Lords of the Black Sands

by J. Edward Neill

  But instead…

  Dark-lances. Ships. Nuclear bombs.

  There are no gods.

  Out in the sand, his head began to clear. He supposed he should’ve taken the warship the moment after he’d killed Volkan. It would’ve been wiser to allow the men no time to reconsider, to use their moment of awakening when it existed in its purest, most powerful form.

  But the truth was his heart remained fractured, and his body was alive with a thousand too many emotions to master his rational thought.

  Alone, he knelt.

  He’d rarely allowed himself to feel before now.

  Tears streamed down his face and fell into the sand, where they dried before any mortal could see.

  His lungs could hold no air, and his chest heaved out whatever he dared inhale.

  Five centuries, he’d honed himself. No fear. No feelings. Nothing but duty and the promise of something his father had never intended to give.

  But with the sun on his face and no one to see, he allowed himself to be mortal, if only for a while.

  This isn’t Father’s fault, he told himself.

  I am what I wanted to be.

  I’m chasing death.

  The Prey is a ghost.

  For fear of these things, I’ve killed the world.

  He reached into the sand—the pure, clean, untouched-by-nuclear fire desert grain—and lifted great fistfuls into the air. Even in his three-fingered left hand, he held a great sphere of the stuff, shaking it at the empty, cloudless sky.

  He shouted.

  No man had ever let a more tortured sound escape.

  He wished Volkan would self-resurrect, march in silence through the sand, and drive a black sword through his heart.

  He wished Hanzo would detonate a bomb close enough to make powder of his deathless mind.

  He wished Thessia had slain him. Oh, how many times had she had the chance? And instead, the girl had chosen to love him? Humanity made no sense.

  …unless, in fact, mortals were designed to destroy themselves.

  He flung his fistfuls of sand back into the desert and screamed again. He slammed his eyes shut and roared so loud the wind carried his voice sirocco-like into places far from the airfield. It had always been powerful, his voice, and yet out here it meant nothing.

  What good would be the power to destroy once all the world was dead?

  Many times, he screamed.

  But no one listened.

  And no one answered.

  Spent, drained of feeling, he stood anew. He’d never truly been tired in his immortal life, but now he felt as if he could’ve slept for days. Sand drifted from his armored legs. Beads of burning sweat peppered his face. He trudged back toward the airfield, back toward the ship, which sat beneath the sun little different than a giant black scorpion.

  At the ship’s ramp lay Volkan’s crumpled body. Eadunn stood for a moment over the fallen man, whose face was an unrecognizable ruin and whose legs had buckled and broken as he’d died.

  I made him, he thought.

  A man like him would have no need to exist if not for me.

  Up the ramp, he climbed. He half-expected Al-Muham or one of the others to ambush him for his heresy. No one dared to speak against the Pharaoh, not in these days, not in any days.

  But no one emerged from the dark.

  He walked into the long corridor leading to his cabin. From the distant cockpit, he heard the ship’s radio repeating a droning message. Someone on the other end, likely at the Tower of Alexandria, was calling out to the Pharaoh’s soldiers:

  “Return to Pyramid village,” the monotone voice crackled.

  “Rebel enemy destroyed. Repeat—Saeed destroyed. Prey killed. Threat neutralized.”

  “Return to Pyramid village. Disarm at gate zero-one seven.”

  The droning voice echoed in the empty hall.

  Father wants all his weapons back, Eadunn knew.

  No second rebellions.

  No machines in the world but his own.

  The radio kept talking. Eadunn heard no more. He pushed his way into his tiny cabin, the same place he’d spent the last ten years…or had it been the last five-hundred?

  He supposed it didn’t matter.

  Curled up on his cot without blanket or pillow, Thessia dozed. He expected her to wake—she’d always woken at the slightest noise. But she stirred none, and he stood above her in the cabin’s sallow light. Her face bore only a few scars, he saw, but the rest of her they’d ruined. The only things that could’ve caused the injuries he glimpsed on her arms, her ankles, and her bare right shoulder were that of his father’s dark men.

  They who lived in the Pyramid’s blackest halls.

  They who never saw the light, and lived only to inflict pain.

  If ever he’d doubted his father’s intent, he understood as he watched Thessia sleep.

  You did these things, Father?

  Because why? She believed the lies you spread to everyone?

  No. This was to punish me. You knew I’d see this.

  You knew, Father. Because you know everything.

  He wondered if his father had seen him weeping in the desert. If he’d watched Volkan die. If he’d know when the warship arrived at the Pyramid.

  His most sickening thought?

  That even if he stormed his father’s halls, fought his way to the Pyramid’s heart, and stared Menkaur in his cold, cruel eyes, he’d never have the strength to take the only life he ever should’ve.

  He knew.

  Somehow, he knew.

  He would never be able to end it.

  And he would die before he dared take his father’s life.

  * * *

  They came at dusk.

  Dark-eyed and grim, eleven knights who’d served under Volkan trod across the airfield and arrived at the ramp’s bottom. Eadunn, sitting atop the ramp, looked across their faces.

  There had been more last night.

  More knights. And of course Al-Muham’s men, who were nowhere to be seen.

  If these eleven had decided in the daylight hours to keep their oaths to the Pharaoh, Eadunn knew he couldn’t stop them all. He’d left his weapons in the cabin with Thessia and his armor on the floor behind him. Dressed in only a dark shirt and flowing pants, he rested his elbows atop his knees and looked placidly across the knights.

  Let them kill me if they like.

  Without a Blue Vial, I’ll be dead in a few centuries anyway.

  The knights shuffled to a stop at the ramp’s bottom. The dying sunlight lay at their backs, stretching their shadows across the ship.

  Foremost among the eleven, Hanzo stood tall.

  “Lord, we’ve come,” the young knight announced.

  “And what say you?” said Eadunn. His voice boomed no more. He sounded almost mortal.

  “What would you have us do?” countered Hanzo. The look in his eyes told Eadunn the truth—Hanzo and the others already knew what would be said.

  They deserve to hear it.

  “We will go before my father and demand our freedom.”

  “And when he rejects it?” said Hanzo. “What then?”

  Eadunn looked beyond the knights and into the sunset. The tattered light was easier to face than the truth.

  “I won’t kill my father,” he said. “But any others who try to stop us—”

  “It’s impossible.” Another of the knights stepped forward. Eadunn recognized him as the ship’s pilot. “Even if we make a safe landing, we’ll never get in. The Pyramid’s doors will be sealed. They already know we’re here…and they probably know what we’re—”

  “Getting in won’t be a problem,” Eadunn rumbled. “Gate zero-one seven, the munitions gate, it will be open until dawn tomorrow. From there, it’s not terribly far to Father’s chambers.”

  The knights looked to one another.

  All save Hanzo.

  “I’ll do it,” said the young knight. “If you get us in, I’ll finish it.”

  Ead
unn inhaled a bottomless breath.

  There will be traps, he wanted to say.

  …and hundreds of guards.

  They will have swords. Dark-lances. Weapons only the Pharaoh’s elite are allowed to carry.

  If we get in…if…we’re just as likely to die on the way out.

  But Hanzo already knew. Eadunn saw it in the young man’s eyes. Hanzo had planned to die once already, having set the bomb that would’ve killed them all.

  Had I not disarmed it.

  “What if we survive?” another knight piped up. “What if he lets us go…or if we kill him? Then what? We’ve got enough fuel for a thousand miles or so. Where will we go? How can we know the Lord won’t chase us…even in death?”

  “So many ifs.” Eadunn shook his head. “You remind me of myself. Lost in tomorrow at the price of today. Don’t worry. If we earn our freedom, I know places. Places where the water is still clean. Secret places. Father hasn’t destroyed them all. He’s saving a few for when the rest of us are dead.”

  The word ‘dead’ hit them hard. He saw understanding sweep across their faces. Perhaps Hanzo had already known, but the rest had truly believed the Pharaoh’s promises.

  ‘Kill for me, and I’ll make Lords of you,’ Menkaur had told them. ‘Exalted, you’ll be. Princes in a world without peasants.’

  One by one, they seemed to awaken. The Pyramid had been shut for five centuries. Its secrets and treasures would only be allowed into the light once the Pharaoh’s vision of a perfect world was complete.

  Which might take a thousand years.

  Or a hundred-thousand.

  So dark is Father’s mind.

  “Where are the others?” He looked at the faraway hangar, its roof now steeped in shadows. “Al-Muham and his lot. The rest of our crew.”

  The men fell strangely silent. Eadunn read guilt in their eyes, suppressed not nearly enough to stay hidden. Once again, only Hanzo dared to speak.

  “Dead. They’re dead, Lord.”

  “You killed them,” said Eadunn, and there was no doubt.

  “They whispered, Lord,” said Hanzo. “And they plotted. Al-Muham wanted your bride for his own. The others believed the Pharaoh would reward them for capturing you alive. I heard these things…and I used Al-Muham’s Scimitar on them as they rested. They didn’t have time to scream. Though…the hangar’s floor…it has seen better days.”

  Eadunn flinched at none of it.

  “What about the rest of you?” He looked to the shadowed faces behind Hanzo. “Don’t you have oaths—promises to my father? Will you wait until we’re aboard the ship and try to overtake me? Will you cower when the Pyramid guards demand you turn over your weapons?”

  Even in the growing dark, he saw. The eleven men were afraid, but not of the Pharaoh or of the Nemesis. They were afraid for themselves. For what their short little lives would become after turning in their weapons and submitting to an unknowable future.

  They knew.

  They didn’t have to say a word.

  None of them would turn on him.

  “You’re all armed?” he asked them.

  They grunted, nodded, and held up their weapons. Hanzo had retained the Scimitar, while the pilot carried a dark-lance. The rest had their blades, black as midnight, sharper than anything in the world.

  Eadunn stood at last. The dark was complete, and the airfield buried in shadow. Atop the ramp, he waved the men forward.

  Hanzo climbed first, followed by the rest.

  When they passed Eadunn, each of them bowed.

  * * *

  For the great warship, mightiest of the ten, to fly thirty short miles was a simple matter. Anticlimactic, it seemed, and somehow too swift for Eadunn’s liking. The pilot flew low, not touching the clouds, skimming the dunes and vacant dust-lands with a roar that might’ve signaled the first storm of the new season.

  Only…the skies were clear and starry.

  And the night empty in all directions.

  While the ship thundered through the dark, Eadunn stood with the other knights in the cockpit. The ground swept past at a terrifying pace. The knights, fully armored and masked, shut their fears away into silent places. None spoke, but Eadunn knew their minds.

  They believe they’re dead already.

  It may be true.

  Almost no one noticed when Thessia arrived at the cockpit’s rear door. She haunted the small dark space, draped in another knight’s black shirt and sagging pants, her feet wrapped in slim cloth bandages. Her arms were crossed, her hair slicked back with turbine grease, and her face devoid of emotion.

  Eadunn saw her eyes and understood.

  She isn’t afraid.

  She means to join us when we enter the Pyramid.

  In another era, he’d have locked her away in one of the cabins to protect her. But it seemed pointless anymore. She had as much reason to face the Pharaoh as any of the others.

  …perhaps even more.

  “There.” The pilot pointed out the window. “There it is. The Pyramid.”

  “Come in low,” said one of the knights. “I hear the Lord has weapons hiding in the Pyramid’s top. Please, God…don’t let them see us.”

  The ships of the Black Fleet had never been allowed to approach the Pyramid. Eadunn supposed the men were wise to be afraid. If the Pyramid’s guardians managed to cut the ship down before it landed, everyone aboard would die.

  It won’t even hurt, thought Eadunn.

  The great black Pyramid arose beyond the cockpit windows. Vast in size, seamless in the dark, it reached more than a quarter-mile into the night, its shining top injuring the sky.

  “Land by Gate zero-one—” said another knight.

  “I know.” The pilot bristled. “You think I’ve never been here before?”

  The men fell silent. Eadunn strode up beside the pilot, who throttled the engines down while soaring treacherously near the Pyramid’s eastern side. Everyone in the cockpit saw the open spaces in the otherwise perfect matte black.

  Scimitar ports, Eadunn knew. Open and ready for combat.

  But no one’s manning them.

  “Lord, look,” the pilot jabbed his finger at the cockpit window. “Something’s wrong. Should we turn around?”

  Everyone stared. Even Thessia stood taller in the room’s rear, straining to see over the knights’ shoulders.

  “There,” said Hanzo. “Is that smoke?”

  Indeed, starlit smoke rose in an angry grey line from the Pyramid’s northern face. The pilot, understanding there was no turning back, brought the ship lower. Eadunn expected to see soldiers scattering, villagers screaming, and caravan wagons abandoned.

  He saw only a giant hole where Gate zero-one seven should’ve been.

  And dead bodies instead of soldiers.

  “Bring the ship down.” He hissed at the pilot. “Do it. Now.”

  Pulling hard on the throttle, the pilot banked the ship left and down. The terrain outside the Pyramid’s northern face was flat and featureless, and so the ship settled into the sand with ease. The roar was deafening, and for a moment the cockpit window was obscured by a wall of rising dust.

  When it cleared, everyone stared across the three-hundred yards of dead space between the ship and the hole burned in the Pyramid’s side.

  “Look at the hole.” The pilot stood with his mouth agape. “Those are Scimitar marks.”

  Another knight’s eyes were wide. “Who could’ve done this? And how? All the other ships were destroyed.”

  For a moment, during which nothing in the world moved or made a sound, Eadunn gazed across the night. The holes in the Pyramid’s side were red-rimmed and smoldering. The twenty-some bodies outside, though shrouded by the dark, were mangled. Some were burned, others dismembered. Most had no weapons in their hands, as if they’d died not fighting, but by the hands of a ghost who’d floated through their ranks at a leisurely pace.

  “The Scimitar.” He gestured at the weapon battery lying just inside the destroyed ga
te. “Father’s men…they were trying to kill whoever attacked. The Scimitar made the holes in the gate. Look.”

  The knights strained to see, and yet it was difficult. Theirs were mortal eyes, and only a fraction as powerful as Eadunn’s.

  “What now, Lord?” said Hanzo.

  “This, I did not foresee.” Eadunn shook his head.

  “Do we go in?” Hanzo looked hard at him.

  Eadunn counted the dead once more.

  Twenty-three.

  Carved to ribbons.

  No survivors.

  He slid his mask over his eyes, felt his suit pressurize.

  “All of you,” he said with a voice like thunder, “let’s go.”

  35

  Long, she’d slept.

  But for all her hours removed from consciousness, her slumber hadn’t been enough.

  The cabin bed about the warship had been cold and hard. And Eadunn hadn’t touched her, spoken to her, or looked at her.

  Worse still, nightmares had chased her. She’d suffered visions of the world burning, of Saeed and his army floating away with the ashes, and of oceans tarry and black, so thick with oil no waves dared crest upon their broken shores.

  When she’d awoken, she’d known the world would never be the same. The feeling hung heavy in her chest, a black stone beneath her ribs. She’d slunk to the ship’s cockpit and peered into the starry wasteland beyond the window.

  And now?

  What was she doing?

  Trailing Eadunn and the others beneath the stars, she felt as though she were striding through an impossibly dense fog. It wasn’t desert sand or dust from the ship’s landing clouding her eyes, but a haze in her mind so thick she saw nothing beyond a few dozen feet. The knights’ voices sounded remote. The one named Hanzo walked beside her, saying words to her, easing her along with his smiles.

  But she heard nothing.

  Trudging through the sand, wending her way around the corpses of the Pharaoh’s men, she looked up and saw the Pyramid. Its shadow claimed all things, blotting the stars, burying her heart. The closer she walked, the greater its darkness fell upon her.