Shadow of Ararat

THE IRONWORKS, CONSTANTINOPLE

Along rod of white-hot iron, gripped between pincers held in hands gloved with a triple layer of leather, plunged into slick dark water with a tremendous hiss. The forge man stepped back, raising the iron rod from the quenching bath. It hissed and steamed, water sluicing from it. The forge man turned and laid the rod on a massive block of steel where another man joined him, seizing it between his own pair of pincers. A hammer, massive and solid, rang down on the glowing bar. Sparks flew, joining thousands of others clouding the superheated air of the forge.

Maxian stalked through the darkness, his hollow cheeks puddles of shadow. Abdmachus drifted behind him, his clothing stripped down to a pair of trousers and sandals. Sweat slicked his skin, muddying the tracery of inked symbols that covered the little sorcerer’s body. The roaring fire of the forges and crucibles gleamed off Maxian’s face, highlighting his nose and cheekbones. The noise was so great from the hammers and spitting cauldrons that a man could barely hear himself think. Around the Prince, dozens of men in heavy leather aprons labored, their muscled bodies slick with sweat. The air was thick, charged with fumes and vapors. Maxian climbed a stairway of stone to a platform that rose from one side of the great chamber.

Below him he could see the whole floor of the ironworks. A great apparatus was rising amid the open space between the rows of forges and pits of molten iron. Sparks showered from hammers bent to the task of welding iron to iron. Men carefully raised the bones of a great skeleton high, helped by a dizzying array of winches and pulleys that were suspended from a ceiling lost in smoke and fumes. The outline of vast jagged wings arched over the chamber, high above, even Maxian as he stood on the platform, feeling the roar of noise beat on him like the ocean tide. His eyes gleamed in the ruddy light.

Ah, Aurelian, he mused, you would love these works more than any man…

“You have done well, my friend,” Maxian said, turning a little toward the Persian.

Abdmachus bowed and then met the Roman’s eyes. The little sorcerer’s face split with a grin. This construction was his greatest work. Maxian smiled back, pleased that his friend had found a true purpose at last. Without him and his skills, this effort would be impossible.

The men on the floor did not look up, though they felt the gaze of their master upon them. The Prince looked up into the face of the creature, cruel and fanged, enormous, a tilted head with a long snout and deep-set eyes.

Soon, the Prince thought, you will live.

The great head, wider than a man was tall, gazed back at him, soulless, eyeless, only pits of darkness lit with flames. Maxian turned and stepped through a heavy circular door raised up on hinges of dark corroded iron. Beyond the portal the noise ceased, becoming only a dull background rumble of hammers, and gears and spitting metal fire. Abdmachus wiped his brow and then stepped lightly down the stairs. Work was beginning on one of the wing joints, and it needed his delicate hand at the casting.

Krista was waiting in the room of documents, her long hair tied back behind her head, though it flared out first and then spilled over her shoulders. She wore a smock stained with dark pinpoints and a blousy shirt with heavy sleeves that were tied back from her wrists. There was a smudge of sooty ink on the side of her nose. Maxian’s ears ware still ringing from the cacophony of the forge. Her lips moved, but he could not hear anything for a moment.

He held up a hand and his eyelids fluttered closed as he concentrated. He was becoming almost gaunt, though the work had begun to raise ridges of muscle on his arms, shoulders, and torso. He opened his eyes when he could hear again.

“There is someone waiting to see you,” Krista said, her voice even and polite.

Maxian caught the hint of ice under the genteel tone. An eyebrow arched.

“One of the handmaidens of the dark woman. She is in the anteroom.”

The Prince nodded and went to the other door, weaving around tables thickly strewn with parchments and papyrus scrolls. Every space on the walls and floor was covered with drawings, books, and tiny models crafted from wood and clay. At the center of one wall, a great drawing, pains takingly etched by Krista on a sheet of copper with a steel needle and then rubbed down with charcoal, showed the apparatus in all its feral glory. Maxian smiled when he looked upon it.

What might men achieve, he thought with a sense of deep satisfaction,;/ they could but raise their heads up and dream?

He paused at the door to the outer rooms and looked back at her. She still stood by her drawing table, leaning on it with one long-fingered hand. She was looking away, staring at the papers and long scrolls. To his eye, attuned to her nature and moods, he could see deep anger in the line of her head and shoulders.

“Do you still have your spring gun?” he asked quietly. Her head turned slowly, her eyes heavily lidded and opaque.

“Yes,” she said.

“Let me see it.” He held out a hand turned dark by coal dust. She paused for a moment, then it appeared like magic in her right hand. Maxian raised an eyebrow again and took the heavy metal tube. He had never seen it up close before, and he turned it over in his hands. It was eight inches long, with a copper central tube and wire grips welded to the outside. There was a slide on one side that had a thumb-sized ring on it. The ring, currently, was at the top of the tube. Inside the tube was a ring of folded steel that ran in two grooves. He could barely make out the shape of a spring inside the central tube. The grips were well worn with use.

“Can I see one of your darts?”

A dart-six inches of burnished steel with a point shaped like a cone at one end and three small fins at the other- appeared in her hand as well. It was heavy, lying in his hand like a lead weight. He handed the spring tube back, but kept the dart for a moment, cupping his hands around it. There was a flicker of light between his fingers and he muttered something to the missile.

Krista took the dart back without expression or comment. She slotted it into the tube and slid the ring back with a practiced motion. The dart sank into the tube, and there was a clicking sound as the ring locked into a snap at the base. The whole assembly disappeared into her sleeve again. Maxian watched carefully but could not make out how she had secreted it.

“I’d like you to come with me to meet this person.”

“Why?” Some interest leaked through in the cast of her eyes.

“I trust you at my back,” the Prince said, ruefully, “particularly with one of these women in front of me.” Krista shrugged and untied her sleeves, letting them fall to her wrists. When he turned away she smiled, a secret thing that suffused her face for a moment and then was gone.

Maxian entered the room, bending his head a little to pass under the lintel. He had put on a new shirt, this one a deep-green cotton, and had made some attempt to get his hair, grown ever longer now, back under control. There was more color in his face too.

The woman rose, her dark robes falling around her like the wings of night. It was the blond one who had looked back over her shoulder. Her hair was loose and very long, a shimmering cascade down her back. The cloak covered her shoulders, but her breasts, creamy white, threatened to spill out of the tight leather bodice that contained them in criss-crossed leather ties. She bowed deeply as he entered, allowing her dress to slither away from a long smooth thigh and firm calf. Her sandal straps oozed up and around her leg almost to her knee, snug to the flesh. Her eyes were a tremendously deep blue, a clear winter sky over bare trees and fallen snow.

“I am Alais,” she said in a husky voice. Maxian’s nostrils twitched; there was a musky smell in.the air around her like a waiting noose, filled with the rich smell of spring and freshly turned earth. Her lips trembled, a dusky red like dying roses, showing tiny white teeth. The Prince could feel his body quiver in reaction to her. Behind him there was a very quiet laugh from Krista, who had drifted silently into the room. The sound was an anchor for him, keeping his thought from drifting to Alais’ smooth thighs and breasts.

“Welcome, Alais.” His voice was even and quiet, though it was a struggle to keep from stepping even closer to her. “What brings you to our house this night? A message from your mistress, perhaps?”

The blue eyes flickered and the pouting lips firmed at the mention of the lady in black. “I come on my own accord, my lord. Though we all hold the Matron in all honor, she is not our master. I heard your generous offer when she spoke to you. Would you offer another the same trust?”

Maxian cocked his head to one side and regarded the woman. He was centered again. The balance in the room changed, and he felt it. For all her glamour, the woman was an echo in an empty room. “You desire respite from pain?”

She bowed her head, the long tresses falling around her face. “Yes, lord. I and others will serve you and earn your trust if you will give us the elixir.” Her voice trembled, a ragged edge creeping into it.

“You understand that until you have won my trust, I will not reveal to you the mechanism of its manufacture?”, “Yes, lord. I… we… understand.”

“You will swear an oath to me, to follow my will and accept my protection? To do my bidding and to execute my desires in exchange for surcease from pain?”

“Yes.” She knelt on the floor at his feet and the air in the room subtly changed. Krista felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise up. The lamps flickered and dimmed, casting an odd gold light into the room. Her skirts and cloak puddled around her like a lake of ink, broken only by the long white trails of her hair. “I will be oathbound to you.” A hand crept out, trembling, to touch the toe of Maxian’s shoe.

The Prince stared down at the woman. He moved his boot and the hand withdrew.

“Your Matron has withdrawn her favor from you.” The statement hung in the air.

“Yes,” the woman whispered. “I… some of us protested her decision in the matter of your offer. We begged her to accept your patronage and let us be free of the pain. She refused to see reason, content to maintain the ancient traditions and usages of the people. She says that our freedom in pain is worth more than a delicious servitude. I protested too much, and she declared that I would be without her favor.”

“You are an exile, then. Without a home, without what protection she could offer you. In pain. Denied the Hunt. Suffering from the affliction that is upon your people.”

“Yes.” The woman sobbed, still kneeling, her head pressed to the floor at his feet. “Please help me, the hunger is like acid…”

“Then rise, swear to me, and you will know peace and ease and there will be no more pain.”

Alais rose, her face turned up to Maxian. It was pale and vulnerable, her eyes haunted. The Prince took her hand and helped her up. Her face was thinner now, touched by gaunt-ness. Krista pursed her lips, seeing the fabrics of the cloak frayed and thin in places. Maxian folded her hands together on her breast and tilted her head up a little. A capsule, swimming with ruby fluid, was drawn from inside his shirt. He raised it above her forehead.

“Close your eyes, Alais.”

The long eyelashes fluttered closed and her lips parted, the tip of her pink tongue visible. Maxian made a mark on her forehead, though nothing remained after his fingers had passed. The woman swayed and Maxian steadied her with a hand. Krista quietly stepped to one side, where she could see both of them clearly.

“Do you swear to abide by my will and desire? To execute my commands and to serve me in all honor? In . exchange for this I offer you the protection of my house and my servants.“

“I swear, my lord. We are strong and we can serve you well.”

“Then I banish your pain.”

The wax plug on the capsule came loose under his thumb and he dripped a little of the red fluid into her open, waiting mouth. Her tongue licked up to capture the drops. Maxian stepped back. Alais shuddered and crumpled to the ground, her limbs suddenly weak. She began gagging as her throat convulsed and her skin flushed. The Prince rubbed his chin in contemplation, watching her twitching at his feet. Krista slowly slid the spring gun out of her sleeve and leveled it on the woman on the floor. Alais groaned, a terrible sound that swelled until it filled the whole room. Then she shuddered one last time and lay still.

Maxian touched the top of her head lightly, and Alais turned her face up him. Krista hissed in surprise. The gaunt-ness was gone, a flush obvious in the woman’s cheeks. Her blue eyes were liquid and alive. Her red lips pressed against the Prince’s hand in a kiss.

“My lord, your blessing fills the world.”

The Prince smiled, his eyes narrowed in calculation. “Alais, rise up. Stand by me. You say there are others that feel as you do among your people. Bring them to me and I shall give them the same blessing, if they will swear to me.”

The blond woman curtseyed, her smile slow and languid, filled with promise.

“So you command, lord, so shall it be done.” The husky purr was back in her voice.

Krista, unseen by the Prince or the woman, rolled her eyes in disgust and slid the spring gun back into the leather sheath strapped to her arm. Maxian released Alais’ hand and the woman gathered her cloak around her. Bowing once more, showing a flash of firm high breast and smooth throat, she left. The Prince stared at the doorway for a mo ment, scratching at the stubble along his chin. Then he turned to Krista, who was standing by the inner door, her face a calm mask.

“Ah, well,” he said, “each tool to a purpose. I think that I shall give them to Gaius Julius as a diversion. He is jealous, I think, of Abdmachus and his works.”

“Jealous?” Krista raised an eyebrow. “Bored is more like it… you keep him mewed up in here, while you and the Persian labor on your creation. He wants to be out and about, putting that long nose of his where it does not belong, sniffing after the intrigues of the city.”

Maxian frowned, feeling the same sense of missed opportunity that he had felt before, when Krista had revealed her talent for languages. / had put him to work as my spy-master in Rome… “You are right. It is a waste to have him loitering around, drinking too much and trying to seduce the servants. I shall set him to work more to his liking.”

“Good,” Krista said, turning away, back to the tables filled with drawings.