The Queen of Wolves (20 page)

“I had stumbled upon their colony, and the larvae of their offspring, formed like huge fly maggots along the gully and trough of the cave. Wriggling children, head to belly, wrapped in fish-pale skin, waiting to be born. This unspeakable man—yet not man at all—leapt upon me, for he was guard of these monstrous progeny. His jaws snapped and spread, and I felt the terrible wind of his breath on my face. My last moments, I was certain, and I knew the smell of oblivion. Yet I fought him, and scarred him—drawing his puslike blood from deep in his skin. I lifted up one of the squirming larvae and threw it into the mouth of the canal below. The other creature dived into the water to rescue the child, and I escaped—but not before I tore into many larvae that they might not be born. When I found a passage upward, I scrambled toward it.

“Yes, I had felt the tug of my prize—and saw the footpaths of mortal and monster here, for the stair was known to these denizens. The hunchbacked stair, the Myrrydanai called it, though they would not deign to venture up its many spikes. Yes, these steps were like spines of a lizard, carved into the arch of umbric rock by the underworld sea that had worn away the inner hills before time knew light. I thirsted much for blood. I dreamed of the taste of the mortal rats in my teeth, dreamed as I slept on the ragged teeth of that stone stairway. Slept, but did not know dawn from dusk, for all was dusk. Slept and prayed, my brother, to Ghorien himself—for I had no other god then.

“Over long nights, I scaled that arch with its spiky stair that seemed to go to a greater height than the red city itself. At its highest peak, there a statue stood, formed from brown amber.

“A knight in amber, a lord of some old kingdom in ancient armor, and this barely covering his naked form. What infernal sculptor had made this statue I cannot say, though it was an expert craftsman, no doubt, my brother. His shield leaned at his knee, and round it was, with spikes and claws carved along its curve. His helm lay at his feet. A sword, broken below its hilt, clasped in his right hand. The head of a Gorgon in his left, grasped by her snaky scalp, her eyes wide and terrible. There, I found the treasure the priests sought. A treasure that stung me as I touched it.

“It was this treasure that drove me into madness, and began to tear at me, my beautiful flesh, which was once as comely as yours. It stole the glamour I held, and left me this mirror of death, my brother. It is a terrible treasure, a cursed treasure. I was certain I would extinguish there, upon that pinnacle of steps that went all the way to Hell’s height. In the nights to come, as I scrambled through damp holes and crusted windows of rock and filth, I came upon one of the slick white salamanders as it tore into mortal flesh. Mortal rats had come here, and I knew I could sniff their trails. When I found a nest of them, I drank deeply from three, draining them to a flat pulp. I followed the stink of those who ran from me up into the blue fire caves. I felt the stream of our tribe as I rose again through the great lakes of sewage. From there, the Asmodh Well’s great bottom curved and rose at a crooked angle from the depths. I climbed up its rough-hewn stones with the treasure in my mouth—at my teeth, my brother, stinging what little flesh remained at my lips—that I might leave the depths forever. I desired too much to please the Myrrydanai, who I believed then would release me, my brother.”

“Did they?” I asked.

He shook his head, his bony hand reaching up to cover his eyes. “The treasure I brought them was stolen even from their grasping claws. Who was blamed for that?
Ophion!
I, who had risked all to find it for them.”

“What did they do to you?”

He shivered, looking out from between his fingers. “To tell of these things is to live them. Do not ask, my brother.” He pointed down into the crevices. “What lies beneath us is Hell itself. All legends of Hell come from this place. All men know of it, though they do not find it. But I have known Hell in the grasp of the Myrrydanai priests, and in the creatures they called from the Veil.”

“What was the treasure Ghorien desired?”

He turned away from me and began hobbling over to the steps of a temple nearby. He pointed to its marbled black and red statue of Datbathani. She rose thirty feet into the air, a girdle of serpents at her waist, her wings at full spread, her breasts small and high, and her face broken as if some king of this city had taken a cudgel to the statue in an effort to obliterate this sister of Medhya, the Lady of Serpents. “It was hers once. And you have seen it. It is the golden mask upon the face of your Pythoness.”

4

“Do not ask me more, my brother. I do not know what thief took it. Stolen by someone who had gained Ghorien’s favors, and through many centuries was bought by Nezahual in trade for some other sorcery,” Ophion said. “But do not ask me more. My memories bring pain. I know so little of these things.”

“You went to Aztlanteum to retrieve it,” I said.

“Foolish of me,” he said. “For who am I to these gods? To these priests? I was Maz-Sherah. I had a fire in me to seek my destiny. I believed it, as you believe it—even when my youth and flesh had abandoned me. Ghorien told me he would find and destroy me if I did not get it back. Nezahual worked strong magick, and held me fast in his prisons. There I languished, until his sorcery failed. Until I knew the mask left his kingdom.”

“So you followed.”

“I followed the mask. But I felt the power of the stream in your wake.”

I went to him, and put my arm over his shoulder, embracing him. “You suffered greatly, my brother,” I said. “You are truly an Anointed One to have endured this.”

He let out a strange yawp that was part cry and part gasp of joy. If he had tears to cry, I have no doubt Ophion would have shed them. He drew back from me, and thanked me for understanding his torments. He warned me again of Myrryd’s many traps and terrors.

Ophion pointed out the Kamriad, beyond the temple where we stood. It was a building of a thousand columns and deep chambers, which contained the prisons and places of torment.

“Before Ghorien took the kingdom, it was the center of the Kamr priesthood. But the Myrrydanai hunted them, and turned what had once been a place of beauty into a pit of unspeakable torment.” Ophion warned me against the doorways of this enormous structure for fear that the residue of the sorcery of tormentors still remained there. “The Myrrydanai inquisitions lasted many lifetimes, and mortal and immortal dreaded its arched doorways.” He whispered of the machineries of the Kamriad as if these were living creatures, which made me remember the Red Scorpion. I felt I knew who had stolen the gold mask and sold it to Nezahual—that architect of destruction and torment, Artephius.

Ophion led me to the great water clocks, with their tipping bowls and shifting gears. These were like fountains at the center of various districts between broad boulevards. Fueled by the falls and the underground canals, they still kept time for the near-empty city. He showed me the nests of sleeping mortal rats within the ruins, for these men and women and their offspring were still terrified—generations after the last vampyre had abandoned this city—to sleep in the temples or the public houses.

All along the streets, the torches burned bright as if expecting us. Despite the fact that Ophion told me of the energies that the city drew from both the living and the dead, I still could not help but feel apprehensive—for it was as if Myrryd were a living entity, waiting for us to step into her jaws.

We passed by dome observatories, the basilicas of palaces, and the obelisks that rose above the halls of the kings. Myrryd held secrets that would not be unlocked by the world beyond it for many centuries after my visit.

I counted twenty-five towers of varied color—copper, rust, brown, yellow, black, white—all of which created an effect of a rich, deep blood-red hue. Beneath each tower, a city unto itself, and within the walls of each towered city, grand boulevards, and crooked alleyways and great octagonal public buildings with columns the height of ten men and their girth, as well. On the avenues, the torches burned bright, drawing on the energy that still existed.

He led me to long rows of temples to Medhya, adorned with enormous statues of the goddess with her hair braided for war, and her wings spread as wide as a great ship from end to end; her feet were talons; her hands were covered with jewels that caught the starlight and glittered red and green and blue in the darkness.

Clutched in those hands, a sword with a lit torch at its tip; or what seemed to be a panpipe; or a bull’s horn; or a scythelike instrument; or an eagle; or any number of other animals and weapons and instruments. With each temple, the statue was slightly different, but all of the statues had been vandalized and disfigured, generally by chipping at the faces as if wishing to obliterate all memory of the Dark Mother’s features.

Following Ophion, I wandered along the broad boulevards paved with a slatelike stone, cracked with age, the roots of vines reaching up through it. I marveled at the strangely organic structure of the towers and temples and to see the places where this great civilization had flourished, and then apparently vanished overnight. The flickering lights, within globes, seemed like lightning caught by a sorcerer’s magick; tombs were everywhere, for this, being a city of the undead, its people had worshipped those who resurrected—the children of Medhya.

Many of the tombs were raised high onto terraced steps, overflowing now with musky plants with heavy dark leaves, and around some of the great stone tombs, ziggurats thrust upward. The markings along these sarcophagi were similar to the tattoos I had seen on Merod’s body.

“Were these priests?” I asked.

Ophion gave that strange wheezing death rattle of his, as if it pained him to respond. “No, my brother in suffering, these are not priest pits. In here”—he pointed to one of the tombs—”a sacrifice. Sealed in, you see. To bring fortune to the city. Great fortune to Medhya’s cities, for those sacrificed became doorways for those exiled to the Veil. They let in many creatures from that other world, many, many creatures. Like...like the Lamiades. Oh, nasty beasts, the Lamiades. They are large and brownish green like moss, and scaly. Poisoned spines ridge their crests and the backs of their necks and tails. They came from the Veil once, brought when the Myrrydanai hunted lost sorceries. They move swiftly, and can crawl up walls and even run across the surface of water. Many Myrrydanai trained them with magick that they might be ridden and follow commands—but when the Veil tore and Medhya reached through, she tore the Myrrydanai priests from their skins, and the Lamiades slipped back into the Veil, as well, with their riders. Oh, it is sacred and unspeakable to call an Old One from the Veil.” His left eye watched me, while his right moved independently about in its socket, as if watching for the Lamiades.

“And what else? The Akhnetur, the Laughing Ones, the Lamiades... What else lurks?”

“Else? I know of other creatures, too. Some...some may still linger...in these great halls,” he said, glancing about. “Some are magnificent, and others are small and vicious. We must keep watch for movement, for there may be unnaturals here, even in this empty place. Or perhaps...perhaps these creatures vanished when the city died.”

As we passed a long, narrow alley, full of pools of water along its curved stones, I heard a scratching noise and thought I saw some movement. I stopped, watching the alley.

Ophion drew away from me. “Mustn’t linger,” he whispered.

“What is it?” I tried to focus on the shadows of the alley, but could see nothing more than gray shapes moving between the building’s walls and the street.

“The rats,” he said. “Mortals.”

Curious, I slowly stepped into the alley, and moved along the building, hoping to catch a glimpse of these beings.

As I passed one temple building, then another, I saw the standing walls of a fallen structure, and peering around it, watched as two of these mortals crouched down, feeding upon something.

They were naked, and their skin was pale as the moon. Their hair also was white and thin, and at first I thought they must be old. And yet, when I made one slight move toward them, one of them glanced back in my direction.

She was a young woman, and her glance meant nothing—her eyes were without color, without the sense of seeing. She sniffed at the air. She resembled mortals of the upper world only in basic feature, for her forehead seemed too high, and her jaw extended outward, while her chin receded into her wattled neck. A light down of white hair grew along her face, and she made a strange chattering sound.

When she opened her mouth, her teeth were dark red with blood and bits of meat and small gray feathers.

In her hands, the remains of a bird.

Her partner, a boy, raised his head up, sniffing also, and began to chatter with her. The noise was like a series of tongue clucks.

As disgusting as they seemed, still I had grown thirsty from the journey, and decided to drink. The boy seemed a better prospect—younger, and his flesh was firm.

I slowly moved toward them, quietly as I could. Their chattering increased, and yet they did not run. They sniffed the air, and it was easy enough to grab the boy—a strapping lad of seventeen, perhaps—and drink from his throat while the woman, next to him, sniffed the air, and yet did not scurry off.

While I drank, the boy remained still as if stunned. As soon as I set him free, he howled in pain, and then went skittering off across the rubble of the fallen building, with the woman chasing after him as if suddenly aware of the threat.

His blood was weak, but satisfying. I felt Ophion’s presence, and turned around to face him. He stood at the open window of the standing wall. “I would rather die of thirst than drink from them,” he said. “They are vermin.”

“His blood was fine,” I said. “He was an easy catch.”

“They were bred for us,” he said. “Rats. Nothing but rats.”

I glanced at the small dead birds they had gathered. “I feel bad for them. This is their only existence.”

“They would die up there, beyond Myrryd. Oh, but do not weep, lord of all vampyres, my brother,” Ophion said with sarcasm dripping from each word. “There are few of these human rats left, I am sure. These are the only two we have seen. Yet when I was in this city, they were bred by the thousands, and slaughtered after the breeding age. Let us hope we run into no more.”