From the mountaintop, the whole world lay below the man in a vast sweep of desert and mountain and hills. The valley below him seemed far away, filled with a faint bluish haze from the cook fires of the villages and the city. No clouds could be seen in all that gigantic expanse of sky. The bowl of heaven shaded from a dusty bone near the horizon to a tremendously deep Chin blue overhead. The sun, standing high in the sky, was a bright flare of white. Beneath his feet, the mountain slept in the heat of the day. Here, exposed on all sides, was a breeze at last, ruffling his cloak and robes. He stood straight, his walking cane at one side, and slowly turned to survey the entire world.

The land was a rumpled quilt of flat plateaus and deep wadi cut by summer thunderstorms. Low mountains spiked up out of barren plains of salt pan and rocky fields. No green thing intruded into the sere desolation save below, within the shelter of the valley and the walls of the city. The man turned back, away from the openness of the desert. The valley was long and narrow, with hills marching close on either side and mountains rising behind them. Here, there was green, carefully tended and watched over. At the wells and along the slash of the streambeds, small fields and orchards sprouted from the gray-andtan soil. He looked southwest, along the length of the valley of Makkah, and could, at the edge of vision, make out the green of the oasis of the Zam-Zam. There was a deep well there, surrounded by pools and temples.

The man sat, his legs swinging off the edge of the great slab of sandstone.

The man lay on the mountaintop, his eyes closed, the heat of the sun burning on his skin. The hot wind continued to whisper across him, plucking at his sleeves. His lips were badly chapped, and his skin had become cold, even in the heat of the day. The walking cane lay by his side, thrown down. Even with his eyelids closed, he could see the brilliant blue sky above him. He hid in old memories.

Act!

The man's head twitched a little to one side, though his mind had wandered far from his body and the sound of a voice in the air around him took a long time to register. The sound hung in the air, clear and ringing from the rocks like the chime of a great bell.

Act!

The man's eyes fluttered open, and then he turned his head to one side, away from the merciless sun. His lips moved, but no sound came out. For an instant, he thought that he could see himself as if looking down from above, a battered disheartened man of later middle age, lying on sunbaked stones at the top of a mountain. Then he could feel the hot wind on his arms and legs and taste dust in his mouth.

Act!

The man levered himself up on one elbow and, squinting, looked around. Only sky and boulders were to be seen. The mountaintop was empty. The wind died, leaving a great stillness.

"Who is there?" The man's voice was plaintive and weak, barely a whisper.

I am here. I am in all things. Prostrate yourself, man, and listen.

The man tried to stand, but his legs failed him and he fell down. He bent his head, trying to use his arms to raise himself up. The rock beneath him crumbled, and his hands slipped. A sharp pain sparked on his forehead where the rock face cut it.

"What are you?" His voice was even weaker.

Listen, man, you whom the Lord of the World made from clots of blood, do you know His will?

"Who are you?" the man tried to shout, but there was no breath left in his body.

Do you make obeisance to Him, who made all that is? Do you render Him respect? Come to Him, and listen, and know His will in all things.

The man whimpered, his hands twitching uncontrollably.

Do you see that there is evil in the world? Evil that defies the Lord of the World, that stains His perfect creation?

An image blossomed in the man's mind, horribly real and as fresh as the day he had first seen it. The man's body jerked with spasms.

A dark shape moved on a plain of sandy stones. A great host of men, their spears glittering in the morning light, pressed about the walls of a strong place. The man, clad in bright armor, stood at the summit of a great tower of ashlar stone and fitted granite blocks. The dark shape raised a fist, and the air shook with the roar of unheard words. The man on the tower shouted defiance back into that tremendous sound. A whirl of stones and dust and the bones of the dead skittered across the plain before the army. It grew and grew, until it loomed over the rampart and the man in the tower knew fear. A shape blurred out of the air, enormous and given an impossible outline. The earth shook at its step. The man screamed at his soldiers to flee, to abandon the tower. It was too late. The thing in the air roared and swung down its fist. Stone blocks taller than a man shattered like porcelain under the blow. The tower toppled to one side, and the man threw himself off, out into the air. Wind rushed past, whipping his hair and then there was a stunning blow as he hit the street. The earth shook again, and the man looked up, seeing the whole tower sliding toward him.

The man sobbed, his body aching with pain at the memory that had welled up in his mind.

Act! Submit to the will of your Lord and strive against this, or all your race will be the playthings of hidden powers. Act! You know what must be done.

The man shuddered, his entire body twitching furiously, then he lay still on the broad surface of the great boulder that crowned the mountaintop. After a moment the wind rose again, rattling the leaves of the thornbushes and blowing sand and grit across him.

The Harbor of Phospherion, Constantinople

To the left," the centurion's whisper drifted down the line of men. Nicholas leaned out a little, trying to see the head of the line in the pressing darkness. There was the dim glow of a shuttered lantern up ahead and the liquid gleam of its tiny light on water below his feet. White breath puffed from Nick's mouth, and he drew the heavy woolen cloak around his shoulders a little tighter. The man in front of him moved, the boards of the dock creaking under his feet, and Nicholas shuffled ahead as well. He felt awkward and heavy in the thick cork-filled armor. He was used to a shirt of close-linked mail, heavy and snug against his chest and on his shoulders. This thick padding made him feel enormous and stiff.

Another centurion, this one with the Poseidon-blaze of the Imperial fleet on his shoulder, moved past him, along the line of men. He carried another lantern and moved quietly down the gangway at the end of the dock. Above him the light briefly illuminated the overhanging oar galleries of the three-banked galley- a dromon to the Southernersthat they were boarding. Nicholas shivered again, feeling a chill breeze gust up off the waters of the Propontis. All around him the docks of the military harbor, nestled under the walls of the great city, were filled with the muted noise of thousands of men moving quietly.

Nicholas hurried across the gangway when his time came, nervous at the darkness, but once his feet touched the subtly tilting deck of the great oared galley, his heart calmed. Here, on the deck of a fighting ship again for the first time in nearly four years, fear and doubt faded away. He stepped to the side and looked around. The ninety-foot length of the warship was filling up with legionnaires. Great bulwarks of planks faced with hides covered a fighting deck and, below them, three rowing galleries. Nicholas looked down, seeing the white eyes of hundreds of sailors, already seated at their benches, staring back up at him. The ship trembled a little as more and more men clattered over the gangway.