Star of Cursrah (23 page)

Three days passed while Amenstar stewed in a stifling canvas tent, her every move watched by unblinking guards. Unable to talk to anyone, she’d felt her emotions churning, but they had gone nowhere. She was angry at Pallaton for imprisoning her, despairing her city could be saved, self-damning for not attending her tutors, sad at her brothers’ deaths, and so on, round and round until Star was emotionally exhausted—and emotionally vulnerable.

Star pondered Pallaton and was surprised at how attractive he seemed. As a prince he ruthlessly planned some assault on her homeland, but only because his own homeland was outnumbered and under siege. As a man, Star had to admit he was handsome, charming, intelligent, and considerate. He cared for his troops and his city. He didn’t hate his enemies, even spoke well of Zubat and Samir Nagid. Under different circumstances, Pallaton would work as hard to keep peace as make war. Star knew pride had overruled her sense to the point of folly. A sudden thought bloomed and startled her. Pallaton would make an excellent husband, father, and king.

“That’s all might-have-been,” Amenstar sighed.

Then, late one afternoon, Pallaton invited her to go riding. Amenstar was almost grateful—until she recalled he planned Cursrah’s destruction, absurd though it sounded. Deciding she must learn the worst, Amenstar consented. With her ankles tied to stirrups, she and Tafir and Gheqet were escorted from the tent city by Pallaton’s bodyguard of thirty or more.

Riding northeast on a broad, flat path, the party soon reached the Agis. The silver river rippled from east to west, from the mountains toward the sea. The water ran swiftly, hurrying with whorls and eddies, channeled by stone ridges that prevented it from overflowing. Farmers always cursed “The Dry River” that, rock-bound and never flooding, was useless for irrigation.

At a rocky shelf, a cedarwood ferry manned by slaves hung on a thick rope braided from hemp. Pallaton’s party dismounted and covered their horses’ eyes with their scarves so they wouldn’t spook. Slaves grunted and chanted as they hauled the ferry across by main strength, with the great rope bowing almost in a half-circle because the current ran so fast.

On the river’s northern side, the party climbed a steep ridge, iron-shod hooves slipping on shale. Atop the ridge they found that a curving path had been hammered wide and flat by thousands of bare feet marching in both directions. No one ordered the three Cursrahns to be silent, so they talked while Pallaton conferred with his advisors.

“Finally we’ll see what those slaves are digging,” Gheqet, apprentice to architects, wondered aloud. “I’ve wracked my brain to fathom what they could be digging up out here in the wilderness, and how any earthworks project could threaten Cursrah. I can’t imagine a thing.”

Breasting a second ridge that doubled back toward the river, Samir Pallaton was met by his chief engineer and his staff, all in military tunics painted with a crossed pickaxe and shovel. Under one man’s arm rested a silver trumpet.

The prince called, “Are we on schedule, Dewert?”

The engineer nodded his white head. “Your vizars arrived just after noon, sire,” he answered. “They threw bones and read the auguries, and find the elements auspicious.”

Pallaton nodded, squinting at the sky as if anticipating rain. Rounding a bend, the Cursrahns finally saw the mysterious digging project. In a shallow valley running due north, perpendicular to the river, swarmed hundreds of brown-and-white bodies like termites.

Amenstar peered closely, but quickly gave up and asked, “Gheq, what are they doing?”

The budding architect shook his head, just as confused. Craning in his saddle, Gheqet sketched in the air to make sense of the scene. The earthwork was only a deep trench that lowered the valley’s floor, which was already hemmed by rocky slopes. Hundreds of slaves, Gheqet estimated, dug the ditch with hand tools and lugged the dirt out in baskets. The trench was half a mile long and led to nothing but more valley between hills.

They rode on, high above the ditch, aiming for a low hill overlooking both the river and the trench. Atop the hill were four small tents. Soldiers guarded the hill’s perimeter.

“This makes no sense,” Gheqet mused so only his friends heard. “I don’t see why Pallaton bothers digging a ditch. Even if they cut through that stone ridge to tap the river—damned hard digging—they’ll only catch a dribble from the Agis, a tenth of what they’d need to fill this trench at the most. What will they irrigate that’s worth the trouble?”

“Could they steal water from the Mouth of Cursrah?” Tafir asked. He referred to the opening of the famous aqueduct, the source of all the city’s water.

Gheqet craned in the saddle to point west and said, “Those hills block the view, but the aqueduct mouth lies about five miles down river. Pallaton can’t cut off Cursrah’s water supply from here. This little ditch won’t lower the aqueduct an inch. Besides, the river’s protected, same as the aqueduct, by Bitrabi. Try to steal water, and you incur the wrath of our marid.”

“Magic can combat magic,” muttered Tafir. “They said vizars are coming. Pallaton must have some plan up his sleeve. Maybe he’s got a tougher genie trapped in a bottle.”

“Impossible,” countered Amenstar. “No one could oppose a sanction placed by Great Calim.”

Her young companions didn’t argue. Soon the party reached the low hill, which was too steep for horses. Dismounting, they climbed. Amenstar graciously let Pallaton hold her hand up broken rocks like big steps. At the top waited a dozen men dressed in red. Their leader carried a tall staff that looked familiar. These were Oxonsis’s vizars, Star realized, but what did they plan?

“Look,” murmured Tafir. “The genie staff.”

“Genie—staff?”

Star remembered. Held erect by the chief vizar, the staff was taller than a man, twisted like the fabled Staff of Shoon made of unicorn horns, painted and gilded to resemble genie smoke, and crowned by a clever cloud holding a winking sapphire. Pallaton had brought it to Star’s party. She’d thought it only an odd showpiece, but Vrinda, their administrator genie, had peered long and hard at it. Why?

Atop the hill, Amenstar could see half the horizon to the south and east. As Gheqet had noted, the chuckling river ran in its own ancient trough, and a stone ridge a quarter-mile thick separated the precious water from Pallaton’s erratic dirt ditch running north. Amenstar was trying to think of something clever and defiant to say when the prince spoke.

“Remember the legend of Ajhuutal? It was a prosperous seaport east of Coramshan.”

“I remember,” replied Star, vaguely. “It sank into the sea and became the Spider Swamp?”

“That’s it. It was long ago, when Calim still strove to conquer this land. He wrestled with a marid named Ajhuu in the Steam Clashes. Finally Calim unleashed an earthquake that shattered thirty miles of the River of Ice into a crumbly delta. The sea rushed in and created Spider Swamp. Coramshan calls the event the Shattering. I suppose now it’s safe to use the old name, the Ajhuutal Mutiny.”

“It’s never prudent to mock Great Calim.” Star deliberately raised her voice so the sky might hear. Still, her breath came short from a tight chest, as if disaster portended. “Will you unleash magicks to undo the enchantments of our benefactor? Only lesser genies ever gave Great Calim a battle.”

“I can ply the greatest of magicks … Calim’s own.” Pallaton’s teeth glowed like wolf fangs as he scanned the sky. Reaching a decision, he called, “Trumpeter, blow!”

With a flourish, the military engineer saluted, puffed his cheeks, and blew a long horn blast. Instantly, like an anthill kicked open, slaves spilled from the dark ditch and streamed up the rocky slopes. When the brown-and-white bodies were halfway up, the prince nodded to the chief vizar.

“If it please your grace,” said Pallaton, “you may commence.”

The vizar in red raised the curved staff over his head and loosed a wail in some arcane language that made Star’s skin crawl. Five more vizars, standing at five points around their chief, added more wails like men enduring torture. Gheqet and Tafir glanced about wide-eyed, as did soldiers guarding the perimeter and the samir’s bodyguards.

Pallaton swayed from foot to foot, excited as a child, and said, “That staff is said to be Calim’s Scepter. It should be—we paid a fortune to grave robbers for it!”

Amenstar sniffed. “At Cursrah’s College we have warehouses stuffed with mystical gimcracks,” she said. “Most are fakes.”

“As may be,” Pallaton conceded, “but our wisest vizars think this curved stick is genuine. We’ll find out now if it is.”

The chanting dragged on until Amenstar wished to cover her ears. Junior vizars burned incense and threw offerings of rice and cinnamon to the four winds. Nothing seemed to happen, until Pallaton pointed upward. The sun had been occluded by a high haze. Gradually the haze lowered and thickened, becoming a full overcast that darkened the land. A stiffening breeze made Star shiver. Far away on the slopes, slaves raised brown arms and murmured in awe.

The chief vizar’s weird wail reached a crescendo. Howling, the man raised the staff high and stabbed it hard upon the hilltop toward the river, so hard Amenstar wondered the shaft didn’t shatter.

A rumble shook the world, and people glanced up.

Tafir muttered, “That wasn’t thunder….”

A tremor trilled through their legs.

“Wh-what—”bleated Amenstar.”L-lords of L-light-t-t-t….”

“E-er-earthquake,” chattered Gheqet.

Another rumble rolled past, a grumbling toll like a monstrous iron bell. On the slopes above the new ditch, rocks trickled from peaks, and slaves scampered to avoid small avalanches. A hollow boom sounded. Amenstar squeaked and fell to her knees. She’d seen the hills move.

Along the banks of the Agis, a stone ridge flexed as if Great Calim had snapped a blanket. A rising, rippling boom slowly cracked hills further along the river’s northern side—where the vizar had aimed in striking the staff. A soldier shouted above the roar. Everyone pointed and screamed together.

The north bank of the River Agis—solid stone—dissolved.

As if tired, rocky ridges forty feet high suddenly let go and slid into the riverbed. Untold tons of stone dropped into thousands of gallons of water. Displaced, water gushed into the sky as if a child had stamped in a puddle. In slow motion, the water arched high above, then rained and spattered torrents over broken ridges. Another cascade shot higher than the hills, pounded the landscape, and dislodged more rocks.

The spectators felt another temblor tingle their toes as the earth bucked like a wild horse. Another slab of hills, a newly uncovered face, broke free and followed its brother to crash into the riverbed. More water squirted—a murky brown deluge. Thrown off her feet, Amenstar sprawled facedown, hands and knees scuffed raw. The vizar, his acolytes, and soldiers also clutched the ground lest they be flipped like fleas into the sky. More groans and booms shook the world. Dust and water vapor boiled into a swirling brown mist.

Drenched in mud, Amenstar huddled like a whipped dog and prayed: “Dark Destroyer, take me away! Blind me, Orus of the Thousand Eyes, so I never see such a sight again!”

As if drawing close to witness their destruction, the overcast sky lowered until Amenstar feared to stand and attract lightning. Thick air choked her as well as fear. Cracking and crackling now shook the sky while everywhere rocks broke, sheared, and tumbled, pulverized. Still the shaking hummed through Star’s body until she felt her bones would shiver into jelly.

Above the noise, Tafir shouted, “L-look at the c-clouds!”

Hunkered like bugs, spectators craned their necks to see the sky. The blanketing overcast had split in a thousand places. Scattered clouds coalesced into deeper black patches. Far off in a more peaceful world, the sun was setting, and shafts of brilliant yellow slanted across the landscape through a thousand holes in the sky. Amenstar caught her breath at the phenomenon. It was like a hailstorm of sunbeams.

Tafir pointed out one massive cloud directly overhead, a roiling gray-black anvil tinged red by the setting sun.

“It’s a genie,” the princess blurted. “Genie smoke!”

“Spirits of the Sands,” Pallaton shouted as he scrambled to his knees. “It must be Almighty Calim himself. Run! Get off the hilltop!”

Terrified, blinded by dust and mist, Amenstar only saw dimly as the chief vizar and his acolytes scooted to their knees, raised their arms, and sent up prayers to the greatest genie of legend. Their escort of guards were less certain it was time to pray. Some stood still and gaped while most ran pell-mell away from the riverbank.

Pallaton grabbed Amenstar by both shoulders and jammed her slack body to his breast. Slapping Gheqet and Tafir before him, the prince took three loping strides and quit the hilltop. Rocks and sand jigged underfoot as he struck the downslope and lost his footing. Star tumbled end for end, down to where their horses had been killed by rolling rocks.

They heard what happened later from spectators ranged along the rocky slopes. Seconds after Pallaton and the Cursrahns vaulted from the hilltop, from the deepest part of the roiling thunderhead flashed lightning so bright people recoiled as if struck in the face. A sizzling bolt scorched the air and struck the hilltop square on the chief vizar and his pilfered scepter. Watchers grunted in sympathy as the priest and his acolytes exploded into charred gobbets of flesh that rained far out over the rocks and splashed into the churning river.

There came a pause while the world froze, and waited.

Thunder, an unimaginable crash that rattled teeth and jarred bones, slammed the land as if to punish it. Anyone who’d stayed half-risen was knocked flat by the explosion, and everyone feared they’d been permanently deafened. In a jumble of rocks and sand and horseflesh, Samir Pallaton craned to look up the hill. His mouth hung open, his pallor ghastly white.

Above a high buzzing whine, Amenstar heard a squeak, and realized it was Tafir shouting at the top of his lungs: “I think that scepter was real!”

“I think Calim took it back,” replied Gheqet. “It’s—oh, no!” Crawling to his friends, the architect’s apprentice tried to drag both Star and Tafir to their feet. “Look there—the ridge cracked—the river turns!”