Star of Cursrah

15

The Year of the Gauntlet

Trapped between two packs of bandits, with no place to go, Amber and Hakiim went nowhere.

Amber shoved Hakiim against the opposite wall, adding an extra nudge that meant "stay put and don't even breathe." She backed against her wall and tried to flatten herself as thin as paint.

They had a chance, Amber thought wildly. The bandits in the tunnels had torches, and would see them instantly if they crept that way, but the three bandits coming in had no light, so they might miss them. They had to slide down paving blocks and pick past rubble. They'd concentrate on their footing. If Hakiim and Amber melted against the walls, the bandits might pass by.

Might.

Amber tried not to squirm as pebbles clittered and sandals skittered. Reiver had disappeared, as usual. Amber didn't worry. The thief could vanish into a hole like a mouse and pop out anywhere. She heard rough breathing, puffing from the climb, smelled wool robes, dried sweat, camel-dung smoke, and mint tea, heard gravel crunch under a sandal, then a hem swish over stone. The first bandit was past, a man by the size.

The same again, only a smaller blur, a woman spiced with some perfume like cinnamon. She too was past.

A slap and stamp sounded outside. A big rock rattled, then there was a muffled thump as someone half fell and caught himself. Breathing rasped, hot, harsh, and constricted, as if through half-closed nostrils. With a flicker of horror, Amber recalled that the third bandit had straggled well behind the humans as if shunned-the mongrelman, Amber shuddered and mashed herself still flatter against the wall.

Crawling off the wreckage, the mongrelman shambled along the tunnel but stopped instantly when it drew abreast of the hiding Menmonites. The hulk sniffed the air and turned toward Amber surely as if in broad daylight. It had an animal's nose, Amber thought in despair, so they must fight clear. Unless this beast-man passed by-

In pitchy darkness, a hand with dog claws touched Amber's breast and snatched a fold of her filthy tunic. The daughter of pirates exploded into action. In her right hand, the capture noose swooped a half circle to bean the mongrelman's head. It did, just barely, whiffing through the top of its ratty headscarf. The monster was shorter than Amber had guessed. No matter. That nudge was just to gauge where the mongrelman stood and to distract it to look right.

From the left, Amber snaked her wooden billy from her sleeve, grabbed the short handle tight, and swung a vicious arc for the attacker's temple. She didn't swing club fashion, side on, but pointed the club like a dagger because she knew where to strike.

Strike she did, like a meteor. Teakwood punched the mongrelman's skull like a hammer hitting an anvil. A gut-wrenched woof, rancid as a vulture's breath, gushed in Amber's face as the mongrelman collapsed. She jerked her knee so the creature didn't topple against her, clopped it under its chin-or beak-and kicked it flat on its back. Dust billowed, a musty smell, for she couldn't see much.

"What's happening?" hissed Hakiim, nine feet away against the opposite wall.

"Get back up to the street! There's too many-ackl"

Amber flinched as a hand hooked her neck from behind. Gulping, the daughter of pirates flopped and squatted, as she'd been taught in handling slaves. To simply go limp and let your weight drag off an assailant's grip was a good defense, especially since the grabber expected you to stiffen and pull away, not sink. At the same time, Amber thrust her left hand up alongside her chin to force the assailant's arm away. A calloused hand slid up her face, dislodging her headscarf.

Instinctively, Amber fought back. Slavers who didn't cut and thrust didn't survive. Twisting from the questing left hand, Amber rammed her sturdy capture noose backward, then snapped high. The move would either belt the attacker in the gut and double him over, or if she missed, smack him in the plums, providing he was male.

He was. A pained grunt echoed over Amber's head. Without rising, with both hands, Amber jammed her staff's butt for the same spot, a little higher. A satisfying thud told her she'd scored. All this in seconds.

Close up, Hakiim muttered, "I think there's only one, Amber."

"Well, hit him, by Bhaelros!"

Instantly she wanted to retract the command, because Hakiim carried a scimitar, and this tunnel was black, and he could easily kill her too, but a series of rapid chops told her Hakiim whacked the bandit's head with either the back side or flat of his blade.

"I think he's down," Hakiim panted.

"Where's the other one?"

"Which one?"

Only the faintest yellow glow showed far down the tunnel and around a corner.

"Wasn't there a woman?" Wrenching her kaffiyeh into place, Amber tried to listen above her own panting, then said, "There was. Where'd she go?"

"I don't know… perhaps she ran to warn the torch-bearers," gulped Hakiim, fearing the worst as usual.

Talking was useless and stupid, Amber decided. The male and mongrel bandits were down, but that left many still down there.

"Hak," puffed Amber, "let's go back to the street and wait for Reiver."

"No, Hak, let's go down the tunnel," Amber bleated again.

Except Amber hadn't spoken a second time.

"What?" Hakiim was confused. "Which way?"

"To the street," Amber hissed. What was happening?

"No, Hak, it's a trap. Come this way, quickly," said Amber's voice.

Someone's imitating me! Amber realized. Perfectly.

A tree hit her. An arm wrapped in rags, big as a log, it seemed, belted her alongside the head. Staggered, Amber's head kissed stone as she fell. Only her headscarf prevented her scraping her scalp to the bone. The blow made her woozy, and she sank to one knee, propped on the wall.

"Amber," yelped Hakiim. "What-agghl"

The rug merchant's son was kicked or bowled over and crashed in dust. A snuffling snort broke the silence, and there was a clumsy scuffing on gravel. Hakiim grunted explosively as someone stamped on his stomach.

Head spinning, Amber wondered how-then remembered…

The Legends of Those Who Came from Mist told one story of how King Golden Horn's janessars, the paladins and crusaders of the Marching Mountains, battled the hordes of the Goblin King Kurot. They were misled, and a hero died, because a mongrelman imitated a comrade's voice perfectly. As a survival trick, the mongrel race could imitate the speech of men, animals, and birds-and Amber. The mongrelman, tougher than she thought, had shrugged off the head blow from her billy.

Struggling to rise, Amber gasped, "Hak, the mongrel talks just like-"

"I'm all right," piped Hakiim's voice. "Keep talking so I can find you."

Amber had lost her capture staff and couldn't find it, so she clutched her billy.

Crouching low, scooching on her heels, she snapped, "No, because you're not Hakiim!"

Lashing out, she hooked her left hand and billy hard. She almost broke her wrist on the mongrelman's thick leg-which bent backward and might have ended in a hoof-but she snagged the limb, grabbed her billy in her right hand and yanked hard. Its leg whipped from underneath it, and the mongrelman crashed hard on its back. Its head smacked a stone with a noise that was gruesome to hear. A light appeared suddenly in the tunnel, winking on like a firefly. Amber flinched and squinted, and Hakiim gasped.

Reiver crouched, a splinter of wood sparkling in his hand, his garrote chain winking in the other. He'd shielded the light until he was almost upon them.

Frightened, huffing for air, Amber snapped, "Where in the name of nine devils have you been?"

"Exploring." Juggling the candlewood, Reiver reached down his shirt front to pull a string. His silver garrote chain slithered up his sleeve like a snake into hiding. "Let's go," he said. "The way is clear, for the moment."

Frowning, Amber looked to the two bandits. The man was a simple nomad in typical black robes. The mongrelman showed little, for it was layered in rags, but one foot was clubbed and hoofed like a donkey's, and one hand had two fingers and two dog claws. Amber shuddered, but also felt a surprising sympathy. What kind of life could a half-human monster, hideous and unique, expect? Only shunning, slavery, and an early death.

She felt a hot anger against both bandits. She had no desire to fight these people, or anyone, and would rather be left alone. Some of them had manhandled her over a fire without a qualm, and her face still cracked and peeled. The angry memory overwhelmed her, and without thinking she inverted her capture staff and walloped the two bandits on their skulls. The heavy blows left them twitching.

Panting, breast heaving, she realized her friends were watching. Hakiim looked on in horror, Reiver in calm understanding. The thief nodded toward the distant glow. Legs suddenly weak, Amber used her capture staff like a cane to push erect, and the three skulked away.

"There was a woman with them-" Amber started.

"Taken care of," cut off Reiver.

Amber remembered the garrote chain hanging from his hand and asked, "Did you kill her?"

Without turning, the thief countered, "Did you kill those two?"

"Uh, I don't know."

"The same."

Reiver would say no more.

Torches flared throughout the tunnels, islands of light marking turning points in long corridors of gloom.

The White Flame had ordered torches erected at intersections to better hunt treasure, a sign of good organization, yet moneylust had wiped away discipline. Alone or in pairs, bandits fanned throughout the tunnels to tap walls, probe cracks, and ferret out niches. Amber, Hakiim, and Reiver were free to risk their necks picking past the danger spots. They had two advantages because they'd been here before, and Amber possessed a mental picture of the tunnels being used long ago. Yet to avoid raiders, they had to double back and retrace seeming miles of passage. Reiver kept scouting ahead, disappearing more than half the time. Still, they had descended to near the lowest levels before they were spotted.

Two bandits looked their way, dismissed them as comrades in desert robes, then looked again and came trotting.

"Go," hissed Amber.

Skipping, she drew up the rear, keeping a hand on Hakiim's back, and pushing not a little. Tramping into light, they rounded a corner that looked familiar and suggested danger. Hakiim suddenly stalled and Amber plowed into him.

Hakiim gargled, "Gluefloor!"

By the light of a sconced torch, Amber saw the tiny bones of rats and snakes gleaming before Hakiim's dusty toes. If they'd been any hastier…

"Hak, get across on the stepping-stones," Amber said. "I've got an idea."

"Where's Reiver, curse his eyes?" Clutching the wall, Hakiim paced across the bricks they'd laid to one side saying, "He's usually not away from us this long."

"Probably picking a mummy's pocket," Amber said, stepping gingerly over the staggered bricks.

She intended that to be a joke, but the memory of the undead creature waiting in the depths made her shiver, even more now that she knew it was one of her friends, or an ancient counterpart. How had Gheqet or Tafir been made a mummy? Why? How did they all die? Amber's stomach churned for worry about the three friends, though they'd been dead for centuries-or weren't yet, in the mummy's case. Still… no, it was too confusing, so Amber shook it from her mind.

Hopping off the last brick, Amber shoved Hakiim and said, "Get out of sight and wait."

Thankfully he didn't question but skipped into darkness. Just past the dark, glossy patch, Amber dropped to one knee as if she'd fallen. Capture noose under one hand, she peeked behind under her armpit.

The two bandits still pursued. Seasoned outlaws, they didn't bumble down the corridor's center, but slipped around the corner in single file, silent as shadows. Their scimitars were sheathed to keep two hands free, but now each pulled a crook-bladed jambiya. The man and woman split, one leaping across to hug the other wall. Seeing their quarry down and struggling to rise, they never noticed the wet-shiny floor but launched themselves before Amber could escape.

Half skipping, the woman planted a sandal, felt it snag as if in tar, put down her other foot and stuck. Losing her balance, she jerked one foot from a trapped sandal, then slapped her bare sole on the magic glue and stuck permanently.

The man fared worse. Lunging, he stubbed both toes, stuck, and crashed on elbows and knees. Mostly his clothing and dagger caught, but his left hand smacked so his palm held fast. Cursing, he yanked and tore skin. Pain froze him, then fear dawned as he realized his dilemma.

Amber jogged to catch Hakiim, but he threw out an arm to block her.

Ahead, Reiver talked to a stranger at a torchlit intersection, or rather, listened. The thief slouched with slack hands. Before him stood a squat, almost hunchbacked man with rags strung across his shoulders and hips. His skin was ruddy as a sunset, his nose a square blob, his hair grizzled. He spoke low, so the friends couldn't hear, but familiarly, resting a grubby hand on Reiver's shoulder.

"Who's that?" asked Hakiim.

"I've no idea," said Amber. "Some thief Reiver knows from town?"

"More like a ragpicker, and he couldn't have walked all the way from Memnon. He's got no waterskin… or anything else." The three wayfarers were hung like peddlers with packs and water bags and weapons, but the stunted man had nothing.

Amber peeked behind to see if the White Flame's cutthroats followed and asked Hakiim, "What shall we-"

Reiver spotted them and waved a hand. "Hoy." he called, "come hither."

Reluctantly, the two friends joined the thief. Reiver blinked owlishly, as if drunk, and grinned, "Meet my new friend."

"New?" Amber wrinkled her pointed nose. Up close, the stranger stunk like a dog kennel, rank as the ogres. He didn't look friendly. Crooked teeth champed side to side, and baleful brown eyes bored into Amber's soul.

"What's his, uh, your friend's name?" Hakiim hung back.

"Name?" Reiver goggled like an idiot. "Uh, he doesn't…"

Amber found herself staring, unable to pull her eyes from the stranger. The eyes grew bigger, filling her vision, big as desert suns pouring on her head, and just as hot. Those eyes drilled into her mind, making her thoughts grow fuzzy.

"Reive!" yelped Hakiim.

Amber jolted. Reiver collapsed, blacked out. Hakiim lowered the thief to the floor, calling his name. Shaking her head, Amber found her shoulder trapped, for the squat stranger clutched it with dirty nails. Up close, his eyes blurred, hypnotizing-

"Witching!" Amber bleated.

A snarl answered as the stranger batted Amber's face and knocked her against the wall. Stunned, she slid in a heap. Her capture noose clattered on stone. The striking hand was half a paw, she noted, same as the mongrel-man's. Blunt claws had raked her ear and jaw, but they bled without pain in her half-dreaming stupor. Slumped on the cold floor, she saw the squat man hunch over, ready to drop to all fours. Red-roan hair sprouted from his shoulders, his blunt nose turned black, his ears elongated.

Like a jackal, Amber observed in a daze. It was not surprising. Cheetahs and vultures had spiraled into the valley, so why not jackals? The explorers had heard gobbling barks, yet this jackal walked upright like a man.

What was the old adage? "As with men, so with animals." Old ghost stories around campfires recalled lycanthropic curses where men became jackals, called werejackals. There must exist jackals who assumed the shape of men… jackalweres.

"Get back, you," Hakiim commanded.

His hands full tending Reiver, Hakiim fumbled for his scimitar. Animal-quick, the jackalwere lunged. Clawed paws stabbed for Hakiim's face while bristling jaws snapped for his wrist. Hakiim screamed as teeth crunched flesh and bone. He fell, the monster scrabbling atop to tear out his throat.

Weeping silently, too foggy to move-was she mesmerized or concussed? — Amber flailed for her capture staff and didn't even come close. Trying to rise, she toppled over. Through drooping eyelids she saw Hakiim kick ineffectually, but the jackalwere clung, perhaps already gulping his life's blood from a severed throat. From the shadows sprang three more hunchbacks. Jackals always hunted in packs.

This was the end, she thought numbly, killed and shredded in a buried tunnel in a lost valley. Their families would never know their fate, and Amber would never learn the mummy's secret. Fat, salty tears stung her eyes and her gashed cheek. Crying was the only action she could muster.

The three new jackalweres froze and stared at Amber. What did they see? She was no threat, helpless and easily killed. She realized the lycanthropes looked beyond her, down the tunnel.

A sizzle in the air ended in a double thop-thopl as twin crossbow bolts buried in two jackals' midriffs. One fiend mewed like a kitten and clawed the feathered quarrel. The other keeled over and kicked a leg. The lead jackal jerked up its muzzle, so Hakiim's blood glistened in torchlight. The brute scrambled off its victim, skipped to run, but too late. A black wraith swept past Amber, swung a shining steel blade, and slashed the jackalwere's leg to the bone, breaking it. Upset, the monster tumbled across the corridor floor, but bounced up one-legged, slashing claws windmilling to keep its assailant back.

It was no use. A long spear with a cruel barbed point rammed the jackal's throat. The lycanthrope scratched splinters from the shaft as it died. Black robes milled, dust swirled, and two wounded jackalweres were dispatched by keen blades. Blood ran in streams. The fourth jackalwere bounded away with bandits in pursuit.

The White Flame's bandits, Amber realized, had finally caught up. She wanted to feel grateful and lucky, but she knew the raiders would be just as ruthless as the deceitful lycanthropes.

Rough hands tugged at Amber. Fingers probed her gashes and dismissed them. Water splashed in her mouth, which made her retch and roll over. Yet this simple action refreshed her, helped shake off the mind-fogging spell, so she could sit up and rub her face. Her wounds began to throb.

Hakiim slumped against a wall, teeth gritted, while bandits bandaged his sword arm, savaged and mangled by crooked fangs as he protected his throat. Reiver shook his head as if hung over. Amber ruminated, a fine lot of world-beaters we are. We should have stayed home.

The White Flame and a dozen bandits crowded the intersection, their black robes absorbing the meager torchlight. The chief dropped her face veil to expose puckered crisscrossed scars and obscene ridges where she lacked a nose and lips. Amber could now look at the mutilated face without feeling queasy. She should hate this woman for her casual cruelty but didn't; she felt only an overwhelming pity for the woman the White Flame had been.

Always curious, Amber wheezed, "How did you cross the gluefloor?"

The Flame piffed, spittle flying off missing lips, and said, "Only a fool would scavenge without knowing the simplest dispel charm. How else would one disarm a hundred traps?"

With damn fool luck, Amber thought.

Lowering her eyes respectfully, she said, "I–I thank you for rescuing me and my friends-"

Two bandits grabbed Amber's hair and clothes and yanked her upright. The White Flame's skeletal hand slapped Amber's seeping cheek wound. Pain and a fiery itch made her swoon.

"Spare me your prattle, girl. I'd rather slit your nostrils and slice off your ears." The glaring white face loomed inches from Amber's. "I'll behead your friends and gouge out their bowels for vultures unless you lead me to that treasure in the next ten breaths."

"It's down, Qayadin," Amber panted, "deep-not the lowest level, where the mummy guards, but next-to-lowest. The slaves packed tons of treasure and guards bricked up the walls. I can lead you right to it."

Tou'd better." The White Flame wrapped her veil around her face and said, "You'll be watched. Run again, and I'll blind you."

Amber believed her. Braced by two nomads, she pointed the way down the spiraling tunnel. Terror made her take mincing steps as if crossing hot coals.

Queer though, she reflected, the White Flame never asked about the mummy.

"Here."

The bandits frowned at a blank wall. Amber pointed at the first of many griffon-head wall sconces, brass tarnished gray-green.

"Amenstar was escorted past this corridor as slaves piled treasure."

A nomad woman tilted back her headscarf to peer at the wall. Blue dots were tattooed on her chin, and two blue lines downturned from her mouth, as if to deepen a frown.

"I see nothing-"

"No, the flatlander is right!" A scruffy-bearded dwarf bustled up, wedged a dagger blade into a cleft, and said, "See these cracks-like spider webs? Limestone doesn't fracture that way. Amateurs-they mixed dirt into the mortar as a disguise, but it weakened the coating."

The dwarf rapped at the fracture with the pommel of his dagger. Mortar crumbled to reveal lime-whitened bricks.

"Tear it down," commanded the White Flame.

Eager hands pried with daggers and pounded with rocks to expose ancient bricks. Normally taciturn, even the nomads and mountain folk quivered and gibbered with excitement. The dwarfs fist hammered, and a dozen bricks cascaded inside. Heedless of traps, he rammed his arm into the hole and rummaged around.

Fairly dancing in place, nomads demanded, "Well?"

The dwarf jerked his arm back. A fistful of gold glittered. A ruby fell to the floor. A pearl necklace with a malachite pendant hung from a sausage-like finger. The dwarfs bearded mouth pursed, like a girl expecting a kiss.

He squeaked, "It's-real!"

Bricks were ripped out by a dozen hands, then everyone stopped in shock and amazement.

Torches glistened wetly on heaps within the vault. Light winked and sparkled on gold like liquid sunshine, along with gems, jeweled daggers, a crown, candlesticks, a silver mask, a tea tray, and much more in stacks high as a man's head. As nomads yanked away lower bricks, gold coins chinged and pinged on the stone floor like kernels of wheat. The hardened warriors barely paused when a half dozen skeletons clattered out, but they crunched the bones underfoot to grab loot.

Whooping, crying, keening, laughing, people caught coins, juggled them, reveled in their fatty cold feel, showed their comrades, stuffed pockets and pouches, and drooled over exotic jewelry and artifacts. Amber noted even the White Flame seemed pleased. With her head held high, and her veil in place, she might have been a queen.

"Go ahead, my faithful ones," the bandit leader exclaimed. "Take it all! It's yours!"

Even Amber marveled at the cascade of wealth. She'd glimpsed treasures in her tiara's visions, but dim pictures couldn't compare with this tumbling haystack of gold, precious stones, and ancient gifts. Hakiim and Reiver were breathless.

The thief muttered, "There's more than they can haul away. This tribe would need ten trips to steal a fraction of it."

"And it's only one chamber," gushed Hakiim. "Amber said there were dozens of chambers like it, and none of this is even stealing… I mean, it's free for the taking. Everyone who's ever even heard of this city is dead."

Except the mummy, thought Amber, who's partly alive, or undead, or hung in some awful limbo between.

Nomads dug deep. Out came antique jewelry, gem-studded books, a gilded bird cage, a hand-carved staff topped with ivory, an ornamental helmet. Even non-precious items, such as a turquoise jar stippled with black marks that Amber recognized. Standing on the floor and buried in coins was a queer framework bristling with tin horns and flutes and tubes to conduct water. Not understanding the latter contraption, the nomads twisted off the instruments and bladders to dig out the gems beneath.

"What's that thing?" asked Hakiim.

"The clepsydra. Part of it." To puzzled glances, Amber explained, "The wonderful music-making engine I told you about. When it's all together, you pour water into the top, and I don't know, bladders squeeze so horns and flutes play tunes."

Both men shook their heads, and Hakiim asked, "How could the ancient ones build incredible engines that we don't comprehend? How did our ancestors forget such valuable knowledge?"

"No one wrote it down," stated Amber, "so the knowledge vanished. Like the whole history of Cursrah… lost to the wind."

If I get out of here alive, Amber silently vowed, I'll write Cursrah's history and see it's not lost.

Amber saw Reiver flick his eyes in two directions. The bandits had clearly forgotten their prisoners. The three could have slunk away if the White Flame hadn't stood beside.

Taking a deep breath, Amber asked humbly, "Qayadin, we've found you treasure. May we go?"

"Go?" Whirling, the White Flame doffed her veil, a tactic to shock her audience, and said, "Are you mad? Think me a scatterbrain? This cannot be all the empire's treasure. You'll uncover the rest, or I'll flog the skin off your back!"

Amber was tired of ingratitude, dire threats and torment, and for being punished when she'd done nothing to this woman. Still, she curbed her tongue, saying only, "A dozen more vaults line this corridor, Great Chief-"

"I need magicks!" The Flame's rasp was as dry and scratchy as an adder's belly. "Gold will buy the army I need, but my enemies employ sorcerers who erect mighty shields and wards. I need ancient magic, powerful and unknown, to crush the stinking carcasses of my enemies into paste!"

She rattled on while nomads scooped loot and Amber and her friends feigned interest. All Amber could think was to get to the mummy and learn its otherworldly purpose-and its identity.

How to escape…?

Her eyes fell on the blueware jar streaked with black marks and before she'd fully thought out a plan, she blurted, "That's powerful magic. A genie jar! I saw it introduced at the princess's ball."

"Genie? By the pate of the Pretender! Hand it hither, quickly, you fools."

Transformed by promises of revenge, the White Flame's hands shook as she squatted over the jar and attacked the beeswax seal with her dagger.

"A genie," the White Flame muttered. "If but one of these is entrapped-"

At the first leak of fresh air, the jar's lid blew off and shattered against the ceiling. In the blink of an eye the corridor was obscured as a howling dervish boiled from the jar like a monstrous swarm of wasps.

At the first hiss, Amber spun and grabbed hold of Hakiim and Reiver; she alone knew the fury about to be unleashed.

Trapped in a narrow tunnel, at full power, with no sphere of protection to contain it, the wind walker raged like a tornado. Boiling upward in a tower of terror, the elemental struck the ceiling, mushroomed sideways and bounced off the walls, billowed downward and ricocheted off the floor, and so on, growing all the time. To those who slit their eyes enough to see, the whirling cloud seemed like a thousand rearing, hissing, spitting, angry cobras.

Each time the collective elemental hit a surface, a hundred counterparts spun off. The hundred hundred smaller billows engorged themselves on raw energy until they struck yet another surface and split and grew again. The roaring dervish threatened to flood all the tunnels below Cursrah before finding an exit.

To the humans cowering and clutching the stone floor, being trapped inside the elemental's storm was like being shaken in a bottle. Amber and her friends were whip-stung in a hundred places as the zephyrs picked up sand and pebbles and hurled it like hail. Their skin was peppered raw, their hair and clothes were filled with sand, their clothing was drummed until fibers unraveled and leather abraded.

The furious pace increased as each new portion of the elemental storm set its neighbors spinning faster. In seconds the tornado doubled, redoubled, and quadrupled. Noise was a howling, screaming, shrieking tumult so loud the listeners' skulls felt full of jangling metal. They discovered the air really was full of flying metal, as the whirlwind whisked up heavy gold coins and flung them everywhere. A silver coin dinged Amber's knuckles and drew blood. The walls were rapped a thousand times by metal hail, until Amber feared the living storm would flay them to bones.

She couldn't see, didn't dare unscrunch her eyes lest she be blinded. Calling to her friends was useless, for she couldn't outshout a hurricane. Even thumping on their backs didn't send a message, for they assumed it was abuse from the storm.

Finally Amber just grabbed cloth and pulled, tugging her friends along bodily. Eager to go, they crawled. Reiver kept his shoulder pressed against the stone wall as a guide. Hakiim hung back to pull Amber along, but she punched him to get moving.

Together, like a hail-hammered, six-legged turtle, they crawled toward freedom. Winds whipped their bodies, stole their breath, chipped their skin, and yanked at their clothing until they were choked and tangled. The creeping journey seemed to take forever, and yet they made no progress. Amber ached from fighting even to remain on her hands and knees.

Suppose, she fretted, suppose I've unleashed too much? Suppose the wind walker expands to fill the tunnels, then bursts free of the ground? Could it fill the entire valley of Cursrah, whipping and whirling and screaming until the very stones and bedrock were ground to powder? Was such a thing possible, even for magic? She hoped not, because she and her friends would be atoms of blood and bone long before it happened.

Dragging herself along the wall, Amber bumped into Hakiim. He'd stopped, worn down, desperate for rest. They'd die if they stopped, Amber was sure. With bleeding hands, she clutched Hakiim's collar, then thought to check Reiver ahead. He'd stopped too, huddled like a whipped dog, hugging the floor. Unable to see or hear, and barely able to feel the pounding hurricane, Amber dragged both young men after her, around and around the endless spiral. Many times her straining hands slipped free, but always she caught cloth and tugged them on. By willpower more than strength, she got her friends moving again, staggering as they crawled, blundering down seeming miles of stone floor, with the whirlwind shrieking at them every inch.

Gradually, with agonizing slowness, the maelstrom eased. Winds that had threatened to lift them off the ground and batter them against stone walls became only an annoyance, then a storm heard but not seen, and finally a distant rumble like a stampede over an unseen horizon. The travelers continued to crawl, on and on, for their ears rang so loudly, and their bodies were so battered, they didn't know the elemental storm had abated.

Finally, when they could go no farther, they crawled into a niche in the wall and slept. In haunted dreams, Amber imagined meeting the undead thing that waited in the depths.

The exhausted adventurers roused slowly. Amber shook her head and swore her brain rattled, then snapped her fingers to assure she wasn't deaf. Hakiim croaked for water. Reiver rubbed a blistered face with numb and bleeding hands.

To both their surprise, Amber pulled her magical tiara from her pack. Having sipped a mouthful of water, and chewed a few dried dates, she lay on her back and eased the tiara onto her temples.

"What are you doing?" asked Hakiim. "Is that wise, right now?"

"Is it nighttime?" Normally Reiver knew instinctively the time of day, but even he was fuddled. "Will the moon have risen?"

Waving away their objections with eyes closed, Amber propped one arm under her head and drifted into visions of another time, another world. As she tried to relax to better observe, questions kept churning and disrupting the picture, like bubbles disturbing a pond.

What happened to Amenstar? How was the mummy created, and why? Who'd suffered in its horrific creation? The most terrifying thought of all was that deep down she already knew the answers.