Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

The sound of heavy boots on stone drew his attention. Four of the Sixteen appeared, their black helmeted heads rising up from the stairway like puppets in a storyteller's wagon. On their shoulders they bore the body of a man-the captive the lord had taken from the wreck of Palmyra. His face hidden by a knotted scarf, the general grimaced in pain. The man had fought with honor, striving to save his city. There was no call to do these things to his body, or to defame his memory. It is not, thought Khadames wearily, what the Boar would do.

The four dark figures brought the body to the bed of stone and carefully laid it down. This thing done, they turned as one and returned to the stairway. The narrow space, carved up through the rock of the peak itself, echoed with the tramp of their passing. In time, the noise died and the sound of the wind filled the space atop the peak. Khadames rubbed his hands together. They were cold, even with three layers of gloves on them. It seemed, even if the calendar of days said that summer was upon them, that winter had not lifted its grip from the valley.

The body lay, naked, exposed to the air and the sky. It did not feel the cold.

The wind stopped, and Lord Dahak was there, standing at the end of the bed of stone. Khadames froze, putting his thoughts away into a place at the back of his mind where they were, perhaps, safe. The dark man leaned over the body, gazing down into the withered face.

"Three men have caused me pain, faithful Khadames. One lies dead, his body rotting in a common grave. One is beyond my reach, but this one is here. He was strong, for a moment, there on the Plain of Towers. He scarred my face again."

Dahak looked up, catching Khadames' eye. It seemed that a smile, or the ghost of one, was hiding in his face. The sorcerer smoothed back his hair. The wind caught at it, making it a dark cloud behind his head.

"You should know, faithful Khadames, that your best ally is a strong enemy."

The sorcerer produced a small package wrapped in pale yellow paper from somewhere in his night black robes. Deft fingers unwrapped it, revealing a metal nail, a small envelope, and a tiny crystal vial of liquid. Dahak picked up the nail gingerly with his thumb and forefinger. It was old iron and rusted, twisted a little, a finger's length or more, with a broad, flat head. This he put to one side.

"O kalaturu and kurgarru, hear me as you heard pure Ereshkigal in the old time."

The wind died as the sorcerer began speaking. His voice was soft, intimate, and he leaned close over the corpse's head, speaking down into the dry hole of the mouth. The parched lips, cracked and dry, had been forced open with silver tongs. Khadames became aware that the wind outside the circle of pillars had risen, that it must be shrieking like the damned in the pits of Ahriman's realm. But here, inside the dark teeth, the air was still and placid. The general looked about, expecting fires to creep from the stones, for darkness to gather, pooling at the feet of the lord. It did not.

"O Anunnaki, who keep the dead in their place beneath the earth, hear me as you heard pure Ereshkigal in the old time."

A tremulous sound entered the air, the tonalities of it twisted and disturbed. A whining screech rose, vibrating from the flat stones of the floor. The pillars echoed it, and Khadames cowered down, hearing each stone suddenly stir to voice.

"I offer you the water of the river," Dahak said, raising up the vial. Something in it sparkled and shimmered like a living jewel. The keening of the stones rose up, rising and rising in pitch. The sorcerer tipped the vial, and quicksilver fell from it in tiny perfect spheres into the mouth of the corpse.

Shu nummagidde.

Khadames shuddered, hearing voices rise from the black stones and the wailing pillars.

"I offer you the grain of the field," Dahak said, raising up the small envelope. He opened it with one hand, deftly, and spilled a trickle of tiny particles into the mouth of the corpse. As he did so, the vibration of the stones changed in pitch and tone, dropping into a vastly lower scale. The rumbling hiss made Khadames shake to his boots. Eyes wide, he watched pebbles and sand dance across the stones, stirred to life by the vibration.

Shu nummagidde.

The stones muttered, and Khadames could feel their hatred of those who lived and walked like the heat from one of the forges in the deepest pits of the mountain. The sorcerer swayed for a moment, but caught himself on the edge of the bed of stone. Dahak closed his eyes, gathering his strength.

The vibration in the earth ceased. Something entered the circle of the pillars-Khadames could feel it come, tentacular limbs caressing his face with a thousand fronds as it passed. On the platform, sheets of shale, carved and fitted to make the floor, cracked under the weight of some unseen thing.

Gagta la summeb innannes.

The voice of the thing hummed and buzzed, replicating itself a thousand times in the space of a single word. Khadames steeled himself for worse, for the promise of that voice was madness and the incalculable horrors that hid in the darkness behind the stars. Dahak raised his head and stared into the air, unafraid. "The corpse, it is your king's."

Nig lugalme ea summeb innannes.

The unseen thing shifted, and a cold feathery touch passed over Khadames' chest and the thick woolen cloak froze and shattered, falling to the ground in a rain of silver fragments. Dahak raised up the nail, still holding it between thumb and forefinger, though now the old rusted iron was gone and it shone, new and clean, as if fresh from the forge.

"I give you the corpse hung from the nail."

Dahak drove the nail into the forehead of the corpse in a single violent motion. The metal ground against the bone of the skull for a moment and then there was a cracking sound and it sank in, flush to the withered dead skin. Dust puffed up around it, then settled. Dahak stepped back, his hands raised in a gesture of power. A line of glyphs blazed a fulminating green in the air before him.

The unseen thing shifted and coiled in the space between the pillars. The air filled with a gelatinous sound as if millions of beetles were squirming in a vat of gelid blood. The air above the corpse shifted and deformed, creasing for a moment. Khadames stared in awe as the space between him and the sorcerer twisted like a poorly cast mirror, showing multiple images of the sky, the pillars, the sorcerer, even the corpse on the bed of stone.

I'am'u nam-til-la i'-am'a.

Pale dust, like ground bone, fell from the air, settling on the face of the dead man. Khadames blinked, unsure of his sight, but the sparkling motes were gone. He felt uneasy-there had been the impossible notion of squirming motion in the falling dust and some afterimage lingered, that the dust, so silvery and fine, had burrowed into the wrinkled flesh.

Nam-til-la ugu-a bi-in-sub-bu-us.

Something dripped out of that impossible space above the dead thing, a thin stream of virulent black, gleaming with shades of purple and nacreous green. No more than a single dram fell, spattering on the forehead of the corpse, staining the clean iron of the nail. At the touch, the corpse jerked sharply. Dust drifted up from its skin, disturbed by the motion. The black liquid was gone, swallowed by the thirsty flesh.

"He rises," Dahak said in that same quiet intimate voice.

Khadames covered his eyes and turned away. The feet of the corpse had begun to twitch, and then suddenly thrashed into violent motion, drumming on the edge of the bed of stone. The bones made a dreadful clatter. He put his hands over his ears, but even so, he could not help but feel the air twist again as the unseen thing departed.

A cry rang out, there in the cold place on the mountaintop, a wail of horror at birth.