Still the Eagle glowed with unspent force. And Quintus remembered … Pasupata had been unleashed. It devastated the field, yet he who had used it and his army had remained very still, lest it turn on them, too.
Seizing Quintus’s dagger, Draupadi ran forward toward Ganesha. Freed, the old man gazed up at the Eagle, then knelt as if he wished to touch earth before a superior being. Behind him, the slaves had gone prostrate in awe.
And the Romans drew themselves up and saluted their regained Eagle with a pride they were overjoyed to feel once more.
Some of that salute is for you, Lucilius, Quintus thought. I hope you know it.
With a last cry, the Eagle lifted from its perch, to circle the inside of the Temple three times. Dawn was coming in now, a rising tide of light and life and purification. Out of the nearest window, a streak of bronze fire, the Eagle winged—and was gone.
Now Romans, Ch’in soldiers, the two White Naacals, and former slaves stood free beneath the great vault of the old shrine. Even the smoke stains had been scoured from its walls by the sudden splendor of the Eagle’s flight. The white rock of its vault glowed, and the great dome seemed to quiver on massive piers. Above the altar, the great serpent coiled in majesty, and the eyes of its many heads shone gem-bright.
Tears poured down Rufus’s leathery cheeks. “Our Eagle,” he said. “Just when we won it back, it’s gone.”
“It was never ours,” said Quintus, “but Rome’s.”
“And now it is flying back,” said Ganesha. Draupadi had flung one of her veils, toga-fashion, about him, and even in that unfamiliar garb, he contrived to look dignified.
“It is your time now, Romans,” Ganesha said. “And your world. What shall you do with it?”
Quintus wanted to shrug. They all had felt the barriers go up. If they could not be removed, what would they do, with no way now of returning home?
Ganesha laughed. “And has your kind been exiled before? I tell you, what one magus has done another one—carefully—can undo. And even if I cannot, let me tell you, young Quintus, your Rome will thrive. For this is Rome’s time, as long ago it was our Motherland’s. As for us, we too shall thrive. Who knows? Perhaps, one day even your Rome may be astonished when it sends out men and they find not strangers but more Romans ready to clasp arms with their brothers!”
Quintus spared a look at the little heap of lime and ash that had been a Roman. Later, he would gather them up and give Lucilius an honorable grave so his tricky, volatile spirit might rest.
Draupadi knew his mind and handed him her headscarf to lay over them. Perhaps she and Ganesha could indeed free them from this place. But if not, there was food and the chance to grow more. There was water. There was stone to build with and, now that the Black Naacals were gone, allies to build with—possibly more powerful than any knew until they unlocked the secrets they had kept stubbornly hidden from the Dark for so long.
Ganesha and Draupadi bowed before the restored altar. Quintus no longer considered it an accident that the Serpent’s eyes glittered in response.
Then, all of them left the Temple, hastening out into the open air. The wind, blowing through the Temple’s vaults, pursued them down the corridors. It was like a fragrant breath. The sky shone more brightly than it had during all the days of their wandering.
Without, the Eagle still soared overhead, rivaling the sun. As it saw them, it shrieked acknowledgment. “Ave atque vale!” Quintus shouted at it. Hail and farewell.
Then it wheeled and flew westward, like a messenger returning home with news of a great victory.
They watched its path until it was only a gleaming speck in the dawn sky, and that speck, too, had vanished.
Then they stood staring at each other, all those survivors. Already, Valmiki, the closest thing that the former servants of the Black Naacals had for a priest, was in earnest conversation with Ganesha. And Rufus turned toward his officer.
“So this is where we get our land?”
“You’ll have to wait for the mule, I’m afraid,” Quintus told him, then laughed for the pure pleasure of it.
“From what I understand, I have the time to put in.”
Quintus nodded and reached out for Draupadi’s hand. Ganesha might be right in his predictions as he so often was. Perhaps he could indeed free them. And perhaps in another time, Romans might travel out into the desert and be astonished to meet their distant kin. But for now, Quintus had a farm to build and tend and a life to get on with, a life to share. How better to show this entire place’s return to life but with a wedding? Draupadi turned to meet his eyes. She knew his mind now, as always, and smiled: no need for more now, before all these people, but later … ah, later … a life … a child, maybe strong sons and dark-eyed daughters … It was more than he had ever hoped. And more than Arjuna had been privileged to keep. With all my strength—for all my lives, he promised Draupadi in his deepest thoughts; and the seeress smiled.
He studied the ruined Temple. Those walls could be raised again, and some of the leftover stone would do well to build houses and, later on, aqueducts. There was no reason why this place could not flourish, and its people along with it.
Now he looked up to the sky. Desert sky though it was, he thought he saw a promise of rain.
Rome would prosper in the West, whether or not he ever saw its seven hills again. Here too in the East there was work to be done, and as Rufus might say, Romans to do it. By the honor of the Eagle, they would do it well.