Varus continued straight. The ground was a thin layer of leaves and yellow clay over limestone, with frequent outcrops and spreading roots.
The seated figure was the corpse of a woman with a heavy jaw, prominent brow ridges, and black hair over all her exposed skin. The right half of her body was skeletal; it had been picked as clean as if it had been boiled. Ants might have been responsible; no beak nor jaws bigger than an insect's could have done so neat a job without disarranging the bones.
The woman's arms and torso had been tied-wrapped-to the tree with vines. Her legs, one of flesh and the other bare bones, splayed out in front of her. Between them were a few fist-sized rocks which had been broken to a crude point on one end.
"Greeting, child from the children of my womb," the dead woman said. She chuckled.
Her jaws worked normally though only half of them were clothed with flesh; Varus could see her black tongue moving; it had been sectioned lengthwise as neatly as a razor could have done. Her voice was low-pitched and rough, but not really exceptional.
Varus swallowed. "Greetings, mistress," he said. His mouth was dry. "Should I, that is, may I release you?"
She laughed again. "Release me from death?" she said. "Do my descendents have such power, then? I think not, though I see that you are a great wizard. You are my worthy progeny, child."
"Mistress," said Varus, "why have you brought me here? I will do whatever you wish, if I'm able to. But I don't understand."
"Take a piece of my jawbone, child," the corpse said. She couldn't move either arm because of the way she was bound with vines, but the tip of her half-tongue thrust to the side and licked the bare mandible. "Take the bone, for the time will come when you will need it."
Varus had been standing at arm's length. The dead woman wasn't threatening, but the situation was too uncanny for him to approach unbidden. He stepped forward and squatted, putting his face more or less on a level with hers; he didn't know what to do next.
"Crack it, child," she said in a testy voice. "Use the hand axe at your feet."
"But…," Varus said.
"Do it, boy!" the woman said. "End this business for both of us. Crack my jaw and take the splinter!"
"Yes, mistress," Varus said; meekly, as he would have responded to Pandareus when he was being called down for an error in class.
There were several stones, all of a size to fit in the cup of his hand. He picked one that seemed to have started as a stream-washed pebble, dense and black. It had been egg-shaped, but the small end had been flaked to a point which was irregular but surprisingly sharp.
The dead woman opened her jaws wide. "Forgive me, mistress," Varus muttered as he moved to the side to get a better angle on the task. She chuckled.
He struck. The axe clocked loudly, but it didn't break the heavy bone.
"Harder, child!" the corpse said. "End this!"
Varus struck again with the full strength of his arm. The jaw cracked and a splinter flew away. Varus dropped the hand-axe to catch the spinning bone. He held much of the right mandible including the teeth. It had split from front to back across the jaw hinge, forming a long spike beyond the massive final molar.
"Well done, my child!" the dead woman cried. "You are worthy of me indeed!"
She began to laugh again. The sound echoed as Varus felt himself spinning into gray fog.
"Mistress?" he cried, but he could no longer hear her. He lurched bolt upright.
He was on a couch in the library. The book he had been reading was on the floor; the lamps were lighted. His father was looking at him in concern while the servants kept to the background.
"Son?" Saxa said. "What's that in your hand? It looks like a bone."
Varus stared at the fragment of jaw, just as he remembered it from his dream. "Yes," he said, "it is. But-"
He smiled lopsidedly at his father.
"-I'm not sure why I need it, my lord." He took a deep breath and added, "Just that I do."
Alphena walked into her dream, a perfectly flat pavement that flickered red/orange/yellow as though it were the heart of a fire. It seemed boundless, but in the far distance a group of people stood about a throne. Almost before she could wonder what they were doing, she was among them.
The people-women as well as men-with her at the base of the throne were dressed as imperial servants in vividly dyed tunics. Alphena didn't recognize any of them, but they nodded and bowed as though she were known and respected.
She felt awkward: her tunic was much the worse for wear, and even clean it had not been intended to be seen in august company. For that matter, her person was scarcely fit for the public either. Coiffeur had never been Alphena's concern, but she knew that the events since she mounted the gryphon in her father's garden had left her hair in a state that would have embarrassed a whore at the gate of the gladiator barracks after a hard night.
The throne was made of ivory and gold. Its frame and high back were carved with the greatest delicacy. Alphena raised her eyes to the man seated on it in imperial splendor.
"Uktena!" she said in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
Then, as she heard her initial words, she added, "Where is your pipe, your talisman?"
The man enthroned leaned toward her with a frown of wonderment. "I know you, do I not?" he said. "Or I knew you once, I believe. Who are you, little one?"
"I'm your friend Alphena!" she said. Being called "little one" without any recognition in the shaman's tone, hurt her to hear. "We fought-"
That isn't true.
"I was with you when you fought Procron," she said. "The Atlantean."
As Alphena spoke, a vision of Poseidonis formed to her left. She turned. This was a closer view than she had gotten when she approached on the gryphon's back. Something was rising from the harbor- Alphena stifled a scream with both clenched fists. When she focused on the image of the city, the silent courtiers in the corner of her eye became brightly colored fishes swimming in a sea of fire.
Beyond them was a horrific monster, all tentacles and heads and huge beyond fathoming. It was the creature other people had in the Theater of Pompey.
It was the monster Alphena herself had seen Uktena turn into when Procron's magic lashed him. It was horrible, horrible…
"Alphena?" the shaman repeated. Her name rolled softly from his tongue. "I have heard the name, or I think I have. Do you know how I came here, Alphena? I was in another place, but I cannot remember where that was."
"You were in Cascotan, my f-friend," Alphena said. She had closed her eyes. Even when she forced herself to open them, she couldn't bring herself to look up from the pavement to the enthroned figure. "You fought Procron. You fought for your people and for the world."
She looked up. Uktena's was the same stern, steady visage that she had first seen in the theater. He looked puzzled but not worried. She wondered if anything could really worry him.
"You fought for me, Uktena," she said. "You drove the Atlantean back."
And almost died…
"I don't remember," Uktena said sadly. "But you are welcome here, Alphena. Anyone who says she is a friend of mine is welcome. I do not think I ever had friends; or not at least for many ages. Instead I have power."
His words echoed about her. Vast though it seemed, this was an enclosure, a prison. But as the sound trembled to silence, the shaman's form began to quiver in turn. The human shape blurred and spread and became again the foul immensity of Typhon.
"I am your friend, Uktena," Alphena said. Her eyes stung with tears, but she wouldn't look away, wouldn't permit herself even to blink. "I am your friend!"
"Little one?" said a voice from outside her. "Are you having bad dreams?"