Clayton Emery - Star of Cursrah

A scuffling and jangling sounded out the doorway. Star wondered who came, since now only vizars occupied these depths. Everyone else had been sealed up tight.

She was wrong.

Seven priests dragged in Gheqet and Tafir in chains!

"Star-what?" Gheqet goggled. "Anachtyr's Tongue, is that you?"

"They-shaved your head!" Tafir's eyes were red, wide with terror. "Why are you-You're swaddled like a mummy!

What are they doing to you?"

Amenstar tried to speak, but she only croaked and drooled like an idiot. Tears burst from her eyes. Her only comfort had been that her friends were safe, and now they were prisoners too. Truly, she lamented, the vizars had stolen her body, then crushed her heart and spirit too, and it was all her own fault…

"Down!" commanded the grand vizar, and Tafir and Gheqet were shoved to their knees. Gheqet still wore his grimy work shirt and kilt, and Tafir the stolen tunic of Oxonsis. Iron manacles locked their hands behind their backs and were chained to their ankles, so they hobbled or hopped like frogs. Now vizars yanked their chains so taut the prisoners' foreheads were mashed against the floor.

"Soldiers smashed down our gate!" Tafir called to Star. "They knocked my father sprawling, said the bakkal ordered I come, then hauled me here with Gheq! What will they do to us, Star? Star?"

The fellows didn't realize Amenstar's tongue was paralyzed by dumbcane and petrifying potion. Strangling in despair, Star thought it just as well she was mute. What could she say? How could she apologize for endangering their lives? How explain that, simply by associating with a princess, they'd doomed themselves, unfair as it seemed? Nothing in her family's mad decisions made sense, and they'd even hurled their own daughter to perdition. Now the only friends Star had were also swept away in the storm of destruction. Star was to blame for this too, yet helpless to change anything. Unable to speak, Amenstar could only weep as her friends shivered on the cold stone floor.

The grand vizar crowed with evil pleasure, "Cursrah, the lion of Calimshan, has been pulled down by jackals because some hapless fools ignored their responsibilities. Now Cursrah's finest citizens sleep until our city can again stride forth in glory. Until that day, while Cursrah sleeps, she must be protected! This Protector must be strong enough to endure untold ages."

Stained brown robe swishing, the grand vizar walked between Tafir and Gheqet, gently entwining her bony fingers in their light and dark hair.

"You understand the need for sacrifice, don't you, citizens? To be strong, the Protector must draw upon the strength of others, for one lonely soul could never endure. In a long, long not-life to come, the Protector will need kindred spirits, spirits of those who were closest and dearest in life. You two have been selected to serve Cursrah's greatest endeavor. Be honored."

"H-honored!" The word was torn from Gheqet's throat.

"Honored," mimicked the grand vizar. "You two are the most important components in the Protector's enchantment, and I, who will bind the spirit itself. A trinket is needed too. Fetch the pillow!"

Pillow? wondered Amenstar.

An acolyte brought forth a pillow topped with a bundled handkerchief. Amenstar recalled her birthday, when she'd received the moonstone tiara. This pillow looked much the same. Why?

Reverently unfolding the cloth, the grand vizar removed a large necklace. Amenstar gaped. Double chains of fine-wrought silver supported a plain setting that held a multifaceted fire opal, a girasol mined only in the hottest, most desolate deserts. Glossy and milky, much like a moonstone, the stone winked red deep inside, as if licked by fire. Why did it seem familiar?

"The Star of Cursrah," hissed the grand vizar, "crafted for the royal family's eldest daughter, a gift for her wedding day. A double chain to symbolize two souls joined. A girasol to rival the moon, yet lit with a red and rebellious spirit, like the princess herself. Her marriage, it was hoped, would protect Cursrah like a benevolent star smiling from the heavens…"

A gasp escaped the princess. When her mother presented the silver tiara, she'd mentioned a "matching piece of jewelry-a surprise for later." So long ago, it seemed.

"… gods decreed otherwise," the vizar droned on, "for no wedding shall there be, yet one Star of Cursrah shall be wedded to the other Star of Cursrah, and the double chains shall symbolize the union of two souls. The red fire will serve a rebellious spirit, as it sleeps from one life to the next."

What did this babble mean? Amenstar wondered. She watched, fascinated, as the grand vizar coiled the gaudy necklace in a shallow silver pan with the fire opal centermost. Stooping, she slid the pan under the noses of Gheqet and Tafir, as if to show off the necklace. While the prisoners strained against their chains and captors, the grand vizar summoned an acolyte.

"Sickle."

A curved blade, razor edge winking in lantern light, was given to the vizar. Amenstar tried to scream, but only gargled spit.

"With the blessings of Shar, Goddess of the Under-dark," intoned the grand vizar. "Here you shall remain, here you shall serve, here you shall obey. Let two lives be joined as one by a river of blood."

Bending, chanting obscenely, the vizar slipped the blade under the friends' chins. Gheqet and Tafir made a mighty effort to break their bonds, to hurl off their chains, to scramble to their feet and run.

Struggling against her thick mummy wrappings, Amenstar howled an anguished, "Nooooo!"

Glimpsing the blade's keen edge, Gheqet and Tafir screamed with Amenstar. With one deft slice, the grand vizar slit their throats. Pinned by chains and claws, the young men barely wriggled as hot blood gouted from their necks in a blazing crimson waterfall. Amenstar heard strangled sobs from severed windpipes, a ghastly whistling, then the spraying and splashing of blood drowned all sound. In seconds, the men were drained dry. Their blood filled the silver pan to overflowing, spilled to the stone, and ran in rivers around their knees.

For the merest instance, as their bodies sagged, Amenstar saw an iridescent glimmer, a silver-purple flash travel between her two friends and the bloody silver bowl, then it winked out. Vizars tugged the dead men aside and without ceremony stuffed the carcasses under a big table in the corner.

Retrieving the red-brimming bowl, the grand vizar fished out the Star of Cursrah and wiped it clean with linen rags. Amenstar gaped. The milky-white fire opal had changed, and was now as red as fresh blood. With great dignity, the grand vizar draped the double chains over Star's shaven head so the bloody gem rested on her bandaged breast.

"The final ingredient, samira. Your friends' life-force, if not their very souls, has been transferred to the gem, and so to you. Their spirits will sustain you for centuries, if need be. For you shall not sleep as does your family, samira. A guardian must be alert, awake. From you we have fashioned, for the first time in Cursrah's history, a living mummy. You will be the Protector, and guard the family you failed so treacherously. Do you not see the irony, dear Amenstar? In life, you shirked your duty. In unlife, you are forced to perform it."

Ignoring Star's garbled cries and weeping, the vizars worked quickly. Star's head was bound in bandages and painted with resin, avoiding only her eyes and mouth and nose, then all wrapped in gilt cloth. Amenstar could see only blurs through a small, gauzy slit. The painted car-tonnage mask was lowered over her head and bound in place, and Star saw only blackness.

The living mummy felt the vizars hoist her onto a hardwood pallet. She didn't see the acolytes whisk her down the dark tunnel. On the lowermost level, where resided the mummies of Star's ancestors, arid not far from the sealed doors of the replica court where slept Star's family, gaped a dark, narrow vault. Inside waited a stack of bricks, a bucket of wet mortar, and a sarcophagus with a lid painted in Amenstar's image. With no more ceremony, the living mummy was tilted into the coffin. The heavy lid was jostled into place and sealed with resin pitch, and the sarcophagus stood upright. It could stand that way forever, if need be.