The heat in the city of Ashur-Sin did not merely sit; it oppressed. It was a physical weight, a thick shroud of silt and evaporated sweat that clung to the lungs of every living thing. For Elian, once the Royal Cartographer of the Sargon Dynasty, the heat was a constant reminder of his fall. In the height of his glory, he would have been cooled by servants waving giant ostrich-feather fans, sipping wine chilled by ice brought down from the northern peaks. Now, he sat in the shade of a crumbling mud-brick hovel, the smell of rancid goat fat and woodsmoke his only companions.
Elian’s world was a tapestry of blurred edges and dancing shadows. The “Great Mapping” five years ago had cost him more than his status; the searing reflection of the sun off the salt flats of the Great Basin had scorched his retinas, leaving him with a milky haze that obscured the center of his vision. He could see the world only through the periphery, a fractured reality that made every step a calculated risk. He ran a thumb over the piece of papyrus on his lap. It was blank, but in his mind, he was drawing. He knew the curves of the Tigris and the jagged teeth of the Zagros Mountains better than he knew the face of his own daughter.
“Father, you’re rubbing the ink-stone again. There’s nothing left in it.”
The voice was Lyra’s—soft, yet tempered with the hardness that comes from a childhood spent in poverty. Elian stopped his hand, feeling the dry, crusty residue of a well-used stone. He looked toward the sound of her voice, catching the silhouette of her slender frame against the blinding glare of the doorway.
“The mind remembers what the eyes cannot hold, Lyra,” Elian said, his voice a gravelly rasp. “I was tracing the trade route to Meluhha. If I can just remember the position of the stars during the third moon…”
“The stars won’t pay the grain tax,” Lyra interrupted, stepping into the room. She dropped a small linen bag onto the wooden table. It hit with a dull, unsatisfying thud. “Three copper shekels. That’s all the weaver would give for the embroidered tunics. He said the stitching was uneven.”
Elian flinched. He knew why the stitching was uneven. Lyra had been working by the light of a single tallow candle to save on oil, her own eyes straining to do the work of two. Before Elian could respond, the heavy, rhythmic thud of leather boots against packed earth echoed from the street outside. It wasn’t the erratic shuffle of the marketplace; it was the synchronized march of the City Guard.
The door to the hovel was kicked off its hinges. Two men entered, their bronze breastplates gleaming. Behind them stepped Kaelen, the Royal Tax Collector, a man whose smile was as sharp as a sacrificial dagger.
“Elian of Akkad,” Kaelen said, his voice smooth and dripping with mock pity. “The King has a long memory. Your failed expedition five years ago lost him three royal chariots and a chest of lapis lazuli. The debt is due.”
Kaelen’s gaze shifted to Lyra. “The silk mills of the North are always in need of nimble fingers. A girl of her age… she should fetch enough at the auction to clear the first page of your debts.”
“No!” Elian lunged forward, but his lack of depth perception betrayed him. He tripped, crashing to the dirt floor. The guards moved instantly, pinning him down while the other grabbed Lyra.
“Wait!” Elian screamed, his face pressed into the dust. “There is a box. Beneath the hearth. Three bricks from the left.”
The guard pried up the bricks and pulled out a small, blackened box wrapped in rotting leather. Kaelen took it and opened it. Even with his ruined eyes, Elian saw the flash of it—a piece of polished obsidian with a needle of bone floating in the center.
“The Obsidian Compass,” Kaelen whispered. “It’s real.” He looked at Elian with triumph. “The King wants the ‘Cradle of the Gods.’ He wants the immortality that the legends promise. And you… you are going to take us there. The girl stays in the palace dungeons. If you find the city, she lives. If you fail, she will be fed to the temple lions.”