D & D - Red Sands (15 page)

"Perhaps an enemy of the Hankarans, or some precious thing—it doesn't matter now. We have to find our friends."

Jadira agreed. As they moved on, she wondered what

perils her lost friends were facing at that moment.

"Don't move."

Nabul was lying on his stomach. The avalanche of sand had deposited him and Marix in a large underground room. Marix was nearby, on his back. He had his arms and legs spread wide. "Don't move a muscle," the nobleman said.

Nabul's entire body tensed. "Why?" His voice was hoarse.

"I think we've fallen from one deathtrap into another."

Nabul turned his head. Immediately his whole body began to bob like a cork in the sea. "What in Dutu's name!"

"We're lying on a pool of liquid," said Marix. "Enough sand fell to cover the surface, but if we move too much, we'll sink.

Just then a hissing flood of sand poured from a large, vertical opening in a nearby wall. The cascade spread out over the rim of the pool, leaving Nabul's and Marix's hearts quaking in fear. But when the dust settled, out stepped Uramettu, upright and unhurt.

"Help!" Nabul said. "Help us, Uramettu!"

"Keep clear!" warned Marix. "We are adrift."

Uramettu dipped a finger in the pool. The liquid was thick and black and clung to her skin. She rubbed it off. "What manner of water is this?" she said in disgust.

"Bitumen," replied Marix. "It wells up out of the ground in some places. The people who built this grotto must have valued it and built this pool to collect it. If we go under, we'll never escape."

"We can't lie here forever!" Nabul cried. "Even now, my limbs ache to bend."

"Patience, wily one. Let me study the situation." Uramettu hopped lightly onto the retaining wall around the pool. The basin was twenty paces wide, and the two men had fallen almost in the center. Sand lay scattered over much of the surface of the bitumen, and it was impossible to tell by looking how deep the well was.

Uramettu went back to where she had fallen into the chamber. She scooped up a double handful of sand and threw it on the tar.

Marix couldn't see her. "What are you doing?"

"Building a bridge," she said, throwing on more handfuls of sand.

Jadira and Tamakh located the chamber of jewels. They stood on each side of a wide chasm, formed when two of the floor slabs had fallen to make a funnel for the emptying sand.

"They were here," said Tamakh.

"How can you tell?" Jadira asked.

The cleric waved at the reliefs. "I see the handiwork of our friend Nabul." Ugly gouge marks disfigured the images of the gods. From the freshness of the marks, Jadira knew that the work was recent.

"Do you think they went down there?" she said, pointing into the chute.

Tamakh shrugged. "Is there any other way out?" He studied the wall inscriptions. "Here's something: 'To the vault of Kaurous'." Between the striding legs of the great god figure was the outline of a door. By consulting the glyphs on either side, Tamakh was able to trick the door open. The smell of brimstone wafted out, making Jadira cough and cover her nose.

"It
smells
like Dutu's realm!" she exclaimed.

"Perhaps it is."

"You encourage me, Holy One." The nomad woman bowed and gestured grandly with one arm. "After you."

Beyond the door, they found a narrow stairway cut into the rock, the steps daubed in an alternating pattern of red and white, a curiously gay color scheme for such a grim place. The air grew thicker as they descended. Tamakh's torch shrank to a dim orange feather of flame.

"I feel giddy," saidjadira after a few minutes. "These vapors have lightened my head!"

"There is magic afoot here," Tamakh replied in a loud whisper. " Very old and very strong."

They reached bottom after more than iwo hundred steps. The exit at the foot of the steps was blocked by a fine curtain of sheer cloth, still pliant after twenty centuries. Tamakh thrust through the veil.

They found themselves in the greatest room yet, a vast vault the size of a city square. Four stone columns were giant lamps, with something burning at their tops. By the light the columns provided, it was easy to see the central feature of the vault: a black sphere as wide as ten men, resting on a low, cup-shaped base carved from black marble. The base was incised with Hankaran hieroglyphs inlaid with gold.

"What is this place?" saidjadira in awe.

"A tomb. The resting place for the one named Kaur-ous," replied Tamakh. "Not royalty or of the priestly order; perhaps a sorcerer." He bent way back to take in the enormity of the black sphere. "A very powerful sorcerer."

jadira noticed that the floor was deeply grooved and worn around the base. Many feet had walked around the stone for untold years to wear such ruts. She went to the bottom of one of the fire pillars. A sticky black residue had trickled down the side. It smelled strongly of sulfur.

"That's how they kept the fires burning untended all these centuries," said Tamakh. "The flames must be fed by some reservoir of pitch."

The rim of the vault was a gallery of doors, some to stairwells, others to corridors and antechambers of various depths. Jadira went to each opening and shouted,
"Hai, hai!
Marix! Uramettu! Nabul! Can you hear me?" She tried more than a dozen doors before a faint voice replied.

"Here, here, down here!"

"Tamakh, I found them!" The priest ran, puffing, to her, and they plunged into a passage that was cluttered with pottery shards, fragments of desiccated wood, and scrolls of stiff cloth that disintegrated at the slightest touch.

The passage finally opened into a room containing a pit of tar. Uramettu was still piling sand on the surface of the tar, trying to firm it enough to rescue Marix and Nabul.

A chorus of happy shouts erupted when the separated companions caught sight of each other. Uramettu quickly apprised jadira and Tamakh of the situation.

"We passed a hall full of rubbish we could use," jadira suggested. She and Tamakh returned to the passage and gathered armfuls of trash. Wood and clay stiffened the layer of sand. Finally, Uramettu, moving on her hands and knees like some giant insect, went out onto the surface of the treacherous pool.

"My friend," she said to Marix, "I am going to toss you the end of my sash. Hold to it tightly, and I will pull you to safety."

The Fedushite backed up, and Marix slid on his back to the rim. He rolled over the wall and threw his arms around jadira. He broke the ardent embrace and, looking embarrassed, clapped Tamakh on the shoulder.

"You look hale, holy man," he said. "Now, let's get Nabul."

The thief was in a more difficult position. He didn' t dare lift his arms to grasp Uramettu's sash, and she couldn't cast a loop over his head. "You're going to have to move some," she advised. "Try to (urn over."

Nabul slowly lifted his right shoulder and turned. He was on his side before his left arm pushed through the sand into the tar.

"Yah, ha! Help!" he cried. "It has me, ii has me!"

"Take the end and hold on!" Uramettu urged. Nabul, trying to keep from panicking, grasped the sash and wrapped it around his free arm. The black syrup was already to his chest.

"Don't thrash about—you'll only sink faster," Marix called from the edge. Uramettu braced her knees wide apart on two shards and pulled. Nabul rose a bit from the mire, then sank back as Uramettu ceased pulling; her own position was becoming precarious.

"The grip is too strong," she said. "1 need help!"

Jadira climbed over the wall onto the bridge of rubbish. The surface gave under her feet and hands. She crept forward as fast as she could. Marix followed.

"Take hold of Uramettu's feet," he said. "I'll hold

your feet, and Tamakh can seize mine."

This they did. "Now pull!" said Uramettu.

Nabul, half under the tar, was praying to the entire Faziri pantheon for a merciful death. Suddenly the grip of the bitumen eased, and he slid up onto a raft of old lathing. He wept and thanked his companions for his deliverance.

When everyone was safe on solid stone again, all the torches in the room dimmed in unison.

"I don't think we're alone," whispered Tamakh.

"You mean the one in the tomb?" said jadira. "Surely he is dead."

"Death is not always the end. I want to return to the vault and read the inscription."

Nabul rubbed the sticky black gum from his arm and neck. His robe clinked as he rubbed. Dipping a hand in, he came out with a fistful of jewels. Well! He hadn't lost all his loot.

In the vault, the fire pillars had dimmed to fitful glimmers. Tamakh had to feel with his fingers to make out the exact shape of some of the gold-filled hieroglyphs.

"I don't understand," he said.

"Can you not read it?" Jadira asked.

"Yes, but the meaning evades me. It says: 'Any man may set him free.' Is that a request or a warning?"

"This is a sepulcher?" said Nabul breathlessly. He had forgotten his near brush with death when confronted with the mighty black sphere.

"So it seems," said Marix.

"Think of it! Think of the treasure that must lay buried within so magnificent a tomb!"

"Let it stay buried," said Tamakh sharply. "There is power at work here, even after two thousand years.

Such power should remain entombed."

"Rot! The dead are dead. They have no use for gold"

"The dead in this place are not idle," Jadira said. She told them how mummies had chased her and the priest.

"There are no mummies
here."
The thief stepped up to the sphere and touched his fingers lightly to its surface. It was cold and smooth.

"What's it made of?" asked Marix. The thief took out his dagger to scratch the flawless material. With a loud click, his blade stuck to the sphere.

"Lodestone!" said Uramettu. Nabul tugged at his dagger. It slid across the surface but would not come free.

"Leave it, man!" Tamakh said. Nabul planted his foot on the magnetic stone and dragged at the hilt of his weapon.

"Don't—"Jadira began.

The giant globe, balanced on the narrow base, shifted under the thiefs pressure. The dagger hilt popped free, but the blade remained. Nabul put both hands on the pommel and yanked with all his might.

The tip came away, and Nabul fell back. The black sphere shifted ponderously off its base. It crashed down the three wide, shallow steps and rolled into one of the flaming pillars. The tower of small fitted stones collapsed. Thick streams of bitumen spewed out of the shattered column, drenching the sphere. The giant black globe stuck fast and stopped.

Nabul leaped up and ran to the rim of the hole revealed by the movement of the sphere. He stared into the pit, hoping to see the first gleam of a wonderful hoard. One by one the others joined him. Instead of the glitter of gold and jewels, however, the pit was filled with a glowing pink mist that appeared to be welling up toward them.

"Now what?" Marix said. The level of the fog rose rapidly, overspilling the rim. Its color deepened to red. It flowed over Uramettu's bare feet, and she hopped aside.

"It's cold!" she said. "So cold it feels hot."

They all stepped back. In the center of the mist, a spindle-shaped mass coalesced. It began to pulse and rotate. Faster and faster, it built into a whirling column of blood-colored smoke. Lightning cracked from the head of the spinning mass, scoring burned furrows into the walls. The whirlwind sucked the air inward, whipping at the companions' hair and clothing. Jadira lost her footing. Marix caught and held her. The wind shrieked around them in a deafening cacophony. Just as it seemed they would all be sucked into the icy, hot cloud, the cyclone solidified into a giant muscled figure, ten paces high. Only the waist-up portion of the giant resembled solid flesh; below that it was still mist.

"I, KAUROUS, LIVE AGAIN!" boomed the behemoth.

"Mercy! Mercy!" Nabul cried.

A bald head as wide as a wagon swiveled down. Green tusks as long as a man protruded from the apparition's mouth, and his earlobes hung down to his shoulders. Kaurous was red all over, even his barrel-sized eyes.

"WHO HAS FREED ME FROM THE PIT?" he roared. Nabul cringed and said nothing. The others were transfixed with wonder. "WHO FREED ME?"

"We did, Mighty One," said Tamakh at last.

"HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN SINCE I LAST SAW THE SUN?"

"We think—I would say, almost two thousand years."

"TWO THOUSAND? IT SEEMED MUCH LONGER."

"Pardon me, sir, but what are you?" asked Marix.

"HAS THE WORLD SO SOON FORGOTTEN THE GREAT KAUROUS, PRINCE OF THE EFREETI?"

Tamakh seized Marix's arm and dragged him close. "Beware, my friend! The efreeti are dangerous, untrustworthy creatures of great power. Pass that on." Marix whispered to Jadira, who spoke in Uramettu's ear, who mumbled a warning to Nabul.

"FOR FREEING ME, LITTLE ONES, I SHALL GRANT YOU TWO WISHES."