A.D. 1329, Persia
Silence. Unearthly silence. Silence unbroken except for the shrill cries of the carrion birds, the vultures circling in the sky. Circling lazily over a city that had once been the home of thousands, the pride of the East. Rhodaspes.
The old man sighed. Rhodaspes. She was renowned through history as a city of trade, a city of great kings. The unconquerable. In the days of his forefathers, she had stood against Alexander, the Romans, finally the hordes of Mohammed that had overrun the lands to the south. She had withstood them all, stood tall and proud.
In his own time, the city had defied the onslaught of the barbaric horsemen from the Far East, watched as they swept around the city like waters round a rock, passing them by. They had not fallen. They had remained, a bastion of pride, a bastion of faith. For the old faith of Zoroaster had not yet died in these mountains. His own name, Adar, meant “fire.” It was a tribute to the gods.
The last fire temple remained within their walls, the only one that the Mohammedans had been unable to destroy. Yes, they had withstood many onslaughts in their history. And they had always been triumphant in the end.
Until now.
He pushed open the door of his house, gazing out into the deserted streets, the streets that had once rung with shouts of laughter, the bustle of merchants. The streets where he had once played as a child, so many years ago.
He was the last. The last of Rhodaspes. The last of his people. It was a strange feeling. He hoisted the small sack on his shoulder and went around to the side street, where his horse stood waiting. In days past, his servants would have saddled it for him, but those days were past. They were all dead, now. Just like everyone else. The stench of death filled his nostrils as he mounted his horse, kicking it into a slow trot as he rode toward the city gates.
Dead. It had all started only a few months before, three to be exact. It seemed impossible that such devastation could have been accomplished in so short a time, but it had.
And it had all been because of one man. A stranger. An angel of death. They should have slain him immediately, thrown his fevered body outside the gates. Anything would have been better than what followed.
He had died. And then the family that took him in. Then their neighbors. Then their friends. The whole city. Smitten of the gods.
Cursed for an act of what they thought was mercy. Too late they had realized that they had been interfering with judgment.
He had thought to stop it. They had visited the temple of fire daily, beseeching Ahura Mazda for his protection, for his mercy. The heavens had been silent. There had been no answer.
The city gates were swung open, the mighty double gates that had defended Rhodaspes for centuries, their wood coated with brass that glistened like fire in the morning sun and protected them from being burnt down. They were useless now. There was nothing left to defend. He was the only one left.
The citizens had started burying their dead in the earth, in huge, open graves. From that moment on, Adar had known there would be no mercy. For burial-it was an abomination. For centuries, nay, for millennia, his people had placed their dead in “Towers of Silence,” where their spirits could be received direct into the sky, while their flesh was consumed by the vultures, the vultures that now circled above him, robbed of their sustenance.
He passed through the gates, kicking his horse into a gallop. He was an old man, and now he was fleeing. Fleeing something he knew he could not escape. The wrath of the gods…