Must catch my breath. Blue veins rise on the backs of my sweaty hands rested on my knees. This corner used to reek of incense, bellowed out from the Temple of Mithras; all I can smell is piss in this deserted doorway. That flute of smoke has thinned, but I need to keep running. Trouble’s on its way.
The streets of my childhood are the same… even the dogs congregate in the same shady alcoves, but on my sprint across the city I felt disorientated. Streets that are usually busy day and night were deserted. I saw no violence, but the streets perspire a silent threat. Women rushed into alleys, quietening crying children, fear in their eyes. They know an army of monks is descending on the city. I need to warn my friends, check they’re safe… then I’ll tackle Rufius. He won’t be happy I’m back against his will.
The Canopic Way. I stop and gawp at the width of it, the colonnades stretching ahead of me. It must be the widest road in any city in the Empire. Why’s it empty? That pounding… the heavy shoes of soldiers. Here they come. Eight men to each row march in my direction. I need to get out of their way.
At last: the Temple of Dionysus. Fear whips and tosses in my gut at the smell of burning. Why are the great wooden doors ajar? They’re always shut tight. I fling them open and rush into the courtyard. I’m too late. The huge incense braziers have been thrown on to a fire in the centre of the courtyard. Tables, chairs and beds are piled up, charred black they crack and hiss. A thin line of smoke reaches into the morning sky. My heart pounds in my ears. Where is everyone?
Fragments of pages with blackened edges stick to the sides of one of the braziers. No one in Alexandria would burn parchment even if they were desperate for fuel.
Fear sends my legs sprinting inside the kitchen. That bucket’s been dropped in a panic. Spilt water stains the floor. What happened here? The echo of my feet thudding upstairs in the emptiness makes me nervous. My throat tightens at the thought of what I’ll find inside.
‘Kiya? Henite?’
There’s no one here.
Why am I going to Kiya’s bedroom? The temple’s deserted. Her room is empty… except Sophia’s basket. That will be empty too. Kiya doesn’t go anywhere without her snake.
I kick off the lid. Ah! Sophia! She rears up her head and opens her hood. What a size she’s grown to. What’s she doing here? Panic paints horrific images in my mind in my rush from room to room. The frenzy mounts… if they’re not here, where are they? Seth, Henite, Kiya… Croc. Venus Street. Turk will know where Croc is.
I stop in the courtyard. The letters scrawled across the courtyard wall where Croc, Kiya and I used to line up for Seth to measure our heights make me want to puke.
H E R E T I C S
My fingers trace the faded names on the wall below the graffiti: Croc, Kiya, Aeson. The lines that marked our heights are still visible below our names. We were so small.
The graffiti paint’s still tacky; they can’t be far. The roof. I might be able to see something from up there. I run into Kiya’s room and pull myself up onto the roof… I lifted Kiya up here countless times.
I pace in circles on the flat roof. No sign of them in the deserted streets of the ghetto. Black smoke rises from temples all over the city, blown inland by a sea wind. The Khamaseen’s coming.
Sun’s hot on my back and a sharp pain shoots through my temples. This can’t be happening… but somehow this feels like it was always going to happen, that I was always going to stand here on the roof and watch Alexandria burn.
The monks are still a long way off, a plague moving down the dunes. The army has done this.
Is that a voice? A girl’s voice. ‘Kiya?’
Like a child who’s lost his mother, my movements are uncoordinated – I bang into the stairwell walls in my rush to follow her voice.
‘Kiya?’ I turn in a circle in the courtyard. Absentmindedly, I pick up a basket and put it upright. A snake! Half a snake, cut by a sword. My gut pinches.
There it is again. A whimper. It’s coming from outside the temple.
Opposite, on the steps of the Temple of Aphrodite, a young priestess sobs and chants to her goddess as she covers her face in the wet ash from the braziers with mournful strokes.
Let’s crouch next to her, try to get her attention. Glazed eyes stare through me: the empty look of grief.
‘Child, what happened here?’
She’s bewildered.
‘They took them all.’ She raises an arm and points in the direction of the Agora. Her hand trembles, teeth chatter.
‘Who? Who took them?’
‘Soldiers. They took them all.’
Other children peer out from the doorway of the temple and watch us.
‘Where are the adults?’
‘They took them all.’ Still she points towards the end of the street, her long sleeve in eerie profile, eyes suddenly wide as if she has seen a ghost, or a monster behind me.
I turn to where she is pointing, but there’s nothing there.
An older girl tiptoes in quick silent steps, takes her hand and leads the child away.
There is nothing I can do to help these children crouched in the shadow of a temple raped of its sacred purpose like street urchins in the Necropolis. Doom thickens around me. I have arrived at the destiny Dera warned me of… but I feel strong, like for the first time in my whole life I have a purpose, like this is my cue to fulfil some fated task. How strange. I feel more confident than I’ve ever felt in my life.
Serapis, keep my friends safe until I find them.