The Gate of fire ooe-2 Page 3

  Nicholas squinted against the firelight. A vague knocking in his head reminded him that he knew the man.

  "Tribune Sergius… ave. Hail and well met." Even that much left Nicholas feeling exhausted. "He got away," Nicholas muttered almost inaudibly. "Slippery bastard…"

  The tribune squatted down next to Nicholas and peeled back an eyelid with one thumb. Even that much contact caused Nicholas to turn away in pain. The soldier grunted and put his helmet down, shifting his weight to both feet. The tribune shook his head slowly, surveying the drubbing that Nicholas had endured. One thick finger gently traced over the pattern of melon-shaped contusions scattered across his ribs.

  "I came looking for you after I heard that the breach had been thrown back. Some hard work here today, but then you have a very nose for slaughter… I was talking to one of the wall commanders-he says you showed up at almost noon. What the Hades were you thinking? I sent you up here at daybreak!" Sergius paused in his incipient rant, his eyes narrowing. "Can you understand anything I'm saying?"

  Nicholas blinked and looked back at the fellow. Why was he talking to him? The thought of sleep seemed tremendously appealing, but at the same time something warned him that it was a bad idea. The image of the man wavered a little, like he was standing in the heart of a fire. "What?"

  The tribune sighed and stood up. He gestured into the darkness, and two men in slave tunics and fur-lined boots came up.

  "Put him in the litter and take him back to the offices. He's no use to me here. Get some hot food and wine in him and have one of the surgeons check him over. His eyes look like those of a reveler at a Dionysus festival, so-don't let him sleep."

  Strong hands grasped Nick's arms and hauled him up. He felt very faint, but the prospect of wine and some fresh bread dripping with oil and garlic roused him a little. The two slaves helped him to a litter and laid him inside. One turned a blanket over him. It smelled of cloves and some kind of perfume. Lying down, he found that he could see. The sky over the city was black as pitch; without the heavy clouds that hung above them, he guessed he could see the stars and the moon. Snowflakes swirled down, passing through bands of gold and red cast by the bonfires. The slaves lifted the litter and he swayed from side to side, then they took a step, and another, and jogged off through the dark streets.

  Snow continued to fall.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Skies Over Latium, Italia, The Western Roman Empire

  A young man dressed wholly in black and dark gray climbed stiffly up a ladder made of beech wood handles set in hand-forged iron brackets. At the top of the ladder a metal cover swung away at his touch, flooding the narrow tube he had ascended with sunlight. He squinted for a moment, and then the clear blue of his eyes darkened, deepening to an almost metallic aqua that covered both iris and pupil. Able to see at last, he clambered out of the tube and swung his long legs out into the cavity of the observation deck. A stiff wind rushed past, catching his long brown hair-now beginning to show tendrils of white-and blowing it out in front of him. He slid down into the cavity, lined with wooden seats and stout ropes, with a sigh.

  By a trick of the design of the upper surface of the Engine, the roaring of the wind within the cavity was reduced to a dull, basso rumbling. The sound came more from the iron heart of the machine than the air whipping past. The man popped his ears with narrow, long-fingered hands and pulled one of the ropes across him, securing it to a stout bronze clasp set into the metal skin.

  "Lord Prince, you don't trust your power so far?"

  The young man smiled wryly at the young woman seated opposite him and shook his head. "No, I must be awake and aware to rebuild skin, bone, tissue, the vital humors. A fall from this height would kill me as surely as you or anyone."

  The young woman smiled back, a little, but there was a guarded reserve present in her face and the line of her body that pricked at him. He returned her smile with a greater one of his own, genuine and filled with warmth. For a moment the cold cast that governed his features faded, and he seemed the amiable young physician she had first met, neither the Prince of the Realm nor the power that he had become. Despite a deep distrust, she replied in kind, and her own features-a little longer than the classical oval, but marked by striking dark eyes and rich lips, framed by a barely restrained mane of rich dark brown, nearly black hair-were transformed as well. The man felt a pang in his heart to see her so, beautiful and elegant, sitting sideways on the bench in a thick furred cloak, with neat leather gloves on her hands, and her svelte legs covered by Persian-style silk trousers.

  "Don't you get cold, sitting up here all these hours?" he asked.

  The young woman's face became guarded again, and she looked away, out over the long, dark pinion of the Engine. It soared between pillars of cloud, bright sun shining on the delicate iron bones of the wings. The metallic fabric that covered them rippled and shimmered in the clear afternoon sunlight. The omnipresent vibration of the Engine filled the world, transmitting itself through the decking to bone and skin. The tail, long and tapering, weaved languidly behind them in the air, its surface gleaming with thousands of tiny carefully fitted metallic scales. The young woman leaned a little to one side as the Engine banked around a vast white tower of cloud, its wings casting a hurrying shadow across the ivory field. The air was crystal clear between her and the brilliant white surface. Deep in the crevices of the thunderhead, lightning muttered and wind howled. The woman looked back at the Prince. "It seems like a different world, here, close to the heavens. Islands of cloud in a sea of air, and we in a ship, voyaging among them. Do you ever think of it, when you look out, what it would be like to stand at the edge of a cliff of cloud, surrounded by billowing white? To see down, a thousand feet to the land below, tiny and perfect?"

  The Prince shook his head. Too many matters weighed upon him to spend time gazing out from the green-tinted windows of the Engine, even those great circular ones mounted at the head.

  "No," he said, a faint bitter edge in his voice. "There is too much to prepare-too much to discuss with Gaius and Alexandros. Krista, we return to a dangerous situation! One moment of-"

  She raised a hand and looked at him squarely for the first time since he had clambered up out of the hatchway. "Lord Maxian, I feel death at my shoulder as closely as you do. More, as I cannot protect myself. You spend your time plotting and planning with those two dead men and your other servants. That has nothing to do with me-I am your property, a slave, a convenience when you are lonely or in need of comfort. Up here, I can find some space for myself, some peace." She dropped her hand, though her eyes were smoldering with a near-hot anger.

  The Prince swallowed, taken aback. He leaned back against the cold iron, thinking furiously. With a sickening feeling, he realized he did not know what to say or do.

  Krista watched him, keeping anger in her face, hoping that he would not see the fear and acid terror that threatened her composure. She hated the close, hot confines of the Engine, filled with the woken dead and the servants the Prince had accumulated on his long journey in the East. There was a strange smell about the rooms below, cloying and sweet. Krista did not feel safe, save when she was alone, or surrounded by her Walach boys. The others-particularly the homunculus Khiron and that ancient lecher Gaius Julius-watched her constantly with hungry eyes. Still… all within lived or died by the will of the Prince, and she retained some influence over him. She almost smiled to see the struggle of emotions and thought on his face.

  Krista unsnapped the restraining rope around her waist and stepped over to the Prince's side. With a deft hand, she caught a band and locked it to the same restraining bolt that the Prince had used. Held close by the rope, she settled into his side, her leg falling over his. He shifted and put his arms around her narrow waist. Krista clasped his hands to her stomach, feeling the tension in them. "My lord," she said, letting her head fall back into his chest and the curve of his neck, "do you know what you are going to do now?"

  Maxian stirred, and sh
e felt him mentally veer back onto familiar ground. Something about him had changed, finding confidence and direction. "Yes," he said, and even his voice had changed, becoming almost regal. Inwardly she cringed, hearing echoes of Alexandros' commanding baritone in his. In the time since they had abandoned the crumbling ruins of Dastagird and the ancient secrets of the fire priests, she had watched her master adopt more and more of the mannerisms and patterns of speech of his two advisors.

  "We will return, in secret, to the Egyptian House outside of Rome. With the power inherent in Alex and Gaius, I believe-no, I know-that I can break the power of the curse. It will be difficult and as dangerous as before, but now I know that it can be done."

  Krista frowned and turned a little so that she could see his face. "You nearly died in your last attempt, my lord. Does Alexandros represent so much power that you can win through this time?"

  Maxian smiled down at her, his teeth bright in his pale face. So much time spent in the dank tombs and catacombs of the ruined Persian city had leached the nut brown tan from his skin. Krista stroked the back of her hand along his cheek, feeling its smoothness. Much better than some damned bushy beard always tickling my nose, she thought, distracted for a moment.

  "My love," Maxian said, "I have learned a little-no, a great deal-since we went to the East. I nearly died before trying to drive the curse, this corruption, out of that soldier with raw power. That was very foolish. The curse is not a single thing, or a man, that can be overwhelmed by me, or anyone, in single combat." Maxian turned so that he could face her. His face was alight with eagerness. "When I bent my powers upon the old legionnaire, or the stolen child, I tried to drive out the corruption of the curse one organ at a time-from the bones, the heart, the brain. It was fruitless! Even if I expunged every trace of the contagion from a single organ, it would flood back in, tearing at bone and blood. I could not remove it because it was everywhere, all around us, in everything, like trying to hold back the sea with a spade. Impossible." He paused, taking a breath.

  Krista almost laughed aloud at seeing him as an excited child, showing off the muddy frog he had found by the bank of some stream.

  "But what is possible-if we can find the crux, the anchor, the focus of this thing-is to destroy it utterly. Somewhere in the old Imperial archives there must be a record of the first working that made this thing possible. We will find it. The tomes of the old priests contained many secrets, and one of them is perfect for what I intend."

  Krista raised a long, rich eyebrow at the confidence in his voice.

  Maxian stopped for a moment, nonplussed, then pressed on. "Yes, I see your expression-such a look you give me! No, my love, listen: These things we know-that in the time of the first emperor, Octavian, the words and intent of the legionary oath of allegiance were changed. That new text, imbued with some tiny spark of power, bound each legionnaire to the service of the state-not to flee in battle, not to allow ruin or corruption or disaster. A small thing, in its beginning, a tiny pebble thrown into an empty field.

  "But time passes. Thousands and then tens of thousands of legionnaires take this Oath-fighting and dying to expand and protect the Empire of Rome. With each one, another pebble is added to the pile in the field. Some of those who take the Oath have the power themselves, and the strength of that original spark gets a little hotter. Too, the Oath and the regulations of service bind the sons of a legionnaire as well, and the Oath passes to them as well, carried in blood and bone from father to son. Generation after generation, it becomes stronger and stronger.

  "The pebble becomes a mountain, a very monolith of stones."

  Maxian paused. The Engine was beginning to drop through the clouds, and he pulled his woolen cloak-a heavy black fabric that the dead Alais had woven for him-around them both. Freezing rain spattered around them, pilling on the surface of the Engine and flipping away into the slipstream. The sun vanished, swallowed by black clouds, and they rushed through a huge corridor of cloud and smoke. The crack of lightning echoed loud around them as the Engine continued to drop through the storm.

  The thunderheads lit up, burning with white-hot light as a trail of lightning hissed past. The Engine continued to speed downward, lashed by rain and lit by staccato bursts of incandescence. Krista turned her head away from a bright flare that danced along the wingtip of the Engine. She felt Maxian's body tremble in response to the enormous boom that followed.

  Then there was clear air, and above them a massive ceiling of cloud. Rain continued to fall, but the Engine swerved to the left and suddenly they were flying beside a falling curtain of water. Below them, as the Engine banked again, they could see a gray sea and terraced fields rising up the sides of a huge cone-shaped mountain. White beaches fringed a great bay, and the colored sails of ships could be picked out among the waves. Krista stared in awe, seeing the tiny tracery of roads and towns rush by below. Puffy white clouds fringed the top of the mountain, where a bowl-shaped valley lay nestled at the very summit.

  "This is the thing," Maxian continued, his voice fuzzy for a moment, "that we call the curse-the thing that I had thought was a plague, or a contagion. This is the thing that murders in the night, that kills the artist and the innovator. This is the thing that saps the life from every Roman child, leaving them pale and scrawny. It hides in their blood, an invisible guest at every table and in every wedding bed."

  Anger, bitter and abiding, began to show in his voice. At her ribs, Krista felt his fist clench.

  "It kills our future each day-how many advances might our philosophy have made without the bony hand waiting in the darkness to pluck away our best minds? Those jewelers-what they had made would benefit every man, every woman, every child in the Empire! But they, all unknowing, proposed to change the fabric of the Empire-a crime worthy of death for this invisible judge."

  "If," Krista said, summoning some strength in the face of the fate that hung over her as well, "it is so pervasive, how can it be driven out? You would have to bend your will upon every person who lives in the Empire-there are millions!"

  "Yes-that is what I had thought. But the works of the priests of fire have taught me well-even old Abdmachus had an inkling of what must be done when he offered me a lever to move the world."

  Krista sneaked a look up at the Prince's face, but saw no feeling was there for the little Persian sorcerer who had joined him when these investigations had first begun. Now the funny old man was one of those in the Engine below who lived only by the will of the Prince. His soft laugh and fondness for plums and pears was dead, like his flesh, though he still moved and spoke-at least when questioned. Unlike Gaius or Alexandros, he did not revel in his "new" life, but rather sat quietly in the darkness, his pale eyes shining in the gloom.

  "The mountain cannot be destroyed," Maxian continued, heedless of the sadness on Krista's face, "not one pebble at a time-but it can be moved. I believe that at the root there is a focus or an anchor upon which the entire structure of the Oath depends. Like… like the arch of a bridge, with a keystone that locks the edifice into place. This is the thing that we must discover-we must know its nature. Once I have that, then I can shatter it, and the whole Oath will unravel. With Alexandros, the power to my hand is a hundred times what it was before-if we can find the last piece, the puzzle is unlocked."

  "And," Krista said slowly and carefully, mindful of being in a flying machine two thousand feet above the earth, "what if Gaius' theory is correct? What will you do then?"

  Maxian stiffened and his fists clenched around her hands. Krista breathed slowly out, willing the sharp pain in her wrists to go away. The Prince sat in thought for a moment, and the young woman continued to breathe evenly, though the pain was inching toward agony.

  "No…" The Prince shifted in his seat and let go of her hands. "I do not think he is right. He has no schooling in these matters-he makes a guess, trying to push me to his desired course of action. He has no proof of this, only a feeling."

  Krista smiled a little, hearing fear in Max
ian's voice. She weighed her options and, seeing the bleak look in his eyes, decided to set the issue aside.

  – |The rain fell away behind them, afflicting the vacationers at Baiae and Neapolis, and the Engine soared over the close-set fields of Latium on a cool spring day. The Prince unwrapped himself from the young woman and returned to the hot, crowded decks below to instruct the Engine as to their landing place. Krista remained above, slowly kneading some feeling back into her hands and wrists. With Maxian gone, her expression settled into a deep frown. She needed to talk to someone about all of this, and soon. The Prince was preparing to embark on some very dubious efforts and could well lose his own life as well as that of countless others.

  "But there is just me," she said aloud, to the speeding air. "Just one pretty, dark-haired slave girl with no friends to speak of."

  There was a sharp pain in her chest, almost matching that of her wrists. Memories of other times with the Prince threatened to surface, but she held them away with an effort of will. She smoothed her cloak instead, and carefully checked the bronze tube strapped to the inside of her left arm, testing the point of the steel rod that rode inside it. The blood that had come from the eye socket of that fat cow Alais had been carefully scrubbed off after she had retrieved the dart. Touching it now, the slim sharp rod still tingled with the power that the Prince had put into it so long before. Satisfied that the spring was still stiff and the thumb-ring was just a little loose, she checked the rest of her garments-the long, thin knife at her side was secure, the length of wire-cord string nestled at her waist. The familiar routine helped settle her mind.

  The Engine slewed to one side and descended toward thickly wooded hills at the edge of a haze-filled river valley. Distantly, marble domes and pillars gleamed in the late afternoon light. Trees rushed up, and the wings of the Engine spread wide, catching at the air like giant sails, slowing the machine. Krista stood a little, one hand on the safety line, looking over the side of the observation cavity at the dead garden and great house sprawling across the hillside below.