Out of the Waters-ARC Page 20

  He made a circular gesture with his left hand, the one that didn't hold his staff.

  "It's what you're wearing," the sprite said. "What's in the glass."

  She leaned forward and twitched the thong around Corylus' neck, bringing the amulet out from under his tunic.

  "Not the hazelnut," she said. "The other thing. And I wouldn't care to be wearing it, I promise you; though since you're half-hazel too, I suppose you're all right."

  "What?" said Corylus. He lifted the bead--it was the size of the last joint of his thumb--up to the quarter moon. He knew he was being silly as soon as he did that: the glass had barely shown internal shadows against the full sun, and now it was as black as a river pebble.

  He lowered the amulet. "What is it inside, Punica?" he asked.

  She shrugged impressively. "I told you I didn't like it," she said, moving closer again. "That's all I want to know about it. I like you, though, Corylus. Why don't you just take off--"

  She reached for the thong again. Corylus caught her hand and lowered it firmly to her side.

  "I don't think so, Punica," he said. "I--maybe I'll come back. But right now, I have to get home."

  "Oh, must you go?" she called as he squirmed between potted oleanders on one side and planter of fragrant parsley on the other.

  "Another time," he murmured over his shoulder. He was old enough to have learned that nothing a man said on these occasions was going to be sufficient, so you might has well stop with bare politeness. He didn't strictly owe Punica even that, except as to another living being; which Corylus believed should be enough to demand courtesy.

  The crew which had unloaded the wagon was in the office when Corylus returned there. Demetrius had sponged the injured slave's forehead clean and was looking at it. The jagged tear didn't seem serious without the wash of blood, though the fellow would probably have a scar. He hadn't been much of a beauty to begin with.

  "The apples are going to be fine, Demetrius," Corylus said. "Did you buy them from a new grower?"

  "No, I got a Gallic arborist myself, a freeman, and I hadn't seen his grafts before," the nurseryman said. "Ah--you slipped a girl in, sir?"

  Corylus understood the question, though it gave him a shock to hear it. "That's all right, Demetrius," he answered with forced calm. The workman must have heard him--and heard Punica as well, which meant the glass bead on his breast really did have power. "There's no hole in your fence. But just put it out of your mind, all right?"

  "Sure, lad," Demetrius said, relaxing a little. "It's no problem, only I'd like to know if, you know, it comes up again."

  Corylus cleared his throat. "I looked at the pomegranate too," he said, "and I think I will take it. But not for me. Senator Gaius Alphenus Saxa has a house in the Carina. Do you know where it is?"

  "I can learn," Demetrius said. "I don't believe he's bought from me in the past."

  "He's been letting me use his gym," Corylus explained, though in fact he wasn't sure that Saxa even knew his son was letting a friend use the training facility; certainly he didn't care. "A pear tree in his back garden died. I thought I'd give him the pomegranate as a little thank you."

  "I can get in a nice pear tree in forty-eight hours," Demetrius said. "And if you're worried about the price--"

  Corylus stopped him with a smile and a gesture. "I'm not," he said truthfully, "but I've taken a liking to that pomegranate. Only--plant it in the ground, will you? I think it'll be more comfortable if its roots have a chance to spread out."

  Demetrius shrugged. "It won't bear as well," he said, "but I don't suppose I'm going to change your mind about how to plant trees. Sure, I'll send it over in the morning. Just one tree, Bello and Granus can carry it on a handbarrow so we don't have to wait for nightfall to use a wagon."

  "Send the bill to me," Corylus said as he started toward the front gate. "I'll clear it on the first of the month."

  He wondered how Punica and Persica would get along. They'd squabble--the spirits of fruit trees tended to be self-centered and quarrelsome, in his experience--but he thought they'd both be happier than they would be alone.

  Corylus began to whistle as he crossed the street. He was ready to sleep now.

  Two men were running toward him; from the way one clutched his cloak to his side, he was using it to hide a sword--illegal to carry in the city and a bad sign anywhere except on the frontier. Corylus paused and put his back to the wall.

  "Lad, is that you?" Pulto called hoarsely.

  "Right!" Corylus said, relaxing again. He recognized the other man as a courier from Saxa's household. "I'm glad it's you."

  "Well, turn right around," Pulto said. "There's trouble at the Senator's house and Lord Varus said to bring you!"

  CHAPTER 8

  Pandareus wanted to leave by the alley after dinner, saying it would be shorter by two blocks for him to get home, so Varus walked his teacher into the back garden. To his surprise, Alphena came with them.

  By now he wasn't surprised that none of the servants followed them into the garden, though Varus hadn't felt the sense of unease that the staff claimed to. He wondered whether the problem had been a single nervous footman worrying himself twitchy and infecting his hundreds of fellows with fear of nothing.

  Alphena stood arms akimbo as they entered the garden and glared at the surviving fruit tree. Varus looked at her with lips pursed, but whatever had brought that on seemed to be satisfied when nothing had happened after a moment or two.

  "I'll stand outside, your lordships," said the doorman on duty. "I'll leave the lantern--or would you rather I take it into the alley, your lordships?"

  "Take it with you," Varus said before it struck him that his sister might not find the moonlight as adequate as he did. Well, if that's the case, Alphena has never had trouble making her opinion known....

  Instead she hugged her arms around herself, then smiled wanly. "I don't know what was going on at dinner," she said. "I was hoping one of you could tell me."

  "For somebody who didn't understand," Varus said, "you certainly reacted quickly enough. Quicker than I did, anyway."

  He shook his head, feeling disgusted with himself. "Actually, I don't think I would have thought to demand the, well, artifact myself if I'd had all night. My brain doesn't work that way, I guess."

  "All I knew," Alphena said, "is that Tardus wanted to take the tube and you--"

  She was looking at Pandareus.

  "--didn't want him to. Is there something you want to do with it, ah, Master?"

  As soon as Tardus and his attendants had gone down the staircase, Hedia gave the chest with the murrhine tube to Alexandros to return to its place in the library. Saxa had a collection of similar curios among the baskets of scrolls, as well as busts of those he considered the wisest men of past ages.

  Along with Solon, who gave laws to Athens; Lycurgus, who gave laws to Sparta; and Socrates, who chose to die to uphold his philosophy, there was a bust of Periander, the famously ruthless Tyrant of Corinth. Varus had always considered that an odd choice for his gentle father.

  "I'm sorry, no," Pandareus said. "I'm not a magician--"

  He quirked a smile toward Varus, who felt his cheeks start to warm. Fortunately the moonlight wouldn't show his blushing. I'm not a magician either!

  "--and scholarship doesn't take me beyond the obvious, that the object is very old and probably came from a tomb. I was reacting to the fact that Lord Tardus wanted it very badly; and though I don't have any idea why, I had--I have--the feeling that his purposes would not be to the benefit of anyone I could consider a friend."

  Varus noded in understanding. He said, "And father wouldn't have refused a fellow senator simply because a foreigner--no offense meant, Master."

  "None taken, my pupil," Pandareus said with a nod of deference.

  "A foreigner, even a very learned foreigner as father knows you to be," Varus said, "didn't approve. But the wishes of his own daughter certainly did matter."

  He shook his head again.
"Or his son," he said. "Except that his son wasn't quick enough off the mark to intervene."

  Alphena looked at him with an expression he couldn't read, then hugged him. Varus stood stiffly. He didn't believe there was anything his sister could have done that would have surprised him more.

  "Dear Gaius," she said, stepping away again. "I don't think you could have accomplished anything no matter how hard you tried. You've just been so nice to everybody all your life. But I've been a screaming bitch often enough that father would listen to me."

  She smiled wryly. She wasn't boasting, which was also a surprise. Alphena had always seemed proud of the way she made people cringe when she was in a bad temper.

  "Well...," he said. "Thank you, sister."

  Varus smiled. He'd never really approved of Alphena's behavior--not that he would ever have said anything--but her past behavior was paying dividends. Her unladylike practice with a sword had saved his life when she stood between him and an army of fire demons.

  "Did either of you notice the men who came with Tardus?" Alphena said. "They were the same ones who'd been with him in the theater when the city appeared. I mean, three of them were."

  Pandareus was answering. Varus heard the teacher's voice, but the words didn't seem to have meaning. He felt himself drifting into the fog that separated him from the Sibyl's dreamworld. He tried to speak, to warn his companions, but grayness closed in before he could force words out through his throat.

  There was laughter in the fog, silvery and cheerful. Varus felt his heart jump as if he had heard a scream of fury, though there had been nothing frightening in the sound itself.

  His smile was bitter for a moment, then warmed into humor. Quite a number of frightening things had happened recently. He couldn't help being afraid, but he could simply walk on regardless.

  He had no choice, after all. Not if he were to help save the world. He thought of the monster he had seen engulfing Carce.

  The fog brightened; in another step, he burst out into sunlight. The old woman stood on the edge of an escarpment, holding a hank of yarn and a pair of bronze shears. She turned toward Varus.

  "Greetings, Sibyl," he said. He cleared his throat and went on, "Why have you called me here, your ladyship?"

  "I call you, Lord Magician?" she said. Her smile was almost lost in the wrinkles of her face. She seemed tired, now that he was close to her; but perhaps she was just weary of life. "Not so. It may be that you wanted to view Poseidonis again--"

  She gestured with the shears; Varus followed their points to look over the escarpment. The city he had seen in the theater spread below them.

  Flying ships flapped toward the harborfront and landed like giant dragonflies, each guided by a figure in fiery armor. The streets were of the same glassy, glittering substance as the towers; catwalks as seemingly fine as spider silk tied the structures to their neighbors at three or four levels above the ground as well.

  People hastened about their business. They wore sandals, broad-brimmed hats that seemed to be made of stiffened fabric, and tunics that left their left shoulders bare; Varus did not see any of the loiterers or street vendors that he would have expected in Carce. Among the humans were scores, perhaps hundreds, of the glass figures which walked at a measured pace like so many living statues.

  "Why do I need to see this?" Varus said. "Help me to understand, mistress!"

  "The Minoi of Atlantis threaten your world, Lord Wizard," said the old woman. "They are one threat of three, and any one will be sufficient to doom you."

  The armored men from the airships and similar figures from distant towers were walking toward the tall spire. Ordinary humans thronged the broad plaza that separated it from the sea, but they made way for the converging shapes in armor.

  "But why?" Varus said.

  But as he spoke, the Sibyl's mouth twisted and she cried, "How many evils does the sea devise against you?"

  Varus plunged through darkness. He awakened in moonlight, standing with Alphena and Pandareus. He was shouting.

  ***

  Alphena jumped back as her brother, who had been slouching as if asleep on his feet, suddenly stiffened. He shouted in a squeaky voice, "How many evils does the sea devise against you? She will suddenly encroach on the grieving land, causing it to flood as the Earth tears asunder!"

  "Brother?" Alphena said sharply.

  "What?" Varus snapped, looking about wildly as though he expected to see something that wasn't there. "Alphena? Oh. I'm sorry. What happened?"

  "You shouted a warning that the sea will flood," Pandareus said, his head cocked to the side in interest. "Using a proleptic gerundive, I might note. Were you quoting?"

  "I think I was...," Varus said. He licked his lips. "That is, I heard the Sibyl calling a prophecy. About the sea."

  "You said it yourself, brother," Alphena said. She felt sick with uncertainty; she didn't know what was real or if anything was real.

  Varus gave her wan smile. "I suppose I did," he said. Then he added, "Master Pandareus means that the land won't really grieve until the sea encroaches, but the poet describes it as grieving already."

  "My comment was out of place, Lady Alphena," the teacher said, dipping his head contritely. "When human beings feel threatened, they revert to habitual behavior; and I fear my habit is pedantry."

  Alphena was only half listening. She had caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned toward what should have been the gate to the alley. A vortex of pale light spun there. As she watched, the light deepened.

  "Look!" she said. She wasn't sure whether her companions could hear her. She couldn't see them, and when she tried to point at the coalescing vision, she couldn't see her own hand and arm. "It's the city from the theater!"

  No, it's more than what we saw in the theater. This isn't just the city, it's an island too.

  The vision changed with her thoughts: first the city sparkling like a polished diamond, then the backdrop of jungle-covered hills behind and beside the crystal towers. A heartbeat later she saw a panorama of seven ring islands, each inside the next larger.

  "A volcano like Aetna," said a voice at the edge of her hearing. Was Pandareus speaking? "Seven eruptions, each slighter than the one before."

  The rings almost touched close to the point where the city spread and sparkled. Spotted at intervals among the forested curves of each island were glittering specks, single towers similar to the much larger buildings of the city.

  The vision shrank inward, reversing the way it had appeared. For a moment a dull glow remained, like the wick of a lamp that had run out of oil; then that too was gone.

  Alphena let out a shuddering breath. "Brother?" she said.

  Varus looked as drawn as she felt. With a touch of anger he said, "I didn't do that!"

  Pandareus raised an eyebrow. Varus looked at his teacher in sudden dismay, then turned to Alphena. He bowed formally and said, "Your pardon, sister; I misspoke. I am not consciously aware of having caused that vision--"

  He made a rhetorical gesture toward what was again only the back gate. Light from the doorman's lamp in the alley glowed through the slight gap between the panel and doorpost.

  "--but as Master Pandareus rightly pointed out, I may be having an effect of which I'm not aware. Indeed, given that I was seeing a similar vision when I was dreaming."

  He paused. His expression was suddenly that of a frightened little boy.

  The young philosopher reasserted himself with a wry smile. "When I was in a reverie, I'll call it," he said. "I think I probably did cause what we all just saw, though I don't know how."

  Her brother's smile returned, broader. "Nor do I know how to stop it," he said.

  "We have much to consider," said Pandareus with a smile that made him look like another person. "Which is always true of the philosopher, as I'm sure we three strive to be. I believe I will do my further consideration tonight in my bed, and I hope in my sleep."

  He bowed. "Repeat my thanks to your father," he added.
"The food was wonderful, and the evening has been even more remarkable than the menu would have made it."

  Pandareus pulled the gate open. The doorman standing in the alley turned, lifting his lantern on the short hooked pole it hung from.

  "Are you sure you won't accept an escort, Master?" Varus asked.

  "I prefer to retain my own habits, Lord Varus," the teacher said, "though I thank you. I have gone out virtually every night since I arrived in Carce. If I get used to linkmen and guards, where will I be when they're no longer available? Like a once-wild rabbit who has been fattened in a cage before being returned to the forest, I fear--an easy meal for any predator."

  Alphena looked at the teacher in a new way. She had never wondered how ordinary people--that is, people who didn't travel with scores of attendants--went anywhere at night. The answer seemed to be, "Carefully."

  She knew that Carce's streets were prowled by not only by robbers, but by violent drunks and by beggars who would willingly turn thief if they met someone sufficiently weaker than themselves in the darkness. Publius Corylus was young and strong and carried a hardwood staff that made him more than a match for a footpad with a knife. Pandareus had none of those advantages, but he seemed to have gotten along quite well.

  The gate closed behind him. It reopened a crack, then shut again. The doorman was making sure that the young lord and lady were still in the garden--so that their privacy gave him an excuse for staying in the alley where he was more comfortable.

  Varus stared after his teacher for a moment, then looked at Alphena and said, "Master Pandareus shows himself as wise in his present assessment as I have found him in every other matter where I've heard him give an opinion."

  His smile was affectionate, but it seemed to Alphena to be sad as well. "I'll take his advice and go bed, sister. Shall we go back into the house together?"

  "Help!" Pandareus called from the near distance. At any rate, it sounded like Pandareus and sounded like the word "help," but the cry was muffled.