The Queen of Wolves

by Douglas Clegg

  I sniffed the air—again, a trace of sulfur, and some other odor. “As the old pythonesses would sit above the vaporous cracks in the caverns,” I said. “They would feel the inspiration of their gods. So she sat here, and the breath of this dark earth arose to her.” I crouched down, and felt along the hairline fissures that ran like the too-slender roots of some tree—these cracks were barely noticeable, yet it was from these that the odious scent emerged. It is why they sealed the chamber, I thought. That no one would breathe in the air that Medhya had tasted. Yet, why do this? Why not destroy the throne or take it to the New Kingdom? Why leave these gold statues here? Why preserve this place if it offended Ghorien and his priests?

  “She built her throne on poison, and her sanctuary with the bones of children,” Ophion said as he glanced from the floor to the ceiling.

  “Poison will not hurt an immortal,” I said, as I began to see the many cracks along the floor and the steps up to the throne. For a moment I had a strange flash of insight—for something about this chamber reminded me of the tomb of Ixtar, in which I had briefly been held captive. I did not know why that thought came to me, but the more I looked at the steps and platform that upheld the golden throne, the more I became convinced that it had been built as a kind of tomb. But to what? To whom?

  “You know of the depths below,” I said. “Have you been beneath this chamber, beneath this palace?”

  He nodded, but shivered.

  In his eyes, I saw something—more terror there than when he had seen the brazen bull, or the various sites of his imprisonment. “It is the Asmodh Well,” he whispered.

  5

  “Here? Beneath her throne?”

  “We should not be here,” Ophion said as he paced along the black floor. “There may be a trace of her left behind. You should not come here. Maz-Sherahs extinguish. Only those ordained by the priests may be here. Only those whom Medhya has blessed, for to all others, this is poisoned. We have no ritual to hold it back. None at all.”

  “Tell me, where beneath us is this well?” I asked.

  He would not reply until I had dragged him to the steps up to the throne itself. “Show me the Asmodh Well, where it exists. Beneath the throne? One of these statues?”

  “These steps,” he said, shivering and barely able to get the words out. “These steps, my brother, are much changed. When I was brought here, they lifted at the center, and all around the throne, the depths of the Asmodh Well—more a deep gouge of earth, a sinking chasm, than a well—with its poisoned vapors like yellow smoke, rising from the beneath. Mortals were cast into it, sacrifices to those below—to the breath of the Asmodh, which lingers.”

  I set him free, and tried to imagine it—the steps had originally gone straight from the floor, suspended as if part of an arched stairway, with the throne at its low peak, and on either side...the deep well. “They dropped you?”

  Ophion had grown angry—I had forced him to remember what he most wished to forget. “Oh, my brother, there are ancient stairs beneath this world in all lands and under the oceans as well. These are the ruined lands of the deep ones who never know the sun or wind or moonlight. Why don’t you join them? Dig your way to that flooded mouth of Hell if you wish.” He wiped at his lipless mouth, as if the words themselves disgusted him.

  “What is the source of these fumes, and of Medhya’s prophecies?”

  “I do not know,” he said, and spat upon the floor. “I was cursed to bring you here. I hoped to keep you from your own doom. But I see that is impossible! You hunt the dead, Falconer, and your oblivion will find you.”

  “Something powerful exists in this beneath,” I said. “For Ghorien would not go there, nor would the priests. What could they have feared? What could they have known?”

  “Feared? They? Oh, the Myrrydanai fear the Asmodh Well, my brother. Why do you think they have not returned to Myrryd? Why do they send their plagues from the bogs of your homeland and not their true kingdom? It is the power of it that reached its tendrils up from the deep and tore their flesh and threw them into the abyss of the Veil itself, to be jackals to their lost queen!” He shouted as if taken with an explosion of memory. “They feared what lies below, as I fear it, and as you must fear it! It is beyond sorcery, beyond magick, and would make Medhya bow down in pain if it ever reached the upper lands. Do you think Medhya’s reign ended because of the uprising against her? No, it was the rituals of the priests, who called a fearsome sorcery from the throat of the dark! From this throat, such a horrible breath came, and burned all it touched! Even they could not control such terrible power. All feared these depths, and when they brought me here, I feared them. I feared what whispered in the fetid air of the Asmodh Well! My mind flew apart when I crawled along those narrow passages below us!” When he calmed a bit, he covered his face with his hands, and said, “Brother, I cannot lead you down into that place. Remember the rhyme that the statue spoke. It will be your guide, not I.”

  The words of the statue returned to me again, and I spoke them aloud:

  “‘In its depths, the shattered sword makes hostage of the winding stair. But he who comes to heal the Veil must break the stone and find the lair.’” I was at a loss to understand much of it. “Is it a sword? In the Asmodh depths?”

  “I have never seen such a sword,” Ophion said, clambering back behind the statue of a maiden, as if trying to hide. “Nor a winding stair.”

  “These are not the spiked steps you spoke of?”

  “Those did not wind, but grew like spines on the back of an arching beast of rock,” he said. “It is a many-chambered heart, the Asmodh Well. There are stairs of stone and steps of dirt and bridges into the dark, but I do not know this winding stair. I have never heard of it, nor seen it. Perhaps it was destroyed long ago. Perhaps it is a lie.”

  “Tell me of the sword. Why did you not retrieve it, for surely Ghorien demanded it of you?”

  “I could not, my brother. No, I could not. It whispered to me from its tomb. It whispered that it knew of me. Of my coming for it. It whispered...”

  “What did this sword whisper?” I shook him too hard, and regretted it, for the poor vampyre had nothing but terror in his memories, and had returned for my benefit.

  “It whispered your name,” he said, his eyes narrowing and his teeth gnashing. He spat out the words, “Falconer, it called me, but I knew. I knew I was no falconer! It did not want me, so it would not let me find it!” He stomped around and raised his fists as if cursing gods and mortals and his own mother for his birth and existence. He cursed the vampyre who had given him the Sacred Kiss, and the night he knew he was Maz-Sherah and sought to prove it. “Ghorien knew when I returned. When he lowered the ropes for me, down, down, down in the stinking swill of the Asmodh Well that I had scaled like a spider! I brought him the mask, but it was not enough! He had believed I was the Anointed One, he believed I was meant to take the sword from its wound in the earth, but no, it was you—even in those ancient times, it knew you, long before your birth, Maz-Sherah, it knew you would come! Ghorien has ever since known of your coming. He has waited in the dark world of the Veil to be released. You—in fulfillment of prophecy, your existence, your entering of the Veil through the venom of the Serpent—let loose these Myrrydanai dogs. I am no Maz-Sherah, although I had believed it. All my existence, for nothing, and now you will extinguish below, my brother, if you enter the Asmodh Well.”

  I could not help myself; I hugged him close and whispered at his ear. “Do not allow the trickery of these memories to harm you, Ophion. You are my brother as sure as any vampyre may be.” I did not press him as to why he had not mentioned before that he knew the name I was called by many. It did not matter—for here we were, and I would seek this sword of fire. I owed Ophion much, and it pained me to feel his wounds of those years of captivity.

  He recoiled from me and slunk off across the chamber. “I will never go to those depths again,” he said. “It is a terrible evil, that place. It lies, and tricks. It is the ar
ms of doom. Do not go there. It is the tomb of many who have explored in the Asmodh lands.”

  “Who are the Asmodh?”

  “Before time, before name, this name given them by those who came after. In the old tongue Asmodh means ‘the Nameless.’ They were delvers and forgers who fed upon the dead and dying—and could not exist even in starlight, for all brightness blinded them. With their burning forges—of which the blue fires below fueled—the Asmodh made weapons that could not be defeated. It was the mask that they had made, and the sword, though I do not know who held it in his hands. The delvers cut the bridge of Myrr, and tore apart the Asmodh depths to channel power from far below where the eternal fire rages in the earth. Some believe their race died out, but those white creatures I have seen, with their slick bellies and jaws, I believe those are the descendants of the Asmodh, though they no longer delve or work the forge, for their race has been cursed by their own sorcery.” He told me more of these creatures, and more of the sorceries unleashed from beneath—but what interested me the most was the terror of the Myrrydanai at the mention of the Asmodh, for their power was greater than even Medhya’s.

  “If you are afraid, you may go. Wait for me beyond the palace walls,” I said to him, and as if having waited for my leave, he turned and scampered off.

  At the doorway, he glanced back, and called out, “Do not go to the depths, I beg of you, my brother! If you see the bridge of Myrr, within the vast beneath, do not cross it, nor dwell upon the foul waters!” Then he cried out, “The Maz-Sherah is a lie! A lie of our tribe! It is a wish for Extinguishing, that is all! Do not suffer as I have suffered, my brother!”

  When he had gone beyond the chamber, I heard the echoes of his moans and pleas as if he argued with himself as to whether or not he should abandon me entirely.

  Chapter 10

  ________________

  MEDHYA’S THRONE

  1

  I reached for the orb, clutching it. I felt no pulse from it, no life.

  He who comes to heal the Veil must break the stone and find the lair.

  I approached the throne, walking up each step, but feeling uneasy after Ophion’s outburst. I had a greater sense of the vanity of the Dark Madonna. She was vain and cruel, and represented the worst of vampyrism. She was the opposite of the Great Serpent—and his servants. Merod Al Kamr had spoken to me of guardianship, of protection of the mortal realm.

  But as I stood before the gold throne of Medhya, I inhaled a ruinous scent. I knew she would destroy all, for she herself had the seed of destruction in her thoughts. She had left Ixtar in some past eon, and with her sisters, Datbathani and Lemesharra, had come to this place, and in building this kingdom through power and war, she destroyed her sisters and drank their power from them. She took their faces to fool the priesthoods with aspects of justice and mercy and benevolence—visages she herself did not possess. She stole her immortality from the Great Serpent and subjugated even that god to a place at her feet.

  This city, this kingdom had been built for her vanity, for her control and enslavement of others.

  The priests had rebelled and overthrown her for her actions. The Myrrydanai had grown corrupt, despite their rebellion. They had returned to their former roles as slaves of her will.

  I touched the golden serpent entwined on an arm of the throne. It was as cold as frost.

  A shock went through me, from the icy gold through my flesh and nerves. I was shot into a Veil vision:

  A snowy landscape, with ash falling from the sky, and the white towers of Taranis-Hir in the milky distance. In the sky, falcons moving in circles, as if on some hunt. Merod Al Kamr, his body alive with tattoos. In his hand a sword with fire emanating from its blade. His eyes were shiny and black like the iridescence of a beetle’s wings. His flesh was alabaster, and the tunic at his waist, a deep crimson.

  “You have failed, Falconer,” he said, and he took his sword and thrust it into the earth. The fire of it spread from blade to snow, and the flames ran along the surface of white until it formed a ring all around the Priest of Blood. “Your children bleed, and your tribe will extinguish. The Dark Mother comes through, for you have strayed from your path. You have forgotten much. But look.” He reached out with his right hand, and upon it was a heavy glove made of leather, wrapped around his forearm with thin strips of cloth. He held this gloved hand to the sky, and a falcon dropped from a great height downward, coming to rest upon his arm. “The falcons hunt the skies, Maz-Sherah. Do you still hear them? Do you know them? They are vigilant. They are your strength. You are here, you exist, because you are the Falconer—the Maz-Sherah—and you must lead those who ride the storm of war. You have held too long to your preparation. It is time, although much has already been lost.”

  The falcons hunt the skies.

  As he said this last word, he released the falcon, which shot off into the darkness with a piercing cry. The flames around Merod leapt toward the sky, and all I saw was fire itself like a dancing, twisting creature.

  Then I saw her, though she did not look as she had in my earlier vision. Medhya sat on her throne, dressed in ceremonial armor so that she was like a dragon itself—spines came out of her helmet and thrust like daggers at her arms. The armor was of metal that shone like the black night beneath a full moon, and was segmented so that it gave her the appearance of a serpent. I saw her as she had been once in the flesh—her skin was pale and thick, and her eyes were small, but had been painted black and red and gave her the appearance of great beauty. A third eye was painted at the center of her forehead. Her lips were reddened, emphasizing the bone white of her skin. When she opened her mouth, I saw the dark onyx teeth I had seen on Nezahual, with elongated fangs and sharpened edges to all the teeth in her mouth.

  In each of her hands, she held the head of one of her two sisters by the scalp, each more beautiful than the other—Datbathani, whose golden mask remained upon her face, and Lemesharra, within whose mouth had been thrust the Eclipsis, stolen from Death’s handmaidens. There, leaning against the throne, the sword I had seen that Merod had held—the sword that burned. Medhya had stolen these things herself.

  All her power had been drawn from theft and slaughter. All her magick from the Great Serpent.

  In my vision she stood up from her throne and lowered her helmet’s visor to cover her face. All that could be seen of her were slits for her eyes, and a gaping open wound for her jaw. The mouth surrounded by metal opened and closed, its teeth like the sharpened tines of gates as she barked to those who were beneath her. She was no great goddess, but a vampyre as Nezahual had been—a daughter of Ixtar. How had she gained such power? Such might? How had she been able to murder her sisters and steal from Death and immortality?

  Was all power a great theft? Yet—who had made the Eclipsis? Who had endowed the mask with its energy to draw out immortality?

  She shouted orders to those I could not see, for I was unable to turn in this vision and see the room itself, nor could I hear her voice, yet I detected her intent. She stood before her throne in serpent armor, a creature of metal and teeth, judging and condemning those brought before her.

  As I watched her, I saw what seemed a movement along the throne’s gold surface.

  But not precisely movement—a reflection of movement.

  The throne reflected something in the chamber that I could not see, but it twisted as if it were some giant form. I saw the distortions of soldiers with spears alongside it.

  I heard Merod’s voice. You have been seeking the wrong power, Falconer. Just as Medhya fooled the Serpent, you have allowed her to fool you. Where is your path? Why are you not on it? Why have you come to Myrryd when it takes you from your path?

  Priest of Blood, within my own blood, show me what I need to understand, I thought.

  This I cannot do, for the way is closed to me, Maz-Sherah. But you must ask yourself: Whom do you seek here? Who lights the fires of Myrryd when its queen is beyond the Veil, and its kings lie extinguished in the tomb, and
the priests are devoured and destroyed? Who draws your energies and keeps you from flight here? When you answer this, you will know what you seek. And you will find your path. Do not look at the power of Medhya, for like the she-wolf among tombs, all she has was stolen from the suffering of others. The Queen of Wolves cannot create a kingdom like this, nor can she be a source of her own power. She must steal what others have created. She must suck the energy as our tribe sucks blood for sustenance. But who is the source of this?

  And then I heard no more of him.

  It was as if a lightning bolt had gone through me, for suddenly I myself could answer those questions now. It was as if a door had opened, a door for which I held the key.

  I knew who lit the fires of Myrryd when no vampyre or mortal human ruled in that city.

  There could only be one answer.

  One source.

  The Great Serpent.

  The conquering queen commands above,

  The vanquished lies in wait, beneath.

  2

  I realized what I saw reflected in the throne’s gleam: It was the moment when Medhya had conquered the Great Serpent. Her soldiers held the Serpent beneath her throne. I remembered those statues in the chapel at my home—of a saint with his foot upon the serpent.

  Medhya had done this—she had put her foot upon the Great Serpent, and stolen his treasure, which was immortality and those objects that—somehow—absorbed it.

  The mask. The Eclipsis. Even the sword. Though I did not see the Nahhashim staff in this vision, I knew this object held some secret of the immortal world.