Chapter 213 - Uiam

His new master was a powerful magician.

He was strong, as strong as fabled Hercules. He removed the slave collar from Apollonius's neck, bending the metal with his bare hands like it was made of papyrus. And he could fly. As they sped away from the Villa Claudianis, the boy in his arms, the magician took to the air in great bounds, like the god Mercury. At first, Apollonius was frightened, and he clung to the magician's neck with panicky tightness, but after awhile the fear melted and he began to enjoy his flight through the sky. The wind whistling in his ears and blowing across his cheeks. The sight of the world dropping away beneath them, then swelling again as they descended.

They flew, and as they flew the magician talked to him. His savior said that he could see in the darkness like it was day, and he was old. Very, very old. He was born in a time when there was no Rome, he said, when there was no Egypt, and no Babylonia. He was born in a time when men had no written word, when they dressed in the skins of animals and worshipped strange gods in dirty caves.

He could not die, he claimed, but like all living creatures he had to eat. Unlike men, who fed on the flesh of beasts, the grain of the fields and the fruit of the vine, he subsisted on blood. He could, the magician said, live on the blood of animals, but he preferred to drink the blood of men—but only wicked men! Murderers. Slavers.

He was what the Romans called a strix, or a striga. He had been a mortal man once, he told the boy, with two wives and a hut full of squabbling children, but a foul creature had taken him hostage and cursed him with eternal life. His captor meant to make a slave of him, but he had destroyed the old monster and escaped.

The parallels to his own life did not escape Apollonius, but the boy did not comment. He didn't want to interrupt his new master, who had a gentle and resonant voice.

They flew until the sun peeked over the hills, and then his master stopped and procured a room for them at an inn.

"I must sleep during the day," he explained as they washed up in their room. "The light of the sun is painful to my eyes. They are very sensitive."

Apollonius looked to the shutters. Wan light gleamed between the wooden blades.

"When I sleep, I will appear to be dead," the magician went on, taking off his cloak and chiton. He ran a sponge over his strange flesh, cleaning all the blood and filth and vomit off of himself. His flesh had the look of marble, white and slightly luminescent, but it was soft and pliant, like mortal skin. "Do not be alarmed by this, for it is just an aspect of my curse. I will awaken the moment the sun touches the earth in the west. If you require my assistance, you need only shout my name, my true name, which is Gon, and I will awaken and fly to your aid. But only call upon me if you truly need me. If you are in danger."

Apollonius nodded.

He was afraid the magician would want to have sex with him, but he did not. He lay down naked upon the bed and pulled the covers over himself. A moment after he closed his eyes, he went very still. Apollonius watched him closely, but did not see the tall man so much as quiver in repose. His chest did not rise and fall. His eyes did not twitch beneath their lids. He did appear, to all intents and purposes, to be a dead man.

"Gon?" Apollonius whispered, frightened by the illusion.

The magician cracked open one eye. "I said only if you truly need me."

Apollonius smiled, relieved, and the magician's eye closed again.

Exhausted, Apollonius bathed himself and slipped into the bed beside the magician. He jumped a little at the coldness of the magician's flesh, but it was summer and the room was hot. After a while he found the man's cool flesh quite pleasant. He slept and dreamed about killing Domitianus and awoke to find the magician dressed in fine new clothes. He had purchased new garments for Apollonius as well. An embroidered tunic. A boy's toga, which only free citizens of Rome were allowed to wear.

"I own a large villa in Pompeii," the magician said. "I am known as Germanis Vulso there, a dealer in rare antiquities. You will be my son Paulo. You must abandon the name your father gave you. You may call me Gon in private-- and I will call you Apollonius, if you wish-- but in public you must call me father, or Germanis, and I will address you as Paulo. Do you understand?"

Apollonius nodded.

"Good. Now get dressed. We'll go down to the dining hall and buy you something to eat, and then we must continue on. I'd like to arrive in Pompeii by daybreak."

The boy had slept all through the day, exhausted from the previous night, so Apollonius remained awake through most of their journey to Pompeii. He dozed off once as he sailed through the sky in the magician's arms, secure in the knowledge that his new master would allow him to come to no harm. He woke a short time later, just before daybreak.

The world that greeted his eyes was a wholly unfamiliar one. They stood in the center of a winding, dusty road crowded by low trees. In the distance, like a great blue pyramid, Mount Vesuvias rose to stroke the heavens. At her feet, tiny with distance, dozed a city that could only be Pompeii. The sky was a royal purple, the clouds salmon pink in the east.

"Why have we stopped?" he asked the magician.

"There was a thief hiding beside the road," the man answered. "I am hungry."

"Oh," Apollonius gulped. He glanced back over the magician's shoulder.

"Wait here," the magician said, and placed him on the ground. "I will return shortly."

Apollonius watched the magician spring into the air, mouth agape, and then sat down in the grassy verge to wait as he was told. He worried over the thought that his new master might abandon him. What would he do then? Where would he go? But he dismissed the worry quickly. Gon would not abandon him. Monster or not, his new master had an honorable soul. And if he did, what of it? Apollonius could make his way in the world. He had survived seven years in cruel Laevinus's employ. He had killed a senator of Imperial Rome!

After a short while, he imagined he heard a despairing wail. The cry died quickly, and then his master fell out of the sky, cloak flapping like a banner in a high wind.

The magician landed in a crouch beside the boy, a cloud of dust expanding around him in a swirling ring. His cape settled as he rose. "Are you ready to continue?" he asked.

The boy nodded and the magician swept him back into his arms. The magician's flesh was warmer, and possessed a slightly more ruddy hue. It is the thief's blood, the boy thought as his master launched them into the sky. He drank the bandit's blood, and now it flows in his veins.

The thought excited him for some strange reason. He didn't exactly know why.