Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

"Odenathus?" Her voice echoed hollowly in the domed ceiling of the cistern. "He is dead. All of that house are dead, ground down by pride and the darkness. Dead or fled away into the desert. Not one of the noble House of Nasor still lives."

"Not true," Odenathus said, stepping forward, his boots splashing in the water. "I live and I am here. The Queen is here, and while she lives, the city lives." His words echoed around the chamber. The fire he had called to his fist drifted up and away, forming a slowly spinning circle over his head. The light it cast filled the watery floor with blood, where the dolphins swam in a sea of red. The old woman, both her eyes destroyed, turned to face him fully.

Odenathus' step faltered, and the ring of fire flickered, almost going out. He stopped, stunned. "Mama?"

– |In a hollow formed by the fallen statue of Bel, Zoe cleared a space among the chipped ceiling tiles and charred beams. Now, with the sun set and full night upon the valley, she huddled in a woolen cloak she had taken from the baggage on the camels. A tiny fire flickered in a ring of stones. Beneath it broad blue-and-white hexagonal tiles could be seen-once they had decorated the floor of the entrance hall to the Little Palace. The ever-present wind still blew in from the desert, making the air chill and cold. Across from her, wrapped in his own blankets and a hood of thick wool, an old man with a bushy white beard was gnawing on a hunk of bread. It had come, like the wine mulling at the edge of the little fire, from the supplies that Odenathus had so carefully carried from distant Antioch.

"Grandfather," Zoe whispered, trying to keep her teeth from chattering, "what did you see?"

The old man ignored her and stuffed the rest of the bread into his mouth. His fingers were cracked and grimy, only partially covered by cloth wrappings. With the bread gone, he rummaged in the bowl she had found for him and found some last morsel.

Zoe frowned. The old man was just going to eat her food and say nothing. She reached out and moved the ceramic bottle of wine away from the fire, closer to her. The old man watched her, his black eyes shining with a tiny reflected flames.

"Tell me, Grandfather, what did you see? You said you had seen something important."

"Wine?" he croaked, edging a little closer to the fire. His eyes followed the bottle.

Zoe frowned again, and the bottle disappeared into the folds of her cloak. "No wine," she snapped. Her fingers curled around the hilt of a Legion gladius laid on the ground at her side. "Tell me what you saw, and you will have wine."

The old man drew back again, folding into the cocoon of blankets and sweat-stained cloaks that he carried with him. Only his firelit eyes remained visible in the darkness. He made a snuffling sound. "I saw…" He paused and suddenly looked up. The line of his body tensed, and Zoe's eyes widened to see a long, curved knife suddenly catch the edge of the firelight. "Someone is coming."

Zoe stood and waved her hand over the fire. It went out, plunging the hollow among the ruins into complete darkness. The moon had not risen, so only the glittering firmament of stars overhead shed any light. Out on the rubble was the clink of a brick shifting and a low mutter. Zoe squinted, then breathed out slowly, summoning focus. Her vision wavered, and then the tumbled mounds of broken building and snaglike pillars sprang into view. Even in starlight the methods of the Legion thaumaturges could lend her sight. At the edge of the royal platform, where the crumbled gate lay, figures-more than one-were moving in file toward her. Instinctively she opened her awareness and began drawing the power for a Shield of Athena from the air and wind and sky. Its pale blue tracery began to build, whirling, in the air between her and the strangers. The dim red shape of the old man flickered at her side, the fire of his spirit low and guttering. Across the field of rubble, at least one bright shape moved, burning with its own powerful flame.

"Men are coming," the old man whispered, creeping to her side, his knife at the ready. "Many men."

"I see them, Grandfather, but one of them I know. Do not be afraid."

The shield spun down and dispersed. Zoe sat again, and the fire sparked in the stones and leapt up, making a beacon in the night. The old man flinched from the sudden light and scurried back into his nest of blankets. Zoe pulled the bottle of wine out and waved it at him. "Tell me what you saw."

The old man bowed his head to the broken tiles twice. "Yes, mistress," he muttered. "I was in the hills to the north, when the dhole smashed the gates of the city. I was looking for wood in the ravines and gullies. The Persians, my lady, they were paying well for firewood."

Zoe's faced darkened with rage, and the old man paused, then groveled on the stones. "Please, my lady, I am just an old man with no family! I must eat! I only did what I had to do."

The girl looked away and, when she looked back, her face was calm again. She motioned for him to continue.

"My mules ran off when the dhole was sent away. That was a great noise! Like the gods raging in the clear sky. I hope never to hear such a thing again… It took me days to find them all and bring them back together. Then I went to the city-but it was gone!" The old man rocked back and forth, wringing his hands. "Everything was destroyed… even the stream had dried up and the aqueducts were torn down. I could not find any water. It was very hot, so I went into the city. Oh, it was dreadful: All the bodies withering in the sun… I went into a house that still stood, hoping to find a pan of water. There was nothing. But when I was coming out, I heard a noise. I hid, thinking that the Persians had come back… but it was not the Persians, oh no." The old man's voice ran down, mumbling and cursing to himself.

Zoe frowned and coughed to get his attention. "Who came to the city? Romans?"

"Oh," the old man said, looking up with a puzzled expression on his wrinkled face. "Not Romans, oh no. Bandits, desert bandits, in their long robes and fierce beards. They had sabers, you know! I saw them at the gate."

"Bandits? What tribe? Why did they come to the city?"

"Oh, they came for…" The old man began muttering again.

"For what?" Zoe's patience was wearing very thin. Too, she could hear the clatter of boots coming across the rubble. Odenathus would be here very soon, with these strangers. "What were they looking for?"

"Oh!" The old man looked up, his eyes suddenly bright. "They came for her! Well, for her body, for it was nailed up over the gate then-but they took it down, and very gently, too. Very mannerly, for bandits-"

"Her?" Zoe's voice was as cold as morning frost. "Who was nailed above the gate?"

"Her… the most radiant one." The old man mumbled again, then his voice strengthened. "One of them had a scar; he said that she would be put away, safe from ravens and wild dogs. They bore her off on their shoulders. They were singing a dirge, as is right. I saw it all, I heard it from the house inside the gate. I say that it is so!"

"The radiant one…" Zoe felt her world spinning out of turn. "It can only be Zenobia."

"Oh yes!" The old man brightened. "That was what they called her, these bandits."

The House de'Orelio, the Quirinal Hill, Rome

Tiny beads of sweat spilled down Anastasia's brow, pooling in the hollow of her neck. The sweat gleamed in the light of hundreds of beeswax candles placed around the periphery of the room. Anastasia's face was contorted in a grimace of pain, and the thin cotton shawl that had been draped around her shoulder slipped. Her carefully trimmed and polished fingernails bit into the muscular arm of the attendant standing behind her chair. A thin trickle of blood seeped from underneath her nails.