Halls of shadow, p.7
Halls of Shadow, page 7
"Lumer Maya!" rose a cry from behind. "Lumer Maya, we need you at the Gate of Mercy!"
Maya turned and narrowed her eyes. A soldier was running through the crowd, panting, awash with sweat. Bandages encircled his arms, and his scale armor hung in tatters.
"Lumer Maya!" He could barely breathe, let alone speak. Maya marched toward him through the crowd, and when he reached her, the soldier fell to his knees, breathing heavily.
Maya's eyes widened. She knew him!
"Joren!" She knelt before him and placed her hands on his shoulders. He had been one of their bodyguards back in Gefen, a man who had often stood guard outside the villa on Pine Hill. The last time she had seen him, Jerael had sent him to seek Ofeer after she had fled to join Seneca. "Joren, what is it?"
He took a ragged breath and struggled to his feet. "An illness spreads through the barracks at the gates. As the legions pound at us, disease ravages our men, and they . . ." He swallowed. "They speak of a shadow that walks through the camp, a hooded man, infecting all those he passes."
Maya sucked in breath, the visions flashing across her—gray skin, sharp teeth, a serpent tongue. She began to run.
They ran across the courtyard that spread before the towering Temple and the Holy of Holies. Walls surrounded the Temple complex. They were topped with golden pediments and engraved with lions, but their splendor belied their strength. They were thick and cast a deep shadow as Maya raced under the archway.
The Mount of Cedars sloped down before her, the center of the city and its most ancient quarter. She ran down a cobbled path between cedars and olive trees. The kingdom's palace rose to one side, smaller than the Temple but still a massive building topped with battlements, columns, and gold. To the other side sloped an ancient cemetery, some of its tombs thousands of years old, containing the bones of Zohar's old kings, queens, priests, and prophets.
At the bottom of the Mount, they reached a second set of walls—more ancient than those that surrounded the city. These walls had existed even before Elshalom had named this city his capital. These walls for millennia had defended the inner sanctum, the heart of the kingdom. No soldiers stood at the gates; every person who could wield a weapon now guarded the city's outer walls. Maya ran through another archway, and with her ran Abishag, Epher, and Joren.
The warren of Beth Eloh spread before them, a great painting of limestone, copper, fabric, and humanity. Between domes, silos, brick homes and shops, countless people crowded together. On normal days, a hundred thousand people lived in Beth Eloh—among the largest cities in the world. Now, with the countryside burning, with legionaries sweeping over the land, this number had grown tenfold. From all across Zohar, they had come here—from Gefen in the west, from Ma'oz in the north, from the southern deserts, from farmlands and villages. Every family now welcomed refugees into their homes. Many lived on the streets, huddling under balconies and awnings. Epher and his guards walked at the lead, carving a way through the crowd, but it was slow progress. Often Maya had to move step by slow step, unable to run. They passed through a marketplace, awnings hiding the sky, as people huddled at their sides in nooks, wrapped in robes.
Finally they raced down a boulevard lined with palm and cypress trees. Camels and donkeys fled before them, and there, past a courtyard, rose the Gate of Mercy—one of the city's two western gates, smaller and older than the Gate of Lions, which rose a few streets away. Maya remembered this place well. Half a year ago, she had entered the city through this gate with her mother.
The memory of Shiloh stabbed her with new grief, but Maya raised her chin, sucked in air, and dried her tears. There would be time to mourn later. There would be time for tears in future days. Right now, all of Zohar was threatened. Right now, if she could not stop this evil, all in this city would perish. She would keep her grief a hard stone, buried inside her, and not let it emerge and claim her. Not yet. Not here.
This gateway, normally a quiet, dusty place where camels lazily flicked their tails and boys sold holy artifacts to pilgrims, now bustled with death like a corpse bustling with flies. Hundreds of warriors stood above the doorway at the gatehouse battlements, in archer's nests, and along the walls that stretched north and south. Every man and woman was firing arrows, tossing sling stones, dropping boulders, or spilling cauldrons of bubbling water—the oil had run dry, and the water would soon follow, water this city desperately needed to support so many. The song of the legions rose from behind the doors: chanting voices, stomping feet, booming drums, and a ram that pounded at the gates.
A military camp had sprouted across the courtyard. Hastily constructed barracks rose along the walls. Hundreds of soldiers stood, walked, and lay across the courtyard and side streets. More moved within the nearby houses, their families evicted. Awnings rose along on street, shading the wounded, the dying, and the dead. A priest stood in a corner, praying, and ever that din rose, the chant of the enemy. "We come! We see! We kill!" Over and over, a prayer of death.
And death moved through the camp.
Maya saw the illness everywhere. Soldiers leaning against walls, ashen, gray sores bubbling on their arms. Corpses on litters, consumed with the disease. Evil slammed outside the walls, and a greater evil lurked within.
Screams rose as a boulder slammed into the battlements on the wall. A merlon cracked. Two Zoharites tumbled down and slammed onto a vaulted walkway. Cheers rose from beyond the wall.
"Joren, with me!" said Epher, rushing toward the wall. The men raced into the walkway, emerged onto a staircase, and rose to man the battlements.
Maya turned toward Abishag. The girl stared at her steadily even as war raged around them.
She's barely more than a child, Maya thought. Abishag looked like any farmer or shepherd's daughter from across Zohar—slender, her face round, her skin tanned brown, her black hair long and smooth. And yet Abishag had lived through horrors Maya could barely imagine, had risen from despair to find the mythical Gate of Tears.
"You don't have to be here with me," Maya said softly. "You may return to the Temple, seek shelter there, and pray."
Abishag would not look away. "There is no one to pray to at the Temple. I was in the Holy of Holies, and I saw nothing but an empty room, an empty ark, empty prayers from empty men. But you are holy." She clasped Maya's hand. "You are blessed with Eloh's light. I will follow you into any darkness."
Both were young girls from Zohar, yet they could not have been more different. Maya had been raised in wealth and power, daughter of Zohar's two mightiest families, her parents pillars of the nation. Abishag had been raised in the dregs, an orphan and prostitute, diseased and dying. Yet standing here together, Maya felt a kinship with Abishag, and though the Foresight told her little of her path ahead, she knew that they would walk that path together.
They walked across the courtyard, and Maya inhaled deeply, letting the lume flow through her, rise to her fingertips, and she wove it into luminescence. The soldiers of the city turned toward her light, whispering in awe, praying, weeping. Maya entered the pavilion where lay the dying—torn apart by enemy stones and steel and ravaged by illness. She approached one soldier consumed with disease. Gray boils covered him, hiding his eyes, yet still he wept.
Maya knelt before him, hands glowing. "I'm here, son of Zohar."
He clutched her hands. "A shadow," he whispered. "A robed man in the camp. A demon. I see him. He taunts me. He—"
He sucked in breath as the light flowed across him. Maya gritted her teeth, her chest twisting, for this was illness greater than any she had healed in the Temple. She could barely cast her light through the darkness engulfing this soldier. There was a stench here, a shadow blocking her light, a curse of darkness.
"Can't you heal him?" Abishag asked, her voice muffled, coming from parsa'ot away.
The light thrummed, suffusing Maya. She gripped the diseased soldier. He was slipping away, falling into darkness. The light burned her. She screamed.
"Maya!" cried a voice in the distance—Abishag's voice, distorted, fading.
As Maya gripped the diseased soldier, casting her light into him, the layers of boils, scabs, and rot peeled off, revealing gray skin draped over bones, a furrowed face, sharpened teeth, black pools of eyes. He laughed in her grip, reaching out withered arms like roots, grabbing her.
"He is mine," the rotted creature hissed.
But Maya would not relent. She had faced the legions of Aelar. She had traveled through fire and sand and war and found light. She was a lumer, and she sent all the light inside her into the creature, shattering it, revealing the man within. Finally she let the light flow out and panted, weary, racked with pain. A soldier lay before her, thin, sleeping, healed.
"Maya!" Abishag wrapped her arms around her. "Are you all right? You're trembling." She touched her cheek. "You're ashen."
Maya took a shuddering breath. She looked over Abishag's shoulder at the rest of the pavilion. The soldiers lay on the cobbled ground, covered in rough blankets, each one covered in the gray warts, bleeding, dying. And there, at the back, past guards and priests, he walked. Wrapped in black, hooded. He raised his head, stared at her, face now bloated and white, but there was no mistaking those black eyes—eyes fully black, no white around the irises. He turned his head away. He walked on, disappearing from view.
Maya took a shuddering breath.
"There is much work to do," she said. "There are many to heal. Come with me, Abishag. Pull me back if I go too deep."
Soldiers entered the pavilion, dragging ten more diseased, dying men. Maya had healed only one soldier here, and already she felt so weary she could barely walk. And yet she moved to the next soldier. She kindled the lume, for as the great war between Aelar and Zohar flared, a greater war was fought here, in light and in shadows, a war of Luminosity, of grace and of evil. She fought on.
VALENTINA
They ran through the city of Tilium as the barbarians swarmed down the hills from all sides.
No, Valentina thought. Not barbarians. This is their land. To them, we are barbarous.
Tilium, capital of the island-province of Elania, was the northernmost city in the Empire. Tens of thousands lived here. Most were Aelarian settlers, some who had run into dispute with the Octavius dynasty, others who simply craved the adventure of living in the Empire's most isolated province. Other residents were native Elanians. They had pale skin, red hair, and green eyes, though they dressed in togas and stolas like Aelarians, and they spoke the Aelarian tongue, willing converts to the Empire, earning citizenship with their loyalty.
Valentina ran between the people, and Koren ran with her. Legionaries raced down the streets, organized into cohorts and centuries but lacking central leadership; their governor now filled the bellies of ravens. They passed by houses topped with red roofs, the city theater, several temples to the gods, and under the archways of an aqueduct. Red and golden leaves, fallen from the city's elm and oak trees, scattered across the cobbled roads and squares. All the while, as they ran, the sounds of war rose from the hills outside the city walls—horns, drums, roars of fury.
"Damn!" Koren shouted as they ran, scattering the dry leaves. "Every damn place I go, somebody's trying to spoil the fun. First Seneca, then Porcia, now a horde of Elanians!"
But perhaps the Elanians need not be our enemies, Valentina thought. She kept running until she reached the city's defensive walls. Here she raced up a ramp and emerged onto the battlements. Koren rose to stand at her side. Hundreds of legionaries spread across the walls, facing the wilderness.
And there she saw them: thousands of Elanians across the river. A bridge stretched from the far bank toward a gatehouse in the city walls. The Elanians had taken the far bank, overwhelming the castrum built there—a complex of two towers, an armory, and barracks. Hundreds of Elanians were now marching across the bridge, bearing swords and shields, wearing checkered fabrics. Their faces were painted blue and green, and their cloaks billowed in the wind. Their banners unfurled, displaying white horses rampant upon green fields. At their lead rolled a wheeled battering ram, its bronze head forged like a snarling dragon. From other walls in the city, those facing the countryside, Valentina heard cries of war too. The Elanians surrounded Tilium, a vast army that could easily overwhelm this city.
The legionaries on the walls nocked arrows and loaded catapults that were built into the defenses. The first arrows flew, and the ram reached the gatehouse and slammed into the doors. The legionaries hurled down boulders, bubbling oil, and flaming arrows, slaying Elanians below. Across the city walls, the battle flared.
"Wait!" Valentina shouted. "Legionaries, hold your fire!" She coned her mouth and cried down to the Elanians on the bridge. "Elanians, halt your attack! Aelar surrenders to you!"
The legionaries still fired arrows. The Elanians stared up from below. The ram paused its assault.
"Legions of Aelar, hear me!" Valentina cried from the wall. "I am Valentina Cassius, known to you as Valentina Octavius, stepdaughter of Emperor Marcus Octavius. I command you—do not fight this battle!" She gazed down at the Elanians on the bridge. "Pull back across the river! We will grant you this city. Pull back and we will talk!"
The Elanians on the bridge parted, making way for a towering warrior with a red beard. He wore patches of armor and a checkered cloak, and a silver horn hung from his neck on a chain. Valentina remembered seeing him in the misty valley, leading this army. A crown topped his head, and a white horse, twin to the one he rode, reared on his shield.
"I am Enathor!" the man cried. "Son of Elethor, King of Elania. You stand on stolen ground, Aelarians! Open these gates and surrender this city, or we will tear down these walls and put you all to the sword."
"This city will be yours!" Valentina said. "Pull back from the walls! I will emerge onto the bridge, and we will negotiate our surrender. I—"
A hand grabbed her. A military officer glared at her. His nose was aquiline, and a unibrow shaded his beady eyes. He wore the insignia of a general.
"You do not command us, Valentina Cassius." He grabbed her arm.
Koren stepped forward and yanked the man back. "Don't touch her."
The general drew his sword and pointed the blade at Koren. "Stand back, desert rat!" He glared at his men. "Nock your arrows and fire! Slay those fucking heathens—and slay Valentina and her rat too."
"You will not!" Valentina shouted. She stepped into a turret and climbed onto the battlements. She wavered for a moment, the wind nearly blowing her off. From up here, she could see all the city below—a courtyard full of soldiers, walls spreading in both directions, and the distant forum where she had languished in a cage. She had always feared crowds, and now she faced a crowd of thousands. But she had not survived war and terror to be cowed here.
"Hear me!" Valentina said. "Hear me, legions of Aelar! Atticus Magnus, your governor for many years, was friend to my father. My father was Septimus Cassius, a great senator of the Republic. But I was raised by Marcus Octavius, a cruel emperor who shattered all that we had built for five hundred years. I've come here to rebuild the Republic! To restore Aelar to honor. To make us a force of civilization, not conquest. Let us forge peace with the Elanians! They are not our enemy, and this is their land. I will lead you home to Aelar, legions! Return with me, and we will undo the Empire and make this a Republic again, a civilization ruled by all people—Aelarians, Elanians, Zoharites, and all others in this world. Not a world run by one emperor but a world that belongs to all. These men outside our walls are not your enemy! Your enemy is the Empire which has stolen the Republic from us."
As she spoke, the general fumed and tried to reach her, but Koren held the man back. Finally the general broke free, marched across the wall, and addressed his legions.
"Take her back into her cage!" he shouted. "We'll leave her there to die. We'll—"
"The girl speaks truth!" shouted a centurion on the wall. "She is Valentina Octavius, daughter of Marcus, sister to Porcia and Seneca. See her white hair! I've seen her in Aelar in the company of the emperor."
"She is heiress to Aelar!" cried another man.
Valentina shook her head. "I am heiress to nothing but a promise—a promise to restore the Republic. Porcia is dead. Aelar waits without an emperor. Now is the time to rebuild our democracy! Return home with me, and you will serve in Aelar herself, defending her new Senate."
The general climbed the turret and drew his sword. Koren raced after him, but he was too slow. The blade drove toward Valentina, and she sidestepped, narrowly dodging the blow.
"This is my city now," the general hissed. "This is my army." He lashed his blade again. "This—"
Valentina ducked, and the blade scraped across her temple. She screamed and drove herself forward, knocking into the man's legs. He wobbled on the turret. Koren reached them, grabbed the general, and shoved him between two merlons. The sword tumbled into the river below.
Grunting, Koren shoved the general farther along the crenel. The man tilted over the edge.
"You tried to kill her." Koren gnashed his teeth. "You cut her head. It is I, Koren Sela—a Zoharite—who ends your life now." He shoved the man again . . . but Valentina reached out, grabbed the general, and held him up.
"Koren, no." Valentina shook her head. Blood dripped from her temple. "Let him live."
Koren's face was red with rage. He still held the man between the merlons, ready to send him down to the rocky river. "He tried to murder you."
"He lost his sword," Valentina said softly. "You can end his life, yes. But his life is cheap. Your honor is not." She placed a hand on his shoulder. "You killed legionaries before, and I saw how much pain that brought you, how much their deaths weigh upon your shoulders. Don't add more to that weight. Enough have died already."
Koren still held the man over the edge, jaw tight, as if contemplating the words. Finally he grunted and yanked the general back onto the wall. With a kick, he sent the Aelarian fleeing back down into the courtyard. The general glared and skulked away, his pride slain but his life saved.
