Authors: Joseph Finley
“Zoroaster was the greatest sage and seer among the magi. He prophesied that in the next three millennia, at the time of the Great Conjunction, a world savior would come to continue the battle between Ohrmazd, the god of good, and Ahriman, the god of evil. Thus, the magi looked to the time of these world saviors, each a messiah born to a virgin mother.”
“And to find him,” Dónall said, “they followed a star. And I’m certain they would have taken the device.”
“But who are they?” Alais asked.
“Why, my dear,” Dónall replied, “you know of them as the Three Wise Men.”
“T
here is one problem,” Isaac
said. “I am no expert on your Christian gospels, but I recall no mention of a jewel or a stone, and no reference to the Urim.”
Dónall shook his head. “There must be a connection. To the magi, the birth of Christ would have appeared as the fulfillment of Zoroaster’s prophecy. Surely they would have entrusted Enoch’s device to one they believed to be a messiah.” He turned to Khalil. “What do you know about the magi and sacred stones?”
“Next to nothing,” Khalil said. “The magi focused on the primordial elements of water and fire. One of their symbols was a chalice of flame.”
“Wait,” Ciarán said. “What was this chalice made of?”
“Gold, of course,” Khalil replied.
“The Three Gifts,” Ciarán said, thinking quickly. “The Wise Men brought gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold
.
What if that gold had been shaped into an object—into, say, a chalice?”
Dónall looked stunned. “The cup of Christ?”
“But the Urim is a
stone,
” Isaac insisted.
Ciarán ran his fingers through his hair. They must be missing something. Then suddenly, he looked to Talid. “Does your catalog reference a Book of Enoch?”
Talid raised a curious brow. “It should.” He began flipping through the catalog, his lips pursed. “Right here,” he said, looking up from his lens.
“Brilliant, lad!” Dónall said, his eyes aglow.
Ciarán could hardly wait as Talid climbed the tallest ladder to retrieve an age-worn scroll from one of the drawers. Climbing back down, he carefully unfurled the cracked and brittle papyrus.
Ciarán looked at the brownish script. “It’s not in Greek—I can’t read it.”
“That one’s more than a thousand years old,” Talid said, “so it’s in Aramaic.”
Isaac looked hopelessly to Khalil, who just shook his head.
“Fortunately for you,” Talid continued, “I can read eight languages, one of which happens to be ancient Aramaic.”
Ciarán gestured toward the scroll. “Look toward the middle, for a passage that reads, ‘And there I saw a great and glorious device at the ends of the whole earth.’”
Khalil’s eyes narrowed with recognition. “The reference to Enoch’s device?”
“Yes,” Dónall said.
Ciarán waited anxiously while Talid read in silence. “I’ve found it,” he finally said. “‘A great and glorious device.’”
“Good,” Ciarán said. “Before that reference should be a series of verses where the archangels show Enoch the world. Look for the part where they take him to a mountain and reveal the secrets of the heavens.”
Talid’s finger ran up the scroll. “Here it is.”
“Read it aloud.”
And the angels carried me to the summit of a mountain, which reached to heaven.
And I beheld the light and the mysteries of the stars and the thunder in the deepest depths, and I saw among the heavens a fiery bow and arrow . . .
“There!” Ciarán exclaimed. “We must have overlooked it at Saint-Bastian’s, but the bow and arrow is a symbol for Sagittarius, the prophecy’s sign for Enoch’s device!” He could scarcely contain his eagerness. The next verse would be critical. “What does Enoch see next?”
“‘
And to the west I saw a river of fire,
’” Talid read. “‘
To the south I beheld the great mountains. To the east I saw the rivers of the earth and the deep of the sea. And to the north I saw the storehouse of the winds.
’”
Ciarán’s mind was racing.
The four elements: fire, earth, water, wind.
In the symbolism of the Fae, the sequence became clear:
Staff . . . stone . . . cup . . . sword!
Dónall’s jaw dropped. Talid, meanwhile, turned ashen. Eyes wide, he looked past Ciarán. Behind him, Alais gasped, and Khalil reached for his sword.
Ciarán whirled around. In the chamber’s threshold stood the eunuch Najah, gripping a curved sword. Beside him were more than a dozen Moorish warriors, with blades drawn. A black-robed imam looked on, shouting commands in Arabic.
Talid fell to his knees, his face twisted in agony.
Najah lunged, the tip of his blade aimed at Khalil’s neck, as a Moor grabbed Khalil’s sword arm, forcing his blade back into its scabbard. Dónall yelled at two Moors who were wrestling him back against the wall. His shouts echoed through the chamber, mixing with the imam’s cries. A burly warrior grabbed Ciarán by the shoulder, while three others brandished their scimitars at Alais and Isaac.
On his knees, Talid cradled the Book of Enoch, pleading, but the imam ripped the ancient scroll from his grasp. The scroll tore in half, and a handful of papyrus wafted to the floor.
Talid’s face twisted in agony, and he let out a horrid, bloodcurdling cry.
*
The Moors led their prisoners into the plaza. A heavy mist soaked the air. Overhead, black clouds loomed, shrouding the library’s turrets and the minaret of the Great Mosque.
The warriors numbered at least twenty, all with spears or swords and all answering to the severe-looking imam, whom Ciarán recognized as one of the leaders of the book-burning two days ago. Alais clung to Ciarán’s hand, and he could see the fear in her eyes. Khalil knew better than to resist their captors, as did Isaac, who trudged alongside Dónall, defeated. Next to them, two of the warriors dragged the hysterically sobbing Talid.
Over the river, lightning flashed, and nearer by, a gust of wind rocked the oil lamps that surrounded the plaza. In that wind, Ciarán heard the faint whisper of voices.
The Moors, led by Najah and the imam, escorted their prisoners from the plaza, glancing nervously at the brewing storm.
“Where are they taking us?” Alais whispered.
“To the Court of Al-Mansor,” Khalil said quietly. “When we get there, let me speak.”
Ciarán barely nodded, wondering whether Khalil heard the whispers in the wind or realized that a smoky fog was following them down every narrow street, gliding over the rooftops and through the winding alleys.
The air was growing colder. Alais shivered, and Ciarán realized that she, too, heard the whispers. Dónall and Isaac glanced at the creeping fog with a look of dread in their eyes.
Before long, they arrived at a small fortress. Its domed turrets were barely visible beneath the dark mist that fell from clouds so low, they seemed about to swallow the building. Wind battered the banners that hung over the grand entryway.
In the wind, the voices were laughing.
The Moors escorted their captives through towering double doors, into a large hall dimly lit by bronze lamps suspended from the ceiling two stories above. Lining the hall were arcades of tall, narrow windows lined with intricate mosaics of colored glass, now darkened by the brooding clouds outside. On a dais at the far end of the hall, more warriors stood behind a thronelike chair flanked by glowing braziers.
A roar echoed through the hall. At the foot of the dais lay two great cats: one, a panther as black as the night; and the second, a tiger as pale as ivory, purring loudly. Each wore a golden collar attached to chains held by the burly warriors behind them.
Footfalls sounded against the tiled floor as Najah led the prisoners toward the man on the throne. He had a warrior’s physique and wore golden armlets, and black robes adorned with jeweled medallions. He regarded them through cunning eyes set in a cruel, handsome, gray-bearded face. An aura of power surrounded this man, who could be none other than Ibn Abi Amir, known to all as Al-Mansor.
Alais shuddered, and Ciarán squeezed her hand in reassurance that he did not feel.
Their captors stopped them five yards from the dais. Al-Mansor began speaking in a confident tone, while Isaac whispered a translation.
“Khalil al-Pârsâ,” Al-Mansor said with a dry smile. “The great poet has finally returned to my court. Your talents were once so promising. You were a painter with words, who could best my finest laureates. And now, look what has become of you. I thought your imprisonment would have cured you of your disrespect for my authority. Yet tonight you are found cavorting with foreign spies.”
Ciarán looked to Dónall.
Spies?
Dónall slowly shook his head, then winced as a flash of lightning lit the room, and thunder shook the windows lining the hall.
Al-Mansor cast a fleeting glance to the storm, then leveled his gaze again at Khalil. “Najah told me of your visit to the sultana.”
“Your own spy,” Khalil observed.
“Surely, you did not expect me to leave unwatched a woman as calculating as Subh?” Al-Mansor looked to his eunuch. “Najah, of what did they speak?”
“Of a weapon, my king,” Najah replied.
“This weapon,” Al-Mansor said icily, “is it for the kings of Spain? Did not the names León and Barcelona roll off your tongue in Subh’s parlor? Is that whom these infidels serve? Do the Spanish kings think they can use this weapon to defeat me?”
The anger beneath Al-Mansor’s voice made Ciarán’s blood run cold. Then another thunderclap shook the windows. Behind the glass panes, black fog surged.
Khalil answered in a tone that was confident almost to the point of nonchalance. “My colleagues do not serve the kings of Spain,” he said. “They are scholars from the Irish isle, and the weapon they spoke of was nothing more than a fanciful myth, a ruse to get us inside the Chamber of Enlightenment, where they sought to find some rare texts. So you see, we have broken no laws.”
Al-Mansor slammed a fist into the armrest of his throne. “Lies! You were found in a chamber of forbidden works offensive to Islam!”
Outside, the thunder growled.
“The documents sought were merely historical,” Khalil argued. “That is no crime.”
Al-Mansor’s eyes narrowed, surveying his captives. “
You
may or may not have committed a crime, Khalil, but
they
have. Those amulets around their necks—we have laws against displaying the symbols of infidel religions.”
Najah grasped the talisman hanging between Alais’ breasts. She looked desperately to Ciarán.
“A cross,” the eunuch spat.
Outside the windows, the air was pitch black. The panes shuddered at each thunderclap, and at the foot of the dais, the great cats stirred.
A narrow smile formed on Al-Mansor’s lips. “Bring those symbols to me.”
Najah took the talisman from Alais’ neck. She clenched Ciarán’s hand. The eunuch removed Ciarán’s talisman, then Isaac’s. The rabbi closed his eyes, muttering a Hebrew prayer.
Around them, the windows shook violently.
“You don’t want to do this,” Dónall told the eunuch in Latin.
Najah answered with a queer look. Then he ripped the final talisman from Dónall’s neck.
Glass began to crack, and then the windows exploded with a deafening sound. Glass shards sliced through the air as dense black fog poured through the breach.
Najah and the other Moors turned away in horror, and Al-Mansor shielded his face. With a roar, the great cats leaped to their feet as three snakelike clouds writhed toward the dais.
Dónall turned to his companions. “For the love of God, run!”
D
ónall did not look back,
even as a choked scream erupted behind him, followed by fierce roaring. The Moors, paralyzed with terror at the demons’ attack, ignored their fleeing captives. In the confusion, Khalil reclaimed his sword from the warrior who had dropped it when the windows exploded, and Dónall slung the book satchel over his shoulder. Amid the Moors’ cries, he saw Ciarán pulling Alais by the hand. She looked back toward Al-Mansor’s hall in horror while Isaac did his best to urge her forward. From the rabbi’s eyes, Dónall knew that they shared the same thought: there was very little time.
Outside, the thinning black clouds unveiled the light of the half-moon. Wind whipped from the hall into the plaza, rocking the lamps on their poles.
“Get to the ship!” Ciarán cried.
“During a
storm
?” Khalil asked.
“Do as he says,” Dónall shouted. “There’s protection there!”
Behind them, a collective cry rose from the hall—not a cry of terror, but one of zealous fury. Like a battle cry.
Dónall’s heart raced. He blew on his crystal, uttering the Fae word, and swept it into his line of sight. Through the crystal’s glow, he saw Najah rallying the others in the hall strewn with shattered glass. The shadowy form of the Gorgon’s hair wreathed the eunuch’s head, confirming Dónall’s worst fears. The demon’s fire burned red within the eunuch’s eyes.
Twice you failed to kill us with storms,
Dónall thought,
so now you’ll try to do it with swords.
“We’ll never make it to the docks!” Dónall yelled. In the moonlight, he could see the minaret of the Great Mosque towering over the rooftops. “Flee to the mosque instead!”
Khalil glanced at the Moorish swordsmen pouring from the hall. “Are you
mad
?”
“We need hallowed ground!”
Isaac nudged Khalil in the direction of the mosque. “Listen to him, my Muslim friend—those are demons that pursue us.”
Khalil looked back in disbelief.
“Go,” Isaac prodded.
Reluctantly, Khalil followed, but Dónall could not tell whether the Persian remained skeptical or was merely realizing the magnitude of the evil they faced.
Ciarán and Alais streaked toward the Great Mosque, with Dónall and Isaac doing their best to keep pace, as angry cries in Arabic echoed behind them.
The streets emptied into the plaza of the Great Mosque. In the shadow of the minaret, Ciarán and Alais ducked through the open gateway. The others followed. A garden of cypresses and palms filled the courtyard, flanked by porticoes. Moonlight shimmered on the surface of a long basin amid the soft chirring of crickets, and fog clung to the wet ground, giving the courtyard an eerie beauty. Ciarán and Alais headed for the entrance to the mosque, though Dónall wondered if that was necessary. The last time, the demons could not even cross the threshold of Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand.
Khalil scanned the courtyard for Moorish swordsmen. All was quiet, almost peaceful, and what clouds remained in the night sky gave way to a tapestry of stars behind the tranquil foreground of palms. Then Khalil grabbed Dónall’s sleeve and pointed toward a second gateway. “Look,” he whispered.
Two large creatures stalked into the garden. The beasts strode on all fours, one white and striped, the other black as night, their feline tails swaying back and forth. Dónall felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. A low, deep growl drowned out the crickets. In the crystal’s light, red eyes glowed in the faces of the great cats, and serpentine shadows wreathed their heads. “By Patrick’s beard,” Dónall muttered breathlessly, “this is a mosque—how . . . ?”
The white tiger roared, displaying great yellowed canines longer than a man’s fingers. The cats were but forty yards away.
“Hurry—in here!” Isaac called out from beneath one of the porticoes at the doorway to the minaret.
Across the garden, Alais screamed, and Ciarán pulled her toward the mosque. In a flash, the panther darted after them.
Khalil pushed Dónall toward the minaret. In the garden, the tiger bounded toward them. Dónall dived into the doorway. The tiger raced down the portico, its powerful muscles rippling beneath the striped white fur.
“Close the door!” Khalil cried.
Inside the darkened minaret, Dónall could hear the tiger’s breath as he swung the door shut. A simple iron bolt provided the only latch. Khalil slid it across the breach, just before the door shuddered from the great beast’s weight. An angry roar reverberated through the wood, and the door shook again under another impact.
Dónall had already started up the winding stairs. “I saw them in your light,” Isaac said, following him, huffing for breath. “You said hallowed ground would protect us.”
“Their spirits are encased in mortal shells; that’s the only explanation I can think of,” Dónall said, and bounded up the stairs. “Perhaps, in those bodies, they can go wherever mortals can.” He had to see what was happening in the courtyard. Below, the door shook again as the tiger raked the wood with its claws.
“This was a dramatically bad idea,” Khalil said as they reached the top, where the moonlight shone on a large, ornate carpet covering the floor beneath the minaret’s dome. Dónall strode through a pillared archway onto a circular balcony and leaned over the parapet. Ciarán and Alais were nowhere in sight, and warriors were pouring into the garden. Najah ran toward the portico. They would soon break down the door
,
Dónall realized.
Khalil unsheathed his sword, and Isaac looked at him as if he had gone mad. “You plan to kill a tiger with
that
?”
“Tell me a better idea,” Khalil insisted. “You led us here; now we’re trapped.”
Dónall glanced down to the garden’s floor, some seven stories below. From the stairwell, another thunderous impact rocked the minaret’s door, and this time he heard wood crack. The crystal’s light had begun to fade as a fierce crash resounded up the stairwell, followed by a triumphant roar. Dónall cursed, thinking,
it can’t end now.
Seeing Khalil standing ready with his sword, Dónall remembered his own leaf-shaped blade. And as he reached for it, an idea struck—a desperate, foolish idea. He prayed it would work.
Exhaling, he relaxed his mind, focusing on the air around him, and uttered a Fae verse. Then he raised his sword, and a rush of wind blasted up the tower. “Grab the carpet!” he ordered. “Bring it to the edge, and hold on for your lives.”
“You want to leap from the tower?” Khalil yelled. “Are you
insane
?”
“The wind will hold us!” Dónall insisted, trying to concentrate on his summoning.
Inside the minaret, Isaac pulled the edge of the carpet off the floor. “I trust him,” he told Khalil.
A fierce growl echoed up the stairwell. Shaking his head, Khalil grabbed the carpet’s other edge and helped Isaac drag it onto the balcony. The wind howled, whipping the carpet’s tasseled fringe. Dónall grabbed hold. “Run toward the parapet—and jump.”
“You are certain this will work?” Khalil pressed.
Another roar, closer now, reverberated through the minaret.
“Let’s hope,” Dónall said. “Now, jump!”
They leaped, hurling themselves off the parapet with the carpet beneath them.
And then they fell.
Drawing on all his strength, Dónall summoned more wind, and as they neared the topmost branches of the cypresses, a powerful gust slowed, then stopped, their descent. The carpet rippled and rolled, kept aloft on the rushing wind as if riding a wave. Dónall held on tight with his left hand, while directing the wind with his sword. Terrified, Khalil clung to the carpet, his hair blowing behind him in the crisp night air. In the garden below, the Moors looked up in awe.
“We’re flying!” Isaac exclaimed.
The fluttering carpet soared over the courtyard and crossed the Great Mosque’s crenellated wall. Beneath them, Córdoba sparkled with a thousand lamplights. The carpet glided over rooftops, rising for an instant. But then the carpet buckled. Dónall fought to control the wind. They began to dive. Dónall felt his power slipping.
“We’re going to crash!” Khalil cried.
Dónall’s eyes grew wide. “Hold on!”
The carpet banked sharply, narrowly missing a clay-tiled roof. They gained speed, careening forward, straight for a cluster of stuccoed buildings. Dónall frantically swung his sword, and with a burst of wind, the carpet veered away from the sharp corner of one of the structures. Isaac, who had turned deathly pale, pointed ahead. “Aim for that bazaar!”
Ahead, the buildings surrounded a plaza filled with scores of striped tents. The carpet dropped sharply, and Dónall flung back his blade, hoping to summon the last vestiges of wind to slow their fall. And with a loud rending of cloth and snapping of poles, the carpet dived into the cluster of tents, ripping tethers from their stakes.
Tent cloth enveloped the three riders as they collided with the ground. Pain shuddered down Dónall’s spine, and he feared that he had broken something, but he found he could still wiggle his fingers and toes. Beside him, Khalil groaned.
As Dónall’s head cleared and his pounding heart began to slow, he looked around him, but everything was dark. Then he realized they were buried under a tent canopy. “Isaac,” he muttered.
“Never again,” the rabbi moaned.
After a long moment, Khalil sat up and struggled to pull away the layers of tent cloth that covered them. He tugged at the cloth, folding it aside. “How large was this tent?”
A loud rip answered his question, followed by the tip of a curved sword. Between Dónall and Khalil, the blade sliced through the tent. Hands emerged in the breach, tearing the severed cloth.
Dónall muttered an oath. Standing over them, with a sword arched above his head, was the broad-chested eunuch, Najah. His mouth twisted into a wicked grin, and hate blazed in his eyes.
Dónall uttered a fearsome word: “Megaera.”
*
Ciarán and Alais darted through the entrance to the Great Mosque, only to find themselves within a forest of slender columns supporting horseshoe-shaped archways of alternating red brick and white stone. It was like no place of worship that Ciarán had ever seen. Each archway sat atop another, identical in pattern and shape, so that it appeared as if hundreds of archways filled the chamber, which was so vast, the other side disappeared in the dim light of the oil lamps that hung from the vaultlike ceiling. At first glance, the myriad of archways and columns seemed like a maze, but soon he discerned that the archways were arranged in aisles from one end of the mosque to the other.
“Are you sure about this?” Alais asked.
“They shouldn’t have been able to enter the mosque,” he whispered, wondering where they could go from here. Everywhere he looked, row upon row of archways stood on columns of marble, granite, and onyx. He started down one of the aisles, moving toward the back of the mosque. Their sandals echoed against the mosaic-tiled floor.
An instant later, Alais gripped his arm so hard, her nails bit into his flesh. In the glimmer of moonlight, a dark feline form emerged at the mosque entrance. Then a great black paw reached across the threshold.
Alais gasped, and a chill washed over Ciarán as the panther’s deep growl echoed through the mosque. Unsure whether it had seen them yet, he grabbed Alais and tried to hide in the shadows between the archways.
“Over there,” Alais whispered, pointing toward the north end of the mosque, where a series of wrought-iron gates enclosed the northernmost aisle. A gateway stood open just ten aisles away.
“Let’s go,” Ciarán said under his breath. “And run!”
They bolted toward the gate, and with a roar, the great cat bounded through archways, skidding around the columns and quickly closing the gap. But Ciarán and Alais were much closer to the gate. Ciarán grabbed the iron bars as Alais jumped through, and he followed, slamming the gate shut. The panther lunged, fire in its eyes. On the other side of the gate, a small key jutted from the only lock. Ciarán reached for the key and turned it. He could feel the panther’s hot breath as he wrenched the key from the lock and pulled back his arm. Biting pain shot up his arm, and he jerked back, fearing that the panther had hold of him. The sleeve of his habit was ripped to shreds, and blood soaked his arm, but it was free. The panther thudded against the gate, clawing and thrashing, roaring in its fury.
“Ciarán!” Alais cried, seeing his arm.
Clinging to the wound with his other hand, he watched the blood seep through his fingers. He peered down the aisle, gritting his teeth. Moonlight spilled through an archway at the far end. It must lead back into the garden. Grimacing in pain, he said, “That way.”
As they hurried down the aisle, the panther tracked them, its eyes never leaving theirs. It growled and hissed but could do nothing against the iron barrier.
Ciarán’s arm throbbed. When they reached the archway that led back into the garden, the panther gave a final hiss and darted back into the shadows of the mosque.
Outside, the Moorish swordsmen paid them no attention. Some chattered frantically, while others looked up transfixed, pointing at the sky.
Just yards away, another gateway in the curtain wall opened back into the city. “Thank God!” Ciarán whispered. “We have to get to the ship—it’s our only chance.”
Alais nodded, still panting, and off they ran.
*
Amid a sea of striped tents, Najah brought down his sword. He aimed the blade’s sharp edge for Dónall’s head, but it met the scabbard Khalil thrust into its path. The eunuch’s sword cleaved into the scabbard’s leather until it hit the steel of the Persian’s own blade. Najah struck again, his face contorted in rage, and the blow nearly drove the scabbard into Khalil’s chest. Dónall twisted away as, behind Najah, a dozen warriors watched, some apparently intrigued by the spectacle of single combat. Others looked on warily, as if fearful of whatever magic had lofted the carpet into the bazaar. Isaac scurried to Dónall’s side. Najah kept hacking away at Khalil, who defended with his scabbard held in both hands.
Another blow threatened to drive Khalil to the ground, but Najah’s curved blade caught on the scabbard’s brass fittings. Khalil jerked the hilt, and his blade slid free from the scabbard.