Author: Phil Tucker
Date: 2019-09-03 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy
Description: Is victory worthwhile if it comes at the expense of everything you love? To avoid seeing the River Cities destroyed in their efforts to defeat Irella, Acharsis and his friends set forth on a quest that will take them from the darkest depths of hell to the perilous heights of the Gods' Mountain. A quest that will pit them against the fearsome powers of the daughter of death, a race against time to prevent her from not only conquering the known world, but tearing aside the very veil that separates the spirits of the dead from the land of the living. A quest whose culmination will force Acharsis

Contents

The Valley of the Gods

Map

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Glossary

The Path of Flames

Copyright

The Valley of the Gods

Book 3 of the

GODSBLOOD TRILOGY

By Phil Tucker

© 2019 Phil Tucker

Cover art by Andreas Zafeiratos

All characters and events in this book, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

CHAPTER ONE

Acharsis watched morosely as the celebrations escalated to ever more fantastic heights. The open courtyard was thronged with the nobility of Magan, the most elite of which were seated on sumptuous cushions along the perimeter beneath the covered walkway. Music spiraled into the air, played by dozens of musicians so that the proceedings took on a fevered cast, and everywhere slaves carried trays of refined delicacies. Endless delegations from the provinces of Magan were entering through the gate between the tapering towers at the end of the courtyard to present themselves and their gifts to Elu, and wherever Acharsis looked he saw the glint of gold, the luster of bronze, the gleam of silver and the glow of amber and lapis lazuli.

Trying not to frown, Acharsis shifted his weight. He stood at the far back of the courtyard, shoulder against a great vermillion column, a golden cup of beer in hand. It was the last night before the royal court began its journey to the hinterlands to engage Irella’s forces in war. The final celebration, a quick gasp of protocol squeezed in between the exigencies of war.

It was all wrong.

Acharsis looked over to where Jarek lay propped up on one elbow on an ocean of cushions beside Kishtar, gleaming platters of food at their side, laughing and leaning into each other with enviable intimacy. No frowns there. Sisu was harder to find, but Acharsis spotted him in the shadows of the far columns by the front of the courtyard, where he’d cornered a young noblewoman and was lecturing her eagerly with great swoops of his hands that kept spilling his wine.

Elu of course was impossible to miss. He sat straight-backed on a raised throne, clothed in luminous white robes edged in gold, gold about his neck, hanging thick on his wrists, gleaming seductively from his ornamental headpiece. Slaves fanned him with great feathers, while bare-chested guards stood impassively on either side of his dais, watching the delegates with suspicion. By Elu’s side stood Ahktena; a score of priests and other local nobles were arrayed behind him, and two lions lay at his feet, their chains of lustrous gold.

Acharsis took a sip of his beer, merely enough to wet his lips. Elu was rapidly turning into Senacherib in truth. His son had spent the past week closeted with Ahktena and his generals, emerging only to cross the great river to commune with the lamassu and the high priests. Jarek and the others hadn’t complained, seeing the last few days as a welcome reprieve from their ordeals, but Acharsis had been unable to relax.

It was all wrong.

“I don’t believe it,” said Annara, appearing by his side. “A celebration in full swing, and Acharsis hiding in the shadows?” Her broad lips pulled into a smile, her eyes gleaming with amusement. “Surely there’s still some beer left for you to quaff?”

“Yes, yes,” said Acharsis, pushing off the column with his shoulder and staring into his cup. “Plenty of beer. A wonderful night. Colors. Pageantry. Live baboons, even. Those were from the delegation of Punt, or Lunt, or whatever. Though what they think Elu’s going to do with a dozen baboons is anyone’s guess.”

“What’s wrong?” Annara stepped closer. She looked beautiful, dressed in an elegant gown of slate blue fringed with silver, her bare arms revealing her burgundy temple tattoos, her ebon hair pulled back from her face and flowing down over her shoulders. There was a scent to her - lilac, perhaps - and her lips were faintly rouged, her eyes lined with kohl in the manner of the Maganians.

“You look stunning,” he said, turning to face her. “I mean, I’m worried about the future of the civilized world and our fates and so forth, but with you here? Suddenly I can’t remember why.”

Annara smiled with the confidence of a woman who’d seen much of the world, taking the compliment in stride and making no attempt to deflect it. “Elu apprised me of his strategy this morning. I’m worried too, but his generals - especially Ossan - seem to know what they’re doing. Soldiers have been marching to the east all week. By the time Elu reaches the hinterlands he’ll be commanding a force over ten thousand strong.”

“Yes, yes.” Acharsis didn’t know why he felt so irritable. He drained his goblet and nearly tossed it aside. Instead he placed it neatly on a passing tray. “It all sounds well in hand.”

“So?” Annara quirked her head to one side. “Does it irk you that your son is the center of attention? That he’s the gloried pharaoh, and you are forced to stand in the shadows?”

“No, of course not,” snapped Acharsis.

“Mmmhmm,” said Annara. “Right.”

Acharsis crossed his arms, still finding it awkward to do so with one hand missing, and leaned against the pillar once more. A new delegation was presenting itself, a cohort of priests and minor nobles pressing their brows to the paved ground while slaves opened chests and placed elephant tusks at Elu’s feet.

“Look, we’ve accomplished what we set out to do,” said Acharsis. “And more. Elu is pharaoh. The forces of Magan will no doubt crush Irella’s dead, stymying her attempts at conquest. But then?”

“But then what?” Annara smiled at a passing slave and took the proffered cup of wine. “What’s wrong with victory?”

“It doesn’t lead us anywhere,” said Acharsis. “I’ve been trying to envision what comes next and there are no good alternatives.”

“Ah,” said Annara. “You’re impatient. You want Irella deposed tomorrow.”

“Yes, but that’s not it. Think. Magan destroys Irella’s army. Well and good. Then - what? We march a Maganian army across the Golden Steppe to invade the River Cities?”

Annara sipped her wine. “That’s what Elu’s envisioning.”

“Yes, I know. Jarek told me it’ll take at least a year to recover from this upcoming battle, assemble a fleet to ferry the army up the gulf, and then a miracle of logistics and provisioning to cross the Golden Steppe.”

“Then it takes a year,” said Annara.

“Have you ever witnessed an invasion, Annara? Irella will have created a second army, but this one will be of the living. Elu will have to defeat our own people in order to save them. Will have to lay siege to each city, destroying its defenses and massacring its defenders in order to liberate them. How much of the River Cities will be left by the time Irella concedes defeat?”

Laughter erupted from Elu’s dais as one of his lions roared and lunged at a delegate, causing the man to trip and fall on his rear in his haste to get away.

Annara bit her lower lip. “Such are the ways of the world, Acharsis. How else will Irella be deposed?”

“I don’t know,” said Acharsis, “and that’s been eating me up all week. How else? If the nine gods yet lived, I know what I’d do. I would beseech Ekillos for advice, have him send me on a divine mission to fetch a relic that would solve our problems. But of course… that’s no longer possible.” He watched as Elu waved his scepter, and the delegates, their offerings found acceptable, bowed low once more and retreated. “And what’s more, who’s to say Elu won’t find the River Cities to his liking, and insist on making them part of the Maganian Empire? Jarek’s said there’s strong opposition from the generals to the altruistic nature of the current plans.”

Annara stiffened. “Elu won’t betray us.”

“Won’t he? Power changes men, Annara.” Acharsis spoke softly, watching his son. “Who is to say where Elu’s loyalties will lie by the time Irella is cast down? Never mind.” He waved his hand, forestalling her response. “Forget I said that part. Regardless, I’m ill at ease. Events are moving out of our control, and I don’t like where they’re headed.”

Sisu approached, skirting the edges of the courtyard and ignoring all greetings till he finally reached their side. He turned to regard the proceedings and crossed his arms irritably. “Honestly? I’m disappointed. I thought Maganian girls might be a little more sensitive, a little more intellectually curious than those of Rekkidu.”

Acharsis raised an eyebrow. Sisu’s misfortunes were a welcome relief from his own dour thoughts. “She didn’t appreciate your charms? I’m shocked.”

“Spare me your dry wit, Acharsis.” Sisu scratched at the back of his neck. “You would think a Maganian would be interested in my perspective on their own religion. And not just idle speculation, either. I mean, I’ve experienced their religion in a way none of these fools have. But do you think she was impressed? I’d even have accepted her being struck dumb by wonder. No. ‘Heresy’ this, ‘stealing souls from the Fields of Contemplation’ that.” Sisu made a face. “Ridiculous.”

“Sisu,” said Annara slowly. “Did you try to seduce her by talking about dead people again?”

“Raising the dead,” said Sisu, refusing to meet her eyes. “That’s different. And she said her father was a high priest. You’d think she’d be interested.”

“No, actually,” said Acharsis. “In my experience, talking about corpses is never the way to entice a young girl to bed. And listen - this part is important - if it ever does work? If she gets excited hearing about that kind of thing? Run the other way.”

“Yes, laugh, laugh all you want,” said Sisu. “But I’m done with it all. They can keep their ridiculous netherworld. But mark my words. If I die out here? I will not rest easy in the gaze of Amubastis, the mother of all lamassu. Oh, no.” Sisu took a proffered cup and drank deep. “I’ll make it home to Nekuul. My soul will do whatever it takes to get to the real netherworld. That you can believe.”

Acharsis froze. Sisu’s words were like a hammer striking a gong. “Can you do that?”

“Do what?” Sisu was staring lugubriously at a beautiful servant girl. “Her?”

“No. Cross from one netherworld to the next?”

Sisu took another draught. “I’m Nekuul’s own damned grandson, aren’t I?”

“Acharsis?” There was a warning note to Annara’s voice. “You’ve got that look you get.”

“Cross the netherworld,” said Acharsis, excitement building up within him. “I’m the son of Ekillos. Jarek’s the son of Alok. Scythia’s blood runs in Kish’s veins.”

Sisu frowned at Acharsis and then looked past him at Annara. “What’s he going on about? He sounds drunk, but he’s not slurring.”

“We are the descendants of gods,” said Acharsis. “Except for you, of course, Annara. No offense. But the rest of us. If we could cross the netherworld to Nekuul’s domain…”

“You’re forgetting an important detail,” said Sisu. “You have to die to enter the netherworld. There’s no coming back from that, no matter where you then choose to go.”

“Do you?” Acharsis laughed and quaffed his beer in one pull, and this time he did throw the gold cup aside. “Are you so sure? What do you know, after all, about death and the netherworld? You’re only Nekuul’s grandson.”

“He’s not drunk,” said Annara. “He’s just being ambushed very aggressively by senility.”

“Wait, wait. It’s coming to me. A divine vision from Ekillos himself. Well, not exactly, but you know what I mean. A plan.” Acharsis pressed his fingers and stump to his brow and closed his eyes. “What was it I said, Annara? I would beseech Ekillos for his wisdom and guidance? But he can’t hear us, not while we reside in the land of the living. We have to go to him. We have to ask him in person.”

“All right,” said Sisu. “This is becoming disturbing. I’m going to go see if that servant girl wants to talk about corpses.”

“No,” said Acharsis. “Get Jarek and Kish over here. I want to propose a plan.”

“I’m not sure any of us want to hear it,” said Annara. “Why don’t we leave this for tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow will be too late,” said Acharsis. “No. We have to discuss this tonight. Sisu? Can you bring them? We’ll be through the archway there and in a side room. Come find us.”

“Are you serious?” Annara followed alongside Acharsis as he left the celebrations behind, moving into the palace. “The netherworld?”

“Yes,” said Acharsis simply. “Be patient with my apparent insanity. Let’s wait for the others before you get your chance to laugh at me and ask Elu to lock me up in a cell for my own protection.”

Shortly thereafter Jarek and Kish walked into the side chamber, Sisu trailing behind, still shaking his head. Kish had her armed looped through Jarek’s, and was still laughing about something, wiping at her eye with a finger even as she fought for solemnity.

“So,” said Jarek, wry amusement in his eyes. “Sisu tells me you want us all to die or something?”

“Not die,” said Acharsis. Urgency made him pace once more, Jarek and Kish’s levity serving only to underscore his own unease. “You’re going to have to tell Elu’s generals that you won’t be involved in the battle any longer. Nor you, Kish. We’re not going to waste any time. We’re going straight for Irella.”

“Straight for Irella,” said Jarek. “That does sound suicidal. You’re going to have to give me information before I withdraw my offer to help fight the dead.”

“We’ve been fighting merely to survive for so long now that we’ve forgotten how to think ahead. How to go beyond the next immediate goal so as to devise an endgame. Elu and his generals can fight Irella’s army. But we can’t wait a year for them to regather their strength and launch an invasion across the Golden Steppe. I won’t help Elu’s generals slaughter our people and burn our cities to the ground so as to defeat Irella.”

“All right. Cut to the chase.” The humor in Jarek’s eyes had sluiced away. “What’s got you so excited you’ve foregone getting drunk?”

“Sisu. He gave me the idea. A way to petition Ekillos and Alok directly for help, to ask for a means to defeat Irella without the need for an army.” Acharsis forced himself to stand still. He gazed from each of his friends to the other. “We ask the lamassu to ferry us to the Maganian netherworld. From there we journey to Nekuul’s domain, at whose border we leave you, Jarek, so as to avoid fulfilling her prophecy. We find the fallen gods, and ask them directly what we must do.”

Jarek’s head snapped back as if he’d been clipped in the chin. “Journey through the Maganian netherworld?”

“Think!” Acharsis began to pace once more. “How did we deal with the Athites when we saw defeat was inevitable? We each ascended to the peaks of our ziggurats and did offer up flesh from the thighs of oxen and other pleasing gifts to provoke our fathers and mothers into speech. We sought their advice, and they did give it, telling us how to turn the tide that threatened to drown us all. Were they alive, we would be doing the same, but we can’t. Yet if we can’t bring the gods to us, we must go to them, and yes, it sounds fanciful, ridiculous even, until you remember that divine blood runs through our veins; that we have one foot in the heavens and the other in the netherworld; that we are as much magic and light and power as we are flesh and blood, and if ever there was a group who could sojourn across the lands of the dead and hope to emerge victorious, that group stands before me.”

Nobody spoke. Instead they exchanged glances, hesitant before Acharsis’ passion. Finally, Sisu shook his head. “Your whole plan depends on the lamassu being willing to carry us into their netherworld. Even if they could, why would they? We’re foreigners. It would be a form of heresy.”

“Elu can convince the lamassu,” said Acharsis. “He’s spent half the week in the god’s presence, communing with him, learning the mystical ways from the priests. He’s connected to the Maganian gods now. If we can convince Elu, then I’m sure he can convince the lamassu.”

“I don’t know,” said Jarek.

“This is how we phrase our request: sending us to the netherworld will save Magan a year of preparations and then a decade more of war - all to accomplish the independence of the River Cities. Elu will be rid of us and all the strife and conflict the invasion would engender amongst his generals and nobles who won’t understand his desire to give up the River Cities to us after fighting so hard and long for them.”

“Perhaps,” said Jarek. “But Acharsis, you’ve never visited the netherworld. I have. You don’t know what you’re suggesting. The nature of the trials we’ll face.”

“Don’t forget, I am the son of Ekillos, the god of all knowledge. I was the head apsu once, and mine was all the wisdom of the known world.” Acharsis hesitated. “Granted, most of that left me when Ekillos died, but I’ve enough to guide us where we wish to go.”

Annara frowned. “You said your prayers and spells no longer had any power.”

“They don’t. Ekillos does not enforce them. But we won’t cross the netherworld with fire and sword, hammer and offensive spell. We’ll use subterfuge instead. We’ll avoid trouble, and that is something I excel at doing.”

Eyebrows raised as everyone stared at him.

“What? I can avoid trouble if I wish.”

Kish laughed. “Like how you avoided the Maganian guards the moment we stepped off the boat?”

“Look how that turned out to our advantage,” said Acharsis.

“I won’t go with you,” said Annara. “I can’t. I’m not godsblooded. Besides, my place is by Elu’s side. To help him remain strong and true to himself.”

“I - yes.” Acharsis felt his excitement abate. There was no arguing Annara’s words. And yet. He studied her, resplendent in her gown, beautiful as the rising moon, striking and strong and the cause of his lost longings. “I know. But I - I mean, we’ll come back, after all is done. I will see you again.”

“Cross the netherworld,” said Sisu. “Down there, I will be like a god myself.” He smiled. “I think it’s an excellent idea.”

Kish groaned and covered her eyes. “I thought this was a bad idea. Now I know it’s the worst.”

“Let’s speak to Elu,’ said Acharsis. “This has to happen tonight.”

“You’re going to interrupt his official ceremony of ascension?” asked Annara.

“I… yes. I am.” Acharsis grimaced. “I know. Poor timing. But that’s why we’re all so fortunate that I’m as charming as I am.”

“Really,” said Annara.

“Look at it this way,” said Acharsis. “I’m giving him even more cause to want to send me to the netherworld and be rid of me. Now come on. Our night’s only just beginning.”

CHAPTER TWO

The broad, pale steps that led up to the lamassu’s temple glowed like polished bone in the light of Ninsaba’s moon. Acharsis breathed deep to steady his nerves. His plan, which had seemed almost reasonable in the safety of the palace and with a cup of beer in hand, seemed increasingly suicidal as he climbed to the entrance of the Third Tower of Heaven. He turned to smile reassuringly at his companions, but their faces were uniformly grim. Acharsis’ smile turned into a grimace and he turned back to the last of the steps. He didn’t blame them. He was, after all, asking them to literally die for him and the River Cities.

Elu climbed ahead, stiff-backed and silent. He was taking their abandonment well, Acharsis thought. Moderately well. At least his incredulity and anger had given way to cold restraint. A sharp gesture from Elu caused the temple guards to melt away, stepping back into the darkness amidst the columns. No, he was still furious.

They followed Elu inside and up to the second floor of the temple. Flames leaped up from bronze braziers, illuminating the high walls and bringing to life the vividly colored figures and inscriptions that covered them, but these sources of light were set too far apart to light up the whole of the temple, so that Elu led them from one island of light to another.

The lamassu wasn’t present in its audience chamber. Acharsis felt the god’s absence before he even made out the distant dais. Footsteps echoing loudly, they traversed the length of the great hall and stopped before the steps that led up to the carved marble cloud.

“He comes,” said Elu, voice hard.

“Does he know what we wish to ask?” Acharsis fought the urge to hug himself.

“Not yet,” said Elu. “I thought it best to let you put your request to him in person.”

“Great,” said Acharsis. “That’s great. Thanks.”

They stood in silence, awed by the scope of the chamber and their imminent audience, until a rushing whisper of air caused them to look up. The ceiling over the dais was a massive rectangle of darkness, and it was from that hole that the sound of wings could be heard.

A downdraft of wind suddenly blew forth, causing Acharsis to throw an arm up before his eyes, and then the lamassu was there, alighting on his dais, great wings furling on his back, his scent and presence hitting Acharsis like a blow from a hammer. Heart pounding, he lowered his arm and forced himself to stand straight, to gaze up at the godlike being whom he was about to offend so gravely.

The lamassu was huge. It didn’t lie down as before, but rather sat, tail curling around its haunches, the talons that emerged from its leonine paws curving over the dais’ edge. In the light of the braziers its fur and wings glimmered like hammered bronze shot through with seams of copper and gold. Twin horns like those of a bull rose from over its triangular ears, and though its upper lip was smooth a great beard reached down to its paws, oiled and woven with metallic threads of crimson, blue, and silver.

Its face was broad and striking, that of a powerful man in his forties, with harsh, rugged cheekbones, a flattened shovel of a nose and a broad mouth. Its heavy brow beetled down over its recessed eyes. It was at once monstrous and awesome, regal and inhuman, powerful and indolent, sensual and terrifying.

Acharsis lowered himself to one knee, as did everyone but Elu, who, with admirable self-possession, simply bowed from the waist.

“I see you, Senacherib, third of your name, Child of the Ever Burning Sun and Ruler of Magan.” The lamassu’s voice reverberated through the fastness of the great hall, redolent with power and authority.

“My heartfelt thanks,” said Elu. “Glory be upon you, protector of Magan, psychopomp and lord of the land. May the sun never set on your rule, and may the moon mark the passing of your eras.”

Nicely said, thought Acharsis. He’s getting good at this.

“From across Magan the people come to honor you,” said the lamassu. “Lines of fire trace their passage from the farthest province to your palace pylon. Even here I can hear the plucking of the harp and the sound of feet in dance. Yet you do not attend them. Why have you come?”

“I left the ceremony with great reluctance,” said Elu. “And only at Acharsis’ insistence. He wishes to put a request to you. I heard his reasoning, and agreed to the urgency of his mission.”

The lamassu’s gaze turned from Elu to fall upon Acharsis, and it was as if an oven door had been thrown open but yards from where Acharsis knelt. With a cough he stood, bowed once for good measure, and then pushed back his shoulders.

“Great lamassu, forgive me if I offend. What I ask I do so for the good of Magan and the River Cities. I wish to save thousands from dying needlessly, to save Magan from great effort that will only drain its resources, and to take care of Irella myself.”

“Noble ambitions,” said the lamassu. “What is it you desire?”

The moment was upon him. Acharsis felt his throat close up as he stared up at the god. Felt with terrible appreciation how heretical his next words were. He coughed again into his remaining fist and then inhaled deeply.

“We wish to consult with our fathers, Ekillos and Alok. We seek their wisdom in how to defeat Irella without plunging the world into war.”

The lamassu’s eyes narrowed. “I will not offend Nekuul by traveling to her domain.”

“We do not ask that of you. Instead, we humbly beg that you take us to your own netherworld. Carry us as you do the souls of the dead, and we shall take it upon ourselves to journey to Nekuul’s netherworld and there question our fathers.”

The lamassu’s tail twitched, the tufted tip lifting up and then whipping back down. Despite himself, Acharsis licked his dry lips. Still, he held the god’s golden gaze.

“If I were to ferry you down as I do the souls of the dead, how would you return to the world of the living?”

Acharsis froze. He wanted to clap his hand over his brow and curse his stupidity. The journey to reach his fallen father had consumed his thoughts, to the extent that he’d not thought about what would come next. Still. No time to show doubt or fear. “I am sure Ekillos will provide me with that answer.”

Silence. The lamassu’s tail twitched from side to side. Acharsis couldn’t breathe. He stood completely still, locked by the god’s gaze, aware of how delicate his skin was, how quickly and easily the lamassu could tear him in half if it so chose.

“If I may,” said Elu, taking a step forward. “I believe this to be the best for Magan. I have outlined to my generals, high priests and royal delegates my intentions to remove Irella from the throne, and, well, they haven’t been very happy.”

“You are the pharaoh,” said the lamassu. “Their joy depends on your favor.”

“I know, I know. But even so. It’s part of being a good ruler to know how to lead your country, not just to drive it recklessly where you will. What I mean is, Magan would be best served if we didn’t have to cross the Golden Steppe on a mission to free the River Cities, a campaign that would take several years, only to retreat and come home with nothing to show for it but a grateful new neighbor. Instead, we could focus our energies on more pressing matters, like the encroaching desert to the east, the need to modernize our irrigation systems up and down the river, the reports of failing crops, the hunger that stalks our land…”

The lamassu pursed its clean-shaven lips.

“As pharaoh, such is my opinion,” finished Elu weakly.

Acharsis wanted to say something, itched to provide the final line of reasoning that would tip events into their favor, but instinct bade him stay quiet. Instead, he watched, heart in his throat, until finally the lamassu gave a curt nod.

“If the pharaoh believes it best for our nation, then I shall carry you to the Glittering Lands.”

“Thank you,” said Acharsis, dropping to one knee again. “Thank you, my lord. The River Cities shall never forget this boon.”

“Further, I shall furnish you with a guide,” said the lamassu. “It would be folly to deposit you in the netherworld only for you to be crystalized or burned to death by song within moments of your sallying forth. I shall gather a soul from the Fields of Reflection and command that it guide you as far as it can.”

“That - that is remarkably generous of you,” said Acharsis. “Thank you again.”

“You are all companions of the pharaoh, and your aid during his Quickening helped bring him to the throne. Magan owes you all a debt of gratitude. In this matter, I shall consider us even.” The lamassu rose to all fours. “Come. Let us go.”

“Now?” Acharsis turned to check on the others, who looked equally shocked. “To the netherworld?”

“You do not expect me to wait upon your pleasure?”

“No, of course not. To the netherworld. Right now. Great.” Acharsis ran his hand through his hair, tapped his hip for a blade and found none there. No matter. He doubted a metal sword would be of much use below. “Jarek? Everyone? We ready?”

Jarek rested his hand on the Sky Hammer. “I suppose. Yes.”

Kish gave a nod. Sisu was rubbing his hands in anticipation.

“Annara.” Acharsis stepped back to her, reached out with his hand to take her own. He didn’t know what to say. He felt guilty to be so eager to go. To take on this new adventure. To be leaving her behind.

Before he could speak, she reached up with both hands and pulled his face down to her own. Kissed him softly, then stepped away, eyes liquid with emotion. “Be safe, Acharsis. And may Ekillos guide your every step.”

“I - yes. And you.” He tried to think of something witty to say, final words worthy of the moment. I love you, he thought. But no. He hadn’t earned the right to say those words. He wouldn’t be so eager to leave if he meant them, would he? “Take care. And know that I’ll do everything I can to come back to your side.”

Jarek and Kish mounted the steps to the dais, Sisu right behind them. They exchanged quiet words with Elu, who turned to regard Acharsis as he approached.

“Good luck,” said Elu.

“And you. Take care of your mother.”

“I will if she lets me.” His smile was wry. “You know I will.”

“And - thank you.” There was so much Acharsis wanted to say. So much he wanted still to explore with this young man, his son, this stranger who had only recently begun to accept him in some fashion into his life. “I’m proud of you. You’re going to make a fine ruler.”

Elu’s smile twisted into a grimace, and for a moment Acharsis thought he might protest, state once more that he didn’t care for Acharsis’ opinion. But instead he reached out and clasped Acharsis’ hand. “Thank you. I look forward to hearing of your victories in the River Cities.”

Acharsis squeezed his son’s hand tightly, then gave him a curt nod and climbed the steps to the others. The lamassu stepped down from the dais and crouched so that they could all climb up onto its back; Acharsis went last, reaching up for Jarek’s extended hand to be hauled up and placed behind the lamassu’s horned head.

“I have only ferried three living souls into the netherworld,” said the lamassu, its voice rumbling in its chest. “One of them went mad in the process. Guard your thoughts, shield your mind. This is a voyage wholly unnatural to those yet encased in a sleeve of living flesh.”

It crouched and then leaped up, wings snapping out to catch the air and beat powerfully, the muscles shifting beneath Acharsis’ legs like barrels under carpet. Instinctively he reached out to grip a fistful of the lamassu’s mane, and felt Jarek’s steadying hand on his hip. Acharsis looked down, saw Annara’s upturned face, and then she was gone.

They climbed up into the dark shaft, moving swiftly, and then they were out in the night air. The lights of the city gleamed on the black waters of the river, the palace in particular glowing with a hundred torches and bonfires in the night. They rose, the wind chill, each downbeat of the lamassu’s wings lifting them ever closer to the stars.

Acharsis dared to look up. Never had he seen such a sky. Between each shining star a fainter star shone, so that the heavens appeared smeared with nacreous specks, like pearls crushed across a slab of obsidian. More, he could see what looked like vast clouds behind the stars, a vertical slash of black shot through with purples, smoky yellows and ivory whites.

Had he ever thought the night sky was black? Everywhere he looked now he saw gradations of color, cobalt blues overlaid by ribbons of imperial purples, the horizon limned with a golden light that silhouetted the distant hills in absolute black. Hints of green behind the stars, some of which were larger than he’d ever seen - blobs of pulsing white and platinum, others the faintest of pinpricks that made his eyes ache to try and make them out.

“By Alok,” whispered Jarek. “It’s as if I’ve never seen the sky.”

The lamassu flew on, no longer rising but soaring across the dark land below, confident in its chosen direction. Acharsis couldn’t tear his eyes from the heavens, from those bands of tinctured clouds behind the stars that seemed to whorl and flow as if time were passing with impossible speed.

“What’s that ahead?” He barely made out Kish’s question, but looked down to see golden light glowing amidst the hills below. The soft radiance grew brighter as they approached, as if a valley of gold were reflecting the light of an unseen sun.

“The Fields of Reflection,” said Acharsis, though he didn’t know if anybody heard. “I thought the name a pensive one, but perhaps it was more literal…”

They cleared the last line of peaks and Acharsis saw the fields below. They were a series of mountain meadows, and gently lit as if by afternoon sunlight. Thousands of robed figures sat or walked about them, engaged in conversation or deep in thought, and at their approach the masses below looked up in wonder and then fell to their knees.

The lamassu flew lower, dropping quickly so that soon it was skimming over the small meadows and the kneeling figures. Acharsis held tight to its mane and tried to make out the details, but they were still moving too fast. Then, without warning, the lamassu wheeled tightly, dropped like a stone, and alighted on the grass.

Stomach in his throat, Acharsis forced himself to inhale and saw that they’d come to rest in a small pocket meadow. A waterfall cascaded down a pile of large boulders into a clear pool, about which knelt a half-dozen individuals.

Acharsis studied them intently. They all wore white robes, and their skin was made luminous by a subtle glow all of their own that emanated from their cores. They were of varying ages, men and women, brows pressed to the viridian grass as they awaited the lamassu’s pleasure.

“Nahkt.” The lamassu’s voice was peremptory, and a young man raised his head to stare wide-eyed at them. “Approach.”

The youth climbed to his feet and did as he was bid. He was short, his frame wiry, but his face betrayed a keen intelligence as he studied Acharsis and his friends before bowing low to the lamassu once more.

“Introduce yourself to those whom I bear,” said the lamassu.

The youth straightened and studied them all with avid curiosity, and it was that sharp appraisal, the lively gleam of wonder and surprise in Nahkt’s eyes that caused Acharsis to finally appreciate where he was and whom he was looking at: the soul of a dead man.

Twisting, Acharsis gazed about the pocket meadow, at the other souls, and then beyond to where the dead waited patiently, their expressions serene, their voices melding with the sound of falling water and the gentle wind. They had already crossed through the veil of the living into the world of the dead.

“In life I was known as Nahkt, high priest of the Sixth Tower of Heaven, Bearer of the Holy Flame, Adjudicator of the Balance, and Voice of the Lamassu.”

Sisu spoke Acharsis’ thoughts. “All that? But you’re younger than I am…”

Nahkt smiled with disarming amusement. “I was seventy-nine years old when I died.”

“In death,” rumbled the lamassu, “the soul returns to its most perfect image, to its truest sense of self.”

Nahkt bowed before the lamassu’s words, and then examined the backs of his unlined hands. “In my heart I know that this form is an illusion, just as the aging of my real body convinced me of the illusion of death’s finality. Even in death we remain temporal beings, and cannot apprehend the soul directly. Our limitations force us to understand ourselves and others as still caught in the flow of time, and thus we assign an image of the flesh onto the substance eternal. A lie.” He smiled. “But a pleasing lie.”

Acharsis returned the youth’s smile. “You saw yourself always first and foremost as a young man?”

Nahkt spread his hands. “The energy and zeal of youth never left me. Even as age tempered my excesses with hard-earned wisdom, I strove to retain a mind that was eager to learn. I was always most comfortable with the young, the curious, those who drank deep of the vibrancy of life. I cannot say I’m surprised to have taken this form in death, even if only for a little while.”

The lamassu seemed content to let them converse, but still Acharsis was painfully aware of the time he was spending on the god’s back. “You won’t hold onto this form when you reach the netherworld?”

“No,” said Nahkt. “Or, perhaps more accurately, I won’t be aware of it even if I do. Once I enter the grace of Amubastis’ presence, my focus shall finally shift from myself to a contemplation of the eternal now. I shall lose myself in that glory by becoming my truest self.”

“That…” Sisu cut off his own brash response, going so far as to raise his hand to his mouth as he fought for control. “Excuse me. As you might have noticed, I am the grandson of Nekuul herself. I have, how should I say, some small understanding of these matters. What you’re saying sounds… unappealing. What is the point of the afterlife if you lose your sense of self? That’s akin to… to a true death.”

Nahkt’s smile remained kind, but Acharsis saw something like to pity enter the young man’s eyes. “A common question, and a good one. I must have been asked it a thousand times over the course of my life by my students. When are you the most alive? In the moment of climax with a loved one. In the heat of battle when you are doing all within your power to kill and not be killed. Moments so intense that you cease to think, to reflect, to be self-aware. All is reduced to the most immediate of concerns, and in that immediacy, in that stripping of the cerebral self, you become your most essential. Entering into Amubastis’ presence is akin to that. To exist forever in that most primal state, at once completely alive and yet utterly sublimated into her glory.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Sisu, his voice almost sulky.

“You are correct,” said Nahkt. “Even I can only approximate through metaphor the divine truth that I shall soon experience. My explanation rarely satisfied my students, though to be fair, children are often unable to divorce their minds from the demands of the body.”

“I’m not—” began Sisu, and then cut off with a hiss.

“It is time to continue,” said the lamassu. “Nahkt, you shall come with us to the netherworld, though not to become as one with the mother. You shall guide these four to the border of our realm, as close as you can bring them to the netherworld of Nekuul, protecting them from all perils as best you are able. Upon doing so, you shall be free to return to Amubastis, having earned her gratitude for your services.”

Nahkt’s eyes widened. “To - to the border? Beyond the light of Amubastis?”

The lamassu did not see fit to repeat itself, so Nahkt quickly bowed again, but his composure was clearly broken.

“We go,” said the lamassu. It crouched then leaped up into the air, the force of its leap pressing Acharsis down almost into its mane, then its wings caught the breeze and it muscled its way higher into the sky. Catching himself, gripping fiercely with his one good hand, Acharsis looked over the side and saw Nahkt flying up alongside them, though it looked for all the world as if he still stood on the meadow below. But it was his expression that shook Acharsis to the quick: there was a look of sublime fear in his eyes when he met Acharsis’ gaze, something akin to panic, but as the lamassu flew on under the ever stranger stars the dead priest dropped his gaze and refused to lift it once more.

CHAPTER THREE

The dawn light awoke Annara, and she sat up, momentarily confused as to where she lay. A broad bed set within a cavernous chamber whose walls were covered in Maganian hieroglyphics and interspersed with great vertical windows set between massive columns rimmed in gold and ivory.

Heart racing, she turned, expecting to find Acharsis there, smiling by her side, but the bed was empty. Six serving girls emerged from the shadows, clad in elegant white robes, and bowed low.

“Lady Annara?”

Lady Annara. Of course. Her new chamber. Her new home. Magan. Elu. Everything swirled into place, and Annara schooled her features, banishing doubt and fear and instead projecting a calm purposefulness. “Good morning.”

The serving girls stood straight. “May we assist you with your ablutions?”

Annara had never slept in a room so large. Large enough to hold a rectangular pool of fresh water in which a hippo could have waded, each corner surmounted by a bronze vase, steps leading down into its center. Cushions were scattered artfully here and there, while crimson couches were placed between vast potted palms. Tiger skins were stretched out underfoot on all sides of her bed, and a great archway led out into a covered hallway from which she could emerge to the Women’s Courtyard.

It was unreal.

“No, thank you,” she said. Annara knew she was in the wrong here, and the hesitant glance between the girls confirmed it. But Nekuul take her if she’d allow others to bathe and dress her while she still had her health. Rising, she trod across the stiff tiger fur and carpets to the edge of the pool, where she shrugged out of her tunic and then descended into the cool waters to her chin.

Acharsis and Jarek were gone. That would place the onus of looking out for Elu squarely on her shoulders. With the nation mobilizing for war, she would have to work twice as hard to ensure she didn’t overlook any threats to her son. How was she supposed to navigate an alien court and help Elu keep his generals in check?

She slowly drifted to the far side of the pool, then turned to submerge her mouth so that she rested like the river crocodiles, gazing without seeing at the great archway through which a chariot could have been driven.

Damn Acharsis. Damn his preoccupation with the River Cities and Irella. How did that distant land matter more to him than his son?

In her mind’s eye Annara saw him once more mount the lammasu’s back, ready for his next grand adventure, to deal once more in the affairs of gods and kingdoms, leaving her behind with a rueful smile.

Leaving her to navigate the complex currents of the royal court when she had precious little experience with such matters. Already the different factions were making themselves evident, even as they mouthed words of eternal obedience and loyalty to her son. The Queen Mother and those whose livelihoods had depended on her lineage’s power. The priests of the lamassu in their golden wigs. The generals, of course. The high steward, whom Annara had gathered was related to the Queen Mother, along with the treasurer, the vizier…

Annara closed her eyes. Fought for calm. Their saving grace was that Elu - no, Senacherib - was the supreme ruler here. But power came in many guises, and if Elu were forced to punish or give direct commands he would lose face, lose respect, and it wasn’t unheard of for unpopular rulers to suffer uprisings…

Seized by impatience and anxiety, Annara emerged from the bath and with a sigh allowed the serving girls to wrap her in robes, anoint her with oils, bind and braid her hair, paint her face and adorn her body with precious jewels. She at least could look part, even if it galled her to be so tended.

When the girls deemed her ready, Annara emerged from her chamber into the Women’s Courtyard, and there was forced to stop as dozens of strangers moved to greet her.

Her every step would now be dogged by officials, watched by scores, marked by tradition and ritual.

“Greetings, Lady Annara,” said a woman Annara’s own age and wearing perhaps even more jewelry. She was handsome, even striking, and Annara thought she detected a hint of fear in her gaze before it was hidden behind a broad smile. “We are honored to at last make your acquaintance. I am Isotep, First Companion of the former pharaoh, and your humble servant in all matters.”

Ah, realized Annara, again fighting to betray shock or impatience. Of course. The Women’s Hall. Where the pharaoh’s keep their harem. An insult that I’d be chambered here? Or are all female members of the pharaoh’s family kept here?

Annara inclined her head graciously. “The honor is mine, dear Isotep.”

“I know you have a busy day before you, and the pharaoh no doubt yearns for your company, but I had hoped to introduce the other companions before you left. We have all been anxiously awaiting this moment to bask in your glory.”

Annara fought the urge to glance at the exit. To brush aside this needless formality, to not become embroiled in the harem politics of another ruler. But as she glanced around at the other women - a few her age like Isotep, but most young, she couldn’t help but pick up on their fear.

Fear of what? Being cast aside, of course. Replaced. Elu would be expected to begin his own harem, to pick his favorites, and begin anew a whole cycle of politics. With a burst of insight, Annara understood just how fraught this moment was for these women: what was for her a moment’s annoyance could for them determine the rest of their lives. And though she wasn’t the Queen Mother, her influence on the new pharaoh was clearly understood.

She was still early for Elu’s meeting. She could risk a brief delay. “Of course, dear Isotep,” said Annara. “I would like nothing more.”

Half an hour later she emerged from the Women’s Courtyard into the bright sunlight of the palace grounds, her royal guard appearing as if by magic as she stepped through the ornate archway, her maids to one side, a crowd of curious court nobles watching her and bowing when she caught their eye.

The names of the twenty or so harem ladies were already all jumbled up in her mind, their titles and homelands all mixed together so that she knew she’d only cause offense if she tried to address any given member directly. No matter. She would continue to do her best. Raising her chin, nodding politely to all who greeted her, she made her way toward the great hall where Elu’s throne was contained. The palace grounds were large enough that this should have taken her nearly ten minutes of walking, but with all the bowing, nodding, greeting and introductions that were effected on en route it took almost half an hour before she finally entered the main courtyard.

Great gold-plated obelisks stood on either side of the broad marble steps that rose to a landing then continued again until the entrance of the palace proper. Potted plants in fabulous urns, white statues of Maganian heroes, lammasu statues flanking the doorway, crimson carpets threaded with gold - the wealth on display was stunning, and only her natural sense of dignity kept her from gaping or feeling overwhelmed.

She entered the palace hall and was immediately approached by Khantoperos, the high steward, who took about five minutes to finish greeting her properly and working his way through all her titles.

Annara’s patience finally wore thin. “Good morning to you to, Khantoperos. Where is the pharaoh?”

“My apologies, Lady Annara, but he is meeting with his generals in the Sun Chamber -”

“Then please direct me there so I may join him.”

The high steward suddenly looked very pained. “The pharaoh in all his wisdom asked that you await him in the Room of Flowers, Lady Annara. He said that he would greet you there shortly.”

Annara raised an eyebrow. “Senacherib did not wish for me to join him in this meeting?”

The high steward bowed very low. “I would never presume to know what the pharaoh thinks nor desires, but only relay his words. Entertainments have been provided, and I am sure your time waiting will be both pleasant and brief.”

Countless strangers were watching and waiting for her response. Was she being tested? Should she insist? Would that mark her as disrespectful? Did Elu truly not wish for her to be in this meeting? It was a crucial one, and she wanted to be present - but dared she gainsay a direct request of his before his court?

Annara smiled graciously. “Then I would be delighted to await his pleasure. Lead the way.”

The next two hours crawled by slowly despite the antics of trained dogs, jugglers, acrobats and fire eaters. Annara picked listlessly at the endless platters of food that were brought to her side table, sipped from the sweet wine, and watched the angle of the sunlight slowly shift across the sandstone floor. She didn’t speak Maganian, couldn’t understand the whispered conversations around her, so pretended disinterest so as to not reveal her discomfort.

The sound of many footsteps approaching caused her to sit up, but when the group entered Annara realized it wasn’t Elu, but rather the Queen Mother’s personal court. Even more guards, courtiers, and serving girls than she had, and at the center, a stern, beautiful woman clad in royal regalia: a great blue headdress banded in gold upon her brow, a broad necklace of gold and lapis lazuli spread across her chest, and a sweeping dress of purple banded with crimson and gold.

“Queen Nethena,” said Annara, rising to her feet and bowing low. “Good morning.”

“Lady Annara.” Nethena swept forward to claim the gilt chair that Annara had been wise enough not to occupy. “Is it true? I have heard rumors that you are abandoned by your companions.”

The words were spoken lightly, Nethena turning to pluck a plum from a small pyramid of the purple fruits, but when she turned back to smile at Annara there was no mistaking the gleam in her eye.

Curse you Acharsis for leaving me like this!

Nobody attempted to disguise their listening in. At least forty people were present, all of them waiting, watching her.

Annara smiled.

“My companions set forth last night at the behest of the pharaoh on a most perilous mission, yes. They petitioned the lammasu for his blessing, and with my own eyes I saw him carry my friends aloft into the night sky on a journey into the underworld.”

This the queen had not expected; her eyes widened in a moment of shock, and a wave of whispers rushed through the crowd.

“A singular honor,” said Nethena, sitting back and holding the plum up to her painted lips. “And all the more reason for the entire court to grieve over their absence. Will they be gone long?”

The urge to lie was strong. Instead, Annara affected disinterest and gave a one shouldered shrug. “Only the gods themselves can say with any accuracy, my queen. But if the gods are kind, they shall be back sooner than you can imagine.”

“Oh, I do hope so. You are after all a stranger in our land, and with my son now so occupied with affairs of state I hate to think of your being left all alone, cast aside like a child’s toy after he has grown tired of it.” Her smile grew warm though it touched not her eyes. “Come. Let us be friends. Join my court, and I shall show you the wonders of Magan, teach you the ways of our court, and introduce you to everyone worth knowing.”

Again, that weight of expectation as everybody stared at her. Damn their eyes, couldn’t they even pretend not to eavesdrop? Annara’s mind scrambled to process the offer. Join her court? What did that mean, exactly? Would she be making a public symbol of subservience to Nethena? What message would it send everyone? Dared she refuse? Would saying no be tantamount to a declaration of enmity? What was worse, to be seen as dependent on Nethena, or her enemy? Could she risk such a powerful enemy outright?

“But I already considered ourselves friends,” said Annara, smiling with just as much false charm right back. “Do we not both share a unique love and devotion to Senacherib? How could I harbor anything else but an equal love and devotion for his blessed mother? Thank you, my queen. You truly do me far too much honor.”

“Oh no,” said the queen, her smile slowly fading. “Not at all. You deserve everything I have planned for you, and more. Don’t you fear, dear Annara. I shall do everything within my power to ensure that your stay at our court shall be nothing but memorable.”

In the corner of the chamber a small monkey defecated loudly.

It was a testament to the courts’ sophistication that nobody even tittered.

Annara’s smile remained wooden. “That’s lovely. How enticing. If you’ll excuse me, my queen, I’ve -”

Rapid footsteps echoed from the great hall beyond, the murmur of voices as if a crowd was spilling their way, and then the guards at the main arch bowed low as Elu strode in, face pale, jaw clenched, to rake the crowd that was hurrying to genuflect and lock his gaze on Annara.

“There you are.” His voice was tight with fury. With visible effort, he mastered himself. “How good to see you, Lady Annara. Would the rest of your please excuse us?”

Queen Nethena rose slowly to her feet, and only then did Elu realize she was present. Her face had gone stiff with fury.

Probably not a good idea to dismiss his royal mother in such manner.

Elu visibly winced. “Queen mother, how good to see you. I, ah, hope you’re well? Perhaps we can talk soon about court stuff? Please, stay seated. I’d never ask you to get up. I’ll, ah, just step aside with Lady Annara for a moment. Everyone else, ah, as you were.”

Annara hurried forward before he could shove his foot any further down his throat. Elu turned and strode away moments before she reached him, and escorted by a dozen royal guards they marched down the great hallway, turned off a side corridor, passed through three chambers that were all occupied, and finally found a small room from which Elu sent the three or four noblemen who’d been playing a board game there scurrying with a bark.

When the room emptied and the guards positioned themselves outside the sole entrance, Elu whirled on Annara, his whole body vibrating with anger.

“Where the hell were you, mother? How could you be eating cakes and watching jugglers while those generals - those generals - !”

Annara took a deep breath. Pieces began to fall into place. “You didn’t command me to wait for you in the Room of Flowers.”

“What? No! Of course not, I - wait. Someone told you that?”

Annara pinched the bridge of her nose and began to pace, strewed petals crunching underfoot. “Damn it. And the harem women - no doubt instructed to delay me so that I’d miss running into you before the meeting began. Using my own compassion against me.”

“Who, Annara? Who told you that lie?”

“The high steward,” she said. “As I walked in. Gave me no choice but to wait for you.”

“I’ll have his head,” growled Elu.

“Perhaps. But the damage is already done. What happened?”

Elu snatched up a tasseled cushion and hurled it as hard as he could against the wall. It went ploomph and fell softly onto another pile. “It was infuriating! Without Jarek there they all but ignored my suggestions, spoke mostly in Maganian, gave me superficial answers to my every question, and from what I understood have decided to move far slower than I want to counter Irella’s invasion. They treated me like a child, mother, and the more I protested the more childlike I felt.”

Annara sat down and closed her eyes. “Damn.”

“And I know that General Nekhebet speaks River City, because he used to with Jarek, and Lieutenant Commander Sitamun pretended to barely understand me. I could have throttled him! Dagi, who oversees the coastline forts, kept insisting we couldn’t pull men away because of pirates, and -”

“Elu,” said Annara, raising a hand and cutting him off. “Who didn’t talk at all?”

That stopped him cold. He blinked at her. “Who didn’t talk?” He frowned at her, scratching the back of his head. “General Pawura didn’t talk much. He just sat there, arms crossed, kind of half smiling at me the whole time. Why?”

“Pawura,” muttered Annara, tapping her lips. “Jarek told me about him. What does he oversee?”

“The chariots.”

“I’ll bet there’s a connection between him and Nethena. What are they angling for? To depose you? No, not so soon, you were just made pharaoh…”

“Mother?” Elu stopped before her. “What are you thinking?”

“We’re in danger.” Annara rose to her feet and moved to stand before the complex latticework that covered the window. Peered out at the lush garden that grew just beyond, a fountain in its midst. “Nethena is clearly moving her pieces across the board. I’d wager Isotep back in the Women’s Courtyard is on her side, and her brother the high steward is clearly working with her as well. Pawura… We’re going to need to find allies, and fast. Whom do you trust?”

“Trust?” Elu gave a bark of laughter and reached under his headdress to scratch at his scalp. “With Jarek and Acharsis gone? I’ve no idea. Everyone’s beating themselves up in an attempt to lick my feet first, but I’d not dare turn my back on any of them. I don’t even understand what most of them say. I trust Ahktena. And the lamassu, I guess.”

“Ahktena is her mother’s daughter, and I trust her as much as I trust Nethena. And something tells me he won’t be very interested in this kind of court politics.”

“No,” said Elu, looking glum. “He’s made it very clear that my being worthy involves fending for myself and being able to lead. He won’t step in and chastise anybody.”

“Then who?” A face came to mind. The sailor boy who had helped guide them through their first few days in Magan. “What ever happened to Magrib?”

“Magrib? I gave him a small fortune in gold and wished him well a week ago.”

Calm. Stay calm. But it was hard to take her own advice when she was so desperate that she’d yearn for the help of a river rat who probably knew less about court life than she did. “We need to be very careful. The next time you don’t wish me to attend you, tell your messenger to use the word… I don’t know. ‘Royal palm’. That way I’ll know you really commanded it. Without that phrase I’ll insist on joining your side.”

“Smart,” said Elu.

“Acharsis spoke highly of one of the lieutenant commanders. What was his name? Pebekkamen? Was he in attendance today?”

“No,” said Elu. “He was not. And Acharsis approved of him? I can see why. Pebekkamen was always drunk at our councils, if he showed at all. The others ignored him or spoke to him with complete disdain, and once when he stumbled in late to a meeting I heard it whispered that his men had found him by the usual method, which was to search all the whore houses in Magan.”

Annara curled her lip. “I can see why Acharsis found him appealing, then. Still, we should find him. We desperately need allies, people who can give us trustworthy information. We’ll build our own network of supporters, and slowly regain control of the generals.”

“Why don’t I simply have them replaced?” Elu’s voice was plaintive. “I’m the pharaoh - they serve at my pleasure. I can simply install new generals, problem solved.”

“No, my son.” And despite the early morning hour, a great weariness draped itself across her shoulders. “It’s not that simple. A general is more than a token on a battle map. More than just his rank. He’s a man who has relationships with those who serve him. He wields an authority that must be reckoned with. Remove him unceremoniously and you’ll stir anger in the ranks. His subordinates will resent you, resent the new general, and if you have little support to begin with, you may find yourself creating a bigger problem than you originally had.”

“Worse than generals who don’t listen to me?”

“Better that than ex-generals leading a rebellion against you,” said Annara.

“Oh,” said Elu, and then repeated in a more shocked tone: “Oh.”

“Exactly. I’m not saying we can’t order generals to different parts of the empire to get rid of them, or eventually order them to retire once we have our own loyal faction ready to act as a bulwark against resentment, but right now we’re too weak, too vulnerable for such hasty actions. Caution. We need to learn the lay of the land, figure out who our enemies are and whom we can trust, and then act.”

Elu sank down onto a crimson setae, face slack as his eyes darted from side to side, as if seeking out invisible enemies. Finally he rubbed at his cheeks, smearing the gold dust that had been pasted there, and turned to her.

“Why did Acharsis have to leave now, mother? Why did he abandon us when we need him and Jarek so badly?”

Annara steeled her heart against the bitterness and anger that threatened to bring tears to her eyes. “He had his reasons, Elu. The good of the River Cities.”

“But what about us? What about you and me?”

And to that question Annara had no answer.

CHAPTER FOUR

Jarek’s eyes opened as if by their own accord and he saw that he was seated in a glade, arms looped around his knees, feet lost in the tall grass. Silence. For a moment he felt ineffably lost. Blinking, he raised his head and looked about the clearing. Kish lay in the grass by his side, one arm flung above her head, the other resting on her stomach. Acharsis sat against a tree, eyes closed. Sisu was slumped over close by. Where were they?

“Welcome.” Nahkt stepped into view, hands linked behind his back, head jutting forward.

“Where are we?” Jarek struggled to his feet. The light was crystalline, but when he looked up he could see no sky, no sun. Just a blank, milky whiteness that hurt his eyes and made him feel dizzy.

“You know where we are,” said Nahkt softly.

“I remember…” What did he remember last? Being seated behind Acharsis on the lamassu’s back. Flying under increasingly disorienting stars. He held up his hand. His skin looked bleached by the light. A breeze blew through the canopy, but instead of a whispery susurrus the stirring branches and leaves sounded like metallic wind chimes, a gentle tinkling that made him stare in confusion.

“This is not the world you know,” said Nahkt, his voice almost sorrowful. “And as we journey on, things will only become stranger.”

The leaves were iridescent, like tapering spearheads of the finest iron, shimmering with waves of blue and white and green. He’d never even dreamed their like. And the grass; each blade was distinct and vividly green, an impossible, feverish hue.

“The netherworld,” he said. “But how did we get here?”

“The lamassu set us down a few hours ago. You and your friends descended from its back, thanked it, and then sank down onto the grass, where you fell into a deep sleep.” Nahkt studied Kish where she lay. “Acclimating, perhaps, to this realm. To be honest, I don’t understand. Never have I heard of the living coming to the land of the dead.”

“We’re godsbloods,” said Jarek, kneeling beside Kish. “I’m a demigod, son of Alok. My name’s Jarek.” He reached down and took Kish’s hand.

“Ah,” said Nahkt. “That explains much.”

Kish’s eyes fluttered open. She stared straight through him for a spell, and then her gaze focused and she smiled. “I had the strangest dream.”

Acharsis groaned as he struggled to his feet. “I missed it. The transition. Was there a gate? A line of demarcation, or…?”

“Yes,” said Nahkt simply. “You were very impressed when you saw it.”

“Robbed,” said Acharsis, rubbing at his face. “Robbed!”

“No dream.” Jarek stepped over to Kish and extended his hand. “Come. We’re just getting started.” He helped her rise to her feet, placing his arm around her shoulders as she stared about them with childlike wonder.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. The wind blew once more, and again wind chimes sounded from all around them.

“Not what I expected,” said Sisu, climbing to his feet. “I thought your netherworld would be all desert, like Magan.”

Nahkt shrugged. “Once Magan was forest, or so it is said. A long time ago.”

“How far to the border?” asked Acharsis. “And I’m guessing we’re not going to need food?”

Nahkt hesitated.

“What?” asked Acharsis. “You were hoping to stop somewhere to eat?”

“You are not versed in our religion, are you?” asked Nahkt.

“No,” said Acharsis. “Not really.”

Sisu also shook his head. “I’ve specialized in Nekuul’s realm.”

“Remember how I described this form I wear as an illusion? A necessity created by my own inability to apprehend eternity? The same goes for geography.” Nahkt pointed at a tree on the other side of the clearing. “Look there.”

Jarek turned and saw Nahkt by the tree. Startled, he took a step back. “How…?”

“We are in a realm of spirit. There is no distance here. No actual land. The realm of Nekuul is infinitely far away, but it is also here, just within reach.” Again, he gave his apologetic smile. “Please, bear with me. I know it is complex. But though you are semi-divine, you are completely alive, and have brought with you the… shall we say, ‘biases’ of the living. Your presence here imposes your own constraints upon the land.”

Acharsis licked his lower lip and looked about himself. “You’re saying that this forest - the distances we see - we’re making them? It’s our… what? Innate need to translate the realm of the spirit into something we understand?”

“Well said!” Nahkt gave an approving nod, and suddenly Jarek saw the old man within the youth’s frame, the encouraging teacher. “Yes. The length of this journey will depend on you. All of you. In a sense, your journey will not be measured in leagues, but by time; how long it takes you to adapt to the realm of the spirit.”

Sisu frowned. Kish glanced up worriedly at Jarek. He gave her a reassuring squeeze. “All right. We all know we’re in the netherworld here. I take it that knowledge isn’t enough?”

“No,” said Nahkt. “Your mind might know it, but your body, your living essence, it doesn’t believe your mind. So, for awhile, we shall have to travel as the living do. To answer your question, you shall hunger for as long as your body believes it needs food.” Nahkt stepped forward and was amongst them once more. “But you don’t need to eat. And nothing here can hurt you unless you allow it.”

“Allow it?” Kish held tight to Jarek’s arm. “What do you mean? We have to give our permission to be wounded?”

“In a sense. We will face many dangers. But you must always remember that these are dangers of the soul. Your body, as it were, cannot be injured here unless you believe that injury to be real. In a sense, your body isn’t here. It can’t be hurt. But if you see a knife plunged into your side, your instinct, your physicality, your very sense of being alive, will betray you. And you will be stabbed. And you will feel pain and bleed.”

“Can… can we die here?” asked Sisu. “I mean, of course we can. Sorry. But if we die here, do we turn into spirit?”

“No,” said Nahkt. “You did not spend time in the Fields of Reflection. You haven’t been purified. If you die here, you will most likely become one of the damned. A restless spirit, doomed for eternity to wander the night, or - given your divine blood - a demon.”

Jarek’s breath caught in his throat. “A demon,” he said.

Nahkt nodded.

Acharsis narrowed his eyes. “But if we can only be injured here by our own belief in the injury… then doesn’t it follow that we can only be turned into demons if we allow it?”

“Yes,” said Nahkt. “In the end, if you become a demon, it will be by your own doing.”

“By Scythia,” whispered Kish. “If I’d known this would be so perilous…”

“We’re here now,” said Jarek. “We’ve all got to focus on getting this done. And we have Nahkt here to guide us. You’ll keep us safe, won’t you?”

“I will try,” said Nahkt. “But I can’t guarantee it. I did not finish my vigil in the Fields of Reflection. I am not wholly pure, and as such, though I imagine it would be difficult, I could still turn against myself. Die, just as you.” His smile was mirthless. “But I will do all I can to avert such a fate.”

“Great,” said Sisu.

“Thank you,” said Acharsis. “For doing this. For taking such a risk.”

“Don’t thank me,” said Nahkt. “I had no choice in the matter.” The bitterness in his voice was sharp, but he raised a hand as if to forestall protest, closed his eyes, and forced a smile. “See? My resentment betrays me. I, too, will have to be careful. Now, if you’re ready?”

“Lead on,” said Jarek.

“First I shall cast spells of protection on us all. Please, gather round.” So saying, Nahkt raised both hands and turned to face the distant source of light. “Oh you Great Soul, greatly majestic, behold, we have come but shall not see you; open the netherworld and afford us your protection, O Amubastis, light our way and drive away the shadow. Open every path to our feet, guide us between the stars and sky, for we are well-beloved by the lamassu. We are noble. We are spirit, we are equipped. O Amubastis and all you spirits, prepare a path for me.”

Acharsis nodded his approval. “Do you think your spell will protect us even if we are non-believers?”

“I can only hope,” said Nahkt. “It should help guide us away from the slaughter-places and allow us to pass by Chorios, the world serpent who guards the far reaches of the netherworld. Now, a few more. One to protect us from the animals, serpents, and crocodiles that wander this land. Another to preserve our parts of being, ensuring that our spirits do not diminish and do not hunger for Amubastis’ light. One more to ensure we do not forget our names, and a final spell to guard against the corrupting powers of malicious prayers or memories of the living.”

Jarek bowed his head in respect, patient and appreciative as Nahkt intoned his prayers and cast his spells. They were so far from home, so far from their apsus that even this heathen magic was appreciated.

“Remember,” said Acharsis once Nahkt finished and walked past them toward the glade’s edge, “we’re not really walking here. We only think we are. This is all… illusory. Focus on that, and focus on where we want to get to. Nekuul’s domain. All right?”

“Yes,” said Kish in a small voice.

“Yes,” said Sisu, perhaps too loudly.

“Yes,” said Jarek.

They followed Nahkt through the trees. They were slender like aspens and extended as far as he could see in every direction. The grass underfoot crunched as if made brittle by frost, and for a while they moved in silence, each sunk in their own private thoughts. Jarek held tightly to Kish’s hand. Her eyes were wide, and she seemed to drift forward as if lost in a dream.

“We’re going to be all right,” said Jarek. “Don’t despair.”

“Yes,” said Kish. “I know.”

“Over there,” said Acharsis, coming to a stop. “Movement. You see that?”

Nahkt stepped back and looked in the direction Acharsis was pointing. Jarek squinted and saw something akin to a massive deer regarding them from perhaps fifty yards away, barely visible through all the slender trunks. Its antlers swept all around it, curling before its face and over its back, a thorny mazy of ivory and gold.

“It has no legs,” said Sisu. “You see that?”

Jarek narrowed his eyes. Sisu was right. The lower half of the deer seemed to split into a dozen streams of white-furred flesh that coiled about the trunks of the closest trees, merging with them.

“Is it dangerous?” asked Kish.

“It could be,” said Nahkt. “If you let it.”

“It’s moving!” said Sisu.

The deer slipped silently forward and disappeared, moving through the tree trunks but losing segments of its body as it did so. In rapid succession it became a series of vertical segments, as if each tree were a blade, and then it was gone, absorbed by the forest.

“Where did it go?” Sisu swung around in a circle. “It was moving this way!”

“Calm yourself,” said Nahkt. “We are still very close to Amubastis. That spirit is not intrinsically antagonistic, but it will respond to your emotions—”

“There!” Kish wheeled around and Jarek turned with her. The deer - he called it such even though it no longer resembled any kind of deer he’d ever seen - was flitting around the edge of the clearing. Or at least, parts of it were. As if its passage through time had been shattered, so that they caught glimpses of it here and there between the trees, impossible snatches that gave Jarek no fixed sense as to where it actually was.

“You’re upsetting it,” called Nahkt. “Please! Control yourselves!”

Kish had drawn her hammer, and Sisu had raised his hands. “We’re not doing anything!” he said. “It’s the one approaching us!”

The glimpses of the spirit were growing in frequency, but now it was impossible to tell if it was one or many. Flashes of white fur appeared all around them between the trees, the occasional hint of antlers growing ever longer, till Jarek realized that the antlers themselves weren’t disappearing but rather sprouting more and more horns as they became something akin to a bank of ivory fog all around them, interlaced between the trunks. The deer’s actual body continued to flit in and out of sight.

He wanted to draw his Sky Hammer. See if he could break a path through the cloud of gold-tipped horns that were growing thicker and more impenetrable with every moment.

Instead, he released Kish’s hand and moved forward. He closed his eyes. He was no longer a novice warrior, eager and desperate to draw blood. He was Jarek, son of Alok, and had known grief and love in equal measure. He thought of Alassa, then, of his dead first wife, and how she’d laughed in the light of the mountain sun, sitting on a rock upstream, her dress bunched about her thighs, amused by his fall into a pool. Thought of Alok hovering amidst the flames at the apex of his ziggurat. Thought of the taste of freshly baked bread, the feel of hot stone under the soles of his feet, the way the Golden Steppe rippled beneath the wind.

I’m not here, he thought. This isn’t real. There is nothing to be afraid of.

The sound of the wind chimes all around them grew lighter. Jarek raised his hands before him and moved forward like a blind man, stopping only when he touched a tree.

He opened his eyes. The web of horns was gone. He caught sight of the great deer disappearing into the depths of the woods, flitting here, appearing there, and then gone.

Jarek let out the breath he’d been holding and turned to regard the others.

“Well done,” said Nahkt. “Truly.”

“How did you do that?” asked Sisu. He’d lowered his hands sheepishly. “The horns melted away before you.”

“You need to listen to our guide,” said Jarek. “You too, Kish. We’re not really here. Think about home. Think about what you love. What your body has felt. Use those memories to ground you. To remind you of the living world, and that this, this is but a dream. Understood?”

Kish nodded and put her hammer back in its loop. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize.” Jarek walked back. “We’re not supposed to be here. On some primal, basic level, our presence is wrong. There’s no getting this right the first time.”

“Well said.” Acharsis clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s all think of this as a lesson, yes? A chance to practice…what would you call it? Incorporeality?”

Kish and Sisu both nodded, and they fell in again behind Nahkt, who led them ever on through the forest. The day began to draw to a close, the light slowly dimming as the invisible sun moved toward the horizon, and the trees themselves began to appear farther apart, the shadows between them limiting how far Jarek could see.

“Do we camp for the night?” asked Sisu.

“What night?” asked Nahkt, not turning around.

“This, ah, darkness that’s growing? You know? When the sun goes down? Things get dark? People usually go to sleep?”

“There is no sun in the netherworld, no day or night.” Nahkt stopped and turned to face them. “We are drawing away from Amubastis and her glory. It is a sign of progress. But now we must be ever more wary. Away from her light, the restless dead and the demons wander. They’ll be drawn to us. Ignore them.”

“I thought,” said Acharsis, walking alongside Nahkt, “That the unworthy dead stayed in the land of the living? Somebody told me - maybe it was Ahktena - that they didn’t get to come below through the Fields of Reflection?”

“She was right and wrong,” said Nahkt. “The unworthy remain in the land of the living until they tire of the sun, and then they sink through the shadows or the night into this part of the netherworld. Here they regain their fury and bitterness at being excluded from Amubastis, and that fuels their return to the land of the living, where they torment the innocent once more.”

Despite himself, Jarek lowered his hand to the head of the Sky Hammer. How long since last he’d been cleansed of his spiritual pollution by an apsu? How many days since he’d ritually washed his feet? He touched the amulet about his neck, but having seen how poorly Acharsis had fared in that field he was less confident in its abilities.

“I’ve never seen a demon,” whispered Kish. “You?”

“A few,” said Jarek. “Not my best memories.”

She squeezed his hand tighter. “I’ve no problem facing people. Even the deathless were… all right. But demons? Ghosts? The restless dead? I feel out of my depth here, Jarek. I don’t know how to do this.”

“Stay close,” he said. “Do as I do. We’ll be all right.”

“Everyone,” said Sisu, voice taut. “Start thinking really hard about how this isn’t real.”

“What is it?” asked Acharsis, turning to face the Nekuulite, then looking out through the adumbrated trees.

Kish’s grip grew tighter as she turned to look down and away. “It’ll be easier for me if I don’t see it.”

Nobody spoke. Jarek lowered his head and peered into the gloomy forest. Somewhere along the way the trees had become ashen, their leaves more akin to hanging strips of hide than the tinkling spearheads they had once been. The temperature was dropping too, and for the first time Jarek saw his breath ghost out before him.

“What did you see?” Nahkt stepped in close to Sisu. “A person? A monster?”

“It looked like a man,” said Sisu. “Dressed in torn gray robes. His face…” Sisu shook his head. “I’ve seen my share of horrific things. But his face…”

“A demon,” said Acharsis, gripping the lamassu’s amulet with his one good hand.

“It’s best if we keep moving,” said Nahkt. “Standing here helps nobody.”

Jarek rested his head on the Sky Hammer’s head once more. The urge to draw it was strong. His heart was pounding in his chest, a regular, slow thudding that made him supremely aware of being alive.

An illusion, he told himself. Your body’s not really here. Don’t let it fool you.

But it was no good. He felt sweat prickle on his brow as he continued to scan the shadowy forest. Was it growing darker? He turned slowly, probing the depths. Searching for movement. Some sign of their enemy.

Nahkt had begun walking only to stop and turn back. Jarek knew they should follow. Knew they should get out of there. But something primal was urging him to locate the threat. To pin a direction on it so that even as they retreated, he could remain aware of its location.

“I don’t see anything,” said Acharsis.

“I could reach for Amubastis’ power,” said Sisu. “See if I can’t push it into view.”

“Don’t,” said Nahkt. “You’ll only draw more attention to us.”

Kish screamed and tore her hand free of Jarek’s grasp. She bolted into the trees at a full sprint. A man had appeared before them, crouched down so as to be directly in her lowered line of sight, clad in a robe of shifting black shadows, hair lank and hanging to his shoulders, fingers overlong, but it was his face, his face that caused Jarek to seize up in horror.

He couldn’t understand what he was looking at. Where its face should have been was a tunnel that punched through the back of the demon’s head and into some separate reality, a dizzying drop lined with mouths filled with broken teeth, eyes that whirled and looked in every direction, mouths that puckered and simpered and opened to reveal bleeding tongues. Features without end, a display of idiocy and horror, and when the demon turned its focus toward Jarek he understood why Kish had screamed and run away.

The demon’s regard made him feel as if he were being buried alive, pulled into that tunnel that stretched back through its head, consumed by the endless eyes that receded into obscurity, divided between them, licked all over by leather tongues and nipped at by shattered fangs. He felt his gorge rise and the bottom of his stomach fall, his throat close up and his skin crawl as if it wished to flee his frame.

A ball of green fire burst out around the demon’s back, and it leaped up like a cricket, a spastic, sudden jump that took it high into the branches of the tree above them.

With a gasp Jarek tore his sense of self back out of the tunnel into which it had been dropping. He didn’t hesitate, but took after Kish, running as fast as he could, bellowing her name as he dodged around trees into the dark.

“Kish! Come back! Stop!”

She was a fleeting figure ahead of him, long limbed and faster than he. She was pulling away. In a matter of moments he would lose sight of her altogether.

“Kish!”

He drew the Sky Hammer. Swung it back and around, then staggered to a stop as he hurled it overarm. The Sky Hammer glimmered with faint golden light as it sailed through the twilight gloom and impacted one of the trees a couple of yards to her side. The tree exploded into massive splinters, the trunk bending viciously in half so that the canopy came rushing down to crash upon the ground.

Jarek ran forward, around the fallen tree, and saw Kish on her knees, holding herself up with one outstretched arm, eyes wide, flecks of blood running down her face from where she’d been stung by a storm of splinters.

“Kish!” He dropped to his knees beside her and pulled her into a tight embrace. “Stay with me. Stay with me now. Don’t go. It’s all right. It’s all right, you’re with me. You’re going to be fine.”

She trembled in his arms, resting her brow on his shoulder, and he thought she would cry, give vent to her terror. Instead she inhaled a shuddering breath and then pulled back to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I - I don’t know what came over me. That - that thing. It was pulling me into it. Trapping me. I had to get away.”

“I know. I felt the same. I understand. I promise. But we can’t split up. We have to get back to the others.”

“Yes,” said Kish, and together they stood. Jarek fetched the Sky Hammer, its head dull and lifeless once more, and they strode back to where the others were calling out their names.

“The demon?” asked Jarek.

“Gone for now,” said Acharsis. “Sisu drove it off.”

“It was too easy,” said Sisu, but he didn’t sound like he was bragging. He almost sounded bewildered. “I didn’t mean to reach for that power, but in the moment, it was there, and I had to do something…”

“A lot more of them are coming,” said Jarek. He drew the Sky Hammer again. He could make out a dozen or so figures approaching through the forest, shadowy outlines that drifted closer, hesitant and elusive as they continuously placed the trees between them.

“They sense us,” said Nahkt. “I told you not to use your power.”

“More behind us,” said Acharsis, voice grim. “These seem different.”

“No demons,” agreed Jarek. “Too cautious. Restless dead?”

He could make out the closest figure now. It was that of a woman, clad in threadbare rags, her face weathered, her eyes sunken black holes, her mouth toothless, her skin chalky and wrinkled, her hair so thin Jarek could see her scalp. She reached for them with a claw of a hand then drew back.

“They want your blood,” said Nahkt. “I mean that literally. It will give them substance, allow them to regain much of their lost sense of self. Feel passion, feel what it is to be alive. If we don’t go now, they will continue to gather till they grow brave enough to mob us.”

“I thought we didn’t have blood down here,” said Sisu.

“The way you’re acting?” Nahkt’s face was tight with disdain. “You’re full of it.”

“Then let’s go,” said Jarek, pulling Kish behind him. “Sisu, Acharsis, move ahead of me. Nahkt, take the lead. Hurry!”

They fell into position, hurrying to array themselves around him. The sight of the eyeless ghosts filled Jarek with a mute horror and disgust that was easy to turn into rage. Their weakness, their fear made it easier to hate them, to want to cave in their faces with his hammer. He welcomed that anger, warmed himself with its fiery heat. It was that or let fear rob his strength, and with the numbers that were starting to show up around them, any sign of weakness could be their last.

They were attacked moments before reaching the edge of the forest.

CHAPTER FIVE

Breath burning in his lungs, Jarek saw the ghosts come boiling forth from between the trees, hands outstretched, mouths gaping wide in silent howls.

“They come!” It was all he could manage. He released Kish’s hand and drew the Sky Hammer. Chaos engulfed them.

They sought simply to swarm him, overpower his attacks through sheer weight of numbers. Faces gaunt, eyes little more than blackened holes, they ran at him, seeking to tear at his flesh with their long, jagged nails.

Grimacing, gripping his hammer with both hands, Jarek roared and stepped forward to meet them, swinging through the outstretched arms, shattering bones. The first wave buffeted into him, ignoring their wounds, and he knocked them away with his second swing; they were light, more akin to husks then full-bodied foes, and their chests and heads stove in like old wasp nests.

But there were more behind them. “Alok take you!” roared Jarek, meeting them full on. His hammer was flickering with golden light once more, and the sight of it filled him with a righteous fury, a tight and terrible indignation that they’d dare seek his blood, that they’d dare assault a demigod. He rained hammer blows upon them, their sighs and gasps trailing through the wind like memories of old wounds.

There was no time to turn and help the others. He heard Kish’s cries of anger as she swung her hammer, Acharsis laughing, nothing from Sisu. A trail of fire raked up Jarek’s forearm as nails scored three deep cuts, and his attacker suddenly took on a more solid appearance, muscle filling out the sagging skin, pinpricks of light blazing into existence in the hollows of its eyes, a long tongue lolling out to lick at split lips.

“Damn you,” grunted Jarek, and brought his hammer down upon its skull, but it swayed aside and raked at his ribs, nearly cutting through his leather jerkin with its nails alone. Stumbling, Jarek caught his balance and turned to face it, but doing so placed his back toward the other ghosts.

He saw how the others fared. They were an island in a sea of the hungry dead, surrounded by ghosts who were growing in number by the second. They were going to lose this battle. The knowledge hit Jarek like a blow to the gut, and he bulled his way past the ghost that had wounded him, batting it away with his hammer.

“We have to flee!” He lunged past Acharsis to brain a ghost that was about to wound him, then shoved his friend by the shoulder. “Out of the woods!”

Sisu’s arms were wreathed in green flame, his hair was dancing as if he stood underwater, and green mist was flowing from his mouth. Each time he gestured a score of the ghosts would collapse into ashes, their bodies glowing with green light that quickly consumed them.

“Run, Sisu! You’re drawing more of them to us! Open a path for us out of here!”

The Nekuulite stared at him in incomprehension, then nodded and ran forward, sweeping both arms before him and cutting down a swathe of the dead.

Fresh pain blossomed down Jarek’s back, and a ghost wrapped its arms around his arm and hugged tight, gumming at his wrist with its soft lips. Jarek ran his fist through its head and then nearly fell as more arms clutched at him.

Kish was the last to leave, staggering backward as she swung her hammer, and Jarek was reaching out to grip her shoulder when he saw it.

A demon, high in the branches, gazing at her, black urine running down its leg and the side of the tree.

It was hunched over like an enraged cat, its arms overlong and growing longer with each moment, undulating down and out to surround them. Its eyes glowed a dull yellow, and its smile was vacuous, amiable, nauseating.

“Run, Kish!”

But it was too late. Jarek wheeled about to flee and saw that the demon’s arms had encircled them. But they weren’t arms. They were cracks in the very air, and where they passed before the ghosts that fought to reach them the ghosts were cut in half, sliced as if by a wicked black knife.

Jarek froze. The very act of looking upon those terrible arms caused them to sever whatever lay beyond them in twain. He glanced to his side and several trees toppled, their trunks sheared cleanly through, scores of ghosts screaming as they fell into dust. He almost turned around to look after Acharsis and the others, but then froze. Would doing so kill them all?

“What do we do?” asked Kish, backing toward him. “How do we kill it?”

“I don’t know,” said Jarek. “Our amulets should keep it at bay. But we can’t run through its arms.”

The arms were coming closer, their circle tightening. The demon’s smile grew ever wider until it moved beyond the scope of its face and began to cut the world behind it, causing branches to suddenly topple down, leathery leaves to burst with yellow sap and collapse to the ground, cutting off the tops of the trees in the distance.

“Close your eyes,” said Jarek. “It’s our gaze that gives it power.”

“Close my eyes?” Kish laughed. “Close my eyes?”

“Trust me! Take my hand, now - close them!”

Jarek did so himself. He became supremely aware of Kish’s tight grip, the blood running down his forearm, his breath raw in his throat. Carefully, he stepped back, then again. He wanted nothing more than to take a peek at the demon, to crack his eyes open a little, but instead he scrunched them tight.

“Now, turn with me. Don’t open your eyes. Run!”

Sky Hammer stretched out before him, Jarek ran blindly in the direction the others had fled. Kish stumbled along beside him, and together they shouldered their way forward, past the last sparse trees and finally out from the forest into the open.

Jarek opened his eyes. They stood on a short meadow of gray grass that ended at a cliff. The others were waiting for him at the cliff’s edge, Sisu devoid of his green flames, Nahkt with one hand over his brow, shaking his head.

“You all right?” he asked Kish. “Don’t look back.”

“How did you know?” She was pale, a cut running down her cheek, eyes wide. “How did you know what to do?”

“A guess.” He smiled grimly. “A gamble. Thank you for trusting me.”

“How much more of this is there going to be?”

“I don’t know.” He wanted to lie to her, comfort her, but settled instead for squeezing her hand. “I don’t know.”

“Our god-chosen guide has led us to a dead end,” said Sisu. “Look. This cliff extends to the left and right as far as the eye can see. We’re going to have to go back into the forest.”

“Geography is an illusion,” ground out Nahkt. He, too, had been wounded in the fight, and was cradling his arm to his chest. “Orient yourself accordingly, and all is navigable. And cease throwing around your power. Are you a child in truth that you cannot obey the simplest dictums?”

Sisu’s eyes widened. “We were about to be slaughtered! We only escaped because I—”

“Enough,” said Acharsis. “And more than enough. Sisu. Listen to me. You are not to use your powers without my express permission. No matter what. No exceptions. Am I understood?”

Sisu drew himself up. “You are not my master. We are in the netherworld, and if anything—”

“Sisu,” growled Jarek.

The youth hunched over and scowled. “Very well. But if your foolish rules get us all killed, I will mock you for eternity from beside Nekuul’s throne.”

“I’ll take my chances,” said Acharsis. “Now, Nahkt. How do we orient ourselves to get past this cliff?”

Jarek drew close to the edge, and saw that the gray grass gave way to reveal carved stone beneath - a long rectangular beam, worn by the passage of time and ingrained with dirt. “The stone looks worked,” he said to the others, then carefully lowered himself to one knee on the stone’s edge and peered over.

The cliff dropped into the misty depths, but it was its face that drew Jarek’s eye: the stone was composed of an endless series of temple facades, each crushing the one below it; pillars and pilasters, shattered steps and crumbling entrances, broken porticos and ruined facades. Some were grand on a scale of the ziggurat back home, while others were humble, dwarfed by their neighbors, slotted together like the stones of a farmer’s wall.

“If I had any doubts,” said Acharsis, carefully stepping up alongside him and placing his good hand on Jarek’s shoulder for balance, “as to our being in the netherworld, well, they’re gone now.”

Nahkt stepped up on Jarek’s other side. “We proceed down. Not by climbing, but by reorienting our understanding of what is ‘down’. Like so.”

He stepped out into the void and swung forward so that his foot connected with the face of the temple below them. A second step, and he turned to regard them, feet solidly planted on the cliff face.

Nobody spoke. Jarek stood and dusted off his knees. His stomach clenched in apprehension. But there was no sense in wasting time caviling. He took a deep breath, blew it out to clear his mind. But before he could step out into nothingness, Nahkt screamed.

Their guide had teleported a good thirty or so yards down the cliff face, standing confidently on a weathered column of stone, waiting and watching, when a serrated blade shot up from the shadows beneath him to plunge through his lower back and out his stomach.

Nahkt’s scream was terrible, and he gripped the serrated blade with both hands, not tugging or pushing but simply trying to come to terms with its emergence from his body. Jarek froze. The blade curved as if alive, like a beckoning finger, turning into a hook which was then yanked by a chain back down into the dark. Nahkt screamed once more as he was pulled off his feet, and disappeared into the ruined temple.

“No,” said Kish. “No, no, no, no.”

“Nahkt!” Acharsis cupped his hand to his mouth. “Nahkt!” Grimacing, he sat on the cliff’s edge, drummed his heels on the temple stone below him, then yelled wordlessly and pushed off.

Jarek watched, stunned, as Acharsis fell. He didn’t reorient himself as Nahkt had done, but plunged past the ruined temples, falling ever faster.

Down! thought Jarek, clenching his fists. Come on, change your down!

He willed Acharsis to fall into the cliff face, and in a burst of terror and anger stepped out into the void. For a horrifying second, his stomach lurched as he started to fall, but then the temple swung up to become his ground and he found himself running after Acharsis, helpless, too far away to do a blasted thing.

Acharsis tumbled around, caught sight of Jarek, cocked his head and then crashed into the ground. He skidded along a temple facade and then slammed into a column and came to a wrenching stop.

“Acharsis!” Jarek took a half-dozen steps after him, then turned back to the cliff’s edge where Sisu and Kish were staring at him. “Come on! Hurry!” He stepped right up to them and crouched, reaching over the edge to where they stood. “Look at me. Look at my feet. Don’t overthink it, just come!”

Kish gripped his hand and stepped out with a gasp. She shot past him, pulled by her own gravity to sail along the ground as Acharsis had done, but Jarek was ready. With a grunt he pivoted on his heels, holding on tight to her wrists, and held her up, her body stretched out from the ends of his arms parallel to the ground.

“Look at my feet, damn you!” He leaned back as his sandals began to slide along the stone. “Down!”

Kish closed her eyes, frowned, and then with another gasp set her feet on the stone.

“Sisu,” said Jarek, turning back. “You coming?”

Sisu looked down at him. “Yes. In one moment. Just give me one moment.”

“I’m not going to wait. Acharsis!” Jarek drew his Sky Hammer. “Hold on, we’re coming! And you two, watch out for that serrated hook.” He took off at a run, charging down the temple face and leaping over a dark doorway, up the steps that led to the base. He swung his legs over that horizontal beam and onto the next temple. It reminded him of running across the rooftops of Rekkidu, over the retaining walls and leaping over the occasional trapdoor or skylight.

Acharsis was slowly rising to his feet, hand to his head. “I’m all right,” he called, though his voice sounded strange. “I might have hit my head a little.”

Jarek reached his side, watching the temple doors and windows in the grounds for any sign of movement. “You sure? You can walk?”

“I’ll be honest with you,” said Acharsis. “I could really use a beer. But - Nahkt. We have to find him.”

“Go down into these temples, you mean?” Jarek studied the closest doorway. It led directly down into the darkness. Turning, Jarek considered the eerie ground all around them - the endless temple fronts with their endless entrances. “It must be a warren below. We’ve no source of light. We’d be slaughtered down there.”

“We can’t go on without him!” Acharsis’ voice rose to a shout. “We need—”

“They’re coming!” Sisu’s voice was faint, but then he launched himself over the edge. Legs kicking, he fell toward them, his shout growing louder with every moment.

“Fuck!” screamed Jarek, and ran out wide to intercept him. At the last moment he placed his foot on a column and leaped out to tackle Sisu midair. They spun, momentum carrying them a good six or seven yards across, and then Jarek’s greater weight brought Sisu crashing to the ground.

“Run!” Kish was sprinting toward them, hammer out. From where he lay, waiting for gravity to capture Sisu, Jarek saw the restless dead spill out over the cliff’s edge like a waterfall. Hundreds of them.

Jarek scrambled to his feet, hauling Sisu up by the nape of his neck. Acharsis staggered over, staring wide-eyed at the flood of the dead who arced out into space only to fall back onto the cliff, landing in a rush of splintering limbs to pour toward them like a breached dam.

“Time to run?” asked Acharsis.

“No,” said Jarek. The dead were moving too fast. More were spilling out over the cliff’s edge. “Kish! Wrap your arms around my neck.”

She didn’t question, but simply moved behind him and hopped up onto his back. Jarek grabbed Sisu by the belt, slid his arm around Acharsis’ waist, and then closed his eyes.

The whispery screams of the dead were rising, the bony thuds of their heels on stone a staccato, their headlong approach the stuff of nightmares.

He had one chance. Mere seconds to pull it off.

You’re not standing on the floor. It’s the face of a cliff. The world is below you. Let go. It’s time to fall.

With all his might he wrenched his mind, his sense of perspective, and forced the ground to become a wall once more. The whispery screams were upon him, his skin prickled with danger, and with a cry he jumped back into the air.

With Kish on his back and Acharsis and Sisu on his arms it was more of a hop than a leap, and he immediately crashed back into the cliff face - but then slid back, plucked by gravity, dragging the other three with him. He thrust off the wall again, falling now, into the void, Sisu’s scream of confusion rising as the restless dead reached for them, their boney claws snapping inches from his face.

Jarek fell, dragging the others along with him, and when their own sense of up and down reoriented itself the last of the resistance melted away and they plummeted.

Down and away from the horde of hungry dead who streamed after them, hissing their frustration, blackened eyes narrowed in fury. Down and away from the cliff, ever faster - until a black, serrated blade flew out from a darkened doorway to punch through Jarek’s thigh.

The pain was tremendous and for a moment he saw only white. Then the chain went taut and he - along with everyone else - arced down to slam into the cliff face. Kish tumbled from his back and fell five yards onto a ledge. Sisu slipped from his grasp but was able to catch hold of the edge of a step, but Jarek managed to hold on to Acharsis.

Jarek hung head down, the black links of the thick chain scraping across stone, the blade tearing through the thick muscles of his left thigh. With a gasp he swung Acharsis wide so that his friend could fall onto the same ledge on which Kish now stood, and then rolled up to grasp the chain and take the pressure off his leg.

The restless dead were racing toward him, bounding over the temple features, a tidal wave of need and hunger.

Grunting, Jarek eyed the blade. It was a foot long, wickedly serrated, its length gleaming with his blood. He’d no choice but to tear it out. A bad idea. He’d lose much more blood that way. With a grimace, he held onto the chain with one hand, contorting while upside down, and gripped the base of the blade… which curved like a living snake into a hook, the tip of which had perforated his thigh, curling around and making it impossible to tear free.

“Jarek!” Kish was trying to climb up toward him.

He was drenched in sweat. Pain rolled through him like heat shimmers off a clay road. Blood was pouring down his leg to soak his hip. He could feel the blade’s serrated teeth chewing at his muscle from within his leg, grinding against bone. It made him want to faint.

“Jarek!” Acharsis’ cry was sharp with warning. “They’re on you!”

Jarek looked up. Here came the dead. They swarmed forward and around him, pressing their faces to his wound, pressing their dry tongues to his blood-soaked clothing, digging their nails into his flesh. Teeth worried at his skin, hands tugged at his clothing, and he swung back and forth, jerked by their attentions like an erratic pendulum.

Kish was screaming. He had to focus. The wound in his thigh was widening as the blade cut up along his bone, shearing the muscle free. Pain blossomed all over his body as the dead sought to consume him. Looking up the length of the chain, he saw a shadow rising from the temple entrance, a vast, slithering mass of arms and legs, a composite without reason, a demon from the depths with one great eye. The chain emerged directly from its pupil, and with a jerk began to retract, drawing back into its head and bringing Jarek with it.

Kish leaped up, snatched at the limbs of several dead and jerked them away with her as she fell back down. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

Instinct kicked in, that brute desire to survive that had seen him through countless battles. The pain was distant, a roaring fire that didn’t touch him. Hot blood was pouring down his chest now. The blade had cut its way almost up to his knee.

Jarek closed his eyes. He twisted and jerked as the restless dead bit and clawed at him. It’s below me. Rocks falling in an avalanche. Falling down toward that fucker. Down. The word reverberated through his very being as he forced the notion upon his soul. Down!

The tension in the chain went slack, and then the demon was below him. He fell toward it, breaking free of the morass of the dead, sailing over their heads with gathering speed. The arms and legs that composed the front of the demon’s corpus shifted apart, revealing a maw, hands writhing within in their eagerness to grasp hold of him and tear him apart. With a scream he twisted his sense of down to the left, so that he veered away from the demon in an arc, falling down and around it, the chain slithering after his descent.

Roaring with effort, he forced his sense of down to slide back to the right, so that he swung around the demon, which went from being across from him to above. The chain wrapped around its head, sinking into its fleshy side. Faster and faster Jarek fell, and as he did he kept moving his down around the demon so that he was always falling past it, a meteor circling the world. The mouth chased him around the demon’s body as it sought to keep him before it, but he was moving too fast. The chain wrapped around the demon again and again, tighter and tighter, so that Jarek was falling in ever smaller circles.

He grabbed the Sky Hammer. Blood flew into the air behind him in ever tightening arcs, and then he was upon it. He brought the Sky Hammer down with all his strength, splattering it through the demon’s body, sending twisted limbs flying through the air.

It wasn’t enough. The demon accommodated the blow, reformed, but Jarek didn’t give it a chance to react. He planted his feet on the side of its body, forced the demon to be below him so that he stood on it as if it were a massive, writhing tree branch of ichor-soaked limbs, and wrapped the chain three times in quick succession around his own forearm. Then, gritting his teeth and praying he wouldn’t pass out, he hauled, straightening both legs, blood fountaining from his wound, and tore the demon’s eye clear from its head.

It shrieked as tendrils and black blood burst free, and then retreated sloppily back through the temple door into the dark, the chain tearing free.

Jarek allowed himself to fall off it, spinning slowly, chain and hammer in hand. The pain was beyond anything he’d ever felt. Limp, loose, he plummeted along the temple faces, wind ruffling his hair.

Jarek closed his eyes, not in an attempt to reorient, but simply from exhaustion. The hissing screams of the hungry dead fell away. Would he continue to fall in this direction forever? Would he awaken as a demon in his own right? He had to gather himself. Had to open his eyes, direct himself toward his friends.

But it was too much.

Darkness reached up to envelop him, but before it could, he felt a hand grasp him by the shoulder. It grabbed him tight, and then someone was there, taking hold of him mid-fall, falling alongside him, climbing up his length and turning so that they fell together.

“Jarek!”

He knew that voice. Even on the brink of death it made him smile. Opening his eyes, he saw her. Black hair waving in the wind, eyes wide with terror and determination.

Kish.

CHAPTER SIX

The process of crowning Elu pharaoh seemed endless. Annara stared at her reflection in a bronze, full length mirror that had appeared as if by magic within her chambers, and blew a lock of her hair out of her face. All the Maganian noblewomen shaved their heads so as to better accommodate their wigs and headdresses, but Annara wasn’t ready to take that step.

Even for the final ceremony that would present Elu formally to the gathered lamassu of Magan, a sunset ordeal before the gathered nobility of the land that would forever cement him as their true and rightful ruler.

The outfit she was expected to wear was ridiculous. She’d barely be able to walk under the sheer amount of gold and jewelry she was supposed to wear, and her robes were to be bound and laced so tightly that she the odds of her asphyxiating were just slightly better than those of her falling on her face before the entire assembled crowd.

Glad for once for the assistance of her serving girls, Annara just stood there and stared through her reflection, trying to piece together the puzzle that had slowly coalesced before her eyes over the past week. They’d failed to locate Pebekkamen, the missing lieutenant commander whom Jarek had liked, and whispers around court suggested that he’d drunk himself to death in some obscure dive. That or been killed in the recent political turmoil. They’d turned up a variety of other rumors, including that he’d once been responsible for a terrible loss that had resulted in the death of all his men, had himself murdered a variety of citizens in drunken bar brawls, and worse of all was a complete coward that fainted at the sight of blood. Still, she’d continued to order her private guards to search for him each morning, with no luck thus far.

By tilting her head slightly, she was able to study the reflection of her two eunuch guards. Large and placid like sleepy bulls, they were easy to ignore, their presence ubiquitous throughout the Women’s Courtyard, but she’d discovered to her chagrin that their master, the Captain of the Courtyard, was unflinchingly loyal to the high steward, who ran the palace and almost every aspect of its upkeep. Nothing could be whispered in their presence without it making its way to the steward’s ear, but nor could she have them dismissed.

It took effort not to grind her teeth. Nethena had issued her a half dozen invitations to socialize, and she’d accepted exactly half. Each time she’d been subtly mocked before different parts of the Maganian court, often in Maganian so that she could only smile stiffly as the others smirked behind their hands.

Blast Acharsis!

A great and subtle web existed beneath the beautiful exterior of the palace, one whose many connections she’d yet to sound out. A number of individuals had stepped forward, offering her confidences and advice, but she trusted none of them. She’d divined the most obvious of connections, but the answers to many subtler questions eluded her: what had the head magistrate meant when he’d confessed over dinner two nights ago that the moon was going to eclipse the sun? To whom did the scribes send the jade embossed scrolls to every evening? Why had that cousin to the former pharaoh hung himself, and why was General Dagi given an assignment that sent him to the eastern edge of the empire without notice to Elu?

Wisps and hints of conspiracy, daggers in the shadows, factions pulling for favor, promotions and demotions, even murders seemed to be happening around her so that the very palace seemed to heave like a straw pallet absolutely infested with bugs.

And she and Elu on the outside, fumbling for allies, fighting to understand veiled warnings, smirking innuendoes, sometimes only realizing far too late that they’d been snubbed or outright insulted to their faces.

Annara took a deep breath and straightened her back. No matter. Elu was the pharaoh, and if it took him a year or five to master court politics - well. He had his whole life to do so. They’d have to simply weather any storms that came their way, and then slowly winnow the ranks of their enemies as they raised up those who proved loyal. Brilliant in theory, but so damned hard to do in practice.

“You look beautiful,” said the head serving girl, Qalhata. “You shall outshine the very stars in heaven.”

“I’ll settle for not falling on my nose,” said Annara, taking her first tottering steps on the ridiculous shoes she was supposed to wear all night. “How does anybody walk in these things?”

The girls shared smiles with each other.

“You shall not have to walk far, my lady,” said Qalhata. “A palanquin will bear you to the docks, and from there you shall take a boat and another palanquin to the Third Tower of Heaven.”

“Good to hear. Thank you, Qalhata. Thank all of you for - this.” She waved vaguely at herself. “I am ready.”

“If you will come this way,” said her maid, and gently took her arm to assist her in passing out of her chamber, along the covered hallway and out into the Women’s Courtyard. Dusk was nearly upon them, and what looked like a hundred lanterns were lit about the open space, sparking shards of glass and metal hanging about each flame so that each seemed its own sun. The women of the Court were all present and dressed in their best finery, laughing and listening to one of the eunuchs play a strange, stringed instrument, servants bearing trays of sweet wine back and forth.

“You look stunning, Lady Annara,” said Isotep, emerging from the closest crowd to bow low. “I wish a blessed night upon you, and look forward to celebrating your every success.”

Annara’s smile was sickly sweet. “Thank you, Isotep. Your words mean more to me than you could possibly imagine.” Rot in the netherworld, you two-faced whore.

“If I can be of any assistance with future matters, please let me know,” said Isotep. Her smile was wide and seemingly genuine, but her eyes glittered with amusement. “I live but to serve.”

What do you know? What has Nethena told you? Annara forced her smile to remain steady. “Oh, don’t doubt it, my friend. I will call on you when the time comes.”

“Then I shall live in anticipation of that moment. May the lammasu bless you, my lady.” Isotep bowed and stepped away, and Annara was only too glad to leave her and her companions behind. She couldn’t say with complete certainty that the entire harem was complicit, but how could she dare risk otherwise? Her suspicions had turned her own home quarters into a hotbed of intrigue and duplicity, such that she now relished any chance to escape.

After a dozen more greetings she was finally able to board the palanquin and be borne down to the river. Dusk fell and darkened by the time her ferry crossed the river toward the lammasu’s tower, and with greater ceremony and much tedium she was conveyed the final distance to the vast temple complex that surrounded the Third Tower of Heaven, and there admitted into the great courtyard in which a thousand strangers seemed to have already gathered.

Lanterns and bonfires burned everywhere, so that for this brief hour the night seemed held back at bay by endless flickering fires, and the crush of voices bruised the darkness as people murmured and spoke to each other in excitement.

Annara bowed her head to everyone she passed, smiling politely and finally allowing herself an exhalation of relief when she reached her covered box. As part of Elu’s inner circle she held the same proximity to the events as Nethena and the others; she greeted them all in turn, and then turned at last to regard the site of the final ceremony itself.

Six great columns rose up to form thrones of carved marble, all arrayed in a semi-circle before a single cushion of imperial purple. Tiger and lion skins formed a path to this cushion, their hides strewn with rose petals and flanked by sticks of burning incense. Drummers were pounding a soft but persistent beat, and Annara leaned forward, expecting the ceremony to commence now that she was here - but it took another hour for the great crowd to settle, the priests to enter and line up along the sides, the conversations to still, and a sense of true immanence to descend upon the crowd.

Several priests orated at length, speeches were made by rulers of the other five great cities of Magan pledging eternal obedience to the pharaoh, and then finally, at long, long last, a choir began to sing, a heavenly sound to which Elu at last emerged from within the tower proper and walked the trail of animal skins toward the purple rug.

Annara’s heart surged at the sight of him. Young, yes, but so brave, willing to fight until the end against the invisible forces that were arrayed against him, able to temper his fury and restrain himself from giving rash commands. Oh, to think that her boy had come this far, that he was to now be hailed as the true ruler of so ancient an empire! With each step he solidified his claim on the Maganian throne, and when he finally knelt upon the purple cushions Annara sank back into her chair, some horrible source of tension finally leaving her, a dread that she hadn’t known she’d carried all this time.

They’d failed. Whatever Nethena’s machinations had been, they’d not come to fruition in time.

A cry went up, everyone raising their faces toward the night sky, and six great winged shapes descended upon them, infinitely majestic and feral, churning up dust and sending petals flying as they landed one by one upon their marble thrones, the center of which their resident lamassu took up, so that he stood pre-eminent amongst his equals as they gazed down with their alien, leonine eyes upon Elu.

The final ceremony began. Heart pounding, Annara cursed her lack of Maganian as the high priest welcomed the lamassu with many bows and genuflections, then turned to address the crowd, clearly extolling Elu’s virtues as he gestured to her kneeling son.

The lamassu spoke not, betrayed no emotion, but simply watched as the ceremony proceeded apace. Elu was anointed with oils, clad in the white lionskin of pharaohs, given the wheat-headed scepter, his eyes daubed with the black mud of the great river, and finally the generals stepped up to kneel before him, each setting down a weapon at Elu’s feet in a gesture of military obedience.

Queen Nethena rose, the Crown Eternal upon a crimson cushion which she was to bear to Elu and place upon his brow, finalizing the ceremony and marking him as pharaoh forevermore. The queen mother looked at Annara and smiled, and for the first time Annara was able to smile back in time, a full, honest smile, that of a victor feeling sudden largesse toward a defeated foe.

Silence, an aching silence as everyone waited for Nethena to step down from the covered box.

Instead, she spoke up, her voice carrying clearly through the night air.

“On this glorious occasion, I am moved by how we as a nation are changing. How new tides are entering the course of our history, mixing new ideas with the old. I, Queen Nethena, adoring mother of Senacherib, accept these changes with a full heart, and embrace whatever the future may bring. Let one such change take place now. Lady Annara. Would you bear the Crown Eternal to Prince Senacherib, and place it upon his brow, marking him our pharaoh forevermore?”

Excited whispers burst out from the massive crowd like an exodus of mice from a burning field, and Annara sat up in shock, a jolt of fire racing through her veins as she stared at Nethena’s gleaming eyes.

What was this? A trap? Could she say no? Why should she? Was Nethena mocking Elu’s true parentage? A final, derisive gesture? Would Annara invalidate Elu’s crowning if she enacted this final part instead of the queen?

She rose hesitantly to her feet, and gazed out across the assembled peerage of Magan. “I would be more than honored, if such an act receives the blessings of the high priest and in no way offends the lamassu.”

The lamassu up on their high thrones didn’t react, but the priest, florid and fleshy, golden wig gleaming in torchlight, bowed his head with terrible dignity. “We thank the Lady Annara for the respect she shows in asking this question, and aver that no: fulfilling the queen’s request would in no way offend or otherwise change the outcome of the ceremony.”

“Then…yes.” Annara walked along the box, trying desperately not to let her headpiece sway. “I would be honored to crown the new pharaoh. My thanks, my queen.”

Nethena extended the cushion as she drew close, her smile growing perhaps a fraction wider, and Annara desperately searched her face for some hint of deception, some gleam of victory.

“I look forward to clasping you as a sister in truth,” whispered Nethena. “Dear Annara.”

“And I you,” said Annara, unable to think of another response.

Taking the cushion, she descended the shallow steps to the courtyard floor and made her way to where Elu knelt, watching her approach with consternation.

Where was the trap? Did Nethena hope she’d stumble and fall before the crowd? No, too petty. The priest had blessed the transfer. So where? Where the danger?

Elu turned to face her, still on his knees, and when she drew close enough she stopped and proffered the cushion.

“Repeat after me,” said the head priest. “In this you assume the role of the mother of Magan, and must bless Senacherib with the natural bounties of your body that gave him life. In this you also cut your ties to him, admitting that he is now become divine, and consequently much more than you could ever understand -”

General Pawura rose to his feet. “May the lamassu please excuse my interruption.” His voice rough and gravely, but it carried easily. “I am General Pawura, commander of the Maganian chariotry, and I speak for the good of the empire.”

Here it was. Annara fought the urge to snatch the crown from the cushion and place it on Elu’s head. Elu in turn was glaring at the general, expression livid.

“You do not have permission to speak,” said her son. “Be silent and kneel.”

Pawura ignored him. “It is an old custom in our land that any pharaoh under the age of twenty five be served by a grand vizier who may mentor and educate our lord as to the ways of ruling and the customs of our land. While this custom has been neglected this past century, I believe it appropriate that we reinstate it so as to help Senacherib fulfill his great potential without danger to Magan itself.”

“Preposterous!” A man wearing an ivory mask stepped forward from the ranks of the priests. “This custom hasn’t been observed since the fall of the Kusuji dynasty, and was only implemented due to their refusal to undergo the Quickening. It has no bearing -”

Pawura looked to the head priest, who nodded and gestured. Two temple guards stepped forward and placed their hands on the man’s shoulders. He swiveled his head from one to the other as if in shock, the stepped back.

The head priest as well? This was far, far worse than she’d imagined. Annara wanted to shout, to protest, but it wasn’t her place; instead she glared at Elu, who was kneeling in shock. Stand up! Speak!

Elu struggled to his feet. “Outrageous! There is no need for a regent when I am possessed of my full wits and faculty! I have passed the Quickening, been acknowledge pharaoh by the lamassu, and will not -”

“In this final ceremony is that acknowledgement made official,” said the head priest. “That has not yet happened.”

“Then I turn to them!” Elu looked up to where the great winged gods sat. “I lay the matter at their feet! They are our gods, our final arbiters! If they think me unworthy, if they don’t think the Quickening sufficient to mark me as fit to rule, then I’ll obey! But only their authority, and by no other!”

All eyes rose. Their lamassu had yet to move. So still did it lie that Annara could have mistaken it for a huge statue. Its eagle wings were draped down the length of its back, and in the light of the braziers its fur and wings glimmered like hammered bronze shot through with seams of copper and gold. Twin horns like those of a bull arose from over its triangular ears, each the length of a man, and though its upper lip was smooth, a great beard reached down to its paws, oiled and woven with metallic threads of crimson, blue, and silver.

It gazed down upon Elu with alien eyes, and finally bestirred itself. “Senacherib has proven himself fit to be pharaoh by emerging first from the Quickening.” Its voice was dolorous like the tolling of a bell. “This we have gathered to recognize.”

Annara felt a flare of hope.

Pawura smiled and bowed low. “This we understand and agree with, divine lords. Nobody contests Senacherib’s divine right to rule - eventually. But first he might best be served by being educated as to the ways of our empire.”

“I have divine blood,” said Elu, rising to his feet and taking a step toward Pawura.

“This we know.” If Pawura was intimidated, he gave no sign. “Alas, there is no means of judging the provenance of that divinity, so we shall exercise caution and insist on an education first.”

Annara’s blood ran cold. The provenance? Was he insinuating - before the whole peerage -? But of course. Her very presence by Elu’s side gave his assumed identity the lie. Nethena! That cunning bitch - but there was no time. The moment to act was now.

“As such,” continued Pawura, “I shall take it upon myself to act as regent, with the blessing of the priesthood, the queen mother, and the assembled might of the military leadership -”

“One moment!” Annara took hold of the Crown Eternal and raised it high so that it glittered in the firelight. “You presume too much, general!”

“Excuse me?” Pawura’s expression darkened. “What are you talking about?”

“If a regent is to be selected, it won’t be by you!” Annara turned to regard the crowd, spreading her arms wide so that everyone followed the path of the crown. “Prince Senacherib may indeed need an education, but no common general may make that decision for him.”

Pawura spluttered, and Nethena herself stepped down off the box in fury, eyes flashing as she restrained herself at the last moment to draw herself up short. “What nonsense is this?”

“I am the one who holds the Crown Eternal! In this moment I hold the position of Mother of Magan! Just as it was my right to relinquish the crown, so it is my right to select the regent, and do so with all the riches and resources of Magan embodied symbolically within my being!”

“Nonsense!” Nethena slashed at the air with an imperious hand. “Guards, remove her!”

Three of her personal guard moved forward, but hesitated under the baleful glare of the lamassu, drawing up short.

Annara turned to glare at the head priest. “Is my role not that of the Mother of Magan?”

“A ceremonial role, to be sure -”

“And is it not my duty to transfer the crown and that of no other?”

“My lady, you take your role too seriously -”

The lamassu stood. “Lady Annara speaks correctly. In this moment she does embody the wisdom of Magan, and stands as both the prince’s mother and that of the land.”

The head priest faltered and then bowed his head.

Pawura dared a step forward. “My divine lords, she is a foreigner, she cannot understand the immensity of the task she seeks to execute -”

“She is the Mother of Magan,” said the lamassu, voice obdurate and unyielding. “The role is as ancient as the ceremony itself. Do you state the ceremony to be an empty one, general?”

Pawura at last paled and stepped back, bowing down low as he did so. “Of course not, my humblest of apologies, my divine lord.”

“Then continue,” said the lamassu, reclining once more.

All eyes turned to Annara. She held the crown aloft, fought to not let it tremble. The moment of truth had come. Dared she declare herself regent? No. In her own role as Mother she couldn’t assume the role of regent - could she? No, she dared not risk invalidating this once chance at salvation. It had to be another.

But whom?

She thought of Magrib. Banished the thought.

No. There was but one choice, as risky a gamble as anything she’d ever wagered on, a roll of the die that he was not yet dead, that he was not the degenerate he was portrayed to be, the wastrel and drunkard.

“As Mother of Magan, I choose the only man fitting for the role of regent,” she said, her voice wavering despite her best efforts. “I nominate Pebekkamen, lieutenant commander of the western military, and do summon him forth to assume this solemn role.”

Pawura’s face went from stricken to delighted, and even Nethena clapped her hands with what could only be glee.

As Elu stared at her in wounded horror, Annara slowly lowered the crown, her heart lowering in turn.

As all the generals and nobility and priests bowed to Elu, she could only think in growing terror: what have I done?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Acharsis sat with his back to the tree, arms looped around his knees, watching to see if Jarek would awaken or die. All was still. The silence was almost eerie. Darkness extended out in every direction, and even the ground was black and devoid of feature, like a plain of dull obsidian. There was no sense of height or scale to the night sky, no stars or moon. The horizon was hidden. Only the trees with their hanging lanterns gave any sense of dimension at all.

Jarek lay on the ground before him, body grievously wounded. Resting his chin on his forearms, Acharsis studied his friend with somber focus. He should be dead. Blood loss from the leg wound alone should have killed him. Bite marks covered his body, interspaced with actual missing chunks of flesh. It was a miracle his chest rose and fell. It had to have something to do with the nature of the netherworld. Anywhere else and Jarek would have died hours ago.

Kish slept by Jarek’s side, turned protectively to face him, hand resting on his shoulder. Sisu was snoring lightly to Acharsis’ side, head hanging over his chest. Everyone was exhausted. Acharsis himself fought to stay awake. For them to all relax their guard out here would be suicide. And yet the urge to sleep, to rest…

With a groan, he sat up straight. They were doing this all wrong. He could sense that in his bones. He was Acharsis, the son of Ekillos, the god of knowledge. Even with all that divine wisdom now gone, he still had a sense as to how this journey should be going. Nahkt had tried to explain it to them, but had been undone by his own weaknesses. Impatience. Bitterness. Fear.

Acharsis leaned his head back against the wizened trunk. He’d never seen such trees. They were massive, their trunks twisted like rags that had been tightly wrung to dry. Their branches snaked out overhead, and from each hung a delicate lantern that shone with a soft golden light, each tinted a different color. It was perhaps a hundred yards to the next tree, and then a hundred more to the third. A single line of them that receded into oblivion. A trail of lanterns. A path, perhaps, to where they wanted to go, but Acharsis couldn’t be sure.

Brute force would get them killed. Almost had. Their talents had seen them this far, but their next obstacle would defeat them. If Jarek even woke up.

Acharsis closed his eyes and pressed his thumb against his brow. He felt a deep yearning for Annara’s company. Her calm, focused presence by his side. His ache for her was piercing, but he forced himself to set it aside.

Think.

They were and were not physically present here. They could be killed if they believed themselves capable of being wounded. Nekuul’s netherworld was both a stone’s throw away and infinitely far. The farther they moved from Amubastis, the darker the netherworld became.

Truths. Intellectually apprehended, but not viscerally believed. Acharsis opened his eyes and studied the palm of his hand. It was his hand. The familiar seams, nicks, calluses, the length of his fingers and width of his palm. Impossible to believe that it wasn’t. A paradox of the netherworld. One that perhaps a living being could not solve. That only death could answer.

Acharsis curled his hand into a fist. He both was and was not here. Yet that wasn’t quite right; if he wasn’t here, then where was he? No. He imagined a shatranj board in his mind, and moved a piece decisively forward. He was here, all of him, but his presence obeyed different laws. He could be invulnerable if he simply understood how to withhold himself from harm.

This world was malleable. The geography was an illusion. They could command it with conviction. Could will themselves to be the center of this universe. Acharsis stretched out his hand once more. Could he touch Nekuul’s realm from where he sat? He stared fixedly at the dark. Nothing but air. He dropped his hand into his lap.

Despair sought to well up within him. It had been his idea to come here. To bring his companions into this land. It was his responsibility to get them out.

“Think, you fool,” he whispered to himself. Could they fall alongside the line of trees, crossing the netherworld at a much greater speed? That would be a step in the right direction, but it still placed them in a passive position, allowing the world around them to dictate their path.

No. They had to punch through. They had to end this journey.

There was a fundamental illusion at play that he’d failed to pierce. If geography was an illusion, he should be able to cross directly to Nekuul’s realm.

Therein lay the paradox. Something about that statement was wrong. Think!

Acharsis ground his knuckles into his forehead. Once, he’d thought himself so wise, so smart, the sharpest blade in the River Cities armory, capable of talking circles around the other demigods. Now here he sat, dull as lard, lumpen as a tree stump, as capable of thought as a tortoise was of flight. Fool. Old, hoary, decrepit fool.

Start from the beginning. How did a soul know which underworld to end up in? Did a Maganian who died in Rekkidu enter Nekuul’s realm? No. Their faith would transport them to the Fields of Reflection, and then ultimately down here. Faith. Faith was the motive force. A soul was a soul was a soul, but what it believed set it apart from its brothers and sisters. It didn’t have to cross from Nekuul’s realm to the Maganian netherworld. Did it? No. It would simply enter the correct realm as a matter of course.

Acharsis sat up, excitement quickening his pulse. The answer lay hidden within those surmises. The soul didn’t cross the realm. The realm appeared around it. The realm was malleable; it obeyed the dictates of the soul’s faith, even as the soul’s faith in turn determined how that soul would be treated within the realm.

Could one say that the soul was the master of the netherworld, then? An unknowing master, whose very faith allowed it to be subjugated?

Despite knowing that geography was an illusion, Acharsis had still been thinking in terms of traveling from one land to the next, just as he’d traveled from the River Cities to Magan, as if the netherworlds were located physically beneath their respective lands. No. One did not travel across the netherworld. One’s faith brought one’s netherworld to you.

Acharsis scrambled to his feet and stared out into the darkness. Nekuul’s realm wasn’t out there. There was nothing out there. Nekuul’s realm was waiting to appear around him, like a dog waiting for the whistle. To travel forward, to walk, to run, to fall - that was a waste of time, like a child thrashing in a pool of water but failing to swim forward.

Had Nahkt understood this? Failed to communicate it? No. Nahkt had been a prisoner of his own faith. As wise as he’d been, he’d thought within his faith’s strictures, even as he’d hinted as to the true nature of death.

Acharsis almost called out to his friends, but then stopped. Jarek was still badly wounded. He knelt by his friend’s side. Perhaps it wasn’t his body that was wounded, but his soul; and being Jarek, his soul could take damage that would have destroyed his body long ago. But how to heal him of these wounds?

Acharsis rubbed at his chin. If he was right and the soul was the master of death, then it could choose to be injured or healed as it believed fit. The question was: how to convince Jarek of this truth? It wasn’t intuitive, and while Jarek on some level had chosen - or accepted - his injuries, he wouldn’t be able to simply will them away until he truly believed he was in control.

But how to convince him?

Acharsis sat back on his heels, lips pursed. He’d have to be shown. A demonstration that would engender faith.

His pulse picked up once more, and Acharsis smiled. How physical his soul! How inlaid his responses to fear, that even here in the netherworld he should simulate the pounding of blood in his ears, the tightness of his stomach, the tingling of his skin!

He stood. I am not flesh. I have no pulse, no stomach, no skin. This is a true illusion.

The words rang within him like the tolling of a gong, and he felt himself grow calm. But still his heart beat within him. Still he breathed. Was it possible to relinquish the vagaries of life without dying first?

Acharsis took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled. A long, controlled exhalation. I don’t need to breathe. I won’t inhale. He forced his lips shut, and waited. The need to breathe grew within him. The tightness in his lungs. The tugging at his throat. No. This is an illusion. Fight it.

He lasted a hundred beats of his heart before he finally gasped for breath, sucking in deep lungful’s. “Damn it!” he hissed.

Patterns established from birth were ingrained in his soul. He’d have to take another approach. Acharsis drew his knife. It felt so real in his hand. He held it up and a wild determination seized him. Don’t think, don’t analyze. Act before your body can understand!

He plunged the knife into the side of his neck.

Pain fountained within him, a wild, scalding, screaming black and red agony as the knife sank to the hilt.

Acharsis bottled down his scream and fell to the ground. He grunted as his body convulsed, blood spraying from the wound.

I’ve killed myself I’ve killed myself I’ve—

Shaking, shivering, he forced himself to sit cross-legged. He wanted to tear out the knife, clamp his hand to his torn throat, but instead he forced his hand onto his lap. Blood was gushing from the wound, down his side, his life pouring out—

No.

“I am not flesh.” The words were a cracked whisper. “I am not dying.”

Fear beat at the walls of his mind, self-ridicule, a primal desire to clamp his hand to the wound.

Instinct caused him to focus on his breath. His windpipe was not torn. A slow breath in. A slow breath out. A paradox, to attempt to ignore the physicality of his wound by focusing on the physicality of his own breathing. Slow breath in. Slow breath out. Blood was still pumping out with each beat of his heart, a thunderous roar in his ears, the pain in his neck overwhelming.

Be as you were. As you are. Your body is your mind. The breath is your pattern, the path that shall lead you back to wholeness. You are not breathing, but in that pretense you can guide yourself back to before the wound.

His pulse began to slow. He felt light headed. He wanted to lie down. Breathe in. Breathe out. Your body is a construct, an illusion whose reality is upheld by your faith in its primacy. Step forward. Acknowledge that blind faith, and in doing so, master it.

The blood ceased to flow from his neck. He felt his throat grow tight, constricting the knife blade, which was slowly squeezed out and fell to the ground by his side.

Acharsis straightened his spine. Deepened his inhalations. Slowed his exhalations. Strength slowly stole back into his frame. His pulse slowed. His thoughts grew sharper.

Finally, he opened his eyes and raised his hand to his neck. The wound was gone. Blinking, he looked down at himself. So was the blood. He sat unharmed. A thrill, a shock of exhilaration ran through him. He laughed, relief flooding his soul, and at the sound of his laughter the others stirred.

“Acharsis?” Kish pushed herself up onto an arm. “What is it?”

“He’s going mad,” muttered Sisu. “Why else laugh down here?”

“It’s time to wake Jarek,” said Acharsis. “Come on. Enough lying around.”

“Wake up…? Lying around?” Kish sat all the way up. “You are mad. We’re not waking him up till he heals.”

“He’ll never heal down here,” said Acharsis. “Trust me. I know what I’m talking about. We’ll sit by his side for eternity if we don’t show him otherwise. Jarek!”

“Stop!” hissed Kish, but Acharsis ignored her. He shook his friend’s shoulder. “Jarek! I know you can hear me. Wake up.”

Jarek moaned. He turned his head from one side to the other, then scrunched up his face as pain washed through him. Acharsis waited, feeling both pity and impatience.

“Where are we?” groaned Jarek, opening his eyes at last.

“Shh,” said Kish. “You need to rest. Go back to sleep—”

“Jarek,” cut in Acharsis. “We need to get moving. Heal your wounds and get up.”

“Heal…?” Jarek laid a forearm over his eyes and grimaced. “May Alok crush your rocks in his palm, Acharsis.”

“No, I’m serious. Nahkt was mostly right. But I won’t waste your time trying to convince you. Watch this instead.”

Sisu crawled around the trunk to sit by Kish’s side. The three of them regarded him as he sat back and lifted his handless arm.

Acharsis closed his eyes. The stump was without pain, had been ever since it had healed immediately within the Maganian cube. But it was, if he was correct, a choice he was making down here. So he pictured his hand, so familiar he could almost see it, thought of how it had changed over the years, the skin on its back growing wrinkled, textured, the thick black hairs that crept up from his wrist to fade away even as they fanned up the side. The fishhook scar in his thumb. The white crescents at the base of his nails. Their color, the seams, the way his pointing finger turned inward slightly.

Nothing.

Acharsis dug deeper. He clenched the image of his hand, tried to feel the sinews in his forearm tighten. Get back here, he commanded. You’re mine.

Still nothing.

Acharsis gritted his teeth. His body was a construct. A system of patterns held together by his faith in them, a faith born from a life of inhabiting his body. He’d had his hand since birth. It was part of him, part of that system. His pattern was incomplete without it. Be yourself, he thought. Your truest self.

He focused on the beating of his heart. The exterior world faded away. The slow drumbeat drowned out the world. His body. His vitality. His essence. He felt himself warm up, felt a flood of heat wash through him, tingles following immediately thereafter.

Your truest self.

He heard Kish gasp. Opened his eyes, and saw his left hand. It emerged seamlessly from his wrist, with no sign of violence or scarification.

But more. It was the hand of his twenty-year-old self. Strong and dexterous, the fingers long and nimble.

“How…?” Sisu was leaning forward. “Is that what you looked like…?”

Acharsis reached up to touch his face. Gone were the wrinkles, the sagging skin. His nose was straighter, less swollen by age. His beard thicker. He leaped to his feet and looked down at himself. Gone was his slight paunch. His legs were muscled, and when he hiked up his shirt he saw that the hairs that snarled up to his belly were black as ebon, his torso slender and defined.

Acharsis laughed, and jumped backward onto his hands, a move he’d not done in twenty years. He balanced on his palms, then gave a hoot as he raised his left so that he balanced only on one hand, his body taking his weight with ease.

“You see?!” He grinned at the others, his thick locks falling about his face. “We are the masters of our selves down here. We are soul stuff! Only we can injure ourselves, only we can decide how we appear!”

“By Alok,” whispered Jarek, eyes so wide he looked almost comical. “But how…?”

Acharsis flipped back onto his feet and with a laugh tumbled forward to end before them in a crouch. “By the nine dead gods and the flatulence of all crapulent goats, I’ve missed this. Oh! Youth!”

“Acharsis!” Jarek levered himself up onto one elbow with a grunt of pain. “Focus, damnit! How?”

“All right. This is what our dearly twice-departed Nahkt tried to explain but was inherently unable to: everything is an illusion down here, right? Blah blah blah. But what that means is that our souls project a form whose shape is dictated by our faith in it. If you believe yourself to be fifty years old, then that is how you will appear. It’s a false ‘choice’, one that is limited by your subservience to habit. So. The way to change that, to gain control of yourself down here, is to inhabit that habit, to immerse yourself in that process of becoming.”

He paused, grinning. “I’m sorry. It’s so easy to be infuriatingly mystical about this stuff. Let me try again. Close your eyes. Now. Certain physical realities have been etched in stone since you were born. Let’s call them our base truths. Breathing. Heartbeat. So on. Those I don’t think we can change down here unless we actually die. They’re too ingrained. But the more recent changes, like our age, and especially our wounds? They are radical changes from our perceived sense of how we should be.”

Acharsis waggled his head from side to side. “It’s hard to explain. Focus on your breath. In and out. Now, use that as your foundation. Your guide to your true self. Visualize, feel who you are. Who you understand yourself to be. It’s an intrinsic truth. Being wounded is a violation of that, and if you can return to that sense of wholeness, your injuries… well. They’ll fade away.”

Acharsis watched them. Kish was frowning, Sisu biting his lower lip. Jarek pushed himself up with extreme effort so that he was sitting cross-legged, his large hands resting in his lap.

“Breathe in, breathe out.” Acharsis spoke more quietly now. “Imagine your body filled with light. Whole. Healthy. Vibrant. You. Return to that. Be that. Reject all else.”

Jarek lowered his chin, his breath slow. His fingers flexed. Time passed, and then slowly the bite marks on his cheeks began to close. Acharsis saw them disappear from his arms, and then the grisly wound in his thigh also healed over, the muscle smoothing out, even the fabric of his clothing mending itself so that soon the son of Alok sat before him uninjured.

The changes didn’t halt there. The deep lines chiseled into Jarek’s face filled out, the lines between his brows disappearing, his few gray hairs fading away. His body, already powerful, thickened with more muscle, and in a matter of moments he looked to be in his early thirties, striking, handsome, and burning with vitality.

“Alok be blessed,” whispered Jarek, his voice less gravelly and deep. He clenched his hand into a fist so that the knuckles whitened, and then looked over at Kish with a broad smile.

Kish, Acharsis noted, did not seem dismayed by the change. She was staring at him with an open look of amazement, and then suddenly she blushed furiously and sat up straighter.

“It’s fine,” grinned Acharsis. “We can all appreciate how you’d want some privacy with him. Given how good he looks, I wouldn’t mind some myself.”

Jarek climbed smoothly to his feet, smiling still, and then scooped up the Sky Hammer from where it lay by his side and hurled it straight up into the air.

“Used to be a signature move of his,” confided Acharsis to Sisu.

The hammer flew up, almost impossibly high, slowed, turned, and then dropped like a meteor. Jarek snatched it from the air just before it crashed into the ground, and laughed, a deep, rich sound of pure joy. He reached out to Kish, cupping her head, and pulled her into a deep and passionate kiss.

“Yep,” said Acharsis. “Welcome to the netherworld. Making young couples fall ever more deeply in love since the sun was torn out from the sky by a thousand screaming souls.”

Sisu also rose to his feet. “Is this… ability… to change yourself unique to Magan?”

“I don’t know,” said Acharsis. “My own faith lies with Nekuul. Will it trip me up in her realm? Constrain my ability to envision myself as I see and feel fit? Perhaps. But having experienced this, I’m hopeful that we won’t be as helpless ever again, no matter where we go.”

Jarek broke off his kiss with Kish, buried his face deep in her hair for a moment, and then turned to face Acharsis, arm around Kish’s shoulders. “So. That was a fine miracle. Now to the next. How do we reach Nekuul?”

“You don’t,” said Acharsis. “Remember? We don’t journey to Nekuul’s realm. We bring it to us.”

“How?” asked Kish, still staring up at Jarek in wonder.

“That… I’m not quite sure of.” Acharsis rubbed at his jawline. By Ekillos’ yard-long staff, it was good to be young again. He wanted to dance, to drink seventeen pitchers of wine, to laugh and sing and leap for the sheer sake of defying gravity. “Controlling our own images is intuitive; we’re deeply connected to our own sense of self. Transporting ourselves to Nekuul’s realm? There’s only one traditional way to do that.”

Sisu shook his head. “Nahkt was such a waste of time. Why’d he lead us like fools through that forest and down the cliff when there was no point in traveling anywhere?”

“I think,” said Acharsis, figuring it out even as he spoke, “that he hoped the act of travel would teach us its futility. That we would learn through experience what we divined here. And perhaps he was right. I wouldn’t have been able to make the intuitive leaps that I just did had we not first undergone all that we experienced. A pity, however, that he did not live to see his lessons finally be learned.”

“We envisioned ourselves young, and young we became,” said Jarek. It was so strange to hear his old voice once more. “Do we then just envision Nekuul’s realm?”

“Perhaps,” said Acharsis. “I don’t know. I’ve never been there, so I don’t have a good grasp of its appearance.”

“I do,” said Sisu. “I’ve dreamed of it many times. Sent too many souls to her waiting arms. Heard the deathless speak of their visions after being torn back from the land of the dead. I can take us there.”

“All right,” said Acharsis. “Confidence! I like it. Perhaps we should all hold hands?”

“Jarek can’t go,” said Kish.

“True,” said Jarek. “But perhaps I can await you all just outside her realm.”

“I don’t know what ‘just outside her realm’ looks like,” snapped Sisu.

“Then leave me here,” said Jarek. “I’ll await your return.”

“And fight off the spirits and demons all by yourself?” Kish shook her head. “No. I’ll stay with you.”

Sisu rolled his eyes. “To defend him, or…?”

Kish glared at him. Before she could retort, Acharsis stepped in. “Enough.”

“Then,” Sisu crossed his arms angrily, “how do you propose we get there?”

“Yours is the awareness, the intimacy with Nekuul. It’s in your very blood. We’ll use that. Let’s attempt the following. Everyone, sit.”

After a moment’s hesitation, they did so, facing each other in a tight square.

“Now. Sisu. Close your eyes. Focus on my voice, and my voice alone. I want you to think of the land of the dead. Envision it. Not just the images you’ve seen in murals or described by others, but what emerges from your own inner light. Focus on the beat of your heart, and allow that cadence to guide you inside. Deeper and deeper. Allow it to guide you to Nekuul’s blood. Her being is enmeshed in your own. Do you sense it? Mixed in with you like wine poured into water?”

“Yes,” said Sisu softly.

“Hold onto that. Her presence. Her power. Now. Raise it up within you. From the depths.” Acharsis hesitated. He wasn’t quite sure what he was saying, what to say next, but he couldn’t stop now. “Bring it closer. Her realm. Her power. Her essence. Envision its approach, like a bucket being pulled up from a very dark well. Rising higher, ever higher. Approaching you, growing more vivid, more clear.”

Sisu furrowed his brow with effort, and the ground beneath them rumbled. His eyes snapped open in alarm, and Acharsis flung out his hand. “No! Close! Focus!”

Sisu scrunched his eyes shut even as the trembling abated.

Acharsis leaned forward. “You were almost there. Focus on her power. Her being. Her essence. Your goddess Nekuul. Think of her land, her realm, her might. Imagine it coming ever closer.”

“Too vast,” said Sisu weakly. “It’s too much.”

“Try.”

The ground began to shiver again, the lanterns overhead swaying as the branches dipped and swung. Sisu pressed his fingers to his temples and hunched over, and the ground shook even more violently.

“Acharsis?” Kish was holding onto Jarek’s arm. “Is this working?”

A deep rumble filled the air, and they all suddenly lurched upward as the ground beneath them tore free of the black rock. The tree and perhaps five yards of rock in all directions from its base ripped free of the black plain, to sail ever higher into the void.

“Acharsis?” Sisu was staring in wonder at the tree, then the sky beyond. “What did I do?”

Acharsis laughed. “I have no idea. But whatever it is, don’t stop.”

Jarek climbed slowly to his feet, one hand on the tree’s twisted trunk. “Are we flying toward Nekuul?”

“Perhaps,” said Sisu, closing his eyes again. “I can feel her presence like a distant cloud. For a moment I almost took us into it, but then - no. So instead, I moved us toward it. It’s growing larger by the moment.”

Acharsis strained, peering into the dark. There was no point in correcting Sisu’s language. The end result was the same. But he didn’t see anything in the darkness beyond. The line of lantern-lit trees was falling away beneath them, its path extending in a different direction. They were floating out into absolute nothingness.

“Well.” He rubbed at his head furiously with both hands and then grinned. “You did it! We’re on our way. We just have to hold on tight till we ‘get’ there.”

Sisu’s smile was strangely tentative. “We did it. I did it. We’re going to do this. I can feel her realm manifesting just beyond us. We’re going to make it!”

“What was that?” Kish drew back from the edge, drawing her hammer as she did so.

“What was what?” asked Acharsis.

“Something just moved out there, close by. Something black. Massive.”

Acharsis carefully stepped around the tree to join her. “Out where?”

“There,” said Kish, and Acharsis saw it. A black-scaled coil, as wide as a cart, sliding past like a snake undulating into the depths. The gleam of lantern light on its hide caused it to appear for but a moment, and then it fell away into the void and was gone from sight.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“What is that?” asked Jarek, one hand resting on the tree trunk for balance.

“I don’t know,” said Acharsis, trying to quell the pang of terror that had flashed through him. He’d felt so confident, so assured of their victory. “Nahkt mentioned something called Chorios, did he not? The world serpent?”

“He also said his spell would help us pass it without any danger,” said Sisu. “So much for that.”

“Steady now,” said Acharsis, as much for his own benefit as theirs. “We’re still moving forward. Perhaps his spell protects us still.”

“Perhaps,” said Sisu reluctantly.

As one they peered into the void. The air was filled with a subtle hissing sound, akin to sand pouring through a large hourglass. The darkness itself seemed to tremble. Nobody spoke, but then a vast head swept before them, and Acharsis caught a glimpse of crocodilian features, fangs as long as he was tall, writhing tendrils, an eye like a pool of water and bifurcated by a depthless slit.

Then it was gone, and in its place were the endlessly flowing coils of its serpentine body, massive and rushing by, the scales blurring into each other, easily ten yards tall and completely blocking their passage.

“Around it!” said Acharsis, stepping up alongside Sisu. “Can you guide us down?”

“This is no pleasure craft on the Leonis,” snarled Sisu. “I can’t just swing a rudder and hope for wind.”

“Do something,” said Kish. They were drifting ever closer to the snake’s passing body. Acharsis ran his hands through his wonderfully thick and full hair. How massive was this world snake if it was still flowing by them at such speed?

With a lurch their small island dropped, lanterns and branches swaying wildly, and Sisu let out a cry of surprise and accomplishment both. As their only frame of reference, it looked as if the coils were rising up into the sky. Down they drifted, until Jarek let out a startled curse.

“Alok crush it, below us!”

Acharsis dropped to his knees at the edge of the island and peered down just in time to see Chorios fly past, drawing his impossible length behind and cutting off their descent.

“Stop!” cried Kish. “Stop!”

Sisu let out a shout of frustration and the island began to slow, but not quickly enough. Down they drifted, ever slower, but Acharsis saw that they’d not stop in time.

“Hold on!” he cried. “Grab onto the tree!” He lunged for the trunk just as the others did, and then they hit the serpent’s back. Immediately the island shook violently, bounced and whipped away alongside the serpent’s trajectory. The tree creaked violently, lanterns spinning about, a half-dozen flying clear off the branches altogether to fall in tangential arcs into the night below.

“Up!” screamed Acharsis, holding tight and glad for the return of his second hand. His legs lifted off the ground as their island spun and hopped violently, chunks of the black earth breaking off altogether. “Up!”

Sisu roared with supreme effort. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and as his cry grew ever more desperate the tree finally lifted back up into the air, settling down, the four of them crashing to the ground, branches and lanterns still swaying.

They’d lost about half of the island, great pieces having torn themselves away from the base of the tree, so that now they were forced to stand with their backs nearly pressed to the bark.

“What now?” asked Sisu, gasping as if he’d run a mile. “Back?”

As if in response, Chorios dove down at a diagonal behind them, and then looped overhead. Within moments they were trapped within an ever-flowing tangle of coils, escape in each direction cut off by the serpent’s massive body that seemed to flow by without end.

“What do you think, Acharsis?” Jarek’s calm helped ground his own thoughts; Acharsis took a deep breath and fought to center himself.

“I’m not sure. Sisu, can you sense Nekuul’s realm still?”

Once more Sisu closed his eyes, and then he grimaced. “Dimly. But the damn snake’s cutting me off from it. Like bars in a cage.”

“Then we’ve no choice,” said Acharsis. “Let’s try and parley.”

“Parley?” asked Jarek, eyebrow lifting.

“Of course. Excuse me.” Acharsis edged forward and then cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hello! Chorios? Chorios! I am Acharsis, son of Ekillos, god of wisdom and male sexuality, native of the River Cities and traveler through these realms. Chorios! I bid you attend me!”

The knot of flowing coils was almost complete around them; wherever Acharsis looked he saw only blurred scales, an interweaving of serpentine flesh whose complexity foiled his every attempt to even guess which part might be at the fore and which behind.

He cupped his hands to yell once more when the coils directly before him parted, and the monstrous serpent thrust its head slowly between its own gliding body. It was awesome, terrifying, a vision worthy of a god, a hallucination such as might drive a fevered man mad. Acharsis took a deep, steadying breath again and tried for a light, convivial smile.

“Hello! You heard me. I’m relieved. Chorios? The world snake? A pleasure to meet you.”

It turned its head to one side so as to regard him with one baleful eye. The vertical black slit was somehow even darker than the void in which they hung, and the great iris was marbled with a faint, necrotic blue, as if it was in and of itself a portal to the truest of netherworlds.

“You have strayed too far,” said the vast snake, its voice surprisingly intimate as if whispered from behind Acharsis’ shoulder. He saw the others jump. They must all be hearing it just as closely. “You have pushed past the boundaries, and are now in my realm. Foolish souls.”

“Well, I won’t deny that I’ve been accused of being a fool,” said Acharsis, convivial smile turning a little desperate. “And perhaps this time warrants the name. But! This straying was by design. The lamassu of Magan gave us permission to journey to the edges of this realm, and there pass over into Nekuul’s domain. So, in a way, this is all approved by the higher powers. As such, ah, could you open one of those coils there just enough for us to slide on by?”

Chorios the world snake betrayed no emotion, but continued to simply regard Acharsis with its vast eye. “When the world was birthed and the skies did steam, when the ground ran like honey and the souls of man and animal tore themselves free of Amubastis’ dream, then was I charged with my eternal task.”

“This is starting to sound like a no,” said Acharsis.

“I was set to girdle the land of night, to protect and embrace it, to press the darkness upon Amubastis’ endless light, counterpoint to her glory. This is my realm. My charge. The words of the lamassu carry no weight here. You are mine to do with as I see fit.”

“Also, ah, we had a spell cast on us by a spirit guide not too long ago. It was meant to safeguard our passage?” Acharsis gave an apologetic smile. “I can recite it if you desire? It went something like this: Oh you Great Soul, greatly majestic, behold, we have come but shall not see you; open the netherworld and afford us your protection, o Amubastis—”

Now Chorios did react, its endless coils spasming and constricting so that the space in which the tree floated suddenly grew far tighter, its uppermost branches brushing against the rushing body and causing the island to turn even as the leaves were flensed and the branches broken.

Acharsis cut off the prayer as the world snake’s eye lit up with blue flame.

“You profane that prayer,” hissed the voice in his ear. “Sacrilege. I shall consume you, and when in time I swallow the sun its rays shall shrivel you, and only then shall you know a final sleep!”

Chorios opened its maw, revealing a startling crimson tongue, massive milk-white fangs pushing forth, and fetid air blasting over them like the exhalation of a charnel pit.

Jarek stepped forward, blazing Sky Hammer in hand, arm cocked back to hurl it, but Acharsis beat him to the punch. On instinct he tore free the amulet the lamassu had gifted him so that he might help Elu through the Quickening, its white flame shining through his clenched fingers, and hurled it straight into the world snake’s gullet.

The amulet spun over and over and then disappeared down Chorios’ throat, its white fire briefly illuminating its interior before vanishing altogether. The effect was instantaneous: Chorios wailed and reared back, its tight cage of coils falling into disarray as it whipped its head from side to side.

“Fly us through!” Jarek bellowed, shaking Sisu so hard the youth’s head snapped back and forth. “Go!”

Sisu tore himself free, raked his hair back and pointed at a large gap, the tendons standing out in his neck from the sheer effort, his jaw clenched, eyes bulging.

The tree soared forward. Chorios’ coils fell about them as if the sky itself were collapsing, vast segments dropping past, each of which would have shattered them without difficulty. On they flew, faster and faster, the gap in the coils disappearing and then reappearing here and there. Sisu caused the island to veer, to duck down, and then they were sailing between two great coils. The wind was howling around them, or perhaps it was Chorios’ own keening wail, and then they were through.

“It comes!” roared Jarek, turning to point with his hammer, and Acharsis whipped around and looked up to see Chorios diving down at them, maw open to swallow them whole. Acharsis could only gape, but Jarek took up his hammer, let out a cry and pounded it upon the black rock amongst the roots.

The island jerked down half a dozen yards, and then the tree ruptured into an explosion of falling leaves, broken branches and splinters as Chorios closed its jaws upon the upper half where they’d been but moments ago. The impact sheared away the top of the trunk and sent their island spinning like a bauble across the night.

Acharsis yelled and leaped, catching hold of Jarek’s arm just before his friend flew free into the void. Eternity itself seemed to whirl around them as they fell, Kish’s screams a counterpoint to Sisu’s wail, and then green flames burst out over the remnants of the tree, a ghostly glow that faded just as quickly. They hit something hard, slid along some invisible surface and came to a stop.

Acharsis let go of Jarek’s arm and fell to his knees. He couldn’t catch his breath, and remained on all fours gasping until he realized on some level he was choosing to pant and forced himself to stop. He rose up, pulled his hair from his eyes, and gazed into the sky.

Chorios was gone. A vast and desolate emptiness was all around, devoid of wind and screams of rage.

“What happened?” he asked weakly, turning to his friends. “Where are we?”

Sisu lay on the ground between the great roots, an arm thrown over his eyes. “We’re here. I pulled us through as soon as we were free of the snake’s prison. We left it behind, I think. Over there. Nekuul’s realm.”

Acharsis turned to follow his finger and saw a second battered tree complete with four strangers at its base. It rested on a much-abused base of black rock that caused it to lean at an angle, its last lanterns finally stilling.

“That - what?” He hopped down from their island and landed in an inch of water. Startled, he hopped back, and saw that one of the distant strangers had done the same.

“That stranger over there,” he said, the other man repeating his words, “is remarkably, perhaps even stunningly, attractive.”

Kish and Jarek were whispering to each other, heads pressed together, and Sisu was showing no signs of getting up, so Acharsis crossed over to his other self, who also approached. When they were perhaps a foot apart, he stopped and examined his face. It was like seeing a ghost, a figure out of the dimmest memory. His youthful self. Unbowed by age, lithe and muscled and with the same roguish good looks that had disarmed a thousand very willing temple priestesses, servants, noblewomen, acolytes, cooks, messenger girls, royal maids, goatherds - or was that goat herdesses?

Acharsis’ smile faded away. The face was youthful, but his eyes were not. They looked out of place in that handsome visage. Liquid and mournful. The eyes of an old man who no longer believes he’ll get away with it all. Who no longer thinks that all his debts will somehow be paid by another, or forgotten altogether.

No. Not the same after all.

Without thinking, Acharsis reached out and touched polished glass. He craned his head back, but the lack of light made it impossible to gauge how high up the mirror went. With a sigh, he turned back to the others. “Nekuul’s on the other side?”

Sisu finally sat up. “Yes.”

“And how do we get through?”

With a groan Sisu lowered himself to the ground, feet splashing, and hobbled over. “I think I can just push us through. Nothing fancy.”

“Oh,” said Acharsis. “And when we’re done, will you be able to find our way back here? To Jarek?”

“I’ve no idea.” Sisu gave him a ghoulish smile. “He’d better pray I do.”

“No, you’d best pray.” Acharsis looked over to where the other two were still communing. “How long do you think I should give them? Five minutes?”

“The length of time you give them is the measure of your uncertainty over our return.”

Acharsis turned to consider the Nekuulite. “Pretty astute. All right. A little more. We don’t need to breathe down here, but my soul could use a moment to catch its metaphorical breath.”

“Old man,” said Sisu, but it was a halfhearted jibe. He stepped up to his reflection and raised his hand. Green mist swirled from his fingertips and flowed into the mirror. “Do you feel it? What lies on the other side? Nekuul be praised, but it feels amazing…”

Acharsis pursed his lips. “You’re going to remember why we’re there when we pass through, right? You’re not going to go all power crazy and disappear into the sky, carried away by some vortex of bones and screaming spirits?”

Sisu gave him a dirty look. “Part of being your own master is to not be so easily swayed from your objectives. No. I won’t forget why we’re there.”

“Good to hear,” said Acharsis. “So. What can we expect?”

“Nekuul should become immediately aware of our presence,” said Sisu. “And will probably send a vestige of herself to investigate.”

“Will that be a good thing?”

“Hard to say.” Sisu dropped his hand and the green mist faded away. “We’ll be throwing ourselves upon her mercy. Up close she will almost immediately divine our intent. The question then becomes whether she wants us to defeat her daughter or not.”

“Dicey,” said Acharsis, rubbing at his soft, richly curled and roguishly handsome goatee. “Is there any way to evade her?”

Sisu glared at his own reflection. “I’d imagine not. But the value in trying to hide is that it would signal our desire to not be found. Perhaps… perhaps there are degrees to which she’s willing to confront us. If we give her no choice, she’ll act as we expect. But the better we are at hiding, the more likely she is to let us get away with it, for we’ll be giving her a better excuse to ignore us. If she has any inclination to let us speak with the dead gods at all.”

Acharsis gave a slow nod. “Well, Jarek told me she helped him defeat Akkodaisis, even if only indirectly. And that she also granted him permission to harness the power of the dream rhino. Perhaps there’s a desire there to help us after all. The question is: how do we most effectively hide so as to give her an excuse to ignore us?”

Sisu tapped his chin. “Perhaps… I might have an idea. Remember how my mother’s deathless had their souls blocked from entering the netherworld by having their eyes filled with tar, gold, and blood?”

“Yes…”

“Perhaps I could do something along those lines, but in the reverse…” Sisu frowned at his reflection. “The Deathless are able to resist Nekuul by… yes. Though of course, we’re now actually half dead, though, in a way - in a way, being down here, we are…”

“Sisu?”

“Yes?”

“You’re not pouring boiling pitch and blood into my eyes.”

“No, of course not. But this idea of mine, it could be a metaphorical equivalent.” Sisu smiled, showing far too many teeth. “Don’t worry, Acharsis. Trust me. Isn’t that what you always say?”

“Yes,” said Acharsis, turning away. “Fine. But if this is what it feels like when I say those words, you have my permission to smack me upside the head the next time I try.”

“I’ll hold you to that order,” said Sisu.

“Jarek! Kish! It’s time! I can’t stand being with Sisu a moment longer. Come on!”

“Time to enter the real netherworld,” said Sisu as the other two climbed down from their stranded island. “And this time you will have a true guide. Aren’t you relieved?”

Acharsis turned to face his reflection. He was so close. Close to finally seeing Ekillos again after two decades of silence.

Yet all he could think of was the lamassu’s dire warning: should you lose this amulet, your demon’s vengeance will fall upon your head with terrible strength.

CHAPTER NINE

After five days of furious searching Annara’s guards found Pebekkamen in a third-rate brothel. He refused the first three official summons, and rather than have the future regent of Magan dragged bodily through the streets of the capital Annara donned circumspect clothing and descended into the slums on the outskirts of the city.

It was a fascinating experience, one whose natural dangers were ameliorated by the presence of four elite guards, and one which afforded her a refreshing change of scenery after the endless, peril-hiding splendor of the palace.

Life. Vibrant, chaotic, freewheeling life. Voices raised in shouts of anger, cries of laughter, the sing-song chants of merchants peddling their wares, the excited yells of street children, the squeals of semi-feral pigs lounging in the shade and muddiest ruts in the road, the smell of foreign spices and cooking meat, the stench of urine and the bright splash of colorful awnings, robes, and paintings on the sides of buildings.

The vastness of the palace’s open spaces gave way to a warren of side streets and twisting alleys, all of them crisscrossed by endless clotheslines from which shirts and sheets and other brightly dyed clothing hung. Dark windows afforded her glimpses into the private lives of the poor, and endless faces turned to regard her as she passed, eyes solemn, brows lowered in suspicion.

The sheer scale of the poverty was staggering. Annara had expected a fringe of poverty, but instead began to surmise that at least half the city lived barely above subsistence level. Endless little pocket markets hidden in courtyards seemed to be the site of pitched battles between hagglers and stall owners, with voices raised nearly to screams as withered fruit or stringy cuts of lean meat were purchased.

Faces were gaunt with hunger. Far too many men sat listlessly in shadowed doorways, watching her pass in the same manner the very elderly might lie in bed awaiting Nekuul. Annara wished she could converse with her guards, but only their leader spoke a little River City common, and his responses had been laconic at best; still, she preferred their company to the eunuchs from the Women’s Courtyard, any of whom would betray her at the drop of a sugared plum.

The lead guard - Raherka, a hatchet-faced warrior with a lean, sinewy figure and the prowling stride of a panther - indicated at last a final turn, and then there was the shadowed doorway beside which a host of people stood, all of them in their finest, their robes shining and faces carefully painted in the bright Maganian morning light.

Raherka grimaced, then strode forward, arms outstretched, barking orders.

The leader of the crowd was a moon-face older woman wearing an obvious wig of jet black, her robes shockingly luxurious given the slums around her, and she snapped her fingers at which two young boys in pristine white tunics leaped forth to scatter rose petals on the muck while three more set up a jaunty tune on a set of stringed mandolins and drums.

“Looks like our arrival was anticipated,” murmured Annara.

The woman bowed and refused to straighten when Raherka addressed her, until finally he returned with a scowl to Annara’s side.

“My lady, brothel owner says welcome. Many honors. Wants…” He waved his hand as he searched for the right word. “Make you happy.”

“Understandable. I’ve sent three royal couriers to her brothel in as many days. I don’t blame her for trying to seek advantage. Tell her thank you, and we might converse after I speak with Pebekkamen.”

How much of that Raherka understood she wasn’t sure, but he moved forward once more and barked a new set of orders, at which the brothel madam straightened and stepped aside, beaming and bobbing her head like an curious chicken.

Raherka nodded to his men, and two of them stepped forward to enter the brothel. A few minutes later they emerged and nodded back to their leader, who bowed in turn to Annara.

“Pebekkamen inside,” he said.

Annara lifted the hem of her plain beige robes and entered the shadowed doorway into a surprisingly pleasant lounge; thick carpets and cushions were scattered everywhere, while rose-tinted lanterns shed a soft and intimate light about the environs. A bar was set against the far wall, a half dozen stools arrayed before it, on which a sole man sat, a number of empty clay cups lined up with military precision to his right.

Pebekkamen.

Annara studied the man on whom she’d pinned the future of her son. He had the broad, large look of a once muscular man who had gone to seed. Sloping shoulders, an obvious gut, bandied legs, arms like pythons. His black hair was thinning out up top and tied into a braid at the nape of his neck which hung down between his shoulder blades in a fashion she’d not seen previously in Magan.

She approached and on instinct pulled out the stool next to him. Sat down, ignoring his sideways glance, and pulled the closest full mug over.

Sniffed.

“This smells like shitty beer,” she said, then stirred the contents with the filter straw. She could feel the thick sediment at the bottom.

“That’s because it is shitty beer,” said Pebekkamen, voice rough as if he hadn’t slept in a week and spent that time gargling razors. “It’s all Satiah will lend me on credit these days. A piss sorry state of affairs.”

“Satiah,” said Annara. “The brothel owner?”

Pebekkamen only grunted in agreement and took a long drag from his beer. Then he regarded her sidelong. “Here. You must be the new pharaoh’s mother. The one that’s been sending all those whiny massagers.”

“That’s me,” said Annara, concealing her surprise at his addressing Elu’s parentage so openly. She’d yet to actually look him in the face. Instead, she raised the rough cup and took a sip. This time she failed to mask her wince; even Acharsis would have trouble drinking this stuff.

Pebekkamen grunted. “You must be desperate as well as crazy. Sometimes those are good attributes, but not often. Now, now.”

“You understand my position well. Now, what’s it going to take you to pry you out of this brothel and into the palace?”

Pebekkamen laughed, a guttural, rasping sound. “Why should I want that? What do I gain, exchanging comfort, free beer, and the amorous arms of whomever I can afford each night for - what? Murderous eunuchs, conniving politicians, endless staff meetings, guaranteed assassination within the week -”

“Guaranteed?” At this Annara did look at the man. By Scythia’s blade he was ugly. Face broad and covered in old scars that showed pale against his tanned, leathery skin. A broad nose that looked like it had been trampled on by a herd of stampeding cows, and a left eye that gazed off somewhere to the left. The mass of scar tissue around his left temple explained why. But the one eye that was staring at her - bloodshot and half-lidded as it was - betrayed a shrewd intelligence.

Pebekkamen leaned back, the fingers of one massive hand rippling on the bar. “Guaranteed. Your signing me up for being regent was as close to a death sentence as I could hope for outside a magistrate’s court. What did you think, that Pawura and Nethena and all those other whores and whoresons would just bow their heads to ol’ Pebekkamen and follow his rule till your son got hair on his balls? Ha!” He smacked the palm of his hand down on the bar. “No! One week I’d last before I turned up dead, and then good luck picking your next regent. Pawura would slide in like a whore’s greased finger and then it would be your turn next to show up dead.”

Annara took a deep drag from the beer, not caring what it tasted like. “A fair assessment. I hadn’t thought that far.”

Pebekkamen belched under his breath. “I’d thought not. I have to applaud your staying alive this far, but with Acharsis and Jarek gone, you’re out of your depth. And now you’re intent on pulling my head underwater as you drown. Thanks, but no thanks, revered lady whatever.” He gave a wave of his hand and turned back to the bar.

Frustration welled up within her again. She’d spent her whole life raising Elu in the quiet border town of Eruk, marrying Kenu and playing the role of the dutiful wife. Damn Acharsis for dragging her back out into the wide world, for awakening her again to that dangerous, old romance they’d once had - and then dumping her here in the center of this nest of snakes.

Pebekkamen drained the beer from his cup and carefully placed it beside the others.

“You don’t seem to understand a basic condition of your situation,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “You were ordained regent before the gathered lamassu and the peerage of Magan. Right now, as you sit here, you’re the regent. It’s too late to say no.”

Pebekkamen stilled.

“So you have a choice. Wait to be killed here in a third rate brothel, or come back with me and fight to stay alive from one day to the next. There is no alternative. And to be honest? That first option isn’t really viable either. Because if you refuse to come with me now I’ll order my men to drag you by your heels all the way back to the palace, where I’ll have you locked up and fed only water and stale bread until you’re sober enough to understand the true nature of your situation. Do I make myself clear, regent Pebekkamen?”

The lieutenant commander sat completely still. Only a vein throbbed across his temple. “If I’m to die within a few days’ time, I’d rather do it between the legs of a cheap whore then in some great marble chamber surrounded by whoresons. And if you ask your men to arrest me? I’ll kill them until you’ve either none left or they’re forced to kill me in turn.”

Annara wanted to throw her hands up in anger. Yet restraint, that iron self-control that seemed her only asset these days, kept her as still as the large man. “What happened to you? Acharsis saw a spark of something he liked. He’s never wrong about seeing quality in a man. What broke you so that you’d rather wallow here instead of daring to make a difference?”

Pebekkamen laughed and pulled the next cup of beer closer. “You ain’t getting my sob story that easy, lady.”

“You have the look of a fighting man, but outside they call you a coward. You’re a lieutenant commander, but refuse to do your duty. What broke you?”

He snarled and turned away from her. “Leave me alone.”

Annara took up a cup of beer and flung it at his head. It bounced of his skull, drenching his hair. “Look at me when I speak to you!”

Pebekkamen rose to his feet with an iron control of his own, jaw clenched, and turned to face her. “Don’t waste my beer.”

Annara picked up two more cups and flung them at him. “There! Lap it off the ground like a dog, then!”

“Don’t you dare -”

With a cry Annara swept her arm across the bar, sending the remaining cups tumbling to the ground. “Dare?” She stepped over the broken shards of clay and right into his face. “Don’t I dare? That’s all I’ve got left, you drunken excuse for a man! Day in and day out I’m fighting desperately to keep my son alive, to keep this empire afloat, to mobilize an army to defeat the undead hordes of Irella, and you tell me not to dare? I’ve been out maneuvered and cornered and forced in desperation to depend on you, and now I realize that I’d have had better luck raising a pig to the rank of regent; now I understand why everybody laughed and smirked in relief when I said your name; only now do I understand how stupid I was to put my trust in a broken coward who pretends to be a world-weary cynic whose too wise for the world when in truth he’s little more than a pathetic excuse for a coward! So yes, I dare. And what of you, Pebekkamen?”

His great face had gone pale, his eyes wide, and his whole frame shivered with repressed emotion as he glared down at her.

Raherka and his men stepped in closer, and out of the corner of her eye Annara could see them half draw their blades.

“Pah,” she said, and shook her head. “Raherka, let’s go. Let’s see what we can do about finding another regent before we’re all killed.”

“Yes, my lady,” said Raherka, not relaxing his grip on his blade.

Annara walked away from the lieutenant commander, the soles of her sandals crunching on claw, and had reached the door when a hoarse voice stopped her short.

“Wait.”

She stared out at the sunlit alley in which the crowd of well wishers and whores awaited her, but didn’t turn.

“Wait,” said Pebekkamen again, voice heavy, and then she heard the protesting groan of the stool as he sat back down. “Fine. I’ll come. I’ll come play at being your regent until they cut my throat.”

Annara allowed herself to close her eyes in relief for but a moment before turning to walk back to the bar. She studied the large man’s profile as he drew lines in the spilt beer upon the bar, and finally managed a jerky nod of her head.

“Thank you.”

“I’d say you’re welcome but that would be a lie. Sit down.”

Annara did as she was commanded, nodding to Raherka so that he stepped back to resume his post.

For a few moments they simply sat in silence, each without the benefit of a cup of beer with which to sip on or toy with, so that they could only stare at their own hands.

“There has to be a way to defeat Nethena and Pawura,” said Annara. “Can you abdicate as regent and declare Senacherib fit to rule alone?”

“I could abdicate, but any commands I issued before doing so would be overturned by Pawura the moment he declared himself my replacement.”

“Can you order Pawura away?” Annara pursed her lips as she recalled Elu asking her the very same question but a week ago.

“I could, but that would only force him to stage a coup as he led his chariotry against Senacherib. I don’t command a fifth of the loyalty in the military that he does. We’d be easily overrun.”

“Could we have him killed?”

Pebekkamen glanced sidelong at her. “I was wondering when you’d ask that. Of course. It would be difficult, but we could probably see it done. But Nethena would simply find herself a new general to manipulate.”

“But it could buy us time.”

“At great cost. There are four generals leading the Maganian military at this time. Pawura leads the chariots, which are our most elite force. His death would be a major loss, and require the promotion of a new general before the chariots could be mobilized for war once more. Didn’t you say an army of the undead was about to attack out eastern flank through the Desert of Bones?”

“Yes,” said Annara, shoulders slumping.

“Then killing him would be akin to cutting off our nose to spite our face. We’d keep Senacherib on the throne for a month longer but dramatically increase the odds of losing the war with Irella.”

“What about Nethena? Can we move against her?”

Pebekkamen laughed. “Against the Queen Mother? Even I wouldn’t dare strike down a woman of divine blood.”

“Divine how? Is she descended from a god?”

“She was the wife of the previous pharaoh. That union conferred his divinity upon her. I may be a wretched alcoholic and lowly excuse of a man, but I won’t raise a hand against divinity.”

“But so is Senacherib,” Annara protested. “How are people willing to oppose him?”

“He isn’t divinity yet. He was never fully made pharaoh, though he earned the right by passing the Quickening.”

“So if he became in some way fully divine, then Maganians would cease to struggle against him?”

Pebekkamen shrugged. “Yes, but you’re playing with paradoxes now. He can’t be fully divine until he’s made pharaoh, and he can only bypass the need for a regent by becoming divine. Therefore he has to wait.”

“What of these Kusuji? They didn’t pass the Quickening. How were they made pharaohs?”

Pebekkamen turned and spat on the floor. “That’s what I think of the Kusuji, damned be their memory. Usurpers from the south. They never attempted the Quickening because they knew they would fail. No. You cannot look to their example if you want to inspire Magan.”

“But they ruled for over a century, didn’t they? Did they conquer Magan?”

“Yes,” said Pebekkamen, but with obvious reluctance. “Three centuries ago Magan was on the verge of collapse. They were originally part of our empire, but split away during that time of weakness. A century later, they came roaring back and conquered us, styling themselves as the true heirs of the ancient empire. The lamassu of course did nothing; we true Maganians labored under their cruel rule for a century before driving them back south.”

“So they’re still there?”

“We have as of yet to crush them, yes.”

“But they ruled Magan and were accepted as pharaohs without becoming divine?”

Pebekkamen sighed. “No, in their own way they achieved divinity. It was heretical and foul, but it could not be denied. Their pharaohs never underwent the Quickening, but instead had their own trial they claimed stemmed from the furthest reaches of Magan’s own history and which only they’d safeguarded. Upon passing their trial, the lamassu themselves would recognize them as divine beings, and thus - well. We Maganians place a lot of stock on divinity, even if we hate the vessel that bares such sacred waters.”

Annara rubbed at her chin. “And Nethena is deemed divine.”

“Yes.”

“But her divinity has not been conferred to Senacherib.”

“No, because he’s obviously not her son.”

Annara raised an eyebrow. “It’s a treasonous offense to say such a thing.”

“True.” Pebekkamen shrugged. “But do I look like I give a shit? Everybody knows he’s your child. We all applaud your cunning in installing him on the throne, and his passing the Quickening solidified his right to rule. But no. The people do not believe him divine as of yet, and Nethena’s divinity does not flow through to him in their eyes.”

“But if I were to become divine?”

Pebekkamen gave a wry grin. “Then suddenly everybody would acknowledge that Nethena’s divinity flowed into Senacherib, and had done so all along.”

Annara nodded her head slowly as she tapped the bar with her fingers. “So all I have to do is journey to Kusuji, pass their trial, and return in time to have Senacherib’s divinity confirmed and our armies sent to battle Irella.”

Pebekkamen’s snort was like that of a bull. “Ha! Yes. Indeed. What a brilliant plan. Instead of being murdered in our beds in the palace, lets be killed while riding camels further into the mountains and desert by pagan savages who’ll no doubt flay us and feed us our privates for dinner. Brilliant.”

Annara ignored him. “The palace is as dangerous to us as any enemy nation. I must learn more about them, about their trial and their current status. I bear them no grudges like you and everyone else does. Senacherib would be willing to deal with them fairly and put the past behind us. Perhaps there is a way.”

“No, Annara. You’d have better luck pulling a bull’s scrotum out of its mouth. You’re talking madness.”

“Do you have a better plan?”

Pebekkamen scowled down at his scarred hands. “Be killed in bed with forty five women?”

Annara stood up. “Then for now we’ll pursue this line of inquiry. Whom can I speak with that would be knowledgeable of the Kusuji?”

Pebekkamen groaned and rubbed his hands over his head. “Why must I be tormented so? The scribes, the scribes of course. Neferhotep is the royal scribe, and guardian of all history and knowledge. He could probably talk your ear off about all this.”

“Good. Then let’s head straight there. We’ve precious hours to go before Nethena and Pawura move to kill us both.”

“And you want to spend them in the company of scribes?”

Annara’s grin was as cold and merciless as that of a crocodile. “I’d be willing to spend my next few hours inside a heap of manure if it got me any closer to saving my son’s life.” Ah, but it felt damn good to say those words out loud at last. “Now quit your moaning and follow me. Chin up. You’re the damn regent of Magan, and whether you like it or not you’re going to help me save this empire, even if it means handing it over to Magan’s most ancient enemies.”

CHAPTER TEN

Sisu reached out and placed his palm against the mirror. Acharsis watched as the Nekuulite took a deep, shuddering breath, then pushed against his own hand, which disappeared and for an eerie moment left him looking like he was connected by the wrist to his reflection. Sisu gasped, stepped forward, and then turned back to them as he sank further in.

“Hurry. I’m weakening the gauntlet. Cross through with me, now!”

Jarek’s hand clapped down on Acharsis’ shoulder and squeezed. “Good luck, old friend.”

“And to you. Don’t get too bored out here.” And with that, he stepped after Sisu, leaving Kish to say her goodbyes.

His reflection loomed large, immodestly handsome, and then Acharsis placed his fingertips against the glass and found it warm and soft like bathwater. He pushed forward and took a sharp breath moments before plunging his head in. A final step, and he was through.

And into Nekuul’s netherworld.

A frigid wind whipped past him, particulate with ashes, and lashing at his face and frame as if seeking to scour the skin from his muscles. Its howl was vindictive, like a lover scorned who has found their former mate bound and helpless at their mercy. Acharsis immediately hunched his shoulders and threw an arm up to cover his eyes, but even through his fingers he could make out the delightful land into which they’d stepped.

The sky churned as if furious, a cloudscape of dark purples and crimsons that were shot through with frequent flashes of lightning. The ground was a wasteland of ash and bone, the occasional jagged boulder rearing itself out of the land as if for a final gasp of air before succumbing and sinking out of sight. Hills of bone were piled up around them with altars at their apex upon which robed figures worshipped, spears of bright purple light hovering in the air about them.

The air smelled of smoke and old blood and rotting funeral shrouds. Eyes stinging, Acharsis stumbled over to where Sisu stood with his shoulders thrust back, chin raised, eyes burning with green fire.

“Oh, glory,” said Sisu, raising his hand to examine the green fire that suddenly limned it. “Had I thought I lived before this? Had I thought myself powerful?”

“Steady, steady,” said Acharsis, shouting into the crook of his elbow. “You’re not dead yet. Quick! Our disguise!”

Kish staggered up beside them, bent over and with her hands clapped over her mouth and nose. At her approach, Sisu gave a firm nod and extended his hands into the air.

“By dying light and the last murmur, by the bones the crumble underfoot as I make my way to the unhewn throne, by laughter quenched and hearts grown still, by the royal blood that burns through my veins, give yourselves unto me.”

He reached out to each of them and green mist burst forth from his palms, refreshingly cool at first but quickly enervating. Acharsis stepped back as he felt his skin grow numb, the cold fading away to be replaced by a nullity that alarmed him all the more.

It got worse. Looking at his palms, Acharsis saw the skin grow pale and waxen then split, revealing tendons and gray muscle beneath. His whole body was withering, his hair falling from his scalp, his teeth loosening and then dropping from his gums as they receded. Muscle wasted away, his clothing grew somber and torn, and in moments he was completely transformed.

“What have you done?” Kish’s voice was hollow, and Acharsis recoiled from the sight of her. She looked a dozen years dead, her eyes milky white and sunken, her bones protruding through her skin, garbed in a funeral shroud and horrific to look upon.

“Disguised you, as promised,” said Sisu. “Don’t worry, it’s not permanent. But now you can walk amongst the denizens of the netherworld without drawing attention.”

Acharsis looked down at his own skeletal hands and shook his head. “From golden youth to unhallowed old age. A tragedy. Still, if you think it best…”

“I do.” Sisu spoke with new confidence. “And we’d best hurry. Nekuul might choose to ignore us for awhile longer, but not if we just stand around idly. Come. I can sense where the dead gods lie.”

“Why doesn’t he have to take on the appearance of a corpse?” asked Kish as she fell in stride with Acharsis. “Doesn’t seem fair.”

“Vanity, I suppose,” said Acharsis. “That, or being the grandson of Nekuul and not needing to.”

But he hardly paid attention to the words, didn’t even hear Kish’s response. He was walking through the netherworld. His netherworld, toward his dead father. His heart pounded within his exposed ribcage, and he felt light headed and nauseous. What if his conjectures were wrong? What if they’d be unable to communicate with Ekillos? Would all of this have been for nothing?

They rounded a hill of bone and ash and saw a river of the dead flowing past. Acharsis stumbled to a stop and drank in the sight, horrified and fascinated. Thousands upon thousands marched here, extending toward the gloomy horizon in each direction, heads bowed, shoulders hunched, clad in rags and looking little better than he and Kish. Had so many been found unworthy? He grimaced as he forced himself to swallow, then followed after Sisu who hadn’t stopped.

Despite himself, Acharsis couldn’t help but think on the Maganian netherworld, with its ethereal forests, emerald grass and that golden light glowing forth from Amubastis. It seemed idyllic in comparison, but also wrong; staring at this ruinous landscape with its blasted dead, Acharsis felt a reaffirmation of his purpose: he would strive to do his utmost during this life, because it was living that was most precious; had the beautiful netherworld of Magan been his ultimate destination, it might have lulled him into a fatalistic sense of complacency. But no. Seeing this horrific world to which he would one day descend made him appreciate being alive all the more. He would not falter, he would not cavil. He would drink deep of life’s waters while he had them, and then rest for eternity down here knowing that he had drunk his fill.

Sisu’s path led them around countless hills, feet crunching on bone. Acharsis saw one wonder after the next: a dream rhino forging a path in the distance, surrounded by a corona of boiling purple fumes. A giant skeleton crawling by on all fours, dragging behind it hundreds of chains that were affixed to the heels of howling souls. A pit of flexing bone spikes from which souls fought to climb free, and once, just once as they crested a rise, the distant city of Eternity where the souls of worth sat in their clay houses, contemplating their deeds and awaiting the end of the world.

“There!” cried Sisu, pitching his voice to be heard over the wind. “There!”

Acharsis’ dead eyes needed no shielding from the stinging dust, but still habit made him visor them with the flat of his hand as he peered ahead into the shifting gloom. A long, low hill lay before them, oddly shaped, and then with a start he realized what it was.

A vast body, half submerged in the ash.

Ekillos.

His fallen father.

With a cry Acharsis ran forward, staggering on the uneven ground, and then just as suddenly stopped, unsure. Ekillos lay on his back, his entire form the length of Rekkidu, so massive that if he had stood on the Golden Steppes his head would have disappeared into the clouds. His skin was the same color as the ash, his hair a filthy gray, his beard matted with dirt and spilling down over his sides like endless cobwebs.

His lifeless face stared straight up, his open eyes covered in a film of ash.

“Father?” It hurt to choke up that word. There was no response. No part of the god moved. He’d clearly not moved in a very long time: walking around his huge head, Acharsis saw that ashes had accumulated on the god’s far side, rising up like a ramp to his chest, submerging his right arm altogether.

He was in the process of being buried.

Acharsis turned to Sisu. “Can you wake him?”

Sisu shook his head slowly. “This is far beyond me. I can’t even sense anything there. It’s as if he were carved from stone.”

Pain constricted Acharsis’ heart. As he walked back around he tripped, only to realize that he’d been walking on his father’s hair, a fibrous mat that was buried under the ash.

With a sob, he rose and ran to the far side, up to his father’s great ear. It was as large as a pair of city gates. He walked right up to it and peered into its cavernous whorls. “Father?”

He cupped his hands together, heart pounding, and screamed, “FATHER?!”

The wind stole away the echoes, howling about him, flinging ashes over his father’s body so that they rained down upon him like snow in the Khartis foothills.

Acharsis stepped back. Nothing. No response. Not even a shiver.

He thought then of Ekillos as he had known him. That wise, amused visage that hung in the golden flames of the ziggurat’s temple, tolerant of Acharsis’ excesses, at once unfathomable and amused by filthy jokes. Male sexuality and knowledge. Most of his people had thought that his father, being gifted with all knowledge, would be remote and cold, aloof and humorless. Instead, it had always seemed to Acharsis that complete knowledge had made his father kind, given him compassion and patience for the humans who fought and squabbled and vied for his favor.

Now he lay dead. Little more than a geographical feature in the landscape of the netherworld.

When Alok had healed Acharsis, atop Rekkidu’s ziggurat, the god of stone had said that Ekillos lay overthrown but still thought of his son. That for as long as Acharsis lived, there was hope of his return. Gazing up at his dead father, Acharsis felt hot tears spill over his ruined cheeks. Had he taken too long? Had Ekillos died in truth while Acharsis had journeyed to Magan?

“Something’s coming,” called Sisu. “We have to leave.”

Acharsis turned back to him. “Nekuul?”

“No. Not Nekuul. I can’t tell what it is, but it’s coming fast, and it’s furious.”

Acharsis felt his blood run cold. His demon.

“Acharsis?” Even hollowed out by her fake undeath, Acharsis could hear the tension and fear in Kish’s voice. “If you’re going to wake Ekillos, you have to do it now.”

Acharsis looked at his father’s regal profile. It was the ash in the god’s eyes that killed his hope. So what now? Return to Jarek, fight their way past Chorios, journey back to Amubastis, and await the lamassu when next it ferried the souls of the dead to the netherworld so as to beg a return flight?

“No,” hissed Acharsis through his clenched teeth. “No. It can’t end like this.”

“We have to hurry!” Sisu’s voice was sharp with fear.

“No!” Acharsis climbed up the flowing hair to stand atop his father’s head and pounded his fist into his temple. “Wake up! Wake up!”

No response. Tears flowing freely now, heart breaking, he smashed his skeletal hands into the dusty skin, hammering them over and over again in rage and impotence. He’d gambled and lost. Had wagered everything on this one epic voyage, and been undone by what he’d known all along: his father was dead.

With a cry he brought both fists down in a hammer blow. The skin that stretched over his father’s temple cracked and fell inward.

Acharsis gasped and recoiled in horror, losing his balance and falling onto his rear. He nearly slid down the bank of his father’s head, but grabbed hold and climbed back up, eyes wide. He’d opened a small hole in his father’s temple, and from that hole came a faint golden glow.

“Kish! Get up here!”

Kish scrambled up, and upon seeing the hole drew her hammer. “You sure?”

“It’s here!” cried Sisu, leaping up with one powerful bound to join them. “I’ll try to hold it off—”

“I’m sure,” said Acharsis. “Open a way through!”

Kish swung her hammer down with a forceful shout, and its head sunk into the dead god’s temple and burst back out a foot below, carrying with it a mass of crumbly gray rock. Acharsis reached in to grab at the edges of the skin and pull away large chunks even as Kish swung again and again. In a matter of moments they’d opened up an entrance just large enough for them to squirm in through, which Acharsis promptly did.

Diving forward, he fought his way through and tumbled to the ground on the other side. He rolled away to make room for Kish, then stood and helped haul Sisu in as well.

The three of them faced the hole in the yellow wall, staring at the shifting darkness without, waiting to see if the demon would follow.

“Visitors,” said a reedy voice from behind them. “An unexpected diversion from the tedium of eternity. Welcome, welcome.”

Acharsis turned and saw that the entirety of the dead god’s skull was hollowed out and furnished in much the same manner as an old library. The walls were honeycombed with shelving for scrolls, of which there seemed to be thousands, while floating orbs shone with a golden glow that softened the shadows and caused the wooden furniture to gleam. A massive chair that was nearly engulfed by pillows and blankets was set in the far corner, and in it sat an old, wizened man, so stooped that he looked no larger than a child, his features wrinkled near past recognition, his bald pate shining, his chin and nose curving up to meet each other. He wore the simple white tunic of a scribe, but despite the changes Acharsis recognized him still.

“Father,” said Acharsis, stepping forward and dropping to his knees.

Ekillos set his scroll on a side table and leaned forward, peering at Acharsis with new focus. “Acharsis?” The god’s brows quirked. “You’re looking ill.”

“Ill?” Acharsis looked at his skeletal hands, the torn, waxen skin, and laughed. “I suppose I am, for all that.” He wanted to continue the flow of conversation, say something witty, but he found he could only stare at the little man and think, this is Ekillos. This is my father. This is my god.

“Let us clear away these illusions,” said Ekillos, and waved his hand. Acharsis’ deathly appearance fell away like mist before the sun. “Who else have you brought? You must be Kishtar,” said Ekillos, blinking and looking up. “Six steps from Scythia, I see. And what have we here? Sisuthros. Grandson of Nekuul herself. Not come to gloat, I hope. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

“Father,” said Acharsis. “Much has changed in the land of the living since you died.”

“Yes,” said Ekillos. “I imagine it has. Such is the way of the world.”

“Irella, daughter of Nekuul, rules the River Cities with her dead. She killed and revived all the demigods but for Jarek and myself, and they now rule their respective cities in her name. But that hasn’t been enough. A few months ago, she gathered and sent an army of the dead across the Desert of Bones to strike at Magan from the rear. My friends and I journeyed across the Golden Steppes to warn them, with the end result that my son now sits as the pharaoh of Magan, and is leading his armies to destroy the invaders.”

“Is that so?” Ekillos’ eyes shone as he leaned forward. “My grandson rules Magan? My, but what a marvel. The lamassu truly are queer creatures, are they not? Fascinating. I haven’t spoken with Amubastis since we all left the garden, but I always did admire her and her children for their open-mindedness.”

“Ah, yes,” said Acharsis. There was nowhere for him to sit, so he simply linked his hands behind his back. “We journeyed through the Maganian netherworld to reach you here to ask for help. Father, help us defeat Irella. I want to topple her from the throne and revive the faiths in the nine dead gods so that you can return to the land of the living and be worshipped as is your right.”

Ekillos leaned back in his reading chair. “Return to the land of the living? An unlikely prospect, my son. But… you do seem to have your heart set on it. Crossed the Maganian netherworld, did you? Impressive. Very well. How can I be of help?”

Acharsis fought back despair. His father was so greatly reduced. He appeared almost mortal, his mind as diminished as his frame. Gone was the overpowering sense of mastery, the easy authority that brooked no denial, the warmth that came from comprehending the vastness of the world and all its depths.

“We need to defeat Irella without destroying our cities in the process. But she is all powerful. Any attempt at an attack or assassination would surely fail. How can we remove her from the throne without using an army?”

“Remove Irella from the throne…” said Ekillos, tapping a wizened digit to his lips. “An interesting quandary. Let me think on it. You there, Kishtar, yes. Fetch me that scroll over there. No, to the left, from the pigeonhole lined with gold. That’s the one, thank you.”

The scroll in question looked more like a rolled-up carpet than anything else, its fabric of woven blue and crimson, golden tassels swinging from the end.

“Now, let us open this here…” Ekillos’ side table edged before him then stretched out so he could set the scroll on its surface. “Let’s see if I have the right one. My memory fails me, don’t you know. It’s all gone from my head to these scrolls. Worse yet, I find that there are many of them I can no longer comprehend. A pity. Still, ‘tis the way of things. Now.”

He unfurled the scroll on the table, and Acharsis caught his breath at the beauty of the artwork contained therein. Wherever he looked his eye seemed to dive into detail, pulling him into the patterns and minutiae so that he quickly felt lost, drowning in the blue and gold, the red and white. He gazed upon a rectangular pattern that edged the scroll, and it was as if he fell into it, diving down into an ocean between two reefs, falling ever deeper into the pattern.

With effort he tore his eyes free and looked instead at a curious beast, something that might have been a boar or a hyena. His very gaze brought it to life, so that it grew to fill his mind, turning to look at him, the crimson spirals that were its eyes beginning to revolve as its mouth opened to reveal triangular teeth and a vividly red tongue.

“Herein is contained a fragment of my foresight,” said Ekillos, tapping his lips as he studied the patterns. “Once, I knew all that transpired across our empire, and from that omniscience was able to extrapolate the probabilities of the future. No longer, alas. But this fragment yet charts the vagaries of the world. Let us see, let us see. Oh. Interesting.”

“Interesting?” asked Acharsis, resisting the urge to lose himself in the magic contained within the artifact. “What is?”

Ekillos traced a whirling pattern in one corner of the scroll, a dark spiral that seemed to throb as if alive. “It seems Irella is not content with her lot. Even as she moves to conquer the known world, she prepares to enact a most potent and terrible ritual.” Ekillos leaned down as if reading minute text, and then sat back with a sigh. “Ambitious, that girl. You have to give her that much.”

Acharsis fought for patience. “A ritual, father? To what end?”

“To open a permanent portal to this realm of Nekuul,” said Ekillos. “One through which the living and dead may freely pass.”

Sisu clapped his hand to his brow. “What? That’s impossible. Nekuul would never allow… would she?”

Ekillos gave a shrug even as he grinned. “Oh, she might, she might. If the ritual were powerful enough, that is. And Irella does seem to have amassed a rather unseemly amount of might since I fell from grace. But still. Such a deed would require absurd amounts of power to fuel it.” He frowned and hunched down again, studying the scroll. “So how…? Ah! See here? These fifty glowing golden stars?”

Acharsis chanced a glance down and saw them, brilliant dots floating about the spiral, each so bright it burned an impression in his gaze. They began to rise up out of the scroll like some unearthly constellation, and he quickly averted his eyes. “Yes. What do they represent?”

“Sacrifice,” said Ekillos. “Each star is a godsblooded mortal. If that were the case, then yes, I could see it being feasible. That much power harvested in one fell swoop - impressive.”

Acharsis felt his knees go weak and fell into a crouch, hands cupped before his mouth as he stared out into the middle distance.

His father continued. “See here? Wait, perhaps it is best you don’t look too closely. In the center of each star is a fleck of darkness. A crystal carved from the heart of Nekuul’s realm. Receptacles in which Irella’s blood shall be poured, and then placed over the breast of each godsblood. At the culmination of the ritual, their power will be torn from their souls and refracted through the crystals. The divinity in Irella’s blood shall direct that power to Nekuul, and allow her to tear open the portal.”

“Jarek was supposed to be transported to Irella when he was caught in Rekkidu, remember?” He turned to Kish and Sisu. “Akkodaisis defied her by keeping him for himself. She must have been gathering the godsbloods all this time. Collecting them for just this ritual.”

Kish gave a quick shake of her head. “But what would that mean? For a permanent portal to open to the land of the dead? For the living? For the world?”

“Well, a good question,” said Ekillos, sinking back into his chair. “Off the top of my head I’d guess it would place the legions of the dead at her disposal. It would saturate the River Cities with Nekuul’s energies, though to what effect I cannot guess. Irella would grow greatly in power. I would wager that she’d become unstoppable, and would soon easily conquer all of the civilized world.”

“We have to stop her,” said Acharsis. “Now more than ever.” He paused. “But how?”

“Assassination?” asked Kish.

“She’s too powerful,” said Sisu in a low voice. “Even now, just as she is. Even if you could get to her, get past all her undead bodyguards and magical defenses, I doubt a mere stab to the heart or cut throat would stop her. She’d heal as quickly as you wounded her.”

“I don’t know,” said Kish. “Jarek can lay on the hurt.”

“There has to be a way,” said Acharsis, trying to sound certain. “Father?”

“Well, look here,” said Ekillos, and it was as if he took hold of Acharsis’ focus with an invisible hand and guided it across the scroll to a beautiful grove hidden high atop a mountain, clutched within a narrow valley.

“Yes, here it is,” said Ekillos, leaning forward. “Ah, the memories are coming back to me. Such vital times. Before humanity, even. When all the gods resided together in the Garden of Paradise, high in the God’s Mountain.”

Sisu stepped to the table’s edge. “The Garden of Paradise? I’ve never heard of it.”

“No, it’s something we all agreed to keep secret,” said Ekillos, looking down his nose at the stunning artwork. “Though now I can’t quite remember why.”

Acharsis found his mind being pulled amongst the trees, whose branches began to coil and cut off his sight of the sky, the walls of the valley reaching up to entomb him. With effort, he closed his eyes and the vividly illustrated details faded away. “Why do you show us this, Father?”

“The Garden of Paradise is where we gods awoke. I say awoke, because it’s the most neutral term I can think of; each pantheon has its own interpretation of that seminal event. Seminal. Ha! Regardless. In this garden we lived in bliss, before time, before life. We mingled and were coequals. We ate of the fruit and made love, divided ourselves and mingled our essences into infinite combinations of divinity. But in time we created a grave mistake, and chose to leave the Garden with only one of our number remaining to guard it. It exists there still, high above the clouds. It is there that you must go.”

“I… ah… to the peak of the God’s Mountain?” asked Acharsis, throat threatening to close. “That’s… that’s quite the task.”

“Oh, you can emerge from the netherworld atop the mountain, if that’s what’s bothering you,” said Ekillos with a wry smile. “No need to trek there and climb its slopes. But once you do, you shall face a great set of gates that block the valley that leads to the garden. It shall be guarded by… let’s see here - ah yes! By two scorpion centaurs whose javelins bleed light and darkness. You’ll have to convince them to let you past, and into the valley of demons. That’s where we bottled up all our reflections after realizing our mistake. Through that valley to the gates of paradise, and there you shall have to convince Sumala to let you take a rotten apple from one of the trees. She should then be able to transport you back to the River Cities, where all you need do is trick Irella into eating the apple, and your dream will be accomplished.”

Acharsis nodded slowly, overwhelmed by the array of tasks before them. “That sounds… daunting. And why must we feed her a rotten apple?”

“The trees of paradise bear wondrous fruit. These fruits were what fulfilled our divine natures,” said Ekillos. “But of late they have begun to rot. I forget why. It’s probably in a scroll here somewhere. But eating of a rotten fruit reverses one’s apotheosis; it strips you of your divinity. Were Irella to eat such an apple, she would become a normal woman, without any powers whatsoever.”

A thrill coursed through Acharsis. “Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll emerge atop the God’s Mountain, pass the scorpion centaurs, sneak through the valley of demons, break into the Garden of Paradise, convince Sumala to give us a rotten apple, send us back to Irella and trick her into eating it…” The enormity of their task made his eyes glaze over. “That sounds easy.”

“I wouldn’t say easy, precisely, but eminently doable. You are, after all, my son.”

“There’s another problem,” said Sisu, sounding dazed as he tore his gaze away from the scroll. He blinked rapidly, coming back to his senses. “Acharsis is pursued by a demon. It’s just outside.”

Ekillos pursed his lips as he studied Acharsis once more, then waved his hand. A spiderweb of threads appeared, with Acharsis at its center. A host of gold and white threads extended out from his heart and up through the roof of the library. One thread, however, as thick as his wrist and pulsing like a black umbilical cord, led straight through the hole they’d made in the wall and out into the netherworld.

“Acharsis,” whispered Ekillos. “What have you done?”

“It was a moment of desperation,” said Acharsis, unable to meet his father’s eye. “I’ve had almost two decades in which to regret it. Trust me. Everything that could be said, I’ve said to myself a thousand times over.”

“Hmm,” said Ekillos. “Were I my former self, this would prove no difficulty. But given my limitations… let me see.” He tapped his lips, eyes narrowed in thought.

Acharsis didn’t even dare breathe. He waited, feeling as if his very soul were in the balance. Was there a chance his father could rescue him from his greatest folly?

“Perhaps… yes. Let us face this unpleasantness head-on.”

Ekillos made a motion with his finger and the sumptuous scroll rolled up and floated across the air to slide into its compartment. He then rolled up his sleeves, revealing sinewy arms that were spotted and heavily wrinkled, and took hold of the black line that emerged from Acharsis’ chest.

The sensation was uniquely discomforting. It felt as if his breath were being sucked right out of his lungs, as if he had knocked the funny bone of his elbow, but then had that sensation distributed across his entire body. His vision blurred, and he had to fight to not yank himself away from Ekillos. Instead, he grimaced and stood still.

“Now, come to me,” he heard his father say. Acharsis felt his soul tremble as it was jerked and pulled, and he saw Ekillos hauling at the black cord as a fisherman might reel in a line.

Something hideous appeared at the hole in the wall. It was different from the dancing demon he had seen before. Now it appeared more a raging shadow, a conflagration of black flames with two blazing eyes in its core. It fought Ekillos as best it could, but with calm tenacity the dead god hauled the demon into his head, smiling quietly while the demon shrieked and spat and fought.

Then, suddenly, it was inside with them, filling the back wall with darkness, rising up like a wave about to crest and fall upon them. Ekillos released his grip on the black cord, which faded away, and Acharsis gasped as he came back to himself, his confusion and disorientation replaced by sublime horror as he stared at his demon.

It was inchoate, flowing from form to form, hints of the emaciated demon appearing and then replaced by tornados of black wind, then mutilated animals, bloated men and women, piles of maggots - it continued to change, overwhelming Acharsis with the sheer speed and intensity of its images until Ekillos snapped his fingers.

“Enough of that. It’s your fault for letting emotion cloud your judgement. You should never have come this close to a god, even if he is dead. Especially when he’s the father of the one you seek to bedevil.”

The fluctuating images slowed then disappeared, leaving behind only a formless cloud with two crimson eyes.

“Now,” said Ekillos. “Let us take a look at these bindings.” The dead god returned to his chair and hopped back up onto the cushions, then leaned forward, chin in hand, and studied the air.

“It was meant to be a singular binding,” said Acharsis hesitantly. “I thought—”

“Hush, hush,” said Ekillos. “Recall whom you address.”

Right, thought Acharsis. He stared at the demon. How he had loathed its appearance all these long years. Lived in fear of its curses. He’d had endless nightmares about it at first, to the point where the threat of its manifestation had been almost as onerous as its actual appearances. Now here it stood - well, hovered - visible and trapped. Could Ekillos rid him of it? Free him of his madness? Wild hope grew within Acharsis, and he glanced sidelong at his father, not daring to interrupt his study, holding completely still all the while.

Finally, Ekillos sighed. “Alas. In this diminished state I can’t undo the bonds you willingly tied without doing great damage to you and your soul. Too much time has passed.”

Acharsis exhaled, shoulders slumping. “I understand. It’s my burden to bear. I—”

“But,” said Ekillos, “There are other options. It desired to be by your side, did it not? To haunt your days till you died? We can accommodate it.”

“I - what?” Acharsis raised his hands in protest. “Accommodate it?”

“It looks like it corrupted your bargain. Undid your treaty even as you sought to solidify your bond. I can reach here… and here… and push elements back into place. Like so. And add, perhaps, a few more provisions. Ensuring that it does no harm to you and yours… yes. And that it takes a figure pleasing to the eye. No sense in traveling with a mound of maggots.”

Ekillos plucked and sewed at the air, and Acharsis felt his soul tremble like a chord that was being violently struck; tears filled his eyes and he grated his teeth, but that was as nothing compared to the demon’s fury.

It surged forward, tendrils of shadow reaching for them all like black spears, only to slam to a halt mid-air and then jerk back against the wall. It screamed, its very substance boiling, and attempted to flee, only to be pulled savagely back into the room.

Then its form began to coalesce, sinking into an ever more solid shape, shrinking and smoothing out until it stood before them in the shape of a woman. Her skin was perfectly black, black as a river stone, black as the space between the skies, and her features were breathtakingly beautiful. High cheekbones, slanted eyes, thick hair falling down nearly to her waist, she stood before them with a warrior’s savage grace, chin raised defiantly, trembling with fury and clad in a belted tunic that reached her midthigh.

Acharsis knew her face. Had seen it carved on countless murals during his youth, venerated by thousands.

But it was Kish who stepped forward in confusion and dismay. “Scythia?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“You’re dead,” said Acharsis, taking a step back from the goddess of warfare and female sexuality. Confusion and panic arose within his heart like a storm, but her face, that regal disdain, that callous beauty and alien majesty were undeniably that of the fallen goddess.

“No, no,” said Ekillos, waving his hand. “Stop with that nonsense. That’s no more Scythia than my slippers are me. That’s one of her reflections, created at the dawn of time. One of our mistakes.” He stared soberly at the jet-skinned Scythia, who glared at them all.

“Your mistakes?” asked Acharsis, forcing himself to calm down.

“Yes. In our pride we deemed it necessary to have servants. To be served, and so we took our reflections and gave them animus, breathed life into them so they could adore us and serve us as we saw fit. And for a time, all was well. Or so we thought. But just as our reflections were our obverse in appearance, so, too, did they come to hate all that we loved.”

Ekillos sagged back in his chair. “They rose up, caused confusion and destruction, and we were forced to cast them down and lock them within the valley of Gog and Magog. But even though we had rid ourselves of them, the experience soured us on the pleasures of the garden, and so we went our separate ways.”

“I thought…” Acharsis trailed off. “I always learned that demons were the personifications of the world’s greatest evils.”

“And in a sense, they were, were they not? The follies of the gods themselves.” Ekillos gazed at the demon with something akin to sorrow. “Our first attempt at creation. No wonder they desire and revel in all that is base. They cannot do otherwise. It is how we made them.”

Kish reached out to the demon and then pulled her hand back. “And this one? She was truly made from Scythia’s reflection?”

“Aye,” said Ekillos. “One of many. Though the true Scythia lies dead not far from here.”

“And she will now serve me?” Such was the demon’s perilous beauty that Acharsis was having trouble looking upon her face. Even if she was a perverted reflection, hers was still the kind of face that set hearts to hammering and filled men with foolish yearnings. To think of war as a means to earn glory, to impress, to earn the right to mate.

“She will resist, of course. You must be wary. My powers are greatly limited, so my handiwork here is far from perfect. But yes, she shall refrain from actively seeking your harm, and when you come to the valley of Gog and Magog, she may prove invaluable. I would count on her for one or two favors before she breaks free. Demon, by what name do you answer?”

The demon hissed through her perfect lips, knees flexing, hips lowering, as if preparing to leap. “I am Scythia.”

“Cease this foolishness,” said Ekillos. “Give me your name or I shall imprint one upon you.”

Her eyes flashed and she swiped at the air before her like a panther reaching through the bars of a cage. “Anscythia.”

“Clever. Very well. Your bargain with my son is now in effect. Obey him in all matters, and be civil.”

Anscythia bowed her head, as graceful and poised as any dancer, but with a shudder Acharsis recalled the maggots, the bloated dead, the dancing, idiotic woman in chains who had so bedeviled him all these years.

“Now,” said Ekillos, “she can escort you from this place. Take them to the entrance to the valley of Gog and Magog, Anscythia.”

She lifted her head and screamed at them, a shriek of such volume and violence that Acharsis threw up his arms in self-protection.

“Command her, my son,” said Ekillos, voice hard.

Again she shrieked, head whipping to and fro, an utterly inhuman sound, more like the cruel wind of the netherworld than any sound made by a woman. She dug her nails into the flesh just above her knee and tore free a strip of muscle from her thigh. This she hurled at Acharsis, black and dripping with blood, but it disappeared only inches from his face and she screamed again in fury.

“Take my companions and I to where Jarek awaits us,” said Acharsis, forcing his voice to sound firm. “I command you, Anscythia, by the vows you made to me seventeen years ago.”

The wound in her thigh disappeared, replaced by firm, smooth flesh, and she stood up, composed and at ease. A cruel smile crooked the corner of her lips, and then she gave him a mocking bow.

“She cannot be trusted, my son,” said Ekillos. “And so I shall diminish myself further by gifting you with one final fragment of my power.” And so saying, he cupped both hands to his mouth and breathed into his fingers, kindling therein a fiery glow. When he parted them, a small bird whose wings glowed as if each feather were an ember hopped up onto his thumb and there regarded Acharsis with intelligent, jet black eyes.

“An epiphling, a guide, a way to wisdom,” said Ekillos fondly. “Once I was served by thousands of them, and sent them winging toward my chosen, granting them insights and understanding beyond mortal ken. Now only this one remains. He shall remain with you and guide you, and ensure that the demon does not lead you astray.”

Acharsis extended his hand and the epiphling flew forward to perch upon his knuckles. It was light, its little claws like heated pinpricks, and endlessly beautiful to gaze upon.

“Thank you, father,” said Acharsis, heartened by the bold cheeriness of the bird’s plumage and what it portended.

“Goodbye, my son,” said Ekillos. “My thoughts are with you. May fortune favor your quest.”

“Father,” began Acharsis, but then the world swam before his eyes and everything grew vague and blurred. There was a great sense of movement, and he became aware of Kish and Sisu flying alongside him, all of them borne forward by a great ball of shadows that hurtled over the landscape. It took but a moment to retrace their steps, and then they came upon a curtain of falling ash, shot through with smoldering cinders and giving off curls of smoke. They flew toward it faster and faster, and Acharsis barely had time to yell before they smashed into it and were through.

His yell died and turned into a racking cough as he stumbled out upon the watery black plain, their tilted island tree just off to the side, Jarek rising to his feet from where he’d been sitting against the trunk. Waving his hands as if to clear smoke, Acharsis wheeled and saw Sisu and Kish also stumbling forward, and behind them, his demon. Anscythia. She followed slowly, one foot placed elegantly before the other, carriage proud, that wicked smile still playing about her features.

The epiphling fluttered down from the sky above and landed on his shoulder.

“Who is that?” asked Jarek, leaping down to land with a splash and moving forward, Sky Hammer in hand.

Acharsis felt a burst of relief at the sight of him. Jarek still had the features of his youthful self, but retained the presence and solidity of a lifetime lived. Shock blossomed on Jarek’s face, and Acharsis hurried to explain.

“No, it isn’t her. It’s my demon, Jarek. Whom we’ve discovered was created from Scythia’s reflection. One of many. We’ve much to tell you. But know that Anscythia, as she styles herself, is now mine to command, if only for awhile, and we are to use her to complete our quest.”

“Quest?” asked Jarek, wrapping an arm around Kish as he continued to study the demon.

So Acharsis told him. Of their discoveries, of Ekillos, of their god-given quest to topple the queen of the dead and save the River Cities from her dominion. Of the demon’s approach and apprehension.

“She’s to take us to the peak of God’s Mountain?” asked Jarek, struggling to master his surprise. “We can trust her?”

“I think so,” said Acharsis. “And if she plays us false, this little guy should be able to warn us.”

Jarek gave a controlled exhalation. “You think so. That doesn’t comfort me much. Especially when we’re depending on a… fire chickadee for warning?”.”

“Epiphling. And we have Ekillos’ word that she has to obey me for awhile, if not forever. That, and we have no other choice. How else are we to get to the highest peak in the world?”

Jarek grimaced. “A fair point. Still.” He studied Anscythia, who smiled and ran a hand suggestively down her body. “This is going to really try my patience.”

“Fair enough,” said Acharsis. “But compared to the many impossible challenges that lie ahead of us, having your patience tested isn’t so bad.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Kish, looking at Sisu.

He was staring at the mirrored wall. “So short a visit. I had thought - hoped - that we might stay a little longer… after all the time we spent in the ridiculous Maganian netherworld, to leave my realm so quickly…”

“Cheer up, Sisu,” said Acharsis. “You’ll be going back someday soon enough. Now, unless there’s anything else that needs addressing?”

“One moment,” said Kish, and turned to face Jarek. She took his face in both her hands and drank in the sight of him, then rose up on her tiptoes to kiss him fiercely on the lips. “There. Now I’m ready.”

“Trying to remember what he looks like while young?” asked Sisu. “Awfully superficial of you, Kish.”

Her glare actually made him step back, but before anything more could come of it Acharsis stepped forward, both hands raised. “Enough. We’re about to embark on a divine mission to save the world from your mother, Sisu. Let’s show a little reverence, yes?”

“Fine,” said Sisu. “Nobody’s got a sense of humor anymore.”

“There are so many things I could say,” said Kish. “But if pressed, I’d rather make my point with my hammer. So watch your tongue, little brother. You’re not amusing anybody.”

Anscythia cocked her head to one side in much the same manner as a bird, and her smile grew a fraction wider.

“At least she enjoys my humor,” said Sisu, scuffing his toe in the black water.

“Says more than I ever could,” said Kish. “Now, Acharsis. We’re ready.”

“Good.” Acharsis squared his shoulders. Only then did he truly come to terms with where they were headed. To a realm where no mortal human could hope to survive. To a height beyond any other normal peak. To the very apex of the legendary God’s Mountain itself.

“Anscythia,” he said, voice loud and firm. “Take us all directly to the gates of Gog and Magog, and set us down out of harm’s way.”

Anscythia considered his request, cocked her head in the other direction, then, horrifically, shrieked at him, a blast of such raw, unmodulated sound that they all staggered back, hands going to their ears. The scream cut off as quickly as it had begun.

“By Alok’s stones,” cursed Jarek, lowering his hands. “Is that your idea of obedience?”

“Wait,” said Acharsis. “Are you refusing because there’s no way to comply with my command?”

Anscythia smiled.

“No way to take us to the gate without putting us in harm’s way? Ah. Then let us try again. Take us to the safest place that is within sight of the gate of Gog and Magog.”

This time Anscythia bowed, ever mocking, and then the air was filled with roaring and Acharsis’ body shook and vibrated within the dark thunderbolt that took them all up into the void. Acharsis could dimly sense the others by his side, pale shapes in the roiling dark.

Up they flew, ever up, his bones thrumming in his flesh, his teeth shaking in his head, the epiphling once more a fiery spark by his shoulder, and then there was a burst of light like the world’s most glorious dawn, the skies revolved with nauseating speed, and then the ground slammed up beneath them with such force that Acharsis fell over.

He threw out both hands to arrest his fall, only to realize too late that his left one was gone once more; he turned his stump at the last moment, caught his weight on his elbow, and toppled onto his side in the snow.

It was piercingly cold. Lying on the rocks, Acharsis looked out over a bluff of raw blue stone covered in thin drifts of snow at a cloudscape of soft grandeur. It stretched away like the Golden Steppe toward the far horizon, an infinite plain of undulating humps and drifts of white, every part of which was slowly moving, drifting and unfurling and curling upon itself toward the west.

“Everyone all right?” Jarek’s voice, coming from somewhere behind him.

Acharsis levered himself onto his forearms and gazed out over the clouds. He was back in his body, and it felt old. Worn. He didn’t want to look at his stump. There were deep aches in his feet and knees that he’d not noticed, or perhaps simply learned to live with. Gone was the buoyant energy, the confidence that came from a youthful body with all its vigor. He turned his sole hand over to examine the old calluses, the nicks and cuts, the grime ingrained in the whorls of his skin, and slowly exhaled.

“She did it,” he heard Sisu say. “She really brought us here.”

Acharsis knew he should turn, climb to his feet, resume their quest. But all he wanted to do was lie on the harsh, cold rocks and lose himself in the infinitude of the clouds. Weariness stole over his soul.

He was old once more. The bitter injustice of it brought tears to his eyes.

“There, look.” Kish. Wonder and awe in her voice.

“Acharsis!” Jarek calling his name. “Come see!”

He didn’t want to rise. Wanted to rest his head on the frigid rocks for just a moment. Or an eternity.

But then the epiphling landed beside his hand and ruffled its little feathers so that a puff of smoke arose into the air. It peered at him, eyes mercurial and bright.

“I guess you’re not a big fan of the cold either, are you little guy?”

The epiphling let out a little chirp, and something about its tiny size and pluck cheered Acharsis just enough that he was able to sigh and rise to his feet. With a sigh, Acharsis pushed himself upright. It felt as hard as tearing a large stone free of a sucking swamp. The air was thin and painfully cold, the sunlight bright but with no warmth to it. Acharsis turned to where his friends stood, arrayed upon an outcropping of land and staring up the mountain’s steep slope to where a pair of gates rose glittering into the sky.

Deeply entrenched in the mountain’s face, the gates were made of bronze and gold and taller than the tallest trees. They were slender, however, perhaps no more than ten yards across, and looked delicate and built for decoration, not war. Their surface was covered in curlicues of gold over the deeper, impossibly smooth bronze, and their peaks culminated in curling tongues of metal like flames leaping into the endless sky.

“Where’s Anscythia?” Acharsis asked, his voice a croak. With effort he tore his eyes away and searched the rocky outcropping on which they’d landed. Had she slipped away? Evaded his father’s bindings so easily? No. There she was, crouched under an overhang so that her black form melted into the shadows, barely visible, her eyes glittering as she stared at him with unadulterated hatred.

“Don’t blame me,” he said, rising to his feet. “You’re the one who messed this all up from the beginning.”

She didn’t answer, but instead worked her jaw from side to side as if trying to pop it, her tongue wriggling and as black as the rest of her.

Unnerved, Acharsis stepped up alongside his friends, the epiphling flying up to his shoulder. They made room for him, and together they studied the distant gate. It was impossible to miss the two guardians who stood at its base, in full view now that he had a better vantage. They were massive, as large as Dilmanian elephants, their human torsos rising from scorpion bodies complete with articulated legs and segmented tails. Each held a spear in one hand, and they gazed unmoving out over the world.

“They’re beautiful,” said Kish, and Acharsis supposed they were; their scorpion bodies gleamed as blackly as Anscythia, and their human torsos were perfectly sculpted, a fan of crimson rising up from their abdomens to darken as it reached their sides and shoulders, turning bronze along the backs of their arms and golden on their handsome faces.

“Beautiful?” asked Sisu. “They’re half scorpion. If I had a large enough boot, I’d step on them.”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” said Acharsis, lowering himself to a crouch. “But we’re lacking giant boots. Jarek? Your thoughts?”

His friend rubbed pensively at his beard. “They look to stand six or seven yards high. Those spears will allow them to fight from some ten yards, I’d wager. Combine that with their tails, and there being two of them - I’d say our best bet would be to cut them down from a distance with arrows. Anything else is liable to be suicide.”

“Great,” said Acharsis. Neither of the sentinels moved. “Though nobody said we had to kill them. We simply have to pass them by into the valley beyond the gate.”

“Distract them?” asked Sisu. “Try to lure them away and slip past once they’re gone?”

“Possible,” said Acharsis. “But what if only one gives chase? And how fast do they move? None of us are going to outrun those long legs of theirs on this rough terrain.”

“We could climb above them,” said Kish, pointing high up the cliff face. “And then drop large rocks onto their heads.”

Acharsis pursed his lips and studied the cliff. It would be an arduous climb. Even as high as they were, the God’s Mountain still rose higher, perhaps another three or four hundred yards of glittering ice and stone. “I don’t see any boulders up there. Do you?”

Kish leaned forward, squinting, and then shook her head. “I guess not. Though with our hammers, perhaps we could knock some free?”

Acharsis waggled his head from side to side. “Possible. But that would ruin our chance of surprising them. They would then dodge anything we dropped on them from that height.”

“Climb past the gate,” said Sisu. “Skip it altogether. Up around them, then down into the valley.”

“Look how steep those walls are,” said Jarek. “We could perhaps climb up along that ridge there - perhaps - but then I don’t see any way down. Even if we were equipped with ropes and pitons, the gods fashioned that valley as a prison. I’m willing to bet any trick like that would fail.”

“Anscythia,” said Acharsis, turning back to the overhang. “Can you transport us into the valley directly?”

The demon stared mutely at him. Acharsis was about to repeat his question when she shook her head.

“Very well,” said Acharsis. “That leaves us but one choice. I shall approach them and ask to pass through the gates.”

“You think that’s wise?” asked Sisu. “You said yourself we don’t know how fast they move. What if they say no, and violently?”

Acharsis gave a shrug. “Then I die.”

“You say that like you wouldn’t mind,” said Sisu.

“I would mind.” Acharsis paused. Took a moment to examine what he was feeling. “But I’m feeling my age, Sisu. Or perhaps I’m just feeling worn down. I aim to do my best. But if that’s not enough, then I’m at peace with dying.”

He met Jarek’s gaze. His friend gave him a slight nod. If anyone here understood what it meant to see your father and god so reduced, it was him.

“Watch from here,” said Acharsis. “I’ll wave when it’s time to come down.”

“Suicidal and confident,” said Sisu. “An unusual combination.”

Acharsis flashed him a grin and began walking down the rough slope from their outcropping to the mountainside. There was no path leading up to the gates, so he had to clamber over boulders, slipping on the ice and using his one hand as best he could to steady himself. In moments his breath was puffing before him, hot in his throat, and the chill of the air was beaten back by his exertions.

The gates loomed high above him, seeming to reach into the very heavens. The twin scorpion guards oriented on him quickly but didn’t move to engage. Instead they watched him with pitiless indifference as he fought his way up the steep flank of the God’s Mountain, the thin air making him feel dizzy, forcing him to breathe in quick pants no matter how hard he tried to control his breath.

“This one who comes now is the flesh of the gods,” said the first scorpion guard when Acharsis drew within a score of yards.

“Only half of him is divine,” said the second, scrutinizing Acharsis with its crimson eyes. “Though his small companion is a spark of divinity itself.”

“Why have you come to the valley of Gog and Magog?” asked the first scorpion, still not lowering its spear or moving from its post. “Why have your journeyed through the layers of heaven to reach the peak of the God’s Mountain, a journey so perilous that no mere mortal has ever accomplished this feat?”

Acharsis stopped climbing and stood straight, swaying with dizziness, his good hand numb from having been plunged over and over again into the snow. “I am Acharsis, son of Ekillos, the god of knowledge and male fertility. Twenty years ago my brothers and sisters and I were betrayed, and our gods killed and cast down into the depths of the netherworld. There they languish, forgotten and reduced. In their place Nekuul rules supreme, and the land suffers for it. The people starve. The dead outnumber the living. I have wept for my people. I have decided my life is worth nothing if I cannot save them. So I have come to visit the Garden of Paradise and ask for an apple in the hopes of defeating Nekuul’s daughter and righting the balance of the world.”

The scorpion guards looked at each other, their faces expressionless, then the second spoke. “No mortal has ever climbed this high or risked such perils as lie on the slopes of the God’s Mountain. No mortal has ever crossed through the valley of Gog and Magog, and entered the Garden of Paradise. The way is more dangerous than your climb, for the darkness of the world is contained behind these gates, a darkness that oppresses the heart and ends your memory of the light.”

“I’m no mere mortal,” said Acharsis with a sigh. He sat on a flat wedge of rock. It immediately numbed his rear. “I’m Acharsis. Once a demigod filled with might, but even now I’m half divine. I would risk this darkness. I would go through the gates in the hopes of reaching the garden, along with my other friends who are similarly divine. Open the gates. Let us through.”

He put no heat into his words. He felt spent. The slope on which he sat was so steep that if he were to topple, he would roll down and down without end. Dizziness still assailed him, and he knew that if the scorpions sought to kill him he would put up no resistance.

“Go, Acharsis,” said the first scorpion guard. “I permit you to pass through the gates of Gog and Magog and into the darkness of the valley beyond. May your feet carry you to your destination and from there safely home. The gate to the valley is open.”

With that, the twin doors of bronze and gold parted, sending sleeves of ice falling from their faces as they swung open, shoving mounds of snow before their edges without effort. Acharsis forced himself to rise, and peered beyond, but could see only shifting shadow.

From the outcropping above he heard a whoop of celebration, and despite himself he smiled tiredly.

“Thank you,” was all he said, and he bowed low to the two guards who had stood vigil for longer than he could conceive. “Thank you.”

His friends came hurrying up the mountain, Jarek forging a path through the snow and hauling Kish after him with one hand, Sisu scrambling in their wake, falling over time and again in his eagerness to keep up. Anscythia followed behind, drifting over the broken snow without effort, leaving no trail of her own.

“Halt,” said the scorpion guards as one, and this time they lowered their spears so that they crossed before the open gates. “A demon travels with you.”

“Yes,” said Acharsis, heart sinking. “She is our guide. Her name is Anscythia. She will lead us through the valley to the gates of paradise.”

“Our solemn duty is to prevent all demons from escaping the valley,” said the second guard. “Since time began, few have evaded our vigil. She must enter the valley, and then we shall not permit her to leave.”

Acharsis looked back at the demon. She was glaring up at the scorpion guards defiantly, a vision of feminine beauty and strength. Ah, Scythia, thought Acharsis. There truly was no greater exemplar of beauty than yourself. Even Numias couldn’t touch your divine perfection.

“Very well,” said Acharsis.

Anscythia hissed, the sound akin to dozens of snakes roused to anger, and leaped up into the air. Acharsis immediately guessed her intent, and on instinct reached out blindly to wrap his arm around the invisible black cord that joined them both. The epiphling took flight, swooping around the demon as if binding her with invisible cords of its own.

“Stay!” he roared, swaying beside his rock. His hand closed over a rushing, flowing stream of icy cold air. “By our pact and Ekillos himself, I order you to stay!”

Anscythia screeched and darted away, only to be yanked back, nearly tumbling from the sky. Again she gathered herself and surged forward, but this time Jarek was by Acharsis’ side, hands steadying his shoulders, and Acharsis hauled on the invisible tether.

“Half my life you’ve haunted me,” he growled. “Dogged my steps and mocked my dreams. I’ve lived in terror of you appearing to ruin my life. Hated your idiotic grin, your rolling eyes! Enough! You are no longer your own master! Your mockery of a pact is now true! I order you to come back here, you spawn of Scythia, and serve me!”

Anscythia shrieked and flailed, but to no avail. In jerks and retreats she fell back to the ground, the fiery sparrow still circling her, until at last she crashed down onto the snow. There was a hiss, and the snow melted around her in a rapidly expanding circle, exposing the bleak rock beneath her feet.

“Mine,” hissed Acharsis. “My folly, my punishment, but mine. You will lead us through the valley. You will see us to the gates of paradise, and after our great task is accomplished, I shall set you free.”

Anscythia lowered her head so that her mane of black hair hung before her face, but it did nothing to hide the hatred that burned in her eyes.

Carefully, tentatively, Acharsis released his grip on their bond and stood straight. “Now, come. You will precede us into this dread valley.”

Anscythia rose to her feet and gave him a mocking bow, her balance perfect on the wet rocks, and then lifted off the snow to float up toward them. Her hair streamed like wildfire from her head, and her tunic plastered itself against her feminine curves, leaving nothing to the imagination. She smiled as she passed him by, a mocking, cruel smile that robbed Acharsis of his newfound certainty and confidence.

Then she was past them, floating between the rising spears and disappearing through the gate into the valley of Gog and Magog.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jarek hefted his Sky Hammer and glanced uneasily at each of the scorpion guards. The very sight of them gave him chills. What perfect war machines. With their reach, obvious strength, and chitinous armor, they would be nearly unstoppable in battle -not to mention their stingers, each of which was the size of a basket and terminated in a wickedly curved point that gleamed wetly even in this terrible cold. No. Fighting their way past them was never an option.

Even so, the idea of walking through the opened gate without contest gave him no comfort. He turned to Kish. “Ready?”

“No,” she said, tone as blunt as the hammer in her hand. “How could I be? We’ve no plan, no strategy even, other than counting on our semi-divine natures to get us through. I’m far from ready.”

“She’s got a point,” said Jarek, looking over Acharsis. “We’re running just ahead of disaster here. What’s the plan?”

“Faith,” said Acharsis simply. “Laugh all you want. But for too long I’ve lived as a mortal man, thinking as one and just as afraid. These past few days have reminded me that we’re so much more. That we each carry within our souls a spark of the divine—”

“Acharsis,” cut in Jarek.

“Fine, fine. Still. I mean it. I’ve always been in favor of detailed plans. But in this realm? Dealing with these beings? We’re out of our depth, old friend.” Acharsis sounded almost sorrowful. “We have to trust in our instincts. Have faith in our natures. In the righteousness of our cause. Where we’re about to tread, no plan will avail us so much as confidence, boldness, and determination to win through.”

Sisu scratched at his chin. “You think he really means that, or is he just trying to raise our morale?”

“I mean it,” said Acharsis. “Look where we are. The peak of the God’s Mountain, for crying out loud. Nobody has come this far since - never mind. The fact that we stand here at all - that we crossed the netherworld and survived, that the gates of Gog and Magog stand open to us at all - that’s all the testament I need to have faith in our cause and blood. I’m going in.”

And so saying, Acharsis strode in after the demon, the fire chickadee on his shoulder, and was lost in the shadow.

“Jarek?” Kish rolled her shoulders then twisted from side to side, loosening up her spine. “You ready?”

Jarek stared at the face of his Sky Hammer. Its powers were quiet, its depths as dead as any rock, but he recalled how it had blazed in the netherworld. Would it serve him as well here? Or had its proximity to Alok been the defining factor?

He heaved a sigh and felt his age. The sweetness of youth had served only to emphasize how much vitality and energy he’d lost. Almost he wished he’d never thought himself younger - but that would have meant missing that smoldering glow in Kish’s eyes.

“Ready,” he said. “Sisu?”

“I’m going to go with what Kish said before. Which is ‘no’. But since I don’t want to be left out here to freeze with these scorpion monsters - sure.” He hugged himself tightly. “Let’s see how far Acharsis’ trust gets us through a valley filled with demons.”

Jarek gave a curt nod and stepped through the tall gates. Shadows swirled before his eyes, masking the world, and then they cleared away and he stood at the foot of a long, golden valley with incredibly steep sides.

“Is that real gold?” Kish stepped up beside him, eyes wide. “It can’t be.”

Every surface of the valley was covered in perfect, lustrous gold. The cliffs that reared around them. The boulders. The gullies and ravines. The valley of Gog and Magog was plated in solid gold, such that it was hard for the eye to make out distances, to determine the exact shape and extent of the valley.

“Amazing,” said Sisu, kneeling to run his hand over the gilded ground. “And it’s not cold, either.”

Jarek turned to ask the scorpion guards, but the gate had closed behind them, and no handles or means of pushing them open displayed themselves. He shivered. Were they trapped here?

“Where are the demons?” asked Kish.

Jarek turned back. She was right. The valley looked empty but for Acharsis and Anscythia up ahead. Nowhere did he see drifting shadows or horrific shapes. “I don’t know.”

“Wait,” said Sisu. “Wait, wait, wait. The valley of Gog and Magog is empty? Is that meant to be a metaphor, or…?”

“Come on,” said Jarek. “Let’s see what Acharsis thinks.” He strode forward, stepping carefully on the smooth golden floor, and soon caught up with Acharsis. “What’s going on here?”

“I don’t know,” said Acharsis. It was the closest Jarek had come to hearing his friend sound bewildered. “My best guess is that all the demons have escaped to the world below.”

“Yours did,” said Sisu.

“Not quite. There’s a very strong chance I might have tried to summon it in the folly of my youth.” Acharsis regarded Anscythia, who was gazing at the golden valley with a subdued expression on her perilously beautiful face.

“Then perhaps all the other demons were also summoned,” said Sisu.

“Unlikely. The ritual I used was incredibly difficult and esoteric. Few but the son of Ekillos could have cast it, and even I got it wrong.”

“Then where are they?” Kish stepped closer to Jarek, and for a moment he wanted to wrap his arm protectively around her.

“Anscythia?” Acharsis stared at his demon. “Where are the others?”

She regarded him with her depthless eyes and made no response.

“Anscythia? I command you to tell me where the other demons have gone. There were supposed to be hundreds here. Thousands.”

Still she made no response.

Acharsis reached out with his lone hand and wrapped his arm around what appeared to be an invisible rope between them. “Don’t make me force you.”

She made a sour expression. “When you summoned me forth with your juvenile incantation, this valley was replete with my kind. I have not returned since.”

Her voice was a shadowy purr, a smoky, languorous sound that filled Jarek with a heated, anxious, guilty desire. He squared his shoulders. “Looks like she can talk.”

“So they’ve fled within the last twenty years?” Acharsis looked around uneasily once more. “That’s… worrisome.”

“There have always been demons amongst us,” said Kish. “Haven’t there? Hence our amulets, our wards, the protective spells from the apsus…?”

“Yes,” said Acharsis, “but those are demons born of human folly and madness. These - these are the demons of the gods. A very different matter.”

Sisu laughed. “Wait. Why are we complaining? Did anybody here actually want to fight their way through a thousand demons to get to the gates of paradise?” He looked from one of them to the other. “Seriously? This is our first lucky break since we set out for Magan. No, since you all showed up in my throne room in Rekkidu. We should be thanking Nekuul for such fortune.”

“True enough,” said Jarek. “But a thousand god-demons gone missing is no minor matter. We’ll have to ask our fathers about this when we revive them. Or, if we fail, demand that Irella ask Nekuul.”

“Fine, fine,” said Sisu. “But until then, we can literally dance our way up a valley of gold to the doors of paradise. Who’s coming with me?”

Kish gave a relieved laugh. “This is the happiest I’ve seen you since we visited the netherworld, Sisu. Now I know how to advise your future wife on what makes you happy: allow you to spend time in her netherworld or welcome you to her valley filled with gold. You’ll be easy to please.”

Sisu gave a mocking bow, spun on his heel and began marching up the steep valley toward the distant top. “I refuse to be drawn in by your crude approximations of humor. Come on. Let’s find some gold pebbles as souvenirs.”

Acharsis fell in with Jarek as they followed after. His friend kept looking about them with pursed lips, brow furrowed. “A thousand demons gone. And within the last two decades.”

“If your demon’s telling the truth,” said Jarek.

“I think she is. Though whether she’s telling us everything she knows is another matter. Let’s try rephrasing my question. Anscythia! Where are the other demons right now?”

The demon gave him a dour look. “I have already answered your question once.”

“I’m demanding you answer it anew. Where are they?”

“I have spent these past nineteen years following in your steps, sweet master. How should I know?”

“She’s as good if not better than you are at not answering questions,” said Jarek.

“For a third time, I command you: tell me where the other demons are.”

Anscythia grimaced, then reached up with both hands and took hold of her lower jaw, long fingers curling over her teeth and sliding under her tongue. With a shriek she tore her jaw free, pulling it out by the roots, tearing muscle and skin with a frightful jerk. Blood sprayed down her front and then thickened and stopped. Her tongue lolled down the front of her throat, and she tossed her jawbone at Acharsis.

Jarek stepped away, recoiling from the bloody bone, but Acharsis snatched it out of the air. “You think to evade my question so easily?”

“Easily?” asked Jarek. “She tore her damn jaw out. I don’t think that’s easy.”

“For her it might be.” Acharsis held up her lower jaw. Her teeth gleamed in the high mountain light. “I’ll keep this. You’ll regret the day you gave me a part of yourself.”

Anscythia laughed, the sound clotted and part scream, bloody chunks bursting out of her gullet as her tongue flapped in place.

Jarek patted Acharsis on the shoulder. “You did your best. Nobody could have guessed that you should have ordered her not to tear out her jaw first.”

“Yes,” said Acharsis glumly. “Not an obvious first move. We’ll have to keep our eyes open and see if we can figure this one out ourselves.”

They followed Kish and Sisu up the valley. A lonesome wind blew down its length, howling between the golden cliffs. Sisu kept swapping the gold stones in his pockets, opting for ever larger ones till he was staggering beneath their weight. Jarek ignored his entreaties for help, and with a glum sigh Sisu dropped a number of his rocks back to the ground and caught back up to them, promising that he’d roll a large boulder down the God’s Mountain on their way out.

It was eerie. Despite the uniformity of the gold-covered landscape around them, the lack of enemies, and the constant howl of the wind throwing itself down the mountain, Jarek didn’t relax. Instead, he felt himself growing more tense, turning to glance behind them every few steps, sure that something here was completely off. That they were missing a fundamental clue as to the nature of this place. That at any moment they’d discover what it was, but by then it would be too late.

On they trekked, hugging themselves against the cold, the air painfully dry and thin. Higher and higher beneath the brilliant sun, till at last, shielding his eyes with his hand, Jarek saw a second gate up ahead.

It was humble in comparison to the first, perhaps two yards tall and set in the valley’s terminus where the cliff faces met. Made of silver and ivory, it was almost delicate in appearance, wrought with impossible skill, and set flush with the golden walls.

“No guards,” called out Sisu, dropping back to their group. “Nobody at all.”

“That’s got to be it,” said Kish. She bit her lower lip as she looked around, almost as if expecting a third gate to appear hidden high up in a fold of gold. “Right?”

“Guess so,” said Acharsis. He led them all the way up to the gate, and there they stopped, a handful of yards from its surface, and examined its beauty.

Jarek knew it was an object, stationary and immobile, but the moment his eyes fell upon any one part, that segment began to twist and move like animated vines, drawing his gaze further into its depths. What appeared from a distance as a smooth metallic surface was instead a complex depth, and the longer he studied any section the larger and more involved it appeared to become, as if he were sinking into a tunnel that grew ever larger as he fell into it.

“Aargh,” said Sisu, tearing his eyes away. “It’s just like that scroll of Ekillos’. How are we supposed to open it if we can’t look at it?”

Jarek couldn’t look away. The serpentine silver shapes that intertwined and parted before his gaze were utterly captivating. With effort, he turned his head, eyes trying to remain locked on the gate, until at last he wrenched his gaze free with a shudder. He dug his thumbs into his eyes, rubbed them vigorously, and then took Kish by the shoulders and turned her about too.

“Acharsis?” Sisu stepped up to him. “You probably shouldn’t go too deep into it.”

“Are you so sure?” asked Acharsis, voice distracted.

“Ah, no.” Sisu looked at Jarek for help. “Are we?”

“We’ve got to get through,” said Jarek. “But I don’t see any handles. Something tells me brute force won’t work.”

“Should we ask for permission to enter?” asked Kish. “Call out to the goddess within?”

“Can’t hurt,” said Jarek. He cupped his hands about his mouth. “Hello! I’m Jarek of Rekkidu, son of Alok. We seek entrance to the garden of paradise. Please open!”

His voice echoed thinly from the valley walls, but nothing happened.

“Acharsis?” Sisu hesitated, then tapped his shoulder. “Acharsis?”

Jarek waved his hand before Acharsis’ face. There was no reaction. His friend was frozen, eyes wide, body tensed as if leaning into a strong headwind.

“Acharsis?” He took hold of his friend’s arm and pulled it, softly at first and then more insistently. Acharsis didn’t so much fight him as simply stand rigid. Jarek picked him up and bodily turned him around, breaking his line of sight with the gate.

Nothing happened. Acharsis remained frozen, staring out into the empty valley.

“That’s not good,” said Sisu. “And where’d the fire bird go?”

“What do you think, Jarek?” Kish waved her hand before Acharsis’ face and then peered into his eyes. “What can we do?”

Jarek frowned. Acharsis was definitely alive, not frozen like a statue. He still breathed. Sweat ran down his temple as if he were under incredible strain. His eyes made minute side-to-side movements, as if he were watching something in the far distance.

“Let’s give him a moment,” said Jarek. “See if this effect doesn’t fade.”

It didn’t. A good while later Acharsis still stood there, trapped in the same pose.

Jarek, Sisu and Kish sat close by, arms looped around their knees, watching and waiting in silence. It was hard to judge the passage of time, but the sun had already shifted two finger-widths toward the horizon.

“What if the demons only emerge in this valley at night?” asked Sisu.

Neither Jarek nor Kish responded.

“Or what if the demons are all contained within that gate?” Sisu shifted his weight uneasily. “What if they stole Acharsis’ soul?”

“Sisu,” said Kish angrily. “You’re not helping.”

“It’s better than just sitting here. We’ve given him a decent amount of time. He’s still just standing there trembling and covered in sweat. It doesn’t look like he’s getting any better.”

“Sisu’s right,” said Jarek, climbing to his feet. His hips and ankles hurt from having sat on gold for so long. “We’re going to have to help him more directly.” So saying, he stepped up to Acharsis and slapped him hard across the face.

His friend didn’t even flinch. His cheek burned a bright red, his eyes filled with tears, but he didn’t otherwise react.

“Damn,” muttered Jarek. Hands on his hips, he looked down the length of the valley, up at the sky, then back toward the edge of the gate. Nothing had changed. “I’d pull him away, but I don’t know if that’d hurt him.”

“So?” asked Sisu, his voice tense with fear. “What do we do?”

“I’m going in after him,” said Jarek, squaring his shoulders.

“Wait,” said Kish.

“No, no, no,” said Sisu at the same time. “That’s a bad idea.”

But Jarek ignored them and stared at the gate, at those serpentine lines that immediately began to writhe and slide over each other. The longer he looked, the more depth he noticed, as if the gate were but the uppermost layer of a latticework that extended down the throat of a deep well. Shadowed bands coiled beneath the exterior, with more beneath those; Jarek felt himself falling into that well, his very mind sucked into the gate’s depths.

Stay focused, he growled at himself as he penetrated deeper into the well’s mysteries. This is just a damn gate, by Alok’s stones. Don’t let it fool you. Yet the patterns were so mesmerizing. In their very complexity there seemed to be a hint of some greater truth, some geometric revelation that spoke the same language as the stars and the leaping of a flame. Jarek felt his mind stretching to encompass it, to peel back the layers so that he could gaze upon the raw knowledge that existed at its very center.

He gave himself a mental shake. Leave the great truths to the sages. He felt himself grow surly and defensive. The patterns frustrated him as much as they beguiled. Down he dove, deeper into shadow, till all was night about him. Now he sensed the sinuous passage of the bars and bands about him as one might the passage of eels swimming past in the depths of a river at night; intimations, hunches, half-glimpsed shadows.

Where to? He felt lost, unable to navigate this void - until a flaming speck of wings flew up to him and circled him once before diving back down.

The epiphling. Jarek followed after, until he sighted an end to the depths. There. The bottom, across which a scroll of sorts lay unfurled, glimmering with its own starlight, covered with such complex detail and imagery that even a glance threatened to suck him down even deeper into its pictograms.

Before it hovered Acharsis and a dozen other souls, all of them staring vacuously at the scroll’s complexity. Jarek tore his eyes from the scroll. He knew down to his very bones that contained within it was a fragment of true divinity, a hint at the true nature of how their very world operated and how to gain power over it - but he eschewed that knowledge. He felt himself growling as he pushed it away. Instead, he focused on Acharsis, who floated before him like a ghost, the epiphling flapping around him face ineffectively.

Speaking to him wouldn’t help. Instead, Jarek raised his Sky Hammer. When had he drawn it? How had it accompanied his spirit? No matter. He raised it, and found that in these dark depths it glowed with its own deific light. Gold shimmers rose from its meteoric head, and when he held it before Acharsis’ face, blocking his vision of the scroll, his friend blinked and cried out.

That was enough. Jarek gripped him by the neck and hauled him back to the surface, his friend kicking and fighting him, protesting and struggling to get back to the scroll. Up they flew, faster and faster, the bars and bands of silver blurring past them with ever greater speed until with a cry they staggered and fell from where they’d been standing before the gate.

“Jarek!” Kish’s cry broke the night and she was by his side, taking him by the arm and helping him rise as he struggled to gain his feet. Tears glimmered on her cheeks, he saw, reflecting the light of the moon which had risen raw and full to the side of the peak.

“My head,” groaned Acharsis. “What did I drink?”

Jarek inhaled deeply of the raw cold and then pulled Kish into his arms. She hugged him fiercely and then stepped back to punch him square in the chest.

“You had me terrified!” She punched him again. “You know how long I had to watch you stand there, thinking you lost? Sisu and I tried to wrestle you away but you fought us. We thought - we thought—”

He hugged her again and she rested her head on his shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said, voice a low rumble. “Had to fetch my idiot friend, is all.”

“Idiot friend?” Acharsis stepped up alongside them. “After all I’ve done, that’s how you describe me? I engineered a new dynasty in Magan, I conceived of our voyage across the underworld, I’ve parleyed with lamassu and found a way into my dead father’s head, and that’s all I get? Idiot friend?”

“Yeah,” said Jarek with a grin. “Standing like a fool before such an obvious trap. If it wasn’t for your fire chickadee -”.”

“Epiphling,” said Acharsis. “Though I think he deserves a better name. And I’ll have you know that first, I am unwilling to debate my mental merits with someone unable to even glimpse the heights from which I operate, and second, that without copious quantities of beer I’d run—”

“Hey,” said Sisu. “The gate! It’s open!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Great Library was a wondrous building, a vast hallway filled with honeyed light that filtered down from the broad second floor galleries past the many support pillars to bathe the long tables of white stone that ran down the length of the great hall. Annara couldn’t help but stop at the building’s threshold and marvel; massive wooden bookcases ran down the length of the hall, each filled with ‘X’ shaped cubbies in which countless scrolls of papyri were stored, and which scented the very air with a delicate, fragrant musk that hinted at the ancient secrets and wealth of knowledge that they contained.

Pebekkamen, less impressed, nudged her elbow, and with a start Annara recollected her mission and moved forward, her entrance preceded by the ten guards her regent had deemed appropriate given their perilous situation. Scholars and scribes looked up from their seats down the length of the tables, turned from the stands on which they were studying scrolls, and even drifted to the balconies of the second floor to gaze down at her in curiosity as she walked down the length of the hall.

Such beauty! The floor was inlaid with polished white river stones, while bold geometric patterns were laid out in black and white along the base of the bookcases. The ceiling was arched and honeycombed with wondrous artistry, and every column was footed and topped with chalcedony that gleamed as if damp. At the far end of the library rose a steep flight of stairs that ended at a great statue of the lamassu, its mane plated in bronze and gold, its eyes covered in mirror shards so that they seemed to gleam with their own inner light.

“My Lady Annara,” said an ascetic looking old man as he hurried up to her. “Regent Pebekkamen. You do my poor library far too much honor with your presence.” And he bowed so low he nearly pressed his brow to the floor.

“It is I that am honored to stand amidst such riches, Master Neferhotep,” said Annara, and she meant it. “How many scrolls are there here?”

He beamed. “Over five thousand, my lady. Some date back to the earliest dawn of time, and are accompanied by translations that are in turn translated into our modern language. We boast a wealth of knowledge, and can find authoritative tracts on every subject imaginable; geography, history, philosophy, religion, mathematics, medicine…”

“Truly wondrous,” said Annara. “I must admit that I am but a poor reader, but you, I imagine you are so steeped in knowledge that your wealth must be incalculable.”

Neferhotep did all but preen. “Well, I am not one to boast, but I have spent my entire life perusing, reading, and caring for the rarest texts in the world. Under my vigil, we have added over four hundred unique texts to our archives, ranging from Khartisian skins to Dilmanian jade tablets. We have of course many River City clay tablets, which I imagine you might be interested in reading…?”

Annara began to walk, the royal librarian falling in step with her as they passed one book case after another. “Actually, my interests are more to the future and safety of Magan….”

“Most wise, most wise,” said Neferhotep.

“…With a focus on the Kusuji, our neighbors to the south.”

“Ah! Yes. Yes yes yes. The Kusuji. Fascinating. A terrible chapter in our history, and one that should stand as a lesson to us all! It heartens me to think that your mind bends toward such matters. Where can I be of assistance? Do you want to learn of their history, how they splintered away from Magan, or their conquest, when they came roaring back with flame and spear? Their politics, their military tactics, their geography…?”

Annara fought to keep her excitement from showing on her face. “All very important, but my thoughts are focused rather on their own religion. Do they venerate the lamassu as we do? By what standard do they elevate their leaders and consider them divine?”

“Ah yes! Now that is fascinating. The one silver lining when it comes to that century of being ruled by their pharaohs was how open their scribes and priests were with such secrets. We learned quite a lot, though some would say we are still missing core mysteries of the process. This way, please.”

Annara cast a victorious glance at Pebekkamen, who all but rolled his eyes as he followed them up the stairs, pausing only to bow to the statue of the lamassu, then up to a second floor gallery where Neferhotep hurried to a bookcase and there drew down a series of scrolls which he laid upon a large desk.

“Here, here. Look at this! My apologies for the decay of this papyrus, I’ll order it copied afresh immediately. Now. Let us see. Lovely, clear, crisp markings. One of my favorite scribes from that era, Perneb, such a lovely hand he had. Each hieroglyph a work of art.”

Annara peered down at the incomprehensible columns of drawings, each of which depicted some abstraction of a bird, a face, a hand, perhaps a flowing stream or the like. Completely unlike the cuneiform writing of her own people. Yet even without being able to read the language she could divine something from the text; a great crimson slash wavered its way down the center of the page, rays of faded gold extending out from it in all directions through the rest of the scroll.

“And this?” She pointed to the crimson gash. Surely it can’t be what I think it is.

“The heart of the Kusuji mystery! The washabat of God, as they call it, which translates roughly into ‘The Canyon of God’ or ‘The Path of Righteousness’. See here how Perneb puts it: Tjahapimu with force of arms did conquer Magan, and there was much rejoicing. Hardly. Before the light of the rising sun he returned to Kusuji, triumphant, and was adored. Strong of arm, bold of mind, pure of spirit, he walked the Path of Righteousness, and emerged alive and divine, having passed within the radiance of Amubastis and returned, greater than he was once.”

“But what is this Path of Righteousness?” asked Annara. “And who is Amubastis?”

Neferhotep grimaced. “I forget how new you are to Magan and our ways. Of course. Amubastis is the mother of all lamassu, who dwells in the underworld and blesses the spirits of our dead with her eternal light. The Kusuji, heretical felons that they are, claim that their ‘path’ leads them through this very radiance, and that the deserving emerge on the far side as divine beings.”

Pebekkamen crossed his broad arms over his fine robe. “There’s something to what they say, obviously. Nobody at the time dared question Tjahapimu’s right to reign once he underwent this transformation.”

“Oh, assuredly,” said Neferhotep, waving a hand airily as if brushing away a mosquito. “It is as you say, august regent. They did indeed change, and the lamassu did acknowledge the change and claim them fully ascended as pharaohs. But did Tjahapimu actually enter in Amubastis’ light? Did he walk into the land of the dead and return? I sincerely doubt it.”

Annara peered down at the scroll. “And each subsequent Kusuji pharaoh did the same?”

“Hmm, yes. They all walked it. Not all survived the experience, actually. There was a rather farcical period sixty years in where six different men attempted to claim the title, only to never emerge from the path’s far side. Quite amusing, really. The Kusuji came to the verge of civil war as a result. I think they were running out of royal princes. But then of course Tjanefer managed to ascend successfully, may his name be damned forevermore.”

“Interesting.” Annara tapped her lips. “That would indicate that the path is a real trial. Which country would murder its princes and risk war for a piece of theater? And only royal princes may walk it?”

“Oh no! That is the part that is the most astounding!” Neferhotep opened a series of scrolls before finding the one he wished, a smaller, densely written square of fabric which he raised up and squinted at. “By the lamassu Baskakeren was a terrible scribe. But prolific. He traveled to Kusuj early on during their reign, and wrote a book entitled The Going Forth Into the Land of the Living. It’s full of obvious lies, but this one is particularly titillating: that anyone may walk the Path of Righteousness, but that nobody does, as everyone who attempts it dies. Even royalty as we’ve seen are not proof to the Path’s supposed deadliness. Yet there it lies, open to all, a surefire way to enter Amubastis’ presence permanently.”

Annara felt a thrill of excitement. “Anyone may pass through?”

Pebekkamen groaned and covered his face.

“According to Baskakaren, yes.” Neferhotep smiled at her. “Ridiculous, is it not? Were this true, then anybody could be pharaoh.”

“But nobody survives,” growled Pebekkamen. “That’s the whole point. It’s a death trap. There’s no sense in even trying, and that’s why Baskababben -”

“Baskakaren,” interjected Neferhotep.

“Baskakaren says that nobody even tries to walk it. It’s simply not an option.”

Annara ignored him with ease. “This is fascinating information, royal librarian. Exactly what I’d hoped to learn. I will be departing first thing tomorrow on an extended journey to follow the borders of Magan and learn more of its provinces first hand. Is there a scribe you could recommend to us that would be able to further educate me on the traditions, history, and culture of Kusuji?”

“I - but yes, of course. There are many who hold places of esteem and importance within the palace -”

“Alas, that won’t do,” said Annara. “Sorry. I want someone without political connections.”

Neferhotep raised both painted eyebrows.

“Because,” continued Annara, making it up as she went along, “I desire to converse with a true intellectual, someone with no mind for temporal matters of the court, but who instead has devoted themselves solely to matters of the mind.”

“Ah,” said Neferhotep, glancing at Pebekkamen as if for reassurance. “Do you mean to say that those within the palace are not -”

“Please, royal librarian.” Annara put on her best smile. “Surely there is a solitary scribe here who wouldn’t mind going on a journey through the countyside?”

Pebekkamen snorted. “That’s the worst fate most of them can imagine.”

“No, no, I think I know just the person,” said Neferhotep, and then brightened up considerably. “Oh yes! He would love to get out and around for a few months! Sunshine, plenty of time spent on camel back, sleeping in tents - oh yes. He will be simply overjoyed to accompany you. He will present himself outside the Women’s Courtyard just before dawn.”

“And be prepared to speak intelligently about everything Kusuj,” said Annara.

Neferhotep’s smile was just short of malicious. “Oh, you won’t be able to stop him.”

“Very well. Thank you for your time. This has been a fascinating experience.”

Much bowing followed, a call for blessings, and finally Annara and Pebekkamen managed to escape back outside into the sunlight.

“You can’t be serious,” said Pebekkamen as the brothel madam approached, all simpers and blown kisses.

“Prepare a royal convoy to leave before dawn,” she replied, smiling widely at all those gathered before her and moving forward to greet them. “I’ll tell Senacherib.”

* * *

“What? Leave on a royal tour now? Are you insane?”

Annara wondered with whom she’d eventually be able to let down her guard. Watching as her son paced and back and forth within his room, she kept her expression calm and confident. She couldn’t show him her doubts, her fears, her certainty that at any moment armed assassins would break in. She had to convince him by pretending to be convinced herself.

“The palace has become too dangerous,” she said. “The regent -”

“The drunkard, you mean.”

“The regent insists that our enemies will first kill him, then me, and then force you to accept Pawura -”

“Over my dead body!”

“Which might very well end up being the case if you don’t agree.” She reached out and took hold of his wrist as he tried to stride by. “Elu. Listen to me. We are in mortal danger here. You’ve become very taken with your rank of pharaoh-to-be, but nobody else is. You saw what they were trying to pull before the lamassu -”

Elu pulled his wrist free. “Luckily they had you there to hand me over to them on a silver platter.”

Annara bit back her retort. Instead, “They out-manuevered us. It was a done deal, and it was only by picking our own regent -”

“And you picked Pebekkamen, of all people?”

“Acharsis vouched for him.”

“Acharsis left us behind to rot!”

Elu’s yell echoed off the high walls and he stopped to glare at her, face going red. “Where is he now? He spends all this time talking about how much he wanted to be closer to you and me, and the first chance he gets he rides off into the underworld with the other godsbloods. You think his opinion matters to me?”

“Pebekkamen -”

“Enough, mother! I’ve done my own research. Oh yes, I’ve not been sitting here eating grapes while you go to the slums and library and weave all your plans. Ahktena has told me plenty about him, this former hero who lost his nerve and fled the field ten years ago. And you know who he was fighting? The Kusuj! Yes! The very people you’re interested in talking to, for some reason.”

“How do you know about the Kusuj?” asked Annara, feeling very distant, very detached.

“I had people following you. And no, not just to spy, but to protect you, because yes, I know how much danger we’re in, and having you wander around with only a handful of guards isn’t enough. If you won’t listen to me, then I’m forced to go out of my way and send my people to protect you -”

Annara inhaled through her nose. “This changes nothing. The Kusuj -”

“And now we’re leaving at dawn with Pebekkamen to go into enemy territory? With an avowed coward and drunk who is no doubt still known and hated over there? Ahktena told me nobody in their sane mind goes within twenty miles of the Kusuj border -”

“You told her?”

“I - yes.” He had enough presence of mind to turn away. “She and I have grown close. I trust her.”

Annara took three quick steps forward. “Have you forgotten whose daughter she is?”

“No.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “And it doesn’t matter. We love each other, mother. I’m going to take her as my wife.”

“Your - your wife?” Annara threw up her hands and gave a despairing laugh. “She’s your sister! You can’t marry her!”

“The Maganians are exceptionally flexible when it comes to royal weddings, and more importantly, no, she is not my sister.”

“Everyone thinks she is.”

“Actually? No. Nobody does. That’s the whole problem, isn’t it?”

“Well, everybody has to pretend they think she is, which is the same thing.”

“Not if I declare my true identity it won’t be.”

“Your what?”

Elu didn’t answer, but stood there, lower lip jutting out, staring into the flames of a brazier.

“Elu. What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I won’t live my life as a lie. That everybody knows who I am. They’re moving against me anyway. I might as well declare my true identity and be free to marry Ahktena and be myself. It’s -”

“Was this her idea?”

His face darkened. “What of it? She wants to marry me too.”

Annara gave a low laugh. “Oh ho, I’m sure she does. And you don’t see it. Do you know what would happen if you openly declared yourself Elu of Eruk, lowly commoner?”

“Let me guess. They’d try and take my power away and appoint a regent until they could have me killed?”

Annara glared at him. “Or just skip to the killing part!”

“Enough! Mother! More than enough! I am the pharaoh-to-be, not your twelve year-old boy! If I decide to declare my true identity, it won’t change my having passed the Quickening, it won’t change the fact that the lamassu have recognized me, and it won’t change the way I’m being treated! It is my decision! Not yours!”

Annara took a deep breath and turned toward the closest brazier, her anger sluicing away as she stared into its fiery depths. “Very well, Elu. At least promise me this. That you’ll wait to declare yourself after we return from Kusuj.”

“We won’t return from Kusuj, mother. They’ll kill us or hold us hostage. I’m not going. I’m going to declare my true identity, marry Ahktena, make peace with Nethena, and find a way to remove the need for a regent.”

Annara rubbed at her face, not caring if she smeared the carefully applied make-up. “You’ll be dead within the week.”

“I won’t. I told you. I’m not a child. I’ll find a way.”

How to convince him, and by doing so, save his life? He was growing into a man in truth, prickly and defensive, supremely concerned with his pride and supposed independence, willing to act the fool if it felt masculine to do so. No; she couldn’t order him and threaten him. Nor could she expect to have him understand the wisdom of her words. She could sense it - the direct line of influence that Ahktena had secured about his heart, like a coil of rope with which she was tugging him away.

Careful. The wrong word, the wrong push, and she’d lose him altogether.

“Very well,” she said. “If you wish to marry Ahktena I’ll bless the union.”

That gave him pause. “You will?”

“It’s your decision, first and foremost. And she’s a beautiful, talented, remarkably intelligent woman. She’ll make you a fine wife.” If she doesn’t try to murder you.

“I - thank you.” He still sounded stiff, as if uncertain how to cede his anger now that all resistance had crumbled so quickly. “She’ll be very happy to hear that.”

“And if you wish to declare yourself publicly as Elu, son of Acharsis, I’ll support that as well.”

“Wait a second. I can hear a condition coming. What do you demand in return?”

“I can’t demand anything of you, remember? I’m just your mother. I can but ask. Journey with me to Kusuj first. Walk their Path of Righteousness. Become fully divine, and then declare yourself whatever you want, marry whomever you want, once it’s too late for them to deny you.”

“Kusuj.” He stood there, hands on his hips, and shook his head as if marveling. “You’re obsessed with this alien ritual that nobody else believes in that they won’t let me undertake. What do you think they’ll do if the pharaoh-to-be walks into their hands? Make him divine? No. They’ll hold me ransome, use me as a bargaining chip or worse an excuse to invade Magan again and install me as their puppet ruler. No, mother. I won’t go to Kusuj. I won’t walk this Path. No.”

Annara’s shoulders slumped. All her striving, all her effort to protect him, to find a way to ensure his survival - and he was proving to be her greatest foe. And worse yet, there was wisdom to what he was saying. She had too little information on these Kusuji to guarantee his safety. Then - what? Where did that leave her? What options were left?

Thoughts spinning and whirling, she stared into the flame once more. If only she had Acharsis’ divine wit. Or Jarek’s supernatural assurance and strength. If only Scythia were her mother or grandmother, instead of simply an object of worship. Then she’d be equal to this task. Then she’d -

The thought struck her, as audacious as it was lethally ambitious.

“Mother?” Elu sounded wary.

“Very well. I can’t make you come to Kusuj. But I have one other idea that may save our situation. I ask nothing from you other than time to pursue it. One week. Give me one week before you announce your identity and intentions to marry. Do that, and I’ll ask nothing more of you, will support you in everything and give my blessings whole heartedly.”

“What are you going to do?”

“That is for me to do and you to learn a week from now. Will you do that for me, Elu? Can you wait but one week?”

“You said Pebekkamen would be killed within days.”

“Then go on a royal tour of some kind with him, set a fast pace and mislead them as to where you’re going. Not to Kusuj, fine, but anywhere else. Along the coast, to visit your mustering armies, whatever you like. Give me one week and then we’ll both meet back here and you can then do as you wish.”

Elu studied her with narrowed eyes, then sighed. “Very well. I owe you that much. One week. I’ll set up a tour of the armies - everyone will believe that I want to inspect them - and then instead head to the coast to visit our forts. That should buy us enough time. Satisfied?”

“Yes,” she said, and moved forward to kiss his brow. “Thank you.”

“I wish you’d tell me what you’re going to do,” he grumbled.

“Trust me. It’s all I ask. Speaking of, I’d best start preparing. There’s precious little time. Good night, my son. May Scythia and all the gods watch over you.”

“And you, mother.” He hesitated, then hugged her tight. “You’d better take care of yourself. Don’t make me regret this trust.”

“No regrets,” she said, reaching up to cup his cheek. It hurt to smile, but it was a good pain. “No regrets ever, my son. Farewell.”

And so saying, she turned and swept out of his royal suite, her private guards falling in line with her, to cross the palace complex to where Pebekkamen resided.

He was awake, of course. Sprawled out beside a fountain upon a wealth of cushions, a dozen lanterns illuminating the score of empty clay cups that he’d discarded. A servant stood nervously to one side, pitcher of beer in hand, and from a distance Annara could hear the plaintive, melancholic call of a stringed instrument being played.

“Lady Annara,” said Pebekkamen, not bothering to rise. “Come to ruin my evening? I was just about starting to enjoy myself.”

Annara sat on the fountain’s edge and surveyed the empty cups. “Just about?”

“It takes more and more these days to get me going.” Pebekkamen surveyed the same cups sadly. “My curse. My… yoke to bear. The more I seek oblivion, the quicker it retreats from me. Ah! Life. It’s a pile of horse shit.”

“There’s been a change of plans.”

“I’m no longer regent! Huzzah! Let the court music people blow their horns till they’re red in the face. The first good news I’ve -”

“Senacherib will not be accompanying us to Kusuj.”

The regent reached for a new cup. “Boy’s smart. I mean, pharaoh-elect. Or whatever.”

“Instead, he’ll be doing a surprise tour of the coast. You’ll escort him but keep your destinations secret so that no assassination attempts can be attempted.”

“Tour of the coast? I can live with that.” He cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes. “Wait. You’re being too calm about this. What are you planning?”

“I’m going to Kusuj.” Annara sat up straight and smoothed down the fabric of her robe. “Senacherib has promised me a week’s grace before announcing his true identity and asking Ahktena to be his royal wife. I thus have seven days in which to save his life.”

Pebekkamen spat beer all over the cushions. “Announce - ask Ahktena - what?!”

Annara sighed. “Precisely.”

The regent rose to his feet, swayed, and then hurled his cup into the bushes, beer arcing out in the air. “Is the boy mad? Does he -”

“Pebekkamen, I can assure you I’ve already tried to change his mind. He is as stubborn as he is proud. Your job will be to keep him alive until I can return. Can I trust you to do that much?”

“And you’re going to Kusuj? You and what army? How do you intend -”

“I expect you to keep a tight rein on his activities, keep him moving, and to constantly change direction so as to not give away your true itinerary -”

“- you’re mad, woman, if you think you can -”

“- and see if you can’t keep him apart from Ahktena, whom, lest we forget, is the daughter of the queen who is trying to kill us all -”

“Kusuj? You’re really going there? Alone?”

Annara pressed her fingers into her temples. “Apparently.”

Pebekkamen sank down onto the cushions. “You can’t. Seven days? If you rode like the wind you could be at the border in five, and that’s assuming you avoid the dangers along the way. But even if you then pass the trial and become divine, how would you make it back in time…?”

Tears of frustration filled Annara’s eyes and she wiped them away angrily. “I don’t know, Pebekkamen. I don’t know. But I have to try. What else can I do? Sit here while my son gets himself killed? I’ve been abandoned by Acharsis, am saddled with a son who won’t listen to me and a regent who alternates between yelling and trying to drink the river dry. What else can I do but my best?”

Pebekkamen frowned at her but kept quiet.

Annara took a deep breath. “I’ll be heading out before dawn. I am placing the safety of my son in your hands. Can I trust you to remain sufficiently sober to take care of him?”

Pebekkamen looked at the cups strewn about the cushions and sighed. “And thus are the last dregs of joy sucked out of my life. Yes, yes, though the withdrawal may kill me. I swear by the lammasu that I won’t touch a drop until you return.”

“Good.” Annara rose to her feet. “You’d best start planning the expedition. I want as little left to Senacherib as possible.”

“And you? You intend to ask for a horse and simply ride forth alone?”

“No. I’ll be accompanied by a scribe who will tell me everything he knows about the Kusuji en route.”

“And a couple of soldiers, at least. Enough to protect you from errant monsters or all but the most determined of bandits.”

“Fine.” Annara felt a bone crushing weariness that made her own safety a matter of insignificant interest. “If it helps me get there, whatever you deem fit. As long as they don’t slow me down.”

Pebekkamen’s grin was that of a Golden Plains coyote. “Oh, they’ll keep up. Very well. I know just the men to ask. And - one more thing.”

Annara raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“You’re a damn fine woman, Lady Annara. I salute your madness.”

“Madness?”

His grin widened. “That’s what I’ll call it until you return.”

“And then what? You’ll call it wisdom, or genius?”

Pebekkamen’s grin widened. “No. If you pull this off, I’ll bend knee and call you by your proper title. Goddess.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Acharsis stepped forth into a garden. Despite the night that ruled the world outside, within it was twilight, though whether dusk or dawn Acharsis couldn’t tell. A faint mist hung in the air, subtle and softening the contours of the old trees that were bedecked in draperies of faded gold.

Everywhere there grew great fleshy white flowers, five-petalled and with stamens of luminous yellow in their cores. They hung in woven tapestries down the sides of the trees, or bloomed from dark bushes that were almost hidden by their profusion.

The air was heavy with their smell; as Acharsis stepped warily forth, he felt as if he strode into a bank of perfume, subtle and pervasive. He could feel no wind upon his cheek, but the clothes of gold that hung from the wizened trees unfurled and blew as if caught up in bad dreams or gusts of their own imaginings. Strangely, they did so slowly, as if he lay dying and watched them in his final moments, the passage of time nearly arrested moments before it ended altogether.

Suddenly he was sure he was alone, that he’d been separated from his companions, and he spun, certain he’d see the gate closed behind him, his friends disappeared. But there they stood. Obdurate Jarek. Callow Sisu. Fierce Kish. The epiphling flying in circles around their heads. They spoke, but no sound came from their mouths. It was as if they were underwater.

Turning back, Acharsis sought some evidence of a path and found none. The grass beneath his feet was dark and luxurious, the blades like daggers, bending with reluctance beneath his feet. Perfect beads of dew clung to each and every one, and soon his ankles and shins were wet.

No mountaintop garden, this. He was in some other realm entirely.

Throat tight, feeling as if each step took him deeper into a dream, Acharsis pressed into the garden, seeking apple trees. Each specimen he examined might have borne fruit, once, but no globes rotten or otherwise now hung from their branches. They looked more akin to olive trees, twisted and knotted by decades of storms and sun, than the apple trees he’d come to know in Khartis.

The beat of his heart was loud in his ears. The cloths of gold unfurled endlessly about him as the trees grew thicker. The white blooms seemed to yearn for him, stretching their petals in supplication.

Another spasm of fear. Acharsis turned, and this time his friends were gone. He stood alone between the trees. All sense of direction was gone from him. Which way would take him back to the gate? In the misty twilight, he had no idea.

There was no retreating from this place.

He pressed deeper into the grove.

The trees grew so closely together here that he had to reach out and part their boughs, to allow him to slip between their branches and thick leaves. His throat was tight, his mouth dry. The light and mist seemed to blanch the color from the world. All was subtle grays, browns, and faded greens.

The trees parted before him and Acharsis stepped into a small clearing. A young woman sat on a marble bench to one side beneath the spreading branches of an apple tree that bore fruit. The first and only one he’d seen. But the woman’s gaze pulled his own from the apples and down to her face.

She was solemn, her expression remote, her eyes large and soulful and her cheeks as red as the apples he sought. A garland of the white flowers adorned her head like a crown, and her red hair fell in loose braids down each shoulder, hinting at a former complexity now come to dissolution. Her shirt was intricately stitched with patterns unfamiliar to his eye, her sleeves rolled up to reveal her pale arms, her fingers interlaced in her lap.

She was in every way a mortal girl, yet anything but; the air about her was heavy with divinity, and Acharsis found himself unable to move forward. To speak. To break the silence that lay upon the glade like a benediction. Or a curse. He knew not.

Her gaze bored into his own. Her eyes were large, like those of an animal. Her nose was pert. She appeared perhaps just barely twenty. Young, but there was in her visage a doleful sense of weary patience that spoke of a far greater age; she could have sat there since time began, since the sun first broached the far horizon to spill its aureate rays across the world.

She didn’t move, this goddess. What had his father named her?

“Sumala,” said the goddess.

Her voice released him. Acharsis stumbled forward and caught his balance. She watched him with the same cold curiosity with which a child might watch a servant approach bearing a tray of treats she does not want.

“Greetings, goddess,” said Acharsis, licking his dry lips. He was in danger here. Danger that he did not yet understand but could not deny. Come, my wit, don’t fail me now. He spread his arms and executed his best courtly bow, favoring her with a smile even though her expression changed not a fraction. “I am Acharsis, son of Ekillos, once ruler of my own proud city but now fallen and as dust blown by the wind.”

Nothing flickered in those eyes, dark like shadowed, forgotten pools.

“I’ve journeyed far to reach you.” Acharsis took another tentative step toward her. “Across the lands of the dead. I’ve trembled in the shadows of Amubastis. I’ve hidden from Nekuul’s own gaze. I’ve conversed with my father, now fallen and greatly reduced. I’ve taken flight with demons to climb this mountain. I’ve swum to the depths of your guardian gate and been pulled back by the love of a true friend. I’ve wandered far, but always my eyes have strayed to your garden. To this glade. To you, Sumala.”

He stopped a half-dozen paces from her and lowered himself to his knees. The grass was wet against his skin. “If it please you, if you allow me, I would take one of your apples from the branches above your head. A rotten apple, so that I may right a wrong that is about to befall the living world.”

His words were swallowed by the shadows. A true wind this time did blow, and the boughs over them shuddered and swayed. Leaves like serrated spearheads fell, their tops waxen green, their underbellies pale like those of snakes, fluttering so that each color alternated in quick succession, making it seem that many more than the score that fell did rain down upon them.

Sumala watched him and was unmoved.

“Goddess,” said Acharsis, fighting to keep his tone confident. “How may I praise you, how may I worship, so that I may benefit of your largesse?”

She moved at long last, tilting her head so that it went from resting on one shoulder to the other, as if she wished to study him from another angle. “Praise me,” she said, and said no more.

Shit, thought Acharsis. He knew nothing of Sumala the goddess. Nothing of her mind or heart, her concerns or provinces. Having never left this garden, she had never been worshipped, had no rituals crafted to her name; never had sacrifices been made to her, sweet smoke rising in generous offerings to placate her ire or arouse her blessings.

How was he to praise her? How was he to know what to say, what to touch upon, what to commend?

A thought occurred to him then, and almost he laughed. If none had praised her before, then who was to judge if he erred? If no patterns were carved in stone, then his was a blank canvas on which to sketch as he saw fit.

Acharsis took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Sought to drink deep of whatever divine spark remained to him. Sought to summon what charm and grace had once been his. To light his words with his own fire, if that he still could do.

“Sumala, pale blossom, goddess of the glade, fell and lovely as the dawn. I praise thee, from your dolorous eye to your full lips. I dream of your hair, I lose myself in your embrace, your lips rouged with blood and your fingers careless with my soul. Sumala, whose feet leave imprints in the dew, I breathe for you as the flowers exhale their golden dust, yearning for life, for another day, another sun to warm my face. I tremble, knowing that I am but a shadow that passes before you, a flickering mortal who cannot help but fail. But here in this garden of sorrow,here in this garden of pain,here where once the gods did dance and laugh, where now rules only silence and memories, I come to you. To kneel in my flesh, my blood hot within my veins, my heart pounding, pounding, pounding. I bring you that divine spark of life that is mine, inimitably so, that precarious, fleeting, futile hope for something more that drives every mortal to test the boundaries of what is permissible in this world.”

Acharsis took a deep breath and smiled at her, gladly, foolishly, her impassivity driving him to despair. “Sumala. How long have you sat here in your own twilight, wondering, dreaming of the waking world? If you are but a dream, if you are cloaked in somber hues and your eyes see through me into the infinite, what can a sorrowful man such as myself do but worship at your altar? If I did have beasts of the field with me, I would sacrifice them to you, cut their flesh from their bones and burn them so that their sweet smoke might please you. If I had stones and the craft, I would build temples to you and fill them with voices raised in song, so that your name might echo from their fastness into eternity. But alas.”

He swallowed. “I have nothing but myself. This mind. This soul. This body. And with these three elements I do give you praise. I do offer myself unto you, oh Sumala of the garden. I lay myself at your feet, and ask for nothing more than your mercy.”

Silence. He might as well have preached to an outcropping of stone. He wanted to laugh, to cry. Had his words pleased her? He couldn’t tell. Offended? No sign of that either. Should he continue? Wait in silence for her judgement? In the dark depths of her eyes he saw no indication, no hint, no sign of favor or disfavor.

Acharsis took a deep breath, went to speak, but then she did move. Sumala bestirred herself, slowly, as though awakening from a deep dream. She inhaled, rising from her stooped seat, chin lifting.

“Did my words please you?” he asked, voice but a croak.

She rose to her feet and extended a hand to him. Blunt fingered, strong, the hand of a laborer, though her flesh was pale.

“I am eternal,” she said, voice hollow with some emotion he couldn’t identify. “Outside time. But each passing moment transfixes me. I choose this guise. If you would, if you could - would you choose a younger seeming with which to be with me?”

Acharsis rose to his feet and took her hand. Her skin was cool. Her fingers intertwined with his own. He was taller than she, but felt as if he stood before a mountain, a sunrise, an oak of surpassing age.

“Always,” he whispered.

He felt vigor steal through him, felt his muscles tighten with potential, felt his breath deepen, the aches fall away.

“Your heart’s greatest desire,” Sumala whispered, “shall always be outside your reach. But I can give you something else. Something you never even knew you wished for.”

“What?” he asked, but oh, he already knew. She inclined her face to his own, lips parting, and her other hand was upon his chest.

“Please me,” she whispered, and there were tears in her eyes. “And I shall please you.” Her lips trembled, and he caught her other hand in his own, held it tightly, and in that moment felt nothing more than sorrow and compassion for her eon-spanning solitude.

“Gladly,” he whispered back, lowering his face to her own, suffused with gentleness, with the first intimations of desire.

Her breath was husky as she lifted her face. Acharsis froze. It wasn’t Sumala who reached up to kiss him, but Irella. Irella as he recalled her, as she had been that night two decades ago, pale skinned and with hair of jet, self-contained and perilous, calculating and knowing.

His breath locked in his throat, and his pulse pounded like the surf on the shores of the Khartis, a booming that made it hard to think, to process. He had to restrain himself from digging his fingers into her white flesh, from casting the goddess from him with a cry. Yet even as he held her, his hand shaking, he felt desire tear through him like flames through an oil-soaked tent.

Annara, he thought desperately to himself as Irella - no, Sumala, Sumala - lifted her lips to brush them against his own. Oh, Annara, forgive me.

Her hands moved to his hair, pulling him down toward her, down toward the grass, and Acharsis followed, kissing her hungrily, losing all track of himself, his quest, his fears and the world beyond the shadowed glade.

* * *

Acharsis woke alone. He lay in the wild grass, his body aching pleasurably, but then a wave of guilt flashed through him and he sat up, putting his hand to his head. Irella - no, Sumala, damn it - was gone. In her place rested two apples - one discolored and badly bruised, the other pristine.

His prize. His payment.

Acharsis stared at the apples and felt his soul recoil. What had happened? What had he done? He’d lost all control. Had devoured Irella with as much hunger as Sumala had devoured him in turn.

Flashes of memory assailed him, and he groaned, closing his eyes and turning his head as if he could avert his inner eye. In all the years since his father had been slain, never had he felt more akin to his former, godlike self as those hours in Irella’s arms.

No. Sumala’s.

Would he ever feel so empowered, so… immortal, with Annara?

Acharsis shivered and rose to his feet, adjusted his clothing and then scooped up the apples. He brought the spoiled one to his nose, smelt the tang of sweetness and putrescence. How fitting that his prize for such an exchange be rotten. He tucked it into his shirt and wiped his hand across his hip, shuddering.

The second apple, however…

It gleamed with a soft rosy glow. If a rotten apple stole divinity, might a pure apple bestow it?

But I can give you something else. Something you never even knew you wished for.

Or perhaps restore divinity, reverse the ravages of the flesh? A horrifying, hungry desire filled him, ravenous and insensate. For a long while Acharsis stood, staring with glazed eyes at nothing at all, wrestling with himself.

If I consume this apple, and it grants me youth anew - would that be a good thing? Who would I be? What would I desire? Whom would I wish by my side?

With a shudder, he shoved the fresh apple into his tunic, turned away from the bench and the grove and strode with quick strides into the undergrowth.

“There he is!” Sisu’s voice was muffled by the mist, but a moment later his friends emerged from between a bank of trees, wide-eyed and pale with concern. The epiphling flew down to land on his shoulder.

“Acharsis?” Jarek’s hand was on the haft of his Sky Hammer. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he said, and wondered sincerely if he was. He looked over his shoulder at the now hidden glade. Was Sumala once more perched on her bench beneath the shadowed canopy? Acharsis shivered and drew the rotten apple forth. “Look,” he said. “Look what I have.”

“You did it!” Kish’s smile was a vibrant flash of white in the dusky gloom. She embraced him, squeezing him hard, then stepped back.

Sisu hugged himself. “This means we can get out of here, right?”

“Yes,” said Acharsis. He thought for the briefest of moments to tell them of how he acquired the apple, but decided to keep his memory of Sumala and their time together private. “There’s something else.” He drew forth the second apple.

“A snack?” asked Sisu.

Jarek was quicker on the uptake. “You stole it?”

“No,” said Acharsis, feeling wistful, melancholic. “It was given to me. Though to what end…?”

“Does it - would it make someone - a normal someone - a godsblood?” asked Kish.

And Acharsis thought immediately of Annara. Of giving her the apple, so that she could be his equal in all things, so that they could rule together, neither stronger nor lesser. A pang of guilt; was he trying to atone for the method in which he’d acquired it?

“Looks like we’ve gained a wild card,” said Acharsis. He slipped the apple back into his shirt. “But for now, let’s focus on getting out of here.”

They found the exit to the garden with surprising ease; they’d been standing but a dozen yards from it. The others explained how they’d searched for him and then the gate in turn with only increasing levels of frustration; Jarek laughed to learn it had been so close all along.

Anscythia presented herself once they stepped through the gate. Her dark eyes were slitted with suspicion, but her expression was one of neutral reserve.

“There you are,” said Acharsis, relieved more than he could say. “We’re done here. Please take us to Uros.”

To Acharsis’ surprise, the demon didn’t spit or hiss or claw at itself; instead, it eyed him warily and then simply inclined its head.

“I can’t believe it,” said Jarek. “I think you’re growing on her. And I thought she’d not be able to leave the Valley?”

At this, the demon slashed at Jarek, who danced backward, fumbling for his Sky Hammer, only to draw it and see that the demon had retreated and bowed her head demurely.

Sisu laughed. “Looks like she doesn’t like you much, yet.”

Jarek grumbled and slipped his hammer back in its sheath. “Fine with me.”

Acharsis rubbed at his jawline. “I bet she can leave the same way the others did. I think the scorpion guards have to reassess their purposes.”

Anscythia bowed, ever mocking, and then the air was filled with roaring and Acharsis felt his body shake as a dark thunderbolt took them all up into the void. Acharsis could dimly sense the others by his side, pale shapes in the roiling dark.

They seemed to arc across the sky, everything distorted as if seen through muddied water, and then with a howling rush fell upon the earth like a meteor, to come crashing down and stop with bone-jarring abruptness in an alleyway.

Acharsis staggered and reached out to a mud-brick wall to steady himself. It was night, the full moon painting the square buildings about them in vivid silver and causing the shadows to appear all the more impenetrable by contrast. The smell of civilization was welcome after their time in the realms of the gods: someone had pissed in this alleyway not too long ago, and beyond that pungent stink Acharsis could smell cooking meat, wood smoke, and hear the subtle sounds of a city at night.

“We here?” asked Jarek, his voice a low growl. “Uros?”

“Irella’s own city,” said Acharsis, choosing to believe the demon hadn’t played them foul. “The one place I swore I’d never return to.”

“Home,” said Sisu bleakly. “I left here smuggled in the depths of a wagon filled with carpets. I thought when I returned it would be at the head of an army of my own conquering dead.”

“You really don’t like your mother, huh?” asked Acharsis, turning to watch the slender Nekuulite.

“Not really, no.” Sisu ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s not personal, though. She was never much of a ‘mother’ to me. Always remote, ruling the world, praying to Nekuul. I felt closer to my servants and nanny than I ever did her.”

Kish reached out and gave Sisu a one-armed hug around the shoulders, and Acharsis saw him stiffen in surprise and then relax.

“Well, now what?” asked Jarek. “We going to march our way into her ziggurat and drop the apple in her lap?”

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am entrusted with all the planning,” said Acharsis, bowing low. “No, Jarek. That’s not the plan. Instead, we’re going to do what I always do upon arriving in a new and potentially hostile town—”

“Find beer,” said Kish.

“Precisely,” said Acharsis with a smile. “The cool blessings of Siros, the goddess of beer, must be sought after before any perilous venture.”

“It’s halfway through the night,” said Jarek. “All the taverns will be closed.”

“Oh, Jarek,” said Acharsis with fond affection. “You’ve clearly gone feral. Let’s head down to the docks. While the good citizens of Uros might be abed, resting before another day of back-breaking labor beneath the punishing sun, the sailors will have no such compunctions against late-night revelry. Come on. The sooner we sit around a table, the sooner I can amaze your minds with my subtle and astonishing plan.”

He hesitated. Which way, exactly?

The epiphling leaped from his shoulder and flew to the end of the alley, alighting on a clothesline to glance back at them.

“See?” Acharsis grinned. “Of course he knows where to get a drink at this hour. C’mon.”

He marched out of the alleyway before they could laugh at him, peering both ways down the empty street before stepping out and heading left. A plan. A means to get Irella to eat a rotten apple. Why couldn’t it have been roasted suckling pig that would deprive her of her powers? But no.

It had been decades since Acharsis last visited Uros, but little had changed. Little could change. The city was shaped like a triangle and wedged into the confluence of the great Leonis and the icy Patar that flowed down from the Aloros mountains to the east. The riverbanks constrained growth and meant that striking out in any random direction had a two in three chance of bringing you to a river you could then follow to the docks.

A plan. Acharsis bit his lower lip, deep in thought. Damn but it was hard to connive with a dry throat.

A patrol stepped into view up ahead, immediately obvious for its regimented lines and the spears propped on shoulders. Fifteen, no, about twenty individuals. Acharsis resisted the urge to freeze and instead moved to the far side of the street, averting his eyes, hunching his back and rounding his shoulders so as to make himself look as unthreatening as possible.

They were dead, he realized, the brightness of the moon making their nature obvious. Even a quick glance was enough to make out the desiccated skin stretched taut over their skulls, their eyes little more than hollow pits, muscle and flesh wasted away to leave them gangly and emaciated.

His glance lingered for too long, however, and he made eye contact with a robed figure walking at their rear. A single flash of an ornate bone mask and pitch-filled eye sockets and then Acharsis tore his gaze away, cursing his lack of discretion.

A deathless. Had it marked him? Though its eyes were covered, Acharsis knew it had spotted him. Would it stop?

No. The patrol passed him by, the sound of bare feet receding and then fading away altogether.

Acharsis turned to gaze after them, heart pounding in his chest. His friends stood only a few yards behind, Sisu still murmuring a spell of some sort, his hand glowing the faintest green.

“I’d almost forgotten about those guys,” said Acharsis, voice weak with relief. “What a wonderful world it was that I inhabited there for a few days without any thought of the deathless.”

“It almost saw you,” said Sisu, voice curt. “I managed to shield us just in time.”

“Worth your weight in goats made of gold,” said Acharsis, giving the young Nekuulite a grin. “I think it’s high time we invited you to join our group. What do you say, young man? You seem full of promise. Want in?”

Sisu snorted. “Hardly. What I want is - well, it’s a long list, and begins with items such as power, respect, and—”

“Great! You’re in.” Acharsis watched as the patrol turned a distant corner and disappeared.

“That was a large patrol,” said Kish. “You think Irella is expecting trouble?”

“After what happened in Rekkidu?” Jarek rubbed at his jaw. “I’d imagine she’s going to be extremely careful that nothing disrupts her ritual.”

“She’s doomed for disappointment,” said Acharsis. “Sisu, why don’t you walk up front so you can shield us from any other nosy deathless types we run across? I’ll guide you by throwing rocks at whichever shoulder in whose direction I want you to turn.”

Sisu leveled a flat stare at him until Acharsis raised his hand in protestation. “No rocks? Very well. Whispers, then. But let us be quick. The sooner we’re safe inside a tavern, the better.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Their table was perfect. Crammed into a dark nook, there was barely room for the four of them around its ragged surface.They sat hunched over their clay cups of beer, filter straws gleaming in the rushlights, removed from the sparse crowd that lingered still in the main room but able to keep an eye on the front door.

That, and the beer was delicious. “A fine brew,” Acharsis said to the youth who served them. “Worthy of the mighty city of Uros. My thanks, young master.”

The boy gave him a wink. “Wasn’t me that brewed it, but I’ll take the compliment nonetheless. Nekuul’s blessings upon you.”

“Nekuul’s blessings,” grumbled Jarek, taking a sip through his straw. “I’ll save those for my dying breath.”

The epiphling fluttered down to land on his mug’s rim, and dipped its beak into the brew, quaffing a fair amount before peering cheekily up at him.

“Now,” said Kish. “We are seated. We each have a beer before us. Dawn is but a few hours away. Will you share your plan, oh great and esteemed Acharsis?”

“She’s got cheek, this one,” said Acharsis to Jarek. “I advise you to be careful.” Then he reared back with a laugh as Kish rose to pretend to buffet him around the head. “Fine! Fine. A plan. Lean in close, children, and Uncle Acharsis will weave you a tale of enchantment and wonder.”

Sisu just snorted.

Acharsis couldn’t help but grin. The old excitement was starting up within his heart, that delightful feeling of starting upon a venture with no guarantee of success. “Jaded by his childhood, don’t mind him. Now. The plan. Its strength lies in its simplicity—”

“Translation,” said Kish. “I don’t have much of a plan.”

“My dear, if you do not wish me to speak, I am more than content to sit back and sip my beer. No? Very well, then. So. I can think of no earthly way to convince Irella to consume this rather moldy-looking apple.”

Jarek shook his head. “Not falling for it. Keep going.”

“Which is why we must subsume its essence into a finer dish. Feasting is compulsory when you have a big ritual like this. You just can’t avoid having a big celebration. Everyone expects to be fed and given copious amounts of wine as a signal of your power and generosity. Irella will throw a big banquet, and we’ll find a way to sneak the apple into her personal dish.”

Acharsis slammed his hand down on the table and sat back, arms extended as he waited for everyone to shout with glee and delight.

“Put the apple in her food?” Sisu sounded dubious. “That’s your plan? You do know that everything she eats is tasted first by her own personal bodyguard?”

“Apples aren’t poisonous,” said Acharsis. “He should show no ill effects.”

Sisu continued. “And that her dishes are cooked exclusively for her by a dedicated team of cooks in a private kitchen?”

Acharsis fought to keep his carefree smile. “Infiltration!”

Sisu sat back. “And how do you know she’ll feast before she gives her blood? This will only work if she eats the apple first.”

“Well,” said Acharsis, trying not to get annoyed, “It goes without saying that part of the spectacle of a ritual is to bleed into a vessel, right, to prove to everyone watching that it’s your blood that’s being used?”

“My mother’s not worried about what others think,” said Sisu.

Jarek grunted. “And it could be argued that bleeding before the masses might give them the wrong idea. Make them think you could bleed a whole lot more if they worked up the nerve to stick something sharp and pointy into your body.”

“All right, all right, so we have to do a little reconnaissance first.” Acharsis took a grouchy sip of his beer. “It should really go without saying. We need to learn how the ritual’s going to go, what time, and then figure out a plan to infiltrate her ziggurat.”

Sisu gave a snort. “This is the weakest plan I’ve ever heard. Basically, your plan is to come up with a plan.”

“Have I failed you yet?” Acharsis grinned at the Nekuulite. “Did we not save Elu from Akkodaisis?”

“I remember that plan going horribly wrong,” said Kish.

“Did I not set Elu up as pharaoh of all of Magan?”

“Only after he got accidentally arrested,” said Jarek. “You didn’t plan for that.”

“I think on my feet! I am nimble, like a cat slinking through a pack of dull-witted dogs! I turn, I twist, I contort when least expected! The best plans are those that come through divine inspiration, though admittedly it’s more relaxing when that inspiration comes sooner rather than later. Once we have more information, we can truly figure out how best to infiltrate this private kitchen, mix the apple into Irella’s food, and ensure the blood that’s poured into the crystal receptacles is wholly devoid of all divine properties, ensuring a resounding failure on her part.”

“That’s not enough,” said Jarek, staring down into his beer. “We need to depose her. And since she won’t step down willingly, that means killing her.”

“Which,” said Acharsis, holding up his finger, “will be a sight easier once she’s lost her divine powers.”

Jarek gave another grunt but remained quiet.

“Fine,” said Acharsis, draining his beer. “Sisu, this is your home town. You grew up in the ziggurat, didn’t you? Running up and down its halls chasing a ball? What can you tell us about it?”

Sisu treated Acharsis to his most withering stare. “The ziggurat of Uros puts Rekkidu’s to shame. It’s almost twice as large, and sits atop a massive charnel pit wherein the dead of Uros are collected for mass reanimation. Its hallways are patrolled by hundreds of the deathless, because that’s also where they’re created, along with other, more terrifying creations that aren’t allowed outside for fear of panicking the people.”

“Security,” said Acharsis, stabbing the table with his finger. “What can we expect?”

“All undead will immediately attempt to capture anyone caught inside the ziggurat without an amulet of Nekuul.” Sisu sat back, drumming his fingers on the table’s edge. “For this infiltration to work, we’ll each need one. What’s more, each successive floor requires a more powerful amulet; access to the ground floor doesn’t guarantee you access to the higher levels, and the power signatures of these amulets are closely guarded secrets.”

Acharsis exchanged a glance with Jarek and nodded. “Go on.”

“All entrances to the ziggurat compound are guarded by Death Watch guards, while entrances to the ziggurat itself are guarded by the deathless. Nobody is allowed to take bags, sacks, or weaponry inside without permits or the right kind of amulet.”

“I’m getting the impression that these amulets are pretty important,” said Acharsis.

“Nekuul’s Seekers are also based in the ziggurat. There should be, oh, easily a hundred or so of them inside, ranging from the novices to the Face of Nekuul herself.”

“Face of Nekuul?” asked Kish, raising an eyebrow.

“The leader of the Seekers,” said Sisu with obvious relish. It was as if he were enjoying revealing just how hard this was going to be. “A godsblood of Nekuul like myself. My mother’s cousin, Farasu. They all wield magical power through Nekuul’s blessings.”

“Good memories,” said Acharsis. “I remember the Seekers with great fondness from Rekkidu. Right, Jarek?”

Jarek ignored him.

“What else? Oh! Right. Of course. Literal floating eyeballs that patrol the ziggurat. The particularly devout volunteer to have theirs plucked from their heads and then animated so that they can unobtrusively observe everything from where they sit in the depths of the ziggurat.”

“What is wrong with you Nekuulites?” asked Kish. “Seriously? Floating eyeballs? Why can’t they just volunteer to walk around with their eyes in their heads?”

Sisu shrugged. “They’re really, really hard to spot. That, and the spell also allows them to hear what’s said in their vicinity. It makes for perfect surveillance.”

Acharsis frowned. “Shouldn’t they also have ears stuck to the eyes, then?”

“No,” said Sisu coldly.

“But how can eyes listen to—”

“No,” said Sisu once more. “Trust me.”

Acharsis gave a sulky shrug. “Seems like cheating to me. But all right. So, we’ve got deathless, floating eyes, a hundred or more Seekers, amulets keyed to each level, Death Watch guards, and dead creations that are so terrifying they can’t be seen in public.”

“About those,” said Jarek, leaning forward on both elbows. “Details?”

“There are numerous small ritual chambers scattered underground where Seekers and leeches experiment and attempt to raise new forms of the dead. Most are deemed failures and destroyed, but those that are inspiring or particularly successful are either kept in cages or allowed to roam the hallways.”

Kish made a face. “This all explains so much about you.”

“Give me examples,” said Jarek.

“Well. Let’s see.” Sisu blew out his cheeks. “There’s the rug of limbs and teeth which moves along the walls and ceiling and can devour anything it falls upon. The head crickets - that’s what I called them, anyway - which are heads mounted on a half-dozen hands at the wrist, which can leap a good dozen yards by flexing their fingers and take bites out of you with their enlarged jaws. The huggie daddies—”

“Huggie daddies?” asked Kish. “That their official name?”

“Oh no,” said Sisu. “These are all the pet names I gave them when I was little.”

Kish’s eyebrows went up. “Pet… names?”

“Stay focused,” said Jarek. “The huggie daddies?”

“They’re four or five people combined into one large mass without a head. They move slowly and have really long arms with which they try to press you into their hollow core and then crush you by undulating their bodies violently.”

“Huggie daddies,” said Acharsis, voice neutral.

“Huggie daddies,” agreed Sisu. “I used to play at running into them when their backs were turned. You could bounce off them—” He paused at everyone’s expressions. “Never mind. What else? Oh. The skinny daddies.”

“Really… thin… corpses?” asked Jarek.

“What?” asked Sisu, as if that was a really weird idea. “No! Just their skins. They mold themselves to the walls or ceiling and then wait for someone to pass who shouldn’t be there, upon which they envelop them and constrict them till they can’t move.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” said Kish. “I don’t want to go into this ziggurat anymore.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” said Sisu. “If you have an amulet - which you will, or we won’t even bother - all these creations will just ignore you.”

“Oh,” said Kish. “Joy.”

Acharsis gave his head a shake. “All right. So we’re up against the deathless, the Seekers, leeches, Death Watch guards, floating eyeballs with no ears, amulets keyed to each level, huggie daddies and skinny daddies and so forth - anything else?”

Sisu nodded. “The doors at the very top levels are enchanted by Nekuul’s magic to only open to certain key individuals. That’s not even connected to the amulets, but their very souls. Finally, you’ve not mentioned the single greatest danger we’ll be facing: my mother, daughter of Nekuul, slayer of gods and empress of the River Cities. You can’t comprehend how powerful she is within her own ziggurat.” Sisu looked through Acharsis and into a memory all of his own. “It’s… terrifying.”

“What was your plan again, Acharsis?” Jarek looked his way. “Sneak in and put an apple in her pudding?”

Acharsis sat back with a glower. “Like I said. It needs a little fine-tuning.”

“What of Anscythia?” asked Jarek, looking around as if expecting her to step forward. “Could she be of help?”

“Possibly,” said Acharsis, rubbing his thumb over his chin. “Our wild card, especially since my father warned me that she would only do us a few favors before returning to her old ways. The more we depend on her, the greater the chances of disaster.”

“But…?” prompted Kish.

“But… yes. Our wild card. I’ll have to discover what she’s capable of, and if we can put her to good use.”

“Fair enough,” said Jarek. “For now, however, I’d relish a large, warm bed.”

“Already taken care of,” said Acharsis. “It’s why I chose this quaint tavern over the dozens of other seedy dives that litter the docks. Twenty years ago, this place was owned by an associate of Istrikar, my former spymaster. A safe house of sorts. Let me see if the current owner yet retains any loyalty to my cause, or at worst can offer a few empty beds. One moment.”

He rose to his feet, empty beer in hand, and waved off the serving boy to instead approach the wooden bar, behind which a saturnine young man with half-lidded eyes stood, arms crossed, watching Acharsis with a neutral expression.

“Greetings!” said Acharsis with a bright smile, setting down his clay cup. “Alas! Terrible news. My cup has run dry. Do you have it within you to help me remedy this tragedy?”

“Jasu fills the beers,” said the man without moving. “That’s what he’s for.”

“And he does an admirable job. I suppose I was just feeling nostalgic, remembering when I used to be served at this very bar by Kheresh himself.”

A flicker of surprise. “Kheresh was my father. He passed ten years ago, works the fields outside Uros now for the empress.”

“A fine man,” said Acharsis. “And a hard worker. A pity he doesn’t get to rest now that his life is over.”

The young man shrugged. “Such is our lot. You knew him, then? My father?”

“Oh, yes.Not so close as to call him a friend, but we worked together, you could say.” Acharsis leaned on one elbow and examined the mostly empty room. Only the truly sodden or desperate were still here, sitting alone with their cups and miseries.

“Worked together?” Another flicker of emotion. “You served drinks here? I don’t remember you.”

“No, not so much. Your father. He ever tell you about his other line of work?”

The young man straightened, growing tense. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t? What a pity. I’m not here to judge or cause trouble. Just checking in on an old friend, as I said. Was hoping for a drink and to commiserate on how tough things have become. Way I remember it, old Kheresh didn’t keep the tavern open this late.”

“Folk don’t have as much coin to spend as they once did,” said the youth, sounding defensive and wary both. “I do my best.”

“I’m sure you do. But if you know anything about your father’s old line of work, then you’ll remember that he was trying to improve things outside the tavern as well as in.” Acharsis paused. “You sure you don’t want to share a beer and talk?”

“Who are you?” The young man stepped up to the bar and placed both hands flat upon it. “Really?”

“A dangerous question, my friend. Think of me as your father’s old employer. If that means anything to you, come and join my table. I’m just looking for news of what’s going on in town and a place to spend the night. But if you think it best to stay away, that’s fine too. My friends and I will move on, and we can both pretend this conversation never took place.”

And with that, Acharsis pushed away from the bar, took the jug of beer from Jasu’s hand as the boy stood yawning so hard that his eyes squeezed shut, and refilled his cup. Before the boy could protest, Acharsis returned his jug, then sat down with the others.

“And?” asked Jarek. “Beds?”

“I’ve cast my lure,” said Acharsis. “Now to see if the young fish will bite.”

“I want a bed, Acharsis. Not fish.”

“Sometimes…” Acharsis paused, trying to find a way to make the metaphor work. “Sometimes a silver fish will lead you to its river bed… no. That doesn’t quite hang together. Regardless, he’s the son of - ah. Here he comes. Success.”

The owner stepped up to their table with a mixture of hesitation and sullen defiance, a cup of beer in his hand, then sat when Acharsis pushed out a stool with one foot. “My name is Kheresh, like my father,” he said.

“Acharsis,” said Acharsis, putting a hand to his chest. “And my friends Jarek, Sisu, and Kish.” The other three shot him glares of varying reproof before nodding or smiling at Kheresh the Younger, who glanced at the epiphling but made no comment. Could he not detect its magical nature?. “Now,” Acharsis continued. “What news in Uros?”

Kheresh’s tone was still guarded as he told them of the upcoming ritual; how it was to be held atop the ziggurat before the entire city, how it was supposed to usher in a new age of prosperity and wealth for all the citizens of Uros and the River Cities.

“And do you believe that?” asked Jarek, voice low.

Kheresh stared down into his cup. “Can’t get much worse, can it? The number of dead working the fields grows by the year even as more of us starve. Word is that the fields are drying up. Where once the wheat and barley grew chest high and thick as the hair on my head it now straggles and dies. The Leonis itself runs low. Anything would be an improvement.”

“Anything?” Acharsis toyed with his cup. “Perhaps. I’m not sure if opening a direct portal to the land of the dead will be of benefit to the living, however.”

“Istrikar says the dead will always serve the living first and foremost,” said Kheresh with a shrug. “That this is but a means to swell the ranks of the servants so that every living soul may live a better life.”

Acharsis raised an eyebrow. “Istrikar said that? It doesn’t sound like him.”

Kheresh shrugged. “To be honest, that’s what he said Irella believes. Whether he believes it himself? Hard to say with that man.”

“Wait,” said Jarek. “Istrikar is here? In Uros?”

“Aye,” said Kheresh. “He was brought in as a prisoner a month back, but talked his way to freedom and has begun serving Irella. He comes by here every now and then. Same reason as you, Acharsis. Says it’s a good place for memories and beer.”

“Well, I’ll be…” Acharsis leaned back. “Istrikar serving Irella. I’d never have guessed. Though if not given a choice… what does he do for her?”

“I’m not entirely sure. He’s a cagey one. As best I can tell, he might be reviving his old spy network. Wanted to know how many of my father’s old friends were still around.”

Acharsis fought a quiver of excitement. “Do you know how best we can contact him? Where he’s staying?”

“Aye, that I do. He’s living in a large house in the nobles’ quarter. Just moved in last week, I heard. Doing very well for himself, so it seems. Why? You plan to look him up?”

Acharsis grinned and glanced over at Jarek. “That I do. After a good night’s sleep, that is. But come morning, we just might visit my old friend. I’m sure he’ll be overjoyed to see me.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jarek fought to not hunch his shoulders as he followed the others down the streets of Uros. The buildings were packed together so tightly that he couldn’t see the sun, but instead felt as if he walked through an endless series of shadowed cracks along a dried riverbed.

This was Irella’s city, her place of power, and that very fact made his nape itch and his hand drift over and over to his belt where his Sky Hammer was wont to hang. Now, however, it was wrapped in canvas and draped across his back; nothing would give him away so quickly as an openly displayed warhammer of meteoric stone. Its inaccessibility grated on him. Every time he spotted an undead patrol or a deathless in the distance he yearned for his hammer’s comforting grip.

No such luck.

Instead, he fought for a neutral expression beneath his hood, and marched at the end of the line, following Kish, who followed Sisu, who followed Acharsis, who followed the youth the bartender had provided them. The boy was sullen to the point of dourness, and had met Acharsis’ every jest and teasing rebuke with a glower. Jarek had decided right there and then he liked the kid.

Uros was in a state of feverish preparation. Everywhere Jarek looked he saw people working to clean the streets, patching up crumbling corners of buildings, unfurling banners drenched in black dye with Nekuul’s symbol emblazoned across the front.

The workers didn’t seem happy, however, and that comforted Jarek. There was no lightness to people’s steps, no voices raised in laughter or jest. The people of Uros worked with grim focus, glancing nervously at Jarek and his friends as they passed by.

The number of the dead was staggering. For a few blocks Jarek tried to keep count of how many he saw, but quickly gave it up: numbers had never been his strength. But the gaunt, leathery figures were everywhere, standing guard with cheap spears at street corners, marching in lockstep in elite patrols, hauling packages, some of them even standing still and swaying as if lost, or more dreadful yet, confused.

Kish looked back over her shoulder and flashed him a smile. Jarek couldn’t help it; he smiled in return, but when she looked away his expression turned to a grimace. His hand tapped his belt and he felt that same jolt of mild panic at his hammer’s absence. Damn fool, he thought. Control yourself.

Their guide led them into a wealthier area. The homes became larger, expansive, some even decorated along their edges with patterns of embedded shells and colorful pebbles. Living guards stood at their entrances, and the road became smoother, better cared for. He saw priests of Nekuul - leeches - and the dead who patrolled here were clad in quality armor and bore blades of flashing bronze.

Concern gnawed at his gut, and finally Jarek moved forward, squeezing Kish’s shoulder as he passed her, up to where Acharsis strode as if without a care in the world.

“This is a bad idea,” Jarek said.

“Hmm? How so? We need to speak with Istrikar.”

“We’re being led right into the nobles’ quarter. In daylight. We’re going to be stopped. We should turn back. Come back under cover of darkness.”

“Nonsense.” Acharsis brushed his fingers brusquely across his tunic. “It’s all a question of attitude, my friend. Shoulders back, chin up, a smile on your face? You’re golden. Hunch over like a mendicant who’s been kicked by a mule in the holiest of holies,and you’ll draw attention.”

Jarek bit back a growl. “There’s a difference between confidence and idiocy.”

“We’re almost there,” said Acharsis. “Right, Tamu?”

“No,” said Tamu, not bothering to look back.

“Well, ‘almost’ is a debatable quantity. One man’s ‘no’ is another man’s resounding ‘yes.’ Either way, we’re closer than we were a moment ago. Now relax, Jarek. If anybody stops us it will be because you look as grim as a dream rhino about to give birth.”

Jarek dropped back. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. His heart pounded in his chest. They were walking right down the center of the road, Alok sunder it all. How—

“You there.” The voice was sharp with annoyance and easy authority. “Stop.”

Jarek did so, fingers curling into fists, and turned to see a young man in the uniform of the Death Watch approach, flanked by two other guards. He was a striking youth, with a strong nose and a mouth that looked prone to sneering. His uniform was immaculately kept, and a cloak fell to his heels. The hem, Jarek noted, was clean.

“Yes, my friend?” Acharsis bowed. “How can I be of service?”

“Who are you? What is your business here?” The guard looked Acharsis up and down. He clearly wasn’t impressed.

“I am Jaran, a merchant who has fallen on hard times, and I’ve come to speak with Lord Peshmar’s head servant about a loan that—”

“Lord Peshmar is not in residence,” said the guard. “He left last week for Zakir.”

“Ah,” said Acharsis, his smile disappearing. “How unfortunate. I would still press my claim—”

The guard turned to survey the rest of them. Sisu stood frozen, eyes wide. Kish was examining her nails, weight on one leg, looking bored. Jarek realized he’d clenched his jaw as tightly as his fists, and forced himself to relax.

“You,” said the guard, moving toward Jarek. “I know you. How?”

“He is, my good friend, a servant of mine.” Acharsis tried to step between them. “A callow brute, little better than an ox, but he’s good at hauling—”

“Shut up,” said the guard. He searched Jarek’s face. “I know you. Saw you, recently. Were you in Rekkidu?”

Jarek fought the urge to hold his breath. The guard was small. Young. One blow would drop him like a sack of barley. Then onto the second guard, an elbow to the throat, trusting that Kish would handle the third—

“I was,” he said, surprising himself. He cleared his throat. “Large shipment of dates came down from the Waystation. This was two months ago now.”

“Dates, was it?” The man’s hand drifted down to his blade. “Come with me. I have questions for you.”

Acharsis went to speak but one of the other guards buried a fist in his gut, doubling him over. “Shut it.”

Jarek locked eyes with the young guard. “You got questions for me?”

“That’s right.” The guard took a half step back. “Come along.”

Jarek inhaled slowly, audibly through his nose, and took a half step forward. He felt loose, dangerous, ready to move. “Think carefully about what you’re asking. I’m just a drover. But plain as I am, I have but one life. One set of hours to live before Nekuul calls me. Think carefully before you waste my time.”

“Waste - are you mad?” The guard spoke quickly, his voice tight with emotion. “You’ll do as I say or suffer the consequences.”

“You waste my time and I will get mad,” said Jarek. He flexed his hands open and closed. Stepped forward again, into the guard’s space, forcing the man back. Intensity uncoiled within him, like a great snake awakening and rising up at the sight of a mouse. He held the man’s gaze, his own eyes wide. “I’m liable to get very, very upset. And when I get upset, I do foolish things. Foolish, violent things that leave me sick to my stomach after. Leave me washing my hands for hours, trying to get my nails clean. Leave me feeling like an animal.”

The guard’s nostrils paled and his lower jaw trembled. He shot a glance at his companions, but Jarek stepped in once more, forcing him to stumble back.

“Think carefully before you waste my time. Think carefully if this really needs to happen. Or if you might not be best served by just walking away. Think very, very carefully.”

Jarek was a fire being pumped by a massive pair of bellows. His core was growing hotter and hotter,a fire that licked at his insides and sought to escape through his eyes. He glared at the man, hoping now that the guard would provoke him. Waited for the first sign of him drawing his blade so he could reach out and clasp his head between his hands and squeeze.

The guard stammered and took three quick steps back. His face had grown mottled, patches of dark red showing stark against his tanned skin. He opened and closed his mouth several times, then pointed. “Get away with you. How dare you talk to me like that! If you give me any more sign of suspicious activity, I’ll have you strung up by the heels and flayed, understood?”

Jarek curbed his disappointment. “Yeah. I understand.”

“Thank you,” said Acharsis, pulling Jarek by the arm. “A thousand thank yous, raining down upon your head like petals from the sky, perfumed vanities and delicious treats—”

Jarek allowed himself to be pulled away, and a moment later they took the first turn into an alleyway. Their guide didn’t stop - in fact, he took off running, only to be snagged by the shoulder as Kish lunged after him.

“Not so fast,” she said, turning him around with a hard smile. “We’re not quite there yet.”

“How did you do that?” Acharsis asked.

“Do what?” said Jarek, watching the alley entrance.

“Swell up like that and suddenly look as dangerous as a jilted second wife. You practically had me wetting myself, and I wasn’t even your target.”

“Doesn’t take much to make you wet yourself,” said Kish, throwing an arm around Acharsis’ shoulders. “I thought Jarek looked incredible.”

“Incredibly obvious,” said Sisu in a low voice. “That guard won’t forget us any time soon.”

“What’s done is done,” said Jarek, a ripple of irritation passing through him. “Next time, perhaps you can step in and help?”

Acharsis clapped. “Well said! And on we go. Lead the way, Bapu.”

“Tamu,” said their guide.

“What? Never mind. Let’s move quickly, and stick to the alleys as best we can. Oh, don’t frown so, I’ll double what I’m paying you.”

“You’re not paying me. Kheresh is.”

“Oh? Then I’ll triple it. Lead on!”

Tamu slunk out of the alley like a half-drowned cat struggling to not take responsibility for all of its mistakes, and led them deeper around the heart of the nobles’ quarter. Irella’s vast ziggurat loomed up like a mountain off to their right, so massive Jarek found it improbable that it had been built by mortal hands. It had, what, twenty levels? Maybe twenty-five? Dark clouds circled the temple at its peak, their undersides glimmering with green flashes of light, and Jarek shuddered. Could Nekuul sense them? Sense their intent? She’d been forgiving in her own realm, but here, on the eve of the great ritual?

They stopped at the entrance to a broad street. “There,” said Tamu. “Fourth house down.”

Jarek crossed his arms and leaned on the building’s corner, peering down the street at Istrikar’s new home. Like every other house, it was a windowless cube, a simple door cut into its side and leading into the darkness within. Still, it showed signs of ostentation; the tops of the walls were decorated with glimmers of blue, indicating lapis lazuli, and there was a constant stream of servants and slaves entering and leaving the premises.

“Istrikar’s done well for himself,” said Acharsis, voice low and ambivalent.

“Am I done now? Can I go?”

“Run on home, Samu,” said Acharsis. “Tell Kheresh you did a good job.”

The boy grimaced and ran back down the street.

“So.” Sisu raised an eyebrow. “Plan of attack?”

“In moments like these, I always find that the simplest approach is best. We shall present ourselves at the door and ask the master of the servants to announce us to Istrikar.”

“You sure he’ll want to see us?” asked Jarek.

Acharsis gave him a wounded look. “Why ever not? He was my spymaster, my most trusted servant.”

“The last time we saw him we caused the closing of his Waystation and the cutting of the spider-rope bridge. He might not be… thrilled… at our return.”

“Nonsense,” said Acharsis. “Istrikar can be brusque, true, and prone to flights of violence, but at heart he’s a good man. Sensitive to the needs of the world. Come on. I’ll show you.”

They followed Acharsis down the street, the epiphling a little cinder on his shoulder. Jarek couldn’t help but glance back several times, but nobody was following them. Each home was bustling with activity, and from each door Jarek heard the sounds of industry. The homes here were large, easily two stories tall and big enough for several dozen people to live inside comfortably. Istrikar truly had done well for himself.

“Hello!” Acharsis stepped forward and bowed to a young servant who stood beside the entrance, a clay tablet in hand. “Please inform Master Istrikar that old friends have come to congratulate him on his newfound success.”

The youth had a sharp, lively gaze, and he bowed in return with a smile. “Be welcome! May the blessings of Nekuul be bountiful yet pleasingly delayed for awhile. Whom may I announce has come to visit?”

Acharsis stood up a little taller at this reception. “Please tell your master that none other than Acharsis stands upon his doorstep with important news.”

“Very well,” said the youth, and slipped into the house.

Jarek raised an eyebrow. “Not as bad as I’d thought.”

“My name opens doors across the civilized world,” said Acharsis, rising to the balls of his feet before lowering back down. “I command great respect if not affection from all and sundry - ah.”

The youth had returned. Hands clasped by his side, he bowed very low. “Master Istrikar sends his regrets, but he cannot attend you at this time. If you would return tomorrow at the same hour…?”

“Return tomorrow?” Acharsis struggled to keep his tone tranquil. “Did you inform him who stood at his doorway?”

“Master Acharsis,” said the young man with studied neutrality. “Yes.”

“And - he wasn’t amazed? Perplexed by his sudden fortune at my unexpected arrival?”

“No, master. He did bid you return, however. Tomorrow at this hour. He said he might be able to see you then.”

Acharsis’ face darkened but he gave a curt nod. “Very well. Thank you.” And with that, he spun on his heel and led them down the street, around the corner and out of the servant’s sight.

Sisu grinned. “At least he didn’t tell you to use the servants’ entrance.”

“Sisu,” said Kish.

“Please,” said Acharsis. “Please, by the seven dead gods and their empty beer cups, spare me your witticisms. And do you honestly think a barred door will stop me after succeeding in crossing multiple underworlds?”

“We could rush the door,” said Kish. “Force our way in, then demand Istrikar listen?”

“Only if you stay outside to calm down the guards that will come running,” Sisu said.

“No, this calls for cunning, for a certain base guile.” Acharsis tapped his lips. “Let me think.”

“I don’t like his turning us away.” Jarek stepped in close. “Can we trust him?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” asked Sisu, voice echoing off the walls. He ducked his head and glanced around guiltily before stepping in next to Jarek. “How can we go in there and reveal ourselves and our plan if you don’t know if we can even trust him?”

“I don’t,” said Acharsis. He felt tired. Tired, and too old for this shit. “His telling us to come back in a day could easily be a ploy to set an ambush.”

“Yes,” said Kish, “but even if we break in and force an audience, what’s to stop him from laying an ambush for the next time we meet?”

“Nothing,” said Acharsis. “We could have his home watched to make sure a dozen deathless don’t slip inside, but Istrikar’s very sharp. If he wants to surprise us, he will.”

Sisu scratched the back of his head. “Then why bother with him in the first place?”

“First, because we need him. We need his connections. Second, because there’s still a chance we can convince him to join our side. He’s become a calculating creature. We need to make sure that our side of the scales is heavier than Irella’s.”

“A tall order,” said Jarek. “How do we do that?”

“I don’t know,” said Acharsis. He sighed deeply and rubbed at his hair.

Kish shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “What about offering him the second apple?”

Acharsis snorted. “Make Istrikar divine?”

“Yes,” said Kish. “Precisely.”

“That’s—” Acharsis stopped. “That’s at once a frightening and brilliant idea. Of course, we don’t actually have to give it to him.”

“He won’t believe you have it without proof,” said Jarek.

“Proof,” said Acharsis. “How do we prove we have a divine apple?”

Kish’s smile widened. “You could take a small slice inside and feed it to a mouse or something.”

Jarek stared. “You do not casually immortalize mice.”

“It’d be proof, though.” Kish looked from one of them to the other. “Right?”

“So we force an audience, ask him to join us, and then feed a mouse a sliver of divine apple that we stole from the garden of the gods,” said Acharsis. “I like it. The irreverence has me written all over it. But even better, we can pretend to have fed our little epiphling here a slice just before. Its magical nature will surely impress Istrikar.”

“First we need to get close enough to talk to him,” said Sisu.

Jarek peered both ways along the street. Carts rolled by, pulled by mules, while a patrol of the dead marched stiffly past. “What if we run with that lie of yours from before? Pose as merchants. We grab a cart and come bearing gifts—”

“No, that won’t work,” said Acharsis. “The servant’s seen our faces.”

“Then all normal approaches are out,” said Jarek. “Which leaves us with more unsavory options.”

“That will only make it harder to get Istrikar on our side,” said Kish.

“Look,” said Sisu. “His roof is guarded by the dead. He really has impressed my mother.”

“Nothing really immoral about killing the dead,” said Jarek. “We could climb up under cover of darkness and force our way in.”

“Why is it that brutes always think of brutal solutions?” Sisu gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “We are in Uros. Do you know how powerful I am here? Don’t tax your brain. The answer is: quite powerful. I could simply command the dead to ignore us.”

“So we slip inside,” said Acharsis, eyes gleaming. “Down into the second floor, then find Istrikar and present our case.”

“He’ll be upset,” said Kish, looking from one face to the other. “Don’t any of you realize that?”

“Oh, we’ll win him over quickly with our plans,” Acharsis said.

“My plan,” said Kish.

“He’s right,” said Jarek. “The only thing Istrikar hates more than Acharsis is Irella.”

“But he’s working for her now,” said Kish.

“Probably didn’t have a choice.” Acharsis scratched at his jaw. “He’s a pragmatic man, Istrikar. He’d have chosen servitude over death.”

“In which case we’re going to need some supplies,” said Jarek. “Rope. Bronze hook.”

“Anything else?” asked Kish.

“Rope and hook should suffice. A cage for the birdie.” He grinned at her. “Though some food and a chance to sit in the shade with you wouldn’t go amiss.”

She took his hand. “Now you’re talking. Shall we all meet back here at dusk?”

“Wait, you two get to go off and have fun and I get stuck with Sisuthros?” Acharsis scowled. “Not fair.”

“If you don’t wish the pleasure of my company—” began Sisu, tone icy, but Acharsis cut him off.

“No, of course I do. I’m dying to spend time with you alone. Come on. Let’s see what we can learn about Irella’s plans and this upcoming ritual.”

Kish squeezed Jarek’s hand, and he felt his heart contract in turn. He let her pull him back out into the street, and as she smiled and walked backward before him, holding his hands in her own, he realized that he’d follow her wherever in this broad world she might lead.

* * *

They spent the day drifting around the main market, sampling different foodstuffs from around the world. Maganian rice balls wrapped in kheftir leaves; grilled hare covered with a paste of pistachio and honey; Dilmanian cockles fried in garlic and sun-bright beer. It felt irresponsible to simply drift through the thick crowds, hand in hand with Kish, pausing to watch street musicians, to step before stalls to examine jewelry from far Khartis, carpets from Rekkidu, carved panels of ash from Jalasha, large jars of incense and countless spices from all across the land.

The sun was beginning its descent toward the Golden Steppe when they found themselves seated on cushions under a striped awning in a small square, the last of their coin having been spent on mint water and a platter of nuts. The owner of the small establishment was an old man so wizened Jarek had thought him one of the dead; but the humorous gleam in his eye and the appreciative manner he’d bowed to Kish had quickly put those doubts to rest.

Kish leaned against Jarek’s arm, lazy in the late afternoon heat, a cup of cool water in her hand, and in that moment Jarek felt at peace. The sound of the market could be but dimly heard from several blocks away; thin, reedy music filled the air from some neighboring home, while a pair of kittens leaped and swatted at bronze butterflies affixed to slender rods sunk deep in a pot in the square’s center.

“Jarek,” said Kish, voice dreamy.

“Hmm?”

“Have you given any thought to what might happen after?”

“After?”

“If we succeed,” she said, pushing away from him to sit and face him full on. “If we defeat Irella. What will you do then?”

He didn’t want to think of the future. Of the blood he would have to spill. He wanted to be, to rest, to enjoy her company before they dove back into violence and madness once more. But something in her gaze stilled his protests.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I never expected to get this far.”

“Think on it,” she said. “Would you want to rule Rekkidu once more?”

“Rekkidu,” he said, turning her hand over in his and tracing the lines of her palm with his finger. “That seems –it was - a lifetime ago. I’m no longer that Jarek.”

“Are you sure?” She didn’t pull her hand away. “When we defeated Akkodaisis you got a taste of your old power, didn’t you? Would you want that once more?”

Jarek frowned. Did he? That burgeoning sense of mastery? That strength, that authority, that ability to impose his will upon the world?

“I would understand if you did,” said Kish. “It would be the most natural thing in the world. To return to being yourself.”

“Perhaps,” he said. Then, on impulse, he raised her hand to his cheek, and, closing his eyes, pressed her palm against his face. The calluses were ridged and sharp, her fingers broad and strong, and her skin was warm, like a sun-baked rock. She cupped his cheek, and then he lowered her fingers to his lips and kissed them.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “This. Right here. This is more to my liking than ruling from the top of a ziggurat.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Mint tea on old cushions before a nearly forgotten store?”

“Mint tea on old cushions,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “Before a nearly forgotten store.” He smiled down at her. “And maybe a few other details.”

“I like it too,” she said. “I like it quite a bit.”

“Hmm,” said Jarek. “Then maybe there are more old cushions in our future.”

She laughed huskily. “That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me, Jarek, son of Alok.”

“Hmm,” he said again, and bent down to kiss her.

* * *

They gathered at the base of Istrikar’s new home once the sun had set and Uros turned itself in to sleep. Traffic thinned out and then stopped altogether. The cries of merchants and street vendors grew sparse and then faded away. Lights within doorways were extinguished. The smell of cooked food filled the air, then was blown away by the breeze. Overhead, Ninsaba’s moon sailed into view, wisps of black clouds enshrouding her face.

“It’s time,” said Acharsis. “Jarek?”

Jarek hefted the heavy coil of rope in one hand, held the bronze hook in the air. It was a ponderous affair, almost a foot long and hammered out to Acharsis’ specifications. Heavy enough to throw, at any rate. Whether he’d be able to hurl it up over the parapet, however - that was another matter.

He looked over to Sisu. “And the dead?”

The young Nekuulite raised his left hand, and a faint green light enveloped it, casting his drawn features into a ghoulish hue. “Taken care of.”

“Then here we go.” Jarek took a step back, peered up at the distant roof, and then swung the hook around once, twice, three times and launched it high into the night.

It glimmered like a fish in a midnight stream, then clanked down distantly far above them. Jarek pulled on the rope, felt the hook slide and then catch. Two good tugs, and he nodded to the others. “It is done.”

“And on the first cast,” said Acharsis. “You missed your true calling.”

“And what would that have been?” Jarek asked.

“Whale hunter, obviously. You’d have made a fortune in Khartis.” Acharsis took hold of the rope. “You at the helm of a skiff, hooking whales, then riding them to the point of exhaustion.Really. I can see it now. Riding whales across the sea. But for now, you’ll have to settle for being a mountain climber. Head on up. I’ll wait for last so you can haul me up.”

“I’ll go,” said Sisu. “Though I hate climbing ropes. So… awkward. Undignified.”

“Poor baby,” said Kish, her smile bright in the darkness.

“Honestly, I couldn’t have dreamed up a more disrespectful team.” He sniffed and took hold of the rope. “The things I suffer for absolute power.”

Kish snorted. “Yes, yes. Now can you climb?”

A moment later Kish followed, a small wicker cage bouncing at her hip, leaving Jarek and Acharsis alone behind the house.

“Sure you can pull me up?” asked Acharsis with a bleak smile.

“I’m not that old yet,” said Jarek. “Just don’t fall off halfway.” He gave the alley one last careful look, and then hauled himself up, fist over fist, to the rooftop.

The others were waiting for him. The dead guards, true to Sisu’s word, stood on watch ignoring them completely. Jarek eyed them carefully, not relaxing as he took up the rope, watching as Acharsis fashioned a loop below into which he stepped. A tug, and Jarek set to hauling him up.

It took longer than it should have, but after a few minutes Kish reached down to help Acharsis scrabble up over the retaining wall’s side.

“I could get used to only having one hand,” said Acharsis, voice bright with false cheer. “Quite a civilized way to climb.”

“Don’t get used to it,” said Jarek, moving to follow the others to the hatch that led downstairs.

“How long will they stay this way?” asked Kish. “The dead, that is?”

“Not quite so flippant now, are we?” said Sisu with obvious relish. “I have each of them ensnared in my mind. As long as we remain in the house, they shall remain quiet.”

“Good,” said Acharsis. “Excellent work. Now,let’s go say hello to Istrikar.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Acharsis levered open the trapdoor and peered down the stairwell at the illuminated hallway below. Rushlights, but not too many; clearly the house was in the process of settling in to sleep. He crept down, doing his best to listen; soft voices here and there, but the echoes made them hard to pinpoint.

A large home like this would be a hive of industry during the day and a source of great wealth for Istrikar. There would be chambers dedicated to the weaving of carpets, the molding of clay pots, the grinding of wheat and barley, the excess of which would be sold in the market. A manse like this would have dozens of servants, all of them sleeping on the first floor; the second would be dedicated to Istrikar, his family, concubines, and favored servants.

Acharsis paused. Had he ever seen Istrikar with a concubine? Or express any interest in women or men at all? He stared blankly at the wall for a moment, trying to recall. No. The spymaster had been as sexual as a monolith and as randy as a desiccated river bed. Maybe things had changed?

Unlikely.

Acharsis reached the last step and peered out, trying to control the storm of memories. How long since last he’d been in a noble’s home such as this? Once, this would have seemed a poor hovel compared to his royal quarters. Now? He felt a stab of envy. To think that Istrikar should be enjoying these luxuries while he, Acharsis, son of Ekillos, still wandered the streets with barely a coin to his name.

No matter.

Looking around the gloom, Acharsis saw that the house followed the classic build with a hollow interior, a central court below ringed by a balcony on the second floor. A couple of servants stood in the courtyard, whispering to each other in the gloom, but nobody was walking about the second floor.

The smell of dinner still hung in the air; goat, Acharsis thought, with plenty of mint and something sweet. His mouth flooded with spit. Istrikar was a consummate host; surely the man would offer him a platter over which to converse.

A short while later, the servants below embraced. One of them was weeping, Acharsis realized, the soft tears of an old grief, and then the two figures parted, leaving the courtyard through separate doorways.

“Time to enter that little cage,” he said to the epiphling. “Can you do that for me little friend?”

The fiery bird cocked its head to one side then the other.

Kish opened the cage door. “C’mere, Cinder!”

“Cinder?” Jarek glowered behind her. “You’ve named it?”

“Why not? Epiphling is a terrible name. Cinder? Can you come?”

And as if beguiled by her voice, the epiphling - Cinder - fluttered down off his shoulder to perch on the little branch within.

Gesturing over his shoulder, Acharsis stepped out onto the balcony. It was narrow, the railing waist-high, and it creaked beneath his tread.

Only two rushlights lit the central area, enough to make out the doorways that ringed the second floor. Light spilled forth from two different rooms; which to approach?

Acharsis closed his eyes. The sounds of the home grew just a little more distinct. A low murmur of voices came from one of the lit doors. There was something informal to the conversation’s lilt, and that decided him.

He crept out onto the balcony and hurried down its length to the other doorway,the one from which no sound had emerged. The others followed. Acharsis brushed down his tunic, lamented the deeply formed wrinkles, decided not to take a sniff to determine his odor, and stepped inside.

The room was large and surprisingly bare. No decorations hung on the clay walls, and a simple carpet of colorful stripes lay across the floor. No windows, of course; the illumination came from a pair of lanterns set on each corner of a large wooden desk at the room’s far end. A pile of clay tablets dominated one side.

Istrikar sat behind the desk, a small mountain of a man clad in rich finery. A flicker of irritation flashed through his narrow eyes and then was gone. He wore his hair shorn close to his large, angular skull, and his face had all the softness of a well-used anvil. Rings of gold flashed on his fingers as he interlaced them over his belly, and his lips settled into a thin line as he leaned back, his simple wooden chair creaking in protest.

“Istrikar,” said Acharsis, stepping forward with arms extended out to the sides. “Fancy finding you here.”

“I told you to come back tomorrow,” said Istrikar, voice flat with annoyance. “I’m assuming you didn’t come in through the front door.”

“We must speak, you and I.” There was no chair on which to settle; too bad. That meant Acharsis would have to stay on his feet like a common supplicant. Sit on the floor? Perch on the corner of the desk? Too informal even for him. So instead Acharsis stepped up to one of the walls and leaned his shoulder against it, crossing his arms as he did so. “What I have to tell you cannot wait.”

“Can it not?” Istrikar glanced past him to where the others were filing in. “I see you’ve brought your friends. Am I meant to be intimidated?”

“Hardly.” Blast, but the man was as yielding to his charms as a dead mule. “Congratulations, by the way. You’ve done well for yourself.”

“I’ve not had the choice. It was either let Irella bedeck me in soft cotton and throw slaves at me or be strung up by my heels and flayed. What do you want, Acharsis? Why shouldn’t I summon my guards?”

“I am here to sound out your loyalty to Irella. To determine how amenable you are to a change in regime.”

Istrikar pointedly raised a single eyebrow. “You drunk?”

“No. Look. We challenged her might in Rekkidu, and we won. We then went to Magan and installed my son as the new pharaoh. He’s defeating Irella’s army even as we speak. The wind is at our backs, Istrikar. We’ve come now to hammer in the final nail and remove Irella from power.”

This gave the spymaster pause. His eyes narrowed a fraction as he tried to gauge Acharsis’ sincerity. “Your son. Pharaoh of Magan.”

“If your networks are of any worth, you’d have heard by now that the old pharaoh died. We passed their trial and my son is now Pharaoh Senacherib.”

“I’d heard that the old man passed, yes. But no word as to the identity of his successor has reached the River Cities. There’s a problem with your story. Your son isn’t Maganian royalty.”

“No, he’s not.” Damn it, he’d hoped Istrikar would be more impressed. “But divine blood runs through his veins, and the lamassu recognized it and allowed him to enter the trial. I swear to you, Istrikar, by my own former divinity and my love for my father, Ekillos, that what I say is true.”

If anything, this seemed to displease Istrikar further. “If this just happened in Magan, how are you standing before me in my study? And what happened to your hand?”

Acharsis glanced down at his stump. “Oh, you know how it is with us godsblooded. Sometimes we lose body parts when we cross the netherworld on foot. Fortunately, we caught a ride with a demon to the top of the God’s Mountain, a much easier way to travel. She brought us back down to Uros after we’d accomplished our little goal, and, well. Here we are.”

“Uh huh. Sure. So now we’ve got a River Cities usurper in control of the Maganian armies. He planning to march them across the Golden Steppe and take Uros? That what you’re thinking?”

“No. I don’t want to deliver our cities to Magan and their lamassu. It’s why we’ve come alone. We have another plan to dethrone Irella. A plan that requires your help, obviously.”

“You want me to help you after what you did to my Waystation.”

Acharsis fought to keep his smile pleasant, as if they were discussing the details of a picnic. “Did I do that, or did Irella? Can you fault a man for fleeing for his life?”

“Yes,” said Istrikar. “Especially if it ruins my livelihood and forces me to work for the queen bitch herself.”

“Then this is your chance to slip that yoke!” Acharsis punched his stump into the palm of the other hand. “Or do you want to remain her dogsbody for the rest of your life? Wearing her colorful cottons and served by her slaves and putting your network and expertise at her disposal? Hmm?”

“She pays well,” said Istrikar. “And I’m growing old. I like having my feet rubbed with almond oil by a beautiful young woman while a second one tells me in graphic detail how much wealth I’ve amassed. It’s a new hobby of mine. I find it relaxing.”

Acharsis gave a slow nod. “Fair point. I can understand the appeal. But back at the Waystation,you weren’t an avid supporter of Irella’s,of how she was taking over everything. Filling the fields with the dead. Constricting trade. Creating monopolies.”

Istrikar said nothing. His face was as expressive as granite.

“And now I hear she’s planning some kind of ultimate ritual,” said Acharsis. If this final ploy found no traction, they’d be out of luck. “To open a permanent portal to the netherworld. You can’t be in favor of that, Istrikar? Giving her that kind of absolute power? What do you think she’ll do with it?”

“Conquer the whole damn world.”

“And you’re in favor of that?”

Istrikar sneered but remained quiet.

“Of what use will a spymaster be once everything is under her thumb?” Acharsis moved forward to stand before the desk. “Of what use will anybody be when the land of the living is peopled by the dead? What world will we leave for our children, or for future miserly bastards like yourself once the boundary between life and death is so irrevocably shattered? Can you honestly say you’re at peace with seeing Irella destroy the order of the world so flagrantly?”

Istrikar pinched the bridge of his nose and then vigorously scrubbed his face before crossing his arms once more. “All right. Say I’m mildly unnerved by this future. What’s this plan of yours that’ll depose Irella in her very own place of power?”

“We’re going to use a rotten apple,” said Acharsis, unable to restrain a smile.

“I’m not rising to the bait,” Istrikar said. “Keep going.”

“You’re no fun,” said Acharsis. “But regardless. As I said, we’ve just returned from the peak of the God’s Mountain, where we acquired an apple of wondrous power.” Acharsis paused, a memory of Irella moving beneath him throwing him off his stride. He coughed into his fist. “We’re going to trick her into eating it, ruining her ritual and making her susceptible to an attack.”

“Wait.” Istrikar placed both hands flat on his desk and rose to his feet, so that he was leaning forward and staring right into Acharsis’ eyes. “You’re aiming to kill her?”

Jarek answered from behind. “Yes.”

Istrikar straightened. “Then you’re mad. It can’t be done. Her ziggurat is crawling with more guards, deathless, leeches, Seekers and worse than fleas on a dead dog. You’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I’m impressed by the sheer scope of your ignorance, but that’s it.”

“Not so hasty,” said Acharsis. “We’ve a hidden resource that tips the odds in our balance.”

“What?” asked Istrikar. “You hiding a lamassu up your rear end?”

“Better,” said Acharsis. Damn, but Istrikar made it hard to keep smiling. “Sisu?”

“Wait a moment.” Sisu took a reluctant step forward. “I never agreed to your revealing my identity.”

“It’s an integral part of our plan,” said Acharsis. “How am I supposed to explain it without doing so?”

Sisu scowled. “All right.”

“Istrikar, let me introduce you to Sisuthros, son of Irella and godsblood of Nekuul.”

Istrikar’s head jerked back as if he’d smelled something intensely pungent. “You’re joking.”

“No,” said Sisu. “After all, how do you think we got past your guards?” He held up his hand. Green flames flared around his fingers, flickering and causing the shadows to dance against the walls. “Luck?”

Istrikar’s eyes were wide. “Well. That makes my life easier. I’ve been ordered to find you at any cost. Care to walk down to the ziggurat with me?”

“Ha ha,” said Sisu.

“No? Very well. I’ll leave the jokes to Acharsis. I’ll admit,your presence does change matters.”

“Agreed,” said Acharsis. “Sisu is going to help us with most of the defenses within. The amulets, the dead, the weird, disturbing creations that Irella has walking the halls - we won’t have to worry about them.”

Istrikar tore his eyes away from Sisu’s green burning fist and blinked at Acharsis. “Go on.”

“We need your help in hiring Kish to work in the kitchens. She’ll doctor Irella’s food with the apple.”

“Not a problem,” said Istrikar. “But that won’t help you. Irella’s food is prepared in a private kitchen by trusted servants. They transport it to her, and the lead cook must taste everything she eats in her presence before she’ll touch it.”

“The apple won’t hurt anybody but Irella,” said Acharsis. “And once Kish is in the kitchens, she’ll figure something out.”

“You’ve other obstacles,” said Istrikar, sitting back down. “I’ve had to take part in endless sermons since agreeing to serve. It’s a complex ritual you’re looking to disrupt.”

“Walk us through it,” said Acharsis. “Please.”

Istrikar scowled and stared down at his clay tablets as if they were the source of his problems. “All right. The day is spent in feasting. Irella herself will be outside the city walls undergoing rituals of purification from dawn till dusk. Then she’s going to have herself a big parade through the center of Uros to her ziggurat, where she’ll ascend and bless the people before moving inside to feast. After that, there’s another ritual where she’ll shed her blood into a special chalice. This will be placed in Nekuul’s inner sanctum to be blessed. In the middle of the night, the ritual will take place at the top of the ziggurat. All the godsbloods will be brought out and restrained. The leeches have these special crystals they’ve brought out of Nekuul’s realm which will act as receptacles for her blood. The head priestess will bring the blood forth, bless it and check that everything’s fine, then pour the blood into each crystal.”

Istrikar licked his lips. “The ritual ends with the godsbloods being drained of their divinity, and that power will flow into the crystals and into the blood, where they’ll apparently flood Nekuul with enough power to open her portal.”

Istrikar let that sink in and then leaned back. “Even if you get Kish into the kitchen,even if she drops your rotten apple into Irella’s sacred feast,even if everything works, the head priestess will still catch on when she says her prayers over the blood.”

“It won’t get that far,” said Jarek. “We’ll kill Irella before then.”

“Big words,” Istrikar said. “How are you going to get to her? After the feast she’s going to be secluded at the top of the ziggurat in her private chambers. Nobody can open those doors but her.”

“I can open them,” said Sisu quietly. “Her blood runs in my veins. The seals will open to my touch.”

Istrikar grunted. “Fine. Even so. But your plan is as shaky and improbable as an old man’s attempt to piss in a small pot from three yards away.”

“It won’t be easy,” said Acharsis. “I agree with you there. But we can do this. All we need is for you to open a few doors. And think of it this way. If our plan fails? You need not be implicated. You can go on with your life as if nothing ever happened. You’re in a win-win situation.”

“Is that so?” Istrikar didn’t sound convinced. “How do I win if you pull this off? You think I’m going to go back to being your spymaster? Fat chance.”

“No. But I’m sure we can find something. Perhaps we can officially recognize you as the ruler of a mercantile league. Help you restore the Waystation.”

“Hmm,” said Istrikar. “Not a bad start.”

“I’m sure we can reach an accommodation,” said Acharsis. “All you need is to get Kish hired into the kitchens, and me close to this head priestess.”

“What?” Sisu’s shock was evident. “Why?”

“Why?” Acharsis gave him a rueful smile. “Because someone’s going to have to ruin her concentration the night of the feast. And while Jarek is a much better specimen of a man than I am, he lacks a certain sensual flair that only the son of Ekillos can manifest.”

“The head priestess is my aunt once removed,” said Sisu. “She’s a formidable woman. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

Acharsis grimaced. “I never said I’d enjoy it. But as the son of the god of male fertility, I have to use what resources are at my disposal.”

Sisu covered his face with one hand. “I can’t believe you’re going to seduce Aunt Hephesa.”

Istrikar drummed his fingers on his desk. “I’ve been on the job little more than a week and I’ve already learned to tiptoe around High Priestess Hephesa. This is the weakest link in an already absurdly weak chain of planned events.”

“You’ll have to do some spying for me,” said Acharsis wearily. “Learn about this aunt. What she’s like, what her foibles are, if she has any addictions or weaknesses I can exploit.”

“She’s the blasted high priestess of Nekuul,” said Istrikar. “All she thinks about are corpses.”

“Then if needs be I’ll immerse myself in ice water and have you roll me into her quarters in a wheelbarrow,” snapped Acharsis. “Do what you can. Learn what you can. But will you at least try?”

This was it. The moment of truth.

Acharsis wanted to hold his breath, but instead forced himself to breathe naturally. To simply raise a single eyebrow and smile in wry amusement, a deliberately provocative expression to goad his old servant into action.

“Very well,” said Istrikar. “I’ll help you as long as I don’t have to risk anything in this venture. Agreed?”

“I’d prefer you to have a little more skin in the game,” said Acharsis, “so I’ll sweeten my offer.”

“Will you, now.” Istrikar didn’t sound all that curious.

Oh, Annara, thought Acharsis. Forgive me. “Sure. Remember how this whole plan depends on Irella eating a rotten apple, one that will rob her of her divinity?”

“Mhmm?”

“That wasn’t the only apple we left the God’s Mountain with. We left with a second apple. A fine, ripe one.”

Istrikar’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Speak clearly.”

“You’ve already figured it out. You always were quick on the uptake.” Acharsis crossed his arms, leaned back on his heels. Body language to put Istrikar more on the defensive.

“You’re offering me a bloody apple of immortality. Straight from the God’s Mountain?” Then Istrikar smiled widely, as if amused by his own gullibility. “Ha.”

“I thought you’d be skeptical. Which is why we arranged for a demonstration. Kish?”

She stepped forward, pulling the cloth covering off the bars of the wicker cage. The crimson bird within fluttered its wings and hopped up and down on its branch. Its plumage was striking: a black eye mask wrapped around its face, while its underside darkened to a charcoal black, stripes of which barred its wings.

“See?” Acharsis gestured at Cinder. “We fed him a slice not long ago. Now he is divine.”

Istrikar leaned forward and glowered at the bird. “Seems like a normal blood shrike to me.”

Acharsis frowned. “No. Don’t you see the burning wings, the…” He stopped. It was clear that Istrikar didn’t.

Damn it. So much for faking the giving of an apple.

“Very well, we’ll repeat the experiment.”watched as Acharsis dug out two thin slices of apple from his pouch.

“This one grants divinity,” said Acharsis, feeling a little foolish. “And this rotten one takes it away. We’ll demonstrate both for your edification.”

He extended the ripe apple slice through the bars. The air in the study filled with the crisp, tart tang of the fruit, banishing the dense, smoky scent of the lanterns.

Cinder hopped closer, quirked its head to one side then the other, then darted forward to peck at the fruit and tear a chunk free with its hooked beak.

A flash and the torn piece of fruit was gone.

Everybody watched in silence, the others crowding around Istrikar’s desk on which the cage had been placed.

After a moment, Istrikar gave a harsh bark of laughter. “I’d expected more from your trick, Acharsis! I must admit, you almost had me.”

“Give it a moment,” said Acharsis. Cindereyed him, inscrutable. What effect would feeding him a slice of divine apple have?

A moment passed.

“Enough,” said Istrikar. “I applaud your nerve, trying to trick me with a piece of apple and a bird, but I’m out of patience. Get out of my house. I’ll summon you when I’ve something to share.”

A faint shimmer ran along Cinder’s wing feathers.

“There!” Acharsis leaned in. “Did you see that?”

“No,” said Istrikar. “I did not.”

A second shimmer flowed over the bird’s wings, like a flicker of flame leaping high into the night air above a camp fire.

“All right,” said Istrikar. “That I saw.”

“Now, watch what happens when it eats the rotten—”

But Cinder leaped from its branch, shimmered once more, and somehow flew through the bars of the cage in a puff of sparks and smoke. It snatched the rotten slice from Acharsis’ fingers and fluttered up against the bare walls, leaving streaks of crimson in the air behind it.

“Catch it!” yelled Sisu, raising his hands.

Everyone clamored as they watched the bird flit about the room. “Cinder!”

“Cinder!”

“Get back!”

“Why did you open the cage?”

“Watch out!”

Then, with a fiery swoop, the epiphling flew out the study door and was gone.

Acharsis crowded out with the others onto the balcony, only to see Cinder fly down the length of the courtyard and then disappear through the doorway leading to the roof.

“Well,” said Kish, voice strangely dejected. “Goodbye, Cinder.”

“I told you not to name it,” said Jarek.

“How could I not? He was too beautiful to ignore.”

Acharsis turned to Istrikar. The heavyset spymaster had run to the doorway along with the rest of them, and only upon noticing Acharsis’ regard did his open expression of wonder close and resume his customary scowl.

“Convincing,” said Istrikar. “Though I’d rather not set things on fire while walking about my home.”

Acharsis placed a hand to his brow and shook his head. “The man has the soul of a poet! Who knows what form your divinity will take, my friend? I cannot guess, but you must admit, you’re dying to find out.”

Istrikar grunted as he sat back down. “You have the rest of this apple?”

“Yes,” said Acharsis. “Jarek here hid it. I told him not to tell anyone where. While you could conceivably torture its location out of me or the others, you know Jarek would die before telling you its location.”

Istrikar regarded Jarek and then gave a slow, measured nod. “No need to belabor the point, Acharsis. I understand well enough. Vow to me by your father - both of you - that this apple exists, that no more has been removed from it than that slice, and that if I help you pull off this plan, you’ll hand over all that remains of this apple.”

“I do so vow in Ekillos’ name.”

“And I swear it by Alok.”

“Very well,” said Istrikar. “Then I’m in.”

“I knew you’d be unable to resist joining us, heart and soul,” said Acharsis, reaching out to clasp Istrikar’s meaty paw. “Together until the bitter end, be it death, infamy, or being cast headlong into one of Irella’s corpse chutes.”

“Don’t make me regret this.” Istrikar pulled his hand back. “I’ll make inquiries about placing Kish in the kitchen. I’ve been given broad privileges, but have yet to try exercising them. Where are you staying? I’ll send word when I have results.”

“Let’s keep this simple,” said Acharsis. “Hang a white cloth over the edge of your roof when you have something, and we’ll present ourselves at the front door.”

“Where’s the trust, Acharsis?” Istrikar’s eyes gleamed. “But very well. A white cloth it is. I’ll also see what I can learn about the high priestess. Can’t promise anything there, however.”

“I don’t doubt you’ll turn something up.” Acharsis looked to his friends. “Anything I’ve missed?”

“Can you smuggle out one of the amulets?” asked Sisu. “I’m sure their design has changed since I was there. It would be good to see what I need to copy.”

“Tricky. They keep track of those amulets like you wouldn’t believe.” Istrikar paused. “Well, maybe you would. But I’ll see what I can do. Might have to kill someone for it. We’ve not much time. Ritual’s going to happen in three days.”

“Three days?” Acharsis felt his heart lurch. “That’s it? Three days?”

A slow, wicked smile spread across Istrikar’s face. “Surely you knew that, oh master planner.”

“Fine. It’s fine. That doesn’t change anything. Good. Thank you, Istrikar. We’ll be on our way.”

“Use the front door,” said their host. “I wouldn’t want you to fall and break your neck on my doorstep.”

“Kind,” said Acharsis. “Most considerate. Thank you.” And with that, he led his friends back out onto the balcony and toward the staircase.

Three days. Was that mild panic he was feeling at the edges of his mind? Oh yes. Yes it was. Three days. It would have to do.

Servants glanced at them in surprise, but nobody stopped them. Out the short passageway to the front door, and back into the night. Acharsis led them a few blocks away to a small square, and there paused to cross his arms and lean against the wall, hidden in the shadows.

“That went well,” said Kish. “Except for Cinder escaping.”

“You can’t keep divine beings as pets,” said Jarek.

“No?” Kish grinned up at him. “I have you.”

“A very bad idea,” said Sisu as Jarek spluttered. “Fire bird means fire excrement. Also, what would you keep it in? A metal cage? How would you carry it around? And is it even appropriate to keep a divine bird as a mere pet—”

Kish stuck her tongue out at him. “He exemplified loyalty and devotion. Something you know nothing about. I’m sure he’ll be back.”

Jarek rubbed at the back of his neck. “Acharsis? You think we can trust Istrikar?”

“Yes. I think so. There was a moment there when I turned from the doorway, after Cinder had flown away. I saw it in his eyes. Wonder. Wonder that quickly became greed. That’s a fatal combination. We have him.”

“Good,” said Jarek. “Now to watch for that white cloth.”

“It had better come quick,” said Acharsis. “We’ve three days to put the most improbable plan I’ve come up with yet into place.”

“More difficult than making your son pharaoh of Magan?” asked Kish. “More difficult than bringing Alok back from the dead, even if only for a few hours?”

“Yes,” said Acharsis. “This is Irella’s seat of power. I’d wager there’s nothing out there below a true god more powerful than her right now. And we’re going to dance into her very own ziggurat to disrupt a ritual she’s going to be paying very, very close attention to.”

“That’s not very encouraging,” said Sisu.

“No.” Acharsis sighed and pushed away from the wall. “But we’ve a secret weapon I didn’t tell Istrikar about. Come on. It’s time we summoned my demon. If we’re going to pull this off, we’re going to need to know what Anscythia can do to tip the odds in our favor.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The scribe presented himself at dawn as promised along with six soldiers but Annara wanted nothing to do with any of them.

She longed to escape Magan. Wanted nothing more than distance between herself and the snarl of snakes that watched her every move, the constant sense of asphyxiation that clawed at her throat, the massive walls that seemed to close upon her at every turn, denying her the horizons.

So it was that she ignored perfunctory greetings and mounted her steed, waited impatiently for the men to finish their business and then urged her mount out through the stable gates, into the broad street that turned into a broader avenue.

Merchants were already walking the shadowed street, vendors moving to their stalls, the beggars rousing themselves from street corners, the fishermen heading out to their skiffs along the muddy banks.

Annara ignored them all. It took all her willpower to not gallop, but once they finally cleared the city walls she gave her steed its head and allowed it to open up its stride, to pound the road into oblivion as it coursed through the lightening shadows, heading south, neither toward the rising sun nor its dark opposite, but always south, racing, devouring the road, the thunder of its hooves a thrill of liberation, the wind in her air a benediction, the open countryside a blessing that levened her very soul.

But it could only last so long. She knew enough to rein in her mount after only five or ten minutes, to slow it to a canter, to not blow it on a furious and frivolous run. She didn’t look back. Didn’t care to justify herself in the eyes of her companions. Instead, she kept her gaze fixed firmly ahead. Let them think what they wished. She didn’t care. She was past caring.

They rode all morning, slowing occasionally to walk their mounts, and some instinct kept the men behind her, giving her the space she so desperately craved. South, always south, and even she, a stranger in this land, knew enough to navigate in that one cardinal direction, picking their route without hesitation, passing countless villages without stopping to say hello.

They ate a lonely lunch by a dried riverbed, and Annara felt her first pang of remorse when one of the soldiers handed her a tureen of stew and she turned away, barely giving him a nod, to sit alone upon a dessicated trunk and stare out at nothing as she chewed mechanically, not tasting the food, not wondering until far too late if it was poisoned, if she could trust these men, the regent, the world.

She wished she could lose them. Wished she could cut free altogether. Her love for Elu was boundless, but within arose a burning bird that yearned for nothing more than the boundless skies. For solitude, to no longer care for others, to no longer put the needs and weaknesses and priorities of the men in her life beyond her own.

To flee. To tear off her clothes and disappear into the wilderness, to stalk and hunt as a wolf, to be responsible to nobody but herself. To howl at the moon, to sleep in the hollows, to strive against the beasts until overcome, and then die a glad death, simple, clean, without guilt, without that crushing sense of love clamping about her throat so that she felt burdened and overcome.

But no.

She would not flee. Could not flee. So she let go of her fantasies and turned at last to face the men who had been muttering quietly amongst themselves while waiting for such a moment to arrive at long last.

“Hello. I am Annara, mother of Senacherib.”

Wide eyes, stricken expressions. Heresy. Unexpected frankness. The men glanced at each other, unsure as to how to react.

“My son, Elu, is masquerading as Queen Nethena’s dead child, Senacherib. He plans to announce this truth within a week, and I am too tired to hide it myself any longer.”

The men stared at her, only the scholar, obvious due to his age, lack of athleticism, and formidable beard, dared scowl at her.

“But if the truth bothers you, please, turn around and ride back to the capital. It’s all the same to me. No? Very well. We ride for Kusuj, as I’m sure you know. I hope to be picked up by a patrol without engaging them in combat so as to make my case. If we are attacked, do all within your power to not offend. Our goal is not to survive, but to open lines of communication. Am I clear?”

The captain, a dark skinned man who looked to have had every ounce of fat flensed from his muscular body placed his fist over his heart. “As you command, Lady Annara.”

“Good.” She gave him a mirthless smile. “We’ll speak more anon. For now, we ride.”

And she mounted, dug her heels into her horse’s flanks, and continued their headlong flight south.

If only she were more. More than Annara, devotee of Scythia, former temple priestess and lifelong mother and wife. If only she had that burning drop of divinity in her blood already, the genius that Acharsis and Elu and Sisu and Jarek and all the other godsbloods took for granted. If only her flesh were not so limiting, her mind so mortal, her spirit destined for nothing more than Nekuul’s cold embrace.

If she were more, she would surely see options that she was overlooking. Stratagems that would render their brilliance unto her own godly eye with ease. But she was but a woman. A mortal. Already her desperation was making her reckless. Should she have been so brazen with her own followers? What if they deserted her, returned home to spread word of what she said?

She buried her doubts and focused on riding instead, the rhythmic cadence of the horse’s hooves lulling her thoughts into a blissful nullity through which the hours finally passed without leaving their mark.

“Lady Annara,” called the captain, finally causing her to look back at where her followers were strung out along the path. “It is getting late. We just passed an overhang where we could camp for the night. If we press on much farther, we’ll be riding in the dark, and finding a good camp ground will be only more challenging.”

“Yes,” she said, and was surprised by just how quickly the dusk had stolen upon them. “Very well.”

She dismounted beside the great leaning rock, and allowed one of the soldiers to take her steed. She knew she should take care of it herself, but was suddenly bone tired; she sat before the small fire that was conjured by another soldier with a skillful application of a live coal to kindling, and then lost herself in the flames as the others murmured to each other, set up tents, established a lookout up on top of the rock, and cooked dinner.

So tired. And not just from the riding. More. These past weeks - months - had been an endless series of adventures and dangers. Ever since Acharsis had ridden into Eruk so many moons ago, bringing with him his demon and corruption. Ever since Elu had been stolen away by that damned leech, and she’d convinced Acharsis to rouse Jarek from his mountain home in a wild bid to save her son from the sacrificial knife.

The events played before her tired eyes: rousing the rebellion in Rekkidu, infiltrating the ziggurat, fleeing to the Way Station then all the way to Magan; Acharsis wild plan to have Elu undergo the Quickening, and then the deadly puzzles and battles they’d fought within that ancient cube. Victory, and a sweet night of celebration - only for Acharsis to plunge into the underworld and leave her to survive as best she could.

No wonder she was exhausted.

“A question, if I may?” The voice was rich with over- and undertones, indignant, quivering with anger, cast over with an unconvincing sheen of servitude, deep with erudition and rich as if spoken by a large soul.

Annara blinked and looked up. The scribe. He was sitting across from her, the only one to have joined her at the fire, and was positively glaring at her over the leaping flames.

“Yes?”

“How have I offended you, my dear lady? What deed did I commit, or which word did I utter over the storied length of my life to have so earned your enmity that you not only dragged me forth into this savage wilderness, but now seem intent on both riding me into ragged oblivion while summarily ignoring me all the while?”

Annara sat up straight. “Enmity?”

He spread his hands. “I can only assume. At least, so I hope, for the alternative is far worse: callous indifference, a cruelty born of privilege without thought or care for the wellbeing of others.”

Annara didn’t know what to say. The man’s fierce glare made it clear he’d not be sympathetic to her woes, nor did she wish to share them with him. “What is your name?”

“My name?” His indignation spiraled higher. “You don’t even know who I am?”

Annara didn’t bother to respond.

“I am Sennefer, Scribe of the Seal, Master of the Three Fronds, Magister of the Jade, Ivory, and Bronze. The man you ordered dragged out from his abode in the middle of the night to accompany you on this hellish expedition!”

“Sennefer. My apologies. I did not request for your presence by name, but instead asked Neferhotep to select a suitable expert on the Kusuji. I suppose he chose you.”

The old man sat back as if stunned, eyes widening as understanding hit him like a brick. “Neferhotep… volunteered me?”

Annara nodded sympathetically.

“By the…” The scribe turned to gaze out at nothing, then seemed to crumple, shoulders slumping. “The bastard.”

“Politics?” asked Annara.

“Politics. I’ll not bore you with the details. But Neferhotep played his hand quite nicely. I’ll give him that. With me off on this mad hare chase, I’ll not be able to… never mind.” Sennefer blew out his cheeks and stared morosely into the flames. “What a bastard.”

“Do you, by chance, know anything of Kusuj?”

“Yes.”

“That at least is welcome news. I aim to walk their Path of Righteousness so as to become divine in order to return to Magan and save my son. What can you tell me that pertains to my quest?”

Sennefer fluttered his eyelids as if having trouble understand the very words she had spoken. “You… you what?”

“You heard me.”

He opened his mouth to object, sitting up straight, eyes flashing - but something about her expression stayed his explosion. “You’re serious.”

Again, no need to answer.

“You are serious. By the Third Tower of Heaven. As serious as you are mad.”

“I wouldn’t say mad. More… simply out of options.”

“Walking the Path isn’t an option, Lady Annara. It is a bid for divinity.” There was some measure of outrage there in his voice. “By what right do you believe yourself fit to become divine?”

It was Annara’s turn to slow down and encompass that question. She’d not even considered the question of ‘right’. No. It had been simple political expediency.

Sennefer watched her over the flames that painted his face a dusky red. His gaze was too sharp, too intelligent, for her to satisfy him with a shallow answer.

“I have known men and women with divine blood,” she said at last, speaking slowly, picking her words with care. “My son has the blood of a god running in his veins. Ekillos, the god of wisdom and male virility. His father, Acharsis, is a godsblood. I have fought alongside others. Come to know then in all their strengths and weaknesses. And this I can say with assurance: as powerful as they may be, they are really not all that different from us beyond the scope of the challenges in which they feel comfortable attempting. It is not a difference of kind, but rather of degree.”

Sennefer snorted. “I would argue the very opposite! We do not shade toward divinity; either you have divine blood, or you don’t.”

“But the blood is irrelevant,” said Annara, figuring it out as she spoke. “The men and women who carry it in their veins are not that different than you or I.” She paused. “Well, perhaps they are when their gods are alive and well. But Kish, Sisu - two other godsbloods I’ve travelled with - are one or two steps removed from their divine fathers and mothers, and they’re just like regular people. Well, Sisu isn’t normal, but Kish is.”

Sennefer was frowning at her.

“My point,” she said, struggling on, “is that divine blood grants you powers, yes, but it’s just a different form of authority. Is Queen Nethena truly different in a factual, measurable way from any other woman? No. But she is treated differently due to her station, and acts differently because she knows so much more is permissible. The station makes her queen; she, the woman, does not make her station. The same with divinity. Being descended from a god accords you the kind of respect and opens the world to the kind of behavior that allows them to seem apart from us, when in truth…” She pictured Acharsis’ lazy smile. “In truth, they’re just like us.”

“An interesting point of view,” sniffed Sennefer. “Different, to be sure. But not one that I think the Kusuji would be open to.”

“I hadn’t planned to explain my desires to them in such fashion.”

“No? Good. Then how exactly were you intending to phrase it?”

Annara looked down at her hands. “I’m not sure yet. Perhaps you can tell more of them. The more I learn, the better equipped I’ll be to negotiate.”

“Very well,” sighed Sennefer, making himself more comfortable. “Why not begin with when Kusuj was first recognized as a polity, nearly three hundred years ago? Of course, back then, they were little more than tribes people and nomads…”

* * *

They ran into the first Kusuji patrol five days later. A lone figure standing atop a distant ridge was all the warning they received that they were being watched, and even as Annara spotted him by following the direction of Wehemka’s pointed finger the figure stepped back and out of sight.

“Not long now,” said Wehemka, turning to regard his five men. “Be ready.”

“And don’t forget,” began Annara.

“- that we are not to fight unless given no other recourse,” said Wehemka with a smile. “Yes, Lady Annara. You have made this abundantly clear.

“Yes,” said Annara, smiling apologetically to the captain. “Thank you.”

They were in hill country by then, following a goat path that wound its way amongst the sandy slopes as if trod by dream sick animals, looping and doubling back seeming without purpose. Yet upon turning the flank of a hill two hours later, Annara caught her breath at the sight of the group awaiting them in the center of the path.

There were just two men. Both dark skinned, both as immobile as if carved from teak, impossibly slender spears propped against their shoulders to rise to nearly double their height in the arid air. One man’s hair was grizzled to an iron gray, the other’s yet jet black, but the resemblance was such that Annara knew them to be related.

Sennefer raised both hands and called out to them in Kusuj.

The two men didn’t respond, instead taking their time to study them up close, and only then did the younger speak up, his tone confident and clipped.

“He asks your name and intention here in Kusuji land,” said Sennefer. “Though I’ll point out we are still with Maganian borders, so he is being purposefully provocative.”

Annara kept her shoulders thrust back, her chin raised, and decided on impulse to address the elder of the two strangers. “Tell them I am Lady Annara, mother of the pharaoh elect, originally of the River Cities and devotee of the war goddess Scythia. Tell him I have journeyed far across Magan to meet with him, and share words.”

Sennefer’s words caused the youth to raise his eyebrows in skeptical surprise, but the elder man remained impassive.

A response, and Sennefer translated. “He doubts your word. The mother of the pharaoh is Queen Nethena. She would not travel without a hundred soldiers and five hundred slaves. He warns you not to lie again.”

Annara forced herself to remain unperturbed. “Tell him the pharaoh’s true identity is that of Elu, son of Acharsis, a godsblood of the River Cities. That he passed the Quickening under the guise of the name Senacherib, but that has not been accepted by the Maganian court. I have come to forge an alliance, and have traveled quickly and lightly both due to urgency and a desire to place myself in your hands so as to engender trust.”

Again an exchange.

“He says words are worthless. He recognizes Wehemka’s uniform and that of his men as royal guards, which is why they did not immediately attack. But your claims are wild and dangerous, and you must prove them before they are to be believed.”

All the while the elder of the two men watched Annara, his eyes liquid and impossible to read.

“Ask him what would convince him? Royal seals? I have those. Gold? I have those, too. But he knows as well as I they could be stolen. No. Tell him to gaze upon me and call me a liar to my face. Tell him to stare in my eyes, for he will see the truth in their depths.”

Sennefer spoke, and the younger of the two men moved forward to stand before Annara’s horse, gazing up at her with narrowed eyes. Annara returned his gaze with equanimity, feeling something akin to peace now that the dice were cast. There was no going back now. If they should all die here, on this sandy shoulder of a hill, then so be it. She would die knowing she had tried to move heaven and earth for her son, and failed. And though she failed, she would die content.

Annara didn’t know for how long they stared at each other, but finally the young man grunted and stepped aside. The elder stepped forward, and took hold of her mount’s bridle in a gentle manner. He spoke, voice soft, barely audible, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Sennefer lean forward to catch his words.

“The elder asks by what authority you offer an alliance with the Kusuji, who are the traditional enemies of Magan.”

Had she passed the first hurdle? Was he merely testing her further?

“I am the mother of Elu, known as Senacherib, and am seeking to save his life. If Kusuj plays a role in that endeavor, then they will have a grateful, foreign pharaoh with whom to contend. Elu and I will demonstrate our gratitude by opening new relations with Kusuj. And if the royal court of Magan dislike our terms, then they can go burn.”

The younger man laughed, a bright bark of sound, but the elder remained solemn. He considered her, turning his head slightly from side to side as if examining the different angles of her skull, and then released her horse.

“What is it you ask for?” interpreted Sennefer. “What is you desire of Kusuj?”

“Before we talk terms, I would know with whom I spoke,” said Annara. “I have stated my bona fides. What are his?”

At this the older man did smile, a subtle expression, and inclined his head as he spoke.

“He is Talakhamani, a former king of Kusuj, and leader of the Hamani tribe.”

“Former king?” Annara glanced uncertainly at Sennefer.

“Recall? The Kusuj claim that divinity makes them immortal? He would appear to be an adherent of that creed.”

“Greetings, Talakhamani. I do ask for nothing more than the right to walk the Path of Righteousness so as to empower my son. He has been forced to accept a regent, and will no doubt be assassinated before being confirmed as pharaoh in full. My divinity will flow to him, and remove all opposition to his reign.”

Despite herself, Annara felt prickles of sweat bead upon her brow. This was it. Her heart was a hummingbird trapped within her chest. Yet she sought to betray nothing, reveal nothing of her anxiety.

All the while Talakhamani watched her, his eyes fathomless, dolorous, treacherously kind. Again his son gave a bark of laughter at Sennefer’s translation, but not even the ghost of a smile crossed the elder’s lips.

Silence. A lonesome wind blew along the goat trail, scouring them briefly with stinging dust, causing the horses to stamp and snort and turn away.

Talakhamani watched her without narrowing his eyes.

Annara forced herself to meet his gaze though her eyes watered and burned.

Finally, the elder spoke, and at length. What began in a forthright matter ended with sadness. When he finished, Sennefer bobbed his head and turned to her.

“Those whom Amubastis deems unworthy never return from walking the Path. Therefore, your worthiness is not his concern; that is a matter for the lamassu to judge. Rather, he wants to discuss the particulars with Annara the mortal before she becomes Annara the divine. He wants your oath that whatever you agree on now in terms of alliances, favorable trade negotiations and boundary disputes shall be upheld by your future divine self, though - well.”

“Though what?” asked Annara.

“He honestly does not think you will survive the attempt. Out of courtesy, he promises to escort the rest of your party back to Maganian lands, and do us no harm.”

Annara’s heart skipped a beat. “Please tell him I thank him for his consideration, and am happy to discuss terms in as much detail as he desires. But let him know I have run out of time in which to effect my apotheosis; ask him how far away the Path lies, and whether we can begin journeying toward it if it is not near?”

They conversed briefly, and then Sennefer nodded. “The Path is three day’s travel from where we stand. We can travel there during the day, and negotiate at night.”

Annara closed her eyes. Three days. One too many. Would Elu wait? Would he survive that long? And even if she passed this trial, how would she then cover a distance of eight days’ travel to return to him?

A deep breath as she pushed her panic and anxiety aside. A second deep breath as she shouldered her new fears. A third as she waited to see if she would hold, and then she opened her eyes and bowed her head to the Talakhamani.

“Please tell his majesty that this is agreeable, and that I thank him from the depths of my heart.”

The elder man did not need those words translated. He bowed shallowly, eyes never leaving her own, and then raised his hand.

Commotion along the hill tops. Over a hundred men with spears and tall shields rose into view, some seeming to simply materialize in plain sight upon the very hill sides. Talakhamani’s smile was broad, his teeth almost startlingly white.

“Come then,” he said, his River Cities common perfect but for his strange accent. “Let us ask Mother Amubastis as to the composition of your soul.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Sisu approached the ziggurat complex with a thrilling mixture of terror and elation. To be so close to his home, his old center of power, it was beyond invigorating. Intoxicating. The others couldn’t imagine. Lost as they were, bereft of their gods, they were pale shadows of the demigods they had once been.

For Sisu, though? The future was wide open and paved with the gilded skulls of his future enemies.

He slowed as he drew closer to the outer walls. It would be a small matter to force entrance, to snap his fingers and command the undead, to stride in, clothed in power and demanding the respect that was his due. But that would be short lived. Enough priests and Seekers could undo him, not to mention his mother.

Sucking on his teeth, Sisu stopped altogether, hands on his hips, and gazed over the walls at where the apex of the great ziggurat rose into view. The temple at its height where even from here he could sense Nekuul’s presence. Could she sense him in turn? Undoubtedly. But she wouldn’t warn his mother. At least, she hadn’t yet. Why would she change now?

But how to gain entrance? A manner subtle and insidious, something that even Acharsis would never think of? Sisu eyed the constant stream of supplicants presenting themselves to the guards, the undead moving by in their guided patrols. Emulate a leech? Not as easy as it looked; he didn’t know the latest passcodes, was without his own amulet. He could perhaps bluster his way through the gates, but to then enter the ziggurat proper… no.

Something else.

He was too striking a specimen of his sex to simply stand there for long without drawing admiring glances, so he decided to circle the walls, waiting for inspiration to strike him. Ducking his head, pulling his hood forward, he slouched along, suddenly irritable and anxious. To skulk! So beneath him. Irella would fall, and then all of this, all of the River Cities, would be his.

Well.

If Acharsis and Jarek didn’t mind too much. At least, there’d be some deliberations. Concessions would have to be made. Irella’s power would pass on to him, making Sisu a force to be catered to. No more jokes at his expense then! Oh no. The smirks would fall away, and he’d see real fear in their eyes, even Kish would stop teasing him…

Sisu thought of Ishi then, the old lady who’d taken him when he’d fled his home for Rekkidu. A former high priestess of Ninsaba, she’d devoted the last years of her life to taking care of the few godsblood she could find, Kish and him being amongst their number.

He thought of Ishi’s kind, worn face, her bright eyes, her every attempt to foster a sense of brother and sisterly love between him and Kish, and sighed. Fine. Perhaps he wouldn’t crush the wills of his friends beneath his iron-clad heel. Perhaps he’d be more generous. Yes. True power lay in restraint, did it not? Actually, no, it probably didn’t. But there was something to be said for mercy. And gratitude was more his style these days then fear. Or perhaps a mix -

A couple of corpses shuffled by, carrying a third body between them. A fresh death; the body was wrapped in a threadbare linen blanket, still limp. Sisu stopped and watched. The ambulatory corpses were twin purple flames in his mind’s eye, animated by a sliver of Nekuul’s might. Taking their find into the complex? Yes. Toward that slender doorway. Four guards.

Sisu watched. A corpse gate. The dead of Uros would be collected in such fashion and brought back to be animated and sent out. Of course. How simple!

Sisu laughed, restrained the urge to clap his hands, and instead moved back, around the corner and out of sight, to wait the next couple of undead.

They appeared ten minutes or so later, carrying another corpse. It was a simple matter to reach out to them and take over their wills; child’s play, really. He forced them to drop the body and approach him.

He studied them with distaste. Such poor specimens. Only the oldest and weakest of the undead were sent out in such manner. A last task before they collapsed and were used as manure in the fields. But they would do.

With a sigh, Sisu turned and allowed himself to fall back into their arms. They caught him with hard, bony hands, and lifted him up, their strength as reassuring as that of brittle branches. Which meant: not very.

Trying to relax, Sisu willed them on, toward the gate, and when they turned the corner he lolled as expertly as only a child raised in Nekuul’s ziggurat could do. Eyes half-lidded, he stared at nothing as the corpses trudged forward, passed by the guards, through the gate, and into the courtyard beyond.

He fought to hide a grin. Voices around him, movement, people moving to and fro. A busy square, but no matter. Nobody would think to check the vital signs of a corpse-born corpse. On they took him, right up to the side of the ziggurat, to heave him up and toss him into a square of darkness.

Rough clay brick made slick by decomposed skin fragments, smearing’s of fat, noxious with the sweet and sour reek of the dead. Down he slid, spreading his legs and arms to control his descent, down at a sharp angle so that he went quicker and quicker until at last the walls and floor vanished and he fell through the void.

A short fall, fortunately. Despite being prepared, he still grunted as he collided with the fleshy rotten floor, rolled, smearing himself with foulness, and then fetched up in a crevasse of the dead.

It was a simple matter to lie still. Many, Sisu knew, would have trouble with such a simple act. How most people hated to be in close proximity with the dead! His foot, for example, had sunken into a stomach. Most people would retch and gag and haul themselves free.

But not Sisu. He lay still upon the mound of the dead, waiting, listening, making sure nobody came over to investigate him.

Dull voices from a far. Murmurs of workers sorting through the corpses, determining freshness and quality, sorting them for different purposes. Nobody had noted his fall. Perfect.

Blinking, Sisu looked up at the distant ceiling. It was perforated with a score of chutes, all of them leading up into the ziggurat proper. There was no way he could reach them. No way he could climb all the way up there without being noticed. Even rising to his feet or crawling to the edge of the corpse pit would drawn notice.

No.

Time to flex his magical muscles. Time to work a miracle.

Sisu inhaled and closed his eyes. Drew of the ambient Nekuulite energy. After so much time spent crossing the Golden Steppe, time spent in Magan, far, far from Nekuul’s power, it was delicious to be so steeped in it. He drank in of her magic, her power, and then, when he felt as if he would burst, reached out and wove tendrils into the corpses around him, imposing his will upon flesh and bone, crafting and forcing them to assume a familiar and comforting pattern.

The bodies around him began to writhe. He could feel purple lines of energy flowing into them, tightening sinews, pulling the fibers of muscles apart. Bones popped free of loosened joints, cartilage flowed, and unnecessary body parts rolled away. He pulled more bodies into the mix, causing them to stir and slough and rise about him. Six corpses. Ten. Melding them, smoothing their muscles into each other, discarding internal organs, heads, genitalia.

Shouts from afar. No matter. The lonely workers here wouldn’t dare to get any closer when they saw what was arising from the pit.

At the very last Sisu willed the huggie daddy to squat over him, irising open a fleshy orifice into which he could squirm up and inside it. How long since he’d taken a ride inside one of these guys?

Too long.

Elbows and knees buckled into the hollow core as he willed it to move, scrambling with spider-like agility over the corpses, quick and agile, bolstered by perhaps an excess of power, tightly knit and wondrously strong.

Shouts that quickly turned into cries of surprise.

That’s right, thought Sisu with a grin. Shut your damn traps and get back.

The huggie daddy scampered over to the closest wall, and then countless appendages burst forth to grasp the rough rock, nails and talons scoring deep as it began to roll and climb up toward the sloping roof, causing a shower of stone fragments to fall through the cracks in its spherical corpus.

Sisu looked down and away, loving each moment of his climb. Up then across the oblique angle of the roof, toward the right hole.

It was so good to be home.

Their destination chute was wider than most, which made sense of course given how much more usage it had, and the huggie daddy squeezed its way up inside it like a gore-slicked rat shouldering its way between ribs into a chest cavity.

Up they climbed. The fleshy walls around Sisu undulated and pressed into him from every side. Up they scuttled, past entrance after entrance, until they reached the seventh floor. Sisu willed the huggie daddy to squeeze its way out into the lab, and there disgorge him upon the floor like some messy abortion.

“Hello,” he said, picking himself up and wiping blood and what might have been rendered fat away from his face. Not rendered fat. Sebum? The lab was just as he remembered it - well, mostly. That archway with runes inscribed over the top was new, and the number of operating tables had doubled.

“Who are - what in Nekuul’s name -”

The man was gaping at him, the splayed corpse on the table before him completely forgotten, bloody chisel and mallet forgotten in his gloved hands.

“Relax, relax, my name is Sakked, a new recruit in the Seekers’ infiltration group.” He raked his hair back all the way, and of course it stuck to his scalp because of the blood. “This is a new experiment in security holes that our organization is undergoing. Operatives such as myself with an affinity for the dead and risen are tasked with finding ways into and out of the ziggurat in anticipation of possible attacks following the unrest in Rekkidu.” Abruptly he changed his demeanor and barked, “Your name?!”

“My - I’m Akkan, priest of -”

“Did I ask your rank? Do you take me for a fool?” Sisu felt drunk with power. He ordered the huggie daddy to loom large behind him. “Do you seek to lie to me?”

“Lie? But - about what - I haven’t -”

“Unconvincing. Unconvincing! What are you hiding? Where are you keeping it? I know you have it here somewhere!”

“What?” The man was shaking now, voice higher than before. “Hiding what? I’m not hiding -”

“One more lie,” hissed Sisu, stepping in close to glare at the man. “And I will have you passed through that huggie daddy until you resemble nothing so much as pureed slime.”

“I - I apologize, Seeker.” The man finally gathered his wits enough to fall to his knees and press his brow to the floor. “Whatever you desire, I shall provide. I revere Nekuul, live for Queen Irella, and am eager to be of any service that you require.”

Sisu stood over the man. Ah, but it was easy to enjoy power. To let it go to one’s head. The temptation to push the situation further, to discover the man’s breaking point, was extreme.

But no. He’d matured over the past few months. Become a man. Wise. Restrained. So he sniffed instead. “Four of the new security amulets. Give them to me.”

“The…?”

“The security amulets!” screamed Sisu, bending down so as to thrust his face into the man’s upturned one. “Are you deaf? Huggie daddy, put him inside you!”

The huggie daddy thrilled back to life and scuttled forward, a great, intimate crevasse appearing in its side, arms extending out to claw at the man’s legs.

“No! I understand! Yes! Here! I have - many - prepared, but untethered - here, please!”

Sisu crossed his arms and turned away, ordering the huggie to release the man. He fingered a hole in the corpse that lay on the operating table’s side, and then gave a sharp nod. “Very well. Four. Can you count that high?”

“Yes, yes, here, here!” The man scrambled to his feet and rushed across the lab to where a set of ebon boxes were carefully set on a table. He gathered four of them in his arms and rushed back, almost tripping over his feet as he did so. “Here!”

Sisu opened the first box and let out a low whistle. The amulets had changed dramatically since he’d seen them last. “Beautiful,” he whispered. “Who made this?”

The man ran his hands over his face as if checking to make sure all of his features were still accounted for. “I did, Seeker.”

Immediately Sisu felt a bout of remorse. To have treated an artisan so callously! “My apologies, I had not known…”

He drew the amulet forth by its silver chain. The black stone glistened as if freshly dipped in water, and fine green chips of precious stone glimmered as if containing their own filament of fire. “Beautiful.”

“Thank you, seeker, thank you. I’ve worked to scrupulous standards on each one.”

“Yes, I can tell. You are to be commended! I salute you, crafter. Now. I must be on my way. And remember. This is sacred Seeker business. No speaking of this to anybody.”

The man simply stared as Sisu retreated back into the huggie daddy, which he commanded to return into the chute and then descend to one of the lower levels and pause.

Sisu took a moment examining the amulet. Simply beautiful work. Its capacity for embedding energy was unparalleled, and the emeralds were of a unique configuration. Once attuned, it would only work for its bearer. Ingenious. Outrageously expensive. Sisu loved it.

Closing his fist over the amulet, he poured his power into the emerald shards, and felt their resonance align with the very fabric of his being. Felt it become an extension of his soul, and once done, hung it around his neck.

He grinned. What took most seekers and leeches decades of training to accomplish he’d done in minutes. Ah! Such was the nature of his unique power and soul!

That done, he ordered the huggie daddy to disgorge him into the third floor. His self-assurance and amulet allowed him to stride directly to the portal that led to the ziggurat’s exterior, the other three boxes hidden in a sack, and back toward his erstwhile companions.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Jarek reached the far wall and turned. Was that seventy-five times he’d walked the cellar’s length, or seventy-six? He grimaced and pushed his thumbs into his eyes till he saw lurid red and blue stars exploding across the inside of his eyelids.

“Relax,” said Kish.

“That didn’t help the first time you suggested it,” said Jarek, dropping his hands. “Nor the tenth.”

“Well, pacing like a caged steppe cat isn’t going to make time go by any faster.”

Jarek strode over to the rickety wooden ladder that led up to Kheresh’s backroom. He could hear the distant chatter of patrons in the front. “I’m going to take a look around.”

“You are not,” said Kish. She was stretched out on a bed she’d made from six bags of ground millet, fingers interlaced behind her head, ankles crossed. “You’re going to wait down here with me till either Sisu or Acharsis return.”

“You going to stop me?”

She cracked open an eye. “You want me to?”

Despite himself, Jarek smiled. “Depends on your tactics.”

Kish rolled over onto one side, propping her chin on one hand and looking him up and down. “I’ve got ways to pass the time.”

“Suddenly it feels like we don’t have much time left at all.” He studied her. “I don’t want you going into those kitchens alone tonight.”

“Oh? I fully welcome your employing the same stratagems to stop me from going.”

“Seriously,” he said, moving to crouch beside her. “I don’t want you going in there alone.”

She sat up. “What choice do we have? Istrikar’s found an opening for one cook: me.”

“I’ll go in as your assistant.”

“Assistants don’t get assistants.”

“We can claim there was a mistake. That we were both hired.”

“Jarek.” She took his hand in her own. “Nobody would believe you were a cook.”

He pulled his hand free, rose and resumed pacing. “There’s got to be a way. I can’t just wait with Sisu till it’s time to attack.”

“I’ll be fine,” Kish said. “Honestly. Irella’s kitchens are probably the least lethal area in the ziggurat.”

“No where’s safe in there,” said Jarek.

The trapdoor opened and Acharsis descended. “Istrikar’s done what he can.”

“He’d better have,” said Jarek. “He’s getting a damn apple of immortality out of this.”

“Divinity,” said Acharsis. “And he’s done well. Here. Something to cheer you up.” He pulled free a bundle wrapped in rushes and tossed it underhand to Jarek, then a second to Kish. “Spiced skewers of wild chicken. Peppers from Dilman, and a sweet sauce that I’ve never tasted before. Delicious.”

Jarek caught the bundle and resisted the urge to toss it aside. Instead, he sat on a crate and began to unwrap it. “So tell us. What’s the final plan?”

“Thank you, Acharsis,” growled Acharsis in a passable imitation of Jarek’s voice. “You are so thoughtful, so kind, so considerate. Truly the stuff that—”

Jarek fixed him with a glare.

“Fine, fine. So Irella’s food is prepared in a private kitchen, as surmised. It’s close to the main kitchen for practical purposes, and guarded by a deathless. There is a principal cook and three assistants. They have unique amulets that get them past the deathless, and these amulets are changed weekly. The cook accompanies the dishes to Irella’s table and there tastes them himself before returning below to work on the next course. He’s accompanied to the feast room and back by the deathless.”

“So I sneak in while he’s delivering the first meal,” said Kish.

“Exactly,” said Acharsis. “Sisu is trying to fashion a master amulet that will supersede the weekly changed ones. He says there’s no guarantee it’ll work, however.”

“I’ll go with Kish,” said Jarek. “I’ll knock out the assistants and tip their bodies into the corpse chutes. When the cook returns, Kish, you tell him that the assistants were called away and you’ve been asked to take their place. Your amulet will be your proof.”

Acharsis rocked his head from side to side. “Passable. But I doubt the cook would simply take that lie in stride on the night of the great ritual. No, I thought we could take it one step further.”

Jarek grunted and finished unwrapping the skewers. The smell caused his mouth to flood with saliva. “Yeah?”

“Istrikar is a very, very talented man. He’s identified the three assistants. A pair of sisters and an older Maganian. We’re going to make sure they don’t show tomorrow. Then we have Kish brought into the kitchen as an elite cook from… I don’t know, Rekkidu I suppose. When Irella’s head cook panics, we’ll have the head cook of the regular kitchen nominate you to assist him.”

Kish hissed as she gulped down a steaming morsel of meat, waving her hand ineffectually by her mouth, then wiped her lips on some rushes. “Why would he do that? Why not nominate someone he knows and trusts?”

Acharsis shrugged. “Istrikar says he’s taken care of it. A combination of threats and bribery, he said. The head cook is willing to promote you as a result.”

“Convenient,” said Jarek.

“Like I said, he’s earning that apple.”

“I want to go with Kish.”

“Hmm?” Acharsis blinked. “Impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible. I want to watch her back.”

“I see you’re serious. Well. You won’t be needed till the strike on Irella’s sanctum later in the night, so very well. Perhaps we can outfit you in a leech’s robes and give you an appropriate amulet. You then stay close to the private kitchen, and if there’s trouble you can intercede.”

“Thank you,” said Jarek.

“I can handle this situation on my own,” said Kish.

“I know you can. But Jarek would pout through the rest of the night, and that would be terrible for our image. Pouting saboteurs? Perish the thought.”

Jarek grinned. “The man knows me after all.”

“Fine,” said Kish. “Can’t say I mind too much. What about you? Got the head priestess angle figured out?”

“I’m working on it.” Acharsis claimed his own crate and lowered his head to his hand. “I’ve secured a particular poison that should adequately scramble her wits while leaving her sufficiently lucid to conduct the ritual. She won’t be casting any spells, however.”

“That’s good news,” said Jarek around a cheek filled with chicken. “Why so morose?”

“It comes in a paste. She has to ingest it.”

“So?” Jarek took another large bite from the skewered meat. “Put it in her wine. Slather it on her dinner at the feast.”

“She’s fasting for purification purposes,” said Acharsis.

Kish tapped her lips. “Does it work if burnt? Make a special candle.”

“Burning it renders the poison ineffective.”

Jarek searched for a solution. “She won’t eat. She won’t drink. You’ve got to get it inside her. Knock her out and slip it in her mouth?”

“That,” said Acharsis, “is the filthiest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“What?” Jarek sat up straight as Kish collapsed into a fit of giggles. “What? No! That’s not—”

“I see only one solution,” said Acharsis. “I must hope she wears make-up for the ceremony, and swap a poisoned lip paste for her own.”

“Ooh,” said Kish. “I like it. But women aren’t in the habit of taking bites out of their lip paste, as you call it.”

“I only need a little to enter her mouth,” said Acharsis. “And honestly, I can’t think of any other way.”

“So what’s your plan? Break into her quarters?”

“No. Istrikar is going to help me out once more. I’m going to masquerade as one of the slaves assigned to clean her rooms. It should be a barrel of laughs. I’ll simply have to find her make-up, identify her lip… paint?…and then swap it without any of the other slaves or the overseer noticing.”

“Sounds easy,” said Kish. “Especially if your poison matches her preferred shade and color. Which I’m sure it does, right?”

“Right,” said Acharsis weakly. “I’m… no. But it doesn’t matter. She’ll only discover it once she applies it, and by then it’ll be too late.”

“Great,” said Kish. “And of course your poison is in a container that looks exactly like her own?”

“I… I’ll slather the paste atop hers,” said Acharsis, looking to Jarek for help. “Well?”

“Well what?” asked Jarek.

“Aren’t you going to insist on joining me for my own protection?”

Jarek snorted. “You’re a grown man, and far less attractive than Kish. No.”

“I’m a grown woman,” said Kish, leveling her now cleaned kebab spit at him. “Are you saying that’s any less?”

“Yes,” said Acharsis. “That’s precisely what he’s saying. That as a woman he can’t trust you to take care of yourself, and feels that he must protect you and shelter you from the cruelties of the world - and only, to be clear, because you’re attractive.” He stood up. “There. You’re welcome, Jarek. I’m going to go check on Sisu.”

Jarek threw his wooden spit at him, but Acharsis sidestepped with a grin and began climbing the ladder. “I’ll be back this evening. Going to want to talk to Anscythia before we begin. Have fun!”

The trapdoor closed behind him. Jarek scowled. Kish had one eyebrow raised, arms crossed, lips pursed. “Well?”

* * *

It was dark when Acharsis and Sisu returned. Jarek jolted awake from an uneasy sleep at the sound of their footsteps, sitting upright in a convulsive manner and reaching for his Sky Hammer.

“Rise and shine, my slothful beauties,” called Acharsis. He bore a rush lamp in one hand, whose long, tapering flame danced and left a sooty trail of smoke in its wake.

“Success?” Kish had fallen asleep beside Jarek but arisen at some point to pace; now she stood against the far wall, hands on her hips, eyes gleaming in the rushlight. “Are we ready for tomorrow?”

Acharsis hesitated. “Do you want the bracing truth, or a more comforting version?”

“Out with it,” growled Jarek. He rose to his feet and rubbed vigorously at his face. “I’ve been trapped in this basement for centuries. I’ve no patience for your witticisms.”

“Alas,” said Acharsis. “Witticisms are all I have, most times. But no matter. To the point! Sisu?”

The young Nekuulite stepped forth and set a hemp sack beside the rushlight. “A long day of fruitful labor, I’m pleased to say.” His long, clever fingers undid the knot that bound the bag closed, and with great care, as if handling lapis lazuli from distant lands, he drew forth a glimmering medallion of black stone. “My adventures today would take weeks to recount. Suffice to say that I used my powers to infiltrate the ziggurat complex and there commandeer four of these beautiful medallions. Ah! I never guessed that returning home would be so sweet an occasion, nor that I would enjoy myself so much.”

“Sounds wholesome,” said Acharsis.

Sisu inclined his head. His smile was as sharp as a scythe in the buttery light. “But look at this! What craftsmanship.”

“Modest you are not,” said Jarek.

“I’m not referring to my own work, but what they’re using today in the ziggurat! Had you the eye to see the magics interwoven through this amulet you would marvel as I do. See here? First, the base is some new stone that I’ve never seen before. It gleams as if always wet and is as smooth as bronze to the touch. It resonates strongly with my magic, however, and holds my enchantments far longer than metal, stone, or even bone. Magnificent.”

“Nice rock,” said Kish. “C’mon, Sisu, give us the short version.”

“For once, I’ll indulge myself,” said Sisu. “You’re a pathetic audience before which to boast about my accomplishments, but I’ll take what I’ve got. Now, look here. You see this pattern of green gems embedded in the amulet? They’re held in place by Nekuul’s magic. They’re called emeralds, and I’ve only ever seen them used in the ritual to create the deathless. Clearly mother’s been busy, for she’s found a way to embed them in these amulets.”

Jarek drew closer, curious. He peered at the amulet in Sisu’s hands. The chips of emerald glimmered as if with their own inner fire. “What’s their significance?”

“With the deathless, they are one of the key ways we anchor their souls to their bodies after they’ve been pushed past the point of death. Here? They are used to attune the amulet to its bearer’s identity. A soul bond. Preventing any common thief from simply stealing an amulet and using it to enter the ziggurat.”

“Luckily, we’re not common,” said Acharsis.

“You would be without me. I was able to obtain, through subterfuge and sheer brilliance, four untethered amulets. I can now attune them to our spirits, giving us access to even the most restricted of areas.”

Acharsis raised an eyebrow. “Even Irella’s own rooms?”

“That - no.” Sisu stared down at the amulet in his hand. “Everything but. I’ll have to personally disable the wards that protect her quarters. If I can.”

Jarek felt a dull beat of excitement begin to pound within his chest like the beginnings of a drum circle. “Well done, Sisu. These will keep the undead monstrosities from seeing us within the ziggurat?”

“To be precise, they shall see us, but they’ll then ignore us, yes. The deathless, the common undead, and the rarer creations will all pass us by.”

“Excellent,” said Acharsis. “Excellent! A crucial part of our plan has fallen into place. I have also been busy. In this sack I have four Nekuulite robes with which to sneak into the ziggurat. Istrikar has sent word that he’s secured a position in the kitchens for Kish - he didn’t sound pleased, but he did it. Kish, you’ve got to present yourself at the kitchens tomorrow afternoon.”

Jarek felt a flicker of alarm. “And me?”

“Success on that front as well, though you’ll not be masquerading as a leech. It seems the kitchens have a number of common laborers whose tasks range from carrying the massive cauldrons around to scrubbing the floors and walls. You’re to join the ranks of these servants at dawn and work within the kitchens until you decide it’s time to step away.”

Kish grinned and bumped his shoulder with her own. “A glorious position! When this is all turned into song later, I’m sure your scrubbing pots will be the centerpiece.”

“Ha ha,” said Jarek. “But good. What of you, Acharsis? Any luck with the head priestess?”

Acharsis thumbed his eyes. “Nothing yet. Istrikar’s final miracle was to get me into the slave team that will clean her quarters. It’s confirmed. I’m to infiltrate the crew during the late afternoon. From there I’ll simply have to improvise.”

“And me?” Sisu dropped the amulet back into the sack. “What am I supposed to do?”

“You’ve got the easiest job of all,” said Acharsis. “All you’ve got to do is enter the ziggurat and avoid notice until we make our move against Irella’s quarters. Once I’ve accomplished my task and Kish has poisoned Irella’s food with the apple, we’ll all meet in the empty storeroom Istrikar’s identified for us, and from there we’ll follow you up to her quarters to launch our attack.”

“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” said Jarek. “This plan is completely and utterly foolproof.”

“Your confidence is bracing,” said Acharsis. “Which is why I’m going to try one last thing before we enact our plan. I’m going to summon Anscythia and see what aid she can render us.”

Sisu hefted the sack on his palm. “You sure that’s a good idea? Last time she got involved we all ended up diving down a corpse chute.”

“This time she’s bound by Ekillos’ power,” said Acharsis. “She has to render me aid in a few more matters. I want to see how best we can use her.”

“We’ve already used her several times,” said Jarek uneasily. “First to take us to the peak of the God’s Mountain, then to bring us to Uros. How can you be certain she’ll be dependable within the ziggurat?”

Acharsis gave a broad shrug. “I can’t. But we need every advantage we can get. Call it a gamble. But it’s better to gamble than not even make it to the card table.”

“Fine,” said Jarek. He settled his hand on the head of his Sky Hammer. “Let’s get this over with. How are you going to summon her?”

“Like this,” said Acharsis, stepping away from the light and turning to face the darkest corner of the basement. “Anscythia? I call you to my side. By Ekillos’ authority, I command that you attend me. By the bond that exists between us, I order you to appear in a pleasing guise. Come forth, Anscythia. Your service to me is not yet done.”

His words rang out with strident authority, and Jarek stared at the same dark corner, watching for movement, for some sign of the demon’s dark limbs. Kish let out a strangled gasp, and Jarek whirled around. Anscythia was there beside them, standing brazenly in the pool of light, her lithe body nude and as dark as the amulet stone Sisu had praised but moments ago.

Her eyes were trained on Acharsis, however, and they were utterly inhuman; darkness roiled in their depths like clouds streaming through a stormy night sky, hinting at thunder, promising lightning and dismay to all mortals who thought they could withstand the terrors of natural forces.

“Ah,” said Acharsis. He tried for a smile but it faltered and fell away. “There you are. Very good. Tomorrow night we plan to infiltrate Irella’s ziggurat—”

“I know,” whispered Anscythia, and her voice was like that of the wind over a battlefield, summoning visions of brutalized bodies and grasses bending before the breeze. “I have been listening.”

“That’s… that’s good,” said Acharsis. “So I can cut to the heart of the matter. We need your aid tomorrow. How best can you serve us and help us achieve our goals?”

“You can’t trust it to answer honestly,” said Sisu. “You must command it!”

“My powers are varied,” said Anscythia, her voice mocking and demure at once. “Perhaps you wish my assistance in passing unseen? Or do you wish me to kill?”

“Kill Irella?” asked Kish, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

Anscythia glanced sidelong at her. “That I cannot do.”

Jarek’s heart was thudding, and he felt his palms grow damp with sweat. The very act of standing beside this evil polluted them all, and were they not already so damned by their passage through the underworld he’d have cried out in horror for the state of his soul. “The blood,” he said, voice little more than a rasp. “Can you remove Irella’s blood from the gems?”

Acharsis shot him a quick look, brow furrowed.

Anscythia bowed low. “I am familiar with blood. Yes. I can cause it to move, to dance, to flow where I will.”

“But that won’t help,” said Sisu. “Even if they don’t see us remove her blood, they’ll see that the chalice is empty when it comes time to pour it into the gems. Or that the gems are empty when my aunt prepares them for the ritual.”

Jarek grimaced. “You’re right.”

“But as a last-ditch effort, perhaps,” said Acharsis, “what if we weakened Irella? What if we distracted her, lowered her guard? Could you strike at her then?”

The demon paused as if in thought, and then shrugged. “I could try.”

“Then that’s what we’ll have you do. We can’t guarantee that she’ll consume the entire apple, mixed as it will be into a larger dish. It might be wiser to expect her to be weakened, but even so, she’ll stand in the heart of her sanctum and be suffused by Nekuul’s powers. We’ll need every advantage we can get.” Acharsis passed his hand through his hair, and Jarek saw that it was shaking. “Hide yourself until I call for you, Anscythia.”

She once more gave her mocking bow, and then flickered and was gone.

“Urgh,” said Kish, rubbing her palms up and down her thighs. “After this is over, I’m going to run through every thorn gate I can find and ask every apsu to shrive me.”

“After this is done,” said Acharsis, “I’ll be able to shrive you myself. What we do, we do for the greater good. I’m willing to take on this pollution for our people.”

“I know,” said Kish. “I know. It’s just – never mind.”

Jarek reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “Soon. This will all be over soon.”

“For better or worse,” said Sisu. “I can’t believe you’re trusting that thing. How do you know Ekillos’ power still binds her? What’s to stop her from lying to us and turning against us at the last moment?”

Acharsis shrugged. “Planning and anticipation will only get you so far. After a certain point, you must trust to luck, fate, and the love of the gods. If Anscythia betrays us at the last, then so be it. But I’ll use her if I can. Tomorrow night’s impossible enough with some supernatural assistance.”

“Inspiring words,” said Kish, stepping in under Jarek’s arm to hug him tight. “Pinning our hopes on a fickle demon.”

“Pin your hopes on our efforts,” said Jarek. “Istrikar’s giving us an edge here. Irella doesn’t anticipate our attack - she must think us in Magan still. We’ll use the element of surprise, and with a little luck, tomorrow’s plan will come together and we’ll topple Irella and free the River Cities from her rule.”

“Let’s summarize,” said Acharsis. “Tomorrow at dawn, Jarek will join the servants who clean the kitchen. After lunch, Kish will enter the kitchen staff. I’ll infiltrate the slaves who will clean the head priestess’ quarters shortly thereafter. Sisu, you enter the ziggurat just before the feast.”

Everyone nodded.

Acharsis rubbed at his jaw. “Istrikar is going to make sure that the three assistant cooks don’t show tomorrow. The chief cook will promote Kish to take their place, along with two other assistants who will cover for Kish’s inability to cook. She’ll then poison Irella’s dish with the apple. If there’s any trouble, Jarek, you’ll be on hand to step in and help. Meanwhile, I’ll find a way to poison the head priestess. The feast will then take place, Irella will eat her tainted food and lose her power. She’ll draw her mundane blood thereafter and store it in the chalice, which will be taken to Nekuul’s temple atop the ziggurat by the head priestess till the ceremony is to begin. We’ll infiltrate that temple when Irella enters to commune with Nekuul, and there we will strike her down. If we fail to do so, at the very least her blood will have lost its potency, and she’ll be unable to open the permanent portal to the netherworld, giving Elu time to bring his armies from Magan to crush her a few years from now.”

“Let’s make sure we don’t leave a mess for Elu to clean up,” said Jarek. “Tomorrow we end this, one way or another.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Acharsis kept his head down. Looking around drew Peruthros’ attention, which in turn meant the lash. Sweat ran into the three cuts the slave master had already dealt to Acharsis’ back, and it took a surprising amount of discipline to not rise up on his knees to give his aching muscles relief. Instead, he focused on the large brush he held in his hand, and worked it back and forth over the clay tiled floor, trying to work up a lather.

His shoulders burned. His hand ached from gripping the brush’s broad body. His knees stung from rubbing against the floor. Sweat ran into his eyes. Around him the other slaves worked in diligent silence, striving with numb determination to erase all signs of the festivities that had taken place within this hall but hours ago.

Spilled wine. Dirt worked into the grain of the clay tiles. Smeared foodstuffs. Were all nobles such pigs? Surely Acharsis had never dropped so much food and spilled so many drinks while feasting? Had he?

Acharsis rubbed his brow surreptitiously against his upper arm and attacked a stubborn streak of grease with renewed vigor. Sure, he’d been exuberant at times while feasting; who hadn’t given a wild toast that may have led to some spilled drops? And you couldn’t exactly charge down the center of a table to embrace a friend or join a minstrel in song without dislodging some platters or sending them flying, could you? It wouldn’t be a true feast without a little wildness, a touch of rambunctious disregard for - well.

Acharsis gritted his teeth. The stain wasn’t coming out. Peruthros was walking his way. The man had inordinately muscled calves, as if he’d socked away a loaf of bread in each one. Quite nicely trimmed toenails, too. Acharsis would have paid gold for the privilege to smash his brush into those sandaled feet.

Peruthros stopped right beside Acharsis. The reflex to glance up was overwhelming, but at the last moment Acharsis clenched his jaw and bent down further to work on the stain.

“You’re rubbing at dry tile,” said Peruthros, sounding almost kindly. “I can barely see any soap suds at all.”

Acharsis hesitated. Was that permission to stop? To engage in conversation? The man was right, damn it. He’d been scrubbing mechanically, lost in thought, and had forgotten to dip his brush in his bucket again. No. Best to quickly soak his brush and get back to—

Thwack!

Acharsis’ whole body spasmed with pain. It was astonishing how the unexpected nature of the blow made it so much worse. Was a second one coming? Throat clenched, Acharsis scrubbed hard at the now soaking tile. The rasp of the bristles was audible, and soon bubbles from the soap were streaking everywhere, mercifully obscuring the stain.

“You’re new to my team,” said Peruthros, his tone distracted, as if he were gazing away beyond the horizon, “so it is natural that there be a period of adjustment. A time during which you learn my rules, and how to thrive under them. Now, your previous master said that you were a lazy slave, and begged that I take you on, worthless as some might think you with but one hand. He said that with the right incentive, you could easily prove an asset. I am starting to fear he was wrong.”

Acharsis bit down on a curse. Istrikar! He’d roast him over a bed of coals! Was this his petty revenge?

Thwack!

This time Acharsis couldn’t help himself; he reared up to his knees with a curse, pinching his shoulder blades together in an attempt to squeeze the pain away, the large muscles of his back spasming.

Thwack!

The third blow took him across the face. Red lightning filled his vision and he dropped his brush, cupping his hand to his eye as he fell over onto his side, the pain in his back forgotten.

“I find that first we must instill a sense of respect,” said Peruthros, voice still calm. “Once you learn to respect me, you will understand what is required of you. That you cannot get away with lazing about or losing yourself in daydreams. I care not that you have only one hand. You must still work as hard as the others. Respect, slave. Say the word.”

Am I blinded? Acharsis pulled his hand away tentatively and blinked. No - not blinded. His eye was already swelling up, however, and his vision was badly blurred.

“Respect,” he said.

“Yes. I’ll be keeping my eye on you. If I see you lost in thought or mooning about like a pregnant cow at pasture, I’ll use other methods of earning your regard. Now. Back to work.”

The sandaled feet and swollen calves walked away, and with utmost effort Acharsis picked up his brush and got back to work. He wanted to simply lie on his side and cradle his face, but that way lay disaster. One more blow from that puffed-up monster and he’d wrest the lash away from him and yank his head back so he could shove the quirt straight down his nose and into his throat.

The other slaves were doing their best to ignore Acharsis. Not wanting to be contaminated by association, perhaps. No matter. His panic and bewilderment gave way before a bloody-minded determination, and he began to scrub with longer, harder strokes. Slowly he made his way down the length of the hall, leaving a wet streak of foam behind him, which a second group of slaves washed away with buckets of clean water. By the time he reached the far wall, the others had finished and were waiting in a sullen group by the door.

“Now,” said Peruthros, moving to stand before them with his legs set wide apart. “We’re going to clean Head Priestess Hephesa’s quarters. We have little time to accomplish this task, so you will be as quick as you will be diligent. Punishments for any transgressions will be far harsher than the norm. You will follow.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Acharsis could tell that nobody else was looking up. Everyone studied the floor, so he did the same. Peruthros marched through their ranks and out the door. The slaves followed, heads bowed, brushes and buckets in hand. They were on the fourth level of the ziggurat, an area reserved for nobles and important visitors from the other cities; the patrols here were composed of the dead in neat formations and in new armor. Lanterns lit the hallways from wall sconces, and a roll of interwoven reeds painted blood red ran down the center of each hall like a tongue. Laughter came through open doorways, along with the smell of food, of smoke, of revelry in all its guises.

They passed a corpse chute, its circumference limned in bronze, and then ascended a narrow stairwell that revolved around and around like the tight curlicues of Annara’s hair wrapped around Acharsis’ finger. Fifth floor. Sixth. The air grew chill and the sound of revelry fell away. Seventh floor. Eighth.

Peruthros led them out into the hallway. Acharsis studied the man from behind. The slave master was as broad of back as a bull, his hair shorn to the scalp, his ears twisted as if they’d been tweaked too often and too viciously as a child. His quirt was pressed against his thigh, and he moved here with swift nervousness, glancing about with the alertness of a mouse stealing forth from its hidey hole.

Acharsis soon saw why. A floating eyeball crossed Peruthros’ path and then turned to regard the slave master. It sat upon a bed of fleshy red tongues, all of which floated with eerie silence through the air.

Peruthros stiffened under its regard and quickly held aloft his amulet. The other slaves pulled theirs free, and Acharsis fumbled at his own. The eyeball looked larger than it should have, swollen to the size of a plum, and its iris was marbled black with a glowing crimson pupil.

Acharsis didn’t breathe as it scanned them, and then fought to restrain his sigh of relief when it floated on. Peruthros wiped at his brow and pressed deeper into the complex. They passed several deathless and something that looked to be composed of old, weathered brown ropes. Acharsis caught but a glimpse of it before it disappeared around a corner, but still he received a vivid impression of wrongness, of its moving in a manner wholly inhuman, limbs bending where no joints should have been, its head little more than a massive series of knots without features or eyes.

Peruthros paused before a grand entranceway. Two deathless stood guard before the door, hands resting lightly on their curved blades. Neither glanced at Peruthros as the man fell to his knees and pressed his brow to the ground. In this manner he crawled forward into the priestess’ quarters, the slaves imitating his approach.

Sweat running down his back and causing his switch marks to burn, Acharsis did the same, doing his best not to spill his bucket as he crawled between the guards and into an opulent antechamber.

There was definitely a Nekuul-death motif going on here. Rising to his knees, unsure as to what would get him switched, Acharsis took in the stacked skulls along the shelves, the candles as thick as his arms that were impaled on bronze spikes, the massive rune of Nekuul painted on the center wall and the braziers that were dying down if not dead already. The stone floor was covered with three rugs for extra comfort, and low furniture was set in the center of the room for guests to gather.

“We have little time. Jaros, Liran, Amasu, and Rani, set to replenishing the braziers. Arol, Timas, replace the candles that are more than halfway spent. Usum, Nazok, clean the table and wipe it down. The rest of you set to washing the floors.”

The slaves sprang into action. Most ran to a narrow doorway where they took turns filing into a storeroom of sorts, and from which they emerged with candles, sacks, and clay jars. Acharsis felt Peruthros’ gaze settle on him a mere moment before he dropped to his knees and took his brush from the bucket. Time to get scrubbing.

This was but the antechamber, however. He needed to pass through one of the two archways that led deeper into the priestess’ sanctum. How? He could work his way toward a doorway, then wait for Peruthros to grow distracted so he could slip beyond…

No. Damnit! The man was watching him again. Waiting for a reason to whip him. Should he rise up and knock him out cold? No. The slaves might cry out in alarm, leading to the entrance of the deathless.

Thinking furiously, Acharsis scrubbed his way across the room, cleaning the already spotless floor with vigor as he worked his way around the reed carpets. The other slaves worked with similar alacrity, replenishing, restocking, and otherwise preparing the room for the priestess’ return.

Acharsis reached the doorway to the inner sanctum and there began to wash in ever growing circles. Peruthros stood in the center of the antechamber, observing the proceedings with crossed arms.

Were they not going to be ordered inside to clean the inner rooms? Frustration mounted within Acharsis as he was forced to scrub ever further from the archway. Did the priestess’ room not need new candles? To be washed?

He couldn’t ask. Such impertinence would result in his being flayed. How then to slip within? Peruthros watched them all with the eyes of a hawk, gaze constantly scanning. In theory, timing Acharsis’ sidestepping out of sight sounded doable, but in practice? The slave master would notice him the moment he began scurrying out of sight.

The candles were replaced and lit. The braziers were soon blazing high. Dirty plates and cups were removed and the table set clean. Were new cups to be set out? Perhaps he could poison her cup with - no, no, she was in a state of ritual cleansing and wouldn’t be eating or drinking anything till after the ceremony was complete.

Footsteps.

“You are not a quick learner, are you?”

Peruthros stopped beside Acharsis. In the moment the lash was raised, that moment before the lightning flash of pain, a plan sprung fully formed into Acharsis’ mind.

He reared up with a roar, hand going for Peruthros’ throat. He caught a glimpse of the startled man’s expression and then the lash caught him full across the face once more.

With a cry, Acharsis stumbled back and fell, twisting himself so that he collapsed against the low table and cracked his head against its edge with an audible crunch.

He lay still on the reed carpet, slumped over on his side. His face crawled with agony, and he felt hot blood seeping down his cheek to pool under his head. His head felt split open, and he wanted nothing so much as to curl into a ball and cradle his wounds, to shiver and groan in an ecstasy of pain.

Instead, he forced himself to lie absolutely still.

A stunned silence filled the room, and then Peruthros stepped up beside him, the single footstep indicating the length of his stride, and let out a scream of inarticulate rage.

“You dare? You dare?”

The slave master brought his lash down across Acharsis’ chest, then again on his shoulder, over his stomach, over and over again with a near hysterical fury.

Despite his resolve, Acharsis found himself twitching, his muscles leaping at each blow, so that he jittered and shivered on the ground. But in his mind he cast himself far away, sending his thoughts to a secluded orchard high atop the God’s Mountain.

His body was a river of blood and pain, but in his mind’s eye he walked through those apple trees once more, pressed their blossom-heavy branches aside, searching for the inner glade.

His blood roared in his ears. His body stung and ached as if he’d been laid face down over a bed of live coals. Acharsis lay still, frozen in a near rapture of physical sensation, countless cuts opened across his bare skin.

Distantly, he could hear Peruthros gasping for breath. Beyond that? The silence of the other slaves, something palpable and equal parts horror and fascination.

Pain exploded in Acharsis’ side as Peruthros kicked him for good measure. Acharsis didn’t so much as grunt, but flopped with the blow, allowing his head to loll, his eyes remaining closed.

“Bastard,” snarled Peruthros. “Scum. Jaros, Liran. Take this filth to the corpse chute. Then return to clean up his blood. The rest of you, follow me.”

Footsteps. From deep behind his closed eyes Acharsis sensed the room emptying. Two presences hovered above him, their footsteps muffled in comparison to Peruthros’ sandaled feet.

A hand slipped under his arm. “Well? Come on. Before he bleeds all over the mat and makes our job that much harder.”

Acharsis cracked open an eye. Liran was crouched beside him, staring up at Jaros, who stood frozen, eyes wide as he studied Acharsis’ ruined figure.

They made eye contact and Jaros yelped, stepping back. “He’s not dead!”

“No, not dead,” said Acharsis, forcing himself to sit up with a rueful smile. He gazed down at his body. His simple slave’s shift was lacerated and soaked in blood. A dozen cuts scored his chest, stomach and arms, and his face stung and throbbed as if a great hand were trying to push his brains out through his nose. Blood ran everywhere, and each beat of his pulse sent a fresh wave of agony coursing through him.

“Ouch,” he said. “You’d think Peruthros didn’t like me.”

The two slaves stood frozen, mouths gaping.

“Now,” said Acharsis, “you have a choice before you.” It took all his will to keep his voice even, his tone conversational. To not press his hand to his temples and cry out in pain. “You can wrestle me into the corpse chute as you were told, or you can take this pouch of coins here and figure out some exciting new future for yourselves.”

With difficulty, he dug out the small pouch from inside his waist sash. He hefted it to make it sing.

“We can’t do that,” said Jaros. “Can we?”

“Sure you can,” said Acharsis. Was he slurring? He had to move. Had to make their decision a foregone conclusion. Biting back his groan, he levered himself to his feet. The other two men fell back before him as if he had the plague. “Here.”

Liran caught the blood-smeared pouch with both hands and stared down at it. “Coin? But - how?”

“The detailsh aren’t really important,” said Acharsis. He fought to not sway. He had to get them out of here before he collapsed. “What mattersh is that you can actshually plan an eshcape now, can’t you? That’s not… it’sh not a fortune, but it’ll buy you… clothing and transhport down the Leonish. Freedom, my friendsh. It’sh… it’sh worth fighting for. Now, if you’ll excushe me.”

And with that, he turned and walked into Hephesa’s inner sanctum.

Once within the shadowed room, he stopped and closed his eyes in a vain attempt to control his nausea. He stood, knees almost buckling, and listened. The seconds passed with agonizing slowness. If the two slaves were going to give him up, they’d have to do it now, scream to the deathless to attend.

Nothing.

He could imagine them standing there, pouch held out in Liran’s hands. Staring into each other’s eyes. Trying to get a sense if the other was going to call out. If they could trust each other with this secret. With this new hope.

After perhaps a minute, Acharsis allowed himself a deep sigh of relief. Blinking, his eyelashes gummed up with blood, he tried to make out the contours of the room. It was too dark to see much more than the outline of a large bed, several hard-backed chairs against the walls, the gleam of bronze shapes against the walls. Were those… flails? Whips? Manacles?

His head was pounding. The cuts across his back were as nothing compared to the deep slashes across his front, which in turn paled in comparison to the pain in his head.

Perhaps… perhaps he’d overdone the whole ‘head hitting the table’ aspect of the plan. His gorge rose again and he found it hard to focus. He needed to sit down. Just for a moment.

Acharsis stumbled over to the bed and sat on its edge. It was large enough for five people to sleep in without touching. Perfect for orgies.

A wisp of flame flew about his head. A bright streak of crimson, a fluttering of wings. He smelled a faint hint of smoke, thought he heard the crackle of logs being consumed by fire. The vision pulled at his attention, infused him with a slight jolt of energy.

He had to get up. Had to move. But his mind was spinning. His pulse was a clamorous reverberation in the temple of his head, drowning out all reason.

The crimson apparition hovered before him, rapidly beating its wings. Urging him to get up, insistent, demanding.

Acharsis’ focus grew blurred. Just one moment to rest. To get his bearings back. He closed his eyes, then fell back slowly as he passed out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Annara stood before a rose colored cliff of sandstone, a thousand men and women at her back, a vast silence lying over them all like a suffocating hand, and gazed upon the narrow entrance to the Path of Righteousness.

Its exterior gave no sign of the wonders it contained. An undulating crack in the short cliff, the contours soft as if worn by water, the narrow path leading into its shaded interior barely wide enough for one. No markings, no signs of devotion, no voices raised in song, no hints as to the impossibilities that awaited her within.

The inevitable death.

It was late afternoon, and a soft sunlight filtered down to them from the cloud cover overhead. Her body ached. Her mind was as softly contoured as the liquid curves of the canyon itself, robbed of all sharpness by too many sleepless nights filled with worry and doubt.

But the moment had finally come. Their procession to the Path had swelled, gathering curious onlookers, other former kings, their tribes, itinerant nomads, until a veritable throng had followed her to this moment.

It was their very silence that spoke of their awe, their reverence for what she gazed up. Not a whisper. Not a word. Just the collective weight of their regard as they waited for her to set forward, enter the canyon, and never be seen again.

Annara took a deep breath, rousing herself from lethargy, and turned to Sennefer and Wehemka. If this was to be her final hour, then these two men were the closest she had to friends. In their eyes she saw pity and something akin to respect. They bowed as she stepped closer.

For a moment she wanted to tell them what to tell Elu, tell Acharsis, when she failed to return. A goodbye message. A missive of love. But no. It was less a matter of her needing to have faith in her own success and more that she felt removed from those she professed to love; this deep in Kusuj, before a gateway to the underworld, she felt finally and truly alone. Self sufficient. Hardened and free.

So instead she inclined her head to the two men, then turned to Talakhamani, who pressed his palm to his chest and bowed in turn. She’d grown fond of him over the course of these past two nights; his subtle wisdom, his gentle humor, his seemingly inexhaustible patience and restraint.

She bowed deeply to him, feeling an unexpected upsurge of affection, then gazed out over the crowd. Everybody was staring at her, but their faces were as solemn as their silence. No, she would not wave nor greet them not speak words.

The time had come to act.

So thinking, Annara turned, walked across the soft white sand, and entered the narrow canyon.

And it was… beautiful. A narrow, obliquely angled chasm of rose-colored rock that swelled and receded like walls of vertical waves, pale white striations marking their forms, and making of the canyon a dream-like progression of intimate spaces that waxed and waned with the walls.

She moved forward slowly, allowing her gaze to drift here and there. She was glad for the canyon’s feminine form; felt in her bones the rightness of its intimations of returning to some womb, the end of a life mimicking the passage that had given it birth.

Stillness. Sunlight glimmered down from overhead, lost between the undulations of stone, barely glimpsed as she walked forward, a blank, golden nullity into which the canyon’s top faded away. No sun, no sight of clouds, no sky, no outer world; just a white-gold infinity that her eye could not brave for long.

Annara walked forward. Reached out to brush her fingertips against the stone and found the rock to be textured by the striations, dusty, so that her fingertips came away pale white. White as the sand beneath her sandaled feet, and on impulse, moved by a desire to connect with this divine space more fully, she toed off her sandals and walked forward discalced.

She could never see farther than a half dozen yards before her. The canyon wound forward with subtle intent, shoulders of stone blocking her sight and giving way to new vistas as she reached them, always descending at gentle gradient, so that the canyon walls rose ever higher above her until even that golden-white nullity became remote, and she trod through a rose-colored dream, her footsteps silent, with only the sound of her breath proving to her that she yet lived.

How would death come for her? Need it be painful? No. Annara intuited with complete certainty that death here would be a benediction. A release. A peaceful crossing from the land of the living to that of the dead. Perhaps she would simply and slowly lose the need to breathe, find her flesh giving way to spirit. Perhaps that process had already happened. Perhaps she was already dying.

Annara stopped, inhaling deeply, and closed her eyes. Centered herself. Was she… ? No. Her pulse was rapid but strong. Her aches returned as she focused on them.

Then…? At what point would this trial begin?

She resumed walking forward. The silence was an almost physical presence, pressing in on her on all sides. Would the canyon open up into a chamber? Would she be questioned? Would she emerge into the underworld and meet with Amubastis?

Talakhamani had walked this path himself, a hundred years before. But when she’d put these questions to him, he had but smiled that enigmatic smile of his that precluded any need for words.

Annara studied the sand before her. There were no signs of previous footsteps.

Strength drained from her. Was she doomed to walk an endless canyon? Were there hundreds, thousands of other petitioners lost in here with her, all of them stumbling on, impelled by desperation and a desire to reach some final end point, but doomed to an endless purgatory?

Could she turn around and flee back to the waking world?

Annara sank down to her knees. The sand was fine, cool, and she felt how easy it would be to lie down and close her eyes.

Her exhaustion welled up within her. More than her aches and pains. A spiritual enervation. The weight of her responsibilities. The weight of love. Something she’d only understood when she’d first held Elu in her arms moments after he’d been born. Something Kenu, her husband, had never understood. How love could be a burden, how love could drag you down. Elu had gazed up to her with his bright, unseeing eyes, his small form so delicate, so vulnerable, and she’d felt this horror over the scope of her role, the vastness of it, the charge that was no hers and how she would need to protect him, nurture him, shield him, encourage him to grow.

A charge that was still hers today.

A charge that she sought to expand on. To use as the basis of her right to claim divinity. Was that what it meant to be a goddess? To take the nurturing instincts of a mother and spread them wide over an entire people? To take upon one’s self the frailties and weaknesses of a hundred thousand souls, to feel their pain, to be strong for them, to feel, unfair and wrong as it might be, that their successes were your own, and their failures doubly so?

Tears brimmed in Annara’s eyes. Was her spirit so wide, so deep, so noble that she could take on that mantle?

Her own words returned to her. That divinity was not a difference of kind, but of degree. She thought of Talakhamani and her words rang hollow. Acharsis was all too mortal; all the River City godsblood were. They were not good examples of divinity. Rather, there existed a glimmer of the truth in Talakhamani’s eyes. His demeanor and bearing.

By what right did she deserve to become a goddess?

Annara lowered her head. The right of a mother’s love? Desperation? Her own hubris in walking this Path struck her full force. If she pressed on and came face-to-face with Amubastis, the mother of all lamassu, what would she say to that being? What words would justify her presence here?

None. She would deserve the death that would be hers.

The weight of defeat pressed down on her. She couldn’t walk on. Couldn’t countenance the prospect of sacrificing herself so completely. It was a sacrifice greater than death. Death, she realized, she could face without qualm. But to become a goddess of a nation? To serve each and every soul, to feel that terror and responsibility born of such overwhelming love for a thousand thousand beings?

Tears ran down her dusty cheeks. She had thought herself capable of anything. Of everything for Elu. Yet here, in this silent canyon, she realized her own limitation. She was not capable of such self-sacrifice. Such eternal servitude, an infinitude of sweet torment born of an endless love.

Give me death, then, she thought. I have failed. I am not worthy. My spirit is not so noble that I can make that manner of sacrifice.

And a voice spoke to her, kind as a mother’s hand upon her cheek. No mortal spirit is.

Annara’s head snapped up, her eyes opening wide - and she saw that she knelt before the entrance of the canyon, facing the great crowd that now did murmur and point, shocked and swaying like fields of endless grass bent by the passing of the wind over the Golden Steppe.

Talakhamani stepped toward her, and for the first time since meeting the old man she saw genuine surprise upon his face. Other men and women peeled away from the crowd, and as different as they all were from each other, all had one thing in common: that melancholic combination of wisdom and sadness, strength and gentleness. Talakhamani reached her and dropped to his knees before her and took both of her hands within his own.

“I failed,” whispered Annara, her voice cracked with grief. Tears filled her eyes once more.

The former king’s voice was filled with wonder. “It is the noblest failure. All who survive the Path of Righteousness do so by deeming themselves insufficient.”

Annara blinked through her tears as she sought to make sense of his words. “But…”

“Come. We cannot speak of this here. Come.” He drew her to her feet, and led her through the crowd, brushing away Sennefer’s questions and Wehemka’s demands. Through the great crowd that parted reverently for them both, and to the many tents that had been erected, between their dusty colorful shapes to his own.

“Drink,” he said, handing her a small cup of tea as she settled upon the cushions. The other men and women who had stepped out of the crowd entered the tent one by one, moving to sit on their own cushions, and Talakhamani introduced each in turn; all of them former kings and queens of the Kusuj, now reduced to the roles of tribal chieftains, some even to solitary goatherders.

It was a herbal brew, lightly sweetened with honey and cool upon her tongue. Annara drank deeply, and felt herself come back to life, the tea washing away the dust that seemed to have coated her innards and rendered her inanimate.

Talakhamani sat on the cushions before her, and Annara realized how he had changed; gone was that quiet detachment, and in its place a vital energy that made him seem more alive than a youth half his age.

“I don’t understand,” she said, glancing nervously around at the others.

“That is natural. Such understanding is beyond us mortals.”

“I didn’t succeed. I gave up.”

“As did I.”

“As did we all,” said a wizened older lady, her eyes gleaming kindly.

“Yet you all became kings and queens.”

“Against our wills,” said Talakhamani. “I was not worthy of the title, but saw that by accepting the title I could do the least damage to my people.”

The others bowed their heads in agreement.

“So you are not divine? None of you?”

Talakhamani smiled, again showing his bright white teeth. “Of course not. Merely long lived, by the grace of the lamassu.”

“But… the people, the Kusuj -”

“Our understanding of divinity is far different from yours and that of the River Cities. To you, divinity means direct inheritance through the blood, union of your gods with the rulers of your cities. It means power, it means strength, it means violence and discord.”

“I… yes.”

“But think. What are the most visible symbols of divinity in Magan?”

“The lamassu?”

“And are they violent? Do they gift terrible powers to their pharaohs? Do they rise up in arms when the fortunes of Magan are assailed?”

Annara shook her head slowly. “No, they don’t.”

“Just so. We who survive the Path of Righteousness are not gifted such powers either. We do not become more than our fellows. Stronger, more dangerous, more gifted. If anything, we become less. Aware of our limits. Our failings. Our very mortality.”

“Then why did the lamassu recognize your divinity during your time ruling Magan?” A panicked storm of emotions were rising up within her. “Was it all a farce?”

Talakhamani’s smile widened. “Of course not! Divinity can be found in servitude. The kings and queens of Kusuj become divine through their visceral understanding of this truth. It is the same philosophy of the lamassu. We who survive the Path of Righteousness are deemed by Amubastis to be worthy of life; we are allowed to return so that we may, in all our weakness, serve our brothers and sisters and by doing so improve their lot in life.”

Annara shook her head. “So it is all a ruse.”

Talakhamani’s smile grew sad. “No, Annara. The ruse is your conception of divinity. That one should be elevated above the others. That one is better or more deserving than the rest. This leads only to violence, as it is the nature of humanity to strive for that power. Look at the history of your River Cities. Can you tell me of a period when there was no war, no bloodshed, no violence for more than a score of years?”

Annara stilled. Blinked. “No. Unless you count Irella’s current reign, which has lasted for almost two decades.”

“Ah, yes. But she achieved her power through death. Is death. And now seeks to bring death to the rest of the world. And before her?”

“War,” said Annara. “Invasions. Constant battles between city-states.”

“Whereas we in Kusuj have only gone to war once and regretted it ever since.”

“Why? Why did you invade Magan, then?”

Talakhamani sighed and glanced around at his fellows. “Once the pharaoh’s of Magan followed our philosophy. But power corrupted them, and they began to see themselves as rulers instead of servants. The lamassu, of course, did not interfere. Magan reached out its hand, seeking to conquer new lands, new peoples, and grew too large; it fractured, fell apart, and Kusuj, which had always been the spiritual heart of the empire, broke away so as to preserve its ancient traditions.”

“But you came back,” Annara said. “You conquered Magan for a century.”

“A mistake. We thought to bring peace to Magan. Chaos stalked the land. Bandits were everywhere, made bold by the pharaoh’s weakness. We thought to bring peace and stewardship, but that very act of imposing ourselves brought only more blood.”

Annara pressed her hand to her brow. “But what of the Quickening?”

Talakhamani waved his hand irritably. “An ancient trial that emphasizes the wrong aspects of being a ruler. It should be relegated to the dust heap of history and forgotten.”

“But the lamassu recognize it as a means of selecting the next pharaoh.”

Talakhamani’s smirk became hard. “Which is why we are content to live without them here in Kusuj. Here, we worship Amubastis directly.”

“Ah…” said Annara. Slowly her mind was recovering from her shock. Assembling pieces of the puzzle. “The lamassu didn’t contest your right to rule in Magan, but nor did they rise up to defend you.”

“Such is not their way.”

“And before the Maganian empire split, before it became greedy for new land and people. Did the pharaohs both walk the Path of Righteousness and pass the Quickening?”

Talakhamani’s expression grew hard. “So it is said. But that was a more primitive time.”

“Some might say these times are still primitive.”

“Alas, you are correct. But there are those striving to change that.” Talakhamani inclined his head. “We would welcome you amongst our number.”

“Thank you.” Annara pressed her hand over her heart as she had seen him do, and closed her eyes. “You do my more honor than I deserve. I mean. Truly.”

“But you will not stay.”

It was her turn to smile. “You know that I cannot.”

The old woman smiled. “And now you will seek to convince us to help you.”

Annara couldn’t help but return her smile. “Of course. Do you know what I will ask?”

Talakhamani leaned back on one elbow. “To invade Magan once more? I just finished telling you that the first time was a mistake.”

“No. After what I have been through, I have no desire to set off another war. Not with Irella’s undead host coming at us from the east. Instead, I would ask your help in returning me to the capital. That is all.”

The men and women in the tent exchanged glances. The old lady leaned forward. “And what of the offers you made the Kusuj?”

“They stand,” said Annara with a smile. “Now more than ever. But if I am to effect them, I need to return home before my son is killed.”

The old lady sat back, satisfied. “Then if you wish to return to Magan, you need but enter the Path of Righteousness once more. Follow its course as you think of your destination. It leads into the netherworld, and from there, with Amubastis’ blessing, you shall emerge wherever your heart desires.”

“It’s that easy?”

Chuckles filled the tent.

“No,” said Talakhamani. “It is far from simple, but a miracle that you can now work given your first success. Nobody else would be able to walk it with you.”

Annara bowed her head. “Thank you. I will go, then. Already I am a day past when I said I would return. My son promised to reveal his true identity and marry the daughter of his greatest enemy yesterday. I need to be by his side.”

“Very well.” Talakhamani rose to his feet and extended his hand. “Come, Lady Annara. We shall all escort you back to the Path. May it lead you where your heart desires, and may that desire always remain true to your own inherent divinity.”

Annara took his hand and allowed him to help her rise. “Thank you. All of you. What happened today… I haven’t even begun to understand it. I feel… changed. But above all, blessed. The weights and responsibilities remain the same. My own appreciation for them, however, have changed. I feel ready to tackle them with new vigor. Thank you.”

Talakhamani grinned. “It is a strange thing, is it not? To find joy in subservience? To find pleasure in simplicity? To understand the true nature of wealth, and grasp it with an empty hand? This is true divinity. If only we could communicate it to everyone else. Then each man and woman could bestride this world, a god or goddess in their own right, and make of the four score years we are given a paradise on earth.”

Annara inclined her head. “It is strange. I’ll begin with a much smaller miracle.”

“That is?”

“Saving my son’s life.”

Talakhamani parted the tent flaps, allowing the soft afternoon light to spill in. “Your son is the pharaoh-elect of Magan. If you are able to bring him wisdom, that could change the course of a thousand thousand lives, and even the course of history. I would not call that ‘small’. Come, Lady Annara. Let us help you place your mark on history.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Jarek tried to round his shoulders a little more so as to blend in with the other servants, and failed. He’d never been given reason to regret his imposing frame and presence, but here in the kitchens of Irella’s ziggurat he stood out like a bull amidst a flock of sheep.

Mop in hand, he stepped around a broad table at which five women were maniacally hacking apart ducks, and moved up against the wall, where he paused to take stock. The kitchens were massive. Far bigger than those in his ziggurat in Rekkidu. Three large halls were laid next to each other, connected by many broad archways and so filled with steam and the aroma of cooking soups, roasting meats, the sharp coppery tang of spilled animal blood and the cries and calls of the cooks and servants that Jarek felt as if he were being afforded a glimpse into some perverse battlefield.

Worse, there was a logic here that he’d yet to latch onto. A rhythm and set of expectations that the other cleaners knew how to follow. He felt like a bear who had stumbled into a dance, and now bumped into everyone else, to their horror and dismay. How was he supposed to know the cook had wanted that platter of bones? Or that dumping a bucket of mopping water under the bakery table was such an affront?

Wiping at his brow, Jarek wondered if he could simply find a corner in which to hide till Kish showed up. But there were no unused corners. Everywhere was diligence and activity. The flash of bronze cleavers, the sharp chop on wood, the bubbling and stirring, pots being carried to be scrubbed, sacks of flour being brought in from the lower pantries, the roaring of flames, and everywhere people running to and fro with great urgency.

His stillness was attracting curious gazes. Frowning, Jarek prodded at the ground with his mop, staring intently as if he were working some particularly stubborn stain. He’d work this spot for as long as he could, then cross one of the large halls to find another mystery stain to work on, far from those who might have noticed his previous efforts.

“Jarek?” The voice was filled with mirth and incredulity. Kish. He looked up and saw her clad in the crimson and brown outfit of the top cook. Her hair was plaited and coiled into a bun, her clothing crisp and clean, and still she shone with a wild beauty that stopped his breath and put the lie to her being anything but a warrior born.

In his eyes, at least.

“Kish.” He gave the mop another prod. “It evening already?”

“You look… perfect.” She reached for his arm then drew back at the last moment, catching herself. “And a mop? I’d never in a thousand years have thought I’d see this day.”

“Laugh all you want,” he said, trying not to growl. “The mop’s proven my best friend. Lets me wander around without being ordered to scrub pots. Everyone assumes I know what I’m doing and am going somewhere on purpose.”

“Perhaps you’ve found your true calling,” she said. “But I have to go. I’m to be introduced to Keshun, the royal cook.”

“Better hope he doesn’t ask you to cook anything,” said Jarek. “That would ruin your cover.”

“You think I can’t cook?” Kish arched an eyebrow. “I’m not Annara, you know. I enjoy making my own meals.”

Jarek straightened up. “You do? How come you’ve never cooked me anything, then?”

“We’ve been a little distracted with saving the empire.” She flashed a smile. “Remember? Now. Wish me luck.”

“Luck,” he said, and she was gone, striding with confidence through the ranks of servants who stepped aside and bowed their heads.

His own tunic and pants were an undyed pale brown, splashed with grease and dirty water. Nobody was going to step aside for him.

“You there!” An older man in a pale yellow outfit and with a face like a constipated dog stopped and pointed at him. “What are you doing?”

Jarek took his time looking down at his mop then back up at the man. “Mopping?”

“We need help bringing up more water from the central well. Go!”

Jarek bowed and propped his mop against the wall, then set off purposefully into the kitchen. He wove his way between tables where cooks were mincing vegetables into small mountains, along a line of massive bronze cauldrons that hung from chains above beds of glowing coals, dozens of young boys sweating as they added more fuel and raked the coals into place.

Central well. Central well. Asking such a basic question would get him noticed. Perhaps he could find someone with an empty bucket and follow them?

A stern-faced man clad in crimson and brown was walking in his direction, accompanied by the voluminous man Jarek knew to be the head cook of the main kitchens. The head cook was listening with a perplexed and sympathetic expression as the other man spoke sharply to him, and Jarek turned away to pick up a tray of dirty dishes as they passed.

“…the order was issued in your name! The tablet bore your signature! I ask again: how can you know nothing about this?”

The head cook spread his hands apologetically. “I’ve told you, I never sent an order for you to stay home. Why would I do such a thing?”

The pair moved past Jarek and their conversation was lost in the hubbub.

Jarek set down the tray and stared at their backs. That had to be one of the three assistant cooks. Why hadn’t he obeyed his orders? Instinct caused Jarek to follow. Ducking his head, he moved in as close behind them as he could without being noticed.

“…of course, I blame myself for not disregarding your command immediately; now I have wasted precious hours hesitating at home instead of being present at my station, assisting master Keshun. By Nekuul, what a disaster!”

“Not a complete disaster. A new assistant cook has been assigned to help him; I myself effected the introductions but moments ago.”

The royal assistant stopped and turned sharply upon the head cook. “Excuse me?”

Jarek pivoted smoothly to continue past them, and then stopped beside a number of empty baskets which he began to stack.

“Why, yes. She came with excellent references. From Rekkidu. She is with master Keshun as we speak.”

“Could it be? Are we to be replaced so neatly? Shamed out of our duties with sham orders and then refused a return?”

“I - but surely not—”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jarek saw the royal assistant draw himself up and smooth down his crisp uniform, face pale, mouth a trembling slit. “I shall get to the bottom of this. Excuse me, Oshan.”

Jarek picked up a basket and followed the royal assistant, who strode briskly through the din and chaos toward the far side of the hall. He had to stop him. A blow to the back of the head with the Sky Hammer? No; too violent, too obvious. And the Sky Hammer was with Sisu. Accidentally break his leg by kicking him in the side of the knee? No. Throw boiling soup in his face?

A servant approached bearing a tray of clay ramekins filled with brown liquid. He would pass the royal assistant in a matter of moments, both squeezing past each other between the flensing stations.

Jarek rushed forward. The servant saw him approach, filling the gap that he’d intended to squeeze through in order to avoid the royal assistant. He slowed, went to move aside. Jarek thrust himself past the assistant, grabbed the servant by the shoulder, and spun him around.

There was a shout of dismay followed by the shattering of clay ramekins. Jarek hunched over nearly double as he raced off, risking only one glance over his shoulder to take in the royal assistant staring down at his now utterly befouled and ruined uniform.

Success? Perhaps. The key to hit-and-run tactics was to not get bogged down in the engagement, but to make good your escape and then regroup. Many a sortie had sought to press a momentary advantage and become stuck in a protracted combat, to their eventual destruction.

No. As much as Jarek wanted to witness the outcome of his ploy, it was best for him to flee and regroup behind the roasting spits.

Once there, he hunkered down and spied between the revolving hogs. He couldn’t quite make out the royal assistant. Was that flash of brown him? He chanced to stand a little taller, craning from side to side as he peered between the aisles, searching for the man.

“You!”

Jarek wheeled about to stare in horror at the head cook, Oshan.

“Hiding here like a whipped cur! I saw you barrel into Kelas and knock his gravy dishes into Jharan! To my eyes it looked deliberate!”

The other cooks and assistants were drawing back, aghast. Even the young boys whose job it was to turn the spits slowed down their movements.

“My apologies,” said Jarek. Should he bow or something? Kneel? Probably wouldn’t make a difference. “I had to…”

“Had to what, exactly? Oshan was fully six inches shorter than him but bristled like a boar surprised in the act of impregnating another pig’s sow. “Inexcusable! Jharan will have to wear the uniform of a common cook! Thirty lashes! Even a lummox of your size should feel that sting!”

“Thirty lashes?” Jarek placed his hands on his hips. “Really? For knocking over the gravy?”

“Impertinence! Who do you think you are, speaking back to me in such a manner!?”

“You’re upset,” said Jarek. “Understandably so. Why don’t you take a deep breath and then reconsider the situation?”

“Forty lashes!” Oshan’s face was turning red.

“Fine, fine. Forty lashes.” Jarek looked around. “Are there guards or something who should be escorting me somewhere?”

Oshan’s head quivered, as if he were trying to shake it left and right at the same time and resulting in consequent shivering immobility. “Are you simple? Dangerously idiotic? No! No guards in my kitchen! Report to the butcher yard and there tell them your sentence! And do not think of avoiding this fate. I shall ask tomorrow if you were whipped, and if I find out you were not I shall have the soles of your feet removed with a wooden spoon!”

“All right, all right, calm down.” Jarek squared his shoulders. “I’m going, see? To the butcher yard. Forty lashes.”

Oshan’s mouth opened and closed like a beached fish. Jarek decided not to provoke him further and walked back into the kitchen, trailed now by open stares of incredulity and amazement.

So much for hanging out with a mop.

“Butcher yard this way?” he asked a gaping old man with a scaling knife. The old man shook his head and pointed out the right path. “Thanks.”

He’d hoped to force Jharan to return home for a new uniform. No such luck. Where did the servants and kitchen staff receive their uniforms? Was there a dispensary or a quartermaster?

Jarek came to a stop, hands on his hips. Once more he was saved by the sheer size of the kitchens - the people here ignored him, ignorant of the debacle which had just taken place one hall over.

“Excuse me,” said Jarek, touching a woman on the shoulder as she passed him by carrying twisted bundles of dried reeds. “I was told to get a new uniform. Where do I go?”

The woman’s initial scowl of annoyance faded away as she looked him up and down. “I’ve not seen you here before. New to the kitchens?”

“Yes,” said Jarek.

“The name’s Mesana. You’ll hear the story about me and the three stable boys soon enough, but I tell you now it’s a pack of lies put out by Loros after I rejected him. Clear?”

“Clear,” said Jarek.

She smiled. “Good. Wouldn’t want a handsome fellow like yourself getting the wrong idea. Come on, I’ll show you.”

“And your… reeds?”

“These can wait. Come on!”

Jarek followed Mesana as she wove lithely through the kitchens. She wasn’t hard to keep his eyes on, and in another life he’d have been curious to learn more about Loros, the three stable boys and whatever trouble she’d entangled herself in. But not in this one. The stepped into a narrow hallway so filled with bustling servants rushing to and fro that it reminded Jarek of an ant trail, and then took a turn, a second turn, and emerged into a large room with high shelving running up the back wall behind a broad counter.

“Here you are,” said Mesana, turning to him with a smile. “Present your requisition tablet to old Resano over there and ignore his sharp tongue. He only finds joy in mocking people, and there’s no better way to irk him than to smile at his every insult. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t,” said Jarek.

“Mysterious,” said Mesana. “Well, I’ll keep an eye out for you in the kitchens. See you around, stranger.” She grinned and left.

Jarek sidestepped out of the archway and examined the crowd milling before the counter. People were collecting all manner of basic household goods, from buckets to brushes to jars to clay pots. Jharan the royal cooking assistant stood at the counter, face scrunched up in anger as he waited, arms crossed, staring out at nothing and ignoring the sniggers and hushed conversations around him.

The gravy had done a masterful job of ruining the assistant’s uniform altogether, and had been thick and dark enough that it looked as if Jharan had been caught behind a donkey suffering from violent dysentery at precisely the wrong moment.

Jarek hid his grin behind his hand and waited. Nobody paid him any mind.

Five minutes later Jharan stepped away from the counter, a folded uniform held carefully in hand, and began to make his way toward the exit.

New plan. It wasn’t enough to ruin his clothing. He’d have to do something more permanent. Nothing too violent, however; Jharan was an innocent in all this. Relatively speaking.

What would Acharsis do? Fake a message from a superior, perhaps. No; he didn’t have the clay tablet to back it up. Feed him something that would give him the runs? That could—

“You!” Jharan had stopped before him, face darkening. “You’re the oaf who—”

Jarek punched Jharan as hard as he could, square in the face. The blow lifted the royal assistant off his feet and sent him crashing to the ground, senseless.

Several people shouted in alarm and then the whole room went silent.

Jarek rubbed at his knuckles and pitched his voice to carry. “The man spoke to me in an impolite tone.”

“But…” said a servant in blue and gray. “He - he was a royal cook. You’re - you’re a cleaner.”

“Etiquette knows no boundaries,” said Jarek. “That, and he slept with my sister.”

Four Death Watch guards strode into the room, clearly drawn by the shouting. “What’s going on here?” demanded their leader.

“Shit,” said Jarek. He recognized the man. The same fool who had sought to accost him in the noble quarter when they’d been making their way to Istrikar’s.

“You?” The Death Watch captain dropped his hand to the pommel of his sword. “Seize—”

Jarek lunged forward and punched the guard right in the mouth. The blow lifted the man off his feet and sent him crashing to the ground, senseless.

Even the other three Death Watch guards gaped.

“But…” said the same servant in blue and gray. “He… he… did he also…?”

“My sister gets around,” said Jarek grimly, rubbing at his knuckles.

As one, the three guards moved to draw their blades. Jarek clamped his hand on the wrist of the closest man, preventing him from drawing more than three inches of his bronze sword, and socked a punch across his jaw. The man was made of sterner stuff than his captain, however, and while his head snapped back, he didn’t drop.

The other two moved in to flank him, the short nature of their blades to their advantage in this crowded room. The crowd yelled and surged back, opening a space around them.

Jarek kept his grip on the guard’s wrist and clamped his other hand around the man’s throat, then heaved him up and around into the next guard. They both staggered into the wall as the third stabbed at Jarek with a harsh shout.

It was a good attack. No nonsense, straight for the gut, fast and skilled. Jarek spun so that the cut sliced along his ribs instead of piercing them and completed his spin to whiplash a backhand across the man’s cheek.

Or that was the plan. The guard raised his arm at the last moment, catching the blow against his shoulder and bicep, and even though the force of the backhand caused him to stagger, he didn’t drop.

Jarek backed up. The three guards regained their balance and spread out, faces hard, eyes flat with murderous intent.

“I need my hammer,” growled Jarek. He cast around for a weapon. The captain’s blade was sheathed and out of reach.

There. Jarek hopped back, clasped a large clay amphora by its twin handles and lifted it with great effort. It was full of liquid, and he almost fell beneath its weight.

The three guards yelled and charged.

Changing his plan at the last moment, Jarek hurled the amphora at their feet. It exploded into shards of clay and dark wine, causing one of the men to slip and go down. The other two faltered, shocked, and Jarek leaped at them, brushing aside their blades with a sweep of his forearm and punching the center guard in the throat.

The man went down choking beside his companion. The third regained his balance and smote at Jarek’s head, who ducked with convulsive desperation. The sword sliced deeply into his shoulder. From his half crouch Jarek exploded upward with an uppercut, fueling the blow with the twisting of his hips and power of his legs, burying his fist so deeply in the guard’s stomach that the man vomited as he fell to the ground.

A kick across the temple of the first guard dropped him, and then all was still but for the choking and gagging of the other two.

Jarek stepped back, gasping for breath. Blood was running freely down his arm. There were two lacerations across his forearm where he’d knocked the blades aside, and his ribs were aflame with the pain of the first cut.

Still, not bad for an unarmed old man against four.

Panting, he glanced at the others in the room. They stood frozen, clutching at each other, their expressions part disbelief, part horror. A look that was rapidly growing familiar.

“Excuse me,” said Jarek. “I have to, uh…” He ducked out of the room and hurried down the hallway. How to get back to the kitchens? He could lose himself in that vastness until he found a way to bandage himself. Was it a left and then a right? No. He’d made a wrong turn.

Jarek slowed down. No sense in plunging on. All he had to do was trace his steps back to the last turn.

Shouts echoed from behind him. Cries of alarm and anger.

All right. No turning back, then.

Wincing, he tore off a strip of his tunic and pressed it into a wad against his shoulder. The fabric began to turn red. Speaking of which, the floor behind him was speckled with his blood.

Not good.

Hugging his arms to his chest so that he no longer dripped, Jarek broke into a jog. He had to get out of the general vicinity. Had to leave before he was caught.

He broke out into a broader hallway, and a number of servants did a double take upon noting his bloodied condition. They then immediately glanced over to a group of dead guards who stood sentry before a stairwell leading up. When the dead failed to move, the servants relaxed and resumed their business.

No sense in waiting. He’d done everything he could to help Kish. Time for him to regroup with Sisu.

Taking a deep breath, Jarek strode between the dead guards and mounted the steps, heading higher into the ziggurat.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Acharsis woke to feel a cool palm brush against his brow. His head pounded and his vision was blurry, which made seeing who sat beside him in the dark an impossible task. A woman? Annara?

“Shh.” The voice was husky. Was that desire he sensed? Fingertips traced the cut down the side of his face, and then the stranger brought the fingers to her lips and licked.

All right. Not Annara.

“What a delicious gift. What an unexpected surprise. Who left you here? Who prepared you so neatly?”

Acharsis’ mouth was parched, his throat locked. His thoughts milled about his mind, evading coherency like chickens fleeing a farmer’s son.

“Was it Azanasu? It would be just like him to cater to my needs in such a manner. To take the edge off my nerves…” The woman bent over him, smelling of incense and musk, and licked his cheek. “Older than I’m used to, but no matter; all flesh suffers the same.”

Older? The thought stung Acharsis through his fugue. Was a time women would beg to—

“And so recently prepared…” Her voice was a sensuous murmur in his ear, the kind of whisper a lover might use. “They’ve used you most cruelly, my darling pet. Look at how you’ve been abused.”

Her hand drifted down over his chest, her fingertips dancing and tracing his cuts and wounds. Acharsis lay still, heart pounding, staring up into the darkness. Hephesa. It had to be her.

She dug her fingers cruelly into a deep cut over his breast and he arched his back with a strangled sound of pain.

“No, shhh, relax, ride it out, ride it out…” She pressed her palm to his brow. “If you are to serve your purpose, serve it well. Do not resist me. Be still.”

His limbs became leaden and he flopped back onto the bed. Though the pain yet snarled through his body, Acharsis found that he could no longer move; he lay as if caught in a deep sleep, the dark room a dream.

“There, that’s better. Now. Let us see what Azanasu has brought me…”

Her touch was tender as a lover’s. Her lips brushed his skin. She slipped down his side to kiss a trail down his neck, over his clavicle, down his chest. She lingered at each slash of the lash, licking a trail along every cut that caused him to howl within the confines of his mind even as he lay as still as a stone.

“Too much, perhaps.” She drew back. “Where is the pleasure if you’re not able to join me? Let us loosen the reins.”

His body stirred and Acharsis moaned as the pain rose within him. Anscythia’s name rose to his lips. All he had to do was call for her, beg that she kill Hephesa, and he’d be free of this torment.

No. He clamped down on that thought. That would ruin everything.

Hephesa resumed her explorations, but now Acharsis could cry out each time she teased or tormented his wounds. A breathy, husky whisper of a scream, his body twitching and shaking beneath her ministrations.

His vision was growing strange, the room seeming to recede above him as if he were falling into a well. He couldn’t black out. Who knew what she’d do to his body while he was unconscious? If he’d ever wake again?

That, and he wanted to show her just whom she was messing with. Older, my ass.

“More,” he whispered, his voice little more than a rasp.

Hephesa paused. “What did you say?”

“More.” He tried to look down at where she lay, but couldn’t tilt his head. “Enjoy.”

There was a moment of silence, and then he could almost feel her smile. “Oh, my. A rare candidate. You enjoy this, do you?” And she slid her finger into his flesh.

“Fuck yes,” he gasped, arching his back once more. “Talk. Let me talk.”

Hephesa drew back, fingertip tracing bloody circles across his chest. “Well. Why not? If you’ve a mind to share…”

And the clamp that had held his jaws together, that had made even speaking a single word a mighty effort, fell away.

“Ahh,” sighed Acharsis. “My goddess, my queen. My body is yours. A field of battle on which you may disport.”

“A poet,” said Hephesa, caressing his cheek. “How unexpected.”

“Tonight is holy,” said Acharsis. His mind was reeling. This was the worst fucking night of his life. “Azanasu thought it fit you celebrate…”

“Hmmm,” murmured Hephesa. “Then you won’t mind if I do this?”

Acharsis didn’t know what she did but it suddenly felt as if she were prying a rib out of his side. He screamed, writhing from side to side, kicking his heels, then collapsed back on the bed.

“Hoo!” He stared at the ceiling, his vision swimming with motes of color. “Not bad!”

Hephesa stiffened. “Not bad? What do you mean, ‘not bad’?”

Acharsis grinned. “Oh, I compliment you, my lady. You’re really quite skilled. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

She sat up. “Ashamed?”

“Don’t take it the wrong way.” He fought for his breath. “You’re clearly a natural, very into it, I can tell you’ve done this before.”

“But?”

“But? Well, if you must know, you’re a little too inhibited. Too self-conscious.” He forced his head over so he could regard her silhouette. “You need to let loose a little. Really go all out.”

A spell of silence, and then she was on him, her body sliding over his own. “You want me to drop all restraint? You want me to bleed you like a hog hung from a branch?”

“Better,” he said. “Good visuals, great intensity. Keep going.”

“Cut your flesh into ribbons, flay your skin from your quivering body?” She was rocking up and down his length, grinding her hips into his own. “Feed you your own gobbets of meat, still warm and bleeding from your side?”

“I like where this is going,” he said. “Macabre and erotic. Fantastic combination.”

She reared up, straddling him, and backhanded him across the face.

“Ow,” said Acharsis. “Again.”

She complied and resumed rocking.

“Release my arms,” he said. “Let me guide you to where it hurts most.”

And like that, his arms were free. He slipped his hand down his side to where the paste was hidden in a small container in his sash and flipped the lid off. He then quickly brought his hand back up and, guiding her fingers into his mouth, and bit lightly on them. Hepjesa groaned, and, while she was distracted, he scooped some of the paste free and then moved his fingers back up to her mouth.

“Bite me,” he said, and she took his fingers in her mouth and did so.

“Argh!” He yanked his hand free. “Not that hard!”

She stopped. “What?”

“Sorry, sorry. That was great. Passionate, like a hog rooting for truffles. Very good.”

“A hog?”

“Sorry, you’re right. A sow.”

Hephesa rose to her feet so that she towered over him. “You jest with me? Is this a game to you? Because if so…”

Acharsis forced himself to rise up on his elbows and look up at her. “Yeah?”

“If so… oh. My head.”

“Mmmhmm.”

Hephesa’s knees gave way and she sat down heavily on Acharsis’ legs. Her control over his body disappeared altogether, and he shoved himself free, slipping off the bed and nearly falling to the floor.

“What… what’s happening to me?”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You just got a little too excited. Happens to a lot of ladies during their first time with me.”

Hephesa slumped over on the sheets and went still.

“Arrgh!” Acharsis’ whole body was throbbing. He stumbled about till he found a pitcher and raised it to his lips. Wine. Sweet, delirious perfection.

He drank deep, much of it sluicing down his cheeks and chest, then hurled the empty pitcher away and looked at where the head priestess lay unconscious.

“What is wrong with you?” He carefully pulled his tunic over his head and cast the bloodied rag away. “Seriously? What by Nekuul’s sagging - what was that?”

Acharsis staggered into the antechamber to get a candle and then froze at the sight of a young woman in the black robes of a Seeker. “Uh. Hello.”

The woman was striking in the way that birds of prey arrest the eye; she had a predatory intensity to her that froze Acharsis in his tracks and she rose from her chair as if ready to cut his throat. “What’s going on here?”

“The, ah, well, you see.” Acharsis paused, and then, as always, his thoughts fell into place. “Mistress Hephesa hit her head against the headboard while cutting me apart. I’m truly sorry. She’s passed out on the bed.”

“She what?” The woman tore past him like a storm wind, and with a snap of her fingers lit all of the candles within the bedroom with a green flame.

Has she been out there this whole time, just listening in? Acharsis trailed after her. Freaking Nekuulites!

“Priestess?” The young woman rushed to Hephesa’s side and rolled her onto her back. “Priestess!”

Hephesa groaned and her eyelids fluttered.

The woman whipped around to glare at Acharsis. “If you did this—”

“Nope. Impossible. She had me in some kind of mind lock thing where I could barely even move. I’m telling you. She got a little crazy there and banged her head.”

The woman studied him and then moved to a bowl of water over which she extended her hand. Focusing intently, she spoke a string of garbled syllables that had to be the secret Nekuulite language, and the water began to glow with faint green radiance.

“Here,” said the woman, and for a moment Acharsis thought she was speaking to him. But no. “Here, Hephesa. Drink.”

She sat and cradled the older woman’s head, and carefully poured the glowing water past the woman’s lips.

Hephesa was dark haired, about Acharsis’ age, and with a narrow, harsh profile that reminded him of Irella if she’d starved herself for three weeks and then drank a lot of vinegar. The water flowed into her mouth and after a few convulsive swallows she let out a sigh.

“There,” said the young Seeker, setting the bowl on the floor. “That should heal her of any injury. Slave, clear away these bloodied sheets. What a mess. And tonight of all nights! Hurry! Begone!”

Acharsis bobbed his head and took hold of the sheets with their crimson smears, pulling them out from under the prostrate priestess. He nearly passed out from the effort, and quite purposefully dumped the crumpled mass into the bowl of glowing green water.

The young Seeker hissed and half surged to her feet before sinking back down so as to not dislodge Hephesa’s head. “Fool! Blasphemer! What have you done?”

“Apologies! A thousand times over my apologies!” Acharsis pressed the sheets into the bowl hard before pulling them free and staggering back. “The blood loss, and I’m overwhelmed by your stern authority and obvious power. I thought you wanted me to clear the bowl, too. I’m not thinking properly. I’ll go now. Goodbye.”

And he stumbled back out into the antechamber, sheet clutched to his chest. Breathing raggedly, wanting to collapse, he made his way out the entrance, past the two deathless who ignored him, and down the hall, pressing the glowing sheet to his chest and face as he went.

Where the water-soaked sheet touched his skin, Acharsis felt a soothing numbness wash away the pain. He didn’t even see where he was going, but simply staggered on, holding onto the sheet as if it were his favorite childhood blanket and all that stood between him and the horrors in the dark. His shoulder bounced off a wall, and then he stopped and buried his head in the green glow, pressing the sheet to his temple and eye and cut cheek.

Blessed relief. The pain didn’t go away so much as fade, but when he finally dropped the sheet he felt immeasurably better. He looked at the wounds over his chest and arms and saw that they’d scabbed over, looking weeks old.

“Thanks, Nekuul.” He pushed away from the wall. He still felt terribly weak but no longer on the verge of death. Casting around, he saw the corpse chute he’d been destined for and strolled past, chucking the blood-soaked sheet into its bronze depths.

A deep breath, and he straightened his back, raised his chin, and cast around. He was on the eighth floor. Sisu was awaiting them all on the twelfth. With his special amulet granting him complete access to the ziggurat safely stashed in the back of his sash, nestled in the small of his back, Acharsis could climb with impunity as long as none of the living challenged his passage.

Wincing still, Acharsis rounded his shoulders once more, hunched over in an appropriately servile fashion, and hurried down the hall toward the same stairwell from which he’d emerged not too long ago. No voices rose to demand he stop; no shouts emerged from the head priestess’ chambers.

As Acharsis stepped into the stairwell, he felt a flush of triumph. Somehow, against all the odds, he’d done it.

The sweet sensation of success buoyed his spirits and helped him climb the steep stairway with renewed vigor; up he went, taking each corner eagerly, hiding his grin each time someone descended past him. Slaves were not meant to be ebullient. Around and around, counting off the floors, till he reached the twelfth and stepped out into the hallway.

The temperature here was markedly cooler, and his breath misted faintly in the air before him. Fighting the urge to shiver, Acharsis hurried down the hall, shrinking against the wall in a manner befitting a wretched slave.

Lanterns here burned with a ghastly green glow, casting undulating shadows across the rough walls, making it seem as if he strode through a flooded grotto, deep within the pools of some verdant lake. The dead were numerous, either posted outside doorways in absolute stillness or moving about their tasks with disconcerting litheness, as if up here, closer to Nekuul’s own private temple, they were less removed from life than those further below.

Sisu had sketched out a map of this floor in charcoal upon a wooden board, and Acharsis had dedicated each corner, hallway, and room to memory. He had to have emerged from the third stairwell, which had been positioned in the upper left corner of the map. Sisu had chosen a small storage room in the bottom right, which meant Acharsis had to cross the entirety of the ziggurat to reach him.

The core of the ziggurat was where the most important rooms were located, all of them clustered around a broad well that descended directly from Nekuul’s temple above to the corpse chambers far below, a conduit of undead power that served to raise hundreds of the deceased every day without Irella’s presence being required.

Best to avoid all that.

Head bowed low, Acharsis hurried around the periphery of the floor, taking turns with little hesitation, avoiding notice as only a beaten slave could. He caught alluring glimpses of the contents of the rooms as he passed them: one was a mausoleum of some kind, servants or artists painting the corpses laid out on plinths in strange, lurid patterns. Another was a small library, endless shelves laden with clay tablets, a half-dozen leeches sitting at lecterns as they feverishly scanned one tablet after another for some elusive truth.

The tromp of dead feet sounded from up ahead, and a moment later a regiment of the dead marched into view, following a black-robed leech whose face Acharsis dared not glance at. He instead pulled back against the wall and hunched down, turning away so as to avoid notice, and waited like each time before for the patrol to pass him by.

The patrol stopped just before passing him.

“You there, dear fellow - oh my, you have been sorely used - but no matter, such is the lot of your kind, it is your nature to be used, and there assuredly is some glory in fulfilling your purpose—”

Acharsis stiffened. He knew that wheedling, pompous, ingratiating tone.

“I have a message for you to deliver, yes, a moment of glory for you, is it not, a chance to do more than lick the piss out of chamber pots.” The leech paused, registering Acharsis’ complete lack of reaction, how he’d failed to fall to his knees, how he was still frozen against the wall. “Whatever is the matter with you?”

Acharsis’ pulse pounded in his ears like the tides of Khartis’ ocean roaring into a sea cave. A quiet, distant voice urged him to bow and fall to his knees, keep his face averted, take the message, gain no attention - but he couldn’t make himself move. Couldn’t make himself go through the motions.

Instead, to his own horror, he found himself pushing away from the wall to stand straight and stare the leech in the eyes. He was a balding older man with rounded shoulders and a sneering smile that was dying on his lined face even as he blinked and registered who stood before him.

“You,” said Yesu, voice shaking.

“Elu sends his greetings,” said Acharsis, and grabbed the leech by the throat.

“Kill him!” screeched Yesu, his long-nailed fingers scrabbling at Acharsis’ wrist.

Never had Acharsis so longed for his missing second hand. He clubbed Yesu’s head with his stump as he drove him back, struggling, to pin him against the wall. In the periphery of his vision he saw the dozen dead guards stumble forward and come to a stop.

“Kill…. him!” hissed Yesu, eyes bulging as he slowly pulled Acharsis’ hand away. “Blasted… idiotic… kill him… now!”

Again the dead staggered forward, and again they stumbled to a standstill, arrested no doubt by the power and authority of Sisu’s amulet.

Yesu was a scrawny vulture of a man, but his two hands were the match to Acharsis’ one, and pounding his forearm against the leech’s face was doing little to actually hurt him. With a cry Yesu tore himself free, fumbled a bronze dagger from his sash, and then allowed himself the pleasure of grinning.

“Acharsis. My, my. How unexpected. Yet with you, I suppose I should see this as absolutely quotidian. Do you know what that word means? Quotidian?”

“Wait, I’ve heard that one before. It means your mother died taking too many donkey cocks at once,” said Acharsis, heaving for breath and glancing up and down the hallway. There. A lantern. He could seize it, dash it against Yesu’s head—

“No, it does not mean that,” said Yesu, face mottling with anger. “It means ‘everyday’, as in, a normal, expected occurrence. Here we are, in Irella’s magnificent ziggurat, on the eve of the greatest ritual ever, and who should I expect to find prowling the hallways like an inebriated rat? Acharsis. Which means Jarek will be close by.”

“Uh-huh.” Acharsis glanced over Yesu’s shoulder. “Closer than you think.”

Yesu stiffened but did not turn around. “An amateur bluff.”

Acharsis raised both eyebrows and grinned. “Nice seeing you again, Yesu. Ready for your second dive down a corpse chute?”

“He’s not behind me,” said Yesu, dagger shaking in his white-knuckled fist. “My dead will—”

“Just like they attacked me, huh? No matter.” Acharsis looked over Yesu’s shoulder once more then widened his eyes as if in anticipation of a great blow.

Yesu hissed and glanced over his shoulder.

Acharsis darted back, grabbed the lantern, then hurled it at Yesu as the leech looked back. The lantern smashed into the older man’s chest, causing green flames to spill out over his robes as the oil spattered everywhere.

“What - argh! Get this off me, someone get this - argh!” Yesu dropped the knife and tore at his robes, which were catching fire quite eagerly.

Acharsis darted forward, picked up the dagger, and slammed it up under Yesu’s chin. The man screamed, a hoarse, whistling sound, then something deep in his throat clicked and he fell over to collapse bonelessly at Acharsis’ feet.

Gasping, Acharsis stepped back, leaving the dagger stuck in the leech’s throat. Tears sprang to his eyes as he stared at the fallen man, horror and fury and revulsion leading him to cry out and kick Yesu in the stomach, once, twice, three times - only to stop when the twelve dead soldiers turned their heads as one to stare at him.

Still heaving for breath, Acharsis froze and stared back. None of the soldiers moved any further. They simply stared at him, their eyes sunken and milky white.

“Nothing to see here,” whispered Acharsis, wiping his bloody hand down the front of his tunic. “Nothing to… see.”

An itch on the nape of his neck made him turn around.

Something had come around the corner. Acharsis couldn’t make out what it was. Six or seven feet tall, it looked to be made of desiccated flesh or plant fiber, dark brown in hue and mottled all over with purple patches shot through with ropes of crimson. It wasn’t humanoid, but rather a large mass that flowed forward on a dozen or more legs that rippled beneath it like the fronds of a jellyfish. No eyes. No heads. Nothing he could identify, but rather a hundred or so layers pressed into a dense central… corpus of some kind.

Acharsis took a hesitant step back.

The… thing… flowed down the hall toward him and stopped a dozen feet away. It stank of cinnamon and cloves, rotting flesh and damp.

Should he run? He took a second step away, and the dozen dead behind him bristled, their armor clanking, each of them taking a sharp step forward toward him.

Acharsis froze.

The monstrosity before him shivered, and an arm peeled itself away from its side, a composite limb made of six or seven human arms, jointed eerily down its length so that it unfolded with unnatural fluidity as it extended toward him.

Its movement was slow, however, exploratory; Acharsis stood frozen, heart pounding as the great hook at the arm’s end came toward him, seeming to probe at the air like a blind man searching for his beer.

The monster’s body shivered again, parting along a dozen vertical seams like the gills of a shark; within, Acharsis saw a dark void, a hollowed-out space within the core of the creation, and a name came to him, whispered from the recesses of his mind: huggie daddy.

“Oh, shit,” said Acharsis.

The claw hesitated before him. It was made of serrated bone, curved like a scythe and wickedly sharp. What it didn’t cut in twain it would surely catch hold of on its manifold spikes and hooks.

“This… this isn’t what it looks like,” said Acharsis, voice shaking as he fought for calm. “You see, Yesu tripped on his own knife while - while trying to clean his teeth - and—”

The hook inched forward and brushed against Acharsis’ shoulder, and it was all he could do to not let out a bellow of fear.

Then, faster than he could follow, the claw lashed out and down, spearing straight into Yesu’s back, snapping ribs and tearing flesh as it did.

Acharsis watched, wide-eyed, as the arm folded back, dragging Yesu across the floor with terrifying speed and strength and into one of those gill-like slits which yawned open to reveal its fleshy, soft interior.

Yesu was sucked within. The slit closed after him. The daddy rippled, and Acharsis heard the faint, muted report of hundreds of bones breaking.

The daddy didn’t turn, but simply retreated back down the hallway, hundreds of feet rippling beneath it, and then turned the corner and was gone, leaving only a faint, smeared trail of Yesu’s blood in its wake.

Acharsis let out a shuddering sigh of relief and nearly collapsed. With his shaking hand he drew forth Sisu’s amulet and pressed it fervently to his lips. “Never will I tease you again,” he vowed. “Never, ever, ever. Until at the very least you say something stupid or reprehensible, Sisu, or leave yourself wide open for a mocking comment. Until then, never.”

Voices came from around the corner. Leeches from the library? Turning, Acharsis tucked the amulet away and slipped through the ranks of the dead, hurrying past them to take the next left, heart still pounding within his chest, mouth as dry as the Desert of Bones, desperate to get out of these hallways before some other misfortune befell him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Kish took a deep breath as she stepped into the private hallway that led to the royal kitchen. Her heart was racing, her palms prickling with sweat which was also starting to run down the slope of her back under her crisp new uniform.

Hand settling on the satchel that hung over her hip and which contained the rotten apple, she raised her chin and stared at the archway beyond which lay her trial. She was one of the world’s finest chefs. A cook without parallel. She lived for sauces, glazes, finely roasted animals placed inside other finely roasted animals. Spices were worth more than gold, and - damn. How had Acharsis thought this was a good plan?

Too late now. Shoulders back, taking comfort from her professional appearance, she marched down the short hallway and into the kitchen.

After the cavernous dimensions of the general kitchens, this space was intimate. Two large tables dominated the center of the space, while the walls were covered with gleaming pots and pans, endless shelves holding clay jars, while sheaves of drying herbs and vegetables hung from a hundred hooks embedded in the ceiling. A whole wall was nothing but two great ovens, their depths infernal, and the other wall was a series of neatly built fires under grates upon which pots bubbled and flesh cooked.

It was actually a really lovely kitchen.

An impossibly tall man was frowning down with supreme disgust at a spring of something green that he held with distaste between two pinched fingers. Taller even than Jarek, he stood hunched so as to not bang his head on the pots, his expressive face radiating dismay and hatred, his fingers so long as to appear unnatural.

“You.” His voice was as cold as an executioner’s. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my kitchen?”

“Kishtar reporting for service, Master Chef.” Kish wondered if she should salute, bow, or gaze at him brazenly. “What seems to be the matter?”

“The matter? What seems to be the matter? Here! Here! You tell me!” And he thrust the sprig in her face.

Kish took the offending little branch and examined it. Rosemary, perhaps? A little dusty? She took a sniff. Smelt perfectly fine to her, but she wrinkled up her nose and turned away as if he’d offered her a rotten mouse’s corpse. “Argh!”

“Exactly! What is this filth? Do they expect me to create marvels with such dross ingredients? Are they trying to ruin my career? They are! All of them! I can’t work in these conditions - and now my assistants are gone, missing, sick, they say, and I am left with - you. Whomever you are. Kishtar? Kishtar what? Kishtar whom? Of which kitchen do you come, who taught you, and by the gleam in Nekuul’s eye, who deemed you worthy of stepping in my kitchen?”

The man loomed over her, and suddenly Kish was supremely aware of the cleaver lying close by his left hand. His eyes burned through his fringe of dark hair with a manic gleam, and his lower jaw jutted out as if prepared to rebut her every claim to expertise.

“You are correct, Master Keshun. I am unworthy of working in this temple to gourmet cuisine. I shall recuse myself.” And she bowed and began to back away.

“No, wait, stop! What on earth do you think you’re doing? Do you think to abandon me as well? Is your loyalty so easily broken, your devotion to the culinary arts so frail?” He clutched at his head and wheeled away as if dealt a blow. “Simpletons and cowards! That is whom I must march into battle with! I am doomed!”

Kish stopped in the doorway. “I am not worthy, Master Keshun. Nobody is. But if I can render some small assistance…”

“Yes, yes, shut up, quit your prattling! How you drone on and on! We’re so late, we’ll never catch up. There is so much to be done! Get a simmering sauce going, use the drippings from that pan, garlic, some truffle vinegar, the requisite spices - come on! And then I need the pie crust made, oh, my soul for a tub of quality butter! Sebaceous and smooth, clarified and with dulcet hues… well? Get on with it!”

Kish moved over to the drippings pan that was set beneath a spitted piglet. Keshun turned away and began to thrash at the contents in the bottom of a huge copper tub, practically weeping as he did so.

Taking down a pot in which to get a sauce going, Kish’s mind raced. How long till she was kicked out? Worse, once that happened, Keshun would throw away whatever she’d worked on, assuming it inedible. Thus she needed to drop the apple into something with which she had no association.

Scraping the drippings into the pan, she eyed what else was going on in the kitchen - and only then began to appreciate the incredible juggling act that Keshun had going. Without looking, he’d reach out to add a branch beneath a pot to increase the heat, stir another, sweep a pile of cut vegetables into his apron only to dump them into another pot without even looking as he moved past it. He wasn’t working on one dish, or even three: he was working on them all, simultaneously, chopping, basting, soaking, kneading, stirring, adjusting. One long arm would reach across both tables for an ingredient high up on a shelf even as the other stirred a pot. It was… incredible.

“Quit your gawping, you insufferable dolt! Have you even begun the task which I set you? Oh, where are my assistants, only they know what need be done, my head shall be severed, I might as well serve it to Irella myself upon a platter of sliced scrotums picked in sparrow shit…”

Kish set to work, doing her best to at least appear busy, adding water and flour to the sauce, stirring in a mélange of spices into the drippings, and setting the pot over a small flame. She’d no idea if she’d done a good job, but as long as Keshun didn’t look too closely, she was fine. What was the next task? Ah. The pastry.

Moving to an empty corner of the second table, she dusted the wooden surface with flour even as she sought a likely target for the apple. The vegetable stew before him? Into the piglet which he was glazing with some kind of thickened plum wine? Into the filling he was preparing for her pie?

How did you make crust, anyway? Kish slowly drew a bag of flour over, fetched a bowl of water, a small vat of butter, a little salt. What else? Did it have to rise? Or…?

Keshun let out a scream, causing her to jolt her bowl of water right off the edge of the table to crash on the floor.

“Paprika! Where’s the paprika!” He clutched at his head as he gazed at the shelf before him, then ran out of the room.

This was it. Kish dug out the apple and hurried over to the simmering pot of vegetables. Her best bet. Should she slice up the apple first, or…? No time! She dumped it in, stirred it down, then raced back to her table just as Keshun charged back in, a small pot in hand.

“Is it smoked? Does it have a delectable flavor? How aged, how aged, by the gods?” He let out a sob and bent over double to rest his brow on the table’s edge. “I’m undone. I can’t do this. A farce. I strut upon the cutting block like a peacock, all unawares that I am the main dish -”

He stiffened. “What’s that?”

“I - what’s what?” asked Kish, halfway toward refilling her bowl from the water barrel.

“A scent. Putrid. Can’t you smell it?”

“I…” Kish sniffed. “No?”

Keshun straightened and sniffed audibly. “Rancid. Foul. As if someone had scooped up a fistful of putrescent innards from the corpse of a dead dog and thumbed the rotten paste into my sinuses.”

Kish watched, frozen, as he rocked his head from side to side, sniffing at the piglet, her simmering pot of sauce, across the table, pausing inches from her face to sniff at her deliberately before moving on.

Damn! Should she kill him? He couldn’t smell one apple shoved deep into the stew, could he? Impossible. And yet -

He moved over to the bubbling pot and inhaled deeply, wafting the steam toward his face with both gigantic hands.

“Something… here. Something’s gone wrong.” His whole body shuddered with such violence that he seemed to ripple. “What could have… not the… a sweet, sickly cast to the odor…”

He took up the wooden spoon and speared it into the stew, slowly stirring it and bringing things to the surface. “No… potatoes are fine… a, lovely giblets, look at that purple sheen… no, what else, what else…”

A blow to the back of the head. Would they still serve the food? Irella had to be served something, didn’t she? Even if her head cook were knocked out? They’d scramble, finish his dishes…

“Ah,” said Keshun with evident satisfaction, lowering his head till it was almost inside the great pot. “Here it is. What rank morsel… an apple? But… how…?”

Then, with horrible slowness, he twisted his head about to glare over his angular shoulder at her, eyes narrowed to slits. “A poisonous wretch seeking to poison my stew. A villainous little sous chef sticking her sticky digits in my dish.”

His hand crept out of its own accord and took up the cleaver.

Kish squared her shoulders. “There’s no need for violence.”

“Ah, but violence most foul has already been committed.” He turned, cleaver giving a metallic ring as he dragged it off the table and rose to his full height. “Did you think to adulterate my own dish beneath my very nose? Did you think to poison our queen? To -” His eyes widened. “To frame me? Is that it? You thought to replace me once I had my cock and nostrils cut off with a sharpened spoon? Oh, I admire your boldness, but no, my pretty filly, you picked the wrong head chef to fuck with.”

Kish stared up at him, mesmerized by the richness of his voice, the depths of his insanity, the way he loomed like a monstrous thundercloud. “You’re mad.”

“I feel inspired,” he whispered lasciviously. “A new dish! A variation on the classic bone broth, garnished with pickled eyeballs and broiled tongue in which delicate lacerations have been made, and into which hummingbird tongues shall be laid down…”

Kish snatched up a large knife and flung it at him. Keshun swatted away the blade with his cleaver, and then surged over the table, striking at her with the speed of a cobra, one hand clamping completely around her neck while the cleaver came rushing down at her temple.

Kish dropped, falling to her ass so that the cleaver swished over her head and the table’s edge cracked into his elbow, forcing him to release her. Then with a roar she leaped back up, thrusting the table up and back at him.

Keshun took the table and flung the entirety of it aside with an insane display of strength, then kicked her in the stomach and backhanded her across the face.

Seeing stars, Kish took up the pot of simmering sauce and flung it at him, eliciting a howl of outrage. Desperately, she took up the spitted pig by the handle and thrust it into his chest, driving the point all the way home so that the spit - piglet and all - remained pinioned in his body.

Keshun let out a howl of outrage. “Not the piglet! Three days I’ve - how dare - my blood may yet serve as a seasoning -”

While he busied himself carefully pulling the piglet out and setting it aside, she snatched up a massive bone chopper and brought it down with both hands upon Keshun’s back. He screamed, scrabbled at the embedded weapon with both hands, then whipped around and head butted her with the force of a falling boulder.

Kish toppled to the ground, pulling a tray of small pots filled with glazed custard down upon herself. Rolled aside just as something heavy was dropped upon her head, and fetched up against a cabinet containing a number of wide, deep pots. She snatched one out and held it up as a shield just as something crashed down upon it, then flung it with all her force at the cook’s head.

Keshun’s head snapped back as the pot hit him straight upon the brow, staggered, and took up a chopping block which he flung at her. Kish turned, took the blow on her shoulder, let out a cry of pain, then pulled a cleaver free of the block and rose up to slam it into Keshun’s arm.

Only to take a punch straight in the throat. Choking, she staggered back, and on impulse slammed a fist into the spice rack, causing a hundred small clay jars to cascade and shatter down upon the floor.

Keshun shrieked and fell to his knees before them, reaching out as if to cradle them all to his chest.

Still unable to breath, Kish grasped the back of his head and rammed her knee into his face. She felt bone crunch. He rose, swaying. Black motes swimming in her eyes, she tore the cleaver out of his arm and slammed it into his throat.

Keshun’s eyes bulged. Blood burst down his front, and he fell back against the table, reaching up as he did so to tear a rafter free, drawing down an avalanche of clay bricks upon himself and the fire range.

People were clustering in the doorway. Shouts. Kish couldn’t make any of it out. She stared instead in horror as Keshun rose once more, his uniform aflame, half his head pulverized by the falling bricks. Was he going to attack her again?

No.

With supreme effort he reached for the pot of stew.

“Stop!” she screamed and hurled herself over the table at him.

She was too late. He clasped the pot’s searingly hot edge and yanked, causing its contents to flood out upon him as he fell before it and out of sight.

Halfway over the remaining table, Kish stared, aghast, at the upended pot. The apple. Where was it in that mess? Hands seized her, pulled her arm behind her back. Too late she tried to struggle, to break free, but she lacked the strength, the will.

As they hauled her out of the ruined kitchen, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the great pot that lay on its side.

She’d failed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Jarek pulled the dark robes closer about his figure, wishing he’d accosted a larger man, and hurried down the hallways of the ziggurat, doing his best not to limp. The cloth was already tearing across his shoulders, and it felt like one deep breath would cause a seam to split open down the length of his back. Damn, but leeches were small fellows.

Pain kept him alert. The wounds from his altercation in the storage room had been joined by a gash across his shoulder, dealt by the leech who’d refused to stay unconscious after receiving a punch to the chin. The man had surged up like a viper, his bronze blade flashing - but a second blow had seen him to rights, dropped him full length so that Jarek could haul him to the closest corpse chute, strip him and dump him inside.

Not a pleasant way to travel, corpse chute.

Shoulders hunched, trying not to snarl, Jarek strode down the last length of the blasted ziggurat’s hall and paused before the doorway. He glowered at it, glanced left and right, then gave a soft knock, tapping three times quickly, pausing, then giving two slow raps.

The door slid open and Sisu peered out at him, face pallid like a corpse, eyes wide with fear. The Nekuulite forced his head out like a rat straining to escape a dog’s jaws, and peered up and down the hallway as if expecting to see a squadron of deathless waiting politely in the wings.

“All clear,” said Jarek, pushing the door open hard and forcing Sisu back into the gloomy interior. “Move aside.”

“Can’t be too cautious. I’m sensing all kinds of movement - energetic, mystical movement, that is - and it’s being roused, like - like a serpent awakened by a flute. It’s—” Sisu took a dragging breath and pressed his hand to his throat. “Excuse me. It’s - it has been - very hard to sit here with everything that’s going on outside.”

The room was small, lined with wooden shelves on which innocuous-looking clay jars were set by the hundreds. The air was musty and smelled of oil, and a lone rushlight burned on the ground, its dark smoke undulating up through the air to taper out just before reaching the low ceiling.

“Been hard, has it?” Jarek pulled aside the robe to examine the gash across his ribs. He’d received worse in his time, but this one was problematic; it was six inches wide and deep enough to be bleeding continuously. With a grimace, he tore off the sleeve from the leech’s robe, wadded it up and pressed it to the wound. “I feel for you, Sisu. I really do.”

“I know, I know, mock me all you want, but you couldn’t understand if I tried to explain it for a dozen years. You just charge around with your head lowered, knocking into things, breathing heavily and content with your bovine thoughts. Whereas I, I have to contend with the mysteries of life and death, have to wrestle for equilibrium when the mystical world is in such flux that I’ve as much chance of remaining balanced as a cork does on a storm-tossed ocean—”

There was no clear spot along the wall against which to lean. What he would have done for a floor cushion. Instead, Jarek lowered himself to a crouch. “What by Alok’s sacred avalanche are you blathering about?”

Sisu turned from one side to the other as if yearning to pace, and then ran his hands through his already mussed-up hair. “The ritual! You don’t understand what it feels like in here. I’m so filled with energy and power that I’m scared I’ll demolish a wall if I sneeze! The air - the air is saturated, positively greasy with potential. I feel like immolating myself in Nekuul’s sacred flame if only to burn off the excess of power that fills me—”

“We’re in a storage room filled with several hundred jars of oil,” said Jarek flatly. “I’d advise against that.”

“I know, I know, it’s just that - I’ve never felt the like. Can you not see it? We’re in the eye of the storm here. About us rises the hurricane, spinning slowly, drawing all manner of power into the ziggurat, as if the very world can sense what’s about to take place.”

“No,” said Jarek. “I can’t see it. Too caught up with my bovine thoughts.”

“Laugh, laugh,” said Sisu darkly, hugging himself as he turned back to the door. “But I won’t try to illuminate you. You’ll learn soon enough what we’re up against.”

“Kish?” asked Jarek. “She stopped by?”

“No,” said Sisu. “She hasn’t.”

Concern and fear wormed through his self-control, and it was all Jarek could do to not rise to his feet and force his way back outside to search for her. “She should have been here by now.”

“Should have,” said Sisu. “But she isn’t.” The Nekuulite eyed him sidelong. “Weren’t you supposed to have been in the kitchens, watching over her?”

Jarek grimaced. “Yes. But I ran into complications. Had to intervene to smooth things over, then - well. After that, I had to move on. Been wandering the complex ever since, staying out of trouble as best I could.”

“Hmph,” said Sisu. “Why am I not surprised? Let me guess. You smoothed over this complication with your fists?”

Jarek glowered at him. “Possibly.”

“Of course. I’m surprised you’ve made it this far. Then again, you probably just walked through every wall on your way here.”

Jarek eyed the young man, considered facing him down, forcing him to change his tone. But there was indeed something off about him. A nervous energy, a fear that flickered into view just behind his eyes every now and then. The youth was on the edge of a panic attack.

“Everything’s moving according to plan,” said Jarek. “Take it easy.”

“We think everything’s moving according to plan,” said Sisu. “But how do we know? All we can confirm is that you and I are here. Acharsis? Kish? We—”

The door opened and Acharsis stumbled inside. Jarek rose quickly to steady his friend, who nearly collapsed into his arms. The man was in bad shape: his face was battered, one eye nearly swollen shut, a thin cut running diagonally over his left eye and down to his chin. Blood soaked his slave’s garb, most of it fresh.

“Tell me those jars are full of beer,” said Acharsis, allowing Jarek to help him down to the floor. “By Ekillos’ love of female genitalia, please tell me I’m surrounded by beer.”

“What happened to you?” asked Jarek, slowly peeling aside Acharsis’ robes to reveal deep gashes and partially healed cuts. “Some of these look weeks old…”

“Ah, yes. Take it from me, old friend: don’t believe a Nekuulite when she says all she wants is hugs and cuddles.” Acharsis winced as he extended his legs before him. “They end up wanting much, much more, and get very pouty when denied.”

“Enough with this idiocy,” said Sisu, crouching before Acharsis. “Did you do it? Did you get the poison into her?”

“You mean you doubted me?” Acharsis closed his eyes. “Yes, she took the poison. No, it wasn’t fun. Well, for me, at any rate. Your aunt is fucked up, Sisu.”

“Yes,” said Sisu, drawing back, blinking rapidly. “I always avoided her when I was little. She hugged too hard.”

Acharsis let out a low laugh. “Yeah. That’s one way to put it. Kish?”

“Nothing yet,” said Jarek. “One of the assistant cooks disobeyed his orders and showed up. I took him out, but had to flee the kitchens thereafter. I’ve not heard from her since.”

“Relax,” said Acharsis. “Drink some oil to take the edge off. Kish is a woman grown, a warrior born, a daughter of Scythia and tougher than you are. She’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” said Jarek, trying to take comfort from those words. “What do we do now?”

Acharsis lay down, curling onto his side, propping his head on his arm. “I killed Yesu, by the way. Ran into him on the way here. Dagger through the jaw. Dead, he is. Especially after the huggie daddy was done with him. Bastard. Glad he’s gone.”

“Acharsis?” Jarek stared down at his friend in dismay. “You going to sleep?”

“Can’t wait to tell Annara,” said Acharsis. “Hmph.”

“He’s asleep,” said Jarek.

“He’s probably earned it,” said Sisu. “After what he went through with my aunt.”

Jarek rose stiffly to his feet and stared at the door. Pursed his lips and willed it to open. Willed Kish to be there, grinning and with gravy in her hair, eyes alive with amusement at his obvious concern.

“C’mon,” he whispered. “Hurry up and get here.”

She never came.

The hours passed by with such torturous slowness that Jarek felt like he was going insane. Acharsis slept through it all, snoring lightly, while Sisu eventually sat down cross-legged to meditate, eyes closed, hands encased in subtle green flames.

Jarek forced himself to remain standing, arms crossed, ignoring the pain that rankled his body, wanting to believe on some level that by maintaining an active vigil he’d propel Kish to arrive sooner. Not wanting to sit, to settle in for a longer wait.

Time and time again he wrestled with the desire to crack open the door and peer outside. Finally, when he could stand it no more, he shook Acharsis’ shoulder.

“Wha—” His friend sat up too quickly and then hissed with pain.

“She’s not here,” said Jarek. “Something’s gone wrong. I’m going to head down to the kitchens to find her.”

“Wait, hold on.” Acharsis cracked a huge yawn and then extended his hand so that Jarek could haul him to his feet. “How long was I out?”

“Hours,” said Jarek. “I don’t know how many. The feast must be over. Irella will soon be pouring her blood into the chalice. We have to move.”

“He’s right on that front,” said Sisu, rising to his feet as well. “I can sense the energies in the ziggurat growing more feverish, more excited. The moment of bloodletting is drawing near.”

“Calm down, both of you,” said Acharsis. “Honestly. The way you’re acting you’d think the end of the world was at stake. Look, Kish inserted herself into a high-pressure position. She’s trapped under the head cook’s scrutiny. Maybe she’s been unable to get away. But barging down into the kitchens looking for her will only get us into bigger trouble. We can’t risk it.”

“Acharsis—” began Jarek, his voice heated.

“No, my friend. Listen to me. We can’t risk our entire mission on searching for her. This ziggurat is huge. We don’t know where she is. We have to continue our mission.”

“Irella’s rooms,” said Sisu.

“Precisely. We have to trust that Kish accomplished her part of the plan. We have to strike while we have the chance. You know this mission is more important than any of us. That we have to stop her. We don’t have a choice here. We have to head up and confront Irella while she’s weakened from the apple.”

“You’re right,” said Jarek, though it hurt him to say those words.

“After, we’ll find her, all right?” Acharsis placed his hand on Jarek’s shoulder. “She’s probably elbow deep in pastry batter right now, cursing the cook who won’t let her escape to the ladies’ room. But we’ve got more pressing matters to attend to.”

“Are you ready to go?” asked Sisu. “It’s seven more floors up.”

“Are we sure the feast is over?” asked Jarek.

“I am,” said Sisu. “I can’t explain it. I’m attuned to the ziggurat on some level. Perhaps… perhaps through my mother? Or Nekuul herself?”

“Works for me,” said Acharsis. “Now. You got your Sky Hammer?”

“Here,” said Jarek, reaching down to snag it from the corner where Sisu had left it.

“And you, Sisu. Got your… Nekuulite… unhallowed… green magic stuff?”

“Oh yes,” whispered Sisu. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“So we head up, all casual and confident. Anybody tries to stop us, we let Sisu bluff our way through. If that fails, we kill them, keep going. Speed is of the essence. We ready?”

Jarek nodded, guts roiling. Where isshe?

“Yes,” said Sisu.

“This is it,” said Acharsis. “The moment we’ve been striving for. Everything we’ve done, every venture, every gamble, every victory, has been moving us toward this endgame. We’ve a chance to change the fate of the world. Let’s not cock it up, shall we?”

“Follow me,” said Sisu. He took a couple of jars, then opened the door wide and stepped out into the hallway.

Jarek went next, hammer hidden in the folds of his black robes. A couple of slaves were hurrying past, carrying large plates covered in white sand. They didn’t so much as glance their way.

Sisu led them confidently down the hall and toward the stairwell. A floating eyeball passed them by without pausing; numerous deathless and dead guards ignored them with equal aplomb.

It was eerie, walking past the unseeing eyes of so many enemies. Jarek couldn’t stop his skin from crawling, could barely restrain himself from glancing back each time to make sure the dead remained at their posts. He held the haft of the Sky Hammer tightly, expecting at any moment to have to swing it into someone’s head - but they were ignored at every turn.

They reached the stairs and began to climb. Acharsis was soon breathing raggedly as he forced his way up the steps, his wounds clearly weakening him. Jarek didn’t feel much better - he’d lost more blood than he’d supposed. Still, pain and weakness were old friends. He buried them both deep and soldiered on.

Chanting echoed into the stairwell as they passed different floors, along with thick incense and the sound of laughter and voices raised in praise. Groups of leeches passed them by, slowing to examine them only to bow respectfully when they saw Sisu’s garb and the medallion he wore about his neck.

Up they went, floor after floor, climbing ever closer to Nekuul’s domain, to the raging inferno of her power at the apex of the ziggurat where soon Irella would strive to open a permanent portal to the netherworld. Jarek could feel it as a prickling sense of unease over his skin, his stomach cramping, his body breaking out in a cold sweat.

Here,” whispered Sisu. “The nineteenth floor. This whole level houses Irella’s quarters.”

“Inconvenient, isn’t it?” asked Acharsis, voice little more than a wheeze. “Living up this high? Good exercise though.”

They rounded the last turn in the stairwell and Jarek stumbled to a stop, raising the Sky Hammer despite his better intentions. The great archway at the top that led to Irella’s quarters was ringed with beaten gold, the walls here carved deeply with powerful runes, and the air fairly crackled with power. Four deathless stood guard before the portal, their masks not of bone but of hammered bronze inlaid with obsidian, their robes of the whitest Dilmanian silk, their very beings radiating lethal might.

“Keep walking!” hissed Sisu, moving toward them without breaking his stride. He didn’t so much as raise a hand in greeting, but moved between them and passed through the portal into the antechamber beyond.

Acharsis went next, giving an affable wave as he passed, and then Jarek stood alone before them.

Their masks were deeply unnerving, their eye sockets of the darkest night, their bodies utterly still.

Mouth dry, throat cramped, he lowered his hammer and stepped between them. They didn’t so much as turn to follow his passage. Two more quick steps and he was through, into the antechamber that glowed a virulent green, as if he stood within the heart of an emerald that was being held up to capture the sunlight.

“Here,” whispered Sisu, hesitating before a large door of black wood. “Beyond this are my mother’s rooms. These doors. Such power. I don’t know if…”

He extended shaking hands to the doors and pressed his palms against their surface. A shockwave of green light flooded out to sink into the boards, which parted with a groan before him, swinging open wide to reveal a large apartment within.

“Yes!” hissed Sisu, stepping inside.

Acharsis stumbled in after.

Jarek stepped up to the threshold and peered within.

The entire nineteenth floor belonged to Irella, daughter of Nekuul, empress of the River Cities and mistress of the dead. Gone was the green light, and in its place a soft, aureate glow suffused the air, coming from scores of lanterns lit by glowing chunks of golden ore. The apartment itself was vast, divided by columns but otherwise open to the eye; with a glance Jarek took in the sunken center, an inverted ziggurat of levels descending toward a pit filled with great cushions and thick carpets. A bed stood to the far side, large enough for ten to sleep in, while a large mirror of hammered bronze covered the wall beside a pool of what had to be milk.

Soft music filled the air, a harp plucked by invisible fingers, and the scent of mint was subtle but pervasive. The walls were covered with paintings, murals depicting scenes from across the River Cities, from great hunts to stylized markets, from the Leonis with all its wildlife to silhouettes of the many cities of the empire. To one side, Jarek immediately recognized Rekkidu.

Nowhere did he see the motifs of Nekuul, the symbols of death, piles of skulls or the standing dead. The apartment was elegantly appointed, beautifully furnished, and tastefully decorated; he wouldn’t have minded spending a night or two there with Kish.

Which helped focus his thoughts wonderfully. He narrowed his eyes as a figure arose from what could best be described as a fur-draped throne set beside a glass chalice filled with blood.

Irella.

The single most powerful being in all the world. Perhaps even more so than the lamassu. Steeped in Nekuul’s blessings, in the heart of her domain, mere hours from a ritual that would tear asunder the fabric between death and life. A true godsblood, descended directly from Nekuul. The betrayer who slew their brothers and sisters twenty years ago, a force without reckoning, a being of perilous beauty and icy cold self-possession.

She didn’t look surprised.

“Acharsis,” she said, voice soft, almost nostalgic. “At long last. I’ve looked forward to this meeting. Jarek.”

Something had gone terribly wrong. Jarek swung his Sky Hammer around once and restrained the impulse to hurl it at her. Then thought: why? And exploded forward with a grunt, hurling his divine hammer with all his might, throwing it right at Irella’s head.

The Sky Hammer’s meteoric head caught fire as it flew, the crystal fragments embedded within the rough stone lighting up with a blinding corona of gold, and it smashed clean through a pillar as it flew at Irella - who didn’t so much as lift a hand or flinch.

The hammer smacked into a field of green fire. Like a ball thrown clean into a catcher’s palm, it stopped cold and hung in midair, its golden light turning fitful.

Irella raised a perfectly arched black eyebrow, and the Sky Hammer exploded into a thousand fragments, chunks of meteoric stone flying in every direction but her own.

“No!” bellowed Jarek, taking a faltering step forward and reaching out, as if he could catch the escaping essence of his ancient weapon.

The haft hung alone in mid-air, then the green flames extinguished and it fell to rattle and bounce on the stone floor.

“Shit,” said Acharsis.

Irella cocked her head to one side, causing her hair to ripple over one shoulder. No longer perfectly black, it was now threaded with gray. Lines were carved into her face that had not been there before, and Jarek saw a hint of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her lips quirked into a smile, and her black eyes gleamed with amusement.

“Really, Jarek, is that any way to greet your sister?”

“Where is she?” he rasped. The loss of the hammer was making his heart race, was causing a deep pain to creep up behind his eyes. He couldn’t catch his breath. “Where is Kishtar?”

“The cook? She’s safe. Along with all the other godsbloods I’ve acquired.”

And like that, Jarek knew it was over. All over. They’d failed. Their ploy had been too simple, too obvious, too poorly executed. He felt his knees go weak and nearly sank to the ground. Only bitter pride held him up.

“Hello, Irella,” said Acharsis, moving out to circle the sunken pit of cushions and rugs. “Nice ziggurat. A little ostentatious if you ask me - some might think you’re trying to compensate for something - but still, quite nice. Love what you’ve done with the place.”

Irella smiled, the expression at once wistful and sad. “It’s good to see you, Acharsis. I’ve longed for this moment. I always thought I’d have so much to say. To explain. But now that we’ve come to it, I find that I only wish to say two things.”

“Oh?” Acharsis reached down to snag an apple from a golden bowl. “What’s that?”

“That I’m sorry, and thank you.”

“Hmm,” said Acharsis, taking a bite. “Sorry for killing our brothers and sisters and steeping the River Cities in undeath and catastrophe? Might take more than a one-word apology, you know.”

“Mother!” Sisu took a sudden step forward. “It’s me! Your son! I’ve come - I’ve—” He faltered before her cool, dismissive look.

“Yes, Sisuthros, I know who you are. I’ll deal with you later.”

“Deal with - I’m not - you can’t just—” And with a cry of genuine pain, of loss and fury, Sisu raised both hands so that they disappeared in the hearts of twin green suns. So bright were the flames that engulfed him that Jarek had to raise a hand and watch through his fingers.

Quicker than Jarek could follow, Sisu hurled the twin balls of flame at Irella. They roared through the air like a hundred lions, a shattering sound of mind-numbing power, only to fade away and disappear upon reaching his mother.

“Don’t be tiresome,” said Irella. “Now, be quiet or I’ll silence you.”

“I’m your son!” Sisu’s voice shook as he cried out at her. “Your son! You can’t dismiss me like—”

Irella narrowed her eyes, and a ribbon of green flame wrapped around Sisu’s face, covering his chin, lips, and nose. With a muffled cry he staggered back and began to tear at the living flame.

“I applaud your efforts, dear Acharsis,” said Irella. “First in Rekkidu - that was nicely done. Then escaping my forces at the Waystation, then - what? Turning the Maganians against my army as it emerged from the desert?”

“How did that go?” asked Acharsis, taking another bite from the apple. “You get wiped out?”

“Yes,” said Irella, a flicker of annoyance appearing in her tone. “The invasion proved to be a complete waste of time. No matter. Once my ritual is complete, I’ll visit Magan in person and hang the new pharaoh from his heels. After, of course, I kill those lamassu and take their power. So much to do, so little time.”

Acharsis made a face. “I have to say I’m disappointed you didn’t eat my rotten apple. A real shame, that. How’d you figure it all out?”

“Easy,” said Irella. She snapped her fingers, and a figure emerged from behind a beautifully painted screen.

Istrikar.

“Hello, Acharsis,” said the former spymaster. “Surprise.”

“You know, I actually am surprised.” Acharsis scowled at the man. “I really thought I had you figured out with that apple of immortality. I mean, really? You’re turning down the chance to - oh. Irella’s going to give you the apple anyway as a reward?”

“No,” said Istrikar. “I don’t want any part of your divinity. It’s a curse. I’ve seen the lives you’ve all lived - excuse me, Empress, no insult intended - and it’s nothing but blood and war and death and worship. No thank you. I’m content, Acharsis. Something a restless bastard like you will never understand. Content to just drink my wine, enjoy my wealth, and grow old and die.”

“You’re right,” said Acharsis. “I don’t understand. Not when the future of the world is at stake. Not when you could have done something to avert the catastrophe that’s coming. How are you going to enjoy your bleeding wine when the whole world is given over to the dead?”

“You’re wrong.” Istrikar crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his weight back onto his heels. “It’s precisely because of the future that I’m doing what I’ve done.”

“Is it now?” asked Acharsis. “So you want to sink everything into the netherworld?”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Irella with calm authority. “I’ve no intention of muddying the lines between here and Nekuul’s realm.”

“Then… why?” Acharsis tossed the apple core over his shoulder. “Why bother opening this gate at all?”

“Power,” she said simply. “I need Nekuul’s direct blessing if I am to save every living thing.”

“Uh-huh,” said Acharsis. “Right. That makes complete sense.”

“Oh, Acharsis. So clever, but without any wisdom. That always was your greatest shortcoming, and ultimately why I decided I couldn’t trust you. You can win your way through any short-term situation, win every battle, but always, always lose the war.”

Jarek forced himself out of his stupor, attempted to manifest some sort of initiative. “What are you talking about? How’s the portal save the world?”

“It’s too late now,” said Irella softly. “I thought - foolishly - that if I could capture you both after Rekkidu, that perhaps then we might talk, might find common cause. But now? No. You’re too limited, too old, too weak. You’ve cast yourselves into the heroic mold, and cannot bend enough to see the world otherwise. I know you both too well, even after all these years. Even now you’re plotting, trying to scheme and find a way to turn the situation to your advantage. You’re not listening to me. That’s the problem with men like you. You’re so convinced that only you can save the world that you can’t believe anyone else could do a better job, and might even be doing so already.”

“You’re right,” said Acharsis. “I’ve been angling for an advantage since I stepped in here. I’d hoped Sisu could do something, but obviously he’s outmatched. No real surprise there. Destroying Jarek’s Sky Hammer? Rude. But Jarek did throw it at your head. No. You leave me no choice.”

“No choice?” Irella raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to throw a rotten apple at me?”

“Kind of, actually. Anscythia? Execute the commands I gave you before.”

A whirlwind of black shadows appeared with a shriek in the center of the room. Irella cursed in the secret Nekuulite tongue and raised both hands, fingers parted in a complex pattern. Columns of green flame erupted about the whirlwind, which dispersed into a dozen spitting fragments when the columns closed in about it like the fingers of a fist.

“What—” Jarek started forward, unsure what to do. Attack Irella while she was distracted, but how? Hurl a bowl of apples at her head? Tackle her? With a roar, he ran around the sunken pit even as a wave of green fire flared so brightly it blinded him, causing him to miss his step and stumble down the first of the steps into the pit, nearly pitching headlong into the morass of cushions.

“I’m disappointed, Acharsis.” Irella’s voice was tight with displeasure. “Did you really think to best me in my own sanctum? With Nekuul all but manifest mere yards above our heads? And with a demon, no less? Have you no shame?”

“Shame?” Acharsis sounded ridiculously at ease for having just lost his final gamble.

Jarek climbed out of the pit, feeling lost, adrift, unsure what to do next. There had to be something. Acharsis would think of… something, wouldn’t he?

“I guess it didn’t work,” said Acharsis. “Ah well, can’t fault a man for trying. I have to admit I’m disappointed Anscythia was defeated so quickly, but as you said. So. You explained your apology. What are you thanking us for?”

“For your blood,” said Irella, voice growing bleak. “You’ll be joining the other godsblooded in the temple above in a few hours. I’ll harvest your divinity and use it to fuel my apotheosis to even greater heights. A pity. I’d hoped we could be partners in the great battle to come. But I simply can’t trust you. This way, at least, you’ll serve my cause still.”

“That’s not very nice of you,” said Acharsis. “Hence the apology, I suppose? Honestly, how about this for a response: why don’t we become best friends, and you tell me what’s going on? I can probably be of great help.”

“Acharsis!” said Jarek.

“Oh, she knows I’m not being serious,” said his friend with a wry smile. “Don’t you, Irella?”

“I do,” she said. “But enough. You risk polluting me further before the great moment. I must cleanse assiduously after this interruption.” So saying, she snapped her fingers, and Jarek felt his medallion tear free from his sash, rise up into the air before him, and then implode into fragments.

The door immediately opened behind them, and the four deathless with bronze masks raced inside. Jarek didn’t even bother fighting them off when they took hold of his wrists and yanked them cruelly behind his back.

“Take them below with the others,” said Irella. “Gentlemen, I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon, Irella. Take care!” Acharsis winked at Jarek and then limped back across the room toward the distant door.

Jarek couldn’t understand what had happened. His own friend’s madness. How they’d failed so completely, so utterly, without hope of redress. Unresisting, he allowed the deathless to march him forward, head hanging low, completely and utterly defeated.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Annara emerged from the winding Path of Righteousness into the dimness of the Third Tower of Heaven. The return to that intimate path of roseate stone had been somehow even more terrifying than her first attempt, and when the final curve gave way to the vast interior of the lamassu’s temple in Magan, she crumpled to her knees in relief and pressed her brow to the cold stone floor.

“There is no need to genuflect,” came a rumbling voice like distant summer thunder.

“Oh, I know.” She didn’t raise her head just yet, however. The cold marble felt so delicious against her skin. “I’m just overcome with relief.”

“Oh? You doubted the ability of the Path to bring you here?”

“No,” she said, pushing herself up with a sigh to sit back on her heels. “I was just terrified I’d be vouchsafed a vision of Amubastis herself. Of the underworld. Of… something I’d not know how to handle.”

The lamassu’s tail flicked up and down as it considered her from atop its carven throne, recumbent and at ease. Somehow the sight of its great leonine form was reassuring to Annara, grounding her, making her feel as if she’d left the world of ephemeral gods and philosophical pitfalls behind for a world of flesh and blood and tangible divinity.

“You know about the Path,” said Annara.

“Of course.”

“Yet you don’t speak of it to the pharaoh’s, your people here in Magan.”

“No.”

Annara considered the great god. Cradled her hands in her lap. “How long has it been since a pharaoh both passed the Quickening and walked the Path of Righteousness?”

“Too long,” rumbled the lamassu, and its lips curved into a smile, revealing a hint of yellowed fangs, each the size of her hand. “Too long indeed.”

“Yet you’ve recognized the pharaohs ever since as legitimate rulers of Magan.”

It inclined its great maned head, beads and braids stirring as it did so.

“I wonder.” Annara rubbed her thumb across the inside of her palm. “Perhaps to so exalted and timeless a being as yourself all humans are flawed. A matter of degree, not kind. Do you feel sadness? At the lack of fulfilled potential?”

“No,” said the lamassu, smile fading away. “That presumes ulterior goals on our part for Magan.”

“You don’t defend this country when it is invaded. You don’t protest when its leaders fail to live up to your expectations. You don’t interfere in any way.” Annara turned the problem over in her mind. “Yet you are revered, worshipped, the focal point of every Maganian’s life. In the River Cities, the sons and daughters of the gods walk amongst the people, command them, lead them, shape their destinies. The gods themselves can be summoned in their ziggurats and questioned, petitioned - or at least, they used to be. There is no reason to not worship them. What reason is there to worship you?”

The lamassu chuckled, the sound akin to great boulders tumbling down a rocky slope. “It has been too long since anyone has spoken to me in so brazen a manner. Yet it is a good question, one that should be asked more often. Why am I worshipped? I will not essay an answer. That you would have to put to each and every individual Maganian. Perhaps there is more than one answer. Perhaps the less a god does, the wider the number of symbolic roles he can serve in the hearts and souls of his worshippers. Perhaps our simple existence is enough to warrant devotion.”

“Yes,” said Annara. “And your role as psychopomp, ferrying the souls of the dead to the Fields of Reflection and then on down to Amubastis herself.” She inhaled sharply and smoothed down the fabric of her robe over her thighs. “Regardless. I am come to set matters aright as I see them. You acknowledge that I’ve walked the Path of Righteousness and survived?”

“I do.”

“Will you then support Elu’s right to rule as pharaoh without a regent?”

“I am willing to do so, yes.” Again that sense of amusement. A familiar tone. Annara realized with a shock it was one she had used herself many times with Elu when he’d been but a child, accepting the tenuous logic of his arguments as to why he deserved a second treat after dinner, or a new bow when he’d broken his old one. Indulgence.

Annara smiled and stood. “I thank you. Elu plans to reveal his true identity.”

“I wish him well with that.”

“You don’t mind?”

The lamassu’s smile was answer enough.

“Then if you’re ready?”

The lamassu prowled down from his throne, down onto the temple floor, where he extended a wing to where she stood. “An execution is about to take place. Were I a superstitious being, I might hazard to believe your arrival propitious.”

Annara snorted as she climbed up onto the lamassu’s back. “You’re not superstitious?”

The god crouched, lowering his stomach to the ground, sighting up at the distant exit in the ceiling. “I am.”

And he leaped, wings snapping out, to surge up into the darkness, beating powerfully so that they rose in rapid surges, up, up and out into the night.

Annara caught her breath at the beauty of the view. All of Magan lay spread out beside the far bank, a glittering confection of golden lights that reflected across the river’s rippling body. A great crowd had gathered in the main square before the palace, and it looked as if a hundred torches burned so as to illuminate the scene with the same clarity as day.

The lamassu sped over the river, his passage followed by cries of wonder from the temple priests and guards, and down low over the river so that his wing tips left V’s across the water’s surface with each downbeat. Up at the last in a sudden upsurge to rise into sight of the gathered thousands in the temple, who as one let out a great cry and fell to their knees.

The lamassu perched upon a great column, erected, no doubt, for just such moments, and folded his wings down his back to gaze upon the people of his city.

Annara slid down over his shoulder to the top of the column, and gazed wide-eyed at where Pebekkamen knelt, arms bound behind his back, before a great chopping block at whose side an executioner stood with a lion mask and great ax.

Queen Nethena was caught between her urge to kneel and outraged desire to stand; by her side crouched General Pawura, face pale.

Both Elu and Ahktena were missing.

Annara raised a hand and curled her fingers into a fist. “If you’ve harmed a hair on his head.”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t shouted. But she saw Nethena go pale as if she’d pressed a knife to her throat.

“What - what is the meaning of this?” Pawura gathered himself, raising his head, unsure as to whether stare at the lamassu or Annara. “My lord?”

Annara stared at him with such intensity that he recoiled. “Where is Elu? Where is my son?”

Pawura rose, half-staggering, to his feet. “Your son? I don’t know of whom you speak -”

“Enough!” Her voice was a whip crack, sharp enough to draw blood. “Elu! Where is he? Answer me now!”

“His royal apartments,” said Nethena, stepping forward past her shaken general, gathering her train behind her, chin raised. “I’m sure there is no need for such anger, Lady Annara. And you humble us with your presence, lord lamassu. I did not think such activities would warrant your interest, but we are all blessed by your choice to witness this execution.”

The lamassu was as immovable as stone. “The Lady Annara has walked the Path of Righteousness and survived. She is deemed worthy by Mother Amubastis herself.”

That checked Nethena’s approach. The Queen Mother stopped as if she’d run into a wall of glass. Hesitated, waiting to see if the lamassu would speak on. When it was clear he wouldn’t, she licked her upper lip slowly, considering. “The Kusuji ceremony? Interesting. But that is a rite from another land. Are you saying it is pertinent to us here in Magan, my lord?”

The lamassu remained quiet, and Annara knew in that instant it had said all that it would say.

The rest now was up to her.

“I have walked the Path of Righteousness, which the pharaohs of old did once walk in proof of their humility so as to learn the meaning of servitude to the people -”

“But you are not the pharaoh,” hissed Nethena.

“And that divinity, such as it may be, passed through me to my son, Elu, stylized as Senacherib. Recognized by the lamassu, he now no longer needs a regent -”

“A rite which does not pertain to Maganian royalty,” said Nethena, pitching her voice to carry. “A rite of heathen pharaohs who ruled over us as despots, failing to pass the Quickening -”

“Which Elu has also passed! Nobody else here can make that claim, either to the Quickening or having earned divinity through royal lineage through the Path -”

“He is not of royal blood!” Nethena fairly spat. “He is not my son! Senacherib is dead! Elu is but a common imposter, a liar, a cheat, who should never have walked the Quickening, never been given the opportunity, and as such his passing of that trial is rendered null and void -”

“Are you a lamassu, that you dare override their own judgement?” Annara pointed at the queen. “They all recognized Elu’s right to both undertake the Quickening and then recognized his passing by presenting him to the people of Magan! Dare you say them wrong!”

Nethena hesitated, glanced to the impassive lamassu, and then smiled. “They recognized his having passed the Quickening. Yet the right to choose the candidates in the first place by tradition belongs to the nobility of Magan. We chose Elu believing him to be someone else. We therefore withdraw that submission, and in so doing invalidate his right to have walked the Quickening.”

The entire square grew hushed as everybody turned to stare at the lamassu. Would he speak? Intervene? Would he blast the queen for blasphemy where she stood?

The lamassu gazed down upon Nethena with burnished eyes but did not move.

The crowd exhaled, as if in sorrow or wonder.

Nethena’s smile was as cold as it was victorious. “As such, he is to be consigned to his quarters until we decide how best to deal with his insult to Maganian sovereignty, and shall proceed with the execution of his false regent so as to clear the way for the appointment of a royal vizier who shall rule during the interregnum.”

“Bold,” said Annara. “I have to give you that, Nethena. You’re no coward. But you are also no ruler. I would dare you to walk the Path of Righteousness yourself, but know you would rather die than risk facing the judgement of true divinity.”

Nethena sneered. “You hide behind heretical rites. I see no need to acknowledge them nor you. Guards. Seize her.”

A gasp was torn from the hundreds of throats. Annara could sense their disbelief; she stood beside the lamassu itself. Had been born here on its back. To arrest her - was that not an insult to their god?

Who remained still, watching, inscrutable and immobile.

“Guards!” Nethena’s voice was imperious. “Bring her down, now!”

Still nobody moved.

Annara extended her arms, drawing all eyes to her.

“I am Annara of Eruk. No divine blood flows through my veins. I was once a devotee of Scythia, a foreign goddess, but she is dead and sleeps in the underworld. I am a common woman, like yourselves. But I have walked the Path of Righteousness, which once the pharaoh’s of Magan walked so as to prove themselves worthy of the mantle. For back then, they styled themselves not as rulers, but first among servants.”

“Enough! Seize her!” Nethena was shaking with fury, glaring at the guards, but they however stared up at Annara.

“I walked the Path. And I can tell you this, I walked it so as to become divine and protect Elu, my son. I did this out of love. But halfway along that roseate path I stopped and fell to my knees. For I understood that I was not worthy of divine blood. I could not take upon my shoulders the responsibility that any true divine servant must. I did not have the hubris to think myself worthy of being divine, and for that, I was spared. Amubastis allowed me to survive and return here, blessed not with power but humility. The lamassu himself has agreed with this verdict, and bore me here upon his back. He stands by my side, not to reinforce my right to rule, but to underscore the meaning of what I did. What I accomplished. That I am now no longer of Eruk, but of Magan. That I return not as a divine ruler, but as a mortal servant, and with your blessing, people of Magan, would ask that we return to the old ways. Where the pharaoh - my son, Elu - would in turn walk the Path of Righteousness as well as pass the Quickening. Where he would rule with your interests in mind, where he would be the first amongst servants, as it was, as it should always be.”

“Blasphemy!” Nethena’s scream was shocking in its violence. “This is madness! You speak of tradition? Tradition lies with me and mine! I am the Queen Mother, wife of the last true pharaoh, and I say to you my people that this heretic deserves nothing more than a quick death so that we can return the nation to its proper state -”

Annara shook her head. “Magan suffers just as the River Cities do. The crops fail. Poverty is rising. Death comes for us across the Desert of Bones. We cannot return to the past, for that past was failing us. We need to turn to a new future. A future where the people are placed first, and the nobility must bend knee to necessity.”

Nethena’s face grew mottled with outrage, and she turned to Pawura. “Do something! Have her shot down! Kill her! Now!”

Pawura blinked. “But she stands beside the lamassu…”

“The lamassu will do nothing! It never does! It is but a symbol, one which we give meaning! Kill her, and the lamassu will bless us -”

The crowd rumbled.

Nethena stopped, perplexed, and turned to regard the hundreds that ringed the square.

The lamassu rose to its feet, wings extending to beat powerfully once, twice, sending dust devils across the square.

Annara felt a jolt of exhilaration. “She insults the lamassu! She insults the very soul of Magan!”

“No,” cried Nethena. “I misspoke, you don’t understand -”

The crowd began to move forward, closing upon her, voices raised in outrage. “How dare she!” “Queen or no queen, nobody speaks of the lamassu in such manner!” “That insult can only be paid in blood!”

Nethena backed away, but there was nowhere to go. “Pawura! Your men! Order them to encircle me -”

The crowd let out a roar and fell upon her like a wave, sweeping her out of sight in a storm of fists and yells.

Her death was as quick as it was bloody.

Annara watched and felt little more than a twinge of horror. To her surprise, however, the crowd did not grow in its madness; instead, the deed done, the hundreds turned to regard the lamassu. They fell to their knees as five or six men carried Nethena’s broken body forward and laid it before the pedestal, and there knelt in turn.

The lamassu folded its wings and bowed its head.

“People of Magan,” said Annara, voice cracking. “You have done justice. A new age is upon us. A time of greater unity and strength.”

She gazed out over the kneeling hundreds that spread out across the square and into the mouth of each avenue and road. At those who knelt on balconies, on the docks, even on the decks of the closest ships.

She had walked the Path of Righteousness and renounced the right to rule. Yet somehow the people were bowing to her.

“We have much work to do! Wounds to heal, bridges to rebuild, and most importantly, an army to crush. First, free Regent Pebekkamen.”

Guards lifted Pebekkamen to his feet, cut his bonds and removed the gag from around his mouth. He gazed up at her, rubbing his wrists, and then bowed his head.

“What does Lady Annara wish of the regent of Magan?”

“Regent Pebekkamen.” Annara found that her voice carried easily upon the night air. With hundreds if not thousands watching her, she extended her hand to where he stood on the platform. “Please confine General Pawura to his quarters. Have the Queen Mother’s remains returned to her rooms and prepared for burial. But most importantly, send word to Pharaoh Elu that the lamassu awaits his presence, as does his mother and the people of Magan.”

Pebekkamen grinned, a roguish smile that was all teeth, and bowed low. “As you command, Lady Annara. Guards!”

The square exploded into a frenzy of activity as people rose to their feet, still awed by the lamassu’s continued presence but unable to refrain from speaking loudly with each other, clutching at their heads, pointing and marveling as Nethena’s body was draped in white cloth and carried away, as Pawura was escorted back to the barracks, and as guards prostrated themselves to the regent whom but minutes ago they had sought to execute.

Annara was glad for the height on which she stood, for it insulated her against the desires and questions of those who would have mobbed her otherwise, demanding answers she didn’t have. Instead, she looked up to the lamassu’s great visage. “And?”

The lamassu’s unperturbable face cracked into a smile. “Were I one to judge, I would say: well done, Annara of Magan.”

The words were a benediction she hadn’t known she needed. Annara closed her eyes as relief coursed through her, feeling her knees go weak for but a moment. Almost she steadied herself by placing a hand on the lamassu’s flank, but at the last caught herself; how heretical would that have been?

Twenty minutes later the square cleared as guards entered in two orderly columns, opening a path down which Elu strode, his whole body vibrating with fury, his hands balled into fists, his eyes flashing as he gazed about if seeking a target for his wrath.

When he saw Annara up beside the lamassu he stopped. “Lady Annara?”

“My son,” said Annara, loudly, and her eyes teared up at the words, her heart beating powerfully. And her reserve cracked, her control slipped, so that she couldn’t help but beam down at him.

“…son?” He blinked, taken aback, and then grinned. It was a smile of such pleasure, such joy, that Annara felt her heart crack and her eyes teared up once more.

“Pharaoh Elu,” rumbled the lamassu, and his voice silenced the crowd, seemed to press down with such utter authority on every upturned face that there could be no doubt as to the authenticity of the pharaoh’s true identity. “Be welcome. Your mother is a woman of the ages.”

“That she is,” said Elu, moving forward to grin up at her, hands on his hips, and in that moment Annara saw Acharsis dwelling within her son’s face, saw the similarity so that it stole her breath away.

Pebekkamen moved up beside Elu and bowed low. “Pharaoh, may I, ah, relinquish my title as regent? Please?”

Elu laughed, turning to the large man and raising a hand. “I hereby do relieve you of the title and post of regent, and do promote you to that of general in Pawura’s place. You have done well, general, and Magan is proud of its son.”

Pebekkamen was clearly taken aback but recovered with a jovial grin and bowed even deeper. “My thanks, pharaoh!”

Elu turned to look back up at Annara. “The Queen Mother?”

“Dead,” said Annara, and to her surprise the words tasted bitter on her lips. “She insulted the lamassu. Failed to understand their true role in the center of Magan’s heart. She was dealt justice by the people.”

Elu nodded somberly. “Has Ahktena been sent for?”

Annara raised an eyebrow. “She is also being held in her quarters?”

Elu’s nodded with obvious pride. “She defied her mother. Refused to leave my side. Guards! Ask Princess Ahktena to join me here in the square. Immediately!”

Two men snapped out rapid salutes and ran down the length of the path that had been cleared in the center of the crowded square.

“You’re late, mother,” said Elu, turning back to her. His grin was teasing. “You said you’d be back yesterday.”

“I know,” she said, and wanted to laugh. Wanted to cry. Wanted more than anything to rest, to hold her son, to step out of everyone’s line of sight. “I -”

The lamassu suddenly rose up on its rear legs, wings extending to blot out the moon and stars, burnished eyes widening with an alarm that struck mortal terror into her heart. Never had she seen the god so provoked. If she didn’t know better, she’d guess the god was afraid.

“Lord?” Her voice quavered. “What is it?”

The lamassu stared off to the east, toward the dark horizon, its whole body straining as if it fought the urge to leap into the sky. “Danger,” it rumbled. “A danger enters the world such as I never felt before. Prepare yourselves, my children. The end might be upon us.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Acharsis ducked his head as he was thrown into the holding chamber; the lintel was low and he had the distinct impression that the Death Watch guard would have loved to watch him crack his brow upon it. As a result, he stumbled into the large chamber, nearly tripping and going down on all fours. With heroic effort he kept his balance, staggered aside as if doing an inebriated dance step, and then turned to watch Jarek be thrust in after him.

“Kish?” Jarek stared about the dark room with desperate hope, and then his shoulders sagged. “Damn it.”

The room was small and banded with glowing green runes that Acharsis recognized from the ziggurat in Rekkidu - mystical runes that suppressed a godsblood’s powers. Not that they had much to draw on as it was.

“No chair. No beer. Not even a cushion. Positively barbaric,” he said, rubbing at his stump where the guards had tried with increasing anger to make the manacle stick. “I won’t be recommending this place to my friends.”

“How can you laugh even now?” Jarek turned upon him, face grieved, eyes wounded holes to his soul. “We’ve lost, Acharsis! Sisu is taken. Kishtar missing. We’re hours from being sacrificed to further Irella’s mad schemes. And still you jest?”

Acharsis did his best to control his roiling emotions. Despite his victory, despite how well everything had gone, he felt assaulted, some deep, untouchable part of him poisoned with outrage. “I’m not dead till I can’t tell a joke,” said Acharsis. “Speaking of which, did you hear the one about—”

“Acharsis!”

“Very well! Fine. Yes. I have a secret and very cunning plan. It’s what’s keeping me in good cheer.”

I’m content, Acharsis. Something a restless bastard like you will never understand. The words seared him as he heard Istrikar’s voice once more. Damn that man!

“You do?” Jarek took a step closer. “Thank Alok. I’d hoped - but couldn’t guess what it could be. Something to do with the rotten apple?”

“No, alas. That ploy failed.” Acharsis lowered himself carefully to the stone floor, hissing and wincing as his many wounds tugged at him. “A brave plan, but we can’t count on it now. No. I put into effect a second and - dare I say it - nefarious stratagem that I believe will see everything work out quite well in our favor.”

Jarek settled his shoulders. “Don’t make me beat it out of you.”

“Barbarism, wherever I look. What’s a man of refinement to do?”

“He’s to tell me at once what his plan is, is what.”

“Very well. You recall our encounter with Irella, not moments ago?”

Her image flashed before his eyes once more. For some reason he’d been profoundly shocked at how much she’d aged. Had - unreasonably, stupidly - expected her to be as young as the vision Sumala had vouchsafed him in the grove high atop the God’s Mountain. To see her hair grayed, her face wrinkled, to realize that his great opponent, his wondrous foe, the epitome of everything he’d feared and hated and desired all this time had bowed her head to time just as he had - it had stolen his breath away, hurt something deep within him.

Jarek was clenching his jaw and fists with exasperation. Clearly not a good sign.

“Yes, yes, all right, the quick version. Recall that I summoned Anscythia, our delightful ally, and bid her do as I’d commanded?”

“Yes. She attacked Irella and failed.”

“She failed to harm Irella, true, but that wasn’t her command. What I’d ordered her to do was to switch my blood for Irella’s in the chalice.”

Jarek blinked, stunned, and then shook his head as if trying to clear it of an annoying buzzing sound. “You what?”

Acharsis grinned, went to interlace his fingers behind his head and scowled at his one hand. “Yes! The problem with people like Irella - and you and me, to be honest - is that we think everything’s about us. Didn’t Irella say something to that effect? She didn’t anticipate my command being about anything else. Ironic, really. Recall how Anscythia asserted she could move blood back and forth? Sisu even thought of having the blood removed altogether. But what use that? No. So I went one step further. I had her blood swapped for mine.”

“Which means…” said Jarek.

“Which means when the ritual goes off, the power that is meant to open the gate to the netherworld will instead pour into my own blood.”

“Which is that of Ekillos…” whispered Jarek.

“And which will no doubt rouse my father from his deep slumber, causing him to come roaring up from the depths of Nekuul’s realm to come to our aid. Irella will be faced with an enraged god, and then shall we have our vengeance.”

“Acharsis…” Jarek shook his head with wonder. “That’s…”

“Brilliant? Sly? Cunning beyond belief? I’m a genius, a paragon of subtlety and duplicity? Yes, yes, and yes.”

Restless bastard.

Jarek fell into a squat, clutching at the sides of his head as he stared out into his own thoughts, marveling. “So this sacrifice - you’ll be able to undo it?”

“I’ve no idea. And Ekillos will still have to contend with Irella in all her strength, with Nekuul standing at her shoulder. I’m not saying it’s a done deal. But…” He forced himself to grin once more. “I think everything’s going to turn out just fine.”

“Amazing. And you didn’t tell us.” Jarek frowned. “Why didn’t you tell us? I nearly had a heart attack up above!”

“Simple,” said Acharsis. “Imagine, for example, that Kish were to fall into the enemy’s hands, and be forced to reveal our plan, rotten apple and all. Imagine, further, that she knew of this ploy of mine.”

“Ah,” said Jarek. “I see.”

“A secret is only a secret when nobody knows it. The next best thing is one person alone being privy to the details, if that person be of the utmost discretion, handsome, charming, and phenomenal in bed.”

Jarek raised an eyebrow.

“Fine. Only some of those qualities pertain. Still, with a little luck we should all be laughing over goblets of beer in about…six hours’ time. Irella, I can only imagine, will be greatly put out.”

“Yes,” whispered Jarek. “By Alok’s groaning zones of subduction, that’s a relief to hear.” He lapsed into thought, lower lip jutting out. “My Sky Hammer.”

“Yes,” said Acharsis, wincing. “Sorry about that.”

“That hammer’s been in my family for… well, forever. Alok crafted it himself when he first molded the world. Used it to hammer out the first sword, and gifted it to my great, great, great, great, great grandfather, Acosos.”

“Yes,” said Acharsis. “Unique. A relic of glory. I’m sorry, Jarek.”

Jarek grimaced and looked away. “And it was on my watch that it was destroyed. Some legacy I’m leaving.”

“If we defeat Irella and avert the end of the world?” Acharsis raised an eyebrow. “That’ll be all the legacy you or anybody else could want. We’ll be the greatest of heroes. Immortalized in song and tale. Our names will live forever.”

“Maybe,” said Jarek. “What do you think she was going on about? Irella? That whole business about a great battle to come, and how she’d hoped you’d join her in it?”

Acharsis frowned. “I don’t know. A battle with Magan? No. She’d made the conquest of Magan seem a prelude to this great battle.” The thought annoyed him. He had no idea what it could be. “With Magan defeated, she’ll be the most powerful force in the living world. What could she have to worry about?”

“I don’t know,” said Jarek.

“Never mind,” said Acharsis. “Her dreams of conquest are as important to me as any number of other unimportant things.”

Jarek raised an eyebrow. “Nice simile.”

“I know.” Acharsis closed his eyes. The urge to fall asleep was nigh overwhelming. To escape the pain, the exhaustion, to rest— “Having but recently excelled in the realm of wit, I can afford to fall slightly short in other areas for awhile.”

He heard Jarek grunt. “Fair enough.”

“You know, I take it back. These stone walls and floor are surprisingly comfortable.”

“You’re going to sleep?” Was that incredulity in Jarek’s voice?

“Hmm. We’ve a big hour or two coming up. A little rest. Not as young… not as young as I used to be.”

Acharsis allowed his chin to drop, crossed his ankles, and fell asleep.

* * *

He awoke with a start as the door crashed open and a dozen black-clad guards came rushing in, torches held aloft, hands grabbing for Acharsis’ arms. He was hauled to his feet before he could formulate a cutting greeting, and then hustled out of the holding cell in the center of a mass of shoulders and blades.

The sleep hadn’t restored him as he’d hoped; he felt his age, felt the aches deep down to his bones, the slurried pain of wet, weeping wounds across his chest and back. Trying not to trip, Acharsis hurried along with the guards, down the hall, into a stairwell, then up, up, up.

Hands gripped his arms cruelly and forced him to climb with unwelcome speed; around and around, the sound of the ocean growing louder as they came closer to the apex, the confines of the stairwell reeking of smoke, the sound of the guards’ heavy breathing and the stomp of their sandaled feet echoing all about him.

Then they burst free of the ziggurat, into the night air, the skies glorious overhead, a field of endless stars sprayed across the heavens, matched only by the endless ocean of torches that glittered down the flanks of the ziggurat and across the vast crowd that had gathered to witness the changing of the world. The pinpricks of glittering crimson light were without number, tens of thousands of the living and dead staring up at them from all around. Braziers were placed in a great circle around the top of the ziggurat, illuminating the many wooden stakes that were erected but one step down from Nekuul’s private sanctum and upon which scores of men and women were bound, all of them oriented so that they gazed up at the green flames that leaped into the sky.

Acharsis’ heart thundered in his breast, and he resisted not at all as he was led toward his own stake, and there lashed cruelly to it. He didn’t recognize any of the other godsbloods around him - until he espied Kish bound at the far side, her face bruised but her scowl showing she’d not been broken.

Chanting filled the air, a low drone that got under his skin and set his teeth on edge. As the guards tied him to his stake, Acharsis looked down and saw a breathtaking medley of deathless, leeches, and Seekers assembled on the steps below, their ranks so thick that they draped the flanks of the ziggurat, hundreds upon hundreds of them kneeling with their brows pressed to the clay bricks.

And above them…

By Ekillos’ sweet grace and gentle wisdom, the sight was terrifying. The temple sanctum dedicated to Nekuul was aflame, wreathed in green fire that spired and curled up into the night, the entirety of it burning like a Khartisian lighthouse, pulsing with such terrible power it made Acharsis nauseous.

A promontory extended out above the lower levels, its far end illuminated by twin spikes of twisted black metal from whose tips green light pulsed. Between them stood a tall, wizened figure in a tattered black robe, his gold mask affixed to his skull by black nails that extended an inch out all around the rim.

“From the shadows of Rekkidu,” the figure said, and somehow, impossibly, his voice reverberated out over the massed crowds below, rolling like thunder with supernatural force. “Dragged by the loyal, the righteous, the pure, comes a figure from the dark, terrible past: a monster now clad in chains, who sought to raise his fists and defy the heavens! You may have heard of his brief rebellion, but now we present the fallen man, the squalid ruin of a godsblood: Jarek, son of Alok, former ruler of Rekkidu!”

The crowd below cheered wildly as Jarek was hauled forth, shoulders hunched, brow lowered in a truculent glower.

“Wait!” said Acharsis, annoyance bidding him raise his voice. “Why wasn’t I announced? Hey! I’m Acharsis, son of Ekillos—”

“The relic of a bygone age, the blood of Jarek, son of Alok, shall now be put to its greatest, most glorious use: to engorge the might of our undying queen, and to ensure—”

“Hey!” Acharsis wished he could hurl a boot at the orator. “You! Nail head! You forgot to mention me, Acharsis, that’s pronounced Ah-char-sis—”

The skeletally thin deathless turned, shoulders hunched, and though his mask remained frozen, Acharsis could sense the waves of fury rolling off the figure.

“Hey there!” Acharsis put on his best grin. “Finally. Could you ask these guys to bring me back in so we can do a proper introduction?”

“And here,” said the deathless, his whisper somehow sweeping out over the world, intimate and cruel, “We have Acharsis the Betrayer.”

“Wait, what?” Acharsis did his best to straighten up against his bonds. “No, it’s ‘son of Ekillos’—”

“The godsblood who lured his brothers and sisters to their doom, twenty years ago. The fool who allowed himself to be manipulated by Irella’s effortless brilliance. The dunce who caused the collapse of the old order, only to flee with his tail between his legs, yelping and pissing himself to hide in shadows until now—”

Acharsis glared at the deathless. “So that’s how you want to play it? All right. I’ll remember.”

The orator turned back to the huge crowd and resumed his narration, doing his best to whip the masses into a fervor, but even given Acharsis’ dislike of the creature he could tell the crowd wasn’t being very responsive; the cheers felt mostly forced, the applause dying out quicker than true fervor should have allowed.

Jarek was bound too far away to be spoken to, so Acharsis sighed and settled in to wait. He’d always hated ceremonies that weren’t focused on him. Endless rounds of purifications, animals being sacrificed, pleas to the gods, more purifications, priests of increasing importance enacting their rituals, more sacrifices, more purifications. This would take hours.

“Can anybody slacken my bonds there a little? I’m starting to lose circulation in my feet,” he said, but nobody listened.

The closest godsblood was a youth with curly golden hair. He stared at Acharsis with a mixture of shock, horror, and dismay.

“Hey there,” said Acharsis. “Acharsis, son of Ekillos.”

“Are you mad?” hissed the youth. “Don’t you know what’s going to happen?”

“Yeah,” said Acharsis, leaning his head back against the stake. “So much purifying we’ll be holier than Nekuul’s bony rear end by the time this is done.”

The youth blanched, shook his head, and looked away.

It took two hours before Irella even showed herself. The rituals were impressively executed, Acharsis gave them that, what with all the pyrotechnics and displays of raw power, but even so, he found his attention drifting. He thought of Annara. Of the first time he’d ever laid eyes on her in the small village of Eruk. Thought of his son, Elu. Thought of his years spent in Khartis. Of his many travels. He’d almost sunken into reverie when the crowd below exploded into screams.

Starting, Acharsis stood up straight and looked around. Had a rescue been mounted? Forces from Magan - no. Ah.

He sagged back and glowered up at the temple atop the peak of the ziggurat. Irella had emerged. She stood resplendent in robes of green, purple, and black, power playing about her brow like an immortal diadem, her arms extended as if to encompass the world.

She was attended by a dozen servants who busied themselves with accoutering her with crown, staff, belt and other items of office.

Other slaves hurried out, heads bowed low, each of them holding a roughly cut crystal rock the size of two fists pressed next to each other. These they affixed to cunningly carved notches in the stakes just above the heads of the bound godsbloods.

“Soulstone?” Acharsis asked the young woman who was busy inserting his crystal rock into the notch above his head.

She didn’t respond, hurrying away instead as soon as she was done.

Craning his head back, Acharsis peered up at his stone. It was hollow, he saw, with a hole carved into its top into which blood could be poured.

“Nice craftsmanship,” he said.

“You are mad,” said the golden-haired youth.

Hephesa emerged as if by magic to appear before Irella, the blood-filled chalice in her hands. Over this she prayed and waved her hands for about half an hour, long enough that Acharsis started to grow bored again. Hephesa finally took up the chalice at Irella’s nod and moved to the first soulstone. A slave set a carved ladder before her, and up this she stepped to then pour the blood into the gem.

Acharsis couldn’t help it. He grinned and stood up straight again.

From one gem to the other moved Hephesa, ever pouring the blood from within the chalice. Her expression was regal, distant, detached, but when she reached Acharsis he saw the blood drain from her face.

“You,” she whispered.

Acharsis gave her a wink. “Miss me?”

He saw her calculate. An instant in which she weighed the dangers at hand. She should denounce him, turn to Irella and explain what had happened, how she’d run into Acharsis before - but in doing so she would ruin her own reputation, expose her weakness and how she was damaging the ritual by performing it while inhibited.

No. Her expression became distant and cold once more, and ignoring his smile she stepped up to pour blood into the gem above his head.

“I will see you after the ritual,” she hissed. “And then I shall visit torments upon you without reckoning.”

“It’s a date,” he said. “Looking forward to it.”

She swept away, moving to the next godsblood, and Acharsis caught the disbelieving stare of the golden-haired youth who appeared to be almost in tears with rage and confusion. “She’s… she’s—”

“Yeah, I know,” said Acharsis. “We’ve already hooked up once.”

The youth groaned and looked away in despair.

Finally, everything was done. The last cry of supplication died away. Hephesa handed the chalice to an underling, bowed low to Irella, and moved aside. The crowd grew silent. After weeks of preparation, after a day of feasting and purification, after endless hours of worship and prayer, the moment had finally arrived.

Irella raised her hands, and awful power swirled about her like a vortex. Acharsis gasped, fought the urge to cough violently, and then convulsed, his chest jerking forward and up as if a great fishhook had caught in his ribs and yanked him nearly off his feet.

Cries of pain rose up around him as the other godsbloods writhed against their bonds, and to Acharsis’ horror he saw a faint, misty blue light begin to emerge from his chest like fog rising from the surface of a lake at dawn.

“A new age dawns upon the world,” said Irella softly, and yet somehow her words carried so that Acharsis heard them whispered in his ear. “A time of prosperity and growth, where the dead shall walk hand in hand with the living, and the old dichotomy of existence will collapse like ash before the new fires of truth. No longer shall reality be divided by Nekuul’s curtain, but instead all shall march as one to deliver this world from evil. By the power of the old dead gods, by the vestiges that still flicker in these descendants of their primacy, so shall I tear the veil apart and usher in a time of immortality and greatness for all.”

Sweat streaked down Acharsis’ brow, and it was all he could do to not scream as more of the blue mist boiled forth from his chest to stream up into the soulstone. Unable to breathe, to even think, he watched as the gem began to glow with that blue light, a beacon against the madness, and then with a cry he flopped back against the stake, the last of his power stolen from his soul.

Around him he heard weeping, broken curses, the hacking coughs of the other godsbloods. Above each head glowed a gem.

A faint flicker of crimson flew between the stakes, but before Acharsis could focus, it was gone.

“The moment I have been waiting for is at hand,” said Irella. “The moment toward which I have bent my will and striven these many years. With the power contained within the gems I now summon forth my mother and patron, my master and source of power, the queen of the netherworld and mistress of all dust. Arise, Nekuul, and part the ashen veil forevermore!”

Irella brought her hands together with a cataclysmic clap. A shockwave passed through Acharsis, knocking him back, and the light from his soulstone streamed forth as if unleashed, joining with the others into a sphere of coruscating light above all their heads.

Now! Thought Acharsis. Father! Come! Restore our power, bring us fresh glory—

Irella had noticed something was awry. She was glaring at the ball of power with a look of confusion that quickly passed over into fury; immediately she began to mutter and gesture, and streams of green flame rose up to encircle the sphere, much like the bars of a burning cage.

Voices rose in confusion, cries of alarm as Irella strode to the very edge of the sanctum and wrestled with that ball of fire. It was all Acharsis could do to not laugh and call out encouragement.

A dark shadow arose behind the sphere of power, a dancing, leaping flame of ebon. It extended two arms toward the sphere, which sluiced between the bars of green to flow and sink into its chest.

Anscythia.

“Wait,” whispered Acharsis, voice hoarse. “That’s… that’s not how…”

Anscythia laughed. Her laughter was the diamond edge of Ninsaba’s scythe being drawn across pale flesh. It was a seed of madness buried deep in the mind of an innocent child growing forth in foul bloom to ruin a life. It was filth and degradation, and a delight in such travesties. It made Acharsis’ skin crawl, made him feel polluted, and all around the ziggurat he saw protective charms go up in flames.

There could be only one explanation. Acharsis’ mind shied away from the thought, but as he watched Anscythia grow in size, filling the night sky so that she bent over Irella as a distorted shadow might climb a wall and loom over its caster, he couldn’t deny the thought: in that crucial moment when he’d ordered her to switch his blood for Irella’s, the demon had disobeyed him. Had switched her own blood into the chalice, and now drunk her fill of all that divine might and power.

“Acharsis!” screamed Irella, straining as if leaning into a hurricane, seeking to close her web of green fire about the demon. “What have you done?”

Anscythia threw back her head and laughed, a peal of such terrifying glee that moans of terror rose from countless godsblood throats. The demon’s hands distended into vast, spidery claws, and with them she slashed Irella’s green bands apart, so that they fell upon the upturned faces of the onlookers like fading ribbons of dying light.

“Cut me free!” barked Acharsis. “Anscythia! I command you to stop! By the bond forged in my youth and the power of my father Ekillos—”

With viper-like swiftness the demon whipped down to thrust her massive, grinning face into Acharsis’ own, though hers was now several yards tall and a horror to behold. Gone were her lips, her nose, so that she appeared a creature of Nekuul; her skin had darkened to an ashen blackness, her hair a great morass of shifting, undulating black weeds that extended out behind her, eyes burning with a savage, annihilating pleasure.

“You are not the creature to which I bound myself,” whispered Anscythia. “You are not Acharsis, son of Ekillos. You are an old, withered nobody. You have no power over me, and you never did.”

Acharsis shrank back against the stake. “I am Acharsis, son of Ekillos still - and you must obey—”

Anscythia keened, throwing her head back with abandon, and swirled back up into the night sky, bolts and blasts of green flame exploding soundlessly around her as Irella marshalled her might and threw everything she had against the demon.

To no avail.

Irella was the most powerful person alive, steeped in Nekuul’s power, in the heart of her empire, on the night of her greatest victory, purified so as to channel Nekuul’s might without impediment, standing mere yards from Nekuul’s greatest sanctum and altar - and it wasn’t enough.

The air grew livid with magical blasts. The concussive shockwaves rolled through Acharsis without surcease, causing his heart to stutter and nearly fail as he was pounded by the after-effects of magical attacks.

Yet Anscythia rose ever higher above them, exulting, pointing a finger down at Irella, a claw so sharp it tapered to invisibility.

“Thought you to challenge our might? To halt our endeavor? Thought you to rise above your station and contest my kind for supremacy over the world? Foolish mortal. We are shards of glorious divinity, whereas you are but mud and blood and common filth. The world shall fall. The God’s Mountain shall topple. The land shall be laid waste, and I and my brothers and sisters shall stalk bloody-handed through every town and hamlet and city, bringing despair and desolation to each and every heart. You strove mightily, but to no avail. You die, and with you, any hope of preventing the destruction of this world.”

Irella’s legs were bent as she strained against some invisible force, her face half turned away, her eyes narrowed, jaw gritted, tendons standing out in her neck. “No,” she ground out. “Not tonight. Not here, not now, not—”

Anscythia extended her hand, and her talon grew with shocking rapidity, piercing layer after layer of defensive magic to slide without a sound into Irella’s heart.

“No,” whispered Acharsis.

Irella froze, her gesticulations stopping, the green fire playing about her seeming to freeze alongside her - and then with a groan she slid down and off the slender talon to collapse to the floor.

“Mother!” Sisu raced forth from the shadows to fall by her side.

A flash of fire. A crimson dart, and Cinder swooped about Acharsis’ head, a flurry of fiery motes in his trail.

“Cinder! My bonds! Burn them!”

The bird swooped down behind him and Acharsis felt a terrible, fierce heat on his wrists. A moment later his bonds fell away, and he nearly collapsed to the ground.

A plan. A means to defeat the demon. He had no power. No divine spark. No connection to Ekillos -who was still dead. What authority Acharsis had wielded over Anscythia was long gone, evaporated even before he’d ordered her to switch Irella’s blood with his own. Words were of no use against the demon. He had no weapons, no curses, nothing on which to call, no beings to summon, no favors to cash in.

He was himself alone, Acharsis, mortal man, old in flesh and mundane in spirit.

Anscythia threw back her head and laughed once more. Screams arose to accompany that sound of glee as endless leeches, servants, slaves, Seekers and other living members of Nekuul’s cult fled the ziggurat.

Only the dead remained, unfazed, uncaring of the demon’s power, the death of their mistress.

“Sisu!” Acharsis forced himself to stagger forward once Cinder had burned the leather straps that held his feet to the stake. “The deathless! Order them to attack—”

But even as he shouted, he saw the ranks of the dead begin to wither. Weapons fell from bony hands. Heads began to sag. Like weeds exposed to punishing sunlight, the dead began to wilt and collapse.

Irella. Her death had severed their connection to the netherworld.

“And so begins a new age,” Anscythia cried to the heavens. “An age of darkness and blood, of perversity and despair. With this power I summon my brothers and sisters to me, pull the legions of the damned across this scorched earth to join me in strength, to, suck the very rain from the clouds, dessicate the wheat where it stands, poison the cattle and goats, make barren the womb and sterilize the seed. Come, brothers, come sisters - come!”

The sky was a world wound, a great cyclone of black clouds whose downspout wended its way like a questing serpent to where Anscythia floated, and in that tornado Acharsis saw a hundred hundred faces, each twisted and demonic in its own way, mouths leering, eyes burning, to come screeching down and sink into Anscythia’s ever larger force.

Terrible winds blasted out in all directions, and those who yet stood were driven to their knees with moans and cries of terror. The heavens continued to swirl and flicker with purple lightning, and Anscythia grew in size, swelling with ever more power as she absorbed the demons that flowed down into her.

“Where man seeks shelter I shall stave in their homes,” she crowed, voice booming across the city like thunder. “Where, they show kindness I shall repay with lacerations, where they seek hope I shall mock and destroy. A new age dawns upon the world, and none shall stand against us.”

Acharsis sank to his knees. There was nothing he could do. Anscythia had defeated Irella with ease, Irella who had in turn defeated the civilized world without effort. And now? With the might of a legion of demons inflaming her further, driving her to greater heights?

Anscythia was well on her way to become the most cruel and evil goddess ever.

Cinder flew about him once, twice, then landed on his upraised palm.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the glowing bird. “For bringing you into this world just as everything turned to shit. I’m sorry.”

Cinder quirked his head to one side, then the other, then adjusted his grip on the slender slice of fruit which he held in his claw.

Which he held still.

Acharsis stared, uncomprehending, then surged to his feet. Cupped Cinder in his hand, and to his joy, to his relief, the bird didn’t struggle, didn’t frantically beat its wings or seek to escape.

It understood. Had, perhaps, understood all along.

“Anscythia! A moment, if you will! I hate to interrupt your monologue, and believe me it’s a good one, though a little trite, but first I have to tell you something of the utmost importance!”

Anscythia had grown to thirty or forty yards in height, a towering figure wreathed in black flame and dust. Clouds of smoke were spreading out to choke the stars, and everywhere around them was bedlam, the gathered host of Uros scrambling and tearing at itself in its attempts to get away.

“Anscythia! In all seriousness, if you are to ‘begin a new age’ or whatever, you should at least strive to do it right. I’m good with words, and listen, you don’t want to start things off in such a hackneyed manner. Attend! I’ll give you some pointers.”

The demon slowly turned, seeming to do so reluctantly, bending down as if drawn against its will by Acharsis’ words.

“First, don’t keep repeating yourself.” Acharsis’ voice was growing hoarse. He could barely hear himself over the chaos. “You clearly have some favorite words, but don’t belabor them. Fresh, new imagery! It’s essential if you’re not to bore your audience. I mean, you do want to be taken seriously, right? Not sniggered at behind your back? Don’t harp on and on about despair and blood and so on - it’s good the first time, but quickly bores your listeners!”

Anscythia poured herself down from out of the sky, boneless and fluid, her body not obeying a single dictum of basic human biology, and appeared once more before Acharsis, her face as great as a dream rhino, a vast and alien visage in whose eyes Acharsis could see the promise of everything she had spoken of, and worse.

“Acharsis,” she whispered, the sounds barely holding together as recognizable speech. “You shall be the first I devour. Yet you shall not die and pass on to the realm of Nekuul; I shall keep you alive within my belly, slowly and eternally being digested by pure darkness till your mind breaks, then breaks again, down to the tiniest fragments, till you are no different in essence from mold, unthinking, unfeeling, simply an inchoate mass of terror—”

“Good! But you’re going on too long. You made your point. Cut it off, let the effect sink in!” Acharsis forced himself to not take a step back. To not wail out in fear of what was being promised - and which he knew she could make good on. “You go on too much, you overburden your images and metaphors with—”

“Enough!” Her roar blasted the hair back from his face, and this time he did step back, nearly overbalancing.

Faster than a striking snake she surged forward, mouth widening into a vast maw, fangs as long as Acharsis’ arm glistening with black drool, but before she could engulf him Acharsis hurled his arm forward, like a child skipping a stone across a pool, and Cinder flew from his palm in a burst of sparks to fly straight into Anscythia’s gullet.

Acharsis closed his eyes and crossed his arms before his face in a desperate ‘X’. He felt Anscythia pass over him, heard her shriek, not so much as a sound, but more as a vibration in his bones. Felt a chill pass through him as if he stood once more atop the God’s Mountain, and then she was gone, passed through him, leaving him shaking like a newborn lamb to slowly lower his arms and gaze around in stupefied wonder.

“Anscythia? Where…?”

He turned in a slow circle. His only audience were the other godsbloods, still bound to their stakes. Nobody else was atop the ziggurat. Curls of black smoke were rising up and disappearing even as he saw them. The ghosts of demons fading away as if burned into nothingness by Ninsaba’s moon. A great and desolate moan was carried past him on the wind, and then was gone. The guards, Hephesa, the deathless - everyone had either collapsed or fled.

Anscythia was gone.

A small crimson bird lay at his feet, wings half opened, still in death.

A bright light flickered from above Acharsis’ head. Brighter, and then it blazed forth with the majestic intensity of a miniature sun.

Caught up still in wonder, Acharsis looked up and beheld the soulstone that had been affixed to his stake. It blazed now with such brilliance that he couldn’t look directly at it. Blazed and burned like a sliver of divinity cut from the heart of the world itself.

“Anscythia…” he breathed.

“Acharsis!” Jarek’s bellow. “Free us!”

“Right, right,” he said, stepping away. He tapped at his belt, but of course he had no knife. A collapsed deathless provided him with a blade, and he set to work, cutting and hewing at leather straps, freeing those around him, who stepped away to consider him and the gem, rubbing at their wrists and shaking their heads.

“How did you…?”

“What happened? What was that—”

“My soul. My soul is gone—”

Acharsis reached Jarek and slashed at his bonds till they parted. Jarek stepped away from the stake, nearly fell, then caught himself and took Acharsis’ knife. Without hesitation he ran to Kish, whom he summarily freed.

The godsbloods were freeing each other, and several striking individuals stepped forward, each putting questions to Acharsis in raised, shrill tones.

“Enough!” said Acharsis, raising his one good hand. “I don’t know, just wait - wait, Ekillos damn it!”

They didn’t listen, but rather jostled around him, grabbing him by the arm, voices raised in anger, confusion, till a wave of green fire slid between their number to flare up and form twin walls down which a shadowed figure approached.

Irella, thought Acharsis, but no. His moment’s confusion was quickly ended. Sisu walked up to them, wreathed in a new majesty so that Acharsis corrected himself: no longer Sisu, but now Sisuthros, heir to Irella’s power.

“My mother is dead,” said Sisu, voice made hollow by emotion. “Your plan saw her dead.”

“What happened?” asked Kish, holding tight to Jarek. “Your demon… why did she grow so powerful?”

Acharsis reeled where he stood. He wanted nothing more than to fall into a pool of beer and literally drown his woes. Instead, he thrust himself through the crowd, and staggered to where Irella lay, eyelids fluttering as she gazed up at the sky.

“Acharsis.” Her voice was faint, and a slight smile curved the corner of her lips. “How by all the gods do you pull off these… miracles?”

Acharsis dropped to his knees by her side and took up her hand. It was cold. “Irella.”

She gazed at him, expression somber, thoughtful, but he could tell she was near death. Her skin was beyond pale, bone-bleached, and her eyes were sunken in pools of purple. Her breathing was irregular and shallow, but what was more, her power had passed to her son.

“My time is come,” she whispered. “But I die content. The demons are defeated.”

“We could have done this together from the beginning,” said Acharsis, anger rising within him as he squeezed her hand. “Could have -”

“No,” she whispered, and reached up to touch his cheek. “Such is your genius. It is only roused when denied by others. You would have made… would have made a terrible partner. I pity whomever you now love, whomever now loves you. But… well done. The demons.”

“Gone,” he said, fighting back the rising emotions. “I think. Anscythia called them all to her at the end…”

“Greed. She was much like me, then. Wanting… needing… more than was wise. But no matter. My time on this scorched earth has ended. Be a good regent, Acharsis. Nurture this land back to health. Allow the dead to rest. Bring back the gods. Be… be kind to my son. And love. Only now… at the very end, with Nekuul above me, do I realize…”

Her eyes glazed over, her lips stilled.

Acharsis bowed his head, holding her hand tight, and then placed it over her chest. Looked up to see Sisu, his face stricken. “Here,” he said, rising to his feet and touching the youth’s shoulder. “Take your time.”

With heavy steps, feeling bewildered, lost, alone, he made his way back to where the little bird’s corpse lay, and took it up in his palm. Gone was the last of its magical heat.

“It was Cinder,” he said, voice low with sorrow as he turned to Jarek and Kish and the others. “He saved us. Him and his slice of rotten apple. He held it still. Almost… perhaps he did know. He was divine, after all.”

“But only a slice?” Jarek peered down at the dead bird. “How could but a slice effect such a being as Anscythia had become?”

Acharsis shrugged. “Anscythia was never more than a reflection of Scythia. Perhaps… perhaps that made her uniquely vulnerable to the powers of the apple.”

“But…” Kish pressed her palm to her temple. “What she said at the end there. About her kind?”

“My mother explained much while we waited for the ceremony to begin,” said Sisu, rejoining them, voice still dull. “Explained why she did what she did. Why she betrayed you all twenty years ago. The land, she said. It was failing even then. Drying up. Crop yields were down.”

“What’s that got to do with the demons?” asked Kish irritably.

“Everything,” said Sisu. “Don’t you remember, Acharsis? Jarek?”

Jarek rubbed at the back of his head. “Sure. But we were fighting off the nomad invaders at the time. It’s normal for crop yields to drop during war—”

“No,” said Sisu. “She was vouchsafed a vision from Nekuul. The land was failing. And she knew that you and your brothers and sisters would never unite to deal with it until it was too late. Would bicker and argue until the war was already lost. So she had you removed so she could fight the true enemy: the demons who were escaping the valley and poisoning the Garden atop the God’s Mountain from below, making it so that the apples grew rotten.”

“What?” Acharsis hadn’t thought he could be shocked any more this night. “That’s - she thought—”

“Knew,” said Sisu. “The demons had found a way to escape the valley. She speculated it was through deals much like the one you made with Anscythia. They had burrowed under the Garden, and were working at poisoning it, and through it, the world. My mother defeated you all so that she could take control of every resource and work toward saving the River Cities. But over the years she saw that the dead were not enough; it was not a question of increased labor. The land itself was failing, and even a thousand extra hands on each field couldn’t compensate. So she decided instead to accrue as much power as she could and then lead an assault on the demons atop the God’s Mountain.”

“Madness,” said Jarek, voice hoarse with shock.

“Perhaps,” said Sisu. “But she truly believed that was the only way. That Magan would never bestir itself. That the shamans of Khartis would not understand the peril. That only she had the wherewithal and authority to mount sufficient resistance. That’s what tonight was about. Opening a portal that would empower her to lead a single great attack upon humanity’s true foe.”

Acharsis’ mind reeled, and he gazed past Sisu to where Irella lay still on the last level above them. “All this… she did all this to save humanity? Not for herself?”

Sisu’s eyes filled with tears and he hugged himself. “Yes.”

“But… she should have told us,” said Jarek. “Could have explained to us all what was going on. We’d have listened, we gathered for that very reason—”

Acharsis heard her voice again: Such is your genius. It is only roused when denied by others. He shook his head. “The Jarek of today might have listened, true. But the youth of twenty years ago? Do you honestly think we would have believed her? Would have united for long without breaking out into our old feuds? By the nine dead gods. All this time. All this time she was… incredible. And I had no idea.”

“And now she’s dead,” said Sisu. “Her life’s goal accomplished by us, her enemies. Though who is to say all the demons perished with Anscythia? That she had time to summon them all?“ I have inherited some modicum of her power, but I am a step removed from Nekuul. I do not enjoy her blessings like my mother did, but I will make it my life’s work to hunt down the last of these creatures and destroy them, wherever they may hide.”

“I would help you,” said Jarek, his voice shaking with emotion. “But my Sky Hammer is gone. The divine fire that sustained me all these years is gone, stripped from me by the ritual.”

“I will do what I can,” said Sisu. “I’ll marshal what forces are available to me and march upon the God’s Mountain. Though even now I can feel the legions of the dead collapsing around Uros. I’ve not the power to sustain such an army. And in Rekkidu, the other cities - I have enough power to sense their collapse, but not enough to forestall it.”

“There is one thing we can do,” said Acharsis, and turned to consider the blazing soulstone.

Everyone else followed his gaze.

“Anscythia’s power?” asked Kish.

“Captured when she was destroyed,” said Acharsis. “The sum total of her own demonic abilities, of every demon she summoned, and those of every godsblood that was sacrificed here tonight. Enough to crush Irella. Enough to have brought the world to the edge of dissolution.”

Nobody spoke. Everyone considered the blazing gem.

“Could…” Jarek’s voice faltered. He tried again. “Could that return us our immortal spark?”

“I’ve no earthly clue,” said Acharsis. “But I know what can. The healthy apple. Sisu, do you know where Irella put it?”

Sisu nodded. “I do. Would it - can it restore your divinity?”

“I think it can,” said Acharsis, speaking slowly as hesitation seized him by the throat. “But… one apple. One person.”

Acharsis eyed Kish and Jarek. The three of them were stripped of their powers. Nothing but common mortals now.

“It’s yours if you want it,” said Jarek, voice soft.

“Old friend,” said Acharsis, tears coming to his eyes.

“I - but—” Kish’s jaw trembled. “Yes, all right. I agree. It’s yours if you want it, Acharsis.”

“If you took the apple,” said Jarek slowly. “You could also take Anscythia’s power.”

“No, that’s all right, I’ll take the power,” said Sisuthros.

“I know you’d take it,” said Acharsis. “That goes without saying. Young men are always eager for more.”

“As are the old, apparently,” snapped Sisu. “But yes. With that, I could pick up where my mother left off. Raise the dead. Bring order to the collapsing River Cities—”

“Open a portal to the netherworld?” asked Acharsis.

A variety of emotions flashed across Sisu’s face, the most dangerous of them lighting up his eyes, but then he sighed and shook his head. “Once, maybe. But after all I’ve seen? Been through? No.”

“Not sure I believe you,” said Acharsis. “That’s exactly what you know I’d want to hear.”

“To be honest,” said Sisu, tone hardening. “How, in your current condition, would you stop me if I chose to take it?”

“See?” Acharsis tried for a smile and failed. “That’s much more in line with what I’d expect. I almost feel comforted.”

“Stop it, Sisu,” said Kish. “What would Ishi say if she heard you speak like that?”

Sisu ducked his head. “My point is that Acharsis can’t go around pretending he’s still in control. The apple is in my possession. If anything—”

“Sisu.” Kish stepped away from Jarek. “You know better.”

“Look, I’m the closest to a god-like being out of all of us right now—”

“Sisu!”

“Fine, fine, whatever,” said Sisu, looking down and away. “Let’s all just pretend I’m not the heir of the entire River Cities and vastly more powerful now than ever before and—”

“It’s yours,” said Acharsis.

Sisu froze. “What?”

“The soulstone.” He felt old. Drained. Worn out through and through. “Yours. I trust you. What’s more, who else could truly wield its power effectively? The son of a dead god like Jarek or I? What would I do with that power? March alone upon the demon horde? No. It’s yours, Sisu. You must complete your mother’s task. You must raise the dead, infuse them with what dread vitality you can, and then together we’ll seek common cause with Magan against the demons. Unlike your mother, you’ll rule with diplomacy and not an iron fist. You’ll unite with the powers of Khartis, Dilman, every other nation. Prove to them that the threat is real, and then you shall hunt down the last of the demons, lock them in the Valley of Gog and Magog if possible, and end forever this threat against our world.”

Sisu’s eyes were wide. “And you? Will you take the apple, at least? Advise me?”

“Me?” Acharsis laughed, a broken, scratchy sound. He turned, looked past his weathered, broken friends, out beyond the burning temple to Nekuul, beyond the carpet of fallen dead, down the tiered slopes of the ziggurat, out over Uros, to the screaming crowds that streamed into the streets beyond, the toppled banners, the flickers of flames, the chaos and panic.

“There’s a lot left to do. A new war to be fought. New tales to be told. I’ll leave that to Jarek and Kish.” He looked sidelong at Jarek. “You’re going to need all the energy you can get if you’re going to keep up with this one, old friend. Otherwise she’ll wear you out within the year.”

Kish’s eyes lit up and she grabbed hold of Jarek’s arm, giving it a tight squeeze.

“You sure?” asked Jarek.

“I - yes. Let this glory fall upon the shoulders of the young. I’ve done my part. My divine spark is gone.”

He looked up to where Irella lay, twisted and still, and felt a pang of tearing, roiling grief.

“My foes are dead,” he said. “The River Cities saved. I’ve a son to tend to. A wife to love. A new life to live.”

Sisu’s brows rose sharply. “You’re - you’re not going to come with me to the God’s Mountain? Not going to try and revive Ekillos?”

Acharsis gave himself a shake, then smiled at the young Nekuulite, clapped him on the shoulder. “I thought you’d be glad to be rid of me. But no. You’ll do fine without me. Jarek will keep you in line. And Ekillos - well. If you remove Irella’s ban, then worship should slowly spark back up. He’ll return in good time.”

“You sure?” asked Jarek, voice low, gravelly.

“Look!” Kishtar knelt beside the fallen Cinder -whose plumage was beginning to stir as faint flames licked up around it, causing the air above its little body to twist and roil. “He’s…”

The flames flickered up, higher and higher, until Cinder was lost within a small pyre of its own devising. Everyone stepped back as a flash of heat pulsed out from its core, and when Acharsis lowered his hand from his eyes he saw Cinder standing renewed atop the ashes of his former self, alive and vibrant as before.

“How…?” asked Sisu. “He defies Nekuul…?”

Cinder let out a chirp and leaped into the air with a flurry of wings, to whip around Kish and then sit on her shoulder. He chirped once more, fluffed out his feathers, and then settled down.

Acharsis couldn’t help it. The very sight lifted his soul, and he laughed, a helpless, surprised sound. “Yes,” he said, answering his old friend’s question. “I’m sure. How’s that sound to you?”

Jarek took Kish’s hand in his own. “Good.”

“Then let’s get that soulstone down,” said Acharsis, marveling still at Cinder’s fiery little presence. “I’ve many miles to go before I find the woman I love.”

It took them half an hour to secure the soulstone and calm the other godsbloods who protested their right to its power. They made no attempt to calm the chaos below, but instead focused their energies on securing that might, the power equal to a god’s, so that finally when it rested in Sisu’s palm they stood about him in a circle, waiting with bated breath.

“What do I do?” asked Sisu, voice little more than a whisper.

“Take the power into yourself,” said Acharsis. “Will it to be yours.”

Sisu nodded, raised the blazing gem up with both hands, and closed his eyes. A moment as he simply stood there, and then the gem flickered and died.

Sisu’s eyes snapped open, and they blazed with power. His hair streamed back as if blasted by a terrible wind, and he spread his arms as he rose a foot up into the air.

“A boon,” he said, voice vibrating with power. “Now, Acharsis, while I am at my most powerful. What would you have from me as thanks for toils?”

Acharsis’ mouth went dry and for a moment he couldn’t speak. But then the answer came to him, obvious, definite, something so precious he couldn’t dream of anything else.

“Passage back to Annara,” he whispered.

Sisu smiled. “So be it.” He extended his palm, and a wave of power flowed from him to swirl into a portal. An ebon disc of flowing might.

“Is that…?” Acharsis didn’t dare believe.

“It is,” said Sisu. “I hope to see you again, Acharsis, son of Ekillos.”

Acharsis laughed, exhilarated and light headed. “Oh, I’m sure you will. Good bye, Sisuthros. May your reign prove just!”

Jarek and Kish stepped up to him, and for a moment Acharsis simply regarded them both, pain and joy and love moving through him like great waters, and then they embraced. Held each other tight, until at last Acharsis pulled back, surprised to find tears in his eyes.

“You treat him right,” he said to Kish.

She hugged Jarek tightly. “I intend to.”

“Good luck, brother,” said Jarek, taking hold of Acharsis’ arm and squeezing it tight. “Tell Annara and Elu we send our love.”

“I will,” said Acharsis, and then stepped back. He cast one last look around the ruin and chaos that engulfed Uros below. “And good hunting, all of you. Make those demons pay.”

His friends raised their hands in parting, and with Cinder on his shoulder, Acharsis gave a final wave, and stepped into the portal and was gone.

Godsblood 3

388

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Acharsis emerged into a luxurious bedroom decorated in the unmistakable Maganian manner. Braziers cast a subtle light over a bed large enough for five, and caused the rippling reflections from a private pool that dominated one half of the quarters to undulate across the ceiling in endless bands of shimmering white. Tiger skins were spread underfoot, and the walls were covered in beautiful works of art.

His gaze, however, was locked on Annara where she stood on a broad balcony, leaning on her forearms as she stared out over Magan, past the great dark river, and to the lamassu’s temple and desert beyond.

Acharsis moved forward, feeling as if he were within a dream. His footsteps made no sounds on the animal skins, and it was only when he stepped out onto the balcony that she heard him and turned, eyes widening in surprise as he moved forward to encircle her with his arms.

“Annara,” he breathed.

She pressed a palm to his chest and shook her head. “Acharsis? How? You can’t be -”

He leaned in and kissed her.

Her protests stilled and she simply stood, frozen, until at long last she moaned and kissed him back, not with ardor but with something he dared hope was deeper, broader; something he hoped she might herself call love.

When he finally broke their kiss and stepped back, he couldn’t help but grin. “Miss me?”

She slapped him.

“Hey!” He put his hand to his stinging cheek. “If I’d know that was the reception I’d get -”

She grabbed hold of him and hugged him tightly, then pushed him away again to punch him in the shoulder. “Do you know what I’ve been through since you left? How close Elu and I came to dying, the - “

“What?” he asked, as she stopped to search his face with her gaze. “What is it?”

“Something’s changed,” she said. “What happened to you?”

“I don’t look that bad, but sure, I could use a bath -”

“No, you foolish man.” She took his chin in her hands and turned his face from one side to the other. “You’ve lost something. Something… something’s changed.”

A weight fell upon his shoulders, and he sighed. “A lot has happened, Annara.”

“Yes.” She reached up to run her hand through his hair then caress his cheek with the back of her fingers. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, you infuriating, devil of a man. The number of times I’ve cursed your memory…”

Acharsis laughed. “Lies! You’ve been standing here all along, pining for me, asking for musicians to play sad songs so you could enjoy your loneliness all the more -”

Annara’s hand dropped to a knife she was wearing at her hip.

“ - aaand I take that back. No music at all. No pining? Not even a little pining?”

Again, her frown smoothed away and became a smile. “How do you do it? One minute I’m furious, the next…?”

“You said that to me the night we first met,” he said, taking her hand. “Remember? When I stole into your tent with a bottle of wine and one glass?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“That was quite the night.” He pulled her closer. “Who would have thought it would lead to this long life we’ve lived together.”

“That was quite the night,” she whispered, smiling up at him.

“A delicious bottle of wine.”

“Mmmhmm.”

“And I remember…”

“Yes?”

He smiled and pulled her away from the balcony, back inside. “Let me remind you.”

Later, as they lay intertwined together in her bed, he listened as she told him of all that had happened during the weeks he’d been gone. Weeks? He’d never paused to wonder how much time they’d lost in the netherworld, but was wise enough to simply listen, to allow her to share her fears, her desperate adventures, and final confrontation with Nethena.

When she was finally done he kissed her. “You are the most wonderful woman I’ve ever had the honor to know,” he said.

She smiled. “You said that on our first night, as well.”

“I meant it then, and I mean it now. Forgive me for having left your side. Forgive me for not having been with you through these past weeks. I mean to never leave again.”

“Hmm,” she said, curling a lock of his hair between her fingers. “You assume I want you to stick around.”

He propped himself up on one elbow. “You don’t?”

“I’ll think about it. Let’s just say it’s under serious consideration.”

He laughed and kissed her again. “Too late, Annara. I’ve given everything else up. I want nothing in the world but to be with you and Elu.”

She studied him. “What of reviving your father? Conquering your home city?”

“Not for me. No longer.” And then it was his turn to tell her, of his journey through the netherworld, his meeting with his father, how he’d climbed God’s Mountain and acquired the apple, descended to Uros and defeated Irella and Anscythia both, staving off the doom that had imperiled the world and buying Sisu time to hunt down the last of the demons.

Annara was sitting, arms around her knees, listening spellbound by the time he was done. “You’re serious? All that truly happened?”

Acharsis lay back with a sigh. “I may have embellished how well I fought here and there, but yes. I’m just a mortal man now. Normal as can be. I mean, yes, I’m almost unforgivably handsome, and my wit is as brilliant as ever -”

“Acharsis.” Something in her voice stilled his words. “You gave up your divinity?”

He turned to prop his head on his hand and look up at her. “Yes.”

“I -” she shook her head. “But…”

A flicker of flame flitted through the air to land on her knee. Cinder. He peered up at her, ruffled his feathers so that a puff of smoke rose up, and then let out a cheep.

“See?” He grinned. “Cinder’s proof. My last connection to my father. I think on some level he came back to keep me company. A small memento of my life when I was… other than I am now.”

Annara’s eyes filled with tears. “You gave up that life? For me?”

“For both of you,” said Acharsis, rising to his knees and taking her hands within his own. “For you and Elu. For our family. I’m done with heroics, with desperate plans and struggling against impossible odds. I thought at first it was because I was growing old, but no. Being with you now I’ve never felt more full of life. And I finally understand. I want to live a life with you, not as your better due to my blood, but as your equal.”

Annara smiled fondly and cupped his cheek. “Oh Acharsis. You were never my better.”

“All right. Yes. Sorry about that. Old habit. One I’m going to have to shake.” He winced apologetically at her. “But I gave it all up, Annara, because I realized that I had finally played my part, and earned my reward.”

“Your reward.” One eyebrow rose skeptically. “And what’s that? Fair warning: be very, very careful with your next words.”

“My reward is a lifetime of watching sunrises and sunsets with you. Of helping Elu grow into the best man and ruler he can be. Of simply having you by my side, and knowing there’s no luckier man out there than this old bastard. Of being with you, Annara. If you’ll have me.”

Annara’s eyes filled with tears, and this time she didn’t brush them away.

“Yes,” she whispered, and leaned in close to kiss him. “Yes.”

THE END

Glossary

God

Domain

Demigod

City

Cerash

Heaven/Firmament

Amelagar

Kasha

Iritak

Air

Ahsera

Namtar

Ekillos

Male Fertility/Knowledge

Acharsis

Narubtum

Nekuul

Netherworld

Irella

Uros

Scythia

Warfare, Female Sexuality

Numias

Takurtum

Kaptiya

Sea

Hamata

Zakir

Alok

Earth

Jarek

Rekkidu

Ninsaba

Moon

Sharyukin

Jalasha

Naban

Agriculture

Kinziru

Timesh

Qun

Sun

Golden Piamat

Nusku

Acharsis: Demigod and son of Ekillos

Agash: Adept of Nekuul

Ahassuna: Seeker of Nekuul

Ahsera: Demigoddess and daughter of Iritak

Akkodaisis: Undead lord and ruler of Rekkidu

Alok: God of earth

Amelagar: Demigod and son of Cerash
ammi shalash: Divine visitation from Nekuul

Annara: Resident of Eruk, former priestess of Scythia

Apsu: Shaman and exorcist

Athite: Nomad tribe from the Golden Steppe, former conquerors of the empire

Azu: Erkuian villager

Babati: Servant of Sisu in Rekkidu

Cerash: God of the heavens

Ekillos: God of male fertility and knowledge

Eruk: Small settlement west of Rekkidu

Godsblood: Descendant of a demigod

Hagash: Erukian villager

Hamata: Demigod and son of Kaptiya

Hracka: Nomad tribe from the Golden Steppe

Illi: Pepper native to the Aloros foothills

Illoi: Nomad tribe from the Golden Steppe

Irella: Demigoddess and daughter of Nekuul

Iroku: Master of Nekuul

Iritak: God of the air

Ishkirella: Former high priestess of Ninsaba, resident of Rekkidu

Jarek: Demigod and son of Alok, god of the earth

Jasha: Kenu’s sister and Erukian villager

Kaptiva: Goddess of the sea

Kasha: City formerly devoted to Cerash

Kenu: Annara’s husband, Erukian villager

Khartis: Sea to the north west of the empire

Kinziru: Demigod and son of Naban, god of agriculture

Kishtar: Scythian godsblood

Krucefer: Leader of the Athites, led invasion of the empire 20 years ago

Lakhar: Shapeshifting predators of the steppe

Lamasu: Human-headed lion goddesses of Magan

Leech: Derogatory name for Masters of Nekuul

Leonis: Great river that runs down the length of the empire

Magan: Rival empire to the far west

Master: Head priests of Nekuul

Meluhhua: Nation to the far south of the empire

Naban: God of agriculture

Narabtum: City formerly dedicated to Ekillos

Nekuul: Goddess of the netherworld

Ninsaba: Goddess of the moon

Numias: Demigoddess and daughter of Scythia

Nusku: City formerly devoted to Qun

Owlwoman: A practitioner of dark magic

Pantagr: A flower whose dried seeds provide an aromatic smoke

Piamat: Demigod and son of Qun

Purging: Irella’s ambush and murder of the demigods

Qun: God of the sun

Regash: Small settlement to the south west of Rekkidu

Rekkidu: City formerly devoted to Alok

Rexashas: Master of Nekuul

Seeker: Elite priests of Nekuul

Sharyukin: Demigoddess and daughter of Ninsaba

Shatra: Wading bird native to the Leonis

Sillush: Head Seeker of Nekuul

Sisuthros: Nekuulite godsblood and son of Irella

Takurtum: City formerly devoted to Scythia

Timesh: City formerly devoted to Naban

Thorn Gate: Ceremonial arch that cleanses pollution

Uddish: Seeker of Nekuul

Ulmani: Distant land to the far east of the empire

Uros: City dedicated to Nekuul and capital of the empire

Warad: Seeker of Nekuul

Yesu: Master of Nekuul

Zakir: City formerly dedicated to Kaptiya

The Path of Flames

Book 1 of the Chronicles of the Black Flame

Is available now. You can get your copy here.

The first book in the new epic fantasy series readers are comparing to David Gemmell and Raymond E. Feist.

A war fueled by the dark powers of forbidden sorcery is about to engulf the Ascendant Empire. Agerastian heretics, armed with black fire and fueled by bitter hatred, seek to sever the ancient portals that unite the empire - and in so doing destroy it.

Asho--a squire with a reviled past--sees his liege, the Lady Kyferin, and her meager forces banished to an infamous ruin. Beset by tragedy and betrayal, demons and an approaching army, the fate of the Kyferins hangs by the slenderest of threads. Asho realizes that their sole hope of survival may lie hidden within the depths of his scarred soul--a secret that could reverse their fortunes and reveal the truth behind the war that wracks their empire.

Unpredictable, fast paced, and packed with unforgettable characters, The Path of Flames is the first installment in a gripping new epic fantasy series. Grab your copy today!

Copyright © 2019 Phil Tucker

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