Authors: Michael A. Stackpole
Grija, being the first of his children, was conceived in haste and therefore lacking in imagination. Grija latched on to death as his aspect without thought, while the others choose more carefully. While all of his children hid things from him, Grija had the least amount to hide. Over the eons, Nessagafel had come to know him very well.
Almost completely
.
Grija grew closer—though distance was again a concept without meaning in the Underworld—so Nessagafel gave himself form and substance. He had not yet escaped the heavy shackles and slender ring his children had fashioned for him. An eternity of imprisonment would soon end, however, as well-laid plans slowly coalesced.
Grija came to him as a wolf, so Nessagafel became a wolf’s carcass, rotted and bloated, flesh black where his fur had fallen out. One eye hung against a blood-caked cheek. His lips had been eaten away, giving him a perpetual snarl.
“Very nice, Father. A vision of my future?”
“Not one you would ever see, my child.”
Grija recoiled from the comment. “I shall never end up thus. Things progress as I have planned. Soon, very soon, I shall set you free. As my agent, you may again raise your Viruk to the heights they once enjoyed. You may rid the world of Men.”
Nessagafel allowed the flesh to slough from a forearm. “And you will then bring your Ansatl to full flower? Men defeated them when you sought to make them ascendant.”
“Wentoki followed in your footsteps and became a man. He gave Men magic. Without him leading them, my Ansatl would have crushed Men.”
And then would they have come to oppose my Viruk—what remained of them?
He would have laughed had he not found Grija’s transparency so tedious. When Grija and the others conspired to create Men, Grija chose an aspect which Men would never respect or truly worship. They might pay Death attention and deference, but revere it? Impossible. And then Wentoki, the clever one, had created the Fennych and Tsiwen had created the Soth. Grija attempted to make his own creatures, the Ansatl, but the lizard-men were, like Grija, shallow and ill-suited to conquest. Their appetite for killing meant they always overgrazed their home and Men were forced to destroy them. Even now, the remaining populations remained on a scattered archipelago where they had split into factions and waged cannibalistic raids on each other.
Grija bared his fangs. “There need be no conflict between us, Father. The Ansatl and Viruk will rule the world between them. We shall destroy those who oppose us, then we shall balance each other. Twin powers, night and day, light and dark.”
“Creation and the absence thereof.”
“Reality and the void from which it was sprung.” Grija looked up toward the heavens—another unnecessary gesture. “You were correct when you decided to unmake things, but you wanted to go too far. You had to be stopped.”
“Of course. Much consideration of my errors has convinced me of this. But your brothers and sisters must be destroyed. They are too unpredictable and too difficult to control. If they did not fear you, Grija, they would have long since destroyed you.”
“Speak plainly.”
Nessagafel opened his jaw in a smile, then let the bone hang loose from one side of his head. “They think you weak. They have accepted that Wentoki is the key to keeping me locked away here in the Ninth Hell. They have no idea that when you agree to strip divinity from him, you will assume his power. Then, using it to control me, you will destroy them. They think you incapable of such subterfuge.”
Grija growled defiantly, yet both of them knew it would become a whimper if Chado, Quun, or Wentoki were to appear. “They have forever underestimated me. They assume I care only to harvest souls and keep them here to draw sustenance from them. The prayers of the dead are thin broth compared to the devotion of the living. They think I am weak because of it.”
“But you
are
weak, Grija.”
Grija’s dark eyes became molten hatred. He lashed out and the collar around Nessagafel’s throat tightened. Pure fury flowed through it, constricting it. Agony pulsed into the elder god. It turned Nessagafel inside out. It melted his bones into ivory plasma which Grija carved into an intricately decorated sphere, trapping the rest of his father’s essence.
Pain rose through Nessagafel as bubbles through boiling water. He could not speak and would not scream. He could barely twitch. Pain played over him as argent lightning arcs, then sank deep like fangs into flesh. It melted him from the inside out, churning him into a roiling lump of unrecognizable existence.
“Weak?
Weak?
Is
that
weak?” Grija assumed human form to more properly strut his outrage. “You are in
my power
. Do not forget that, Father. You
will
obey me. I do not
need
you to succeed. I wish to return to you the freedom you have long been denied because my brothers have wronged you. Their oppression wearies me.”
Nessagafel allowed himself to gasp weakly, feeding Grija’s ego. As quickly as he could, the elder god hardened the lines pain made in his essence. He clung to that lattice, pouring himself into it. Through it he could read every outrage Grija had known since the moment he burst into existence. As with every other instance of torture, Grija used his own pain as a model for that which he visited upon his father. Instance by instance, he gave Nessagafel what a lack of omniscience denied him.
One does not escape a prison, one escapes the warden
.
Grija paced and prated. “You alone are capable of understanding what I put up with, for we are both trapped here. They think they tricked me into accepting the Underworld as my realm, but I knew what I was doing. I will have all the power eventually.”
“But you were not content to wait.”
“Impatience is only a vice to those who lack the intellect to see the inevitability of the future.” Grija closed a hand into a fist. “All is to be mine, so why wait?”
“Why, indeed?”
Grija narrowed his eyes. “Why do you say that? What do you know?”
Had Nessagafel felt the need, he would have shrugged. “Is it not curious that you are the god of Death and, yet, you have not died?”
“Curious, but immaterial. Were I to die, I would simply bring myself back into existence.”
“Create something from nothing? That is quite a difficult task.”
“But you did it.”
“So how hard can it be?”
Grija laughed. “Exactly.”
“Not hard at all.” Nessagafel chose to smile, but Grija could not recognize it as such. “I made death from nothing. I made all of you from nothing.”
“And yet, here we are.” Grija shook his head. “But you shall be freed soon, to be my vassal.”
“I prefer
agent
.”
Grija’s eyes sparked and pain drilled through Nessagafel. “Be pleased I do not make it
slave
.”
Nessagafel grunted and became quiescent.
“I am not fooled, Father.” The god of Death shook his head. “Do not think I have not considered treachery on your part. I have taken precautions.”
I am certain you have
. Nessagafel formed an eye and stared at Grija.
I do not choose to believe they will be effective
.
“Soon, Father.” Grija waved a hand and the glow surrounding him blinked out of existence. “Gods will tremble and gods will die.”
Chapter 12
T
he trio of ships stood out, in part because of their enormous size. The hulls had been made of a black wood and the ships were so broad abeam that little of the deckhouse could be seen from the riverside. Six tall masts rose from the center of the ships, but none bore any canvas. They drifted upriver slowly, and had they been found floating in a bay, they would easily have been taken for derelicts.
Though clearly designed for traveling the ocean, the ships moved up the river steadily. As with much other river traffic moving against the current, the ships had a line out which had been fastened to the harnesses of draft beasts. But where a buffalo or ox might have drawn a raft along, a dozen of them could not have even held the ship in place against the current. Yet the lines did go out, and draft beasts did draw them along, step after plodding step, closer and closer to Kelewan.
Nelesquin read the disbelief on Keerana’s face as the first of the black ships came around a bend in the river. The warrior’s expression had begun to change earlier, into one of puzzlement, as the ground shook with the beasts’ footfalls. Nelesquin had known what to look for, so he’d seen the first beast’s head rising just past the tallest trees. The creature, easily a hundred feet long and half again as tall, had a long neck which made nipping tender leaves from the tallest branches easy.
The Durrani stared, dumbfounded. “Such a beast I have never seen.”
“They were created after you departed.” Nelesquin waved casually toward the dark green creature pulling the ship upriver. “I remembered, belatedly, how difficult Tsatol Deraelkun could be to destroy. I created a few things to aid you, and I shipped them here.”
“But how?” The warrior’s amber eyes slitted. “You could not carry more than one or two of those creatures on the ship. Its appetite must be enormous.”
The ground shook more violently as the creature came closer. Nelesquin’s mount shied, and the Prince roughly reined it back under control. “We fattened them up in Anturasixan, then laced their food with Bloodstar orchid blossoms. The creatures slept, and the three you see here were wakened at the coast. They are docile and easily controlled.”
Nelesquin pointed to the creature’s long back. Between the creature’s shoulder blades sat a Durrani warrior. He manipulated two golden rods that looked to be the size of broom handles. “Those rods are driven down into slots in the vertebrae. The driver controls the beasts that way.”
Keerana nodded, watching, his hands imitating the motions of the driver.
Nelesquin smiled.
From curiosity to shock to cunning. He measures the beast for combat
. “Magnificent, no?”
“Yes, Master, incredible. I can have my men shape a platform for the back. Archers can shoot from it. Depending upon the fortification, the creature could smash walls, or we can step from its back to the top of a palisade.”
“Oh, no, no, no, Keerana, nothing of the sort. These creatures—which your people have dubbed
kasphana
—are for pulling wagons and ships. I have others for toppling walls. You shall be amazed.”
“Yes, Master.” Keerana smiled. “Please thank your lady, Nirati, for her part in this. I can see her gentle hand in its shaping.”
“Then your eyes deceive you, Keerana, for Nirati had nothing to do with the
kasphana
, nor any of the others I have brought. Certainly some of the failures reside in her realm, but not these. They were bred for war and, mercifully, she knows little of that.”
“She is too gentle a creature for war.”
“How very true.” Nelesquin frowned, thinking back to his reincarnation. He had emerged from nothing and had met the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. At least, that is the way he’d felt. There was something about her which seemed to answer his every need. She had been his perfect match.
At least such had been true at that moment.
Then he had met her grandfather, Qiro Anturasi, and recognized in the man’s hatred for the Nine Principalities a commonality. In no time, Nelesquin’s imperial designs and ambitions had been reborn. With Qiro as an ally, shaping an army to fulfill their mutual desire for revenge and justice had been child’s play.
Nelesquin labored under no illusions that he would have to destroy Qiro. He’d known that from the first, of course. Qiro wanted to destroy the nations so he could be raised above all others. Nelesquin knew he
was
above all others, and a rival was not something the Prince would tolerate.
But Nirati would not take her grandfather’s death well. That was the difference between them, for Nelesquin had helped
plot
his grandfather’s death.
A light burned in Keerana’s eyes when he mentioned Nirati. The Durrani worshipped her quietly, seeing her as a goddess of peace between battles. Keerana was blessed among his compatriots, for she had smiled upon him. He likely even loved her.
As I do
. But Nelesquin hesitated, wondering if he did love her. He certainly
had
loved her—he remembered that much. The memory of her, her soft body, her bright green eyes, the scent of her perspiration after they had made love; all of these things brought a smile to his face. She was his Queen, no doubt of it, but did he actually love her?
Nelesquin reined his horse around and began to pace the black ships. Nirati had been everything he desired in Anturasixan, but since his return, things had changed. Here he was, on the cusp of victory, reclaiming that which was his by blood and right, and where was she? She had remained with her grandfather, blocked from joining him, no doubt by the old man himself.
And why was it that she would take the detritus of his experiments? What did she do with them? What did she want with them? They were dead ends, much as the Principalities were.
A new thought occurred to him, one he did not much like. She had brothers she loved dearly. And her grandfather was arguably the most powerful man in the world. Were he not so focused on revenge, he might seek to become a god or at least challenge the gods. What if Nirati had meant for Nelesquin to fall in love with her so he would go out, reconquer the Empire, then she would usurp him and establish the Anturasi family as the Imperial line?
That is not possible, is it?
But Cyrsa had killed her husband to usurp his throne. It had been done before.
Nelesquin turned in the saddle. “How freely do you trust, Keerana?”
The Durrani’s eyes widened. “You, Master, utterly and completely. You are father to my race. We owe you everything and live to serve.”
“Your fidelity is most appreciated.” Nelesquin gestured and the warrior rode up on his right side. “But among your people, how easily do you trust?”