“I was the only kind of hardware they – we – could send back,” Calvus said. She took one of the agent’s hands in each of hers. Her flesh was warmer than human. “There aren’t any choices now for me, Aulus. I wasn’t raised for there to be any choices once I reached the brood chambers.”
The tall woman swallowed, holding the agent’s stricken eyes with her own. She continued, “I have no gods to pray by, my friend. But my greatest hope is that when you leave here, you will remember that you do have choices. I – I have enjoyed working with you, Aulus Perennius. I respect you as a tool; and I think you know me well enough by now to hear that as the praise it is. But I respect you as a man as well . . . and I have been close enough to humanity in the time I’ve spent with you that I – wish you the chance of happiness that tools don’t have.”
She bent over and kissed Perennius. Her lips were hot. The chamber swam in a rosy, saturated light like that of iron being forged.
“Goodbye, Lucia,” the agent said. His sense of direction saved him as he turned and bolted for the exit. Even in the lighted brood chamber, Perennius was blinded by tears that turned images into faceted jewels.
On the scramble back through the darkness, Perennius functioned by giving himself utterly to the task at hand. It was the way he had always functioned. It worked no worse this time for the fact he had found a willingness to live in other ways. There were no side branchings. The passage was a single artery to Hell. There were stretches in which the slope jogged into what would have been rapids when rainwater foamed down the cavern. They were difficult but not impossible, even without light. Perennius had scrambled through dark buildings and light-less camps in the past, trusting the senses which remained. Those senses had preserved him from the blades of those intent on his life. The agent was exhausted, but leaving behind the sweaty burden of his armor had freed his spirit … and the muscles would do as the spirit demanded, as they always had.
Calvus’ touch was still a memory in his flesh – but not in his mind; Perennius could not afford her in his mind until he had carried out her last injunction.
The cavern was lighted for him long before eyes which had not adapted to total blackness would have seen even a glow. Light bounced into the gorge and threw a hazy grayness down the funneled throat of the cavern. Some of it seeped further down the twisting stone pathway. Even to Perennius’ retinas, the amount of light was too little to see by. But it was a brightening goal, a proof of the success he had never permitted himself to doubt.
Where the cave flared around the last major turning, the smooth stone grew light enough to have a visible pattern. Perennius threw his head up. The little chapel was in black contrast to the sky which streamed light through the open roof and past the interstices of the pillared wall. Beside the building, haloed by her back-lit red hair, Sabellia was scrambling down the path into the cave. The head of the spear she carried winked.
“Back, Bella, back!” Perennius called in horror. His intended roar was a gasp. His legs for the first time quivered noticeably with fatigue.
“Aulus?” the woman called. “Aulus?” Her eyes saw only a tremble of motion from the cave. Sabellia slid down a dangerous shelf of rock rather than take the path which wound around it.
“Wait!” cried Perennius. Unconquered Sun, Creator and Sustainer of life, give me now the strength I need. The agent lowered his head and began to run up the zig-zag path. It was easy to believe that the Sun is a god when one stumbled out of Hell. And it is easy to believe in gods when there is no longer help in oneself for one’s beloved.
Sabellia could see the agent now. She paused. She had heard his command, but there was more to her hesitation than that. Something in the air was wrong. The woman switched from hand to hand the spear she had found near Sacrovir when she herself regained consciousness.