Free The Fate of Falling Stars by Unknown Page B

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