The liquescing heat ceased, leaving behind only the damp ambiance of the warm room of the baths. The light was normal again, and the tribune’s head began to sag as the cushioning supports withdrew into the wall. Something pricked the skin above Vibulenus’ heart before the wall reabsorbed the chest support. He staggered forward, but instinct threw his hands out to save him against the back of the booth.
The bandage was gone from his left arm, and so was the pain that had gnawed him even when he held the injured limb clamped firmly against his chest. His torn skin had reknitted beneath a coating — a dye, apparently — of brilliant red. There was only a tingling in the muscles to suggest a shard of flint had been rammed deep within them.
The door hissed open. The last of the steam dissipated; there was no drain, but the spray with the bandages and other sludge from Vibulenus’ body had been borne off somewhere. Fingering the side of his scalp, now hairless but no longer cut and swollen, the tribune stepped out of the cubicle as the Medic tiredly repeated, “Come on, next lot.”
Clodius Afer bolted from the adjacent booth with his face set in the same mask of fear it had worn when he entered.
“Down the hall,” rumbled one of the guards. The creatures were wearing their helmet visors down. Not, the tribune suspected, for protection, but rather to cushion the shock the Roman captives were receiving already. There had been none of this the first time they were marched aboard the vessel in Parthia; none of this that any of them remembered, at least. But then, they remembered nothing.
Vibulenus looked at the squat figures who had spoken, visualizing the features behind the iron mesh. The bodyguards were taller than most men — most Romans, at any rate — but it was the breadth and the neckless solidity of their bodies that made them look remarkable when covered with iron. Their strength was in keeping with their appearance, for their armor weighed more than a man could lift, much less wear, and they wielded maces on ten-foot hafts with the ease of a centurion brandishing his swagger stick.
The guards, and the various implications the young tribune drew from them, did not affect Vibulenus’ present buoyancy at being suddenly whole, no longer wracked by staggering pain. He clasped his left arm around the shoulders of Clodius Afer, keeping his grip despite the non-com’s attempt to shudder away when he saw the patch of red dye next to his own skin.
Clodius’ legs and forearms were so tanned that pocks of new skin showed up pink in places that he had received minor cuts and abrasions during the battle. None of his injuries had been so severe that the process within the booth had left him with red stains like the tribune and Caprasius Felix.
“Gnaeus,” Vibulenus said, “don’t be —” He started to say “afraid” but realized as his tongue touched the word that the veteran would hit him, rank be damned. “Don’t be angry because they’ve cured your pain.”
“I don’t understand,” the file-closer whispered, but his calloused right hand reached up to grip Vibulenus’ arm to him.
“We’ll understand later,” Vibulenus said with the confidence of health, not reason. Together, they led the remaining pair of men from their group toward the doorway at the side of the hall. “For now, it’s enough that we don’t hurt any more.”
He looked up, at the toad-faced monsters to either side of the door. “Soon we’ll understand,” he said, and this time he spoke more in prayer than belief.
“All personnel, report to the Main Gallery for an address by your commander,” repeated a well-modulated voice. “The red pulses lead toward the Main Gallery.”
“They ought to let us form in centuries,” said Gaius Vibulenus as he looked around at as many of the legionaries as he could see milling in the Main Gallery. The room was huge, with a smoothly arched ceiling that showed no sign of the groins and coffers that should have been required to carry the stresses. “I’m going to bring that up at the next command group meeting. This is absurd.”