The Storm of Heaven (22 page)

"Well thought," Alexandros allowed, who experienced the same gut-gnawing fear. It only
seemed
that they were free agents, released from their thrall to the Prince and his will. In truth, they were still his pawns, merely set aside for a time like abandoned toys. "I wonder, though, about some things only half heard in conversation between you and he. You have been with him longest in this mad effort of his... perhaps you can set my mind at ease."

Gaius Julius stopped. They had come to a small, round plaza, half choked with garbage and offal. Streets led off it, showing black mouths in the dim light. People slept on the cobblestones or sat, nursing an amphora of wine. Gaius turned left, entering a lane that rose sharply up the side of a hill. "Your mind never rests, dear Greek. I cannot see how I might allay it."

"You can, perhaps," said Alexandros, easily matching the Roman's pace. "Consider how little we know of the Prince and his intent; he is the scion of the Imperial house, yet he has escaped the burden of rule because he has a talent."

"He is a priest, a healer, a man of respected power and ability," Gaius interjected gruffly.

"Indeed," Alexandros replied. "He discovers that all Rome, all this Empire, is bound by the strictures of an Oath laid down in the time of your adopted son, Augustus. He finds that your dear son, aided by this lamentable Egyptian, Khamûn, has enforced his social rules and mores with this Oath, binding the people and the Empire."

The Macedonian paused, waiting for Gaius Julius to respond to the jibe. The Roman kept walking silently. Alexandros shrugged to himself and continued.

"Something happens... a friend, a shipwright, is killed by this hidden power. The Prince, outraged, takes up an effort to break the power of what he calls a curse. At first, he labors alone but finds that he cannot overcome it, he cannot understand it without help. He seeks assistance."

Gaius paused. They had come to the crest of a hill. The lane turned sharply right. Behind and below them, Alexandros could now make out the jumble of sloping roofs that marked the Forum and, rising above them, on the right, the shining wall of the Capitoline and the massive shape of the temple of Jupiter Optimus et Maximus. The Roman turned to Alexandros, only the tip of his long nose showing in the shadow of the hood.

"He finds," growled Gaius Julius, "the little Nabatean spy and wizard, Abdmachus."

"Yes," said Alexandros, his voice rising, "he finds a
Persian agent
to help him. A man sent into the Empire thirty years before to wait and to watch. He finds a man, perhaps the
only
man in the city who knows whereof he speaks. Does it not strike you a little strange that these two should come together in this matter?"

"Perhaps," allowed Gaius Julius, one long, thin hand rubbing the side of his chin. "You don't believe it was coincidence? You think that the twice-dead Abdmachus had been looking for a man like the Prince, a Roman sorcerer who stumbled upon the same secret yet lived? That he guided the Prince to him by some unknown means?"

"I think," said Alexandros, flexing his arms, "that Abdmachus was a subtle man. In comparison, I do not think that our dear Prince is subtle at all. Consider... traditionally the Persian magi are accounted great wizards. They are a powerful arm of the state, they stand at the right hand of the king of kings. Now, in battle, they wield powerful magics. More than one barbarian army has fled before them, riven with lightning and ghastly apparitions. But against their great enemy, Rome? They are well nigh powerless. This Oath defeats them, thwarts their skill, turns their sendings back upon them. The armies of Persia must match themselves, man to man, against Rome. Abdmachus himself, apparently a wizard of considerable skill, must move carefully and quietly on his mission lest he be destroyed."

Gaius Julius smiled, for his old mind, long enamored with intrigue and hidden plots, was turning hungrily upon the problem. "You think that Abdmachus had been waiting all that time for a weapon to appear. Some scrap of information, some man, some mechanism, which would allow him to break the power of the Oath. A chink in the armor of Rome... what better opportunity than this callow, inexperienced boy?"

Alexandros grinned, his eyes sparkling in the darkness.

"Ah, at last you begin to wake, old turtle. Yes—I think that Abdmachus influenced the mind of the Prince. I think that he led the Prince to you and then to me, each time promising the boy greater power to fight his enemy. That boy is a great power, he has enormous strength... but skill? Abdmachus was old and wily, a man well versed in the arts."

Gaius Julius began walking again, but now his steps were those of a man in deep thought. "He pressed the boy, then, to follow this insane goal. He was quiet and a dutiful servant... he hoped that the boy would break the power of the Oath, perhaps even dying in the process. Then Rome would be stripped of its great defense, even while locked in a bitter struggle against Persia."

"Yes, but then the Prince turned on him too soon. You had some little to do with that, I think."

Gaius Julius chuckled, a grim, cheerless sound. "I did. That cat Alais and I, we sought to influence the boy ourselves. We thought the Persian a threat to our little diumvirate. So, he was slain and made one of the lifeless. Like us, but less so, it seems. That is odd, too. You and I, we are veritably flush with thought and will and purpose, but he—he seemed far less, only a shadow of what he had been."

"It
is
odd." Alexandros sighed. "There was a book, in the library we so carefully gathered, that spoke on this subject." The Macedonian scratched the back of his head, brow furrowed as he pillaged his memory. "I have it—
The Pert Em Hru
—
The Bok of Coming Forth by Day
. It speaks of the means and methods of anointing, preserving and summoning forth the dead. It was part of that rag bag of scrolls and parchments we stole from the
biblios
."

He frowned, his face troubled.

" 'The "uneasy dead" do not come forth whole,' " he quoted from memory. " 'They lack the essential spirits and humors that drive the living. They are incomplete, for the
ka
of the body has already fled. The guides and guardians have passed them through the Golden Fields and into the Twelve Hours...' Then there is a long passage describing the underworld and the judges. I left off reading there, for I had seen those portions of the text before."

Gaius Julius raised an eyebrow. A trace of envy showed in his face. "You read the hieroglyphs of the Egyptians? I remember those scrolls, a muddy mass of pictures and scribbling... how came you by that skill?"

A peculiar look crossed Alexandros' face. "We are an anomaly, then, dear Roman. Our will is strong and we have purpose. By some act of the gods, we have escaped the land of the dead and can sing and see the world with living eyes. But this is a little matter—Abdmachus is now wholly dead, annihilated in the destruction of your house in the hills. Where is the Prince, then? Is he free of the old man's influence? Has he taken this task into his heart? What drives the Prince now?"

"Who can say?" Gaius Julius stopped, one hand on the edge of his cloak. "We might know more if we had taken all of the books rather than a pittance. Ah, we should have, my friend. What a rich collection they were!"

Alexandros nodded in agreement. The robbery of the Imperial library had stricken Alexandros with fear—it was an affront to the very gods!—but once he had begun to catalog and examine the trove, his unease had faded. Many books long thought lost had been among that collection. Coupled with the loot that had been dragged from the wreck of the Bygar Dracul's house in Constantinople, the Prince had amassed a fine collection.

"I grieve as well, my friend. Our lives proclaim that the Prince lived through the destruction of Vesuvius, but the books and tome and parchments? They may all be gone, burned in the ghastly wreck. Still, we have what we have. Our quiet friends will have to bear with us and our loss."

"Indeed."

They had come to the top of the hill, where a street of blank walls pierced by small, narrow doors faced them. Alexandros looked around, marking that the street was swept clean and the plastered walls were free from graffiti. A district of the well-to-do, then.

"Is this our destination?"

Gaius nodded, pacing along the street in the darkness. Pools of light spilled from the doorways, where oil lamps hung. At the fourth one he stopped, his head bent towards the inlaid tile decorating the sides of the door alcove.

"This is the house of Gregorius Auricus, also known as Magnus."

Alexandros frowned, puzzling through the Roman names and this barbarous Latin tongue.

"Gregorius the Great?"

"Yes," laughed Gaius, "he is accounted the richest man in Rome and a good friend of Emperor Galen and his family."

Now Alexandros raised an eyebrow. Given the crimes that they had committed in the service of the Prince, it was quite likely that the Emperor—should he have the two of them in his hand—would see their new lives swiftly ended.
That is what I would do,
thought the Macedonian.
A ruler should never allow other men that have tasted kingship loose in his state.

Gaius' eyes twinkled and he put a finger alongside his nose.

"The Prince mentioned the name to me and said that Gregorius had offered him 'help if there was no one Imperial to turn to.' If I understood the boy correctly, this Gregorius is a patron of the Goths and other barbarian allies of the Empire. He is a fellow with access to gold, to armed men, to ships, to all of the sinews of power."

Alexandros grinned at that, feeling his blood quicken. Though he had grown up amid the vipers of his father's court—enmeshed in his mother's intrigues—he preferred the presence and action of open war.

"That would make him a valuable friend," Alexandros said, smoothing back the tongue of hair that always fell across his forehead. "Have you already arranged a meeting?"

"I have," said Gaius Julius, pinning a golden brooch to his cloak and stepping to the door. "I believe that the man needs some assistance that we may provide, to our mutual benefit."

Alexandros put a hand on Gaius' shoulder, halting the older man.

"To what end?" His voice was serious. "You have not said much of these goals of yours since we have come to the city. For myself, I have watched and waited, bettering my skill in this rough tongue of yours, observing the customs and practices of your people. But you have been quiet and withdrawn, thinking, I judge, of what you will do now."

Gaius nodded, still looking to the door.

"This is so," he said in a low voice. "When I was young, I was plagued by dreams and desires that filled my days and nights. They drove me to wild, frantic efforts. I pursued power, women, men... anything that would make me great. It was a grim time, filled with chaos and civil war. I sought to bring order out of that foment. I found success, but then I was empty. I tried to emulate you, dear Greek, by conquering the world, but I was cut down ere I could undertake that campaign."

"And now?" Alexandros was watching him closely, seeing the twitch of muscles in the older man's neck. "Do you desire the world?"

"No," said Gaius Julius, shaking his head. "That thirst has left me. But I want this life, strange as it is, to continue. I find it impossible to relinquish this sweet draught that is set before me again. To that end, I must protect our young Prince, exalt his state, enrich his domains, stymie his enemies, throw down those that would oppose him."

Laughing softly, Alexandros said, "My thoughts entire, sprung whole from your orator's mouth. You think that this man can help us, help our
beloved
Prince?"

"Yes."

"And after that? Have you given thought to the future? What will you do when the inevitable comes, as I believe it must, and the Prince sets aside his brother and claims the Purple himself?"

Gaius Julius turned at last and met the Macedonian's eyes directly. "I have not given that thought wings. This now, this moment, is enough. Once, when I was young, I gave great thought to the future. I made plans for the course of my children and my children's children." He sighed. "But then, where were they? I had none... a waste. See how wretched Octavian seized the role? Oh, that cloak he donned, taking my name and power for his own. Cur."

Alexandros shook his head in feigned dismay. "Oh, so true, a crawling whelp that crept up and stole your glory while you slept... and did what you could not, built a new state, this very Empire, from the ashes of your crumbling Republic. One of our dear quiet friends relates the tale of it—this youth Octavian was a fine ruler. He endowed a realm that has maintained to this very day. I bow before him, for he has built well."

"Pfaugh!"
Gaius Julius spit on the pavement. "I read that fop Suetonius, too. He kisses the feet of a man dead for centuries! Pitiful. Oh, you are right, my nephew did well with the ashes he gathered, but I still resent him. Leave me some bile for my old age!"

"You have no bile," Alexandros laughed. "You are the very corpse of a man."

"Enough, stripling. Your flesh is cold, too. Let us enter and see what advantage may be gained by clever words and a smiling face, for we have little else to offer."

Alexandros stood back, letting the Roman strike the door with his fist, summoning the watchman. He was a little troubled, for he had read the histories of Suetonius and the
Annals
very closely, seeking to understand the rise of this Octavian to power. A brief passage was trying to raise itself to his attention...
Ah.

Gaius Julius had fathered only daughters on his Roman wives, of which he had plenty. But he had made a son, a single boy, Ptolemy Caesarion, with Royal Egypt. A boy who lived to manhood.
Doesn't he remember? Was the boy unsuitable for the Roman people to see as his descendant? A small mystery...

"Gaius Julius and companion," intoned a servant as they entered the sitting room.

A robust man with expensive, refined tastes was sitting in a wide-backed chair. A mane of fine white hair swept behind his head, framing an ancient, calm face. A broad table covered with sheets of parchment, inkstands, tally boards, quill knives, alabaster cups and silver platters stood before him. The man looked up, serious eyes flicking over the two of them. The man returned his attention to the matters before him.