Shadow of Ararat

THE WALLS OF PALMYRA

Zenobia stood on the battlement of the Damascus gate. Above her the sun blazed, a giant brass disk in a bone-white sky. The valley was filled with terrible heat, raising shimmering waves from the stones and sand. The Queen was garbed in thin silk robes that fluttered around her in the forge-hot breeze, clinging to the curve of her body. Her hair was loose, a dark cloud cascading around her shoulders. She had forgone the heavy crown of the city in favor of a thin band of silver set with a single ruby the size of her thumb. She looked down upon the Persian embassy with narrowed eyes.

“I am the Queen,” she said, “if you would speak to the city, you speak to me.”

The Persian herald, a thin brown man with a long nose, returned her gaze amiably. He was comfortable in tan and white desert robes and kajfieh, though the men behind him were red-faced and dressed in heavy, ornamental robes and armor. Zenobia guessed that at least one of them would faint from dehydration and the sun if she kept them there long enough. She looked forward to that with a small malicious pleasure.

“My master,” the herald said, “bade me bring you his best wishes on this day. He inquires if you would considei yielding the city to the might of Persia and receiving his clemency and gratitude.”

Zenobia sneered, her full lips-outlined with dark henna-twisting into a semblance of a smile. “Give youi master my condolences for his imminent death. Assure hirr that after the buzzards and vultures have picked his bones clean, I will see that his widow receives the remains in a fine burlap sack. I will give honor.to his family and grind the bones to powder myself! The city does not desire the clemency of bandits and thieves. Tell your master that we will not bow our necks to him. He, however, may come to me and beg forgiveness of his trespasses. My mercy is well known throughout the whole of the world.“

The herald nodded, taking a moment to fix her words in his memory.

“My master,” he replied, “the great General Shahr-Baraz, he who is known as the Royal Boar, the favorite of the great King Chrosoes, the King of Kings, is well known for his mercy, O Queen, and for his honorable word.”

Zenobia cocked her head to one side, staring down at the brown man. “And what, pray tell, does his honor have to do with murdering my people and looting the tombs of the fathers of the city?”

Overnight there had been odd cracking and thudding sounds from west of the city. Mohammed’s men, having slipped out of the city at dusk, returned before dawn with news that the Persians had been looting the tower tombs and carrying off their contents to the Persian camp in the hills. Zenobia had been forced to isolate the scouts in the basement of the palace to keep the word from spreading. If the people of the city learned that the honored ancestors were being violated in such a way, they would have thrown the gates wide and charged out themselves with kitchen knives to take revenge upon the Persian army.

“My master’s honor is unimpeachable, O Queen. He has no quarrel with you or your city. His quarrel is with Rome and the murderers of his great and good friend, the Emperor Maurice. He does not desire to cause you harm-he desires only peace between the great and noble realm of Persia and the renowned city of Palmyra.”

“He expresses his friendship,” Zenobia said, her voice languid, “in a strange way. Thousands are dead in this

‘peace,’ and many more will die here in the dreadful heat before his peace is done.“

One of the Persian nobles began to breathe heavily, leaning sideways on his horse. The other nobles glanced at him out of the corner of their eyes, but no one moved to help him. The noble began to flush a bright red and his breathing became more labored.

The herald ignored the soft noises behind him, continuing to watch Zenobia with a mild expression on his face. “O Queen, if this disagreement is pursued to its conclusion, you and all of your people will be slain or driven into the desert. Your city, if it resists, will be utterly destroyed. No stone will remain on stone. Its name will disappear from history, buried by the sand. But peace… peace and friendship with Persia will make you mighty. The entire world will hear of the glory of Palmyra and wonder at the magnificence of it. Do you not chafe under the auspices of Rome? That mean, gray old man who clutches at you with greedy fingers? That miserly father who demands that you pay and pay, without hope of a return? Where is the investment in this? Where is Rome now? You stand alone, brave and glorious, against the might of Persia. None can say that you have not done your duty-the honor of the city is satisfied. Why continue to fight?”

Zenobia leaned forward, resting her palms on the hot ashlar stones of the battlement. “Tell your pig master, this Boar, that Zenobia will not be foresworn. His master is a whoring pustule of evil and his honor is worthless. Palmyra will stand against him.”

The herald nodded, his face creased by a slight smile. “Be it so, O Queen. My master makes one final offer, then, though if you call him faithless, then it bears no weight on the balance of your judgment. He will send a champion forth, one man, to face the champion of the city. In single combat, here on the plain before the gates, they will fight. The man who stands the victor will carry the day. If youi champion triumphs, my master will withdraw and his army with him. Palmyra will remain free. If my master’s champion triumphs, then Palmyra will accept the friendship of Persia and open her gates.“

The herald bowed deeply in the saddle and then turned his horse about. The Persian nobles turned as well, though the red-faced man had to be helped by two of his companions. The embassy rode away, seemingly small under the white glare of the sun. Zenobia remained on the wall, watching, until they disappeared into the dun-colored hills. Then she turned away and, surrounded by her guardsmen, descended the broad stone stairs to the courtyard below. Her face was pensive with worry.

“All rhetoric and disputation aside, my lady,” ibn’Adi said, his face grave, “I have never heard that Shahr-Baraz was faithless. He has always served Chrosoes with honor, even when the King was a prisoner in his own keep. Did he not go into exile with the young King to Rome, leaving behind all lands and family? If he swears this, he may well mean it.” The sheykh leaned back in his chair, stroking his long white beard in thought.

Zenobia looked around the gathering, gauging the reactions of the men she had assembled in her study to advise her. Her younger brother, Vorodes, and the Southerner, Mohammed, were eyeing each other, seeing who would offer first to bear the honor of the city. The high priest of • Bel, old Septimus Haddudan, was sunk in deep depression. Though in his youth he had been a firebrand and a kingmaker in the politics of the city, now he was tired and withdrawn. Once the General Zabda would have sat at her council as well, but since his failure at Emesa she would have nothing to do with him. Ahmet she looked to last. His eyes were troubled, but his face was calm.

“The fate of one against the fate of the city,” she said slowly. “I too have heard that the Boar is an honorable man. His position is tenuous, trapped here in the desert at our gates. Men in such a place often look for a bold throw to give them victory at little cost.“

Her fingernails, long and carefully shaped by her handmaidens, tapped on the smooth surface of the table by her chair. Ahmet watched her, seeing something of her thoughts in her face.

“I shall accept the challenge,” she said after a moment of reflection. “Mohammed, send one of your rascals to the Persian camp, under truce, to carry word of my acceptance. Tell the Boar that my champion will meet him on the field before the city tomorrow morning, at dawn.”

Mohammed raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You think that he will stand forth himself?”

Zenobia smiled, saying: “Has he ever lost a fight, man to man? No. Or so his legend holds. He is not the kind of man to send another to defend his honor for him. It will be he.”

“Then,” Vorodes said, breathlessly, “his defeat would wound Persia twice-once in their failure to capture the city and once in his death, for he is their strongest arm!”

A grim look passed over Zenobia’s face and her lips thinned to a harsh line. “Yes, that is the prize.”

Ahmet woke in full darkness. Zenobia was curled up in the curve of his body, her head tucked into his shoulder. Her breath whistled softly at his ear. The room was dark; even the narrow band of eastern sky that was visible through the windows was as black as pitch. Gently, he eased out from under her, leaving her among the pillows and quilts, frowning in her sleep. In the faint light, she seemed more beautiful than ever, a perfect alabaster statue among the dark blankets. He pulled on his breechcloth and tunic, smoothing back his hair. He did not bind it, but he did find his longer robe. The door opened silently on well-greased hinges and he went out into the passage.

The wall that girdled the palace formed the southeastern point of the city. Ahmet walked along the parapet in the dim light of torches placed in iron brackets along the battlement. Two of the city guardsmen followed him at a discreet distance, keeping an eye on the shadowed hills to the west. The Egyptian walked slowly, tasting the air, trying to divine what it was that had waked him. There was something, some pressure in the air, that raised hackles along his back. He dimly sensed forces gathering the darkness, out among the narrow canyons and ravines that edged the fertile plain around the city.

He stared out into the night, seeing only the faint light of watchfires among the Persian tents. Soon dawn could come. He shook his head, still uneasy, and went back inside.

Pink and amber streaked the sky in the east. Zenobia came to the Damascus gate, riding on a stout-chested mare with Ahmet and Mohammed at her side. Vorodes and the royal guardsmen were waiting, torches held up to banish the lingering night. The Prince was unhappy, and he did not bother to disguise it as he looked up at his sister.

“Peace, little brother,” she said. “I am the better swordsman. I should not have to prove it to you again before you open the gate.”

The Queen was clad in dull dark armor; a breastplate of iron, worked with the signs of the city, wrapped her torso. Her shoulders and arms were covered with a lamellar mail, a supple coat of iron rings that flowed with her motion. The broken wings had been restored to her helm, and it was snugged tight under her chin. A long sword laid across her saddle, cased in a metal scabbard ornamented with lions and elephants. An inch of the blade peeked out, showing a watery surface that caught the light of the lanterns and held it, glowing like a jewel. Overlapping plates of iron covered her legs, tucked in against the sides of the horse. Tough leather riding boots and gloves protected her hands and feet. Another sword, this one plain and well worn, was clasped behind her on the side of the saddle, and she balanced a long, slim lance with a steel leaf-shaped blade on the right side of the horse.

Vorodes had a sick look in his eyes, and he grasped his sister’s stirrup fiercely. “Please, let me go instead. If you die, then the city will lose its heart. If I die, then you will still stand. The Boar has your reach; he outweighs you by a hundred pounds! He is a giant, and though you are faster with a blade than any man I’ve seen, he will crush you with sheer strength.”

Zenobia smiled and ran her hand through his hair. “I love you too, little brother. It was my folly that brought us to this day; it is my responsibility to make amends for it if I can.”

The Queen looked around at the faces of the men, their faces somber in the flickering light. “My friends, it has been an honor for me to stand with you in battle and in peace. I have bent my thought to this moment for a day and a night. I am a better swordsman than my brother. You, ibn’Adi, are too old, though I see in your heart and in your tears that you would go forth if I asked you. You, Mohammed, you I might send if you were of the city-but you are a stranger here, though Bel bless us that you have come. Without you and your bravery on the field at Emesa, I fear none of us would have escaped alive. And you, Ahmet, dear Egyptian, have you ever held a sword in your life?”

Ahmet laughed, seeing the sparkle in her eyes, and the Other men laughed as well. The dreadful tension was broken, just for a minute, and Zenobia looked around gaily, her face lit with great happiness. “Open the gate. Let us be done with this.”.

Vorodes gestured to the guardsmen arrayed on either side of the gate. There was a clanking sound and then a grinding as the huge iron bolts that secured it were withdrawn into the rock of the towers. Windlasses creaked as men labored in hidden rooms to turn the wheels that withdrew the foot-thick iron bars. When they had receded, the guardsmen put

T

their shoulders to the heavy cedar doors and the gate swung wide.

Zenobia urged her horse forward and it trotted out onto the sloping ramp. The sky had lightened, revealing the plain and the looming shapes of the tomb towers that marked its border. Light grew and Zenobia waited under the torches and lanterns, alone before the gate of the city.

The sun peeped over the eastern rim of the world, and the road between the funereal monoliths was at last illuminated. A single figure waited-a dark shape on a black horse. There were no Persians in sight; even their scouts had withdrawn. The light of the sun touched the top of one of the towers, and it glowed like a pearl in the dawn.

The dark shape rode forward slowly, and a dreadful chill touched the Queen. The sun continued to rise, touching each of the tomb towers in turn, creeping down their sides with a wash of golden light.

“It is the one I felt at Emesa,” Ahmet said from the shadow of the gate. “The terrible power that struck down the Red Prince.”

He stood forward, his shoulders square, and put his headdress and robe aside. A tremendous calm had settled over him, and his heart was suddenly light. He knew why he had come to this place. “This is for me, my lady, not for you.”

Zenobia turned her horse, staring at the priest with stunned eyes.

Ahmet made a half smile. “The Boar desires only victory, not the honor of the world.”

“No…” she whispered, but stood frozen as he walked past her, his staff held under one arm.

Ahmet turned at the bottom of the ramp, his bare feet digging into the sand. “Close the gate and set a watch upon every wall. This is a little deceit; it may grow larger.”

Ibn’Adi and Mohammed took Zenobia’s reins from her nerveless hands and led her back into the city. Vorodes stared out at the barren field, where Ahmet walked alone, and put his shoulder, with the others, to the great gate to swing it closed.

Sand crunched under his feet as Ahmet crossed the bridge at the foot of the wall. The dark shape remained, sitting on the horse under the shadow of the tombs. As he walked, the Egyptian was calming his mind, settling into the fourth entrance of Hermes. Though the plain appeared flat and smooth to the eye, hollows and rocks made it uneven. Footing would be poor, and he could not afford to lose sense of his physical body. Perception unfolded, the sky falling away in a riot of blazing lights and swimming with patterns of force. He focused on holding his physical sight and senses together.

The figure moved, the black horse walking forward a few paces. Then it stopped and the robed figure dismounted, his cowl falling away from a pale head. Ahmet stiffened, seeing the vulpine line of the skull. The shock of perception was like a blow to the face. The enemy sent his horse away. Then it turned, arms held away from its body, and Ahmet saw its eyes blaze with subtle fire.

A dead thing in the shape of a living man, he thought in amazement. What hell did it crawl forth from to learn the usages and speech of men?

Ahmet’s shields flickered, growing stronger and more complex with each moment. The Egyptian spoke words to himself, things half remembered from the chanting of the masters of his order, keys to unlock the powers and patterns of the ancient gods. The air around him trembled and mortar in the towers that bounded the field of battle on two sides began to fray.

Seventy feet separated them. The dark shape bowed its head and Ahmet felt the earth echo with some dark thought. He balanced on the balls of his feet, his mind quiet. The thing looked up.

/ am Dahak, echoed in his thoughts, a caress of ice. Bow to me and you will live.

No, Ahmet responded, Between the race of men and you there is no compromise.

Then you will serve me in death.

The plain of sand erupted in fire, the dark man’s hands raised in invocation. Ahmet danced aside, his shields ringing like an enormous bell as bolts of incandescent flame raged against them. He began to sweat, but his own hands danced and a Shockwave lashed through the ground, hurling the dark man aside like a doll. The earth shook and bricks and mortar toppled from the nearest tower. Dahak struggled up and Ahmet raced across the sand, his voice howling like the wind. Lightning lashed out from him, savaging the thing, tearing great blackened gashes in the desert floor.

The thing stood and its fist clenched. Ahmet’s shields fractured and crumpled under the blow, hurling him back thirty feet to smash flat onto the sand. He shook his head clear and rolled up as a line of white-hot fire scorched the ground where he had lain. The Egyptian rotated his right hand across the front of his body, and the air between him and the thing wavered glassily. Dahak’s second bolt spattered across the invisible barrier, etching it like acid. The sand under the wall of air boiled, fusing to mottled glass.

Ahmet snarled and swallowed the power in the stones of the nearest tower. Stones cracked like a bowstring and the entire edifice, thirty feet of sandstone blocks bigger than a man and thousands of pounds of brick and mortar, toppled slowly over. Dahak scrambled aside then made a prodigious leap into the air as the tower smashed down where he had been. The booming sound of the collapsing tower washed over Ahmet like a wave, and the sand jumped at the impact. Dust billowed up, obscuring the field. The Egyptian dashed to his right as fast as he could run.

The ground convulsed behind him, bulging upward like a mushroom with frightening speed. Then it burst, spraying sand in all directions, and something enormous and writhing with green-black tentacles was exposed for a split second before it all collapsed into the ground with a boom!

Sand fountained and the ground groaned as a deep pit was carved out. Lightning stabbed from Ahmet’s hands into the pall of dust that had billowed up from the tower, searching for the dark man.

A hammerblow threw the Egyptian to the ground and his shields flared like the sun, a hundred layers disintegrating in an instant. Through a blur of sweat and falling sand, Ahmet saw the dark man standing on the pinnacle of a tower on his left. On his knees, the priest screamed in rage and punched in the air at the distant figure. The tower exploded, erupting with shattered rock and brick from every window and doorway. It crumbled majestically, each floor shattering in succession and the whole thing toppling to one side. The dark figure staggered on the summit as it slid sickeningly toward the ground. Then Dahak sprang up and flew through the air to the next tower, his robes streaming out behind him like the wings of some enormous raven.

Ahmet wept in rage. The creature can fly!

The Egyptian staggered to his feet and drew his hands, palms facing, together before his chest, his face a mask of concentration. Around him the sand and rocks within a dozen paces flashed a bright blue-white and collapsed to ash and smoke. Snarling, his hands flexed outward, palms facing the figure of the enemy hurtling toward him through the air. He shouted, his voice enormous, filling the whole valley. In the city, windows of rare glass shattered, spraying the streets with a cloud of tiny knives. People screamed, their faces drenched with blood. The walls of the city shook and men stumbled back from the ramparts, stricken deaf by the sound.

Dahak slewed wildly to one side, trying to avoid the blow, but it was not enough. Something enormous slammed into him and his own shields blazed up, radiating tongues of flame in all directions. He cartwheeled through the air and smashed into the side of another tower. The edifice trembled and cracked, parts of the upper stories sliding down in slow motion, dust bursting out of the far side. The dark man pulled himself limply out of the crushed bricks, his right hand making a sign in the air before him.

Ahmet ran across the sand toward him, leaping over fallen pillars and broken statuary. Lightning danced from his hands, slashing across the face of the tower. Dahak wiped a pale hand across his mouth; it came away streaked with blood. A heavy bolt tore into his shields and the top half of the tower blew away in a cloud of bricks, dust, and bones. Heavy stones crumbled onto the sorcerer, smashing him to the floor of the doorway he had been blown into.

The Egyptian paused, panting, a good distance from the tower. It trembled and then collapsed in a roar of agonized stone and mortar. Ahmet struggled to rebuild his shields, now only a tattered wisp of their former strength. His hands were shaking and his nerves were an agony of brutalized tissue. He staggered, barely able to think. The Fist of Horus was more debilitating than he had heard.

Dahak rose up out of the rubble, a dark flame flickering around him. His face was a ruin of blood and broken bones. His mouth opened, showing sharp canines, and he screamed, a long dreadful cry of rage. In the city, men fell to the ground, mindless with fear. It was the sound of a great beast, hunting in the night beyond the light of the cave fire. On the wall Zehobia, her face streaked with tears, gripped with bloody fingers at the stones of the battlement.

Wreathed in a corona of ultraviolet fire, Dahak sped toward Ahmet, his mouth howling inhuman words. The sky darkened and Ahmet felt the sun grow dim. He clutched at the earth under his fingers, leaching the deep blue-green rivers of power that he felt under the land. The dark man raised a fist and then his hand flashed in a circle, describing a sphere filled with black light that he clawed from the air. His fist stabbed out. Ahmet surged up off the ground, wrapped in green fire of his own, then there was a brilliant light and the earth shook.

In the city, Zenobia wept to see the huge billow of flame that erupted from among the crooked towers. It blossomed like some infernal flower, rushing out in a blast that tore at the funereal pillars, turning the sand to glass around it. The hills rumbled with the sound of the blast and a hot wind flew before it. She turned away, shielding her face with her arm, still clad in the stout armor. Smoke shot into the sky, forming a pillar a mile high. When she turned back, nothing could be seen but desolation among the ruined towers save a single figure, black as night, stumbling among the shattered stones.

Dahak could barely see, his mind blinded by incredible pain. His skin smoked and his hair was burned away. He ran into something solid-the remaining fragment of a wall-and he slumped against it. He was exhausted, trembling with fatigue. His fingers, withered to clawlike talons, scraped at the stone for purchase, but there was none. The rock was very hot and it burned him as he slid down it. The sky wavered overhead and he moaned. All around him the air was filled with the creak of stones cracking and snapping as they cooled from the incredible heat. He crawled away, instinctively looking for some hole or pit to crawl into.

Fifty yards away, his skin caked with fine gray ash, Ahmet lay senseless in the center of the destruction. A fine dust rained out of the sky, powdered brick and stone, settling over him like a funeral cloth. His clothes had been burned away and long burns scarred his face and chest where his failing shields had ruptured. His breathing faltered and then stopped.

A thick pall of smoke and dust hung over the valley, drifting slowly to the south.

On the ridge, Baraz nudged his horse forward with his knees and looked down upon the city. Nothing moved. He motioned for his standardbearer and trumpeters to advance. His own long banner now flew, the stylized head of a tusked boar on a field of dark green. He wore his own armor too, old and battered and nicked by a hundred battles.

He rubbed his hand across the greasy iron rings. This is as it should be, he thought. Men will do this work and win this victory. He waved to the banner men behind him.

“Signal the attack!” he shouted, his voice ringing like a bell. Below the lip of the ridge, tens of thousands of Persians rose from a crouch and began moving forward. Those few engines that his engineers had been able to cobble together from the wagons rumbled forward on the road. The Boar turned his eyes back to the walls of the city and a fierce exultation filled him.

“Persia!” he shouted, raising his sword to catch the sun. “And victory!”