She did something with the chain that he didn’t understand, then handed him a single link. “Keep this,” she said.
Tassk hissed a syllable that may have been a word. The chain began to fade as though it were being hauled into a pipe, and the Singiri faded with it. When the Princess disappeared, the world in which Corylus battled the Ethiopes vanished like a soap bubble.
Corylus stumbled. He was at the edge of Melino’s property, about to step into the street. His tunic and limbs were bloody, and the edge of his sword needed attention.
But the steel blade was clean.
* * *
V
ARUS SHIVERED IN THE WIND COMING
off the water. He had felt no breeze while they were crossing the sea in sunshine, but darkness had chilled the air and was driving it hard enough to pick up scud from the surf. He and Lucinus lay among straggly cedars and knee-high shrubs with sparse, fat leaves the size of thumbnails; neither provided any shelter.
The magician moaned and trembled under Varus’ cloak. He’d laid it over the older man, thinking he could better stand the cold himself.
Varus smiled wryly. That might be true, but it didn’t mean that he was comfortable. It would be even less comfortable to spend the rest of his life on this island because Lucinus had died of exposure, of course; and a philosopher should remain unmoved by whatever his fate sent him.
It would be easier to remain unmoved if the air were a little warmer. He might be able to get to sleep then himself.
There were images in the hull of the boat. For the most part Varus saw only swirls of faint light, too dim even to have color. They reminded him of moonlight reflecting on a woodland stream. But occasionally—
Corylus stared out clearly. He was snarling and his face was speckled with blood. Behind him were bushes whose limbs wept down to the leaf litter on the ground.
Then Corylus was gone. The hull was a window onto lightless fog, and Lucinus gurgled as though he were choking. Varus glanced at the magician. There had been no change; the gurgle subsided into a whistling breath.
Varus looked out to sea again. Pastel lanterns approached in a line that stretched to right and left as far as he could see. They moved slowly but steadily just below the surface of the water, regardless of the movements of the mild surf.
Varus laid a hand on Lucinus’ shoulder, wondering if they would need to flee deeper inland. He hoped that the magician would be able to move under his own power by now. Varus knew that he wouldn’t be able to carry the older man any distance, and he wasn’t sure that he would even be able to lift him into a standing position.
Brush crackled ten feet away. A creature pushed through the lower branches of a cedar, then rose onto its hind legs. It was an ape with a huge, shaggy head and deep-sunk eyes. It turned and stared at the humans.
Varus held still, praying that Lucinus would also. The magician moaned or mumbled something, but the sound was softer than the breeze. The only weapon they had was the knife Lucinus used as a scriber, and even that was still in the boat. Varus didn’t imagine he’d be able to kill an ape so large even with a proper sword.
The beast resumed walking toward the sea; its feet curved inward. Other apes were shambling across the beach to left and right. A female with four teats passed close enough that Varus could have leaned across Lucinus and touched her. She ignored the humans as she strode awkwardly toward the water, occasionally dropping onto her knuckles.
The lights rose from the water as they reached the shore. They were fleshy bulbs on stalks growing from the heads of creatures that looked like dolphins or small whales. The sea animals waited in the surge and ebb of the water, raising their forequarters on arms that ended in flippers. Sometimes one opened its mouth to gulp air; the glowing lantern waved when that happened.
The apes took places on the shoreline, one or two facing each of the sea creatures. An ape raised his right foot and brought it down on the sand, the sound absorbed by distance and the faint burble of water. He raised his foot again and this time other apes drummed with him. Varus felt the vibration, though only because his eyes told him to expect it.
A sea creature tilted its head higher and bellowed like the wind blowing through a tomb. One after another, the remaining creatures took up the tortured call.
The apes were beating the sand in unison; the edge of the surf danced to their hammering feet. The drumming sound was lost in the tuneless bellows of the sea creatures. Their dim lanterns wobbled and swayed.
Varus didn’t know how long it lasted. He awoke abruptly at a relative silence.
I must have slept after all.…
The inhuman but somehow meaningful noise had swaddled his discomfort like a cloak of down.
The sea creatures had left the beach. The lights of a few were visible far out to sea.
The apes were retreating from the shore with the same clumsy certitude with which they had arrived. The two that passed close to the humans again ignored them. Varus couldn’t be sure whether or not they were the same two that had come near going the other way.
Lucinus was silent. Varus thought he was still breathing, but—he grinned tiredly—there was nothing to be done about it now if the magician had died.
Varus lay on the gravel and pillowed his head with his arm. He slept till dawn, however long that was, and roused the groggy Lucinus for the next stage of their voyage.
* * *
H
EDIA SAUNTERED OUT OF THE CAVE,
twitching her tail. It hadn’t been cropped, and its long, feathery hair snapped to and fro like a flag.
The dog followed her but sprawled at the entrance, all three heads flat on the ground. One of his throats whined. Hedia looked over her shoulder, yipped, and flicked her tail as she walked away.
I haven’t had a night like this save once in my life, and that time there were six men involved. I think it was six.
She paused and stretched, her forepaws scraping straight out in front of her until her deep chest rubbed the ground. Her tail was straight up in the air, fluttering in triumph; her tongue lolled from her long jaws.
Melino stood just back from the edge of the clearing. His left hand held the leather-bound book from the dead man’s lap; in his right was his staff.
He pretended to look to the side, but Hedia’s keen vision noted that he was watching her from the corners of his eyes. Her tongue waggled in silent laughter.
Beside the magician stood a figure of glowing red light in the form of a Saluki bitch. It watched Hedia approach with an air of cold unconcern.
Hedia paused again and growled. The demon didn’t react.
Hedia tossed her head and walked proudly out of the clearing. She laid her cheek on Melino’s knee and rubbed it firmly in a gesture of ownership. The demon watched, showing no emotion. She had no soul, but the greyhound Hedia sensed as surely as the human Hedia did that the demon was more than an automaton as Melino claimed.
Instead of using the
Book,
which he had been at such pains to get, Melino pointed the ruby ring at Hedia. The demon spoke what was for a moment mere human gibberish.
Hedia felt herself slipping through a crimson membrane. She came out the other side as a human being, nude and—she stretched again, rising onto her toes and pointing her fingers upward—aching.
But that would pass. As it always had before. She grinned.
“Your clothing is there on the ground,” the magician said. He gestured with his index finger. He was staring into the jungle in the opposite direction.
Hedia pulled on her tunic, the silk inner one and then the other of soft but tightly woven wool. She would have to untie her sandals before she put them on again; her dog feet had stepped out through the straps.
“I’m terribly sorry for what you had to undergo,” Melino muttered. “If there had been any other way…”
Hedia looked at him. The demon was in human form again, smiling sardonically.
“You’re a sweet boy,” Hedia said, patting Melino’s cheek. “It’s really all right.”
Melino grimaced but said nothing further.
Hedia finished awkwardly retying her sandals. It was normally a task for a junior maid under the watchful supervision of Syra. As Hedia rose, she felt a flash of cold as though someone had suddenly showered her with water.
Melino cried out in horror. Hedia looked around for a cause, but nothing appeared to have changed. The demon’s smile was impassive.
“What happened?” Hedia said. “I felt a chill.”
The magician fell to his knees. He was making sounds, but Hedia wasn’t sure whether he was muttering or blubbering in terror.
The demon looked at Hedia and said in her cold, precise voice, “The Singiri princess has died or has been freed. We no longer have a connection to the Waking World.”
Melino was certainly blubbering.
CHAPTER
XI
Varus stepped into the stern so that the boat’s bow lifted as they ground onto the shore. The beach was of head-sized rocks, coarsely volcanic. They were black except where the sunset picked out a fleck of included mica or of quartz and turned it into a bloody ruby.
Lucinus collapsed forward. This time Varus was ready to catch him. The boat’s hull was soft wood and not overly thick; but bad as it would be if they ripped out the bottom on this harsh shoreline, it would be even worse—for Varus at least—if the magician broke his neck as they landed.
Varus pulled Lucinus’ right arm over his shoulders and gripped the wrist, putting his left arm around the magician’s waist to take some of the weight. It would take effort that he couldn’t maintain more than a few steps to lift the fellow’s feet high enough not to touch. They would have to lie at the edge of the water until Lucinus regained enough strength to at least move his legs. These rocks would in an instant flay to the bone whatever part of a man was dragged over them.
The island where they had landed the first night had been a waste of scrub and beasts. Their present landfall was a cone of volcanic cinders, lifeless and featureless save for a fallen statue near the peak.
Varus got Lucinus out of the boat and tottered two steps up the shallow slope, then laid him down as gently as possible. After some moments’ thought, Varus rolled his short cloak into a pillow for both their heads.
Lucinus seemed to be comatose, which was a mercy. There was no way to level the ground, and no leaves or twigs to use as a cushion between the rocks and their bodies.
Varus tried to settle himself. He thought of trying to sleep in the boat, but that would mean curling up between the thwarts. Even so, it might be a better choice than these rocks.
If he’d had more energy, Varus would have investigated the fallen statue. It was the hundred-foot-tall bronze figure of a warrior in armor, holding a long spear. The statue hadn’t broken into pieces when it fell. It lay at length on its back, its head at the top of the cone.
Varus wondered why the figure had been erected.
How
it had been managed was even more puzzling, because the whole island appeared to be volcanic cinders like those he and Lucinus were lying on. A statue weighing tons would have to be anchored with an equally heavy base of concrete or solid masonry.
But although Varus did nothing but sit or stand during the voyage, he was exhausted when he disembarked in the evening. He wasn’t used to heavy labor, of course, but he didn’t overeat and walking to the Forum and elsewhere in hilly Carce kept him in good condition.
Nevertheless, he was as tired and achy as he might have been after spending the whole day sparring with Corylus. He looked down and realized that Lucinus did nothing physically strenuous during the voyage, either. It might be that something besides the invisible oarsman drove the boat across this sea. In any case, Varus didn’t have strength to climb the slope in pursuit of mere knowledge.
He smiled grimly. He never before had thought of knowledge as “mere.” He had never been so tired before, either.
Varus lay back, hoping to find a way to compose his body so that he could sleep. The sun was fully down, though the western sky was still red.
He heard a creaking sound. He looked up the slope to see if perhaps a huge bird had risen from the interior of the volcano.
The bronze warrior was sitting up. It was an automaton, not a statue.
Varus reached for Lucinus to shake him awake, but he probably wouldn’t be able to accomplish that even if it was necessary. It might not be necessary, after all.
And the god Saturn might return to Earth and impose a second Golden Age of peace and plenty. Hope would be a fine thing.…
The bronze warrior got to its feet with squealing deliberation. Its great spear was butted in the cinders as a brace. Lifting the spear into a slant across its breastplate, it began to tramp sunwise around the cone. It took no apparent notice of the humans near the shore nor of the boat they had arrived on.
Varus watched the huge automaton circling the peak. It moved with the regularity of a water clock. By the third circuit he was sure that it was moving down the slope, though he couldn’t be sure how long it would be before the warrior neared him and Lucinus.
Varus chuckled. He wondered if he was feverish.
There was nothing to be done until daylight, when they could launch the boat and set off on the next stage of the voyage. Varus laid his head beside the magician’s on the improvised pillow. He could feel the faint steady tramp of the automaton’s feet through the fabric of the island.
Before long, Varus slept.
* * *
A
LPHENA WAS STANDING
in front of a low porphyry basin in which liquid roiled without bubbling. She thought she saw images beneath the surface, but she didn’t have time for that now. She scanned the hall in which she stood.
The ceiling was about ten feet high here in the center and curved down for fifty feet to sidewalls that she could probably reach the top of on tiptoes. The floor and walls were gray stone blocks fitted without mortar. The dome was smoothly white. Alphena would have thought it was plastered were it not for the fact that it glowed faintly, the only light in the windowless hall.