The Shadow of Ararat Read Online Free PDF Page A

Kyllun began to spend their time together at meals and during studies. Dwyrin paid them no mind, for Master Ahmet was watching him like a hawk, and he felt himself repaid in full by the sight on Kyllun's face when the black bees had boiled out of the scroll tube in a dark angry cloud. Dwyrin studied and even improved at his lessons and pleased his teachers. Dwyrin noted that Kyllun, despite hours hunched over the moldy scrolls and ancient tomes that were the focus of their studies, did perhaps worse than before. Patroclus improved, bending his efforts to besting Dwyrin. Master Ahmet remained watchful, giving none of them time to explore further mischief.

CHAPTER FIVE
The Port of Ostia Maxima, Italia
    The heavy oak door of the brick building thudded solidly under the young man's fist. Around him, twilight settled upon the town, the sun sliding into the western sea through a haze of cookfire smoke and the rigging of a thousand ships. From over the high wall of the shipwright's compound, he could hear the waves of the harbor slapping on the stone border of the long slip. Beyond that there was a murmur of thousands of dockworkers, mules, and wagons busy loading and unloading the ships that carried the life-blood of the Empire.
    "Ho!" shouted the young man, his embroidered woolen cloak falling back, a dark green against his broad sun-bronzed shoulders. He had a patrician face, strong nose, and short-cropped black hair in the latest Imperial style. Gloom filled the street around him as the sun drifted down into Poseidon's deeps. There was still no answer.
    Puzzled, the noble youth tried the door latch, but it was firmly barred on the far side. He rubbed his clean-shaven face for a moment, then shrugged. He knocked once more, more forcefully, but still there was no footfall within or inquisitive shout over the wall. Idly he glanced in each direction and saw that the street was empty of curious onlookers. He dug in the heavy leather satchel that hung to his waist from a shoulder strap, his quick lean fingers at last finding a small dented copper bell. Blowing lint from the surface of the token, he squinted slightly and shook the bell at chest height by the door.
    Within, there was a scraping sound and then the door swung inward. Smiling a little, the young man stepped inside, his calfskin boots making little sound on the tiled floor.
    "Dromio? It's Maxian. Hello? Is anyone home?" he whispered into the darkness. There was still no answer.
    Now greatly concerned, Maxian fumbled inside the door for a lantern. His fingers found one suspended from an iron hook, and he unhooded it in the dim light of the doorway. Fingertips pinched the tip of the oil wick and it sputtered alight, burning his forefinger. The young man cursed under his breath and raised the lantern high. Its dim yellow light spilled over the tables in the long workshop. Tools, parchments, rulers, adzes lay in their normal confusion. At the far end of the hall, it widened out into the nave of the boat shed, and a sleek hull stood there, raised up on a great cedarwood frame.
    Maxian padded the length of the workshop, his eyes drawn to the smooth sweep of the ship, its high back, the odd tiller that seemingly grew from the rear hull brace like a fin. Standing below it, he wondered at its steering—there were no pilot oars hung from the sides of the ship, nor any sign that they were intended.
    "Such a steed as Odysseus could have ridden from the ruin of Troy,"—he signed to himself—"cleaving a wine-dark sea before its prow."
    A door opened behind him, ruddy red light spilling out. Maxian turned, his face lit with delight. A stocky figure stood in the doorway, leaning heavily on the frame.
    "My lord Prince?" came a harsh whisper.
    Maxian strode forward, switching the lantern to his right hand as his left caught the slumping figure of the shipwright.
    "Dromio?" Maxian was horrified to see in the firelight that his friend was wasted and shrunken, his wrinkled skin pulled tight