The Valley of the Gods

by Phil Tucker

  “And so recently prepared…” Her voice was a sensuous murmur in his ear, the kind of whisper a lover might use. “They’ve used you most cruelly, my darling pet. Look at how you’ve been abused.”

  Her hand drifted down over his chest, her fingertips dancing and tracing his cuts and wounds. Acharsis lay still, heart pounding, staring up into the darkness. Hephesa. It had to be her.

  She dug her fingers cruelly into a deep cut over his breast and he arched his back with a strangled sound of pain.

  “No, shhh, relax, ride it out, ride it out…” She pressed her palm to his brow. “If you are to serve your purpose, serve it well. Do not resist me. Be still.”

  His limbs became leaden and he flopped back onto the bed. Though the pain yet snarled through his body, Acharsis found that he could no longer move; he lay as if caught in a deep sleep, the dark room a dream.

  “There, that’s better. Now. Let us see what Azanasu has brought me…”

  Her touch was tender as a lover’s. Her lips brushed his skin. She slipped down his side to kiss a trail down his neck, over his clavicle, down his chest. She lingered at each slash of the lash, licking a trail along every cut that caused him to howl within the confines of his mind even as he lay as still as a stone.

  “Too much, perhaps.” She drew back. “Where is the pleasure if you’re not able to join me? Let us loosen the reins.”

  His body stirred and Acharsis moaned as the pain rose within him. Anscythia’s name rose to his lips. All he had to do was call for her, beg that she kill Hephesa, and he’d be free of this torment.

  No. He clamped down on that thought. That would ruin everything.

  Hephesa resumed her explorations, but now Acharsis could cry out each time she teased or tormented his wounds. A breathy, husky whisper of a scream, his body twitching and shaking beneath her ministrations.

  His vision was growing strange, the room seeming to recede above him as if he were falling into a well. He couldn’t black out. Who knew what she’d do to his body while he was unconscious? If he’d ever wake again?

  That, and he wanted to show her just whom she was messing with. Older, my ass.

  “More,” he whispered, his voice little more than a rasp.

  Hephesa paused. “What did you say?”

  “More.” He tried to look down at where she lay, but couldn’t tilt his head. “Enjoy.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then he could almost feel her smile. “Oh, my. A rare candidate. You enjoy this, do you?” And she slid her finger into his flesh.

  “Fuck yes,” he gasped, arching his back once more. “Talk. Let me talk.”

  Hephesa drew back, fingertip tracing bloody circles across his chest. “Well. Why not? If you’ve a mind to share…”

  And the clamp that had held his jaws together, that had made even speaking a single word a mighty effort, fell away.

  “Ahh,” sighed Acharsis. “My goddess, my queen. My body is yours. A field of battle on which you may disport.”

  “A poet,” said Hephesa, caressing his cheek. “How unexpected.”

  “Tonight is holy,” said Acharsis. His mind was reeling. This was the worst fucking night of his life. “Azanasu thought it fit you celebrate…”

  “Hmmm,” murmured Hephesa. “Then you won’t mind if I do this?”

  Acharsis didn’t know what she did but it suddenly felt as if she were prying a rib out of his side. He screamed, writhing from side to side, kicking his heels, then collapsed back on the bed.

  “Hoo!” He stared at the ceiling, his vision swimming with motes of color. “Not bad!”

  Hephesa stiffened. “Not bad? What do you mean, ‘not bad’?”

  Acharsis grinned. “Oh, I compliment you, my lady. You’re really quite skilled. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

  She sat up. “Ashamed?”

  “Don’t take it the wrong way.” He fought for his breath. “You’re clearly a natural, very into it, I can tell you’ve done this before.”

  “But?”

  “But? Well, if you must know, you’re a little too inhibited. Too self-conscious.” He forced his head over so he could regard her silhouette. “You need to let loose a little. Really go all out.”

  A spell of silence, and then she was on him, her body sliding over his own. “You want me to drop all restraint? You want me to bleed you like a hog hung from a branch?”

  “Better,” he said. “Good visuals, great intensity. Keep going.”

  “Cut your flesh into ribbons, flay your skin from your quivering body?” She was rocking up and down his length, grinding her hips into his own. “Feed you your own gobbets of meat, still warm and bleeding from your side?”

  “I like where this is going,” he said. “Macabre and erotic. Fantastic combination.”

  She reared up, straddling him, and backhanded him across the face.

  “Ow,” said Acharsis. “Again.”

  She complied and resumed rocking.

  “Release my arms,” he said. “Let me guide you to where it hurts most.”

  And like that, his arms were free. He slipped his hand down his side to where the paste was hidden in a small container in his sash and flipped the lid off. He then quickly brought his hand back up and, guiding her fingers into his mouth, and bit lightly on them. Hepjesa groaned, and, while she was distracted, he scooped some of the paste free and then moved his fingers back up to her mouth.

  “Bite me,” he said, and she took his fingers in her mouth and did so.

  “Argh!” He yanked his hand free. “Not that hard!”

  She stopped. “What?”

  “Sorry, sorry. That was great. Passionate, like a hog rooting for truffles. Very good.”

  “A hog?”

  “Sorry, you’re right. A sow.”

  Hephesa rose to her feet so that she towered over him. “You jest with me? Is this a game to you? Because if so…”

  Acharsis forced himself to rise up on his elbows and look up at her. “Yeah?”

  “If so… oh. My head.”

  “Mmmhmm.”

  Hephesa’s knees gave way and she sat down heavily on Acharsis’ legs. Her control over his body disappeared altogether, and he shoved himself free, slipping off the bed and nearly falling to the floor.

  “What… what’s happening to me?”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “You just got a little too excited. Happens to a lot of ladies during their first time with me.”

  Hephesa slumped over on the sheets and went still.

  “Arrgh!” Acharsis’ whole body was throbbing. He stumbled about till he found a pitcher and raised it to his lips. Wine. Sweet, delirious perfection.

  He drank deep, much of it sluicing down his cheeks and chest, then hurled the empty pitcher away and looked at where the head priestess lay unconscious.

  “What is wrong with you?” He carefully pulled his tunic over his head and cast the bloodied rag away. “Seriously? What by Nekuul’s sagging - what was that?”

  Acharsis staggered into the antechamber to get a candle and then froze at the sight of a young woman in the black robes of a Seeker. “Uh. Hello.”

  The woman was striking in the way that birds of prey arrest the eye; she had a predatory intensity to her that froze Acharsis in his tracks and she rose from her chair as if ready to cut his throat. “What’s going on here?”

  “The, ah, well, you see.” Acharsis paused, and then, as always, his thoughts fell into place. “Mistress Hephesa hit her head against the headboard while cutting me apart. I’m truly sorry. She’s passed out on the bed.”

  “She what?” The woman tore past him like a storm wind, and with a snap of her fingers lit all of the candles within the bedroom with a green flame.

  Has she been out there this whole time, just listening in? Acharsis trailed after her. Freaking Nekuulites!

  “Priestess?” The young woman rushed to Hephesa’s side and rolled her onto her back. “Priestess!”

  Hephesa groaned and her eyelids flu
ttered.

  The woman whipped around to glare at Acharsis. “If you did this—”

  “Nope. Impossible. She had me in some kind of mind lock thing where I could barely even move. I’m telling you. She got a little crazy there and banged her head.”

  The woman studied him and then moved to a bowl of water over which she extended her hand. Focusing intently, she spoke a string of garbled syllables that had to be the secret Nekuulite language, and the water began to glow with faint green radiance.

  “Here,” said the woman, and for a moment Acharsis thought she was speaking to him. But no. “Here, Hephesa. Drink.”

  She sat and cradled the older woman’s head, and carefully poured the glowing water past the woman’s lips.

  Hephesa was dark haired, about Acharsis’ age, and with a narrow, harsh profile that reminded him of Irella if she’d starved herself for three weeks and then drank a lot of vinegar. The water flowed into her mouth and after a few convulsive swallows she let out a sigh.

  “There,” said the young Seeker, setting the bowl on the floor. “That should heal her of any injury. Slave, clear away these bloodied sheets. What a mess. And tonight of all nights! Hurry! Begone!”

  Acharsis bobbed his head and took hold of the sheets with their crimson smears, pulling them out from under the prostrate priestess. He nearly passed out from the effort, and quite purposefully dumped the crumpled mass into the bowl of glowing green water.

  The young Seeker hissed and half surged to her feet before sinking back down so as to not dislodge Hephesa’s head. “Fool! Blasphemer! What have you done?”

  “Apologies! A thousand times over my apologies!” Acharsis pressed the sheets into the bowl hard before pulling them free and staggering back. “The blood loss, and I’m overwhelmed by your stern authority and obvious power. I thought you wanted me to clear the bowl, too. I’m not thinking properly. I’ll go now. Goodbye.”

  And he stumbled back out into the antechamber, sheet clutched to his chest. Breathing raggedly, wanting to collapse, he made his way out the entrance, past the two deathless who ignored him, and down the hall, pressing the glowing sheet to his chest and face as he went.

  Where the water-soaked sheet touched his skin, Acharsis felt a soothing numbness wash away the pain. He didn’t even see where he was going, but simply staggered on, holding onto the sheet as if it were his favorite childhood blanket and all that stood between him and the horrors in the dark. His shoulder bounced off a wall, and then he stopped and buried his head in the green glow, pressing the sheet to his temple and eye and cut cheek.

  Blessed relief. The pain didn’t go away so much as fade, but when he finally dropped the sheet he felt immeasurably better. He looked at the wounds over his chest and arms and saw that they’d scabbed over, looking weeks old.

  “Thanks, Nekuul.” He pushed away from the wall. He still felt terribly weak but no longer on the verge of death. Casting around, he saw the corpse chute he’d been destined for and strolled past, chucking the blood-soaked sheet into its bronze depths.

  A deep breath, and he straightened his back, raised his chin, and cast around. He was on the eighth floor. Sisu was awaiting them all on the twelfth. With his special amulet granting him complete access to the ziggurat safely stashed in the back of his sash, nestled in the small of his back, Acharsis could climb with impunity as long as none of the living challenged his passage.

  Wincing still, Acharsis rounded his shoulders once more, hunched over in an appropriately servile fashion, and hurried down the hall toward the same stairwell from which he’d emerged not too long ago. No voices rose to demand he stop; no shouts emerged from the head priestess’ chambers.

  As Acharsis stepped into the stairwell, he felt a flush of triumph. Somehow, against all the odds, he’d done it.

  The sweet sensation of success buoyed his spirits and helped him climb the steep stairway with renewed vigor; up he went, taking each corner eagerly, hiding his grin each time someone descended past him. Slaves were not meant to be ebullient. Around and around, counting off the floors, till he reached the twelfth and stepped out into the hallway.

  The temperature here was markedly cooler, and his breath misted faintly in the air before him. Fighting the urge to shiver, Acharsis hurried down the hall, shrinking against the wall in a manner befitting a wretched slave.

  Lanterns here burned with a ghastly green glow, casting undulating shadows across the rough walls, making it seem as if he strode through a flooded grotto, deep within the pools of some verdant lake. The dead were numerous, either posted outside doorways in absolute stillness or moving about their tasks with disconcerting litheness, as if up here, closer to Nekuul’s own private temple, they were less removed from life than those further below.

  Sisu had sketched out a map of this floor in charcoal upon a wooden board, and Acharsis had dedicated each corner, hallway, and room to memory. He had to have emerged from the third stairwell, which had been positioned in the upper left corner of the map. Sisu had chosen a small storage room in the bottom right, which meant Acharsis had to cross the entirety of the ziggurat to reach him.

  The core of the ziggurat was where the most important rooms were located, all of them clustered around a broad well that descended directly from Nekuul’s temple above to the corpse chambers far below, a conduit of undead power that served to raise hundreds of the deceased every day without Irella’s presence being required.

  Best to avoid all that.

  Head bowed low, Acharsis hurried around the periphery of the floor, taking turns with little hesitation, avoiding notice as only a beaten slave could. He caught alluring glimpses of the contents of the rooms as he passed them: one was a mausoleum of some kind, servants or artists painting the corpses laid out on plinths in strange, lurid patterns. Another was a small library, endless shelves laden with clay tablets, a half-dozen leeches sitting at lecterns as they feverishly scanned one tablet after another for some elusive truth.

  The tromp of dead feet sounded from up ahead, and a moment later a regiment of the dead marched into view, following a black-robed leech whose face Acharsis dared not glance at. He instead pulled back against the wall and hunched down, turning away so as to avoid notice, and waited like each time before for the patrol to pass him by.

  The patrol stopped just before passing him.

  “You there, dear fellow - oh my, you have been sorely used - but no matter, such is the lot of your kind, it is your nature to be used, and there assuredly is some glory in fulfilling your purpose—”

  Acharsis stiffened. He knew that wheedling, pompous, ingratiating tone.

  “I have a message for you to deliver, yes, a moment of glory for you, is it not, a chance to do more than lick the piss out of chamber pots.” The leech paused, registering Acharsis’ complete lack of reaction, how he’d failed to fall to his knees, how he was still frozen against the wall. “Whatever is the matter with you?”

  Acharsis’ pulse pounded in his ears like the tides of Khartis’ ocean roaring into a sea cave. A quiet, distant voice urged him to bow and fall to his knees, keep his face averted, take the message, gain no attention - but he couldn’t make himself move. Couldn’t make himself go through the motions.

  Instead, to his own horror, he found himself pushing away from the wall to stand straight and stare the leech in the eyes. He was a balding older man with rounded shoulders and a sneering smile that was dying on his lined face even as he blinked and registered who stood before him.

  “You,” said Yesu, voice shaking.

  “Elu sends his greetings,” said Acharsis, and grabbed the leech by the throat.

  “Kill him!” screeched Yesu, his long-nailed fingers scrabbling at Acharsis’ wrist.

  Never had Acharsis so longed for his missing second hand. He clubbed Yesu’s head with his stump as he drove him back, struggling, to pin him against the wall. In the periphery of his vision he saw the dozen dead guards stumble forward and come to a stop.

  “Kill…. hi
m!” hissed Yesu, eyes bulging as he slowly pulled Acharsis’ hand away. “Blasted… idiotic… kill him… now!”

  Again the dead staggered forward, and again they stumbled to a standstill, arrested no doubt by the power and authority of Sisu’s amulet.

  Yesu was a scrawny vulture of a man, but his two hands were the match to Acharsis’ one, and pounding his forearm against the leech’s face was doing little to actually hurt him. With a cry Yesu tore himself free, fumbled a bronze dagger from his sash, and then allowed himself the pleasure of grinning.

  “Acharsis. My, my. How unexpected. Yet with you, I suppose I should see this as absolutely quotidian. Do you know what that word means? Quotidian?”

  “Wait, I’ve heard that one before. It means your mother died taking too many donkey cocks at once,” said Acharsis, heaving for breath and glancing up and down the hallway. There. A lantern. He could seize it, dash it against Yesu’s head—

  “No, it does not mean that,” said Yesu, face mottling with anger. “It means ‘everyday’, as in, a normal, expected occurrence. Here we are, in Irella’s magnificent ziggurat, on the eve of the greatest ritual ever, and who should I expect to find prowling the hallways like an inebriated rat? Acharsis. Which means Jarek will be close by.”

  “Uh-huh.” Acharsis glanced over Yesu’s shoulder. “Closer than you think.”

  Yesu stiffened but did not turn around. “An amateur bluff.”

  Acharsis raised both eyebrows and grinned. “Nice seeing you again, Yesu. Ready for your second dive down a corpse chute?”

  “He’s not behind me,” said Yesu, dagger shaking in his white-knuckled fist. “My dead will—”

  “Just like they attacked me, huh? No matter.” Acharsis looked over Yesu’s shoulder once more then widened his eyes as if in anticipation of a great blow.

  Yesu hissed and glanced over his shoulder.

  Acharsis darted back, grabbed the lantern, then hurled it at Yesu as the leech looked back. The lantern smashed into the older man’s chest, causing green flames to spill out over his robes as the oil spattered everywhere.

  “What - argh! Get this off me, someone get this - argh!” Yesu dropped the knife and tore at his robes, which were catching fire quite eagerly.