Just for a second, the miraculous giant, a marid plucked from the sea's darkest depths, hung suspended atop her ethereal waterspout like the finger of a god. Treading water, raising long slender arms, twisting her body to face west and the distant ocean-Amenstar saw this act clearly-the genie named Bitrabi clapped her hands.
A roar bellowed, like a waterfall, like a sandstorm, like the thunderous drumming of Calim himself, as the genie shot into the sky, propelled by the impossible column of water.
Out of danger, Amenstar and the others flinched as the waterspout zoomed into the ether like a magician's toy rocket. Untold thousands of gallons shot up from the lake like a whale's exhalation, following the aquamarine genie. For only seconds were the column and its mistress visible, then both arced away into the sky, soaring so high the trio craned their necks to see.
Far, far away, they knew, the watery arc would descend, and the genie that Cursrah had called Bitrabi would splash into the Trackless Sea. After centuries of slavery, the marid would plunge into her home once again.
Watching, the weary travelers gasped. For an instant, as the great waterspout bisected a sky tinged red by sunset, there flashed the biggest and most beautiful rainbow Calimshan had ever seen.
The brilliant band faded. The sky turned gray and empty as twilight sank upon the land.
"She's gone," murmured Tafir.
"She's free," breathed Amenstar.
"And she's taken all the water with her," lamented Gheqet.
Snapped back to reality, Amenstar stared into the valley. Cursrah's lake, a glittering and happy place Star had seen all her life, was a mire of mud. Stippled about were stone blocks, drowned or broken bodies, smashed barges, and other jetsam. The only water was a few boggy pools that would evaporate by daybreak.
"The aqueduct," muttered Gheqet, "must have finally run dry. That last six inches emptied into the lake. The last thread connecting us to the Agis snapped, so the spell binding Bitrabi must've expired. Even a tasked genie can't protect what isn't there, so her job was finished. She was free and bolted immediately."
"Leaving us stranded," said Amenstar, "to die of thirst."
Cursrah normally came alive after sunset, as the day's heat passed, but the homecomers found the city like a giant's toppled body, dead but not yet cold. As Amenstar's bay horse switchbacked down the valley road, trailed by her two friends, they passed an exodus already begun. Families had loaded carts, donkeys, drags, or their own backs. It was a short climb to the valley rim, but a long trek across grasslands and wilderness to the next town or the river, yet they braved the night rather than remain. As the road bottomed out, Amenstar saw more cottages lit with torches where people packed in sullen or weepy silence. She watched a woman lean from a second story apartment and drop blankets to her husband, calling that that was the last. When the woman descended, crying quietly, the two hoisted bundles, joined hands, and turned toward the valley rim.
Their horses' hooves clip-clopped on cobblestones and echoed from empty buildings. Normally taverns, cafes, and gambling dens would sparkle with talk, laughter, and lovers' cooing. Star saw only one cellar lit, and the patrons drank silently or muttered bitterly. Amenstar felt she'd blundered into some foreign and hostile port. Riding on, by and by a rustle and fuss welled ahead.
Gheqet said, "People gather at the city center. I wonder what they hope to find?"
"Not water, that's for sure." Tafir rubbed his throat and said, "I'm dry already."
"Stop it, you two," Star's voice cracked the empty night. "People flock to the city center to hear my father reassure them. He'll have sought auguries from the gods and will now reveal our plans for the future."
Star saw the two young men exchange glances: What good can the bakkal promise? What kind of future? The princess scalded them with angry silence.
At the centralmost ring of streets, they dismounted and tied their horses to posts, for beasts of burden were not allowed in the civic quarter. The hitching posts hung above water troughs normally kept filled by city slaves, but the troughs had been bailed dry.
Proceeding afoot, Amenstar retied her yellow neck scarf into a veil to hide her face and the silver moonstone tiara. Her yellow trousers and green cloak were so grimy and dusty as to be colorless. Gheqet wore a worker's white tunic and kilt like hundreds of others. Tafir had inverted his linen tunic to hide the red badge of Oxonsis.
Thousands of people, half Cursrah's population it seemed to Star, milled at the city center. Not one stood still, but all walked this way or that as if searching for something, while a few ran headlong to escape or embrace disaster. People chattered alone or to others, some wept, a few laughed in hysteria. Many citizens were drunk, terrified to face the future sober. Anxious not to get separated, Amenstar touched her friends, who squeezed her hands.
"I can't tell what transpires," said Tafir. "Is everyone mad?"
"There's no pattern." Gheqet cast about. "Everyone's just wandering around like…"
"Like cattle penned for the slaughterhouse," finished Star. "What's that old saying? 'When strife eclipses the sun, only Bhaelros lights the consciousness of men.' "
Standing at an intersection, the companions gazed at the Palace of the Phoenix. Torches burned in iron sconces on every column of the round palace, their lights reflected in the dark moat. Four guards, grim heavy infantry, barred each of the eight bridges to the palace. No activity showed, and Amenstar wondered what her parents did. At times, the crowd swelled toward the bridges, eager to glimpse the bakkal, but then surged away aimlessly.
Down the street Star saw people collected before the Temple of Selune, a tall crescent-shaped building that imitated the moon. The gentle Mistress of the Sky had always been favored in moonstruck Cursrah, but despite the fright, no one entered her temple. People shouted in frustration and beat at the doors as if they were locked.
Star murmured, "This can't be…"
Tired of confusion and ignorance, Amenstar snagged the next person who passed. A woman, middle-aged and wrinkled, jolted to a halt and slapped the offending hand from her sleeve. Star demanded news, and the woman acceded to royal authority without recognizing it.
"The Temple of Selune has been shut tight-closed for the first time in memory. The vizar-in-waiting brought soldiers inside, and they whipped folks-whipped them! — to drive them out. Slaves bricked up the doorways. Selune's temple is no more, I tell you. It's the bakkal's fault. He's deserted us, left us to die of thirst. There's no water. It's all gone-"
To the left, a huge fireball suddenly roiled, lighting the night sky. The crowd gasped, and Star gawked. The woman hurried away to nowhere. Holding hands, the three friends joined the surging crowd to see what made the fire.
"That old fool," the princess fumed. "My father would never desert his people, and none of this makes sense. Why would my father's soldiers close the Temple of Selune? People need her comfort in times of trouble, and who's-oh, no!”
The bonfire illuminated the Temple of Shar, goddess of darkness, pain, and unlife. Shar had always been an unpopular deity, worshiped only by the dying and the damned, for Cursrahns had been happy and satisfied and didn't wallow in self-pity. Shar's was the only temple doing business this dark night. The low dome was decorated with black tiles and a few red ones inserted at random. The only door descended below street level into the dark bowels of the world, Shar's domain. On a small cobbled plaza before the dome, Shar's few elderly priests had propped a huge iron dish on stone uprights, filled it with amphoras of black rock oil, and ignited the pool. The watery fire spawned spirals of greasy, stinking smoke. A big drum of ox hide had been rolled out, and a red-clad acolyte pounded hard and long upon it. The sagging drumhead gave a muffled, mushy tone, and the erratic drumming grated on everyone's nerves.