Crypt of the Violator

by K. J. Coble

  Asyra grimaced. “It’s always nice stories, with you.” She glanced uneasily at the little book. “How did that thing survive, if the scribe lit himself up?”

  “Apparently, it was the only thing left in the ashes.” Lyssa shook her head. “You’d think people would learn, but no one thought that odd. So, it somehow got spirited away in some back, cluttered corner of some library.”

  “And it just happened to end up with the White Guard, all this time later.”

  “Like I said...you’d think people would learn.”

  “I hope you’re being more careful with it than that scribe was.”

  Lyssa waved off the concern. “Of course. Unlike that simpleton, I have my spells. More importantly, I actually know what I’m dealing with.”

  Asyra wondered if wizards ever really understood what they were dealing with. “So, why are you reading it? You said it was lies.”

  “Even lies give away truths,” Lyssa replied. “The Xyxians both hate and revere Zadam. It was the height of their power, when they held a large slice of the Mid Sea basin under their control. Everything they’ve been since, including their magic, has been a mere shadow of that era. It torments them and lures them still.”

  Something about the way she said that last part sent a rippled across Asyra’s skin.

  “I feared,” Lyssa was continuing, “when I learned the course of the campaign would take us so close to it, that the Xyxians would try to use something about Zadam against us.” She tapped the hateful little tome again. “So, I thought I’d educate myself, prepare myself as best as I could for whatever that could be.” Her face twisted bitterly and she glanced over her shoulder, the direction of the other tent and their dead. “It appears that wasn’t enough.”

  “What would you have learned?” Asyra asked, not certain why she did it. No, that’s a lie She did know, could see the reason slithering in the back of her mind, rising up out of wasteland sands.

  “Nothing,” Lyssa sighed. “It’s more of the same. You already know most of the folktales, about jewels and curses and living dead pharaohs. The scribe probably thought about the same things. Instead, he found himself in a dialogue with Thyss-Mallik.”

  Asyra shivered at the name. “The First Pharoah of the Deathless Throne.”

  “The Violator,” Lyssa replied with force. “The deranged wizard-king who ruled for generations, who bent and then broke the very laws of nature to remain atop that Throne. Zadam was not just his capitol city; it was his tomb, when his depravities could no longer hold the forces of time at bay. He had himself buried up there, and the whole city with him.”

  Asyra nodded. “This part I know.” She shivered again. “He had his legions butcher the population, the royal family,” She paused at a sudden dryness in her mouth, “his queen. And he had the riches of the place piled in catacombs beneath, luring fools across the centuries to delve into its lost vaults.”

  “And they have picked its old bones clean,” Lyssa said, “not that that’s stopped any of them.” She smiled awkwardly at Asyra.

  “I only got close as part of the battle plan,” Asyra replied, holding up her palms in protest. She wondered if she was trying too hard. “Your plan. One time was enough!”

  “See that it is.” Lyssa glowered at her a long moment. Asyra knew she could see into other people’s minds, if she wanted. She wasn’t sure if she’d even know if Lyssa tried hers. “There is still something left up there, buried deep. And it’s deep for a reason.”

  Asyra felt cold sweat beginning to film her skin. What is wrong with me? Why don’t I tell her about Strayden and his schemes? Why don’t I tell her about the vision, about what I’m feeling right now—my schemes?

  But she didn’t, asked, instead, “You said the scribe found himself in a dialogue with the...the Violator?”

  “Yes,” Lyssa replied, seeming to remember her story. “Through the Ekrus Necro-Mallika, which was not so much history as it was a fragment of the Violator’s essence. I told you it was lies. More specifically, it was his lies, with the document acting as some kind of conduit. In fact, the only thing I’ve really learned from studying this is how the dead bastard has continued to poison the world.”

  Asyra frowned, shivered again. “Through that little thing?”

  “Through anything plundered from those ruins,” Lyssa replied. “Any bauble, any trinket taken from Zadam seems to have carried the taint of him into the world. Every army that looted Zadam when it fell, every pack of thieves that has poked through there, since, has spread the stain of Thyss-Mallik across creation.” She snorted, shook her head in disgust. “Across thousands of years. Think of it. Magic and mayhem have wracked this region almost without relief since. It’s not hard to understand why, with little shreds of the devil in circulation and every wannabe tyrant trying to harness them.”

  “They’re still trying,” Asyra said.

  “And wasting their time.” Lyssa turned away from the tome, faced Asyra directly. “What remains of the devil is echoes, faded as the flood of history has rushed on without him.”

  “And whatever remains beneath those ruins.”

  Lyssa’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing but doom remains under those ruins.” She took a step closer and Asyra couldn’t help but squirm a little. “I hope the Eyes don’t have designs on them.”

  “They don’t,” Asyra replied in too much of a hurry. “Not that I could tell you if they did, but they don’t. At least, nothing they’ve told me of.”

  Lyssa kept that piercing, green stare on her, wouldn’t let Asyra look away. “You’re telling me the truth?”

  “I just said I was!” The other woman’s pressure triggered a spasm of anger, not just because of the lack of trust, but because that lack was warranted. Why don’t I tell her about Strayden? About the voice in the sand?

  Because she’ll stop us, came the answer—from her, from It.

  “Asyra,” Lyssa said, sounding increasingly unconvinced, “if there’s more, I really need you to—”

  “There’s nothing more!” she snapped. “Aren’t you listening?” She glowered back at the wizard, forcing anger to cover for guilt. “Are you trying my mind? Going to put me to the Question?”

  Lyssa blinked and shrank back a step. “I...wouldn’t...”

  “You have before.”

  “That was...that was before I knew you. And, really, it was Bishop Durothan—”

  “Go ahead and do it!” Asyra stepped closer to her, caused her to retreat a step, in reaction. “If your trust in me is so little, you might as well.” She held her hands out to either side in mock surrender. “I’m yours.”

  Lyssa started to say something multiple times, looked like a fish, flopped on deck. She settled, finally, on, “I apologize. I do trust you.”

  “Go ahead!” Asyra pressed. She almost hoped Lyssa would put her to the Question. It would free the lies in her skull. But even thinking that brought a clenching to her mind, as though the very thoughts resisted her.

  And Lyssa was in full retreat now. “No. You’re right. I don’t want that.”

  Asyra reached out, caught a sleeve. The resistance built within her. It hurt. She began to realize what she’d seen, what she knew didn’t want to be known. “Don’t you want to see what’s in here?” she nearly begged, pointing at her head with the other hand.

  Lyssa swallowed once. “Not like that.”

  The hurt in her voice pierced Asyra, silenced the argument in her mind. She looked at the hand that’d grabbed her, released suddenly. The frantic resistance within her faded. The pain passed and that voice, that other seemed gone.

  “I’m the one who’s sorry,” she said, and half-turned to leave. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come here, tonight.”

  “Don’t...” Now Lyssa reached out for her, caught her by the shoulder. “Please, don’t go. I’m glad you’re here.”

  Asyra let the other woman turned her back to look at her. “You are?”

  “Of course, I am.”

 
Staring up into her face—it was a little bit comical how much taller she was—Asyra could almost forget her lies, her confusions, and just be in those green, green eyes. She turned fully into Lyssa, set a palm over the hand on her shoulder and drifted a half-step closer.

  She’d been a lot of things to a lot of people. From the harem to the streets, from quiet, shadowy moments she almost remembered fondly to debaucheries so depraved she’d feared for her life; she’d played every part. Well...her body had played every part. It was almost never her, when the time came. That was how it had had to be, to keep her focus, to keep herself intact.

  But, standing here now with Lyssa, body and soul were nearly one in what they wanted.

  “I’m glad, too,” she whispered.

  They were close, so close.

  And Lyssa stiffened, seemed to remember herself, squirmed back a step. “Of course,” she fumbled to say. “We’re friends.”

  Asyra hid a flinch as that dry, empty word struck her. “Friends?” She didn’t manage to keep the hoarseness from her voice.

  “Yes,” Lyssa replied, suddenly unable to meet Asyra’s gaze. “I...I don’t have many.”

  “I do.” That was a lie, but Asyra’s anger had taken hold again. “I don’t need another one. I need more.”

  Lyssa shook her head. “I...I don’t know what you mean by—”

  “Yes, you do.” Asyra took a step closer.

  “I...please...isn’t friends enough? There’s no one I trust more. Aren’t friends everything?”

  Asyra set her hand on Lyssa’s arm again. “They’re not.”

  Lyssa shrugged out of her grip again and that motion, that resistance tore through Asyra. “Please, we can’t have another complication, right now. We need focus. So many things hang in the balance.”

  “You’re hiding behind the job.”

  “The job—which, in my case, is preventing things you cannot imagine from ravaging an entire army’s souls—is what’s important, right now.” She shook her head, a little angry now. “I’m not hiding. I have priorities.”

  “You and I are a priority.”

  “Right now, there are greater ones.”

  “Then what are we?” Asyra lunged at her, grabbed the taller woman by the arms, shocked herself with her intensity. But she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t know if this was that presence, still taunting, tainting her mind, or if this was her, frantic with the realization of what she’d been missing for so long. She gave Lyssa a shake. “What are we?”

  Lyssa looked back at her, eyes quivering for a moment. “Friends,” she whispered tremulously, unconvincingly. One of her hands rose, touched Asyra’s cheek. “The closest of friends.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  Lyssa let her hand rest on Asyra’s face, cupped it for a moment. Her breath felt warm, close. Lips looked closer.

  And she flinched, pulled back, pushed away. “Asyra, I...I don’t know that I can be...what it is you want me to be.”

  The words crashed through Asyra’s skull like a cart she’d once seen broken loose and rolling downhill into a crowded market. Its wreckage splintered within her mind and flew apart, cutting, slicing, bits of her screaming inside, like those villagers had when cart struck. Pieces tumbled down through her chest, struck what was there, and exploded. The very frame that held Asyra erect quivered with the blast, and then collapsed in a fiery tangle. She could see the flames behind her eyes, the glare of something she’d held so close burning down to hell.

  “Oh.” She didn’t know how she managed to stay on her feet.

  Lyssa grimaced, cupped a hand to her mouth. “Asyra...dear, I don’t...” She reached for her. “It’s not like I don’t...it’s just that...”

  Asyra recoiled from the touch. “Oh.”

  “Please...”

  “No, it’s...it’s all right.” Asyra started for the tent’s exit flaps. “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t!”

  “No?” Asyra whirled on her just shy of the exit. “Explain it to me. What are we? What is this?” She gestured back and forth between them. “After all we’ve been through together, what am I to you?”

  “You are...” Lyssa started and couldn’t finish.

  “Friend?”

  “This isn’t as easy a thing as you’re making it out to be, Asyra,” Lyssa declared with a sparkle of anger and hurt to her eyes.

  “I disagree. Nothing could be easier.”

  Asyra didn’t hear whatever else Lyssa tried to tell her. Her vision blurred by a rush of tears she couldn’t let the other woman see, she lurched from the tent.

  Outside in the sandy night, a voice sighed with the wind and the darkness opened its arms to welcome her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE NEW DAY CAME WITH wind and no dawn. Alarms sounded through the camp and soldiers scrambled to secure their tents, supplies, and animals. Jarred out of a solid sleep, Strayden dragged himself from his shelter, bleary-eyed and so sore, and bellowed at a passing Vothan, “What in the hells is going on?”

  “Sand storm!”

  It arrived within minutes, blistering men as they worked desperately to save gear and loot. Orders were lost in the howling gale and Strayden swore he heard voices, like a hateful chorus summoning the winds out of nothing. Dust and debris blackened the air, burned eyes, nose, and throat. A great many men simply gave up and rolled up in their bedrolls or the collapsed tatters of their tents, anything to get out of scathing fumes. The sand piled over them where they lie.

  The storm smote the Scintallan camp with fury, but not for long. Strayden couldn’t explain it, but he had the impression of a great effort expended upon them that required too much strength to sustain long, like forcing a boulder out of the way. One moment, the sand howled and hammered; the next the air lightened with streaks of dawn and the gale withered down to a whistle and then a moan.

  The quiet seemed almost loud in the aftermath.

  “More witchery,” Durrak growled as he burrowed loose from a sand pile. He spat and shook off a patina of dust. “Nothing natural about that.”

  “You’re just hungover,” Strayden remarked, rising from the wreck of his tent.

  “And you’re a fool, if you believe that.”

  Fingering sand out of an ear, Strayden nevertheless heard the anger in his comrade’s voice, the vehemence. He recalled the mist of yesterday. Lyssa would know the truth of it. He wondered briefly where the sorceress had gotten to. Asyra’s unexpected visit the night before had him recalling the weird friendship he’d formed with the pair. He didn’t typically have friendships with women—not that kind.

  He was surprised to find he missed it.

  “Whatever that was,” he growled at the Nuburran, “it left a hell of a mess.”

  They spent the better part of the day that followed at clean-up. Vothans could be counted upon any time there was a fight, but the work it took to get them to do work was near unbearable. Calling the rolls, just getting a count and making certain no one had succumbed to the brief storm’s fury, took an hour of insults and brow-beating. And a couple were missing. Strayden figured they’d show up. He didn’t have a choice.

  “Pick out a group for a special detail tonight,” he told Durrak. “Trusted hands only.”

  The dark giant frowned at him. “We’ve got the perimeter tonight.” A hint of smile quirked his lips. “We’re going to breach our own security?”

  Strayden put a finger to his lips for quiet. “We have an appointment.”

  “In the ruins,” Durrak finished for him. He didn’t exactly smile, a hint of his native superstition crackling about him. But he knew more than just ghost stories, and avarice sparkled in his eyes.

  “Men who can be quiet,” Strayden added.

  “Aelren,” Durrak thought out loud, “Ivar and Vidar. The latter’s too dumb to be scared. And scared is what we should be, delving in there after dark.”

  “You can stay behind and stand the watch,” Strayden growled.

  �
�Someone needs to watch your back,” he replied. His features creased in thought for moment. “I’ll have to find a few others. Mixed bag we’ve got here.” He sighed and there was real melancholy in his voice. “It’s not the same Fifth as it used to be.”

  Reflexively, Strayden started into a retort, some glib comment, but it withered, died unspoken. “Aye, that,” he agreed quietly.

  They’d lost some good lads in the scrap the day before—Gerbruht, who’d been an idiot, barely capable of speech, but a steady shield. More than the slain of recent days, though, Strayden knew Durrak thought of the dozens they’d lost months before, the weird quest for the Tome of Flesh, the riots and unrest that’d followed. Tancred, he remembered with a twinge like an old wound’s complaint. He knew Durrak would be thinking of him, especially, his old drinking companion and long-time partner in name-calling and good-natured bickering. Tancred’s death had made all the other losses feel like a shattering, like the thing that had been the old Fifth Cohort had broken and could never be remade quite the same.

  We’re not the same, Strayden thought with a wince. We’re getting old. He scowled as soon as the words surfaced and shook them away. “Just...find us a few. Oh, and grab Horsa.”

  “The kid?”

  “I like him.”

  “He’s still nursing that wound.” Durrak shrugged. “All right, whatever you want.”

  The work of sorting out the army went on, and not just for the Vothan Guard. The Scintallan Regulars and Levies were still pulling themselves back together, the latter, especially, the conscript troops having borne the brunt of the losses and scattered the worst afterward. The camp rang with shouts and confusion, worsened by the mess of the storm, as nobles and professionals tried to put Bazul’s huge puzzle back together again.

  And all the while, Zadam glowered down at them.