The Storm of Heaven (2 page)

KHADAMES
, a Persian general. An old friend and subordinate of Shahr-Baraz, Khadames serves both the King of Kings and his brother, Prince Rustam—otherwise known as the sorcerer Dahak—as aide and chief of staff. Weary, and worn down by the enormous effort of the sorcerer's vast plans, Khadames continues to labor in the service of a beloved Persia.

DAHAK (RUSTAM APARVIZ)
, a sorcerer. The younger brother of the dead
Shahanshah
Chrosoes, Rustam has trafficked with dark, inhuman powers. In this way he has gathered many servants both fair and foul to his service. Through his powers, Rustam intends to see Persia restored and Rome destroyed.

C'HU-LO,
Yabghu
of the T'u-chüeh (Western Huns). First among Dahak's lieutenants, the T'u-chüeh
khan
has fallen far since the days when he ruled an empire stretching from the Rha (the Volga) to the Chinese frontier. Now he commands a small but growing army of expatriate kinsmen and is the voice of Dahak in the wilderness.

PIRUZ
, Prince of Balkh. Greatest of the Aryan feudal lords along the northern frontier of Persia, Piruz—a young, aggressive noble—seeks no lesser prize than the hand of Princess Purandokht, and by that means, his sons on the throne of Persia.

ZENOBIA VI SEPTIMA
, Queen of Palmyra, lineal descendant of Emperor Aurelian and Zenobia the First. Though her great desert city has been destroyed and the Queen herself struck down by the might of Persia, Zenobia lives on in the memories and thoughts of her kinsmen and allies. The heart and soul of the Decapolis—the Greek and Nabatean cities of the Middle East.

ODENATHUS
, Prince of Palmyra, the Queen's nephew. A Legion-trained thaumaturge, the young Prince now commands the armies of Palmyra-in-Exile as Queen Zoë's second-in-command. Close friend of Khalid al'Walid and many of the Arab captains.

ZOË
, Queen of Palmyra, Zenobia's niece. Heir to the Palmyrene throne and a powerful thaumaturge in her own right. Like Odenathus, she was trained by Rome, and fought in the great war against Persia. The leader of the revolt of the Decapolis and the Arabs against the tyranny of the Eastern Empire. In her, most of all, the memory of Zenobia burns bright.

KHALID AL'WALID
("the Eagle"). Dashing and handsome, the young Eagle commands the Sahaba scouts. Accompanied always by his silent companion Patik, Al'Walid intends nothing less than to become a famed general.

JALAL
, a Tanukh bowman. Former mercenary, now risen to command the Arab
qalb
, or "heavy horse." One of the few surviving companions of Mohammed who fought at the siege of Palmyra.

SHADIN
, a Tanukh swordsman. Like his old friend Jalal, a former mercenary. Commander of the Arab
muqadamma
or "center." He too served under Mohammed at Palmyra.

URI BEN-SARID
, Captain of the Mekkan Jews. Boyhood friend of Mohammed, and the leader of the various Jewish contingents in the army of the Sahaba.

MOHAMMED AL'QURAYSH
, a merchant of Mekkah. After a long life of wandering on the fringes of the Empire, unable to find his destiny, Mohammed fell into the company of an Egyptian priest and into the crucible of war. Embattled and trapped in the destruction of Palmyra, Mohammed encountered true evil made flesh. Soon after, distraught at the death of his beloved wife, Khadijah, he attempted to end his own life. Instead, a voice entered him and gave him new purpose and direction. Guided by the voice from the clear air, Mohammed set forth to punish the treachery of the Eastern Emperor Heraclius, precipitating a new war.

JUSUF
,
Tarkhan
of the armies of Khazaria, Shirin's uncle. A lean, laconic horseman who has variously served as Thyatis' second, Anastasia's lover and commander of the Khazar armies. In his youth, he spent time as a hostage in the Avar
hring
and the T'u-chüeh court of the reviled
khagan
Shih-Kuei. Widely traveled and an expert with horse, bow and lance.

DAHVOS
,
Khagan
of the Khazar nation, Shirin's uncle. The youthful son of the late
khagan
Ziebil Sahul. Now the weight of his responsibilities press upon him, and he must choose whether the Khazar realm will continue to stand against Persia and beside Rome, or if they will strike their own path.

In the year 622, the Eastern Roman Empire was close to destruction, the capital of Constantinople besieged by the Avars in the West and Persia in the East. As told in
The Shadow of Ararat
, the Emperor of the East, Heraclius, and of the West, Galen Atreus, launched a daring attack into the heart of their Persian enemy. The half-mad Persian
Shahanshah
Chrosoes was taken unawares, and after great battles, he was defeated and his empire given as a wedding gift to the Eastern Prince Theodore. At the same time, while the two ancient powers strove to overthrow each other, two critical events transpired. First, in Rome, young Prince Maxian Atreus discovered an ancient thaumaturgic pattern—the Oath—constricting the lives and dreams of the Roman people. Aided by the Nabatean wizard and Persian spy Abdmachus, Prince Maxian embarked on an audacious quest to find the sorcerous power he needed to break down the lattices of the Oath and free the Roman people from their invisible slavery. Second, while the Prince exhumed and revivified Gaius Julius Caesar as a source of thaumaturgic power, a young Roman mage, Dwyrin MacDonald, was swept up in the chaos of the Eastern war.

Attempting to find and save his pupil, Dwyrin's teacher Ahmet left the ancient School of Pthames on the Nile and struck out into the Roman Levant. By chance, in the ancient, rock-bound city of Petra, Ahmet encountered an unexpected friend in the Mekkan pottery merchant Mohammed. Together, the teacher and the merchant found themselves in the service of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. At the urging of the Eastern emperor Heraclius, Zenobia and the princes of the Decapolis and Petra gathered an army to resist the advance of the Persian army, under the command of the Great Prince Shahin, into Syria. Unaware of Heraclius' intention to see the independent cities of the Decapolis destroyed while diverting Chrosoes' attention, Zenobia clashed with the Persians, was defeated and then besieged in Palmyra itself. Despite furious resistance, the City of Palms fell to the monstrous power of the sorcerer Dahak. Zenobia and Ahmet perished, and Mohammed escaped with only a small band of his followers through sheer luck.

While Persia collapsed, the Roman agent Thyatis, accompanied by the Khazar
tarkhan
Jusuf, entered the capital of Ctesiphon and stole away with mad Chrosoes' second wife, Empress Shirin, Jusuf's niece. Though she was supposed to deliver the Empress to Galen, Thyatis chose instead to disguise her escape and flee south, making a circuitous and eventful return to the Empire via southern Arabia, the East African coast and the black kingdoms of Meröe and Axum. A dangerous decision, not only for the terrible peril of the voyage, but to thwart the desires of her Emperor...

Not far away, in the ruined Imperial city of Dastagird, Prince Maxian found the last piece of his puzzle—a crypt holding the stolen, hidden remains of Alexander the Great. As he did with Gaius Julius Caesar, the Prince revivified the Macedonian and felt his power was at last sufficient to break the Oath strangling the Roman people.

In the year 623, as told in
The Gate of Fire
, the Roman armies of East and West returned home, and both nations rejoiced, thinking the long struggle against Persia and the Avar khaganate had at last come to an end. Great plans were laid, both by Heraclius and Galen, and many legionaries rested their weary feet. Yet, all was not well, either within the Empire or without. Heraclius' attempt to return home in triumph was spoiled by a sudden and unexpected illness. Galen's return was more joyful, for he found his wife, Helena, had borne him, at last, a son.

In Arabia the merchant Mohammed reached Mekkah to find his beloved wife, Khadijah, cold in the ground. Devastated, Mohammed climbed a nearby mountain and attempted to end his own life. As he stood poised between death and life, between the earth and sky, a power entered Mohammed, speaking to him from the clear air. The voice urged him to strive against the dark powers threatening mankind. Heeding this voice, Mohammed—after a brutal struggle in the city of his birth—set out with an army of his companions, the Sahaba, to bring the treacherous Emperor Heraclius to justice. To his surprise, he found many allies eager to overthrow the tyranny of the Eastern Empire. First, the rascal Khalid al'Walid, then the lords of Petra and Jerash and finally the exiled Queen of Palmyra, Zoë. With their aid, Mohammed raised the tribes and the cities of the Decapolis to war against Rome. Heraclius' treachery would be repaid with blood and fire.

Indeed, even in Persia the enemies of Rome did not lie quiet. The sorcerer Dahak escaped from the Roman victories with an army and he made his way to the ancient, remote fortress of Damawand, high in the mountains of Tabaristan. There, in a shrine once held holy by the priests of Ahura-Madza, the sorcerer began to muster a great power—not only of arms and men, but of darkness. Deep within the fortress lay a door of stone, behind which unguessed inhuman powers waited. Risking his life and the earth itself, Dahak opened the stone door to capture the power of the ancients. By these means, he shed the last of his humanity and became a true master of the hidden world. Flushed with strength, the sorcerer made his way to ancient Ecbatana and there—with the aid of his servant, Arad—placed the great general Shahr-Baraz on the throne of Persia. Now, a reckoning would come with Rome, and Persia's lost glory would be reclaimed.

In Rome itself, events rushed to a devastating conclusion. Prince Maxian, endowed with the strength of Julius Caesar's and Alexander's legends, strove again to overthrow the power of the Oath. Unable to sacrifice his brother Galen, the young Prince failed, nearly killing himself and wounding his companion Krista. Fleeing to the safety of his mother's ancestral estate on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, Maxian struggled with his conscience. Unwilling to wait for his decision, Krista fled, bringing news of the Prince's whereabouts and fatal plans to the Duchess de'Orelio—the Western Empire's spymaster and secret priestess of the Thiran Order of Artemis the Hunter. Her position reinforced by the return of Thyatis, Anastasia ordered the Prince murdered.

Thyatis, Krista and their companions found the Prince on the summit of Vesuvius and, after a deadly battle, failed to kill him. The Prince, mortally wounded, opened himself to the power in the mountain, bringing himself back from death and inciting the somnolent volcano to a staggering eruption, which destroyed the cities of Baiae, Herculaneum and Pompeii. Maxian escaped aboard his iron dragon, while Thyatis chose to plunge from the flying craft into the burning wasteland rather than become his servant. Only the two survived, all else having perished in the cataclysm. Far away, in Persia, Dahak became aware of the Prince and his growing power, realizing a rival was emerging to contest his control of the world of men...

The sea gleamed like spoiled glass, a flat murky green. Smoke from the town hung in the air, drifting slowly along the beach in thin gray wisps. The Queen, her pale shoulders covered by a rose-colored drape, stood in the surf. Tiny waves lapped around her feet, making silver bangles lift and fall with the water. The sea was as warm as a
tepidarium
pool.

"No man has ever set foot on the island." The Matron's tone was harsh.

"This is my son," said the Queen, her voice urgent. "I need your help."

Sweat beaded on the Greek woman's face, even in the shade of a wide parasol that her servants had lodged in the sand. The Matron stood on the polished plank deck of a small galley, riding low in the water a dozen yards away. Despite the Queen's entreaties, the gray, stiff-backed woman had refused to leave the ship and come ashore.

"We give shelter to women, grown and child, but never to men."

The Queen winced, for the harsh snap of the older woman's voice carried well over the water. There was no wind to break up the sound, or drown it with the crash of surf on the rocky shore.

"He is your get, you must care for him. This is the rule of the Order, as it has been from the beginning."

The Matron turned, flipping the edge of her woolen cloak, black and marked with white checks, over her shoulder. The Queen flinched, feeling the rebuke in her bones. She turned, staring back up the beach to the awnings and pavilions of her camp. The bright colors of the pennants and the cloth that shaded her son and the waiting servants seemed dull and grimy in this still, hot air.

"Have I not given enough?" Despite her best effort, the Queen's voice cracked and rose, shrill and carrying. "Must I give up my son for your faith? He is all that remains of our dream—his father murdered, his patrimony stolen. Hide him for me... just for a few months, perhaps a year!"

The women in the galley's rowing deck, responding to the shrill whistle of a flute, raised their long leaf-bladed oars as one. The Matron's figure descended from the platform and paced, slowly, to the foredeck of the vessel. She did not turn or look back, and the angle of her head was canted towards the horizon. A single bank of oars dipped into the water, and the galley turned, swinging easily in the calm sea.

The flute trilled, and the ship slipped across the water, gaining speed with each flashing plunge of the oars.

The Queen felt great weariness crash down upon her, pressing on her shoulders with thick, gnarled fingers. She swayed a little, feeling the sand beneath her feet slip, but then righted herself. Her right hand clutched at a diadem around her neck, slim white fingers covering a golden disk filled with an eight-rayed star.

It would not do,
she thought,
to be carried up from the baleful shore by my servants.

The Queen walked in darkness, her head bent in weariness. A bare gleam of firelight from the bonfires by the ships touched a curl of hair. Now her feet were bare, the wet slippers long discarded, ruined by the salty water. At the very edge of the firelight she stopped and turned, staring out at the gloomy sea. It lay flat and still, windless, as it had done for days, stranding her fat-bellied troopships in the port.