Thomas Harlan - The shadow of Ararat

The sorcerers and wizards he had approached, particularly those on the Street of the Magi in the Forum Boarium, had either refused to speak to him outright or had sent him away when he began to explain that the city was infused with some terrible power that could kill men or corrode metal. The last, a Jewish numerologist, had listened patiently to him for over an hour, then spread his hands and said that he had no experience in such matters. But, he continued, there was a man known to him, a Nabatean, who might be able to help.

And so Maxian was here, at this darkened oak door, at nightfall.

The sound of a sliding bolt rasped through the thickness of the door, then another noise, like a pin being drawn out of a metal socket. The door creaked open a crack, and a startling blue eye gleamed out at the Prince.

"Good evening," Maxian said in a very polite voice. "I seek the wise man, Abdmachus, who lives here. I am Maxian Atreus. I seek assistance in a delicate matter."

The eye disappeared and the door opened the rest of the way, revealing a short, thin man with a wisp of white hair showing from underneath a small felt cap. The fellow was dressed in a trailing robe of narrow blue-and-white stripes, bound at his waist with a dark-green sash.

"Come in, young master. I am Abdmachus. Welcome to my house."

The house of the Nabatean was long and narrow in its plan, wedged between two larger buildings. The tiny front room was bare with a tile floor. A second, heavy door led from the atrium into the rest of the house. It had no lock, but Maxian felt a tugging sensation as he passed through it. Beyond that portal there was a sitting room with a small fire in a brazier. Unlike the homes of the poor, the smoke was well behaved, swirling into a corner of the ceiling and vanishing up a partially exposed pipe of fired clay. The floor was thick with heavy rugs, all in muted browns and reds. Two low couches faced each other, making a triangle with the brazier at the head of each.

Abdmachus gestured Maxian to the rightmost couch and settled himself on the other. Maxian chose to sit rather than recline. The olive-skinned foreigner continued to regard him steadily.

Maxian coughed, clearing his throat. "Sir, I am in need of assistance. I understand from a fellow I met yesterday that you may be able to help me. Are you familiar with the, well, the unseen?"

Abdmachus cocked his head to one side, regarding the young man.

"If you mean," said the old man, "am I of the magi, then yes, I am experienced with the unseen world. I am confused, however, by your coming to me. You show unmistakable signs of being possessed of power as well, of the ability to see the unseen. I can feel the pattern of defense you have raised around you even now. Why have you come to me?"

Maxian raised an eyebrow; the elderly man was no fool, and well skilled to boot.

"I am not a sorcerer," he said in reply, "I am a priest of Asklepius. I have found something, however, that is far too strong for me to affect with my own powers. I need the advice, perhaps the help, of someone more… experienced."

Abdmachus smiled, showing small white teeth.

"Ah, experience I have," the old man said, "I no longer have the strength of youth such as you possess. But I do know a trick or two that gets me by in my dotage. I am no longer as strong as I once was-but as the Greek said, with a long-enough lever one might move the world! Now, this thing that you have found-it is a dangerous thing, and something that you have come across in your work? But if you are a priest of the healing art and you have not been able to defeat it, it must not be a disease, but something… something that causes disease?"

Maxian spread his hands, his face even grimmer than before. "Master Abdmachus, I beg you to hear me out fully before you make up your mind. I have gone to other wizards before you, and all of them, save Simon the Numerologist, have turned me away or told me that I am insane. There is an affliction upon this city that only I, as best I can tell, can see. A corruption and a bane that brings disease, death, insanity upon the inhabitants. Now that I have perceived it, I see it everywhere-in the broken stones of the street, upon the faces of the people in the markets, all around us. I know this sounds absurd, but it is as if a terrible curse has been laid upon the city of Rome."

The old man, much to Maxian's surprise, laughed softly, his eyes twinkling. Maxian's face clouded with anger; he had expected better of the Nabatean. He stood up.

The old man stopped laughing and held up a wizened hand.

"Wait, wait, my impetuous guest. I am not laughing at your theory. I am laughing at myself, for wasting so much time of my own. I believe you. I think that I know what you speak of. Sit, sit."

Maxian returned to the couch, not sure that he believed the old man.

"What you see," the old man said, "is like a tide of dark power, one that pervades the city, all unseen, almost unnoticed unless one knows what to look for. It is subtle and powerful, and it is so prevalent that to one raised here, or a long-term resident, it would seem… natural. Yes?"

Maxian nodded. "Yes, but it is inimical, deadly. Do you know what curse has spawned it?"

Abdmachus laughed again and shook his head slowly.

"It is no curse, young master, it is a blessing, a boon to Rome."

"How can you say this?" Maxian sputtered. "It has caused the deaths of eleven people that I know of! I have seen its ability to destroy, to erode and deform even metal, with my own eyes!"

Abdmachus shook his head again and stood up, going to the opposite wall of the room. There he passed his hand over a section of the brickwork, and it folded silently out to reveal a hidden space. From this space, he took a leather bag of coins. He returned to the couch and carefully removed a single golden coin from the bag.

"Look, young sir. This is a coin I accepted in payment yesterday from a noble of the city, a patrician, an officer of the state. Only now have I touched it, and only long enough to show it to you and to place it here."

The old man placed the coin on the small table that lay between the two couches. The pale gold gleamed in the firelight.

"The last man to touch it was this officer, who came to me seeking a favor. He is still close to the coin and it is still close to him. It is freshly minted, so almost entirely clean of the impressions of others, only his shape is upon it. Do you understand my meaning?"

Maxian nodded. The school in Pergamum had touched upon the theories of contagion and similarity, though more in the light of mending broken limbs and curing fevers than working power upon a hale person.

Abdmachus put the bag of coins behind his couch and leaned over the single coin. He looked closely at Maxian. "Now, I know that maintaining the pattern of defense is draining, so I shall make a new one, one that encompasses both of us. When I am done, please lower your own so that they do not interfere with one another."

Maxian nodded and almost without thought his sight expanded to fill the room. Now he could see the trembling aura around the old man, a stolid, burnished bronze color. The rest of the room was a tracery of fine blue lines of fire. His own shield glittered in the air between him and the Nabatean. The old man too was still and quiet. For a moment nothing happened, and then the blue fire began to wick up into the air. The brazier sputtered and went out, though Maxian could still see clearly in the darkness. The walls, floor and ceiling gave up their energy to a coalescing sphere that spun out, slowly, from the figure of the old man to pass over Maxian and then halt just beyond him. The blue fires slid, glutinously, to the sphere and at last it was complete.

The Prince relaxed for the first time in days, and his own shield flared and went out. He slumped backward on the couch, the low-level headache that he had been fighting while the shield was up passing away.