"Jupiter Optimus Maximus, did you see Sextus?"
"Burnt like a pig... gods!"
Had he been so frightened, then, that he must weep as he had not done even at his mother's funeral? No: Tears were warm, and the moisture now running down his face was cool. A wind continued—not the Vulcan's forge of the deep desert, but a true breeze, heavy with water and salt.
Rain came in that basin of salt and grit, dried before the stars altered the pattern of their going. In Quintus's hand the standard tingled. A tremendous wave of well-being rushed through him, worn as he was.
Rain was falling with increasing strength, cool on parched skin. The darkness of the sky was now water, released from the clouds that had suddenly gathered. Quintus's talisman pulsed, and the power he had sensed before built up again, seeking discharge.
"Get down and hold!" he shouted. No need for any man to be the tallest thing on this plain. Please all the gods that his men had shed their metal gear. There might be another lightning strike among them.
I must order burial detail for Sextus, he thought.
The energies vibrating in the Eagle built up nearly past endurance, and he tensed, waiting for the strike.
This time the crack of lightning drew a response from the earth itself, which rumbled accompaniment to the thunder. Far and near, the crash echoed and re-echoed all over the desert basin. Men and horses toppled and fell, rolling upon the wet grit. Even the camels panicked and tried to plunge away. Some of the men rose and staggered after them, unsure of their footing on ground that was suddenly more slick, or higher or lower than it had been moments ago.
The smell of a salt sea intensified as the rain fell. Quintus opened his mouth and gulped a mouthful of water. Such bounty made him drunk. Proconsuls were fools to drink Falernian, he thought giddily, if they could have water like this. Someone cheered, and Rufus silenced him fast.
Another lightning bolt, searing purple-white even despite the barrier of Quintus's eyelids. When the explosion dissipated, he dared to test his sight, to seek sight of the company....
He found himself gazing in dumb amazement over a vast split in the earth, or in the seabed dead so many years, but stirring in its long death with deadly strength.
Draupadi gasped, while Ganesha chanted in a tongue unknown to the Romans and the Ch'in.
"Stay back!" Quintus ordered, but he himself edged forward over the unsteady ground, holding the standard high as if he headed a proud marching Legion.
Behind him, Rufus shouted to men to catch the rainwater in any container they could find.
Did Quintus indeed carry a weapon stronger than any he had dreamed might exist? Had the Eagle not drawn down the lightnings, aye, and shielded him from that raw force? May Charon ferry Sextus swiftly; he took a bolt I fear was meant for me, he thought. And was the standard not the source of the new strength flowing into his body?
He had sought and found weapons—Arjuna's sword, for one, and that length of wood and horn that passed for a bow. Now, he thought, he had sought and found the weapon of supreme destruction for this time and place. He could have laughed at the irony of the gods, who decreed that the very weapon he had sought for so long was the Eagle, the loss of which had meant his disgrace.
In what guise did Pasupata come to you, Arjuna? he asked the voice inside his mind. He was not surprised when the Delphic, aggravating voice did not answer.
Whatever form its power took, for this age, Pasupata had now manifested itself in the Eagle. And Quintus was both its master and its servant. His eyes met Draupadi's, and she smiled at him. How beautiful she was with the rain draping the curves of her form. No illusions there. Even during the lightning, she had not removed the ring he had given her.
"Hold firm!" Ganesha cried out in a voice stronger than any Quintus had ever heard him use.
The land quivered with aftershocks. Now even the horizon appeared to their dazed eyes as if it were dancing. Another crack came, again followed by thunder above and below them. Quintus sprawled this time, but fought his way back to his feet, using the standard as lever. Pasupata might for the moment be a lame man's staff. Leaning on that support, Quintus wavered forward.
He came to a halt on the very lip of the chasm that the lightning and earthquakes had opened in the desert. The Ch'in were wailing to their gods, their ancestors, or any other powers that might award them a moment's thought at all. From the Romans came muttered oaths and prayers, all equally useful.
Quintus paused at the edge of the pit, two aftershocks made him reel, back and forth. Only the standard, stabbed deeply into the ground, kept him from falling into the dark depths of the pit that had opened.
All this land had been under water once—an inland lake of such a size, perhaps, to rival the Middle Sea. Nor had that forgotten sea been any more unknown in its time than the one serving Roman ships. Ships had also sailed it—and creatures had dwelt in its depths.
Quintus's talisman heated—a warning but not with a real alarm, as he dropped, to creep forward on his belly. Beneath him, as if the seabed had swallowed it at the critical moment, lay a ship of a design unknown to him. Ganesha might have sailed on such a craft, he thought.
The seabed had opened and trapped this ship—and apparently, in addition, the sea creature, longer than any kraken, in the very act of opening its jaws to engulf the vessel. It was only bones now, but the length of back and the width of jaws made it by no means certain that it would have failed in the attempt.
Draupadi and Ganesha knelt beside him, staring down at the remains of that Titanic battle.
"The Flame shine upon them," Ganesha murmured.
Water must have been thrashed up over that slanted deck, as the sea creature struck the ship, driven from the depths as the earth shuddered, maddened enough to attack. The thing must have seen the ship as its enemy. Perhaps it was as afraid as the men who watched the water boil as it arrowed up from the deepest water and screamed as its immense jaws opened, distended, and tried to swallow them.
There might have been White Naacals on board like Ganesha himself. But at that moment, none of their prayers and powers had availed them.
The last few moments of the crew—Quintus jerked his gaze away. Too well, he could imagine the water thrashing, the gibbering terror, even the desperate composure of the Naacals as they sought to fight off an impossible enemy.
Time and place flickered for Quintus, as if he could remember it all in truth. Some had fled below, had turned inward. One or two flung themselves overboard. Others prayed, even as those among them who were warriors struck at the great monster with their weapons, hoping to buy time for the Naacals to bring greater weapons to bear. But they had failed. Why had they failed? Overpowered by the Black Naacals? Was their power weakened by what they surely fled? Or perhaps it had been the earth itself, not the Black Naacals, which had ultimately killed them, allowing their souls freedom; The monster would grasp their ship by the stern, was pulling it down, and then the earth opened to swallow creature and ship alike in blackness and pressure and, once the heaving ceased, silence.
How had Quintus remembered? Look again. He looked down into the pit and into his memories simultaneously, and the effort almost robbed him of his senses.
"Aiyeeeeee! The dragon! The great lung, King of Dragons!"
The Ch'in had been slower than he to approach the pit. Now many of them panicked. Some cast themselves face down on the wet salt. Others ran as if attempting to escape what the crew of that long-dead ship had not been able to flee. They ran and fell, and when they could not get up, they crawled, mindless with fear.
Wang Tou-fan's path led him near the pit. Surely he would miss it.
"Come back, man!" Lucilius cried. He even started after the Ch'in—to stop him or push him in? Then another tremor sent the Roman sprawling. He turned his sprawl into a desperate grab at the man's knees, caught him, attempting to pull him back.
Wang Tou-fan screamed like a woman in the last stages of giving birth. With astonishing force,
he fought to pull free of Lucilius—a ferocious and maddened dance that brought him to the very lip of the chasm.
"You can't save him!" Rufus shouted. "Let him go, lad!"
Whether or not Lucilius would have abandoned his fellow conspirator was never to be known. Once again an aftershock rumbled through the earth, spawning more tremors. Lucilius fell, and Wang Tou-fan, screaming about the great dragon, hurled himself into the pit.
Quintus's talisman heated and he clutched onto whatever flimsy support he might find. What was coming now was no mere tremor. Rocks shook and fell; the lightning exploded in sheets across the sky; and the earth snapped shut like the lid of an enormous chest, reclaiming its secrets and adding yet another victim to its toll.
Once more, the thunder spoke, a prolonged rumble as if the earth now digested what it had engulfed. Then, all was still. The dunes had tumbled and toppled into new shapes smelling of salt and ancient seas. Puddles glistened on the salt flats, rippling as the storm winds brushed them. Already, the heat began to rise.
The talisman fell from Quintus's shaking fingers. At his feet, the tiny bronze dancer, sparks quivering in the torches that it held, danced its dance of grief and exaltation.
He scooped it up one-handed and thrust it back into his tunic.
Then, leaning on the Eagle's staff, he turned and edged painstakingly back to where he had left his men. How many of them had survived?
One of the Ch'in camel drivers had crumpled to his knees, and lay with his head in his arms, whimpering. He could not believe this place, could not accept it. Wails rose from his fellows. They were a superstitious lot who saw demons in every aspect of the desert. A prodigy like this—if something weren't done to quell the panic, they might never recover.
"Get the animals' heads!" someone ordered. The command was repeated in Parthian, then in Ch'in.
The Romans hastened to retrain the animals. The Ch'in soldiers, dazed by the loss of Wang Tou-fan, moved more slowly. At this rate, they might never form back into a party capable of traveling.
"Hold!" Quintus shouted. His voice came out as a croak. Despite the downpour, his mouth was dry with fear of what he had seen....
...water in the desert... the heave and torrent of the sea as it sank into the earth.... Draupadi's and Ganesha's refuge came to his mind as some last glimmer of a Golden Age. He didn't think he would ever cease to thirst. And the rain was stopping.
"Stay where you are." His voice came out a little more strongly, but still, no one heard it. You must! he told himself. No lives must be lost because his body failed him.
Grasping the staff of the Eagle, he tried a third time. "Stop there!"
The standard quivered in his hand. Deep clouds in the sky appeared to shift, and sunlight struck the bronze Eagle. Beams of light glittered along its wings, arcing out over the scatter of troops. A steadier light engulfed Quintus: He shivered as strength flowed into him. Gradually, his troops turned. The Ch'in who had collapsed raised themselves from bellies and knees. Those Ch'in, led by Ssu-ma Chao, who had kept their composure by care of animals, reassembled.
Now the clouds dissipated, blown away by a wind tasting of salt. The wind seemed to spread the light from the Eagle Quintus held until it formed a dome beneath the arch of heaven, a dome of protection. The Eagle's wings were over them, he thought.
They gathered close, staring up at it. The light rippled into all the colors of the rainbow. Incredulous smiles appeared on lips that had never thought to do aught again but scream. Then the light vanished. Romans and Ch'in stood on the barren, churned-up ground, staring at each other.
Two men turned to Sextus's body. One scooped up a handful of salt and grit and mud and scattered it about the charred remains.
"He was our comrade," Rufus chided. "We'll make the time to bury him properly."
Then, Quintus knew, they must move on. Perhaps the Eagle could guide them.
23
LIGHT SHONE OVERHEAD as more and more of the layers of clouds were stripped from the sky. Already the wind was dryer and warmer.
Ssu-ma Chao left the camel he had staked down to walk over to Quintus.
"We are far out of our reckoning," he admitted, the first time any of the Ch'in had done so.
Quintus grasped the Eagle's staff more firmly and nodded. He gestured and Rufus came toward him at a trot as brisk as if the world had not suddenly gaped beneath his feet a short time ago. Draupadi too came to his side. He longed to lay his free arm over her slender shoulders, gaining support from her as he had gained it from the Eagle itself.
Ssu-ma Chao looked out over the desert. "Any storm at all would have destroyed the tracks of other caravans. Let alone this one.... Do you agree? We wait for the sun?"
Sunset would show them the west. Then they could strike due east again, Quintus supposed. The storm had even given them some larger supply of water than they had had. Perhaps they might find a way station that would guide them toward Miran.
Follow the sun? Where was the sun? Light, indeed, shone overhead, but the huge angry disk too bright for anything but an eagle to gaze upon seemed to have been replaced by a glow that spread uniformly over the entire vault of sky.
"Illusion," Draupadi murmured. "They seek to confuse us."
"Lady, they succeed," Ssu-ma Chao said. His eyes held a question.
"Concerted illusion. Several adepts must maintain it. I am only one. I wish it were otherwise," she told him.
"Should we make camp?" It was a bad time to take grim pleasure in the fact that Lucilius's voice still quivered.
"And lie here waiting for whatever-it-is to come eat us?" Forgetting the tribune's higher rank, Rufus cut in. "We had the right of it back in Carrhae. March or die. Keep marching until we die—or we prevail."
Ssu-ma Chao regarded the older Roman with what looked like awe. "We have no such spirit left," he said. "Is it because you have..."he gestured, "... your god back?"
"It is because we are Romans," Quintus replied. "Those two most of all." He nodded respect at the senior centurion and the Eagle itself.
"You said they seek to confuse us," he added to Draupadi. "How can you be sure?"
"Illusion is my art," she reminded him. "And illusion, just as much as truth, comes at a price—a great cost in strength and spirit. And I, thank the Flame, have not the means at my disposal of renewing either as the Black Naacals do. Long ago I took such oaths that I would die first.
"There is great power arrayed against us." She gestured at the light that colored the entire sky and the torn-up horizon. "Now, if they can use that power so that we lose ourselves on the desert, they would count that deed done and well done. Especially now, since they must surely have sensed the use of—" she gestured discreetly at the Eagle, which shone in the false light, "—our weapon here."
"The Eagle? Our standard?" Rufus asked, then looked as apologetic as he ever got.
"You yourself have seen it work. It is the standard of your army, and yet it is also a form of the ultimate weapon that Arjuna, warrior and prince, sought long ago when he fought for his family. It is a mighty weapon for defense or for attack. And they would use it—"
"How, lady?"
Ganesha replied. "They would use it to return things to the way they were. To fill the desolation once more with sea, and to sail over it, uncontested masters of land and water. But I saw the Motherland sink. Those days are gone now, and a new age holds sway. It is for other realms to take up the rule of the world."
He met Rufus's glare firmly. "Yes, I say it, even though I remember those days too. The Black Naacals must be stopped. Found and stopped. Destroyed, if needs be. This is no longer their world."
He paused, as if studying the wreckage of the camp. "Now, if we have the strength."
Quintus met Ssu-ma Chao's eyes. The Ch'in soldier bowed profoundly to Ganesha, even more deeply than he had abased himself before the governor in Kashgar.
"When will you be ready to move out?" the Roman asked him.
"At your command."
Ssu-ma Chao bowed again, then shouted the orders that they all knew by now meant break camp, pack, and mount.
None of the Ch'in soldiers moved—not even after a shout from Rufus, followed by a swing from his vinestaff at the nearest laggard, sent the Romans scrambling for their packs. Five of the Ch'in soldiers lay on the ground, oblivious to their discomfort, their knees drawn up against their chins, their eyes squeezed shut. Several more knelt by them. All breathed as if they had run for far too long, and they seemed shrunken in upon themselves by more than hunger.
One of the camels protested being loaded, and a soldier jumped away. Then he collapsed, weeping helplessly, first to his knees, then into a ball of utmost rejection.
Ssu-ma Chao walked over to the man, shouted at him, shook him, and slapped him. His face darkened with anger that was mainly fear, and he drew his sword.