Advent of Ruin (The Qaehl Cycle Book 1) Read online

  The pool of light from his torch spilled behind the grotesque little man and illuminated a patch of rough stone. Somehow he felt much more comfortable knowing where the walls of this cavern were. His gaze was drawn back to the statue, and a shiver crept up his spine.

  Now that he had an anchor point, Shahin sat to re-wrap the already burned torch dangling from his belt before continuing on. This allowed the burning from his ribs to subside a little. The dot of shafting sunlight finally vanished as his third torch began to gutter, and he used the last of its flame to light a fourth. For a moment the light expanded, and Shahin gaped.

  To left and right were pillars carved with well-formed men and voluptuous women, clothed only below the waist if at all. Only a few were broken or toppled. The pillars lined what must have once been a major street, now cluttered with loose cobblestones. Beyond the pillars empty eyes of abandoned buildings stared at nothing where they hadn’t fallen in on themselves. He swallowed and kept moving.

  * * *

  Shahin paused again when, over the scrape of his thin boots, the sound of trickling water caught his ear. From somewhere further on rocks clashed together, like something had set them tumbling. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end; could there be more of those things that ate Teqrab down here? Water first.

  Shahin followed the sound of the water down a narrow path running between two low buildings. The walk opened into a courtyard ringed by buildings like the two behind him. There were sconces on the nearby walls; he wedged his torch into one of these, wincing as the movement put pressure on his chest. His torchlight supplemented the faint green light produced by strange plants which had overrun the space. How such a thing was possible was beyond him, and he had little attention to spare for the curiosity. In the center of the courtyard, water trickled from the broken neck of a jar carried by a voluptuous nude woman into the pool at her feet. Another statue, only this one had a purpose.

  Shahin stepped up and stood on the rim of the fountain. Looking closely, he discovered broken stone from the neck of the jar nearly stoppering the spout. A little careful digging and prying later, and the trickle of water nearly doubled in volume. He gulped right from the stream, the water cold and wonderful to his parched throat. It was fresh and almost sweet, although most anything would seem sweet in comparison to the blood that had seen him through thus far. He emptied his blood-filled water skins on the ground and rinsed once before refilling, only hesitating a moment. A horrible waste, on the surface, but there seemed to be no reason not to here. And maybe the rinse will help avoid a bloody aftertaste next time. He tried not to think too hard about that next time. Right now all that mattered was making it to Q’uungerab. For the message, and for the warning. What were those things?

  He splashed his face with water from the pool below and laughter bubbled up from beneath the break. Shahin held his ribs until he could get control of his breathing.

  Now here’s a treasure, one that’s only mine. I’d never have to work again! He splashed a little in the pool, loosening the stiffness of dried blood from his trousers, and poured water from cupped hands over his head. Too bad it’s worthless. I can’t get this up top, and if I can’t get it up top I can’t sell it any more than I could have saved Govad. And yet… and yet, it’s water – glorious water! And I’m the only one who knows. Finally he took a deep breath, and with that breath he damped his joy.

  Shahin sat on the lip of the pool, suddenly feeling the fatigue of walking for – how long had it been since he lost sight of the light? – and the pain from his ribs reasserted itself. The sound of flowing water soothed the tatters of his anxiety, and he slid down to sit on the ground, his back resting against the cold stone of the ancient retaining wall despite his better judgment.

  Is it safe here? Surely I can rest a little. The plants glow. Will that be enough to light a new torch by? It would have to be: in the next moment, he was asleep.

  * * *

  Shahin awoke an unknown period of time later bathed in the faint green glow of the plants that somehow managed to thrive without the sun. The presence of light forestalled panic: he couldn’t make out details well, but he could see the outline of the pool even if he hadn’t been touching it, and the path he had come in by was an empty black hole in the eerie light. Gingerly he stood and drank from the fountain behind him before unhooking a torch from his belt. He groped about, trying to find his flint mostly by touch.

  After far more difficulty than he was accustomed to the hide-wrapped torch caught a spark. No time to waste. He still had to deliver that message, still had to warn their old allies about those… things, and that would be impossible if he couldn’t find a way out. Shahin shrugged to realize the message and the warning were one and the same to him. He crept back out to the main street and continued on the way he had come, reclaiming the burned-out torch on the wall.

  The pain radiated from his side with every step, but even without that he would have been walking slowly. The buildings caught by the torchlight grew more and more ornate. Some of them displayed carved figures like those on the pillars lining the street, or creatures even stranger than the bulbous-eyed demon at the ancient gate. The best of these were so well done he thought they would feel like flesh under his fingers rather than stone. Many of the windows held the remains of intricate latticework screens. Those weathered whatever had killed this city less well than the figures had, but that made them no less beautiful.

  His torch guttered and Shahin found a taller stone to sit on while he re-wrapped the other bones again, holding the burning one carefully between his knees. Rocks clashed together, nearer this time, and his eyes flicked from shadow to shadow, looking for a good place to hide should one of the creatures appear.

  He continued on, ears straining for sign of the monsters noting how often he heard the trickling of water on stone from either side. If he was stuck down here, he would die of starvation long before thirst could claim him. The very air smelled damp, like Udhampna at night after the rains.

  Another torch guttered as he approached a long rectangular depression marked at the corners with floral-carved pillars. At a glance he saw both jasmine and lotus blooms; there were probably others. The pillars with their stone people that lined the road broadened out to left and right, outside the range of his torchlight. He walked along the edge of the depression. The pillars supported a series of arches along the long edge. When he reached the end of the depression he could see the jagged remains of a set of steps. A way out, maybe?

  * * *

  He was growing numb to the pain from his ribs, finally. The shallow steps led up to a massive building with delicate fluted columns and the most elaborate carvings yet, depicting everything from teaching sages to nude men and women in baffling couplings. Most cities had a stupa somewhere in their walls, although the temples were mostly relics now, but this was the most involved he’d ever seen. At the top of the pillars he saw the outline of intricate domes carved into the surface, sheltering everything below. A slab of rock, now cracked, appeared to be the remains of the door inscribed with a script Shahin had never seen. He pushed at the slab from a few different angles, but the pushing put too much pressure on his ribs for there to be any strength in it. The slab was wedged too tightly for him to move right now, if it could be at all.

  The raised walkway he stood on continued around the curve of the large temple dome. Following it, Shahin came face to face with a sheer wall of solid, uncut rock slicing through the dome. When he checked the other side, it was the same. Peering along the rock walls away from the temple provided no help. Maybe if I rope one of the domes on the building I could find a way out from up top? This was going to hurt like the depths, and once he was up he didn’t think he could get back down. But nothing else in the cavern had so much as hinted at a way out. As he walked back towards the front of the building he began tying a knot in the end of his rope to form the loop of a noose.

  A few tosses later the rope caught in the decorative domes above.
Shahin used it to walk the ten feet up one of the fluted columns, step by agonizing step, onto the roof of the structure. The bone torch held in his teeth was all that kept him from screaming. It was absurd, he thought, but he felt like he should apologize to Govad for treating his bones this way.

  Shahin clambered along the roof of the building clutching an arm to his chest and panting against the pain of his ribs, his rope looped over his shoulder. The stupa was so covered with carvings that his ankles threatened to turn at every step. The nearer he came to the wall butting up against the rear of the building, the more rubble littered his path. As he’d hoped, though, the wall was a natural shelf, bisecting the dome a little more than halfway back. He sat down on the edge of the shelf, catching his breath and waiting for the fresh stabs of agony to fade back into numbness. Bits of carving that matched the intact portion of the temple showed on the larger pieces of rubble. He still couldn’t see the ceiling. The shelf would have been wide enough for two men to walk abreast if it hadn’t been for the rubble, and it was still his best hope of finding an exit.

  At this point, one direction was much the same as any other: Shahin turned right and began picking his way along the shelf. He needed to get to the surface to reorient himself before he had a prayer of finding Q’uungerab.

  * * *

  He was on his last torch and exhausted. The shelf led around the outside of the mysterious city before intersecting with a small, upward-sloping crevice. The hole was maybe three feet across and about half that tall, and a thin stream of sand trickled down its length. He started up, crawling forward with just his elbows, Govad’s bone once again clenched in his teeth.

  The surface of the tunnel was rough, in some places almost jagged. In one place it narrowed so far Shahin thought he would break another rib squeezing through, and the ones that were already cracked complained about every movement. Gradually, the trickle of sand flowing from above increased in volume until it was more like a dune in miniature, and then finally filled the entire space ahead.

  Shahin dug a little at the sand in front of him; it was loose and dry. It should be possible to dig through, if it wasn’t too deep. He wedged his torch in the sand, took a few deep breaths, and closed his eyes before plunging his hands into the sand. His head went into the momentary opening. He pushed one hand ahead again and pulled himself deeper into the sand blocking his escape.

  The sand clawed at his clothes, his hair, his skin as he attempted to dig to the surface. Grit worked into his eyes, up his nose, into the thousands upon thousands of tiny cuts it created. His lungs were on fire. His hand punched forward again, pulled to the side, then swept downward and pulled him forward. His breath threatened to burst from his lungs. The other hand struck forward and found a sudden lack of resistance. He pressed it against the newfound surface even as he thrust the first hand forward again, out into the cool air of the desert night. His arms pressed against the weight of the sand while he wriggled, frantic to get his head past the last remaining barrier.

  Grains of sand rolled off the top of his head and were replaced by the night breeze brushing over his abraded hands. Moments later he stood, gasping for air, on the leeward side of a dune. Shahin shook as much sand off as he could and brushed ineffectually at the rest. He used a few drops of water to wash his eyes so that he could open them. His clothes were in tatters, and his timeline was shot to the Serpent’s depths, but he had made it. He checked his few remaining belongings; somehow, he still had the message, and there, on a crest of dunes on the horizon, was the famed red sandstone Stormbreaker Wall of Q’uungerab Pradesh.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The light of the setting sun painted the world with an amber wash. A caravan of wagons, canvas stretched over their tops, moved along the dusty ground at the edge of the savanna. The creaking of the wagons and the groaning of their camels played counterpoint to the music drifting into the air from along the line. In one of the painted wagons near the middle of the train slept a girl, her skin turned tawny in the glow of sunset. Her black hair shimmered where it caught the light, and the half-embroidered sari draped across her knees slipped to the floor as she stirred. The needle thrust through the fabric was a dark line against the cloth. The girl’s eyes drifted open slowly, much as they had drifted closed to the rhythm of the wagons earlier in the afternoon heat. Her legs were stiff from being curled against the wooden floor. Pins prickled her feet. She sighed, irritation intruding into the calm of new wakefulness; she would be scolded again tonight. The dancing mistress always scolded her girls when they fell asleep during the day. Bad for the legs, she said.

  The girl rose and paced the three steps back and forth across the front of the wagon a few times. She paused and wrapped an arm around the canopy post for balance as she flexed her feet. A lone tree with patches of grass at its base was framed by the ruddy sun on the horizon to her left. The camel in front of her groaned loudly as the wagon went over a particularly large hummock.

  “So you’re awake, then?” The voice of the woman seated in the shade at the back of the wagon was cracked and brittle.

  “Yes, Grandmother.” She could hear the shame in her own voice. Falling asleep in the wagons like a child would simply not do: she wasn’t a grown woman yet, but her time couldn’t be far off.

  “You’d best put away your stitches before it gets dark.” Grandmother Arvinda had been Mistress of Clothes for as long as anyone could remember, and no one in the caravan had been raggedly dressed for all that time.

  “Of course, Grandmother.” She returned to where she had left the sari and folded it carefully. “Grandmother?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think we’ll make it to water tonight?”

  The old woman inhaled, long and deep, and a small smile parted the weathered skin to reveal white teeth. “I expect so. Remember that the air reveals much that would otherwise remain hidden.”

  The girl closed her eyes and breathed deeply. There was camel, and dirt, the wood of the clothing chests, and…

  “Jasmine! Surely we’ll make it before nightfall if I can already smell jasmine!”

  “Just so.”

  The girl took another deep breath, smiling as she placed her work in the chest near Arvinda.

  The sky had darkened by the time the wagon train rolled to a stop near the banks of a pond. A barren path led from the dirt road through the feathery grass to the water’s edge. Further back from the trail acacia and palm trees clustered around its banks. The jasmine blooms were just beginning to open for the night, tiny pinpricks of brilliance in the twilight, and their scent mingled with the perfume of lotus blossoms floating in hidden coves. She grinned: it would be a shame not to explore an oasis like this one while she had the chance.

  “You’ll be helping with the water jugs then, Chandi?”

  Chandi stopped short. So much for that idea. “Of course, Grandmother.”

  “Good.” Arvinda’s tone said she knew exactly what Chandi had been thinking.

  Chandi walked toward the line of women with jars that moved toward the water’s edge, trying not to think about her lost chance for adventure. She dutifully took a jar from one of the uncles at the water wagons and fell into line behind a pair of aunties discussing their trade – bead weaving, it sounded like. Chandi knew nothing about beading except that she liked some of the collars and bracelets they made. More aunties fell in behind her, and she caught snippets of conversation about everything from making naalye dumplings to child-rearing. Still, listening in was something to do while the line crawled forward.

  “You are far too old to be dropping asleep this often!” It was Auntie Kiran, their Mistress of Dance.

  “Yes, I know that! You think I do it on purpose?” Gita’s voice was annoyed. Chandi winced; if Auntie Kiran had caught her friend, the other girl’s chores would be worse.

  “It doesn’t matter. Now, remember what I said, and I’ll see you at practice.”

  Chandi was nearing the head of the line, now. Soon she would dip
the jar below the surface of the pool, careful not to dip too deep and muddy the water, and then return to the water wagon with the heaviness of a full jar balanced against her still-slim hip. She would have no time to slip away before it was time to prepare for practice.

  * * *

  After the water jugs had been filled the dancers set up a ring of torches in a wide circle in the middle of the camp and placed several smooth boards to cover the dust. The younglings went first, and when they cleared the floor for Chandi’s group she lined up with her year-sisters under Auntie Kiran’s vigilant eye.

  “I hope filling the water jugs has given you all a chance to loosen up your legs after your afternoon naps.” Her velvety voice was laced with scorn as she towered over them. Her eyes were pools of night that appeared to contain the torchlight rather than reflect it. Several of the girls exchanged sheepish looks, but Auntie Kiran wasn’t done.

  “Since you’re all so well-rested this evening, I expect you to perform exceptionally well.”

  A collective groan went around, and the ones who had not looked embarrassed before now glared at those who had.

  “Well, don’t just stand there. Take up your fans so we can begin. Some of us would like to bathe before sunup.”

  They had returned once again to the Ristasya Karitana. The basic form of the dance was simple – by their fifth naming day, every one of them had danced Rista’s part – but there were layers upon layers of complexity, and Auntie Kiran came back to it every time they started something new. This time, they were learning the feel of improvisation.

  The music was what really told the story behind the dance – from plodding along the cart-path, to the moment the beast was first spotted, to the beast’s revelation as the avatar of a god. Just a few days before Auntie Kiran had seen fit to tell them what actually happened during their trysts. Chandi’s ears flushed at the memory.