Strife: Third Book of the Nameless Chronicle

by M. T. Miller

  The veins on the Nameless’ forehead swelled. “Azarian helped you.”

  “Very much so. Had he not been so kind, this victory would’ve been pyrrhic. But it would make no difference in the end. You’d still lose to Malachi.”

  The bald man took a swaggering pose, but the Nameless refused to pay attention. “And you would have been unable to claim my city.”

  “Irrelevant,” said the old man. “You are defeated and Babylon is ours.”

  In the end, yes, nothing matters but the end result, the Nameless agreed.

  “I’d suggest you get comfortable,” the old man concluded as he turned to the stairs out back. “You’ll be here until we’re ready to take you back to the White City.”

  “And when we do that,” Malachi said as he took the torch and likewise headed out, “you’ll refer to this cellar-time as the ‘good old days.’”

  The Nameless did not say a word when everything went dark. He had failed in every conceivable way.

  ***

  “So they go up this staircase,” Rush said, sitting on the side of a hospital bed. Just as everything else in the room, it was pristinely white, running in sharp contrast to her torn-up fishnets and piece-meal leather. “At least twenty of ‘em, all gung-ho, thinking they had this in the bag, right?”

  Khalid nodded, but just barely. His skin was the color of ash, his eyes more red than white. He’d been burning the candle on both ends for a long time, and the wick was due to expire.

  “So I lit the match, tossed it in and BAM!” she rose, both arms in the air. “No more assholes! Great job on that gas!”

  “You’re the one who mixed it,” Khalid said, apparently in pain due to her sudden movement. “I just told you how to do it. You’re a natural.”

  “Well, I cheat,” she said, slowly lowering herself back on the bed. “Not difficult to hit it right when you can see and hear every detail. The process gets boring after a while, but what can you do?”

  “So it didn’t damage the stairs?” Khalid asked. “It was heavy, so it should have reached all the way down to the base.”

  “Nope. I took a look afterward. ‘Sides burning the guards to a crisp, it barely even nicked the stone.”

  “Still got it, I guess,” Khalid said. “Though we shouldn’t be this joyous. They were just following orders.”

  “Bullshit!” Rush almost got up again. “There’s—well, was, two hundred of them and one Azarian! They chose to be sheep, so let’s make some mutton!”

  “Heh. Details may change, but at his core man remains the same.”

  “You know,” Rush said, “for a terrorist-turned-drug-dealer, you’re mighty philosophical.”

  “I am at peace,” Khalid said. “I have made my mistakes, and I am ready to pay the fine, both in this world and the next. I wonder if, when your time comes, you will be similar.”

  “I don’t back down without a fight, dude. Never have, never will. When the reaper comes for me, he’ll have to drag me screaming.” She thought, Bones called himself the reaper from time to time.

  “And this, Rush, is why history will keep repeating itself,” Khalid said. “But no matter. I certainly won’t be here for the next turn of the wheel.”

  Rush was just about to say something witty when the sound of incoming footsteps caught her ear. Careful so as not to cause Khalid any more pain, she rose and turned to the door. By the time it opened, she was well prepared.

  “Torres wants me?” she said with an ironic smile. “Where and why?”

  “Room 307, Champion,” the woman said after stepping in. Rush vaguely remembered her from before; she used to be a member of the elite. Seeing her as a messenger was more than funny. “The sheriff has sent a negotiator. He should be arriving any minute now.”

  Rush smiled. A solid pair on that one, going up the stairs after we torched so many people there. “Coming. You gonna be okay, Khalid?”

  “Not going anywhere,” he said. “Except to meet my maker, maybe.”

  “Well, take your time,” Rush said as she went for the door.

  Not waiting for the woman to catch up, she went straight to Room 307. Without knocking, she pushed the door in and slammed it behind her. By the third floor’s standards, the apartment was not large. As a matter of fact, the only thing that made it noteworthy was the secret passage that led to the recently-torched staircase. In the center was a square table. Around it sat four people, all of them staring straight at Rush.

  “This guy sure didn’t waste any time,” she said, her violet eyes turned to the man in the grey uniform. She didn’t remember his name, but if memory served, he was a lieutenant.

  “I thought it best to fix this disagreement before things got even worse,” he said, looking back at her from behind thick, round glasses. He was large, more from weightlifting than desk work.

  “Oh? And which disagreement would that be?” Rush said as she slowly approached the table. She went past the empty chair between the still-pallid Torres and one of the two armed civilians, and stopped right next to the lieutenant. “The one where I wanted me to live and you didn’t? That, or something else?” She slammed her hand against the table, causing everyone to recoil.

  “Trying that was a bad course of action,” the lieutenant said. “I agree, and so does the sheriff. We assumed you were a potential danger for the peaceful surrender we had in mind. Things are obviously different now, and we’d like to negotiate a truce. The Holy Army will likely be arriving in a matter of days, and we can’t risk division or they’ll slaughter us all.”

  “If us being divided is all you’re worried about,” Rush sat herself on the table, letting her feet dangle above the floor, “then you’re in luck! All you need to do is meet certain conditions, and we’ll all be a happy family again!”

  The lieutenant looked to Torres, then back at Rush. “I’m listening.”

  “It’s simple! Azarian gives command of all your remaining forces to me, and resigns from his position! We then put him down into the deepest part of the dungeon, and then the rest of us can play like good kids. I even promise not to beat him to a pulp! How’s that for sport?” She leaned in, stopping barely an inch way from the man’s face.

  The lieutenant’s heartbeat quickened. “And should he agree to this, will you surrender peacefully when the Holy Army comes?”

  “Fuck, no!” Rush said. “They want something, they should at least have the decency to take it. Nothing’s free, dude, not even in the post-nucular economy!”

  “Governor,” the lieutenant turned to Torres again, “is this your official stance as well?”

  Torres shrugged his shoulders. “There’s no question that Azarian is unfit for the position. The first thing he did after Lord Nameless fell was to grab us by the neck. To me, this indicates that he might have even had this whole thing planned. I won’t work with such a man, and neither should you.”

  The lieutenant’s brow furrowed. “I was talking about the surrender.”

  “That part is, for the moment, irrelevant,” said Torres as he leaned in. “We are a nonfunctional government facing a civil war. In order to make any kind of decision, we have to become functional again. For this to happen, Azarian must go. This is not up for negotiation.”

  The lieutenant leaned back, breathing deep. “You’ve got nothing up here, you know? Most of Babylon’s infrastructure is either on the first or second floor.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Torres said. “But we’ve still got food. Good, quality food, along with something else you’ve somehow managed to forget.”

  “And what might that be?”

  Torres smiled. “The power lines, which we will cut within the hour. Just like that, everything will stop. You’ll have no light, and no means of keeping the factories running. Which will of course be a good thing, because your air filters will also go offline.”

  The lieutenant went slack-jawed. “You wouldn’t dare. Tens of thousands will die!”

  “Don’t be overly dramatic,” Torres
said. “The filters are there to negate the effects of industrial waste. Without either, the pyramid can regulate itself. I’d just keep the smoking to a minimum if I was you.”

  “And how long do you plan on keeping this up?”

  “For as long as you intend to serve Azarian,” Torres said. “If I were you, I’d think long and hard about this. If the current sheriff really had everyone’s best interests in mind, then why would he refuse to put his own life on the line?”

  The lieutenant contemplated the words for a second. Then, he rose. “I think this concludes the first round of negotiations. I will, of course, relay your conditions to the sheriff.”

  “I bet he’ll be thrilled,” Rush said as the man disappeared into the secret passageway and down the stairs. Once the sound of footsteps grew distant, she turned to Torres. “Didn’t expect you to back me like that.”

  “What else can I do?” Torres relaxed in his seat, now allowing himself an expression of discomfort. “Besides you and the few brave and willing, we have no one. I don’t govern anything at this point, Rush. What you decide, I will support.”

  “I…” For the briefest of moments, Rush found herself at a loss for words. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Torres. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed.”

  “Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t,” Torres said, “but you’re the only tool we’ve got. And when all you have is a bat, you might as well play ball.”

  Rush grinned as she got off the table. “So, what now?”

  “Now we make good on our promise,” Torres said as he slowly helped himself up, then supported his weight with a crutch. ”Time for you to work the shears again.”

  ***

  Five days passed. Or at least, that was the closest the Nameless could estimate.

  For endless hours he sat in darkness. At first he thought that he’d woken early, but he was growing ever more doubtful. They usually wake me twice a day, he thought while trying to make out a glimpse of anything in this complete absence of light. Something was wrong, and there was no way of knowing what.

  The Nameless tensed his muscles, more out of habit than anything else. He had tried thousands of times. No matter what he did, those bonds would not break. Not unlike that massive Skull, Malachi. The existence of that man defied reason, even with creatures such as the Nameless running around. He denies being a god, and goes to war with me because I claim to be one. Yet he cannot be harmed. Nothing about it made a lick of sense.

  The Nameless forced his shoulders to relax, if only to spare himself the pain. Against his wishes, his thoughts gravitated toward the city of Babylon, and the people he’d left there. Had they surrendered already? Had his friends gotten the same treatment he was getting, while Azarian enjoyed a crime-free city to rule underneath the Church? Would they go so far as to execute Rush? The questions kept piling up, each like a weight in the center of his chest.

  “I never should have listened to that traitor,” the Nameless said, without worrying who might overhear. As far as he knew, the camp might well have been empty. Maybe he was left alone without warning, to go mad or die from lethargy. The latter seemed more and more likely, given how much he’d been sleeping these last couple of days. He closed his eyes, trying to open his other senses to the flow of faith. He had either failed, or there wasn’t any.

  Azarian has probably dispersed my cult, he realized. Cut the rations, perhaps outlawed it altogether. Save resources, as well as make it more difficult for the Nameless to rise from death. Some had probably continued the ritual in private, which explained the more gradual onset of lethargy. However, this would not last. If the True Church were allowed to take full control, the remnants of the Cult of the Nameless would be snuffed out without any trouble.

  “All this time I have fought against the grave,” he said, trying to make his voice widely heard, “only to wind up immobile, in a dark place below the ground.” He remained still for a couple of seconds, before frantically rocking his head backward and breaking out in laugher. These jolly times persisted for a good while, until something heavy and soft tumbled down the stairs and into the cellar.

  “Who is this?” the Nameless shouted as he tried rocking the chair. Forgive me if I do not lend a hand.

  Whatever it was that fell down started wiggling, and within a second, something else fell down as well. This thud was duller than the first. Next came a series of slow, descending footsteps. The Nameless listened with gritted teeth while he realized that the two downed figures were slowly getting up. Have they been drinking?

  It was then that the unbearable stench became apparent, and the Nameless realized in horror what he was dealing with. Walking dead. Zombies. The two fallen were moving toward him, clumsily and without a hint of hurry. The one from above was likewise getting down. The Nameless started struggling again. He heaved, rocked, and screamed as far as his weakened body allowed, but all he managed to do was make the ropes bite deeper into his flesh.

  How are they even here? Absurd! he wondered in between contractions. Although the majority of the Holy Army had likely left for Babylon, what remained to keep the Nameless could not have been a weak force. There had to be enough zombies to overpower it, and an army such as that was hardly inconspicuous. Getting it all over the country in secret would be impossible.

  And they would not move alone, he remembered. He had been told that the walking dead were essentially mindless, worse than most animals as a matter of fact. In order to function in any capacity, they needed the guidance of a voodoo priest, a houngan. He breathed in deep, somewhat relieved. There had to be someone alive up above.

  “HELP!” he screamed, overpowering the sound of incoming footsteps. “Down here! Captive! Not with Church!”

  The zombies mere feet away, the Nameless started rocking in his chair again. Or rather, trying to. His wrists were getting wet, no doubt due to blood. The smell of rot overpowered the muck of the cellar. The small hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, every single one of them. At least I will not die from faith starvation.

  A flash of white light engulfed the chamber abruptly, causing the Nameless to turn away. His temples ached, while the back of his head felt like he smashed it against something. Squinting one eye while keeping the other closed, he forced himself to look, despite his body telling him not to.

  He was not wrong. The lumbering, decomposing figures that stood right in front of him were certainly dead. Yet they were not attacking, nor were they sniffing his bloody wrists. Instead, the things stood still like a pair of badly-groomed army men.

  The deep voice of a man come from the source of light. “Long time no see, friend!” It was familiar, but only vaguely.

  “You have me at a disadvantage, I fear,” the Nameless said, doing his best to ignore the stench.

  “Forgotten all about me, have you?” The man’s tone was joyous.

  The Nameless subdued his irritation. “Being locked in a moldy cellar is not good for the memory. Release me and I will be in your debt.”

  “Will you, now?” The man moved the flashlight away from the Nameless’ face. It still lit up the room, but not in a way that made it impossible to see. It wasn’t easy, but after a few seconds the Nameless got an idea of who was holding it.

  “Emile?” he said, happier to see the black priest than he’d ever been in his life. “What are you doing here?”

  “Merely doing what you asked,” Emile said, displaying his pearly white teeth. His normally pristine black suit was somewhat dirty. “I am here to release you, then call in your debt.”

  It took a whole second for the Nameless to respond. “Fine.”

  The dead may not have been smart, but their grip was strong enough to break the ropes within seconds. Freed from his bonds, the Nameless rose, quickly but careful not to agitate. He gazed up at Emile, who was already in the process of climbing the stairs.

  “Come with me,” the black priest said before disappearing from the cellar. The Nameless followed without hesitation,
although he did look back more than once. Once all the way up, he was in a modestly-sized hallway.

  “The camp might look a bit different than you recall,” Emile said as he approached what seemed like the front door.

  “I would not know,” the Nameless said, following, “I was unconscious when they brought me here.” That, or dead.

  Emile opened the door and stepped outside.

  The Nameless followed him out, turning around several times. He scarcely believed the sight. Even though the town-turned-camp seemed to expand for thousands of square feet, nothing alive was moving there anymore. The walls were painted with blood, the ground sticky with gore. Bones—broken and intact—were sprayed liberally over every surface. Tens—no, hundreds of dead dragged their feet between houses and tents, their horrendous stench mixing with that of blood, urine, and feces. A sinister moon brooded in the night sky, giving off just enough light to accentuate the worst details.

  “How did you do this?” he asked without facing the priest.

  “Careful planning, a lot of patience, and a bit of black magic,” Emile said. He approached the Nameless and stood by his side.

  “There had to have been hundreds of men here.” The Nameless’ eyes kept going left and right. Back when he first came to Babylon, Emile was the first to tell him about nuclear weapons. Even though the Nameless had never seen them in action, the description he was given paled in comparison to this horror. “If I am to believe you, I will need a more concrete explanation.”

  “Of course,” Emile said, pointing his hand to their right. “Walk with me, please. We aren’t on a tight schedule, but every little bit counts.”

  “Is that why you took so long to announce yourself down there?” the Nameless asked. They started walking side by side, away from the house and near a sizeable, tent-infested yard.

  “You’re supposedly a god, my friend,” Emile smiled. “I wanted to see how you’d react.”

  “Disappointingly, I reckon.”

  “Not at all. I, for one, was amused.”