Chapter 110: The Miracle Project
The workshop smelled of smoke and salt and something chemical that Lysander still couldn’t name. Daidalos had been working on the project for weeks, ever since the black ships first appeared on the northern horizon, and the evidence of his labour was scattered across every surface: clay jars filled with viscous liquids, scraps of timber marked with burn patterns, diagrams scratched onto wax tablets and then scratched out and redrawn.
"Stand back," Daidalos said.
Lysander stood back.
The device was crude—a clay pot fitted with a bronze nozzle, mounted on a wooden frame that looked like it had been assembled from spare ship parts. A length of rope, soaked in something that smelled like pitch, served as the fuse. Daidalos lit it with a taper and stepped away.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the pot shuddered, and a jet of liquid fire shot across the workshop, splashing against the stone wall at the far end. The flames clung to the stone, burning with a fierce, pale light that seemed to feed on the air itself. The heat washed over Lysander’s face, and he took an involuntary step backward.
The fire burned for a full minute before it began to gutter. When it finally died, the stone where it had struck was blackened and cracked, the mortar between the blocks crumbling to dust.
Daidalos lowered the taper. His face was streaked with soot, but his eyes were bright with the particular intensity of a man who had just proven something to himself.
"Fifty cubits," he said. "The range is fifty cubits. In a headwind, less. With a following wind, more. But fifty cubits is the reliable distance."
"Fifty cubits." Lysander stared at the blackened wall. "That’s longer than a spear throw."
"Much longer. And it sticks to whatever it hits. Wood. Canvas. Flesh." Daidalos set the device down carefully on his workbench. "If the black ships come again, we can mount these on the freighters. One shot to the sails, and the whole ship goes up. They won’t be expecting it."
"How many can you produce."
"With the materials I have—three. Maybe four. The problem is the fuel." He gestured at the clay jars on the bench. "The mixture is unstable. Too much of one ingredient, and it burns too fast, consumes itself before it reaches the target. Too little, and it doesn’t ignite at all. I’ve been experimenting with different proportions, but the key component is sulfur. Pure sulfur, ground to a fine powder. Without it, the mixture is nothing more than oil and pitch."
"How much sulfur do you have."
"Enough for a few more tests. Not enough for a full production run."
Lysander looked at the device. Fifty cubits of liquid fire, clinging to whatever it touched, burning hot enough to crack stone. In his previous life, he had read about Greek fire—the secret weapon of the Byzantine Empire, a substance so feared that its composition was guarded to the death. He had never imagined he would see it in the Bronze Age, in a shipbuilder’s workshop, assembled from spare parts and trial and error.
"Where can we get more sulfur," he asked.
"There are deposits on the southern coast of the Anatolian mainland. Near the Carian border. The problem is getting it here. The overland routes are disrupted. The coastal routes are vulnerable to the black ships." Daidalos paused. "There’s another source. Further east. A trading post called Tarsus. The merchants there trade in sulfur from the interior. But it’s a long journey, and dangerous."
"How dangerous."
"The kind of dangerous that requires armed escorts and fast ships. The kind of dangerous where you send people you can afford to lose." Daidalos met his eyes. "I’m a shipbuilder. I can tell you what we need. I can’t tell you how to get it."
Lysander nodded. He was already thinking about the men he could send—the fastest ship in the coastal fleet, a crew of volunteers, a captain who knew the eastern waters. Fylon would know who to ask. Fylon always knew.
"I’ll arrange it," he said. "How soon can you have the devices ready if I get you the sulfur."
"Two weeks. Three at most. The devices themselves are simple. It’s the fuel that takes time to prepare." Daidalos picked up the taper again. "Do you want to see it fire one more time? I’ve been wanting to test a new mixture."
"Test it. I’ll watch from further back this time."
Daidalos almost smiled—the closest he ever came to showing satisfaction—and turned back to his workbench. Lysander stepped back against the far wall and watched as the shipbuilder lit the fuse and the liquid fire bloomed across the stone, bright and terrible and full of promise.
Paris – The Road South
The road to Sparta was older than the road to Argos. It wound through hills terraced with olive groves, the trees gnarled and ancient, their leaves silver in the winter light. The villages here were smaller than those in the north, their inhabitants more guarded. They watched Paris pass with the weary reserve of people who had learned not to expect anything good from strangers.
He had been walking for three days since leaving Argos. The names Agenor had given him—a potter in the lower town, a wine merchant who traded with the palace servants—were scratched onto a wax tablet in his case. He didn’t know if these contacts were still alive, or still willing to talk. But Agenor had been clear: Sparta was the key. If the coalition was to be broken, the fracture would begin here.
And somewhere in Sparta, behind the grey stone walls of the palace on the hill, there was a woman he had met three years ago. He hadn’t spoken her name aloud since leaving Troy. He had trained himself not to think about her. But the closer he drew to the city, the harder that became. Not because of old poetry or half-remembered longing, but because he remembered the way she had looked at him in the garden of the Spartan palace—calm, direct, unafraid—and asked him who he really was.
She had seen through him then. She would probably see through him now.
The difference was that this time, he wasn’t a prince. He was a merchant named Alkimas, travelling with a case of samples and a head full of questions. And if he was careful—if he stayed away from the palace and the noble quarter—no one in Sparta would look at him twice.
He crested the final hill as the sun began to set. The city lay before him, grey stone rising from the plain, the palace on its height catching the last of the light. The mountains behind it stood dark against the sky. From the lower town, smoke drifted upward—cooking fires, workshops, the ordinary breath of a city still living.
Paris adjusted the strap of his case and walked down the hill toward the gates.
The guards at the entrance were professionals, inspecting his Carian papers with the same brisk efficiency he had encountered in Argos. They noted his name, his trade, his reason for visiting—grain, pottery, olive oil—and waved him through. The streets beyond were narrow and clean, the buildings of plain stone without the painted facades of Troy. People moved with purpose, their voices low, their faces closed.
He found an inn near the market square, a modest establishment run by a widow whose husband had been a potter. She gave him a room on the upper floor, a bowl of lentil stew, and the local gossip at no extra charge. The city was tense, she said. The king had been in a black mood for weeks. Soldiers from Mycenae had been seen near the palace. And the queen—here she lowered her voice—had not been seen in public for nearly a month.
"She used to walk in the market," the widow said. "Now she stays behind the walls. People talk."
"What do they say?"
"That the king’s brother is squeezing him. That the queen is the price." She shrugged. "I don’t know politics. I know pottery. But when the queen stops walking in the market, something is wrong."
Paris thanked her and retreated to his room. The window looked out onto the street below, where the last vendors were packing up their stalls and the watchmen were lighting the evening torches. The palace loomed on the hill, its windows glowing faintly. He could not go there. He knew that. The guards at the gate would recognize him, or one of the courtiers who had attended the Trojan delegation would see his face and remember. The lower town was safe. The palace was not.
Tomorrow he would find the potter on Agenor’s list. He would ask questions about grain shipments and trade routes, and he would listen for the answers beneath the answers. He would map the cracks in Sparta the way he had mapped them in Argos.
And if, in the process, he learned something about the woman behind the walls—well. That was part of the mission. That was all it was.
He closed the shutter and lay down in the narrow bed. The sounds of the city faded slowly into night. Somewhere above him, on the hill, a woman who had once asked him for the truth was waiting for something she could not name.
He closed his eyes and tried not to think about her. He failed. But he slept anyway.
