Anna led Alexios and Rakhsh between the mountains to Trebizond. It was an exhausting journey through the snow, one which took many hours. On the way into the city they passed the tombs just outside the Satala Gate. Although Alexios directed Anna’s attention to her own tomb—a plain stone affair for the time being—she kept walking without showing interest. The grave made Alexios think of the legend of Suram Fortress in Alania, or the Bridge of Artas in Epiros—structures which could not be completed unless a worker was entombed inside.
Trebizond’s workers were still digging out from the blizzard that had only let up a few hours earlier. Even the soldiers were involved; they were all so busy that no one noticed Alexios return from his patrol. Instead, they stared at Anna, an ice demon or an ice ghost—whatever she was.
The Satala Gate had been cleared and opened, allowing her to walk inside the city and make her way to the main intersection of the Upper Town, where the People’s Hospital was located. Just across the street was old Gabras’s mansion, which now functioned as an orphanage, primary school, and daycare, with Gabras himself living in one of its rooms. Formerly he had been a cruel, cranky landlord, and one of the richest in the city, members of his family having served as doukes many times over the centuries; now the uprising had transformed him into a happy gardener. Just yesterday before going out on patrol Alexios had dropped off Anna’s children—Basil and Kassia—in this building.
Anna’s ice ghost walked there. The crowd of snow shovelers gathering behind her was so loud that Alexios barely noticed the sound of a rider in the distance galloping away from the citadel and through the Satala Gate. He wondered if this was someone going out to look for him, but some people in the crowd asked Alexios who Anna was and what she was doing, and this distracted him. He attempted to answer, but had little idea himself, and was almost too cold and tired to speak. Members of the crowd crossed themselves.
A path through the snow in the mansion courtyard had been cleared. Anna walked inside and moved toward the triklinion—the old dining room—where the doors were closed, and where smoke was rushing up from the newly installed brick chimney, a recent innovation of the uprising.
“What’s all the racket?” old Gabras said. He had emerged from his room and was standing on the balcony overlooking the courtyard. Many of the people down below looked up at him and shrugged in response.
As Alexios hauled open the triklinion doors for Anna, heat rushed out, and fiery light flashed on his face and glittered in Anna’s icy skin. It was such a relief for him to feel warm, and he was so tired he almost wanted to throw himself onto the cozy carpets and couches and sleep like an old cat, right then and there. At the same time, he noticed a few drops of water falling from Anna into the snow.
Inside the old triklinion a dozen children were sitting on rugs before a blazing fireplace. Some played with wooden dolls or shatranj boards while others practiced writing their alpha-beta-gamma’s with wax tablets. Diaresso—the exiled nobleman from Tomboutou—was reading from the Philogelos, or Laughter Lover, an old collection of jokes and humorous stories which was also one of the first books produced by the city’s new printing press and papermakers, using advanced techniques imported from Sera. At the moment Diaresso was telling a peculiar joke about a dog entering a bar where he couldn’t see anything. No one in Trebizond understood this joke, which seemed to have originated in foreign lands; some context might have been lost in translation.
“And thus,” Diaresso murmured, his weary tone suggesting that he suspected the joke would vex the children, “the dog says: ‘I’ll open this one.’”
His entire audience exploded with laughter. The other children in the triklinion stopped playing and looked at their classmates, then demanded to know what was so funny.
The laughter stopped, however, when the triklinion doors opened and frigid wind gusted inside, revealing Anna’s ice ghost. Alexios, Rakhsh, and the crowd of snow shovelers had gathered behind her in the courtyard. When the children in the classroom spotted her, they screamed and huddled by Diaresso, who stood from the warm carpets on the floor, tall and strong, his muscles tensed. Normally Diaresso was armed with a crossbow and a golden scimitar, but in a classroom among children he had brought only his fists.
“Eh? What is the meaning of this?” Diaresso said to Anna’s ice ghost. “Who—what are you?”
“It’s alright,” Alexios said. He was just outside the doors. “At least I hope it is.”
“Is that supposed to reassure us, boy?” Diaresso asked.
Anna’s ice ghost stepped inside the triklinion and approached the children. The room’s intense heat made water run down her icy skin and drip from her body. Some children fled into other rooms, while others stared at her, whimpering with fear as they hid behind Diaresso. Anna’s children, Basil and Kassia, were among this latter group.
“Mom?” Kassia said. “Is that you?”
Anna opened her arms and smiled warmly, even as her red eyes glowed. Her two children watched her, hesitating.
“Forgive me,” she said. Her voice came from a gust of frigid wind that swept into the triklinion and nearly put out the fire in the fireplace; her mouth stayed closed when she spoke.
“Forgive me for looking like this,” she added.
So that’s how she talks, Alexios thought.
“How do we know it’s you?” Basil said, his tone angry. “The priests used to tell us that all ghosts are demons…”
A gale of wind hurled itself into the triklinion again, and many children screamed as it knocked over their wax tablets and shatranj boards.
“I’m your mother,” Anna said. “You don’t believe me?”
“Our mother died,” Basil said. “She left us. She got killed in the siege.”
“What was her name?” Kassia said.
“Anna,” the ice ghost said as an icy breeze coursed around the room. “Your father Germanos and I came from Konstantinopolis. We were slaves on a plantation in the Hebdomon suburbs belonging to Nikephoros the Usurper, before he was emperor. That was where you grew up. There was no school for you—only work.”
“We were farming all day,” Kassia said. “I remember.”
“When the usurper killed Good Emperor Anastasios,” the ice ghost continued, “we fled the city. We went east to Trebizond because people said it was safe. On the way a gang of soldiers attacked us. They knew we were escaped slaves. Your father stayed back, sacrificing himself so we could escape.”
Diaresso looked at Basil and Kassia. “Does anyone else know this?”
Kassia shook her head. “No.”
“I’m sorry about what happened to me,” Anna said. “I never meant to leave you. I wanted to stay with you and see you grow up and have families of your own. I love you both so much.”
She widened her arms again, and this time Kassia stepped forward and hugged her, while Basil kept back. Soon Kassia and Anna were crying together.
“We thought you were dead,” Kassia said. “Why are you so cold? Your skin is like ice!”
Anna hugged her closer and patted her back. “I was always cold. I was always like this.”
Water was pouring off her body now, and she was shrinking and becoming disfigured as the cold wind slackened and the fireplace shone brighter. She looked to Basil.
“Come,” she said. “I have only a little time.”
He stepped forward reluctantly, but allowed the ice demon to embrace him. Soon they were all crying. Anna held herself together long enough to kiss her children’s foreheads.
“I only came here to say goodbye,” Anna whispered.
“What do you mean?” Basil looked up at her.
“You’re here to stay,” Kassia said. “You can stay with us here, there’s plenty of room…”
“I’m sorry,” Anna said. “I did my best, but it wasn’t good enough. Goodbye my Kassia, goodbye my Basil. Remember that I’ll always be with you.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Mom?” Kassia said. “What are you doing?”
“I mustn’t make a mess.” Anna smiled at them.
She lost her balance—since her legs were melting—and staggered toward the fireplace. Her children tried to stop her, but her icy body—what remained of it—was too slippery to grasp. Then she fell into the flames and turned to hissing steam that rushed up to the ceiling and roared out through the open door and into the sky.
Basil and Kassia screamed and cried, but Alexios had made it inside the triklinion by then and was hugging them with Diaresso. Both adults almost needed to keep the children from following their mother into the fire. Soon the other children joined in doing their best to soothe them.
“It’s alright,” an orange-haired boy named Joseph ben Solomon said to them. “It’s going to be alright.”
“Allahu akbar,” Diaresso whispered to Alexios. “This is a right strange matter! I should almost become a murtad, seeing such things!”
“That was their mother,” Alexios whispered back, checking to make sure that the children couldn’t hear. “At least I think it was. She was one of the heroes who died in the siege. Don’t you remember Anna?”
“Her appearance was somewhat different the last time I beheld her,” Diaresso said. “A ghûl must have summoned her soul, but from where I shall not say in their company.” He nodded to Kassia and Basil. “They are kind, eager students, and it is not right to make of their emotions a plaything in this manner!”
“I’m not sure what happened,” Alexios said. “I had a strange dream after I found her last night. Dionysios came back and told me I need to go south and find his teacher so I can defeat the emperor and get out of here.”
“To return to the land of djinn from whence you came,” Diaresso said. “To Djebel Qaf, the mount that rises at the end of the world.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
Some members of the crowd gathered in the courtyard were now poking their heads through the open doors.
“Narses stole Anna’s soul in the siege,” Alexios continued. “At least I thought he did. Now I’m not so sure. That’s the guy Gontran shot when you two rode down from the mountains and saved our asses.”
“Such a glorious triumph I could never forget,” Diaresso said. “And likewise, a more unpleasant-looking wight I had never beheld in all my days upon this Earth. In figure, proportion, and bearing, he was noble and beautiful; yet in word and deed, as ugly as can be. We never learned his fate. He must have slunk off to the mountains like unto an ifrit or a marid.”
“Maybe Anna’s soul escaped from Narses’s body or something.” Alexios waved his hand. “Maybe through the hole Gontran’s weapon punched in his skin.”
Basil and Kassia cried louder, and Diaresso hugged them closer.
“It is painful to wreak such havoc upon these children,” he said to Alexios. “Nor do I appreciate this interruption to their studies. Their mother perished nobly and honorably in battle to save their lives—not unlike Aminah, the mother of the Prophet, may peace be upon the twain! For she sickened and died when he was very young. None among the people of Tarabizun shall ever forget the warrior mother Anna. The children themselves had begun to move on, as they must, for there is no need to dwell on such misery, and our world is one of sorrow and loss.”
“I promised Anna I would take care of her children,” Alexios said. “I’ve just been so busy lately, I’ve had to leave them here with their teachers so many times…”
“We are all of us under a great deal of pressure indeed,” Diaresso said. “We all do the most that can be done, busy as we are making of Tarabizun an impregnable fortress. That is how you care for the children—by making their home safe that they might thrive free from the terror of the Empire of Rûm, the Sultanate of Iconium, or harsher enemies of which we cannot even conceive.”
“That’s what I tell myself,” Alexios said. “Anna must have been out there all this time, trapped on the Satala Road somehow. Then when I passed on my patrol, I guess I released her. I don’t know. I’ve been there so many times since the siege, and nothing like this has ever happened…”
“Saw you nothing different on this patrol?” Diaresso said. “Besides this djinni, shaytan, ghûl, or whatever she was?”
“Now that you mention it, there was someone else out there. A couple of riders. They rode off as soon as they saw me.”
“Did you report this to the council?”
“I haven’t had time,” Alexios said. “We just got back to the city a few minutes ago. We got snowed in.”
“You must inform the council with all haste,” Diaresso said. “Gontran came here looking for you only a moment ago. He was worried in the extreme.”
“Gontran,” Alexios said, his tone growing more concerned. He knelt before Basil and Kassia and hugged them again. “Are you two going to be alright?”
“Where did mom go?” Basil said. “Why did she come here?”
“I think it’s just like she told you,” Alexios said. “She just wanted to say goodbye.”
“But why?” Kassia said.
“I wish I could tell you,” Alexios said. “I don’t know.”
They cried into his chest. Alexios had already been through this with them before—life never being easy for orphans—and did his best to calm them.
“Your mother is a hero,” he said. “We’ll always honor her. We can keep her alive, in a way, by remembering her and talking about her. When things have calmed down, I think people will even make paintings or statues for her and the others who gave their lives in the siege.”
“I’d trade it all if she could just come back,” Basil said.
“Me too,” Kassia said.
By then the other children had returned to the triklinion and were asking their classmates what was going on. The snow shovelers in the courtyard, after watching Kassia and Basil cry, had shaken their heads, said a prayer or two, and gone back to work, leaving only Rakhsh beside that wooden pillar with old Gabras, who had descended in his night clothes (which he rarely removed) to see what all the fuss was about.
“An ka taa! Let’s go!” Diaresso said to Alexios. “You must depart at once! For Tarabizun, it could be a matter of life and death. I shall care for the children.”
Alexios asked Basil and Kassia if they were going to be alright. Wiping the tears from their eyes, they nodded. He hugged them once more, but felt awkward and distant. He was only an Initiate Parent (1/10), and had a hard time taking care of kids.
Even Diaresso seems to know them better than I do, Alexios thought. They’re almost like strangers to me. I never wanted to take care of children. I was in high school before I came here. I just agreed to do this for Anna…
Soon Alexios had left the triklinion. Rakhsh joined him as they walked through the courtyard and the city streets to the citadel stables, where he returned the horse to old Leon the stableboy, whom they both disliked.
“Where have you been all this time?” Leon brought Rakhsh to his stall. “You’ve caused more trouble than I could say! That Latin merchant, what’s his name, he was just in here looking for you. I had to give up one of my best horses because of him!”
“Gontran,” Alexios said. “Did he leave the city?”
“Not half an hour ago. If you hurry, you might still be able to catch him. But first you need to do something—what’s it called—”
Alexios had already departed the stables. He ran through the snow, climbed the stairs to the city wall—into which the citadel had been built—and looked to the Satala Road. Not a single figure interrupted the white snowscape. Gontran must have already disappeared into the Pontic Mountains.
Alexios returned to Leon and asked for a fresh horse, but Leon was adamant—as usual—that the strategos’s permission was needed.
“Horses can be killed or lamed in this kind of weather,” Leon said. “And you know right full well we only have so many horses we can spare. Those orders come straight from the what do you call it—the council. I don’t make the rules.”
“So the horses are worth more to you than Gontran’s life,” Alexios said.
“I can’t comment on that. My job’s taking care of horses.”
“You’d keep them in the stables all the time if you could.”
“I suppose so. It keeps ‘em safe, don’t it?”
Alexios clenched his teeth, left the stables, and rushed toward the citadel. Leon was a holdover from Doux Bagrationi’s reign. The workers only kept him in the stables because no one else knew how to care for horses so well. But he could be such a pain, and he had never expressed support for the uprising. Sometimes Alexios wondered if the man was sabotaging them.
At the great hall in the palace, where workers were designing machines, people greeted Alexios, welcomed him back, and said they’d been worried about him. He thanked them, but quickly asked after Herakleia.
“She sleeps,” said Qutalmish the Seljuk warrior, crossing his arms. “It may be best to keep her that way.”
“This is urgent,” Alexios said. “It’s about Gontran.”
“He will be—”
“No, he won’t be fine,” Alexios said. “Why does everyone keep assuming that? I was out there for too long and he came looking for me. Now it’s my turn to help him. He could be searching for days if I don’t let him know I’m alright. It’s freezing out there, and I might have spotted some Roman scouts.”
Gasps arose from the people listening in the great hall.
Qutalmish uncrossed his arms. “You tell us this now?”
“I came as soon as I could,” Alexios said. “And I’m not sure they were Roman scouts. But they didn’t want to be seen, and whoever they were, they might still be out there.”
“First we must tell council,” Qutalmish said.
“But we also need to tell Gontran,” Alexios said. “He has no idea how much danger he might be in. What if there’s an entire army marching on us right now?”
“The Frangistani is strong,” Qutalmish said. “First we must tell council.”
“No,” Alexios said. “I can’t. I have to help Gontran—”
A profound wave of fatigue suddenly swept over him, one which had been building for the entire day. He would have collapsed if Qutalmish hadn’t caught him.
“You need rest,” Qutalmish said. “I tell council. Don’t worry. There is no problem!”
Alexios felt so delirious he could hardly speak. Where had this exhaustion come from? All the pressure of the uprising seemed to be bearing down on him. The entire city weighed on his shoulders—and now there was the threat of a new invasion coming to destroy them, including the children he had sworn to protect. It was a lot for anyone to deal with, but Gontran made it all too much. What if he died out there?
“You sleep in palace,” Qutalmish said. “I bring you to your room.”
“Send someone to bring back Gontran,” Alexios said.
“I try. But you know Leon. He love horses more than people. He is horse lover!” Qutalmish laughed. “It will be most hard. And the Frangistani…he is strong. He should not fear others. Others should fear him. I bring you to room, then tell council. Don’t you worry, young Rumi, there is no problem.”