At the sight of the Persian’s energy, Gaius Julius had laughed. “Once a grave robber, always a grave robber!”

Maxian barely looked up from the pages of the ancient scroll he was poring over when she came in. His face was paler, as he spent nearly all of his time inside or in the black pits across the street. His features were more sharply defined, his bones rubbing against the skin. She placed a cup of the infusion next to him but away from his elbows, for he had developed a tendency to bump into things without looking. She settled into the couch by the window and peered out into the gray day. The other buildings, even the great bulk of the palace to the southeast, could barely be made out. The city was wrapped in fog nearly all of the time. The fires of the Avars besieging it did not better the air; even on a clear day there was a haze cutting the sun.

“Lord Prince, you should drink something hot. There is a chill in the air.”

Maxian blinked and looked up. It took a moment to focus on her, but when he did, he smiled and leaned back in the high-backed chair. “Oh! Thank you. Is there any… oh, and cheese!”

Now that he had realized that he was hungry, he fell to with a will, eating all of the bread, cheese, and olives in oil. When he was done, he looked around again and sighed. He sipped at the infusion. It was tart to the tongue and stringent to the nose. He felt his head clear and only then realized that he had been working in a muddled daze.

Krista had come to stand by him and was turning the pages of the scroll. “Is this important?” Her voice was dubious.

Maxian looked over and laughed. “No, most likely not. It is an account of a Chaldean architect named Varus Tris-gesene. He was fond of mechanisms and clocks. These di agrams are those projects he hoped to build when he had j the time, no more than notes, really.“

Krista turned one of the pages upside down, then right- j side up again. “He wanted to build a bat?”

Maxian peered at the page; parts of it were smeared [where water had spoiled it.

“I think,” the Prince said, turning the page sideways, ‘ “that he was dissecting bats to see what they looked like inside.”

Krista scowled at that and returned to the couch. “Have you found what you were looking for?” Her voice was even, but Maxian knew that this life of hiding was wearing on her. There was little for her to do. He paused, thinking. She is a spy, he thought, but who do I have to spy on? He suddenly felt as if he were on the verge of making a dreadful mistake.

“Ah,” he said, putting the thought aside, “no. We came here to seek passage into the East; to try to find the hiding place of the Conqueror’s bones. I had hoped to find some clue to the workings of this Sarcophagus before we departed. This Dracul, who owned the ruined house, was an avid collector of old books and artifacts. Abdmachus hoped that he would be able to help us discover if the workmen who built the casket left any record.”

“Was this Trisgesene one of the workmen?” Maxian flushed. “No. I just came across his Meditations while looking through all of these books and began reading it. A waste of time…”

Krista frowned and stood up. The whole side of the study was lined with boxes filled with books, scrolls, and parchments recovered from the tunnels. Fire or water damaged many; others were in languages that no one recognized anymore. She put her hands on her hips and turned to look at him. “You’ll have to read through all of these books before we leave?”

Maxian nodded, his mouth turned up at one end in a wry grin. “At least enough to see if they are pertinent to our search.”

“Are they in Greek or Latin?”

Maxian was nonplussed. “Why?” he asked.

Krista pulled a box off of the top of the center stack and carried it to the couch. She took the first book out of it.

“ ‘Seven against Thebes,’ ” she read out loud, “by a Greek, Euripedes.” She glanced up at the Prince, who was staring at her in amazement. “Get that silly look off your face. Of course I can read-both Greek and Latin. I’d be no good to my mistress if I could not read and write.”

She tossed the play on the floor and took the next book out of the box. Maxian slowly folded up the Meditations and put it back in its scroll case. He didn’t need a spy; he needed to think clearly again.

“ ‘The Second Book of Atlantis’,” she continued, “ ‘or A Cautionary Tale for the Credulous, by Plato. Not, I believe, a goldsmith, carpenter, or embalmer.”

Krista sighed and tossed another scroll into a big wicker basket that she had purchased in the market of the Bull. She dragged a heavy copper tube out of the next crate, wiping a thick slurry of ashy mud off the mottled green surface. The scroll was heavy and she shuddered when the weight sloshed from one end to the other as she hefted it. Rain had fallen heavily in the days since the fire, and many of the pits and cavities under the ruined house were deep with black water. She deposited the tube into the basket with a sickly look on her face. When she turned back to the window couch, she paused.

Abdmachus and eight of his workers were hurrying across the street with a large wooden crate on their shoulders. She could hear his voice echoing up from the street below. The workers passed out of her sight.

“Lord Prince,” she said, turning to Maxian, who was in his accustomed seat, laboring to translate a long text inscribed in blocks of tiny hash marks. “The Persian has found something. They are bringing it into the house.“

Maxian paused and rubbed his eyes. He focused enough to reach out and touch the Persian through the mark he had placed upon the Easterner. The little man was afire with excitement, even giddy. Maxian stood up and broke the linkage. It was disconcerting to feel the emotions of another flooding into his own thought.

The downstairs kitchen had a stout oaken table with massive legs. The workmen, grimy with the black ashy soot of the tunnels and pits of the ruined house, groaned with effort as they hoisted the heavy crate up onto the table and let it fall with a massive thump.

“Master! I think we’ve found something very interesting!”

Abdmachus was almost fawning, pulling at Maxian’s sleeve to hurry him to the side of the table. The Prince frowned down at the little Easterner. Since he had put the mark on him, the personality of the Persian had begun to subtly shift. His aloof manner had completely disappeared, to be replaced with an almost unctuous servitude. He worked endlessly to execute the wishes of his “master,” but Maxian found that he now spent more time guiding the little man than he had before. He wondered if he could revoke the mark, but found to his distress that he did not know how.

The crate was almost seven feet long, made of clapboard and pegs. Maxian recognized it as the detritus of some deliveries that had been made the week before. A lid had been tied to it with hemp ropes.

Abdmachus pulled a chair over and stood on it to begin untying them. “Master, if I am not mistaken, our efforts have borne glorious fruit! The man who owned the ruined house, the Bygar Dracul, was a man of many secrets-not least of which is friendship for Persia!-but among the treasures that he was said to have gathered to him is a most amazing construction.” Abdmachus grunted with effort, but pushed the top off the crate. Looking inside, under the light of the lanterns hung from the heavy wooden beams of the ceiling, he hissed with delight.

“Oh, yes! Look, master, upon a masterpiece of the art!”

Maxian leaned over the table and peered into the crate. Within, still half encased in a matrix of sand, ash, and charcoaled wood, was the body of a man, or something that looked like a man. The Prince touched the side of the corpse’s neck and was surprised to find the skin still flexible and even soft. Then his fingers touched a ridged line along the thing’s neck and he whistled in surprise himself.