The Queen of Wolves (29 page)

“You were powerful. Who could do you harm?”

She looked at me as if I were a fool. “When the crown is upon your head, Maz-Sherah, everyone is your enemy. Do not forget this. You can trust no one. I trusted Ghorien...and he brought a silver blade to my heart and laid me in my tomb while I remained conscious, knowing I could not fight him. Knowing I had lost, and I would spend eternity staring at the stone lid of my own grave, ever thirsting, ever longing for all existence to end.” She tilted her head slightly, and I glanced in that direction. The Asyrr king called Setyr had raised his arms to shoulder height as his servants placed a lapis robe upon him. “A man from the northern cities had raised an army against mine, and with the magick of Medhya’s scrolls, and my Extinguishing, he had destroyed the city of Nekhbet-Luz in a mortal generation, and had established himself as ruler of Myrryd and the Alkemarr territories. No one knew of what Ghorien had done, and when I felt Setyr’s Extinguishing in the stream, I knew that he, too, had been betrayed.”

I reached over and lifted her chin that it might again be proud as a queen and a warrior. “I raised you and these others to right the wrongs done to you, and to others. To destroy Medhya, or drive her beyond the Veil where she cannot return again to this world. Do not let the crimes of thousands of years become the punishment of this present age. In the stream, we are one. There is no separation between any of us here.”

“Yes,” she said. “Do you feel it?”

I nodded. She meant the stream. It no longer seemed a spider’s web strand, or a lighty flowing current. We were in the ocean of it, here, all of us, a heavy and yet unbearably light feeling.

“This is what Myrryd was like during my reign. The stream was everywhere and flowed through many.”

“The raising of the Asyrr has strengthened it,” I said.

“No,” Nekhbet said. “The stream comes from a source. And you, Maz-Sherah, are its origin. You are the Serpent in flesh, and the stream is your wake. The blood of Merod is also in you, and the venom. Your existence is tied to ours, and, though you must not trust any here, know that none here will raise a sword against you, for our own breath depends upon yours.”

Then, abruptly, she changed her tone, and loudly called out, “On your knees, Anointed One!”

I stared at her, and then saw that the others had begun gathering in a circle around us, and their servants and soldiers, too. Nekhbet wore a mischievous smile upon her face.

“On your knees!” the Asyrr shouted.

Nekhbet’s servants brought her a vial of oil, and a sword.

She wore a half smile as she said, “You must bend to us now, for we must recognize you as our leader. Even the lord of all vampyres under the Great Serpent and the Dark Mother must present himself in humility to those who have come before.”

I got down on one knee, and she took the vial and spread oil mixed with aromatic herbs upon my head. My scalp began to tingle with the warmth, and some of the oil dripped down over my brow. Then she wiped it down my face. She crouched down at my feet, her servants removing my boots. She rubbed the warm oil into the tops of my feet and along my ankles.

Then, taking the sword, she pressed the flat of its blade to my lips. “Bless our swords, Maz-Sherah, Anointed One of the Tribe of Medhya, son of the Great Serpent for whom we have long waited. For we bring war to our mother, Medhya, and seek the blessing of the chosen of our tribe! This is the time of the Great Crossing, when Medhya seeks to return to power upon this earth—to destroy us, and enslave the mortal realm. But she is her own destroyer—for no being can exist whose sole aim is power that will not be sent to oblivion. We are oblivion, and you, Maz-Sherah, are the scourge of Medhya!”

The others gathered around repeated this in various languages, though, to me, all sounded as one tongue. They shouted her words, and the phrase “scourge of Medhya,” and “We are oblivion!” became like a roar.

I kissed the blade, and she withdrew it.

“Show us the instruments of your anointing!” she shouted, raising her sword into the air.

I held up the crudely cut staff of the Nahhashim tree. I drew the Eclipsis from my shirt, and set it on the floor. Then, from my belt, I unsheathed the shattered blade. When I held this up, all went silent.

The blue fire grew from the jagged edge of the hilt, and the curved, toothed blade emerged.

“What do you know of this sword?” Nekhbet asked.

“It is a sword of fire, forged by the Asmodh, a weapon of the Great Serpent, stolen by Medhya, and used against the Serpent to imprison him.”

“It is called the Nameless, Maz-Sherah. It is a sword of the Nameless nights of the solstice when the membrane of the Veil is thin, when the Great Serpent first breathed the fire of life into the dead. Many kings and queens of Myrryd attempted to tear it from its resting place, yet none could. Many were driven mad by its whispering. But the sorcery of the Nameless is greater than any other sorcery upon the earth. None may take it but its master,” Nekhbet said. “If an immortal wields it, it will curse him.”

“And so I am cursed,” I said, as I held the blade aloft.

“All who hold the Nameless blade will suffer,” she said.

“The Nameless,” I said, looking at the blade. “Asmodh.”

“Asmodh! The Nameless!” they shouted. “Eclipsis! The Staff of the Nahhashim! These are the signs of the Maz-Sherah!” They called out other names—those vampyres lost to history, those battles remembered from their kingdoms, the wives and children, the heroes and the fallen.

Amidst the throng, the tall, gaunt vampyre king called Athanat trudged along, pushing the other vampyres out of his path. When he came to me, he gave me a look of disdain. “There is among the missing, a mask. A sacred golden mask. It holds great power within it. Drawn from many immortals. If he is the anointed, where is the mask?”

“The mask of Datbathani,” I said. “The Lady of Serpents.”

“If you are Maz-Sherah, then you possess it,” he said. “Why do you not have it?”

“It rests upon the face of a vampyre called Pythia,” I said.

“Pythia, daughter of Namtaryn?” Athanat spat on the floor at my feet. “She sent me to my Extinguishing, Maz-Sherah. She is no better than the Myrrydanai. She should not wear the mask.”

Namtaryn came rushing forward, drawing the twin-bladed dagger from her hair. She held this at eye level with Athanat. “Do not speak of my daughter this way, coward, unless you are willing to tell how you stole her from her rest and bound her and laid her out upon a desert that the sun might immolate her at dawn!”

“She did not burn, Light of Namtar,” Athanat snarled as he drew the sword from his side, ready for a fight. I heard the clank and squeal of swords and other weapons being drawn by the others surrounding us.

I reached out, grabbing Namtaryn’s wrist, and drew her blade-wielding hand downward. “What I have brought from the dust, I can return to dust.”

She shot me a feral glance, and I saw where Pythia had gotten her fury. If Pythia was a tiger, her mother was a dragon. She glared at Athanat, and when she returned her attention to me, muttered nearly under her breath, “You are a fool.”

“Sheathe your sword,” I said to Athanat. Then, looking out at the gathering, “All of you. There will be no battles between us, not while Medhya threatens to destroy us all.”

Nekhbet glanced at me as if about to warn me of something, but thought better of it and disappeared into the crowd, her servants trailing her.

Namtaryn set her blade back among the tresses of her hair and reached over to touch my throat. “Are you my daughter’s lover?”

Her fingers created an intense heat as they stroked my neck, then went to my left ear, touching it lightly.

“You have great sorcery in your touch,” I said.

“She has kissed this throat, and whispered in these ears.” She smiled, and combed her fingers through my hair. “She had a fondness for the young. It was she who brought the Sacred Kiss to you? Ah, she must have enjoyed your dying.”

I reached up and grabbed her hand, pulling it away from my scalp. She drew it back from my grasp. “I thought you would be concerned for her.”

“She does not need her mother’s concern,” Namtaryn said. Her eyes narrowed as if she were trying to understand what I meant. “You have been told to distrust me. That liar—Nekhbet—oh, but you must know about the jealousy of women, for I am sure many fought for your attention, pretty one.”

“Nekhbet spoke true,” I said. “I know of your deeds, Namtaryn. I want your solemn oath that you will not betray any here. For with the Nameless, I will slice off that beautiful head of yours and hang it upon the highest mountain that you may watch the eternity of this world in your second Extinguishing.”

Her mood changed quickly, and a flood of radiance burst across her face. It was as if she had shapeshifted from a haughty queen to a young maiden who knew nothing of the world. For an instant, she looked exactly like Pythia. “Believe as you will, Maz-Sherah, but I am so filled with the joy of movement and freedom from my cage that I would do nothing to threaten you or bring your wrath upon me. So I give you my oath, solemn or not, as I did when you asked it of all of us in our tombs. Now, tell me, how is my daughter?”

“Across the sea, traveling with an army of vampyres toward the castle where the Myrrydanai rule.”

“And the mask? Has it yet...has it ...” She could not bring herself to say the words.

“Yes,” I said, wishing I could tell her otherwise. “It has leached the eternal from her.”

She shook her head as if dismissing some minor grief. “She deserves this. She is wickedness. Filthy.” She waved her hands as if sweeping a thought aside. “Those who do wicked deeds deserve their punishment.”

I grabbed her by the throat and felt a growl in my voice as I whispered at her ear. “You are not worth one ounce of her blood, Namtaryn. If it weren’t for your daughter, you would still be in your tomb, rotting through eternity.”

Her warriors—oiled youths of muscle and too much beauty—leapt upon me, but I shook them off too easily. I felt astounded by my strength, but also inspired by it. I let go of their queen and grabbed one of her servants, holding him with his face to her. I took the Nameless from its sheath, and thrust it into his heart, all the while watching her face. I felt a fire go up my arm, and a painful vibration at the grip of the sword. Then it was as if a great gust of wind—from the vampyre’s own flesh—burst outward. His eyes sank into his face, and his jaw slackened. Within mere seconds, the last of him fell in a pile of dust and bone at my feet.

I stared at the sword in my hand. I did not feel cursed by it, but invigorated. Something within the Nameless made me want to use it again. A surge of power shot through me, and I looked at Namtaryn, wondering what it would feel like to thrust it into her throat.

“You cannot be brought back twice!” I said in warning to her, raising the shattered blade close to her face. She flinched as she felt its warmth. “You will honor your daughter Pythia, for she has saved me from the destruction you see before you on the floor. If I hear one word from you—from any of you here—against Pythia, daughter of Merod, daughter of Namtaryn, I will do the same to you without a moment’s hesitation!”

I felt nausea and revulsion from my words and the thoughts that inspired them, and quickly sheathed the shattered blade.
It is like the mask. The mask seeks a face. The Nameless seeks the grip of flesh. The sorcery of these things corrupts. They are not to be played with, not to be used lightly, for with each use, they prey upon the mind.

Namtaryn snarled at me and reached down to brush the dust of the extinguished youth from her feet. As she crouched there, she looked up at me as if wounded.

“Do not look at me with false pain,” I said. “For you have done such things to many. You would do them again if you thought you could steal this blade from me and use it against those who would grant you your freedom.”

“You have extinguished one of our tribe,” she said with bitter fury. “If you cannot control the Nameless, do not wield it. It is not meant for demonstrations of your power.”

I turned and walked away from her. Athanat joined me, and whispered at my ear, “Show no mercy to the vampyre queen. She should not have been raised from damnation at all.”

“I did not want to kill the servant,” I said. “I wanted to threaten Namtaryn. I wanted to show her—”

“The Nameless knows your thoughts,” Athanat said. “In the nights of my five hundred years, I tried more than once to take it. I crossed the sewer lake, and stood atop the roof of the temple. But when my hand drew close to the hilt, I began to hunger for it as we thirst for blood. But it was a hunger of one who would destroy others just to hold the Nameless once. Oh, of such great things I might do if I held it. If I wielded it. Of becoming the Maz-Sherah—a king, and a savior. But even touching it, I felt its sting. Many dawns I went to my rest with terrible thoughts of it, as if just wanting it had cursed me.” He reached over and touched my shoulder lightly. “It will be a burden to you. There will be those among us who wish to steal it. It will call to you—to do terrible things. But what is within you will also temper it. Fear it, respect it—but know that it is meant for you alone.”

“I do fear it,” I said. “I will use it, when necessary. I will bring Hell itself to Ghorien and all the shadow priests—and to the defenders of Taranis-Hir. And to any mortal or vampyre who betrays the Serpent.”

“As it should be,” he said, then suggested we search for a vessel for renewal. “The shattered sword has exhausted you—it is in your eyes, this weariness.”

After we had drunk from a mortal—and allowed her to scurry off to her lair—he told me of the others, and some of his tales differed from Nekhbet’s recounting, and others supported what she had told me. Both of these rulers had warned me of Namtaryn, but Athanat added, “But she is not as terrible as she seems. For she loved Merod in both mortal life and during her rule. Perhaps I am the only one to understand this, for I also loved Namtaryn in my young nights. Her daughters also, she loved until they turned against her. Her Extinguishing was not at the hands of Ghorien or a usurper of her throne. It was that daughter you know of—Pythia—who betrayed her mother to mortal armies. Pythia set a trap, and her mother was easily caught as she went to her morning’s rest. They bound Namtaryn, and set her out in the blazing sun. Those who witnessed it later wrote on stone tablets that she did not cry out when the fires of the heavens burst across her flesh. Even mortals wept when they heard the news of her passing. I was a mortal general of her army then, not yet vampyre, and it was centuries before I would be king. But I remember her justice—fierce, and swift, yet not unjust. She was a great queen, and did not deserve what her daughter did to her. You must be careful of the Pythoness. She has brought disaster to many. I would extinguish her before any of the others of our tribe—if it were up to me.”