Air and Darkness, an intriguing and fantastic adventure, is both an independent novel and the gripping conclusion of the Books of the Elements, a four-volume set of fantasies set in Carce, an analog of ancient Rome by David Drake. Here the stakes are raised from the previous novels in an ultimate conflict between the forces of logic and reason and the forces of magic and the supernatural. During the extraordinary time in which this story is set, the supernatural is dominant. The story is an immensely complex journey of adventure through real and magical places. Corylus, a soldier, emerges as one of the most compelling heroic figures in contemporary fantasy. Battling magicians, spirits, gods, and forces from supernatural realities, Corylus and his companions from the family of the nobleman Saxa-especially Saxa's impressive wife Hedia, and his friend (and Saxa's son) Varus-must face constant deadly and soul-destroying dangers, climaxing in a final battle not between good and evil but in defense of logic and reality. “David Drake’s Air and Darkness finishes up the series in suitably grand style.” ― San Francisco Book Review “The whole tale strongly recalls that of Odysseus and other mythological travelers through underworlds, and fans of such stories will enjoy Drake’s take.” ― Publishers Weekly DAVID DRAKE, best known for his military SF, is the author or coauthor of more than sixty books, including Out of the Waters and Monsters of the Earth . He lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina. Air and Darkness By David Drake Tom Doherty Associates Copyright © 2015 David Drake All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-7653-2081-0 CHAPTER 1 " Help us, Mother Matuta, " chanted Hedia as she danced sunwise in a circle with eleven women of the district. The priest Doclianus stood beside the altar in the center. It was of black local stones, crudely squared and laid without mortar — what you'd expect, forty miles from Carce and in the middle of nowhere. "Help us, bringer of brightness! Help us, bringer of warmth!" Hedia sniffed. Though the pre-dawn sky was light, it certainly hadn't brought warmth. The dance required that she turn around as she circled. Her long tunic was cinched up to free her legs, and she was barefoot. She felt like a complete and utter fool. The way the woman immediately following in the circle — the wife of an estate manager — kept stepping on her with feet as horny as horse hooves tipped Hedia's embarrassment very close to fury. "Let no harm or danger, Mother, menace our people!" The things I do to be a good mother, Hedia thought. Not that she'd had any children herself — she had much better uses for her body than to ruin it with childbirth! — but her current husband, Gaius Alphenus Saxa, had a seventeen-year-old son, Gaius Alphenus Varus, and a daughter, Alphena, a year younger. A daughter that age would have been a trial for any mother, let alone a stepmother of twenty-three like Hedia. Alphena was a tomboy who had been allowed to dictate to the rest of the household until Saxa married his young third wife. Nobody dictated to Hedia, and certainly not a slip of a girl who liked to dress up in gladiator's armor and whack at a post with a weighted sword. There had been some heated exchanges between mother and daughter before Alphena learned that she wasn't going to win by screaming threats anymore. Hedia was just as willing as her daughter to have a scene, and she'd been threatened too often by furious male lovers to worry about a girl with a taste for drama. " Be satisfied with us, Mother of Brightness! " Hedia chanted, and the stupid cow stepped on her foot again. A sudden memory flashed before Hedia and dissolved her anger so thoroughly that she would have burst out laughing if she hadn't caught herself. Laughter would have disrupted the ceremony as badly as if she had turned and slapped her clumsy neighbor. I've been in similar circumstances while wearing a lot less, Hedia thought. But I'd been drinking and the men were drunk, so until the next morning none of us really noticed how many bruises we were accumulating. Hedia wasn't sure that she'd do it all again; the three years since that party hadn't turned her into a Vestal Virgin, but she'd learned discrimination. Still, she was very glad for the memory on this chill June morning. " Help us, Mother Matuta! Help us! Help us! " After the third "Help us," Hedia faced the altar and jumped in the air as the priest had told her to do. The other dancers carried out some variation of that. Some jumped sooner, some leaped forward instead of remaining in place as they were supposed to, and the estate manager's wife outdid herself by tripping and pitching headfirst toward the altar. It would serve her right if she knocked her few brains out! Hedia thought; but that wasn't true. Being clumsy and stupid wasn't really worthy of execution. Not quite. The flutist who had been blowing time for the dance on a double pipe halted. He bowed to the