And as he climbed, even as he struggled to keep his mind on the immediate problems, Quintus’s thoughts wandered. They had been wrong, his father, his grand-sire, even the Vestals and the entire college of priests, all the way up to the Pontifex Maximus. It was not the Fates that guided a man’s life and wove the thread of it. That was just a pretty story. It was the “if’s” that determined within any age of the world whether a man would or would not go on living or whether he would achieve what had been set down—by whomever—for him.
So why try? The question struck with the force of lightning, blinding force followed by darkness. He blinked and looked up. No storms anywhere around. No thunder. No lightning. He shook his head to clear it. He had been warned to expect attacks.
No, he said.
One of the madmen whimpered. The camel bearing him twitched, then plodded onward. Limping. They would have to check all the camels’ feet for cuts—a real pleasure to anticipate. When this was over, the kindest thing they could probably do for the wretched creatures— camels and madmen—would be to slit their throats. Then they could fall on their own swords.
No, he said again in his mind, more firmly than before. If I die, and I do mean if, let me do it in the open, fighting. Or marching east under the Eagle.
That sense of oppressive blackness pressing down on his mind. The sky was clear, but the smell of salt filled his nostrils. Salt, not sweat. Abruptly—not again! he moaned inwardly—sky and land flickered. A shadow loomed up before him. Entering it created an instant of blessed coolness. The gate shone in that moment, its statues intact and magnificent.
Did Chronos blink again? Are we adrift? A madman’s sobbing confirmed his suspicions. After a while, even wonders grew tedious, and this one was a nuisance.
“Ought to knock him on the head,” Rufus muttered. “No! You don’t have to hit him that hard. Did you kill him? No thanks to you. if you didn’t.”
In and out of focus the arch wavered. He blinked hard, not wanting to be blinded when he emerged from its shadow. He rested his hand on his sword, painstakingly sharpened once more. Gods save them if they had to fight even as time and place wavered about them.
“Quintus…” Draupadi moved to his side. He flinched as a particularly strong tremor made the entire arch waver and even vanish for a dizzying instant.
“Please tell me,” he began, despising himself for what was almost a plea in his voice, “that it gets worse this close to the gate.”
She laid a hand on his shoulder. Some of the vertigo and fear drained from him. “I hoped you would not feel it so strongly.”
Quintus moved his shoulder out from under her hand. He loved her touch, but to be reassured by it, while his men struggled with their fear? That was not right.
She nodded, knowing his mind. “Quintus, do not concern yourself to stay hidden. They know we have come. Otherwise, you would not feel under attack once more.” She raised her hand like a sailor, sniffing the air. “They will surely have greater magics prepared. Let Ganesha and I face them first.”
An old man and a woman—to lead Romans into battle? Impossible! he started to say.
“We are weapons in your hands,” she cut into his objections. “Who knows better than we what they might do, and how to fight them? They destroyed our home! They destroyed our world! We have a right, Quintus!”
Draupadi’s eyes grew huge and dark. A man could fall into them. And how many fools has she beguiled? A man could be bespelled, besotted…. She will pass beyond the gate with that old man of hers, and then be gone. And you will die here.
She has never tricked me and never will! he retorted to the treacherous voice that insinuated itself into his thoughts.
She and Ganesha served the Flame. They were Naacals. White against Black. They had as much right to oppose the Black Naacals as he had had to seek the Eagle.
“Even now, they seek to reach you,” Draupadi said, looking into his face. “Even now, don’t they?”
His thoughts were more traitorous than any trick of Lucilius. He loved her. He must trust her. He shook his head. Hard enough to fight. Worse, if he had to reassure her.
She held up her hand on which the ring he had given her shone. “This has power in it, the power of your pledge. I could not wear it if I were false.”
Those eyes of hers … he could see a tiny version of himself, watching her, watching a slender, tired woman as if she were about to launch an attack he could not withstand. Was he always so solemn? The idea forced a chuckle from him, then a real laugh. “A throw of the dice,” he said. “Trust you or lose all.”
Gods send it wasn’t “trust you and lose all.”
Draupadi nodded. “Let this sign of yours, this weapon, blast me if I lie.” She reached out and laid a hand on the staff that upheld the Eagle.
Thunder rumbled overhead. For a moment, Quintus forgot to breathe. If she were struck down, he would not survive to mourn long, he vowed. But a wave of good feeling flowed up his arm.
“You see?” Draupadi whispered in triumph. “You see I am not false?”
A beam of sunlight seemed to shoot beneath the arch and strike the Eagle. How it glowed! He almost believed that it would wake, mantle, and call out.
“Thank you,” he said. “As you have asked, you and Ganesha shall lead.”
Mercifully, the madmen were silent, sinking back into unquiet sleep. The Naacals moved to the front of the column and led it out from beneath the Arch of Memory into what had, in years beyond memory, been their refuge.
27
The tremors that had cracked the ancient sea basin through which they had marched for so long had dealt more gently with the land here—or perhaps some lingering virtue of the White Naacals had spared it from the worst of the devastation. Perhaps he had picked the memory from Draupadi’s thoughts. The water here had been shallow, tricky for mariners. He could all but smell the salt, hear the snap of commands and the song of ropes as a ship neared port, coming about sharply before the arch. Water … desire possessed him.
Draupadi and Ganesha marched on ahead. From one of the packs, they had withdrawn robes long stored away, shaken them free of dust, and now led, robed in the white of their old offices.
At a cry from Rufus, the Romans hailed them as they emerged from the great arch and the sunlight touched their robes to flame. The light blazed up, restoring priests and archway briefly to their ancient splendor. For that moment, even the desecrated statues high overhead seemed haloed in light. Even the Eagle glowed as if in homage as Quintus held it aloft.
As the sun sank lower, a trick of the light made Draupadi and Ganesha’s forms seem to be a size larger than life. As the soldiers watched, their white robes kindled into pure light. Two white figures glided over the darkening land beyond the arch, leading them.
“They will leave us,” Lucilius’s hiss echoed the fears of which Quintus was now ashamed. “You had to trust them….”
The very stillness of the waste and the soldiers’ awe in the presence of those gleaming white robes silenced him for the moment.
Thunder pealed in a clear sky, a desolate place, a dry month. The Naacals paused, halting the column, raising their arms in homage to the setting sun as it dropped, like fire into a sea of oil, setting the horizon ablaze.
Some portion of that light shone even beneath the great arch. It seemed to tremble. Chunks of rock and masonry—later additions, perhaps by the Black Naacals—toppled from the ancient stone. Again the thunder pealed.
The Eagle warmed in Quintus’s hands. Use it, use the weapon, whispered the tempter inside his skull. It is Pasupata, which you have sought. Do you thirst? Strike the rock and draw water. What did you win power for, but to wield it?
To use it wisely! he retorted. Now quiet! I promised, and I shall keep my faith.
The ground trembled underfoot, as if they stood on some great bubble that grew larger and larger and that would inevitably burst. Ssu-ma Chao cleared his throat. Was this going on too long? And what was “this”?
You are a Roman, a fighter, a soldier, not a client to mages, hissed the voice. Shall you bow and scrape to them as you did to the senators? They will take you and you will be worse than a client, worse than a slave—and it will be for all times.