The address had led to a café with a dingy facade but a clean, if overly dark interior with enough black satin and silvered accents to seem out of Phoenix's price range for a night out.
The clientele stayed quiet as he walked up to the bar with feigned confidence, giving him the impression of being curiously judged. The barkeeper, a bald middle aged man with sunken eyes, smiled at the student, but his nose twitched as if he could perceive the lack of funds emanating off Phoenix as a stench.
Upon hearing the name Sloane Courtenay, the historian was shown upstairs, to meet the local chapter head -- chapter of what, he wasn't told.
Bronwyn Hastings welcomed him warmly and with a cup of Earl Gray. She had the same aristocratic demeanor as her friend at the Raven Resort, but allowed herself a more casual attire, though still all black and made distinct by a necklace of blood red gems.
"My dear," she said, as she had taken to calling him, "you're wholeheartedly invited to peruse my little library. I think there are some books of interest to you more than to Mordecai. You're a scholar of the Romans, I've heard?"
"I... yes, ma'am."
Taken aback at how fast word traveled, Phoenix let himself be led through the collection, excited at the long out-of-print tomes on subjects scientific, fictional and occult.
Until his hand stopped at a row of weathered, leather-bound journals, staying frozen in dizzying confusion with a slight note of fear.
What were *his own* journals doing here?
But no, rationally he couldn't have owned one this old. It must have been similar to... Phoenix blinked heavily. He had never possessed a single journal even remotely similar. Why did he feel one of them should be on his person even now?
"Charles Neville's diaries, my dear," Bronwyn said. "Born in eighteen-something England, died in Oregon under mysterious circumstances. Feel free to have a look."
The woman left him alone in the room and already his fingers brushed along the spines. The one reading 'Travel - Sudan' felt the most important. Why, he couldn't say.
He dropped himself into a chair and began.
Charles' journey to Sudan was already complete by the first page, beginning with a description of his accommodations and European companions. Their search for promised archeological findings was unsuccessful for the first week, but amazingly the young Charles was also a scholar of the Roman Empire.
In fact, Phoenix could imagine the scenes in the diary so vividly he could have believed Charles to be the most capable author of all time, yet the entries were sparse and vague in places that Phoenix' mind filled in with consistent details like it was no effort at all, despite lacking familiarity with the period and location.
Then Charles met an African...
=Journal page 6=
A frighteningly large man, taller and more muscular than the drought plagued region had led me to expect. His features and skin were not quite that of the local population.
He introduced himself as the vagabond Lazarus, a name he had chosen from a text he claimed to have read. I was skeptical but he proved capable of speaking Latin as fluent as I!
This was not the work of an eager priest who had Christianized him thoroughly, no, for it was Latin of classical pronunciation. And while he was familiar with the bible, his religious views were those of shamanism and witchcraft, telling me of deals with dark forces in the area he had himself partaken in.
For reasons I cannot elaborate upon I felt drawn to this dark goliath and our colorful conversations.
Eventually, he promised to show me artifacts of Roman origin, which was obviously ridiculed by my colleagues. But the possibility of trade leading all the way down here was impossible to deny and as the only specialist with interest in the eternal city, my older companies sent me 'on a wild gazelle chase' with Lazarus.
==========+++++==========
Phoenix' heart raced. Not because of the possible archaeological findings, but because he already knew what would happen next.
Upon leaving the camp, Charles and Lazarus narrowly missed an ambush by locals, trying to raid the site. The twenty attacking African warriors had themselves been under surveillance from the British who counterattacked.
It felt as though Phoenix was right outside the camp, helplessly watching until Lazarus tore him away from the spear and bullet hail.
They made it to a temple, half a day away, and although Charles did not describe it, Phoenix could clearly see the sandstone pillars and faded markings.
=Journal page 9=
The temple was shelter to five other Sudanese men, of equally impressive proportions, upper bodies bare like my friend's. Despite their savage appearance and the spears in their hands I was not afraid to approach. They spoke Latin, though none as fluently as Lazarus. The head priest, introduced to me as Aloysius, handed us water and bread.
Before I was allowed further than the antechamber, I was told that this temple was dedicated to no god, but to nature -- to life and the celebration of it, to forces immaterial and to yet more animist concepts, that even Lazarus had difficulties putting into Latin terminology.
Nobody's clothes were permitted further than the anteroom. We disrobed and washed ourselves before entering the inner chambers.
While I had gotten used to nakedness in the heat of the camp, I was nonetheless intimidated by the physiques of these worshippers.
Eventually, I was welcomed into the sanctum, kneeling before the Africans as I opened a crate with their permission.
My find was the promised treasure. Tablets and decorated amphorae of Roman make. But I was thunderstruck. I nearly shouted in anger for I was momentarily convinced they must have been stolen from a museum in Britain. It was as if I had held these scriptures before -- as if they had been under my nose my whole life.
==========+++++==========
Phoenix' hands trembled. The words were difficult to read now but he knew what they said. He was remembering. More even -- a memory within a memory.
=Journal page 11=
The text was written by Aurelius of Rome, son of an equites. He worked as a doctor's assistant in the colosseum, healing gladiators in the corridors below when he wasn't cheering along on the podium above.
He developed a fondness for, and a friendship with, a slave from the south-most end of Aegyptus. A man so strong and muscular they called him The Giant on the arena floor. Although he did not go undefeated, he was quick to heal from wounds beyond the natural abilities of a human body.
As Aurelius taught the slave the Roman language, the gladiator chose for himself the name Lazarus, speaking often of divine foresight saving him in battle as the result of dealings too mysterious to put to words.
Any attempt to buy the slave were fruitless, since Aurelius had no funds of his own, his father would not agree, and the gladiator's owner was not interested in selling.
Eventually, luck turned against the two and under accusations of supernatural dealings and with the anger of losing arena fighters, Lazarus was poisoned before a match and struck down in his stupor.
Aurelius enlisted in the military, with approval of his father, and went on campaign to Africa. He found a temple, dedicated to nature, headed by a man of impressive stature, and wrote his story.
Although Aurelius did not elaborate upon it in his writing, I could see it clearly. Lazarus' hands, gripping the dark blond hair of a young, slender noble boy, their bodies pressed together in the dim light of an alcove, his olive-oil-slickened cock penetrating the boy's anus and driving into him a most rapturous pleasure. Their lips would have been locked to muffle the sounds as their doings had to happen in secret, yet the gladiator was not allowed to stray far from his dormitory.
As I experienced these memories as if they had been my own, I felt myself unlocking a desire, no, a certainty that I had denied slumbered inside me.
