Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

– |Cold stone pressed against Khadames' face when he woke. He felt very cold, and water was dripping nearby. He tried to move his head, but a spike of pain behind his eye ended the effort. Swallowing was no better: The pain transferred to his throat. When he managed to open his eyes he found himself lying on a bed of stone flags set into the wall of a great chamber. Sparkling lights danced in front of his eyes for a moment, but then he was able to focus and see that torches of pitch sparked and guttered on the walls, casting a fitful light. There was a great rattling sound, and the shouting of men. He closed his eyes, trying to gather his strength.

"Here, faithful ones!" The voice was too familiar, and rich with delight.

A banging sound came, and the scrape of metal on stone followed. Khadames opened his eyes again and was rewarded with only mild pain. A door swung clear in one wall of the chamber, and a gang of his men-stripped to the waist and sweating heavily-were manhandling the heavy oblong shape of the coffin of gold and lead into the room. The general rolled over onto his side. The sorcerer strode into the room, his skin flushed with the pale rose of good health, his long, thick hair flowing like a raven's tail behind his head.

"To the stone bier, my friends. Yes-lay it there."

The coffin entered the room by inches, with the groans of struggling men punctuating each movement. At last it was dragged on a sled of wooden rails to the edge of a stone platform set into one wall of the chamber. A vaulted dome of stone rose above it, pierced by triangular windows. Through them, Khadames could see a cloud-filled sky and hear wind and rain. The mutter of thunder growled in the distance, too. With thirty men on a side, the coffin was levered up onto the stone platform and finally pushed to rest.

The sorcerer seemed more than pleased, and spent a long moment caressing the dull metal surface of the funereal casket. "Soon, dear one, you will feel the touch of life again…"

Khadames turned away at the soft voice; he had heard the long litany before, many times, on the road from the ruin of doomed Palmyra. He did not need to hear it now; the pain in his limbs and head was company enough. He tried to find sleep again, but it eluded him.

– |"You are better, faithful General?"

Khadames started awake-he had not heard the sorcerer creep up to him. He turned his head a little and opened one eye a bare slit. The pale yellow irises of the sorcerer looked back, close over his face. The chill in the room seemed to have flooded around him, and Khadames shivered despite a thick blanket that had been laid over him.

"I did not mean for you to come to harm," said the dark man in a gentle voice. "I sent you away to tend the horses… Such things happen, though."

"Yes," Khadames said, coughing, "they do happen. Where are we?"

"Ah… you have missed more than a little, faithful General. We are in a chamber near the summit of the Eagle's Nest-a place once called the kahar kehediupan-the Room of Life. Your men have tended you since we entered the mountain. You took a strong blow to the head."

"And you," Khadames chattered through clenched teeth, "what have you done in this place?"

The sorcerer straightened and stood back, putting his hands on his hips. "I have made the mountain wake," he said, his lean face smug and filled with delight. "In ancient days they called this place Damawand and trusted much to the strength of its walls and ramparts. They trusted it to sleep, too, at their command and not wake unless they willed it. An unwise assumption." He smiled down at Khadames and sat on the edge of the stone bench. "This is a place of secrets, faithful General, secrets eager to reveal themselves to me. This is a place of power, power that will come to me, now that I inhabit it. Damawand is mine now, a strong place that will call more strength to it."

Khadames closed his eyes. Thoughts fluttered aimlessly in his mind until one managed to force its way through to his lips. "And the men who stood with you at the gate? What of them?"

"Ahhhh…" The sorcerer took a long breath. "You are wise, noble Khadames, far wiser than I. This lesson, above all things, I cherish-that one man, even gifted with the strength of multitudes, is still but one man. He has but one pair of hands, one set of eyes-he can only be in one place at once. Oh, this is the most beneficent lesson!"

The dark man reached out and gently stroked the side of Khadames' face. At the touch, there was a brief sensation of bitter cold and then warmth flooded through the general. The chill that had gripped him vanished, leaving a sense of thick warm blankets piled up to the nose, and a chilly room beyond. Despite himself, Khadames sighed and lay back.

"One man may struggle and fail," mused the sorcerer, "where two may succeed or five hundred may triumph. You need not fear, faithful General, the men who stood with me at the door, before the sign of fire; they are precious to me beyond belief-they are my Sixteen now, my hands where I cannot lift, my eyes where I cannot see, my voice where I cannot speak. Oh, they are treasured-they will be well looked after. Just as you will be…"

The dark man continued speaking, but Khadames could not make out the words. Sleep stole over him in the delicious warmth, and he yielded gratefully to it.

– |Drums rolled, making a deep thunder that boomed back from the walls of the great hall. Khadames stood, dressed in full armor and the dark green surcoat of his house. A helm of iron chased with silver and gold was tucked under one arm. His mustache was waxed stiff and jutted from his face like the tusks of a boar. His long gray-brown hair lay on his shoulders in heavy braids. Behind him, in four ranks, stood half of his men, each dressed in their finest attire. The hall itself, a brooding vault of heavy stone bracing and towering pillars, lay at the center of the mountain, just opposite the great gate.

The upper reaches were filled with shadow and the fumes of a multitude of torches that burned in sconces cut into stone. At the center of the room a dais of blocky steps rose up, and atop it, seated on a chair of plain iron, the sorcerer sat at ease. The five hundred were arrayed in two great wings on either side of the throne, the captains on the steps and the ranks of men sweeping down on either side. The dark man had somehow acquired a rich wine-red robe and velvet hood that lay back on his shoulders, exposing the graceful sweep of his neck and head. Beneath it his customary black shirt and long pantaloons gleamed like a film of water over ice. Like his subordinates, he was immaculately groomed. Somehow, during the time that Khadames had lay in his feverish weakness, servants had come into the mountain-groomsmen, washerwomen, maids, even link-boys to light the thousands of lamps and torches that filled the vast warren of the mountain with their fitful dim light.

The drums ceased, leaving the air trembling. The heavy iron and oak doors that closed the main entrance to the great hall groaned and then swung wide, pushed by dozens of slaves in black tunics. Between the opening doors, a small crowd of men advanced slowly. A small drum hidden somewhere in the recesses of the hall began to tap in time with their footsteps. The visitors crossed the expanse of the hall still huddled together. At the foot of the dais they halted, and Khadames observed them carefully.

As the sorcerer had promised, they were the headmen of the surrounding villages, clans, and tribes. The mountains of Irak were riddled with narrow valleys and hidden basins. The tribes that clawed a meager existence from the barren plateaus and rough mountainsides did not welcome lowlanders. Too, they were fractious and given to mutual slaughter and betrayal. These six men, with their escorts behind them nervously fingering their weapons, were the chiefs of the greatest clans in the mountains. Each was richly dressed-by their standard, at least, though they could not begin to match the opulent splendor of the Imperial Court, or even the understated refinement of the sorcerer.