The City of Pillars (3 page)

With sword already in hand, Rondel remembered an old saying.
“The real danger is always at your back.”

He wheeled and let out a yelp. A thirty foot cobra with five heads, hoods fanned, towered over him.

“One head wasn’t enough?” he muttered.

“Huh?” Andrasta looked over her shoulder and spoke a few choice words in her native tongue.

They pressed their backs together and slowly turned in place.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well what? You’re the thinker.”

One of the cobra’s heads darted at them, but without fully committing, as if feeling them out. The cheetahs and hyenas made not a sound, but both padded closer, again wary as if following the cobra’s lead.

“I
think
we should get out of here before we get caught, die, or some combination thereof. You’re the person of action. I
think
you should take the lead on seeing us to safety.”

Andrasta’s sigh came from her toes.

“All right,” said Rondel as they both slid slowly away from the danger. “The basement. Blueprints said it has as an old delivery tunnel we could use to escape.”

Another head of the cobra made its move, spitting venom. They ducked and the glob struck the tile floor where it began to sizzle.

“We rush the cheetahs, and then make for it. They’re natural hunters and the biggest threat. Plus, they’re blocking the stairs. Ready?”

No.

“Go!”

Andrasta dove in front of him as one of the cheetahs pounced. She killed it with one swipe. The second cheetah tore past her to get at Rondel. It took to the air, mimicking the attack of the first. Rondel lacked the strength to match his partner’s approach to defending against the beast. Instead, he rolled and raised his blade, tearing into the demon’s exposed belly. It wailed as it thudded on the tiles. Despite its smoky origin, the cheetah bled like the real thing. The hyenas pounced on the promise of fresh meat rather than bothering to chase after them.

Rondel silently questioned the skills of the sorcerer behind the warded tiles to have not foreseen such a thing as he raced downstairs after Andrasta. His heart pounded in his chest.

Where the sorcerer failed with the hyenas, he had excelled with the bastardization of the snake. The five-headed cobra didn’t care about an easy meal. It chased them like no snake Rondel had ever seen. They destroyed half the second floor throwing things in the cobra’s path.

By the time they reached the first floor, the city’s watch had arrived.

“Stop!” one of the men shouted, drawn sword in hand.

Andrasta ignored him, practically diving off the steps, rolling behind an ancient stone statue of some minor god on display. Rondel followed, though not half as elegantly. Andrasta had her back against the block of stone, peeking out of one side. He did the same on the other. The guards wore looks of confusion while turning toward them.

The man who had shouted for them to stop, gestured for the others, some fourteen men, to circle around either side of the statue. They barely moved a step when a heavy crash sounded from the second floor. The guards paused and looked up as the five headed cobra appeared at the top of the stairs. It looked confused with so many warm bodies to choose from.

The guards began cursing, backing away slowly.

We’re no longer the priority.

The cobra flared each of its hoods and sped down the stairs. Within moments it was striking and spitting at anything nearby.

Guilt washed over Rondel as he watched the first few men die by the serpent’s venom. Even if the trap had been triggered by Kamal and Wabu, he couldn’t help but feel partially responsible.

A hand wrapped around his arm. He jumped.

“Stick around and we’ll be next,” said Andrasta. “C’mon.”

He nodded, shaking away his guilt and leading them to the basement and out of the library.

Several blocks away, after doubling back their trail for the third time through narrow, trash filled alleys, Rondel called, “Wait.”

Andrasta slowed. “What?”

“Where are you going?”

“Our apartment.”

“We can’t. More of the watch could be waiting for us.”

“How would they know where we live?”

“Kamal and Wabu. If they figured out we were hitting the museum tonight, it’s possible they figured out where we were staying as well.”

Andrasta halted and cursed so colorfully in Juntarkan that Rondel didn’t understand half of it. He had been picking up the rarely spoken language so they could speak it around others without anyone understanding.

“We still have to go. All our things are there,” she said finally.

“A few weapons and armor. Some clothes. . . . Nothing that can’t be replaced.”

“More than that. All our money and everything you’ve compiled about the Jewel of Bashan while we’ve been in this blasted city. Trap or not, we can’t walk away from months of work.”

“I’ve got copies of all the research hidden at the library. More than half of our money too.”

Andrasta raised an eyebrow. He thought she might be upset since Rondel hadn’t mentioned his splitting of the money. “How do we know that hasn’t been compromised as well?”

“We don’t. But I always went to the library by myself and dressed like an old man. Alone, people see me as just another cripple.” He paused. “In fact, I can’t think of a safer place right now than the library. We should hole up there for the night.”

A line of white slashed across the lower third of her face. It was a rare thing for her to smile. He wished she would do it more.

“What’s that about?”

“When you talk with such confidence, it’s hard to even remember the coward from prison.”

“Yeah, it’s getting harder for me to remember him either. You run point?”

“Of course. I’d like to get there alive.” She grinned.

Wow. Twice in one night? I wonder how often it snows in the desert
.

* * *

Scholars who enjoyed needlessly ranking such things as libraries, placed Zafar’s as fourth in the world. Given its collections on ancient texts from the eastern nations of Untan, Rondel thought the scholars had gotten it wrong once again.

Definitely a solid number two.

Following Andrasta’s lead, he jumped down to the library’s roof from an adjacent apartment building.

He landed a foot from the rooftop’s ledge, rolling to reduce the impact on his knees and ankles. Rising, he glanced back at the distance he had cleared. Bile crept into his throat. He had never made a jump like that before.

Calm down. You’re fine.
Still, that had to be twenty feet across!

A flat surface dominated most of the library’s roof except for its center which consisted of a large dome painted in gold. It glowed brightly in the moonlight just as it blinded passersby during the day. Rondel eased in front of his partner and approached it, looking for the opening.

Hidden among several ventilation tubes, a four-foot by four-foot hatch had been crafted at the bottom of the dome. Thinking it best to find a means of escape should the need arise, he had discovered the hatch on one of his first visits to the library.

However, Rondel had not considered the need to enter the library from the roof. Andrasta examined the joins of the panel, running her fingers up, down, and across each of the seals. She pressed in various locations, but the hatch didn’t give.

“No screws. Not even a handle,” she muttered.

“There’s one on the inside. Not that it does us any good. We’ll need to find another way in.”

“Any other way inside is going to draw too much attention, even at this time of night.”

Rondel nodded. All doors resided on the first level and no windows rose above the third. The librarians believed natural sunlight would harm the older texts housed on the upper levels. Patrons perusing those volumes had to squint by the light of dim oil lamps secured on wall sconces and encased with glass strengthened by sorcery so they would not break.

“So what do we do?”

Andrasta whipped out her dagger. She jammed the long, thin blade into the narrow groove separating the hatch and the dome. She worked it down, shifted her grip, and pried. The point of any other dagger would have snapped off under the pressure, but Relian steel never dulled, and it never broke. Because of that, even a small dagger like the one Andrasta carried often cost more than many men could earn in a lifetime.

Andrasta grunted, her scarred face twisting in the shadowed night. Her wide nostrils flared as the hatch began to open. “A little help,” she muttered.

Rondel quickly drew one of his daggers and jammed it into the wider space she had made.

She repositioned her blade and took a breath. “On three.”

She nodded off the count and they pulled. The hatch popped off loudly. They quickly slipped inside onto a ledge before anyone in a nearby building could place the origin of the noise. Andrasta pulled the hatch back into place.

Rondel threw his broken blade aside, “Where did you say you got that dagger?”

“I didn’t.”

“Is that a hint I shouldn’t ask?”

“More than a hint.”

He scowled. Andrasta had opened up to him only a couple of times in the last year. For the most part, she still guarded her past.

“All right. This way.”

Rondel led Andrasta down a level to where he spent his time researching. They passed bookcases and shelves filled with ancient tomes and scrolls. Dust sat on many of them.

“They do a poor job of keeping this place in order,” said Andrasta while ducking under an intricate spider web spanning the distance between two bookcases.

“Actually, they do a pretty admirable job considering they’re understaffed. The librarians just spend the bulk of their time on the areas most frequented by patrons. That’s worked out well for me as I’ve been able to work in peace.”

Rondel squatted down in the middle of an aisle. He pried loose a kick guard at the bottom and retrieved his notes. He gestured to the case behind them. “Our money is in that one.”

“This is all worthless if we don’t have the flute though, right?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out. There may be another way to get the Jewel of Bashan. I’ll need to sort through my notes once more to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Might have to also go through and consult a few of the original texts again.”

“What can I do?”

“Go downstairs and look for some water. I’m thirsty.”

“Now I’m your servant?”

“Well, you can’t read Erban or any of the other languages these texts are in. And considering we don’t have much time until the library opens, I thought you might be considerate and get me something to drink. But if you’d rather, I’ll go look myself and waste copious amounts of time we don’t have. In the meantime, you can take a nap since there’s nothing else for you to do.”

Her fists opened and closed.

Rondel swallowed. “Too much?”

Andrasta glared.

“Sorry?”

She turned and left without a word.

CHAPTER 2

Despite Rondel’s suggestion to sleep, Andrasta could do nothing of the sort. She paced the long aisles of books, angry. Kamal and Wabu had sabotaged months of work.

She and Rondel had spent far more time in Zafar than she had ever wanted. The flute was supposed to be the last thing they needed before heading east to Bashan.

She stopped briefly to study maps pinned on the walls, hoping such a task might satisfy her boredom and deflect her frustration. It accomplished neither.

She spat and kicked a row of books off a bottom shelf before pacing again.

“Do you mind directing your anger to something other than ancient texts?”

Andrasta wheeled. Rondel had his head down over another musty old scroll, squinting in the soft light.

“Would you rather I kick you?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time. But, no thank you. I get enough of that when we spar.”

She snorted at his easy response. It was amazing how much she had gotten used to his flippant attitude. They had come a long way in the last year. “How can you be so calm about this?”

He looked up. “What do you mean?”

“Kamal and Wabu. They ruined everything.”

“And this is only dawning on you now?”

“No. I just can’t stop thinking about it.”

“I know. You’re going to wear a rut in the floor with all the pacing.”

She looked at Rondel’s tanned face. The beginning of crow’s feet tickled the corners of his brown eyes. That and the gray around his temple gave him a naturally calm look. His appearance and the years spent as an entertainer sometimes made it hard for her to read him. “Are you angry at all?”

“Of course,” he said while scribbling notes. “But the worst of it burned off in the excitement of us escaping. And if I let it get to me now, it will take twice as long to get through my notes. It’s hard enough to concentrate with your inability to keep still.”

She stopped and gave him a look.

He glanced up briefly. “Thank you. I almost have this last translation done.”

Rondel checked three other texts, made a note, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. He sighed, opened his lids, and grabbed a cup of water. She watched how he always used his good hand, even for the most mundane of tasks.

Worried he might drop or fumble something and look like a fool. Some of that old pride remains,
she thought. Though she had pushed him to develop his crippled hand’s dexterity he only trusted it when he could not use his right.

After a moment of watching Rondel stare off into space, she couldn’t stand it any longer. “Well?”

“We can’t do it without the flute. I rechecked all the texts that reference the guardians of the tower. It’s not always clear what they are, but we’ll definitely need the flute to get past at least one of them.”

Andrasta’s hand squeezed the hilt of her sword. “Kamal and Wabu will try to get rid of it as soon as they can.”

“Yes.” Rondel bobbed his head absently.

Andrasta knew the wheels were turning in his mind. “Who do you think they’ll go to? Ilyas and Jabril wouldn’t have the money to give them what its worth. That leaves Nuray or Qadir.”