Chapter Text
The year was 1330 Anno Hegirae.
Long before Islamic calendar had begun counting years, caravans had crossed the Syrian Desert to reach the oasis of Palmyra. Merchants from Rome, Persia, Arabia, and lands even farther east had bartered beneath its towering columns. Armies had marched through its gates. Kings had admired its temples.
Then Hell came.
Not long after the opening of the Jerusalem Hellgate, the armies of the Court of the Seven-Headed Serpent descended upon Palmyra. Demons poured across the desert like a plague of locusts. The city’s defenders died in its streets. Its inhabitants were butchered in their homes, its temples, churches, and mosques desecrated, its libraries burned, and its monuments shattered. Palmyra never recovered.
The centuries passed. Empires rose. Empires fell. The city remained dead.
The surrounding Syrian Desert, paradoxically, had become its greatest guardian. The relentless sands buried roads but preserved walls. Rain seldom fell. Vegetation grew only sparingly around the ancient oasis. Marble weathered slowly beneath the desert sun.
Thus the bones of Palmyra endured.
The Great Colonnade still stretched across the city, though many of its proud columns now lay broken where earthquakes, artillery, or infernal bombardments had cast them down. The Temple of Baalshamin stood roofless, its surviving walls blackened by ancient fire. The Roman Theatre remained eerily intact, its empty stone seats forever awaiting an audience that would never return. The shattered Byzantine churches still bore faded mosaics beneath layers of dust and sand.
Above them all rose the greatest survivor of the city:
The Temple of Bel.
It was scarred, cracked, and partially collapsed… yet still magnificent in its grandeur. It had watched kingdoms disappear. Now it watched another secret unfold.
A small company moved on foot carefully through the ruins. Five cloaked figures walked among the fallen columns. Above them circled a sixth.
The flying creature cast only a tiny shadow against the ancient stones. Barely larger than a child, it darted effortlessly between broken pillars before rising again upon narrow wings, scanning the city with a vigilance no human eye could match. No demons and no men dwelled among these ruins; nothing living or dead.
Far below, the five travelers maintained a measured pace. One walked at the center. Though neither especially tall nor physically imposing, he carried himself with the unconscious confidence of a scholar who expected others to defer to his expertise. His cloak concealed reinforced armor beneath, while a long rifle rested comfortably across his shoulder. Every so often he glanced upward, clearly expecting a signal from the creature overhead if anything appeared. Not far away strode another man whose every movement radiated discipline. His posture remained rigid despite the heat, his steps economical, his attention constantly drifting between the surrounding ruins and the appointed hours of the day. The heavy mask hanging from his equipment hinted at the nature of his profession far more than any visible insignia could. Walking a little ahead of the others came a younger soldier. Even beneath his cloak there remained an unmistakable lightness to his stride. He occasionally paused to admire fragments of carved stone or weathered inscriptions before catching himself and continuing onward. The journey seemed almost an adventure to him despite the dangers hidden among the ruins. Bringing up the rear moved a taller figure wrapped almost completely within cloak and armor. Unlike the others, this traveler seldom paused or looked around, at least not in the way anyone could tell. His face remained hidden behind a mask. Even his hands rarely emerged from beneath the heavy fabric except when absolutely necessary. If the others noticed anything around them, he noticed it first. Finally came the largest member of the expedition. At first glance he resembled an unusually broad laborer beneath an enormous cloak, but the complete absence of ordinary human movement betrayed something different. Each footstep landed with quiet certainty, almost impossibly steady. The giant carried no visible weapon; he appeared not to require one.
Above them, the winged scout banked sharply. Its extraordinary eyes swept across the ruins surrounding the Temple of Bel: collapsed porticoes, broken statuary, empty windows, wind-blown sand.
Nothing moved.
Satisfied, the scout wheeled once overhead before descending lower toward the group.
The ancient temple gradually filled their vision. Its immense doorway still stood despite centuries of devastation. Great carved stones remained fitted together with astonishing precision, as though refusing to acknowledge that the civilization which had assembled them had vanished long ago.
The travelers slowed. Somewhere within those ruins… another delegation would soon arrive. One that had crossed enemy territory from the west. Officially, the two groups should never cross paths. Instead, they now risked execution by their own governments simply to meet here.
For these were no ordinary soldiers nor ordinary scholars nor merely physicians. They belonged to a brotherhood known by two names.
Within the lands of Islam:
The Hand of Hamza.
Within Christendom:
The Hand of Glory.
Today, beneath the shattered stones of Palmyra, both hands would meet.