Star of Cursrah

13

The Year of the Gauntlet

With a bloodcurdling roar, the she-ogre attacked. Hot to kill, it didn't stab with the great spear but swung sideways to batter both Amber and Hakiim at once-the humans who'd killed one brother and left the other to die by thunderherders.

Hakiim jumped blindly over the nearest rubble and landed with a crash and grunt. Amber simply ducked, so low her knees hit her jaw. The sweeping spear ticked against her headscarf. Berserk, facing a hated enemy, the ogre roared and snatched back the spear, this time to stab.

Amber's footing was treacherous on skittering pebbles. By the time she dived left or right, that spear would pierce her back and probably erupt out her front, the blade was so long. Unable to dodge, she gasped, bit down on panic, and tried to defend until help arrived.

Amber snapped her capture staff straight up and down before her chest and face. The ogre stabbed with both hands. By grace and good reflexes, Amber knocked the spear aside so it zipped past her shoulder. As the two staves struck, Amber saw the many scalps flap. Again the ogre jabbed in blind fury, and again Amber coolly smacked the spear to the other side, where it chipped stone. The daughter of pirates couldn't parry forever. Any second the giant would change tactics. The ogre didn't even need a weapon, but it could probably kick Amber's head off her shoulders and would, when its slow-thinking brain grew frustrated enough.

As if reading her thoughts, the ogre hauled back its spear, paused, then jumped into the cellar pit almost on Amber's sandaled toes. The alien face was long-jawed, beetle-browed, and shagged like a wolf's mane. The creature stank like a lion's cage. Amber squirmed backward, up a crumbling pile of dirt. She was fixated, almost hypnotized, by the cruel, keen spear point as long as her forearm. The she-ogre could drive that clear through Amber's body and six feet down into dirt. Amber whimpered to think of her scalp added to the dusty string on the spear haft.

"Ugly! Over here!" Reiver's voice sounded from out of sight.

Unused to fighting alone, the ogre hesitated, then tilted on tiptoe to spot the enemy. A lead weight on a chain whirled through the air. With a musical chingl it hit the spear haft and immediately snarled around. The distraction brought Reiver too close, Amber knew, for the garrote chain was short. Still, Amber used the opportunity to scramble up the pit's slope. Hurriedly she prayed to Anachtyr, god of justice, if such a thing as justice existed for mortals.

Amber squawked as the ogre's mighty hand snagged her tunic hem. Worn and weakened cloth tore, but not before Amber was yanked backward. Squawling, she tumbled a few feet and fetched against the ogre's bare legs and great dirty feet.

The giant was barely slowed by Reiver's attack. Snapping its wrists, the she-ogre wrenched the chain from the thief's hand. Amber had the inane thought that Reiver had lost his clever garrote chain for nothing, as the ogre back-stepped to stamp Amber flat as a cockroach.

Amber thrilled as, between the ogre's legs, she saw Hakiim leap down into the pit with his scimitar shining. Gritting his teeth, using two hands, the rug merchant's son slung the wide blade and slammed the ogre squarely behind the knee.

The frantic chop would have felled a small tree, and here it severed twin tendons in the giant's muscle-corded leg. Hamstrung, the she-ogre toppled backward so hard Hakiim had to jump aside or be squashed. The ogre cursed and gargled as it flung out a hand and crashed on rubble and dirt.

"Hang on!" Popping up like a gopher, Reiver grabbed Amber's shoulders with both hands and yanked her from the pit. Clutching her capture staff, Amber was dumped on her butt in the dust.

Vaulting from the pit, Hakiim almost jumped atop her.

"Sorry," he breathed. "Let's go!"

Suddenly, Reiver spun and hopped into the pit.

Amber shrilled, "No, Reiver, come on!"

In seconds, a musical jangle sounded and Reiver dashed around a pile of rubble.

"Now I'm ready," the thief said.

The three ran. Amber thought it idiotic to risk life and limb with a furious if crippled ogre just to regain a chain and weight, but she saved her breath for running. Twisting around fallen walls and broken masonry, the three dashed for the tallest, thickest ruins, simply hoping to hide.

Panting, jogging, Amber marveled that the sister ogre had outwitted them, hiding just as Reiver had warned by the waterhole, patiently waiting for revenge. Amber wondered where the White Flame's band lurked. Had the she-ogre scouted ahead, so the other raiders didn't know its whereabouts? Did they track the fugitives even now?

Another morbid thought intruded. The miserable she-ogre now lay in an abandoned cellar pit, crippled for life, alone, its brothers dead. Oddly, Amber felt a sting of pity. Yes, the giant carried scalps ripped from human victims, and Amber guessed the she-ogre had shown those victims no sympathy. Still, the idea gave the young woman no satisfaction, just a dose of sadness that thinking beings must fight and prey upon each other like animals, here in the harsh desert, or in the mountains, or anywhere else.

Reiver suddenly veered behind a low wall. Hakiim and Amber scooted and crawled to a bite in the wall. Reiver pointed, and the others squinted against noontime glare. Ruins stretched on and on, but nothing moved.

"What?" asked Amber.

"Bandits."

"Are you sure?" Hakiim asked, trying to keep his head down and peek at the same time.

Reiver didn't even answer. Slithering, he signaled them around a corner. Huffing, lying almost flat, and trying to calm her heart's pounding, Amber peered at their surroundings. Nothing but rubble and wreckage, she thought, buildings collapsed centuries ago. Why did they look so familiar?

Bidding them to stay, Reiver scurried like a rat to the far corner, laid flat, and peeked. After a moment, he waggled a finger to move up. Amber balked, then stayed glued when Hakiim nudged her. Ahead, Reiver hissed impatiently. Puckering her brow, Amber tried to remember-what? She'd never been here before.

Reiver hissed again. His fingers signaled feet approaching and surrounding them. Hakiim cleared his throat.

Barely knowing why, Amber pointed north and whispered, "There… we'll be safe there!"

Heads swiveled. North was more of the same, knee-high ruins and scattered slabs, yet Amber shook her head stubbornly. She'd go only there. Biting curses, Reiver slithered north. In seconds, he waved them up to a corner.

Skittering on hands and knees, skulking through broken arches, rocky litter, and pockets of dust, the trio finally settled inside a long rectangle of shattered walls. Nearby, a knee high tiled wall outlined a smaller rectangle.

"Will these accommodations suffice, milady?" Reiver's sarcasm dripped venom like a cobra. "We dived headlong into trouble again. The bandits know we're here."

Muzzy-headed, Amber battled a dream. What had prompted her to come here? There was no place to hide, unless they slithered under rocks like snakes.

Hakiim stiffened, and whispered, "Deny the dragons, look!"

Amber gawked. Along the tile wall paced a cat, tall, lanky, and dead. Yellow fur had scuffed off its tanned leather hide. Skin shrunken around the skull curled lips from sharp fangs, forming a perpetual leer. It had no eyes, just haunted hollow sockets, yet the cat pranced on tiptoe as if hunting undead rats. Ignoring the three humans, the zombie cat stopped and dropped its muzzle over the tiled wall. Skinny hindquarters wriggled, then a paw batted at some invisible treat. Frustrated, the dead cat shrugged and strolled across the courtyard and out of sight. Amber knew where they were.

"This was Star's courtyard," she whispered. "That rectangle was her goldfish pool. The cat stopped for a drink and tried to steal a fish."

Worried about bandits, Hakiim yet recalled one detail of Amber's story and hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

"So this big ruin was her bedroom?" he asked. "Her private wing?"

Foggy, suspended between two ages, Amber rolled to peer into the rubble. A twinge pinged her heart as she surveyed rock and dust. In her mind she'd seen the princess's opulent chambers with their gilt and paint, brilliant frescoes and mosaics, tapestries and rugs, and Star's exotic pets: the saluqis, parrots, the delicate winged cat.

"Yes," she said finally, "these were her rooms. That crypt cat was her ocelot."

"Then there's a secret passage down to the tunnels," Hakiim said. "Watch for us, Reive. We'll try to find the hole."

Slithering over the wall, Amber closed her eyes to recall the wing's layout, then nudged Hakiim left. Crawling, Amber prayed they didn't awaken any adders, who loved ruins for their cool crevices and sunning spots. Pausing at a hollow in the floor, Amber brushed dust off a fallen wall. Colored chips sparkled to show a hippo's foot shod with a sandal.

"Khises, the half man, half hippo hero," she whispered. "Love of Ilmater-does anyone in today's world know of Khises except me?"

"Does anyone know where the damned shaft is?" Hakiim asked as he shifted shattered slabs. "Whatsher-name sneaked down to the cellars from here, true?"

Shaking off reverie and forgotten heroes, Amber helped her friend tug and poke until the crumbled mosaic revealed a square downshaft. Rubble filled the shaft and proved solid when Hakiim kicked with his heel.

"Ibrandul haul them to the Seventh Hell," he cursed. "They filled in the tunnel."

Another hiss made Amber peek over the wall. Reiver twirled his finger around his throat, their signal for "the noose tightens."

Hakiim and Amber scooted over lumps and bumps. Through a gap in a wall Amber saw a black robe flit by, then another. Surrounded, with no place to hide, Amber whimpered to think what the White Flame and her cruel bandits would do. Last time they'd almost scorched the skin from her face. Now they had even more reason to hate her.

Lacking any better plan, Reiver led them across the courtyard and over the tiled parapet. The pool was packed with dried mud, with only a foot of space behind the wall. With no choice, the fugitives lay flat on their bellies in one corner and wished themselves invisible.

Close by Reiver's ear, Amber whispered, "Do the bandits know for sure we're here?"

"They know. Hush." Unable to lift his head, the thief listened carefully.

Hakiim asked, "Do we fight or surrender?"

A patter of sandals on stone warned that bandits converged on their hideout. Amber's heart thudded painfully, and her hands itched to grab her capture noose, to leap and fight or run. If the bandits simply stabbed straight down-

A crackling, crumpling, and thumping resounded, not outside the pool, but within it. Startled by the noise, Amber glimpsed a black-clad bandit who aimed a crossbow at her, then froze and stared. His bearded mouth dropped open, and red-rimmed eyes flew wide.

Amber looked to the pool's center. Petrified mud split with long cracks as something pushed from underneath. Mounds crumbled and tumbled as if giant flowers thrust upward for sunlight. One huge mound spanned a dozen feet, and dust squirted as a monster humped up, flexed broad shoulders, and burst free.

"Mother of Ilmater!" shrieked Amber.

Thirty undead relics of lost Cursrah rose from the polluted pool. Walking skeletons were partly cloaked with petrified earth. Patchy heads showed yellow bone and black-brown mud that had taken the place of flesh. Eye sockets were caked with mud. Arms and hands wore more bone than mud, so the bodies appeared wasted and thin as tree trunks. Stringy rags marked ancient blue uniforms painted with eight-pointed stars. In their claw-like hands hung spears and halberds.

The unthinking zombies leveled their weapons in precise formation, yanked bony feet free of dried mud, and stamped forward, fanning into two half circles to encircle and engage the enemy.

The last zombie to rise was something Amber had only seen in visions. Rearing ten feet tall and twelve long, a giant's scabrous head and torso bulked above the death-ravaged carcass of a rhinoceros. In bony hands big as bushel baskets, the undead rhinaur raised a tall, lyre-shaped halberd. A rusted and rotted leading edge, once sharp, aimed to kill.

A dozen of the White Flame's bandits had rushed into the courtyard but now reeled in shock. Amber also struggled to comprehend the revival of these undead warriors, what they meant, what they intended. Reiver and Hakiim couched in a corner, poised to vault the pool rim and run, even into the midst of the bandits. As the zombies stamped in formation toward them, Amber suddenly understood and grabbed her friends sleeves.

"No, stay! They're-they want to-they're Amenstar's personal guards. Song of El Nar'ysr, they think I'm their princess!"

Indeed, the two half circles of undead guards crunched and clacked like living statues to bracket Amber and her friends in two phalanxes. The giant rhinaur, a phalanx all by herself, bulled across the pool with steps that shook the earth. When her petrified-mud hooves banged the pool rim, stone and tile broke and scattered like spun glass.

The undead juggernaut was too terrible even for desert- and mountain-hardened outlaws. Spinning on their heels, they ran over rubble and ruin, wherever lay the quickest exit. The undead rhinaur-M'saba had been her name, Amber recalled-raised an arm only half fleshed and hurled her lyre-shaped halberd after a bandit. Propelled by that massive arm, the crumbly steel still had power to kill. One point of the lyre blade bit hard into the outlaw's back, tearing a great ragged gash that broke his shoulder blade and collarbone and severed his spine. The man cried out once at the agonizing pain, then flopped and lay still. By the time his jaw crashed on rock, the other bandits had vanished.

Silence.

Peeking at the unliving guards, Hakiim hissed to Amber, "May we-go?"

Reiver nodded hopefully. Amber balked. The devoted guards, or their remains, had saved her life. Even looking at them was difficult, they were so gruesome and grotesque, but each clearly bore an identical slash across his throat, and the towering M'saba wore many axe blows. They'd been beheaded not for their fault but for their mistress's. Loyalty had proved their demise, yet when the princess-or Amber in her guise-was endangered, they'd risen to defend her without hesitation. Their simple, unwavering faith deserved some reward.

Amber had nothing to give except her thanks, yet she hesitated to lie and claim she was the princess. Even ghosts deserved honesty.

Gulping, she finally blurted, "Th-thank you, loyal bodyguards. Thanks for myself and my friends. I–I'm safe."

For a moment, she wondered if the zombies heard or could hear anything. Not one bobbed, or nodded, or bowed.

Reiver whispered, "Can we-"

"Look," breathed Hakiim.

A guard lost a hand. It fell from the wrist without a sound and broke like a clod of dirt on the courtyard flagstones. Another guard's arm fell and burst in a puff of dust. A leg gave out, and a guard toppled. Amber and her companions skipped aside as M'saba, only minutes ago so strong and formidable, keeled over like a sinking ship and smashed into dirt and powder. In seconds all the guards had collapsed. Nothing remained but dry mud and antique bones.

"It's… sad," said Hakiim.

"Yes," Amber whispered, then took a deep breath to keep from crying.

Her emotions ran riot, as if she lived both for herself and for a long-dead princess. Visiting the past in visions might get her killed in the present.

"Look here," Reiver said, crouching near the fallen bandit. Amber knew Reiver had looted the corpse, for no thief could afford to pass up such an opportunity, yet the orphan held a dropped rucksack of camel hide. Stuffed inside was a rich, ivory fur with steel-gray spots. "Snow leopard."

"In the desert?" asked Hakiim.

Amber understood, if only by the spoiled-meat stink. "It came from that ogress. Her comrades must have found her crippled and cut her throat. No other way could they get her fur."

Hakiim gawked. Amber shook her head at the needless cruelty, yet knew she contributed her share. It was, as Hakiim said, sad.

Reiver watched the gaps between walls.

"Come," the thief said. "We need a secure place to hide until dark."

"Secure?" asked Hakiim.

"I won't say 'safe.' In this accursed city, nowhere's safe."

"Sure you won't quit?"

"I'm sure," Hakiim sighed and shook his head. "Adventure seems to be mostly about fright and cold and hunger and fatigue, but I agreed to come, so I'll stick to the end."

"What end?" sniped Reiver.

"Hush," Amber warned, then squeezed both her friends' hands in the darkness. "Thanks, Hak."

The three sat on a high stone ledge with their feet dangling in the air. A shadow among shadows, Reiver had scouted for sanctuary and found this bricked niche, like a curved cave, on the second floor of a ruin. A chimney at the end gave a second escape route, if necessary. Amber didn't recognize the place from her visions of old Cursrah but guessed from the neighborhood it had been a shop or civic building. This pocket might have been a huge bread oven.

Evening ripened, the air cool. The moon had risen before sunset, and Amber donned her silver tiara. Watching the past while talking, she and her friends saw Amenstar drummed from the Oxonsin camp, watched them cross the grasslands, then witnessed the sea genie's escape atop the giant waterspout. They learned how citizens deserted the city in droves while others roamed half mad, glimpsed the wrath of the moon dragon, then fretted at Amenstar's arrest and audience with her implacable parents.

"So what happened?" demanded both boys.

Amber plucked off the tiara, afraid to see more. Condemned by her parents, the princess must surely die with her city, guessed the daughter of pirates. Head spinning, sorrow choking her throat, Amber was glad when Reiver declared it time to go.

Climbing the short chimney to a shattered third floor, the adventurers emerged onto a wide wall that broke away sheer on both sides. Reiver warned them to cling to the chimney lest their silhouettes be seen.

He asked Amber, "Do you recognize anything new, now that you've toured the city through the tiara?"

Pouting, Amber studied the ruins. Light from a quarter moon painted Cursrah with a gentle glow, but nothing could disguise the scars the city had suffered before it died. No wonder, if Cursrah's citizens went wild drunk or half mad. Slowly she matched the vibrant pictures in her head against the silver-lit, cratered landscape, but it more resembled the moon than a world of men.

A slim projecting corner caught her eye, and she said, "That's the Temple of Selune. It was crescent shaped, like the moon, and… there's a half dome, the Temple of Shar, broached by the dragon. See how the streets radiate from the center like spokes in a wheel? The palace was the hub."

Obediently the men looked, but without her mental images they found it hard to recognize the layout. In many places, buildings had slumped across streets and into each other. Some streets and plazas had collapsed into the city's interconnecting tunnels, leaving enormous potholes or elongated depressions like giants' graves. Amber tried to sketch in the air, but the devastation was too disheartening, and she gave up.

"Never mind. Reckon where you would go, and I'll point the way."

They hoped to gain the palace cellars but wanted to stay above ground. Collapsed streets and teetering rubble made them leery of dark tunnels, which might also contain man-made traps or other dangers; pits, snakes, unburied dead, even portals to the Underdark. Not all buildings, such as temples, were linked by tunnels anyway. Mapping various routes, they finally chose a jagged line that promised no obstructions, gave cover, and wouldn't box them in.

Standing up high, they could see that menaces increased by the hour. At first only birds, but now larger animals, ventured into the valley to drink from the sunken spring. Noises carried: the insane laughing of hyenas, the screech of an owl, a crashing of pottery or roof tiles upset by some big body leaping.

Off to the east, in a space that had once been a park with dry fountains and tree stumps, ensued a weird battle. The skeleton of an elephant wagged its bony head and lashed out with bare tusks to protect a skeletal elephant calf that cowered against tall legs of bone. Undead mother and child were threatened by a quartet of live cheetahs. The quick-springing cats, so thin and gaunt they resembled skeletons, worked in pairs, two distracting the cow's front while two more nipped at her missing flanks. Amber and her friends marveled that the cats attacked walking bones. The hungry animals couldn't comprehend that a familiar target was unsuitable for eating.

Reluctant to quit their safe post, the three friends lingered a while, watching and listening, but finally they linked hands and slid down a wall onto heaped bricks. Reiver led, steering by dead reckoning past mounds and walls and gaping holes. They hadn't gone a hundred feet, slipping through an ancient villa, before they found trouble.

Behind a tall mansion with a caved-in roof lay a garden. In Cursrah land had been precious, so the garden was small, perhaps thirty feet square. Neat walkways ran between raised beds. Dry fountains sprouted from the walls. High walls and a thick iron gate threw shadows that prevented the friends from immediately spotting the danger. The first warning was a clicking of enormous claws.

Reiver dodged left into shadows. Hakiim was unsure which way to jump. Behind, Amber belted his shoulder with her capture noose so Hakiim stumbled right. Thus Amber retreated from whatever clicking thing rushed from shadows.

In near darkness, the daughter of pirates saw a bobbing coil curve above head height. At first she imagined an ostrich's head on a sinewy neck, but something low and wide also threatened her front. Startled, with no better defense, Amber snapped her capture noose like a whip. Wood thumped on a surface hard as a teak table. What could this thing be?

A lumpy claw clamped her thigh and squeezed. Amber gargled in pain as twin bony ridges ground at her flesh. In a flash, she knew what had attacked her. Forcing down the pain, Amber batted her sturdy staff low and sideways. A solid tonkl sounded. The claw on her thigh eased its grip, and Amber yanked her leg back. Throbbing, her leg betrayed her and she dropped to one numb knee on sandy tiles between garden rows.

Now, lower, Amber could recognize her assailant silhouetted against the whitewashed mansion. She'd "seen" these brutes before, on parade in the long-lost Palace of the Phoenix. A grotesque manscorpion of a long-lost race, for the creatures were thought extinct throughout Faerun-were still extinct, for this one was undead.

The creature bore a torso like a man's but with skin dark red and hard as an enameled shield. Its coarse face was fixed in a perpetual scowl. The scorpion thorax was segmented and propped by eight bowed legs, and two arms with pincer claws clamped Amber's thigh. The high-arcing tail stinger worried her most. It might be tipped with venom, still potent after centuries of burial. Of all the undead creatures reawakening in this nightmare city, Amber supposed the manscorpions most dangerous, for their desert-seasoned bodies had probably been half desiccated in life. This one had most likely been a mercenary privately hired by the villa's wealthy owner to protect the grounds. It was still intent on its task.

The horror clicked and clacked on the narrow garden path, closing toward Amber while snapping both claws. She was grateful it didn't carry a spear like the palace guards. Scooting backward on one good knee, dragging her deadened thigh, she jabbed at the thing's frowning face with the capture noose. Built low to the ground, the mannish head was below hers, but that meant the stinger tail could fly over its head to impale her. Perhaps it was best she kept to one knee.

"Amber!" Hakiim called from the right. "Which one's you?"

"I'm here! Stay back! I can fend it off-"

"I'll get behind it!"

Eager to help, but clumsy as ever, Hakiim dashed in the dark, stubbed his toes against a raised flower bed, yelped and tumbled, but gamely limped to circle the fiend. Amber yelled, but Hakiim didn't hear over his own panting and scuffling. Where was Reiver?

A clay flowerpot answered. Lobbed from the left, it shattered against the manscorpion's back. Flinching, the beast clicked half around, wary to watch Amber and yet meet the invisible assailant. Another flowerpot thumped in dried weeds. The next crashed on the creature's chest armor. The thing buzzed angrily.

Hakiim limped into the path behind the undead guardian. The manscorpion spun on clicking claws to face the apprentice. Amber saw it hesitate or take aim. The curved tail snapped down; evidently it could strike ahead and behind. Hakiim yelled and dodged as the thing slung its stinger again.

Wishing they'd avoided this garden altogether, Amber freed some rope and flipped her capture noose over the scorpion's mannish arm, then snugged the noose tight. The thing buzzed again, a cluttering noise deep in its gullet, and pulled, strong as a pony.

Amber yelled, "Hak, back up! Get clear so we can run."

Hakiim skipped backward, but that freed the manscorpion to whirl on Amber. Lunging, it tried to nip her belly with its pincer. By bracing her feet and pushing, Amber held the thing at bay. The pincer snapped at the rope. Cursing, she pulled again, wary of a stumble. If she got tangled with the manscorpion, she'd come in range of that stinger. Still, she was reluctant to disengage, not wanting to lose her staff or get spiked in the back. What to do?

"Push it this way!" Reiver appeared from the night carrying a long rectangle-a door. Evidently the thief had slipped the iron pintels off a garden shed, probably where he'd found the flowerpots. Skipping across dead flower beds, the thief hollered, "Get ready to run!"

From a raised flower bed, Reiver swung the awkward door to bat the manscorpion in the face. The thing's buzzing was constant, angry as a giant wasp. As it spun toward Reiver-evidently it wasn't very smart, and could only attack one person at a time-Amber loosed her capture noose.

Hakiim yelled, "Here's an exit!"

Dashing down a walkway toward Hakiim's voice, her thigh wincing at every step, Amber called, "Leave it, Reive-ow! Damn. Run!"

"Coming!"

Making sure Amber was clear, Reiver pitched the door and dodged in its shelter past the manscorpion. He almost made it, but at the last second the guardian's prehensile tail lashed.

Pausing at the door, Amber shrieked as the stinger lanced Reiver in the kidneys and he stumbled. The thief recovered, vaulted a fallen pedestal, and jumped after Amber and Hakiim into a high-walled alley.

"Reiver!" Amber caught her friend's arm. "It stung you-are you poisoned?"

"Not I," Reiver laughed with delight at being alive. Bumbling along in the dark, he boasted, "My camel suffered the damage!"

"Camel?" chirped the two.

"You won't believe it," chuckled Reiver.

Pushing along in the lead, Hakiim insisted, "Believe wha-Shoes of the Shoon!"

The alley gave onto a side street, and Hakiim stepped out directly between two black-robed bandits.

Twisting aside too late, Hakiim was knocked into a wall by a heavy crossbow batting for his head. Rather than defend herself, Amber made the mistake of propping Hakiim. The other bandit slashed down with her scimitar. Amber yelped as the blade flashed, and her wrist blazed with pain. Horror stunned her, and she thought, she cut my hand off!

The flat of the scimitar swung at Amber's face, and she dropped flat, sprawling on the ground to avoid it. Numb fingers pronged the dirt and pain shot to Amber's elbow, but the sting let her understand the attack. The scimitar stroke had been made with the back of the blade. Amber cursed. They want to capture us alive for the White Flame, she thought. For talking as loud as that, we deserve to be punished. A brutal kick bounced her off a wall, and she slumped, half stunned.

The only one left standing, Reiver raised both hands and shouted, "Don't kill me!"

In the ghostly moonlight, wrapped nose to toe in black, the bandits looked flat as shadows, but their weapons glinted like mercury.

The female nomad snarled, "Surrender or suffer!"

"We surrender," Reiver's voice rasped as if he gargled gravel. "Just, please, may I spare a drink? I'm dry as a hyena's hind end."

Not waiting for permission, Reiver looped a cord over his head, and made to drink from his camel-hide water-skin. His power of suggestion had taken root, and the female bandit snatched the waterskin away.

"You can do without!"

"Take care, please, don't spill it," Reiver whined. "The bag has a hole, and we've so little-"

"Bide your tongue."

The nomad jerked aside her headscarf and drank while her companion guarded the prisoners with his crossbow.

Lying at Reiver's feet, Amber touched the thief's leg gently, signaling: "I'm ready to move." The thief pressed her with a knee that said, "Stay put, wait."

The female passed the waterskin to her partner. He drank it dry and pitched it into the street.

"Holed," he said. "It's fit for nothing. Same as you'll be once the White Flame kisses you with fire. Now get-"

"I feel…" the woman gagged and choked. "The water-poisoned."

"Flea bait! Dung beetle!" Tilting his crossbow at Amber, the nomad whipped out a curved jambiya and aimed for Reiver. "I'll carve-carve-oo-ugh."

Reiver leaped clear as the two nomads doubled over and heaved. Amber recoiled from the hot stench, scuttling backward with her heels. Reiver dragged the groggy Hakiim to his feet and shoved him stumbling. Helpless, on their knees, the bandits retched painfully and long. Amber clambered to her feet, and despite a throbbing thigh, slunk away with the slow-moving Hakiim into a wide alley that promised to branch into a maze. In a moment, Reiver caught up, a crossbow, quiver, and scimitar under his arm.

Trotting, they rounded two corners, then hunkered to catch their breath. This time they watched in both directions while Hakiim rubbed his sore head and shoulder and Amber bound a bleeding wrist.

"Where did you get-" panted Amber. "The manscorpion's stinger speared your waterskin!"

"The barb slammed me like a sling ball," chuckled Reiver, "but I never felt a sting. I found a hole in my bota and stuck my finger in it."

"How did you know the poison was still potent? It must be as ancient as the manscorpion itself."

Reiver held up a finger in the dim moonlight. "My finger burned like a bee-sting," he said, "and now those kind bandits have tested it for us."

"Stupid and clumsy of us to blunder into them," muttered Amber. "We should know better by now. We're not smart enough to go adventuring."

Reiver smirked and said, "Some of us are…"

By and by, creeping in half-steps and clinging to shadows as the moon set, the three companions neared the city center. Not far from the dry palace moat, the street dropped into a yawning pit. After a quick consult, the searchers decided to risk entry.

Holding onto Amber's capture noose, Reiver slithered down broken paving stones as silently as a snake. With the crossbow nocked, but eschewing a torch, he probed the darkness on hands and knees, hunting traps. Amber hunched just below street level on rubble, watching till she saw spots, listening until her ears rang. Hakiim nursed a sore head, still dizzy.

Other than the distant gobble of a hyena, Cursrah seemed to sleep-above ground. Down below must be a different story. Any number of monsters could have awakened, and at the bottom dwelled the mummy.

Crouching in the darkness, thoughts whirling in her head, Amber wondered at her dogged pursuit; the irrepressible desire to know what the mummy wanted, why it singled her out for its murky message, its identity…

Even at the risk of life and limb, Amber couldn't leave Cursrah without knowing the final fate of Amenstar, her ancient incarnation and spiritual sister. Curiosity was her curse, Amber thought, and might get her killed like the fabled cat. Her friends, whom she could never thank enough for sticking by her-

A scuffing sounded just up the street, then a musical murmur. Squeezing Hakiim's shoulder for silence, Amber hooked back her headscarf and cupped an ear with her hand.

Silhouetted by stars, four or five nomads talked at an intersection. Two bulky raiders hung back, awaiting orders. They were mongrelmen, shunned even by their comrades, guessed Amber. A nomad waved in her direction, and she ducked instinctively. Peeking, Amber saw three bandits walking, or one shambling, toward her hiding place. Gently she urged Hakiim to slide down the paving blocks. Amber skittered after.

Lingering at the hole where Reiver had disappeared, Amber heard more mumbling. A tentative sandal scuffed up at the pit's edge. As sure as summer sun, they're coming down here, thought the daughter of pirates. The only good news was that the raiders didn't know the Memnonites were also down there.

Shooing Hakiim into the dark tunnel, Amber listened behind-

— and nearly jumped out of her skin when Reiver touched her arm.

Gasping, trying not to curse, Amber grabbed back hard. The thief shook off her grip and tapped her temple. Leaning past Reiver and Hakiim, Amber listened. Down the tunnel, where Reiver had explored, flickered a yellow glow: torches, and the gutter and rumble of nomadic voices.

They were trapped between two hunting parties with no place to go.