Air and Darkness (36 page)

Bhiku laughed and sat cross-legged. Varus squatted. The cane floor was resilient and the straw sandals as comfortable as the suede slippers he would have worn indoors in Carce.

He opened his mouth to say as much to Bhiku, but Varus felt his soul leave his body and begin to climb the night black slope to the ridge on which the Sibyl always waited for him.

What will Bhiku think?
Varus wondered, remembering the concern his sister and Corylus had felt when he first began to have these spells. And as the thought formed in his mind, Varus realized that Bhiku was scrambling up the rough trail beside him.

“Master Bhiku!” Varus said, embarrassing himself. “That is, I'm very glad to see you, but I've never before seen anyone in these visions. Well, except the Sibyl.”

The sage smiled, making his face look like that of a friendly monkey. “You have books, Lord Varus,” he said. “I have gained my knowledge by other means. Although—”

He looked back the way they had come. Varus followed Bhiku's gaze, but as usual he saw only a featureless blur.

“—I could not have found my way here without you to guide me.”

They reached the top of the ridge and the sunlight of which there had been no hint on the slope below. The old—the ancient—woman waited for them, leaning on a cane of twisted ivory.

“Greetings, Lord Varus,” she said. The hood of her blue cape was thrown back. “And greetings to you also, Master Bhiku. I have few visitors in present days.”

Varus had been poised to introduce Bhiku to the Sibyl. That was pointless, and Varus realized that he should have known it was pointless before he formed the words.

Smiling wryly at himself, he said instead, “Sibyl, a king named Govinda is looking for me in the Waking World. I am told”—he didn't doubt it, but he was being precise, as Pandareus would expect—“that he is a magician.”

“Govinda is indeed a magician, Lord Wizard,” the Sibyl said. Her cackling laughter was uncannily similar to Bhiku's. “And there are two magicians searching for you. Govinda's ancestor accompanies him.”

She turned to look down the other side of the ridge. Varus walked over beside her, gesturing Bhiku to join them.

They viewed Raguram's palace from above. The open ground between the back of the main building and the masonry reservoir was filled with soldiers wearing helmets and carrying spiked shields. They were on foot, but horses and elephants waited outside the front of the palace. Raguram and his chamberlain faced the visitors, bowing to their leader.

That leader was a young man—no more than thirty—dressed entirely in cloth of gold, including his tight turban. He held a small black mirror in his left hand. The bald old man beside him was stark naked. Both were slender—the old man's ribs were visible, though he didn't look starved—and their similar hawk features suggested relationship.

“That is King Govinda,” Bhiku said. “I don't recognize the man with him, though. And why is he naked?”

“The old man is the spirit of Govinda's ancient ancestor,” said the Sibyl. “He is confined to the speculum of cannel coal which Govinda holds, but you see him from this vantage point. Those in the Waking World hear only a voice from the speculum.”

“The … figures following Govinda?” Varus said. He'd started to say
animals,
but the twelve bipeds wore clothing. He had seen baboons and even dogs prancing on their hind legs in vests and pantaloons, but these creatures seemed subtly different. “What are they?”

Govinda's ancestor pointed past the end of the reservoir. The king and his entourage walked in that direction, carrying Raguram with them perforce. Raguram's own retainers were mostly keeping their distance, though the chamberlain stayed with him and the pair of guards from outside his office in the stables stayed close behind.

“Those are Tyla priests,” said the Sibyl. “They were magicians. When Anti-Thule was destroyed, Govinda's ancestor escaped. Govinda sent his ancestor back to Anti-Thule to bring the priests here.”

“Abducted them?” Varus said.

The Sibyl smiled, though her face was so wrinkled that he was partly guessing at her expression. “Govinda gave them a chance to survive,” she said, “and the Tyla are enough like humans that they took the chance they were offered. They are magicians, but they could not hold the ice back without the power of the Godspeaker to support them.”

Govinda and his ancestor walked around the reservoir; his train followed like an armored caterpillar. The ancestor pointed toward the fig tree.

Bhiku said, “They are going to my hut.”

“They're looking for me,” said Varus. “As a matter of courtesy, I will return to meet my visitors.”

I only hope that my friends survive these next moments,
he thought. In the crisis it didn't occur to him to consider his own situation.

“If you are killed,” said the Sibyl, “you will not be able to thwart Govinda's plans for Carce.”

Then she shouted, “
Be things such as they were before!
” and Varus was back in his body and wobbling on the balls of his feet.

He stood and walked out of the simple hut. Behind him Bhiku was getting to his feet also, but Varus had attention only for Govinda at this moment. Varus could no longer see the ancestor, but he heard high-pitched words coming from the blackness of the king's mirror-polished disk.

“I am Gaius Alphenus Varus, a nobleman of Carce,” he said in a clear voice. “Are you looking for me?”

“You are the wizard from the West,” said Govinda in good Greek. He was as tall as Corylus, a physically powerful man.

Suitable for guarding a king were he not one himself,
Varus thought. He smiled at the thought.

The smile appeared to anger Govinda. “You will come with me and do my will!” the king said. “Or I will destroy you and destroy all those around you!”

“I will willingly go with you,” said Varus.

“Come, then,” said Govinda, gesturing Varus to his side.

Master Pandareus would have noted that the explicit acceptance of one of two conditions is the implicit rejection of the second,
Varus thought as they walked toward the front of the palace and the mounts that had carried the king and his train.
But it's probably just as well that Govinda's logic teacher was less able.

*   *   *

H
EDIA HAD EXPECTED THE CENTAUR
Gryneus to easily win his race against Ophius, a faun; and so he would have done had they run a straight furlong. The course Bacchus had set was a figure eight, however, and the contestants had to make a full circuit of the post in the middle as well. The centaur's speed swung his massive body wide, while Ophius' delicate quickness meant that he scarcely seemed to slow down as he cornered.

“Run!” Hedia shouted, clinging to Bacchus' arm. She wasn't so much cheering for either runner as caught up in the excitement of the race. “Run! Run!”

The spectators, the whole throng of the god's followers, laughed and cheered. There had already been archery and wrestling competitions, and a great deal of rich purple wine added to the jollity.

Ophius was in the lead on the final leg and halfway to the finish line before the centaur rounded the center post for the second time. The dappled Gryneus threw back dirt from all four hooves as he vaulted into a gallop.

“
Run!
” cried Hedia.

The finish line was merely a furrow Bacchus had traced on the ground with his sandal, but it shone like a bar of gold. Faun and centaur crossed it together in a cloud of dust and ran on, slowing gradually.

“Oh, who won, dear heart?” Hedia said, throwing both arms about Bacchus' chest. He was girlishly slim, but the muscles of his torso were as firm as taut bow cords. “Oh, they both won, didn't they? They were magnificent!”

“Then they both won,” Bacchus said. He squeezed her, then gently disengaged to free his hands as the contestants shambled back.

Ophius had one hand on the centaur's withers. They both looked as though they were ready to be skinned and ground up for sausage, but they were drinking from wineskins that the spectators offered. By the time they reached Bacchus they stood straight and walked briskly.

Bacchus smiled as he met the contestants and said, “My delightful Hedia says that you both won the race, showing that she is as clever as she is lovely and talented. Gryneus and Ophius, for proving yourselves unbeatable runners, take these trinkets as tokens of the honor in which I hold you.”

He held out laurel wreaths; the centaur bowed his head so that the god could place it at the same time that he crowned the faun. The leaves bloomed brighter than gold when Bacchus released them.

Hedia stepped forward and kissed Ophius. The faun's shaggy chest tickled through her sheer garment.

She released him and turned to Gryneus, raising her arms. The centaur laughed and bent forward. Instead of simply receiving the kiss, he lifted Hedia as he straightened again. He held her easily in a long embrace, then lowered her as gently as Bacchus himself would have done.

The spectators cheered even more loudly than they had done for the race itself. Hedia, flushed with delight, returned to the god's side and clung to him.

“My lord Bacchus!” said Ampelos from just behind them. He was flushed also, but his tones were as harsh as a throat so golden could manage.

“Ampelos, my little heart?” Bacchus said, his face showing surprise and perhaps a touch of concern.

“We have dallied here, lord of lords,” Ampelos said. “Is it not now time to spread your fame still farther in the Waking World? You have conquered the East; now the Empire of Carce should bow before your omnipotence!”

“Ampelos, dear…,” Bacchus said. “This is a pleasant place and there's much here to show our friend Hedia.”

“That woman!” the youth said. “You've surrendered your honor to trifle with a woman!”

He's exactly like Latus' little friends,
Hedia thought as she disengaged her arm from Bacchus.
Except that he's even prettier.

Her first husband, Gaius Calpurnius Latus, was sexually adventurous—as adventurous as Hedia, if it came to that—but he preferred boys. They were often charming when they were in a good mood, but she had found them generally more touchy, jealous, and
bitchy
than women of a similar sort.

There were sometimes ways to handle the situation, however.

“Ampelos, dear,” Hedia said, moving toward the youth's side. “Wouldn't you like to join us for a little while? I don't know that I've ever seen such a lovely young man as you, and I'd
really
like to get to know you better.”

Ampelos stood transfixed. Hedia extended her hand to the boy's shoulder. He jerked away in horror.

“Slut!” he shouted. “Filth! Offal!”

Well, he didn't slap me,
Hedia thought. Though she could have worked with a slap; tears of despair sometimes prevailed where a more direct invitation did not. Anyway, it had been worth a try.

“My lord Bacchus!” Ampelos said. “Please, don't let this
woman
corrode your honor. Prove, with me at your side, that you are the great god you are meant to be!”

“Dear One,” Bacchus said with a touch of warning in his voice. “I am the lord Bacchus, son of Zeus. I have nothing to prove to anyone.”

Ampelos must have heard the warning, because his whole manner changed. “As my lord and god wishes,” he said, bowing.

He turned away and remounted the chariot in which he had arrived during the games that Bacchus had called. “With me!” Ampelos shouted. “All those who want to spread our master's name across the Waking World!”

Ampelos and a mixed horde of humans and other followers of the god swept away from the greater throng. They were probably the band of some hundreds that had appeared in Polymartium on the morning of the ceremony. That was so long ago in Hedia's mind.…

Bacchus watched his lover drive away with the closest thing to a frown Hedia had seen on the god's face. She touched his shoulder for attention and said softly, “He'll be back soon, my dear lord. You know he gets this way sometimes.”

She knew very little about Ampelos personally, but his
sort
 … Oh, yes, Hedia knew his sort very well.

“We've watched your followers exercise,” she said. She felt the shoulder muscles start to loosen though Bacchus didn't look at her. “Isn't it time that you and I got some exercise ourselves? Ampelos may come back and join us, you know?”

Bacchus finally turned and kissed her. “Yes,” he said, brightening perceptibly. “We should do that.”

*   *   *

H
EDIA COULDN'T JUDGE TIME
when she was engaged with the god, but it didn't seem long—minutes or possibly an hour—before they were interrupted. A centaur and the Maenad who had returned on his back stood outside the woven bower, their expressions distraught.

“Great lord!” the Maenad cried. “The sun-bright Ampelos has been struck down!”

Bacchus strode from the bower, his face flaming with rage. Without looking back at Hedia, he leaped into his waiting chariot and drove off. The centaur galloped at his side to guide him, and the whole entourage surged to follow.

Hedia stood.
It's like being doused in cold water in the middle of a climax,
she thought, and smiled, because that had happened to her once.

After thinking about it, she pulled her sandals on and walked off at the tail of the throng. She didn't know what was happening, but the cyclops had taught her that she was safer with Bacchus in this portion of the Otherworld than she would be on her own.

*   *   *

C
ORYLUS PAUSED AS THEY CAME
out of broken woodland onto a rolling plain not dissimilar from what he might have seen in the countryside around Carce. There was no path—there hadn't been a path in the woods, either—but when Aura set out through the knee-high grass he followed without hesitation.