He reclined indolently on his throne, one muscular thigh draped across the armrest. He had removed most of his armor and his naked flesh gleamed in the torchlight, white and lustrous, like mother-of-pearl. That white flesh was beautifully inscribed with intricate patterns. If I wished I could call up the memories of his coming of age ceremony, the pain of the scarification ritual, skin cut away in thin strips and devoured by his tribesmen, the terrible infection that had followed and the visions he had had in his delirium. I possessed all of his mortal memories, passed to me through the Living Blood, just as he possessed all of mine.
His eyes were black and featureless, his fangs long and sharp as thorns. He smiled at me contemptuously as I entered the throne room, but he did not rise from his seat, only adjusted the fingers of his left hand, which rested upon the head of a stone scepter. He had an ugly blunt face, thick projecting brow, flat broken nose. The fingers of his hands were unnaturally long, and tipped with long, black, razor sharp nails.
“You found me,” he said. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”
“This is the end for you, Khronos,” I replied. “Your army is defeated. Your kingdom has fallen. The world is waking from the nightmare of your rule.”
The God King laughed, amused by my hyperbole. His featureless black eyes twitched in their sockets as he watched my confederates file into the throne room. His expression of weary amusement did not change. He seemed neither surprised nor alarmed by our number.
“I knew this day would come,” he said. “I knew it the moment I tasted your blood, Gon of the River People.”.
“All things pass,” I said, easing further into the room. I probed the shadows of the massive chamber, looking for traps, hidden dangers. Vermin teemed in every dark alcove. I could hear the pattering of their tiny feet, their vile little squeaks and squeals. Bats fluttered their wings in the vaunted ceiling, disturbed by our intrusion. There were no other immortals in the room save the God King. He was quite alone, abandoned by all who had once sworn him fealty. “Everything has its season, then withers on the vine,” I said. “It is the natural order of the world. Why fight it?”
“Because I must,” Khronos said. “Battle is all that I know. It is all I have ever known, from the moment of my birth. That, too, is the natural order. We fight to improve the species. To winnow out the old and infirm. You are as much a slave to your nature as I am to mine. We are what we were made to be.”
“I have not come to replace you,” I said.
“You have not?”
“I’ve come to destroy you.”
“You believe you can destroy me, heretic?” He gazed into my eyes, seemed faintly impressed. “I can see that you do. It looks as though you’ve found the way. The only way that we can die. That’s why you’ve brought so many of your friends with you.”
Yes, it could be done! I knew the secret of it now. Because of Sunni. The God King had confirmed it.
Every last drop must be drained from his flesh!
“I am the first of our kind,” Khronos said. “It is my Blood that flows through your veins. Through all of you! How do you know you will not perish with me? The whole vine withers when you cut off the root.”
“Then that is what will happen,” I said, inching closer.
Khronos absorbed this, then turned his attention to Zenzele, who kept pace at my side. “And what say you, my beautiful, vicious daughter?” he said. “You, whom I set above all my eternal offspring, even my fierce and loyal Ghanima. And still I love you. Still, I would forgive you your treachery. Would you follow this usurper, even unto death?”
“Even unto death,” Zenzele avowed.
He sighed.
“As you wish,” he said.
With a venomous snarl, he yanked his scepter from the floor.
At first, I thought he meant to use it as a weapon, brandish it like a club and launch himself upon us. But that was not what the staff was for. He had removed the rod from a recess in the floor, a circular opening somewhat like a keyhole.
It was neither scepter nor weapon.
It was the trigger of a final, lethal trap!
There was a resounding thud, loud as a thunderclap, and powerful enough to make the entire room quake. A moment later, clouds of dust welled up from the chinks in the floor. The bats, frightened by the thunderclap, dropped from their roosts and went flapping in all directions, shrieking wildly. At the same time, dozens of cracks zigzagged up the walls, coughing stone shrapnel.
Khronos had arisen from his throne, was retreating toward a passage at the back of the chamber.
An escape route.
He had set off his deathtrap and now he was running away!
“Coward!” I roared.
Furious, I gave chase.
As I ran, I noted that the walls of the royal chamber appeared to be growing, rising vertically up out of the floor in defiance of gravity. It was like something out of a fever dream. And then I realized: the walls weren’t growing. The floor beneath me was dropping!
The floor of the throne room was divided into hexagonal plates, like the cells of a honeycomb. I had always believed the tiles to be purely ornamental, or some strange natural formation of stone. Now I realized they were anything but natural, but an ingeniously fashioned falling floor trap!
I raced across the throne room, leaping from one descending plate to the next. They were not all falling at once, but collapsed from the center outwards, so that they formed a sort of sinking staircase. As the floor fell, the sides of the hexagonal pillars scraped against one another with an awful grinding sound, like fingernails down a chalkboard, only magnified to the nth degree. At the same time, great slabs of stone began to rain down from the ceiling, plunging into the widening pit.
Lulled into a false sense of security by our victories on the battlefield, I had allowed us to be lured into a vast and unimaginably sophisticated killing jar!
As I scrambled up the falling plates, I could see the others struggling to leap clear of the deepening pit. Again and again, I saw my comrades smashed beneath the stone slabs that came whistling down from overhead. Each time one of those massive slabs hit the ground, I thought my eardrums would rupture. I leapt to the right and very narrowly avoided being smashed to a pulp. I saw Vehnfear just behind me, paddling his limbs as he was pitched off one of the falling stone columns. Grabbing the wolf by the scruff of the neck, I heaved him up and out of the widening deathtrap.
There was no time to think. No time to help anyone else. I sprang forward and grabbed ahold of what I thought was the outermost edge of the pit, but then that plate started sinking too, and I had to scramble to the next one, and then the next.
I could hear the God King in my mind, laughing maniacally. He howled in triumph each time one of my comrades was crushed. I do not know how his Shared psyche had managed to conceal this trap from me. He was just an echo of the God King, an imprint passed to me through the Blood. I should have known all that he knew. But somehow the fiend had managed to conceal this final deadly snare from me.
I saw Hammon crushed. And then Neolas. Druas, the Uroboran Eternal, stumbled, and a slab of stone crashed down and severed his legs just above the knees. He was flung back into the pit, howling in agony, and a second falling boulder smashed him to paste.
But others had made it clear. Tapas had leapt free of the trap, both his wives—thank the ancestors!-- clasped safely in his arms. Zenzele had scrambled free, and Eris as well. Several of the new-blooded slaves had found a safe route on the far side of the chamber, where a series of plates had failed to collapse, and a handful of my allies had retreated back into the corridor. They were at the rear of the assembly when the God King triggered his trap.
I lunged up and out of the pit with a scream of determination, then rolled out of the way as a falling boulder sent stone shrapnel whistling in my direction.
I tried to shield my head with my arms but one of the spinning chunks struck me in the temple, sending me sprawling against th
e God King’s throne. Had I been a mortal man, the blow would have killed me instantly. As it was, the stone staved a fist-sized crater in the side of my head, sending slivers of bone into my brain.
I didn’t even feel it, just saw the rocks twirling in my direction… and then the lights went out.
25
“Stop struggling,” Zenzele said. “Give the Blood time to heal your injuries.”
When I came to, I found myself surrounded by my loved ones. Zenzele, the twins, Tapas, Vehnfear. I had been flailing at Zenzele and immediately desisted. I reached up and felt of my head, then groaned as the bones shifted together with a snap. I saw double for a moment, smelled sulfur and excrement. The Living Blood was repairing the damage to my brain, but not quickly enough!
“We don’t have time,” I tried to say, but the words came out garbled, all but unintelligible. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and pain lanced from my neck to my temple. It felt like my left eye had exploded from its socket. I touched it to make sure it was still in there.
“Lie still!” Zenzele said, using her shut-your-mouth-and-do-what-you’re-told voice.
I shut my mouth and did as I was told.
I was lying with my head on Zenzele’s lap. She stroked my face as I recuperated, brushing my hair from my eyes. I could tell by her expression that my injuries were severe. Bad enough to alarm her. She was being uncharacteristically tender.
“Khronos is getting away,” I said after a little while.
That sounded right, didn’t it? I was not sure. I was still a little muddled, and it felt like ants were crawling all over my body.
“And?” she said testily.
I remembered the trap then. The falling floor. Neolas and Hamman crushed. They were not true immortals. They were lost to us now. Gone forever. Had anyone Shared with them recently, preserved their memories?
“How many of us remain?” I asked.
“Enough,” she said.
The Blood repaired something else in my brain, for my vision instantly sharpened. I could focus my thoughts. I pushed myself upright, assessed the situation. The air was nearly opaque with dust, a choking brown fog. The survivors of the God King’s deathtrap stood in small groups, looking toward us with varying expressions of fear, anger, horror and disbelief. But mostly they were waiting. Waiting for me to get up. To lead them onwards.
I rose. Zenzele rose with me. “We’ve come too far, suffered too many losses, to allow the God King to escape us now,” I said.
I saw doubt on too many faces. Were they losing their faith in me, in our mission?
I opened my mouth, not knowing at first what I meant to say—something to inspire, to encourage them, I hoped—but what spilled out was the unadorned truth. “I know,” I said. “I know what you are thinking. What you are feeling. But we cannot give up now. I have tasted the God King’s blood. I have looked into his soul. I have seen the horrors that lie in store for us if we do not destroy him. This must be done now! Tonight! He can be destroyed! You know how it was done to Sunni. We must catch him, and we must drain every single drop of the Living Blood from his body. It must be done. For all our sakes!”
I do not know if it was my speech or my sincerity-- or maybe they just decided it was too late to turn back now-- but they roused. I saw the doubt fade from their eyes, and in its stead: anger, determination.
Zenzele saw it, too.
“This way!” she shouted, and then she raced to the passage whence the God King had escaped.
She vanished into its dark maw.
I waved them after her with the loudest, the bravest, the fiercest warcry I could muster.
“Death to Khronos!”
And they answered.
26
We plunged into the belly of Fen’Dagher.
At first the passage was relatively straight, the walls and floors smoothly planed and polished to a high gloss so that they reflected the light of the torches set along the way. The corridor here, near the opening of the passage, let onto a series of finely appointed chambers. The God King’s living quarters. There was also a temple with a long stone trough in the center of the room, the walls and floors stained red with mortal blood, and what looked to be a large dining hall, as well as various other smaller compartments-- the living spaces of the God King’s attendants and advisors, I presumed. Every room we saw appeared deserted. Were it not for Aioa’s guidance we would have had to inspect each cell, make sure he wasn’t hiding somewhere, but thanks to her strange talent it was not necessary to investigate every nook and cranny we encountered, and we were able to hurry on in pursuit of our foe.
Indeed, it was like being swallowed by a beast. Once we had passed the private chambers of the God King and his staff, the tunnel descended steeply and began to dogleg wildly back and forth. Darkness enveloped us, as there were no torches this far down, and the walls of the passage became coarse and uneven. As we continued to descend into the belly of the volcano, the air took on the bitter odor of the gases welling up from the depths: carbon dioxide and sulfur mainly. A smell like rotten eggs. The odor was so overpowering it would have driven a mortal back, but we were not mortal, and could hold our breath indefinitely. The hissing of the gases, and a subtle throbbing in the walls around us, furthered the impression that we had been devoured by a living creature.
“Can you still sense him? Are we going the right way?” I asked Aioa.
“Yes, grandfather,” she answered. “But he is fleeing as quickly as we follow in pursuit.”
“He cannot run forever,” I said, but the truth was he could. He could run forever.
But so could I, and if I had to chase him to the ends of the earth, I would.
I must!
When I first battled Khronos, here in this den of corruption, I had wounded him, tasted his alien blood. Through the Blood had passed his memories, and a faint echo of his personality. But it was more than just a Sharing. I had seen a vision of the future, and that future, if the God King was not destroyed, was the doom of all mankind. I saw the whole world under the dominion of our kind, and mortal man kept like cattle to feed our endless hunger. I saw a never-ending cycle of parasitism and war, a world become so miserable and corrupt that no sane creature could hope to endure it.
I held that vision in my mind as we pursued our foe into the mountain. I would not let it go until the God King was destroyed. Only then, when he was dust beneath my heel, would I be satisfied that we had averted the calamity I’d foreseen.
Then, perhaps, I could rest.
Then, perhaps, I could set aside this false mantel of godhood and go in search of the man I was before. Not the Father. Not Thest, God of the Wind. Not the Divided God.
Just Gon.
We continued down, and as we raced deeper and deeper into the earth, the air grew even more intolerable. It was hot and humid now, like a sauna, and there was the briny tang of seawater mixed in with the eggy smell of sulfur and carbon dioxide. The darkness had given way to a ruddy light the color of hot coals, and fine ash swarmed in the air like tiny flying insects. We began to see little pools of molten rock, a phenomenon none of us had encountered before. Here and there, thin rivulets of the glowing orange fluid wept from fissures in the walls. It hissed and flamed when it encountered anything flammable.
“Stay away from those pools of fire,” I warned the others, after dipping a finger experimentally into one of them. The pain was exquisite.
We had come into a great open chamber with cones of rock depending from the ceiling and jagged outcrops staggered up the walls. Columns of grainy granite stood like pillars holding up the roof. Distributed around this vast cavern were pools of magma that bubbled and puffed out little clouds of vapor. I could feel the vermillion light tightening the flesh of my face. When I drew breath to speak, my lungs convulsed in pain. At least a dozen passages branched off from this bubbling caldron, running in all directions. Khronos could have fled down any one of them.
“Which way now?” I said to Aioa.
She shook her head, eyes slitted. “I’m not certain,” she answered. “I feel that he is near. I think perhaps he doubled back.”
“Do you hear that?” I cried out. “Be on your guard! The time to fight has finally come!”
Zenzele reached out to me, and I took her hand and squeezed her fingers.
“Show yourself, coward!” Drago shouted.
Vehnfear had ventured a little ahead of us. As the echoes of Drago’s challenge died away, the immortal wolf jerked suddenly in surprise. Hackles raised, the beast crouched and began to snarl ferociously at some unseen foe.
I started immediately in his direction, Zenzele right behind me. A column of igneous rock stood in the way so that I could not see what the wolf was growling at, but he had definitely encountered something (or someone) he did not like. “What is it, old man?” I called.
Without warning, a tarry black tendril speared the animal through the breast.
The glistening black cord was about half the thickness of a man’s wrist. Vaguely organic and coiling, it looked like some hideous alien vine, or perhaps the stinger of some mysterious sea creature.
It impaled the wolf with horrific violence, striking him hard enough to drive him several feet across the floor.
For a moment, I stood paralyzed, too shocked by the bizarre attack to react.
Vehnfear yelped in surprise, and then let out a piercing howl. The black tendril began to throb then, and I realized it was draining the wolf of his Living Blood.
Zenzele and I shouted “No!” in unison and raced forward to help the stricken beast.
Vehnfear lurched away, flopping onto his side, but the tendril held on, pulsating feverishly. Several smaller tendrils split away from the main branch and plunged into his flesh. He tried to bite the offending coils but they twisted away from his snapping teeth. They jerked him forward savagely, flung him into a granite column, then raised him bodily into the air and slammed him back down.
All this happened in a matter of seconds.
The Oldest Living Vampire Unleashed Page 21