The exhausted adventurers roused slowly. Amber shook her head and swore her brain rattled, then snapped her fingers to assure she wasn't deaf. Hakiim croaked for water. Reiver rubbed a blistered face with numb and bleeding hands.
To both their surprise, Amber pulled her magical tiara from her pack. Having sipped a mouthful of water, and chewed a few dried dates, she lay on her back and eased the tiara onto her temples.
"What are you doing?" asked Hakiim. "Is that wise, right now?"
"Is it nighttime?" Normally Reiver knew instinctively the time of day, but even he was fuddled. "Will the moon have risen?"
Waving away their objections with eyes closed, Amber propped one arm under her head and drifted into visions of another time, another world. As she tried to relax to better observe, questions kept churning and disrupting the picture, like bubbles disturbing a pond.
What happened to Amenstar? How was the mummy created, and why? Who'd suffered in its horrific creation? The most terrifying thought of all was that deep down she already knew the answers.
16
The 383rd Anniversary of the Great Arrival
Where were they going?
With her mouth and tongue paralyzed by dumbcane, Amenstar felt just as numb in body, tied by red velvet ropes into her sedan chair. What, she wanted to scream, would they do to her?
Certainly death was the order of the day. With great pomp and ceremony, the royal procession wound down and down the sloping corridors deep beneath the Palace of the Phoenix. Amenstar had witnessed many atrocities along the way, all committed by her parents or in their names.
She saw "freed" slaves writhe in agony on the stone floor, deceived with poisoned wine. She witnessed as slaves who'd faithfully packed away treasure brutally cut down with swords. At every level, musicians, maids, and other commoners were peeled away from the procession and sent to errands or their unknowing deaths. Now and then palace guards and vizars were ordered away, some to administer death, but always the royal family descended.
Soon, Star realized, they would reach the bottommost level, the one always guarded and which, in her whole life, she'd never been allowed to visit, but where rumor said resided mummies of the ancestral dead. Numb, Star felt no curiosity about the mystery chamber, only a mounting terror as to her fate.
Still, when they marched through the last double doors to their final destination, the princess was oddly disappointed. The round room was simply a smaller replica of the royal court far above. Abbreviated frescoes were painted on the walls between familiar phoenix-faced sconces and zigzagged columns. Seven false doorways were painted black. The expansive floor was the same pink-white marble tiles, with one difference: each tile bore a central hole big as a woman's fist. The ceiling had been carved to mimic the open round roof, with a mosaic night sky and moon inlaid in the hollow. This room would never know sunlight, so it must be lit by flickering torches spaced roundabout.
Gradually, curiosity intruded. How long ago, she wondered, had this room been prepared? How long had her parents, or their ancestors, been preparing for disaster? How long ago had this "Protector" idea, whatever it was, been planned? Had this secret dummy court been built within the palace ages ago, under Calim's own guidance? Had genies and bakkals, way back at the city's founding, envisioned and planned for its downfall?
There were only three pieces of furniture in the room, standing almost exactly in the center, and they jarred Amenstar. Three statues had been fetched down from the original royal court. Two represented Star's elder brothers, both cruelly assassinated on their diplomatic missions. The third was Star's own likeness in painted stone. She trembled to see it. Her two brothers were dead, so statues took their places. Thus, dictated cold logic, if Star's statue were here, she must already be dead in her parents' minds.
Royal family members of all ages, a cadre of trusted advisors, sages, secretaries, and courtiers, five hundred handpicked seasoned warriors from the bakkal's bodyguard whose ranks filed out the door, and the brown-robed, bare-headed vizars like a flock of vultures entered the replica court. Tied in her chair, Star studied people's faces. Some advisors seemed calm, as if not surprised, while many of Star's siblings and half siblings fidgeted and fretted. Well they might, she thought, for who could hope for a happy outcome buried in this opulent grave?
The vizar-in-waiting took charge of the proceedings. Amenstar noted she'd donned a replica tiger-skin turban, and had blue and red veins inked on her cheeks, since there was no time for tattooing. Obviously, the old and senile grand vizar was dead, and the vizar-in-waiting had assumed her mantle.
The new grand vizar clapped and waved a hand. Into the hall staggered two junior acolytes carrying a steaming caldron of copper suspended from a pole. The oily brew was flecked with dark herbs and redolent with spices. Wafting, the smell made Star's nostrils twitch. It was acrid and bitter as burned mint tea.
Bidden by the vizar, the first ranks of the bakkal's bodyguard split and took up posts with their backs to the wall, until the room was ringed by red uniforms, leather accoutrements, and upright spears. Two hundred squeezed shoulder to shoulder, rhinaurs and manscorpions salted among them, and dutifully awaited the bakkal's command. The bakkal gave a short speech, more words than Amenstar had heard her father ever utter at one time.
"Worthy family, venerable sages, honored vizars, loyal soldiers, a day long anticipated has arrived," the bakkal said in a strong voice, slow and sepulchral, with no emotion, a tone fit to converse with the dead. "Today Cursrah dies, but Cursrah will live on-in you, my most faithful followers and family.
"Here, in the bosom of Toril, guarded by the Protector, shall the finest flowers of Cursrah sleep while the world changes above. Time will pass. How much, we don't know, nor care. Cursrah is master of every era and will endure forever. Waiting far above is a moon-soaked orb. When the gods decree, and fate favors us, that orb will be kissed by her mother, then shall Cursrah be uncovered to come alive, as shall we. In that new era, a world of the future, we shall be the core of a restored civilization. Led by the royal family, guided by our advisors, armed with steel and muscle, empowered by the vizars' magicks, and financed by tons of treasure, we shall march forth from Cursrah's valley. Together, we shall conquer all the lands lying under Calim's watchful eye and beyond. In that future time, we shall enslave an empire!"
At this dramatic pause, listeners stood stunned. Star saw people sifting the information, imagining the import, yet wondering about this magical feat-by which the royal court and attendants would "sleep"-when Amen-star's father added simply, "Your bakkal bids you drink."
The drink was the acrid potion steaming in the caldron. Elder vizars clustered around with copper ladles and doled out exact measures into blueware mugs. Acolytes carried the concoctions to the soldiers mustered along the wall. Even the bakkal's most fanatical guards hesitated to imbibe a potion brewed by the repellant vizars, yet the guards' grizzled commander-in-chief accompanied the acolytes with a sword and a scowl. The message was clear. Drink or die.
Obedient even to death, every guard slugged the bitter brew, returned the mug, and resumed their stance of attention. More guards filed into rank before them and drank the potion, until nine caldrons had been emptied and the soldiers ranked three deep around the court. Only a few dozen guards were held in reserve.
As the maneuvering and imbibing dragged on, the bakkal asked the grand vizar to explain the mystical potion. Whether this was to increase his knowledge or to double-check the process, Star couldn't tell. Rasping like a crow, the grand vizar spoke of old wine steeped with harmless herbs such as self-heal and skullcap, and toxic ones such as monk's hood and foxglove. Dissolved in were natron fetched from the sea, feldspar from the mountains, phosphate from desert salt flats, dreambliss from the southland jungles, and resin from northern trees. The mix had been stirred under last night's full moon, with prayers offered to Selune, the gentle Mistress of the Night, and bribes offered to Shar, Overseer of the Under-dark. Incantations had included forbiddance, death pact, armor of darkness, feign death, protection from fiends, and other spells the vizar was reluctant to reveal.