There was a sharp twang sound, and the sound, of something heavy slapping into meat.

Mohammed got out both arms out of the hole and levered himself out onto the roof by main force, carrying Roxane on his shoulders. There was a chill on his back and he rolled over, catching her limp body. The night was lit with great clouds of smoke, glowing sullen red and orange. He rolled Roxane over, and her sightless eyes stared up at him. An arcuballista bolt had taken her in the side of the neck as she had dragged him out of the opening. Below her pale perfect face was a ruin of white bone and red tattered flesh. Mohammed stood slowly, heedless of the screams and shouts that rose from the ragged gaping hole in the roof. Ashes drifted out of the sky, settling in his silver-streaked hair and on his face. He stared down into the room below, seeing his Tanukh- come at last- hewing their way through the trapped ranks of the Bani Hashim. In his eyes, the fires of the city gleamed.

The Island of Thira, Somewhere in the Kyklades

Thyatis, her long golden red hair tied back behind her neck, slowly descended a flight of sandstone steps. Her gait was stately, her head held high. She was dressed only in a short cotton chit on and a pair of beaten copper bracelets on her left arm. She stepped down onto a floor of marble blocks covered with fine white sand. A great room opened out around her, vaulted above with a huge dome. The walls were lost in shadow, showing only the feet of massive pillars set at regular intervals. Sunlight, dim and diffuse, filtered from a circular opening in the ceiling high above. Within a shaft of light falling from the oculus the slight figure of Mikele stood waiting. As before, she was dressed in long plain white pantaloons of soft cotton, with a tunic of subtle yellow and a round collar. A second, tighter fitting shirt with long dark sleeves that came to her wrists was worn underneath the tunic. Her hair was tied up into a tight bun at the back of her head.

Thyatis stopped at the edge of the circle of light and bowed deeply, her hands pressed together in front of her. Behind her, at the top of the curving set of stairs that ran down the side of the room, Shirin waited in a long loose gown that covered her whole body. Her hair, too, was tied up and bound back behind her head, out of the way. At the edge of the circle, Thyatis looked up and met the little woman's eyes.

"Sifu, I bring a candidate who wishes to learn the Way of the Open Hand."

Mikele did not stir, but her voice echoed off the hidden pillars and the dark spaces in the room. "If there is a student, a teacher will appear. Is there a student here?"

"Yes, sifu."

Thyatis bowed again and stood aside, stepping to the base of one of the great grooved pillars that ringed the central space of the room. Shirin descended the steps, the light pit-pat of her feet audible in the quiet room. At the edge of the circle of light, she stopped and bowed, even as Thyatis had done. "I am a student," she said in a clear high voice. "Is there a teacher here?"

"Yes," Mikele said, still unmoving. "Show yourself in the circle of light."

Thyatis bit back a soft hiss as Shirin shrugged off the loose gown and stepped into the circle. Under the pale light, her skin seemed to gleam with health; a rich dark olive. Her full breasts were bound with a strophium of fine Egyptian cotton, and she wore a slight loincloth to cover herself. The months of training on the decks of ships in Arabian and Egyptian waters had trimmed away the baby fat that had accumulated in four years of soft, palatial life in Ctesiphon. She seemed to float in the air, poised and ready. Thyatis swallowed, seeing her exposed in the pale light as if for the first time.

"I am a teacher," Mikele said, and she moved slightly, making a soft bow, no more than an incline of her head. "Do you wish to learn?"

"Yes," Shirin answered, taking a step forward into the center of the circle of light and bowing. "I wish to learn."

Mikele regarded her gravely for a moment, then a flash of a brilliant smile crossed her face. "Then you shall learn."

Thyatis sighed and turned away, quietly making her way up the curving flight of stairs. Behind her, the other students of the Way, who had been sitting quietly in the shadows, came out, their voices and laughter filling the old domed temple that was the center of their school. At the top of the stairs, Thyatis looked down, her face sad, to see Shirin talking earnestly with the other girls. At the edge of their throng, Mikele was looking back at her, her high-boned face calm and serene. The Roman woman turned and left. She felt excluded from the life of her friend, though she had intended this all along. It hurt.

A wooden man stood at the side of a room with a wooden floor. The floor was worn and rubbed smooth by the scuff and passage of many feet. The wooden man, his stiff arms held out before him, was polished, too, though the patterns were uneven. His neck and face, his elbows, his crotch and knees were all grooved with wear. Once there had been features painted on the face- a fierce red beard and bushy eyebrows- but they had vanished long ago.

Thyatis, stripped down to her loincloth and strophium, stalked sideways, poised on the balls of her feet. Her arms were up, ready, muscles tensed. She drifted forward, then exploded into motion, sweat flying away from her hair and face. The wooden man shuddered as sidekicks and sharp, fast hand strikes rained against him. Thyatis pushed herself, going through the long series of punches, kicks, and blocks with increasing speed. Her muscles burned with the effort. Suddenly, spinning away, she shouted in fury and lashed out with a flying side-kick that cracked the wooden head. There was a splintering sound, and the round globe of old oak flew away, clattering off the wall of the training room. Thyatis landed on her feet, her breath hissing between bared, clenched teeth. Sweat ran off of her in tiny rivers. The cotton kilt around her waist clung, sopping wet, to her thighs.

She shouted again and her fists blurred, cracking sharply against the elbows of the wooden man. The worn grooves in the wood took her strike like they had taken tens of thousands of blows before. She spun away, her wrists and fists snapping through the blocking patterns at the end of the practice movements. Then she squatted heavily on the floor, holding her head in her hands. Her whole body felt like it had been beaten with a butcher's hammer.

"Ah, dear," a quiet voice came from the doorway, "you mustn't break the appliances. That poor man takes enough abuse as it is."

Thyatis rose, scowling, but then saw the Matron standing in the doorway, her elegant gown falling almost to her feet. The elderly woman's white hair was down, falling around her shoulders, and she held a folding fan in one hand. The Matron stepped into the room, her movements carefully controlled and showing echoes of the grace she had owned in youth. She sat on one of the benches along the wall, her head silhouetted against a deep-set window. Far beyond her, the line of the horizon was an azure slash in a field of white. The fan moved languidly, stirring the air.

Thyatis shook her head and stood up, going to the corner of the room where the broken head had come to rest. She picked it up, making a wry grimace at it, and put it back on its stump. It lolled to one side. "I should make a new one," she said, not looking at the Matron.

"Hmm. That might do your body some good; diving to one of the wrecks on the Teeth and recovering the wood to make it. But it will not settle your mind, my dear. Exhaustion will only gain you a short respite. Though: there are many stones to be quarried and carved for the new Temple of Atargatis:"