friend, the bird came back,' he said dreamily. 'And it was rude. So Lional killed it.'
Gerald staggered sideways, groping for the solidity of the cave wall. He still couldn't bring himself to look at the thing at his feet. Lional snapped his fingers.' Vanishati!
The air before Gerald's eyes rippled. Solidified. Became rock. Once more he was imprisoned inside the cave, with a few bobbing lights to alleviate the dark. Only this time he wasn't alone. After a long, long moment he lowered his gaze to the floor.
Bent and broken feathers. Brown, with a tracing of black. Creamy flecks on breast and face. A brown band across the glazed unseeing eyes. Reg.
Without warning all the little lights still clustered against the roof went out and the cave was plunged into utter darkness.
Gerald fell to his knees. Fell further. Lay face down in the dirt, and wept.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Sultan of Kallarap s palace was a modest, single-level, twenty-room affair built of mysteriously acquired blue and grey marble slabs. Located in the middle of a small but fertile oasis, it basked in shade provided by groves of date palms. The desert's dry air tinkled with the music of fountains and songbirds, thrummed with the rushing eagerness of cunningly designed miniature waterfalls. Gentle breezes stirred perfume from lovingly tended flowerbeds. Peace; tranquility; reverent calm: all surrounded the sultan's home, drowsy in the sunshine.
Mid-morning's hush roused briefly as a camel barked from the comfort of its bed in the stable yard beyond the gardens, where the sultan's peerless racing team lived in luxury.
Moments later all the camels were barking as a train of their brethren returned from a long hot journey beneath the burning sun, across daunting miles of sparkling sand and treacherous, shifting dunes.
As camel boys tipped out of their hammocks and raced to succour their weary charges, Shugat slid creakily from his saddle and blessed his beast, for it had carried him well and the gods liked their children to be appreciated. Then he turned to the sultan's regrettable brother and said curtly, 'You will wait in the gods' room while I seek their guidance. Once the will of the Three is revealed we will report to the sultan, may he live forever, the outcome of our mission.'
Nerim slid off his camel in such a rush that he nearly sprawled on the mud brick ground. 'But Shugat, the gods have already spoken! Zazoor must — '
He stepped close to the prince and glared. 'Be silent!' he hissed, with a quick glance to make sure the camel boys weren't listening, it is not for you to say what was seen and heard in the court of New Ottosland's oath- breaker king. Remain silent or I shall petition the gods to shrivel your tongue and your manhood both! Now do as I bid you, Blood of the Sultan, may he live forever. I will join you presently'
Chastened, with the whites of his eyes showing his proper fear, Nerim clasped his dirty hands palm to palm before his chest and bowed. 'I hear and obey, Holy One.'
Shaking his head, Shugat glared after Zazoor's foolish brother as he hobbled away, then collected his staff from his camel's saddle, silenced the protests from his aged muscles and turned his back on the chattering camel boys to seek the solitude and wisdom of his gods.
Surely they would speak to him here in holy Kallarap.
He lived in a dwelling apart from the palace, but still within its grounds. No elegant marble edifice, his, but a squat and simple mud brick box, its roof a thatching of dried palm fronds plastered against the infrequent rain with cured camel dung. It was part of the arrangement the most senior holy men of Kallarap had made with the Three from the dawn of time: an austere life without adornment, accolades or the trappings of position, with simple clothes of undyed linen, plain meals of dates, camel milk and goat flesh, and every day of their allotted span spent in selfless service; in return they were gifted the glory of the gods' words and power enough to pluck a star from the sky should a single candle fail in the dark of night.
At the first touch of his gods' vast and fiery minds, all those years ago, he knew he had by far the better part of the bargain.
He knelt before their shrine now, still stinking and smudged with the grime and sweat of his long ride home. Devoutly carved into the precious wood, rare mahogany from a distant unknown land, inlaid with crafted and polished andaleya, the Tears of the Gods, they bent their ruby eyes upon him, the Dragon, the Lion and the Bird, waiting with their infinite patience for him to open his heart to their desires.
So he did. And after the long silence that had frightened him as he had never felt fear in his life… the Three heard his prayers and spoke to him. He wept.
When at last they had imparted their desires, he levered himself to his feet with his staff and went frowningly about the business of preparing for an audience with the sultan, who had no chance at all of living forever and moreover, unlike some of his forbears, knew so full well and was at peace with the knowledge.
Which was but one among many reasons why he liked Zazoor and had vowed to protect him and his honour to the last drop of blood and breath in his aged and wasting body.
Most especially he intended to protect him, and all of Kallarap, from the soulless predator known as His Sovereign Majesty King Lional, Forty-third ruler of New Ottosland.
The palace's gods' room was a high-ceilinged, incense-scented place of worship and contemplation. Hand- woven carpets of rich blues and greens covered the marble floor so that the sultan and his dependents might properly prostrate themselves before the Three set high upon their plinth in the chamber's centre.
Sunlight shafted through the attenuated windows, piercing the cool shadows and striking splendid sparks of colour from the gods' silver and gold wrought bodies, their ruby eyes, their diamond teeth and claws. Not wood, these icons, not even for the sultan. Only the most-blessed sultan's holy man, touched by the might and majesty of the Three, knelt before wood in a desert land where no wood was to be found.
As instructed, Nerim was waiting for him beneath the swathes of silk draped overhead from wall to wall. Less expected was the sight of Zazoor, an older mirror image of Nerim but, by some strange alchemy, more real, more vital, by the gods' grace distilled to the purest essence of intellect and honour. Kneeling on the carpets beside his young brother, head lowered and eyes half-closed in concentration, he listened to Nerim prattle breathlessly about -
Shugat frowned. Without hearing a single word he knew exactly what Nerim was prattling about. In his tightened grasp his staff quivered, and the single gods'Tear in his forehead flashed white fire.
Zazoor glanced up. One hand lifted, silencing his brother's rattling tongue. After a long, steady look at his holy man he turned his head, lips brushing Nerim's sun-scorched cheek. He whispered something into his brother's crimson-tipped ear. Nerim nodded, smiled, kissed his brother's hand, placed Zazoor's palm atop his head in formal obeisance and withdrew, skipping past like a camel colt caught in mischief.
Zazoor looked after him, a rueful smile thawing, a little, his natural reserve. 'We both know there is no wilful disobedience in him, my holy man,' he said, voice and dark blue eyes tranquil. 'He was but overwhelmed by his experiences in New Ottosland. Did he drive you to complete distraction?'
Shugat scowled. 'Not quite complete. My sultan — '
Zazoor raised a placating hand, i know. I know. His intellect is… feeble. But he has a good heart and in some ways he is closer to the people than I, their sultan. It's why I sent him with you, Shugat. As a barometer.' 'You think I did not know that?'
'No,' said Zazoor. 'I can hide nothing from my redoubtable Shugat. What did you learn from him?'
He snorted. 'What you already knew, Zazoor. That weak eyes are easily dazzled.'
Zazoor grinned, a rare flashing of white teeth, and uncoiled from the carpet to stand lightly on the balls of his feet, poised for any challenge the Three saw fit to provide. 'So you did not care overmuch for my dear old school chum Lional?'
He would have spat, were it not that he stood in the gods' room, in their presence. 'A veritable sand viper, Zazoor, and I fear I slight the snake to say so.' He grimaced. 'Even a sand viper may be spit-and-roasted if starvation is the only other choice. Not so this Lional. The flesh of New Ottosland's king would dissolve a man's teeth in his gums and burst his belly with acid bile.'
'In other words,' said Zazoor, 'he hasn't changed.' He indicated one of the marble benches set into the wall
