He placed his hands, shimmering in and out of mortal sight, on the withered body. He muttered a low chant and dust puffed from the floor into a great cloud that filled the chamber. He spoke again, strange inhuman words, and the dust congealed into the visage of a dull red heart suspended over the body of the dead man. Stiff fingers sank into the chest of the corpse, peeling back dry leathery skin to expose the corroded organs. The dust-heart began to beat, stiffly at first, but then filling with blood. The organ steamed and smoked. Maxian seized it from the air and crushed it in his invisible fingers. Hot blood, almost boiling, spurted between his fingers and flooded into the exposed cavity.
Maxian steeled himself, bringing the words of an old spell to his mind. Abdmachus had shown him the crumbling parchment and he had labored to make out the words, crudely scribed in the tongue of ancient Thessaly, but now they were clear and bright in his mind. Ghostly lips moved, saying:
“O Furies and horrors of hell! Dread Chaos, eager to destroy countless worlds! O Ruler of the underworld, who suffers for endless centuries because the death of the gods above cannot come too soon! Persephone, who hates and reviles her own mother in heaven! Hecate, goodness of the dark moon, who grants me silent speech with the dead! O Custodian, who feeds the snake-crowned Dog with human flesh! Ancient ferryman who labors to bring souls back to me on his ship of bones! Heed my prayer!”
The blood, steaming and hot, settled in the inner cavity of the body, soaking into long-closed arteries and veins. A sucking sound filled the dank chamber and the corpse trembled, filling with the burning liquid.
“If these lips of mine that call you have been tainted enough with hideous crimes, if I have always eaten human flesh before chanting such spells, if I have cut open the breasts of new mothers and washed them out with warm brains, if any baby could have lived, once his head and organs were placed in your temple-grant me my desire!”
The corpse, its lips flushed a pale rose by the blood curdling within it, did not move.
“Tisiphone and Megara! Are you listening to me? Will you not use your savage whips, studded with hooks and teeth, to drive this ancient wretch from the wasteland of Erebus? Shall I conjure your true names to call you forth into dreadful light? Shall I follow you over graves and burial grounds, driving you away from every tomb and urn? You, Hecate, shall I drag you before the gods in heaven and show them your true aspect, pale and morbid, always hidden behind artifice? Shall I tell the gods, O Persephone, what kind of dear food it is that keeps you under the earth, what bond of love unites you with the gloomy king of night, what defilement you welcomed that makes your mother deny you?“
The stones of the tomb echoed with the violence in Maxian’s shout. The air crawled with strange lights and shuddering darkness. Still, the body on the slab did not move, though now wisps of steam and smoke issued forth from its eyes and mouth.
“Upon you, you lowest rulers of the world, shall I focus the sun-breaking open your caves-and daylight shall strike you. Will you obey my will? Or must I call him who makes the earth tremble when his name is invoked, who can look upon the Gorgon unveiled, who lashes a frightened Fury with her own whip, who dwells in the depth of Tartarus that is hidden even from your view, for whom you are the ‘gods above,’ who commits perjury in the name of Styx?”
The clotted blood, thick and viscous in the open pounds of the body, suddenly boiled up again. The limbs of the corpse twitched as it circulated, reaching the extremities. Flooded with the black liquid, the tissues in the cold breast began to vibrate, new life stealing into organs long unaccustomed to it, struggling with death. Every limb began to shake, the sinews stretching, the tendons popping. Eyelids flickered open, revealing dead white orbs. Stiff lips twitched and the chest, its gaping wounds closed and puckered, heaved with breath.
Maxian was giddy with triumph, seeing life and vitality flow throughout his creation. His head began to spin and he clutched at the stone lip of the table. His ghostly fingers fell through the platform.
In the cavern, Abdmachus stared up at the ceiling with near terror. The whirlwind of bones was gone, all of the remains consumed by the young master. The roots that anchored the roof were gone as well, and a steady trickle of gravel and stones rained down onto the floor of the chamber. The tomb door was gone, dissolved into dust, and a strange wind now blew into the open tomb. For all his long years scrabbling in the earth of graveyards, ossuaries and among the remains of the dead, the Nabatean harbored a carefully concealed fear of close spaces. The earth groaned around him as abused stones shifted. He cowered over the body of the young man, his own talents extended to the utmost to hold up the pattern of protection that kept him from being consumed.
The body of the young Roman twitched in his hands, and suddenly a scraping sound came from the open door of the tomb. The Nabatean twitched around to face the opening, his mind gibbering to him of cold-eyed ghouls and the other denizens of the dead places. In the ruddy orange light of the remaining lantern, the hand that suddenly came out of the darkness and gripped the door frame was smeared with red blood. Abdmachus flinched back and scuttled away from the body of the Prince. Another hand joined the first, and then the naked body of an elderly man heaved itself out of the doorway. He was almost bald, with thinning gray hair and a strong, patrician nose. His body was well muscled yet showing age despite an active life. A welter of scars marked his chest and the side of his neck. The dead man sneered, seeing the little oriental cowering in the dirt before him.
“Get up,” the man snarled in an archaic accent. “Bring me clothing.”
Abdmachus crept across the floor to the bag of tools and began rummaging in it, one eye on the dead man. The corpse pushed away from the wall and shook its head like a dog shedding water. It raised its hands and turned them over, seeing their pale flesh. It felt its chest and traced the scars and old wounds. At last it looked down on the unconscious body of the Prince.
“This is the one who has given me life again?” the dead man rasped.
Abdmachus looked up from the tunic, boots, undershirt, and cowled robe that he had removed from the tool bag. “Yes,” he said, “he is your master now.”
The dead man snorted and dust puffed from his nose. Puzzled, he dug a bony finger into each nostril and dragged out dirt and the desiccated remains of worms.
“Pfaugh!” The dead man cursed and tried to spit. A fine cloud of white powder drifted out of his open mouth. “Have you any wine?” it asked in a querulous voice.
“No,” answered Abdmachus, handing the corpse the undershirt. “Put this on.”
The corpse dragged the cotton shirt over his head and patted it down. It looked down at the Prince lying- at its feet. “I could break his neck right now, while he sleeps. Then I would be my own master.”
Abdmachus shook his head slowly, saying “If he dies, you go back to the worms. While he lives, and wills it, you live.”
The corpse accepted the tunic with a wry smile. Its dead eyes turned to Abdmachus.
“Then he should live a long time, shouldn’t he… Persian?”
[aOMOMQHQH(M)HQHOWOMW)HOWQMQHOHQMQWQWQHQHnwOWQfl THE CISTERNS OF THEODOSIUS, CONSTANTINOPLE
The slow gurgle of water slid past under the bow of the long boat. Thyatis crouched in darkness, her head just above the lip of the hull. She could barely hear the soft sounds of men breathing at her side or the faint swish of oars in water. Like Nikos and the two Turks that were rowing, she was clad in loose-fitting black robes with soot blackening her face and hair. The darkness around them was only fitfully broken by the light of a shuttered lantern that danced over the water ahead of them.