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agreement, and other voices echoed it.
    “The blade has pierced my bowels,” Drucilla said gently, her hand falling away, fingers trailing damp across my tear-stained face. “I feel it, child; the poison in my blood-stream. If you had a chirurgeon’s tools and a chirurgeon’s skill...” She smiled with sorrow and kindness, plucking at the woolen fabric that draped her. “It would still be too late. Take the shawl.”
    Shaking with grief, I did. It was her wish. She watched the seamstress Helena fold it with care and tie it in exacting knots, making a sling for Joscelin’s arm. When it was done, her lashes fluttered closed, and Uru-Azag and two of the Akkadians carried her with all tenderness to the corner of the hall where we had established our infirmary, laying her on cushions purloined from the zenana and heaping blankets atop her.
    “Remember this,” I told Imriel, who watched gravely. “Remember her courage. Remember them all.”
    Wordless, he nodded.
    It was somewhere in the small hours of the night that Drucilla died, and sometime afterward that the Chief Magus came for me, a lamp in his hand.
    “Come,” he said in Persian, as I blinked out of a half-waking doze on a makeshift pallet where I maintained a vigil in the infirmary. Somewhere, a clean robe had been found for the old man and the worst of the filth washed from his hair and beard. For all the deep lines that scored his face, he looked stronger than I would have believed possible mere hours before. “We must speak.”
    “Stay with them,” I said to Joscelin, who had come instantly alert, reaching for his sword with his good right hand.
    “And let you out of my sight? Not likely,” he muttered, levering himself to his feet and calling one of the Akkadians to stand guard over the injured, and the sleeping Imriel. “Now,” he said to the ancient Magus, “we will go.”
    Arshaka inclined his head. “Bringer of Omens. As you wish.”
    And so saying, he led us through the palace, up a winding stair to one of the lookout towers. There, in a small garret, a Drujani guard lay dead-who had killed him, I do not know-and a shuttered window had been forced open, a square of darkness looking out over the city below and the land beyond.
    “Behold,” said the Chief Magus. “Jahanadar, the Land of Fires.”
    In the city of Daršanga, the Sacred Fire burned in the ruined temple. Everywhere there were torches lit, wavering in lines. Voices raised in celebration and prayer floated on the night breeze, crying Ahura Mazda’s name. Beyond, across the plain of the peninsula, blazes were scattered like stars emerging from the clouds.
    “You cannot stay here,” the Magus Arshaka said gently. “The Lord of Light has reclaimed his people. Soon, they will come for Daršanga, and you are too few to hold it.”
    Joscelin made a sound in his throat that might have been a dour laugh.
    “It is ours now, my lord Magus,” I reminded him.
    “It is,” he acknowledged. “This night. You have captives, servants, Magi, all bent to your will. For what you have done, Ahura Mazda permits it. What of the dawn? Will the women of the zenana fight once the madness of Angra Mainyu has passed? Or shall you hold the doors with a handful of eunuchs and wounded warriors? Will Ahura Mazda’s grace endure, while you send for aid from Khebbel-im-Akkad and level the Spear of Shamash at our heart?” Slowly, regretfully, Arshaka shook his venerable head. “It will not. Better that you should throw open the doors of Daršanga and go home. Leave us to our own.”
    I rested my hands on the windowsill, looking at the men of the secondary garrison assembling at the doors below, their hands empty of weapons, pleading for admission that they might be redeemed in the light of the Sacred Fire. “There are a few thousand of the Mahrkagir’s men remaining between Daršanga and the border, my lord Magus. We thought to take a sea route.”
    “You have sailors among you, oarsmen?” He read the answer in my averted face. “If there were such a vessel to suit your needs, I would walk among the people and order it myself, child. But there is not; only such fishing craft as will land you shattered upon the rocks should you attempt such a journey. Your route lies over land. Angra Mainyu’s power lies broken, and his former servants will answer to the people of Drujan. If you will give me your word that you will sue for peace on our behalf when you reach Akkad, I will order that your