by Unknown
Shaba traced the outlines of one panel, disappointment muddying the usual fire of zealotry in her eyes. She wiped away layers of dull dust to reveal a colorful mosaic of Azzah receiving tribute from the generals of a surrendering army.
“All to the glory of Sarenrae,” I chuckled, my words a bit harsher than I’d intended.
She ignored my jibe. “It’s warm.”
I ran my hand along the bottom edge of the scene and the patterned border of gold and black stones. The black chips radiated heat, almost enough to burn with prolonged contact on unprotected skin.
“Heatstone!” I exclaimed. “Your Azzah was a wealthy man, to use them for decoration like this. Lucky caravans sometimes have a few in the supply train for cold desert nights. I’d heard that they can sometimes be found in the Ketz Desert, but I had always thought they were mostly found in the garderobes of high nobility.”
Her mouth quirked in another semblance of a smile, and her eyes shone with excitement. Sadly, it was not at my wit.
Shaba is pure in her faith, yet it takes more than belief to turn a blade.
“Then it’s here,” she whispered.
Before I had a chance to ask what she meant, one of the soldiers lit a torch. The golden light chased away the gloom, reflected back in countless tiny mirrors and gilt sun disks. Najh studied a door opposite the entrance, one that led deeper into the tower. It was limned in gold and cobalt glass. He stepped around a chunk of fallen masonry and reached for the door.
“I’m going to secure the next chamber,” he said.
“Do you think it’s a good idea to go by yourself?” I replied. I didn’t want him out of my sight.
Najh favored me with an unctuous smile.
“We must know how much of the interior of the tower stands, lest the roc observe us trooping into his aerie. As the expedition’s scout, I’ve a duty to go.”
“Touch nothing, Captain,” Shaba warned. “This place is sanctified. It’s also Azzah’s grave.”
Najh returned her admonition with insincere piety.
“I wouldn’t dare, Shaba. What do you take me for, a thief?”
My fingertips ached with the fire I longed to call down upon Najh for that remark.
He vanished through the sun door, but his two goons remained, carrying torches and pretending to study the mosaics. Shaba approached an idol of Sarenrae and knelt before it. I wasn’t sure how long Najh would be gone, so I followed Shaba and risked interrupting her prayer.
“They mean to kill you,” I whispered.
“Fate has decreed that I walk with killers,” she replied.
“We should walk away from them.”
She shrugged. “You mean well, my friend. But I don’t think it’s my destiny to die here. The Dawnflower has granted me her favor.”
“But the satrap has not,” I said, finding myself more than a bit pleased at being called her friend. “And he has allies amongst your fellowship that eagerly seek war.”
“But we serve the same goddess. Despite appearances, the church of the Dawnflower in Katheer remains open to a more peaceful way.”
“Perhaps. But what of the satrap and his ministers who plot war against the north? They rile your fellow priests to righteous anger and lead them down the path of violence—the same path that you preach against. What do those ministers think of the meddling hermit out of the desert, I wonder?” I jabbed a finger at her ragged tunic.
“I do not know what sins you are expiating out here, Kazzar, but do not shroud this holy mission in your paranoia.”
“Think about it, Shaba. If you vanish in the desert, there will be one fewer voice of opposition to the satrap’s plans. The Dawnflower’s dervishes may well go to war even if the nation cannot, manipulated by the schemes of devious nobles.”
Najh’s soldiers grew suspicious of our whispering and began examining a panel nearer to us. I changed the subject.
“Tell me more about your ‘holy mission,’ Shaba,” I said loudly.
For all her apparent dislike of subterfuge, she replied without missing a beat. “Azzah the Prophet lived eight hundred years ago and fostered a strictly nonviolent sect that worshipped Sarenrae.”
“Yet you still carry a sword,” I observed. Shaba ignored my jibe. She was growing adept at that.
“When he was aged and near death, his most trusted followers vanished into the desert, leaving behind only a handful of scrolls with his core teachings. But he left a promise that before he died his truest message yet would be delivered to those who followed the Dawnflower.”
“And the final homily never came?”
Shaba shook her head.
“Indeed. Though word did come that he’d constructed a tower somewhere in the depths of the Ketz Desert and offered his body to the beasts of the air.”
I shuddered. Sky burial was an ancient practice, and not much in fashion with the civilized folk of Qadira these days. A roc nesting at the top of the tower suddenly seemed too convenient a coincidence. Such portents were not to be taken lightly.
“It seems the beasts of the air never left,” I said. Shaba raised a knuckle to her lips, thinking over my words.
“Perhaps the roc serves as the guardian of Azzah’s spirit,” she said, dismay plain in her voice.
Najh returned from the next room with a wolfish smile.
“The interior is intact. There’s a stair through the ceiling into another chamber.”
“And what did you see there?” I asked.
“The treasures of a faithful man,” he replied, his eyes shining.
Najh motioned for us to follow. Shaba rose, absently tracing the pommel of her sword with one finger. I wondered if the priest would trust in her fate or in her sword when the time came to choose.
It was cold in the innermost chamber of Azzah’s Tower, insulated as it was from the desert’s glare by thick walls. Four vestibules ringed that central core: north, west, south, and finally east, the chamber where we had entered. The western portal was filled with debris and sand, but the others stood open, and I longed to explore them as Najh clearly had. Despite the glint of gold from objects in those shadowed chambers, the tower walls here were less ostentatious in their proclamations of Azzah’s glory, with little adornment save repeating icon of Sarenrae and the holy rays of her sun.
Shaba made immediately for the stair that wound its way up the core and into an upper chamber. Najh halted her.
“Wait,” he said, gesturing to one of his soldiers.
The man held his torch as high as he could, peering into the gloom above. Then, unsheathing his sword, he mounted the first step. The stones shifted under the tread of his boots, showering dust and flakes of rock. One stone fell loose, thumping to the floor with a dreadful echo. I froze, awaiting a sudden death of falling stones, feathers, and talons, but if the roc heard, it made no response.
“We must mind our step.” Shaba said, following the soldier over the missing stone.
A simple spell could have carried me up into the darkness as if on the desert winds, but Najh gave a slight bow and waved me onto the fragile stair. My misgivings intensified when he and the other soldier also drew their swords. The hole where the step had rested gaped like a missing tooth in a mouthful of fangs—and we were marching right into the gullet.
We climbed the stairs with utmost caution, my legs quickly developing painful cramps from the slow, careful steps. The soldiers kept their swords drawn, and my spine writhed like a serpent as I anticipated the kiss of a blade. I kept a spell close to quickening in my mind, in case a sudden escape should become necessary. If Najh meant to kill me, he appeared not to be in a hurry, and so we gained the upper chamber without incident.
It was a large spherical hall sectioned into eighths by gilt buttresses like the ribs of an orange. The stair continued around its circumference, eventually winding through a portal in the roof, framed with more sunbursts that led further up into the tower.
Around us, the treasures of Azzah’s life were piled in hap
hazard fashion: chests of worm-eaten silks, tarnished plate of silver and brass, patinaed copper trade ingots from bygone caravans, and small caskets of glinting coin and glittering jewels. There was no doubt significant value to Azzah’s storehouse, but with one camel now in the belly of the roc, I feared we would not be able to carry it all away.
As with the rooms below, frescoes of Sarenrae’s legends intermingled with scenes from Azzah’s life. Here was a brightly painted scene of his miraculous birth under an eclipse; there as a young man, already with a prophet’s braided beard, turning away an invading army and welcoming their commanders as his followers. A large painting spread across the top quarter of the room; Azzah’s exile from Katheer, his former students taking up the sword, and the final moments of his sky burial where huge black vultures carried gobbets of his flesh into the heavens. I shuddered involuntarily at the last one.
Shaba fell to her knees, her eyes shimmering like muddy oases.
“The Eye! It is here!”
I followed her pointing finger to a detail on a mosaic. It depicted a large globe of black stone atop a pedestal near the vultures feasting on Azzah’s corpse. Indecipherable writing wrapped its surface and gold panels of light radiated like sunbeams. Magical lines of force perhaps, but I recalled the tiny heatstones in the mosaics below.
“If it’s still here, Shaba, then I fear it warms the nest of the roc upstairs.” A thrill of pleasure welled up from my toes to the crown of my head to see the sudden look of dismay on Najh’s face.
“That is the artifact you and the satrap seek?” Najh asked, his eyes narrowed.
Shaba nodded, her face grave.
“The Eye of Azzah contains his final words of peace, his last revelation of reconciliation. What did you expect, Captain?” Immersed in the study of a casket of gemstones, I still registered Shaba’s contempt.
“Traipsing into the roc’s nest is beyond foolish,” Najh said, his voice flat.
“Shaba and I can go alone if you’d like,” I offered. “It shouldn’t take us but a minute to steal the Eye and roll it back down the stairs.”
Najh flashed his canine teeth.
“Your intention is noble, but perhaps it would be wiser if we stuck together, Kazzar.”
Shaba couldn’t contain her fervor any longer. She raced to the stair and gained a quarter turn before Najh’s soldiers caught on. I darted ahead of them as well, a sudden elation burning within me. The stairs of the sun chamber were more fragile than those below, and so I kept my charm of rescue ready in case I should trip and fall.
Destiny is not always a burden. It can lighten the heart and fire the soul. I had known that I would see and do great things all my life, as a result of the stars that rose above my head the night of my birth. As I raced up the stairs, I saw Shaba returning with the Eye to Katheer and being welcomed as a hero, gaining a following to rival even Azzah’s. I saw the satrap helpless before her persuasions, and Najh and his men executed as thieves of Sarenrae’s temple. Most of all I saw myself elevated to vizier, vital to all commerce between the Sarenites and the Qadiran government. And after that, who knew how much further I might rise?
But the mirage of glory vanished when I reached the top of the crumbling stair.
The uppermost chamber of Azzah’s Tower had collapsed, penetrated by a sky blacker than a pit. Atop one crumbling battlement, the roc slept, its vast hunched shape blotting out most of the cold, glinting stars. Wind-scoured stones ringed its nest, where a half-dozen eggs the size of sheep lay. Marbled in green and gold, they lay basking in the warmth of a globe of solid black rock.
The Eye of Azzah.
Just one of those eggs would fetch a generous sum in Katheer, but the Eye was beyond price. I strained to make out the tiny inscriptions in gold and silver across its face, ancient Kelish words which swam before my eyes. Shaba stood silent, quivering before it. Her face was lit with holy rapture, a sheen of reflected starlight that bespoke a destiny greater than perhaps even my own. I owe little to the gods that move above and below this world, but I saw a working of their will in Shaba’s suddenly humble frame.
Then from within the eggs came the dull scraping of chicks nearing their hatching time. The foreboding racket so transfixed my attention that I almost missed Najh’s quiet, nasty chuckle and the sleek rasp of a dagger being drawn.
“Now is the moment, Haron esh Kazzar,” he whispered.
Whatever Shaba Alma’s destiny, it seemed that fate had other plans for her.
Chapter Three: Buried in the Sky
Captain Najh Semekh and his two soldiers formed a wall between Shaba Alemas and me. Drawn scimitars gleamed cold with starlight, while Najh’s knife dripped rancid black fluid. I drew my own dagger, trying to catch Shaba’s eyes, but they were hidden in pools of shadow. The sleeping roc stirred, the sound of its feathers ruffling like the canvas of a ship under sail.
Shaba raised a hand. At first I thought it in supplication to the assassin, but the words that tumbled from her mouth were more like a prayer. A calloused finger flew to her lips, shushing Najh, and suddenly all sound died away.
A wise precaution, as waking the roc would likely doom us all. Still, the magical silence did nothing to hinder the satrap’s assassins, while simultaneously preventing me from using my own magic to salvage the situation. The soldiers advanced, their booted feet silent across the sand-blown floor.
Fortunately, in addition to magic, I had learned a different sort of craft at Aunt Jaffira’s knee—the geometries of knife work and the weak places where a halfling’s blade might bite deepest. Najh’s brows lifted in surprise as I stepped forward. Perhaps he had not expected me to fight. A mere astrologer does not pose much of a threat to a trained soldier, even if that astrologer is a convicted thief.
A thief with a destiny.
I plunged my knife into the back of a soldier’s knee, feeling the leather of his high boot pop like a split sausage casing. His legs buckled, and he fell hard to the floor, his mouth open in a ragged, soundless scream. I rewarded him with my fiercest grin, one I was sure that Aunt Jaffira would approve of, then acquainted his face with the sole of my boot. I imagined a satisfying crunch to accompany the spray of blood from his nose. The man sprawled senselessly upon the landing of the precarious stair.
Shaba, her blade still in its scabbard, evaded her assailant’s slash and kicked hard at his ankle. He fell sideways, colliding with his comrade on the stairs, mute profanities reddening his face. Najh leapt clear of the fray, scimitar in one hand, poisoned knife in the other. His handsome face was pinched with doubt.
So much for the would-be assassins of the Pierced Rose.
One of the fallen soldiers fought to rise from the tangle of limbs and stumbled—or so I first thought. Only when several stones fell away from the edge of the landing did I realize the truth. The fragile stair was giving way. The fellow made a fruitless attempt to leap over the buckling stonework to the relative safety of the nest, but his efforts only hastened the disintegration of the stair. He and his companion vanished into the gloom below. They fell in eerie silence, and not a stone thundered or echoed at the bottom.
Najh retreated, putting his back to the wall and the gap in the floor to his right. He choked on a lungful of dust rising from the subsidence below. I turned my knife toward him. Once more, the phantom sound of sails rippled in my ears.
“Oh dear,” I whispered, glancing to my left. Shaba’s spell had fallen along with the soldiers.
Distracted as I was, Najh readied himself for a thrust, but a sudden resonant wind arose. The steady drawing of air prickled the hairs of my neck. A flicker of motion danced in Najh’s wide stare, his eyes reflecting the danger like mirrors.
“Raaaarrrrrrrrrrwwwkkkkkkk!”
Forgetting Najh, I turned to face the peril rising behind me. A pair of hungry white moons rose into view. An enormous beak flashed like hammered brass, and at its center a pale, fleshy tongue dripped with slime. The roc stood, buffeting us with grit and a stench like a camel p
it in the heat of summer.
To his credit, the assassin was only momentarily deterred. He swept his blade at my head, and when I jumped aside, he surged forward to face Shaba. She had still not drawn her sword.
“Your pacifist dreams end tonight, Shaba Alemas. There will be no more resistance within Sarenrae’s church. Qadira’s glory will be her own.”
Shaba unbelted her sword, though she still refused to draw it from its scabbard.
“That is for Sarenrae to determine,” she said.
“How about you and the halfling ask her yourself?”
Najh makes a much better assassin than he does an expedition leader.
“If it’s all the same to both of you, I’d rather live!” I shouted.
The roc screamed its disagreement.
The great bird lunged forward, shredding stone with its black talons. The whole of the tower swayed, rolling the eggs, the Eye, and what was left of our expedition decidedly toward the shattered rim of the parapet. The roc took momentarily to the air, confused in its blindness. The Eye of Azzah broke free of the clutch of eggs and accelerated toward the edge of the tower. The heat of its passing pressed me back, but Shaba cried out and threw herself in front of the globe to try and halt its precarious slide.
Najh advanced with a triumphant smile and drove his blades at the distracted hermit.
“Burn,” I commanded, spraying flames at the pouncing assassin. Caught within the roiling blast, Najh howled and dropped his sword. His charred fist retained its hold on his dagger, however, and he turned the fury of his glare upon me.
“You’ll regret that, you little cur!”
I ran, but the shaking tower caused me to veer closer to the panicking roc. The beast’s cries pierced my eardrums nearly as effectively as Shaba’s mantra of silence. It grabbed blindly at the nest, trying to save the eggs but only making matters worse. The floor trembled and stones dropped away from the edge of the tower, clattering down the sides as they fell. The giant bird’s cries grew shriller as the nest fell apart and the eggs rolled freely. I narrowly avoided a downward-flashing beak, Najh dogging my heels.
