From the Heart of Darkness (19 page)

The same story would be sufficient now.

“Goodby, you son of a bitch,” Deehalter said, and he raised his rifle. He fired point blank into the smaller man's chest.

Kernes
whuffed
backwards as if a giant had kicked him. There was a look of amazement on his face and nothing more; but momentarily, something hung in the air between the dead man and the living, something as impalpable as the muzzle blast that rocked the hillside—and as real.

Deehalter's flesh
gave
and for a startled second he/it knew why the Indians had buried their possessed brother alive, to trap the contagion with him in the rock instead of merely passing it on to raven and slay again.…

Then the sun was bright on Deehalter's back, casting his shadow across the body of the man he had murdered. He recalled nothing of the moment just past.

Except that when he remembered the creature's last red leer, he seemed to be seeing the image in a mirror.

THE SHORTEST WAY

The dingy relay station squatted beside the road. It had a cast-off, abandoned look about it though light seeped through chinks in the stone where mortar had crumbled. Broken roofslates showed dark in the moonlight like missing teeth. To the rear bulked the stables where relays for the post riders stamped and nickered in their filthy stalls, and the odor of horse droppings thickened the muggy night.

The three riders slowed as they approached.

“Hold up,” Vettius ordered. “We'll get a meal here and ask directions.”

Harpago cantered a little further before halting. He was aristocrat enough to argue with a superior officer and young enough to think it worthwhile. “If we don't keep moving, sir, we'll never get to Aurelia before daybreak.”

“We'll never get there at all if we keep wandering in these damned Dalmatian hills,” Vettius retorted as he dismounted. His side hurt. Perhaps he had gotten too old for this business. At sunup he had strapped his round shield tightly to his back to keep it from slamming during the long ride. All day it had rubbed against his cuirass, and by now it had left a sore the size of his hand.

The shield itself galled him less than what it represented. A sunburst whose rays divided ten hearts spaced around the rim had been nielloed onto the thin bronze facing: the arms of the Household Cavalry. Leading a troop of the emperor's bodyguard should have climaxed Vettius' career, but he had quickly discovered his job was really that of special staff with little opportunity for fighting. He was sent to gather information for the emperor where the stakes were high and the secret police untrustworthy. There was danger in probing the ulcers of a dying empire, but Vettius found no excitement in it; only disgust.

Dama chuckled with relief to be out of his saddle again. He used his tunic to fan the sweat from his legs, looking inconsequential beside the two powerful soldiers. Though he was a civilian, a sword slapped against his thigh. In the backcountry, weapons were the mark of caution rather than belligerence. He nodded toward the still silent building, his blond hair gleaming as bright in the moonlight as the bronze helmets of his two companions. “If it weren't for the light, I'd say the place was empty.”

The door of the station creaked open, making answer needless. The man who stood on the threshold was as old and gnarled as the pines that straggled up the slopes of the valley. He faced them with wordless hostility. The last regular courier had passed, and he had been dozing off when this new party arrived. Like many petty officeholders, the stationmaster reveled in his authority—but did not care to be reminded of the duties that went with his position.

Vettius strode forward holding out a scroll of parchment. “Food for us,” he directed, “and you can give our horses some grain while we eat.”

“All right for you and the other,” the stationmaster rasped. “The civilian finds his own meal.”

“Government service,” Harpago muttered. He spat.

Vettius began kneading one wrist with his other hand. The little merchant touched his friend's elbow, but Vettius shook him away. “I'll take care of it my own way,” he said. His temper had worn thin on the grueling ride, and the stationmaster's sneering slovenliness gouged at his nerves.

“Old man,” he continued in a restrained voice, “my authority is for food and accommodations for me and my staff. The civilian is with me as part of my staff. Do you dispute the emperor's authority?”

The stationmaster reared back his head to look the soldier in the eyes. “Even the emperor can't afford to feed every starving thief who comes along,” he began.

Vettius slapped him to the ground. “Will you call my friend a thief again?” he grated.

The old man's eyes narrowed in hatred as he sullenly dabbed at his bleeding lip, but he shook his head, cowering before the soldier. “I didn't mean it that way.”

“Then take care of those horses—and be thankful I don't have you rub them down with your tongue.” Vettius stamped angrily into the station, Harpago and Dama behind him.

“Food!” Vettius snapped. A dumpy peasant woman scurried to open a cupboard.

“I could have paid something, Lucius,” the merchant suggested as they seated themselves at the trestle table. “After all, I came because I thought I could set up some business of my own here.”

“And I brought you because I need your contacts,” his friend replied. “The traders here won't tell me if they think the governor really is trying to raise money for a rebellion.”

He paused, massaging the inside of his thighs where they ached from holding him into his stirrupless saddle since early dawn. “Besides,” he added quietly, “it's been a long day—too long to be put upon by of some lazy bureaucrat.”

Dama sighed as the serving woman set down barley bread and cheese. “Not much of a meal anyway, is it?” he said. “I thought the empire fed its post couriers better than this, even in the back country.”

“And I thought we were going to get directions here,” Harpago complained. “If we don't get to Aurelia before the fair ends we'll find all the merchants scattered—and then how are we going to learn anything?”

“We'll find a way,” Vettius assured him sourly. He took a gulp of the wine the woman had poured him, then slammed the wooden cup back on the table. “Gods! that's bad.”

“Local vintage,” Dama agreed. “Maybe I should try to sell some decent wine here instead of silk.”

The older soldier swigged some more wine and grimaced wryly. “Old man!” he shouted. After a moment the stationmaster came to the door. He limped slightly and his swollen lip was a blotch of color against his tight face.

The soldier ignored the anger in the old man's eyes. “How far is it to Aurelia?” he demanded.

“By which road?” the other growled.

Vettius touched the pommel of his spatha so that the long straight blade rattled against the bench. “By the shortest way,” he said testily.

“You have to…” the stationmaster began, then paused. He seemed to consider the matter carefully before he started again. “The shortest way, you say. Well, there's a road just past the station. If you turn north on it, it's only about twenty miles. But you'll have to look well, because nobody's been over that road for fifty years and the beginning is all grown over with trees.”

The serving woman suddenly chattered something in her own language. The man snarled back at her and she fell silent.

“Could you catch any of that?” Vettius asked Dama under his breath.

The little Cappadocian shrugged. “She said something about bandits. He told her to be quiet. But I don't really know the language, you know.”

“Bandits we can take care of,” Harpago muttered, one finger tracing a dent in the helmet he had rested on the table.

“How else can we get to Aurelia?” Vettius questioned, half squinting as if to measure the stationmaster for a cross.

“You can keep on into Pasini, then turn back west on the Salvium road,” the other replied without meeting the officer's eyes. “It's several times as long.”

“Then we go by the straight route?” Vettius said, looking at his companions questioningly.

Harpago rose and reslung his shield.

“Why not?” Dama agreed.

The stationmaster watched them mount and ride off. His gnarled face writhed in terrible glee.

*   *   *

“What did they do, tear the whole road up?” Harpago asked. Even with the stationmaster's warning they had almost ridden past the junction. The surfacing flags and concrete certainly had been taken up. Seeds had lodged in the road metal beneath. They had grown to sizable trees by now, so that the only sign of the narrow road was a relative absence of undergrowth.

“The locals must have torn up this branch because it wasn't used much and they were tired of the labor taxes to repair it,” Vettius surmised. “They probably used the stone to fill holes on one of the main roads.”

“But if this leads to the district market town, it should have gotten quite a lot of use,” Dama argued.

“At least it'll guide us to where we're going,” Harpago put in, plunging into the trees.

The pines grew close together and their branches frequently interlocked; riding through them was difficult. Vettius began to wonder if they should stop and turn back, but after a hundred yards or so the torn up section gave way to regular road.

Dama paused, looking back in puzzlement as his fingers combed pine straw out of his hair. “You know,” he said, “I think they planted those trees on the road-bed when they tore up the surface.”

“Why should they do that?” Vettius snorted.

“Well, look around,” his friend pointed out. “The road is cracked here, too, but there aren't any trees growing in it. Besides, the trees don't grow as thickly anywhere else around here as they do on that patch of road. Somebody planted them to block it off completely.”

The soldier snorted again, but he turned in his saddle. Dama had a point, he realized. In fact, the pines might even be growing in crude rows. “Odd,” he admitted at last.

“Sir!” called Harpago, who had ridden far ahead. “Are you coming?”

Vettius raised an eyebrow. Dama laughed and slapped his horse's flank. “He's young; he'll learn.”

“Sorry if I seem to push,” the adjutant apologized as they trotted onward, “but I don't like wasting time on this stretch of road. It's too dark for me.”

“Dark?” Vettius echoed in amazement. For the first time he took more than cursory notice of their surroundings. The swampy gully to the left of the road had once been a drainage ditch. Long abandonment had left it choked with reeds, while occasional willows sprouted languidly from its edge. On the right, ragged forest climbed the slope of the valley. Scrub pine struggled through densely interwoven underbrush to form a stark, desolate landscape.

But dark? The moonlight washed the broken pavement into a metal serpent twisting through the forest. The trees were too stunted to overshadow the road, and the paving stones gleamed against the contrast of frequent cracks and potholes. Even the scabbed boles of the pines showed silver scales where the moon touched them.

“I wouldn't call it dark,” Vettius concluded aloud, “though you could hide a regiment in those thickets.”

“No, he's right,” Dama disagreed unexpectedly. “It does seem dark, and I can't figure out why.”

“Don't tell me both of you are getting nervous of shadows,” jeered Vettius.

“I just wonder why they blocked off this road,” the merchant replied vaguely. “From the look of the job it must have taken most of the district. Wonder what that stationmaster sent us into.…”

*   *   *

Miles clattered gloomily by under their horses' hooves. It was fell, waste land, a wretched paradigm for much of the empire in these latter days. This twisting valley could never have been much different, though. The humid bottoms had never been tilled; perhaps a few hunters had taken deer among its drooping pines. For the others who had come this way—lone travellers, donkey caravans, troops in glittering armor—the valley was only an incident of passage.

Now even the road was crumbling. Although only a short distance had been systematically destroyed, nature and time had taken a hand with the remainder. The flags had humped and split as water seepage froze in the winter, and one great section had fallen into the gully whose spring torrents had undercut it. They led their horses over the rubble while the pines drank their curses.

The usual nightbirds were hushed or absent.

Even Vettius began to feel uneasy. The moonlight weighed on his shoulders like a palpable force, crushing him down in his saddle. The moon was straight overhead now. Occasional streaks of light pierced the groping branches to paint the dark trunks with sword-blades.

It
was
dark now. No white face would gleam from the forest edge to warn of the bandit arrow to follow in an instant. Was it fear of bandits that made him so tense? In twenty years service he had ridden point in tighter places!

Letting his horse pick its own way over the broken road, Vettius scanned the forest. He took off his helmet and the tight leather cap that cushioned it. The air felt good, a prickly coolness that persisted even after he put the helmet back on, but there was no relief from the ominous tension. Grunting, he tried to hike his shield a little higher on his back.

Dama chuckled in vindication. “Nervous, Lucius?” he asked.

Vettius shrugged. “The woman at the station said there were bandits.”

“On an abandoned piece of road like this?” Dama laughed bitterly. “I wish she were here now. I'd find out for sure what she did say. Do you suppose she knew any Greek besides ‘food' and ‘wine'?”

“No, she was too ugly for other refreshment,” Vettius said. His forced laughter bellowed through the trees.