The Gate of Fire (15 page)

"Well done," the woman said, her voice lilting with amusement. "But you were poorly prepared and... distracted."

Thyatis looked up, her face filled with surprise, delight, and fulminating disgust.
"Sifu,"
she croaked, still barely able to speak. "never just a hello?"

The little golden woman shook her head, face sad. "No, not in this world of troubles. Welcome home."

Thyatis stood, lifting Shirin from the tiles with an arm around her waist. She bowed. "Thank you,
sifu
. This is my friend—"

"Shirin of the House of Asena," the golden woman interrupted, "a new student in the Temple."

"Yes," Thyatis said, her voice edged with suspicion. "I was going to bring her to meet you tomorrow."

"Tonight will do for meetings," the woman said, smiling and showing perfect white teeth. "Tomorrow will do for beginning her training."

Shirin's eyebrows rose up, and she looked sidelong at Thyatis, who was staring at the little woman in concern. "Training? She will not be here long enough—"

"She will be here as long as she is here," the woman said, overriding Thyatis with calm authority. "And while she is here, she will be one of my students. This is the Way."

"Not all students in the Temple are your students,
Sifu
! She does not have to—"

"Wait!" Shirin interjected in a cold voice. Thyatis stopped and looked at her friend in surprise. Shirin met her eyes with an icy glare. "I will decide," Shirin said. She turned to the little woman and bowed, her hands pressed together before her. "
Sifu
," she said, "you are the one known as Mikele? The master of the art of the open hand? The one who taught Thyatis—this great lumbering ox of a Roman—to fight with her whole body?"

Mikele inclined her head, bright dark eyes looking the Khazar girl up and down. "Yes," Mikele said, "I am a teacher of the Way."

Shirin met the dark eyes levelly and returned the slow observation.

Mikele was very thin, even lighter than Shirin, who was not heavy at all. The little woman was a swordblade, balanced and whip-thin, with a core of steel. An enormous amount of pitch black hair was curled up on Mikele's head, held in place by silver combs and tiny golden pins. She wore a plain cotton shirt, with a round-notched collar, and Persian-style pants with wide bottoms. Her face was serene and elegant, marked by high cheekbones and slightly slanted eyes. Shirin knew, looking upon her, that in her youth the little woman had been surpassingly pretty. But now, age had peeled away everything but a clear beauty that shone from her eyes more than the appearance of her face. Her lips were thin, but creased at the corners by a constant smile. Every thing about her spoke of balance and restraint, nothing hinted at the effortless speed of her movements.

Shirin bowed again, tendrils of raven hair falling around her face. "If the teacher would allow a student to learn, the student is ready."

One of Mikele's eyebrows rose now, and she glanced at Thyatis. "Well spoken, at least. Come, the Matron would have you sit with her at dinner."

Moonlight slanted between round-bellied pillars. Thyatis stood in shadow, leaning against the cool marble surface of a low wall. Shirin stood close to her, a shawl of light knotted wool pulled over her shoulders. They stood in a small circular temple raised on the highest point of the island. A narrow stair of a thousand steps fell away below it, leading down to the hidden temples and rooms below. The night air was cold on the height, and the Temple of Artemis was open on all sides, revealing an enormous vista of barren ocean. Beyond the rocky walls of the island was nothing to the horizon. A full moon rode high in the sky, filling the world with a lush silver light.

A breeze passed over them, and Shirin edged closer to Thyatis. The Roman woman slid her arms around Shirin's waist, and the Khazar girl settled into her chest, pulling the shawl tighter. Somewhere on the barren slope, bats were hunting, their squeaking voices faint in the background.

"Was this the first building here?" Shirin asked in a quiet, dreamy, voice.

Thyatis shook her head and rested her chin on the crown of Shirin's head. "No," she said slowly. "The first temple lies on the floor of the lagoon. Sometimes, when the sun is high in the sky, you can see the roof, deep in the waters. It is nearly covered with sand, though. Once, when I was learning to swim, I dove deep enough to touch it. All the others—the Temple of the Winged Huntress, the dormitories, the kitchens and bakeries, the workshops—were built later. The Sisters came and carved them from the stone of the island by hand."

Shirin clasped her hand over Thyatis' and held it tight to her. Her thumb traced a puckered scar on the back of Thyatis' wrist. "That must have taken centuries," she said in a small voice.

"Yes," Thyatis said. "But the Sisters have been here for a long time."

"There are no men here? Not even slaves?"

"No," Thyatis said, smiling in the darkness, "not even a slave. So it was in old Themiscyra, so it is upon Thira-the-Daughter. The world has enough men in it as it stands. There need be none here."

"How did you come here? Did you run away from your family?"

Thyatis stiffened slightly, but then relaxed again, though she held Shirin tight. "No... I did not run away. My
pater
—my father—was a landowner in one of the farming districts south of Rome, but there were hard times, and he fell into debt. I—we—my sisters and I, he... we were sold, in the great market."

Shirin turned her head a little, peering up at her friend. Thyatis' face seemed that of a statue in the moonlight, as hard as stone. Thyatis pursed her lips and shook her head a little. Little bells wound through her hair and tinkled softly.

"A woman was in the marketplace, just... browsing, I suppose. She saw me, all gangly arms and legs and wild red hair, and took a fancy to me. She was a duchess—the wife of a regional governor in the Empire—and money did not concern her much. I was taken to her house, though I do not believe that I ever saw her at all. I remember little of the day in the market—only a terrible thirst and the great noise, all around me, of thousands of people.

"They sent me to a house on the edge of the city, a temple where women could find refuge. The priestesses fed me and gave me clothes and a bath. I stayed there for a little while, then two women in masks came to fetch me and I was sent far away from Rome.

"I was sent here, to the School, to Mikele."

Even in the darkness, Shirin could feel a wry smile on Thyatis' face.

"I was here five years—oh, and they were dreadful! The School is unforgiving and brooks no disobedience. I must have scrubbed every step and tile in this whole warren. But I did learn—I learned to fight, and to see, and to react without conscious thought. I learned the open-hand Way, and the sword art, and all the other things they teach."

"Was Mikele your teacher the whole time?"

"No, she only teaches the open-hand Way. Another teacher—Atalanta—showed me the way of the sword, and many others taught me to read and to write. There are dozens of teachers in the School—Mikele is only the most memorable."

Shirin felt cold again; the breeze was becoming stronger. She felt a little disgusted—when she had been young, she had run barefoot in snow and barely noticed it. The vast open steppes north of the
Mare Caspium
were not noted for balmy weather and a comfortable climate.
I have become a soft and spoiled princess,
she grumbled to herself.
But this will change.

"Do you want to go in?"

Shirin looked up at Thyatis and nodded, smiling.

The moon watched them descend the thousand steps, tiny pale figures in the silver light.

"This seems impossible. How can such a thing happen?"

Lady Hala knelt on a padded cotton mat in her sewing room. The room was light and airy, with a high ceiling of cedarwood beams and white stucco. Stone walls closed two sides of the room, painted with pale colors. The other two sides were lined with shutters set in a wooden frame, now open, showing the tops of the orange trees that grew in the garden below. Beyond the green crown of trees were the roofs of the other buildings in the Bani Hashim compound, then the rest of the city spreading out below. Taiya poured bitter green tea into small white cups. Mohammed sat opposite her on a thick-woven Persian rug. He was staring out the window. Above the red tile roofs of the city, the sky was very blue.

"I wanted only to die," he said in a soft voice, "but this voice commanded me to live. The sound of it filled the air like the voice of a god. I could not refuse."

"Was it?" Hala sat the enameled pot of tea aside and then measured a spoonful of crystallized honey into each cup. The amber kernels swirled into the dark liquid. "Was it a god?"

Mohammed looked back at her from the window. She watched him carefully, for he had been very distant and strange-seeming since waking. A shepherd boy had found him on the mountaintop, very close to death, his body burned by the sun, his lips cracked with thirst. The shepherd had carried him down from the mountain on his back and brought him to this house, to Khadijah's house. Weeks had passed since then, and only now could he walk and stand without help. The gray in his beard and hair had deepened into narrow streaks of silver-white.

"A god? Can it be anything but a god who speaks from the air, unseen? The voice spoke of powers awake in the world. It said that I must strive against them. It commanded me to act."

Mohammed slowly picked up one of the cups and sipped from it. The tea was bitter on his tongue, but then the warm taste of honey followed. He put the cup down and met his sister-in-law's eyes directly. "I must follow that command. I will go forth into the world, with those men who will follow me and stand against the powers that I have seen."

Hala frowned, her eyes glittering over the pale umber veil that she wore when in the presence of her brother-in-law. She had spent many hours sitting by the bed where Mohammed had lain in his convalescence, waiting for him to recover, listening to his mumbled words. She knew, perhaps better than he, what had been said to him on the mountain. "Is this wise?" she asked, picking up her sewing and smoothing the cloth over her knees. "There are things that must be done here, in your home, first. The speaking of a god is not to be ignored, surely, but if you are going away, then you must settle some matters."

Mohammed scowled. He had fled his wife's house on the day of his return and gone to the mountain. Since then he had seen no one save Hala and the house servants, and that had pleased him. In all the years he had been Khadijah's husband, he had kept clear of the fierce political and clan struggles that raged among the noble houses of Makkah. Many powerful families lived in the city, or had estates in the valley, and there was constant struggle for position and eminence. He detested them—he had been a poor orphan before he had married Khadijah—for their slights against him. He looked away from Hala, his heart sinking at the thought of plunging himself into that morass.

"You have not even seen your daughter," Hala continued as she began picking out a poorly sewn seam in the dress. "You should take dinner with Roxane at her house, at least, before you go."

Mohammed sighed, and his fists clenched. He hated this. The demands of family and clan dragged at him like lead weights on a pearl diver.

"She misses you. She came every day while you were unconscious and sat with me at your bedside. That blouse? She brought it for you, sewn by her own hand."

Mohammed sighed, and his fingers picked at the edge of the shirt. "So, what matters must I resolve before you will let me go?"

Hala raised an eyebrow at the bitterness in his voice. She had long wondered if the arrangement between her sister and the wayward husband had suffered from strain. She guessed that this—the matters of the sprawling Bani Hashim clan and the intricate system of alliances and arrangements that had so delighted the subtle Khadijah—put a great fear into the merchant's heart. He was not a man who dealt well with inner fear. Too, being raised an orphan, he had not gained any taste for the business of a great sprawling family.

"No one can keep you anywhere," she replied while she threaded one of her bone needles. "But there is a question among the elders about your status now that Khadijah has left us. Some feel that you should now be chief of the Quraysh and the Bani Hashim; one you lead by blood, the other you have gained by marriage. You know, surely, that Taiya and her husband will refuse to acknowledge you as the head of the clan. They argue that since you are not of the blood of the Hashim, you cannot now be chieftain."

"And so? If old al'Uzza had begotten any sons the issue would be moot. Hala, your sister
wanted
to be the ruler of her house, and so it was. I do not. I was content as her husband, but the thought of ruling the rabble of sisters, daughters, and cousins is repellent. Let Taiya and her husband lead if they so choose. I will be gone soon. I will take my sword-brothers north."

Hala sighed and put down the needle. She glared at Mohammed and then smiled a little when he squirmed under her gaze. She had not put all those years sitting at Khadijah's feet to waste. "There is more than the issue of the clan at stake here. You have always had an odd status among us. Your time spent on the mountain has made you something of a holy man to some. Your long absences on the trade road have made you mysterious. Now, you have suffered a vision, and I must say that in your troubled sleep, you spoke of this often. In your sleep, you had no doubts—a God had revealed himself to you. More ears than mine and Roxane's heard your words. Even the servants of this house, loyal as they are, have been known to gossip in the marketplace."

Mohammed looked up, his face filled with dismay. "What do you say? Do all know what happened? Do they account me mad?"

"Yes, some do. Others clamor at the gate of our house each day, begging to see you, to speak to you. They say that the gods have touched you and that you will bring good luck to them, or cure their ills. This has made things worse, in the city, between the other clans and us. Some think you are trying to become the high priest of Ka'ba."