Robert Fabbri - False God of Rome

With a sharp crack, like a Titan crashing two boulders together, the fire was suddenly extinguished as if it had unexpectedly consumed all its fuel, leaving no morsels with which it could die down gradually.

The last of the sparks fell to the ground and the light died.

In the dark the mound of embers glowed softly, like an untended campfire in the cold hours before dawn.

Vespasian turned to see his pursuers on their feet, still chanting ‘Bennu’, halfway across the clearing, walking towards him.

As he turned to run a cloud of hot ashes exploded over him from behind; a cry rose to the sky. He swivelled to see the mound of embers gone and replaced by a mist of glimmering red dust.

The cry ceased and the red mist started to swirl as if it were being wafted from above by a giant fan. Vespasian felt a wind beating towards him; it grew stronger with every pulse as if a great bird were swooping down on him from the dark. He ducked away from the unseen threat as a colossal gust caught him off-balance and threw him to the ground.

The air went still.

After a few moments Vespasian opened his eyes to see a pair of feet in front of him; he looked up.

‘You will not be harmed,’ Ahmose said, holding out his hand to help Vespasian up. His men surrounded him, looking at Vespasian with a mixture of fear and wonder. Ahmose’s eyes, wide with religious fervour, sparkled down at him in the moonlight. ‘You are blessed of Amun; you are safe.’

‘What about my comrades?’ Vespasian asked, getting to his feet.

‘They are still alive; we will sell them as slaves to the Marmaridae.’

‘Fuck your blessings,’ Vespasian spat, jabbing the priest with his right fist in the solar plexus. ‘We had a deal, you little shit.’

Ahmose doubled over as a half a dozen restraining hands grabbed hold of Vespasian.

After struggling a few moments for breath Ahmose looked up at him. ‘Do you really think that we could stop the Marmaridae picking off our people and sending them as slaves to Garama? We’re not warlike as they are, we are farmers; we have to sell them some slaves every year to keep them happy. Your friends will do nicely, but you won’t go; as a priest of Amun, it’s my duty to take you to His Oracle in the heart of Siwa where, if you are truly blessed by Him, you will, like Alexander himself and a few other chosen ones through the ages, hear His wisdom.’

Vespasian looked at the treacherous old priest with loathing. ‘Why is it your duty?’

‘You have been touched by the Wind of the Bennu and have bathed in the light of its fire. Amun knows that I have witnessed it.’

‘What is the Bennu?’

‘The sacred bird of Egypt whose death and rebirth marks the end of one age and the start of a new. A man who has bathed in its light and has felt the wind of its beating wings as it flies to the holy city of Heliopolis to lay its nest on the altar of Ra is destined to play a part in the new age. You know this bird in your language as the Phoenix.’

Vespasian was led east for the remainder of the night and all of the following morning. His sword had been taken from him but his hands were not bound; however, he made no attempt to escape, surrounded as he was by a dozen armed men. Even had he just been accompanied by the double-crossing Ahmose he would have followed willingly, saving his vengeance for another time, curious to hear what the Oracle of Amun would tell him; curious whether it would throw light upon the prophecy of the Oracle of Amphiaraos.

As they travelled deeper into the oasis they passed more bodies of water, much larger than the lake that he had bathed in only the day before. Irrigation channels had been dug to siphon the precious liquid to the smallholdings cultivating olive groves, chickpeas and vegetable gardens that clustered near them; sheep and goats grazed on rough pasture around the shores. People grew more numerous. Men in headdresses worked in the fields, tilling, picking fruit or loading their produce onto carts; women washed clothes and children at the lakes’ shores, fetched water in earthenware pots that they carried on their heads, or cooked over open fires outside their mud huts. It looked far more prosperous to Vespasian than the tax receipts from Siwa had led him to believe; evidently a quaestor had never visited to make a proper tax assessment. Making a mental note to review the demand on his return to Cyrene as part of his revenge on the people for so barbarously abusing the laws of hospitality, he calculated that the wealth of the oasis would go far to improving the province’s struggling finances.

Shortly before midday they came to a mud-brick wall and passed through a wide gate into a town brimming with life. His escort was forced to push its way through the crowded streets lined with farmers selling their produce on blankets or palm-frond mats laid out on the ground. The smell of exotic spices and human sweat filled the air.

On a hill at the town’s centre stood a temple, built of sandstone, with a tapered tower protruding from its northern end. As they approached it Vespasian could see that rows and rows of tiny figures were carved into the stone walls.

‘What are they?’ Vespasian asked Ahmose, his curiosity outweighing his antipathy.

‘They are hymns to Amun, lists of priests and records of kings who have visited since the temple was built over seven hundred years ago.’

‘That’s writing?’ Vespasian was amazed that these strange depictions of animals and curious signs could be strung together to form coherent sentences.

Ahmose nodded as they mounted the steps leading to the temple’s door together, leaving their escort at the bottom.

The temperature drop was considerable as they entered the building. Symmetrical rows of columns, three paces apart, supported the lofty ceiling, giving the impression of an ordered stone forest. From a few windows, cut high in the south wall, shafts of light, with motes of dust playing within them, sliced down at a sharp angle through the gloom of this interior, petrified grove. The musky residue of incense and the cloying smell of ancient, dry stone replaced the fresh scents of woodland in bloom. The clatter of Vespasian’s hobnailed sandals resounded off the flagstone floor.

A raised, disembodied voice in a language that Vespasian did not understand stopped them by the first row of columns.

‘Ahmose, your fellow priest of Amun,’ Ahmose replied in Greek so that Vespasian could understand.

‘And who accompanies you?’ the voice continued, switching to the same language.

‘The Bennu flew last night.’

‘We do not understand the reason for its coming here. We heard it pass over the temple and have checked the records; it is exactly five hundred years to the day since it was last seen in Egypt but it is five times that number since it was seen so far in the west here in Siwa.’

‘This man felt the heat of its fire and the downdraught of its wings.’

There was silence.

Vespasian looked around; there was no sign of the source of the voice.

Presently he heard the soft patter of unshod feet on smooth stone and two priests appeared in different directions from the depths of the forest of columns. Both were dressed similarly to Ahmose except that they each had two long feathers stuck into the tops of their tall hats.

Walking side by side down a straight, columned path they stopped in front of Vespasian and examined him closely with wide-eyed wonder. He felt very uneasy under the close scrutiny of the priests, one of whom was, now that he could make out their features in the gloom, very old indeed; yet he had the bearing of a young and healthy man. The second priest was in his twenties.

The old priest who had spoken spread his hands, palms up and called to the air. ‘Thou wilt find him who transgresses against Thee. Woe to him that assails Thee. Thy city endures, but he who assails Thee falls. Amun.’