Clayton Emery - Star of Cursrah

In a long morning's walk they hadn't seen a soul, yet Amber knew people had once regularly crossed these wastelands. From her high perch in the tower, she could clearly see blocks of black basalt and carefully fit flagstones forming a roadbed. The road had been grand in its day, wide enough for six horses abreast, she reckoned, but now it was obscured by sand.

Was this a spur of the ancient Trade Way that crossed the desert from north to south or a different road altogether? The Trade Way had always been lined with paired minarets, while this tower stood alone. Perhaps the other tower had fallen and been buried, or maybe uncaring men had looted the stones to build huts for goats.

Amber looked east and west and wondered where the road had run. Was it from the mountains to the sea? Had it connected forgotten cities or markets? Holding her breath, Amber imagined this tower when it was brand new, perhaps washed with lime and hung with a brilliant flag. Tall guards in painted armor might have waved as chariots with red wheels and spirited horses dashed by or stood grimly facing east toward barbarian empires, determined to repel a brutish horde of hobgoblins or drow shrieking hideous battle cries. Had there been battles here, and brave deeds with the flagstones drenched in blood? Had princesses and commoners met here for illicit love under the moon? Had kings and spies met secretly in this very room? Was this a guard tower at all, built for war and defense, or a minaret for calling the religious to prayer, or a temple to an unknown god, or a wizard's retreat? Or something else?

Whatever its use, few clues were left in the tower. The high ceiling, corbelled into pointed arches, may have been gilded once, shining in the sun, but it was bare slate now. The only furniture was a stubby column with twisted brass brackets; whatever they'd held had been stolen long ago. No paintings or inscriptions or maps adorned the walls, nor even graffiti, bat droppings, or birds' nests.

"You're not boring at all," she said to the tower.

Only a sandy-colored lizard heard her, watching from a windowsill with beady eyes and a lipping tongue. Amber's sandals squeaked as she descended the stone stairs. It was a lonely sound.

Outside a breeze sighed, for Calim's Breath always haunted the desert, but the mournful tones sounded tired. Amber sniffed. The air smelled of salt and dust, but nothing living. The fellows lounged against the tower's eastern side in the shade. Reiver ate, as usual, while Hakiim dozed. After sailing most of the night, they'd walked seven or eight miles inland to reach Amber's goal. The minaret had proven farther away than it looked, for distances were deceptive in the desert with nothing to compare against. At noon the men had wanted to turn back, but Amber had trudged on, so they followed. The sun hung over their shoulders every step of the way, a cruel tyrant who dominated desert and sky. Even now, as day waned, the sun inflated while dropping toward the horizon.

"Scoot over." Amber plunked in the shade and sipped from her water bottle, refilled from a brackish well dug into the tower's ground floor. She slipped off her sandals, scrubbed sand from between her toes, and checked the cactus thorn's red jot.

"I've got blisters," Hakiim said, examining his own feet. "When do we head back to the boat?"

"Why not sleep on the top floor of the tower?" asked Amber as she peered about at the landscape. "Is that safe?"

"No place is safe," Reiver said, "but the desert's probably safer than sleeping in the boat. Animals come down to the river to drink at night, and predators wait in ambush. The shore is a battle zone after dark."

"I always heard the safest lands are near the rivers, where the jackal cannot reach," Hakiim offered. "What kind of predators?"

"Lions, red wyrms, killer warthogs, man-eating bears, dragon-kin…"

"Stop baiting him, Reiver, and stop fretting, Hak." Amber scratched ankles red from sand flea bites and said, "Nothing!! get you. It's called a desert because it's deserted."

"Mostly deserted," Reiver said, then flipped over a flat stone and exposed a red-backed scorpion. It danced a defiant circle, tail crooked to sting.

"Eyes of Nar'ysr!" Hakiim scrambled backward so fast he thumped over.

Reiver drew a dagger from inside his shirt, caught the scorpion under the belly, and flicked it away. "You have to beware," he said, "but we're probably safer here than on the streets. In Memnon you can bump into villains with knives and no scruples, or burn up from bottlemist plague. The desert's more dead than alive, and spirits can't harm you-much."

"That's true," mused Amber. "The greatest genies of all time move at every hand. Memnonnar's bound into this sand and rock we sit upon, and Calim mingles with the air we breathe."

"They watch always and still possess powerful spells," hedged Hakiim. "Only a fool would offend a genie."

"True." Amber proclaimed loudly, "May the names of Great Calim and Mighty Memnonnar be ever a thousand times blessed!"

Reiver peered at the sky and said, "Both are trapped tight and doomed to stare at each other forever. That's a lot of hatred passing between them. I'm surprised the ground doesn't boil like lead and the sky crackle with heat lightning. Wild Calimshan seems pretty peaceful.''

"Somewhere out here lie the Fields of Teshyllal," said Amber. "That's where the elves of Tethyr, Darthiir Wood, and Shilmista ended the Era of Skyfire. They helped the High Mage Pharos fuse the genies into the Great Red Crystal that still hovers in the air."

"Somewhere else, obviously." Hakiim scratched his ankles till they bled. "There's nothing here but scorpions and sand fleas."

"Even the genies aren't dangerous anymore," continued Reiver, "unless you're swallowed by Memnon's Crackle, where the sand sizzles and pops and swirls like quicksand. More dangerous are the hatori-the sand crocodiles, or the two-legged crocodiles like the Penum-brannar raiders, or the little things you might step on: snakes, werespiders, poisonous plants. There are night spirits like banshees and spectres and ghasts-"

"Stop!" ordered Amber.

Hakiim looked around repeatedly, as if the desert might explode under them. "Maybe we should sleep in the boat," he said, "moored out in the river."

Reiver hid a smirk. "A whale or a kraken could burp and swallow-"

"Enough! There are no whales in the river. Still, I'm disappointed. A holiday should be an adventure." The daughter of pirates stood, dusted her seat and trousers, tugged on her pack, pointed her capture noose, and said, "Let's continue south. It slopes down. Maybe there're caves or something."

She marched across the flagstone road and crunched on shale. The young men followed. Reiver checked their back trail and said, "Keep the tower in sight. It's our only landmark, and we don't have a compass."

"You do so," Hakiim chuckled. "A solid gold one stuffed down your shirt!"

"That's a sailor's compass," Reiver grinned. "It only works at sea."

They walked. Shale squeaked underfoot, and pebbles clicked on rocks, then soft sand made them sink to their ankles. The landscape dropped and grew more jumbled. In the shadows of knee-high boulders grew al-fasfasah grass, thorn bushes, and stunted tamarisk trees. These tiny oases made homes for jerboas, red foxes, and horned lizards. In clusters of sprawling Calim cactus lurked red spiders and sand squirrels. Somewhere out of sight a burrowing owl hooted.

Sun filled the sky at their left, so the travelers tugged down folds of their kaffiyeh to blind that side. A mile or more from the road, the sand hardened and curled into frozen waves. Amber stopped at a lip, careful lest it crumble, and shaded her eyes. Still descending in sandy cataracts, dunes fanned away in jagged humps toward wind-scoured stone, until the horizon dipped into a huge valley or ancient sinkhole.