Shadow of Ararat

THE ROMAN CAMP, ALBANIA, THE MARE CASPIUM SHORE

A thin wash of clouds covered the face of the moon. They were rushing to the west, trailing long gowns of white and gray. A shepherd sat on a high mountainside, his back to the comforting bulk of a slab of granite bigger than the Temple of Zeus in his village. Two black and white dogs slept at his feet, their dreams filled with running prey.

One of the dogs twitched in its sleep and growled. The man looked out, over the sleeping sheep, and saw nothing. He listened, stilling himself. He heard it then, a high thin scream, like a baby roasting on a spit over a hot fire. Looking up, he caught a glimpse of something, huge and winged like a titanic bat, rushing through the higher air, obscuring the face of the moon.

Then a shriek of sound came from above, piercing down from the heavens, and the man, who had leapt to his feet in alarm, cowered on the ground in fear. A long wail echoed off of the rocks, and there was a booming sound that reverberated through the air, passing away into the east. The dogs whimpered at his feet and the man stared, seeing demons in the dark. The sheep turned their faces to him, frozen with dread, their eyes reflecting the pale light of the fire.

It is strange, thought Maxian, to hear the rough dialect of my city under these foreign stars.

He stood in the shadow of a copse of trees, looking down a grassy slope toward the fires of a great camp. He could hear laughter and singing. There was a familiar tang in the air; the wind out of the east was bringing the smell of a salt sea. The night air was cool but not chilly, and he had thrown back the heavy cowl of. the cloak he wore. Firelight gleamed on his cheekbones and in his eyes. Four legionnaires passed by, coming within feet of him, on patrol. The Prince smiled in the darkness, feeling his strength subtly filling the air and ground around him. No one could see him if he did not wish to be seen.

He walked down the hill, smelling the thick aroma of flowers and fresh grass. Winter threatened in the mountains, but here, on the flat plains by the shallow sea, summer lingered. The night was heavy with the smell of orange blossoms and jasmine. Even the stars seemed kind, twinkling down with a cheerful fire. He came to the ditch around the camp and stopped. Brush had been cleared hastily away from the verge, and sharp stakes, carried by the legionnaires for such a purpose, were driven into the soft earth at the bottom of the trench. Beyond it, a palisade of logs had been raised.

He brought the woman Alais to mind, a vision of strong white legs flitting across a rooftop in the Eastern capital. Frowning in concentration, he sprang forward. His boots slapped hard against the top of the log wall and he swayed, teetering over the trench behind him. Then he calmed his racing heart and stood upright, finding his balance. The camp lay spread out before him, hundreds of canvas tents in neat rows glowing with the light of lanterns and candles. He could hear a dim murmur of voices now, coming from thousands of conversations. From the height where he stood, a slim black shape melting into a dark sky, he could see that a great tent, well lit, had been raised at the. center of the camp.

He dropped silently to the ground within the walls. A sentry walked past, on the ledge built up behind the wall of logs. Maxian wrapped his cloak around him and moved off between the tents.

Martius Galen Atreus, Augustus Caesar of the West, sat at his folding desk in a pool of yellow light. Beeswax candles, taken from the nearest village by one of the foraging patrols, burned brightly at the edges of the worktable. Neat piles of wax tablets and stacks of papyrus scrolls covered the tabletop. The Emperor leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. He was very tired, but then he did not remember a time when he had not been exhausted, or buried in detail, since leaving the Eternal City. It was late and he had sent his secretaries to their bedrolls thirty grains before. He reached forward to pick up a tablet bearing a roster of the lamed and injured horses in the army. His eye caught a thin dark shape standing just inside the doorway of his tent.

Galen looked up, surprised that someone would be admitted without his guards announcing him, then stopped, his eyes widening, the tablet frozen in midair.

“Brother.” Maxian’s voice was raspy and thick.

Galen rose, his lean face filling with a slow glad smile. “Maxian!” Then the Emperor paused, seeing the dreadful pallor of his brother’s face, grasping his utterly unexpected presence. “What is it?”

The Emperor leaned forward on the table for support. His mind was a cataclysm of fears. “Aurelian? The city? What has happened?” His voice was tight in anticipation of disaster.

Maxian stepped forward, his black robes furling around him, and slid his thin body into one of the camp stools in front of the desk. The Prince shook his head, a half smile dancing on his lips. “Oh, fear not, brother. The city stands. The Empire stands. Aurelian, when last I saw him, was well.”

Galen sat down heavily in the chair, sighing in relief. His brows furrowed and he glared at his younger brother. “Good… You gave me a fright, barging in all unexpected, looking like a shade out of Hades. You’re the last person I’d ever expect to see here. What is it? You must have left Rome only weeks behind us to get here now-you didn’t travel alone, did you? Ah, of course you did! Why should a healer fear in this dark world…”

Maxian looked up, seeing the concern in his brother’s face. He realized that he had missed his brother tremendously, difficult and judgmental as he was. Both of his brothers. Of late, in the pressure of building the engine and making haste to come here, he had begun to think of Krista and Alais and the others as his family. Now, sitting in the warm confines of a campaign tent in the light of plain candles, he remembered a thousand other times when he would sit in the back of just such a tent while his brothers plotted and planned their quest for Empire.

He missed that, the closeness, the days on the march, the tight community of the army. A sad look came into his face and the Prince looked away from his brother, feeling very lonely. Tears threatened to well up as he struggled against a flood of emotions. He treasured those days, now long gone. He thought of leaving; this was too painful.

“I traveled with friends, brother. It was very safe, safer than your journey.”

Galen nodded, his face marked with a wan smile. “What is it? Wait, you must be starving from the look of you. Eat first, then tell me.”

The Emperor rang a small bell that sat on the side of the table, and a moment later one of the household servants entered. The old man, a Greek, smiled to see Maxian and bowed deeply to the Emperor.

“My brother has had a long journey. Bring something hot to drink and whatever is left of the dinner. And warm too, not cold.”

The old-Greek scurried off, calling out to the other servants as soon as he left the tent. Galen stood and walked around the table to his brother. Maxian stared up at him, his eyes dull with fatigue. The Emperor reached out, clasped his brother’s hand, and drew him to his feet. Maxian stared at him, filled with an odd dread. His brother wrapped him in a fierce hug. Maxian looked away, blinking back tears.

“I missed you and Aurelian,” Galen whispered. “I…”

The servants bustled in, laden with platters and jugs and a bucket of coals. Maxian stepped aside from his brother and greeted the cook and the other house servants. He had known them for as long as he had lived. They laid out a feast: roast pheasant, lamb stew, grilled fish, hot rolls with butter, a thick gruel of chickpeas and spices. The cook pressed a mug of hot wine into his hand. Maxian drank deeply, feeling the heat flush through his body. He sat again and stared in amazement at the platter of food in front of him.

“Eat,” Galen said. “I’ll wait.”

The engine was quiescent, its fires banked, midnight wings folded in against the serpentine body. It crouched in a defile a mile or more from the Roman camp, hidden by evergreens and a thicket of gorse bushes and thorn. Krista sat on the huge head, feeling the heat of the metal under her, her legs on either side of the long pointed snout. She had adopted woolen leggings and a heavy shirt under a half-tunic of lambskin with fleece on the inside. One of the Valach who now served the Prince had shown her how to make it, his thin fingers quick with a heavy needle to stitch the fleece to the leather. It was warm, a little too warm now that they had come to this temperate land. But when the engine was in flight, high among the clouds, the wind bit with teeth of ice. She gazed mournfully off into the darkness in the direction of the Roman camp.

She would have to make a decision soon, to go or to stay. To fulfill her duty or to hang on, seeing what more she could learn. A soft giggle distracted her, and she drew her legs up, folding them under her. Two shapes moved in the darkness under the shoulder of the engine. White skin flashed in the dim moonlight, and a deeper voice answered. Krista curled her lip in disgust. For a dead man, the old Roman had not lost any taste for the pleasures of the flesh.

And Alais is all too willing, seeking some advantage of it.

The dynamic-of the small group had changed markedly with the introduction of the Valach girl and her “friends” to the circle. The other Valach, pale and quiet, had proved invaluable in the completion of the engine. They were tireless, once Maxian had graced them with the elixir, and the dreadful haunted look that had filled their eyes was gone. Some, like the boy Anatol, were even kind in their own way. He had spent hours stitching the rich image of a curling serpent that adorned the back of her half-tunic. But Alais? She was poison.

Krista smiled, caressing the shape of the spring gun snugly tied to her left arm. Someday something would happen in some confused moment, and the Valach woman and her soft full breasts, overgrown like some lush flower left in the dark for too long, would be a corpse. Laughter filtered through the trees. The old Roman and the woman had gone through the brush and up the hill. Moonlight fell in long slats in the passages of the wood. Krista stood, shrugging the half-tunic into place. A little ways away, she could see them.

Alais was dancing in the moonlight, her long hair slowly swirling white around her pale shoulders. Her dress clung to her like a spiderweb, sheer and fine. Her long legs flashed in the silver light as she turned and spun. Gaius Julius leaned against the trunk of a tree, his face in shadow. She danced closer to him and his hand flashed out, capturing her arm. Krista turned away and climbed down off of the great engine. She stooped to enter the dim, hot chamber at the center of the device. Night would proceed. Maxian would return soon.

Galen watched his brother closely while he ate. Something had happened to the youth he had left behind in the capital. He had somehow become a man in the past months, a man with a haggard face and secrets hiding behind his eyes. His clothes, too, were strange. Dark rich robes and a mottled gray tunic underneath. The Prince finished the platter of food and pushed it away from him. The Emperor put down his own cup of wine and motioned for the servants to leave them.

“What troubles you, Maxian? Something important must have transpired since I left the city. Has something happened to you?”

Maxian nodded, his head heavy. He had just eaten more than he had in the last week and his body was seized with lethargy. For the first time in days, he thought of sleep. Something about the old familiar tent, the narrow, concerned face of his brother, the smell of the candles and the horses, made him feel safe and comfortable. He yawned, then blinked and rubbed his face fiercely.

“Do you remember the night that you, and I, and Aure-lian were at the Summer House? You were telling me of your plan to invade Persia. I felt something that night,

(Al something I had felt only two times before. Brother, it frightened me. You know that I am a healer, that I have power in the unseen world.“

Galen nodded, his attention fixed on his younger brother.

“Like a sorcerer, or a wizard,” the Prince continued, “I can see the invisible powers. That night, in the little temple under the moon, I felt something powerful. Something inimical to men. It piqued my curiosity, so I started to ask some questions…”

Maxian continued for close to an hour, his even voice recounting nearly all that he had done and all that he had seen since that night. He left out only the details of his companions. When he finished, he sipped from a cup of wine the servants had left when they cleared away the dinner plates.

Galen stared at him, his face pale and drawn with horror. The Emperor looked away suddenly, and when he looked back, his eyes were angry. “Fool of a brother! How many times could you have died in this? Without anyone knowing? And your curse… if it is true, then my life is forfeit if I return to the West. I will die as surely as your friend the shipwright, or these weavers.”

The Emperor sprang to his feet and began pacing, his face a mask of concentration.

“No,” Maxian said, staring in surprise at the agitation of his brother. “You, of all men, are safe in this thing. Such a construction needs a focus, some point from which all else springs. You are that focus, as the Emperor is the focus of the state. I know that you are safe. It may influence your thought and your intent. But so too does it protect you and shield you. Of all the men in the world who do not count mastery of the hidden world among their skills, you are the only one who can know this thing.”

Galen turned, fists clenched in anger. “What would you have me do? Throw down the state I have sworn to defend? Wreck the Empire that, for all its faults, brings peace and protection to the people of half the world? I cannot do this thing. I will not do this!“ His voice had risen, almost to a shout.

Maxian stood as well, his voice anxious. “But, brother! We can be free of it-and the Empire will still stand. All I need is a lever that is long enough and a fulcrum firm enough to dislodge it. I know where I can find the lever-I am sure of it. Help me do this thing, and a new world will come, one of freedom for all men. Our poor citizens can› be strong again, Rome mighty again without the affliction of this curse.”

Galen stared at Maxian’s outstretched hand and stepped back. His mind whirled, filled with strange images and the words of his brother’s trek across the Empire. It came to him that there were things missing, things left unsaid, passages only hinted at.

“How did you reach me so quickly?” The Emperor’s voice was low, controlled. “By your accounting, you left Constantinople only days ago. What power brought you here?”

Maxian started to speak, but then closed his mouth, shaking his head.

“Tell me. Something must have carried you here-what is it? Where is it?”

“No,” Maxian said, his voice clipped. “I see that you will not help me, so I will go and trouble you no more. There may be another way to break the curse. If there is, I will find it.”

Galen’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“I have heard,” the Emperor said, sliding sideways around the table, “that the magi of Persia command powers that can carry them great distances swiftly. Do you have allies in this? Allies you have failed to mention?”

Maxian drew himself up and moved toward the door. “Friends have helped me. Friends who see clearly, unfettered by your fear. But I am my own master-you cannot command me, nor can anyone else.”

Galen stopped him, a stiff hand on his chest. “Chrosoes

King of Kings would laugh to see the Empire stripped of this protection.“

Maxian stared back, his face taut with anger.

“I care not,” he hissed, “for the King of Kings. Your war is an inconvenience to me, no more. Something to be taken into account. You forget, with your dream of Empire, that the common people pay for your glory in blood. I have had enough of it. It is the nature of man to learn and to grow, to seek out new things. If the Empire cannot stomach that, then I do not care for the Empire either. Stand aside. I will take my leave of you, brother.”

Galen shook his head, whistling sharply. The Germans outside, already aroused by the sound of voices raised in anger, crowded in through the doorway.

“My brother,” the Emperor said, “is weary and full of anger. Take him to my tent and keep him there, safe, until the morning. Sleep will restore his good humor.”

Maxian did not speak, eyeing the broad chests and thickly muscled arms of the Germans. There were many of them, and he was tired and only one. He nodded, smiling weakly.

“It may be so,” he said, and when they led him from the tent, he did not resist.

Galen, troubled beyond measure, leaned against the pole at the door of the tent, watching as the Germans took his brother away into the darkness. He scratched the back of his head, feeling the short stubbly hair, then turned away. There was still work to be done. He would sort things out with his little brother in the morning.

The Prince lay amid soft cushions and pillows on a fine bed. It was soft and yielding under him. Weariness washed over him in slow waves, dragging him closer to sleep. A lantern of cut-crystal faces gleamed at the top of the tent. Rich dark fabrics formed the walls and it was raised up, above the ground, on a platform of boards. It was warm and close. Maxian smiled wryly, remembering the dis gusted faces of the two concubines who had been hustled out into the cold night by the Germans. He yawned.

Despite the comfort, sleep did not come easily to him. Dreams of fire and great wheels turning in dark places haunted him. In one fragmentary moment, he saw himself on a high place, surrounded by pillars of cold marble, hearing a great roaring sound, like the sea crashing against cliffs. He saw vast wings blotting out the sun and felt joy at the rush of hot wind in his hair. He saw Krista, her face pale and drawn in concentration, facing him, her arm out-thrust toward him. At last he slept, but sounds and images of places he had not seen and people he had not met troubled even that. A woman looked down on him, maddeningly familiar, with eyes as gray as a northern sea. The sky behind her was red with burning clouds.

A touch woke him, feather-light. He slowly opened one eye and saw that the lantern had failed, leaving total darkness. A pale face hovered over him, seemingly lit by some ghostly pale-blue inner light. Long pale hair fell like gossamer on either side of the face. Rich dark lips moved.

Master?

“Alais,” he said, his voice fuzzy with sleep. He raised a hand and touched her cheek. She turned, kissing his hand, the contact shockingly hot. Her tongue moved wetly against his palm. He stroked her hair back, away from her neck. She trembled at his touch.

“Master, we must go.” Her voice was an electric whisper in the darkness. “The Romans are searching the woods, looking for something. There are hundreds of men with torches.”

“Ah, my brother is keen for something he can only guess at. So, even a brother cannot trust a brother. Help me up.”

Her hands, strong as iron, raised him up. He gathered his clothing and let her dress him. Her hands were very warm on his stomach. The Prince smiled in the darkness. If he had to go alone, without his brothers, he would go alone. The citizens were more important. Saving the innocent from unseen, unstoppable death was more important.

Alais drew back the curtain at the door, her voice whispering in the night. The guards outside sat at their posts, unmoving, and did not look up as the Prince exited the tent, closing the drape behind him. Together he and the pale Valach woman walked away through the camp, she a pace behind him.