The farther he walked, the higher grew the trees. He passed through sun-dappled shade and cool shadow, content to follow the path wherever it led until the trees thinned abruptly and he found himself standing in a wide clearing before a lake of what looked like… glass? Crystal?
No, not glass-but not water either. Intrigued, Kit stepped closer and knelt down to examine it more closely. Translucent, glimmering, fluid, yet giving off a faint milky glow: a pool of liquid light. As impossible as that might have been anywhere else, here, in this place, it felt natural and right.
Kit reached out a hand to touch the gently gleaming substance and, just as his fingers were about to dip beneath the surface, he heard a rustling in the nearby leaves and branches. Pulling back his hand, he shrank away from the edge of the pool to watch. The foliage on the bank of the pond shuddered and thrashed; a moment later the fronds of the tree ferns parted and out stepped a man of middle height and compact frame, dark hair and eyes, the shadow of a beard on his jaw; he was dressed in a loose white shirt and dark trousers, boots and belt. All this Kit noticed as a sort of afterthought, because his attention was wholly absorbed in the burden the man carried: the limp and lifeless body of a young woman with long black hair and an oval face and almond eyes.
Kit’s first thought was that the woman was asleep. She was dressed in a long gown of thin white stuff, crushed and rumpled, and stained at the neck and under the arms as if sweat had dried there over time. Then Kit observed the ghastly tinge of the woman’s flesh: ashen and waxy, the sick pallor of the grave. No living human had flesh like that. At a glance, Kit knew that she was dead.
The man, his face set in a grimace of determination, tightened his grip on the body in his arms-as if gathering his strength for a superhuman effort-then, steadying himself, the man took a purposeful stride towards the pool of liquid light. His first step took him to the brink, his next step carried him into the pond and up to his shins; another stride and he was in to his knees. The opalescent liquid swirled around him, thick and glutinous as honey, radiance scattering in waves across the surface disturbed by the man’s measured plunge into the pool. The dark-haired fellow waded farther, sinking deeper into the strange liquid now lapping around his shoulders, swallowing the corpse he clutched so tightly in his arms.
Another step, and the man and dead woman sank beneath the surface without a sound. Kit watched the place where they had disappeared; it was marked by rings of shimmering light. These rings spread in waves across the pool and were soon lapping at Kit’s feet. But something else was happening: the place where the couple had sunk from view was now glowing with a rosy golden hue. This luminescence grew and spread until the entire pond was the colour of heated bronze glowing fresh from the crucible.
Kit watched, fascinated, as a dome of light appeared, a great bubble rising from the liquid light. In the centre of this dome emerged the head and shoulders of the man, rising once more. He still clutched the body of the woman close to his chest, but where before she had been a limp dead weight in his arms, now she clung to him, her arms clasped around his neck. Her face was buried in the hollow of his throat as he carried her alive from the pool; her skin, gleaming with the sheen of living light, no longer bore the taint of the grave.
Kit would have stayed to see the couple reunited, but the tenderness with which the man knelt to lay his lady down and cupped a hand to her face gave Kit to know that this moment was for the two of them alone. He backed away from the edge of the pool and, as he turned to leave, cast a last backwards glance across the pond to see that the man, standing once more, had removed his shirt to make a pillow for the young woman’s head. The man’s torso was tattooed with a spray of tiny blue symbols-dozens of them-symbols he had seen before.
“The Man Who Is Map,” breathed Kit. “At the Well of Souls.”
Epilogue
He waited until after dark and then, to be certain that he had not been followed, Charles Flinders-Petrie approached the Sacred Way by a torturously circuitous, wandering route, doubling back time and again until he could put his mind at rest. The last passage had been fraught, and he feared he had alerted his enemies. But it seemed that he had given them the slip, if only for a little while. That was all he would need. A few more crossings and it would be finished: the map would disappear forever.
Then let them do their worst. Nothing would make him talk. He would die first. The thought of taking his secrets to the grave made him smile.
Now to the business at hand-the reason he had come to Etruria. Although he had never met the king of Velathri, he had heard the name Turms since boyhood, and had longed to meet the royal sage and seer. It would not happen now, but Charles was glad to be here just the same. The funeral of the king lasted most of the day, and he had arrived in time to witness the procession, standing reverently among the grieving subjects. As a representative of his family, it was right to acknowledge the passing of a longtime friend of his father and grandfather. Charles congratulated himself on correctly navigating the ley and calibrating the time of his arrival. True, it would have been better if he had managed to reach his destination while Turms was still alive, but as things stood he considered it a singular victory. The tomb was unsealed and would remain so for another seven days in order to allow mourners to place their gifts and remembrances in the chamber. Having dressed in the style of a rural labourer of the day, Charles did not expect to be challenged by the soldiers guarding the tomb. As far as anyone was concerned, he was merely one more rural peasant come to pay his humble respects. His modest stature and unremarkable features, together with his wholly unassuming demeanour, often made it possible for him to move unseen through the various worlds he visited. Also, he had found that few in authority paid much attention to those they considered beneath them. So, to accentuate his lowly state, he had cut his hair short and allowed his beard to go unshaved a few days, giving himself a more grizzled, rustic guise.
If fortune favoured him tonight, he would pass unnoticed once more. Charles hoped he would not have to speak to the guards or, worse, bribe them to let him into the tomb.
Bearing a cluster of grapes in one hand and pressing the bundle containing his grave gift to his chest, Charles descended the long staircase leading to the sunken road cut deep into tufa stone beneath the surface of the surrounding landscape. He walked along, his way lit intermittently by torches, advancing from one pool of light to the next, until he arrived at the place where an iron brazier had been set up outside an elaborately carved doorway. The tomb had been whitewashed and painted red, green, and gold, designating a royal burial. The doorway was festooned with white flowers, and little red pennons had been strung from the top of the high banks of tufa at the top of the Sacred Way.
Two guards stood either side of the door-yawning and leaning on their long lances-and three more sat on campstools across the narrow roadway. A table had been erected, and the remains of the funeral meal, as well as gifts of food and wine, were piled high in baskets along the walls and steps leading to the tomb. The guards gripped cups and had obviously been helping themselves to the wine, bread, and sweetmeats. Why not? There was no danger of thieves or grave robbers. Turms the Immortal was a just and revered king, well loved by the people; exceedingly long-lived, he had survived plague and drought and war-the banes of rulers in every age, and in every age the same. He had lived long enough to enjoy that rarest of elixirs: the loving acclaim of devoted subjects. Even among his enemies, the bellicose Latins, Turms the Immortal was renowned as a sage and seer of extraordinary powers. Any thief foolish enough to risk stealing from this tomb would be torn apart by the mob, so high was the esteem in which the late king was held. The presence of guards was a mere formality.
Rounding his shoulders and lowering his head, Charles affected a stoop and, for good measure, a slight limp, smiling obsequiously as he approached. The guards at the door gave him a cursory glance as he hobbled into view. Nodding and smiling, he bowed once, twice, three times-as one would to his betters-and stepped to the tomb entrance. As he mounted the steps, he heard one of the guards behind him speak out-a single word of command. He did not know what was said, but he halted nonetheless.
The soldier rose from his stool and moved unsteadily towards him. Charles turned as the guardsman confronted him; he raised a hand to his ear and touched it lightly with his finger as a deaf man might. The soldier spoke again and Charles, still smiling, shook his head. One of the standing guards spoke a word to his comrade and gestured with his lance for the visitor to enter. Charles stepped to the threshold, but the other soldier put a hand on his shoulder, turned him back around, and then, as if to assert his authority, took the bunch of grapes from his hand. Then, with a lift of his chin, he directed the old man to do what he had come to do.
Charles paused just inside the chamber as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The little light that entered the tomb came from the torches outside, and that was not much. Although every instinct screamed at him to hurry, he
