The Tower of Bashan (33 page)

Don’t be silly. You used to accuse Minander of immaturity. Now, you’re the one acting like a child. Think Mira. You have to figure a way out of this, some way to save Bashan, some way to avenge Minander. Despite his shortcomings, he was still your brother.

The carriage door banged open. Mira jumped.

Beladeva entered and sat across from her. He shifted himself around until comfortable. Rubbing tired eyes, he let out a sigh.

“Things not going according to plan?” she mocked.

“Not in the least. Then again, they rarely do, do they? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be in the position you’re in now, correct?”

She scowled. “You know no one has ever stolen the jewel.”

“True, but Rondel and Andrasta did make it inside the tower. Only a few people have ever done that which puts them in a totally different set of probabilities. And in case Andrasta and Rondel succeed, why shouldn’t I be the one to reap the benefits?”

“Money and power?”

He smiled. “Of course. With the jewel, my plans for Kindi seem almost trivial. I could build an empire to rival those that once dominated Untan.”

“And in the process, you’ll end up bringing half the world to war. What about the good of the people?”

“The good of the people.” He laughed, rolling the words around his tongue. “You know, I never fully believed Lela’s reports of you not being very intelligent. Now I see that she may have been right after all.”

Mira’s eyes widened. “Lela?”

“You haven’t figured that out yet? Even after seeing her with Rondel?” he asked in a mocking tone. “What have you been thinking about for the last hour? Your brother?”

Yes. And how to kill you.
Mira’s mind reeled. She had trouble focusing, yet, she couldn’t lose her composure.
She used me. How could I not see that sooner?

“Too bad I couldn’t make more use of her,” continued Beladeva. “She was a valuable asset.”

“Are you here to gloat?”

“No. I’m here to tell you how things are going to be. Tonight’s unplanned fiasco has caused me to make some last minute adjustments. I intended to keep things as they were with your brother. However, it seems I now have to take a more direct approach. With your brother dead, you are once again ruler of Bashan, at least in name. Congratulations.”

“I am ruler in more than just name.”

“Really? I have men positioned in the militia, in the watch, among merchants and bankers. Thanks to Gulzar, I now have the noble houses under my control as well, even if they don’t realize it.”

“Not all of them. Brahma alone can make your life miserable.”

Beladeva reached over, opened the door, and stepped outside. He waited with an outstretched hand. “Come.”

Mira hesitated.

“It wasn’t a request.”

She exited, but ignored his hand. He gestured to several men who stood near another carriage some fifty feet away. They opened the door and dragged out a disheveled old man.

Brahma. I thought Gulzar was lying about him being captured.

“Begin,” said Beladeva.

A fist slammed into the old man’s jaw. He crashed to the ground.

“What are you doing?” she yelled. “Stop it!”

Beladeva stepped in front of the princess as his men continued pounding Brahma. “Let’s get something straight, Your Majesty. You are in no position to intimidate me. Is that understood?”

She dug her nails into her palms, but nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.

What else can I do?

He studied her for a moment, then looked over his shoulder. “That’s enough.”

The men tossed Brahma’s limp form back into the carriage.

“I was hoping to talk to you in a more reasonable manner, but maybe this will convince you. You are mine in every way. Defy me, and those around you will suffer. Defy me again, and you’ll suffer. Am I clear?”

I hope you die a thousand deaths, each more painful than the last.

“Yes.”

“Good. We’ll talk again later.”

He spun on his heels and walked back to his men. Gulzar appeared a moment later and escorted her back inside the carriage.

CHAPTER 30

Andrasta never spent much time imagining what hell might be like. She knew the stories of her father’s people as well as those of her mother’s. She had even learned other beliefs based on Rondel’s occasional ramblings from other cultures. Therefore, she wasn’t surprised that despite little time pondering the place it was the first thing to come to mind as they entered the next room in the tower.

“Stop here,” whispered Rondel. “Don’t do anything without thinking long and hard.”

Just not too long and hard,
she thought.
We still have a jewel to steal.

It was a red circular room with massively high ceilings. Around the room sat ten marble tables. Images of demons had been carved into its legs and sides. On each rested a pile of pale bones.

It definitely fits the mold for the imaginations of hell in several religions.

Some of the bones she recognized immediately— human, bull, tiger, ape. Others she wasn’t so sure of, but based on the enormity, she was glad that only skeletons remained.

“Well?” she asked after a minute. “Is it safe?”

Rondel stepped gingerly beside her. “Nothing is safe.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Just give me a minute,” he said looking around the room and then at his notes. “I’m hoping to find something that might indicate what we’re supposed to do next.”

“What about this?” said Lela.

They both turned. While Andrasta and Rondel had been busy examining the room, Lela had turned her attention to the door behind them after it closed. Etched into it was a circular diagram of the room they stood in. Arrows pointed from each of the stone tables to squares outside the circle. The square contained what appeared to be a likeness of a creature Andrasta assumed the bones once represented. Writing lay underneath each diagram.

“Yeah, I’d say this is something,” said Rondel. He walked up to the nearest square.

“Can you read it?” asked Andrasta.

“Yes. It’s a variation of ancient Kindi. The set of bones to our immediate right belonged to Urkil, an ape that Thalamanak grew through sorcery. It stood more than nine feet high. The beast apparently possessed great intelligence and led a small company of other apes in battle during the Sorcerer Wars. It died from a poison arrow to the calf that was not treated in time.”

“And the one beside it?”

“Herzot. A great long-toothed tiger. Similar heroics and importance. Died from a dagger thrust under the jaw by its last victim. The other pictures follow a similar pattern. Who they were, their deeds, and how they died.”

“What about this one?” asked Lela, eyes wide with awe as she stared at the picture.

“Treek. A three-armed cyclops. He wielded in each hand a giant club over six feet in length. He brought down the gate of ancient Natal by himself when the men wielding the battering ram died of boiling oil poured from above.”

“How did he die?”

“Fire consumed him when the defenders of Natal dropped another batch of oil and then peppered him with flaming arrows.”

“Wow.”

“So, this place is a memorial?” asked Andrasta.

Rondel nodded. “In a way.”

“How are they supposed to stop us?”

“I don’t know. We need to take our time and study this more.”

Andrasta scanned the mounds of bones. “You do that. I’m going to go try the door on the other side.”

She took several steps forward and froze as the tile beneath her foot sunk an inch into the ground. She withdrew her leg. Looking down, she noticed the faint outline of Urkil as detailed on the door. She looked up to the sound of rattling.

Bones shifted and came together atop one of the giant altars, forming the skeleton of a colossal ape. In its hand, it carried a huge club that looked like a small tree trunk. The ape pivoted toward Andrasta, unhinged its lower jaw and let out a great roar that shook the cavern.

Impossible.

“Taking our time seems an even better idea now,” said Lela.

The massive skeleton squatted and jumped off the altar. It cleared the forty feet between the platform and Andrasta effortlessly. She raised her sword, then thought better of it and rolled away at the last moment. Urkil’s club crashed to the floor, sending flakes of stone blasting through the air.

She attacked, sweeping her blade out at the beast’s arm. It struck bone and stopped as if running into a wall of steel. The jolt shook her. The ape roared again, and lifted its club in a backhanded swing. Andrasta dodged to the left, and it passed by her face. She recovered quickly and countered, slashing at the ape’s ribs, thigh, and hip. Her efforts displaced the beast’s bones in each instance. However, the skeleton simply shifted back into place as she withdrew her blade.

Urkil attacked again with sweeping strikes.

A rare bout of panic washed over her.
How am I going to stop something that doesn’t bleed?
Panic was replaced by a combination of annoyance and confusion as the sounds of a flute tickled her ears.

“What are you doing?” she shouted, narrowly avoiding another strike.

“Just wanted to see if the flute worked here,” Rondel called. “It doesn’t.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” she said, rolling away as the beast leaped at her again. “It’s got no ears. Now tell me how to stop this thing!”

“I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to wait before coming in here. We weren’t prepared. But someone let their impatience get the best of them.”

“Just shut up and figure it out!” she hollered as a whoosh followed the sweeping club passing over her head.

“Go for the head.”

“Is that a guess?” she asked, rolling away from another attack.

“Just do it!”

Andrasta dodged the next two attacks, then lunged at the beast’s head. Her sword punched through an empty eye socket. The ape jerked its head to the side and wrenched her weapon from her grip. She swore loudly while drawing her dagger.

“It didn’t work!”

She swore again, jumping over another altar of bones and rolling away from the skeleton’s swings. It was bad enough trying to fight the creature, but trying to do so while also keeping it away from Rondel and Lela as they examined the door made her task that much more difficult.

“What about the Relian dagger?” called Rondel. “It’s supposed to cut through anything!”

The club whooshed through the air by her ear so close it knocked her braids against her ear.

There is the whole matter of getting close enough to use it.

She ducked under the next attack and dove between the ape’s wide legs. She stabbed up into what would have been the beast’s crotch. The blade struck the pelvic bone and actually caused a large gash. The ape reared its head toward the ceiling and roared. It seemed to be in pain.

She tried to follow up the strike with another, but Urkil’s free hand caught her shoulder. The blow sent her careening across the room where she crashed into the wall.

She sat up, fighting for air. The ape strode toward her. The wound she had inflicted on the beast’s pelvic bone healed before her eyes. It yanked her sword from its skull and tossed the weapon aside.

She forced herself to stand while trying to bring life back to her numb shoulder.

She ran at the beast, ducked under a sweep of its club, and slashed out with the dagger. The ape moaned as she left gouges in the bones of its arms, thighs and sternum. However, nothing brought it down. Its kick struck her in the chest. She hit the wall again. Bright light streaked before her eyes.

The ape roared as if re-asserting its dominance. Andrasta looked up through blurry vision as it came for her.

Who would have thought that this is how it would end?

A tiny blur darted in from the side just behind the creature. It struck the beast in the lower right leg. The entire skeleton collapsed.

Blinking in disbelief at the bones, she stood. They appeared as lifeless as when they’d first entered the room. She looked over to Rondel who held one of his crossbows.

“You killed it with a crossbow bolt to the leg?”

“It was just a skeleton. Not much to kill,” he said, re-cocking it and placing another one inside. “I did stop it though.”

“How?”

“The clue finally made sense. ‘
Pictures tell the story.’
Basically, it can only be stopped the same way it died. That thing died of a poison arrow in the calf. So, it only stood to reason that striking it in the same spot would do the trick. I used the crossbow just in case it also had to be an arrow.” He paused. “You all right?”

Andrasta felt a little dizzy, but had been injured worse many times. “Yeah, I’m all right.”

“Good, because some of these other ones are much trickier than the ape.”