"Something old, dear Queen, something I thought lost." Dahak answered genially, though an air of irritation suffused the line of his body. "Not a toy, but a tool. A powerful tool." The creature in the shape of a man passed his hand across the fragments and they gleamed with an inner light. The radiance filled in the missing pieces of the disks, the teeth and gears and rotating mechanisms. For a brief moment, the thing seemed whole and complete, but then the light faded away again and there was only a profusion of broken parts on the tabletop.
"This device-in my youth they were called the duradarshan-allows an adept to look upon that which is far away, even if hidden or concealed. Each Circle of the City held a sanctuary, and in each Temple of Sight stood an Eye, whirling and golden." The creature's voice changed subtly as it spoke, gaining a different timbre and tone, suggesting enormous age.
The young Queen watched the sorcerer with masked, clouded eyes. At times they seemed to be an electric blue, at others a soft brown. Though she stood beside the jackal, she did not acknowledge the beast-man's presence. "You may look upon your enemies, then, and spy out their intent, their plans, their dispositions… all in safety."
"Yes, and more may be accomplished, if this one's siblings may be found." Dahak grinned, and the air around him clouded with a faint haze. A whispering sound, the faint speech of myriad insects, filled the air. The thin hands drifted over the debris again, and the light flickered down. "I can almost feel them, though the connection is weak, very weak. But in time, this one shall be whole and the others will be revealed to me."
"Can they see you, my lord?" The Queen's chin rose, a faint challenge in her voice. "Isn't it dangerous to reveal yourself by such means?"
Dahak's eyes narrowed to slits and his nostrils flared. Again, the air trembled around him. He moved a hand. "I am shadow, slave, where I move nothing marks my passage! A ghost leaves no trace, seeing all secrets, knowing all things!"
The Queen staggered, her face twisted in pain. Soundlessly she turned, though her fingers clutched at the edge of the table, and faced the jackal. Arad turned as well, also against his will, and the dark eyeholes of his mask stared upon the Queen. Dahak laughed and clapped his hands in delight. His good humor was restored, seeing the jackal kneel, and the Queen's face crease in sorrow, thin silver tears streaking her high cheekbones.
"I am the master here, dear Zenobia. Do not make yourself tiresome."
Dahak turned to look out over the sprawled, tumbled ruin of the palaces of the Eastern Emperors, and beyond, to the ranks of red-roofed houses and the colorful red and orange and blue gleam of temples on the hills of the city. "I do not need either of you, though it warms my heart to see you, at last, reunited."
Zenobia gasped, unable to move her head. Her eyes were a clear blue, pinched at the edges and filled with sorrow. "You'd discard useful… tools… because they took skill… to use? Your will is… our will… yet we have eyes to see and minds to think…"
Dahak's face contorted in disgust, and he hissed. "I have learned this lesson! Loyal Khadames taught me well-I have not forgotten the sacrifice of the Sixteen-but you…"
"I… what?" Zenobia managed a sickly grin, tears streaming down her cheek. "I… challenge you, lord of darkness? I… question and argue? You have need, lord, of more than servants. You need allies or…" She coughed, bright blood flecking her lips. Dahak relented, seeing the girl's body was failing between the pressure of his will and the Queen's. "…you would already possess the world."
Dahak spat on the floor and turned away, brow clouded with anger.
Another pair of knights approached, moving with a heavy step up the walkway, shoulders bent under the weight of the red vase. The jackal rose stiffly and resumed his position at the head of the table. The Queen gasped and fell against the tabletop, supporting herself with a white-knuckled hand.
"You should thank me," the sorcerer continued, "both of you longed to be reunited. And here you are!"
The Queen did not bother to hide her fury. But her eyes still avoided Arad.
The King of Kings sat on the steps of the Senate House, eating olives and cheese from a basket. Shahr-Baraz was a huge man, well over six feet in height, with broad, powerful shoulders and a trim waist. Despite the heat of the afternoon, he was clad in a hauberk of gilded overlapping steel plates and long, woolen leggings. Big boots, scuffed with wear, the leather turned almost black, stuck out in front of him. The olives were sharper tasting than in his homeland, far to the east, but he ate them by handfuls, spitting pits onto the paved oval forum surrounding the milestone at the heart of Constantinople.
He was watching rows of men hauling crates and boxes and trunks out of the front of the ruined Great Palace. A series of violent explosions had ripped through the huge structure, collapsing domes, setting fires in many portions of the sprawling complex. The forum had also suffered-great craters yawned in the limestone paving-exposing hidden tunnels and sewers. Despite the destruction, the Persian army was busy both in the ruins and in those buildings that had survived intact. The Emperors of the East had ruled from Constantinople for almost three hundred years-rarely stinting in ornamenting their residences with treasure. Shahr-Baraz spit out a pit, then smoothed down his long, tusk-like mustaches. He grinned, mentally counting load after load of gold and silver coin, the rugs, the tapestries, the bolts of raw silk, the jewels, the fine statues and paintings-all the loot of a vast Empire.
Six men staggered past, carrying a section of smooth-planed wood, painted with an intricate and detailed map of the land between the two rivers. The shahanshah snarled quietly at the sight-the map was loot from the old palace of the Persian kings at Ctesiphon-then laughed, a deep booming sound that startled the soldiers and slaves laboring in the huge forum. So is dead Chrosoes revenged, Shahr-Baraz thought, with his enemy thrown down, cursed Heraclius dead, his capital fallen, his people in chains…
A fleet of barges and merchantmen toiled in the strait, hauling all the loot of the city across to the Asian side of the "cattle crossing." A powerful army-a loyal Persian army, not this Hun or Avar rabble! — stood watch over the treasure accumulating among the summer villas of Chalcedon. The King of Kings wanted to ensure the systematic and thorough sack of Constantinople was not wasted. The Romans had taken their time looting Ctesiphon, and he planned to return the favor fivefold. Footsteps echoed on the walkway behind him and the King of Kings looked up, smiling in greeting to the man that approached.
"Hullo, Khadames." The Boar held out a handful of olives. "Hungry?"
"No, my lord," the older man smiled, beard streaked white, face lined with age and care. Khadames, general of the armies of Persia, sat on the step beside his friend and ruler. "This Greek food is too rich for my taste… I'm still digesting last night's feast."
Shahr-Baraz grinned and nodded, feeling remarkably content. It was a beautiful day and his enemies were scattered and in disarray. Old wrongs were avenged and he-the son of poor frontier nobility-was victorious ruler of the greatest Empire in the world. His grandfather would have approved; old Ohrmuz would not turn up his nose at so much good red gold, or so many slaves to work in the rocky fields below his drafty fort.
A long way, grandfather, a long way… Shahr-Baraz felt great regret, thinking of all the old friends who had perished-from plague or spear or axe-in the decades since he had left home. Somewhere he possessed palaces vast enough to swallow grandfather's hall. He had never seen these palaces. They were far away and the Boar was a man who had no time for idleness.