Orion and the Conqueror Page 25

  As we rode into the city itself Batu laughingly complained, "Such noise! How can a man think in all this bustle?"

  I had paid scant attention to the city's constant din before, but once Batu had said it I realized that the cities in Asia were much quieter and more orderly than Pella. Certainly the marketplaces were noisy with the cries of sellers and arguments of buyers, but the other sections of those ancient cities were sleepy in the hot sun, orderly and quiet. Pella was more like a madhouse, with the constant din of construction hammering everywhere, chariots and wagons and horsemen clattering through the cobblestoned streets, people laughing and talking at the top of their lungs on almost every corner.

  No one stopped us or even paid us much attention as we rode up the main street toward Philip's palace. The people were accustomed to seeing soldiers; the army was the backbone of Macedonian society and these people did not fear their army, as the peoples of the Persian Empire's cities did.

  But at the palace gate we were stopped. I did not recognize any of the guards on duty there, so I identified myself and told their sergeant that I had brought Harkan and his men to join the army. The sergeant looked us over with a professional eye, then sent one of the boys lounging nearby to run for the captain of the guard.

  We dismounted and the sergeant offered us water for ourselves and our horses. Two of his men went with us to the fountain just inside the gate. They were treating us with civility, but with great care, as well.

  "What's the news?" I asked the sergeant after slaking my thirst.

  He leaned casually against the doorjamb of the guard house, in the shade of the doorway—within arm's reach of the clutch of spears standing there.

  "There's to be a royal wedding within the month," he said, his eyes on Harkan and the men by the fountain.

  "Philip's marrying again?"

  That brought a laugh out of him. "No, no—he's still content with his Eurydice, for the while. She's presented him with a son, you know."

  "A son?"

  "A truly legitimate heir," the sergeant said. "No question about this babe being sired by a god." He glanced around, then added, "Or whomever the Molossian witch bedded down with."

  "And what of Alexandros?"

  The sergeant shrugged his heavy shoulders. "He had gone off to Epeiros with his mother when Philip married Eurydice, but the king called him back here to Pella."

  "And he came back?"

  "You bet he did. He obeyed the king's order, all right. He'd better, after all the trouble he stirred up."

  I was about to ask what trouble Alexandros had stirred when the captain of the guard came tramping up to us, flanked by four fully-armed men. It was not Pausanias, but the officer of the day, a man named Demetrios. I recognized him; like me, he had been quartered in the barracks by the palace.

  "Orion," he said, pronouncing my name like a heavy sigh.

  "I've returned, Demetrios, with seven new recruits for the army."

  He looked at me sadly. "Orion, you'll have to come with me. You're under arrest."

  I was stunned. "Under arrest? What for?"

  Harkan and Batu and the others came back toward us from the fountain. The sergeant stood up straighter and glanced at the spears resting by his side.

  Demetrios said, "Those are my orders, Orion. From the king himself. You are charged with desertion."

  Before a fight broke out I said, "Very well. I'm willing to accept the king's justice. But these men are volunteers for the army and they should be treated as such. They are professional soldiers, all of them."

  Demetrios looked at them. "I'll see that they're well taken care of, Orion. But you must come with me."

  "All right."

  "I have to take your sword."

  I unbuckled it and handed sword and belt to him.

  Harkan asked, "What will they do to you?"

  "It's all right," I told him. "Once I've had a chance to speak with the king this will all be cleared up."

  Demetrios looked utterly dubious, but he did not contradict me. To the sergeant he said, "Take these men to the army barracks and have the officer in charge look them over. If they meet his approval, see that they're properly housed and equipped."

  "Yessir," said the sergeant.

  Then he turned back to me. "Come along, Orion."

  Escorted by Demetrios and his four fully-armed guards, I marched across the palace courtyard and into a prison cell.

  The cell was underground, beneath the palace, dark and so small that I could touch the walls on both sides without even extending my arms to their full reach. No window, except a barred slot on the heavy locked door. No bed; just a straw pallet on the bare dirt floor. And an earthenware jug for a chamberpot.

  "I really hate to do this to you, Orion," Demetrios told me once we reached the cell. He came inside with me, while his men waited out in the dark corridor that was lit only by a weak shaft of dusty sunlight slanting in from an airshaft. "It's the king's standing order. The instant you showed up again in Pella you were to be arrested. For desertion."

  "The king himself gave you this order?" I asked.

  "No!" Demetrios seemed shocked to think that the king would speak to him personally. "Pausanias gave me the order, months ago. But it's from the king's mouth; he told me so."

  "How many months ago?" I asked. "Was it when the Hindi ambassador from the Great King returned to Pella?"

  "The Hindi . . ." Demetrios frowned with thought. "Oh, you mean the one with the name nobody can pronounce. No, I think it was before then. Yes, it had to be before then; I remember I was surprised that you'd be accused of desertion—of anything—because you were so far away in the Persian Empire. How'd the king know you'd deserted?"

  Indeed, I said to myself. How could he know what I was doing in Parsa before Ketu or anyone else returned to tell him?

  "I remember!" Demetrios said. "It was during all that hubbub when the king married Attalos' niece and Olympias stormed off to Epeiros with Alexandros."

  "That's when the order was given?"

  He bobbed his head up and down. "Yes, I remember it clearly now."

  "And you received the order from Pausanias?"

  "Yes."

  "Well," I said, looking around at the stone walls of my cell, "please tell Pausanias I am back, and safely lodged in my new quarters."

  In the dim light of the cell I could not make out the expression on his face, but Demetrios' voice sounded strained. "I will tell him, Orion. Believe me, I'm going to him right now."

  "Thank you."

  He left me alone in the cell. The thick wooden door, reinforced with iron strapping, swung shut. I heard the bolt shoot home. I was in almost total darkness, alone except for the dagger strapped to my thigh. Then I noticed a pair of red beady eyes glowering in the darkest corner of the cell. I would not be totally alone, I realized. There were the rats.

  I had plenty of time to think. The hours dragged by slowly in that dark cell. I counted the days by the times that the jailor shuffled by and shoved a shallow metal bowl of thin gruel through the slot at the bottom of the door. It was decent enough. He took the chamberpot, too, when I left it by the slot. No one came in to change the straw, though.

  I can go for many days without sleep, and I feared to lie down on that straw pallet and offer myself to the rats that chittered in the darkness. In the dim recesses of my memory I recalled Anya being killed by a pack of huge, fierce rats in the filth and slime of a city's subterranean tunnels. Her name was Aretha in that lifetime and I had been powerless to save her.

  I tried to focus my thoughts on Pella and Philip and Olympias, on this time and place, on the commands that Hera had given me—and others.

  There was no doubt in my mind that Hera was manipulating all of us now: Alexandros, me, even Pausanias. She had taken on human form and become Olympias, Queen of Macedon, the witch of Pella. She had created a son, Alexandros. She and Aten.

  Seeing Anya take on human form and fall in love with one of their creatures, Hera did
the same. And so did Aten, the Golden One, the cynical self-styled progenitor of the human race, the one who had called himself Apollo at Troy. They created Alexandros, the godling, the golden-haired offspring of the Golden One. Now Hera/Olympias was scheming to make him King of Macedon and eventually conqueror of the whole world.

  "Why?" I asked in the dark solitude of my prison cell. "Why are they doing this?"

  I knew there was only one way to find out. I had to face them myself, in their own domain. But to do that I had to put this body of mine into sleep, and leave it at the mercy of those hungry, baleful eyes.

  Or did I? If one can truly master time, then I could leave this place in the continuum, seek out the Creators in their city by the sea, and return to this cell with no real time elapsed.

  If I could truly master time.

  For long hours I paced my cell, wondering if I could do it, trying to remember those other times when the Creators had moved me through the continuum to do their bidding. Their blocks against my memory were strong but I had a powerful motivation to break through: Anya had told me, on Ararat, that she was in danger. I wanted to be with her, facing whatever it might be at her side, ready to fight for her as she had fought for me so many times. Hera and the Golden One and perhaps the other Creators as well were all trying to keep us apart. Raw anger flamed through me. I would break through their control. I would do it even if it cost me my body, my life, my existence.

  As I laid myself down on the damp, smelly straw, I smiled inwardly at the thought of Ketu and his Eightfold Path. Perhaps this time the Creators would end me forever. Almost, I felt glad of that possibility. Almost. But in my deepest soul I had no desire for final oblivion. I wanted to find Anya and know her love again.

  I closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep. The last thing I sensed was the squeaking jabber of the rats.

  I ignored them and concentrated on translating myself through the continuum to the city of the Creators. What were the physical sensations that I had felt those other times? A wave of infinite cold, as if my body had been displaced into the deepest reaches of empty space, out beyond the farthest galaxies, out where no star had ever shone. A falling sensation, weightlessness, and then—

  I felt the warmth of golden sunlight seeping into my flesh. My eyes were still closed, but instead of blackness I saw a red glow brightening my lids.

  Opening my eyes, I sat up and found myself on a grassy hillside dotted with wildflowers. White puffs of cumulus clouds dotted a deeply blue sky. A warm breeze made the flowers nod their colorful heads, the distant trees sway and murmur.

  But there was no city. No ocean. No Creators. Nothing but an empty land stretching out to a rolling hilly horizon.

  Slowly I climbed to my feet, looking for some sign of them. The Creators had to be here. Otherwise why would I have come to this placetime?

  "Because you're something of a clod, Orion."

  I whirled and there stood the Golden One with the sun at his back. He wore a short-skirted robe that seemed to gleam with a radiance of its own. His handsome face was frowning with annoyance.

  "Orion, what are you trying to do? Don't you realize that every time you disturb the continuum like this we have to work to repair the damage you've done?"

  "Where is Anya?" I asked.

  "Far from here."

  "What's going on? Why am I being held in Pella if there's a crisis so grave—"

  "Stop this chatter!" Aten snapped. "You've been told more than once, Orion: your task is in the placetime where you've been sent. Do as Hera commands. Is that clear?"

  "Not clear enough. I want to know what you are trying to accomplish."

  His narrow nostrils flared angrily. "You want to know, do you? All right, I'll tell you. You ruined my plans for Troy. Do you remember that?"

  He had wanted Troy to beat the Achaian Greeks and go on to establish an empire that would link Asia and Europe. I had thwarted him out of spite.

  "That little game of yours unraveled the continuum so badly that we had to exert all our efforts to bring things back together again."

  Good, I thought. Aten had gone insane then; he neglected to recall that little fact.

  "We are still trying to repair the damage you've done. There must be an empire that unites Europe and Asia, even if it lasts only for a few generations. It is important. Vital!"

  "So Alexandros—"

  "Must succeed. If you ever expect to see Anya again, you must do as Hera commands. Do you understand that?"

  I bowed my head and heard myself mutter, "I understand."

  Aten shook his head and grumbled, "I must say, Orion, that you've been more trouble than you're worth. But you're strong, I'll grant you that much. I sent you to the Mesozoic again, back among the dinosaurs, just to get you out of our way until we needed you again. But somehow you showed up at Pella."

  "Anya did that," I replied, with a certainty that surprised me.

  He gave me a sharp look. "Perhaps she did," he mused. "Perhaps she did. When I wanted to put you in suspension, she insisted that I let you live out a life somewhere in the continuum."

  "So I was to be stored away like a toy that you had grown tired of playing with."

  "Like a tool that I wanted to keep available until I needed it again," the Golden One corrected.

  "And now?" I asked.

  "Now we face the gravest crisis of all, thanks in part to your infernal meddling."

  "That is what Anya is doing, fighting against this crisis?"

  "Orion, that is what we all are doing. We have no energy to spare on your antics."

  "And Hera is manipulating the events in Macedonia?"

  "That is her part of the crisis. Again, because of your stubborn resistance to our will."

  "So what am I to do?"

  He smiled thinly. "Nothing at all, Orion. You should have been put in cryonic storage, but I think your cell in Pella will do almost as well. Enjoy your new playmates." He meant the rats, I knew.

  Chapter 30

  I opened my eyes in the darkness of my cell and saw the red hateful eyes of the rats surrounding me. Only a few heartbeats of time had elapsed since I had lain myself down on the moldy straw pallet, I reckoned. The rats were approaching me warily, sniffing at the odor of fresh meat but not yet excited into a feeding frenzy.

  I sprang to my feet and they scattered to the corners of the cell, chittering with fear and disappointment.

  Thus I spent my days, pacing the narrow confines of the cell, not daring to sleep. The only mark of elapsed time came when the jailor slid my gruel through the slot in the door and collected my chamberpot. Gradually I began to look on the rats as companions.

  Using the skill I had learned long ago from the Neanderthals, I tried to put myself into the consciousness of the rats. Gradually I learned to see my cell through their eyes. I felt the gnawing hunger that drove them, so much so that I started to leave my miserable bowl of gruel unfinished and let them lap up the remains.

  Day after day I perfected my rapport with them, to the degree that I could sit on the floor of my cell and go with them through the cracks between the cell walls, into their nests, along the tunnels that honeycombed the palace's cellars. Through the eyes of the pack's leader I visited the guard room and saw the giant humans lounging carelessly, dropping crumbs of bread and scraps of meat onto the floor—a feast for the pack, once the humans had left the chamber.

  I even listened to the guards' conversations, although their voices sounded strangely deep and booming in the ears of my rats. It took some while for me to learn how to transduce the tones they were capable of hearing into words of understandable human language.

  Another royal wedding was drawing near, I learned. But the more they spoke, the more bawdy jokes they made about the impending nuptials, the more confused I became. Alexandros was marrying Kleopatra, they said. Those were two of the most common names among the Macedonians. Did they mean Alexandros, the king's son? The Little King himself? And Kleopatra was the name of Philip
's most recent wife, although he called her Eurydice.

  It was Pausanias who cleared up the puzzle for me.

  He came to visit me in my cell. One day I heard footsteps coming down the hall, and recognized that there was someone accompanying the shuffle-footed old man who brought me my food. Someone wearing boots. One of the rats happened to be near a crack in the corridor wall and I looked up through its eyes. Pausanias loomed like a moving mountain, shaking the rat's sensitive whiskers with each booted step.

  The guard pulled the door open on its squeaking hinges and Pausanias ducked through the doorway into my cell. He carried a sputtering torch in his right hand. He had left his sword at the guard room, I saw.

  "Leave us," he told the old man. "I'll call when I'm finished here."

  The old man wordlessly closed the door and shot its bolt home.

  "You've lost weight," Pausanias said, looking me over.

  I saw his nose wrinkle. "And I must smell pretty bad, too," I said.

  "That can't be helped."

  "Why am I here?" I asked. "Why haven't I been allowed to see the king? Or to have a trial, at least."

  "It will be over soon," he said. His face was grim, his eyes evasive.

  "What do you mean?"

  "After the wedding we can let you go."

  "The wedding?"

  Pausanias' lips turned down into a frown. "The king is giving his daughter to his brother-in-law."

  "His daughter Kleopatra? Olympias' daughter?"

  "She is to marry Alexandros, King of Epeiros."

  "Olympias' brother?" I felt shocked.

  He nodded sourly. "It smacks of incest, doesn't it? Marrying off his fourteen-year-old daughter to her own uncle."

  "I thought that Olympias was living in Epeiros with her brother."

  "She was. She has been returned to Pella."

  Philip's statecraft, I realized. He was binding the king of Epeiros to Macedonia by marrying his daughter to him. Alexandros of Epeiros would no longer side with Olympias in their marital squabbles because he was marrying a Macedonian princess. Olympias no longer had a brother to take her side, to give her shelter, to possibly go to war against Philip for her sake.