City Under the Sand

I Emergence

“Silt storm!”

At Avra’s bellow, chaos ceased. For a long moment, the clatter and clack of weapons halted, as did the grunts and cries of the combatants, and even the rasp of sandaled feet scrabbling in sand.

All turned toward the southeast, toward the northern end of the Sea of Silt, which reached far into this almost forgotten country. The Road of Kings skirted the sea’s shores as it wound toward Raam and Draj, south of their present location, but a running battle with raiders had driven the merchant party off course, well north of the road.

On a day like this, with a fierce wind raging out of the south, the lightweight silt could be carried for great distances. The two forts between here and the sea had no doubt been blasted, their inhabitants still picking it from teeth and eyes, dusting it off everything they possessed.

Avra realized the storm was worse than he had first thought. The massive cloud barreling toward them was a mixture of gray and yellow. Silt and sand together. Silt was lighter, a nuisance, but the sand would sting and scour more. The cloud towered high above the plain; behind it the burning sun of Athas was a flat, distant pink disc hovering just above the horizon. It looked almost harmless.

Even as the realization of the cloud’s potential pierced Avra’s brain, the sounds of battle resumed as combatants tried to take advantage of the momentary distraction. Paid mercenaries fought side by side with House Faylon’s slaves to defend the House’s caravan against marauding raiders: a mixed group of humans, elves, half-elves, goliaths and others. Should the raiders prevail, every member of the caravan would be slain. If the guards won, the caravan would return to the main trading route and continue on to Draj, to sell goods mainly from hard, durable agafari wood and to buy grains and hemp for sale back in Nibenay.

Avra had spotted the storm behind his foe, a raider with the lean, hardened look of a former Raamite soldier. The man had risked a quick glance over his own shoulder, but, curiosity satisfied, stabbed at Avra with a dragon paw. Avra brought his agafari-wood sword up in time to block the thrust, sending the bone blade jabbing harmlessly past his right leg, but the raider spun the dragon paw around and came at him with the blade at the short staff’s other end. Yet another blade thrust out from a guard protecting the Raamite’s hand at the shaft’s midpoint; Avra had already suffered a cut from that one.

Before the Raamite could bring his weapon into position, Avra kicked the dragon paw’s shaft with his right foot, knocking the blade wide. As Avra dropped his foot, his balance shifting forward, he thrust his sword into the other man’s exposed midsection. The Raamite wore a chitin breastplate, but it only came to mid-abdomen. Avra’s blade nicked it but stabbed deep. The Raamite let out a gasp, his dragon paw dropping to the sand. Blood bubbled from the raider’s mouth and gushed from the wound as Avra withdrew his blade, and then the man pitched forward.

Avra dodged the falling body, shook droplets of blood from his sword, and scanned for his next opponent. Two raiders teamed up against his friend Curran, a dozen long paces away. Avra ran toward them.

And the cloud hit.

In an instant, Avra was blind and deaf.

The world vanished, obscured by the impenetrable, choking haze of sand and silt. It burned, tearing at his exposed flesh like flames intent on peeling the skin from his bones. He closed his eyes and mouth, but the wind pulled his lips apart enough to let the mixture coat his teeth. His eyes were rimed with the stuff, and he stumbled forward, not daring to open them lest he be permanently blinded. Even before his ears filled, he could hear nothing but the howl of the wind, the flutter and flap of his loose desert garb, and the grainy stammer of particles striking him.

Surrounded by enemies, he dared not relax his guard. But if he couldn’t fight, neither could they. Or so he hoped.

In a smaller sandstorm or dust storm he might simply have crouched down, covered up, and waited it out. But this one showed no sign of ending soon, and he didn’t dare crouch because such a tempest could shift an entire dune, or form a new one, in no time, and of the things Avra feared most in life, confinement was near the top of the list.

So he flailed with his wooden sword and stumbled on, desperate to remain upright in the punishing wind and biting sand.

And the storm raged on.

Avra only knew when night fell because of the cold, although the heavy coating of sand around him offered shelter. Finally, the following day, it ended. A last gust of wind, a final pelting of sand—redundant, at this point, he was so coated in it he might have been a sculpture from a Nibenese building, come to life—and then all was still. At once, Avra felt the full heat of the sun beat down upon him. Should have enjoyed the shade while I could, he thought with a bitter, sand-filled grin. In the Athasian deserts, only water was scarcer.

He dusted his fingertips against each other and wiped grit from his eyes, using his thumbs to get into the corners. He spat and spat even as it pained him to lose water so senselessly. He rubbed his teeth, dug specks from the insides of his cheeks, and spat some more. He turned his head perpendicular to the ground and smacked the other side, trying to dislodge sand from his ears. His scalp might never be free of it.

Only then did he think of the raiders, and the caravan he had been hired to protect. He blinked, shielded his eyes with one gritty palm, and turned in a slow circle.

He didn’t know where he was. Or where anyone else was, for that matter. Caravan and raiders alike had vanished. More likely, he had—bumbling blindly through the storm for an afternoon and a night and much of the next day, in a desert where a person could lose his bearings ten minutes from camp.

He wasn’t even sure which way he had traveled. He might be back to the Road of Kings, or beyond it, or farther north than he had ever been in his life. Before him were dunes, a few scrubby plants, and the baking Athasian sun.

At least I’m not buried alive, he thought. He laughed out loud at the very idea, so concrete a few minutes ago, but seemingly absurd in the present stillness.

Or was it? What if he had gone nowhere, but his comrades and enemies were even now buried underneath new layers of sand and silt? The idea raised hackles at the back of his neck, and a line of sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades. “Hello!” Avra called, then again, louder and more anxiously, “Hello, anyone!”

No answer came back to him, not even an echo. It was as if the desert sand sucked his voice from the air before it traveled ten paces. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted once more.

This time, he heard an answering cry.

“I’m here!” a familiar voice shouted. “Avra, is that you?”

“Hagkun?” Avra called. Hagkun was a mul, the offspring of a dwarf mother and human father, he knew from Nibenay’s gladiatorial pit. They had both hired on as mercenaries at the same time, after House Faylon had lost a good number of their combat-trained slaves in a previous raid. In Nibenay, freemen could compete in the pits, and Avra had never been good for much besides fighting, so he carved himself a fair career as a gladiator until this opportunity presented itself.

“Aye, it’s me! Where are you?”

There wasn’t a familiar landmark within sight, other than the sun. “I’m standing beneath the Reservoir Gate with a dozen naked templars!” Avra called. “What do you want me to say? I am where I am, and I imagine you’re the same!”

A moment later he spied Hagkun cresting a low dune, dusting his shoulders with both hands. Clouds of silt rained down. Like all products of the unusual union of humans and dwarves, Hagkun was hairless, and his skin had a rich coppery sheen to it. Sun at his back, the mul cast a long shadow against the near face of the dune. “I’m right here,” he said. “As are you.”

“But where’s everyone else?” Avra asked. “The caravan … where’d they all go?”

Hagkun shifted his massive shoulders. “Who can say?”

Another voice boomed across the sands from behind them. “Survived, did you? Luck, then, or you’ve paid someone off.”

Avra spun around, his agafari-wood sword still clutched in his fist after all this time. But it was only Burek, and behind him Curran, both looking as if they had just dug out from sandy graves.

“I credit luck,” Avra said. “Certainly no cleverness on my part was involved.”

Shen’ti and Maron joined them next, but that was all they could find. There were no weapons or other gear scattered around, convincing them that they had left the caravan behind, and not that the ferocious wind had carried everyone else away.

All were warriors, either mercenaries or slaves, trained in the pits and entrusted with the security of the House Faylon caravan. Even without the six of them, more than a dozen other guards remained with the merchants—supposing the others hadn’t died, or become lost themselves. If the raiders had also survived the storm, Avra didn’t hold out much hope for his employers.

“Where are we?” Burek asked. He was a short man, with a long, thick black beard tied in three knots and a head as round and hairless as an erdlu egg.

Blank faces all around. Finally, Curran pointed at the sun. “Sun’s there,” he said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “So Nibenay is there.” He pointed in yet another direction. “Raam should be about there.”

“And the caravan?”

“No idea.” Curran turned his hawklike face to the south. “There, maybe? Or that direction, anyway. If we went north during the storm.”

“I’m sure I didn’t move in a straight line,” Hagkun said. “I went wherever the wind shoved me.”

“As did I,” Avra admitted.

“Then we have only the vaguest of ideas,” Curran said.

“Exactly,” Avra said. “But we can’t stay here. We’ll need water soon, and shelter for the night. Even under a blanket of sand last night, I nearly froze.”

“Toward Nibenay, I say,” Maron offered. “We’ve a better chance finding a target that size than any of those others.”

Shen’ti pointed toward the rocky hills—covered with sand now, but still recognizable for what they were. “I say we climb those and have a look. We may be able to see the caravan from that height, or some other landmark from which we can set a course.”

After a few minutes of discussion, the others agreed. They took stock of their belongings. Two of them had lost their weapons, except for small daggers. Only Shen’ti carried water, in a bladder slung over his back. Five were wounded, none seriously. They were strong men, fighters. Survivors. They would be fine.

They drank from Shen’ti’s store and then hiked toward the Athasian sun.

At the crest of the hill, the others scanned the horizon for signs of the caravan. But Avra stared past a huge, tall dune where a city shimmered in the near distance.

A city where, by all rights, none should exist.

Sand was unevenly mounded to one side of the city, like a blanket shoved over to reveal some of what it had covered. Short towers and spires jutted up from the ground, but most of the city was low buildings, spreading back into the desert. “Ral’s light,” Burek muttered. “What is that?”

“It’s a city,” Avra said.

“I can see it’s a city! But what city lies there?”

“That’s on no map. It’s something ancient,” Hagkun offered. “Covered by dunes all these years. Probably exposed by the storm.”

“You’re right,” Shen’ti said. “Let’s take a closer look. Perhaps we can find shelter for the night, even water.”

“If there’s water in there,” Burek said, “it’ll be so old and filthy I wouldn’t touch it, no matter how thirsty I was.”

“I’m with Burek,” Maron said. “But I wouldn’t mind taking a look, just the same. I wouldn’t drink its water, but I’d help myself to its gold.”

“You think there’s gold in there?” Shen’ti asked.

“We won’t find out standing here.”

Burek grabbed Avra’s upper arm. “I don’t know about this …”

Burek had always been a cautious sort, for a warrior. “It’ll be fine,” Avra said. “There are six of us, and we’re armed. Even if there are beasts hiding in those ruins, we’ll be safe.”

Burek released him and glanced into the olive sky, deepening as the sun lowered toward the horizon. “On Athas, who is ever truly safe?”

Avra saw his point, and he kept his sword in his hand as they scrambled down the hill and trudged across a stretch of open desert toward the city. In the late afternoon sun, it was dull, rather than gleaming, as Nibenay would have. It was as if all the color and shine had been worn off by the ages and by its burial.

As they grew nearer, the first thing Avra noticed was that nothing grew on the dirt-choked city streets. The city had been buried so long that every plant had died, even the wiry tufts of grass and the spindly ocotillo wands that seemed capable of surviving in the most sun-blasted wastelands. The lack of plants gave the scene a strangely artificial feel, as if the city had never been intended for habitation.

But signs of habitation made themselves clear, soon enough.

The men were quiet as they passed what would have been an exterior wall, crumbled under the desert’s weight, and started across a wide avenue just inside that first wall. Buildings rose before them, two or three stories tall. The air was still, carrying no particular fragrance save the dry smell of bare earth.

He had never seen a city so utterly silent. Streets intersected this wide avenue and ran into the city’s depths, but nothing moved on them.

“I don’t like it,” Burek said. “What if it’s haunted? Or cursed?”

“And what if there are vaults full of gold and precious jewels just down one of these streets?” Maron countered. “We won’t know until we look.”

“If we leave now we might yet find an oasis before nightfall,” Burek said. “My throat is parched.”

“I’m saving the rest of the water for when we really need it,” Shen’ti said.

“That’s what I mean. We need to find another source, before we’re all fighting over what little you have.”

“One hour,” Hagkun suggested. “I say we take one hour, we explore. Then we look for an oasis.”

“What say you, Burek?” Avra asked. “Fair enough?”

Burek rubbed his hairless crown with his palm, still coated in grit from the storm. “I still don’t like it,” he said. “But I’ll go along with it.”

“Good,” Maron said. “Now, should we split up so we can cover more ground?”

“No!” Avra and Shen’ti said, almost as one.

“We stay together,” Avra added. “It looks quiet, but we don’t know what might dwell within these old buildings.”

“I’d hate to meet anything that’s lived under this sand for centuries,” Curran said.

“I don’t think there’s anything here,” Maron said. “I haven’t heard a sound, nor seen the slightest movement.”

“That’s what I don’t trust,” Curran said.

“Stand behind me if need be,” Hagkun offered. “Let’s go.”

They picked the nearest street and started down it. The buildings were close together, some leaning forward so far that they almost formed an archway overhead. Most were at least partially destroyed; rubble leaked into the roadway from open doorways. Oddly, many of the upper windows were sealed off with wood or masonry. Here and there a building had completely disintegrated, only floors or marks on the structures flanking them showing that anything had once stood. The soldiers looked into some they were all the same: empty, long since abandoned.

In the fifth one, they found bones.

“Human, do you think?” Curran asked.

Avra shouldered past the others and picked a skull from a pile of browned bones. It was rounded, with a slight forward thrust at the jaw and sharp canine teeth. “Looks human. More or less.” With his left hand, he shook it at the others and spoke in a deep, threatening voice. “You’ve come for my treasure, haven’t you? Dogs! I’ll have your filthy hides!”

“Put it down, Avra,” Shen’ti said. “Don’t dishonor the dead.”

“These dead have been buried so long, they’re probably glad for a little attention,” Avra replied. He put the skull back anyway—truth was handling the thing had been a little disturbing. He didn’t know for sure how old these ruins were or what fate had befallen the city’s residents, but judging from this bone-filled room, at least a dozen of them had met their end right here.

When he left the building behind and felt the warmth of Athas’s afternoon sun on his shoulders once more, he couldn’t hold back a shiver of relief.

After that, they started finding skeletons on a regular basis. Not just human ones, but those of other beasts as well. Some looked familiar, as if they had belonged to beetles or bears or kanks or various sorts of lizards, but none exactly resembled their modern counterparts.

He was starting to agree with Burek and Curran—that they ought not to be there, and would do well to be far away by the time the two moons rose.

And that was before they met the sand howlers.

They were crossing a narrow side street when the shadows down the block seemed to ripple. “What’s that?” Shen’ti asked.

“A cloud across the sun?” Maron offered.

“There’s no sun down there,” Shen’ti said pointedly. He paused and drew his bone dagger from the sheath on his belt. “Something’s moving.”

He barely got the words out before the pack separated from the shadows and streaked across the cluttered roadway toward them. There were a dozen of them, the size of large dogs, their big oval heads crowded with eyes. Their fur was dark brown and black, and yellow tusks jutted up from slavering lower jaws. One of the creatures loosed a howl as they came.

“Sand howlers!” Hagkun shouted. “Don’t look into their eyes, and fill your hands!”

Avra hadn’t let go of his sword since the battle against the raiders. It might as well have grown into his right fist, which at this moment he wouldn’t have minded. The soldiers took a step back, but then heard growls and running footfalls from the side street’s other direction. The only paths open were straight ahead or back the way they had come—but there was no time for retreat, and little space with the six of them crowded into a cramped, rubble-strewn roadway.

The first howler met its end on the twin crescent blades of Hagkun’s lotulis; the animal leapt, Hagkun dropped to a crouch and thrust the weapon at the thing’s underside. Its own momentum forced it down onto the blades, its oversized head snapping and gnashing until it finally died. Avra swung his sword with a mighty grunt as one of the howlers charged him, and the blade crushed the beast’s skull, dropping the beast at his feet. The animals had a sharp, musky scent that wasn’t altogether unpleasant.

Behind him, a pair tore past Burek’s defenses. Avra heard a piercing scream and the snarl of a canine with flesh in its grasp. He spun around to find Curran in his way, armed only with a dagger. Curran thrust it forward but a howler snapped with its huge maw, and one of those tusks jutted through Curran’s arm. Curran went white and let out a howl of his own.

The scene became a confused blur of fur and fangs, blood and blades. Three more howlers fell quickly, but not before tearing out Maron’s throat. The others bunched up and retreated—Curran taking shaky steps, blood gushing from his ravaged arm—holding off the advancing sand howlers. Shen’ti had snatched up Burek’s trikal—a tusk grazing his arm as he reached for it—and its long shaft gave him greater advantage than his dagger had.

The creatures nipped at them, herding them back down the road but keeping a safe distance. Avra started to believe they might escape with their lives, although he doubted Curran’s would last much longer, not if he couldn’t staunch the flow of blood from that arm.

But then Hagkun forgot his own warning and locked eyes with one of the howlers. Its eight eyes bored into his two, paralyzing him. “Hagkun!” Avra shouted, shaking the mul. “Keep moving!”

No use. Hagkun was a fleshy statue, yielding but immobile. Had they been able to carry him, they might have saved him yet. But they needed their hands free for weapons.

“Hagkun!” Avra screamed once more, right into the mul’s ear. Hagkun, already lost, didn’t answer.

Avra had barely taken a step back when two of the howlers lunged for his throat.

One of them sank its teeth into Hagkun’s flesh, breaking the paralysis but too late for Hagkun to fight back, time only for the mul to writhe in agony as the beasts took him down. Avra struck at one, carving a deep gash in the top of its head, and then Shen’ti was pulling on him. “Now, Avra, while they’re engaged!” he shouted.

Avra hated to leave his friend, but couldn’t deny the sense in Shen’ti’s desperate words. The big mul partially blocked the roadway, and the howlers feasting on him filled the space even more. Other howlers paced behind them, wanting either to get at the remaining humans or take a turn at the mul. Behind them, more were still tearing off bits of Maron and Burek.

The three remaining soldiers had a moment’s grace period, in which they might yet escape. Only a fool wouldn’t take it, and Avra was no fool. He grabbed Hagkun’s lotulis, gripping it in his left hand and the agafari sword in his right, and ran.

Shen’ti led the way. Instead of going back to the wide avenue, and the desert beyond, between ragged breaths he huffed out his belief that the howlers would surely catch them on open ground, and their best bet was to hole up somewhere in the city until they were gone. Avra didn’t argue—he didn’t know which course of action made the most sense, only knew that getting out of the howlers’ sight seemed like an excellent idea.

They had to help Curran from time to time, but a few minutes later they had taken refuge on the third floor of what must once have been a luxurious home. The rooms were big, with vaulting ceilings and fine tiles on the floor. Arched windows looked out over the buildings directly opposite toward the desert. The sun had continued to descend, and shadows stretched far across the sandy wasteland.

Shen’ti gazed out one of the windows. “Even if they follow,” he said, “they can’t jump this high. And if they try to come up the stairs we can pick them off one or two at a time.”

“But how long can we take refuge here?” Avra asked. “You have a little water, but not enough to last long. We’ll need to eat. Unless you propose we hunt down one of those howlers for food. I think I’d as soon eat my own foot.” He glanced at Curran, face drawn and pale, cradling his ruined arm, and regretted his words.

“One night won’t kill us,” Shen’ti said from the window. The setting sun limned his lean face, lighting the eye facing into it with red fire. “Surely the howlers will have lost interest by morning.”

“And as long as nothing else catches our scent, we’ll be safe? Is that your plan?”

“What else is there? This city’s deserted.”

“We thought that before we met the sand howlers, too.”

“They probably came in after the dune shifted off it, same as us. Saw there was nothing in here worth eating, until they sniffed us out.”

Avra thrust an arm toward him. “Give me some of that water, then.”

Shen’ti shrugged off the bladder and handed it over. It wasn’t as heavy as Avra had hoped. “Go easy,” Shen’ti said.

Avra took a swig, swishing the stale water around in his mouth a few times before swallowing, as if he might fool himself that he’d had more than he did. Then he carried the bladder to Curran. “Water, Curran. Open up.”

Curran looked at him with deep, haunted eyes. “N-no,” he said. “Don’t w-waste any on m-me.”

“It’s no waste. We just need to get through tonight, and—”

“And then c-cross the desert on foot … searching for N-n-nibenay? I won’t m-make it, man. Th-this is where I d-die.”

“No more dying,” Avra said. “Shen’ti, tell him.”

But Shen’ti simply looked out the window, watching for howlers.

Curran was dead by morning.

The moons had been bright that night. When it was Avra’s turn to stand watch, he looked out over the once-buried city, dual shadows shifting as the moons cut their paths across the sky. He tried to picture the streets clogged with activity, the aromas of cooking fires and exotic perfumes wafting on a breeze, but he couldn’t. The place was dead, and might always have been so if not for the skeletons they had found.

When he slept, his dreams were dark and disturbed, full of faceless, nameless terrors. He could not remember details when he woke up, only the overwhelming sense of dread that had engulfed him, and that stayed with him into the day.

When sunlight struck his face in the morning, his eyes snapped open and he came to instant wakefulness. He looked over at Shen’ti, snoring softly where he leaned against the window, and then at Curran, arms out to his side, a pool of thick, dried blood around him.

“Shen’ti,” Avra said quietly.

Shen’ti jerked his head up, snorted, and blinked at him. “Akrankhot,” he mumbled.

“What?” Even as he asked, Avra realized he knew the word too, as if it had entered his mind through those confused dreams.

“It’s the name of this city. Akrankhot.”

“It’s a damnable place, whatever it’s called,” Avra said. “I think you’re right, though. That name is in my head, too.” He shook his head as if to loosen something stuck there. “I don’t know why, but it is.”

“Do you recall ever hearing anything about it?”

“Not a thing. As far as I know it hasn’t been thought of once since the desert swallowed it.” Avra tilted his head toward Curran. “He’s dead.”

“I see that. Never believed he would make it through the night.” Shen’ti’s words struck Avra as harsh, even though Avra had shared the sentiment.

“You think we can get out of here now? I don’t believe there’s any treasure to be had—certainly nothing worth the cost of our lives, in addition to the four already lost.”

Shen’ti gazed out the window for a long moment. “I think per—”

Avra shushed him. He pointed toward the open doorway. “Someone’s on the stairs.”

“Howlers?” Shen’ti asked.

“I don’t know.” He had heard the scuff of a foot. Just the one, but unmistakable. In a city so quiet, every sound stood out. As the two soldiers listened, they heard another one.

“The window,” Shen’ti said.

“We’re three floors up.”

Shen’ti was already stepping over the windowsill. “What if it’s a pack of howlers? Or something worse?”

Avra didn’t have to think it over. Whatever was out there might be sniffing them out, but without knowing for certain who was up here, or how many. When it, or they, found Curran, that might be distraction enough. Anyone looking at the window would have the same first reaction Avra had—only a fool would jump down three stories.

And it was true. But he and Shen’ti had never claimed not to be fools, in Avra’s memory.

Shen’ti lowered himself until he was dangling from his fingertips, then dropped to the street below. He hit with a thump, falling backward onto some rubble, and let out a tight cry. Avra followed suit. When he landed, his left ankle twisted beneath him and he flopped forward against the rough stone wall of the building. Dropping this way meant leaving Hagkun’s lotulis behind, but he still had his own sword.

“You hurt?” Shen’ti asked.

“I’ll live,” Avra said. “Let’s get out of here!” He started running, favoring his hurt ankle. When he glanced back to make sure Shen’ti followed, he saw a shadow in the window they had just left. One of the sand howlers, its eyes glittering in the sunlight.

Several blocks later, they still had not reached the wide avenue that marked the city’s boundary. The pain in Avra’s ankle had reached an agonizing level, and it was already beginning to swell. “I can’t run anymore,” he said, leaning on a nearby wall for support. “Are they chasing us?”

“I don’t know,” Shen’ti said.

“I can’t run anymore,” Avra said. “I’m sorry, Shen’ti. Perhaps you should escape. I need to let my ankle rest.”

“Neither of us will make it alone,” Shen’ti said. “If rest we must, let’s find another hiding place. A better one, this time, where they can’t sniff us out.”

Avra knew he couldn’t run more than a few steps without collapsing. If he went slow, kept his weight off his left leg, he could get around, but barely. Healing might take days.

He kept his mouth shut, though. He had offered Shen’ti a way out. If the man chose not to take it, Avra couldn’t force him.

“Through here!” Shen’ti shouted. He pushed on a wooden door, held closed only by the sheer weight of debris piled on the floor behind it. The stuff scraped back as Shen’ti forced the door open. Avra searched for any indication of what the building’s function had once been, but the walls were empty. Akrankhot, he remembered. At least we know that much about it.

Shen’ti shoved the door closed. They waded through detritus, mostly plaster from the walls and collapsed ceiling, and through an arched doorway on the far side of the room.

Here they found another staircase, spiraling up and down. Not much light filtered through the closed door, although there might have been windows on an upper floor. Shen’ti started up.

“No more jumping!” Avra insisted. “Let’s go down.”

“But.… we’ll be trapped down there, if anything follows us in.”

“I’ll be just as trapped above,” Avra said. “I can’t risk landing on this ankle again, so either way I’ll have to fight.”

Shen’ti shrugged. “Down it is, then.” He started to descend, and Avra followed, pressing against the walls to help.

He had not known Shen’ti well, but the man had always struck him as opinionated, never shy about sharing his beliefs. If Shen’ti thought they should go up, he would have made that argument. Avra was glad not to be deserted, but there was something strange about how agreeable the man had become. Shen’ti would bear close watching.

The stairs wound down and down, into what seemed like the depths of Athas itself. They should have been pitch black after the first curves, but somehow the walls seemed to glow with just enough luminosity to keep the short, smooth stone steps visible. Avra kept expecting a landing, a subterranean floor—some sort of destination for this staircase. But instead of finding it, he kept limping, around and around. Shen’ti was moving faster, so far ahead that Avra could no longer hear the huff of his companion’s breath, only the rasp of his feet on the steps. The air was blessedly cool, but held a sharp tang reminiscent of blood, giving him the unpleasant sensation that he was descending into some gigantic creature’s veins.

Finally, after what seemed like the duration of a festival week, Shen’ti uttered a short, sharp cry. “Ha!”

“What?” Avra asked, trying to hurry down without pitching forward onto his face.

“Avra, it’s … come quick!”

“I’m coming!”

He went as fast as he dared, and the bottom seemed to arrive suddenly, bringing him up short and almost causing him to stumble. Even down here, leagues underground, that glow persisted, illuminating a massive subterranean cavern.

“Look, Avra!” Shen’ti said. His voice was hushed, and he waved a hand toward the contents of the cavern.

Everywhere, piled up on the floor, stacked on tall racks, even thrust into the walls themselves, was metal. Rods of metal as big around as Avra’s wrist, balls the size of a man’s skull, rectangular bars, and more, all of it gleaming in the soft light.

Avra rushed forward and picked up a bar. It seemed to weigh as much as a large child. “It’s really steel,” he said, his voice quaking with wonder. “I’ve never even dreamed of this much in one place.”

“Do you know what kind it is?” Shen’ti asked him.

“No. I’ve held iron and once, gold. But this? I’ve no idea. It’s a treasure trove, though.”

“Not as easily transported as gold or gems.”

“No. But this much of it—do you have any idea what the Shadow King would give for this? Or any other sorcerer-king, for that matter?” The cavern reached back into the darkness, beyond where Avra could see, although he believed if he walked that way the illuminated walls would continue to light his path. “An army could be outfitted with this, or an entire currency minted. Possibly both!”

Shen’ti stroked his chin. “You might be right, Avra.”

“Perhaps we can salvage something from this damned trip after all,” Avra said. “Certainly House Faylon won’t be paying us for our trouble.”

“But how … we’d need an argosy to carry all this. A dozen of them.”

“We’ll take a couple of samples, ones we can carry easily. We’ll show them to Nibenay, and let him pay us for the location of the city.”

“Or torture it out of us, or simply reach into our minds and pluck it out like low-hanging fruit.”

“The road to riches never runs straight, Shen’ti. There’s always some risk.”

“Very well, then,” Shen’ti said. He started collecting chunks of metal small enough to be carried.

“Not yet, man! We just got here! Whatever it was up there might still be lurking about. Anyway, my ankle won’t stand up to climbing those stairs so soon. We’ll rest here—surrounded by our new treasure—for an hour or two, then if it’s clear we’ll get out of this city for good.”

Shen’ti dropped the metal he had gathered. Once again, Avra noted how agreeable he had become.

But surrounded by all this steel, he didn’t care to complain.

The climb back up the winding staircase was indeed painful, especially laden as they were. But at the top, whatever had stalked them seemed to be gone, and nothing interfered with their escape from the city. By the time the two moons rose into the night sky, they were encamped at a small oasis, far from the city. The ache in Avra’s ankle had started to fade, as if walking on it had been beneficial.

Both soldiers felt safer here than they had in the city, but they still planned to sleep in shifts, to keep watch for anything that might attack them. The water in the oasis was fresh, and Avra drank deep, slaking his thirst at last. But oases, he knew, tended to draw all sorts of visitors, including the kind who would not hesitate to kill them for a handful of ceramic coins.

Avra was sleeping soundly, dreaming about lying back on a soft divan with a nubile young lady pouring wine into his mouth, when a strange noise disturbed his slumber. He opened his eyes and saw Shen’ti walking in a tight circle, muttering to himself.

“It’s in there,” he said. “It’s in there. I saw it in there. I saw it.”

“What’s in where?” Avra asked him. “Are you standing watch, or walking in your sleep?”

Shen’ti didn’t react in any way, just kept walking. His hands opened wide, then closed into fists, then opened again. “It’s in there. In there. It. Is. In. There.”

“Shen’ti.”

“Must go back,” Shen’ti said. “It’s in there. Must go.”

“Shen’ti!” Avra called. He rose to his feet. His companion was bewitched or sleepwalking. Either way, he needed to be brought around, before he hurt himself.

But Shen’ti ignored him. Leaving his refilled water bladder, his trikal and everything else behind, he started walking back the way they had come. Back toward Akrankhot.

“Shen’ti, stop!” Avra cried. “Come back!”

Shen’ti didn’t stop. Avra started after him. His ankle gave out under him and he pitched down into the sand.

Avra tried to scramble to his feet again, because Shen’ti was already disappearing into the darkness. But he had strayed too close to an elven rope cactus. A spiny red vine twisted around Avra’s right ankle—his good one—and tightened there. Instantly, burning agony gripped Avra as the cactus drove its needles deep into his leg. At the same time, more of the tendril pushed up from beneath the sand and snaked up his leg.

Avra screamed. If the cactus responded at all, it was just to clamp down even harder on his leg.

He had never encountered an elven rope cactus, but he’d heard stories. Those needles were digging into his veins and sucking down his blood, draining him into the plant’s inner parts, deep underground. What he didn’t know was how long it would take to remove enough blood to kill him.

And he didn’t know if he would be able to break free of it in time to catch Shen’ti.

He didn’t dare grab the thing, because it would just ensnare his arm as well. He could cut it off, if he could just get to his sword. But he had left that where he was sleeping, hadn’t thought he would need it simply to grab Shen’ti and shake him into wakefulness.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Avra pushed off with his arms and tried handwalking to his left. He couldn’t get any distance from the cactus, but he didn’t expect it would care where he was as long as it had its grip on him. He made it a few “steps” and collapsed again, the pain too severe. He lay there panting for a few minutes, feeling himself being weakened by the second, and tried again.

In this way, slowly and painfully, he made his way back almost to where he had slept. He could see the dark wood of his sword, resting atop the few pieces of metal he had brought out of the city. He could almost reach it.

Almost. He strained his arm, fingers splayed out, but they fell just short. He tried to lurch forward, but the cactus held him fast.

The night seemed to be growing darker, as if the stars had slid behind a semi-opaque film. He didn’t have much time left. Do something, he told himself. Anything, while you’ve an ounce of strength to do it with!

He stretched his arm out again. He couldn’t reach the sword, but he could get his fingers on one of the slender metal rods he had carried from Akrankhot. If he could tip it, slide the sword to him …

Moving slowly, cautiously, he wiggled the rod. He had to move it just right, try to raise the far end and lower the near so that the sword would shift the right way. He got the sword moving, little by little and then the elven rope hitched itself up higher, slithering around his waist, setting off an entire new wave of agony. Reflexively, Avra jerked the metal rod, and the sword went clattering off the far side of the pile. He would never get to it now.

It took several long moments for the realization that he did have a weapon to penetrate his pain-clouded mind. The rod. It was shorter than a sword, not much bigger around than one of his fingers.

But it was metal. With all the strength he could muster, he rose to a sitting position, ignoring the pain stitching across his midsection. He raised the rod high and brought it down fast, into the elven rope just beneath his foot. The angle didn’t give him as much force as he would have liked, and the cactus clung tighter in protest, but he did it again a second and third time. On the fourth blow, the cactus seemed to relax a little. Avra yanked his leg and was granted more leeway than he’d had just seconds before. He adjusted his swing and struck again, pounding the cactus into the dirt.

Finally, the thing split in two. Blood—his blood, Avra knew—gushed from both severed ends as the tendril gripping him went limp. Avra plucked it from his body and threw it as far as he could, scrambling away from the plant in case it sent out more.

Free of it at last, he collapsed into the sand. He had lost so much blood, when he tried to raise his head, the stars above started spinning. He lowered it to the ground again, and slept.

Avra didn’t know how long he slept. Surely not more than an hour. When he woke up, blood still seeped from his wounds. With considerable pain, he managed to stand up and retrieve his sword. Shen’ti hadn’t returned. Avra wanted to find him before heading back toward Nibenay.

He thought he knew where to look.

Shen’ti’s footprints in the sand confirmed his guess. His fellow soldier was on his way back to Akrankhot. For what purpose, Avra had no idea. He never wanted to see the place again, unless perhaps with a well-guarded caravan.

But Shen’ti had stuck by him, even when he might have left Avra to his fate and saved himself. He had thought there was something odd about Shen’ti’s behavior all that day. He’d put it down to watching their friends die, to being cut off from their caravan and on their own in a strange and frightening place. If it was something else? Well, no use pondering questions that couldn’t be answered. He would find out when he found out, or he would never know at all. Such was the way of things.

By the time Avra reached Akrankhot—relief flooding through him when he saw that it had not been submerged, during the night, beneath the desert that had held it close for so long—the sky was lightening at the approach of the sun. With it would come the punishing heat of the day. And he would be back at the city, far from the shade and refreshing water of the oasis, and that much farther from home.

Inside the city, Shen’ti’s tracks were harder to follow than they had been in the desert sands. It hardly mattered. Avra believed he knew where Shen’ti was going. He headed toward the building beneath which they had found the vast trove of steel. He had almost reached it when he saw Shen’ti coming out the door.

Something was wrong, though. More wrong than it had been. He had spent a lot of time with Shen’ti over the past couple of days, and he had never seen Shen’ti walking as he was, an ungainly half-stumble, half-lurch. And his head, held at a strange angle, bobbed loosely as he walked. “Shen’ti?” Avra said.

Shen’ti didn’t acknowledge him, just kept walking. When he got closer, Avra saw the reason his head was bobbing—it had been half-severed. Avra could see Shen’ti’s spine through the opening, and blood everywhere, but except for the spine and a narrow strip of flesh there wasn’t much holding it on. Shen’ti’s eyes stared blankly through Avra, and the soldier kept going, past him and toward the open desert.

Shen’ti was dead. Walking, but dead.

“Shen’ti? Shen’ti!” Avra cried. He wanted to stop the man, to shake him, to find out what had drawn him back here, and what animated him now.

But that was when the sand howlers came back.…