The End of the Magi

by Patrick W. Carr

  He didn’t know whether this was the truth or simply a bargaining tactic. “Then I’ll take what you can and be thankful for it. Will it be enough to buy a good horse?”

  “I can’t speak for the seller of horses,” Yasmina said. “Come, let us return to the tent. I don’t doubt your animals are well-behaved, but camels think it amusing to spit.”

  They rejoined Morteza. “Have you come to an agreement, my daughter?”

  “Perhaps, Uncle. I can give you ten tetradrachms for all thirteen camels.” She held her hands palms up. “Ordinarily it would have been closer to twenty. Even so, a decent horse usually costs eight tetras.”

  He had that and more hidden in his pack if needed. “Perhaps you could provide information as well. Do you know the merchant who traded all his camels for horses?”

  “Yes, his name is Walagash. We’ve dealt before, he and I.”

  Myrad’s heart sank. He’d hoped to meet up with his friend on the road east and ask to join his caravan once more. Now Walagash was at least three days ahead of him and traveling fast. “He’s a friend. Did he say where he was going?”

  Yasmina shook her head. “No, I’m sorry.”

  He took this in. The sale of three hundred camels and the purchase of a corresponding number of horses would certainly affect the market, at least for a time.

  He spent the night at the inn closest to the tent of Morteza and his daughter-niece. No dreams, no voices, or visions of impossible skies came to him, no healed feet that would make him whole. He woke just before dawn and hobbled out to the pen where he’d tied his horse. A sound from behind surprised him and he spun, his hand on his knife.

  Yasmina stood two paces away, her hand extended as if he were an animal that needed calming. In the other she held a bundle. “Morteza’s nose does not fail him, but his eyes do not see so clearly as mine. The desert leaves its mark on a man, and there are few reasons why anyone would dare cross it alone.” She held out the bundle. “There’s enough food here for a hard day of riding.”

  “Thank you,” he said, taking it. He pointed at his horse. “How much can I ask of him?”

  She stepped forward, ran her hands down the horse’s legs, and checked the frog of each hoof. Taking the horse by the bridle, she peeled back the upper lip to examine its teeth. She pursed her lips. “No one’s going to confuse him with Pegasus, but then you wouldn’t want a racer anyway. They’re too fragile and temperamental for your needs.”

  “What is it you think I need?” he asked.

  She raised one shoulder, then let it fall. “To stay ahead of someone or to catch up with someone else. If you keep him at a trot, you can make three way stations a day for a time,” she said.

  “How many days will it take me to get to Nisa?” The question startled him. Until that moment he hadn’t decided whether he would go to the city of the dead or chase after Walagash. But as much as he ached for the friendship Walagash and his caravan offered, Gershom was his father and they had shared a dream, a true dream.

  “Eight days, perhaps nine,” Yasmina said.

  Myrad bowed. “Thank you. You’ve helped me far more than your purchase of a few camels. I’m in your debt.”

  She nodded. “Morteza imagines he can smell evil on a man, or good. He likes the way you smell. There’s no lack of caravans to ride with, no matter which direction you’re going. Push him to a gallop if you pass close to a forest alone. Bandits hide there. Just make sure you let him walk afterward.” She teased him with a smile. “You have a penchant for naming your animals. What will you call him?”

  “Areion.”

  “The talking horse of the Greeks?” She laughed. “Do you think he’s going to speak to you?”

  “Only in my dreams.”

  CHAPTER 12

  It took him eight days to cover the distance to Nisa. The last day he let Areion walk since they’d stopped the previous night at the closest way station. Either his pursuers had given up the search for him or they were looking in the cities of the west. None of the men or women at the oases or watering stops appeared to be searching for a man with a clubfoot. Of course, he’d taken pains, intense pains, to walk like a normal man for the few steps required.

  The city of Nisa appeared as though it were hurrying to become a ruin. People walked the half-empty streets at ease with the horses passing through, and the market covered only a portion of the stone-covered plaza set aside for it. Once the capital of the Parthian Empire, the city was now little more than a repository for its dead kings.

  “The city of the dead,” Myrad mused. No voices or visions came to him during the ride from Hecatompylos, not even on those nights he’d been forced to sleep by the road with nothing but Areion and the stars for company. For hours each night he’d peered into the heavens searching for a star that never appeared. Shaken by its absence, he came to doubt his divine instruction. Perhaps his vision was nothing more than the fevered dreams of thirst. When he tried to insist on its reality, his mind hurled questions at him like darts.

  Why would God use a clubfooted man to accomplish His ends? Why would the God of the Hebrews talk to a Persian? What arrogance made him presume to consider himself one of the elect?

  On they went, hammering at him, but after a time their relentlessness became their undoing. His essential nature reasserted itself and he found himself answering each attack with a shrug. “I may not be one of the magi, but I’m alive and I’m free when I had no right to expect either.”

  Faced with the choice of considering himself cursed or lucky, he chose the latter. He mounted Areion and rode toward the eastern quarter of the city. There, he found a decent inn where he could stable his horse. He ventured just far enough into the market to purchase a change of clothes before making his way to a bathhouse. Standing on the mosaic tile in the anteroom, he shrugged himself out of the tunic and trousers he’d worn since the desert outside Hecatompylos. His temptation was to throw everything away except for the boots, but after a moment’s reflection he folded them and placed them on a shelf beneath the set he’d purchased. Conscious of his clubfoot and the stares it brought, he passed into the warm room and descended into the pool where he let the water and conversation wash over him in equal measure.

  Images of Walagash, Aban, Storana, and Roshan buffeted him. He’d been a fool. Walagash, along with most of his caravan, had extended friendship to him and he’d thrown it away for a chance at revenge. Myrad would have laughed if it weren’t so pathetic. Of course, Masista had stranded him in the desert. Even if he hadn’t, what would come of Musa’s hypothetical defeat? Would Gershom care?

  No. Gershom was dead. If the dead simply ceased, they didn’t care. If Gershom lived on in the presence of God, he still wouldn’t care, which led Myrad to an inevitable question. In an empire defined by ambition and murder, why should he care? If recent history was anything to go by, Phraates, Musa, and her son would all die violent deaths at someone else’s hand, who would go on to die a violent death in turn.

  He bobbed along the edge of the pool until he came to a clay dish holding cakes of soap. By the time he’d washed himself, he had a plan. If God did not speak to him here in the city of the dead, he would ride east to Margiana and seek out Walagash to offer himself to any service the merchant might offer.

  Cleaned and clothed, he reclined on a low couch in the inn’s serving room, sipping date wine after his meal and congratulating himself on his plan. If God or imagination failed to give him clarity of purpose here in Nisa, he would find it in Margiana. Downing the last of his wine, he rose and made his way to his room, where he fell onto his bed and slept.

  He drifted through his dreams, content, until he found himself in the desert gazing once more at a bright, unblinking light above the western horizon. “Behold,” the voice said, “the star of the Messiah-King.” He stared at the light until the voice came to him again. “Go and see.”

  He awoke to a dark room, the small slit that served as a window showing nothing but a matching hue of b
lack. He bumped his shins in search of his clothes but didn’t care. The dream had given him a renewed sense of purpose and in an obscure way had brought Gershom back to him as well. He jammed his boots onto his feet and hobbled out to the street.

  There was no doubt in his mind what he was looking for, but the inn and the surrounding buildings blocked his view. He ventured into the main thoroughfare that ran east-west through the city and turned to search the sky, impatient, but before he could look, he heard voices.

  “Myrad?”

  Shadows approached him from the darkness, and he took a step back. Fool. He’d left his knife and cane in his room. “Who’s there?” The figures came closer, bearing candlelight. Faces became distinct, but only the man to the right of the candle resolved into familiarity. “Hakam?”

  The man stepped closer. “Why are you here?” The dim light accentuated the mournful cast to his eyes, and his voice sounded vaguely distrustful.

  “I had a dream,” he said simply. If Hakam mocked him for it, well, no matter.

  “What dream?” Hakam demanded. Anger and surprise wove through the question.

  He sighed. “The same dream that led Gershom to proclaim me as magus. The dream of a star, but each time I awake, it’s gone. It’s only in my dream.”

  “Look.” One of Hakam’s companions pointed over Myrad’s shoulder.

  There, low over the western horizon, a steady light blazed pure white without twinkling. They stood, eight by Myrad’s count, gazing toward the west at a star that hadn’t been there the night before.

  “That’s no dream,” one of them said, his voice light, amused.

  “Let us go in,” the man holding the candle said after a long moment. “The star isn’t going anywhere, and I wish to hear the tale of this dream.”

  CHAPTER 13

  The man bearing the light led them to an inn across the street from Myrad’s. He could only shake his head at the coincidence. They went into the serving room where they lit candles and one of the men disappeared into a back room, then reemerged carrying a pitcher of wine and cups. The man holding the candle gestured Myrad toward a chair at the head of a table before turning to Hakam.

  “The two of you are acquainted. Introduce us.”

  Hakam’s mouth twisted, but he acquiesced with a nod. “This is Myrad, a young Perisan man of Gershom’s acquaintance.” Then he pointed at the others in turn, making introductions. “Dov. Eliar. Mikhael. Harel. Shimon. Ronen. Yehudah.”

  Myrad worked to commit each man’s name to memory, yet fatigue and darkness gave the events a surreality that made him question if he’d truly awakened. Yehudah, the man who’d borne the candle, gestured to Myrad with his cup. “Tell us everything. Leave nothing out.” The others nodded in unison.

  “No,” Myrad said. “I do not trust you. I trusted a magus once before and I nearly died.”

  Yehudah smiled at that, his face a mixture of strong Hebrew features with the coloring and tilt to the eyes of the horsemen of eastern Parthia. Myrad noted he was of an age with Hakam, perhaps ten years older than himself. He wore his authority among the other men as naturally as his silk tunic. “Why do you name us magi?” he asked.

  Myrad almost laughed. “You dress like them, and there’s a way each of you have of holding your head, as though the palms of your authority are still on your brow even though you’re not wearing your circlets. How many palms can you claim, Yehudah?”

  “Six. I hold the satrapy for part of Bactria. At least I did until my allegiance with Gershom was discovered. Tell us what assurances you require that would gain your trust.”

  He shook his head. Neither Hakam nor Yehudah, nor any of the rest of the men gathered around the table understood. “I don’t think you can give me what I want.”

  “Please, let us try,” Hakam said. But his tone sounded akin to a command rather than a supplication.

  “Now you believe me?” Myrad cocked his head and spat to one side. “You dismissed me because I’m not Hebrew and because I missed two days on the calendar, even though you knew nothing of what I’d done to escape. I have no wish to be in your company, magus.”

  “I will not be lectured to by a—”

  Yehudah held up a hand, and Hakam fell silent. “Gershom was a good man and a friend. I share your grief. He died because he shared our mistake.”

  While Myrad wanted nothing to do with Hakam or the magi, Gershom had always praised his curiosity as a virtue. “What mistake?”

  Yehudah sighed. “Since the time of Daniel, we were servants of the prophecy, numbering the days, but we forget his lesson. He rose to prominence in two empires because he served God and was elevated. We allowed ourselves to become embroiled in the politics surrounding Phraates’s choice of queen.”

  “It was the right choice,” Hakam said. “The woman is evil. How can the Messiah rule if the entire world has been crushed beneath the Roman heel?”

  “No,” Yehudah countered. “The choice was wrong. Daniel’s example was there before us. So was Nehemiah’s. Serve with humility.” He turned back to Myrad. “Gershom, like the rest of us, confused service with allegiance. He wanted to save the empire from Musa’s influence, but empires can’t be saved. They come and are washed away by the inexorable tide of history. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Greece are dust. Khushan, Qian, Rome, and Parthia.” His hands waved the air, dismissing their images. “They will all be replaced by empires that will fall in turn.”

  Myrad took a sip of wine. Yehudah’s list sparked a dangerous question, but he wouldn’t shy from it. “Then what good is this Messiah-King? It’s just another empire to be washed away.”

  Yehudah shook his head. “The empires of men are transient, ephemeral as dew, but God’s kingdom will last forever.”

  “Why do you care so much whether I join you?”

  “Because from the moment I saw you in the street staring into the west and Hakam called your name, I knew God had chosen you.” He motioned around the table at the other seven men. “Why do you think we’re in Nisa?”

  Still, Myrad wasn’t ready to trust them yet. “Daniel’s test then,” he said finally. “Tell me my entire dream with its interpretation and then you can tell me what you think I should do about it.”

  Yehudah smiled. “As you wish. This is the—”

  “No,” Myrad interrupted. “Not you.” He looked around the table at the other men until he found one who reminded him most of Gershom, a middle-aged man with a fringe of hair. “Him.”

  Eliar pushed to his feet and faced him. “This is the dream you’ve had three times now,” he began. “You found yourself in the desert gazing at a light in the western sky. The light burned, too large and too constant to be a star and without the tail that would proclaim it a comet. The light held steady in the sky, as unmoving as the mariner’s star, though it hung low in the horizon. A voice came to you and told you this was the King’s star. Here lies the meaning: The King, the Messiah, has come to Israel, and the appearance of the star announces His arrival.” Eliar smiled, and his eyes shone in the dim light. “This is the dream, and its interpretation is sure.”

  Like an unexpected wave crashing against the sand without warning, the revelation and interpretation of his dream undermined his objections. “What does it mean? Hakam said there were decades left before the Messiah comes.”

  “God will make His purposes known,” Yehudah said. “In the meantime, I would like to hear your tale.”

  With a sigh, Myrad nodded. “The dream came to me the night before the slaughter of the magi,” he began.

  When he finished nearly an hour later, Hakam was the first to speak, staring into his cup. “Masista’s true allegiance against Musa must have been discovered.” He raised his head to look at Myrad. “He led you across the desert because he didn’t dare use the roads. Phraates and Musa are consolidating their power in the west.” He glanced around the table. “Most of us were already on our way east when we received the dream to come to the city of the dead.”

>   “But why here?” Dov asked, the oldest of the men present.

  Myrad listened as each of the magi offered reasons that were just as quickly dismissed.

  “We’ll have to wait here until the meaning becomes clear,” Yehudah said after everyone fell silent.

  “We can’t stay here,” Mikhael said. “Musa’s soldiers are no more than two days, perhaps three, behind us.”

  “I think I know why we’re here,” Myrad offered. “The letter to the treasury in Hecatompylos was one of six I found among Gershom’s papers. Masista took the rest, but I have the one for the mint here in Nisa.”

  Quiet settled over the room, each man unwilling to be the first to speak. In the end, it was Ronen who broke the silence. “There are gifts mentioned in the Torah, the symbols for God’s chosen.”

  “Gold,” Hakam said, his eyes burning. “For the king.”

  “Frankincense,” Harel said. “For our priest.”

  “Myrrh,” Ronen added. “For the prophet of the people.”

  “What about the calendar?” Myrad asked. “The King doesn’t come for another thirty years yet.”

  “Doubtless the meaning will become clearer in time, when we see him,” Yehudah answered. “For now, our next steps are plain. We will use Gershom’s writ to withdraw as much silver from the mint as possible, then use the money to bring our gifts to the King.”

  “We won’t be able to get them here,” Harel said. “And Phraates’s soldiers are coming.”

  “I know.” Yehudah nodded. “We will have to go to Margiana.”

  Margiana. A thrill of hope coursed through Myrad at the prospect of seeing Walagash and his friends again.

  CHAPTER 14

  It took them over a week to travel to Margiana. All eight of the magi, plus the cataphracts belonging to those who possessed such, had been required to relieve the mint in Nisa of its silver. Three days out of the city, a towering cloud of dust approached from the east.