Shadow of Ararat ки-1

by Thomas Harlan

  It is the city! he realized in awe. The city is purging itself of an enemy, of a… a disease.

  That was what he had seen before in the third sight, the body collapsing upon a cancer and destroying it. An invader, something inimical to the body. His vision collapsed then, suddenly, and in less than a grain, he was lying on the floor of his room, bathed in sweat, his palms and forehead so hot as to burn.

  THE ISLANp OF DELOS, THE AEGEAN THEME

  Dwyrin woke to the wailing of slaves and the crack of the lash. His head had a strange, light feeling to it, but the riot of colors and space-bending distortions of vision were absent. He lay back on a smooth marble bench, feeling fully awake for the first time. His stomach growled with hunger and his mouth was parched, but he could think and see. A low vaulted ceiling stained with soot stood above him. Sore, he tried to move, but iron chains were shackled around his arms and legs. This is not good, he thought, peering around the room. A high window stood at the left, letting a shaft of sunlight in to light up the far wall. Through the window, he could see clear azure sky.

  Other than the marble bench, the chains and the single door, the room was unremarkable. The window let in the echo of a busy marketplace, though to Dwyrin’s ear there came no sound of animals, only a multitude of voices, most raised in despair and sorrow. Coupled with the regular sound of the lash, he realized that he had not dreamed the slave ship. / have been sold into slavery, he thought dully. How will I finish my training? I have to escape from here.

  There was a rattle as the bar slid from its socket, and the door swung outward. Two men entered the small chamber, one a stout, muscular tub of a man in the leggings and tunic of a sailor. The other wore a toga and sandals, tall and thin with a crown of white hair plastered against his skull. The patrician came to stand by the marble bench and looked down upon Dwyrin with limpid blue eyes, almost the color of the sky through the window. His face was as lean as his body, with a delicate nose and eyebrows that wicked up against his forehead. Carefully the white-haired man examined Dwyrin’s limbs, rolling back his eyelids and poking and prodding his extremities. The patrician kept his hands away from Dwyrin’s mouth and was very cautious. When he was done, he stepped away from the bench and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “In good health, Amochis, though your finger marks are still on his neck. The drug is still in him, so he is safe to hold here for the moment. I see no sign, not that I truly expect it, of any ‘magical’ powers.”

  The sailor flushed at the dry sarcasm in trie doctor’s voice. “I saw what I saw, master, he threw fire from his hands and it killed one of my crew. Burned his head right off, it did, even under water.” The sailor’s voice was not angry yet but that was bubbling under the surface of his calm expression.

  The doctor smHed, his thin lips creasing a little. “Do not take offense. I merely meant that I cannot write a certificate verifying that this boy is possessed of special talents be-‘ yond a pretty face and red hair.”

  Amochis frowned at this and hooked his thumbs into his belt strap, saying “To prove it, you’d have to let the drug wear off, and then it might be you that has no head.”

  The doctor shrugged, having given his opinion.

  “I will pass on my report to the Master of Merchandise, though I expect that you will only be able to sell him as a link-boy or house slave. As it stands, you should move him to one of the pens. It will be cheaper than keeping him here…” A thin-boned hand with carefully trimmed nails gestured to the bare walls.

  So saying, the doctor left, ducking under the lintel of the door. Amochis stood for a moment in the center of the room, glaring at Dwyrin, who had not moved or spoken during the examination. Finally Amochis shook his head as if to clear the cloud of anger that was gathering around him and stomped out, muttering. Dwyrin caught a fragment about money. The door swung shut with a heavy clang and then the scrape of the bar being shoved home. Some time passed and the slat of light from the high window drifted across.the far wall, creeping up until at last it disappeared and darkness filled the chamber. In all that time Dwyrin had lain still, listening to the constant murmur of people outside of the window. With a sick feeling in his stomach, he realized that there must be thousands of slaves outside, and hundreds of overseers.

  He had heard of this place, at the school and before, when he was taken on the Imperial ship from his distant homeland to Egypt. He had come, by dreadful circumstance, to the island of Delos. The human stockyard of both the Eastern and Western empires. A tiny, almost barren island off the shore of Achaea, consisting entirely of the single largest slave market in the world. Ten thousand slaves bought and sold per day, part of his mind gibbered, and you only the latest of them. The slavers would never believe that he was part of the Emperor’s levy. If they did believe the sailor, that he was a magician, he would either be killed out of hand as too dangerous to sell or auctioned to the powerful as a freak or an ornament. Tears forced themselves out the corners of his eyelids. If only he could summon the meditations or the entrance of Hermes, he could take these shackles off. But nothing came, the preternatural lightness in his head kept coming between his groping thought and the remembered shape of the power. Night deepened and at last he fell asleep, famished and exhausted.

  When the light in the window brightened again, Dwyrin woke, groggy and with a splitting headache. The lightness in his mind was gone, however, and he fumbled to bring the meditations into focus. Hunger kept intruding on his thoughts and distracting him. At last, by digging a fingernail into his palm, he managed to focus enough to bring the first entrance into focus. It wavered, though, and his concentration kept slipping away, into realms of roasted lamb, or fresh grapes plucked from the vines in the village, or tart olives fresh from the brine. He struggled through this, finally managing to reach the clarity of vision that had allowed him to see the chain link on the ship. Slowly, with many stops and starts, he began examining each link in the chains that held him to the table. His neck throbbed with pain at the strain of keeping his head up so that he could see the heavy iron bands. None of them evinced the discoloration that the one on the ship had. He collapsed back onto the hard marble, gasping with effort.

  Ra had crept up to almost the window itself when the door rattled and opened again. To Dwyrin a cold blast of… something… came through it. His skin flushed with goosebumps and he turned his head, almost afraid to see what had stepped so lightly through the doorway. In his partially restored over-sight he watched in fear as the timbre of the light flexed and dimmed. Strange flows of power licked around the room, crawling on the walls like indistinct spiders. A man entered the chamber, with Amochis in tow. He was gray, and of middling height. He was plainly dressed, in a small dark-colored felt cap, a long cape and shirt, with a dark-brown tunic below. His face was a narrow triangle with heavily lidded eyes. Dwyrin flinched away from the crumbly chalklike skin, the pale eyes, almost the color of lead. Sickly white currents of power glided under and over his skin and garments like caressing snakes. He. had no smell.

  “This is the slave I spoke of, master,” Amochis said in a quiet voice. Over the dead man’s shoulder, Dwyrin could see that the sailor was almost paralyzed by fear. The acrid smell of his sweat filled the room.

  “Pretty, very pretty,” the dead man whispered with a voice like dry bones tumbling into the bottom of a well. “I see promise in him, buried like a hot coal. You were right to bring him to my attention, Master Amochis.” Feather-light fingers drifted over Dwyrin’s face, almost touching him, but never quite making contact. The dead man leaned over the Hibernian, his face close to Dwyrin’s chest. Dwyrin shuddered at the intimacy as the dead man began sniffing him. Up close, Dwyrin could see the tiny line of stitches that ran from the man’s neck up his throat and around the back of his skull. A scream began to bubble in his throat and he scraped himself as far away from the breathless exhalation of the dead man as he could.

  The dead man smiled, the muscles of his cheek twitching like earthworms to compos
e his face. A narrow hand was laid on Dwyrin’s shoulder like a grave cloth settling on the newly dead.

  “No, no, my young friend, do not be afraid. I shall not harm you. Lie. still and think of pleasant things. I will take you away from this place, to somewhere you will be greatly appreciated.”

  The smile came again, and this time the muscles were quicker to respond to the ancient will that swam in the deep-black pools of its eyes. Dwyrin froze like a rabbit in the face of a wolf. The dark pools became deeper and deeper, like a lake draining into whirlpool. Frantically he tried to summon the Meditation of Serapis to hold his mind inviolate against the pull of that darkness. He failed, and consciousness left him again.

  Dwyrin woke again in almost darkness, though now no chains lay upon him. Another ship creaked around him, and the groaning sound of ropes rubbing against the sides of the ship filled the air. A sheet covered him; by its feel against his skin it was cotton. He shuddered at the thought of being naked, either physically or mentally, in the presence of the creature that had leaned over him in the slave cell. The air around him seemed oppressive and his skin crawled with a sense of imminent danger. Very cautiously he opened his eyes and looked around. This time the chamber was not belowdecks in the hold, but it was small, low-ceilinged, and occupied only by the cot upon which he lay, a bucket, and a curved door. The wall the cot was built out from was curved as well, and Dwyrin realized that he must be in a small room wedged into the corner of a ship hull. A dim blue light shone from the edges of the door, giving him what light there was to see.

  Carefully he checked his limbs, finding no shackles or chains. His clothes were gone, and he seemed unharmed.* At his neck, however, there was a thin cord of metal. Delicately he tested its strength and its feel in his hands suggested that it was unbreakable by regular means. He slowed his breathing and attempted the First Entrance. After a moment he stopped. The power, the passage that had always been there before was simply gone. Despite his best effort, despite running through the entire litany of the meditations, nothing unfolded in his mind to lead him into the overworld of forms. He fingered the cord around his neck again, puzzling at its sudden warmth.

  The creak of the door and a flood of blue-white light into the room interrupted further ruminations. Squinting and raising a hand to shield his eyes, Dwyrin quailed to see that the figure outlined in that harsh glare could only be the dead man.

  “Come, my young friend, dinner is set upon the table.” The half-hidden mockery present in that dust-dry voice did nothing to assuage Dwyrin’s fears. Still, there was nothing else to be done at the moment. Wearily, for his body seemed very weak, he levered himself off of the bed and crouched down to crawl out of the tiny space. Beyond, a cabin held a table bolted to the floor, a profusion of carpets and bric-a-brac, two chairs, and a number of plates and bowls. The smell of dinner slithered across the Hibernian like a snake, the prospect of food twisting his stomach but the subtle smell of carrion clogged his throat. Dwyrin took the smaller of the two seats gingerly, clinging to the side of the table as the ship rolled a little.

  Even as the Hibernian seated himself, the dead man was already composed in his larger chair. A spidery hand lifted a pale-white bowl and drew back a cloth laid over it, offering it to Dwyrin.

  “Bread?” the voice whispered from its bone-filled well. “You should start easy, do not take too much at once.” The bowl was placed at the side of the platter in front of Dwyrin. The boy took a piece of one of the cut-up loaves. It looked and smelled like way-bread, heavy and solid. It was not fresh. He bit at it gingerly, his tongue checking for the small fragments of stone that often survived the sifting at the end of the milling process. The bread was nine or ten days old, but still it was edible. He chewed slowly. His host watched him with interest.

  “You may call me Khiron,” said the dead man, drawing a bronze goblet toward him. “You are my or, rather, my master’s property. You seem an intelligent youth, the more so for having spent time in one of the myriad Egyptian schools.” The thin black line of an eyebrow quirked up at Dwyrin’s sullen gaze. “The signs upon you are quite unmistakable, you know. The calluses of the fingers, caused by a reed pen. The inkstains on the same hands, obviously of an Egyptian source. The meditations that you summon to calm yourself, to try the exert your will over the hidden world. All of these things point to such a conclusion.”

  Dwyrin did not respond, continuing to slowly chew the bread. Khiron looked away for a moment, his thoughts composing themselves. His profile was that of a hawk, with a sharp nose and deeply hooded eyes. For all his appearance, however, Dwyrin was unaccountably sure that he was not Egyptian. With his othersight gone, Dwyrin had to look very closely to see any of the signs that had convinced him before that this creature was a dead man. The skin was pale, but not with the chalky texture and graininess that it had shown in his true-sight. The long dark hair, lank and a little oily, still hung down from his shoulders, but now it did not coil with the glowing worms of power that it had before. His dark eyes were still pools of vitriol, but now they did not swim with living darkness. In his lips, there was the slightest trace of a rose blush. Then the creature smiled at him, and Dwyrin shuddered to see the pure malice and hatred in the thing for him, a living being.

  “We will be in the great city in another three days,” Khiron said “and my master will take you into his House. You will be well cared for there. You shall not want for food, or drink, or attention of any kind.” The dead man leaned a little closer over the table. “But you will not have your precious freedom, though you may walk freely in the city. No, the master will be delighted to add you to his collection.” Khiron drank again from the goblet, and Dwyrin felt a chill settle over him as the touch of rose in the dead man’s lips flushed and began to spread into his cheeks.

  “Eat and drink* my young friend, there is more than enough for both of us. Delos is always most accommodating in providing me with provisions.” Now the creature laughed. The sound was like babies’ skulls being crushed between iron fingers, one by one.

  Dwyrin continued to chew the bread.

  The ship rolled up over another swell, its sails filled with a southern wind. North it drove, through a dark sea, its oars shipped, only the hands of dead men upon the tiller.

  |

  CONSTANTINOPLE

  Thyatis stood on the bow of the Mikitis, the north wind in her face, her hair, loose, streaming behind her in a gold cloud. Though the wind off of the Sea of Darkness was chill, the Aegean sun was hot, and she had stripped down to a short leather vest and a thigh-high skirt. Her normally fair skin had bronzed under the Mare Internum sun, and she ignored the sidelong glances of the ship’s crew as she had for the three weeks of their journey from Ostia. Nikos was watching her back, a silent presence on the fore-deck where he sat, sharpening one of his many knives. Like a knife itself, the sleek merchantman that the Duchess retained for her “work” sliced through the deep-blue waters of the Propontis. Around her the narrow sea was broad and open, its waves gentle. Before her, between twin dikes run out from the towering walls of the capital of the Eastern Empire, the military harbor was a great confusion of sails, masts, ships, and longboats.

  The Mikitis banked over and the crew ran to furl the main sail. The steering oars bit the water, and the ship shivered as the captain lined up to pass between the two hulking towers that stood watch on the entrance to the harbor. Beyond the profusion of sails and rigging, the granite walls of Constantinople rose up: height upon height topped with sharp-toothed crenellations and the jutting shapes of massive towers. Even from the deck of the ship, one hand holding easily to the forward guyline, Thyatis felt the brooding power of the fortresses. Beyond them she knew from the Duchess’s notes, a thriving city of close to two million souls bustled about its daily business. All this despite the six-month-old siege of the Avar barbarians and their Slavic and Gepid allies. Coming up the Propontis the signs of the nomads had been clear on the northern shore-burned-out farms and distant pillars of s
moke. Now the Mikitis entered the harbor and the walls loomed even greater above her.

  With a practiced eye, she surveyed the flotillas of short-oared galleys, crimson sails furled, drawn up on the slips of the harbor, their bronze beaked prows gleaming in the afternoon sun. Hundreds of merchantmen crowded the harbor as well, swarming with sailors, laborers, and a vast confusion of supplies, materiel, and men. Under the aegis of the walls, the wind died and the sailors aboard the Mikitis unshipped the long oars. The splashing of their first strokes was overborne by the sudden beat of a deep-voiced drum. Thyatis swung around on her perch and saw one of the galleys nose out of a shed built on the western rim of the harbor. Like a great hunting cat, it surged forth from concealment, a hundred oars on each side flashing in the sun like a thicket of spears. The drum beat a sharp tattoo and the ship leapt ahead as the oars, rising and falling as one, cut into the water.

  The galley strode across the low chop of the harbor like a great water spider, each beat of the drum a stroke. The wicked shape, the glaring eyes on the prow, the unison of the rowers brought a lump to Thyatis’ throat. To command such a creature of war! she exulted. To be like a god, speeding across the waters… In too few moments the galley had crabbed out of the harbor and into the open waters of the Propontis. Sadly she gazed after it.

  Within the half hour the Mikitis had slid into its assigned space at dock, and Nikos and the other men in Thyatis’ command were unloading all of their gear with practiced ease and speed. Thyatis had changed back into her nondescript garb, with the voluminous hood of her heavy cloak brought up, though now she had added a shirt of closely woven iron links underneath her other garb. The weight on her torso, and the close feeling of the padded cotton doublet that underlay it, gave her a comfortable feeling. Now that they were on land, she rationalized that its weight would not be a detriment. Besides, this was an unknown city-at least to her, though Nikos had been here before-and that meant it was more than usually dangerous. She moved through the crowd of men, speaking to them individually, double-checking that no one had forgotten anything.