pry into dead, desiccated, and probably angry brains for secrets. Still, the princess wondered.
'Vrinda,' she asked, 'have you ever been to the lower levels? The very bottom?'
'I?' fluted the genie. 'Never. That's the bakkal's domain. Your esteemed father holds many irons in the fire and toils for the good of the city. Even the most lasting dynasty may wither if not tended regularly, same as an olive orchard.'
'Olive orchard? I wanted to know-uhh' Her leg panged so sharply Amenstar cried out, despite her stubborn pride. 'Those useless vizars! May the Chariot Maidens whisk those lepers to the Mother of the Nine Hells.'
Gliding alongside, Vrinda made a tiny boosting motion with one hand and Star suddenly felt light as a bird, almost skipping on tiptoes. The giddy sensation made her stomach flutter.
'Mustn't keep the dressmakers waiting,' bubbled the genie. 'They've brought enough bolts to clothe every woman in Cursrah.'
'We have to wrap the package neatly,' grumbled Star, 'to bring a high price at auction. Did ever anyone suffer as much as I?'
'Suffering, she speaks of,' Vrinda said, her voice gaining an icy edge. 'She who was swaddled in cloth-of-gold and fed caviar from a silver spoon.'
5
The Year of the Gauntlet
'Gold!'
First into the dim tunnel, Keiver pounced on a glimmer on the sand-strewn floor. Only pure gold could lie untarnished for centuries. Reiver held the coin to the light. It was round like a Calishite tardey; on one side frowned a king with a head cloth and serpent headband, big nose, and thin lips.
'A bakkal,' murmured Amber.
'A what?' asked the two.
' 'He Who Rules from On High,' ' Amber translated, taking the coin from Reiver. 'Nowadays we call them pashas, but bakkals were thought to be genie-kin, or even demigods. What's on the obver-ooh' On the coin's back glowed a ruffled bird rising from fire. 'A phoenix…'
'This'll cause a flurry in the gold seller's bazaar,' Reiver said, grinning, teeth bright in his tanned face. He took the coin back from Amber. 'We might have wandered into a dragon's lair. They drag in treasure and coins fall out of their scutes.'
'So do people's bones,' sniped Amber.
'Don't speak of dragons,' Hakiim hissed. 'It's bad luck.'
'You must have elven blood, Reive,' Amber said, happy to change the subject, 'you've the eyes of a lynx. I can barely-Vipers of Kalil!'
Her eyes having adjusted, Amber shifted her capture staff to pick up a white oblong. The skull leered at her, either a dog or wolf with a blunt muzzle and bone-crushing teeth. She tossed the relic away.
'Awful,' she said. 'This place is like a tomb.'
Ignoring Amber, Hakiim raised his eyebrows at the coin in Reiver's hand and said, 'Share and share alike?'
'Certainly. Next one's yours,' Reiver said and slipped the coin into one of many pouches. 'Let's hunt up another.'
Edging past the men, Amber squinted down the tunnel, which descended slowly but steadily. How far and how deep? she wondered. 'First,' she said, 'let's strike a li-Bhaelros take me!'
The daughter of pirates had brushed something with her hip. It moved. Wary of snakes, she flinched.
Too late. The tripwire parted with a pung!
Stone grated on stone, as a creak and groan sounded deep within the walls. Dust trickled from the ceiling. Amber shouted a warning. Hakiim whirled to dash for open air. Reiver, who survived by quick reflexes, rammed his hands against his friends and shoved. Amber and Hakiim lurched headlong, deeper into the tunnel, and dropped onto their hands and knees. Reiver flopped between them. Behind, the world crashed down.
Where they'd stood a second before, a stone block big as an oxcart fell into the corridor with a resounding crash. The impact lofted the intended victims a foot off the floor. Other blocks, no doubt cantilevered against the first, tilted, slid, and crashed atop. The grinding and subsequent thuds boomed like explosions in the travelers' ears as they crawled deeper into the tunnel to escape the dust. Instinctively they yanked their kaffiyehs across their faces, and Reiver clutched his companions' sleeves.
'Stop,' the thief cautioned. 'That's far enough. There may be more traps.'
Frozen, they hunkered in darkness, waiting for the blocks to stop crashing and sliding. Billowing dust stung their eyes and made their noses run. They hunched their backs uselessly lest giant blocks drop on them. Gradually, scarcely breathing, digging dust from their ears and eyes, they guessed the cave-in had subsided and rose stiffly, sneezing and wheezing.
Batting the swirling air, they saw that the entrance was not far away. Early evening sunlight leaked through cracks and made dust motes dance, but jumbled blocks as big as hayricks blocked the corridor, the cracks too small to crawl through.
'Ogham's eyes! I would have been crushed running for the outside,' panted Hakiim. 'How did you know?'
'Common sense, a lucky guess,' Reiver whispered. 'Small traps nail a person on the spot. Big traps set the trigger at the far side so the whole party is-'
'Shhh!' Amber squeaked. 'Something moved!'
A sound, part slithering, part skittering, and part chittering, came from just ahead and froze them. With a hand, Amber shooed Reiver and Hakiim against the opposite wall so slanting sunlight could lance into the depths.
The wolf skull Amber had handled twitched. Bug-eyed, Amber watched the skull skitter backward with a clicking noise. A rat, she hoped fervently, a rat had crawled inside and dragged the skull like a hermit crab… but she could see through the skull's vacant eyes. No rat.
Hakiim groaned. Words failed him.
As their eyes adjusted to the gloom, they saw that more stark-white bones littered the tunnel, a heap almost knee-high. All the bones moved of their own will. Outlying bones trickled toward the pile. The wolf skull bumbled along to meet a crooked spine then clicked into place atop. The spine wriggled like a snake to join a dried pelvis like a broken seashell. Shoulder bones collected arms. Feet like spilled necklaces joined crumbly ankles.
With no place to run, the three companions stared, riveted. Clacking, bumping, milling like albino ants, the bones coalesced into parodies of skeletons. One lurched to its feet.
Hakiim screamed. Reiver prayed to Shar, Mistress of the Night and the Underdark, who sometimes took pity on thieves. Amber gained a terrifying insight. The skull with the bone-crushing jaw wasn't a wolfs or dog's, but a jackal's, an eater of corpses.
Whatever spell animated the monster had hashed it, for the results were grotesque, lopsided, and hapless. The jackal skull wobbled atop a human spine, rib cage, and pelvis. One arm was perfect down to nimble finger bones, but the other shoulder sprouted a snake skeleton with multitudinous ribs. Both knees angled backward, the legs of a jackal, but the twisted feet were human. Clumsy though it was, the dead creation lurched toward the living humans. Fingers wriggled in anticipation of clawing warm flesh.
More patchwork skeletons arose. A human skull, denied a torso, perched atop a pelvis and clacked cracked teeth. Another snake skeleton towed a human hand for a tail. A jackal's body sprouted two human heads, one upside down but both jaws clacking. One human rib cage was crammed atop another so the topmost scratched the stone ceiling. Four arms sprang from a walking pelvis. Other hideous combinations jittered together until a dozen freaks blocked the corridor from wall to wall. Silently they stood and swayed as if from an invisible breeze.
'What do we d-do?' Hakiim whispered.
'Keep quiet,' Reiver advised.
'What are they?'
