The Shadow of Ararat

by Thomas Harlan

  Ahmet laughed, seeing the sparkle in her eyes, and the other men laughed as well. The dreadful tension was broken, just for a minute, and Zenobia looked around gaily, her face lit with great happiness. "Open the gate. Let us be done with this."

  Vorodes gestured to the guardsmen arrayed on either side of the gate. There was a clanking sound and then a grinding as the huge iron bolts that secured it were withdrawn into the rock of the towers. Windlasses creaked as men labored in hidden rooms to turn the wheels that withdrew the foot-thick iron bars. When they had receded, the guardsmen put their shoulders to the heavy cedar doors and the gate swung wide.

  Zenobia urged her horse forward and it trotted out onto the sloping ramp. The sky had lightened, revealing the plain and the looming shapes of the tomb towers that marked its border. Light grew and Zenobia waited under the torches and lanterns, alone before the gate of the city.

  The sun peeped over the eastern rim of the world, and the road between the funereal monoliths was at last illuminated. A single figure waited—a dark shape on a black horse. There were no Persians in sight; even their scouts had withdrawn. The light of the sun touched the top of one of the towers, and it glowed like a pearl in the dawn.

  The dark shape rode forward slowly, and a dreadful chill touched the Queen. The sun continued to rise, touching each of the tomb towers in turn, creeping down their sides with a wash of golden light.

  "It is the one I felt at Emesa," Ahmet said from the shadow of the gate. "The terrible power that struck down the Red Prince."

  He stood forward, his shoulders square, and put his headdress and robe aside. A tremendous calm had settled over him, and his heart was suddenly light. He knew why he had come to this place. "This is for me, my lady, not for you."

  Zenobia turned her horse, staring at the priest with stunned eyes.

  Ahmet made a half smile. "The Boar desires only victory, not the honor of the world."

  "No..." she whispered, but stood frozen as he walked past her, his staff held under one arm.

  Ahmet turned at the bottom of the ramp, his bare feet digging into the sand. "Close the gate and set a watch upon every wall. This is a little deceit; it may grow larger."

  Ibn'Adi and Mohammed took Zenobia's reins from her nerveless hands and led her back into the city. Vorodes stared out at the barren field, where Ahmet walked alone, and put his shoulder, with the others, to the great gate to swing it closed.

  —|—

  Sand crunched under his feet as Ahmet crossed the bridge at the foot of the wall. The dark shape remained, sitting on the horse under the shadow of the tombs. As he walked, the Egyptian was calming his mind, settling into the fourth entrance of Hermes. Though the plain appeared flat and smooth to the eye, hollows and rocks made it uneven. Footing would be poor, and he could not afford to lose sense of his physical body. Perception unfolded, the sky falling away in a riot of blazing lights and swimming with patterns of force. He focused on holding his physical sight and senses together.

  The figure moved, the black horse walking forward a few paces. Then it stopped and the robed figure dismounted, his cowl falling away from a pale head. Ahmet stiffened, seeing the vulpine line of the skull. The shock of perception was like a blow to the face. The enemy sent his horse away. Then it turned, arms held away from its body, and Ahmet saw its eyes blaze with subtle fire.

  A dead thing in the shape of a living man, he thought in amazement. What hell did it crawl forth from to learn the usages and speech of men?

  Ahmet's shields flickered, growing stronger and more complex with each moment. The Egyptian spoke words to himself, things half remembered from the chanting of the masters of his order, keys to unlock the powers and patterns of the ancient gods. The air around him trembled and mortar in the towers that bounded the field of battle on two sides began to fray.

  Seventy feet separated them. The dark shape bowed its head and Ahmet felt the earth echo with some dark thought. He balanced on the balls of his feet, his mind quiet. The thing looked up.

  I am Dahak, echoed in his thoughts, a caress of ice. Bow to me and you will live.

  No, Ahmet responded. Between the race of men and you there is no compromise.

  Then you will serve me in death.

  The plain of sand erupted in fire, the dark man's hands raised in invocation. Ahmet danced aside, his shields ringing like an enormous bell as bolts of incandescent flame raged against them. He began to sweat, but his own hands danced and a Shockwave lashed through the ground, hurling the dark man aside like a doll. The earth shook and bricks and mortar toppled from the nearest tower. Dahak struggled up and Ahmet raced across the sand, his voice howling like the wind. Lightning lashed out from him, savaging the thing, tearing great blackened gashes in the desert floor.

  The thing stood and its fist clenched. Ahmet's shields fractured and crumpled under the blow, hurling him back thirty feet to smash flat onto the sand. He shook his head clear and rolled up as a line of white-hot fire scorched the ground where he had lain. The Egyptian rotated his right hand across the front of his body, and the air between him and the thing wavered glassily. Dahak's second bolt spattered across the invisible barrier, etching it like acid. The sand under the wall of air boiled, fusing to mottled glass.

  Ahmet snarled and swallowed the power in the stones of the nearest tower. Stones cracked like a bowstring and the entire edifice, thirty feet of sandstone blocks bigger than a man and thousands of pounds of brick and mortar, toppled slowly over. Dahak scrambled aside then made a prodigious leap into the air as the tower smashed down where he had been. The booming sound of the collapsing tower washed over Ahmet like a wave, and the sand jumped at the impact. Dust billowed up, obscuring the field. The Egyptian dashed to his right as fast as he could run.

  The ground convulsed behind him, bulging upward like a mushroom with frightening speed. Then it burst, spraying sand in all directions, and something enormous and writhing with green-black tentacles was exposed for a split second before it all collapsed into the ground with a boom! Sand fountained and the ground groaned as a deep pit was carved out. Lightning stabbed from Ahmet's hands into the pall of dust that had billowed up from the tower, searching for the dark man.

  A hammerblow threw the Egyptian to the ground and his shields flared like the sun, a hundred layers disintegrating in an instant. Through a blur of sweat and falling sand, Ahmet saw the dark man standing on the pinnacle of a tower on his left. On his knees, the priest screamed in rage and punched in the air at the distant figure. The tower exploded, erupting with shattered rock and brick from every window and doorway. It crumbled majestically, each floor shattering in succession and the whole thing toppling to one side. The dark figure staggered on the summit as it slid sickeningly toward the ground. Then Dahak sprang up and flew through the air to the next tower, his robes streaming out behind him like the wings of some enormous raven.

  Ahmet wept in rage. The creature can fly!

  The Egyptian staggered to his feet and drew his hands, palms facing, together before his chest, his face a mask of concentration. Around him the sand and rocks within a dozen paces flashed a bright blue-white and collapsed to ash and smoke. Snarling, his hands flexed outward, palms facing the figure of the enemy hurtling toward him through the air. He shouted, his voice enormous, filling the whole valley. In the city, windows of rare glass shattered, spraying the streets with a cloud of tiny knives. People screamed, their faces drenched with blood. The walls of the city shook and men stumbled back from the ramparts, stricken deaf by the sound.

  Dahak slewed wildly to one side, trying to avoid the blow, but it was not enough. Something enormous slammed into him and his own shields blazed up, radiating tongues of flame in all directions. He cartwheeled through the air and smashed into the side of another tower. The edifice trembled and cracked, parts of the upper stories sliding down in slow motion, dust bursting out of the far side. The dark man pulled himself limply out of the crushed bricks, his right hand making a sign in the air before hi
m.

  Ahmet ran across the sand toward him, leaping over fallen pillars and broken statuary. Lightning danced from his hands, slashing across the face of the tower. Dahak wiped a pale hand across his mouth; it came away streaked with blood. A heavy bolt tore into his shields and the top half of the tower blew away in a cloud of bricks, dust, and bones. Heavy stones crumbled onto the sorcerer, smashing him to the floor of the doorway he had been blown into.

  The Egyptian paused, panting, a good distance from the tower. It trembled and then collapsed in a roar of agonized stone and mortar. Ahmet struggled to rebuild his shields, now only a tattered wisp of their former strength. His hands were shaking and his nerves were an agony of brutalized tissue. He staggered, barely able to think. The Fist of Horus was more debilitating than he had heard.

  Dahak rose up out of the rubble, a dark flame flickering around him. His face was a ruin of blood and broken bones. His mouth opened, showing sharp canines, and he screamed, a long dreadful cry of rage. In the city, men fell to the ground, mindless with fear. It was the sound of a great beast, hunting in the night beyond the light of the cave fire. On the wall Zenobia, her face streaked with tears, gripped with bloody fingers at the stones of the battlement.

  Wreathed in a corona of ultraviolet fire, Dahak sped toward Ahmet, his mouth howling inhuman words. The sky darkened and Ahmet felt the sun grow dim. He clutched at the earth under his fingers, leaching the deep blue-green rivers of power that he felt under the land. The dark man raised a fist and then his hand flashed in a circle, describing a sphere filled with black light that he clawed from the air. His fist stabbed out. Ahmet surged up off the ground, wrapped in green fire of his own, then there was a brilliant light and the earth shook.

  In the city, Zenobia wept to see the huge billow of flame that erupted from among the crooked towers. It blossomed like some infernal flower, rushing out in a blast that tore at the funereal pillars, turning the sand to glass around it. The hills rumbled with the sound of the blast and a hot wind flew before it. She turned away, shielding her face with her arm, still clad in the stout armor. Smoke shot into the sky, forming a pillar a mile high. When she turned back, nothing could be seen but desolation among the ruined towers save a single figure, black as night, stumbling among the shattered stones.

  —|—

  Dahak could barely see, his mind blinded by incredible pain. His skin smoked and his hair was burned away. He ran into something solid—the remaining fragment of a wall—and he slumped against it. He was exhausted, trembling with fatigue. His fingers, withered to clawlike talons, scraped at the stone for purchase, but there was none. The rock was very hot and it burned him as he slid down it. The sky wavered overhead and he moaned. All around him the air was filled with the creak of stones cracking and snapping as they cooled from the incredible heat. He crawled away, instinctively looking for some hole or pit to crawl into.

  Fifty yards away, his skin caked with fine gray ash, Ahmet lay senseless in the center of the destruction. A fine dust rained out of the sky, powdered brick and stone, settling over him like a funeral cloth. His clothes had been burned away and long burns scarred his face and chest where his failing shields had ruptured. His breathing faltered and then stopped.

  A thick pall of smoke and dust hung over the valley, drifting slowly to the south.

  —|—

  On the ridge, Baraz nudged his horse forward with his knees and looked down upon the city. Nothing moved. He motioned for his standardbearer and trumpeters to advance. His own long banner now flew, the stylized head of a tusked boar on a field of dark green. He wore his own armor too, old and battered and nicked by a hundred battles. He rubbed his hand across the greasy iron rings. This is as it should be, he thought. Men will do this work and win this victory. He waved to the banner men behind him.

  "Signal the attack!" he shouted, his voice ringing like a bell. Below the lip of the ridge, tens of thousands of Persians rose from a crouch and began moving forward. Those few engines that his engineers had been able to cobble together from the wagons rumbled forward on the road. The Boar turned his eyes back to the walls of the city and a fierce exultation filled him.

  "Persia!" he shouted, raising his sword to catch the sun. "And victory!"

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  The Outskirts of Kahak, Northern Persia

  Nikos stood in shadow, his broad face dimly lit by the bonfires and torches in the street below. The shutters were thrown wide, but the room itself was dark. The Illyrian was just inside the window and standing to one side, leaning against the poorly plastered mud-brick wall. A racket of horses neighing and men shouting rose from the street. Thyatis sat, cross-legged, on a thin cotton pallet against the far wall of the room. Her sword, gleaming with oil, lay across her knees. There was a sliding scrape as she honed the blade with a whetstone.

  "What do you see?" she said, not looking up. Her voice was quiet.

  "I see," he answered, "more than a hundred men ahorse. Their mounts are burdened by half-armor of leather with broad rings of iron stitched to it. The men are bearded and fierce, with long lances and curved swords. Their helmet plumes are of many colors, and the banner they follow is the head of a tiger on a field of yellow."

  "That is the crest of the King of Luristan, Kûrush of the House of Axane." One of the Armenian boys had spoken, his voice soft in the darkness. "Those are dihqans, knights in your parlance, from the far South. They have traveled many leagues to reach this place."

  Thyatis nodded. Her thumb ran along the spine at the core of the length of Indian steel. It was a good sword; it had been a gift of the Duchess after her first successful mission. Holding the scabbard with her right hand, she tipped the blade in with the left and then ran it home among the silk lining. "It seems odd that such a pimple as this place should be so popular this late in the year."

  Jusuf, also sitting against the wall with the Armenians, nodded. "The King of Kings knows that the snow will be late," he said.

  Thyatis considered this, then spoke. "Will the snow truly be late? The air is chill already."

  Jusuf shook his head, his eyes upon her, hard over the barrier of his folded arms. "It is growing cold, but there has been no rain. It is a dry year. Snow may not close the passes to Albania and the north for another month or more."

  "Then," she replied, "there is time enough for the King of Kings to gather an army and send it north against the Emperors and their army."

  "True," Nikos said, gliding from the window and squatting next to her. "This is the third company of dihqan that has passed while I've watched today. By the conversation of the innkeeper and the merchants at the midday meal, there is a great road junction to the north."

  "Yes," the other Armenian boy added, looking to his brother for support, "a great highway runs from the south to the shores of the Mare Caspium and the Persian city of Dastevan. They built it in the time of our grandfathers, when they were fighting the barbarians on the steppes north of the Araxes."

  Jusuf coughed and glared at both boys. They blanched, suddenly reminded of where he came from.

  "Then we should leave this place soon, tonight, before someone thinks to mention a party of foreigners from the north to one of these nobles." Thyatis looked at the two Armenian boys. "One of you, and... say, Menahem, will ride north to carry word of this to the Imperial army. The rest of us will continue south."

  The Bulgar, Menahem, looked up at the mention of his name. He was a short fellow, blessed with a very thick, bushy beard and curly brown hair. He rarely spoke, though he was not as reticent as Sahul. He slid a long knife with a toothed edge out of his belt.

  "I have to nursemaid some milk-sucking boy back to the Araxes? What if he soils himself, do I clean him up?" He grinned evilly at the Armenian, who half stood, his young face pale in anger.

  "Save it," Thyatis snapped, her face serious. "The boy knows the trails between here and there; you can scare off anyone that you meet. Just make sure that the word gets to Augustus Galen as soon as poss
ible. Go, get ready."

  After the two men had left, Thyatis motioned for Jusuf and Nikos to come sit by her. When they had, she spoke softly: "We leave right away, and we don't continue southeast. If there is a Persian army in the field, we want to avoid stumbling on it. We're going to cut back to the west and make for the land between the Two Rivers."

  Nikos made to protest, but Thyatis raised a finger, stopping him. "The Emperors expected to spend the spring wrecking these highland villages and the farmlands to the east, with the help of our eyes and ears. I wonder if they will grow bold after they face this army. We are going to Ctesiphon as quick as we can. There is something in the air. Chrosoes is taking a risk to try to smash our army so late in the year. He is weak."

  Nikos shrugged. Thyatis' feelings and hunches were her own and had rarely turned wrong. He slapped Jusuf on the shoulder and went to roust the others. The Bulgar remained squatting by the Roman woman, his expression pensive.

  "What is it?" Thyatis said, her voice low and soft. "Are you thinking of Sahul?"

  An odd, guilty look flitted over Jusuf's fine-boned face. He shook his head. "No... I was thinking of Dahvos and his command. There will be a great battle and he will be in the thick of it without me to stand by him. I fear for him."