The Fate of Falling Stars

by Andrew Penn Romine

Chapter Three: Buried in the Sky

Captain Najh Semekh and his two soldiers formed a wall between Shaba Alemas and me. Drawn scimitars gleamed cold with starlight, while Najh's knife dripped rancid black fluid. I drew my own dagger, trying to catch Shaba's eyes, but they were hidden in pools of shadow. The sleeping roc stirred, the sound of its feathers ruffling like the canvas of a ship under sail.

Shaba raised a hand. At first I thought it in supplication to the assassin, but the words that tumbled from her mouth were more like a prayer. A calloused finger flew to her lips, shushing Najh, and suddenly all sound died away.

A wise precaution, as waking the roc would likely doom us all. Still, the magical silence did nothing to hinder the satrap's assassins, while simultaneously preventing me from using my own magic to salvage the situation. The soldiers advanced, their booted feet silent across the sand-blown floor.

Fortunately, in addition to magic, I had learned a different sort of craft at Aunt Jaffira's knee—the geometries of knife work and the weak places where a halfling's blade might bite deepest. Najh's brows lifted in surprise as I stepped forward. Perhaps he had not expected me to fight. A mere astrologer does not pose much of a threat to a trained soldier, even if that astrologer is a convicted thief.

A thief with a destiny.

I plunged my knife into the back of a soldier's knee, feeling the leather of his high boot pop like a split sausage casing. His legs buckled, and he fell hard to the floor, his mouth open in a ragged, soundless scream. I rewarded him with my fiercest grin, one I was sure that Aunt Jaffira would approve of, then acquainted his face with the sole of my boot. I imagined a satisfying crunch to accompany the spray of blood from his nose. The man sprawled senselessly upon the landing of the precarious stair.

Shaba, her blade still in its scabbard, evaded her assailant's slash and kicked hard at his ankle. He fell sideways, colliding with his comrade on the stairs, mute profanities reddening his face. Najh leapt clear of the fray, scimitar in one hand, poisoned knife in the other. His handsome face was pinched with doubt.

So much for the would-be assassins of the Pierced Rose.

One of the fallen soldiers fought to rise from the tangle of limbs and stumbled—or so I first thought. Only when several stones fell away from the edge of the landing did I realize the truth. The fragile stair was giving way. The fellow made a fruitless attempt to leap over the buckling stonework to the relative safety of the nest, but his efforts only hastened the disintegration of the stair. He and his companion vanished into the gloom below. They fell in eerie silence, and not a stone thundered or echoed at the bottom.

Najh retreated, putting his back to the wall and the gap in the floor to his right. He choked on a lungful of dust rising from the subsidence below. I turned my knife toward him. Once more, the phantom sound of sails rippled in my ears.

"Oh dear," I whispered, glancing to my left. Shaba's spell had fallen along with the soldiers.

Distracted as I was, Najh readied himself for a thrust, but a sudden resonant wind arose. The steady drawing of air prickled the hairs of my neck. A flicker of motion danced in Najh's wide stare, his eyes reflecting the danger like mirrors.

"Raaaarrrrrrrrrrwwwkkkkkkk!"

Forgetting Najh, I turned to face the peril rising behind me. A pair of hungry white moons rose into view. An enormous beak flashed like hammered brass, and at its center a pale, fleshy tongue dripped with slime. The roc stood, buffeting us with grit and a stench like a camel pit in the heat of summer.

To his credit, the assassin was only momentarily deterred. He swept his blade at my head, and when I jumped aside, he surged forward to face Shaba. She had still not drawn her sword.

"Your pacifist dreams end tonight, Shaba Alemas. There will be no more resistance within Sarenrae's church. Qadira's glory will be her own."

Shaba unbelted her sword, though she still refused to draw it from its scabbard.

"That is for Sarenrae to determine," she said.

"How about you and the halfling ask her yourself?"

Najh makes a much better assassin than he does an expedition leader.

"If it's all the same to both of you, I'd rather live!" I shouted.

The roc screamed its disagreement.

The great bird lunged forward, shredding stone with its black talons. The whole of the tower swayed, rolling the eggs, the Eye, and what was left of our expedition decidedly toward the shattered rim of the parapet. The roc took momentarily to the air, confused in its blindness. The Eye of Azzah broke free of the clutch of eggs and accelerated toward the edge of the tower. The heat of its passing pressed me back, but Shaba cried out and threw herself in front of the globe to try and halt its precarious slide.

Najh advanced with a triumphant smile and drove his blades at the distracted hermit.

"Burn," I commanded, spraying flames at the pouncing assassin. Caught within the roiling blast, Najh howled and dropped his sword. His charred fist retained its hold on his dagger, however, and he turned the fury of his glare upon me.

"You'll regret that, you little cur!"

I ran, but the shaking tower caused me to veer closer to the panicking roc. The beast's cries pierced my eardrums nearly as effectively as Shaba's mantra of silence. It grabbed blindly at the nest, trying to save the eggs but only making matters worse. The floor trembled and stones dropped away from the edge of the tower, clattering down the sides as they fell. The giant bird's cries grew shriller as the nest fell apart and the eggs rolled freely. I narrowly avoided a downward-flashing beak, Najh dogging my heels.

I looked up to see the blind eyes of the roc shining in the starlight. Perhaps it dimly recognized the tasty morsel running directly beneath it. The threads of its fate had nearly unraveled—the beast was old, blind, and sick. The desert air that eddied and pooled at the tips of its feathers sang to me. It could barely stay aloft.

Najh's blade swished in the air behind me, trying to sever the threads of my own destiny.

I risked a glance over my shoulder at Shaba. She had managed to halt the Eye from its plunge, her arms wrapped around it. Her face was contorted in a rictus of pain. The heat must have been incredible, and I marveled that the hermit could maintain such a grip. The stench of cooking flesh filled the air, and I knew Shaba wouldn't be able to hold it much longer.

Then I ran straight into a wall of reeking feathers, and had no further time to contemplate Shaba's predicament. Filthy barbs snatched at my hair and plucked at my beard, entangling me in the bird's plumage. Najh had me at his mercy.

Yet fate was not so kind to Najh Semekh. With a groan like the earth itself splitting apart, Shaba rose to her feet, hefting the Eye of Azzah in her blistering hands. With a last, worshipful glance at the writing upon the stone, she hurled it at Najh.

What it must have cost her to give up that stone! And she did it for me.

The stone struck Najh across the kidneys, sending him staggering backward.

Right into the blind pecking of the roc.

Whatever the roc could see, it sensed that at least one violator of its nest was within striking distance, and the great bronze curve of its beak lunged down and plucked the would-be assassin from the floor. The attack dislodged me from the vile black feathers, and I tumbled to the ground.

To his credit, Najh made a valiant fight of it. Despite the razor-keen grip of the beak slicing into his torso, he still struggled, managing to puncture one milky eye with his poisoned blade. The roc lifted fully into the sky, blanketing the tower in a black snow of feathers. With one talon like a cage of wrought iron, it tore the assassin from its beak.

Well, most of him anyway. Much of the rest vanished into the roc's pink gullet or fell as crimson rain upon me.

But the roc was gravely injured by Najh's final blow. It wheeled in a frenzied spiral, pulverizing stones and smashing sun-rotted timbers. I struggled to rise in the heaving chaos. I cried out to Shaba to come nearer, but even as the words formed on my lips, the top of the tower gave way with a roar that drowned out even the roc's dying screech. The surge of rubble carried us all—Shaba, myself, the Eye of Azzah, and the roc itself—out into the nocturnal abyss of the Ketz sky.

A miasma of stinging dust enfolded me, choking out sight and sound and air. But I had already prepared my call to the desert winds, and they congealed beneath me in a pillar like the very breath of the dunes. I righted myself in the column of air and searched the roiling clouds for the hermit.

A fold of homespun wool, fluttering within the billowing dust, caught my eye. A ribbon of her long black hair caught the delicate glint of starlight, and in that brief flash I knew that she had never been destined to be buried in the sky like her revered Azzah. Greater things lay in store.

At my command, the desert winds shifted again, and a finger of air unwound from the body of my rescuing pillar, stretching out to catch her and slow her fall.

The rest of the debris crashed into the desert in a clangorous rumble, burying both the roc and the Eye of Azzah. We touched down atop the rubble several moments later, raising only the barest cloud of dust.

Shaba grimaced when she saw the ruin.

"The satrap nearly had his wish, halfling. You were right." She spat a muddy gob of dust.

"It pains me to be so."

Shaba crouched for long minutes without reply, sifting through the debris. Her hands were blistered from the Eye's touch, and I wondered how she could stand to move them at all. After some few minutes I grew impatient to return to the tower and see if any of the treasures in the interior remained unburied, yet I forced myself to wait. At last, she pulled a fist-sized chunk of heatstone from the pile. Only fragments of Azzah's final words remained. Shaba's expression was as shattered as the Eye.

"The Eye is destroyed," I said.

"But you're safe," she replied. I couldn't tell if it was a curse.

There was a long pause. Then at last I asked the question that hung over us. "Why did you save me, Shaba? It cost you the stone, yet you didn't hesitate."

A rare smile bloomed on her face. It was the crooked grin of someone unused to such expressions of mirth, but I decided I liked it when Shaba smiled.

"Perhaps it was your destiny, Kazzar."

I returned her smile and plucked a large black feather from between two stones. Such a treasure, even with its barbs kinked from the fall, would make a mighty pen, or perhaps adorn a fine new turban.

"We could piece the stone back together," I suggested.

"But it would take many days to gather all the fragments, while the satrap yet plots." She tumbled the fragment of the Eye in her hands. "I had hoped Azzah's stone would unify our temple, but perhaps my own words will have to serve for now."

"We can't go back to Katheer," I said. "At least not yet."

Shaba had climbed down from the rubble to the rocky sand. The sky brightened almost imperceptibly. Sarenrae's glory would rise above the horizon soon. Her hermit-priest raised an eyebrow at me.

"No, it's the best time to return. It will unbalance the conspirators. Force the satrap and his allies among the high priests to acknowledge me. I will not be intimidated. How about you, Haron esh Kazzar?"

I decided, just for that moment, to let Sarenrae's star guide my fate, and followed the priest back to where the camels waited.

Coming Next Week: A sample chapter from Liar's Blade, Tim Pratt's new darkly comic adventure about a thief and his talking sword!

Andrew Penn Romine's short stories have appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, Crossed Genres, Broken Time Blues, Rigor Amortis, and the forthcoming Fungi from Innsmouth Free Press. In addition, he's contributed nonfiction articles and blogs to Lightspeed Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, Inkpunks, and Functional Nerds (as the Booze Nerd). For more information, visit his website andrewpennromine.com or follow him on Twitter at @inkgorilla.

Illustration by Lane Brown.

The Fate of Falling Stars

by Andrew Penn Romine

Chapter Two: The Treasures of the Faithful

The defile descended into shadow as the sun burned itself out along the broad horizon. We left the camels behind, secured within a circle of boulders. The hermit-priest of Sarenrae, Shaba Alemas, led our company by several paces, her coarse robe furrowing trails in the black and yellow dust. Two of the satrap's soldiers followed, casting nervous at the sky in fear of the great roc's return. Captain Najh came next, striding with a wary grace like a desert cat on the hunt. I—palace astrologer, sorcerer, and accused thief—shuffled along ignominiously at the rear. Najh watched me closely, lest I develop a sudden proclivity to flee the vicinity of Azzah's ancient tower and seek the safety of the night.

"Keep up, halfling," Najh hissed, "or we'll tie you up with the camels."

"Never fear, Captain, I'm right behind you."

In truth, I wanted Najh where I could see him. Unbeknownst to the captain, I had glimpsed the sign of the infamous Pierced Rose gang tattooed on his back. Pierced Rose brutes held sway in certain quarters of Katheer and certain disreputable caravanserai. Though renowned enforcers and thugs, they rarely operated in secret—which was extremely fortunate for us. In allowing me to see his tattoo, Najh had proved himself either careless or foolishly overconfident. Or both.

Without question, his main target was Shaba, the young pacifist priest whose splinter sect opposed the satrap's warmongering against Taldor. At the same time, however, I had no illusions that he would suffer any witnesses to live—I had stolen from the satrap's library, after all. No, the real question was why the satrap would employ a criminal rather than simply order our execution, or send us off into the desert on a fool's errand when a simple knife in the dark would do the work just as well. Then the answer came to me.

Martyrs.

There were no other souls in the Ketz Desert to report that Shaba—or Kazzar the Astrologer, for that matter—had died in any other way than in service to the satrap and the Dawnflower. Shaba's people couldn't make her a rallying cry against the satrap and his militant allies in the church. It was clean. Simple.

It was also finished, as of that moment. I refused to die an unknown martyr to someone else's cause. It was not a destiny befitting one who was born under the watchful stars.

The narrow way of the defile twisted toward the tower, and Azzah's resting place finally loomed directly above us. The shallow walls of the track no longer shielded us from the roc's view, so I hoped Shaba was right when she'd deemed it blind. The vast bird still perched atop the tower, motionless against the dark iron sky. A slim rectangular opening, framed by eroding sandstone plinths, beckoned us forward into the eastern vestibule. The entrance had once been deeply inscribed with symbols sacred to the Sun Goddess and painted in vibrant shades of cobalt and yellow, but the desert had scoured all meaning from their surface. Shaba froze mere paces from the door.

"We stand in a sacred place," she whispered, lifting a hand to halt our progress.

Najh raised his head slowly and jerked his chin at the sky.

"The beast may be blind, but is it wise to tarry here, praying until it hears us?" he whispered back.

Shaba narrowed her eyes but said nothing in response. The skin of my neck again prickled, as if with the feet of sand-spiders. Boulders creaked as they cooled. Wind ruffled feathers as black as death high above our heads.

"Might we please just go inside?" I asked, unable to keep the panic from my voice.

Without another word, Shaba vanished into the darkness of the tower. The soldiers, with a final glance skyward, followed close on her heels. Najh spun and grabbed the loose fabric of my tunic, hauling me under the arch of the door.

"You have a part yet to play, Kazzar," he hissed.

"I can assure you I have every intention of seeing this enterprise through, Captain."

Najh smoothed the front of my tunic and gave a thin, reptilian smile, his brassy hair glinting with the first starlight of the evening.

"In that case, there may yet be a way to earn the Satrap's forgiveness for your crimes."

I choked down a retort about which of us might be burdened with the longer list of illicit deeds. Instead, I lied.

"As my Uncle Ilnario is fond of saying, 'No camel has two drivers.' I remain your man, but you must say what you expect from me."

Najh peered into the tower, then back at me.

"His Eminence is as interested in bringing Azzah's final words to Katheer as our rustic friend here. Should some sad fate befall her in that tower, Azzah's secrets must return with us."

I nodded agreeably for Najh's sake, though his meaning was as bright as the edge of a sword. Najh was indeed there to ensure Shaba's tragic fate.

We gathered in the gloom of the eastern vestibule of Azzah's Tower, where arches of sandstone swept upward to mosaics of colored glass and glinting gold, their panes no doubt warded by magic to have survived so many centuries unscathed. Scenes from Azzah's life intermingled with what I supposed were texts sacred to the Dawnflower, their scripture covering the walls. Several panels depicted historical eclipses, but I recognized the significance of little else. Azzah had appointed his tower as a vizier's, with aggrandizements of self woven into every arc and flute of its construction. I decided I liked the old fellow after all.

Shaba traced the outlines of one panel, disappointment muddying the usual fire of zealotry in her eyes. She wiped away layers of dull dust to reveal a colorful mosaic of Azzah receiving tribute from the generals of a surrendering army.

"All to the glory of Sarenrae," I chuckled, my words a bit harsher than I'd intended.

She ignored my jibe. "It's warm."

I ran my hand along the bottom edge of the scene and the patterned border of gold and black stones. The black chips radiated heat, almost enough to burn with prolonged contact on unprotected skin.

"Heatstone!" I exclaimed. "Your Azzah was a wealthy man, to use them for decoration like this. Lucky caravans sometimes have a few in the supply train for cold desert nights. I'd heard that they can sometimes be found in the Ketz Desert, but I had always thought they were mostly found in the garderobes of high nobility."

Her mouth quirked in another semblance of a smile, and her eyes shone with excitement. Sadly, it was not at my wit.

Shaba is pure in her faith, yet it takes more than belief to turn a blade.

"Then it's here," she whispered.

Before I had a chance to ask what she meant, one of the soldiers lit a torch. The golden light chased away the gloom, reflected back in countless tiny mirrors and gilt sun disks. Najh studied a door opposite the entrance, one that led deeper into the tower. It was limned in gold and cobalt glass. He stepped around a chunk of fallen masonry and reached for the door.

"I'm going to secure the next chamber," he said.

"Do you think it's a good idea to go by yourself?" I replied. I didn't want him out of my sight.

Najh favored me with an unctuous smile.

"We must know how much of the interior of the tower stands, lest the roc observe us trooping into his aerie. As the expedition's scout, I've a duty to go."

"Touch nothing, Captain," Shaba warned. "This place is sanctified. It's also Azzah's grave."

Najh returned her admonition with insincere piety.

"I wouldn't dare, Shaba. What do you take me for, a thief?"

My fingertips ached with the fire I longed to call down upon Najh for that remark.

He vanished through the sun door, but his two goons remained, carrying torches and pretending to study the mosaics. Shaba approached an idol of Sarenrae and knelt before it. I wasn't sure how long Najh would be gone, so I followed Shaba and risked interrupting her prayer.

"They mean to kill you," I whispered.

"Fate has decreed that I walk with killers," she replied.

"We should walk away from them."

She shrugged. "You mean well, my friend. But I don't think it's my destiny to die here. The Dawnflower has granted me her favor."

"But the satrap has not," I said, finding myself more than a bit pleased at being called her friend. "And he has allies amongst your fellowship that eagerly seek war."

"But we serve the same goddess. Despite appearances, the church of the Dawnflower in Katheer remains open to a more peaceful way."

"Perhaps. But what of the satrap and his ministers who plot war against the north? They rile your fellow priests to righteous anger and lead them down the path of violence—the same path that you preach against. What do those ministers think of the meddling hermit out of the desert, I wonder?" I jabbed a finger at her ragged tunic.

"I do not know what sins you are expiating out here, Kazzar, but do not shroud this holy mission in your paranoia."

"Think about it, Shaba. If you vanish in the desert, there will be one fewer voice of opposition to the satrap's plans. The Dawnflower's dervishes may well go to war even if the nation cannot, manipulated by the schemes of devious nobles."

Najh's soldiers grew suspicious of our whispering and began examining a panel nearer to us. I changed the subject.

"Tell me more about your 'holy mission,' Shaba," I said loudly.

For all her apparent dislike of subterfuge, she replied without missing a beat. "Azzah the Prophet lived eight hundred years ago and fostered a strictly nonviolent sect that worshipped Sarenrae."

"Yet you still carry a sword," I observed. Shaba ignored my jibe. She was growing adept at that.

"When he was aged and near death, his most trusted followers vanished into the desert, leaving behind only a handful of scrolls with his core teachings. But he left a promise that before he died his truest message yet would be delivered to those who followed the Dawnflower."

"And the final homily never came?"

Shaba shook her head.

"Indeed. Though word did come that he'd constructed a tower somewhere in the depths of the Ketz Desert and offered his body to the beasts of the air."

I shuddered. Sky burial was an ancient practice, and not much in fashion with the civilized folk of Qadira these days. A roc nesting at the top of the tower suddenly seemed too convenient a coincidence. Such portents were not to be taken lightly.

"It seems the beasts of the air never left," I said. Shaba raised a knuckle to her lips, thinking over my words.

"Perhaps the roc serves as the guardian of Azzah's spirit," she said, dismay plain in her voice.

Najh returned from the next room with a wolfish smile.

"The interior is intact. There's a stair through the ceiling into another chamber."

"And what did you see there?" I asked.

"The treasures of a faithful man," he replied, his eyes shining.

Najh motioned for us to follow. Shaba rose, absently tracing the pommel of her sword with one finger. I wondered if the priest would trust in her fate or in her sword when the time came to choose.

It was cold in the innermost chamber of Azzah's Tower, insulated as it was from the desert's glare by thick walls. Four vestibules ringed that central core: north, west, south, and finally east, the chamber where we had entered. The western portal was filled with debris and sand, but the others stood open, and I longed to explore them as Najh clearly had. Despite the glint of gold from objects in those shadowed chambers, the tower walls here were less ostentatious in their proclamations of Azzah's glory, with little adornment save repeating icon of Sarenrae and the holy rays of her sun.

Shaba made immediately for the stair that wound its way up the core and into an upper chamber. Najh halted her.

"Wait," he said, gesturing to one of his soldiers.

The man held his torch as high as he could, peering into the gloom above. Then, unsheathing his sword, he mounted the first step. The stones shifted under the tread of his boots, showering dust and flakes of rock. One stone fell loose, thumping to the floor with a dreadful echo. I froze, awaiting a sudden death of falling stones, feathers, and talons, but if the roc heard, it made no response.

"We must mind our step." Shaba said, following the soldier over the missing stone.

A simple spell could have carried me up into the darkness as if on the desert winds, but Najh gave a slight bow and waved me onto the fragile stair. My misgivings intensified when he and the other soldier also drew their swords. The hole where the step had rested gaped like a missing tooth in a mouthful of fangs—and we were marching right into the gullet.

We climbed the stairs with utmost caution, my legs quickly developing painful cramps from the slow, careful steps. The soldiers kept their swords drawn, and my spine writhed like a serpent as I anticipated the kiss of a blade. I kept a spell close to quickening in my mind, in case a sudden escape should become necessary. If Najh meant to kill me, he appeared not to be in a hurry, and so we gained the upper chamber without incident.

It was a large spherical hall sectioned into eighths by gilt buttresses like the ribs of an orange. The stair continued around its circumference, eventually winding through a portal in the roof, framed with more sunbursts that led further up into the tower.

Around us, the treasures of Azzah's life were piled in haphazard fashion: chests of worm-eaten silks, tarnished plate of silver and brass, patinaed copper trade ingots from bygone caravans, and small caskets of glinting coin and glittering jewels. There was no doubt significant value to Azzah's storehouse, but with one camel now in the belly of the roc, I feared we would not be able to carry it all away.

As with the rooms below, frescoes of Sarenrae's legends intermingled with scenes from Azzah's life. Here was a brightly painted scene of his miraculous birth under an eclipse; there as a young man, already with a prophet's braided beard, turning away an invading army and welcoming their commanders as his followers. A large painting spread across the top quarter of the room; Azzah's exile from Katheer, his former students taking up the sword, and the final moments of his sky burial where huge black vultures carried gobbets of his flesh into the heavens. I shuddered involuntarily at the last one.

Shaba fell to her knees, her eyes shimmering like muddy oases.

"The Eye! It is here!"

I followed her pointing finger to a detail on a mosaic. It depicted a large globe of black stone atop a pedestal near the vultures feasting on Azzah's corpse. Indecipherable writing wrapped its surface and gold panels of light radiated like sunbeams. Magical lines of force perhaps, but I recalled the tiny heatstones in the mosaics below.

"If it's still here, Shaba, then I fear it warms the nest of the roc upstairs." A thrill of pleasure welled up from my toes to the crown of my head to see the sudden look of dismay on Najh's face.

"That is the artifact you and the satrap seek?" Najh asked, his eyes narrowed.

Shaba nodded, her face grave.

"The Eye of Azzah contains his final words of peace, his last revelation of reconciliation. What did you expect, Captain?" Immersed in the study of a casket of gemstones, I still registered Shaba's contempt.

"Traipsing into the roc's nest is beyond foolish," Najh said, his voice flat.

"Shaba and I can go alone if you'd like," I offered. "It shouldn't take us but a minute to steal the Eye and roll it back down the stairs."

Najh flashed his canine teeth.

"Your intention is noble, but perhaps it would be wiser if we stuck together, Kazzar."

Shaba couldn't contain her fervor any longer. She raced to the stair and gained a quarter turn before Najh's soldiers caught on. I darted ahead of them as well, a sudden elation burning within me. The stairs of the sun chamber were more fragile than those below, and so I kept my charm of rescue ready in case I should trip and fall.

Destiny is not always a burden. It can lighten the heart and fire the soul. I had known that I would see and do great things all my life, as a result of the stars that rose above my head the night of my birth. As I raced up the stairs, I saw Shaba returning with the Eye to Katheer and being welcomed as a hero, gaining a following to rival even Azzah's. I saw the satrap helpless before her persuasions, and Najh and his men executed as thieves of Sarenrae's temple. Most of all I saw myself elevated to vizier, vital to all commerce between the Sarenites and the Qadiran government. And after that, who knew how much further I might rise?

But the mirage of glory vanished when I reached the top of the crumbling stair.

The uppermost chamber of Azzah's Tower had collapsed, penetrated by a sky blacker than a pit. Atop one crumbling battlement, the roc slept, its vast hunched shape blotting out most of the cold, glinting stars. Wind-scoured stones ringed its nest, where a half-dozen eggs the size of sheep lay. Marbled in green and gold, they lay basking in the warmth of a globe of solid black rock.

The Eye of Azzah.

Just one of those eggs would fetch a generous sum in Katheer, but the Eye was beyond price. I strained to make out the tiny inscriptions in gold and silver across its face, ancient Kelish words which swam before my eyes. Shaba stood silent, quivering before it. Her face was lit with holy rapture, a sheen of reflected starlight that bespoke a destiny greater than perhaps even my own. I owe little to the gods that move above and below this world, but I saw a working of their will in Shaba's suddenly humble frame.

Then from within the eggs came the dull scraping of chicks nearing their hatching time. The foreboding racket so transfixed my attention that I almost missed Najh's quiet, nasty chuckle and the sleek rasp of a dagger being drawn.

"Now is the moment, Haron esh Kazzar," he whispered.

Whatever Shaba Alma's destiny, it seemed that fate had other plans for her.

And for me.

Coming Next Week: Heroes caught between a roc and a hard place in the thrilling conclusion Andrew Penn Romine's "The Fate of Falling Stars"!

Andrew Penn Romine's short stories have appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, Crossed Genres, Broken Time Blues, Rigor Amortis, and the forthcoming Fungi from Innsmouth Free Press. In addition, he's contributed nonfiction articles and blogs to Lightspeed Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, Inkpunks, and Functional Nerds (as the Booze Nerd). For more information, visit his website andrewpennromine.com or follow him on Twitter at @inkgorilla.

Illustration by Lane Brown.

The Fate of Falling Stars

by Andrew Penn Romine

Chapter One: The Rose and the Star

The future is not so mysterious, to those of us who know how to read the turning roof of the sky. When that array of glittering stars beckons you to the gilded paths of fortune, you know you are destined for greatness.

Still, bracing myself on an outcropping of black rock, the remnant of some ancient volcanism or arcane calamity, I wondered if perhaps the stars had other plans for me. I stood blinking into the westering sun at the rim of a shallow valley deep within the desert of Ketz, buffeted by a wind like a belch from a reeking furnace. I wrapped my keffiyeh tightly around my face, but the sand still ground in my teeth as I clamped my mouth shut.

Despite the fearful wasteland, the promising allure of ancient treasure beckoned before me. A hill of black and red stones loomed above the shimmering desolation, crowned by a squat flat-topped tower seemingly as old as the Ketz Desert itself. Azzah's Tower—just where I had calculated it must be. Even through the drift of centuries, polar Cynosure had pointed me true on my star charts.

A short slide back down the slope deposited me in the minimal shelter of the defile that wound like an ancient road toward the tower. My minders awaited me beside their camels, a company appointed by the satrap himself to ensure I read my star charts accurately. Four were warriors, clad in layers of ochre leather and black cloth and bristling with the tools of their trade—scimitar, dagger, and a keen impatience for a halfling astronomer.

Najh Semekh, their captain, a human with a touch of the ifrit in his brassy hair, sneered down at me with impatient disdain dulling his chestnut eyes. Resentment pinched his brow and darkened the planes of his face. I imagined he thought himself handsome and witty, but after four weeks in the desert I'd grown weary of his counterfeit charm. As a scout in the satrap's service, he claimed familiarity with the Ketz's trackless waste, but it was I who predicted the tower's actual location, not he.

"What do you see yonder, thief?" Najh inquired. "Is this the right place?"

I allowed a smile to blossom and inclined my head in a semblance of a bow. I still bristled at the epithet "thief," as it was hardly a fitting title for Haron esh Kazzar, palace astrologer. It was perhaps accurate, however, for I'd been caught in the satrap's personal library with an armload of scrolls and a thin, rare volume of star-lore tucked in my sash. One parchment of particular interest detailed possible locations for the time-lost tower. Explaining that I had intended only to borrow the items in question for an evening of study failed to move the guards, the magistrate, or indeed the satrap himself.

"A tower, just where your ancient survey map indicated. In a few short hours, the sign of the Stranger will rise behind it, and you will have your proof. Of course, there's only one among us who can ultimately confirm that we have found Azzah's fabled tower."

I pointed to our final companion, kneeling beyond the circle of Captain Najh and his warriors. Shaba Alemas, a human in a sand-colored robe befitting a hermit, was compact and muscular; even her long black hair had been braided close around her head. Her exact age eluded me, for the elements had etched her skin, but a youthful vitality remained in the flash of her topaz eyes. Where Najh chattered constantly, hers was a more phlegmatic demeanor. Now she knelt in prayer, her sun-dry lips moving in silent communion with the goddess she served—Sarenrae, the Dawnflower.

I held little patience for the cult of the Dawnflower—they placed such importance on the sun's course across the sky that they consigned the rest of the stars to a lesser role. But Shaba Alemas seemed to me touched by starlight. I saw its delicate tracery along the rough line of her jaw and the pale whirl of her eyes. Despite her rustic appearance and stolid devotion to her goddess, she would rise to great things someday.

The satrap, hungering for war with the north, encouraged the more militant devotees of her holy order to fits of zealotry and righteousness. I had naturally assumed Shaba one of these at first, for she held her chin high and spoke of Sarenrae's great divinity. However, she armored herself with only her faith, a homespun robe, and a scimitar she strapped to her belt but never drew.

Shaba ceased her prayer and fixed me with a penetrating look.

"This is the place. Fate and our astrologer have led us true."

Najh laughed, the short bark of a jackal.

"Indeed, and I suppose my efforts leading us through the desert were inconsequential?"

Shaba inclined her head and lifted one knotted brow.

"You and your men have my utmost thanks as well, Captain Najh."

The corners of Najh's mount twitched in estimation of the value of Shaba's gratitude. I had seen similar expressions on my own Aunt Jaffira's face when receiving poor bids for her camels. If Shaba noticed, she made no remark, but stood and prepared to remount.

"You think it's fate that brought us here, Sister Shaba?" I asked. "In truth, I supposed my destiny might lead me to a less wretched spot."

Every scholar is a thief at heart.

"Fate and destiny aren't the same, astrologer. I thought you of all people might understand that."

"So fate is living out your days in the desert with a few crazy followers, and destiny is to be well-remembered for it?" I laughed, but Shaba found no humor in my jibe.

"Azzah was a devoted servant of the Dawnflower," Shaba said, "and his final words will heal the rift in my church. This is his destiny. And it's also mine."

As if in mockery, a camel suddenly brayed, and the other beasts stamped in sympathetic restlessness, crunching the gravel of the narrow defile. The wind died, and in the odd stillness my heart thrashed in my chest. Something was wrong.

Where there had been none a moment ago, a cloud moved across the sun, plunging us into shadow. One of the soldiers cried out as a rush of hot air returned, blasting down the gully counter to the previous wind. In the premature night, there was the whooshing of a great bellows. Immense pinions fretted the sky, and a carrion-stench fouler than the backside of a camel clawed at my throat. The camels groaned in terror even as the sun returned, and the soldiers struggled to control them. Only Shaba's beast remained placid.

A great shriek ripped open the cobalt sky, forcing our hands to our ears. One of Najh's soldiers lost the battle with his mount, and the creature raced from the defile, bleating in terror, dragging the poor man behind. Shaba moved with phenomenal speed, hurtling into the open after the fleeing beast.

"No!" I shouted, knowing the death that wheeled through the vault of the sky. It was the great terror of the desert, a bird of prey that dined on elephants and camels as well as unlucky travelers and foolish seekers.

The roc.

Fright numbed my good sense, and I raced after Shaba, though my legs didn't carry me so fast up the scree. Najh, his eyes wide with surprise, made no move to follow even though it was his man in peril. From the corner of my eye, I witnessed a curious gleam in the captain's eye and doubted it was from tears shed for his soldier.

I slid down the other side of the scree to the heat-blasted stones of the plain. The bleating camel and its doomed rider had already traversed a hundred paces in the opposite direction from the tower, but was still well within view of the vast black bird that rushed from the east like a hungry cloud. The cruciform spread of its ink-black feathers cut a hole in the vault of the sky. The copper flash of its hooked beak like the prow of a merchant ship dazzled my eyes. Shaba ran ahead of me, the ragged edge of her anchorite's robe dragged the ground and cast small dust devils in her wake.

I cursed myself as a fool for following. What was it to me if Shaba met her end in the gullet of a roc? Surely we could still collect whatever artifacts the satrap wished us to acquire without her help. I didn't relish the thought of the trip back across the desert at Najh's mercy, as I suspected he was as tired of my company as I was of his, but that alone was no reason to risk my life.

No, in truth, it was the starshine in Shaba's eyes that drew me. Few of us are touched thus by fate, or destiny, or whatever the dour hermit chose to name it. To lose her to such ignominious circumstances would be a tragedy.

Shaba, focused on saving the soldier, ran headlong into the roc's path. I'd thus far avoided calling upon my star-granted gifts within Najh's sight, lest he think me capable of completing this expedition by sorcery alone. Yet I wouldn't stand by as the hermit tried to martyr herself.

The heavenly motions of the stars are ever smooth, without the slightest hitch or friction. It was this aspect of the sky that I took into myself and then cast out, into the sands in front of Shaba, making them as slick as oiled glass. Her feet slid out from under her, and she fell hard to the ground just as the great black roc dived.

The camel and its hapless rider were beyond my help, and the bird snatched them into the air with an exultant screech that nearly made my ears bleed. Enormous feathers fluttered over the desert, each worth a sizable amount of coin to the right buyer. I calculated the risk of collecting at least a few, but the roc, unbalanced with its struggling load, still wheeled overhead.

I crawled to Shaba and touched the hermit upon the heel.

"We must crawl back to the defile. Slowly, before it notices us."

"I could've saved that man, halfling."

I shrugged, indicating with two fingers crooked into a beak-shape what her likely fate would have been.

"I suspected you had a gift with sorcery," she said, her eyes still fixed on the circling roc.

"Don't tell Najh. He'll expect miracles."

What might have been the ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of Shaba's mouth.

"We need you in Azzah's Tower, sister. I'm not going in there with just the satrap's men."

"Aren't you the satrap's man?" she sneered.

"Only as much as it pleases me to be."

"You're a curious one, Kazzar. I haven't decided to what purpose Sarenrae has fated us to meet."

"Perhaps to many purposes, Sister Shaba. My fate is guided by more than one star."

The roc, still clutching its prize, turned toward the tower. It alighted there, tearing into its meal and shrieking out across the valley. The dying sun silhouetted a gobbet of meat as it vanished down the roc's feathered gullet. Deep in my belly, there came a fluttering of tiny wings.

"The roc has picked a most inopportune place to nest."

Shaba nodded, her smile growing.

"But sorcerer," she said quietly, "did you remark upon its eyes as it circled past us? Milky as quartz. Its beak is cracked with age, and its feathers droop most raggedly."

The news warmed my spirit like a gallon of Taldane brandy.

"If it's blind, then we might be able to approach the tower after all," I said. "As long as we're quiet, of course."

"And the wind is in our favor. It is fateful."

The fervor in her stony blue eyes again befitted not so much an anchorite, but a martyr.

We crawled back to the defile, where Najh received us with callous relief that we had survived.

"Hulf was a good soldier," he said, his sincerity vaporous enough to see through.

"Sister Shaba did all she could to prevent his death, Captain," I replied. The man had plenty of reason to dislike me, but the look he cast at Shaba's back as she walked away tingled my spine with the breaths of a thousand sand-spiders.

"Leave the camels here," Shaba commanded, tying the reins of her camel to a horn of rock. "We can proceed to the tower on foot."

"With the roc up there?" Najh asked, clearly chafing under orders that weren't his own.

"It's blind, or nearly so. If we proceed slowly and quietly, we've got hope of gaining entry to the eastern vestibule undetected."

Najh crooked his jaw, weighing Shaba's plan, his eyes lit with calculation cold enough to bring snow to the desert. Then he nodded. As he turned to lead his remaining men down the defile after the priest, I saw that his fight to control his mount had left his tunic askew, revealing a patch of flesh at the base of his neck. There on his bare skin was a symbol scribed of darkest hues: a drooping rose bisected with a needle.

I had learned something of my family's trade before the stars called me away. Camel trading. Caravanserai supply. The selling of secrets. At Uncle Ilnario's knee I had learned of the true centers of power in Katheer, and that not all of them resided in the satrap's palace. The Pierced Rose was a sign of one of the most notorious mercenary gangs in all of Qadira. Indelicate thugs, those wearing the Pierced Rose relied mostly on their reputation for violence to solve problems. To find that Najh was one of their number was no small omen of trouble.

And I placed great significance in such signs.

Coming Next Week: Venture into the roc's tower in Chapter Two of "The Fate of Falling Stars"!

Andrew Penn Romine's short stories have appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, Crossed Genres, Broken Time Blues, Rigor Amortis, and the forthcoming Fungi from Innsmouth Free Press. In addition, he's contributed nonfiction articles and blogs to Lightspeed Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, Inkpunks, and Functional Nerds (as the Booze Nerd). For more information, visit his website andrewpennromine.com or follow him on Twitter at @inkgorilla.

Illustration by Lane Brown.