Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

– |Jalal bulled his way through the flames, leaping over a fallen idol that was wrapped in smoke. At the door, the men who had followed him into the warren of the building were gone, and he turned sideways to drag Mohammed through the opening. The chieftain was starting to struggle in his hands, and Jalal was forced to pin the older man's arms to his sides. Grunting, he heaved Mohammed up onto his shoulder.

Even in the hallway outside the burning room, the air was thick with smoke. Jalal staggered under the uneven weight, then righted himself.

"I hear you!" The shout startled Jalal, and he tripped, spilling Mohammed onto the tiles of the hallway. It was dark, only fitfully lit by the flames creeping out of the doorway and drifting along the ceiling. Jalal stared, seeing only Mohammed's eyes, white in the darkness, ahead of him.

"I hear you, Lord of This World!" Mohammed staggered to his feet, ignoring the smoke that curled around him. "I will act! These abominations will be thrown down, and you will be raised into your rightful place!"

Jalal stared around in concern-no one else was in the hallway. The echoes of Mohammed's shouts were swallowed by the darkness and the crackling roar of flames. Jalal scuttled forward, keeping his head low and out of the slow billowing waves of smoke. Mohammed swayed from side to side. Jalal captured one of his arms again, and yelped as a fat yellow spark snapped between the chieftain and his hand.

"I hear you, O Lord of This World! I will tell men what I have seen and…"

Mohammed's voice faltered, and he suddenly slid sideways. Jalal caught him, cradling the older man close to his chest. The smoke was worse, flooding the hallway. Jalal crawled forward, hoping that he remembered the way out. It was becoming very hard to breathe. Mohammed muttered in his ear, senseless words, rambling and incoherent. Jalal began pushing Mohammed ahead of him, but the air was thinning quickly. Sparks began to dance in front of the Tanukh's eyes and his ears began to ring. He gritted his teeth and crawled onward.

A terrible heat beat against his back, and he heard the sound of stones cracking in fire.

– |"For ten nights and ten days, the Persians raged against the city. And when they were done, not one stone remained upon another. Temples were thrown down, and palaces shattered. Those people who had survived the fighting were herded into the wide avenue that ran from the Damascus gate to the great Temple of Bel. Tens of thousands of them packed the street. We were outside the city, in the hills, but we could hear the sound of their voices, raised to the night sky, pleading and begging for mercy."

Khalid paused and uncorked a leather bottle that hung at his side. Uri waited, quiet and patient, while the young man drank from the flask. When he was done, Khalid offered it to the older man, but Uri shook his head. The young man stared out at the desert, and the bleak hills that rose above Mekkah.

"The Persians chained them, all those who still lived, to one another. Later, I saw the iron links themselves, lying scattered in the street. Then the Persians left-every man in that army marched out of the city and over the hills, into their camp. Only he remained; the Lord of the Ten Serpents. It grew quiet in the city, and we strained to hear, but there was no sound. No weeping, no cries for mercy, no voices raised in fear. Then… then you could feel it in the ground, like the rattle of dry bones, and you could taste it in the air, a sour taste of bile and copper. My men fled, running over the crest of the hill, back to the warm fires and the wine bottles of the Persian camp."

Khalid's eyes narrowed to slits, and Uri could feel tremendous anger welling up in the young man.

"But I? I waited and I watched, though every instinct in my breast screamed at me to run. I waited for him to emerge, to come forth from that place where he had fed. I waited for hours. At last, when the dawn was close to breaking, I thought to creep down into the valley and cross the siege-trenches and the fields of broken tombs, to look into the city itself. But then he came forth, a shape of black deeper than the night. I could not see him, no-not in that darkness-but I could feel him, even across the breadth of the valley."

Khalid paused and unsnapped a pouch at his belt, drawing out a sliver of pale white bone. He held it up, and Uri frowned at it-the bone was almost translucent, passing the light of the noon sun through it like a prism. The youth turned it back and forth in the sun.

"Sometimes, when you are watching the flocks, out beyond the lights of town, you can feel the night hunters come. Do you know the feeling? Yes, all of us have felt it-something almost inaudible alerts us as we drowse at our watch to the soft pad of great paws on the sand. Or you are in a city, and a man hunts you, then you can feel it in the air-something is watching you. This was worse-this was being a mouse, hiding beneath a stone while the dragon walks past. I fell down, even before that thing came forth from the gate of the city, and screamed in fear. It felt so gigantic; oozing out of the wreckage of the gateway, like an enormous spider that was fat with blood. I tried to burrow into the earth, but the stones stopped me."

The youth held up his hands, and Uri saw that they were scarred along the fingertips and some of the fingernails were missing. Khalid half smiled at the blanched look on the older man's face.

"I left within a day-as soon as I could ride again. We passed thousands of Persian soldiers on the road, fleeing mindlessly from that same fear. We went southeast, into the deep desert, and I did not look back. One of my men, who caught up with us at the oasis of Sabkhat-Mukh, brought me the bone fragment."

Uri coughed, clearing his throat. He had heard parts of the story before, but he had not believed it. He still wasn't sure he believed it.

"Why did you come here? Why do you seek Lord Mohammed?"

– |Jalal stumbled out of the entranceway of the temple, his lungs burning with smoke. He carried Mohammed on his back, though the older man was beginning to struggle against him. The priests had run away, leaving the Tanukh milling about in front of the building with the hundreds of supplicants who had been trying to enter the temples. Smoke spilled out of the doorway, climbing into the clear blue sky. A great heat radiated out of the portal, making the air shimmer.

"Help me," he gasped at his comrades. The two closest jumped up the steps and took Mohammed from him. The passing of the weight was a great relief to Jalal; the smoke was cutting at his lungs, and he wanted nothing more dearly than to cough furiously. He knelt on the steps, hacking and spitting.

"O impious men!" Mohammed shook off the hands of the two tribesmen who were trying to help him down the steps. "In this place, something holy lives, something that came from heaven on a bolt of fire, a sign and a portent to guide us, to give us focus to our faith! Yet you spit upon it, crowding this house that Abraham built with dross and foul images!"

The Tanukh drew back from Mohammed, who was shouting at the crowd. The people stared back in interest-they had come for the religious festival, but the politics of the city had closed the doors of the temples to them. Now this man was ranting, much like the priests of Baalshamin, or Apollo, or any of the other gods whose images thronged the precincts of the sacred well and the black house. Some of the priests of the smaller temples along the outside of the courtyard shouted back at him. A few people in the crowd were staring at the flames rushing out of the door of the House of the Gods, wondering if it were a sign. Some thought it was part of the festival, and raised their voices in a chant.

Jalal crawled across the steps and tried to capture Mohammed's arm. "You cannot constrain the word of god in stone or wood!" Mohammed slapped Jalal's hand away and turned, staring back into the fire that was roaring in the doorway of the temple. Sheets of heat haze billowed out of the door and up, sending smoke rushing into the higher air. The heart of the doorway burned with a white heat, and the copper facings on the doors were beginning to bubble and melt.