by Andre Norton
Shilo smiled. It had been some time since she’d smiled—all this worry and danger had kept her from it. She stepped closer to the shelf with the pottery. There was something about the bowls that niggled at the back of her mind. Something a little bit familiar.
“In Meemaw’s attic.” She’d seen some like these, though the ones above the attic store were clearly old—ancient, chipped, and the marks on them faded in places. Noticed them the night she went up in the storm and discovered the puzzle in the old sea chest. “What are they for?” The ones in Meemaw’s attic had not bothered her and had not been worth more than a passing glance. But these were somehow disturbing.
The other shelf contained objects that sent a tingle down her spine. There were eggshells of various sizes, though none larger than a big duck or heron egg, all poked in the bottoms and their contents drained out. Wait … there was one the size of an ostrich egg, but only half of it was intact. And there were bones—finger and toe bones mostly, but a few larger pieces, including a lower jaw and a few chunks that looked like puzzle pieces.
“Ugh.” She realized they were sections of a skull. “This is not good stuff.”
“Gives me the willies for sure.” Kim ogled the assortment, too. “Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna touch anything.” He shoved his fist in his mouth to stifle a yawn. “What’s it all for, Shilo? You got a clue?”
She shook her head. “No, Kim. Not a—”
“They are demon bowls, young woman. You should know that. Used throughout Babylonia. And they are not to be trifled with. Those on the shelf are of a dark magic, and so should command your respect.”
The speaker was better than six feet tall, perhaps the tallest man Shilo had seen since arriving in Babylon. She couldn’t tell his age, though she put him at more than thirty. His brown skin was smooth, and his long hair and beard, both decorated with dark wooden beads, were shot through with streaks of silver. Her gaze was drawn to his hands, which she could clearly see as he lit two of the thick candles. The hands were thin, like a woman’s, the fingers long and circled with tattoos that were made to look like rings. Like the bowls, there was something about him that instantly set her on edge.
“I am Belzu-Mar, caretaker of the Old One, guardian of the Secrets of the Clay, and Esteemed Recorder of the Demon-Script.” He stood back from the candles and stared at Shilo and Kim, critically appraising them. “And you do not belong here, either of you. May I show you the way out?”
“Yes, please!” Shilo said, feigning an expression of relief. Again, she didn’t want to go, but she doubted this man would just let them keep exploring. They could leave with him, and she could wrap her robe tight around her so her streaked skin wouldn’t show, and then they could come back in later.
“I should ask, perhaps, how you came to be in this chamber.” Belzu-Mar nodded politely. “But that is not important. I am leaving myself, to retrieve the Old One from the western quarter. We’ve work to finish, and—”
“Who’s the Old One?”
Shilo cringed when Kim blurted the question.
“The greatest sorcerer in Babylon.”
“Wow.”
“He does not trifle with young ones.”
“Did he make these bowls?” Shilo immediately cursed herself for asking something.
Kim’s curiosity had infected her.
“Yeah, does he use the wheel and all this goopy clay?”
Belzu-Mar looked mildly surprised. “Some of the bowls, he makes—inscribes. The best of them are his.” His gaze narrowed.
“Will you show us the way out now?” Shilo was worried they’d asked too many questions and wouldn’t be permitted to leave.
“That would be best, I think.” Belzu-Mar picked up the tallest of the lit candles and held it toward the farthest dark opening.
Shilo wondered if that was the one he’d come through. He hadn’t been carrying a light. Could he see in the dark? Or had he been in this chamber and they hadn’t noticed him? Had he been listening to their conversation?
“What’s down that way?” Kim pointed to the other opening.
One question too many, Shilo thought.
“Perhaps my first thought is important now,” Belzu-Mar said. “How did you two come to be down here?” He stared intently at Shilo, seeing something perhaps he hadn’t the first time. “And what is wrong with your skin?”
“A rash,” Kim spoke up for her. “It’s contagious. So you don’t want to touch her.”
“We fell down into the mountain because we got too close to the buckets at the top. We were trying to see how the water conveyor worked.” Shilo thought that fashion of the truth might stop him from worrying about her skin. The clay! She could use that to make her skin look darker. She should have thought of that right away, tended to it immediately, and to a splotch on Kim’s hand. This tall stranger wouldn’t have been so suspicious of them.
“Fortunate you were not injured.” He took three measured steps toward them. “It is a long fall to the bottom. You must have landed on a ledge.”
“Yes,” Kim said, nodding so vigorously his hood fell off.
“Nothing broken?”
“We should follow you out of here,” Shilo said. Then turn around and come back inside. “Would you mind?”
“I should…” Belzu-Mar returned. There was the slightest hesitation, then Belzu-Mar turned back to the dark passage. “Come, clumsy, curious young ones. I’ve no more time for you. Set the lantern down. You won’t be needing it once you are outside.”
Kim raised his eyebrows and shrugged, pointed to the man’s back and mouthed: “What should we do?”
Shilo didn’t have an answer for that, but she did as the man said, setting the lantern down by the shelf. The light it cast upward made the bones and eggs look creepier.
“You had best not return here,” Belzu-Mar warned them. The corridor he led them down narrowed after the opening, becoming no more than two feet wide. It turned to what Shilo guessed was west, and started to ascend. “If you fall down the hole again, the Hand of Nebuchadnezzar could decide that you are worth dealing with. And that would be unfortunate for you.”
“What’s he doin’ down here? The Hand of Nebuchadnezzar?” Kim couldn’t contain his curiosity. “You know, what’s he doing way underground? With these bowls and stuff?”
Belzu-Mar turned, his face sad and his shoulders slumped. “I warn you not to touch the subject again. You had best forget you saw this place, young man. This is a place of bad dreams.”
Shilo remembered Kim from her dream in Slade’s Corners.
“There are three kinds of courage,” the boy had said. “Courage in the blood. Courage in the veins. And courage in the spirit.”
The more she thought about it, leaving with this man and finding a way back in now seemed like a bad idea. While Belzu-Mar was letting them go, he might find a way to prevent their return. And she didn’t like the notion of him going to get the man who made demon bowls—the bad version of them.
The Old One, Belzu-Mar had called him.
The name sounded … evil.
“What about the dragon eggs?” Shilo found her “courage in the spirit.” All her thoughts about them not doing enough planning, and that the dragon’s pair of added helpers were too young … all of that was her fear speaking. Sigmund and Kim weren’t too young. And how could one properly plan for something like this anyway? “Is the Old One going to break up the dragon eggs and put them in demon bowls? Is he going to poke the bottoms and drain the contents, killing the baby dragons inside?”
Angry lines, looking like jagged lightning bolts, sprouted on Belzu-Mar’s forehead and at the edges of his mouth. “That is enough, I must—”
Shilo didn’t give him a chance to curse at them, or threaten them, or say that he was now taking them to the Hand of Nebuchadnezzar. She darted forward and with both hands grabbed the candle from him and tugged it away. In the same motion she rammed her heel down on his instep.
Kim squeezed next to
her. “What got into you?” he asked as he drove a rigid hand into the man’s stomach and copied her move by slamming his foot down on the man’s other instep.
Belzu-Mar wheezed and doubled over, reached out to his sides to grab the walls of the tunnel. He groaned and opened his mouth wider, and Shilo could tell he was going to holler for help.
She formed a fist with her free hand and punched his jaw, gasping when she heard either bones or teeth crunch. “Omigod.” She stepped back as Kim punched the man in the stomach twice more.
“Don’t hurt him,” she said.
“Don’t hurt him? You hit him first. Hit him pretty good for a girl.” Kim clasped his hands together and brought them down hard on the man’s shoulder, and Belzu-Mar slumped to his knees. “How do you not hurt someone if you hit him? Sheesh.” Softer: “But I didn’t kill him. He ain’t even knocked out.” Kim stood over Belzu-Mar, ready to hit him again if he tried to get up. “He’s just a little woozy.”
“A lot woozy. So what do we do with him?” Shilo was thinking to herself. “We can’t just let him lay here. Someone will find him. Wait…” She looked back toward the clay chamber. “Help me drag him.”
Kim raised an eyebrow, but bent and grabbed both hands. “I don’t need help. I don’t think he’s that heavy. Just tall and ugly.” Still, the boy huffed as he dragged Belzu-Mar back into the room, Shilo leading the way and holding the candle.
“So, just what do we do with him?” Kim held Belzu-Mar’s wrists. “Don’t move, buddy!”
“Over here.” Shilo set the candle down, careful to leave it lit. “Help me get him up.”
This time Kim didn’t offer to do it himself. They got a grip under Belzu-Mar’s armpits and wrestled him into one of the small tubs of clay. It made a sickening sucking sound as they pushed him in up to his shoulders. Belzu-Mar started to struggle, shaking off the wooziness.
“Hold him down.” She ripped off a piece of her robe along the hem.
Kim placed his hands on either side of Belzu-Mar’s neck. “You’re not going to kill him, are you, Shilo?”
Belzu-Mar’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to holler. Shilo stuffed the wadded-up cloth in his mouth.
“Of course not. But we can’t let him just wander off and get the guards or the Hand of Nebuchadnezzar.” She shuddered when she thought of the vile, wealthy man.
“He can get out of this,” Kim warned.
“Not without help.” Shilo dropped to her knees next to the tub. “Keep holding him.” She touched the tips of her fingers to the surface of the clay. “Please, God, let me manipulate this.”
She closed her eyes and reached deep inside herself, finding a magical glow and picturing it the shade of the light the dragon gave off. She felt the clay ooze around her fingers, like the nuts she had melted. Then, as she withdrew her hands, she felt it harden.
“Serious wow,” Kim pronounced. “You turned it into concrete.”
“Just hardened it. When someone comes along, they can chip him out. I left just enough space around his chest so he can breathe.”
“Major wow.” Kim was clearly impressed with her. “Now what?”
I really want to find my father, Shilo thought. That’s what. She worried that if her father died in Babylon, she might simply disappear … her father never getting back to Georgia, never marrying and having children. But maybe that couldn’t happen—maybe dying here wouldn’t change anything. Time travel and all the ramifications were too much for her to worry over. And as much as she still wanted to find her father just because she loved him and wanted him safe, there was still the matter of saving the world from the wave of demons.
“Someone else might go get that Old One.” Kim watched Belzu-Mar silently fume. “So the bad bowls might get made anyway. We’ve got to stop them.”
Shilo picked up the lantern, scowling to see the oil running low. “We’ll have to use those candles.”
“Fine. I’ll get ’em.” Kim moved away from the tub, and Shilo stepped up to it.
She yanked the gag out of Belzu-Mar’s mouth. “The Old One you talked about … what is he planning to do with the dragon eggs?”
The man smiled thinly. “Dark magic to be certain. I am not a sorcerer, evil child, so I cannot precisely say.”
Evil child? Shilo’s face reddened in anger. “You have to know something.”
“I have told you enough.”
She waved the gag at him.
“Where are the eggs?”
He closed his mouth defiantly.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll—”
“What? Torture me?”
Before he could shut his mouth again, she shoved the cloth back in.
“Kim and I will find the eggs on our own then.” She saw that Kim had a candle for each of them. Bending down, she blew out the lantern and took one of the candles. “Hope you can see in the dark,” she told Belzu-Mar.
Then she and Kim took the other passage, which grew equally narrow and which filled her senses with the heady scent of newly dug earth. She brushed the dirt wall with her free hand and felt that it was cool, almost damp.
“They didn’t dig this very long ago,” she whispered.
“Hope it doesn’t fall in on us.”
Kim shuffled behind her.
“Hope Sig’s okay.”
“I do, too, Kim.” You can’t imagine just how much I hope that he’s okay. Shilo walked faster, alternating between glancing straight ahead and looking down. The floor was uneven and had ruts here and there that were from shovels. Sharp rocks protruded, and after stepping on one and feeling it go through her sandal, she took care not to step on any others.
The tunnel was short and opened into a chamber slightly smaller than the clay room. However, unlike the previous room, it was occupied.
Oil burned in a large brazier, lighting the room and making the guard’s metal breastplate gleam. The guard grabbed up his spear and pointed it at the pair.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” He looked at Shilo’s smeared skin. “What—”
“Skin condition,” Shilo said, suspecting that he wouldn’t believe it. Should’ve used some of that clay. She set her candle on the floor and held her hands up, as if she were surrendering.
Kim set his candle down, too. “Take a good look at what’s in here, Shilo.”
“I see them.”
“You know, there’s another tub of clay back there.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Get him!”
The guard hadn’t expected the pair to attack him. Kim hollered, and the guard turned to face him, giving Shilo a chance to dart to his side. She managed to grab the spear out of his hands, just as Kim shot forward and kicked the man hard between the legs. He wasn’t as easy to subdue as Belzu-Mar, but they managed.
Neither was he as easy to drag.
Then Shilo and Kim scurried back to the chamber and stared at the four dragon eggs arranged carefully on a large bed of straw.
29
The Demon or the Egg
The chamber felt uncomfortably warm compared to the tunnel and the clay room. Shilo realized the brazier was giving off more than light … “To keep the eggs warm, to incubate them.”
But she wasn’t sure that was necessary. Didn’t lizards just bury their eggs in the sand somewhere and scamper away? Maybe whoever stole the eggs didn’t know better or wasn’t taking any chances … or maybe they knew a lot more about dragons than she did.
They were huge, as far as eggs went. Three of them were a little more than two feet high, the fourth at least three feet. The bottom half of each shell was covered with letters she couldn’t read and ugly drawings of creatures that were half-men, half-monster.
“I ain’t carrying the big one,” Kim whispered. “I don’t think I could get my arms around it.”
Shilo wished her father and Nidintulugal were here—they could each take an egg and get out of here. Together they would find a way out. She scanned the room, seeing the eggs, the brazier,
a low stool that the guard had probably been sitting on, and an old wooden plate on the floor that had likely held his lunch. There was a narrow table—a desk perhaps. It was opposite the eggs, and several objects were arranged on it. There was also another passageway leading from here, and Shilo peered into the darkness, wondering what it led to.
“Why did they go and paint them like that?” Kim shuffled closer to the eggs. “Like dipping Easter eggs, but in a bad way.”
“A very bad way.” Shilo joined him and held the candle close. “The marks are like the ones on those bowls.”
“The demon bowls?” Kim visibly shuddered. “This really can’t be good.”
“Oh, my.” Shilo grasped that these eggs weren’t going to be broken up and put in demon bowls … they were going to be the demon bowls. There was a faint indentation on each egg, running around the center just above where all the symbols started. She touched the shell, the top first, and then the bottom.
“They’ve strengthened the bottom, Kim, just like I made the clay hard. When the eggs crack open, I think only the top will break, leaving the bottom intact.”
“Why?”
Shilo shook her head. “They want the bottoms to be bowls.”
“Duh, yeah. But the bad demon bowls, right?” Kim gingerly touched the largest egg.
“What if when the baby dragons hatch, the spells on the bowls are released?”
“Calling all manner of demons,” Shilo said, “to be under someone’s control.”
The enormity of her task settled deep in her chest.
Ulbanu’s vision of the demon swarm was frightening enough, but seeing these eggs and the spells written on them intensified everything.
As much as she wanted to find her father and Nidintulugal—needed to find them—it was more important to deal with these eggs right now.
Kim had been talking to her, but she’d missed what he said.
“What?”
The boy grimaced. “I said … what should we do?”
Shilo didn’t answer right away. She touched the closest egg again, running her fingers along the bottom half and tracing the marks. She searched for the magic inside of her and tried to melt the letters, like she’d melted the nuts.