Star of Cursrah (37 page)

“Roll her over. Bring that pail.”

More indignities. Star was washed head to toe, even between her toes, with icy saltwater then dried with rough linen towels. A felt swatch was pressed onto her tongue, and she couldn’t gag it out. The princess trembled. What were they doing?

“Spoon. The tiniest one.”

The vizar ladled crimson drops into Star’s unmoving eyes. The solution burned and itched, making her eyes tear. Worse, her vision grew blurry. Blinded! she wailed inwardly, but gradually her eyes focussed again, though the room was tinged red.

“Get the Ghast Salve. That copper dish there,” the new grand vizar instructed her juniors as if dissecting a frog.

“Normally, this step takes ninety days, with the first forty soaking in the tub. Here, we approximate the process. You, recite Abi-Dalzim’s wilting as we work. Slowly! Necromancy takes time.”

A dish of salt-stinking paste was plunked on the table.

Spidery hands dug out handfuls, and to a monotonous sing-song dirge, slathered it on Star’s body, rolled her, and applied more. The grand vizar daubed cold gunk onto Star’s face, eyelids, lips, ears, nose, and her shaven pate, rubbing hard in circles to soak the gunk deep. Rubbed into her nostrils, Star identified natron, a sea mud used to dry out mummies. Fresh terror gripped her.

All the gods of Toril, I pray, have mercy! I’m not dead yet!

A junior wheedled, “Shall I invoke bone blight, Master?”

“No. We decided her bones must remain strong. Unfold the shroud.”

Shroud! Amenstar almost jerked upright. Clothes donned by the dead!

With many hands lifting her, Star’s legs and torso were cocooned in gauze that stuck to the salve coating her skin. The grand vizar fussed to smooth creases.

“As the cloth shrinks, it may abrade the skin. Bring the wrappings, small patches first.”

Linen patches were neatly packed between Star’s toes and fingers. More were stuffed into her ears so sounds grew muffled.

“Now we wrap. Neatly, always, the legs first. While we wrap, each invoke the living embalm enchantment we rehearsed.”

Embalming! Preserving the dead! Star wanted to scream. How could anyone be embalmed who still lived?

Hands lifted one of Star’s flaccid legs, which was wrapped in yards of linen bandages, as her calf had been after the lion wound—but this bandage was so tight! Her limbs would turn gangrenous for lack of blood!

“Stand back. Ready your brushes.” An iron pot was lifted off a brazier and set on the table, smoking evilly. All the vizars dipped horsehair brushes. Star’s bandage was saturated with a hot glue that smelled like a cedar grove in summer. It was resin, resin that would harden like a beetle’s carapace.

Amenstar’s heart quaked. Was she to be buried alive?

It couldn’t be, she thought. Not even the unspeakably cruel vizars could do that. Entombed in a coffin or sepulchre, Star would suffer for days, slowing dying of thirst. Why administer such a horrific fate? For what purpose? Just to punish her? Could even her cold-blooded parents wish a lingering death on their own daughter?

“Another basket.”

Star glimpsed a long, ragged strip of linen, which was tugged tight around her torso and painted with resin. So it was true. She was swaddled like a mummy, to be entombed alive. Amenstar prayed desperately to any god who’d listen, but especially to Selune, gentlest and most motherly of goddesses. She knew the moon’s light never penetrated to these depths, but the princess prayed anyway while priests entwined her arms. Daubing on resin, they repeated the process several times, wrapping and painting, until Star’s arms and legs were rotund.

“Herbs.”

A sweet-spicy basket was brought. In it were crushed petals and stems of fennel, hyssop, bee balm, sour camomile, woodsy sage, and other plants. Onto the resin was now sprinkled this herbaceous mix, so for a second Star thought of a garden in sunshine, and realized once more that she’d never see sunshine or flowers again.

Hours passed as sweating acolytes tugged, smoothed, and daubed hundreds of yards of linen. Eventually Star’s hands were pinned by her sides and her legs tucked together, then bound tightly and smeared with brown pitch.

“Cartonnage, then the gilded linen.”

Cartonnage was gloppy wet papyrus pulp laid on Star’s wrappings with a trowel. Over that went fresh wrapping soaked in gilt paint for a luminous yellow sheen.

“Carefully now. Off the right side. You fetch the mask.”

Seven acolytes were needed to slide Star’s multilayered body off the table. She was propped against a cedar framework tilted at an angle. For the first time in hours, she felt a tingling in her muscles. The petrifying potion must be wearing off. She could blink slowly, though her eyelids were weighed down by salty salve. Testing, she could almost waggle her jaw and wrinkle her nose. This tiny movement, a small act of resistance, lifted her spirits a fraction. Still, she felt as heavy as a turtle, as hot as a hard-run horse, and as dense as a rhino. Crushing terror and stress made her weak, but she felt in control, a little. Only by dying could Star escape these ghouls, and she prayed it would come quickly.

An acolyte entered the room bearing a gilded mask. As it was set on the table, Star felt new trepidation. Fashioned of layered cartonnage, the mask bore her face, down to her pouting red lips, insolent dark eyes, and beaded cornrows, or rather, what her face had resembled in life, before the vizars shaved and smeared her. The princess swallowed a sob. She’d been beautiful and free only hours ago.

“Behold our Protector! The painted eyes let one see out … do you see?”

After hours of quiet mumbling, the grand vizar’s loud jibe jarred Star, even with ears muffled.

“But a few steps remain, the most important now. Fetch them, my willing hands!”

Acolytes shuffled from the lab. For the moment, Star was alone with the newly crowned grand vizar. The sexless woman had so far bustled, busy and businesslike, but now her cruel nature erupted like bile.

“Moonstruck ghouls, are we?” she sneered. “Ice-hearted bloodsuckers? Twisted tarantulas? You’ll regret those words, samira. You’ll learn who truly wields the power in Cursrah—us, her most potent artisans, masters of life and death!”

A scuffling and jangling sounded out the doorway. Star wondered who came, since now only vizars occupied these depths. Everyone else had been sealed up tight.

She was wrong.

Seven priests dragged in Gheqet and Tafir in chains!

“Star—what?” Gheqet goggled. “Anachtyr’s Tongue, is that you?”

“They—shaved your head!” Tafir’s eyes were red, wide with terror. “Why are you—You’re swaddled like a mummy! What are they doing to you?”

Amenstar tried to speak, but she only croaked and drooled like an idiot. Tears burst from her eyes. Her only comfort had been that her friends were safe, and now they were prisoners too. Truly, she lamented, the vizars had stolen her body, then crushed her heart and spirit too, and it was all her own fault… .

“Down!” commanded the grand vizar, and Tafir and Gheqet were shoved to their knees. Gheqet still wore his grimy work shirt and kilt, and Tafir the stolen tunic of Oxonsis. Iron manacles locked their hands behind their backs and were chained to their ankles, so they hobbled or hopped like frogs. Now vizars yanked their chains so taut the prisoners’ foreheads were mashed against the floor.

“Soldiers smashed down our gate!” Tafir called to Star. “They knocked my father sprawling, said the bakkal ordered I come, then hauled me here with Gheq! What will they do to us, Star? Star?”

The fellows didn’t realize Amenstar’s tongue was paralyzed by dumbcane and petrifying potion. Strangling in despair, Star thought it just as well she was mute. What could she say? How could she apologize for endangering their lives? How explain that, simply by associating with a princess, they’d doomed themselves, unfair as it seemed? Nothing in her family’s mad decisions made sense, and they’d even hurled their own daughter to perdition. Now the only friends Star had were also swept away in the storm of destruction. Star was to blame for this too, yet helpless to change anything. Unable to speak, Amenstar could only weep as her friends shivered on the cold stone floor.

The grand vizar crowed with evil pleasure, “Cursrah, the lion of Calimshan, has been pulled down by jackals because some hapless fools ignored their responsibilities. Now Cursrah’s finest citizens sleep until our city can again stride forth in glory. Until that day, while Cursrah sleeps, she must be protected! This Protector must be strong enough to endure untold ages.”

Stained brown robe swishing, the grand vizar walked between Tafir and Gheqet, gently entwining her bony fingers in their light and dark hair.

“You understand the need for sacrifice, don’t you, citizens? To be strong, the Protector must draw upon the strength of others, for one lonely soul could never endure. In a long, long not-life to come, the Protector will need kindred spirits, spirits of those who were closest and dearest in life. You two have been selected to serve Cursrah’s greatest endeavor. Be honored.”

“H-honored!” The word was torn from Gheqet’s throat.

“Honored,” mimicked the grand vizar. “You two are the most important components in the Protector’s enchantment, and I, who will bind the spirit itself. A trinket is needed too. Fetch the pillow!”

Pillow? wondered Amenstar.

An acolyte brought forth a pillow topped with a bundled handkerchief. Amenstar recalled her birthday, when she’d received the moonstone tiara. This pillow looked much the same. Why?

Reverently unfolding the cloth, the grand vizar removed a large necklace. Amenstar gaped. Double chains of fine-wrought silver supported a plain setting that held a multifaceted fire opal, a girasol mined only in the hottest, most desolate deserts. Glossy and milky, much like a moonstone, the stone winked red deep inside, as if licked by fire. Why did it seem familiar?

“The Star of Cursrah,” hissed the grand vizar, “crafted for the royal family’s eldest daughter, a gift for her wedding day. A double chain to symbolize two souls joined. A girasol to rival the moon, yet lit with a red and rebellious spirit, like the princess herself. Her marriage, it was hoped, would protect Cursrah like a benevolent star smiling from the heavens….”

A gasp escaped the princess. When her mother presented the silver tiara, she’d mentioned a “matching piece of jewelry—a surprise for later.” So long ago, it seemed.

“… gods decreed otherwise,” the vizar droned on, “for no wedding shall there be, yet one Star of Cursrah shall be wedded to the other Star of Cursrah, and the double chains shall symbolize the union of two souls. The red fire will serve a rebellious spirit, as it sleeps from one life to the next.”

What did this babble mean? Amenstar wondered. She watched, fascinated, as the grand vizar coiled the gaudy necklace in a shallow silver pan with the fire opal centermost. Stooping, she slid the pan under the noses of Gheqet and Tafir, as if to show off the necklace. While the prisoners strained against their chains and captors, the grand vizar summoned an acolyte.

“Sickle.”

A curved blade, razor edge winking in lantern light, was given to the vizar. Amenstar tried to scream, but only gargled spit.

“With the blessings of Shar, Goddess of the Underdark,” intoned the grand vizar. “Here you shall remain, here you shall serve, here you shall obey. Let two lives be joined as one by a river of blood.”

Bending, chanting obscenely, the vizar slipped the blade under the friends’ chins. Gheqet and Tafir made a mighty effort to break their bonds, to hurl off their chains, to scramble to their feet and run.

Struggling against her thick mummy wrappings, Amenstar howled an anguished, “Nooooo!”

Glimpsing the blade’s keen edge, Gheqet and Tafir screamed with Amenstar. With one deft slice, the grand vizar slit their throats. Pinned by chains and claws, the young men barely wriggled as hot blood gouted from their necks in a blazing crimson waterfall. Amenstar heard strangled sobs from severed windpipes, a ghastly whistling, then the spraying and splashing of blood drowned all sound. In seconds, the men were drained dry. Their blood filled the silver pan to overflowing, spilled to the stone, and ran in rivers around their knees.

For the merest instance, as their bodies sagged, Amenstar saw an iridescent glimmer, a silver-purple flash travel between her two friends and the bloody silver bowl, then it winked out. Vizars tugged the dead men aside and without ceremony stuffed the carcasses under a big table in the corner.

Retrieving the red-brimming bowl, the grand vizar fished out the Star of Cursrah and wiped it clean with linen rags. Amenstar gaped. The milky-white fire opal had changed, and was now as red as fresh blood. With great dignity, the grand vizar draped the double chains over Star’s shaven head so the bloody gem rested on her bandaged breast.

“The final ingredient, samira. Your friends’ life-force, if not their very souls, has been transferred to the gem, and so to you. Their spirits will sustain you for centuries, if need be. For you shall not sleep as does your family, samira. A guardian must be alert, awake. From you we have fashioned, for the first time in Cursrah’s history, a living mummy. You will be the Protector, and guard the family you failed so treacherously. Do you not see the irony, dear Amenstar? In life, you shirked your duty. In unlife, you are forced to perform it.”

Ignoring Star’s garbled cries and weeping, the vizars worked quickly. Star’s head was bound in bandages and painted with resin, avoiding only her eyes and mouth and nose, then all wrapped in gilt cloth. Amenstar could see only blurs through a small, gauzy slit. The painted cartonnage mask was lowered over her head and bound in place, and Star saw only blackness.

The living mummy felt the vizars hoist her onto a hardwood pallet. She didn’t see the acolytes whisk her down the dark tunnel. On the lowermost level, where resided the mummies of Star’s ancestors, and not far from the sealed doors of the replica court where slept Star’s family, gaped a dark, narrow vault. Inside waited a stack of bricks, a bucket of wet mortar, and a sarcophagus with a lid painted in Amenstar’s image. With no more ceremony, the living mummy was tilted into the coffin. The heavy lid was jostled into place and sealed with resin pitch, and the sarcophagus stood upright. It could stand that way forever, if need be.