The Alabaster Staff

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The moment for which he'd waited so patiently had, at long, long last, arrived.

Zimrilim felt better than he had in years, if not his entire life. No more need he mince his words and actions as the compassionate and sociable Massedar, merchant prince of Wing's Reach. Gone also was his need to imitate the treacherous Ekur, lurching around his conspiracy. The burden of his aliases was vanished. Better yet, the weight of patriotic duty and personal ambition had been taken from his shoulders. He felt light, even giddy, soaring upon his success. With the theft of the Alabaster Staff just days before, it had seemed that his very heart had been ripped from him forever, but, within just a few days, not only had he managed to retrieve the priceless Alabaster Staff, he had the added privilege of grinding his enemies' faces in hopeless defeat. Such a fine extravagance during his moment of victory.

Zimrilim looked at the assembled priests, held back by the zombies and staring in horror at the return of Gilgeam. A smirk crossed his features. He usually didn't like to show genuine emotion-he considered it a sign of weakness-but that day, of all days, he would indulge himself.

"Now ye ken why thy plans are paltry kittens," he said. "Unther needeth not Bane. Unther hath its devoted lord Gilgeam! And as the people make obeisance unto him, they shall be worshiping me, who maketh the god to dance at my whim."

To prove his point, he aimed the staff at Gilgeam and bent his will to force the dead god to dance.

"As the Empire of Unther drapeth the mantle of its faith upon Gilgeam, he shall yield it unto me, placing it at my feet, and I shall ascend to the divine, with Gilgeam-my avatar-at my right hand! And lo! the powers I shall unleash upon the Pharaoh of Mulhorand and upon the followers of Bane who darken the thresholds of the Untherites' doors shall be utterly without mercy!

"Gilgeam!" he shouted. He focused his energy on directing the powerful beast, and even with the ancient necromantic artifact, it was difficult. "Smite the heretics!"

Gilgeam raised his hands, fingers spread with thumbs touching, and launched a bolt of raw divine power at the thickest congregation of priests. The sound of a thunderclap drowned out the screams of Bane's devoted as they perished. The other priests stampeded for the ramp, their flight harried by the zombies that reached up and gripped at their ankles with a strength only attainable by the dead.

Let them flee, thought Zimrilim. They can flee neither far enough nor fast enough to escape my wrath.

He redirected the staff's energies toward the priests that Gilgeam had just slain, and they, too, rose up. Gilgeam paused in his destruction, but Zimrilim cared not. He chuckled as he watched his new servants rise.

Why, he thought, I shall send those who know the Zhents best to kill them, and therewith gain more to serve me.

He paused to survey the room. In the corners of the walkway, clusters of zombies struck and tore at groups of trapped priests. Several other priests, rather more brave than those who'd fled, called down the wrath of Bane upon Gilgeam, but the god-animate seemed only enraged by their efforts. He strode over and struck one of the priests with his bare fist, punching his sternum so hard that the breaking of a score of ribs resounded in the torture chamber.

The god-thing was acting without direction, but Zimrilim cared not. For a few moments-ages to the Banites, but less to him-Zimrilim let Gilgeam run unfettered by his authority. The priest swirled the staff to drag more corpses to a semblance of life and aim their directionless hunger toward the Banite priests. But then he felt the wrath of Gilgeam rising, threatening to erupt, and he felt the dead mind of the deity slowly turning his fury on him, the master. He applied his willpower against Gilgeam's, using the Alabaster Staff as a fulcrum. It was difficult, tasking work, but the outcome for one such as him was unavoidable, and Gilgeam was brought back to heel.

At that moment, Kehrsyn flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around him, grinding her pelvis into his hip.

"O my lord!" she cried. "Make me thy queen! I shall see to the safety of everything that is thine for as long as I shall live."

"What?" sneered Zimrilim. "Thinkest thou I have need of thy petty skills, when my apotheosis is at hand?"

Kehrsyn's eyes widened, and tears started to form at the corners of her eyes.

"But… but my lord, I thought you loved me-or at least found me attractive…"

Zimrilim snorted. "Prefer I my women cold and obedient," he said.

Kehrsyn quailed in shock and horror, but in the blink of an eye she abandoned her ruse, and, prying his middle finger back, she wrested the Alabaster Staff from his grasp with a move that was as fast and sure as an owl's strike. She turned to flee, but he seized hold of her thick hair and wrenched her around to face him again, yanking her head back to expose her jugular.

"Return thou the staff, whelp," he hissed, pulling her head farther back, "lest I raise thee to serve me more personally."

Kehrsyn whimpered in pain and offered the staff back to him with a trembling hand.

Taking the thin wand back, he threw Kehrsyn to the torture floor, where she landed on a pile of twitching, squirming, almost-animate bodies. He turned to look at Gilgeam, once again threatening to run amok.

He raised the Alabaster Staff to bring the boastful deity back under his thrall. He glanced at the staff itself.

That's odd, he thought, I don't remember it having a crack…

Though it bridled him not to fall upon the high priest of Gilgeam with a whirlwind of steel, Demok held himself back as she had bidden. It was all but impossible not to attack, though it would mean his death, and instead watch a lovely young girl put herself in grave danger.

She moved in, pleading and cajoling, and though Demok could not hear a word, her actions communicated her tack clearly, worming into Zimrilim's weakness through offering her beauty and praising his power.

He scowled. If she'd had the time to tell him her plan, he would have told her not to try. He knew Zimrilim far better than she did. Even though his true identity was a surprise to the Harper, the fundamentals of his brutal personality had leaked out over the years.

Demok moved closer, scanning the room. It was clear that Zimrilim no longer cared who was killed and when. The zombies were acting indiscriminately. He smote first one, and another that reached its pallid, dead arms toward him.

He glanced up and saw Kehrsyn make a grab for the Alabaster Staff. She pried it out of the priest's grip and turned to dash away. Demok moved to cover her escape, bulling his way through the zombies that occupied the walkway. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw Zimrilim hurl Kehrsyn from his presence. The young thief tumbled in midair and landed on her back atop a soft cushion of twitching, squirming corpses.

Zimrilim had taken back the staff.

With a curse, Demok leaped toward her. She rolled over to her hands and knees, shaken but not hurt. Thank the gods, he thought.

He moved next to her, his swords drawn and ready.

"Nice try," he said, speaking loudly to be heard over the din.

It was not false praise. She'd come within a hair's breadth of disarming the most dangerous villain Demok had ever seen. There remained no options left but the sword. He rose up and began to advance, his short sword ready to parry, his long sword held behind him, swaying gently.

"No!" shouted Kehrsyn, grabbing his leg. "Don't!"

Demok turned and snarled down at her, "Let go!"

"I succeeded!" hissed Kehrsyn, trying to make herself heard above the sounds of slaughter but not speaking so loudly that Zimrilim might hear.

"What?"

She grabbed the front of his vest and yanked him down.

"I got it!" she said, flashing just a bit of the bone-colored wand that protruded from her sleeve.

How? thought Demok.

Then he remembered how she'd palmed not only a coin into his glove but a dagger out of his scabbard, and hidden all before he could see.

He glanced up at Zimrilim. The Gilgeamite priest held the Alabaster Staff-at least, it looked like he did-but he was inspecting a portion of its handle. He raised it again and pointed it at Gilgeam, but the undead god-animate did not obey. Instead, he bellowed some war cry, ancient words turned inarticulate by a dead tongue, and advanced on Zimrilim.

"Right," said Demok. "Follow me. Now!"

He charged toward the torture room's exit, working his twin blades to clear as wide a path for Kehrsyn as possible. He focused on disarming the zombies in a very literal sense. He trusted Kehrsyn's agility and balance to see her safely through the press of dead flesh, so long as they couldn't grasp and overpower her.

It was grisly work, maiming that which was already dead, and the smell was doubly unpleasant, but the virtue of his task gave him strength.

The efforts of the last remaining cluster of Zhents helped him win a way through, for as he neared the ramp several zombies were caught between his blades and the Zhents' maces and spells.

With a glance of thanks, the Zhents began to run up the ramp. Demok checked to ensure that nothing had waylaid Kehrsyn, then followed, the young woman close on his heels.

As they ran, he switched his swords from one hand to the other, and, as the Zhents ahead approached a corner of the ramp, he hurled his short sword at the rearmost. The blade plunged into the man's kidney as he reached the corner, felling him. Demok snatched up the blade as he ran past, giving it an extra twist to ensure the Zhent never rose again.

Kehrsyn shrieked in disgust and empathic pain.

At the next corner, another of the Zhents glanced back and noticed that their companion wasn't following. He paused and called out to him, then abruptly ceased as Demok's long sword took off his head. Too late the Zhent's hand raised to block the attack; then the body toppled.

Demok heard Kehrsyn cry out in shock.

"Will you quit that?" she yelled from behind.

"No," growled Demok.

As they approached, the level of the Chessentan encampment, one of the Zhents paused for just a moment, yelling, 'To arms! To arms!"

Demok and Kehrsyn caught up with her, and, as they did so, Demok speared his short sword up through the woman's ribs and into her heart.

He threw her body to the floor and yelled, "Fall back! Get help! Now!"

An explosion rocked the foundation of the temple, and a tremendous gout of flame licked up the ramps, spending the last of its energy trying to turn the corner below them. There followed a long, ululating howl, a hollow cry mixed of agony and triumph.

Demok looked at Kehrsyn and said, "He's coming. We need help. Lots of help."

Kehrsyn looked at him, at the body at his feet, back down the ramp, then at Demok again.

"I know where to get help," said Kehrsyn, shivering. "At least I hope I do. Come on."

She led him out of the temple at a run.

They fled outside as another tremor rocked the temple, but despite the trembling foundation Kehrsyn drew up short, staring at the sky. Demok looked up. Gone were the gusty winds that had blown their cloaks around when they'd ridden over. The air was absolutely still. Straight above them the moon and stars shone brightly in a clear sky, but farther away Demok saw the clouds thick and bunched, lightning arcing between them. It was as if a drop of oil had fallen upon the sky, clearing the air as it spread and pushing the angry clouds back. Even as he watched, he saw the clouds being pressed farther away, roiling intensely.

It reminded him of the eye of the storm in the one hurricane he'd experienced.

"The world is making room for the return of a god," Kehrsyn said, awe-struck.

"I'd just as soon it didn't," swore Demok, and he charged down the steps for the wagon, whose driver was staring at the sky, ignoring the skittish horses.

Demok leaped up into the driver's seat, his body slamming the hired help off the far side. Kehrsyn hopped into the wagon behind him.

"I hope your help is good," Demok yelled, as he whipped the horses into motion.

Demok yanked hard on the reins, pulling the horses up short and causing the wagon to slew to a stop. Kehrsyn hopped from the rear, frankly thankful that she-they-had arrived in one piece. She bounded up the steps and pounded on the door, though her slender hands and none-too-brawny arms made no more than a small noise on the thick wood.

With a growl, Demok leaped from the driver's seat and bounded up.

He slammed the door open wide, stepped in, and yelled, "Hey! High priestess! C'mere! Now!"

Three Tiamatans inside rose at the sudden disturbance and came glowering over to Demok. One brandished a cudgel, and another drew a wide dagger, serrated like a dragon's teeth.

"Mudsucker," said one as they closed in, "you just got a whole heap of-"

Before he could finish the sentence, Demok lunged into action. He drew his weapons as he kicked the leader in the groin, cracked the pommel of his long sword against the back of the man's skull as he doubled over, and charged in on the other two, jamming one against the wall of the cloakroom with his short sword held across the man's neck, while the other found the point of a long sword probing the skin of his solar plexus.

"No," hissed Demok, "I am a whole heap of trouble!"

"Announce Kehrsyn and Demok here to see Tiglath," said Kehrsyn, showing a poise that surprised even her, given the situation. "I have her sufferance, and you will not harm this man."

"I can see that," said the Tiamatan pressed against the wall.

The third man sheathed his dagger and gently pushed the point of Demok's long sword away from his stomach.

"I'll get her," he said.

"Tell them they're here on urgent business," added the man against the wall.

"While we wait, why don't you put down your club and help your friend here?" asked Kehrsyn.

The man nodded and dropped his weapon, then carefully moved to his fallen comrade and helped him to the relative safety of one corner of the cloakroom.

That done, Kehrsyn leaned over to Demok and said, "Please put your weapons away. Tiglath won't take the sight of them very well."

"Tough," grunted Demok.

"She'll take it as poorly as you would," elaborated Kehrsyn.

Demok considered that, then sheathed his weapons quietly and efficiently. Kehrsyn noticed, however, that he rested his hand on the pommel of the quick-drawing short sword. Just in case.

In just a few moments, Tiglath came bustling along, wrapped in a thick robe. Her little dragonet sat on her shoulder, flexing its wings to keep its balance as she walked.

"My dear," she said, "I'm coming to think that you're a storm crow."

"You don't know the half of it," said Kehrsyn. Tiglath cocked her head. "The guy I work for, it turns out he's Zimrilim, and he brought back Gilgeam."

"Gods, no…" Tiglath gasped. "You-you're jesting!"

"He must have kept the body hidden all these years, and he used this ancient magical wand and these potions and-"

"Zimrilim," echoed Tiglath, still with a tinge of disbelief, "resurrected Gilgeam?"

Demok shook his head and replied, "No, not resurrected. More like… animated. Mummy, perhaps."

"Yeah, like that," said Kehrsyn. "He was all wrapped up and stuff, and he just ripped his way out of the wrappings and grew in size and-"

"Fiery hells," swore Tiglath, "he… animated… a god? To be his pawn?"

"Yep," said Demok.

Tiglath put her hands to her head as if to keep it from exploding under the pressure of that new revelation.

"He must be mad…" the priestess said, speaking primarily to herself.

"Well, yeah," said Kehrsyn.

"To even think of forcing a dead god back into its corpse is… is unconscionable. Only the very highest undead would be capable of holding Gilgeam's intellect. Such an act… even creating a greater undead being… it would excise the higher levels of the corpse's mind, leaving only the basest and most violent processes in place." She looked up at Kehrsyn and Demok, as if remembering their existence. "That's the basis of animation, you know. You take a human and stimulate only the basest, most animalistic desires, their simplest instincts of hate and hunger. It makes them easier to control and ensures their hostility if they are encountered out of one's control. Doing that to a divine being like Gilgeam would be insane. Think of all of the heinous acts he committed in his life, when he had some semblance of self-control! How much more, then, when his higher brain is wiped away, leaving only a vague sense that nothing is right within his own mind!"

"Well, that would pretty much fit with what we saw," observed Kehrsyn.

"Didn't like having a master," observed Demok.

"And Zimrilim, after all these years! I knew we should have searched harder for his body!"

"Don't bother," said Demok.

Tiglath rocked back on her heels, looking up to the ceiling. "So if what you said is true, Zimrilim made him some sort of greater undead, which means he'll have all of his instincts and many of his mental faculties. He won't have much of a sense of identity, which means we won't be able to reason with him. He is almost certainly mad… not that he wasn't mad enough already when he was alive."

Tiglath turned to her followers and said, "Full combat regalia, people, move!" She looked back at her visitors and shook her head slowly. "There will be a lot of blood tonight. We have to do our best for Unther, but even if we succeed there may not be enough left of Messemprar to interest the pharaoh anymore. Last time we fought Gilgeam, we had the Dragon Queen Tiamat herself at our side. Now all we have is a city full of tired, hungry refugees and defeated soldiers."

"And we have this," said Kehrsyn, pulling out the Alabaster Staff. "You seem the best bet to carry it. I just hope you can figure out how to use it."

Tiglath took the long, slender wand and turned it over in her hands, whistling through her teeth. She glanced askance at Kehrsyn, a glint in her eye.

"Would this happen to be the 'ancient mystical wand' that you mentioned earlier, young one?"

Kehrsyn grinned, but her pride in her accomplishment shone through in her eyes.

"Yeah," she said from the corner of her mouth.

Tiglath rocked back on her heels with a self-satisfied smile and said, "I'm greatly pleased to find that my trust in you was not misplaced, young one." She handed the staff back. "Come with me, and tell me everything you know about it while I don my armor. You," she added, turning to Demok. She paused, then fluttered a hand at the two Tiamatans in the corner of the cloakroom. "Make sure those two get their armor on right away."

Demok laughed between his teeth and said, "Armor. Right."