“The Bazhir are unusual,” the knight admitted. “Martin does have reason to resent them.”
“I think he resents everybody,” Alanna muttered.
Myles ignored that. “You see, the Old King is said to have conquered all this country as far south as the Inland Sea. Actually, what he conquered was the hill country, to the east, and the coastline from Port Legann to the Tyran River. He never actually conquered this desert—it’s far too big. Instead he worked out treaties with some Bazhir and slaughtered a few others. Now some tribes call Roald their king. They trade with the rest of the kingdom and try not to cause any trouble. The others are called renegade. They won’t accept Roald as king, and they make life difficult for those who use the Southern Road. The tribe that holds Persopolis is friendly with the king, and that’s very important. Persopolis is the only city built by the Bazhir.”
Alanna thought about this for a moment. “Why only one city?” she asked. “And why Persopolis, out in the middle of nowhere?”
“There are five springs in Persopolis,” Lord Martin said harshly, bringing his horse up beside them. “As to why only one city—it’s said they built it to guard the Black City.” He snorted. “Foolishness, if you ask me. Why build a city to guard another that you can scarcely see?” He rode on back down the line.
Alanna squinted at Geoffrey’s father. “I don’t get it,” she said. “He doesn’t like the Bazhir—but His Majesty made him overlord of the Desert.”
“Martin doesn’t like the Bazhir—and they don’t like him—but he is fair,” Myles replied. “He’s fair if it kills him. The Bazhir know that, so they’ll deal with him. No one else could have gotten their respect, even if it is grudging.” Myles pushed back the hood of the burnoose he had worn since the second day out, looking intently at her. “Why so interested, Alan?”
She shrugged. “No reason—I think. Excuse me. Lord Martin’s waving.” She wheeled Moonlight and trotted back down the line. She didn’t know herself why she was so interested in the desert men.
It took a week to reach Persopolis. At last they could see its granite towers and walls rising before them. The city was built even stronger than fortresses like Trebond, and the weapons carried by its soldiers were well cared for and much used.
People lined the streets to greet their returning lord and to stare at the youth who would one day be their king. While the Bazhir kept to the back of the crowds, watching in silence, the city dwellers waved and called to the young nobles. Jonathan and his friends returned the greetings, as relaxed as if they did this every day, but Alanna guided Moonlight to a spot between Myles and the guard captain and stayed there.
“What’s the matter, youngling?” the soldier chuckled. “Shy?”
Alanna blushed. He was right. But there was something else. “Myles?” she asked softly. “Do the Bazhir always stare so?”
The knight tugged his beard thoughtfully. “Actually, they try to ignore us northerners. Perhaps it’s Jonathan.”
“Um.” Alanna’s nervous grip on the reins made her horse fidget. She tried to relax. The Bazhir were staring at her, too.
A formal banquet began in the castle late in the afternoon. Everyone wore their finest. There were toasts and long-winded speeches. Myles downed glass after glass of wine, and Alanna hid in a corner unless summoned.
“There you are.” Myles was only a little unsteady on his feet. “Are you jealous because Jonathan’s the center of attention? He’s the prince, lad. He’ll be the center of attention for a long time.” He drew a dark, well-dressed man forward. “Here’s someone who can tell you more about the Bazhir. Ali Mukhtab, this is Alan of Trebond, our page. Ali Mukhtab is the governor of Persopolis Castle. He is also Bazhir. You two talk—I’m off to a real bed at last.” Myles tousled Alanna’s hair affectionately and left her alone with Ali Mukhtab.
The page and the man sized each other up carefully. Alanna saw a tall Bazhir with walnut brown skin, glossy black hair and a trimmed black mustache. His large dark eyes were framed with long black lashes, and Alanna was to learn he rarely opened them wide. He did so now, and she shifted uncomfortably. There was power in Mukhtab’s gaze. He half closed his eyes once more, smiling sleepily.
“You are not comfortable in this setting,” he remarked quietly.
Alanna was never fond of personal remarks. She changed the subject. “I like your vest,” she announced. The vest was an elegant garment, red velvet trimmed with gold. He smiled, and she knew he had seen through her tactic.
“Sir Myles tells me you are curious about the Bazhir. Why? Surely a young man from a northern fief can have little interest in the desert.”
“A person can never tell where he’ll end up,” she said bluntly. “I understand northerners. I don’t understand the Bazhir.”
“So. A cat’s curiosity, as well as a cat’s love of privacy. Is it permitted to ask why only one page travels in your group?”
Alanna decided she liked this odd man. “His Highness asked if I could come, specially. We’re friends—he and I and Gary and Raoul—the two big squires. And Alex—”
“The dark, secretive one,” Ali Mukhtab interrupted. “He, too, is like a cat—but not one I would like to know. I am very fond of cats. At least three live in my chambers.”
“Alex isn’t secretive, precisely,” Alanna demurred. “He’s just—he’s always been that way. Can you answer something for me? I know it’s a little rude, but I’ve got to ask.”
The Bazhir smiled and accepted two glasses filled with green liquor being passed by a footman. He gave one to Alanna. “Drink,” he told her. “You’ll like it. By all means, ask me your ‘little rude’ question.”
Alanna sipped the green stuff carefully. It tasted wonderful. “I—uh—I couldn’t help but notice that Lord Martin—uh—doesn’t much like the Bazhir. I mean, he’s supposed to be fair and all—”
Ali Mukhtab grinned outright. “You are right. He is painfully correct with us, and he cannot stand the sight of us. Go on.”
“If that’s so, why are you—a Bazhir—the governor of his castle?”
Mukhtab turned his glass in his fingers. “Your friend Myles said you were intelligent. He did not say you were blunt.”
Alanna blushed. “Myles said that about me?” Her blush deepened. “I never said I was tactful,” she added.
“The post of governor in the castle of Persopolis goes by right to a Bazhir,” Ali Mukhtab explained. “Lord Martin cannot change that, although I know he has tried to. It is in the treaty with the Old King. I think our people would rise up if the king in the north tried to change the custom.”
“Over one castle position?” Alanna asked. “That seems a little—well, extreme.”
“There is a very good reason for that tradition,” the Bazhir explained. He looked out the window at the dimming sky. “In fact, if you and your friends can leave discreetly, I will show you all something interesting.”
Within a few minutes Alanna and her friends had assembled in a back hallway. Jonathan was the last to arrive; he had more difficulty sneaking away.
“If I hear one more noble tell me he’d like to see a green city once again before he dies—” the Prince muttered, his patience obviously worn thin. “What’s up?”
Alanna performed hasty introductions, and the young men followed the governor down the hallway.
“I must admit to surprise,” Ali Mukhtab was saying to Jonathan. “I did not think Alan’s message would lure you away from those who were so anxious to have you like them.”
“You took the sword by the point,” Jonathan replied, tweaking Alanna’s nose. “If I were anyone else, they wouldn’t have two words to say to me. But I’m the prince, and I think every man in that room wanted something from me—except Lord Martin,” he added, nodding to Geoffrey. “I didn’t come here to have people treating me as if I’m made of gold.”
They stopped before a wooden door. Mukhtab produced a brass key that matched the lock and handle. “This is the Sunset Roo
m,” he told them, unlocking the door. “Only the governor of the castle holds the key.”
The five boys looked at each other. This was the room Duke Roger had mentioned, the room built to watch the Black City. Its design was totally different from that of any other room in the castle. The stone floors and walls had been coated with small, brightly colored tiles, which formed pictures. Many were of the Black City and of the Bazhir. Alanna peered closely at the walls, touching them with gentle fingers.
“It’s very old,” she said finally.
“Even we do not know how old it is,” Ali Mukhtab replied. The door opened once again. Servants appeared with pillows and refreshments. The boys wandered over to the wall that looked out to the west. There was no window to block out the desert air. Only the posts supporting the ceiling separated the Sunset Room from the view.
The room was set high in the Persopolis wall. Before them stretched the Great Southern Desert, as far as their eyes could see. It was a magnificent sight, painted red-gold by the setting sun. The view’s only flaw was that it faced the west, and the dying light shone directly into their eyes.
Suddenly Jonathan pointed. “That small black speck—just where the sun is. That’s the Black City?”
Ali Mukhtab nodded. “That is the Black City, the doom of my people for centuries. Ever since we can remember—and our memories reach beyond the days when your palace, Highness, was a palace for the Old Ones—our young people have been called to the Black City. Our masters lived there, the Nameless Ones. They stole our souls and gave us farms and cattle. We swore never to farm again. Legends say we stopped there when we came north, over the Inland Sea. The Nameless Ones welcomed us and asked us to share their land and farm their crops. All this, the legends say, was green and fertile.” Ali’s hand swept over the leagues of empty sand. “When we saw that they were stealing our spirits, we rebelled. We burned them and their city, and all the land turned to dust. After we left, never to return, we built Persopolis, so that we might watch the City, always.”
“How could you burn them out, if they were so powerful?” Gary wanted to know.
“They feared fire above all things,” the man replied. “Their spirits linger in the City, but they cannot pass the circle of fire we placed around their walls.”
“You said they call your young people,” Alex said. “What do you mean?”
The man sighed. “Sometimes a youth or a maiden will awaken in the night and try to ride to the City. If they are stopped, they rave and scream and refuse their food, talking only of the City and of the gods who wish them to come there. If we do not let them go, they starve themselves to death.”
“And if they go, they don’t come back,” Jonathan said quietly.
“Isn’t it better to let them go?” Raoul asked. “Maybe it isn’t the City at all. Your life is—well, it’s harsh. Maybe they really go on to other cities, to live somewhere else.”
“We would like to think so,” the governor of the castle replied. “But we have trained our young to be honest.” His eyes were on Alanna as he said this, and she squirmed. “Those who leave us for the cities go with their families’ blessings—or curses—but they always tell us that is where they go. Those who want the Black City speak only of it, as if they could not lie about it if they tried.”
“It seems cruel to me to tie them up and keep them.” Raoul yawned, settling onto a pillow and pouring himself a glass of wine.
“To the Bazhir, even death by starvation is better than the fate we think awaits them there,” Ali Mukhtab said. “We have another legend—the Bazhir have many legends—that says one day we will be free of the call of the City. It says two gods, the Night One and the Burning-Brightly One, will go into the City to battle with the immortals there. I do not know how true that may be.” The Bazhir smiled. “Some, like Lord Martin, say we have many legends because we possess little else. He is probably right.”
“Your people seem to be old and wise,” Jonathan said. He was standing by the window, watching the last pool of sun disappear into the desert. “It’s too bad no one has written a history of the Bazhir.”
Ali Mukhtab looked at him. His eyes opened wide, fixing Jonathan with his strangely intent gaze. “Are you interested in such things, Highness?”
Jonathan returned that powerful look evenly. “I have to be,” he said. “The Bazhir will be my people too, someday.”
Mukhtab bowed low. “I will see if such a history can be found—or written.”
“I look forward to reading it,” the Prince replied. He followed his friends out into the hall.
“What a story.” Raoul grinned. “Ghouls and ghosts—I wonder what the truth was?”
“The mosaics on the walls hinted that the truth was pretty frightening,” Alex told him.
“The mosaics were done by the Bazhir,” Gary pointed out. “Come on. It’s bedtime and past.”
They made their way to their rooms, not noticing that Alan and Jon lingered behind.
“I wonder who they really were,” Alanna mused. “The Nameless Ones.”
Jon’s voice was casual. “An old enemy, made bigger to scare the young ones, I guess. It’s a sensible idea. There are probably a lot of places in those ruins where a child could get lost. Good night, Alan.”
She glanced sharply at him. First he was very interested in the Bazhir, and now he was saying their legends were stories to scare children. That wasn’t like Jonathan. The carefully innocent look on his face wasn’t like Jonathan, either.
“Good night,” she murmured, turning into her chamber. No one was waiting up for her, Coram being back at the palace. If anyone had thought Alan might get into more trouble than usual without his eagle-eyed servant to watch him, no one had mentioned it.
Alanna blew out the lamp and undressed in the dark, still wondering about Jonathan’s turnabout behavior.
She wakened suddenly, before dawn. Every nerve in her body quivered, as if she were about to take a test in the practice yards. She dressed swiftly, binding herself tight and pulling a loose blue shirt over her head. She tucked the shirt into her breeches, then struggled to get her riding boots over her stockinged feet. Hands trembling, she buckled Lightning and her dagger at her side. She didn’t know why she was in such a hurry, and she didn’t stop to think about it, either. At last she was ready and slid out into the hall.
A light burned in Jonathan’s room. Suddenly it went out. His door opened. Alanna, tucked into a dark niche, watched as the Prince slipped into the hall, fully dressed.
“You must be crazy,” she hissed as he closed his door.
His eyes searched until he found her in the shadows. His teeth flashed in a grin. “Are you coming? I’m going, with you or without you.”
She followed, her well-used boots padding like cat feet on the floor. No one was awake down at the stables. Quickly they saddled their horses. A gold coin bought the cooperation of the large Bazhir stationed at the city gate. Together they rode swiftly into the west.
There was no sand in the Black City, no dust—nothing to show that centuries had passed since people lived there. The streets were hard, black and bare, shining in the sun. The alien buildings—beautifully and carefully carved—rose without break from the rock of the streets. If any tower was not part of the mass of rock beneath their feet, they did not find it. The city rose like a cluster of needles stabbing into the sky.
“It’s very nice,” Alanna said with approval when they were just inside the gate. “Now let’s go back.” She remembered suddenly the vision she had seen of a black city, not once but twice. Was she meant to be here? Well, if she was, she was scared.
“You can go,” her friend replied, running a hand over a carving. “I’m looking around some more.”
Alanna shrugged and followed, her hand on Lightning’s hilt. Maybe this was what she had to do. They explored silently, peering into echoing buildings while the noon sun beat down on their heads. The great towers were bare of everything—furniture, cloth, glass—excep
t the carving that covered the entire city.
Alanna examined these carvings with care. They showed strange animals and stranger people: men with the heads of lions, women with bird’s wings, great cats with human faces. Alanna had never seen anything like it. Now that she had, she wished she hadn’t.
“I don’t see bodies or skeletons,” Jonathan whispered. “Those young Bazhir probably just took off for the cities.”
“Then why are you whispering?” Her voice was equally soft.
The Prince looked around, searching the windows and doorways. “I’m not sure—yes, I am. This place is evil. Whatever has or hasn’t happened here, the city is still evil, through and through.”
“I’m glad we left the horses outside,” was her only answer. As they ventured deeper and deeper into the city, she kept close watch on the doors and windows around them.
They turned a sharp corner, and the city’s central square lay before them. It was a wide, flat reach of stone, carefully polished and yet reflecting no light from its surface. Alanna decided it was like staring into a huge pit covered with glass. It took all her nerve to step onto it, but step she did. The building in the center of the square called to her. Its sides were columns of plain black stone. The roof separated itself from the columns with a border of carving covered with gold. Topping a long rise of stairs, great doors beckoned. She and Jonathan climbed up to the doors, feeling smaller and smaller as they climbed. The doors stood open and waiting. Like the stone of the city, the black wood of the doors was covered with exotic pictures. The edges of the carvings were lined with gold.
When they reached the doors, Lightning began humming, its hilt trembling in Alanna’s hand. “Jonathan—my sword—” she stammered.
“Hm?” The Prince was eyeing the doors.
“I don’t think we should go in. My sword is—it’s humming.”
Jonathan shook his head. “I’m going to find out what’s going on.” He stepped inside the temple.
Alanna tightened her grip on her sword hilt and followed. “You know I can’t let you come in here by yourself,” she snapped as she caught up with him.