Out of the Waters-ARC Read online

  "But why?" Alphena whispered.

  "Because he could," said Uktena. His voice was as calm as a frozen pond. "There have been others. There will be more, until someone stops him."

  Alphena started to say something optimistic--and empty. She looked at Uktena and caught the words unspoken. There was no place for silliness around this man.

  "How can I help?" she said. Trying to keep her tone from slipping into defensive anger she continued, "I know I'm a woman but I've trained, I can fight. I lost my--"

  She didn't have a word for sword.

  "I lost my long knife fighting the vultures, but if you have something here, a knife or an axe, I can help you fight."

  Uktena looked at her. Instead of the objection--or worse, dismissive laughter--that Alphena was poised for, he said, "A battle with Procron will not be fought with knives and axes. It is always good to have a friend nearby in a hard place, though. I welcome your presence."

  Alphena lifted her chin in understanding. She'd had to ask, though. She glanced toward the lagoon. Mota hadn't surfaced again, which was a mercy; but she was there.

  "Uktena, who are the other men?" Alphena asked. "The sages?"

  "Come, we will walk back now," he said. Turning, he continued, "They are the wise men of neighboring villages. Hanno was brought to our land by a spirit wind, which whispered secrets to him. He, Wontosa, and Dasemunco all think that I have great power because of the talisman that came here not long before Procron did."

  He touched the murrhine bowl of his pipe.

  "Are they right?" Alphena said, responding to the tone she heard in Uktena's voice.

  "The talisman is a tool of great power," he said, smiling at her. "But it is half the tool it was before Procron split it and crushed the sage who had used it to fight him. Procron too has a talisman. He is the talisman himself. But tools do not win battles, little one."

  "No," Alphena said. If you fail, I hope Procron kills me at once.

  They had reached the Cascotan again. At least a dozen men were present. Most people faced her and her host, but those Alphena glimpsed from behind had three lines scarred into their left shoulders.

  "My friend and I will eat now," Uktena said to the assembly. "Bring our food to my kiva."

  Wontosa stood slightly in front of his two fellows. He said, "When will you fight Procron, Master? Tomorrow night will be the full moon. That is when he takes captives."

  Uktena looked at him. "When the spirits inform me," he said, "I will try my knowledge against that of Procron."

  He smiled. "You have an axe, Wontosa," he said. "An axe of copper that came from far to the west, do you not?"

  "You know I do, Master," Wontosa said. He touched the stuffed bird woven into his hair, obviously nervous. The other two sages eased away from him. "The axe is my talisman, though not so powerful as your pipe. Not nearly so powerful."

  "Give your axe to my friend Alphena," Uktena said, still smiling. "She may have need of it."

  I've seen sword blades with more humor in them than the line of his lips.

  "But--" Wontosa said, and stopped. Then he said, "Yes, Master. I'll fetch it at once."

  "Send it to the kiva with our dinner," Uktena said over his shoulder as he and Alphena strode through the village.

  Quietly, to Alphena, he added, "It is possible that you will need the axe tomorrow morning, little one."

  ***

  Varus stood beside the Sibyl, looking over an escarpment toward the jungles of Atlantis. He didn't recall climbing the opposite slope to meet her this time.

  He grinned. Perhaps I'm dreaming.

  Below, flying ships made slow circles about a spire of black glass. "How many are there, Sibyl?" he asked. "There must be hundreds of them."

  "One hundred and thirteen Minoi rule Atlantis," said the old woman. "All are here in their ships, and most are accompanied by other ships directed by Servitors who draw power from the talisman of the Minos they serve."

  Unlike the other crystal mansions Varus had seen in his visions, there had been no ordinary human dwellings around the base of black spire. The nearby forest smoldered where flames from the ships' weapons had glanced. The spire, untouched, rose from bare rock like a toadstool.

  "The Minoi have gathered to punish Procron, who is also a Minos and who defies them," the Sibyl said. "All are present, because even so they fear that they will not be strong enough to prevail. And there is Lann, who is no longer a Minos but still lives in a fashion."

  "Why are they fighting?" Varus asked. As he spoke, three ships turned inward from the circle. A Servitor stood alone in the stern of each. Smoke rose from a dozen patches of forest, ignited when ships crashed there burning.

  "Procron and Lann were neighbors and enemies," the Sibyl said. "The Minoi have always fought among themselves; they have no other recreation, save diddling their serfs and drugging themselves. But instead of burning out Lann's cantonments, Procron destroyed Lann's keep and practiced other arts on Lann himself. Procron sculpts human beings."

  As she spoke, Varus saw as if at arm's length an unfamiliar animal hanging by all four limbs from a tree limb; the ground was at least two hundred feet below. Lichen streaked the beast's shaggy gray fur; if it had not been for the jaws' slow movement, Varus might have thought he was looking at a bizarre swelling of the tree bark.

  The eyes and forehead were human, or a parody of human.

  "That's enough," Varus said, his voice clipped. As the thought formed in his mind, the creature shrunk to a blur beneath the forest canopy over which ships maneuvered in battle.

  "Lann's talisman was an amphisbaena which he had carved from murrhine," the Sibyl said. "It was hollow to concentrate the thoughts of the one who used it. No other Minos thought he could have stood against Lann and his talisman; but Procron broke the talisman and broke Lann, so in fear they attacked Procron together. And even united--"

  A line of shimmering purple curved from Procron's fortress with the casual grace of a trout leaping. It arched above the three approaching vessels, reaching instead for a ship in the distant circle. In its stern a Minos hunched over a rod of balas-ruby.

  The line halted just short of the ship in an explosion of sparks that spread to right and left, following the curve of the circling fleet. Not only the target but several vessels ahead of and behind it began to glow in a faint violet echo. A human seated along the railing of the central ship threw up his arms and jumped overboard. His body burned in the air like thistledown; ashes drifted onto the treetops.

  The balas-ruby exploded into sand. The ship's stern vanished; molten blobs of orichalc armor flew in all directions.

  The bow dived into the forest. The three ships which had been approaching the spire settled somewhat less violently, like driftwood flung onto a beach.

  Line of yellow light began to reach inward from the encircling ships; some strands were brighter than others. They twisted as they stretched toward Procron's fortress, weaving a net that grew brighter as it extended.

  Purple fire from the spire snapped like a whiplash, ripping the meshes of light for a hundred feet to either side of the contact. Trees in its path toward the spire sizzled and flared, but Procron's stroke faded into orange afterimages. The net rewove itself brighter and denser than before.

  Light spat from the spire again, this time as a thrust toward a ship on whose deck a Minos spun a top turned from moss agate. The air along its track into the netting roiled into a spitting rainbow.

  Almost, but not quite, the fire reached its target. It finally spluttered out no more than arm's length from the hull. The woman in orichalc armor looked up once, then went back to her stone spindle as it spun and spun back, and spun. The soil beneath was burning, and gobbets of molten bedrock bubbled along the track as from a volcano.

  The net was near about the fortress, now; the ships of the Minoi closed in behind its protection, while the vessels captained by Servitors stayed behind, wobbling just above the treetops. The net's upper edge was higher than th
e top of the spire, and at the bottom it burned the rock clean.

  Varus expected Procron to try at least once more to break through the closing meshes. The spire began to sizzle with fuzzy light, like fruit infected with purple fungus. Instead of spitting another bolt, the fortress rocked sideways, then ripped free of the mountaintop. It began to rise.

  Many of the Minoi closed in when they saw what was happening: portions of the net's upper edge looped inward as the ships turned bow-on to the spire. At least a third of the great fleet hung back, however. Either the Minoi directing those ships were concerned for their skins; or, more charitably, the tightening circle didn't permit all the vessels to approach without fouling one another.

  The spire lifted raggedly, like a wounded man trying to climb a palisade. Cords of yellow light, by now brighter than the sun, wrapped its base. Instead of slowing, the cone of black crystal steadied into a smooth climb. The cords of light stretched, and the nearest ships jerked nearer still. Their prows lifted skyward.

  The black fortress was several hundred feet off the ground when it paused. Varus thought, Has Procron finally exhausted his power?

  The spire began to slip westward, moving hesitantly. Two ships had been lifted to the crystal's height and were directly in its path. Varus expected splintering crashes. He had once seen a storm hurl a pleasure boat onto the cliffs of Capri. Instead he had a momentary impression of each ship intersecting with a mirror image of itself and vanishing.

  The spire moved with gathering speed, leaving the net of light in tatters behind it. Several ships had crashed into the jungle, whipsawed by bonds of light which their directing Minoi had not loosed in time.

  One vessel whirled in circles behind the spire to which it was attached by a vivid hawser of light. The Minos with the moss agate spindle had been directing it, but when it the vessel overturned the first time, it flung her and her talisman out. A dozen human servants had been aboard with her; all of them dropped into the sea or the jungle despite desperate attempts to cling to the railings.

  Four Servitors remained on deck, as firmly fixed as the mast. Varus could see them as glittering refractions of sunlight even after the ship and the spire which dragged it had vanished into the West.

  The edges of the vision began to blur. The images became fog from which the color bleached, filling the valley in which Varus had watched the battle.

  He turned to the Sibyl. Her lined face smiled. She said, "You have seen Procron, Lord Wizard. Can you stand against him?"

  "Is he my enemy, Sibyl?" Varus said. He had no way to measure the strength of one wizard against another--or against a hundred others--but he had seen rock melt and lush forest blaze at the touch of the powers the opponents were using. That he could understand.

  "He is the enemy of all men and all life," said the Sibyl. "Can you stand against him?"

  Varus wet his lips with his tongue. I am a citizen of Carce. "Sibyl," he said, "I will face Procron for as long as I can. I will face him for as long as I live."

  "Then return to the waking world for now," said the Sibyl. "The time is coming. Strong necessity demands that these things--"

  "Your lordship?" said Manetho. "I, ah, didn't hear all of your command. You were sayign that something needed to be accomplished?"

  Varus sat up, disoriented for a moment. He had been lying on the couch in the library. On the floor lay the wax tablet from which he had been reading his notes on the manumission ceremony to the clerk transcribing them in ink to a scroll.

  The clerk still stood beside the desk, though he looked logy and had almost certainly just been awakened. The windows were shuttered, but sunlight came through the louvers. The librarian, Alexandros, was also barely awake, but Manetho by the doorway looked brushed and alert. Varus wondered whether he and another deputy steward had been taking shifts so that one was sure to be ready when the young master woke up.

  "Your lordship...," Manetho said carefully. "The decision was made not to awaken you when you nodded off. If that was a mistake and you should have been helped to your bed, I will personally search out the servant responsible and have him sent to the fields. Ah--or perhaps to your noble father's silver mines in Spain?"

  Varus grimaced at the thought. Manetho wasn't joking, though he surely didn't--Varus hoped he didn't--think the young master would demand that sort of punishment for a servant who had simply guessed wrong about which of two equally probable outcomes Varus would prefer when he woke up. Not so long ago Alphena might have reacted that way, though Varus had the impression that she too was becoming more measured in her behavior.

  "Of course not," Varus said. He was suddenly angry when he realized that Manetho might be looking for an excuse to send a rival to brutal labor and an early death. "Don't ever suggest something like that to me."

  It had been bad enough to imply that the young master might be savage and unreasonable rather than the philosopher he strove to be. It was much worse to use him as a weapon against a victim who was not only undeserving of such punishment but even innocent.

  Varus got to his feet. He said, "Open the--"

  Before he got the rest of the sentence out, three servants were throwing open the shutters. His whole entourage--the day and night shifts together--was here in the library or in the corridor outside.

  He bent to pick up the tablet which had slipped from his fingers, wondering just how far he'd gotten in his dictation. He had thought he was too tense to get to sleep and that focusing on scholarship would calm him. The plan had apparently worked better than he had hoped.

  "Permit me, your lordship!" said the girl who had snatched the tablet from the floor. She put it in his hand, pressing his fingers as she did so. She must have been sleeping at the foot of his couch.

  Varus didn't remember her name, though he had seen her repeatedly in the past several days. He couldn't imagine why she had been assigned to him. If in fact she had been: in a household as large as Saxa's, it was quite possible for recently purchased servants to float for weeks or months without being given specific duties.

  He straightened abruptly without trying to hide his look of irritation. Just as he didn't want to be a tool of vengeance between servants, he disliked the notion of some illiterate girl using his favor to elevate herself among her fellows. She didn't even speak good Greek!

  "I believe I'll go to the baths now," Varus said to Manetho. "Or--are the baths in our gymnasium warm, by any chance?"

  Saxa's little exercise ground was fully equipped, though it had rarely been used before Varus invited his friend Corylus to visit. The attached bath had a steam room and a cold pool only big enough to sit in rather than swim, but that would be sufficient to relax the stiffness of a night spent sleeping awkwardly.

  Manetho smiled. "When I learned your lordship was here," he said, gesturing to the bookcases, "I ordered the furnace to be stoked. The water should be ready now."

  You just redeemed yourself, Varus thought. And after all, it was possible that the deputy steward hadn't had any evil motive in talking about punishments.

  Aloud he said, "Have a fresh tunic brought there for me," and started for the door. Manetho whisked out ahead of him.

  Frowning, Varus added, "Manetho, do you know what happened to the slaves whom my father freed, ah, yesterday?"

  "They were enrolled in a section of their own," Manetho said. "Master Lenatus was appointed as the decurion who will lead them."

  "Ah," said Varus, lifting his chin in understanding. His face was blank as he started downstairs toward the gymnasium at the back.

  It would not do for the Emperor to hear a rumor that Gaius Saxa was raising a private army of former slaves. On the other hand, Saxa's new clients had to be dealt with in some fashion, and keeping them in Carce under Lenatus was probably as safe as any choice could be. Besides, they might come in useful again....

  Varus thought of a wizard with the power to lift crystal mountains and to scour swathes of forest to bubbling rock. The Emperor wasn't the worst threat which
Saxa and the world faced at the moment.

  ***

  Instead of hanging its sail from a single spar, the Atlantean ship had two booms joined separately to the mast. When they began to flap like wings, Corylus looked up to see howe they were attached to the mast.

  There was no joint: the booms grew out of the mast the way branches spread from a tree bole. Corylus laid his palm against the mast and felt the wood bunch and flex as though he were touching the flank of a running horse.

  "Cousin?" he said. "Is this ship alive?"

  The sprite turned from the bow, where she had been looking out to sea. "I suppose it's alive the same way a crystal is," she said. "Does that matter?"

  "Perhaps not at the moment," Corylus said, a trifle sharply. The sprite's lack of curiosity disturbed him, but he had met no few human beings who also disregarded the world unless it had some immediate application to themselves. The soul of a tree which had been dust or ashes for untold thousands of years had a better reason to lack a sense of wonder.

  They were far enough out over the sea that Corylus could barely see the land they had left. They had slanted upward until the keel was--he looked over the railing--about a hundred feet above the water, but they were no longer climbing. There was nothing ahead or to either side, as best he could tell.

  The ancient wizard grinned at him. It didn't seem to need a talisman like those he had seen the Atlanteans in visions use when they propelled their ships.

  The ship's wings beat with slow, powerful strokes like those of a vulture gaining altitude on a gray day. Corylus said, "How long can we fly before we have to land? Or--"

  He knew he was being optimistic, but that didn't cost any more than anxiety would.

  "--can we soar without flapping?"

  The sprite looked puzzled. "How would we do that?" she said. "But we can fly as long as the sun shines. Why would you want to stop flying?"

  There was no useful answer to that--because of her disinterest and his ignorance, they were talking at cross purposes--so Corylus said, "Will we get home--to my home, I mean--before sunset, Coryla?"