Muzen

  When Muzen regained his senses, the first thing he heard were the faint sounds of screaming.

  Long before the Sasnayam Empire built itself on the bones of Parthia, the empire that once ruled over it, large rooms and tunnels had been carved out of the yellow rock beneath Tesiphon. Some were used for the removal of waste, but most served as storerooms or secret passages, connecting various parts of the city with one another. Some were still in use, yet over time, many had been abandoned and long forgotten, gathering dust while the city above it changed masters.

  In the days when the Storm Lord had been consolidating his mastery over the empire, Muzen had discovered one of these secret passages by accident, and spent a good deal of time ferreting out more, sharing this knowledge only with his trusted inner circle as he plotted the downfall of his father. Muzen knew a day could come, unlikely as it seemed back then, when he would be the one knocked down from his exalted place as head of the pantheon and would need a secret place to regroup while plotting his next move.

  As he was beginning to fear had happened. The room was not large, with a carefully inlaid Sigil of Return in the middle of the floor, the dust blown back to the edges of the circle as he cast a small globe of witchlight and let it drift towards the ceiling as he looked around. Beyond the sigil, the dust on the floor remained undisturbed, as it was on the large, lacquered box against the wall beside the open doorway. Muzen breathed a sigh of relief and walked over to the chest.

  Laying his hand on the lock, he spoke a word and the mechanism clicked, the lid springing up under his hand. Muzen went to open the box… then stopped as a wave of exhaustion swept over him. He should have known it was too good to be true, the boy falling into his hands so easily. Everything had been going exactly as he wanted and capturing Asena’s child should have been his crowning glory.

  Instead, he had fallen into their carefully laid trap. Hubris. At least father’s priest gave away the game too soon, for all the good it has done me. Time was slipping past him, and despite feeling the agony of being depleted of the mana he needed, like a parched man craving water, Muzen needed even more to know the situation in Tesiphon. Looking down, the contents of the box were as he had left them, the bundles of clothing, bags of gold, jewels, and other precious items undisturbed, and the half-dozen devices in their wooden tray sitting in an ordered row. Muzen grabbed the one he needed and placed his thumb into the depression on the device’s handle.

  Though Muzen remained exactly where he was, the walls of the room disappeared, replaced by an image of the area around the linked amulet worn by his Chief Priestess. His own image stood behind her as he looked around. They stood atop the largest pyramid in Tesiphon, the emperor’s palace a stone’s throw away on the opposite side, the rising moon overhead in the darkened sky adding its light with the torches set in their brackets.

  The golden banners of Yun-Kax had been torn down and trampled, with the priests attending a male, taller and far more heavily muscled than Muzen, wearing robes of dark blue with lightning bolts embroidered into the hems. Towering over the others, the new High Priest held an Artifact knife in his hands over the sacrificial altar, as if ritually consecrating it. “Nasim,” he hissed, “what is happening?”

  The dark haired woman turned around. “Ha! Father claimed you would already be his prisoner, but I knew you would not be so easily trapped.”

  Muzen’s image reared back. Tonight, his sister Ix-Chel was the Maiden and not the Crone, appearing as a tall, beautiful woman with glossy black hair and dark, luminous eyes. Her robes were an even darker shade of blue than the priest’s. “What are you doing on my pyramid? Where is Nasim?”

  Ix-Chel made a sad face. “Your poor priestess is entertaining father’s guards, while father…” She put her forefinger to her cheek while striking a pose. “Whatever could father be doing on top of the pyramid that used to belong to him?” She giggled as her face lit up with an over-bright smile. “Shall we find out?” Without waiting for an answer, Ix-Chel walked towards the altar as several priests gave way. They stared at Muzen as his image floated behind her.

  Muzen ignored them. On the blood encrusted block of stone, a tall, cadaverous male had been laid out across it, with the manacles of gold attached to his wrists and ankles linked with golden chains bolted into the altar. A golden collar attached to another gold chain gave him just enough slack to raise his head. “Brother,” Ghash-Kimil called out in a rough voice, as if his throat was raw from screaming, “I would never betray you. Never!”

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  Scowling so hard that his hooked nose almost touched his lips, the Lord of Storms lowered the knife as he turned towards Muzen. “What are you doing here? Farzod was supposed to have you wrapped up in golden chains, just like your brother.”

  “So sorry to disappoint you, father,” Muzen snarled back. “The Crimson Horde realized that, once again, you decided to double-cross your ally. So they took matters into their own hands.”

  The Storm Lord’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that as I was escaping, their best warriors were preparing to overwhelm Bukhara’s poor excuse for soldiers.”

  Ix-Chel pursed her lips. “I told you Farzod would bungle this. I swear, that man could not organize a one wagon caravan.”

  The Storm Lord grunted but did not disagree. “So where are you, Muzen? Cowering in a hovel somewhere in Bukhara?”

  “I am already outside Bukhara’s city walls.” Muzen stabbed his finger at his father’s face. “Once I have reached friendly territory, I will begin raising an army to take back what you have stolen from me.”

  “Stolen from you?” The Storm Lord brandished the Artifact knife at Muzen’s image. “You waited until the empire was roiling like a boiling kettle and I had my hands full keeping order, to depose me from my rightful place.”

  “The empire was tearing itself apart because of you,” Muzen snapped back as he hooked a thumb towards his own chest. “I was the one who healed the wounds you created and brought back the stability people craved. I was the one who strengthened everyone, high and low, including you and Ix-Chel, with the blood-corn I created from—”

  “Blood-corn,” his father interrupted with a sneer. “Instead of warriors ripping out hearts and eating the mana nodes fresh, you gave us… grain. What are we, cattle to be slaughtered? No,” the Storm Lord snarled, cutting off Muzen’s retort, “when I catch up with you, I will make you beg to have me tear out your heart, just to stop the agony.”

  “Ix-Chel begged me not to have you killed,” Muzen said in a cold voice. “I listened, more fool I. However, I promise you that it will not happen again. I will raise an army against you and I will bring you down.”

  “Brother dear,” Ix-Chel said before the other two could speak, “did you know that the sin Ghash-Kimil committed was so terrible, even Emperor Hormuz switched sides?”

  “That is a lie,” Ghash-Kimil yelled, raising his head up as far as it would go. “All of you knew my temple practiced minor necromancy; every one of you had us raise a dead man at one time or another, so you could speak to him as the dead cannot lie.”

  Ix-Chel’s smile turned feral as she looked at him. “Oh, but minor necromancy was not enough. My spy within your temple was inducted into the ‘Higher Mysteries’, as you called them, learning the rituals to create Revenants, or turn herself into a Lich. There was even discussion about the creation of Shadowmen.”

  The hands of Muzen’s image curled into fists. “Ghash-Kimil, is this true?” Muzen’s brother opened his mouth as if he would deny the accusation.

  But then he closed it again and smiled. “Your dreams were too small for me, brother. As a Shadowman, I would have created more of my kind out of the empire’s best warriors, while my Liches created Revenants, and raised for us legions of the dead. Once I convinced Kax to join us, and had her turned into a Shadow Knight, they would have swept over the Eastern Empire and into crumbling Etrusca until they reached the far shore. We could have ruled the known world.”

  Muzen’s hands uncurled as he stared at his brother in horror. “I cannot believe what I am hearing. How did you gain such terrible knowledge?”

  “Tanit,” Ghash-Kimil replied. “She taught me all the forbidden lore and planted the seed of the dream for the dead to conquer the living. When she left me, she said she would take refuge in one of the satrapies and wait to see what I would do.” Suddenly he strained against his manacles. “Release Kax so she will find Tanit and learn the lore as I did. You are too cowardly, but Kax is not. She will become a Shadowman in my place and destroy—”

  The Storm Lord cracked Ghash-Kimil’s face with the back of his hand. “Silence! You have been a curse to me ever since the day you killed your mother while being born, but tonight,” he said, waving the Artifact knife under his son’s nose, “your curse will come to an end.”

  Ghash-Kimil spat bloody froth onto the Storm Lord’s robes. “Tear out my heart now, tear it out a thousand times more in your dreams, and it will avail you naught. When word sweeps the empire of my death, my head priest of every temple will give the order for all in his inner circle to use the forbidden lore and become Lich.” The Storm Lord raised the knife as his son laughed. “Kill me and the dead will rise, father, sweeping over you and carrying my vengeance—”

  The long knife plunged down into Ghash-Kimil’s chest. He screamed, his body thrashing about as the priests around the altar rushed over to hold his limbs, while the Storm Lord began making the ritual cuts. Blood spurted as Ghash-Kimil jerked once, twice, then went limp as his father continued cutting away at the heart, severing vessels. His son’s head flopped to one side as the Storm Lord made the final cut and lifted out the heart. The priests around the altar let go of the body as the one beside the Storm Lord held out his hands to receive the knife.

  Then the priests bowed as the Lord of Storms brought his son’s heart to his mouth and ripped out its largest glowing mana node with his teeth. The priests began chanting as he chewed and swallowed, an expression of bliss spreading over his face as his bloody mouth opened to rip out the next one. Ix-Chel giggled as Muzen removed his thumb from the depression on the front of the device.