The Shadow of Ararat (19 page)

All sense of matter was shed, leaving only these tiny rivers of fire tracing at impossible speeds the outlines of the chair, the writing desk, and the three things on the void-surface of the floor. Maxian focused his sight upon them, seeking to find their resonance. The lead slug expanded in his sight, becoming impossibly large. The whirling motes that formed its surface, to his first sight so heavy and solid, to his second a ghost, and now, to the third, nothing but emptiness filled with a cloud of fire, parted. There was a sudden sense of dissipation, and Maxian stumbled in that strange realm. Something beyond the matrix of the lead slug was suddenly drawing him, tugging at his perception and even his essential self.

Maxian willed his sight to fall back, to resume the greater vision apart from the distracting detail that formed the slug. Now he could see the resonance that echoed and impinged upon the tiny weight of lead. Wonder at first, and then a numbing horror, pervaded his consciousness. The slug, the cloth, the nail were the center of a maelstrom of forces. Dark energies of corruption and dissolution spiraled out from them, flaying at everything they touched. Now that he was aware, Maxian felt them pricking at his own core of being, like a cancer, eating away at his own strength and vitality.

A curse,
he thought wildly,
some malefic power summoned by a great sorcerer! I must destroy these things immediately!
The urge was so strong that he almost cast off the meditation right there and ran with the objects out of the room. But his inner calm held, and Maxian realized with a start that his own thought and will were being bent by the forces that were collecting in the room.
Destroy them,
the vortex whispered,
smash them, burn them up.

With a great effort, he called up the Shield of Athena, as had been taught him in his first days at the school of Asklepius in Pergamum. By this means, all dire forces could be turned away from the body of healers, allowing them to engage a diseased or corrupted form and perhaps, if they were very lucky and skilled, drive from it the deadly humors that arose in men and ate away at them from within. A shining band of blue-white flickered into being around him, struggling against and finally severing the tendrils of night-black that had been digging into his self. Immediately he felt better, his mind clearer, his thoughts ordered and his own again.

Now he made a curious discovery, seeing the strength arrayed against him. The three objects on the floor were not the source of the corrosion that still flashed and burned against the flickering blue-white shield. Rather they had drawn it, like a shark is drawn to blood in water or the wolf to the wounded in the flock. As he watched the weave of the cloth began to unravel, breaking down into single strands, then to wisps of fabric.
It will be utterly gone in a day or two,
the Prince thought, marveling at the power of this curse. Even the lead of the slug and the iron of the nail were deforming under the crushing power of the black tendrils.
What can give it such awesome strength?
A feeling of familiarity tugged at his thought, something he had seen before...

Ignoring the three tokens for the moment, Maxian gave his thought flight and rose up in vision through the wooden timbers that made the roof of his apartments, through the floors above and then into the night sky over the Palatine and the city. From this vantage, the city was a pulsing sea of light—the people, the buildings, the river, all shimmering with their own rivers of hidden fire. And through it all, Maxian was stunned to see the blue-black power rise, swirling around his rooms at the palace like a whirlpool. The curse rose from the very stones of the city, from the sleeping people, from the statues of the Forum and the sand on the floor of the Circus.

It is the city!
he realized in awe.
The city is purging itself of an enemy, of a... a disease.

That was what he had seen before in the third sight, the body collapsing upon a cancer and destroying it.
An invader, something inimical to the body.
His vision collapsed then, suddenly, and in less than a grain, he was lying on the floor of his room, bathed in sweat, his palms and forehead so hot as to burn.

Dwyrin woke to the wailing of slaves and the crack of the lash. His head had a strange, light feeling to it, but the riot of colors and space-bending distortions of vision were absent. He lay back on a smooth marble bench, feeling fully awake for the first time. His stomach growled with hunger and his mouth was parched, but he could think and see. A low vaulted ceiling stained with soot stood above him. Sore, he tried to move, but iron chains were shackled around his arms and legs.
This is not good,
he thought, peering around the room. A high window stood at the left, letting a shaft of sunlight in to light up the far wall. Through the window, he could see clear azure sky.

Other than the marble bench, the chains and the single door, the room was unremarkable. The window let in the echo of a busy marketplace, though to Dwyrin's ear there came no sound of animals, only a multitude of voices, most raised in despair and sorrow. Coupled with the regular sound of the lash, he realized that he had not dreamed the slave ship.
I have been sold into slavery,
he thought dully.
How will I finish my training? I have to escape from here.

There was a rattle as the bar slid from its socket, and the door swung outward. Two men entered the small chamber, one a stout, muscular tub of a man in the leggings and tunic of a sailor. The other wore a toga and sandals, tall and thin with a crown of white hair plastered against his skull. The patrician came to stand by the marble bench and looked down upon Dwyrin with limpid blue eyes, almost the color of the sky through the window. His face was as lean as his body, with a delicate nose and eyebrows that wicked up against his forehead. Carefully the white-haired man examined Dwyrin's limbs, rolling back his eyelids and poking and prodding his extremities. The patrician kept his hands away from Dwyrin's mouth and was very cautious. When he was done, he stepped away from the bench and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"In good health, Amochis, though your finger marks are still on his neck. The drug is still in him, so he is safe to hold here for the moment. I see no sign, not that I truly expect it, of any 'magical' powers."

The sailor flushed at the dry sarcasm in the doctor's voice. "I saw what I saw, master, he threw fire from his hands and it killed one of my crew. Burned his head right off, it did, even under water." The sailor's voice was not angry yet but that was bubbling under the surface of his calm expression.

The doctor smiled, his thin lips creasing a little. "Do not take offense. I merely meant that I cannot write a certificate verifying that this boy is possessed of special
talents
beyond a pretty face and red hair."

Amochis frowned at this and hooked his thumbs into his belt strap, saying "To prove it, you'd have to let the drug wear off, and then it might be you that has no head."

The doctor shrugged, having given his opinion.

"I will pass on my report to the Master of Merchandise, though I expect that you will only be able to sell him as a link-boy or house slave. As it stands, you should move him to one of the pens. It will be cheaper than keeping him here..." A thin-boned hand with carefully trimmed nails gestured to the bare walls.

So saying, the doctor left, ducking under the lintel of the door. Amochis stood for a moment in the center of the room, glaring at Dwyrin, who had not moved or spoken during the examination. Finally Amochis shook his head as if to clear the cloud of anger that was gathering around him and stomped out, muttering. Dwyrin caught a fragment about money. The door swung shut with a heavy clang and then the scrape of the bar being shoved home. Some time passed and the slat of light from the high window drifted across the far wall, creeping up until at last it disappeared and darkness filled the chamber. In all that time Dwyrin had lain still, listening to the constant murmur of people outside of the window. With a sick feeling in his stomach, he realized that there must be thousands of slaves outside, and hundreds of overseers.

He had heard of this place, at the school and before, when he was taken on the Imperial ship from his distant homeland to Egypt. He had come, by dreadful circumstance, to the island of Delos. The human stockyard of both the Eastern and Western empires. A tiny, almost barren island off the shore of Achaea, consisting entirely of the single largest slave market in the world.
Ten thousand slaves bought and sold per day,
part of his mind gibbered,
and you only the latest of them.
The slavers would never believe that he was part of the Emperor's levy. If they did believe the sailor, that he was a magician, he would either be killed out of hand as too dangerous to sell or auctioned to the powerful as a freak or an ornament. Tears forced themselves out the corners of his eyelids. If only he could summon the meditations or the entrance of Hermes, he could take these shackles off. But nothing came, the preternatural lightness in his head kept coming between his groping thought and the remembered shape of the power. Night deepened and at last he fell asleep, famished and exhausted.

When the light in the window brightened again, Dwyrin woke, groggy and with a splitting headache. The lightness in his mind was gone, however, and he fumbled to bring the meditations into focus. Hunger kept intruding on his thoughts and distracting him. At last, by digging a fingernail into his palm, he managed to focus enough to bring the first entrance into focus. It wavered, though, and his concentration kept slipping away, into realms of roasted lamb, or fresh grapes plucked from the vines in the village, or tart olives fresh from the brine. He struggled through this, finally managing to reach the clarity of vision that had allowed him to see the chain link on the ship. Slowly, with many stops and starts, he began examining each link in the chains that held him to the table. His neck throbbed with pain at the strain of keeping his head up so that he could see the heavy iron bands. None of them evinced the discoloration that the one on the ship had. He collapsed back onto the hard marble, gasping with effort.

Ra had crept up to almost the window itself when the door rattled and opened again. To Dwyrin a cold blast of... something... came through it. His skin flushed with goosebumps and he turned his head, almost afraid to see what had stepped so lightly through the doorway. In his partially restored over-sight he watched in fear as the timbre of the light flexed and dimmed. Strange flows of power licked around the room, crawling on the walls like indistinct spiders. A man entered the chamber with Amochis in tow. He was gray, and of middling height. He was plainly dressed, in a small dark-colored felt cap, a long cape and shirt, with a dark-brown tunic below. His face was a narrow triangle with heavily lidded eyes. Dwyrin flinched away from the crumbly chalklike skin, the pale eyes, almost the color of lead. Sickly white currents of power glided under and over his skin and garments like caressing snakes. He had no smell.

"This is the slave I spoke of, master," Amochis said in a quiet voice. Over the dead man's shoulder, Dwyrin could see that the sailor was almost paralyzed by fear. The acrid smell of his sweat filled the room.

"Pretty, very pretty," the dead man whispered with a voice like dry bones tumbling into the bottom of a well. "I see promise in him, buried like a hot coal. You were right to bring him to my attention, Master Amochis." Feather-light fingers drifted over Dwyrin's face, almost touching him, but never quite making contact. The dead man leaned over the Hibernian, his face close to Dwyrin's chest. Dwyrin shuddered at the intimacy as the dead man began sniffing him. Up close, Dwyrin could see the tiny line of stitches that ran from the man's neck up his throat and around the back of his skull. A scream began to bubble in his throat and he scraped himself as far away from the breathless exhalation of the dead man as he could.

The dead man smiled, the muscles of his cheek twitching like earthworms to compose his face. A narrow hand was laid on Dwyrin's shoulder like a grave cloth settling on the newly dead.

"No, no, my young friend, do not be afraid. I shall not harm you. Lie still and think of pleasant things. I will take you away from this place, to somewhere you will be greatly appreciated."

The smile came again, and this time the muscles were quicker to respond to the ancient will that swam in the deep-black pools of its eyes. Dwyrin froze like a rabbit in the face of a wolf. The dark pools became deeper and deeper, like a lake draining into whirlpool. Frantically he tried to summon the Meditation of Serapis to hold his mind inviolate against the pull of that darkness. He failed, and consciousness left him again.

Dwyrin woke again in almost darkness, though now no chains lay upon him. Another ship creaked around him, and the groaning sound of ropes rubbing against the sides of the ship filled the air. A sheet covered him; by its feel against his skin it was cotton. He shuddered at the thought of being naked, either physically or mentally, in the presence of the creature that had leaned over him in the slave cell. The air around him seemed oppressive and his skin crawled with a sense of imminent danger. Very cautiously he opened his eyes and looked around. This time the chamber was not below decks in the hold, but it was small, low-ceilinged, and occupied only by the cot upon which he lay, a bucket, and a curved door. The wall the cot was built out from was curved as well, and Dwyrin realized that he must be in a small room wedged into the corner of a ship's hull. A dim blue light shone from the edges of the door, giving him what light there was to see.

Carefully he checked his limbs, finding no shackles or chains. His clothes were gone, and he seemed unharmed. At his neck, however, there was a thin cord of metal. Delicately he tested its strength and its feel in his hands suggested that it was unbreakable by regular means. He slowed his breathing and attempted the First Entrance. After a moment he stopped. The power, the passage that had always been there before was simply gone. Despite his best effort, despite running through the entire litany of the meditations, nothing unfolded in his mind to lead him into the overworld of forms. He fingered the cord around his neck again, puzzling at its sudden warmth.