David Drake - Out of the waters

The spire began to slip westward, moving hesitantly. Two ships had been lifted to the crystal's height and were directly in its path. Varus expected splintering crashes. He had once seen a storm hurl a pleasure boat onto the cliffs of Capri. Instead he had a momentary impression of each ship intersecting with a mirror image of itself and vanishing.

The spire moved with gathering speed, leaving the net of light in tatters behind it. Several ships had crashed into the jungle, whipsawed by bonds of light which their directing Minoi had not loosed in time.

One vessel whirled in circles behind the spire to which it was attached by a vivid hawser of light. The Minos with the moss agate spindle had been directing it, but when it the vessel overturned the first time, it flung her and her talisman out. A dozen human servants had been aboard with her; all of them dropped into the sea or the jungle despite desperate attempts to cling to the railings.

Four Servitors remained on deck, as firmly fixed as the mast. Varus could see them as glittering refractions of sunlight even after the ship and the spire which dragged it had vanished into the West.

The edges of the vision began to blur. The images became fog from which the color bleached, filling the valley in which Varus had watched the battle.

He turned to the Sibyl. Her lined face smiled. She said, "You have seen Procron, Lord Wizard. Can you stand against him?"

"Is he my enemy, Sibyl?" Varus said. He had no way to measure the strength of one wizard against another-or against a hundred others-but he had seen rock melt and lush forest blaze at the touch of the powers the opponents were using. That he could understand.

"He is the enemy of all men and all life," said the Sibyl. "Can you stand against him?"

Varus wet his lips with his tongue. I am a citizen of Carce. "Sibyl," he said, "I will face Procron for as long as I can. I will face him for as long as I live."

"Then return to the waking world for now," said the Sibyl. "The time is coming. Strong necessity demands that these things-"

"Your lordship?" said Manetho. "I, ah, didn't hear all of your command. You were sayign that something needed to be accomplished?"

Varus sat up, disoriented for a moment. He had been lying on the couch in the library. On the floor lay the wax tablet from which he had been reading his notes on the manumission ceremony to the clerk transcribing them in ink to a scroll.

The clerk still stood beside the desk, though he looked logy and had almost certainly just been awakened. The windows were shuttered, but sunlight came through the louvers. The librarian, Alexandros, was also barely awake, but Manetho by the doorway looked brushed and alert. Varus wondered whether he and another deputy steward had been taking shifts so that one was sure to be ready when the young master woke up.

"Your lordship…," Manetho said carefully. "The decision was made not to awaken you when you nodded off. If that was a mistake and you should have been helped to your bed, I will personally search out the servant responsible and have him sent to the fields. Ah-or perhaps to your noble father's silver mines in Spain?"

Varus grimaced at the thought. Manetho wasn't joking, though he surely didn't-Varus hoped he didn't-think the young master would demand that sort of punishment for a servant who had simply guessed wrong about which of two equally probable outcomes Varus would prefer when he woke up. Not so long ago Alphena might have reacted that way, though Varus had the impression that she too was becoming more measured in her behavior.

"Of course not," Varus said. He was suddenly angry when he realized that Manetho might be looking for an excuse to send a rival to brutal labor and an early death. "Don't ever suggest something like that to me."

It had been bad enough to imply that the young master might be savage and unreasonable rather than the philosopher he strove to be. It was much worse to use him as a weapon against a victim who was not only undeserving of such punishment but even innocent.

Varus got to his feet. He said, "Open the-"

Before he got the rest of the sentence out, three servants were throwing open the shutters. His whole entourage-the day and night shifts together-was here in the library or in the corridor outside.

He bent to pick up the tablet which had slipped from his fingers, wondering just how far he'd gotten in his dictation. He had thought he was too tense to get to sleep and that focusing on scholarship would calm him. The plan had apparently worked better than he had hoped.

"Permit me, your lordship!" said the girl who had snatched the tablet from the floor. She put it in his hand, pressing his fingers as she did so. She must have been sleeping at the foot of his couch.

Varus didn't remember her name, though he had seen her repeatedly in the past several days. He couldn't imagine why she had been assigned to him. If in fact she had been: in a household as large as Saxa's, it was quite possible for recently purchased servants to float for weeks or months without being given specific duties.

He straightened abruptly without trying to hide his look of irritation. Just as he didn't want to be a tool of vengeance between servants, he disliked the notion of some illiterate girl using his favor to elevate herself among her fellows. She didn't even speak good Greek!

"I believe I'll go to the baths now," Varus said to Manetho. "Or-are the baths in our gymnasium warm, by any chance?"

Saxa's little exercise ground was fully equipped, though it had rarely been used before Varus invited his friend Corylus to visit. The attached bath had a steam room and a cold pool only big enough to sit in rather than swim, but that would be sufficient to relax the stiffness of a night spent sleeping awkwardly.

Manetho smiled. "When I learned your lordship was here," he said, gesturing to the bookcases, "I ordered the furnace to be stoked. The water should be ready now."

You just redeemed yourself, Varus thought. And after all, it was possible that the deputy steward hadn't had any evil motive in talking about punishments.

Aloud he said, "Have a fresh tunic brought there for me," and started for the door. Manetho whisked out ahead of him.

Frowning, Varus added, "Manetho, do you know what happened to the slaves whom my father freed, ah, yesterday?"

"They were enrolled in a section of their own," Manetho said. "Master Lenatus was appointed as the decurion who will lead them."

"Ah," said Varus, lifting his chin in understanding. His face was blank as he started downstairs toward the gymnasium at the back.

It would not do for the Emperor to hear a rumor that Gaius Saxa was raising a private army of former slaves. On the other hand, Saxa's new clients had to be dealt with in some fashion, and keeping them in Carce under Lenatus was probably as safe as any choice could be. Besides, they might come in useful again…

Varus thought of a wizard with the power to lift crystal mountains and to scour swathes of forest to bubbling rock. The Emperor wasn't the worst threat which Saxa and the world faced at the moment.

Instead of hanging its sail from a single spar, the Atlantean ship had two booms joined separately to the mast. When they began to flap like wings, Corylus looked up to see howe they were attached to the mast.

There was no joint: the booms grew out of the mast the way branches spread from a tree bole. Corylus laid his palm against the mast and felt the wood bunch and flex as though he were touching the flank of a running horse.

"Cousin?" he said. "Is this ship alive?"

The sprite turned from the bow, where she had been looking out to sea. "I suppose it's alive the same way a crystal is," she said. "Does that matter?"