The Dust of Fallen Ages

The sun cursed the skies over the endless sands of the Zaheh, turning the dunes into waves of gold and azure, the shadows deep as night. The day was failing, but not fast enough. Shedjia rode her camel across the barren landscape of a waste older than any kingdom, and she looked with her hawk’s eyes for a sign.

She was wrapped in black silks and linens, covered against the fierce heat of the day, only her eyes peering forth, heavily rimmed with kohl to cut the glare of the merciless sun. The winds moaned, and she listened uneasily, hoping she did not hear a voice utter her name. This place was forsaken by all men, wandered only by the desperate, and the dead. She was one, and she hoped not to join the other. A spirit caught in this trackless land would wander for an eternity.

Her beast was almost done, and she rode him as easily as she could, trying to keep him going as long as his strength would last. The pace of her journey had exhausted him, and he walked with his head down, and only occasionally did he give forth one of his ugly, groaning cries.

At the top of a dune she looked back, squinting through the heat shimmer, and she saw them there. Riders followed her faint track across the sand. There were perhaps a dozen of them, she could not say for certain. She cursed all gods living and dead, for no one would follow her in this waste for a gentle cause. They were marauders come to sell her into slavery, if they did not cut her throat first. The kinds of bandits who haunted this part of the world would be the lowest, most feral kind. Madmen of the desert.

Perhaps she had been mad as well to ride here, to seek a treasure she risked everything to obtain. Like any gamble, if she won she would seem brilliant and courageous, and if she failed the sands would swallow her bones. She had carried out many thefts – enough to make her half a legend – but nothing compared to this. Now she hunted through the ruins of an empire so old its very name was a legend, and she sought a jewel so fabulous it should not exist.

She rode down into the shadow of the dune, glad to be free of the sun, even if for only a moment. She looked up at the sky and saw the stars were emerging already, glittering in the sky so deep it seemed she could fall up and into it like a sea. Her gaze sought the sign of the ibex, and then the pattern of three stars that marked the serpent’s crown. She held up her hand and measured the distance, trying to judge the time in her head. She was close; the star maps were ancient, and the stars had changed since they were drawn, but not so much that she could not recognize them where they burned. She was very close.

Once, an age gone, it was said this had been a sea – the floor of an ancient sea. Now she began to see more rocks jutting from the sand. The stone was black and glossy, carved into nightmare shapes by wind, or perhaps by water, if the legends were true. She rode through a narrow pass between black glass pillars, and then her camel roared and heaved beneath her, and before she could catch the reins she was flung to the hard sands.

Shedjia pulled herself up, but her steed was already fleeing, leaving her alone in this lost hollow. She wanted to spit, but she would not waste the water – she had little enough left as it was. At last she turned to see what it was that had frightened her beast, and she stopped where she was as if turned to stone.

There was a passage marked out by pillars that stood up from the sands like teeth, and at the end there was a crumbling dune, and in the face of the dune she saw a wall of black stone, and in the wall was set a door.

It made her feel cold, to see the marks of the work of man in this barren place. Now she was faced with the truth of what she had been seeking, and it made her afraid. It was real, the Tomb of the Black Flame. After all the stories, all the seeking for lost knowledge and secrets to bring her here, now she stood before it, and her courage almost failed.

Then she heard a cry on the wind, close. She looked up and saw trails of color streaking across the sky, skeins of red and gold against the deepening violet, and she knew a storm was coming soon. Already she could feel the tension of it crackling in the air, making the hairs on her skin stand up beneath her clothes. She gripped the hilt of her sword and a spark jumped to her fingers and made her twitch. She drew forth the ancient bronze blade and set her teeth together. Reavers were coming for her, and very soon a storm would transform this place into a hell of scouring sand and crimson lightning. Now all that remained was the way forward, into darkness.

o0o

The city was ablaze, and lightning stalked the blackened sky. The waters of the Sea of Xis coiled and crashed and beat against the shore, shattering stone quays and flooding into temples and storehouses. When the lightning flared the outlines of twisted, inimical shapes could be seen in the waters and in the sky. Serpents moved in the dark, their eyes gleaming like silver shards.

Flames roared up the towers of the imperial palace, consuming everything within, the fire turning red and violet and green as it devoured. The gates of the palace shivered apart and fell glowing with baleful heat, the metal twisted and smoking. A horde of masked warriors poured in through the broken barrier. They were all in black, their masks like glass, their faces hidden save for eyes that burned like coals, and they carried sword and axe and spear ready to wreak destruction.

And yet the savage host parted asunder for the tall figure that walked through them. His black robes billowed behind him like ebon fire, and his mask was silver set with red jewels. Dark violet flame coursed around his feet wherever he walked, and he left his footsteps seared upon the white stone. In his right hand he held a sword like a shard of night, and in his left he carried a great red jewel that pulsed like a heart. The sky split apart with crimson lightning as Utuzan, the Accursed Prince, the Black Flame of Anatu, entered the palace of his fathers and faced his brother at the head of his fanatic army.

His brother stood upon the steps of the palace, unmoved as shards of hot stone and burning ash fell all around him. He was Eshuh, the Warrior, the Defender of Kithara, the White Hand. He wore armor of gilded and shining bronze, and the crest of his helm flamed like dawn. His shield was burnished until it shone, and the spear in his right hand was tipped with gleaming iron that rippled with all the colors that have ever been.

The armies rushed together, and there was a terrible wreckage of blood and iron as spears rove through bronze armor and flesh and bone, shields splintered, and red painted the white stone of the palace courtyard. Lightning lit the sky with fire, and the winds screamed for war.

Utuzan strode through the battle to meet his brother, and before they closed he lifted the jewel in his left hand and hurled fire against Eshuh. It struck his spear like a lance of red flame and shattered it apart, staggering him. Utuzan cried out an invocation to the powers of all the dark, bringing chants of feral bloodlust from the demon-haunted sky. The shadows of the palace writhed with venomous serpents, and fire rained down from the black heavens.

Eshuh cast aside the broken haft of his spear and drew forth a sword that flamed like falling stars, scattering sparks into the darkness, and he rushed to meet his fell brother. The jewel struck again, but the bolt of flame broke against the blazing shield.

Eshuh struck mightily with his sword, and the hardened edge rang upon the red stone. There was a flash like lightning and a scream as powers were matched against one another. Then the crimson jewel was dashed from Utuzan’s grasp, and it rolled upon the ground like a smoldering ember.

Utuzan fell back from his brother’s assault, treading upon the slain as he moved, the fire that followed him consuming the flesh of the fallen. Eshuh struck at him, and their swords met in a flash of fire that cracked the stone beneath their feet and dashed warriors to the ground with the force of it. Eshuh turned and smashed into him with the force of his shield, knocking his brother to the seared stones.

“You should not have dared to cross blades with me,” Eshuh said. “All your demons cannot save you from my wrath, and all your power cannot overcome this shield, this helm, and this sword. Lightning slashed the sky apart, and he struck down with terrible power. Their blades met again, and the sound of it was a scream of fury that rose up and up, echoing across the field of death.

o0o

Shedjia climbed the ancient steps, feeling the stone beneath the grit of the sands heaped atop it. The shadows of the pillars were long, and she knew the night would come on swift as a blade. The entrance to the tomb ahead of her yawned dark and immobile, the way barred by a huge, heavy door of ebon stone carved with symbols and sigils that the ages had worn away.

She had spent much time seeking out the secrets whispered in the very oldest texts about this hidden tomb and the way to open the immense door. It looked impossible to move, but she now set foot upon the ancient threshold and pressed her hands to the immortal stone, feeling her way across the etched sigils that no man living could possibly read. The Kitharan Empire had risen in the very eldest days, before even the names of the gods were known, and had fallen so long ago that even the great sea that had been the heart of it was dried away and turned to sand. Its languages, its secrets, even its histories were dead and gone.

With her sensitive fingers she touched one small inset, pushed it, and then found the second, and the third. It was a kind of seal no one made any longer, and now, with so much time passed, the inner workings had turned to dust. As she pushed each hidden socket, a fine silt came pouring out, making little mounds at the base of the door. Six. Seven. And then she heard the door shift. Dust poured down even more swiftly, and then the great barrier fractured in half and fell inward, sundering apart from the ages that had worn upon it.

The sound of the collapsing stone was loud in the silent dusk, and she heard cries close to hand as those who hunted her drew near. Her sword ready in her hand, she slipped in through the opening, treading lightly on the smooth floor, stepping in between the broken shards of the door itself. It was pitch black within, and she crouched down, took out the carefully hoarded ember she bore and used it to kindle her lamp. In the darkness outside she heard voices, and then arrows hissed in the dark and splintered against the stone.

She drew deeper into the tomb, crouched low, her lamp held behind her to shield the light from those outside. She wondered if they would follow her within, or if they would fear this place too much to enter it. Either way, Shedjia vowed if she was to die, she would die clutching a fortune in her dead hands. She turned and made her way through the corridor, the black walls etched with the litanies of a bygone age. She went deeper into the dark.

o0o

They bound the dark prince in silver chains, and they fitted a mask over his face so he could not speak. All that remained to him were his eyes, staring out from behind the false visage made for him, watching as they made preparations for his fate.

Prince Eshuh was not a fool, and his wise men had advised him what to do. He knew that to kill his half-brother would not only bring upon him the curse laid upon those who slew their kindred, but would also set his brother’s spirit free into the dark caverns of the underworld, where he would gain new power and return to plague those who had defeated him.

So he resolved that his brother would not die, but would rather be imprisoned for all time, even unto the end of the world. While the fires still smoldered in the city of Akang, and the dead still lay fly-blown in the sun, he sent forth work parties of slaves on barges and galleys. They put ashore on an island at the heart of the sea of Xis, and there they began to construct a prison of black stone.

Miners hewed at the black beds of glassine rock from the mountains of fire, and then stonemasons labored to cut it into blocks with which to build what was needed. Stone by stone the edifice rose on the island, and the sages were hard at work, directing those who carved upon the stone the sigils and signs of power that would trap Utuzan’s power within forever.

All the while the dark prince watched, chained to a pillar upon the shore, guarded day and night by terrified guards and blazing fires. He watched as they made a tomb for him while he yet lived. He watched as they delved deep into the black rock of the island, and as they raised stone upon stone.

On the fortieth day the tomb was completed, and Eshuh came to look upon his half-brother one last time. Between them lay the ghost of their father, slain by the bite of a serpent, and their eldest brother, Siduh, the wise one, the scholar-king. He had died by a poisoned blade, and his death had begun this war that seared the empire from one end to another.

“I will not let you speak,” Eshuh said. “I would know your final words, but I know they would be nothing save a curse upon me. I will deny you even that. Take your curses with you into the dark, and there let them waste away, until nothing remains.”

He gave the command, and they took Utuzan and bore him to the prison. They bore him down the steps they hewed into the island’s rock, to the central chamber. They placed him within a stone sarcophagus and sealed it. Chanting priests bore in the red jewel of his evil upon a black cushion, and they placed it in a socket atop the crypt. It pulsed like a heart as they left it behind, and some men would hear the pulsing of it all their remaining days.

They sealed the tomb so tightly neither air nor water would enter or leave, and then they stood upon the white shores as the priests and sages chanted their litanies and the incantations that would forever trap the Dark Prince within his prison. They slew everything that lived upon the island, and they set the shore with jagged obsidian pillars to prevent any other ships from landing there. At last they sailed away, each man sworn to secrecy, each man knowing he would never forget.

o0o

Shedjia climbed down the stairs that were hewn into the rock and entered the inner shrine, holding up her lantern to shine her meager light as far as she could. She had expected treasures of an ancient age scattered and heaped everywhere, but the chamber was all but bare. The walls were carved with a litany in a forgotten tongue, and she saw the shapes of slain serpents and beheaded slaves painted on the walls.

At the center of the room was a raised dais, and on that was a gleaming black stone carved in facets. It looked like a sarcophagus, and every bit of it was etched with unknown sigils and markings. She approached carefully, moving her lamp so the light reflected on the smooth, black sides of the thing. There was a coldness in the air close to it, and as she approached she saw her breath begin to mist before her.

Something glowed on the top of the sarcophagus, and she moved closer, craning her neck upward to see it. She lowered her lamp so the dim red light was easier to see, and her breath caught as she looked on what she had come to find. Set in a hollow on the stone was a red jewel the size of her fist. It was not cut into clean planes like a jewel for a crown, but rather was smooth and irregular, as though it were new-formed. It was carved with strange letters that were unlike anything else within the chamber, unlike anything she had ever seen. It glowed from within, a ghostly, faint radiance.

She reached out her hand to touch it, and as she drew close she heard the slight slip of a footfall upon the sandy floor, and that was all the warning she was given. Shedjia leaped back as an iron blade slashed for her, and then she whirled, the light of her lamp casting mad shadows across the ancient walls, and she saw a half-dozen desert madmen crouched in readiness to spring upon her, and slay.

One of them leaped at her, and she dropped her lamp as she parried the stroke of the hooked iron blade, striking sparks in the darkness. Oil splashed on the floor and bloomed into a blazing pool that lit the tomb with an infernal glow. She slipped around the nomad’s guard with the speed that had made her famous and slashed his throat, sending him staggering back spewing red, gagging on his own blood.

Another two reavers were almost on her and she fought with sudden desperation, forcing them back, her bronze blade ringing on their iron weapons. She slashed one across the arm and he reeled away, clutching the wound, but the other one struck hard, and she felt the edge rip across her face, parting her cheek and filling her mouth with blood.

She stumbled, hand to her face, feeling the wetness spreading, making her fingers sticky. More of the raiders closed in on her, and she put her back to the wall as the burning pool of oil died away, leaving her in a darkness filled with hatred, and swords that thirsted for her life.

o0o

Utuzan howled behind his mask as he was sealed within his tomb – for it was a tomb, no matter what his brother claimed it to be. He might think this freed him from the curse of a kin-slayer, but Utuzan knew better – he knew there was no such curse, else he would have been cursed for the serpent he sent to kill his murderous father. Revenge was a taste like sweet venom, and he was not yet done.

The air grew cold, and his breath misted against his face. He could not see anything now, for there was no light within his obsidian sarcophagus. Soon, there would not even be a breath to take, and he would suffocate here in the deeps. He strained against the silver chains that bound his mouth like a chariot bit, preventing him from speaking any incantation, or any call for aid from his demon slaves.

He tried to cast his mind outward, but the silver trapped him, and the thousands of spells carved upon the stone walled off the most feeble exercise of his senses. He pushed and strained, but he felt nothing save. . . save. . .

It was the stone, the Heart of Anatu. They had placed it upon the top of his sarcophagus, no doubt because they feared it, but they had, unknowing, given him a slender skein of hope. He reached out to the deep red jewel, older than the memory of any race, and he touched it, feeling the power within it. It could not break his bonds, but perhaps it could preserve him, could keep him alive for as long as it must, until his moment came, and he could break free.

He felt the stone prison around him, crushing in upon him, and he shut it out, closed away all awareness. He had to conserve his strength, had to survive no matter how long. He cast his mind into the crimson jewel, and he felt himself slip down into red darkness, a depth beyond time, dreaming of wrath.

o0o

Shedjia faced down her attackers, seeing the gleam of the dying fire on their swords, and then another glow began to rise. She turned and saw the red jewel atop the crypt glowing with a fiercer light. It was splattered with blood, and it flamed brighter as she looked, until she had to shy away from it. The reavers saw it and backed away, murmuring among themselves. The glow blazed like an imprisoned star, and then it flared across the sarcophagus, illuminating the etched writing, and traced cracks across the black stone.

With a hideous sound the black tomb split open, and Shedjia flinched away as the lid shattered and slid down to crash upon the floor. Darkness roiled within, and as she looked a pale hand clutched the red stone, and then a form began to rise from the sarcophagus, and cold filled the room.

Mist boiled down the walls and filled the chamber to her knees, and she saw the shadow rise up, taller than any man. Eyes like cursed stars flamed in the blackness, and the raiders screamed in fear and fury both. One of them leaped to attack, but the dark form lifted a hand and spoke a word that distorted the air, and the iron blade shattered with a flash of light.

Shedjia saw a hand clench into a fist, and then the reaver screamed, twisting and thrashing as his bones snapped inside his skin and blood burst from his mouth and his eyes. She saw it fountain into the air, coiling through the dark to the lips of the black figure, and she shrank back, covering her face with her hands, muttering under her breath the very oldest incantation against evil she could remember, so ancient that there was no translation for the words, only sounds.

The screaming went on, and she heard the falling of bodies and the clangor of iron blades upon the stone. The mist coiled around her and covered her, and it was like the embrace of something fell that lurked in primal darkness. There was a sudden silence, then, as of the grave. She heard breathing, and muttering, and then a voice spoke in a language she did not know.

She looked up and saw the shadow there, draped in ancient robes that hung like funeral cerements. He was pale as death, with dark eyes and a cruel, hawk-like face. In his hand was the red jewel, and he held it up and spoke again, but she did not understand him, and she shook her head, almost too afraid to move.

“Do you know me?” he said, in another tongue that was the eldest she knew, and not as well as she might have wished. His accent was thick, his inflection cold, but she understood it.

“No, I do not. Forgive my intrusion. Forgive.” She spoke with difficulty, blood still flowing into her mouth from her slashed cheek.

“Forgive? It was your blood that empowered me. Freed me.” He gestured to her face, and she felt a lash like new pain over the old. She drew her hand back, gasping, then touched her skin and felt the wound closed, leaving only a thin scar in its place.

“I am Utuzan, the Black Flame, the Chosen of Anatu. I am heir to the Empire of Kithara. Tell me, who rules it now?” His voice was like silken blackness over a steel edge, and she dared not challenge him.

“My. . . my lord. Kithara fell so long ago that it exists only as a memory. We stand now where the Sea of Xis is said to have been, but now is only desert.” She knew his name, and it touched a dark place inside her. “I know you.”

“Tell me,” he said.

“You are the Black Prince. The Sorcerer. The one who all feared.” She pushed to her feet slowly, back to the cold wall.

“I am that,” he said. He was tall, taller than any man she had ever seen, like a giant from the distant ages of the world. He swept his long, black hair back from his pale face, and he looked at her as though he saw through her, to something only he could behold. “So long. It has been so long, and yet I am not done. Let the shades of my ancestors howl in despair, for I have returned.” He held out his hand. “Come. You shall be the first of my followers. From this place I shall stretch forth my hand and shake all the kingdoms of the earth.”

Shedjia trembled, feeling something inside her mind shy away in a terror so deep it did not have a name. Here was the dark truth at the heart of every black legend, of every story told by firelight in the howling wilderness or the cold places of the desert. Every evil imagined by man for thousands of years stood embodied before her. She took his hand, and black fire coiled around them both, singing.