And toward twilight they dared unbar the gate, where a heap of thousands of heads stood, and some tumbled inward and rolled across the beautiful stones of the road, heads of comrades of the Phoenix and the Lion, sons and daughters of the city. . . and one living man, who had been of the Phoenix. Cries of relatives split the night. Friends gathered up the remains and bore them when parents and mates were too stunned or horrified. They made a pyre in the city and burned them, because there was nothing else to do.
And Kan Te and Tao Hua clung together, weeping for friends and shivering. The Phoenix soldier wept news of enemies as many as the grains of sand, of a living wind which threatened to pour over them. Only a portion of that horde had bestirred itself to deal with them. The city then knew it was doomed. The fever spread; lovers and bereaved leapt onto the pyre which destroyed what was left of Phoenix and Lion; the last Phoenix soldier threw himself after. Others simply stared, bewildered, at the death and the madness, and the smoke went up from the square of the City of Heaven, to mingle with the dust.
"He is back." Gunesh shook the wagon in climbing down, as the sound of several riders thundered up to the wagon. "Ah," said Yilan Baba to no one in particular, and sucked at the pipe and leaned among his cushions, pleased in the cessation of pain the drug had brought. . . or the poison. No need to have been concerned; Shimshek had won his battle, and Boga and his cronies let Shimshek and a few of his men get through to him. How could they gracefully prevent it?
And surely they did not want to prevent it, to have both their victims in one place at one time. They came in together, his dear friends, Gunesh first up the ladder, and Shimshek hard after her, even yet covered with the dust of his riding and the blood of his enemies. Gunesh had got an early word in his ear out there. He saw the anguish in Shimshek's face. "Sit," he said. "Gunesh, not you—go forward."
Her eyes flashed.
"Go," he said in a gentle voice. "Give me a little private time with this young man. It regards you both, but give me the time to talk to him."
"When it regards me—"
"Out," he said. She went, perhaps sensing him too weak for dispute. A pain hit him; he clamped his jaw against it, turned out his pipe, packed it again with trembling hands. He reached for the light and Shimshek hastened feverishly to help him, to do anything for him, lingered in that moment's closeness, full of pain. Yilan looked and had a moment's vision of what Gunesh saw of them—a grayed, seamed old man, and Shimshek's godlike beauty, dark and strong. He sucked the smoke, reached and touched Shimshek's face, a father's touch this time. Tears broke from Shimshek's eyes, flowed down his face unchecked.
"They have killed me," he said. "Gunesh told you, of course. If I'm not dead quickly they'll see to it; and next you, and her. Most of all the baby she's carrying, yours or mine, no difference. . . oh, Shimshek, of course I know; how do you think not?"
Shimshek bowed his head, and he reached out and lifted his face.
"Prideful nonsense. You think the old man is blind? Sit with me a moment. Just a little time."
"For all of time, Father, if you wish."
He darted the youth a piercing glance, leaned back in the cushions, looked at him from hooded eyes. "You've said nothing about how it went. Wasn't that the news you came to tell me? Isn't that important?"
"They fell like grass under our hooves. We'll take the City tomorrow, Yilan Baba; we'll give you that."
He grinned faintly, grew sober again, sucked at the pleasing smoke. "Brave friend. Rome and Carthage, Thebes and Ur. . . how many, how many more. . . ?"
Shimshek shook his head, bewildered.
"Oh my young friend," he sighed, "I'm tired, I'm tired this time, and it doesn't matter. I've done all that's needful; I know that. It's why I sit and smoke. There's no more of Yilan; only of you, of Gunesh. I have some small hope for you, if you're quick."
"I'll rouse the tribe. I'll get Boga's lot away from you. . . ."
"No. You'll take the tribes that will follow you and you'll ride, you and Gunesh. Get out of here."
"To break the hordes now. . ."
"It doesn't matter, do you understand me? No, of course you don't." He drew upon the pipe, passed it to Shimshek and let the calming smoke envelope him. "Do as I tell you. That's all I want."
"I'll have Boga's head on a pole."
"No. Not that either."
"Then tell me what I have to do."
"Just obey me. Go. The city means nothing."
"You struggled so many years—"
"I'm here. I'm here, that's all." He took back the pipe and inhaled. The smoke curled up and wreathed about them in the murk of the low-hanging lights, and the smoke made shapes, walls of cities, strange towers and distant lands, barren desert, high mountains, lush hills and trafficked streets, beasts and fantastical machines, men of many a shade and some who were not human at all. "I'm many lives old, Shimshek; and I know you. . . ah, my old, old friend. I remember. . . I've gotten to remembering since I've been sick; dreaming dreams. . . They're in the smoke, do you see them?"
"Only smoke, Yilan Baba."
"Solid as ever. I know your heart, and it's loyal, indeed it is. We've been through many a war, Shimshek. Fill the other pipe, will you; fill it and dream with me."
"Outside—"
"Do as I say."
Shimshek reached for the bowl, filled the other pipe, lit it and leaned back in attempted leisure, obedient though, Yilan saw with sudden clarity, his wounds were untreated. Poor Shimshek, bewildered indeed. At length a shiver went through him.
"Better?" Yilan asked.
"Numb," said Shimshek. Yilan chuckled. "Can you laugh, Baba?"
"I think I've done well," Yilan said. "Spent my life well."
"No one else could have united the tribes—no one—and when you're gone. . . it goes. I can't hold them, Baba."
"True," said Yilan. "Ah, Boga might. He has the strength. But I think not; not this time."
"Not this time?"
Yilan smiled and watched the cities in the smoke, and the passing shapes of friends. Enkindu, Patroclus, Hephestion, and Antony and a thousand others. "Patroclus," he called him. "And Lancelot. And Roland. O my friend. . . do you see, do you yet see? Sometimes we meet so late.
. . you're always with me, but so often born late, my great, good friend. Most of my life I knew I was missing something, and then I found you, and Gunesh, and I was whole. Then it could begin. I didn't know in those years what I was waiting for, but I knew it when it came, and now I know why."
Shimshek's eyes lifted to his, spilling tears and dreams, dark as night his eyes now, but they had been green and blue and gray and brown, narrow and wide, and all shades between. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes. Now I think you do. Cities more than this one. . . . And Gunesh. . . she's always there. . . through all the ages."
"You're like my father, Yilan Baba; more father than my own. Tell me what to believe and I believe it."
He shook his head. "You've only known me longer; give your father his honor. There was not always such a gap of years, sometimes we were brothers."
"In other lives, Baba? Is that what you mean?"
"There was a city named Dur-sharrunkin; I was Sargon; I was Menes, by a river called Nile; I was Hammurabi; and you were always there; I was Gilgamesh; we watched the birth of cities, my friend, the first stone piled on stone in this world."
Shimshek shivered, and looked into his eyes. "Achilles," he murmured. "You had that name once. Did you not?"
"And Cyrus the Persian; and Alexander. You were Hep-hestion, and I lost you first that round—ah, that hurt—and the generals murdered me then, not wanting to go on. How I needed you."