The Apocalypse Script (44 page)

Lilian shook her head, unable to
grasp the situation. “But your guards - yours and Nizrok’s! The
Maqtu helped kill them!”

The Peth lord bit his lip in mock
embarrassment. “Yes, there was that. I’m not proud of what I’ve
done, but it was necessary, Lilitu. My guards had to be sacrificed
for the greater good.”

“
You had your own men
killed?”

“
I’m afraid so. It was necessary
for the ruse, you see - and it worked, didn’t it? When I committed
my guards you assumed that I was truly allied with Lord Nizrok and
serving the Seven. You think me monstrous for ordering my own men
killed, yes? But consider that my plan would not have been possible
if I were not willing to do so. Nizrok would certainly have not
committed his guards had I not committed mine, and that would have
meant no attack on Steepleguard. No attack on Steepleguard would
mean that tomorrow I’d have but a single army to exploit the new
Dark Age, the same as all the other kingdoms. Even you would have
an army!”

“
You’re a psychopath,” growled
Lilian. “You’re mad!”

Moros looked shocked. “Am I
really, Lilitu? As things stand, I have lost a few guards but I
remain in control of my legions and will assume control of
Nizrok’s, since I am his senior. Soon Disparthian will be killed
and his forces, too, will become mine. As Supreme Lord of the
Peth-Allati, I have already commanded the praetors of both
Disparthian’s and Nizrok’s legions to join mine here tomorrow.
Think, Lilitu! Fifteen praetors, each in command of a thousand-man
legion. And I have the remains of the Maqtu.

“
That gives me
almost
twenty thousand
soldiers
around the world with which I can
build a new empire. Twenty thousand well-equipped, well-armed, and
coordinated soldiers that will face no sizeable opposition. Every
other armed force in the world will be dust. What few soldiers
might survive will be spread across thousands of miles, with no
ability to contact one another and no central control. They will
too busy fighting to survive to worry about spending the rest of
their short lives trying to form even a squad of men, and even if
they could, whom would they fight? And for what? They will be as
ignorant as the rest of humanity as to what really happened in the
days and weeks before the collapse.

“
No, in this
next world, the Nisirtu armies will be the only armies, and he who
controls them, controls the world. So you see, I have sacrificed
only a single pawn, my personal guard, in order to capture three
pawns, two knights and,” he said with bow, “a queen. I would hardly
call that
mad.
As soon as I find your slave ‘king’ I will call
checkmate.”

Ben rose from the floor very
slowly, unsure which way was up. When he finally got his bearings
he gripped the edge of the cabinet behind him and pulled until he
was upright. He fell backwards against the glass lid.

He scanned the room for Ridley but
the man was gone. The door to the vault was open and he could see
the wall of the cave beyond, gray and moist beneath the bright
illumination of the fluorescent lights. Thrown over the metal door
was the yellow robe the scribe had been wearing.

“
Ridley!” the man yelled. His
voice echoed through the cave and came back to him twice but there
was no other sound.

He struggled to push back the
seemingly infinite number of thoughts that had sprung to life when
Ridley had resurrected the Empyrean language that had lain dormant
in his brain for the past twenty years. Alien thoughts now swarmed
restively between his conscious and subconscious and he knew
instinctively that if he failed to contain them, and they flooded
into his conscious mind, he might lose his grip on
reality.

It wasn’t easy resisting their
call. It was like looking at a painting and trying to see only the
strokes of paint and not the subject, or staring at an image on a
monitor and trying to see only a collection of pixels and not the
image they formed. For almost anyone else it would have been
impossible. It was only an accident of nature, he knew, that
allowed his brain to deconstruct the whole for his protection. It
was, he thought, the very trait that allowed him to comprehend the
Empyrean Glossa.

He checked his watch and saw that
it was after nine o’clock in the evening, but the day, thankfully,
was unchanged. He walked stiltedly toward the door and proceeded
across the metal grates and up the spiral staircase to the
hotel.

Ridley had told him - hadn’t he? -
what would transpire this night. What was supposed to transpire, at
least. If everything had gone according to plan, Lord Disparthian
and Lilian should at this moment be together with Fiela in the
Great Hall savoring their victory over the forces of Moros and
Nizrok.

That was what the scribe had told
him, wasn’t it? Ben thought he had said more. Something about
treachery, but by that point the researcher’s mind had begun to
shut down. His mental circuit breakers had been flipped, one by
one, by the Empyrean invasion, until there was no activity at
all.

He had been
rebooted.

Ben increased his pace as he
ascended the stairs. Pushing the door at the top open, he slid into
the corridor and trotted toward the Great Hall, looking into each
room he passed, but seeing no one. Steepleguard was deathly quiet
except for the faraway voice of a man delivering some kind of
speech.

That was to be expected,
right?
It’s probably one of Lilian’s
supporters waxing poetic about the woman and her family.
Then he smelled the spent gunpowder and heard
Lilian’s voice and he knew from the sound that she was in
distress.

Ben picked up speed and took the
next corner, the one that led into the kitchen, fast, but he came
to a screeching halt when he saw two other men headed his way. Big
men who wore body armor and carried guns. Men in tattered and
mismatched uniforms.

Rebels, he assumed.
Maqtu.

They saw him, too, and he heard
one of the men say excitedly, “It’s the Ardoon king!” in
Agati.

In Agati,
Ben marveled.
I can understand
Agati?

The question evaporated when he heard the other
Maqtu yell, “Kill him!”

The first soldier raised his
rifle. The former Marine jumped to one side, taking cover behind
one of the kitchen islands as a tile backsplash behind him
exploded.

The island that separated him from
the rebels was the portable variety, elevated two inches off the
floor by casters. From his prone position Ben could see the boots
of the Maqtu as they walked toward him. Each was approaching from a
different side and both were now ten feet away. He noticed potato
peels around him and looked up hopefully.

A black handle dangled over the
lip of the island’s counter. He shot a hand up and grabbed
it.

Oh please oh please oh please
don’t be a potato peeler.

It was a cleaver.

Thank you, God!

The rebels were five feet away
now. He pushed the island experimentally. It moved. He crouched
directly behind it and counted. One, two, three –
now.

He rolled to his right and blindly
swung the cleaver across the floor in front of him even as he
kicked his feet out and forced the island to the left. The Maqtu
who had been approaching from the left side screamed in pain and
fury when the corner of the island rammed his groin. As he did so,
the business end of the cleaver sliced into the Achilles tendon of
the other man, who screamed far louder and collapsed to the
ground.

Without hesitation, Ben jerked the
cleaver out and swung at the man’s leg again like a lumberjack
hacking at a tree. The next swing hit the rebel’s femoral artery
and a spray of blood showered Ben and everything around him. A
third swing exposed the man’s intestines, and he was out. The
artery continued to pump out showers of blood rhythmically, like
Old Faithful with a prostate issue.

Unfortunately, the other rebel had
recovered while the linguist was hacking at his comrade. He was now
bearing down on Ben, who saw there was no possibility that he could
unsling the fallen rebel’s weapon in time to use it.

“
Wait!” Ben yelled. It was an
instinctive command born of desperation, a command meant to buy him
a few more seconds so he could develop a plan. It was exactly what
any person about to be killed would be expected to say to his
executioner.

But in this case, unlike almost
any other, it worked. The Maqtu stood above him, rifle to his
shoulder, and
waited.

Ben plowed his heels into the
floor and pushed backwards. He expected that at any moment the
Maqtu would chuckle and finish him.

But he didn’t.

The researcher rose slowly to his
feet and carefully moved the cleaver behind his back. He was
mystified as to why he wasn’t dead yet and confused at the yelling
he heard from down the corridor. Somewhere, he heard a pistol shot,
and then two more. Trying to come to grips with the situation, he
said, “Whose side are you on?”

The rebel said, “I serve Sibelius.”

“
I don’t know
who that is,” replied Ben, preparing to hurl the cleaver at the
man. “Who does
he
serve?”

“
Lord Moros.”

Ben froze. “The Maqtu serve Lord
Moros?”

“
We do now.”

“
Where is Lilian?” When the man
didn’t answer, he ventured, “Lilitu of Sargon?”

“
In the Great Hall, bowing before
Lord Moros. She’s about to get a ripe good beating.”

Ben tried to control his shock.
“And Fiela? Is she a prisoner, too?”

There was another shot fired
somewhere inside Steepleguard, followed by the sound of automatic
weapons. Then it was quiet again.

“
No,” said the man, his finger
still on the trigger. “She went down like a trooper, that one.
Must’ve taken out a whole squad by herself.”

“
She’s dead?” Ben growled, moving
toward the man. He no longer cared about the gun that was pointed
at him.

“
Curled up like a kitten next to
the stage. She was a pretty thing.”

Ben didn’t hear the last bit of
banter because at that moment the rage was forming inside him, a
rage that brushed aside the muddling thoughts of the Empyrean and
the confusing events of the past week and his concerns about his
future. It was a rage that vaporized every thought in its path and
in its wake left only clarity.

The epiphany was
complete.

He pushed aside the barrel of the
Maqtu’s rifle and slammed the blade into the man’s shoulder and
spoke
the words
to him. Without hesitation and with pure joy, the rebel, a
cleaver buried in his shoulder, ran past Ben, through the kitchen,
through the patio doors, through a gate, and into the courtyard.
There, he put the barrel of his rifle into his mouth and gleefully
pulled the trigger.

Chapter 46 - Fiela Denied

Moros spun and yelled, “All you
hiding in your rooms! Hear me! Lilitu is fallen. I am the master of
Steepleguard now. If you will serve me, come to the Great Hall and
kneel before me. If you would die for the whore, remain where you
are. We shall attend to you shortly.”

In a muted voice he said to
Sibelius, “Wait fifteen minutes and then shoot anyone who has
accepted my invitation. The scoundrels who surrender now will
serve
any
master
and are useless to me.”

“
It shall be done, Lord,” replied
the bearded man. He walked toward his lieutenants to relay the
command.

“
Maqtu!” he yelled at a man near
one of the great fireplaces.

“
Yes, Lord?”

“
That chair there!” Moros pointed
at a large and fancifully carved teak chair with a red velvet seat
in one corner of the room. “Bring it here, to this
platform.”

“
Your throne,” observed Lilian
hoarsely.

“
No, my
dear.
Yours.
For a short time, anyway. In fact, I have even brought you a
crown.”

He snapped his fingers and one of
the Maqtu stepped forward, a cardboard shoebox in his hands. Moros
flipped off the top and withdrew a cheap plastic tiara, the kind a
child would wear for Halloween. Affixed to the front were large
plastic letters that formed the word “WHORE”.

“
This,” he said, “is what little
girls who fancy themselves princesses are supposed to wear. You
probably already have one?”

In the deepest recesses of her
mind, Lilian screamed.

Moros smirked. “This will be the
one you wear tonight when you entertain my men.” He stepped forward
and slapped Lilian with such force that she nearly blacked out. Her
world went hazy.

“
A taste of things to come,” he
said.

The woman tried to respond but
when she opened her mouth, blood poured out. She could feel one of
her back teeth wiggling when she moved her jaw.