Mohammed licked his lips, overcome by a sensation of nervousness. She is speaking the truth.
"O Man, observe," Ráha said, spreading her hands wide. A glittering circle opened in the air, through which Mohammed saw a thicket of pine and thistle. A stag crashed through the brush, followed by a swift, golden bolt of fur. The lion struck hard, massive jaws crunching into the stippled brown neck of the deer. Both animals went down in a cloud of dust and branches, the stag kicking, the lion's rear claws tearing bloody streaks across a heavy tan pelt. "Here is the engine of the world, of all creation! There is no permanence—only change—and in this world, men die. Women die. Everything passes with the turning of the wheel. New life springs from the old." Ráha looked up, her lambent dark eyes blazing. Mohammed felt a void open before him, saw scattered stars glitter on a field of sable. They grew, swelling enormous and dark, a doorway opening in the air before him. "Your time has come. Accept this."
A faint, ethereal wailing trembled in the air and Mohammed knew the dead were pleading with him, shouting in their faint voices, bending their will upon him for release. He felt the weariness of his bones, the fatigue settling in what muscle and sinew remained. Even his thoughts were slow, attenuated, stretched to the utmost. He heard temple bells and the chant for the dead, a slow, mournful dirge on a thousand voices. Drums rolled, echoing the tramp of sandals on a dusty plain. A funeral procession, he recognized. It must be mine.
"No," Mohammed managed to gasp. He was on his knees again, barely able to stand. "I will not abandon my purpose. The judge of judges will account the deeds of my life, when I stand before him. Until that day, when the lord of the world commands me lay down my purpose, I will not surrender."
"Are you the maker of all things?" Ráha knelt beside him, a pale hand on his shoulder. "Are you the judge of good and evil?"
"No!" Mohammed drew away from her. "I am only a man."
"How can you know your purpose continues? This is the end of your time. You must pass on!" A tone of urgent pleading crept into her voice.
"No—I will not! I will not be driven by thirst, by fear, by temptation, by the blandishments of the spirits here. I will endure. A great evil has entered the world—a serpent with countless heads, arms, bodies—I have seen the dark power walking under the sun, cloaked in the shape of a man. The voice from the clear air has spoken, setting me to strive against shaitan and all his spawn."
Ráha shook her head in despair. "Still you seek to name evil. I ask again, are you the judge of judges?"
"I am not," Mohammed snapped, "yet the voice of the empty places guides me to a righteous life! My heart sings to hear him, showing me a certain path. I will not let the whole world die, consumed by the serpent, crushed in leviathan coils! I will not step aside, while there is work yet undone!"
The woman rose, lips pursed. She cupped her hands and a spark appeared, fluttering like a butterfly. The flickering glow lit her face with warm light. "You are not listening. Certainty is oblivion. Immutability disaster. Only in the motion of change—in birth and death—is there life. The voice speaking to you is only one of many, only part of a great chorus. Everything, even what you name evil has a place in that choir."
"No—" Mohammed recoiled. "Not the abomination! The Lord of Serpents is a stain on the perfection of creation!"
A beneficent smile spread across Ráha's features. "Creation is imperfect. In all things a flaw—even in the wisdom of your guide, this voice from the clear air." She closed her hands over the light sputtering between her fingers. Darkness flooded the air around them, drowning sight of the grass, the city, even the swaying branches of the fig. "You claim the power in the desert as your patron, saying he raised the race of men from clay, from blood, from the very soil. So he did."
A vision burst over Mohammed, stunning his mind. A vast city rose up around him, cyclopean towers piercing leaden clouds, titanic shapes moving in the chill air. In the distance, mountains of ice encroached upon the city, glittering blue-white walls looming over soapstone colored buildings. Abandoned doorways yawned on streets tenanted solely by cold whirlwinds. A singular slate-gray tower swelled into view, colossal, every surface covered with deeply incised glyphs and signs. A window filled his vision and he looked down upon a great chamber, filled with shining, dark machines. Glimmering lightning flared in the shadows and something huge bent over a slab of mirrored black stone. Glossy rust-colored wings shifted, one pair, then four rising and falling around a ridged circumference. A tiny creature squirmed and writhed on the gleaming table, screaming endlessly. Bright red blood smeared silky fur. Stubby-fingered hands groped mindlessly at the air. Delicate white cilia descended, adjusting minute jewel-like tools.
Mohammed jerked back, horrified. Ráha was watching him from the darkness. The vision faded, the vast city falling away into dimness, buried by the relentless ice. The terrible cold lingered, pricking his skin as the tiny knives had worked in the living body of the furred creature.
"Did you think the birth of the race of men was pure? No—even in the beginning there was imperfection." Ráha drew close, her hands radiating a faint heat. The light between her palms glowed through her skin and Mohammed could see the outline of delicate finger bones. "From base flaw rose wonders unlooked for. The power, which presses the Sun and the Moon into its service, encompasses all things, men not least of all. Do not seek certainty, my lord. How can love grow, among such cold geometries?"
"Was—" Mohammed's horror choked the words in his throat. "Was this the face of the Wise One, who created men from dust, from a little germ..." He could not continue, stunned.
"Is the face of a newborn the face of a grown man?" The woman's voice was faint in the darkness. "Is the face of the grandson, the face of the grandfather? As the wheel turns, even the foulest act may plant a seed of joy. All things transform..."
Ráha opened her hands, letting stuttering, flaring light spill forth. Mohammed staggered back—in the flashing light, in the dark spaces between the warm golden flare, Ráha filled the world; enormous, blue-black arms like wheel spokes, reaching from earth to sky, myriad faces looking upon all directions and compasses. A thousand hands moved as one, a bending forest pressed by hurricane winds and delicate feet danced on the crown of the world, ringed with whirling, blazing suns. The man became aware of a tone, a singing single note, vibrating in the void. His eyes widened, and the last of his body cracked and crumbled into ash, rushing away in the wind from the abyss.
The woman closed her hands and the vision collapsed into a burning fire-encircled mote, then a shimmering cruciform letter, then into nothing. The golden light faded and the trembling tone faded away into the sighing branches of the fig tree. Even the sky snapped back into focus, a flat curtain of blue arcing overhead.
"Do you see?" Ráha said. "You must let go of this shell. You must go onward."
Mohammed could only feel the thud-thud of his heart. Even the woman's voice was very faint and far away. Glorious visions blinded him, and most of all, he heard a familiar, beloved sound, echoing in the spaces between his heartbeat, in the spaces between Ráha's words.
It is the sound of the morning of the world, he wondered, overcome with fierce emotion. The wind blowing in empty spaces. The tide. The moon. The roar of the surf on a barren shore. It is the voice from the clear air.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Above the Harbor of Phospherion, Constantinople
Iron shoes clattered on stone paving, drowning the jangle and clank of armor and shields. Khadames jogged wearily up a sloping, narrow street, shoulder to shoulder with a mass of Persian grivpani. The soldiers were clad in lamellar mail from head to toe, vision reduced to a pair of reinforced eyeholes in a conical helm. For the moment, while the column rattled into an octagonal plaza overlooking the Golden Horn, Khadames' helmet bounced on a strap over one shoulder. Sweating heavily in the bulky armor, the general needed to see more than he needed protection—at least for the moment!
A steadily increasing din echoed back from the three- and four-story buildings; a sustained hoarse shouting and the ring of booted feet on stone. Khadames, though he was bone-weary, gathered himself and pushed ahead, jogging through the mass of his column. The other diquans tramped on, one foot in front of the other, but Khadames knew they were exhausted. The heavy overlapping armor and plated shoes of the Persian nobleman was not made for marching on foot. They were designed for fighting from a powerful horse. But here in the confines of the city, in these narrow, twisting streets and overhanging lanes, among the rubble, their chargers were of little use.
Khadames jogged into the plaza, a spiked mace already in hand, small round shield strapped to his left arm. A crowd of men ran towards him, shouting in alarm. They were a disordered, panicky mob of Armenian mercenaries with braided beards and fish-scale armor. Part of the motley army the King of Kings had left to defend the captured city. Khadames cursed tiredly to himself, resting his mace on one shoulder. What did they see, a ghost? His voice, pitched to carry, rang out. "Persia, to me! Bannermen, to me!"
Some of the fleeing men slowed, staring in apprehension at the column of armored diquans stomping up the street. Khadames clouted one of them on the shoulder, bringing him to a startled halt. "Why are you running?" the general shouted. The Armenian blinked, panic fading as he saw stalwart men filling the plaza, then turned and pointed.
"The Greeks are coming!" he blurted, eyes wide. "The spear wall is coming!"
One iron-sheathed hand grasping the man's leather collar, Khadames gestured in an arc with the mace. "Triple line," he bellowed, harsh voice reverberating from the scorched, soot-stained buildings. "Prepare to advance at a walk!"
Persian grivpani spilled out into the plaza, rattling and clanking, forming up around the tall, golden standards of the house of Sassan. The generals' own battle flag arrived—a deep crimson sunflower on a field of blue—and Khadames took comfort from the familiar banner's presence. His forefathers had fought for nine generations under the watchful eyes of the tavgul. The Persian knights began to form their line, small shields braced, maces, longswords and spears at the ready. The older, more experienced men pushed up to take the front rank. Khadames paced west to the end of the formation, dark eyes scanning the men, looking for loose buckles, untied straps, anything to fail in the shock of battle, fouling a man's arm. The front of a temple, painted columns cracked and splintered by terrible heat, formed an anchor for their flank. Khadames was pleased to see his men were still game for a fight.
"You—what did you see?" The general turned to the hapless mercenary, now in the hands of two of his bodyguards. "Where were you, and why did you run?"
The Armenian swallowed nervously, long neck bobbing like a crane dipping. His throat was chafed and red where iron armor rubbed against bare flesh. "Great lord," he stammered, "we were marching to the port from the Gate of Gold. By your command, we were told!"
Khadames nodded, gesturing for the man to continue. As he had feared when Shahr-Baraz departed, the army left under his command was too small—particularly without the feckless, cowardly Avars—to hold the massive length of Constantinople's walls. Had the city been a friendly one, with a citizen militia to watch for attacks and handle simple patrols, he could have managed. As it was, with the gate of Charisus and several hundred feet of the double outer wall smashed to rubble by Lord Dahak's invocation, his paltry force of horsemen and mercenaries were simply not up to the job.
The evacuation of the city had begun as the dawn wind rose, with the first ships slipping away from the Golden Horn, heading for the wharfs and quays of the eastern side of the strait. Khadames had hoped the Romans would fail to notice the withdrawal of the Persian regiments from the walls. The mercenaries had been informed a few hours later. Khadames hoped they would make a sufficient screen for the departure of his own men. A faint hope, he thought wearily, and now crushed by circumstance.
"We heard the Romans entered the city," the lancer hurried on, "so our captain bade us march—at double-time—back down the western road to the harbor." The man rubbed the back of a glove against his mustache. "When we entered the big plaza with the arch we saw the Greeks. Our captains made us form a line, spears forward, with other companies gathering there. But the Greeks rushed with their spear wall and broke through the line. All we could do was run."
Khadames nodded, though each word dropped into his stomach like a leaden weight. The "big plaza" must be the forum of the Bull, only a few blocks away to the south, nearly at the center of the city. If the Roman army and their thrice-damned "spear wall" were fighting there, most of his men remaining in the city were cut off. The evacuation was still underway down on the docks and time was running short.
"Very well," Khadames said, stirring himself to action. He glanced across the plaza; more Armenian and Persian stragglers were passing through the triple line, though their numbers had slowed to one and twos. He waved, drawing the attention of his lieutenant, who was busily moving among the men. "Kavilar! Stand ready to charge the Romans as they deploy." The general turned to the cluster of aides and runners gathered behind him.
"You men," he said, "quick to the harbor—tell the ship captains to debark as quickly as they fill their decks. The Romans are pressing hard—we want to get as many men away to Chalcedon as possible before they overrun the docks." Two of the runners nodded sharply, then sprinted off down the hill.
From this height, despite the smoke-blackened apartments surrounding the plaza, Khadames could make out the glittering blue waters of the Golden Horn and the white sails of his small fleet. The sight made the twisting in his stomach worse. Despite the King of King's assurances, the departure of the Arab fleet had left Khadames with too few hulls to carry his entire army to safety in one go. Years of soldiering the length and breadth of Persia had not prepared the elderly general for dealing with ships, currents and loading capacities. Worst of all, to his mind, there was no way the army could make the two-hour voyage across the Propontis to Chalcedon with their horses. Not without dozens of trips back and forth... not when a single warhorse took the space of five men... Yet, what use is my army, he thought bitterly, without horses? We're not infantry, we'll have to walk back to Ctesiphon...
"You and you," he barked, long-simmering anger spilling over into his voice. "Take five men each and run to the nearest cross streets, watch for other Roman columns! If they come, send a runner to me immediately!" Both sergeants jogged away, shouting for men from the rear ranks.
Beyond the impossibility of holding the lengthy fortifications, Khadames' army was scattered in a bewildering ruin. Constantinople was far larger than any Persian city and poorly laid out to boot. The streets wound and twisted like snakes, the plazas and squares seemed randomly placed, as if the gods cast them like dust or coins upon broken ground. The old general had heard there were hidden passages under the streets, covered cisterns and buried roads—but his scouts, crawling through the burned-out wreckage, had failed to find any of these secret places. But the Romans will know their own city, he worried, feeling bile rise in his throat. He looked down the hill again. Three merchantmen were pulling out of the harbor, long sweeps working, sails billowing taut with the sharp wind from the north. We're too far from the docks, he realized. We need to fall back down the—
"Here they come!" a dozen men in the front rank shouted as one.
Cursing, Khadames climbed the steps of the abandoned temple to get a better view.
The entire mass of Persians in the plaza stiffened to the right, men closing up ranks behind the shields of their fellows. The second line of men moved up, spears ready in both hands. The rear line milled in slight confusion—some of the fleeing Armenians had joined the Persian formation. Khadames took all this in with one swift glance, then his eyes flew to the mouth of the street leading from the forum of the Bull. Already, he could hear the booming stamp-stamp-stamp of marching men. Dust puffed from the buildings, hazing the air, then a thicket of glittering iron appeared. The long spears of the Roman wall of battle suddenly filled the street, then the close-packed mass of legionaries emerged at a walk from the avenue.
The old general suppressed an atavistic shudder. A phalanx, he thought in amazement, in these late days! Four ranks with sixteen-foot pikes. Who had the time and money to train them this way? To his knowledge, no one had fielded a phalanx in battle since the rebel Indian king Soter Megas had been crushed by the T'u-chüeh five hundred years ago. The Romans advanced in good order, their sarissa leveled in three overlapping layers, with a fourth dancing in the air. Heavy, full-face helmets made the Roman soldiers appear monstrous, without even a hint of humanity.
"Steady! Hold. Hold!" screamed the Persian sergeants. Their men started to back away, uneasily aware of the reach of the enemy weapons. "Charge!"
Khadames held his breath, waiting for the diquans to lunge forward, blades and shields up, to crash into the Roman line. The close-packed ranks of the enemy did not seem maneuverable and getting to sword strokes with them, inside the reach of their spears, would be crucial.