New fic
Hi people. I am meant to be working on another project, but it's giving me nine kinds of grief and I've always been one for taking the easy way out. So when some of the ideas I'd been flicking around got together and ganged up, I ended up writing this instead. It's a slightly different sort of piece, no real plot so much as a series of vignettes linked by a recurring theme ... probably just me being more bloody pretentious than I need to be. Woohoo. Pretentious. Say it with me. ;)
See what you reckon.
Title: With My Eyes Closed
Rating: worksafe, but not for kiddies. PG, perhaps?
Warning: If you really need one ... character death.
Summary: Alexandros remembers.
Feedback: Hit me. I can take it.
When the flames went up, Alexandros was exactly where he needed to be. Alone and watching, with all of his heart open under the dark clear sky. That last was the important thing, he thought. He should feel this thing. It should mean something. It should mean everything. A man’s heart should not close itself off to that.
It was an odd feeling. It should have been raw pain, he supposed, like bones sticking out through his skin, all angles and sharp edges and catches when he was not looking. It wasn’t like that, not quite. It was more like … falling, and waiting to be caught or to break on the jagged rocks below. That was the hell of it, right there - not the falling, or the chance that he would shatter if he hit the ground, but the waiting. He had always hated the waiting. Better to be a thing, or not. Better than this hovering in between.
The pre-dawn chill was slow and hard, the sort that would sink into a man’s bones given half the chance. The fire kept it back though, held the dark at bay with it. It was a fine blaze, high and bright and reaching to the stars. A beautiful thing too, all gold and red and white, twisting about itself. Prometheus had stolen it from the gods, the old legends said. Alexandros thought that he did not blame him. Whatever the price of it had been, it was worth it for its beauty alone.
He stood as close as he could, with the heat beating against his face like wings. His own, probably, that had once known how to soar. He looked as long as he could too, into the fire, eyes tearing from the dry sear of it and the brightness at its heart. Of course it was bright at its heart; Alexandros, who knew what lay there, had expected nothing less.
The fire cracked and shifted, sending out a spray of sparks. Alexandros did not move, though a stray ember landed on the hem of his cloak, charring the fine woven wool before winking out. He only tipped back his head and shut his eyes against the fierce pure glare, letting it wash over him. Behind his eyelids, the flames danced still. His lips twitched in a smile, and he whispered the words to himself like an invocation or a blessing; “I can see you with my eyes closed.”
I can see you with my eyes closed …
And there had always been fire.
*****
He learned after the thing was done that the first fire had started in a smith’s forge, as the smith’s apprentice laid about at the men who’d fought their way into his city with a red hot brand. He’d seared the side of a man’s face clean through to the bone, and then lost his arm and the brand both to a blow that would have stopped a boar in its tracks. The brand had fallen into a tumble of loose straw, set the forge alight and a stables along with it, and so the burning had started. It was still going on even now, with the fighting over and the long trains of prisoners huddled in bleak, silent groups on the plain.
Thebes was burning. Alexandros, who had been king in Macedon barely long enough to know what direction he was facing, had known enough not to let rebellion in the south go unchecked. He had meant it to be swift, sudden and emphatic. He had not meant it to be destruction pure.
“I never meant this.” He said it low and hard, for only the man next to him to hear. A short distance away there was the sound of a woman screaming, and a man howling over and over like a beast. The howling was cut off with an ugly gurgle; the screaming went on and on. “I didn’t want to tear it apart.”
The other man did not answer at once. He gazed out over the city in its death throes, then swiped at his face with the back of his forearm. It didn’t do much more than only move the smears of soot and sweat and blood into different patterns. Alexandros felt the silence cutting at him. He turned, eyes flashing, at odds already with his voice that was half a plea. “Hephaistion …”
“They didn’t leave you much option.”
“There are always options.”
“Not always.” Hephaistion glanced at him, gave half a shrug that turned into a roll of the shoulders, easing muscles gone tight from swinging a sword half the day. His voice was mild enough, for what he was going on around him. Alexandros had not expected him to be so calm. It was almost reassuring. “Not for kings.”
Not for kings. Ah, there it was. Alexandros let that sink in. A king did not always have options. A king did what was necessary, and hoped that it did not fall too far distant from what was right. A king was not as other men. Alexandros sighed, rubbed at the back of his neck. “I didn’t want this.”
“No, but it serves a purpose.” No one was trying to kill them now; Hephaistion bent, took the moment to loosen his greaves. The wretched things were chafing, and under them, his leg itched. He scratched at it idly and glanced up to his friend. “You won a victory here, Alexandros. Can’t you be glad of it?”
“On these terms?” The young king made a quick, curt gesture with one hand and a lift of his chin, somehow taking in all the fires and chaos of an army turned loose like hounds on a stag, that would not stop until they had torn their prey to pieces. Alexandros could not have called them off if he had tried. “Should I be?”
“Probably not,” Hephaistion answered truthfully. “But would you rather you lost?”
“No. No, but … by Ares’ prick, Hephaistion, this is Hellas! This is Thebes!”
Hephaistion, who knew very well what it was, only shrugged. “They should have known better.” That was true, too. Thebes more than most had cause to know what Alexandros of Macedon was, what he could do. The Sacred Band had stood against him, and died on the ground they had held. The city that had been their home might have learned from that, if anyone had been paying attention. Hephaistion was not inclined to be sympathetic.
Nor, for that matter, was Alexandros. To himself least of all. He was young enough still that all the victories he had known had been glorious ones, but there was nothing glorious in this. Only blood and death and fire, and a proud city broken into shards. He was not sure what to do with it.
He said, “People will remember this, what happened here. They’ll judge me for this.”
That brought Hephaistion’s head around for him. His eyes on Alexandros were fierce, as fierce as the fires had been, and as true. “They don’t know you. They don’t have the right to judge.”
“They’ll do it all the same,” Alexandros said in a flat, thin voice. It mattered to him what people thought; right now, it mattered very much. “They’ll look at me, and they’ll see … this.”
Hephaistion snorted, caught between a sigh and a snarl. He knew what he thought of that nonsense. He gave it voice, honest, clear and hard. “If they do, then they’re not looking very hard. This is one thing, Alexandros. And it’s not worthy of you. If they look, and all they see is this, then they’re blind.”
Alexandros heard that and nodded slowly as the words settled around him. Not worthy of you. From somewhere in the dying city, there came a dull roar of something falling in on itself. There had been a lot of wood, in Thebes. Once the fires had spread, it had gone up like a torch.
“Hephaistion?”
“Yes?”
“What do …” The words stuck in his throat; he coughed, tried again. Smoke. It got everywhere. “What of you? What do you see?”
“In you?” Hephaistion made a sound that might have been a laugh if it had not wanted to cut raw at the edges. His eyes were the same, half laughing and half appalled as they turned on his friend. “Gods man, you have to ask?”
“Tell me.”
Hephaistion took a moment. He drew in his breath, gave Alexandros a long, steady look. His words, when they came, were plain and true. “I see you. I always have. You shine Alexandros, don’t you know that? I don’t even have to look to see it. I can see you with my eyes closed.”
I can see you with my eyes closed.
Alexandros could tell himself it did not matter, after that, that Thebes had burned.
*****
It had mattered that Thebes had burned, but Alexandros had long since learned to live with it. There had been so many fires since. He had always liked fire, always been drawn to it; there could not be a flame in a room without his eyes going to it. Hephaistion had always said that was because he had a fire in him of his own, and that creatures knew their own kind. This fire now knew him too. It leapt for him, gave him its beauty and warmth. A pure thing, fire. It knew no in betweens. It either was, or it was not. It did not hover in the middle, waiting to fly or fall.
Alexandros opened his arms to it, and let it carry him up.
I can see you with my eyes closed …
*****
This was Troy. Men out of legend had walked here, and left their names in history and their bones in the land. Alexandros thought he could feel that, in the shiver of his skin and the hum of his blood. He wondered what he would leave, and if his name would last as long as theirs.
It was not cold, but there was a fire burning low and warm in the brazier in his tent. Hephaistion was sprawled on his back on the sleeping skins, long and smooth and bronze all over in the dull flicker of flame. His eyes were closed. He looked like he was sleeping. Alexandros, moving closer, shifted to pillow his head on Hephaistion’s outflung arm and watched the flames glow against the dark.
“How long had you been planning that?” Hephaistion’s voice was soft, but very clear. Well, he was not asleep, then. Alexandros answered without lifting his head; his lips grazed softly on his friend’s skin.
“Planning what? This?” A shift of his body and a slide of his hand over his friend’s spent privates made it clear enough to Hephaistion what he was talking about - as if either of them were likely to forget it. “Or the tributes?”
“Both.” Hephaistion groaned low in his chest at what Alexandros was doing, and rolled in to his friend, dragging him closer. “Same thing.” Which was true; this was tribute as much as that, but a thing for only the two of them. How else should Akhilleus be with his Patroklos, than this?
“I don’t know. It just seemed … fitting. Why, do you think it was too much?” He meant the tribute of course, outside under the eyes of the gods and half of Alexandros’ army, honouring the heroes. Honouring each other too, if it came to that, and letting the whole world see it. He was not talking about the other thing. When it came to that, too much did not come into it.
“Idiot.” Hephaistion shoved him, letting it turn into a caress partway through. Too much. Gods, what a thing to say. “It wasn’t too much. You took me by surprise, that’s all.”
“I surprised you?” Alexandros gave a laugh that was no more than a soft exhalation of breath and a twitch of his lips at the corner. He was still watching the fire weaving around itself in the brazier, burning low. “You mean to say you didn’t see it coming? Not even with your eyes closed?”
“Idiot,” Hephaistion said again. He pushed his face in against Alexandros’ neck, breathed in the scent of him, all sex and sweat and sunlight even in the dark. “With my eyes closed, I’d have seen it a mile off. I’ve had them wide open all day.”
For a moment, Alexandros said nothing. He only lay quietly and watched the flames dance, sliding slowly into sleep and wrapped in his friend’s warmth. At last, in a voice that was blurring about the edges, he asked, “Do you think that Patroklos could see Akhilleus with his eyes closed, too?”
Hephaistion, who did not need to look at the brazier to see a light shine in the dark, thought privately that everybody had been able to see Akhilleus with their eyes closed. Or they should have been able to, if Alexandros was anything to go by. He only smiled though, and drew the blankets up around them both.
“Yes,” he said. “Even with his eyes closed. I’m sure of it.”
*****
The stars were fading out overhead. Alexandros barely noticed them. Cold fire in the dark sky, they were - chill, distant things. The only fire he was concerned with was neither cold nor distant, reaching to the sky like a triumph and reaching into his heart like something altogether else.
It was a thing of endings and beginnings, fire. This one was no different. Alexandros knew that, did not shy from it. It did not frighten him at all that it called to him. Fire had always done that, after all. This one had more reason than most, that was all. Alexandros remembered the fire Kalanos had walked into, and how he had sat in the shimmer of that deadly heat and not made a single sound. He had wondered at the time how the little Indian sage had managed it. Now though, he thought he could understand. When a man wanted a thing with all that was in him, there was no pain at all in being given it.
It was the waiting he hated. He was so tired of flying, and he had so far to fall.
*****
Tyre had sat on its rock in the sea and defied him. Now it sat on its rock in the sea and burned. Alexandros could see the light of it from the shore, even so many hours after the fighting had ended. It was full dark now, the wounded seen to, the slave transports sent off with their holds full of women and children. The Tyrean men had not gone that way, though. They had been killed in the fighting, or they had been killed after. Alexandros had learned a thing or two about making examples now.
He did not regret this. He’d offered Tyre terms, the chance to open their harbours and cede to him, to let him sacrifice at the temple of Herakles and be treated well and fairly in return. The Tyreans, in response, had killed his heralds and thrown their bodies from the walls. They had barred their harbours, drawn up their ships, and killed his men with fire and arrows and showers of roasted sand. They could hardly expect mercy after that.
Herakles had had his sacrifice. Alexandros hoped he’d found it to his liking. The Tyreans, the king had learned, called him by some other name, something ugly and squat sounding, and fed him on blood. Well, he’d had all the blood he could want, today. The sea had foamed red with it.
More than half a year, he’d sat on this shore and played out this game with his enemy. Alexandros looked to the red glow of the fire burning on its rock out there, and thought that he should probably feel something more than this. It was almost an anticlimax. Tyre had fallen, but that was all. After so many months and so much work, after a siege like the world had never seen, after all the impossible things that he had done, it should not have been as ordinary as this. The fall of Tyre should have been the sky falling and the mountains cracking and the sea bowing down. He had been looking forward to it.
Alexandros laughed at himself silently in the dark, and shook his head. Hubris, that was. He’d had his impossible victory, and here he wanted the very skies to applaud it. He knew better than that. The world had gone on without him, while he’d crouched here on the coast, watching Tyre draw closer by the inch. He would, he expected, have some catching up to do. Not tonight, though. It could go on without him a little while longer. Above him, the moon broke through the clouds, casting a silver light on the sea. At the end of his causeway, Tyre glowed a sullen, cruel red. Alexandros decided that he liked the silver more. He’d had enough of fire, for one day.
“Why is it,” came a familiar voice, moving up through the dark, “that you’re always the last man standing? The whole of the camp has turned in, save for you.”
“I’m the king,” Alexandros replied. “What else do you expect me to do?” He didn’t turn to his friend. Hephaistion came up beside him and stood at his shoulder, an easy presence in the night.
“Rest?” he suggested. “It’s late, and you’ve been up since dawn. Before then, even. You’ve barely stopped to breathe all day. Have you eaten?”
“I had a bite or two. Roasted seagull, I think.”
“That was last night.” Hephaistion smiled quietly. “And Nearchos swears blind it was goose.”
“Sea goose, then. Must be a Kretan delicacy. Tough as boots, whatever it was.”
A silence fell between them, a soft, companionable thing. After a moment, Hephaistion said, “Here. I brought you this.” He handed a wine skin to his friend. “Thought you might need it, lurking all alone out here.”
“I’m not lurking. I don’t lurk.” Alexandros took the wine, swallowed long and deep. It felt good going down. “I’m … thinking.”
“Ah. That sounds dangerous.” That earned Hephaistion a solid jab in the ribs that made him grunt and laugh at the same time. “What? You are dangerous when you think, you know that. And it always means more work to do.”
“Did you think I’d be giving people time off, just because Tyre’s fallen? Tyre’s not Persia, Phai. I want it all.”
“And you’ll get it, but not tonight. Why don’t you come back to your tent and rest? Your Pages turned down your bed hours ago. They’re about ready to have kittens back there, wondering where you’ve got to.”
Alexandros thought about that and grunted. “Let them fret. Sometimes I need … I just need …”
“I know. Sometimes I need it all to just stop too.”
The king hitched one shoulder and gave his friend a wry look. “Just we two and a forest to hunt in and a wide green valley where your horses can run, yes?”
“Am I that predictable?” Hephaistion shrugged, unconcerned. “Well, a man can dream.”
“It’s a beautiful dream.”
“So is yours.” World without limits, world without end. Beautiful and terrifying and impossible … and utterly Alexandros. “You going to share that wine?”
Alexandros passed him the skin, watched him raise it to his lips and swallow. There was a cut on his face, just under his eye, a dark line in the moonlight. Alexandros frowned.
“You’re hurt. Your face.”
“What? Oh, this.” Hephaistion touched it lightly with the tip of his finger. Alexandros had a sudden strong urge to do the same thing. “No, it’s nothing. Just a scratch. Perdikkas stitched it up for me.”
“Perdikkas? Gods man, why didn’t you see a real doctor? What were you thinking? Perdikkas’ needlework is worse than mine! It’ll scar for sure.”
“Ah, well. I could do with a scar or two.” Hephaistion rubbed at his face, wrinkling his nose. “Lend a bit of authority, and all.”
“Idiot.”
Hephaistion did not answer that, only sipped from the wine skin and quirked one eyebrow at his friend. Alexandros laughed at that, as if he couldn’t help himself.
“What, I can’t say it too, sometimes?”
“You can say it any time you like. Idiot.”
“Infant.”
“Fool.”
“Lackwit.”
“Royal Majesty.”
“Gods.” Alexandros tossed his head and laughed again, throwing up his hands in surrender. “Don’t start calling me that!”
“Why not? You come by it honestly enough.” All the same, Hephaistion took mercy. He smiled, swayed to bump his shoulder into Alexandros’ hard enough to make his friend sway and bump him back. Alexandros took the wine off him, sculled back a mouthful or three, then glanced back to the camp. There were fires burning there, too. Fires, and his bed waiting … and his kingdom with it. Let it wait a little longer. The night was calm, out here. The company was not so bad either.
He was glad Hephaistion had come looking for him. Glad that he had found him, on this wide dark stretch of shore. No one else would have, he was sure of it. He looked at his friend, cocking his head to one side. “How did you know where to find me?”
He knew it was a stupid question the moment that he said it. Hephaistion did not point that out; he only smiled at it, looking out to sea. How had he known? How did he ever know?
“Ah,” he said. “Alexandros, that’s simple. You know the answer to that. You can’t hide from me.”
“You can see me with your eyes closed.” The old words, the old magic. It still worked, making Alexandros’ lips quirk up.
“Of course I can. Idiot. Coming to bed?”
“Not just yet. Stay with me?”
“Yes.” Another smile, heard more than seen. “Always.
I can see you with my eyes closed.
*****
The sky was growing lighter, greying toward dawn. Alexandros’ eyes felt dry and full of grit, but the flames still danced and he never looked away. It was a great high tower of fire, reaching up and up. There had been a time when there had been another fire like this one, high and bright and magnificent. Hephaistion had been part of that fire, too.
But not as he was part of this one.
Sweet gods, no. Ah, there was the pain, right there. Like broken bones through his skin.
I can see you with my eyes closed.
*****
“Herakles’ balls, Alexandros!” Hephaistion fair snarled in frustration, watching the flames go up. Too late to do anything about it now; the palace was too well ablaze for that. He glared at the king. “You’re not meant to burn everything you bloody own! How did this even happen?”
“I’m not sure. It seemed like a harmless enough idea, at the time. I didn’t think it would take so quickly. It went up like tinder.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Of course I’m drunk, it was a bloody party!”
Hephaistion stared at him, then swore briefly and with feeling. “Do you have any idea what was in there? Enough to pay this army of yours for a year, and you … you just … it seemed like a harmless idea? Since when has setting fire to everything ever been bloody harmless?”
“We’ve the treasury to the pay the men. And the storehouses aren’t burning. It’s only the palace. You sound like someone’s mother.”
“It’s your palace. And I do not sound … ” Hephaistion caught himself, blinked, and suddenly laughed. “Gods, I do, don’t I.”
Alexandros snorted. “I told you so. Are you going to stop shouting at me now?”
Hephaistion sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair, looking up at the fire. It was really quite beautiful - a palace of flame against the night sky. It was a moment before he could look away.
“Will you tell me why?”
“Because it’s Persia. And it hates me. And it will never be mine.”
It might have sounded foolish, or simply childish, that. Hephaistion, who knew Alexandros, knew better. He understood what he was being told. Persepolis was the heart of the empire that Persia had been, and she would not accept a foreign king. Even if Alexandros stayed here a hundred years, the stones of this place would never take him for one of their own. Alexandros had always hated to be denied. Even by something so intractable as stone.
Hephaistion nodded, after a while. The great palace was all wreathed in red and gold, great gouts of flame shooting skyward as inside, rafters fell and ceilings collapsed in. It was a beautiful thing, and a deadly one - a little like Alexandros himself. Alexandros said, in a quieter voice, “Are you angry with me?”
“No.” Hephaistion thought for a moment longer. “No. I understand. And I think … I think Darius will understand too.”
“Darius?” Alexandros grunted. “I hardly care what he thinks. He’s not even man enough to face me. Every time I get close, he runs like a startled rabbit.”
“Well, he can’t run from this. They’ll see this fire halfway around the world, Alexandros. It’s a beacon.”
“It’s a palace burning.”
“It’s a new beginning. Persepolis was the old world. You’re making something new.”
Alexandros blinked. Gods, Hephaistion’s mind was a wonder sometimes. He saw things so clearly, understood Alexandros before Alexandros even understood himself. The king tried to find words for it.
“How do you do that? How do you always know where I’m going to land, even when I leap in the dark?”
“Instinct,” Hephaistion replied thoughtfully. “Practice. And even in the dark, you still glow, Xandros. I can see you with my eyes closed.”
“I know you can. I know.”
I can see you with my eyes closed.
*****
It was done. The tower of flame had slumped in on itself, the great funeral pyre burning down to ash. Alexandros came out of himself slowly, like a man coming out of a dream. In the midst of it, he had been rapt and still and intense, alone in the world in front of an army of men. Now he was more alone than he had ever been before, and he did not know what to do. His men were behind him, waiting for his signal to dismiss, waiting for some sign. To turn around and face them, even just to do that … ah, he did not know if he had it in him.
The hardest truth about courage, Alexandros knew, was that it often did not matter at all. A man could do the hardest thing in the world for him and it could make, in the scheme of things, no difference at all. It could, and often did, go completely unnoticed, unremembered, unsung. For the greatest of acts, there were no ripples, no high heroics - only one man and his quiet strength doing the hardest thing that he would ever do, and no one even noticed what it had cost.
Alexandros knew what it was to be lauded for his courage, for his bravery in battle or on the hunt. He’d bragged of it over wine himself, and of this empire that he had built. He knew now that none of that had been true courage at all. None of that had been hard. He loved to hunt, loved the thrill of it, loved battle for the same reasons. That was not courage.
Courage was what it took to live in a world where the thing that he had lived for was gone. Courage was what it took to turn away from the dying glow of that great bright fire that had carried his love away, and back to a grey reality where the only things in his life that could matter were already done. Courage was being able to turn away and say, “It’s over. Let that be an ending.” Courage was not going into the flames himself.
No. That was wrong. He did not want to die. And it took no great courage to live. Neither flying nor falling, only waiting now, somewhere in between.
Alexandros hated being in between. He watched the last sparks from the great pyre float out into the dawn.
I love you. It came without words, and without any sense of regret. Love you so much. I can see you with my eyes closed.
“I can see you too, Phai. Ah, sweet gods, I can see you too.”
He turned from the pyre into no fanfare at all, and silently folded his wings.
See what you reckon.
Title: With My Eyes Closed
Rating: worksafe, but not for kiddies. PG, perhaps?
Warning: If you really need one ... character death.
Summary: Alexandros remembers.
Feedback: Hit me. I can take it.
When the flames went up, Alexandros was exactly where he needed to be. Alone and watching, with all of his heart open under the dark clear sky. That last was the important thing, he thought. He should feel this thing. It should mean something. It should mean everything. A man’s heart should not close itself off to that.
It was an odd feeling. It should have been raw pain, he supposed, like bones sticking out through his skin, all angles and sharp edges and catches when he was not looking. It wasn’t like that, not quite. It was more like … falling, and waiting to be caught or to break on the jagged rocks below. That was the hell of it, right there - not the falling, or the chance that he would shatter if he hit the ground, but the waiting. He had always hated the waiting. Better to be a thing, or not. Better than this hovering in between.
The pre-dawn chill was slow and hard, the sort that would sink into a man’s bones given half the chance. The fire kept it back though, held the dark at bay with it. It was a fine blaze, high and bright and reaching to the stars. A beautiful thing too, all gold and red and white, twisting about itself. Prometheus had stolen it from the gods, the old legends said. Alexandros thought that he did not blame him. Whatever the price of it had been, it was worth it for its beauty alone.
He stood as close as he could, with the heat beating against his face like wings. His own, probably, that had once known how to soar. He looked as long as he could too, into the fire, eyes tearing from the dry sear of it and the brightness at its heart. Of course it was bright at its heart; Alexandros, who knew what lay there, had expected nothing less.
The fire cracked and shifted, sending out a spray of sparks. Alexandros did not move, though a stray ember landed on the hem of his cloak, charring the fine woven wool before winking out. He only tipped back his head and shut his eyes against the fierce pure glare, letting it wash over him. Behind his eyelids, the flames danced still. His lips twitched in a smile, and he whispered the words to himself like an invocation or a blessing; “I can see you with my eyes closed.”
I can see you with my eyes closed …
And there had always been fire.
*****
He learned after the thing was done that the first fire had started in a smith’s forge, as the smith’s apprentice laid about at the men who’d fought their way into his city with a red hot brand. He’d seared the side of a man’s face clean through to the bone, and then lost his arm and the brand both to a blow that would have stopped a boar in its tracks. The brand had fallen into a tumble of loose straw, set the forge alight and a stables along with it, and so the burning had started. It was still going on even now, with the fighting over and the long trains of prisoners huddled in bleak, silent groups on the plain.
Thebes was burning. Alexandros, who had been king in Macedon barely long enough to know what direction he was facing, had known enough not to let rebellion in the south go unchecked. He had meant it to be swift, sudden and emphatic. He had not meant it to be destruction pure.
“I never meant this.” He said it low and hard, for only the man next to him to hear. A short distance away there was the sound of a woman screaming, and a man howling over and over like a beast. The howling was cut off with an ugly gurgle; the screaming went on and on. “I didn’t want to tear it apart.”
The other man did not answer at once. He gazed out over the city in its death throes, then swiped at his face with the back of his forearm. It didn’t do much more than only move the smears of soot and sweat and blood into different patterns. Alexandros felt the silence cutting at him. He turned, eyes flashing, at odds already with his voice that was half a plea. “Hephaistion …”
“They didn’t leave you much option.”
“There are always options.”
“Not always.” Hephaistion glanced at him, gave half a shrug that turned into a roll of the shoulders, easing muscles gone tight from swinging a sword half the day. His voice was mild enough, for what he was going on around him. Alexandros had not expected him to be so calm. It was almost reassuring. “Not for kings.”
Not for kings. Ah, there it was. Alexandros let that sink in. A king did not always have options. A king did what was necessary, and hoped that it did not fall too far distant from what was right. A king was not as other men. Alexandros sighed, rubbed at the back of his neck. “I didn’t want this.”
“No, but it serves a purpose.” No one was trying to kill them now; Hephaistion bent, took the moment to loosen his greaves. The wretched things were chafing, and under them, his leg itched. He scratched at it idly and glanced up to his friend. “You won a victory here, Alexandros. Can’t you be glad of it?”
“On these terms?” The young king made a quick, curt gesture with one hand and a lift of his chin, somehow taking in all the fires and chaos of an army turned loose like hounds on a stag, that would not stop until they had torn their prey to pieces. Alexandros could not have called them off if he had tried. “Should I be?”
“Probably not,” Hephaistion answered truthfully. “But would you rather you lost?”
“No. No, but … by Ares’ prick, Hephaistion, this is Hellas! This is Thebes!”
Hephaistion, who knew very well what it was, only shrugged. “They should have known better.” That was true, too. Thebes more than most had cause to know what Alexandros of Macedon was, what he could do. The Sacred Band had stood against him, and died on the ground they had held. The city that had been their home might have learned from that, if anyone had been paying attention. Hephaistion was not inclined to be sympathetic.
Nor, for that matter, was Alexandros. To himself least of all. He was young enough still that all the victories he had known had been glorious ones, but there was nothing glorious in this. Only blood and death and fire, and a proud city broken into shards. He was not sure what to do with it.
He said, “People will remember this, what happened here. They’ll judge me for this.”
That brought Hephaistion’s head around for him. His eyes on Alexandros were fierce, as fierce as the fires had been, and as true. “They don’t know you. They don’t have the right to judge.”
“They’ll do it all the same,” Alexandros said in a flat, thin voice. It mattered to him what people thought; right now, it mattered very much. “They’ll look at me, and they’ll see … this.”
Hephaistion snorted, caught between a sigh and a snarl. He knew what he thought of that nonsense. He gave it voice, honest, clear and hard. “If they do, then they’re not looking very hard. This is one thing, Alexandros. And it’s not worthy of you. If they look, and all they see is this, then they’re blind.”
Alexandros heard that and nodded slowly as the words settled around him. Not worthy of you. From somewhere in the dying city, there came a dull roar of something falling in on itself. There had been a lot of wood, in Thebes. Once the fires had spread, it had gone up like a torch.
“Hephaistion?”
“Yes?”
“What do …” The words stuck in his throat; he coughed, tried again. Smoke. It got everywhere. “What of you? What do you see?”
“In you?” Hephaistion made a sound that might have been a laugh if it had not wanted to cut raw at the edges. His eyes were the same, half laughing and half appalled as they turned on his friend. “Gods man, you have to ask?”
“Tell me.”
Hephaistion took a moment. He drew in his breath, gave Alexandros a long, steady look. His words, when they came, were plain and true. “I see you. I always have. You shine Alexandros, don’t you know that? I don’t even have to look to see it. I can see you with my eyes closed.”
I can see you with my eyes closed.
Alexandros could tell himself it did not matter, after that, that Thebes had burned.
*****
It had mattered that Thebes had burned, but Alexandros had long since learned to live with it. There had been so many fires since. He had always liked fire, always been drawn to it; there could not be a flame in a room without his eyes going to it. Hephaistion had always said that was because he had a fire in him of his own, and that creatures knew their own kind. This fire now knew him too. It leapt for him, gave him its beauty and warmth. A pure thing, fire. It knew no in betweens. It either was, or it was not. It did not hover in the middle, waiting to fly or fall.
Alexandros opened his arms to it, and let it carry him up.
I can see you with my eyes closed …
*****
This was Troy. Men out of legend had walked here, and left their names in history and their bones in the land. Alexandros thought he could feel that, in the shiver of his skin and the hum of his blood. He wondered what he would leave, and if his name would last as long as theirs.
It was not cold, but there was a fire burning low and warm in the brazier in his tent. Hephaistion was sprawled on his back on the sleeping skins, long and smooth and bronze all over in the dull flicker of flame. His eyes were closed. He looked like he was sleeping. Alexandros, moving closer, shifted to pillow his head on Hephaistion’s outflung arm and watched the flames glow against the dark.
“How long had you been planning that?” Hephaistion’s voice was soft, but very clear. Well, he was not asleep, then. Alexandros answered without lifting his head; his lips grazed softly on his friend’s skin.
“Planning what? This?” A shift of his body and a slide of his hand over his friend’s spent privates made it clear enough to Hephaistion what he was talking about - as if either of them were likely to forget it. “Or the tributes?”
“Both.” Hephaistion groaned low in his chest at what Alexandros was doing, and rolled in to his friend, dragging him closer. “Same thing.” Which was true; this was tribute as much as that, but a thing for only the two of them. How else should Akhilleus be with his Patroklos, than this?
“I don’t know. It just seemed … fitting. Why, do you think it was too much?” He meant the tribute of course, outside under the eyes of the gods and half of Alexandros’ army, honouring the heroes. Honouring each other too, if it came to that, and letting the whole world see it. He was not talking about the other thing. When it came to that, too much did not come into it.
“Idiot.” Hephaistion shoved him, letting it turn into a caress partway through. Too much. Gods, what a thing to say. “It wasn’t too much. You took me by surprise, that’s all.”
“I surprised you?” Alexandros gave a laugh that was no more than a soft exhalation of breath and a twitch of his lips at the corner. He was still watching the fire weaving around itself in the brazier, burning low. “You mean to say you didn’t see it coming? Not even with your eyes closed?”
“Idiot,” Hephaistion said again. He pushed his face in against Alexandros’ neck, breathed in the scent of him, all sex and sweat and sunlight even in the dark. “With my eyes closed, I’d have seen it a mile off. I’ve had them wide open all day.”
For a moment, Alexandros said nothing. He only lay quietly and watched the flames dance, sliding slowly into sleep and wrapped in his friend’s warmth. At last, in a voice that was blurring about the edges, he asked, “Do you think that Patroklos could see Akhilleus with his eyes closed, too?”
Hephaistion, who did not need to look at the brazier to see a light shine in the dark, thought privately that everybody had been able to see Akhilleus with their eyes closed. Or they should have been able to, if Alexandros was anything to go by. He only smiled though, and drew the blankets up around them both.
“Yes,” he said. “Even with his eyes closed. I’m sure of it.”
*****
The stars were fading out overhead. Alexandros barely noticed them. Cold fire in the dark sky, they were - chill, distant things. The only fire he was concerned with was neither cold nor distant, reaching to the sky like a triumph and reaching into his heart like something altogether else.
It was a thing of endings and beginnings, fire. This one was no different. Alexandros knew that, did not shy from it. It did not frighten him at all that it called to him. Fire had always done that, after all. This one had more reason than most, that was all. Alexandros remembered the fire Kalanos had walked into, and how he had sat in the shimmer of that deadly heat and not made a single sound. He had wondered at the time how the little Indian sage had managed it. Now though, he thought he could understand. When a man wanted a thing with all that was in him, there was no pain at all in being given it.
It was the waiting he hated. He was so tired of flying, and he had so far to fall.
*****
Tyre had sat on its rock in the sea and defied him. Now it sat on its rock in the sea and burned. Alexandros could see the light of it from the shore, even so many hours after the fighting had ended. It was full dark now, the wounded seen to, the slave transports sent off with their holds full of women and children. The Tyrean men had not gone that way, though. They had been killed in the fighting, or they had been killed after. Alexandros had learned a thing or two about making examples now.
He did not regret this. He’d offered Tyre terms, the chance to open their harbours and cede to him, to let him sacrifice at the temple of Herakles and be treated well and fairly in return. The Tyreans, in response, had killed his heralds and thrown their bodies from the walls. They had barred their harbours, drawn up their ships, and killed his men with fire and arrows and showers of roasted sand. They could hardly expect mercy after that.
Herakles had had his sacrifice. Alexandros hoped he’d found it to his liking. The Tyreans, the king had learned, called him by some other name, something ugly and squat sounding, and fed him on blood. Well, he’d had all the blood he could want, today. The sea had foamed red with it.
More than half a year, he’d sat on this shore and played out this game with his enemy. Alexandros looked to the red glow of the fire burning on its rock out there, and thought that he should probably feel something more than this. It was almost an anticlimax. Tyre had fallen, but that was all. After so many months and so much work, after a siege like the world had never seen, after all the impossible things that he had done, it should not have been as ordinary as this. The fall of Tyre should have been the sky falling and the mountains cracking and the sea bowing down. He had been looking forward to it.
Alexandros laughed at himself silently in the dark, and shook his head. Hubris, that was. He’d had his impossible victory, and here he wanted the very skies to applaud it. He knew better than that. The world had gone on without him, while he’d crouched here on the coast, watching Tyre draw closer by the inch. He would, he expected, have some catching up to do. Not tonight, though. It could go on without him a little while longer. Above him, the moon broke through the clouds, casting a silver light on the sea. At the end of his causeway, Tyre glowed a sullen, cruel red. Alexandros decided that he liked the silver more. He’d had enough of fire, for one day.
“Why is it,” came a familiar voice, moving up through the dark, “that you’re always the last man standing? The whole of the camp has turned in, save for you.”
“I’m the king,” Alexandros replied. “What else do you expect me to do?” He didn’t turn to his friend. Hephaistion came up beside him and stood at his shoulder, an easy presence in the night.
“Rest?” he suggested. “It’s late, and you’ve been up since dawn. Before then, even. You’ve barely stopped to breathe all day. Have you eaten?”
“I had a bite or two. Roasted seagull, I think.”
“That was last night.” Hephaistion smiled quietly. “And Nearchos swears blind it was goose.”
“Sea goose, then. Must be a Kretan delicacy. Tough as boots, whatever it was.”
A silence fell between them, a soft, companionable thing. After a moment, Hephaistion said, “Here. I brought you this.” He handed a wine skin to his friend. “Thought you might need it, lurking all alone out here.”
“I’m not lurking. I don’t lurk.” Alexandros took the wine, swallowed long and deep. It felt good going down. “I’m … thinking.”
“Ah. That sounds dangerous.” That earned Hephaistion a solid jab in the ribs that made him grunt and laugh at the same time. “What? You are dangerous when you think, you know that. And it always means more work to do.”
“Did you think I’d be giving people time off, just because Tyre’s fallen? Tyre’s not Persia, Phai. I want it all.”
“And you’ll get it, but not tonight. Why don’t you come back to your tent and rest? Your Pages turned down your bed hours ago. They’re about ready to have kittens back there, wondering where you’ve got to.”
Alexandros thought about that and grunted. “Let them fret. Sometimes I need … I just need …”
“I know. Sometimes I need it all to just stop too.”
The king hitched one shoulder and gave his friend a wry look. “Just we two and a forest to hunt in and a wide green valley where your horses can run, yes?”
“Am I that predictable?” Hephaistion shrugged, unconcerned. “Well, a man can dream.”
“It’s a beautiful dream.”
“So is yours.” World without limits, world without end. Beautiful and terrifying and impossible … and utterly Alexandros. “You going to share that wine?”
Alexandros passed him the skin, watched him raise it to his lips and swallow. There was a cut on his face, just under his eye, a dark line in the moonlight. Alexandros frowned.
“You’re hurt. Your face.”
“What? Oh, this.” Hephaistion touched it lightly with the tip of his finger. Alexandros had a sudden strong urge to do the same thing. “No, it’s nothing. Just a scratch. Perdikkas stitched it up for me.”
“Perdikkas? Gods man, why didn’t you see a real doctor? What were you thinking? Perdikkas’ needlework is worse than mine! It’ll scar for sure.”
“Ah, well. I could do with a scar or two.” Hephaistion rubbed at his face, wrinkling his nose. “Lend a bit of authority, and all.”
“Idiot.”
Hephaistion did not answer that, only sipped from the wine skin and quirked one eyebrow at his friend. Alexandros laughed at that, as if he couldn’t help himself.
“What, I can’t say it too, sometimes?”
“You can say it any time you like. Idiot.”
“Infant.”
“Fool.”
“Lackwit.”
“Royal Majesty.”
“Gods.” Alexandros tossed his head and laughed again, throwing up his hands in surrender. “Don’t start calling me that!”
“Why not? You come by it honestly enough.” All the same, Hephaistion took mercy. He smiled, swayed to bump his shoulder into Alexandros’ hard enough to make his friend sway and bump him back. Alexandros took the wine off him, sculled back a mouthful or three, then glanced back to the camp. There were fires burning there, too. Fires, and his bed waiting … and his kingdom with it. Let it wait a little longer. The night was calm, out here. The company was not so bad either.
He was glad Hephaistion had come looking for him. Glad that he had found him, on this wide dark stretch of shore. No one else would have, he was sure of it. He looked at his friend, cocking his head to one side. “How did you know where to find me?”
He knew it was a stupid question the moment that he said it. Hephaistion did not point that out; he only smiled at it, looking out to sea. How had he known? How did he ever know?
“Ah,” he said. “Alexandros, that’s simple. You know the answer to that. You can’t hide from me.”
“You can see me with your eyes closed.” The old words, the old magic. It still worked, making Alexandros’ lips quirk up.
“Of course I can. Idiot. Coming to bed?”
“Not just yet. Stay with me?”
“Yes.” Another smile, heard more than seen. “Always.
I can see you with my eyes closed.
*****
The sky was growing lighter, greying toward dawn. Alexandros’ eyes felt dry and full of grit, but the flames still danced and he never looked away. It was a great high tower of fire, reaching up and up. There had been a time when there had been another fire like this one, high and bright and magnificent. Hephaistion had been part of that fire, too.
But not as he was part of this one.
Sweet gods, no. Ah, there was the pain, right there. Like broken bones through his skin.
I can see you with my eyes closed.
*****
“Herakles’ balls, Alexandros!” Hephaistion fair snarled in frustration, watching the flames go up. Too late to do anything about it now; the palace was too well ablaze for that. He glared at the king. “You’re not meant to burn everything you bloody own! How did this even happen?”
“I’m not sure. It seemed like a harmless enough idea, at the time. I didn’t think it would take so quickly. It went up like tinder.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Of course I’m drunk, it was a bloody party!”
Hephaistion stared at him, then swore briefly and with feeling. “Do you have any idea what was in there? Enough to pay this army of yours for a year, and you … you just … it seemed like a harmless idea? Since when has setting fire to everything ever been bloody harmless?”
“We’ve the treasury to the pay the men. And the storehouses aren’t burning. It’s only the palace. You sound like someone’s mother.”
“It’s your palace. And I do not sound … ” Hephaistion caught himself, blinked, and suddenly laughed. “Gods, I do, don’t I.”
Alexandros snorted. “I told you so. Are you going to stop shouting at me now?”
Hephaistion sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair, looking up at the fire. It was really quite beautiful - a palace of flame against the night sky. It was a moment before he could look away.
“Will you tell me why?”
“Because it’s Persia. And it hates me. And it will never be mine.”
It might have sounded foolish, or simply childish, that. Hephaistion, who knew Alexandros, knew better. He understood what he was being told. Persepolis was the heart of the empire that Persia had been, and she would not accept a foreign king. Even if Alexandros stayed here a hundred years, the stones of this place would never take him for one of their own. Alexandros had always hated to be denied. Even by something so intractable as stone.
Hephaistion nodded, after a while. The great palace was all wreathed in red and gold, great gouts of flame shooting skyward as inside, rafters fell and ceilings collapsed in. It was a beautiful thing, and a deadly one - a little like Alexandros himself. Alexandros said, in a quieter voice, “Are you angry with me?”
“No.” Hephaistion thought for a moment longer. “No. I understand. And I think … I think Darius will understand too.”
“Darius?” Alexandros grunted. “I hardly care what he thinks. He’s not even man enough to face me. Every time I get close, he runs like a startled rabbit.”
“Well, he can’t run from this. They’ll see this fire halfway around the world, Alexandros. It’s a beacon.”
“It’s a palace burning.”
“It’s a new beginning. Persepolis was the old world. You’re making something new.”
Alexandros blinked. Gods, Hephaistion’s mind was a wonder sometimes. He saw things so clearly, understood Alexandros before Alexandros even understood himself. The king tried to find words for it.
“How do you do that? How do you always know where I’m going to land, even when I leap in the dark?”
“Instinct,” Hephaistion replied thoughtfully. “Practice. And even in the dark, you still glow, Xandros. I can see you with my eyes closed.”
“I know you can. I know.”
I can see you with my eyes closed.
*****
It was done. The tower of flame had slumped in on itself, the great funeral pyre burning down to ash. Alexandros came out of himself slowly, like a man coming out of a dream. In the midst of it, he had been rapt and still and intense, alone in the world in front of an army of men. Now he was more alone than he had ever been before, and he did not know what to do. His men were behind him, waiting for his signal to dismiss, waiting for some sign. To turn around and face them, even just to do that … ah, he did not know if he had it in him.
The hardest truth about courage, Alexandros knew, was that it often did not matter at all. A man could do the hardest thing in the world for him and it could make, in the scheme of things, no difference at all. It could, and often did, go completely unnoticed, unremembered, unsung. For the greatest of acts, there were no ripples, no high heroics - only one man and his quiet strength doing the hardest thing that he would ever do, and no one even noticed what it had cost.
Alexandros knew what it was to be lauded for his courage, for his bravery in battle or on the hunt. He’d bragged of it over wine himself, and of this empire that he had built. He knew now that none of that had been true courage at all. None of that had been hard. He loved to hunt, loved the thrill of it, loved battle for the same reasons. That was not courage.
Courage was what it took to live in a world where the thing that he had lived for was gone. Courage was what it took to turn away from the dying glow of that great bright fire that had carried his love away, and back to a grey reality where the only things in his life that could matter were already done. Courage was being able to turn away and say, “It’s over. Let that be an ending.” Courage was not going into the flames himself.
No. That was wrong. He did not want to die. And it took no great courage to live. Neither flying nor falling, only waiting now, somewhere in between.
Alexandros hated being in between. He watched the last sparks from the great pyre float out into the dawn.
I love you. It came without words, and without any sense of regret. Love you so much. I can see you with my eyes closed.
“I can see you too, Phai. Ah, sweet gods, I can see you too.”
He turned from the pyre into no fanfare at all, and silently folded his wings.