The tablet found in the ruins of the Khuri yl Nor had spoken of this strange formation as an ancient oracle. It was said there were passages and a cave in the central spire. The cave was the prince’s destination.
The wind died with the sunset. The air quickly lost the heat of day and grew cold, but warmth still radiated from the broiled sand. Shobbat dismounted and rummaged through his saddlebags. Knowing there would be no wood for torches, he’d brought a small brass lamp. He knelt and placed the lamp on the sand, then struck flint on steel to light the wick.
Wapah asked his intentions. When Shobbat said he planned to enter the formation, the nomad put heels to his horse’s flanks and moved quickly to the crouching prince.
“Nothing was said of entering!” he said. “You must not! Do not disturb the spirits of this place!”
“I didn’t come here just to view the sights. What I seek is within.”
A cascade of sparks fell from his flint, and Shobbat concentrated on coaxing the flame to life. As he adjusted the wick, he heard a scrape of metal. Wapah had drawn his weapon, a narrow sword bare of crossguard, the style preferred by most nomads.
“You dare draw on me? I am your prince!”
Wapah was a motionless silhouette. The feeble lamplight did not reach his face, and his expression was hidden by the night. “If I rode away, what would you do? you’d never make it back to your city,” he murmured.
For the first time, Shobbat felt a flicker of uncertainty. He quickly quashed it, falling back on all the arrogance and assurance of his privileged upbringing.
“My whereabouts are known, fool,” he snapped. “If I do not return, for whatever reason, your entire clan will be hunted down and destroyed!”
This was a lie. No one in Khuri-Khan knew where Shobbat was. The prince didn’t trust anyone enough for that.
For a long moment they gazed at each other, the pampered prince and the talkative nomad. Then Wapah sheathed his sword and bowed his head. “Let Those on High judge you. I shall not.”
Shobbat picked up his lamp, his brief fear forgotten. Sentimentalists, that’s what these nomads were. They’d ride to their deaths shouting for joy, but threaten their families and they crumbled. Exploiting that weakness allowed Shobbat’s father to rule them. Sahim-Khan was the least sentimental man in the world.
The prince labored through the deep sand to the base of the formation. The central column seemed enormously high, rising tower-like against the starry sky. Around its base lay shards of black granite, shivered off the surrounding spires. Shobbat was grateful for the firmer footing they provided. The flickering light of his lamp showed no inscriptions, carvings, or any indication of intelligent handiwork, only rough, wind-worn granite.
Two-thirds of the way around from his starting point, he found an opening at ground level in the third black column. His heartbeat quickened. The roughly square entrance was partially blocked by drifted sand, and the prince had to drop to his knees to enter.
A passage rose into the column of stone. Steps had been cut in the dense granite, spiraling around the wall. At last, evidence of an intelligent hand! The information on the tablet was again proven correct. Shobbat drew a jeweled dagger from his sash and started up the steps.
The dark air seemed to absorb the weak glow of his lamp. With his eyes adjusted to the dim light, the darkness beyond seemed even more intense. The dry, clean air of the desert outside had given way to a rank, fetid aroma that grew stronger as he climbed. The amber light showed gray splotches on the wall. Bat droppings and dried guano crunched beneath his boots. The presence of living creatures so deep in the desert was curious. What did they live on?
As he drew closer to the top, Shobbat saw that the ceiling of the hollow spire seemed to writhe. Thousands of bats were clustered tightly together across the rough-hewn surface. He could almost feel their tiny black eyes on him, glaring at the intruder who dared penetrate their abode. A few of the creatures dropped from their inverted perches and fluttered by his head. Shobbat pressed his back against the wall and covered his eyes with one arm, waiting for the bats to pass. The irregular steps on which he trod had become narrower as he ascended; here, near the top, they were deep enough only to accommodate the front half of his foot. A misstep, and he’d go crashing to the floor below.
He had encountered no landings or side chambers along the way, just a continuing inward spiral of rutted steps. Watching the bats circle away and vanish through a black crevice at the top of the steps, Shobbat had to smile. So there was an upper chamber!
Continuing upward, he reached an arched opening, low enough that he had to stoop to pass through. Outside, a breeze whistled around the tops of the spires. The air was remarkably cold, and it refreshed him like a draft of new wine after the rank odor of the interior.
From ground level it had appeared the tops of the four shorter spires touched the central column. In fact, there was a gap of some six feet between Shobbat’s perch and the central column. Bridging the gap was a slab of black granite. It was barely wider than Shobbat’s two feet, but he wobbled across, both arms held out to maintain his balance. He had not come so far to be stopped by his dislike of high places.
On the other side a round opening penetrated the central pinnacle. He halted at the opening and brought the lamp in close. Two lines of writing were chiseled into the gray rock, curving around the top edge of the entrance. Although the spelling was archaic, the words were in the Common tongue:
It made little sense to Shobbat, but echoed what the scholars in Khuri-Khan had translated from the tablet.
He stepped through the opening and found himself in a large cave. The floor was paved with a polished black stone; the walls and distant ceiling were gray granite. As far as he could tell, the chamber was empty.
He shouted a few times, without visible result. Wind gusted against his back, sending his hat winging away and extinguishing his lamp. He wavered, off-balance in the sudden blackness.
“Enter, visitor.”
Shobbat pivoted in a full circle, but could not find the source of the low voice. “Who’s there?” he called.
“The one you came to find,” said the voice, then added a lilting phrase in a language Shobbat did not understand.
Brilliant light flooded the cave, blinding the prince. With a cry, he dropped both knife and lamp and covered his aching eyes. A sound no desert-dweller could mistake came to his ears, the beguiling splash of water. He lowered his hands. Blinking, squinting, he beheld an impossible scene.
The cavern was lit as brightly as noonday in the desert, but the air was cool and fresh. Even more astonishing, a fine tree towered over Shobbat, its branches spreading to the high roof of the cave. Knowing only the palms and succulents of Khur, the prince could not identify it. Its trunk was at least three feet in diameter, the bark gray-green and rough. Its dark green leaves were shaped like the shields carried by nomad warriors-long and narrow, rounded on one end and pointed on the other.
Shobbat stood staring dumbly upward. He had never seen such a tree before, and it was plainly impossible for its like to grow inside a closed cavern, shut off from the sun.
“No one has sought me out in an age. Your question must be grave.”
Shobbat’s gaze dropped from the magnificent tree to the old man sitting cross-legged at its base. He was thin, draped in linen rags the color of old parchment. White hair, fine as floss, hung to his shoulders. His skin was lined and darkened by time and the elements. He was obviously blind, his closed eyelids shriveled and sunken.
“Are you the Oracle of the Tree?” asked the prince.
Long, bony fingers gestured to the empty air. “There is no other.”
A breeze set the tree’s leaves to shivering. In the periphery of the cave, Shobbat saw movement, but when he turned to look in that direction, there was no one to be seen. Alarmed, he retrieved the dagger he had dropped and demanded to know who else was present.
The ancient turned his head slightly left and right, then shrugged. “We are alone.” Shobbat insisted he’d seen movement. “Those are images of the past and future, not living beings.”
The dismissive tone infuriated Shobbat. The haughty prince drew himself up, announcing his name and rank. The old man was not impressed.
“Makes no difference who you are. In any event, I’ve been expecting you.”
“Expecting me? How?”
“I am not fixed in time like mortal men. I live equally in past, present, and future. Thus, I know you seek the
