At first there was silence in the great hall, and then a strange pounding from within the tombs as if the bodies of the kings were smashing against the stone as their bodies began to form from the dust and bits of bone.
“Wait!” I shouted. “I will raise you from your Extinguishing. But you must swear an oath to me that you will fight against Medhya herself, and her minions, the Myrrydanai, and all those who protect them. If you wish to rise up again, and claim guardianship of the mortal realm, swear this oath to me—and to this staff, and to the Serpent. If you call me Maz-Sherah, and will follow me as both your leader and your Anointed One—then I will bring you forth from these dusty graves, as it is the will of the Great Serpent himself! If you do not, the ancient sword of Asmodh will send you into the Veil itself!”
At first bones arose as if in flight from the tombs.
Then sinew and veins formed upon the bones, like vines rapidly moving a tree branch.
Skin raveled as if being knit by a demon, thickening about the muscle and veins and nerves that had sprung along the bones and muscle.
The seven kings of the vampyric world, the Asyrr, stood before me. Some were female, some male. Some had the pale skin of the entombed vampyre, yet others were dark, and none looked to be from the same continent, for each had features of a distinct tribe of mortals. Their servants, who also rose from the urns in which they had been placed at their Extinguishing, drew their tunics and robes around them. Other guards of their tombs also came from the extinguished tombs, and the gathering numbered in the hundreds.
“You are thirsty,” I said, and went over to draw the rope that bound the mortal rats. “Let these sustain you.”
6
After the regaining of strength, when the last mortal had been drunk and held close, I lifted the staff to draw their attention.
“Zoryas! Namtaryn! Illuyan!” I shouted off the names of the kings as they stood beside their tombs. “Sarus! Setyr! Athanat! Nekhbet! Kings of the Fallen Ones! Fallen since the last nights of Myrryd, when the Veil had thinned, and the Serpent stirred, and Medhya had reached across the darkness to destroy you! Born in the generations following the prophecies of the Words of Blood, found by Merod, of the Kamr priesthood! Defenders of the guardians of the world, and drinkers of mortal blood! The Veil again has torn, and the Great Serpent calls you! The Extinguishing you have suffered has been taken from you that you might serve as guardians of the earth again! That you might taste the blood of the enemy! That you might align yourself with the Serpent and again know of the pleasures of the night and of Myrryd itself!” I spoke to them of all that had come to pass, and all that must be done.
I told them of the buried kingdoms that they had once ruled, and the guardianship of the mortal realm. “For this is why we exist! It is not to raise the cattle of mortality that we might drink and plunder! We drink that we might survive, but these mortals are no cattle! They are our children! They are what we once were, and though they see us as demons and devils, still we must protect them from forces they cannot understand! Once, our kind were jackals, feeding from the weak, chasing the herd to catch the easy prey. But now, a new age of the Blood begins! A new age of Myrryd, and of the Serpent! Monsters though we are to mortals, still the earth is our field, and mortals, our sheep. And as shepherds also feed upon the sheep when the season comes, so we must protect them from the wolves among us, who would slaughter them outright, then turn against us, as they have before! There is a great Queen of Wolves at the edge of the forest of life! You know her, for she has haunted your Extinguishing! Medhya, yes, our mother—our Dark Madonna who seeks to scorch the world with her damnation! To the north and west of here, there is a city born of the tearing Veil—and another Queen of Wolves, an earthly queen, holds the first Nahhashim staff! Ghorien and the Myrrydanai gather there, and plagues ride the night and weaken the mortal realm. Yet, it is there I must lead you—for the mysteries of the Great Serpent bade me. You are my army, you are my strength! It is to this fortress, called Taranis-Hir, that we must go when the night is reborn. Are you with the Serpent, or are you a servant of Medhya?”
To a vampyre, they shouted, “The Great Serpent! The Serpent!”
In ancient tongues they praised the will of the Serpent and the power brought to them that night. Their cacophony of language was dazzling—some sounded like sonorous music, and others like the clucking voices of the human rats that dwelled in the red city. Yet, within moments of their speaking, I understood every nuance of their words, as they had understood mine—as the Great Serpent was the creator of the first language.
“Which of you is Illuyan?”
A vampyre thick of chest and strong of arm, his hair shorn close to his scalp, looked up while his servants dressed him. “I am Illuyan, King of Myrryd!”
“I have met a descendant of yours—a namesake, Illuyanket, who is the wisest of men and carries prophecy in him!”
“I am glad to hear of it,” he said, and then grinned.
“Yes,” cried another. “He has many such descendants, for he did not fancy vampyre women, but sought out those who might bring him children!”
Illuyan nodded, looking embarrassed as he glanced at the others. Then, when he looked at me, he said, “In those years, my Maz-Sherah, some could bring new life into the wombs of mortal women. I am just honored to know my name is remembered among men, for I guarded that realm until my Extinguishing.”
“As we all did!” shouted one of the two females among the Asyrr.
I pointed to this ancient queen, and signaled for her to approach me. “What is your name?”
“I am Queen Nekhbet,” the dark-skinned vampyre said, as she stepped close to me. Her arms were covered in gold bracelets of serpents, and her hair drawn back and oiled in what seemed the ancient Egyptian style. Three servant-warriors stood at her side, crouching to their knees before her.
She held her hand out for me to take, which I did, leaning to kiss it. “I ruled during the time of the drowning, when the old cities fell to the seas, and when mortals cried out for our help. We raised them up to the mountains that they might find dry ground. I reigned for six hundred years, before the wars of the priests began. I am your servant now.”
“I thank you for your oath,” I said. “You honor me.”
“We have lain in torment in dust and bone.” She drew my hand to hers and kissed it. “But we dreamed of the Maz-Sherah, and in our dream, we did not lose faith in the mercy of the Great Serpent. I see him in your eyes, Maz-Sherah, as I saw him in dreams.”
She turned slightly and pointed over to another—the king called Sarus. “You will need to speak with Sarus. He was beloved of Medhya, and he is the most ancient of us. It is through him that she reached us, and tore the Veil when she had first been exiled to it. You must spend time with him, for he knows her weakness, though he himself is weak before her.”
Sarus had the heavy muscles and thickness of a gladiator, and his face seemed coarse and unkingly—like that of a foot soldier in the wars. I liked him on sight. “Do you see Queen Namtaryn? I only knew of her in legend, yet she also was early to our tribe, and was the mother of Merod’s many daughters.” I glanced in the direction of that queen, whose servants had placed a great crimson robe upon her form. She was tall and pale as the moon, her hair fell in tresses along her shoulders, and there was something deeply disturbing in her glance. Centuries later, I would see images of her in various snake goddesses of Persia and India, for she had been worshipped much in her first existence. This was the mother of Pythia. The lover of Merod. She had already drawn a small double-bladed dagger from her tomb and thrust it into her hair as if it were a comb. As she did this, I almost was certain she knew that Nekhbet was speaking to me of her. “You must beware of her, Maz-Sherah. She has taken oaths before. Many of her children were cursed by the Great Serpent because of her many betrayals. The legends of deceitful women descend almost directly from her existence and her rule of Myrryd—mortals have written of her under many names and guis
es, for their tribal memories of her run deep. She is known as Lilit to the desert people, and Namtareth to those who speak to the dead. When I was queen, she was the cautionary legend of the bad ruler among our tribe. I only know of these things from what was passed down, but it is good to be careful with her.”
I could not take my eyes away from Namtaryn as Nekhbet told me of her. Namtaryn had the beauty of a lost world in her flesh—she was more radiant than her daughter, and she glanced over at me, smiling as if to invite me to her lips. The roundness of her breasts was outlined along the crimson robe, which opened at her throat, creating a line of soft white flesh down the front of her body, beneath which were red tattoos and—further—a ruby-pierced navel, and a silk cloth wrapped tight so far below her waist that I could see the light thatch of hair of her pubic region. I looked back up at Namtaryn’s face, and saw her smile had broadened, and her small pearly teeth—sharp as any blade—showed where her lips drew back from them. She was enjoying the fact that I watched her and took in her sexual beauty.
“She was the first Queen of Myrryd, many years after Medhya was destroyed by the priests. In her mortal life, she was...a whore to kings. Many of them ended with poison in their eyes or down their gullets. Even Merod was beguiled by her, and she was his doom. A few believed that it was her doing that the Veil began to tear at all, for it was whispered that she was secretly a priestess of Medhya.”
“She will fight against Medhya now,” I said.
“If she does not betray us,” Nekhbet muttered, and then laughed as if she understood some desire of mine. “Does she already have you in her spell, Maz-Sherah? Do not think you are stronger than Merod, who could not resist her. Do not believe for a moment that she does not wish to own you. But she has her uses. She is a powerful ally, when it suits her.”
“Then we must make sure it suits her.” I almost smiled, thinking of my Pythoness. “I do not believe she will betray me.”
Nekhbet looked at me curiously. “You seem to take this too lightly. None of us became rulers of these kingdoms because of our loyalty and kindness. Namtaryn may be the worst of us, but I slaughtered many Nahhashim priests that I might take Medhya’s throne and taste the power at her breast, and at the jaws of the Great Serpent. You must be cautious in all things, for it was the want of absolute power that was our weakness during our reigns. You will be offered such a prize, Maz-Sherah. Medhya will offer you more than she could offer her beloved. When you take that prize, you will be in chains and will never again have freedom. I have seen what Medhya and her shadow priests can do, Maz-Sherah. This world has gone through many bleedings. Once, many serpents filled the continents, but when the Veil tore, a sun fell from the sky and destroyed them. In another age when the Veil grew thin, the stars seemed to fall from the heavens and took down many kingdoms of men and those ruled by the great women of the earth who were wiped from it within a generation. In those nights, mortal kind was of various tribes and races, and they warred against each other until entire mortal species had been slaughtered. This was another plague of Medhya, for she could not stand to see mortals raised to the position of the gods. In my time, it was the great floods of the world. In your time, it is Medhya herself, for the Veil has torn and has not been mended. You must be careful of all these kings and queens of Myrryd, for each of us betrayed our guardianship for want of greater power—and went to our Extinguishing for this deed.”
“You confess this to me now—to earn my trust?”
“I confess it,” Nekhbet said, “because I cannot pretend otherwise if I am to serve you.”
“How did you betray the Serpent?”
She closed her eyes, and smiled in a way that signaled sorrow. “It was Ghorien.”
“The great priest of the Myrrydanai.”
Opening her eyes, she snarled. “He is a master of hounds. He devoured the souls of his own priests through Medhya’s whispering to him, and he is their source. They are without mind, without reason, without power if he exists. I knew him when he had flesh. It is an old story, Maz-Sherah, and all who were once mortal have played a part in it. You do not need to hear the details of it, for you know of such betrayals. I had grown complacent in my reign. Mortals loved me and sacrificed their finest, most beautiful to me. I ruled with an open hand, and did not punish unless it served justice. There was no famine, and hunters gathered the riches of the woods and field, and crops were plentiful. My cities grew beyond Myrryd, and my namesake city, Nekhbet-Luz, thrived in its sea trade across the great oceans. I was called Nekhbet the Merciful, for my counselors were wise and fair. Yet Ghorien gained my trust and confidence, and I passed kingdoms to him that he might relieve me of matters of state and use the sorcery in the scrolls to bind those who meant me harm.”
“You were powerful. Who could do you harm?”
She looked at me as if I were a fool. “When the crown is upon your head, Maz-Sherah, everyone is your enemy. Do not forget this. You can trust no one. I trusted Ghorien...and he brought a silver blade to my heart and laid me in my tomb while I remained conscious, knowing I could not fight him. Knowing I had lost, and I would spend eternity staring at the stone lid of my own grave, ever thirsting, ever longing for all existence to end.” She tilted her head slightly, and I glanced in that direction. The Asyrr king called Setyr had raised his arms to shoulder height as his servants placed a lapis robe upon him. “A man from the northern cities had raised an army against mine, and with the magick of Medhya’s scrolls, and my Extinguishing, he had destroyed the city of Nekhbet-Luz in a mortal generation, and had established himself as ruler of Myrryd and the Alkemarr territories. No one knew of what Ghorien had done, and when I felt Setyr’s Extinguishing in the stream, I knew that he, too, had been betrayed.”
I reached over and lifted her chin that it might again be proud as a queen and a warrior. “I raised you and these others to right the wrongs done to you, and to others. To destroy Medhya, or drive her beyond the Veil where she cannot return again to this world. Do not let the crimes of thousands of years become the punishment of this present age. In the stream, we are one. There is no separation between any of us here.”
“Yes,” she said. “Do you feel it?”
I nodded. She meant the stream. It no longer seemed a spider’s web strand, or a lighty flowing current. We were in the ocean of it, here, all of us, a heavy and yet unbearably light feeling.
“This is what Myrryd was like during my reign. The stream was everywhere and flowed through many.”
“The raising of the Asyrr has strengthened it,” I said.
“No,” Nekhbet said. “The stream comes from a source. And you, Maz-Sherah, are its origin. You are the Serpent in flesh, and the stream is your wake. The blood of Merod is also in you, and the venom. Your existence is tied to ours, and, though you must not trust any here, know that none here will raise a sword against you, for our own breath depends upon yours.”
Then, abruptly, she changed her tone, and loudly called out, “On your knees, Anointed One!”
I stared at her, and then saw that the others had begun gathering in a circle around us, and their servants and soldiers, too. Nekhbet wore a mischievous smile upon her face.
“On your knees!” the Asyrr shouted.
Nekhbet’s servants brought her a vial of oil, and a sword.
She wore a half smile as she said, “You must bend to us now, for we must recognize you as our leader. Even the lord of all vampyres under the Great Serpent and the Dark Mother must present himself in humility to those who have come before.”
I got down on one knee, and she took the vial and spread oil mixed with aromatic herbs upon my head. My scalp began to tingle with the warmth, and some of the oil dripped down over my brow. Then she wiped it down my face. She crouched down at my feet, her servants removing my boots. She rubbed the warm oil into the tops of my feet and along my ankles.
Then, taking the sword, she pressed the flat of its blade to my lips. “Bless our swords, Maz-Sherah, Anointed One of the Tribe
of Medhya, son of the Great Serpent for whom we have long waited. For we bring war to our mother, Medhya, and seek the blessing of the chosen of our tribe! This is the time of the Great Crossing, when Medhya seeks to return to power upon this earth—to destroy us, and enslave the mortal realm. But she is her own destroyer—for no being can exist whose sole aim is power that will not be sent to oblivion. We are oblivion, and you, Maz-Sherah, are the scourge of Medhya!”
The others gathered around repeated this in various languages, though, to me, all sounded as one tongue. They shouted her words, and the phrase “scourge of Medhya,” and “We are oblivion!” became like a roar.
I kissed the blade, and she withdrew it.
“Show us the instruments of your anointing!” she shouted, raising her sword into the air.
I held up the crudely cut staff of the Nahhashim tree. I drew the Eclipsis from my shirt, and set it on the floor. Then, from my belt, I unsheathed the shattered blade. When I held this up, all went silent.
The blue fire grew from the jagged edge of the hilt, and the curved, toothed blade emerged.
“What do you know of this sword?” Nekhbet asked.
“It is a sword of fire, forged by the Asmodh, a weapon of the Great Serpent, stolen by Medhya, and used against the Serpent to imprison him.”
“It is called the Nameless, Maz-Sherah. It is a sword of the Nameless nights of the solstice when the membrane of the Veil is thin, when the Great Serpent first breathed the fire of life into the dead. Many kings and queens of Myrryd attempted to tear it from its resting place, yet none could. Many were driven mad by its whispering. But the sorcery of the Nameless is greater than any other sorcery upon the earth. None may take it but its master,” Nekhbet said. “If an immortal wields it, it will curse him.”
“And so I am cursed,” I said, as I held the blade aloft.
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