The Gate of Fire (10 page)

The air filled with the rattle of wings as flocks of gulls and terns rose up at the disturbance. The white birds were streaked with blood on their downy chests and wings. Within moments they had settled again on the water, feasting on the harvest the day had yielded up.

"Brilliant, truly brilliant."

"You're welcome," Vladimir said, wringing seawater out of his hair.

A man, dressed in worn robes and grimy armor, looked up out of the shadow of a narrow canyon between towering walls of granite. Far above, a pale strip of sky showed the lateness of the day. He rode a stout-chested warhorse—a Sogdian charger, by the look—and he leaned heavily in the saddle. Weariness was etched in his face and in the line of his shoulders; he had traveled a long road. The
clip-clop
of his horse's hooves echoed back from the cliffs that hemmed in the narrow trail he followed. Above him all he could see was a jagged strip of blue. He had been riding in deep shade for nearly a day before he came to this place. At his left, below the road, a foaming cataract plunged down the steep canyon, the roar of the waters reverberating among the thick, dark pines and gray-green rocks.

Behind the man, on the road, a dozen black mules strained to drag a wagon up the pitch. Behind them, hundreds of men slowly followed—they were exhausted too, having pressed hard for a month or more to cross eight hundred miles of desert, desolate mountain, and forest. The wheels of the wagon just fit between the looming cliff on the right, a grainy rock with long, deep crevices in its surface, and the crumbling edge of the canyon itself. The lead man gently kneed his horse, and it resumed its slow walk up the winding road. Despite his weariness, he kept a wary eye on the rocks and cliffs above—the land they had entered bore an ominous reputation, long stained with blood and murder.

Hidden away behind the barren peaks and ridges of the land, the sun settled into the west, plunging the dim canyon into darkness well before sunset. The sky itself shaded to pink and then purple, while the mountains assumed a diffuse golden glow that threatened to linger even when the sun was gone and the sky was a black pit. The man on the lead horse reined in and raised his hand.

The wagon rumbled to a halt, and the puffing breath of the mules ghosted through the chill air. On the broad seat of the wagon, a dark shape stirred itself and then stood. Deep black robes of silk rustled away from lean arms and a broad chest. The man on the horse turned in the saddle and nervously smoothed his long mustache.

"Lord? Shall we press on or camp on the road?" Other unspoken questions hung in the air.

"No, faithful Khadames," a voice whispered out of the darkness. "There is but a little to go. Behind this narrows, a valley opens out, and there, amid sweet gardens and lush fields, we shall find rest. Just a little farther and we come to the end of our long journey."

Khadames flinched a little at the sound of that rich, smooth voice. In all the long weeks of grueling passage and intermittent horror, nothing troubled him more than the steady and unmistakable restoration of the man in the wagon. Not long ago, before the looming walls of the City of Silk—Palmyra in the deserts of Syria—that voice had been a hoarse croak coming from a smashed and crippled body. Not much more than a corpse had been dragged from the burning ruin of the Plain of Towers. Khadames had commanded an army then, in the name of his lord Shahr-Baraz, and for a brief moment considered with giddy delight that the black sorcerer was upon the gates of death. But he had bent his knee instead, and pried back a blood-caked eyelid to see if life still flickered in the odd yellow pupils. It had, and they had focused upon him and swelled and rippled like the back of a snake, and he held no will but theirs. The moment had passed, and life had crawled or crept back into the shattered body of the dark prince.

"So... so soon? We are there?" Khadames' voice cracked in astonishment. Laughter echoed out of the dark shape, the sound of an adult amused by a child.

"Yes, Khadames, this is the Valley of the Eagle's Nest. Press on, we are very near."

Khadames spurred his horse forward, and it trotted around the bend of the road, hooves striking on a sudden pavement of fitted stones. The Persian nobleman whistled in surprise as the vast bulk of a fortified gate rose up before him, octagonal towers springing forth from the sinews of the mountain itself. It was hard to gauge their size in the twilight, but the afterglow from the mountaintops picked out a wall of massive granite blocks closing off the canyon. At each side the towers climbed up, a hundred feet or more to the pinnacle of each. Between them a great dam of dark stone arched up, with a crenellated battlement spanning the gorge. A sluice gate roared and foamed at the base, spewing forth the swift stream that they had followed for the past two days. Water plunged another fifty feet to hammer at the rocks below. The road ran into darkness at the base of the near tower.

Khadames let the horse find the way across the metaled road. Behind him the wagon wheels rattled up onto the pavement and picked up speed. A mass of shadow grew before him and, trusting to the words of his master, the Persian rode on. A tunnel enfolded him, narrow—again, no more than the width of the wagon. A chill wind hissed down its length, and he followed as it wound forward. It turned first to the right, then back again to the left. Each time the mules were forced to slow down and make a careful turn. Each time, the wagon barely fit around the corners. All was in complete darkness. Khadames rode slowly, his hand on the left wall, trusting the horse's nose and careful tread.

The wind suddenly stopped, and it took Khadames a moment to realize that he had ridden out of the tunnel mouth and onto a broad road at the foot of a valley. The sky above was pitch black, without even a star to break the ebon firmament. He tasted the air and found it damp—clouds blotted the sky. The moon had yet to rise, too, and Khadames slowly urged his horse to the side of the road. A stone lip ran there, and the Persian stopped.

"This is the valley below the Eagle's Nest," that smooth voice said again as the wagon rumbled out of the tunnel. "You and I will go up the mountain to see what decay the years have wrought. Bid the men make camp by the banks of the stream—they may make a fire, for no enemy of ours will ever find this place."

Khadames watched as the sorcerer rode past with his wagon and the long coffin of gold and lead that had ridden in it, securely fastened with ropes and chains, from the gates of dead Palmyra. The memory of cold yellow eyes remained with him. He even fancied he could still see them hanging in the air when the dark shape had turned away. The Persian reached down to the travel lantern slung on a leather strap by the pommel of his saddle. At least light would be allowed them for this camp.

The moon had risen by the time Khadames made his way out of the camp and onto the road that wound along the side of the stream. For a few moments it had gleamed down over the jagged ridges that ringed the valley, but then the clouds had swallowed it. In that time, Khadames had seen that the valley was broad and fertile, filled with great stands of trees and meadows among the crags. On every side it seemed that impassible cliffs stood as a rampart of stone, closing all entrances save the great gate at the dam. Khadames had ordered guards posted there as soon as the last of his men had entered the valley. The sorcerer had claimed that none could follow them in their long journey through the mountains, but the Persian general was not so sure. Where one man walked, so might another.

Of the 20,000 men who had stormed the walls of Palmyra three months before, he had counted only 516 as they passed through the vaulted gates of the valley. Every man was worn to the bone from his long trek. Still, he wondered why they had come. Some, he thought, followed him as their captain. Others were drawn to the dark Prince and his terrible power—those men Khadames watched closely, for they had come out of the deserts to join them during the flight from Syria. Others, like the Uze mercenaries who had served as the lord's bodyguard since the great battle at Emesa, seemed content to draw their pay and follow. The others? They had fled in the darkness during the march, or deserted in whole regiments whenever the little army passed a city. Some had died during the long journey, and those had been buried in unmarked graves. Khadames raised the travel lantern, letting its wan yellow light spill out on the road before him, and rode up the valley.

In the few moments he had taken to post his sentries at the dam-gate, Khadames had seen that the massive towers and the broad battlement had been abandoned for many years. Small trees grew in cracks among the mighty stones, and a deep drift of leaves and dirt had accumulated on the valley side of the wall. The four heavy gates themselves—monstrous constructions of oak and iron and steel rivets—were frozen open in their posts. It would be a great task to pry them free and set them to close again.

Too, the road, while canted in the Roman style and marked by stone gutters on either side, was showing signs of wear. The first bridge over the stream had nearly collapsed, forcing Khadames to dismount and carefully walk his horse across it. How the dark Prince had gotten the wagon over was a mystery—but, then, around that creature were many mysteries. Khadames crossed a second bridge, and the road began to climb up out of the valley. The night air was still, hushed, even a little stuffy. It seemed odd, for a strong breeze blew through the tunnel in the gate. Now the road cut up the side of a long slope, marked by great stone pylons on the outer side. In the flickering light of the lantern, Khadames saw that great chains once had hung from rings screwed into the stone. Dry streaks of rust were all that remained of them.

The road turned back upon itself, still climbing, and at the turn, Khadames passed over a broad circle of fitted stones and pavement. Whoever had first occupied this hidden valley and raised these mighty works were well-accomplished stonemasons and builders. Slowly, as he rode up the long road, as it turned upon itself and turned again, he began to feel a bitter chill seep through his clothes. He was warmly dressed, for the mountains of Irak and Tabaristan are unforgiving and prey to terrible storms. This seemed to congeal out of the air around him, cold fingers plucking at his sleeve and creeping around his neck. A sense, too, grew in him of an oppressive weight hanging over him, looming above, hidden in the darkness.

The road ended at a narrow platform, perched at the end of a steep climb. The last length of road was carved from the side of a great cliff, and ended with an outthrust platform of stone. Great pylons rose out of the darkness below to support it, and curled around its lip like titanic fingers. Khadames reined his horse around and peered back, down in the depths of the valley. Far away and below, like the sight of fireflies at night, he saw the lights of the campfires of his men. The cold slid along his back and arms, for he guessed at the distance and knew that—should he look down from this precipice by the light of day—he would near swoon from vertigo. He turned away.

A gate rose out of the darkness, hewn from the flank of the mountain. Forty feet or more across and fifty high it rose, a black mouth straddled by carved figures. A portal closed it with two massive valves of stone. Across their face, signs and symbols were graven into the rock face, line after line of them, swirling around a central figure of the Flame Eternal. At each side, the figures of men surged out of the dark rock, their bodies forming the side of the gate, their arms—outstretched to each other—the lintel. Their faces were still in shadow, far above the poor light of his tiny lantern. At the foot of the gate was a puddle of black silk.

Khadames blanched and felt faint. The Flame stared back at him in the yellow cast of the travel lantern. In this place, even graven in stone, it seemed to leap and burn, shedding a fierce light. His right hand twitched to make the sign of the Lord of Light, but stopped, and he forced it back to his saddle horn. The remembered smell of burning flesh and the agonized screams of men echoed in his memory.

If you love the fire so much,
said a dreadful voice,
then you shall have it.

The sorcerer did not countenance that his men, his followers, even his generals, embraced the words of the prophets of Ahura-Mazda, he-who-rules-the-Universe-in-Light. Khadames had not opposed him on this, either, not after the slaughter in the temple at Sura. If you rode at the side of the dark man, you rode far from the light of the Beneficent One. The Persian swung down off of his horse, feeling his legs twinge in response. Now that they had reached their goal, his body—so long driven by his will alone—was beginning to rebel, demanding sleep, food, rest, even a bath. Regardless, he walked warily forward to the body slumped at the base of the mammoth gate. A boot of tooled leather jutted from under the flowing robes.

Khadames knelt, and gingerly turned the man over. The sorcerer's head rolled back, bile-yellow eyes staring into nothingness. The once-handsome features seemed slack and lifeless, but breath still hissed between his fine white teeth. Khadames pulled his hand away, feeling moisture on his fingers. He stared at them in puzzlement: They were damp with tears.

The Uze, their figures bulky in thick furs and glinting with half-hidden armor, stood as one when Khadames rode back into the camp. Their felt tents, low and round, clustered like toadstools around the bulk of the sorcerer's great yurt. Each night on that long march from Syria, they had raised it, then unfolded their own in barrier around it. Tagai, their broken-toothed leader, moved slowly forward and reached up to take the limp body of the sorcerer from Khadames. His thick arms, corded with muscle and ridged with old scars, took the weight easily. The Persian dismounted, his face grim, and gestured for Tagai to take the body into the tent. The other Uze edged toward him, some glancing over their shoulders at their chieftain.

"Go," Khadames growled in the badly accented Sogdian he shared with the Northern barbarians. "Bring each man in the camp, one at a time, to me in the lord's tent. If a man refuses, say that I command him. If he refuses again, say that the lord wills it. If he still will not come, then cut him down."