The Alabaster Staff r-1

by Edward Bolme

  "Return thou the staff, whelp," he hissed, pulling her head farther back, "lest I raise thee to serve me more personally."

  Kehrsyn whimpered in pain and offered the staff back to him with a trembling hand.

  Taking the thin wand back, he threw Kehrsyn to the torture floor, where she landed on a pile of twitching, squirming, almost-animate bodies. He turned to look at Gilgeam, once again threatening to run amok.

  He raised the Alabaster Staff to bring the boastful deity back under his thrall. He glanced at the staff itself.

  That's odd, he thought, I don't remember it having a crack…

  Though it bridled him not to fall upon the high priest of Gilgeam with a whirlwind of steel, Demok held himself back as she had bidden. It was all but impossible not to attack, though it would mean his death, and instead watch a lovely young girl put herself in grave danger.

  She moved in, pleading and cajoling, and though Demok could not hear a word, her actions communicated her tack clearly, worming into Zimrilim's weakness through offering her beauty and praising his power.

  He scowled. If she'd had the time to tell him her plan, he would have told her not to try. He knew Zimrilim far better than she did. Even though his true identity was a surprise to the Harper, the fundamentals of his brutal personality had leaked out over the years.

  Demok moved closer, scanning the room. It was clear that Zimrilim no longer cared who was killed and when. The zombies were acting indiscriminately. He smote first one, and another that reached its pallid, dead arms toward him.

  He glanced up and saw Kehrsyn make a grab for the Alabaster Staff. She pried it out of the priest's grip and turned to dash away. Demok moved to cover her escape, bulling his way through the zombies that occupied the walkway. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw Zimrilim hurl Kehrsyn from his presence. The young thief tumbled in midair and landed on her back atop a soft cushion of twitching, squirming corpses.

  Zimrilim had taken back the staff.

  With a curse, Demok leaped toward her. She rolled over to her hands and knees, shaken but not hurt. Thank the gods, he thought.

  He moved next to her, his swords drawn and ready.

  "Nice try," he said, speaking loudly to be heard over the din.

  It was not false praise. She'd come within a hair's breadth of disarming the most dangerous villain Demok had ever seen. There remained no options left but the sword. He rose up and began to advance, his short sword ready to parry, his long sword held behind him, swaying gently.

  "No!" shouted Kehrsyn, grabbing his leg. "Don't!"

  Demok turned and snarled down at her, "Let go!"

  "I succeeded!" hissed Kehrsyn, trying to make herself heard above the sounds of slaughter but not speaking so loudly that Zimrilim might hear.

  "What?"

  She grabbed the front of his vest and yanked him down.

  "I got it!" she said, flashing just a bit of the bone-colored wand that protruded from her sleeve.

  How? thought Demok.

  Then he remembered how she'd palmed not only a coin into his glove but a dagger out of his scabbard, and hidden all before he could see.

  He glanced up at Zimrilim. The Gilgeamite priest held the Alabaster Staff-at least, it looked like he did-but he was inspecting a portion of its handle. He raised it again and pointed it at Gilgeam, but the undead god-animate did not obey. Instead, he bellowed some war cry, ancient words turned inarticulate by a dead tongue, and advanced on Zimrilim.

  "Right," said Demok. "Follow me. Now!"

  He charged toward the torture room's exit, working his twin blades to clear as wide a path for Kehrsyn as possible. He focused on disarming the zombies in a very literal sense. He trusted Kehrsyn's agility and balance to see her safely through the press of dead flesh, so long as they couldn't grasp and overpower her.

  It was grisly work, maiming that which was already dead, and the smell was doubly unpleasant, but the virtue of his task gave him strength.

  The efforts of the last remaining cluster of Zhents helped him win a way through, for as he neared the ramp several zombies were caught between his blades and the Zhents' maces and spells.

  With a glance of thanks, the Zhents began to run up the ramp. Demok checked to ensure that nothing had waylaid Kehrsyn, then followed, the young woman close on his heels.

  As they ran, he switched his swords from one hand to the other, and, as the Zhents ahead approached a corner of the ramp, he hurled his short sword at the rearmost. The blade plunged into the man's kidney as he reached the corner, felling him. Demok snatched up the blade as he ran past, giving it an extra twist to ensure the Zhent never rose again.

  Kehrsyn shrieked in disgust and empathic pain.

  At the next corner, another of the Zhents glanced back and noticed that their companion wasn't following. He paused and called out to him, then abruptly ceased as Demok's long sword took off his head. Too late the Zhent's hand raised to block the attack; then the body toppled.

  Demok heard Kehrsyn cry out in shock.

  "Will you quit that?" she yelled from behind.

  "No," growled Demok.

  As they approached, the level of the Chessentan encampment, one of the Zhents paused for just a moment, yelling, 'To arms! To arms!"

  Demok and Kehrsyn caught up with her, and, as they did so, Demok speared his short sword up through the woman's ribs and into her heart.

  He threw her body to the floor and yelled, "Fall back! Get help! Now!"

  An explosion rocked the foundation of the temple, and a tremendous gout of flame licked up the ramps, spending the last of its energy trying to turn the corner below them. There followed a long, ululating howl, a hollow cry mixed of agony and triumph.

  Demok looked at Kehrsyn and said, "He's coming. We need help. Lots of help."

  Kehrsyn looked at him, at the body at his feet, back down the ramp, then at Demok again.

  "I know where to get help," said Kehrsyn, shivering. "At least I hope I do. Come on."

  She led him out of the temple at a run.

  They fled outside as another tremor rocked the temple, but despite the trembling foundation Kehrsyn drew up short, staring at the sky. Demok looked up. Gone were the gusty winds that had blown their cloaks around when they'd ridden over. The air was absolutely still. Straight above them the moon and stars shone brightly in a clear sky, but farther away Demok saw the clouds thick and bunched, lightning arcing between them. It was as if a drop of oil had fallen upon the sky, clearing the air as it spread and pushing the angry clouds back. Even as he watched, he saw the clouds being pressed farther away, roiling intensely.

  It reminded him of the eye of the storm in the one hurricane he'd experienced.

  "The world is making room for the return of a god," Kehrsyn said, awe-struck.

  "I'd just as soon it didn't," swore Demok, and he charged down the steps for the wagon, whose driver was staring at the sky, ignoring the skittish horses.

  Demok leaped up into the driver's seat, his body slamming the hired help off the far side. Kehrsyn hopped into the wagon behind him.

  "I hope your help is good," Demok yelled, as he whipped the horses into motion.

  Demok yanked hard on the reins, pulling the horses up short and causing the wagon to slew to a stop. Kehrsyn hopped from the rear, frankly thankful that she-they-had arrived in one piece. She bounded up the steps and pounded on the door, though her slender hands and none-too-brawny arms made no more than a small noise on the thick wood.

  With a growl, Demok leaped from the driver's seat and bounded up.

  He slammed the door open wide, stepped in, and yelled, "Hey! High priestess! C'mere! Now!"

  Three Tiamatans inside rose at the sudden disturbance and came glowering over to Demok. One brandished a cudgel, and another drew a wide dagger, serrated like a dragon's teeth.

  "Mudsucker," said one as they closed in, "you just got a whole heap of-"

  Before he could finish the sentence, Demok lunged into action. He drew his weapo
ns as he kicked the leader in the groin, cracked the pommel of his long sword against the back of the man's skull as he doubled over, and charged in on the other two, jamming one against the wall of the cloakroom with his short sword held across the man's neck, while the other found the point of a long sword probing the skin of his solar plexus.

  "No," hissed Demok, "I am a whole heap of trouble!"

  "Announce Kehrsyn and Demok here to see Tiglath," said Kehrsyn, showing a poise that surprised even her, given the situation. "I have her sufferance, and you will not harm this man."

  "I can see that," said the Tiamatan pressed against the wall.

  The third man sheathed his dagger and gently pushed the point of Demok's long sword away from his stomach.

  "I'll get her," he said.

  "Tell them they're here on urgent business," added the man against the wall.

  "While we wait, why don't you put down your club and help your friend here?" asked Kehrsyn.

  The man nodded and dropped his weapon, then carefully moved to his fallen comrade and helped him to the relative safety of one corner of the cloakroom.

  That done, Kehrsyn leaned over to Demok and said, "Please put your weapons away. Tiglath won't take the sight of them very well."

  "Tough," grunted Demok.

  "She'll take it as poorly as you would," elaborated Kehrsyn.

  Demok considered that, then sheathed his weapons quietly and efficiently. Kehrsyn noticed, however, that he rested his hand on the pommel of the quick-drawing short sword. Just in case.

  In just a few moments, Tiglath came bustling along, wrapped in a thick robe. Her little dragonet sat on her shoulder, flexing its wings to keep its balance as she walked.

  "My dear," she said, "I'm coming to think that you're a storm crow."

  "You don't know the half of it," said Kehrsyn. Tiglath cocked her head. "The guy I work for, it turns out he's Zimrilim, and he brought back Gilgeam."

  "Gods, no…" Tiglath gasped. "You-you're jesting!"

  "He must have kept the body hidden all these years, and he used this ancient magical wand and these potions and-"

  "Zimrilim," echoed Tiglath, still with a tinge of disbelief, "resurrected Gilgeam?"

  Demok shook his head and replied, "No, not resurrected. More like… animated. Mummy, perhaps."

  "Yeah, like that," said Kehrsyn. "He was all wrapped up and stuff, and he just ripped his way out of the wrappings and grew in size and-"

  "Fiery hells," swore Tiglath, "he… animated… a god? To be his pawn?"

  "Yep," said Demok.

  Tiglath put her hands to her head as if to keep it from exploding under the pressure of that new revelation.

  "He must be mad…" the priestess said, speaking primarily to herself.

  "Well, yeah," said Kehrsyn.

  "To even think of forcing a dead god back into its corpse is… is unconscionable. Only the very highest undead would be capable of holding Gilgeam's intellect. Such an act… even creating a greater undead being… it would excise the higher levels of the corpse's mind, leaving only the basest and most violent processes in place." She looked up at Kehrsyn and Demok, as if remembering their existence. "That's the basis of animation, you know. You take a human and stimulate only the basest, most animalistic desires, their simplest instincts of hate and hunger. It makes them easier to control and ensures their hostility if they are encountered out of one's control. Doing that to a divine being like Gilgeam would be insane. Think of all of the heinous acts he committed in his life, when he had some semblance of self-control! How much more, then, when his higher brain is wiped away, leaving only a vague sense that nothing is right within his own mind!"

  "Well, that would pretty much fit with what we saw," observed Kehrsyn.

  "Didn't like having a master," observed Demok.

  "And Zimrilim, after all these years! I knew we should have searched harder for his body!"

  "Don't bother," said Demok.

  Tiglath rocked back on her heels, looking up to the ceiling. "So if what you said is true, Zimrilim made him some sort of greater undead, which means he'll have all of his instincts and many of his mental faculties. He won't have much of a sense of identity, which means we won't be able to reason with him. He is almost certainly mad… not that he wasn't mad enough already when he was alive."

  Tiglath turned to her followers and said, "Full combat regalia, people, move!" She looked back at her visitors and shook her head slowly. "There will be a lot of blood tonight. We have to do our best for Unther, but even if we succeed there may not be enough left of Messemprar to interest the pharaoh anymore. Last time we fought Gilgeam, we had the Dragon Queen Tiamat herself at our side. Now all we have is a city full of tired, hungry refugees and defeated soldiers."

  "And we have this," said Kehrsyn, pulling out the Alabaster Staff. "You seem the best bet to carry it. I just hope you can figure out how to use it."

  Tiglath took the long, slender wand and turned it over in her hands, whistling through her teeth. She glanced askance at Kehrsyn, a glint in her eye.

  "Would this happen to be the 'ancient mystical wand' that you mentioned earlier, young one?"

  Kehrsyn grinned, but her pride in her accomplishment shone through in her eyes.

  "Yeah," she said from the corner of her mouth.

  Tiglath rocked back on her heels with a self-satisfied smile and said, "I'm greatly pleased to find that my trust in you was not misplaced, young one." She handed the staff back. "Come with me, and tell me everything you know about it while I don my armor. You," she added, turning to Demok. She paused, then fluttered a hand at the two Tiamatans in the corner of the cloakroom. "Make sure those two get their armor on right away."

  Demok laughed between his teeth and said, "Armor. Right."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The still night's air echoed with the sounds Messemprar had dreaded for over a year: screams of pain and anguish, the whip-crack of fires burning out of control, the ring of martial horns, the shouts and imprecations of soldiers fighting a determined last stand. The scents of smoke, blood, and fear filtered their way through the city.

  It was cold consolation that the sounds were not caused by the pharaoh's army. Many in the city would choose defeat over the return of Gilgeam.

  Kehrsyn and Demok walked with Tiglath at the head of the Tiamatan cultists, marching in formation and arrayed for war. Their heavy scale (was there any armor better suited to dragon worshipers? thought Kehrsyn) clanked as they strode forward. Most carried war picks or maces with the heads shaped into dragon's heads. A few others had wide-bladed swords with fanciful dragon's head hand guards shaped to make the serrated blades look like fire emitting from the mouths. In the center of the squad, five fighters carried arbalests, crossbows so powerful that they required winches to be cocked. Kehrsyn's keen eyes caught the sheen of silver coating the quarrels they carried in open cases at their hips.

  Every Tiamatan in the group carried a large, pentagonal shield embossed and painted with the symbol of a five-headed dragon, each head in a different color.

  Throughout the city, fearful citizens peered out of windows to see what was happening. They watched as the Tiamatan force moved through the streets, then withdrew again to bar the doors and windows and whisper among themselves.

  Tiglath moved in Demok's shadow, trusting the experienced swordsman to keep her safe. She kept her head bowed over the Alabaster Staff, working spells of revelation to better understand the artifact she held in her hand. Tremor, her dragonet, clutched her armor and craned his neck forward as well, sniffing at the artifact. Under the coaxing of her magic, the powerful glow of the wand's aura provided more than enough light for everyone to see. Tiglath had to squint even to look at the staff.

  The sounds of sporadic battle grew louder, until Demok held up one hand and clenched it into a fist.

  "Hold," he said. He turned to Tiglath, shielding his eyes from the bright glow of the staff. "Time," he said.

  Tiglath set her jaw
and nodded. She turned to her people, clasping her hands behind her back. The staff silhouetted her body, giving her a sort of bright halo.

  "This will be hard," she said. "We are going up against our enemy of old, as we did fifteen years ago. We do not have our goddess at our side, only each other and whatever other soldiers have gathered together to oppose Gilgeam's return. Of course, more people won't do much good. We are fighting a single being, after all. Fortunately, Gilgeam probably does not have his full faculties. Also fortunately, we will receive his undivided attention when he sees the blazons on our shields. This puts him right where we want him, which is enraged and unthinking, within reach of our weapons."

  She raised her hand, spreading her fingers and curling them slightly. Kehrsyn noticed that she did not spread her thumb wide, but held it fairly close, so that her hand as a whole looked somewhat like five serpentine necks bending forward to strike.

  "Bear your shields proudly, followers of the dragon, and trust to our goddess, whose face taunts our foe, to guide your strikes."

  As Tiglath lowered her hand again, Kehrsyn leaned in toward her and asked, "Why don't you pray for protection?"

  One of the cultists overheard her and answered, "Only the weak need protection. The strong can withstand great pain and punishment."

  Well, I guess that means only the weak need to wear heavy armor, now doesn't it? thought Kehrsyn, but she wisely held her tongue.

  Tiglath formed her people up into two lines, shoulder to shoulder. She held the center of the front line, and the five with arbalests took the center of the second line. Working the cranks, they cocked their weapons. The wood groaned as it bent, seemingly in anticipation of launching a deadly projectile. They loaded their quarrels into the slots.

  "Wow," murmured Kehrsyn, "I've seen silver-tipped arrows but not ones covered completely in silver."

  "They're solid," said Tiglath. "No sense being cheap with plated bolts. I'd rather save my life than save a few coins."