Star of Cursrah Page 12

  A sage from Cursrah’s college stepped into the ring, dressed in square-cut hair, green tunic and kilt, bare feet, and a black poncho beaded with the moon’s phases. Two students in similar garb lugged in a clay jar. Big as a peck basket, turquoise in color, it was stippled with marks of black paint and its lid was tightly sealed with yellow wax. Gingerly the students eased the jar to the ring’s center then scurried away. The sage made a short speech about the ongoing wonders to be learned from Cursrah’s college, then drew a small knife and squatted to dig away the sealing wax.

  The audience murmured, wondering what they’d see, with the word “genie” bubbling up most often. Cursrah had been founded by the greatest of genies, built by lesser genies and genie slaves, and still employed two or three carefully bound to their tasks or habitats. No doubt the college had extra genies bottled up and stored on shelves. The crowd leaned in on tiptoes.

  One student had fetched a bamboo pole. The sage raised an eyebrow to Vrinda, silently asking if precautions had been taken. People rocked back and buzzed at the hint of danger. Getting a nod from the administrator, the sage stood outside the red rock circle, and using the pole, tipped the lid off the jar.

  Instantly there spewed into the air a howling whirlwind, big around as the enchanted ring of stones, high as the round opening in the roof. People recoiled, for the tiny tornado screamed, screeched, hissed, keened, and wailed like souls of the dead in torment. Viewers gasped, for within the spinning dervish they glimpsed forms, long and sinuous. They were snakes, thousands of them, from twenty-foot serpents to tiny adders. Most were sand- or stone-colored, limbless children of the desert. Were the snakes caught in a dervish? Or did they actually form the tornado?

  To a bombardment of questions, the sage raised both hands and bellowed, “What you see, gentle nobles, is not a simple whirlwind. It is a living creature of the elemental plane of air, a servant to djinns, a windwalker summoned through a portal in the jar, drawn here with Cursrahn magic for your delight and amazement. For such wonders do we practice daily at our college, where all the fathomable knowledge of the ancients resides.…”

  There was more speechmaking that the crowd largely ignored, mesmerized by the ethereal servant. The windwalker’s fury increased as it adjusted to this new plane, so the whirlwind spun faster and faster until little puffs of not-snakes whipped away and vanished in midair. Flecks of red paint from the inside of the protective ring flaked and spun too. The sage droned on, extolling the college’s virtues, until Vrinda coughed and touched her golden throat. Immediately the sage’s voice faltered. Dazed, he nodded at no one, plied the bamboo pole to catch the clay lid and recap the jar. The windwalker winked away with a sudden compression that made people’s ears pop.

  Vrinda clapped her hands once and sage and jar winked away too. The masked and feathered dancers reappeared, this time bobbing and swirling through the audience. The band struck up a bouncing tune, and people laughed and relaxed. Vrinda glided away to administer dessert. Courtiers steered to the lesser throne to compliment Amenstar on the food, display, entertainment, and more.

  “What happens now?” Gheqet hissed. The two were still stationed behind Star.

  Tafir scanned the audience for eligible girls and asked, “Will this party drag on all night?”

  “I’ve no idea,” she said. “Vrinda is in charge.”

  Star wrinkled her forehead; her tiara itched.

  “Must we stand here?” Gheqet, who had also spotted some interesting young women, whined. “I’m bored.”

  “I know we crashed the party, but—oops! Pucker up, Princess. Cursrah’s flanks are penetrated by a scouting probe from Oxonsis and a butterfly brigade from Zubat.”

  Courtiers fell back as two large entourages converged on Star’s small throne. From the right marched Samir Pallaton’s military escort in lock step, with the dark prince the point of the spear. From the left flowed Samir Nagid’s entourage, light and colorful as wax paper balloons. The two princes stopped, an arm’s length apart, before Star’s throne. The samira smiled carefully, flattered at their attention, but recalled that the two heirs should be kept apart, lest their kingdoms’ impending war explode here in the palace.

  “My compliments, Samira.” A military man, Pallaton got off the first shot, saying, “Cursrah shows its riches are its strength of mind. Oxonsis too knows knowledge is true power.”

  “Which makes one wonder, Fair Amenstar,” the sprightly Nagid interjected, “why Oxonsis shut down its college and banished its scholars? What did their military elite fear to hear?”

  “Oxonsis fears nothing, but our college proved a viper pit of treason.” The swarthy Pallaton looked only at Amenstar as he continued, “In times of trouble, citizens should support their rulers and join in the mutual defense. It’s different in Zubat, I hear. In that city, fops and fools spend their time stargazing and reciting poetry, while enemies infiltrate the streets and poison the minds of the populace.”

  “I’m amazed Oxonsis has any populace left,” Nagid breezed. “Trumped-up criminals and enemies of the state hang along the city walls like rotten fruit. Soon the civic butchers will be forced to recruit sheep into their burgeoning army, but then, that’s appropriate isn’t it? Sheep never know the shepherd’s plan until their throats are cut.…”

  Star’s head oscillated between the two bickering princes.

  “I know some throats that need cutting,” Pallaton’s voice rose as his face darkened. “The soft-headed populace of Zubat will scream for blood when they learn the city council secretly plots to make them slaves to Coramshan!”

  “That’s not true,” a jarred Samir Nagid hedged. “Zubat exchanges diplomats with Coramshan, as does everyone, but we’ll never submit to thralldom by—”

  “Mush-mouthed lies. Pap,” sneered Pallaton. “Coramshan seeks to conquer all of Calimshan. Zubat is the first stepping-stone in their path, but rather than fight like men, Zubat flops on her back and lifts her skirts for the almighty Bullies of Bhaelros—”

  “Excuse me, I’m still hungry.”

  Amenstar rose from her throne and pushed between the quarrelers, who didn’t notice. Gheqet and Tafir slipped behind her. Star wasn’t hungry, but her male friends piled their plates high for a second round. Hovering courtiers paid Star compliments, but she made only vague answers and watched the argument escalate.

  Mouth full, Gheqet offered, “Neither samir seems to really care about his people. They seem more interested in banging heads and increasing their personal power.”

  “Same way in the army,” Tafir mumbled as he munched squid. “Politics never change.”

  “Politics bore me,” huffed Amenstar. “Look at those two. They’re supposed to court me, and instead they bluster like puffed-up gamecocks.”

  “They’ll duel soon,” chuckled Gheqet, “then you’ll only have one choice for a husband.”

  “My husband would need to stay close and have a sense of humor.” Star studied the two princes, who now shouted in each other’s face and added, “I wonder if they qualify.…”

  “What are you doing?” asked her two friends.

  With a wicked leer, the princess grabbed a honey roll from Gheqet’s plate. Taking aim, she pegged it at the two princes and laughed as it bounced off Pallaton’s shoulder wing. Startled, the samir jumped back from his enemy. Both princes goggled at Amenstar, who returned a gay wave.

  “Are you mad?” asked Gheqet.

  “No, I’m … politically savvy,” giggled Star. “I was told to keep the two princes apart. Besides, it’s my party, so join in!”

  Grabbing a spiral-sliced orange, Amenstar lobbed it at Nagid, but missed and splattered one of his retainers. Tafir chucked a stuffed peacock egg that exploded amidst Pallaton’s grumbly soldiers. Gheqet skipped an oyster shell that ricocheted into Nagid’s knee. The music faltered, and a stunned silence fell.

  “Then again …” Amenstar stood very still, trying to shrink from sight. Perhaps if she apologized for her rash act—


  A glob of red sugared ice whisked overhead. It bombed a pair of aged diplomats in gray and gold. People gasped, but the elder dame, an old hand at diplomacy, stood, snatched up a stuffed crab, and winged it across the room.

  Someone roared. An almond cake zipped past Tafir’s ear. A lamb chop smacked a man to Star’s left. Shrills and laughter exploded from a distant table as every occupant rose, dug their hands into their plates and hurled the lot. Within seconds, the air was full of flying food.

  Star shrieked with laugher as she dodged a smoked duck. Gheqet slung a handful of rice and caught a melon rind with his forehead. Let off the leash, Tafir hurled a mountain of pineapple and cherries into the air like a volcano. People screamed, laughed, shouted, and called names as they grabbed whatever they could and threw it. A few cowards scurried to the walls, a few servers tried to block the deluge, but most guests just pitched in and pitched. The fabled Palace of the Phoneix was upended like a market in a hurricane.

  Star was splatted by an octopus, splashed with gravy, pelted with olives. Her friends fared the same, and she shrieked with laughter at their food-smeared faces.

  “See?” Star howled. “Politics can be fun!”

  7

  The Year of the Gauntlet

  In the depths below the city, the mummy found itself trapped.

  There was no exit from the tiny room holding the sarcophagus. Bricks, sloppily laid by inexpert hands, sealed the chamber.

  Lying in a trance for centuries, with its body neither living nor dying, the mummy’s powers had increased, as an oak tree grows larger and stronger century by century. Laying hands against the bricks, the mummy flexed fingers harder than granite. Dried clay crumbled like old leaves. Lashing out, the mummy smashed both fists through the brick wall. Rending, tugging, shattering bricks and mortar, the mummy tore away the upper wall, then kicked the remaining bricks into powder.

  Shuffling forward, the mummy escaped its tomb of the ages.

  And stopped.

  Dimly it recalled these corridors, last seen ages ago. Sifting memory, like recapturing ancient dreams, the mummy remembered its purpose, the task for which it was created, and who had given it this dark and twisted unlife that burned in its brain and bones like a poisonous fog.

  Along with the imperious commands of its long-lost masters, the mummy recalled ever more. Odd thoughts skittered through its shriveled brain, like ghosts shrieking through an empty house, like snakes infesting a skull, like spiders spinning a web in a dead man’s helmet.

  Yet the pull of duty overwhelmed these distracting thoughts. The creature hadn’t been created to think, but to act, to protect.

  Slowly, the creature turned, head craned upward on a stiff neck from which dust trickled. It knew why it had awakened. Attuned to the ancient and almost silent heartbeat of Cursrah, the mummy’s revival had been triggered by the city’s unearthing. Far above, rods and rods distant, the undead guardian sensed that human feet desecrated the palace flagstones.

  The mummy’s irrevocable duty, pressed upon it for thousands of years, was to protect the palace’s lowest level—and the greatest treasure Cursrah could boast. Invaders venturing into the palace would travel downward, as surely as water ran down a drain, and eventually reach this lowermost cellar. The mummy’s duty was clear: to lure intruders, to punish them, and to snuff out their lives.

  Rotted rags parted as the mummy raised withered arms. Imbued with the ancient powers of Cursrah’s necromancers, the mummy sent magical vibrations echoing through the ether, wafting upward, seeking out the intruders, and plumbing the deepest reaches of their unconscious minds, luring them down, down. Unseen, unheard, the summoning spell sparkled in the crystalline desert air. The mummy dropped its arms, knowing the charm had taken.

  Neither alive nor dead, the mummy scuffled along the corridor. At first it lurched and shambled, having not walked for centuries. Tottering, occasionally bouncing off a stone wall or thumping against a lintel, the bandaged creature plowed on. With every step it grew stronger, more capable, more sure. Doggedly, with the patience of eons, it shambled toward its goal: the place holding Cursrah’s greatest treasure. It went to set a trap for the intruders.

  “We must descend into the ruins,” announced Amber, “all the way to the bottom.”

  “What?” asked Hakiim and Reiver.

  Revived, the two men clawed sand from their eyes and faces. In awe, they stared at the newly exposed city basking in lustrous moonlight. All three kept turning to scan the miles of valley bottom, as if expecting it to suddenly disappear, and they spoke in hushed tones, as if ghosts might overhear.

  “Well, of course, we might find treasure,” offered Reiver, “or we might not. Those few coins may’ve leaked from someone’s purse—”

  “The greatest treasure lies in the bottommost cellar.”

  Amber stared at the pink-white marble floor as if she could see through it like harbor water. Disturbed by her odd assertions, Reiver and Hakiim looked at one another.

  Casually, Reiver hedged, “True, anyone with sense would bury the best goods the deepest, but the deeper you go, the less the tunnels can be trusted. The weight adds up, and if they haven’t collapsed already—”

  “There’s danger exploring too deep,” Hakiim interjected.

  “It doesn’t matter,” replied Amber. “There’s something we need down there. Something unique to this city and its past, something wondrous. There’s someone down there, too. Someone in distress, or lost, or—I don’t know what we’ll find, but we must descend … all the way.”

  Hakiim grumbled, “Amber, how can you know any of that? This city has been buried in sand … well, a very long time.”

  “Nothing’s buried.” Amber said. She spread her hands in a slow circle. Apart from gritty sand clinging to their numb bodies and clothes, the polished marble was clean as if fresh-washed. “What we did, touching that moon-globe, triggered a spell—a magical sandstorm—to expose this city, and it happened for a reason.”

  “One important to whoever lived here,” worried Hakiim, “not necessarily important to us, or safe. When a hunter sets a leg trap for the desert fox, the fox doesn’t prosper. He winds up a collar ruff.”

  Reiver combed back his headscarf to reveal his dirty blond hair. Scanning the valley, he proclaimed, “This city must’ve had an odd history. It was laid out by engineers and built from whole cloth or else conjured overnight.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Amber.

  “Calimshan’s cities are ancient,” Reiver explained. “They grew up from mud huts, usually along a river or the seashore. The streets ramble and crawl in all directions, laid and cut piece by piece, but look. This city is laid out in perfectly symmetrical rings—rings within rings. It must’ve been built on wasteland, and all at once, or cobbled together by genies.”

  Amber and Hakiim saw the truth in his words. This city was a work of art.

  The thief huffed and changed subjects. “Why did you touch that globe?” he asked Amber. “Were you mesmerized?”

  Amber shook her head, as if her vision were cloudy or her brain half-asleep. In fact, she did feel compelled, drawn downward, yet also reluctant to talk about it. The feeling, the urge to explore downward was frightening but also exhilarating, for it gave her a distinct goal to pursue, though she couldn’t guess at its outcome.

  She asked, “Don’t you feel it?”

  Again the thief and the rug merchant’s son exchanged glances. Amber got her answer. No matter, she thought, and pushed on.

  “There must be treasure,” Amber said. “Every ruin in legend is packed to the roofs with gold, and most of the known ruins have been picked over long ago. We’re the first to uncover this place.”

  “Still,” Hakiim said, pointing his scimitar around at the valley, “the magic worked and the sand blew off. The ruins are exposed and ready, but ready for what? Not us, surely.”

  “Better it’s not us.” Reiver slung his bundle over his shoulder and dug sand from his ear and added,
“So let’s grab some loot and run. Lead on, shaani.” Meaning a leader with little skill.

  “Hush, or I’ll hex you with my white eye,” Amber joked and even forced a smile. “You wanted adventure.…”

  Swinging her legs into the square hole, Amber caught the opposite lip and lithely dropped to the tunnel floor. Plunged in darkness, she took a fresh grip on her capture staff.

  Alone, she muttered, “We’ll find you, whoever you are, whatever you need. I’ll find you, even if I must press on alone.”

  “Hold fast!”

  Amber was jerked backward by Reiver’s quick hand and brusquely banged against the wall. Before she could protest, the thief tiptoed ahead. His dagger flashed in torchlight as he snagged a dark point protruding from a nearly invisible crack in the pockmarked ceiling. Standing back wide-eyed, Hakiim and Amber heard a soft, tinny echo. Reiver backed up. From his dagger point hung a short arrow with a corroded green point.

  “Bronze,” Reiver said as he scraped the crumbling point to expose a dull, brassy color. Using two hands, he flexed the shaft and it snapped. “A little spring left to the wood. It’d hurt smacking you in the throat. Good thing I saw the head poking out.”

  “You’ve got magic eyes, my friend,” Amber huffed.

  “Where’s—how does it shoot?” Hakiim gulped.

  Holding his torch high, keeping them back, the thief squatted to examine the dusty floor and said, “It must be some kind of spring coil. You couldn’t rig a bowstring behind it, not with this tunnel hacked through bedrock, but there’s no tripwi—ah!”

  Brushing dust from the wall, Reiver traced a thin line. Easing his foot, he stepped on the small plate and flinched as a thunk sounded above. Amber squeaked and pointed. From other holes in the ceiling jutted two more arrowheads. Reiver’s mouth fell open, for he squatted where the arrows aimed.

  “Not one arrow,” Amber whispered. “Three.”