what we'll find, but we must descend… all the way.'
Hakiim grumbled, 'Amber, how can you know any of that? This city has been buried in sand… well, a very long time.'
'Nothing's buried.' Amber said. She spread her hands in a slow circle. Apart from gritty sand clinging to their numb bodies and clothes, the polished marble was clean as if fresh-washed. 'What we did, touching that moon- globe, triggered a spell-a magical sandstorm-to expose this city, and it happened for a reason.'
'One important to whoever lived here,' worried Hakiim, 'not necessarily important to us, or safe. When a hunter sets a leg trap for the desert fox, the fox doesn't prosper. He winds up a collar ruff.'
Reiver combed back his headscarf to reveal his dirty blond hair. Scanning the valley, he proclaimed, 'This city must've had an odd history. It was laid out by engineers and built from whole cloth or else conjured overnight.'
'How do you know that?' asked Amber.
'Calimshan's cities are ancient,' Reiver explained. 'They grew up from mud huts, usually along a river or the seashore. The streets ramble and crawl in all directions, laid and cut piece by piece, but look. This city is laid out in perfectly symmetrical rings-rings within rings. It must've been built on wasteland, and all at once, or cobbled together by genies.'
Amber and Hakiim saw the truth in his words. This city was a work of art.
The thief huffed and changed subjects. 'Why did you touch that globe?' he asked Amber. 'Were you mesmerized?'
Amber shook her head, as if her vision were cloudy or her brain half-asleep. In fact, she did feel compelled, drawn downward, yet also reluctant to talk about it. The feeling, the urge to explore downward was frightening but also exhilarating, for it gave her a distinct goal to pursue, though she couldn't guess at its outcome.
She asked, 'Don't you feel it?'
Again the thief and the rug merchant's son exchanged glances. Amber got her answer. No matter, she thought, and pushed on.
'There must be treasure,' Amber said. 'Every ruin in legend is packed to the roofs with gold, and most of the known ruins have been picked over long ago. We're the first to uncover this place.'
'Still,' Hakiim said, pointing his scimitar around at the valley, 'the magic worked and the sand blew off. The ruins are exposed and ready, but ready for what? Not us, surely.'
'Better it's not us.' Reiver slung his bundle over his shoulder and dug sand from his ear and added, 'So let's grab some loot and run. Lead on, shaani.' Meaning a leader with little skill.
'Hush, or I'll hex you with my white eye,' Amber joked and even forced a smile. 'You wanted adventure…'
Swinging her legs into the square hole, Amber caught the opposite lip and lithely dropped to the tunnel floor. Plunged in darkness, she took a fresh grip on her capture staff.
Alone, she muttered, 'We'll find you, whoever you are, whatever you need. I'll find you, even if I must press on alone.'
'Hold fast!'
Amber was jerked backward by Reiver's quick hand and brusquely banged against the wall. Before she could protest, the thief tiptoed ahead. His dagger flashed in torchlight as he snagged a dark point protruding from a nearly invisible crack in the pockmarked ceiling. Standing back wide-eyed, Hakiim and Amber heard a soft, tinny echo. Reiver backed up. From his dagger point hung a short arrow with a corroded green point.
'Bronze,' Reiver said as he scraped the crumbling point to expose a dull, brassy color. Using two hands, he flexed the shaft and it snapped. 'A little spring left to the wood. It'd hurt smacking you in the throat. Good thing I saw the head poking out.'
'You've got magic eyes, my friend,' Amber huffed.
'Where's-how does it shoot?' Hakiim gulped.
Holding his torch high, keeping them back, the thief squatted to examine the dusty floor and said, 'It must be some kind of spring coil. You couldn't rig a bowstring behind it, not with this tunnel hacked through bedrock, but there's no tripwi-ahl'
Brushing dust from the wall, Reiver traced a thin line. Easing his foot, he stepped on the small plate and flinched as a thunk sounded above. Amber squeaked and pointed. From other holes in the ceiling jutted two more arrowheads. Reiver's mouth fell open, for he squatted where the arrows aimed.
'Not one arrow,' Amber whispered. 'Three.'
'Sure,' Reiver croaked. 'Why not trip three and drill the whole corridor?'
'If they weren't corroded and stuck…' Amber said, turning to her other companion. 'Did you see that, Hak? Hak! What's wrong?'
Facing a side tunnel, Hakiim stood stock still, his eyes raised to a stone lintel above a doorway. This main tunnel that spiraled down under the palace, they'd found, branched often and irregularly. Unlike the neat circular layout above ground that Reiver had commented on, the underground tunnels jutted at odd angles, curled back on themselves, shortcut through solid walls, were braced by lintels and stone posts, and showed gouged-out niches and closets and drain holes. The honeycombs had been used for centuries, Reiver guessed, and masons had constantly enlarged them and shaved them and tinkered with them. Intersections required arrows and pic-tographs. No doubt the twisting tunnels had confused ancient messengers, porters, and servants just as much as modern explorers.
Still Amber couldn't understand why Hakiim was fascinated by a painted image on a lintel. Thick black lines formed an all-seeing eye complete with lashes and tear ducts. She wondered what it signified. This way to the Eyeball Wing? To the fortunetellers? To the beauticians' boutiques?
As Amber stared, the glaring eye beckoned, until she shuffled beside Hakiim. The black-rimmed orb held her rigid attention, made her stand still and wonder what came next. The eye filled her vision and mind. Patiently Amber waited, staring back, content to remain rooted forever. The eye would talk, she hoped, and reveal a secret or grand truth, and then she'd know… what? Amber couldn't imagine. So she waited-
— until a grimy headscarf dropped over her face and blinded her.
Startled, Amber snatched at the cloth, but Reiver spun her around as if playing Blind Man's Bluff before removing the scarf.
She snapped, 'What are you doing?'
'Rescuing you,' answered the smiling thief. 'So much for gratitude.'
'Rescuing-' Amber shook her fuddled head. 'Wait, where's Hak gone?'
'No, you don't,' Reiver said, and grabbed her arm before she could spin again. 'Stay here and don't turn around.'
Eyes on the floor, Reiver skulked behind Hakiim and repeated his blindfolded rescue. Hakiim was even more fuddled, teetering on his feet, shaking his head as if drunk.
'What-' he started, 'What's wrong with me?'
'You're beguiled.' Reiver crooked his fingers to form a big ring around one eye. Bug-eyed, leering, he intoned, 'Stand and deliver, puny mortal! I am the All-Conquering OrbofEye-See-You!'
Amber whapped his arm and said, 'Stop it!'
'Eye? What eye?'
Muzzyheaded, Hakiim made to turn, but his friends caught his sleeves and towed him away.
'It's a magic ward, a fixed spell of protection,' Reiver explained. 'We find them all the time in Memnon. You use a potioned paint and chant a charm while painting the sigil: an eye or a hand, or a shooting star, anything. They're one reason housebreakers work in teams.'
Amber didn't want details of her friend's crime-ridden life, and the memory of that beguiling eye made her shiver despite the licking heat of her torch. She'd have stood there until doomsday waiting for nothing.
'Thank you for the rescue, Reive,' Amber said. 'Now I'll display further ignorance with a question. How could these tunnels be used so often by common people, yet sport deadly traps like arrows in murder holes and enchanting glyphs? Surely they didn't expect water bearers and dung carriers to jump over pressure plates in the floor or not to see beguiling runes.'
Reiver pointed at the ceiling and said, 'Think, Curly-top. What happened to the Phoenix Palace?'
