Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

Grumbling to himself, he swung his bag of equipment over his shoulder and bound his long dark hair back with a fillet of twisted green cloth. Two empty water bags slapped against his thighs, tied to his back with leather thongs he had made during the long ride south from Antioch. Prepared, he began to pick his way down the slope, cautious of loose shale.

– |Zoe sat on the shoulder of a fallen giant-once the image of the god Bel, who had blessed the city for so long. His face was gone, that which had stared down (in grave majesty) upon the supplicants in the court of the Silk Queen. Now only a white marble shoulder remained. The rich paints that had adorned him and given his cold skin the semblance of life had been burned away. The sun and the wind had done the rest. Here on his shoulder, Zoe sat above the city looking out upon the devastation that had shattered nearly every house and building within the circuit of the walls. Even those granite and sandstone ramparts, rising thirty, forty, or fifty feet high, had fallen to the enemy. Wooden stakes had been driven into the stone and flushed with water until the wood, swelling, had cracked away the ashlar facings, sending the walls crashing down to lie in heaped piles along the outline of the city. The two great gates-that to the west, toward Damascus, and that to the east, toward the distant Euphrates and the trading station of Dura Europos-had fallen. The looming towers had been torn down, leaving only a shell of the once-powerful gatehouses.

She sat, silent and still. The fierce anger that had driven her forth from Antioch and the arms of the Imperial Legions had drained away. A haunted emptiness filled her, looking out at the ruin of all her dreams. She knew deep in bone and blood that not one person she had cared for within the circuit of these walls lived to walk the earth. The windrows of bodies lay too deep to give her false hope. Not a soul had gone forth from this place in chains, the captive of the Persians. No hope of ransom was held out to her, even if she could dig in the ruins and find the treasuries and storehouses of the Queens of Palmyra.

The power that had wrecked the city had spared nothing. She could feel the echoes of it still ringing in the broken paving stones and toppled statues. A great power had walked here in incandescent rage, striving to break the spirit and memory of the city. Little was left of it, all those spirits and lives that had walked in the shaded streets, or sung love songs on the balconies under a starry desert night-they had been consumed. The power that had crushed bone to ash and stolen the lives of the thousands and the ten thousands of citizens had taken the memories, too. Sitting there, cold and alone on the height of the city, she knew its purpose, this power. It intended that no one would remember her city, or the vibrant people who had lived in it. It thought, in its malignant power, that no one remained, that there was no one to sing the tale of her city. It thought it had killed Palmyra and torn out its heart.

Zoe's face darkened, and a little wind sprang up around her, swirling first this way and then that. Her fingers, dark and thin in the desert sun, made a mark in the air, and it hung there shimmering softly for a moment. I remember, she thought grimly, and I will remind the whole of the world that the city still lives.

Below her, on the long boulevard, a movement caught her eye. Her head turned, canting like a hunting hawk, and she peered down from her perch high on the ruin of the palace hill.

A man was in the city, walking carefully among the bones, leading three camels.

– |Thin streams of dust fell from the cracked rubble above, filtering down through slanting beams of sunlight. Three stories below the level of the street, Odenathus picked his way carefully across a mountain of paving stones. Below, in the darkness, he could hear water falling into some kind of pool. The sound, magnified by the curving walls, made him terribly thirsty. He negotiated a fallen lead drainage pipe and found himself on a set of steps that emerged from the debris. Heartened by this, he made his way down.

At the bottom, a pool of green water spilled over a section of tessellated floor. Dolphins, mermaids, and high-backed ships cavorted on a pale blue surface. Letters marked out with small black chips of stone spelled the name of a notable merchant house of the city. Odenathus paused at the edge of the floor, looking for a way around to the wall beyond where he could see a bent pipe sticking out, spilling a tiny stream of water. The tumble of stones on either side seemed precarious, though. No matter, he grumbled to himself, you've gotten your boots wet before! He stepped out onto the mosaic floor, still moving carefully. A stone rattled past from above and splashed into the water. He looked up. Something dark blotted out the light coming from above. He threw up his arm and was smashed down by a heavy weight.

"Roman pig," someone snarled above him in the sudden darkness. "Water-thief!"

Odenathus went down hard, feeling tesserae crack under his back. The weight on his chest squirmed, and he felt a knee drive into his stomach. He gasped and tried to roll to one side. The assailant clipped him on the side of the head with a fist, but got more floor than flesh.

"Ay! Bastard!" the voice squeaked in pain. Odenathus shoved up, catching something that felt like an elbow. He tore at the rough fabric around his head and snagged a finger on a leather strap. The cloth ripped, and he rolled again, suddenly losing the weight. He threw the bristly cloth away. He was soaking wet.

A man in ragged clothing stood over him, wiping water out of his face. Odenathus scrambled up to his feet, though the footing on the wet floor was treacherous. The man scuttled back, fumbling at his belt for some kind of knife. Odenathus slid forward, keeping his boots to the floor, and grabbed the man's shirt. The old stained fabric tore in his fingers. The man twisted away, snarling. "Hands off, Roman pig!"

Odenathus punched the man in the face, then grabbed hold of his hair and kneed him in the stomach. The man's face bulged, and a croaking sound came out of his throat as he fell to his knees. Odenathus reached down and plucked a bone-handled knife out of nerveless fingers. Without looking, he tossed the knife away into the shadows. "Friend," Odenathus said, "you shouldn't attack people trying to get a drink of water."

"You've no friends here, Legionary."

Odenathus turned slowly, hearing now the breathing of dozens of men in the darkness around him. Four stood in the slanting light from the street above, bows in their hands, arrows nocked to the shaft. Behind the four, a stout woman was making her way down the slope of rubble with a long, Persian-style spear for support. The young man raised his hand, raising an eyebrow at the rabble who had inched out of the dim recesses of the cistern. He recognized them well enough; the detritus of a destroyed city, living by scavenging the food, coin, and goods that had been left, or forgotten, by the victors. He had seen the same faces when the Imperial Army had marched out of flood-drowned Ctesiphon. Then he had pitied them and thrown a few coins from the back of the wagon he was riding in.

Anger suddenly bubbled up in his breast-these were his people in his city, and they would not slink and prowl about in the darkness like rats. He looked around, straightening up, his face grim. "I am not a Roman," he said in a blunt tone. "I am a lord of the great city of Palmyra, Queen of the Desert. Who are you?"

The woman, who had reached the watery floor, laughed bitterly. "The great city? There is no place by that name, stranger. It is in ruins, destroyed. Its people are nameless and faceless-who are you to question those who have the advantage of you?"

"I am Odenathus, son of Zabda, cousin of the Queen of the City." While he spoke, he had raised a fist, and fire trickled between his fingers. Tongues of orange flame flickered up, and the room was suddenly filled with light. The scavengers flinched back, and their shadows grew suddenly great against the crumbling walls. The old woman leaned heavily on her spear, her head turned slightly away. Even so, Odenathus could see that her right eye was a milky sightless orb.