The Dark Lord

fluttered, disturbing her hair, then died.

She froze. A tremendous silence filled the night, without even the whisper of the night wind to disturb the sand. Counting thudding, enormously loud heartbeats, Shirin waited. Nothing moved in the darkness. Cautiously, she resumed creeping along the stone face. Twenty steps later, she froze again. A breath of air brushed her cheek, ruffling a wayward curl.

Anticipation mounting, Shirin's fingers explored the rock, finding a narrow vertical crack. Air hissed softly from the opening. A cave, she realized, remembering her uncles' tales around a winter fire, very long ago. A big one. She pressed against the rock, fingers pressing and poking in the hollowed stone. A sharp-edged groove revealed itself to her searching fingers, then another. Frowning in the darkness, Shirin traced a half-familiar pattern. A bow? Newly scratched in the stone?

Without thinking, she traced the sign of the Archer in the air, nodding to herself. The Daughters must have been here recently. Putting her shoulder against the rock, the Khazar pushed, feet slipping on the sand. There was a scraping sound, then the stone face slid away and she fell, startled, into the greater darkness beyond. A rumbling creak followed as she scrambled up from a smooth floor and the counterweighted block rotated back into place, cutting off even the faint ghost-light of the stars.

—|—

Time passed, the eroded face of the pinnacle remaining stolid and unmoving despite the faint sound of metal banging on stone. Eventually the faint noise stopped and silence settled on the sand and rock.

Some time later, the curved arm of the moon lifted above the eastern horizon, casting a pale, silvery light over the wasteland and the rocky knobs. The shadows grew deeper, though the sand glittered faintly. A figure, hunched and bent over the rippled sand, appeared in the dim radiance, creeping along Shirin's trail. After casting back and forth across the marks of her sandals, it reached the rocky face. Thick fingers, clad in burnished dark mail, examined the worn surface, poking and prodding.

A hiss of anger broke the silence. The figure drew away from the hidden door and moved back along the footsteps in the hard sand. Another shape, also cowled and shrouded, met the searcher and together they loped off towards the Roman excavation. The torches had burned down to glowing ash, which did nothing to prevent the entrance of the two wights into the tomb.

—|—

'Another dead end!' Nicholas cursed, backing up. Behind him, two of the fellaheen scrambled backwards up a sloping ramp. Their torches flared along the low ceiling, leaving washes of soot on the bare stone. Nicholas glowered at the rough-hewn stone wall closing off the end of the passage.

'Let's try the other way,' Thyatis said. She was trying to hide a smile. Nicholas was covered with dust and grime from head to toe. Squinting with his bad eye, he crawled out of the square-cut opening into the larger tunnel. 'There are plenty of passages to search.'

'Funny,' he growled. The entrance ramp had led down into a high-ceilinged gallery lined with plastered columns. Despite the excited shouts of the fellaheen, they had found nothing in the entryway but broken pottery and desiccated bits of bone and skin. Thyatis didn't think the remains were human, but she'd steered clear of the detritus anyway. 'Does anyone see anything?'

The workers, squatting on the floor of the passage, shook their heads. Most of the men had lost their initial fear—no vengeful spirits had emerged from the painted walls to threaten them and the tomb was proving a dull succession of debris-filled rooms, rubble-strewn corridors and dead-end passages like this one. Thyatis did not respond. As before, she remained at the rear of the group, watching the passage behind them, squinting into the darkness beyond the light of their torches and listening. Sound echoed strangely in the contorted tunnels. A little while ago, there had been a clattering sound—like metal falling on stone—behind them.

'Vlad? Do you hear, see, smell anything?' Nicholas sounded worried and impatient.

The Walach looked up, eyes glittering in the torchlight. His beard and long hair were streaked with white dust and he looked miserable. 'I smell you,' he growled, 'and these pitch torches. Not much else.'

'All right,' Nicholas sighed. 'Let go back to the last junction. Vlad, you lead.'

Thyatis waited, pressed against the corridor wall, while everyone reversed direction and crowded past. Mithridates brought up the rear, dragging the sled easily behind him. As he passed, Thyatis grinned at the Numidian. The wide-shouldered African smiled back, though he had to crouch to keep from striking his head on the ceiling.

Clanking and rustling, the group trooped back down the tunnel and into a junction of sloping, ramped corridors. One led up, back to the first gallery, the others went off in every direction. Over the heads of her companions, Thyatis could see Vladimir crouched in the octagonal room, casting about, nostrils flared. Nicholas, his long blade bare in his hand, was watching from the tunnel mouth. After canvassing the chamber, Vladimir paused at the bottom of a ramp trending upward.

'Someone's been this way,' the Walach called, his voice echoing in the domed ceiling. 'I can smell garlic, maybe, and some kind of metallic-tasting oil.' Turning, he tasted the air in the other openings. 'Someone passed this way too with incense, myrrh, beeswax, coriander...' He squinted down the passage. 'A lamp with scented oil. Sweet.'

Just in front of Thyatis, Mithridates turned, looking over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised skeptically. The Roman woman shrugged, stepping up beside the African.

'We're the first people in this tomb in hundreds of years,' she whispered. 'All those smells are just sitting here, undisturbed.' At the same time, she felt a cold prickling, wondering just how good the Walach's eyesight was, if his sense of smell was so sharp. Sparring to pass the time on the Paris had already proven the barbarian was fantastically quick and strong. He didn't have the hard-won skill owned by Nicholas or Thyatis, but he could wield his long-bladed axe tirelessly.

'Are there any tracks?' Nicholas thrust his torch into the doorway of the downward ramp.

'No,' Vladimir said, padding down the tunnel in a half-crouch. 'The smell is getting stronger.'

'Right.' Nicholas followed, beckoning for the others. Most of the fellaheen followed, though two of them were peering up the other passage. Thyatis, following at the back of the group, scowled at them as she crossed the octagonal room.

'You two,' she hissed, 'this way!'

At the same moment, one of the Egyptians—head wrapped in an elaborate turban—pointed, whistling in surprise. 'Look, my lady, something's there!'

Thyatis was at his side in an instant. The ramp sloped up and turned onto a platform. At the bend, there was some kind of debris glittering bright and golden in the torchlight. In the poor light, it was impossible to tell what it was.

'Leave it,' she growled, feeling her hackles rise. There were white shapes in the rubble too, like bones. 'We can check it later.'

The other fellaheen, making a hasty sign against spirits, hastened to catch up with the others. Thyatis followed, smirking. Someone has an atom of good sense, she thought. Then she stopped, frowning. Where was the first man... Thyatis spun, leaping back towards the ramp. She caught sight of a pair of sandals disappearing up the tunnel and skidded to a halt.

The Egyptian snatched up the shining object—a funerary vase, fluted and golden, footed with lions' paws— and turned it over in his hand. The debris, disturbed, rattled and bits and pieces of wood bounced down the ramp.

'Get down here!' Thyatis kicked a small wooden jackal head away with her sandal.

Her head snapped up—the rattling sound becoming a shockingly loud rumbling—and in the flaring light of a falling torch, she saw the Egyptian turn towards her, then the tomb wall at the top of the ramp came loose. Thyatis leapt back, startled. A rectangular plug of stone rotated down with an enormous dull boom. The Egyptian's scream was cut short as the entire structure slid greasily to a halt. A massive thud punched the air as the stone plug rammed into the lintel of the doorway. Dust cascaded from the ceiling, making Thyatis sneeze. Stunned, she scuttled backwards.

The block shuddered for a moment, then became still. The Roman woman sneezed again, wiping a thick patina of white dust from her face. There was no sign of the man or his golden prize. The newly exposed slab