“All glory to the true gods!”
“Death to the unbelievers!”
The roar was deafening. “DEATH TO THE UNBELIEVERS!”
The thousand would stay to watch the feeding, for they were chosen by lot from the ever-growing number encamped in the surrounding mountains, and many had never seen it before. Basrakan had more important matters to tend to. The drake would return to its caverns of its own accord when the bodies were consumed. The Imalla started up a path, well worn now in the brown stone by many journeys, that led from the amphitheater around the mountainside.
A man almost as tall as Basrakan and even leaner, his face burning with ascetic fanaticism above a plaited beard, met him and bowed deeply. “The blessings of the true gods be on you, Basrakan Imalla,” the newcomer said. His turban of scarlet, green and gold marked him as Basrakan’s acolyte, though his robe was of plain black. “The man Akkadan has come. I have had him taken to your dwelling.”
No glimmer of Basrakan’s excitement touched his stern face. The Eyes of Fire! He inclined his head slightly. “The blessings of the true gods be on you, Jbeil Imalla. I will see him now.”
Jbeil bowed again; Basrakan went on, seemingly unhurried, but without even the inclination of his head this time.
The path led around the slope of the mountain to the village of stone houses, a score in number, that had grown up where once stood the hut in which Basrakan had lived. His followers had spoken of building a fortress for him, but he had no need of such. In time, though, he had allowed the construction of a dwelling for himself, of two stories and larger than all the rest of the village placed together. It was not a matter of pride, he often reminded himself, for he denied all pride save that of the old gods. The structure was for their glory.
Turbanned and bearded men in stained leather vests and voluminous trousers, the original color of which was a mystery lost in age and dirt, bowed as he passed, as did women covered from head to foot in black cloth, with only a slit for their eyes. He ignored them, as he did the two guards before his door, for he was openly hurrying now.
Within, another acolyte in multi-hued turban bent himself and gestured with a bony hand. “The blessings of the true gods be on you, Basrakan Imalla. The man Akkadan—”
“Yes, Ruhallah.” Basrakan wasted not even moments on honorifics. “Leave me!” Without waiting to be obeyed, the tall Imalla swept through the door Ruhallah had indicated, into a room sparsely furnished with black-lacquered tables and stools. A hanging on one wall was a woven map of the nations from the Vilayet Sea west to Nemedia and Ophir.
Basrakan’s face darkened at the sight of the man who waited there. Turban and forked beard proclaimed him hillman, but his fingers bore jeweled rings, his cloak was of purple silk and there was a plumpness about him that bespoke feasting and wine.
“You have spent too much time among the men of the cities, Akkadan,” Basrakan said grimly. “No doubt you have partaken of their vices! Consorted with their women!”
The plump man’s face paled beneath its swarthiness, and he quickly hid his beringed hands behind him as he bowed. “No, Basrakan Imalla, I have not. I swear!” His words tumbled over each other in his haste. Sweat gleamed on his forehead. “I am a true—”
“Enough!” Basrakan spat. “You had best have what I sent you for, Akkadan. I commanded you not to return without the information.”
“I have it, Basrakan Imalla. I have found them. And I have made plans of the palace and maps—”
Basrakan’s shout cut him short. “Truly I am favored above all other men by the true gods!”
Turning his back on Akkadan, he strode to the wall hanging, clenched fists raised in triumph toward the nations represented there. Soon the Eyes of Fire would be his, and the drake would be bound to him as if part of his flesh and will. And with the sign of the true gods’ favor flying before his followers, no army of mortal men would long stand against them.
“All glory to the true gods,” Basrakan whispered fiercely. “Death to all unbelievers!”
Chapter 1
Night caressed Shadizar, that city known as ‘the Wicked,’ and veiled the happenings which justified that name a thousand times over. The darkness that brought respite to other cities drew out the worst in Shadizar of the Alabaster Towers, Shadizar of the Golden Domes, city of venality and debauchery.
In a score of marble chambers silk-clad nobles coerced wives not theirs to their beds, and manychinned merchants licked fat lips over the abductions of competitors’ nubile daughters. Perfumed wives, fanned by slaves wielding snowy ostrich plumes, plotted the cuckolding of husbands, sometimes their own, while hot-eyed young women of wealth or noble birth or both schemed at circumventing the guards placed on their supposed chastity. Nine women and thirty-one men, one a beggar and one a lord, died by murder. The gold of ten wealthy men was taken from iron vaults by thieves, and fifty others increased their wealth at the expense of the poor. In three brothels perversions never before contemplated by humankind were created. Doxies beyond numbering plied their ancient trade from the shadows, and twisted, ragged beggars preyed on the trulls’ winesoaked patrons. No man walked the streets unarmed, but even in the best quarters of the city arms were often not enough to save one’s silver from cutpurses and footpads. Night in Shadizar was in full cry.
Wisps of cloud, stirr
ed by a warm breeze, dappled the moon sitting high in the sky. Vagrant shadows fled over the rooftops, yet they were enough for the massively muscled young man, swordbelt slung across his broad chest so that the worn hilt of his broadsword projected above his right shoulder, who raced with them from chimney to chimney. With a skill born in the savage wastes of his native Cimmerian mountains he blended with the drifting shades, and was invisible to the eyes of the city-born.
The roof the muscular youth traveled came to an end, and he peered down into the blackness hiding the paving stones of the street, four stories below. His eyes were frozen sapphires, and his face, a squarecut lion’s mane of black held back from it by a leather cord, showed several ordinary lifetimes’ experience despite its youth. He eyed the next building, an alabaster cube with a freize of scrollwork running all the way around it an arm’s length below the roof. From deep in his throat came a soft growl. A good six paces wide, the street was, although it was the narrowest of the four that surrounded the nearly palatial structure. What he had not noticed when he chose this approach—eying the distances from the ground—was that the far roof was sloped. Steeply! Erlik take Baratses, he thought. And his gold!
This was no theft of his own choosing, but rather was at the behest of the merchant Baratses, a purveyor of spices from the most distant realms of the world. Ten pieces of gold the spice dealer had offered for the most prized possession of Samarides, a wealthy importer of gems: a goblet carved from a single huge emerald. Ten pieces of gold was the hundredth part of the goblet’s worth, one tenth of what the fences in the Desert would pay, but a run of bad luck with the dice had put the Cimmerian in urgent need of coin. He had agreed to theft and price, and taken two gold pieces in advance, before he even knew what was to be stolen. Still, a bargain sworn to must be kept. At least, he thought grimly, there was no guard atop the other building, as there were on so many other merchants’ roofs.
“Crom!” he muttered with a last look at Samarides’ roof, and moved back from the edge, well back into the shadows among the chimneys. Breathing deeply to charge his lungs, he crouched. His eyes strained toward the distant rooftop. Suddenly, like a hunting leopard, he sprang forward; in two strides he was sprinting at full speed. His lead foot touched the edge of the roof, and he leaped, hurling himself into the air with arms outstretched, fingers curled to grab.
With a crash he landed at full length on the sloping roof. And immediately began to slide. Desperately he spread his arms and legs to slow himself; his eyes searched for a projection to grasp, for the smallest nub that might stop his fall. Inexorably he moved toward the drop to the pavement.
No wonder there was no watchman on the roof, he thought, furious at himself for not questioning that lack earlier. The rooftiles were glazed to a surface like oiled porcelain. In the space of a breath his feet were over the edge, then his legs. Abruptly his left hand slid into a gap where a tile was missing. Tiles shattered as his weight smashed his vainly gripping hand through them; fragments showered past him into the gloom beneath. Wood slapped his palm; convulsively he clutched. With a jerk that wrenched at the heavy muscles of his shoulder he was brought up short to swing over the shadowed four-story drop.
For the first time since his leap he made a sound, a long, slow exhalation between his teeth. “Ten gold pieces,” he said in a flat voice, “are not enough.”