That was weeks ago. Now lo and behold, the Messiah, the bishop, and the Mother of old Iisah with their entire company escaped safe into the Tsaazaari. North and west and west they went, skirting the head hunters of Najmah Janoob and Najmah Shamal, the northern trading post where their bounties had spread. Yet they passed through there too without a drop of blood shed. There had been much levity, then. Jordan and the apostles gave praise to God for rewarding their friend’s sacrifice, Ba’al and Adnihilo to fortune, and Lilum to the Father in whose protection she claimed she’d never lost faith. Adam had sided with her during the celebration, and in the conversations that followed as well. It was to convince himself as much as the others, for in his heart he harbored secret doubts about these promises and prophecies, whether or not anyone truly believed. The bishop, certainly not—but the Mother? Something had been strange in her demeanor those days after their escape. She’d seemed almost sullen at times, more lost in thought than her previous confidence betrayed.
And if she’s wrong? The Messah thought every time these doubts reared their ugly heads, Then Magdalynn’s gone, and Father too. And every time, the same conclusion: faith was the only thing left to hold on to. Fact was immaterial. He would see his loved ones again, one way or the other. This was truth. So when they arrived four day’s ride from the west-most outpost, Najmah Alshrq, and into the shadow of the evil twin mountains, Adam traversed the valley without fear of death.
“This is the mouth of Crusader’s Canyon,” Zachariah explained as they approached a clay fortress. Goods-laden traders were lined at its gate, waiting for sanction; and it looked to the pastor’s son that they’d be waiting too. There was no way but through the gate. The fort itself was not overly large—only a single floor structure built into the mountain side—but between it and the opposite mountain ran a wall of lime, thrice as tall, pearl smooth, and sculpted. The apostle scholar must have seen the awe on Adam’s face. “And that is Solomon’s Boot, built after the rebuke during the First Crusade.” He arced with his pen from one peak to the other. “Stretches the whole length from Black Sodom to Red Gehenna. No other way to Mephisto but through there or the sea.”
“Then we’re almost to the city?” asked Adnihilo eagerly.
“Another hour, maybe. But that’s assuming he has enough tax for entry.”
The two Tsaazaari men, Maqsood and Rahir, spat at the sound of the word “tax.”
“Forgive them,” Jordan said faster than the spittle could sizzle on the sand. “They are holy men, but unfortunately unwise in the necessary order of the world. And what else could one expect from a pair of bush hunters. To them, taxes and tithes are no different than theft.”
“And what difference is that?” scoffed Ba’al.
Jordan left the question unanswered.
“So what about the tax? We could hardly afford supplies,” Adnihilo asked with an edge in his voice. He was hoping for a fight, but what he got was disappointment.
“Worry not, fallen friend. Our late, brave companion gave me a key into the city.”
The bishop snorted, “A key?”
Jordan leveled his brow with Ba’al’s, and the Messiah’s eyes darkened where prior they never seemed to shadow. “A name, actually. Vexillifer Mephistopheles.”
The name sounded familiar, but Adam could not place where he’d hear it before, nor, it appeared, could anyone else but the grumbling bishop. “I could have told you that,” he muttered as the rest pressed onward to the foot of Solomon’s Boot—Red Gehenna in the distance, Black Sodom looming over, ever threatening to engulf them in a slide of liquid rock so smooth and strange was its surface. Staring at the mountain made the pastor’s son more nervous than waiting on the gate guards’ judgement. Jordan and Zach had gone to parley with them and were gone several minutes inside the fort before coming out again. And as the self-proclaimed Messiah spoke, they were allowed to pass along the valley road to Mephisto.
This was no longer the Tsaazaari desert, no longer the barren boneyard where water was gold and men prey to beast. This was the kingdom Pareo was meant to be—but never was—never could be this legendary. The black tower in Babylon, Gautama’s unearthly mountains and sprawling palaces, Iisah’s ancient temple scrawled in millennia of hieroglyphs—not one of these was worth a pittance compared to Mephisto. Its walls alone were a thing ungraspable, smooth and white as polished ivory, blinding in the sun, and twice as high as Hassan’s hostel. They stretched left and right beyond the horizon, even into the ocean, according to Zachariah. Six ports allowed access to the city, each flanked by a pair of gold-capped spires: north, northeast, and east-south by land; the others mirrored on the side of the sea. Respectively, the Mephistine called these the Tarshir and Ophir Gates, though no doors nor portcullises remained.
“Not for at least a thousand years,” explained the apostle scholar as they clopped to a halt in sight of the north-eastern Tarshir. There was a line, other travelers awaiting examination and taxation. Zachariah continued, “Though the Mephistine claim longer. Legend is that there have
