Orion and the Conqueror o-4 Read online

  Peering over the roof’s eave I saw slaves and servants bustling in the courtyard below: nothing unusual. A squad of soldiers marched past the gate, heading away from me. The sun was almost touching the mountains in the west. I smelled cooking odors, and wondered if there would be enough scraps from the evening’s meals to keep the rats fed.

  If my escape had been noticed I saw no evidence of it in the courtyard below. Probably my jailor had left my daily bowl of gruel at the locked cell door and taken my pot away with him. He would not suspect anything was amiss until he brought the next meal and saw that I had not touched the previous one.

  Good. That gave me roughly twelve hours, more or less, to get to Philip. Then I smiled. If the rats in my cell ate the gruel I might have even more time. But I could not depend on that.

  I needed help, and for that I had to reach Harkan. I spent the last few hours of daylight studying the layout of the palace from my rooftop hiding place. I located the troop barracks and plotted out a path across the roofs to get there. Then I waited until purple dusk had faded into the full darkness of night. The moon was rising as I scampered across the roof tiles toward the barracks, silent as a wraith. I hoped.

  I waited several hours more, with growing impatience, to make certain that all the soldiers were asleep before I dared to enter the barracks. At last, with a nearly full moon lighting the parade ground almost brightly as day, I swung down from the eaves and through the blanket that hung across one of the barracks windows.

  They were asleep, all right. Their snores and grunts and mumbles made the darkened barracks sound almost like a barnyard. I waited several moments while my eyes adjusted to the darkness, then began a tiptoe search for Harkan.

  He found me.

  As I tiptoed down the aisle between the rows of bunks, I sensed a presence behind me. I whirled and reached for the man’s throat, determined to cut off his air and prevent him from awakening the others, only to see that he had a sword pointed at me. It was Harkan, naked except for his unsheathed sword.

  “Orion!” he said, surprised.

  “Shh!”

  One of the men nearest us stirred in his sleep, but did not wake.

  “I thought you were a thief,” Harkan whispered.

  “I was,” I joked softly, “when I rode with you.”

  “Have they released you from prison?”

  “I released myself.”

  In the shadows of the darkened barracks I could not see the expression on his bearded face, but his silence told me that he did not know what to say. I gripped his shoulder and together we walked quietly to the end of the long room.

  “I must get to the king,” I said as we stepped outside onto the landing of the stairs that ran down to the parade ground.

  “He left for Aigai this morning.”

  “Then I must go to Aigai.”

  Now, in the moonlight, I could see Harkan’s face. He looked perplexed. “You’re a fugitive.”

  “That was the queen’s doing. The king will pardon me when he hears what I have to tell him.”

  “You think so?” another voice asked. A deep voice: Batu’s. He stepped out of the inky shadow cast by the overhanging roof. Like Harkan he was naked, and armed with a sword.

  I clasped his outstretched hand as I asked, “What are you doing out here?”

  With a broad smile Batu replied, “I heard you scrabbling across the roof tiles. Harkan went to one end of the barracks, I went to this end.”

  “You two sleep very lightly.”

  “It comes from the life we’ve led,” said Batu lightly. “Those others in there, they’ve been paid soldiers all their lives. Bandits don’t sleep as well as they do.”

  I grinned back at him.

  “But what makes you think the king will pardon you?” Batu asked again.

  “Even if he doesn’t, I have to warn him. Pausanias plans to kill him at the wedding.”

  Harkan scowled at me. “That’s a serious charge, Orion.”

  “He told me himself.”

  “And the queen is behind it?”

  “Yes.”

  “That means Alexandros is in it, too.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “He will certainly benefit from it—if we allow it to happen.”

  “We?” Batu asked.

  “I need your help,” I said. “I can’t get into Aigai by myself.”

  They both fell silent for many moments. I could understand what was going through their minds. They had found employment, a roof over their heads, a place in the world here in Philip’s kingdom. They were no longer outlaws, hunted, living in the wild little better than the beasts. And I was asking them to throw all that away, to desert their positions and fling themselves into the midst of the machinations being hatched by the witch-queen Olympias.

  They would be fools to agree. Yet they owed their comfortable positions to me and they knew it. I had brought them to Pella and Philip’s employ. If anyone had a right to ask them to give it up, it was I.

  Before either of them could speak, my own mind hatched a plot of its own.

  “Has Pausanias left for Aigai yet?”

  “He departs tomorrow at first light,” said Harkan.

  “Then listen to me,” I said, “Pausanias will send you scouring the countryside when he finds that I have broken out of confinement. He knows I will head for Aigai and he’ll send you and most of the guard searching for me. All I ask is that when you find me you bring me to the king, not to Pausanias or the queen.”

  “How do you know Pausanias will send us?” Harkan asked.

  “And even if he does, he will not send only the two of us,” added Batu. “How can you be certain that we will be the ones who will find you?”

  I gave them a grim smile. “Pausanias will send almost the entire royal guard, never fear. And I will find you, my friends. In the hills outside Aigai.”

  Harkan looked doubtful, Batu amused at my certainty.

  “When does the wedding take place?” I asked.

  “The night of the full moon.”

  I looked up at the fat waxing moon. “Three nights from now, I judge.”

  They agreed.

  “Search the hills to the right side of the road before Aigai,” I said. “I’ll be waiting for you there.”

  Before they could argue I reached up to the edge of the eave and, after lifting myself onto the roof, ran toward the section of the barracks where Pausanias and the other officers slept in individual rooms.

  I had no way of knowing which window was his. I simply swung myself through the first one I came to. It was not Pausanias, but the man stirred in his sleep as I leaned over him close enough to see his face in the darkness. Four sleeping rooms I went through before I found Pausanias. There were no guards in the corridor that linked the rooms, although I knew there was a perfunctory pair of men drowsing on guard duty down in the yard, before the door to the barracks.

  At last I found Pausanias’ room. He was tossing unhappily in his sleep, moaning slightly. The thin chiton he wore was soaked with perspiration.

  I clamped my left hand over his mouth and pointed my dagger at his suddenly wide-open eyes.

  “Dreaming of the queen?” I asked. “Waiting for her to invite you into her bed once again?”

  His right hand moved slightly, but I touched the point of my dagger to the artery pulsing in his throat. He froze into immobility.

  “Has she promised to make you regent here in Pella while her son goes off to conquer the Persians?”

  I could see by his eyes that this idea was a surprise to him.

  “Not even that?” I asked. “All she’s offered you is her body? She certainly has you entranced, then.”

  He tried to say something but my hand muffled his words.

  “Your cell wasn’t strong enough to hold me, Pausanias. Now I’m going to the king and tell him what you told me. The next time you see me, you’ll have a noose around your neck.”

  I sheathed my dagger. He shoved my hand away from his
mouth and reached for the sword hanging beside the bed. I punched him solidly on his temple and he went limp, unconscious.

  Then I ducked through his window and back up onto the roof, heading for the stables and a fast horse and the hills before Aigai.

  Pausanias reacted almost exactly as I had expected. By the time I had swung off the road to Aigai and nosed my horse up into the brown hills, couriers on lathered horses raced to the old city’s gates. Before the sun went down that day a troop of royal guards came up the road, riding almost as hard as the couriers, with Pausanias at their head. They made camp in front of the city wall, obviously to block my entry into Aigai.

  Pausanias went inside. To the queen, I imagined, breathless to tell her of the danger to their plans that I represented. I smiled to myself as I made my own camp for the night. No fire for me. I was not ready to be caught just yet. I let my horse crop the scrawny grass pushing up through the rocky ground while I armed myself with a handful of small stones and went hunting. I killed a hare, skinned it and ate its meat raw. It was tough, but nourishing enough. Then both the horse and I drank at a shallow stream bubbling down the hillside.

  She came to me in my dreams, of course.

  Hera was furious. No sooner had I closed my eyes in sleep than I found myself standing before her in a chamber so vast that I could see neither its walls nor its ceiling. Enormous columns of gray-green marble rose like a forest, dwarfing even the many-columned hall of the Great King. Hera sat on a throne that glowed faintly, completely alone, magnificently beautiful in a flowing white robe that left her slim arms bare except for her jeweled bracelets and armlets, all in the shape of coiling snakes.

  Staring down at me with fiery eyes, she snapped, “You are more trouble than you’re worth, Orion.”

  I smiled at her. “I accept that as a compliment.”

  Her eyes blazed. She leaned forward slightly, hands clenching into white-knuckled fists, body rigid with tension.

  I felt the beginnings of the pain she had inflicted on me before, but I fought against it, strove to banish it from my consciousness. It faded away before it became anything more than an annoying tingling.

  Hera’s face contorted into an even angrier frown.

  “It’s not working,” I said. “You can’t punish me the way you once did.”

  “You’re being protected!” The thought seemed to surprise her.

  “Or perhaps I’ve learned to protect myself,” I said, not daring to hope that Anya was near. She was the only one who would protect me, I knew.

  “Impossible. We wiped that capability from your mind before we sent you here.”

  “We?” I asked. “You and the Golden One?”

  She did not need to answer; I knew.

  “You failed, then. My memories are returning. My abilities are growing.”

  “We will destroy you, once and for all.”

  I thought of Ketu. “And grant me the release of oblivion?”

  Hera glowered at me.

  “The Golden One fathered Alexandros, didn’t he? The two of you are playing at kings and empires. Does it amuse you? Is there some point to it beyond your own pitiful entertainment?”

  “You don’t understand anything, Orion.”

  “Don’t I? As far as I can see, you are serving the whims of Aten, the Golden One, whatever he’s calling himself now. He wanted to create a Trojan empire that spanned Europe and Asia. I stopped him then. Now he gets you to help him create the empire he’s wanted all along—by bearing his son, Alexandros, and allowing him to conquer the Persians.”

  “Alexandros will conquer the whole world,” Hera said. “He must, or this nexus in the continuum will unravel disastrously.”

  “But Philip stands in his way. He has a new son now, one that he is certain comes from his own seed.”

  “Philip will die.”

  “At Pausanias’ hand.”

  “Of course.”

  “Not if I can stop him.”

  “You mustn’t!”

  “Why not?”

  Her anger had faded. Now she seemed alarmed, almost frightened. But she pulled herself together, regained her self-control. Hera leaned forward again and smiled coldly at me.

  “Orion, consider: if this nexus unravels the fabric of spacetime, everything changes. You will be torn from Anya just as surely as the Earth will be destroyed in nuclear fire a few thousand years up the time-stream.”

  “And if I obey you and allow Philip to be assassinated?”

  She shrugged her slim shoulders. “At least we will be dealing with a continuum we understand and can control.”

  “What is this great crisis that Anya spoke of? What is happening elsewhere in the continuum?”

  Her face clouded over. “Problems so intricate that not even we Creators fully understand their implications. Anya is far from Earth, Orion, light-years off in interstellar space, attempting to deal with one aspect of the crisis.”

  “Is she truly in danger?”

  “We are all in danger, Orion. The forces ranged against us are beyond comprehension.”

  Her usual haughty, taunting tone was gone. She was visibly fearful.

  “How does this matter of Philip and Alexandros relate to Anya?”

  I saw her draw back, a flicker of exasperation touching her face. “You are a stubborn mule, Orion!”

  “Tell me,” I demanded.

  She heaved an annoyed sigh. “We cannot get out of this nexus until its flow is resolved, one way or the other!” Hera blurted. “We are locked into this placetime, Aten and I, and will be until the decision is made! Either Philip dies or Alexandros. Until one of them is killed, we cannot return to the continuum to help Anya and the other Creators.”

  “You’re stuck here?”

  Very reluctantly she admitted, “Yes.”

  I did not want to believe her, but suddenly much of what I had experienced made sense to me. When I had translated myself to the Creators’ city it was empty and abandoned. Whenever I had left this placetime I had returned precisely to the same time and place again. If what Hera was telling me was true, she and Aten were trapped here also. That was why Anya could not come to me; she was enmeshed in this snare just as they were.

  Without meaning to, without even thinking about it, I burst out laughing.

  Hera’s blazing anger returned. “You find this amusing?”

  “Incredibly so,” I answered. “Your meddling with the continuum has finally caught up with you. You sent me here to be rid of me, and now you’re trapped here with me!”

  I laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks.

  Chapter 32

  Hera disappeared so abruptly that I felt a jolt of physical alarm at finding myself back in the predawn cold of the hills near Aigai.

  Pulling myself up to a sitting position, I waited and watched the dawn come up over the rugged eastern horizon. So Hera and Golden Aten are trapped in this nexus of the continuum, unable to get away from this placetime unless and until either Philip or Alexandros dies, I thought. Unable to reach Anya and the other Creators. Unable to help them in their battle out among the stars.

  I got to my feet, wondering what I was to do. I could not let them kill Philip; he had been just and true to me. He was the one pillar on which the safety and prosperity of his people rested. Kill Philip and Alexandros would become king and immediately go chasing off for the glory of conquering the world. Years of wars and killing. To what end? Why should I help to make that come about?

  Yet that is what Aten, the Golden One, had been scheming for all through the centuries since Troy. His vision of human destiny required an empire that brought together the wealth of Asia with the ideals of Europe. I remembered another time, another place, far to the east, when I was sent to assassinate the High Khan of the Mongols. Then my mission had been to prevent the Mongol empire from engulfing Europe.

  Hera honestly seemed to believe that what we did here in this placetime had profound consequences for the space-time continuum as a whole. I had
my doubts. I thought that Aten and the other Creators dabbled with the flow of the continuum, interfered with human history as a game among themselves, a pastime of the gods. They saw the human race as their creation, their playthings. Wars, empires, murder and human misery were simply amusements for them.

  Yet Hera seemed frightened enough. And Anya was in danger, she said. Somewhere out among the stars Anya was fighting a battle for her life.

  I shook my head. Maybe Hera was right: it was all beyond my comprehension. Yet I knew that what I was about to do would be pivotal. Aten and the other so-called gods had created me and a handful of other warriors to serve them, to be sent to specific critical points in the space-time continuum and alter the flow of events for the benefit of our Creators.

  They created us, but we created them. I remembered it fully now. I remembered being sent back into the Ice Age to wipe out the Neanderthals. I remembered Anya taking human form to help me and the handful of creatures Aten had sent on that genocidal mission. I remembered how we survived the battles and the cold of centuries-long winter. How we peopled the earth. How we became the human race. How our descendants in the distant future became the Creators who made us and sent us back in time to start the chain of events that would ultimately lead to themselves.

  All this I remembered as I stood in the chilly dawn of the worn, stony hills. But nothing in my newfound memories told me what I should do next. Nothing except the unshakable realization that Anya was the only one among the Creators to care enough about any of us to share our dangers, our pains, our fate.

  I loved her. That much I knew without question. I thought she loved me. And she was in danger, far from this place and time.

  The whinny of my horse snapped me out of my reverie. I had left the steed loosely tethered to a scraggly bush so that it could reach the sparse grass growing among the rocks without wandering off too far.

  It had sensed someone approaching, I suspected. I crawled up atop one of the bigger boulders and, flat on my belly, scanned the slope of the rocky hill below.