The Gate of Fire (14 page)

On the pier stood three figures, each dressed in flowing white robes. One held a parasol of pale sea-green over the head of the central figure. The others were motionless, waiting. Behind them the pier ran back into the face of a temple carved from the rock and faced with soaring columns. Above it, temple buildings climbed the cliff, seemingly half grown from the dark rock. The gleam of white marble stunned the eye, even as the senses were excited by the beauty of the statues and pediments that were so exposed. Far up, on the rim of the bowl, great colonnaded archways peered down, and in them were small figures, adorned with bright flowers and colorful garments.

"This is Thira, my friend."

Shirin barely heard Thyatis' words. A hidden city lay at the center of the island, a city of beautiful cream-colored buildings and graceful white pillars. The skiff sailed over transparent waters, seemingly aloft in an ocean of blue air. Thyatis guided the boat to the end of the pier with sure strokes of the oar. One of the figures, slighter than the other two and with dusky skin, reached down and caught the prow of the boat with a looped rope. Thyatis bowed deeply to the other two figures and oared the rear of the boat to a gentle contact with the stone of the quay.

"Greetings, Lady of the Island. Two women seek refuge here among the daughters of Artemis."

The middle figure smiled, her long face split with a merry grin. She was almost as tall as Thyatis and lean, but her once-dark hair was streaked with white, and her features showed the graceful onset of great age. She wore a clean-lined gown of simple wool, and her only jewelry was a single sapphire on a pendant around her neck. At her side, holding the parasol, another woman stood, enough like her to be a sister or daughter, but she was of middle age, and her bright eyes measured the two women in the boat.

"Well met, wayward daughter," the Matron said. "We welcome you to the island. Please, step ashore."

Shirin stepped off of the boat and onto the dock, the stone cool under her bare feet. The dusky-skinned woman who had snared the boat held out a hand to help her, and Shirin suppressed a start of surprise when she felt the strength in the thin fingers. This woman was very short, barely four and a half feet tall, olive skinned with a golden tinge to it that Shirin had never seen before. Her oval face seemed made for smiling, but she was calm and self-possessed. Shirin met her coal-dark eyes and felt disoriented for a moment. Then it passed, and she made a graceful bow to the Matron of the Island.

"Greetings, lost daughter," the elderly woman said, a muted smile on her lips.

"Greetings, Daughter of the Archer," Shirin replied, carefully pronouncing the archaic words as Thyatis had taught her. "I seek shelter from storm. I seek shelter from the rage of men. I seek shelter from fate and the gods. Bright lady, hear my prayer and grant me peace and surcease from the world. I pray you let me into sanctuary and I will bind up my hair for you and follow your ways in all the days of my life."

The snow white eyebrows of the Matron rose up, and she darted a fierce look at Thyatis, who had also stepped out of the boat and had stripped off the soaked cotton shirt. The red-haired woman met her gaze and held it, all innocence while she wrung the seawater out of the garment. The Matron turned back to Shirin, noting for the first time the archaic line of the garment she was wearing and the classical styling of her hair. "I see... my lost daughter brings a new student, and a troublesome one at that."

The younger woman with the parasol made a slight coughing sound. The Matron rolled her eyes and batted a hand at her. "Peace, Aurelia, I will abide by the conventions of the island and the Order."

The Matron turned a steely gaze upon Shirin and considered her for a long moment. "O girl, you who come before the goddess as
ephebe
, you give yourself to the Order of the Huntress?"

Shirin knelt, furiously trying to remember the rest of the ritual words. "Artemis watches over us," she recited to the old woman's slippers, "winged guardian of all lost things. I am Shirin of Khazaria. I am lost in this world, I seek shelter. Bring me into your fold,
O Potnia Theron
, and I will repay you with love, duty, and obedience."

The Matron glared at Thyatis again, who had pulled her shirt back on and tied it off under her breasts. Sighing, she raised her long-fingered hand and made a sign in the air over Shirin's head. High above, where hundreds of distant faces watched from the windows and archways of the hidden city, a voice was raised in song. Shirin did not understand the words, but she knew from what Thyatis had told her that it was a song of welcome and an invocation for the blessing of the goddess.

"Welcome, daughter Shirin," the Matron said. "You have found your sanctuary, here on the Island of the Huntress, this blessed and secret place."

Shirin stood up and bowed again. The smaller woman patted her on the arm, and the Matron turned away to lead them down the sunlit pier into the cool darkness of the temple. Behind them, the skiff rocked easily against the pier, born up on bright waves. The song swelled from a single voice to hundreds, haunting and beautiful over the empty waters.

The sun set, turning the sea a deep gold and the sky a wash of pale pink and purple. Thin clouds crowded the horizon, and they burned golden like ingots in a forge. Shirin, sitting in the window of the rooms that had been given to her and Thyatis, sighed in delight. The beauty of the sky and the sea from this height made her heart glad. The window was cut from the rock, sitting in a deep embrasure and looking out over the waters beyond the island. Thyatis looked up from the little table in the plainly appointed room. She had her longsword laid out over her knees on a quilt of wool. A small copper bottle of oil sat nearby, and she had a rag and whetstone in one hand. The warm light of the setting sun, slanting through the window, silhouetted Shirin and painted Thyatis like a statue of gold.

"What is it?" Thyatis' voice was weary—the struggle with the sea had taxed her. Her arms and shoulders were stiff and very sore.

"I have never been in a more peaceful place, my friend. After all our travels, I feel at last that I could be safe to walk about without you at my side."

A glad smile gleamed for a moment on Thyatis' face, and then she sighed herself and looked down at the blade. It shimmered in the failing light, a bar of bright watery silver. Outside the deep-cut window, a flight of terns flew past, cawing, heading home to their rookeries on the cliffs above the temple. "I could think of no better place—no, no other place—to bring you after your old home was destroyed."

Shirin nodded, turning a little on the windowsill. Thyatis did not look up, knowing the look of sadness and loss that would be plain on the younger woman's face. "My home... I wonder if Ctesiphon was ever truly my home. I lived there, true, with my husband and my children—but was it a home? Its memory fades, but other places remain bright—the yurts of my uncles; the smell of horses in the rain; the long, open vista of the steppe. Of those palaces and gardens, I can see only you—my friend—standing in the rain, covered with blood, over my husband's body. That and flames leaping into the night sky."

Shirin paused, staring out the window. The sun at last slid into the blue-black ocean, leaving a trailing green spark on the horizon and then a burning ember swallowed by wine dark waters. The sky shaded to deepest purple, with long fingers of gleaming orange trailing across it, the last vestige of the day. Thyatis remained silent, her long fingers slowly running a cloth along the blade, bringing it to a bright oiled polish. Shirin continued, her voice soft. "It was like... I had fallen into a dream or a
soma
-sleep, filled with gorgeous halls and elegant people, fabulous gifts, and a prince of the hidden folk—one who could grant any wish, conjure any amusement. A fair face, hiding a dark heart. I was a doll, perfectly combed and painted, something to hold up to the light and wonder at. Then you came, all unbidden, with that reckless oaf of an uncle of mine—ah, what a risk you took!"

Thyatis grimaced and slid the Indian-steel blade into the long scabbard. "It was his plan," she said wryly, "and I cannot fault it—it worked, and here we are."

Shirin laughed, cocking her head to one side. Her hair spilled slowly over her shoulder, thick and rich. "And here we are... you and I, a more unlikely pair than any in a troubadour's tale. I know, dear Thyatis, that you fret that you have done me some disservice—torn me away from hearth and home to journey in some strange land—but you forget that I am not some pampered lady of the court."

Thyatis looked up at the sharp note in Shirin's voice. One pale red eyebrow crept up in amusement at the vehemence in that low voice.

"Do not give me that look!" Shirin stood and strode across the room to stand over the Roman woman, brown arms tensed, fists on her hips. "I rode before I walked, drew bow before I could speak—all my people do, as you well know! I rode at Chrosoes' side in the war against the Man of Wood with lance and shield... braggart Roman!"

Shirin pinched Thyatis' ear sharply and then jumped back, giggling, when the red-haired woman growled at her. Thyatis stood, a blur of motion, and her sword, scabbarded, sailed across the room to land in the pile of baggage and clothes they had brought up from the boat. Shirin laughed aloud and stuck out her tongue. Thyatis growled again, though a quick smile was welling in her face like a flower opening to the sun. She slid forward, her bare feet quick on the polished slate tiles of the floor, and snatched at Shirin's bare arm. Shirin spun aside, her hair flashing in a dark wheel, and leapt over the chair by the table.

Thyatis sprang left around the low table, her braids flying behind her. "Insolent Princess," she cried, "slow and fat, like a summer deer!"

"Oh!" Shirin's eyes flashed wide, and she snarled back, "Roman piglet, plump and well fed!"

Shirin danced in, small brown feet light on the floor and her right leg came to her stomach and then snapped out. Thyatis leaned aside, her body twisting to slip the kick, and her right hand snaked out, catching Shirin's heel. The Khazar girl sprang up from the floor, twisting her foot out of Thyatis' grip, and she somersaulted, bouncing off of the floor and up again.

Thyatis shouted aloud in unconscious joy and spun in, body bent parallel to the floor in a whirling leg strike. Shirin dropped in the same motion and rotated on one heel, her long, smooth leg flashing out to catch Thyatis' foot. Thyatis fell hard, but rolled into a ball at the last moment and crashed into the table as she came clear. The table legs broke, scattering splinters and broken wood across the room.

"Oh, now see what you've done!" Thyatis crowed, rolling up to the balls of her feet. Without thinking, she tossed the table aside with a great clatter.

Shirin tossed her head, clearing hair out of her eyes, and made a face back at the Roman. "Clumsy ox, anyone could have avoided that! I count a point!"

"Do you?" Thyatis snarled, her eyes filled with wicked joy. She circled to the right, balanced, arms a little out in front of her. "A point of what?"

Shirin kept her distance. The toga was a lost cause, and she undid the remaining knot at her shoulder, letting the thin cotton garment fall to the floor. Thyatis made a short rush, but Shirin dodged behind the bed and quickly tied her hair back with a ribbon. Under the toga she was wearing a short linen skirt and a tight silk blouse with short sleeves. "A point of law," she said, leaping over the corner of the bed as Thyatis made another rush. "The court will find in my favor, uncultured Roman barbarian!"

"Will it, effete Persian?" Thyatis sprang over the bed in a mighty bound. Shirin ducked aside, but Thyatis clipped the Khazar girl with her shoulder. Shirin gasped and rolled back, but Thyatis caught her leg with her own and fell on top of her, pinning one hand. Shirin cursed and squirmed aside, but Thyatis locked her left leg and—after a fierce struggle—managed to pin Shirin's other arm.

Sweat dripped off of Thyatis' nose and made tiny pearls on Shirin's cheek. They slowly slid down the golden skin into the hollow of her throat.

"Just like a Roman," Shirin hissed, glaring up at Thyatis, "all brute force—no subtlety at all."

"Just like a Persian," Thyatis said, smiling, bending her forehead to touch Shirin's, "blame defeat on their enemies failings." She was breathing a little heavier than usual.

"Like schoolchildren, more like," a musical voice said with an odd lilt to it.

Thyatis' eyes widened, and her entire body suddenly surged upward, one arm sweeping Shirin away, behind her, and the other fanning in a block across her head and shoulders.

A thin hand, dusky gold, arrowed past the blocking move and collapsed into a knuckled fist. Thyatis, catching a glimpse of a thin, small woman with a crown of tightly braided black hair, tried to twist aside, her arm continuing to push Shirin behind her. The thin fist tapped her on the inside of her right breast, and Thyatis coughed at the impact. Pain blossomed across her chest like fire in grain dust, and she flew back, crashing into the stone wall by the window. Her mouth was open in an O of surprise, and tears welled in her eyes.

Shirin, thrown aside, attacked in the same instant, her right leg snap-kicking at the stranger's head. She followed with a blurring open-hand strike at the woman's sternum. The stranger barely moved, her head drifting aside from the kick, her black eyes smiling at the rage on Shirin's face. Shirin's fist strike was plucked out of the air by the woman's left hand, moving with unhurried ease. In seemingly the most natural movement in the world, the woman's right hand came up into Shirin's chest as Shirin carried forward with her strike and ran herself onto the open palm.

Shirin gasped in pain, all the breath driven from her body, and stood stock-still, her mouth working to breathe. The woman stepped away, every movement as graceful as a swan's, and smiled again, bowing at the two women. Shirin, unable to breathe, shuddered and collapsed forward onto her knees and then to the floor. Thyatis, with a Herculean effort, pushed away from the wall and crawled to her friend. She rolled Shirin over and, with a trembling hand, traced a line with her two middle fingers from the side of Shirin's nose, down the side of her throat, across her chest, and to the inside of her thigh. The Khazar girl twitched and then gasped for breath, able to breathe at last.