Seven Kings

12

Sunlight became an unpleasant memory. Sharadza slept by day in the tower of her rebirth, its windows shuttered behind tapestries of black wool. Each evening the moon called her forth, the invisible weight of it hanging above the city. Wisps of silver moonlight crept across the onyx stones of the palace. She met Gammir in a sunken courtyard beneath the diamond stars. In that place a wild grove of the jungle had been re-created for the Emperor’s pleasure. The gnarled, crimson trees twisted their branches into the night like grasping claws. Leaves the color of ancient wine fell upon the cobblestones and faded to the pallor of dead flesh. This was the Red Garden. Here the deadliest of Khyrei’s flora grew from roots watered with the blood of young slaves.

Among those sharp-edged leaves grew the ruby blossoms of the bloodflower. Sharadza walked with him in the grove of poisonous foliage and watched his long pale fingers pick the choicest blossoms. She carried a wicker basket into which he tossed the scarlet petals. They sat on a garden divan carved into the likeness of a winged Serpent with a pair of great bloodstones for eyes. A slave girl brought Gammir’s long pipe of silver and pearl; Sharadza watched as he stuffed the red petals into the bowl of the pipe and lit it with a burning taper. So it went every night.

She had learned to enjoy the acrid yet sweet smoke of the bloodflower. It elevated her perceptions, showing her the sea of blood constantly moving and flowing about the city. With the dun smoke creeping from between her lips, she saw the red glow of that blood, singing and surging in the body of every slave and soldier, every courtier and courtesan, every peasant and noble. Any of them might offer her a meal to thrill and amaze her newborn senses.

The first few times the hunger came she fell immediately upon some hapless slave and drained him dry. Gammir watched laughing from the dark divan. In time he taught her not to rush the feeding. He showed her how to savor the hunger, to enjoy the onset of the Great Thirst… to take her time in choosing whose sacred fluid would fill her belly.

It was a lesson she had taken to heart.

Each night, after sharing the bloodflower, they rose above the city as leather-winged shadows. She soared with him about the forest of ships’ masts in the harbor, the black and red reavers that made Khyrei the terror of the Golden Sea. Swarms of sailors crawled like ants across the decks and wharves. They winged above the peaks of noble estates where the upper class of Khyrei conducted their feasts. Along a thousand streets and alleys they fluttered and careened, sending wary nightwalkers running for the comfort of hearth and home. They fed on the blood of wayward harlots and drunkards, leaving bodies drained and withered in the filth behind squalid taverns. In the palace victims were carefully chosen and prepared for them; in the streets they were predators snatching easy prey for the savage pleasure of it.

South toward the jungle they flew. Sharadza looked upon thousands of slaves gathered about tiny huts among the vast and bountiful fields. Companies of Onyx Guards on charcoal steeds kept order in this second city lying outside the high walls. Hearthfires gleamed in the shadow of the great wilderness. On they flew, diving into the deep shadows of the jungle itself, where the moonlight could never reach. He showed her terrible things that lurked in the red gloom, told her the secrets of the venomous herbs and insects that made it their home. At times these night flights even took them far out over the Golden Sea, where the waves danced madly and the bloated moon reigned supreme. There she discovered the origin of that sea’s name by the yellow glitter of moonglow across the main.

How many lives did she take, living in this way? She soon lost count.

They were only slaves anyway. Most of them.

Only humans.

How many times did she lie with Gammir, lost in the pleasure of his dark embrace?

Why put a number to it?

His touch thrilled her like no mortal man ever had.

There was only one.

Gammir was her Lord, her Prince, her Emperor, her Lover.

For his part, Gammir had little to do with the daily business of the city. The Council of Lords, an assembly of the heads of noble houses, ran the mundane affairs of Khyrei. They reported to the Emperor every seven days. When their decisions displeased him, Gammir corrected them with torture and death. Fear of these two penalties made them strive most heartily to meet his every desire, even when it cost the lives of their wives or children. And there was always the threat of having one’s noble status revoked. Being cast into instant slavery was far worse than death for the highborn citizens of the black city. So, as Gammir shared with her, the city practically ran itself. His empire consisted of the Golden Sea, the city, and the southern jungles. His ships held the sea, fear held the city, and the deadly jungle took care of itself.

The Great Thirst was her constant motivator. She craved blood as a drunkard craves wine. Yet at times a single ray of light speared through the blood and shadow in her mind, and it troubled her. Like a needle slipped into her skull just behind the eyes. It danced and gleamed like a white flame, but she ignored it until the pain grew too great to bear. Then she fed, and the warm blood smothered the light, bringing comfort and strength.

Gammir spent much of the time alone in his high tower. He would not allow her to set foot there, not since the first night she had arrived and felt his velvet embrace. She had no doubt that he wove some great spell at the top of the barbed spire. She heard his voice ringing from the upper windows, a strange language that she could not understand. Flashes of emerald, azure, and violet burst from the tower windows when he worked his hidden sorcery. He mentioned it to her only in vague whispers and riddles.

“You are my Princess now, Sharadza,” he told her. “In time you will know all…”

She might have invaded his sanctuary and demanded a part in his machinations, but the Great Thirst always came upon her when she dared to set foot on the lowest of his stairs. Instead of walking up the stairwell and joining the sorcery he worked, she found herself flying from the courtyard again, seeking more of the Red Wine of Khyrei. A vintage that could only be found in the hearts and veins of the city’s living populace.

Tonight was no different. Except that she had chosen to walk the city. Draped in a cloak and hood of sable fabric, she passed among the lanterns, gates, and walls of her dark kingdom. Most of those who roamed the streets after sunset were laborers, citizens who made their living by the sweat of their brows. They shuffled hurriedly through the gloom, keeping one eye on the shadows at their backs and carrying unknown burdens in sack and keg.

The youths of noble houses cavorted well into the night on the Street of Eighty-One Delights. They poured from the noble quarter in garish silks and gaudy capes, seeking bottles of drink and illicit substances to drown their ennui. They were a handsome lot, if completely foolish: pale of skin, dark of hair and eye, heedless of good taste, and arrogant as Princes. Their highborn women were the most ostentatious, traveling by slave-borne palanquins draped in silks and tinkling baubles. Their enormous headdresses reminded Sharadza of spiderwebs, intricate nets of agate and jade. She had seen less flamboyant gowns worn by Queens, though she could not remember where.

No Khyrein saw her as she passed among them, for such was her will. Yet men shuddered and women gasped as she walked near. They lingered on street corners and jousted drunkenly, made love sloppily in the nearest of alleyways, and finally staggered into the shelter of a drinking house where their status would be recognized. The proprietors of such establishments had little choice but to treat these young nobles like Kings and Queens.

All of these young fools pretending to be royalty. Pretending to be Gammir, their omnipotent Emperor, the Undying Lord who had eluded death.

Something deep within her suggested that she share their rollicking company, but the Great Thirst called her back into the night. She passed a couple fornicating beneath the awning of a sidestreet merchant shop, then took the thoroughfare leading to the Southern Gate, which closed every night just after sunset.

Keep walking. Walk through those gates and never come back to this place. Fly!

She hissed and a gray-eyed cat leaped from a heap of garbage, terrified by her passing.

The city was a pulsing living organism spreading all around her, and she was the black-tongued wolf set to rend and devour it. Her nails grew into claws and the fangs in her jaw crept out between her lips. She stood at the corner of two main streets, insubstantial as a fog.

Silently ravenous.

A troop of masked sentinels marched along the way, members of the Onyx Guard returning from a day among the fields. What must the hearty blood of the plantation slaves taste like? Perhaps among those who knew neither leisure nor luxury, she would find a stronger drink. She had grown accustomed to the thin blood of the city slaves. Occasionally, she and Gammir chose a victim from one of the noble houses. The blood of nobles was richer, darker, more flavorful. Every few generations an unlucky noble house was cast into slavery to invigorate the breeding pool of the workforce. To strengthen the blood of the slaves.

“If we drank only noble blood,” Gammir jested, “there would be no city left to rule.”

A likely bit of prey walked among the night vapors spilling from sewer and hearth. A young girl, low-bred, wrapped in a tattered shawl. She carried a bundle in her arms. An infant.

Shardaza did not care if she was a whore or a good wife. She cared only for the pulsing red within. The newborn life was too insignificant, so she brushed it aside with one long arm. The baby, wrapped in thick swaddling, fell onto the muddy stones with a muffled cry. Its mother stared into Sharadza’s commanding eyes. Sharadza saw herself reflected in the girls’ pupils. Pale oval of a face, ivory fangs between ruby lips. The young mother would have screamed, but Sharadza gripped her by the throat, turning her head to expose the throbbing neck vein.

No. Not again…

Her fangs sank deep into the soft throat. The warm essence of eternity spilled across her lips, caressed her tongue, and slid down the gully of her throat. The glimmer of light in her skull faded once more, and she quivered with ecstasy. The baby lay between them, wailing for a meal that would never come. Perhaps in any other city, someone would have run to answer the cries of a desperate child. But this was Khyrei. All children knew suffering here; age was no bar to tragedy. The night did not belong to the people of the city. It belonged to the Emperor and his pets.

Is that all I am now? His pet?

She drank deeply, taking every last drop of red from the young mother. Finally she picked up the emaciated body and tossed it into the trash of the alley. It weighed no more than an empty wine sack.

A pair of glinting eyes drew her attention. A black hound watched her from the shadows at the back of the alley. She hissed at it, spewing tiny drops of red across the pavement, but it did not run. It only slunk back into the shadows. Still she felt its eyes upon her.

In the euphoric depths of her satiety, she forgot the fallen child completely. It squalled a forlorn little song as she rose like a great bat into the sky.

She flapped her black wings and sped toward the palace.

Tonight he sat in the Great Hall on his throne of onyx and cloudy crystal. Seven advisors stood about him in a half-circle, bowing as they took in his soft words. Each wore the tall hat of a functionary, ludicrous blends of fabric and silver thread hung with talismans of bone and jewel. Their robes were white and each wore a sash of a certain color: green for agriculture, yellow for city works, black for military, silver for palace functionaries. Among the seven stood three generals: the Sea Lords Hinjutu and Muiduk, and the land-bound Warlord Kuchai. Each of the three wore a curved scimitar in a jeweled scabbard. About the pillars of the hall stood a dozen spearmen, Onyx Guards with faces inscrutable behind their fanged masks. The flames of hanging braziers bathed their black armor in bloody hues.

Sharadza entered the hall in her black gown. The satin rustled like the sound of folding wings, and Gammir raised his narrow head to smile at her. A wave of his hand dismissed the advisors. They dare not spare her a glance as she approached the throne. She sank to her knees on the topmost step of the royal dais and laid her head against his knee, wrapping an arm about his calf.

“My wandering Princess,” he cooed, running fingers through her thick curls. “How was your hunt this evening?”

“Fruitful,” she breathed.

He cradled her chin and turned her face to him. His beautiful eyes gleamed blacker than night itself. “Yet you seem despondent.”

“My Lord keeps secrets,” she said.

He grinned, then lowered his lips to hers. “No longer,” he said. “The time has come.” He rose from the throne and led her by the hand toward the stairwell of the high tower. Whenever his flesh met her skin, she trembled, not with fear, but with a fearsome desire. His was the power to kindle her lust even with a glance. He was her Lord. Her Master.

He is your brother!

He was the Emperor of Khyrei. She belonged to him, as did everything else beneath the stars. Now he led her up the winding stairs to induct her into the inner mysteries of his house. Soon he would raise her from Princess to Queen by taking her hand in marriage. He had promised it. She longed for that day. Oh, the blood that would spill to commemorate their joy…

Anathema! Death is preferable.

At the top of the stairs he opened the iron door and escorted her inside. Here was the highest chamber of the great tower, a domed hall filled with shelves, books, vials, tables, and a thousand thousand cryptic things for which she had no name. The four windows stood open to the flaring stars, and in the very center of the room two circles of runes had been carved into the floorstones by acid or chisel. The smell of rotting paper, ancient dust, and dried bones met her nose. Weightless globes of living fire hung about the chamber, shedding ruddy light across Gammir’s sanctum. Grinning skulls leered at her from the shelves between jars of fleshy curiosities.

He drew her by the hand again, leading her to the spot where a yellowed map hung on the wall. It showed the known world, all the Great Cities drawn as towered icons by some skilled hand. Since the map was old, proud Shar Dni still stood on the northern edge of the Golden Sea. The real city had been a haunted ruin for eight years now. She studied the tiny cityscapes of Khyrei, Yaskatha, Uurz, Mumbaza, and the vague representation of Udurum, which had remained a half-legend until some thirty years ago, when Vod united Giants and Man.

“What do you see?” Gammir asked.

“Your map is outdated,” she told him.

“To be sure,” he rejoined, staring at the faded ink. “I keep Shar Dni alive on this parchment to remind me of my first great conquest.”

You died there and were reborn in shadow.

“Why do you show me this?” she asked.

“What do you see?”

She paused and scanned the ancient map. The Southern Isles were a string of pearl-sized land masses. To the far right, the Jade Isles appeared as a larger version of those same islands. The north end of the map was empty, as no explorers knew what lay beyond the Icelands. Still, this was a fair representation. How little it had changed since the map’s rendering. Only one city gone forever.

“The world,” she said. “I see the world.”

“Aaaahh,” sighed Gammir. “You only think you see the world. But you do not see it. Not all of it.”

She turned from the parchment to search his dark eyes.

He lifted a small stone from a nearby table littered with scrolls and quills. A perfect sphere of black marble. He held it up before her eyes.

“Do you see the stone?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“How much of it?”

She blinked. “All of it. In your hand.”

He smiled. “No, you only see the side of the stone that is facing your eyes. What is it you cannot see?”

“The other half of the stone,” she replied.

“Exactly.” He kissed her lips. A sensation of death and rebirth at once flowed from her mouth along every limb of her body. She moaned, drew a breath sharply, then regained her focus.

“When you look at this map,” said Gammir, “you see only half of what we call the world.”

“Do you mean-”

“Yes,” he interrupted. “Our true world is like this stone. Not defined by four rugged edges spilling into the void. But round… a sphere. With two sides, Sharadza.”

He laid the stone down next to a shriveled human hand and pulled her across the room to a tall oval mirror against the wall. At its apex a snarling demon’s face was carved into the molding with a murky topaz locked in its jaws. It reminded her of the masks the Onyx Guard wore over their human faces. The rest of the mirror’s base was a conglomeration of minutely carved devils, gargoyles, and vipers, twisting themselves in an orgiastic loop that encircled the misted glass.

I know this mirror…

“Look now into the Glass of Eternity,” said Gammir. He waved a hand and the cloudy mirror filled with colors. She winced at the glow of sunlight from the mirror’s surface. A bright scene of midday filled the glass, as if she were looking out a window. Yet outside the actual windows of the tower Khyrei seethed and smoked beneath the dark embrace of night.

She pulled away. “What is this?”

“Look…” he whispered, and she found that she could not turn away from the glass. A vision swam inside the mirror, and she marveled at its clarity.

A palace of white stone, large enough to swallow the one in which she stood. A great face, the face of a handsome warrior, dominated the upper half of the structure. No, it was the face of a God, it must be. This was no palace, but a temple. The greatest and most magnificent temple she had ever seen. Yet the towers that rose from its lower walls and the gilded domes set with patterns of gleaming jewels spoke of a King’s House. About the monolithic temple-palace with its sublime face of stone there stood orchards and gardens greater and thicker than even those of Uurz, whose gardens were the stuff of legend. About these gardens lay a massive white wall, and outside the wall a vast city built of that same pale stone.

The azure sky gleamed bright and familiar, yet the city was unknown to her. The pathways of its streets, the curious forms of its domes and ziggurats, the placement of its mighty stones, the ambition of its great porticoes and arches… all of these were alien. Beautiful. Exotic of make and mold, and carved with symbols she could not identify. A river bright as silver coiled through the city and emptied itself in the green sea beyond. Throngs of people filled the streets in foreign garb, a riotous blend of colors, styles, and forms that left her head spinning. Hairless mammoths lumbered among the crowds bearing pagodas, their tusks sheathed in ornate silver. Guardsmen roamed the city’s bridges on the backs of two-legged Serpents the size of horses.

Now a great shadow fell over her viewpoint and she saw the first of the ships. A wide-bodied galleon sailed into view above the city like a gargantuan eagle. It flew a purple sail from its main mast and one more from each of its sides, like a bird’s wings. The foreign crewmen shuffled about the deck, securing bales and ropes. Yet the sea lay a quarter-league below. The ships were flying miracles. Now she saw more of them, docking at the balconies of high towers, or sinking low to the harbor for gentle landings in the water of the great bay. Cohorts of armored warriors walked their decks.

The people themselves were not all that different from those she might recognize. Outside the walls of alabaster stone, hordes of slaves worked the well-ordered plantations. The teeming crowds of the city had keen eyes like those of Khyreins or Jade Islanders, but their skin was primarily a golden brown, like wheat loaves baked to perfection. Yet there were clusters of pale and dark-skinned folk everywhere as well. She saw warriors in white turbans and silken pantaloons; horsemen draped in silver mail and steel; maidens chattering in carriages pulled by striped desert horses; commoners shuffling through the dust delivering wares, building structures, or sitting at ease in public gardens.

The wealth on display was incredible. Yet nowhere did she see signs of mirth, or even a smile. Their faces were tightly drawn, as if some invisible weight lay upon each and every man’s shoulders. The richest of the women wore veils to hide their sad faces. Even the children milling among the crowds were grim and dedicated to whatever tasks they had been set. No music, no play, no foolishness. None of these things were allowed in this strange empire.

“What… what is this?” she asked.

“The other side of the world,” Gammir answered.

The mirror’s shifting vantage point showed again the temple-palace and its godly face of brilliant stone. Gammir whispered in her ear, as if he muttered something profane.

“Look upon the face of Zyung the Conqueror,” he said. “Zyung the God-King. This is the seat of his power, the center of his empire. On the other side of our world he rules all. The Kings of every kingdom bow to his shadow.”

Sharadza had no words for this revelation. To all the sages and priests and Kings, the map on Gammir’s wall was the world in its entirety. At last it came to her that this vision in the mirror was real, the hidden side of reality that none save Gammir had seen before now.

Now the mirror’s viewpoint dropped beyond the great city to the purple plains beyond. From the city’s outer wall, stretching across the tableland to the foothills of a misty mountain range, there camped a vast army. Hundreds of thousands of tents and cookfires; great phalanxes of armored men marching in drill formations; the airy pavilions of generals and Kings; a sea of baroque spears and flapping banners grown like wheat across the flatland.

This was the Great Army of Zyung, and the sheer size of it took her breath away. Now she saw ancient and terrible things, winged lizards with beaks like amber blades. Entire flocks of them soared above the great host. Some of these beasts lay at ease amid the ocean of tents, chewing on the flesh of burned offerings. It seemed that she gazed on some ancient empire out of dim legend. For a moment she doubted the truth of Gammir’s words.

“Does all this… does it really exist?” she asked.

He laughed. “Now you know the truth of the world, Sweet One. Zyung is of the Old Breed. While our civilizations rose from barbarism and built the Great Cities, Zyung was conquering all the lands on the far side of the world. Do you understand? One single all-encompassing empire bearing his name. He even cast down their Gods. Now they worship only Zyung. Only a master of the Old Breed could achieve such greatness. Impressive, is it not?”

She stared again at the inhumanly perfect face of white stone. If it were to fall from the heights of the temple-palace, thousands would die beneath its weight. It seemed inconceivable. Yet here it was. She knew now that Gammir did not lie. Not about this, his great secret.

The mirror faded to cloudy gray once more, and she turned to face him.

“Why did you show me this?”

“So you will know what is to come,” said Gammir. “I have treated with the God-King himself. He intends to expand his empire until it encompasses the entire world. Both sides of the stone. This means our own world must fall to the one he has built. It has been his goal for untold ages.” He took up the black sphere again, squeezed it in his fist. “His power is unimaginable.”

Sharadza’s eyelids fluttered. “Your words bring me fear.”

Madness! All of this is madness.

Gammir chuckled at her mock naivety. “My little Princess, do you not see? When Zyung and his numberless legions come to claim our world, he will have one ally-only one-to aid him in this conquest.”

“You,” she said.

He smiled and struck a kingly pose. “I will continue to rule Khyrei in his name, while the rest of the Great Cities crumble and burn and die. Zyung will build new ones in their place. Such a great and fine slaughter it will be. All my enemies and their kingdoms will fall, and the spires of Khyrei will stand above them all.”

“My Lord…” she breathed. “You would… serve… such a being?”

“For a while, yes,” Gammir said. “Long enough to see Yaskatha and Uurz and Mumbaza and Udurum wiped from the earth.” He turned away from her and walked to the center of a circle of runes. His eyes caressed the worn floor there, as if it held all the secrets of the cosmos.

“Then… when she returns… we will take the God-King’s power.” He looked at her with a new kind of lust blazing in his lupine eyes. “And the world will be ours.”

He took her body there in the center of the rune circle, as if the carnal act could summon his missing Empress. His fangs raked across her neck as his fingers explored her body. She was, as always, helpless beneath his touch.

Drops of her own blood spilled across the black flagstones. He left them there to dry among the runes, so their power might kindle a spell he long wished to cast.

Thirteen bloody nights later, the high tower seethed brightly enough to blot out the moon. On the darkened streets hunting her prey, Sharadza looked up to watch a blazing comet fall out of the sky. The summit of Gammir’s barbed spire burst into flames. No, the flames poured from its four windows, white and fierce as the naked sun. She turned away to spare her eyes.

Something dark and heavy fell within her chest as the white light faded. A thicker darkness replaced the shattered gloom of evening. Doors slammed and dogs howled. Somewhere a stabbed man’s death cry rang across the night.

She finished sucking out the life of a brawny blacksmith and left his drained body lying across his anvil. She flew as if summoned to the palace and up the winding stairs. No longer was Gammir’s sanctuary off limits to her. She was his Princess.

His slave. Only his slave.

Flinging open the iron door, she rushed into the high chamber. Gammir kneeled inside the circle of runes, his arms wrapped about the waist of an imperious figure. His smile was a mask of total bliss, and Sharadza knew he would never love anyone the way he loved this woman with the steaming pale skin and black diamond eyes. She stared at Sharadza now, her mane of white hair wild as a northern blizzard. Entirely naked, she radiated power. Her fingers, tipped with feline claws, stroked Gammir’s face. When she spoke her ivory fangs sparkled. The last of the white flame dripped like water from the pink tips of her breasts.

“I knew you would return,” Gammir moaned, his cheek pressed against her pale thigh. “I knew it…”

The tall woman held Sharadza’s gaze. She could not look away, even if she chose to.

Gammir turned his eyes upon Sharadza and grinned. She expected him to offer her neck to this fanged Goddess. Sharadza would gladly lie down and offer up her hot blood if asked. But the decision was not hers to make. She belonged to Gammir, as Gammir belonged to this other.

He reached a hand out to her, and Sharadza moved across the chamber to take it. She kneeled now at the edge of the rune circle. The sigils throbbed with a scarlet light, overpowering the last of the white flame’s glow.

“Grandmother,” said Gammir. “Meet your new daughter… my Sweet Princess… my gift to you.”

The pale Empress smiled. She kissed Gammir’s lips and took Sharadza’s hand from him.

“My Favored Son has been lonely,” she said. “This one has the Blood of Vod in her.”

“Not anymore,” said Gammir. “She is reborn to us in blood and shadow.”

The Empress raised one of her thin eyebrows.

Her loveliness was blinding, like the sun at midday.

Sorceress!

She killed Father! She killed…

Ianthe kissed her and gave her hand back to Gammir.

“My children,” said the sorceress. “You make me so very proud.”

She smiled, and Sharadza’s heart leaped. Nothing could be a more worthwhile endeavor than to please this Queen of Queens. This Empress of Immortality.

The Claw.

“It seems a Royal Wedding is in order,” said Ianthe. She pulled Gammir and Sharadza close, her long fingers cradling their chins.

Sharadza’s cheek burned against the cool skin of her thigh.

“But first,” said the Empress, “let us drink deep the Red Wine of Khyrei.”