Hey Everyone!
I’m sorry that I’m running a wee bit late with today’s chapter of ‘Immortals & Ink.’
I am about 6 chapters away (I hope – it keeps growing when I’m not looking) from tying up the first draft of ‘A Dance of Thieves and Oracles’ and my brain is running on liminal space time, Delphi research and caffeine right now.
The point is, I remembered in the end.
***
Chapter Fifteen
The glamour shimmering around the ship was holding, but only just. Alexis sat with his hand on the keel of their skiff, feeding magic into the spell laid through the wood and into the water under them.
It was a small magic, but a tiring one. Holding it over salt water at night, with the Ottoman guns of Rumelihisarı a thousand paces off the starboard bow, was like holding a wet sail in his fist and not letting it slip.
Phaidros sat in the bow with his hood up and his shoulders hunched against the cold. The Hésperos herself rode at anchor in a sheltered bay, three coves back, with another glamor over it to hide it from Ottoman patrols.
Above them on the European shore, the fortress crouched against the sky. Boğazkesen, the Turks called it. The throat-cutter. Mehmed had built it the year before to make the Bosphorus impassable to any ship that didn’t have his blessing.
A Venetian galley had been sunk under its guns in November. Her captain had been impaled afterward for the offense of trying to get through without paying the tax.
Alexis kept the cog tight against the shore, where the guns couldn’t depress far enough to reach them if his glamor failed to hide them. He had measured the embrasures with a glamour-thrown gull the night before and knew their arc to within a finger’s width.
They slipped past the fortress in silence. The current was running with them, which was a mercy. Alexis let the tiller play loose under his palm and allowed the river of the strait to do the work.
A long time later, the lights of Galata showed on the port bow. The Genoese suburb rode the hillside above the Golden Horn in a tumble of red tile and lamp-warm windows, with the squat black bulk of the Galata Tower at its crown.
Beyond it, across the Horn, the great city was dark under the moon, low-lit at the walls and at the few churches that still kept their watch lamps burning.
“Mio Dio,” Phairdros whispered, shooting Alexis a worried look. “We might be too late.”
There were Ottoman ships already in the Golden Horn.
“The city would be burning if it were,” Alexis said grimly. “We need to find Arslan.”
Alexis brought the little boat around a Genoese trading hull, slipped her between two other anchored ships, and ran her up onto a strip of shingle.
They dragged the cog under the lee of a stone wall, threw a tarred sail over her, and Alexis laid a small ‘don’t look here’ cantrip on the heap that would last until they came back for her.
Galata was still awake, despite being in the middle of a siege. The wine shops were full with sailors arguing over a dice game in a language that started Genoese and ended somewhere near Greek. Across the Horn, the city slept badly. They could hear, very faintly, the bells of one of the monasteries striking the hour.
Alexis kept his head down and hood up as they crossed streets, ducked under a vine-heavy arch, and came out in a small square. On the far side of it, Arslan’s church with a single dome over its nave still stood. Above the door, the triangular mosaic of Sophia and the dog-headed saint shone in the dim light.
Alexis exhaled a shaky breath. You’ve kept your post safe, old friend.
The door was made of new oak under old iron. Alexis put his palm flat to it. The wood warmed under his hand, and the latch lifted for him.
“Already breaking and entering,” Phaidros chided.
Alexis glanced around, the hair on his neck shivering in warning. “We don’t know if he is out in the city, and it’s better we get off these streets.”
Inside, the chapel was small and warm. Beeswax candles burned in three iron stands lined with sand. The walls had been painted with new frescoes since Alexis had last seen them. A man in a brown robe was lighting candles near the altar.
He looked up at the sound of the door, studied Alexis for a half-breath, and bowed his head a fraction.
Alexis nodded back. Clever boy not to draw attention.
A door behind the altar opened, and Arslan came through it.
He looked exactly the same as when Alexis had left on the Galata docks two hundred and forty-nine years before, except the small lines at his eyes had deepened into something that was both kinder and wearier. His face lit up when he saw Alexis.
“Amico mio,” Alexis replied. “Forgive the timing. It seems we have arrived in the middle of a siege.”
“I knew you would come.” Arslan crossed the chapel in three strides and hugged him tight. Alexis held him, and for a long moment neither of them moved.
“Phaidros,” Arslan said over Alexis’s shoulder, releasing him. “You’re here too!”
“Grand Master.” Phaidros bowed with theatrical sincerity before Arslan pulled him into a hug, too. “It is good to see you in one piece.”
Arslan patted Phaidros’s back. “Come. Your journey must have been terrible, and we need to talk.”
“You have no idea. I haven’t been able to keep a full stomach for over a week,” Phaidros complained, looping his arm in Arslan’s.
Arslan led them past the altar through a low arch into the courtyard. It had filled out since 1204. Where Alexis remembered bare flagstones and a single fig tree, there were now pomegranate and lemon trees in well-kept beds, low alcoves with cushions, and two long stone tables for reading.
Two men in plain dark robes sat at one of the tables, heads bent over, speaking in low voices. A third stood at the gate to the apartments on the far side, eyes on the dark beyond the wall, a curved blade laid across his knees.
“Brothers in shifts,” Arslan said, following his eyes. “We don’t sleep all at once anymore. Not since November.”
“How many of you now?”
“Eleven in the city. Forty across the world. They are not all here, obviously. Some are in Cairo, some in Aleppo, some in Rhodes, a few in places in between.” Arslan glanced over his shoulder at Alexis. “All mortal still. I’ve followed your advice on that point, but no one has been given the elixir.”
“You always were a slow student.”
“You always were a faster teacher than my patience permitted.”
Phaidros made a small approving sound before kissing Arslan’s cheek. “I’ve missed you and how you sass Alexis.”
“I’ve missed you, too.”
At the far end of the courtyard, between two pomegranate trees, stood a freestanding statue in old gray stone. The figure of a dog-headed man, perhaps half life-size, stood on a square plinth. In one hand, he held an ankh. In the other, a set of scales.
“You kept it,” Alexis said, smiling widely.
“Of course I did. It’s one of my favorite presents I’ve ever received,” Arslan replied.
He put his palm flat to the ankh. He had carved it for Arslan as a thank you for his help the first time they met.
“Turn it,” Arslan said gently. “I’ve made some modifications I think you will like.”
Alexis closed his hand on the ankh and turned it a quarter to the right. The whole figure, plinth, dog-head, and scales together, slid back and to the side with a scrape of stone against stone. Lamplight rose from the dark below, revealing the stairs that led down.
“I love a secret passage!” Phaidros said behind them, winking at Arslan. “Amico, you are the first person I’ve met to make Alexis’s art useful.”
Arslan smiled. “You’re terrible. Don’t listen to him, Alexis. Your art is always beautiful.”
“Don’t worry, I haven’t listened to Phaidros’s opinion on art since Atlantis,” Alexis replied.
In the time Alexis had been away, Arslan had expanded his cistern. Wooden walkways laid with old Turkish carpets ran out over the now dry canals. They led between sitting areas with low tables and flat cushions, and past archways into chambers that Alexis remembered as empty, now filled with shelves, books, and the flickering presence of more lamps.
“You have built a library down here,” Alexis commented, his smile widening.
“Most of the cistern is a place for supplies and study in equal measure,” Arslan said simply. “We drained parts of it to keep the damp out, but made sure we still have access to the deeper water if we need it.”
Alexis’s heart clenched a little. He is preparing for the inevitable fire.
They followed Arslan along a walkway. As they passed a side alcove, a young woman sat on a cushion with her knees drawn up and her face buried in a book. Her hair was the color of pale apricot wood, and under her cloak was the faint shape of concealed wings.
In another alcove, deeper in, a tall man stood with his back to the walkway, head bowed, with the scorch of djinn magic in the air around him.
Alexis didn’t stop and stare, but when he was past, he asked, “How many supernaturals are you sheltering right now?”
“Four at present. The peri and a djinn, both of whom you saw. A child with oracle gifts, whose grandmother died in November. A drosos who has lost her spring and is mourning. I don’t turn them away. Anubis has not asked me to.”
“Fortunato,” Phaidros said softly.
“Lucky for me too,” Arslan replied. “The supernaturals fear the siege as badly as the humans. Worse, sometimes. They have nowhere to run that knows them.”
“What about Akamos? He isn’t helping?” Alexis asked.
“He’s a fallen angel, not a benevolent one. He’s trying to keep the dark ones under control, and that’s a big enough job with all the blood and violence in the air.”
They came at last to a wider stone platform where cushions were laid around a low table and a hookah sat unlit beside a copper tray. A young brother in a dark robe stood at the table and set down a tea tray. He bowed to them without speaking and went away across the bridge the way they had come.
“You have the guard shifts down here as well,” Alexis commented.
“It would be foolish to ask men to keep watch in the dark above and leave the work below to no one.” Arslan gestured for them to sit and began pouring tea. The steam curled up between them, sweet with cloves. “Drink. You have been on a boat for a week, and that does not improve anyone’s temper.”
Phaidros took his cup. “Especially when Alexis is driving.”
“And Phaidros is a passenger,” Alexis added. “What can you tell us about the city?”
“Mehmed is at our doorstep, and his damn cannons shake the city day and night,” Arslan replied.
“What about the ships in Horn?”
“The clever little sultan took them over land, behind Galata.” Arslan made a gesture of helplessness. “No one expected it, and Galata is still holding ground as neutral territory.”
“Who is running the defense of the rest of the city?” Alexis asked, half expecting Constantine’s name.
“The city has seven thousand fighters altogether. Most of those are Genoese under Giustiniani, who arrived in January with seven hundred of his own men and has been raising the morale of every man on the walls since. The rest are Greek regulars, a few Venetians who have refused to leave, the household guards of the great families, and what monks and tradesmen can be persuaded to carry a spear. Against them, Mehmed will bring eighty thousand. Some say a hundred.” Arslan’s mouth turned down, finally showing how tired he really was. “The walls have stood for a thousand years.”
“They have not faced this Hungarian’s new gun,” Alexis said quietly.
“No one has. I have never heard anything like the Basilica. I didn’t think such a thing could ever be built.”
“Nothing is impossible.” Phaidros set his glass down. “Anyone else noteworthy leading the troops?”
“A man has been seen on the walls almost every day since November,” Arslan said, staring at Alexis over his tea. “He’s at Saint Romanus Gate from the third hour of light until the third hour of dark, and again most evenings after the second supper. He walks the parapet with the Greek captains or Giustiniani. He inspects the breachworks. He drinks with the Genoese mercenaries at their fires at night. They have begun to call him Strategos.”
Phaidros made a long whistle through his teeth. “Oh dear, I wonder who that sounds like?”
Of course, he is at the Romanus Gate. He would be nowhere else. Alexis rubbed at his temple, the throb already starting.
It was the gate where the walls were weakest, and where Mehmed would press the hardest. Con would never choose a hill to die on that wasn’t the right shape.
“Porca miseria. I will go to him tomorrow,” Alexis muttered.
Arslan nodded. “I have a token that will get you to the Greek captains, and they will get you to the wall.”
“Grazie, old friend. What else can you tell us about the state of things?”
“Only bad news.” Arslan lit the hookah and inhaled deeply. “We had a blood moon eclipse two days ago. The oracles in the city all had the same prophecy: That Constantinople would fall when the reigning emperor was named Constantine and his mother was named Helena, just like the emperor who first founded it.”
“We had rain, so we didn’t see any eclipse while at sea. Do we currently have a Constantine on the throne right now?” Phaidros asked, scratching at his head.
Arslan nodded sadly. “We do. Constantine XI Palaiologos, and his mother is Helena Dragaš.”
“Fuck,” Alexis said, and buried his face in his hands. The prophecy would have spread faster than Greek fire. There was no way Con wouldn’t have heard it by now. Alexis’s one chance to convince him to leave had just gone up in smoke.
***
Cannons and Constantine, what a way to end a chapter. I feel like a bit of an asshole for leaving you hanging tbh.
The good news is that you’re in for some hardcore Magicians back story lore in the next few weeks, so make sure you keep an eye out.
In the mean time, if you want to catch or read the other chapters you can Click here for where I’m compiling them every week.
If you haven’t read Alexis and Penelope’s adventures yet, and you want to know where the back story lore slots into the world, you can check them out here. Or if you are curious about the Order and Arslan, then click here.
That’s all from me this week, I’m off to finish this book and hopefully be more functional once its out of my head (yeah, I doubt it too).
Ames x