Star of Cursrah

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-ahl"

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."

"Sure," Reiver croaked. "Why not trip three and drill the whole corridor?"

"If they weren't corroded and stuck…" Amber said, turning to her other companion. "Did you see that, Hak? Hak! What's wrong?"

Facing a side tunnel, Hakiim stood stock still, his eyes raised to a stone lintel above a doorway. This main tunnel that spiraled down under the palace, they'd found, branched often and irregularly. Unlike the neat circular layout above ground that Reiver had commented on, the underground tunnels jutted at odd angles, curled back on themselves, shortcut through solid walls, were braced by lintels and stone posts, and showed gouged-out niches and closets and drain holes. The honeycombs had been used for centuries, Reiver guessed, and masons had constantly enlarged them and shaved them and tinkered with them. Intersections required arrows and pic-tographs. No doubt the twisting tunnels had confused ancient messengers, porters, and servants just as much as modern explorers.

Still Amber couldn't understand why Hakiim was fascinated by a painted image on a lintel. Thick black lines formed an all-seeing eye complete with lashes and tear ducts. She wondered what it signified. This way to the Eyeball Wing? To the fortunetellers? To the beauticians' boutiques?

As Amber stared, the glaring eye beckoned, until she shuffled beside Hakiim. The black-rimmed orb held her rigid attention, made her stand still and wonder what came next. The eye filled her vision and mind. Patiently Amber waited, staring back, content to remain rooted forever. The eye would talk, she hoped, and reveal a secret or grand truth, and then she'd know… what? Amber couldn't imagine. So she waited-

— until a grimy headscarf dropped over her face and blinded her.

Startled, Amber snatched at the cloth, but Reiver spun her around as if playing Blind Man's Bluff before removing the scarf.

She snapped, "What are you doing?"

"Rescuing you," answered the smiling thief. "So much for gratitude."

"Rescuing-" Amber shook her fuddled head. "Wait, where's Hak gone?"

"No, you don't," Reiver said, and grabbed her arm before she could spin again. "Stay here and don't turn around."

Eyes on the floor, Reiver skulked behind Hakiim and repeated his blindfolded rescue. Hakiim was even more fuddled, teetering on his feet, shaking his head as if drunk.

"What-" he started, "What's wrong with me?"

"You're beguiled." Reiver crooked his fingers to form a big ring around one eye. Bug-eyed, leering, he intoned, "Stand and deliver, puny mortal! I am the All-Conquering OrbofEye-See-You!"

Amber whapped his arm and said, "Stop it!"

"Eye? What eye?"

Muzzyheaded, Hakiim made to turn, but his friends caught his sleeves and towed him away.

"It's a magic ward, a fixed spell of protection," Reiver explained. "We find them all the time in Memnon. You use a potioned paint and chant a charm while painting the sigil: an eye or a hand, or a shooting star, anything. They're one reason housebreakers work in teams."

Amber didn't want details of her friend's crime-ridden life, and the memory of that beguiling eye made her shiver despite the licking heat of her torch. She'd have stood there until doomsday waiting for nothing.

"Thank you for the rescue, Reive," Amber said. "Now I'll display further ignorance with a question. How could these tunnels be used so often by common people, yet sport deadly traps like arrows in murder holes and enchanting glyphs? Surely they didn't expect water bearers and dung carriers to jump over pressure plates in the floor or not to see beguiling runes."

Reiver pointed at the ceiling and said, "Think, Curly-top. What happened to the Phoenix Palace?"

"The whole upper works were demolished."

"Right. Someone-or many someones-tore the walls down and threw them into the moat. Obviously the palace wasn't needed any more. They piled that stone hut out of pieces of rubble and enchanted the moonstone as another magical trap. These tunnels under the palace weren't needed either, so they were trapped too."

"What do the traps protect?" Amber asked, though she thought she knew the answer. There was a mysterious "great treasure" that she'd glimpsed in her mind.

"A better question is, why destroy the palace?" asked Hakiim. "The city's pasha has to live somewhere."

Reiver shrugged and offered, "Maybe they destroyed the pasha too."

"Cheery thought," grumped Hakiim. He looked over his shoulder as if expecting ghosts.

Careful of their footing and trying to look everywhere without being mesmerized again, which they realized made no sense, the friends trudged onward. The main corridor always ran round and sloped down. Amber insisted they stick to it. They found dust and side passages, and once a fistful of loot: coins of gold and electrum, and two milky jewels that Reiver identified as malachite, a semiprecious stone beloved by dwarves.

They divided the goods as evenly as possible, but Hakiim groused, "Not much treasure for such a huge palace."

Reiver snorted. "You wouldn't find coins and gems lying in the corridors of the Sultan's Palace in Memnon, either," he said. "People lock treasure away. These are just dribbets someone spilled hurrying somewhere… maybe running for his life."

Reiver glanced around the tunnel walls, dipped his failing torch to brighten it, failed, so tipped another resin-needle ball into the iron tongs.

As the light increased, he said, "Probably there's loot hidden behind these false walls, but there are so many-"

"What false walls?" his two friends asked in unison.

Stepping to a seemingly solid wall, Reiver blew at dust and scritched his dirty fingernails in an invisible crack.

"Do you see?"

"No," answered both.

With the sigh of a professional suffering amateurs, Reiver handed his torch to Amber and untied the grimy black sash from around his skinny waist.

Squinting, he mimicked an aged lecturer's warbly voice, saying, "Question: why do thieves, who are poor, always wear expensive silk sashes? Anyone? Didn't you dunderheads attend yesterday's lecture? The answer is: a silk sash is a tool of the trade. Remember that everything a thief carries has two or three uses."

Snapping the sash flat, Reiver laid it against the blank wall and in a normal voice said, "Feel."

Tentatively, Amber put her fingers against the scarf, traced a small circle, and said, "Blocks."

"Let me," Hakiim said. Sure enough, Hakiim felt the outline of square bricks under his own fingertips.

" 'What the eye misses, the heart perceives,' " quoted Reiver, "or a thief's fingers find, since gold is near to our hearts. The silk is thin enough to let your fingers feel the creases, and smooth enough to slide over stone. The trick finds dents and cracks in precious metals too, like a punch bowl or a bracelet, to see if it's been repaired, or to find patched paint on a carved chest-"

"What are we waiting for?" Hakiim cut in. "Let's open the wall and see what's inside."

Reiver and Amber just looked at him while Hakiim thought.

"Oh," he said finally. "No tools."

"It might contain nothing," added Reiver. "We've passed a dozen bricked-up doors. I don't bang my head against walls unless I know there's a reward on the other side."

"How can we find out?" asked the rug merchant's son. The thief just shrugged, so they moved on… and on, steadily spiraling downward. There were fewer rusted traps, but two beguiling eyes. Once they heard vague whispers like voices, but they couldn't locate the source nor discern the words, so they moved on again. Black, gaping doorways revealed rooms one or two deep that stank of chemicals and rot. Ancient jars and pots, crusted and dry, and rusted butchers' tools and dusty bandages marked the lair of alchemists or apothecaries. The furniture consisted mostly of crooked shelves, marble slabs, and soapstone sinks. A few doors were partly bricked up, some ancient mason having quit before finishing.

Reiver pointed a torch at a corner and said, "I wonder who they were."

Amber peeked under a table where lay two forgotten skeletons, the bones scrambled by scavengers. "We'll never know," she said, "poor things." Amber shivered, for the dank air was chill. The searchers passed on.

The walls grew solid, with no more intersecting tunnels. Reiver assumed they were in the true cellars of the palace, below the common traffic.

Amber called a brief halt, and they ate dried dates, scorchmeat, and pine nuts, which made them thirsty. They sipped sparingly of water, since they didn't know if this dead city birthed any living springs. Their stomachs fluttered as they pressed on, for all sensed they neared their goal.

They drew up short when Reiver suddenly blocked the way with a scrawny arm. Amber and Hakiim crowded, but leery of traps, didn't push past. The passageway bulged at an intersection where a ramp and wide stairway both ascended. The floor common to all three was black. Unlike other stretches of tunnel the floor here glistened as if wet and lay free of dust.

"It can't be wet, can it?" asked Amber.

"Looks like rock oil," said Hakiim.

"What's rock oil?" asked the other two.

"Black goop you find in the desert in pools or floating on a dead marsh. It's black and burns. It stinks too. Sheep and goats sometimes blunder into it and sink."

"Maybe that's what killed these vermin," Reiver said, crouching.

Torchlight revealed bunches of bones like matchwood. Rats and snakes had stopped just inside the shiny patch. In one case, a rat skeleton lay a cubit into the black area. Close behind lay the curved form of a rat snake.

"It must be poison," Amber whispered. "You see dead goats and even vulture skeletons at pools of bad water. This looks the same, but there's no water. Maybe it's dried up, but then it'd be dusty."

"If it's like the other traps it's corroded, or its power has faded." Hakiim scratched his ear and ventured, "So we can walk across?''

"Odd poison," Reiver said, shaking his head. "That rat was running for its life, and the snake slithered hard behind. They went fast, so crossed farther into whatever this gunk is. These other rats and things got caught at the edge, so they were walking. It'd be quick acting poison to soak through their feet and stop them cold."

Frowning, Reiver fished in a pouch and drew out a string of rawhide. He touched the line to the black gleam and it stuck fast.

"Teeth of the First Trader," chirped Amber. "These poor rats just stuck there till they starved to death?" "You die of thirst first," Reiver told her. He jerked the rawhide hard until it snapped. The trapped length stayed stuck. The three scratched their heads.

"It's, uh, magic glue?" asked Hakiim. "Or just the gummiest glue ever made," admitted Reiver.

"Can we circle around?" asked Amber. "We must reach the lowest level."

The young men looked at their friend. "How strong is this compulsion?" Reiver asked casually. "If Hak and I trussed you up and toted you to the surface, would you struggle? Fight us? Go raving mad?"

Hakiim hissed, and Amber made the fig sign to ward off evil. The notion of not venturing deeper sent panic sizzling through her. Shivering, she tried to sound calm.

"We've done all right so far," she said. "We can reach the bottom… and the treasure."

Hakiim sighed but thought too of things he could buy with gold. Reiver just shrugged.

"You have to die of something." The thief returned to their current dilemma, adding, "Many people in the paintings went barefoot, right?" Reiver wiggled his own dirty, bare toes. "Leather sticks, so sandals and skin would stick. Let's try something else."

Producing the lead fishing weight, Reiver attached it to his garrote chain. Careful not to fall forward, he flipped the weight onto the shiny blackness, then dragged it back.

"Lead doesn't stick!" said Hakiim.

"Nor would steel hobnails, such as soldiers wear." Reiver rubbed his chin. "Maybe only palace guards ventured past this point."

"Because there's treasure on the far side," gushed Hakiim.

"A good guess. Now what can we tread on that's not leather?"

"I know," Hakiim said. He whirled and trotted back up the sloping corridor, then returned with an armload of bricks. "Stepping stones!"

In a few minutes they'd plunked bricks on the shiny floor, crouched atop them, and bridged farther. With a thief's instinct to leave the least trace, Reiver laid the bricks close to one wall, which also gave handholds. Still Amber and Hakiim held their breath as Reiver stepped from brick to brick to the far side.

Balancing, the thief joked, "If I slip, you'll have to saw my foot off at the ankle."

His friends didn't laugh. Hugging the wall, the other two got across safely.

Reiver pointed his torch at the descending darkness and said, "The last stretch."

"I'll lead," said Amber.

Amber's heart clanged like a leper's bell as she peeked around a corner. Straight ahead, in a short corridor wreathed in shadows, loomed two huge figures with poised halberds.

Reiver said over his friends' panting, "A real guard would've cloven us in half by now."

Slowly, barely breathing, the adventurers crept to within six feet of the armed figures. Guarding the short corridor were two huge demihumans, a man and woman. Each had a huge nose topped by a bump, curled and pointed ears, kinky, thick hair, fat-fingered hands, and the the body of a rhinoceros. Each loomed almost ten feet high, and their curious halberds with lyre-shaped blades were just as tall. They wore leather armor across their thick chests and mantles over their hindquarters like war-horses. Each statue was inches thick with dust, but underneath lay bright and precise paint.

"Rhino people?" breathed Hakiirn.

"Not even in The Tales To Be Remembered have I heard of such things," added Amber, "and look there."

There were more guards, and Amber and Hakiim gasped. Eight were human, dressed in old-fashioned red tunics, holding spears and tall, triangular shields. Two more demihumans stood or rather crouched behind. Their upper torsos were human, with ruddy and rough skin, but their hands were three-fingered claws. Their torsos were segmented armor and they stood on eight spidery legs.

"Manscorpions," breathed Hakiim. "I thought the last of them died out ages ago."

"They may have been standing here for ages or more," countered Reiver. "See what they guard?"

Past the phalanx of guards stood solid double doors. A bisected phoenix of gold glittered in the torchlight.

"These are marvelous statues," Hakiim said. He poked a rhinaur and found it hard as marble.

"They resemble the Askar of Stone who killed Wythal the Vile," murmured Amber.

"Before we go past," Reiver cautioned, and lowered his torch, "first look at the floor."

All the tunnel floors had been plain stone or fitted stone that bridged holes. This short corridor was laid with square flagstones of polished, pink-white marble same as the palace far above, but with one difference. Here each tile bore a central hole big enough to pass a wine bottle through.

Spooked but still game, Amber went first, creeping down the corridor careful not to touch the cold statues or step on a hole. Her hands shook as she handed Hakiim her torch and pushed at the heavy doors. They resisted, crumbs of cedar resin trickling from cracks. Amber shoved harder, and the doors popped open.

She stopped, stunned, then said, "It's the palace all over again."

Like its twin far above, the room was round, paved with pink-white marble and painted with colorful frescoes that glowed even under a coat of dust. Seven false doorways were painted black, as were the backs of the doors they'd opened. Arches and columns ornately carved with zigzags supported a domed ceiling. Recessed was a circle inlaid with a nighttime mosaic of stars and a crescent moon, so the intruders realized the original Phoenix Palace must have boasted an open roof. The room was slightly smaller, all the floor tiles had the same fist-sized hole, and this room was occupied.

Mostly they were guards, Amber noted, packed as tightly as sardines in a net. Soldiers ringed the room in ranks five deep, the only clear space being here by the doors. There were five hundred or more, Amber guessed, and a tenth of them rhinaurs or manscorpions, all at rigid attention with spears or halberds upright. The hall's center sported a raised dais, and more soldiers were ranked elbow to elbow around it, facing outward, dusty and blank-eyed.

Amber whispered, "Just soldiers?"

"No," the thief said. Taller than Amber, Reiver could see past the guards ringing the dais. "Someone else."

On mouse feet the three friends minced up to the outward facing soldiers and peeked between them. The first ranks were servants, to judge by their simple clothes and close-cropped heads. Then came files of ornate courtiers or advisors or secretaries, their gaudy colors muted by dust. Behind them clustered occult priests with shaven skulls branded with bizarre sigils. Some sixty statues formed the ring, Amber guessed.

At the very center, directly under the fake crescent moon sky, was grouped a family.

Hakiim blurted, "That's the pasha!"

"Is this it?" Amber wondered aloud. "What I heard in the summons? The city's 'greatest treasure' is statues of a royal family?"

On a low chair sat a dour man with a hawk's nose, striped headcloth, and a headband in the shape of an upright cobra. Flanking him were four women of various ages, regal and serene, obviously queens. Ranged nearby, all facing out, were two dozen relatives from ancient crones to children. All were still, silent, layered with age and dust, mute. Silence, threatening and smothering as darkness, pressed upon the living trio as they circled the ring of soldiers to glimpse all the royal family.

"Amber," squeaked Hakiim, "this one looks like you!"

Slowly, as if she'd expected this discovery all along, Amber squeezed between two guards and stepped up onto the dais. A young woman stood arrow straight, haughty nose and chin high, full lips pouting. A princess, Amber realized, with the same square shoulders, modest upthrust bosom, and (Amber noted with disgust) milk cow hips. The statue's hair was braided into cornrows and beads, while Amber's blew like a lion's mane, but both were black topped. Amber might have been gazing into an antique mirror.

"What does it mean?" Hakiim asked. "Is she-you?"

"Amber in an earlier life," marveled Reiver.

Amber didn't hear. On the princess's head rested an enscrolled tiara set with a square stone. Yet something looked odd. Amber saw gaps between the tiara's band and the woman's cornrows. No one could have carved a statue that intricate, she knew.

With icy calm, Amber's calloused thumb stroked the tiara's moonstone. Dust brushed away to reveal a dull glow. With a tiny trickle of dust, Amber plucked the tiara from her stone counterpart's brow. A nervous laugh burst from her.

"Look," she said, "it's real! Real silver, and a true moonstone."

"Better put it back," Hakiim said, and his torch jiggled. "When you touched the moon globe, it triggered a sandstorm."

Reiver echoed the warning, then both of them shouted, "Amber, no!"

Before she could be stopped, or stop herself, Amber flicked back her headscarf and tugged the tiara onto her brow.

Scowling, worried, Hakiim and Reiver squeezed between statues and bracketed Amber, terrified of what might happen. Amber's dark eyes burned queerly under the silver band and lustrous moonstone.

Waiting, waiting… until Amber said, "Nothing."

"Good!" Hakiim gushed. "You shouldn't-"

In the suffocating silence came a scuffle and a scrape. Amber, Reiver, and Hakiim stopped breathing.

There was a shuffle and the jangle of jewelry, and into the pool of their torchlight shambled a dingy yellow figure. Shuffling, lurching, a figure wrapped in rotted rags approached the ring of statues. Powdery bandages covered the creature's limbs, torso, and head. Crackling at every step, the wrappings shed resin dust and crumbs of herbs. Only the monster's hands were bare, the bandages having shorn off like milkweed. Petrified skin was the color of tea. A double chain of silver, tarnished black, encircled its neck. Suspended on its breast, a red jewel shone like a dragon's eye, like a funeral pyre, like fresh blood.

Gargling at first, when Reiver finally found his voice he shrieked, "Run!"

Like swans taking flight, the three companions bolted. They rammed at the line of soldier statues, ducking and scrambling to get away.

The mummy only needed to crook stiff fingers to stop them. The intruders plowed to a halt as the "statues" abruptly moved. A dozen soldiers slanted spears to block their path and stamped stone legs as awkward as tree roots to form a wall stemming their escape.

Minds racing with terror, the trio whirled to skirt the statues. Diving and slithering between stone legs, they squirmed free of the trap.

The mummy slowly curled both brown hands and waggled its fingers twice, as if giving the tiniest push.

Hakiim and Reiver screamed so loudly and so harshly that Amber thought their brains had burst. Jerking and twisting as if struck by lightning, the two young men fell on their backs like crippled turtles. They beat their heads, thrashed their arms, tore their clothing and hair, and screamed as if to split their throats. Catching sight of the mummy, they clawed at the marble to get away, crabbing across the polished floor like madmen. They were mad, Amber realized, paralyzed with insanity, reduced by terror to gibbering idiots. Spittle flew from their lips as they beat the floor and themselves, crawling in no direction except away from the mummy. Too scared to stand and run, they fetched up against the wooden legs of the blockading statues and squealed like rabbits. Their dropped torches burned on the polished floor, the light half extinguished but doubled by reflection to cast an evil red glow over the shrouded room.

Amber could scarcely breathe for fright, but her literate mind wondered why she was spared the mummy's terror-inducing spell. She saw the mummy advance-toward her.

Panting, wanting to shriek and hide her face, Amber stumbled back against the solid phalanx of soldiers. The mummy crooked a withered hand, and the soldiers closed tighter, spears forming an iron-headed fence. Crowded on three sides, almost crushed, Amber was in danger of burning herself with the torch, so she chucked it away to clatter on the floor, sputter, and extinguish. Fresh terror surged through her. Would she be trapped in pitchy blackness with two madmen and an undead fiend?

The mummy shuffled closer. Amber smelled its dry, snaky musk, but also an ancient perfume of cedar resin, beeswax, sage, wormwood, and other herbs used to preserve flesh.

Amber finally screamed as the mummy's hand reached for her. Driven against the dais and the trapping wall of stone, cringing, helpless to escape, Amber whimpered in fright. The withered claw clamped her head, mashing the silver tiara down over her eyebrows. In her haste and fright, Amber had forgotten she wore it. The dead hand, cold and hard as a statue's, squeezed Amber's skull until she feared it would burst.

Memories rushed in.

Amber felt dust gurgle in her desiccated lungs. A smothering darkness dragged on and on, never ending. Time drummed in her brain like the clanging of an enormous bell. Hours stretched into days, into years, decades, centuries, millennia. She was alone, left behind, while everyone and everything she'd ever known grew old, withered, died, and crumbled to dust, until even the dust blew away on the wind. No one alive remembered her or her country. Even the land forgot she'd ever existed and only hot desert wind blew over hummocks of barren sand. Amber felt constricted by bandages, felt herself suffocating, felt her mind rebelling at the stifling silence, felt her thoughts run rampant, until her only refuge from horror was to plumb the depths of insanity.

Worst of all was the unending loneliness, eons with an empty, aching heart. The mummy needed help, aid in accomplishing some murky desire that yet burned in its shriveled heart and had burned for ages. It needed help but languished alone, for the mummy had lost its friends in awful punishment.

Like a star exploding in the heavens, Amber was blinded by the most twisting emotion of all. This mummy, an ancient, enchanted, undead creature, was somehow familiar. All this tumbling turmoil Amber suffered in a second while the mummy's hard hand trapped her skull, then the hand released and Amber was free to go.

Weak with horror and emotion, she scurried away on her knees, then scrambled up to run. She snatched a sputtering torch. Hakiim and Reiver cowered in a pile like frightened puppies.

Kicking them to get their attention, Amber shrieked, "Get up! Come on!"

Blearily, as if awaking, the young men shook their heads. Amber caught their arms and yanked, then pushed so hard they almost sprawled. She flicked a backward glance to see if the mummy pursued, but the fearsome monster stood still with both bandaged arms folded across its breast, as if lying in a coffin.

Wondering, wishing she didn't care, still in the throes of nightmare memories, Amber hustled her two friends from the replica palace. Panting, huffing, the weary companions trotted ever upward toward the surface, the world of life and sunshine. In the highest tunnels, Amber shoved her friends through the wide phoenix-marked doors, then boosted them with hysterical strength through the gap in the ceiling.

Amber was shocked to see stars wink above. They'd only been underground a few hours, yet day or night, she couldn't wait to breathe fresh air. The underworld belonged to the dead, who must hate the living with an unending passion. Never again, thought Amber, will I descend deeper than a wine cellar.

Above, Hakiim and Reiver laid on the pink-white marble floor of the former palace and trailed their arms to drag Amber up. A gibbous moon just above the rim of the shallow valley gave them light. Amber dropped her torch, jumped, and caught their hands. She felt a thrill at being hoisted up. Safe outside, she could lie down and rest, for days, if need be.

She'd forgotten the moonstone tiara that still circled her brow.

As the jewel rose from the depths, it caught a sliver of moonlight. Enchanted eons ago under a full moon, the tiara's enchantment sparked, and the moonstone flushed with a blue-white glow. Amber felt warmth throb on her forehead. The moonstone flashed and made her blink.

The spell triggered. Amber grabbed her head and screamed as if her soul had caught fire, then collapsed onto the marble as if dead.