02 - Nagash the Unbroken (6 page)

Khalida took the end of one of her braids between her fingers and twirled it
thoughtfully. “Then who decides which idea is best?”

“We do, at the moment.”
And Lamashizzar had best exploit this opportunity
to the fullest.
Neferata took Khalida by the shoulders and pulled her gently
upright. “Pay attention to something other than horses for a moment and I’ll try
to explain.”

Khalida sighed heavily. “If it will make the time go faster.”

The queen nodded approvingly. “It begins with Khemri,” she said. “Since the
time of Settra the Magnificent, the living city was the centre of power in
Nehekhara. Even after Settra’s empire fell, the Living City and its mortuary
cult exerted tremendous political and economic influence from one end of the
Blessed Land to the other. Their interests were guaranteed before all others,
and that translated to power, comfort and security. Next in line came Mahrak,
the City of the Gods, then Ka-Sabar, Numas, Lybaras, Zandri, Lahmia and Quatar.”

“Numas was more powerful than Lybaras?” Khalida exclaimed. “They’re farmers,
mostly. Lybaras had airships!”

“The Numasi provided the grain for most of Nehekhara,” the queen said
patiently. “You can’t eat an airship, little hawk.”

“I suppose,” the girl said. “But what about us? Why were we so low on the
list?”

Neferata sighed. “Because we were so distant from Khemri, for starters.
Zandri was closer, and was somewhat richer due to the slave trade. And unlike
other cities, we preferred to keep to ourselves.”

“But Nagash changed all that.”

“That’s right. Khemri is nothing but ruins now, as well as Mahrak, and most
of the other cities suffered greatly thanks to the Usurper. Now that the war is
over, everything lies in flux.”

It was then that King Lamashizzar’s voice rose above the muted murmur of the
hall. “My honoured friend, Priest King Khepra; do you wish to address the
council?”

A heavy wooden chair creaked as Khepra, Priest King of Lybaras, rose slowly
to his feet. The son of the late King Hekhmenukep looked much like his
illustrious father: he was tall and lean, with narrow shoulders and a
square-jawed, hangdog face. Unlike his father, though, Khepra’s arms and
shoulders were thick with muscle, and his hands and face bore the scars of
dozens of battlefields.

Like the kings of Lybaras before him, Khepra wore a fine gold chain about his
neck, hung with a bewildering assortment of glass lenses bound in gold, silver
or copper wire. It was a relic from a more prosperous, peaceful age, when the
engineer-priests of Lybaras crafted wondrous inventions for the greater glory of
Tahoth, patron god of scholars.

The king nodded to Lamashizzar. “Great king, on behalf of your esteemed
guests, I wish to thank you for this splendid display of generosity on our
behalf. I’m also grateful to see that all of us have come together today to
ensure the continued prosperity of our great cities, and the land of Nehekhara
as a whole. It is a welcome beginning, but there are still very serious matters
that require our attention.”

Neferata’s eyes narrowed. “Now it begins, little hawk. Watch the faces of the
rulers around the table. How are they reacting to the Lybaran king?”

The young girl frowned, but did as she was told. “Well… they’re looking
curious, I suppose. Politely interested.” She paused, her head tilting slightly
to one side. “Except for the King of Rasetra.”

“Oh?” the queen asked, smiling faintly.

“He’s not even looking at Khepra. He’s pretending to sip his wine, but really
he’s watching everyone else.”

Neferata nodded approvingly. “Now you know who is truly asking the question.
King Khepra is speaking on Rasetra’s behest, while King Shepret can devote his
full attention to gauging the reactions of his rivals.”

Rasetra and Lybaras had been close allies during the war, and had borne the
brunt of the fighting from beginning to end. Whatever it was that Rasetra was
now after, King Shepret could almost certainly count on Khepra’s support in the
council. She’d tried to warn Lamashizzar to find a way to drive a wedge between
the two kings; if he didn’t one of the other kings wouldn’t hesitate to try.

Neferata turned to the table at her side and picked up the waiting ink brush.
She wrote hurriedly in the sharp-edged pictographs of the Eastern Empire’s
trading cant:
Divide Rasetra and Lybaras, or they will outmanoeuvre you!

She paused, tapping the end of the brush against her lower lip as a thought
occurred to her.
King Khepra’s son is in need of a wife. Perhaps Khalida?

She plucked a pinch of fine-grained sand from a tiny box by the ink-pot and
scattered it across the pictographs to help set the ink, then held out the page
for a servant to carry downstairs to the king.

“While we now have plans in place to ensure the stability of our own homes,
there are still three cities that are desolate and devoid of leadership,” the
King of Lybaras said. “We cannot sit idly by and watch them fall to ruin.”

“Generous words from a man who just spent the last four years desolating one
of the very cities in question,” Lamashizzar replied good-naturedly. The other
rulers laughed at the gentle jibe, but for a moment King Khepra was put on the
back foot. He faltered for a moment, unable to come up with a proper response.

“The city of Ka-Sabar is the least of our concerns at the moment,” King
Shepret said in a flat voice. He was lean and muscular, with his late father’s
broad shoulders, but where the legendary king Rakh-amn-hotep was stout and
pugnacious, Shepret had the aquiline features of an up-country patrician.

Though he was just over a hundred years old, well into middle age, his thick
black hair only showed a few streaks of grey, and his green eyes were as vivid
and sharp as cut emeralds. “The Living City has lain in ruins for almost a
century.” He set down his wine cup and turned his piercing gaze on Lamashizzar.
“Now that the war is over, we must reclaim the city and restore the rightful
order of things.”

Agitated murmurs rose around the council table. Khalida grinned. “Lamashizzar
made Shepret state his own case,” she said proudly. She glanced sidelong at
Neferata. “That is what happened, right?”

Neferata sighed. “With Lamashizzar it’s difficult to tell, sometimes. But
possibly, yes.”

“But why does King Shepret care about restoring the Living City? Doesn’t he
have enough worries with the lizard folk?”

The queen gave her young cousin an appraising stare. Apparently Khalida
wasn’t as oblivious to matters of state as she appeared to be. Rasetra was the
smallest of the great cities, but because of its proximity to the deadly
southern jungles and its tribes of Lizard Folk, their army was second to none.
But the war had bled Rasetra white, and now the city was fighting for its
survival against growing attacks by lizard war parties.

Neferata considered the question carefully. “It’s not entirely unexpected,”
she said. “Rasetra was originally settled by Khemri, just a few hundred years
ago. When King Shepret talks of putting another king on Khemri’s throne, he
means one of his own sons. They’re directly related to the old royal family, and
have an unassailable claim. It would give Rasetra a powerful ally on the western
side of the Bitter Peaks, and allow it to exert its influence across all of
Nehekhara.”

At the council table, Lamashizzar cleared his throat, and the murmurs fell
silent. “That’s a very noble goal, honoured friend,” the king said, “but also a
daunting one. Khemri lies empty now. Only jackals and restless ghosts prowl the
city streets.”

King Shepret nodded. As a young man, he’d been with his father’s army when
they’d reached Khemri, just a few months after the battle at Mahrak. He’d seen
the city’s sand-choked streets firsthand. “According to my sources, many of
Khemri’s citizens fled to Bel Aliad, hoping to begin a new life there.” He
shrugged. “They could be resettled again, with the proper incentive.”

Khalida let out a snort. “At the end of a spear, he means.”

The girl was absolutely right, Neferata realised. She turned quickly and took
up the ink brush again.
Give Shepret what he wants,
she wrote.
Give
him Khemri.
A servant scurried forwards and plucked the message from the
queen’s outstretched hand.

Khalida watched the servant go. “Does the king actually follow your advice?”

“It’s been known to happen,” Neferata replied.

“Is it true you actually ruled the city when he was fighting against Nagash,
all those years ago?”

The question took Neferata aback. “Who told you that?”

“Oh,” Khalida said, suddenly uncomfortable. “No one in particular. Everybody
knows it—inside the Women’s Palace, at least.”

“Well, it’s nothing that needs to be repeated elsewhere,” the queen warned.
“Other cities may treat their queens differently, but here in Lahmia, such
things are not done.” She paused, uncertain of how much she should reveal.
“Let’s just say that it was a difficult time, and we were at a delicate stage of
negotiations with the Eastern Empire. I… consulted with Grand Vizier Ubaid on a
number of important matters while the king was away. Nothing more.”

Khalida nodded thoughtfully, and turned to regard the council once more.
“Shepret would have been right about my age back then,” she mused. “He looks so
old
now. Yet you and Lamashizzar still look as young as
thirty-year-olds.”

Neferata stiffened. “You see much more than I give you credit for, little
hawk.”

For the last nine decades, Lamashizzar and his cabal had been hard at work
deciphering Nagash’s tomes and trying to replicate his elixir of immortality.
For the first few years the king had consulted her regularly, and despite her
misgivings, she’d helped explain the necromancer’s basic methods in crafting
potions and performing incantations. Relinquishing control of the city to
Lamashizzar had been much harder to bear than she’d imagined; experimenting with
Nagash’s books had at least given her something to
do.
Returning to a
quiet, cloistered life in the Women’s Palace seemed like a fate worse than
death.

It had taken them four years of trial and error before they managed to create
a very weak version of the elixir. After that, Lamashizzar no longer summoned
her from the Women’s Palace. She received a small bottle of the potion every
month, which managed to slow the process of ageing, but nothing more. As far as
she knew, Lamashizzar and his noblemen still experimented with the process, in
an unused wing of the palace. She had no idea what had eventually become of
Arkhan, the king’s immortal prisoner.

“My brother and I have been very fortunate,” Neferata replied, as casually as
she could manage. “The blessings of Asaph run strong in the royal bloodline.
They always have.”

Khalida chuckled. “I hope I’m half so lucky when I’m a hundred years old,”
she said.

“Time will tell,” the queen replied, eager to change the subject. “What’s was
King Teremun saying just now?”

The young girl blinked. “Ah… I think he asked Shepret what he meant by
restoring the rightful order. Something to that effect.”

As Neferata considered the question, Shepret turned to the King of Zandri and
replied. “The will of the people has been worn thin by a century of warfare. We
need to send a clear sign that the age of Nagash is no more. There needs to be a
new king on Settra’s throne, and a Daughter of the Sun at his side.”

Neferata drew in a sharp breath. That was clever, Shepret, the queen thought.
Very clever indeed.

It was a proposal almost guaranteed to win Lahmia’s support. From the time of
Settra the Magnificent, the Priest Kings of Khemri were married to the eldest
daughter of the Lahmian royal line. The Lahmian king’s firstborn daughter was
called the Daughter of the Sun, because she was the living embodiment of the
covenant between the gods and the people of the Blessed Land. The marriage was
meant to create a union between the spiritual and temporal power of Settra’s
throne, and it had been one of the cornerstones of Khemri’s power ever since.

Clearly, the King of Rasetra was proposing an alliance with Lahmia, one that,
in theory, would benefit both cities. It was also something that none of the
other great cities would stand for.

As if on cue, Queen Amunet of Numas turned in her chair to face Shepret. She
was the daughter of Seheb, one of the twin kings of the city, and the only
survivor after the vicious cycle of fratricide that occurred in the wake of the
twins’ sudden deaths. She had eyes as black as onyx and a smile like a hungry
jackal.

“You’re putting the chariot before the horse, King Shepret,” the Queen of
Numas said dryly. “Lamashizzar and his queen have to actually produce children
before your dream can become a reality.”

The rest of the council responded with nervous laughter—all except for the
sickly King Naeem of Quatar, who planted trembling hands onto the table-top and
pushed himself to his feet. Naeem was of an age with his peers, but as a young
acolyte he’d been among those trapped at Mahrak during Nagash’s ten-year siege,
and he’d never truly recovered from the suffering he’d endured there. His body
was painfully gaunt, his head bald and his cheeks sunken. When he spoke, his
voice was little more than a whisper, but his rheumy eyes burned with
conviction.

“King Shepret speaks of restoring the proper order of things, but his
priorities are misplaced,” Naeem declared. “The greatest of the Usurper’s crimes
was that he broke the sacred covenant between the people and their gods. The
blessings that have sustained us for millennia are slipping away. The sands
press a little closer to our cities each year, and our harvests are dwindling.
Our people suffer a little more each year from sickness, and do not live the
same span of years as our ancestors. Unless we find a way to redeem ourselves in
the eyes of the gods, within a few hundred years Nehekhara will be a kingdom of
the dead.”