“So you followed.”
“I followed the mask. But I felt the power of the stream in your wake.”
I went to him, and put my arm over his shoulder, embracing him. “You suffered greatly, my brother,” I said. “You are truly an Anointed One to have endured this.”
He let out a strange yawp that was part cry and part gasp of joy. If he had tears to cry, I have no doubt Ophion would have shed them. He drew back from me, and thanked me for understanding his torments. He warned me again of Myrryd’s many traps and terrors.
Ophion pointed out the Kamriad, beyond the temple where we stood. It was a building of a thousand columns and deep chambers, which contained the prisons and places of torment.
“Before Ghorien took the kingdom, it was the center of the Kamr priesthood. But the Myrrydanai hunted them, and turned what had once been a place of beauty into a pit of unspeakable torment.” Ophion warned me against the doorways of this enormous structure for fear that the residue of the sorcery of tormentors still remained there. “The Myrrydanai inquisitions lasted many lifetimes, and mortal and immortal dreaded its arched doorways.” He whispered of the machineries of the Kamriad as if these were living creatures, which made me remember the Red Scorpion. I felt I knew who had stolen the gold mask and sold it to Nezahual—that architect of destruction and torment, Artephius.
Ophion led me to the great water clocks, with their tipping bowls and shifting gears. These were like fountains at the center of various districts between broad boulevards. Fueled by the falls and the underground canals, they still kept time for the near-empty city. He showed me the nests of sleeping mortal rats within the ruins, for these men and women and their offspring were still terrified—generations after the last vampyre had abandoned this city—to sleep in the temples or the public houses.
All along the streets, the torches burned bright as if expecting us. Despite the fact that Ophion told me of the energies that the city drew from both the living and the dead, I still could not help but feel apprehensive—for it was as if Myrryd were a living entity, waiting for us to step into her jaws.
We passed by dome observatories, the basilicas of palaces, and the obelisks that rose above the halls of the kings. Myrryd held secrets that would not be unlocked by the world beyond it for many centuries after my visit.
I counted twenty-five towers of varied color—copper, rust, brown, yellow, black, white—all of which created an effect of a rich, deep blood-red hue. Beneath each tower, a city unto itself, and within the walls of each towered city, grand boulevards, and crooked alleyways and great octagonal public buildings with columns the height of ten men and their girth, as well. On the avenues, the torches burned bright, drawing on the energy that still existed.
He led me to long rows of temples to Medhya, adorned with enormous statues of the goddess with her hair braided for war, and her wings spread as wide as a great ship from end to end; her feet were talons; her hands were covered with jewels that caught the starlight and glittered red and green and blue in the darkness.
Clutched in those hands, a sword with a lit torch at its tip; or what seemed to be a panpipe; or a bull’s horn; or a scythelike instrument; or an eagle; or any number of other animals and weapons and instruments. With each temple, the statue was slightly different, but all of the statues had been vandalized and disfigured, generally by chipping at the faces as if wishing to obliterate all memory of the Dark Mother’s features.
Following Ophion, I wandered along the broad boulevards paved with a slatelike stone, cracked with age, the roots of vines reaching up through it. I marveled at the strangely organic structure of the towers and temples and to see the places where this great civilization had flourished, and then apparently vanished overnight. The flickering lights, within globes, seemed like lightning caught by a sorcerer’s magick; tombs were everywhere, for this, being a city of the undead, its people had worshipped those who resurrected—the children of Medhya.
Many of the tombs were raised high onto terraced steps, overflowing now with musky plants with heavy dark leaves, and around some of the great stone tombs, ziggurats thrust upward. The markings along these sarcophagi were similar to the tattoos I had seen on Merod’s body.
“Were these priests?” I asked.
Ophion gave that strange wheezing death rattle of his, as if it pained him to respond. “No, my brother in suffering, these are not priest pits. In here”—he pointed to one of the tombs—”a sacrifice. Sealed in, you see. To bring fortune to the city. Great fortune to Medhya’s cities, for those sacrificed became doorways for those exiled to the Veil. They let in many creatures from that other world, many, many creatures. Like...like the Lamiades. Oh, nasty beasts, the Lamiades. They are large and brownish green like moss, and scaly. Poisoned spines ridge their crests and the backs of their necks and tails. They came from the Veil once, brought when the Myrrydanai hunted lost sorceries. They move swiftly, and can crawl up walls and even run across the surface of water. Many Myrrydanai trained them with magick that they might be ridden and follow commands—but when the Veil tore and Medhya reached through, she tore the Myrrydanai priests from their skins, and the Lamiades slipped back into the Veil, as well, with their riders. Oh, it is sacred and unspeakable to call an Old One from the Veil.” His left eye watched me, while his right moved independently about in its socket, as if watching for the Lamiades.
“And what else? The Akhnetur, the Laughing Ones, the Lamiades... What else lurks?”
“Else? I know of other creatures, too. Some...some may still linger...in these great halls,” he said, glancing about. “Some are magnificent, and others are small and vicious. We must keep watch for movement, for there may be unnaturals here, even in this empty place. Or perhaps...perhaps these creatures vanished when the city died.”
As we passed a long, narrow alley, full of pools of water along its curved stones, I heard a scratching noise and thought I saw some movement. I stopped, watching the alley.
Ophion drew away from me. “Mustn’t linger,” he whispered.
“What is it?” I tried to focus on the shadows of the alley, but could see nothing more than gray shapes moving between the building’s walls and the street.
“The rats,” he said. “Mortals.”
Curious, I slowly stepped into the alley, and moved along the building, hoping to catch a glimpse of these beings.
As I passed one temple building, then another, I saw the standing walls of a fallen structure, and peering around it, watched as two of these mortals crouched down, feeding upon something.
They were naked, and their skin was pale as the moon. Their hair also was white and thin, and at first I thought they must be old. And yet, when I made one slight move toward them, one of them glanced back in my direction.
She was a young woman, and her glance meant nothing—her eyes were without color, without the sense of seeing. She sniffed at the air. She resembled mortals of the upper world only in basic feature, for her forehead seemed too high, and her jaw extended outward, while her chin receded into her wattled neck. A light down of white hair grew along her face, and she made a strange chattering sound.
When she opened her mouth, her teeth were dark red with blood and bits of meat and small gray feathers.
In her hands, the remains of a bird.
Her partner, a boy, raised his head up, sniffing also, and began to chatter with her. The noise was like a series of tongue clucks.
As disgusting as they seemed, still I had grown thirsty from the journey, and decided to drink. The boy seemed a better prospect—younger, and his flesh was firm.
I slowly moved toward them, quietly as I could. Their chattering increased, and yet they did not run. They sniffed the air, and it was easy enough to grab the boy—a strapping lad of seventeen, perhaps—and drink from his throat while the woman, next to him, sniffed the air, and yet did not scurry off.
While I drank, the boy remained still as if stunned. As soon as I set him free, he howled in pain, and th
en went skittering off across the rubble of the fallen building, with the woman chasing after him as if suddenly aware of the threat.
His blood was weak, but satisfying. I felt Ophion’s presence, and turned around to face him. He stood at the open window of the standing wall. “I would rather die of thirst than drink from them,” he said. “They are vermin.”
“His blood was fine,” I said. “He was an easy catch.”
“They were bred for us,” he said. “Rats. Nothing but rats.”
I glanced at the small dead birds they had gathered. “I feel bad for them. This is their only existence.”
“They would die up there, beyond Myrryd. Oh, but do not weep, lord of all vampyres, my brother,” Ophion said with sarcasm dripping from each word. “There are few of these human rats left, I am sure. These are the only two we have seen. Yet when I was in this city, they were bred by the thousands, and slaughtered after the breeding age. Let us hope we run into no more.”
“Aren’t you thirsty?”
“A bit. But not for them. Not for that...taste.”
“And we are heading for the garden where the Nahhashim tree grows?” I asked, for I had asked periodically as he took me along.
“We will pass the tombs of the kings before we come to the garden,” he said.
5
In a hall of gold, with a great domed roof, upon which were painted scenes of fish-tailed men and harpies and Gorgons, devouring mortals, as well as depictions of ritual and mating and what I assumed must be the commerce of Myrryd—there was a giant statue in red stone, reaching nearly to the dome of the roof.
It was the only statue of Medhya where her face had not been chipped away. Yet the gems that had once been the statue’s eyes had been removed. Painted on her forehead, the third eye I had seen in my vision of her.
Her jaws were parted as if to bite, and her fangs were ivory tusks, polished to perfect sword points.
Beneath her left foot, she trod upon the Great Serpent, father of our tribe. Her right hand was raised to the dome as she pointed to a series of glyphs. She wore a cloak of human skulls, and upon her breasts were tattooed the sun and the moon. A stone tablet, covered with etched writings had been laid—at a later date—at the border of the statue’s feet. As I approached it, I felt a slight vibration from the Eclipsis, but ignored it, for something else had caught my eye in the great chamber beyond the colossus:
The effigies of the Asyrr—the rulers of Myrryd—and their great tomb chambers, filled with the funereal beds of their servants and their warriors. I went swiftly from one chamber to another, marveling at the beautifully carved statues of the great kings and queens of the kingdom.
“A tomb and an armory,” I said. I drew a spear from its place against the wall of one of the chambers. I hefted it in my hand. “It is a good weight.” I glanced about and saw the crude bows along the walls, hung carefully as if never used; and long swords and double blades stacked without care in piles.
Near these were bronze helmets, piled high; and then a series of armor unlike any I had seen. These were of leather and bronze and some heavy black metal unknown to me. I went to one suit of armor that had been placed upon a metal rib cage. Its helmet had scales upon it, and at its crest, small spikes that went down the back of the neck like the shelf-scales of a dragon. The leather underclasp was like a corset in some respects, and the rest of the suit was of that black metal that shone nearly as reflective as some dark mirror.
I set the pieces back where I had found them, and followed Ophion as he scrambled along the narrow hall, down a stair, beside a long, flat pool, still as ice. As we passed twin columns, and went beneath an archway, we came upon a temple without roof—above it, a shaft of light from the night sky, and the stars themselves far above in a rift of the rocks.
I saw the moon’s light—full now—the solstice was close.
I felt a dull ache in my body, thinking of what I had not been able to fulfill, and felt the urgency return.
“Where is this tree of the Nahhashim? For I must cut a new staff from it now.”
Ophion pointed ahead, beside a round fountain at the center of the roofless temple. Beyond, in what seemed a garden thick with purple flowers, and through another doorway, into what seemed a great red-domed basilica, I saw at a distance what might have been a white tree.
6
In the doorway to this strange garden, Ophion pointed to the swarms that moved along the upper hollows of the dome overhead.
“They are the Akhnetur,” he whispered. “Long have they guarded this sanctuary. Small biting terrors, from a demon-haunted depth.”
I heard their movements—a sh-ch-sh-ch sound from the beating of their wings and movement in their swarms. I had assumed at first there were a dozen or so of them, but as we progressed inside the garden, the noise grew deafening.
“There must be hundreds!” I shouted.
“Thousands,” he said. He glanced about the rounded ceiling and along the painted scenes of the high walls.
He looked along the high, jagged columns that supported the structure. He pointed toward the monstrous faces carved at the elephantine base of one of the pillars. Dark swarms gathered at the ledges below the ceiling. “They were here before Medhya and her sisters had come. Before Myrryd was Myrryd. Before the crystal caverns below were torn by flood, and before the golden mask was forged. The Akhnetur guard this place from the likes of you and me, my brother.”
“They protect the tree?”
“The Nahhash tree, and the flowers,” he said. “I would not raise a hand to them, and neither will you. I have seen a man run from them, and within seconds they attached their claws, and their stinging tails, oh, like razors against the flesh. Still running, he was—the flesh and tissue torn from him, a blur of bones dropped to the earth.” He reached over and with his fist tapped at my heart. “Their only work is to protect the Nahhashim.”
The Sang-Fleur, which held the juice of the Veil—grew along the trunk of the white tree, and from it, its vines had wandered out and entangled among bone and skull like a vineyard of Hell.
These were not the small purple blossoms I had seen in Alkemara—these flowers were as large as a hibiscus, and within their purple petals, deep crimson stains.
I glanced at the thousands of Akhnetur, stirring but not moving far from their swarming hives. I could not make out any single one of them, but I imagined they were the size of my hand. My sword could not stop them if they wished to attack.
I stepped forward cautiously, not wanting to disturb the swarms above. I drew my razien from its sheath, but as I did the buzzing sound of the creatures grew louder.
“Touch the tree, or a petal of the flower, and the Akhnetur will attack us.”
I watched the ceiling, but our presence did not do more than agitate them. Their noise increased. None moved down to seek us out.
I ran for the tree, drawing my razien up and was about to hack at one of the low branches, when the humming burst into a sound like thunder at my ears.
The great cloud of Akhnetur approached swiftly, flying scorpions whirling around me, buzzing at my scalp, forming a perfect outline of my body, right up to the tip of my razien. I saw them more clearly now—their tails dripping with some liquid, their pincers snapping, their black wings fanning the air. They whirled around me, an army of these creatures, and I knew that if I made one more move toward the Nahhashim tree, they would tear at me. And I had no power to stop them.
Yet none touched me, nor did their poison harm me, nor was a single claw drawn across my flesh. But when I made a slight move toward cutting the tree’s branch, they drew closer until I felt their heat upon my skin.
I drew the blade back slowly, sliding it into its sheath at my hip. I reached for the Eclipsis, hoping to draw out its deathlight, but nothing came from it. I slipped it into the pouch again.
The Akhnetur pulled back in the air, and as I stepped backward through the flower vines, they, too, retreated until I was again at the door
way with Ophion, and the creatures, in their swarms at the corners of the domed garden.
As we returned toward the great tombs of the Asyrr—the great kings of Myrryd—Ophion whispered at my ear as if afraid someone might hear him, “Another man they would have torn apart. But you have the scent of the Veil flower in your blood. I smelled it all the way from Aztlanteum. But had you cut the branch, or harmed a twig from that tree, do not doubt that they would have spread your flesh across the garden until your Extinguishing was relief.”
“There must be a way to disarm them,” I said, and wandered back through the temples and tombs, remembering the vibration of the Eclipsis.
7
When I came again to the great red statue of Medhya, I asked him about the language of the stone tablets by her feet. “When I draw near to this, the Eclipsis moves in the pouch.”
Ophion shrugged. “It is some poem, though I do not read, my brother.”
I felt the Eclipsis pulse against my waist, and drew it up from the pouch. I lifted the small globe into my right hand—its gentle but insistent throbbing shot a spike of warmth up my arm. I held the Eclipsis to the stone tablets, and the deathlight came up in a shadow-glow.
Despite its dark illumination, there was a brightness to the deathlight as it touched the words in the language of the ancient ones. From these ornate scrawls, a green light projected into three dimensions within the light’s penumbra.
From that light, a voice spoke as if from within the strange green light as the script raised outward from the tablets. It was a woman’s voice. That of a Priestess of Blood, who had extinguished in some forgotten millennium of the city’s birth.
She spoke in my own language, maddeningly slow, as if she were dying as the words came from her mouth:
The Queen of Wolves Page 16