Shadow of Ararat

THE DAMASCUS GATE, PALMYRA

The midmorning air trembled with a booming shock. Dust rose in a great pillar over the rooftops of the city. The sky was very blue, almost pure undiluted color, scrubbed clean of any clouds or impurities. The dust rose up, a bone-colored smear against the deep blue. Mohammed turned from the doorway, his face graven with weariness. His eyes were old in a still-young face. The kaffieh that was wound around his head and trailed over his shoulder was dirty and spotted with old blood. His breastplate was scored and marked with dozens of tiny dimples where spears, swords, arrows had been turned aside by the stout metal. His hands were marked with many cuts and stiff bandages were tied between his fingers. Still, his right hand rode easily on the pommel of a well-used saber.

“My Queen,” he said to the darkened room, “I must go to the gate. The Persians will come again in strength.”

“Is this the last day?” came a murmur from the darkness. There was a slithering sound as silk sheets rustled and fell away. In the dim light, the Southerner could see a pale blur rise up and slowly swim into focus as it came toward him. He bowed and took the hand of the woman.

“It may be,” he said, his voice gravelly with the strain of a hundred days of shouting commands. “There is something in the air… perhaps the wizard will show himself. If he does, then the gate will fail and the Persian will walk the streets of the city.”

Zenobia squeezed his hand, her long fingers firm.

“I shall command the people of the city to retire to the palace,“ she said. ”If the gate falls, then we will fight on here. Mohammed…“

He released her hand. Her shift was plain soft cotton, falling to her ankles, and her hair was loose and uncombed, a tangled cloud, around her neck and shoulders.

The southerner raised a hand, his fingers to her lips. “Say nothing, my lady. I choose to stand with my friends. I do not regret it, though it grieves me to see that your dream has died. I was lost for many years. In this struggle I have found purpose, short-lived though it may be, and I am well pleased for it.”

The Queen smiled, her eyes sparkling in the dim light. The press of events had finally stirred her from the death-watch that had possessed her for so long.

“I will be at your back, then, Al’Quraysh.”

There was the echo of another boom, louder than the first.

“Go, your purpose is getting impatient.”

He bowed again and strode out, his boots clicking on the polished tiles.

When he was gone, Zenobia returned to the bed and crawled across its expanse. Her fingers traced the forehead, sharp nose, and lips of the man lying in it. She bent close and kissed him, though he did not move. She felt only a faint breath on her cheek, but it was enough to know that he was alive.

“Well, my love, sleep in peace. I have duty to attend to.”

Zenobia stood up, feeling the leather strapping of the bed give under her weight, and pulled the slip off over her head. She stepped lightly off the bed and ran a hand through her hair. It was a mess and she frowned at the tangles caught in her fingers.

Silly, she thought to herself, it doesn’t matter if my hair is combed and brushed for death.

But then she paused and turned the silver mirror on her wardrobe toward her. No, she thought, today it does matter.

She rang a small glass bell, summoning her servants to draw her bath and dress her.

Mohammed looked out over the plain before the city. It seethed like an enormous anthill with men and horses and engines of war. The Persians had been coming down out of the hills since the dawn had broken, long lines of spearmen hurrying down the road. Horsemen thundered past, their lances glittering like stars. Four more great siege towers had been raised up and now they crouched a hundred yards from the wall. Stone-throwers couched behind battlements of rocks and raised earth lay behind them. As Mohammed watched, the one nearest the gate released, sending a boulder the size of a small man flying into the air.

“ ‘Ware!” echoed in a shout down the line of the battlement. Men ducked their heads below the merlons. The stone hissed through the air and struck the pinnacle of the left tower at the gate. Stone splintered violently on stone and shards of rock sprayed on the men crouched below. The gate tower stood unmoved, though another pale scar had been gouged from the sandstone facing.

Mohammed stood again, his hand shading his eyes. Hundreds of Persian archers in light armor and quivers full of arrows were running forward toward the gate. Among them, men jogged under the weight of mantlets woven from reeds gathered from the stream that fell away east of the city and leather cured from their own horses. All along the front of the enemy army, regiments and battalions were forming up. Men jostled to raise ladders to their shoulders. Arrows began to fly up from the advancing ranks, a dark cloud of angry birds.

“This is it,” Mohammed said to his commanders, stepping back from the fighting slit. “He has come out.”

Away, across the plain, behind the engines and the tens of thousands of men, a black wagon drawn by ten black horses had appeared on the road. A solid wall of knights in heavy armor surrounded it. Their banners were dark,

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long fluttering pennons in the shape of serpents with scarlet scales. Around it, the marching men of the Persian army shied away, leaving a great clear space. Mohammed blinked-the air seemed to twist and shimmer over the distant image.

“Ten serpents…” he muttered, pursing his lips in thought. He shook his head, unable to dredge up the memory.

“To arms!” Mohammed shouted, his voice ringing out over the battlements and the shattered buildings behind the wall. Metal rang on stone as the Palmyrenes rushed to the wall. The Southerner looked out over them, a ragged line of men in battered armor and scarred faces. Too few of them were soldiers; most were the men of the city forced to defend their homes. Many had never held a spear or hacked at another man with a sword before these days. Now they were blooded veterans, forged hard in this hellish place. Mohammed turned back to the wall. Arrows rained out of the sky, clattering on the stones. He pressed himself close to the dun-colored brickwork.

Men along the battlement popped up, loosed their arrows into the running mass of Persians heading for the wall, and then ducked back down again. Mohammed drew his saber and checked the edge for chips or cracks. Shouting rose from below the wall. Another great stone caromed off of the nearest tower and bounced down onto the wall. Mohammed turned his head and cowered behind his shield. The stone plowed into a knot of men, bakers by the signs they had painted on their shields, and smashed them into a bloody dough of splintered bones and crushed intestine. Arrows fell like rain.

The ladders hit the wall, a long rippling rattle of wood on stone. Mohammed sprang up and raised his saber.

“Up! Up!” he screamed. “To the walls!”

The two Tanukh who shadowed the general stabbed out with their spears, pushing at the slats of the nearest ladder. One spear caught and the man put his shoulder into it. The ladder slid sideways and then suddenly toppled over. Screams and yells of anger filled the air. Mohammed ran back up onto the fighting platform that jutted from the side of the tower. Hundreds of ladders had gone up along the wall and the men of the city were furiously engaged, shoving them back. The city archers fired down into the masses of men swarming at the base of the wall, their arrows punching down into upturned faces. Another stone sailed oyer the wall and crashed through the tile roof of a building across the street. Fire gouted up from the ragged hole.

The sky above was serene and blue, clear as a high mountain lake.

Zenobia stepped out onto the broad brick platform that was raised before the vast bulk of the palace. The gates were swung wide and a constant stream of women, children, and old men poured up the ramp and into the precincts of the royal family. She walked out onto one of the buttresses that held the great winged lions, her left hand on the muzzle of the beast. Her attendants had repaired her golden armor and polished her silver helm to a brilliant sheen. She had added a long cape of purple with a gold trim as well. The wings that swept back from her face gleamed in the sun. It was heavy on her head and a trail of sweat trickled down the side of her cheek.

The people pushing past below in the gate looked up at her and smiled, though their faces were haunted by the long siege. Many raised their hands to her, seeking her blessing. She smiled down upon them. There was little she could do now, though the sight of her brave figure might give them hope for the hours that remained. She felt cold inside, shaky with apprehension.

The lion trembled under her hand and a moment later the air shook with the sound of a deafening crash. Zenobia’s head snapped around and across the city. At the distant embattled gate she caught sight of a vast towering shape out of the corner of her eye, something wreathed in smoke and flame, looming over the towers. Titanic wings unfurled and Zenobia reeled, gripped by a terrible nausea. The sun seemed to dim and the earth grew silent. The shape struck downward and there was a tremendous booming sound. It struck again and towers and stone cracked. It struck a third time and the gate towers crumbled in a huge gout of dust and smoke. The tower to the right side of the gate split down the side and tilted over. Hundreds of tons of sandstone and concrete crumbled down into the street. The thing moved in the smoke and fire roared up. A nightmare head was’thrown back in howl of victory and Zenobia fell to her knees, her heart thudding like a dove.

Across the width of plaza, men and women threw themselves to the ground, shrieking in fear. The darkness on the sun choked the sky. Zenobia struggled to rise, her mouth twisted in a feral scream of rage and defiance. The thing at the gate stomped forward, its mammoth shoulder brushing against the second tower. The stone crumbled and cracked, sending screaming men flying from the platform. Zenobia staggered to her knees and raised the sword of her father up. Her mouth struggled to cry out, but the air was chill and cold and no sound escaped her lips.

“Enough,” rang out from behind her. “This is a world of men, not of demons.”

The thing at the gate seemed to grow, towering over the city, its serpentine legs smashing buildings to ruin. A red mouth whirled open, filling the streets with a howling hot wind. Fires sprang up in the dry buildings. A roar shattered the air, driving all thought and consciousness from men.

Zenobia turned her head, a Herculean effort, for fear and despair beat down upon her like the blows of a blacksmith’s hammer. Ahmet stood in the gateway, leaning on a staff of pale wood, his scarred body barely covered by a clean cotton robe. White fire ringed him, a shuddering corona of a thousand rays. She cried out in pain at the light that shone from him.

“Azi Dahak, I name you, dark power of witchcraft and lies.” His voice rang like thunder.

The thing at the gate convulsed, steams and smokes billowing from it. A tentacular claw lashed out, sending a jagged bolt of flame licking across the length of the city. Ahmet raised his hand. The flame sputtered and died, falling into the streets as pale white smoke.

“Azi Dahak, the ten serpents, I name you.” The sun flared, a white nimbus, and shadows fell upon the ground in opposing directions.

“Azi Dahak, I bind you in the name of the Binder. I compel you in the name of the God that Died and has Risen with the Sun.” Zenobia, her ears ringing with a tremendous noise, fell back to the ground, nerveless and without thought. The whole universe around her seemed only to be the ragged voice of Ahmet, shouting against a gale of wind.

The thing that towered over the city reached down and dust spouted up as its claws dug into the earth, tearing aside brick and mortar and concrete like dry grass. Ahmet staggered forward to the top of the ramp. He made a sign in the air, something that flickered and changed and hung in the wind like a glowing star.

“Azi Dahak, in the name of the Lord of Light, the maker of the world, begone!”

Wind rose in a gale, tearing at the clothing of the people lying senseless within the palace grounds. Bricks and tile sheared off the roofs of buildings and flew toward the’thing. A whirling storm of wind hissed up off of the deserted streets and abandoned gardens. Timbers, wagons, the bodies of men, entire roofs of tile and slate, leapt into the air. The vortex hammered at the thing, raging with fire and crackling with lightning. It shrank, clawing at the air around it, tumbling palaces and temples. The columns that lined the great avenue tore from the earth and arrowed into the heart of the creature. Marble and agate burst into flames and were devoured, by the shape. The sun expanded, filling the whole sky. Men screamed and tore at their faces, feeling their skin dissolve and burn away.

An enormous clap of thunder shocked the city, breaking statues of long-dead kings into a thousand shards, shivering goblets and amphorae into dust. The thing that raged against the whirlwind folded in upon itself and then, with a hot spark of black light, vanished.

Silence fell upon the city. The wind died. The sun stood forth in the blue vault of heaven, a solitary disk. Dust fell in a fine rain from the sky, covering everything with a mourners’ pall.

Zenobia crawled from under the rubble of the winged lion. A great stone wing had fallen over her, shielding her from the flying debris. The lion’s head was gone, torn clean off. The other lion was scattered across the courtyard. Ahmet lay in the threshold of the gate, his tattered robe wrapped around his loins. She touched his face.

It was as cold as any stone. Trembling fingers pressed against his neck, but there was nothing. Tears fell, sparkling like dew on his haggard, dead face. The Queen of the city wept.

The General Khadames raised his head up, shaking broken roofing tiles from his helmet. Around him, before the gate of the city, thirty thousand men were stirring, amazed that they were alive. They rose, by ones and twos, covered with fine white dust, ghosts in a desolate world. Khadames stood and ran his gloved hands over his body. He was stunned to be alive, much less whole. He looked around, blinking his eyes to clear the grit from them.

The ladders had been torn from the walls, leaving hundreds of men writhing on the ground injured or dead. The siege towers were only‘ lonesome great wheels leaning against timbers torn in half like straws. Acres were covered with horses lying dead on the ground, their riders missing or crawling away, crying out in horror.

The gate of the city was gone. One tower had been smashed down into a great ash heap, while the other leaned drunkenly, its top half torn away. The massive doors themselves were nowhere to be seen. An empty street, lined with broken columns like the stumps of teeth, could be seen through the ruin. Men stirred in the rubble or wandered in the avenue, dazed and mindless.

Khadames cleared his throat, but then paused and looked around him in sudden fear.

The black wagon had slid off of the road, a hundred feet behind him. The black horses were scattered about it, dead, their corpses withered and desiccated. The host of knights who had surrounded it in such terrible panoply lay in rows, their arms and legs a jumble of cracked and broken limbs. Khadames breathed a short prayer, but it stuck in his throat.

A dark figure moved in the field of the dead. Cowled in sable, limping, one bony hand clutching a staff of ivory bone, his master came toward him. Cold dread crawled out from that figure, pooling in the hollows of the ground and lapping around Khadames’ boots with an icy touch. One of the knights twitched, moaning, hand scrabbling at the earth. The dark figure bent over it, ragged robes masking the boy who lay on the ground.

There was a soundless cry. The dark figure straightened, filled with momentary strength. It strode toward Khadames. He fell to one knee as it approached, his fist wrapped tight around the hilt of his sword.

“The way is open,” a voice hissed out of the black cowl. “We enter the city.”

Khadames nodded but did not look up until the dark figure had passed him.

“Take him away,” Zenobia shouted, her face streaked with tears. “Hide him in the cellars, someplace no one knows. Quickly!” Her handmaidens gasped at the weight of the dead man and raised him up upon their shoulders. The Queen clapped her hands sharply and they staggered off at almost a run. Soldiers were trickling up the ramp from the ruin of the city. One of the Tanukh, a crude bandage wrapped around his head, hobbled up.

“O Queen, the Persians have entered the city. There are thousands of them and few of us.”

Zenobia nodded, looking around quickly. Scarcely a hundred men had managed to reach the palace. A few more were running down the avenue. The long lines of columns had fallen, or their arches had collapsed. The Queen surveyed the wreckage of her proud city with dry eyes. She had no more tears to shed.

“Any man with a bow to the wall, you others close the gates. You, Tanukh man, did the Lord Al’Quraysh survive the battle at the gate?”

The Tanukh shook his head slowly, bowing it in sorrow. “No, O Queen, I did not see him. Everyone on the wall or in the towers is dead.”

“It is enough that he died bravely,” Zenobia said, her eyes glittering like steel. Her saber rasped from its sheath. The blade was still true.

“Begin building a wall,” she called out to the men who had ground the gate closed. “Here, at the top of the ramp. You and you, run back into the palace and find oil and wood, anything that will burn.”

She walked to the top of the ramp and planted her feet, legs wide. The saber gleamed in her hands. She said nothing, waiting, while the few men still at her command rushed to build a wall of fallen stones, bodies, anything that they could find. The Queen’s face was cold and filled with hate.

In the avenue of the city, armored men advanced under a dark banner bearing a wheel of ten interlocking serpents. They made no sound, staring around them in horror at the devastation.

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