Star of Cursrah

16

The 383rd Anniversary of the Great Arrival

Where were they going?

With her mouth and tongue paralyzed by dumbcane, Amenstar felt just as numb in body, tied by red velvet ropes into her sedan chair. What, she wanted to scream, would they do to her?

Certainly death was the order of the day. With great pomp and ceremony, the royal procession wound down and down the sloping corridors deep beneath the Palace of the Phoenix. Amenstar had witnessed many atrocities along the way, all committed by her parents or in their names.

She saw "freed" slaves writhe in agony on the stone floor, deceived with poisoned wine. She witnessed as slaves who'd faithfully packed away treasure brutally cut down with swords. At every level, musicians, maids, and other commoners were peeled away from the procession and sent to errands or their unknowing deaths. Now and then palace guards and vizars were ordered away, some to administer death, but always the royal family descended.

Soon, Star realized, they would reach the bottommost level, the one always guarded and which, in her whole life, she'd never been allowed to visit, but where rumor said resided mummies of the ancestral dead. Numb, Star felt no curiosity about the mystery chamber, only a mounting terror as to her fate.

Still, when they marched through the last double doors to their final destination, the princess was oddly disappointed. The round room was simply a smaller replica of the royal court far above. Abbreviated frescoes were painted on the walls between familiar phoenix-faced sconces and zigzagged columns. Seven false doorways were painted black. The expansive floor was the same pink-white marble tiles, with one difference: each tile bore a central hole big as a woman's fist. The ceiling had been carved to mimic the open round roof, with a mosaic night sky and moon inlaid in the hollow. This room would never know sunlight, so it must be lit by flickering torches spaced roundabout.

Gradually, curiosity intruded. How long ago, she wondered, had this room been prepared? How long had her parents, or their ancestors, been preparing for disaster? How long ago had this "Protector" idea, whatever it was, been planned? Had this secret dummy court been built within the palace ages ago, under Calim's own guidance? Had genies and bakkals, way back at the city's founding, envisioned and planned for its downfall?

There were only three pieces of furniture in the room, standing almost exactly in the center, and they jarred Amenstar. Three statues had been fetched down from the original royal court. Two represented Star's elder brothers, both cruelly assassinated on their diplomatic missions. The third was Star's own likeness in painted stone. She trembled to see it. Her two brothers were dead, so statues took their places. Thus, dictated cold logic, if Star's statue were here, she must already be dead in her parents' minds.

Royal family members of all ages, a cadre of trusted advisors, sages, secretaries, and courtiers, five hundred handpicked seasoned warriors from the bakkal's bodyguard whose ranks filed out the door, and the brown-robed, bare-headed vizars like a flock of vultures entered the replica court. Tied in her chair, Star studied people's faces. Some advisors seemed calm, as if not surprised, while many of Star's siblings and half siblings fidgeted and fretted. Well they might, she thought, for who could hope for a happy outcome buried in this opulent grave?

The vizar-in-waiting took charge of the proceedings. Amenstar noted she'd donned a replica tiger-skin turban, and had blue and red veins inked on her cheeks, since there was no time for tattooing. Obviously, the old and senile grand vizar was dead, and the vizar-in-waiting had assumed her mantle.

The new grand vizar clapped and waved a hand. Into the hall staggered two junior acolytes carrying a steaming caldron of copper suspended from a pole. The oily brew was flecked with dark herbs and redolent with spices. Wafting, the smell made Star's nostrils twitch. It was acrid and bitter as burned mint tea.

Bidden by the vizar, the first ranks of the bakkal's bodyguard split and took up posts with their backs to the wall, until the room was ringed by red uniforms, leather accoutrements, and upright spears. Two hundred squeezed shoulder to shoulder, rhinaurs and manscorpions salted among them, and dutifully awaited the bakkal's command. The bakkal gave a short speech, more words than Amenstar had heard her father ever utter at one time.

"Worthy family, venerable sages, honored vizars, loyal soldiers, a day long anticipated has arrived," the bakkal said in a strong voice, slow and sepulchral, with no emotion, a tone fit to converse with the dead. "Today Cursrah dies, but Cursrah will live on-in you, my most faithful followers and family.

"Here, in the bosom of Toril, guarded by the Protector, shall the finest flowers of Cursrah sleep while the world changes above. Time will pass. How much, we don't know, nor care. Cursrah is master of every era and will endure forever. Waiting far above is a moon-soaked orb. When the gods decree, and fate favors us, that orb will be kissed by her mother, then shall Cursrah be uncovered to come alive, as shall we. In that new era, a world of the future, we shall be the core of a restored civilization. Led by the royal family, guided by our advisors, armed with steel and muscle, empowered by the vizars' magicks, and financed by tons of treasure, we shall march forth from Cursrah's valley. Together, we shall conquer all the lands lying under Calim's watchful eye and beyond. In that future time, we shall enslave an empire!"

At this dramatic pause, listeners stood stunned. Star saw people sifting the information, imagining the import, yet wondering about this magical feat-by which the royal court and attendants would "sleep"-when Amen-star's father added simply, "Your bakkal bids you drink."

The drink was the acrid potion steaming in the caldron. Elder vizars clustered around with copper ladles and doled out exact measures into blueware mugs. Acolytes carried the concoctions to the soldiers mustered along the wall. Even the bakkal's most fanatical guards hesitated to imbibe a potion brewed by the repellant vizars, yet the guards' grizzled commander-in-chief accompanied the acolytes with a sword and a scowl. The message was clear. Drink or die.

Obedient even to death, every guard slugged the bitter brew, returned the mug, and resumed their stance of attention. More guards filed into rank before them and drank the potion, until nine caldrons had been emptied and the soldiers ranked three deep around the court. Only a few dozen guards were held in reserve.

As the maneuvering and imbibing dragged on, the bakkal asked the grand vizar to explain the mystical potion. Whether this was to increase his knowledge or to double-check the process, Star couldn't tell. Rasping like a crow, the grand vizar spoke of old wine steeped with harmless herbs such as self-heal and skullcap, and toxic ones such as monk's hood and foxglove. Dissolved in were natron fetched from the sea, feldspar from the mountains, phosphate from desert salt flats, dreambliss from the southland jungles, and resin from northern trees. The mix had been stirred under last night's full moon, with prayers offered to Selune, the gentle Mistress of the Night, and bribes offered to Shar, Overseer of the Under-dark. Incantations had included forbiddance, death pact, armor of darkness, feign death, protection from fiends, and other spells the vizar was reluctant to reveal.

Intrigued, Amenstar watched the first guards who'd been dosed. Gradually, so slowly Star couldn't tell when the change took effect, the soldiers' rigid stance of attention became something more: a rock-solid immobility no human could attain. Testing, the bakkal plied one finger to tip a soldier. The unblinking guard tilted just like a statue, thumped lightly against the wall, and rocked back into place.

"Beware, Highest of Holies," cautioned the vizar. "If the sleeper suffers harm, even so little as a finger joint broken, so too is the spell broken. That sleeper will be lost to you forever."

The bakkal nodded absently, for his time to partake had come. The grand vizar sorted and shooed the royal family onto the central dais under the round canopy of fake stars and moon. Only the bakkal sat, on a low chair at the exact center, flanked by his wives and children. Poised in an outward facing ring were royal uncles and aunts and cousins. Outside their circle were ranged the sages, courtiers, and a handful of elder vizars. Mixed in were three stand-ins; not far from the bakkal's right hand were placed the statues of two elder brothers and Star's own statue.

To complete the illusion of a princess joining her family, Star's moonstone tiara was yanked from her head and settled on the stone skull of her statue. The message was clear. In the family's eyes, Star was as dead as her brothers. The princess's heart ached to bursting. Why had she lived at all, if only to end in such hateful disgrace?

With a sense of pressing time, another ring of guards was ranked around the royal family while a fresh bubbling caldron was lugged in. One by one, from the outermost ring inward, soldiers, then courtiers, and finally the royal family drank the petrifying brew and slowly sank into a wide-eyed, unblinking coma. With sleep that deep, Star wondered, what could wake them? What concoction or incantation could revive her time-frozen family? Amenstar was never to know, not in this life.

At a gesture of dismissal, Star's sedan chair was hoisted onto the shoulders of junior vizars and lugged out. Retreating, the grand vizar shooed the lesser priests. With them went torches, so darkness crept from the corners to smother the room. Last to leave was the grand vizar, who closed the big double doors. Elder vizars used spatulas to cram gooey resin into cracks to seal out fresh air. The grand vizar positioned a dozen of the bakkal's burliest bodyguards in the short corridor before the doors, two rhinaurs foremost, two manscorpions at the rear, then administered potions that froze them immobile.

The grand vizar surveyed her handiwork. Behind a phalanx of soldiers, behind sealed doors, ringed by more soldiers and courtiers, Cursrah's royal family was entombed, sleeping for ages, if need be.

Dusting her hands, the grand vizar leered at the princess muted and bound in her sedan chair, and said, "Now, Your Majesty, it's your turn."

It's my fault, Star repeated to herself over and over, it's my fault.

She'd been recalcitrant, headstrong, spoiled, and foolish. She'd refused to listen to her parents, tutors, and friends, had refused to think at all. Now at the clanking end of a mournful chain of events, she was a prisoner of the people she hated most: the shaven-skulled, sigil-branded vizars with their clammy hands and hollow voices, people who hid from the sun to worship death.

In the largest and most frightening laboratory junior vizars dropped Amenstar's sedan chair with a thump. Stone slabs were backed by butchers' tools: scalpels, bonesaws, needles, forceps. Racks and crocks of dried leaves and sickly liquids ranged around, as well as jars of worms, maggots, and leeches. In the middle of the lab stood a soapstone tub big enough to submerge a corpse. The princess shivered, for the room was as cold as a grave, as she would be soon.

She would die, Star supposed. Whatever this "Protector" plan was, it must involve death, for the vizars practiced nothing else. Star's imagination ran riot with horrors. Would they skin her? Drain her blood? Drown her in some vile soup? Whatever the method, they could only kill her once, though it might be slow.

A curious lassitude crept over Amenstar, perhaps a function of the poultice, perhaps simple despair. Her family had retreated into petrification deeper than any grave. Her beloved city burned to ruins as her citizens ran mad. Cursrah was dead, its royal family gone, and she, a daughter of both, might as well be dead.

She had only one satisfaction. Punishment found her, but her friends had escaped. No doubt Gheqet and Tafir had found their families and fled across the grasslands. Forewarned of invaders, both young men had the good sense to vanish.

Star felt a cool tear trickle down her numb cheek. Gheqet and Tafir, those laughing teasing clowns, had been her only true friends in her short life. She would miss them like a piece of her heart. In some foreign port they'd eventually settle, she knew, pursue careers, marry, and raise families. The lonely princess's only hope was that, sometime in the future, one or both would occasionally think of her. With Cursrah blown into dust, those two young men might be the only memory in which Star endured. Star was startled as someone spoke in these still, chill chambers.

"Let's begin." Rolling up her sleeves, setting aside her false tiger turban, the grand vizar fell to work. Dipping the dregs of a copper caldron, she diluted the petrifying brew with more wine, and stirred in six curled tails of scorpions.

A potion for her, Star knew. Suddenly angry, she resolved to fight, and flipped her head to flick away a tear. Show no weakness, she thought, even if she couldn't speak. Show them how bravely a princess endured their hideous ministrations.

As if reading her mind, the grand vizar ordered, "Open her mouth… with tools, you idiots."

Star wanted to scream. The evil vizar anticipated her every move, even such a pathetic one as trying to clamp her jaws shut. Two junior vizars caught Star's chin and cheeks. When she tried to bite, they jammed silver spatulas between her teeth. Leaning, straining with a cloth, the grand vizar poured the bitter tea down the princess's throat, choking her. Star willed herself to vomit, but her mouth was clamped shut. Sure enough, within minutes a stony stiffness inched through her muscles like frost.

"That should do," the vizar gloated. "Untie her."

Released, Amenstar couldn't control her muscles. She sagged to the floor like an octopus out of water, as three acolytes wrestled her limp form onto a slab table. Star stared at a stone ceiling dotted by yellow circles of lamplight. She was almost a corpse, and she wondered what end portended. A knife between her ribs? A wire around her throat? A wet cloth over her face? She strained to hear the grand vizar's orders.

Papyrus crackled on an easel as it unrolled. Queer, thought Star. Whatever they planned, the operation was so new the highest-trained vizar had to follow written instructions.

"Knife," came a hiss.

A hooked blade flashed before Star's eyes, and her heart thumped. A female acolyte cut into her grimy traveling clothes. As cold metal kissed Star's skin, to the floor went her stained tunic, her sweaty trousers, her linen breeks, even her sandals. Nude, dusky, and miserable, Star shivered under the reptilian gaze of the priests.

"Fleam," the grand vizar said, calling for the bloodletting knife. "Catch the flow in that silver basin. This will weaken her resistance."

Star heard metal stropped on leather. A steel tooth bit the inside of her limp forearm. The grand vizar muttered a spell, invoking some vampiric touch, as Star felt heat trickle down her forearm. Loss of blood, or plain fright, made her dizzy.

"Razors."

From a narrow bottle, an acolyte poured ice-cold olive oil onto Star's armpits, crotch, and legs, then saturated her black hair of dusty cornrows. Priests encircled the table holding obsidian razors mounted on gold handles. Shifting her arms, the priests scraped her armpits clean of fine dark hair. Spreading her legs, they did the same, then scraped her legs and even her forearms.

"Bucket."

Yanking taut, the grand vizar's scalpel snipped off Star's beautiful beaded cornrows and dropped them tinkling in a pail. Soon a flint razor scraped her scalp, grating loudly in Star's ears. Even her eyebrows were scraped away, and her eyelashes trimmed short. Tears leaked from her unwinking eyes as, within minutes, she was as naked and hairless as any vizar.

"Roll her over. Bring that pail."

More indignities. Star was washed head to toe, even between her toes, with icy saltwater then dried with rough linen towels. A felt swatch was pressed onto her tongue, and she couldn't gag it out. The princess trembled. What were they doing?

"Spoon. The tiniest one."

The vizar ladled crimson drops into Star's unmoving eyes. The solution burned and itched, making her eyes tear. Worse, her vision grew blurry. Blinded! she wailed inwardly, but gradually her eyes focussed again, though the room was tinged red.

"Get the Ghast Salve. That copper dish there," the new grand vizar instructed her juniors as if dissecting a frog.

"Normally, this step takes ninety days, with the first forty soaking in the tub. Here, we approximate the process. You, recite Abi-Dalzim's wilting as we work. Slowly! Necromancy takes time."

A dish of salt-stinking paste was plunked on the table.

Spidery hands dug out handfuls, and to a monotonous sing-song dirge, slathered it on Star's body, rolled her, and applied more. The grand vizar daubed cold gunk onto Star's face, eyelids, lips, ears, nose, and her shaven pate, rubbing hard in circles to soak the gunk deep. Rubbed into her nostrils, Star identified natron, a sea mud used to dry out mummies. Fresh terror gripped her.

All the gods of Toril, I pray, have mercy! I'm not dead yet!

A junior wheedled, "Shall I invoke bone blight, Master?"

"No. We decided her bones must remain strong. Unfold the shroud."

Shroud! Amenstar almost jerked upright. Clothes donned by the dead!

With many hands lifting her, Star's legs and torso were cocooned in gauze that stuck to the salve coating her skin. The grand vizar fussed to smooth creases.

"As the cloth shrinks, it may abrade the skin. Bring the wrappings, small patches first."

Linen patches were neatly packed between Star's toes and fingers. More were stuffed into her ears so sounds grew muffled.

"Now we wrap. Neatly, always, the legs first. While we wrap, each invoke the living embalm enchantment we rehearsed."

Embalming! Preserving the dead! Star wanted to scream. How could anyone be embalmed who still lived?

Hands lifted one of Star's flaccid legs, which was wrapped in yards of linen bandages, as her calf had been after the lion wound-but this bandage was so tight! Her limbs would turn gangrenous for lack of blood!

"Stand back. Ready your brushes." An iron pot was lifted off a brazier and set on the table, smoking evily. All the vizars dipped horsehair brushes. Star's bandage was saturated with a hot glue that smelled like a cedar grove in summer. It was resin, resin that would harden like a beetle's carapace.

Amenstar's heart quaked. Was she to be buried alive?

It couldn't be, she thought. Not even the unspeakably cruel vizars could do that. Entombed in a coffin or sepulchre, Star would suffer for days, slowing dying of thirst. Why administer such a horrific fate? For what purpose? Just to punish her? Could even her cold-blooded parents wish a lingering death on their own daughter?

"Another basket."

Star glimpsed a long, ragged strip of linen, which was tugged tight around her torso and painted with resin. So it was true. She was swaddled like a mummy, to be entombed alive. Amenstar prayed desperately to any god who'd listen, but especially to Selune, gentlest and most motherly of goddesses. She knew the moon's light never penetrated to these depths, but the princess prayed anyway while priests entwined her arms. Daubing on resin, they repeated the process several times, wrapping and painting, until Star's arms and legs were rotund.

"Herbs."

A sweet-spicy basket was brought. In it were crushed petals and stems of fennel, hyssop, bee balm, sour chamomile, woodsy sage, and other plants. Onto the resin was now sprinkled this herbaceous mix, so for a second Star thought of a garden in sunshine, and realized once more that she'd never see sunshine or flowers again.

Hours passed as sweating acolytes tugged, smoothed, and daubed hundreds of yards of linen. Eventually Star's hands were pinned by her sides and her legs tucked together, then bound tightly and smeared with brown pitch.

"Cartonnage, then the gilded linen."

Cartonnage was gloppy wet papyrus pulp laid on Star's wrappings with a trowel. Over that went fresh wrapping soaked in gilt paint for a luminous yellow sheen.

"Carefully now. Off the right side. You fetch the mask."

Seven acolytes were needed to slide Star's multilayered body off the table. She was propped against a cedar framework tilted at an angle. For the first time in hours, she felt a tingling in her muscles. The petrifying potion must be wearing off. She could blink slowly, though her eyelids were weighed down by salty salve. Testing, she could almost waggle her jaw and wrinkle her nose. This tiny movement, a small act of resistance, lifted her spirits a fraction. Still, she felt as heavy as a turtle, as hot as a hard-run horse, and as dense as a rhino. Crushing terror and stress made her weak, but she felt in control, a little. Only by dying could Star escape these ghouls, and she prayed it would come quickly.

An acolyte entered the room bearing a gilded mask. As it was set on the table, Star felt new trepidation. Fashioned of layered cartonnage, the mask bore her face, down to her pouting red lips, insolent dark eyes, and beaded cornrows, or rather, what her face had resembled in life, before the vizars- shaved and smeared her. The princess swallowed a sob. She'd been beautiful and free only hours ago.

"Behold our Protector! The painted eyes let one see out… do you see?"

After hours of quiet mumbling, the grand vizar's loud jibe jarred Star, even with ears muffled.

"But a few steps remain, the most important now. Fetch them, my willing hands!"

Acolytes shuffled from the lab. For the moment, Star was alone with the newly crowned grand vizar. The sexless woman had so far bustled, busy and businesslike, but now her cruel nature erupted like bile.

"Moonstruck ghouls, are we?" she sneered. "Ice-hearted bloodsuckers? Twisted tarantulas? You'll regret those words, samira. You'll learn who truly wields the power in Cursrah-us, her most potent artisans, masters of life and death!"

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.

The grand vizar asked her acolytes to join hands before the sarcophagus. She thanked them for their hard work, gently touching each upon the brow. One by one, the acolytes collapsed, dead, their brains blasted to atoms. The grand vizar didn't bother to enchant their corpses, for the Protector needed no protection.

Unaccustomed to masonry, working by guttering lanterns, the grand vizar bricked up the entrance to the vault. Mortar dripped and oozed in uneven globs, even that labor was finally finished.

One last task remained. Stepping to the sarcophagus, pressing her brow against the cool wood, the grand vizar chanted in a voice hoarse and low. She laid upon herself the same curse laid upon Gheqet and Tafir.

Mashing her brow against Star's image, she finished the incantation with a shout, "I welcome a better life!"

For a second, a silver-purple glimmer flashed in the black cell as the grand vizar's life-force, and her magical might, were transferred to the coffin's occupant.

An empty shell, the grand vizar's corpse fell at Star's painted feet.

Inside the wooden sarcophagus, Samira Amenstar, the last living Cursrahn, wept, cried, pleaded, and prayed. Despair overwhelmed her, for she'd learned that there were fates worse than death. By her own deeds and her family's cruelty, she was condemned to a living death, to be always awake, always trapped, always regretting.

Her only escape now would be from her own mind, a long, agonizing fall into total insanity.

And insane she'd become, for the only sound Amenstar heard were the screams of her dying friends, ringing in her ears.

Forever.