by Phil Tucker
Annara did as she was commanded, nodding to Raherka so that he stepped back to resume his post.
For a few moments they simply sat in silence, each without the benefit of a cup of beer with which to sip on or toy with, so that they could only stare at their own hands.
“There has to be a way to defeat Nethena and Pawura,” said Annara. “Can you abdicate as regent and declare Senacherib fit to rule alone?”
“I could abdicate, but any commands I issued before doing so would be overturned by Pawura the moment he declared himself my replacement.”
“Can you order Pawura away?” Annara pursed her lips as she recalled Elu asking her the very same question but a week ago.
“I could, but that would only force him to stage a coup as he led his chariotry against Senacherib. I don’t command a fifth of the loyalty in the military that he does. We’d be easily overrun.”
“Could we have him killed?”
Pebekkamen glanced sidelong at her. “I was wondering when you’d ask that. Of course. It would be difficult, but we could probably see it done. But Nethena would simply find herself a new general to manipulate.”
“But it could buy us time.”
“At great cost. There are four generals leading the Maganian military at this time. Pawura leads the chariots, which are our most elite force. His death would be a major loss, and require the promotion of a new general before the chariots could be mobilized for war once more. Didn’t you say an army of the undead was about to attack out eastern flank through the Desert of Bones?”
“Yes,” said Annara, shoulders slumping.
“Then killing him would be akin to cutting off our nose to spite our face. We’d keep Senacherib on the throne for a month longer but dramatically increase the odds of losing the war with Irella.”
“What about Nethena? Can we move against her?”
Pebekkamen laughed. “Against the Queen Mother? Even I wouldn’t dare strike down a woman of divine blood.”
“Divine how? Is she descended from a god?”
“She was the wife of the previous pharaoh. That union conferred his divinity upon her. I may be a wretched alcoholic and lowly excuse of a man, but I won’t raise a hand against divinity.”
“But so is Senacherib,” Annara protested. “How are people willing to oppose him?”
“He isn’t divinity yet. He was never fully made pharaoh, though he earned the right by passing the Quickening.”
“So if he became in some way fully divine, then Maganians would cease to struggle against him?”
Pebekkamen shrugged. “Yes, but you’re playing with paradoxes now. He can’t be fully divine until he’s made pharaoh, and he can only bypass the need for a regent by becoming divine. Therefore he has to wait.”
“What of these Kusuji? They didn’t pass the Quickening. How were they made pharaohs?”
Pebekkamen turned and spat on the floor. “That’s what I think of the Kusuji, damned be their memory. Usurpers from the south. They never attempted the Quickening because they knew they would fail. No. You cannot look to their example if you want to inspire Magan.”
“But they ruled for over a century, didn’t they? Did they conquer Magan?”
“Yes,” said Pebekkamen, but with obvious reluctance. “Three centuries ago Magan was on the verge of collapse. They were originally part of our empire, but split away during that time of weakness. A century later, they came roaring back and conquered us, styling themselves as the true heirs of the ancient empire. The lamassu of course did nothing; we true Maganians labored under their cruel rule for a century before driving them back south.”
“So they’re still there?”
“We have as of yet to crush them, yes.”
“But they ruled Magan and were accepted as pharaohs without becoming divine?”
Pebekkamen sighed. “No, in their own way they achieved divinity. It was heretical and foul, but it could not be denied. Their pharaohs never underwent the Quickening, but instead had their own trial they claimed stemmed from the furthest reaches of Magan’s own history and which only they’d safeguarded. Upon passing their trial, the lamassu themselves would recognize them as divine beings, and thus - well. We Maganians place a lot of stock on divinity, even if we hate the vessel that bares such sacred waters.”
Annara rubbed at her chin. “And Nethena is deemed divine.”
“Yes.”
“But her divinity has not been conferred to Senacherib.”
“No, because he’s obviously not her son.”
Annara raised an eyebrow. “It’s a treasonous offense to say such a thing.”
“True.” Pebekkamen shrugged. “But do I look like I give a shit? Everybody knows he’s your child. We all applaud your cunning in installing him on the throne, and his passing the Quickening solidified his right to rule. But no. The people do not believe him divine as of yet, and Nethena’s divinity does not flow through to him in their eyes.”
“But if I were to become divine?”
Pebekkamen gave a wry grin. “Then suddenly everybody would acknowledge that Nethena’s divinity flowed into Senacherib, and had done so all along.”
Annara nodded her head slowly as she tapped the bar with her fingers. “So all I have to do is journey to Kusuji, pass their trial, and return in time to have Senacherib’s divinity confirmed and our armies sent to battle Irella.”
Pebekkamen’s snort was like that of a bull. “Ha! Yes. Indeed. What a brilliant plan. Instead of being murdered in our beds in the palace, lets be killed while riding camels further into the mountains and desert by pagan savages who’ll no doubt flay us and feed us our privates for dinner. Brilliant.”
Annara ignored him. “The palace is as dangerous to us as any enemy nation. I must learn more about them, about their trial and their current status. I bear them no grudges like you and everyone else does. Senacherib would be willing to deal with them fairly and put the past behind us. Perhaps there is a way.”
“No, Annara. You’d have better luck pulling a bull’s scrotum out of its mouth. You’re talking madness.”
“Do you have a better plan?”
Pebekkamen scowled down at his scarred hands. “Be killed in bed with forty five women?”
Annara stood up. “Then for now we’ll pursue this line of inquiry. Whom can I speak with that would be knowledgeable of the Kusuji?”
Pebekkamen groaned and rubbed his hands over his head. “Why must I be tormented so? The scribes, the scribes of course. Neferhotep is the royal scribe, and guardian of all history and knowledge. He could probably talk your ear off about all this.”
“Good. Then let’s head straight there. We’ve precious hours to go before Nethena and Pawura move to kill us both.”
“And you want to spend them in the company of scribes?”
Annara’s grin was as cold and merciless as that of a crocodile. “I’d be willing to spend my next few hours inside a heap of manure if it got me any closer to saving my son’s life.” Ah, but it felt damn good to say those words out loud at last. “Now quit your moaning and follow me. Chin up. You’re the damn regent of Magan, and whether you like it or not you’re going to help me save this empire, even if it means handing it over to Magan’s most ancient enemies.”
CHAPTER TEN
Sisu reached out and placed his palm against the mirror. Acharsis watched as the Nekuulite took a deep, shuddering breath, then pushed against his own hand, which disappeared and for an eerie moment left him looking like he was connected by the wrist to his reflection. Sisu gasped, stepped forward, and then turned back to them as he sank further in.
“Hurry. I’m weakening the gauntlet. Cross through with me, now!”
Jarek’s hand clapped down on Acharsis’ shoulder and squeezed. “Good luck, old friend.”
“And to you. Don’t get too bored out here.” And with that, he stepped after Sisu, leaving Kish to say her goodbyes.
His reflection loomed large, immodestly handsome, and then Acharsis
placed his fingertips against the glass and found it warm and soft like bathwater. He pushed forward and took a sharp breath moments before plunging his head in. A final step, and he was through.
And into Nekuul’s netherworld.
A frigid wind whipped past him, particulate with ashes, and lashing at his face and frame as if seeking to scour the skin from his muscles. Its howl was vindictive, like a lover scorned who has found their former mate bound and helpless at their mercy. Acharsis immediately hunched his shoulders and threw an arm up to cover his eyes, but even through his fingers he could make out the delightful land into which they’d stepped.
The sky churned as if furious, a cloudscape of dark purples and crimsons that were shot through with frequent flashes of lightning. The ground was a wasteland of ash and bone, the occasional jagged boulder rearing itself out of the land as if for a final gasp of air before succumbing and sinking out of sight. Hills of bone were piled up around them with altars at their apex upon which robed figures worshipped, spears of bright purple light hovering in the air about them.
The air smelled of smoke and old blood and rotting funeral shrouds. Eyes stinging, Acharsis stumbled over to where Sisu stood with his shoulders thrust back, chin raised, eyes burning with green fire.
“Oh, glory,” said Sisu, raising his hand to examine the green fire that suddenly limned it. “Had I thought I lived before this? Had I thought myself powerful?”
“Steady, steady,” said Acharsis, shouting into the crook of his elbow. “You’re not dead yet. Quick! Our disguise!”
Kish staggered up beside them, bent over and with her hands clapped over her mouth and nose. At her approach, Sisu gave a firm nod and extended his hands into the air.
“By dying light and the last murmur, by the bones the crumble underfoot as I make my way to the unhewn throne, by laughter quenched and hearts grown still, by the royal blood that burns through my veins, give yourselves unto me.”
He reached out to each of them and green mist burst forth from his palms, refreshingly cool at first but quickly enervating. Acharsis stepped back as he felt his skin grow numb, the cold fading away to be replaced by a nullity that alarmed him all the more.
It got worse. Looking at his palms, Acharsis saw the skin grow pale and waxen then split, revealing tendons and gray muscle beneath. His whole body was withering, his hair falling from his scalp, his teeth loosening and then dropping from his gums as they receded. Muscle wasted away, his clothing grew somber and torn, and in moments he was completely transformed.
“What have you done?” Kish’s voice was hollow, and Acharsis recoiled from the sight of her. She looked a dozen years dead, her eyes milky white and sunken, her bones protruding through her skin, garbed in a funeral shroud and horrific to look upon.
“Disguised you, as promised,” said Sisu. “Don’t worry, it’s not permanent. But now you can walk amongst the denizens of the netherworld without drawing attention.”
Acharsis looked down at his own skeletal hands and shook his head. “From golden youth to unhallowed old age. A tragedy. Still, if you think it best…”
“I do.” Sisu spoke with new confidence. “And we’d best hurry. Nekuul might choose to ignore us for awhile longer, but not if we just stand around idly. Come. I can sense where the dead gods lie.”
“Why doesn’t he have to take on the appearance of a corpse?” asked Kish as she fell in stride with Acharsis. “Doesn’t seem fair.”
“Vanity, I suppose,” said Acharsis. “That, or being the grandson of Nekuul and not needing to.”
But he hardly paid attention to the words, didn’t even hear Kish’s response. He was walking through the netherworld. His netherworld, toward his dead father. His heart pounded within his exposed ribcage, and he felt light headed and nauseous. What if his conjectures were wrong? What if they’d be unable to communicate with Ekillos? Would all of this have been for nothing?
They rounded a hill of bone and ash and saw a river of the dead flowing past. Acharsis stumbled to a stop and drank in the sight, horrified and fascinated. Thousands upon thousands marched here, extending toward the gloomy horizon in each direction, heads bowed, shoulders hunched, clad in rags and looking little better than he and Kish. Had so many been found unworthy? He grimaced as he forced himself to swallow, then followed after Sisu who hadn’t stopped.
Despite himself, Acharsis couldn’t help but think on the Maganian netherworld, with its ethereal forests, emerald grass and that golden light glowing forth from Amubastis. It seemed idyllic in comparison, but also wrong; staring at this ruinous landscape with its blasted dead, Acharsis felt a reaffirmation of his purpose: he would strive to do his utmost during this life, because it was living that was most precious; had the beautiful netherworld of Magan been his ultimate destination, it might have lulled him into a fatalistic sense of complacency. But no. Seeing this horrific world to which he would one day descend made him appreciate being alive all the more. He would not falter, he would not cavil. He would drink deep of life’s waters while he had them, and then rest for eternity down here knowing that he had drunk his fill.
Sisu’s path led them around countless hills, feet crunching on bone. Acharsis saw one wonder after the next: a dream rhino forging a path in the distance, surrounded by a corona of boiling purple fumes. A giant skeleton crawling by on all fours, dragging behind it hundreds of chains that were affixed to the heels of howling souls. A pit of flexing bone spikes from which souls fought to climb free, and once, just once as they crested a rise, the distant city of Eternity where the souls of worth sat in their clay houses, contemplating their deeds and awaiting the end of the world.
“There!” cried Sisu, pitching his voice to be heard over the wind. “There!”
Acharsis’ dead eyes needed no shielding from the stinging dust, but still habit made him visor them with the flat of his hand as he peered ahead into the shifting gloom. A long, low hill lay before them, oddly shaped, and then with a start he realized what it was.
A vast body, half submerged in the ash.
Ekillos.
His fallen father.
With a cry Acharsis ran forward, staggering on the uneven ground, and then just as suddenly stopped, unsure. Ekillos lay on his back, his entire form the length of Rekkidu, so massive that if he had stood on the Golden Steppes his head would have disappeared into the clouds. His skin was the same color as the ash, his hair a filthy gray, his beard matted with dirt and spilling down over his sides like endless cobwebs.
His lifeless face stared straight up, his open eyes covered in a film of ash.
“Father?” It hurt to choke up that word. There was no response. No part of the god moved. He’d clearly not moved in a very long time: walking around his huge head, Acharsis saw that ashes had accumulated on the god’s far side, rising up like a ramp to his chest, submerging his right arm altogether.
He was in the process of being buried.
Acharsis turned to Sisu. “Can you wake him?”
Sisu shook his head slowly. “This is far beyond me. I can’t even sense anything there. It’s as if he were carved from stone.”
Pain constricted Acharsis’ heart. As he walked back around he tripped, only to realize that he’d been walking on his father’s hair, a fibrous mat that was buried under the ash.
With a sob, he rose and ran to the far side, up to his father’s great ear. It was as large as a pair of city gates. He walked right up to it and peered into its cavernous whorls. “Father?”
He cupped his hands together, heart pounding, and screamed, “FATHER?!”
The wind stole away the echoes, howling about him, flinging ashes over his father’s body so that they rained down upon him like snow in the Khartis foothills.
Acharsis stepped back. Nothing. No response. Not even a shiver.
He thought then of Ekillos as he had known him. That wise, amused visage that hung in the golden flames of the ziggurat’s temple, tolerant of Acharsis’ excesses, at once unfathomable and amused
by filthy jokes. Male sexuality and knowledge. Most of his people had thought that his father, being gifted with all knowledge, would be remote and cold, aloof and humorless. Instead, it had always seemed to Acharsis that complete knowledge had made his father kind, given him compassion and patience for the humans who fought and squabbled and vied for his favor.
Now he lay dead. Little more than a geographical feature in the landscape of the netherworld.
When Alok had healed Acharsis, atop Rekkidu’s ziggurat, the god of stone had said that Ekillos lay overthrown but still thought of his son. That for as long as Acharsis lived, there was hope of his return. Gazing up at his dead father, Acharsis felt hot tears spill over his ruined cheeks. Had he taken too long? Had Ekillos died in truth while Acharsis had journeyed to Magan?
“Something’s coming,” called Sisu. “We have to leave.”
Acharsis turned back to him. “Nekuul?”
“No. Not Nekuul. I can’t tell what it is, but it’s coming fast, and it’s furious.”
Acharsis felt his blood run cold. His demon.
“Acharsis?” Even hollowed out by her fake undeath, Acharsis could hear the tension and fear in Kish’s voice. “If you’re going to wake Ekillos, you have to do it now.”
Acharsis looked at his father’s regal profile. It was the ash in the god’s eyes that killed his hope. So what now? Return to Jarek, fight their way past Chorios, journey back to Amubastis, and await the lamassu when next it ferried the souls of the dead to the netherworld so as to beg a return flight?
“No,” hissed Acharsis through his clenched teeth. “No. It can’t end like this.”
“We have to hurry!” Sisu’s voice was sharp with fear.
“No!” Acharsis climbed up the flowing hair to stand atop his father’s head and pounded his fist into his temple. “Wake up! Wake up!”
No response. Tears flowing freely now, heart breaking, he smashed his skeletal hands into the dusty skin, hammering them over and over again in rage and impotence. He’d gambled and lost. Had wagered everything on this one epic voyage, and been undone by what he’d known all along: his father was dead.