The Gate of Fire (43 page)

The sound of heavy boots on stone drew his attention. Four of the Sixteen appeared, their black helmeted heads rising up from the stairway like puppets in a storyteller's wagon. On their shoulders they bore the body of a man—the captive the lord had taken from the wreck of Palmyra. His face hidden by a knotted scarf, the general grimaced in pain. The man had fought with honor, striving to save his city. There was no call to do these things to his body, or to defame his memory.
It is not,
thought Khadames wearily,
what the Boar would do
.

The four dark figures brought the body to the bed of stone and carefully laid it down. This thing done, they turned as one and returned to the stairway. The narrow space, carved up through the rock of the peak itself, echoed with the tramp of their passing. In time, the noise died and the sound of the wind filled the space atop the peak. Khadames rubbed his hands together. They were cold, even with three layers of gloves on them. It seemed, even if the calendar of days said that summer was upon them, that winter had not lifted its grip from the valley.

The body lay, naked, exposed to the air and the sky. It did not feel the cold.

The wind stopped, and Lord Dahak was there, standing at the end of the bed of stone. Khadames froze, putting his thoughts away into a place at the back of his mind where they were, perhaps, safe. The dark man leaned over the body, gazing down into the withered face.

"Three men have caused me pain, faithful Khadames. One lies dead, his body rotting in a common grave. One is beyond my reach, but this one is here. He was strong, for a moment, there on the Plain of Towers. He scarred my face again."

Dahak looked up, catching Khadames' eye. It seemed that a smile, or the ghost of one, was hiding in his face. The sorcerer smoothed back his hair. The wind caught at it, making it a dark cloud behind his head.

"You should know, faithful Khadames, that your best ally is a strong enemy."

The sorcerer produced a small package wrapped in pale yellow paper from somewhere in his night black robes. Deft fingers unwrapped it, revealing a metal nail, a small envelope, and a tiny crystal vial of liquid. Dahak picked up the nail gingerly with his thumb and forefinger. It was old iron and rusted, twisted a little, a finger's length or more, with a broad, flat head. This he put to one side.

"O kalaturu and kurgarru, hear me as you heard pure Ereshkigal in the old time."

The wind died as the sorcerer began speaking. His voice was soft, intimate, and he leaned close over the corpse's head, speaking down into the dry hole of the mouth. The parched lips, cracked and dry, had been forced open with silver tongs. Khadames became aware that the wind outside the circle of pillars had risen, that it must be shrieking like the damned in the pits of Ahriman's realm. But here, inside the dark teeth, the air was still and placid. The general looked about, expecting fires to creep from the stones, for darkness to gather, pooling at the feet of the lord. It did not.

"O Anunnaki, who keep the dead in their place beneath the earth, hear me as you heard pure Ereshkigal in the old time."

A tremulous sound entered the air, the tonalities of it twisted and disturbed. A whining screech rose, vibrating from the flat stones of the floor. The pillars echoed it, and Khadames cowered down, hearing each stone suddenly stir to voice.

"I offer you the water of the river," Dahak said, raising up the vial. Something in it sparkled and shimmered like a living jewel. The keening of the stones rose up, rising and rising in pitch. The sorcerer tipped the vial, and quicksilver fell from it in tiny perfect spheres into the mouth of the corpse.

Shu nummagidde
.

Khadames shuddered, hearing voices rise from the black stones and the wailing pillars.

"I offer you the grain of the field," Dahak said, raising up the small envelope. He opened it with one hand, deftly, and spilled a trickle of tiny particles into the mouth of the corpse. As he did so, the vibration of the stones changed in pitch and tone, dropping into a vastly lower scale. The rumbling hiss made Khadames shake to his boots. Eyes wide, he watched pebbles and sand dance across the stones, stirred to life by the vibration.

Shu nummagidde
.

The stones muttered, and Khadames could feel their hatred of those who lived and walked like the heat from one of the forges in the deepest pits of the mountain. The sorcerer swayed for a moment, but caught himself on the edge of the bed of stone. Dahak closed his eyes, gathering his strength.

The vibration in the earth ceased. Something entered the circle of the pillars—Khadames could feel it come, tentacular limbs caressing his face with a thousand fronds as it passed. On the platform, sheets of shale, carved and fitted to make the floor, cracked under the weight of some unseen thing.

Gagta la summeb innannes
.

The voice of the thing hummed and buzzed, replicating itself a thousand times in the space of a single word. Khadames steeled himself for worse, for the promise of that voice was madness and the incalculable horrors that hid in the darkness behind the stars. Dahak raised his head and stared into the air, unafraid. "The corpse, it is your king's."

Nig lugalme ea summeb innannes
.

The unseen thing shifted, and a cold feathery touch passed over Khadames' chest and the thick woolen cloak froze and shattered, falling to the ground in a rain of silver fragments. Dahak raised up the nail, still holding it between thumb and forefinger, though now the old rusted iron was gone and it shone, new and clean, as if fresh from the forge.

"I give you the corpse hung from the nail."

Dahak drove the nail into the forehead of the corpse in a single violent motion. The metal ground against the bone of the skull for a moment and then there was a cracking sound and it sank in, flush to the withered dead skin. Dust puffed up around it, then settled. Dahak stepped back, his hands raised in a gesture of power. A line of glyphs blazed a fulminating green in the air before him.

The unseen thing shifted and coiled in the space between the pillars. The air filled with a gelatinous sound as if millions of beetles were squirming in a vat of gelid blood. The air above the corpse shifted and deformed, creasing for a moment. Khadames stared in awe as the space between him and the sorcerer twisted like a poorly cast mirror, showing multiple images of the sky, the pillars, the sorcerer, even the corpse on the bed of stone.

I'am'u nam-til-la i'-am'a
.

Pale dust, like ground bone, fell from the air, settling on the face of the dead man. Khadames blinked, unsure of his sight, but the sparkling motes were gone. He felt uneasy—there had been the impossible notion of squirming motion in the falling dust and some afterimage lingered, that the dust, so silvery and fine, had burrowed into the wrinkled flesh.

Nam-til-la ugu-a bi-in-sub-bu-us.

Something dripped out of that impossible space above the dead thing, a thin stream of virulent black, gleaming with shades of purple and nacreous green. No more than a single dram fell, spattering on the forehead of the corpse, staining the clean iron of the nail. At the touch, the corpse jerked sharply. Dust drifted up from its skin, disturbed by the motion. The black liquid was gone, swallowed by the thirsty flesh.

"He rises," Dahak said in that same quiet intimate voice.

Khadames covered his eyes and turned away. The feet of the corpse had begun to twitch, and then suddenly thrashed into violent motion, drumming on the edge of the bed of stone. The bones made a dreadful clatter. He put his hands over his ears, but even so, he could not help but feel the air twist again as the unseen thing departed.

A cry rang out, there in the cold place on the mountaintop, a wail of horror at birth.

Inana ba'gub
.

Even more warmly dressed, with a brazier of glowing coals close to hand, Khadames stood on the rampart of the Iron Gate, looking down upon the narrow road below. Fifty of his best bowmen were crouched under the lip of the battlement in hiding, with heavy arrows nocked in their longbows. Three of his captains, clad from head to toe in the scaled overlapping mail of the
clibanari
—the heavy armor of the Persian
dihqan
—stood at his side. The general himself wore only the heavy black robes and brocaded red vest that were his appointed uniform. Behind him, on the pinnacle of the gate tower, the charcoal black banner of the lord flapped in the strong breeze.

Khadames' lip curled unconsciously in a sneer—the embassy before the gate raised the hackles on his back and set his hand to the hilts of his saber. Had he dared the anger of the sorcerer, he would have them slain and all like them. Too many friends of his youth had died, choking blood, on their lances or under a storm of their arrows.

A thick cluster of Hephthalite Huns—those called the T'u-chüeh by the Chin merchants who sometimes came to the court of the King of Kings—stood waiting on the road. At their head, a chief rode, marked by the ermine fur cloak he wore and the glitter of iron mail at his chest. He rode a barrel-chested roan stallion with a fey look in its eye. Even Khadames, who felt nothing but hatred for the Hun, noticed the noble breeding of the horse. The man was swarthy and strong-featured, with the slanted eyes and sallow skin of the eastern Turk, and he wore his mustache very long and waxed with grease. His coal black hair hung over his shoulder in many small braids, each twisted with the knucklebones of dead enemies. The men that followed him were equally fearsome in appearance, but Khadames let a small chuckle escape his cold lips.

The Hun would not come before the Iron Gate in embassy, bearing the serpent token of his lord, if they did not come to beg for life.

"Who comes before the Gate of Iron?" he called down, his voice imperious.

The tall man on the stallion stirred, and the horse raised its head, evil black eyes looking up.

"I am C'hu-lo,
yabghu
of the White Huns. Let me into your house of stone. I would have words with your master, this Lord D'ay'hay'ak."

Khadames grinned to hear the barbarian mispronounce the name of the lord of the valley.

"You are a civil barbarian," he shouted down over the rumble of the stream plunging from the water-gate into the narrow canyon, "Who comes politely to the door. You have fallen far, C'hu-lo. Should you not come with armies numberless as the stems of grass on the steppe? Should not the forest of your lances blind the sun with their brilliance? Are these few men, these boys, all you have left?"

A stormcloud of anger gathered on the face of the Hun chieftain, but he mastered himself and did not draw his bow as he might have. Instead, the chieftain, gritting his teeth, answered in a civil voice:

"A messenger came to me, bringing this token." He held high a black knife of the kind that the Sixteen carried as they passed through the land. Along the blade, etched in the steel, was the rippling shape of a serpent. Even in this dim light, under the shadow of the mountain, the red scales glittered. "I am interested to hear the words of this lord of yours. Let me enter as a guest, and we will not dishonor that right."

Khadames nodded to one of his captains and leaned out on the wall. "You may enter, C'hu-lo, but know that no man who does not please Lord Dahak leaves this place alive." The general took great pleasure in stressing the proper pronunciation of the sorcerer's name.

The wall trembled a little as the gate opened, chains rattling through their sockets as a hundred men turned the hidden wheels that raised the three gates of iron. The Huns entered, their eye-slits glancing this way and that. Khadames paced along the inner battlement and descended the broad stair at the back of the gatehouse. He knew they were measuring the depth of the walls, the strength of the gates.
Let them
, he thought to himself with a smile.
This fortress will never fall to the race of men.

Khadames vaulted onto his horse, feeling a twinge of envy at the speed and power of the roan that the Hun chieftain rode. He gestured with his chin, up the valley. "Come, poor C'hu-lo, let us go into Damawand and you will speak with the lord and learn, I imagine, more than you expected."

There was singing—soft voices raised in melody. The man woke, feeling a deep ache in his bones. For a moment he lay still, feeling the smooth, cool fabric under his fingertips. A delicate perfume filled the air, bringing memories of lemon trees and running water to his mind. His eyelids flickered and opened and beheld soft drapes of silk and saffron linen hanging above him. He moved his arm, testing the flex of his fingers—they moved unexpectedly. He had thought, no—he was sure—that they had been crippled, broken, unable to move. He held his hand before his face—a brown palm and long, thin fingers greeted him.

"My lord?" a soft husky voice penetrated. Something, no—someone—warm moved at his side. "Are you awake?"

The man turned his head and found a young woman by his side. Her skin was soft and pale, highlighting her long dark hair. It spilled over her white shoulder like a river, gleaming in the light of lanterns with faces of cut crystal. Her lips were pale rose, soft and full. She moved closer, and he smelled cinnamon perfume in her hair. She kissed him—a long, slow kiss—sliding on top of him. Her firm breasts rubbed against his chest. The man lost himself in sensation for a long time.

Later, his stomach growled, and the girl laughed and rose up, drawing a thin drape of golden silk around her body. "We will bring you food," she said, and went away.

The man lay on the cushions, fully awake for the first time. He sat up, feeling a delicious lassitude in the muscles of his arms and back and legs. A tent of silk surrounded him, lit by small lanterns. The air was sweet and he could hear, a little ways away, the chuckle of a stream running over rocks. He stood, finding his legs strong under him. He rubbed his face—there was a memory of a beard—but found it clean-shaven and smooth. The drapes of the tent door parted and two young girls entered, their long red-brown hair tied back behind their heads with scarves of gold. They carried trays of silver, laden with fresh fruit, sliced meat, and fine cheeses. The black-haired girl entered after them bearing a chalice of chased gold, heavy with wine.