Air and Darkness (20 page)

She reached out and squeezed Corylus' wrist with her left hand. He looked at her in surprise.

“I've learned a great deal from Mother,” Alphena said. “And from you and my brother. Thank you.”

“Umm,” Corylus said, facing front immediately. “It's mutual, I assure you.”

He sounded as though he meant it, but what precisely he meant wasn't clear. This wasn't the time to pursue the matter, and Alphena wasn't sure that she ever wanted to pursue it.

The understeward's eyes suddenly focused. He lurched to his feet, using one hand to brace himself against the rock behind him. He was holding a piece of fruit—one of the unusually large local grapes—in his other hand.

For a moment Alphena though Manetho was going to throw the remainder away. Instead he popped it in his mouth, chewed for a moment, and swallowed. Juice ran down his chin.

Various ways to handle what had just happened cascaded through Alphena's mind. Ignoring it was simplest and had no immediate disadvantages.

“Good evening, Manetho,” Alphena said briskly. “We're here to find my mother and brother. What happened on the day they disappeared?”

Manetho swayed. “Your Ladyship?” he said.

“Yes,” Alphena said. “We know that the god Bacchus appeared. What did you see of Hedia and Varus after that?”

Alphena found it surprisingly easy to keep her temper when she reminded herself that she had a task to perform.
Screaming at a servant won't bring Mother back.

Manetho blinked. Grapevines had naturally plaited themselves into a rope. It dangled in a swag across the face of the outcrop behind him. He reached for another grape without taking his eyes off his mistress.

Corylus took Manetho's hand, not harshly, and said, “That's all right, old man. You've had a few jars, haven't you? Why don't you walk us to the place where all this happened. The exercise will do you good.”

“It's the grapes,” Manetho said. “They're the best wine you ever drank.”

“Come on, let's walk,” Corylus said, moving the understeward away from the rock with one hand still on the right wrist. The other held the staff behind Manetho's back, pressing gently. “Which way, buddy?”

He's probably had a lot of experience handling drunks in military cantonments,
Alphena thought. Then she thought,
Mother probably has a lot of experience also, but different experiences.

Alphena paused to pick a grape and nibble before she followed the four men. Manetho was right: the rich purple skin was as full of wine as a goatskin bottle. It was strong wine too, stronger than the unmixed Caecuban that Hedia occasionally gave Alphena when it was just the two of them together.

“So that you'll know what your limits are if you stay late at a party, dear child,” Hedia had said.
I've got to get her back!

They were headed toward the bottom of the open space. A path trailed off there, back in the general direction of the road a little south of the path they'd come by. They started down it. Manetho walked more or less normally, but Corylus kept his free arm hovering behind the understeward's back in case he had to grab him suddenly.

“Here,” said Manetho, stopping. “Down there, that's where it happened.”

They were on an outcrop, looking ten feet down at a clearing smaller that the one where they'd seen the troops stationed. In the middle of the open space was a boulder of some size; a rivulet leaked from the heart of the rock on which they stood and licked one side of the boulder.

“See that tree?” Manetho said, pointing past the boulder to the far end of the clearing.

“The olive?” Corylus said.

“Right. The Indian delegates that had come with one of Senator Sentius' understewards, they'd just planted a vine there. They were praying and it got light like there was a fire, only pink—not orange like a fire.”

“The vine that's growing on the tree now?” Alphena said. “It's
huge
. At the base it's thicker than my arm. It's
covering
the tree.”

“Yes, Your Ladyship,” Manetho said. “But they just planted it. And there was the light, a big disk of light, and Lord Varus walked into it. Except…”

The understeward shook his head as though to clear it. “Only before that,” he said, “Lord Bacchus and his cortege came out—not through the light, just out of it. There were thousands of them, fauns and tigers and all manner of things. I can't really remember the order it all happened. It isn't very clear, any of it. I may be wrong.”

“But you saw my brother go into the light?” Alphena said. “What did my mother do? Did you see her?”

“I was with Her Ladyship,” Manetho said. “She called to Lord Varus and she started walking toward him. We were down in the clearing already, but not close. I was with her; I was following Her Ladyship; I was doing my duty; I
swear
I was. Only I can't tell you how I felt; it was like I was floating and the gods were dancing with me, only it was women who'd come with Bacchus. And I danced with them; that's all I remember.”

“Did the Lady Hedia follow Gaius into the light, Manetho?” Corylus said.

“I didn't see,” said the understeward miserably. He shook his head again. “The way I felt, the way everybody felt—it wasn't just me; it was everybody. You had to float with it, everybody did, only…”

He took hold of his emotions and straightened, suddenly becoming the trusted servant of a noble household. “Lady Alphena,” he said, “when I last saw your mother, she was walking toward the disk of light. Everyone else,
everyone,
was going mad, but she wasn't. She was moving like a fish against the stream, ignoring the riot and the things who'd come out of the light.”

Manetho cleared his throat; his voice had begun to rasp. “I don't know what Lady Hedia did after I saw her last,” he said, “but she knew what she was doing and nobody was going to stop her. Whatever it was.”

Alphena felt suddenly dizzy. “I understand,” she said.

“If Lord Sentius was involved with this…,” said Pandareus, “as we thought he might be from the first, after all, then there's the possibility that he will be able to return Lady Hedia and Lord Varus to the Waking World, or at least to show us how to go to them.”

Pandareus' measured tones were soothing.
He's talking about the problem, not the darkness that threatens beyond the edges of the little that we really know.

“Mother went somewhere that isn't here anymore,” Alphena said. “We need a magician to get her back and get back my brother. My brother, who's the magician we need.”

“I want to go down and see that olive closer up,” Corylus said. “The rest of you can wait here.”

“We can come with you,” Alphena said. Her tone was sharper than she'd intended.

“I'd rather—” Corylus said.

“Corylus, do you talk to trees?” Alphena said, letting the words burst out over his objection. She knew the answer from things she had seen and heard in the past months, but he had never admitted it.

Corylus touched his tongue to his lips. His voice had been harsh a moment before. Mildly he said, “Not exactly. But something like that, yes. I suppose I shouldn't be embarrassed or whatever it is. We've seen stranger things than that.”

“So we have,” said Pulto. “And by Hercules! I wish we hadn't.”

Pulto was looking at the ground rather than at any of his companions. Pandareus waited with his usual attitude of quiet expectancy; Manetho seemed to have slipped back into the drunken reverie from which their arrival had roused him.

“If you want to come, come along,” Corylus said. He started toward the side where the slope softened enough to allow them to walk down instead of sliding.

“It's happening again,” Manetho said without raising his voice. He pointed to the tree through a filter of rosy haze that hadn't been there a moment before. “Lord Bacchus is coming again. And I'm thankful.”

“Back to the bridge and the coach!” Corylus said. “Fast!”

“But shouldn't we wait and—” Alphena said.

“No!” said Corylus, grabbing her wrist. “Pulto, leave Manetho and move!”

Alphena turned and ran with Corylus. She didn't pull her hand away from him until he released her himself.

*   *   *

H
EDIA DIDN'T THINK
B
OEST HAD MOVED
since she left him. She had drunk her fill before leaving Gilise's valley, but her nostrils and the back of her throat had begun to dry as soon as she started back down the slope to Boest and Paddock.

It
used
to be Gilise's valley.
Hedia laughed and felt better for it.

“Master Boest!” she called as she started up to where the big man sat. She waved the glass phial in her right hand. “I have something for you.”

Boest didn't respond. Well, she hadn't really expected him to.

“Greetings, Lady Hedia,” the toad croaked. “You made good time.”

Hedia waved again but didn't otherwise reply. The last twenty feet were making her stagger. If she hadn't been determined not to give in to weakness, she would have paused for a few minutes before climbing the final portion. She'd forced herself to breathe through her nose, because breathing through her open mouth would have been not only unladylike but also uncouth.

She smiled again. Each breath was painful and her lungs were burning, but there was so much other pain that she didn't particularly notice it.

The gritty soil on this side of the ridge had gotten between Hedia's feet and the leather of the sandals. She had tightened the straps because there was nothing else to do, but she knew her soles were bleeding by now.

She stood for a moment beside the big man. Paddock hadn't shifted his position, but she realized that one of the toad's eyes was watching her. The thought was briefly disconcerting, but only briefly. Hedia was used to accepting the whims of men she was with; and if Paddock wanted to watch her sidelong, that was less surprising than some of the things she'd grown accustomed to.

“I have your soul, Master Boest,” she said, holding out the phial. It was the size of a baby's fist. The glass was faintly greenish. In the interior, sparkles swirled on currents in an unseen fluid. The stopper was fixed in place with a blob of yellow wax.

“Ah,” said Boest. His head moved slightly so that his eyes could follow one of his goats on the other side of the valley; otherwise Hedia's figure would have blocked his view.

“Do you believe in the power of prayer, Hedia?” Paddock said.

“What?” said Hedia. “No. I make the usual offerings to the gods, of course, but that's because it's proper to do so. I don't imagine that immortal powers will aid me because I burned a pinch of frankincense or whatever.”

“I prayed that you would come to us,” the toad said. “And you came.”

“Yes,” said Hedia. “And it rained three days ago on the twelfth of the month. Did you pray for that also?”

She waved her free hand dismissively. “I've brought what Gilise claimed was Boest's soul,” she said, raising the bottle slightly for emphasis. “I don't think he was lying. What do I do now so that I can find the Spring of True Answers?”

“Hold the bottle under Boest's nose,” Paddock said. “When he begins to breathe in, pull the top off.”

Hedia knelt, feeling the grit through the skirt of her tunic. She had scraped her knees already in the course of misdirecting Gilise.

She held the phial beneath Boest's nose as directed, but he tried to twitch his head away. “Stop that!” she snapped. She gripped his bearded chin between her left thumb and forefinger. He didn't pull away.

“Now breathe in,” Paddock said. “
Breathe,
darling, for us.”

Boest's nostrils flared. Hedia flicked the top off the phial with her left thumb as he took a deep breath.

The sparkling lights from the interior of the phial flowed into the big man's nose. For a moment Hedia thought she saw them winking and shining in his eyes as well. Boest blinked.

Hedia had seen men in a variety of moods, sometimes several violently different moods in a matter of seconds as a realization sank in. What she saw on Boest's face now made her step away so abruptly that she almost fell backward on the slope.

That passed. Boest got to his feet, cradling the toad in his left hand. Hedia looked up at Boest.

He's bigger than I thought. He's much bigger.

“Welcome back, heart of my heart,” Paddock said.

Boest smiled at him. “You've changed, little one,” he said in a deep, melodious tone.

“Not in the important ways,” the toad said. “My love hasn't changed.”

“Lady Hedia,” Boest said, nodding to acknowledge her. “I will guide you to the Spring of True Answers, as you wish. But first we will return to my valley to see Gilise.”

“I told him I would spare his life if he returned your soul, Master Boest,” Hedia said.

“I would not kill him,” said Boest. It was like listening to a waterfall speak. “But we have things to discuss, Gilise and I. I very much want to have a discussion with him.”

Boest offered Hedia his free hand as they started toward the green valley. She was glad of the support.

 

CHAPTER
VI

Alphena stumbled almost at once. Corylus had led them into the brush instead of following a path, and an ankle-height lip of rock stood up from the surrounding soil. Even after she tripped, the lip was barely visible over the leaf litter. She didn't sprawl on her face—swordsmanship training had made her nimble—but she wasn't nearly as surefooted as Corylus was.

He was a Scout,
Alphena remembered. Or at least he had gone across the Danube with the Scouts. The exercise ground—and the arena itself; the word simply meant “a sand surface”—was smooth. Slaughter on the frontiers took place in any kind of terrain and often enough in woodland.