The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate

I – The Chamber of the Wizard

Golden lamps, hung by chains from the sooty ceiling, smoked and flickered, sending forth an olivine odor. The little yellow flames burnt steadily for a time, then writhed and fluttered as though struck by a sudden draft. Yet no breeze could penetrate to this secluded chamber, whose only opening to the outer world was a doorway closed by a heavy, wooden, copper-studded door.

At one end of the cluttered room, a striped hyena paced to and fro in its cage. Its claws clicked on the stone and, as it turned at the end of its walk, its eyes shone green in the lamplight.

The time was before dawn on the morning of the third day of the month Nisanu, in the twentieth year of the reign of Xerxes—the Great King, the King of All Kings, the King of the Persians and the Medes, the King of the Wide World, the son of Darius, the chief of the Achaemenid clan. The place was a chamber of the west side of the small palace of Darius at Persepolis, in the rugged mountains of Parsa.

Two men, seated on stools, faced each other across a massive table, on which lay three dead mice.

One of these men was King Xerxes himself. The Great King was a tall, strong man, albeit somewhat stooped and paunchy. Instead of his purple robe of royalty he wore a white gown over crimson trousers and pointed saffron shoes. Instead of the towering royal tiara, his head bore only a blue polka-dotted fillet to confine his long, curled hair.

Beneath heavy black brows, his bloodshot eyes bulged slightly. Below the long, hooked Achaemenid nose, a firm, thin-lipped mouth was shadowed by a heavy mustache with sweeping ends waxed to spikes. A curled, graying beard fell to his breast.

The king's expression was morose, discontented, and weary. He looked older than his fifty-five years as he peered nearsightedly at the mice, then at the man across the table.

This man was taller, leaner, and older than Xerxes. A long white beard was tucked into the bosom of his dusty black robe, and from his head rose a conical black hat.

"Then," said the king, "you have failed again?"

The other spread his hands, smiling with raised eye-brows. "The Good God did not wish me to find my goal by this route, sire. Yet will your slave persevere, trying each—"

"Ahriman smite you!" roared Xerxes, striking the table with his fist, so that the corpses of the mice sprang into the air as if called back to life. "Promises, promises; of those you have a muchel. But when will you show me some results? Belike the touch of hot iron would speed your quest—"

"Oh, Great King!" cried the other in a broad Medic accent, bowing again and again like a puppet worked by strings. "I do my best, truly I do. Be it as you wish—but who can compel the gods to reveal hidden truths? This time, however, your slave is verily on the scent of success. Fry my guts if it come to nought, sire! I assure my lord and master—"

"There, there," said the king. "I meant not to frighten you, my good Ostanas. Never would I harm a faithful servant and friend. Am I forgiven?"

Ostanas drew a long breath. "Whatever the king does pleases his slave. As for my fright,"—he smiled slyly—"that, I ween, is but the normal hazard of being the king's gossip."

Xerxes said: "I would not drive away my one true friend, for loneliness is the lot of kings. But it roils my temper when day by day I feel my powers waning. Here am I, ruler of the civilized world, commanding riches beyond those of any king before me. Yet year by year my teeth decay, my hair falls out, my breath grows short, and my sight grows dim, as if I were the commonest clod."

"The God of the Aryans give you life, sire! No one would think my master a day over forty—"

"Save your flattery, good Ostanas; I can see the plaster on my pate as well as the next man. My hairdresser does his best, but I do not think he befools anybody with all his powders, paints, and hair dyes. My father—God welcome him—thought it a pretty conceit to keep three hundred and sixty-five royal concubines. But what good does that number do me? I could get along with a mere score and never summon the same one twice in a year. So what can all my wealth and power do to stay the march of time?"

A low laugh came from the end of the room, a mirthless ha-ha-ha-ha on a rising scale. The king whirled about on his stool. The hyena stared greenly at him and resumed its pacing.

"I wish you would get rid of that thing," said Xerxes. "I swear by the golden heels of Gandareva that he understands my words and mocks them. Besides, he stinks."

"Mighty medicines are made from the organs of the hyena," said Ostanas. "So my pet may some day have his uses. As I was about to—"

"Tell me," interrupted the king, "I reign by the grace of Auramazda—the one and only true God, all-seeing and omnipotent—-and I have tried to be a good king. Then why, by the Holy Ox Soul, am I so unhappy? I have flunkies and flatterers galore but no real friends save you. My sons—the legitimate ones—watch me like vultures watching a dying camel. And you know how it is with the queen and me. I sleep badly and, when I do snatch some slumber, he visits me in dreams, dripping black blood. And she—" The king covered his eyes and shuddered.

"If it please Your Majesty," said Ostanas, "your slave will tell you of his discovery, which, if true, will relieve your heartache and restore your youth."

"Speak, man."

"I have read crumbling scrolls of cured human hide, writ in blood in the ancient picture language of Egypt. I have communed by the light of gibbous moons with unseen presences in the ruins of ancient fanes. I have cast up the signs of the glittering stars according to the arcane rules of the wise Babylonians. I have sought the guidance of gods in sleep induced by dire drugs from Kush and Hind. I—"

"I know you have done portentous things," said the king, "but come to the point."

"At last my unworthy self has found the formula for the true elixir."

"Then why have you not made it?" Xerxes extended a hand, glowing with rings, towards the three dead mice.

"Because, sire, some of the ingredients are so rare and outlandish that I know not if they can be had. Ancient lore and modern science alike assert that these things must needs be obtained if the great work shall succeed. Moreover, a holy spirit has appeared to me in a dream and assured me that my plan is right."

"What are these ingredients?"

"My lord will not think that I mock him?"

"Have done with evasions, good Ostanas. If you tell me that you need a piece of the moon, then by the Mountain of Lapis Lazuli I swear I will send men to fetch it."

"Know then, Great King, that the elixir must be compounded of three rare ingredients, besides the commoner stuffs like powdered emerald. These three things are: first, die blood of a dragon; second, the ear of a king; and third, the heart of a hero."

Xerxes laughed heartily, showing stained and blackened teeth. "Perfay, but that is a fine bird to pluck! I thank the Lord of Light that you asked me not for milk of a virgin or fur of a fish. Rehearse me the details."

"The blood of a dragon is needed because the vital element of life is heat, and the blood of dragons contains the most ardent heat of any living—"

"What kind of dragon? One of the winged serpents of Araby?"

"That were too small. Nor would any common lizard or cockadrill suffice, sire. Know you the reptile that the Babylonians represent as the sacred beast of their false god Marduk?"

"And which they depict in glazed brick on the Great Gate of Ishtar? Aye; I have seen a live one."

"You have? When?"

"Or ever the Babylonians revolted in the fifth year of My Majesty's reign, I entered the temple of Marduk to pay my respects to the priests; for, even though we Aryans have received the true faith from the inspired Zoroaster, statecraft compels us to tolerate the false gods of foreign nations under our sway. Seeing this same monster, portrayed in enameled brick on the walls of the temple, I asked the priests about it.

"This was, they said, a sirrush, the divine beast of Marduk. Moreover, they offered to show me a living sirrush. Nothing loath, I followed them into a dark little room below the cella. There, in a cage, lay something that looked for all the world like a large gray lizard, above three cubits*(* 1 cubit = 1-1/2 feet.) in length.

"When I remarked on this, the priests assured me that the creature was a mere chick, which would in time attain the stature of a camel and the bulk of a buffalo; also, that it would grow the horns and other appendages shown in the reliefs."

"Where is this beast now?" Ostanas leaned forward in his eagerness.

"I wot not; it vanished during the sack of Babylon after the revolt. But I was told where these animals live."

"Indeed, sire?"

"Aye. When I asked where I might obtain such a beast for my menagerie, the priests averred that it dwelt at the source of the river Nile."

"God befriend you!" cried Ostanas. "That is farther than the kite flies. Who has ever been to the headwaters of the Nile? Not even the Egyptians, who live along this river, know whence it comes."

"That is the point," said the king. "None has, at least to my knowledge. But what of your other components?"

"Well, sire, we need the ear of a king for the following reason: Wise men believe that sound makes a permanent imprint upon whatever it passes through. To assure that the elixir shall strengthen the wisdom and mental powers of him who quaffs it, we must include a piece of matter through which spoken words of grave import have passed. And who hears words of more grave import than a king?"

"That were hardly practical," said Xerxes. "I cannot very well call in the tributary king of Cilicia and cut off his ear. Such ungentle treatment would surely drive him to revolt."

"Then my master must obtain this ear from outside his empire. Lastly there is the heart of a hero. The heart is the seat of the passions, affections, sentiments, and virtues. Therefore, to imbue the patient with perfect courage and greatness of soul, we require the heart of a fearless hero."

"That were even less easy," said the king. "Whilst I have some good men amongst my satraps and generals, I should be loath to sacrifice any one of them; nor were such treatment just. Whereas those who merit death for their crimes would not possess hearts of the requisite quality."

Ostanas smiled' thinly. "Sire, if you could find a man who would fetch hither a sirrush—alive, of course, so that its blood should be fresh—and the ear of a king, the third requirement would take care of itself."

Xerxes scowled, then laughed. "Ostanas, you shock me. For one who was taught by a pupil of the Great Magus himself, you are a wicked old scoundrel."

"It were for the good of the realm, sire. In such cases, private welfare must give way."

"Nay, nay, the Lord of Light would hate me for such perfidy. We must find another—"

The private knock, used by the king's bodyguards and trusted intimates, sounded.

"Come in!" said the king.

The door creaked open, and one of the bodyguards thrust in his beard. "O King! Prince Tithraustes seeks audience."

"At this hour? By the breasts of Anahita! What wishes he?"

There were murmurs in the hall outside. The guard said: "It is not for himself, sire, but for Myron the Milesian."

"The tutor? Well, what does he want?" More murmurs; then: "It has to do with Bessas of Zariaspa."

"Ahriman!" swore the king. "I have given my decision, and the law of the Persians and Medes cannot be set aside——"

Xerxes paused and stared through slitted eyelids at Ostanas. He said: "Know, old friend, that meseems the Good God has sent us the answer to our problem." He turned back to die door. "Say that the king will speak with Tithraustes and Myron in the audience chamber forthwith." Picking up his jeweled, gold-headed walking stick, Xerxes rose and left the chamber.

Ostanas gazed after him, still smiling. From its cage the hyena laughed. The magus swept up the three dead mice, stepped to the cage, and tossed them in. There were soft mouthing sounds and a faint crunch of small bones; then silence.

The former palace of Darius the Great stood on a spacious platform of scarped natural rock and limestone blocks, which towered forty feet above the plain and was in turn overshadowed by the Mountain of Mercy behind it. North, south, and east of Darius' palace loomed the other royal structures, most of them far larger than that modest edifice. Some, unfinished, were still spinous with scaffolding.

Clustered below the platform on the plain stood the mansions of Xerxes' nobles, the huts of their servants, and the shops and houses owned by the local people. Persepolis was only a small town. The king had other palaces in the teeming cities of Shushan and Babylon and Hagmatana. When, as happened several times each year, the king removed from one to another, his host of kinsmen, women, slaves, advisers, officials, generals, and grandees perforce moved with him.

On the night that King Xerxes consulted Ostanas, another man slept in a room that he leased from a Persepolitan shopkeeper. A violent knocking awoke this man. Yawning and cursing, he got up, stubbed his toe, and stumbled to the door. A glance through the peephole showed a veiled woman and, behind her, a slave upholding a burning link of rope and asphalt.

"Myron of Miletos!" cried the woman. "This is your dwelling, is it not?" She spoke Persian, in the dialect of the far northeast, pronouncing "Miletos" as "Miretush."

"Yes. Who are you, madam?"

"I am Zarina the widow of Phraates and mother of Bessas. Let me in! It is a matter of my son's life."

"Wait till I don some garments." Presently Myron slid back the bolt. Entering, the woman threw back her veil, showing abundant white hair. The light of a freshly lighted lamp revealed an austerely furnished chamber littered with manuscripts. Myron, a broad-shouldered man of medium height, wearing a Greek tunic over Persian pantaloons, said:

"It has been months since your slave has seen you, Lady Zarina. What is this about Bessas?"

"He—he is to be impaled at dawn for his part in the rape of Tamyra the Daduchid."

"What!" cried Myron. "I heard a rumor of the arrest of Sataspes, but I did not know that Bessas—"

"He was not—that is, he knew not—" Zarina began to weep and moan incoherently.

"Madam," said Myron, "dawn is not many hours off. Be seated and, if you wish assistance, try to give me an intelligible explanation."

Zarina brought herself under control and sat with a clatter of bangles. "I know not what you have heard. Two days past, the king received the acclaim of his nobles and the gifts of the bearers of tribute for the New Year—"

"I witnessed it," said Myron.

"Afterwards came the New Year's banquet. The nobles gorged and caroused, as is the custom, in the main dining hall. Know you the king's cousin Sataspes son of Teaspes?"

"I have seen him," said Myron.

"Well, this fool got even drunker than is to be expected and wandered out of the feast. In the halls he came upon Tamyra daughter of Zopyrus. Just how things went we know not, because Sataspes told divers tales, and the girl was too frightened to tell any sensible story at all.

"It seems he sat down and held her in his lap in an empty anteroom, in fatherly fashion. After all, he has children older than she. But presently his passions rose, and he flung her down, tore off her trousers, and had his will of her. At least, he sought to do so, though what of her struggling and his unsteadiness I do not think he truly—"

"Aiai!" Myron broke in. "Why must he pick the worst victim in the entire Empire? Not that I should ever condone rape, even of a humble serving maid; but the virgin daughter of the Daduchids! He must have been as mad as a maenad. Then what happened?"

"Tamyra's screams attracted the guards. Their coming sobered Sataspes, for as they entered the chamber he confronted them with a tale of the child's being frightened by a demon. Whilst they, knowing him for an Achaemenid, hesitated, he dashed off and sought sanctuary at our house as an old friend and distant cousin. I was out visiting my gossips. Bessas tried to smuggle Sataspes out of Persepolis, and both were caught."

As Zarina paused, Myron said: "Folly is mortals' self-chosen misfortune. Go on."

"This afternoon past, the king judged the matter. The Daduchids wanted the boats or the ashes for Sataspes. The king had compromised on the stake, when Sataspes' mother burst in. Such shouting in the king's presence has not been heard since Salamis!

"But the king could not turn out his aunt without giving her her say. She proposed that Sataspes earn his life by sailing around Africa and reporting on what he found, as Phoenicians are said to have done in the reign of some old Egyptian king. After more shouting, Bagabyxas and Zopyrus agreed, albeit with ill grace."

"Then what?" said Myron.

"That left my son. Bessas asserts he knew nought of the rape; that Sataspes told him only that the Daduchids had their knives out for him and he must needs flee. I thought that, in view of the king's lenience towards Sataspes, he would let Bessas off with a mere loss of his commission in the Immortals. But, as Bessas has neither wealth nor influence and nobody to plead for him but me, it took the king but ten heartbeats to sentence him to the stake."

"Beshrew me, but this is a dreadful business!" said Myron soberly. "What does my mistress wish?"

"Save him!" cried Zarina. "Save my only son!"

"I? Good gods, how?"

"How should I know? You, Master Myron, are notorious as one of the cleverest men of your crafty race. You can find a way; but save my boy!"

Myron sighed. "You Persians speak of ordinary human intelligence as if it were a criminal attribute. I grieve with you, madam. But I am neither so rich as Croesus nor so brave as Kodros. I am only a poor schoolmaster, with less influence at court than Bessas. I am not even an Aryan, let alone a Persian grandee. Can you give me a logical reason why I should risk my neck in a probably futile effort to save your whipworthy young—"

"May Ghu the demon king boil you in oil, you greedy Greek!" spat Zarina. "So you are fain to be bribed! Here, take my earrings—"

"Mistress Zarina!" cried Myron. "You utterly wrong me! Keep your earrings, pray. I merely asked for a logical—"

"You and your logic!" screamed Zarina, wringing her hands. "Does not your heart tell you what to do? Or have you none?"

An agony of indecision screwed Myron's face into wrinkles. "It is not lack of heart, dear lady, but a certain lingering affection for my own hide. Though others may not think it worth taking off to make wallets of, I like the old thing. Besides, I have no skill at swaying the minds of the mighty."

Zarina leaned towards Myron, to whom her large dark eyes seemed like bottomless pools of blackness, reflecting the wavering yellow flame of the little lamp. "If you must have logic, consider this, good my sir. When one of your former pupils comes to a bad end, it reflects upon your teaching. You claim to impart wisdom; yet events give your words the lie. Had Bessas possessed wisdom, he would not now face a mean and agonizing death."

Myron drew a deep breath as his face cleared. "Your arguments are irrefutable, lady. I will do what I can. How shall we proceed? Let me think."

For a time Myron sat, fingering his short brown beard flecked with gray. The widow fidgeted. At last the Hellene said:

"Why not urge the king to send Bessas on an expedition like that of Sataspes?"

Zarina clapped her hands together. "The very thing! And you can go with him, to keep him out of trouble."

Myron started so violently that he choked upon a drop of spittle in his windpipe. When he had finished coughing, he said: "My hearing must fail me, dear lady! I thought you said that I was to accompany your young hellion on his expedition. Such an absurd idea—"

"Your hearing deceived you not. Think, now! Do you recall the time last year when Bessas brought you to our house to dinner? You talked at length. You told us how much unrelieved school teaching bored you. You spoke of the great explorers, like Skylax and Kolaios, and how you envied them their chance to advance the knowledge of mankind. Remember?"

"Sometimes I talk too much, especially when stimulated by fine Syrian wine. But really, I am a man of middle age! I am past the time for deeds of derring-do—"

"Rubbish, my dear Myron! You are a mere youth in your forties. At my age it were different. But, like the rest of us, you grow no younger by the year. Here is a chance not likely to come again! Will you not hate yourself for the rest of your wretched life if you forgo it?"

Myron sighed. "Madam, in deference to your rank I forbear to use some fine picturesque curses, which I learnt in Babylon. You must be a veritable witch, so shrewdly to divine all a man's secret weaknesses and so mercilessly to play upon them! Though I be the cosmos' greatest fool, I will go if it be possible. Now let us to our next step."

Zarina: "But what step? Midnight has passed. The king sleeps, as do most honest folk. It would take a Scythian invasion to persuade his people to rouse him now. And by the time he rises, my baby will have sat upon the stake."

Myron said: "My pupils bring me gossip, and this gossip says that the king is not so regular a sleeper as that. Many nights he spends closeted with Ostanas. The old he-witch has probably cozened the king into thinking that he can turn excrement into gold—but that gives us one hairsbreadth of a chance. Through whom can we approach the king?"

"I suppose we could appeal to the commander in chief."

Myron tossed his head in the Greek negative. "Artabanus is no more enamored of being aroused from slumber than the king. Moreover, even if we gained his ear, he would extort monstrous bribes and put us off, day by day, before we attained our audience. We must think of something else."

"Oh, hasten!" said Zarina. "Mithra! Will you waste the entire night in talk?"

"Calm yourself, madam. There is no point in rushing heedlessly about the streets and shouting gibberish. Who besides Artabanus?"

"How about Aspamitres?"

"Gods forbid! Once you get into the hands of the eunuchs, they'll bleed you whiter and delay you longer than Artabanus. In the palace, there's a scorpion beneath every stone."

"Have you tutored any of the king's sons?"

Myron pondered. "Not to speak of—I taught the young Darius for a ten-day, and then we parted because I insisted upon classroom discipline and he upon his royal prerogatives. But wait! I once tutored the king's bastard Tithraustes. He is not a bad sort, for a prince."

"They do say the king dotes upon Master Tithraustes, despite the thrashing that the Hellenes gave him in that affair off Cyprus."

"The reason is obvious," said Myron. "Being illegitimate, Tithraustes has no claim upon the throne. So, when he says 'dear Father,' Xerxes knows that he means it and is not using his love as a ruse for slipping a knife into the royal ribs." He rose and took his plain brown cloak off the peg. "My dear madam, I think we have it. I am informed that the bastard prince is a nocturnal bird, who makes the rounds of the taverns until false morn rises in the eastern sky. So let us go to find Tithraustes."

The night was dark with an overcast that promised one of spring's last rains. Myron and his companion went warily, holding two links high, lest some nervous Immortal mistake them for robbers and loose a shaft.

An hour and three taverns after they had left Myron's room, they entered the wineshop of Hutrara on the outskirts of Persepolis. Hutrara, a stout bald Elamite, leaned one elbow on his wine counter and eyed his few remaining customers with patient impassiveness.

Two of the tables were empty. At another, a stout Babylonian banker held a heated discussion in frantic whispers with a lean man who looked like a Kossian cutthroat. At another, three Parthian cameleers sat with arms about one another's necks, singing a song with a wailing tune.

A black-browed soldier in the short white jacket, white pantaloons, and golden necklet of the Median battalion of the Immortals, his costume wine-stained and his bulbous white felt hat awry, had another table to himself. Thence, over his winecup, he glowered to right and left as if seeking a quarrel.

The remaining table was occupied by a plump young Persian and a heavily painted strumpet. The man, with rouged cheeks, waxed mustaches, and a golden chain around his neck, sat with his arm about the giggling woman. He alternately sipped wine and nuzzled his companion, whispering in her ear and tickling her with his beard.

"There is our man," murmured Myron, squeezing past the other table. "Hail, noble Tithraustes!"

The Persian looked up, blinking and moving his eyebrows as if he had trouble in focusing. "Who are you?"

"I am your old tutor, Myron Perseôs by name—Myron the Milesian."

"Oh? Well. Great pleasure. Great pleasure. Sit down."

"Thank you. This is the noble lady Zarina. Your slaves need your help."

The Persian, who had gone back to nuzzling the whore, looked around. "Help? Thank you, my master, but I need no help. Doing fine by myself." He hiccupped.

"No, sir, it is we who need your help. You can assist us. Now do you understand?"

"Who are you?"

"Zeus, Apollon, and Demeter!" muttered Myron. He took a draft of wine and addressed the Persian anew. "I am your old tutor Myron. You remember him, do you not?"

"Aye. Whatever befell him?"

"Nothing befell him; here he is. Well then, I require your help."

"I told you, I need no help," said Tithraustes, fingering the emerald in the lobe of his left ear.

Zarina whispered loudly over Myron's shoulder: "Knock the lout senseless, and we will drag him outside and revive him."

"Go away and mind your business," said the whore, "or I will scratch your eyes out."

"Try it, hussy!" said Zarina. "I will pull off that wig of yours."

"Mistress Zarina," said Myron, "do me the favor of sitting at that empty table. Order something. This may take time. Now," said Myron to Tithraustes, "Your Highness is a true Persian gentleman, are you not?"

"Does any scum deny it?" growled Tithraustes.

"Right. Now, that means that you have a keen sense of honor, does it not?"

"Plague! Any ninny knows that."

"Then, when your old tutor appeals to you for help, honor compels you to help him. Is that not so?"

Tithraustes pondered this for an instant, then said: "And who are you?"

Myron closed his eyes and passed a hand across his forehead. "Sometimes, by Earth and the gods, I wonder." Then his manner changed. From intensely serious he became boisterously jovial. He laughed loudly and clapped Tithraustes on the shoulder.

"Look, son," he said, "do you know what I can get you?"

"Nay; what?"

"I can lead you to a woman whose cleft runs crosswise"—he made slicing motions—"instead of up and down. Are you game?"

"Am I?" Tithraustes fumbled in his purse and slapped a small coin on the table. "Lead on!"

Myron rose and started for the door. The whore spat a curse after him. A hand caught his cloak and turned him half around. It was the sullen Median soldier.

"Did you say aught to me?" snarled the Mede.

"No, general, your slave did not," said Myron. "It is my misfortune that I do not know you. No doubt the man beside you said something."

The Mede turned to stare into the empty air beside him. He was still staring when Myron and his companions passed out of the wineshop, leaving Hutrara and the hussy to quarrel over the money on the table.

A few blocks towards the palaces, Tithraustes stared at the Greek and cried: "Why, Master Myron! Fry my balls if it be not good old Myron! Whence came you?"

"Well, thank all the gods and goddesses!" said Myron. "I am in desperate need... ,"

Myron followed Tithraustes up the broad reversing stairway on the western side of the platform. The first faint light appeared in the east, revealing the outlines of the Mount of Mercy towering jaggedly above the palaces.

"Hasten!" breathed Zarina. "Dawn comes on apace."

At the top, a sentry challenged, bringing his partisan to port. This was a broad-bladed polearm, a clumsy weapon meant more for impressing the Great King's subjects than for serious fighting.

Tithraustes conversed in murmurs with the guard. Then he led his companions into the huge Gate of All Nations, flanked by limestone bulls twenty feet high.

"Sit and wait," he said, indicating a bench along the wall.

The bastard prince disappeared, while the sentry watched them, leaning on his partisan. The torchlight flickered ocherously on the gilding of the winged disk of Auramazda, above which rose the crowned and bearded head and upper body of the Lord of Light.

They sat while Zarina gnawed her knuckles. "If he keeps us waiting much longer," she murmured, "I shall scream, king or no king."

Myron said: "Hurrying a king, my dear Zarina, is like trying to contain the wind in a goatskin."

"You can be patient. It is not your son."

"I have none, alas. But I will do my poor best for yours."

"Try to have Bessas sent on an expedition to some safe, peaceful land."

"Do you know of any?" said Myron dryly. "Even the royal realm of Parsa has proved less safe than lying in bed."

Somewhere in the maze of palaces, the king's pet lion, Rustam, gave a moaning roar. The light was stronger when Tithraustes reappeared.

"Come this way," he said.

Leaving Zarina's slave in the gate, Tithraustes led them out the rear, where stood a pair of winged, human-headed bulls of stone. Two guards trailed after them. The soldiers' leathern bow cases, gay with glued-on bits of colored leather, bumped against their hips.

A pair of palace servants stood yawning by a basin on a pedestal. They washed the hands of Myron and Zarina and put long loose white robes upon them.

The petitioners climbed the stairs on the northern side of the audience hall, where sculptured soldiers of the Immortals, noblemen, and delegations bearing tribute from all over the Empire marched in stony files in low relief along the retaining walls. Then before the party rose the portico of the great Apadana, begun by Darius and completed by Xerxes. Slender columns, soaring sixty-five feet into the air, upheld the roof. The capitals of these columns took the form of the forequarters of kneeling beasts—bulls and horned lions—in pairs, back to back.

Within the audience hall rose a shadowy forest of pillars with similar capitals. The light of torches and cressets glimmered redly on the bronzen horns and the golden eyes of the sculptured beasts; it gleamed on the gilded arms and armor of motionless guards.

Beyond this forest of columns, at the southern end of the hall, stood a golden chair of pretense on a dais. Above it, supported on golden pillars, rose a jeweled canopy, glimmering with gems of many hues. Here the petitioners waited again, while a slave lit the tall golden incense burners flanking the throne.

At last Aspamitres, the chief eunuch, entered. He smote the pave with his staff and cried:

"Silence! Bow down before the Awful Royal Glory!"

Myron, Zarina, and the bastard prince sank to their knees and touched their foreheads to the floor. Zarina's jewelry clanked as she knelt. A tramp of feet, a swish of garments, and a heavy smell of perfume told of the king's arrival. The voice of the king said: "Rise!"

Xerxes sat on his throne, with his feet on a golden footstool footed with golden bulls' hooves. Two attendants flanked him. Although it was night and indoors, one held the royal parasol over his head, while the other stood by with a fly swatter and a napkin, in case the king were troubled by a noxious insect or wished to blow his nose.

Farther to either side stood guards from the Elamite battalion of the Immortals, wearing embroidered knee-length coats, close-fitting trousers, and low twisted turbans. They rested on their toes the golden balls on the butts of their spears. A score of slaves, trying to look inconspicuous while standing by in case the king wished an errand run, clustered in corners.

The king's prominent eyes were more bloodshot than ever, and a hasty job with paint and powder merely added to his years. He wore an old robe of state, dimmed by dirt and dotted with food stains. He peered myopically and rasped:

"You are Myron the tutor, are you not?"

Myron and Zarina had, upon rising, thrust their hands into their sleeves as court procedure required. Myron spoke: "It is as the Great King says."

"Well, speak up!"

"God give Your Highness life—"

"Never mind that, Ionian; say what you mean."

"It is well known that my master fosters the increase of human knowledge. Where your great father sent Skylax down the—"

Zarina broke in to cry: "King of All Kings, spare my baby! He has fought bravely for you—"

"Guard!" said Xerxes. "Take the lady Zarina to an anteroom and keep her there until I command otherwise. Go on, Ionian."

"As your slave was saying, where the great Darius sent Skylax down the Indus, you have dispatched Sataspes to circumnavigate Africa. But more could be done to glorify the royal name and benefit the realm; namely, to send out another such expedition. It is an old and excellent Persian custom to do things in pairs, so that if one fail—"

"What had you in mind?"

"There are several possibilities. One is the circumnavigation of the Hyrkanian Sea to determine whether, as some aver, it communicates with the ocean. But my main argument concerns not the direction of the effort, but its leadership. If—"

"No doubt you are thinking of young Bessas," said Xerxes.

"True, sire; how did you know?"

"Much is known to My Majesty."

"Well, here is a man of extraordinary size and strength, a ferocious fighter and a seasoned—"

Xerxes held up his golden scepter. "Enough, my good Myron. My Majesty has already decided. Justice requires that Bessas be given the same chance to earn his life as his fellow criminal. He shall not, however, sail the stormy Sea of Varkana. I have another task for him. What know you of the sources of the Nile?"

Myron: "An Egyptian has informed your slave that, beyond Kush, the Nile rises from a pair of conical mountains, formed like the paps of a woman, each with a fountain at the top."

"Very well. My man of science, Ostanas, requires two rare things for his work. One is the ear of a king."

"Did you say the ear of a king, sire?"

"You heard me aright. The other is a dragon like those depicted on the Ishtar Gate in Babylon ..."

Xerxes repeated what he had earlier told Ostanas about the sirrush.

"... so the beast must be brought hither alive," he concluded. "It is no small thing that I command; but there is no help for it. If Bessas would live, let him perform this service."

Myron, his heart pounding, drew a deep breath and gathered his courage. "May I, too, go on this expedition, sire?"

"Wherefore should you wish to do that?"

"Well—Bessas is a mighty warrior whose glance flashes lightning, but literary he is not, and you will wish a well-written account of the journey for the archives."

The king smiled faintly. "That is not a bad reason. But I will wager that you have a better one—one concerning your own advantage. Tell me what it is."

Myron smiled in turn. "Your Majesty can see a mouse through a millstone. I wish to observe things that no man has yet seen and learn things that no man yet knows. Besides, I come of a people who number many heroes among their forebears. Teaching in the capitals of the Empire is pleasant—especially when I can catch glimpses of Your Majesty—but hardly heroic. So pray let your slave accompany Bessas."

"I see no objection."

"Then may I—" Myron began, eager to start for the execution ground to save Bessas, whose time must be drawing short. But the king spoke:

"This Hellenic passion to see all and pry into all is a curious new form of insanity. I am told that there are even people among you called wisdom-lovers, who devote their entire lives to this pursuit. How do you pronounce it? Fir—firos—"

"Philosophers, sire. Your slave studied under one of the great ones, Herakleitos of Ephesos. I hope some day to be considered a wisdom-lover myself. And now may—"

"Curious," persisted Xerxes, running his fingers through his beard. "I should not care to rule an entire nation of these wisdom-lovers. They would demand a reason for every command or ever they obeyed it, and nought would get done.

"Meanwhile we must set a time limit to this expedition, or Bessas may think to disappear into the wilds of Africa and never return. How far is this land of dragons?"

Myron scowled in concentration. "I could tell better in the archives, Highness, where the maps and manuscripts lie. But, as a rough estimate, I should say it were about four hundred leagues from here to Memphis; three hundred more to Kush; and several hundred—no man knows how many—thence to the source of the Nile. I would allow at least a thousand leagues each way. If I may—"

"At ten leagues a day, you could make the journey each way in a hundred days, or two hundred altogether. Allowing for stops, you can easily catch your dragon and be back by this date next year."

"O King!" cried Myron. "We could never do it so quickly."

"Why not? My postmen cover twenty or thirty leagues every day."

"But sire! Your couriers follow well-trodden routes, and when one mount or team becomes fatigued they change it at a relay station. We shall command no such facilities, and we shall be burdened with extra people, weapons, and other necessary things. We cannot cover the whole vast distance at a gallop. Moreover, the latter part of our journey lies deep into unknown country, where roads may not exist, and where we may be imprisoned by some barbarian king or attacked by some wild tribe. By straining every sinew, perhaps we can return in two years. Now, with Your Majesty's permission—"

"Ridiculous!" growled the king. "At worst, I see not how you would need more than a year and a quarter. I will tell you. Be at Persepolis on the first of Duuzu of next year, with your dragon. Now, you will require documents—man, why do you hop and fidget like a mouse in a chamber pot? Have you a flux of the bowels?"

"Great King!" cried Myron, who had been glancing with growing nervousness at the waxing light that came through the door of the great hall. "Bessas is to be executed at dawn, and dawn is upon us!"

"Well, why said you not so sooner? Begone! You will arrive in time, as nought begins when it is supposed to. Here! Come back! You do not think the executioners will halt on your mere word, do you? Show them this ring. Fetch it back, together with your man!"

Xerxes tossed his seal ring. Myron leaped, caught it, and dashed out. It was raining. He slipped on the wet steps of the Apadana and almost fell off the platform, but saved himself by catching one of the stepped triangular crenelations of the parapet. He dodged around a group of stonecutters, who had arrived early to work on an uncompleted relief, and ran down the stair to the Gate of All Nations. Here a pair of guards thrust themselves in his way until another guard called down from the platform of the Apadana that all was well.

"Master Myron!" shrilled a eunuch. "You must leave your robe of audience!"

Myron tore off the white robe, threw it at the eunuch, snatched up his plain brown cloak from the bench, and ran on. At the bottom of the main stair he looked about for a horse, mule, or cart, but none was in sight.

He ran westward, taking what he hoped was the shortest route. Persepolis was beginning to stir for its day's work. Myron dodged slave girls walking towards the town well with jars on their heads.

In a narrow alley he found himself behind a huge dark-brown two-humped camel, whose coat of winter wool was peeling off in patches. The beast plodded slowly on, filling the alley. The cameleer, a turbaned Arachosian in baggy trousers and sheepskin coat, looked down impassively from atop a pile of merchandise.

"Get that abandoned beast out of the way!" cried Myron, waving the seal ring. "I am on the king's business!"

The cameleer spat and looked away. The camel ambled on.

Myron drew his knife, reached up, and jabbed the beast in the haunch. The camel gave a bubbling roar and broke into a jouncing trot, banging its load against the house fronts. The load began to slide. The cameleer grabbed for handholds, shrieking curses in the names of Imra, Gish, and other elder gods who reigned before the coming of the Aryans. At the next corner, Myron slipped past, dodging a kick that the driver aimed at his head.

Myron ran on. His breath began to labor; he had not run like this for years. The universe swam before his eyes.

Soon he reached the wall. This was a small wall as such things went: a mere ten or twelve feet of mud brick, counting the parapet. At the Shushan Gate, a flourish of the ring got Myron past the sentries. He ran out upon the Shushan road, through a scattering of houses and plowed fields. Ahead, he saw a multitude gathered at the drill field, some holding umbrellas and some with hoods pulled over heads.

As Myron drew near, he was vastly relieved to see that the execution had not yet taken place. He pushed roughly through the crowd to the front, ignoring curses and threats from those whom he elbowed aside.

On the ground, a dozen paces in front of him, lay Bessas of Zariaspa, naked and bound. A few feet away rose the stake. It had been rammed into the earth at a low angle, so that its point, gleaming with the creamy hue of freshly whittled wood, was only a foot above the earth. Two great gray oxen stood, one on each side of the stake. The crew were tying Bessas' ankles to the harness of the beasts, one to each ox.

When the point of the stake had been inserted, the oxen would pull Bessas until the point had pierced upward into his vitals for a little more than a foot. Then the tackle would be removed from the victim and attached to the stake itself, so that the oxen could pull the stake and its victim into an upright position. It would then be wedged into place.

Myron faced an Immortal, who held a spear level to keep back the crowd. Waving the king's ring, Myron tried to talk but could not get his breath.

"You—the king—pardon—" he gasped. Then he went into a fit of coughing.

"Stand back and stop pushing, you!" said the soldier.

The executioners finished tying Bessas' ankles. One grasped each ankle and began to haul the prostrate man towards the stake. Bessas jerked a leg loose, whereupon another executioner kicked him in the ribs. More hands seized his legs and pulled until the point of the stake touched his flesh. Those holding the oxen pulled them forward, to tauten the ropes running back from them to the victim, and lined the animals up. The chief executioner, a brawny, bare-armed man in brown leather, raised an arm.

"Commutation of sentence!" gasped Myron. "Let me through, in the name of the king!"

"Let a Hellene through with such a tale?" said the soldier. "We all know what liars—"

Myron ducked under the spear and ran towards the executioners. The soldier shouted angrily over his shoulder but did not leave his post in the line for fear that the whole crowd would surge through the gap thus opened. The other Immortals took up the shout. An officer started towards Myron, half drawing his sword.

The chief executioner lowered his arm. The men tending the oxen stepped back and raised their whips.

Myron ran in front of the oxen, unfurled his cloak, and flapped it in the animals' faces. With startled snorts and rolling eyes, the beasts gave back, turning in their traces.

"Cut down that madman!" shouted a voice.

The officer came close, sword out. Myron thrust the king's ring into his face, shouting:

"Behold the king's seal! The sentence has been commuted!"

When Myron said it for the third time, the officer grasped the idea. Soon Bessas' ankles were unbound, though his wrists remained fettered. An angry mutter arose from the crowd.

"My trousers, curse you!" roared the prostrate man in a Bactrian accent.

Soon Bessas was on his feet again. His teeth flashed through a mass of dirty black beard. "Good old Myron!" he cried. "When I'm free, I'll buy you enough wine of Halpa to drown an elephant in!"

Bessas son of Phraates towered over all the rest. Zarina's baby was a heavy-featured man, six and a half feet tall and massively muscled. Under a disordered mop of black hair were a broad forehead, heavy black brows, deep-set brown eyes, wide cheekbones, a long nose (which had been straight until a sword cut had put a kink in it), and full lips. A short beard masked his massive jaw. But for the pocks that marked his face, he would have been handsome in a rugged, somber way.

Although but thirty, Bessas bore the scars of a veteran. One ran from the left temple down into the beard, another across the right cheek, and others were to be seen on neck and arms and running through the mat of curly black fur that covered his chest.

In stripping the Bactrian, the executioners, not daring to untie his hands, had cut his jacket to pieces. So Myron cast his cloak over Bessas' bare shoulders.

"I do not mind the rain," said Bessas. "It might wash some of the muck off me. You there!" he snarled at the head executioner. "Will you keep us standing here all morning? You stinking slob, haven't you heard that the king awaits me?"

The executioner tightened his lips and took a step forward as if to punish the Bactrian's insolence. Bessas bared his gleaming teeth. The executioner turned away to supervise the packing up of the stake and its gear. Soon spectators, soldiers, executioners, Bessas, and Myron were all slopping through the mud back towards the city.