D & D - Red Sands

by Tonya R. Carter

  They found more torches and lit them from the first. The tunnel gradually came into view as a long, straight passage with a rounded roof. The walls were made of gigantic blocks of native sandstone, notched at the corners and fitted without mortar.

  "How old is this place, do you think?" wondered Marix.

  "Oh, twenty centuries," Tamakh mused.

  "Twenty!" Nabul exclaimed.

  "Maybe twenty-five. No one since the time of Tarka the Vile has lived this deep in the desert." He touched the worn wall. "There are stories, legends. ... It is said that two thousand years ago the Red Sands were green and bountiful."

  "I've heard that," saidjadira. "It was a beautiful, lush country until the gods fought over who would have dominion over the land and its people."

  "And fire fell down from heaven and burned the Red Sands," finished Tamakh.

  Air snapped at their torches. They closed together in a common impulse. Nabul said in a low voice, "How long do you think we'll have to stay here?"

  "As long as the storm lasts," said Tamakh.

  Jadira straightened her shoulders and squinted at the holy man. "How did you find this place?"

  The priest smiled in a satisfied way. "I called upon Agma to shelter us from the storm. The key was my beacon. Through it, Agma drew me to this place." He put a hand out to touch the sandstone wall. "This is—or was—a sacred place."

  "Well, I'm for exploring," said Marix. "Let's see what we can find."

  "Not I," answered Nabul. "All you'll find here will be spiders, snakes, or worse."

  "Worse?"

  "Ghosts," said Tamakh, with a wink to the women. "Of course, in ancient days temples were the center of entire districts, and all manner of treasure was stored within them by the priesthoods."

  Nabul's face twitched. "Treasure?"

  "Oh, very likely."

  "Then let us be off, young fellow! Let it never be said that Nabul gan Zeliriya was afraid of the dark."

  Nabul took the lead down the passage. The floor had a very gradual slope, taking them deeper into the ground. The air grew cooler, and signs of moisture appeared on the floors and walls. The corridor ended at a doorway, whose top was narrower than the bottom. Slabs of broken stone clogged the doorway.

  "Someone battered this down," offered Marix.

  Beyond the doorway, the passage widened into a room some eight paces by ten. On the other side of the room, a very narrow opening showed, while on their right a more spacious corridor beckoned.

  "Which way?" asked Jadira.

  Tamakh wandered over to the far wall. His torch picked out a lattice of stone cells sunk into the wall. He thrust the light into one and recoiled quickly.

  "What do you see?" hissed Nabul eagerly.

  "Corpses. Very old, very dead men." He checked the next niche. A shrunken, eyeless face stared back at him.

  "Nothing but mummies," he said. "Probably these were acolytes of the temple twenty centuries ago."

  "Leave them," Marix said. He went to the wider passage. "Oh! Come look!"

  The hall illuminated by his torch was decorated with blue and yellow tiles, as fresh and bright as when they were first installed. The hall continued beyond the reach of his light.

  "Follow me!"

  Marix dipped into the passage. Nabul was hard on his heels. Uramettu was about to follow when a low, scraping sound at the side of the corridor made her pause.

  A thin arm, encased in dry, leathery skin, emerged from a black cell and groped blindly in the air. Mutely, Uramettu made Jadira and Tamakh look. A second pair of desiccated arms appeared.

  "Temple guardians!" Tamakh said. "We've intruded on a sacred place! Run!"

  They did, even as six mummified acolytes dragged themselves out of the dusty darkness and stood on legs of dry bone and rags. As the companions pounded up the passage, they called for Marix and Nabul to beware. The pair did not answer.

  The harsh scraping of dead men's feet spurred them on. They came to a vertical fork in the tunnel: one ramp leading up beside another leading down. Uramettu, her huntress sense in control, naturally took the ascending path. As soon as she passed through the upper doorway, a massive block of stone slammed down, sealing the entrance. Jadira and Tamakh skidded into the obstruction.

  "Back! Go back!" Jadira shrilled.

  The mummies—six loathsome collections of animated skin and bones—were advancing toward them up the foot of the ramp. Their clawlike hands reached out for the desecrators.

  "Tamakh! Can you magic them?" said Jadira.

  "What magic? I am a priest, not—"

  She shoved him off the ramp. He fell heavily to the lower path they had rejected and rolled down the incline. Jadira jumped after the priest just as the mummies' talons raked through her headdress.

  The descending ramp bent right into a steep sand-choked stairwell. Tamakh was ascending on his hands and knees when Jadira caught up and dragged him forward by the neck of his toga.

  Two of the mummies tumbled off the rising ramp and disintegrated into a jumble of bones. These twitched and jittered for a moment, then were still. The other four plodded around the corner. They tramped blindly through the debris of their fellows and started up the steps.

  "Do you have the cudgel?" said Jadira. "Oof! How can you be so heavy after so many days in the desert?"

  "Large bones," grunted Tamakh. "And the cudgel is on my donkey's back."

  The steps rose to a dizzy height, becoming steeper as they went. Suddenly, the stairway was blocked by a stone wall. Jadira pounded on the unfeeling stone in vain. The mummies were twenty steps behind .

  "Listen, Holy One," she whispered. "When I give the word, I want you to jump feet first at those dusty devils. The two of us ought to be able to crush them."

  "No. No. We'll fall all the way down the steps. We'll be killed!" Twelve steps. The smell of ancient death wafted up from the mummies.

  "Killed? By Dutu, I don't think those fellows are

  coming up to kiss us!" Eight steps.

  "Try the stone again!" Tamakh leaned his shoulder into the plug at the top of the stairs. Grimacing at the ache in her belly, Jadira wedged in beside him. They dug in their toes and pushed for their lives. Four steps. The shriveled hands flexed, ready to tighten on their throats.

  The block suddenly split into two at its center, the two sections swinging wide apart. A deluge of storm-driven sand smashed into Jadira and Tamakh. They stumbled forward until they were outside again. Tamakh turned back to the stairwell, but Jadira yanked him aside. The mummies blundered into the storm. Whatever senses they possessed were as confused as any mortal's by the roaring, spinning mass of sand. They formed a semicircle and spread out, seeking the violators of their sanctuary.

  Tamakh and Jadira ducked back into the temple through the opening they had discovered. The mummies turned after them. Jadira pulled one pivoting slab of stone inward. Tamakh grabbed the other, and the doors boomed shut before the mummies could get inside. They beat their spindly limbs on the rock, scratched with their sharp-clawed hands. The storm sandblasted them away as they pounded, eating their centuries-old flesh to finer and finer dust. The sound of their scraping grew fainter and fainter, and finally ceased.

  "Praise Agma!" said Tamakh, shaking sand out of his clothes. "I thought the fiends had us."

  "The fiends may have us yet," said Jadira. "What happened to Marix, Uramettu, and Nabul? And where in Dutu's infernal realm are we?"

  The priest had no answer. "The best thing to do is retrace our steps," he said. Wearily, he began to descend.

  Uramettu futilely gripped the block that had closed the passage behind her. Her long, powerful arms and legs hardened as she strained, but to no avail. She gave up. Retrieving her torch, she faced the passage ahead. The walls were painted white and covered with peculiar hieroglyphs, which meant nothing to her. After a few dozen paces, the floor slanted sharply down. The ceiling continued level, creating a great vertical hollow. Uramettu's footsteps, light as they were, echoed and
reechoed in the vast still chamber.

  "I can't find any door!" Marix said, he and Nabul had gone through a small square hole off the main passage and now stood in a large circular room. Their point of entry was now a mystery, as the panel had closed silently and without trace.

  "It must be here somewhere!" Nabul cried in frustration. He waved his torch in a wide swath. The walls glittered and sparkled like the desert sky at night. "By the Thirty!" he said, rushing to the wall. "Jewels! Thousands of them!"

  Marix looked. Mighty figures of mortals and gods were sculpted in low relief in the stone. Their eyes, necklaces, and bracelets were inlaid with real gems. By the time Marix reached the wall, Nabul already had his dagger out and was digging at the gems.

  "Look at that ruby! Large as a pigeon's egg!" He poked the jewel into his burnoose. "Here's another— and it's bigger!"

  "Oh, leave them, will you? We've got to find a way out of here," Marix said. He felt in all the cracks and joints along the wall. Nothing moved or gave to his touch. Nabul skipped from figure to figure, muttering with glee at each new prize. When some particularly fine stone was out of his reach, he cursed fearfully and smote the wall with the butt of his dagger.

  Marix circumnavigated the room, checking all the walls without success. "We're trapped, you fool. Much good those jewels will do you. There's no way out."

  "Nonsense. We came in, we can go out," said Nabul. Marix slapped an ox-blood garnet from the thief s hand.

  "We're trapped, I tell you! And all you can do is pilfer shiny rocks!"

  Nabul's nostrils flared. He threw the dagger down and lunged for Marix. The two men, fueled by long pent-up frustrations, rolled across the sandy floor, clutching at each other's throats.

  "Lying Faziri thief!" gargled Marix.

  "Stupid pig-eating foreigner!" Nabul retorted.

  They rolled right to the feet of the largest figure in the room. Nabul, pinned on his back, glanced up and saw a sight that made the fight and everything fade to insignificance. He threw Marix off.

  "Strike me blind! Look at that!" he said.

  Even Marix was impressed. There, five paces off the floor, set in the eye of a godlike image was the largest sapphire either of them had ever seen—had ever imagined. From one faceted edge to the other, it was easily the size of a dinner plate.

  "I want it. I must have it!" Nabul said. He leaped, trying to dig the tip of his dagger into the rim of the sapphire's setting. He fell far short.

  "Help me?" he begged Marix.

  "Well, I—"

  "We'll share. Half the value is yours if you let me stand on your shoulders and pry it out."

  Marix agreed. He leaned forward, and the smaller man clambered up his back. With some wavering and grunting, Marix managed to straighten. Nabul clung to the wall with his fingertips as tbe jewel came within reach. At the neck of the god's image, Nabul planted a foot on each of Marix's shoulders. He ignored the topaz and lapis lazuli set in the god's necklace. The tip of his dagger probed the soft sandstone around the eye, searching for a loose spot.

  And then, with the mildest ping, the sapphire popped free and fell. Nabul gave a strangled cry, sure the gem would shatter when it hit. Instead, the sapphire hit the fine sand in the center of the room.

  Suddenly the sand began to shiver as a deep vibration moved the chamber. The god's eye started to sink into the sand.

  "Ail Catch it, Marix!"

  The nobleman had other problems. The floor was shifting under his feet. He staggered away from the wall with Nabul still poised on his shoulders. He finally tripped on his torch and collapsed. Nabul went flying. He landed in the sand headfirst, a hand's length from the sinking sapphire.

  "Ha, now I've got you!" he cried. The stone continued to sink. So did Nabul. "Marix! Help! The floor is sinking!" Marix scrambled on his hands and knees to the thief.

  "Not the floor," said Marix. "The sand is draining from the room like an hourglass!"

  "Dutu take the sand! Wbat about us?"

  "We'll go, too. Better hold your breath."

  "I don't want to hold—" The sand reached Nabul's lips, and he shut them just in time. Hot, choking grit slid over his mouth. Marix dimly felt himself bumping into solid stone before he and Nabul slipped into oblivion.

  Kaurous

  A great rumbling filled the corridors. The ancient temple complex shook from end to end.

  Uramettu, hurrying toward the sound, came to an intersection. Clouds of dust billowed out of the tunnel on the left. She turned that way and found a vertical shaft with a torrent of sand roaring down it. In a few seconds, the air cleared. The Fedushite woman lay on her stomach and lowered her torch into the pit. Through the swirling dust she could see that the main shaft had smaller vents in its vertical sides. Although the sand had ceased falling from the main shaft, it was still draining away through the side vents.

  Uramettu took a chance. Where so much sand could flow a person could go. She slid feet first into the pit.

  The rumbling was also heard by Tamakh and Jadira, elsewhere in the temple.

  "Whatever it was, it's stopped," said Jadira.

  "Whatever it was, I'll wager the thief had something to do with it," Tamakh added. "The man has a gift for finding trouble."

  "Don't we all? So, Holy One, what shall we do?"

  "Go toward the disturbance. There we will find our companions." There was firm certainty in the priest's voice.

  He moved to go, and Jadira followed. "More magic, Tamakh? Or has Agma shown you where they are?"

  "No, just my common sense."

  At the vertical split in the ramps, they found the door that had closed behind Uramettu was now open. Tamakh balked at going through it. "Suppose it shuts again and we can't get out?"

  "Do we have a choice?" asked Jadira. They didn't. The block stayed up after they had passed.

  Tamakh noticed the hieroglyphs. "Um," he said. "The dead tongue of the Hankarans. So they were the builders of this place."

  "Can you read it?"

  "A little. It's very difficult." The cleric put a finger to the wall and followed the vertical columns of picture writing. "Here is a royal name, Met-wah, and a priestly one, Kest-no-ray. This long bit I can't fathom; something about gifts or chattels of the god of the sky . . . Here's another name—Kaurous."

  "King or priest?"

  "Neither, as far as I can tell. The name's not Hankaran anyway. This says, 'All vigilance is to be given to the keeping of Kaurous'."

  "What does that mean?"

  "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 m
ust 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.