Remembrance of Earth's Past, #3
Death's End
by Cixin Liu
Contents
May 1453, C.E. The Death of the Magician
Overview
During the final siege of Constantinople, Helena demonstrates impossible magic that seems capable of saving the city by killing Sultan Mehmed II. Her power, however, depends on a temporary high-dimensional phenomenon that ends before she can complete the mission, leaving her useless and condemned by Phrantzes. Helena dies just before Constantinople falls, linking a personal desire to be remembered with the broader theme that civilizations, miracles, and lives all come to an end.
Summary
In May 1453, Emperor Constantine XI waits in the Great Palace as Ottoman bombards strike Constantinople's ancient walls with mechanical regularity. His minister Phrantzes brings Helena, a frightened prostitute who claims she can kill Sultan Mehmed II. Helena proves she has strange powers by possessing a golden chalice that had been sealed for centuries inside an inaccessible chamber beneath Hagia Sophia, where workers also find the fresh grapes she said she left there.
Constantine asks for a demonstration, so Phrantzes tests Helena on a guarded Anatolian prisoner in a palace cellar. Helena refuses a weapon and leaves, while Phrantzes secretly has her followed. Hours later, the prisoner dies in convulsions despite constant observation, and Helena returns with the man's intact brain in a bag; when a doctor opens the skull, it is empty. Constantine realizes her power may be the miracle Constantinople needs.
Helena says she wants to be remembered, and Constantine promises that if Helena kills Mehmed II, Helena will be honored as the savior and saint of the city. At the walls near the Gate of St. Romanus, Helena reflects on her ancestry, the false heroic myths of crusading glory, and the degrading poverty that led generations of her family into prostitution. Phrantzes gives Helena portraits of Mehmed and orders Helena to bring back the sultan's whole head.
After Helena departs toward the Blachernae quarter and the damaged minaret where Helena practices her magic, Constantine receives worse news: spies sent to find the expected European relief fleet return with nothing, and a lunar eclipse darkens morale further. Helena does not return. When Phrantzes later searches the minaret, Phrantzes finds it inexplicably whole rather than broken, then discovers Helena disheveled inside, saying she cannot go back to the spacious place where her magic worked.
As Mehmed prepares the final assault and Constantinople gathers for a last Mass, Phrantzes concludes that Helena's mission has failed and fears Helena may have betrayed Byzantium. Phrantzes has the spy stab Helena and leaves Helena pinned silently to the wall. The narration reveals that Helena's magic came from a high-dimensional fragment that intersected Earth for twenty-five days and five hours, ending before Helena's mission could succeed. Constantinople falls the next evening, Constantine dies fighting, and the chapter closes on the end of Byzantium and the inevitability that everything ends.
Who Appears
- HelenaProstitute and magician who seeks remembrance, proves real power, fails her mission, and is executed.
- Constantine XIByzantine emperor who hopes Helena can save Constantinople and dies fighting its fall.
- PhrantzesTrusted minister who tests Helena, sends her against Mehmed, then orders her death.
- Mehmed IIOttoman sultan whose leadership sustains the siege and makes him Helena's intended target.
- The spy disguised as a friarAgent who tracks Helena's route and later stabs her on Phrantzes's order.
- Anatolian officerOttoman prisoner used to test Helena's magic; dies when his brain is removed.