Anna had built a small fire on the ancient well curb at the side of the back garden. She fed it with splinters of maple wood and regularly dropped pinches of different powders onto the flames. Occasionally it spat sparks, and once Alphena had seen a bright glow in the shape of a cat form around the fire.

Alphena wore heavy sandals, a short tunic, and a belt from which hung the sword she had battled demons with. She was nervous and tired and occasionally dizzy, though she thought the dizziness was just from standing upright and not moving from the spot for so long.

Anna chanted in Oscan. The rhythms were more or less the same as those of Latin, but Alphena could only catch the occasional word. She smiled slightly: she was guessing about even those words. Maybe it wasn't Oscan, maybe it was all gibberish and Anna was playing a joke on her.

Alphena pressed her lower lip between her teeth. Part of her hoped that nothing was going to happen, except that afterward she would feel like a fool.

Heavy wagons rumbled along the Argiletum all night, their iron-shod wheels smothering other sounds. Even Anna's cracked voice only flecked that dull background, like bubbles on the sea after a storm. Somewhere a man shouted curses, repeating himself and slipping into a singsong pattern before finally falling silent again.

Alphena dried her right palm on her tunic, then gripped the sword again. She had thought of wearing armor and carrying a shield, but the weight would be a useless burden under most circumstances. She was going to find her mother, not to stand in ranks and battle Germans! Though it might be worse than Germans who were holding Hedia.

At least if demons started rising from the ground, she wouldn't feel so useless. I don't want to just wait!

Anna broke off her chant and rocked back on her seat, sighing. Instead of using a bench or having a stool brought out, she sat on a large upended mixing bowl from the kitchen. It wouldn't have been Alphena's choice, but-she grinned-it hadn't been her choosing.

"Is it time, mistress?" Alphena said, trying very hard to keep the quaver out of her voice. I'll be fine when I have something to do.

"It is not," the older woman said. Her tone made Alphena's breath draw in.

Anna must have shocked herself to hear also. She grimaced, pausing with a miniature billet of maple wood in her hand, and looked up at Alphena; she would probably have risen if her knees had been up to it.

"I misspoke myself, your ladyship," she said. "I'm tired to the marrow and the job isn't over yet. I'm tired and I'm frightened, may Venus protect me."

"You have nothing to apologize for, Anna," Alphena said. That was a lie, but it should have been the truth. Anna was a freewoman doing a favor at great personal risk. Lady Alphena should have been ready to accept a certain lack of deference as a result of strain. "And I'm still your friend, not some 'ladyship', I hope."

Anna sighed again and brought a skin of wine out from under her tunic. "I'm still sorry, dear," she said as she undid the lace clamping the wooden plug into the throat. "I'm old enough that I ought to be able to do better. And it's not like I've never done this before, though not often since I met Pulto."

She took a deep draft of wine. Lowering the skin, she added, "And maybe not quite this far into the shadows as this time. Except for, you know, for your mother."

Sending mother into the Underworld in order to save me. Alphena took a deep breath, feeling better. She wasn't taking any risk as great as what Hedia had taken for her.

"Oh, Venus forsake me, where's my manners?" Anna said. She leaned toward Alphena, holding out the wineskin. "Here, girl, I wasn't thinking. Truly, I been that dry with saying the invocation over till I felt it start to take."

Alphena took the wine. She knew her face stiffened momentarily, but thank Mercury! it seemed that Anna had missed the reaction. Raising the skin quickly to hide her expression, she took a reasonable drink and sluiced it around her mouth.

The wine was as warm as she expected. Goodness knew where the grapes had been grown, but the vintage had been mixed with not only resin but also sea water-the salty tang was noticeable even through the tar flavor-to stabilize it for travel.

Resin and the dash of sea water were the only things it had been cut with. It seemed much stronger than the unmixed vintages which Alphena had occasionally drunk with her mother.

She lowered the wineskin, then returned it to Anna. The drink certainly had cured her dry mouth. Numbed it, she shouldn't wonder.

"We're waiting for the moon now, child," Anna mused. She stroked the trussed rooster; it was part of the paraphernalia that messengers had brought when she started her preparations. "We can't hasten the moon."

The rooster tried to peck her. Its legs, wings, and beak were bound with rye straw, but it had been squirming like a hooked fish ever since Anna began chanting.

Six birds had arrived in response to Anna's summons-all cocks, and all white or mostly white. Alphena wasn't sure how Anna had picked the one she did, but it wasn't pleased by the honor.

The other five had gone to the cooks, so it didn't matter. It probably didn't matter. For an instant, Alphena was uncomfortably aware that being cooked and eaten wasn't necessarily the worst thing that could result from this night's business.

Anna took another drink-a very long one-from the skin, then looked about the garden. The moon was well up, but it was still short of mid-sky; Anna hadn't said, but Alphena supposed that was what she was waiting for now.

The witch laughed. "No gawkers, tonight. I thought somebody might be up on the roof-"

She gestured toward the house proper. Somebody standing on the parapet of the second floor could look down onto the back of this garden, though he wouldn't be able to see more than possibly the top of Alphena's head. Anna was more visible, even though she was sitting down.

"-watching."

She spat into a rose bed. "They're welcome to, if they like. Anybody who wants to try this theirself has my blessing."

Anna turned her head quickly. Alphena followed her eyes and caught a glimpse of a female figure. It faded like fog into the peach tree.

"Would ye like a closer look at this, girlie?" Anna snarled at the tree. "If not, then ye'd better keep your pointy little nose out of my way!"

The garden was as still as street noise allowed it to be; the peach nymph didn't reappear. Anna grasped the rooster by its legs. She hunched, holding the bird out at arm's length, and rocked to her feet.

"It's time if we're going to do it," she said with a lopsided smile. A small knife had appeared in her right hand.

"Yes, of course," Alphena said. She was no longer gripping the sword hilt. Patting her hands together, she was pleased to notice that her palms were dry. "What would you like me to do?"

"You just stand there, dearie," Anna said with a grim chuckle. "If this goes well, I'll summon something to take you to wherever her ladyship is. But girl?"

She paused until Alphena looked up and met her eyes.

"I can't do anything about it after you leave here," Anna said. "There's dangers, maybe worse ones than I know. And what I know is bad enough. That's for you alone to deal with, and I'm sorry to say that."

"Yes, of course," Alphena said brusquely. "I don't expect others to fight my battles, mistress."

Anna unexpectedly chuckled. "Spoken like a true officer," she said. "Line troopers have better sense."

Before Alphena could respond-she had no idea of how to respond to that-Anna resumed chanting. Without changing the rhythm of the incantation, she brought her hands together and slit the rooster's throat. The bird continued to thrash as its blood gurgled into the glazed bowl.

Drops splashed the animals molded onto the bowl's rim. It seemed to Alphena that a mist was starting to form.

David Drake

Out of the Waters-ARC