The Valach scooped up the Prince's legs and broke into a run in one fluid motion. Krista slid Maxian's arm off her shoulder and ran alongside.

The metal ramp at the mouth of the Engine rang under their feet as they ran out onto the brown dead grass of the garden. The Valach began to labor as he crossed the space between the Engine and the veranda of the house. Krista paced him, watching in horror out of the corner of her eye as the boy's long raven black hair began to dull and turn a pale gray. His steps faltered on the staircase, and more stones cracked and shattered, even under Krista's light sandals. At the line of columns, the buzzing sound soared into a shrieking wail. Krista grabbed for the Prince as the Valach stumbled sideways and crashed headlong into one of the ancient marble pillars.

The other boy, running up behind, threw himself between the girl and the dying Valach. Though lacking the broad shoulders and rippling brawn of his older sibling, the younger man caught the Prince and shoved away from the withered corpse of his brother. Krista cursed and leapt from the top of the steps into the cool darkness between the pillars. There was a moment of suffocating sensation as she passed through the doorway, but she landed lightly and spun around, long hair flying out behind her head. The buzzing sound in her head was gone. The remaining Valach followed close on her heels, the Prince in his arms.

Krista looked out on the garden and saw that the stands of trees and rosebushes that had surrounded the house were all dead. Every living thing within sight of the porch was a drear brown or a rotting black. The Egyptian House stood at the center of quiet devastation.

Gaius picked his way around the corner of the rear of the house, walking carefully on the crumbling bricks that had once made a broad, pleasant patio. The patio had opened out of the dining rooms at the back of the house, overlooking a sloping lawn and more ornamental trees that descended the face of the hill. Once, covered pipes had carried water to fountains and a culvert that watered the lemon and orange trees. Now the trees were dead and overgrown with a thick vine bearing shiny dark leaves. The culverts were dangerous gaping holes in the floor of the patio. Sharp edges of broken ceramic pipe waited for an unwary ankle.

Memories fluttered at the edge of the old Roman's consciousness. He snarled to himself, his face contorting for a moment, and drove them away with an effort of will. Gaius had spent too much time in the pleasant company of enemies to show his emotions or true feelings to anyone else. Only one person had drawn his heart's truth out of him. This house, and much more, had been part of the reward he had intended her.

Now, thinking back upon it, he wondered if this curse that the Prince obsessed about might have had an earlier genesis than they suspected. Would it not explain the circumstances of his own death? It had seemed so petty! Walking into the great Forum of Rome- a man, an acquaintance, a political crony, walking up to him with a raised hand and a strained smile. Sudden burning pain in his side- then falling, and a crowd of faces above him, some familiar, some not. A cold darkness, broken at last by a dreadful awakening in a dank hole filled with bones and mud. The old man shook his head again and stepped up onto the veranda.

Alexandros entered the arcade of pillars at the same time from the opposite direction. Under the shelter of the roof- still mostly intact, and even partially repaired during their previous stay- the floor tiles did not shatter at a step, and the walls seemed strong enough. Gaius raised an eyebrow at the younger man. Alex smiled back, his strong white teeth gleaming in the dim light. The Greek shrugged his shoulders and slipped his sword back into its sheath.

"Nothing- only ruins and dead things. Did you see any animals on your side?"

"No," Gaius said, shaking his head in negation. Alex nodded over his shoulder.

"There are flights and flights of birds heaped on that side, all dead and withered. A strange business- none are rotted to speak of, just sort of shriveled up."

Gaius pursed his lips and slowly turned around, his eyes picking out the faded remains of the marks that the Persian Abdmachus had made the year before on floor and column and wall. He put his own sword away as well. "The curse, then," he said slowly, looking out at the dead trees at the edge of the garden. "It is attacking the house, but the old sorcerer's ward is enough to hold it at bay. We should get back to the Engine and help them unload- I doubt it is safe to be outside here, now."

Alex turned to go back out through the pillars, but Gaius halted him with a touch.

"This way," the old Roman said with a wry smile. "Better not to risk it outside- and there is something that you should see within."

Alex smiled back, but Gaius was slow to remove his hand from the boy' s shoulder, and the Macedonian's eyes became wary.

"Who is this?"

Alex stared up at the massive statue that stood in the atrium of the house. Gaius covered a brief smile, though his mind was no longer focused on the younger man. The rooms and chambers they had passed through seemed long abandoned, but small items- a wicker chair in one room- were not where he remembered they had been left. Someone had been through the house, doubtless searching for evidence of what the Prince had been about. The incised and painted marks along the floors and etched into the walls remained, however, and the old Roman was glad. Without the remaining vestige of power that held the invisible enemy at bay, he was sure the entire building would have been reduced to a pitted foundation.

"It is you, my friend," Gaius said at last, turning back to his companion. The old Roman thought it was an excellent likeness.

"Me?" Alex turned, his face a study in comedy. "It looks nothing like me!"

Gaius shrugged. "Those who came after you were fond of embellishing your features, your purpose, your height, your reputation- or blackening it by equal turns. A woman I once knew had this bronze cast in your honor- this was her house, and she revered you as a god."

Alex grinned tightly, a flicker of cold steel in the dimness. "My men always complained about that. It is the way of the people of the East, though, to look upon the lord and master of their time as a living divinity. But not the Greeks!" He laughed. "Not my Greeks:"

"Well," Gaius said slowly, his eyes narrowed, "she was a Greek, the last of her house, and she swore by you and the power you represented."

Alex nodded, his eyes seeing something far away. "Women always looked to me as a source of power- for them or for their families. It seems, from what you have told me of your life, that you forgot that lesson. Your assignation with her destroyed your support among the citizens and the Senate."

Gaius frowned and spread his hands. "Who can say? The accounts of the time are confused, and I did not see it when I was alive. You are not one to talk, either! Your drive to build a new civilization cost you your life by poison, and my empire still stands while yours is dust."

Alex nodded absently, looking around the dim, old room. The painted panels that had once covered the masonry and concrete walls had cracked and splintered, falling away in piles of dust. Still, it was a great chamber, and he could see that it had- upon a time- been a bright place, filled with torches and lanterns and the many marvelous inventions of the Romans. Still, he thought, it was little different, this stone and brick and mortar, from his own palaces, or the cities he had ruled or destroyed. Even the speech of his countrymen was the same, though centuries had passed by, leaving nations and men in ruin. It seemed odd, but then, perhaps there was something to this talk of a curse.