The First Champion

by Sandell Wall

  “I’ll scout the surrounding area,” Lacrael said. Her voice was strained. “Maybe I can find some sign that will point us toward civilization.”

  “I’ll go in the opposite direction,” Niad said. “We’ll report back here in half an hour.”

  Lacrael and Niad vanished into the miasma at a jog. Kaiser held Tarathine in his arms as he watched them go.

  “We’re dead anyway.” Gustavus spoke up from where he lay nearby. “We were too cautious. We should have done whatever it took to be free of this pestilent desert. Instead, we wasted months trying to figure out which way to go.”

  “Once people started getting sick, it got hard to pick up and move every other day,” Brant said.

  Gustavus coughed and spat before answering. “If it means no more bleedin’ snails, I’ll gladly dig my own grave. Always thought I’d die at sea, though.”

  Kaiser ignored Brant and Gustavus. He stared down at Tarathine’s face. Her features were pinched in what he guessed to be pain, but she still looked serene. He brushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. She looked so much like her mother.

  He knelt down and kissed her on the forehead.

  “I won’t let this desert take you,” Kaiser whispered.

  Sorrell knelt next to Kaiser. She placed a hand on his arm, and he met her gaze.

  Kaiser understood that he was a man of singular focus and purpose. He always had been. Some men knew how to farm, others how to govern. He knew how to fight. In truth, it was all he knew. And if he had to, Kaiser would make this hostile wasteland yield to his will or he would die trying. He did not fathom how a man could do battle with nature itself, but that was not about to stop him.

  Sorrell did not speak. Her eyes told Kaiser that she understood.

  No failure, no pain. A reaver prevails.

  Chapter 5

  MAZAREEM EXITED THE PORTAL into darkness. While he waited for his eyes to adjust, he reached out with his other senses. Stagnant air filled his nostrils. He sniffed, certain that he detected a familiar scent. The stench of ancient death lingered in this place.

  Beneath his feet, he felt smooth rock, and when he slid his foot across the floor, he detected subtle indentations between fitted stones. This was not a natural cave. Absolute silence thundered in his ears. Every rustle of his clothes or scrape of his shoes seemed so loud that it would wake the dead Mazareem suspected were close by.

  For if Mazareem was not mistaken, he knew where he was. He stood in a crypt. A mausoleum. He did not know the word they preferred in Vaul, but this was a place of corpses and bones. Here, they enshrined the fallen. But this was no mere grave. It was a palace for the deceased. The people of Vaul worshipped the dead.

  Mazareem dredged up long dormant memories as he tried to recall what he knew of their religion and culture. As always, there was a blank spot in his mind where the name and face of the woman who had cursed him should be. This never failed to rouse his ire. Certain lines of thought would reach a dead end he could not progress beyond, for to do so would require him to know who she was. But even with this hole in his memory, Mazareem knew enough of Vaul to fill in the gaps.

  Although Mazareem had not visited this realm in over nine hundred years, that had not stopped him from making regular inquiries through other means at his disposal. There were dragon spawn who sometimes ventured into Vaul on some errand for Abimelech, and Mazareem would bribe what information he could from them, when the opportunity presented itself.

  Typically, the dragon spawn were deeply unsettled and eager to share their experiences, because they hated this place and did not understand why their master tolerated it. They wanted some insight from Mazareem, some answer to explain why Abimelech allowed Vaul to stray from the knowledge of his rule.

  But Abimelech had not given Mazareem leave to reveal the truth to the dragon spawn, so Mazareem always made up some falsehood that would placate the tyrant’s pitiful minions. What would they do, if they knew the truth? Mazareem had often wondered.

  Hybrids of man and dragon, cloaked in magical illusion to infiltrate realms dominated by humanity, the dragon spawn were a recent creation of Abimelech. They had no idea how young their race really was. As far as they were concerned, they were the true heirs of Abimelech, their father, and they worked with a single-minded ferocity to hasten the day when they could cast off their human disguises and rule in his name.

  Vaul terrified them because it was a realm fit for true dragons, not half-breeds. Although they did understand the why of it, the dragon spawn sensed that there was no place for them here. Vaul was as hostile to their kind as it was to humans. That was Abimelech’s true vision. A world fit for his true children. The tyrant only cared for his real progeny, the ancient line of dragons.

  Amongst Abimelech’s servants, Mazareem suspected he was the only one who understood that the dragon lord had no desire to be worshipped by lesser beings. Why would the lion care for the adoration of the flea? The best that humans and dragon spawn could hope for was to stay beneath Abimelech’s attention—to adopt the role of complete subservience in an effort to demonstrate usefulness. If they failed that, if they drew his gaze in ire or annoyance, they would be nothing more than pests to him, nuisances to be eradicated.

  Mazareem’s eyes finally adjusted to the lightless confines of the tomb. His left eye was a recent acquisition, a replacement for the one Sorrell had blasted out of his head. But the other eye was much older and altered in a way that let him move about in complete darkness. The blackness gave way to the faint silver outline of a long, high hallway, which Mazareem stood at the end of.

  Through this enhanced vision, the details of the crypt revealed themselves. Alcoves carved in the stone walls provided a final resting place for row upon row of ornate coffins. These alcoves reached up to a ceiling twice as high as Mazareem was tall. Behind him, the blank wall showed no signs of a portal on this side. The door between realms he had come through was shut and locked. He would not be going back the way he came in.

  He should move, but still he hesitated. Mazareem sensed that the curse on him had not yet triggered an announcement of his presence. The terms of the spell had been very specific: should he take one step into Vaul, his trespass would be known. And he had yet to take a step after being deposited out of the portal.

  Mazareem slipped a hand into a pocket and touched the chip of stone that was the key to his escape spell. Without it, he would be trapped here. Reassured that he had a way out if he needed it, Mazareem raised a deliberate foot and took his first step.

  Perhaps he only imagined it, but the footfall seemed to echo too loud in the empty hall. The magic of the curse did its work. He could not see it, but Mazareem felt magic that was not his own coalesce around him. It encircled him like an invisible prison, probing at his mind and body, looking for weakness in both. It dissipated as quickly as it had come. Somewhere, she would be receiving the signal. The banished one had returned.

  The die was cast. A reunion was imminent. Now, it was up to Mazareem to find a way to gain some sort of advantage in this hostile realm. He had the beginnings of an idea, which if successful, would give him the leverage he desperately needed.

  The people of Vaul worshipped the dead, but there was one thing they esteemed above even the deceased. More than anything else, they revered the undead. They were in awe of those souls who, through pure will or fell enchantment, refused to go peacefully into the afterlife.

  If Mazareem presented himself as a corpse returned to life from this very crypt, he might be able to secure a brief, but powerful, form of influence. The deception would be short lived, but it should give him enough time to accomplish his purpose in this forsaken realm. This was not without risk, however. His knowledge of Vaul was incomplete and woefully outdated. If the religion and rites had changed, he would not know until it was too late.

  Confident in his plan, and with no other good ideas forthcoming, Mazareem moved to the nearest alcove. He used his long fingers to grasp the edge of the co
ffin lid, and with a grunt, pushed it aside to expose the head of the corpse within. A pale skull grinned back at him.

  Mazareem shoved the lid the rest of the way off. It fell to the side with a dull thud that reverberated up and down the silent hallway. He reached down and lifted the desiccated corpse from the coffin. Within minutes, he had stripped the graveclothes from the dead body and donned them himself. Mazareem hid his clothes and his bandolier of potions and bottles behind a different coffin. He suspected he would never see them again, but it did not hurt to stash them away out of sight.

  At last, Mazareem collected the skull from the stripped corpse, put the rest of it back in the coffin and replaced the lid, and made his way down the hallway. It was time to exit this place and test his theory.

  To Mazareem’s annoyance, the hallway proved to be the first of many in the maze-like crypt. Without his night-sight, he might have been trapped down here for weeks. But he had never encountered a maze that could not be overcome with patience. Rather than wander aimlessly, he went right at every intersection. This was a slow but foolproof tactic. Sooner or later, he would find the exit.

  After what he estimated to be an hour of searching, Mazareem finally found the door to the crypt. By this time, he was covered in dust and truly looked as if he had just crawled from one of the countless coffins interred here. He grinned to himself. In a contest to appear corpselike, he knew he would win every time.

  Mazareem stood before the double stone door, reassured to discover that it was designed to be opened from this side. This was a sure sign that the people on the other side still anticipated undeath from the inhabitants of the tomb. He inspected the carvings on the door, hoping to glean some valuable insight from them.

  Wrought in cold stone, the scene an artist had rendered was out of a nightmare. At the bottom of the door, a legion of corpses rose from the ground, issuing forth from both grave and crypt. The living prostrated themselves before this army of the dead, and where the two groups met, the undead devoured their worshippers whole. A little higher in the scene, the dead who had consumed the living continued to climb towards the top of the door. Here, the artist worked subtle changes into these ghouls, as if to signify that in eating the living, the two had combined to become something more.

  At the top of the piece, sitting in the place of prominence over the entire macabre scene—Mazareem flinched away when his gaze rose to the top of the door. A lance of pain stabbed through his psyche. It was a likeness of her carved in the stone. He could not look, could not perceive, not as long as the curse had him in its claws.

  Even when he looked away, Mazareem still felt the burning gaze of the stone visage. His eye wanted to return to where it could not, drawn by pain and defiance. He wanted to see, to prove he could, no matter how badly it hurt. But no matter how hard he tried, the curse bound him to avert his gaze.

  Unable to bear the sensation any longer, Mazareem pushed through the stone doors. In his anger, he shoved them aside with his full strength. They ground in their hinges and scratched along deep grooves in the floor.

  On the other side, two armored guards spun to face the sound. They stopped short of drawing their weapons when they found Mazareem staring back at them. The guards were both women, their unhelmeted faces pale with dark hair drawn back so tightly that it almost looked like a cap. Their armor was ornate. It was formed from overlapping plates, each piece made of dark, embossed metal. Ornate scrollwork gleamed gold in the flickering torchlight. On their feet, they wore sabatons that tapered to long, shining points. This odd affectation only enhanced the impression that they were predators with fearsome, taloned feet. Their title came to Mazareem in a flash: tomb keepers.

  Mazareem held up a palm on which rested the pilfered skull. If he was right, his appearance from the crypt was evidence enough, but it did not hurt to add a bit of symbolism of his own. The tomb keepers glanced at the skull and then back at his face. To Mazareem’s satisfaction, he saw the look of reverence in their eyes.

  The women dropped to the ground before him, armor clattering as they prostrated themselves.

  “Forgive us, risen one!” one of the women wailed. “We aren’t worthy to gaze upon you.”

  Mazareem suppressed a satisfied smile. His gamble had worked. Now to see how far he could carry it.

  “Rise, children,” Mazareem said. “For your service to the dead, I find you worthy.”

  Both tomb keepers scrambled back to their feet. His benediction had a marked effect on them. They were practically glowing with pride.

  “We offer our flesh, risen one, as tribute,” one of the tomb keepers said.

  “The tribute is accepted, but you may keep your flesh,” Mazareem said. “Your duty is not ended, and I’ve returned for greater things than this.”

  “Of course, risen one. What would you have us do?”

  Here, Mazareem had to take another risk. If his memory was incorrect, or the title had changed, he would reveal himself to be a fraud to these two zealots.

  “Take me to your venerator,” Mazareem said. “It is her I have come to honor.”

  The women exchanged a look, and Mazareem feared he had made a mistake. But when they turned back to him, they were beaming.

  “By honoring her, you will honor us all,” one of the women said. “Come, we will take you to her.”

  Mazareem did his best to appear unsurprised by this. Inside, he was elated. This was going far better than he had hoped.

  The two women turned and marched smartly out of the low building that served as an entrance to the crypt. Mazareem followed close behind them. With the women functioning as his honor guard, they marched through the city.

  He did his best to be discreet, but Mazareem could not resist drinking in as many details as possible. It had been so long since he last visited Vaul himself. It was a minor city, that much was obvious. A perimeter of high walls rose above the rooftops in every direction. These walls were much higher than fortifications designed to defend against a siege. Mazareem knew they had to be that tall to keep out the miasma that infected the surrounding land.

  Within the walls, the streets were made of gray stone, like the buildings, and everywhere Mazareem looked, he found accents of bone. In truth, the city could have been a graveyard in any other realm. Here, the bones and skulls that adorned every surface were the trappings of religion. Evidence of a fascination with death.

  The streets were quiet, even though it appeared to be the middle of the day. High overhead, the light of a brutal sun beat down, baking everything it touched. The few people Mazareem did spot were women, all of them armed and armored like his honor guard. Such was the way of the Palacostian Empire, he recalled.

  All the streets converged on the center of the city. At the core of the centralized layout sat a structure more sinister than the rest. Here, black iron had been used in conjunction with bone to create a cathedral of horror. Wicked spikes topped roofs of peaked metal. Instead of soft iron, carved bone had been used to frame the stained-glass windows. Each window portrayed a scene of slaughter, with the primary colors displayed being crimson and black.

  Round cages adorned the external walls of the cathedral, each one home to a single prisoner. Most of them held bleached skeletons, but Mazareem saw a few with living occupants. These pitiful souls clawed themselves to a standing position to watch Mazareem pass by. The skull of some massive beast hung over the main entrance, and the guards made straight for this.

  Mazareem climbed the stairs behind the women. He worked to compose himself for what he would face inside. A venerator would be much harder to fool than the tomb keepers. He decided that his best chance was to appeal to her ego. The Palacostian Empire was ruled by a brutal conception of honor and relentless pride, and he could use that to his advantage.

  Inside, the tomb keepers led Mazareem through the vestibule and into the grand hall. As they passed into the interior of the building, they acquired more followers in their train. Everyone who laid eyes on Mazareem came
to the conclusion that he was undead, and they wanted to be present when he addressed their venerator. Despite the growing numbers, he was still the only man present.

  The grand hall was even more ghastly than the outside of the building, but Mazareem’s attention was drawn to the far end where the venerator waited. She sat on a throne of bone, the base and seat of which were skulls. The arms and back were femurs fitted together with nails and iron bands. She sat sideways on the throne, one leg hanging lazily over an arm of the grisly chair.

  Mazareem forced himself to appear indifferent beneath her scathing stare. He walked behind the two tomb keepers with measured steps, the skull still held in his upturned palm. Around them, the hall was growing crowded as word of his coming had spread.

  At last, his two escorts stopped in front of the steps that led up to the venerator’s throne. They both knelt. Mazareem remained standing.

  “Forgive our intrusion, venerator, but we come bearing grand tidings,” one of the tomb keepers said. “By our sacred house, I bear witness that this man has turned his back on the afterlife to return to us. With my own eyes, I saw him ascend from our crypt to walk among us a second time.”

  “I, too, bear witness,” the second tomb keeper said.

  The venerator never took her eyes from Mazareem. He saw that she was young and counted this as good fortune. She would be full of ambition and easier to manipulate. That, and only a powerful house would have the clout to make one of its younger scions a venerator.

  Without warning or apparent effort, the venerator sprang from the throne to stand over the guards. One instant lounged on her throne, the next she stood on her feet. She was shorter than the other two women, but powerfully built. The form-fitting suit she wore did nothing to hide her curves and the firmness of her muscles. Every shift of her body whispered of sensuality. Even the way she held herself as she inspected Mazareem was alluring. He was reminded that Palacostian women took what they wanted, including pleasure.