Where Shalayn would have hated the man I was becoming, Henka loved him. Where Shalayn would have shattered his heart, broken him back to a simpler man, Henka wanted to make me whole. Which woman, then, truly loved me?
The answer was obvious.
With the beautiful necromancer at my side, nothing could stop me. She’d lead my undead armies and together we’d conquer the world, rebuild my empire.
I remembered her heart. I’d planned to find her master and destroy him. I’d planned to take her heart for myself. My intent had been to use it to command her and the necromancers she’d make for me. I was going to control her, enslave her so she couldn’t betray me.
Shame ate me.
This other Khraen, he wouldn’t have hesitated. I didn’t want to be him.
Henka deserved better.
Taking the shard in my hand, I pressed it against my chest.
I screamed and screamed and—
The Emperor rode a mountain. The undead elementalist commanding the mountain, an ancient man who looked to be carved from grey stone, stood a single pace behind him. Before them a great host gathered, a world of monstrous demons bound to a single purpose: War.
A Lord of Hell commanded the army, awaiting the Emperor’s orders. A minor godling, the Lord was ready to bring his demons into the Emperor’s world. The wizards had rebelled, uniting the necromancers, elementalists, shamans, and sorcerers against the Emperor. They’d gathered their armies and declared war. The fools. They had no understanding of the power they faced. Hosts from five worlds stood ready to answer the Emperor’s call. They would crush the rebellion.
With a flicker of will, the Emperor moved himself, his enslaved elementalist, and the mountain, to another world. The larger of the two stones driven into his eye sockets glowed hot, the scarred flesh surrounding it burning.
Another gathered host of demons, mind-twisting nightmares with faces of writhing squid-like tentacles, huge glistening bulbous skulls, and colossal wings of membranous leathery tissue, tattered and torn. A world of mad gods, all loyal to Khraen’s god.
From world to world Khraen travelled, appraising the armies gathered, ready and waiting to invade his world at his command. With each new hell the stone in his eye grew hotter, charring the flesh around it.
Finally, abandoning the dead elementalist and his mountain in some distant hell, Khraen returned home to PalTaq. The island was besieged, surrounded by the fleets of the wizards. He laughed, striding the long halls of the palace. They thought they’d won. They had no idea.
Their fleets were doomed.
Their armies were doomed.
Their rebellion was doomed.
One word—one command—would bring through the hosts of demons.
Yet, he hesitated.
He could end this struggle, bring peace once again to the world. He could rebuild his great civilization from the ashes left by the wizard’s betrayal.
Or he could go out, face them in person.
Bring an end to sorrow.
Bring an end to everything.
Forever.
Khraen touched the hilt of his sword, Kantlament.
A soft hand on his shoulder.
“My love,” she said.
He turned—
Waking, I found Valcarb standing over me. Henka sat nearby. The necromancer shot me a look of nervous expectation. I flashed her a smile to let her know I was fine.
“What do you remember?” she asked, brushing long strands of sable hair from her eyes.
She was so beautiful, heartbreakingly fragile. I felt like she’d always been a part of me.
My chest ached where the two shards had come together. The arrow-riddled corpse of the other Khraen was gone.
Had she bled him first? The thought of her, warm with life, stirred lust in me.
It was us against the world.
Henka stood, unfolding in one smooth, graceful motion, and crossed to me. Offering a hand, she pulled me to my feet.
“You’re stronger than you look.”
She shrugged. “There is strength in death. You can push muscles to tearing.”
Valcarb stood silent sentry, head in constant motion as she scanned for enemies.
“How long was the other me here?” I asked the demon.
“I was with him for seven years. Before that, I cannot say.”
“His clothes and sword were all made here?”
“The demons here remain bound. He spoke the languages necessary to communicate his needs.”
It was true. I realized I now spoke a dozen demonic languages. Not having known that demons might speak different tongues, I laughed. “This is why the wizards stay away. They can’t command the demons.”
Valcarb, once again scanning the horizon, ignored me, as I hadn’t asked a direct question.
A tornado of memory pulsed through me with each beat of my heart. There were two basic types of demons. Spirit demons could be bound to objects like swords and armour and, as in the case of this village, walls and buildings. The other type, manifestation demons, came from their home realities wearing their own flesh. Valcarb was a minor manifestation demon from a reality alien to our own. She’d been bound, permanently, to Khraen’s service. Anything I commanded, she would do. If I told her to fall on her axe, she would do so without hesitation.
She was a slave, the cruellest kind. A slave who had once been free. She knew what freedom was. She remembered her previous life, and had no means of escape, no choice but utter loyalty.
I’d set her free, but I needed her.
Eventually, I promised. Eventually I would free her and return her to her own world. It occurred to me then that I didn’t actually know how to do that. I would learn.
Had the Emperor ever done that? Had he freed demonic servants who performed well? The thought reminded me of Nhil, the old man in the floating mountain. He claimed we were friends, that I freed him.
He was still there, and now I could return. I had a Soul Stone, and I knew how to harvest souls and store them within.
Soon, I would return. Nhil, I felt sure, still knew more about me than I did. Searching my memories, I found I still knew nothing of him. Had he lied?
How had the wizards broken my heart apart? Why had they scattered the pieces, and what had they hoped to achieve? Too many mysteries remained. I was impatient to be about solving them. However, something was missing, something critical. Had I made a wrong assumption somewhere?
“Henka, why would the wizards scatter bits of my heart?” The more I thought about it, the less that idea made sense. The piece I retrieved from the wizard’s tower hadn’t grown into a man. Shouldn’t all the pieces be locked in towers?
She raised an eyebrow, shrugging. “Maybe they thought it would destroy you, like scattering a victim’s ashes in the wind.”
Ashes in the wind? I’d never heard of that, had no memory of such a practice. Now that she mentioned it, it did seem a good way of disposing of necromancers. I kept that thought to myself. Did her suggestion make sense? Did they know so little of their enemy they all but guaranteed my return?
I laughed. “Fools.”
Henka grinned and pulled me into a hot kiss. She was warm with false life. Lips met. Wet tongues. Her body melted against mine. I knew where the blood came from, and tried not to think about it. He was dead anyway, why not make some use of the corpse?
“Come,” she said, voice husky, as she dragged me into a nearby building. It looked to have been a shop of some kind. The shelves were empty, clean of dust. It looked ready for a business to move in.
We made love on the floor while Valcarb stood guard in the street beyond. Henka took every thought from me, left me emptied of worry.
Once we were dressed, we made our way back to the street, hand in hand. Henka leaned against me and I drew strength from her.
“Valcarb, show me where the clothes are made.”
The demon nodded and held out Khraen’s scabbard and sword. “Please wear this from now on
. Clearly I cannot protect you from everything.”
As I took the sword, felt its familiar weight in my hand, I realized I knew how to use it. Trained by the best, the Emperor had thousands of years of practice, taken thousands of lives in battle. Unfortunately, the other Khraen remembered only the tiniest sliver of that. It was still more than I’d known. I was now a reasonably skilled swordsman.
Examining the weapon, I found it the crude work of a rank amateur. The blade was pitted, the edge notched and imperfect. Judging from the colour of the steel, stained with swirls of brown and yellow, it was brittle and would likely shatter in a serious fight. He had been no master smith. But an inferior sword was better than no sword.
Though demons maintained much of the village, ready to do my bidding, they didn’t do everything. The people who once lived here had worked the fields, harvesting grain and crops and cotton. Demons might power the mill to grind the grain, and fire elementals burned low, waiting to heat ovens and bake bread, but without someone to harvest the fields and make the dough, nothing happened. There were no free and effortless meals to be had.
Khraen, Valcarb told me, learned how to work the fields and figured out enough of the demons in the town to produce passable clothes and a bread that tasted like sawdust. That knowledge, unfortunately, was lost when he died. Were I willing to stay long enough, I could do the same. But I was not that man. I would not cower safe in the town. Far to the south, another shard of my heart called for me.
Valcarb showed me the house Khraen claimed as his own. It was small and simple, lacking anything that might give it character. She also brought out his longbow and quiver of viciously barbed arrows, designed more for punching through plate armour than bringing down rabbits. She informed me that she did most of the hunting and gathering of crops and wild vegetables. When first summoned, she found him rail-thin and on the edge of starvation. He filled out in the following years, after his diet improved.
“How did he summon you?” I asked. To complete a summoning one required blood and souls, runes and symbols, to call and then trap a demon.
“He found a Soul Stone,” she said. “Stealing a child from a nearby town, he brought the boy here to be the blood sacrifice.”
He killed an innocent child? I was suddenly glad I didn’t have his memories. I could never do that. Would never do that. Once again, I saw the wisdom in Henka’s plan. It had to be this me who lived through to the end. I had to be the consciousness that rose to become the new Khraen. The man who died here, shot through with arrows, was a monster. He would have either risen to become much like the old me, or hidden here in this safe haven until old-age claimed him.
Leaving Khraen’s home, I turned in a complete circle, examining the town. “Where did he do the summoning?”
“At the church in the centre of town.” Valcarb gestured toward what was easily the tallest building in the village.
Spires stood at each corner, turreted openings at the top that would serve for lookouts, and for raining arrows on those below. I’d assumed it was the centre of government or a defensible position for the town to retreat to. Maybe it was both.
The meaning of the word church sank in, an ancient word. A place of worship. A place where people went to pray to gods and show their devotions. It occurred to me that in all the small towns and communities I walked through, I had not seen a single church.
“What gods did they worship here?” I asked.
“This particular church was dedicated to Yahaarn, a demon lord.”
“And he was real?”
“She would manifest at certain times each year, bless the town’s folk, and devour a few souls offered in tribute.”
I knew nothing of these gods. Pantheon, another ancient word. How many gods were there? Were they all real? Where were they now?
My questions would wait. I wanted to see the inside of this church.
We approached along the main street, and I realized I’d misjudged both the size of the town and the church. The four spires towered at least sixty feet over us. Huge oak doors stood twice the height of a man and swung silently open as we approached. They moved with effortless ease, as if weightless.
“Demons?” I asked.
Valcarb nodded.
“Someone bound demons to doors just so people wouldn’t have to push them open?” The cost in souls represented by this town both staggered and appalled me.
“And for security. Those doors are warded, likely impervious to fire and axes.”
Inside was a cathedral with forty-foot ceilings. Tall as it was, this was actually a single-story structure. From inside I saw that the spires were purely decorative, hollowed, with no means of access. The ceiling was the roof, massive panels of some translucent material letting the sun fill the church with golden light. From outside, the roof looked like shingled clay.
Torches lined the wall and they all sparked to life as we entered, leaping into that now familiar synchronized dance. The floor looked to be a single piece of red granite polished to a mirror-like sheen. I saw no seams. At the front of the room was an ornate pulpit carved from a single block of marble. It looked something like a swarm of snakes mobbing an octopus, and it glistened, black and crimson. Behind the pulpit stood a twenty-foot-tall statue carved in the same stone. It depicted a woman, buxom and round everywhere Henka was slim, caught in the middle of a sinuous and sensuous dance. Her ruby eyes, almond shaped and wicked, glowed red in the firelight. Jewels decorated her, drawing the eye to her curves. This goddess would bounce in so many interesting ways when she walked.
“I don’t like her,” said Henka, moving to stand at my side.
Not knowing how else to react, I shrugged non-committally.
Valcarb stood at my other shoulder. She ignored the statue, eyes always scanning for threats. “There are summoning supplies and everything you might need in the basement. Except blood and souls.”
“She was really real?” I asked again, not sure what I believed.
“Is real,” said Valcarb. “True gods don’t die. She’s probably off torturing the inhabitants of some other shitty reality with her demands for worship.”
“Show me the basement.”
The demon led us to a door in the far wall. Stairs, still that gleaming red granite, still showing no seams, spiralled down. We descended, and once again the torches lining the walls joined the dance as we approached. Air sighed past us, a cool breeze of lost souls, whispers teasing my ears.
“Is there another exit?” I asked, wondering at the moving air.
“Air elementals,” said Valcarb. “Bound and commanded to keep the place clean and well-ventilated.”
Elementals were as much a part of the old empire as demons. And yet I’d seen no sign of elementalists in the wizards’ kingdom. Henka said there were still some out there, hiding. Perhaps, when I retook the world, they would welcome the chance to once again hold positions of power instead of lurking in the shadows. Though I wouldn’t soon forget their betrayal.
Henka would give me the means of controlling the necromancers. I’d make her Queen of the Dead and their hearts would be hers. She would command them. She would own them. I had no memories of such an arrangement, and that suited me fine. I had to think differently than the old Emperor—act differently—if I was to survive and build something truly lasting.
Remembering the dead elementalist from my dream, I asked Henka, “Is an undead elementalist still an elementalist?”
“Yes.”
“And a wizard?”
“Still a wizard.”
“Interesting.”
Valcarb led us to a set of rooms two floor below the church. The first basement level, chambers for the resident priest and a library I wanted to spend the rest of my life studying, once again reminded me of the floating mountains. The civilization I built had been one of wonder and wealth. Even the wizard’s capital, Taramlae, had nothing like this one small farming town. I remembered dirty streets, rain pouring down the steps into a decrepit
cafe, and the mouldering stench of rotting timbers. Though a few of the main streets were lit with crude oil lanterns, most of the city fell to the dark each night. The wizards’ refusal to make use of the other branches of magic doomed their civilization to poverty and decay. In Taramlae, a city a fraction of the age of this village, buildings were already falling down, crumbling from age.
Thinking of the coffee shop reminded me of Shalayn and I pushed her from my thoughts.
I wanted to see more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The summoning chamber was a smaller version of the one I remembered from beneath the palace at PalTaq. Binding symbols, madness scarred deep in stone, troughs waiting to be filled with blood. A calligraphy of coercion. Everything a budding young demonologist could want lay here, perfectly maintained, ready for use.
Except blood and souls.
I realized, with a start, that might not quite be true.
Withdrawing the Soul Stone, I held it up to examine the diamond’s facets in the dancing torchlight. How many souls remained trapped within? I wanted desperately to attempt a summoning—any summoning—just to prove I could.
No, I decided. Souls should not be spent so lightly.
In any case, what would I summon? I dug through my memories. I could summon a few minor manifestation-type demons like Valcarb, all of a similar strength. I also knew how to bind them. My hand fell to Khraen’s sword, which I’d strapped to my hip. I also knew how to summon some spirit demons. I could bind a demon to this crude weapon making it virtually unbreakable. With some effort, and a few souls, I could make a weapon capable of cutting through plate armour, shearing off limbs with ease. Had I many souls at my disposal, I could make something truly terrifying. Then again, it might be smarter to make something more defensive in nature. I could bind demons to clothes or armour.
All these summonings, I realized, were of a similar nature, called creatures of a similar power.
Black Stone Heart (The Obsidian Path Book 1) Page 25