Maxian raised an eyebrow; the elderly man was no fool, and well skilled to boot.
“I am not a sorcerer,” he said in reply, “I am a priest of Asklepios. I have found something, however, that is far too strong for me to affect with.my own powers. I need the advice, perhaps the help, of someone more… experienced.”
Abdmachus smiled, showing small white teeth.
“Ah, experience I have,” the old man said, “I no longer have the strength ‘of youth such as you possess. But I do know a trick or two that gets me by in my dotage. I am no longer as strong as I once was-but as the Greek said, with a long-enough lever one might move the world! Now, this thing that you have found-it is a dangerous thing, and something that you have come across in your work? But if you are a priest of the healing art and you have not been able to defeat it, it must not be a disease, but something… something that causes disease?”
Maxian spread his hands, his face even grimmer than before. “Master Abdmachus, I beg you to hear me out fully before you make up your mind. I have gone to other wizards before you, and all of them, save Simon the Numer-ologist, have turned me away or told me that I am insane. There is an affliction upon this city that only I, as best I can tell, can see. A corruption and a bane that brings disease, death, insanity upon the inhabitants. Now that I have perceived it, I see it everywhere-in the broken stones of the street, upon the faces of the people in the markets, all around us. I know this sounds absurd, but it is as if a terrible curse has been laid upon the city of Rome.”
The old man, much to Maxian’s surprise, laughed softly, his eyes twinkling. Maxian’s face clouded with anger; he had expected better of the Nabatean. He stood up.
The old man stopped laughing and held up a wizened hand.
“Wait, wait, my impetuous guest. I am not laughing at your theory. I am laughing at myself, for wasting so much time of my own. I believe you. I think that I know what you speak of. Sit, sit.”
Maxian returned to the couch, not sure that he believed the old man.
“What you see,” the old man said, “is like a tide of dark power, one that pervades the city, all unseen, almost unnoticed unless one knows what to look for. It is subtle and powerful, and it is so prevalent that to one raised here, or a long-term resident, it would seem… natural. Yes?”
Maxian nodded. “Yes, but it is inimical, deadly. Do you know what curse has spawned it?”
Abdmachus laughed again and shook his head slowly.
“It is no curse, young master, it is a blessing, a boon to Rome.”
“How can you say this?” Maxian sputtered. “It has caused the deaths of eleven people that I know of! I have seen its ability to destroy, to erode and deform even metal, with my own eyes!”
Abdmachus shook his head again and stood up, going to the opposite wall of the room. There he passed his hand over a section of the brickwork, and it folded silently out to reveal a hidden space. From this space, he took a leather bag of coins. He returned to the couch and carefully removed a single golden coin from the bag.
“Look, young sir. This is a coin I accepted in payment yesterday from a noble of the city, a patrician, an officer of the state. Only now have I touched it, and only long enough to show it to you and to place it here.”
The old man placed the coin on the small table that lay between the two couches. The pale gold gleamed in the firelight.
‘The last man to touch it was this officer, who came to me seeking a favor. He is still close to the coin and it is still close to him. It is freshly minted, so almost entirely clean of the impressions of others, only his shape is upon it. Do you understand my meaning?“
Maxian nodded. The school in Pergamum had touched upon the theories of contagion and similarity, though more in the light of mending broken limbs and curing fevers than working power upon a hale person.
Abdmachus put the bag of coins behind his couch and leaned over the single coin. He looked closely at Maxian. “Now, I know that maintaining the pattern of defense is draining, so I shall make a new one, one that encompasses both of us. When I am done, please lower your own so that they do not interfere with one another.”
Maxian nodded and almost without thought his sight expanded to fill the room. Now he could see the trembling aura around the old man, a stolid, burnished bronze color. The rest of the room was a tracery of fine blue lines of fire. His own shield glittered in the air between him and the Nabatean. The old man too was still and quiet. For a moment nothing happened, and then the blue fire began to wick up into the air. The brazier sputtered and went out, though Maxian could still see clearly in the darkness. The walls, floor and ceiling gave up their energy to a coalescing sphere that spun out, slowly, from the figure of the old man to pass over Maxian and then halt just beyond him. The blue fires slid, glutinously, to the sphere and at last it was complete.
The Prince relaxed for the first time in days, and his own shield flared and went out. He slumped backward on the couch, the low-level headache that he had been fighting while the shield was up passing away.
“Better, is it not?” the old man whispered, his eyes still closed in concentration. “Now I will show you the blessing of Rome… but be prepared to raise your pattern again at an instant. This will be quite dangerous.”
The Nabatean reached out a thin hand and plucked at the air above the gold coin. Bidden by his hand, it rose up to spin slowly in the air between the old man and the prince.
“By the shape of the man who held this coin, I can influence him for good or ill. I can harm him, so…”
The old man twisted his hand in the air, and a virulent crimson tendril sparked in the air in front of him. Maxian sat up straighter, his own hand raised in an involuntary ward. The tendril of fire crept through the air and twisted around the coin. The air around the coin flexed, becoming cloudy, and for a moment the image of a stern, patrician, face appeared around the coin.
“Easy, easy, young master, I will not actually harm the officer, but look, beyond the pattern of defense…”
Maxian turned his attention outward and his face froze at the sight beyond the pale-blue barrier. Acidic darkness surged against the blue sphere, filled with deep-purple fire and an eye-dizzying eddy of contorting shapes. The power that lay throughout the city, in the stones, in the air, in the war, englobed them and hissed and spit against the blue wall.
“You see the blessing? As I raise evil intent against a steward of the state, against an officer who is a very pillar of the Empire, the blessing moves against me. The pressure upon the pattern is incredible… even here, in a place where I have lived for many years and invested much power, it is almost enough to overcome me. I withdraw the threat.”
The crimson tendril faded away and the coin spun gently down to rattle on the tabletop. Abdmachus opened his eyes, breathing heavily. Beyond the flickering blue wall, the darkness surged and spun about, beating against the invisible wall. Then slowly, inch by inch, it receded and flowed back into the walls, into the air, into the earth. Maxian let out a long slow breath when the last vestiges were gone.
The old man also slumped against the back of the divan in exhaustion, but his eyes were still bright. “It has always puzzled me that no Roman mage has written of this effect, or that the Empire has not trumpeted its protection to the four corners of the world. But seeing you here, now, with an equally puzzled expression tells me that no Roman has ever come athwart it and lived to tell of it to another.“
Maxian pursed his lips and slowly nodded.
“Any who provoked the power,” the Prince said, “would be destroyed were they not ready. No one would know…” He looked up sharply at the old man. “Then how did I survive discovering it? How did you survive discovering it?”
Abdmachus ignored the question for a moment, wearily levering himself up from the couch and disappearing behind a curtain at the back of the room. He returned in a few moments with jugs of wine and water and two broad-mouthed cups. He poured the heavy wine and then added a liberal dose of water to each. After he had drained the cup, he spoke.