[b]Sevan, Armenia[/b]

Sahle's head throbbed. He was a small room he didn't remember arriving in, looking out a shuttered window at a street he didn't remember traveling down. The bed he was sitting on was a poor, rough spring mattress covered in dull beige sheets. Wallpaper was pealing from the walls, revealing the water-stained drywall beneath. He was covered in his own sweat, droplets settling on his arms and soaking the clothes he had been wearing for days. In his hand, he was fingering the trigger-guard of a polished military-issue handgun.

It was heavy and cold. He stared at it in horrified fascination as he sat alone in the dark dwelling on all that had happened There were bits and pieces that he could recall. Snapshots mostly, of what little the acid had not addled. He could remember the light, and the flash of fire. He could remember the cops, and the dirty looks the old bar-owner, Horasian, had given him. He could remember Aaliyah sobbing, and the blood that covered the ground. And he could remember the Russian.

One of them would have been dead if it hadn't been for Vasily. When the assassin pulled his weapon, Vasily had acted quickly and drove a knife into his back before he could aim. The bullet had been fired into the ceiling, harming nobody. The only other injuries had been caused in the panic that followed, and that had been little more than bruising. But that hadn't been the end of it.

After the police were convinced the dead man had been killed in self defense, Vasily came to Sahle and his friends. "I am not thinking that you are popular to everyone." he had said in his dry way, but there was something else behind his words. "I will be hiding you now."

And that he did. It had been hours since the Russian left. When he put the gun in Sahle's hand, he had asked if he knew how to use it. Sahle had nodded, but he was not sure.

[i]I have killed men before. I know how.[/i] He still could not completely explain what had happened when they escaped Cairo. Perhaps it had been the adrenaline, or his boundless love for Aaliyah, but something had driven him to pull the trigger and kill the Sheik's men. He was not sure he could do it again - not now, not in this way. His mind played through the scenario over and over. When he imagined them busting through the door, dusty white flakes falling from the chipped white paint, he pulled the gun up as quick as he could. Nobody was there, but he froze anyway, and his fingers were hardly steady enough to keep it in his hands. His guts were churning. [i]I could never kill again. I'm no killer...[/i]

When Sahle had been an Emperor, he had ordered people to their deaths without a second thought. He had ruled during wartime, and his words had caused thousands to die. Even now, sitting humbled in the gutter, he did not care. It wasn't their lives he was afraid of taking. It was something else. He couldn't place it, but the entire idea that his life depended on the trueness of his trigger finger frightened the fuck out of him. 

[i]"He is dead now."[/i] Vasily's sing-song voice echoed through his head from somewhere in the fog of his memories. Why had the Russian taken so much interest in him? Did he know? Sometimes, Sahle felt certain that his identity would be discovered. It seemed miraculous that it hadn't yet. He had been an Emperor after all, and his face has been plastered all over a continent. Could Sotelo do the same, or Hou? Or maybe someone else assumed dead was walking amongst the dregs in disguise. The thought of not being the only phantom king made him feel uncomfortable.

[i]Where is Aaliyah?[/i] This entire situation was suspicious. Who had the bullet been meant for? What were Vasily's interests? He thought of his friends being pulled away into the darkness so they could be murdered quietly, and he awkwardly drew his handgun and aimed it at the door. [i]I don't think I shook as much this time...[/i]

Sahle heard a soft thump. He jumped and looked at the window only to see the Russian climbing through. Sahle aimed. Vasily saw and laughed. "You should be putting way that away now." he said quietly, waving his hand as he hopped down. "I know what you are wanting to also know."

Vasily tossed a bloodied card down on the floor. It was white except for the brown-red stains, and the image of a the Giza Sphinx. "I found that paper on the body. I found a hotel key, and I found the hotel too."

"The h..hotel?" Sahle stuttered. His eyes were fixed on the Sphinx. He knew what it meant. [i]We got away though...[/i]

"Your little problem is done now, I finished it. But it is a big problem too I am thinking. I am thinking you will be seeing more of it. I may be knowing a man who can make it go away."

"Do I have to stay here then?" Sahle asked, "I want to see Aaliyah." His voice has been shaken until now. When he said her name, he said it firmly. The Russian cocked his head.

"I am understanding." he nodded. "I will take you to the man I am knowing tomorrow. If you want to see your woman friend, I am thinking it will be safe."

Vasily sauntered over to the door. It was the same door Sahle had aimed at over and over again that night. All night, he had imagined assassins breaking down that door and finishing him off right there as he trembled and surrendered. That door had been at the center of his worst thoughts all night. Vasily opened it. When Sahle seen the dim hallway that had been behind it, the door suddenly seemed different. And then the entire room was something else. It was no longer a tomb, it was just a room. 

Sahle followed. The wallpaper in the hallway was a deep red, though it was turning pink in places where the sun reached it through the windows. When he stepped out, his feet met with dark crimson shag carpet which felt like mush after the wooden floors of the room they had left. [i]This is a hotel.[/i] He instantly recognized. [i]How many hotels does a town need, anyway?[/i]

The halls were thin, barely allowing room for the passage of two people abreast. Each door they passed was a rich mahogany rather than the pale white door with chipping pain that he had stared at for most of the day.

He watched the Russian as they walked. Vasily looked out of place in his brown fatigues, with a long skinning knife hanging from one holster and a thin sort of dagger hanging from another. He moved around as comfortably as a tourist would, leisurely walking the halls like he owned them, but his head bobbed subtly from side to side as they passed each door. In the dark, he was as pale as a ghost. Sahle could remember visiting Denmark several lifetimes ago, when he had just been a care-free Prince with a taste for liquor and pussy. He had seen white people before, but people as white as those from the far north still seemed odd. Vasily was especially pale for his race. His skin seemed almost translucent in this light. 

They reached a door at the end of a hall, which led them into a shaft of cement stairs in a brick stairwell. Their footsteps echoed as they descended. It smelled damp, like standing water after sitting in the sun for a few days. A moldy brass pipe ran between to of the walls. Rust bubbled where the pipes met the walls, causing red smears to run across the sandy bricks. 

The door at the bottom of the stairs emptied into another thin hallway. Racks covered with brightly colored clothes and rolling carts covered in make-up supplies tipped Sahle to where he was. When they reached a wooden platform that sounded like a drum as they walked, Sahle knew for certain. He had been in show business for a while now, and he was well used to the settings. A thick blue curtain divided them from the rest of the room, but Sahle could imagine the rows of seats on the other side. Wooden cut-outs hid the back wall from view, each one painted white with simple green pine-trees dotting their surface. 

Vasily stopped suddenly. Sahle looked at him uneasily as the Russian bent down and knocked on the floor three times. A knock answered, and Sahle understood what was going on. Vasily pulled at an short rope-handle and climbed down.

"Sahle!" Aaliyah's voice greeted him with a squeal. They rushed into each others arms as Vasily stood there gawking. [i]She feels so pretty.[/i]

With Aaliyah in his arms, Sahle inspected the pit. The floor was hard cement, but the walls were all dusty wood. Poles held up the stage above them, which was hardly but half a foot above his head. They were surrounded by a mess of weird things. There was several wooden horses with angry faces carved onto them. Small models of churches and cabins sat in a pile on the other end. A crown sat on the brow of a canvas mannequin near the ladder. It was thick and covered in purple jewels. Silver chains covered in gemstones dripped from the golden circlet. Below the mannequin, a crude puppet with demonic, child-like features was propped against its base.

Vasily caught Sahle looking at it and puffed up. "Those are from a play that is playing at this theater that we are being in." he explained. "Writer is one of my people. The story is about Ivan III of Russia and how he united the fighting Russian nations and became the Tsar." He looked at the crown, and a weak hint of sadness seemed to play across his eyes. "I am thinking this should be happening against some day. My people have been thinking this too."

"Where are they?" Sahle asked.

"Many Russians are in Russia, I am thinking." Vasily answered.

"I mean my friends." Sahle corrected. "Yared and Marc."

"Oh yes." Vasily nodded. "They are in other places here. I will take you to them."