The Gate of Fire (26 page)

Lord Dahak had smiled, a cold glitter of white teeth in his lean face. For a moment, Khadames felt the full pressure of the intellect and power that lurked behind the odd yellow eyes, and he felt a chill to the marrow of his bones. In that moment, he felt how alone and isolated he was, here at the peak of the mountain, exposed among the clouds. In the short moment, the sky above seemed the mouth of an infinitely deep pit, filled with nothingness. Khadames felt dizzy and struggled to keep from swaying.

"There is still a little time within which to learn, loyal Khadames. I had faith that you would understand and act. If you had not, well, there are others who strive to take your place... but I know you. You have not yet been tested to the breaking. Go, see to my people."

One of the three of the Sixteen had spoken when Khadames had looked up from his desk. "You are summoned below," the voice grated. "The master would have you look upon a thing."

Khadames was sure that nothing remained of the men who had climbed the road to the great door and the sign of fire. Some shell of humanity remained; limbs and sinew, hands and arms, but nothing else. Their voices were gone, replaced by a hollow echo. Black pits watched where eyes had once been. The Sixteen did not know fear, or hunger, or weariness. They came and went from the hidden valley and Damawand at the will of their master. The Uze crept aside when they passed, and cursed them silently to their backs. They rarely made a sound. Khadames knew they went about in the world beyond the mountains, carrying messages and undertaking unknown errands for the power that bided its time, here in the mountain.

When they spoke, which was seldom, men hurried to obey. Khadames stood up and carefully put away the most important papers in an iron box. Out of habit, he buckled his old worn saber to his side and shrugged on a light woolen jacket one of the women had given him. It was a faded blue with hunting dogs embroidered along the collar and cuffs in red and green and brown. Then he went out of his office, following the three, and they made their way down into the depths of the mountain. Broad ramps and winding stairs connected the levels, and as Khadames passed, he noted with satisfaction that the buried city hummed with life. Long hallways were filled with bunks and training rooms and men, thousands of men, bent to the tasks of war. Kitchens belched steam and the smell of porridge and roasting mutton. Lines of sweating laborers unloaded wagons and stacked barrels and crates and boxes in storerooms that had lain empty and unused for a thousand years.

Deeper, under the storerooms, they went down into darkness and the forges and armories of the mountain. The valley that lay below Damawand had been stripped of trees weeks ago; just the effort of building furniture for the buried city had consumed the groves of fruit trees and pines on the lower slopes. Now wagon trains of lumber and pig iron and wheat and cloth rumbled up the narrow valley road on a daily basis. Damawand had a huge appetite, but it vomited forth the sinews of war. Above, in his office, Khadames could count the muster of hundreds of thousands of arrows, hundreds of siege engines, thousands of swords, maces, spears, shields, suits of lamellar, and mail armor. Six great workshops, he knew, did nothing but build wagons and a clever Chin mechanism called a wheelbarrow.

Two tanneries worked around the clock, producing a stench that pervaded the second level and turned the valley stream into an odd-colored sewer. Another three were being built, slowed only by the necessity to bring the great tanning vats by mule up from the provincial capital of Rayy. The lack of lumber hampered many efforts. And below, in the deeper forges, where Dahak was wont to walk at night, other things were being built of iron and steel and gold.

The black onyx steps led down three long flights, and then Khadames felt the air change around him. A layer of mist shimmered in the stairway, where the fetid hot air of the forges ended and he passed into a realm of bitter cold. It was a shock, like plunging into an icy lake. He felt the sweat on his brow turn cold, and he shivered. The iron lanterns that marked the upper halls ceased, and he walked in darkness. But he did not pause, or halt, for one of the Sixteen walked before him and two behind.

The stairs ended, and a broad passage carried them onward.

Then the passage stopped at a door. It groaned open, and Khadames felt a breeze on his face. The door was stone, that much he could hear, and vastly heavy. It ground slowly across the floor until a thin slat of blue light appeared in the darkness, and then it widened into a doorway.

Beyond, in a room with a ceiling of mortised blocks and slender pillars, the sorcerer was waiting, leaning over a long slab of stone. The three of the Sixteen entered the room and laid, at last, their softly moving burdens down. Khadames entered, too, though a queasy feeling of terror threatened to crawl up his gut and strangle him. On the long table of stone a body lay, one that Khadames had looked upon before.

Men, women, even children came to the valley by secret ways. In his office, Khadames interviewed them and learned a little at a time of the ruin of Persia. Beyond the rampart of the mountains, beyond their high, snowcapped peaks, the empire of the sons of Sassan was dying. Rome had wounded it first; smashing the Imperial Army in the massive battle at Kerenos River, then driving a steel dagger into its brain by murdering Chrosoes, King of Kings, in his palace at Ctesiphon. But now, with the Emperor and his children dead, the jackals were tearing at the still-living body that remained. The wreck of Ctesiphon had staggered the entire Empire; central control was lost, and the delicate framework of guidance and taxation and aid that had radiated from it was thrown down. The provincial lords and governors, bereft of any guidance from the heart of the realm, had turned inward, trying to deal with their own local problems.

The winter rains had wounded the Empire again. A huge proportion of the able manpower of the Empire had died or been scattered to the four winds in the disaster at Kerenos. Then unseasonably heavy rains in the great flat valley of Tigris and Euphrates had overwhelmed the huge collection of dikes and dams and canals that controlled the two great rivers. Massive flooding had ensued, destroying the harvest and isolating large sections of the lowland Empire. The Romans, though they had claimed Persia for their own, even issuing a proclamation that the Prince Theodore of the Eastern Empire was now "Caesar of the East," had not stayed to repair the damage done by their campaign.

Now the fatal wound was brewing. Khadames could hear it in the voice of the latest men to come to the valley. Word had at last traveled the length and breadth of the Empire; from Amida in the west, to Susania in the east—the throne of the King of Kings was empty. Soon, pretenders would arise, and the last vestiges of central control would fail. Civil war would brew up and consume all that remained. Sitting in his office, in the pale shaft of sunlight, Khadames wondered if the sorcerer's ambition reached high enough.

Then he looked out across the valley, seeing thousands of men drilling with spear and bow and sword, seeing the long lines of wagons inching their way up the road to the great gate, seeing the gangs of slaves digging new tunnels and caverns into the mountains. Smoke and fumes rose above the valley, wreathing the mountaintops in dark clouds.

"Come, loyal Khadames. He is beautiful, is he not?"

The sorcerer gestured, and Khadames forced himself to approach. The body that lay on the slab was withered and turned a little on its side. The face, once handsome, was stretched tight on the skull. The puckered lips of terrible wounds mocked the general, and he could not bring himself to look fully upon it.

"Ah now," the sorcerer said, "he will improve. These men who serve me so well, these Shanzdah"—a pale hand with dark nails gestured lazily to the three of the Sixteen who stood in the shadow—"they will do something about the
parched
nature that he currently exhibits." The hand laid gently on the wrinkled brow of the mummy, then trailed away.

"But there is other work to be done. Look at me, loyal General."

Khadames met the yellow eyes with an even stare. He knew that his freedom had ended the day he had cut his inner arm with the black knife; it was only a matter of how long he could still wake and see the sun above. The sorcerer watched him for a moment, then nodded, slowly, and turned away. "You alone, of all those who serve me, do so without fear in your heart, dear Khadames. I know that you do not put much in flattery." The sorcerer turned, looking back over his shoulder, a merry gleam in his eye.

"But I will pay you a compliment. And in truth, I mean it well. You had no better master or guide than Shahr-Baraz, the Royal Boar, that colossus of a man. And you learned his lessons well. Take heart in his example, for he would be proud of you."

Khadames raised an eyebrow and suppressed a terrible urge to scratch his nose or tug at his whiskers. The obvious good humor of the thing that wore the shape of a man instilled a cold, solid fear in his heart. Part of his mind began to gibber that in this creature's hands there were things worse than death to fear. "Thank you, my lord. I know of no better compliment."

The sorcerer nodded again, seemingly well pleased with the reaction. "Come with me, dear General. I am going to undertake something rather dangerous, and barring that the Boar should suddenly stride among us, I can think of no other I would have at my side."

Beyond the stone table, there was a pit in the floor. It had sloping sides and a ring of low, carved stone around the lip. Cold air breathed from it, making a faint icy mist in the air. The sorcerer went to the edge and stared down into perfect darkness. Khadames, wary of his footing, for the stones were slippery with frost-rime, made his way to the edge as well.

"This, of old, was a door," the sorcerer said, and Khadames quailed inside to hear the murmur of fear in the thing's voice. "I know now some words that may cause it to open. Such a thing must be done—it is my bargain—but I wonder... I wonder if it can only be opened a little way."

Khadames turned, staring at the sorcerer, who had turned as well and watched him with troubled eyes. It seemed, in this moment, on the verge of the cold pit, that something of the human had returned to the cruel visage.

"Long ago," the sorcerer whispered, "a boy came to the valley, for there was no place else for him to go. The priests of the fire were still here then, keeping their ancient watch, and they took him in. One day, when he was more than usually reckless, he went into the mountain by a secret way and became lost in the tunnels. He was lost for a very long time. In the darkness his footsteps turned away from the door of fire and led him down into the true darkness.

"After a long time, he thought he heard a voice, just a faint thing, calling to him. There was nothing else to do, no other possibility of escape, so he followed it. It seemed that many days must have passed before he came to a door that he could not open, but the voice was stronger, almost clear enough to understand. Even that muttering offered him hope in the darkness and strength and food and a way out.

"And it wanted so little, just a thought or a gesture. The boy made that bargain."

Khadames watched, almost paralyzed, as a bead of moisture formed at the edge of one yellow eye. The tear, if it was a tear, crept out a little, sliding over the tiny scales that rimmed the eye, and then it froze in the chill air, making a hard little diamond.

"And now, I must make it good." The sorcerer looked away, down into the inky darkness below his feet. "The voice promises much to whoever can open the door, but I can feel the hunger that is waiting on the other side. It is huge—that hunger—and the whole world might not be enough to satisfy it. Do you understand what I am saying?"

Khadames jerked back to full awareness. The sleepy tone in the sorcerer's voice had given away, at last, to an iron tone of command. The general nodded, though there seemed nothing he could do.

Dahak held out his hand. Khadames took the hilt of the black flint knife, feeling the worn leather under his fingers.

"I will speak a word, and the door will open. I pray it will only open a little way. If it does not, if it swings wide, drive this blade into my heart."

The sorcerer shrugged off his robe, revealing a thin torso marked with terrible glassy scars over his chest and upper arms. The cold in the room, which seemed to seep into Khadame's bones, did not seem to bother him. He raised his left arm.

"Here," Dahak said, "between the ribs. It will reach—I have measured it myself. If the moment comes, you must not think, you must strike without thinking."

Khadames hefted the knife in his hand. It seemed to have grown heavier than he remembered, and smoother, too, more like a blade of smooth black glass than the crude flint knife he had used before.

Behind the general, the great stone door began to close. The sound of its grinding passage seemed very loud in the room, though Khadames could not discern a ceiling or walls in the flickering blue light. The three of the Sixteen who had accompanied him had disappeared, though when he turned, he could see their pale fingers on the edge of the door. The stone closed with a heavy thud, and the room was quiet again. Khadames braced his feet against the floor and raised the knife, holding it ready to strike.

The sorcerer ignored him, and turned to face the pit. For a long time he stared down into the darkness, immobile, barely breathing. Khadames felt his arm tire, holding the glassy knife, but he did not waver, holding it poised to slip between the narrow ribs of his patron. Still, the sorcerer waited, watching the pit.

Khadames blinked, feeling his eyelids grow heavy. The faint bluish glow had gone out. For a moment the room seemed utterly dark. Then, below his feet, within the pit, there was a ghost light. It gleamed and danced, seemingly far away, like a shore-bound fire seen from a ship at sea. A great cold flowed up from the pit, and Khadames shuffled his feet, hearing a tinkling sound as ice that had formed on his boots cracked and splintered. He could feel the pit breathing, slow waves of cold spilling up and out over the floor. The light in the darkness danced, seemingly coming closer and closer.