Seven Kings

by John R. Fultz

  She had done this before, when Shaira forced her infant self out of the womb. A squealing, helpless thing, she had emerged. Now she emerged once more, drawn to that which awaited her. The circle of runes took precedence above all other Patterns. Like a whirlpool it pulled her toward its epicenter. She knew pain then, and joy, and a thousand other emotions at once. A grand and nameless euphoria.

  She lay upon the bed at the center of the runes, a mass of congealing shadows. She could not yet see, but she sensed the presence of Gammir hovering nearby. She felt the ancient words he spoke. She was not manifesting here entirely of her own volition. He was drawing her from the void. It might have consumed her if he had not. Despite her consent, she had not been fully prepared for this resurrection. She fought his influence, writhing and squirming on the bedsheets.

  A vision came: her mortal body, drained of life, withered and corpse-white. Soldiers in demonic masks carried it toward a blazing furnace. They cast her dead body into the flames, where it caught like dry kindling. The flames consumed flesh and bone.

  The bed lay empty in the highest room of the tower. Empty but for the rushing shadows that filled the room and sank into the whirlpool of her emergence. They converged on the downy coverlets as Gammir sang his ancient incantation.

  The vision passed and she opened her newly formed eyes. Gammir wailed and waved his jeweled fingers about the rune circle. Two female slaves sat naked on their knees, one at either side of the bed. She raised her head and saw the shadow-substance of her body bubbling and forming, warping and bending, flashing through myriad colors. Would she be reborn in some deformed, distended body?

  She worked the Patterns to weave the rushing shadows into her former shape. She willed her new shell to resemble the body that was so healthy and alive before it was drained like a wineskin and devoured by flames.

  Gammir approached the first of the slaves and raised a gleaming dagger. The slave looked at Sharadza writhing on the bed, shadow struggling to become flesh. The girl’s eyes were dead, empty of hope. She neither wept nor begged as Gammir raised her chin and slid the dagger’s edge across her throat. The pale flesh opened and red blood squirted forth. Instead of spilling across the girl’s quivering breasts, it flowed upward, into the swirling mass of shadows. It joined the black mass and swirled downward, adding substance to Sharadza’s new form.

  No, she tried to scream. You didn’t tell me this…

  Her mouth was only a jagged whole in the oval of her half-formed head.

  The slave girl dropped to the floor as the last of her lifeblood flowed into the black cloud and then sank into Sharadza. Now Gammir walked about the bed and opened the second slave’s throat. The blood of the first victim had given Sharadza substance, and now she screamed from her properly formed mouth. But it was too late. The second blood offering joined with the first, swirling into her new physical presence. She soaked it up, drinking it in through her newly formed pores. It flooded into her mouth, down her throat, hot as fire.

  “Yes!” breathed Gammir. “You are almost there. Take the final step. The power of blood and shadow is yours.”

  With a final thrust of willpower, Sharadza completed her new form. A perfect copy of the body she had abandoned to Gammir’s bloodlust. She lay naked on the bed now, exposed to his hungry eyes in the most explicit way imaginable. She breathed deeply of the blood-scented air. It filled her new lungs and sent wellness coursing through her limbs.

  She rose from the bed like a floating spirit, spreading her arms and glorying in the newness of her flesh. A pale Goddess, she hung above the dark Emperor. She gazed upon him and knew that her fresh eyes were the color of the dead slaves’ blood. Her hair, black as shadow, flowed about her in dancing winds. Outside the windows a new storm raged. Lightning slashed the sky and the roaring of thunder shook the tower stones.

  The power of that storm surged in her veins, and the lightning responded to her call. A blue-white thunderbolt shot in through the window and bathed her in its radiance. Its flame sank into her pale skin.

  Gammir twisted and jerked, transfixed by the same bolt as it fed her.

  “So beautiful!” he shouted through his pain.

  The lightning had set the bed aflame. It burned now like a pyre for the two dead slaves. Ignoring the blaze, Sharadza called shadows in from the storm and wove them into a robe to clothe her new body. Her flesh and Gammir’s steamed in the wake of the thunderbolt. Her feet touched down on the stone floor, but its coldness no longer bothered her. She was beyond such discomforts as coolness and heat now. She was reborn.

  She stood tall before Gammir, unafraid and unhindered. He reached a hand timidly toward her. She took it in her own and he pulled her near. Their lips met in a lingering kiss. They were no longer brother and sister. Those were terms to describe bodies that had faded from the world. They were indomitable spirits now, masters of the material world and all its Patterns.

  No.

  She tasted the blood on his lips, bittersweet and delicious.

  No, this is wrong.

  “I thirst,” she told him.

  Gammir smiled and hissed through his fangs like a proud viper.

  “My Queen,” he said, “taste now the wine of your kingdom.”

  The heavy door opened and an armored sentinel hauled in a boy, quivering and weeping. Another slave. He could be no more than twelve. Young blood was sweet blood.

  He lied to me. He’s changed me…

  She felt the beating pulse of the boy from across the room. Blood ran hot in his veins.

  But I am not like him. I have free will now.

  She leaped like a cat and took the boy in her arms as if to embrace him. Her head reared back and her fangs grew large.

  No!

  She sank them into the soft flesh of the boy’s throat, drinking deep of ecstasy.

  The wailing voice in the back of her head faded as she guzzled the slave’s blood. Hot and vinegary on her tongue. Sweet and filling in the depths of her belly.

  Gammir urged her on with obscene whispers, caressing her new skin, watching the boy twitch and die. She dropped the brittle carcass to the floor, wiped her red-smeared lips with the back of her hand.

  “More.” She demanded it.

  He smiled and kissed her bloody mouth.

  “As you wish.”

  Hand in hand they descended the steps of the black tower.

  Thunder shook the world outside.

  9

  The Godstone

  “Tell me,” said Iardu. “What do you know of the world beyond your plantations?” “Only what I’ve heard in stories.” Tong chewed on a thick slice of roasted mushroom. Like flavorless bread it was, and he craved meat. Pork and fowl were staple foods for the hard-working slaves of Khyrei. He saw no signs of livestock in Sydathus, excepting the swarms of black beetles. Still, the fungus steak filled his belly and vanquished his sudden hunger.

  “And what have you heard?” asked the wizard. His eyes blinked lavender, then emerald, then settled to mother-of-pearl-gray. The eyes of the White Serpent.

  “That Khyrein ships rule the Golden Sea, all the way to the Jade Isles at the Edge of the World. That the Undying One destroyed the city of his northern enemies years ago, then arose from the ashes of Shar Dni. Many other things… whispers… legends… fears.”

  Iardu shook his gray head and rubbed the smooth line of his jaw. Faceted stones of beryl and agate glittered on his fingers. “So you really know nothing at all,” he sighed. “Of course you were not permitted knowledge that would not serve your bondage.”

  Tong drank from a stone crock full of icy fresh water. The Sydathians had assigned him a modest cave, its walls and floor green with a soft shaggy moss. White blossoms grew from the walls in places, exhaling a sweet aroma that mixed with the smoke of his dinner. The cave was more pleasant than any slave shack, and Tong was grateful for it. His new quarters lay at the base of the columnar city, which climbed toward the great cavern’s apex. Scattered minerals in the rocky dom
e served as subterranean constellations, refracting the light from below in a hundred glittering hues.

  Tong imagined the metropolis of honeycombed stone as a great and godly tree sprouting amid the vast grotto. Sydathus was a marvelous abode full of ancient mystery. The past few days had convinced him that these Sydathians were far more than blind monsters.

  “Born into slavery you could know little of the lands beyond your own,” Iardu said. “Realms where your people would not have to endure such suffering.” The sorcerer smoked a thin pipe of white wood carved into the likeness of Mumbaza’s Feathered Serpent. Tong had seen the beast stitched on the sails of trading vessels when he was a child. Mumbazan ships no longer visited Khyrei, although each year a few Mumbazan mariners were captured by the Khyrein navy. Those who survived battle on the open sea were executed in public spectacles, or were sent to work in the fields with the native slaves. Plantation life was short and brutal for such prisoners.

  The deep purple smoke from Iardu’s pipe wafted about his red robes. The azure flame on his chest continued to dance and flicker at the end of its silver chain. “Khyrei is the last of the great slave empires,” he said. His face fell from handsome to grave. “It must be destroyed if it is to be saved. The time grows short. I should have seen to this long ago.” His words sounded like an apology.

  Tong swallowed the last bite of mushroom and studied the mage’s face. Ageless, yes, but full of ancient sadness… regret… compassion? Iardu stared directly at him, and the insight was lost. His sorcerer’s mask slipped back in place.

  The warlock grinned. “You will need more than that longknife to take the black city.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Iardu stood at the mouth of the little green cave and looked out at the greater cavern. A cluster of toadstools large as blood oaks bordered the deep fungal forest. Sydathians moved between the upright boles like white moths through orange twilight.

  “Soon the Sydathians will go to their holy Godstone,” Iardu said. “You must go with them.”

  “You want me to pray… to a rock?”

  “Not a rock, a crystal. And no praying.”

  “Why must I do this? Slaves worship only the Earth God. No other Gods will bless us.”

  “One, you are no longer a slave,” said Iardu. “Remember that. Two, you need an army.”

  “The eyeless ones?”

  “They see more than you know. You said you wanted to free your people. This is the path you must walk in order to do that.”

  Tong wiped the grease from his knife, then slid it back into the scabbard hanging from his loincloth. Once again he pulled onto his feet the boots of an Onyx Guard. The boots he had killed for. They reminded him of the vengeance he had taken in Matay’s name. It was enough for now. There would be more; he would be patient.

  “Go to the Godstone,” said Iardu.

  There was no song or alarm raised to signal the beginning of the ritual. Gradually, one by one or in pairs, the Sydathians meandered into the depths of the toadstool forest. An unspoken communication, or perhaps the imprint of habit, called them down from their terraced caves and balconies by the thousands. Tong felt that nameless urge himself. It was time for something vital, something sacred. In Iardu’s face he saw the calm wisdom of an elder, despite the lack of wrinkles on the smooth brown skin. The warlock placed a hand on Tong’s shoulder and led him from the mouth of the cave into the fungal gloom.

  Purple undergrowth filled the avenues between the giant mushroom boles. Mottled stalks, bulbs, and waving tendrils glowed with a violet luminescence. Spores and dried fungus patches crackled to powder beneath Tong’s boots, while Iardu and the Sydathians moved without any noise at all. The eyeless ones filed deeper into the purple glades surrounding Tong and Iardu. It was not Iardu’s insistence that called Tong onward, but his own need to know something mysterious and profound. Some ancient secret lay buried here… some lost understanding. How did he know this? Was the wizard putting things into his mind? No matter. He was a free man now. He could make his own decisions. Already he enjoyed the naked thrill of freedom. He followed the pale beastlings into the heart of the earth not because he must, but because he chose to do so.

  At last a cave yawned black and misty in the glow of the lavender lichen. The Sydathians filed into the fissure with Tong and Iardu walking quietly in their midst. The passage sloped down and down, twisting and turning back upon itself innumerable times. All in solid darkness, which the eyeless ones did not seem to mind. The floor was smooth and well trodden, and the presence of so many close forms around Tong held the primeval fear of darkness at bay.

  They came eventually to a great stairwell, curving deep into the bowels of another massive grotto. A white mist crawled up the steps, and a pale glow illuminated the stairs. As the Sydathians reached the last turn of the passage, the light grew stronger until it shone brighter than the fireglow of Sydathus proper. Now Tong and Iardu came into the new cavern’s threshold, joining the multitude of Sydathians gathered about the source of the white light.

  A single pillar of black rock hung from the domed vault. Instead of terminating in a pointed tip, the rocky spar supported a tremendous egg-shaped crystal. It glowed like a miniature moon hanging in the bowels of the earth.

  The Godstone seethed with a steady light at the center of the eyeless horde. Those directly below the great crystal were nearly tall enough to touch its gleaming surface, if they had climbed upon the backs of their brothers. Many did just that, caressing the Godstone with reverence, and all in perfect silence. Here was the object of worship, but no sound of worshipping.

  Tong stood still among the crowd, Iardu an arm’s length away from him, as the last of the Sydathians filed in behind them. Then some voiceless signal, some mass will, gave the command to kneel, and the thousands kneeled as one below their hanging Godstone. Tong could no more resist this urge than a swimming man could deny the power of a great wave sweeping at him.

  The Sydathians and the two Men kneeled together, and the deepest silence Tong had ever known pervaded the cavern. If they possessed eyes, the Sydathians would have been staring directly into the brilliant depths of the stone. The snouts of their horned heads focused on it. They no longer twitched and sniffed and moved their claws in arcane patterns. They had become still as stones, every one of them. Even the children.

  “I don’t understand,” Tong whispered to Iardu.

  “Clear your mind of all thoughts,” Iardu breathed. “That is all you have to do.”

  Tong considered this. To clear his mind of everything would be to forget Matay and his unborn son. Could he do that? Even for a moment? Did he even want to? Matay’s memory was all he had left. She had been the grace that gave his days purpose. Yet he had lost that grace.

  He closed his eyes and turned his face up toward the Godstone. A faint image of it lingered on the inside of his eyelids. Then it faded, yet the darkness inside his head was not complete. Pinpoints of white light glimmered in his mind’s eye, a raging river of light struggling to burst through hidden walls into his consciousness. Slowly the inner light ate away at the darkness behind his eyes, until the white light glowed inside his vision, blinding him even while his eyes were shut.

  His thoughts were scattered, burning things when the inner light fell upon them. They dissolved like spices in boiling water. Was his mind boiling? Was this what Matay’s sun looked like up close? He expected to be blind still when he opened his eyes. Then he forgot that he possessed eyes, and that he was human, and that he kneeled in a cavern leagues beneath the poison jungle with a multitude of inhuman brutes.

  Then he no longer thought at all. He simply was.

  Time was a lotus with ten thousand petals opening before him, spilling the breath of peace into his body. For the first time he realized the true depth of his newfound freedom. Here, in a mental space beyond the reach of all things, he existed in a timeless perfection. His body, his life, his slavery, all became less than dim memories. They called t
o him like voices across a great expanse of water. Half-heard ghost-selves wailing at him, reminding him, recalling him back to himself.

  You are not a slave. You are a Man.

  An eternal spirit wearing a disguise of flesh and bone.

  Tong’s eyes sprang open as twenty thousand Sydathians raised their heads. He sat in their midst beneath the glow of the Godstone. Iardu rose to his feet nearby. Tong blinked and looked not at the wizard, but at the shuffling forms of the eyeless ones. They moved in complete peace, bathed in the deep calm brought by their ceremony.

  Tong released a terrible pressure in his face and found himself smiling.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Quii,” said Iardu. “The Sydathians’ sacred meditation. The crystal enhances their empathic nature. It brings them together in a bonding of mind and spirit. It will do the same for you, if you allow it.”

  “It gave me peace.”

  Iardu smiled, his white teeth flashing in the Godstone’s glow. “It has given you more than that.”

  Sydathians swarmed about Tong now, reaching out their long fingers to caress his arms, chest, and back. The females hung on him like eager cats, licking at his arms and legs. This went on for some while, until they began to file up the great stair. The red-robed priests followed last of all. One of these holy luminaries approached Tong.

  The Priest of Sydathus touched his cheek softly. Understanding sank into Tong’s mind as if he had heard spoken words in his own language.

  Son of the Black City.

  The priest recognized him.

  You will lead us forth. Some to death, some to honor. We have seen this. The priest understood him.

  Gladly will we pay this price to walk freely in the Land of the Sun. The priest believed in him.

  You will end our long isolation, Son of the Black City. We have seen this.

  The Sydathian removed his hand from Tong’s cheek and the flash of understanding was gone. Tong stood dazed and full of awe. The red priest turned away to join his people as they ascended to their city cavern. Tong watched the last of them climb the stony stair, lingering beneath the brilliant Godstone. “You must come here with them every day for thirty days,” Iardu said. “Then your understanding of the Sydathians will be strong. And you will know the power of Quii.”