by Lucy Tempest
But I’d never thought I’d actually see a simurgh!
Whatever fantastic depictions I’d seen of it clearly hadn’t been from actual encounters. Maybe twenty feet high and with a wingspan of double that, the beast was far more magnificent and infinitely more terrifying than any artist had been able to convey.
This was right out of The Anthology of the Dunes, the fabled ruined city with its fantastical gatekeeper. Now the simurgh settled on the border, blocking our path to the city as it had in the book whenever a story’s hero wished to enter, or in Esfandiar’s case, leave Alabasta. The encounter with each man had ended in either its assistance—or their death.
Something rumbled beneath my side, deep and sonorous. It took me panicked moments to realize what it was. Laughter. Cyrus’s.
His chuckles rose until they were manic guffaws. My every muscle trembled, not just with dread, but also from his jarring reaction, and fearing the consecutive shocks were driving him mad.
I again tried to make him put me down, but he only tightened his hold on me. The simurgh observed us with what looked like intensifying calculation.
Cyrus’s laughter finally trailed off as he shook his head, looking as terrible as I felt. “A simurgh! Of course! I live all my life reading and hearing about simurghs and pursuing any chance to see one—and it takes the world as I know it ending to do so!”
“Cyaxares Shamash.”
The deep, soft voice had no discernible point of origin, like the words were being projected into my mind. But I immediately knew where it came from. The simurgh.
Cyrus seemed to have the same certainty as he raised his face to it in fascination. “How do you know my name?”
“I know all there is to see from leagues above and below,” it responded, its beak unmoving.
Its eyes then focused on me, a predator assessing a meal. I could only stare back, heart almost leaping from my chest.
“You can’t be the same simurgh from the accounts of Esfandiar.” Cyrus broke the screaming silence, his awful quietness even worse than his unrestrained cackles.
“But I am.” It fluttered its wings, creating waves of metallic gleams over its feathers.
“I never heard simurghs were immortal.”
“We are, compared to you, ephemeral creatures. I encountered the adventurer back when your land was a fledgling kingdom on the riverbank and its seat was Anbur.”
I goggled at it as it calmly answered him, like a towering teacher, imparting context to historical events. Seemed it wouldn’t eat us. Not yet, anyway.
It went on. “The reigning queen at the time, Zafira, wanted to protect her borders from invading hoards. Esfandiar, the first mate of a pirate who traveled the Deep Red Sea, claimed to have acquired many a powerful item in his travels that could have secured her kingdom. So she sent him on a quest to get her more. In his travels he came to Alabasta seeking the fabled Cave of Wonders.”
Cave of Wonders? This hadn’t been mentioned in the stories I’d read about Esfandiar.
“I thought the Cave of Wonders was just a story…” Cyrus stopped, huffed. “But then I also thought all-powerful genies were probably that until very recently.”
The simurgh adjusted its wings, its voice ringing in my head again. “It does exist, but a few in the history of humankind have had access to it. Esfandiar sought it in search of enchanted objects that would give Zafira power to deter her enemies. What do you come seeking?”
Cyrus seemed to snap back to his usual level-headedness with a headshake. “I came here only to seek a return to my homeland, but if you can direct me to the Cave of Wonders…?”
“I could. What would your intention there be?”
“Don’t you ‘know all there is to see from leagues above and below’?” Cyrus asked.
“I know everything but intentions.” The simurgh lowered its head until it was level with Cyrus’s, almost plucking my heart from its strings. “Your intention?”
Unfazed, Cyrus only declared, “My intention would be the same as Esfandiar’s.”
“Meaning?”
“To save Zafira’s legacy from foreign destruction—” Cyrus swallowed, as if the thought of Nariman lodged in his throat. “—and secure its great future. I have a feeling the Fates have contrived to cast me here so I can find the path to my kingdom’s salvation, and that it lies beyond the barrier of your wings.”
It tucked its wings back, seemingly pleased. “Your poetic words ring true and your mettle shines with steadfast steel. You are noble by birth but even more by virtue.” It turned its huge, falcon eye on me. “What about you?”
I struggled then, until Cyrus finally set me down. I staggered back on legs that filled with the pins of numbness and anxiety. Would I pass its inspection, too?
The simurgh brought its beak almost touching my chest. “A diamond in the rough looks no different from most other rocks, until a chip proves otherwise. The more the chips, the more facets are revealed.”
I stood, uncomprehending, at its mercy in every way.
It only dismissed me, turned its attention to Cyrus. “So you wish for my help.”
Cyrus nodded. “Yes. I know I have to answer three riddles to get it.”
The simurgh bobbed its head. “Each correct answer brings you closer to your goal.”
Cyrus frowned. “You mean you’d lead us to the Cave of Wonders over three stages, one per answered question? But you granted Esfandiar’s wish after he answered all three questions in a row, then you gave him three of your feathers for further help in future events.”
“Esfandiar was the only one who needed to exit Alabasta, not enter it. His answers got him out. It took all three feathers to get him to the Cave. And then, each seeker has their own quest, and my response is influenced by their differences. But the consequence of a wrong answer is the same for all.”
I swallowed painfully, remembering its threat to Esfandiar. Not a quick death, but being mauled before being eaten.
Cyrus shrugged. “We die if I fail you, but we also die if I don’t engage you.”
The simurgh raised a foreleg, displaying its horrific claws, confirming what I’d just thought. “But it will not be the same death.”
Cyrus adjusted his posture, looking every bit the commanding future monarch he was supposed to be. “The prize is worth the difference. So, ask away.”
“No!” I choked. “Ask me.”
Cyrus gaped at me, the first direct glance he’d given me since we’d been tossed here.
“I’m good with riddles,” I stammered.
“I’m sure.” His expressionless tone spoke volumes, of what he now thought of my powers of duplicity. “But if you’re afraid I’ll lose you your chance of survival, don’t. I was raised on the stories and riddles of my kingdom’s magical beings.”
“I-I’m not afraid for my life,” I protested weakly.
“You shouldn’t. I will rescue you,” he pledged, face stony as he looked away. “But beyond that, you have no stake here. It’s my kingdom and people at stake.”
“And this is why we can’t risk you,” I pleaded, afraid the simurgh’s patience with us would end before it played out its age-old routine. “You need to survive, to get to the Cave of Wonders so you can get what you need to bring down Nariman.”
Before he could respond, the simurgh ended our debate, the flap of its wings a miniature storm almost hurling us to the ground.
“You will both share the same fate,” declared the simurgh, closing its eyes with a peaceful bow of its massive head.
I started to plead again, and its voice rose to a thunder in my head, silencing me, almost bringing us both to our knees.
“You heard me once, you’ll hear me again, then I die ’till you call me again.”
Disbelief slammed into me. This was the same riddle from the Anthology!
Before I could blurt out the answer, Cyrus did, my same relief in his voice, “Echo!”
The simurgh shot up into the air, giving us access into th
e city.
After moments of starting after it, Cyrus circumvented the pit and crossed into the city. I rushed to fall in step with him and we followed the simurgh as it flew above us.
“It feels as if I’ve fallen into a storybook from my childhood,” he said. “Only I can’t turn the pages to find out how it unfolds.”
“I’ve had that feeling for weeks.” His head whipped around. Seemed he hadn’t meant to speak out loud, and my answer had startled him. “But from all the endings I predicted, this wasn’t one of them.”
“This is not an ending…” He paused, uncertainty tightening his elegant profile, aging him to a world-weary man before my eyes. “Though I don’t see the path to salvation yet.”
“Just let it reveal itself to you. You’ll know what to do at each turn along the way…” I winced, stopped. I was the last one to offer advice. This was the credo I’d lived by, and look where it had led me, led all of us.
But it seemed he was giving my suggestion serious thought. “After a lifetime dictated by solid rules and governed by meticulous preparation, the total unpredictability of magic leaves me at a disadvantage. The only way to counteract that is to open myself to any and all surprises.”
“Surprises would be the worst thing for someone used to planning their every move and anticipating every outcome. But you’re not that someone.” I looked up at him, needing him to look into my eyes and see how I saw him, how he really was. “You’re disciplined in everything you do, but you’re also enterprising. You just never got to practice that side of yourself much within the palaces where you spent your life. But you did when you played the thief, and again when you were a thief. You put both sides of you to use seamlessly. Remember when I told you I didn’t know who you were, Cyrus and Cyaxares, and you said you were both? You are, and it makes you the best of all worlds.”
He started saying something before his teeth clattered shut and the unfathomable facade he wore with strangers crashed back in place.
What had I expected? That he’d smile and let me in again? I was a stranger to him now.
After long, suffocating minutes of walking in silence, I felt his eyes on me.
I turned, hopeful, and I found him looking at me as if he was seeing me for the first time, and horrified at what he saw.
Then he made it far worse when he said, “You understand me so much, see me so totally, I thought you were perfect for me. But you were only too good to be true. Now I have to wonder if you’ve been made especially for me. Not to be my match, but to be my undoing.”
Chapter Sixteen
It felt I gaped at him for an hour before I exclaimed, “You think Nariman made me to serve her nefarious purpose?”
“Made or molded.” His tone was as distant as his far-off stare. “She must know me better than I realized, to create such a perfect illusion that fit me in every way.”
“I-I’m a real person.” My voice trembled as hurt tore through me. That he’d thought me perfect for him, and would never think so again. “And as I said before, all I said and did was—is as real. I’m just not—what I said I am.”
“So what are you?”
I again realized he still knew nothing about me. Just that I’d been sent by Nariman to fetch her the lamp, with everything else means to an end.
I didn’t have a short answer for him. And there was no time to waste on my miserable life story, anyway.
Before I could say so, Cyrus waved. “Don’t tell me. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does.”
He left me staring after him and continued walking through the ruins.
I followed the silent man to the silent city.
The simurgh continued to glide up ahead, guiding us towards our first destination.
After a while, I started falling behind, and Cyrus only came back to carry me again. Even though I was dying for him to, for so many reasons, I insisted on refusing, for even more.
He still carried me.
He followed the simurgh’s lead in an undulating path through the city. It was littered with idols and altars dedicated to the forgotten goddess, with colors of floor mosaics and details of wall paintings washed out by countless days in the lethal sun.
At one point, we approached a monument bordered by six columns with lotus-shaped tops, displaying a bas-relief of four people sitting on thrones and holding symbolic objects. Though one figure was missing its head and a chunk of its shoulder, it was among the best-preserved structures in the city so far. It was at least fifty feet high and it took my feeble breath away with its dwarfing size and sheer magnificence. I failed to imagine what it and the whole city looked like in all its glory.
But there were no signs suggesting that what had turned Alabasta into a hotspot for treasure hunters had been a natural disaster. It felt that what had sent half of it into the sea and consumed its inhabitants had been the brunt of magic gone catastrophically wrong.
I feared this might happen to Cahraman. That it would soon become a dead city, its distorted streets a shrine for the reign of a dark witch, with its palace vault another Cave of Wonders for those who scavenged the treasures of a stifled civilization.
Nausea rose at the idea until I forced my focus away from my surroundings and back to my ring.
After its blinding brightness subsided, it had been pulsing more frequently the deeper we went into the city, as if it was feeding off Alabasta’s lingering energy and charging its dodgy power. I also wondered if it was telling me something? If it was, I had no way of understanding it.
We now neared the top of a slope overlooking a plaza with a massive fountain at its center.
The simurgh circled it once then hovered in the air above it.
So this was our first destination.
Cyrus tightened his bridal-style hold one me as he half-ran towards it. His stamina again amazed me, with him the one who’d been brought up in a palace while I’d been the one scrounging a living on the street.
But even his strength would run out. And mine had partially returned with the rest he’d allowed me and the declining sun. So I wriggled in his arms as we reached the fountain until he set me down on my feet.
Still supporting me with an arm against my back, he mused, “This would be a fountain in a temple of Anaïta, if the architectural style wasn’t all wrong.”
I could see why he’d think of the fountains in his water goddess’s temples. The basin was a giant stone water lily and the base a lily pad. “Maybe it’s older than any cult of Anaïta…?”
A movement, followed by a burbling sound cut off my suggestion.
The fountain was filling up! Then the sprinklers came to life and started spraying arcs of frothing liquid. And it was all pink and gleaming with rainbow sparkles.
Amazed as I was that the mechanism still worked, that there was still any liquid in this aridness, it only reminded me of my parched and grimy state. I wanted to dive headfirst into the basin and gobble as much as my stomach could hold, even if it wasn’t exactly water.
The simurgh landed before us with a whooshing flap of its wings, a thunder-like rumble echoing under its feet as if the ground below us was hollow. I didn’t want to know what foundation Alabasta was built on and if there were more fantastical beasts hiding beneath it.
Its voice blew over us like a scorching wind. “You have crossed the first barrier and reached the first gateway. The second is in the in-between that separates this realm from the others.”
“Do you mean other kingdoms?” I asked.
“Other worlds, ones which overlap with yours in places where humans rarely tread. Their inhabitants may wander into your world through those places, or even drag you into theirs, but your kind can only reach those other worlds through certain gateways, like this fountain, or through a magical conduit such as myself.”
“Then Hylamahn must be such an entrance to an overlapping realm,” Cyrus exclaimed. “It’s too hot for people most of the year but the perfect climate for ifrits!”
“Is Hylamahn like
the Mount Alborz area where Ayman was cast away as a baby?” I asked.
“Hylamahn is the region where Mount Alborz is…” He stopped, turned down stunned eyes at me. “How do you know about that? Lady Rostam didn’t mention where he was cast away.”
“H-he told me.”
His whole body looked lost for words. “Why?”
“I guess he felt he could trust me?”
His chest deflated on a resigned exhalation. “I guess that’s why he’s my best friend. We’re both equally stupid.”
I bit my lip. “Cyrus, it’s not—”
The bird flapped its giant wings, silencing us. “Are you ready to cross into the in-between?”
“How will we find the other gateway in the in-between?” I stammered. “And where is the Cave of Wonders exactly?”
Cyrus shushed me before addressing the bird. “Yes, I am ready.”
Panicking, I rushed to amend, “We are.”
The simurgh rolled its head from side to side, ruffling its neck feathers before it said, “At night they come without being fetched and by day they are lost without being stolen.”
Cyrus was about to respond but stopped, shutting his mouth with a clack of teeth, the arm against my back stiffening. I understood exactly what he felt.
The simurgh had given us the riddle we knew first, so we’d assume the rest would be the same. Now it was confounding us with a riddle neither of us had heard before. And I bet all the treasure in the palace vault the third and final test was going to be another unsuspected twist.
Assuming we didn’t fail and get eaten now.
The simurgh watched us with its big, unblinking eyes. They were molten gold, and so incredibly beautiful. But I didn’t need the intensity of their gaze to remind me that we were at the mercy of a giant predator.
“Do you admit defeat?” it asked.
“Can you just give us a second?” I whined.
“You cannot debate or discuss your answers,” it said. “And as he addressed me first, his should be the only answer I hear.”
“But you said we both answer!”
“I said you would share the same fate.”