The Dark Lord

'No!' The Empress raised her head, tears streaming through caked kohl. 'Are you stupid? I'm short and round and I have a fat stomach—not like cold Helena, who is so perfect and slim and elegant! Or even Anastasia, though she's nice to me at least, but she's got so much beautiful hair, and striking eyes and her breasts don't point down because she hasn't had any babies and she can wear fashionable clothes and if I try them they look horrible or cheap and everyone laughs behind their hands when they think I'm not looking!'

She punched him, tears streaming freely. He barely felt the blow against the hard, flat muscle of his chest. Maxian caught the fist, then spread her fingers against his breast. 'Shhh...' he whispered. 'Hush. I've gift, a groom's gift—and not scissors or a paring knife—for a bride on her wedding night. Let me take these cares away...' Again, he bent to kiss her, but Martina buried her face in the pleated quilts, sobbing.

Maxian drew back, letting her lie shuddering in exhaustion. A troubled look crossed his face, followed by an attitude of listening, then a slow, broad smile. He nodded thanks to the air, then settled his hands on the crown of Martina's head.

'Don't touch me!' she hissed, trying to strike his hands away.

'Shhh...' he said, closing his eyes. 'Behold.'

Martina started to struggle, but a warm, liquid glow spilled from his hands and her eyes rolled up. Mouth parted in a soft aaah, her back arched as she stiffened, caught in the glamour. Sweat beaded on bare skin and her fingers dug into the quilts. Slowly, with infinite care, Maxian drew his hands through her hair, which thickened, grew, spilling into soft, chestnut waves. Spreading her tresses across the pillows he lay alongside her, hands firm upon her face and neck, cupping her breasts, smoothing the skin of her stomach, circling her thighs, fingers running down to her toes in gentle, irresistible progress. The shimmering glow seeped into skin, rendering her flesh pliable, adding muscle, stealing fat, lengthening bone.

As he worked, face shining with soft, rippling blue white light—like the sea gleaming from a shield or a grotto roof—she moaned and squirmed, unable to speak, transported by his touch. When, at last he was done, he rose to his knees, looking down upon her. A certain expression filled his face, an amalgam of pride, delight and satisfaction. Well done!

Martina lay among the silken sheets, languid eyes barely open, heart-shaped lips parted, glorious dark brown hair spilling to her waist, breasts now high and firm, velvety stomach curving irresistibly to the sweet cradle of her thighs, legs long and tapering. The sight of her struck him in the stomach, a heavy blow of desire.

'Could Pygmalion have done better?' Maxian's eyes sparkled. 'Martina?'

'Yes, husband?' The Empress' eyes fluttered open and looked upon him with joy. Her fear, self-doubt and exhaustion were gone—wiped away by his power. 'Where is my bridal bed and bower?'

'Here,' he said, standing, silhouetted against the star-filled sky. He raised a hand and the sea foam blazed with deep green light as if the sun rose in the depths, filling the sky with pillars and columns of twisting cold flame. 'On a sea of dreams.'

The prince knelt between her legs and now Martina accepted his caress with wanton delight, rising to meet him. He gasped at the hot breath of her kiss. Then she cried out, surrendering to him.

The ship bore into the west, glittering spray falling back from a high prow and the ghosts of men kept watch in the rigging, spying the deeps for reefs and hidden rocks. Sails of starlight caught invisible zephyrs, carrying the lovers on, into warm, close darkness.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The Desert Beyond Lake Mareotis, Lower Egypt

'There!' Nicholas pointed, eyes shaded against the blazing white sky by his burnoose. 'A worked edge.'

Sandals crunching in loose pea sand, Thyatis climbed a low dune to stand beside the Latin. Pillars and knobs of crumbling russet-colored stone rose from the desolation, stretching to the horizon in either direction. Beneath the eroded towers, dark red sand moved slowly south, driven by a constant gusty wind. The Roman woman had never seen a more inhospitable place. All signs of life were absent—no short grass, no lichen, no birds—nothing but keening wind and the rattling sound of sand blowing against rock.

Ahead, beyond Nicholas' pointing finger, she saw a larger pinnacle jutting from the wayward dunes, burnished sandstone striated with dark streaks. The lowering sun threw a long shadow to the east, but her eyes found a dissonant angle on the face of the worn, curved rock.

'Not a door,' she said, voice muffled by the heavy linen covering her mouth and nose. 'But something made by man.'

Nicholas nodded and they advanced cautiously. Thyatis drifted to the left and the Latin to the right. A hundred yards behind, the camels and workers waited patiently in the lee of another knob of fluted stone. Thyatis kept a sharp eye on the avenues of sand and barren rock between the pillars, watching for any movement. Disquiet had plagued her since they'd entered the wasteland—she was sure someone was watching them as they picked their way across the broken, rough ground. Nicholas darted ahead, reaching the side of the pinnacle. His hands searched over grainy, pebbled stone. Up close, the sharp edge that had seemed so clear from a distance vanished, lost in wind-carved surfaces.

Thyatis continued to watch their backs, crouching against the base of the rock, letting her tan-and-brown silhouette merge with the land. The sense of unease grew and her fingers tightened on the hilt of her sword. 'Anything?'

'No.' Nicholas stepped back, looking up. 'But I'm sure...'

Thyatis froze, feeling a strange trembling against her breastbone. Without looking down, she slid one hand into her tunic, groping for the prince's amulet. The copper disk, warm from the heat of her body, was vibrating. Gritting her teeth, she clamped down—though the device made no audible noise—and felt the metal humming.

Curse this Roman and his mysterious friends! Thyatis felt a brief spike of fury, then quashed the emotion. She twitched her shoulders, trying to keep from tensing up. Curse the Persians too for inspiring a lax, slovenly Cypriot to find something valuable in the morass of that library for once in his wretched, short life! She looked sideways at Nicholas, who was crouching on the sand, looking up at the stone face from an odd angle.

'See anything?' Thyatis startled herself with a wry laugh. Upside down, he looked like a monkey.

'Maybe...' Nicholas began digging in the sand blown against the base of the pinnacle.

Thyatis watched him, weighing her options. If the prince's talisman told true, there was a telecast nearby. She couldn't let it be found, either by Nicholas or anyone else. Should I kill him now? she wondered, glancing back to the rest of the caravan. Mithridates and Betia were watching her, while the others kept an eye on the camels or the wasteland. The pinnacles and spires broke up the horizon, making everything a jumble. It would be easy for someone to approach, hiding among the broken rock. Murder Vladimir and the workers... tell the Emperor the Persians ambushed us...

The thought made her feel ill and cold. She didn't know how she felt about Nicholas, but Vladimir was a gregarious, outgoing fellow and this mess was none of his making. What is so important about these cursed devices anyway? The Duchess' fears seemed remote and insubstantial under the desert sun, with a hot wind tugging at her robe. Thyatis felt irritated too. She had never been troubled by the thought of striking down an enemy of the state before—but was Nicholas an enemy? Cursing under her breath, she kicked sand away. My dear mother has to make everything so complicated...

'Here!' Nicholas turned, grinning. His hole in the sand had gone down a foot or more and the worn, smoothed stones had changed, revealing a sharper, clearly man-made cut in the rock face. 'Hallo!' He sprang up, waving at the others. 'There is something here!'

—|—

Thyatis whistled softly, a warbling trill, and Betia—standing watch over the camels fifty feet away—turned to face her. The little Gaul was wrapped from head to toe in desert robes, a mottled brown and tan and white, only pale blue eyes peering from a thin slit in the cloth. Thyatis had been circling the pinnacle, watching for anyone or anything, and now stood out of sight of the excavation busily underway at the base of the rock face.

The fellaheen had been digging industriously for over an hour, their mattocks and spades burrowing into the firmly packed sand. Nicholas' discovery had proved to be the side of a frieze. Only the legs and feet of three figures remained, protected by the packed sand. Everything exposed above the ground level had been obliterated