Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

Zoe raised one razor-sharp eyebrow at Odenathus, then made a clicking sound with her teeth. "I was planning on securing lodging for all three of us, if not in the consul's domus then in one of the inns that the city owns here. However, if you would prefer to deal with such matters yourself, feel free."

Odenathus raised his hands in surrender at the icy tone in her voice.

Zoe nodded and brushed a lock of fine black hair out of her eyes. "Get the wagon to the campus. I'll find you if you don't get lost and fall in the river and drown."

Dwyrin smiled, watching the young woman as she strode away up the road. She seemed to have grown into herself in the year that he had known her-though she was still impatient, quick to anger, and filled with suspicion, she seemed to have found some kind of balance in the exercise of their common art. Command suited her, too, it seemed, and he was glad the burden had fallen on her. He leaned back against the slats that made up the sides of the wagon, and closed his eyes. His thoughts turned, as they often did in this dry and barren land, to memories of his youth and rich green of Hibernia and the cold dew on the leaves in the morning.

– |"That is a fine sound," Dwyrin said, motioning with his cup into the firelit darkness. "Those voices were made for singing under an open sky like this."

Odenathus, leaning back on his bedroll, nodded. In the light of the little oil lamp hanging on the back of the wagon, Dwyrin could just make out the motion of the other man's head. Across the camp, now filled with the wagons of the army and thousands of tents and pavilions, clear, strong voices were raised in song. The night seemed hushed around the sound. It rose toward the vault of heaven, where the stars shone brightly in the clear desert night. Dwyrin could not make out any words, but their cant was that of great deeds done in war and the hunt.

"They are called Blemmye," Odenathus said as he refilled his own cup from the amphora of wine that they were sharing. "They come from the black kingdoms at the source of the Nile-Meroe and Axum. Many of them serve the city as caravan guards or mercenaries if there is a war. There are few men fiercer or braver in battle. I think they dislike our cities, though it is said that their homelands have great metropolei, as large and prosperous as Alexandria or Constantinople."

"What are they singing about?"

Odenathus shook his head. "I don't know. They sing in battle, too, to give their limbs strength and drive fear into the hearts of their enemies. My grandfather once said that they account themselves in paradise if they die with a song on their lips. He valued their service greatly."

Dwyrin put down his cup and stood, stretching his sore back. It had been a long day, though thankfully the army had not passed through the middle of Antioch. A pontoon bridge had been put across the river just above the first of the islands that marked the urban center. That had allowed the Legions to cross to the western bank and take a road through fields and past little farms to the great Campus Martius that was maintained for the army stationed at Antioch in times of peace. Still, getting the heavy wagon across the bridge-all twisting under their feet as the great planks shifted with the weight of a dozen wagons and hundreds of men-had been some work. His upper arms and the backs of his legs were still burning with the memory. But here they were, in their allotted space, with their tents pitched and a warm dinner digesting.

Around them the camp was oddly quiet, even with the distant singing. Each cohort had pitched their tents in the regular avenues of a traditional Roman camp, but the lively bustle that usually marked the army at rest was missing. Dwyrin could hear snores echoing from the nearest tents, so he guessed that everyone had turned in early. Tomorrow, or so the centurion had said, a quarter of the men would get passes to go into the city, while the others would rest or refit the wagons. Within the week, or so rumor ran, cohorts would begin marching down the military road to the coast and the port of Seleucia, where the fleet waited to take them home.

Dwyrin was not sure what to think of that. He had come into the army in such haste-the fruit of a last-minute levy upon the thaumaturgic schools of Egypt-that he had no sense of a home other than the tiny academy of Pthames. Before that, he had been only a child, barely aware of the world around him, living in contented ignorance in Hibernia. His birth-home seemed impossibly distant now, months of sea travel away at the far end of the Empire, or even beyond, really. The fierce tribes of his home island had never bowed to Rome, nor had Rome cared. Britannia was the edge of the world as far as the senators were concerned. Now he would return with the Wizard's cohort to Constantinople and find himself in a new home-a vast city only briefly glimpsed in his time there before-among hundreds of sorcerers and magicians that served the state and the Emperor.

"Do you miss your home?" Dwyrin tried to keep the sadness he felt from his voice.

"The City?" Odenathus looked up, his long, lean face half in shadow from the lamp. "Her golden walls and bright gardens filled with hyacinth and bougainvillea? Her long arched passages and arcades, her broad, wide streets of paving stones, and the glory of her sunsets? Yes-I do. I miss my family, too, all of them. My sisters and their squalling brats, my gruff old father… I miss all of them."

The Palmyrene youth paused, looking off into the darkness. He seemed pensive. He turned his wine cup over and over in his hands.

"Zoe wants to stay, you know, here-in the army. Our term of service was just for this one campaign-a gift of the city to the Empire, but I think she has found something here she lacks at home. A sense of place and purpose. In the city, what could she be? A wife? Do you think that would suit her? Do you feel this is your home now? I know you were thrown into this, too."

Dwyrin squatted, his own face pensive now. "I don't know. The witch finders took me away from my family when I was very young and then sold me to the Empire. The School was my home for a long time, but I cannot go back there, either." He turned his arm and rolled up the sleeve of his tunic. The small, dark mark of the Legion enlistment brand was plain against his naturally pale skin. "Now I have this, and an enlistment to complete. There is really no place else to go. I will miss you two, if you leave. We had some good times, this campaign. We didn't die, for one! We lived and came home rich-if we don't spend it all here in a brothel."

Odenathus half smiled and scratched his head. He stowed his wine cup. "I know what you mean, barbarian. Don't you think she should be back by now?"

"Yes, she should."

Dwyrin stood again and looked out into the darkness. Across the river, the walls of the city were marked with hundreds of lanterns and torches; long lines of jewels hung against the night. "Well, we haven't a pass between us-I suppose we shall have to sneak out of the camp and search all over the city to find her. No telling what kind of low or depraved places we might be forced to endure before we find her."

"Hmmm…" Odenathus said, staggering to his feet. The amount of wine he had swilled was telling a little. "Wouldn't do if we were caught missing. Best to leave a note for the centurion."

"Yes," Dwyrin said, smiling, "we should leave something behind." He pinched out the wick of the little lamp, and it became very dark around their wagon. He found his cloak by feel and could hear Odenathus doing the same. The Palmyrene youth crouched by the entrance to their tent for a moment, and there was a soft, muted flash of light. When he stood, the dissonant rattle of a snore echoed from the canvas. Dwyrin smiled in the darkness, looking up, seeing a vast abyss of velvet night and winking stars. The River of Milk stood out very clearly in this thin desert air.