A cold dampness, not quite enough to form droplets, clung to the stone walls.
It was an underground chamber that never saw sunlight. A massive lamp, large enough to require both hands to lift, burned at the center, casting light only within a space roughly ten gaz square.
Books, medicines, and various items used for sorcery filled the shelves that lined the walls. There were fetal rats, powdered poisonous plants, candles molded from sulfur, and severed human hands preserved in alcohol.
A man in a silver mask stood on the stone floor. He was a guest, though hardly an honored one. The master of the room, an old man dressed in dark gray, remained seated alone in an oak chair.
“Don’t begrudge me for being the only one sitting. You know better than anyone how much strength that spell consumes,” the old man said, justifying his impoliteness. His voice creaked like a rusty iron wheel. “I raised a fog not in a valley or a mountain pass, but over open plain, throwing the Parsian cavalry into confusion when there was no enemy nearby.”
“You seem to have plenty of strength left to talk,” the masked man remarked coldly. “Now why don’t you tell me why you called me here.”
“Ah, yes.” A faint trace of melody seeped into his dry voice. “I have news you will not like. Qaran is dead.”
For a moment, the masked man went rigid. The light in his eyes sharpened. He did not ask a question, for he saw no need to.
“Had he remained loyal to Shah Andragoras,” the old man continued, “he could have ended his life as a distinguished general of Pars. But he chose to side with you, and this is what became of him. How tragic.”
Showing no interest in the feigned sympathy, the masked man lowered his voice, “Qaran served me well. I will see that his family is taken care of.” After a short pause, he added, “Who killed him? I will have to take revenge.”
“That I do not know. I told you: it will take the rest of this year for my power to fully recover.”
“Fine. It is no doubt Andragoras’s whelp’s group that did it. That only narrows the path ahead for the boy,” he proclaimed to some unseen being.
The skinny old man let out a strange laugh. “How ominous. Though I cannot say for whom it is more ominous.”
Had the guest’s face not been hidden behind the silver mask, his displeasure would have been plain to see. Still, he seemed used to dealing with the old man and kept himself calm.
“But enough of that,” the old man said. “You would do well to be cautious. An enemy is approaching.”
“An enemy, you say?” A dangerous glint flashed from behind the silver mask and struck the old man’s wrinkled face. “Andragoras’s whelp?”
“No. Someone close to him. Perhaps even the one who killed Qaran.”
The masked man folded his arms. The old man studied him through narrowed eyes, as if peering through drifting smoke.
“Revenge is fine and all, but you are not facing a single man.”
“No matter how many there are, it makes no difference.” New chapters come out on g.com first.
“You may be able to fight one on one, but avoid fighting two at once. Even your swordsmanship cannot handle two opponents at the same time.”
“…”
“You are not the only strong one in this world. The sun of Pars does not shine for you alone. Confidence and overconfidence are as inseparable as night and darkness.”
The masked man nodded, though the gesture seemed to be half courtesy and half reflex. Soon after, he left.
The old man opened the small leather pouch the man had left on the table and counted the gold coins inside. He showed little interest. He carelessly tossed the coins into a drawer and muttered to himself, “It’s better if he believes that gold is my objective. To resurrect Serpent King Zahhak, blood must flood the entirety of Pars. If he is to become Lord Zahhak’s prey anyway, it matters little who rules Pars.”
He lifted a hand and pulled a cord hanging from the ceiling. A painting on old parchment unrolled down the wall.
It showed a man with a dark complexion and red eyes, wearing a crown. The old man bowed with a reverence quite unlike his attitude toward the man in the silver mask.
“My lord Zahhak, please wait a little longer. Your servant works day and night so that you may return.”
There was no one in Pars—save for newborn infants—who did not know the name of Zahhak the Serpent King. In ancient times, he ruled the world and committed endless atrocities. He murdered Jamshid the Sage with a saw, scattered his body into the sea, and seized all his wealth and power.
From Zahhak’s shoulders sprouted two black snakes, thus the name Serpent King. The snakes fed on human brains. During his rule, two people were killed every day, whether wuzurgan or ghulam, so the serpents could eat. His reign of terror lasted a thousand years, laying waste to the world. People were born in shackles of fear and died with collars of despair. Forty generations passed before his reign finally ended, and the dynasty of Pars began.
The old man gazed at the painting in reverent awe, staring at the two black snakes rising from Zahhak’s shoulders. Then wearily he moved his frail body, drifting through the cold, damp air like some strange deep-sea creature.
His cracked lips parted. “Gorgan,” he urgently called. “Gorgan!”
“Yes, Master. I am here.”
The reply came from a dark corner of the room, but the speaker himself could not be seen. The old man did not seem to care.
“Gather your six companions at once,” he ordered somewhat impatiently. “A million soldiers and civilians have died since the battle of Atropatene, but it is still not enough. Of the twenty million people of Pars, at least half must be turned into blood for the earth. Only then can Lord Zahhak return.”
“Immediately, Master?”
“As quickly as possible.”
“As you command.”
The voice faded quickly, dissolving into the minute particles that made up the air. The old man sat in silence for a moment, then a sinister joy began to settle in his eyes and at the corners of his mouth.
“Curse those who stand in the way of Serpent King Zahhak’s glory.”
As the reopening of the bazaar showed, Ecbatana had begun to regain a certain order under the Lusitanian occupation. The bloodshed, however, showed no sign of drying up.
The ghulams who had taken part in the uprising—those who had helped throw the city into chaos and opened the way for the Lusitanian invasion—naturally expected a reward. But the Lusitanian army turned on them without a second thought. This story is hosted at NovelPing.
“All this wealth belongs to His Majesty, King Innocentius VII of Lusitania. How could it possibly be entrusted to the likes of you?”
For a time, the ghulams had broken into the households of the wuzurgan and the wealthy, indulging in the pleasure of revenge. Now they were driven back to the same miserable huts where they had once been confined, and chained once more. When they protested, whips and shouting answered them.
“You fools. We, the honorable apostles of Yaldabaoth, have no reason to share victory with filthy heathens like you, especially slaves. Know your place.”
“But you promised to free us once you entered Ecbatana.”
“Do you think we’re bound by promises made to heathens? Would you make an agreement with pigs or cattle?”
And so the ghulams were robbed of their future, just as they had been robbed of their past.
In one sense, this storm that had swept from the northwestern edge of the continent all the way to Pars treated everyone equally. It did not spare the rich. Those who had much to lose lost the most. Nobles, priests, landowners, and merchants saw everything they had accumulated through merciless law and power seized from them by equally merciless violence. For them, the night had only just begun.
“Kill them! Kill them all! Slaughter the evil heathens!” howled Archbishop Jean Bodin, like dry sand thirsting for blood. His ecstasy only grew more intense with each passing day. “The glory of God shines brighter through the blood of heathens! Show no mercy! Every heathen who lives and eats steals food from a believer of Yaldabaoth!”
But of course, not all of the 300,000 Lusitanian troops shared Bodin’s zeal for slaughter. The officers and officials who took part in governing understood that conquest and destruction had shifted toward control and reconstruction. Prince Guiscard had made that clear. Even among ordinary soldiers, there were those who grew sick of the stench of blood and death. Others accepted bribes and asked for Parsian lives to be spared.
“This man says he and his family will convert. We should spare him and let him serve God.”
“False conversion!” Bodin jumped and screeched. “Anyone who offers conversion without torture cannot be trusted!”
Being the man he was, even his view of Queen Tahmineh of Pars was one-sided.
“That is the wife of Shah Andragoras. Naturally she is a cursed heathen who does not receive the grace of Yaldabaoth. Why has she not been burned at the stake yet?”
He even pressed the king directly, and Innocentius VII could do little more than dodge the issue with vague words. He couldn’t possibly bring himself to mention marrying Tahmineh.
“If the wrath of God is your concern, then you should first persuade Bodin, Brother,” said Prince Guiscard.
It was a reasonable suggestion. When Guiscard met his brother’s pleading gaze, he pretended not to notice and made no move to persuade Bodin himself. He already resented the king’s habit of handing every difficult problem to him.
This is his own marriage. He should deal with the obstacle himself, Guiscard thought, though not for his brother’s sake.
He was simply waiting for the day—soon, he believed—when his brother’s hatred of Bodin would finally outweigh his faith.