Eighty feet, eighty feet to dash to the gate of Saint Romanus and escape this hellpit. Surrounded on four sides by his protectors, John savored the feels of not leading as much as he ever did, which was to say not much. Still, Phantom Stranger's cloak of concealment did the Stranger proud because none of the forty fresh, unbloodied soldiers guarding the gate noticed five refugees, four of them pointing swords their way.
Tramping inside the concealment spell proved odd and a little smelly. He supposed the exertions of the day accounted for that because the weather itself waxed coolly springlike and perhaps pleasant to those not fleeing for their lives. Envy soured his thoughts because Stranger glided to his right, cape upraised on one arm like he was a vampire of the Bela Lugosi type that John named Vampire v3.0. Another minute and the Stranger would proclaim, "I never drink ... wine," and smile creepily. John thought that at least he himself had fun with magic much of the time.
His true hearted companions stayed silent before stopping abruptly. John gaped at what they were looking at, too. A cannon the length of a Winnebago Adventurer pointed directly at the Saint Romanus gate from thirty feet away. Two granite spheres the size of exercise balls from the gym that he went to once as Zee's guest and never again lay beside the cave mouth that was the business end of the cannon. The cannon lay unguarded because who needed it now? The battle was won.
It seemed to John that Firsthand couldn't help himself from speaking. "We trembled when it roared and so this is what broke us down to frightened children." Firsthand spat in its direction. "Come, stranger, guide us from this place with your magicks."
"The sooner the better," agreed Secondhand.
"May it never fire again," added Thirdhand.
John was too busy putting one foot in front of another to sightsee. Oh sure, he was experiencing history but who cared. "Step lively, gents. We want the sea and a plan to signal a friendly ship, yeah? Who's with me?"
Nobody answered except by trudging faster. Five hundred fifty feet along the route of who knew how far because who knew how far a league was, John and his crew spotted fresh troops making for another gate. As the five passed the gate which had been opened with no noticeable scars, John considered damage control from the fallout of Firsthand's remark. "He is a stranger in a strange land to him and they dress different where he comes from," he rehearsed to himself, "and oh right, his cloak works like our Greek Fire, a mystery that no outsider needs to know, hush hush but real all the same." There. Thanks to Fatty Forbush's lecture on the Byzantines, he'd constructed a plausible con to these worthies, a white lie for the good of all. It was his usual reasoning for what he did best. John reassured himself about his motives, which helped, mostly.
Stranger kept up a reasonable pace for weary soldiers, his Armani suit untouched by dust or sweat. Heavens above, they left no footprints! Awesome! After his feet began to ache, John lost track of how far they had traveled and how far they had to go. Their southward path to the sea led close to the walls and about one hour later, a contingent of marching soldiers wearing turbans higher than John's strode their way. This was no mob, these were trained and disciplined to the highest degree and Phantom Stranger hissed.
"Janissaries. We must be cautious."
The plumes on the turbans nodded in time with marching leather boots until the only Janissary on horseback raised a hand to halt his squad of thirty. His horse danced beneath him, ears pointed like radar guns towards John's group. John came out of his trance of wondering how he could make up with Zee, because hey, like the song said, I'm the same old trouble that you've always been through so why don't you love me like you used to do?
"Magic us away from here, Stranger. Come on, man!"
The mounted officer swiveled his head, foot long plumes fluttering in the breeze. One of his orders alarmed the Stranger as the troops broke into a trot.
"Quickly, to the Golden Gate!"
"San Francisco? You're daft!"
"Milord, our friend has not led us astray thus far! Obey him!" And Secondhand put away his sword as did his friends before turning to the Stranger. "I trust you."
There was that queer, strained look from the Stranger as he answered, "Thank you. This way, everyone." He led without looking behind him, again raising his cloak. John was the last to follow, grumbling to himself.
"Issues, I never thought you had self-esteem issues, Stranger, best not let them get the better of you - "
And then the officer shouted something like Sihirbaz and charged, his men running behind him screaming at the top of their lungs. John ran until he stumbled and lost his turban. Firsthand turned back to help him as the others kept pounding towards yet another gate, the biggest one John had seen. Strewth, this gate loomed large like the Pearly Gates that John had never beheld and did not wish to just yet. You could drive a herd of freaking elephants through its width. He grasped Firsthand's outstretched arm and stood up. Firsthand spun to face the onrushing horse.
"Run like the damn wind!" he shouted over his shoulder as he drew his sword.
John did. Much depended on his survival, he told himself, as he heard the collision between aged Byzantine lord and charging stallion. There sounded a loud Ιησούς that John did not need translated and then a wrenching victory cry in an unfamiliar voice. A horse's dying scream amid a flailing of hooves told the whole story.
John kept going until he reached his fellows, who had not paused in the headlong race towards the gate. Secondhand sobbed as he ran, his tears driven to the edges of his shoulder length brown hair by the speed of his passage. John pulled abreast of him and cried, "I swear down, mate, I just did what he told me - "
"Hold your tongue!"
John obeyed and soon but not soon enough they reached the gate, through which they could see swarms of the enemy.
This bred a pause, a breathing space as the infantry squad of Janissaries pounded towards them from a mere thirty feet away. John could only think that the spell of concealment failed to conceal them from the horse and that the now extinguished Janissary officer blatted something about invisible witches. His faithful squad fanned out, swinging their scimitars in circles, hoping to blood anyone, magicked invisible or not and this raw tactic just might work.
Phantom Stranger panted like the rest of his group, casting around for a way out. "I - I - this seemed the best option - "
"Otherverse, man! Do it! Never mind the two innocents with us!"
So Phantom Stranger subjected two innocent men to the sickening shift in reality until they stood beside John and himself in a mundane appearing cave. Only it was not mundane, heavenly or spiritual because it was Other. The light came from an unseen source, the air did not smell right, the stone beneath their feet was a strange color and feel and to top it all off, the hair on arms, head and other places rose as if pulled by static electricity.
"Where?" questioned Thirdhand.
"Why?" questioned Secondhand.
"What?" bellowed John. "Picked a bloody Otherverse like this fecker from among millions when you could have spelled us into a blinking paradise - "
"Hush, milord," intoned Secondhand, who adjusted quickly to new situations, John noticed not for the first time. "Explain not, stranger. I trust you will do the right thing and after all, we live yet."
Thirdhand, too, picked a lane. "I despaired and was wrong, I confess it, Isa." He clapped an arm around Secondhand's shoulders. "I grieve with you over Ignatios."
"Oh Eustace, he - " began Isa and then could go no further. They embraced each other before pulling John into the closeness.
This was strange and real and true. John lost track of how long Emperor and knights basked in equal measures of the joy of life and relief at its continuation. It took Phantom Stranger to ground him once more.
"This place is safe for awhile." He speared John with a look. "My strength in sustaining us here is not unlimited, Constantine."
"You admit it, well triple points for being honest. Er, ta for saving us and all that," John said over Isa's shoulder before pulling away. Isa and Eustace withdrew to slump against the rough cave walls and confer together quietly as John and the Stranger did likewise.
"Couldn't you have saved the poor old gaffer?"
"Could you not have?"
"I've got nothing, Stranger, except me two hands to fight with. I hate it."
The Stranger crossed his arms and looked down. "So you are not indifferent. You portray yourself poorly in your life story, you know. You need to cast someone rougher, tougher and meaner."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means I noticed you dismissing the heaps of dead we passed to focus on completing the test the One laid upon your shoulders so you could return to the mission that Xanadu thrust upon you. Another would have drowned in melancholy at the soul-rending sights, turned back to certain death in the city or thrown himself on the mercy of the invaders." The blank eyes dimmed to gray pained disks. "I assure you, in the hordes' thirst for plunder and personal acclaim for Constantine's dispatch, you would not receive mercy."
John never tolerated close physical contact with non-friends and stepped back as the Stranger's fingers brushed his throat. "Oi, I get the picture and I like me bonce where it is. So what now? I pass the test? Proved meself like a fresher at Uni?"
Listening remained the only word describing the Stranger's face. "I believe you have," he said slowly with the smallest of smiles.
"Anticlimactic is what this is, you ponce." John felt no different at this portentous announcement. Typical bombast from the Stranger and John couldn't wait to leave this era in his rearview mirror. Traveling through worlds to reach the land of the dead was more what he was used to. The final question was how the Stranger would shift the real Emperor Constantine from wherever he was to his homeland in Year of Our Lord 1453. John had some ideas about how to help his namesake, now that he had walked miles and miles in his royal shoes.
The Stranger listened some more and sobered. "I also believe my strength wanes and so we must leave in haste, you to rejoin Deadman on your assigned journey and your two friends to rejoin their world."
"Wait, wait! Can you help me to help them?" John pleaded. "Return me old magic so I can twitch them onto a passing friendly ship? It's the very least you could do." He Reached but nothing came up.
"I sense they became dear to you. I will do what I can." The Stranger turned to John. "Would you keep Constantine as safe as possible?"
"Of course I would!"
The Stranger acted.
A familiar nausea simmered through John's belly, which was what he always felt when dimensions opened and closed in his vicinity. The shimmering air disclosed a portal and behind the oval opening stood a man in imperial regalia who could only be Constantine the Eleventh Palaiologos. He looked like he had just now heard his flight announced over a celestial loudspeaker because he clasped his royal purple cloak more closely around him with one hand. A firmer hand rested near his sword hilt that protruded from his scabbard, yet he did not draw it. A gold circlet held his wavy hair in check, his nose seemed broken and he looked like he had been through hell. John was certain that he had.
The Stranger gestured to Isa and Eustace to approach and they stepped out in faith that he would not hurt them. Once they viewed the portal, they pingponged their heads back and forth between John and Constantine their Emperor, falling back two steps with questions shining in their eyes.
"Witchcraft, witchcraft!" gasped Isa and shrank away when John offered his hand in comforting friendship.
Even Eustace quailed from the inexplicable. "Milord, are you enchanted?" he asked John. "Is this a wizard's trick to confound your enemies with a false body conjured from magic?"
You hit the nail smack on the head, Stacey me lad, John thought, but he said nothing as Constantine the Eleventh raised a commanding hand, smiled and spoke. No words penetrated from one Otherverse to the other through the portal.
The Stranger sighed, "These noble folk will parse this as they will, so come, Emperor Constantine, from your refuge to rejoin your world." He thrust his hand through the portal; the Emperor steadied himself with it as he stepped through to the Otherverse next door. Another John in another world would have hustled about to make a proper cuppa for the distinguished guest; this John would offer a pint of his best. This John noticed that the portal closed up tighter than a landlord's purse strings before winking out of sight. His nausea faded to something bearable.
Eustace and Isa stumbled farther away, sword hands at the ready. John had lost their trust, but he put aside his heartache with the knowledge that they would be saved along with Constantine The Eleventh, last Roman Emperor. If Constantine survived to marry again, the third Missus Emperor might enjoy a better fate than his other wives, eh, because the third time's the charm? John could only hope.
Constantine's embattled hoarse voice would hold warmth, John surmised, because the man radiated concerns for his homeland as well as gratitude for these four within the room. John leaned forward to catch the first words of his namesake.
Constantine the Eleventh clasped the Stranger's hand with both of his own. He smiled and then wariness settled upon him. He took a step backwards, held the flat of his sword flush with his chest and appeared to await further developments.
"Nobody here will hurt you, don't fret, mate, we lot worked our behinds off to save you - " began John but then Constantine the Eleventh's face turned gray.
"Oi! He's sick, help him, Stranger!"
The gray spread downwards to throat, chest and legs and upwards to the crown of the head.
"I am sorry, John. We must keep him safe until he arises again to great need in the future." The Stranger's soft voice explained the outrageous event taking place before John. "My powers fade, this cave will revert to a real cave in 1453 beneath the Golden Gate of Constantinople and its Emperor will rest here until the world changes. It is best he becomes a statue."
Isa and Eustace wept aloud at the news. "Why? Why?" sobbed Isa. "We trusted you, stranger!"
"I know you did. I know. I am doing my best for the state of affairs I find myself in."
John trembled at the finality of it all as the roiling nausea of shifting dimensions returned, along with the smell of dank earth from a natural cave on his natural world. There was no light from any source until the Stranger snapped his fingers to cue a gentle glow. John sniffled away tears and as he did, he recognized the scent of 1453. So the test was for nothing, he was stuck like a toad in Superglue in a city and age where bloodlust ruled and the Stranger had lied.
"I wouldn't con a bloody dog the way you conned me, Stranger. And for what?"
John's heart broke as Eustace strove to put a positive face on their situation. "Isa, we do not understand these things but have faith, my friend, have faith. Perhaps the stranger is an angel after all and so is the false Constantine."
Isa continued sobbing until he ran out of breath. "M-Maybe you are right, Eustace. I must believe we rest in helpful hands." He sagged to the cave floor as if a heavy timber pushed him down before lifting his head to regard the statue of his Emperor. "What comes next in this frightful day?"
"I do not know, but I have faith that this is not our end." Eustace continued patting Isa's shoulder while he offered a calm glance to John. "Who are you, then?"
That's when everything turned pear shaped because the light went out. John would forever remember the feeling of hands all over him, pulling off clothing head to toe and pulling on his usual outfit. He never did figure out whose hands accomplished all that, but that mystery paled beside noticing the welcome whisper of waves upon sand.
"Hallelujah!" was the first word he heard, echoed by another "Hallelujah!" and then from his own lips a third "Hallelujah!" He coughed and opened his eyes before he sat up. Some kind soul had folded his tatty trenchcoat under his head and oh joy, was that the crinkle of a packet of cigs in its inside pocket?
The sea, now the sea looked mostly the same upon his native earth wherever you found yourself. The Sea of Marmara held three dots, which moved slowly left to right, er, he meant to the west because it was about fourish, yeah? And spring, it was spring so a few more hours of daylight stretched before him to accomplish what he had to because magicks flowed like springtime sap through all his body.
He jumped to his feet, seeing that Isa, Eustace and the Stranger shaded their eyes to see the approaching clumsy looking ship, a galleon or some such rot that he couldn't recall from Fatty Forbush's lecture. The Stranger flashed his necklace in the sun towards the ship in a code or maybe the ship's officers would take the gleams for loot to plunder and take home to wherever their home port was. Crete? Italy? No matter, John meant to be on his way and good riddance to the Stranger, although not to Isa and Eustace. The promise of a new life had perked them up considerable. He didn't want to examine too closely why this episode in his life of being around such good men brought out tenderness in him.
Eustace and Isa waved frantically to the ship flying what must be friendly colors, but the Stranger walked back to John with his cape held tightly around him in the stiff sea breeze. "You may leave when ready, Constantine."
John nodded. "In a minute. It's been a tough go for some hours and I'm knackered." He sat in the sand. "I'm also piffed with you."
The Stranger sat beside him, arranging his cloak into a picknicking blanket shape, if Strangers did that sort of fun thing. "I am knackered as well."
The ship approached, a high sided clunky piece of maritime engineering. It stayed out from the shore and John saw tiny figures hauling ropes to put a small rowboat into the calm sea. His friends departed soon, one less than he had figured on saving.
"Poor old Ignatios."
"He died full of years and glory."
"Yeh, but he died. And Constantine the Ever Lovin' Glorious pulled a King Arthur, thanks to you."
"You hoped to save them all?"
"Damn straight. Didn't you?"
The Stranger removed one glove to run his fingers through the sand. "I did. I failed."
"Gah, don't go all brony because me heart couldn't take it."
John magicked a sand flurry in his friends' direction, out of their line of sight. "Funny thing, war. Your buds become your buds in minutes."
"Indeed." The Stranger rose to his feet after redonning his glove. No sand clung to his cloak as he strode away and he left no footprints. "Farewell."
"Goodbye," John said as the Stranger passed behind a dune to disappear into shadows, homeward bound. As for himself, he Reached to bundle together hydromancy spells that bubbled the waves in front of him and scried them for omens. This ship will have a safe voyage, he thought to himself as he discerned an acceptable outcome and then he called out loud for long lives upon these two stalwart friends. He never expected to meet them again this side of, well, wherever he was bound for.
John ran a hand through his short crop of blond hair and lit a cigarette to think better.
IOIOIOIOIO
IOIOIOIOIO
Isa and Eustace raced to their benefactors only to find them gone.
"Angels," Eustace decided.
"Angels, or close enough," said Isa. "We must spread the good news about our rescue and the divine ones we met."
They turned their faces to the sea and their future as the rowboat touched on land.
IOIOIOIOIO
The End.
IOIOIOIOIO
A/N By April 7, 1453, 568 years ago today, the Siege of Constantinople had truly begun, ending the Middle Ages with cannonfire. On the 29th of May when the city fell, the legends began of the return of the last Roman Emperor.