“The Great Prince Shahin could march back to the capital, son of my first wife,” the King said. “But then the rabble of the desert that stands against him would advance in his wake and find easy prey amongst the cities of the northern plain. The Boar could ride down from the north, with his ten thousand Immortals, and crush this invader, but then the Romans in the north would ravage the highland provinces.” He laid his hand on his son’s cheek. Under the permanent smile of the mask, his own lips stretched grue-somely to form a matching expression.
“Is not Persia the greatest empire in the world?”
The Great King turned, his gaze lashing the nobles, who shrank back from him.
“Is not Persia the greatest Empire in the world,‘” His voice was a shout.
The nobles bowed, falling on their knees before him. Their voices echoed off of the glassy smooth marble floor.
“O King, Persia is the greatest empire in the world!”
Chrosoes nodded and chuckled. “Loyal subjects… raise a new army, the greatest army that the world has seen. Forty thousand Romans march from Tarsus-let four hundred thousand Persian warriors meet them! When these things are done, the enemy will lie in rows, rotting under a Persian sun. Gundarnasp… loyal guardsman…”
The commander of the palace guard rose from the floor, his broad face impassive. He was the most loyal of Chrosoes’ men, a devoted tool to be used at the whim of the King of Kings. He smiled in anticipation of his master’s wishes, the black bristles of his beard framing a mouth filled with teeth of gold. Scars lined his face, old memories of years spent in the fighting pits of the city. The fish-scale armor of the Immortal Guard clinked softly as he stood. A full helm, with only a narrow eyeslit breaking its smooth golden surface, was tucked under one arm.
“Command me, Great King.” His voice was a growl, ruined by years of shouting over the tumult of battle and the screams of the dying.
“Gather me this army,” the king said, pacing back through the assembled nobles. “See that all, even the lowest or the highest, give their due in men and weapons and gold. The harvest is done, the canal walls are strong, and the storehouses are filled with grain and olives. This victory shall be so great, even the least specimen of Persian manhood will stand on the field of victory and raise his spear in triumph!” He mounted the platform steps again.
“Any man who does not stand with us on that field will be base, stripped of honor. He shall be driven from his house and his wives taken from him. His lands will be given to those who have honor, those who shall stand with us against Rome. Let this word be known! Persia’s honor will not be tarnished by cowardice.”
Siroes sat down heavily on the couch and gestured weakly for another goblet of wine. A servant, head bowed low, crept up to him, the cup trembling in his hands. The
King of Kings remained on the platform, staring up at the great disk of the world, his back turned to the nobles. They stood quietly for a time, then slowly realized that the Great King was done with them. Gundarnasp moved among them, smiling like a shark in a school of minnows. Many of the nobles crept out, hoping to go unnoticed by the guardsman. In time, all of them were gone, even Gundarnasp, and Siroes was alone with his father.
The torches had burned out, and even the four great braziers that surrounded the platform and lighted the disk of the world were ebbing when Siroes woke suddenly. His father had ignored him, and the Prince had drifted into a nervous sleep filled with strange dreams. Now he came fully awake, his hands and feet touched by an unexpected chill. Cautiously he rolled over.
His father still stood on the platform, his hands clasped behind his back, but he no longer studied the disk. Instead, he looked out into the darkness of the garden. Siroes peered that way too, into the gloom. Though the moon should have risen over the ornamental pools and cast a silvery light upon the fruit trees and acres of flowers, the space beyond the arches was black as pitch. The braziers suddenly flared, casting his father’s shadow huge and swollen across the face of the world, and then died. Only a single flame burned in the brazier farthest from the arches. A chittering came from outside, and the light sound of boots on marble tile. Siroes lay utterly still, for a cold draft now blew over him and rustled the curtains behind him.
“Lord Dahak.” Chrosoes voice rumbled low, seeming distant and faint.
“My King” came the answering whisper, and a figure resolved itself out of the darkness that pooled between the fluted columns of the garden. A tall thin man glided forward, his pale skin glowing in the faint light. A loose robe of dark silk fell around his thin shoulders, revealing a white hairless chest mottled with a tracery of shining skin, puck ered and twisted over terrible wounds. His face was sharp, though it too was horribly marked by a spiderweb of scar tissue and glassy flesh. Chrosoes hissed in alarm at the sight, a strange whistling sound from beneath his mask.
“Oh, yes, my King. I emulate you too well now. My visit to the city of the Eastern Romans had an abrupt and rather unfortunate end.” The thin lips curled in a sardonic smile, revealing fine white teeth. A long thin finger traced the scars along the dark man’s neck and chest. “Some presents are best left unopened.”
“What happened… are you unimpaired otherwise?”
Chrosoes’ voice held an edge, the sound of a man that is faced with an unexpected flaw in a well-used tool. Unbidden the Great King’s hand rose to his own face.
The lord Dahak bowed, his long hair falling over his shoulder like a wave of ink. “My power is, as ever, yours to command. Fear not, dear King, I will suffice for your efforts. I can still pay my debts.”
“Good.” The King’s voice ground like a stone. “Your debt to me is heavy and still not paid in full.”
“Do 1 not know this, O King? You reproach me with your smile, but my sin is my own. Command me and I will move the earth to please you.”
Chrosoes grunted and toyed with the frozen golden curls of his mask. The dark man stood before him, quiescent, though to Siroe’s eye, he seemed only an instant from frightful motion.
“Your swiftness is necessary now,” Chrosoes said. “The Romans come at us from three directions and I have but one Boar to toss them on his tusks.” He paused, seeing a flicker of motion on the face of the sorcerer. “What?”
The Lord Dahak had climbed the steps to the platform, and now he too gazed up at the disk of the world. From where he crouched, the sight of this terrible thing and his father, standing side by side, struck Siroes with foreboding. Though the King of Kings was taller and broader than the slight night visitor, there was a sense of familiarity between them that bade ill.
“My King, there are but two armies that face you. I took some small time, while I made my slow way back from Constantinople, to look upon the doings of your enemies. The movement of the Roman fleet to Trabzon on the Sea of Darkness is but a feint. The whole of the enemies’ strength is thrown from Tarsus…”
The tiny depiction of a town on the plain of Cilicia, at the join of the Levantine and Asian coast, burst into a green flame.
“… east, to Tauris, in the passes of Albania.” The green flame licked right, eastward, across the northern fringe of the plain of the Tigris and the Euphrates, through high mountains and north, curling, into a broad valley dominated by a lake of blue and white.
“He strikes against Tauris and the Boar is already there. Baraz will have great joy of that meeting…”
Chrosoes stared up at the disk of the world, now lit by the line of flickering green flame.
“The Roman does not seek battle,” the King of Kings growled, “he seeks to break into the highlands of Media and destroy the lands that have always been the backbone of the Empire. Wretched Roman! He fights us like a tax collector. A base man, an honorless man…”