They hurried at this last chore, for a soldier had come running with news that made everyone look east. As the sun set behind the watchers, the last rays glowed on a tall, roiling dust cloud. Rumors were confirmed; an invading army marched toward Cursrah.
Conferring, the master mason whispered to the chief overseer, who raised his whip and pronounced, 'Slaves, as a reward for your hard work, and with the blessings of our gracious bakkal, you are hereby set free.'
'Free…' The word skittered like a breeze among the clustered slaves. Freedom was a dream many had never entertained or even pondered.
One slave, bolder than the rest, shouted, 'Wait-what does that mean? Who will feed us? What shall we work at? Who will protect us from this marauding army?'
The masons and overseers only hurried home to see their families to safety, if such a notion still existed in this doomed valley.
The palace of Cursrah had been demolished, leveled, and hidden under sand. Now began the work of the vizars, to see that the sacred burial spot was protected against intruders, forever, if need be.
Inside the smothered stone hut, the gaunt vizar with the horned sigil and his two acolytes crouched in darkness. Sand sifted from the cracked roof slabs onto the vizars' shaven pates as they poked and squinted to assure no sunlight leaked into the stygian cell. Carefully they unrolled a bundle of jute, in triple layers dyed black, and draped it across the drop shaft to block any torchlight welling from the corridor below.
Satisfied that the darkness was complete, one acolyte unwrapped a square box big as a man's head. It was folded from sturdy tin and brazed shut with bronze seams. Working clumsily in pitch blackness, plying a small chisel and hammer, they attacked the tin box and pried the lid back. Gently they lifted out a wad of more black cloth, and carefully peeled back the folds. Working by feel, they arranged the soft cloth as a nest atop the short pedestal. Into the nest they eased a plain glass orb.
None of these vizars had ever seen the sphere, but they'd heard its story. Hand blown by Cursrah's finest glassblower, the orb was almost perfectly round, thick-walled, and unclouded save for a few tiny suspended bubbles. Years before, when the grand vizar's powers were most potent, she and other clerics had journeyed far and high to a peak in the Dragons' Wall. Waiting for a full moon, they had loudly offered the nearly perfect orb as a delicacy to Selune, goddess of the moon. At the same time, other vizars had under their breath invoked Bhaelros, god of storms, wind, and lightning, another inhabitant and lord of the sky. By a delicate balance of flattery, fast talk, and hedges, and despite teeth chattering with cold, the grand vizar had captured the favor of Selune, gentlest and most forgiving of goddesses, yet harnessed a small part of Bhaelros's might, a god with wind to spare.
Before the magic could be tapped and drained, the orb was wrapped in black cloth and stuffed into the tin box. Fighting a howling wind, an alchemist coaxed a charcoal fire hot enough to braze the box shut, sealing out any chance of light.
Now the globe had been shut up again, this time in a chamber sealed by stone and sand. Reposing on its pedestal, the orb was a trigger waiting to be pulled. When the time was right, the sandy cover would wear thin. The first finger of Selune, the merest sliver of moonlight, that infiltrated the globe's hiding place would set it aglow. The first touch of a human hand would unleash the fury of a hurricane stolen from Bhaelros, and Cursrah would be swept free of suffocating sand.
On some distant day in the future.
Removing the jute curtain, the vizar and two acolytes descended the short, improvised drop shaft. They turned down the spiral corridor toward the deep-sunken vizars' workshops. As they went, they passed a cluster of men and women who laughed and joked and fairly skipped by.
These people had, moments ago, been palace slaves of the highest caste, fit to wait on the royal family. Along with a hundred other slaves they had just delivered the royal family and their possessions to safety. As a reward, the vizars had granted them their freedom. Each ex-slave also received a mug of celebratory wine, three small gold coins, and a tiny gem to begin their new lives. Split into groups of a dozen, the newly freed folk giggled and boasted of the many great things they'd accomplish as they traipsed up the seemingly endless ramps and sloping corridors toward sunshine and promise.
Their walk to freedom halted. First one then another of the elders stumbled. Hanging back, a woman of sixty, who'd served faithfully in the palace since she was six years old, suddenly caught her throat, moaned, and fainted. A middle-aged man sank to the cold tunnel floor. Younger folk ran to their sides, only to be stricken themselves in throat and gut. Before long, all the ex-slaves collapsed. Infirm folk died quickly. Strong ones hung on grimly, curled in agony, cursing the bakkal before they finally ceased breathing. In their final lucid moments, a few veterans of palace intrigue realized they'd been betrayed, that the celebratory wine had been poisoned.
As the last victims lay twisting in pain, bleeding from the nose and mouth, a vizar came along with a palm leaf, the symbol of service. Chanting slowly, he imposed upon the ex-slaves one final chore to fulfill even in death.
'Here you will abide. Here wait, patiently, as in life. Guard this corridor. Let no intruder pass, though time lose its meaning and the moon vanish from the sky. Stay, guard, protect, let no one pass…'
Deeper within the tunnel complex, guards retreated backward on feather-light feet. Along the many tunnels they armed dozens of devilish death traps sure to cut down looters: falling blocks, hair-trigger crossbows, spring-set blades. Some guards frowned, knowing these traps had lives of their own, so would rot after a few decades or even centuries, but they kept any objections private. Working alongside them, whispering vizars enchanted stretches of gluefloor to snag unwary feet, spectral voices to haunt the mind, and beguiling eyes to hypnotize.
Farther down, where the walls were lined with brass, griffon-headed sconces, overseers barked as lower caste slaves packed treasure into shallow chambers along the corridor walls. Chests and boxes were stacked to the low ceilings. Baskets of jewelry were piled until they threatened to topple, and when sacks of coins and gems wouldn't fit, they were upended and poured into cracks like acorns into a tree. Gifts given to generations of royalty were squirreled away along with common but costly household goods: candlesticks, a crown, an incense burner, a gilt screen of rosewood, a brass barometer, a tea tray, a toy wagon with jeweled wheels, a magical jar, a lacquered box of ivory hairpins, a decorated horse bridle, and much, much more.
When these slaves finished their labor, and the chambers were mostly full, guards drew their short bronze swords. Slaves and slave masters screamed, cried, begged, clawed the walls and climbed the golden hoard, to no avail. The bakkal's bodyguards butchered them until the corridors were quiet again and even the echoes had died. The ravaged bodies were left to rot. Working slowly, the guards bricked up the entrances to the chambers and smoothed the mortar. The hard-faced guards felt no regrets. No slave would ever creep back to loot the bakkal's treasure. The gold and gifts would stay hidden until their sovereign needed it.
At the very lowest circle, the vizar-in-waiting chastised her clumsy acolytes. They pulled up square flagstones marked by holes in their centers. Other acolytes gingerly knelt with small jugs in hand. Each jug was filled with a vile green potion worked up in barrels months earlier, then covered with oiled paper tied with string and sealed with fragrant beeswax. A jug was nestled into a hollow just below each flagstone, then the flags were gently eased into place. Soon oiled paper gleamed beneath every hole.
Backing, wary of death traps, wards, and poised potions, the vizars and guards retreated into a large round room. The bakkal's most faithful followers had done their work well. They'd buried themselves alive.
Their work was almost done.
Far above, in the early evening glow, the grand vizar crept from a tunnel entrance. The ancient crone was led by the youngest acolytes in the realm: two shaven-skulled children, a boy and a girl who trembled to touch the mighty priest's icy hands, or look at her face tattooed with red and blue veins. Besotted by dreams and visions of other worlds and planes, the grand vizar stumbled often. Each time the children winced, fearing a single fall would kill the dotard, ruin their mission, and bring their own deaths.
A third being helped prop up the elder. The bizarre and living Vizar's Turban had glowing amethyst eyes and a hide like a tiger's. Crouching on the woman's brow, the magic creature communicated mentally with its carrier. Advanced age, the drain of conjuring, and the mystic alien mumble made the vizar so jumbled of mind she could hardly think at all. So the children and the turban directed the priest to her task, not the other way around. Stumbling, eyes fogged and unfocused, the grand vizar was escorted around and around the circular street once touched by eight bridges. From her mouth spilled an invocation.
'Ibrandul, Father of All Lizards, hear my plea. Ward this site that all men shun it… as mortals shun the
