A Subtle Agency

by Graeme Rodaughan

  A SUBTLE AGENCY

  THE METAFRAME WAR: BOOK 1

  Graeme Rodaughan

  Published by System Zero Productions Pty Ltd, 2016

  Copyright © 2016 Graeme Rodaughan

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organizations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0-9945952-0-1

  Kindle Edition ISBN-13: 978-0-9945952-1-8

  EPUB Edition ISBN-13: 978-0-9945952-2-5

  For Linda, she knows why.

  “Imagine if you could change the rules of the game, what rules would you choose?” –

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Prologue

  Southern Egypt

  The temple of Thoth

  3023 BC

  Thunder boomed and echoed across a sky howling with madness.

  Lightning bolts sheeted between bubbling masses of black thunderheads as the crimson light of the setting sun slashed across the rock and sand before the temple of Thoth.

  Hakron shivered with more than the sudden cold, drawing his cloak more tightly around his tall, lean frame.

  This storm is not born of nature.

  He took a step back beneath the cover of the stone pillars and the vaulting roof of the temple of Thoth. An attendant, shaking with fear, stood beside him.

  ‘Our Master comes,’ the man whispered hoarsely.

  Our men are undone by this devilish storm.

  The great horn of the temple of Thoth resounded across the valley. It’s sharp note breaching the thunder as it welcomed the high priest of Thoth and first prince of the southern realm, Ahknaton, to the seat of his power.

  Hakron watched from above, as his older brother pulled his chariot to a sudden halt before the temple entrance. Attendants rushed forward to take hold of the frightened horses that drew the chariot. Ahknaton swept down from the back of the chariot, his face pale with fury, his jaw clenched, in his powerful arms, he carried the limp form of his beloved wife, Mekra.

  Her beautiful hair fell like a raven’s wing, her left arm hung limply, her hand a rigid claw. Hakron could clearly see the swollen mark of a scorpion’s sting. Grief tore at him as Mekra had claimed the hearts of both men, and he braced himself against a pillar to avoid falling to the flagstones.

  Ahknaton strode grimly up the broad stone steps of the temple’s entrance, carrying the body of his young wife into the temple.

  Hakron watched his brother draw closer, for a brief moment their eyes met and he saw into the depths of his brother’s anguish. Recoiling, he felt slapped by the agonized fury within his brother.

  Ahknaton swept past him.

  Turning, Hakron rushed after him, keeping pace with Ahknaton’s long strides as they went deeper into the temple.

  Ahknaton moved past the main altar toward an archway near the back of the temple. The temple guards and priests quickly stepped aside to allow him to pass. The attendants had already lit oil lamps and pitch soaked torches for the evening; Ahknaton gently shifted his wife to his left shoulder and took hold of a burning torch as he approached the archway.

  Hakron moved to stand before him.

  Ahknaton stared at him, snorting dismissively, ‘Hakron, you will not bar my way.’

  Hakron looked at his brother with glistening eyes, ‘I feel your pain brother. I am not here to stop you but to offer counsel.’

  Ahknaton paused, his head leaning against the still form of Mekra on his broad shoulder. In the pale light of the oil lamps, she looked like she was merely sleeping as fresh tears rolled down his cheeks.

  Hakron had never seen his brother weep before.

  He is mad with grief.

  A shocking realization gripped his heart, ‘you intend to use the Divine Engine of Thoth.’

  Hakron stepped forward, gripping his brother’s shoulders.

  Ahknaton’s face hardened, he growled, ‘of course.’

  Hakron froze for a moment, shocked with disbelief. Ahknaton shrugged off his grip, brushed past him, rushing through the archway and into the antechamber that led to the hidden depths beneath the temple.

  Snatching a lit torch, Hakron hurried into the antechamber. He ran down a short, steeply sloping hallway that reached the first landing, and then switched back to descend again in the opposite direction. In front of him, he saw the powerful figure of his brother running, his pace undiminished by the burden of carrying Mekra over his shoulder. Hakron strove to catch up with him, drawing on the techniques that Ahknaton had taught him to accelerate both mind and body, but was unable to close the distance between them.

  Hakron reached the second landing, following his brother down a spiral staircase and into the Halls of the Gods. The halls were a dangerous and deadly maze of shifting walls and counterweighted traps; filled with caustic pits, acid sprays, razor sharp nets and crushing blocks of stone. They had been designed to bar the passage of those without the knowledge of how to navigate their murderous paths.

  Ahknaton turned, shouting, ‘Hakron, only a fool would hope to stop me, but you can witness divinity in action; what happens tonight should be recorded and you have a gift for words - so follow me if you dare.’

  Hakron had helped his brother build the temple and the levels beneath it; darting forward, he navigated his way past the traps.

  Exiting the maze, he descended along another sloping hallway toward the chamber of the third landing. Embedded into the landing’s floor was a secret door that only Ahknaton knew how to unlock. He heard the deep rumble of moving stones and shifting counterweights. Upon reaching the chamber, he discovered a circular hole in the floor.

  Rushing to the edge, he saw the retreating sphere of Ahknaton’s torchlight disappear down another spiral staircase. Following his brother, taking the stairs, two or three at a time until he reached the bottom, he entered the Chamber of Worlds.

  Lifting his torch high, Hakron illuminated massive walls of polished stone; he found himself staring into the empty space of an inverted pyramid. Beneath him, he could make out the lower levels that crowded into the darkness at the limit of his torchlight. Halfway down the levels of the inverted pyramid, he could see Ahknaton racing toward the bottom.

  Chasing after his brother, he ran, leaping from level to level until he reached the bottom. He went through an archway and down another descending, curved hallway.

  Hakron emerged from the hall into Ahknaton’s Tomb Chamber; the intended location for Ahknaton’s final resting place. It was bare except for a raised plinth on which a sarcophagus could rest. Beyond the plinth, was an opening, the height, and width of a tall man. It was another secret door; through it, he saw the retreating glow of Ahknaton’s flaming torchlight. He dashed forward, fearing there was no time left to stop his brother summoning the Divine Engine of Thoth.

  Hakron ran down the narrow hallway and into the chamber of the Engine.

  Ahknaton had placed his torch into a wall sconce. Mekra lay as if asleep in the center of the room with Ahknaton’s cl
oak wrapped into a pillow for her head.

  On the far side of the chamber, Ahknaton stood tall, withdrawing a polished, black, obsidian stone, the size of a pebble, from a pouch at his belt, he held it triumphantly aloft.

  Hakron stared at the stone; it seemed that the starry sky had been captured and locked within it. A wet, glistening surface, writhing like a living thing in Ahknaton’s fingers.

  ‘Stay back!’ Ahknaton hissed.

  Hakron shouted fiercely, ‘you cannot be sure what will happen if you try to change the Engine.’

  ‘There is no doubt that the power can be used to save Mekra,’ Ahknaton declared with a desperate passion. ‘It is her only chance.’

  ‘Her soul is already facing the judgment of the Gods. It will be a violation of divine law for her to come back now,’ Hakron urged.

  Ahknaton growled, ‘we will remake the law - even divine law must bow before Thoth's Divine Engine!’

  Hakron shouted, ‘Thoth’s engine is too complex for any mortal to understand. If you change it, you could unmake the world, and all within it!’

  Ahknaton pointed to the body of his beloved, screaming, ‘do you imagine that I care about the risk - you fool - I have lost everything in this world.’

  Clenching the stone, his face filled with concentration and the world trembled in response.

  Hakron’s heartbeat thumped in his ears. The air stilled within the chamber, the shadows beyond the two torches thickened, deepening into darkness beyond memory. The circles of torchlight sharpened, faint motes of dust marooned in their light.

  The walls faded, becoming blurred and insubstantial. The Divine Engine of Thoth emerged into view. A swirling mass of luminous spheres, each a brilliant point of subtle color moving in a steady flow around an invisible axis. The Engine’s bright light evaporated the shadows of the flickering torchlight.

  Hakron experienced everything with a keen sharpness that he had never felt before, as the presence of the Engine, rendered every sense to a high pitch of acuity. He felt time slow, his mind raced, he felt strong and his thoughts clarified. The orbits of the spheres revealed a unified order, a perfect balance between movement and stasis, between order and chaos, and between good and evil.

  With his voice filled with desperate longing and powered by a will beyond measure, Ahknaton shouted at the rotating spheres, ‘she must live again!’

  The Divine Engine of Thoth responded with a clap of thunder that shook the stones of the chamber. A single sphere reversed its orbit, changing from golden yellow to a deep blood red. For a moment, the world paused; then with a rush of air, the Engine vanished, the chamber once more flickering in the pale glow and inky shadows of the torchlight.

  Hakron felt the change. A tidal wave of force rippling out in an instant from the center of the Engine. A wave that reformed the reality of the everyday world eliminating what was no longer possible and enabling what must now occur.

  He felt his skin crawling over his back and arms, he involuntarily took a step backward, coming to a halt against the wall of the chamber. Something had just moved in the room, something that should not have moved at all.

  Mekra stirred; Hakron felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise in a primal response. He stared, unable to look away as she sat up, her gorgeous brown eyes glittering like jewels, blinking with surprise in the soft glow of the torchlight. Her skin glowing with the health that had so recently deserted her.

  Ahknaton sighed, the key dropping from his hand to the floor.

  Mekra’s eyes locked on her husband’s face, smiling with delight, she said huskily, ‘Ahknaton - my love - come to me.’

  Needing no urging, he scooped her up into his arms, twirling her around the chamber. She melted into his muscular arms, her lips finding his throat and nuzzling into the firm groove she found there.

  Stepping quietly away from the scene, Hakron edged nearer to the entrance of the chamber. Caught between terror and curiosity, he lifted his torch high so that he could clearly witness a miracle of the gods.

  Ahknaton whispered, ‘we will be together now, forever in victory over death itself.’

  Hakron frowned, the shift in Mekra’s mood was palpable. She started to stiffen, her hands clenching hard onto Ahknaton’s shoulders. He winced with sudden pain, startled by her strength.

  Mekra, her face filled with horror gasped, ‘what have you done?’

  ‘I have saved you,’ Ahknaton cried.

  Hakron heard a sliver of doubt creep into his brother’s voice.

  ‘No! You have doomed us both!’ Mekra screamed.

  Ahknaton crumpled to his knees, groaning with pain as Mekra’s grip tightened on his shoulders. A bone suddenly snapped and Ahknaton cursed through gritted teeth.

  Hakron edged into the chamber entrance, transfixed by what was happening before his eyes.

  Her face twisted by a horrific need, Mekra reared back her head, as sharp fangs sprouted in her gaping mouth.

  Ahknaton, his heroic physique useless against her supernatural strength, flopped like a rag doll in her hands.

  She blurred forward, sinking her fangs into his neck, blood splashed before she fixed her mouth over the wound sucking eagerly at the red tide that flooded down her throat.

  Watching from the chamber entrance, Hakron was unable to look away from the lust and horror that alternated on Mekra’s face, and the uncomprehending shock that washed over Ahknaton’s face.

  In moments, Mekra had drained the life from her beloved husband, staggering back as he slumped to the floor.

  Screaming, Mekra cried with outraged grief and horrified despair. The sound tore at the walls, slicing like a razor within Hakron’s head. She fled, slamming him into the wall as she blurred past him with inhuman speed, uncaring of his fate in her anguish.

  Hakron awoke and looked around. The torches still burned, Ahknaton’s body still laid lifelessly on the cold stones of the floor, but of the Divine Engine of Thoth, and of Mekra, there was no sign.

  Retrieving the key of Ahknaton from where it had fallen, Hakron left the chamber.

  Surfacing into the Temple, Hakron counted eleven men, all dead. Cast aside by a newborn demon as she had emerged from the depths below. He clenched the key of Ahknaton tightly, terrified that he would lose it. He walked to the entrance of the temple, the storm was gone and the night sky was clear. A river of stars arched across the night sky a celestial echo of the Divine Engine of Thoth.

  The Engine knew that Ahknaton was coming, the storm was a warning.

  A sudden gust of cold wind swept up from the desert sands, the fine grit catching on the lines of tears on his face, which he hurriedly wiped away with his forearm.

  No time for tears. No time for grief.

  He stood tall, scanning the night sky and the desert. He stared into the night, listening intently, but there was no sign of Mekra. His heart churned, a ship tossed on an unsteady sea. He breathed, slower and slower, and grief gave way to resolve.

  What my brother has done, I will devote my life to undo.

  He called out to the night, ‘something must be done, and something will be done. This I swear by the almighty Thoth.’

  The silence heard him and drank in his words.

  Hakron, the second prince of the southern realm and master scribe of the temple of Thoth, left that night, never to return.

  Chapter One

  “Power that is secret will endure.” - Cornelius Crane, King of the Vampires

  * * *

  Boston

  April 28th

  20:25

  The white limousine purred down the darkened street.

  General Chloe Armitage rested on the back seat, watching the houses as she passed by, her extraordinary senses drinking in the world around her. The faint glow of warmth from the recent footprints of a man walking his dog. The rhythmic sound of the heartbeats of the people in their homes. The smell of garden beds, freshly turned soil and a recently buried cat that had begun to bloat with corruption. A sea of informati
on on which her mind could plumb the depths of, or soar far above.

  Chloe tapped her knee with an impatient finger. Her companion, Marcus Drake, sat beside her, he glanced at her quizzically for a moment. She lifted her hand, dismissed him and looked away. She was thankful that he didn’t speak, she didn’t want his concern. His personal devotion was useful and surprising given the century-long curse that had bound him to her will. Even after so much time he still loved her.

  She found his loyalty a mystery.

  The faint glow from the car console reflected her face in the window. She glanced at her dark brown hair, straight and fine, cut into a professional Bob. Her hair neatly framed her exquisite face, her complexion was flawless cream, her blue eyes were magnetic, and her full lips were a seductive red. She smiled briefly in careful anticipation of the night ahead and focused her mind using skills taught to her as a child. Accelerating her perceptions, her thoughts raced ahead as the world floated into a slow dream.

  Chloe’s objective was clear, to retrieve the ancient Egyptian Papyrus of Hakron the Scribe from the Slayne family, and deliver it to her master, Cornelius Crane, Lord of this world. Tonight represented the culmination of nearly two centuries of planning and searching to find the Papyrus by Crane and his five Generals.

  Why was there no mention of the boy?

  Crane’s informant within the Order of Thoth had betrayed the location of the Slaynes and yet the parameters of the operation only included the parents, Anna and William Slayne. Her own research had revealed the existence of Anna and William’s son, Anton Slayne.

  Chloe was the last of Crane’s Generals to be recruited via transformation into a vampire and magically forbidden to harm him. She had risen to prominence amongst the five by delivering the Key of Ahknaton into Crane’s hand; taken from a secret vault beneath St Peter’s Basilica. Delivery of the Papyrus would cement her primacy as first amongst the Generals.