“He is a criminal!” Barsúmes cried into the sunset. “A thief of the most monstrous kind—for he stole the children of Caesar himself, the heirs to the Roman Empire, and is now holding them for ransom! I have been sent to bring this foul creature to justice. Help me, good people of the Pirin Caravanserai, and turn him over! There’s no need to allow this rat to continue spreading his filth! Throw him out!”
“Throw him out!” roared a crowd outside the locked gate. “Throw him out!”
Alexios was standing in the courtyard inside the gate with Za-Ilmaknun and Isato. He had thought of waking Kassia and Basil—of even asking for their help—but he had decided that letting them sleep behind a locked door was probably the safest thing. Although most of the other caravanserai customers had already cleared out that morning—sensing the consequences of the tavern brawl which had taken place the night before—Miriai had come out to see what the problem was. She looked at Alexios like a stern grandmother, her arms akimbo.
“Ach, what’s all this racket?” she said. “Is any of it true?”
“Not a word,” Alexios said. “He’s just a mercenary. Our city—our home, Trebizond—it was conquered by the Latins. We barely managed to escape, but they’re still sending out mercenaries like Barsúmes to capture us.”
“I don’t understand,” Miriai said. “Why would they send people to pursue you across hundreds of parasangs? You must possess something of value, dear. Otherwise it simply isn’t worthwhile.”
As Alexios thought about it, he also had trouble understanding Barsúme’s purpose here. Did the Latins really care so much about Alexios that they would pay mercenaries large sums of money to capture him? He must have been just another fugitive in their eyes—one who was also beaten and powerless. The Latins had taken Trebizond, and it was hard to imagine anyone else taking it back, not without a massive army and supply train—one beyond the logistical capabilities of the sultans, khans, emperors, and kings who ruled over these disparate lands.
Why then was Barsúmes here? What did Alexios possess that no one else did?
It was the farr. Alexios could teach people to use the farr. The emperor must have told the Latins. Somehow they knew that this was the only power that threatened them.
The power to organize the unorganized, to destroy the destroyers.
Alexios was ready to draw Gedara and tell everyone in the courtyard to step aside—he would deal with Barsúmes. How many men were outside that gate, he had no idea, but a Zhayedan could handle them—of that he was sure.
But then the sight of Kassia and Basil sleeping in their beds flashed in his mind. Ever since the Second Siege of Trebizond—the last siege he had experienced before this one—what was life, after all, but a series of sieges?—Alexios’s farr had dwindled to a spark glowing in the darkness of his flesh. Only after he had decided to train Kassia and Basil, to treat them like human beings—albeit small, weak, and inexperienced human beings—did that spark begin to flare. Now his farr was up to 10/100.
Today was the first day in weeks he had felt like himself. For so long he had been so tired, he had been like a zombie, just a shade of the shining sun he had once been. Only in the last few hours had that fire returned to life.
The key was simple and obvious, and yet easy to forget. Even at Trebizond, he had neglected his comrades and fought alone—thinking himself a superhero—when the reality was that no one did anything alone, that the gods in the old mythological stories were just the superstructural ideological expressions of the economic base, and that people who sought to change things by themselves never got anywhere.
We need to work together.
This was why Trebizond, the supposedly invincible city, had fallen to the Latins. It wasn’t just the fact that feudalism was growing into a more vigorous force in the world, and far harder to deal with than ailing Roman slavery. Alexios and his army had stopped working together. Everyone had gone off on their own, rather than fighting as one. They had let the farr fade, leaving them easy pickings for the powerful, experienced, and organized Latin army.
“Throw him out!” Barsúmes screamed. “Or we’re coming in—and we won’t be responsible for what happens to this caravanserai, or the people in it!”
“Throw him out!” cried the crowd outside the gate. “Throw him out!”
Alexios turned to Za-Ilmaknun in the declining light. “Will you help me? Even if it means you have to kill?”
“Neutrality is an illusion,” Za-Ilmaknun said. “To be kind to those who do evil is itself evil. To be passive before the depredations of the devil redounds to his unholy benefit.” He looked to Isato, who nodded. “We shall fight by your side, Kentarch Alexios of Trebizond.”
“Thank you,” Alexios said. He turned to Miriai. “Will you help us?”
“You’re our guests,” she said. “For all I know, you could be an excellency of the way stations in disguise, here to test us. This Barsúmes has no right to violate the laws of hospitality. He should have known better.”
“Thank you,” Alexios said. “That means a lot to me.”
“Throw him out! Throw him out!”
The crowd was pounding the gate, and some of the caravanserai’s few remaining customers were looking outside their windows. Others had doused their lamps. By the tavern doorway, a few were drawing swords.
“I think you’ll find we know a thing or two about fighting.” Za-Ilmaknun bent his knees and raised his striped wooden mequamia. He was still wearing his heavy pack, but evidently saw no reason to remove it.
“We never would have made it this far,” Isato said, “had we been ignorant of the art of knocking heads.” She had adopted a similar pose, but was only raising her bare hands, with her fingers outstretched like claws.
Za-Ilmaknun spoke to her in what was presumably Axumite, but she shook her head and growled out what might have been a stream of expletives.
“I appreciate your hospitality,” Alexios said to Miriai. “Believe me, I do. But maybe it’s time to go somewhere safe.”
“I may look like an old granny,” she said, “but on the inside, I’m still a young girl—one who possesses gnosis of the celestial cataract.”
Whatever that means, Alexios thought.
“We are supposed to abhor all violence,” Miriai added. “But ach, I am lapsed in my ways. Those who wish to destroy life must themselves be destroyed—for life shall be victorious.”
The crowd pounded the gate together this time, and the doors swelled against the crossbar, which shook against its bolts and made them creak.
“They must have found a battering ram—or something,” Alexios said. “They’ll break through any moment.”
“This place was not built to be besieged, dear,” Miriai said.
“I saw them,” Isato said to herself. “I saw them in the tavern, the man and two children. They were eating and resting. They did no harm. What the man Alexios says is the truth. There is a difference between right and wrong. The world is real. It makes ideas and gods, and they in turn remake the world in an ever-intensifying cycle.” She looked up, and her blue eyes glowed. “These people here fight for the dispossessed—for people like us. There is evil here we can destroy.”
“Control yourself,” Za-Ilmaknun said. “You know what will happen if—”
“I will not spend my life regretting my inaction.” Isato was shaking with anger. “I can help these people. I will take a risk to make a difference. Better to die bravely than as a coward.”
Alexios, meanwhile, had climbed a nearby ladder and peaked over the wall’s edge. His heart sank at what he saw. Hundreds of men were below. Many clutched swords, spears, or torches, and all were shouting and waving their weapons as they crowded around the door. Some were pounding it with a carriage, which must have been the best battering ram they could find. Nonetheless, by the time Alexios returned to the courtyard, the gate doors had been pushed open wide enough to show the crowd through the gap, with Barsúmes in his armor urging them on.
It had looked like this at the last siege in Trebizond, with everyone huddled in the citadel courtyard just before the Latins broke through. Alexios trembled with the memory, and fought to get ahold of himself.
Not now, he thought. Can’t lose it now.
“Do any of you know about the farr?” he blurted to Za-Ilmaknun, Isato, and Miriai.
They looked at him.
“What do you speak of?” Za-Ilmaknun said. “I do not know it.”
“It’s a kind of magic,” Alexios said. “It grows within you when you help workers, peasants, slaves, women, children—anyone getting screwed by the dominant mode of production.”
“Āsimati,” Za-Ilmaknun said. “Yes, we know of this, that is its name amid the gorgeous gorges and thousand plateaus of Aethiopia. There are many ways to grow this mystical strength, this force of life, young Alexios, whether for the benefit of the demoniac zar or the protective adbar spirits. Many ways to increase in a positive way, and also many ways to steal after the manner of the ghûls who feast upon the life force of the living…”
“We have a better chance of surviving if we work together.” Alexios drew Gedara, his eyes on the shaking gate.
“You wield a blade forged by our smiths.” Za-Ilmaknun read the writing on the green sword. “‘No change without sacrifice.’ Yes, I know this weapon—it is Gedara, wrought by the forges of Saint Elesbaan.”
“Good to know,” Alexios said.
“You’re just a little fresh-faced baby in my eyes, dear,” Miriai said to Alexios as she, too, adopted a battle pose. “All of you think I’m just an old invisible laundress, but I’m so much more. There are multitudes inside me.”
It’s your funeral, Alexios thought. You might be seeing that dead husband of yours sooner than you think.
When he turned to the side to ask Isato if she knew how to fight, he was shocked to find that she had disappeared. In her place was an enormous hyena growling so much that drool was dripping from her jaws and pooling on the ground beside a pile of shredded clothes. Alexios yelped in fear and jumped just as the gate burst open and the angry crowd charged inside. They, too, were shocked by the sight of the monstrous beast which loped toward them, so much so that they stopped and even fell back on top of each other. The hyena charged into their ranks, grasped their arms and legs in its maw, and threw them aside. They screamed in terror, and their blood splashed the dirt as the hyena laughed at them.
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Za-Ilmaknun, meanwhile, stepped forward—keeping his distance from the hyena—and with his mequamia bashed the heads of the men lying on the ground hard enough to knock them out, the colorful tau-shaped staff swooping through the darkness, the tip flashing sparks with each strike, the cross carved between his eyes shining orange light.
At the same time, Miriai was waving her hands in the air and chanting in an unknown language, repeating the words “alma d-nhūra” and “Piriawis.” The Milky Way in the dusk above their heads was glowing brighter by the moment, so much so that many blue, yellow, and orange stars were casting multicolored shadows in the courtyard. Even the blue nebulas could be seen swirling across the sky, along with flickering pulsars and whirling singularities, the Pleiades and Hyades blazing so ferociously it hurt to look at them. Soon more stars were glittering than anyone had seen before; the light grew as bright as day, then brighter, so that everyone covered their eyes and turned away.
Didn’t know she had it in her, Alexios thought.
Then Miriai forced her hands forward. “May Manda d-Hiia help you!” she cried.
The light in the sky returned to dusk, and an invisible surge of water swept through the attackers, tearing up the land beneath their feet and throwing them outside the caravanserai.
Only Barsúmes was strong enough to push through the roaring floodwaters that could not be seen. Armed with a gladius and shield, he swung at Alexios, deflected a blow from Za-Ilmaknun’s mequamia, and kicked the hyena’s head hard enough to make the beast yelp with pain and stagger away.
Nothing seemed to phase Barsúmes. He pressed on, Alexios thought, like a machine, showing no fatigue as he moved his gladius and shield so fast it was impossible for anyone to get through.
Many members of the crowd had fled for their lives—or they had been knocked out of the action—but Barsúmes’s die-hard supporters were now fighting by his side. One bashed Miriai’s face with a shield so that she fell to the ground and remained there, unmoving. At that same instant the invisible river surging from the sky ceased.
Za-Ilmaknun, dancing and chanting as he swung his mequamia—which, though wooden, was strong enough to deflect steel—sometimes reached into his pockets or his backpack, grabbed a handful of herbs, and threw them into the faces of his attackers. They clawed at their eyes or rolled on the ground in agony.
“In the name of God!” Za-Ilmkanun shouted. “I command the zar demons which have driven these bodies mad to return to the fiery verge!”
Something trembled in the air around these people, almost like a mirage in the desert. Maybe they actually were possessed, and Za-Ilmaknun was exorcising the demonic parasites that clung to their souls. Alexios had trouble believing this, and yet it would not have been the strangest thing he had seen in his life. Most of these half-invisible demons managed to hang onto their prey—it would take more than a quick incantation to dislodge them—but Za-Ilmaknun was able to free a young, thin, dark, and acrobatic Serindian woman from a zar’s clutches. Only a moment earlier she had been rolling and tumbling with a remarkable deftness, ducking beneath Za-Ilmaknun’s mequamia and even diving between his legs almost like a vaudeville star, but now the warped air had left her, and she was flung back into the dust, where she lay for a moment, gasping and staring at the night. Then she sat up, clutched her head, and looked around with wide eyes and no idea where she was or how she had gotten here.
There was something different about her which Alexios couldn’t put his finger on. Somehow she was separate from the other people who were attacking them—and not just because of her colorful sari or even the nose ring which was attached, via a small chain, to an earring, all made of shiny brass. Had Barsúmes enchanted her?
Some merchants from the tavern had joined the fight on Alexios’s side, in the mean time—including Taomá, the Assyrian Christian who had sold Alexios the knives for Kassia and Basil—but Barsúmes and his supporters were too strong. They were deep inside the courtyard now and throwing torches at the wooden buildings and storehouses and even the stables. Flames were leaping from bales of hay and sacks of merchandise, and smoke clouds were interwoven with the sweet smell of burning spice. Everyone seemed to be screaming; people were running everywhere. Alexios felt terrified for Basil and Kassia—and also for Rakhsh. They would all be burned to death if he didn’t stop Barsúmes, but the man was an experienced fighter, and even with the little farr Alexios possessed, he was still no match for this scarred grizzled veteran of many wars and battles across the world.
Now Alexios wanted to flee and help the children and his horse—to abandon his new friends Za-Ilmaknun, Isato, Miriai, and even Taomá, swinging a curved sword—to give up on the collective struggle and focus only on helping his own. But to even contemplate the possibility of doing this weakened him. It became harder to deflect Barsúmes’s blows as they clanged against Gedara’s mystical green blade, and Alexios was powerless to stop the enemy crowd from surrounding him. Some held rope nets.
They meant to take him alive.
Barsúmes knocked Alexios’s sword aside and sliced into his arm. Alexios dropped Gedara, clutched the bleeding wound, and screamed in pain. The game voice told him he had lost five health and was now down to 77/100. Someone threw a rope net on top of him, and he was on the ground, unable to escape. Through the gaps in the net he saw Miriai lying in the dust. Za-Ilmaknun was trying to put out the fires with goatskins of water drawn from the well while fighting with his mequamia at the same time. The hyena was gone, as was Taomá.
Alexios struggled to free himself, but a sword jabbed his gut—just hard enough for him to feel the tip, though it drew no blood—and so he stopped and raised his hands. Someone pulled off the thick rope net; another person bound his hands behind his back; a third put a bag over his head. Then they shoved him away from the screams. They were walking in what he assumed was the direction of the caravanserai gateway, telling him to shut up and get moving or they would cut him.
“Your heart needs to be beating,” Barsúmes growled in his ear, “but they didn’t say anything about your arms or legs. We wouldn’t have to worry about you running away if we took your legs.”
“The children are still in the caravanserai,” Alexios said. “Please, before they burn to—”
“My men are already after them,” Barsúmes said.
“The door’s locked,” Alexios said. “The key’s in my clothes somewhere.”
Two muscular hands searched him before retrieving the key. Alexios’s head drooped. He was furious and ashamed. Only moments ago, he had thought he was so close to understanding how to defeat all his adversaries, but now it seemed like he still had so much to learn. His captors would bring him back to Trebizond across those frozen wastes as a prisoner, a thought that made him tense his entire body and clutch his fists with rage.
Barsúmes laughed, and his breath—reeking of wine—choked Alexios.
“There’s no getting out of this one,” Barsúmes said. “We’re going to have a nice little trip. That boy of yours will head straight to the mines. I hope he likes the feel of the lash. And the girl—you know where she’ll be going. She was already acting like such a little tart, making eyes at me. Very mature for her age.”
How could Alexios fight back? Only 5/100 farr remained swirling like a faint cloud of glowing light in his heart.
Maybe I can use it to tear my hands out of the rope, he thought. I’ll just have a moment to get the bag off my head before—
“I can feel the spirit within you.” Barsúmes sighed with bliss. “You’re an immortal like us. The whole world might have been yours, Alexios. But instead you’ve leagued yourself with criminals and traitors. Now you must embrace your own.”
“What the hell are you—?”
Barsúmes seized Alexios’s wrist with his bare hand.
“It’s time you took responsibility for what you’ve done,” Barsúmes said.
Alexios felt the last of his farr draining away through Barsúmes’s fingers. How was this possible? It made Alexios so tired he could barely take another step. He stumbled and almost collapsed.
What am I going to do? he thought. I can’t fight back…I must…
The last of his farr was gone, but Barsúmes was still gripping him, still consuming him, but now it was his life force that was vanishing. Barsúmes was getting drunk on Alexios’s marrow and blood. In a moment, he would be dead. Ten, twenty, thirty points of health drained away, according to the game voice, leaving him with only 47/100. Alexios coughed and struggled against the rope restraining him, but he could not resist no matter how hard he tried.
Barsúmes laughed. “Pathetic. This is how your movement ends. We’ll erase any mention of it from history. In a few years, no one will remember. It’ll be as though you never existed—as though you never fought for anything. You should have just worked with us.”
“No,” Alexios gasped, gritting his teeth, straining to fight any way he could. The whirlpool was swallowing him up, he was drowning, but he needed to struggle to the last—
Barsúmes screamed and fell to the ground. Alexios, despite his exhaustion, shook off the bag covering his head. Barsúmes was writhing in the dust while clutching the back of his knee, which was spurting blood through the gaps in his fingers. A small, dark figure was standing over him, and she was clutching a knife.
Kassia!
She leaned forward, pulled Barsúmes’s head back, and cut his throat. He gripped his neck, his yells turning to gurgles, and then he fell to the dirt, his body surrounded by an expanding pool of blood.
Alexios stared at her, uncomprehending, so dizzy he could barely stand. She was covered in blood, a young Medea.
“You never thought I could help you.” She sliced the rope that bound his wrists. “You were wrong.”
“Give me some energy,” Alexios rasped. “Barsúmes took mine. He almost killed me.”
“I don’t know how,” Kassia said.
“Just hold my hand,” Alexios said. “Force it into me.”
Kassia did as she was instructed, giving Alexios only enough farr to sustain himself. Yet this act of learning and teaching actually resulted in more energy for them both. Alexios used a little to restore his health to 60/100. 5/100 farr remained.
“Is Basil alright?” he said.
“He’s more than alright,” Kassia said. “Come on!”
They rushed back to the caravanserai. Something glowed green on the ground, scrawled with ancient symbols. It was Gedara, still lying where Alexios had dropped it. He stretched out his hand, and at the cost of one farr point the weapon leaped into his fingers just in time for him to attack the crowd surrounding Za-Ilmaknun. These men were pushing him toward the caravanserai well as if they wanted to shove him inside, but they were surprised by the assault from behind—not just by Alexios, but also by Kassia, who was shockingly fast, and who had no trouble stabbing at their legs and hamstringing them.
“Gong!” clanged a frying pan. “Bang!”
Alexios turned. It was Za-Ilmaknun’s convert, the young acrobatic Serindian woman whose demon he had exorcised earlier. She was bashing men’s faces with the frying pan.
Soon the enemy’s last wounded survivors dragged themselves through the gate and out into the darkness, leaving Alexios, Kassia, Za-Ilmaknun, Taomá, and the young Serindian woman to focus on putting out the fires consuming the caravanserai. Even though Basil and a few other surviving merchants joined them, the task seemed too daunting, as the flames rose into the night, scaling the sky like the aurora.
While they were working, Alexios noticed a nude woman crossing the courtyard. She walked with a confident regal step, her back straight, beautiful and black.
Isato!
Za-Ilmaknun also noticed her, and demanded to know where she had gone. She answered angrily in Axumite, and her words made Za-Ilmaknun swallow drily and then look away. She found her torn clothes piled near the gate. Although they were wet from the invisible torrent, she still put them on as best she could. During this entire time, she showed no shame in her nudity, even as everyone stared.
So she’s a were-hyena, Alexios thought. When she gets angry, she turns into a hyena. I can work with that.
Everyone tried to organize a bucket line, or to find more containers to draw water from the well, but the fire kept spreading, and the horses and donkeys and camels in the stable wailed in terror. Za-Ilmaknun handed his goatskin to the young Serindian woman, dashed over to Miriai—still lying on the ground where she had fallen—and sought to revive her. He drew a fresh batch of herbs from another pocket in his pack, stuffed them into his mouth, chewed rapidly, and then spat out the paste and smeared it under Miriai’s nostrils. Her eyes flashed open. Coughing, she wiped the paste away, shoved Za-Ilmaknun back, and climbed to her feet.
For a moment, the sight of the inferno devouring her home stunned her. But then she collected herself and brought back the heavenly river. As a million stars blazed in the sky, each as bright as the midday sun, the invisible tide surged from her arms, smothered the flames, and soaked the entire building and everyone in it. For a moment it seemed the caravanserai lay at the bottom of the ocean. It happened so fast, Alexios was unable to take a breath, and found himself swimming with his lungs burning for air. The donkeys, mules, and horses which had survived the battle—including Rakhsh—were lifted up, screaming and kicking.
Soon the unseen water drained into the thirsty desert. Everyone sank back to the ground, then climbed to their feet, dripping, their wet hair clinging to their skin, the blood and dirt washed away as the flood gushed from the open windows in translucent roaring waterfalls which made the air waver like heat waves.
“And Life be praised,” Miriai said.
Alexios stared at her, unable to believe his eyes. When she had finished, and the stars faded into the gloom, and the translucent flood ceased—leaving water dripping everywhere, as if a tsunami had struck the caravanserai—they saw that the fire had blackened much of the building. Piles of charred shredded merchandise lay everywhere. Burned corpses had washed up against the walls, with green vines stretching out of their flesh.
“Sorry about the mess,” Alexios told Miriai.
“You’re going to be more than sorry, dear,” she said. “You’re going to help me clean it up!”