“O master,” he whispered, “that is a terrible name. The name of an old demon, steeped in centuries of evil. In the books of the dead, he stands high in the councils of the lord of all darkness, Ahriman. A man who would take such a name for his own must be a powerful sorcerer. I had begun to fear that something very strong had been in the house across the street. Echoes of it are in the broken tile and bricks of the center of the house, like a foulness had taken root there.”

Maxian looked down on the little sorcerer, his face tender. His fingers pressed the side of the Persian’s neck, feeling his pulse race intermittently. ‘“Fear not, my friend, you will not die. You need rest, though, and sleep. You have been working far too hard. I will complete what you have begun. Tell me this-where is this Dastagird? Is it far away? How long would it take to reach this place?”

Abdmachus sighed, his voice faint with pain and exhaustion. “Dastagird is the stronghold of the magi. It lies along the banks of the great river Tigris, barely twenty miles north of the Persian capital of Ctesiphon. It is a closed city, entered only by the mobehedan and their servants. Once, when I was very young, I was taken there to be, initiated into the order, but all I remember are towering buildings of black basalt and green soapstone.”

“Ctesiphon…” Maxian stood up and motioned for Ga-ius Julius and Krista to bring blankets and quilts for the old man. “Still very far away. We must make haste.” He scowled. “Curse this war of my brothers! If there were peace upon the land, we could travel swiftly.” He began muttering to himself.

Left!“ shouted Eric, ducking away from a spinning disk of blue fire. The disk caromed off the rocks on the hillside and crashed into a scrubby tree. The juniper burst into flame, throwing long flickering shadows across the‘ twilight-shrouded hill. Dwyrin, following the other boy’s lead, weaved uphill between the boulders. His right hand tugged at the air and the juniper roared higher, burning to a white ash in moments. Fire, curling into spheres, darted away from the skeleton of the tree and hurtled downhill at the half-seen figures of the other cohort.

White light vomited up, briefly outlining a sphere of glittering green. Dwyrin felt a shock through the working he had sent out and stumbled against the crumbly stones. Eric halted, his young face drawn in concentration. The Hibernian clutched at the sharp-edged rocks, feeling blood ooze from his fingertips. With the pain came focus, and he could suddenly see the jagged byplay of powers that rippled and strobed in the air over the hill. Downslope, three separate groups of lights moved, darting from stone to stone. As one group moved, another laced the air above them with invisible lightning. Jagged white tendrils leapt from rock to rock, covering the advance.

Eric staggered, his shield taking the side blast of one burst. Dwyrin gulped, remembering that he was supposed to be covering too. Furiously he tried to calm his- mind and add his own intent and will to the ragged, incomplete shield that the Northerner was sketching between them and the onrushing attackers. It seemed agonizingly slow work, not like drawing power from the flame of the tree. Bit by bit the Shield of Athena wavered into being between him and the men scrambling through the field of volcanic debris.

Another flare of light lit the sky, and a twisted flute of spongy black rock blew apart not fifteen feet from them. A cloud of fragments scythed out, smashing the delicate web of the shield Eric had thrown up. Dwyrin gasped in pain, feeling a sliver of rock slash across his cheek. He leapt forward in front of Eric, arm thrown up, and the hail of stones suddenly crashed to a halt against a shimmering wall of fire. Bits of broken rock rained down, smoking and bubbling, to clatter on the ground.

“Up! Up!” He dragged at Eric’s arm, throwing it over his shoulder. The other boy was bleeding from cuts on his face and arms. Dwyrin jogged forward with the Northerner stumbling behind. The air hummed with power. More tiny stones pattered down out of the darkening sky. They had been about these exercises, as Blanco was fond of terming them, since the sun had risen over the grimy, fly-infested plain. North of the camp, a long low row of hills rose up. They were only barely covered with scrub and cactus and spindly trees. The stones and rocks were crumbly and porous. Some you could crush into dust with your bare hand. Others cut like flint, showing deep-green colors in their serrated surfaces. They were an evil place.

The tribune, then, was fond of sending his troopers out to exercise their powers among them. Today, starting with the dawn, Zoe’s four had been sent out as prey for the journeymen in the other cohorts. It had been a long drawn-out affair. The four youngsters had flitted among the dry washes and narrow, boulder-choked canyons for hours. At Zoe’s order, they had damped their powers down to a mute whisper. Zoe and Odenathus were at home among the spiny plants and sandy drainages, flitting invisibly from draw to draw. Eric had suffered in the heat, and Dwyrin had not done so well himself. The air itself drained them, hot and dry. Still, thanks to Zoe, they had eluded capture for a long time.

Now they had run out of places to run. The night air trembled with a dull rumbling.

Dwyrin pushed Eric ahead of him, feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand up. They staggered down a gravelly slope, their feet slipping and sliding. Pale ghost images followed the movement of their pumping arms and legs. Dwyrin’s ears hurt. The sky lit with blue-green fire.

“Let’s take a walk.”

Dwyrin rolled over on his bunk, his stomach seething with a horrible burning feeling. Zoe stood over him, her dark hair falling over her shoulder in an open-weave pattern. He squinted at the coarse canvas wall of the tent, feeling bile at the back of his throat. The leader of their four had a grim look on her face, enhanced by the bandage tied with twine to the side of her temple. Groaning inwardly, the Hibernian tried to roll back over, his forearm thrown across his face.

Zoe hissed in anger and rapped his knees sharply with the short wooden baton she carried as part of her equipment. Dwyrin flinched and turned over, coming up onto his feet. Zoe stared up at him with her head a few inches below his own.

“We walk, barbarian, and we talk.” She pushed him ahead of her out of the tent. Behind them, Eric continued to snore, his arms swathed in gauze bandages soaked in honey.

The camp was busy. The sun was well set over the curve of the world and the heat of day was past. A cool dimness lay over the long rows of tents, and nightjars and bats filled the air, feasting on the swarms of insects that thronged arouna the lanterns hung from tall poles along the beaten dirt avenues. With the. deadening heat gone, everyone was out and about. Voices filled the air. The streets were filled with men coming and going. From the far end of camp, there was a sound of drums and flutes coming from the encampments of the auxillia.

Zoe walked quickly uphill from the tents that the thaumaturges maintained. A low hill butted against one end of the camp, surmounted by a watchtower of fieldstone and wooden uprights. Dwyrin walked behind her, his mood sullen, dragging his feet. At the tower, there was a gate of wooden slats. Zoe nodded to the trooper standing watch. He unlatched the gate and she slipped out. Dwyrin swallowed and followed after her.

The hill was rounded and covered with scattered rocks and thorny bushes. The Palmyrene girl wound her way down the far side, far enough to escape the light leaking from the camp, but not so far as to be beyond sight of the top of the tower. She found an outcropping of stone and sat down. Dwyrin remained standing, staring off into the darkness, his hands clasped behind his back. Zoe sighed and leaned back on her hands, looking up at the dark sky. It was filled with eddies of stars, a scattering of twinkling jewels. The night air was cool and clean against her face.