Shadow of Ararat

THE SPICE ROAD, NEAR? THE WADI MUSA, THEME OF ARABIA FELIX

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The tall Egyptian was walking along the bottom of a streambed when a bandit came rushing out of the deep purple shadows under the rocks.

A steep-sided valley soared on either side of him, littered with giant red sandstone boulders, bigger than houses. The sun was setting behind him as he trudged up the long incline, filling the western sky with a vast swathe of gold and saffron. In the wild hills of the Ed’Deir night fell quickly, replacing the searing heat of the day with chill cold. Sand and gravel, as red as the sky behind him, crunched under his feet. Ahmet had come a long way, from the upper Nile, to Alexandria, then by felucca to the Nabatean port of Ae-lana. The port was bustling with merchants and traders shipping cargoes from the Sinus Arabicus-that narrow sea that bounded Egypt on the east. The few coins that remained in his wallet after the trip from Alexandria were insufficient to purchase a camel in that bustling port. So he had walked.

He knew that he was only hours from the “hidden” city of Petra, nestled in these barren hills in a close valley. But he had not gotten there yet. His mind was weary and he did not recognize the slap of sandals on the smooth sandstone until it was almost too late.

The bandit was swathed in dark cloth and only his eyes glittered out of the head wrappings. He swung a long staff tipped with a nine-inch iron blade. Ahmet sprang back and the iron rang on the stones. The bandit said nothing but slashed again with the pole-arm. Ahmet dodged to the left, gasping for breath. His blood filled with the rush of fear; the narrow canyon and the lambent sky receded from his vision. Only the sharp tip of the spear filled it. The bandit lunged again, and Ahmet darted to the right. The bandit cut low and the iron bit into the side of the Egyptian’s leg.. Pain sparked and there was a roaring sensation in the priest’s mind. He jumped inside the reach of the spear and lashed out with a knotted fist.

The blow took the bandit in the side of the head, rocking him back. Ahmet followed with a kick to the stomach and then wrenched the spear away from the man as he fell back with a choking cry. Without thinking the priest reversed the pole-arm in one motion and struck downward, all his weary rage behind the blow. The iron sank deep into the bandit’s chest, like a knife into heavy bread, and then grated against the stones. The bandit twitched and spasmed around the blade pinning him to the sandy floor of the streambed. Grimacing, Ahmet jerked the blade out of the man. Blood sluiced from the weapon, spattering on the ground.

The priest stepped back, the spear raised, and he looked around. The air, now filling with the dim of twilight, seemed preternaturally clear. Shuddering, he took a series Of deep breaths and calmed his heart. His racing pulse subsided. He might have friends, he thought. His focus turned inward for a moment, and.he let his awareness expand to cover the great stones, the walls of the canyon, the scrubby gorse and bent little trees. There was no one else. A mournful owl called in the distance, hunting for its prey.

Ahmet shook his head and bent down over the dead man. He said a prayer to guide the soul of the bandit to the Great River and the Judges. Then he took the knife and wallet the man had at his waist and strapped them to his own kit. The body he rolled up in the desert robes and carried into the deep shadows. He found a crevice in the rocks and pushed the body into it. He gathered rocks in the darkness and piled them at the entrance. There was a little flash of soft light as he placed a ward to keep animals away from the body and ensure its rest.

Then he continued up the canyon. Above him, in the arc of sky that was not obscured by canyon walls, the firmament of heaven was filled with a thousand stars, all bright as jewels.

Two hours after full darkness, Ahmet climbed the last switchback of the trail at the head of the Ed’Deir and came over a lip of rock and into the valley of the city of Petra. The valley rose up in a bowl, away from him, filled with the lights of lanterns and torches. Hundreds of houses climbed up the terraces of the city before him. Above them the crags of the mountains rose, a great palisade of stone cupping the city in stony fists. There was no moon, and the gleam of the house lights cast a soft glow into the haze that hung over the city. He stood at the entrance of the canyon, leaning against his staff. From a great height off to his right, there was a blaze of firelight on the mountaintop. As he stood in the darkness at the edge of the city, he could hear the murmur of thousands of voices raised in song. The citizens were singing in the High Place.

The streets were empty and the houses shuttered and locked. Ahmet wandered for another hour before, on the far side of the city, past the dark and empty amphitheater, he found a caravansary. Beyond the squat stone buildings, a dark cleft opened in the mountains and a stream flowed out, gurgling and chuckling to itself in the darkness. Ahmet rapped on the door with the head of his staff. Eventually a small slot opened and a tired-looking man with mussed dark hair and a pale, angular face stared out.

“Good evening,” Ahmet said. “Do you have room for one more traveler tonight?”

The innkeeper looked him up and down, then peered out of the slot up and down the street. It was empty and a lone man, dressed in the garb of an Egyptian priest, stood before him. The man shut the covering over the view-slot and slid back the bolts on the door. Ahmet bowed and stepped inside. The innkeeper rubbed sleep from his eyes and led the Egyptian into the common room on the right side of the atrium.

“Rooms we have,” he said, over his shoulder, “a solidus a night. There’s cold stew on the fire and water in the bucket. Wine is a copper a mug, if you want it.”

“Thank you, no,” Ahmet said. “I do not drink wine.”

The innkeeper grunted and pointed up a flight of stairs on the far side of the common room. “The third door on the right, past the landing. You’ve it to yourself for tonight.”

Ahmet nodded his thanks and shrugged off his shoulder bag and parcels onto a table near the fireplace. He counted out a solidus in copper from his wallet and gave it to the innkeeper. Then he drew out the scabbarded knife that he had taken from the bandit and gave it to the innkeeper.

“A bandit attacked me in the canyon outside of town. Only one. This was his. Perhaps the civil authorities should check into it.”

The innkeeper raised an eyebrow and examined the blade, turning it over in his hands. “He dead?”

Ahmet nodded and took his bowl and a spoon made of carved horn out of his satchel. He went to the fire and began scooping cold lamb stew out of the iron pot.

The innkeeper put the blade back among the priest’s things. “I’ll tell the prefect in the morning. If the fellow is dead, there’s little use of rousing anyone tonight.”

The innkeeper went back to bed, turning down the wick on the one lamp near the entry door. Ahmet sat and ate his stew in quiet solitude. The water was tepid and smelled of smoke, but he drank deep from the bucket as well. After he was done, he said a short prayer to the hearth gods for finding safe haven for the night.

“Are you a priest?” A sleepy voice came out of the dimness on the other side of the bulk of the fireplace. Ahmet turned slightly. A man had sat up from lying on the bench behind the other table.

“Yes, of the order of Hermes Trismegistus. I am Ahmet, of the School of Pthames.”

Even in the dim light of the single lantern and the embers of the fire, Ahmet could see the flash of strong white teeth nestled in a dark beard. The middle-aged stranger swung off the bench and came to sit opposite the priest on the other bench. He was dark-skinned, whether by the sun or birth could not be told. He had a strong nose and a noble chin and forehead. A neatly trimmed beard and mustaches graced his face. Long dark hair was tied back behind his head. He was dressed in the tan-and-white linen robes of the desert tribes south of the Nabatean frontier.

“I am Mohammed of the Bani Hashim Quraysh. I am a merchant on my way to Damascus.”

Ahmet smiled back. He did not need his othersight to see that the merchant was a bundle of barely repressed energy. His handshake was firm and direct. “Well met, Mohammed of the Quraysh. I am also on my way to Damascus.”

Again the smile in the darkness. “To many men, I would say that traveling alone on these desert roads is a chancy business But I heard you speak with the innkeeper and you seem a man capable of taking care of himself. I wonder

“What?” Ahmet said, his voice filled with amusement. It seemed clear to him that the Southerner had been watching and waiting in the darkness, making up his mind about what he was going to say. Despite the Arab’s direct, even rude, approach, he found himself liking the irrepressible fellow.

“I wonder if a priest that is quick with his hands, and wit, would consider traveling with a merchant on his way to Damascus. By the look of your cloak and sandals, you’ve no camel or horse. You’re walking and it’s a very long road to Damascus from here.”

Ahmet nodded, impressed at the keen eye of the mer chant. “I just came from Aelana. It has been slow going.”

Mohammed nodded, quite pleased with himself. He reached into his robes and pulled out a finely tooled leather pouch. Tiny ivory clasps held it closed. He unsnapped the top and shook out several silver coins into his palm. “Ten solid?-if you will accompany me and my men to Damascus and help protect the caravan. Before you ask, I will tell you-a priest is good luck and these are dangerous times, particularly on this road.”

Ahmet eyed the coins on the tabletop as if they were asps. His vows with the order urged poverty and a simple, even rustic, life upon the priests.

You’ve already broken those vows once, said a little voice in his head, coming here, looking for the boy.,

He reached out and turned one of the Roman coins over. It was newly minted. On the face, the stern visage of the Emperor Heraclius, on the obverse, the sigil of the mint of Palmyra and a smaller inset of a woman in a crown. He picked up four of the coins and pushed the others back.

“I will accompany you as far as Gerasa-I am looking for a missing friend, and I do not know if they have gone as far as Damascus.”

“Good enough for me,” the merchant said. The Southerner pushed his chair back and gathered up the other coins. “You’re tired, I think, so sleep in. We won’t leave until late afternoon tomorrow at the earliest. I have a cargo of myrrh to load and pottery to sell. Ask the innkeeper where I am, he’ll know.”

Ahmet nodded his thanks and put the heavy coins in his wallet. The merchant gathered up some things from the other table, one of them a heavy papyrus scroll. Ahmet raised an eyebrow at the sight.

“What are you reading?” he asked as the merchant finished gathering his things.

Mohammed looked down and laughed softly. “A gift from a friend. You will find that I am a questioning man- always wondering about this thing or another. I was pes tering him with questions about the way of things in the world and he gave me this. To my thinking, he hopes that I will read it and bother him no more. He calls it the torah. It is a holy book of his people.“

“He is a priest, then,” Ahmet said.

Mohammed nodded. “He calls himself a teacher, but I think that you are right.” He looked down at the scroll case. “It was a princely gift. I will have to find something as good, or better, to give back to him when I return to the south.”

Ahmet rose as well, his supper done.

“Good night, Mohammed,” he said. “Perhaps on the road to Gerasa, we can discuss the way of things.”

The merchant nodded, smiling, and went up to his room.

Morning came and with it a great racket in the street. Ahmet dragged himself from the soft bed with great reluctance. After four days of sleeping on stones in the wilderness, the comforts of the caravansary were welcome indeed. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin and pushed the shutter on the deep window embrasure open. In the street below, hundreds of men and horses were milling about.

Soldiers, he thought. A cavalry regiment.

They were dressed in desert garb and light armor, with lances and bows. Eventually order was imposed on the unruly lot and they trotted away up the narrow canyon that the stream came out of.

When he had reached Alexandria on the trail of the boy, Dwyrin, Ahmet had found the Greek city in an equal uproar. The canals and harbor were clogged with barges, dhows, and great triremes. The Roman Legion that was stationed in Egypt was being withdrawn to fight against the Persians, and tens of thousands of men were on the move. It had taken almost three days to find and see the quartermaster in charge of the levy of new troops. Then Ahmet, to his dismay, had learned that the boy had not reported in at all.

Much of his small store of coin was expended in getting the chief scribe at the prefect’s offices in the New Palace to find out where Dwyrin’s unit was heading; the Third Ars Magica, a component of the Third Cyrenaicea Legion, was being loaded aboard ship to sail to Sidon on the coast of Phoenicia. If the boy was not on the rolls in Alexandria, perhaps he had met with his unit already and was well away from the city. Non-Imperial shipping to the embattled coast of Syria was nonexistent, and he could not well take passage on a troop transport. He had made his way back to the inn on the southern canal. Several sailors had been in the common room, and discussions with them had led Ahmet to take a ship back down the Nile to Heliopolis and then go by camel to the burgeoning port of Clysma on the Sinus Arabicus. Everywhere he had traveled in the lower delta, the Roman army and its auxillia was on the move.

So too here, in Petra. After shaving and performing his morning rituals, Ahmet went downstairs and found that the cavalrymen had eaten all of the breakfast save a few day-old rolls and a little porridge. He sat in the corner, where the Arab merchant had sat the night before, and ate the spare meal. After he was done, the innkeeper stopped by his table.

“Master Mohammed left a message for you. He is busy all day but will return in the evening and hopes to depart at first light tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Ahmet said. “If it is not impolite to ask, where are the soldiers going?”

The innkeeper grimaced. His son was among the regiment that had finally marched away after leaving the common room and the grounds littered with debris. The worry the departure caused was doing him and his nervous stomach no good at all. “There is fighting in the north, in Syria Coele. The Persians are going to try to take Damascus. So all of the ‘allies’ of the Eastern Empire are sending men to fight at Damascus and stop them.”

Ahmet cocked his head to one side; the townsman seemed displeased by this. “Stopping the Eastern devils would protect all of Arabia and Petra, would it not?”

The innkeeper snorted derisively. “You mean keep it safe for Roman taxation and Roman law! There is a Roman peace, true, but it is a cruel peace if you ask me. We are an ‘ally’ of the Empire, yet their tax collectors pinch us as fiercely as any Imperial province. Their gods are placed over ours, their language at the expense of our own. The young people-they think of themselves as Romans, not Nabateans.”

Ahmet nodded politely. It would be the same if Persia conquered the Arabian provinces, save that with the Persians rode darkness. He shuddered in the cool, dim room. The priests of Hermes Trismegistus hewed to a moral code-one fiercely enforced by the masters of each school-and were very careful in their exercise of the powers of the unseen world. But the stories out of the East, from the Persian capital at Ctesiphon and beyond, did not relate any such restraint. The mobehedan of the Sassanid Empire consorted with demons and devils; they indulged in the necromantic defilement of the dead, they sought power at the expense of their own souls. Even in the placid sun of upper Egypt, the masters of the order would often wake, trembling, at the dark of the moon as the distant echoes of horrific practices in the East troubled the ether.

No matter; he would find the boy and return to the school. Though Ahmet thought that he understood his own purposes well, in truth his mind was a whirl of conflicting desires and intents. He really did not know why he had fled the school, simply that it was no longer the place for him.

It was three days before Mohammed completed his business in the city. All that time, more men, horses, and supplies continued to flow out of the Nabatean capital and up the Wadi Musa to the road to Jerash and the north. Ahmet continued to sit in the caravansary, watching columns of light archers and more horsemen pass by. Long trains of wagons, laden with barrels and crates, followed. On the afternoon of the third day, the priest considered what he had seen-close to fifteen thousand men had headed north. Given the thin population of the Nabatean hinterland, all desert plain and rocky mountains, nearly every able man and animal in the principality had been committed. If this same effort was repeated in the other cities of the Empire, the coming war would be great indeed.

There was something odd, too, about the citizens of the city of stone. To the unaware eye, they were a common-looking people-worn thin by the desert, browned by the sun, with dark hair and eyes. To the Egyptian, though, they seemed furtive. They talked little to strangers, or even among themselves. The nightly ceremonies on the moun-taintop, on the Ad’deir-the high place-were closed to outsiders, and the chanting was indistinct to his ears in the valley below. There was an undercurrent of power in the city as well, something that constantly tickled at the back of his mind, though there was nothing to be perceived if he put his mind to searching it out.

Mohammed bustled in, followed by two of his men. They were swarthy fellows, with a grim look about them. Ornamented knives and short curved swords were thrust into their sashes. They were clad in robes of tan and rust. Mohammed sat down on the bench opposite the priest. His smile flickered on, then off. The merchant was tired.

“Are you ready to travel?”

Ahmet arched an eyebrow. He had been ready to travel for three days. The rest had done his legs good, though; they felt as if they had recovered from the trek up the desert valleys from Aelana. He would be well pleased to be gone from this city that crouched amid the red hills.

“When you give the word, Master Mohammed.”

The merchant slapped a broad hand on the tabletop. “Good. We’re leaving.”

IfDMQMQWOHOMOHOHOHQWOWOHOHOWOHOHOWOHQMOHOWOHOl^pl THE PALATINE HILL, ROMA MATER

Two Praetorians, bulky in their red cloaks and plumed helmets, closed the heavy door behind Aurelian. It made a solid sound, sliding closed, and the acting Emperor sighed in relief. It was late at night, near the midnight hour, and he had just finished the day’s business. Rubbing tired eyes with the heel of his right hand, Aurelian tugged his cloak off and threw it on a backless chair by the door. The dark-purple garment joined a haphazard pile of shirts, tunics, and other cloaks. The rest of the outer chamber was littered with dirty plates and moldy half-eaten fruit.

Aurelian snorted at the sight but ignored it. At home, on his estate northeast of the city, his wife and her legion of servants would have dealt with all of his mess much more effectively. Here, in the city, in the palace, however, he had banned everyone from his rooms, for they were his one small refuge of peace and quiet amid the chaos of the Imperial Court. Even his bath slaves waited outside the door until he was ready to go to the Baths.

As he did nearly every night, he thought of calling for one of his brother’s concubines to soothe him to sleep with gentle hands and a soft, warm body. As he did every night, he shook the thought away. He was too tired to consider anything but the rumpled sanctuary of his bed. He kicked his sandals off, bending the copper clasps that held them closed, and sat down on the side of the large, elevated bed that dominated the inner chamber.

“Hello, brother.”

Aurelian jumped at the soft voice and half turned, his right hand holding a bare dagger, reflexively pulled from its sheath at his belt. Maxian sat in a low chair by the window, a dark-gray cloak draped around his thin shoulders.

Aurelian raised one bushy red eyebrow-his delinquent brother looked even more exhausted and worn down than he did. “Are you all right?”

Maxian raised an eyebrow of his own. He had been thinking the same thing about his older brother.

“Yes,” the youngest Atrean Prince said. “Do I look like you do?”

Aurelian gave a weak laugh and fell backward into the thick cotton and wool blankets on the bed.

“Gods,” he said, rubbing his eyes again. “Galen makes this look so easy! I thought I was helping him before, but there are daily crises that I’ve never even heard of before. No wonder they divided the old Empire-I cannot conceive of trying to run a state twice the size of ours.”

“I am sorry,” Maxian said, guilt plain on his face. “I am supposed to be helping you.”

Aurelian raised his head up enough to give his little brother a good glare, then fell back again, groaning. “No matter, piglet. Even I can tell that something serious is bothering you. What is it*?”

Maxian stood slowly and limped to the door of the outer chamber. He ran his hands over the join at the center of the panels and along the sides. Then he returned to the chair and closed the window shutter, making the same motion over its surface. This done, he settled in the chair, uncorked a heavy wine bottle, and drank a long draft.

“Give here,” Aurelian said, rolling over on the bed and taking the amphora from his brother. “You don’t drink much, and never bring your own, so it must be very serious. Who is she?”

“Huh!” Maxian laughed, while his brother took a long swallow. “Not a woman like that. A friend died and I took it harder than I should have. It has taken me awhile to shake it off-I must apologize again-you needed my help and I didn’t give it.“

“Oh, I’ll live.” Aurelian smiled, his cheerful disposition beginning to show through the weariness. “I’ll occupy my spare hours thinking of ways for you to pay me back.”

Maxian nodded ruefully; he was sure that Aurelian would devise some particularly fitting revenge for this dereliction of duty. He scratched his forehead.

“I have work to do,” Maxian said, meeting his brother’s eye with equanimity, though his stomach was fluttering. “Galen’s work. This business with the Duchess… do you remember?”

Aurelian nodded, putting his hands behind his head.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “I see her every day-every day, my brother-and she scares me and impresses me at the same time. She seems to know everything that goes on. Never once have I put a question to her that she could not answer.”

Aurelian got up, rubbing his nose and taking another swallow from the amphora. “I have no idea whether she tells me the truth or not, piglet. She could be concealing anything behind those dusky violet eyes. Each day I have to rely on her more, and that makes me very nervous. I know^-/ know-that Father trusted her implicitly. She and Mother were close… but, by the gods, I cannot bring myself to do the same.”

Aurelian stopped, looking a little surprised at the depths of his feeling. Maxian nodded and took the amphora back, popping the cork back into the spout.

“I’ll have to disappear for a while,” he said, stowing the jug. “I’m watched all the time now, you know, just like you are. A month or two should do it-when I resurface, I should have some alternative sources of information for you and Galen.”

The acting Emperor looked up at his younger brother, a half smile on his broad, bearded face. Maxian drew his cloak on and stepped to the window. r

“I know,” Aurelian said. “You’ve always made us very proud.”

Maxian stopped, his hand on the shutter.

“Max, the day you came home from school with that caduceus on your cloak, that was about the happiest day of Mother’s life. Pater was fit to bust too. I’m sorry Galen and I have to ask this of you now, but-well, you know how it is.”

“I know, Ars,” Maxian said, still looking away. “I hope you’ll be proud of this too.”

The shutter clattered on the frame and the young Prince was gone.

|@QHQMQH0H()H()W(M)H0H0M0M()H()M(M)M0H0H()W()W()H()H0MQSJ THE PORT OF THEODOSIUS, CONSTANTINOPLE

Dwyrin scrambled aside from the bulk of a ship crane. Men shouted around him as a great siege engine swung out over the dock, ropes and cables straining to control the weight of the iron-and-wood machine. Thirty men leaned into the lines that guided the engine down into the hold of the great merchantman. The day was clear and the sky a brilliant blue. A crisp wind off the waters of the Propontis cut the heat on the deck of the ship. Dwyrin climbed up into the rigging, his bare feet and hands quick on the tarred ropes.

From his new vantage he could see much of the harbor under the city walls. Hundreds of ships were jammed into the dockside and the quays of the military harbor. The dockside was a multicolored swarm of soldiers, sutlers, engineers, heavily burdened laborers, and officers. It seemed that the two sloping roads that led down from the towering walls of the city were crammed shoulder to shoulder with an endless stream of men, horses, and wagons. Mules and horses raised their voices in protest, filling the air with a great noise. The transport to which Dwyrin had been assigned also held two companies of siege engineers and one of auxillia. The Gothic mercenaries were helping the engineers load, their broad-muscled backs gleaming with sweat under the bright sun. Their long pigtails were wrapped around their heads like blond crowns. The engineer centurion bellowed orders through a bronze horn. The engine slowly descended into the darkness of the hold.

Dwyrin climbed higher and found a spar to sit upon. His bare legs, finally browned rather than burned by the sun, dangled over the deck thirty feet below. His right arm still throbbed with the pain of the Legion brand. He gingerly fingered it. The pain had been incredible, though now he felt an odd sense of security and belonging. This troubled him, as he had not even met any of his fellow legionnaires. He had been passed from hand to hand until an optio of the quartermaster’s corps had dumped him on this ship with his papers and kit. All he knew was that the ship would leave tonight, and in days or weeks it would reach a place called Edessa, and he would find his unit.

The breeze tousled his pale-red hair, grown even longer now that he was escaped from the strictures of the school. For some reason the Legion had not demanded that he adopt the short cut of the legionnaires that he saw on the deck of the ship or on the quayside. He hooked one leg around a rope to steady himself and began braiding his hair back. Around him, the great port of Theodosius continued to swarm with activity like a kicked-over anthill.

“Get your backs into it, you lazy whoresons! Pull, you bastards, pull!”

Thyatis stalked up the line of sun-bronzed sweating men. The tan linen tunic and kilt that she favored clung to her, soaked with perspiration. Her temper was foul, and had been for days since the disaster at the Valach’s house. Nikos, Timur, and the other men hauled for all they were worth. The wagon, laden with supplies and heavy iron-bound chests, creaked slowly up the ramp onto the ship. Thyatis cracked her baton on the side of the wagon, inches from Jochi’s head. The sharp sound galvanized the men.

They shouted. “Heave! Ho!”

The wagon advanced another inch.

“Pull, you mangy bitches! Pull!” Thyatis’ voice cut the air like a whip.

“Heave! Ho!”

The wagon advanced again, two inches this time. The front wheel crunched into the lip of the ramp. The men shouted again, muscles bunching and straining.

“Ball-less priests! You are weak! Pull!”

“Heave!” came the answering shout. “Ho!”

The front wheel trembled against the lip of the ramp, then there was a groaning sound and it tipped up and over. The wagon rolled forward onto the deck. Men ran up and slid chocks under the front wheel to keep it from rolling forward into the gaping maw of the open hold. Thyatis stepped up onto a giant wooden block that formed part of the main mast. The rest of her detachment, now expanded to two tent parties, or twelve men, hustled onto the ship to secure the wagon. Only two more to go. She slapped her thigh with the heavy baton, ignoring the stab of pain.

The day after the debacle of the raid, she had been summoned to the personal quarters of the Western Emperor. She had sat in a low chair in the center of his study, back straight, eyes front. Though she was consumed with anger at the failure of her mission, her face was a carefully composed mask. This much, at least, the ladies in the House of de’Orelio had taught her. The Emperor, Galen, had met her privately, with only a young Eastern Empire officer in attendance. He was short, but broad-shouldered, with the look of a cavalryman about him. She remembered him from the staff meeting-Theodore was his name. The rest of the face clicked into place; he was the younger brother of the Eastern Emperor.

“So, Centurion, two of your men dead, four injured. A block of the city lost to fire, and the traitors, whoever they were, escaped. To balance this, you recovered an Imperial recruit who was being held captive in the house.”

Thyatis flinched. The scorn in the Emperor’s voice was clear. She cleared her throat. “We wounded the Persian sorcerer, sir.‘’

Galen’s eyes flashed. “You think that you wounded the sorcerer. But witnesses in the street observed him flying away to the east, out over the harbor. Further, he was carrying someone. This does not strike me as being particularly wounded.”

“He was very strong, sir. He nearly killed all of us.”

Galen nodded, his face a mask equal to hers. “And we know little more than we did before. We know that the Walach, Dracul, was negotiating with the Persians. We know that the traitors did go to his house that night. We know that a Persian sorcerer was in the city-even though none of the thaumaturges in the service of the Eastern or Western Emperors detected him. This went ill, Centurion. Our entire plan may be compromised.”

“Yes sir.”

Galen sat in thought, his face pensive. Thyatis fought hard against fidgeting. At last, the Emperor looked up again, his eyes troubled. “Not much time passed between the arrival of the traitors and the start of the fighting in the house. You rushed the men in the garden room within what, fifteen grains? of entering the house. It may be that they did not have time to meet and discuss what they had learned in the Palace. One of the servants that we questioned said that there were two Persians who had come to meet with Dracul. If this is so, then maybe the passenger the sorcerer was carrying was the other Persian and our plan is still safe.”

He glowered at Thyatis. He stood up and stalked to the window, his anger palpable. Thyatis continued to stare straight ahead, though from thexorner of her eye she could see that Prince Theodore had winked at her. Was he trying to reassure her? Galen drummed his fingers on the window ledge. When he turned back, he seemed to have reached a decision.

“You were lucky, Centurion. If the captive boy had not been a fire-caster, you and all of your men would have been dead. I do not hold the outcome against you, though it is in no way pleasing to me. The fleet is leaving within the next four days and we are now completely unsure as to the state of our enemies. More to the point, the failure of your mission has caused me a loss of respect in the eyes of the Eastern commanders. I was counting on your mission being carried off flawlessly.”

Thyatis felt her stomach curl up and shrivel into something the size of a dried fig. This was going to be very bad. By sheer will, she kept her head up and her eyes clear.

The Emperor paced behind the desk. “I had intended to keep you close to hand and use you and your men on the campaign as scouts, couriers; whenever I needed something carried out quietly. Now I see no option but to accept the services of the Eastern scouts and to remove you from an obvious position on the playing board.”

He stopped and leaned forward on the desk. His eyes bored into hers, fierce and still angry. “I am sending you into the East, ahead of the army. You get the short straw, Centurion. You and your men are being detached from my staff and the army as a whole.”

He picked up an oilskin packet from the desk. She stood and accepted the heavy package. The Emperor regarded her for a long time. Then he said, “The packet contains orders for a mission into the high country beyond the old frontier. You are being sent by a roundabout way to deep in Persian lands. There is a timetable for when and where we expect to meet you again. I hope that I will have the pleasure, Centurion. Dismissed.”

She spun on her heel and walked out. Her stomach was fluttering around her ears now. They weren’t going to be disbanded! She still had her command and what seemed to be a particularly desperate and dangerous mission. The clerks in the outer chambers stared after her in surprise, for she was grinning from ear to ear as she hustled out.

Full dark had settled over the city when the sound of men chanting and the creak of the great sweep oars on the side of the ship woke Dwyrin. The lanterns that had hung from the mast and on iron hooks by the doors to the fore and aft cabins were dark. A thin sliver of moon gleamed above the eastern horizon, but it barely shed enough light to pick out the rigging. The ship was away from the dock and passing between the twin towers that guarded the entrance to the military harbor. He peered over the side of the ship, his blanket wrapped around him. Below, a sleek lateen-rigged coaster, not even half the size of the transport, was plowing through the waves at their side. Unlike the transport, it was lit with lanterns forehand aft.

Beyond the breakwater, the waters of the Propontis opened before them. The sailors scrambled aloft and began running up the great square sail. From his perspective on the foredeck, Dwyrin stared up in puzzlement. The sail was dark, almost as black as the sky. Still, no lanterns were lit, the sailors working in darkness. The coaster peeled away from their course as the prow of the ship bit into deeper waters. Still lit by its lanterns, it curved away to the northeast, heading for the Sea of Darkness. The merchantman, still running dark, headed south. Clouds gathered in the east, driven by winds off the distant steppes. The moon was soon obscured and utter darkness covered the waters. Behind them Dwyrin could see the lights of the city walls in the distance. Long trails of torches sparkled along the stone.roads leading down from the city to the harbor. The army of the Empire continued to move, even in night.

Again Thyatis stood on the railing at the sharp beak of the Mikitis. Clouds swallowed the eastern horizon, a darker blot against the night sky. Above, cold stars gleamed down. A chill wind cut out of the north and filled the sails of the sleek ship. One hand was wrapped in a guyline, the other steadying herself on the prow. Wind rushed past her and the ship seemed to soar across the waters. The hiss of the waves was loud. Before her, across the Sea of Darkness, lay Trapezus and the beginning of their mission. She smiled in the darkness. This was far more than she had ever dreamed of. She wondered how things were faring for the Duchess, so far away to the west.

The Mikitis rode onward, dark sails fresh with the wind. To the south, the Anatolian shore passed away in the night, only sparsely lit by the lights of farmhouses.

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