It was the worm in the Kresnik bottle.
He had begun to think again. So long away from the haze of his workout regime, where adrenaline and rigour consumed him. The luxury of Zirako and the teasing of the Black Tower had put a shard of idleness in his blood. And from that shard bled thoughts and memory.
Old terrors had returned.
Back to the sand and the sun. Back to the morning runs and the bowed contortions of press-ups and sit-ups. A fresh possession. He was the Burning Czar and must remain supreme amongst fighters and sufferers, the figurehead and phallus of the people. This was the tedium he required, the numbness in which a nation-state would find its centre.
* * * * *
Before the Czar returned from the desert, Zirako had been a paragon of order. Now, with his presence, it was
clockwork. Those who stirred at daybreak knew by heart the Czar's running circuit and the bodyguard gauntlet that accompanied him. They knew by the water clocks when best to clear the streets of drunks and garbage, where best to leave a thimble of blood to sate the Lord's thirst. Some old men, hobbling and senile, knew the routine so well that they would turn into an alley or doorway the very second before Lukesh passed. With no birdsong in the desert or nuance of the seasons, it was this by which Zirako marked the morning.
Around the massive spiral of the Red Tower he ran, through the forge squares and guildhouses. The outer ring of Zirako was a sprawl of workshops and wooden shacks, the buildings crowned with sharpened pikes and jagged metal. Like the war camps of Orcs in the Thorn Forest. They said that if Zirako ever came under siege, the houses of the Red Tower could be broken down into a field of deadly barricades, the breadth of a city.
He ran in silks, sheltered from the glare and leaving skinflake mist. Some children ran with him, and dodged swipes from the bodyguards, and through the twisting markets brought din and ruckus. This was no Avarath. The merchants dressed in dull colours and kept their heads lowered when he passed. Only roars from the lion aux gave permission to applause.
The border of the Green Tower were marked by tumbling rose petals. He sprinted the stairways, and came up into the heady air of the garden ring. Fed by springs above, it was a world of regimented orchards and vegetable plots, where dragon vine shadows blocked the sun. He ran the narrow paths between each allotment, and cut at times through paradisaical gardens grown for rare birds and game. His hunger swelled, yet on he pushed. Birds of blue and purple scattered screaming from his aux, and rare deer and rabbits bolted or else raced at his side with pack-like instinct. Yet as he reached the caravan track he continued alone, hopping rails where carriages were ratcheted. They formed a natural assault course on which he clambered to reach the next stairway.
In the Blue Tower he entered true paradise. Like mausoleum alcoves the third ring of Zirako was an alternating series of guard barracks and water springs. The first like fortresses in miniature, where Ipari, Commissar and Imperial Officer trained. The second sacred places, paved in marble, wafting incense and hemmed by statues, some still and in the shape of heroes; others moving with the twitch of troll magic.
He ducked beneath the water bridges, leapt the streams, ran along the levees of the marble trenches. And when at last he reached the shadows of the inner keep, his skin no longer burned. The Grey Tower was a monolith of stone, as tall as the Red Tower was wide, shooting for the clouds in windowless monotone. He ran the inner staircases, dodged scribes and paper couriers, crossed cavernous halls where scratching pens were all that was heard. Between libraries and rooms where execution warrants, titles and deeds were stamped. At last through the hall of cartographers, and the academies of the Third Army. And finally...
...he emerged on the upper battlements.
"My Lord." An Honour Guard snapped a salute and spat on the ground between the Czar's feet. "Her body has been brought."
Lukesh peered beyond the man's bowed shoulder and saw the corpse, wrapped in bandages and placed upon the gantry. He ran no further, but in a stride set out along the stone walkway. Below the dawn sun found echo in the fire pit, and carrion birds were circling.
He reached the body, set upon a slab, and beheld the feminine shape wrapped in pure white linen. The face was covered, the arms crossed upon the breast. It had travelled out of smoke, through sand and shadow of Avarath.
Aukhmos dipped its head and gave a low growl, shoulders slumped in sadness. What Lukesh himself would never show was glimpsed upon his aux.
He wiped blood sweat from his brow, panted his last racing breaths, pulled back the hood of his robes. And laid a hand upon the corpse.
"Seiyr."
The bandages tore, a blade glinting through the hand wrappings. The corpse twisted and rose in an eruption of motion. Lukesh recoiled, then yelled as his face was sliced. The legs of the creature swept his own and he crashed upon the gantry.
Shapes swarmed his periphery. Figures swung up from the sides of the battlement, climbing ropes he had not noticed as he focussed on the body. They closed on him. He rolled and felt his legs and side being opened. His hand shot up, grabbed the balls of the nearest attacker, and used them hoist himself. The blade arm of the man was taken and used to parry the blows of two more foes. Then a headbutt drove the man back.
Lukesh relinquished the blade and flung it into the thigh of the next man. Then the bandaged corpse came at him. The wrappings unfurled with barbed endings, a whirl of deathly hooks. He slid to the ground, raised one leg and let the whips coil there. Then a twist and a sweep pulled her down. She landed hard, and her face was uncovered, tanned and savage.
Velena. His whore.
Of course.
Lukesh counter-rolled to free his leg then palm-striked the knee of his bodyguard, Klausen. He came up with another two parries, deflecting the blows of Barnes and his brother Tyrel. The latter had the dagger in his thigh. Lukesh ducked low, gripped the hilt and used it as leverage while cartwheeling forward. Barnes was kicked and Tyrel collapsed with his wound. And as Lukesh righted he charged for Yassir before he could spit the blood from his broken nose.
There was a crash and a tumble. He landed on top of the draken, who threw a punch that sent his skull ringing. Lukesh recoiled and blindly took Yassir's leg, tipping him over the edge. The draken was left with torso half-dangling from the edge. And as he hung there the Czar snatched the khopesh from his belt, turned, flexed shoulders, cracked neck. He was ready.
Klausen and Barnes came at him. Blades whirled. He moved amongst them. Then his neck jerked back. The whore had mounted the slab and looped the bandages around his throat. She pulled him in, tightening and choking.
He sprinted backwards, slammed the woman, made her grab hold of him to keep her balance. And as her weight came atop he spun with her, a whirl of whore limbs flattening Klausen. He dropped the girl on top of him then disarmed Barnes with a khopesh flourish. The last bodyguard spread wide his arms to yield, and Lukesh planted a foot on the man's sternum to knock him across the gantry.
"Get up here, Yassir." The Czar tossed down the khopesh and put a hand to his sliced face. Then, stepping over the groaning bodies of his protectors, he returned to the other side of the gantry.
"I'm not Yassir."
Lukesh paused, then stepped to the verge. He grunted, then reached down to give Draegal a hand. The draken monk was hoisted to the blood-flecked platform and together they stumbled and sat down on the slab where the body had lain. There they caught their breaths, and bled their different shades.
"I'm not a bodyguard..." Draegal muttered while holding his broken nose.
"Why do I have to ambush you?"
The Czar reached over, and snapped the monk's nose back into alignment.
"Because I wanted to beat the shit out of you."
Draegal took a few more breaths as the pain subsided. Then he unclipped his hip flask and offered the first swig to the Desert Sun.
"Is this my punishment?"
"Your honour. How many monks can say they punched the Sun?" He passed the flask back and together they drank, watching the morning sandstorms and the limping retreat of the whore and bodyguards.
"Disguising Velena as a corpse. Your idea?"
"A trick we would use in the monasteries, when hiding from Imperial patrols."
"I hope you have more tricks, Draegal. The Blood Soiree approaches. You, a draken, will brew kresnik for the ruling nocturne dynasties. This act will be a symbol. A mark of unity. If the brew fails, the nation will weaken."
"If the brew fails, I imagine all the nocturnes will switch to blood. Including mine."
"You learn quickly." WIth a grunt, the Czar pulled himself to his feet and redressed the silks that covered him. He was starting to burn, a mist of steam and skinflakes. With slow step, the Burning Sun moved away down the gantry, one hand upon the knife wounds in his side.
It was time to feed. And to find where Seiyr's body was truly being kept.