David Drake - Out of the waters

The Sibyl's jar was decorated with a single long band which wound from the base of the vessel to the rim. People of all ages and conditions walked up the slanting field. When Varus looked at the figures closely, he saw that they were moving, and he thought that some of them were looking out at him.

The Sibyl smiled. "Was there not?" she said. "What are you holding, Lord Magician?"

Varus held the winding rods of a large papyrus roll, open before him. He looked down and read aloud, "I remember the names of my ancestors. I speak their names and they live again!"

A causeway stretched before him, over the mists which hid the valley where Varus had watched the triumph of Typhon. The Sibyl crooned softly as she resumed shelling peas, paying Varus no attention.

He walked onto the causeway. He glanced over his shoulder once, toward the Sibyl. He wondered whether she was counting years or lives or some further thing… but it didn't matter to him.

Gaius Varus was going to meet with his ancestors; and perhaps he would one day return.

Alphena woke suddenly from a fitful sleep. Throughout the night she had been dozing off and on. Whenever she wakened, Uktena remained sitting cross-legged in the center of the chamber, smoking his pipe and mumbling rhythmically under his breath. Now he had gotten to his feet.

"Is it time?" she asked. Her voice caught. The acrid smoke-dried willow-bark mixed with some broad-leafed local herb-had flayed the back of her throat. She coughed to clear it.

Uktena thrust the stem of his pipe beneath the cord of his breechclout and stepped to the simple ladder. Either he didn't hear her, or he was ignoring her.

Alphena got up. She had sat, sleeping and waking, with the copper axe in her lap. She gripped the haft firmly as she waited to follow the shaman. She wasn't used to the way the axe balanced in her hand, but it was lighter than a sword and she ought to be able to handle it without strain.

Uktena lifted the mat away from the kiva's entrance. His movements were slow and exaggerated, as though he were performing a ritual dance.

Alphena scrambled to catch up as the shaman strode through Cascotan. Villagers watched silently; no one was working.

The sky seemed bright after the smoky kiva. Though Alphena couldn't see the sun from where she stood, dawn had turned the tip of Procron's fortress to black fire.

Uktena walked with deliberation toward the shore. He didn't look to either side.

The three sages waited midway between the village and the salt water. As before, Wontosa stood a half step ahead of his companions. He said, "Greetings, Master! Are you ready to drive the monster away from our shores?"

Uktena did not speak, but for the first time since he emerged from the kiva, he turned his head-toward Wontosa. The sage stiffened and his eyes lost focus momentarily.

Alphena followed Uktena. As she passed, Hanno called, "You, girl." He didn't shout, but he managed to put a threat in his tone. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to stand with my friend," she said, pausing to look squarely at the sages. The axe head rose slightly as she spoke. "Come with us, why don't you? Aren't you all magicians?"

Hanno didn't respond. Wontosa and Dasemunco were looking out to sea, pretending that they weren't aware of Alphena's presence. She spat on the ground and hurried on to join Uktena.

The shaman had reached the shore and stopped; his bare feet were just above the tide line. He dropped the murrhine pipe on the beach behind him. The surf was sluggish, like the movements of the chest of a sleeping dog.

Lightning flashed in the far distance; no thunder accompanied it. Alphena looked up in surprise. The morning had been clear when she saw the sky from the mouth of the kiva, but a scud of clouds was racing in from the west.

The sun rose, throwing the shadow of the black spire toward Uktena. He lifted his right arm, the palm toward the east.

Alphena, to the shaman's left side and a pace behind him, glanced at his shadow. It was elongated but as sharply chiseled as the reliefs on a temple facade, then- Something squirming and huge spread across the shoreline and beyond, covering the land. It was not a shape but a blackness too pure to have form.

The shadow was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. Uktena faced east.

The top of the black fortress split open. Procron, a figure in orichalc armor without the helmet, drifted out like a wisp of gossamer. In place of his human head flashed a diamond skull brighter than the fiery metal.

Uktena walked forward with the same awkward determination as before. His feet touched but did not sink into the slowly moving water. He raised his right arm, bent at the elbow; his left hung at his side. He was chanting, but Alphena could not make out the words.

She went out fifty feet from the shore, trying to follow. There the low waves caught the hem of her tunic and with that purchase threatened to pull her over. She lifted the garment, preparing to fling it away, but she stopped when she thought about what she was doing. Grimacing, she backed to where the water reached only to mid-shin.

Alphena had seen many gladiatorial battles. Splashing in water that would shortly be over her head, she would be completely useless in a fight against an enemy who walked on air.

Worse, if Uktena took notice of her, she would handicap him. She didn't mind risking her life, but she dared not risk the life of the friend she was supposedly helping.

Brilliant purple light flashed from Procron's skull, sizzling against a clear barrier an arm's length short of Uktena's chest. The bolt dribbled off like rain blown against a sheet of metal.

The sea beneath Uktena hissed. Alphena-near the shore now, a quarter mile behind him-felt her legs tingle and the hair rise on her arms and the back of her neck.

Uktena continued forward. Alphena thought she heard his voice in the thunder rumbling overhead.

Procron drifted closer, his arms folded across his chest. He slammed out another bolt, brighter than the sun at noon.

Uktena staggered, half-turning. Alphena fell backward in the water from the visual shock. She blinked furiously, trying to clear the orange afterimages flaring across her eyes.

Uktena resumed his advance. His form was shifting, swelling.

Alphena squeezed her eyes closed, pretending that what she saw was because afterimages were distorting her vision. She whispered, "Vesta, make him safe. Make him not be changed."

Huge, tentacled, and many-legged, the thing that had been Uktena approached the Atlantean. Both hung in the air. Procron loosed a series of dazzling, crackling bolts, flinging Uktena back. Tentacles shriveled and the swollen body seemed to deflate, though the purple haze which spread about the scene blurred the forms of both combatants.

The sea beneath them was bubbling. Dead fish and stranger creatures rocked on the surface, many of them boiled pink or red. Alphena's skin itched as though she had gotten a bad sunburn.

Uktena surged toward Procron again. A purple flash and thunderclap drove them apart short of contact.

Procron tumbled, his armor flashing brightly, but he regained control above the water. Wobbling, dipping like a skylark instead of rising smoothly, the Atlantean took an aerial post midway between the shore and his gleaming fortress.

Black and smoking, the creature Uktena had become dropped into the sea. Spray and steam spouted fifty feet in the air.

The wave from the impact sent Alphena tumbling. She got to her feet and began sloshing toward where the shaman had hit. She screamed and raised her axe to threaten anybody who came close to her.

Uktena bobbed into view. For a moment he lay sprawled face-down on the slow swell; then his head lifted and he shook himself.