'Could've been,' Reiver, who tilted the charring leg bone to keep it alight, agreed, 'if the rest of the traps aren't already sprung or too rusted and rotten to work.'
'One trip wire… collapsed the tunnel… on our heads,' Amber panted.
'So one still works,' Reiver shrugged. 'The jackals, rats, and snakes only missed that wire because it was strung belt high, above their heads.'
Hakiim shook sand from his clothes and hair and asked, 'What was that weighted chain? It's a handy trick.'
'Garrote chain. Adding a fishing weight was my own idea.'
'Garrote chain,' Amber mulled. 'For strangling people?'
'No,' Reiver grinned. 'At least, I haven't strangled anyone yet.'
'Never mind,' Amber said, 'I don't want to know.'
'Speaking of strangling, the air is awful in here. Can we get out of this tunnel,' puffed Hakiim, 'or are we buried alive?'
'Who wants to leave?' the thief asked, only half joking. 'Look!'
Juggling the burning bone, Reiver stooped for another small coin, which he presented to Hakiim.
'Amber gets the next one,' he said. 'Don't fret, Hak, we'll get out. Every rat hole has two exits and every tunnel two ends.'
Hunched over, studying the dusty floor, Reiver moved on, taking the light with him.
Amber called, 'Don't go too far!'
Amber and Hakiim rested in the diminishing light while their breath calmed. Suddenly the light ahead winked out.
'What happened?' yelped Hakiim. 'Where's Reiver?'
'He's gone! Reive!'
Amber shot to her feet, fatigue vanished with the light. Holding her friend's sleeve, Amber scuttled down the dark corridor. Hakiim pointed his scimitar at the encircling darkness.
'He's got to be… yaaa!'
'Don't do that!' Amber barked.
'Sorry,' Reiver said, grinning.
He'd popped out of a dim niche. A growing glow revealed his face and headscarf, then his whole ragged body, and finally the walls and ceiling.
'Look,' the thief said, 'real torches… and this!'
The corridor met a cross tunnel that was twice as wide. It curved away and the floor sloped gently downward. Off to the right, something glinted in the orange torchlight.
'What's that shine?' Hakiim asked. He leaned and peered, reluctant to step into the bigger tunnel.
'First,' Reiver said, sticking his head back into the niche, 'let's get the rest of these torches.'
In the niche stood a terra-cotta urn full of crooked sticks with four iron prongs spiked with a gummy ball that burned with a pleasant, familiar fragrance.
'Balls of cedar needles glued with resin,' the thief said.
Lighting more torches revealed more dropped coins sparkling at their feet. Hakiim plucked them from the dust and divvied them out.
By flickering yellow fire, Amber studied the walls of the curved tunnel. Framed by whitewash, occasional panels had been painted at eye level. Fascinated, Amber peered at the pictographs. Men and women in blue shirts and kilts propped spears. A band of near-naked women played instruments. A vulture flew over two lovers kissing in a garden. A child tossed a ball to a pointed-eared dog. A woman spun wool on a drop spindle. Workers tilted columns in constructing a temple, and there was much more.
The daughter of pirates whispered, 'A lost world…'
Jiggling her torch made the distant, intriguing glint flare and die. Rapt, with Hakiim crowding her, Amber trailed one hand along the inward wall until they stood before two iron-strapped doors.
'Look at this sigil,' Amber said.
Bolted to the door with copper rivets, big as a tabletop, split in half, hung an emblem cut from sheet gold-a phoenix rising from flames. Unlike the coins, this fire burned atop a rectangular building with many thick columns supporting its roof.
'A palace,' breathed Hakiim.
'The Palace of the Phoenix?' asked Amber. 'I've heard of the Phoenix Prophecies, but never a palace. Have you?'
Hakiim shook his head and said, 'The Calim desert has more lost cities than a camel has fleas.'
'Yes,' the woman mused. 'Most were destroyed in the Era of Skyfire or soon after. They call that the Retreat from the Desert. Some ruins house desert dragons like Ylveraasahlisar the Rose, and Sharpfangs, and Rhimnasarl the-'
'Father Sky watch over us,' bleated Hakiim, 'I hope this isn't Teshyll! Those who seek her ruins never return.'
'Teshyll's farther south, I think,' Amber said as she traced the cool golden emblem with her fingers. 'Hmm… I've read that the ruins of Dashadjen support the Altar of the Air, but I don't think-yahhl'
Amber and Hakiim jumped when the phoenix flashed and swung toward them as if taking wing. The split door revealed a familiar face.
Both yelled, 'Reiver!'
'Sorry.'
Unbeknownst to his friends, the street urchin had scouted ahead and already slipped inside. He rattled the ironbound latch.
'The door could be trapped, knothead!' Amber said, panting for breath again. 'It could be warded, or cursed, or bristling with pestilence or poison needles… what's inside?'
The thief grinned, nodded behind him, and said, 'Light.'
'Light?'
'Somebody's home.'
Passing through the gold-hung door, the three adventurers knew immediately that they'd entered a sacred space. The corridor was larger, the ceiling higher, and many doors lined both walls. Paving stones were polished smooth as ice. The walls were plastered or inset with wooden panels, and every inch was painted in brilliant red, blue, green, gold, and silver. Life-size characters carried on their lives at every hand, and their clothing and jewelry glowed with opulence.
The searchers, however, were riveted by a tiny trickle of light above a wide intersection. Pacing that way while many painted eyes watched, Amber held her breath lest she disturb the awesome silence. Hakiim crept like a mouse, and even the irreverent Reiver clung close by for once.
Hakiim whispered, 'This is the center.'
'What?' Amber whispered back. She felt dazed by the majesty surrounding her. 'Center of what? How do you know?'
'Look.' The torch dipped four times as Hakiim said quietly, 'It's a major intersection, and I'll bet these four corridors are of equal length. It's the center.'
'Of the palace,' breathed Amber.
'Someone smacked that through in a hurry,' added Reiver. The hole, directly above the midpoint, was ragged, and had ruined a careful painting of rainbows on clouds.
On tiptoe, as if fearing to disturb the dead, Amber crept under the hole. The stone ceiling was three feet thick. Above, the mysterious light glowed in a tiny, dark room, like a mirrored lamp in an attic. From this angle, Amber couldn't see the light's source.
Amber started as Reiver brushed her elbow. Pointing her capture stick, she whispered, 'We've been descending steadily, so we must be deep underground by now. How can there be a light?'
'Magic,' quipped Reiver. 'Give me a boost.'
'Reive!'
Stepping into Hakiim's fingers, the nimble thief jumped, caught the upper edge of the hole with bony hands,
