The morning came, and the chariot of Shamash rode out from the underworld, leaving Ishtar's warm embrace far behind. His rays dispersed the blanket of darkness covering the plains outside the walls of Shushan. Two men high, and wide enough for two horses (though actually getting a horse up on the walls would involve at least a crane), the battlements had seen many armies camped before them, but none that could take the city. While it had been a while since the sprawling capital of the Elamite empire last had a ruler wary enough to carry out the much-needed repairs on the brick walls, they still filled the heart of the citizens with pride. Six mighty gates guarded the city, anddespite the early hour already there was a queue forming in front of the east one. The night guard, only half-awake, watched the small crowd from the top of the gate-tower and stifled a yawn. It was too damn late for him to be really interested in men ready to haul baskets of fresh dates to the market, or in women, wrapped from head to toe in colorful scarves, balancing jugs of still-warm donkey milk, jostling for position, all eager to feed the thirty thousand hungry mouths behind the city walls.
Behind him, the priestesses of Kiririsha began their song. Two hundred and sixteen women clad in green and gold sang in unison, of the glory of the Mother, and of the duty of all living things to venerate Her. The ziggurat was almost a mile from him, but the guard could still hear them clear as if he was kneeling in central square, head bowed, praying to the goddess for good fortune, strength and luck. Six and six and six priestesses stood in neat rows on the man-made mountain and woke the city, as they did on every single day for thousands of years. Shushan was old, older than Babylon, older than many of the burned ruins where once proud city-states stood and she did not let anyone forget it. Where other gods have failed, and disappeared with their peoples under the sands of time, the walls of Shushan were still strong, and the song of Kiririsha still carried far in the morning air.
The Elamites were a proud people of a proud city, and uncounted centuries survived backed up their claim of greatness.
He surveyed the wide road leading east; worn and well-traveled. This early he expected no traffic, save for the folk of the surrounding countryside; merchants usually weathered out their last night before reaching the city walls in the caravan-seray half-a-day's journey from Shushan. Yet, outlined by the white fire of Shamash, riders approached from the east; a dozen or more horses strong. The guard tried to shade his eyes with his hand, and make out more. No one risked traveling during the night, especially not on horseback, unless they had a reason, and he idly wondered what that reason could be. Merchandise easily spoiled? Urgent messages? Sheer stupidity?
When the last notes of the hymn died behind him, the gate slowly started to open. The ingenious system of pulleys and ropes was operated by four of the day guard. The massive wings of the gate, each weighing more than an elephant, reinforced with bronze and decorated with peeling gilt, creaked open and the peasants outside started to file in. Two guards climbed the ladder to the top of the gate-tower and greeted the night-guard. He returned the greeting, and after giving one last curious glance to the approaching horsemen, he climbed down the same ladder and headed off to his wife and a well-deserved good day's sleep.
On the road below, an argument raged amongst the riders.
"I told you we should have stopped in the seray! I'm itching all over!" Elika's usually demure tone was replaced by righteous indignation.
"Hey, no pain, no gain," shrugged the Prince, mentally counting down the steps until he could fall in a feathered bed and sleep for at least a full day.
"Little I can do to change the past, milady, but I promise I will do my very best to make up for the inconveniences of this night. But to be fair, even Shabhaz couldn't have known that there was an anthill just under the briars." Agastya interjected, trying to be the voice of reason.
"Damn right, I couldn't have." The spymaster sighed. The Prince was not helping.
"Let's just focus on getting through the gates and finding an inn, alright?" he said. "Bickering won't lead anywhere, just attract undue attention."
"What's our story anyway?" asked the Prince, breaking the quarrel.
"I will go as Agastya, I travel through Susa occasionally and I have not made enemies that would wish me dead." After a moment's pause, he added, "At least none that I know of; so no point for me to invent another identity. I'm traveling with my lovely, but unruly daughter Nastaran whom I hope to marry off to a rich Babylonian merchant to seal a deal. My son and apprentice, Shabhaz and my manservant Turva are accompanying me on the journey. We started off with four guards but got attacked in the desert by bandits we successfully repelled, that's where the extra horses are from. Clear to everyone?'
A round of nods followed from the rest of the troupe.
"Though we have little reason to believe anyone wishes us ill inside the walls, we still have to keep our wits with us at all times," he continued. "I shouldn't have to remind anyone of the stakes." He shot a pointed look at "Shabhaz". He met the old Aryan's gaze and nodded solemnly, his quarrelsome mood whisked away by the morning breeze.
Agastya looked up, towards the gates. "And I will do all the talking."
"That went easily," Elika remarked, remembering the gates of Ankuwa.
"We didn't give the guard any reason to give us trouble so he gave us none," said Agastya.
"And it definitely helps if you look rich," added his two dinars the Prince.
"But not too rich," said Agastya.
"Nor too eager," so the Prince.
"or too cautious," said the Aryan.
"Always stick to the anonymity of mediocrity." finished "Shabhaz". The princess looked left and right between the two men, trying to follow the exchange. It was obvious they had this conversation countless times before and enjoyed showing off immensely.
She gave the Aryan merchant-spy another good look. She didn't know where she stood with him. He was a strict parent, a playful comrade, a sly jester and ruthless diplomat at the same time. When they first met, little over a week ago, she guessed him above fifty, weak and fat. Now, she had seen him move in battle with the grace of a gazelle, strike with the alacrity of a cobra and ride with the resilience of a camel. Neither of these fit the image of the soft, slow merchant he tried to project.
The man was an enigma. He swore fealty to her; kneeling in blood and sand and gore, he swore that he will repay his life with service. He asked no questions where the power came from that re-knitted his flesh; he offered his loyalty for his life, no less, no more. And Elika believed that he was good on his word. He was carved from a stone different from the rest of mankind, his was not the fate of a farmer, shepherd or craftsman. Agastya, the Aryan was marked for greatness by the gods; he was given a lead role in the charade we call life, in equal part as a blessing and a curse.
As she looked between the men, she had to concede that neither of them looked anything like the masses that were filling up the streets of Elam despite the early hour. Not if you looked at the eyes.
Around them, men and women jostled and elbowed their way through the quickly thickening crowd, blissfully unaware of anything in the world beyond their tiny bubble of everyday reality. Vendors had already started hawking their wares and everywhere meat was roasting over coals, filling her nostrils with the smells of foreign spices and making her mouth water. The crowd parted before them; the Prince took point while Agastya and Ugrasena, now renamed Turva, the last of Agasyta's apprentices accompanying them, took the flanks, boxing Elika in. The three men rode silently, and despite the mishaps of the last night, their eyes scanning the crowd were alert, their gaze darting from men to men, from the street level to the roofs looking for signs of trouble. Elika felt this was a bit over the top; she never had guards half as vigilant as these three; even when all knew her as the Queen-to-be.
Maybe the throng could sense that they meant business, or maybe the street goers learned the hard way that those on horseback would not slow for those on foot, and woe onto he who stands in their path; but either way, they cut through the masses without any trouble.
While the men played at being bodyguards, Elika surveyed the city, mentally comparing it to her only other experiences: the City of Light and Ankuwa. The Ahura's city was… had been... all marble and stone; daring arches and proud towers; a vertical city using the narrow canyons of the fertile valley to the fullest. On the other hand, both Ankuwa and Shushan were horizontal, only bound by the city walls. But while Ankuwa was a cesspit, as far from civilization as possible, Shushan was the birthplace to an empire only slightly younger than the City of Light herself. The two, three, sometimes even four story houses lining the main road leading to the city centre were brightly painted in myriad colors; sunflower-yellow, turquoise or verdant green with the door and window frames lime-washed so thoroughly that they blinded in the bright morning light, each house trying to outshine the next.
As long as Elika lived, her home had been on the decline, with barely enough people left to fill half the houses in one quarter, with more and more leaving every year. The dark secret of the mighty tree standing in the centre of the valley weighed on their souls as a stifling cloak. The signs were everywhere if you knew where to look: intricate patterns carved into the walls seeming to swirl and move if you watched them from the corner of your eye, towers standing so high that no foundation should have been able to bear them, and the Fertile Grounds placed in an arcane pattern around the Tree, meant to bind an ancient evil to the very land for all times. The chains that shackled the dark god criss-crossed the tiny kingdom and bound her inhabitants as much as her prisoner.
Shushan was free. To Elika's eye it was full of joy and spirit and a pulsing force of life. People didn't tiptoe down echoing marble corridors followed around by the sound of their own footsteps. They stepped hard and strong, and if there was another sandaled foot caught under theirs when it met the ground, then so what? So the young queen watched with her eyes wide open, trying to take in the thousand faces, colorful vests, sweeping robes and the chatter, shouting and cursing going on in a dozen languages.
While Elika was enthralled by the first real city she had ever seen the Prince had rather different thoughts running through his mind as they rode from the eastern gate of Shushan to the inn Agastya was leading them to.
There were allies to meet, friendships to rekindle, and scores to settle in Shushan, some important and some could wait maybe till the end of days. He had come to Shushan with nothing more than a hazy plan, and the unpleasant memory of a great wizard who made this city his home. He doubted that Berisath wielded half the power Elika displayed so readily, or if push came to shove, if he wielded any at all; but he was wise in his years and learned in the ways of magic and that might count for more in the war to come. The Prince was awed by the feats of magic Elika displayed regularly, but she desperately lacked knowledge on the theoretical. He hoped that the elderly wizard would have more of an answer to offer to their current most burning question, namely: "How to kill/bind a dark god". Currently they were going with "In any way we can", and while that answer had a definite style and bravado, the Prince felt it was sorely lacking in the practical department.
It had been a four years, almost five, since he had last seen Berisath; and they had not parted on the best of terms. He was younger and even more hotheaded back then and felt that endless, droning lessons were not what he expected from life; so he sought alternate venues of entertainment, ones that involved busty women, moonlight chases and large amounts of intoxicating liquids, sometimes at the same time. When he left Shushan to head back to Babylon, the goodbye was bitter and angry words were exchanged - his tutelage at the hands of the old wizard failed. Still, he knew that if he asked, Berisath would help – if he still lived, that was.
The other question that arose was how to bring Berisath into the picture without him revealing too many connections the Prince was not yet prepared to share with the rest of the team. He was sure Agastya had his own theories about him: the spymaster had enough resources to find out virtually anything, but was also a firm believer of the don't-ask-don't-tell policy. Elika, on the other hand, had the annoying habit of digging until she was satisfied with the answer. It was harder and harder to elude her inquisitiveness with each passing day, but for some reason he couldn't define for himself he wasn't willing to share his past with the woman he staked his future – everyone's future- on.
His eyes never stopped moving while his mind kept spinning. He was the first to dismount when they reached the inn, and entered, leaving the others mounted outside. He gave the once-over to the main hall. It was equipped with all the luxury he expected from a high-end joint. Low mahogany tables surrounded by feather-stuffed pillows, eager lads and lasses making rounds with milk still hot from the teats of the donkeys, serving fruit and fresh bread to the breakfasting patrons.
He wore a traveler's garb; gray and dusty, covering him from head to toe, shielding him from sand and heat and cold alike. The only thing betraying his wealth was his sword, and like everywhere else, it drew appreciative glances here as well.
A soft-faced youth hurried to greet him, his skin tender, his clothes finely cut and his hair smoothed back with scented olive-oil. He bowed deeply in front of the Prince.
"Noble visitor, your presence honors the Dawn's Wonder. I am Tiutme, your humble servant."
The prince waited just enough to make the wait uncomfortable then nodded.
"Indeed. Have rooms prepared for my master and I, and for his daughter. We all desire baths, and the best breakfast your cook can conjure up. Also place a pallet for our manservant." He looked away for a moment, then added, "That's all for now. Oh and spare no expenses."
Tiutme has been used to the rich and the powerful and how they treated those below them. He bowed and backed away, while the bastard so obviously just in from the desert walked around the Dawn's Wonder's hall trailing sand behind him. One of the younger girls will have to clean that up, or there will be beatings all around. The master was very particular about cleanliness, both of the premises and the staff. If one of the help caught the eye of a rich merchant, a lot of extra could be added to the bill after all.
The new guest picked up a juicy plum, bit into it and marched outside, leaving the servant to do his job, and do it fast. They would expect a room by the time they got in, or else. He quickly issued orders, set the staff of the seray to their tasks, and by the time the guests were ready to see their chambers, everything was prepared for a grand tour to show off what luxuries the Dawn's Wonder could pile on them.
"… and just pull on this cord and a bell will ring for us, and we will be here in the blink of an eye, to fulfill your every wish, oh Lord." Tiutme finished, wearing his brightest smile as a shield to hide his worry behind. The fat man gave a thorough once over to the suit, in Tiutme's opinion attaching a price tag to every piece of furniture, pillow or carved windowsill, and when the total came up with a number high enough, he nodded his approval. A wave of relief flooded him, three of them staying for an indefinite time meant that the master would be happy and there would be more to eat from the leftovers for the kitchen staff.
The merchant's apprentice cared little for the room or the slave showing it to them, he already deposited himself on a pile of pillows, and started to stone a fig. If he kept up eating like that he will soon end up like his master, he thought. The woman though gave him a genuine smile when he backed out of the door, and for some reason that gave him a shiver. Never came any good from being noticed, he had learned that lesson all too well. When he was safely out, he turned and hurried away to check on the kitchen and the meal promised to the new guests.
In the suite he left behind, Elika plopped down on another pillow, leaning back until she lay on her side supported by an elbow. She shook her head irritated to get her stray locks out of her face and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. She felt her muscles slowly release the tension. She ached all over; after weeks of fighting, fleeing and hard riding, she felt like she was covered in one huge bruise.
She was tempted to give in to self-pity; Ohrmazd knew she had a thousand reasons to feel sorry for herself. But she had to be strong, the hardships endured were only the first few steps of a long and perilous road, she was sure. So she forced the pains, both that plague the body and those of the soul, down, way down; put on a faint smile and opened her eyes.
The Prince was lying on the pillows, almost mirroring her, holding a bunch of grapes in his left while simultaneously supporting himself and using his right to pick the best ones, seemingly unperturbed by the layer of dust and grime covering his hands. He popped a grape high in the air, trying to catch it with his mouth. Instead it bounced of his nose, disappearing somewhere between the pillows. He fumbled for it, lifting the corner of the nearest, then he looked up and met her gaze across the room. For a moment he looked genuinely embarrassed, caught with his guard down. Then he recovered and flashed her a bright smile, as if the bickering of the morning was all forgotten.
Elika wanted to be angry with him for being so easy with life, but found that she couldn't. Instead, she felt a pang of envy that he could afford to think no farther than the next seray, the next meal, the next joke. Barely a month ago, she would have thought such an attitude irresponsible and shallow. Now, on the road and on the run she could understand that he took whatever pleasures life offered him and let tomorrow take care of itself. There was a certain sort of attraction to living in the present, instead of spending every moment preparing for a future that might never come.
Quickly as her anger rose it disappeared, "I can let go as well" she thought, and let her perfunctory smile fade, as she locked her eyes with the Prince and reached for a bunch on the tray in front of her. She plucked a grape, threw it high up and threw her head back almost horizontal, opening her mouth wide, eyes trailing the small missile's arch. The cool fruit landed right between her waiting lips, and she squished it with her tongue, rolling the sweet flesh around in her mouth, enjoying the taste fully, humming appreciatively.
She sat up fully, closed her eyes and rolled her head, neck cracking as she did so. Like a cat, she stretched, rounding her back, unconscious of the view it offered the thief lying across her; not many dared to look down the shirt of a royal princess where she came from.
She looked up, the meeting the Prince's eye again. He had a hungry look about him, intense and dangerous. She hadn't seen him look at her like this since the night in the desert when they were attacked. She felt an involuntary blush rising in her cheeks, and her heart rate speed up. Inwardly, she cursed that she reacted so fast whenever he as much as smiled at her. She felt it was unfair, that he could turn on this powerful magnetism as he felt like it. Throughout the long ride, there hadn't been as much as a flirtatious joke passing between them, and now she could feel his gaze scorch her bare skin.
He rose slowly shifting from almost lying down to sitting, just staring in silence. Like a big cat, Elika thought. And he is going to pounce on me at any moment.
There was a polite knock on the door. The Prince almost growled, but then closed his eyes, and his expression relaxed.
"Come in," he called out. Three servants appeared, carrying plates of still steaming unleavened bread, a quivering pile of eggs, smoked meat of all varieties and a large jug of watered down fig-wine. They placed them on the low table in the central of the room, right between Elika and the Prince, and backed out silently, and bowing profusely all the while.
Agastya walked up from his previous perch at the window, and Elika suddenly felt a wave of embarrassment wash through her. She had no clue how much the old spy has seen, but if he had any thoughts he hid them well, seeming more interested in the food than in either of them.
The breakfast made up for the many missed meals during the journey through the desert; Elika was soon filled to bursting and she sank back to the pillows.
When the men were finished all laid back for a while, just digesting. It was Agastya who spoke up first.
"Shabhaz, what did you want to do next? You said you had a plan for Susa." The Aryan used the Babylonian name of the city, it rolled off his tongue like a barbed curse, not as a sweet whisper as the residents called their home.
"I did and I have. I have an old contact here; a wizard from the fallen city of Nineveh. Nastaran said her people had contact with them, maybe he could help us or at least point us in the right direction." Though they were alone in their chamber, neither him, nor Agastya felt secure enough to use real names. Elika took her cue to chip in.
"Indeed. The learned and the wise of Nineveh did visit my homeland; though the visits stopped some two score years ago; and we never knew why. There was little contact with the outside world, news was scarce and unreliable."
"And Nineveh was far away, four hundred miles past Babylon to the north," the Prince remarked, more for her benefit, than Agastya's. "No wonder news traveled slowly, even though the city fell almost twenty years ago.'
"How did Nineveh fall? Who is responsible?"
The Prince and Agastya shared a glance, and Elika focused on the young thief; she missed the slight nod of the old spy. He began to explain.
"Assyrians. In their maddened by their hunger for conquest, they launched a sneak attack. Without warning ten thousand men marched on the city, while traitors within opened the gates. The massacre was said to be so terrible, that from the twenty thousand living souls in the city barely half survived. The nobles, the priests, the merchants, the wealthy and the educated were all put to the sword along with their children so no one could lead a rebellion against the new overlords later. Now the grain of Nineveh feeds hungry mouths in Nippur, while the children of the raped wives and daughters starve even in years of bounty."
He told the story in a dull monotone, as if he was reading it from a treatise on history. Though no emotion reflected in his voice, but Elika could still see the fires engulfing the city, the screams of pain and terror, could almost hear the clutter of bloodthirsty bronze-clad warriors as they rampaged around the city, murdering, raping, looting. She shuddered despite herself; her homeland had seen no war for thousands of years, and no violence, save the occasional drunken brawl over the smile of a girl. She could imagine all too vividly the helplessness of the innocents quivering behind barred doors, huddled together, waiting for the inevitable crash as splintering boards would give to kicks, and for the thunder of boots coming to take all they had and all they were. She swallowed hard, and shivered again; the temperature seemed to drop to a chill despite the rising sun outside.
And his tale did not end there. He spoke of years of slavery, exploitation, starvation and human sacrifice. He spoke of merciless new masters without a shred of compassion, of wretched beings stripped of all human dignity, debased beyond all measure, the rule of the strong, where the victors took and took and took from the defeated, long past the point when they had none to give.
Not for the first time, and not for the last she felt how sheltered her life had been in the Valley, where such monstrosity belonged to the books of history, not to the sobering reality of everyday life.
"And the laugh of Ahriman echoes in his prison watching with gleeful pleasure," she thought out loud.
"It would be his kind of thing, indeed," nodded the Prince. Agastya looked between them, still wondering if this all wasn't a pipe-dream. Talk of what a god of unspeakable evil might do or not do while standing in the bolts of sunlight flooding the room with lazy heat seemed surreal, yet he only needed to remind himself of the flashes of silver fury striking down bandits, and how it felt when his life-force was gushing out from his wound, the world slowly growing stone-cold and sky-distant. This was real, this was here, not in the babble of priests or the tales of midwives.
He looked over the two youngsters, barely more than children, wearing the weight of the world on their shoulders. Untried and untrained, both of them, yet harder than bronze and sharper than obsidian. But bronze melts and obsidian shatters; and there were plenty of crucibles ahead of them.
He saw how the daredevil who scaled the highest palace towers to steal a kiss or a sparkling jade acted as an ever-wary bodyguard, and approved of the change. It was time he grew up; and time he assumed some responsibilities, not necessarily the ones he was born to, but a sort of duty nevertheless. While his own homeland had little interest in this far to the west, apart from keeping the trade routes open, he had a vested personal interest in the Prince of Thieves.
And as for the fledgling queen, barely two weeks had passed since they first met and he already owed an oath of fealty to her, something that he swore to none but his own king before. But some things came before kingdoms, and some debts had to be repaid. These two would shake the world at its foundation, if they survived long enough, he thought. He heard the teasing edges of the bickering, and saw the blush painting Elika's face just minutes ago. He was old, not blind, and could see plain as day what the Prince knew and kept resisting and what Elika was desperately trying to hide from herself, that it was no longer a question of "if", only "when".
He also realized what they had not; that this was how myths began, that this was the genuine article, grander than any intrigue or border war he'd had his hand in during his long life, and that what he did now would echo through history forever.
He was living the beginning of a legend, and these two were the protagonists of tales that would go on for thousands of years, and it was his sacred duty to see that those stories would be told and retold again next to campfires; to children huddling in their beds; written and read until the tale gets changed so far that no one living it would recognize it anymore as their own. Still; it would be the tale of two heroes saving the world, like the Epic of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, of Isis and Osiris, and all he could hope for was a side note in this saga.
After a long life of deceit, treachery and murder, the old spymaster felt he was finally doing something worthy, something to repay for all the lives he ruined, all the men and women he trampled over in the name of duty and loyalty. A cause burning so bright that its flame could singe the very heavens.
If only he could protect the torchbearers, while the flame was still weak and easily dowsed.
Otherwise all was lost and darkness would reign forever.