James West - The God King

Suddenly a shout went up, far away. More followed the first, rapidly becoming joyous cries. Varis knew then that the dead were rising. A tide of murmurs swept through the crowd before him. Blinded as he was by the fierce radiance he was pulling into himself and then releasing, he could neither see the corpses revived, nor see them rise to look around with blank gazes, indifferent to the manic attention they received. He could not see it, but he could feel it happening.

He did not know how long he labored to reverse what he had done, but after what felt an age, the powers of creation slowly began to recreate life inside him, as they had at the temple. At that moment, he ceased pulling life from the swamp and, as planned, used his own life energies instead upon the dead of Krevar. His skin rapidly grew taught over fleshless bones, and he bowed under the weight of his own skeleton. His intention was to show that he was literally sacrificing his own flesh for his people, thus gaining even more devoted followers. In the end, he went on far longer than he should have, even until he wavered on the threshold between life and death.

As he toppled off the wagon to sprawl in the dust, he knew the sacrifice had been worthwhile. He lay before the wagon, dazed but smiling to himself, as the voices of men and women and children rejoiced over the risen dead and, too, shouted his praises. His subjects-his army-rushed forward, blessing him, doing all they could to comfort him. When they raised him up, wasted but alive, they broke out in song.

His elation was tempered by one thought.

Ellonlef’s questioning had spawned a revelation in his heart, or at least a suspicion. Peropis, though she had not elaborated, had warned him that Kian was a true danger. In reversing the truth of what had happened at the temple, by blaming Kian and claiming that some measure of the powers of creation had stolen into himself, Varis believed he understood why Kian made Peropis nervous. The longer he considered it, the more he understood that some part of the powers of creation had indeed graced the mercenary’s flesh, giving him the ability to survive the fires Varis had used to try to turn him into a cinder, and to prevail against the root-serpent he had birthed by mere thought. It was the only answer that made any sense.

Unlike Peropis, however, Varis did not fear Kian. The bumbling warrior could not know what had given him his protection. He no doubt believed it was luck, or that his own prowess had spared him. Varis smiled wanly. Kian, with his secret now known to Varis, could pose no threat. Not in the slightest

When Otaker saw the dead begin to rise and join the jubilant throngs, he leapt off the back of the wagon and ran as fast as his old legs could carry him, crying out the name of his lady wife. Ellonlef followed. Others came as well, those who had loved ones who had died in the keep.

Ellonlef felt as if she were caught in a frenzied herd of sheep, all bleating of “miracles” and “salvation” and the “blessed one.” What caught her unawares was that some part of herself responded in kind to their ecstasy, embracing the hope Prince Varis offered. Another part of her, however, reeled from what she had just witnessed. As a healer, she had seen men rise from apparent death, and as a scholar, she had read of similar accounts, but the frequency of those occurrences were rare and, in the end, often explainable. And yet, between one moment and the next, Prince Varis Kilvar had given back the lives and vitality of hundreds of men, women, and children who had been reduced to nothing save leathery skin and bones. Without question, the dead had been truly dead. Her mind shouted that it was impossible, even as her eyes made a liar of her intellect.

Ahead of her, Otaker wheeled into his chambers, and Ellonlef nearly slammed into him when he unexpectedly halted. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Lady Danara regarded her husband with a flicker of recognition, but little else. For the most part, her gaze was as cold and blank as it had been when she was without the breath of life. She croaked a few unintelligible words.

Otaker rushed to her side and took her hand. Concern flickered over his features when he touched her, but just as quickly he looked into her face, seemingly dismissing his unease. “It is over, my love. It was just a dream.”

Danara fixed a disconcerting gaze on him, her voice thicker than ever. Her words were understandable, though the voice with which she spoke was not her own. “Where is the man who destroyed the veil between the living world and Geh’shinnom’atar ? Where is the man who freed us from the Thousand Hells, he who will lead us.”

Otaker sat back from his wife’s emotionless expression, his mouth working soundlessly as he sought an answer.

“I do not think she means Kian Valara,” Ellonlef said quietly. Her heart’s rhythm had taken on a slow, heavy beat. If she was right, then that would affirm that Varis had indeed lied about his and Kian’s roles.

Lord Otaker cast her a nervous look, then turned back and gripped his wife’s shoulders. “I do not know of whom you speak, my love. Perhaps if you describe him?”

A muted expression of bliss fell across Danara’s features. “His are eyes that do not see, but he will never stumble for want of sight,” she murmured, her voice a wet rattle. “His heart does not beat, yet his breast rises and falls for want of breath. The blood of his veins flows as shipwright’s tar, black and hot, but without the promise of life. He is the one who dared pass through the veil to suffer the agony of death, and now lives again. The pale one, the Life Giver , once a man, now a god made flesh. Where is he?”

Ellonlef caught her breath, the triumph of confirming Varis’s lies paling in the light of Danara’s revelation: a god made flesh . Those words chilled her heart in a way she could not describe, made her flesh creep.

Otaker swallowed audibly at his wife’s description of Varis-a description he knew was one that she should not have known. “The one you seek, Prince Varis, is in the market square.”

“He is a prince no longer,” Danara said in a reverent tone. “He is a king of all men, the king of all kings. I must go to him. We must go to him … we must serve his will.”

Otaker again gripped Danara’s hand, but he might not have been there, for all the attention she paid him. She rose from the bed as if her limbs were not her own, pulled free of her husband, and retreated from the chamber, shuffling along at first, as if uncertain of the ground beneath her feet, then striding out with more confidence.

“I’m sorry,” Ellonlef said when the woman was gone, though it was not sorrow she felt, but formless, suffocating dread.

“For being right about mistrusting Prince Varis?” Otaker responded, gazing on the doorway through which his wife had exited.

“No, my lord,” Ellonlef said. She hesitated, not wanting to utter what else needed to be said. She assured herself that Lord Marshal Otaker was no fool, and that he had a heart of iron, besides. “I am sorry for the loss of your wife.”

His tears, which had so recently dried in the bright light of hope, began to flow again. “She is lost. They all are. Gods good and wise, what is happening, Sister? Each day the lands continue to rumble and tear apart, the Three are dead, the heavens burn by night, and into our midst comes a youth who can bring forth the dead from the torments of the Thousand Hells … but the risen dead are not the living who we once knew.”

Ellonlef could only shake her head. She had no answers and too many questions.

In the corridor, more people were following after Otaker’s wife. It was easy to tell between the resurrected and those who had come in with Otaker and Ellonlef. Those who had never known death looked torn between joy and confusion, a horrid mix of emotions that lent their faces a gruesome aspect. The revived walked without looking left or right, but instead focused their glasslike stares on the corridor ahead and beyond, as if they could see through stone to the man they sought waiting beyond the keep.