Shadow of Ararat

I

Maxian sat amid roses on a mossy stone bench, his face drawn with exhaustion. Despite the calm peace that pervaded the gardens built on the downriver side of the Temple of the Healers, his mind was unquiet. Darkness seemed to hang over the city now, with a flickering dissonance in the shadows under the buildings or along the wharves that lined the river. Since the night that Gregorius had come to him with the two barbarians, the prince had not slept in his rooms on the Palatine. The whispering of the stones had grown too loud. Now he wondered if he could even bear to remain within the precincts of the city.

Here, in the domain of the priests, he found that there was some peace. Whatever power it was that had invaded the city, and was now so obviously crushing the life from its citizens, the god of healing had the power to keep it from his doors. Maxian rubbed the side of his head, trying to relieve the knots of strain that bunched in his shoulders and neck. He snorted to himself, thinking of how little use he was to his brother.

To his great credit, Aurelian had seemed to know that something was weighing on his little brother’s mind and had quietly reassigned all of the tasks that Galen had intended for Maxian. In a way, this made it worse, for now Maxian felt useless. The power that gnawed at the vitals of the people of Rome was so strong that he could not even budge it from a single stone. He was unwilling to bend his thought to dealing with the bureaucracy as his brother needed him to. He groaned aloud and buried his head in his hands.

“So bad, is it?” came a soft basso voice like an echo of thunder. Maxian looked up, and his drawn, pale, face lightened for a moment at the sight of the stout man who now stood by the bench.

“Tarsus!” he said in delight, and stood. The two men embraced and Maxian felt much of the weight of responsibility lift from his shoulders. Then he stood back and looked on his old friend with glad eyes. Tarsus met his gaze with solemn brown eyes and then laughed, hugging the young man close to his massive chest.

“You’re too young to have such a care-worn face, my friend,” the priest of Asklepios rumbled. “I’ve not seen you since I came to the city, so tell me your troubles.”

Maxian sat again, though now he looked up, where long ribbons of cloud marked the sky like a race course. Tarsus sat down as well, leaning back against the willow tree that butted up against the end of the bench. The Prince turned a little to see him.

“I’ve come upon a serious problem,” the Prince began, “one that threatens, or afflicts, everyone in the city. You are new come here, from Pergamum, you must have seen the sickliness of the citizens!”

Tarsus nodded, his craggy face falling into its own lines of care and worry.

“Too many dead babies, or mothers dead on the birthing table. Wizened old men and women of thirty and forty. Bones too brittle to knit properly. Summer colds that become the coughing death…” The healer regarded the Prince gravely.

“You’ve found something causing this?” Tarsus asked.

Maxian nodded, then paused, shaking his head. “I… I might have found something that could be causing this. I… don’t know. My skill in the otherworld is not strong enough to see the whole shape of the. situation.” The Prince turned pleading eyes to his teacher. “I don’t know enough of the kind of sorcery that could cause such a thing to say… I’ve found a…“

Maxian paused, suddenly loath to relate the vision of the city drowning in darkness to his old friend. A dreadful thought formed unbidden in his mind. If the curse afflicted things that were outside of its purview, like the new cloth, or the ship at Ostia, then if he told what he knew to Tarsus, or to Aurelian, then they would be at risk as well. Though Tarsus was an exemplary doctor, surgeon, administrator, and teacher, he did not have the power over the otherworld that Maxian owned as an accident of birth. He could not protect himself from the tide of corrosion that permeated the city outside of the island.

Maxian looked away from the concerned eyes of the priest. He felt sick. “I can’t tell you now. I need to find out if I’m right… It is very dangerous, Tarsus. If I could tell you and keep you safe, I would.”

The Prince stood up and walked quickly out of the garden. Behind him, the old priest watched him with grave concern. After a moment, Tarsus shook his head as if to clear it of worry and got up to return to his duties in the sickward of the temple.

Maxian climbed the long ramp of narrow steps that ascended the southern side of the Coelian Hill. At the summit, he paused for breath. His tunic was damp with sweat from the exertion. At the top of the steps, there was a small square, and on the western side, a little circular Temple of Jupiter. In the midday heat, the streets radiating out from the square were empty and the lackluster chuckling of the fountain on the northern side was a lonely sound. He crossed the square and went up the broad steps into the dim coolness of the temple.

Within, a marble statue of the god dominated the circular nave, his arm raised to hold a pair of bronze thunderbolts. Beyond that there was a column-lined porch overlooking the sweep of the city. Maxian hauled himself over the low wall and sat, his feet dangling over the edge, and surveyed the thousands of roofs that now lay below him. The white shapes of temples rose like ships in a sea of red tile that descended in steps and a slope to the banks of the Tiber. To his right, upstream from the island that held the calm garden of Asklepios, he could make out the broad open space of the Campus Martius, now all but abandoned with the departure of the Praetorian Guard with the Emperor to the east.

Sitting in the shade, he felt a great fondness for the weathered old city. It had sheltered the art, civilization, and culture of the entire world for centuries. Now it was almost beaten down, its once-proud monuments chipped and cracked, many in ruins. High up here, above the stink and the crowds, he could see the sweep of the city and feel the breadth of Empire that it represented. He thought, his face twisted in regret, of all of the old ghosts he had seen in the palace. Each of them had laid down his whole life for the dream of a world Empire that would sustain civilization forever. A faded glory now. He rubbed his eyes, feeling terribly sad for a moment.

Under the hot sun, the city lay somnolent in the late afternoon. Maxian restrained himself from seeing the city, knowing that eddies of corrosive power were lapping even around this temple. The problem presented by Tarsus, or his brother, occupied his mind. How could he defeat this curse upon the city if he could not tell anyone else? He was far too weak to break the spell, or spells, that anchored it to the city. He needed powerful help. Another sorcerer, someone who was a master of the art, someone who could supplement his own meager skills.

Another thought occurred to him as he sat with his back against the cool marble pillar. He needed help that was not Roman. By constant vigilance he held the curse from his own mind and body with the Shield of Athena, but in some way it was a part of him as well. He could feel a vestige of it slipping and sliding through his arteries and veins.

Another Roman wizard, brought into such an enterprise, could well be overwhelmed and destroyed-like the seri-canum had been consumed-before he could defend himself. The Prince rubbed the stubble that had come during the last few days. I need to shave, he remarked to himself. And I need to find a foreigner who is strong enough to help me…

Feeling vastly better that he had at least the beginnings of a plan, he left the temple, striding down into the narrow streets and alleys of the Subura district. lg.0MQHQMQHQMQMOM()HQMQMQMQHQHQMQMQMQM0MQH()WOH()MQa|