Written in the Ashes (19 page)

Alizar floated like a phantom through the streets. He blended invisibly into the shadows with practiced ease. No one saw him but the angel.

Behind an overflowing fountain, his foot fell upon a soft object. He paused and bent down and picked up a dirty cloth doll with black stitches for eyes and frilly yarn hair. He stared at it for a moment, and the little doll stared back. Suddenly, he had an idea. He tucked the doll into his cloak and turned toward the east end of Canopic Way.

“Alizar.” An old, familiar voice called from a dark doorway where the door hung from its hinges like a loose tooth.

“Master Savitur.” Alizar turned and immediately bowed reverently to the elder Kolossofia of the Nuapar, who was dressed in the traditional black robe bound by the crimson and white sash indicating his status. His long white hair lay across it like streaks of chalk on a slate.

“Come here, my son.” His ancient voice still resonated with the power of youth.

Alizar approached the doorway.

“All actions have consequences, Alizar, you know this.” Savitur stood serene, luminous. He was both of the world and beyond it. His eyes glistened magically. Even the angel found him marvelous.

“Do you mean for me to do nothing?” Alizar said, his frustration spilling over. The Kolossofia masters themselves were under vows to never interfere with human affairs, but the Nuapar were free to do as they chose. Alizar fell under the last bit, but Savitur could still forbid him as even Nuapar who retired their robes were bound by life to the order.

“I mean only to tell you your actions will not go unnoticed.”

“Cyril.”

Savitur walked casually into the empty room behind the door where a single candle illuminated the pale earthen walls. Alizar followed.

“What are the consequences of my actions then?”

Savitur smiled and chuckled quietly to himself as though he had a secret. And it was so. Freed from the wheel of time he could see the future, and laugh to himself the way Alizar imagined the gods laughed at even the severest of human predicaments. “You have worked hard to remain inconspicuous, Alizar. I support your efforts. Be cautious.”

Alizar took a deep breath and held it in. “I will do what I must.”

“Yes, I know you will. So do it well, Alizar.”

Alizar almost responded, but Savitur’s shimmering form began to dance, the molecules of his manifested body dispersing into the room in a thin, vaporous smoke.

Alizar let out his breath when the figure had faded completely, then struck out on his way.

Two dozen men and Hannah in her disguise as a boy were already gathered at the Gate of the Sun when Alizar arrived just minutes before the Parabolans. These men knew the Parabolani would execute anyone who stood against them, and still they came.

“Alizar, we cannot stay here,” someone cried out. “Cyril’s men are chasing the Jews out this gate. They will soon be upon us.”

Alizar stepped up onto a guard platform so he could see all the men and address them. He took a deep breath and began. “You must not let one child pass though this gate, men. Hide outside the walls and take every child not on its mother’s breast to my ship in the harbor. My captain is preparing to sail the
Vesta
to Antioch tonight. I know a woman who tends an orphanage there who will keep the children safe so that their parents may claim them once they make it through the desert.” He dared not say
if
. Alizar turned his head toward the darkness that lay beyond the wall toward
Kemi
, the black land of the desert, as the Egyptians called it. “Go in turns and follow the east wall around the outside of the city to the harbor. I do not want Cyril’s suspicions aroused. You must not be seen. Now go.”

Alizar’s men separated, but moved with one mind. One by one, they found the children and made swift promises to parents who kissed the cheeks of their little ones again and again and again before they fled, praying they would not be killed.

At the docks in the harbor, Gideon lifted little wriggling bodies up the steps, down the steps. The children clung to each other in fright like startled bats in a sudden light. Librarians who heard of the exile of the Jews from the city ran to the harbor with bundles of clothes, sheets, bread, wine and cheese. Antioch was ages away. There were thirty children when Gideon counted in the beginning of the night. By dawn his count had reached nine hundred and three.

Smoke billowed out of the city, swirling in dark edged spirals that filled the air with the unmistakable scent of loss. No one could speak about what was happening. The only task was to do what must be done.

But near dawn on her third trip to the harbor, in a dark alley behind the fish market, Hannah was spotted with three small Jewish children, running to Alizar’s ship. Peter secretly followed her, urging two other Parabolans to join him. When the priests saw the ship, and the men working urgently on the docks, they exchanged words and departed in haste.

The angel, too near the earth, could not prevent them.

What struck Alizar deepest as he confronted the scene in the streets was that Cyril’s power was far greater than he had suspected. In the years that had passed since the destruction of the Temple of Serapis, Alizar had seen the Christians grow in number, but it had not occurred to him how completely outnumbered they would be in the event of a crisis such as the one that occurred the night Cyril exiled the Jews from Alexandria. This meant the end of free worship in Alexandria, a thought that seemed unfathomable to Alizar in a city that stood for freedom of worship. If only the Christians had adopted the Nuapar value of
ah’msa
, do no harm, along with the plethora of creeds they had borrowed from various ancient Mediterranean religions when constructing their own ethics. Things might have been different.

At dawn, thoroughly exhausted, Alizar stood on the docks trying to secure the last of the children and supplies in the bilge of his ship. His heart pounded furiously every second the ship was still docked.

Gideon called down that they had reached the maximum capacity in the bilge just as Hannah rushed to the ship with the three children. “You must take these, captain,” she called out.

“Not possible,” a sailor on board called back. “There is no more room.”

Gideon leaned over the edge and hurled a wine-filled
pythos
into the sea. “Let them up, hurry. We have the room.”

Hannah tugged the children up the gangplank into the ship and passed their hands to Gideon’s. Then he locked eyes with hers. She had lost her hat in the hour before, and her hair was coming loose. “Lady, you should not be here,” he said, recognizing her. “Get back to Alizar’s at once.”

“You have done what you felt was just,” said Hannah. “And so have I.”

Gideon just looked at her, his eyes full of admiration.

But then Hannah heard the heavy footsteps on the dock behind Alizar and she cried out. The Parabolani had come. Alizar shoved the gangplank into the water and cut the ropes with his sword. “Go!”

Gideon rushed to the helm, and Hannah clung to the edge of the ship, not knowing what to do as the sailors clamored all around her to raise the sails and the
Vesta
turned slowly toward the open sea.

On the docks, at least a dozen of Cyril’s Parabolans swept toward Alizar, led by Peter, their black robes snapping behind them. “His Eminence, Cyril of Alexandria, commands you to halt your ship,” declared Peter.

Then he thrust a letter marked with the wax seal of the bishop into Alizar’s hand. Behind Peter, the Parabolans lifted their swords and loaded their bows. Each was on the ready for Alizar’s response.

Alizar took the letter and slit it open. It was an order to halt his ship. Alizar nodded to the men before him in defeat. Then he turned, and plunged into the sea. The Parabolani were caught off guard for a moment, but then they opened fire. Alizar swam holding his breath, unseen in the dark water.

The Parabolans held torches to their arrows and the wicks caught fire. Then they released their flaming arrows. Hannah screamed as an arrow struck a post beside her head. All around her the crew worked frantically to put out the flames as they slowly inched out of the harbor. The arrows fell like rain. Aboard the ship the children screamed for their lives. Several were struck dead and fell into the water like limp dolls.

The archers loaded their arrows again and let them fly. Some fell in the sea as the ship slipped further away, but others landed in the ropes on the
Vesta
where the sailors doused them with water to prevent the damage from spreading. Praise Zeus the sails had not yet been raised.

Alizar came up for air at the ship’s stern. But as he raised his hand to catch the rope thrown to him by Hannah, Peter spotted him and grabbed a bow from the Parabolan beside him. Then he lifted it, aimed, and let the arrow fly.

Alizar was speared through the right shoulder, and he let go of the rope. Hannah cried out and dove into the sea after him. Alizar came up for a breath, and suddenly Hannah was there beside him. He recognized her as the
Vesta
glided away on the silver sea beyond the breakers. The Parabolans had ceased fire as the ship unfurled her sails in the wind; she was untouchable, the last of the fires extinguished on her deck.

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