Rhune Shadow Read online

“When you’re alone, hold it tightly,” he said. “That will be enough.”

  He spun around, flung more oil and raced to get fire.

  Elissa waited a second and then began to lower herself down the wall. It was more difficult going down than up.

  Halfway to the bottom, she heard a cry. She looked up in time to see Sullo launch himself from the window. The scholar from Cyrene plummeted in the darkness. He flailed, and he hit with an awful thud.

  While motionless on the wall, she saw Ert peer out of the window down at the body. The dour Nasamon studied the corpse for a time. Finally, shrugging, Ert drew back inside.

  Elissa swallowed, in a dry mouth, a dry throat. A fire burned up there. She could hear the flames building strength.

  Nine months of fruitless searching had brought her to Sullo. He had given her a gem and told her a demon—no, something worse—lived deep inside the Temple Mount of Karchedon.

  What would the gem do when she clutched it? Even as a sense of futility and anger at the death of her father’s last friend filled her, so did a great curiosity. If Elissa survived this night, she intended to find out everything.

  -5-

  Elissa escaped from the burning tower. She evaded Ert, his wizard and the temple watch that walked with mechanical precision. She took a ship from Kroton and landed on the southern shore of the Great Sea. Only when all alone at a lonely location did Elissa take out the gem and clutch it as hard as she could.

  At first, nothing happened. Then, her mind seemed to drift and drift and drift…until she felt as if she had become someone else in a different time and place…

  ***

  There was nothing in the vast desolation except for heat and sand, wind and fine swirling particles. No lizard or ant moved on the blistering surface. No vulture soared in the furnace-like updrafts.

  Then, near the bottom of a low dune, the sand stirred oddly. There was the sound of a man grunting, although nothing was visible.

  By the sounds, the man strained, and finally, fingertips thrust out of the sand. They were white fingertips, smooth and alien to the bleak environment. The fingers shoved higher out of the sand, revealing costly rings: gold, she saw, and silver, and a large ruby. A second hand appeared, clutching a staff with a golden-tipped dragonhead.

  The staff was set down, and the hands clawed at the sand, flinging fistfuls into the air. The motions became desperate, frantic, until the man’s head emerged. He gasped and drank in a heaving lungful of air. Then he began coughing and spitting out sand.

  With a sudden roar, he dug and wriggled violently until he had worked himself free. Sand sloughed off him, revealing a lean priest. His torn silk robe exposed white skin and strange tattoos of unholy power. He had brown hair and green eyes. He rose to his knees, picked up the staff and then surged to his feet, which were clad in gem-encrusted sandals. With a start, he looked around in horror.

  He worked his mouth, but no sounds issued. His mind was blank with incomprehension.

  “Sand,” he finally whispered. Everywhere he looked was sand. He craned his neck. The sun blazed.

  There were no trees, no buildings and no city wall. The wind was blowing, and sand hissed across endless dunes. No children shouted, no cattle lowed and no dogs barked.

  “Impossible,” he said, and there were tears in his eyes. “The spell shouldn’t have destroyed everything.”

  The priest made a slow rotation, looking all around. Endless blowing sand was all he could see.

  The enemy—the demons and the dragons—they were also gone. That was good. The besieging enemies were the reason he’d suggested unleashing the ultimate weapon, the magical device of unbinding. In the southern provinces, the demons and dragons had appeared five months ago like a conjuration. The explanation had been simple but profoundly unsettling. The beings came from another realm of existence. It was still difficult to wrap his mind around the reality of that. Except for the ultimate weapon, the demons and dragons had been too powerful for those of Dar Sai.

  “What have I done?” the priest asked aloud.

  Using a silken sleeve, he wiped his sweaty brow. Could he alone have survived the terrible catastrophe?

  He stared at his feet, and he concentrated, refusing to wail in agony. Once more, he looked at the sand. The weapon had destroyed everything. The stark evidence was before him.

  How far had the destruction reached?

  “Of course,” he said. He must be in the eye of the magical destruction.

  He took a deep breath of the hot air. Shoving the dragonheaded staff into his sash, he brushed more sand off his robe. Then, he began to walk.

  ***

  Many hours later, the exhausted priest continued to trudge across the sand. Nothing lived but for him. Nothing moved. The extent of the destruction daunted him.

  At least we killed all the demons and dragons. The invaders had believed they could conquer Dar Sai. In the end, despite their inhuman science and terrible creatures, the enemy had proven inferior.

  “I saved Dar Sai,” the priest said. “I—”

  He looked up as a shadow passed over him. Fear coursed through his heart at the sight. A dragon wheeled above. One of the enemy creatures—

  The dragon roared.

  The priest cried out, and he raised his staff. Despite his swollen tongue, he began to chant. As he did, the dragon dove with its talons outstretched.

  If the dragon finds its way home and later returns with—

  The priest never finished the thought or the spell. Hours of walking, of slipping and sliding across the blistering sand, had dulled his senses and reflexes.

  The dragon struck with grim precision. It hit the priest like a hawk striking a rabbit, plucking him off the sand and crushing his spine.

  The ultimate weapon had failed to kill every enemy, and that changed everything.

  ***

  By slow degrees, Elissa regained consciousness. Her hand felt hot. She opened her fingers.

  The gem was no longer bright but had become dark and cold. As she stared at the gem, it broke apart until it became a clump of sand.

  Elissa turned her hand, letting the sand fall to the ground.

  She had many questions. How had Sullo come to own such a gem? Who had fashioned it? How could the priest’s memories have survived if the dragon slew him as it had?

  Elissa shook her head.

  What was the purpose of the magical vision? Was she supposed to search for this ultimate weapon? She didn’t believe that. Instead, was the vision warning her about the dragon?

  Had a dragon lived under the Temple Mount of Karchedon? Was that it? Did a dragon drive the jihad? Did the dragon control Bel Ruk, or was Bel Ruk a fake god…

  “Bel Ruk is the Lord of Dragons,” Elissa whispered.

  Her heart beat harder. This meant something important. Yet…how could she use this information?

  Maybe it was time to get back toward Karchedon. Maybe she should search the Great Salt Desert. Yet…if this dragon came from another realm of existence…was it trying to find a way home again? And if it did find a way home, would it come back with more demons and dragons?

  Elissa wished Sullo had lived long enough to tell her more. This was all very confusing. For nine months, finding Sullo had been her existence. Now what?

  PART IV

  OPHION

  -1-

  In the updraft of the hot desert air, Elissa banked her skay. The ground was far below, where a tiny caravan crawled toward Mogador of the Five Hills. Two years ago, she’d used a similar skay to escape off the Temple Mount in Karchedon. The purchase of this skay had taken much gold and a special letter to a merchant of Lokhar.

  Elissa had changed since Karchedon. She was a woman instead of a teenaged girl. Although her muscles were just as lean, now they were hard like wire, able to deliver the kind of strength that allowed Rhunes to perform their fantastic feats. Elissa had needed the wiry strength to survive Bel Ruk’s hunters.

  In back-alleys, on dark street
s, in any coastal city, the hunters had sought her. They had also sought the other Karchedonians who had escaped with her. Elissa and the others had prices on their heads. By decree of the Oracle, they were doomed to die on Bel Ruk’s altar, with their hearts ripped out and their skulls set on the growing pyramid.

  The relentless teams of back-alley killers had helped change more than Elissa’s muscles. She had wary eyes and a lean face that seldom smiled. She’d also practiced every lethal skill taught her by the troubadour until she’d often turned on her pursers. Instead of a deer, the killers had found a panther. Even better, Elissa’s claws had proven longer and sharper each time.

  She had only one secret longing. She wanted to twist a garrote around Himilco Nara’s throat. She wanted to listen to his heels drum on the ground as the traitor choked out his miserable life.

  Elissa banked the skay. Despite her secret wish, she dreaded discovering evidence that the traitorous priest had come to Mogador. It would mean almost certain death for all of them. The news from Settra of the Hundred Gates had finally dried up. But not before a terrifying hint had warned them of Bel Ruk’s growing interest in Mogador.

  Elissa flew high on the updrafts. She flew to where vultures became tiny dots to those on the ground. The ground was cracked soil, rocks and drifting sand. The Great Sand Belt known as the Zhaarken Desert fought its own war against Dar Sai. Year by year, the desert inched its desolation a little farther north. Elissa had spoken to a sage. He said the nomad peoples overgrazed the sparse terrain during drought seasons. That slew bushes, palm trees, grasses and weeds. The hot winds did the rest. Other folk told her the Great Sand Belt was a crafty demon. It plotted with a desert’s patience to devour the unwary and to increase its domain.

  The terrain below was not the true desert. Mogador was north of the far-stretching Zhaarken Desert. The town was a depot for caravan traders who traveled to the southlands through the blistering sands. Many of the surviving Karchedonians had ended up in Mogador. Those who hadn’t were dead or on the other side of the Great Sea.

  From her belt, Elissa unclipped a canteen and sipped hot water. She swished the water in her mouth before gulping it down. A harness secured her torso to the skay and her feet rested in a sling so she lay prone underneath the triangular wing. She clipped the canteen to her belt and reached for her other hip. She unclipped a brass tube there. With a twist, she unwound its sling. This, she slipped over her head in case she lost her grip. Only then did she unscrew the special cap.

  Elissa had stripped every slain hunter she could of all his valuables. The stolen coins had helped purchase the skay and her spyglass. It came from Tanjore, a southern land noted for its clever devices.

  Elissa gripped the glass. By manipulating it, she could elongate the tubes or shorten them. That rearranged the distances of the polished lenses in the sectioned tubes, which allowed her to see clearly at varying distances. It was very ingenious.

  The caravan threaded through the wastes far below, heading toward Mogador. It likely came from Settra. According to the latest news, Settra still resisted the Nasamon Horde. That was surprising, because the city of a hundred gates was closer to Karchedon than other conquered cities. Elissa supposed it was because most of those places were on the southern coast of the Great Sea, situated in grasslands. Settra was in a mountainous land, the best wells protected by its walls. The mountains made poor cavalry country, which was obviously the strongest arm of the Nasamon Horde.

  Elissa put the small end of the spyglass to her right eye and shut her left. The caravan leapt into view. Camel riders, desert nomads belonging to the Lesser Zants, wore protective headgear and billowing white robes. The wagon drivers were different. They were much too large and broad-shouldered to be Zants or Nasamons. There was one particularly massive wagon. It had eight giant wheels and a twenty-mule team.

  What is it hauling, elephants?

  She studied a wagon driver, looked at another and found her reward with the third. As the driver sat on a buckboard, he took off a broad-brimmed hat and wiped his forehead. His hair was flaming red. In her experience, only Gepids had hair of such an outlandish color.

  From everything Elissa had learned these last two years, if Gepids appeared, Himilco wasn’t far behind. The traitor had been to three sieges, using his sorcerous arts each time.

  Did the presence of these Gepids imply that Himilco was coming to Mogador?

  Her heart beat faster and faster until Elissa gave her head an almost imperceptible shake. She was a scout. A scout assembled information. She did not attempt to decipher the meaning immediately. Therefore, she continued to study the wagons. By their lurch and the strain of the mules, the wagons seemed to be extra-heavy. What kind of cargoes did they possess?

  After several minutes, she realized there was no way she could figure that out from up here. It was time to study the horsemen.

  They were clearly Nasamons, which was interesting indeed. Since gutting Karchedon, the Nasamons had spread outward in an endless tide of conquest. The battles had devoured more horses than they had of Bel Ruk’s warriors. Now, it was true that some Nasamon tribes hadn’t joined in the conquest. But those were few and far between. Did it make sense that a rich caravan master had hired some of those? Or was it more likely that Gepids would have Nasamon overseers?

  The answer was obvious.

  Elissa carefully put the spyglass back into its carrying case. During her flight, she’d shifted her body with unconscious precision. Now crosscurrents were blowing her off course. She gripped the steering strut and swung her body in order to straighten out. Instead, she lost height. Quickly she circled and found another updraft, regaining altitude. Soon, she found a steady air current to ride. She released the strut and took out the glass again.

  Her reward appeared several minutes later. A giant of a man jumped out of a wagon. He wore a spiked helmet and Karchedonian temple armor. He had a long gray braid behind a massive back. That was the Gray Wolf of the Gepids, Himilco Nara’s chief bodyguard.

  Elissa shortened her glass and put it away for good. Grabbing the steering strut, she banked the skay. It was time to return to Mogador and warn the others. Disaster rode in the wagons. Himilco Nara was coming to the desert depot.

  -2-

  On the sunbaked trail where wagons creaked, mules brayed and camels made their strange cries, the Gray Wolf climbed into a covered wagon. During the last two years, he’d gained a few more lines on his seamed face. Otherwise, he hadn’t changed.

  The same could not be said for Himilco Nara. He sat cross-legged with a drugged half-smile. His once sly eyes were cloudy with black lotus. He wore a turban, linen robes and slippers. With his puffy face, he seemed more like a toad than a Karchedonian sorcerer-priest.

  The past two years had piled many horrors upon him. Bel Ruk had appeared on two other occasions, shining out of the metal ball in the Oracle’s hands. Few could face the spectacle for long. Yet Himilco had heard every pronouncement. Bel Ruk’s wife—the old Prophetess—continued to float over the step-pyramid. Someday, as the claim went, she would wake up and climb down to judge Bel Ruk’s followers. Himilco knew that day would mean his gruesome death. On four different occasions, he’d sent secret assassins to slay the Prophetess. Protective magic had warded off every attempt, heightening Himilco’s fears.

  He blinked like a toad as he sat on a cushion. He held a large emerald in his lap. Coffins stacked one on top of another filled the wagon. There was a narrow lane for him to sit and the Gray Wolf to walk. Barbarians, Gepids, lay in the coffins. No barbarian breathed because each had an obscenely large beetle squatting on his forehead. Each beetle had stabbed its stinger into its host’s forehead, keeping the stinger embedded throughout the journey.

  If the beetles weren’t bad enough, a dragon rode in the largest wagon. That wagon was huge, with eight gigantic wheels of special design. The dragon could speak as well, and it had spoken its own name, “Ophion.” Ophion claimed the warriors would awaken once the beetles rem
oved their stingers. The Gepids would be as ferocious as ever, it proclaimed.

  Himilco had received Ophion’s information with his same half-smile and the same dulled eyes. The dragon had emerged out of the deep tunnels in the Temple Mount. Himilco’s introduction to the dragon had been the first time he had heard of the tunnels and that such a monster lived under Karchedon. After the introduction, he had climbed the step-pyramid and studied the Prophetess’ scepter, with its ancient dwarf dragon skull. Ophion’s head was much larger, perhaps a different species altogether.

  A horse neighed outside Himilco’s wagon. A moment later, the flap drew back and Dabar of the Zama clan entered. He had added a tattoo to his round head and the greasy lock of hair he grew from the back of his head was longer than before. He wore a leather tunic and kept his small elephant-hide shield strapped to his left arm. Dabar had risen in rank. He was beloved of Bel Ruk and trusted by Ophion. Pinned to the tunic was the blue glass star ornament he had ripped off Himilco’s belt two years ago.

  Dabar eyed the Gray Wolf. The Gepid towered over the Nasamon, his features impassive. The Nasamon’s eyes glittered with malice. Then, he regarded Himilco on his cushion.

  “Did she see him?” Dabar asked, as he jerked a thumb at the Gray Wolf.

  Himilco appeared not to hear the question.

  “Suffete,” Dabar said.

  Himilco gave another of his toad-like blinks.

  “Do you have a hidden supply of lotus?” Dabar asked.

  After leaving Settra of the Hundred Gates, the dragon in the giant wagon had demanded Himilco’s black lotus supply. Himilco had meekly handed it to Dabar. He understood the reason for the demand: Ophion wanted another leash on him. Ophion distrusted him because the dragon needed a sorcerer to keep the middle wagon properly inhabitable. Every day, Himilco renewed the spell that made the inside of the wagon jungle-humid. Himilco was certain the dragon could cast the spells, but the creature wanted him to use his magic. The dragon distrusted everything and everyone except for Dabar.