Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

Vladimir blinked, his eyes focusing, the snarl fading from his face. Nicholas watched in sick fascination as he wiped the clotted blood from his mouth and his bright white teeth. In the dim light, the long narrow head and wiry body seemed streaked with fur. Even the man's hands were twisted and strange.

"Vlad?" Nicholas felt behind him for the edge of the door, his mind, dulled by wine and exhaustion, groping for words. "What happened?"

Vladimir shook his head and then looked around, awareness entering his eyes. He frowned, confused, and put out a hand on the doorjamb of the washroom. "Where am I?" The Northerner's voice was thick, his accent coming back. "There was a woman with hair like pale gold…"

Nicholas cursed, a vile string of words he had once heard a Roman sea captain use, seeing the sleek gray ships of the Scandians closing on his fat merchantman in the waters off the Batavian shore. He stepped forward and grabbed his friend by the arm. "Come on," he snapped, "we have to get out of here."

Vladimir nodded, still confused, but he followed along readily, taking the steps up to the second floor two and three at a time, like Nicholas. The mercenary's mind was spinning, desperately trying to figure a way out of this fix. All we can do, he realized as he skidded to a halt in front of the redhead's bedroom, is slip away in the night and hope that this one is too drunk to remember what we look like.

He snatched up Vladimir's breeches from the other bed and threw them at the Northerner. "Get dressed, we've little time."

Vladimir nodded dumbly and began putting on his pants. Blessedly, the redhead was still snoring, sound asleep. Blood, dripping from Vlad's chest, spattered on the floor in tiny red dots.

– |"Get out!" Heraclius' voice rose in a scream, and his arm, still strong, hurled a heavy porphyry vase at the priest. The holy father fled, and the vase shattered on the facing of the wall by the door. The Emperor cast about for another missile. The other priests who had made to enter his chamber also fled, seeing his intent. It was dark in his chambers. He had knocked down or put out all of the lights save one guttering candle. In the darkness he could not see his legs, or the bulbous protrusion of his lower body. In the dark, if he lay still, he could still believe that he was a whole man again. Weeping, he crawled back onto the bed, dragging his useless feet. Even those movements, jarring as he rolled onto the silk sheets, sent jagged spears of pain through his abdomen. His breath was hoarse, but he managed to turn over.

The canopy of the bed was a dim shape above him. If the room were lit, he knew that it would be rich velvet, a cerulean blue, like the sky. Now he could distinguish nothing. He could hear voices raised in fear and anger outside, in the hallway. His councillors were arguing among themselves. The Emperor made to rise up, for he could hear the dissention and distrust in their voices. Only his will had bound them together before, and now the bonds that tied the state together would begin to fray.

His leg twinged, and he lost his breath. The pain washed over him, and he shuddered. He lay back down in the quiet darkness.

After a time, the voices quieted and went away. The Emperor dozed, feeling some surcease from his fear in dreams and fantasies.

"My lord?" Heraclius raised his head. It was Rufio-the only one who did not fear him, save his brother Theodore. The scarred face of the centurion was a jarring sight, his dark eyes in shadow. The man was carrying a lantern, half shuttered. In the light of the oil flame, he seemed ominous. "My lord, Empress Martina is outside. She wishes to see you. Shall I let her in?"

"No!" Heraclius blurted before he could think. But the fear was there, and a terrible shame washed around him. "No, good Rufio, send her away. Tell her I will come to her when this… this affliction has passed. Let me sleep, just for a little while. I will see her in the morning, I am sure of it."

Rufio's face was stolid, but Heraclius thought he saw a flicker of distaste in the man's eyes. The Emperor knew that his voice held the edge of a whine in it, and he loathed himself even more. But the centurion turned, and went away, taking the lantern with him. The darkness returned, cool and soothing, and Heraclius surrendered himself to his dreams again.

– |Nicholas sat on the edge of his bed, Brunhilde bare on a towel on his knees. He held a whetstone in one hand, and oil in the other. While he worked, keeping just the right edge to the sword, he listened.

"It comes upon us all-the people of my tribe-when the hunger grows too great. The pain, you see, the pain can become too much." Vladimir's voice was low and filled with shame. The Northerner was sitting opposite, on his own bunk. Nicholas, not trusting the night, had lit all of the candles he could find, and they clustered on the tiny wooden table like a forest of stars. Their smoke, sweet with the smell of honey, curled toward the ceiling. On any other night he would have thrown the wooden shutters of the window wide, but now-with the image of the dead girl in the washtub floating behind his eyes-he did not. They were latched and locked.

"I did not think it would happen here… but I drank too much wine. I am sorry, my friend."

Nicholas looked up, his eyes cold and guarded. Vladimir had cleaned up in a public fountain, washing the crimson stains from his chest and face. The crowds that danced in the streets had not marked him, no more than any other man nursing an incipient hangover in this city of its millions. "When this hunger comes," he said, his words bitten out, "can you choose who to take? Can you sate this thirst before you lose control? Can you drink just a little?"

Vladimir hung his head again, burying it in his hands. "Yes," the Northerner said. "I could… I should have, but I have been trying to master myself, to better it by my will. Some few of us, the rashkashutra, can do so. They are our wise men, our war chiefs. They can command it. I thought that I could… it is…" The Northerner paused, groping for the words he wanted. Nicholas felt a change in the air in the room and half turned.

"It is dangerous to hunt here," whispered a rich voice, redolent of dead flowers and the curling vapor that rises from newly turned earth, "without my leave."

Nicholas froze, hearing the scrape of the door closing. There was a presence behind him, something cold and old and very angry. Under his hand, Brunhilde quivered, sending up a faint almost imperceptible keening sound. By sheer will, he mastered the gibbering fear that the voice engendered and he turned, rising, the blade in his hand.

There was a woman at the threshold of the room, with a face like the moon in clear water. He met her eyes-a blue so clear, it was almost white-and felt the blow of her will. He stepped back, between the woman and Vladimir, and Brunhilde was singing in his hand. Pale light gleamed along the spine of the dwarf-steel blade. The woman stepped forward from the door, her thin white hand on a staff of bone as tall as a Varangian. Her bracelets made a soft clinking sound. Nicholas did not move, though he felt Vladimir's fear at his back like the heat from a fire.

"What a sight," she said, low voice purring, "the a'ha-tri'tsu child defends the murderer, the one who has taken a day-walker woman without my leave. Stand aside, O man, and let my justice take him."

"No," Nicholas grated between clenched teeth. Fear ran riot in him, the sight of those white eyes triggering a heedless desire to run. Only the shudder of Brunhilde in his fist made him stand his ground. "He is my friend, and I owe him my life. You cannot have him."

"I cannot?" The woman circled to the right, her dark red hair spilling over her shoulder like a wave of drying blood. Her cloak shifted as she moved, showing deep green glints in the fabric that he had first thought black as night. Her hair was bound back by thin silver wires, and the gleam of ruby shone at her neck. "You should welcome me and my justice. The k'shapacara are not well known for their mercy toward the children of the day."