The Empire of the Dead (The Godsblood Trilogy Book 1)

by Phil Tucker

  Son of Ekillos, Alok rumbled, and it was like hearing huge rocks grinding against each other in the depths of the earth, the precursor of an earthquake. Lay upon my altar.

  Acharsis hobbled forward. Tears were running down his cheeks. How long had it been since he’d felt his father’s blessing? How hard had he worked all these years to put that acute longing and grief aside, to hide it from himself? Here, now, standing in front of Alok’s altar, he could hide from it no more.

  He sat, pulled up his broken leg, lay back, closed his eyes and floated away. The world of the sanctum dwindled, and then he was standing in a cavern deep beneath the earth, illuminated by the rivers of molten fire that slowly poured past him.

  Alok was standing before him in the shape of a column of stone. Formed by wind and rain, riven and weathered, the column was a dusky rose as if it stood in the light of a dying sun. It had no face, no eyes; it was just a symbol of the god. His avatar, his magic made manifest.

  It pleases me to heal you.

  Even in this void, tears ran from his soul. Acharsis covered his face and wept.

  I saw Ekillos in Nekuul’s realm, rumbled Alok. He lies overthrown, his glory faded like the sun shorn of its rays. Yet he still thinks of you. His son. His only child.

  The words battered down the last of Acharsis’ walls. He’d been infamous in his youth for his irreverence, for ignoring his duties, for indulging his passions at the expense of piety. But no one had understood that it was Ekillos’ love that had given him the safety in which to rebel – the safety afforded by a father’s true adoration, an infinite patience that let him act out, knowing that he could always return, would always be forgiven.

  Until his father died, and there was nothing to return to.

  You carry his flame in your heart, though you know it not. As long as you live, there is hope for his return. Alok’s voice had softened. It sounded like distant summer thunder now. One day, you may see his face again.

  Acharsis nodded, wiping the tears from his face. “Thank you.”

  Know peace, Acharsis.

  The void fell away, and he was returned to the sanctum.

  He sat up. His leg had been healed, his pains washed away; his aches had been soothed, and his mind was as sharp as his soul was torn.

  The others were arrayed around him, waiting. Jarek, formidable now, steeped in divinity, capable of miracles; Kish at his side, their shoulders touching, a vision of beauty and violence. Sisu, stooped and pensive, his mouth a thin line, staring off into his own infinity. Annara, her arm around Elu, eyes bright, chin raised.

  And his son.

  Acharsis studied the boy. Half of his face was shiny with a nascent bruise, but he stood tall, shoulders back. He was struggling to encompass the change in his fate, but he was doing well.

  “We have but one option before us,” Acharsis said, sliding down off the altar.

  “Beer?” asked Kish.

  “All right, two options., I still think beer is eminently viable, but no. We’ve got to flee Rekkidu.”

  “Flee?” Jarek’s head snapped back as if he’d been clipped on the chin.

  “Yes,” said Acharsis. “We can’t defeat Golden Piamat in battle. Once you could have defeated him one-on-one, Jarek, but not now, not with nine cities still feeding Nekuul with their faith. We have no army, no time. We are already encircled. Perhaps the people would fight for you, but they would be massacred.”

  Annara pulled Elu closer. “Irella wouldn’t order that the entire city be massacred.”

  “You don’t know my mother,” Sisu said soberly.

  “But -” Kish said, seeking the right words. “Flee? After all we’ve accomplished? Alok has returned from the dead! We have a god on our side. We should fight!”

  “No,” Acharsis said. “The best thing we can do for Rekkidu is to abandon it. Irella won’t punish the citizens. She’ll simply replace Akkodaisis with a new undead lord and turn her attention to her invasion.”

  “Magan,” said Jarek.

  “That’s where she’s going,” Acharsis agreed. “Or her forces are, at any rate.”

  “So, what do we do?” Kish crossed her arms. “Just run away and hide in some village for the rest of our lives?”

  “No,” Acharsis said. He looked over at Jarek. “I’ve gotten a taste of victory. I like it. I want more.”

  Jarek nodded.

  “What?” Annara asked. She looked from one to the other. “What are you thinking?”

  “Just because we can’t fight her here, today, doesn’t mean we can’t resist her,” said Acharsis.

  “The seekers said she meant to take Magan by surprise. Attack them across the Desert of Bones,” said Jarek.

  “So?” Kish asked.

  “So, we warn the lamasus of Magan before Irella can attack,” Acharsis replied. “Magan is the only power in the world that can resist Irella. If we warn them, convince them, and they meet Irella’s forces head-on, they stand a chance of defeating them. With her army defeated, we stand a chance of catching her off-balance. A chance of defeating her once and for all.”

  Sisu frowned. “Jarek will lose his power if we flee. Alok’s altar will be dedicated to Nekuul. Alok would die once more.”

  “Yes,” Jarek said heavily. He stared down at his hand, flexed it and sighed. “But we’ve shown that the gods can return. Theirs is not a true death, but a profound slumber. And our ultimate goal should be to awaken them all.”

  Trumpets sounded thinly from the distance.

  “They come,” said Acharsis. “Now is the time to leave. We can grab disguises from inside the ziggurat, join those fleeing through the opposite gate -”

  “No,” said Jarek.

  “No?” Acharsis felt a moment of fear. Jarek had been willing to die this morning. “Do you mean to stay? To die fighting them?”

  Kish reached out and touched Jarek’s arm, her face open with concern.

  Jarek glanced sidelong at her, then smiled darkly. “No. I don’t mean to die. But that’s not how we’ll be leaving the city.”

  “Then - how?”

  “Come with me.”

  He led them out onto the platform. Word of the army had reached the crowd below, and they were streaming out of the complex, snakes of people filling the narrow streets of Rekkidu as they hurried to their homes, climbed onto rooftops, or fled to the far gates.

  The guards and the leeches had disappeared.

  “You,” said Jarek, pointing at the man who had appointed himself the leader of the new stone guard. “Fetch as much food and water as you can carry in travel packs. Go!”

  The soldier gave a sharp nod and ran into the ziggurat, followed by his men.

  “Ishi,” said Annara. “Kish, Sisu, I’m so sorry.”

  “Is she -?” Sisu’s face paled. “Where?”

  “Below. She died well. She sent her love to both of you. I’m sorry.”

  Tears filled Kish’s eyes and overflowed. She turned away and stared out over the city.

  Sisu licked his lower lip. “Perhaps I could - maybe I could beseech Nekuul…”

  “No,” Kish said, laying a hand on Sisu’s shoulder. “No, Sisu. She wouldn’t want that.”

  Sisu stared at her for a moment, then agreed. “You’re right.”

  The army was crossing the bridges into the city. Their formations were eerily perfect. Nobody was mounting any resistance.

  The soldiers emerged, each of them with a sack and a number of wine skins in his arms.

  “Good,” said Jarek. “Place them here on the edge of the platform and return to your families.”

  The lead soldier hesitated, looked out at the invading army, then nodded. They all did as they were bid, and then they fled.

  “Gather close,” said Jarek.

  The other three godsbloods who had been intended for sacrifice had left. Only Kish, Annara, Elu, Sisu and himself stepped in behind where Jarek was standing, toes at the very edge of the platform, gazing out toward the army.

  “
Hold on,” Jarek said, and raised his arms. His skin thickened and then cracked so that he looked as if someone had slathered fine river mud over his whole body, then baked him in the sun. Jarek’s Sky Hammer burned brighter and brighter, till Acharsis was forced to shield his eyes - and then Acharsis heard the heart-rending sound of shattering stone, and the platform beneath them shuddered and fell forward.

  Annara let out a cry, they all clutched at each other, and Acharsis turned, thinking of leaping to safety - but it was too late.

  A huge column of stone was separating itself from the ziggurat, tearing itself free, shedding clay bricks by the thousands. They stood on its pinnacle, where the flat corner of the platform was just wide enough for them all to cluster on top of it.

  “Goodbye, Father,” said Jarek. “Goodbye.”

  The column, seventy feet high, pressed forward, churning its way through the courtyard. Acharsis held tight to Annara’s arm and peered down. Its ragged length was like a finger being dragged through the dust, leaving gouged earth and torn stone in its wake.

  Kish let out a cry of amazement, and even Acharsis felt stunned by Jarek’s power. They surged forward, rumbling across the court, and then smashed through the old Gates of Stone. The collision rocked the column, sending terrifying shivers up through its length, but they powered through. Huge blocks of black stone crashed down into the street with an awful, head-rattling roar, only to be bulled aside by the column’s bulk as it continued inexorably down the Way of Stone.

  “Are you sure we couldn’t have taken on Piamat?” asked Sisu.

  Jarek’s Sky Hammer burned like an imprisoned sun, but he didn’t answer. On they rumbled, tearing their way down the great avenue.

  Acharsis looked back. A huge chasm scarred the face of the ziggurat where they’d torn themselves free. Large sections of it had collapsed down into the inner chambers.

  Irella’s army was marching down the avenue toward them, the dead uninterested in the pedestal of rock that was thundering in their direction. The base of the column was preceded by a wave of buckled stone, and when they hit, the front of the first regiment of this wave cast the dead aside.

  They powered right through the regiment, moving at the speed of a cantering horse, and still the regiments marched toward them, blindly colliding with the column until an invisible order was given and they parted, splitting in two and moving to the sides, giving Jarek passage through.

  Deathless emerged from the side streets and leaped up, soaring fifteen feet before they latched onto the side of the column. They began to climb quickly, their alabaster masks raised, looking like horrific insects.

  “Ah - Jarek?”

  The demigod didn’t respond, didn’t even look down, but spikes of rock shot out of the column, punching the deathless free. They fell, limbs cartwheeling, and hit the ruined road only to rise and watch the column pass. They didn’t try to climb again.

  “How far can this take us?” asked Annara.

  “Far enough,” Jarek replied.

  They reached the Basalt Gate and exploded through. Irella’s army was arrayed before them, but nobody moved to stop their passage.

  Acharsis stepped to the side of the platform and searched for the palanquin. There - and Jarek saw it at the same time.

  The column corrected its course and moved directly toward it.

  “Jarek?” Acharsis asked.

  “Damn him,” said Jarek.

  Soldiers - living men - scattered out of the column’s path. Some of them fired arrows, but they fell well short of the top.

  The palanquin gleamed in the morning light, and then a slender figure descended from its interior – tall, elegant, clad in glittering panels of gold that formed a ceremonial armor, with long black hair and pale skin. Acharsis knew immediately and without a doubt who it was.

  Golden Piamat, his former brother.

  The last he’d seen him, he had been screaming as the forces of the netherworld clawed him down, crying out his pleas to Qun.

  Qun, whose rays of light couldn’t reach the depths of Nekuul’s domain.

  “Jarek?” Acharsis couldn’t keep the tremor from his voice.

  Jarek pointed his Sky Hammer at him. “One chance,” he whispered, and then the pillar rumbled and shook violently, and a massive segment broke free and sped down toward Piamat, hurtling as if it had been thrown by the hand of a god.

  Piamat raised one pale hand. Acharsis reflexively expected to see the rays of the sun beam from the undead lord’s hand, but instead green light wreathed his fist, and then flew to intersect the boulder’s path. The massive rock exploded mid-air with a percussive boom, sending fragments and shards flying in all directions.

  “Damn,” said Kish. “Again?”

  Before Jarek could respond, Piamat brought both hands together, forming a triangle between pointer fingers and thumbs. Green fire roared from his hands, a bolt of living flame that slammed into their column, wreathing the rock carving out huge chunks. The column swayed alarmingly.

  Jarek grunted and dropped to one knee. He raised his fist, and Acharsis, daring a look over the side, saw sleeves of fresh rock ascend from the ground to reinforce the badly gouged column.

  Again Piamat struck at them, unleashing his unholy fire. Entire sections of the column calved off, crashing thunderously to the ground.

  Jarek cursed and slammed the head of the Sky Hammer down onto the column. The golden light flared, briefly illuminating the cracks that ran down the column’s length, and they suddenly lurched faster, bearing down on Piamat.

  Who waited until the very last moment and then stepped side, unhurried, unafraid.

  The column tore its way through where he’d been standing and then smashed into his palanquin, demolishing it, grinding its glittering bulk into gilded fragments that it left strewn in its wake.

  “Petty,” said Acharsis.

  “But satisfying,” Jarek responded.

  Acharsis watched as the last of the army fell behind them. They were moving swiftly now, and no one gave chase.

  He could still make out Piamat standing there in the dust. He raised an arm as if in mocking farewell.

  Acharsis bit his lower lip and then found Annara’s hand and squeezed it.

  The column rumbled on through the trampled fields, out toward the distant Golden Steppe. It was already starting to sink slightly into the earth, losing some of its height. The farther they got from Rekkidu, the more it would shrink.

  The sun had risen fully above the horizon, and the column cast a long shadow before them as if pointing in the direction they had to go. Holding Annara’s hand, Acharsis laid his other hand on Elu’s shoulder and turned to stare out at the horizon. Ahead of them lay a most perilous voyage, one that even he in all his traveling had never attempted: to cross the Golden Steppe.

  Many believed that the steppe descended down into the netherworld, and that was as good an explanation as any for the terrors that roamed its expanse. They’d have to brave the perils of the vast wilderness before them only to fetch up against the alien majesty of Magan, and then plead their case to the monstrous lamasu.

  And yet, despite the odds, despite the near impossibility of their quest, Acharsis couldn’t help but grin. He saw Kish slip her arm around Jarek’s waist, and pulled Annara closer, feeling something he hadn’t felt in decades, something strange and new.

  Something he thought he’d never feel again.

  Hope.

  THE END

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  Glossary

  God

  Domain

  Demigod
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  City

  Cerash

  Heaven/Firmament

  Amelagar

  Kasha

  Iritak

  Air

  Ahsera

  Namtar

  Ekillos

  Male Fertility/Knowledge

  Acharsis

  Narubtum

  Nekuul

  Netherworld

  Irella

  Uros

  Scythia

  Warfare, Female Sexuality

  Numias

  Takurtum

  Kaptiya

  Sea

  Hamata

  Zakir

  Alok

  Earth

  Jarek

  Rekkidu

  Ninsaba

  Moon

  Sharyukin

  Jalasha

  Naban

  Agriculture

  Kinziru

  Timesh

  Qun

  Sun

  Golden Piamat

  Nusku

  Acharsis:Demigod and son of Ekillos

  Agash: Adept of Nekuul

  Ahassuna:Seeker of Nekuul

  Ahsera:Demigoddess and daughter of Iritak

  Akkodaisis:Undead lord and ruler of Rekkidu

  Alok:God of earth

  Amelagar:Demigod and son of Cerash

  ammi shalash:Divine visitation from Nekuul

  Annara:Resident of Eruk, former priestess of Scythia

  Apsu:Shaman and exorcist

  Athite:Nomad tribe from the Golden Steppe, former conquerors of the empire

  Azu:Erkuian villager

  Babati:Servant of Sisu in Rekkidu

  Cerash:God of the heavens

  Ekillos:God of male fertility and knowledge

  Eruk:Small settlement west of Rekkidu

  Godsblood:Descendant of a demigod

  Hagash:Erukian villager

  Hamata:Demigod and son of Kaptiya

  Hracka:Nomad tribe from the Golden Steppe

  Illi:Pepper native to the Aloros foothills