He tapped his head. ‘She thinks like a queen still, and thinks that this is a war of kings and queens and thrones. Like Vorag, her strategies revolve around passes and supply lines, territory… material things. Oh, but Ushoran knows now, even as I know, that this is not a war of men, but of magicians. Men, and their valour and their greed, are incidental. The throne is incidental. Empires are but the dust beneath our feet. Neferata does not see that. She is not our enemy, Melkhior. She is but a tool, like Vorag and Abhorash and all of the others — pieces in the game Ushoran and I are playing.’
‘I’d wager she thinks the same of you,’ Melkhior said.
W’soran smiled. ‘I’m certain she does. She’s wrong; but then, given her history, that’s not surprising.’ He chuckled. ‘It serves my purposes to build her as an enemy in Sanzak’s eyes. And, should he survive, in Vorag’s. It keeps them from seeing the true game, and gives them an enemy equal to their understanding. And, well, if I did not strike at her, she would become suspicious. And we can’t have that. So, I will take her pieces, and counter her puling attempt to bully her way into mine and Ushoran’s game, and keep her busy striking at shadows, even as I did in Mourkain. And, when she finds Vorag’s forces nowhere to be seen, she’ll realise that she’s overextended her hand and she’ll retreat.
‘And Ushoran… Ushoran will pursue and pull her pathetic little mountain down around her ears. If we’re lucky, she’ll come running to us for sanctuary, grovelling on her belly as she always should have done, seeking the favour of her betters.’ He snapped his fangs for emphasis. ‘Stupid preening cow, always so assured of her own righteousness, of her own intelligence. It was she who ruined it, you know… all of it. She mooned after that lout Alcadizzar instead of ringing the cities of the Great Land in fire and steel and squeezing them until they wept blood. It was she who ruined Lamashizzar’s plans to tease the secrets of immortality out of that fool, Arkhan.
‘And if she had allowed me to make an offer of alliance to Nagash early on, Lahmia might yet stand — the City of the Dawn, reborn as the City of Eternal Night, where an ageless aristocracy ruled the dead sands forevermore!’
‘And where were you while she was doing all of this, master?’ Melkhior asked, after a moment of silence.
W’soran didn’t reply. Where indeed? He had been in a jar, with a splinter in his heart and only the spiders for company. He stared out over the mountains. To the north and east, he could see the flickering blacker-than-black aura that crossed the dark sky like a ribbon. He felt a distinct tug on his mind, like hooks settling gently into the meat of it, and hissed in irritation. ‘Fool,’ he said softly, then, almost sadly, ‘you foolish, foolish man.’
He had never had friends, either as a child or as a man grown, for such petty social concerns had always been beneath him. But if he had indulged, Ushoran would have been one. W’soran looked at his withered hands. It had been Ushoran who had, all those many long years ago, helped him escape Mahrak. It had been Ushoran who had brought him into the conspiracy and then, after Neferata’s murderous attack, back out of the darkness.
Ushoran had feared him, and had hated him, had kept him around only because he was useful, but nonetheless… there it was. For no matter how W’soran twisted and schemed, only Ushoran had never lost patience, or decided to do away with him. Only Ushoran had seen his potential, had seen him for the power he truly was. Even Nagash had denigrated and underestimated him.
Only Ushoran had ever cared enough to truly fear W’soran for his capabilities, rather than his looks or his proclivities. That was why he was the only one worth playing against. Fear bred respect, after all. Neferata was nothing, and Abhorash even less than that. They were primitives, besotted by blood and unheeding of the true currents of power. But when Ushoran’s fear had been driven from him by the power of the twisted iron crown that now ensnared him, W’soran had run. He’d done as he’d always done, scuttled for the shadows, his tail between his legs. He’d left Mourkain and Ushoran.
But then flight had ever been his first choice, even as a boy in Mahrak. In flight, there was no risk, only gain. To fight was to risk pain, or death. But to flee was to live, to borrow a bit more time from inevitability. That was why he had sought immortality. He knew well enough now how fragile it was, but at the time it had seemed the ultimate escape. But in fleeing Mourkain, he had sacrificed much.
He closed his fingers, letting the tips of his talons pierce his flesh. When he’d sent Neferata to Nagashizzar, he’d half-hoped she would fail. That she would fail and die; that if the skaven failed to kill her the dead of Nehekhara would have succeeded. But she had won through, and brought back those resources he’d requested. Another shadow-chase he’d sent her on that she’d preened at seeing through, as if she had actually accomplished something.
He hadn’t truly needed the book. He could have drawn Alcadizzar’s spirit from the stones of Mourkain at any time, and bound it once more to its tattered flesh for Ushoran to maul to his heart’s content. But he’d hoped to distract Ushoran from his growing obsession. Even now, he couldn’t say whether that attempt had been for his own ends, or out of some misguided attempt to protect the only creature he had even the smallest shred of affinity for.
But Ushoran’s demands had grown ever more strident. He had sat atop that damnable crown longer than any, had felt it caress his mind every night, been tormented and seduced by it, until finally it had snapped him up and pulled him under. It could have been any one of them, in the end. Ushoran had simply gotten there first. He had always been quick to seize an opportunity.
Even now, even here, the thought of that moment, of that horrified realisation that had risen from within Ushoran’s eyes, sweeping aside madness, pricked him. Anger bubbled in him, for himself, and perhaps for all of them. The struggles of ants, eclipsed by the whims of gods; but ants could bite and kill.
As if in response to his thoughts, the distant black aura seemed to brighten and pulse. W’soran looked at it and snarled. He could feel it creeping up on him, drawing close about him, beckoning him on. Was Ushoran fighting for control even now, or had he already surrendered? Was his seeming opening to attack true weakness or a feint, designed to draw them all in once more? Was it all a ploy to draw in W’soran, for who better to be the bearer of the Crown of Nagash than his former disciple? Not Ushoran, or Abhorash or Neferata, but W’soran. Whose game was being played? Though there was no sentience in that crooked diadem, there was a malign drive. A compulsion, woven into the metal in its forging, that fools like Neferata confused for intelligence.
He closed his eyes and shuddered as the black aura seemed to blaze beneath the moons. He could sense the daemonic challenge that rode the charnel winds from Mourkain. Ushoran, unlike Neferata, would be a worthy opponent. Who else but Ushoran suspected the full power that lurked in Nagash’s crown? Who but Ushoran was left to vie with for such a secret? Arkhan cowered somewhere to the south, and the rest of Nagash’s disciples had either gone to their final deaths or fled the lands of men entirely. Only the two of them were left. Would he, W’soran, be able to rise to the occasion?
OR WILL YOU RUN AS YOU HAVE ALWAYS RUN, W’SORAN OF MAHRAK?
The voice — Ushoran’s voice — rumbled in his head like ice sliding from a crag to crash against slopes far below. His hands flew to his skull and he gasped. In his mind’s eye, he could see the throne room of distant Mourkain as if through a pool of water. He saw the great and the mighty of that realm, clad in barbarous splendour, as they roared out Ushoran’s name.