The Phoenix Endangered by James Mallory Read Free Book Online Page B

narrow heads, quivering all over, and dashed off. A moment later she saw something—a large something—scurry over the top of a dune, pursued by the hounds, and a moment after that, she heard the single sharp bark the ikulas gave when they had taken down prey. Despite her concern, neither Shaiara nor her companions ran to see what it was. One did not run in desert heat unless life was at stake.
    A few moments later they reached the ikulas’s side. The animals stood proudly, plumed tails slowly wagging, over the body of a fat young desert goat.
    Ciniran knelt beside the carcass, running her hands over its flanks in wonder. She turned her face up to Shaiara, and Shaiara knew that the expression of grave concern on Ciniran’s face matched her own.
    The Nalzindar did not keep goats. Goats required water—much water—and good forage. Not so much as a sheep, but far more than a shotor. Certainly more than anyof them had seen anywhere here in Abi’Abadshar. Nor could it have simply wandered here—the journey had been nearly enough to kill a shotor. A goat could not have survived.
    She put her hand on Israf’s collar. “Seek,” she said, gesturing back in the way the goat had come. The two ikulas began moving in circles, searching out the trail. Shaiara walked after them, and Ciniran followed, as behind them, Kamar gathered up their unexpected prey.
    But the trail ended only in another mystery: one of the empty openings in the ground, with terraces leading down into it. This one was small, and made of black stone, and heat radiated up from it as from the embers of a cookfire. Even though this was obviously where the path ended, the ikulas did not wish to go down, and Shaiara saw no reason to make them, for all that was there was smooth stone, and a small hole low in one wall that only a child could crawl through.
    Or a goat.
    With that thought in her mind, Shaiara redoubled her efforts to explore the caves-made-by-Demons in which the Nalzindar now lived. Goats must come from somewhere, after all. And if she shared this place with others, she wished to know about it.
    T HE GREASE FROM the flesh of the fat goat, carefully collected, could be used to saturate strips of fabric carefully cut from the edges of the remaining tent. Tightly braided, and forced over the head of a hunting-spear, the grease-soaked cloth made a crude if serviceable torch. Armed with a handful of these, Shaiara and several of the bravest hunters redoubled their explorations. This time they brought with them axes and hammers as well, for she was determined that the barriers of wood that blocked the archways to the sides of the tunnel would block it no longer.
    Her people quickly learned the best method of releasing the barriers, especially once they discovered that theywere hinged, like the lid of a wooden box. A few blows with an axe at the edge where the large metal ring was, and nearly all of them could be swung inward. Those that could not be, they left untouched, for Shaiara suspected that beyond those doors lay enough piled sand to bury them all, should those barriers be removed from their stone archways.
    They had removed the first of the barriers entirely—before they had known about the hinge-mechanism—and when they had, beyond it all that there was to see was another tunnel, and at its end, sunlight. She had walked down that tunnel to its end, and seen more wooden barriers, drifts of sand and dust upon the floor, and then, at its end, a great round emptiness. She’d shrugged, turning back. It might well be the work of more than one lifetime to learn all of Abi’Abadshar’s secrets.
    The deeper they went into the tunnel, the colder it became, until it was as cold as a desert midnight, and Shaiara shivered, wishing for her warm cloak. They had been walking since dawn, and had come so far that now, when she looked back, Shaiara could no longer see the light of the entrance. None of them feared to make the return journey in darkness—should