FSE

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Under a ghostly dawn beyond the firelight of the camp, the desert began to sink. Miles of sterile dunes sagged to form a shallow depression, a wide valley, and finally a colossal canyon ringed by rust-colored cliffs of exposed bedrock.

Shere winced at the sound of the sand. Its sinister whisper had begun late the previous night, filling his dreams with omens of death and destruction and things better left forgotten. Though the journey through the Khardahai had been long and hard it was only now, so near its end, that he began to feel misgivings.

"Get your head together, bear," Adalard said, breaking Shere from his rumination. The fennec had approached unseen and now stood on the other side of the fire, boiling water for coffee.

"I'm fine," Shere said, sounding more bitter than he intended. "I just slept poorly."

"So did I, in truth." Adalard looked blankly into the fire for a moment. Then his ears lifted and his face brightened. "You should have called me to your tent. I could have tired you out."

The tension eased and the bear chuckled. "Who would tire out whom? In ten minutes, I would turn you to jelly."

"Prove it."

"Some night on the way back, I will."

Adalard was the only friend Shere had made among the crew. The bear was initially drawn to him because he spoke Aprean, a language close enough to Penemerish for the two to communicate fluently (though the difference in formal registers caused some friction at first). It also didn't hurt that the small fox was attractive, bright, and constantly flirtatious.

The other hirelings, motley dozens from all corners of Uborea, mainly spoke Doletan or Ellaran and had shown little interest in the foreign bear. As the sun crawled toward the horizon, those crewmates now woke and filtered toward the center of camp to join Shere and Adalard. Somewhere to the west, one of Captain Yesui's lieutenants walked among the tents and hammered an iron pan like a bell to wake the laggards and soon a dense crowd converged around the fires. Uneasy anticipation filled the air.

Two of Yesui's attendants appeared and erected her wooden speaking platform. The captain wasted no time hopping onto it, and the unruly crowd fell silent at the sight of her. The desert hare's oversized ears and short stature failed to diminish her air of menace, aided in no small part by her habit of resting her paw on her holstered flintlock.

"The engineers say we have twenty minutes, so I'll spare the formalities," she said in Doletan, and the translators scattered throughout the crowd repeated her words in various other tongues. None spoke Penemerish, of course, but Shere had picked up enough of the local language to follow her meaning.

"First of all," she said, "if you have a fear of heights, take a strong drink now because when that sand finishes draining, we're going a thousand kil down.

"Otherwise, you all know the plan. When we reach the bottom we split up, grab every valuable in sight, and get back to the lifts the second the sun is over the ridge. At noon, that sand will fill back in faster than you would believe and you don't want to be down there when it happens.

"One last thing." She tilted her head forward and angled her ears toward the crowd, as she always did when she meant to emphasize a point. "Those who paid for our journey here expect a return from their investment. If any of you fail to bring back enough spoils to pay your share, they will find a way to recover that debt, and their methods of doing so will be infinitely more terrible than anything you will encounter in the Mirage City today."

She flicked her gun out of its holster, pointed it toward the sky, and cried out, "Who here wants to get rich?"

This galvanized the crowd in a way the rest of her short speech had not. The hirelings roared their enthusiasm, fired guns of their own in the air, and clinked together flasks of liquor to toast the success of the venture. Even Shere was taken with the positive energy as he and the others made their way to the lifts.

Working through the night, the crew's engineers had found shallow sand at the edge of what would become the chasm, drilled anchors into the bedrock, and constructed wooden frames from the lumber the party had been hauling since Arkorat. These frames now held huge wooden platforms suspended over the cliff edge by pulleys and thick rope. As the crew approached, the engineers were loading the platforms with stone weights to test their strength.

Meanwhile, at dozens of points along the edge of the still-deepening chasm, other parties making similar preparations stood silhouetted against the rising sun. It was said that any who set out for the Mirage City returned in riches or not at all, and so its inexplicable emergence every six years drew scholars, plunderers, and explorers from across the continent.

Shere, who had left the rocky isles of Penemere for the first time only a year before, could hardly resist the opportunity. He had heard legends of the elder places all his life - the Inverted Towers, the Wailing Labyrinth, the Onyx Palace, and so many others, and burned to lay eyes on them. Secretly, he even held a naive belief that he would be the first to unravel their mysteries.

As they filed into queues, Adalard asked, "Ready to go, bear?"

"Ready to collect double the loot that you do, fennec," Shere teased.

"I'll have collected a dozen diamonds before you've crossed your first street, lumbering oaf."

"As if your tiny paws could hold that much, runt."

A cry from the engineers drew Shere's attention. He turned in time to see one of the ropes snap under the strain of the test weight, the platform and its cargo silently vanishing over the edge.

Seeing the startled look on Shere's face, Adalard said, "Don't worry. I overheard them saying they would overload one of the lifts intentionally. That way they know how much weight they can handle."

Shere could not stop thinking about the fallen platform. Hundreds of tons of sand would soon return to smother it, and it would remain part of the Mirage City forever. It was hard not to imagine himself or Adalard suffering the same fate, becoming dessicated corpses swallowed by the whispering sand. Moreover, as he looked at the dumbfounded faces of the engineers, Shere was not so sure that the break really had been intentional.

Captain Yesui clapped her paws on both men's shoulders. “Enough dawdling. Get on board."

Shere swallowed his fear and followed Adalard to the nearest lift, one which already held a dozen hirelings. With one glance at the bear's massive frame, however, the engineer manning it pointed Shere to another with fewer passengers.

“See you at the bottom, then," Adalard said as they separated.

“Remember," Shere said. “Double."

“And what should you do for me when you lose? I'll be thinking about that all day."

The moment Shere crammed in, shoulder to shoulder with the others, Yesui called out, “Rooftops!" She waved frantically for the engineers to start lowering, and the platform lurched alarmingly under Shere's footpaws. Whatever doubts he had, there was no turning back now.

Overtaken by curiosity, he dared a step closer to the edge and looked down. The rock wall plunged through cavernous gulfs of warm desert air, making the bear's head spin. He silently willed the engineers to make the descent a quick one. Whatever evils the Mirage City held could not be worse than this wretched lift, he thought as the platform swayed nauseatingly in the wind.

Although Yesui had announced the emergence of rooftops, Shere could only make out the spires of the tallest buildings, which looked more like scattered boulders from this height. Nonetheless, there was a change in the air. It might have been Shere's imagination, but it felt as though something was waking up. Primordial instinct told him to turn back - that this place was better left to the wastes.

The others aboard obviously felt it too. The mouse to his right clenched his eyes shut and repeated a mantra in a language Shere did not recognize; the coyote to his left had her eyes firmly fixed on the platform below her footpaws to shut out the knowledge of how high they stood; and there was among them all obvious anxiety in the bristle of fur, puff of tails, or flattening of ears.

A sudden creak in the ropes drew Shere's attention, unmistakably the same sound the other lift had made before it failed. He shot a look up the cliff, saw the panicked flurry of the engineers, and was again reminded of his perilous height in the delay between the sight and the sound of their cries. However, they were not rushing to secure the ropes which held Shere's platform. Rather, they buzzed around the adjacent lift - the one which held Adalard.

Shere looked at the fennec, who met his eyes as the others on his platform chattered nervously and scrambled to keep their balance. Then two of the four ropes snapped.

"Adalard!" Shere cried.

As the platform fell open like a trapdoor, the fennec moved with lightning speed to grab its top edge while most of his fellow passengers toppled and were swallowed by the soft sand below. The others managed to keep hold of the two remaining ropes or to hook their claws into the wood, but with the descent barely half over it seemed doubtful that they could hold on long enough.

With Adalard too far to reach, he could do nothing but call out to him, "Hold on!" and, craning his neck, bellow up to the engineers, "You stupid fools!" The others beside him likewise shouted impotently to their friends and comrades, with nothing to do but watch and wait in terrible dread.

A third rope frayed. When it snapped, the platform, now supported at only one corner, spun and sent several more hirelings tumbling to the earth below. This was how Shere noticed that the ancient city was now fully uncovered - in the sight of bodies snapping upon balustrades, skulls shattered in the shadows of marble colonnades, and black stone streets splattered with bright red. Was this what he had come so far to see?

Adalard managed to keep holding on, but Shere saw the fennec's small body trembling with the strain. The final rope lasted one minute longer, and then the platform and its lone passenger plummeted to the earth.

Shere roared in inarticulate grief and rage, unable to take his eyes away as his friend crashed onto a sloped rooftop, rolled to the street, and then lay still. The moment the platform was low enough, Shere leapt off and ran to kneel beside him.

To his surprise, the fennec opened his eyes and looked up at the bear. "I think I broke something," he grumbled. He tried to raise himself up, but screamed in pain after only a slight movement. Looking down at his leg, he said simply, "I was right." The leg bent at a grotesque angle, and blood was blooming through his trousers.

"You're going to be all right," Shere said. "We'll take you back up the lift to the healers."

"Don't be ridiculous - we're not doing anything. You need to get out there and start looting."

Turning back to the platform, he saw the hirelings he had ridden with scattering down the street, at most casting a guilty glance his way. "I'm not leaving you."

"Yes you are," came the voice of Captain Yesui. "I'll make sure he's taken care of, but right now you have a job to do and not much time to do it." Only a portion of her attention was even devoted to him and Adalard as she scanned the streets, long ears swiveling. It was only when Shere didn't move that she glared down at him. "Do you want to be rich, or do you want to rot in debtors' prison? You think crying over your boyfriend helps either of you? Get going now and maybe you'll be able to cover his share."

Shere asked, dumbstruck, "You're not seriously expecting him to still settle up, are you?" She only looked coolly at him.

Adalard grunted, "Run, you stupid bear. I'll be fine."

Shere growled in frustration. In a choice he would later look back on with shame, he forced down his pride and conscience and took off down the street, leaving Adalard behind. As he did, he overheard Yesui say to one of the engineers, "We're down two lifts. How does that impact our expected haul?"

Even as the sun climbed, the high cliffs kept the Mirage City in shadow under the red and purple glow of dawn. The dead city was grotesque in its scale, far larger than it appeared from above, and lavishly ornamented at every cornice, arched window, and twisting spire. A sprawling cathedral of a city long since ravaged by time, its finer engravings were eroded smooth, many of its roofs and buttresses long since lay collapsed, and sand barnacles encrusted huge swathes of its once-shining marble and black stone.

These were the fleeting impressions in Shere's mind as he pounded down the street in his blind search. Everywhere he looked, hirelings were already hammering down doors, throwing treasure from upper floor windows to their comrades below, or wheeling full carts back to the lifts.

Realizing he needed to break from the crowd, he cut through an alley and entered the first open door he saw. It was impossible to guess the original purpose of the structure but its arched ceiling, so tall that the light did not reach it, suggested a temple. Stained glass like bloody sunbursts washed the room with sickly red, though the windows were so covered in sand barnacles that the light was dimmed and flickered like a candle in the pulsing movements of so many filter tongues.

Before the altar, two fossas (brother and sister, Shere remembered) toppled and shattered a porcelain vessel containing offerings to long-forgotten gods - gold figurines, jewelry, metal coins, and treasures of less stable materials which had long since turned to dust.

As Shere watched, a third hireling swept away the treasure as the pair moved like clockwork to haul and shatter the next one. Along with offerings, this vessel also held several nesting sand creatures that unfolded their wings and shrieked at the disturbance. Yet another hireling stepped forward and doused them in lantern oil before striking a match and setting the beasts ablaze. The looting continued apace.

Noticing an untouched row of offering vessels, Shere started toward them, but a voice from the darkness stopped him. "Where do you think you're going, bear?" He turned to see a Dodrec aiming an arquebus at him, low light throwing his reptilian face in deep shadow.

"I'm seeking spoils, just like you," Shere answered.

"This is ours. Go somewhere else."

"But there's more here than you can possibly carry."

The Dodrec stalked toward him and Shere raised his paws as he backed away from the barrel of the long gun. "If we let you in on our find, soon all your brothers and cousins will be here. We're not here to share. We're not here for a fun adventure with friends. We're here to earn. I'll give you three seconds to leave, and even that's generous. Three. Two-"

Turning tail and running back to the entrance, Shere fumed as his ears burned in outrage and humiliation. Was nothing on this venture going to be in his control?

As he returned to the temple doors, he was startled to see a huge shadow flick by outside. Uncertain what it had been, he crouched low and peeked out just in time to see something like a silverfish skitter over a distant rooftop. Based on its distance, Shere guessed it must have been at least two dozen feet long, yet it moved blindingly fast and utterly silently.

A wide-eyed lemur stood flat against a marble column, panting. "It took him," she said.

"Who? What did?"

"I don't even know his name. We had just agreed to work together, and then he was gone."

Shere shook his head. With the day already getting brighter and hotter, they didn't have time for this. "You should get back to the lifts. You've obviously been through enough."

The lemur steadied herself. "No. I came here to get my father out of debtors' prison, not join him myself." After taking a deep breath, she tore down the street to continue her search for treasure.

What had come over everyone here? Even Shere himself had become possessed by the lust for treasure, or at least the fear of returning with empty paws. Perhaps it was not so strange - he could not let so many days on his journey come to nothing after all and, moreover, he needed to collect for Adalard.

No longer feeling safe on the streets, Shere quickly found another building to duck inside. This one was a long, squat structure topped with a golden dome and with wide steps climbing to its entrance. When he reached the open doors and looked into the darkness inside, a strange thought surfaced from the depths of his unconscious mind.

The Mirage City was not a city at all, he thought - or was only incidentally so for those who once lived there. It was actually vast machinery, the beating clockwork heart of the world, and the sand draining away from it every six years was only a side effect of its slow, rhythmic pulses. Shere shook his head clear of the idea. He had been warned about the strange psychic impressions which struck visitors to the city and knew it was best to ignore them.

After confirming the interior was unoccupied, he pressed on. Inside was a dark rotunda lined with columns like ancient tree trunks and dotted with colossal statues whose faces were worn completely smooth. When Shere saw the dry fountain in the center of the rotunda glittering with gems, he ran to it as a drowning man would swim for the light of the surface.

Kneeling down, he drew his knife and dug at the edges of a large ruby to free it but found it was embedded too deeply. The stone would need to be shattered, a task for which he lacked the tools or time. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Shere noticed older scratch marks in the stone and, beside his knee, the fallen knife of another would-be plunderer who had made the same attempt.

Something far above him hissed and he looked up to see that the ceiling was moving. A frothing mass of broad, razor-lined leaves covered the entire underside of the dome and, from the center of the monstrous plant, a dripping tendril like a tongue began to unfurl.

Glowing green spores puffed out of its many orifices, and Shere's vision dimmed when they passed into his snout. He covered his muzzle and turned back to the entrance only to find that barbed vines now draped the doorway in wait for him. The entire building was a Venus fly trap, and he had fallen into it.

As he sought any other exit, the increasing light of the spores revealed a marble staircase leading down. As he ran toward it the plant's tongue lapped over the fountain, coating it with syrupy ooze as it blindly sought its prey.

Shere only chanced a breath when he reached the darkness at the bottom of the stairs, and leaned heavily on the banister until his burning lungs recovered. The bear sensed his time running out with each second that passed, and could only hope that the inky blackness ahead concealed a way back to the street, if not some secret cache of treasure.

As the plant beast continued its damp slithering on the floor above, he made his way forward carefully, dragging each footpaw slowly along the ground. His caution paid off when the digits of his right footpaw caught on the edge of a crevasse and he stopped just in time. The sound of his claws scraping on the stone echoed for an impossibly long time, and he shuddered to think how long he might have fallen in the darkness.

Feeling his way around it carefully, he continued on until he rounded a corner and found a plain wooden door. Flickering light spilled from beneath which could only be from the torches of other hirelings.

"Hello?" he said in Doletan, then repeated the greeting in Ellaran. His voice came out choked as some instinct urged him to keep his voice low.

When no response came, he eased the door open. The room was indeed lit by torchlight, but the torches stood on the walls in ancient sconces. There were no sand barnacles here and, other than the stale smell of the air, the room stood exactly as it had in ancient times.

Filling the center of the round room was a large iron cage with no visible lock or door. Inside it, along with a luxurious dresser, table, and bath, stood a four-poster bed flowing with ornate gold curtains. Beneath its silk sheets slept a young oryx with long, sweeping horns. Her white-furred face was peaceful in slumber and Shere could see the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed softly.

The sight was so astonishing that Shere almost failed to notice what was outside the cage - the dozens of dessicated corpses kneeling around its circumference. All were in the same posture, their arms forced through the bars up to the shoulder in a futile attempt to reach the sleeping oryx. The dry sand had perfectly preserved them, so it was impossible to say how many centuries or even millennia they had been there.

The fur stood up on the back of the bear's neck. This was an unnatural place, and Shere decided he would rather face the beast on the upper floor than remain here. But before he could turn away the oryx yawned gently and rolled onto her side, causing an amulet at her throat to glint in the torchlight. It was deep blue with a floral burst of blood red in the middle - the same shade of red that had shone so vividly in the temple earlier.

Shere's eyes went wide. It was suddenly of desperate importance that he possess that amulet. He somehow knew that it offered protection from unspeakable doom and, no matter what danger was here, continuing on without that protection was a far greater risk.

He stepped toward the cage and tried the bars. Although they appeared thin, all the might of the huge bear could not bend them. Anxiety building, he circled the cage multiple times looking for a weak point but found nothing.

Finally, he stopped at a place he judged to be closest to the sleeping oryx and slid his arm between the bars, straining his muscles as he reached toward her mere feet away. As he did, he found himself kneeling muzzle to muzzle with an ancient corpse and gasped in horror as he realized what he was doing. Yet he could not pull himself away. He screwed his eyes shut to drive away the temptation of the amulet and decided on a last, desperate course of action.

Unsure how to address the regal oryx, he called, "My lady! Please help me!" His voice was hoarse and shaking, restrained as it was by that primal instinct to make as little sound as possible in this place.

In the ensuing silence, the hold the amulet had on him only grew, and his body shook in fear of the mortal danger he faced without it. If the oryx did not answer his plea, he would almost rather meet his end here.

"Rise," came a slow, soft voice.

Shere opened his eyes and saw the oryx standing over him, elegant form and scimitar-like horns silhouetted in red torchlight. "My lady-"

"You may call me Amma."

The bear rose shakily to his footpaws. "My name is Shere."

She nodded as though she already knew it. "Has our sovereign returned, Shere?"

Much as he now wanted to answer anything the being before him asked, he couldn't. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand."

Amma looked him up and down as though seeing him for the first time. "Ah, I see - you are Untouched." She yawned and stretched, causing her amulet to once more glimmer in the light.

"'Untouched?'"

Without answering, she gestured for him to follow. "Sit with me awhile. I desire a moment's company before I return to the long dream."

The oryx was physically much smaller than Shere, yet her regal bearing and the room's enchanted atmosphere held total control over the bear. As he followed her to the bed, he didn't wonder at the fact that his way had been barred only moments before, just as he did not wonder at the fact that she spoke perfect Penemerish. Similarly, he did not find it odd that the outstretched arms of the dead turned to follow Amma wherever she walked.

Amma sat on the bed and gestured to a plush chair beside it. Despite Shere's reluctance to soil the velvet with his sandy, sweat-soaked fur, he sat where she indicated.

"Why have you come, Shere?" she asked.

"I wanted to see this city," he answered truthfully.

"Why did you want to see it?"

Despite the effort he had made in getting here, he now found himself uncertain. "The Mirage City - that's what we call it - is mysterious. I was curious."

"'Mysterious,'" she said. She pondered this for a long time, long enough for Shere's dazed mind to remember that the sand would soon return, but the dream regained its hold as soon as she spoke. "You do not know its builders, its people, or its purpose?"

The bear shook his head.

"If even the Untouched have forgotten, then I truly have dreamed long. What of the Demon Star?"

"The Demon Star? Our guides followed it, I think. It's the only way to navigate the desert."

"Of course." She said it dismissively, as though Shere's words went without saying. "But what of its color?"

"It's pale pink, I suppose."

The oryx put a hand to her chest and sighed in relief. "At last. Nearly bled dry, as so many of the sky's beating hearts before it. The enemy's last stronghold nearly taken, and then our sovereign will return to us."

Shere's mouth went dry. "What will happen then?"

She smiled beatifically. "Something wonderful."

"Oh." He turned his head as the first trickle of sand began to hiss through a crack in the ceiling.

"Shere," Amma said.

His attention snapped back to the oryx. "Yes, Amma?"

"Tell me a story of your travels. Something to take with me to the long dream."

Shere had traveled the world only briefly, and could not imagine that any of his stories would be of interest to a creature like her. Nonetheless unable to refuse, he told her of the first time he set out from Penemere. He had sought the fortune-teller of the Allomire Forest only to find her dead and her cabin aflame, and from there strange shapes had pursued him in the night.

"Hardly an auspicious beginning," she mused, indifferent to the sand which now enveloped Shere's ankles. "Another."

He described his first voyage to the mainland which, while sailing the northeastern passage, blew perilously close to the Scission. It blew so close, in fact, that several of the crew who were on the port side of the ship at the wrong time lost paws and tails.

He had hardly finished telling it when she said, "Another."

Uncertain what else to share, he told of his hard trek through the desert to get here and how his friend lay broken on the street before taking a single step in the Mirage City.

Amma considered his words for a long time while the sand continued to rise. Then she yawned once more. "I cannot stay awake any longer. Thank you for your company, Shere."

Despite the spell that had fallen over Shere, he knew he could not allow her to dismiss him yet. "Amma-" he started. Her eyes widened at the unexpected continuation, and he sensed that one wrong word could be the end of him. "May I humbly make a request of Your Grace?"

She laughed and the tension melted. "What a grandiose way of addressing me. Yes, you may ask."

The sand had now risen to Shere's knees. "I can't leave here with empty paws. Can you - or, rather, could I request-"

"Ah, you wish for a lady's favor," she said with a smile. To Shere's surprise, she removed the amulet from her neck and tossed it to him. His paw rose to meet it automatically and the jewel touched the leathery pad with an electric shock. Looking back to Amma, he saw that she continued to wear an identical amulet, a detail which like so many others did not strike him as unusual.

"Thank you, Amma."

She nodded. "I hope you find your worth in this world, ungoverned as it is. Perhaps someday we will meet again." With that, she slipped her hooves beneath the sheets and lay down to rest.

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The spell broken, Shere leapt from the chair in horror, dodging the grasping claws of the mummies as he fled the room. There was no time for caution as he made his way back through the lightless hallway, so he dodged around the crevasses as well as he could by memory. As he scrambled toward the stairs the sand barnacles, swimming freely once more, bounced off him blindly like gnats on a summer's day.

The plant creature was likewise more lively, unfurling its tongue the moment Shere entered the room. Already panting from his sprint up the stairs, he could not help inhaling a lungful of the glowing spores before remembering to hold his breath. Though the toxins dimmed his vision and nearly caused him to black out, he pushed on and, with one last burst of effort, dove through the door an instant before the barbed vines could trap him inside.

Outside, the fully risen sun stung his eyes. He took a deep breath of fresh air, only to choke on grains of sand blowing in the wind. Appearing as mysteriously as it had disappeared, the sand now poured down the sides of the chasm in waterfalls, no longer whispering but roaring in murderous fury.

The street across the alley was blocked by a squid-like monster the size of a house, the sight of which Shere barely had time to process before it swam on. With the sand rising rapidly up the steps, he could only pray it wouldn't follow him as he turned left and half-ran, half-swam through the surprisingly viscous sand. Fortunately the way was uphill, so his huge strides kept pace with the flood and held it at waist level.

He pressed on past porticoes engraved with elaborate flora, windows of prismatic stained glass, and steepled homes as large as castles. Grains of sand irritated his airways, but he forced his ragged breaths to stay even, knowing that if he started coughing he would not be able to stop. His thick fur was coated as well, and grains seeped through to the skin below and rubbed him raw.

When he finally reached the end of the street he saw, to his dismay, the platforms already in the air, their passengers frantically sweeping away falling sand lest its weight overload the ropes.

One more platform remained grounded. Aboard were Captain Yesui, two carts of treasure, and four hirelings, including Adalard who appeared to have passed out from shock. Relief swelling in his chest, Shere waved his paws in the air to signal them to wait as he approached.

When Captain Yesui spotted him, her face twisted in rage. "Stay back!" she said. When he pressed on, not comprehending her words, she drew her gun. "Back away or I'll shoot you dead, Shere."

The bear stopped just short of the platform, stunned.

"Let him on!" a lemur protested in Ellaran - she was, in fact, the same lemur he had encountered earlier outside the temple. The other two hirelings, a goat and a gecko, joined her.

Yesui roared over them, "Shut up! He would weigh us down too much and, besides, he's late. Shere knew the rules just like everyone else." Turning to him, she asked, "What were you doing out there so long, anyway? Did you even find anything?"

Shere was not violent by nature, but Yesui's callous attitude boiled his blood. He growled, "You don't even see a person standing before you, do you? Just a tool for earning coin."

"You would have to actually earn coin for me to see you that way." Still training her gun on Shere, she reached back with her other paw and pulled the nearest rope to signal the engineers to begin lifting.

As Shere was ready to give up hope, a weak voice asked, "What is that?" It was Adalard, rousing to consciousness and struggling to point at something behind Shere. Following his gesture, Shere saw the squid beast writhing its way up the street toward them. The hirelings on the platform gasped at the sight and drew swords and daggers, little good as they would do.

"Damn those engineers!" Yesui cried. She fired her gun in the air to get their attention and, with that, the platform finally began to lift. Realizing that Yesui's gun was spent, Shere hopped on. The platform lurched with his added weight, but the ropes held. Yesui reached for her sword, but the lemur jumped in front of Shere and stared her down. Based on the daggers in their hands, the goat and gecko were clearly of the same mind.

From the speed of the squid, it was clear at a glance that the platform would not rise quickly enough to avoid the oncoming behemoth. "We need to lose weight," Yesui said to them through gritted teeth. "You fools are going to get us all killed trying to save this useless bear."

Shere and the other hirelings exchanged looks, panicked calculations running through their minds, and the bear wondered whether he really should jump and surrender himself to the Mirage City. It seemed he was fated to die regardless, and the only choice remaining was whether to take the others with him.

The platform lurched, and Shere only kept his footing by grabbing at the rope. Glancing down, he saw what had caused the shift. Adalard, still on the ground, had just unlocked the wheels of one of the carts and pushed it off the edge of the platform, spilling hundreds of shining coins and goblets onto the sand.

The hare's already huge eyes went even wider at this as the other crewmates glanced back and forth between her, the squid, and the second cart. Yesui reached for her sword once more, but Shere and the lemur physically restrained her.

As the other two hirelings shoved hundreds of pounds of ancient treasures down the cliffside, Yesui hissed, "Mutiny! I'll see you all hanged for this."

"Shut up, or you go over the edge next," Shere said, surprising even himself. Doubly so when he realized he meant it.

Though the platform was now rising considerably faster, the massive squid was nearly upon them already. It breached the surface, flapped its tentacles against the rock wall for purchase, and pulled itself a full thirty feet in the air to swipe at the platform. Its abominable strength sent them swinging wildly but did no serious damage and, falling back to the sand, it dove down to seek easier prey.

When the platform stabilized, Yesui pushed away from Shere and the lemur, crossed her arms, and turned away, defeated.

After catching his breath, Shere turned to the other hirelings. "Thank you all. But why did you do it?"

"I've seen horrible things down below," the lemur said. "I watched someone die. I won't do it again."

"What about your debt?" he asked.

She shrugged. "It will work out somehow. I have to believe that."

The goat nodded, and the gecko said something in Surisani that Shere did not understand but which seemed to be in agreement.

Adalard groaned as he sat up. "It's nice to see all this solidarity, but I hope you know you have a lot to make up to me, bear." The others might not have caught his lascivious tone, but Shere did. True to his species, the fox was incorrigible.

"I'll do my best to please," he replied.

[center]-[/center]

Yesui paced behind the desk in her large tent. "You have no idea what you've done," she said. "Debtors' prison is too good for you. You will be made an example of, and your flayed, mangled body will be printed on thousands of broadsheets and distributed across the ten nations."

His blood now cooled, Shere began to feel dread at what the future held, but he would not show it to the hare. Instead, he crossed his arms and said, "If that's all you have to say, I'd like to go check on Adalard now."

"That is not all I have to say. Not only have you condemned yourself, but you've put your fellow mutineers into ruinous debt. Are the short few weeks you have left to live worth it? Do you understand that even I will be in danger of losing my commission over this?"

"If you need to compromise so much for that commission, you shouldn't have it." Absentmindedly, the bear pulled out the trinket Amma had given him and twirled it between the digits of his paw.

"Everyone compromises something," Yesui said. "You think miners don't exchange their bodies for their livelihood every day? No matter how much you think you're special, there are rules and obligations which we are all bound by."

Done listening, Shere stood to go. Perhaps he would incite a real mutiny, or perhaps he would steal a few sand sleds and slip away with the others in the night. Anything was better than continuing to associate himself with this.

As Shere turned toward the tent flap, Yesui's eyes locked on the blue and red gem in his paw. "Where did you get that?" she asked.

The frantic few hours Shere had spent in the Mirage City were tangled in his memory, and it took him a moment to recall his experience in Amma's chambers and the hold the amulet had had on his mind. "Some dark grotto where it likely should have stayed," he answered.

As he took another step, Yesui called, "Stop!"

Shere sighed. "What?"

"I didn't realize you brought back something of...value. If you give it to me, I may be able to lessen your punishment."

The bear held up the amulet to the torchlight, where it glowed its unnaturally bright colors. "I plan to destroy this thing. I know now that everything in the Mirage City should stay buried."

"Amnesty for both you and Adalard," she blurted.

Shere frowned, suspicious of the unexpected concession. "Why?"

"The financiers have...special instructions in the case of this particular artifact. I am prepared to offer a great deal in exchange for it."

"Then you could also waive the debts for the others whose treasure was lost."

"Already done."

Yesui seemed sincere, but Shere was still unsure. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"I am many things, but I am not a liar. I was forthcoming about the consequences of failure on this venture, was I not?"

"You were," Shere admitted. "But I don't think you understand the evil that this thing represents."

Sighing, Yesui withdrew a plain metal lockbox from her desk, then turned it toward Shere and popped it open. Inside were dozens of diamonds sparkling in the torchlight.

"Yours," she said simply. "I'm authorized to give you these in addition to whatever other demands you make, although I think you've asked for more than enough already."

"Who are these financiers?" Shere asked wonderingly.

"It's better not to ask." She pushed the box forward. "Now, will you take them or not?"

[center]-[/center]

The quiet night waters of the Coromack River lapped against the cargo boat as Shere joined Adalard on deck.

"How's your leg doing?" he asked.

The fennec slowly stretched it out. "The healers have been good. I should be able to walk without a cane by the time we get to Karth."

"Where will you go after that?"

"Ostros, I think. I have a few friends there, and I know a few hovels where I might drink and gamble away my half of those diamonds."

Shere growled under his breath. "I still regret handing over that amulet."

The fennec sighed. "Not this again."

"Whoever funded that venture, whatever they intend with that thing's magic, it can't be good. It should have been destroyed."

"And then you would be dead, and I and the rest of us would be in debtors' prison."

"The next time I'm faced with such a choice, I will fight my way out," he vowed.

Adalard laughed. "You're a stupid bear."

Letting the matter drop for now, Shere smiled. "Good thing you like stupid bears."

"And just as well that you like hobbled foxes."

When their boat docked in Berenmar later that night, they rented a cheap room above a wharfside tavern and proved it.

[center]-[/center]

Many years later, Shere learned from a passing traveler of a great earthquake that had struck near the Mirage City, one so strong that it reshaped mountains and briefly reversed the flow of the Coromack. The city did not appear at the appointed hour that year, and it seemed the earthquake was to blame. Perhaps the earthquake had disrupted whatever magic sustained the cycle, or perhaps even destroyed the city entirely.

The strangest part of this news, however, was what had been sighted on the surface above the lost city. According to several treasure-seeking crews, an oryx draped in the clothing of ancient nobility could be seen gliding over the desert. She looked as though she were deep in dreams, and a train of mummified corpses crawled through the sand in her wake.