Out of the Grave: A Dark Fantasy (The Shedim Rebellion Book 2) (20 page)

“Who didn’t like the idea? What did they say?”

“No one liked it, Tyrus. It sounds like suicide.”

“So they wait?”

“Marching on the camps gives Azmon the advantage.”

Klay stripped Chobar of his barding, and the bear rolled into a ball. Wrapped in his green cloak, Klay leaned against him. Tyrus considered what he had heard but realized he had no ability to make a difference unless he struck out on his own. Maybe he could learn the tunnels of Shinar while the two armies watched each other build defenses. He might be in a position to rescue Ishma when the fighting started.

He noticed the ranger watching him and asked, “What?”

“You are serious about killing Azmon?”

“If I have to.”

“Weren’t you his guardian?”

“Before he gave me to Ishma, yes.”

“Killing him isn’t the same as his officers, is it?”

“No.”

“You sure you can do it?”

“I am.”

Tyrus leaned back and closed his eyes. He waited for more, but Klay was silent. When he peeked at the ranger, Klay had fallen asleep. He and Chobar had similar snores, but Klay would inhale and exhale twice for each of Chobar’s long, drawn-out growls.

Tyrus told himself that he had spoken truly. When he picked sides between the royal couple, he had done so to avoid killing Ishma. The converse meant killing Azmon. They had been raised as brothers, and Tyrus would rather sneak Ishma away, but if Azmon tried to stop him, he would fight back. Best to get his head around that idea before it happened.

Emperor Azmon’s dinner had chilled while he stared at a tent wall. He appeared catatonic except for the slight twitch of his irises as he considered what to do with Lady Lilith. His chair grew uncomfortable, and he stretched his back. He pushed cold meat around his plate with a knife.

Azmon required more experiments to understand her, and he would need to use the bone lords for that. A sorcerer’s ability to control runes made thinking creatures possible, but he needed to understand the limits. He should pick his weakest student and attempt another construct, but he knew it would fail. He had barely succeeded with Lilith, which meant he should sacrifice his most promising student. Neither option appealed to him.

Azmon nibbled at his food. The meat had become cold and stiff. Fat congealed like jelly along its side. He ate out of habit. The slimy texture dampened his appetite.

Elmar entered. “Your Excellency, there is trouble in the camp. News of Lady Lilith’s resurrection has spread to the other lords.”

Azmon drank his wine, a Habiri Pale while he studied Elmar. The clerk was calm, which meant no revolt but rumors of one building.

“The lords do not like Lilith?”

“They fear becoming beasts.”

Azmon nodded. None of them had feared that when they used dead warriors to create the beasts, but he understood. The privileged had not considered themselves expendable before.

“Who betrayed my trust?”

Elmar bowed his head. “I have heard rumors.”

“Which lords?”

“Lord Garrak. He has spoken with several of the lords about helping you during the rites. He says the lords are fodder for beasts, no different than the vanquished.”

“How did you learn of it?”

“One of the lords asked me if it was true.”

Azmon took another sip of wine. “What did you say?”

“I said I did not understand the Runes of Dusk and Dawn.”

Azmon stood, and Elmar bowed lower. A slight tremble shook his shoulders. Azmon had done nothing to provoke fear and worried that his reputation would incite the rebellion anyway. When he had first created the beasts, it had caused unrest. Later, when he etched himself and Tyrus with runes that stopped aging, he had started a civil war. This would be no different; he upset the natural order again. A calm came over him. He had done this before.

“Come with me.”

He went to Lilith, Elmar in tow. The solution to the civil war had been simple. He offered his infamous clemency to those who pledged loyalty and culled the rest. Lord Garrak was clever with runes but clumsy at politics. Rebellions required clandestine efforts, not camp gossip. Azmon solved two problems at once. Rebellion was a disease, a rot, and he would cut it out. Then he would have dead sorcerers for experiments.

He could create more thinking beasts.

This problem presented the perfect test of Lilith’s abilities. She might be his greatest creation, greater than the hundreds of runes he had carved into Tyrus. He entered her room and found her sitting on the ground. She held her knees to her chest and rocked herself, eyes closed. Her behavior was so human, so unlike her former self or the other bone beasts, that it unnerved Azmon. She had cut herself again, claw marks up and down one forearm, but not as deep as before. This was a new creature, more human than beast, and that humanity made it more monstrous. At least wall breakers looked like monsters. She could hide the burning red eyes and control the gravelly voice, but could she maintain the illusion for longer periods of time and fool Dura Galamor?

“Good evening, Lady Lilith.”

“Master.”

Her coordination grew by the day, and the awkwardness faded as her confidence grew. She spoke with authority. Had he resurrected Lilith or created a beast that imitated her? As he watched her, he couldn’t be sure.

Lilith remembered fragments of her former life, flashes and faces out of context, things that made little sense. She had been powerful once, a queen, and these wretches, the emperor and his nobles, had destroyed her. The golden-haired one was not as strong as he thought. Once Lilith had been his equal. She knew this to be true. He greeted her, and she wanted to rake her claws through his intestines. She stood. Azmon appeared unconcerned, but the old man, the balding one, trembled.

“Another game, master?”

“You have mastered the games.”

Azmon confused her. He hid his fear well, but she sensed his heartbeat, faster than before, faster from when he was outside the tent with all his guards in steel skins.

“I have a special game, a test.”

Lilith wanted to attack him, but a compulsion held her back. The bond between creator and slave vexed her because she remembered being the master. She had controlled beasts, more than the other bone lords, and none of them had turned on her.

“Elmar, come here.”

Azmon held his clerk between them, and at first Lilith thought he used the little man as a shield. Such a feeble thing would not stop her, but no, he had other plans.

“Look at him, Lilith. I want you to take his form.”

“Your Excellency, I’m not sure—”

“Silence, Elmar. Lilith, become the mirror.”

She stepped closer to Elmar, smelling his breath. He had teeth rotting in his mouth. Once, that putrid smell would have turned her stomach, but now it was another thing to track. She changed the easiest things first: her hair became gray, her eyes became brown, and her nose elongated into a thick bulb of cartilage.

Elmar tried to pull back, but Azmon held his shoulders.

“Excellency, what is she doing?”

“Calm yourself, Elmar. It won’t hurt.”

“Excellency?” Elmar looked over one shoulder. “What is this?”

Lilith grabbed his chin and pulled it around. He quivered in her hands, and she smelled the salty release of urine.

“Hold him still, master.”

Lilith concentrated on his bones and tissue. She was taller and heavier. She remembered runes but could not use them anymore. The memory taunted her, all the hours wasted learning numbers and measurements and runes. This new thing required instincts. She imagined his frame, drawing his shape in her mind, and her flesh reacted as though possessed.

“Excellency, I want to go.”

“Calm yourself, Elmar. She is nearly done.”

Her bones shifted, popped, and pushed against her skin. It sounded like hundreds of knuckles cracking, but she folded herself into a shorter and thinner frame. The last sensation was most of her hair sliding up her face, drawing into her skull. Elmar stopped struggling, mesmerized by her transformation. She became his mirror.

“Lilith, how do you feel?”

“Tired, master.”

“You’ve done very well.”

Azmon walked around her, and she looked down at herself, an old man wearing a woman’s dress. Her hands were not her own, and she resisted the urge to tear them off. She had brown spots on her skin and white hair on her forearms, and longer hairs sprouted from moles. Elmar had a disgusting body.

“Elmar, take off your clothes.”

“Your excellency?”

“Do it. Lilith, give him your smock.”

For a moment, the two naked Elmars watched each other, each holding their clothes in a tangle. Elmar surrendered the last of his identity. A moment later, she wore the costume and, without much effort, imitated Elmar’s posture and nervous habits. She patted her head, amazed at the smoothness of her bald scalp.

Azmon said, “Remember, Elmar speaks in my name. No lord can deny you.”

“Yes, master.”

“‘Excellency.’ Elmar uses the title.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

“Oh, my.”

“What have I done wrong, Your Excellency?”

“The voice… for a moment, the likeness was uncanny. I want you to pay a visit to an old friend of mine.”

Confused, Lilith bowed again while Azmon gave her directions to her prey. Afterward, Azmon watched her, waiting, and she wondered whether there was more. In a moment of inspiration, she straightened her tunic, combed what little hair she had on her head, and left the tent. She stepped into the night air, seeing as though it were an overcast day, and enjoying a sense of autonomy. This was her camp now. She could go wherever she pleased, but she had a task. That responsibility hit like another compulsion. Moving toward her target felt good while trying to walk in the opposite direction made her skin itch. So be it. She headed for the black tents of the bone lords.

Lilith-Elmar strolled the grounds of the compound, which were bigger than expected. A wooden palisade surrounded the place, tall enough for a walkway. Soldiers in black armor stood sentry on the wall, and at regular intervals were wooden towers with pairs of archers. She passed rows of white tents, hundreds of them, for the Imperial Guard, and clusters of the men, some in armor, some not, gathered around fires or games of dice. No one stopped the emperor’s master clerk. Few looked him in the eye.

A shadow caught Lilith’s attention; far on the horizon stood the City of Shinar. The massive stone walls looked like a distant mountain, and the sight of it provoked a confused jumble of memories. She had led a host of bone beasts through a breech in the walls, after the Damned. He was a pile of a man, a full head taller than the largest men, and had charged an army of silver-plated men. The Soul of Shinar defended the city’s keep, King’s Rest, while she fought a battle to claim the great library.

She lost, and Azmon punished her.

Lilith-Elmar shuddered. The memories were too fresh, like a waking dream, and left her empty. She did not recognize her old life. She was a dark thing that resembled the old Lilith as though she had become her own shadow.

She snickered at the bone lords’ cowardice when she found the black tents, located toward the rear of the compound, behind the Imperial Guard. Lilith paced before them, seeking out a coat of arms. She sensed their hearts beating in their cots.

She stepped into Lord Garrak’s tent.

“A bit informal, don’t you think?” Garrak stood half-dressed beside his cot. A bulbous man whose robe stopped at the knees, he appeared indignant, but his face competed with pasty white calves and mismatched socks. “No one to announce you?”

Lilith-Elmar touched the black canvas of his tent, a cheaper material than her own tent. She was also surprised by the small interior. Garrak had a chest, a cot, and a small stand for meals, while Lilith had room to dance in her tent. Flickers of light danced around the room, cast by a single candle.

“What does the emperor want now?”

Lilith studied him. She could take his shape as well and wondered if it would take as long as Elmar’s had. He was much larger, a man that carried his weight in his stomach and thighs.

“Are you all right? I said, ‘What does Azmon want?’”

“Emperor.”

“Excuse me?”

“Emperor Azmon, your lord and master.”

Garrak grabbed the candleholder. He raised it higher, peering at her, and Lilith wondered what she had done wrong. His pulse raced, but she could not tell if he hated or feared her.

“I don’t know what your game is, but I am bedding down—”

“His title is ‘emperor’ or ‘excellency’; say it.”

“What is wrong with you? What are you doing?”

Lilith got in close before she let the disguise fall, close enough to clamp her hand over his windpipe. The burning in her eyes was deliberate, to scare him and fill his blood with sweet adrenaline. Her face changed, spasms in her cheeks and eyelids, but her teeth sharpening into points hurt the worst. The lord gurgled in her arms, thrashing but weak as a child. She sank her teeth into his neck, found the pulse, and enjoyed a warm gush of blood.

Other than a kicked-over cot and the spilt wax of a dropped candle, Lilith left no evidence and no blood. The body slumped to the floor, and she felt a bulge against her belt. Her stomach had swollen. She imitated Elmar without trying, one hand rubbing her bald head as she considered the mess. The emperor had given no instructions about it, so she left it for the real Elmar.