The seabed had opened and trapped this ship—and apparently, in addition, the sea creature, longer than any kraken, in the very act of opening its jaws to engulf the vessel. It was only bones now, but the length of back and the width of jaws made it by no means certain that it would have failed in the attempt.
Draupadi and Ganesha knelt beside him, staring down at the remains of that Titanic battle.
“The Flame shine upon them,” Ganesha murmured.
Water must have been thrashed up over that slanted deck, as the sea creature struck the ship, driven from the depths as the earth shuddered, maddened enough to attack. The thing must have seen the ship as its enemy. Perhaps it was as afraid as the men who watched the water boil as it arrowed up from the deepest water and screamed as its immense jaws opened, distended, and tried to swallow them.
There might have been White Naacals on board like Ganesha himself. But at that moment, none of their prayers and powers had availed them.
The last few moments of the crew—Quintus jerked his gaze away. Too well, he could imagine the water thrashing, the gibbering terror, even the desperate composure of the Naacals as they sought to fight off an impossible enemy.
Time and place flickered for Quintus, as if he could remember it all in truth. Some had fled below, had turned inward. One or two flung themselves overboard. Others prayed, even as those among them who were warriors struck at the great monster with their weapons, hoping to buy time for the Naacals to bring greater weapons to bear. But they had failed. Why had they failed? Overpowered by the Black Naacals? Was their power weakened by what they surely fled? Or perhaps it had been the earth itself, not the Black Naacals, which had ultimately killed them, allowing their souls freedom; The monster would grasp their ship by the stern, was pulling it down, and then the earth opened to swallow creature and ship alike in blackness and pressure and, once the heaving ceased, silence.
How had Quintus remembered? Look again. He looked down into the pit and into his memories simultaneously, and the effort almost robbed him of his senses.
“Aiyeeeeee! The dragon! The great lung, King of Dragons!”
The Ch’in had been slower than he to approach the pit. Now many of them panicked. Some cast themselves face down on the wet salt. Others ran as if attempting to escape what the crew of that long-dead ship had not been able to flee. They ran and fell, and when they could not get up, they crawled, mindless with fear.
Wang Tou-fan’s path led him near the pit. Surely he would miss it.
“Come back, man!” Lucilius cried. He even started after the Ch’in—to stop him or push him in? Then another tremor sent the Roman sprawling. He turned his sprawl into a desperate grab at the man’s knees, caught him, attempting to pull him back.
Wang Tou-fan screamed like a woman in the last stages of giving birth. With astonishing force, he fought to pull free of Lucilius—a ferocious and maddened dance that brought him to the very lip of the chasm.
“You can’t save him!” Rufus shouted. “Let him go, lad!”
Whether or not Lucilius would have abandoned his fellow conspirator was never to be known. Once again an aftershock rumbled through the earth, spawning more tremors. Lucilius fell, and Wang Tou-fan, screaming about the great dragon, hurled himself into the pit.
Quintus’s talisman heated and he clutched onto whatever flimsy support he might find. What was coming now was no mere tremor. Rocks shook and fell; the lightning exploded in sheets across the sky; and the earth snapped shut like the lid of an enormous chest, reclaiming its secrets and adding yet another victim to its toll.
Once more, the thunder spoke, a prolonged rumble as if the earth now digested what it had engulfed. Then, all was still. The dunes had tumbled and toppled into new shapes smelling of salt and ancient seas. Puddles glistened on the salt flats, rippling as the storm winds brushed them. Already, the heat began to rise.
The talisman fell from Quintus’s shaking fingers. At his feet, the tiny bronze dancer, sparks quivering in the torches that it held, danced its dance of grief and exaltation.
He scooped it up one-handed and thrust it back into his tunic.
Then, leaning on the Eagle’s staff, he turned and edged painstakingly back to where he had left his men. How many of them had survived?
One of the Ch’in camel drivers had crumpled to his knees, and lay with his head in his arms, whimpering. He could not believe this place, could not accept it. Wails rose from his fellows. They were a superstitious lot who saw demons in every aspect of the desert. A prodigy like this—if something weren’t done to quell the panic, they might never recover.
“Get the animals’ heads!” someone ordered. The command was repeated in Parthian, then in Ch’in.
The Romans hastened to retrain the animals. The Ch’in soldiers, dazed by the loss of Wang Tou-fan, moved more slowly. At this rate, they might never form back into a party capable of traveling.
“Hold!” Quintus shouted. His voice came out as a croak. Despite the downpour, his mouth was dry with fear of what he had seen….
…water in the desert … the heave and torrent of the sea as it sank into the earth…. Draupadi’s and Ganesha’s refuge came to his mind as some last glimmer of a Golden Age. He didn’t think he would ever cease to thirst. And the rain was stopping.
“Stay where you are.” His voice came out a little more strongly, but still, no one heard it. You must! he told himself. No lives must be lost because his body failed him.
Grasping the staff of the Eagle, he tried a third time. “Stop there!”
The standard quivered in his hand. Deep clouds in the sky appeared to shift, and sunlight struck the bronze Eagle. Beams of light glittered along its wings, arcing out over the scatter of troops. A steadier light engulfed Quintus: He shivered as strength flowed into him. Gradually, his troops turned. The Ch’in who had collapsed raised themselves from bellies and knees. Those Ch’in, led by Ssu-ma Chao, who had kept their composure by care of animals, reassembled.
Now the clouds dissipated, blown away by a wind tasting of salt. The wind seemed to spread the light from the Eagle Quintus held until it formed a dome beneath the arch of heaven, a dome of protection. The Eagle’s wings were over them, he thought.
They gathered close, staring up at it. The light rippled into all the colors of the rainbow. Incredulous smiles appeared on lips that had never thought to do aught again but scream. Then the light vanished. Romans and Ch’in stood on the barren, churned-up ground, staring at each other.
Two men turned to Sextus’s body. One scooped up a handful of salt and grit and mud and scattered it about the charred remains.
“He was our comrade,” Rufus chided. “We’ll make the time to bury him properly.”
Then, Quintus knew, they must move on. Perhaps the Eagle could guide them.
23
Light shone overhead as more and more of the layers of clouds were stripped from the sky. Already the wind was dryer and warmer.
Ssu-ma Chao left the camel he had staked down to walk over to Quintus.
“We are far out of our reckoning,” he admitted, the first time any of the Ch’in had done so.
Quintus grasped the Eagle’s staff more firmly and nodded. He gestured and Rufus came toward him at a trot as brisk as if the world had not suddenly gaped beneath his feet a short time ago. Draupadi too came to his side. He longed to lay his free arm over her slender shoulders, gaining support from her as he had gained it from the Eagle itself.
Ssu-ma Chao looked out over the desert. “Any storm at all would have destroyed the tracks of other caravans. Let alone this one…. Do you agree? We wait for the sun?”
Sunset would show them the west. Then they could strike due east again, Quintus supposed. The storm had even given them some larger supply of water than they had had. Perhaps they might find a way station that would guide them toward Miran.
Follow the sun? Where was the sun? Light, indeed, shone overhead, but the huge angry disk too bright for anything but an eagle to gaze upon seemed to have been replaced by a glow that spread uniformly over the entire vault of sky.
“Illusion,” Draupadi murmured. “They seek to confuse us.”
“Lady, they succeed,” Ssu-ma Chao said. His eyes held a question.
“Concerted illusion. Several adepts must maintain it. I am only one. I wish it were otherwise,” she told him.