Thomas Harlan - The shadow of Ararat

The Hills Above Palmyra

Darkness crawled across the rocks, fanged and red-eyed. Skeletal wings fluttered on its back. Moonlight fell across the sandstone. It stopped, hissing at the sight of the moon, its head raised. Dull red fire leaked from its eyes. A long black tongue darted, tasting the air. The creature was afraid, and it slunk across the stones on its belly.

Taloned fingers flashed and seized the thing by its scrawny neck, dragging it out into the moonlight. The winged creature hissed and scrabbled at the air with its claws, but it found no purchase. The fingers, stronger than iron, squeezed, and the thing gave a mournful bleat and hung limply in the withered hand. Lord Dahak drew a bag from within his robes and stuffed his captive into it. After throwing the bag over his shoulder, he limped down the hill. The moon gleamed on a vast tumult of boulders, stretching in every direction. The sorcerer vanished into deep shadow between two monoliths.

– |Baraz dreamed. He dreamed that he was walking on a battlefield, littered with heaps of corpses. Only he remained alive, his sword coated with gore, his legs splashed with blood. Tens of thousands of dead carpeted the field, rotting and covered with ants. The horizon was a wall of snowcapped mountains, blue in the distance. A sun hung overhead, a pale disk of white. Banners hung limply, askew and tattered. The air was still and quiet, though he was sure that, a short time before, it had been filled with a stunning noise. He was alive, amid all the dead, and his heart was filled with a fierce joy at his survival. He raised his arms to the sky, shouting, his voice echoing across that dreadful valley.

Something touched his shoulder and he was awake, one thick fist wrapped around the hilt of a thin-bladed dagger. His tent was dark, but he could feel the chill presence of someone standing by his cot. The general sniffed the air and then cursed. "Lord of light, Dahak, can't you let me sleep?"

Baraz fumbled for the lantern by the bed and, after a moment of work with a flint, lit the wick. Dim light spilled out, showing the sorcerer sitting at one of the stools next to the planning table.

Baraz squinted at him. "What is it? They trying something in the city?"

Dahak laughed mirthlessly.

"No," the sorcerer said, his long, lean face slashed with shadows. "A message has come."

Baraz sat up, his thick chest and massive legs painted with warm light from the lantern. A thick black pelt of tiny curls covered his chest and stomach, though his arms and legs were shaven bare. He reached under the cot and dragged out his riding boots. Absently he turned them upside down and knocked them against the side of this cot. A translucent scorpion fell out of one, tiny and pale yellow. It bounced, then flipped itself upright and scuttled off into a dark corner of the tent.

"What does it say?" Baraz pulled a tunic on over his head and closed a thick leather belt around his narrow waist.

Dahak reached into the folds of his robe and pulled out an ivory cylinder, no more than three inches long.

"It is for you," he said in a raspy voice. He was slow in recovering from the wounds he had taken in the fight on the plain of towers. "I have not opened it."

Baraz frowned and took the cylinder. He grimaced, feeling the stickiness clinging to it. He put it on the table and raised the lantern up to better light the tent. The ivory was coated with partially dried blood.

The general made a face. "Isn't there some other way to deliver these things-clean, perhaps?"

Dahak said nothing, sitting quietly, a pool of shadow at the side of the room. Baraz shook his head in amusement and unscrewed the cap on the end of the cylinder. There was a rolled-up piece of parchment inside, which he teased out with his finger and uncurled. It was covered with slanted letters in a strong hand.

Baraz looked up, meeting Dahak's glittering eyes. "It is from Chrosoes. Gundarnasp's army has cornered the Romans in the valley of the Kerenos, in Albania. The King of Kings bids you send me there, that I might command our armies in victory over the Two Emperors. He bids me make haste."

Dahak sighed, a thready sound, wind among gravestones. He seemed very tired. "Does he… As the king commands, I obey. That fop Shahin will command here, as we will be gone?"

Baraz raised an eyebrow at the bitter tone in the sorcerer's voice. "He would have the rank for it, though Khadames would be a better choice. Yet if I leave them both here, without you or me to keep Shahin in check, it will go poorly."

Dahak steepled his fingers, his eyes glowing the light of the lantern.

"I could send you by yourself…" he mused. "Such a thing can be done, if you've the stomach for it. I could remain and see that this business here is finished."

Baraz caught the eagerness in the sorcerer's voice and smiled. "You want the Egyptian, don't you? You think that he is still alive, in the city."

Dahak snarled, a low animal sound. "No one showed me his corpse. He still lives. I will have him. He owes me a great deal of pain. I will collect upon the debt."

The general turned the scrap of parchment over and smoothed it out on the table. There was a brush and a block of ink close to hand. He wrote quickly on the paper, then blew on it gently. Finally he sprinkled fine sand over it and rolled a blotting stone across the paper.

"Here, I have told the King of Kings that I will be with Gundarnasp presently and that the siege here will continue. Make your preparations. Need I do anything to ready myself?"

Dahak rose, the cylinder in clawlike fingers. "No, only keep a brave heart."

– |Mohammed stood in an arched doorway, his face grave. He was dressed in heavy armor, like that favored by the Persians. A long shirt of scales fell to below his knees and a long sword hung from his belt. A heavy helm was under his arm, dented and scored. A cotton tabard hung over the mail, bearing the crest of Palmyra. He had grown thinner in the face and had trimmed his beard back to his chin. His eyes were filled with a slow anger.

In the room, Zenobia was curled on a bed with cedar posts. Heavy quilts and blankets covered it, and a thin silk drape hung from the posts, making a tent. The Queen lay close to the body of the Egyptian, Ahmet, her white arms clutching his bronzed body to her. A low murmur of chanting filled the room, interrupted only by Ahmet's irregular breathing. Each day Mohammed came to the room, buried deep in the palace, and looked upon his friend. Each day the priest was the same, comatose and close to death. The Queen rarely left the chamber.

Mohammed turned away and walked down the hallway. His boots rang softly on the blue and green mosaic tiles. As he mounted the stairs, he pulled the helmet on, closing out all the world save the narrow slit before his eyes. There would be battle today, as there was nearly every day now. The Persians pressed hard against the city.

– |Cold stone pressed into Baraz's back. He lay on a great slab of sandstone that formed the rough peak of one of the hills humped along the western edge of the plain that held Palmyra. Lord Dahak crouched at his feet, hands held between his knees, muttering. Baraz looked up, seeing the dark vault of heaven wheeling slowly above him. Cool wind blew out of the desert, ruffling his curly hair. The moon had just risen in the east, still huge and red-orange over the endless plain of sand dunes that stretched behind the city. Dahak's dark shape moved, and his long head bent back, staring at the dark gulf that held the stars.

Baraz shivered. He was dressed only in a cotton kilt and shirt. His feet were bare and there were no metal fittings or items anywhere upon his body. Even the pins that held back the mane of his hair had been pulled out by the wizard and tucked away in a bag. His forehead itched where Dahak had incised some unknown sign with a small silver knife. The general lay still.