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addled by opium and terror, made their surrender-some to stunned members of the zenana and some to the Magi, openly weeping before the Sacred Fire-I went to assess the wounded and number the dead.
    And outside the gates of Daršanga, the revolution spread.
    What stories they tell in Drujan, I cannot say. I did not linger long enough to hear them told, and I have never been back, nor shall I, not while I draw breath. This I know to be true, for I learned it that night: the fires kindled in the palace ignited in the city and elsewhere. Jahanadar, the Land of Fires, reclaimed its ancient title, and the hand of Ahura Mazda reached out to reclaim his own.
    Well and good; so he might. But it was the folk of a hundred disparate nations, captives and slaves, who paid his ransom.
    So many died. So many.
    In the doorway to the kitchens, Erich the Skaldi lay dying, his body pierced by a dozen wounds, a sword in his hand and a look of peace on his face. Rushad, a carving knife in his hand, lay slain across his knees, having done his valiant best to defend his fallen friend; gentle Rushad, who was no more a warrior than I. All I could do was to clasp Erich’s hand and sing softly to him, cradle-songs, such as I had learned as a slave. Erich died smiling, his hand slackening in mine. And I went on to the next. So many, so many dead. Jolanta, her fingers clutched about a Drujani sword-hilt, stuck together with blood. Nazneen the Ephesian, willowy in death as in life, a Tatar war-axe buried in her skull. Among the women of the zenana , one in three had died ... Erich, Rushad-two of the Akkadian eunuchs. Gone, all of them.
    But there were survivors, too.
    Uru-Azag came limping from the inner doors of Daršanga, grey-faced and grim, gathering a contingent to secure the fortress. After the Sacred Fire, there was no resistance. With Kaneka’s aid, conferring with Joscelin, who had propped himself on a bench, they got matters well in hand. Here and there, an initiate from the vahmyâcam wandered in dazed shock, having learned too late that their offerings were in vain. Angra Mainyu’s reign was broken.
    There was one man, with a crimson spill of blood drying on his chin, who took it hardest. I remembered him. He was one who had brought his son to the dais, a boy no older than four or five years. The Mahrkagir’s age, I thought, when the Akkadians had taken Daršanga. We had struck too late for the boy; his father had eaten his heart.
    Would that there had been another way.
    I did what I could, ignoring the thanksgiving prayers of the Magi, calling upon my experience of too many battlefields to help Drucilla, who had bound her own wounds and remained on her feet, trembling. She pressed her fist hard against her belly and gasped orders. The Carthaginian carpenter’s daughter was a shadow at my shoulder, aiding without argument, recruiting others. The Caerdicci seamstress who had altered the fit of my gown learned to sew flesh and sinew under Drucilla’s tutelage.
    Together, we saved a good many.
    Until at last it was Joscelin’s turn. Removing the chain-mail shirt alone was a torture. I could not have done it without Drucilla. It was she who instructed me on how to draw his arm straight, pulling by main force until the shattered bones fell into alignment, feeling with delicate fingertips that each was in place. It was a mercy that none had pierced the skin. Cold sweat stood in beads on Joscelin’s brow, and he swore a blue streak, using terms I did not know he knew. And then it was done. I bound the fracture as Drucilla instructed, wrapping it firmly with lengths of woolen cloth and securing it with a careful splint.
    “A sling,” Drucilla murmured, plucking at her shawl. “To keep the arm immobile. Use this. I’ll have no need of it.”
    “No,” I whispered, kneeling beside her. “Drucilla, no.”
    “I’ll have no need,” she repeated faintly, smiling, reaching up to touch my hair with her maimed hands. “Phèdre. You spoke true, didn’t you? An ill-luck name. Still, I will die as I lived, a physician to the end, and not a creature of darkness. You have given me that. It is not a gift I thought to find; not here.”
    “No.” Tears coursed my cheeks, salt and bitter; it seemed unfair that she, who had fought so valiantly to preserve life, to preserve her own sanity, should die. “If you will only tell us what needs be done ... Drucilla, we can do it, I swear to you!”
    Behind me, the Caerdicci seamstress murmured