Her hand dipped the mirror once, then twice. Today, flew the signal.
"So," Maxian said, "we come to the crux of the matter."
The Prince stood and rotated a sheet of plain brown parchment on the table. A series of diagrams and symbols had been inked on the doublewide page. The table was crowded with scrolls of papyrus and burnished red-and-black bowls holding half-eaten pheasant, peeled fruit, and shelled nuts. The Prince traced a set of interlocking symbols with one long, thin finger.
"We still have not acquired the text of the original oath, but the tireless efforts of Abdmachus here"- the little Persian was sitting at one side of the table, his dull, flat eyes staring into empty air above the center of the oaken tabletop- "have yielded this much to us. The structure of the Oath- or curse, if you prefer- is built upon a similarity lattice. Well, I should say that it is built upon an interlocking series of lattices."
Krista was also sitting at the edge of the table, though she had commandeered a wing-backed chair with sweeping padded arms and thick cushions. She had a bowl of grapes, cut pears, peeled tangerine sections, and sliced apples in her lap. The little black cat had wormed itself into the crook of her arm and was lying across her stomach, purring like a little mill wheel. Krista's white teeth bit into a slice of pear while she listened with half an ear to the Prince. The little cat yawned, showing a pink mouth in the supple black felt of its face. It nosed at her hand as she reached into the bowl for more fruit. It wanted its tribute.
"Bad kitten," she whispered to it. "You'll be round as a gourd if you keep eating all that bird."
The kitten's yellow eyes blinked up at her, and it squirmed around onto its back. She smiled secretly at it and rubbed its warm tummy with her free hand. The bad little kitten wrapped itself around her palm and bit her fingers lightly. Krista smiled again.
"The lattices anchor the image of the Empire that the curse operates from." The Prince had continued on without noticing the little cat's antics. "Each lattice contains, as best we can tell, one or more forms of some aspect of the Empire. The matter in which bread is baked, for example, may exist in one of these lattices. Even the kind of ovens that are allowed are held in these patterns of forms. These forms, however, do not exist in the reality that we can feel or touch or see."
The Prince rapped his knuckles on the smooth surface of the table to show his point. Gaius and Alexandros, sprawled on separate couches set beside the dining table, watched him carefully. Krista watched them in turn, which was a task she had taken upon herself once she had marked how much time they spent with one another. The old Roman leaned on one arm of his couch with the ease of long practice and equal patience. The young Macedonian, however, fidgeted constantly. He would recline for a time, then suddenly sit up and plant his elbows on the tabletop. He could not sit still. Krista hid a smile, thinking that he looked like a small boy who desperately needed to go to the privy.
"But these forms of the 'ideal' Empire do have an existence," the Prince remarked. "They must, for otherwise the Oath could not constrain the rest of the Empire to them."
"Lord Prince," Alexandros interjected abruptly. "If they do not exist in a material form, how can they affect anything else?"
Maxian smiled, his handsome face marked by a long-held weariness.
"Not all things," he said, "that exist can be touched or felt or seen. There are things that affect each of us every day that are not: um, material, I suppose."
"Like what?" Alexandros was sitting up again, seemingly poised to leap to his feet. "How can something affect me if it does not have a means to effect me? Something cannot touch me unless it itself can be touched."
Maxian sighed and seemed on the verge of glaring openly at the young man. Then he took a deep breath and rubbed his chin in a nervous gesture.
"Ideas," the Prince said slowly, "affect the world. They affect you. You are constrained by honor, are you not?"
"Yes," the Macedonian said equally slowly. The young man's eyes narrowed, and Krista was put in mind of a cagey horse suspecting that the man with an apple might have a lasso behind his back. "I must act as honor and the gods demand. To be otherwise is to court the fates and disaster."
"Exactly," Maxian said sharply, "but you cannot touch honor. You cannot see it, or feel it. But it affects you, it affects me, and through us it affects all around us. So it is with the curse- this idea of an Empire of Rome- all fixed in its expression at the time of the Divine Augustus."
Gaius snorted and made to sit up, his eyes dancing with indignation. "Puppy!"
Maxian smiled crookedly and waved for the older man to sit back down.
"The traditions of the Senate promulgate this idea, too, and its expression is written down and passed from father to son throughout the generations." The Prince paused, looking thoughtful. "This is the core of the power of the Oath- the Empire that should exist lives in the minds of men, in their memories of the past and belief of how things should be. So are these lattices of form maintained, but then the Oath has the ability to seek out and destroy those who would change that fabric of memory. Too, it can exalt those who would reinforce or maintain these beliefs. So do our armies still fight in the way that they have for two thousand years. Our language maintains, unchanged, such that a man of Alexandros' day can still understand our speech today. The Oath freezes the Empire in amber, a trapped fly with a beating heart. A bee constantly building and reinforcing its own prison."
The Prince's voice ran down, and a cloud seemed to pass over his face. Krista leaned a little forward, her liquid brown eyes watching him carefully. After a moment, Maxian shook his head and looked up again.
"All these lattices, my friend, give the Oath its shape, its purpose, and a form. They interlock in a manifestation of dazzling proportions, reaching from one end of the Empire to the other. They penetrate into the very blood and bone of the people. It is mindless, but subtle. It has no forethought, but it has great purpose. As we have seen, it is surpassingly powerful."
"And you, my Lord Prince, will overturn all this?" Gaius' words seemed mocking, but his face and voice were utterly sincere. "In previous discussions, you and the Persian felt there had to be a keystone that tied all of this together. I know what I believe that key is. Have you found the thing itself?"
Maxian's eyes glinted in anger, but it did not reach his face.
"Yes, Gaius Julius, we have found this key and anchor. It is- I grant you- as you suspected."
"The Emperor," Alexandros said, grinning. "Your very brother."
Cold air lapped at Krista's ankles, seeping through her woolen hose like the icy water of some black Germanian river. She shuddered as she descended the stairs, feeling the clammy air lapping up around her waist. Even here, at the top of the steps, she could hear the droning chant rising from the hidden rooms. The sound set the hairs on the back of her neck up. The Walachs- her Walachs- could be heard as a basso counterpoint to the higher pitch raised by the Persian and Nabatean servants that Abdmachus had gathered. The sound echoed and rolled around the ceiling of the long hallway. For all the volume of the humming drone, it did not pass the top of the steps. There on the crumbling slate a line of pale green glyphs shimmered in the neardarkness, forming a barrier to stop the cold murk and the odd sounds that emanated from the basement.