The Mediterranean Sea
The gentle rocking of the boat finally lulled Jurian into a strange half-sleep. He could hear the greasy man on the floor muttering to himself—snatches of words in a lilting tone that sounded like a prayer. But it wasn’t any prayer Jurian had ever heard, and when at last he lost track of the man’s voice, he slid into uneasy dreams.
The ground was hard and dry under Jurian’s feet, and for a moment, he felt he was back in the catacombs of Rome. The sickly smell of death and some kind of incense wafted over him, and his feet crunched in something that wasn’t stone. He glanced down, saw bits of broken skulls and crushed garlands of flowers.
He staggered forward, up a hill toward a pillar that gleamed silver-white, though the sky was dark with clouds that threatened to smother the earth. There was something wrong with the sky now…it was red, red like blood. Red like fire.
Something was coming, scorching the ground under his feet, bleaching the skulls in shimmering heat. He had to get to the pillar, but his feet wouldn’t move properly. A weight pressed him down, forcing him to the earth. He dragged himself through the skulls on hands and knees. The weight of the sword on his back pressed him into the earth. But he struggled on, propelled by some intense urgency.
He crested the hill, and found that the pillar was no longer empty. A woman in a white gown stood chained to it, a crown of flowers in her hair. And the clouds roiled away, revealing a dark shape in the sky—wings, a head with horns. As the creature exhaled, the woman turned to face him.
It was Eva.
Jurian jerked himself awake, slamming his head painfully on the low ceiling of the cabin. For a moment he sat there, propped on his elbows, his heart hammering and a cold sweat soaking through his tunic. Gradually, the guttering lamplight and the gentle rocking of the ship soothed his tattered nerves.
What does it all mean? he wondered as he settled back, his hand resting on the hilt of Excalibur. The dreams, the prophecies, all the mysteries…
So many mysteries. Since he and Mari had left Satala, it felt as if his entire world had shrouded itself in mist. Everything he thought he knew—everything he thought he’d ever wanted—had twisted somehow into something new and strange. Here he was, a fire-headed half-Greek Roman with a Germanic name from the borderlands of Anatolia, heading across the sea to the Libyan coast with a Celtic sword clutched in his hand.
He had to smile at that. Maybe he was a bridge after all.
“You make too much noise,” the greasy man said suddenly.
Jurian rolled onto his side and peered down at the floor. “Are you still down there?” he asked. “And I’m not the only one in here making noise. I can’t sleep with all your muttering.”
“Because you are weak.” The man snorted. “I do not need sleep.”
“Everyone needs sleep.”
“Why should I sleep, when I can contemplate the things that matter the most?” The man took a deep breath, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. “The body keeps us from truth. It is a wretched evil, a cursed weight.”
“You don’t look like you weigh much to me,” Jurian said.
The man’s eyes snapped open and he glowered up at him. “Sleep if you must,” he said, “but leave me in peace to contemplate the higher things and follow the path to illumination.”
“That sounds like nonsense,” Jurian said. “Have you been drinking?”
“I don’t touch wine. These things are for the unclean and the uninitiated. All luxuries of the body are abhorrent to me.”
Jurian started to chuckle, then realized that the man was glowering at him, dark eyes fierce under pointed brows. “What’s your name?” Jurian asked instead.
“I am called Innai. I have lately been in Persia, where I was initiated into the elect that follow Mani.”
“Never heard of him,” Jurian said. “Is he some god of the Persians?”
Innai clicked his tongue. “Stupid boy,” he said. “Mani is the Prophet…the Incarnate One. The Manifestation of Truth.”
“You really believe that?” Jurian asked. “Some man from Persia is supposed to be the—what did you call him?—Manifestation of Truth? How can he be the manifestation of truth when apparently all he speaks are lies?”
“Your ignorance does not do you credit.”
“Nor yours.”
Innai pressed his fingertips together and measured Jurian. “You are not like the heathen pagans aboard this ship,” he said. “There is something of the light about you. But you have not yet realized the truth.”
“What truth would that be?”
“There is a great darkness coming. The Dark Power is struggling for ascendancy. The balance of the universe is tipping.”
“What are you talking about? What Dark Power?”
Innai shook his head. “There are two powers in the universe—Dark and Light. Body and Soul. Don’t you see? And the Dark Power is rising.”
Jurian thought about his dream, about what had happened to Menas…about Casca and Mari. Something dark was coiling its way into the heart of the world. But the man’s vision of things rang with a false note, something that struck Jurian as hollow.
“You believe that they are evenly matched…this Dark Power and the Light?” Jurian asked slowly, wishing Mari were there to give him the words he needed. He closed his eyes, whispering a prayer in his heart for guidance. “And you say that the body is evil…and only the soul of a man is good?”
“Yes, yes. Perhaps you aren’t as stupid as you seem,” Innai said, nodding his head.
“So tell me, then. Which power gives life?”
Innai hesitated. Jurian watched him with interest, surprised as much at the question as at Innai’s sudden uncertainty.
“Well?” Jurian asked after Innai was silent for several minutes.
Innai shook his head, muttering something about infidels and the uninitiated. After another glare in Jurian’s direction, he unfolded himself from the floor and took the lamp outside. Jurian settled back into his bunk, considering the strange man and his stranger beliefs.
But he’s right about one thing, he thought. A dark power is rising…and it will reveal itself in Cyrene.
The next morning dawned cloudy and chill. The churning waves were capped with white, as if donning furs against the bite in the wind. Jurian stumbled up the narrow steps to the deck, bleary and aching after a poor night’s sleep. He found Menas and Eva already awake and standing at the bulwark, pointing out slivers of lightning in a distant bank of clouds. Innai, he realized with some annoyance, was awake too—if he’d ever fallen asleep. He sat cross-legged in the shadow of the deck on a coil of rope, even the violent wind failing to stir the oily length of his hair.
“Good morning,” Menas said cheerfully.
Jurian shivered and tightened his father’s cloak around his shoulders. Eva had brought a blanket from the cabin and had it pulled up over her head and puddled at her feet. She peeked at him from under the makeshift hood, eyes bright.
“Jurian. Honestly. You look terrible,” she remarked.
“Thanks.” He leaned on the rail and ducked his head from a blast of wind. Times like these, he might almost believe what Innai said about the body being evil.
“Didn’t you sleep?” Menas asked.
Jurian pointed at the man sitting below them. “I had to share a berth with that one.”
“I saw him in the tavern,” Eva said, making a face. “Nasty, unpleasant-looking man.”
“Just as nasty and unpleasant on the inside, too.” Jurian crossed over to the other side of the deck, just to make sure the man wouldn’t overhear him, and the others followed. “Claimed to be the follower of some man he called Mani. Apparently this prophet teaches that there are two gods, Light and Dark, and that everything in the world is bad, only spiritual things are good.”
“I’ve seen enough evil in this world that it almost makes sense,” Eva said, very quietly.
“You too?” Jurian asked, just as soft.
She regarded him in surprise, but he lowered his gaze to the sea.
“Steer clear of snakes in the grass like him,” Menas warned. “They mix just enough truth with lies to make their teaching seem reasonable…and then the trap is sprung.”
“And once sprung, escape is almost impossible,” Eva murmured.
Jurian glanced at her, curious. “You’ve been saying things like that since we left Portus,” he said. “What was your business in Rome…and what is Cyrene to you?”
“Cyrene is home,” Eva said. There was a startled look in her eyes that Jurian didn’t quite understand.
“Then perhaps you could tell us something of what is happening there,” Menas said. “In our travels we’ve heard rumors of strange things…of dragons, and sacrifices, and a cult to a dark god.” He peered at Eva. “Do you know anything of this?”
“These rumors…” Eva stopped, then began again. “Do they fault the cult of the god for the trouble in Cyrene?”
Jurian shook his head. “No. Incredibly, they blame the Christians.”
Eva flinched, and Jurian exchanged a glance with Menas.
“Does that surprise you?” he asked. “All the ills of the Empire, it seems, are to be blamed on the Christians. And many pay for it with their lives.”
His breath caught and he stared out across the wind-swept sea. The girl beside him was suddenly quiet, and not just because she was silent. She was just…still. Like a flower that had closed itself against the chill of night.
“You do know something of all this, don’t you?” Jurian asked her. “Please tell us. We are heading to Cyrene to help, if we can.”
At this, Eva raised her eyes to his, her sudden guardedness thawing just a bit. “You…care about Cyrene?” she said. “Why?”
“We don’t always get to choose the roads we travel,” Jurian said, his mouth twisting in a grin. “Sometimes, it seems, they’re chosen for us.”
Eva was silent for so long that Jurian thought she would never speak. But finally she said, “There is some dark power in the hills above our city. We have been offering ritual sacrifice for ten years, attempting to appease it. But the earth is filled with tremblings, and the Kyre—our spring—is withering.” She took a breath, then continued, “My mistress discovered, just before we left for Rome, that her own name had been drawn in the lottery as the next sacrificial offering. But her father, the governor, called another name in her stead. I fear that my mistress has run back to Cyrene against her father’s wish…and I think she means to take the girl’s place before the god is blasphemed.”
“And is that why you are running back to Cyrene, then?” Menas asked, eyes keen. “To…do what, exactly?”
“I…don’t want my mistress to die alone,” Eva said. “I am her assistant. She needs me.”
“You speak of this dark power as though it was divine,” Jurian said. “Is it? Or is it just some brute beast that crawled its way out of the sea?”
Eva shook her head. “No one is certain.”
“Have you seen it yourself?” Menas asked. “Do you know what it is?”
Jurian watched the girl’s face grow pale under their scrutiny. She knows more than she’s telling, he thought. I just hope she tells us what she knows before it’s too late.
He remembered his dream then—the sight of her pale face against the smooth stone of the pillar, a wreath of flowers in her hair. Without thinking, he reached up to brush his fingers over the hilt of his sword.
“They told me what it meant,” Eva blurted. "The Celtic sailors. They told me what the inscription said.”
Jurian regarded her with interest. “Oh? And?”
“It means, ‘the one who holds the sword will kill the dragon.’”
Menas clapped Jurian on the shoulder. “That’s a positive message for you,” he said.
“That’s not all,” Eva said. “It could also mean, ‘the dragon will slay the one who wields the sword.’”
Jurian grimaced at Menas. “Not so positive, that last one. I’d like to not die by dragon fire, if I can avoid it.”
“It’s an ambiguity,” Eva said. “The voices of the gods so often are shrouded in mystery.”
Tell me about it, Jurian thought. Aloud, he said, “Then we make our own destiny…and let history decide the right reading.”