Empire of Blood

by Richard A. Knaak

  Finally, with an exultant gasp, she pulled her hands free. Droplets fell back into the bowl, the surface finally settling.

  “Not as strong as I hoped,” Nephera whispered petulantly, causing her three attendants to glance fearfully at one another, “but it will do this time …”

  Leaning over the bowl, she breathed in the warmth of the fluid. Then the high priestess stared hard. The contents of the brass bowl shimmered.

  Nephera whispered, “Show me … show me what I desire … show me first … Ardnor …”

  Without warning, most of the color faded from the rich fluid. It grew transparent, becoming a window, a direct vision of whatever person or place Nephera wished to observe. An image of a room filled the bowl, a room faintly tinged with red.

  Despite the lateness of the day, her son, the emperor, lay in the vast round bed that was the centerpiece of his private chambers. A titan even for a minotaur, Ardnor de-Droka was a fearsome figure to behold … when he was erect and standing, that is. Brutish, broad-shouldered, and with eyes permanently tinged the same color as blood, the recently ascended ruler of the empire was Nephera’s firstborn and most favored of her four offspring, although of late she had grown somewhat impatient with him.

  Ardnor’s chamber was filled with the trappings of the Protectors. The gold symbol of the order—the broken axe—hung on one wall. In a chair to the right of the bed lay his black, gold-trimmed breastplate and helm. Ardnor’s favored mace and axe hung on the wall next to where he slept, easily within arm’s reach. If her son had learned one thing from the Night of Blood, it was that an emperor was wise to keep weapons handy.

  The muscular figure rolled onto his back. As with all Protectors, the symbol of his order was even branded on his chest. That had been Ardnor’s own idea, a way of testing the fanatic loyalty of his followers.

  On the far side of her son lay a light brown female, one of the young acolytes from the temple. Nephera’s nostrils flared in disapproval, noting the empty goblets and wine flask on a bedside table.

  The high priestess dismissed the sight with a curt wave of her hand. Her son had risen to power because of her, but he had a tendency toward certain disreputable activities. She must have another word with him, stir his better instincts. Nephera would see to it that he became the greatest emperor the minotaur race had ever dreamed.

  So much of what Nephera had done had been, she admitted to herself, for Ardnor’s sake. Not for Hotak, no, not even for herself. She reluctantly wore the mantle of power simply to aid Ardnor.

  The high priestess put a hand to her breast, staring up at the dim symbols of the order hanging on the main wall. The ghostly avian and the broken axe handle seemed to tower over her. Nephera recalled the dream in which she had first been blessed by the force represented by those symbols … and remembered bitterly the night that power had been stripped from her very soul without warning.

  That had been the night when the stars returned, the constellations that many believed signaled the reappearance of the gods. For Nephera, there had been no rejoicing. The gods might or might not have returned, but the source of her magic had, at that same time, utterly vanished. The link had ceased, the ghosts—all ghosts—had faded away, then the high priestess had felt more bereft than at any other time in her entire existence.

  That very eve, Nephera had locked herself away in her sanctum. She refused all visitations, even that of Ardnor, who constantly sought her advice even now that the throne was his. Even her beloved son had been barred from her sight.

  Drinking little, eating less, Lady Nephera lay upon the dais below the Forerunner symbols for day upon day. Her gut twisted and her vision blurred. The slightest thought made her head pound, yet she could not keep from constantly praying that somehow her god would return to her. The high priestess did not even have a name by which to call the disappeared deity, but she did have her suspicions. Thus it was that, five days into her despair, Nephera finally called out to the one she believed her patron.

  “Takhisis!” she shouted. “Queen of the Abyss, have you forsaken me?”

  Yet even such a bold declaration had achieved Nephera nothing. The goddess did not descend, did not speak to her in her dreams. Takhisis, if she was the one, had forever abandoned the minotaur priestess.

  Her lamps empty of oil, her candles melted, the emperor’s mother had curled in total blackness, neither sleeping nor fully conscious. Cold chilled her bones, but she cared not. Death was suddenly attractive.

  Then … then a presence pierced the shroud wrapped around her mind and soul. At first, Nephera refused to acknowledge the communication, fearful that it was but her own pain-wracked imagination playing cruel games. When instead of fading to nothing it grew to permeate every fiber of her being, the stricken priestess became ecstatic. Nephera fought her way from the abyss within her, embracing this new, wondrous force.

  I have heard your yearning … came a voice in her head. Where the other had been suspiciously neutral in tone, this one hinted of a male personality. I have come to offer you salvation …

  “Yes!” she shouted. “Please! I am yours!”

  That Nephera so quickly and willingly offered herself to a new deity did not bother her in the least.

  You have been abandoned, your soul left to rot despite your unceasing loyalty …

  The minotaur felt a sudden rage directed at her previous patron. Yes, she had served unwaveringly, letting nothing and no one—no one—stand in the path dictated. Her every breath had been drawn in service to its desires, and she had been repaid so disdainfully.

  Yes … feed on that … dwell on that … she left you empty …

  She? The word verified at last her suspicions. She. Surely then, it must have been Takhisis. Nephera’s swelling anger turned to impulses of vengeance. If she could only take the goddess by the throat and throttle her—

  The Queen is dead … your vengeance is fulfilled …

  “I am—grateful.” Nephera could only assume that this new god had taken some part in Takhisis’s destruction. It only made her desire to serve him greater than ever.

  I can grant you all you had and more, my high priestess, power beyond what she could give you. All you must do is give yourself to me as you gave yourself to her …

  Again, no hesitation. “Yes! Yes! I do!”

  In that darkness within her mind, two cold orbs suddenly flared to life. They had no pupils and were tinged a green that reminded Nephera of a rotten grave, yet she suffered no apprehension despite that.

  Come to me … the eyes commanded. Come …

  Nephera felt her spirit separate from her mortal form. It soared toward those eyes, enraptured by the thought of what the god offered. The orbs filled her gaze.

  You will know your master, minotaur, and thereby know my supremacy over all things living … and dead … Look … look close …

  She would not have pulled her gaze from those eyes even if that were possible. At first, Nephera saw only herself reflected in the ominous green orbs, but suddenly her face vanished, to be replaced by the vision of a single, tall structure, a tower made of tarnished metal.

  You know me now, Nephera of House Droka.

  The high priestess did and still her hunger did not abate. Nephera had given herself to one who had proven to be the Queen of Darkness. How much different, then, was this decision?

  Swear to be mine, body and soul … and you shall be my voice, my hand, on the mortal plane. Swear, minotaur..swear.…

  “Yes! By my ancestors, yes! Grant me your gifts! Please!”

  The eyes shut, leaving Nephera to the emptiness, but not for long. A sphere of dark emerald color exploded directly before her. The minotaur only had a moment to register its appearance, before something long and winding burst from its center.

  The hand was even more skeletal than hers and covered in dried skin tinted the color of moss. It thrust at her chest with such velocity that when it scraped her Nephera was hurled backward. She spun over and over, crying out
not from pain but rather fear that she would not after all be granted her desire.

  The next thing the high priestess knew, she lay once more in her sanctum. Now, however, her lamps were lit despite no oil and flames flickered over the stubs of burnt wicks. Nephera surveyed the chamber and spotted the singular, familiar presence of a ghost, a ghost who smelled of something rotting in the sea, who wore a tattered mariner’s cloak that did not obscure the bones of his burnt and torn flesh. His ravaged mouth did not move, but the specter’s voice reached out and touched Nephera’s thoughts in somewhat the same manner as the god’s.

  Mistress … the ghost Takyr said with a hint of a bow. We stand ready for your command …

  As Takyr spoke, he was joined by an endless throng of other shades. Each and every spirit who had served the high priestess who had vanished when the stars had appeared, they were all returning. They were hers again.

  She felt a powerful congestion in her chest exactly where the hand had touched her. Recalling another time, another god, Nephera leapt to her feet and flew past the waiting figures. She rushed to her private quarters, seeking a looking-glass. Then, with a dread fascination, the minotaur thought to open her robe wide enough to reveal where, to her eyes alone, the mark of the Forerunners had been seared into her by her former patron.

  Nephera gasped, the glass slipping from her fingers. It shattered, the sound echoing loud in the stone chamber. The avian was no more. Instead, the high priestess reverently touched the axe symbol, which had been made whole again. And instead of being raised high, now it hung upside-down and looked rusted.

  The vision of the tower arose once more in her mind, the tarnished tower that Nephera realized belatedly had been perched at the edge of a bottomless precipice. A tarnished, bronze tower—as much the symbol of her lord as the mark she now bore.

  Morgion.

  Her reverie ending, Lady Nephera touched once more the liquid contents in the bowl. The blood’s strength was almost gone. She would need a fresh reserve soon, especially with what she was planning. Still, for one more glance, what was left would suffice.

  “Attend me!” she called, not to her acolytes.

  Immediately her sanctum filled with the numerous dead.

  They were young, old, sick, strong, and from every facet of minotaur society. Some were whole of face and form, for their deaths had been relatively peaceful. So many more, however, had perished violently, and their macabre images portrayed that ending all too clearly. The dead came to Nephera in the forms they had worn at the exact moment of their ends. Warriors from the field bore gaping, red stripes across their throats or chests and not a few lacked limbs. Skulls were crushed, faces were mangled, sometimes beyond recognition as minotaur, yet those who had suffered outside of battle were no less horrific. Burned to the bone by fire, ravaged by the boils or pox of plague, they too were the things of nightmare.

  To Nephera, they were nothing but tools of magic. She drew from them, drew from the magic that they collected from the world around them … and then she pointed at the bowl.

  The blood boiled. In the center, an image struggled to form. It started to fade again, but the high priestess’s fierce will fueled her spell, forcing the vision to materialize at last.

  She drew in a harsh breath. She saw carnage, yes, as Nephera had expected, yet most of the dead who lay strewn across the landscape were not rebels, but rather the best fighters of the empire. The hacked and rotting bodies stretching as far as she could see spoke of a debacle as great as any in the history of the race. With a roar, the high priestess spun from the bowl, searching amongst the ghosts. No matter how horrific they appeared, these ghosts themselves were still capable of fear and shimmered under her baleful gaze.

  Over row upon row, Nephera sought the victim of her wrath, until, almost bursting with impatience and venom, she cried, “Bodar! I know you must be here! Show yourself! I command you!”

  From their ranks, a reluctant specter drifted forward, the Protector general who had led the Scorpions. As with all minotaur dead, his spirit was drawn like a moth to a flame to the commanding presence of Nephera. The dead had no choice, for it was the will of both the high priestess and the god she served.

  General Bodar moved very slowly. He kept his head bowed, his horns to the side in deference. At first glance, he appeared whole, not even a wound scarring his chest or throat.

  Hissing, Nephera commanded, “Look at me!”

  Hesitantly, Bodar looked up … to reveal that the right side of his face, muzzle included, had been crushed in.

  With a sneer, the high priestess declared, “You’ve failed me, Bodar! I promised you much and you failed me! In this one thing, I will brook no excuses.”

  The ghost rippled, a sign of trepidation.

  “Takyr …”

  From the host, the monstrous ghost that smelled of the rot of the sea fluttered forward, his tattered mariner’s cloak a vast, writhing thing of shadows. Takyr’s own ruined visage wore a dark look of eager anticipation.

  Mistress …

  “General Bodar is of no more use to me, alive or dead.”

  The sinuous folds of Takyr’s cloak stretched out to engulf the other ghost. Bodar screamed, although no one living save Nephera could hear his terrible desperate cries.

  Takyr spread his arms to embrace the lesser shade—and the cloak enveloped them both, Bodar’s scream cutting off.

  No longer concerned with the hapless general, the high priestess glared at the scene of carnage again, red eyes scanning the devastation wrought on one of her finest legions and a horde of ogres. Nephera scowled, outraged at this latest setback.

  She studied the ancient temple, willing it closer, willing her gaze beyond its walls. As ever, the high priestess’s attempt to probe deeper into the rebel stronghold failed. She was blocked at the arched entrance. Beyond the walls she could only sense a black nothingness that she felt mocked her.

  “I will not be denied!” she roared, but despite her declaration and willpower, the vision did not change.

  Her arm swept across, sending the bowl and its contents flying. The action sent her three acolytes scurrying and the ghostly horde edged back. Even Takyr, finishing with his monstrous task, flinched under the intensity of her fury.

  Then the high priestess felt a light touch upon her soul. Immediately her anger faded, replaced by adoration. She looked to the empty darkness, envisioning a tower of bronze and, within it, a crowned and hooded figure seated upon a crumbling throne.

  I have heard your anger, heard your pleas …

  “I did as suggested, ordering my son to send forth a strong legion and a bloodthirsty contingent of ogres, too, to ferret out the rebels … especially the one he protects!”

  And they now lie dead, your toy soldiers and the beastmen …

  She bowed her head. Nephera knew that she followed an unforgiving god, one who, in some ways, punished for lesser offenses than her previous deity.

  Do not bow your head, Morgion told her, for you have done only what I commanded. The enemy is gauged; preparations are made. Your legionaries and their erstwhile allies have fulfilled their ordained roles. Unknowingly, they carried with them my kiss and now it is given to our enemies. Already it acts. What must be will quickly follow, you may be assured. Be prepared; when it is commanded that you must act, you must then act with all the power that I have granted you …

  With that, the god vanished from her mind.

  Lady Nephera brightened as she mulled over his words. She had not failed. Her god had just not told her everything. He had not mentioned the gift he had secreted with the legionaries, a gift he now passed on to the unsuspecting enemy.

  “Morgion’s Kiss,” Nephera murmured, smiling. “Yes, I will be ready, my lord. I will not fail. The rebels will fall … he will fall …”

  Blinking, the high priestess finally registered the second bowl. She reached in, cleansing her hands of the rich crimson. Her imperious glare turned upon the acolytes.

  “Att
end to this!” As they bent to obey, Nephera considered her next step. There were lists awaiting her.

  The lists never ended. The perfection of the realm could not be attained so long as there were those who did not give of themselves all they could. Even in Nethosak, the high priestess always discovered someone else wanting.

  Tomorrow, the Protectors would sweep through the designated neighborhoods, collecting the layabouts and suspected enemies of the state whose names she had recorded on parchment. Already the latest lists spread three long sheets with more to follow. Nethosak, most of all, had to be prove itself to the utmost.

  As she turned, Takyr unexpectedly drifted into her path. Nephera’s ears twitched, knowing he must have a good reason for this affront. “You have news?”

  Takyr kept his head low, a sign that, despite his special place, he knew he, too, could be punished if she so chose.

  Mistress … mistress … eyes have seen him at last … he is discovered …

  She knew immediately of whom he spoke. “Where? How? How did he evade me for this long? Bring his spirit to me!”

  I cannot … the dread ghost dared look up. He is alive.

  “Alive …” Her suspicions were verified. Of all shades, he should have been drawn to her if he was dead. “Where?”

  Among the very rebels in Kern … with the hidden one, it seems …

  The rebels! There had been rumors, but she couldn’t bring herself to credit them … Her face, though, betrayed no emotion.

  “And now?”

  Takyr’s voluminous cloak fluttered, reflecting his unease. That is why I was able to detect him. Your son rides from their stronghold, mistress, heading with certainty to another of your blood.

  That could only be Maritia! Abruptly, Nephera lost all interest in lists. Bastion, thought drowned, now not only rode to his sister but had apparently departed from the side of the mysterious rebel leader, Faros.

  Bastion … a rebel!