Shards of Empire

by Susan Shwartz

  It was the weight that oppressed them: the weight of the rock not that far from their stooped backs; the weight of knowing that their families hid in similar caves; the weight of knowing that even as they wandered below ground, their brothers-in-arms fought and their families feared. And if that was not enough, they sensed the darkness outside the circle cast by the torches they carried and kindled, waiting ever so grudgingly, for the light to fail.

  Leo kept Theodoulos at his side: the boy's wits were as quick as his leg was halt. What would this boy have become, assuming he had been exposed to more than doting former nuns and a blind priest? If Leo lived, Theodoulos would never want for a thing.

  Once Leo told Theodoulos how many thousands of paces comprised a day's march, they could work out a system for telling the time. They knew from Leo's own experience how long it took to walk however many thousands of paces. They measured that against the length of time it took to burn a torch down to a bluish, smoky stub that scorched the hand. And they knew distances between places in the upper air.

  So now they could measure time and distance in torches. For a longer interval than a torch, they had the times between meals. And then, there were the times between sleeps, which could be measured and double-checked by the guard who tended the torches.

  In the first sleep, Theodoulos woke screaming. His cries brought Leo up out of dreams of his own in which storm gods doused the fires that he was certain engulfed the land above them, firestorms piping the music of the damned across the rock pipes as the Turks rode, treasure-laden, into safety to await the destruction of all that dwelt there. Leo grabbed his sword and cast a quick glance at the torch. Mid-watch: struggling to keep up with them, given the weakness of his leg, Theodoulos ought to be sleeping like the dead, not shrieking like the damned.

  The pupils of his eyes were surrounded by white, like those of a horse led from a burning stall just before its roof crashed inward, sending flames skyward.

  “It hurts,” he whispered to Leo.

  “What hurts?” Had he strained his leg or broken some small bone in his foot?

  Theo shuddered. “I was asleep in the dark. So warm, it was. And then, the ground shuddered. I had nothing to grasp, nothing! And I was cast out, and I fell on my leg...”

  “Sir, he didn't move, not even to turn over, till he started screaming.”

  Leo fumbled at the task of examining Theodoulos's withered leg. “It doesn't look any different,” he said. “See?”

  “My leg? Oh, that's as right as it ever gets.” Theodoulos sighed. “I was a whole lot smaller in the dream. And I remembered something else.

  “You want a way up? You look for torch holders. They expected people to hide their lights when they left the caves.”

  That much Leo had guessed. He fought a temptation to order Theo curtly back to sleep.

  “What about the downward tunnels?”

  Theodoulos shut his eyes. Then he shuddered. “Father always told me to avoid them. He said you could tell that they were the really oldest ways by the feel of the rock. It was smoother, see? I took a torch down a time or so, and I always saw paintings there. That was another way to tell.”

  “Mostly of women?”

  “Snakes, too. And people wearing high crowns. Father said they were pagan and to not look. ‘If thy right eye offend thee...’ He kept telling me that at some point, they ought to be scratched over, but there was never time...”

  “No,” Leo said gently, “there never really is time, is there? But you might have time to sleep now, if you were quick about it.”

  He arranged himself between Theodoulos and the torchlight. Half a torch. Soon they would be on the move again, bound for ... do you have a purpose, Leo? Or do you just skulk below because you are afraid?

  It was not fear. He had lived through fear, lived with it more closely than he had lived with Asherah (no stranger to it herself), and he knew it intimately too. Theo, so much younger than he, however; Theo might be afraid. Leo sat with him until he drifted off to sleep. His own head tilted to one side, and he jolted abruptly awake.

  “Didn't mean to wake you,” he muttered at Theodoulos, who had taken his hand. “I didn't want to sleep. We're moving on at the next torch.”

  “You didn't wake me,” said Theodoulos. “The earth shook again. Didn't you feel it?”

  Leo had felt nothing.

  The next tremor came just as they changed torches. The light flickered toward extinction as the fresh torch was kindled. Eyes flared. No one said anything. But Leo noticed how the men studied the walls, seeking the torch holders that led to the outer air.

  Paths upward to the light usually opened into a cave or rock chimney through which the wind piped laments for the wasting of their land. Once or twice, as Leo's men emerged, they smelled smoke. Another time, they heard the cries and clash of battle not too far off. A third time, they emerged almost out in the open and had to fight their way down beneath the surface once again, leaving a blood trail that could mean their deaths. They would have to remain below ground until their wounds ceased to bleed, Leo decided: they were too easy to track.

  But their blood seeped into the stone, and the stone, he sensed, welcomed it as it had welcomed the blood of Meletios. It was no longer just Leo who was bound to these ways: it was all of them, for as long as they lived.

  And, every half torch or so, the tremors kept quivering through the rock, almost as if it were thick mud that had somehow just not settled during all these centuries.

  When they again spared time to sleep, Theodoulos dreamed again. He jerked upright just as the earth trembled. This time, the tremor woke Leo as well, and he half-staggered, half-crawled to the lame boy's side.

  “Sir, look at his eyes," whispered one of the men.

  Leo would not have been surprised to see them filmed over. But they were clear: they simply did not focus when he waved a hand before them.

  Had the youth gone blind in the flicker of a torch? It seemed inconceivable.

  And it was proved false in the next moment, as Theodoulos reached out to snatch a chunk of rock.

  “Should I put him out?” asked the soldier.

  “He's out already,” Leo said. “Hit him, and we may have a madman on our hands.” Or a lad who never wakes up.

  Curious, Leo leaned forward, just as Theodoulos scrawled a crude grid upon the wall. From time to time, he would pause, shake his head, and look away, still with that glazed stare, as if attempting to remember details. Finally, once the scrawl had been completed to his liking, he sank back into normal sleep and did not wake until the changing of one torch for another—they were running low—meant that it was time for them to be on the move.

  All had straightened themselves and their fragments of equipment as best they could: like the men, the caves were in Leo's charge; and he would have order in his domain. Only Theo still sat, staring at the grid, as if he had never seen it before.

  “Do you remember?” Leo asked. “You woke, drew that, and went back to sleep.”

  Theodoulos shook his head. Then, he picked up the rock that had served him as a chisel before. “The valley,” he muttered, “is here. Was here.” He scraped a mark on the cave wall. Red powder drifted from the wall.

  “That would mean Hagios Prokopios is there.” Another red mark, some distance away.

  Leo tried to calculate it in paces and torches, but quickly gave up.

  “It's a straight track,” he said. “Look, here is the cave city.”

  He had two cities now to think about. Hagios Prokopios was the town. The City always and forever would be Byzantium. And then, of course, there was the underground city that was never far from Leo's thoughts and prayers, Malagobia where Asherah waited for him and his men to lift their siege.

  Gently, he set down the stone. Theodoulos’ eyes had the same tranced stare that they had had when he had risen from a sound sleep to scribble upon the cave wall.

  “We can get through!” he whispered.

  One of the guards
leaned forward, holding the torch.

  “We may not even have to leave the caves. But this way we can get through and warn our families.”

  Leo shut his eyes in brief thanksgiving. I can get word to Asherah, maybe even see her again, hold her, know she is well.

  She had Nordbriht to protect her, and he was a better fighter than Leo could ever be. Still, the thought that he too could add his sword to her defense warmed him.

  “No! It hurts, it hurts!” Theodoulos wailed.

  “What hurts, son?” Leo asked. He bent to peer at Theo's withered leg.

  Theodoulos uttered a choked cry and coiled in upon himself, twitching. As they reached to steady him, their torch dropped onto their meager supply of food. It burned through the water and wine bottles and charred the stale flat breads beyond use.

  The tremor in the earth brought dust sifting down from the ceiling of the cave. A hunk of rock broke loose and toppled onto the floor.

  The ground heaven underfoot. Leo imagined ripples across the ceiling of the tunnel, as if it were indeed a giant serpent that prepared to twist in upon itself, coil upon belly coil, and crush them. Someone whimpered.

  “Move!” Leo commanded. In a minute, they'd all be screaming. He'd have to get them moving, forward and up toward the outer air.

  The grid that Theodoulos had scratched onto the wall and then embellished seemed to glitter before his eyes, shifting into a maze, drawing him in.

  This time, they heard the ground rumble. A shower of pebbles stung down.

  “Black ... dark...”

  Scraping and draggings along the rock told Leo that two men had picked up Theodoulos. He wanted to stay beside the boy, but his place was in front. He flung out one arm against the rock wall at the level at which he expected to find a torch holder. Let the tunnel twist. Let it twist now.

  Upward. Thank God. They'd reached a bend.

  “Run for it, lads,” he gasped. They probably wouldn't make it, but at the seat of Judgment, someone would at least know they had tried. The footing grew rougher. Leo's legs ached as he forced himself to longer and longer steps upslope. His heart tried to pound its way out of his mouth, and every breath seemed to lance through his chest. What the men who carried Theodoulos must be feeling was probably a foretaste of hell. Please God, it was the only hell they would ever feel.

  The next spasm threw him onto his face. Just when he thought he might have won through. They weren't going to escape, were they? At least, they wouldn't have to worry about Christian burial. But Asherah would never know for certain what had become of them, except that her dreams would probably darken for all time.

  No! The thought and Theodoulos’ scream erupted simultaneously.

  Leo forced himself back to his feet. Why bother to wipe the blood from his mouth and nose? He'd be dead in another instant or so. Shaking all over, he braced himself with a bloody hand against the wall. The stone trembled. More dust and pebbles sifted down. He felt through his boots how the vibrations in the rock subsided, then, finally, died. For now, the land rested.

  He dared to unclench his fingers, spread his hand out over the rock. It closed about cold metal.

  “We've found our way out, lads,” Leo rasped. Now that the ground had ceased to shake, his knees were turning to water, and his bowels might not be far behind. He allowed himself the luxury of sagging against the wall for an instant. If his men were that fearful, they could climb over him.

  No. That wasn't right. He knew it. Once again, he forced himself up. Someone behind him fumbled out flint and steel to kindle another torch—they had managed to preserve at least one, then: good.

  Already, it was growing lighter. Perhaps it was actually day in the upper world.

  But how would light pierce through here from a spyhole? If the one here was like any other, it was tiny, well-hidden.

  Leo glanced about. His eyesight had somehow sharpened. Here, in what should be the blackness of a living crypt, it seemed no darker to him than twilight. He could pick out the roughnesses on the corridor walls, the rocks underfoot, even individual blows of hammer or pick. He rubbed his hand across his face. Before, when he had steadied himself, his blood had seeped into the stone, as Meletios’ blood had before him. He was bound, just as Meletios had been. But with one important difference. Meletios had feared to see. Leo dared to try.

  Hissing for silence, he edged up to the spyhole. Sensitive as his eyes now were, he would have to take care when he gazed out, lest the sunlight strike him temporarily as blind as the old dead guardian of these ways.

  Again, Leo heard shouts, jostling, and the scream of a man in an agony of pain and mortal terror. Leo looked through the spyhole. There they were: Turkmen, their horses, and a man, half-clad except for blood and bruises, stretched out before them. They had built a fire. One or two squatted beside it, roasting chunks of meat. The smoke teased at Leo, making his mouth water with the fragrance of lamb, and burning his throat with the rasp of ash.

  From time to time, one of the invaders leaned forward and did something Leo hated to watch to their victim with a knife. He screamed and writhed, and they laughed.

  Leo's men pressed at his back, eager to leap out and save a man who, all unseen, they had accepted as their brother.

  Leo held up a hand. Wait. The way the Turkmen spoke was different from the language Kemal had used, but he could understand it. The Turkmen weren't just torturing for the love of it; they were questioning their victim. And, in their own fashion, combining tactics with amusement.

  Question after question they asked about troops, treasure, cities, and defense. And then, “I have heard you can find caves here, a vast honeycomb of caves leading to treasure here.”

  The man flinched, then tried to conceal his new fear.

  “You cannot conceal that there are caves. What will you win by hiding what else you know? Only more pain and a slower death. Tell us about the caves.”

  Again, a frantic negative, followed by a scream and an attempt to lunge free so frantic that the man's face came into view.

  It was Petros. Had Ioannes been killed, then? Had they already failed so completely?

  Those deaths would weigh on his soul for however long his life might last.

  Petros, he turned to mouth at his men. Rage swept over him and into them; that must be how Nordbriht felt whenever the madness touched him. But Leo was not a madman, not a beast. He fought for self-control and prayed that watching a comrade's agony might be forgiven him. Petros knew the underground ways, had walked them. For the sake of everyone in this land, they must know what he had already surrendered.

  “Stupid man, turning to fight while your friend got away,” said the raider. “Maybe we should hunt him down and cut the truth out of him. He's just a boy, only a boy. Think he can sing?”

  Petros jerked his head, no, then tensed. A shrewd touch with a blade, and Petros screamed. It was a wonder he had any voice left.

  “You out there! Bring in the...” the word was unintelligible to Leo; and he was certain he didn't want to know.

  “Coming!” More words Leo could not understand; he took them for curses as the man outside the cave finished whatever unholy work he had been set to, and stomped, bearing what he had been commanded to bring.

  It was Kemal. And he was carrying hot irons.

  Blood seemed to flood Leo's vision, and fire harsher than what would shortly sear poor Petros made him feel strong enough to punch through the stone himself, kill Petros’ torturers, and escape, single-handedly. He didn't even need to wish for Nordbriht.

  Not again. Never again would he watch a man tortured by hot iron. They were out of time.

  “Now!” Leo ordered. He drew his sword and brought his torch down for the charge.

  Screaming, they erupted from the hidden cleft in the rock and leapt upon the Turkmen. Lolling at their ease, intent on their food and their sport, they lost a precious instant to surprise. Just enough for their attackers to leap upon them. Leo cut down the man leaning over Petros with
a knife he had heated in the fire. Georgios behind him thrust his torch into the face of the man who lunged forward over the first Turk's body. The stink of flesh brought bile to Leo's mouth. He spit it out—fortunately right at the next man he faced—before, more by luck than skill, he hacked through his sword-arm.

  A third man flung himself beside Petros and began to cut him free.

  “No,” Petros whimpered. “I can't walk ... can't...” Again, that soul-destroying shriek, this time caused by one of their own.

  Kemal paused, frozen only for an instant as he took in the situation. Then he darted forward, a knife appearing almost by magic in his hand and cut Petros’ throat, giving him the gifts that the others had not the heart to provide: silence and release.

  “Traitor! Greek-lover!” One of the surviving Turks leapt upon his back, bringing up his blade to slit Kemal's throat. Leo shoved forward to try to stop him. But Kemal erupted to his feet, hurling the man off his back, and into the fire. Frantically, he rolled free, only to watch, his eyes rolling in terror, as Kemal brought an iron down shrewdly on his head. The last Turkman turned from Georgios to attack Kemal. Leo stepped in, and helped him finish the man off.

  Byzantine and Seljuk faced each other over the bodies of their dead kindred. “Lion's cub!” Kemal cried.

  In his narrow-eyed, blood-stained face, his welcoming grin was horrible. If they had the time, Leo would have embraced him.

  Leo bent to bless Petros. The man had feared the caves so much—and death was what his fear had bought him. At least, he had died swiftly, granted mercy by what had to be one of the strangest allies the Empire had ever known.

  Kemal looked aside. “I didn't want to kill him. But he was dead already. His body just didn't know it.”

  “I know,” Leo said. “His death is on my soul. He isn't the first I've had to release.”

  “Horses—they're coming!”

  Leo grabbed at Kemal's arm. “You're coming back with us, and so is he. Get him.”