Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

"Here is our intent," Mohammed said briskly, bringing everyone's attention back to the map. "At the moment we do not lack for men. There are slightly more than twenty thousand Arabs, two thousand Petrans, your thousand Palmyrans, and-by your count, Lord Zamanes-some five thousand Gerasans we can muster for this campaign."

"Perhaps more," Zamanes interjected, "if the other cities of the Decapolis will rise with us."

"Even so. Our great lack, however, is heavy equipment-shovels, mattocks, wagons, barrels, all manner of siege works like catapults and ballistae. Then there is the matter of our armor, which is spotty. We have gathered some formations of heavy horse, but most of my army is armed with javelin, bow, and perhaps only a shield for protection. If we are to deal with Rome, we need to supplement that armament."

"You intend to seize the supplies at Lejjun," Odenathus said, "if you can reach the camp before it is properly garrisoned."

Mohammed nodded at the young Palmyrene. "Exactly. With the tools of war held therein, we can strike to the coast."

Zamanes frowned. "Not at Damascus? It is the linchpin of the entire frontier defense, the hub of Strata Diocletiana, and now the richest city in the region. Should not that be our goal?"

"No," Mohammed said, his face split by a grin. "Our aim is not the conquest of Phoenicia and Syria-in truth, we do not have the men we need to garrison so much land-our aim is to seize the Roman port of Caesarea Maritima, here on the coast of Judea. Look upon the map, my friends-the Roman provinces are a long strip between the sea and the sand. All their forces have been withdrawn to the north to deal with the Persians. If we were to strike north, along the axis of the Strata, we would expose a lengthy flank. Rome still controls the sea, allowing them to land armies behind us at any point.

"Further, with Anatolia and Cilicia still unsettled from the Persian invasions, it will take more time for them to bring an army over land to meet us. The enemy will come by sea, so we must wrest from Rome the one thing that has maintained its power for all these long centuries."

The desert chieftain moved his hand across the blue-tinted map. "Control of the Mare Internum is the key. At Caesarea Maritima are both an Imperial naval base and a fleet. We will seize that fleet, recrewing the ships with our own men, and wrest Rome's monopoly of the sea from them. Then, Lord Prince, then we will see about the cities of the plain."

"A bold plan." Zoe's voice broke in, cold and formal. The men started, for they had not heard her approach. Odenathus rose and offered her his chair, sweeping his cloak behind him as he made a slight bow. Zoe met his eyes and summoned a smile, though her own were cold and bleak. She settled in the chair, her dark gray cloak falling around her like a thundercloud. She had pulled her hair back from her face in a severe manner, and the heavy clink of iron rings came as she arranged herself. Odenathus stood at the back of the chair, worried that she had taken to wearing armor under her linen blouse. "What do you intend after that?"

Mohammed sat again, his face grave, and he waited a moment, watching the face of the young woman opposite him. Odenathus could see that the desert chieftain was troubled by the pain and sorrow etched so clearly on the young woman's face.

"Lady Zoe, I intend to seek out Emperor Heraclius and put him to death for the murders he had caused and the destruction he has wreaked. I hope he will come against us, as is his wont, with an army. Then I shall face him on the field of battle and the Merciful and Compassionate One will judge. But should he hide in his city of stone, then I will dig him out. For that, I need a fleet."

Zoe smiled, though there was no warmth in it.

"You would storm the walls of Constantinople with this rabble?"

Zamanes flinched at the scorn in her voice, but Odenathus put a gentling hand on the Prince's shoulder.

Zoe ignored the motion. "I served, of late, in the army of the Empire," Zoe said. "You would face not thirty thousand men, or even fifty thousand, but upward of a hundred thousand trained men. Your enemy commands fleets, he commands thaumaturges, he commands an empire. You are a desert bandit with only the men at your back to support you."

Mohammed nodded, then said, "And you, my lady, what are you? You have taken up the same cause, to repay the death of your beloved Queen. How will you take vengeance?"

Zoe stiffened, and her pale face became ashy. She rose from the chair, her hands curling into fists.

"The Queen," she rasped, "is not dead! She sleeps, waiting for her time to return. She will lead us to victory. Can your great and merciful God say the same?"

Mohammed blanched and put his hands on the arms of his chair, willing them to lie still. "The voice that speaks from the clear air has told me what I must do. My men and I will stand against the dark powers that threaten the earth. I have seen them with my own eyes. We submit to the will of the Loving and Compassionate One, and we will be delivered."

"Will you?" Zoe sneered down at the desert chieftain. "Can your God of the Wasteland restore strength to the weak limbs of my Queen? Can He raise her up, that she might walk among us once again, hale and strong? Can He?"

Mohammed matched gazes with the young woman, seeing horror and pain and madness there. He slowly shook his head. "The God passes judgment upon all men. If He wills that she rise again, she will. And if not, it is not our place to question His will."

"I have no use for your God, bandit! May He rot and burn in His own fire." Zoe wrapped her cloak around her with a snap and strode away, leaving her angry words ringing in the air.

Odenathus made to follow her, but then stopped himself and turned back to the table. "My apologies, Lord Mohammed. As you see, my cousin took the loss of the Queen badly."

The Quraysh nodded, looking after Zoe as she walked away down the terrace. His face was sad. "She is not alone in that."

– |A centipede, long and glistening, a deep burnished red highlighted by glossy black chitin, rippled across a floor of fitted stone. A shaft of light, sparkling with slow-falling dust, fell across the vestibule of the grave house. In the midday sun, even attenuated by its fall from the window high above, it burned like fire as it crossed the doorway. Within, past the threshold, cool darkness held sway. The air was a little thick, filled with dust, and it tickled the throat. The centipede slithered down the steps and disappeared between the stone feet of a statue standing at the side of the door.

"Where are the gods and their divine justice?"

The voice was raspy with exhaustion. A young woman, her thin shoulders marked by the sun, and half clad in a grimy black robe, crouched against the wheel of a wagon. Her hair fell in a tangle around her face. The wagon sat in the center of an old tomb, one of many cut from the soft sandstone walls of the canyons that ringed Petra. The doorway, broad and imposing, had been just wide enough to allow it entrance. The Queen's servants had sweated and groaned in the darkness to place it here, but now they were gone, leaving the woman and her burden behind.

"Where are the Furies and their whips? Does not Zeus Ammon look down from on high and see the sins of men? Where is his wrath?"

The sides of the wagon had been etched and carved by the soldiers. An echo of a city filled with prosperous families and gardens and high, arching colonnades peered out of the wood. The work was not done, only two sides of the wagon were finished. The other surfaces were marked with lines and curves in bits of chalk and cut with the tip of a knife. Slim, fluted wooden posts had been erected at each corner. These held up a canvas awning. The top was rough and unfinished, but hidden beneath, where it could have been seen only by the passenger, was a painted sun of many rays.