Al-Biritania, or early medieval Britain if the Moors had conquered it.
800 AD, in a parallel world…
A thumb of stone stuck up higher than a man from the forest floor. Halawa would have thought little of the outcropping had her companion, the old mawlawi Ishraq, thrust his finger at it while whistling for her attention.
“Look at it closely,” he said. “Do you not see the inscriptions?”
Halawa leaned her head toward the monolith and squinted where Ishraq pointed. Through the mossy crust which had grown over the course of centuries, she could indeed make out lines indented in its surface. After she dismounted her stripe-legged horse and approached the stone on foot, she used her scimitar to clear away the moss, exposing the eroded inscriptions underneath.
Some were strings of unintelligible symbols of circles, crescents, and notches, which Halawa guessed represented some ancient language. What she could recognize was the larger illustration chiseled into the rock above the rows of text, with scattered flecks of red paint clinging to it. It was a creature with the wings of a bat, the taloned legs of an eagle, and the sinuous tail and neck of a serpent, with the horned lizard-like head bearing sharp teeth in its gaping jaws. A sphere of amber embedded in the rock winked from where the beast’s eye would be, making Halawa’s dark brown skin creep over her body.
“The Red Dragon of the Brythons,” Halawa said under her breath. “Does this mean we’re nearby?”
“If the old map doesn’t deceive, Amira, then of course,” Ishraq said. “Keep your eyes out while we press on. The barrow could be anywhere around here.”
It’s a ball game between two cultures. If our heroine loses, she might be put to death!
The sunset lent a warm, almost cozy glow to the stacks of scarlet-washed terraces that supported the buildings of Mutul. It was a city stuffed with more pyramids than any place Neith-Ka recalled from her native Khamit. Her people might have buried their Pharaohs in monuments of equal or even more mountainous scale, but then these peculiar Mayabans would lay every one of their structures on top of a stepped pyramid, none less than two stories high, with everyone having to hike up a succession of stone stairs to reach the summit.
Neith-Ka shook her foot to dull the pain chewing away at her tendons. Already the woven papyrus of her sandals had started to splinter apart from wear. The Khamitan people may have taken pride in the grandeur of their own monuments, but never would their architects dare subject anyone to so many tortuous steps. You weren’t even supposed to climb the royal tombs back home.
Huya, her high steward, clicked his tongue with a frown.
“You could feign a good attitude, Your Highness.”
Neith-Ka drew in a deep breath through her nostrils.
“I’ve done my best. Please show some understanding.”
“I saw you pouting. And, I swear by the scales of
Ma’at, I heard you mutter a curse while shaking that leg. You don’t seem to
remember that you’re representing your father, your family, and all the Black Land
here, princess. I’ll see no more lip from you tonight!”
With another inhale, Neith-Ka straightened herself up and
nodded to her steward. As he and their entourage of guards and servants marched
up yet another ramp of steps, she huddled close behind while keeping her focus
on their destination on top. Looking back down the pyramid’s height could only
intimidate her further. Even more so with the lighter brown locals crowding
behind her with the gawks of strangers who had never seen even one
darker-skinned person their entire lives.
The lip of the stairway connected to a platform that
supported a ring of rectangular buildings around a courtyard, all plastered
with a blazing red base. Yet these were not monochrome edifices, for each had
mounted on its walls and over its doorways elaborate reliefs of jade-plumed
gods, snarling gold leopards (or were those called jaguars over here?), and the
strings of complicated square images that constituted the Mayaban culture’s
written language.
To think that foreigners claimed that Khamit’s hieroglyphs
were impossible to read! No mortal could possibly even draw their
Mayabic equivalents.
From one short and wide building at the far end of the
complex floated a faint yet spicy odor, with thin trails of steam snaking out
from tiny windows in the walls towards its left edge. Dark green curtains,
splashed with reds, golds, and purples hung behind the gallery of square
columns that supported the remainder of the building’s length. Standing in
front were a pair of native guards, stocky men in padded cotton vests who
parted their obsidian-fringed spears upon noticing the Khamitans’ arrival.
Huya bowed at the waist to both guards. “Excuse me, my good
man, but where would His Majesty the Ahau and his family be?”
“Already inside, waiting with as much patience as they’ve
got,” one of the guards said.
The second glanced at Neith-Ka from the corner of his eye.
“And you’re the one he’s waiting on, I presume. Not so ugly as far as your kind
goes, if a bit overcooked. I’d advise you to stay clear of his youngest
daughter.”
Neith-Ka gave him a subtle smile to hide the prickling sensation that crept up her back. “I’ll…uh, keep that in mind…my undercooked friend.”
“Princess! What did I say?” Huya hammered the butt of his
high steward’s staff twice on the stone pavement.
“Aw, give your woman a pass,” the first guard said. “She was
only telling my friend to show more hospitality. Right, Yaxkin?”
Strutting away from the two guards as they argued with one another in the Mayabic language, Neith-Ka plunged herself through the curtains into the royal dining hall.
