Elements 03 - Monsters of the Earth (6 page)

“I recognize the lizardmen,” Varus said. In this vision the creatures wore bronze armor, but there was no doubt that they were the same race as the ones in the cage in Puteoli. “But who are the giants they’re fighting? Are they from Africa too?”

“They are the Ethiopes,” the Sibyl said. “A very long time ago the Ethiopes came to Africa from India. In Africa they fought the Singiri, whom you call lizardmen. As you see.”

Below, the lizardmen had been retreating to keep from being surrounded, but they now stood back to back in a circle. There were only a dozen of them standing, though six or eight more armored bodies lay as lumps on the flattened meadow.

At least a hundred Ethiopes had fallen, dead or too injured to advance farther, but hundreds more pressed the surviving lizardmen. The weapons of the horse-headed giants were crude, heavy-shafted spears with flint points, but they thrust with enormous power.

Repeatedly Varus saw a lizardman flung backward by a blow that his shield had stopped. Sometimes the stone point shattered; the metal looked like bronze, but it blocked spears that would have penetrated an infantry shield’s two-inch thickness of laminated birch.

Even so, the lizardmen tangled with one another, then fell and were battered to death. Corylus—or Alphena—would understand better what was happening, but even Varus could see that the fight would be over shortly.

“You say this was long ago,” Varus said. “The Singiri … that is,
do
the Singiri still live in Africa?”

He had started to say that the lizardmen still lived in Africa, but that was an assumption that the fact that Veturius had found four of the creatures in Africa did not prove. Veturius himself had been in Africa too, and he certainly didn’t live there.

“The Singiri could not stand against the Ethiopes,” said the Sibyl. She spoke dispassionately, as Pandareus had done two days ago in explaining why the unvoiced letter
h
remains in the written form of the noun “honor.” “But their princess was a magician and created a haven for her race within the Earth.”

Two armored lizardmen fell simultaneously, opening a gap in the defensive circle. Then they were all down, dead or dying as the Ethiopes pounded them like grain in a mortar.

The Sibyl moved her left hand as though wiping the surface of the air. The battle blurred away. In its place was the image of a distant hillside on which thousands of Singiri stood. In front were armored warriors while behind them sheltered slender females and offspring as supple as trout.

Ethiopes in tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands poised below the Singiri. There were males and females alike, both genders armed, both savage. The horse-headed giants swept forward with a great cry, a pitiless tide.

The hill behind the lizardmen gouted rock like a cold volcano. The spray rose and continued rising. The Singiri warriors continued to face their opponents, but the Ethiopes paused to view the wonder.

The column of rock slackened, then stopped. An Ethiope stepped forward and shouted back to her fellows; the onslaught resumed. The ranked Singiri faded and vanished like wraiths of gossamer on the wind. The Ethiopes continued to advance because only those in the front of the mass could see what had happened.

Varus looked at his companion. “Why have the Singiri returned, Sibyl?” he asked.

There was movement in the corner of his eye. He turned quickly. The rock that had blown skyward now cascaded out of the sky. It buried the hillside and the valley below in a churning, thunderous torrent.

Clouds swirled even after the dust ceased to fall. It formed images and dissolved and re-formed again and again. As it settled, a mountain slowly emerged where the valley had been. There was no sign of the Ethiopes.

“The Singiri have lived for a thousand ages in their place, complete in themselves because of the magic of their princess,” the Sibyl said. “But they are safe only so long as the Earth is safe. And driven by a great magician, the Earth—”

She gestured again with her open palm.

“—has turned against all life.”

In front of Varus was the image of a ball on which movement glittered.
Caterpillars on a globe of fruit
, Varus thought.
Crystal caterpillars on a plum or a
—

“You see the Earth,” the Sibyl said. “And you see the Worms of the Earth, her children. They will scour the planet bare to its molten core, Lord Varus.”

Varus suddenly appreciated the scale of what he was seeing: two serpents of crystal each a thousand miles long writhed over the world, devouring rock and sea alike. As the Worms ate, they grew from the substance of the world that shrank beneath them.

“Sibyl, how can I stop them?” Varus said.

“When the Worms have hatched, no man can stop them,” the old woman said. She turned and met his eyes. “Not even you, Lord Magician. And the Worms have hatched!”

Varus felt himself falling back into the Waking World, his soul rejoining his body and his friends in Puteoli. The Sibyl’s mouth opened, but he knew it was his own voice shouting, “‘
A terrible snake breathing war against all life will kill every human and destroy the world!
’”

CHAPTER
II

Alphena started protectively toward her brother, because he was always disorganized after one of these spells. Embarrassment aside, Varus could be badly hurt if he stumbled the wrong way among these cages.

“A snake!” said Macsturnas, rising on tiptoes and trying to look in all directions at once. “Where’s the snake?
Where is it?
”

“There’s no snake, Lord Macsturnas,” said Alphena, turning to face the aedile. Corylus was already holding his friend’s arm, and Pulto had come from somewhere to stand on Varus’ other side. “That was just a line of poetry. My brother is a poet, and he’s always working on new verses.”

She smiled, and she had managed to keep her voice soothing.
Hedia will be pleased.
“And even without snakes, your gift to the people of Carce will be marvelous, unique. I’ve been entranced by even this short glimpse of your animals.”

If Macsturnas had been Alphena’s servant, she would have slapped him instead of burbling flattery. That would probably be the best way to settle even a senator who was sniveling with fear, but it wouldn’t be decorous. Her first concern had to be her brother.

Paris, the old man who had come with Macsturnas, started past his patron to get closer to Varus. Alphena looked at him sharply. Either that or the way Pulto hunched caused Paris to change his mind and slip back behind the aedile.

“A poem?” said Macsturnas. He relaxed visibly, though he still kept his arms closer to his sides than he had done before the fright. “Oh, I see. I wasn’t expecting … that is, I didn’t realize that Lord Varus was quoting poetry.”

Alphena wasn’t sure, either, though it seemed likely enough. It was a good excuse to offer a stranger like Macsturnas, so she had offered it.

Varus was standing straight again. Corylus had loosened his grip, though he still kept his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

Saxa looked almost as disturbed as the aedile had, though his concern was for Varus. He hesitated, unable to choose between going to his son’s side and leaving him to Corylus and his servant.

Varus was probably better in their experienced hands. From the way Hedia shifted her body, she would have stopped Saxa if he had tried to join Varus.

“Brother?” Alphena said, speaking clearly and louder than would have been necessary for Varus alone to hear her. “I was just telling Lord Macsturnas that you often call out lines when you’re composing poetry. The way you did just now.”

Varus grinned at her. He moved his shoulder gently out from under Corylus’ touch.

“Why, yes,” Varus said. He dipped his head toward the aedile. “I apologize if I startled you, Your Lordship. A muse like mine is a hard taskmistress, you will appreciate.”

If Alphena hadn’t known that her brother had given up writing poetry after the humiliating failure of his first public performance, she would have taken his statement as his real feelings—just as Macsturnas did. The aedile now saw Varus as a ninny with illusions of talent, a self-important fool, and, above all, harmless.

Hedia had been whispering into Saxa’s ear. Her smile hadn’t slipped, but Alphena was close enough to hear her mother’s urgent tone though not the words themselves.

Saxa nodded three times as though settling a jumble of ideas into order in his head. He turned to the aedile and said, “Quite an interesting collection, Macsturnas. You’ve done well, very well for a young man. I shouldn’t wonder if your gift isn’t the standard against which all beast hunts in the future will be measured.”

Since her parents had the aedile’s attention, Alphena moved without haste to join her brother and Corylus. Varus was fully himself again, adjusting the folds of his toga.

It was a single piece of cloth. Despite its quality—the son of Alphenus Saxa wore the best Spanish wool woven so fine that it was relatively comfortable even on a day as hot as this—the toga had begun to loosen while Varus sleepwalked through the compound. Tradition forbade a gentleman of Carce from pinning the ancient garment in place.

“I just asked your brother…,” Corylus said. He spoke in a calm voice that wasn’t a whisper but couldn’t be heard beyond the three of them. “Whether he was quoting the
Sibylline Books
again.”

“And I was about to reply,” said Varus, “that I can’t very well say because I’ve never even seen the books. But judging from what Commissioner Priscus said when I had one of these spells before, I suppose I was.”

He made a moue of embarrassment and added, “At any rate, I was dreaming of the Sibyl again. Having a vision, at least.”

Pulto had joined Cispius and Veturius. They stood shoulder to shoulder, far enough from the cage behind them that the six wolves within couldn’t scrabble far enough through the bars to reach the veterans’ legs.

The three veterans were stiffly alert, scanning the entire scene but staying safely clear of whatever was going on. It was an affair of their betters. Until one of the nobles directed an order toward them, they weren’t going to get involved.

Cispius glanced toward his son more often than his companions did, but his face was expressionless. Alphena wondered what he was thinking.

She grinned. Varus and Corylus both noticed the expression, but neither responded with anything more than a frown.

“I’m not sure what
I
think just happened,” she said, answering her own unspoken question. A combination of humor and hysteria almost tipped her into wild laughter. “So I shouldn’t be worrying about other people, should I?”

“The Sibyl showed me lizardmen like these,” Varus said, nodding. “They may be called the Singiri.”

“Are they a danger?” Corylus said. “Is there an army of them marching out of Africa?”

“I don’t think so,” Varus said, dipping his chin in denial. “No, I’m sure that’s not it—not what the Sibyl was warning me about. But there are Worms coming out of the Earth and devouring it as though it were an apple. Great, glittering Worms, devouring the whole surface and all life with it.”

“I wish Pandareus were here,” Corylus said quietly. “We should have brought him with us from Carce, Gaius. He would have come if we’d asked him—and the rest of his students wouldn’t have cared; they’d have been pleased at a day or two more holiday. You
know
they would.”

Alphena looked from one youth to the other, waiting for either of them to come to the obvious conclusion. When neither spoke, she said, “Well, we’ll bring him here now and he can look at the lizardmen himself. I’ll send a messenger to Carce and have one of the stewards at the town house engage a mail coach for him. He can be here by tomorrow night.”

Her brother and Corylus were babbling agreement to her back as Alphena strode toward the servants waiting outside the compound.

*   *   *

H
EDIA MADE A POINT OF WALKING
on her husband’s right with her fingers on his elbow. In the tight alleys of the compound that meant that Macsturnas occasionally had to wait for them to go on ahead.

“Why are the horns of that deer so twisted, Master Veturius?” she called to the owner just ahead, as he and Corylus’ father led the procession out.

Cispius muttered something to his friend. Veturius showed surprise, then looked over his shoulder and said, “Your Ladyship, I mean—”

He hadn’t actually called her “mistress” before his friend warned him, but the word had obviously been on the tip of his tongue.

“—that’s a desert antelope, an oryx. And I don’t know why the horns are that way, but the reason he’s here and not in the pasture is that this particular one’s a bloody son of a bitch. Those horns aren’t just for show: he spiked a zebra through the lungs on the crossing from Alexandria. That’s fine in the arena, but I don’t get paid for animals I don’t deliver there.”

“Thank you, Veturius,” Hedia said. Under other circumstances, she would have dropped back and let the senators walk together. She hadn’t done so this afternoon because, despite her smile and the cheerful tone with which she discussed the animals as they passed, she was angry and perhaps a little frightened.

Certainly a little frightened.

Hedia wasn’t afraid of the priest whom Macsturnas had brought with him, Paris, but neither did she want the old man directly behind her. He was an unpleasant sort who clearly disliked her and Saxa. Paris might not be the reason Varus had had his spell, but there was probably a connection with the fact that the priest had appeared just before it happened.

“Ah, there’s Alphena,” Saxa said when he saw their daughter waiting for them at the compound’s gateway. “I saw her go off, but I didn’t want to say anything while—”

He leaned his head close to finish in a whisper, “—I was talking to Quintus Macsturnas.”

“Yes,” Hedia said. “She had some direction to give one of her servants, I suppose.”

Hedia didn’t have the faintest notion of why Alphena had rushed out of the compound. Her relief at seeing the girl standing decorously at the gate was greater than her husband’s, though no one watching her would have guessed she had been concerned.