5

"You mean you fled the pirates?" Cyril says. "What are all those cannons on ships for, if you have to flee pirates? Still, maybe Dr. Sabbatine needs you to scramble around inside her machines. Don't lose any fingers!"

Byzantium sprawls around you as the ship glides to a stop at the docks. Your fellow travelers scramble onto dry land, carrying you with them almost before you can grab your meager supplies.

The setting sun turns the domes and bridges of Byzantium purple; long shadows blur the outlines of the teeming masses that swarm along the docks. You pass soldiers and sailors, odalisques and antiquarians, shops that sell watches, candies, tobacco, books, photography equipment, postcards, stationery, gloves, sheet music. Even here, most people are Byzantines: wealthy businessmen in their colorless suits and tall hats, barefoot dockhands with their shirtsleeves rolled up, shopkeepers poorly aping the fashions of the imperial elite. But you also see Italians and Egyptians, Hebrews and Haudenosaunee, even a few Mexihca.

You follow your crowd toward the Gate of Eugenios. With the old walls torn down fifty years ago, the "gate" is nothing but a checkpoint overrun with gold-jacketed guards, with a tube station stop on the far side. You hand your passport and the doctor's letter over to a bureaucrat, whose assessment of you instantly changes when he sees the name "Dr. Sabbatine." Your passport stamped and processed, you find yourself on the far side of the gate, apparently free and clear, when an imperial interrogator limps in front of you.

The interrogator—a short, middle-aged Italian from one of Byzantium's most impoverished regions—looks you up and down, sniffs, and says, "Another Mexihcatl. What are all you coming here for? This is Byzantium, not mustering ground for mercenaries."

Alexius and Cyril, emerging through the gate behind you, stop as they spot the man, as if unsure how much trouble he can make for you.