with a spray of tiny blue symbols—dozens of them—symbols he had seen before.
“The Man Who Is Map,” breathed Kit. “At the Well of Souls.”
Epilogue
He waited until after dark and then, to be certain that he had not been followed, Charles Flinders-Petrie approached the Sacred Way by a torturously circuitous, wandering route, doubling back time and again until he could put his mind at rest. The last passage had been fraught, and he feared he had alerted his enemies. But it seemed that he had given them the slip, if only for a little while. That was all he would need. A few more crossings and it would be finished: the map would disappear forever.
Then let them do their worst. Nothing would make him talk. He would die first. The thought of taking his secrets to the grave made him smile.
Now to the business at hand—the reason he had come to Etruria. Although he had never met the king of Velathri, he had heard the name Turms since boyhood, and had longed to meet the royal sage and seer. It would not happen now, but Charles was glad to be here just the same. The funeral of the king lasted most of the day, and he had arrived in time to witness the procession, standing reverently among the grieving subjects. As a representative of his family, it was right to acknowledge the passing of a longtime friend of his father and grandfather. Charles congratulated himself on correctly navigating the ley and calibrating the time of his arrival. True, it would have been better if he had managed to reach his destination while Turms was still alive, but as things stood he considered it a singular victory. The tomb was unsealed and would remain so for another seven days in order to allow mourners to place their gifts and remembrances in the chamber. Having dressed in the style of a rural labourer of the day, Charles did not expect to be challenged by the soldiers guarding the tomb. As far as anyone was concerned, he was merely one more rural peasant come to pay his humble respects. His modest stature and unremarkable features, together with his wholly unassuming demeanour, often made it possible for him to move unseen through the various worlds he visited. Also, he had found that few in authority paid much attention to those they considered beneath them. So, to accentuate his lowly state, he had cut his hair short and allowed his beard to go unshaved a few days, giving himself a more grizzled, rustic guise.
If fortune favoured him tonight, he would pass unnoticed once more. Charles hoped he would not have to speak to the guards or, worse, bribe them to let him into the tomb.
Bearing a cluster of grapes in one hand and pressing the bundle containing his grave gift to his chest, Charles descended the long staircase leading to the sunken road cut deep into tufa stone beneath the surface of the surrounding landscape. He walked along, his way lit intermittently by torches, advancing from one pool of light to the next, until he arrived at the place where an iron brazier had been set up outside an elaborately carved doorway. The tomb had been whitewashed and painted red, green, and gold, designating a royal burial. The doorway was festooned with white flowers, and little red pennons had been strung from the top of the high banks of tufa at the top of the Sacred Way.
Two guards stood either side of the door—yawning and leaning on their long lances—and three more sat on campstools across the narrow roadway. A table had been erected, and the remains of the funeral meal, as well as gifts of food and wine, were piled high in baskets along the walls and steps leading to the tomb. The guards gripped cups and had obviously been helping themselves to the wine, bread, and sweetmeats. Why not? There was no danger of thieves or grave robbers. Turms the Immortal was a just and revered king, well loved by the people; exceedingly long-lived, he had survived plague and drought and war—the banes of rulers in every age, and in every age the same. He had lived long enough to enjoy that rarest of elixirs: the loving acclaim of devoted subjects. Even among his enemies, the bellicose Latins, Turms the Immortal was renowned as a sage and seer of extraordinary powers. Any thief foolish enough to risk stealing from this tomb would be torn