The Gathering Storm
Page 268

It was easier just to walk.
After a very long time, they unchained him and led him to a hollow in whose confines he smelled the sweet gangrene scent of mad Robert. Curses echoed through the darkness as the madman was chained into the place he had just left. Here on this hard rock he was allowed to sleep, although Robert’s ravings chased him through troubled dreams.
They woke him, fed him gruel, prodded him up, and chained him once more to the wheel where he walked again, forever, silent and in darkness.
3
“THERE,” said Marcus. “That is what we seek.”
The ruins of Kartiako boggled Zacharias. Never had he seen such magnificence so spoiled. They walked half the morning away from the garden city of Qahirah into lands that ceased bearing life across a line so stark that on one side irrigated fields grew green and on the other, beyond the last ditch, lay bare ground. On three hills rising on the promontory that overlooked the sea rose the remains of a great city, now vandalized and tumbled into a shambles that nevertheless left those who approached it gaping in wonder at the columns and archways, the broken aqueducts and fallen walls, the intricate layout of a grand city that had once ruled the Middle Sea
“You’re looking the wrong way,” said Marcus to Zacharias as their party turned aside from the dusty path that led across the barren flats toward the hills and the city. Grit kicked up by the mules clouded the air. The locals hired by Sister Meriam pulled the ends of their turbans across their faces to protect themselves from the stinging dust. “That way. Do you see?”
That way lay a low hill outside the crumbled wall that had once ringed Kartiako and, beyond it, the crumpled ridgelines of rugged country, rock and sand and not a trace of living things. On that hill bones stuck up from the hillside, but as they came closer, he recognized that these were rude columns set in an elongated circle. The flatland disguised the distance; they walked with salty grit in their teeth for the rest of the morning and did not come to the base of the hill until after midday. A narrow trail snaked up to the crest, and Zacharias blinked twice before he realized that the dark creature scuttling down the track was no insect but a man dressed in black desert robes and grasping a staff.
“Not one stone has fallen,” said Meriam.
The innkeeper had hired out his eldest son to guide them to the ruins, and this young man gestured for silence. He knelt, and the other locals knelt, heads bowed, as the old man of the hill halted before them. The robes he wore covered all but his eyes and hands.
He spoke in a surprisingly deep bass voice for one so small of stature. Meriam translated.
“Who are these honored ones? What do they wish, to come to this holy spot? I am guardian here. I can answer their questions.”
“I admit I am curious why the stone circle lies in good repair,” said Marcus. “All of the others we have found needed at least one stone raised to complete the circle.”
By no means could Zacharias interpret any emotion in the old man’s stance or face, because both were hidden. His eyes gave away nothing, narrowing now and again as Meriam put Marcus’ questions to him and added, no doubt, a few explanations of her own.
When she finished, they waited in silence as the caretaker considered. Far away, beyond the dusty flats, green fields shimmered like a mirage.
“Come.”
“What did you tell him?” Marcus asked as they climbed the hill with their retinue walking behind them. Meriam rode one of the mules, led by a manservant.
“That we have come to see the crowns. He is an educated man. In this region, most of the people speak the local language and few have been educated in the priests’ tongue. That he can speak it as well as he does means he knows more than we might otherwise imagine. He is no ordinary caretaker, sweeping and fussing. Be cautious. Be respectful.”
Marcus snorted.
“If you are not minded to respect him because he is an infidel, Brother, then I pray you be polite for my sake.”
“Very well, Sister. For your sake. I have no trust in the education of infidels.”
“You must bide among them many months more, Marcus. Beware that your arrogance does not provoke them to turn on you.”
He chuckled. “I will be discreet, and silent where I see fault.”
As they reached the crest of the hill, the wind off the barrens began blowing in earnest, and Zacharias was pleased to imitate the Jinna hirelings by covering his mouth and nose with cloth to keep out the dust. He had never tasted anything so salty, mixed with grit that ground between his teeth. Up on the hilltop they could see through the haze as far west as Qahirah and northwest to the bones of Kartiako.