THERE IS TIME. IS THAT NOT SO, W’SORAN? WE HAVE TIME. TIME BEATS DOWN MOUNTAINS AND BREAKS WILLS… EVEN WILLS AS STRONG AS THOSE POSSESSED BY YOU AND YOUR ILK. THE STRENGTH IN SPITE IS FINITE.
Ushoran’s voice — was it his voice? — echoed through the throne room, weighing down the air itself. W’soran’s flesh crawled as the words brushed across his mind like greasy fingers. ‘I thought it would be different,’ Ushoran whispered. ‘I thought I was a monster, that we were monsters, but we’re nothing compared to him.’ His eyed focused on W’soran. ‘I can’t take it off anymore. It won’t let me.’ W’soran’s good eye widened as he saw Ushoran’s claws dig into his own flesh, as if he sought to strip the meat from his scalp.
He screamed and hunched forward on his throne. His talons slammed down on the armrests, cracking them. He glared helplessly at W’soran and said, ‘Help me, my friend… please…’ He closed his eyes and shuddered, racked by pain.
‘Ushoran, I-’ W’soran began. Memories rose up in him; memories of Ushoran freeing him from his jar, of Ushoran saving him from Abhorash, of Ushoran rescuing him in the Marshes of Madness.
NO. THERE IS NO HELP. THERE IS NO USHORAN.
THERE IS ONLY DEATH.
Ushoran’s eyes opened. But they weren’t Ushoran’s eyes. He rose, and there was another shape superimposed over his — a towering shape, wreathed in green fire.
‘YOU WANTED TO PROVE YOUR POWER, W’SORAN? COME THEN. SHOW YOUR OLD FRIEND WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED,’ Ushoran said.
And W’soran did.
Chapter Sixteen
The City of Mourkain
(Year -327 Imperial Calendar)
‘Neferata has failed,’ W’soran said as he gathered up a number of scrolls and thrust them into Zoar’s arms. ‘More importantly, I have failed. We must find a new lair, my sons, and quickly, if we are to have any chance of success. Grab as many tomes as you can carry,’ he barked, gesturing sharply to the others. ‘Melkhior — where are the guards?’
W’soran’s retreat was in an uproar. Burrowed deep in the heart of the mountain that Mourkain crouched on, his lair was unknown save to a few. Most thought he resided in the temple complex that belonged to the Mortuary Cult. His acolytes hurried about, grabbing up as much as they could of the carefully accumulated and jealously hoarded knowledge. Writing desks and scroll shelves had been upended and shattered. Melkhior watched it all from the doorway, his eyes glittering. ‘The fire has them distracted,’ he said.
‘Good,’ W’soran said. He’d just come from the temple that was the centre of Mourkain’s Mortuary Cult. He’d set it aflame and slaughtered the priests. If he was being forced to flee, he was damned if he was going to leave any of his tools for Ushoran to use. Nagash had made that mistake, but W’soran was smarter than the Undying King. ‘Grab everything we can’t take — we’ll pile it in the centre of the room and burn it. Nothing will be left behind.’ Ushoran would not suspect him, not yet. That would buy them enough time to escape Mourkain, at least.
‘Burn it?’ Melkhior hissed, startled.
W’soran wheeled around to face his acolyte. ‘Are you deaf? Yes, burn it!’
‘But-’ Melkhior began. Like many savages, Melkhior regarded the written word with an almost totemic fascination, as if the words themselves were holy, rather than the power that they unlocked. W’soran had yet to break some of his more stubborn Strigoi acolytes of that fascination, to show them that true power resided not in musty tomes but in how you put the knowledge they contained to use. And not only the Strigoi — a number of his acolytes had perished in the fall of Lahmia attempting to save useless volumes of mystic knowledge from the great temple library.
Knowledge was merely a tool, and tools could be refined and replaced. Spellcraft could be honed like a blade, stripped of useless components and ritual to make a leaner, deadlier thing. That was why he insisted that his acolytes craft their own personal grimoires, and that those grimoires be copied to his own library. His apprentices were tools he used to sift through the grit to find the precious minerals buried there. Every discovery they made added to his arsenal. Creatures like Melkhior weren’t servants so much as they were walking spell-books, to be drained of knowledge and discarded when they had made their discoveries or refinements. Melkhior didn’t yet understand that, and W’soran doubted he ever would.
‘Tools that cannot be used are useless, fool,’ W’soran snarled, leaning close to Melkhior. ‘Useless to us, and — even worse — useful to our enemies. Ushoran already has that damnable crown, I’ll not give him anything else. Burn it, all of it.’
‘But… isn’t this what you wanted? Isn’t this what we’ve been working toward?’ Melkhior asked, as W’soran shoved scrolls and loose pages into his arms. ‘Ushoran is weak now, overcome by the power of the crown. We — you can take it!’ There was a burr of greed to his words and W’soran shook his head.
‘No,’ W’soran barked. ‘Now is not the time. We shall go east and see if we can find sanctuary with Vorag’s rebels.’ The Bloodytooth had begun his revolt well before Ushoran had placed the crown on his head. Likely it was simply another addle-brained plan of Neferata’s. Vorag had retreated to the eastern mountains with a bevy of cronies and their men, bellowing about a second Strigoi Empire.
So far Ushoran had ignored his rebellious vassal, but that wouldn’t last. Vorag would leap at the opportunity to have a sorcerer of W’soran’s calibre at his beck and call. Of course, that meant abandoning his place here. He shook his head, trying to gather together the tattered threads of his plans and schemes. A careful web had been shaken and stretched by the advent of Nagash’s damned spark.
Flight was the only option available. If he stayed, the sheer malevolent force of the crown’s presence would eventually crush his will, as it had Neferata’s. She served her new master meekly, barely more than an automaton. If you fought, you were crushed. That was Nagash’s way — he had no servants, no advisors, only tools. No dissent would be brooked in Ushoran’s new Nagashizzar. Not even from the man wearing the crown.
He paused, remembering the look on Ushoran’s face as the crown had set its hooks into him. W’soran remembered that half-moment of pleading, as Ushoran had realised just what he had awakened. Neither he nor Neferata had truly understood what the crown was. W’soran had tried to explain it to Ushoran, but he had been adamant. He had been convinced that the crown had held the power he required to carve an empire for his adopted people out of the mountains.
It had the power, all right. But it also had a will of its own, if no sentience, a terrible, night-black drive that hungered for the beautiful silence of Corpse Geometries. It had called them all out of the night, and brought them together to further that drive. It had chosen Ushoran as its mount, but it could have picked any of them, even W’soran himself. That it hadn’t provoked both relief and an odd, savage spurt of anger. Once again, poor old W’soran had been tossed aside in favour of another. Once more, poor old W’soran had been judged wanting by unworthy minds.