Written in the Ashes

by K. Hollan Van Zandt

  “I have brought what the Pythia gave me.” Hannah took a step forward and set the lower half of the Emerald Tablet on the worktable, bundled in the burgundy linen. She nibbled on her lower lip and looked out the window at the clear bright sky above the city. “You may see for yourself.”

  Alizar unwrapped the bundle and regarded the raised script with interest. When he pulled the cloth back completely, he saw the jagged break that Gideon had spoken of when they first returned. “So this is only half of it. This alone will not be enough to aid Orestes. Now that Rome has fallen the pagans would unite if we had the entire tablet. They want to appease the angered gods. But I fear without the other half we have nothing.”

  “I was told we must retrieve it from the oracle of Amun-Ra.”

  Alizar nodded. “I wondered if the Nuapar would be as careful as this.” He touched the strange, mystical lettering on the tablet.

  “What does it say?” asked Hannah.

  “It reads: ‘Ascend from the earth to the heavens. Extract the lights from the heights and descend to the earth containing the power of the above and the below, for it is with the light of the lights. Therefore the darkness flees.’ And there is more, but it will not help us without the rest of the tablet intact. You see, the script is already known by the Kolossofia, but the legend is that the script alone does not have any effect without the Emerald Tablet. That is why they sent it to be protected by the oracles—so that its magic could not be used for evil.”

  “What is its magic?” asked Hannah.

  “The tablet promises to make its interpreter immortal,” said Alizar. “And beyond that, as I said, the reappearance of the Emerald Tablet would unite all the remaining pagans against Christianity. But only if we can find the other half.”

  “Which is why Orestes wants it?”

  “Of course.”

  Hannah nodded and looked away.

  Alizar looked through her as if he could read her thoughts. “There is something you have not told me.”

  Hannah shook her head. “No, I have told you everything there is to tell.”

  Alizar put his face in front of hers so she would have to look at him. “If there is one thing I pride myself on it is reading the odd mannerisms of women, and you have not been yourself since you returned from Athens. Hannah, you must know I usually find things out in time, and I have come to prefer knowing my ill-fortune in advance. What is wrong? Does it involve Hypatia? Did the Oracle of Delfi say more?”

  She nodded and met his eyes. “Yes.”

  “I cannot help you if I do not know the full truth.”

  Hannah sighed and then lifted her eyes. “I am with child.”

  Alizar shook his head, clearly disappointed. “A man from Athens?”

  Hannah cringed. “No, Alizar. It is the child of the Sacred Marriage rite of the Nuapar.”

  “Hermes, Zeus and Apollo. Master Junkar’s child?” Alizar groaned and pulled out his pipe. “The library might end their investment in you when Hypatia finds out. They cannot have an unwed mother about. It would only incense the Christians further. And I, well, I am in another predicament entirely having aligned myself with Hypatia and Orestes. The bishop watches what I eat, what letters I send, where I take a shit; it is exhausting.” Alizar sank onto his workbench and spread his hands on the table, revealing the bronze prosthetic thumb he had created for himself, fitted to his hand with a leather glove.

  “What should I do?” Hannah was trembling.

  “Well, if what you say is true, then you should either give the child up to the Temple of Isis or accept Gideon’s proposal.”

  Hannah lifted her eyes, stunned. “What proposal?”

  It was Alizar’s turn to look confused. “Why, last night he approached me for your hand in marriage. It is a wonderful proposal, Hannah. Gideon is wealthy and he would treat you well. It is true he has a history of many women, as I am sure you will hear, but I can assure you his proposal is sincere. I believe he has fallen in love with you.”

  Hannah stood up and crossed to the window, stunned. “But what about Hypatia and the library? And besides, how could I marry him when marriage is forbidden to slaves?”

  “Yes, I know how it is, but these obstacles can be overcome,” said Alizar. “I think it would be better for you.”

  Fear flooded Hannah’s eyes. “Than what alternative?”

  “Well, do not worry,” said Alizar, changing his mind about finishing his sentence. He did not want to offend her heart. She would see soon enough that love of a Kolossofia master would go unrequited. “I think you would be wise to accept Gideon’s offer. He is a very proud and loyal man. Do you not find him handsome?”

  “He is very handsome and even kind,” said Hannah, as she felt the full weight of her circumstances fall upon her. But he was not Julian. He would never be Julian. He heart cried out. But for who? For Julian who was to all who knew him dead? No, there was only one thing she could do. Then thoughts of the Pythia returned to her and she became even more flustered inside, thinking of her quest half-fulfilled. “Alizar, even if I did accept, what of the Emerald Tablet and the Oracle of Amun-Ra?”

  Alizar coughed and knocked his pipe on the edge of the table, letting the small cake of ashes fall to the floor. “Leave that to me,” he said.

  “I cannot,” said Hannah, crossing the room to stand beside him. “I have given my word. Surely there is a way.”

  Alizar nodded thoughtfully, impressed to see such fire in Hannah’s eyes. “In your current state I hardly think it wise to take on such a trek as that. It is more than dangerous, Hannah; it is deadly. But I have all my life longed to go to Siwa, and found that a wife and young children always prevented me. Since I no longer have those responsibilities, here is my proposal: I will go in your place, and you shall stay here until the child comes. That way you are safe and your quest is still fulfilled.”

  Hannah shook her head. “I must go,” she said, tears filling her eyes, for she knew that if she had any sense at all she would listen to Alizar.

  Alizar sighed, disappointment creasing his brow. He picked up the tablet, rebound the cloth around it, and set it in a chest on the floor under the window. Then he closed it, and the lock snapped shut. “As your master, I forbid it.”

  27

  Alizar stood alone on the tip of a broad sand dune, surveying the predawn horizon of the southern desert; his head and shoulders were bound in a white burnoose, only his stark blue eyes, like chips of sky, left showing. The clues of the desert landscape were subtle; he sampled a pinch of sand from beside his feet and let the granules run through his fingertips to discern that the coming day would be warmer than the one that preceded it, if only slightly. A light wind fluttered the cloth of his tunica as he trudged down the face of the rippled dune. Behind him the sand lifted like sea spray, then settled.

  The ocean and the desert were twins by birth, he felt, the ocean and the desert. The sea whirled like a gypsy beneath the stars while the desert undulated beneath the fingers of the wind. The dunes, like waves, always changed shape with the currents. The ocean was a salty desert of unquenchable thirst; the rolling dry dunes, an endless sea of adamantine waves. Each landscape could be filled with unspeakable beauty one moment, deadly peril the next.

  Alizar had no preference. He felt completely alive in the midst of any adventure no matter the landscape, so long as he was confronting death. He had prayed all his life to visit the fabled city of Siwa, and somewhere out beyond the endless sea of sand and parched earth, the oracle of Amun-Ra lay waiting.

  What would Naomi say?

  Behave your age.

  And what would he say?

  Never.

  And then he would kiss her. How he longed to kiss her.

  Alizar looked into the sky for his wife’s face as if he expected to see her there, looking down upon him as the wind picked up again, swirling caprici
ously and then settling. His feet sunk in the coarse sand to his ankles with every step.

  Beyond the dunes, a cave lay situated in an odd lump of hills shaped like the head of a camel. There the others waited for Alizar to return. In the end, he had chosen to bring Jemir, Gideon and Tarek. None wanted to be excluded from the adventure, even if he had not told them about the real reason for going. Tarek heard of the journey and immediately packed his belongings. Jemir scurried through the kitchen determining which pots would be the best to bring. “No cook, no food, no journey,” he had said, adamant. How could Alizar refuse? He accepted, and went into the market to acquire three camels.

  When Alizar was just a youth in the Nuapar and heard of the Emerald Tablet for the first time, he knew his destiny was tied to it, and only standing in his stables so many decades later packing for Siwa, did he know why.

  “The camels are ready.” Gideon threw the rope to Alizar and crossed the straw to kiss Hannah goodbye. “In three turns of the moon I will return for you,” he said, and she nodded. “Will you be all right?”

  Hannah nodded and he drew her close and kissed her.

  Alizar said nothing and busied himself with balancing the bags on the camel, for he was unsure if she had told Gideon all there was to know when she had reluctantly accepted his proposal the day before. He just hoped she would not do anything foolish. As if reading Alizar’s thoughts, Hannah drew out the silken cord from between her breasts where the shard of the Emerald Tablet rested, showing it to Gideon. “The Pythia said no harm could come to me as long as I wore it.”

  So.

  Hannah was discovered on the second day out of Alexandria. She had managed to hide herself in between a carpet and a grain bin on top of the larger camel. She was just small enough to curl herself into place and wait through the terrible heat until the night came. Then she snuck out and relieved herself while the men slept, and nibbled on a piece of dried mutton she had brought in a satchel at her hip. It was Jemir who found her on the second morning when he went to rummage through the bags for a missing pot he was certain he had packed.

  Alizar was infuriated that she disobeyed him, but she stood before him, humbled and without protest. When he finished admonishing her, he sat down and offered her a date.

  “You are not sending me back then?” she said.

  Alizar shook his head. “Eat something. We cannot turn back now.”

  Hannah dipped her fingers in the bowl and looked up to see Tarek behind the dying fire, staring at her, his eyes full of lust and hatred. At least she had her knife, and Gideon his sword. She resented Tarek, but felt his threat to her was finished. She could see it in his eyes.

  Quite soon, they were three days out from Alexandria, and waiting in the shallow cave for the noonday sun to pass. Gideon and Alizar poured over the half-dozen maps of the desert they had acquired from the Great Library, checking them against each other, Gideon utilizing his years of travel and familiarity with cartography to close the discrepancies. The others sat in a circle, sharing water and throwing back handfuls of almonds and dried figs. The cave was a welcome relief from the egregious sand that burrowed into every bodily orifice. They shared it with only one other inhabitant: a skeleton that lay partially mummified by the desert, sprawled on its side, the jaw slightly agape as if its occupant had died in astonishment, or perhaps uttering some final words of warning.

  “Alizar, that thing sickens me. Why must we camp here?” Tarek pointed at the skeleton as he entered the cave, smacking noisily on a strip of dried meat.

  Hannah laughed. “That from the boy who always takes the catacombs to the library.”

  Tarek just stared at her in response, and Gideon shifted on his feet, picking up on Hannah’s discomfort.

  “What are you looking at, Tarek?” Gideon growled.

  Alizar set down the map in irritation. “Tarek, you begged me to join this caravan, and I was reluctant to let you, if you recall. I gave only one condition. Can you name it?”

  Tarek’s shoulders slumped forward and his eyes fell to the floor in front of him like a child. “No whining,” he said.

  “Yes, that sounds accurate. Now, make yourself useful and help Jemir with our supper. We will be finished in a moment.”

  Gideon and Alizar went on for another hour discussing the old maps, then walked out to measure their course against the path of the sun. They were not in agreement about their position. There were two mounds of rock that contained caves pictured on each of the maps, one due west of the other. Gideon seemed to think they were occupying the eastern outcropping, Alizar the west. It was Gideon who surrendered to Alizar’s way of thinking against his better judgment, but the discrepancy was only slight; in the end they would be merely half a day to the east of Siwa if Alizar’s course was off. The maps had belonged to Cleopatra, who had made frequent visits to the oasis, so each man felt confident in their reliability, if only they knew which one would be the more so.

  As they huddled around the fire that night discussing the adventure and the miles ahead, Jemir questioned Alizar about the Oracle of Amun-Ra. “What do we actually know of it, aside from legend?”

  “Very little.” Alizar smiled. That was the enchantment for him. No one from Alexandria had been to the oracle for hundreds of years. This factor alone had persuaded him to let Tarek join them, for Tarek’s artistic facilities would enable them to return to Alexandria with not just memories, but sketches. “Apparently, Cleopatra thought so highly of the anti-aging properties of the mineral baths that she took frequent trips from Alexandria. Still, I wonder how much of that is mere rumor.”

  “When was the last time anyone summoned the oracle?” asked Hannah.

  Alizar leaned back on his elbows and stretched his legs. “I have no idea. The library shows no record of it. But the Oracle of Amun-Ra is ancient. It was named for the god Amun, or Amen; this is the word we still use in most languages to close our prayers, as it heralds the sun. Perhaps Alexander was the last to summon the oracle. Do you know, Gideon?”

  Gideon nodded. “It is true. We know of no other after him.”

  Hannah let her eyes trace Gideon’s form beneath his dusty tunica. She did not know much of this man yet, save for his strong, stubborn character, and the strong but lithe body that housed it. The decision had been a difficult one for her, but ultimately, the one she thought her father would advise her of, which was her reason for acquiescing to his proposal. She was pregnant. She needed to make a decision that would protect the child, however she felt about it.

  When they had made love the night before the caravan departed, she had felt a mix of emotion from wanting to please him, to longing for Julian’s embrace, to concern that Gideon would see the mound in her belly and the deception she was attempting to pull over on him. She had pulled the sheet over her hips.

  “You are so beautiful,” said Gideon. “Like a goddess.”

  She smiled for the first time at the words. So be it. She knew that such a man as Gideon would never have chosen her if she had been ugly or misshapen. And he seemed to truly love her. Her fate could be worse. Much worse, indeed. Alizar could have sent her to the brothels to sell herself beside Mira when he learned she was pregnant. Hannah shuddered. She hoped she would learn to love him.

  So.

  Alizar sat back beside the fire Jemir had created from camel dung and lit his pipe. He looked at Hannah, and then to Gideon beside her. In the small cave, Gideon’s presence was imposing, his massive chest broader than a bull’s. Alizar knew how brash he appeared. So much charisma should never be squeezed into one human being. Still, he reminded himself to find the time to tell Hannah that beneath Gideon’s fearsome exterior was a man of refined spirit, as he had a passion for poetry and a gift for nursing sick plants in Alizar’s herb garden whenever he came to visit. In truth, Alizar preferred Gideon’s company to many of the aristocrats and philosophers of the Great Library, for he had retaine
d his humanity.

  “And how are things faring in the church of St. Alexander?” Gideon kicked Alizar’s foot playfully with his own. “You talked any sense into the bishop yet?”

  “Currently, my impression of the church is that its clergy care a great deal more about preaching against supposed heretics and heathens than they do for instructing their flock to follow the example of Christ. Of late, Cyril’s sermons resemble instructions on how to dispose of what he considers the filth of Alexandria: the scientists, mathematicians, philosophers; those bastions of sorcery and black magic, the Jews; the beggars. Oh, and us, of course.”

  “Do you think Cyril will actually follow through with the reconstruction of the Heptastadion bridge to Pharos?” asked Hannah. This was the latest news in Alexandria. No one could remember when or how the bridge that separated the two harbors had collapsed, although Hypatia surmised it had probably fallen during one of the city’s many earthquakes some hundred years earlier. This had proved fortunate for the preservation of the temples of Isis and Neptune, although massive amounts of fuel for the lighthouse had to be shipped across the harbor on a barge, an expensive and laborious endeavor just to keep the light shining. Still, it was slightly less daunting than finding an architect the city could afford, as its economic seat in the Empire had crashed since the drought had diminished Egypt’s grain supply. There was simply nothing to export. Gone were the days of Caesar’s prolific economy. Still, with the many donations pouring into their church, the Christians could no doubt take on the expense of the bridge, which would give them access to the little isle, the last stronghold of pagans in the entire Empire.

  “Yes, I do.” Alizar shook his head in a burdened way as though he had already considered the subject from every possible angle. “Cyril has control of the mob. They heed his every word. They would build him a bridge to heaven if he asked it of them.”

  The conversation then turned to talk of the Great Library, Hypatia’s newest lecture series, and Sofia’s apparent interest in Synesius. Alizar seemed outwardly pleased with the match, though he tended to keep his private feelings to himself. His answers were pithy, punctuated with yawns as he pulled off his boots and rubbed his swollen toes.