—<TWENTY-THREE>—

The Usurper

Lahmia, the City of the Dawn, in the 107th year of Ptra the Glorious
(-1200 Imperial Reckoning)

For seven days and seven nights, Alcadizzar’s men searched the city for Neferata and her followers, and for the hiding place of the infamous tomes of Nagash. They combed the palace and the smouldering ruins of the temple from top to bottom, and though a great many hidden passageways and chambers were discovered, no sign of the city’s secret rulers was found. Even Neferata’s puppets, King Sothis and Queen Ammanura, had vanished, though several witnesses claimed that they had fled to the temple garden after the city gates had fallen and taken poison to avoid capture by the invaders.

After a week, Alcadizzar privately conceded defeat. Jars of oil and barrels of pitch were brought up from the docks and the great palace was set alight. The roaring flames burned long into the night, rising like a pyre atop the high hill as the invaders marched out through the broken western gate. They left behind a wasteland of empty streets, pillaged shops and burned-out homes, roamed by vultures and packs of fat-bellied jackals.

Laden with plunder and files of weary, hollow-eyed slaves, the allied armies made slow progress across the Golden Plain. Faisr’s people rode ahead, each one bearing a message that the tribes had been waiting to hear for centuries. By the time the soldiers reached the centre of the plain a vast tent city awaited them; wives raced out from the camp on swift horses to welcome back their husbands, filling the air with songs of joy. The long exile in the east was finally at an end.

Upon reaching the tent city, Alcadizzar offered his fellow rulers the hospitality of his tent and bade them stay as his guests for a while, to celebrate their victory and talk of Nehekhara’s future. As the matter of Lahmia’s vast treasury had yet to be settled, Alcadizzar’s allies could not very well refuse.

For a full week, as the last of the desert tribes filtered down from the far reaches of the plain, Alcadizzar entertained his guests with horse races and martial contests by day and lavish feasts by night. During the feasts, young women of marriageable age from the tribes would join the royal guests and provide entertainment, as was their custom, in the form of conversation, dance and song. It was during these feasts that Alcadizzar came to notice one young woman in particular: Khalida, a maiden of thirty years, who was named after the legendary warrior-queen of Lybaras. She was tall, dark-haired and slender, like most women of the tribes, but her eyes were a rare, vivid green, like polished emeralds. Her voice was deep and earthy, and she laughed often, but what captured Alcadizzar’s interest most of all was her keen wit. She was astonishingly well read, conversing with kings and champions on matters ranging from horsemanship to history. One night he had found himself in a lively debate with her about Settra’s early campaigns against the tribes that had lasted until nearly midnight, until her brothers had been forced to politely separate them for propriety’s sake. He’d looked forwards to seeing her ever since.

Over the course of the week, the political manoeuvring intensified. Numas and Zandri pressed shamelessly for a lion’s share of Lahmia’s gold and promised close ties of trade and friendship in return. Mahrak and Lybaras appealed to Alcadizzar’s scholarly nature, pleading for gold to restore their libraries and temples. Ka-Sabar promised a steady supply of good iron, drawn from the deeps of the Brittle Peaks, in return for trade agreements that would keep their forges working for generations to come.

Prince Heru told Alcadizzar he could keep Rasetra’s share of the gold, just so long as he could take Khalida home with him. The king of Khemri refused, much to Heru’s amusement.

Alcadizzar played the game of diplomacy with great skill, forging profitable alliances with Ka-Sabar, Quatar and Lybaras, while keeping Mahrak at arm’s length and establishing an understanding with Zandri and Numas, his closest and most ambitious neighbours. In the end, Lahmia’s plundered gold was split seven ways, with equal shares going to each of the cities. Faisr’s tribes received a slightly larger portion of gold than the rest, but forfeited their share of slaves, since their laws forbade it. The following day, Alcadizzar’s guests took their leave, marching for home laden with riches and bound by new political ties to Khemri. Whether Alcadizzar’s peers had realised it or not, a new era had begun.

The armies began to move at dawn, starting with Zandri and Numas; by sunset, the last of the Lybaran companies had departed, driving their slow-moving wagons westwards. Only the people of Khemri remained, waiting to escort their king to his new home. After days of celebration, a sense of relative calm settled over the tent city, as the tribes prepared their meals and contemplated breaking camp the following day.

Alcadizzar sat inside his tent, wrapped in heavy robes and sipping tea from a fine porcelain cup as he reviewed the particulars of trade agreements he’d signed with Ka-Sabar and Numas the night before. His broken ribs ached and the rest of his body was stiff and sore, from his eyebrows to the tips of his toes. His duties as a host had left him more drained than the battle outside Lahmia, or so it seemed.

There came a scratching at his tent flap. Out of habit, Alcadizzar started to rise from his chair and see to it, but Huni, one of his new royal servants, rose smoothly from his place near the entrance and went to see who was outside. There was a brief murmur of conversation, then the servant returned with a look of consternation on his face.

Huni prostrated himself before the king. “There is someone who wishes to speak with you, great one,” he said. “I told her that you have retired for the evening, but she is most insistent.”

Alcadizzar glanced up from his documents. “Who is it?” He thought of Khalida, his pulse quickening.

The servant frowned. “I do not know,” he replied. “All she will say is that she is the Daughter of the Sands—”

“Gods above,” Alcadizzar swore, straightening in his chair. “Send her in at once!”

Huni leapt to his feet and dashed for the tent flap. He pulled it aside with a bow, and Ophiria entered, followed by her hooded servant, the chosen of Khsar. She arched an eyebrow at the king.

“My apologies,” Alcadizzar said, sheepishly. “This is… unexpected. Ah… may I offer you tea?”

The seer’s lips quirked in a faint grin. “You may.”

Huni hurried to the brass kettle, only to be waved away by the king. Alcadizzar poured the cup himself and brought it to her, his mind racing. “I wasn’t aware you’d arrived in camp,” he said, trying to work out what was going on.

“I’ve been here since before you arrived,” Ophiria said, her golden eyes studying him over the rim of the teacup. “You were too busy entertaining to notice.” She glanced around the tent. “Shall we sit, or is it your habit now to drink tea standing up?”

“Yes—I mean, no.” Alcadizzar sighed irritably. Ophiria flustered him more than all the kings of Nehekhara combined. “Please. Sit.”

The seer lowered herself gracefully to the piled rugs, cradling the teacup in her hands. Alcadizzar had seen her many times over the years, at tribal gatherings, but hadn’t actually spoken to her since the night of Suleima’s funeral rites, some forty years ago. Other than a few streaks of grey in her hair and some wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, she hadn’t changed a great deal since then.

Alcadizzar sat across from her. His gaze went from Ophiria to her servant and back again. He wasn’t certain how to proceed. The bride of Khsar, as a rule, did not visit other men’s tents.

“To what do I owe the honour of this visit?” he asked.

Ophiria gave him a sphinx-like stare. “We have matters to discuss,” she said.

“I… see,” Alcadizzar replied. The seer sipped her tea and said nothing. Finally, the king turned to his servants. “Leave us,” he said.

Huni and the rest bowed and slipped silently from the tent. Ophiria waited until the last one was gone before she spoke.

“Congratulations on your victory over the Lahmians,” she said.

Alcadizzar shrugged stiffly. “It was a hollow triumph at best,” the king said. “Neferata escaped.”

“Her fate lies elsewhere,” the seer said cryptically. “Her power has been broken for now and my people are free to return home. That is victory enough for me.” She sipped her tea, glancing over at the papers piled on the table. “The past few days have been profitable, I trust?”

“It’s a good beginning,” the king allowed. “There’ll be more to do once I get to Khemri, of course.”

“And what are your plans, now that Lahmia is no more?”

Alcadizzar took a deep breath. “Well. Finish rebuilding the city, to begin with. Hopefully find a wife, and have children. Try to live like a normal person, for the first time in my life.”

Ophiria let out a snort. “There’s nothing normal about you, Alcadizzar,” she said. The seer finished her tea. “What do you think of Khalida? Does she interest you?”

The king’s eyes widened. “You know about her?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was the one who suggested she attend the feasts in the first place,” Ophiria said. “As it happens, she’s my niece. And she could use a husband who’s read as many books as she has.” The seer gave him an arch look. “Assuming you were serious when you told Faisr you wanted to marry a woman of the tribes.”

Alcadizzar bristled a bit. “After all this time and everything I’ve done, you still doubt my sincerity?”

Ophiria set down her cup and sighed. “No. I don’t.” Her expression turned sombre. “You’ve been a man of your word in every respect, Alcadizzar. I wouldn’t be offering you my niece if you weren’t.”

“Well, what’s all this about, then?” the king asked.

The seer’s golden eyes met his. “It’s about Nagash,” she said simply.

Alcadizzar stared at her. “What have you seen?”

Ophiria was silent for a moment, her expression thoughtful, as though uncertain how much she ought to say.

“The Usurper is coming,” she said at last. “Even now, he prepares his armies for war.”

The king’s heart sank. “How soon?”

“Years; possibly even decades,” Ophiria said. “Nagash does not measure time as we mortals do. He has not forgotten his defeat in the last war and will not act this time until he is certain of victory.”

“Then he cannot be defeated?”

Another faint smile crossed the seer’s face. “That depends on what you do with the time you’re given. From this moment forwards, every day is a gift. Use them wisely.”

Alcadizzar sighed wearily. “All right. What am I supposed to do?”

Ophiria shrugged. “I’m no strategist,” she said. “How was he beaten the last time?”

“The other priest-kings combined their forces against him.”

“Well, then, perhaps you should start there.”

The king scowled. “You’re a seer. Is that the best you can do?”

“Don’t be impertinent. It doesn’t work that way,” Ophiria snapped. She rose to her feet. “I’ve told you all I can, Alcadizzar. Rule well with the time you are given. Prepare Nehekhara for Nagash’s coming. All the world depends on it.”

As she turned to leave, the king called out to her. “Wait!”

The seer stopped at the tent flap and scowled at him.

“There is no more to tell, Alcadizzar. I can’t share what I haven’t seen.”

The king shook his head. “Never mind that. What about Khalida?”

“What about her?”

Alcadizzar frowned. “Now who is being impertinent?”

Ophiria grinned. “She resides in the tent of her father, Tariq al-Nasrim. Call upon her if you like. She loves to read. Promise her all the books her heart desires and you should do well.”

By night he crept across the wasteland like a spider, clutching his precious cargo to his chest and stealing the life of any living thing that came too near. North and west he went; at the end of each night, just before the paling of dawn, he would scuttle into a shallow cave or a hillside crevice and open his senses to the aether, like a ship’s captain taking a bearing from the stars overhead. The crackle of necromantic energies pulsed invisibly in the distance, always seemingly just beyond the next set of hills.

Three weeks after his narrow escape from the city’s gatehouse, W’soran crested a splintered ridgeline and caught his first glimpse of the great fortress. The ancient mountain was as large as Lahmia itself, ringed about with seven high walls of black basalt and hundreds of slender, blade-like towers. It dominated the horizon to the east, crouching like a dragon beneath a vast pall of ashen cloud, along the edge of a dark, fog-shrouded sea. Though he was still a great many leagues away, the sight of his destination filled the necromancer with a terrible, hateful joy.

The path around the shores of the great sea was a long one, fraught with dangers. Twisted, scaly creatures lurked in the marshes that bordered the sea’s western shore, but worse were the packs of howling, pale-skinned monsters that infested the hills to the north. Once they’d caught his scent they hounded him without pause, tracking him through the hillside thickets like hungry jackals, until finally he was forced to turn and fight. He slew scores of them with blasts of necromantic energy and still dozens more with his claws and needle-like fangs, until finally the survivors fled in terror. After that, the creatures continued to test him, pacing at his heels and trying to herd him into places of ambush, but they never risked an open battle with him again.

Finally, after many weeks, W’soran crossed through the territory of the flesh-eaters and reached the far shores of the wide sea. He came upon the ancient ruins of a large temple that had once barred the path along the sea’s eastern shore. Beyond the ruins, the shoreline along the base of the mountain was covered in treacherous mounds of crushed stone and wreathed in tendrils of poisonous yellow vapours; a lifeless waste made by human hands, living or dead.

A wide road of black stone carved through the wasteland like the path of a knife, leading to the first of the mountain’s forbidding walls. This close to the mountain, there was no day or night; just an endless, iron-grey gloom that neither sun nor moon could shine through, allowing the necromancer to travel on without pause. The air throbbed with the sounds of industry: hammers and bellows, the groan of wheels and the rumble of spilled rock. Beyond that, however, there were no shouted commands, no weary curses or barked laughter, as working men might make in the lands to the south. The fortress hissed and rumbled and banged, but for all that, there were no sounds of life within.

As he approached the gate, a horn wailed from a nearby tower and the great black portal grated open. In the darkness beneath the gate’s arch waited a dozen skeletal figures, wreathed in icy mist and flickering green grave-light. The wights leered at him balefully, gripping blades marked with runes of death and damnation. Leading them was a rotting skeleton in ragged robes; the liche’s eyes flared hatefully at the sight of W’soran, as though it somehow knew him. A malevolent hiss slipped past its splintered teeth.

Undaunted, the necromancer smiled coldly. “I am W’soran, from the city of Lahmia to the south, and I am known to your master.” He lifted the heavy leather bag clutched to his bony chest. “I bear him gifts and news that will be of great interest to him.”

The wights said nothing. After a moment, they withdrew. The liche reluctantly lifted a bony hand and beckoned for W’soran to follow.

Traversing the vast fortress took hours, first across narrow lanes under the ashen sky, then down dank, twisting corridors carved into the mountain’s flanks. Higher and higher they climbed, and the closer W’soran came to the object of his quest, the more he felt the weight of the Undying King’s power pressing against his skin. It permeated the rock and hissed invisibly through the air, filling up his skull until it was almost impossible to think. It gripped him and pulled him onwards, like an irresistible tide.

At last, W’soran found himself in a vaulted antechamber, high upon the slopes of the great mountain. Before him, towering doors of unfinished bronze groaned on their hinges, opening just wide enough to admit him. Green light flickered hungrily within. The wights flanked him to either side, heads bowed towards the open doors. They offered no instruction, for none was required.

Gripping the leather bag tightly, W’soran strode into the presence of the Undying King, followed closely by the silent, black-toothed liche.

The great, columned hall beyond was vast, larger by far than the pitiful chambers of Nehekharan kings. Shadows writhed along the walls, stirred by pulsing veins of glowing green stone that wound across the surface of the rock. More green light pulsed from a sphere of the same glowing rock, resting atop a corroded bronze tripod at the foot of a stone dais. Sorcerous power radiated from the rock like heat from a furnace, but its intensity paled before the conflagration of power that was Nagash himself.

The Undying King sat upon a great throne of carved wood, cased in the intricate black armour that W’soran had glimpsed on Sakhmet’s night, so many years ago. Pale green flames wreathed the king’s leering skull and arced along the rough surface of his crown.

W’soran made his way towards the king’s dais. Hunched, growling figures paced him from the shadows along either side of the hall—flesh-tearing beasts, like the ones who had hounded him along the hills north of the great sea. Of course they served the Undying King, the necromancer reckoned. Every creature within sight of the great mountain, living or dead, likely bent its knee before Nagash’s might.

W’soran did so as well, falling onto his knees before the dais. The burning skull did not move an inch in response to the immortal’s presence. There was no need; Nagash’s awareness filled the echoing space, invisible and all-consuming. A portion of it fell upon him, much as a man might note the passage of an ant beneath his feet.

The immortal raised his hands to the figure upon the throne. “Great Nagash,” he cried. “Undying King! I am W’soran, who witnessed your triumph on Sakhmet’s night, twenty-two years ago.” W’soran fumbled open the leather bag before him. Reaching in, he drew out the first of the leather-bound volumes inside. “I have come bearing tokens of my devotion—your own necromantic tomes, looted from the Black Pyramid centuries ago and held by lesser hands in Lahmia ever since.”

This time, the burning skull did move fractionally, glancing downwards at the offered tome. The Undying King’s awareness focussed upon W’soran, scorching his mind like a heated iron.

“I bring news also,” W’soran croaked. “The City of the Dawn has fallen; the bloodline of the treacherous Lamashizzar is no more.”

The skull inclined further, until W’soran found himself staring up at the orbs of fire that seethed from its eye sockets. Nagash’s awareness burned like acid along the immortal’s bones, threatening to consume them.

“There is more!” W’soran exclaimed. “A… a usurper has claimed your throne, great one! A man of Rasetran blood sits upon the throne of Khemri! Alcadizzar is his name and he claims descent from Settra himself!”

There was a creaking of metal. Nagash leaned forwards upon the throne, looming over W’soran. The ancient tome flew out of the immortal’s hand as an invisible fist gripped him, smashing him back onto the stone floor. The necromancer’s veins burned and claws of fire sank into his brain. A voice, cold and soulless as stone, reverberated through the hall. W’soran screamed in ecstasy and terror.

“Tell me of this usurper,” the Undying King said.