Hedia did know why the Atlanteans were appearing over Carce. That was so obvious that she was embarrassed to remember her flash of unspoken anger at being asked the question.
She had watched the ape-man loose Typhon on Atlantis. The Minoi who could flee before the monster were of course doing so.
And she knew what Saxa must do. Unfortunately she didn't think that would be enough to save Carce, though.
"Husband!" she said. Her voice was crisp and her back straight. Nothing in Hedia's manner suggested that there was anything unusual in her presence or costume. "The ships full of people are Atlanteans trying to leave their island before it sinks. They'll destroy Carce to make a place for themselves-you saw in the theater what their weapons do, the way they spew fire."
The sky ripped as one ship sent a cone of flame across the other, lighting the sails and touching the passengers packed on the forward deck. People shrieked and threw themselves over the railing, their clothing afire.
Their clothing burned, and also their flesh: the smell of meat cooking was unmistakable. The Emperor had lighted the Circus for a beast hunt one night with the households of four plotters, dipped in tar and hung from poles before being ignited. The screams had sounded the same that time.
Perhaps because the passengers in the bow jumped away from the jet of fire, the ship reared like a horse, then plunged into the ground stern first, It landed on a line of clothiers' booths toward the river. The hull shattered, killing those still aboard as well as spectators.
"But why are they fighting?" Saxa said. He rubbed his lips with his left hand as if trying to muffle the admission of his ignorance.
"I don't know and it doesn't matter," Hedia said. "You have to summon troops with artillery."
Did the garrison of Carce have ballistas and catapults? The Watch certainly didn't, but the Praetorians might have some. Some.
"We have to be ready to fight the Minoi when they stop fighting one another."
Another ship was pressing through the portal. For a moment the scene reminded Hedia of a bubble on the surface of swamp, swollen about the stem of a reed. The defending vessel was climbing again.
"My dear!" Saxa said in obvious surprise. "I have no authority to do that. The Watch comes under the authority of the Emperor's prefect, and as for the Praetorians-my heart, you know they wouldn't take orders from a senator. Any senator, but I'm afraid they would find me less impressive than most of my colleagues."
"But we have to fight them!" Hedia said, weak-kneed with horror that her husband had just corrected her on a question of political practicality. Of course the Praetorian Guard wouldn't take the orders of a senator. The Praetorians existed largely to keep the senators themselves in check. "Husband, look at the flames they shoot! If a hundred ships start lighting fires across the city, we'll all burn. Everything will burn!"
The people nearest Hedia were listening to the argument with frightened incomprehension. The words didn't mean anything to them, but anger and fear were obvious in Hedia's voice. Even a slave freshly dragged from the interior of Spain could understand what that meant.
Lann looked, perhaps for the first time, at the portal which seemingly balanced on the point of the granite obelisk. He hooted softly, then bared his teeth and boomed a challenge. Hedia had heard before: in the forest immediately after her escape from the Servitors, when the ape-man confronted the lizard which was about to leap on her; and toward the Minoi pursuing them in the passage back to Carce, before he loosed Typhon.
Lann put his head down and bulled his way on all fours into the screaming crowd. The spectators were too closely packed for him to shove them out of the way: rather, he crushed them down or hurled them into the air like spray from the prow of a ship.
The warships in the sky continued to maneuver. Two more had struggled through the portal and a third was on its way. Carce's sole defender slanted toward them, but it couldn't forever stop a fleet as big as the one Hedia had seen in the skies above Poseidonis.
And when it lost the unequal struggle, Carce had no other defense.
Varus stood at what he thought was a safe distance from the spire's double doors. He expected them to swing outward and possibly to swing very fast, because he couldn't assume that they would be bounded by the constraints of the material world.
Instead of opening, the black crystal valves dissolved into a thin haze. Through it he could see figures moving.
Varus grinned wryly. He had been correct in realizing that the doors might not open like those of the Emperor's townhouse. He had been wrong in his unstated assumption that they would open in the material plane. Pandareus would be disappointed at the blinkered viewpoint his student had demonstrated.
I wonder if I'll ever see Pandareus again?
A sheet of lightning covered the sky for long moments, pulsing among the clouds. Beneath the shadowed gloom that followed, Varus walked toward Procron's fortress. The Sibyl was at his side, her expression unreadable.
She looked toward him and said, "There are many futures, Lord Wizard. In some of them you meet Pandareus again. Do you wish to know which of the Fates' threads you walk?"
"It doesn't matter," Varus said. Until he spoke, he hadn't realized how completely true the statement was. "This is my duty, so I'll carry it out to the best of my abilities."
It was easier to get on with life when one disregarded questions of personal survival. Zeno of Citium and those who had developed his Stoicism would be pleased that a young scholar had achieved such understanding.
The Sibyl made a sound like a pour-spout gurgling. It was probably meant for a chuckle. Anyway, it allowed Varus to smile at himself as he walked beneath the pointed crystal arch and felt gray fog enter his bones.
Varus paused. He had expected-without consciously framing the question; Pandareus will be disappointed-the fog to be a membrane, a permeable replacement for the solid doors. Instead it was a dim cave which branched in more directions than he could count on his fingers.
The Sibyl pointed her right arm forward and said, "Grant me a path-"
"-over which I may pass in peace…," continued Varus in the same high-pitched voice. He was reading the scroll open in his mind. "For I am just and true!"
Despite the situation, he felt his lips rise in a smile. Every philosopher should be just and true. I at least strive for those ideals.
A tube of rosy light snaked through the fog, wide enough for two to walk in. It went farther-much farther-than should have been possible within the crystal spire, which Varus had judged to be no more than a hundred feet in diameter at the base.
Still, he couldn't be in doubt as to his path; he strode in and walked as briskly as he would have done in Carce, passing from his father's house to the Forum or perhaps to a temple whose library he wanted to consult.
In Carce Varus would have had a guard of servants, to keep his surroundings at bay; here the light did the same. Occasionally something came close enough to the glowing boundary to give him a good look at it. He passed three slender forms in flowing tunics who stood arm in arm, watching him with wide eyes. They were as supple as the Graces themselves; he couldn't guess at their gender or even- "Sibyl?" Varus said. "Are they human?"
"What is human?" the old woman said. "Many scholars including Aristotle have debated that. None of them came to a decision that you were willing to accept, Lord Varus."
Then in a less whimsical tone she said, "Their ancestors were human. Whether or not they remain human is a question for philosophers, not for a soothsayer."
I can be a very frustrating person to talk with, Varus thought again. If I'm really talking with myself.