On the deck, Dahak staggered to his feet, a halo of blue-white sparks leaping from his flesh and the remains of his clothing. The wooden shafts of the three arrows caught fire and smoked as they were consumed. Thunder boomed and echoed through the enclosed space like the rampage of the gods. High above, the glass panes shattered as the shock wave of the blast struck them and they came raining down in a thousand fragments.
Dwyrin had been blown back as well, but the rush of power in the garden had torn at the ban around his neck as well and now he ripped it from his neck. His othersight flooded in and the great space of the room was a maelstrom of unleashed energies. The creature Dahak stood at the center of a vortex of rippling lighting and fire. The lines of force that crisscrossed the great city began to give up their power to the Easterner and a wall of lightning suddenly rushed out from him.
To Thyatis, the world suddenly went pure white and there was a sound so large that it smashed into her like a wave. Her sword fight with the whiskered man was forgotten as she was flung backward into the ornamental pool of the garden. The foreigner was blown forward too, and he tumbled into the shallow water beside her. Distantly, part of Thyatis’ brain was screaming sorcerer sorcerer] Still stunned, she stared at the ceiling above her in amazement as the thousands of glass fragments that had been raining down into the garden were thrown back into the sky like tiny comets. The wooden walls of the garden chamber caught fire.
Dwyrin staggered up, the pearly white of a Shield of Athena glittering in the air around him. The powers uncorked in the room were flooding into him as well, for he had no training to hold them out. Instinctively his mind grasped at the flames and the burning red torrent that surged in the earth under his feet. Fire lit from his hands and he turned sideways to throw it. Like a live thing, it leapt from his hands to tear at the flickering sphere of lightning around the creature hiding in human flesh.
Dahak staggered as a white-hot bolt of flame savaged the lightning wall he had raised around himself. He whirled and saw through the inferno that the firebringing power in the boy was running wild. Desperately the Easterner drew down the latent energy in the stormclouds hanging over the city and wove a tighter wall of defense before him. The building was fully aflame now, and choking smoke was filling the garden. In the distance, there were more screams and the sound of fighting. Dahak cursed and cast around for his companion. The Boar was crawling away from the. firestorm, his sopping-wet cloak thrown over his body.
Three arrows suddenly flared into ash in front of Dahak, burned to a crisp by the flames raging against the lightning wall. More of the attackers were coming and trying to bring him down. Enough, he swore at himself, we must leave. He summoned wind and suddenly rose into the air.
Thyatis, who had scrambled out of the pool even as the wash of flames from the maelstrom around the deck swept across it, bolted for the doorway to the kitchens. Jochi and the other Turk were there, firing their bows as quickly as they could into the raging fire and lightning storm behind her.
“Save it,” she barked at them as she dashed through the door. “No arrow will get through that.”
The roof above them groaned and Thyatis realized that the entire building was now afire.
“Out! Out!” she shouted at the two Turks. “Get everybody out of here.”
Behind her, there was a terrible roar and the roof above the garden collapsed in a gout of flame, coming down with a crash. Dust and smoke billowed out of the door, and Thyatis and the remainder of her men fled into the hallway.
Dahak soared through the storm clouds, ringed by thunder and the ghosts of lightning. Power burned in him, his body failing, ravaged by the forces it conducted. The Boar, clutched close in his wiry arms, screamed as the electrical surges that coursed through Dahak’s body tore at his nervous system. Below them the house of the Bygar collapsed in a great pyre of flame. Smoke and soot billowed up hundreds of feet to lick at the low clouds. The streets around the old brick building were swarming with Imperial guardsmen, firemen, and the citizens of the neighborhood. Rain had begun to fall, but bucket brigades were in full force, trying to save the warehouses on either side of the old mansion.
Dahak cared nothing for this, bending all of his will to reaching safety on the far side of the Propontis. They hurtled low over the wavetops of the waterway. The sorcerer could barely make out the far shore. The last spark of static electricity fled him, and for a moment the two of them rushed through the night air, then the dark waters suddenly snatched up at them, catching Dahak’s trailing foot. The water was icy cold and a sharp shock as it smashed into them, then swallowed them up. The sorcerer straggled in the surging water for a moment, then consciousness left him and there was only the weight of the Boar, dragging him down.
Dwyrin sat on a narrow stone bench in a narrow little hallway, fidgeting. He picked at the scabs on the side of his face and his lower arms. The rosebush had torn him up pretty badly when he fell off the decking in the garden room. The Illyrian, Nikos, who was sitting on his left, nudged him to keep still. To his right, Timur, who seemed to be Turkish or Sarmatian, was sleeping, or pretending to sleep. The hallway was hot and filled with clerks, soldiers, and couriers, who pushed past the three sitting on the bench. Dwyrin tugged at the bandage over his right ear. It itched.
The last thing Dwyrin had seen in the house of the Bygar had been the blossoming flame of his own fire-cast raging against the swirling blue-white wall of lightning. The voice of the Eastern sorcerer had been huge, like a thunderstorm filling the sky, but then there had been fire and smoke. Strong arms, wiry and corded with muscle, had scooped him up and dragged him out of the burning building. Dwyrin had passed out, his throat filled with the bite of woodsmoke. He had woken in a crowded barracks, lying on a thin pallet of straw behind a great heap of barrels. Overhead, a series of stone ribs held up a soot-stained brick ceiling. An evil face with sallow skin, pinched eyes, and long, greasy, mustaches had been crouched over him. Dwyrin had stared back in astonishment, but the man had smiled and given him bread, cheese, and weak wine.
Dwyrin gathered that Timur was a soldier, though not a legionnaire. A mercenary drawn to the service of Rome by the smell of gold, doubtless. He and his fellows were a footloose band that was living in a basement of one of the lesser palaces. Their chief seemed to be the Illyrian, Nikos, who had looked the battered Dwyrin over after the boy was strong enough to sit.
“You say you had papers, lad?”
Dwyrin nodded. He remembered the master of the school pressing them into his hands. Where they were now? Who knew? But he did remember his purpose.
“They were orders to report to the prefecture in Alexandria, to enter the Thaumaturgic Legion. To serve the Emperor in the great war.”
Nikos had shaken his head in disgust at the thought of the young boy before him being drawn into the toils of the Imperial military machine. It was bad enough that he had fallen afoul of slavers, but the Legion? Timur, leaning against the nearest wicker crate, had chuckled at the expression on Nikos’ face.
“Are you sure of this, lad? Being a twenty-year man is no light load. You’ll be gray when you get out, mark me.” Nikos jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the crowd of men playing dice at the entrance to the area claimed by the other members of his squad. “Look at these fellows. With your training, you could take up a soft life in the city, become rich. Have servants.”