She and Ganesha served the Flame. They were Naacals. White against Black. They had as much right to oppose the Black Naacals as he had had to seek the Eagle.
"Even now, they seek to reach you," Draupadi said, looking into his face. "Even now, don't they?"
His thoughts were more traitorous than any trick of Lucilius. He loved her. He must trust her. He shook his head. Hard enough to fight. Worse, if he had to reassure her.
She held up her hand on which the ring he had given her shone. "This has power in it, the power of your pledge. I could not wear it if I were false."
Those eyes of hers ... he could see a tiny version of himself, watching her, watching a slender, tired woman as if she were about to launch an attack he could not withstand. Was he always so solemn? The idea forced a chuckle from him, then a real laugh. "A throw of the dice," he said. "Trust you or lose all."
Gods send it wasn't "trust you and lose all."
Draupadi nodded. "Let this sign of yours, this weapon, blast me if I lie." She reached out and laid a hand on the staff that upheld the Eagle.
Thunder rumbled overhead. For a moment, Quintus forgot to breathe. If she were struck down, he would not survive to mourn long, he vowed. But a wave of good feeling flowed up his arm.
"You see?" Draupadi whispered in triumph. "You see I am not false?"
A beam of sunlight seemed to shoot beneath the arch and strike the Eagle. How it glowed! He almost believed that it would wake, mantle, and call out.
"Thank you," he said. "As you have asked, you and Ganesha shall lead."
Mercifully, the madmen were silent, sinking back into unquiet sleep. The Naacals moved to the front of the column and led it out from beneath the Arch of Memory into what had, in years beyond memory, been their refuge.
27
The tremors that had cracked the ancient sea basin through which they had marched for so long had dealt more gently with the land here—or perhaps some lingering virtue of the White Naacals had spared it from the worst of the devastation. Perhaps he had picked the memory from Draupadi's thoughts. The water here had been shallow, tricky for mariners. He could all but smell the salt, hear the snap of commands and the song of ropes as a ship neared port, coming about sharply before the arch. Water ... desire possessed him.
Draupadi and Ganesha marched on ahead. From one of the packs, they had withdrawn robes long stored away, shaken them free of dust, and now led, robed in the white of their old offices.
At a cry from Rufus, the Romans hailed them as they emerged from the great arch and the sunlight touched their robes to flame. The light blazed up, restoring priests and archway briefly to their ancient splendor. For that moment, even the desecrated statues high overhead seemed haloed in light. Even the Eagle glowed as if in homage as Quintus held it aloft.
As the sun sank lower, a trick of the light made Draupadi and Ganesha's forms seem to be a size larger than life. As the soldiers watched, their white robes kindled into pure light. Two white figures glided over the darkening land beyond the arch, leading them.
"They will leave us," Lucilius's hiss echoed the fears of which Quintus was now ashamed. "You had to trust them...."
The very stillness of the waste and the soldiers' awe in the presence of those gleaming white robes silenced him for the moment.
Thunder pealed in a clear sky, a desolate place, a dry month. The Naacals paused, halting the column, raising their arms in homage to the setting sun as it dropped, like fire into a sea of oil, setting the horizon ablaze.
Some portion of that light shone even beneath the great arch. It seemed to tremble. Chunks of rock and masonry—later additions, perhaps by the Black Naacals—toppled from the ancient stone. Again the thunder pealed.
The Eagle warmed in Quintus's hands. Use it, use the weapon, whispered the tempter inside his skull. It is Pasupata, which you have sought. Do you thirst? Strike the rock and draw water. What did you win power for, but to wield it?
To use it wisely! he retorted. Now quiet! I promised, and I shall keep my faith.
The ground trembled underfoot, as if they stood on some great bubble that grew larger and larger and that would inevitably burst. Ssu-ma Chao cleared his throat. Was this going on too long? And what was "this"?
You are a Roman, a fighter, a soldier, not a client to mages, hissed the voice. Shall you bow and scrape to them as you did to the senators? They will take you and you will be worse than a client, worse than a slave—and it will be for all times.
"Steady there, men," Rufus growled. "For the Eagle."
As the sun sank, the light beneath the arch flashed and went out. And then it rekindled, brighter than before, as if struck from the two flames that were the figures of the White Naacals. Their robes grew so brilliant that it hurt to look on them. Then the pain passed, and vision returned. And are we ourselves turned to eagles, Quintus asked himself, that we can stare at the sun and not go blind?
The Eagle he bore was a glory overhead. Now he could make out Draupadi's and Ganesha's faces. Under the radiance, they were worn, the eyes deeply circled. Ganesha's jowls drooped as if he were melting, and Draupadi's proud straightness seemed to waver.
"Come now." Only the stillness of the night let him hear her words.
He brought up the Eagle. Rufus gave the command to march. Rome's pace, Rome's race. Left, right; left, right. You have marched beneath an arch. This is your triumph. Now, get on with you.
Remember thou art mortal. Thou fool and slave!
Quintus moved to stand beside Draupadi.
"Tell them to hurry." she gasped. "We cannot hold this forever...."
And then the sun set. They had entered the arch in daylight and emerged in night. The wind blew around the peaks, striking eerie sounds from the rocks it had hollowed over the centuries, like invisible owls.
The ground trembled. Oh gods, this time, it would swallow them all up, and then it would snap shut, and they would be buried alive. Draupadi's fire would go out, but he would see her gasp for air before they died. Quintus stiffened. He heard a splitting sound. That bubble they stood on—it had expanded to breaking, and now it would burst, spraying them with molten rock, fire all over them. They would see each other burn. Reality whirled, fragments of forgotten nightmares and new horrors.
The Eagle's light dropped, a flame swallowed by what fed it.
And Quintus remembered. They had stood on the field of battle, and he had unleashed Pasupata. The price had been paid, and he had earned the right to wield it. And they had stood, very quietly, as its deadly danger passed over them to strike their enemies. He had the right. But there was one who could wield it, he thought, even more fully. However, there was another weapon to be used.
"Take the Eagle," he ordered Draupadi now.
She grasped it, and the standard flared up with the same fierce joy that shone in her eyes. Quintus's hand went to his breast as if in salute, but instead he found the tiny bronze figure that had been his guard.
"Now," he told it, "dance for us. Lead us."
And Krishna danced. Light blossomed on Quintus's palm, and the tiny figure danced its mourning and its joy. Leaping from his hand, it grew in size, leaping and spinning as it danced away from the arch and toward the ruins on the hill.
"Come, lads," Quintus said, his voice gentle. "Hand in hand, like we were back on the farm."
Rufus grasped the tribune's hand. That grip could crush, had been Quintus's thought when he had first met the centurion. He had been a boy then, even though permitted to call himself a tribune. Now he met that grasp with a matching strength.