"Would his murder sate you?" the Western Emperor said in a voice of steel, his hand on Heraclius' shoulder. "Did Phocas' death make you sleep better at night when you became Emperor?"
"Yes," Heraclius growled, pushing Galen's hand away. "There will be an end to this struggle. A clean break with the past. Only the Queen Shirin will remain, once this sapling is cut down, and she I have promised to Theodore."
Galen's eyes narrowed and he stepped in front of the Persian boy, turning to face Heraclius squarely. The Eastern Emperor stepped back, regarding him with a calculating expression.
"And then," Galen said, "your brother would rule the Persian lands, with a Persian Queen at his side?"
"She is beautiful, I have heard," Heraclius said, hooking his thumbs into the broad leather belt around his waist. "She bears strong sons. But Persian? No... she is, what? Armenian? It does not matter. She will be a fitting prize for my brother."
Galen turned, his eyes seeking out Theodore. The young man was grinning, his face flushed with the prospect of a crown of laurels for himself. The Western Emperor's eyes were like flint, and Theodore stepped back, suddenly pale. Galen reached to his belt with his right hand and drew out a short, broad-bladed knife. All around the room, men froze at the sound of metal rasping on metal. The Varangians made to rush forward, their axes raised, but then they stopped in confusion. They could not lay hands upon the Emperor of the West.
"A young man should have a peaceful household," Galen said in a loud voice so that all in the chamber could hear him, "not one stained by blood. This man before you is a Roman, born of a Roman woman. He is the grandson of an Emperor of Rome, he called Maurice, who was murdered by the degenerate Phocas. He is the last of that line, the son of an Emperor himself."
Galen put his left hand on the hand of the Persian boy, raising it up over his head. "By the right of blood, this man should be your Emperor. By the right of blood, he should rule both Persia and the Eastern Empire as one undivided state."
Heraclius made to exclaim at this, but Galen caught his eye and the Eastern Emperor stilled, though his face was thunderous with anger.
"But rule is in the hand of the man who rules. It is the responsibility of the pater, the head of the household, to obtain order in his house, to see that civil cordiality is maintained. This, by ancient usage among the people of Rome, extends even to the brother of a brother. I would not have my brother's brother have a household filled with anger and rancor."
Galen's left arm stiffened and the flat-bladed dagger sank into Kavadh-Siroes' side, sliding sideways between his ribs.
The boy turned dreadful eyes upon Galen and clutched at the blood oozing around the knife. The Western Emperor pulled the dagger out, the blade making a popping sound as it sucked free. Kavadh-Siroes' eyes grew even wider and he gasped. Galen lay the boy down gently onto the pavement. Blood spattered on the tiny blue tiles. The Western Emperor bent over and kissed the boy on both cheeks. Breath hissed between the boy's teeth, then failed.
"Good-bye, cousin," Galen said, and stood up. He wiped the blood from the knife on the dark-purple hem of his robe. He looked around at the stunned faces of the Eastern officers, at Theodore, at Heraclius.
"This is the duty of an Emperor," he said, his loud clear voice dripping with acid. "Now there is peace, both in your house, brother, and in the world. And your hands"—he held forth his own, spotted with blood—"are clean."
Theodore looked away, unable to meet Galen's eyes.
—|—
Dwyrin sat on a soot-blackened brick platform near the public gardens at the edge of the palaces. A statue had been raised on the platform before the Romans came. All that was left were the stumps of legs and a head, rolled across the street against the front of an abandoned tavern. The thaumaturgic cohort camped in the gardens themselves, which had escaped the great fire. The sound of axes cutting wood filled the air. The Hibernian's heels kicked at the bricks. Zoë sat next to him, neither close nor far. Odenathus was lying on the bricks too, one leg crossed over the other knee. The day was gray, the clouds had not departed.
"What now?" Dwyrin wondered aloud. He fingered a heavy string of gold coins that he had draped around his neck. Holes had been punched in each coin so that they could be carried easily. He had new boots too, taken from the house of some well-to-do Persian who did not need them anymore. Zoë had acquired so many lengths of silk and linen and fine cotton weave that she had almost doubled in size.
"What now?" Odenathus said with a wry tone in his voice, raising his head up to look at the Hibernian. "Now you go home, to Rome, and another twenty years of this." He waved his hand airily at the ruined city.
Dwyrin grimaced, fingering his identity disk, still on its leather thong around his neck. He turned to Zoë, catching her by surprise. She seemed sad, but she gave him a cynical smile.
"And you, leader of five? Do you and Odenathus stay too?"
"No," she said, shaking her long braids, "we go home to the house of my aunt, in the city of Silk. She sent us to the Legions to learn, not to stay. Now that the war is over, we'll go home and serve in the army of the city."
Dwyrin sighed. He had feared that it would be so. Zoë reached over and squeezed his hand.
"You might be stationed in Syria," she said, her voice hopeful. "Then we can come visit you at the great legion camp of Denaba. It's only a few days' ride from our city."
"I suppose," he said, feeling his throat constrict. "I would like to see Palmyra. It must be beautiful."
"It is," Zoë said, her face lit by a smile. "It is the most beautiful and gracious city in the world."
"MacDonald!" Colonna stamped out into the square, his voice rattling the shutters. "You've duty. Get your lazy barbarian backside over here! And you too, little miss!"
Dwyrin grinned at Zoë and they slid off of the platform. Odenathus got up more slowly and brushed the sand and soot off his trousers. Then he clambered down and jogged across the square to join them.
—|—
Galen stood in a small stone room, his arms crossed over his chest. Around him, the walls were blackened by fire and the roof had cracked and fallen in. His boots were muddy and his cloak stained with the tenacious black mud that had been birthed from ash and rain. Two of his Germans grunted as they turned heavy blocks of cut stone over.
"Are you sure of this?" The Western Emperor's voice was tinged with sadness.
"Aye, lord," the chief of the Germans said, his blond beard smeared with soot. "One of the palace geld-men we caught knew the ring and the band of silver."
The German reached down and gingerly picked up a withered, fire-blackened limb from among the debris on the floor. A partially melted silver band clung to the arm, and a gob of gold clung to one skeletal finger.
"A woman with dark hair, my lord, wearing the signs of Princess Shirin. Dead, I think."
The arm fell back onto the muck on the tile floor with a rattle. Galen turned away, looking around the room. The door, too, had burned away, but he could see the bite marks of axes on its outer face.
"There was a struggle?"
The German nodded, pushing one of the other bodies aside with his boot. The body, even burned and withered, showed a thick gash in the sternum. In the mud, the Emperor could see the glint of broken rings of iron mail and the edge of a sword.
"Some fought, but then they fell and the others—the women—were murdered."
"What else?" the Emperor said, frowning at the ruin of the room.
"This." The German dug in a leather pouch on his wide belt. His grubby fingers drew out a disk of tin, pierced with a drilled hole. The fire had scored it, but portions were still readable. Galen took it, turning it over in his hand. The letters, driven into the face of the metal with a hammer and punch, were disfigured but still readable.
"Dardanus Nikolaeus. Nikos. A fifteen-year man." The Emperor felt a brief disappointment.
"This tells me enough. Bury the rest and tell the quartermaster to mark this name and those
of any others you find among the list of the dead."
A pity, the Emperor thought as he walked through the ruins, the cowl of his cloak turned up. She and her men seemed to have the very luck upon them.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
The Necropolis of Dastagird
Krista stood in the rain, feeling the heavy drops drum against the thick wool of her cloak. A storm thundered overhead, filling the sky with lurid yellow light. Lightning arced from cloud to cloud, or walked across the fields on the other side of the river with long jagged legs. She stood at the summit of the ziggurat in the dead city, her back to the great stone altar that capped the monument. Thunder growled, filling the heavens. Within the cowl of the robe, her face was dry and pensive.
On the horizon, a red glow stabbed through the murk. In the last hour, it had doubled in size. It pulsed like a great burning heart, visible even through the sheets of rain that blew across the dunes and the fields.
It must be a city, she thought, being consumed in fire.
She wondered who lived in the city—were they men like lived in Rome? Were they monsters as she had read in the tales of travelers, with faces in their stomachs?
She sighed, putting the question to herself again.
Is this the time to go? We are at the edge of the world, surely far enough to escape the curse. But where could I go? I spurned the Prince's offer—that at least would have gained me horses and supplies.
Her ribs still ached, though Maxian's touch, when he had grown strong enough to channel the power that healed, had knitted bone and sinew back together. Her bruises were gone and she could walk without limping.
Without him, said one voice, the timid voice, you would be dead.
Without him, another answered with asperity, you would be back in Rome, safe and sound, at a party or in bed with some handsome, well-spoken noble.
The stones under her feet began to tremble, causing the pools of rainwater to shiver and jump. She sighed and stood away from the wall. The Prince was at work again, far below, and she should be there. Descending the steps of the pyramid, she felt the two Walach boys slink out of the rain-swept darkness around her and take up at her heels.
She smiled, her teeth white in the darkness. Among the Walach, the tribe followed the strong. She enjoyed thinking of herself as the Queen Bitch but winced, feeling a phantom of the pain it cost to gain their devotion. At the middle terrace, she turned off the stairs and pressed a stone in the wall. A door opened, steam and smoke curling out of it. A red glare shimmered down below. She went inside, and the Walach boys crept after her.
Days of crawling along dusty corridors and banging on the walls of abandoned rooms had finally borne fruit. A deep cellar, beneath even the furnaces that drove the firepits in the temple, had yielded an uneven pavement. Under the moldy bricks, carefully prized up by the Walach boys under the eagle eye of Gaius Julius, a circular door had been discovered, set into a floor of chalky limestone. The door was inscribed by seven circles of brass; each etched with a thousand signs. Between the circles of brass, ancient characters had been chiseled in neat rows.
There was no lock, or hinge, only a smooth surface of stone and metal. Minute examination of the stones around the door found that to the right of it, about seven feet away, there was a dimple in the floor, as if a great weight had rubbed there repeatedly.
Maxian had taken the quarters of the high priest of the temple for his own after the battle in the room of fire. The entire camp had been moved into the chambers under the ziggurat. The larders were well stocked, and brick-lined cisterns filled with sweet cold water were buried under the pyramid. Even the great engine had been hauled down into the city by Khiron and the Walach boys, and rested, quiescent, within the walls of an ancient temple. The Prince devoted himself to the books of the priests, searching for the key to unlock the circular door.
Gaius Julius, with a cheerful insouciance and an eye to the desires of his master, looted the temple, loading the engine near to bursting with crates and boxes of scrolls, letters, tomes, tiny odd-looking soapstone figurines, parchments pressed between sheets of copper, flint daggers, and a box of jeweled skulls. Large sums of coin and ingots of gold went into the machine as well. Krista was bored nearly to tears, but she steeled herself to the smell of ancient dust and the feel of dead worms on her fingers and helped the Prince sort through the documents.
—|—
"This is too much," Maxian snarled, pushing a diary of some long-dead priest away from him on the tabletop. "During the time of Faridoon the Twelfth, the priests came and went from the tomb on a daily basis, taking measurements, praying, all manner of things. Never once a mention of how the door is opened."
Krista gently put down the moth-eaten scroll that she had been piecing together. "It seems that it was always so, until quite recently." Her voice was tired. It had been a long day in a succession of long days. "That other diary, the one you found here, said that steps had been taken to prevent the Master of the Lie from gaining entrance to the tomb."
"Yes," Maxian said, thinking, "but who is this Master of the Lie? Why were the priests afraid now—and not before?" He tapped a finger on the side of his skull. "A pity that Abdmachus suffered so cruelly at Alais' hands—if he could speak, he might be able to tell us how to open the door."
"The Lie is the greatest of their sins," said Gaius Julius, who had been sitting on a bench by the door, bouncing a ball of some dark flexible substance he had found in the storerooms on the ground. "One of the temptations sent by their god of darkness to tempt men from the light."
Krista arched an eyebrow at the old Roman. Maxian just squinted at him. "And you know this because..."
The dead man hooked his thumb over his shoulder, the ball held between his palm and his forefinger. "They have a list on the wall in the kitchen, for prayers probably. It lists them all, with a nice solar icon of the God of light at the top, and below, under his feet, the God of darkness."
Maxian stood up, stretching, and shook the black robe he wore into place over his tunic. "This god of light, is it the one they call 'Ormazd'?"
"I think so, oh Great Lord," the old Roman said, tugging at a nonexistent forelock. "The rival of the one they name Ahriman."
Krista frowned at the dead man and stood up as well, brushing bits of rotting papyrus from her sleeves. Gaius Julius was fond of playing the rustic, but she knew that his mind was very sharp and though he rarely helped them with the search, he knew Greek, Latin, and Persian better than either of them.
"Then," the Prince said, "let's see what a little prayer will do."
At the invocation of the name of Ormazd, the god of light and the way of right thought, the door gave a great groan and slowly, inch by inch, unscrewed itself from the floor. Gaius Julius' eyebrows went up as it rose. He had suggested breaking through it with hammers and chisels, but the plug was at least two feet thick. The air hummed with some unseen power, and when the plug had backed itself out, it rotated to one side and lay against the floor.
Stairs went down, narrow and dark, roughly carved from the greenish stone.
—|—
Lantern light illuminated the bottom of the steps. Krista shed her cloak, hanging it up in the cellar, and stepped lightly down the winding staircase. The tomb was buried in thirty feet of solid limestone. The staircase wound down, uneven and irregular, through bands of white and ochre and tan and finally past a dark layer the width of a man's thumb. The room that contained the sarcophagus was small, barely larger than that required for the coffin itself and space for a man to walk all the way around it. Krista stopped in the narrow doorway, her hands on the walls on either side.
The Sarcophagus was a glory of gold and silver and jade under the light of the lanterns Maxian and Gaius Julius had carried down from above. The air in the enclosed space was already thinning. The coffin was made in the shape of a man, tall and handsome, with wavy hair and a piercing gaze. It was crafted in the manner of the Egyptian pharaohs, arms crossed over the chest, feat
ures smoothed and rounded. Signs and symbols, scribed in gold paint, ran along the sides of the coffin in rows.
Maxian sat at the foot of the Sarcophagus, his legs crossed under him. Gaius Julius sat to his right, in the corner near the head of the coffin. Krista slid past the Prince and went to the other corner. She settled to the floor, crossing her long legs. The Prince already seemed to be gone, his face calm and composed, though his eyelids twitched with the movement of his eyes. The dead man, for all she could tell, was sleeping.
The homunculus and the Walach boys waited at the top of the stairs, crouching around the mouth of the tunnel.
Maxian began to speak, raising his hands. His eyes remained closed.
"Give us the corpse hung from a nail," the Prince said in a hollow voice.
There was a pause.
"The corpse, though it is our King's, give it to us."
Pale-blue light sparked around Maxian's hands. Krista felt a hum begin to build in the flat stone blocks of the floor, vibrating against her legs.
"On this corpse, I sprinkle the food of life." The Prince's hands moved in the air before him.
"On this corpse, I sprinkle the water of life." His hand cupped and then turned over, as if to pour some liquid onto the floor.
The pressure in the air of the room changed, crushing down upon her. Her eyes began to water and she blinked furiously. The Prince raised his hands, stretching them out to her and to Gaius Julius. She calmed her breathing and raised her hand, trying to fill her mind with calm.
White light burst around her, filling the entire space, flooding up the staircase. Her whole body trembled as a tingling sensation rushed over her skin. Even though eyelids screwed shut, she could see the room in stark detail, each stone, groove, surface, and symbol outlined in a clear white light. Lightning crawled through the air toward her with infinite slowness. She realized that she had stopped breathing. She panicked, but her body refused to listen. She screamed, feeling her blood halt in her veins. But no sound came from her lips.
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