* * *
“Where are we now, Lucian?”
“Doubtful, magistere—the hills are tricksy, here-a-ways, and I’ve no dealings with these tribes, me.”
“Do you think she leads us truly?”
“Truly as she might, that one.”
Nearby, the seer-girl slept with her usual slack opacity, nails furrowing her palms. Arcturus had “forgotten” to hobble her, a more and more frequent occurrence; she showed no signs of running any longer, slinking instead at Arcturus’ elbow, that inevitable smile crimping her lips with secret—humor? Anticipation? Longtime proximity had failed to render him any more able to decipher her accent, let alone read her moods.
She had ceased to bleed, however, he had finally noticed. Unless one counted her rock-cut feet, printing snow and soil alike where she stepped in fresh, savage rust.
“The men seem quiet.” At one of those unreadable shrugs: “Morale? They talk to you, still; you must have formed some opinion, by now . . . ”
Lucian gave him a sidelong glance, considering. Then answered, reluctantly—
“They think, magistere . . . that we are moving into the land of the dead.”
(With the unspoken coda, so obvious it needed no voicing: Their land of the dead, of course. Not yours.)
For even in this topsy-turvy country, Hades—and Tartarus, and the rest—remained safely down, not up.
That next morning, he woke hearing traces of conversation on the wind, quickly cut off as though they’d been talking about him while he slept. The cohort avoided his eyes, almost to a man. The girl caught his gaze, and winked.
To Lucian: “It won’t be long now.”
“Aye, magistere. Na long, surely.”
“And they’ll be pleased enough to have those stones, after all.”
“Oh, certain.”
Up, and up, and up yet once more into the gathering fog, by faint and winding no-paths: Tracks carved from chalk likewise, spiralling widdershins, which crumbled precariously away beneath their sandals while the girl just skipped ahead, fleet and sure as any mountain-goat. Then a pause to rest by some uncharted lake’s eddying side, where a sudden fall of sunlight more surprising than thunder or lightning dazzled them all with its brilliance—grey turned silver with reflected fire, illuminating water-droplets on the weeds and bracken, his own breastplate and greaves, the company’s rapt faces all upturned as one towards the girl where she squatted in the icy shallows . . .
White circlet of light erupting from her head, transforming her. Blurring her blue-cheeked profile into a luminous, featureless oval, like she was some—
(Goddess)
—made manifest, flesh-bound yet transcendent, here on the soggy earth beside him.
And: Who can tell how the Gods appear? His mater‘s long-lost voice, cooing at his mind’s ear. They are Gods, after all—capricious, spiteful, quick to tempt and judge. As we might be as well, in their position.
Blank, featureless. And yet, somewhere—somehow—he knew that smile was still there.
It was this last which touched him, hard and sharp, to the very quick. And thus he found himself bolt upright in mid-swing, his fist connecting hard with her jaw; saw her fall and his kick blend, the girl doubling into herself with a hurt little gasp, like any assaulted animal. Stopped only when his heel found the pulse of her neck and balanced there, panting—a precarious perch, what with his movement clumsily arrested mid-consummation—while his sole itched like ants in a wound to bear down hard and end this whole abortion of a “campaign” outright, the best and most controllable way he knew how . . .
“Calm thee, magistere!” Lucian cried, hand on Arcturus’s elbow. But Arcturus shook him off, snapping:
“You’ve led us astray, slut—there’s no cache here, just sheep and rain. And what did I promise if you betrayed us, do you recall it? Do you?”
Quiet: “A, Roman.”
“How I’d cut your cords, that’s right, and snap your neck for you too, if you’ve dared to play me false—do you understand me now, you Latin-less whore, or should I spell it out yet clearer? Barbarian!”
“A, she hears tha, a-true. She knows—”
Arcturus snorted. “Oh yes, so I’ve heard—far too many times to count, let alone believe. Then let Her tell me if you can’t, and quickly, before I leave you no tongue to tell Her tales with: Where is what we’re seeking?”