The Dark Lord

warmth of fond memory fade away. Hawk made a secret language for us, the prince remembered. The first letter of each word making a new word. A strikeout or correction making a space between...

He squinted at the page, trying to formulate the hidden sentence in his mind. After a moment, he gave up and began scratching the translation in the dirt of the farmyard. Grains dribbled past and Aurelian found himself staring at the ground, a dead sense of despair rising from his brother's terse, hasty message: Eque, tres menses mihi eme. Nullus post te est. Accipiter.

''Horse,'' he read aloud, ''buy me three months. There is no one behind you. Hawk.''

Aurelian put his head in his hands, closing his eyes. The stabbing pain in his stomach grew worse and he thought he would throw up. Helena, in her meticulous way, had dated the letter. A month had passed between the packet leaving Rome and reaching him here, in this abandoned farmyard. Two months... we'll be forced back into the city in another week, or no more than two. And no reinforcements.

The prince considered the effort he had invested in the massive, expensive fortifications at Pelusium and across the peninsula holding Alexandria. Sixty thousand men had moved heaven and earth to erect the barriers— the greatest set of fieldworks the Roman army had ever created. A harsh laugh escaped Aurelian, driven from his gut. Caesar himself could not have done better, he thought bitterly. All useless. The Persians have changed the geometry of war.

Dreadful experience had taught him how to survive where sorcerers rained death upon from the sky, or shattered stone and brick and wood with a thought. Hide. Maneuver constantly. Fight in loose order. Close quickly with the enemy, to deny their magi a clear target. Ambush them in confined spaces. Counterattack whenever possible. Aurelian realized all too well his own penchant for monuments and clever engineering had thrown away those advantages, leaving his soldiers to bear the result of his folly. I let them scout and prepare unhindered and then stood up and took the axe in the neck, just like a Roman pig... Two months! How can I hold Alexandria for two more months?

He needed thaumaturges far more powerful than Rome had ever produced to meet the Persian and Arab priests on even terms. I need the gods, or ancient heroes, at my side. But I will get nothing.

The prince looked around. There were no gods in evidence, only a rambling farmhouse filled with men sleeping like the dead, worn down past endurance by an endless succession of losing battles. His mind was still grappling with the enormity of his brother's decision. Aurelian had never expected Galen to make the 'Emperor's choice' with his life! The roiling pain in his stomach faded, overshadowed by a vast emptiness in his chest.

'Two months, then.' Aurelian pushed himself upright. He felt dizzy. The road was empty, the last of the First Minerva's cohorts having marched past to take up positions down the road. 'Sixty days.'

His mouth was dry, but Aurelian went looking for the cooks to see if they'd managed to get a fire going in the kitchen grate. The prospect of hot food—even only barley gruel—was enough to keep him awake and moving and alive.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The Oasis of Siwa, West of Alexandria

Under a twilit sky, a lone pillar rose from the sand, three faces worn smooth by the wind. The fourth side, facing the north, retained shallow outlines of hawk-headed men and cranes and kilted servants bowing down before a sun-crowned king. Thyatis roused herself as her camel ambled past, dragging the corner of her kaffiyeh away from a parched mouth. Her lips were dry and cracked, mouth foul with the taste of salt and week-old grime. At least the sun had set, releasing them from the torment of its blazing furnace. The night wind was rising and cooler air pricked her to alertness.

'Quietly now,' she called to the others riding behind her. The camels snorted in response, but the rest of the Roman party was too thirsty and exhausted to speak. Thyatis slipped a leather cord from the crossbar of her spatha freeing the long blade for a swift draw. Her armor was tied in a bundle to the high-cantled saddle behind her. Riding without close-fitting mail heavy on her shoulders and chest felt strange, but the heat in the open desert was only bearable in loose robes.

The camel plodded on. The string of riders approached a thick line of palms and scrubby, dark brush. Thyatis' head raised in surprise as she smelled open water. Everything under the palms was dark—the light of the moon, an arc of dusky red high in the sky, failed to penetrate the foliage—but she swung down, heedless of any possible danger. Her legs were stiff and sore, but the Roman woman pushed through the branches and stumbled into a shallow pond.

Thyatis slid to a halt, the water unexpectedly cold against her legs. Mud oozed into her sandals.

'Wait,' she hissed, furious at herself for rushing ahead, as Vladimir slid through the hanging branches. The Walach froze at the edge of the pond, hand halfway dipped to the quicksilver surface. 'Smell first, my friend. We don't know who might have been here before us.'

Thyatis drew her sword slowly, oiled metal sliding free without a sound. She could feel Betia and Nicholas and the others waiting in the darkness. Everyone's discipline had broken at the heady, irresistible smell. Vladimir withdrew his hand slowly, watching her with huge eyes, then audibly tasted the air, canting his head to one side. He bent low over the water, then dipped his hand again, long tongue flicking over the back of his hand.

'Water,' he whispered. 'Mud. Dates. Camels. Men. Women.'

'Poison?' Thyatis coughed quietly, clearing a dry, dusty throat.

Vladimir shook his head.

'Drink then,' she said, 'but take your time.' She forced herself to stand, alert to any disturbance in the night, while he drank. When the Walach had finished, he slipped back into the brush and Thyatis waded quietly to the edge of the pond. Betia came next, gliding between the palms like a ghost. The Roman woman continued to listen, nerves on edge, suppressing a start every time one of the camels honked or grumbled.

—|—

'Why is it so still?' Nicholas squatted beside her, wiping his face with a damp rag. Thyatis sipped slowly from one of the waterbags. She had washed her face, hands and arms in the pond, but longed for a real bath. Everything sticks together in this heat... The pilgrim road from the coast south to Siwa crossed nearly a hundred miles of lifeless, sun-blasted desert. Endless miles of rocky flats interspersed with acres of gravely lowlands. Thyatis had expected a desert filled with sand, like the lands around Lake Mareotis. But here in the western reach, there were no springs, no water and no shelter to speak of. Only wells built a day's march apart along the trail allowed passage from the coast. The last of those cisterns, cut into a shallow canyon twenty miles north of the oasis, had been bone dry.

'I don't know,' Thyatis said, keeping her voice low. Stands of palms and scrawny trees stretched away to the south, forming the main body of the oasis. In the fading sun, as they had descended the flank of a flattened, rocky ridge, Thyatis had seen whitewashed houses and sand-colored temples at the center of the depression. The glittering expanse of a dry lake blazed beyond the green fields. People—priests, shepherds, artisans—were supposed to live here, drawing life from the bubbling pools and the fields the springs allowed. Flat-topped mesas surrounded the valley of Siwa, though they were nothing more than barren white stone and chalky gravel. 'There must be someone here.'

She pointed into the darkness. 'There is a hill at the center—you saw it from the ridge? The temple of Amon-Ra is there, and the Oracle, and the quarters of the priests.'

'I saw.' Nicholas shifted in the moonlight, nodding. Thyatis felt Vladimir and Betia stir. The others were resting farther back in the grove. Everyone was worn down by the punishing heat. They had pushed hard from the coast. Thyatis' thighs and back simmered with dull, constant pain. Camels had a strange, loping gait and she'd felt nauseated for five days while they ambled south. She longed not just to be clean again—preferably via hours spent soaking in blisteringly hot water—but a masseuse afterwards, iron-hard hands kneading her tortured muscles into welcome oblivion.

'What did your bird say? Where do we go now?'

Nicholas rose, grimacing as abused muscles complained. Thyatis didn't think he was used to riding so much either. He was happy at sea, she remembered. A Roman sailor, how funny! He cracked his knuckles.

'She said—if we can believe her more than we could our poetic Cypriot—to enter the Mystery itself, the