Guy Kay - Sailing to Sarantium

The door opened into a short stone corridor, and Crispin, bending to protect his head, realized they were passing through the wall. There was another low door at the end of that brief passage; the cleric unlocked it, too, with the same key, and stood aside.

The soldiers paused as well, and so Crispin followed the Emperor alone into the Sanctuary of Jad's Holy Wisdom in the depths of night.

He straightened up and looked around him. There were lights burning wherever he looked, thousands of them, it seemed, even though this space was not yet consecrated or complete. His gaze went upwards and then upwards and slowly he apprehended the stupendous, the transcendent majesty of the dome that had been achieved here. And standing very still where they had stopped, Crispin understood that here was the place where he might achieve his heart's desire, and that this was why he had come to Sarantium.

He had collapsed and fallen down in the small roadside chapel in Sauradia, his strength obliterated by the power of the god that had been achieved overhead, stern with judgement and the weight of war. He did not fall here, or feel inclined to do so. He wanted to soar, to be given the glory of flight-Heladikos's fatal gift from his father-that he might fly up past all these burning lights and lay his fingers tenderly upon the vast and holy surface of this dome.

Overmastered by so many things-past, present, swift bright images of what might be-Crispin stood gazing upwards as the small door was closed behind them. He felt as if he were being buffeted-a small craft in a storm-by waves of desire and awe. The Emperor remained silent beside him, watching his face in the rippled light of a thousand thousand candles burning beneath the largest dome ever built in all the world.

At length, at great length, Crispin said the first thing that came to his lips among the many whirling thoughts, and he said it in a whisper, not to disturb the purity of that place: "You do not need to take Batiara back, my lord. You, and whoever it was built this for you, have your immortality."

The Sanctuary seemed to stretch forever, so high were the four arches on which the great dome rested, so vast the space denned beneath that dome and the semi-domes supporting it, so far did naves and bays recede into darkness and flickering light. Crispin saw green marble like the sea in one direction, defining a chapel, blue-veined white marble elsewhere, pale grey, crimson, black. Brought here from quarries all over the world. He couldn't even conceive of the cost. Two of those towering arches rested on a double ascension of marble pillars with balconies dividing the two courses, and the intricacy of the masons" work on those stone balustrades-even in this first glimpse of them-made Crispin want to weep for the sudden memory of his father and his father's craft.

Above the second tier of pillars the two arches east and west were pierced by a score of windows each, and Crispin could already envisage- standing here at night by candlelight-what the setting and rising sun might do to this Sanctuary, entering through those windows like a sword. And also, more softly, diffused, through the higher windows in the dome itself. For, suspended like an image of Jad's heaven, the dome had at its base a continuous ring of small, delicately arched windows running all around. Crispin saw also that there were chains, descending from the dome into the space below it, holding iron candelabras aflame with their candles.

There would be light here by day and by night, changing and glorious. Whatever the mosaicists could conceive for the dome and semi-domes and arches and walls in this place would be lit as no other surfaces in the world were lit. There was grandeur here beyond description, an airiness, a defining of space that guided the massive pillars and the colossal arch supports into proportion and harmony. The Sanctuary branched off in each direction from the central well beneath the dome-a circle upon a square, Crispin realized, and his heart was stirred even as he tried and failed to grasp how this had been done-and there were recesses and niches and shadowed chapels for privacy and mystery and faith and calm.

One could believe here, he thought, in the holiness of Jad, and of the mortal creatures he had made.

The Emperor had not replied to his whispered words. Crispin wasn't even looking at him. His gaze was still reaching upwards-eyes like fingers of the yearning mind-past the suspended candelabras and the ring of round dark windows with night and wind beyond them, towards the flicker and gleam and promise of the dome itself, waiting for him.

At length, Valerius said, "There is more than an enduring name at stake, Rhodian, but I believe I know what you are saying, and I believe I understand. You are pleased with what is on offer here for a mosaicist? You are not sorry you came?"

Crispin rubbed at his bare chin. "I have never seen anything to touch it. There is nothing in Rhodias, nothing on earth, that can… I have no idea how the dome was achieved. How did he dare span so large a… who did this, my lord?" They were still standing near the small doorway that led back through the wall to the rough chapel and the Imperial Precinct.

"He'll wander by, I imagine, when he hears our voices. He's here most nights. That's why I've had the candles lit since summer. They say I do not sleep, you know. It isn't true, though it is useful to have it said. But I believe it is true of Artibasos: I think he walks about here examining things, or bends over his drawings, or makes new ones all night long." The Emperor's expression was difficult to read. "You are not.. afraid of this, Rhodian? It is not too large for you?"

Crispin hesitated, looking at Valerius. "Only a fool would be unafraid of something like this dome. When your architect comes by, ask him if he was afraid of his own design."

"I have. He said he was terrified, that he still is. He said he stays here nights because he has nightmares about it falling, if he sleeps at home." Valerius paused. "What will you make for me on my Sanctuary dome, Caius Crispus?"

Crispin's heart began pounding. He had almost been expecting the question. He shook his head. "You must forgive me. It is too soon, my lord."

It was a lie, as it happened.

He'd known what he wanted to do here before he was ever in this place. A dream, a gift, something carried out from the Aldwood on the Day of the Dead. He'd been granted an image of it today amid the screaming of the Hippodrome. Something of the half-world in that, too.

"Much too soon," came a new, querulous voice. Sound carried here. "Who is this person, and what happened to Siroes? My lord."

The honorific was belated, perfunctory. A small, rumpled, middle-aged man in an equally rumpled tunic emerged from behind the massed bank of candles to their left. His straw-coloured hair stood up in random whorls of disarray. His feet were bare on the ice-cold marble of the floor, Crispin saw. He was carrying his sandals in one hand.

"Artibasos," said the Emperor. Crispin saw him smile. "I must say you look every bit the Master Architect of the Empire. Your hair emulates your dome in aspiring to the heavens."

The other man ran a hand absent-mindedly through his hair, achieving further disorder. "I fell asleep," he said. "Then I woke up. And I had a good idea." He lifted his sandals, as if the gesture were an explanation. "I have been walking around."

"Indeed?" said Valerius, with patience.

"Well, yes," said Artibasos. "Obviously. That's why I'm barefoot."

There was a brief silence.

"Obviously," said the Emperor a little repressively. This was a man, Crispin already knew, who did not like being left in the dark. About anything.

"Noting the rough marbles?" Crispin hazarded. "One way to tell them, I suppose. Easier done in a warmer season, I'd have said."