The Apocalypse Script (22 page)

“
Oh, I get it,” replied Ben.
“You’re talking about the power of suggestion taken to the
umpteenth degree. Essentially, a form of instant hypnosis. That’s
how the legendary Sillum turned the king’s guards against him and
enslaved his population. He spoke Empyrean.”

“
Yes, and thus
whatever he
said
was real
became
real in the minds of his listeners. Whatever he
told them to do, they were
compelled
to do. The listeners were
simply unequipped mentally to challenge the perfectly formed
concepts he put into their minds.”

“
But,” objected
Ben, his glass in the air, “If all sentient beings are gifted with
the Empyrean Glossa,
why
doesn
’
t everyone
still speak it?
”

The old man scratched the back of
his neck and said, “It’s difficult to say. Presumably a perfect
language would require a lot of brainpower. It could be that humans
somehow evolved away from it - perhaps our brains were put to
better use learning how to make fire or hunt wild boar. Perhaps,
for some unknowable reason, the ability to tap the language has
been denied us by some outside force.”

Ben said, “If the language
contained within the inscriptions is Empyrean, what is the writing
system? The etchings?”

Ridley shook his head. “No writing
system for an imperfect language could possibly capture the
fullness of Empyrean, and there would be no reason for such a
writing system to exist
prior
to the Empyrean. In this instance, the language
and the writing system are of the same essence. They were born
together. Both are perfect.”

Ben said, “I assume you told
Lilian’s father about all this. What did he think?”

“
King Sargon…” Ridley shook his
head as if the name caused him grief. “He accepted Empyrean’s
existence unconditionally, and he wanted it for himself. He charged
me and my team of scribes to decipher the tablets. We didn’t get
too far, however. Only weeks after he discovered the tablets our
kingdom was thrown into chaos when the king began to have the
dreams that would ultimately end his reign.”

“
What kind of dreams?”

Ridley said with contempt, “Dreams
in which the Sillum’s monstrous god offered Sargon the secret of
the Empyrean and power over the whole of the world if only the king
help the god accomplish what the Sillum had to do.”

“
To open a portal and allow its
monsters to invade this world.”

“
Yes. The king took his dreams
seriously. Though he coveted the power of the Empyrean, he did not
wish to rule a world populated only by the creatures of an alien
god. He proclaimed at court that the Gate of the Sun was a danger
to the Nisirtu, and ordered me to issue short-fused scripts, only
one or two degrees out, to have the structure destroyed. He even
required a script that would entail the use of nuclear
weapons.”

Ben’s mouth fell open. “You’ve got
to be kidding.”

“
No, I’m
serious.
He wanted Bolivia
nuked.
Fortunately, the other Houses
intervened, ordering King Sargon to abandon his delusions and
return to proper governance of his kingdom. Seeing that the other
Families did not believe him, King Sargon worried that one of the
other monarchs might succumb to the foreign god’s temptations. He
decided that he was the only monarch capable of resisting such
temptations, which meant the other kings and queens had to be
unseated. He alone would rule the Nisirtu. Toward that end, he
waged a covert war against the other Houses by destroying the
scenarios that kept them in power.

“
Many of my scribes and I fled
into self-imposed exile. Other scribes remained and did as he
directed. The king’s ploy was destined to fail but many lives were
lost and many century-old scripts were hopelessly unraveled. It was
a disaster. The other Houses tried to take him by force but he was
too well protected. They located me, which was inevitable, really,
and commanded me to use my knowledge of the Fifth Kingdom and the
king’s routines to write a script for his capture.”

“
Which you did.”

“
Yes,” Ridley said. He paused, as
if meditating on his past actions. “It was not an easy decision,
nephew,” he said at last, “We were as brothers, once. But he was
out of control, quite insane, and a Nisirtu king minus his wits can
do unimaginable harm. It took several months, but in the end he was
captured.

“
He and his entire court,
including even me, were put on trial in front of the Council of the
Ten. That is a star-chamber in which the judges are the monarchs of
the Ten Kingdoms. This was, of course, before the Maqtu rebellion.
A puppet king was given control of the Fifth Kingdom and thus was,
ironically, one of the judges deciding Sargon’s fate. Lilian’s
father was found guilty and supposedly imprisoned at some secret
location. Regicide is impermissible under Nisirtu law but I have it
on good authority that the man was killed shortly after he was
shipped away.

“
I fared better, obviously. As a
reward for my cooperation, I was spared the wrath of the other
Houses and managed to save both Lilian and Fiela. King Sargon was
marked, you see.”

Ben shook his head. “What does
that mean?”

“
A person who is marked brings
punishment not only upon himself but everyone around him. All
family members and supporters of lesser rank are killed, regardless
of age, until the third generation. In other words, the children of
the guilty are killed, but the grandchildren are
spared.”

“
My God!”
exclaimed Ben. “That’s barbaric!
Everyone?
”

Ridley nodded. “Yes, and in King
Sargon’s case, the mark was worse.
All
generations of his family were
to be killed, legitimate or not, as well as all generations of his
associates’ families. Lilian, being Sargon’s daughter, should have
been executed when he was exiled, and Fiela should have been killed
because my brother’s grandson, her father, and a Peth, had dared to
assist King Sargon in his covert operations against the rest of the
Nisirtu.

“
It was no easy task, but I
negotiated with the other Houses to preserve both the girls’ lives
and to have them put under my care, though the conditions were
strict. I could not, unfortunately, save the lives of my scribes.
Even the ones who went into exile with me were executed. It was a
bloodbath.”

The two men were quiet for a long
time, both caught up in their own thoughts.

Ben broke the silence. “Honestly,
this is just
crazy
. Kingdoms, monsters, gods, magic, secret societies, and the
apocalypse? It’s a hell of a lot more than I bargained for when I
signed on. I mean, you pay well, and you’ve been exceptionally
accommodating, but I think there’s a fair chance that everyone
under this roof is insane. I’m increasingly suspicious of the man
in the mirror. What happens next week if none of what you’re
predicting comes to pass?”

The other man said good-naturedly,
“If that happens you will be a rich man who spent a week at a
luxury hotel with two gorgeous women. I, on the other hand, will
have made a new friend who can visit me at the asylum I have so
recently escaped from. There are worse fates for us both,
yes?”

The four senior lords of the
Peth-Allati met in a Nisirtu safe house in downtown Denver. The
building was an abandoned church masquerading as a college textbook
storehouse and was initially used by Peth-Allati from the Seven
Houses when they needed refuge from the Maqtu. That had been years
ago, however, and the Maqtu were now effectively crushed, so the
building was rarely needed. Still, it was swept regularly by Peth
security forces and kept ready for any contingency.

Moros was the last to arrive. He
walked alone into the basement and took a seat at collapsible table
that was already occupied by three other men.

“
Good evening, Lord Moros,” said
the man to his right, a Peth-Allati Lord of the Second Kingdom
named Belusmar. He was an elderly and dignified man with thinning
white hair and a sharp chin and was the only man present wearing
spectacles. He wore a dark red turtleneck and held an ivory pipe in
one palm.

“
Good evening, Lord Belusmar,”
replied Moros. “Lords Nizrok, Disparthian,” he added, nodding at
the other two men as he pulled his chair forward.

Six of the remaining seven
kingdoms had a Peth lord in charge of its military forces; the
military leader of the Fifth Kingdom had been assassinated
two-weeks prior and not yet replaced. Though the Nisirtu preferred
to script Ardoon militaries to do their bidding, there were times
when that was not possible. Also, the Families were prone to
warring against one another every few centuries and the unwritten
rule was that scripts could not be used to settle civil wars, since
any slip-ups could expose the existence of the Nisirtu to their
slaves. That endangered the whole of the Nisirtu. Instead, the wars
were decided by the Peth-Allati of each house. Only the Maqtu had
dared to violate this rule, knowing that ultimately it would not
matter.

The Maqtu, and Moros. But Moros
was the senior-most commander of the Seven’s Peth and was allowed
certain latitude. The other commanders, in descending order of
authority, were Nizrok, Disparthian, and Belusmar. The two Peth
lords not present were junior to these four men and had not been
required at the meeting because they played no active role in the
events that were about to unfold, though they were well aware of
them.

Nizrok, Peth lord of the Fourth
Kingdom, a middle-aged, balding man with eyebrows cut to resemble
inverted V’s, said, “I heard that you swapped a few words with that
devil Fiela at the Ziggurat.” The man was born in Ukraine but spoke
Agati, as did the other men at the table.

“
Yes,” mumbled Moros in the same
tongue. “I had gone there to meet with a local contact and found
not only her but also Lilitu and her new slave husband. Imagine, in
the Ziggurat, a whore and slave, sitting together! It’s
sickening.”

“
I thought you
had banned Fiela from the Ziggurat as a result of
her…
insubordination?
”

Moros studied the table. “She
figured out where the perimeter guards were. They were not
expecting her and she was…creative. The ceremonial guard never
stood a chance. This, and she had already killed my newest fetch
while I was away.”

Disparthian, Peth lord of Sixth
Kingdom said, “She’s quite determined, Lord Moros. You chose the
wrong enemy.” Disparthian was French. He was the youngest and
handsomest of the collected men, blond with brilliant blue eyes and
perfectly formed lips that ensured that he rarely spent his
evenings alone. “But anyway, you have many other fetches,
yes?”

“
Most are running errands for me
abroad. I have none left in the United States.”

“
It would take a week to get a new
one assigned,” observed Nizrok.

Disparthian pulled a leather case
from an inside pocket and flipped it open to reveal a row of black
cigarettes. He placed one in his mouth and mumbled, “Moros, why not
leave the girl alone? You have taken too personal an interest in
her. It is unseemly for a man of your station to issue scripts
against another member of the Seven, much less a girl who is so
utterly inconsequential. Let the Maqtu kill her.”

“
The Maqtu have been trying to
kill her for years and all they have to show for it is a mound of
bloodless corpses,” seethed Moros.

“
Still, this girl is not your
concern. Wait. Perhaps in the future you can make her your
fetch.”

“
A Peth?” asked Belusmar,
affronted.

Disparthian shrugged. “The rules
are changing soon, are they not? Give it a week, Lord Moros.
Concentrate on the matter at hand.”

“
The person who should concern
you,” rasped Nizrok, “is Lilitu, that bastard daughter of the mad
king. The whore was to die childless, the end of his wretched line.
She had no family to provide her dowry yet today she is married and
may produce prodigy.”

Belusmar added, “How incredibly
clever that girl is. I’m sorry, Lord Moros, but it’s true. She has
done the impossible - she has legally obtained a dowry and
permission to marry from a deceased father, and,” he snapped his
bony fingers, “just like that, can produce children capable of
renewing her father’s royal bloodline.”

“
What of her husband?” asked
Disparthian.

“
I cannot understand why she
selected him, of all men,” admitted Moros. “He was born a poor
Ardoon of better than average intelligence and spent a few years in
the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan for various spy agencies, though he
himself never really knew which ones. Afterwards he obtained some
advanced degrees in ancient languages. He has become prominent
researcher in that field.”

“
That, then, was Ridley’s doing,”
said Belusmar, “and not Lilitu’s. Only the Great Sage would choose
such a man.”