“I miss the comfort of my wife and our household, but something is still missing. So, I will come with you and see something, at least, that I have not seen before. Perhaps I will find what I am looking for! One never knows where he’ll end up, setting out on an unknown road. Truth might lie around the next bend, or over the next hill.”

In peaceful days, the markets of Damascus were filled with a raucous throng of thousands coming and going along the narrow, covered ways. Now, with tens of thousands of troops camped around, or in, the city, it was worse. It took Ahmet three hours of pushing through congested streets filled with bands of armed men, rickety stalls, and the citizens of the city to reach the broad square surrounded by mighty temples and buildings of the state that marked the center of the ancient town. Once on the square, Ahmet was able to breathe again and walk at a normal pace. He headed for the imposingly porticoed front of the Temple of Zeus, which made itself unmistakable by towering over the entire square and every other building adjoining it.

He mounted the long tier of steps at the front of the temple, passing by fountains set into the broad front that fed a series of shallow ornamental pools at the base of the building. The footsteps of many priests and penitents echoed off the high ceilings as he made his way into the dim recesses at the side of the central nave. There were a number of small offices there, and he walked along them after asking directions of a slave at the front of the temple. At the end, in a rather barren cell, he found the man he wanted to see.

“Master Monimus?” A slight man with only a trace of hair remaining on his head looked up from a low desk. Wooden scroll cases surrounded him like honeycombs, filled with burnished brass handles and well-worn wooden pegs. The priest’s eye~$ were a merry blue, and his face, though deeply lined with age, seemed open and pleasant.

“I am Monimus,” he said in a clear tenor voice. “Please sit. There is wine, if you are thirsty.”

“Thank you, master. I am Ahmet of the School of Ptha-mes in Egypt. I also serve Hermes Trismegistus.”

Monimus bowed, still sitting, and poured two shallow cups of wine from an ancient red-black amphora. He passed one of the krater to Ahmet and sipped politely from the other. Ahmet sipped as well, then placed the ancient drinking bowl on the edge of the table. Monimus waited with the calm that all of the masters of the order seemed to assume as a matter of course. Ahmet cleared his throat, not sure how to begin, but he thought of how Mohammed would handle this and decided to plunge straight in.

“Master Monimus, I must beg your indulgence and ask two favors of you and your house here. I am on a long journey and I am afraid that I have not pleased the master of my school overmuch. He did not give me leave to undertake such an absence, and he may be most displeased with my hasty departure. Despite this, I feel that I should tell him where I am and where I am going, and why I left in such a precipitous manner.”

Ahmet opened the heavy cloth bag that he had purchased in Gerasa and drew out a letter written on poor papyrus. He placed it on the desk between himself and the master. “If you could see that this letter reaches Master Nephet of the School of Pthames, near Panopolis in Upper Egypt, I would be grateful. My second favor is more pressing, though you may not know the answer. Has any news of the Imperial Legion called the Third Cyrenaicea reached you? I must find a man who is serving with it, but my last report held that it was coming here, and it has not done so.”

Monimus sat quietly for a little while, his blue eyes considering Ahmet. The young Egyptian began to feel very nervous at the examination, but he remained still and did not fidget. After a time the Syrian priest sighed and picked up the letter from where it had lain on the desk.

“Of course I will see that this letter reaches your superior in Panopolis. I believe that I know this Nephet from my time at the sanctuary of the Order in Ephesus. He is a stern man, if memory serves, but he does care about his charges, and forgives. Of your second request, I can say nothing, for I know nothing of the matter. Every tongue in the city has the matter of the war against Persia upon it, but I have heard nothing that would indicate that the Imperials are coming here. Are you determined to find this man?“

Ahmet nodded.

The older priest picked at the edge of the letter, his face troubled. “You know of the levy upon the orders, of course?”

Ahmet nodded again, and something of the anger he felt must have shown through.

“Yes, an evil business,” said Monimus, his voice quieting to a whisper. “Little good can come of it-yet it is a desperate necessity. You r?ay not feel the tremors and echoes in far Egypt, but here, so close to the border, we feel the workings of the Persian mobehedan often-almost daily in the last months. The walls between our world and the others are strained and pinched. We tremble at the approach of each darkness of the moon, for then it is worse. They are desperate for victory. They are paying a terrible cost for strength to bring against Rome.

“If you go north or east, tread lightly. There are foul powers on the hunt in those lands.”

Ahmet nodded again. He had been feeling a growing unease the farther north he had come with the caravan. The air seemed brittle and thin, the sun dimmer than usual. In his othersight, odd f?ckerings and half-heard voices filled the empty spaces of the desert. Lines of unexpected tension and force were gathering in the unseen world.

“Master, I will be careful in my travels.” Ahmet bowed, his head almost touching the tiled floor.

Monimus made the sign of the god and watched the young man go. The sense of unease did not leave him. He turned back to the rolls of the Temple and the order for timbers to begin construction of a new lodging house behind the main building.

Mohammed was waiting in the shade of the great entrance hallway to the sanctuary of the Temple of Zeus, staring up at the giant marble figure of the god of storms. The Zeus reclined on poorly carved clouds, but his body was well cut, standing forth from the rock. One arm supported the god against the clouds and held a cluster of bronze thunderbolts, the other raised a torch of stone. Oil-fire gleamed on that sconce, casting flickering light-on the ceiling of the temple. Under the wavering light, the skin tones and painted hair of the statue seemed close to life. Ahmet coughed politely.

Mohammed shook his head and looked around at his friend. Though his face was properly solemn for such a place, Ahmet could see that a huge grin was threatening to break out under the brushy black mustaches.

“Come,” the merchant whispered in a voice quiet as a shout, “I’ve done well this morning!”

Outside, Mohammed fairly bounced down the steps. Ahmet lengthened his stride to keep up. The merchant bustled across the square, stopping only to purchase a wooden skewer with roasted meat on it. Chewing, he began talking to Ahmet.

“There will be a council of the chieftains and Princes tonight, my friend, in the Roman citadel. All of the lords who were summoned have arrived as of last night, and the governor has called this meeting to lay out the plans of campaign. There is no better way to find out where the Third is stationed, and where it is going to be stationed, than at this meeting. Everyone will be there, even the Princes of Nabatea and Palmyra.”

“And how,” Ahmet asked with asperity, “are we going to get into this conclave of the great?”

“Ah, my friend, that is the beauty of the thing. You are traveling with me, so these things are possible! As luck would have it, one of the bands of lancers that have been hired by the Palmyrenes are cousins of my wife’s brother’s wife’s uncle. I convinced their war captain-an old rascal named Amr ibn’Adi of the Tanukh-that we should ride with them, and just by the by, attend the conference tonight as his aides.“