by Mike Lee
As the dead men collapsed to the ground, Nagash lurched towards the entryway. With the rush of battle fading, a flood of agony threatened to overwhelm him. Cursing, he drew upon the pyramid still more, silencing the pain and trying to heal his wounds.
A figure stood just outside the entrance. Nagash came up short, his right hand rising with a hiss.
“It’s me, master,” Khefru said. The servant stepped into the room, a look of shock and surprise on his face. “I… I tried to get to you in time,” he stammered. “They got here just ahead of me.”
“Indeed,” the king growled. His voice, issuing from a flame-scarred throat, sounded almost bestial.
Khefru stared at the king’s burned body, momentarily transfixed by the enormity of what had happened.
“You’re hurt,” he said shakily. “Please. Let me tend to your throat.”
He stepped closer, tentatively touching the king’s burned neck with his fingertips. The gesture covered the movement of his right hand, which thrust a needle-pointed dagger straight into the king’s heart.
The two men froze, locked in a grim tableau. Khefru grunted, trying to force the knife deeper, but Nagash had seized his wrist. The point of the knife had penetrated little more than an inch into the king’s chest.
“Did you think I would not guess?” Nagash said to him, the growl in his voice nothing to do with his injuries. “How else could the priests have reached my chambers?”
A flicker of fear played across Khefru’s face, and then his expression hardened as he surrendered to the inevitable.
“You went too far,” he snarled. “You were the most powerful priest in Khemri! You could have lived a rich, indolent life. Instead you threw it all away for this… this nightmare! It’s obscene!” he cried. “Can’t you see what you’ve become? You’re a monster!”
Khefru heaved on the dagger with the last reserves of his strength, trying to finish what he’d begun, but the weapon did not budge an inch.
Nagash reached up with his left hand and placed it on Khefru’s chest.
“Not a monster,” he said. “A god, a living god. I am the master of life and death, Khefru. Alas, you were too faithless to believe me. So now I must show you.”
The king clenched his left hand and drew upon the power of the pyramid. Khefru stiffened, his eyes widening and his mouth gaping in a silent scream. Nagash began an incantation, shaping the words as he went along and focusing his will with singular intent. The servant’s body began to convulse.
Nagash drew his left hand away from Khefru’s chest, and as he did so, he drew a glowing filament of energy along with it. The king’s eyes never left Khefru’s as he slowly and remorselessly drew his servant’s soul from his body. As he did so, Khefru’s stolen youth fled with it, causing his body to shrivel and decay before Nagash’s eyes. When he was done, nothing but a stream of dust trickled from his clenched right hand.
Khefru’s ghost floated before the king, moaning softly in terror and pain.
“Now you will serve me forever more,” Nagash said to the spirit. “You are bound to me. My fate is now yours.”
The king turned and found Arkhan and the other immortals standing outside the doorway to the chamber. They were weak and disoriented, having been roused rudely from their slumber.
“What has happened?” Arkhan gasped. Nagash eyed his men coldly.
“We have been betrayed,” he said.
Filled with icy rage, Nagash climbed the twisting ramps to the pyramid’s ritual chamber. His mind worked swiftly, creating a picture of what his enemies intended. Khefru’s betrayal was no isolated thing. He had approached the priesthood and offered to lead them to the crypt chamber, but Nagash had no doubt that the priests had bigger plans of their own. Even now they would be in the palace, searching for Neferem and persuading her to take control of the city. It was not an assassination, but a coup.
His enemies had acted prematurely, no doubt surprised by the early completion of the pyramid. With more time to plan and gather their resources, the priests might have succeeded. Instead, they had failed, and their doom was sealed.
The king hastened into the ritual chamber and gathered his concentration. All the elements were in place. He had but to utter the incantation, and the age of gods and priests would come to a terrible end.
Power built within the Black Pyramid as Nagash’s incantation began. Every slave who died during its construction, more than sixty thousand souls, was focused by the king’s fury into a single, terrible spell.
Above the pyramid, the sky began to warp, and then darken. Black clouds boiled into existence where none had been before, lit from within by savage bursts of lightning. The density and power of the unnatural storm grew more and more intense, casting its shadow in a spreading pool across Khemri’s necropolis. Where it fell, the dead trembled uneasily in their graves.
For more than half an hour the energy grew in power, until it seemed that the sky would split beneath its awful weight. Then, with a hideous, piercing scream the storm burst in an irresistible wave, racing in a series of ebon ripples across the sky.
The shadow of Nagash’s fury spread to every corner of Nehekhara in the space of just a few minutes. Darkness fell across the great cities, and every priest or acolyte touched by the shadow died in a single, agonising instant. Only those who by sheer fortune were shielded by stone survived the lash of the necromancer’s power.
Nagash knew at once that his ritual had only partially succeeded. He’d moved too quickly, and his focus had been tainted by his anger and his lust for revenge. Thousands had died, to be sure, but it was not yet enough.
The reserves of necromantic power inside the temple were weakened, but enough remained for a single invocation. Nagash uttered the words of power, and a pall of dust and shadow spread from the necropolis and fell upon Khemri, cloaking the Living City in artificial night.
The king turned to his immortals. To Raamket he said, “Take two-thirds of the chosen and drown the temples in blood! Slay every holy man or woman you find!”
To Arkhan, Shepsu-hur and the rest, Nagash simply said, “Follow me.”
Dozens of robed bodies littered the plaza outside the royal palace. Nagash led his twenty-five men straight to Settra’s Court, where he found the queen and the high priests of the city. They were bickering like children, each one with a differing idea of what to do next. Most were ashen-faced, on the verge of panic after the king’s shadow had fallen across the city.
Nagash and Neferem’s eyes met across the length of the vast, shadowy court. The queen’s face lit with an expression of pure hatred, and the priests turned to face the king with mingled expressions of anger and dread.
“Kill them,” Nagash commanded his men, “all but Neferem. She belongs to me.”
The immortals did not hesitate. Swords and knives leapt from their scabbards as they raced down the length of the court. The high priests all began to talk at once, throwing up their hands and uttering a bewildering array of invocations, but Nagash was prepared for them. Shadows raced across the marble tiles, and sped from the darkness beyond the tall pillars flanking the centre aisle. They swept down on the priests like vultures, freezing their hearts just as they had stolen the will of Thutep, the former king.
The high priests of the living city were made of sterner stuff than Nagash’s late brother. Amamurti, the aged high priest of Ptra, threw off the king’s fist of shadow and hurled a spear of flame the length of the hall. It struck Shepsu-hur full in the chest, setting him ablaze in an instant. The immortal screamed in terror and pain, his skin melting like tallow in the heat. He staggered, pawing desperately at his chest and face, and then with an effort of will he collected himself and continued to run, closing the distance with the man who had wounded him.
Another immortal toppled to the floor with his legs nearly cut out from under him by a handful of stone projectiles. Wind buffeted the warriors, threatening to pull them off their feet. Arkhan caught sight of the Hierophant of Phakth an
d stopped his invocation with a hurled dagger. The high priest fell to his knees, clutching at the knife that had sprouted from his throat.
Before the hierophants could ready another wave of spells the immortals were upon them. Swords flashed, and men were torn asunder. The Hierophant of Djaf met the charge head-on, cutting one immortal down with a single stroke of his sword before another buried his knife in the high priest’s eye. Arkhan reached the fallen Hierophant of Phakth and despatched him with a swift stroke of his blade.
Nagash paced along the aisle in the wake of his warriors, already casting a new incantation. As the priests fell he tore their life essences from their bodies and bound them as he had done to Khefru. One by one their moaning forms were drawn through the air towards the king and formed an unnatural retinue around his body.
The High Priestesses of Asaph and Basth fell next, their heads severed as they tried to fight back-to-back against the immortals. The Hierophant of Tahoth fell next, pleading for mercy as Arkhan slit his throat. The rest fell back, climbing the dais and forming a barrier between the queen and Nagash’s men. As they did, the High Priest of Sokth took a dagger in his leg and fell onto the steps. An immortal leapt on him like a desert lion and sank his teeth into the man’s face.
That left only Amamurti and the Hierophant of Geheb. The high priest of the earth god was already bleeding from half a dozen wounds, but he continued to fend off his attackers with brutal sweeps of his bloodstained hammer. One immortal grew too bold and tried to cut at the hierophant’s knees. The high priest smashed the warrior aside with a blow from his hammer, but that created the opening Arkhan was looking for. Swift as a viper, he leapt forwards and brought down his gleaming khopesh, and the hierophant’s hammer, along with his arm, bounced wetly across the stone steps.
The Hierophant of Ptra called out the name of his god and hurled a gout of hissing flame down the steps at the advancing immortals. Three of them were struck full-force and collapsed in heaps of blackened bones and bubbling flesh. Before Amamurti could cast another invocation he was struck by three flung daggers, one of which pierced his heart. The high priest sank slowly to the dais beside Neferem’s paralysed form, his life essence bleeding from his eyes and gaping mouth.
Nagash stepped slowly through the carnage. With a wave of his hand he snuffed the flames that were scourging Shepsu-hur’s body, and then climbed the steps until he stood eye-to-eye with the queen. For the first time Nagash noticed the terrified form of Ghazid, crouched fearfully in the shadow of Settra’s throne.
The king’s gaze returned to Neferem. The Daughter of the Sun was quivering with rage, struggling to break the hold that Nagash had over her. Once upon a time she might have succeeded, but decades of drinking Nagash’s elixir had taken its toll on her will.
“Where is that snake, Nebunefer?” the king growled. “I know he had a hand in this treachery.”
“He is not here,” the queen answered defiantly. “I sent him away, in case the priests failed to kill you.” She tried to move, to advance upon him with clenched fists, but Nagash’s will held her fast. “Whatever happens here, at least he will survive to raise the other great cities against you!”
“You dare defy me, your rightful king?” Nagash roared.
“You killed my son!” Neferem said through clenched teeth. Her voice seethed with hatred. “Khefru told me everything.”
“Did he tell you that you drank Sukhet’s blood an hour later?” Nagash replied. “Yes. You owe your continued youth to his murder.”
Tears leaked from the corners of Neferem’s eyes, but the hatred on her face remained.
“Kill me and be done with it,” she hissed. “It doesn’t matter now. You’ve spilled the blood of holy men, Nagash. The gods will engineer your ruin far better than I.”
“You think this is terrible?” Nagash said, indicating the pile of torn and bleeding bodies. The ghosts shifted around him, wailing piteously. “This is but the prologue, my foolish little queen. I have not yet begun to sow the seeds of slaughter across Nehekhara. When I am done, Mahrak will lie in ruins, and the old gods will be cast down forever. And you will stand by my side and watch me do it.”
Nagash’s left hand shot forwards and closed around Neferem’s throat.
“From the moment I saw you, I knew that I had to possess you,” he said. “That time has now come.”
Neferem started to speak, but suddenly her body stiffened as Nagash began to chant. Power coursed through the queen’s body, bursting from her eyes and mouth in a torrent of glowing green light. Her lifeforce was torn from her, flowing to Nagash in a slow, inexorable stream. A faint, tortured scream rose from the queen’s throat: a sound of terrible anguish and pain that seemed to go on and on.
Tendrils of smoke rose from Neferem’s skin. Her flesh shrank and her skin wrinkled like dried leather. The flow of energy from her body began to dwindle. Her shoulders drooped and her head bobbed on her almost-skeletal neck, but somehow the queen continued to survive.
Nagash drew the life from her until he could take no more. In the space of a minute, the Daughter of the Sun had been transformed into a living horror, her body somehow sustained by the bindings of the sacred covenant. Her withered legs gave out beneath her, and Neferem sank painfully to the dais, right beside Settra’s throne.
The king studied Neferem in silence. His immortals stared at the king and his queen with horror and awe. Behind the king’s throne, concealed in darkness, Ghazid held his head in his hands and wept.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The City of the Gods
Mahrak, the City of Hope, in the 63rd year of Ptra the Glorious
(-1744 Imperial Reckoning)
Blue-grey smoke wreathed the thousand temples of the city of Mahrak, filling the air with the fragrances of sandalwood, frankincense and myrrh. A riot of horns, cymbals and silver bells echoed and re-echoed down the narrow streets and across the great plazas where the faithful gathered for prayer and sacrifice. Priests slaughtered herds of oxen, goats and lambs, casting their flesh and blood into the flames. In some households, young slaves were fed cups of wine laced with the black lotus, and then were led to the sacrificial bonfires that burned before the great Palace of the Gods. Across the City of Hope, beseeching hands were cast skywards, imploring the heavens for deliverance from the terrible darkness approaching from the west.
The people of the city had good reason to believe that the gods would intervene. At the centre of the city, surrounded by a walled plaza in the heart of the Palace of the Gods, lay the Khept-am-shepret, the miraculous Sundered Stone that saved the seven tribes from extinction during the darkest days of the Great Migration.
Bereft of their ancient homes, bereft of their gods, weakened unto death by the sun and the endless, scorching sands, the tribes had come to this great plain and found that they could walk no more. In ages past their gods had been the spirits of the trees and the jungle springs, of the panther, the monkey and the python.
Here, in this great, empty wasteland, the tribes in their desperation prayed to the sun and the blue sky for salvation, and Ptra, the Great Father, was moved by their pleas. He stretched forth his hand, and a great boulder in the tribes’ midst split apart with a sound like a thunderbolt.
Stunned, the tribes gathered around the sundered stone, and saw fresh, sweet water come welling up through the sharp-edged cracks. The tribes drank, cutting their hands on the knife-edged stones and thus offering their first sacrifices to the gods of the desert. In the days that followed the great covenant was pledged and the Blessed Land was born.
Mahrak began as a collection of temples, one for each of the twelve great gods, and a glorious palace where the tribes could come together and offer worship on the high holy days of the year. Slowly but surely, the city grew up around these great structures, as cities are wont to do, first with districts of modest dwellings to house the workers building the temples, and then with marketplaces and bazaars where traders could come and ply their wares. Then, as centuries
passed and the tribes spread across Nehekhara to found other great cities, Mahrak increased in wealth and influence as distant rulers sought the wise counsel and prayers of the temples.
The temples were gargantuan affairs, having grown along with their burgeoning fortunes: Geheb’s temple was a mighty ziggurat that dominated the horizon to the east, lit at its summit by a roaring flame that had not been extinguished in four hundred years. Nearby, Djaf’s temple was a sprawling complex of low, massive buildings built from slabs of black marble, while to the west, beyond the perfumed gardens of Asaph, the ivory tower of Usirian rose from the midst of a sprawling, intricate labyrinth formed by walls of polished sandstone.
The Palace of the Gods, the seat of power of Nehekhara’s Hieratic Council, sat at the feet of a massive pyramid that rose more than two hundred feet into the sky. At its summit sat an enormous disk of polished gold that caught the sun’s rays and reflected Ptra’s glory in a shimmering beacon that could be seen for leagues across the eastern plains. All of the temples, even the broad field of black obelisks erected in obeisance to dreadful Khsar, the Howling One, glittered with ornaments of gold, silver and polished bronze, surrounded by crowded neighbourhoods of mud-brick buildings whose narrow streets only saw sunlight when Ptra’s light hung directly overhead.
Mahrak was the oldest, largest and most splendid of Nehekhara’s great cities, home to thousands of priests, priestesses and scholars and the tens of thousands of traders, craftsmen, labourers and pilgrims who served them. Many of Nehekhara’s wealthiest families maintained residences in the city, and in centuries past a constant stream of noble visitors made their way to the city in search of blessings or advice. That had been before the rise of the Usurper in Khemri.
To the west, the swirling, blue-black clouds were already past the Gates of the Dusk and bearing swiftly down upon the City of the Gods. Standing upon the battlements near Mahrak’s western gate, Nebunefer tucked his thin arms into the folds of his robes and nodded in grim satisfaction. The armies of Rasetra and Lybaras were withdrawing to the south-east, the dust of their passing still hanging in the late afternoon air along the southern horizon, but the Usurper’s army showed no signs of pursuing them.