David Wood, Sean Ellis
Changeling
AUTHORS’ NOTE
Since much of this novel revolves around our system of timekeeping, a brief explanation is in order. Most of us are familiar with the usage AD (anno Domini) and BC (before Christ) to differentiate our modern era from the backwards counting system for dates before the last two thousand years, beginning with the assumed date of the birth of Jesus. Because of the obvious religious connotations and the resulting biases, to say nothing of the fact that these arbitrary designations are not generally believed to be accurate — most Bible scholars believe Jesus was born in the year 2 BC — many historians prefer to use CE (common era) and BCE (before common era). As a scholar, Jade would likely use this latter system, but that would not be true of everyone she comes into contact with, thus the reader will, from time to time, encounter references using the more common system.
Just remember AD=CE and BC=BCE.
PROLOGUE
The boy became a man but he never forgot what he had seen that day.
Ten years later, the memory was as clear to him as his own reflection in a pool of still water. Ten years spent waiting, but also growing, learning… preparing for this moment.
His name was Apollonius, and his earliest memories were of the siege. He did not remember a time before that, before the Romans came with their ships and their armies. The siege lasted nearly two years, but what he remembered from that time was not the hardship of being bottled up in the city by the armies of General Marcellus, but rather the battles, for they were unlike anything ever imagined by the poets. Marcellus had come with his mighty engines of war — the Sambucae, great siege ladders, taller than the city walls, each borne by a pair of quinqueremes which bristled with artillery weapons to drive the defenders away as the ships made their approach — but the Roman general was no match for the genius of Syracuse, Archimedes.
Under his direction, the men of the city had constructed an enormous claw of iron that reached out over the harbor like the hand of Zeus himself, plucking the ships from the water as a child might pick up a pebble, and then letting them fall to be dashed apart. He constructed a wall of mirrors to focus the sun’s rays on the enemy, blinding their artilleryman and even setting fire to Marcellus’ ships.
For a time, it seemed that no threat could prevail against the city. The favor of the gods was upon them. Indeed, if not for the withdrawal of support from their Carthaginian allies, the Syracusians might have defeated Marcellus, but even without such assistance, they could outlast the Romans.
The arrogance of the city was its undoing.
Assured of their eventual victory, the citizens of Syracuse proclaimed a festival to honor Artemis, the goddess who had protected them. Marcellus, learning of this diversion, sent his soldiers to scale the walls of the outer city. Caught by surprise, the defenders were overwhelmed. Although the inner citadel remained intact, the survivors holding out for another eight months, the city’s greatest weapon was lost.
That was the part that remained etched in his memory.
When the attack began, steel ringing on steel as the Romans swept over the walls and fell upon the defenders, the commander had dispatched Apollonius to the workshop of Archimedes. With the noise of battle in his ears and the smell of death in his nostrils, the boy ran through the streets, desperate to warn the genius of the enemy’s approach.
He found the famed mathematician bent over one of the great sand tables where he drew diagrams and performed elaborate computations. The wet sand was the perfect medium for temporarily holding his ideas until a scribe could record them on wax tablets. There was no scribe in the workshop on this night though. Archimedes was alone, drawing furiously with his finger, first in the air and then in the sand, which was already covered with an elaborate design of circles within circles. He did not look up when the boy burst into the workshop.
“My lord, the Romans are within the walls. You must flee to the fortress.”
The old man shook his head without raising his eyes, his jaw grinding with determination. “So close.” He pointed at the picture he had drawn. “It’s almost complete. I must finish it.”
“The Romans will kill you if you stay.” As if to underscore the urgency of the plea, the noise of fighting echoed in the street behind him. The enemy was close.
Archimedes waved a hand, dismissively. “I very much doubt that. Marcellus knows I’m far more valuable to him alive.”
Apollonius gaped in astonishment. “You would surrender to the Romans?”
“Romans. Greeks. Syracusians. It makes no differences. This…” He held his hands above the table. “This is all that matters.”
“You can finish it in the citadel,” the boy pleaded. He hastened forward, intending to obliterate the design and force the old man to comply, but a mere glimpse of what Archimedes had inscribed in the sand stopped him.
It was indescribably beautiful. Ten years later, he had no difficulty recalling it to mind, but that was perhaps not surprising since he had spent the better part of those years tracing the design, scratching it in the dirt and on tablets of soft clay, drawing it with ink upon leaves of papyrus.
Archimedes, sensing his intent, deflected him with a backhanded slap. The mathematician had seen more than seventy summers and the siege had left him weak and frail, but the intensity of the blow stunned the boy, leaving little question about the old man’s intention.
“Go boy! The Romans will spare me, but I do not think you will be so fortunate.” A shriek from the street outside, abruptly cut short, revealed that it was already too late for either of them to reach the citadel. Archimedes grabbed hold of his arm and propelled him deeper into the workshop sanctuary. “Hide,” he hissed.
Apollonius hid, scrambling beneath some half-finished contraption that rested on a wheeled platform. He was burrowing deeper into the shadows when he heard the voice.
“There you are, old man.”
The boy froze, then with painstaking care, turned around and crept out into the open until he could see what was happening.
A legionary stood in the doorway, blood dripping from the tip of his gladius. He was a tall man with features as shapeless as unleavened bread. That face was the only thing about the events of that night that the man the boy grew up to be could not recall, but the man’s eyes — charcoal-black, absorbing the flickering lamplight without even a glimmer of a reflection — those he remembered.
“Yes, here I am,” Archimedes said, disdainfully. “You have caught me. Now, run off and tell Marcellus where to find me.”
The soldier advanced into the room. His black eyes glanced at the table, scrutinizing the design. “You solved it,” he said, his tone grave. “Unfortunate.”
“The circles?” Apollonius could not see Archimedes’ face, but he heard the surprise in the old man’s voice. “You’re no centurion. Who are—?”
The man stepped close to Archimedes, so close that the boy could no longer see his bland face or jet-black eyes. “This is not for you.”
There was a crunching sound and Archimedes gave a loud sigh as the sword point burst from the center of his back.
Apollonius clamped his hands over his mouth to stifle a whimper of grief. As the old man crumpled to the floor, the killer wrenched his weapon free, and in the same motion, swiped the bloody blade across the design, obliterating it. Then, just as quickly as he had arrived, the man disappeared.
In the days that followed, as the boy scurried about in the darkness, hiding from the occupying Romans, he searched their faces, seeing something of the killer in every one, but none had his eyes.