Richard Blake - The Sword of Damascus

‘Come, Master,’ he said in English. ‘We tried our best. Karim tells me that we can-’

There was a sudden flash over on my left. I turned and looked into the bright mushroom of orange that had erupted above the walls of the monastery. I watched as it swelled and swelled – a hundred feet, no, two or three hundred – above the walls. Even with my visor to blot out much of the brightness, it was like staring straight into the sun itself at noon. I watched as the great ball of fire that swelled still greater at the top of the bright column seemed to move within itself – here dazzling, here relatively dark. It was like looking at the ridged contours of a brain illuminated from within.

I could only have seen this for the briefest moment. But time seemed to have stopped as I stood there, watching as all my finished mixture and the thousands upon thousands of gallons of its raw materials were converted into a second and momentarily brighter sun. Then I heard the roar of the explosion. It filled the whole desert around me, and sounded as loud in my bad ear as in the good. Even as I noted for the first time how atoms of light travelled faster than atoms of sound, and thought to frame some hypothesis to explain the difference, I felt something that can only be described as a great, invisible hand. It slapped me hard in all parts of my body, and, cupped in its gigantic palm, I was thrown back ten – perhaps twenty – feet before landing with a hard bump on the sand.

Ignoring any damage I may have suffered, I pulled myself into a sitting position and gasped for breath as I looked again at the orange ball a half-mile away across the desert. It had swelled still larger, but now appeared to be losing its definite shape and solidity. I watched it gradually fade into an immense cloud of dust and smoke that I thought would linger for ever above the now vanished walls of the monastery.

‘Master, Master – are you all right?’ I heard Edward cry as if from a great distance. I jumped as I felt his arms about my chest and he pulled me to my feet. Had I gone deaf in the noise? I clutched hold of him and looked feebly about for my stick. It was now that stones and other debris began raining down upon us. I heard the thud of objects in the sand around me, and more distant crunching and screams. I felt myself thrown back on to the sand, and now Edward’s body covering mine. Even as the hail continued of lighter stones that had been thrown higher in the blast, I struggled free and stood up. I looked around. I now saw the damage the explosion had caused, even this far away. The canopy had gone from the Caliph’s platform. The platform itself had turned over. Every carrying chair had been blown apart. All the horses had bolted. Large stones and other debris littered the ground as far as the eye could see. No one else was standing. Everyone I could see was huddled on the ground. No one moved. I couldn’t even tell if anyone else was still alive.

I saw my walking stick over by the shattered remains of the sound reflecting screen. I let go of Edward and walked towards it. I bent forward to pick it up. But Edward had got there first. He pressed it into my hands. I turned to him and smiled.

‘I did that,’ I said in English, pointing with my stick towards the still huge cloud of dust. Edward nodded. He made no other reply. I smiled more brightly and raised my voice. ‘Yes, I did that,’ I repeated. ‘I’ll bet no one else has ever managed the like. “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,” ’ I quoted in Greek from an ancient poet.

I turned again and found myself looking straight at the Caliph. Half his beard was gone, and there was a bloody gash on his face. I laughed as he tried to control the shaking of his body and get any words out at all. He sat down suddenly on the sand. He pointed weakly at the still growing cloud above what had been Meekal’s project, and slumped forward.

‘ “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,” ’ I cried again. I held out a hand to help the poor man to his feet.

Well indeed might the mighty despair.

If you’ve seen one of them already, there isn’t much to be said about any other prison. Every palace needs one, and the Caliph’s palace was no exception. You got to it by going down the steps that lay the other side of a small door at the back of one of the main administrative buildings used by the Governor of Syria. Unlike in the Imperial Palace in Constantinople, these stairs hadn’t yet had enough use to be worn. But it was the same melancholy descent from bright sunshine into perpetual darkness, and the same smell of unwashed humanity and of bottomless despair.

I rapped smartly with my stick on the desk of the little Syrian who was supposed to be keeping watch at the foot of the long staircase. He woke with a start and peered at me in the dimness of the lamp that shone from an iron bracket on the wall behind him. I fought to control my breathing and dropped a slip of papyrus on to the cluttered desk.

‘This doesn’t cancel the order that no one is to be admitted,’ the man said in Greek.

I’d been expecting that. I unhooked a purse from my belt and took out five solidi. He looked at the golden discs and nodded. He reached behind him and pulled out the stopper from a water clock. He pointed at the first marker.

‘You can have twelve minutes with him – no more,’ he said. He opened his mouth to call for one of the guards.

I stopped him. ‘The permit says I can see him alone,’ I said, waving at the slip.

The Syrian shook his head. ‘No private meetings,’ he said firmly.

I opened my purse again and poured its entire contents on to the desk. Their sound made a dull echo within the room. When the man had finished his choking fit, he stood up and took a bunch of keys. He looked for a moment at an open ledger. He looked back at the gold and sighed. He gathered up the coins and put them back into the purse that I’d now dropped in front of him. Tucking the purse into a deep fold in his clothing, he led the way across the room to a door at the far end that was bound with iron.

Knowing exactly what to expect, I held my breath as the door swung open and we stepped into the deeper gloom of a long corridor. If you’ve ever had a cat, you’ll know the beast’s genius for finding your most expensive rug or silk hanging, and then shitting all over it. Imagine this, left to dry out and go stale, and then shoved under your nose. Imagine this, plus the cat’s dead and putrefying body, and throw in a stinking fish – and you have some idea of how a prison smells. I clapped a scented cloth to my face and tried not to think about anything at all as I shuffled along that corridor. To the best of my ability, I blotted out the sound of sobs and whispered pleading from behind each of the wooden doors that we passed. Every time I’ve been in one of these places, I’ve told myself that this would be the last. It never had been yet. Perhaps even this wouldn’t be the last.

‘So, Grandfather, have you come to gloat?’ Meekal asked as his eyes got used to the lamp. His own cell was larger than I’d expected. But the main floor was reached down a flight of steps, and was covered in a two-inch carpet of liquid filth. I looked at this briefly as I reached the bottom step. I nerved myself and continued splashingly forward to where Meekal was sitting. He tried to get up as I approached. But the chain attached to his iron collar was too short to let him move more than a few feet from the wooden bench where he’d been sitting.

I turned to the Syrian gaoler. He hadn’t followed me down the steps. He stood in the doorway, still holding his lamp.

‘Get out of here,’ I said coldly. ‘You can leave the lamp on the steps. I’ll summon you back when I’m ready.’ I heard the door swing gently shut. By then, though, I was already standing over Meekal. He looked up at me and tried to smile.