The Immortal Nicholas Read online

  He seized his spear, but Agios also leaped up and grabbed Gamos’s arm roughly. “You can’t leave me unarmed.”

  Gamos gave Agios a hard look, reached into his belt, and yanked out the dagger, then handed it to Agios blade first. It was a warning, and as Agios reached past the glinting iron to grip the hilt, their hands touched in a silent covenant. Agios wouldn’t run and Gamos knew it.

  Throwing himself into the shadows, Agios stumbled over a fallen body. Six or eight men off in the darkness loosed arrows into the camp. One whiffed so close that Agios felt the wind of its flight. People from the caravan were massing to charge into the dark.

  Agios realized that the archers were far too few to take on a caravan of thirty men. He saw the silhouette of Gamos against the torchlight and shouted, “This has to be a diversion! Don’t let them be pulled away from the tents!”

  Wasting no time, Gamos called out sharply in at least two languages. The caravan guards heard and fell back. A woman screamed from the far side of the camp. Agios raced there, leaping over a campfire, his heart pumping.

  A tent had caught fire, and in the flaring light Agios saw a dozen or more men, wearing leather armor and armed with spears and short swords, hacking at the faltering defenders.

  Roaring, Agios threw himself into the fight. A spearman, startled at his onslaught, spun as Agios knocked him down, grasped the spear, reversed it, and battered down another attacker, hitting him hard in the center of his chest. Still another swung a vicious sword, but Agios spun, got the spear haft between the swordsman’s legs, and swept him off his feet. The man lost his weapon as he fell and flung out his hands, trying to catch himself.

  Agios seized the sword. He dived low, hamstrung one bandit, tripped another, and clubbed him with the butt of the spear. People shouted. Agios heard men and women screaming. A huge brute of an attacker bore down on him, and Agios dropped backward, braced his spear, and caught him in the stomach. The dying man fell on him, a ponderous weight reeking of sweat. Agios grunted as he rolled him off, got back to his feet, and found the battle had ended.

  Gamos shouted, others answered him. Torches flared, and bandits turned and fled in the sudden light. Agios heard the twang of bowstrings and saw two more of the robbers go down, struck from behind as they ran. Then the survivors had fled into darkness.

  Two members of the caravan rushed to threaten Agios with spears. If they recognized him, they believed he belonged in chains. Agios dropped the curved sword and held up his hands. “Gamos!” he shouted.

  The guard came at once, spoke severely to the spearmen, and then grasped Agios’s arm as he loudly proclaimed something.

  The spearmen bowed and murmured. “What did you tell them?” Agios asked.

  “That you saved us all.”

  “I didn’t. I only helped.”

  “Sometimes a little help is all one needs to be saved,” Gamos said, studying him thoughtfully. He seemed to decide something. “Come. We’ll treat that wound.”

  The pain had not hit him until then—Agios had not even felt the bite of the arrow that had pierced the meat of his left thigh. Gamos saw to it, warning Agios that he would feel even more pain. The arrow had almost but not quite made its way out again, and Gamos had to push it through the skin—that would cause less damage than trying to pull the barbs out through the muscle.

  Agios lay on his side, watching as Gamos manipulated the arrow. The arrowhead made a tented shape under his skin, then came through with a bright burst of blood.

  Gamos cut the shaft just behind the head and pulled it out—that felt worse than the other had.

  “You have been a soldier,” Gamos murmured.

  “No. Never.”

  “Then you stand pain well.” Applying some poultice, Gamos bandaged the leg. “I think that will do,” he said. “It only caught the outside edge of your leg. Fortunately, the robbers around here do not poison their arrows.”

  “Thank you. I wounded you,” Agios said. “And you healed me.”

  Gamos laughed at that. “A lie. There were two of us and one of you. We subdued you easily, and a bruise is not a wound.” But the tight skin beneath his swollen eye glinted black in the firelight.

  A man, one of the young guards, came up and said something to Gamos. He spoke back, the man nodded, and then the guard ran off again. “We lost one sentinel,” Gamos said. “We have five wounded, six counting you, though none serious enough to delay us. The bandits lost seven men. You wounded three more.”

  “Badly?” Agios asked. He heard a scream.

  “Not badly enough,” Gamos said.

  Agios frowned. “You’re having them killed?”

  Gamos smiled grimly. “If a serpent struck at you, would you kill it?”

  Agios had no answer for that.

  Chapter 3

  Agios knew the members of the caravan looked on him as an enigma, a drunken prisoner destined to be killed casually on the roadside who’d saved his own life by proving useful. They wondered about him but kept their distance—Gamos the guard was always at his side, and who knew when Agios might fall from favor again? As for Gamos, he had begun to treat Agios not with friendship, but with a kind of grudging respect, as if they were distant relatives in a squabbling family.

  The elephants separated from the rest of the caravan, traveling eastward to the Mediterranean ports where the Roman trading fleets came to load precious cargo from the east, spices, silks, and exotic animals. The rest of the travelers, who had been heading north, now turned gradually toward the east. A day came when they skirted mountains that resembled those of Agios’s homeland so much that they made him think of Philos.

  “What is it?” Gamos asked as Agios stared into the distance.

  “Nothing.”

  “Why do these mountains fill you with sorrow?”

  Agios didn’t look at him. “Not the mountains. Memories.”

  “Ah,” Gamos said. “You have lost someone. A brother? Parents? A woman?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Agios said gruffly.

  “I’ve lost good friends,” Gamos said. “In battle. It hurts. Talking might help.”

  Agios remained silent for many strides.

  Gamos eventually said, “Some religions teach that after we die our spirits live on in a kingdom underground. I have hopes of seeing my friends again.”

  “I don’t know about any of that,” Agios said heavily. “Maybe they do go on. Sometimes I see them in my dreams.”

  He would say no more.

  The journey to the northeast was a slow one, and the seasons began to change, the last of summer fading in dry heat. Half a year had passed since the ravine, and more months might go by before they reached their journey’s end. Agios didn’t care. The slow progress of the caravan kept his mind from other things. They passed far beyond the lands of desert and came to places lush with growing things.

  And it was beautiful. The mountains were soft and green, for it was the end of the monsoon season and the earth burgeoned with growth. The road-weary travelers walked with more spring in their step.

  Gamos said, “If my master is true to the rendezvous, we should meet him in a very few days.”

  “And who is this master?” Agios asked.

  “A ruler who is both powerful and wise. A man of thought as well as action. His name is Caspar, and he’s a very well-known scholar. He speaks many languages, and reads them as well.”

  The two guards and their commander, the man in the red robes, whose name was Mizha, left the caravan in a harbor city. They traveled inland for five more days before coming to a town. It did not seem to be a capital city, nor was the building they approached a palace, though it did look substantial and rich.

  They entered a courtyard and then a room full of scrolls, where a dark man sat at a table. Agios noticed the bright fabric of his clothes, the rich dyes being a sign of wealth. The man stood as Gamos and the others bowed to him. Agios judged him to be forty-five or fifty, a lean, trim figure whose hair and beard we
re iron-gray. He asked Gamos a question in his native language—in the many weeks on the road, Agios had learned enough of it from Gamos to catch the gist: “Is this the man the messengers brought word of ?”

  Mizha said, “Yes, my lord. He had this.”

  And he unfolded the cloak that had hidden the riches. Even now the fragrance of frankincense wafted from it. Agios bowed his head, tears stinging his eyes. The aroma brought back that terrible day so clearly, brought back Philos as he had been just before—

  Caspar had spoken to him in his own language. Agios forced his mind back to the present. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  “I asked your name.”

  “Agios,” he said.

  “I am Caspar. My kingdom is to the south, but I have come here because the man who owns this mansion has collected all these.” He waved his hands toward the scrolls. “Do you know why we want you?”

  “Frankincense,” Agios said. “I have heard it’s a gift for a king—a king not yet born.”

  “Leave us,” Caspar said to the others.

  “My lord,” Mizha said in a tone of reproach, “he is a barbarian.”

  “Are you going to kill me, Agios?” Caspar asked.

  “No.”

  “There. I’m safe. Go on.”

  The others left reluctantly. Caspar beckoned Agios over to the table. “Do you read?”

  “I have not the skill,” Agios said.

  “It is a useful knowledge.”

  He does not plan to kill me, Agios thought. He said, “Your men probably have told you that you can’t threaten me with death. I don’t care whether I live or die. But to be able to read—that would be good. I will help you if you teach me that skill.”

  Caspar looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. “You won’t try to escape?”

  “No. I swear it.”

  “Then I will have a servant teach you.” Caspar reached for some scrolls. “Here, these are star charts—you see? These others are ancient prophecies. They speak of a king to come, and my study of the sky tells me the time of his coming is upon us.”

  “What do you see in the sky?”

  “I hope—I fervently long—to see a star that will be the sign of his birth,” Caspar said.

  Agios did not really understand, but replied, “What is another king? There are kings everywhere.”

  Caspar’s eye glinted. “This shall be the King of Kings.”

  Agios had no reply.

  “They tell me you can secure more frankincense?” Caspar made the statement a question, the matter clearly of great import to him.

  “Yes, in my homeland. There is a place that will offer it in abundance now. It has not been gathered for a year. The trees will be heavy with it.”

  I’d meant for Philos to have a harvest to make him proud.

  Caspar asked him where his homeland was, and when he told, as best he could, the king shook his head. “It is difficult to trade for frankincense—so many wealthy men and such high prices. But I need a great deal it, and if it is available in your homeland—well, it is a long way back there. However, for the longest part of the journey we will go by sea. Not too far from where you say the frankincense is, there is another kingdom where a friend of mine lives—his name is Balthasar, and he also looks for the coming of the King of Kings. Before I join Balthasar to find the new king, though, we must also travel to meet another scholar-king. His name is Melchior. You will meet them both before they and I depart on our search. I will have new garments readied for you. We will leave in two days.”

  The ship moved faster than men mounted or walking on foot, but it hugged the coastline and the trip back took weeks. A servant, and sometimes Caspar himself, taught Agios some rudiments of reading and writing on the way. He also observed that Agios had a gift for picking up languages. He tutored Agios in Aramaic, a tongue used by traders throughout that part of the world, and by the time they reached port Agios could hold a halting conversation in that language.

  They joined yet another caravan, and Agios soon settled back into the routine. The days were long and hot, but the people seemed in good spirits, and in the evenings they sometimes sang songs in exotic tongues and danced around the fire. Gamos had made a gift of the woodworking tools that Agios had used to repair the howdah. As a result, Agios had taken up carving again. It wasn’t a conscious decision. One night he found himself handling a chunk of wood, the knife flashing in the firelight. He had passed the long evening hours like this when Philos was a child, and though it had been years since he had fashioned likenesses with nothing more than a knife and a piece of wood, he still had the knack.

  A goat was the first thing to take shape beneath his able fingers, and though it wasn’t as precise as he would have liked, the horns were tiny and sharp and the hooves cloven. He practiced next on a leopard. Then a bird with wings outstretched and an elephant. The animals got better every time.

  Agios didn’t know what to do with the carvings and he didn’t dare to approach any of the children in the caravan—the eyes of young boys and girls always brought a stabbing memory of Philos. So he left his homemade gifts in unexpected places where they would surprise and delight whoever found them. Only Gamos knew that Agios had carved the sheep that a woman then found balanced on the edge of her cooking pot. And they shared a smile over the sharp-eyed hawk that perched in a net as a small boy spent the better portion of a day trying to devise ways to reach it.

  One evening some strangers joined the caravan, four men who led a fifth one, a hulking fellow whose arms were tightly bound by leather thongs. Gamos saw them first and spoke with them, then came to where Agios sat outside Caspar’s tent. “These men claim they’ve captured a demon. He’s ugly enough to be one.”

  The bound man’s groans came to them. Agios rose and walked over to look more closely. The bound man was hideous: hair matted, limbs knotted and gnarled despite their apparent strength. His eyes were wild, widely spaced, and too small. The brute glared around and grunted.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Agios asked.

  One of the man’s captors shrugged. “He’s like an animal. A Roman got him in Cyprus, they say, and made him a galley slave, but he could learn nothing, not even how to row. The Romans sold him to us, and we use him like a donkey—he can carry heavy loads. But he’s disobedient and tries to run away. We hope to sell him to someone who needs a slave with muscles and no mind.”

  Agios stared at the prisoner, and for just a moment their gazes locked. The expression on the man’s face was one of utter hopelessness. “He’s no demon,” Agios muttered. “Just miserable and exhausted and frightened.”

  That evening when he lay waiting for sleep, Agios felt unsettled. He was sure that he could hear the moaning of the bound man at the farthest edge of the camp, and the hopeless groans pieced his heart. Why should he care? But there was something in the monster’s eyes that haunted him.

  A dark mist of dust surrounded the caravan as a wind storm rolled in across the mountains. Agios slept fitfully, half-awake as he watched the shadows disperse and then coalesce into dark and menacing shapes. Murmurs rose all around, muttering threats and wickedness until Agios lay covered in a cold and terrified sweat.

  And then, through the darkness, a spot of light began to glow like a white-hot coal in the distance. Agios tried to walk toward it, but in his half dream it receded before him. He thought at first that it was a star. Maybe Caspar’s star, the very one he longed to find.

  But then, somehow, Agios was closer. It wasn’t a star at all, but a room. And the room wasn’t in a house, but in a cave carved into the side of a hill, and warm light poured from it into the black night outside. Agios tried to approach the door—he was suddenly anxious to see inside. But he couldn’t. There was only the light and a feeling like a feather in his chest, a feeling that maybe the darkness might not be as terrible as he believed it to be.

  Hope.

  The word had been whispered to his heart, and despite all that he had lost,
despite all of the pain that he carried around like shackles even more real than the ones that had left scars on his wrists, Agios longed to believe hope might exist for him.

  But as quickly as it had come, the light vanished.

  And the whisper of hope with it.

  Agios woke on the cold, hard ground and knew that he had nothing to live for.

  As they neared the village in the valley below Agios’s isolated mountain home, Gamos began to recount the stories he had been told of the legendary frankincense. Almost against his will, Agios couldn’t help but be amused by one outrageous account of a man who fell in love with a goddess. He tried to climb a steep cliff to find her, but was cursed and transformed into a tree that could only grow on nearly vertical stone. His tears crystallized into the frankincense resin.

  “You believe this?” Agios asked.

  “You don’t?”

  Agios shrugged.

  “Caspar says the Hebrew God created and consecrated the libanos tree,” Gamos said.

  “Why?”

  “So frankincense could be used to cleanse and sanctify temples sacred to him.”

  “I know nothing about the Hebrew God.”

  “Come on.” Gamos wouldn’t be deterred. “Surely you believe in something. All right, you know the truth about this plant. Tell me about the dangers of frankincense.”

  “Deadly serpents guard the trees,” Agios said after a long moment.

  Gamos looked skeptical. “You mean dragons?”

  “I don’t know what those are. These—their bite burns like flame.”

  “Dragons, then. Winged serpents that fly and breathe fire,” Gamos said, sounding skeptical.

  “Serpents, anyway,” Agios said. “But aside from them, we must be careful. People covet frankincense. If they suspect we have any, look for trouble—they wouldn’t hesitate to kill for it.”

  On the morning when Caspar and his small band prepared to leave the caravan, Agios heard sounds of pain. He turned and headed for them. Gamos asked, “Where are you going?” and followed close behind.