Air and Darkness (37 page)

I hope she knows where we're going. I certainly don't.

He heard the joyful cries a moment before a leopard came over the rise ahead of them, moving in a slant across their direction. The cat was one of the pair pulling the chariot driven by Ampelos, the man the maple sprite had snatched Corylus away from in Polymartium. The troupe of worshipers walked and danced behind the chariot.

“Wait!” said Corylus. “These aren't friends of mine.”

He didn't shout to Aura, but neither was his voice as calmly firm as he wished. He backed two steps so that the large oak on the edge of the woods was close behind him.

Aura turned and joined him without apparent concern. Ampelos had lashed his team on and was bounding downslope ahead of the throng.

“I saw you deal with Scylla,” Aura said, her eyes on the chariot.

Ampelos wheeled his leopards and halted the chariot with its right side toward Corylus. At a distance the wheels and chariot frames had looked like gold. Close up they were gold-tinged crystal.

“Did you think you had escaped me?” Ampelos said. He shook the thyrsus in his right hand. It would have looked foolish—a pinecone on a long fennel stalk—if Corylus hadn't seen a similar weapon driven through a Praetorian's armored chest.

I certainly hoped I had,
Corylus thought. Aloud he said, “Go your way, Lord Ampelos. I will go mine.”

“You will bow to me as the avatar of our lord and god Bacchus!” Ampelos said. “Our lord and god has conquered India. Now I will guide him to sweep over Carce! Bow, vassal!”

“Go bugger yourself, boy!” Corylus said in a low growl.

Ampelos thrust for Corylus' chest. He deflected the blow with his staff as he would have done a Sarmatian lance. The pinecone stabbed deep into the oak behind him.

Ampelos slapped the reins against the necks of his team when the thyrsus missed. The leopards leaped away and swung into an arc. The chariot circled back for another attack.

“Get back!” Corylus said to Aura, though he didn't have leisure to check that she was obeying or even that she understood that he was talking to her. The dryad had shrieked when the thyrsus pierced her tree; he heard her sobbing now.

Corylus moved out onto the plain, both to save the sprite from further injury and because he wanted more space to deal with the charioteer. If the whole throng joined their leader, Corylus hadn't any more chance than a prisoner tarred and hung from a post to light the amphitheatre. If Ampelos thought he could finish the business alone, though, that was another matter.

The mixed throng had halted on top of the hill over which they had come. The slope gave them a good view of the action. They were cheering, “Io Bacchus!” and, “Io Ampelos!”

I hope to disappoint you,
Corylus thought. He crouched as Ampelos lashed his chariot forward again. This time he intended to strike over his left side as he passed.

Corylus had fought mounted Sarmatians, and for his purposes a chariot was the same thing. What wasn't the same was that a leopard was a meat eater and very limber, but Corylus had to assume that these had been tamed. Certainly they wouldn't be safe in the midst of Bacchus' drunken followers if they clawed and bit anyone they came close to.

It's a battle. People die in battle sometimes. Maybe this is my time.

Ampelos swung his team to the right. His thyrsus was poised to strike.

The cats were on snaffles because their teeth didn't have the gap where a horse's bit would ride. Corylus sprang forward and caught the bridle of the off-side leopard, pulling it hard toward him.

The cat yowled and twisted fluidly, but it didn't try to bite Corylus—the staff was ready to jam down its throat if necessary—or claw him, which he couldn't have prevented. The cat was heavier than he was—closer to the size of a male lion than to a normal leopard—but Corylus' leverage on the bridle allowed him to turn its head and the body after it.

Ampelos had been braced against the chariot's right railing. When the team reversed its curve—the near-side cat followed the lead of its harness mate—the vehicle tilted back and pitched the driver over the low side. Ampelos hit with a thump that Corylus, sprawled on his back, could feel.

The leopard tossed its head and pulled the bridle out of Corylus' hand. The only way he could have held on was to allow himself to be dragged. The cats put their feet under them and sprang forward together. The chariot bounced on its right hub but landed back on its wheels when it next hit the ground. Team and vehicle disappeared around a stand of sumac two furlongs distant.

Ampelos lay sprawled. The thyrsus stood upright, driven at least the length of its head into the turf.

I've never been so tired,
Corylus thought, but he knew it wasn't true. He couldn't remember when that had been, though. He couldn't really remember anything beyond the way his lungs burned and every muscle ached.
At least the cat didn't claw me.

Ampelos was clenching and opening his hands. At last he got his arms under him and started to lift his torso off the ground. Corylus stepped forward and rapped his staff against the back of the youth's head, knocking him facedown into the dirt again.

Corylus knelt and butted his staff onto the ground so that he could lean on it. He glanced toward the throng who had been following Ampelos. The revelers of a moment before were silent and motionless.

Not that I could do anything about it anyway if they decided to finish me,
Corylus thought as he hung his head and stared at the ground.
So very tired.

“I told you so,” Aura said from close to his side. “I saw you with Scylla.”

“Thank you for your confidence,” Corylus muttered. That last sharp blow with the staff had drained what little was left of his strength.
But I couldn't let Ampelos get up, could I?

“Someone is coming,” Aura said. Then, more urgently, “Lord Bacchus is coming!”

Corylus took another deep breath. He gripped the staff with both hands to steady himself and lurched to his feet. Only then did he raise his eyes and turn in the direction of the oncoming chariot.

The frame and wheels of the vehicle glittered in the sunlight, but the driver shone brighter yet. Ampelos was as handsome as any living man Corylus had seen, but he was barely the moon to the sun of the god's radiance.

Corylus had once deflected a Sarmatian arrow shot at him from less than a furlong away, but he knew as he watched the face of the oncoming god that he would not be able to block the thrust of the thyrsus.

Not even if I were in the best shape of my life.
Instead of placing himself in a posture of defense, he set the butt of the staff in the ground beside him and stood straight, as though waiting for the Emperor's judgment.

Aura stepped between Corylus and the chariot. She held up the ring she had taken from the skeletal hand where Scylla had laired.

Bacchus drew back on his reins. The leopards braked, spraying dust with the heels of all eight paws. Corylus expected the car to flip over them from the violence of the halt, but it remained as steady as the floor of a temple.

“Bacchus, my lord and god!” Aura called, her voice an unexpected roar that overwhelmed the cheers of the throng on the hilltop. “This man has avenged Zetes, son of your brother Boreas, who was slain from ambush by a monster!”

“And who are you, bold one?” Bacchus said. His thyrsus was lifted to thrust; he didn't put it down, but he dipped the pinecone head slightly.

“I am Aura, lover of Zetes and loved by him,” she said. “I regained Zetes' ring, given him by his father, when this hero slew Scylla with no weapons save for what he holds now. I beg you grant him his life on behalf of your nephew whom he avenged.”

“He struck down Ampelos,” said Bacchus. “I would rather
all
my followers be slain than that I lose this boy who holds my heart.”

Ampelos groaned and turned his head slightly, then groaned again.

“Bacchus, my lord and god,” Corylus said. “I refused to grant divine honors to a man, because that would dishonor your divine self.”

Corylus knelt on one knee and bowed his head. “Lord god,” he said, “I am your servant. Do with me as you will.”

Since that's what you're going to do anyway,
Corylus thought. He kept his face rigid. Army humor was very black, and this would be a
really
bad time to grin.

Bacchus stepped down from the chariot's deck and walked to Corylus. “You may rise,” he said.

Corylus obeyed carefully. Aura moved beside him. She slipped the ring onto her thumb, the only digit able to fit the hole of what Zetes had worn on his little finger.

Maenads and others from the vast throng following Bacchus clustered around Ampelos, raising him. One held a wineskin to the youth's lips while another laved his head. The cut in Ampelos' scalp closed as the wine ran through his golden hair.

“What is your purpose here?” Bacchus asked quietly. His voice was like liquid gold.

“My lord,” Corylus said, wondering if he should have added
god,
but it was too late now. “Mistress Aura is guiding me to the Cave of Zagreus, from which I hope to return to the Waking World.”

Bacchus laughed. To Aura he said, “He is indeed a hero then, little one.”

“Yes, my lord and god,” the sprite said. “He is.”

“Go on your way, then,” Bacchus said. “I will not prevent you.”

Aura gripped Corylus by the hand and started off briskly at a slight angle to the direction they had followed when they first left the woods. This would take them clear of the huge entourage following Bacchus.

“When we're out of sight,” Corylus whispered, “we'll start running for a time.”

For as long as I can run,
he added silently.

*   *   *

“
I
AM HERE TO RESCUE
Publius Corylus,” Alphena said to the woman facing her from the porch. Then as an afterthought she added, “And also my mother and brother.”

“I will release your Corylus…,” Rupa said, stepping down. Alphena heard the words in Latin, though that might have been the effect of the amulet she gripped in her left hand. “In exchange for what you hold. As for your mother and brother, I have nothing to do with them.”

“I am not Publius Corylus,” said the figure of Corylus standing behind her. “I am a homunculus formed of straw. The real Corylus is in the Otherworld, traveling to the Cave of Zagreus.”

Rupa turned and pointed at the figure with her left hand, fingers splayed. In a tone of cold fury she said, “Begone, then, if you do not wish to serve me!”

A green flash blasted the homunculus to fragments of straw. There had been no sound, but Alphena noticed a faint odor of singed grass.

“It would have been easier for you if my tool had not revealed itself,” Rupa said contemptuously. “Be that as it may, you can still save yourself by handing over the amulet.”

“You're threatening
me
?” Alphena said in real surprise. She reached for her sword.

“You cannot draw your weapon—” Rupa said.

Alphena brought the sword out with a
sring!
of the blade against the iron lip of the scabbard. Rupa started back.

“Let go of my servants and we'll leave you,” Alphena said. She knew that her voice had risen, but it wasn't trembling. She wanted to back away, but Lenatus and the others were frozen in place and she wasn't going to leave them.

“Your sword cannot touch me,” Rupa said. She sounded certain, though she had lost the sneering tone she had used since her appearance. “You can cut my clothes if you choose to, but the steel is nothing to me.”

She stepped forward.

One of the two-legged animals—somethings!—with Rupa plucked at the sleeve of her bright white tunic. The creatures wore what seemed to be linen garments hanging from one shoulder. Their legs were vertical beneath their bodies as a human's are, not canted like those of dogs walking on their hind legs.

The creatures' monkey faces and pointed ears were the only features that would keep a human from thinking they were merely small people. Even their fur was so fine as to be overlooked in bad light.

“Lady Priestess!” the creature at Rupa's side said. Alphena heard him speak in Latin, but that must be as much due to the amulet as the stone faun's words were. “You must not touch her! She is protected by the Godspeaker!”

Rupa slapped him away and again moved forward. Alphena expected another green flash, this time spraying the garden with blood and scraps of skin.

A lunge would reach her body, but if it skidded off…?

Rupa reached toward the amulet. A crash like lightning and a white flash threw her backward to sprawl in a bed of peonies. Her right sleeve was smoldering, though the wizard herself appeared to be unharmed.

Alphena didn't understand what had happened, so she said nothing. The air had the sharpness of burned air that made her nose wrinkle. She shot the sword back into its sheath and rubbed her nose with the back the hand she had freed.

I'm not going to let go of the amulet until we're safely out of this,
she thought.
And maybe not even then.

Rupa stood and backed away. “Get out of here, woman!” she said. “There's nothing here for you!”

Alphena licked her dry lips. “Free my servants and we'll leave,” she said.

She expected Rupa to speak to the creatures whose magic was holding the escort bound, but they reacted to Alphena's own words alone. They stopped chanting and the mesh of green light vanished.

They're obeying the Godspeaker,
Alphena realized. Though she didn't know what that meant.

“By Orcum's balls!” Lenatus said. He looked around in amazement, the tip of his drawn sword twitching in whichever direction his eyes glanced. “What…?”