Thomas Harlan - Shadow of Ararat

Behind them, their Goth bodyguards sat silently in the shadow of the trees, their fair hair bound in mountain flowers that they had gathered from the margin of the road. The long buttery-yellow slats of sunlight cutting through the trees gleamed from their fish-scale armor. The servants retired to the pack mules and lay down in the sun, broad straw hats shading their faces as they took a quick nap. The young Maxian felt safe and at peace. It was not often that his father took him out of the city or even paid attention to him. This was an unexpected treat.

After almost an hour, the governor roused himself from his introspection and turned to his son. His bushy white eyebrows bunched together and he rubbed his nose with a broad hand. For a long time he looked at his youngest son, and then, with a masklike expression, gestured for the boy to get up and follow him. They walked to the horses, now held ready by the servants. The Goths filtered out of the trees after them, weapons now loosened in scabbard, quiver, and belt. Together, the small party rode up the road and down into the narrow valley on the other side.

Maxian shook his head, clearing the memory away. Cautiously he set the lantern on the mantel of the brick fireplace. With quick hands he lit a small fire in the grate and found another lantern to join the first. Dromio remained on the floor, his breath coming in quick, harsh, gasps. With the room lit, Maxian sorted through the plates, cups, and bowls on the table. He examined them all, quickly but thoroughly. His eye found no sheen of metallic poisons, his nose no odd, acrid stench. He separated those items containing liquids from those containing solids and made a neat pile of each on the broad sideboard. These things done, he knelt by the side of his friend. Dromio’s hand weakly rose up and Maxian took it in both of his.

“Fear not, my friend, I will drive this sickness from you,” the Prince whispered.

Dawn came creeping over the tile roofs, pale squares of light trickling in through the deep casement windows set high in the wall above the kitchen table. In time the warm light puddled on the ashen face of the young man who lay slumped over the thick-planked table. Flies woke and slowly droned around the room, lighting at the borders of pools of blood. Drinking deeply, they struggled to resume flight, clumsily flitting toward the meat rotting on the sideboards.

In midnight one large blue-green bottlefly stuttered in the air and then fell with a solid thump to the tabletop. Then another fell. Maxian twitched awake, one hand brushing unconsciously the litter of dead flies from his face. Shaking his head, he half rose from the table. One hand brushed against a pewter goblet, half-melted as from some incred ible heat. The goblet struck the floor and collapsed in a spray of sand.

The healer turned around, trying to puzzle out where he might be. His head throbbed with an unceasing din, a great sea of sound like the Circus in full throat. Again he brushed his long hair, now unbound, back from his temples. He started with surprise, then ran a hand through long dark hair that fell over his shoulders in an unkempt sprawl. He came fully awake and looked quickly around him.

A grim scene came hazily into view.

Gods, what I must have drunk last night! What happened to my hair?

The kitchen was a ruin of smashed crockery, crumpled bronze cookpans, cracked floor tiles, and drifts of odd white dust. Dark-red pools, almost black in the early-morning light, covered most of the floor. The walls, once a light-yellow whitewash, were speckled with thousands of tiny red spots. Maxian flinched at the sight, then gagged as he realized that the tabletop behind him was littered with hundreds of bones, some large, most a forest of small finger bones, ribs, and scapulae. Without thinking, he summarized the debris-three adults, one larger than normal, four children…

The Prince froze, for now the reality of the place forced itself to his conscious mind. The shipyard. The house of Dromio, his wife, brother, and children. The rest of the long and harrowing night came sliding back up out of depths of memory and Maxian doubled over in horror, his hands clawing at the tabletop to hold himself up. The bones rattled and slid as the table tipped over, sighing to dust as they clattered against one another.

Near the flood time, when storms came racing out of the desert in fierce squalls and the wind carried the sweet scent of fresh rain striking the dust, Dwyrin was at last released from his dinner chores. He and some of the other boys, Kyllun among them, wheedled the gatekeeper into letting them go out to swim in the river. Ahmet they roused from his afternoon nap to watch over them. The master acceded to their bright eager faces and came, bringing a parasol and some scrolls he had been meaning to read again. The sun was bright, filling the sky, there was a little breeze, and even Ahmet was pleased at the thought of an excursion.

Downhill from the school, a path ran through the palms and thick reeds to the edge of the river. The boys ran in the sun, whooping and yelling, to the bank. A shelf of sand rose up there and ran against the shore, making a shallow, sheltered bay. Ahmet fanned himself as he settled under a palm. The boys were waiting eagerly by the shore. Ahmet looked up and down the river for suspicious logs, particularly those with eyes. He closed his own briefly, then nodded to the boys fidgeting behind him on the trail.

Dwyrin splashed into the water. He had not been swimming like this in a long time, not since his illicit visit to the temple of the Hawk lord. The river was forbidden to the boys, for other than the currents and deep holes, the sacred crocodiles lurked in its depths, always ready to take a sacrifice out of season. Sophos splashed water at him; Dwyrin cupped his hands and squirted back. Sophos yelled and leapt at him. Dwyrin danced aside, laughing.

The boat of Ra settled into the west, its naming wings touching the thin clouds, marking them with streamers of deep rose and violet. Ahmet looked up from the Libre Evion to see Dwyrin hurling through the air at the end of a long rope. At the top of his arc the boy let go and, with a wild whoop, plummeted into the river with a mighty splash. The other boys crowded around at the base of the overreaching palm that held the rope in its crown. Sophos caught the rope as it swung back and ran back up the bank. Ahmet smiled and turned back to the obscure passage he had been considering.

Dwyrin plunged deep into the murky brown water. His feet struck mud at the bottom and slid to a gelatinous stop., Surging upward, he kicked against the clinging mud. His arms thrust back, pushing him up. The mud failed to release him. Dwyrin surged again and felt the thick coils of mud claw up at his legs. He settled deeper. Far above he could see the boat of Ra shimmering through the water. He struggled. The water was cold around him. His arms worked frantically. His throat choked and he struggled to keep from breathing. His limbs were leaden. Water tickled at his nose.

On the bank, Ahmet looked up. There had been a momentary twinge at the edge of the ward that kept the crocodiles at bay. He put the scrolls aside and stood up. Sophos swung past in the air, yelling, and splashed into the water. The other boys jostled each other to catch the rope. Ahmet scanned the waters. Sophos burst up and swam strongly back to shore. The twinge came again. Ahmet reached out with the Eye to encompass the area.

Dwyrin gathered himself again, lungs straining, heart pounding like his father’s forge hammer, and thrust down with his arms, his legs hanging limp, trapped in deep mud. Again he strove and sank only deeper. Gods, he wailed in his mind, free me! A dark haze clouded his mind. His ears were filled with pain and he desperately wanted to breathe in. Fear washed up in him, eroding his concentration. He began reciting the settling meditation. If he would go, he would go at peace.