"Enough," rang out from behind her. "This is a world of men, not of demons."
The thing at the gate seemed to grow, towering over the city, its serpentine legs smashing buildings to ruin. A red mouth whirled open, filling the streets with a howling hot wind. Fires sprang up in the dry buildings. A roar shattered the air, driving all thought and consciousness from men.
Zenobia turned her head, a Herculean effort, for fear and despair beat down upon her like the blows of a blacksmith's hammer. Ahmet stood in the gateway, leaning on a staff of pale wood, his scarred body barely covered by a clean cotton robe. White fire ringed him, a shuddering corona of a thousand rays. She cried out in pain at the light that shone from him.
"Azi Dahak, I name you, dark power of witchcraft and lies." His voice rang like thunder.
The thing at the gate convulsed, steams and smokes billowing from it. A tentacular claw lashed out, sending a jagged bolt of flame licking across the length of the city. Ahmet raised his hand. The flame sputtered and died, falling into the streets as pale white smoke.
"Azi Dahak, the ten serpents, I name you." The sun flared, a white nimbus, and shadows fell upon the ground in opposing directions.
"Azi Dahak, I bind you in the name of the Binder. I compel you in the name of the God that Died and has Risen with the Sun." Zenobia, her ears ringing with a tremendous noise, fell back to the ground, nerveless and without thought. The whole universe around her seemed only to be the ragged voice of Ahmet, shouting against a gale of wind.
The thing that towered over the city reached down and dust spouted up as its claws dug into the earth, tearing aside brick and mortar and concrete like dry grass. Ahmet staggered forward to the top of the ramp. He made a sign in the air, something that flickered and changed and hung in the wind like a glowing star.
"Azi Dahak, in the name of the Lord of Light, the maker of the world, begone!"
Wind rose in a gale, tearing at the clothing of the people lying senseless within the palace grounds. Bricks and tile sheared off the roofs of buildings and flew toward the thing. A whirling storm of wind hissed up off of the deserted streets and abandoned gardens. Timbers, wagons, the bodies of men, entire roofs of tile and slate, leapt into the air. The vortex hammered at the thing, raging with fire and crackling with lightning. It shrank, clawing at the air around it, tumbling palaces and temples. The columns that lined the great avenue tore from the earth and arrowed into the heart of the creature. Marble and agate burst into flames and were devoured by the shape. The sun expanded, filling the whole sky. Men screamed and tore at their faces, feeling their skin dissolve and burn away.
An enormous clap of thunder shocked the city, breaking statues of long-dead kings into a thousand shards, shivering goblets and amphorae into dust. The thing that raged against the whirlwind folded in upon itself and then, with a hot spark of black light, vanished.
Silence fell upon the city. The wind died. The sun stood forth in the blue vault of heaven, a solitary disk. Dust fell in a fine rain from the sky, covering everything with a mourners' pall.
—|—
Zenobia crawled from under the rubble of the winged lion. A great stone wing had fallen over her, shielding her from the flying debris. The lion's head was gone, torn clean off. The other lion was scattered across the courtyard. Ahmet lay in the threshold of the gate, his tattered robe wrapped around his loins. She touched his face.
It was as cold as any stone. Trembling fingers pressed against his neck, but there was nothing. Tears fell, sparkling like dew on his haggard, dead face. The Queen of the city wept.
—|—
General Khadames raised his head up, shaking broken roofing tiles from his helmet. Around him, before the gate of the city, thirty thousand men were stirring, amazed that they were alive. They rose, by ones and twos, covered with fine white dust, ghosts in a desolate world. Khadames stood and ran his gloved hands over his body. He was stunned to be alive, much less whole. He looked around, blinking his eyes to clear the grit from them.
The ladders had been torn from the walls, leaving hundreds of men writhing on the ground injured or dead. The siege towers were only lonesome great wheels leaning against timbers torn in half like straws. Acres were covered with horses lying dead on the ground, their riders missing or crawling away, crying out in horror.
The gate of the city was gone. One tower had been smashed down into a great ash heap, while the other leaned drunkenly, its top half torn away. The massive doors themselves were nowhere to be seen. An empty street, lined with broken columns like the stumps of teeth, could be seen through the ruin. Men stirred in the rubble or wandered in the avenue, dazed and mindless.
Khadames cleared his throat, but then paused and looked around him in sudden fear.
The black wagon had slid off of the road, a hundred feet behind him. The black horses were scattered about it, dead, their corpses withered and desiccated. The host of knights who had surrounded it in such terrible panoply lay in rows, their arms and legs a jumble of cracked and broken limbs. Khadames breathed a short prayer, but it stuck in his throat.
A dark figure moved in the field of the dead. Cowled in sable, limping, one bony hand clutching a staff of ivory bone, his master came toward him. Cold dread crawled out from that figure, pooling in the hollows of the ground and lapping around Khadames' boots with an icy touch. One of the knights twitched, moaning, hand scrabbling at the earth. The dark figure bent over it, ragged robes masking the boy who lay on the ground.
There was a soundless cry. The dark figure straightened, filled with momentary strength. It strode toward Khadames. He fell to one knee as it approached, his fist wrapped tight around the hilt of his sword.
"The way is open," a voice hissed out of the black cowl. "We enter the city."
Khadames nodded but did not look up until the dark figure had passed him.
—|—
"Take him away," Zenobia shouted, her face streaked with tears. "Hide him in the cellars, someplace no one knows. Quickly!" Her handmaidens gasped at the weight of the dead man and raised him up upon their shoulders. The Queen clapped her hands sharply and they staggered off at almost a run. Soldiers were trickling up the ramp from the ruin of the city. One of the Tanukh, a crude bandage wrapped around his head, hobbled up.
"O Queen, the Persians have entered the city. There are thousands of them and few of us."
Zenobia nodded, looking around quickly. Scarcely a hundred men had managed to reach the palace. A few more were running down the avenue. The long lines of columns had fallen, or their arches had collapsed. The Queen surveyed the wreckage of her proud city with dry eyes. She had no more tears to shed.
"Any man with a bow to the wall, you others close the gates. You, Tanukh man, did Lord Al'Quraysh survive the battle at the gate?"
The Tanukh shook his head slowly, bowing it in sorrow. "No, O Queen, I did not see him. Everyone on the wall or in the towers is dead."
"It is enough that he died bravely," Zenobia said, her eyes glittering like steel. Her saber rasped from its sheath. The blade was still true.
"Begin building a wall," she called out to the men who had ground the gate closed. "Here, at the top of the ramp. You and you, run back into the palace and find oil and wood, anything that will burn."
She walked to the top of the ramp and planted her feet, legs wide. The saber gleamed in her hands. She said nothing, waiting, while the few men still at her command rushed to build a wall of fallen stones, bodies, anything that they could find. The Queen's face was cold and filled with hate.
In the avenue of the city, armored men advanced under a dark banner bearing a wheel of ten interlocking serpents. They made no sound, staring around them in horror at the devastation.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
The House of the White Swan, Palace of Birds, Ctesiphon
"My lady?" Princess Shirin looked up from her harp at the sound.
Ara, the dark-haired woman who had come to meet Jusuf and Thyatis their first night in the
palace, stood at the door of the music room. As before, she was clad in subdued colors and her face was grave. Thyatis, who had been lying on her stomach on the floor, rolled over to look at her. Shirin put the harp away and folded her hands on her lap. Late-afternoon sun gleamed through the glass windows, painting her profile and the light silk gown she wore with rich golden colors.
"What is it, Ara?"
The lady bowed, motioning to the outer rooms of the house. "It is Prince Kavadh-Siroes, my lady, he wishes to speak with you. He seems..." The lady in waiting paused, her dark eyes flitting to Thyatis, recumbent on the floor, then back to her mistress. "...he seems agitated."
Shirin frowned and put the harp back into its waxed leather case. "Send him in, then, but wait just a moment."
Thyatis rolled up onto her feet. She was wearing a pair of dark-amber silk pants—a gift from Shirin—and a deep forest-green shirt. A sash of muted red the color of old wine was bound around her trim waist. She grinned broadly at the Princess, drawing a glimmer of a smile in return.
"Thank you for the song, my lady. I will make myself entirely invisible."
Thyatis bowed to the Princess and scooped up her sword, which had been placed at the side of the couch Shirin had been sitting cross-legged on. The Princess thought it amusing that the Roman woman took her blade wherever she went. Thyatis became nervous if she couldn't touch it at any time. On bare feet, she padded out of the room, drawing a heavy linen drape closed behind her. The tip of her scabbard made a tiny tinging noise on the marble floor as she went. In the other corridor, through a screen of carved wood intertwined with flowers, she could hear the sound of Ara's voice and a thin masculine tone. The Prince, she supposed.
Thyatis waited at the end of the corridor, her back pressed to the wall in a niche once reserved for a large urn. A few moments later Ara walked past, her face set and serene. Behind her back, Thyatis glided back down the corridor, completely silent, holding the scabbard at the hilts behind her back, out of the way.
—|—
"Beloved aunt." The tension in Kavadh-Siroes' voice was marked, even muffled a little by the drapes.
"Nephew, welcome. Please sit and take refreshment with me. There are light cakes and a sherbet." A plate tinkled against glass.
Shirin sounded languid and at ease, comfortable with the affairs of the day. Thyatis eased the edge of the drape aside, gaining a thin wedge of visibility into the room. Shirin remained on the couch, though now she lay along the length of it and she had draped a shawl of tiny knots around her bare shoulders, covering her breast. The Prince was dressed in dark silk, almost black, but with a rich brown highlight. His long hair was in disarray, and he kept trying to push it back behind his head. Thyatis raised an eyebrow—being mewed up in the House of Swans did not allow any of them to mingle with the nobility of the palace. This was the first time that she had laid eyes on the heir to the Peacock Throne.
He was handsome, his features strong, with clean lines to his face and body. A high brow promised a quick wit or lively intelligence. His dark eyes were edged with a little kohl, just enough to bring them out. In all, a very pretty young man. The commanding expression that doubtless marked his father was absent, though, replaced by sick worry and bags under his eyes that no makeup could disguise. A scared young man.
"Aunt, I know that you love my father truly—and have been as a second mother to me since the death of the Empress. I could not ask for more of you, not in good conscience. But I am driven and I must ask—you, who see him most, please, I beg a question."
"Of course," Shirin said, her voice questioning. "What is it? Pray, ask and I will answer."
The Prince bit at his knuckle, looking around the room. Thyatis became very still, but she judged that the boy was so agitated that a cohort of legionnaires could have been standing against the walls and he would not have noticed. "Please, do not take this amiss—I mean no ill will by it—but doubts plague me, keeping me from sleep. I must know... is my father insane?"
A shadow passed over Shirin's face. Her folded hands trembled.
"I... I do not know, Kavadh. Like you, he has sent me away. He stays in his own chambers now and does not summon me to them. Like you, I am worried. The palace is filled with rumors and strange stories. When did you last see my husband?"
Kavadh bowed his head, staring at the floor. "A week or more... he had summoned his advisors to him to discuss the matter of the Romans." Behind the drape, Thyatis' ears perked up.
"Only a few of us were there, not even half of all those he demanded. At first he was in a rage—then he suddenly calmed down and greeted each man with a glad smile. I was in the back of the room, hiding from him, but even I he welcomed as a guest. I saw his eyes through the holes in the mask—they were calm, but his voice was strange."
Kavadh sighed and picked at the gold laces of his high riding boots.
"He asked if the great Prince Shahin had returned from the conquest of Egypt yet. No one could answer him—no word has come from that army since it entered the deserts of Syria months ago. He asked if the Boar had returned from his hunting trip in the North, the bright-bannered Immortals at his back. No one could answer him—few have come from the North save messengers bearing word of the constant approach of the Roman army.
"He asked if the new army had been raised from the people of the city. No one spoke. I looked around and saw only old men and servants around me. All of the great lords have fled—to Ecbatana or beyond, back to their estates. Aunt, we are abandoned!"
Shirin sighed and pulled the shawl closer around her shoulders. Her hair had been loose while she had been singing for Thyatis; now she began to braid it.
"Nephew," she said, her voice soft, "there are many pressures upon the King of Kings. This war does not go well, the people—even the nobles—are afraid. If he shows that fear he holds himself, then there will be a panic and all will be lost. It is natural to feel fear, each of us, man and woman, does. But you must not let it master you. Be strong for your father, stand by his side, bend your bow as he does."
Her voice trailed off, seeing the desolation in Kavadh's eyes. He stood, shaking his head.
"No one is coming to save us. The Boar is dead, the great Prince Shahin may be as well. There are no armies to succor us if we hold out in siege and no one to hold the walls against the Romans. Our only choice to survive is to flee now down the river or into the moutains. This I will say to my father, for there is no other choice."
Shirin watched him, her luminous eyes filled with worry. She held up a hand and he stopped as he would stalk out the door. "Your father honors courage and bravery above all things, dear nephew. Do not anger him when you say these things. He is quick to take offense." Kavadh made a half smile while one hand picked at the drape of his shirt. "You mean he accounts me a base coward, hiding behind my dead mother's skirts? That he will ignore and revile me if I speak the truth to him? I know, but I am by rights the son of a King. I should speak honestly to my father in this." He bowed and left the room. Behind him, the Princess stared out the tall windows. Thyatis closed the drape, though she had to restrain herself from stepping in and putting her arms around Shirin. Instead, she waited in the dim corridor, patient and quiet. She wondered if the boy-Prince would be killed by his father in an insane rage.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
The Road to Ctesiphon, Lower Euphrates Plain
Rain fell in sheets, obscuring the road and the lines of palm trees on either side. Thick clayey mud dragged at Dwyrin's boots and caked his legs. The rain was not heavy but it was constant and it had been with the army for days. The canals the road paralleled had risen, lapping at the tops of the dykes that held them back from the endless fields that stretched to the horizon. In the odd times when the rain lifted or the clouds broke, Dwyrin could see towns and cities pass by, raised up on great mounds of earth. The land seemed empty—no peasants, no shepherds. Even the empty walls of the cities were barren of life.
Dwyrin put one foot in front of t
he other, feeling his boot suck up out of the mire. It made a popping sound as it pulled free, then he put it down a pace ahead. The tan and brown fluid slid over his foot, trapping it again. Ahead of him, the other mages toiled forward as well, their heads low, their hands on the sides of the wagons for support. Riders splashed past in both directions, urging their weary horses forward through the sodden road.
The Hibernian wondered if they would ever see an end to the mud, if their destination would ever rise out of this endless plain of fields and towns and rows of palms and other trees. The army had come down out of the mountains above the city of Nineveh in a break in the weather. For a brief few days they had marched down firm roads under sunny skies. The air had been crisp and cool, with miles passing away under their marching feet. But past the great northern city they had entered the plain between the two rivers, a vast expanse of mud and deep loamy soil.
Then the rains had come again, and the world had dissolved into endless leagues of gray sky and muddy road. He put one foot, dragging it out of the muck, in front of the other. He was weary, very weary. Zoë looked back over her shoulder, her face drawn and grim. He was falling behind. She motioned for him to catch up. Dwyrin sighed and pushed harder through the mud.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
The Palace of Birds, Ctesiphon
Fires lit the plain, red and gold under an overcast night sky. The clouds scudded past, reflecting ruddy light from bellies fat with rain. Thyatis stood on the roof of Shirin's house of marble and jade, her nostrils filled with the clean smell of rain on the desert. She stretched her arms wide, feeling the damp wind ruffle her hair. A deep breath filled her with a curious peace. The city was dark around her, with barely a light showing. The Roman army had come to the gates of the city of the King of Kings, but the populace had not seemed to notice.
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