Authors: Thomas Harlan
The jackal remained still, though the air around him shimmered and trembled as a heat haze does upon the open desert. The remainder of the debris on the floor rustled, sliding across the marble tiles, then drifted up like a cloud of flies and fell, sparkling, into the sea below the palace. Waves lapped against house-sized blocks of granite and limestone, and golden lions stared down from alcoves among the pillars surmounting the seawall.
"Ah..." breathed a laughing voice in the shadow. "You must be patient, dear Arad, our enemy took some pains to destroy this treasure. Many days of sorting may pass, before your task is done."
The jackal-headed man did not respond, remaining still and silent at the head of the table.
In the shadows, the speaker moved, rising and gliding to the table. A handsome fine-boned face looked down upon the ruined device, thin lips quirking up in amusement. Long-fingered hands drifted over the surface of the corroded, scorched bronze, a thin gold bracelet circling one wrist. The skin was dusky, olive, but mottled and sometimes—as the figure passed slowly around the table—gleamed and rippled, as if fine translucent scales lay just under the skin. "But soon this will be complete, and you may turn your attention to other tasks."
Dahak, the Lord of the Ten Serpents, beloved servant of the King of Kings, Shahr-Baraz, smiled with genuine humor, looking down upon the broken fragments of the ancient device. "This pretty will be sent east, to the forges of Damawand and there—by my foresight—workmen wait, ready to restore it to working condition."
"And then, my lord? How will this trinket serve you?"
A second figure emerged from the shadows; a young woman, hair dark and glossy, high-cheeked face turned dark by the sun. Her eyes glittered, reflecting the blue waters. Armor clinked as she moved, gliding to the opposite edge of the table. A dark silk cloak lay over her shoulders, and a corselet of silver girded her breasts. She watched Dahak with a calm, even placid expression. "So much effort is poorly spent, for a toy."
"Something old, dear Queen, something I thought lost." Dahak answered genially, though an air of irritation suffused the line of his body. "Not a toy, but a tool. A powerful tool." The creature in the shape of a man passed his hand across the fragments and they gleamed with an inner light. The radiance filled in the missing pieces of the disks, the teeth and gears and rotating mechanisms. For a brief moment, the thing seemed whole and complete, but then the light faded away again and there was only a profusion of broken parts on the tabletop.
"This device—in my youth they were called the
duradarshan
—allows an adept to look upon that which is far away, even if hidden or concealed. Each Circle of the City held a sanctuary, and in each Temple of Sight stood an Eye, whirling and golden." The creature's voice changed subtly as it spoke, gaining a different timbre and tone, suggesting enormous age.
The young Queen watched the sorcerer with masked, clouded eyes. At times they seemed to be an electric blue, at others a soft brown. Though she stood beside the jackal, she did not acknowledge the beast-man's presence. "You may look upon your enemies, then, and spy out their intent, their plans, their dispositions... all in safety."
"Yes, and more may be accomplished, if this one's siblings may be found." Dahak grinned, and the air around him clouded with a faint haze. A whispering sound, the faint speech of myriad insects, filled the air. The thin hands drifted over the debris again, and the light flickered down. "I can almost feel them, though the connection is weak, very weak. But in time, this one shall be whole and the others will be revealed to me."
"Can they see you, my lord?" The Queen's chin rose, a faint challenge in her voice. "Isn't it dangerous to reveal yourself by such means?"
Dahak's eyes narrowed to slits and his nostrils flared. Again, the air trembled around him. He moved a hand. "I am shadow, slave, where I move nothing marks my passage! A ghost leaves no trace, seeing all secrets, knowing all things!"
The Queen staggered, her face twisted in pain. Soundlessly she turned, though her fingers clutched at the edge of the table, and faced the jackal. Arad turned as well, also against his will, and the dark eyeholes of his mask stared upon the Queen. Dahak laughed and clapped his hands in delight. His good humor was restored, seeing the jackal kneel, and the Queen's face crease in sorrow, thin silver tears streaking her high cheekbones.
"I am the master here, dear Zenobia. Do not make yourself tiresome."
Dahak turned to look out over the sprawled, tumbled ruin of the palaces of the Eastern Emperors, and beyond, to the ranks of red-roofed houses and the colorful red and orange and blue gleam of temples on the hills of the city. "I do not need either of you, though it warms my heart to see you, at last, reunited."
Zenobia gasped, unable to move her head. Her eyes were a clear blue, pinched at the edges and filled with sorrow. "You'd discard useful... tools... because they took skill... to use? Your will is... our will... yet we have eyes to see and minds to think..."
Dahak's face contorted in disgust, and he hissed. "I have learned this lesson! Loyal Khadames taught me well—I have not forgotten the sacrifice of the Sixteen—but you..."
"I... what?" Zenobia managed a sickly grin, tears streaming down her cheek. "I... challenge you, lord of darkness? I... question and argue? You have need, lord, of more than servants. You
need
allies or..." She coughed, bright blood flecking her lips. Dahak relented, seeing the girl's body was failing between the pressure of his will and the Queen's. "...you would already possess the world."
Dahak spat on the floor and turned away, brow clouded with anger.
Another pair of knights approached, moving with a heavy step up the walkway, shoulders bent under the weight of the red vase. The jackal rose stiffly and resumed his position at the head of the table. The Queen gasped and fell against the tabletop, supporting herself with a white-knuckled hand.
"You should thank me," the sorcerer continued, "both of you longed to be reunited. And here you are!"
The Queen did not bother to hide her fury. But her eyes still avoided Arad.
The King of Kings sat on the steps of the Senate House, eating olives and cheese from a basket. Shahr-Baraz was a huge man, well over six feet in height, with broad, powerful shoulders and a trim waist. Despite the heat of the afternoon, he was clad in a hauberk of gilded overlapping steel plates and long, woolen leggings. Big boots, scuffed with wear, the leather turned almost black, stuck out in front of him. The olives were sharper tasting than in his homeland, far to the east, but he ate them by handfuls, spitting pits onto the paved oval forum surrounding the milestone at the heart of Constantinople.
He was watching rows of men hauling crates and boxes and trunks out of the front of the ruined Great Palace. A series of violent explosions had ripped through the huge structure, collapsing domes, setting fires in many portions of the sprawling complex. The forum had also suffered—great craters yawned in the limestone paving—exposing hidden tunnels and sewers. Despite the destruction, the Persian army was busy both in the ruins and in those buildings that had survived intact. The Emperors of the East had ruled from Constantinople for almost three hundred years—rarely stinting in ornamenting their residences with treasure. Shahr-Baraz spit out a pit, then smoothed down his long, tusk-like mustaches. He grinned, mentally counting load after load of gold and silver coin, the rugs, the tapestries, the bolts of raw silk, the jewels, the fine statues and paintings—all the loot of a vast Empire.
Six men staggered past, carrying a section of smooth-planed wood, painted with an intricate and detailed map of the land between the two rivers. The shahanshah snarled quietly at the sight—the map was loot from the old palace of the Persian kings at Ctesiphon—then laughed, a deep booming sound that startled the soldiers and slaves laboring in the huge forum.
So is dead Chrosoes revenged,
Shahr-Baraz thought,
with his enemy thrown down, cursed Heraclius dead, his capital fallen, his people in chains...
A fleet of barges and merchantmen toiled in the strait, hauling all the loot of the city across to the Asian side of the "cattle crossing." A powerful army—a loyal
Persian
army, not this Hun or Avar rabble!—stood watch over the treasure accumulating among the summer villas of Chalcedon. The King of Kings wanted to ensure the systematic and thorough sack of Constantinople was not wasted. The Romans had taken their time looting Ctesiphon, and he planned to return the favor fivefold. Footsteps echoed on the walkway behind him and the King of Kings looked up, smiling in greeting to the man that approached.
"Hullo, Khadames." The Boar held out a handful of olives. "Hungry?"
"No, my lord," the older man smiled, beard streaked white, face lined with age and care. Khadames, general of the armies of Persia, sat on the step beside his friend and ruler. "This Greek food is too rich for my taste... I'm still digesting last night's feast."
Shahr-Baraz grinned and nodded, feeling remarkably content. It was a beautiful day and his enemies were scattered and in disarray. Old wrongs were avenged and he—the son of poor frontier nobility—was victorious ruler of the greatest Empire in the world. His grandfather would have approved; old Ohrmuz would not turn up his nose at so much good red gold, or so many slaves to work in the rocky fields below his drafty fort.
A long way, grandfather, a long way...
Shahr-Baraz felt great regret, thinking of all the old friends who had perished—from plague or spear or axe—in the decades since he had left home. Somewhere he possessed palaces vast enough to swallow grandfather's hall. He had never seen these palaces. They were far away and the Boar was a man who had no time for idleness.
When the mantle of King of Kings had settled upon him, Shahr-Baraz had determined he would spend his reign—be it long or short—in the field, moving, under an open sky. Let these courtiers and ministers attend him! He would not mew himself up in some stifling palace. At one time he had known the name and face of every soldier, groom and ostler in his army. Such familiarity was impossible now, with the host of the King of Kings grown vast beyond counting, and there were the Serpent's allies and pawns to consider as well. Anger welled for a moment, but Shahr-Baraz admitted, at least to himself, the massive triple walls of Constantinople would not have been easily breached, save by the sorcerer's power.
"Does
his
work leave a foul taste in your mouth, as it does in mine?" Khadames asked softly, looking at his king out of the corner of his eye. "Was it worth it, to pay such a price for victory?"
"We have what we wanted," Shahr-Baraz sighed, rubbing his long face with muscular fingers. "That is what matters. We have broken the Eastern Empire and reclaimed all that Chrosoes had lost..."
Khadames smiled faintly. "And now? What now, oh great king who bestrides the world? O modern Xerxes?"
The Boar made a face at the mocking tone in the general's voice and turned to face Khadames. "We part ways, my friend. This victory must be secured with another—we now hold the Levantine coast from Gazzah to Antioch. Our army here in Constantinople is isolated from the rest of Great Persia by the breadth of Anatolia—provinces still nominally held by Rome—and supplied only by sea. Thanks to the strength of our Arab allies, we enjoy a fleet and the ability to move freely along the Asian coast. The Roman fleet is scattered or captured."
"But this good fortune cannot last," Khadames said, nodding in thought. "Soon they will press us again—with fresh ships from the West—and this ruin will be a trap, if we cannot leave and cannot feed ourselves!"
"Yes." Shahr-Baraz stabbed out his hands, miming the thrust of a blade. "The line of attack has changed, shifted south. To our west, Greece is still recovering from the Avar invasions, to the east, the Anatolian
themes
are little more than bickering princedoms. With this stroke, the Eastern Empire has been set at naught, but the West—ah, now—the West still has strength. Our seizure of Constantinople, of the Propontis, is a mighty blow. Roman trade and messengers cannot reach their allies in Khazaria, and we stand poised to drive—aided by our Avar friends—into Thrace and Greece. Yet the West still holds a dagger pressed hard against the Levantine coast."
Against our strong arm,
he growled to himself,
all exposed, extended in the blow...
"Egypt." Khadames said. "Where—if the lord Khalid's spies can be believed—there are no less than six Western Legions encamped, under the command of Prince Aurelian."
"Even so." Shahr-Baraz nodded, a clenched fist against his jaw. "Consider this, Khadames..." The King of Kings sketched a swift diagram of the Mare Internum in the dust on the walkway. The eastern end of the middle sea made a fat U-shape running left-to-right, joined by a second U on the upper arm. At the crown of the second U, he placed a fat black olive. "Here we stand, at Constantinople, looking down upon the Mare Aegeum." He placed two more of the ripe fruits—one opposite the first, at the bottom of the first U—"and here is Egypt, and here Antioch." He placed the third in the upper depths of the first U, making a triangle of the three. "All our supply must either come, swiftly, by sea from Antioch, or slowly over two great mountain ranges and the interior plains of Anatolia. Our army, in turn, may sail back to Antioch in a month, perhaps two, while marching overland will take at least six. In the same time, the Western Legions in Egypt may strike north..." His blunt finger moved up the curve of the first U, towards Antioch, "reaching Antioch, easily, in three months."
Khadames nodded, lips pursed. "There is an Arab force at Gazzah, on the Judean coast, but I believe it numbers no more than five or six thousand horsemen."
"Lightly armored lancers and bowmen," Shahr-Baraz mused. "Against the Western Legions the Arabs could delay and harry and raid, but they will not be able to stop a concerted effort. Indeed, they would be hard-pressed to hold any of the coastal fortresses..." The Boar's finger stabbed in succession along the curve of the U. "...Gazzah, Caesarea, Akko, and then there is Tyre." Shahr-Baraz grinned ruefully. "...which is still held by a Roman garrison."