“Don’t forget to give it back, lad, it’s my only extra.” Dwyrin nodded and held out the bowl for a grizzled le gionnaire with a missing arm to ladle some dark-brown slop with chunks of unrecognizable meat into. Colonna was right behind him, holding out a bigger bowl for his share.

They ate outside. Colonna stood against the wall of the mess tent and shoveled food into his mouth with his own spoon, a bent copper thing. Dwyrin squatted on the ground. He was too tired to stand. The meat might have been goat, or maybe pig, but he really didn’t care. When they were done, Colonna made him wash it down with sour tasting water. When he took the first gulp, he coughed and nearly spit it out.

The soldier slapped him on the back, making him cough more.

“The Legion’s drink, lad, watered vinegar. Quenches the thirst, they say. Hate it myself, but you’d better get used to it.”

It was nearly full dark when Colonna took Dwyrin to see the tribune. The inner camp was surrounded by a fence of wands driven into the ground, each about a foot apart. A single guard sat on a triangular stool just inside the one opening into the domain of the sorcerers. He was dressed in a plain tunic and boots. Colonna identified himself and Dwyrin and each showed the man their identification disks. Dim lights gleamed among the tents within the paling. As they passed through the fence, Dwyrin felt a chill pass over him, and he looked around. The guard laughed and pointed them toward the tribune’s tent.

The great sunshade that had blocked the afternoon sun now served as a great roof over the center of the wizard’s. camp. A cheery orange-red fire blazed in a ring of stones directly beneath it. The light flickered off the underside of the shade. There was no one to be seen, only empty, poorly lighted streets between the tents. Dwyrin felt unsettled by the quiet of the inner camp, the more so since passing the wands he could no longer hear the grunting of camels and the voices of men in the outer camp. A standard was placed before a single tent, set a little apart from the others. It was quite similar to the standard Legion eagle, but it bore a single disk, marked with the eye of Horus, rather than the civitas and the laurels. There was no list of battles suspended from it either.

“Tribune Quintus Metelus Pius?” The trace of a whine had crept back into Colonna’s voice.

“Enter,” came a gruff, distracted, voice from within the tent.

Colonna entered, followed by Dwyrin. A brass lamp illuminated the interior of the tent, casting an odd, even white light over the bed and table. The tribune was sitting behind the table on a camp stool, bent over a profusion of small metal pieces laid out on a cloth. Dwyrin started when he realized that the lamp did not contain a flame but rather a sphere of glass holding some kind of a sprite. Looking closer, he could make out a tiny face pressed against the glass and a blur of wings. The creature stared back at him, its golden eyes enormous and filled with terrible pain.

“Ouragos Colonna of the Fourth of the Sixth of the Third, Tribune.” Colonna saluted.

The tribune looked up, his watery blue eyes barely glancing over the soldier and Dwyrin before his attention returned to the clutter of metal springs and gears on his desk.

“Your business?” the tribune said in a disinterested voice. Colonna stood straighten

“This lad, Dwyrin MacDonald, is reporting for duty, sir. He had orders to travel from Constantinople to join up with your unit, sir. He was delayed and has only just arrived.”

“Oh,” the tribune said, carefully fitting a toothed gear onto a tiny greased post fixed to the side of what looked like an egg made of tin. “Well, take him to Blanco and get him squared away. I think there are some empty bunks in insula four. You may go.”

Colonna paused and looked over his shoulder at Dwyrin, who was almost asleep on his feet. The confrontation in the town had been terribly draining. “Ah, sir, there is a minor problem, if 1 may…”

The tribune looked up arid finally put down the collection of metal parts in his hands. He ran a greasy hand though his short-cropped red hair, leaving a streak of oil and soot through one side. In the steady white light, his face was solid and handsome in a restrained way. He was not pretty, but there was something respectable about him. Dwyrin had a fleeting impression of a stolid cow with big ears in a field of hay, but pushed it away.

“Go on,” the tribune said, looking Dwyrin over at last. He raised an eyebrow at the tattered cloak with burned edges as well as the dust and grime from the road that covered the rest of the Hibernian’s clothing.

Colonna coughed and said, “The lad was attacked on the road, at the bridge over the Euphrates, and his horse and kit were lost. Can he draw new gear from stores?”

A wintry smile flickered across the tribune’s face and he leaned back from the table. “Not much to choose from, Ouragos, only castoffs and dead men’s kits. But the boy needs clothing and gear, so yes, I’ll make out a chit for it.”

The tribune reached under the little table and there was a clattering sound. He drew a piece of broken pottery out of a bucket and scratched something on it with a pointed metal tool from the table. Colonna accepted the chit and saluted again. Dwyrin remembered to salute as well. The ouragos hustled him out of the tent.

“Not bad,” the soldier said as they walked through the lane between the tents. “You can get your kit, at least.”

They stopped near the gate and Colonna turned Dwyrin around to face him.

“When you report to your centurion tomorrow, it will not go so easily. I know the centurion in charge of the detachment here-he’s a hard-ass named Blanco. The punishment for losing your kit is severe, but if you follow his rules, you’ll make it through. Now, tent four is over there.”

Colonna pressed the piece of pottery into Dwyrin’s hand. “I’ve got to go make my report to the infantry tribune, so you go grab some sack time.”

The Sicilian hurried off down the lane, lit by drifting sparks of light, and Dwyrin turned away to stumble off to the fourth tent. He was home, he thought, at last. . Dwyrin stood quite still, the numb feeling in his legs sliding up into his hands. The centurion looked up. “Is there a problem, MacDonald?”

Dwyrin swallowed. His throat was dry and filled with dust. “I have no gear sir, it was stolen when my horse was killed.”

Blanco nodded and sighed, his broad chest stretching at the light tunic that he wore. He waved toward the bunk across from the little table. “Sit down.”

Dwyrin sat.

“Did Colonna take you to the tribune already?”

“Yessir.”

“What did the tribune say to you, or to Colonna, about your gear, your kit? Did he say anything?”

Dwyrin flushed and felt a hot spark kindle in his head. The patient, mocking tones of the masters he had heard many times at the academy. He hated being treated like a child, even if he was so young.

“Sir, he said that I should draw a new kit, sir, from Stores and that I should be assigned, sir, to the…”

Dwyrin’s throat choked shut. Blanco had clenched his hand and Dwyrin’s muscles contracted in a spasm. His head swam and white-hot lights began to sparkle at the edge of vision. Blood trickled into his mouth from his lip as he bit down. Power surged in the ether around him. Dwyrin’s hands ground into the bunk.

Blanco shook his head.

“No,” the centurion said, “mouthing off.”

Dwyrin’s head filled with a sharp buzzing sound, like a stone saw on marble. He struggled to breathe. The hot spark sputtered in his head and guttered out. Dimly he perceived the surging green trail that wrapped his neck and danced at the slight movements of the centurion’s meaty fist.

Don’t think. Colonna’s voice echoed.in the buzzing sound.

Dwyrin fell limp and dropped his mind back into the beginning meditation. Vision curved and folded away from him. The light of the tallow candle spun out into the fire-form of its raw element.