The God King hotf-1 Read online

  Her heart began pounding. When she had first seen Varis as he was now, Krevar had been in ruins and people were seemingly dying from a mysterious plague. His appearance had been more shocking then, but now she saw him through a veil of ruddy smoke and thin daylight, and she could not help but think he looked like a malevolent specter. His pale eyes seemed to glow as they took her in, ablaze with an inner light made all the brighter by the sickly red and brown hues of the smoky air hanging over a landscape of jutting stone spires. His mount seemed possessed of that same inner light, as its eyes glowed as well. Though it was an illusion born of dread and weariness, for a brief moment she had been sure smoke curled from the beast’s flaring nostrils. More astonishing, Varis held a sphere of flame in one hand. It flickered and danced over his palm. He paid it no more mind than he would have an apple, and showed no sign that the flames scorched his flesh.

  Naa’il and Caulir reined in and dismounted. They were none too gentle unlashing Ellonlef and hauling her out of the saddle, then dragging her to Varis, where they threw her before his mount. Using her bound hands, she pushed herself up into a kneeling position.

  The prince did not look at her, but rather gazed at the ball of fire in his palm. Then, abruptly, the flames winked out, and he looked to Uzzret.

  “If you please, Magus Uzzret,” Varis said, his tone just short of mocking, “make sure the sister does not attempt to flee. I do not wish to waste more time chasing her, yet again, across the desert.” With that, he dismounted and gestured for her three captors to follow him a few paces away.

  Ellonlef scanned the men around her. They were doubtless alive, but they looked like exquisitely formed waxen figures, unmoving, unblinking, as if waiting for someone to give them leave to think and act. Magus Uzzret, on the other hand, was fully in control of himself. He stomped up to her, glaring.

  “You should not have sought to betray the Life Giver,” he spat at her, his vehement zeal making her lean away; his black eyes fairly shone with mad devotion. She had never cared overmuch for the man, but whatever scant decency had been in him was fled.

  “You will suffer mightily for your crimes,” he snarled, and struck her with a bony hand.

  Cheek flaming more in shame than from the force of the blow, she shifted out of reach, tasting blood on her tongue. No man, especially such a wretched excuse for one such as Uzzret, had ever raised a hand against her. If one had, she would have made him suffer for such presumption. Presently, however, she could do nothing to resist.

  The magus was not done. He kicked her in the belly. When she doubled over, he struck her back and shoulders with his thin wooden staff. While each strike pained her, they also stoked the fires of her humiliation, and in turn those rising flames burned away her weariness and fear.

  A ringing blow cracked against the side of her head. Before the staff could fall again, her bound hands flashed out, catching the wood against her palms with a loud, stinging smack. Magus Uzzret tugged at the staff, his leathery brown features twisted into a picture of shock and outrage. Still kneeling, Ellonlef wrenched the staff free of his grasp and hurled it aside.

  “You filthy whore,” he snarled, downturned lips trembling in fury.

  Ellonlef answered with a bitter laugh. “I’ve always pitied you, Uzzret … much as I pity all men who lay with boys and sheep to satisfy their lusts.” Resorting to such crude insults was not her way, but it did her heart good to see the outcome. Her grim pleasure was short-lived.

  A string of curses and spittle flew from Uzzret’s tongue as he set upon her. He was old, but anger made him strong. Ellonlef warded off the attack as best she could, but when the crazed flurry proved too much, she ducked her head and leaned into him. Reaching out, she caught hold of his testicles through his robes and squeezed, hard. The magus howled in pain and fell atop her. Ellonlef did not release him. Instead, she wrenched at his genitals, as he battered her with flying fists and shrieked curses.

  Abruptly, though no order was given, the watching demon-men stepped forward and forced her to let go. They dragged her off a little way and dropped her, as if she held no more interest for them than a bag of beans. A sobbing Uzzret crawled away, jittering in every limb like a crippled beetle.

  Ellonlef felt the weight of a stare upon her, and turned to find Varis intently studying her with his corpse eyes.

  “You must forgive Uzzret,” he said. “At times he is … overzealous.”

  Ellonlef raised her bound hands and wiped the blood from her split lips. “I cannot forgive a man who would have killed me, bound or not. As to his zeal, I say his devotion has become madness.”

  Varis shrugged. “Fanaticism is, at times, useful. There will be others who share it, many more, and I will harness that power for myself to make the changes I desire. And, after I take the Ivory Throne, zealots such as Uzzret will ensure I rule a harmonious empire.”

  Ellonlef shook her head in disgust. “You speak of men as though they are mindless devices.”

  Varis stared at her, his empty gaze unreadable. “Men are tools to be used. Before I became more than a man, I myself was a tool of men and gods. I did not reject this notion, nor feel lessened by it. Rather, I embraced such service as a blessing. Admittedly, now I stand in the place of gods, I cannot say that I am displeased by the prospect of being the craftsman, instead of the utensil in the craftsman’s hands.”

  “You are as mad as Uzzret,” Ellonlef snarled.

  One moment Varis was placidly gazing down on her, the next he had squatted next to her and thrust his face against hers, forcing her to look away. She could not meet that horrid stare.

  “I am the picture of sanity,” he grated. “It is you who are blinded by your narrow interpretation of existence. We must all serve a purpose to justify the drawing of each breath. If a man can offer no justification for living, then he should submit himself to death, in order that those with true usefulness might serve some benefit to all of existence.”

  “And who decides that usefulness, or lack thereof?”

  Varis smiled and sat back on his heels. “In this new age, I will. Be not troubled, Sister, for I have deemed that you have a very special and specific use.”

  “I will never serve you,” Ellonlef said.

  Varis abruptly stood up and moved away. “If you will not serve me of your own volition, then you will serve of mine.”

  A strange sensation washed over Ellonlef as she watched Varis’s back. Here and now, he did not use a charlatan’s trick of raising his hands and closing his eyes, as he had in Krevar. He merely stood still, looking out into the smoke-hazed desert. Yet he was doing something, she could feel it, like a fast moving sickness surging through her limbs. Breathing became difficult, and a deepening weakness made her slump. When her heart began to flutter erratically, she folded in on herself. She felt herself growing weaker, dying, and her thoughts began to lose clarity. She felt as if she were drifting in fog, and in that moment, she saw Kian in her mind’s eye. Though she scarcely knew the man, she admitted to herself that she wanted to know him better. To do so, she had to survive. Using the last of her strength, she focused on him, seemingly drawing strength from his image, and using that strength to resist the oppressive weight of Varis’s power.

  Suddenly, a clawlike hand clutched her shoulder, while another turned her face. Varis stared at her, rage and confusion warring on his monstrous face. “What are you doing?” he demanded in a harsh whisper.

  “Kill me if you will,” she gasped, “but you will not fill me with the corrupted life of the Fallen.”

  “What are you talking about?” Varis demanded.

  Ellonlef gazed at him through drooping eyelids.

  “Answer me!”

  Ellonlef motioned weakly toward the blank-eyed soldiers ringing them about. “They are all of them demons … cloaked in the flesh of men.”

  Varis swung his head. His followers did not flinch or look away, only stared at him with sickening, mindless devotion. “They are men,” he hissed, “not
demons. The Fallen are freed, yes, but these are men. They follow me because I have freed them from the horrors of Geh’shinnom’atar!”

  “Have you never looked into their gazes after nightfall?” she asked. “Have you not seen how their eyes shine, like dull silver?”

  “I do not see as-” he cut off abruptly, as if he had nearly revealed something he would rather not. He shook his head in denial. “You are a liar.”

  “I killed one of those you sent after me, and it was no man,” Ellonlef insisted.

  “Still your tongue.”

  A suspicion, something she had previously considered, filled her fogged mind. “You do not know, do you? Kill one of them and see for yourself what you have given life to.”

  “Do not listen to her, Master,” Uzzret urged, limping close to Varis. “She is naught but a deceiver, unworthy to look upon you, let alone bandy words with you.”

  “I have use of her,” Varis said slowly. “As you will gain support for me from your brothers, so too will she garner favor for me among her sisters.”

  “But there are others of her ilk, Master. Those, I’m sure, will be more pliable.”

  “I have her, here and now. I will not waste the opportunity.”

  “Master, please-”

  “Stand away from me,” Varis snarled. He looked like a cornered beast.

  When Uzzret did not move quickly enough, Varis shoved him away and moved to stand before one of the soldiers. Without a word, or any other indication of what he was about to do, Varis jerked the man’s sword from the scabbard and rammed the steel into his guts.

  Ellonlef thought she might vomit at the sight of the impaled man’s wan smile, as he slowly sank to his knees. Varis stared, waiting expectantly for him to die. When he did, a sooty plume oozed from the wound and quickly dissipated. Then, as if the corruption of dead flesh had been held back since Varis had resurrected the man, skin sloughed off the rank meat beneath, and the corpse listed to one side and hit the sandy ground, bursting apart like an overripe melon. In moments, the remains had deteriorated into a pooling mess.

  Varis staggered back, mouth hanging open. Ellonlef saw emotions crawl over his face, from fear to revulsion to bewilderment. He believed his own lies, she thought distractedly. He thought he could raise the dead, and that their devotion was a sign of thankfulness.

  Varis suddenly spun and caught hold of another soldier’s chin. “Who commands you?” he rasped.

  The soldier’s eyes rolled slowly toward Varis. “You, Life Giver.”

  Varis let go and nodded to himself, seemingly satisfied, then an unreadable look crept over his face. He glanced back at the soldier. “Is there any higher than me?”

  “Yes.”

  Varis’s jaw clenched, as if to keep back the question he had no choice but to ask. “Who?”

  “Peropis,” the soldier answered without hesitation, “the true and first daughter of the Three. At her command we have followed you, for she set you above us, in order for you to guide us to our destiny.”

  “What does that mean?” Varis shouted, his voice shrill.

  The soldier smiled broadly, showing true, if disturbing, emotion. “What once died has been reawakened. It is the place of men to serve or die, as the old order becomes new again in these ancient lands. Peropis, our queen, will reign again, as once she did. Soon, we all will serve her anew, as in the beginning.”

  “She lied to me,” Varis muttered, features working with shock. “All of it … lies.” Ellonlef had never seen a man learn, all at once, that everything he believed was a deception.

  “She lied,” he said again, as if unaware of those around him. “All of her promises, from the beginning … lies!”

  Ellonlef watched, stunned, as Varis shivered with an immeasurable rage, then he began to swell. Veins, like thick black worms, bulged under his pale skin. His eyes grew wider, rolling from side to side in their sockets. His fingers clenched and unclenched, even as he spread his feet in a wide stance.

  Ellonlef cowered back, unsure what might happen, fervently wishing she were anywhere else. From the corner of her eye, she detected movement. Turning, she willed herself not to cry out. In the distance, Varis’s entire army was looking on him with unnerving, glassy stares. Below their empty expressions, she sensed a guarded contempt buried deep within each of them.

  Varis sensed it as well.

  Without warning, he threw his arms wide. As one, the army cried out and surged toward him. Unbelieving, Ellonlef saw something being drawn from the army into Varis. She closed her eyes, thinking she was suffering a delusion. Yet, when she opened them, she saw the same faint, ethereal luminescence flowing from the thousands to the one. Flesh seemed to melt away from the many, even as they ran at Varis, their voices raised in demonic howls. Ellonlef cried out as the flesh of men was shredded by the demonic figures hidden beneath.

  Varis’s bulging shape was glowing, and through rents in his skin, silver light streaked out. Varis opened his mouth as if to scream, but instead of words, fire shot forth to engulf his newfound enemies. Demonic flesh caught fire and burned bright. As the inferno raged, thousands of monstrous voices rose over the desert.

  The mahk’lar closest to Varis were out of the deadly path of his fires, and they took the opportunity to leap at Varis. Before they could truly begin their attack, long dusty roots sprang from the sand, swarming over the bellowing demons, burrowing into their flesh. In the space of three heartbeats, what had looked like men became twisted knots of squeezing roots. From those tight weaves, black blood leaked and dribbled, and wisps of sooty vapor rose up. Varis scorched the bundles of roots, leaving only ash behind. Untouched, the essences of the demons coalesced into a seething black mass some distance away, then streaked from sight.

  Instead of abating, Varis’s fury grew, and he unleashed it upon the world. The force of his inferno created great whirlwinds of sand and flame that rose up and up, coiling about each other until the sand became molten globs that rained back down upon the earth. Horses trumpeted in terror, and Varis blasted them as well. To the last, the demonic souls within the horses puffed out and vanished, fleeing into an unsuspecting world. Uzzret was running in the distance-and in the distance he died, a flaming candle in place of a man. He alone of Varis’s followers, was merely a man.

  Ellonlef could not look upon Varis, so great was the light and heat pouring from him. And more, she feared that simply looking on him would destroy her. As he raged, Ellonlef got to her feet and ran. Keeping her balance over the uneven ground was difficult with her hands still bound, but desperation kept her upright. The tremendous luminosity and force of Varis’s being seemed to propel her along after her shadow.

  A keening wind rushed in from the desert, culminating on Varis. Ellonlef bowed her head against the gale, trying to maintain her pace, but she was slowing. She passed small stones rolling and bouncing along back the way she had come, and she knew it was only a matter of time before whatever Varis was doing would drag her back, into the burgeoning vortex of his … transformation.

  She had to find shelter.

  In the ever brightening light, Ellonlef cast about, eyes squinted against flying grit. A hundred paces off, the plateau’s sharp edge showed itself, and she headed that way. Every step became a struggle, but Ellonlef pushed on, fighting now to keep the very breath in her chest. What had looked like a single edge along the plateau became more like a giant’s staircase. Without hesitation, she leapt from the first and dropped a full ten feet before hitting a slope of smooth sandstone. In her terror she felt no pain, but the jarring landing rattled her bones, and sent her into a forward tumble off the next precipice.

  Gasping for each breath, trying to hold back tears of absolute panic, Ellonlef knew she could go no farther. As the world around her grew brighter than ever, and the keening winds became a sound like a great waterfall, she found an overhang littered with sandstone slabs, and made for them, staggering along. Her last step ended in a headlong dive, and like a bug trying to get un
der a rock, she wriggled and squirmed and kicked until she had lodged herself deep within a crevice. All the world became blinding white, and she buried her face in the crook of her arm to find comforting darkness.

  Ellonlef did not know how long she stayed that way, but guessed she must have fainted in fear or exhaustion, for when she opened her eyes and turned over, the world looked the same as it had before she made her escape. Yet, it was not the same. An unnerving still hung in the air, as if all that lived had been swept from the face of the world. She did not have long to think on this before she detected the sound of feet stealthily scraping over sandstone. It was Varis, Ellonlef knew, and he was coming.

  Weary as she was from desperation and the aftermath of terror, she forced herself to sit up in the cramped niche. She found a sharp-edged stone and used it to saw through the bindings on her wrists. She had just cut through them, when Varis moved before her pathetic sanctuary and crouched down.

  Ellonlef gasped at the changes that had fallen over him. No longer did he look like a walking corpse. Rather, his flesh shone as polished bronze, and his eyes shimmered like pearls. Ellonlef tried to scrabble backward, but there was nowhere to flee. While he appeared to be a living idol, his palpable menace oozed over her like a thick and poisonous oil.

  He peered at her for what felt like an eternity before speaking. “I must thank you, Sister, for revealing to me Peropis’s treachery.” His was the resonant voice of a god, and Ellonlef fought against the awe in her breast. “Of course, I knew she had deceived me already, but I was ignorant of the extent of her lies. It took you to show me the truth. In return for your gift of knowledge, I intend to let you and Kian go your way. Of course, if I ever see either of you again, I will make your suffering so great that women will sing your names as a lament for a thousand ages of men.”

  “Is it graciousness that compels you,” Ellonlef grated, striving against the inherent need to fall on her face before him, “or is it your fear that Kian will destroy you?”