Celtic Fire - By Joy Nash

Chapter One

Assyria, Kalends of Januarius, 117 A.D.

“A real ghost wouldn’t have to piss.”

Lucius Ulpius Aquila skimmed a glance over the apparition hovering near his left elbow. The specter dropped the hem of its tunic, an apologetic smile playing about its pallid lips. Executing a graceful turn, it glided to a nearby boulder where an ethereal white mantle lay neatly folded. The transparent linen rippled in the desert air, passing under the figure’s right arm and over its left shoulder. Pale fingers adjusted the garment’s creases with utmost delicacy.

“And a real ghost certainly would not concern itself with the drape of its toga,” Lucius observed.

The specter’s shoulders lifted in a familiar, self-deprecating shrug. Lucius’s chest tightened. The hallucination had been a faceless phantom when it first appeared two months before, but with each passing day its features and mannerisms grew more recognizable. Yet even if Lucius believed souls could drift out of Hades, Aulus could hardly come to haunt him.

Aulus was alive.

“You are a product of the desert sun,” Lucius said, forcing a conversational tone. “Or perhaps the result of some Assyrian spice. A few more days and you’ll be gone.”

The apparition shook its head. It waved one hand toward Lucius, then gestured to the northwest. Aulus commanded a small frontier fort countless miles away in that precise direction.

“You wish me to journey north?”

The ghost nodded vigorously.

Lucius steeled himself. “To Britannia?”

The specter extended its right arm, fist clenched, thumb raised.

A chill raced up Lucius’s spine. He closed his eyes and willed the apparition to vanish, but when he dared another look, it remained, regarding him with an expectant expression.

By Pollux. Was he losing his mind?

He wheeled about and strode toward the camp. Twilight had taken over the Assyrian desert with merciful swiftness, bringing blessed relief from the blistering heat. But far away, winter ice encased the forests of Britannia. When the ghost drifted closer, the chill of the northlands seeped into Lucius’s bones.

He nodded to the sentry as he entered the encampment. Off-duty soldiers fell silent at his approach, resuming the throw of dice only after he’d passed. One man spiked two fingers in his direction—a sign against evil. Lucius scowled at the ghost. By the gods! Why could he not control the compulsion to converse with his damned hallucination?

“Move aside,” he told it, and ducked into his tent.

An oil lamp flickered on the center table. Lucius took a steadying breath and lifted a bronze pitcher from the edge of a map detailing Emperor Trajan’s invasion of the East. The papyrus curled back on itself.

He poured wine into a goblet and drank, his parched tongue barely tasting the fragrant liquid. He made a short circuit of his empty cell. No doubt his secretary would soon return from the cooking fires bearing a meal that would go uneaten.

The ghost lounged on a cot, inspecting its fingernails.

Lucius gripped the cup until his knuckles turned white. “ ‘There is no case in which the soul can act without involving the body,’ ” he quoted, but the words gave scant comfort. Aristotle, it was to be assumed, had not been prone to delirium.

The tent flap lifted, admitting Candidus and the aroma of roasted meat. The stone-faced, balding secretary set the tray on the table midway between the curled map and the pitcher. He nodded at a flat wooden box partially hidden by a round loaf.

“The post courier brought a message, my lord.”

The ghost rose and drifted toward the table.

Lucius frowned and set his cup aside. “From Rome?”

“No, my lord.” Candidus peered at the label on the sealbox. “From Britannia.”

Every muscle in Lucius’s body tensed.

Candidus lifted the sealbox lid, revealing a shallow compartment flooded with wax. The ghost bent its head over the impression left by the seal of the sender and went very still.

“From Tribune Quintus Vetus,” Candidus said.

Lucius’s breathing ran shallow. He slid his dagger from its sheath, sliced the wax from the edges of the box, and extracted the thin wooden tablet underneath. Tilting it into the lamplight, he read the concise message once, twice, and then a third time.

“Distressing news, my lord?”

He looked up, disoriented.

“My lord?” In an unprecedented display of familiarity, the older man touched Lucius’s arm. Lucius dropped the tablet onto the tray. He gripped the edge of the table, fighting nausea more fiercely than he had ever fought a barbarian sword.

When at last he spoke, his voice held steady. “A report from the frontier fort Vindolanda. Aulus has been …”

He broke off, inhaled, and began again.

“Tribune Vetus sends notice. My