NA: Before we begin, I need to send out a huge THANK YOU to my Beta and friend, Filhound, for all of her technical support on this project. I'm afraid that without her input that this might have turned out to be a rather silly and stupid story with no basis in reality.

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Christina Ch 1

(POV Erik)

It had been nearly a year, I thought as I rode through the darkness on Cesár – a black-clad phantom on a black steed in the black of night. How fitting, I thought, for the Devil's Angel, for a monster like me. At times I envied Nadir for his faith in his God, his Allah. He was a devout Muslim who prayed whenever he could. I knew no such God. My God had abandoned me at birth, even before that, showering me with the gifts of music and architecture and magic, and giving me mechanical insights, and intellect, while at the same time cursing me with a face that nobody – myself included – could stand to look at. What was the point of it all if I couldn't make use of it? I wanted to improve the world, make it better, easier, more beautiful. And I could do that, if only someone would let me. The Shah had been my one great hope and I had created beautiful things for him, but at what price? Was this what the world was like? So far in my life I had learned that people feared my visage and called me a child of the very devil. Maybe I was? People reviled me and abused me and locked me in a cage and put me on display for the amusement of others. And so I hid, traveling only by night and sleeping by day.

Nadir and I had traveled across the vast Ottoman Empire after escaping from Tehran and the shah, sometimes apart and sometimes together in companionable discussions or silence. Our journey had carried us across the plains and mountains, deserts and marshlands of Asia and Europe toward France, zigzagging from one place to another to avoid the likelihood of contact with gypsies or detection by agents of the shah. Now we had to skirt Prussia and eastern France to avoid a war that had broken out there over possession of two smaller districts, Alsace and Lorraine and so we turned south onto Switzerland's high plain. All along there were occasional lonely nighttime rides like this one, when Nadir would have to leave me to find a city or village where he could purchase supplies for us and I would be alone with my thoughts and memories. At times I would catch glimpses of places I recognized from my horrid childhood, places that stirred unwanted memories to surface, memories of my time with the gypsies – my childhood, if one could call it that, of being tortured and beaten and whipped, and exposed just for the sport of it. These men who took delight in abusing me because they deemed me to be less than human, a mullo, 'The Devil's Child' they called me, something not quite human, yet something human enough that they could torture and debase, but they felt not human enough for them to care about what the effect would have on me, no more than a child. Nadir could easily travel by day, perhaps posing as a silk merchant, but I would have to stick to traveling in the darkness. With my face and mask I would have been an easy target for law-enforcement or citizen vigilantes to set upon and drag me to the nearest gendarmerie or schupo magistrate, provided I even made it that far. What with rampant superstition in these rural parts, I would most likely be burned alive if I were to be captured.

Nadir had been a good companion to me of many different shades. Originally he had remarked on my innate ability to create architectural drawings and models without ever having been taught how. And then he had been amazed at my musical talent, what he had called 'genius', "Hah!" I thought, "he thinks me a genius when all I ever do is copy what I see, or hear, and maybe expand upon it or add to it, to make it more pleasing or more durable. If that's genius, so be it." It was the same with music as with architecture as with mechanical devices as with languages. Music had patterns, once you learned the patterns you could manipulate them, play with them to create your own unique patterns. All the world's great musicians have known that. Languages were also a series of patterns and sounds. Once a person understood how the sound fit together and a few of the meanings, the rest was easy. Mechanical things were something a little different, although they too were a series of patterns, but sometimes you could see what forces were needed to make a mechanism work and how those forces might be created. The only frustrating part of it was when those parts that you needed to make the connections were often not available and you had to make them yourself.

Now, the shah of Persia had been searching for artisans and musicians and architects throughout the then civilized world for the purpose of beautifying his capital so it would outshine all others in the world in splendor and ingenuity. Nadir saw something in me that he was certain would please the Shah and thought I might benefit by doing some work for him, maybe gain some renown on my own behalf, and induced me to come with him to Tehran. As young and unfamiliar with the ways of the world as I was, I'd had no idea that I was selling myself into slavery to the Shah. As the shah's guard it became Nadir's duty to keep me in line with the desires of the shah and the Khanum alike. This often meant entertaining them after a long day's work in the hot Persian sun. Sometimes the entertainment requested would be music, sometimes magic as I had learned a good deal of it while among the gypsies. On the darker side I had also learned the ways of the Punjab lasso while spending some time in India's Punjab region. The shah put that, along with my skills as an architect, to use in having me design and build torture and execution chambers beneath the new palace, directing me to devise more and more entertaining ways of disposing of his enemies. Little did I know or Nadir even suspect that the Khanum - the mother of the shah - would plant the seeds of jealousy in the young mind of the shah. Over the years, Nadir and I had developed a relationship of sorts that, while not exactly friendly, was at least amicable. It was fortunate that he had learned before I had finished building the palace of their plan to make sure that what had been created for the shah could not be duplicated elsewhere by disposing of its creator upon completion. Also by now I was sickened to see that those 'enemies' of the shah had grown to include children and women. I'd had my fill of killing so I convinced Nadir to help me plan an escape. And so, Nadir accompanied me by default, as his head was also in demand for his complicity in helping me to escape. Neither his close kinship to the shah nor his high rank as chief of the Shah's Imperial Police force carried any weight anymore. He had gone against the wishes and designs of the shah and the shah was out for his head as well as my own.

Not to say that Nadir was always companionable, nor I for that matter. We would often find some minor point to blow out of all proportions and argue it for days at a time until we would both see the folly of it and find some other point of contention. One of those points was often my mask. Since childhood I had worn this mask to cover my deformity from myself as well as others. My disfigurement branded me as inhuman, as a monster, a devil, as a thing unworthy of acceptance to the human race. Nadir would regularly bark at me for keeping the mask on for long periods of time, causing skin infections which he would treat with salves. I told him that that was preferable to being captured and put on display once again or burned alive by superstitious citizens. So far the weather had been surprisingly co-operative and we had only needed to take shelter a few times during our travels – well, once it was for a whole week. The nights had been pleasantly cool and comfortable for us, although now that we had almost reached France, the weather had turned sharply cooler with a cold, biting wind out of the north. Nadir had gone in search of a village from which to purchase supplies, though I strongly suspected he had other purposes in mind as well, as he often returned from these forays with a slight fragrance about him of flowery or spicy perfume. So I wrapped my black cape around myself more snugly as I turned Cesár free to graze for awhile in a field of mown and tedded lucerne hay. It wasn't possible to carry all the lucerne that the horses needed, so each evening we would turn the horses out at the field with the best looking prospects. While Cesár grazed, I wondered about Nadir, how he was faring, how far he had progressed. Nadir said he might have found a place for me to hide, not too far from where we were, just west of Genève. We had been making good time but now the land was again becoming more hilly. Hilly was good because it meant fewer encounters along the roadway.

But this morning I wanted to find shelter earlier than usual. The air had turned much colder and snow was in the air – unusual for this early in the season. And the woods were silent. No birds, no ground squirrels, no red foxes, sure signs of a coming storm. I saw a chimney peeking through the treetops in the distance in the predawn light, then a second one. I decided to head in that direction. I could see no smoke coming from either of them, suggesting that the place might have been abandoned, so I made my way toward the cottage. When I heard a rider coming I pulled Cesár off into some shrubbery. The traveler passed without noticing us, but when I urged Cesár back onto the roadway, he lurched and began to limp. I got down and looked – he had thrown a shoe – well partly. It was still hanging on by one nail. I managed to pull it off and we walked slowly toward the house. On closer inspection, the cottage was larger than I had supposed from my perch higher up on the hillside, but I still could see no signs of activity – two full stories and an attic, all under a steeply pitched roof, and tucked neatly into a hollow in the side of the hill, almost completely hidden from view from the road. There was a small stable attached to the house via a woodhouse in between, so I got Cesár settled before exploring further. As a precaution, I hung a large red scarf from a nail high above the entrance to the stable. Nadir and I each carried two scarves, one green and one red. We would hang them near where we stopped to make camp so if we'd gotten separated we would have an easier time finding each other - green for all's well, red for danger or trouble. If Nadir was searching he would see the scarf and know something was wrong and approach more cautiously. After all, he'd only gone into the village below, about six miles away.

Continuing my survey of the grounds, so to speak, for now they were covered in two feet of snow, there was a woodpile, apparently drying or curing. For lack of anything better, I moved the wood under cover of the roof overhang as the snow fell ever heavier, pleased to note as I carried it that the wood no longer smelled green. I located two water sources. One was a shallow well with tubs arranged inside containing butter and lard, all covered with straw and evergreen boughs against the freezing cold. The other was a series of stone steps descending to a spring. I dipped out some of the spring water with a jug sitting beside the steps, and tasted: it was cool and sweet. I covered it all up with evergreen boughs and a foot or more of straw but as the snowfall increased even more, along with the wind, I decided that I would likely need more water than that little jug could hold. There was a cask at the top of the stairs so I again opened the door and filled the cask to take back to the house. It was heavy, but I could manage. Working on building the shah's palace and occasionally helping the workers just for the sheer joy of the exercise, had filled out my form so I no longer looked like a weak little child that would invite others to prey upon me as they once had. I again covered up the entrance and headed back to the house, stopping at the stable to give Cesár some of the fresh water and some of the oats. I was pleased to see that a small barn filled with hay and straw and with an attached granary storing rye, wheat and oats stood just a few yards away. All of the outbuildings were within easy reach of the house should the storm worsen. On a whim, I managed to snare a rabbit and two grouse with my Punjab lasso before the snow became too much of an obstacle to movement. I felt bad about the little animals, caught out in this storm, but at least they died quickly and it was not a wanton killing but one of necessity.

Once inside, I found the house well stocked, as if the owners had just stepped out to visit someone and expected to return within a week or two. The kitchen larder was stocked with wheat and other staples. When I decided to store my meat in a cubby-hole near the peak of the roof, I found other stores there of cured meats and honey and sealed packages of seeds to plant in the spring. In a cellar I found apples, potatoes, Swedish turnips, onions and cheeses, and a barrel of salted fish. One small crock I found contained a bubbling mass of vile yet sweet smelling gooey stuff. It smelled oddly like baking bread, but not knowing what it was, I put it back where I'd found it. Other crocks contained pickles and choucroute, or what the Germans called 'sauerkraut'. I made a mental note to leave them a thank-you note and payment for the stores we would use while we were here. It was a relief to find edible foodstuffs here as we hadn't taken the time to stop and purchase any since arriving in the district. Our normal pattern had been to wait until a village was dark before slipping into a store selling whatever we needed, taking our supplies and leaving a note with gold or silver to pay for it, usually more than the goods were worth. But I had been loath to do that here, so close to my home country, even though it had never presented itself as a home for me. At other times, like this, Nadir would ride into a village to get what we might need. It was rare for us to find a vacant shelter already stocked like this one. As I explored the house and grounds I sang little snippets of songs I made up as I went along, sometimes even laughing at the foolishness of the words. My throat was scratchy from disuse and harsh winds, but I sang in French and it was good to hear my mother tongue once again. Farsi, the language of the shah, was a very beautiful language, but it wasn't my language. I'd heard nothing but Farsi for the past four years and hadn't realized how much I had longed to hear my native tongue. But now I would soon be back and I looked forward to hearing plenty of my native French once again!

Rather than wait any longer for Nadir, I made myself some bread of sorts with some flour I ground on a hand mill I found out in the barn and some of the lard and fried it. It was far from delectable, but it was satisfying, and I ate that with the last of the stale meat and cheese I had brought with me, then I went to the stable to see what sort of tools might be at hand so I could take care of Cesár's foot. I had noticed a forge just outside, but the weather wasn't going to allow me to build up enough heat to be of use just now, so I nailed the shoe back in place, cold, and hoped that it would hold. Taking a peek out the window, I could see snow falling in earnest yet – more than three feet had already fallen in the past hour. "Looks like we'll be staying here for awhile, eh Boy?" I said patting Cesár's flank. I found a curry comb and a brush on one of the stable's stone ledges and set about giving the horse a good brushing. As I did, my mind wandered back to our escape.

We had caused quite a commotion, one the shah was not likely to forget any time soon. I had designed the shah's palace and in the design I had included an underground passage from the royal apartments to the stables. I had attempted to explain this to both the shah and the Khanum, but I was careful to preface my descriptions with those of numerous other passages so that by the time I came to the one leading to the stables, they had both declared that they were tired of the endless details and to just get on with completing the palace and left, never knowing of this means of access. Nadir and I had used that route to get to the shah's prized stallions and mares, despite Nadir trying to find more excuses not to enter the tunnel than the shah had concubines. In the process we had also come upon a cache of gunpowder left by the construction crew. "We could use this, Doostam," said Nadir. "We could bring down the tunnel so they won't be able to reach us."

"We don't have time for that, Daroga, but how good are you with that bow you carry?" I did have other reasons for not wanting to blow it up – I knew that some of the shah's dogs and cats slept in the tunnel and I didn't feel right in harming such innocent and faithful creatures , even though their loyalty was misplaced.

Nadir notched up an arrow and spun around and released, pinning the ties of a feed bag that was hanging from a rack on the far end of the stables to the wall. "Will that do?" he asked me with a bit of a cocky smirk.

"Just so long as you can repeat it!" I told him."Help me make some pouches for this gunpowder." We tore up some fabric we had found, in addition to our own shirts. On each piece we placed a bit of the gunpowder, then tied each scrap into a knot, enclosing the gunpowder. I grabbed a couple of empty feed bags and filled them with these little pouches. As we worked, I explained my plan to blow up the gates to the city, releasing the shah's political prisoners who were itching to revolt.

"The shah is not going to like you very much after this."

I looked at him with a little mischief in my eyes, "I built it. I can blow it up if I want to!"

"Hahaha!" Nadir laughed, "I doubt the shah will see it that way!"

The jail was just inside of the gates to the city. I figured if we could blow up those gates, the old walls in that part of the city (which the shah refused to believe could be breached) would come down, and all the political prisoners of the shah would be free. We would bring them horses and weapons so they could fight the shah's guards. In the ensuing mayhem, we could make our escape – we hoped. Nadir took as many arrows as he could carry in the three quivers he'd located, each arrow wrapped with a bit of raw wool near the tip, and a torch. I carried the bags of the little packets. We loaded the horses of the herd with weapons from the armory and drove them toward the city gates. As we drew near, I began tossing the packets high into the air. Nadir would light one of the arrows and let fly. The impact of the flaming arrow against the gunpowder caused each packet to explode in the night sky, sending the guards at the gates scrambling in frightened confusion. Then I threw one of the feedbags with the last of the packets inside it to land at the base of the gates. When Nadir went to fire an arrow at it, he discovered he was out of arrows.

"Out of arrows? What do you mean you're out of arrows?"

"I don't have any left! I used the last one!"

"Well you should have saved one!" (This discussion being held as the horses reared and wheeled in the commotion of the rest of the herd moving about and calling in agitation and the palace guards firing arrows at us.)

"Now what?"

I handed him some of the wool lining from my cloak, "Here, try this! Wrap it around the tip of your bow!"

"My bow?! You want me to throw away my bow?!"

"YES!" So he grudgingly lit the end of the bow and threw it javelin style at the pouch and it exploded, knocking the gates off their hinges. We slashed the bindings holding the weapons to the backs of the horses and as the prisoners rushed out they were able to grab weapons with which to defend themselves against the shah's guards. Many of the guards, seeing that the balance of power had changed, joined the prisoners in the revolt and in the ensuing bedlam, we raced off to freedom. We were still laughing when we pulled up to rest the horses twenty miles away.

Nadir looked at me with a conspiratorial grin, "We have taken more than just the shah's power," he said, stroking his horse. "We have taken his prized herd. The horse you ride is the scion of the sire of the herd, Cesár. The one I ride is the brood mare that was most recently bred with his sire. Between these two I will have a herd that will rival that of the shah!"

"Doostam!... always thinking ahead! If I ever had a brother I would wish for him to be just like you."

"That is propitious because you now owe me a bow – an exquisite, balanced bow covered in the fine skin of a shark," Nadir had told me with a smirk.

"A shark? Why would a bow be covered with such a substance?"

Patiently, Nadir had explained the making of a fine Persian bow with its many layers and parts and a final covering of fine shark skin to protect the many layers and glues from moisture.

"An interesting challenge, Daroga. If you can secure the shark, I will make you such a bow," I had told him with a smirk. That had been the first time I had ever heard Nadir joyously laugh out loud at something I had said.

We had decided to head for Genève where Nadir would find a place for us to stay… but we hadn't counted on a winter storm so early in the season. I chuckled as I finished grooming Cesár, "Soon you will be reunited with your partner!" I gave him an extra helping of oats and hay, some fresh water and made my way back to the house, stopping momentarily first in the woodhouse to get an armload of wood, then in the kitchen to get the fixings to make a cup of tea. No sense firing up the stove in the kitchen when I'd already got a perfectly good fire going in the parlor hearth! So I set about heating some water in a small pan I'd brought from the kitchen and made myself some tea. I had originally planned to hide myself in the barn, using the warmth of the hay to fend off the cold, because a monster such as I did not deserve such fine accommodations as an actual house where normal people lived, but after discovering the house to be completely empty and with no prospects of the owners returning any time soon, I decided to occupy the house, pretend for once that I was a lord of the manor. So I closed off all the rooms in the house except the main parlor and a small bedroom to the side of it. That's all we would need to use, so that's all we needed to keep heated. I finally settled with my feet up on the sofa in the parlor with a duvet I'd scavenged from one of the bedrooms and picked up the book I'd been reading as we'd traveled, "Around the World in Eighty Days" by Jules Verne. The deepening snow rendered the world silent, and the silence suited me perfectly. The only sound was that of the wind howling around the house and the crackling of the fire in the huge hearth. One of my last clear thoughts before drifting off to sleep was of Nadir, wondering where he was and hoping his Allah would keep him safe.

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