David Drake - Out of the waters

The Tiber was a textured brown flood, trailing occasional lines of bubbles. Corylus had never seen the river from high enough up to appreciate its whole presence before. It wasn't the Rhine, let alone the Danube, but it had a personality which compelled respect.

He visualized the river god rising from the stream with flowing brown locks and challenging him. Perhaps Father Tiber would know how to use this flame projector, Corylus thought. He felt better for the whimsy.

The Ancient spoke in a querulous, demanding voice, ending on an up-note. Corylus turned, clinking the flare of his helmet against his armored shoulder.

The sprite said, "I don't want-"

The Ancient spoke again, briefly but with a snap in his tone. He was glaring at her.

The sprite made a moue. "The place that makes it work is there in the back," she said to Corylus. She gestured with her elbow toward at six-pointed star with curving tips imprinted in the back of the apparatus. "You turn it sunwise."

The Ancient was grinning at him. "Thank you, master," Corylus said. He turned his attention to the flame weapon.

The ship had risen higher than it had in the past. The ground was at least a thousand feet below, and Carce spread like a mosaic of tile roofs in the northern distance.

There was an unfamiliar shimmering disk in the sky beyond the Citadel; it seemed to rest on the granite pylon which Augustus had brought from Egypt for the gnomon of his sundial. As he watched, a bump in the center of the disk grew into the bow of a ship; a moment later, the whole vessel flew free into the air above Carce.

Corylus touched the star on his weapon with the fingers of his left hand, then turned it. He felt a clicking through the gauntlets.

The device had been as rigidly fixed to the structure of the ship as the mast itself; now it quivered into life, moving with greasy obedience when Corylus touched the left handgrip. A triangle of light four inches to a side appeared over the forward-pointing spout, framing a section of sky.

"When you push down with your thumbs," the sprite said grudgingly, "fire comes out the front."

She looked at the deck and shook her head. In a barely audible voice she said, "I don't know how you can think of doing that, cousin. Using fire!"

Corylus closed the mesh visor of his helmet. The thin orichalc wires cast a soft blur over his vision, but they didn't blind him as he feared they might.

He thought about what the sprite had said. For a moment, he visualized a world in which men recoiled in horror from the thought of burning other men alive; a world in which the Batavian Scouts didn't dry the ears of Sarmatian raiders whom they had tracked down east of the Danube.

That world was almost real to him, but not quite. Now he sighted along the spout of the weapon as their ship slid down through the sky of Carce. A second Atlantean vessel was pressing through the disk of rainbow light.

The wings of Corylus' own ship stroked hard, lifting the bow slightly. He tugged on the handgrips to keep the first of the two Atlanteans in the lighted triangle. The weapon was perfectly balanced, but it was heavy enough that adjusting the aim took some effort.

He kept the snout swinging, judging the Atlantean's course and their own. It was a matter of figuring out where the target would be and aiming there. Like launching a javelin at a Sarmatian riding across our front…

The decks of the Atlantean vessel were crowded with people. Most of them wore brightly colored off-the-shoulder tunics, but there were also archers and spearmen in simpler garb and a handful of exquisites-women and children-who glittered like spider webs frosted with dew.

Many Atlanteans stared at Corylus, but they didn't seem concerned. They must think he had come through the portal ahead of their ship, that was all.

A Servitor stood beside the armored Minos in the stern; another held the grips of the fire projector in the bow. The glass men were looking down at the plaza between the sundial and the Altar of Peace where citizens of Carce were gathering to see the wonders despite the threatening clouds. The Servitor in the bow slanted his weapon to sweep the crowd.

In another world, the Minoi would meet the Senate in peace and their people would settle in this world, another nation among the hundreds already within the boundaries of a peaceful empire.

In another world. The Atlantean ship was within fifty feet, proceeding parallel to Corylus' craft but not as swiftly.

The Ancient howled a word. Corylus didn't wait for the sprite to translate-if she intended to-before he squeezed with his thumbs. Nothing moved beneath them, but there was a loud roar, a blast of heat on his cheeks despite the mesh visor, and a throbbing vibration through the hull.

A spray of flame washed across the sails of the Atlantean ship; they vanished into puffs of ash drifting on the breeze. The vessel rolled over on its side, spilling its passengers and crew before plunging after them. The Minos dropped like a blazing meteor.

Corylus lifted his thumbs. The Ancient was keening something as he brought their ship around to engage the second Atlantean. The Servitor at the weapon of that one was no longer concerned with the civilians below, though the projector's inertia slowed him.

A third ship was squeezing through the disk. Behind it were scores of others, more than Corylus could begin to count in a brief glimpse.

He adjusted his flame projector. He thought he heard the sprite sobbing, but that was a concern for another world, a world that didn't exist today.

Hedia saw a brighter patch in the blur ahead of them. There had been an omnipresent buzzing, like that of many distant insects; now it began to congeal into voices. To her surprise, Lann first slowed, then stopped and stood erect.

Hedia made a quick choice and stepped around him, striding briskly. She couldn't hear words, but the rhythms of the speech ahead were those of Latin.

The ape-man gave a plaintive chirp. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he was shambling along behind.

The air changed and the brightness gained texture. When Hedia looked straight ahead she saw only the flagstones, but there were other movements in the corners of her eyes: a pair of sheep, long-legged and shaggy, stared at her with their jaws working in a circular motion. Again, a young man made a half-turn to loose a discus. His muscles were so chiseled and perfect that Hedia almost missed a step.

The vision faded. The athlete was gone with the sheep.

Without conscious transition she stepped from the path onto the pavement within the marble screen of the Altar of Peace. Around her marched in low relief the sacrificial procession with which Emperor Augustus had inaugurated the altar.

A huge storm boiled in the sky around the horizon, but shimmering light held clear the air directly overhead. The light blazed from the orichalc sphere on top of the pointer of the sundial which Augustus had erected at the same time that he built the Altar of Peace.

A portal almost a hundred feet in diameter balanced above the monolith. From it, as Hedia watched, struggled a flying ship.

The Minoi were here. They had caught her.

Hedia walked out through the west doorway of the marble screen. Directly ahead, the Egyptian obelisk rose above the heads of the spectators.

She was stark naked, with nothing to hide her cuts, bruises and general grubbiness. At least she had gotten used to going barefoot, so the hard pavement didn't bother her now.

A ripping sound, not loud but savage, drew Hedia's attention to the sky. Two Atlantean ships flew past one another in opposite directions. A cone of flame, bright orange on the edges but a lambent white at the core, spewed from the bow of the more distant ship. It bathed the sails of the nearer vessel, setting them to blaze like gossamer.