Fighting off vertigo and a pounding headache, Shirin crawled up the rope and hooked an arm over the railing. She had no time to kick off her boots, so she would have to do that in the water. With a great effort, she managed to get both arms over the railing. The ship was settling faster now, sliding down into the oily black water. Swinging a leg, she managed to get her foot over the side.

Able to see the surface of the water once more, she cast about for the shore, trying to get her bearings. She was facing the wrong way, looking out to sea. There was something odd about the water and she paused for a split second.

The waves were gone. The sea seemed oddly flat, like the surface of a still pool. Then it tilted up and Shirin shook her head in puzzlement. That made no sense, the ship should be tilting, not the water. Something appeared up at the mouth of the bay, a white line in the darkness. Then the ship shuddered again, its keel grounding on the seabed. Water rushed past and Shirin felt the Cos topple over. The sea was running out, and strongly too, like a racehorse on the home stretch. She clung grimly to the rail as the ship slewed sideways and ground to a halt in suddenly shallow water.

Only a mile away, a wall of black water sixty feet high rushed toward the shore.

Shirin looked up. There was a sound, a sound like a thousand elephants stampeding on a plaza of stone. The wall loomed over the ship, curling up and up and up, its surface slick and shiny, the rumble of its passage filling the world. The Cos spun in the eddy before the tidal wave.

She threw up a hand, heedless of the uselessness of the gesture. There was no blur of life images before her eyes, only a deep and abiding anger at being delayed from seeing her children.

The Valley of Sion

Dwyrin started awake, his bare skin flushed and slick with sweat. Fragmentary images of a man flying amid a sea of burning clouds faded. The air in the tent was cold. Once night stole over the hills of this barren land, it grew chill very quickly. Given his dubious rank as the senior thaumaturge of Nicholas' detachment, the Hibernian had quarters in the principa all to himself. Normally, four men would bunk down in a room this size. Now he was alone. The night was quiet and the deep rumbling sound that he thought he had heard was nowhere in evidence.

He sighed, wiping sweat from his forehead and tucking his long braids behind his ear. Since returning to the desert, the evil dreams that had haunted him on the road from Antioch had passed. He hoped that they were not beginning to recur. Dwyrin sat up and pushed the blankets aside. He felt better in the cold night air. His skin was flushed and hot. Perhaps I should forgo these blankets: He froze, suddenly aware that someone was sitting in the room with him.

There was only a dark shape, but against the dim light of the lanterns hung along the via principa outside the building, he could see the silhouette of a man. There was one wooden folding chair and a little collapsible desk that one of the engineers had loaned him. The man's presence, once noticed, was unmistakable. It filled the chamber like a stormcloud.

"Who are you?" Dwyrin was absurdly pleased- his voice was level and calm.

There is the fire that man makes, and this can be turned to evil use.

Dwyrin's eyes widened in the dark and he closed them, letting the mediation steal over him, opening his sight. When he had done so, he perceived that an old man with a long white beard, matted and tangled with bits of leaf and twig, was sitting in the chair. There was a subtle light that illuminated him from within, showing strong Persian features and a prominent nose. He was garbed in muddy brown robes and a white scarf that lay down on his chest.

"I say again, who are you and what do you want?" Dwyrin tested the hidden waters, feeling the air around him for threat or menace. All seemed unusually still and quiet. A deep sleep lay on the camp, filling men's dreams with thoughts of home and family.

There is the fire that makes men, and this cannot be touched by corruption

The old man stood, moving in complete silence, and looked down on Dwyrin. The boy felt a shock of recognition- he had seen the old man before, had insulted him, had reviled him. But now he looked down with kind eyes, ancient and filled with hard-won wisdom. Dwyrin saw, too, that the man bore a ring on one hand, shaped like a leaping flame.

"You are a spirit," said the boy, his voice calm. He had seen too much, now, to be startled by apparitions and visions. "What brings you here?"

The old man turned away, stepping to the door. At the jamb, he looked over his shoulder, his eyes bright as a bird. Dwyrin felt a constriction in his chest, as if the air had become thin.

There is a fire that fills the heart, driving man to overcome. This is the flame that must be sheltered and given fuel, exalted and inspired. This is the spear of fire.

Then he was gone. Dwyrin blinked. The plain wooden door remained closed, apparently untouched. The air was hot, now, and close. The Hibernian stood and shuffled outside, pulling a ratty old tunic with moth-eaten holes in it over his head.

The night sky was bright with stars and the moon. For an instant, as he stepped out of the building, Dwyrin could have sworn that a glowing white light touched the tops of the olive trees and cypresses that surrounded the encampment. But now it was dark and very quiet.

Somewhere, at one of the farmhouses in the valley, a dog was barking furiously.

Dawn was touching the walls of the city when Nicholas returned to the Legion camp. He was bone tired from the effort of wearing half-armor all night and quite irritable. Nestled in the corner of the city, the camp itself was still resting in darkness and it was cold enough for him to see his breath. The centurion stomped up to the gate and waited while the guards on duty opened the wooden barrier.

"Ave," he snarled at them as he stalked inside. The alarms and excursions of the night just past had produced nothing and he thought of his bed- even a hard Legion cot in a drafty room- with longing. The two stonemasons on the watch saluted smartly and refrained from comment. Even Nicholas' jaunty mustaches were drooping.

Once in his chamber, he unstrapped his armor and let it fall in an untidy pile by the door. He noted that Vladimir was not in the pile of blankets the Northerner preferred and wondered if the Walach had risen early or if he simply had not come in yet.

Despite the seeming peacefulness of the surrounding countryside, every dog in the city had begun raising a howl an hour or so before dawn. In response, the governor had sent a runner to request Nicholas' presence at his residence. After several hours of rooting about in the dark and questioning guardsmen and wayward youths who had been up far past their bedtimes, Nicholas had determined that some kind of light in the sky had started the whole thing. No one, however, had seen anything beyond that. There were no Persian spies or bandits or apparitions in evidence. He had discovered that the city was incredibly dark by night and had an unexpected number of stairs. The governor's guards had insisted that someone had been up on the temple platform, that they had heard voices shouting, but there was no sign that anyone had been there.

The squad of men that he had taken up into the city was still there, nosing about in the old ruins. Later in the day, when he had driven the headache away with sleep, he would roust out the engineers and set them to checking the walls for secret entrances or fallen-down sections. The guards at the city gates had not reported any entries after dark. He could not say why, but he knew that something was up. Some prickling on the back of his neck made him uneasy.