by Nat Russo
“I can’t bestow four decades of experience upon you by decree,” Mujahid said. “I’m your only guide, and there are some things you’re going to have to take on faith.”
Faith. It had been a while since Nicolas exercised that particular muscle.
“I, too, had a guide once,” Mujahid said. “I, too, had to learn trust.”
“Was he as pleasant as you?”
“She. And she is no longer with us.”
Nicolas recognized the expression on Mujahid’s face. The man looked like Nicolas felt. Confused. Angry. Sad. Nicolas thought of Kaitlyn and could almost smell her rose-scented skin if he tried.
“She meant a lot to you,” Nicolas said.
“Mordryn was a remarkable woman.”
“I appreciate you helping me. But you’re asking me to trust a person who kills people who get uppity.”
“A necromancer who forgets his place poses a serious threat to himself and to a divine purpose you know nothing about, much less understand.”
Nicolas looked down the path into the underground village and chewed his lip. The reality of his situation was sinking in. The people down there were going to have expectations of him, and right now his only guide was this mysterious and powerful man. Mujahid held answers. Perhaps answers to questions he didn’t know he should be asking.
Mujahid’s grip tightened on Nicolas’s shoulder.
“Come. We’ll have much to discuss later. For now we enter Paradise and see about filling that noisy belly of yours.”
Nicolas followed Mujahid down the ramp.
The squalor of Paradise surprised Nicolas. The people all shared a look of surrender. Their clothes looked as if they hadn’t been washed…ever. The smell was awful. A miasma of mold, wet dirt, trash, excrement, animals and body odor. Whoever named this place must have been a comedian.
Beggars sat along the main path, but no one offered them anything. People were struggling just to survive here. Their gaunt faces and sagging clothes did nothing to conceal their starvation. He felt awkward, as if he had too much…pants and boots, shirt and underwear. He should be doing something for them, but what? He looked up at the cavern ceiling, not wanting to let his eyes linger on anyone impolitely, and again his vision was drawn to the blue beam of energy.
A group of tents obscured the end of the beam, but he got a clear view of it when they rounded a bend in the path. The beam led to a vibrant red sphere, not unlike the Vatican’s giant fractured sphere in size, hovering several feet off the ground. The more Nicolas stared at it, and at the tiny wisps of energy that rose upwards, the more he realized the beam didn’t end at the sphere. It began at the sphere.
“What’s that floating ball, Muj—Lord Mujahid?”
“An orb of power. The barrier surrounding Paradise is powered by it.”
“So it’s a kind of generator?”
“If you’re asking me if it generates power, then the answer is no. It doesn’t create power. It is power.”
“How long does something like that last?” Nicolas said.
Mujahid looked as if Nicolas had asked if water was wet.
“It simply is. Unless destroyed by magic.”
Nicolas thought about all of the scientists back on Earth who would give everything they owned for a patent on that thing.
“Texas could use a few of those.”
Mujahid chuckled. “Orbs of power are rare. That orb was obtained at great risk to my brother and me. There are many in this world that would see it removed from us, either by force or destruction.”
A tiny ball rolled out in front of Nicolas, followed by a little boy, no more than four years old, dressed in rags and barefoot. Nicolas had to sidestep to avoid tripping over the kid. Short blond hair blackened by soot and dirt made the boy look as if he had never bathed.
Mujahid picked up the ball. “Here you are. Be careful now, child. You have no idea how precious you are.”
The boy smiled, took the ball from Mujahid, and scampered away.
“You couldn’t just make another one?” Nicolas asked.
Mujahid grabbed Nicolas’s arm. “Tell me you value life more than that.”
“Not the kid! The orb.”
Mujahid released him. “Only the gods can create them. There is legend that implies humankind once had the knowledge, but I have my doubts. And there’s no record of it in the Chronicles.”
“Hard to believe anything could put a dent in it, much less destroy it,” Nicolas said. “What’s so special about the kid, anyway? You went full-on Gollum back there. Why’s he precious?”
“There aren’t many children left.”
“Y’all know about the birds and bees, right?”
“What about them?”
“Ok, I got this. When a mommy loves a daddy, they get married and start kissin’….”
Mujahid gave him a dark look. “Living newborns have been rare since the barrier went up.”
“What do you mean, living?”
“Exactly what I said. Women still get with child, but more often than not the babe is stillborn. Maybe one child in a thousand survives.”
A man approached from the side of a tent. “Lord Mukhtaar. It is wonderful to see you again, Excellency.”
“Luven, this is my postulant, Nicolas. He is new to our coven. I will be disappointed if he is harmed in any way.”
Luven swallowed. He had the same look Toby would give when Nicolas scolded him for barking.
“Disappointed, Luven,” Mujahid said. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, my Lord. Very clear indeed.” Luven backed away as if from a poisonous snake.
“Good. Spread the word.”
Luven turned and ran down the path.
“Let me get this straight,” Nicolas said. “You call this place Paradise, but it’s actually full of starving religious people who are so dangerous you need to threaten some guy to make sure no one hurts me?”
“I wish I could tell you religious and good were one and the same. But I can’t. ‘And the Power looked upon the Tree of Life and was repulsed, for Chaos and Wickedness had become one with the Tree.’ Emergentiae five, verse three.”
Nicolas blinked.
“A quote from the Origines Multiversi. The Mukhtaar Chronicles. Like I said, we’ll have much to discuss later.”
“Well, seeing as how I’m a postulant, it’d be nice if you told me what that is.”
“It means if I tell you to bring me food, you will do so before taking your own meal. If I tell you to clean my scapular, you will return it to me as if you had purchased a new one. And you will relish these activities, for it is a rare honor to be the postulant of a Mukhtaar Lord.”
Nicolas felt the anger rising again. “Oh, so I’m your slave now?”
“To complain in front of the coven will give up the lie,” Mujahid said. “We can’t afford to have them asking questions.”
Nicolas wasn’t convinced. Mujahid had been acting like his boss since the moment they met, and now he was surrounded by people who expected him to act like a slave.
“I’m not going to act like your damned servant, Mujahid.”
Mujahid gave him a stern look.
“Oh, I’m sorry, your lordship. Maybe you’d like to share the bible verse that tells me how I’m going to hell if I don’t polish your shoes? I almost forgot! Shoe polish. I’ll add that to my slave boy shopping list.”
“Hell? You know nothing of the Hells.”
Some passersby stopped to watch the exchange.
Mujahid stood face to face with Nicolas. His voice became a whisper.
“Get a hold of yourself, boy. You dishonor yourself as much as you dishonor me.”
“My name is Nicolas.”
The murmuring crowd grew larger.
“I’ll stop calling you boy when I see a man before me,” Mujahid said. “Until you learn how to survive in a man’s world, I suggest you take your lead from a man.”
The crowd looked as if they were watching someone
defile a holy place.
Mujahid leaned in to Nicolas and whispered, “Follow my lead, you fool.”
Power forced Nicolas to the ground, and he landed hard on his knees.
“This postulant has invoked the anger of your Lord, and he will be punished,” Mujahid said. “He is as a ghost to you all. He does not exist until I command otherwise. Am I understood?”
The crowd shouted a mix of “Yes, Lord Mukhtaar,” and “Yes, Lord Mujahid.”
“And if any of you take it upon yourself to be the instrument of his punishment, I won’t hesitate to become the instrument of yours.”
The crowd shrank away and Mujahid knelt beside Nicolas.
“Your ignorance has served us here, boy. Of course it makes buying my food difficult, considering the merchants will ignore you now.”
Nicolas was angry, but he couldn’t deny he’d messed up. He had better get some perspective on this, or he’d screw something up that Mujahid couldn’t unscrew.
Nicolas stood up when the force holding him vanished.
“These people fear you that much?” Nicolas asked.
Mujahid waved his arm. “The demonstration of authority you saw here was effective because authority isn’t something I abuse.”
Nicolas rolled his eyes.
“I’ll do my best to instruct you, but if this is to work, you must trust me. If you don’t, you’ll die, and not because of some slip of custom or etiquette. It’s that simple.”
Nicolas looked away, thinking of the only people in the world he trusted that much. Dr. Murray, his adoptive father and mentor. Kaitlyn. Grief welled up inside. He had never felt this alone.
“Continue walking with me,” Mujahid said. “I’ll give you answers. That much I promise you. But let’s see if you ask the right questions first.”
“So instead of just telling me what I need to know, you’re going to test me?
“Knowledge in the absence of wisdom is a dangerous thing, boy.”
They walked among makeshift tents where vendors hawked their wares; cheap statuettes, old cooking utensils, mismatched earthenware and decorative items. People haggled in loud voices, stepping over each other at the chance to buy a serving spoon, or clay pot.
Everyone greeted Mujahid like a family member who’d been away. They were always deferential, but never fearful.
Mujahid reached into his black robe and pulled out a small brown pouch. He opened it, pulled out a fistful of gold coins, and distributed them among the people. The people thanked Mujahid, each accepting a single gold coin and no more.
Nicolas looked from face to face as the people approached. Mujahid had been right. Everyone was older than him. Aside from that one young boy, there were no kids. He hadn’t seen any teenagers either.
They walked for several minutes along the eccentric route of vendor stalls, until the grating sound of a vendor’s voice drew Nicolas’s attention. He craned his neck to get a better look.
Flesh dangled from the vendor’s partially exposed jawbone, revealing a bloody mix of sinew and muscle. One of the man’s arms was devoid of skin and flesh, leaving only the bone behind. He had a rib cage and no internal organs whatsoever.
Nicolas couldn’t breathe. He grabbed Mujahid’s arm.
Mujahid shook his head. “It would appear some celebration is in order. I’ve managed to find the first necromancer in the history of Erindor who is afraid of the undead.”
“Zz…zzz…zomb….”
“Get a hold of yourself, boy. Keep telling yourself that nothing here can harm you.”
Nicolas looked into Mujahid’s eyes. “Is that true?”
Mujahid inhaled as if to say something, paused with his mouth hanging open, then shrugged.
“Oh god,” Nicolas said. He tried to keep his eyes off the other vendors.
They entered an area separated from the rest of the community by a plain metal fence. Fence was too fancy a word. It was nothing more than a bunch of metal bars held up by iron posts, with a piece of fabric serving as a gate. Sick people were lying on man-sized rectangles of sewn material stuffed with something that Nicolas couldn’t see.
A man knelt beside one of the nearest pallets and wiped a sick man’s face with a cloth. The sick man stared unblinking at the cavern ceiling. A foamy liquid dribbled from the corners of his mouth.
Mujahid stopped and looked at the sick man. “Pray that never happens to you, boy.”
“What happened to him?”
“He failed in the Halls. Our numbers dwindle, and now we lose a good man to a foolish mistake. He should have known better.”
“I’m sorry,” Nicolas said.
“Don’t spend time thinking on it now. Come. Paradise lies down another corridor.”
“But…I thought this was Paradise.”
“I know you did,” Mujahid said. He started walking again.
CHAPTER SIX
The crowd parted as they headed toward a large tunnel. A vitrified stone arch rose above the tunnel entrance, made from obsidian so black it absorbed hope.
A fiery orange pictograph surrounded by lettering that resembled Arabic spanned the breadth of the arch, embedded in the obsidian. The picture depicted a figure in a meditative pose hovering above a crowd of people who covered their faces. Beams of light shot out of the hovering figure’s eyes and struck the people.
Two skeletal guards snapped to attention. They wore spectral armor from skull to foot. It was like they were wearing the ghost of a set of armor. Each had two short swords that were fastened to their hips by decaying leather belts. Their chests heaved as if their missing lungs needed to breathe, and dim blue light shone from their empty eye sockets.
Nicolas suppressed a chill when he got closer to them.
“This is my postulant,” Mujahid said to a guard. “You’ll allow him to pass, unharmed and without question.”
“As you wish, priest.” The undead guard’s voice sounded like Toby scratching a fencepost, and he said the word “priest” like he was swearing.
Mujahid motioned Nicolas into the tunnel.
“I get the feeling they don’t like you,” Nicolas said.
“Their sentence is a long one, and that doesn’t lend itself to happiness.”
“Jail sentence?”
“The estate is ahead.”
Nicolas chuckled. “Undead criminals. Amazing. You guys got zombie chain gangs too?”
“We’re here.”
They were at a dead end.
“There’s nothing here,” Nicolas said.
The nerves in his arms and legs spasmed from top to bottom. He looked up in time to see the glow fade from Mujahid’s eyes.
“You did something to me.”
“Yes. I did.” Mujahid faced the wall.
“You gonna share with the class?”
“I…refreshed your vision. The magic was about to fade.”
“It felt different than last time.”
“You’re an expert on magic now?”
“What’s with the tingling on my head? Every time you use magic it feels like I stuck my head in a mini electrical storm.”
“The tingling, as you call it, lets you know that someone is using magic nearby. How near depends on your abilities.”
“But how—”
“What you’re about to see is known to few. I’ll teach you, but you will tell no one.”
Mujahid’s eyes glowed white. He pressed one hand against the stone wall and made a bunch of strange gestures with the other. The wall changed from solid rock to grey cloud, then evaporated into nothing. An archway tall enough for a man to pass through appeared in its place, and a field of pure blackness filled the space between.
“Well ain’t that something,” Nicolas said.
A familiar image drew his attention to the top of the arch. It was the symbol of the floating person with glowing eyes from before.
“That supposed to be a picture of you?” Nicolas said.
“Too much, too soon. You wouldn’t understand.�
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Even Nicolas’s enhanced vision wouldn’t penetrate the blackness of the void inside the arch.
Mujahid stepped forward and disappeared into the void. Nicolas took a deep breath and followed the old man into the blackness.
He expected to walk into a pitch-black room, but globes of fiery-orange light, varying in intensity and elevation, floating all around the cavern.
This side of the arch was as pitch black as the last, but the pictograph above it was different. This one was in the image of a mountain with three peaks.
A massive structure filled the cavern. This must be the estate Mujahid mentioned.
The building, carved out of the cavern wall itself, was as large as the Texas state capital. The top disappeared into darkness, making it impossible to guess its height, but it was at least two hundred yards wide, and it was surrounded by several tall, narrow spires. Intricate patterns of gold and black scroll work decorated the building around the sides and up a stone staircase, which was as wide as the building itself. The stairs led up to three monolithic doors, each at least fifty feet tall and set back from the top of the stairs.
Statues spanned the top of a facade above the doors. But one statue stood above the others—a statue of death. An obsidian robe shrouded the statue, and it carried an ominous scythe. The entire figure cast a macabre shadow on the steps beneath it.
The whole thing reminded Nicolas of the basilicas he visited with Dad in Italy. The beauty and craftsmanship captivated him at first.
But his admiration turned to disgust.
Here, a short walk from the squalor of Paradise, Mujahid’s palatial estate grew out of the stone floor, trimmed in gold, as if mocking the destitution that surrounded it.
“You live like this,” Nicolas said, “while those people struggle to survive right under your nose?”
“You don’t understand what you see.”
“How’s it feel to walk through that ghetto on the way to your palace? That gold you hand out ease your guilt when you sit on your throne?”
“You understand nothing yet presume to judge?”
“I know—”
“Nothing! Do you know anything about the history of this world, boy?”