The Alabaster Staff r-1

by Edward Bolme

  "Whoa, been keeping that one for a while, have you, Ahegi?" said one of the bearers with a leer. "Must be someone special. If you need an onyx, just tell one of them," he added, pointing to the several workers who moved among the bodies placing black stones into the mouths of the deceased.

  Demok moved back to stand close to Massedar, out of the way in the corner of the gallery.

  Kehrsyn joined him there and whispered, "How on Toril did they get so many bodies? Wouldn't they rot?"

  "Embalming," whispered Demok. "Or a prayer that keeps them fresh. Simple work for priests. They've been stockpiling."

  Kehrsyn grimaced.

  "Zhents are patient," added Demok.

  "And… tolerant. I don't think I could handle having a dead guy in my-"

  "Sshh!"

  Kehrsyn looked over and saw that the high priest had stepped to the very edge of the walkway. Everyone in the room ceased their conversations and waited attentively. Silence ruled the room for a long tenbreath, broken only by the sound of a cough heard faintly from the ramp.

  The high priest's hood was huge, draping over his shoulders so that only the lower part of his jaw could be seen. Kehrsyn assumed that the material of his black hood was thin enough, at least in places, to allow him to see. His sleeves trailed along the floor, and his gown washed behind him for several feet. Every inch of his robe was stitched with fine sigils and formulae in bright green thread. At a distance it appeared the black material had a green opalescence. Upon his chest he wore a circular ephod emblazoned with Bane's sigil, a clenched fist emitting green rays of power, and in his right hand he bore a long, ornate staff topped with a fist carved in obsidian.

  "My servants," began the high priest, and his voice was low, seductive, reasonable, "it is time. No longer shall Unther wallow without a ruler. No longer shall the Untherites, in fear of the pharaoh, turn to other, weaker gods for help. Tonight we shall place Unther under the outstretched arm of Bane. Tonight the army will have a cause to fight for, and a cause greater than mere survival, for no one is willing to die for survival, but all will be willing to die for the glory of Bane. Tonight the Northern Wizards, who stand atop the chaos and proclaim themselves lords, shall have their weakness revealed to all. They shall be torn down and dragged through the streets, to be spat upon by the widows and stoned by the children. Tonight shall the army grow greatly in strength and continue to grow as it smites the forces of the Pharaoh of Mulhorand. Tonight marks the return of the new Empire of Unther, under a new god with a new king!"

  Kehrsyn almost moved to applaud at the pause, expecting it to be done, but held herself when she saw that no one else moved.

  "We have just spoken with the Chessentans, and they understand that their services have been contracted by Unther, not by any particular faction within Unther. They will not interfere as we move. In fact, I rather fancy they'll be relieved to see a stable government paying their wages."

  A chuckle rippled through the assembled priests.

  "Let us then begin. Let those who have fallen by the weakness of their government"-he gestured to the carnage at his feet-"be the first to strike a blow for a new power!"

  He reached with his free hand into the voluminous sleeve of his other arm and pulled out the familiar thin lines of the Alabaster Staff.. Violet swirls of energy began to coalesce as he held it out over the bodies.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The assembled priests stepped forward to the edge of the walkway with a great rustle of fabric on stone. One cleric, a woman who stood at the right hand of the high priest, intoned a liturgy to lead the others. While the high priest held the Alabaster Staff high, the other priests joined the canter and began to weave their magic.

  As they moved through the gestures of the incantation, their hands seemed to draw energy forth from the wand, and the luminescent purplish smoke reached outward in a web of energy until the wisps drifted in the wakes of their hands and the power of the staff covered all the room.

  The words and gestures looked like a spell, but whereas most spell invocations lasted a short while, that one continued on and on, the priests droning and moving in unison.

  "What kind of ritual is this?" Kehrsyn whispered to Demok.

  He gestured with one finger for her to be quiet, then started to slide stealthily along the wall toward the high priest.

  A body in the far corner of the torture floor moved and started to rise, lurching upward from the waist as if a drunkard abruptly awakened. Kehrsyn watched in horror as its limbs flailed around before it found its feet and stood, swaying slightly. A hellish light shone from its open mouth, and a purplish haze wafted from its nostrils like smoke and merged with the web of energy emanating from the Alabaster Staff.

  Kehrsyn cast her eyes around the floor in shock and saw several other bodies twitching as the priests' ritual took hold. She glanced over at Massedar and saw that, while he was going through the same motions and appeared to be chanting in unison with all of the others, no magical traceries graced his gestures. She was at once alarmed that he knew the choreography of the ritual and relieved that he was not actually participating.

  Other bodies rose up in no apparent order, other than that they were, of course, the ones on top of the hideously quaking pile. One near at hand staggered to her feet, and Kehrsyn saw that it was a geriatric woman, apparently dead of malnutrition, her slack mouth showing her few remaining teeth. She stood like all the others, facing the high priest with the same vile glow shining from her gullet. Somehow the fact that she might have been someone's grandmother made her animation all the more heinous.

  Others rose, singly or in pairs, until about four dozen zombies had risen to their feet. The frequency with which they rose was increasing.

  Then the body that Demok had carried in began to rise. It shuffled to its feet, the cloth laid across its face sliding off as it stood. It stared at the high priest with dull but undivided attention. Kehrsyn scrunched her face in wary disbelief as she saw its profile.

  The high priest started in surprise, his body shuddering as he saw who stood at his feet. He used the thumb of the hand holding his long Banite staff to jerk back his hood and stared at the zombie with bulging eyes.

  "Ahegi!" he gasped. He cast around the room, then found Massedar, dressed in the dead man's garb. He turned toward him, still holding the Alabaster Staff high in his left hand and gesturing with the Banite staff in his right.

  "Then who are-"

  At that moment, Demok stepped forward and, with a powerful thrust, speared his short sword through the ribs of the high priest. With his left hand, the Harper seized the Alabaster Staff, tearing it from the strands of energy it had woven, and tossed it to Massedar, who caught it with both hands.

  The canter at the high priest's right spun toward the attacker, but Demok flipped his short sword high into the air, drew his long sword and beheaded her with one arcing motion, then caught the handle of the spinning short sword in his left hand, blade down. He thrust back with his short sword, skewering the bowels of the priest behind him, then leaped forward and cleaved the priest next to the canter from collarbone to sternum. He yanked the sword from the man's body as the blood began to gush from the mortal wound. All that took place in the space of less than ten of Kehrsyn's frantic heartbeats.

  Demok's flurry of mayhem spurred Kehrsyn into action. She drew her dagger and rapier, and, stepping up behind Massedar, placed the point of each blade into the necks of the priests on either side of her employer. They didn't know she didn't have the courage to stab them, and it gave her an excuse not to look at the blood that Demok had just shed.

  There was a brief moment of hesitation, and in that empty space Massedar's voice rang out, "Cease ye this folly!"

  He held the Alabaster Staff aloft in his right hand, and all the zombies in the room turned to face him, illuminating him with the hellish green glow that shone from their mouths. Silence held the room, save only the feeble, dying groans of the priest.

  With a pau
se in the bloodshed, several of Bane's followers decided to improve their position. To Kehrsyn's left, the priests, threatened by her blade above and the zombies below, pulled back in uncertainty until they better understood their new foes. To her right, the three remaining priests trapped between her and Demok pulled away and tried to slink along the walls past Demok's wary eye to safety. The Harper waited until they were all close, and, with another flurry of bloody blade work, they too, slumped, dead. Kehrsyn glared at Demok.

  The priests surged forward, angered by the brutal killings.

  "My servants," Massedar crooned to the dead, and his voice carried through the dark murmurs of the Banites, "see ye that none of these children of Bane moves against thy master or his people; whosoever moveth, rend ye his limbs from his body."

  As one, the zombies turned to face the Banite priests and moved closer, their dead eyes watching, unblinking.

  Kehrsyn glided up to Massedar's right side, the better to gauge the mood of the priests. She flipped her dagger around, catching it by the blade in case she had to throw it.

  Massedar spread his arms wide and surveyed the Banite assembly.

  "Who am I? thy leader hath asked with his last breath. I am Massedar, even the man whom Ahegi hath betrayed, even the man from whom ye have stolen this very staff. Ye have engendered treason within my house, and ye shall pay for Ahegi's transgression."

  He reached up with his free hand and pulled his hood back. He had shaved his head; even his eyebrows were gone. His strong features seemed even more grotesque and alien, free of the concealment of his hair and beard. But most striking was that his forehead bore three circles of blue.

  Kehrsyn cast a quick glance over at Demok. She could see he was concerned about the way events had developed, as well.

  "Behold!" Massedar cried as he reached into his robe and held aloft a flask filled with a glowing oil. He poured it upon the tightly wrapped mummy that had been laid at his feet

  "Great Bane!" yelled one of the assembled priests. "It's Zimrilim! The High Priest of Gilgeam!"

  Massedar-Zimrilim-laughed loudly and nodded to his accuser.

  "Certain that is, thou Chemikkassar, formerly of the Northern Wizards," he bellowed. "And wherefore so surprised? Did 'Ahegi' never inform ye that he was named Ekur, second only to me in the cult of Gilgeam? Nay, I perceive that with that omission he left unto himself a way to betray all of ye unto me!"

  Kehrsyn edged toward Demok. She stared at Zimrilim and saw no vestige left of his compassionate merchant-prince persona. Its usefulness had ended, and he had cast it aside. She wondered if that would be her fate, as well.

  "Ahegi hath seen his treason unmasked," said Zimrilim, "and now shall ye see the same. This plan is but a mewling kitten before my intent. Ye wished to bring your god in to rule over Unther. I say unto ye that Unther needeth no new gods!"

  He aimed the Alabaster Staff down at the corpse at his feet. A massive weave of supernatural energy reached forth and caressed the wrapped body.

  "Arise!"

  The oil-soaked bindings that wrapped the corpse burst asunder in a brilliant flare of light, flying apart with such force that shreds of the canvas flew across the room. Kehrsyn blinked several times to clear her eyes, and she saw the former corpse standing at Zimrilim's feet, shreds of oiled grave wraps still clinging to his skin.

  He was tall, well over six feet, with a powerful, military build. Long, flaxen hair, limp and gray with dirt, hung in damp clusters over his shoulders, and a matted beard covered his chest. His skin was the pale blue of the dead and had a wrinkled, desiccated appearance.

  His eyes were white and dead, yet even as Kehrsyn looked they began to glow with an evil inner light. Something akin to intelligence began to show through, even though the surface of the glassy eyes remained dull. As she watched, the animate corpse flexed his arms, and huge muscles rippled beneath the dead skin. A sound like creaking leather came as the large muscles strained against the skin, then the flesh covering the muscles split asunder and the undead thing-for he was clearly far more than a zombie-finished his flexing with a grimace that looked part pleasure, part pain.

  He bowed his head and flexed his shoulders, and the skin split down his spine. Wherever the skin pulled apart, the layer beneath showed golden, glowing with a soft radiance. The thing groaned-there could be no other word for the deep, burbling utterance that came from his dead lungs-and as he straightened up, he seemed to have grown a foot taller and expanded to twice his original size.

  The dirty, matted hair began to wave in an ethereal wind.

  Kehrsyn stared in frank amazement at the creature's naked body. The powerful muscles rippled with crisp definition. The lines of the face, jaw, and brow were handsome, even beautiful, without a trace of femininity. Each move was executed with the grace of a dancer. He would have struck her down with desire, had it not been for the dead eyes and the slack, hanging mouth.

  "Gilgeam!" hissed a dozen voices in the room, as the priests shrank back in fear.

  The animate corpse of the slain god turned to face them, head swaying back and forth like a scenting tiger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The moment for which he'd waited so patiently had, at long, long last, arrived.

  Zimrilim felt better than he had in years, if not his entire life. No more need he mince his words and actions as the compassionate and sociable Massedar, merchant prince of Wing's Reach. Gone also was his need to imitate the treacherous Ekur, lurching around his conspiracy. The burden of his aliases was vanished. Better yet, the weight of patriotic duty and personal ambition had been taken from his shoulders. He felt light, even giddy, soaring upon his success. With the theft of the Alabaster Staff just days before, it had seemed that his very heart had been ripped from him forever, but, within just a few days, not only had he managed to retrieve the priceless Alabaster Staff, he had the added privilege of grinding his enemies' faces in hopeless defeat. Such a fine extravagance during his moment of victory.

  Zimrilim looked at the assembled priests, held back by the zombies and staring in horror at the return of Gilgeam. A smirk crossed his features. He usually didn't like to show genuine emotion-he considered it a sign of weakness-but that day, of all days, he would indulge himself.

  "Now ye ken why thy plans are paltry kittens," he said. "Unther needeth not Bane. Unther hath its devoted lord Gilgeam! And as the people make obeisance unto him, they shall be worshiping me, who maketh the god to dance at my whim."

  To prove his point, he aimed the staff at Gilgeam and bent his will to force the dead god to dance.

  "As the Empire of Unther drapeth the mantle of its faith upon Gilgeam, he shall yield it unto me, placing it at my feet, and I shall ascend to the divine, with Gilgeam-my avatar-at my right hand! And lo! the powers I shall unleash upon the Pharaoh of Mulhorand and upon the followers of Bane who darken the thresholds of the Untherites' doors shall be utterly without mercy!

  "Gilgeam!" he shouted. He focused his energy on directing the powerful beast, and even with the ancient necromantic artifact, it was difficult. "Smite the heretics!"

  Gilgeam raised his hands, fingers spread with thumbs touching, and launched a bolt of raw divine power at the thickest congregation of priests. The sound of a thunderclap drowned out the screams of Bane's devoted as they perished. The other priests stampeded for the ramp, their flight harried by the zombies that reached up and gripped at their ankles with a strength only attainable by the dead.

  Let them flee, thought Zimrilim. They can flee neither far enough nor fast enough to escape my wrath.

  He redirected the staff's energies toward the priests that Gilgeam had just slain, and they, too, rose up. Gilgeam paused in his destruction, but Zimrilim cared not. He chuckled as he watched his new servants rise.

  Why, he thought, I shall send those who know the Zhents best to kill them, and therewith gain more to serve me.

  He paused to survey the room. In the corners of the walkway, clusters of zombies struck and tor
e at groups of trapped priests. Several other priests, rather more brave than those who'd fled, called down the wrath of Bane upon Gilgeam, but the god-animate seemed only enraged by their efforts. He strode over and struck one of the priests with his bare fist, punching his sternum so hard that the breaking of a score of ribs resounded in the torture chamber.

  The god-thing was acting without direction, but Zimrilim cared not. For a few moments-ages to the Banites, but less to him-Zimrilim let Gilgeam run unfettered by his authority. The priest swirled the staff to drag more corpses to a semblance of life and aim their directionless hunger toward the Banite priests. But then he felt the wrath of Gilgeam rising, threatening to erupt, and he felt the dead mind of the deity slowly turning his fury on him, the master. He applied his willpower against Gilgeam's, using the Alabaster Staff as a fulcrum. It was difficult, tasking work, but the outcome for one such as him was unavoidable, and Gilgeam was brought back to heel.

  At that moment, Kehrsyn flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around him, grinding her pelvis into his hip.

  "O my lord!" she cried. "Make me thy queen! I shall see to the safety of everything that is thine for as long as I shall live."

  "What?" sneered Zimrilim. "Thinkest thou I have need of thy petty skills, when my apotheosis is at hand?"

  Kehrsyn's eyes widened, and tears started to form at the corners of her eyes.

  "But… but my lord, I thought you loved me-or at least found me attractive…"

  Zimrilim snorted. "Prefer I my women cold and obedient," he said.

  Kehrsyn quailed in shock and horror, but in the blink of an eye she abandoned her ruse, and, prying his middle finger back, she wrested the Alabaster Staff from his grasp with a move that was as fast and sure as an owl's strike. She turned to flee, but he seized hold of her thick hair and wrenched her around to face him again, yanking her head back to expose her jugular.