Chapter 1 #3
“Oh, what I would give to take one of these things apart and see how it works,” Tinbu said longingly, reaching out as though to touch the gears in the back of a musician. “It must sound like quite the party.”
“It is not a party they are attending.” A good deal taller than my friends, I spotted what the armed statues were guarding. Or rather, who. “It’s a funeral.”
Lying upon the dais was a corpse. Though her skin was now shriveled leather, she had clearly been embalmed and set to rights with care.
Gold circled her wrists and ankles, silver rings on each finger, and clusters of carnelian, lapis, and pearl ornaments hung from her ears.
An elaborate headdress with winged panels and a rising sun was set upon her head, tangled with grimy remnants of intricate braids.
What had likely once been an unfathomably expensive multilayered silk gown of green and saffron draped her wizened form, slowly turning to dust. Quicksilver covered her eyes, offering an eerie mirror of the sinkhole’s roof.
And because I am cursed, because nothing about the magical world can ever be easy, a marble mortar rested in her dead hands.
Hovering over it, clearly guarding both the Mortar of Mithridates and the dead woman, were two automatons.
Both were enormous, one carrying a glistening bronze scimitar, the other bearing an unreasonably large, spiked club.
I grimaced. “What are the odds I’m able to successfully pluck the mortar from her hands?”
“Slim to none.” Dalila pointed to a sandstone plinth behind the woman. “Look there. Is that an engraving?”
“Perhaps a tomb marker.” I moved closer, studying the large expanse of yellow sandstone.
A message had been inscribed in four different languages: ancestral variants of Malayalam, Persian, Greek, and Tamil, judging from the vague familiarity of the alphabets.
Deciphering them was beyond me, but the message must have been important to be repeated in multiple tongues.
—Ay, do not pester me, Jamal. Yes, yes, I know. Had I invited you along, you would have been able to read the warning. You don’t have to get snippy about it.
—Because I wished to protect you! How often must we clash over this subject? You were barely more than a child at the time. And I thought you desired me to recount events as they unfolded, mmm? Without “scholarly interference”? Then let me continue.
Dalila drew nearer; if a people had written a book of poisons, she had learned to read their tongues, and both Persian and Greek were among the many in her head.
“The language is archaic, but if I piece together some of the familiar words . . .” She squinted.
“Her name was Nilani. She was a physician here when a great pestilence struck. A Roman trade delegate in the port offered her this mortar, saying it had belonged to one of their enemies, a man reputed to have used it to create cures for any ailment. She was able to work up a remedy and save her people, but the mortar carried a cost they didn’t realize .
. .” Her voice softened. “The life of the one who would use it.”
“Magic always has a price.” I glanced around the silent treasure-laden sinkhole with its uncanny automaton attendants. “Is this a memorial? Were these goods meant to accompany her to their afterlife?”
Dalila shook her head. “I am not certain. The following phrases are more difficult to translate, but it seems this chamber is meant as a . . . gift? A lure? Her followers wished to attract divinities and future persons who might be able to revive her.”
“She must have been greatly loved,” Tinbu said quietly.
“Indeed.” I murmured a prayer for the martyred woman before me. “Though I fear she is long past revival. Does the marker say anything about the mortar?”
“Yes, it warns that it is the only item off-limits,” Dalila replied. “Visitors are welcome to any valuables they desire as long as they attempt to help the physician or carry her story onwards. But death awaits those who touch the mortar.”
“Because the mortar kills those who use it or because those things will?” I asked, gesturing to the automatons.
“It does not specify.”
Of course not. I glanced around the beach, hoping to see a lance or something of similar length that we could use to knock the mortar from her hands, but as though the physician’s followers had anticipated this method of grave robbing, there was nothing longer than Dalila’s staff, and that would put us closer to the metal warriors than seemed wise.
The beach abruptly dimmed, the setting sun slipping past the sinkhole’s distant entrance. We still had to find a way to escape this place and not desiring to try our luck after nightfall, I made a decision.
“All right.” I considered the distance and height of the dais. “The rest of you stand back. God willing, if I sprint fast enough—”
Dalila grabbed my arm. “Do not be ridiculous. By the Most High, Amina, it’s as though you actively seek out the most dangerous option.
” She glanced at Tinbu, nodding at his crossbow.
“You’ve been looking for an opportunity to play with Yusuf’s present.
Do you believe you could knock the mortar from her hands? ”
Tinbu toyed with his mustache. “The crossbow packs a powerful punch, but the mortar looks heavy. I would have to be close and get the angle just right.”
“Too close,” I said, with an adamant shake of my head. “Not with your leg. If you need to lunge back . . .”
But Tinbu was already loading a bolt. “I am well aware of my limitations, thank you,” he said, with a pointed stare at my bad knee.
“But you cannot always be the one to put yourself at risk, and I am from this land. If any of us are to disturb her, it should be me.” He positioned himself at the edge of the dais.
Then, whispering a prayer to his gods, Tinbu aimed his crossbow. “Forgive me, my lady.”
He took the shot.
God be praised, the bolt hit the mortar with just enough force to tip it from the dead physician’s hands. It wobbled, rocking back and forth, then tumbled off her withered chest and rolled to the floor.
And not a heartbeat after the mortar left her fingers, the automatons attacked.
The one bearing the scimitar dashed his weapon over the corpse, missing the body by a hair as his fellow with the club smashed down in rhythm with the scimitar strikes.
Had an actual person been standing there, having just plucked away the Mortar of Mithridates, they’d have been sliced and pulverized more thoroughly than mincemeat before they could scream.
Majed swallowed loudly. “I’m starting to regret my promise to accompany you on these quests.”
I snorted in disbelief. “Brother, please. You would partake in even more dangerous misadventures than this to improve the navigational sciences.” With Dalila’s staff, I dragged the mortar closer.
Making sure not to touch it with my bare hands, I wrapped the Transgression in a thick roll of leather before placing it in a saddlebag. “Let us go.”
“There is still the treasure,” Tinbu pointed out, hope in his voice. “Surely we have a few moments to—”
Dalila interrupted. “Do you hear that grinding?”
And then every fucking automaton turned to face us.
The ground rumbled with movement, the piles of riches beginning to shiver and collapse.
Gold coins rained down alongside dirt and rocks from the sinkhole’s quaking walls, and the marble dais suddenly opened to swallow the long-dead healer.
Several of the seated statues stood up in jerky motions, raising their carving knives.
“No time for treasure!” I shouted, urging my companions to the glass boat. “Run!”
But the ground was shaking so badly that Majed stumbled, sprawling to the sand as an automaton swooped in his direction.
He threw up his hands to protect himself and I rushed between them.
I smashed my sword into the automaton’s brass chest, gasping at the mechanical figure’s heft.
Had I been a normal human, it would have crushed me as easily as a gnat.
However, I had not been normal in quite some time. With another blow, I knocked the automaton away from Majed.
“Go!” I cried, yanking my navigator to his feet and then swinging around to topple another looming machine.
The automatons appeared to be rolling along tracks concealed beneath the sand—limited but hidden paths we could not predict.
I bashed and smashed the automatons away from my companions, narrowly avoiding getting run over by a mechanical horse as we raced for the boat.
Metal birds were screeching, the song more piercing than any whistle.
I resisted the instinct to cover my ears, instead throwing my friends bodily into the vessel and then pushing it into the water.
“We don’t have any paddles!” Tinbu shouted.
“Dalila, give me your staff!” I pulled myself into the boat, dripping with the sinkhole’s muck.
She handed over the staff but before I could attempt to pole us away, a thunderous crack broke the air. The brick walls of the chamber splintered and gave way, a great rush of water bursting from behind them.
In an instant, the entire beach memorial was gone, engulfed by the deluge. In another heartbeat, the turbulent water had risen so high that the canal we originally traveled through was blocked.
Majed gasped. “What now?”
The boat was spinning like a potter’s wheel in the wild churn, ascending as the floodwaters rose higher and higher still, as though a bottle being filled. The sinkhole’s distant opening was no longer so distant.
My heart skipped. “I believe we’re making a skyward exit—hold on!” I gave my companions little choice, shoving their heads down, ducking my own, and gripping the sides of the narrow glass boat, trying to keep them pinned to the bottom.
We burst out of the overflowing sinkhole like a fishing bobber.
But the floodwaters did not cease, washing over the land and swallowing what remained of mighty Muziris as the earth continued to quake and buried the rest. A wave, the grace of God, and the frighteningly remarkable engineering of the solid glass boat carried us through the drowning jungle, as trees and ancient ruins groaned and crashed around us, the only sounds louder than our screams. As if determined to be well and truly rid of the upstart modern folks who’d disturbed its rest, the wave dumped us in the ocean, a new floodplain all that was left of one of the grandest ports of history.
No one spoke or even peeked up for a very long time, our winded breaths set against the distant sound of collapsing trees until I finally sat up, my heart racing, to survey the destruction we had narrowly escaped.
“Dalila . . .” I exhaled. “I think you lost part of that warning in translation.”
She was too busy throwing up over the side to argue.
Tinbu had his fingers clasped against his mouth, staring at what had once been Muziris with mortification. “No one tell my family about this.”
Majed was gripping the sides of his head as though to stop the world from spinning. “I would be happy to entirely forget this night. Please tell me you kept the mortar?”
I hefted the saddlebag. “One more Transgression retrieved.”
Relief creased his face. “God be praised.”
“I, ah, also did not leave empty-handed,” Tinbu confessed, drawing a pearl necklace out of his pocket.
Dalila turned around to reveal a jade wine cup stuffed in her belt. “Did you one better,” she wheezed, still green.
I shook my head in exasperation. “The two of you accuse me of risking my life and yet here you are, grabbing treasure when you should’ve been running—”
Majed coughed. Then—with a coy, victorious expression—he withdrew the enormous gem-encrusted golden collar the statue that attacked him had been wearing.
The ornament was hefty enough to be a weapon itself; the gold of visibly superb quality, the flawless emeralds, opals, beryls, and diamonds all perfectly cut.
He let it fall heavily to his chest. “I believe I’ve won this round.”
Dalila snorted. “Still full of surprises, old man.”
He smiled, a bit more bashfully. “I figured we could sell it and share the profits among the crew . . . with perhaps a diamond or two left for my wife.”
“You have earned yourself several more years of me calling you a pirate,” I chided, but I wasn’t going to begrudge treasure in our hands. “However, yes: diamonds for Nasteho and the Marawati for us. Now, let’s go home.”