Star of Cursrah Read online

  “It’s trouble,” grumbled Hakiim.

  Amber tsked. “Rest, Hak,” she said. “Catch some sleep.”

  Needing no prompting, Hakiim sprawled on his back. Reiver returned, curled up like a cat, and dropped off.

  To quiet snores, alone in the bright desert night like an owl, Amber opened her mind to the tiara’s story. Unlike earlier, in Cursrah’s ruins, she found these mental images fuzzy and wobbly, skittering around her brain, making her dizzy. Like a bonfire seen from a distance, looking tiny as a candle flame, Amber wondered if the tiara were too far from the city, the source of the ancient scenes. Lying with her back against a rock in the chill desert night, Amber concentrated. Gradually, pictures formed.

  In her mind’s eye, Amber relived Amenstar’s ancient adventure. She saw the capricious princess captured by cavalry, heard the lecture on “politics,” dozed through three boring days of captivity, watched as the River Agis was diverted by magic.

  With a shock, Amber realized that the earthquake had formed the Broken Hills, which they’d passed in venturing here. When the diverted Agis bent north and then west, it carved a new watercourse and eventually a new seaport—Memnon, their home town. Like Amenstar, Amber wept for Cursrah, doomed to die of thirst.

  Alone, she whispered, “The samira finally realized her beloved city was truly endangered, but her tears came too late, like those shed at a funeral.”

  Thinking, half dreaming, Amber drifted off …

  … and jerked awake in darkness.

  Amber listened, ears ringing, but she heard nothing. Creeping, she peeped past staggered rocks. For once, Calim’s Breath was still. Desert dunes were painted silver and jet, and a million million stars twinkled bright as diamond dust in the velvet sky. Yawning, Amber pried open her eyes, then nudged her companions.

  “Come,” she said. “It’s time to get on.”

  “Home?” asked Hakiim sleepily. He and Reiver tussled briefly for the waterskin, both still dehydrated. “If we follow Pharos’s Anvil to the river and find our boat, we can sleep in our beds tonight.”

  “No,” Amber said as she raked fingers through her filthy black hair. “There are things left undone.”

  Hakiim demurred, “Sounds like one vote for home and one for Cursrah.”

  Amber huffed, then conceded, “I can’t blame you for wanting to go home, Hak. We’ve been battered by forces young and old ever since we set foot in this desert. I swore I’d never venture underground again, but I must. I’m going, even if I have to walk there alone.”

  Amber poked Reiver then and asked, “You’re quiet. Which do you prefer, Memnon or Cursrah?”

  Swallowing a gulp of water, the thief shrugged. “It’s all one to me,” he said. “In Memnon I scrabble for pennies and risk arrest from the druzir’s amlakkar and the Nallojal. In Cursrah we might be skinned and eaten, or worse, but we may find more than pennies.”

  Hakiim groaned, “I never thought I’d miss my sisters’ nagging or my mother’s cooking.”

  “I’d take my mother’s nagging if only I could take a bath,” Amber said, and stuffed the tiara securely into her rucksack, “but if I quit now, I’ll never know peace for wondering what became of Samira Amenstar and her friends, who resemble you two more than brothers.”

  “I don’t understand that, either,” said Hakiim. “You say this Gheqet looks like me—”

  “Is you, in another life,” she corrected.

  And the mummy is one of you in this life, she added silently.

  “All right, is me. I’m Gheqet and Reiver is this Tafir—except he’s a respectable citizen”—Hakiim grinned as Reiver punched his arm—“but those people are long dead and buried. Their lives have nothing to do with us.”

  “Then why were we drawn here?” Amber countered. “Why was it our fate to find Cursrah and the mummy? Why did it appeal to me for help? Why us three and those three? This is destiny, Hak. A juggernaut has started and can’t be stopped. Great Calim himself fetched us a storm so we might escape and carry on to Cursrah. To return to Memnon is to defy the will of the gods! Out here, something beckons, and I must go back.”

  Bending her shaggy head, Amber retied her kaffiyeh, shouldered her pack and capture noose, and faced the gap in the rocks, toward Cursrah.

  Hakiim and Reiver looked at each other.

  “Maybe you read too many stories, Amb,” Hakiim said.

  “I know I do,” the young woman conceded, “but adventure runs in my blood. My ancestors were pirates, you know.”

  “Mine were servants to genies,” Hakiim sighed and grabbed his pack. “So I best serve as needed.”

  “Thank you, Hakiim.”

  Amber’s smile was genuine and tinged with tears.

  Reiver stood and stretched, yawning. Imperiously, he boasted, “Well, my ancestors were, uh, irresponsible!”

  All three laughed. Reiver, always matter-of-fact, asked, “What if you’re bewitched by that tiara?”

  Amber shrugged and told him, “I can’t help that, can I?”

  Stepping from the rocks, Hakiim cast a last glance at the northern sky and countless stars, then turned west, toward Cursrah.

  Lifting a brown hand, he said, “Destiny beckons.”

  “What’s that moving in the lake bed?” asked Hakiim.

  “Above the lake bed.…” Reiver corrected.

  “By the Killing Wave,” hissed Amber, “it’s a skeleton.”

  Always wary, Reiver had insisted the trio circle Cursrah’s valley and descend its western slopes, because the White Flame’s bandits would surely enter from the east. Plus the travelers desperately needed water. Reiver had seen birds kiting in and out of a hollow just north of the dry lake and guessed it was a water hole. Descending a crumbling staircase to the valley floor, skulking through ruined streets and buildings, the fugitives hadn’t seen any bandits so far, yet undead beings moved in the once-buried city.

  Arrested by movement, the three hid in a tumbledown building like jerboas, the long-hopping desert rats, peered between ragged stone blocks, and collectively scratched their heads.

  The small lake that had once served as Cursrah’s reservoir was now a dusty hollow. In the center, raised like a blunt column, stood a tiny island and shattered pump house. A dozen feet above the lake bed, in thin air, hung a patchwork of splintered planks gaping with holes. A yellowed, creaking skeleton methodically hobbled forward, shoved a stubby pole into thin air, walked backward along the boards, then repeated the motion.

  “What’s it doing?” asked Amber.

  “Poling a barge,” breathed Hakiim. “Like in Memnon’s harbor. You walk to the bow, stab the bottom, walk the barge ahead, and do it again.”

  “But why?” asked Reiver. “There’s no water.”

  “There was,” Amber explained. “Some ghosts perform the same tasks in death that they had in life, over and over. The Tales of Terror tell us that.”

  “I thought ghosts relived a horrid or unfair death,” said Reiver.

  “That too, but most just repeat a chore forever, like a recurring dream or an echo that never dies.”

  “Remember the mules?” asked Hakiim. “They must have been yoked to a grindstone their whole lives, so in death they keep circling the mill. That skeleton must have been an old bargeman. See how he’s humped over—there’s another!”

  All three squinted in mid-morning glare. The lake bed was ringed by shallow stone bowls with tarnished brass spigots; public fountains, long dry. A tiny skeleton in shriveled rags lugged a cracked crock to a fountain. Gently, gratefully, the phantom waited a while by the spigot. Eerily, it bobbed its skull to imaginary companions, then raised a missing hand to the passing bargeman. Soon the small ghost hoisted the crock to a crooked shoulder and trudged away, all in ear-straining silence.

  “An old woman fetching water,” breathed Hakiim. “Like my dame-mother. Catching up on gossip, waving to a friend.”

  “The oldest ghosts must wake first,” mused Amber.

  “Why wake at all?
” Reiver said as he tried to watch everywhere at once. “Why bother? The water won’t return. The city can’t come back to life.”

  “The city uncovered itself,” pondered Amber, “as if it had slept long enough. Maybe Great Calim’s winds released it, or the mummy, or some deep-lying wizard we haven’t met yet. No matter the source, it’s a miracle. Magic like that can do whatever it likes—”

  Amber jumped as a gargling screech spiked the morning silence. The wail began like a jackal’s howl, but then keened into a woman’s scream. Hairs crackled on the listeners’ necks.

  “Something’s very alive down there,” hissed Hakiim.

  “Probably at the water hole,” grated Reiver. “Every living thing in the valley has to visit it eventually … and it’s a perfect place for an ambush.”

  “Ambush?” asked both.

  “If I wanted to kill something I’d creep near the water hole, dig a hidey-hole, and just wait. Unfortunately we need water too, so come on.”

  Peeking like a meerkat, mapping in his mind, Reiver picked a route through more ruins. His friends followed, wary and scarcely breathing.

  Skirting a debris-laden plaza, in the cellar pit of a fallen building, the trio spotted the hollow visited by birds. A jagged crease in the valley floor had been preserved in its natural state. Bedrock had been polished satin-smooth by centuries of feet. A small half dome of white granite was erected at the far end. Under the dome, a sliver of water trickled from rock. The musical babble made the onlookers’ throats ache.

  “Looks like a shrine,” said Hakiim.

  “It’s the only water for ten leagues around,” replied Amber. “It should be sacred.”

  Reiver licked crusted lips and said, “Give me the waterskins. I’ll fetch, you two wait here.”

  Before the others could object, the thief grabbed the botas and scurried off, angling toward the crevice’s entrance.

  From their pit, Amber and Hakiim watched anxiously. A stone clattered behind them and they whirled. An inhumanly tall figure reared over them. Clad in snow leopard’s fur and rags of blankets, the brute waved a spear and roared a challenge. The she-ogre, whose brothers the adventurers helped kill, had lain in ambush and sprung a trap.

  12

  The 383rd Anniversary of the Great Arrival

  “Samir Pallaton demands an audience with Samira Amenstar!”

  Star pricked up her ears as a guard slipped out the tent flaps. She’d spent yet another boring day of imprisonment, one day after collapsing hills cut Cursrah’s lifeline. The princess chafed at being locked up, at being inactive, at not knowing Pallaton’s plans. Now came a soldier bawling her name, and Star would go willingly to be target practice—anything to escape these four canvas walls.

  Outside, Star’s guard demanded, “Sir, I don’t recognize you—”

  “I’m Tafir from the House of Ynamalik Sedulus! One of Oxonsis’s most ancient and noble houses! I’m attached to the personal lifeguards of Samir Pallaton, who wishes to see Samir Amenstar right away!”

  “I beg pardon, Yshah.” The guard caved to a duke’s son. The tent folds batted aside, and the guard urged, “Please come, your majesty, the samir orders you attend.”

  Squinting in the bright sunlight, Star smothered a grin. Tafir wore the red head cloth and linen tunic of an Oxonsin soldier. He stood parade-ground straight with an upright spear. Gheqet slouched before him, staring at the ground in feigned dejection.

  Amenstar meekly fell in beside her friend, and Tafir rapped, “March!”

  The army camp bustled like a beehive. Hundreds of slaves, released from digging the canal, polished shields and armor, curried horses, braided bowstrings, stitched packs, and otherwise prepared for war. At the edge of camp, even a platoon of slaves drilled with spears. A grizzled sergeant bellowed they better march smarter to win their freedom.

  Threading dust and noise, Amenstar joked quietly, “Imagine finding another Tafir in Oxonsis’s army, with a strange name like that.”

  “One of our guards ran after a loose horse. Gheqet lured the other inside, and I jumped him. We took his clothes.” Tafir’s face stayed wooden and disciplined and he added, “I got the uniform because I’m the cadet.”

  “He can bark like a war dog,” Gheqet jibed.

  “Clever,” Star complimented, “but where do we go?”

  “Out of camp, into the tall grass, then creep into the hills. Halt!” Tafir glowered at his prisoners while a water wagon swayed past the dusty street lined with tents. He muttered, “We can’t steal horses from the picket line—it’s watched—but if we hide until the night patrol rides in, they’ll be tired. Maybe we can jump them. I just hope we don’t bump into anyone who knows your face.”

  The dripping wagon passed. Star took one look at the milling crowd and groaned, “Death and damnation … the gods hate me.”

  Opposite stood Samir Pallaton with his bodyguards and advisors. He wore his usual plain tunic, leather cross-straps, and matched swords, and he had added a red silk cape. With fists propped on his belt, the cape fluttered around his elbows. The prince grinned and slowly shook his head.

  “Well, well,” he said, “the princess takes her exercise. Behold the seasoned warrior who escorts her majesty … and such a pitiful prisoner.”

  Striding to the party, Pallaton tugged off Tafir’s head cloth and asked, “Did you kill your guard?”

  “No,” Tafir said, indignant. “Uh, that is, no, Your Majesty. He’s bound in our tent.”

  “And bound for an extra week of night watch.” Flipping the head cloth into the dust, Pallaton addressed Amenstar. “Actually, your brilliant escape precedes my own actions. I was coming to release you.”

  “Release us?” Star blinked. “We’re not—”

  “Hostages?” The samir smiled. “You were. I might have used you to negotiate a surrender from Cursrah. Now that Cursrah’s painted out of the picture, you’re worthless.”

  The samira bristled. “Cursrah is Calim’s Cradle, I’ll remind you. Its library and college—”

  “Are heaps of dusty scrolls in a dry valley,” interrupted the prince, “and the cradle lies empty. Calimshan has matured. Oxonsis no longer needs your dead city. Nor do I need you, Samira, dead or alive. Certainly I don’t need to marry you.”

  The last was delivered with an angry sneer that startled Amenstar. The prince was outwardly cool, she noted, yet his emotions boiled just beneath the surface. Why would he resent her, unless he repudiated an earlier attraction?

  Turning to an aide, the prince barked loud enough for everyone to hear, “Give these foreigners good horses and escort them to the border immediately.”

  Without a backward glance, the prince stormed away.

  “Are we—free?” whispered Gheqet.

  “Free to go where we please,” sighed Amenstar, “but never free of our mistakes.”

  Two long days’ ride found a familiar landmark. The flat slabs that covered Cursrah’s aqueduct undulated across the plains. Their cavalry escort halted at the dusty path. The lieutenant mocked a salute.

  “You can probably find your way from here, Samira. Good day.”

  The troop drummed off to the northeast.

  “I’m glad we’re rid of them,” growled Star. “Smug bastards,”

  “I’m glad we had them,” Tafir said. The cadet still wore the linen tunic of Oxonsis, so quickly had they been hustled from Pallaton’s camp. “How many roving patrols did we spot? We might be prisoners of Zubat or even Coramshan if not for their protection.”

  Gheqet clambered off his horse, stiff and sore. Mincing to the aqueduct, he pried up a small stone slab. The underside displayed damp moss. On hands and knees, the architect’s apprentice stuck his head down the hole, then rocked back on his rump.

  “Gheq,” asked Tafir, “what’s down there?”

  “Nothing.” Gheqet rubbed his curly head, clearly worried. “Almost nothing. Six inches of water at most. I can see moss on the bottom waving in the current. The aqueduct’s never
been this low. Even in the years of drought following the genies’ war there was six feet. Now it’s … six inches.”

  “It’s not the only water that feeds Cursrah,” insisted Star. “It rains in winter sometimes, and the Mother of Flowers gives us water. Calim founded Cursrah around that spring.”

  “It’s just a trickle, Star.” Gheqet levered the slab back over the hole, twisted it tight, and said, “Nomads stopped and filled their waterskins from it, watered their goats, then moved on. You can’t feed a city from a puddle.”

  Amenstar gazed along the gray aqueduct to far off where it dwindled into the horizon. Gheqet shook his head. “Without water to fill it, the aqueduct will cave in. The sides will shift, and the slabs will collapse. Once it fills with sand, no one will ever know it existed.”

  “We’d better mount up,” Tafir advised. He pointed to a party approaching from Cursrah that carried spears at their shoulders hung with bundles. “This could be trouble.”

  “Trouble?”

  Amenstar shook her head as if dazed. She hadn’t sleep well lately. The oncomers were dressed in Cursrah’s uniform, yet lacked the flat collar of a citizen-soldier, so they were foreign mercenaries obviously deserting her father’s army, taking along their short swords and spears. Befuddled, Star was unsure if they suggested danger. Lacking any place to run, she just sat.

  “Good day!” Tafir’s cheer was strained.

  The mercenaries looked up. There were ten men and three women. Besides the weapons, they were burdened with blankets, bulging packs, spare sandals, and two waterskins apiece. A tall man with the light skin of a northerner shrugged so his spear bobbed.

  “The day’s improvin’,” the mercenary said, “now that we’re finally movin’ on.”

  “Where are you bound?” asked the cadet.

  “Uh, north, to the river.” The party stalled to a stop. The leader asked, “You from Oxonsis?”

  Tafir glanced down at his foreign uniform with the red ox head. “No,” he laughed. “We were, uh, guests of Samir Pallaton.”

  “Oh?” The man weighed his words. “And what’s he up to?”