The Apocalypse Script

by Samuel Fort

  Chapter 47 - The Sillum

  Lilian didn’t ready herself for the first strike of the belt. She didn’t want to resist. She wanted to scream and Moros wanted her to scream. She put her face into the velvet seat of the chair and simply waited for it.

  And waited.

  She was mortified at how utterly silent the Great Hall had become. There were no more cries or screams or shouts of bravado from the Maqtu leering at her and cheering Moros on. There was only the sound of the rain and the thunder.

  What were they doing, she wondered? Was this some cruel game?

  “Strike me, you coward!” she yelled, spitting blood.

  “Lilian,” came a voice from behind her. It was not Moros’s.

  “Lilian” said the man, closer. “Where is Fiela?”

  It was Ben!

  “There!” she yelled. “There! Next to the stage.” She tried to nod in the right direction and moaned in frustration when she realized how useless she was tied to the chair.

  The man boomed in Agati, “Anyone with medical skills, come to the Great Hall!”

  Lilian heard doors above her opening and then hurried footsteps on the stairs.

  “You will not let her die,” she heard him say to someone.

  A moment later she could feel the man behind her, sensed his strong hands reaching over her shoulders and felt them untying her. When she was unbound, she spun around and fell backwards against the chair. Ben placed a cloth over her naked body. She reached out desperately and pulled him to her.

  “Ben!” she sobbed. “You’re alive!”

  He embraced her and said. “I am.”

  When she released the man she saw he was soaked in blood. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. Never mind that. Who are these men with Moros?”

  Trying to collect her wits, Lilian said, “Most are Maqtu who have sworn allegiance to him. Some may be his personal guard, or Lord Nizrok’s. They have killed Disparthian’s lieutenants and Fiela.”

  Ben looked into her eyes and said, “Fiela is not dead, Lilian. She is badly wounded but is being tended to. What about the others?”

  Lilian peered around him. Everyone in the Great Hall appeared frozen in place. They breathed, yes, and they blinked, and they swayed, but they did not move. Moros stood only a few feet away, one hand in the air, a leather belt dangling limply from it. Dozens of Maqtu stood around the room and stared at her with slack expressions. Perhaps two-dozen guests kneeled on the floor.

  Was she hallucinating? Was Moros beating her even now? Had she retreated into some kind of fantasy world to escape the horror of it all?

  “Lilian, answer me!”

  She blinked rapidly and said, “Any on their knees are traitors. Guests who were willing to join Moros. Any who are armed are against me. Those in the rooms above are our friends, as is Lord Disparthian and his remaining guards. There are Maqtu looking for them outside.” Bewildered, she said, “Husband, why does no one move? Why are they…why are they as they are?”

  “They are doing what they were told to do.”

  “I do not understand.”

  Ben pinched the bridge of his nose and after a second said, “You feinted and there was a battle. Disparthian’s men have won, Asatu. They are on the balconies above us, their guns pointed at Moros and his soldiers.”

  The woman looked up at the Maqtu frozen in place on the balconies but saw, instead, Disparthian’s men, carbines to their shoulders, aiming at Moros. They appeared jovial and a few gave her a thumbs-up. One yelled down, “The situation is in hand, Annasa!”

  Sargon’s daughter began to weep. “We have won?”

  “We have. Now stay here and I’ll send a doctor to you.”

  “No,” she protested, shaking off his hands. “I need to tend to Fiela.”

  “No, stay here,” he said, not using those words.

  “As you say,” Lilian replied, going still.

  Ben rose and walked to the physicians tending to Fiela. “What’s her condition?” he asked.

  The physician with the stethoscope said, “The pulse is fading.”

  “Move!” yelled Ben, who dropped to his stomach so that he could put his face next to the girl’s.

  “Peth,” he said, “I command you not to die.”

  There was no response.

  “She isn’t breathing,” said someone behind him.

  “She can hear me,” said Ben, “I know she can!”

  Putting his lips back to the girl’s ear he said, “Peth, come back. The underworld does not want you. You are needed here.”

  The girl did not react.

  “Peth” the man said again, but stopped. This would not work. The living cannot command the dead. “Listen to me,” he said, and whispered something in her ear while placing the back of his hand against her cheek.

  The girl jolted as if struck by lightning. Her eyelids opened a quarter inch as she gasped for air. “Mutu!” she rasped.

  “I’m here,” Ben said, his voice cracking.

  “Here?” Fiela seemed confused.

  “I am,” he said, squeezing her hand.

  The girl’s mouth tried to form a smile but failed. Her eyes closed and she was still again.

  “She needs a hospital,” said one of the doctors.

  Ben rose, trying to control his emotions. “There is a medical facility below. You,” he said to a woman holding a medical kit, “tend to Annasa Lilitu. The rest of you follow me.”

  Ben was compelled to de-animate several more Maqtu as he led the confused, impromptu medical team to the cave. Though he was loath to leave Fiela as the physicians began to work on her, he knew he had to return upstairs to ensure no new enemy faces had appeared. He wasn’t sure what was going on yet. Were there other attackers? Was the hotel full of them?

  None had shown themselves in the Great Hall since he left. Lilian was speaking to a young woman who was cleaning the princess’s face with an alcohol wipe. The Maqtu and Moros stood motionless and surrendering guests kneeled on the main floor, in a trance.

  There was renewed gunfire outside the hotel.

  The researcher moved briskly to Lilian and the woman attending her and whispered something to them. Wordlessly, both ran to the corridor that would take them to the cave’s infirmary. When they were gone he walked to the makeshift throne and fell into it, exhausted. He looked about him, at the dozens of Maqtu, at Moros, and at the guests.

  He spoke.

  Moros swayed dizzily but did not fall. Blinking rapidly, he saw that Lilitu was no longer in front of him. There was, instead, a man - or rather a giant. A Titan! Even sitting in the chair - and how was it that the chair had increased in size to accommodate him? - the creature in the yellow robe towered ten feet above him. No face was visible beneath the monster’s hood. There was only blackness and two orbs that shown like stars.

  The sharply drawn breaths around him told the Peth lord that he was not the only one to see the monstrosity. His heart racing, Moros realized that he still held his belt in the air, as if he planned to strike the creature before him. He dropped it and stepped back, raising a hand to protect his eyes from the glare of the giant’s gaze.

  “Nisirtu,” the creature said in a thundering voice that made the walls and floors vibrate. “The Sillum sits before you!”

  Everyone present cowered at the force of the words.

  “Moros,” boomed the horrible voice, “tell me what has happened here. Everything.”

  The Peth lord complied without hesitation, his fear mounting as a black fog began to rise up from the floor. When he was done, the Sillum growled and surveyed the room.

  “Who among you,” it boomed in its horrible voice, “have this night pledged yourselves to Lord Moros?”

  The guests on the floor of the Great Hall shouted “Me!” or “I have!” for it was not a question that could be answered with a lie or go unanswered.

  The giant glared at them. “Rise, leave this place, and descend the mountain on foo
t until you have reached the great city below. If you survive the descent and the cataclysm to come, you may return and beg the queen’s mercy.”

  Each of the kneeling guests rose without hesitation. As a group they filed silently out of the doors and into the reinvigorated storm, many without shoes and none with coats or umbrellas. One of the guests was Lady Del. Ben guessed the attractive woman next to her was the one known as Persipia.

  When they were gone, the giant roared, “You in your rooms who did not abandon Lilian - well done. You shall be rewarded for your loyalty and courage. Remember this…” and here the giant spoke a word, before saying, “Now, go to your beds, and sleep.”

  The Sillum commanded the Maqtu on the balconies to return to the floor of the Great Hall. When they had gathered there, the monster stood and towered over them. The glowing orbs that were its eyes grew brighter, and brighter, and brighter still, until they were like twin suns. The Great Hall was bleached yellow by their brilliance. The room began to shake violently.

  “You….” growled the Sillum, pointing at Moros and the Maqtu around him. “Listen closely…”

  The Sillum spoke, and the fires that would not end sparked to life.

  Disparthian’s second platoon, tasked to clear the hills, had been surprised to see Maqtu approaching them. But the rebels were supposed to be their allies and so were allowed to approach the ridgeline unchecked until one of Disparthian’s sergeants, a man who fought the Maqtu for years and who still didn’t trust them, challenged them. He reminded them gruffly that clearing the ridge was the responsibility of “real Peth” and not “Maqtu mercenaries.”

  This was not well received by the Maqtu. Already tasked to kill the remaining Peth, they opted to immediately open fire, thus forfeiting the element of surprise that might have ensured their victory over the unsuspecting platoon.

  It was a huge tactical blunder. Disparthian’s Peth, now knowing the Maqtu’s intentions, and being at the top of the ridge, had a decisive advantage as they shot down at them from behind the cover of trees and concealed by darkness. The rebels found themselves lying prone in the mud with no available cover, illuminated by the courtyard lights and trying to fire up and into the rain at Disparthian’s nearly invisible troops.

  Lord Disparthian had been searching for Fiela some fifty yards away when the first shots were fired. Hearing the gunfire, he moved quickly to assess the situation. Seeing the Maqtu firing up at his platoon, he moved in behind the rebels and began to pick them off one at a time even as his Peth engaged them from above.

  The skirmish was brief and decisive. The larger Maqtu force was decimated in quick order. The Peth lord, understanding the implications of the rebel attack, ran back toward the Great Hall while yelling for his guards to follow him. His worst fears seemed confirmed when he heard hellish screams emanating from inside.

  The scene before Disparthian when he entered Steepleguard was surreal. His lieutenants lay lifeless on the floor, Lilitu was gone, and the Maqtu stood in clusters around the room screaming their heads off. It was a hellish chorus. At the far end of the hall, on the stage, was a man fitting the description of Ben Mitchell sitting in a chair in a grimy pair of jeans and a bloody shirt.

  Only when the Peth lord approached the stage did he see that Moros was among the people screaming. The scene made no sense. Nothing was being done to the Maqtu or to Moros, yet to hear them he would have sworn that they were being tortured.

  “Benzira…” began Disparthian, but he reconsidered, and said, “Anax?”

  The man in the chair suddenly raised his head and the lord stumbled backwards, terrified. The thing in front of him had large glowing orbs of yellow light where its eyes should have been. It was not Ben Mitchell.

  “Who are you?” it said in a gravelly, evil voice.

  “I…” said the Peth, continuing to walk backwards, a terror gripping his heart like none he had ever experienced, “I am Disparthian.”

  Immediately, the yellow orbs burned out, and the eyes of a man, a very tired man, appeared in their place.

  “Disparthian…” the thing that was again a man said. “Lilian told me about you. I’m...Ben.” The man said his own name as if it was foreign to him.

  “Anax Sargon,” said Disparthian, daring to step forward. “What is happening here?”

  The other man evaluated his surroundings and appeared as surprised as Disparthian. After a moment of thought, he said, “Punishment.”

  “Punishment for what, Anax?”

  Ben spoke a word that conveyed everything he knew to the lord.

  “I understand you anger,” said Disparthian. “But how long must this go on?”

  The man on the stage asked, “How long do you think is sufficient for what they have done to my family?”

  Disparthian said, “I think they have suffered enough. The proper punishment, the merciful punishment, is execution. Torture is against your nature, Anax. I can see it in your countenance.”

  Ben mulled that over as he watched Disparthian’s Peth arrive through the main doors. Like their commander, each of them stopped abruptly, baffled by the scene before them.

  Ben nodded and rose. “Can you and your Peth see to that, then? The executions?”

  “Yes, Anax.”

  The king shuffled to the edge of the stage and almost fell off. Disparthian caught him just before he did and helped him to the floor.

  “You must rest,” the lord said.

  Ben spoke and the screaming stopped. He said to Disparthian, “They will do whatever you tell them.” He looked beyond the man, toward his troops, and yelled, “When the executions are complete, you will remember that it was you who corralled Moros’s troops and the rebels, that you fought bravely and overcame tremendous odds. You will not remember this conversation or seeing our enemies in this state.”

  The Empyrean seeds began to germinate in their minds.

  As Disparthian and his troops moved back towards the doors, their captives in tow, Ben yelled after them. “Wait! You know what? You’ll also remember me kicking the living shit out of Moros and him crying like a baby.”

  As the last of the enemy forces followed the Peth from the hotel, Ben slowly trudged back to the entrance to the cave.

  “I am the king, after all,” he mumbled to himself.

  The physicians told Ben that Lilian was in good health but sedated and that Fiela was stable. He had asked if the Peth should be transferred to a hospital and they told him that the facility in the cave was surprisingly advanced and that they had everything they needed to treat her there. In any event, hospital helicopters were almost certainly not flying in the storm and an ambulance would take too long to reach Steepleguard.

  Even if transporting the girl had been less problematic, they didn’t want her in a hospital. It would be a bad place, tomorrow. Tomorrow the lights were going to go out.

  Ten of the guests were, not accidentally, nurses, and Fiela was being constantly monitored. Ben directed that another bed be moved next to hers and, undeterred by the disapproving expressions of those around him, he lay down next to the girl, placing a hand on her cheek.

  “Lord Disparthian is in charge,” he told one of the attendants over a shoulder. “If he or anyone else needs me, I will be here. Tend to the wounded.”

  The attendant nodded and made a swift exit.

  Fiela stirred. Looking at the clock on the wall, Ben saw it was just after three o’clock in the morning.

  “Mutu,” she said, blinking at him. She placed her hand on his. It had an IV tube attached to it, the needle held in place with white tape.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  She managed a weak smile and said in a voice that was a whisper, “Duh.”

  Ben laughed. “You see, your English is improving already.”

  The girl looked confused. “But I am not speaking English.”

  The man realized the girl was right. She’d spoken in Agati, and so had he.

  “You don’t even have a
n accent,” Fiela said, marveling at his words.

  “I’ve got a gift for languages,” he replied lamely.

  The girl seemed to drift back to sleep, but then said, her eyes still closed, “Where were you?”

  He assumed she was asking where he was during the reception. “In the tablet vault. I fell asleep.”

  “Really? I thought you left. Because of me.”

  He didn’t understand. “Because of you?”

  She whispered, “I wasn’t scared of you, Mutu. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Fiela. It was a misunderstanding.”

  She shook her head slowly and her eyes became wet. “I thought you were dead because of me.”

  “Like I said, it was a misunderstanding. It’s my fault for disappearing like that. Get some rest.”

  Fiela nodded but kept speaking. “I didn’t abandon you, Mutu. I kept looking.”

  “The vault door was locked. There was no way you could find me.”

  She shook her head weakly. “I heard your voice and you were saying the most beautiful things. It was like a poem. That’s how I knew you weren’t…there.”

  “Where?”

  But she was asleep.

  Part 7 - September 26th and 27th

  Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.

  Robert E. Howard, Beyond the Black River