Chronicles of the Magi: Part 9

The remainder of the swift race to the town of Bethlehem was a blur to Gushnasaph. He could not shake the images that continued to run through his imagination of the being of fire and light which had shattered the line of Uttuki blocking their way to bring warning to the new King. The thing had been, in many ways like the ball of fire and light which had smashed into Larvendad's tower so many months ago. It seemed like an eternity, since they had begun this journey.

When they had left Babylon, he had been eager for the leaving. He had been born the son of nobility, in a land where nobility no longer mattered, a people of an empire now forgotten. The Parthian empire stood against the advance of Rome, yes, but it did not itself advance into Rome's empire either. Persia and Babylon's days of glory were a thing of the past. While he had owned fine horses and slept in luxurious tents beside beautiful, lithe concubines, while he commanded a small regiment of his own personal guard, Gushnasaph had always been all too aware of what a sham it all was. Like the Parthian empire, he only maintained--he did not advance. The desire to journey somewhere, to step out into the unknown and change the world in some ways had burned in his heart, like the sacred fire of Zoarastrianism. Fire changed things. It consumed, heated, flickered, roared and raged. If a fire smoldered...

Now, he felt the fire that had driven him to this quest smolder. He saw his whole life trailing out behind him, and wondered what it would mean if this child was indeed not simply a king, but the king of heaven. What would it change? Already he was a man without a country, a nomad amongst nomads. Where would they go once they had finished this work? As the Uttuki had stated, the magic was changing. Would Hormoz still be able to read the skies? Would Larvendad's unnaturally long life finally come to an end? Would he be able to command the elements? He had drawn his sword against the Uttuki because of how much it had drained him to pull the fire down upon the guards in Jerusalem. He had not the magic left to deal with the demons. Once upon a time, it had been child's play to fly upon magic carpets, to contain djinn within lamps, to walk upon water. Was that magic gone from the world now?

As they neared the town of Bethlehem, dirty and bedraggled, the moon was high in the sky. Larvendad reined in his mount and turned to his companions.

"I wish you could see as I do," he said in awe, the fire and light burning in his eyes brighter than it ever had before. "And now I understand why it was all changing. I understand why there was a trail of light leading us to this place...from any direction. If we had come from the west, I'd have seen it. If we had come from the south, it would have guided us from there too. It is why we could approach from the north. It is, furthermore why I became confused about the location the nearer we came here."

"What do you see?" Hormoz asked.

"Great bands of light and fire coming from all over the earth," Larvendad replied. "to this one place. It is the magic. It is being compelled to return to its source. All these years I thought we were it's masters. But now I see how wrong we were."

They rode into the tiny, sleeping village, following Larvendad who followed the streams of magic as they coallesced upon a house. A plain, simple home. It seemed no different from the others, aside from the noise coming from within.

A baby's healthy, noisy cry in the night.

The three magi dismounted and approached the house. Larvendad walked to the door and knocked, soundly three times.

The baby ceased its crying. The door opened, and a man of Hormoz' age peered into the night. He held a small oil lamp in one hand. Behind him, in the shadows of the house, a woman could be seen holding a small baby to her. The baby was staring out at them as well.

"We are...Magi," Larvendad said, having nothing else to say. "We have come from the east, seeking a king. We saw a sign in the heavens that told of his coming...and we were lead here, to this home."

"Come in," the man said, stepping back from the doorway.

Gushnasaph wondered at the man's faith. How could he know it was safe to allow them in? He'd have thought someone mad who came to his door in the middle of the night to tell him of signs in the sky about kings...this was not a palace. It was a labourer's house-the tools of his trade in the front rooms.

But when he gazed into the child's eyes, he knew why. The baby smiled at them all...not in the beatific way he would be painted in years to come. With the simple smile of a child, delighting in the arrival of new visitors.

And there was something else behind that gaze, behind the smile. Hormoz gasped when he saw the child, and Gushnasaph knew his companion was catching a far sighted glimpse of the boy's future. Larvendad looked upon the child with eyes of fire, and then his sight dimmed. He went to one knee immediately.

Gushnasaph had never seen his mentor bow. Not once, ever. Never before the council of the Magi. Not before King Herod. And here, in this humble house, before this child of no remarkable signs, he bowed.

And then Hormoz did as well.

Gushnasaph was stunned. In a daze, he approached the child, who held out a chubby hand to him. Gushnasaph raised his hand, and the babe squeezed one of his fingers and laughed. In that moment, Gushnasaph was given a vision of the depths of time, and of the point at which all history would forever rest upon, a moment of sacrifice, redemption, forgiveness, of love so powerful that no darkness could stand against it, let alone begin to comprehend it. All the knowledge of the Magi was dwarfed by it. No wonder Larvendad had gone to his knees.

Gushnasaph wept. Everything was changed. Nothing would ever be the same.

Blood magic indeed.

Chronicles of the Magi: Part 8

In years to come, the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem will be rendered in such a way as to imply that they came upon camels in a manner normally attributed to kings. An entourage of servants accompanying them, the star shining serenely in the sky. The Magi themselves are depicted as composed, resplendent in a fine array of silk garments and bejewelled turbans.

The truth of the matter is that the three men arrived in Bethlehem without their caravan, on wild eyed steeds in a lather of sweat and dust. Their servants had met them upon the road and provided the horses; part way to Bethlehem the group had split into four companies, hoping to throw off Herod's pursuit, to buy a little time before the mad king could accomplish his revenge.

But Angra Mainyu had other servants at his disposal.

The road between Jerusalem and Bethehem is not a long one; only 10 kilometers separate them. By horse at a full gallop, the distance could be covered in under an hour. Provided there are no delays.

As the trio road up the hill that lead out of Jerusalem and onto the Bethlehem road, Larvendad sent his thoughts to his younger companions.

We are not alone. Already Angra Mainyu seeks other means to impede our swift progress.

Hormoz glanced to the side, calling upon the light of the stars to aid his sight. He heard Gushnasap utter a curse. Uttuki...demons, running parallel to them in rapid strides. They held a form somewhere between predatory cat and reptile. Their speed made it difficult to follow their path--moving erratically in staccato fits and jumps.

The dread beings moved ahead of the three Magi, and began fanning out to cut their prey off. Hormoz could see them put on a burst of speed, blurring into the distance, only to reappear in a dark line on the horizon, waiting patiently. This was the only route to the baby king. If the Magi were to find him, they would have to run this gauntlet.

The three Magi reined in their horses and faced their enemy.

"We are the Flashes of Lightning," one of the Uttuki uttered, forcing its inhuman physiology around the human sounds in ugly croaks and snarls. "You go no further, old man."

"We'll see about that," Larvendad replied. "I've fought worse than you and am here to tell the tale."

"You were younger then," the Uttuki said. "And your magic was stronger. The world is changing with the coming of this boy-child. With his coming, your power wanes."

Blood magic, Larvendad sent to his companions. We've seen this; the sacrifice becomes the most powerful of all spells.

"So be it," Gushnasaph whispered under his breath, and drew his sword.

"No!" Larvendad commanded. "You think that sort of power is needed for the likes of these? Our power may be fading, but if this King is who the Jews think he is...then the power of Angra Mainyu is at an end."

The old man turned to the demons.

"We serve the Light!" he shouted to the dark forms. "We are upon an errand for Ahura Mazda, or perhaps the God whom he serves, or is merely a shadow of. What is certain is that you will not bar our path."

"And what will you do to remove us from your way?" the Uttuki barked.

"Nothing," Larvendad replied. "I have lived a long enough life. If the Lord of the Sacred Fire declares my days at an end by your doing, then I am resigned to this, as our my companions. But we have not come all this way to be stopped by errand runners for He Who Cowers in Darkness."

Larvendad spurred his horse forward at a slow walk, resolute in his demeanour. After a moment, Hormoz and Gushnasaph followed their teacher's example. The horses began to panic as they neared the Uttuki. Gushnasaph felt beads of sweat running down his back...he had never been so close to this many demons before. He could smell their rank breath, and in the moonlight their glistening scales and needle-like teeth were all too apparent.

And then the sky erupted in a torrent of light, blue coruscating arcs running around what the young Magus would swear had been a winged figure...multiple wings, and heads shifting and changing, now an eagle, now a bull, then that of a man, then perhaps a ram...powerful, muscled limbs that he could only assume had been arms, for they carried a sword. And while he had felt a twinge of fear at the demons' pursuit, the emotion that surged through him at the sight of...whatever it had been was a pure fear, a terror indescribably, holy and undefiled by any sense of courage or superiority. Whatever had tore into the Uttuki's ranks had been something sublime, beyond his comprehension.

And what haunted him to the end of his days, was that he was sure that he had only seen the least of the Light's servants.

Chronicles of the Magi: Part 7

The first blast of the shofar sounded over Jerusalem, a long drawn out breathy moan that echoed throughout the city followed by three shorter blasts, like the sound of groaning. Nine times more the shofar wept, this time in quicker, short blasts which made Gushnasaph think of someone sobbing.

"Not the happiest new year's celebration I've ever been witness to," he said to Larvendad as they stood in the shadows of an alleyway.

"It it a ram's horn, like the one their patriarch Abraham found in a thicket to replace his son Isaac on the altar of sacrifice in their scriptures," Larvendad said. "The Hebrew new year's celebration is about repentance. It is not only the new year, but the anniversary of the first man, Adam's sin."

"What a dreary religion," Gushnasaph remarked. "All blood and moaning near as I can tell."

"On the contrary," Larvendad said, stepping from their hiding place to join a throng of revelers.

"Leshanah tovah tikateiv veteichateim!" one of the men said to Larvendad, who replied in kind.

"What did you say to him?" Hormoz asked, stepping from the alleyway as well to watch the throng move further down the street.

"May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year," Larvendad replied. He ate the piece of apple dipped in honey one of the men had handed him. "A blessing for a sweet year."

"I hope sweetness includes us getting past the gate without being noticed," Gushnasaph said.

"That is why we waited for the beginning of this celebration," Larvendad replied. "There are many people coming in and out of all the gates today. And Herod still thinks we're in his archives studying. So long as one only enters and sees, but does not touch the illusion I conjured of us studying his scrolls, we won't have to worry about the gates at all."

They moved along the streets, heading for the southern gate to the road leading to Bethlehem. Along the way, Larvendad spotted what he'd been hoping for; a Jewish family heading out of the city, on their way to visit family for the upcoming feast of Yom Kippur, still ten days away. A small suggestive mental nudge from Hormoz within the minds of the family, and they were treated as long lost relatives.

The opening they were to pass through was called the Zion gate, a rectangular passage beneath the imposing stone walls of Jerusalem. Upon the walls, Roman guards nonchalantly walked; none of them terribly vigilant--an assignment to this armpit of the empire was not a promotion or an honor. It was not Rome's elite who policed Israel. The three Magi could only hope that no message had been sent from the palace.

As they neared the Zion gate, Gushnasaph saw them; twelve of Herod's temple guards cutting down the adjacent street towards them. The leader pointed and barked orders.

"We've been found out!" the young magi shouted to his companions.

"They're coming from all sides!" Hormoz shouted.

Gushnasaph picked up the young boy who stood between him and the oncoming guards and handed him to his father.

You need to get your family out the gate as swiftly as you can, he mentally commanded the man, who immediately took the boy and shouted to his family to get through the gate.

Gushnasaph returned his attention to the oncoming group of soldiers, and adopted the same defensive stance Larvendad and Hormoz already stood ready in. The soldiers were all wearing helmets, so the possibility of a mental suggestion was out of the question. It would have to be something elemental then.

Larvendad struck first, just before the group from the east street reached them. It was as if a great stone fist grew out of the wall of Jerusalem, and pounded the earth where the attacking soldiers had once stood. To the west, Hormoz, unable to command stone, called upon the element of air to lift his assailiants clear off the ground, hurling them hundreds of feet into the air and letting them drop to a messy death. Gushnasaph pulled the flames from the torches of the northern group and increased them into a great pillar of fire that rushed forth from his extended arms to engulf the remaining attackers.

Larvendad looked up to the walls to the Roman guards, who looked down in a mix of horror and unresolved duty, then at the ones who currently blocked the Magi's exit through the Zion gate.

"Your fate can be the same," Larvendad's voice boomed at an unnatural volume, "or we can be on our way." The inner flame that had guided them blazed in his eyes.

Moments later, the three men were on their way out the gates of Jerusalem, headed into the darkness toward Bethlehem.

Chronicles of the Magi: part 6

"He's lying," Hormoz said, glancing over at his companions who were likewise indisposed, sifting through racks of scrolls in the royal library. "He's got an incredibly powerful will, so I was only able to sense surface thoughts, but those were enough to tell me he isn't at all interested in worshiping the child. He'll kill him as soon as he knows the identity."

"Why were we brought here then?" Gushnasaph asked. He had just cast a spell over the scroll he was holding, and the letters on it were changing from Hebrew characters to Pharsee. "This isn't helping us find the child at all."

"Our purpose was not singular," Larvendad reminded him. The old man had no need to change the lettering on the scrolls he was running his hands over. As he touched them, huge reams of knowledge were poring into his mind. It was a wonder he could carry on a conversation at all. "Our awareness of Angra Mainyu's plots to destroy the child made us responsible for keeping him safe as well. Little good it does the world if we find this child of light a corpse."

"There's so much about the Hebrew Messiah in these writings," Hormoz said. "But to make any sense of it without being one of these sheep farmers or their priests...blood sacrifices and smelly festivals. I can't make any sense of it at all."

"Difficult to do without knowing the whole of their scriptures and the rabbinic writings," Larvendad said, running his hand over another scroll. "But I am beginning to get a clearer picture."

"So what are we here for then if you're planning on ingesting all the knowledge in this room before I've even read one scroll?" Gushnasaph asked, exasperated.

"Even I cannot carry on a conversation across hundreds of feet with many ceilings, floors and walls between," Larvendad replied. "And I want us to stay together. I wouldn't put it past this mad king to kill us or throw us in his dungeons." His hand scanned over a very old and fragile scroll...and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

"Ahhhh..." he moaned. "Here it is...'But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.'"

Chronicles of the Magi: Part 5

The arrival of a merchant train in the city of Jerusalem attracted little attention. Throngs of people came and went from the holy city, and this group appeared to be Jews of the diaspora, making their way upon a pilgrimage to sacrifice in the Temple. Their accents were decidedly Babylonian, and their servants and slaves of Parthian dress, but the lords themselves were dressed in the custom of southern Judea.

The bulk of their caravan remained in the outer city while a small delegation comprised of the three lords and a retinue of guardsmen entered the city proper, staying in one of the most luxurious inns in all of Jerusalem. Messengers were sent forth with one question on their lips. And soon all of Jerusalem was talking of the three eastern lords who had arrived in the city of the Jews. They had come to find a new king. A king from heaven, it was said. And while the three lords never phrased it so, the word "Messiah" began circulating along with the accounts of these men and their fabled riches.

And as such messianic rumors inevitably did, they reached the ears of Herod the Great's advisors. Herod the Great, an Idumean whose love for Hellenistic culture had endeared him to the Romans, whose ambition to restore the Jewish temple made him the king of the Jews, and whose treachery and willingness to go to any lengths to gain and retain the throne had left a path of assasinations behind him. Herod the Great, who here, at the end of his years was dying of a disease that ate away at his vitals and chewed his innards. Assasinated by his own avarice and lust. His magicians could do nothing to avert the outcome of the disease, and though his days were numbered, he still considered them his days. The days of Herod the Great. Not the days of any messianic usurper. And when the rumors of the magi's search reached his ears, he summoned them to the palace.

"You're Parthians," Herod said when Gushnasaph, Hormoz and the venerable Larvendad stood before him. Larvendad had recovered from his nearly fatal wounds during the desert crossing, and had finally stood on his own feet when the group had crossed the fabled Jordan river.

"We hail from the ancient kingdom of Persia, yes," Larvendad replied haughtily. He had lived long enough that the idea of his national identity being Parthian was still foreign to him. In his mind, he was still a Persian.

"And you have come here seeking a king?" Herod asked, grazing from a platter of decadent food beside his throne.

"Indeed," Larvendad said. "We have seen a sign in the eastern lands that spoke of the birth of a new king. A great king. We thought you, as lord and protector of this land, might know something of this birth."

Herod spread his hands in ignorance. "I know nothing of any king being born. Certainly not of my loins," he said, "unless you're talking about that bastard Antipater."

Herod stole a glance away from the old man to the middle aged man standing beside him. That one was staring at him in a way that pierced him to the core. It worried him. Whether or not there was any truth to these men's search was irrelevant. The people had made it a reality; a reality that would need to be crushed. At this point, anyone could step forth and make the claim that they were the one these men were seeking. It wouldn't matter if the three endorsed the pretender or not--it would likely result in a bloodbath, and Rome was watching. He would have to be crafty, as he always had been.

"You have my assistance in every way possible. Please make use of the archives my scribes have--we have copies of most of the sacred writings of our people, which may serve to shed light upon your search." Herod smiled and raised a glass of wine to honor his new guests. "And when you achieve your goal, find this new king and let me know who he is so I may also come and worship him."

The words flowed from his lips without hesitation. A lesser man might fear the wrath of the gods, but the fire in his bowels had proved to Herod many years earlier that he was already cursed by the gods. If this child, this king, was truly the messiah, a voice of the gods on earth, then Herod would have his revenge on the gods for smiting him with this disease. Eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth.

Chronicles of the Magi Part 4

The caravan moved out of the ancient and virtually abandoned city of Babylon, crossing the Euphrates at the great bridge between the ruins of the Esagila, the temple of Marduk and the Etemenanki, the great Ziggarut, the fabled tower of Babel.

Hormoz looked back at the city as the sun began to rise, casting long shadows in the empty streets.

"The council are all that are left now," Gushnasaph said, stopping his horse beside Hormoz's.

"You were always right about the city," Hormoz told his young companion. "Alexander's coming only sped our destruction."

"And now?" Gushnasaph asked. "Are we headed towards a future, or are we travelling headlong upon a fool's errand?"

Hormoz shook his head. "Even if I had not seen the ball of flame and light strike Larvendad's tower, seen it disappear, and then reappear within his eyes, even if I did not know that something essential about the universe has been changed, as was made apparent by the power of the blood magic our ancient teacher invoked, saving his life...I would know we are on the right path. I can feel it...my fravashi whispers to me, telling me so. Every moment we remained in Babylon it was urging me to leave, to depart, to be gone. There is nothing left but death in those ruins. We are on a journey towards life, even if it is a fool's errand."

"Then your calling is higher than mine," Gushnasaph said, spurring his horse, "For I only seek a new adventure!"

Hormoz watched his young companion gallop to the front of the caravan, and smiled. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step Gushnasaph, no matter the motivation."

And so the caravan pushed westward, lead by the light that burned within Larvendad's sight like a star, always in his vision no matter if he were in his tent or behind the walls of a caravanersary. He could sense it in the periphery of his sight when his gaze was fixed upon the ground beneath them, and it haunted his dreams when he finally was able to fall into a fitful rest, aided by drugs inhaled through the smoke of the hookah. The men in the caravan who had traversed the great desert before were amazed, and spoke many times of how they had never made a crossing where so much shade was found to travel in, nor so many oases. Months passed, and they arrived at the southern tip of the Dead Sea. From there, they turned north, and moved into the land of the Hebrews, which presented a new challenge; the Roman occupation of the land of Israel...and the enmity between the nations.

"I don't suppose they've gotten over the business at the battle of Harran, do you?" Gushnasaph asked Hormoz with a grin. "After all, we did give them back their standards..."

"Thirty years after the matter," Hormoz replied. "We might need to leave the greater part of the caravan here and press on in disguise."

"And what would you suggest for a disguise?" Gushnasaph asked.

"The creator will provide," Hormoz said, pointing to another caravan approaching the water hole they were resting at. "Merchant train. Come," Hormoz waved a hand to the oncoming riders. "We have shopping to do."

Chronicles of the Magi Part 3

The council of the Magi had been formed over a thousand years ago, in order to maintain the balance between Angra Mainyu, lord of destruction, and Ahura Mazda, the uncreated creator. There were those who said that there was no balance, that the creator was more powerful than Angra, but if this was the case, then the world did not show it to be so. If there was more heaven than hell in the universe, then it was not apparent to the men who had formed the order of the Magi, and upheld its tenets while Babylonia rose to a mighty empire, and now in the days following its fall. The once-great Persian empire was a thing of the past.

And in Gushnasaph's mind, so was the council of the Magi. His posture before the assembled council said what his words could not; words of respect issued forth grudgingly from a mouth moving above a chin thrust high and proud. He clenched his fists to keep from speaking with his hands, a practice Larvendad found contemptible and had many times attempted to stamp out of his young pupil's public discourses.

"What you have told us is all second hand information," the high elder of the Magi told the young man. "You have gainsayed that these are the words of your mentor, who you have also reported is deep in a fever sleep, recovering from wounds inflicted by the demon which wreaked havoc upon his house."

"The demon did not incur the damage to the house," Gushnasaph said. "It was the impact of the great fireball that did that."

"A demonic entity to be sure," the high elder said. "We all know that destruction is the work of Angra Mainyu. And once again, as many times before, darkness has encompassed darkness -- the spirits of destruction undo their own work in the madness of their chaos."

Empty words. Poetic drivel...recitations made a thousand times instead of an evaluation of the reality before us all.

"Then you will not send a delegation to discover the identity of this new and great king?" Gushnasaph asked.

"We will not," the high elder replied. "Our place is here, in the lands of our forefathers, retaining the balance."

"The balance has been lost!" Gushnasaph blurted. He realized he was holding his hands out in a pleading posture. Dropping them to his sides, he lowered his voice. "The demon said as much. The king who is born is of the creator's side...and he is weak, and vulnerable. The demon revealed the Destroyer's plans to assasinate the child before he can grow to be a man and accomplish what he has come to do."

"So now we have the testimony of both a mortally wounded man in a fever as well as that of a servant of Angra Mainyu," another Magi spoke from the assembled throng, a sarcastic grin on his face. "Reliable evidence to be sure."

"Then I have only one more thing to report to you. These are my mentor's final words to you all: If you will not take the word of Larvendad, eldest of all the Magi, as relayed through his pupil Gushnasaph, prince of the Suren-Pahlav clan, then this is our farewell. We will go into the West to find this king, and to protect him as best as we are able, with all the devices of the Art and our own wealth. We abdicate our position upon this council. With us goes Hormoz the astrologer as well. We do not seek your approval, only that of heaven and of the creator."

A silence hung over the hall as Gushnasaph pulled three cloth bundles from a bag he had brought along and dropped them on the ornately tiled mosaic that made up the floor of the Magi's assembly hall. They were the ceremonial robes of their order. And with that, the young man turned on his heel and strode swiftly from the hall.

* * * * * * * * *

"Damn fools," Gushnasaph spat as his servants lifted Larvendad's unconscious form into a lush litter carried by four well muscled slaves.

"He knew they wouldn't listen," Hormoz said with a smile. "That's why he sent you instead of me. I'm sure your performance was far more dramatic than mine would have been."

"Perhaps," Gushnasaph said. "But if everything he whispered in his sleep is true..."

"How can we deny it?" Hormoz said. "We both saw the wheel made of fire and light. If that was not a manifestation of the sacred fire..."

Hormoz shouted an order to one of the camel drivers and checked his own saddle once again. He looked over at the younger man, whose face was full of doubt. "I'm surprised at you my friend. All you've ever spoken of is how this derelict city is full of ghosts, that our order is dead, that all the Art we possess is pointless if we aren't actually doing anything to maintain the balance. And now, we three have been given the opportunity to do something. To protect the very incarnation of the Sacred Fire."

Gushnasaph took a deep breath and turned his gaze to the night sky. After a moment, he turned his gaze back upon Hormoz.

"And where do we go?" Gushnasaph asked. "We have no direction, save that we are to head West. That will lead us directly into the sea!"

"I can see the path," came a strong bass voice from behind the curtain on the litter. "Clearer than I see anything else."

Gushnasaph leaped to the side of the litter and pulled back the curtain. Larvendad's eyes were open, staring in the direction of the West.

And his eyes were like the inside of a furnace, blazing with an inner fire...

Chronicles of the Magi: Part 2

The demon was circling Larvendad's prone form, keeping it's distance.

Why hasn't it finished me off?

He followed its progress with his gaze, watching its movements. The creature kept looking down at the floor, adjusting its distance from Larvendad from time to time. He could tell by the line of drool trailing from its gaping jaw that it wanted to close in and devour him, but something was preventing its approach.

The old man forced himself to a sitting position, replaced his hand over the leaking wound and pushed himself backward with his feet until he was up against the column again. Only then did he realized he had been mumbling under his breath the entire time, a nearly inaudible prayer to Ahura Mazda.

"The Sacred Fire surround me, enfolding me and protecting me..."

Larvender's blood had trickled into the grout between the floor's marble tiling...and around each pillar, the tiles formed a circle...inadvertently, his wound had created a circle of protection, albeit a weak one. Blood was more effective in containing such creatures. It was largely ineffective in a circle of protection. Fire was the element of protection, not blood.

And yet the creature was unwilling to even attempt a crossing...if a demon could sense a barrier of great power within a circle of containment, it would not test the boundaries. This one knew from experience that to cross Larvendad's inadvertent circle of protection would cause it great pain.

"It seems we are at an impasse," it growled, red eyes glaring at him. It sat down on its haunches and rolled its tongue across razor sharp needles. "But not for long. You will die, and the protection with you. I can wait."

"As can I," Larvendad whispered.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Gushnasaph was riding through the hills above the derelict city of Babylon when the sky exploded with light. He had shielded his eyes, but only momentarily. Seeing that the light, whatever its source, was in motion and headed for the tower of Larvendad, the young man spurred his horse into a mad gallop down the decline, weaving in and out of the ruins and vacant streets in pursuit.

After centuries of disgrace, the Sacred Fire returns to bless us, he thought as the wind whipped through his long dark hair. The light roared over his head, and he could see it better now. A white hot center, around which bursts of yellow, orange and red erupted in wing-like flames...and behind it, a tail of roiling, churning cloud the color of a furnace. As it neared its apparent destination, Gushnasaph uttered a prayer to Ahura Mazda in the hope that Larvendad was not in his observatory on this night.

The ball of flame and light hit the tower in an explosion of stone that arced out over the ruins of the ancient city and Larvendad's palatial grounds, now in disrepair. Gushnasaph reined in his horse to narrowly avoid being crushed by a piece of masonry the size of a man, then spurred his mount on, vaulting over the debris. He cleared the gardens and jumped from his horse the moment they reached the foot of the great wide stairs which formed the entrance to the house proper.

The old man will be glad for all the time I skipped on lessons running in the hills tonight, he thought to himself as he raced up the stairs. If he's still alive.

The gate had been torn loose from its hinges by shock the fireball's impact had sent throughout
the house. Rushing through it, Gushnasaph cried out his old teacher's name; "Larvendad!"

Silence.

Heading rapidly toward the stairs which lead to the tower and the observatory, Gushnasaph entered the main hall, to see that one of the great columns had collapsed and shattered near the end it had fallen upon.

And fortunate it was that it did shatter, Gushnasaph thought, else it would have struck that other pillar and started a chain of falling pillars, bringing the whole house down.

Odd that it had shattered though. Larvendad's home was ancient - built in the times when slaves from all across the empire had made Babylon the shining city it once was. And it hadn't simply shattered...the marble about the base of the intact column was like sand...

And sitting amidst it, was the crumpled form of Larvendad.

Gushnasaph crossed the room in a few bounds and kneeled at the old man's side.

"The demon..." Larvendad whispered as Gushnasaph lifted him from the granulated marble.

"You're hurt very badly," Gushnasaph said. His eyes darted about the room - if there was a demon loose in the house, that could explain the shattered pillar. Then he spotted it.

Or what remained of it. A dark, spiderlike appendage with a wicked talon at the end protruded from beneath the fallen pillar.

"Fire and ash" Gushnasaph cursed beneath his breath. "What happened here?"

"The King...the King is born" Larvendad murmured, and fell unconscious.

Chronicles of the Magi: Part 1

In honor of my favorite aspect of the nativity narratives, I'm presenting a writing exercise I'm going to engage in over the twelve days of Christmas, namely to write for 30 minutes each day, doing a fictional biblical fantasy of the Magi's journey to find the Christ child.

A demon was loose in the great house. Larvendad, one of the greatest Magi in all of Persia, huddled behind a marble column, desperately clutching his bleeding arm. If the infernal entity had been any more corporeal when it had broken through the circle of protection drawn intricately upon the floor, the old man would have been eviscerated. As it stood, he'd likely only bleed to death in the next hour, provided the beast, now completely material, couldn't find him.

He could hear it moving around the tower where, up until today, Larvendad had practiced the arcane magic of his order. The dissolution of the protective circle had resulted in a backlash of energy that had thrown the old man clear of the room even as the demon had lashed out at him with its talons. He had caught a glimpse of the conflagration within even as he'd scrambled to his feet and raced down the spiral staircase, out of the tower and down into his palatial home.

What had gone wrong with the spell? The last time he'd lost control of an entity was when Babylon was still a thriving metropolis, before the coming of Alexander and the fall of the great and ancient Persian empire...before the dark days that he and his order sought to restore balance to...

Larvendad looked down at his good hand, clamped over his mangled arm and the blood that sluiced through his grip in scarlet rivulets. It was only a matter of time before he passed out from loss of blood; he'd seen it many times in the wounds of the Persian fighting men who had resisted Alexander's onslaughts...but he'd never been the one to bleed. He needed to get out of his house, get to the servant's quarters, to tell someone to go the house of Hormoz and tell him what had happened.

He braced himself and by pressing his back against the pillar and pushing with his legs, was able to rise to his feet. He felt light-headed and weak. How could he ever make it down another flight of stairs and out the front door, let alone all the way across the gardens?

I have offended the balance with an overlong life, and this is the price I am paying...

Larvendad took a stealthy step forward, which became a stagger all too easily. He crumpled to the cool marble floor, his hand slipping from its grip on his wound. He tried to lift himself from the floor, but the blood pooling about his body had made everything slick and unmanageable. He raised his head weakly to see an inhuman shadow fall upon the white marble from the torchlight upon the tower stairs...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Across the city, from the top of another tower, a man in his middle years stood with his eyes to the night sky. He glanced away from time to time, to consult charts and drawings he'd been making of the heavens, based upon Hipparchus's findings. If the Greek was right, and he often was, there was going to be a conjunction of two of the planets tonight, the ones the Romans called Jupiter and Saturn. It was the sort of astrological phenomenon which would not occur again in Hormoz's lifetime. Unless of course, Larvendad was good enough to reveal the source of his longevity.

Hormoz smiled ruefully. The old man would never reveal the secret; he was convinced that he was the only man worthy of so many years in the world. He had refused his secret to kings. Why would he reveal it to his apprentice?

He focused his attention on an area of the sky where he could already see Jupiter, shining brighter than any of the surrounding stars. Near as Hormoz could tell, the conjunction would also align itself with the constellation of Pisces--the fish. Everyone agreed that such a portent could only mean one thing; the birth of a powerful ruler, a great king.

There was a flash in the night sky, a great burst of light beyond anything the Magi had expected. He had seen comets, eclipses and the like, but nothing like this. It was beyond what the writings of other astrologers had chronicled during such a planetary alignment. Something else was happening here...

The light erupted from the point in the sky Hormoz had been focused on, then raced toward the tower of Larvendad's...