The only reason Schneider agreed to step down and he did that grudgingly, impassioned by the fervor of battle that he hadn't engaged in, in far too long, was because there was no one left opposing him. The ones that were alive were cowering or attempting to flee and even though picking them off would have been amusing, Kall-Su's insistent harassment and subsequent sulking after the fact would not have been worth it.
Thus a ragged, much abused group of desert raiders gathered to face a pair of hardly winded wizards for what purpose Schneider could not guess. He hardly wanted to waste his time on it. He had already made his decision on the matter of the djinni clear. He hated to repeat himself. But Kall had said something about them finding his bard and the Moulay having a proposition. As if the man could offer anything Schneider might conceivably want.
So he hovered in the air above the Moulay, not wanting to stand and have the mounted man looking down upon him.
"What do you have to say that I might possibly want to hear?"
The old man was proud. Stupidly so. He lifted his turbaned head and glared up at Schneider.
"You are a thief. And I usually would not stoop to bargain with such."
He had to laugh. The old man was bold, he had to give him that. "Are you trying to get yourself sent head first into the arms of whatever god you worship? If so, you are going about it the right way."
The desert raiders shifted uneasily at his casual mention of their deity. Hands clenched at sword hilts. The Moulay held up a hand, mouth tight with irritation. "Hold." He said sharply to his men, then to Schneider. "Are you so great a lord that you hold no respect for the god?"
Schneider shrugged. "Most of them are overrated."
"Then perhaps you would be interested in the discovery of a power that even the gods of old held in awe. A magic so great and so old that it was legend even when the pyramid's were built."
"Oh and what magic might that be?" There was a light in the old man's eyes that bordered on fanatics. Not quite greed. More like worship. It was that reverent look, the slight tremble in the veined hands when the Moulay spoke of this ancient power, that pricked Schneider's interest. A dispassionate explanation he would have taken for nothing more than a ruse to get his cooperation.
"What makes you think I care?"
"You are djinn are you not. A sorcerer. Do not sorcerer's thirst after knowledge. After the cumulating of mystical prowess?"
Schneider smiled at him. A taught, dangerous little smile at the man's presumption. He glanced over his shoulder at Kall-Su. Unreadable expression for anyone who didn't know him. Curiosity burned within his pale eyes, though.
"You attack me in the depths of night and then expect my help?"
"I need the help of the djinni."
"Then you want my help. She's my property. You've got my interest -- tell me more and you might keep it."
"For generations my family have been the keepers of certain legends. Twenty years past my esteemed father found an inscription on the wall of a bordello built around the ruins of an ancient burial shrine. It told of the location of a temple and a tomb and vault all in one that held within it the greatest magic the old world had ever known. Kings and pharaoh's worshipped at this temple, asking for guidance and luck from the powers held within. Magic trapped within for five thousand years. No one had ever been able to release it, for whoever had sealed it within, had used powerful magics. Fifteen years past we found the site. And for all these long years we have been excavating, digging up a city long buried by the sands. Finally we have uncovered the seal itself and only the unique powers of the djinni you now possess may pass it."
"What is this power? Is it an artifact? An entity? A demon?"
"After five thousand years would it even still be potent?" Kall mused softly from behind. He had a point. Even strong magics lost their gusto after long periods of time. Five millennia was a damn long time. Even for a three hundred plus year old, immortal wizard. But, even if it was a defunct artifact of power, the Moulay was correct in his assumption that wizards had an obsession for things of that nature. Schneider was no different. He had gone to great lengths in the past to unearth talisman's of power.
"All I ask, is that you let the djinni unlock the seal and then I have no further use for her. And for the service I will gladly spend my resources to finding that which you seek."
Ah, back to the bribe/threat. Kall-Su's bard.
"All right." The man could promise all he wanted. He could make agreements all day with Kall-Su for all Schneider cared. It didn't mean that if this magic he spoke of pricked Schneider's interest he wouldn't take it for his own.
"How far is it?"
The old man's face creased into what might have been a smile of satisfaction. It was hard to tell with all the weathered wrinkles.
"To the north. Many days ride to the north and into the endless desert."
"Fine. We can start in the morning. Don't bother me again until then."
Which did not sit well with the desert raiders, but they had little choice but to mutter and complain among themselves or risk the rest of them meeting the fate of the ones who's charred corpses scattered the dune on the other side of the camp.
Schneider went back to the tent. A frowning Kall-Su followed.
"What? I thought this was what you wanted." Schneider stared pointedly at him as he flounced down upon the cushions. The djinni was conspicuously absent. The bottle lay among the cushions. Schneider picked it up and rattled it absently, wondering if she were physically in the bottle as a tiny little woman, or if it were merely the portal into a slice of another dimension. He put his eye to the mouth, but there was nothing but indiscernible darkness within.
"You're going to double cross him." Kall stated flatly.
"That would infer that I had agreed to anything other than going to this place and lending him my djinni's services, now wouldn't it. I thought you had a better head for these political type things."
"Oh for ---" Kall glared, aborted it and took a breath instead. "Wait until he's found Lily for me first, at least."
"I may not be able to. You know how touchy these things can be. Unearthed powers and all."
"Damnit, DS, she's more important."
"To you."
"To me! If you ruin this ---"
"You'll do what?"
He dangled the bottle from his fingers, curious to hear what threat Kall might make.
Kall-Su's expression went neutral. All regal and cold -- his Ice Lord persona. The one he showed enemies and rivals. "Then I will not forgive you it and you and I shall be at odds. I would prefer not to be."
"Hummm." Schneider kept his face careless, kept the slight smile on his lips, but a vague sense of unease troubled him. It was not an idle vow. Being at odds in no way bothered him. He had been at odds with Kall-Su before. It was the first part that bothered him. And the fact that it did, annoyed him. He drew his brows and shook the bottle.
"Come out, djinni. The fighting's over."
After a moment she did, in an outpouring of colored smoke.
"Oh, master." She cried, all large eyed and grateful. "I am so happy it is you who won."
Kall-Su made a disgusted noise and skulked over to the other side of the tent as Malice went about showing Schneider just how happy she was.
She stopped when he told her the change in plans to take place in the morning. She sat back on her heels then, wary and uncertain, twisting long locks of black hair about her finger. "If someone went to the trouble to lock such a thing away, perhaps it is better to leave it where it is. Some things are better left alone."
"Nothing is better left alone." He repeated it to himself and thought it made a good motto.
Many days to the north. Kall-Su was torn between believing the Moulay's claims and wanting to reach the port where Lily had been taken himself. Not that he could reasonably find that port with his guide a spy for the Moulay. The little man had crept back to camp that morning, cowered behind the Moulay's horse, blathering his desperate apologies for the deception. He was only a lowly desert guide, he claimed, only doing what his employer -- the Moulay-- made him do. A babbling, treacherous idiot, who Kall-Su might have destroyed out of hand a few years past. Whom he might have now, if he hadn't been so distracted with worries over this change of plan. He ignored the guide. He ignored the djinni who clung annoyingly close to Schneider, who he might have conferred with if not for her presence. He listened to the Moulay talk about the excavation and the ancient city where this mysterious power rested and concentrated on enduring the overwhelming dry heat of the desert.
Five days into the desert, and they came upon the signs of habitation. A village dug into the hard packed earth under the sands. A village of low sandstone buildings, packed close together in the lee of a rocky bluff that afforded it some protection from the harsh winds out of the desert. Women and children ran out to meet the riders, crying out to the desert raiders, bowing their heads in respect to the Moulay. The Moulay's people. The Moulay's settlement that his father had built to house the workers he brought to excavate a city hidden under the sands. They rode past it and up a trail to the bluff behind it. And beyond that, spread out like a maze of crumbling walls and streets were the bones of an ancient metropolis.
It spread for acres and acres. The unearthed rements of what once must have been a wondrous city. Monuments stood here and there, unfazed by the passage of time. Obelisks with intricate carvings, human headed animals perched on great pedestals looking down upon the tiny scurrying figures of men. Some of the buildings still had walls, some even roofs, but most were only foundations with the occasional column or support jutting up.
Ancient. Kall-Su found himself gaping in awe, found his heart beating hard in a sudden flood of excitement. He had never in his life beheld something so old. So imminently immortal as the bones of this place. The skeletons of the cities that had been destroyed when Ansasla destroyed the old world were the oldest things he had ever passed through. The age of this in comparison was staggering. The scholar in him was quite thoroughly enraptured by the notion of exploring the secrets of this place.
"What was its name?" he asked as they rode down the trail towards it.
The Moulay did not answer, distracted by the sight of his achievement. The little guide, Abu, did.
"It was called Askenaten. City of the March."
Kall glanced at him, curiosity overcoming distaste. "City of the March? What does that mean?"
Abu shrugged. "It was the only reference to Askenaten on the wall of legend."
"You saw this inscription? You read it?"
The little man's head came up proudly. "I have many talents. I read the languages of the ancients. Here, let me show you." Abu searched within his voluminous robes and produced a folded sheet of parchment. A rubbing filled with indiscernible hieroglyphics.
"See?" the little man ran his finger down a line and mouthed the words that went along with the picture script.
"The resting place of the gods lies within the precepts of the city of the March. No force or power of violence can break the seal that grants them eternal sleep. No magic born of man may disturb the rest of the shadows." He went on, obviously entranced by the legend.
"Read it again." Kall-Su directed, studding the symbols carefully. The same spell that let him absorb spoken languages worked as well on written ones. It just took initial understanding of the symbols for them to start making sense. He took the parchment out of Abu's hand and reread it himself, asking the little man for clarification when a symbol refused to make sense.
"Its not city of the March. Look, there's a partial symbol between city and march."
Abu squinted at it, then at him, a dubious look in his dark eyes. "I don't think so --- I have been studying this for years."
"Then you've been sloppy. Do you have more symbols I could see?"
With a sniff, Abu waved towards the city of Askenaten. "There are abundant wall carvings there. Though how you expect to read them after seeing only this little scrap of parchment is beyond me."
Kall did not see any reason to enlighten the man. But he did have an interest in this ancient culture. It would have been nice to have the time to study it at leisure. It would have been nice if Lily were safe by his side. The Moulay would see that she was or he would not live to appreciate this discovery of his.
They entered the boundaries of the city. Workings hauling rock and sand in wheelbarrows and sacks moved aside for the mounted men. Schneider reined his horse next to Kall-Su, his eyes bright above the swath of material he had tucked into his turban.
"This might be interesting after all." He surmised, looking up at a towering statue of a stone queen, her arms crossed over her chest, her gaze looking out over the desert. The sand that had hidden her all these years had also protected her features.
"Its name is Askenaten." Kall informed him. "Its rather amazing."
"Rather." Schneider shrugged, trying for nonchalance, but Kall saw past it to the excitement underneath. "I saw the pyramids before Ansasla destroyed them -- they were like this. Exuding age."
"The pyramids?"
"Before your time. Before everybody's time. Too bad about them."
Through carefully laid out streets they worked their way to the center of the city, where the lower level of a large, flat building remained. They dismounted and men ran to bring torches as the Moulay gestured Kall-Su and Schneider and a reluctant Malice to follow him and his honor guard into a narrow, low ceilinged passage. The darkness soon swallowed every bit of daylight. Only the flickering flare of the flame illuminated the way. The path veered downward steeply. Kall had to stoop a little, and Schneider had to walk considerably bent over. They came to a great chamber that smelled of age and dust and stale air. The torch light hardly reached the ceiling. Columns lined the sandstone walls.
"You wanted to see more hieroglyphics." Abu whispered reverently behind Kall-Su's shoulder. "Look at the walls."
He thrust a torch close to one wall and column upon column of picture language was revealed.
Kall took a breath, staring up into the shadows. He called a witchlight to better see and the blue glow of the hovering sphere cast the wall into better relief. Abu muttered a protection against evil at the appearance of the light.
"Read this section for me." Kall directed. The little man ran his finger down a line and translated. Kall mouthed the words with him. Schneider got bored and wondered on, not having the interests in language that Kall-Su did. Malice clutched the edge of his cloak, casting wary glances into the shadows. The Moulay waited impatiently at another narrow doorway. This one appeared to have been a hidden entrance, for the slab of stone that sat beside it, was covered in the same flowing picture script that graced the walls around it.
Kall moved on slowly, picking out the meanings of script here and there along the walls. A history mostly, he thought. Of the builders of this temple. Of the aristocracy that had commissioned it. Through the hidden passage was a hall so narrow they had to walk single file. Schneider cursed softly over the low ceiling, after hitting his head on a low jutting stone. He summoned a witch light of his own then, casting the whole of the passage into stark relief. Rough stone walls and floor. Not a passage meant for show, but for mere practicality. Perhaps its builders had never meant for feet beyond theirs to travel it. At the end was a set of steep stone stairs. The air was unpleasant, thick and old and viperous. The occasional sneeze escaped as they stirred dust in the wake of their passage.
Another bending passage at the bottom, and then a crawlspace perhaps three feet high. Past that -- past that was a chamber most interesting. Tall slanted walls, covered with script. A vast sunken floor, at the bottom of which might once have been a pool fed by a spring. Perhaps once the whole thing had been filled with water, but time had dried up the spring and now only a small fetid puddle of dark water lay at the bottom. Three walls slanted inward to form an apex at the roof of the chamber, the forth slanted outwards and this one was masked in a massive plaque of what might have been gold. There were wall scones about the chamber and the Moulay's men went around lighting them.
Kall-Su ran his fingertips along the wall, across carved picture script so dust encrusted that it was almost indecipherable from the flat surface of the stone. Schneider was more interested in the dully gleaming panel at the end of the chamber. The Moulay stood before it, speaking of the day they'd found this hidden chamber. Of all the things they had tried to break the rune seal. Kall felt Schneider test it. Felt the outflowing of familiar power that felt along the old, old edges of the seal. It did not respond like any magic he knew. It was not innate, it was merely --- placid. It did not so much repel Schneider's mystical inquiry as absorb it. It took the magic in and it was no more. It made Kall-Su uneasy. He stood with his hand on the wall, staring at the golden facade -- the gateway that held something at rest beyond it. It occurred to him that the djinni was probably right. Such a thing had been imprisoned for a reason. Ansasla had been imprisoned for a reason and it was the greed and the gullibility of men that released it a second time.
"Neither man nor demon can release the seal." The Moulay quoted, then gestured at Malice. "She is neither. Neither force nor violence can break the rune. This rare creature -- this being created for pleasure and for pleasure only, utilized neither force nor violence."
"Master, don't make me do this thing. It is wrong." She clung to Schneider's sleeve. His eyes were glued to the rune plaque. If he even heard her plea, Kall-Su would have been surprised.
"Do it." Schneider said absently and unhooked her fingers, giving her a shove towards the plaque."
She turned large eyes back to him. Frightened eyes. "But -- I don't know how."
"You do, lying creature." The Moulay hissed. "It is a rune seal. Break it."
She pouted, shivering, then hesitantly turned to face the golden wall. Her body dissolved into smoke and slowly the colored gas seeped into the etched lines of the rune seal.
Nothing happened. Minutes passed and the stillness of the tomb became overwhelming. Kall-Su glanced back to the wall his fingers still touched. He absently brushed the dust from the carvings. Words came to him sporadically. He waved Abu over and the little man reluctantly turned his attention from the goings on at the rune seal to approach.
"What does this say?"
Abu's eyes scanned the writing. His lips moved silently, then he said. "It tells of the disciples of the gods banding together to create a --- a conjuration of -- tranquillity? Peace? It is hard to tell. And into this conjuration they lured the minions of the darkness."
"The minions of darkness? What's behind the seal. The spell. The disciples of the gods? Or these minions of darkness? What are we releasing, little traitor?"
Abu shrugged nervously. Kall looked up the wall and found a familiar line of hieroglyphics. The naming of the city. Only this one had the half obscured symbol inscribed clearly.
"What is the word for that symbol?"
"Black." Abu whispered after a moment. "The city of the Black March. You were right."
"The Black March?" Kall mouthed the words silently, a cold, cold unease gripping him. The words of a faceless old gypsy crone on a warm southern beach during a minstrel's fair. What had she said? What fortune had she told him-- that he had disregarded as the ramblings of a fraud? All the trials before will be as nothing. When the Black March comes so will come a new era. There is no ice in the desert, so protect the storm.
He took a breath in panic, whirled towards the gathering at the golden rune seal and cried out.
"DS! Don't let her do it."
Schneider glanced back at him, brow arched in curiosity. He opened his mouth to ask why -- and a ripple of heat rushed out from the rune seal. The walls shook and dust fell from the ceiling. The coolness of the underground tomb was suddenly stifling. Obscenely hot. The rippling waves of torridity were laced with palpable power. The gold began to steam. It ran in rivulets down the surface of the slanted wall. Bits of rock began to crumble from the wall. Men cried out in fear.
"I think -- I think I will wait outside." Abu stammered, backing away a few steps before he turned and fled, diving into the crawlway that led to this room. Kall wanted out as well. But not without Schneider. He darted forward, catching Schneider's arm, jerking him back a step in his fervent desire to be heeded.
"We have to go. We have to go now."
"Are you insane? I want to see what's behind there." He pulled his arm from Kall-Su's fingers, an amused smile on his lips. A chunk of rock the size of a cow hit the floor behind them with a thud. The Moulay's guards cowered back, clearing wanting to abandon this place, but their lord stood rooted to the spot, as intent on seeing what emerged as Schneider.
There was a grating sound, a deep groaning of rock sliding against rock, then the melted remains of the rune seal surged outward, as if blown by an explosion and it seemed as if half the bedrock behind them came with it. Schneider got his shield up a breath before Kall-Su did. They were buffeted backwards anyway. The Moulay, inadvertently protected by their magic was blown into his men. They took the dazed old man and fled with him, even as the tomb crumbled around them. Schneider fought his way forward, debris bouncing off his shield and stepped into the face of --- swirling, incomprehensible darkness. Raging hatred and anger that swept him backwards and into Kall-Su, who barely managed to keep to his own feet after the impact.
Whatever had been released was not happy about the end of its incarceration. Or perhaps it was still brooding over the fact that it had been imprisoned at all.
"Please, DS - - -" Kall clutched at his arm, urging him backwards.
The ceiling collapsed. A thousand tons of rock showered downwards. Kall cried out, releasing Schneider and throwing his hands upwards protectively, calling every iota of power he had to strengthen shields. The weight hit and it was like being hit in the chest with a sledge hammer. He gasped, dropping to his knees, nothing but weight and darkness three feet over his head where his shield stopped.
"Shit." Schneider complained. He was still standing. He was not pouring power into his own shields. "Hold that for a second, will you?" he asked and suddenly all of his shielding was gone and Kall was holding up the whole thing.
"What -- are you --- doing?"
"Trying to track -- whatever that was. Its on its way up."
"Fine. Get us out." He gasped, clenching his fists to his chest.
The words of a spell crossed Schneider's lips in a whisper. A sudden surge of summoned power. A sudden flare of blinding light. Kall-Su shut his eyes.
Blinded and deafened by the ripping destruction of earth and stone and sand. Schneider hooked an arm about him and jerked him up. Fast. Shooting up in the wake of the explosion, before the debris could settle back down the fill the ragged hole.
Then they were in the sky over the city and he pushed himself out of Schneider's grasp, hovering under his own power. It took a moment for his vision to clear. When it did, he gaped. The sand around the excavated city was swirling like a storm mad whirlpool, circling ever inward, pulling in buildings and monuments and icons alike. The small figures of men fought against the sands, fleeing outward, but most were pulled in like so much desert flotsam. The sand raged though the air as well, and the only thing protecting them, he realized after a moment, was Schneider's shielding.
"I think it ate my djinni." Schneider said, when there was nothing but a churning sea of sand beneath them. Kall-Su blinked at him.
"I want to leave." Kall said quietly.
"No. Look."
The sand swelled, as if something surged beneath its surface. Then with an explosion of rock and sand something emerged. It rose out of the sand, shaking of debris and dust. Small from this height. A rider on a horse. It might have been one of the Moulay's riders, somehow managing to dig himself free of the sand. Only the rider was armored and not robed, and the horse he rode was a monstrous black steed. And then a second black rider and horse surged up out of the sand. And a third. And another and another. And there were twenty or thirty of them at last. Silent line of mounted warriors that sat supernaturally calm mounts. When the last emerged from the earth the others cried out a war song or a salute or a greeting -- and lifted their swords in tribute before him.
"What the hell is that all about?" Schneider complained, clearly disappointed in the results of the affair.
"Its the Black March." Kall said quietly.
"How do you know?"
"It was written on the walls. It was told me by -- by a fortune teller months ago." And I didn't believe her.