The Dark Lord

young man's voice was soft and contemplative.

'He felt a great pressure throughout his life,' Octavian continued, 'and it made Caesar mad, I think, always racing to match the achievements of Alexander. Sometimes he complained of urgent dreams, and never accounted he had matched his old glory.'

Khamun said nothing, though his face turned pensive. Octavian continued to speak softly and quietly, musing on the past. 'He sent me a letter from Alexandria, soon after Pompey the Great was defeated. He too looked upon the face of Alexander... he said the visage was familiar but not his own face. That Woman played to his obsession, I think, plying Caesar with tales of reborn souls. She wanted him to be Alexander.'

Octavian looked up at Khamun, eyes narrowed in suspicion. 'Are the souls of the great reborn, wizard? Could Alexander's spirit have dwelt in my father's body?'

'I have heard this said, my lord.' Khamun took a moment to still his racing heart. A terrible thought had occurred to the old wizard, chilling his blood. 'Many men, and women, too, oft claim the blood of the great heroes and kings runs in their veins... mostly those who hope for descent from some heavenly power. Alexander, I have heard, claimed his own house of Aegea descended from Hercules, and through him from Zeus Thundershield. I do not know if that is true.'

Octavian stood, his expression turning cold. 'You are not answering my question, wizard.'

Khamun swallowed, but managed to speak. 'There are some great spirits, my lord, which maintain after a man or woman dies. We call them the ka, and they do not die with the defeat of the physical body. Such a man as Alexander? His spirit might live on for a long time... but from what I have seen and read, it will be drawn like to like. In his own descendant, perhaps, he might live again. But the great Caesar is a trueborn Roman, yes? Born of Latin blood? Not a Macedonian... and everyone agrees Alexander's children perished, strangled or murdered by his successors.'

Octavian continued to fix the old Egyptian with a cold stare, but at last relented, turning back to the coffin on the floor. 'True,' the young Roman mused, 'his line ended in blood. So my father's dream was just that—a dream—though he was carried far on those wings! Just the memory of the man was enough...' Octavian's voice trailed off into silence.

A long moment passed and Khamun, seeing the young Roman deep in thought, did not venture to disturb him. Finally, Octavian roused himself, looked around and gestured to his aide. The youth unfolded a cloth in the box, and removed a golden diadem, surmounted by the eight-rayed star of the Macedonian kings. Octavian, moving with great care, settled the crown upon the ancient leathery head, then saluted the corpse as one Roman general might another. He followed the diadem with the petals of many flowers, strewn artlessly in the coffin.

'It is done,' he said, and the two legionaries—under his careful eye—replaced the glass lid and drove thin wedges of lead into the spaces around the edge to hold it fast. Octavian turned away, grinning at Khamun. At the same time, he put something in a pocket inside his cloak.

'My lord?' ventured one of the priests, 'would you like to look upon the mausoleum of the Ptolemies?'

Octavian laughed at the man, now seemingly in great good humor. 'I came to see a king, not a row of corpses!'

With that, Octavian strode out of the tomb, with his legionaries and aides in a crowd around him, leaving the priest sullen and red with anger.

—|—

'Now, Khamun, where have you hidden the boy, Caesarion? I would like to see him for myself.' Octavian slouched in a field chair in his great tent outside the city. Full darkness had come, revealing a vast wash of stars girdling the heavens. All around the young Roman, his Legions were bedding down for the night, here on the plain just east of Alexandria. In the gloom, their lanterns and torches made a bright orchard along the banks of a canal. 'Her children by Antony I have already looked upon—charming and well-featured, but useless—where is Caesar's child?'

The old Egyptian stood at the door of the tent, staring out into the darkness. Now he turned, long wrinkled face filling with despair. 'Gone, my lord. None can say where, and I have cast about in my thought, seeking to gain this knowledge. The boy has vanished. Some... some say he has fled south, to Axum or the dark kingdoms at the source of the Nile...'

Octavian stood abruptly, his usually calm face twisted in anger. 'You purchased your child's life and freedom, master Khamun, with promises of power over Egypt and Rome alike! Now, what do I have? Nothing! You are a weak tool, a chisel that slips too many times from the cutting groove. Why should I keep you, when you fail so often? Do I mistake the passage of events? Each thing I desired, I have taken myself.'

The Egyptian paled, seeing raw fury in his master's face for the first time. The young Senator was not a man of great passions and the change was startling. Khamun knelt, swiftly. 'My lord...'

'Be quiet.' Octavian stared out at the dim lights of the city, a constellation of pale yellow and orange crashed upon the earth. 'My agents, my men, will search for the boy. I will set Agrippa upon the task—he has never failed me! This child of conjoined Rome and Egypt will not be allowed to live. I am Caesar's only heir and I will have Rome for myself.'

Octavian gestured for the Egyptian to rise. 'Yet there is a task I have in mind for you, something I hope is within your skill! My reach is long... wherever you have hidden your beloved will not be far enough away, if you fail me again.' The young Roman smiled suddenly, teeth white and feral in the half-darkness. 'I will make a new Rome, a glorious, eternal Rome. You will help me. I have not ignored the little you have taught me of power and this hidden world you claim to master.'

Khamun watched his master warily, though the Egyptian breathed a thankful prayer he still had some use. He did not want to die under the burning tongs—his ancestors would have laughed at such threats, but the blood of Khem was thin in these later days. 'Of course, my lord, I am your servant.'

CHAPTER TWO

A Street, North of the Forum Bovarium, Constantinople, Late Spring A.D. 625

A faint groan issued from beneath a heap of corpses. Pale sunlight fell on dead staring eyes, picking out faint gleams from buckles and rusted links of chain armor. The entire street was filled with scattered bodies—most of them burned beyond recognition—though many still held the semblance of life. There were no flies, no rooting, bloody-nosed dogs, no scavenging peasants, no crows or ravens or seagulls feasting on the flotsam of war. Empty windows stared down onto the sloping street, shutters scorched black by some awesome blast of flame that had raged up and down the avenue.

Bodies shifted, heavy gray arms falling away, thighs encased in armor clanging to the ground. A man clawed his way out of the corpse midden, face streaked with dried blood, armor dented and scratched. He stood, trying to muster the spit to clear his mouth. Dark eyes, almost black, took in the wreckage all around and the soldier grimaced. There was nothing moving, certainly nothing alive as far as his eye reached in either direction.

A great stillness pervaded the houses and crouched in the doors of the little shops. The soldier realized nothing lived, even in the dark, close rooms behind the facades. Grunting, he tried to climb up over the heap of half-naked bodies—part of his conscious mind registered Slavic spearmen, long hair stiff with white clay, their bodies intricately diagrammed with whorled signs in black and dark blue dye—and found his right arm weak. Frowning, he looked down on his forearm and realized a huge gash ripped from his wrist to the elbow, tearing through a sleeve of linked iron rings.

'Merciful gods!' The man hissed. Something had shattered his arm, cleaving right to the bone. An axe? He remembered something bright flashing towards him.

The soldier reached to undo the buckle at his shoulder and his left arm caught on something. Cursing, the man realized a long black-shafted arrow had wedged itself through the center of the iron links and clear through his forearm. The stubs of two more arrows were buried in his chest. Snarling, without even words to express his rage, the man broke the shaft of the arrow off at the base, rewarding himself with a popping sound and the slow welling of thick, dark blood around the wound. He ignored the arrows in his chest for the moment.

With swift, experienced motions, Rufio unbuckled the straps holding the armored sleeves to his shoulder plates, then jerked the heavy iron hauberk off over his head. The arrows in his chest snapped with a wet sound and he hissed with pain. A pale, welted body crisscrossed with terrible scars was revealed. The street remained silent and desolate. Even the sky was empty of birds. The uncanny stillness weighed on the soldier's mind. He