They arrived at night, which was the only time anyone should have come to Bakuya. The city was a walled fortress built on a hill above the savannah and the sea, and fire was spouting from seven points along the battlements. The smell in the air reminded Alexios of Trebizond’s naphtha pomegranates and flame-throwers charring Romans and Latins to shrieking, twisted crisps. It also took him back to old world gas stations, and to a beautiful girl he was into—one of the school’s best students—who had once confessed that she liked the smell of gasoline. Alas, it seemed this doctor’s daughter had been born in the wrong time and place. If the smell of gasoline was what she liked, she should have lived here.

  Through Bakuya’s Paired Fortress Gates—opened only because Artvadios shouted that the shahzadeh had arrived—the travelers found themselves walking quiet paved streets that led past marketplaces and hammams, as well as a mosque, a synagogue, and an Armenian church. There was no darkness at night. Everywhere ceramic pipes were belching smoke and liquid flame.

  Though Ifridun was a Muslim, he nonetheless announced his intent to pay his respects to the Ateshgah Fire Temple, which was located at Bakuya's heart, and supposedly founded by Zarathustra himself. The Fire Temple was a fortress within a fortress, a monastery for yogis with red spots painted between their eyes and masked Zoroastrians in white airy robes and tall peaked caps. Both groups were bowing in the paved courtyard around the great stone tetrapylon flaming with eternal fire, the yogis sitting cross-legged, the Zoroastrians standing.

  “Bhoomi managalam!” the yogis sang, as a drummer pounded a tabla with his palms, and a woman strummed a sitar. “Udaka managalam, Agni managalam, Vayu managalam!” Some yogis were also ringing hand bells. The Zoroastrians were chanting at the same time, saying something like “Yathu Ahu Vairyo,” but it was harder to make out the words since the yogis were so much louder.

  Gowri had already fallen to her knees and was praying with her hands clasped, an unusual sight. Alexios recalled how even in Konstantinopolis, it was normal for people of all faiths to pray with their hands outstretched and palm-up, the elbows touching the sides. Only rare Indian merchants, Domari, and atsinganou prayed with their hands pressed together, though these people, it seemed, were more common in Bakuya.

  “They come from the great city of Multan,” the shahzadeh explained. “On the Grand Trunk Road.”

  Alexios had never heard of either. But the sight of the flames searing the night, the singing and chanting, the bowing and praying, it moved him. Though he was agnostic—with gnostic friends like Miriai—he bowed his head, shut his eyes, and begged God or the gods or whoever was listening to help his family. He had nothing to lose from doing so.

  The royal caravanserai lay across the street from the fire temple. After leaving their horses at the royal stables, Ifridun ordered his companions to rest in their own luxurious rooms, Gowri and Michael staying in one together. The Shahzadeh was seemingly oblivious to the fact that his father back in Darband would soon learn that he had arrived here. On the journey south, Alexios recalled seeing the occasional messenger pigeon flapping across the sky.

  Alexios slept through the predawn prayers, waking to the “Allahu Akbar!” shouted from Bakuya's minarets only at midday. He found his companions dining together in Ifridun’s room. The shahzadeh gestured for Alexios to join, saying that today they would visit the rock oil wells.

  Artvadios wrapped his arm around Alexios’s shoulders. With his breath reeking of wine, he exclaimed: “Today you prove whether riding for the last four nights was worth it!”

  Soon they rode for the black oil wells. The city marzban (or governor) insisted on providing an armed guard to protect the shahzadeh, but Ifridun told him he could take care of himself—and that, besides, Artam Artvadios, the Herakles of the Kaukasos, would keep him safe. This comment prompted Artvadios to smile, tilt his head, and wink one of his shining eyes.

  The black oil wells lay within walking distance of Bakuya, just past the first few dry hills and along the winding dirt road, where horse-drawn carriages were already bringing wineskins filled with black rock oil to the sailing galleys waiting at the port. Once Ifridun’s companions had reached the wells, they found a wide, enclosed pool of thick black oil that was bubbling out of the earth. In Persian this was called naft—like naphtha. It reminded Alexios of those tar pits in Los Angeles, except instead of models of mammoths getting caught inside, there were people working here—hundreds of people dressed in rags, their skin gleaming black with oil as they scooped buckets of the viscous foul-smelling liquid into wineskins. These were then placed on either carriages for Bakuya or camels heading west to Shamakhi, Shirvan’s official capital, where the old Shirvanshah himself lay dying in his bed.

  Alexios shook his head at the sight of so much oil.

  Black gold.

  In the old world, you needed to drill deep to get this stuff. Here it just bubbled out of the earth, and was guarded by only a few bored soldiers wearing cloths over their faces to block the gasoline stench, which was mixed with the sulfurous smell of rotten eggs. The air wavered with these poisons, and made Alexios feel lightheaded and dizzy.

  Ifridun gestured to the oil slaves, then looked at Alexios. “We are here. Do your magic.”

  “First you need to free them,” Alexios said. “That’s the real magic. We need to bring them to the sea so they can wash up. Then we need to feed them, let them rest, and give them food and medical attention. After a few days, we can ask them if they want to join us.”

  “Is that how it works?” Ifridun said. “I thought we just needed to come here and speak with them.”

  “If you want a Zhayedan army, this is what we need to do,” Alexios said.

  Ifridun laughed. Michael, Artvadios, and Gowri were watching him and Alexios. Then Ifridun shrugged and spoke to the nearest guard, who bowed on one knee.

  “Bosh, shahzadeh,” the guard kept saying, nodding with his eyes down as Ifridun spoke. “Bosh” was the Persian word which meant “alright.”

  When Ifridun finished speaking, the guard stood, approached the oil field workers—all of whom were still toiling, oblivious to the shahzadeh’s presence—and shouted at them. The workers stopped and stared at the guard. After he was finished, they looked at each other, shuffled out of the oil pit, and set down their buckets. Their hands were free, but their ankles were manacled. Ifridun gave orders for all manacles to be unlocked. The guard acknowledged the shahzadeh’s command, and then, wincing, knelt to unlock the workers, jamming his heavy iron key inside their manacles one by one, as they lined up. His hands were soon covered in oil.

  No worker spoke. They must have believed that even a single word, even a single false breath, could have sent them back to the oil pit.

  Each time a worker stepped out of his or her creaking manacles—many workers were women and children, some younger than Michael—the farr burned inside Alexios. It felt a little like a jolt of strong coffee. Enough energy built up to begin sharing with others.

  Once the oil field workers were unlocked, Alexios dismounted, gave his horse’s reins to Artvadios, and—speaking through Michael—asked the workers to follow him to the sea. Ifridun, meanwhile, sent a soldier riding ahead to prepare for their arrival. They would need soap, washcloths, food, medicine, places to sleep.

  Alexios asked if any workers spoke Roman. One man named Andreas Sargsyan said he did, adding that he came from Ani.

  “Good,” Alexios said. “You can help me.”

  Ifridun and Artvadios remained on their horses, watching the tired, aching oil slaves shuffle along the road, dripping oil everywhere, leaving black footprints as though they were monsters made of oil. The carriage drivers and camel riders were also ordered to return to Bakuya.

  “I beg your pardon, majesty,” Artvadios said, bowing to Ifridun. “But is this really a good idea? Here we behold dirhams and dinars merely walking away!”

  “Let us wait and see,” Ifridun said. “It is an entertaining spectacle, if nothing else. After all, we can always enslave them again.”

  Alexios walked with Sargsyan and the workers, while Michael and Gowri rode nearby on their horse.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “I was taken in a slave raid ten years ago,” Sargsyan told Alexios.

  Even the whites of this poor man’s eyes were black with oil. The smell pouring off his body was appalling, and so strong that Alexios’s own eyes stung with tears.

  Jesus, he thought. You’re covered with this shit.

  “The Turks took me after Mantzikert,” Sargsyan added. “I was a soldier in the Roman legions.”

  “How did you survive here for so long?” Alexios said.

  “God’s grace,” Sargsyan said. “Only explanation. Many others died. It’s nasty work, it is.”

  “Can you speak Turkish?” Alexios said. “And Persian?”

  “Aye,” Sargsyan said. “And Georgian and Armenian, too. It all comes in handy in these parts.”

  “We’re here to free you.” Alexios had trouble containing his emotion, especially as he looked back at the children marching in the column. “You and all your friends.”

  “Begging your pardon, friend,” Sargsyan said. “But I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  It took little time to reach the sea. The workers kept away from the seven windswept flames belching out of the battlement spouts on Bakuya's walls. Once the workers had reached the shore, they waded into the rolling surf blown by the gales, pulled off their rags, tossed these aside, and washed themselves and each other with the soap and towels which the royal caravanserai servants had brought. Soon the sea was black with oil. Alexios worried about the environmental damage, but he didn’t know what else to do. The oil was unrefined, so he hoped that the damage would be minimal.

  Bakuya's people gathered to watch this spectacle, as hundreds of workers entered the sea and scrubbed the oil from their flesh. The Bakuyans also spoke to one another, and some crossed their arms and grimaced, particularly the owners of the iron cauldrons erected along the shore to boil sea salt. If the oil stopped flowing, they’d be ruined. There was no other fuel available on the savannah—nothing but scrub and dung.

  This threatens Shirvan, Alexios realized. If they can’t export oil and salt, they’ll have to buy it. That means less money for soldiers. There’s no way Ifridun can do this. Sooner or later he’s going to find an excuse to put these people back in chains. Back to work.

  This meant that there was little time to teach them. Somehow Alexios needed to find the sharpest students first, then have those students teach the others. But none of this could happen before the workers had eaten and rested. They were almost too exhausted to walk. The instant a person set foot in the tar, their life expectancy shortened to months. Children were weaker and less able to deal with so much labor, which meant that they lived for even less time. Knowing this, Shirvan worked them all to the bone, extracting as much labor as possible. Most must have been captured in slave raids like Sargsyan. It was hard to believe that they were murderers and rapists, as Ifridun had said, especially since so many were children.

  Once the workers were clean, they donned the new tunics that had been left by the shore in neatly folded piles. By now the Bakuyans were shouting at them. Michael said they were asking when they were going to get free clothes and who was going to pay for all of this. No worker even looked at them in response. When one Bakuyan threw a rock at them, Ifridun—who had just arrived on his horse—ordered that person arrested. The rock thrower was a richly attired and good-looking woman sitting on a sedan chair carried by four muscular slaves. She had ordered one of her slaves to hand her the rock and had thrown it herself, but had missed.

  When a soldier rode to this woman to arrest her, her fellow salt cauldron owners crowded around him, yelled at him, and even told their own slaves to attack. Ifridun ordered the garrison called out, then sent Artvadios to handle the problem. As Alexios and the workers watched, the Herakles of the Kaukasos approached the rioting cauldron owners on his horse and drew his scimitar.

  “Who will fight me first?” he roared. “Who shall die first on my blade? Will it be you?” With his sword he pointed to the lady who had thrown the rock. Her name was Roxelana Khatun. When she looked away, he pointed to one of her slaves. “Or will it be you? Which brave fool today will keep my blade oiled with blood, and take a trip straight down into hell?”

  No answer.

  “Ha!” Artvadios laughed. “That’s what I thought. Cowards the lot of you. Now return to your homes! Pigs belong in their pens! Ha!”

  Sulking, the cauldron owners walked (or rode, or were carried) back into Bakuya—including Roxelana Khatun.

  Artvadios pointed at her. “Not you. You come with us.”

  “But I work for your grandfather!” Roxelana Khatun shouted at Ifridun. “The Shirvanshah owns the oil and salt monopolies!”

  “With local salt and oil merchants getting a cut,” Ifridun said. “So long as they keep everything moving smoothly.”

  “Which you haven’t done,” Artvadios said to Roxelana Khatun. “No, no, not at all!”

  By then, Shirvanese soldiers were riding or marching out of Bakuya's gate. At Ifridun’s command, they forced Roxelana Khatun’s slaves to lower her sedan chair, then brought her to the royal caravanserai.

  Alexios laughed, thinking about how this would probably infuriate Ifridun’s father back in Darband. Exploiters always acted like this when the exploited rose up against them. When exploiters were weak, they pretended to be as innocent as the lamb of Christ; when they were strong, they were worse than starving wolves, and slaughtered without mercy.

  At this point, with the workers clean and donning new tunics, they entered the city, escorted on all sides by Ifridun’s soldiers. In the royal caravanserai courtyard, the workers found carpets spread out with plates of lamb kebab, bread, pilaf, pomegranates, apricots, water, and wine. Awnings were extended from the walls to block the sun. Only when the gates were closed and locked, and when soldiers were posted to the walls, did the workers relax, eat, and drink. Alexios sat beside Sargsyan.

  “I do not know why this is happening,” Sargsyan whispered. The man had transformed. He was now dressed in an airy red tunic, and looked like an urbane—though aged and weary—Roman soldier. It had taken a lot of time and effort to scrub the oil from his hair and beard. “You have no idea what they have put us through.” Sargsyan nodded to the soldiers. “Mere hours ago, they would have killed us at a nod from the lords.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but they still can,” Alexios said.

  “What is the reason for this?” Sargsyan kept his voice low. The Shahzadeh was walking among the workers, asking how they liked their food and if they needed anything. All answered the former question in the affirmative and the latter in the negative, always ending with honorifics and keeping their heads lowered.

  “Why would Ifridun do such a thing?” Sargsyan added. “No one delighted in our misery like him. It makes no sense! And yet what could we do? When the Shahzadeh says we’re free, are we gonna tell him no?”

  “He wants to make you into soldiers,” Alexios said.

  “Soldiers?” Sargsyan chuckled. “But more than half of us oil slaves are women and children. Far as I know, they don’t make good soldiers.”

  “Sometimes they have no choice.” In Alexios’s memory he heard crowds of children screaming in terror in Trebizond as buildings exploded around them. Few sounds were worse.

  Alexios took a deep breath, and looked back at Sargsyan. “Women, on the other hand, make great soldiers. Nothing terrifies men like an angry woman charging with a sword.”

  Sargsyan looked at him. “Who are you? You never told me your name.”

  “I’m Alexios Leandros. I’m a kentarch from Trebizond. People around here sometimes call me Eskandar al-Rūmi.”

  Sargsyan bowed. “A kentarch! Forgive me, sir, I didn’t know. But you’re from Trebizond…does that mean you’re one of the, uh, one of the…”

  “Criminals?” Alexios said.

  “Well, sir, I didn’t want to presume…”

  “That’s what they call us,” Alexios said. “But they don’t have any right to judge. And listen, you don’t have to call me ‘sir.’ I’m in the Workers’ Army.”

  Sargsyan looked to the sky. “Lord, have you freed me from one set of troubles, just to plunge me into another?”

  “Probably,” Alexios said.

  Most of the workers kept quiet and drank only water. When they had finished, Ifridun said to rest. They acknowledged him, their fear and politeness concealing any suspicion in their tones. The caravanserai’s servants then took the food. Almost nothing remained, since the workers—these former slaves, always hungry and fed too little—had tucked the leftovers into their pockets. At Ifridun’s invitation, the workers then stretched out and rested on the carpets, the older ones wrapping the younger ones in blankets. The sight of so many enslaved children was still upsetting Alexios. Some were probably older than they looked, malnourishment stunting their bodies, minds, and souls.

  “We need to find their parents,” he whispered to Sargsyan.

  The worker shook his head. “All separated long ago and far away. Most of the poor little dumplings probably don’t even remember ‘em. We’re their parents now.”

  Alexios glared at Ifridun. Although he was grateful for the shahzadeh’s willingness to try new things, slave owners in Trebizond were usually either executed or imprisoned. Had Ifridun been an adult, the Trapezuntines would have sentenced him to the hardest and most dangerous labor in the city—down in the mines near the gasses flowing from rents in the rock, among odorless invisible vapors that a single spark could ignite into an exploding inferno. That was all slave owners were good for. When Trebizond had more resources, slave owners could be treated more humanely—they could be taught to empathize with their fellow human beings, as they should have learned when they were very young children. But until Trebizond was secure, all they would get was pickaxes, chains, darkness. If they thought slavery was so normal and natural and unavoidable, they could enjoy experiencing it for themselves.

  But that was in Trebizond, a place teeming with furious workers, and far from here. In Bakuya, Alexios needed to make do with the resources at hand. He turned to Sargsyan.

  “Do you want to rest?” Alexios said. “Or do you want to learn how to fight?”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but I already told you I was a fighting man, if I’m not mistaken,” Sargsyan said. “All I need’s a sword, a helmet, some mail, maybe a horse.”

  “Sorry, that’s not what I meant. I meant I wanted to teach you to use the farr.”

  “The farr? What’s that?”

  Alexios reached out his hands, and took Sargsyan’s in his own. “I’ll show you.”