The Alabaster Staff

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The still night's air echoed with the sounds Messemprar had dreaded for over a year: screams of pain and anguish, the whip-crack of fires burning out of control, the ring of martial horns, the shouts and imprecations of soldiers fighting a determined last stand. The scents of smoke, blood, and fear filtered their way through the city.

It was cold consolation that the sounds were not caused by the pharaoh's army. Many in the city would choose defeat over the return of Gilgeam.

Kehrsyn and Demok walked with Tiglath at the head of the Tiamatan cultists, marching in formation and arrayed for war. Their heavy scale (was there any armor better suited to dragon worshipers? thought Kehrsyn) clanked as they strode forward. Most carried war picks or maces with the heads shaped into dragon's heads. A few others had wide-bladed swords with fanciful dragon's head hand guards shaped to make the serrated blades look like fire emitting from the mouths. In the center of the squad, five fighters carried arbalests, crossbows so powerful that they required winches to be cocked. Kehrsyn's keen eyes caught the sheen of silver coating the quarrels they carried in open cases at their hips.

Every Tiamatan in the group carried a large, pentagonal shield embossed and painted with the symbol of a five-headed dragon, each head in a different color.

Throughout the city, fearful citizens peered out of windows to see what was happening. They watched as the Tiamatan force moved through the streets, then withdrew again to bar the doors and windows and whisper among themselves.

Tiglath moved in Demok's shadow, trusting the experienced swordsman to keep her safe. She kept her head bowed over the Alabaster Staff, working spells of revelation to better understand the artifact she held in her hand. Tremor, her dragonet, clutched her armor and craned his neck forward as well, sniffing at the artifact. Under the coaxing of her magic, the powerful glow of the wand's aura provided more than enough light for everyone to see. Tiglath had to squint even to look at the staff.

The sounds of sporadic battle grew louder, until Demok held up one hand and clenched it into a fist.

"Hold," he said. He turned to Tiglath, shielding his eyes from the bright glow of the staff. "Time," he said.

Tiglath set her jaw and nodded. She turned to her people, clasping her hands behind her back. The staff silhouetted her body, giving her a sort of bright halo.

"This will be hard," she said. "We are going up against our enemy of old, as we did fifteen years ago. We do not have our goddess at our side, only each other and whatever other soldiers have gathered together to oppose Gilgeam's return. Of course, more people won't do much good. We are fighting a single being, after all. Fortunately, Gilgeam probably does not have his full faculties. Also fortunately, we will receive his undivided attention when he sees the blazons on our shields. This puts him right where we want him, which is enraged and unthinking, within reach of our weapons."

She raised her hand, spreading her fingers and curling them slightly. Kehrsyn noticed that she did not spread her thumb wide, but held it fairly close, so that her hand as a whole looked somewhat like five serpentine necks bending forward to strike.

"Bear your shields proudly, followers of the dragon, and trust to our goddess, whose face taunts our foe, to guide your strikes."

As Tiglath lowered her hand again, Kehrsyn leaned in toward her and asked, "Why don't you pray for protection?"

One of the cultists overheard her and answered, "Only the weak need protection. The strong can withstand great pain and punishment."

Well, I guess that means only the weak need to wear heavy armor, now doesn't it? thought Kehrsyn, but she wisely held her tongue.

Tiglath formed her people up into two lines, shoulder to shoulder. She held the center of the front line, and the five with arbalests took the center of the second line. Working the cranks, they cocked their weapons. The wood groaned as it bent, seemingly in anticipation of launching a deadly projectile. They loaded their quarrels into the slots.

"Wow," murmured Kehrsyn, "I've seen silver-tipped arrows but not ones covered completely in silver."

"They're solid," said Tiglath. "No sense being cheap with plated bolts. I'd rather save my life than save a few coins."

"Makes sense," said Kehrsyn.

"Stand aside, young one," said Tiglath. "You weren't made for this kind of fight."

"What?" blurted Kehrsyn. "You expect me to just-"

Demok grabbed Kehrsyn's arm and pulled her to the side.

"Good luck," he said to the priestess as he ushered Kehrsyn off the street. "We'll look for an opening."

Reluctantly, Kehrsyn followed Demok away from the Tiamatans.

Tiglath raised the Alabaster Staff over her head and shouted, "Shields front! Forward!" The double line moved down the street, less rapidly than before but with a ponderous martial sedateness that was at once fearsome and enthralling. They held their shields in front, creating a solid wall of steel, crenellated at the top edge due to the varying heights of the warriors and saw-toothed at the bottom from the dropping points of each shield that protected the bearers' knees. With grim and deadly eyes they advanced, their path illuminated by the interaction of the staff with the divinatory spells that Tiglath had cast upon it.

Demok led Kehrsyn along the edge of the street just ahead of the Tiamatans. As they closed on Gilgeam's position, it became apparent that the magical light would be unnecessary. The dead god stood in the center of a small square, raising his arms and bellowing to the heavens. Bodies littered the courtyard, and a large resting house and tavern across from them was engulfed in flames, lighting the quad and silhouetting Gilgeam's rippling body and lank locks in an eerie glow. The flames reflected across the cobbles and the armor of the slain as well and made it impossible to tell what was rainwater and what was blood.

A barrage of arrows struck Gilgeam in the back. The beast-for it was hard to think of him as either human or deity-roared in defiance and turned to face his attackers. A squad of archers occupied the roof of one of the buildings, a tall, thin residential building situated on the corner formed by the court and one of the streets that led into it. The archers fired another volley, the arrows striking Gilgeam in the chest. If anything, the missiles served only to enrage him further. He moved over in a peculiar, looming gait and slid between the building and its neighbor, then began to growl with exertion.

The archers moved to the narrow gap between the buildings, aimed their bows straight down, and fired a volley at Gilgeam's head.

They fired another.

As they nocked their arrows for a third volley, the building shuddered and the archers panicked. They started to run, but Gilgeam's strength prevailed, and the building cracked and began to lean. Then, slowly, gracefully, the building pirouetted and fell to the ground like a dancer bowing before her judges.

As that happened and fresh screams of pain and fear rang through the court, the detachment of Tiamatans drew to a halt. They stood just inside the small courtyard, blocking the street and preventing Gilgeam from attacking them anywhere but from the front. Demok led Kehrsyn to the dubious shelter of a recessed doorway that faced the square.

"Wait for it," he said.

Tiglath looked around, appraising the damage. Her eyes alighted on a group of Untherites to the left of her troops, all kneeling in prayer.

"Great Mother," shouted Tiglath, "they're praying to that thing! Gibbur, smite those cowards!"

"Aye," grunted the leftmost soldier in the front row.

He was a big chap, and burly, and he gripped his serrated sword in clear anticipation as he paced over to those who lent Gilgeam their support and worship in exchange for a chance to receive his dubious mercy.

By the light of the fires, Kehrsyn saw that Gibbur's work was brutally fast. He stood in front of the kneeling lines of worshipers and hewed heads with rhythmic, almost mechanical efficiency. Grotesquely, his butchery only redoubled the fervent prayers of those still alive.

Perhaps it was chance, perhaps it was the smell of fresh blood or the cries of the slaughtered, or perhaps somehow the desperate prayers of the faithful wormed their way into the decayed brain of the undead deity, but after Gibbur began executing the worshipers, the god-king turned around and faced him with a feral snarl.

"Gibbur!" snapped Tiglath.

The Tiamatan turned to his priestess, then glanced over at Gilgeam. The god-king started to trot over, and, seeing that, Gibbur broke into a run for his comrades. Gilgeam howled, picked up a large stone from the wreckage of the building, and hurled it at Gibbur with great force. Its trajectory looked almost flat. Several people called warnings, but just as Gibbur turned to look, the missile struck him in the ribs with a crunch that was both metallic and all too organic. He was knocked sideways off his feet, dead before his helmet clanged to the pavement.

Kehrsyn drew in her breath between her teeth.

"Yep," said Demok, beside her in the shadows. "This'll be tough."

Gilgeam moved toward Tiglath's troops, eyeing the row of armored warriors arrayed against him.

"Tiamat says you have no place in Faerun," called Tiglath, stressing the name of her goddess, "and we will ensure you obey!"

So saying, she brandished the Alabaster Staff and focused her mind upon it.

The words caused a visible reaction in the once-dead god-king. He stiffened and flexed his muscles so hard Kehrsyn could hear the tendons creaking and popping. Gilgeam wagged his jaw as if to say something, but he looked more like an animal trying to work something free from its craw. He continued his approach, slipping back and forth between an upright, martial posture and somewhat sideways, animal posture. Both gaits were still suffused with the shuffling, inelegant motions of the animate dead. But most striking were his eyes, which shone with fierce hatred and cunning, a look all the more horrid for the pale, magical glow that shone from them.

"Looks like he's beginning to reclaim himself," warned Tiglath.

"What?" asked Kehrsyn.

"Getting his mind back," clarified Demok.

"He's got the hunger and will of a god in there somewhere," said Tiglath. "If we let him go, he may recover everything, and we'll lose all our work. Look alive, people, and stay alive."

Tiglath drew a deep, focusing breath and let it back out slowly through rounded lips. She inclined the Alabaster Staff toward Gilgeam. She set her jaw and narrowed her eyes with concentration.

Gilgeam hissed through his spasming mouth, a noise far juicier than anyone had expected. He approached Tiglath, his arms outstretched and his fingers hooked like claws, yet, for as much as his powerful legs strained, the pace of his approach slowed dramatically. Even though she wasn't entirely familiar with the artifact, Tiglath's willpower, channeled through the Alabaster Staff, held the creature at bay.

From the shadows to the side of the Tiamatan line, Kehrsyn watched the confrontation. Tiglath showed strain. The side of her mouth pulled back into a rictus snarl, her eyes narrowed further, and sweat began to trickle down her face. Gilgeam leaned farther forward toward the priestess, his bare feet scrabbling on the slick cobbles. His muscles tensed and flexed beneath his golden skin, and his toes pried up a cobble from the sheer power of his body pushing forward against the magical resistance. He stumbled, but then his feet found extra hold, planted in the empty socket left by the paving stone. He inched closer to Tiglath and strained his arms to reach her.

"Strike him," growled Tiglath through clenched teeth.

"This is your chance to prove you have the strength to lead us," responded the high-browed, bulbous-nosed cultist to Tiglath's right. "You're doing well so far. Don't throw it away by crying for help."

Kehrsyn blanched.

With an irritated growl, Demok stalked out from the shadows beside Kehrsyn and moved behind Gilgeam.

For just an instant, Tiglath glanced at the man who had spoken.

With a victorious howl from the grave, Gilgeam leaped.

Gilgeam's leap seemed slow, as if seen in a dream, and Tiglath wasn't sure if it was because she was in such a state of excitement or if the magical effects of the staff actually slowed Gilgeam's flight through the air.

He landed on the priestess, driving her to her knees. His eyes, inches from hers, had a strange look to them, like he saw nothing but sensed everything. Just as she recovered her balance, his right hand clubbed at her, a horse's kick smashing her shield back against her chest. The shield buckled with the impact, and her entire arm went mercifully numb. His left hand grabbed her right forearm, squeezed, and twisted. She fought to hold onto the Alabaster Staff, but she felt the bones in her arm snap. Pain shot up her arm, and the staff tumbled from her nerveless hand and clattered on the rain-washed cobbles, its magical glow showing strangely blue in the firelit night.

Gilgeam howled-a grotesque, burbling noise from a slack mouth that smelled of myrrh and mold-and used Tiglath's broken arm to drive her to the ground.

So this is it, she thought. After all this time, he finally kills me.

She spat in the god-king's lifeless face.

Then she saw Demok loom over him, his sword raised high. He struck Gilgeam in the shoulder with a mighty blow of his long sword, but the edge hardly bit the flesh. Gilgeam wildly swung one arm backward, catching Demok in the ribs and sending him tumbling away.

Finally seeing his opportunity to supplant Tiglath as the leader of the Tiamatans, Horat snatched up the Alabaster Staff from where it lay. He felt the raw power of the wand, the weight of its age, and the surge of potential.

"Kill him!" he cried to the others, gesturing at Gilgeam.

The assembled Tiamatans obeyed his command. They encircled Gilgeam and lay into him with picks and swords and maces. It was a peculiar sound, more like a mining crew than a battle. A battle had a lot of screams and yelling, but here one side only rarely made noise, and the mortal soldiers, when struck by Gilgeam, often had no voice left.

With the others doing his bidding, Horat stepped back and aimed the slender wand at the body of Gibbur where he had been felled. Magical streams of energy curled from the carved runes and Gibbur began to twitch. He climbed back to his feet and stared at Horat with vacant, obedient eyes.

Horat laughed, a loud, glorious peal-he knew the power of the staff, a far greater power than he had imagined, and it felt good to let it channel through his soul. He'd been aide to a sodden cow of a priestess long enough. No more gutless decisions. He ruled the Tiamatans. And with this staff, come morning, the Tiamatans would rule Unther!

Kehrsyn, hoping the Tiamatan assault could bring the god-king down, scuttled over to Demok's side.

"That's not meat," he grunted as he staggered to his feet. "Feels like clay."

"He's made of clay?" gasped Kehrsyn.

Demok gave her a wearying look and said, "He's made of god!"

Kehrsyn looked over at the melee and saw one of the Tiamatans surge upward two feet in the air, his head thrown way back on his broken neck. There was another animal roar and a metal impact, and Kehrsyn saw several of the Tiamatans along one side stagger back from the force of Gilgeam's strength.

The man with the wand aimed it in the direction of Gilgeam and began chanting a prayer to Tiamat. Beyond him, Kehrsyn saw Gibbur, gripping his sword inexpertly and shuffling toward the melee.

"In the name of Tiamat, the all-powerful Dragon Queen," Tiglath's rebellious lieutenant shouted, "I command you, Gilgeam, to cease your resistance and obey your new master!"

Gilgeam roared his displeasure and struck one of the Tiamatans so forcibly that his fellows behind were knocked off their feet, creating a breach in the circle of armored warriors, a breach that led straight to the one with the Alabaster Staff. Gilgeam stepped out of that gap, stomping one foot upon the throat of a fallen cultist, killing him.

As Gilgeam stepped forward, the circle of Tiamatans moved with him, though for the moment they did not engage. They left behind a number of mangled bodies, most of which did not move. Demok and Kehrsyn ran over to where Tiglath had fallen.

Tiglath cursed the usurper Horat for a fool, dividing their forces at that crucial moment against an enemy far more important than his own designs for power. She cursed herself, as well, for letting his ill-timed ploy distract her from her true duty.

She lay on the ground, holding her shield up with her numb left arm while using her feet and her right elbow to try to crawl out of the melee. She felt Gilgeam strike her shield again, but then a veritable stampede of metal-shod feet surrounded them both. She winced, her eyes almost closed, as the cleated boots scrabbled for traction a hair's breadth from her face.

She heard scuffling, impacts, and a non-stop stream of grunts and curses as her people-if indeed she could call them that anymore-battled the monster. The sounds were punctuated by fierce impacts as Gilgeam claimed victim after victim. One of the unfortunates fell across her legs. His angry face landed nose-first on the pavement beside her, bouncing none too gently. Drool and blood flowed slowly from his open mouth.

With one arm numb and encumbered by a shield in the midst of a tight melee and the other broken outright, she could not shove the armored corpse off her, so she resorted to keeping as small as possible and using her shield to protect her head from being stepped upon or struck by an errant blow.

After what seemed an eternity of stomping feet and meaty blows, the melee moved away from Tiglath, leaving her gasping in pain on the cold, wet cobbles. Her tiny dragonet alighted on her helmet and began licking her face.

Through the flaring haze of pain, she saw two silhouettes kneel beside her.

"Are you all right?" asked Kehrsyn.

Tiglath nodded. She knew it was not convincing.

Demok kicked the corpse off her, and she rolled onto her back with a sigh of relief and exhaustion. He kneeled by her head.

"My blade," he ordered. "Enchant it!"

Enchant his blade? thought Tiglath. That would take a season or more… No, she corrected herself, he means bless it. Confer upon it the divine prowess of Tiamat, Queen of Dragons, that, imbued with her divine wrath, his bare steel might cleave the useless flesh of the god-king. There was just one problem…

"You don't serve Tiamat," gasped Tiglath.

"I don't care," said Demok.

Tiglath tried to ponder whether it might work, whether it might be sacrilege for her to do that, but her pain was too great.

"Good enough," she muttered.

She shucked the shield from her left arm with a few careless flailings and reached for the chain around her neck. She felt along the length of the chain for the holy symbol that dangled there. She held it forth and touched Demok's blade.

"May Tiamat," she slurred, trying to keep her voice steady, "as well as whichever deity you follow, guide thy blade that we might smite our mutual foe. May the strength of the dragon be yours."

As Tiglath prayed, Kehrsyn looked over to where the remaining Tiamatans fought against Gilgeam. She saw the god-king grab the one with the Alabaster Staff by the hips. The Tiamatan screamed in terror as he looked into Gilgeam's undead face. Gilgeam lifted him up and slung him down, crushing him headfirst onto the cobbles, abruptly ending his scream. She closed her eyes, glad that the sound of crunching metal drowned out the other, more visceral noises.

The Tiamatan closest to Gilgeam took a step back. His show of fear spread quickly, and the other Tiamatans who still had their feet all began giving ground. Gilgeam grinned at them, and, though his flesh was pockmarked by numerous dents and gashes from the Tiamatan weapons, he seemed to have no discomfort.

"We're running out of time and allies," said Kehrsyn, deeply worried.

Even as she spoke, Demok moved forward, waving his sword, gripping it with both hands for extra power. As the blade moved, Kehrsyn saw tracers of divine energy glittering in its wake.

Gilgeam moved toward the Tiamatans, who fell back before him. Demok circled in behind and delivered a heavy, double-handed blow, striking the god-king in the side, just below the floating rib. The blade bit deep, though by no means as deep as it would have any ordinary man.

Thus wounded, Gilgeam screamed, a noise that sounded more alive than any utterance he had yet made, and Demok jerked the blade free of the undead creature's body, trailing a strand of viscous black blood behind it.

Gilgeam turned to face Demok, a new anger on his face, and to Kehrsyn it looked like Demok had succeeded in finally awakening the intellect within the undead casing. Her heart caved in fear for Demok's life.

Demok circled around Gilgeam, while the god-king turned in place, one hand over the oozing wound in his side.

The swordsman moved easily, swinging the glistening blade back and forth in easy arcs. He launched himself at Gilgeam again, striking a pair of vicious blows, one of which struck Gilgeam's knee and the other of which the undead god-king blocked with his bare arm. The momentum of Demok's attack had brought him in close to Gilgeam, too close, in Kehrsyn's opinion, for him to fight effectively with his sword.

But that wasn't his intent. With a nimble flick of his foot, he flipped the Alabaster Staff from the dead lieutenant's hand over toward Tiglath. Though he executed the maneuver almost perfectly, he paid for the shift in his attention as Gilgeam punched him hard, one arm striking his ribs from the right, the other striking his stomach from the left. The impact flipped Demok completely over, and he fell to the ground, his sword clattering away.

Kehrsyn, kneeling by Tiglath's head, tried to pull the heavy priestess up to a sitting position.

"The staff!" she yelled. "Use it!"

"I can't," gasped Tiglath through clenched teeth, her eyelids fluttering. "Too… run, Kehrsyn," she added, panting. "Don't let him wreck your life… like he wrecked mine."

Kehrsyn glanced up. The few remaining Tiamatans were fleeing the area. A company of guards had appeared at some point during the fight and had taken up position across the courtyard. They seemed to be awaiting Gilgeam's victory. Demok was moving slowly on his hands and knees, trying to recover his breath. Gilgeam stalked over, roaring in his ghastly, flat voice, balling his fists for the final strike.

Desperate, Kehrsyn let Tiglath go and lunged for the Alabaster Staff. She dived and tumbled, snatching up the slender wand in one hand without losing her momentum, and ran toward Gilgeam. She knew she could not wield the wand, not without years of arcane discipline. Her only hope was more direct action. All she had to do was cross fifteen yards. Gilgeam raised his fists, and she saw that she would be about five yards too late.

A small shadow darted past her with the sound of fluttering parchment. Tremor swept in on its tiny wings and fired a gout of bright flame across Gilgeam's eyes just as he was flexing his arms to kill Demok. Gilgeam roared again, stumbling with surprise, yielding to Kehrsyn the extra sliver of time she needed.

She ran up behind the god-king as he stared down at Demok. She plunged the Alabaster Staff into Gilgeam, narrow end first, driving it upward between the ribs, aiming for the heart. It slid in much more easily than she had expected, every bit as easily as if it had been her rapier and he no more than a straw man. She had put everything she had into the blow, and it plunged the staff almost entirely into Gilgeam's body, leaving only the carved top still in her grip.

The undead thing roared and arched his back. Kehrsyn, in fear and surprise, tried to pull the wand back out, but between her haste and his motion, the wand caught between his ribs. She panicked, yanked, and felt the wand bend, levered against Gilgeam's bones.

There was the sound of a small crack.

There was a flash so bright the whole world seemed white.

Then there was nothing.