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undertaken. It would have been that way with us. Joscelin had released me and his hands gripped the ship’s rail, steel mesh glinting on their backs. I gazed at his profile, the cruciform hilt of his sword rising over his shoulder to blot out the stars. Would he be sorry to hang up his blades? I didn’t think so.
    And yet... somewhere, beneath this same night sky, stood a rocky isle with a high altar open to the winds and a single lonely tower, where my Prince of Travellers watched the sun set and rise, days turning to years, the slow advance of decrepitude and madness stretching into an infinite vista.
    And somewhere, too, was a ten-year-old boy with eyes the color of sapphires, sold into slavery in a strange land. How they were linked, I could not yet fathom. I knew only that they were.
    We belonged where we were, Joscelin and I.
    So passed our journey.
    For those who have not seen it, Iskandria is a splendid and enduring city, the product of many cultures. It is young as the Menekhetans reckon such things, for it was founded by the Hellene conqueror who freed them from Persian rule; Al-Iskandr, they called him, and crowned him with the horns of Ammon. It is his heirs who moved the seat of rule to his city, but within a generation of his death they ceased to rule in his name and took on the trappings of Pharaoh, wedding Menekhetan tradition with Hellene blood.
    Like many other countries, Menekhet fell under the shadow of the empire of Tiberium; unlike many others, it retained its sovereign status, bowing to inevitability and paying homage in grain to its mighty neighbor. There was a cunning Queen who ruled as Pharaoh when Tiberium’s might was at its apex, tricking the Tiberian generals into quarreling until their forces were spread too thin to seize the prize of Menekhet. My lord Delaunay had always admired her; Cleopatra Philopater, she was called. Afterward, Tiberium’s difficulties in Alba began, and Menekhet was left untroubled.
    It is different now, of course; it is the desert-riders of the Umaiyyat who threaten Menekhet’s borders, and the vast power of Khebbel-im-Akkad. Menekhet walks a fine line between the two, placating both and maintaining its ties to the city-states of Caerdicca Unitas-especially La Serenissima, with its skilled navy-and to Carthage. We D’Angelines are newly arrived to this arena of politics, although not to be disdained; I daresay no one in Menekhet has forgotten that Terre d’Ange defeated the Akkadians in a sea-battle not twenty years past.
    We entered the Great Harbour at sunset, and it was indeed a sight to see as we passed the offshore island which held the famed Lighthouse of Iskandria, a massive colossus thrusting some five hundred feet into the air, its white marble walls washed red in the setting sun. It is built in three tiers, and the base is as broad as a fortress. The ship’s captain informed us it held an entire squadron of cavalry. I had to crane my head to see the top, where a plume of smoke unfurled against the sky.
    To my disappointment, the beacon itself seemed dim and unimpressive in the gilded light, but the captain assured me that encroaching darkness would render it bright as a star, visible for many miles at sea. He pointed out the inscription rendered on the foundation stone.
    “We are not near enough to read it, my lady, but it says, ‘Sostrates, son of Dexiphanes of Knidos, on behalf of all mariners, to the savior gods,’” he told me. “The architect Sostrates was bade to inscribe the name of Pharaoh on the stone, but he carved his own, then covered it with plaster and chiseled Pharaoh’s dedication atop it. In a hundred years, the plaster had chipped away and Pharaoh’s name was forgotten. It is the clever architect’s which will stand for eternity, and well it should, for the Lighthouse of Iskandria has no equal.”
    Joscelin smiled, the story tickling his Siovalese fancy; all of Shemhazai’s descendents have a fondness for architects and engineers and the like, the cleverer, the better. I thanked the captain, who bowed and excused himself to oversee our entry into port. Although he had been exceedingly gracious, I was never fully at ease in his presence. Truly, it was through no fault of his own. The last time I’d been aboard a Serenissiman vessel, I’d come within a hair’s breadth of being beheaded. ’Tis a hard thing to forget.
    The sky was a vivid hue of purple by the time we made port, the unfamiliar shapes of date palms