The Legions of Fire (36 page)

“You may feel any way you please toward Nemastes,” the ghost said, perfectly matching the youth's grin. “But you will do as I direct regarding Frothi. Say the words: the words will bind you.”

“My word
always
binds me,” said Corylus. “I will help you repay Frothi as you wish. A man who drowns his sleeping brother is no friend to me.”

He cleared his throat as he considered the situation. The sky had finally become fully dark; the constellations were subtly distorted from what he expected.

“Sir?” he said. “Vengeance? What do I do next?”

“What you would do anyway,” the ghost said. “Walk south. By midday you'll meet the tribe. Tell them that Odd is dead, drowned in the Ice River, and that you buried him.”

“Will they accept me?” Corylus said, frowning.

“If they respect you,” said the ghost. “Do you think you can make them respect you, Corylus?”

“Yes sir,” he said. He flexed his hands, feeling suddenly warm. He grinned. “Or I'll die trying.”

Man and ghost laughed together at the joke.

“And one thing more,” Vengeance said. “You will say to Frothi that he must give you Odd's flute because you buried Odd's body. When you have the flute, you will be able to return home.”

Again Corylus pondered the situation. “Will he give it to me?” he said. “Frothi, I mean.”

“Eventually,” said the ghost. “If you force him to. Will you be able to force him?”

“Or die trying,” Corylus repeated, and again they both laughed.

The figure of Vengeance was fading. Corylus didn't remember lying down on the moss and going to sleep; but suddenly he was dreaming, and after that his sleep was dreamless.

H
EDIA STIRRED THE MIXTURE AGAIN
, then set the whisk on the garden bench she was using as a worktable. The supplies she'd used were lined up on the ground beside her: the urn holding the remainder of the ashes of Calpurnius Latus; the mortar and pestle with which she'd ground a spoonful of them; the carafe of wine she'd mixed the powdered ashes with; and the small jar of honey which she'd just finished adding to the wine and ashes.

She didn't know whether ashes had any taste: they might well be as bland as charcoal or rock dust. Since they were part of her late husband, however, Hedia expected them to be bitter.

She gave the contents of the cup a doubtful glance, then looked up at Anna. She asked, “Is it ready?”

The older woman was leaning on one cane; the other lay on the bench. She'd become noticeably more limber since she undertook to help Hedia in this business.

Anna gestured over the northeast wall of the garden. She said, “The moon's up. That's the only thing that matters to me. Are
you
ready, Lady Hedia?”

“Yes,” said Hedia, “I suppose I am. Where do I stand?”

They were in the back garden of the town house; Anna had said that it would be easier to enter the spirit world here because of the rupture which Nemastes had forced. Hedia felt uncomfortable, but she imagined that she would be uncomfortable anywhere doing what she was now.

“Here, I think,” Anna said, pointing to the ground near the frost-blasted pear tree. “It's where the Hyperborean had his brazier.”

She glanced at the peach and added, “Unless you'd prefer to be farther from Persica?”

Hedia sniffed. “Persica said she'd help,” she said. “If she tries to interfere, I'll build a fire over her roots and we'll go on with our business while she cooks.”

Anna laughed. “You'd have made a good soldier,” she said. “Face the moon, then, and I'll tell you when to down the draft.”

Hedia paused. “Anna?” she said. “If we're successful tonight, there'll be
questions asked and I won't be here to protect you. I've left a note for my husband—”

Saxa had gone out in the early morning and hadn't returned yet. He was almost certainly with Nemastes.

“—telling him I'm going to Baiae, but he'll question the servants. This may become very difficult for you, especially with Master Corylus missing as well.”

“You take care of your part, your ladyship,” the older woman said. “Don't worry about me.”

She began to chant in a harsh falsetto. The language wasn't Latin, though the rhythms were similar, nor Greek.

Hedia vaguely recalled that the Marsians still spoke Oscan in their hill villages. She wasn't much interested in any of the rural louts south of Carce. They had no culture as she understood the word. They merely provided the Republic with shepherds and soldiers; and with witches, of course.

From where Hedia stood the moon, still full at least to the eye, was caught in the branches of the peach tree. Were any of the servants listening from behind the walls? Probably not; they'd be afraid that whatever the witch was doing would affect them also. And indeed, it might.

Hedia thought about Anna's comment—that she'd have made a good soldier. No. Soldiers had to endure a great deal of physical discomfort, which Hedia disliked; and they had to obey orders that other people gave, which she couldn't seem to do.

Drink the wine now, your ladyship
.

Hedia blinked.
That's Anna, and she's speaking to me!

Embarrassed by her woolgathering, Hedia lifted the cup—it was silver, chased with dolphins and sea nymphs—and gulped the mixture. She noticed first the cloying touch of the honey, then the gritty aftertaste.

Latus. Not bitter, but coarse and unpleasant
.

She sipped, then drank down the remainder of the cup without pausing. She'd decided to do this thing, so there wasn't any question but that she would go through with it.

The moon blurred and expanded as Hedia stared through the branches. She blinked, but that didn't clear her eyes. Anna continued to chant; her voice had the timbre of an angry night bird calling. Hedia thought she heard Persica also.

Will I see Latus's face in the moon?
she thought; and as the words crossed her mind, the bright glow of the moon became a cave before her. She set the silver cup on the ground and walked forward.

I said I would do this thing
.

For a moment Hedia continued to hear the harsh cadence of Anna's voice. Then she was striding into the earth, following a path which was a slightly lighter gray than that of the black mouths branching out from it. She was wearing a long tunic and simple house slippers. They were leather dyed red and a little sturdier than silken dress shoes, but they still weren't what she would have chosen for exploring caves.

Hedia smiled coldly. Ordinarily she would choose to leave cave exploration to other people, but she'd do whatever was required to get Alphena back where she belonged.

Something in a left-branching tunnel screamed. Hedia put her hand on her girdle, but she didn't take out the little dagger. She'd first thought the cry was angry; after consideration she decided it was probably desperate misery instead.

It didn't matter. Her business was with whatever lay at the end of the path she was following.
Assuming there's an end
. But she would keep walking until she dropped.

The path blurred into a jungle of trees with snaky branches. Their leaves variously resembled ribbons and spikes and blankets. They were a thousand shades of gray, and the sky was lighter gray. There were no stars and no moon.

Out of curiosity—not fear—Hedia looked back the way she had come. The jungle surrounded her. Fruit the size and shape of tight leather hand-balls hung from a branch that she should have walked under. She doubted anything in this place would be edible, but she supposed she would try if she had to.

Lightning flashed across the sky, briefly silhouetting the foliage. She thought she saw branches move, but that was probably an illusion. There was no thunder.

There was no longer a lighted path. Hedia stepped forward, using her left arm to swing aside a bunch of fruit so heavy that it bent the top of the stalk it grew from. Beyond was a clearing, and in it stood her late husband, Marcus Calpurnius Latus.

“Greetings, dearest Wife,” Latus said. He giggled. “I won't say I'm surprised
that you would join me here, but I'll admit that I didn't expect you to seek me out while you were still alive. Am I so dear to you that you can't live without me?”

The silent lightning rippled and rippled again across the gray heavens.

Latus looked as she remembered him. He wore a tunic with the broad stripe of a senator. He had wanted all those who met him to be reminded of his rank, even when he was relaxing at home without a toga.

“I've come to ask you to do something decent for a change, Latus,” Hedia said. “A girl, the daughter of my husband, has been lured into the spirit world. I need a guide to find her and bring her back. I'm told—a witch tells me—that you can show me to such a guide.”

Latus threw back his head and laughed; lightning trembled above the treetops in time with his merriment. He had been a short man and sensitive about it; in this place he retained the thick-soled buskins that he'd worn in life. He tended toward fleshiness, and though he'd died at age twenty-five his hairline had already begun to recede. Even so he had the face of a young god.

He sobered with the suddenness of a switch being thrown. “Why should I do that for you,
dear
Wife?” he said. “How can you even
imagine
I would do that for you?”

“I was always a better wife than you deserved, Latus,” Hedia said. “But no, I don't expect you to do anything for me. The girl is innocent, though. I ask your help for Alphena.”

She kept her voice steady and her eyes on his. She wanted either to flounce off or to slap him, but those things wouldn't help. Slapping him
probably
wouldn't help.

Hedia saw movement in the treetops. At first she thought small animals were scurrying in line; then she realized a large snake was crawling along the branch.

“Will you give yourself to me, dear Hedia?” Latus asked archly. His voice trailed up into a titter.

“You know I never refused you, Husband,” Hedia said, trying to keep the tone of disgust out of her voice. She opened her cloth-of-gold girdle and hung it over a bush whose leaves looked black—they were probably dark red—but which sent up spikes with large white flowers. “Though it was obvious that you preferred boys.”

The broach fastening the left shoulder of her tunic was in the form of a
serpent with ruby eyes, swallowing its tail. She unpinned it and let the garment shimmer to her feet. She hoped the ground wasn't damp, but there was no help for that. She stepped forward, out of it.

“Where do you want me?” she asked.

Latus reached out to embrace her, but his arms passed through her body without contact. Laughing with a bitterness she hadn't heard from him this night, he stepped back.

“Put your clothes on, Hedia,” he said harshly. “I'm no good to you now. I'm no good to anybody, and myself the least of all.”

Hedia half knelt to retrieve her shift. Lightning had been constant in the sky a moment before; now it had stopped. She let the garment fall over her head rather than pulling it up. As she repinned the tunic while watching Latus, she said, “Will you send me a guide, Husband?”

“I've already done that,” Latus said. He'd backed to where Hedia had first seen him, almost engulfed by a plant. Its leaves shot almost straight up from the ground; they had pale edges and darker cores. “Go find your girl and bring her back—if you have the strength.”

Hedia sniffed. “Indeed, if I have the strength,” she said.

The girdle fastened behind her. Ordinarily a maid would buckle it, but there was no one to help her here. She wasn't sure that she would have asked Latus even if he'd had a physical presence.

Fully dressed again, she raised her face to him. “Where do I find the guide?” she said.

Latus gestured to what Hedia had taken for a boulder part-shrouded by saplings whose leaves drooped like wax ornaments. “There,” he said. “It looks like darkness, doesn't it? I assure you that it's not nearly as dark as the place I'm in, dear Wife.”

Hedia nodded curtly. “Thank you, Husband,” she said.

She stepped toward the place he indicated. Up close she saw that it was an absence rather than a presence: it was emptiness made manifest in the heart of lush gray jungle.

“Hedia?” Latus said.

She looked over her shoulder. The plant was even more closely about the figure of her husband.

“I'm not doing this for some fool girl,” he said. His voice sounded muffled. “Now go!”

Hedia nodded. Head high, she walked into darkness.

A
LPHENA FOLLOWED
Deriades through the strange forest. The light was vaguely green, as though it were straining through a canopy of leaves. If there was such a canopy, it must be unthinkably far above them: the trees through which she and Deriades walked swiftly were only twenty feet high—or at most thirty—and didn't block sight of what she thought was the sky.