Part 3
The Silver Pinnacle, present day…
Varakash slammed the flat of his sword upwards in a perfect block, pulverising the clawed arm descending towards him. He maintained his momentum and spun low, bringing his sword down to bite deep into the midriff of a stunningly beautiful vampire.
She screamed, a high, hissing sound, and dropped her long knife to the floor. Varakash punched her in the fact with his free hand, feeling bones crunch beneath his fist, and then drew back and plunged his fingers deep into her chest, cracking through her ribcage and crushing her heart.
He ripped his hand free as she convulsed, falling to the floor. Varakash brought his sword up, just in time to sever the arm of another attacker. Hot blood spurted from the ragged wound, splashing across his armour. He slammed an elbow backwards, felt thudding impact as it connected, and then turned and kicked out. His steel-shod foot caught the staggering Lahmian in the chest, and she fell backwards to the floor.
A vampire rushed him from the left, long chestnut hair trailing behind her, a wickedly curved blade held in one slender hand. Varakash swung his sword in a heavy, horizontal blow for her head, but she ducked it with preternatural speed. As the blade sailed over her head, she stabbed upwards with her long knife, and Varakash hissed as he felt the narrow knife slide into his wrist, grating against bone.
His sword dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers, and the vampire was upon him in an instant, stabbing wildly with her knife. He kicked her away roughly, no room for skill, but more were crowded around him.
He leapt forwards, punching one in the centre of her delicate face, and aiming a high kick that took another in the throat. Dodging a hasty slash, he ducked low and swept the feet from beneath another Lahmian, before jumping high to pound his knee into the head of a fourth.
As he landed, he grabbed his sword from the floor, and hacked it upwards, cleaving deep into the stomach of a short blonde vampire. She screeched, and he ripped the blade up and out, slicing her heart in two. She dropped instantly to the floor, and he spun round, ready for another enemy.
There were none.
A piercing shriek rent the air as Reinholdt hacked the legs from a redheaded vampire, and then the Lahmians drew back, forming a wide circle around Varakash and Reinholdt. A tall, striking woman stepped forwards, long auburn hair hanging in a rippling wave down to her waist. She was dressed in a clinging gown of crimson silk, embellished with dazzling gold.
"You have passed the test of might," she said, in a rich, sumptuous voice.
Varakash lowered his sword. He nodded at the two corpses on the floor, lying where they had fallen. "What of them?"
"Regrettable," said the vampire, "but they failed. Failure is not tolerated in the Halls of Night."
"You said the 'test of might'," Varakash said. "There are others?"
She smiled. "Yes, but not here. You are of the Blood, and you are no weaklings. I can sense that from here. You," she said, looking at Varakash, "are stronger than any I have seen, save for the Queen herself. You are of the Second Line, undoubtedly." She looked at Reinholdt. "And you… you are thrall to this other. Third Line, then, and strong with it."
Reinholdt slowly wiped his sword. "I fail to see the point of all this, Lahmian."
Her smile faded. "Please, my name is Shaleroth. You, Blood Dragon, would do well to remember where you are. In these halls, you are under the rule of the Queen."
"Then let us see her, then," interrupted Varakash, "and then we shall see just who is favoured. I have travelled countless miles to reach this peak, and I will not be denied now."
Shaleroth turned, and the other vampires stepped away from the wide stairs. The massive doors at the end of the chamber groaned slowly open, creaking torturously under their own weight. "Please," she said, "follow me, and you will have your audience."
Varakash walked slowly up the stairs behind her, sheathing his sword slowly. Reinholdt followed, his blood-red cloak now ripped and torn. The great doors ground shut behind the three vampires.
Beyond the doors was an immense corridor, its walls studded with arrow slits and braziers. The floor was white stone, inlaid with complex patterns of gold. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting a bright, flickering light over the corridor.
Varakash remembered it well. It was exactly as it had been, four millennia ago.
"Who are you?" he asked, studying Shaleroth's back.
She turned her head. "I am Shaleroth. I have already said this."
He shook his head. "I did not ask your name, I asked who you were."
Her lips twitched in a slight smile. "I am High Priestess of the Temple of Blood. I am Highest of the Queen's Handmaidens. I am many things here, Blood Dragon. But come, I have told you much, and you have said nought. What is your name, ancient?"
"Varakash Morkhur, once of the Queen's Guard," Varakash said. He was reluctant to reveal more until he had seen Neferatem. Secrecy had served him well over the long years of solitude.
"Once of the Queen's Guard…" Shaleroth murmured. "Then you served our Queen in life as well as death? Before even the Great Burning?
Varakash simply nodded.
Shaleroth began to speak, but before she could, they reached the end of the corridor. It was a dead end, or at least, it appeared to be. She closed her mouth, and pressed a hand to a small pate set into the wall. It glowed with a black light, and abruptly the hanging chandeliers were extinguished as one.
Darkness engulfed the corridor. Varakash watched, his preternatural vision easily piercing the blackness, as the wall at the end of the corridor split. Cracks appeared over its surface, widening slowly with a sharp clacking sound, dividing the wall into angled segments. The inner segments lifted forwards, scraping outwards layer by layer to create a gap, a doorway in the wall. The last segments slotted into hidden recesses around the wall's edges, and a dark archway was formed.
Varakash was surprised. It had been W'soran himself who had created the sorcery of the wall, and he had died long ago. He looked at Shaleroth. "Where did you find a mage of sufficient power for this?" he asked.
She smiled at him. "The queen enchanted this doorway herself, Blood Dragon."
The three strode forwards through the arch, entering a vast chamber. The Throne Room. The wall opened to whichever room its activator needed to reach.
A harsh light snapped on, emerging from behind a slowly rotating fan mounted into the high, arched ceiling. All magical, Varakash knew. The sharp shafts of light rotated slowly around the Throne Room, and Varakash saw, at the very end of the chamber, a massive, winged throne. A single ruby teardrop the size of a man was suspended above the throne, hanging between the outstretched wings. A spiked halo of silver arced across the back of the throne, framing the one who sat in it.
"Neferatem," whispered Varakash. He was here at last. It was finally made real. His Queen sat before him once more.
A rich laugh rolled from the throne. "I gave up that name long ago, Varakash Morkhur. Now I am known as Neferata."
"'Beautiful in Death'," said Varakash slowly, translating the name into the crude speech of this age.
"Am I not?" said the Queen. "But come, enough of this triviality. There are more important matters to be discussed."
Varakash nodded, and slowly walked towards the throne, towards his Queen. Reinholdt wisely remained where he was, with Shaleroth.
As he walked towards Neferata, Varakash smiled. He was reunited with his Queen at last. Reunited with Lahmia.
Part 4
A searing, roaring agony ripped through Varakash's mind, pinning him in place. His muscles tightened all at once, hunching him over upon himself, forming his hands into claws. His mouth opened in a silent scream as the pain burned through him.
Betrayal. The thought coursed through him on the heels of the waves of white-hot agony. He had been betrayed, betrayed at the very culmination of his journey. In the very throne room itself.
Dimly, he became aware of low, feminine laughter, echoing from the gilded black walls of the chamber. He forced his head up, and his eyes open, tensing against the pain. The throne swam before his eyes, two score meters from him, and then shattered, jagged shards of darkness tearing at his thoughts.
Still the laughter continued.
Varakash snarled in defiance. He could not, would not, be denied here. Not now. He reached out with his mind, past the physical world, tapping into the fount of dark energy that fed his necromantic powers. Wresting control of the smothering energies, Varakash bent them to his will, forcing them into himself.
As the sinuous winds of his power touched him, he was infused with burning energy. His senses were heightened to impossible levels, both physical and magical, and he saw at once the midnight cables of power that twined around him, wracking his immortal shell with agony.
He forced his muscles to obey him, straightening his back slowly, torturously. He grimaced. "You think such magicks enough to halt me, Neferata?" he grated. "I am not so weak as these disciples you surround yourself with. No, I am entirely different. As you shall see."
Varakash lashed out with his power, meeting and sweeping aside the dark coils of the throne room's enchantments. He flung an arm out, and his power wreathed it in black flame. Roiling energy filled his mind, pouring through his flesh, and his eyes drained to black pools of luminescence. He straightened, the pain banished, and took a step forwards.
A gasp came from behind him. Shaleroth. Doubtless it had been millennia, if ever, since she had seen someone break through enchantments of such strength. Varakash extended his senses behind him, towards the doorway. He felt Reinholdt, the distinctive signature of his vampiric presence, like a metallic taste on his tongue. His thrall was preparing to attack Shaleroth, in recompense for her master's deceit.
Varakash snaked a coil of power through Reinholdt, using his own bond as the thrall's master. Varakash was of the second line. His power, while normally weak in his Bloodline, was complete over his own creations. He flexed the coil of power, and he felt Reinholdt stiffen behind him.
"Do not attack our host, Renholdt," he said, his voice harsh and cold. "No, such will be unnecessary. This is a test, my thrall." He began to walk heavily forwards, each footfall echoing sharply from the polished marble floor.
The throne had gone, and in its place there stood a single archway, twice the height of a man, and thrice the width. Rimmed with obsidian blocks, the archway crackled and sparked with dark energies. Varakash smiled.
He threw his arm out in front of him, and the midnight black flames roiling over it leapt from it like bolts from a crossbow, lancing across the chamber and smashing into the archway with a roaring crack. Flame splashed around the arch in a dark corona of power. The flames sank into the obsidian stones, drawn into almost invisible tracings of ancient inscriptions. The sparking slowed, then died.
Varakash resumed his walking, slowly moving forwards until he stood directly in front of the archway. Its interior was blank, the colour of the wall behind it. He reached out and touched the top stone, tracing one long finger down a spidery inscription. Light flared from the tracings, and he withdrew his hand.
The centre of the archway rippled. The ripples spread from the stones inwards, meeting at the centre in an unnatural pulsing. Waves of blackness spread, layering atop each other, forming an unnatural gateway.
Varakash walked through it without hesitation.
He emerged into a smaller chamber, although it was still over twenty meters wide. Golden tracings spiralled across the black walls, and silver lamps held flickering flames. A silver-grey carpet formed an arrow-straight pathway up the centre of the chamber, flanked by a scattering of black oak tables and luxurious white recliners.
And at the head of the chamber, atop a raised dais, sat Neferata. The Queen of Night sat upon an obsidian throne, framed by gracefully curving wings of silver. Braziers of guttering blue witchfire blazed either side of her, throwing her face into stark relief.
She wore ceremonial dress, a fragment of ancient Lahmia that Varakash had thought gone forever. Silver banding traced over a gown of black silk, with crimson droplets of blood picked out on her wrists. Her hair was gathered atop her head in an elaborate headdress, curled around intricately placed silver, pulled back way from her face, all save for two thin, curving waves that fell either side, framing her features.
Her eyes were darkest night, twin black orbs, unforgiving and cold as death itself. Her small mouth was painted dark red, and her long nails glinted silver in the flickering, unsteady light.
Varakash fell to his knees. "My Queen," he breathed. "I return to you at last."
He felt rather than heard her smile. "Rise, Varakash Morkhur, Champion of Lahmia." Her voice was satin, low and powerful.
He stood.
"Do you know why you have been summoned, Varakash?" she said, softly.
H shook his head slowly. "No, my Queen. You called me, and I came, as is the duty of a son of Lahmia."
She smiled. "Then you still truly believe in Lahmia."
"Yes. Lahmia was the greatest civilisation this world has seen, and I will not abandon it while I still live."
"Good, Varakash. I do not desire an end to Lahmia, and I will not allow it to be forgotten."
"My Queen, what is it that you desire?" asked Varakash.
She leaned forwards. "What I desire, Varakash Morkhur, is the restoration of the City of Blood, a resurgent Lahmia. Once more shall the vampires come forth to take our rightful place at the head of civilisation. Once more shall the nine hundred commandments be dictated. Once more, Varakash, once more will the Armies of Night ride out in all their power to vanquish our enemies."
Varakash fought to stay upright. He was staggered by Neferata's proclamation. A renewed Lahmia? "My Queen…" he whispered, "what part do you wish me to play in this? I shall do anything to ensure this vision comes to pass."
"You, Varakash?" She stared at him, the corner of her mouth curving upwards in a small smile. "You will lead my armies. You will be my instrument of conquest. You will be the one to carve out our new realm."