“We have sent emissaries to Lahmia many times,” Nebunefer said. “So long as Neferem is tied to the Usurper, they refuse to act.” The king chuckled bitterly.
“For me, that would be more than enough reason to act.” He glanced at Ekhreb. “What is the hour?”
“An hour before noon, great one.”
Rakh-amn-hotep sighed. There was much to do, and little time.
“I want our forces on the march by mid-afternoon,” he told his champion. Ekhreb managed a grin.
“Another long march,” he said. “The men will start to regret all those prayers for your swift recovery.”
“No doubt,” the king said, “but at least this time they’ll be heading home.” Rakh-amn-hotep turned to Nebunefer. “Any supplies you could give us—”
“They are on the way here even now,” the priest interrupted. “You can take the wagons, as well. We’ll expert you to return them in due time.”
The king nodded to Ekhreb, who bowed low and hastened from the room. Moments later he could be heard barking orders to the captains waiting in the common room.
Nebunefer bowed low to Rakh-amn-hotep.
“With your permission, great one, I must depart,” he said. “There is much to be done in Mahrak before the Usurper’s army arrives.” The king nodded, but his expression turned grave.
“I cannot speak for Lybaras, but I and my people will not abandon you. That said, I can’t guarantee when we will return. You may have to endure for a very long time.”
Nebunefer smiled, and said, “With the gods, all things are possible. Until we meet again, Rakh-amn-hotep. In this life, or the next.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
The Undying King
Khemri, the Living City, in the 62nd year of Qu’aph the Cunning
(-1750 Imperial Reckoning)
The evening air blowing through the open entryway of Settra’s Court was pungent with the reek of cinders and scorched flesh. Faint shouts and terrified screams sounded in the distance. Khemri, the Living City, was on fire.
“Explain this,” Nagash said to his immortals. His cold voice echoed faintly in the cavernous space. “This is the third night in a row that there have been riots in the Merchant Quarter.”
The black-robed noblemen, a hundred in all, shifted uneasily around the darkened court and stole wary glances at one another. Finally, Raamket stepped forwards and ventured a reply.
“It’s the same as always,” he grunted. “The harvest was poor. Trade has suffered. They crowd together in the marketplace like sheep and bleat the same things, over and over again. When darkness falls, they grow bold enough to cause trouble.” The nobleman shrugged. “We kill the rabble-rousers when we catch them, but the rest of the herd never seems to get the message.”
“Then perhaps you’re being too selective,” the king snapped. He leaned forwards on his throne and glared down at Raamket. “Send your men through the quarter and kill every man, woman and child you find. Better yet, impale them on spikes around the city wells, so that every matron who has to come to draw water can listen to their cries of agony. Order must be restored. Do you understand? Kill however many you must to put an end to this disgraceful unrest.”
Arkhan the Black stood at Nagash’s right hand, close by the dais. He took a long drink from the goblet in his hand and stared into its depths.
“Killing that many people will be counterproductive,” he said grimly. “Our labour pool is small enough as it is, to say nothing of the city watch or the army. Every citizen we put to death only places more strain on those who survive.”
The emptiness of Settra’s Court attested to the vizier’s observation. Where the hall was once packed with obsequious nobles and scheming ambassadors, now only the king and his immortals remained, along with a handful of slaves and Nagash’s silent queen. One way or another, the Black Pyramid had consumed everyone else.
It had been an epic labour, far in excess of the king’s worst predictions. Quarrying the marble and transporting it alone had occupied tens of thousands of workers and required expert stonesmiths to properly select and shape the massive ebon blocks. Accidents and misfortune took their toll, both at the quarry and at the construction site: a cable snapped, or tired labourers grew inattentive, and men died in shrieking agony beneath tons of black marble. In the first ten years, Nagash had used up half the slaves he’d taken from Zandri, and more continued to die every day.
Nevertheless, the work went on. When setbacks occurred, Nagash ordered his taskmasters to work deep into the night. The city watch sent a steady stream of gamblers, drunkards and thieves to the slave camps outside the necropolis to try to stem the growing tide of casualties. When the criminals ran out, they sent anyone they caught on the streets after dark. The great cities also continued to send their monthly tithes to Khemri, buying peace with the Usurper with a steady flow of blood and coin.
Still, it wasn’t enough. Construction fell behind schedule, year upon year. No one in Khemri believed that the structure would be completed in Nagash’s lifetime. Years passed, but the King of the Living City did not seem to feel the passage of time, and neither did the king’s chosen vassals, whose power and wealth in the city increased with each succeeding decade. Rumours were whispered among the lesser nobles of the court: had Nagash unravelled the deepest mysteries of the Mortuary Cult? Had he been blessed by the gods to lead Nehekhara to a new golden age?
Then Neferem began appearing at the king’s side during his Grand Assemblies, seated upon the lesser throne and assuming the duties of a queen, and the rumours took a much darker turn.
As the years passed and the number of deaths continued to mount, the annual civil service for Khemri’s citizens was extended from a month to six months, and then up to eight. Fields outside the city grew fallow for want of farmers, and Khemri began to spend a great deal of gold importing more grain from the north. Trade suffered for want of craftsmen and artisans, and prices increased. Khemri’s new golden age lost its lustre quickly.
Lahmia was the first of the great cities to withdraw its ambassadors and renege on its monthly tithe. Others followed quickly: Lybaras, then Rasetra, Quatar and Ka-Sabar. They had calculated that Khemri didn’t have enough population left to raise a proper army to enforce their claims, and they were right. The king vowed that work on the pyramid would continue, regardless of the cost. Nagash modified the civil service decree once more, so that every father and eldest son in every household in the city, common or noble, would serve continuously until the massive edifice was complete.
The court emptied quickly. A few noble families tried to flee the city entirely, making for the dubious safety of the east. Nagash ordered a squadron of light horsemen sent after them, offering a hundred gold coins for the head of every man, woman and child they caught. It was a gamble, of sorts, for there was no way to be certain that the horsemen would follow orders once they had left Khemri behind, and Nagash could not send an immortal to command them. For as much as the king and his chosen vassals had become ageless and powerful beyond mortal ken, they nevertheless paid a steep price for their gifts. The light of Nehekhara’s sun burned their skin like a firebrand and sapped their terrible strength, forcing them to seek refuge in the deepest cellars or crypts during the day. The problem had confounded the king for decades, and the answer continued to elude him. It was as though Ptra himself opposed Nagash’s will, scourging him and his immortals with fire.
“The priests,” Nagash muttered darkly. “They are the ones to blame for this.”
He knew it to be true. The priests were immune from conscription or civil service, and they spent their days skulking in their temples and looking for ways to undermine him. They asked after Sukhet continually, and Nagash suspected that they had spies in the palace searching for where he was kept.
Arkhan shifted uncomfortably.
“No doubt you are right, master, but what can we do? Attacking them is tantamount to attacking Mahrak, and if we did that, then the whole country would ris
e up against us.”
Nagash nodded absently, but his gaze drifted to Neferem. The queen sat straight-backed in her chair, showing no reaction to what was being said. He wondered if perhaps she was in league with the priests as well.
The gift of the elixir to Neferem had been a necessary one. He was determined to possess her beauty, if he had to take a thousand years to wear her down. Nagash had seen how the elixir had affected the will of his vassals, who were helpless to resist its seductive pull, and he hoped that she would succumb as well. Though it made her more agreeable in general, the queen’s will was entirely unaffected.
She had, however, stopped pestering him with questions about her son. That at least was a blessing.
The problem, the king suspected, was that duplicitous priest Nebunefer. Nagash was certain that he was a spy sent by Mahrak, and he could come and go freely from the palace now that the king and his immortals had to sleep through the day. Something was going to have to be done about that man, the king decided, something quick and fatal, and it was going to have to happen soon. Mahrak could protest all it liked.
Then, shadows passed across the open entryway to the court. The immortals were immediately on their guard, their hands straying to the swords at their belts. Nagash frowned curiously. When was the last time a citizen had appeared at one of the Grand Assemblies? Twenty years? More?
“Come forward,” the king called out. His voice rang sharply through the stillness. “What do you have to say?”
There was a few moments’ hesitation, before a solitary figure appeared in the entryway. He approached the dais with slow, faltering steps, silhouetted by the moonlit entryway behind him. Nagash could tell at once that it was an old man, bent and nearly broken by the weight of years. When he was three-quarters of the way down the long, echoing aisle, the king recognised who it was, and felt a surge of anger.
“Sumesh? Why aren’t you at the pyramid? What’s happened?”
A stir went through the immortals as the pyramid’s last surviving architect shuffled painfully into the king’s presence. Sumesh was more than two hundred and thirty years old, positively ancient by Nehekharan standards. Though Nagash had ensured that he was a very wealthy man, Sumesh was haggard and his body twisted with age. His gnarled hands trembled and his shoulders were bent.
Sumesh did not answer at first. The architect strode up to the foot of the dais and carefully knelt upon the stone before turning his face up to the king.
“Great one,” he said in a quavering voice, “I have the honour to inform you that the last stone was fitted into place an hour past. The Black Pyramid is complete.”
For a moment, Nagash could not believe his ears. A glimmer of triumph shone in his dark eyes.
“You have done very well, master architect,” he said. “I am indebted to you, and will ensure that you are well rewarded.”
No sooner had the words escaped his lips than Arkhan stepped behind Sumesh and cut his throat from ear to ear. The immortals growled hungrily as the old man’s blood poured out onto the marble steps, and his corpse collapsed face-first onto the stones. Nagash studied the spreading pool of crimson at his feet and smiled.
“It appears that a solution has presented itself,” he said.
The king dispatched his orders at once. The slaves were ordered back to their camps and given an extra ration of food and wine. Arkhan, Raamket and the rest of the immortals were sent out into the city streets to put an end to the rioting by any means necessary. Then Nagash left the queen in the care of Ghazid, and had Khefru lead him through the fire-lit streets to the necropolis, where the new pyramid waited.
It could be seen for miles along the road to the necropolis, towering high above the petty crypts and seeming to swallow the light of the moon. The Black Pyramid was darker than the night, its edges knife-sharp against the indigo sky. Arcs of pale lightning would occasionally crawl across its polished surface, sending pulses of invisible power washing over Nagash’s skin.
The pyramid was a collector and an attractor of dark magic, and for two hundred years it had glutted itself on the spirits of tens of thousands of slaves. That energy coursed through its glossy stones, stored for a single purpose: a ritual unlike anything Nagash had ever performed.
The palanquin crossed a vast plaza made of close-set marble flagstones and stopped before a featureless, unadorned opening at the base of the pyramid. It was no more than a square opening in the side of the great structure, just wide enough for two people to enter side-by-side. Nagash and Khefru passed through the opening and were swallowed by the darkness beyond.
At a gesture from the king, the corridor beyond was suffused with a pale green grave-light that seeped from the very stones. The floor, walls and ceiling of the passageway were intricately carved with thousands of hieroglyphics, placed with exacting care by expert stonemasons. Nagash ran his fingers along the carvings as he climbed the sloping corridor, tasting the enormous power roiling within the structure.
“Yes,” he whispered. “The alignment is complete. I can feel the energies building.”
Khefru strode along six paces behind the king. His face was a mask of dread.
“Sumesh outdid himself,” he said quietly. “He finished months ahead of schedule.”
“So he did,” Nagash said, and chuckled at the realisation. The power coursing through him was far sweeter and more potent than any wine, and he drank deeply of it.
He led Khefru upwards through the nacreous light, through a twisting maze of corridors and stark, empty chambers that pulsed with necromantic energies. Both master and servant navigated the labyrinth with the ease born of familiarity. Nagash had moved his arcane researches, and later, his abode, into the pyramid five years before, as the work parties laboured to complete the upper quarter of the structure. The labourers knew full well the extent of the deadly traps sown throughout the pyramid, and knew better than to trespass beyond the unfinished areas of the construction site.
Finally, the king reached the heart of the vast pyramid: the ritual chamber. It was a large, octagonal room whose walls curved upwards to form a faceted dome above a complex ritual circle some fifteen paces across, carved directly into the marble floor and inlaid with crushed onyx and silver. Thousands of complex hieroglyphs had been carved into the gleaming walls, each one painstakingly designed to focus the death energies stored within the pyramid and channel them into the ritual circle. Nagash stood in the doorway for a moment, studying the interplay of energies that flowed across the graven walls and the circle-inscribed floor. Finally, he nodded in grim satisfaction.
“It is perfect,” he said with a jackal’s smile. Nagash walked reverently across the room and took his place in the centre of the ritual circle. “Go to the sanctum and gather my books,” he ordered his servant. “There is much work to be done, and not much time before the dawn.”
Khefru still lingered at the chamber’s entryway, his expression troubled.
“What ritual, master?” he asked in a dull voice.
“The one that will usher in a new age,” the king said, fully intoxicated by the power at his command. “The false gods must perish to make way for mankind’s true master.”
With his back to Khefru, Nagash could not see the look of horror etched into the servant’s ravaged features.
“You… you cannot think to slay the gods, master. It’s not possible.”
Even as he said it, Khefru cringed, expecting a furious tirade from his master, but it appeared that Nagash was in a magnanimous mood.
“Kill them? No. At least, not at first,” he said calmly. “First we must starve them of the power they have stolen from our people. When the priests of Nehekhara are dead, the temples will empty and the gods will no longer receive the worship that sustains them.”
Khefru said, aghast, “That would break the covenant! Without that, the land will die!”
Nagash turned to his servant.
“After all this time, you still don’t understand, do you?” he said, as
though speaking to a child. “Life and death will have no meaning once I am master of Nehekhara. There will be no fear of hunger or disease. Think of that! My empire will be eternal, and one day it will spread across the entire world!”
Khefru could only stare in shock at the king’s pronouncement. After a moment, the triumphant glow waned from Nagash’s face.
“Now go,” he said coldly. “It is well past the hour of the dead, and there are many preparations to be made.”
The king laboured for several hours in the ritual chamber, laying the groundwork for his incantation. Khefru stood at the margins, taking precise notes as ordered and fetching arcane powders and paints from the sanctum many levels below. His face, backlit by the flickering energies that surrounded his master, was thoughtful and deeply troubled.
Finally, when dawn broke above the distant mountains, Nagash called a halt.
“It is almost complete,” he said. “By tomorrow at midnight, the incantation will be ready.”
As the sun rose into the sky overhead, Nagash left the ritual chamber and followed a twisting passageway down one level to his crypt. Many of his immortals had taken up residence in the lower levels of the pyramid, at the king’s command, and were probably already secured in their stone sarcophagi.
The crypt was a pyramid in miniature, with four slanting walls that came to a point over the king’s resting place. Powerful incantations were carved into each of the walls and the symbols filled with powdered gem-stone to enhance their longevity and potency. They glowed with an inner light as Nagash entered the chamber.
At the centre of the room stood a low stone dais, and upon it rested a marble sarcophagus fit for a king.
Khefru rushed forwards as Nagash strode to the dais, stepping up to the sarcophagus and gripping the stone lid. With supernatural strength he lifted the covering clear with a smooth, practiced motion and set it aside.
[Nagash 01] - Nagash the Sorcerer Page 38