Immortal (5 page)

And he unfolded the cloak that had hidden the riches. Even now the fragrance of frankincense wafted from it. Agios bowed his head, tears stinging his eyes. The aroma brought back that terrible day so clearly, brought back Philos as he had been just before—

Caspar had spoken to him in his own language. Agios forced his mind back to the present. “I'm sorry. I didn't—”

“I asked your name.”

“Agios,” he said.

“I am Caspar. My kingdom is to the south, but I have come here because the man who owns this mansion has collected all these.” He waved his hands toward the scrolls. “Do you know why we want you?”

“Frankincense,” Agios said. “I have heard it's a gift for a king—a king not yet born.”

“Leave us,” Caspar said to the others.

“My lord,” Mizha said in a tone of reproach, “he is a barbarian.”

“Are you going to kill me, Agios?” Caspar asked.

“No.”

“There. I'm safe. Go on.”

The others left reluctantly. Caspar beckoned Agios over to the table. “Do you read?”

“I have not the skill,” Agios said.

“It is a useful knowledge.”

He does not plan to kill me
, Agios thought. He said, “Your men probably have told you that you can't threaten me with death. I don't care whether I live or die. But to be able to read—that would be good. I will help you if you teach me that skill.”

Caspar looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. “You won't try to escape?”

“No. I swear it.”

“Then I will have a servant teach you.” Caspar reached for some scrolls. “Here, these are star charts—you see? These others are ancient prophecies. They speak of a king to come, and my study of the sky tells me the time of his coming is upon us.”

“What do you see in the sky?”

“I hope—I fervently long—to see a star that will be the sign of his birth,” Caspar said.

Agios did not really understand, but replied, “What is another king? There are kings everywhere.”

Caspar's eye glinted. “This shall be the King of Kings.”

Agios had no reply.

“They tell me you can secure more frankincense?” Caspar made the statement a question, the matter clearly of great import to him.

“Yes, in my homeland. There is a place that will offer it in abundance now. It has not been gathered for a year. The trees will be heavy with it.”

I'd meant for Philos to have a harvest to make him proud
.

Caspar asked him where his homeland was, and when he told, as best he could, the king shook his head. “It is difficult to trade for frankincense—so many wealthy men and such high prices. But I need a great deal it, and if it is available in your homeland—well, it is a long way back there. However, for the longest part of the journey we will go by sea. Not too far from where you say the frankincense is, there is another kingdom where a friend of mine lives—his name is Balthasar, and he also looks for the coming of the King of Kings. Before I join Balthasar to find the new king, though, we must also travel to meet another scholar-king. His name is Melchior. You will meet them both before they and I depart on our search. I will have new garments readied for you. We will leave in two days.”

The ship moved faster than men mounted or walking on foot, but it hugged the coastline and the trip back took weeks. A servant, and sometimes Caspar himself, taught Agios some rudiments of reading and writing on the way. He also observed that Agios had a gift for picking up languages. He tutored Agios in Aramaic, a tongue used by traders throughout that part of the world, and by the time they reached port Agios could hold a halting conversation in that language.

They joined yet another caravan, and Agios soon settled back into the routine. The days were long and hot, but the people seemed in good spirits, and in the evenings they sometimes sang songs in exotic tongues and danced around the fire. Gamos had made a gift of the woodworking tools that Agios had used to repair the howdah. As a result, Agios had taken up carving again. It wasn't a conscious decision. One night he found himself handling a chunk of wood, the knife flashing in the firelight. He had passed the long evening hours like this when Philos was a child, and though it had been years since he had fashioned likenesses with nothing more than a knife and a piece of wood, he still had the knack.

A goat was the first thing to take shape beneath his able fingers, and though it wasn't as precise as he would have liked, the horns were tiny and sharp and the hooves cloven. He practiced next on a leopard. Then a bird with wings outstretched and an elephant. The animals got better every time.

Agios didn't know what to do with the carvings and he didn't dare to approach any of the children in the caravan—the eyes of young boys and girls always brought a stabbing memory of Philos. So he left his homemade gifts in unexpected places where they would surprise and delight whoever found them. Only Gamos knew that Agios had carved the sheep that a woman then found balanced on the edge of her cooking pot. And they shared a smile over the sharp-eyed hawk that perched in a net as a small boy spent the better portion of a day trying to devise ways to reach it.

One evening some strangers joined the caravan, four men who led a fifth one, a hulking fellow whose arms were tightly bound by leather thongs. Gamos saw them first and spoke with them, then came to where Agios sat outside Caspar's tent. “These men claim they've captured a demon. He's ugly enough to be one.”

The bound man's groans came to them. Agios rose and walked over to look more closely. The bound man was hideous: hair matted, limbs knotted and gnarled despite their apparent strength. His eyes were wild, widely spaced, and too small. The brute glared around and grunted.

“What's wrong with him?” Agios asked.

One of the man's captors shrugged. “He's like an animal. A Roman got him in Cyprus, they say, and made him a galley slave, but he could learn nothing, not even how to row. The Romans sold him to us, and we use him like a donkey—he can carry heavy loads. But he's disobedient and tries to run away. We hope to sell him to someone who needs a slave with muscles and no mind.”

Agios stared at the prisoner, and for just a moment their gazes locked. The expression on the man's face was one of utter hopelessness. “He's no demon,” Agios muttered. “Just miserable and exhausted and frightened.”

That evening when he lay waiting for sleep, Agios felt unsettled. He was sure that he could hear the moaning of the bound man at the farthest edge of the camp, and the hopeless groans pieced his heart. Why should he care? But there was something in the monster's eyes that haunted him.

A dark mist of dust surrounded the caravan as a wind storm rolled in across the mountains. Agios slept fitfully, half-awake as he watched the shadows disperse and then coalesce into dark and menacing shapes. Murmurs rose all around, muttering threats and wickedness until Agios lay covered in a cold and terrified sweat.

And then, through the darkness, a spot of light began to glow like a white-hot coal in the distance. Agios tried to walk toward it, but in his half dream it receded before him. He thought at first that it was a star. Maybe Caspar's star, the very one he longed to find.

But then, somehow, Agios was closer. It wasn't a star at all, but a room. And the room wasn't in a house, but in a cave carved into the side of a hill, and warm light poured from it into the black night outside. Agios tried to approach the door—he was suddenly anxious to see inside. But he couldn't. There was only the light and a feeling like a feather in his chest, a feeling that maybe the darkness might not be as terrible as he believed it to be.

Hope
.

The word had been whispered to his heart, and despite all that he had lost, despite all of the pain that he carried around like shackles even more real than the ones that had left scars on his wrists, Agios longed to believe hope might exist for him.

But as quickly as it had come, the light vanished.

And the whisper of hope with it.

Agios woke on the cold, hard ground and knew that he had nothing to live for.

As they neared the village in the valley below Agios's isolated mountain home, Gamos began to recount the stories he had been told of the legendary frankincense. Almost against his will, Agios couldn't help but be amused by one outrageous account of a man who fell in love with a goddess. He tried to climb a steep cliff to find her, but was cursed and transformed into a tree that could only grow on nearly vertical stone. His tears crystallized into the frankincense resin.

“You believe this?” Agios asked.

“You don't?”

Agios shrugged.

“Caspar says the Hebrew God created and consecrated the libanos tree,” Gamos said.

“Why?”

“So frankincense could be used to cleanse and sanctify temples sacred to him.”

“I know nothing about the Hebrew God.”

“Come on.” Gamos wouldn't be deterred. “Surely you believe in something. All right, you know the truth about this plant. Tell me about the dangers of frankincense.”

“Deadly serpents guard the trees,” Agios said after a long moment.

Gamos looked skeptical. “You mean dragons?”

“I don't know what those are. These—their bite burns like flame.”

“Dragons, then. Winged serpents that fly and breathe fire,” Gamos said, sounding skeptical.

“Serpents, anyway,” Agios said. “But aside from them, we must be careful. People covet frankincense. If they suspect we have any, look for trouble—they wouldn't hesitate to kill for it.”

On the morning when Caspar and his small band prepared to leave the caravan, Agios heard sounds of pain. He turned and headed for them. Gamos asked, “Where are you going?” and followed close behind.

The owners of the misshapen slave were whipping him. The man had been bound to a cartwheel, his back stripped bare, and the four laid into him with short, viciously knotted scourges. The bound man shrieked as the braided knots cut bloody stripes into his flesh.

Agios grabbed the uplifted arm of the leader, wrenched the scourge from his grasp, and turned. The others fell back. “You'll kill him!” Agios said.

“What if we do?” the leader snarled. “He tried to get loose again. What good is he to us? Who would buy this filth?”

The bound man whimpered and tried to speak, but his words were a gabble.

Agios turned to Gamos. “Buy him.”

“What?”

“He's strong. Buy him.”

“That's insane.”

“You took my frankincense,” Agios said. “You owe me. Buy this man.”

Caspar came finally. When Agios repeated his demand, the king looked doubtfully at the weeping, bound figure. “What need have I of a servant like this? This is a strange thing to ask.”

Agios said, “You want something from me. I want this from you.” He glared at the four men who had been whipping the slave. “They will take one silver piece.”

The leader began to protest, but glancing at Agios's face he broke off and muttered, “That will do.”

And so they left that morning with the extra man. As they walked away, one of the four men yelled after them: “His name's Krampus. He'll kill you in the night unless you tie him up!”

Krampus, bent and cringing, edged closer to Agios. Agios didn't look at him but said, “I won't tie you up. No one will beat you.”

Krampus wept and reached out a hand to touch Agios's shoulder tentatively. He made placating sounds, like a dog. Then, with the gentleness of a child, he took Agios's pack and bag of tools from him. For the rest of that day they walked side by side.

They bypassed the village and Agios led them along the trail that took them first to the mountain glen where the blackened ash-mound and the two stone cairns waited—Agios giving no sign that they meant anything to him—and then along the great ridge that took them to the plateau cut by the ravine. They reached it at sunset and camped there.