A Place Called Armageddon Read Online Free

replied, not looking back. ‘Do you think I am a fool?’
    She watched him fumbling at the bar. ‘I do,’ she whispered, and smiled. The Jew had been good for a while, easily satisfied in their bed, teaching her many things beyond it. Of the Kabbalah; and especially secrets of the alchemical art. She had become adept in the basics of both. But it was his greatest desire, confessed in cooling sweat after lovemaking, that had suddenly revealed her destiny.
    ‘It is the original text,’ he’d sighed. ‘Annotated in Geber’s own hand. Centuries old, yet with forgotten knowledge that, remembered now, would make me the greatest alchemist in the world.’
    He’d sighed again, with greater lust than she’d ever brought forth, and she’d thought immediately, clearly: how valuable must this document be? This ancient scroll, collecting dust in a monastery in the city they call the Red Apple.
    From that first mention of it, she was distracted. Less attentive to his needs. Plotting the way ahead. He had begun to strike her. The first time he did, he wrote his fate. Yet figs were not in season.
    The door opened. He was gone.
    She began to dress swiftly, in men’s clothes. While she did, she wondered, where next? She had a year and a day at least. Or perhaps the question was, who next? She knew he was out there, waiting in the shadows. She had seen him too, in the stars. In dreams. Two men of destiny stalked them. The young man who’d just left, armed with her prophecy, was one. But who was this other?
    Something her visitors had discussed came to mind. A man, a German, who understood Greek Fire. He was a danger to their cause. ‘Johannes Grant,’ she muttered, stumbling over the hard sounds as the man known as Erol had. Then she smiled. She would find this German. Kill this German. For as much as the man who’d just left wanted the Red Apple to fall, so did she. Besides, the German’s death would bring a great deal of gold. She’d need that, now she was losing her protector.
    She heard the first cry, her ex-lover’s. Isaac was hailing the recent guest in his house. ‘Farewell,’ she said, and stooped for her bag.
    They had stood before the door for a few moments, clearing the sulphur from their lungs with river mist, so had only taken a few steps when the door behind them opened again and a voice called. They turned to see a man striding swiftly towards them. ‘Lord of lords of this world,’ called the man – a Jew by his garb. ‘Greetings, oh balm of the world. Oh bringer of light.’ He knelt before them, arms spread wide. ‘Oh most noble Sultan of Rum,’ he cried.
    Hamza felt almost sorry for the Jew. His master never liked to be recognised on his midnight outings. His anger could be swift and violent. Tonight, freighted with frustrated lust, and with prophecy, it wasn’t an importuning subject on the ground before him. It was a threat to his very destiny.
    ‘Cur!’ screamed his companion, stepping forward, backhanding the man across the face, knocking him into the dust. ‘Hold him, Hamza.’
    There was no choice, and little conscience. The word of the man he served was final. He had learned that from the old sultan. And if it had been true of the even-tempered Murad, it was even more so of his fiery son, Mehmet.
    As Hamza took his arms, Mehmet reached forward and pulled the man’s head up by the hair. ‘What is your name?’ he shouted.
    ‘I … I … Isaac, master.’
    Mehmet laughed. ‘Isaac?’ He looked at Hamza. ‘Son of Abraham, as we all are. But I see no ram in a bush nearby. So there is no need to seek elsewhere for a sacrifice.’
    One of Mehmet’s titles, that the Jew had left out, was ‘possessor of men’s necks’. And he made the slitting of this one look almost easy, though it never was. Hamza held the twitching body at arm’s length, trying to keep the spraying blood off both his master and himself, only partly succeeding. Yet what he thought about as life left was how the