Varus took a deep breath. Members of a family-two families, he realized-were sacrificing at the altar in front of the ancient Temple of Saturn. The heads of house were probably consecrating a marriage contract. They were planning for the future; a future which would not exist, for them or for anyone, unless Gaius Varus prevented an Atlantean sorcerer from freeing the greatest of the Earthborn Giants.
The Sibyl looked at him and smiled again, this time without the gentle humor she had shown before. "You cannot prevent Procron from loosing Typhon," she said, responding to Varus' unvoiced thoughts, "because Typhon is already loose. What you must do is to slay Procron before he does further harm. And you see-"
Her lined face was suddenly grim, as fearsome as a bolt of lightning.
"-Procron is no more. His body is dead, and the skull that rules him is in a dimension that nothing human can reach; not even the Sibyl, who once was human and is now the shadow of a great wizard."
A small fire smoked on the altar. The families watched in satisfied silence as the priest, his arms lifted, prayed to Saturn… the king of the gods before his son Jupiter supplanted him. Saturn, who presided over the Golden Age, when all men were happy and the world was at peace.
From the crack in the sky oozed Typhon in hellish majesty: swelling, spreading, devouring all things and crushing all things. Destroying the great buildings of Carce, then destroying the very hills on which the city had been founded. All things for all time-dead and gone.
"Strong necessity demands-" the Sibyl cried.
"-that these things be accomplished!" Varus concluded in a thin, cracked voice.
Candidus turned, frowning as he tried to understand the words. Whatever he saw in his master's face prevented him from speaking.
Corylus felt the railing grow firm again beneath his gauntleted grip. He breathed a sigh of relief that reminded him of how disconcerted he had been when reality dissolved.
He wasn't a good sailor. The way a ship's deck moved even when it was tied up in harbor affected a part of him beyond the real danger involved. He liked to keep one hand on a rope or, better, the mast or a railing. What was true on water was doubly true on this vessel, floating several hundred feet above the ground.
Except that the ship was on water, snugged to a bollard in the stern and with the bow anchor hooked into a niche in the quay. They were in Ostia, the old port at the mouth of the Tiber, at one of the berths on the breakwater which Corylus remembered were generally used by small trading vessels from the West. The sunlit stone pavement reeked with the odor of Spanish fish sauce, the residue of decades of jars dropped during unloading.
The sprite chirped in excitement as she looked around; the Ancient slouched in the stern, much as he had done during the whole voyage. So far things were the same; but this wasn't the ship they'd boarded in the dream world.
It was a vessel of the same design, its sails now folded vertical against the mast, but the bits of gear on the deck or hanging from the railing-a painted water jar; leather pouches embroidered with spines of some kind; a broken stone knife with a grip of deer horn-hadn't been on the ship which they had sailed into the brightness. The deck wasn't scarred by claws from when the Ancient leaped aboard, but there were nicks and dents which Corylus-who noticed wood-hadn't seen before.
Four Servitors stood amidships, as motionless as glass statues.
He turned to the sprite, but before he could ask a question she bubbled, "This ship brought the magicians from the Western Isles! It must be the only one left, whenever in time this is."
She looked thoughtful again. "I wonder if we would have had to stay in the ghost world if this ship had been destroyed along with all everything else about Atlantis?"
The harbor was busy, but a sunken hulk lay in the berth between the Atlantean ship and the end of the quay, and no one was aboard the undecked vessel to sternward except for a cat-which was sleeping. The ship's arrival would have aroused interest at least from the customs authorities, though, even if the Westerners had paddled in on the surface at night.
Corylus wondered if they had used magic on the officials as they had on Sempronius Tardus, or if they simply paid them off. The latter would have been good enough and had less risk of arousing suspicion. Though the glass men…
"Cousin?" he said. "Are the Servitors, ah-"
Alive was the wrong word.
"-able move, or is it just the Atlanteans who can make them do that?"
"Oh, one of the magicians has the key from a Minos," the sprite said. "His talisman. That's how they managed to fly the ship, and they use the Servitors too. Though right now-"
She stepped to the nearest of the four and tapped her finger against the hollow of its ear, a ridged dimple in the smooth skull.
"-they've been ordered to wait unless someone tries to board the ship. You're all right unless you get off and try to get back on."
She looked around again, her enthusiasm waning. "What are you going to do, cousin? There aren't any trees around here. We should go somewhere that has trees."
Corylus sucked in his lips sourly. He didn't know what to do. He hadn't thought that far ahead.
He grinned suddenly. Well, I didn't know I'd be arriving in Ostia until this moment, so I don't think I'll flog myself too severely.
Aloud-to settle his thoughts; neither of his companions could be of the slightest help with the question-he said, "I don't have money-"
Pulto had carried his purse.
"-and I don't imagine a port hostler will give me mules and a cart on credit, even if I take off this armor."
Which I'd better do. Swanning about armed and wearing armor that shines like a bonfire is pretty well guaranteed to bring the attention of the Watch Detachment here in Ostia, not to mention the Praetorian Guard if I somehow reached Carce.
Corylus took off the helmet and started turning the latches of the breastplate. "I guess," he said to the sprite, "that I'll hike into Carce, go to-"
His apartment or Saxa's house? The latter, because it was closer to the Ostian Gate where he'd enter the city. The servants knew him as a friend of the family; someone would find him a clean tunic and give him a meal.
His stomach growled at the thought. He wasn't starving, but food-a loaf of real bread in place of the bland putty in the ship's hold-was suddenly his first priority. That too would have to wait till he reached Carce, unless he tried snatching a loaf from a stallkeeper here.
Unless- "Can we fly here, cousin?" he said. "I mean, now that we're back in the-"
What term had she used?
"-the waking world?"
"Of course," the sprite said. "At least if he-"
She nodded toward the grinning Ancient.
"-is more powerful than the western magicians. I think he is, but there are three of them."
She looked at the open cart which was clattering down the quay toward them behind a pair of mules. One of the magicians who had accompanied Tardus to the theater was driving; the other two were in back with a bundle which squirmed beneath the mat that concealed it.
Pandareus, trussed but conscious.
The cart pulled up alongside the ship. The driver was the North African. He slid from his seat, drawing a curved knife. A second magician got out of the back of the wagon, holding an axe with a stone head. The ship floated with its deck almost level with the pavement.
They're seeing a ragged stranger whom they probably take for a sneak thief, Corylus realized. He bent.
The Westerners glanced at one another to coordinate their attack. They jumped aboard simultaneously, to either side of him.