The Scorpions of Zahir

by Christine Brodien-Jones

  “Back then the scorpions were not so large, perhaps the size of young sand foxes, and we scared them off with torches.” Pitblade met her gaze. “Your father has plenty of experience in desert survival. Charlie is totally unshakable.”

  Hearing his words, Zagora felt the weight inside her chest lift slightly.

  “I found a box of photographic glass plates in my grandfather’s attic, slides he’d taken of scorpions in the 1930s, and even then they must have measured twelve inches or more,” Pitblade went on. “But I had no idea there were so many of them—or that over time they would grow to such unnatural proportions.”

  “These scorpions, do they have a lair?” asked Razziq. Zagora could see he was growing more nervous; no doubt he was remembering the frightening stories he’d heard about Zahir.

  Pitblade stroked his beard. “Ah yes, they’ve built a nest for themselves beneath the city.”

  A nest? Zagora felt the top of her scalp prickle.

  “Do you think the scorpions mutated?” asked Duncan. “Maybe they got bombarded by subatomic particles or zapped by radioactive cosmic energy!”

  “Hmm, my grandfather had a similar theory. He believed the scorpions absorbed Nar Azrak’s energy from the stones of the pyramid,” said Pitblade. “There are several varieties of scorpion, the most lethal being the deathstalkers: narrow, flat heads; thin, lanky limbs and a very strange color—clear yellow or green, depending upon their surroundings.”

  Zagora could see Razziq was looking sort of glassy-eyed. I bet he’s sorry he came with us, she thought. He thought this would be a super-awesome desert adventure, but we’ve dragged him through sandstorms, kidnappings and giant scorpion attacks.

  “In the daytime the scorpions are dormant inside their nest. I believe that’s because they rely on the energy of Nar Azrak to activate them. After sundown, it’s another story: they come out each night just as Nar Azrak rises.” Pitblade stared into the dying embers, eyes burning like two coins. Zagora thought how mysterious he looked, but he also seemed tormented. “I am convinced the scorpions of Zahir killed my grandfather.”

  The three children all fell quiet, processing this information. Zagora had hundreds more questions to ask, but suddenly her thoughts jumped back to her father.

  “Hey, what about my dad?” Her voice was desperate. “We have to find him!”

  “Oh man, you’re right, Zagora!” Duncan turned to Pitblade. “You haven’t seen any suspicious characters passing through here, have you?”

  “No one has passed this way,” came the reply. “But last night I did notice something unusual. I was up in the turret watching the sun go down and I thought I saw a light go on in the casbah—possibly in the palace.”

  “Bingo!” said Duncan, the way detectives did in the TV crime programs Zagora often watched with him.

  She felt her heart begin to race.

  “I’ll take you to Zahir tomorrow, if the storm has ended, and we will search for your father.” Pitblade rose slowly to his feet. “I trust you have no objections to taking an underground route. My eyes cannot tolerate bright sunlight, you see. In the desert I lost not only my memory, but most of my normal vision as well.”

  The children exchanged startled looks. Was that why his eyes appeared to be golden? wondered Zagora. He’d obviously suffered through some dreadful experiences. The more she thought about it, the more she understood why he and her father had been such great friends.

  Pitblade Yegen was eccentric, daring and probably brilliant, too—just like her dad.

  Zagora, ravenous, sat with the boys, munching sesame flat cakes, which Pitblade produced from a woven bag he’d hidden behind a rock. While she ate, she watched him navigating stiffly around the edges of the chamber, running his hands along the walls.

  “Why didn’t you give him the stone?” Duncan whispered into her ear.

  “It’s complicated,” she told him. “I’ll explain later.” Meanwhile, she had plenty of questions she wanted to ask her father’s old friend. “So I guess the Oryx Stone is … magical,” said Zagora, biting down on something hard and bitter. She hoped it wasn’t a beetle. “It’s got powers, right, because it’s connected to Nar Azrak? And all those outer space symbols we saw in this tower, they must be magic, too.”

  “You’re confusing astronomy with astrology,” said Duncan, grabbing another flat cake. “Astronomy isn’t magic, it’s mathematical. Stars and planets have their own inner logic, but magic’s not part of the equation.”

  Pitblade thought a moment. “I’m not so sure I agree. Astronomy can be compared to Islamic geomancy, a method of divination using a complex system of sand patterns. It’s mathematical but it is also embedded in ancient beliefs and traditions—and magic most definitely plays a part.”

  Zagora watched Duncan scratch the top of his head, looking unconvinced.

  Suddenly and without warning Razziq sprang to his feet, dropping his cake on the floor.

  “Scorpion!” he shrieked.

  Zagora went rigid with fear. Sliding around the archway was the tip of a huge claw, followed by sticklike legs. A narrow head appeared, curling around the side of the arch; an array of cold glittering eyes seemed to be boring into her. For a brief mad moment she thought she heard it say her name.

  “Follow me,” said Pitblade, taking off at a limping run. “Quickly!”

  Despite his poor eyesight and damaged leg, he moved nimbly—at least, it looked that way to her. They scrambled after him to a door of wood and silver set into the wall she hadn’t noticed before.

  “I cannot believe this,” he said, leaning his shoulder into the door. “The scorpions are getting bolder by the day.” He pushed a bit harder and the door opened a crack. “Hurry!” he ordered, ushering them into an inner room.

  Ready to duck through the doorway, one foot inside, Zagora heard a clacking noise behind her. She glanced back and saw the creature scuttle into the room. The sight of the scorpion held her frozen, her stomach clenched in fright. Uncoiling its tail, it looked intently around, waving enormous pincers, its eyes glistening like chips of black glass. The scorpion was even bigger than the ones she’d seen at the Azimuth Caves.

  Even more terrifying was the weird sensation that the creature was searching for her. Dark, complicated thoughts rushed into her brain, filling her mind with an abstract knowing, like an origami unfolding inside her head. She could hear strange sounds as the creature began speaking in an unknown language—or perhaps it wasn’t a language at all—yet she understood its message clearly. “Relinquish the treasure; it belongs not to you. Relinquish the treasure and all will live; hold on to the treasure and all will die.…”

  It was talking about the Oryx Stone!

  “No!” she shouted, surprised by her own ferocity. “I’ll never give it up!”

  She reached for the stone and the scorpion went completely still. For a moment there was a deathly silence. Its ancient segmented body seemed to grow taller, more menacing, and Zagora swallowed hard, trying not to panic. The Oryx Stone grew warm in her hand, as if drawing light from some far, unreachable place.

  From the depths of the stone an intense light emerged. She raised the stone above her head and a bolt of fire shot across the room, striking the creature. Two of its front legs melted away, and with a furious hiss, the scorpion darted out of the chamber.

  Zagora, shocked by what she’d just seen, gave a gasp as Pitblade pushed her inside and shut the door, bolting it behind them. They clambered down the crumbling stairs, into a pitch-black chamber. At the bottom she huddled next to Duncan and Razziq, her heart beating so hard she could scarcely breathe. The darkness enfolded her, pressing down like a weight.

  “The scorpion can’t get inside here, can it?” wheezed Duncan. “I mean, maybe it has friends …”

  “Don’t worry,” said Pitblade. “There is one door to this chamber, and I’ve bolted it.”

  But Zagora worried just a bit. That creature out there was smart.

  “What concerns me is
that the scorpions are growing more brazen.” Pitblade gave a dry cough. “I’ve often heard them at night outside the tower, but this is the first time one has ventured inside. Tell me, what would you say was the size of that one?”

  “It was big,” said Duncan. “Maybe the size of a small horse.”

  Zagora shuddered. Probably even bigger, she thought.

  “What happened up there, Zagora?” asked Razziq. “We heard you shouting.”

  “It was coming for me, so I held up the stone,” she said without thinking, “and this weird light came whooshing out of it and melted the scorpion’s legs.”

  She heard Razziq give a loud gulp.

  “Are you kidding?” said Duncan. “That sounds totally like a science fiction movie!”

  “Did I hear you mention a stone?” asked Pitblade in a quiet voice.

  Zagora clapped a hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to let on that she had the stone! How could she have spoken so thoughtlessly?

  “Zagora?” Pitblade’s voice floated out of the darkness.

  Suddenly miserable, she hung her head.

  “Want me to tell him?” asked Duncan. Without waiting for an answer, her brother burst out, “She has the Oryx Stone!”

  Zagora cringed against the wall, waiting for Pitblade Yegen to hit the roof. She couldn’t blame him: she’d been totally dishonest about it from the moment she’d met him.

  “But before you blow up at my sister, Mr. Yegen, I want to say something,” said Duncan. “First of all, it was Zagora who found the Oryx Stone after our dad was kidnapped, and she’s guarded it through a surprise attack in the desert and a sandstorm and her camel falling through quicksand, and I know this sounds crazy, but she says the stone made the ghost oryx come to life, though I’m not too clear on that last part.”

  Pitblade coughed into the silence. Zagora squeezed her brother’s arm to let him know she appreciated his speaking up for her. It made her feel sort of, well, humble. Duncan was turning out to be a true defender and fellow explorer and friend, all rolled into one.

  “What he says is true,” said Razziq. “Zagora has guarded the stone.”

  “Extraordinary,” said Pitblade, and Zagora thought she saw his eyes flash gold. “Your unwillingness to give up the Oryx Stone has great significance, Zagora Pym, as does the fact that in your hands the stone gave life to an oryx—indeed, to many oryxes—and frightened off a scorpion.”

  Confused, she blinked at him through the darkness. What was he talking about?

  “We are not out of danger yet, but I daresay we are nearer to rescuing Zahir,” he said cryptically. “Have you ever heard of the Sentinels of the Stone?”

  They all murmured “No,” and Zagora felt her emotions ping-ponging from relief to surprise to intense curiosity. Sentinels of the Stone sounded like a term from Middle-Earth in Lord of the Rings.

  “The Sentinels of the Stone comprise a secret society that goes back centuries,” explained Pitblade. “The theft of the Oryx Stone was foretold in Xuloc’s time, by Azimuth seers who predicted the fall of Zahir. They also foretold that the stone would have protectors as it made its way back to Zahir, to fulfill a prophecy called the Circle of Four that predicts a battle between oryxes and scorpions.”

  Zagora listened intently, hardly daring to breathe.

  “These protectors, called Sentinels, have but one task—to guard the Oryx Stone—and their insignia is a tree of hands. The drawing represents the hands through which the Oryx Stone will pass, from its disappearance until it returns, once and for all, to Zahir.”

  “A tree of hands?” said Zagora excitedly. “I saw that drawing in the Azimuth Caves! It was a weird twisty pattern on the wall of a cave—all different hands, holding the Oryx Stone.”

  “That is truly remarkable.” Pitblade was quiet for a moment. “You see, my grandfather was a Sentinel, as well. Sadly, he never realized that it was his destiny to harbor the stone from evil forces.”

  “Maybe he was too busy being an explorer,” suggested Zagora. Still, she wondered: if Edgar Yegen had known about the stone’s power, would he still be alive?

  “Perhaps,” said Pitblade, sounding a bit melancholy. “I learned about the Sentinels of the Stone from the nomads I lived with, and once my memory returned, I realized that I too was meant to be a Sentinel. That is why I asked your father to bring the Oryx Stone.”

  “I kept thinking the stone would give me superpowers,” said Zagora. “But it’s a different kind of magic, isn’t it?”

  “The stone merely serves to bring out the inner strength of its wearer,” answered Pitblade, “a strength they might be unaware they possess.”

  Zagora fell quiet, thinking. Was he saying that she had inner strength, like the kind a desert warrior would have? Did that mean she could survive the desert on her own, whether she had the stone or not?

  “Your job, Zagora, is simply to watch over the stone. The Oryx Stone was passed to Edgar, then to me, and now it appears that it has been entrusted to you.”

  Her breath quickened.

  “You, Zagora, are the next Sentinel of the Stone!”

  Zagora saw a pencil-thin beam cut through the dark as Duncan clicked on his flashlight.

  “Hey, my titanium Teknik-mini!” he said. “It was in my pocket all this time. Cool, huh?”

  The flashlight illuminated the space around them, throwing shadows across the walls and ceiling. Zagora realized the chamber was far bigger than she’d imagined.

  “What is this?” asked Razziq.

  It took her a few moments to make out what he was pointing at, but as her eyes adjusted, she began to see faded murals on the rock walls.

  “Mystical desert art, this is, painted by Xuloc, ruler of Zahir,” said Pitblade, sounding to Zagora like a museum curator. In the dim light, his eyes were the color of old bronze. “With my poor vision I’ve not been able to study them, but I know from my grandfather’s journal that these drawings depict scenes from the past—and perhaps from the future, as well. All around them you can see the Oracle Glyphs, which your father came here to decipher. He’s an ace at cracking glyphs.”

  “Yeah, my dad’s a real glyph-cracker,” said Zagora, blinking back tears. Her heart felt brittle, as if it might break into pieces. She wanted desperately to find her father. Maybe there were clues about his captors somewhere within this ancient artwork.

  “Duncan, shine your light this way!” she shouted, bristling with curiosity and feeling more anxious than ever. A dark thought suddenly entered her head: what if there was a prophecy that said a brilliant scholar from across the sea would be kidnapped and sacrificed?

  Pushing the thought away, she followed Duncan’s tiny beam as it swept across the concave rock walls. The drawings, with their pale, airy colors, struck her as beautiful—and slightly haunting, too. Duncan angled his beam around wolves attacking an oryx (which made her a little teary-eyed), bandits marauding a camel caravan and figures dressed in what looked like ritual clothing. Xuloc, the Azimuth king, was depicted as a tall lean man with flowing hair and a braided beard, exactly the way she imagined a desert prophet.

  “This is a glyph?” Razziq pointed to a squiggly line carved into the stone.

  “Yeah. A glyph is a sort of symbol,” said Zagora, marveling at the strange, inexplicable design. “My dad could decipher this glyph in a second.”

  Yet as she walked around, Zagora felt her high spirits quickly falling. The glyphs were impossible to figure out, and none of the drawings offered any clues to her father’s whereabouts. Even more disappointing, she could see that Pitblade Yegen wasn’t going to be of much help, either.

  Duncan beamed his light on the curved sweep of the rock wall to the next drawing, where a large blue planet, vast and threatening, was about to cross in front of the moon.

  “Nar Azrak,” he said. “Hey, didn’t Abdul say something about a lunar eclipse?”

  “He did,” said Zagora, but by now everyone’s attention was focused on a drawing on the wall to the ri
ght of the eclipse. Duncan waved his beam over the lofty towers of Zahir, the oases filled with oryxes, the magnificent Palace of Xuloc. Everything she saw filled her with wonder.

  Then a sudden thought came to her. “Do you have desert sight?” she asked Pitblade.

  He shook his head somberly. “I once had desert sight, but when my eyes were damaged, I lost the ability to see into the past.” He gave a crooked smile. “I know you have the gift, Zagora. All the Sentinels have it.”

  She was surprised at first, then realized it made sense. After all, a Sentinel would have need of some extra desert powers.

  “Be forewarned,” he added. “There is a certain vulnerability that goes with the gift. The scorpions will quickly sense that you have it. And, feeling threatened, they will go after you—just as they went after my grandfather. Stay on your guard and do not let them near you.”

  “Yeah, well, okay,” said Zagora, swallowing hard. Mrs. Bixby used to say even the best things on earth had a downside, but being targeted by scorpions seemed pretty extreme.

  She watched Duncan’s beam flicker and go dim.

  “Uh-oh,” he said, moving the light to the left of the eclipse. “One last look and I’m turning the flashlight off.”

  Zagora’s throat tightened as she studied the bleak desert landscape, painted across the wall in dark slashes. There was no Zahir in the drawing, and no people or oryxes, either. There were no stars, no moon. High overhead loomed Nar Azrak. Strange and terrible, it hung over the dunes, which were swarming with giant scorpions.

  “The Time of the Scorpions,” murmured Pitblade. “That’s what this drawing is about.”

  “But what do these pictures mean exactly?” asked Duncan. “Here’s Zahir on one side of the eclipse, and on the other side the scorpions are running amok in the desert. Are both scenarios connected to the lunar eclipse?” He scratched his chin. “Any ideas, Razz?”

  Zagora watched Razziq move back and forth between the drawings, examining each one, as Duncan’s light grew dimmer.