"Heave!" The foreman cracked a short whip in his hand. The block trembled, swinging to and fro, casting a long shadow down into the recess of the excavation. Sections of broken floor-all sparkling tesserae and geometric patterns-jutted from a rubble of brick and roofing tile. Everything was stained and blackened by fire. Down at the bottom of the pit, men were digging, filling leather buckets with scraps of leather, dirt, moldy books, sections of splintered wood. "Heave!"
The granite block-twelve feet long and two-by-six in cross-section-rose up. High above, heavy cables squealed through pulleys greased with pig fat. Out of sight of the pit, hundreds of men strained against the cables, bare feet digging into the rubble, muscles stiff with effort. The block rose jerkily, and the foreman's face beaded with sweat, watching the stone sway back and forth. "Keep 'er steady!"
The block rose up, swaying over the lip of the pit, and more men were waiting, drawing ropes tight, easing the granite over solid ground. The foreman stared up, blood draining slowly from his face as the sharp-edged shadow drifted across him, and then the granite block was gone. It was dropped clear, shaking the earth with a dull boom as it crashed down into some useless part of the ruin sprawling in all directions from the huge pit.
The foreman steadied himself against a translucent sheet of green Cosian marble. The elegant stonework was badly damaged and spidered with long, milky cracks. A statue's arm emerged from the tumulus nearby, lifelike pink hand raised towards the sky. The debris pile groaned, shifting with the shock of the granite falling into an abandoned ornamental pool. Dust spurted from cracks in the rubble, then drifted hazily in the air. The foreman wiped his brow, glad the day's work had gone without injury. So far.
Below him in the pit, men crawled over every surface with brooms and shovels, carefully sifting through the rubble. Another crane carried a long succession of leather buckets, suspended from iron hooks, swaying, up out of the excavation. At the top of the pit, two scrawny bald men worked ceaselessly, catching the buckets, slipping them from the hooks, then dumping the contents-dirt, gravel, shell-like marble fragments, broken tile, wadded-up pages of papyrus and parchment, twisted bits of leather and metal-onto the top of a long, sloping wooden frame. The frame sat on stout legs and the bottom was covered with a mesh of closely set metal wire-in itself worth a vast sum. Ten men shook the frame from side to side with a rolling motion. Dirt rained out of the bottom of the mesh, and all of the detritus of the excavation tumbled and slid down towards the end of the sieve.
At the bottom of the frame, under the watchful eye of a dozen brawny men in full head-to-toe armor-the closely set, overlapping enameled plates of the Persian clibanarius-four women bent over a large circular bronze bowl. Fragments of stone and glass and metal spilled into the bowl in a constant stream, making a tinny, ringing sound. The women's hands were busy, sorting metal from wood, leather from parchment. Everything not metallic was pitched downslope, onto a swiftly rising midden spilling away across the smashed, burned gardens of the Bucoleon Palace.
The metal-bronze, iron, copper-was tossed into a fluted, elegant urn, which held a steadily accumulating collection of metal bits and pieces. The women worked quickly, trying to keep up with the endless stream of buckets.
One of them caught a gleam of bronze in the spillage and snatched it up. The fragment was triangular, with a blunted tip, and four well-polished sides. Her dead eyes registered the gear tooth, and then her hand-spotted with patches of black hair-like spores-flipped it unerringly into the urn. When the urn was full, a pair of diquans hoisted it with a rope and, straining, picked their way to the south, along a walkway of boards and chipped slabs of buff-colored marble, towards an arcade of arched pillars.
A vase of red porphyry replaced the urn, immediately chiming with the sound of falling metal.
All around the ruin, at the eastern end of the dead city, the army of Persia was busy, swarming like ants across a giant's tumbled larder. There were other excavations underway, sorting through the destruction. A forest of cranes loomed over the old palaces. Thousands labored feverishly, for their master had bidden them to haste, and those still living desired only to continue breathing and seeing the blue sky.
The dead did not care, and they worked all the harder, for his will was upon them.
The two diquans reached the edge of the ruins, where a long arcade of pale white marble was still standing atop a seawall. Blue water sparkled through the arches, slim pillars framing a view of the Asian shore of the Propontis. Many ships with triangular sails and low, sleek hulls moved on the waters, busy ferrying the loot of the Eastern capital across the strait. In the shade of the domed roofs, the diquans set down their burden, then tipped the urn, spilling hundreds of tiny fragments across a smooth floor.
Scraps and broken bits of bronze and copper bounced across black-and-white squares, some sliding to the foot of a heavy wooden table topped with a travertine slab. A figure stood at the head of the table, brown arms braced against the cool stone. The Persian knights did not look upon the shape-a man, muscular and bronzed by the sun, his head enclosed in an iron jackal mask-and bowed nervously to the shadows before hurrying away. Beneath the arches and domes, the air was very cold, and the bright sunlight on the water seemed dim.
The broken tooth bounced across the floor and then sprang into the air as if seized by a ghostly hand. Unerringly, the metal piece flew up, shining in the dim light, then settled onto the tabletop. The travertine was covered with concentric rings of bronze and iron, eight in all, radiating out from the smallest arc-barely the width of a woman's hand-to an outer layer, incomplete, almost four feet across. The gear slowed, drifted this way and that, then rattled to rest along the fringe of a bronze wheel, joining an even dozen of its fellows. The fragment fit perfectly.
The jackal remained still, though the air around him shimmered and trembled as a heat haze does upon the open desert. The remainder of the debris on the floor rustled, sliding across the marble tiles, then drifted up like a cloud of flies and fell, sparkling, into the sea below the palace. Waves lapped against house-sized blocks of granite and limestone, and golden lions stared down from alcoves among the pillars surmounting the seawall.
"Ah…" breathed a laughing voice in the shadow. "You must be patient, dear Arad, our enemy took some pains to destroy this treasure. Many days of sorting may pass, before your task is done."
The jackal-headed man did not respond, remaining still and silent at the head of the table.
In the shadows, the speaker moved, rising and gliding to the table. A handsome fine-boned face looked down upon the ruined device, thin lips quirking up in amusement. Long-fingered hands drifted over the surface of the corroded, scorched bronze, a thin gold bracelet circling one wrist. The skin was dusky, olive, but mottled and sometimes-as the figure passed slowly around the table-gleamed and rippled, as if fine translucent scales lay just under the skin. "But soon this will be complete, and you may turn your attention to other tasks."
Dahak, the Lord of the Ten Serpents, beloved servant of the King of Kings, Shahr-Baraz, smiled with genuine humor, looking down upon the broken fragments of the ancient device. "This pretty will be sent east, to the forges of Damawand and there-by my foresight-workmen wait, ready to restore it to working condition."
"And then, my lord? How will this trinket serve you?"
A second figure emerged from the shadows; a young woman, hair dark and glossy, high-cheeked face turned dark by the sun. Her eyes glittered, reflecting the blue waters. Armor clinked as she moved, gliding to the opposite edge of the table. A dark silk cloak lay over her shoulders, and a corselet of silver girded her breasts. She watched Dahak with a calm, even placid expression. "So much effort is poorly spent, for a toy."