When Alexios awoke, he was surprised to be alive. Sleep had been a long dreamless chasm. He opened his eyes to tall tree trunks swaying and creaking in a warm summer breeze, their branches clawing at the cloudy gray sky. Pheasants were calling amid the cacophony of birdsong. It might have been midmorning or early afternoon.

  There should have been a razor-sharp steel spearhead jabbing his neck—he should have sat up and seen Isato, Basil, and Kassia tied up and gagged, with crusaders threatening to cut their throats if Alexios moved. Any one of a hundred horrible things should have happened in the last few hours. He should have remained asleep forever. The raiders should have killed the fugitives in their sleep.

  Not a terrible way to go, when you think about it. You aren’t even aware it happens. But so awful for the children. So much potential life un-lived. What kind of person would Basil have become? What about Kassia? Would they have grown up into something interesting? A doctor for Basil. A teacher for Kassia. Both working for the uprising. Or would they surrender to the status quo, make excuses for it, and end up taking typical day jobs—for the medieval period, I mean. Basil would become a farmer, Kassia also a farmer, but a wife and mother and caregiver on top of that. Or would they just turn into loafers? Is that what happens when you’re too nice to your kids? When you love them, care for them, treat them democratically, educate them as best you can using radical techniques—and let them also educate you. When you do that, the kids just become so satisfied that they don’t want to do anything with their lives. They can just kind of lie around. They can just loaf. But that isn’t really possible here. People have at best a limited tolerance for loafers.

  Alexios listened for the sound of clopping or galloping horses. He sat up and looked around, doing his best to peer through the woods, though they were so dense it was impossible to see the creeks and vineyards that surrounded them.

  Plenty of wood in this copse. Peasants have taken good care of this place. Never cutting more than they need. Always making sure enough is growing. But maybe monks are in charge here? Do Muslim governments allow Christian monasteries to do their thing? Maybe to a limited extent. Monasteries have an important niche in medieval society. They’re basically a way to deal with surplus dudes. Too many dudes, not enough land, especially given the limits of medieval tech. So let your excess dudes—the second, third, fourth sons who won’t inherit anything—let them join a monastery, work in a communal brotherhood, and don’t let them have kids. Their labor ends up staying with the monastery after they die—the monastery inherits their labor, congealed in the form of property. The system works well for centuries, until the monasteries start getting too big and powerful. They end up owning entire towns, entire regions, with peasants laboring in the fields for monks who do—what exactly? They start slowing down economic development for their own benefit. It’s the same old story. The factors which initially cause a society to rise later cause its downfall.

  The copse grew on and around a hill that was strewn with boulders. Jagged rocks the size of houses jutted from the earth at odd angles. Some trees clung to the rock, their roots gripping the stone. A few roots were strong enough to crack the rock. Rainwater would fall inside the cracks over the centuries, and over time this would wear away the seemingly unbreakable stone.

  The copse is a good hiding place, Alexios thought. But there’s no way Adarnase or his men won’t check here. It’s so obvious.

  He untied the horses—since it seemed unlikely that they would wander off in such a dense wood—and fed them. They’d need water soon, which meant that the fugitives would need to leave this place and expose themselves. If only there had been a spring here bubbling up out of the rock. Then the copse would have been perfect. They could have stayed here forever, venturing out only to steal food, living like those Japanese soldiers in Pacific islands who spent decades refusing to admit that the war was over.

  Isato, Basil, and Kassia kept sleeping. Alexios brushed the horses. They got dirty fast if you failed to do this regularly, with mud and dirt clumping in their hair like beards of filth. Next, Alexios ate some cheese and stale bread. Their food was getting old, and they hadn’t gotten a chance to replenish their supplies. How many days had passed since the Sparhawk had dropped them off? Alexios counted. Yesterday was Tiflis—may it rest in peace—and then the day before was Kutaisi, and the day before that was Phasis. Three, four days. The travelers had already gotten pretty far, given the circumstances, although when you needed to flee for your life, that tended to get you moving at a decent speed. If only the spirit of adventure would just leave them alone for awhile…

  Maybe the Sparhawk had made it back to Trebizond by now. It was doing uprising-related things. Herakleia was building the city’s productive forces—constructing factories, teaching people about division of labor. Three workers, doing the same monotonous task—making each piece of a shoe before assembling it—can produce as much as ten workers making shoes individually. And then Gontran was negotiating an alliance in Venice. The uprising was continuing without Alexios, like a machine you wound up and released. Could Herakleia and the workers keep winding it, or would they need Alexios’s help?

  Tune in next time on Byzantium: The Game for the exciting conclusion! But they’ll be fine without me. This is my job, right here. If I don’t keep going east, hunting for this dragon, whatever it is, the uprising will be destroyed. I know this because dreams and visions I couldn’t shake told me so.

  Alexios wondered if he had just been desperate to leave Trebizond, if he’d just been looking for an excuse to get out. But that was crazy. He loved that place, he loved the people. He had an apartment, a job, a life. There was even stability, except for the occasional terrifying siege.

  Imagine being able to come home from work and think to yourself: ah, this is the life. Things are good. Nothing really to worry about.

  Getting bored, and having little desire to wake his friends, Alexios stood and walked around the copse. People had been living around Georgia for tens of thousands of years, so you never knew what you might run into in a place like this. The hill itself was small, but it was also a striking landmark. It must have had an interesting name—hopefully not just “Big Hill” or “Small Hill” translated into twelve different languages.

  Alexios was not disappointed. Within minutes of climbing over the boulders and jagged rock outcroppings, he found the dark entrance to a cave. Squiggly Georgian writing was carved around the entrance, although who knew what it said? In a video game, a place like this was guaranteed to have some treasure, maybe an annoying puzzle, as well as a few nasty monsters—some random powerful weirdos just kind of hanging around inside who attack you on sight and proceed to fight to the death, even though they presumably have no idea who you are. After all the largely individualistic exertions of the last few days, Alexios’s farr level was low. This meant that he should avoid combat. But maybe whatever magical treasure or weaponry lay inside could help him fight Adarnase.

  He returned to his friends to see if they were awake. On the way he thought about how Narses and Adarnase both had similar names, and were even allies now.

  Naming your kid ‘Narses’—it’s just asking for trouble. Your kid is going to grow up to be a warlord if you give him a name like that. ‘This is my son, Narses.’ ‘Oh really, what a—hmm—fascinating name! Narses…do you mind if I ask what, uh, what culture that’s from?’ ‘It’s Greco-Persian-Armenian.’ ‘Oh. I, uh, I didn’t know you had all of that in your ancestry. Are you any of those, uh, things?’ ‘Nope. Anyway, little Narses is already torturing small defenseless animals to death all the time now! We’re so proud of him!’

  Alexios’s family was still asleep. Was it a good idea to head into a mysterious cave without telling them? No. In fact, if you found yourself asking this question, it was probably a bad idea. At first Alexios thought he could just venture inside a little, but he would probably step on a trap and then close a hidden unmovable door weighing twenty tons behind him. He’d seen too many movies, read too many books, played too many games, consumed too many treats. He knew what the writers of this season of the universe were cooking. It was going to take more to put him into yet another difficult-but-entertaining situation.

  He waited for his family to wake up. The horses were wandering nearby, munching whatever grass they could find. Rakhsh was also a good horse, fast and clever. He could keep an eye on the others, and would have run off by now if he’d had a problem with Alexios. Rakhsh was a partner in the journey, and along for the ride. That was what Alexios told himself.

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  “Is that what you think?” Alexios asked Rakhsh while rubbing his nose, speaking loudly because he wanted everyone else to wake up. “Do you want to stick with us? We depend on you for a lot.”

  Rakhsh nodded and neighed, which was good enough for Alexios.

  “You’re free to go at any time,” Alexios said. “Nobody’s forcing you to come with us.”

  Rakhsh nickered, as if to say: Where would I go? What would I do? How much time would pass before some other human caught me?

  “You could run like the wind,” Alexios said. “Be free with the wild horses of the steppe.”

  Don’t tempt me, Rakhsh seemed to say. Besides, this life might not be easy, but when is it ever boring?

  “Right now.” Alexios looked at his sleeping family.

  He took the horses to the forest’s edge, then looked around for a place where they could drink. Finding a nearby stream, he led them to it, then refilled the water skins he’d slung around his shoulders, always watching the grasslands for any sign of the enemy. But there was none. For some reason no farms were nearby, either. The peasants kept their distance from this place.

  Always a good sign.

  When Alexios brought the horses back to the camp, his family was waking up. He was excited to see them.

  “Thank god you’re awake!” he exclaimed—mindful, nonetheless, of the need to keep his voice down, lest any of their hunters hear. “Now we can do stuff again!”

  Groggily, Isato, Kassia, and Basil sat up. Soon they ate their bread and cheese, too tired to speak. Alexios told them about the cave. None were interested in going.

  “No more underground adventures for me, thanks,” Basil said. “One night being trapped in a lava pit with a giant evil skeleton was enough.”

  “Come on, it might be fun,” Alexios said. “It’s just on the other side of this hill.”

  Kassia shook her head. “If you go for a long time, we’ll come looking for you. Otherwise…”

  Isato pointed at him. “Be careful, commoner.”

  “I’m never not,” Alexios said with mock seriousness.

  “You have a mysterious way of attracting unpleasant company,” Isato said. “Wherever we go, no matter how polite we are, we are forced to fight for our lives…and why are you in such a good mood?”

  “It’s just that,” Alexios said. “All of us should have died or gotten captured last night. But we made it out with barely a scratch.”

  “We were fortunate,” Isato said.

  “Luck had nothing to do with it,” Alexios said. “It was skill. All of this started when we went to Bagrationi’s palace. I was trying to tell you that it was dangerous, but you wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “You should have spoken louder,” Isato said. “You had ample opportunity. Why didn’t you use it?”

  “I did use it,” Alexios said. He was getting angry, so he walked away before Isato could respond, but then he stopped and turned back to his friends. “Listen. All of you need to be careful. Don’t make any noise or light any fires. Adanarse must still be out there looking for us.”

  “That’s your plan, Alexios?” Basil said. “‘Keep quiet’?”

  “Do you have any better ideas, Mr. Critic?” Alexios said. “We should stay here a few days at least, until things calm down. Then we can sneak out and head east, either along the mountains or the plains, I don’t know.”

  “What if we run out of food?” Kassia said.

  “We’ll be careful,” Alexios said.

  Kassia got up, took Alexios aside, and whispered into his ear: “What if Isato turns into a hyena again and attacks us?”

  “Don’t piss her off and you won’t have to worry,” Alexios said. He walked a little deeper into the woods so they could speak in private.

  “I’m scared,” Kassia said.

  “Would you rather come with me into the cave?”

  “I want you to stay with us.”

  “I can’t. I have to check the cave out. There might be something important inside.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a magic carpet. God knows it would make things easier.”

  “What’s a magic carpet?”

  “Imagine a carpet that can fly, that goes where you want it to.”

  Kassia thought for a moment. “That would make things easier. Is that something they have in the old world?”

  “No. But we have airplanes, helicopters, rocket ships. All kinds of metal machines that can fly.”

  “I want to see them some day.”

  He kissed her head. “You will. We know how to build them here. We just need the time and the resources.”

  “I’ll build them.”

  “You also have the farr, Kassia. You aren’t just a little girl anymore. If there’s a problem with Isato, you and Basil can outrun her. All you need to do is climb a tree and wait for me to come back—or wait for her to calm down.”

  “Do people in the old world usually leave their kids with hyena women?”

  “Not really,” Alexios said. “Not in a literal sense, anyway.”

  He hugged her goodbye, and was off. In minutes, he had returned to the cave entrance. Drawing his Gedara sword, he illuminated it with what remained of his farr. Night vision was a new, expensive skill that drained his resources, and he had little enough left as it was. It might have been better to light a torch, but he was worried that even a little smoke would alert the raiders hunting them in the surrounding fields.

  Nothing I haven’t done before, he thought as he stepped inside the cave, thinking of Sumatar in Harran and the odd experience of meeting Hermes Trismegistos. The experience had been so odd, in fact, that Alexios often just kept it out of his mind entirely. That was really the only way he knew of to deal with something that went beyond comprehension. Maybe that was how insects dealt with meeting humans. I just won’t think about it. I’ll just keep going about my day. Mmm, there’s some good garbage here.

  Stepping slowly and carefully, holding his sword far in front of his face, Alexios felt ahead with his foot for loose rocks, and eyed the walls for little holes that poisoned darts might fly from. The cave descended for just a few steps before he came to a big, dark hole that plunged down at a steep angle. A dark ikon of the Virgin was propped up on a little shelf hewn into the rock wall, which itself was smeared with soot from years, decades, perhaps centuries of burning candles here. Out of habit, Alexios clasped his hands together and bowed to the ikon. That’s what almost everyone else did whenever they ran into these things.

  Going medieval.

  The hole was steep, but not too steep. It might have been the entrance to an old Mithraic grotto. He was able to climb down, even if piles of loose rocks and pebbles slid with him. Sometimes he stopped and climbed back up a little to make sure that it was possible to do so.

  The descent took time. On and on Alexios went, wondering what, if anything, lay at the bottom. When minutes had turned to what must have been about half an hour, and when he started worrying about his family, he found the bottom of the hole—doing his best, in the mean time, to avoid thinking about inappropriate jokes. Some kind of chamber was there. The hole seemed to have been hewn with hammers and pickaxes, the debris just left where it had fallen. In the sword’s faint light Alexios saw that the chamber consisted of straight and even lines.

  Soon he stepped over the last rocks and pebbles and found himself walking on a smooth flat surface of dusty tile. He saw torches flickering ahead on distant walls. There were bookshelves stuffed with books, ancient Roman couches, a low table, plus carpets strewn on the floor.

  This is Hermes Trismegistos all over again.

  Once upon a time the carpets had been beautiful, but now they were worn and dirty. A man was sitting on them, cross-legged, hunched over something, his back turned to Alexios—who extinguished his sword light and quietly approached. The man’s hair was a little long and messy, but he wore a thick, cozy wool robe, and baggy Persian linen pants, the colors plainer and duller than what Alexios usually found in this era of bright vibrant gaudy fashion. On the nearby low table, the man had left a cup, from which Alexios could smell a faint, musty, somehow familiar scent.

  The man had a book open on his lap, and was scrawling into its thick heavy pages with a feather that he dipped now and then into a monkey-shaped inkwell that was almost overflowing with gleaming black thick-as-tar ink. To Alexios’s surprise, the man was writing in English, not Georgian, Arabic, or Roman. The messy scrawl was startlingly legible.

  …the messy scrawl was startlingly legible, the man wrote. Alexios narrowed his brow, and the man turned to him, smiling a mouth full of coffee-stained teeth, his round eyes puffy with sleep, his black beard in need of a trim. The man could have been Georgian, Roman, Arab, Turk, even Jewish or Armenian or any mix of these. He was a little chunky for a medieval person, more like a monk than a peasant.

  Alexios’s eyes widened.

  Alexios’s eyes widened, the man wrote, chuckling to himself without taking his eyes off of Alexios. Then he forced Alexios to sheathe his sword.