“No.”
Now the cries of outrage began in earnest, but it was the prince’s retainers who shouted their anger at the insult to the Scion of Heaven’s honour. One of the functionaries even went so far as to take a step forward and raise his fist to the queen. Before he could take a second step Abhorash was blocking the man’s path. The tip of the champion’s iron sword rested in the hollow of the bureaucrat’s throat.
“Enough,” Neferata said, her voice carrying clearly over the tumult. “Prince Xian, the insolence of your retainers offends me. They will remove themselves at once.”
The translator puffed up his narrow chest. “It is not for you to dictate—”
“Go,” Neferata commanded, exerting her will. The Imperial functionaries fled, all but stumbling over the hems of their robes in their haste to obey the queen’s command. Within moments, the prince and his woman were alone.
Neferata rose slowly from the throne. Her movements were fluid and graceful, as mesmerising as the movements of a cobra. She descended the stairs and approached the Scion of Heaven, who held his ground out of sheer, stubborn pride. The queen drew close enough to touch him, staring deeply into his dark eyes.
“What your father asks is impossible,” Neferata said softly. She exerted her will and listened with satisfaction as the prince’s heart quickened in response. “You know that as well as I.” The golden mask cocked slightly to one side as she studied him. “You’re a clever man, Prince Xian. Pragmatic too, else you’d have never agreed to come here in the first place. So perhaps there is a way to settle Lahmia’s debt with a currency other than gold.”
Prince Xian frowned slightly. He hesitated but an instant before answering the queen. “What have you to offer?” he said in fluent Nehekharan.
The queen took a step closer and laid a hand on his chest, right at the juncture of neck and collarbone. She could feel the pulse of blood vessels throbbing sweetly beneath the prince’s skin. Her lips parted, brushing against the tips of razor-sharp fangs.
“For you, oh prince,” she whispered. “I offer the gift of life eternal.”
Xian’s eyes widened. She could sense the struggle within him, as reason warred with the seductive force of her will. He wanted to disbelieve her, to heed his father’s wishes and close the trap around Lahmia, but his heart refused to obey.
A tiny frown creased the prince’s smooth forehead. “How?” he asked faintly.
Neferata held up a tiny, ceramic vial. Within lay a single dram of her blood. “Take this,” she said. “Return to your home in the city, and when the sun has set, drink it down. Then you will understand.”
Moving as though in a dream, the prince reached out and took the vial from her hand. The vigour stored within faded much quicker than Nagash’s elixir, but its potency was a hundred times greater. She had tried it already on the members of the cabal, and was well pleased with the results. “Return to me tomorrow,” she continued, “and we will discuss our arrangement in more detail.”
Xian gripped the vial tightly. His heart bade him obey, but still his mind tried to resist. “I… I cannot defy the will of the Emperor,” he protested.
“Might the Emperor’s will not change when he hears of this?” Neferata said, tapping the vial lightly with a lacquered nail. “Or with this power at his command, might a son not rise up to supplant the father, and become Emperor himself?”
“I…” the prince began. His expression grew troubled, but then slowly he nodded. “I will think on this.”
Neferata smiled. “Then go,” she said, “but tell no one of what we have discussed.” Her gaze drifted to the woman standing in the prince’s shadow. On a whim, the queen said, “She will remain here in the meantime, to vouchsafe your discretion.”
Xian turned and looked at the woman, as though suddenly remembering that she was there. “Her?” he asked, clearly surprised by the queen’s request. “She is nothing to me.”
Neferata saw the woman stiffen slightly. “Then she will remain here at my pleasure,” the queen said coldly. “I thank you for the gift. Now go. Your servants await you.”
Xian turned back to her, as though to protest further, but with one last look in Neferata’s eyes, the last of the prince’s resolve was swept away. He sketched an awkward, uncertain bow, and then retreated dazedly from the hall.
The queen contemplated the woman. Her thin shoulders trembled faintly, but she continued to stare resolutely at the floor. Neferata frowned slightly. She reached out and touched a finger to the woman’s chin and gently raised her head. For a moment they regarded one another, their expressions concealed by carefully constructed masks. “What is your name?” Neferata asked. The woman frowned slightly. The queen sighed. Naturally the woman wouldn’t speak Nehekharan. “Ubaid,” Neferata snapped. “Show her to the Women’s Palace and see that she’s made comfortable.”
Ubaid hurried to the woman’s side. The queen’s displeasure had crumpled the once-proud grand vizier; he had bent beneath her will to the point that he was hunched over like a whipped dog. His eyes were wide and furtive, and his hands trembled as though with palsy. Silently he took the young woman’s arm and led her into the shadows at the rear of the hall.
As they left the queen returned to the great throne and stared down at her privy council. Not for the first time, she found herself wondering who had sided with Lamashizzar. Lord Zurhas, the king’s young cousin, had most likely been one of the king’s supporters. Abhorash, perhaps? Certainly not W’soran; the king would never have given him the freedom to explore Nagash’s works as she had. Or would he? Such an offer would have made for a powerful bargaining tool.
None of them knew how to react to her now. She could sense their unease, now matter how hard they worked to conceal it. On one level they were repelled by her transformation, while on another level they craved the power she possessed. Only Abhorash, the stoic master warrior, seemed unaffected by the allure of her newfound power. In the end, all of them would have to accept the poisoned cup, Neferata reckoned, whether they wanted it or not. She needed their support in order to rule the city; the only way she could guarantee that was if they shared the same degree of risk that she did. She now had Arkhan’s notes in her possession, and Ubaid had led her to the vial of sphinx venom hidden in Lamashizzar’s quarters. In time, Neferata was certain that she could reproduce the process.
Lord Ankhat waited until Prince Xian had left the hall before he spoke. “It might work,” he mused. “Much depends on the amount of influence he wields at home. The Emperor might simply send another, more powerful envoy to demand payment.”
Whatever his loyalties might have been, Ankhat had proven invaluable to her since Lamashizzar’s death. It was he who concocted the story that a priest of Sokth, patron god of assassins, had crept into the palace to murder the king in reprisal for his treatment of refugees from Mahrak. As the story went, the assassin-priest had attacked the queen first, slaughtering her handmaidens and striking her with a poisoned needle, then fighting his way to the king’s chambers and slaying him before being slain in turn by Abhorash and the royal guard. It was a cunning move, one that focussed the need for revenge on a group of outsiders that were already held in contempt by much of the populace. More importantly, Neferata’s recovery had been touted as nothing less than a miracle, reminding Lahmia and the rest of the land of her divine lineage. Support for her rule had been absolute.
It was also Ankhat who arranged for the disappearance of Arkhan’s decapitated corpse. W’soran and even Abhorash had been adamant that the immortal’s body should be incinerated, but at the last moment, Neferata found that she could not bring herself to permit it. Instead, Ankhat discreetly purchased a pauper’s tomb in the great city necropolis and had the immortal interred there at the same time King Lamashizzar was being placed inside his own, far greater tomb farther north. Neferata felt she owed the ghastly creature at least that much.
The queen considered Ankhat’s counsel and nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps, but i
t would take many months, possibly even years, for another delegation to arrive. That gives us time to build up the treasury and consolidate our power.” She shrugged. “If the Emperor is a pragmatic ruler, he’ll take our final payment and accept the fact that his gambit failed. If not… well, we will be in a far better position to defend our interests.”
Abhorash turned and looked up at her. He did that very rarely now, which hinted at his surprise. “You mean war with the Silk Lands? That would be ruinous!”
“That is certainly not my intent,” Neferata said smoothly. “But I will defend this city with every power at my command. You may be assured of that.”
“Then you should worry more about enemies closer to home,” Ushoran said quietly.
Neferata straightened. The Lord of Masks was infamous for his intrigues within the city, and she knew that he spent lavishly to maintain a vast network of spies within Lahmia and elsewhere. “Enemies within the city?”
“At present, yes,” Ushoran replied. “My sources tell me that the King of Lybaras is… uneasy about your ascension to the throne. And he’s been sharing his concerns with others.”
The queen frowned. Ushoran liked to savour his revelations, but she wasn’t in a patient mood. “Such as?”
“The King of Rasetra, for a start. Since he’s been here, he’s also held late-night meetings with the King of Quatar and the Queen of Numas.”
“And what exactly are his concerns?”
Ushoran shook his head. “That I do not know, great one. But it is safe to assume that Rasetra will be sympathetic, if for no other reason than the age-old friendship between the two cities. Quatar and Numas might not be receptive yet, but…”
Neferata sighed irritably. “What lies at the heart of this? What are the Lybarans’ concerns, exactly?”
The Lord of Masks shrugged. “That I cannot say, great one. King Anhur has been very careful to avoid details.”
Lord Zurhas shifted uncomfortably, clearly torn between the desire to appear useful and the fear of gaining the queen’s attention. “Perhaps you could ask Queen Khalida? Surely she would tell you.”
Neferata sighed under her breath. How long had it been since she’d spoken to Khalida? Years, certainly. After a moment, she shook her head.
“There is no need,” she said, rising from the throne. “As it happens, I had already planned on a pair of announcements at tonight’s feast that will put an end to these intrigues. No doubt the Lybarans covet Lahmia’s newfound power, but we’ve laid our plans with care. The treaties have been signed and sealed. Nothing short of war can break them, and no city in Nehekhara would contemplate such a thing.”
Neferata reached up and pulled away her mask. As one, the assembled nobles lowered their heads—in respect, to be sure, but not without a certain amount of fear as well. That was well, as far as she was concerned.
The queen smiled down at the men. “Lahmia’s time of glory is at hand. Savour this, and thank the forgotten gods that you were alive to see it.”
* * *
Neferata’s guests were feted in the great palace garden that night, seated at the same wide, circular table that had served them during the long council sessions with Lamashizzar more than a half-century before. The feasting had begun an hour after sunset and had lasted well into the evening. Rich courses of fish and fowl, prepared with fiery spices imported from the Silk Lands, were served with jars of fine wine and bowls of thick, yeasty beer. Musicians and silk-clad dancers beguiled and entertained the royal guests between courses, allowing time for the food to settle and the potent drink to mellow their moods. Small braziers had been discretely situated around the wide clearing, filling the air with sweet-smelling, slightly narcotic vapours.
The queen sat in the tall chair that had once belonged to her husband and studied her guests from beneath heavy-lidded eyes. She pretended to eat a little when each course was served, and the servants were instructed to clear her dishes away first. Since her transformation, food and wine had lost their savour; in fact, even the smallest taste caused her throat to tighten and her stomach to knot in pain. No amount of lotus root or drugged incense could dull her senses, either. Fortunately, the small goblets of hot, red liquid Ubaid served her between courses more than made up for the absence of solid sustenance.
She watched the gathered rulers closely for signs of suspicion or discontent. King Fadil of Zandri was raucously drunk, laughing loudly and hissing salacious whispers into the ear of a pale-skinned barbarian concubine. To his left, Queen Amunet of Numas made no effort to conceal her disdain as she picked at a bowl of spiced eels with a long-tyned copper fork. King Naeem, grey-haired and gloomy beyond his years, sat amid a flock of querulous old priests who stolidly refused to share in the queen’s entertainments.
That left the kings of Rasetra and Lybaras. King Shepret sat to Neferata’s left, sipping from a jar of beer like a common soldier. The elderly Rasetran king, still hale despite the passage of years, had eaten well from all the fine offerings at the feast table, and had taken great pleasure in the procession of silk-clad dancers that had whirled past him during the course of the evening. Yet Neferata could not mistake the tension in the warrior king’s shoulders, and the wary glances he cast about the table when he thought no one was watching. She also couldn’t help but notice that the dagger hanging from the king’s belt was anything but ceremonial.
The King of Lybaras sat to Shepret’s left, almost close enough to touch, and yet they had spoken scarcely two words to one another since the feast began. Instead, Anhur had spent nearly the entire time in quiet, sometimes heated, conversation with his queen. Neferata hardly recognised her beloved cousin; her years in Lybaras had transformed her, not into a quiet, submissive queen, but into the fierce, radiant warrior she’d always longed to be. She had shed the soft flesh of a cloistered princess and become lean, tanned and muscular, with sword-scars on her hands and a Rasetran warrior’s tattoo marked in red ink along the right side of her slender neck. Her black hair was done up in a score of tight braids and bound with a gold pin at the base of her neck, accentuating the sharp lines of her face. She was a scandal in royal society; not even the queens of warlike Rasetra were permitted to learn the ways of sword and spear, much less march with the common soldiery. But Khalida did as she pleased, riding, fighting and hunting like any man, and public opinion be damned. Supposedly the Lybaran people loved her for it, which filled Neferata with equal measures of pride and bitter envy. They hadn’t spoken at all since Khalida had returned to the city. Even at the feast table she avoided Neferata’s gaze. When she wasn’t speaking to the king she was trading whispers with a young, nervous-looking woman that the queen was certain she’d seen somewhere before.
Had she offended Khalida somehow? Neferata couldn’t imagine how such a thing was possible, unless her cousin somehow resented her arranged marriage to Anhur. She found herself studying the young Lybaran king and wondering if perhaps her relationship with her cousin might improve if Anhur were to have an unfortunate accident. The idea had its merits, she thought.
It was late in the evening now. Servants were emerging from hidden paths to carry away the last courses of the feast. Ubaid appeared at Neferata’s side with another brimming goblet to slake her thirst. She sipped at the hot liquid as the servants finished their work, savouring the rush of strength and vitality that flooded her limbs and took the chill of the evening away.
When the servants had finished their work and withdrawn, Neferata returned the goblet to Ubaid’s trembling hands and rose smoothly from her chair. The nobles of her privy council, who were seated either side of the queen, immediately set aside their drinks and gazed at her expectantly. Within moments her royal guests took note and paid heed as well. King Shepret studied her over the rim of his beer, his expression neutral. Anhur folded his arms tightly across his chest, his gaze darting uneasily between Khalida and Neferata. Only Khalida failed to meet her gaze; her cousin stared stubbornly at the tabletop, tracing patterns across the polish
ed surface with a close-bitten thumbnail.
For a fleeting instant, she was tempted to use her power to bend these kings and queens to her will. It was so tempting, so easy… and yet, Ushoran’s warnings about Rasetra and Lybaras gave her pause. If she tried, and somehow failed, the backlash might be catastrophic. And there was no sense taking such a risk when she had other sources of power to draw upon.
“Beloved friends,” she said, lifting her arms and smiling warmly, as though she meant to take them all into a wide embrace. “Words cannot express how truly honoured I am that you made such a long and arduous journey to pay your respects to my husband, whom we pray has reached the company of his ancestors in the Lands of the Dead. His loss is a terrible blow to all of Nehekhara, but after speaking to most of you over the course of the last few months, I’m hopeful that his legacy of prosperity and renewal will continue to live on.”
Neferata allowed her smile to fade, transforming her luminous expression into one of wistful regret. “If there is one thing I have learned from this awful experience, it’s that there are still a great many Nehekharans who are still suffering from the horrors wrought by the Usurper. The breaking of the sacred covenant and the passing of the old gods have left a terrible wound on our collective soul. We no longer think of this as a blessed land, nor we a blessed people.”
That got the attention of King Amunet and his gaggle of priests. Their sullen expressions vanished, replaced with looks of genuine surprise and faint, dawning hope. That sent a ripple of interest through the other rulers as well. Anhur’s bemused expression turned increasingly wary.
“Beloved friends, honoured kings and queens, I say that the gods are with us yet. The bloodline of Lahmia remains strong. The blessings of Asaph have not deserted us, even in these dark times! It was she, great goddess of beauty and magic, who persuaded great Ptra to take pity on our people and make this land a paradise.”
[Nagash 02] - Nagash the Unbroken Page 24