The Temple of Asklepius, Below Pergamon
A gleam of pale blue light caught the priest's eye. Tarsus turned, hands clasped on his staff of office. Something flickered and burned at the center of the plaza, casting long shadows on the arches and windows of the surrounding buildings. The stoutly built priest frowned. Sometimes criminals and outcasts tried to creep into the sacred precincts and steal from the pilgrims sleeping on the grounds. He hefted his staff, taking confidence from the weighty bronze snake coiled around its length.
Determined, he strode forward through cool, damp air filled with the quiet echo of running water. "You, there by the spring pool! Stand and show yourself!"
Someone was hunched down in the darkness by the outflow pipe. The blue glow disappeared, but Tarsus could make out a figure turning towards him. The priest grimaced and summoned a pale white light from his staff.
"Gods of Olympus!" Tarsus froze in shock. A haggard face stared back at him, marked by pain and weariness. A thick, irregular beard clouded a once-patrician visage. Though much changed, he knew the man. "Prince Maxian?"
Tarsus had never seen such a transformation in one of his students. The baby fat of youth had sloughed away from sharp cheekbones; lively intelligent eyes had grown haunted; the healthy, tan skin of youth had turned sallow. The Emperor of the West's cheerful, handsome little brother was changed almost beyond recognition. A dim, strange radiance flickered around the Prince like a half-seen shadow. Tarsus stepped back, grimacing. The air around the Prince was repellent.
"By the gods, lad, what happened to you?"
Maxian leaned heavily on the smooth marble lining the spring box.
"Tarsus? You are still alive?"
"Yes," said the priest. "Though you look on the verge of death yourself."
"Help me." Maxian's voice was low and tinged with panic. "You must help me bring her back."
The Prince motioned weakly. Something lay in the shadows at the top of the steps.
Ah! Tarsus thought. That explains the smell.
The priest knelt next to the corpse. The body was not too far gone. Whatever hot flame had licked over it-he reached down and gently turned the skull, feeling the jellylike resistance of muscle attaching the shoulder to the neck-had done so recently. The charred skin was brittle and stiff under his fingers. Long experience and repeated exposure let him put aside horror while he made a swift, thorough examination.
"Ah, my friend, she is long gone." Tarsus sighed. "The ferryman has taken her coin and rowed her across the black river."
"Not so, not so!" The Prince's voice was urgent in the darkness. "If you help me, I can restore her. I beg you, take us to the chambers of healing. With your skill to guide my hand, I know that I can save her."
"Lord Prince, this is foolishness. We are both men blessed with the gods' power, but no one may call back the souls of the dead. That is in the hands of the gods, not of mortals."
Maxian stopped as if struck. Then he straightened and loomed over the priest, his handsome face clouding with anger.
"I have summoned men back from the dead," Maxian said bitterly. "Twice I have stood over tumbled bone and scraps of dusty flesh. Twice I have raised lightning and fire to fill those bodies-one dead a thousand years!-with the quickness of life. Breath and sight and lively limbs have sprung forth from the dust. I know that it can be done. My strength is great enough."
Tarsus stepped back, uneasy. Unconsciously, his mind began to weave a pattern of subtle defense. When he spoke again, the compassion in his voice was gone.
"What have you done, Lord Prince? What words have you spoken over a fresh-turned grave?"
Maxian ignored the warning in the older man's voice, eyes brightening. He began to speak, his voice coming from a great distance, reciting from memory: "O Furies and horrors of hell! Dread Chaos, eager to destroy countless worlds! O Ruler of the underworld, who suffers for endless centuries-"
"Cease!" Tarsus moved, his staff lashing out to strike the face of the man before him. The blow rocked Maxian backward, leaving a deep cut on his cheek. "Such words are never to be spoken in this sacred place!"
Tarsus trembled with anger. There were secrets known to his fellow priests that should never see the light of day. There were pale-eyed creatures haunting the night, whispering at the windows of learned men. The thought that one of his best students-though not the most studious!-had turned down such an evil path filled him with despair. "Where did you learn such foulness?"
Maxian, stunned, touched the wound. Under his fingers, the cut faded, torn skin knitting closed. Blood rushed to his face, restoring circulation to the area. He looked up and Tarsus stepped back, shocked by the fury in the Prince's expression. In the hidden world, a glittering white shield of interlocking geometric forms shimmered between the two men.
"I sought them out." Maxian's visage cleared, anger draining away like spilling water. Great weariness replaced the fury. "A man helped me. He had learned those words as an apprentice in the East. Tarsus, I have done some questionable things, but I beg you, help me make them right. This girl…" his hand fluttered towards the corpse, "…she trusted me and died. I have salved her wounds before, even mortal ones! With your skill, I can bring her back from beyond the black river."
Tarsus shook his head. The stillness of the courtyard, the quiet susurration of the sleeping penitents, the empty night sky, all pressed upon him. He could feel the Prince's entreaty like a physical pressure, urging him to accept. It was the role and the practice of the priests of Asklepius to help those who needed aid. Here was a man in deadly trouble…
Should I refuse? He was my student!
Tarsus sighed. "Follow me. Bring the… girl. We will speak inside."
– |The priest spilled thick wine into a cup. Water followed. His little room lay on the western side of the temple complex. One side abutted a channel of fitted stones guiding a stream along the edge of the plaza. The priest pushed the cup into Maxian's hands.
"Drink."
Though he felt a great desire for wine himself, Tarsus did not drink. The corpse of the girl was laid out on a table between them. Wooden cabinets, filled with murky bottles, covered the walls. The worktable was smooth, polished granite. When necessary, Tarsus had performed surgeries on the table. Tonight, however, the bone saw and hammer would not be required. This body was beyond even the considerable power of the high priests.
"What happened to the girl?"
Maxian looked up, his pale, thin face flushed with wine. In the warm light of the oil lamps, he seemed very young, as young as when he had first come to the temple. It had been hard to come from a noble's household, to cross the length of the Empire and enter such a renowned school. Luckily, the boy had only been a governor's son when he had first set foot in the Asklepion, not the Emperor's brother! Tarsus sat, keen eyes surveying his student. Maxian looked much older. His hair was tangled and matted with burrs. The priest guessed he had not eaten or slept in days. An odd air surrounded the Prince, like half-heard whispering.
"She… I didn't know what was happening. I…"
Maxian stopped, his eyes distant. Troubled thoughts moved in the Prince, plainly etched on his face. The innocence of youth had fled, leaving a grim and troubled man. "Tarsus, I killed this girl."
The flat statement hung in the air.
"Yes," the Prince said, hand making a nervous, sharp motion. "She came at me with a… a weapon. There was an invisible fire around me and it consumed her like a moth in a candle. I was distracted-everything was burning, even the sky. By the time I could bend my will upon her, she was dead."
"Did you strike her down?" Tarsus' voice was quiet and patient.
The Prince shook his head. "I was beset. Enemies surrounded me. I had raised a sign of fire against their arrows and spears. She-Krista-ran up. I thought she was in the city. I turned and she threw herself into my arms. The sign burned her. It was very quick."
Maxian looked away, face pale. Tarsus continued to watch and wait.
When the Prince had mastered himself, he began speaking again.
"I fled to safety. I tried to restore her as I had done with the others. She came! She walked on the iron floor, she answered, she could move…"
Tarsus nodded, his heart filled with familiar sadness.
Does each of us face this moment? Has any priest of the god not found himself at these crossroads?
"But," the priest said softly, "there was no spirit in her eyes. No spark. No laughter. All the semblance of life, but nothing of the living woman."
Maxian turned, stricken. "Yes! That is exactly…" His voice ran down, seeing the pity and sorrow in the older priest's face. "What does it mean?"
Tarsus sighed and reached for the wine jar himself. The little ritual of pouring and mixing took only a moment. It steadied him and let him put the past away, in dim memory, where such things belonged. The wine was sharp and bitter on his tongue. Tarsus welcomed the discomfort.
"When you left us, my friend, you were a journeyman. In truth, barely more than an apprentice. Many thought-I thought-that you had gone as far as you could in the mysteries of our order. It seemed inevitable, with your brother's struggle for the Purple, that you would be drawn into the civil war at his side. Your skills would never be given the chance to reach their full potential. Perhaps your brother would fail, and you and he would die at the hands of the victor."
Tarsus emptied the cup, then met the young man's eyes directly.
"There are many secrets not revealed to apprentices. There are rituals not taught to journeymen. Some lessons can only be learned by hard experience-these things make a master. This summoning of life to dead limbs is one of the things that we do not teach. It is forbidden."
Maxian's face creased with anger. "Why? Isn't the purpose of our order to save and safeguard life? Why swear our holy oath? If the dead can live, what joy we could bring to the world!"
Tarsus remained still, quiet and patient. After a moment, the Prince sat down.
"The spark of life is the province of the gods. Do you remember your first lessons? Do you remember the tale of our revered founder, holy Asklepius himself?"
Maxian frowned. His early days in the school were a blur. He hated the endless drill and practice. The other students had ignored him, leaving him desperately lonely. The skills themselves, the binding of wounds, the closing of flesh, the banishment of disease and righting imbalanced humors, those things came swiftly to him. He remembered that his tutors had praised his quick instinct and native skill. But the reading and copying? He had put all that from his mind long ago.
"Master Tarsus, I remember the school was founded by some prince who barked a shin on Mount Pindos. He claimed drinking from the spring cured him and he gave money to start a sanctuary. But of Asklepius himself, the 'best of the physicians'? No… I don't remember."
Tarsus hid a sigh. All the best lessons are forgotten!
"Asklepius," he said, "was the half-human son of Apollo the Archer. He was the first physician. In his hands lay the cure for the world's hurts. There was no disease, no wound he could not defeat. He went abroad in the land, in old Achaia across the waters, tending to the sick and to the lame. One day he came upon a woman grieving by the side of the path. At her side, under a stained and mended cloth, lay the body of her husband. Asklepius turned his powers upon the man. In the corpse he found darkness and the echo of the Styx. But the light in Asklepius was so strong, his power so great, he could restore the dead to life."
Maxian's eyes gleamed and the discarded wine cup jiggled and danced on the tabletop. Tarsus stopped, feeling power build in the air like the tense humidity before a thunderstorm. He raised a hand, summoning calm and quiet. The cup, teetering on the edge of the wooden table, spun to a halt and then lay still.
"There is more. The man stood up, hale and filled with life. With great joy, both husband and wife returned home. Asklepius, pleased, continued on his journey. But above, on high Olympus, Zeus, father of the gods, looked down in anger. Here was a man-yes, half god, but still mortal-who took the privilege of life and death upon himself. Here was a man who mocked the ferryman and the guardians of the underworld. In this, the order of the world was set awry and Zeus, foremost guardian of the pattern of things, struck him down forthwith.
"Asklepius was slain on the road, riven by a lightning stroke from the fist of thunder-shielded Zeus."
Maxian cursed and sprang up from his chair, his face dark with anger. "This is a tale for children! There are no gods, no power that moves the storm cloud or the sun. Any man with the sight can see the pattern of the world, its warp and weft. Each priest may call thunder and storm, cast lightning. We make our own destiny, find our own path. I have beaten death before, I shall do so again! If you help me, I know that we can succeed. I have the power to my hand; I but need your skill, noble Tarsus, to guide me."
Tarsus shook his head, his face marked by old and bitter pain. "You are a child, to believe this. This is beyond you. Her soul, her ka has fled into the darkness beyond the river. You are not a god, you cannot make a new soul from common clay. You may summon life to cold limbs, but you cannot make her live again. She is gone."
Maxian snarled, clenching his hand into a fist, and Tarsus felt, for the first time, the enormous strength in the Prince. The room flickered, the walls becoming insubstantial, the light of the lamps dying. A sound rose from the stones, the voices of tens of thousands crying out in fear. Tarsus leapt to his feet, his mind filled with a vision of burning cloud covering the sky. His shield of Athena, once so perfect and white, rippled and fragmented. The power flooding forth from the Prince beat against him.
It touched the body, seeping into skin and bone.
The corpse convulsed, rattling like dried peas in a gourd. Tarsus cried out, but the stones creaking and groaning all around him drowned the sound. The cabinets shattered violently. Where each splinter fell, roots grew out with dizzying speed. They writhed like pale worms on the floor. From them saplings grew. The body on the table suddenly lay still, smooth white flesh covering the bone and rich dark hair spilling down from the skull.
The Prince lowered his hand and the room snapped back into focus. The roaring and the lamentations stopped. Tarsus gaped, imprisoned by a stand of young pines filling the room. The branches dug into his sides, pinioning his hands and legs.
A woman, live and whole, lay on the tabletop, her breast rising and falling as she breathed.
"Rise, my love," the Prince said. He did not seem tired, but his eyes were haunted.
The body sat up, rich, dark brown eyes open. Tarsus saw that she was comely and well made. Her flesh, recently so tormented and ravaged, was ripe with youth. She came up upon her knees, then stood, her head brushing against the curling vines and flowers crowding against the roof.
Tarsus shook his head, seeing the blank look on her face and the stillness that lay behind her eyes. It is ever so…
"Lad, your strength has grown far past any master of the order. But look upon her! Where is her heart? Her spirit? Those things come from the gods, they are beyond us. You will never make her as she was before. Those eyes will never sparkle with mischief or look upon you with delight."
"But…" Maxian turned, his face intent, "I have done it. Two men, long dead, I raised up. They are filled with life! By the gods, sometimes they show too much liveliness! Why them? Why them and not her, she who is worth far more to me?"
Tarsus pushed back one of the branches, easing himself out of the close grip of the dwarf trees. The room filled with a heady aroma of crushed pine needles. "I know not. Who were they? Were they friends, newly fallen?"
"No," barked Maxian in abrupt surprise. "Not friends! I struggled against an invisible enemy. I needed power. A man, now dead, advised me to seek a lever long enough to move the world. I did. I found them both, still moldering in their tombs. But they were long gone to dust."
"Who are these men?" Tarsus put his hands on Maxian's shoulders. "Were they masters of the art? Could they have hidden their spirit away, holding it back from death, from poor, grim Charon?"
Maxian laughed again and took his teacher's hands in his own. Something like true humor was in his face. Fond memories of his time as an apprentice to the dour and proper Tarsus fluttered at the edge of his thought. The older priest had seemed so harsh and unyielding when first they met. Could he have foreseen the genuine warmth and friendship that would grow between them?
"Masters of the art? Not those two rogues! Abdmachus advised me that some men, in death, become powerful by their memory. The greater their legend, the vaster the power that they might contain. Did I need all that strength for my long battle? I did! So I sought out two of the greatest men that have yet lived."
Tarsus felt a cold chill grip his heart.
"I woke him from a cold bed, this Gaius Julius Caesar." Maxian's voice was filled with a near hysterical gaiety. "But he was not enough! Oh no, master, he was not quite strong enough to let me shake the earth. I needed a greater legend, someone who would dwarf that old Republican tyrant as the sun blinds the moon. It was a long, dangerous task, but I found him too, hidden beneath the sand. Locks and wards and guardians ringed him about, but they could not hold me back. He, too, the golden-hair, the living god, this Alexander, son of Olympia, best of the Greeks, master of the Persians, I woke, my hand on his shoulder, letting him rise up and walk under the sun!"
"No…" Tarsus breathed, staggered by the words. "Not that butcher, the parricide, the drunken thug, the kin slayer!"
"Yes," Maxian snapped. "Both of them, the scheming, duplicitous pair, I filled with life and thought. By my will, they walk this earth, a merry pair of rogues. I needed them, and by the gods, they did not fail me. All that I asked, they gave."
Tarsus grasped the edge of the table, his mind busy with this revelation. Maxian stood staring glumly at the girl. She looked down at him, quiet and motionless. He smiled wanly. She remained quiescent, watching him with flat, dead eyes.
"What were they like, these men you raised from the cold ground?"
Maxian shrugged, saying, "As you would expect. Alexander is young and vigorous, eager, charming, always rushing to the front, delighted in new things. He craves battle and adventure. He cannot sit still, but who could gainsay him? Any man would love him.
"The other? Old Gaius? He is gray and sly, the politician's politician. His mind is subtle and filled with tricks. He seems an affable old fellow, the country farmer or the senator on holiday, but his heart is as black as any Parthian chief's. Do not turn your back on him, or leave anything in his care! They are, I suppose, just as you would expect."
"Yes," Tarsus said slowly, "…but they are strong, they have power."
"Indeed! In the hidden world, they burn like bright stars." Maxian held out his hand to the girl. She took it, her arm moving smoothly and mechanically. The Prince frowned and the trees that blocked the door writhed back, leaving a passage. "Krista, go and find yourself clothing, then return here."
Without a word, the young woman walked out, her bare feet rustling in the pine needles on the floor. Maxian turned back to the older priest.
"A man lies dead, as an old friend once said, but his memory lives. Men swear by him-Praise Caesar!-or worship at his tomb. Each time such a devotion is made, some tiny spark accrues to his memory, this dead legend. Over centuries, if he is well loved, then great strength may be in him. But-is this not rich?-he lies in the grave! The man may not use this strength, but that which raises him up? Oh, then this power may be tapped… Alexander is like the sun! Do you know, they still fear him, worship him, in far India? Barely a year was he among them, the sudden, unexpected invader, and still, still they know him. And Gaius? He does not burn so bright, yet he is cunning and served me well."
The thought of attack, of striking out at the young man, crossed Tarsus' mind. His oaths forbade him, though the enormity of what his pupil had done seemed adequate excuse. A swift blow with a dagger, into the brain, into the heart of thought and motion, might slay him.
But how can this be, if he speaks truly? Could he have brought back these legends as living men?
"Where are they now?"
Maxian shrugged, turning away. "I don't know. I sent them away from me, from my mother's house at Ottaviano. I told them to trouble me no more."
"Ottaviano?" Tarsus' voice was sharp as new fear blossomed. "When were you there?"
Maxian shrugged, avoiding the priest's eyes. "Some time ago… a week, perhaps two…"
Tarsus turned gray. Now he knew what curled and drifted around the Prince. It was the stench of mass death, of entire cities consumed by fire, by choking gas and burning stone.
"You were at Vesuvius." His voice was flat with horror. "You were there when the mountain burst. The girl-she was burned in the explosion? How close were you?"
Maxian smiled sickly and Tarsus could see guilt and shame in his face.
"We were," he whispered, "on the crown of the mountain. Men came to kill me. My brother sent them. I saw his face in my mind, when the red-haired woman had the knife at my throat. My own brother sent hired men to hunt me down. Is this possible? Can you believe it?"
Tarsus backed away, edging for the door with his hand. Now he could make out the screams of the dying, faint as the sound of dolphins beneath azure waves. The aura around the Prince was so plain and clear, so violent with the taste of dying, fled souls, that the older priest shuddered in reaction.
Here is the source of this unexpected strength. He has drunk deep of the dying, gaining their power like one of the K'shapacara of legend! By the gods, what a horror!
"Get out," Tarsus snarled, face flushed with disgust. "You are a monster, an abomination! How could you come here, to the sacred precincts themselves! You have violated every oath, every binding, every restriction of our order!"
Maxian blanched at the vehemence of his old master's words.
"What have I done?" the Prince cried in despair. "Defended myself, kept my own life? Do you shout at the fox, or the dog, that kills for its supper? What of the man beset by brigands-do you chastise him if he lays about him with a stave?"
"No," Tarsus bit out, "I do not. But you have drunk deep of the souls of the dying and the dead, growing fat on their suffering and pain. You are a ghoul, a corpse feeder."
The Prince's eyes widened in astonishment.
"Do you hear them?" Tarsus felt bile rise in his throat. "Can you feel them, the shadows of the dead? They are in you! I can feel them, smell them, hear their lamentations-"
"But I did not mean to drink them up!" Maxian's face burned with shame. "It happened-I was at the helm of the engine-the cities were aflame below me and all those souls, all released at once, rushed into me. I could not stop them!"
Tarsus shook his head in disgust and turned away. "Go away from this place," he said. "If you come here again, we will strike you down, if we can. Get out."
– |The Prince, feeling a great emptiness in his chest, watched in bewildered pain as the older priest hurried away up the stairs. With each step, he felt the air grow cold and loss mount.
"But… what about…" Maxian stared around the little room, surprised to see the crowded trees and vines. He looked at his hands, then at the room again. One of the vines was beginning to bloom, sending out small white flowers with pale orange pistils.
How can my power be so great, yet fail?
Rousing himself enough to move, he climbed out of the room, stepping over the thick roots that crowded around the door, and stumbled up the stairway.
– |The moon was still bright, throwing deep shadows under the porticoes of the temple. Tarsus watched, his entire body stiff with tension, as the Prince crossed the square. His conscience raged at him, demanding that he lash out at the monster creeping away in the night.
I should raise an alarm, light the night with fire, summon lightning and storm to rage against him.
Remaining still and utterly quiet, Tarsus waited until the Prince had disappeared up the steps. Then he moved quickly along the line of columns that bounded the plaza, reaching the entryway. He looked out into the night, and saw at the far end of the colonnaded road the dim flicker of that fey blue light. The Prince was gone.
Tarsus breathed easier, leaning on his staff.
O praise you gods, that gave me some small common sense! He is so strong, so filled with vile power, reeking of the abattoir… He would overmaster us in a sudden duel, each priest woken from a deep and dreaming sleep!
The priest, his heart still thudding with fear, turned from the gate and hurried away. The elders and the council of the temples had to be informed. They must do something, and quickly, before more innocents were consumed. Plans would have to be laid, friends summoned. Hopefully, the boy would not go far. Tarsus hurried down the steps, his sandals making a quick slap-slap sound on the pavement.