It took all seven of them, Lahmizzash putting his shoulder in along with his guards, to open the stone doors of the tomb. The dull blue light of pre-dawn flowed in as the door opened, just wide enough for them to squeeze through one by one. Lahmizzash took back all the glow stones and returned them to a pouch, hiding their light. He debated on whether to leave the tomb open or not- he didn't want crypt ghouls to spread to other parts of the city. But, that could be handled if it happened… would not an escape route be more desirable? No, retreat was not an option- all that he needed was through victory, and nothing lay in defeat.
Following that optimistic reasoning, Numas was as good as captured, it was King Settra's city now, and it should not be corrupted. "Let's shut the door behind us," he said.
The City of Numas, such as it was, was still a city, or at least the ruin of a city- unlike the sandy wastes of Khemri. The more rocky terrain perhaps yielded less sand to bury it, so there remained walls, statutes, and decrepit buildings in well enough form to be recognizable as the interior of a walled city. Numas' thick walls still towered over the remains of Numas, delaying dawn's light to Lahmizzash and his slinking party. The walls were famously large before King Ubaid upgraded them during his reign, and even in half-ruin, they were imposing. There were even some marks of scaffolding in the dim morning light- King Ubaid had betrayed a powerful ally and was now busily walling himself in, friendless but rich. Ever the fool, was King Ubaid.
Lahmizzash led his tomb guard through through stone-littered alleyways. He didn't dare the streets. Numas supposedly contained an army, and it would only take one soldier to see them and bring the entire plan to ruin- but he needed a place with a vista of the city. The sun was beginning to crest the walls when they reached a tall mausoleum, an elegant tower encircled by stone statues and busts of some forgotten family. More interestingly, it featured a stairway to the sarcophagus at the top of the tower, some 150 feet up. "Buried in the sky" was the style of this tomb, favored by those who believed the sun would sustain them in the sleep of death.
Lahmizzash and his party reached the solarium near the top as the sun was lifting itself clear from the horizon. The reddish color of early morning light was turning yellow-white and blazing hot, the Nehekaran day was here. It revealed the army of King Ubaid in its entirety. Humanoid figures were swarming over the northern walls of the city, like ants upon a disturbed nest. Thousands of skeletal people were busily laying stone into the damaged portions of the walls. At least two miles of wall, most of the northern half of the city defenses, was being worked simultaneously. Yet there were still more skeletons standing at the ready in idle companies in the streets. Khaid was optimistic in his estimate that Ubaid raised twice as many troops as Lahmizzash- or Ubaid had been busy since his awakening. There were four thousand down there.
Any remaining doubt or worry Lahmizzash had about his own plan vanished with the night- the path he was on was certainly the only possible means of victory. The next phase was about to begin. He glanced at his soldiers, the six of them cramped into the small solarium- made to hold at most two or three contemplative relatives. They were crouched, hiding their profiles from any watchers. There was nothing to do now but wait.
They waited silently, baking in the sun, enjoying whatever sustenance the esteemed personage in the sarcophagus was absorbing. If heat were a sensation he still felt, this would be an uncomfortable perch. Lahmizzash found that if he focused on the sun, the glare, and brought back his memories of oppressive summer days- he could start to feel it, feel the itch of his skin that always came just before the sweat oozed out. What was it that Nekthop said, so long ago but also just the other day: '..a great deal of our existence is a construct of our own making'.
Lahmizzash ruminated on that. He knew Nekthop meant that only in the sensual, but it applied to much more than simply eyesight or feeling a hot day. Why was he born to be a king, and these tomb guards to be soldiers, and everyone else to be commoners? Was it fate? Divine right, as the priests would say. Perhaps at first it was fate, when it came to just who would be born from who- but after that point, was not everything thereafter a construct? King Lahmizzash was so because the people willed it to be so, building it upon him, stacking their expectation and their acceptance of his authority like coins for him and his family to spend at will. The ability to spend it, that was what reigning was.
Woe to the ruler who forgets that all of it is really just a construct. If the people stop maintaining that construction, that sanctity of royalty: the belief in the authority of their grand hierarchy… well, it reveals itself to be a child's tower, a precarious stack of blocks- built upon sand, and each grain a person with a mind to suddenly move. Down it tumbles into dust and disarray, dead to an unruly foundation.
And it goes on, beyond also an observation of society, but of one's personal life. Lahmizzash was now seeking to reconstruct his own existence, now that he found himself suddenly thrust back into it all. That is what all people must do, was it not? Construct their lives, or at very least, construct their reality into a pleasing shape- into some facade to keep themselves going?
Well, today his own life would again take shape. It had been buried when the hourglass of his life had finally burst, sending a cascade of sand down upon him- each grain a second of his existence; many well spent, many wasted; but all of them piling up, hiding him from the rest of eternity, secreting him away in his tomb to be dead and forgotten. Well, now he was dug up, and he found himself in an endless pile of sand- an endless pile of moments- as if the hourglass of the universe had split open and all the grains of time were just laying there, ready to be made into something new. Today, his construction would begin.
The steady clatter of distant construction stopped. A muted voice echoed out over the city, someone giving an order- King Ubaid, it must be. Lahmizzash returned his attention to the walls and the land beyond it. A giant had appeared from behind a hill, an ebon, dog-headed humanoid, sparkling in the sunlight- a kingly figure stood atop its head, barely distinguishable in the distance. The army of Numas stopped to stare at this new arrival. And in those brief seconds of total stillness, the giant's eyes glowed with menacing light-
Whuuuuup!
Then erupted in a torrential stream. The beam struck the brick walls of Numas and exploded, sending a rain of stone into the sky. Lahmizzash flinched instinctually. Pellon can do that? Pellon can do that! That would have been nice to know last night!
The dim voice cried out again, shriller this time, and the undead soldiery sprang into action, abandoning tools and running for weapons. King Ubiad was rallying his defenders. Did the fool even place scouts?
