by Jon Sprunk
His ride rocked to a halt outside the entrance. Guardsmen in bright scale armor stood at the gate, but none advanced to assist him. Pumash stepped out of the car, feigning a confidence he didn’t necessarily feel. Yet, he had dealt with all manner of people in his years of slave trading. He put on his business mien as he approached.
“I am Lord Pumash et’Luradessus, envoy of the Manalish of Nisus, Erugash, and Chiresh. I have come to demand audience with King Baalberith.”
He presented the scroll he had been given. It was a long tube of fine vellum stamped with a blob of black wax. The guard commander reached out for it, but Pumash pulled it away. “This is for the king’s vizier. It is not to be opened by any other.”
The commander stared at him for several seconds. Then he signaled for the gates to open. Metal screeched as the broad portal yawned wide, revealing a long path of white stones running through a green expanse. Two guards accompanied him, while Deemu and the rest of his retinue remained outside.
The outer courtyard was peaceful. A small army of gardeners tended the lawn and ornamental trees. Footmen in brown livery stood on the broad marble portico of the palace entrance. They bowed as they opened the carved oak doors for him. Inside, the gate guards passed him off to a pair of household guards, who wore the same livery as the door wardens.
Pumash was a little surprised to have been admitted without a prior appointment. He had been the guest of several kings of Akeshia, and all of them protected their privacy with a bureaucracy of ministers, chamberlains, and other ranking servants. His suspicion proved correct when he was steered into a large office off the main hallway. A man in a long brown-and-white robe stood beside an ornate writing desk. His head was shaved. He appeared to be a few years older than Pumash.
“I am the king’s officiant,” the man said, reaching out with his hand. “Any correspondence for His Royal Majesty can be left with—”
Pumash stopped at the threshold, standing with his hands crossed before him. “You are not Lord Haileth. I will see the Grand Vizier.”
“His Lordship is otherwise detained,” the officiant replied. Frown lines creased his forehead. “Now if you will just leave your—”
Pumash walked out and headed down the hall, deeper into the palace. He had been to Hirak twice before but never inside the royal residence. Still, he had a general idea of the layout.
Calls of “My lord! You must wait!” rang after him as his two escorts hurried to keep up. They shot glances at each other, and Pumash knew they were considering whether or not to lay hands on him. However, his nobility protected him long enough to reach the lofty rotunda at the center of the alcazar. The round walls of the chamber extended upward more than a hundred feet in an impressive marble tower. A broad staircase climbed the interior.
Pumash was about to start up the stairs when a raspy voice called to him. An older man stood in the doorway across from the entry hall. His silken robes were trimmed in cloth of gold. “Lord Pumash.”
“Lord Haileth?”
“Yes. Please accompany me, my lord.”
Pumash followed the Grand Vizier down another wide hallway. Four guards—soldiers in full armor this time, not mere footmen—appeared and walked with them. Pumash remained calm. Although he did not expect King Baalberith to appreciate the message he delivered, there was a certain protocol involved in matters of state, and so he did not fear bodily harm so long as he acted in the capacity as envoy.
Lord Haileth and the soldiers escorted him to what appeared to be a waiting room. It was small but well-appointed with soft divans and chairs. A painting of the Typhon River hung over a water sculpture.
Without explanation, Lord Haileth excused himself and left Pumash with the four guards. The sentries took up positions at the corners of the room but otherwise ignored him. So he sat on the stiffest chair he could find and waited. Outwardly, he was perfectly composed. But inside, his nerves were pulled taut. This entire venture had been doomed to failure from the start. Why send one man to demand the surrender of an entire city-state? He could not pretend to know the Manalish’s game, and now he began to wonder if this wasn’t just an elaborate way to get rid of him. No, he could have slain me in Nisus with a touch. For all his menace and mystery, the Manalish does not seem the type to waste a valuable resource.
Yet, despite his self-assurances, Pumash struggled to sit still as time passed. Finally, after more than an hour of waiting, Lord Haileth returned.
Pumash stood up on stiff legs. “Grand Vizier, I have been authorized to present to you—”
“You may present your message to the king himself,” Lord Haileth interrupted. “His Majesty is expecting you. Please follow me.”
Pumash followed the older lord down another corridor. Two guards stood at attention flanking a large door bearing ornate trim. One guard opened the door with a slight bow, and Lord Haileth walked through. Pumash stopped at the threshold of what was obviously the grand audience hall. The entire court appeared to be assembled on and around the raised dais at the far end, and at the pinnacle of that tiered platform sat a tall, handsome man on an ivory throne. Pumash swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry as all the eyes in the chamber focused on him.
“Come forward, my lord,” Lord Haileth said.
Pumash followed to the foot of the dais. Lord Haileth stopped there and bowed low. Pumash considered his response carefully. The degree to which he bowed would say much about how he perceived his status at this official event. He opted for a bow that was slightly lower than the obeisance given to a senior family member but not quite so deep as that reserved for a person of a higher caste.
King Baalberith returned a nod. “Lord Pumash, you come with a message from the upstart who seized Erugash. I hope you are not wasting our time with some notion of an alliance. We intend to see this usurper executed for his crimes against the empire.”
Pumash steeled himself as he produced the scroll. “No, Your Majesty. It is an invitation for your city to surrender.”
He held his breath as the words echoed through the hall. Lord Haileth froze with one hand extended to take the scroll as if recoiling from a serpent. The guards who had escorted Pumash into the hall grasped him by the arms and forced him down to his knees.
“Silence your filthy tongue!” The king was on his feet, his eyes bulging as he screamed from the dais. “How dare you utter such a thing in these halls?”
A nimbus of fire surrounded King Baalberith. Twin flames lashed out like whips to wrap around Pumash, and he cried out at the touch of the searing tendrils. The smell of his scorching robes filled the chamber, and he expected at any moment to feel the sorcerous fires burning into his flesh. Yet, there was no pain. The fiery nooses licked at his skin but did him no harm. However, something else was happening inside him. An unpleasant stirring in the center of his chest. It started slowly but grew stronger with each passing heartbeat. Pumash tried to lift a hand to his breast as the discomfort blossomed into pain, but the guards held him fast.
With a scathing stare, King Baalberith conjured more flaming ropes and launched them at Pumash, but they were no more effective than the first.
Pumash might have been tempted to laugh at the look of impotency on the monarch’s face, but the pain growing in his chest demanded all his attention. Then, suddenly, the pain exploded, tearing itself in all directions like a river of tiny razors inside him. He tried to scream, unable to hold the pain inside, but his lungs were paralyzed. However, cries erupted from the guards holding his arms.
Pumash looked down to see the hands of his captors turning black. The guards tried to pull free, but they were stuck to him as the black tide advanced up their wrists and arms. The pain continued inside him, but it was a strange sensation as the agony flowed out of him. Or through him, as if he were a conduit through which this horrible energy was passing. But where did it come from?
Then he recalled kneeling atop the palace at Nisus, and the power that had flowed into him from the hand of the Manalish. This was the
same power; he was sure of it. For a moment, he reveled in the darkness that was consuming these men who had dared lay hands on him. Then he started to choke as the pain crawled up his throat. A terrible burning erupted behind his eyes. His ears buzzed. Then a rush of liquid surged into his mouth. Pumash bent over, retched, and looked in shock as a stream of vile blackness hurled from his lips. It spattered the lower-standing members of the court, and their shrieks of horror were added to the cacophony.
On the dais, King Baalberith gave up his attacks and retreated behind his throne. More soldiers hurried to form a wall before their liege. Pumash wanted to cry now as the black bile slowed to a trickle from his mouth. This was how he was going to die, vomiting before the court of Hirak. His legs gave out, and he dropped to his stomach with hardly enough strength left to keep his face from hitting the marble tiles. The entire court was falling down, too, thrashing and screaming as the blackness spread among them. Step by step, the dark virus climbed the dais, until it took the royal bodyguards and all that was left was the king, standing alone amid an island of death.
Die, great king. Die with me. Not the most noble of deaths, but I think we might both be glad to miss the horrors that await this land. The Manalish will not be stopped. No, not until the entire world is swallowed in darkness.
Pumash laid his head on the cool stone and gave in to the pain. His last breath was a long, rattling wheeze.
The hum of an insect played in his ear. A brush of a tiny wing tickled his nose. Eyes closed, he reached up to swat at it. And then he realized he was alive.
My lungs are breathing. I feel the hard floor beneath me. My head is pounding. Great Gods above! I am alive!
Pumash breathed deeply. Then an image came to his mind, of the last thing he had seen before losing consciousness. A woman of the court—middle-aged, long black hair, probably dyed to keep it that way—lying on the floor only a few steps from him. Her eyes had turned completely black as if they had been dipped in squid ink. Her rose-painted lips, which had been slightly alluring only a few minutes before, gaped open in a silent scream, bloated tongue lolling between her teeth like a dead eel.
He slowly opened his eyes. The woman was gone, as was the entire court. His dark vomitus and a few objects—spears, shields, a blue shawl—littered the dais, but all the people were gone save for one. King Baalberith remained, sprawled across one arm of his throne like a drunk. His face was purple and swollen. His eyes stared wide at the ceiling. They were completely black.
Pumash started to get up. His limbs were slow to respond. He had lifted himself up onto one knee when a cloth rustled on the dais. He froze as the king’s corpse began to move. Its head rotated from side to side. The mouth yawned wide open and closed with a quick snap. Then the thing looked down at him, and Pumash remembered the black pestilence that had flowed out of him during the audience. How it infected the people in the room, slaying them even as it devoured him from the inside.
So that was what had happened to the court. They had died and come back to un-life, just as Baalberith was doing now. It’s the Manalish. He did all this . . . through me. He put that infection inside me and sent me here, knowing the plague would spread. A plague that kills its victims and then reanimates them as monstrous creatures. He doesn’t need an army. Only a living host to carry his message of undeath.
Pumash glanced at the weapons on the dais steps, but they were too far away to reach without taking several steps, and he was reasonably sure this thing—this creature that had once been human but now was something else entirely—could reach him before he got to one. So he remained perfectly still and held his breath, hoping against hope that the thing would leave him alone.
He clamped his teeth tight together as the king came down the steps. Those black eyes, like holes of pure evil, were focused on him. Then they shifted to the door behind him. Faster than Pumash could scramble away, Baalberith shambled past him and out of the chamber. Somewhere in the distance, Pumash heard noises, a faint susurrus of shouts and crashes that made him think of battle, followed by a deep rumble that vibrated through the stones of the palace.
Not knowing where to go or what to do, he made his way down the broad corridor through the center of the alcazar, sometimes stumbling as he suddenly lost his balance for no reason. With one hand on the wall for support, he returned to the rotunda. Dark gore was smeared on the once-pristine floors, and a big, bloody handprint was stamped on a painting of the goddess Ishara. But again, there were no bodies to be seen. The sounds of violence had grown louder.
He started up the circular stairs, wanting to get away from whatever was happening outside. Every twenty or so steps he would pass a tall window and look down on a different part of the city. Dark clouds ruled the sky, spitting thunder and dark green arcs of lightning. Fires had sprung up in several neighborhoods. He thought the streets would be packed with mobs by now, but they were empty. Perhaps everyone had fled?
The stairs ended in a large chamber at the tower’s summit. Fierce winds blew through the broad windows. Down in the city, the fires were spreading, but from this vantage everything seemed remote, as if these events were happening in another place and time. This was no conquest. It was wholesale slaughter.
He was leaning over the window casement for a better view of the River Quarter, wondering how he was going to escape this death trap, when a brutal pain pierced his skull. Then a voice boomed in his head. The force of it drove him to his knees where he huddled on the tiled floor, tears running freely from his eyes.
Report what you have seen in Hirak, servant.
Pumash trembled as he replied. “Great Lord, I have been to see King Baalberith. While in audience with him . . .” He gasped as the pain continued to wrack his brain. “. . . a terrible sickness came out of me and infected the entire court. They are all dead. And the plague spreads throughout the city. Fires are burning—”
Pumash gasped as he was suddenly struck blind. He reached out with both hands as his vision went dark. A low moan passed his lips. Then he felt his legs flexing, lifting him up without his control. There was a sense of vertigo as he almost toppled over, but he remained upright. His legs carried him around the chamber as if going from window to window.
“Great Lord! What is happening to me?”
Be silent. All is going as I planned.
Pumash’s vision abruptly returned, as did control of his limbs. He was standing by the eastern window, gazing down at the military district. There was some fighting in the streets, but it appeared to be sporadic and undisciplined.
Secure the city and remain in place. More orders will be forthcoming.
Pumash felt light-headed as a renewed panic set in. How was he supposed to secure a city all by himself? “My king, how—?”
He cried out as the pain returned, so intense he wanted to bash his head against the wall to free himself from the torment.
Assistance will arrive. Obey, servant. Or you will know suffering as you have never experienced.
The voice left him, and with it went the pain. But the memory of it haunted Pumash as he leaned against the wall. He didn’t know if he could bear this existence anymore. Just a quick jump over this sill and it would all be over. . . .
Unless he brought me back as well. And perhaps he might. Who knows the limits of his power? No, death is no escape. If anything, I must fight to live for as long as possible.
The sounds of footsteps came from below. Pumash pressed his back harder against the wall until Deemu appeared. The familiar slump of his rounded shoulders made Pumash sigh with relief.
“Master?” Deemu called to him over the howl of the wind.
Pumash took in a deep breath and stepped away from the wall. “I am here. What is the status of the city?”
“It’s . . . it’s horrible, Master.” Deemu stayed by the stairs, as if he were afraid to venture too close to the windows. “People are dying everywhere. Some things came out of the palace and killed the guards. And your bearers, too. I . . . I hid
in the litter. Then the monsters—I don’t even know what to call them—they ran off into the city, and that’s when the screaming began. Now everything is chaos outside. Can we stay up here?”
“For the time being. But we’ll soon need to get to work. I’ve been placed in command of Hirak. We must get it ready to receive the Manalish.”
Pumash turned to look down at the city once more. He understood his role in the great lord’s plan. He was to be the bringer of death to the empire. He was the tip of the infected spear.
“We must make the most of all opportunities,” he whispered.
“Did you say something, my lord?” Deemu asked.
Pumash turned to his servant. “Come. We shall tour our new city.”
Deemu hunched lower until his chin almost touched his chest. “But what about the monsters and the storm?”
Pumash held out his arm to wrap around the poor man’s trembling shoulders. “No harm will come to us. Trust in the Manalish. These monsters you talk of, they are his creations. We have nothing to fear from them. And the storm is merely a soothing rain sent to wash away this city’s sins.”
Deemu’s head bobbed up and down. “As you say, my lord.”
Pumash held tight to his servant’s arm as they started down the steps together.
Horace blinked in the dark. He had been dreaming again, about walking the streets of the ancient city. This time when he stopped at the foot of the great pyramid at the center, a door had opened and bright light poured out. A man stood in the doorway, peering out at him with glowing yellow eyes. Horace awoke at that point with his heart pounding and one thought repeating in his mind.
What if Astaptah is still alive?
As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he felt a pull in the back of his mind. A nagging sensation calling him. Pushing the feeling away, he reached across the bed of piled blankets, but the other side was empty. Sitting up, he looked around. She was gone. That wasn’t unusual. Alyra tended to wake up before him most days. She was always busy with some project. She was even restless in her sleep.
