"Departures" is an alternate history short story published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in January 1989. It was reprinted in Alternate Heroes, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Gregory Benford in 1990 and in the Harry Turtledove collection Departures in 1993. It is a prequel to the stories which make up the fix-up novel Agent of Byzantium into which Pillar of Cloud, Pillar of Fire was incorporated.