Air and Darkness (18 page)

The clouds spread overhead, bringing not darkness but filtered light—now rosy, now a green as pale and pure as the undersides of new leaves. A horse screamed as if it were being disemboweled.

A lane cleared ahead as troopers rode into the fields or were bucked off their mounts. Instead of slaughter, Varus saw that a riderless horse was mounting another horse whose rider was still in the saddle. The Indian was pounding his bare hands on the muzzle of the would-be sire without affecting the grin of lustful delight that drew the horse's lips back from square yellow teeth.

The “dam”—which Varus thought was a gelding—braced his spread hind legs to bear the unaccustomed weight. He didn't appear to be distressed.

An east wind swept lightly over the scene, bringing humid air with the scent of flowers. The hedges to right and left writhed as grapevines sprouted, leafed, and flowered.

Two chariots rode out of the sky, drawn by yoked panthers. Both wore fawn-skin tunics, but Varus recognized the man in the nearer one as the leader of the band that had erupted after the ceremony to Mother Matuta.

The other man was not a man or not wholly a man: he was Bacchus. Varus, who had doubted the existence of gods, fell to one knee in shock and reverence.

Radiance flooded from Bacchus like the cloak of a comet. He wasn't tall—no taller than Varus himself—or obviously muscular, but mere sight of him compelled reverence. The god's hair flowed like flames from beneath a diadem of grapevines, and his eyes were sunstruck sapphires.

The chariots drove across the fields to the right of the road. The dikes separating plots shivered and flattened like piles of grain on a sieve. The great leopards bounded, each in unison with its yokemate, and the gleaming cars raced smoothly over the soft terrain.

Behind the chariots came the god's entourage: the hundreds of Bassoi and Maenads who had been men and women, and the others who were part human or had never been human at all.

A goat-footed satyr and a Maenad rode a tiger as large as a bull. The satyr drank from a wineskin, then spurted a stream of ruby fluid onto the ground. Vines sprang up, twisting as they grew; in the space of a breath they bore grapes the size of hens' eggs.

A centaur rode toward a woman who had been working in the field. She leaped to meet his arms and swung herself onto his withers. Holding the centaur's shoulder with one hand, she used the other to sail away her bonnet and to pluck off her loose cotton garments.

Three of Lal's cavalry charged the throng: one couched his lance while his companions drew their curved swords. Varus thought they were shouting, but he couldn't be sure in the tumult.

A Maenad laughed and hurled her thyrsus at a swordsman. The pinecone head pierced the man's breast like the sharp iron bolt of a ballista. The Indian tumbled over the hindquarters of his mount, the brittle fennel stalk sticking up from the center of his chest.

The bamboo lance of the middle rider leafed out with the suddenness of straw catching fire. The metal head winked as it fell, flung from the tip of the lance by swelling foliage. The rider pulled up, shouting in amazement, then tossed the lance away. Instead of lying on the ground, it rooted and twisted upright. The soil in a line to either side began to bulge as the bamboo sent up runners.

The onetime lancer tried to wheel his horse. It threw him off and galloped after the chariots, its silver-mounted reins dancing. A satyr lifted the rider to a sitting position and squirted wine into his mouth. The rider shook himself, then grabbed the wineskin and drank deeply.

A pair of Maenads lassoed the remaining horseman with loops of vine and pulled him off the back of his mount. They kept their nooses tight so that the man landed on his feet, though his knees immediately buckled.

His curved sword sank to mid-blade in the soft ground. The women embraced the man from either side, kissing and fondling him. The trio danced off together, following the chariots and the runaway horse.

Varus stood slowly. His thigh muscles quivered as though he had been straining to lift a weight. Beside him, Bhiku sat cross-legged with his head bent. The sage lifted his head when Varus moved.

Varus blinked. He viewed his surroundings as if through thick glass, distorted by ripples and a green cast, but he could see for miles with perfect clarity in every direction.

Bacchus and Ampelos drove across a landscape that shivered flat to welcome them. The yellow of ripe grain, the gray of dead wood, and all other shades flared into bright greens in the chariots' wake. Laborers dropped their tools and followed. A woman bathing her infant rose and ran after Bacchus. The child lay on the edge of the pond, giggling with happiness.

“How do you feel?” Bhiku said.

“Well, no different than…,” Varus said, but his voice trailed off as he realized that he
did
feel different. He was no longer hot and tired. His legs trembled, but he felt a glow of health, as though he were awakening the day after a good workout with Corylus.

Varus looked down at Bhiku and grinned broadly. “I feel an intense desire,” he said, “to understand what we just saw and what we're seeing.”

He gestured in the direction Bacchus and his troupe had taken. The last members of the entourage were still running and leaping on the horizon, but Varus' vision was clearing. The richly colored clouds had given way to the smears of fuzzy white that had been in the sky when he first arrived from the Otherworld.

Bhiku nodded agreement. “There are different kinds of lust,” he said.

The scattered horsemen were beginning to gather again. Only about half the escort was visible, however, and Varus suspected most of the rest would never return.

Some had fled down the road or into the fields to the left. Those who had ridden to the right or had been carried in that direction by their maddened horses had joined the motley rout that followed Bacchus. A few, like the man struck down by a thyrsus in the first moments of the incursion, were dead.

“You and I were the only people who simply stood,” the sage said with a slow smile. “Are you fearless, Lord Varus?”

“I'm afraid of many things,” Varus said. “But not particularly of death. And I certainly wasn't going to run away from an experience which was new and wonderful.”

The path toward the horizon—the eastern horizon, Varus saw, now that the normal sun hung in the sky—was a lush green wedge through the varied landscape to either side. Trees heavy with fruit sprouted from what must have been grain fields. Irrigation ditches now meandered. The nearest to the road sparkled with wine rather than the trickle of muddy water Varus had noticed before Bacchus swept across the landscape.

Grapevines covered every tree and outcrop. The broad leaves shaded but could not hide clusters of huge purple-red grapes. Bhiku twisted two from a bunch and handed one to Varus.

They bit into the grapes together. They were swollen with wine, not juice. It spurted out and dribbled down Varus' chin.

“This is the finest wine I've ever drunk,” Varus said, holding the half grape out where he could examine it. It looked perfectly normal except for the size. “Some of my father's friends would give half their estates for a dozen jars of this.”

He tossed the uneaten portion into the ditch. “It's also by far the strongest wine I've ever tried,” he added, “and I don't think this is a good time to drink myself incapable. If there ever could be.”

Giggling, Bhiku dropped the remainder of his grape also.

“You two!” a voice from behind Varus said. “You're still here?”

“Yes, Your Lordship,” Bhiku said, bowing as Varus turned.

Ramsa Lal was approaching from up the road—on foot, however, and bareheaded instead of wearing a crimson turban. His scabbard hung empty at his side.

“Are you such powerful magicians that you can stand against Bacchus?” Lal said harshly.

Varus straightened and spread his feet slightly as he faced the rajah. “Say rather, Your Lordship, that we are philosophers and saw no need to flee when we were not being attacked.”

His tone was coldly sneering, scarcely politic behavior toward a superior. On the other hand, Varus didn't recognize Lal as his superior except in terms of physical force. At the moment, Varus thought he could strangle the rajah with his own sash if necessary. Any kind of babbled nonsense would send the nearby guards running away, certain they were being cursed.

Varus smiled. That expression could have made the situation worse, but in fact it seemed to have frightened Lal, much as the gibberish curses had done to the guards.

“Your pardon, Lord Varus,” Lal said, stepping back. “I was upset by what has just happened. Ah—
could
you cause the god to turn away from my domains?”

Varus frowned, remembering the radiant power blazing from the face of Bacchus. “Certainly not,” he said. “If chance had sent the god directly toward me instead of at an angle to where I stood, he would have rolled right over me.”

“We may not be affected by the god's powers in the same fashion as your soldiers were, Your Lordship,” Bhiku said, “but chariot wheels would have crushed us the same as they would anyone else.”

“I see, I see,” Lal muttered, shaking his head. He added something in his own language, then caught himself and said, “Rupa, my own magician, says she can do nothing, and Govinda, our King of Kings and the greatest wizard who has ever lived—even he cannot stop the incursions.”

Lal looked down the track that Bacchus and his entourage had blazed. “If they kept going a mile in that direction…,” Lal said morosely. “They will have wiped out two villages. If they went a second mile, it will be three villages.”

“Wiped out?” Varus said. “It didn't seem to me that many people died, even among the soldiers who attacked the, ah, progress.”

“The peasants may as well be dead for all the tribute they'll be paying!” Lal said. “Half of them will have gone off with the god and the rest will lie around and eat the fruit that grows everywhere. The land doesn't get back to normal for five years after an incursion like this. Grain rots in the fields and the next year's crop won't be planted! How am I to feed my troops and pay
my
tribute to our lord Govinda?”

“Perhaps King Govinda will show forbearance,” Varus said. “Since you say he too is powerless against the god.”

Lal snorted and stalked away. A trooper approached on foot leading a skittish horse, and Lal mounted. He turned in the saddle and said, “Lord Varus, I'll have one task for you to perform in exchange for my hospitality, but that can wait till we reach my palace and refresh ourselves.”

“I don't question that you are a great wizard, my young friend,” Bhiku said in a low voice as they followed Ramsa Lal's track. More soldiers had rejoined the escort than Varus had expected, but the column more shambled than capered this last part of the journey. “But I wonder what Rupa could not do that Lal believes you can. She is … I cannot judge Rupa's power, any more than a slug can judge the size of an elephant.”

“We'll listen to what Lal asks,” Varus said. “I didn't ask for his hospitality, though, and I'll have no hesitation over turning my back on it if that seems the better course.”

Ramsa Lal might have his own ideas about what the foreign wizard would be permitted to do, but that was a problem for another day. After a meal and a night's rest, ideally.

“Ramsa Lal thinks that Rupa is in his service, the same way as his soldiers serve him,” Bhiku mused aloud. “He feeds her and he grants her access to whatever she requests, but this is nothing that she could not get from any rajah. In Govinda's domains, or beyond.”

“Why
does
she serve Lal, then?” Varus said. They were on the portion of the road that Bacchus had crossed in his progress. The air had a tingle, and the ditches ran with wine.

“Dreaming Hill is in Lal's territory and I know Rupa visits it daily, far more often than I once did,” Bhiku said. “But as for why she
serves
Lal, I'm not sure. I'm not sure that she does.”

A gate of brick or red stone loomed ahead of them. “I was feeling thirsty enough to drink more of Bacchus' wine,” Varus said. “But I hope something less potent will be on offer shortly.”

In the back of his mind, though, he was thinking of the cold, smooth face of Rupa. Varus wasn't worried about the task Lal planned to set him: he would attempt it or he would not.

But Mistress Rupa might not be so easy to shrug off.

*   *   *

A
LPHENA TWISTED TO LOOK PAST
the driver. The wagon in front was rounding a bend. Since they left Polymartium proper they had been following what seemed to be a track laid out by sheep, but the guide—a town councillor, now riding in the lead vehicle—had said that the ceremonial site was nearby.

“I learned on the frontiers that you can't trust rustics about how far anything is,” Corylus said. “Or how long it's going to take to get there. Still, it shouldn't be very much longer.”

As their mail coach started into the corner, the driver shouted and hauled the reins back, standing on his seat for purchase. The leading wagon had halted in the middle of the road with a score of soldiers in polished armor around it.

Praetorians!

“Hold up there, you!” said the centurion—his horsehair crest was transverse—who had been shouting at the passengers in the lead wagon. He swaggered toward the mail coach, flanked by two subordinates holding javelins.

“I'll take this, my man,” Alphena said to the driver. She swung her legs over the seat, then hopped to the ground using her right hand on the coach frame as a pivot. Her tunic was a little longer than the male garment she had worn until a few months ago, but it still wasn't a demure fashion in which to leave the vehicle.

Alphena wasn't feeling demure. Furthermore, it was important that the soldiers realize that she was a woman and therefore not in their minds a threat.