The Serpent Queen Read online

  He saw men in chariots firing bows at great, ill-formed beasts, and ranks of spearmen marching against a horde of bipedal lizards. Sunlight streamed in through the doorway that the bird had flown out through, and through the oval windows that lined the walls. There was no glass in the windows, only thin curtains of muslin that stirred ever so slightly in the salt-tinged breeze coursing through the room. He shivered and climbed out of bed. The world spun for a moment, and a queasy ripple of vertigo swept through him. He felt wrung-out and weak. He wasn’t dead, however.

  His clothes lay across a stool nearby, as did his chain shirt, his cloak and his boots. All had been cleaned and repaired, seemingly as good as new. Karaghul, in its sheath, hung from a bedpost, as did his dagger. Both sheaths had been scoured of muck and grime, and he unsheathed the sword, marvelling at the polish it now possessed. The sword maintained an edge and a gleam better than any blade he’d ever carried, but it was positively radiant now. He dressed quickly, and stepped out onto the balcony. The balcony was a plain stone extension, with a curving balustrade, and strange serpentine designs marked every fourth block of stone that made it up.

  Below him, a silent city stretched out. The buildings were made from stone and marble, and of a variety of sizes, but all of a similar mausoleum-like shape. The windows were squares of black set into flat walls, and he saw no faces or movement in any of them. Long shadows slithered through the streets, and ancient structures, topped with gold, stood silent sentinel over what he hoped was Lybaras. He leaned over the balustrade. The streets were empty, with no sign of anyone, living or dead. In truth, he hadn’t expected to see anyone, but it was odd and more than a little disquieting to experience.

  The city was as quiet as any tomb, and the eerie silence caused a chill to pass through him, despite the heat of the day. It was a vision of decayed splendour, with wide, paved streets lined with great statues carved in the shapes of cobras, asps and serpents of all sorts. Funeral monuments lined the plazas and vast, free-standing archways marked the entrances to those plazas and intersections. And beyond it all, the glitter of the sea.

  The salty wind caressed the stones and hissed through the streets. He closed his eyes. He had been certain that he was going to die. Then, that wasn’t anything new. Felix fancied that Morr probably had a berth with his name on it held open on a more or less permanent basis on his grim vessel.

  The last thing he recalled was Gotrek’s face, glaring down at him in either concern or consternation. Felix flexed his bandaged hand and tilted his head. A bitter wind caressed his face. There was a good reason that the Bitter Sea was named such, he knew. He stepped back into the room. What had happened after he’d passed out? And where was Gotrek?

  There was a bowl of fruit on a table near the bed, and a stone jug of water. The fruit was quite unlike anything he’d ever seen, and he thought that it must come from the Southlands. It wasn’t quite rotten, but it was soft enough to provoke a queasy reaction in his grumbling belly. The water had a slightly sour taste that was mostly hidden by the slices of fruit that had been dropped into it. He wondered why the dead had a supply of such things, and whether they had procured the fruit, at least, just for him, or if they had a supply of it on hand, just in case visitors stopped by. The thought made him smile.

  As he struggled into his chain shirt, he saw that the broken links had been repaired with bronze and iron, and like Karaghul, it too had been polished. He was swinging the cloak about his shoulders when the door opened and a shape stepped into the room.

  Felix snatched up Karaghul and had the sword half drawn before he saw that it was Zabbai. The Herald of Lybaras cocked her head. ‘I see that you are awake, barbarian. Good.’

  ‘Felix,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My name is Felix,’ he said, belting his sword about his waist.

  ‘I did not ask,’ Zabbai said.

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ Felix said. He stuffed his gloves through his belt and stretched his bandaged hands. They ached somewhat, but he’d take soreness over numbness any day. ‘I owe you my thanks. For saving my life, I mean.’

  ‘Again,’ Zabbai said, ‘saving your life again. That is two you owe me.’

  ‘I seem to have a bad habit of finding myself in debt to others,’ he said. She laughed. The croaking rattle was not nearly as surprising as before. In life, he suspected that it had been loud and boisterous. ‘I assume that we made it to Lybaras, then,’ he said.

  ‘Where else would we be?’ Zabbai said. She gestured towards the door. ‘The Beloved of Asaph, the Lioness of the Sands, wishes to speak with you.’

  ‘Where is Gotrek?’ Felix said, as they stepped out into the corridor beyond. Silent, skeletal servants waited there, clad in frayed robes and tarnished golden jewellery. As one, they formed up around them.

  ‘Here, manling,’ Gotrek said. The Slayer was sitting on a stool a little way up the corridor, a jug of sour-smelling wine dangling from one meaty paw and a skeleton kneeling nearby, with a platter of something dead and roasted balanced on its upraised palms. He grinned and stood. ‘Feel better after your nap?’ He gestured with the jug of wine. ‘Like a bit of liquid fortification? We can’t have you fainting again, can we?’

  ‘I was poisoned,’ Felix protested, waving away the jug.

  ‘Aye, and?’ Gotrek said. He tilted his head back and emptied the jug.

  He gave a thunderous belch and peered into the jug, as if to detect whether there was any of whatever it was hiding from him.

  ‘Some of us don’t have your resilience, Gotrek,’ Felix said.

  ‘Bah, men are lazy and fragile,’ Gotrek said, with a dismissive wave. ‘You are an anchor about my neck, manling. I should have left you here, and gone on alone to seek this doom these bone-bags have promised me.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you?’ Felix snapped.

  Gotrek tossed the empty jug to one of the silent servants and stomped ahead of them without replying. Felix watched him go and restrained the urge to fire curses at the dwarf’s broad back. Zabbai gave a raspy chuckle. ‘He has been sitting on that stool since you were brought here,’ she said. The curses died in his throat and he shook his head.

  Zabbai led Gotrek, Felix and the crowd of servants through the pale, sunlit corridors of what Felix learned was called the White Tower, though, she confided, it was less a tower than a palace and not so much white as simply pale. Gotrek punctuated this revelation with loud, uninvited remarks as to the various and sundry weak points of human architecture, and all of the ways in which dwarf craftsmanship was superior. The servants made no comment.

  For his part, Felix was content to drink in his surroundings. It was everything he’d ever dreamed of as a boy. Carvings of asps marked every stone not occupied by intricate and colourful mosaics or hieroglyphic engravings. The corridors were a kaleidoscope of colour and imagery that seemed to shift and writhe as the sun speared through the round windows lining the tops of the walls. ‘Beautiful,’ he murmured. He stooped to peer more closely at an engraved asp. The stone shape of the snake seemed to writhe as he drew close. The triangular head moved, and amethyst eyes fixed him with a chilling stare. The stone snake hissed. All thoughts of beauty faded as he shot upright and stumbled back. The corridor walls were alive with squirming stone shapes, and all of them looking directly at him. He hurried after the others, and tried to ignore the way the stone asps slithered in his wake.

  ‘Keep up, manling,’ Gotrek said, as Felix rejoined the group. ‘If you get lost in this blasted necropolis, I’m not going to bother looking for you.’

  ‘Lybaras is the smallest of the great cities of Nehekhara,’ Zabbai said. ‘It would be difficult for him to become lost.’

  ‘The manling once got lost in a small tomb with a single entrance,’ Gotrek said.

  ‘That small tomb with a single entrance was almost forty miles in diameter and occupied by a skaven warren,’ Felix said
. ‘Also, you promised me you wouldn’t bring it up again.’ He grimaced and straightened his cloak. ‘It wasn’t pleasant the first time around, and I have no wish to relive it.’

  They exited the corridor, stepping out onto an open-air stairway composed of flat, wide stone steps, which led up in a coiling curve to a high plateau where a gold-capped white dome sat. As they ascended, Felix looked down and saw a courtyard below, marked by an immense mosaic, which depicted a massive serpent. ‘Got a thing for snakes, this queen,’ Gotrek said.

  ‘She is the Beloved of Asaph, the goddess of vengeance, whose symbol is the asp. Lybaras, and all who yet dwell within it, have been dedicated to the goddess’s cause,’ Zabbai said. ‘Our arrows are her fangs, our shields, her scales, our legions, her body, and our Queen is her voice. Lybaras is Asaph, and Asaph is Lybaras.’

  She waved a hand, and the flock of servants dispersed, scattering across the plaza, about other tasks, though Felix couldn’t imagine that there was much to do. When you lived in a tomb, who was there to serve? What was there to do, even? He wondered whether they would simply retreat to some darkened building to sit and wait to be summoned again.

  As they reached the top of the steps, Felix saw that the way into the dome was a set of massive, bronze doors, guarded by a phalanx of statues, each bearing a head fashioned in the likeness of a serpent’s skull. The statues wore armour and carried huge halberds. Felix was startled, but not surprised, when the statues moved, crossing their halberds to block the group’s path to the doors with a loud clang.

  He had heard stories of the war-statuary of the Land of the Dead, and the great stone sphinxes that were said to prowl in the vanguard of the silent tomb-legions when they went to war with the living. After everything else he’d seen in his career as Gotrek’s Rememberer to date, moving statues came as no shock. He kept his hands well away from his weapons, and hoped Gotrek would have the good sense to do the same. The Slayer was eyeing the closest statue the way a starving man might eye a rabbit.

  ‘Keep your axe to yourself, dwarf,’ Zabbai said warningly. ‘The Chosen of the Gods, the ushabti, will brook no threat to the queen. They are filled with the stuff of heroes, and given strength by Asaph’s will, and will strike suddenly and without mercy if you show any hint of a threat.’ Gotrek’s face twisted into a pugnacious expression, but he merely grunted and spat.

  Satisfied, Zabbai stepped out in front of the group and thumped the ground with the haft of her axe. One of the statues looked down, and dull sparks flared in its eye sockets. The snaky jaws opened and a voice like sand caught in a strong wind intoned, ‘Who comes?’ Felix twitched. He could feel the echo of the ushabti’s voice in his belly and bones. It made his teeth itch and his ears throb. It was a voice as deep and heavy as the crash of rock falling from the highest peak to the lowest valley.

  ‘Zabbai of the Southlands, Herald of Lybaras, Judgement of Asaph, Bride of the Axe and Queen of Her Folk,’ Zabbai said, thumping the stone with her axe for emphasis.

  ‘Who requests thy presence, daughter of Asaph?’

  ‘My sister, cousin and mistress, the Voice of Asaph, High Queen Khalida of Lybaras, Lady of the Sixth Geas, Mistress of the Marshes and Protector of the North,’ Zabbai said. Her axe went thump-thump-thump.

  ‘And these?’ the ushabti said. Its eyes fixed on Felix, who felt a sudden urge to flee. Preferably while screaming loudly and with much flailing of his arms, just to make the point. Gotrek shoved past him.

  ‘Gotrek Gurnisson, son of Gurni, and Slayer,’ he spat. He slapped Felix in the chest with a casual backhand. ‘And this is my Rememberer, Felix Jaeger, of Altdorf, and the manling Empire.’ The ushabti, responding perhaps to the hostility dripping from the Slayer’s voice, stirred and the edge of its halberd caught the sunlight. Gotrek tensed, ready to explode into violence at any moment. Felix had suspected that, despite Zabbai’s admonition, the Slayer wouldn’t be able to resist goading the inhuman sentinel into a fight.

  He clenched his hand. If it came to it, there’d be nothing he could do, save draw his sword and hope for the best. ‘High Queen Khalida has requested their presence, O Kharnak, Mighty Sentinel of the White Tower, Beloved of the Gods and Sentry of the Just and Sudden Reach,’ Zabbai said, extending her axe between Gotrek and the ushabti. ‘They are her guests.’

  ‘You vouchsafe them, Daughter of the Spear?’

  ‘I do,’ Zabbai said.

  ‘Then pass, you pilgrims, into the throne room of the beloved of Asaph, to wonder and glory in her beneficence,’ the ushabti intoned. The halberds were raised, and the doors swung open with the grinding squeal of rarely used hinges. Felix followed Gotrek and the others through, the nape of his neck prickling beneath the steady gazes of the gathered ushabti.

  The doors crashed shut behind them. He expected darkness, or torchlight. Instead, the chamber beyond was bathed in the brightest sunlight. Dazzled by the intensity of the light, Felix blinked and rubbed at his eyes. ‘Mirrors,’ Gotrek grunted. ‘Another bit of artifice stolen from my people.’

  The dwarf wasn’t bothered by the blinding shafts of light that played across them, or, if he was, he wasn’t letting it show. Felix shook his head and thrust the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to clear them. As he blinked away tears, he saw that the floor was composed of an intricately pieced together network of polished golden tiles, each of which depicted a scene from what he assumed was the history of Lybaras. He looked up. The rounded roof of the chamber was similarly decorated, though it was punctuated by large, circular openings that appeared to be lined with polished bronze discs of varying sizes and placements.

  Gotrek saw him staring and said, ‘You’ve been to Karak Kadrin, manling. You know how we light our halls. As the sunlight strikes each disc, it is reflected to the next, all the way down the shaft, and when it strikes the floor, the gold reflects it across the walls.’

  Gotrek gestured, drawing Felix’s attention to the immense golden discs that lined the curved walls. Each was shaped like a sun, surrounded by a halo of sharp flanges, and each blazed with reflected light.

  It was as if they stood within the belly of a vast kaleidoscope, with beams and shafts of light crossing and criss-crossing about them, creating a sea of light and colour. Felix saw heavy columns of pale stone rising from the floor to the ceiling. Each of them had been carved to resemble a rearing serpent, and was as wide as five men. From top to bottom, each column had been chiselled with Nehekharan hieroglyphs, all the way around.

  ‘The history of our people, of the City of Asaph,’ Djubti said. The liche-priest was waiting for them, swaddled in sunlight, with a scowl on his face. In the concentrated glare of the light, Felix could see the puffs of dust and incense that flew from his withered form with every twitch and gesture. ‘Here is writ the story of us, by artifice and puissant concern,’ Djubti continued with a grandiloquent croak. He threw up his hands and smote the floor with the butt of his staff of office. ‘Here is the pinnacle of our craftsmanship.’

  ‘A beardling could have designed it,’ Gotrek said disdainfully.

  Djubti lowered his arms and glared at the dwarf. He thumped the floor again and turned away in a flare of aged cloth, pulling his cloak about himself. ‘She awaits you. Follow me,’ he rasped. They moved through the corridor of columns. Felix felt a warm breeze, and saw large openings marked sections of the wall, each blocked by a curtain of thin material that rippled in the arid wind. Strange, large forms moved behind the curtains. With a start, he realised that they were immense snake-shaped monstrosities, each with a massive human-like skull within the folds of its cobra-hood. The soft scrape of their bellies across stone caused his teeth to itch, and his hand sought the hilt of his sword instinctively. One of the creatures dipped low, and Felix saw a skeletal shape perched upon it, with a heavy spear in its hand. As he watched, the weird creature and its eerie rider slithered out of sight.

  ‘The necropolis knights hav
e been awakened,’ Zabbai murmured. ‘That does not bode well.’ Insomuch as he could determine, she sounded worried. And that worried him.

  ‘What are they?’ Felix whispered.

  ‘Guardians of the temples and demesnes of the Mortuary Cult,’ she said. He noticed that she clutched her axe at the ready. ‘Mighty warriors who ride constructs which bear the stamp of Qu’aph, god of Cobras, He Who Hunted Dragons When the World Was Young. They are rarely awoken, for their love of battle is so strong that even in death, they hunger for the stuff of carnage and the red, wet hymn of slaughter.’

  Felix shuddered. ‘Why would they have awoken them, then? Unless…’ He looked at her. ‘Who are you at war with? Is it Mahrak?’

  Zabbai said nothing. Felix waited for her to speak, but when he realised that no answer was forthcoming, he fell silent. Something was going on. His earlier suspicions had been correct. He and Gotrek had stumbled into a situation not of their making. But whatever was going on, they were involved now, whether they liked it or not. Worry gnawed at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of movement behind one of the great pillars. It was gone before he could focus on it, and he wondered what other sorts of guardian lurked in this brightly lit tomb.

  As they neared the rear of the chamber, Felix saw a crowd of skeletal shapes, standing silent and attentive. They wore a diverse array of costumes, and bore tight scrolls of parchment, or thin blocks of stone, marked by chiselled hieroglyphs. ‘Messengers from the other cities, and the other kings and queens,’ Zabbai whispered, ‘You have come at a time of much upheaval. Lords and ladies of Lybaras, Mahrak and Rasetra, who should be slumbering in their tombs, are awake and ready for war.’ She gestured to one of the scroll-bearing skeletons. ‘Representatives from the smaller dynasties, who come bearing tentative offers of alliance against mutual enemies, within their own kingdom or another,’ she said.

  ‘Do your people really war against each other so much, even now?’ he hissed in reply. It wasn’t unusual for war to break out amongst the diverse provinces or personalities that made up the Empire, but it was somewhat disheartening to consider that death, which the Cult of Morr claimed was the great unifier, was no end to such petty internecine conflicts.