Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

More men pushed against him, and he fell heavily on one knee. He threw up a mailed arm, fending off the elbows and arms of those running past.

Suddenly they were all gone. The wind buffeted him, and he bent his head against it. The desert robes shielded him from the worst, though his hands-bare and scraped bloody on the ground-were suddenly touched by a chill.

He looked up, one hand down to help him raise up, and saw the old stone house limned by crawling blue flame. A darkness covered the sky, and something titanic and foul was struggling at the center of the plaza. The Tanukh had scattered, leaving behind a drift of bodies. The crowd was pressed back against the walls of the temples, trying to force their way to safety. Beneath the coiling, rugose, tentacular limbs was a figure in a dirty white robe and battered armor, struggling on the ground.

Maslama crawled forward, his heart hammering in his chest.

Red shuddered at the heart of the thing and sparked across the stones of the plaza. A foul stench rolled off it like the odor from a freshly ruptured corpse. Maslama gagged, retching. Something squirmed across the stones toward him. He struggled to pull the sword from its sheath.

– |There were words-Maslama knew that he had heard them-but though he felt their shape and color and knew what they meant as they sounded, ringing clear and true and perfect in the air, he could put no name to them. With them, blooming like the sun suddenly breaking through the clouds on a day of heavy rain, came light. A pure white radiance flooded forth, and Maslama, squinting in the glare, could see that at their center was the figure of the man in the dirty robe.

The thing, the crawling leprous inchoate form that had loomed over the ancient ruin, shuddered and then turned sideways and folded itself up into nothingness. Maslama gaped, his mind shrieking at the impossibility of what it had-dimly-perceived, but then the light touched his face, feather-light, and all horror and pain and suffering was gone. The sword slipped from his fingers and clattered on the ground.

All across the square the people-almost driven mad with fear and terror at the power that had protruded into their world-stopped. They turned, like flowers tracking the sun, and the light fell across them. Many cried out in joy, or fell to their knees, or fainted.

Only two men stood unmoved by the power that-briefly-flared into existence before the old house. One turned immediately and walked away into one of the streets of the city. The other raised himself up from the ground and brushed off his cloak. A brace of wain wrights had trampled him in their haste to flee. Outweighing him by five to one, they had won the argument.

The light faded, curling back into the shape of the man lying on the ground.

Khalid al'Walid looked about him, seeing the throng standing stunned in the wake of the efflorescence, and he rubbed his smooth-shaven chin.

"Well," he mused to himself, walking toward the old house and the supine form of the chieftain Mohammed. "This is the truth of the Lord. Let him who will, believe in it, and him who will, deny it."

High above, the sun moved in its courses in a bright blue sky.

The House de'Orelio, Rome

The little blond maid, Betia, moved around the room lighting oil lamps. The lamps were set into brass holders shaped like conch shells and painted a light pinkish white. As each lamp flared to life and then settled into a warm glow, the room shrugged off the night. At the end of the room, a pair of double doors opened onto a balcony. Below the balcony the secluded garden at the center of the house lay sleeping. On other nights, the ornamental paper lanterns in the trees would have been lit, but not tonight. Betia returned to the head of the long porphyry table that stood at the center of the room and replaced the candle she had used to light the lamps in its archaic-style Greek candelabrum.

Nikos watched the little Gaul out of the corner of his eye. He was sitting by the window on a chair of painted wicker. The Khazars, despite the presence of couches and chairs, were sitting on the floor in the corner, throwing knucklebones and talking in low voices. Something about the slave had bothered him for some time, but he was just beginning to understand her place and purpose. The girl, who must have been no more than sixteen years old, was in constant attendance upon the Duchess. For all that-for all that he knew that she was an ever-present fixture-the Illyrian had begun to realize it was very difficult to mark her presence. It was more than the casual indifference of a citizen to a slave; that was a habit Nikos had never developed. In his profession it never paid to be unwary or to discount the inoffensive.

Smiling, Nikos realized the girl was very good. She was quiet and graceful. She did not drop things or bump into the edges of tables. She went barefoot nearly all the time and walked quietly.

That which does not draw attention is unseen. Thyatis' voice drifted in his memory.

Betia placed green enameled bowls of shelled nuts and cut fruit on the tabletop and then departed. Nikos watched her go in interest, suddenly seized by the desire to follow her in his own quiet way and see where she went. But there was no time for that, and he put the thought away for a later time.

She must be, he thought, from the island.

Rubbing the back of his head, feeling the bumps and knots in his skull and remembering each one and how he had gained it in the service of the Empire and then the Duchess, Nikos wondered if he ever dared broach the matter of the island with his employer. No one had ever talked of it directly, or spoken of it aloud in his presence, but Thyatis had been comfortable enough to mention that she had once been on the island. Nikos was sure, from watching the Duchess and her servants, and the masked women who came and went from the secret entrances of the house, that the island must be the fixture of a mystery cult. Nikos had considered poking about, just to see what he could see. He had not. Some things, he thought, were better left undisturbed.

The mysteries of women and their ceremonies were one of them. His father had said that. Nikos put great store by his father's wisdom and daily vowed to follow it as soon as he had time.

The sound of low voices came from the door and Nikos rose, walking to his place by the head of the table. The Duchess entered, her hair bound up in a short waterfall of ringlets. Her arm was entwined with that of the Khazar Prince, Jusuf. Nikos suppressed a grimace at that, for the content expression on his friend's face was hard to dismiss. Anastasia laughed, a low throaty sound, at something the tall, rawboned man was saying.

With a flourish of her dark blue skirts and the gold-colored gauze drape laid around her smooth white shoulders, the Duchess sat in a wide-armed round-backed chair the girl Betia had pulled out for her. Nikos blinked in surprise as he seated himself and had to bite his tongue to keep from speaking. He had not even noticed the girl, though she must have come into the room in the company of the Duchess.

Nikos glared at Betia, his brow furrowed. She gazed back, meeting his eyes for the first time.

They were a liquid blue like the light on northern sea under a cold summer sky. For a moment, he was transfixed, seeing unguessable depths reflecting there. Then she smiled and the corners of her eyes crinkled up as she winked at him. Nikos banged his knee on the table, then winced.

"Come, my friends," the Duchess said, ignoring the look of pain on Nikos' face. "We have much to discuss." The Khazars got up from the floor, gathering their coins and scooping the bones up into a bag of soft velvet. The mute, Anagathios, joined them, sitting cross-legged at the end of the table, where he could see the lips and faces of his companions. Nikos caught the eye of the Syrian-born actor and smiled. The mute bowed back to him, making a courtly flourish, even when seated.