The last zombie to rise was something Amber had only seen in visions. Rearing ten feet tall and twelve long, a giant's scabrous head and torso bulked above the death-ravaged carcass of a rhinoceros. In bony hands big as bushel baskets, the undead rhinaur raised a tall, lyre-shaped halberd. A rusted and rotted leading edge, once sharp, aimed to kill.
A dozen of the White Flame's bandits had rushed into the courtyard but now reeled in shock. Amber also struggled to comprehend the revival of these undead warriors, what they meant, what they intended. Reiver and Hakiim couched in a corner, poised to vault the pool rim and run, even into the midst of the bandits. As the zombies stamped in formation toward them, Amber suddenly understood and grabbed her friends sleeves.
"No, stay! They're-they want to-they're Amenstar's personal guards. Song of El Nar'ysr, they think I'm their princess!"
Indeed, the two half circles of undead guards crunched and clacked like living statues to bracket Amber and her friends in two phalanxes. The giant rhinaur, a phalanx all by herself, bulled across the pool with steps that shook the earth. When her petrified-mud hooves banged the pool rim, stone and tile broke and scattered like spun glass.
The undead juggernaut was too terrible even for desert- and mountain-hardened outlaws. Spinning on their heels, they ran over rubble and ruin, wherever lay the quickest exit. The undead rhinaur-M'saba had been her name, Amber recalled-raised an arm only half fleshed and hurled her lyre-shaped halberd after a bandit. Propelled by that massive arm, the crumbly steel still had power to kill. One point of the lyre blade bit hard into the outlaw's back, tearing a great ragged gash that broke his shoulder blade and collarbone and severed his spine. The man cried out once at the agonizing pain, then flopped and lay still. By the time his jaw crashed on rock, the other bandits had vanished.
Silence.
Peeking at the unliving guards, Hakiim hissed to Amber, "May we-go?"
Reiver nodded hopefully. Amber balked. The devoted guards, or their remains, had saved her life. Even looking at them was difficult, they were so gruesome and grotesque, but each clearly bore an identical slash across his throat, and the towering M'saba wore many axe blows. They'd been beheaded not for their fault but for their mistress's. Loyalty had proved their demise, yet when the princess-or Amber in her guise-was endangered, they'd risen to defend her without hesitation. Their simple, unwavering faith deserved some reward.
Amber had nothing to give except her thanks, yet she hesitated to lie and claim she was the princess. Even ghosts deserved honesty.
Gulping, she finally blurted, "Th-thank you, loyal bodyguards. Thanks for myself and my friends. I–I'm safe."
For a moment, she wondered if the zombies heard or could hear anything. Not one bobbed, or nodded, or bowed.
Reiver whispered, "Can we-"
"Look," breathed Hakiim.
A guard lost a hand. It fell from the wrist without a sound and broke like a clod of dirt on the courtyard flagstones. Another guard's arm fell and burst in a puff of dust. A leg gave out, and a guard toppled. Amber and her companions skipped aside as M'saba, only minutes ago so strong and formidable, keeled over like a sinking ship and smashed into dirt and powder. In seconds all the guards had collapsed. Nothing remained but dry mud and antique bones.
"It's… sad," said Hakiim.
"Yes," Amber whispered, then took a deep breath to keep from crying.
Her emotions ran riot, as if she lived both for herself and for a long-dead princess. Visiting the past in visions might get her killed in the present.
"Look here," Reiver said, crouching near the fallen bandit. Amber knew Reiver had looted the corpse, for no thief could afford to pass up such an opportunity, yet the orphan held a dropped rucksack of camel hide. Stuffed inside was a rich, ivory fur with steel-gray spots. "Snow leopard."
"In the desert?" asked Hakiim.
Amber understood, if only by the spoiled-meat stink. "It came from that ogress. Her comrades must have found her crippled and cut her throat. No other way could they get her fur."
Hakiim gawked. Amber shook her head at the needless cruelty, yet knew she contributed her share. It was, as Hakiim said, sad.
Reiver watched the gaps between walls.
"Come," the thief said. "We need a secure place to hide until dark."
"Secure?" asked Hakiim.
"I won't say 'safe.' In this accursed city, nowhere's safe."
"Sure you won't quit?"
"I'm sure," Hakiim sighed and shook his head. "Adventure seems to be mostly about fright and cold and hunger and fatigue, but I agreed to come, so I'll stick to the end."
"What end?" sniped Reiver.
"Hush," Amber warned, then squeezed both her friends' hands in the darkness. "Thanks, Hak."
The three sat on a high stone ledge with their feet dangling in the air. A shadow among shadows, Reiver had scouted for sanctuary and found this bricked niche, like a curved cave, on the second floor of a ruin. A chimney at the end gave a second escape route, if necessary. Amber didn't recognize the place from her visions of old Cursrah but guessed from the neighborhood it had been a shop or civic building. This pocket might have been a huge bread oven.
Evening ripened, the air cool. The moon had risen before sunset, and Amber donned her silver tiara. Watching the past while talking, she and her friends saw Amenstar drummed from the Oxonsin camp, watched them cross the grasslands, then witnessed the sea genie's escape atop the giant waterspout. They learned how citizens deserted the city in droves while others roamed half mad, glimpsed the wrath of the moon dragon, then fretted at Amenstar's arrest and audience with her implacable parents.
"So what happened?" demanded both boys.
Amber plucked off the tiara, afraid to see more. Condemned by her parents, the princess must surely die with her city, guessed the daughter of pirates. Head spinning, sorrow choking her throat, Amber was glad when Reiver declared it time to go.
Climbing the short chimney to a shattered third floor, the adventurers emerged onto a wide wall that broke away sheer on both sides. Reiver warned them to cling to the chimney lest their silhouettes be seen.
He asked Amber, "Do you recognize anything new, now that you've toured the city through the tiara?"
Pouting, Amber studied the ruins. Light from a quarter moon painted Cursrah with a gentle glow, but nothing could disguise the scars the city had suffered before it died. No wonder, if Cursrah's citizens went wild drunk or half mad. Slowly she matched the vibrant pictures in her head against the silver-lit, cratered landscape, but it more resembled the moon than a world of men.
A slim projecting corner caught her eye, and she said, "That's the Temple of Selune. It was crescent shaped, like the moon, and… there's a half dome, the Temple of Shar, broached by the dragon. See how the streets radiate from the center like spokes in a wheel? The palace was the hub."
Obediently the men looked, but without her mental images they found it hard to recognize the layout. In many places, buildings had slumped across streets and into each other. Some streets and plazas had collapsed into the city's interconnecting tunnels, leaving enormous potholes or elongated depressions like giants' graves. Amber tried to sketch in the air, but the devastation was too disheartening, and she gave up.
"Never mind. Reckon where you would go, and I'll point the way."
They hoped to gain the palace cellars but wanted to stay above ground. Collapsed streets and teetering rubble made them leery of dark tunnels, which might also contain man-made traps or other dangers; pits, snakes, unburied dead, even portals to the Underdark. Not all buildings, such as temples, were linked by tunnels anyway. Mapping various routes, they finally chose a jagged line that promised no obstructions, gave cover, and wouldn't box them in.