John Fultz - Seven Princes

The sound of screaming came from somewhere above. D’zan raced back up the steps and ran toward the throne room, the Stone pounding at his heels. Courtesans, servants, and soldiers fled the great hall, mouths agape, eyes wide with terror. A cacophony of shrieking filled the arched corridors, and the odor of ancient decay was everywhere. The stench from D’zan’s dreams… the acrid reek of the tomb.

D’zan raced into the throne room to see his father the King surrounded by a trio of grasping mummies. The smell of long-rotten flesh filled the chamber like a fog, and two of the mummies grasped the King by his arms, holding him immobile while the third decomposing corpse raked its claws across his flesh, spilling royal blood across the dais. D’zan heard his father scream, and his legs were frozen; he could not move forward or backward, but only stood staring at the tableau of impossible slaughter.

On the King’s throne sat black-robed Elhathym, a grim smile on his lips, his skull nearly visible through the tight, pallid flesh of his face. He bore no marks of torture on his person; not even his black robes were disturbed, and his necklace of blood-drop rubies hung gracefully upon his emaciated chest.

A legion of the dead swarmed the hall. Already several guards lay bleeding on the flagstones, their throats ripped out by fleshless fingers and the teeth of withered skulls. Swords and spears clove into dry breastbones with little effect. The mummies of previous dynasties were now ravening ghouls, splashing gouts of blood across fine tapestries as they tore the palace guards to bits. D’zan recognized the tattered raiment of the ghouls, and saw on the head of more than one a royal diadem or crown out of Yaskathan history. These were the inhabitants of the royal necropolis crawled up from the underworld beneath the palace.

The shadows of your own past will tear you from your throne.

More lurching corpses poured into the hall; the screams of women and children rang from the walls in every wing of the palace. A grinning mummy rounded the corner and reached for D’zan’s throat, but the Stone’s blade took off its moldy head. Olthacus’ booted foot crushed the corpse against the floor; as he tamped its ribcage into dust, its fleshless arms kept grasping at his legs, tearing through his leathern leggings and drawing blood. D’zan backed away, inspired by the Stone’s bravery to draw his own weapon; a reeking cadaver grabbed him from behind, pressing its rotted skull against his ear. Its jaws snapped liketorsnapped those of a turtle, and he dropped his sword clattering to the floor as horror suffocated him.

The Stone tore the mummy from D’zan’s back and pulverized it with blade and boot. His big hand slapped D’zan across the face, ending his paralysis. “Come, Prince!” growled the Stone. “I know a secret way.”

“No!” shouted D’zan. “We can’t abandon my father!”

“Your father is dead, boy!” said the Stone, pointing his blade at the cluster of ghouls who tore at a mess of scattered flesh upon the royal dais. Above the horrid feast sat Elhathym, the bloodstained crown on his head now, smiling at the devouring of Trimesqua. Still the ranks of blood-hungry dead things continued filling the chamber, the last of the guards falling before their voiceless assault.

The Stone grabbed D’zan’s arm and they ran through milling clouds of grave dust. They never stopped running, all through the winding corridors of the servants’ wing, the Stone’s great blade demolishing one desiccated corpse after another. Everywhere the dead feasted upon the living. None in the palace were spared the bottomless hunger of the corpses; royal and servant alike died under the raking of bony claws. So Elhathym had promised, and he had delivered on his ultimate threat.

D’zan wondered if his mother’s corpse was among the hungry dead. Would I recognize her? Would she tear out my throat with the same hands that gave me life? Stifling a bottomless scream, he drove such thoughts from his mind, closing his eyes and mumbling a prayer to the Sky God.

The Stone brushed aside a wall hanging and opened a hidden passage, leading the Prince along the dark and narrow way. D’zan, fearful of dark places now that his nightmares had come to life, closed his eyes while Olthacus dragged him along that winding route, up and down seldom-used stairwells, through crawl spaces, and finally out into the night air. Once again the screams of the dying filled D’zan’s ears. He dared to open his eyes and found that the Stone had brought him to an outer palace garden. They ran for the orchards beyond. Behind them flames danced among the towers and courtyards. The dead were heedlessly knocking over braziers and torches, spreading flame and death throughout the royal domain.

Where can we go to escape this damnation? His unconquerable father was dead and there was no safe place left in the world. The Stone grabbed his arm and pulled him onward.

Once in the deep shadows of the orchards, they seemed free of the undead plague a while, steeped in the tangy aroma of hanging citrus. But when they crossed the outer wall into the seaside quarter, they saw again the terror and panic that had claimed Trimesqua’s house. Here, too, corpses walked the streets and tore at living flesh. It seemed every graveyard and mausoleum in the capital had vomited forth its dead at the command of Elhathym. Citizens fled for the hills or locked themselves inside their houses. The Stone smashed another mummy to powder as he drew D’zan on toward the wharves, where towers of flames writhed and flickered. All across the city, walls of orange-white fire leaped toward the sky. They must be fighting the dead with fire, D’zan thought. But they will burn their own city to ash…

Many ships in the harbor had already launched, heading out to sea to escce o sea tape the apocalypse of Elhathym’s making. Citizens jostled and fought one another for passage on one late-embarking galleon which flew the Feathered Serpent of Mumbaza among its white sails. The Stone hacked his way through the crowd, leaving a bloody trail in his wake, dragging D’zan by his elbow. The panicked Yaskathans gave way before the big warrior. Without a word the Stone gained passage from the ship’s captain at the point of his dripping blade.

The deck of the galleon was crowded, and the sailors had to beat back the mob with oars and clubs before they could cast off. D’zan collapsed on the deck, near the prow. The pitiful cries of women, children, and men – all doomed – filled his ears even when he clasped his hands over them. When he dared to look out over the railing, the capital was a flaming, screaming mass of chaos separated from him now by an expanse of dark water. The horned moon hung pale and implacable above the dying city. Towers gleamed brighter than rubies in the glow of the roaring fires.

Those who had escaped by securing passage on the galleon were weeping, or cursing, or both. A few had brought entire families with them. D’zan stood in the prow watching his inheritance burn, thinking of his father’s bloody crown sitting upon the sorcerer’s head. Hot tears burned his cheeks. Behind him, as always, stood the Stone, silent and still as the moon.

In the blood-spattered throne room, Elhathym drank wine from Trimesqua’s goblet as his army of undead Yaskathans preyed on their descendants. He smiled at the irony of using the past to remold the present in such a way. Among the entrails and filth littering the hall, a great white panther glided toward him. The beast licked at Trimesqua’s blood, and the snapping ghouls ignored it as they wandered off to find fresh victims.

The white panther came close to Elhathym’s knees and rubbed its silky fur against him. His thin hand caressed its head between the ears, and it growled.