The Crown of the Usurper (The Crown of the Blood)

by Gav Thorpe

A familiar scent drifted into Erlaan-Orlassai's chamber a few moments before his visitor arrived: incense and decaying flesh. Lakhyri. There was something else as well, the smell of sword oil and perfume. The high priest had been spending time with Urikh again, and his blackcrest legionnaires.

  "What news from the palace?" Erlaan-Orlassai asked as Lakhyri stepped into the room.

  "Bad news," replied the high priest. "We have been betrayed. Ullsaard still lives."

  "You have too many kings, Lakhyri: perhaps it is time that you stopped playing them against each other," said Erlaan.

  He had spent a long time thinking about what the priest had promised, and his own place in the schemes of the Temple. He had drawn several; conclusions that were not to his liking and this latest announcement sealed the true heir's feelings on the matter. He stood up, hunched inside the small room but still towering over the high priest.

  "I will take matters into my own hands," announced the Prince. He gently pushed Lakhyri to one side with a clawed hand and moved towards the door, stooping to fit under the wooden lintel.

  "You cannot go out!" Lakhyri stepped in front of Erlaan-Orlassai. "You will be seen."

  "I do not care if I am seen," replied the Prince. "You assured me that I will rule this empire one day. There is no reason why today should not be that day. It is time for these pretenders to be shown their place."

  "It is not yet time," said Lakhyri. "There are other preparations to be made for our masters."

  "You are wrong," said Erlaan-Orlassai. "Do not forget the sense that you gave me. I feel the presence of the Eulanui, I know they are here in Askh. You delay for the sake of it."

  "No!" Lakhyri bared yellowing teeth. "All must be in order for the masters, or the consequences will be terrible. They will take what they are not given. The Brotherhood's precincts are nodes to the Temple, you know this. Stability must be restored and Salphoria brought into the empire properly."

  "That will still take many years," said Erlaan-Orlassai. "Why would I wait for so long?"

  "With a willing workforce and the support of a king the people can accept, we can have precincts in every major Salphorian town by midsummer. There are twenty thousand blackcrests ready to march, and the legions of the governors will soon be ours too. If you reveal yourself you jeopardise everything we both hope to achieve."

  Erlaan-Orlassai did not like the tone of the high priest but the message of his words struck a chord in the Prince's thoughts. For all that Lakhyri's argument made sense, his logic was little salve to the frustration the Prince felt.

  "I need to be out of this place," moaned the true heir. "For some time I have seen neither moon nor sun, nor felt fresh air in my lungs."

  "Years?" Lakhyri's sneering grimace was a lash to the Prince's pride. "I spent centuries in the Temple, away from this world and its pleasures and pains, in order that our masters were served properly. Many there are who have spent their whole lives not knowing of moon and sun. Your incarceration is a small inconvenience."

  "Not for me," replied the Prince, angered by Lakhyri's dismissive words. He reached out with taloned fingers and wrapped them around Lakhyri, engulfing his head. "I could crush your skull now and be free of your spiteful presence."

  "And you would never be king of Askh," the high priest replied, voice muffled by Erlaan-Orlassai's palm. "You need me."

  "Even so," said the Prince, releasing his grip, "I will not remain here any longer. If I am to hide, it will not be beneath these old stones, but under an open sky."

  Lakhyri stepped out of the way as Erlaan-Orlassai made another move towards the door. The Prince squeezed his way into the corridor and looked to the left and right. A startled Brother stood transfixed at the end of the passage to his right, mouth agape.

  "If you wish to stretch your legs, I have a suggestion," Lakhyri said from behind Erlaan-Orlassai.

  The Prince smile at the transfixed Brother, but revealing his razor-sharp teeth set the man to flight rather than comforted him. The patter of the Brother's receding footsteps echoed through the corridors.

  "At least wait until tonight," said Lakhyri, squeezing past the enormous prince. "If you wish to leave the Grand Precincts then you can do us both a service. Hunt down Ullsaard and slay him."

  The suggestions sent a gush of happiness through the Prince. He turned his bestial face towards the high priest.

  "Kill Ullsaard? Finally you want me to cut down that dog?" Excitement and expectation rose inside the Prince in equal measure. "That is no price for freedom, it is a reward."

  "He cannot have got far," said Lakhyri. The high priest started to walk and Erlaan-Orlassai paced beside him, taking slow strides, back bent and head twisted within the confines of the passageway.

  "He will head for the Greenwater. I will need a ship."

  "You think he will reach Narun before you can catch him?"

  "I think that he does not need to head to Narun," replied the Prince. The corridor made his voice loud in his ears and he winced slightly before continuing in a softer tone. "Ullsaard will avoid anywhere where the Brotherhood is strong or where there are legionnaires in numbers. I cannot scour the wilderness for him, but the might of Askh can. When I have left, sweep Askhor between the city and the Wall. Send word to the precincts to expect me. I will travel by night, as you say."

  "You assume that he will travel to hotwards? His heart has always been in Enair."

  "And that is why he will not return there. He ran to Enair when he overthrew my grandfather, he will not do the same again. Ullsaard is well aware of what would be predictable."

  "What else will you need?"

  "My armour and my weapons. They were taken when Ullsaard shamed me."

  "They can be found. The Greenwater covers a long distance: how will you know where he has stopped?"

  Erlaan-Orlassai looked down at the high priest and saw himself reflected in the man's golden eyes; a hulking, brutish thing that filled the corridor. The reflection smiled with dagger-teeth, and the Prince's golden eyes flickered with their own light.

  "I can smell the Blood, you know. When you brought Ullsaard to this place I could sense him immediately. I heard the chatter of the Brothers that the old king was dead, but I knew they were wrong. His vitality lingered. I kept my tongue, though I wanted to find him, to complete the job you thought you had done, but you did not include me in your schemes. I thought perhaps the faking of his death was your idea. Had you done so, I would have told you that he was still alive. Even now his spoor hangs heavy in the air. He may have a head start on me, but he will not stay ahead for long."

  Lakhyri smiled; a reptilian expression devoid of mirth.

  "You will kill him when you find him."

  "Yes, and when I return I will kill Urikh and take my place as leader of the greatest empire in the world." Lakhyri's smile disappeared as quickly as it had come while Erlaan-Orlassai rubbed his hands together, his palms making a sound like stone scraped across stone. "If you try to stop me, I will kill you, priest, and anybody else that stands in my way. Be ready for my return, I will not wait long for my coronation."

  TEMPLE

  Dust sprinkled from the blocks of the ceiling, catching the yellow light that seeped through the window of the chamber. Laid with his hands on his chest, Eriekh felt the tremor of the Temple and the trickle of particles on his arms and opened his eyes. A patina of tiny motes obscured the swirls and runes carved into his tanned flesh. He saw a crack, as thin as a hair, jagging across the stone above him. He frowned and sat up, looking at the walls and floor. The blocks had shifted, almost imperceptibly but he could see it. Hundreds of years had passed while he had dwelt in this cell and nothing had changed since the moment he had arrived; not until now.

  He was not surprised when another near-naked figure appeared at the door. It was the other hierophant, Asirkhyr, and his expression was one of dismay.

  "You felt it also?" said Eriekh, rising from his plain stone bed.

  "All felt it," replied Asirkhyr
. The skin of the second hierophant was flushed, not with fear but a lingering effect of his time in Greater Askhor. While Eriekh had refrained from indulging in mortal pursuits – eating, drinking and fornication – Asirkhyr had happily made the most of his time away from the Temple and was now showing the effects. His stomach bulged a little over the white of his loincloth and there was a vitality to his skin that was seen only in the young acolytes freshly brought from their homes.

  A shrill cry of joy echoed along the corridors, but both hierophants barely registered a response; the feeding of the masters had become commonplace in recent times. Now and then a young member of the order would fall prey to the halfmaterial creatures that dwelt in the shadows between worlds. Some were fortunate to succumb in their sleep.

  The pattering of bare feet on the stone caused Asirkhyr to turn as Eriekh stepped out of his chamber. Naasadir, one of the upper order, hurried towards them, arms hugging his chest tightly in fear.

  "Come quickly, come to the Last Corpse," said Naasadir, beckoning with a skeletal hand. "It changes. There is a visitation."

  The hierophants followed at a swift walk when Naasadir turned and headed back along the corridors. They descended into the depths of the Temple, to the main chanting hall. Barely five score of worshippers remained of those who had once filled the hall with their sibilant whispers of supplication and binding. Those that were still alive knelt in a circle around the Last Corpse, a jet black altar stone that bulged with the unnatural shape of inhuman bones.

  Until the present crisis, the Last Corpse had been largely inert, taking form only when infused with the spirit of one of the Eulanui. Now it was moving subtly, and seemed to Eriekh to be growing. The bones – a disturbing web of spines and limbs and vertebrae and jawbones – were parting and straightening. The changes were subtle; as with the disturbance of his chamber, Eriekh could see this only from centuries of familiarity and a sense that something was amiss.

  "We must speak with Lakhyri," said Asirkhyr. "We try everything we can to appease them, to ask for patience, but they do not listen."

  "I think this is beyond Lakhyri's reckoning also," said Eriekh, glancing at Asirkhyr and then Naasadir. He felt the slightest tremble of the Temple again.

  COMING. SOON.

  The thought-message blared through Eriekh's thoughts, sending him to his knees, hands clamped to the sides of his head. The shock of his fall jarred him from the disorientation that threatened to overwhelm his thoughts.

  Eriekh looked around, eyes moving first to the Last Corpse, but there had been no manifestation. The thought-message had come direct from the Eulanui, on the other side of the veil that kept them from the mortal world.

  "I have a fear," he said, grabbing Naasadir's wrist to pull himself to his feet. "I fear we have been deceived for a very long time."

  "Deceived by whom?" asked Naasadir.

  "Our numbers are growing few," said Asirkhyr, deep in thought. "The masters manifest themselves more frequently even as our channelling of power to them grows weaker. They seek more sustenance."

  "No," said Eriekh. "The Temple has not been providing energy for the masters, but it has fuelled the barrier that keeps them from the world of men. The barrier is failing as the Temple fails. For all of this time, I think that Lakhyri has been seeking to keep the Eulanui at bay, not sustained."

  "If that is the case, we must warn him," said Asirkhyr. "He must be able to do something."

  "Why would we do that?" said Eriekh. "It seems as though Lakhyri has betrayed the masters in his attempts to keep them from seeking purchase in the mortal world. Is this not the goal for which we have strived these many centuries? The masters are almost here! You cannot be allowed to stop them."

  "We are not ready for them," said Naasadir. "They will consume everybody in their hunger. The web must be completed before they cross over."

  "A task too long to finish now," said Asirkhyr. He looked at Naasadir, his eyes flickering momentarily towards Eriekh. "The more they feed, the greater the strength of the masters and the fewer of us to keep them away. The Temple is doomed."

  "No!" Eriekh seized Asirkhyr by the throat, both hands wrapped tight. "You cannot interfere!"

  The two hierophants toppled to the slabs as Asirkhyr threw a clumsy punch at his attacker. Eriekh gritted his teeth as he forced every ounce of effort into strangling his foe, while Asirkhyr lashed weak blows against his opponent's shoulders and head.

  Something struck Eriekh hard in the back of the head. As he rolled to one side, his grip loosened, he realised it had been Naasadir's heel.

  "Not you too," gasped Eriekh. "Are you traitor also?"

  "All living things will be destroyed if we persist," said Asirkhyr. "They were meant to be enslaved to our will, not devoured. We have failed."

  Naasadir, naturally taller and stronger than Eriekh, seized the hierophant by the arms and hauled him to his feet. Asirkhyr shook his head and rubbed a hand across his reddened throat. Around the group the other worshippers continued their incantation, moving back and forth as they lowered their heads to the ground and regurgitated mantras that they did not understand. A couple of them looked up at the disturbance.

  "See sense, Eriekh. There can be no victory in oblivion," said the priest. "That was not our purpose."

  "It is victory for our masters; that is all the purpose we need," snarled Eriekh. Asirkhyr's treachery appalled him and he looked away.

  "What do you propose?" asked Naasadir.

  "I do not know what to do," said Asirkhyr. "Take him and bind him while I think."

  Eriekh opened his mouth to shout more accusations, but Naasadir's arm clamped around his neck, elbow under his jaw. Unable to speak and barely able to breath, Eriekh was dragged from the shrine room.

  APILI, OKHAR

  Late Winter, 213th year of Askh

  I

  Frost encrusted the vine terraces but there was no snow, not this far to hotwards. Unlike Menesun, Ullsaard's villa at Apili was a working concern. A vast tract of grape-growing estate was attached to the cluster of buildings, from which wine was shipped out across the Askhan Empire and had even made its way as far as Carantathi. Originally the lands had been intended for Urikh as a gift on reaching his twenty-first birthday, at the insistence of Luia, but Ullsaard's eldest son had become more involved in commerce than wine-making and so the estate had been run for Ullsaard's benefit by a man called Houran. The income had been useful during the lean times of Ullsaard's Mekha campaign, and there was good hunting in the forests that lay further to dawnwards. There had been a time when Ullsaard had thought of retiring here. The weather was warm, but not as dry as Maasra, and Okhar was a well-established, peaceful province.

  All of that had changed when he had taken the Crown. The capital had been his home, albeit only briefly before his war against Salphoria, and thoughts of coming to Apili had faded. He had never expected that he would arrive here as a fugitive from his own son.

  He was convinced that they had given any pursuing forces the slip for the moment. Leaving Askh, they had turned dawnwards at Noran's suggestion and headed for the coast. Taking ship to hotwards, they had crossed through Maasra and come to Okhar from hotwards, ignoring the Greenwater altogether. This route had taken considerably more time than a ship on the river, but Ullsaard had put his faith in discretion rather than speed and it seemed to have worked; nobody paid much attention to a man and his wife and retainer – Noran had not been too happy at his part of the subterfuge – travelling hotwards to spend the winter in warmer lands.

  The manager, Houran, had been surprised by the arrival of the estate's owners. Seeing the sense of not asking too many questions, Houran had welcomed Ullsaard, Allenya and Noran into the main house and quit his chambers to take up residence in one of the guest apartments. That had been only an hour earlier.

  Ringed by hills, Apili was more of a traditional Askhan villa than Menesun. The complex comprised eight buildings, one of them the major residence with an outbuilding of stables
and storage rooms, two guest apartments and the rest dedicated to the winery. Everything was built on a single storey, with high ceilings and wide windows framed with heavy wooden beams. There were no fireplaces or chimneys except in the kitchen. Warmth in these colder times was instead provided by heated water passing through pipes beneath the tiled floor. It was a pleasant, ambient heat and Ullsaard waited for Allenya with bare feet gently warmed by the clay floor.

  His armour was piled in one corner of the room, the king dressed only in his kilt. The cold breeze from the window was refreshing rather than bitter, and the darkening evening sky was calming to his nerves. The calls of birds roosting in the bare branches of the orchard that lay between the main villa and the winery added to the scene.

  It was almost possible to forget how desperate the situation had become, but Ullsaard could not quite leave behind his woes, not now. Urikh would be seeking him for certain. Apili was a distance from Askh, and the nearest Brotherhood precinct was at least eight miles, but it was also an obvious place to look. There were several dozen men and women on the estate but they were not fighters, and there was no wall to defend. And, besides, even with legionnaires and a more fortified position Ullsaard had not been able to hold out at Menesun. Any feeling of respite was temporary. While winter held, it would be safe enough, but spring came fast in these climes and Ullsaard knew that soon he and Allenya would have to move on.