The Fate of Falling Stars Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.
    And for me.