‘That is unknown. Please speak no more of it.’
‘What then of the Other? What of Samael?’
‘You must not speak of that, either! Why do you utter that cursed name?’
‘Why do we fear it so? To fear implies threat. Of what are we threatened, brother, if we have no souls and cannot die?’
‘One can fear to be turned from one’s rightful path.’
‘Is Belshazzar truly the architect of righteousness? What does He do but quench the hearts of men out of spite, and conquer the nations of men out of pride? From what can He protect us if He is only a man himself? He cannot save us from Samael. Neither does He know of what the Necrow dream.’
He lifted his mask and looked hard at his brother, though his eyes could see little in the dark corridor. ‘Can you answer that? What is it the Necrow see when beholding the moon, or snow, or the skin of a woman?’
‘All things in this world are echoes of a distant melody. Wonder comes from beholding the song which is these echoes’ source. In the moonlight we see echoes of the words spoken from the dawn of creation!’
‘If the world arose from song, or from a spoken word, what was its source? Do you refer to the Being which men speak of?’
‘That is the secret Belshazzar hides from us!’ his brother insisted. ‘I will question Him in His hall tonight, when He gathers us for the banquet. We will see then how Our Lord answers truth!’
After the young Necrow had departed he felt nothing but dread for what would transpire. Their Lord was just, but also quick to show displeasure. He never spoke to the Necrow of their greatest vice; it must be for good reason.
That night Belshazzar dined richly in His great hall as was His custom. The king sat on a throne carved from the same grey rock as the keep. He wore His customary cloak of ermine, stained a deep crimson from the blood of His prisoners. Human slaves prepared Him food and drink, which they tasted for poison before serving.
The Necrow not on duty stood in ranks to either side of the throne, their every thought turned to the mysterious fortress of their Lord’s mind. For some reason, although He was human, they could not sense His thoughts. If He wished to command them, He merely directed His will through the blood they shared. They waited on Him in slavish devotion, envying the humans who touched His food and drink.
Silence passed as the meal was prepared and brought to the dais. The servants were held in thrall to the Necrow, unable to resist as they laid the fare on silver trays before their Lord. Then they retreated from the hall. Before Belshazzar lifted the first morsel to His lips, however, there was a stir in the ranks. A lone Necrow stepped into the center of the hall. It spoke out loud, with human words.
“I come to make demands before the Lord of the Necrow. I accuse him of treachery and deceit!”
Belshazzar looked up slowly, eyes hooded. “Of what do you accuse me, servant?”
The young Necrow spoke to the host of brethren around it. Its thoughts echoed in their minds even as words bellowed from its lungs. “Our lord Belshazzar has lied to us! He is not our creator, but a thief, who committed blasphemy by stealing us from our true home!”
Belshazzar rose from the throne, sweeping His crimson cloak aside to reveal the sword at His belt. “I have created you in my own image. Your blood is my blood; your will, my will.”
The young Necrow advanced towards the dais, furiously tearing the bone mask from its face. It glared rebelliously at their Lord, its white eyes gleaming in the half-light. “My spirit was not made in your image, human! Your will does not command me! See now: I rebel against you, and your paltry blood cannot stop me!” It flung its arms wide before Him, its emotions roaring in the breasts of its kin. The horde of Necrow stirred restlessly on either side of the hall.
A grim smile creased the stony face of their Lord. “Very well, servant. I shall grant your request.” In one swift motion He pulled the sword from its sheath and skewered the Necrow through the heart. “From the void you were made, and to the void you shall return!”
The young Necrow stared down at the blade protruding from its chest. Agony contorted its inky features. It flung back its head, its eyes wide and gaping at nothingness.
Then it smiled. “So, that’s how it is,” it whispered. It shuddered, its body dissolving into red dust.
Belshazzar re-sheathed the sword, having no need to clean it. He flung out His robe and swept the ashes from the dais, then re-seated Himself on the throne. He partook in the meal then, feasting greedily on the meats and fruits arranged so delicately upon the silver platters.
After some time had passed He raised His head, surveying the nervous horde of the undead. “Are there any others who would seek to forsake devotion for vice? I allow you all to indulge in the fancies your errant condition compels you to pursue. Must I now revoke this privilege, as it plants seeds of treason in your thoughts?”
The Necrow answered with resounding denial.
“How am I to prevent sedition from arising among you, then? I would soon grow weary if I had to dispose of one among you each day.”
“We do not approve of this affront, Lord!” they cried. “The traitor was righteously punished! All other hints of vice among us will be eradicated without mercy!” Belshazzar smiled, and returned to His meal.
One Necrow kept his silence, saying nothing. He did not understand what his younger brother had meant; nor did he grasp the import of what had happened. Yet he was no longer willing to acknowledge their lord’s sovereignty in all matters. Clearly there was something amiss, something Belshazzar concealed. So he kept his silence, letting his thoughts be carried along by the tide of the brethren around him. Yet he promised he would not forget what he had seen. His own will was sufficient to keep his brethren out of his mind and away from his treasonous thoughts.
He swore he would not forget the look on the young Necrow’s face as it died.
§
Dawn broke while Keren was still on horseback. She turned around, squinting against the light of the cresting sun. She could no longer see the city of Xiramin. A haze of smoke marred the distant horizon, but there was no other sign of the turmoil they had left behind.
Then she noticed that her butt hurt…a lot. “Akar! How long has it been?”
“Approximately five hours.”
Keren groaned. “Can we stop here? I need to stretch my legs.” She slid from the saddle and almost fell on her face, so stiff were her muscles after hours of being jarred by the mare’s plodding gait. She minced around, groaning, while the Necrow laid out the saddlebags under a nearby tree.
Keren limped over and examined the new food rations: packages of exotic grub with labels she couldn’t read. No matter – she downed the fare eagerly just the same. Looking around, she saw the plains were much like the ones they had crossed to reach the city. They were rockier though, and strewn with clusters of small, half-starved trees. The sky swelled with the burgeoning morning.
Keren pulled out the new map and considered their direction of travel. “Hold on, where are we going? West isn’t exactly the closest border from here.”
“No. Yet the settlements towards the western border are few and far between. They would be easily avoided. Would you suggest a different course? Perhaps east, towards the continental mountains? Or south to the sea ports of Pouthenos, where one might purchase a ship to the other side of the world?”
“I suppose not. I just…I don’t really have an idea as to what I’d like to do. Foreign nations are a lot stranger than I expected. I don’t feel very excited about just skipping on to another one.”
“We could wander endlessly in the wilderness, if that would be your preference.”
She glared at it. “Fine. West is just fine. But I’m not going to be too happy if the natives there attack us, too!”
“You must risk that possibility wherever you go, like it or not.”
Keren sighed and packed the rations back into the saddlebag. She brushed off her clothes – still the pretty hand-me
-downs from the Periecho’s daughter – and took the mare’s head. They walked onwards with their backs to the rising sun.
“Could you explain what happened back there? Those people – I just can’t imagine how they turned out that way.”
Akar said nothing for a while. Finally, “It seems that with the discovery of what they called ‘science’, they determined that all things, including those abstractions called ‘justice’ and ‘righteousness’, must ultimately be products of nature and their own psychology.
“If right and wrong are actually constructs of the mind, things which men are merely trained to believe, why should those in power not invent what laws they will, and impose them by force upon the masses? One arbitrarily chooses which morals they value, while simultaneously believing there is no truth behind any of it.”
“Then why did they value reason so highly?”
“Reason, when applied to one’s behavior, must begin with assumptions about value. Are one’s kin more valuable than strangers? Are one’s enemies of lesser value than one’s allies? Who are one’s enemies to begin with? Are they the ones who seek to steal life and property from you, or simply those whose thoughts conflict with yours? How valuable is the freedom of those you disagree with, if they can be better served as slaves or subjects for experimentation? What is more important: one’s happiness and comfort, or one’s integrity? Those are questions which reason alone cannot decide.”
Keren pondered this. “It’s strange to think about it that way. My people always took the answers to those questions for granted. There was no need to explain why someone was an enemy, or why criminals deserved certain punishments.”
“That is because your people spent their entire history shaping answers to these questions. The people of Xiramin did also, before they threw their answers all away, and pretended they could create value from reason alone. Questions of worth became equivalent to questions of fashion, as ephemeral as snow in the wind, equal to the whims of the current authority.”
“Huh. A lot of good it did either of them, in the end,” Keren murmured.
They traveled on throughout the day, and gradually the plains gave way to rolling grassland. Keren sang as her people once had: a song of the joys of travel in comparison to one’s native land.
Over many days the mantle of snow on the ground gradually faded. The shrunken trees grew in confidence, putting forth buds against the chill air. In short time the winter weather receded altogether, and the warmth of spring embraced the land. The browned grasses withered away, green shoots unfolding beneath the cloudless day. At night strange flowers bloomed beneath the stars.
Keren could not help but feel a sense of awe at this; there was no way the seasons could have turned so far in their course so quickly, in less than half a moon’s time! She considered their path, and wondered at the nature of the strange country they were approaching. Its name was Iru Mori, a land of ancient forests. Much of its terrain was uncharted.
Either the people of Pouthenos had no interest in such a land, or they had cause to fear it. Did the Morians possess technologies even more advanced than those they had seen in Xiramin? Keren felt a sense of dread at this, but reminded herself that she had chosen this path freely, and there was none other more preferable to her.
True to the Necrow’s word, they saw no more Pouthenian settlements.
As the weeks passed, shadows appeared on the horizon. Immense mountains gradually came into view, their slopes shrouded in swathes of living green. The air grew warm, carrying the scents of wildflowers. Prairie grasses swayed and danced waist-high for miles on end. Small streams trickled jauntily through the tiny valleys between the hills. The walking was invigorating, and by the time they came within view of the forest’s edge Keren’s legs had regained their old strength.
Cresting the final hill, they looked across a low river valley to where the misty foothills of the mountains began. The floor of the valley had been ploughed and shaped into rows of sunken fields which the lazy river fed. Stone pathways wound haphazardly through the marshy fields, where grew crops of unknown origin.
On the very border of the forest was a small village built of wood and stone. Keren breathed a sigh of relief to behold something so familiar, so beautiful in its simplicity. Its people were out amongst the fields, straw hats donned against the afternoon sun, their clothes bright spots of color amid the grass.
Keren and the Necrow descended the final hill as the sun stooped toward the summits of the mountains, throwing long shadows across the plain.
CHAPTER 8
LAND OF ANCIENT FORESTS
The villagers retreated within the walls as night slid its inky tendrils down the mountainside. The sound of bells pealed across the lowlands.
Keren ran a little ahead of Akar, waving her arms and trying to draw some attention before the gates were shut completely. Wary as she was of these people’s goodwill, she reckoned it wiser to get their attention early before they came too near the village.
Two of the women stopped to stare at her as she ran across the walkways between the fields.
“Hail, people of Iru Mori!” she cried, stopping several yards away. “We come in peace from the country of Herayon!”
The two women looked Keren up and down for a few seconds, then began to giggle into their sleeves. “Teeheehee, do all who come from Herayon dress as you do? We have never seen one before; it is most amusing!”
Keren looked down at her clothes – the same she had worn in the city, washed in a creek or two over the past few weeks. They were a little faded, but still stylish by Xiramin standards: a lacy cotton shirt and pants. The women, on the other hand, wore practical woolen robes dyed in subtle green and blue hues. They had wide sashes tied around their waists and carried broad wicker baskets heaped with the day’s harvest. Their long dark hair was pinned in gleaming swathes atop their heads.
Keren blushed. “Um…I guess we’ve been traveling awhile and…the customs between countries are rather different…” she stuttered, taken aback by the women who continued to giggle as they stared at her. “Um, seriously, what’s so funny?”
One of the men strode up to them, a hoe slung casually over one shoulder. “Don’t take it too harshly, stranger. Not many foreigners come through here. It is always amusing to see what those in other nations like to wear and say. Our women find it especially amusing. They are really quite curious to see what strange visitors may bring. It is not meant to mock your ways, exactly.”
“Er…thanks, I guess,” Keren muttered.
The man’s gaze shifted to just over Keren’s shoulder, and his eyes widened in alarm. “Bad fortune follows you, stranger!”
Keren looked around and saw Akar approaching with the mare. “What? That’s just my –” she turned back and balked at the horror on the villagers’ faces. The man stepped forward and swept the women behind him with his hoe.
“Do you not see its unearthly flesh and unnatural gait? You are stalked by one of the yokai! You may plead for sanctuary if you like; refuge is offered to all those who seek shelter from the terrors of the night!”
Keren gaped at him. These people knew what the Necrow were? Unless…what on earth was a ‘yokai’?! “Your offer is very kind, but –”
You’d do best to accept it. These people have good cause to fear what lurks outside their walls. Take the horse and go with them; the Necrow do not have the same cause for fear as men do.
Keren peered at Akar suspiciously. You seem to be adjusting rather well to this turn of events…
Only because humans like you have difficulty adapting to new situations. It is no matter to one such as me. If the villagers pose a threat, you have but to call. Akar flung aside the reins and slapped the horse’s rump, sending it careening in her direction. Keren managed to catch the bridle and drag the little mare to a halt before it crashed into the villagers.
“Sanctuary! I plead for sanctuary!” she cried. It wasn’t all that difficult to sound panicked.
T
he Necrow strode forward menacingly, one hand reaching for its sword. The village women emitted piercing shrieks as their man grabbed the horse’s bridle and dragged Keren towards the village gate. Hisses rent the air and Keren ducked instinctively from the telltale sound of passing arrows. The shafts clattered along the path behind them and Akar darted swiftly backwards to avoid being struck. Keren remembered the Necrow’s pain the last time it had been shot and wondered that it did not simply attack the village out of rage.
No, she thought. That’s not how it works. It doesn’t react violently out of fear like an animal; neither does it seek revenge like a man. It has no reason to attack the village as long as it is not hostile to me.
Quite right. Do not waste this chance to learn what you can about these people.
Hey! This doesn’t mean you can go ahead and eavesdrop on my every thought again! Keren stumbled and tried to concentrate on the path beneath her feet. Fortunately her legs were strong enough to keep up with the three villagers, lean and muscled as they were from a lifetime of toil in the fields. The women did not seem hindered by their robes in the least, and balanced their baskets expertly on their heads as they bounded up the path. The man moved slower and less nimbly, but only because he was guiding Keren and the horse. They reached the gate in less than a minute, their retreat covered by the archers on the walls.
They were among the last to enter. The great gate, built of stout logs, swung shut behind them. The ground shuddered mightily. Gradually the bells fell silent. Keren was caught up in the crowd of villagers moving away from the palisade.
Twilight descended swiftly. The archers on the walls lit their torches and continued their solemn vigil against the approaching darkness. Keren thought of Akar out in the fields, and felt the answering brush of its presence against her mind. She shuddered and turned her attention to the three who had accompanied her.
The man released the horse’s harness and gave a short bow, the hoe casually balanced on his shoulder. “You are now an honored guest of the village of Shinrin. You may call me Mataro. What is your name, pretty stranger?”
Necrosis (The Omens of Gaia Book 1) Page 10