Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

"I would like to see the great ocean," Vladimir said, still talking and looking out over the waters. "Some day, before I am called into the close darkness. There are many stories, in the old tales, of the endless sea and the water-that-tastes-like-blood."

Dwyrin clapped the Walach on the shoulder, feeling the fine, soft fur. "You will see it, then, my friend. It is a journey of many days, but between us we can convince Nicholas to turn the ship and take us there. Then you will see the gray vastness…"

Vladimir laughed, a deep throaty sound that reminded Dwyrin of a forest stream spilling over mossy stones.

Siq, Near Petra, Roman Nabatea

Torches flared in the wind, casting red-and-orange light high on the walls of the canyon. The shadows of men trembled across the water-carved stone surfaces, growing enormous and small by turns. Fitted stones making a metaled road covered the floor of the canyon where the native stone had not been planed smooth. Boots clattered on the flagstones, and the jingle of armor and the creak of leather filled the air. Water, carried in round, ceramic pipes fitted into channels in the wall of the canyon, gurgled past. Somewhere high above, catchment dams and cisterns gathered the rain and the seepage of tiny springs. The men were tired and footsore and hungry, and the canyon continued to narrow. Even the night sky above, strewn with a field of stars, was soon closed off, and they marched under striated red walls.

At the head of the column, Odenathus led a weary horse by its bridle. He was tired, too, for the sprint across the flat desert wasteland to the east of these hills had been taxing. Ahead of him, the lead scout suddenly stopped and raised a hand in warning. Odenathus shook his head, trying to clear the fog of fatigue away. He handed off the bridle of his horse to one of the Palmyrenes in the van and splashed forward. The scout, a Bostran shepherd who had joined them a week ago, was standing at a turn in the canyon. It was very narrow here, barely wide enough for a horse to pass through.

"What is it?" Odenathus kept his voice down, though the racket of the army at his back was sure to have alerted anyone who might be about. The scout nodded ahead, his dark eyes glittering in the torchlight. The Bostran was clad in the enveloping desert robes of the southern tribes, leaving only the bridge of his nose and his eyes showing. Odenathus stepped to the turn and looked around the corner.

The passage widened out, and there, carved from the living rock of the canyon wall, was a towering palace with doors and windows and deep embrasures holding statues of men and Amazons. Odenathus hissed, seeing the gorgeous building illuminated by the light of a bonfire on the floor of the canyon. Then he silenced himself, for a gate of worked stone stood at the end of the canyon. It stood wide open, though men in desert robes and armor loitered just beyond it. Indeed, banners fluttered in the breeze that forced its way down the narrow slot canyon, and it seemed that they were expected.

The Palmyrene turned and signaled to the men following. A muttered message was passed down the line. Odenathus waited in the shadow of the canyon, watching the men standing in the light of the bonfires. They seemed to be waiting, too. At last there was a muted rattle of boots on stone, and two figures trotted up to his side. Odenathus smiled in relief, seeing that Zoe did not have the dead Queen strapped to her back. The long march across Hauran and the rough passage of Trachontis had convinced her that she did not need to carry the corpse herself. Another wagon had been acquired in a town south of Jerash and outfitted as a catafalque. Now the dead Queen rode in majesty, lying on a bed of rose petals and cedar. Incense and aromatic candles were burned around her at dawn and dusk, shrouding the faint smell of desiccated flesh.

Beyond that, however, Zoe spent much time with her aunt, sometimes sleeping under the funeral wagon. Odenathus and the other men had, slowly, grown used to its presence and now ignored it.

Zoe brushed a trailing lock of raven dark hair out of her face as she came up to Odenathus.

"Our way is blocked?" Here in the dark, with this firelight, she seemed her old self, unmarked by torment and inner demons. Odenathus nodded in the direction of the gate.

"The city is defended-men stand at the door yonder. Lord Prince, is this the usual practice here?"

The man standing at Zoe's side was their new ally, Zamanes, Prince of Bostra and Jerash, the King of Gerasa. He was a stoutly built man of middle height with a thick, curly beard ornamented with small jewels. Despite his young age, he was afflicted with a slight limp and poor vision. The Prince looked around the corner of the cliff as well, then tugged at his beard. "Those are no Petrans," he growled. "That merchant must have been right."

Two days before, as the combined army-such that it was-of the Palmyrenes and Bostrans reached the eastern end of the fertile valley that had led them to this slot canyon, their outriders had captured an Arab merchant on the Roman road. The man was walking alone with his goods in a bag held by a carry-strap that circled his forehead. Zamanes had questioned him while Odenathus watched. The merchant had related an odd tale that "Southerners" had captured the Red City in the mountains and had thrown down all the idols of the gods. This struck Odenathus as being particularly unlucky, but he knew that the southern tribes believed all sorts of superstitions.

"They are enemies of the Empire." Zoe's voice was flat. Odenathus started to dispute the statement, but paused and realized that it might well be true. Anyone who would attack and capture a provincial capital had to be an enemy of the Romans. But does that make them our friends?

"Let us speak with their chieftain." Zoe pushed away from the wall and walked out onto the sandy canyon floor, her arms raised high in greeting. Odenathus, without thinking, jumped after her and then found himself in the full view of thirty or forty men waiting in the wide oval space between the exit from the slot canyon and the huge rock temple. He looked from side to side and counted the number of bows trained upon him. It would be very difficult to take this place, emerging one at a time from the canyon mouth into a storm of arrows, spears, and javelins.

"Ho! We come to speak with your master. Call him to us, or let us enter." Zoe's voice, high and strong, rang off of the canyon walls, echoing among the entablature and freestanding statues on the pediment of the tomb. On the ramp of steps leading up into the rock temple, a man with thick, broad shoulders looked down upon them. He wore a cloak of white and green over burnished metal armor. Odenathus squinted into the firelight, seeing that he wore the habitual headdress of the southern tribes and bore a long, recurved bow in a wooden case on his back.

"Our lord awaits you, strangers. Send your embassy forward, and we will take you to him."

– |Within a circling ring of mountains, Petra nestled in a rich and crowded valley. Hundreds of villas and shops climbed the hills that stood on either side of the main road into the city. Above those hills, cliffs rose on every side, riddled with carved tombs and grand funerary temples. Though the city was well-illuminated at night by lanterns and torches, the surrounding mountains were dark. The tomb doors gaped, showing black yawning pits where the old doors had been cracked open by earthquake or vandal.

Odenathus followed Zoe and Zamanes as they passed down the avenue of the city. Everything was built of blocks of stone and roofs of tile or slate. In the darkness he could make out the murmur of many horses and camels, and the smell of water and growing things. There must be gardens behind these bare walls, he thought. The stream of Siq ran through the middle of the city alongside a raised roadbed lined with beautiful columns of marble. Little arched bridges crossed the streambed, though unless there were heavy rains, he could see no use for them. They passed an open market on their left, raised up on a great platform and built out from the side of a hill. A Roman-style triumphal gate followed, thick with devotive statues and carved wreaths. Beyond the gate was a long, rectangular plaza fronting a Greek-style temple. A great baths crouched at the side of the elegant temple, seeming crude in comparison.