Amazonia

  A feeling of almost unholy glee washed over Amazonia as the black runes on the blade began to glow. Then her flesh contracted and transformed into ropy bands while her skin turned grey, the agony so intense a scream ripped itself from her lungs as she doubled over. It hurts, it hurts so bad! Please make it stop, make it stop... I'm dying...

  No, I'm alive again! Wild, high pitched, shrieking laughter erupted from Amazonia’s throat, echoing through the chamber as she straightened back up. Inanna stepped over the corpse with the spear held out point first. "Shadow Knight," she growled as Amazonia strode towards her with both hands on the sword hilt, "I fought your kind during the Daemo war. Go back to the Shadowlands where you belong." Hoisting the spear like a javelin as she stood barefoot in the pool of blood, she threw it at the Shadow Knight’s chest.

  The Rune sword blade licked out and knocked the spear away. It hit the floor with a rattling clatter and slid away across the stone floor as Amazonia said, "Inanna, the Daemo princes are dead and so are you. Accept that you do not command here and never will."

  Inanna stared at her with dead eyes. "My throws are too powerful to be knocked aside. You should be dead."

  Horns at each temple curled several times as they rose up into the air, which Az had expected. But the whitish miasma inside and surrounding her body was like nothing she’d ever seen. "You are not what you were before. If I decide to hack off your head, the Shadow mana in your flesh and bone will leak from you like liquid from a pierced wineskin and you will die. But your sister wants you to join us. Put yourself under Lys' control and follow me willingly, and you can get revenge upon those who slew your body and threw you into the charnel pits." It was against her nature, but the Shadow Knight took one hand off the hilt and held it out in a welcoming gesture. "Join us."

  Inanna snarled, "I will crush you with my bare hands." She lurched forward with her arms out.

  Then slipped on the blood and went down. One large hand caught her fall as both knees banged against the stone floor, Az grasping the Rune sword hilt with both hands as Inanna moved to rise.

  Amazonia flicked the blade tip to the spot between the dead Celestial’s eyes and she stopped. "Inanna, move again and I'll blind you before crippling your body so bad you'll never be able to fight or walk."

  "I no longer need eyes to see," Inanna replied as she glared up at Az. "Why is everyone resisting my right to be queen?"

  "To start," Lys said as she leaped onto Az’s shoulder and settled in, "it is a spectacularly bad idea. If we let you change Bukhara into a city of the dead, with you as its queen, within a year the Sasnayam Empire will be at the gates with their army and as many siege engines as it takes to destroy us. For another, none of us, including your sister, have any desire to become your dead servants, now or ever."

  "Churlish of us," Karl said, "but there it is."

  Lys rolled her eyes as Inanna snarled, "I do not care what you weaklings want. You will—"

  "I will make you care." To the Shadow Knight’s eyes, Ishi wore a human face like a mask over three different faces underneath, and as she stood up, the crone face pushed itself almost, but not quite, up against the mask. "Submit to Lys or I will speak the lesser words of unbinding a Shade from possessing one of the dead."

  "You would not dare!"

  In reply, the human mask fell away, leaving the crone's face in its place. Withered lips whispered several words, and the human face returned as the crone faded back with the other two, while whitish miasma streamed out of Inanna's body like smoke. Az flick the blade out of the way as Inanna's corpse pitched face forward onto the stone floor in front of her.

  In its place hovered a ghostly form wearing Inanna's likeness. "Sister, no," the Shade said, her voice misty as the form she wore. "Speak the words of binding so I might fulfill the mission I was given."

  Ishi sighed. "I was afraid of this. According to the lore I studied and never used until now, when a human necromancer creates a Shade by trapping the soul as it leaves the body, the Shade retains free will and the personality she had while alive. But if the necromancer is a Celestial, she can lay a geas upon the Shade, a compulsion if you will, forcing the Shade to carry out whatever mission the necromancer wants her to do."

  "Can the geas be broken?" Lys asked.

  Ishi sighed again. "Only by speaking the greater word of unbinding, which releases the soul and sends it on its way into the afterlife."

  Behind Amazonia, Timur said, "But why would a necromancer, especially a Celestial one, want Inanna to turn Bukhara into one big tomb?"

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  "If the necromancer was a true Lich," Lys replied, "it would make perfect sense to him."

  "To her," Ishi said. "Inanna, did Tanit do this to you?"

  The Shade visibly cringed. "Speak not that name. Sister, I implore you—"

  "Quiet." Inanna's ghost went silent as Ishi put her fists to her face. "You are right, Shadow Fae; to Tanit it would make perfect sense. She was a goddess of ancient Carthago, married to Ba'al, and the only one of us fascinated by the Necromantic Arts."

  "Enough to become a Lich herself?" Timur asked.

  "Oh, yes. Ba'al had already turned himself into a Shadowman long before the Etruscans declared war upon his empire for the last time. The ritual had twisted his view of life and the world, so he may have well encouraged her to become a Lich but to keep it quiet, lest it upset her priesthood. Or perhaps she waited until all hope had gone before having the ones she had corrupted to her service, conduct the ritual. Either way, I heard reports from Osiris that she had survived Carthago's fall and was living among the humans, though his agents lost her trail and never regained it."

  "But if she's dead," Karl remarked, "wouldn't it be noticeable?"

  "Not if she is masquerading as a living priestess of Ghash-Kimil," Akbal said, still kneeling on the floor. At her forehead, she wore a circlet with the symbol of a triangle with its point straight up, a circle at its tip, and two lines like upraised arms. "Many of their priestesses strive to resemble living corpses, and if she looks like a deathly pale human, she would fit right in."

  Ishi began pacing back and forth beside the pool of blood. "Tanit must have planned this over the course of decades. Muzen had boasted about throwing Inanna’s dying body into the catacombs, as we called the charnel pits before Ghash-Kimil raised a pyramid over them, and when he kept his promise, Tanit was waiting to set her plan in motion."

  "And then what?" Lys asked. "She had to know Inanna by herself could never take over a city."

  "Not unless Tanit was the one who came up with the idea of the Reaver Knight," Akbal said. "My lady, there was a woman who came out of the east and joined Ghash-Kimil, who is now their chief priestess in Tesiphon, or at least was. Rumors came to my ears that she was the one who taught the lore to Ghash-Kimil."

  "And then betrayed her master to Ix-Chel and the Storm Lord," Ishi said, stopping next to Akbal. "Ghash-Kimil had his heart torn out by his father, according to my spy in Tesiphon, and the priesthood as well… except for the chief priestess. No one has a clue where she is. Had the Rune sword’s spirit been the outcast from your people, Prince Timur, Tanit would have seen Amazonia changed, raised the dead, then after she had chased your tribe away from Bukhara, would have found or brought with her a man totally loyal to her. Tanit would have changed him into a Shadowman before turning all the soldiers into Shadowmen under him."

  "Starting with the Sasnayam governor," Karl said. "Meanwhile, the regular folks would've rejoiced to have Inanna returned and on the throne."

  "While the remaining Sasnayams would have been food for the Shadowmen," Ishi said. "By the time the Sasnayam Empire knew what was going on, it would have been too late."

  "Except Prince Timur overturned the table," Lys said, glancing at Amazonia, "and the Reaver Knight was not at all what she expected. Akbal, assuming Tanit was behind this, where do you believe she is?”

  Akbal made a helpless gesture with her hands. “Shadow Fae, I have no idea. If it were me, the moment I realized the Shadow Knight fought for Prince Timur, I would have left Bukhara, probably through one of the tunnels underneath the city.”

  Timur stiffened. “Tunnels under Bukhara?”

  “Yes, my prince. The only one I know of leads from this temple to the way station east of the city, but I have heard rumors of others, long lost.”

  “Porthos will likely know where these tunnels might exist,” Lys said, turning her head towards the Shadow Knight. “Az, since it seems Tanit left us a gift, shall we see if we can enlist Inanna to the cause?"

  In response, Az crouched down with Lys still riding on her shoulder. "Inanna," she said in the tongue of the dead, "will you follow my orders and let Lys have control of you?"

  Inanna lifted her head up. "You are the battle commander. I will do whatever you require."

  Lys and Amazonia traded a smile, then the Shadow Fae jumped down and placed her tiny hand on Inanna's broad forehead. After a moment, she let go. "All done. The initiates need to clean her up again, then see about getting an armorer to take her measurements. Akbal," Lys turning towards her, "do you still desire to serve Inanna?"

  "I have some knowledge of the Necromantic Arts," she replied, bowing her head, "and can keep her functioning."

  "Since we are speaking of serving," Amazonia said, turning towards Timur, "my prince, I remember how Etruscan funeral games were set up, having fought gladiatorial combats during several. If you want and your father agrees to it, I can have the dead workers recreate the racing track within the Temple District's inner ring of pyramids, and the arena in the central plaza where the great pyramid of Yun-Kax stands."

  Timur laughed. "What a slap in the face to the Sasnayams that will be, their sacred pyramids used as spectator stands." He stroked his beard. "Hosting my own funeral games will be considered a noble act by the People, especially if I give my father a place of honor, and will spare him the expense of hosting them himself. Once his temper has cooled, I believe he will agree to this.” Timur nodded sharply. “Do so, but then return to your normal self afterward."

  Amazonia bowed to him as Lys said, "We can begin measuring the amount of Shadow mana needed as well. I will set this up with Cermet at once."

  "I can also assist you," Akbal added.

  Lys nodded before turning to Ishi. "There is one last matter to be taken care of."

  "I know," Ishi said with a sigh, "and I cannot keep putting it off. Dear sister," Ishi turning toward the ghost, "I love you, but I need to let you go."

  Inanna's ghost started waving its arms frantically as the crone face replaced the human mask. "Sweet sister, I beg you, do not do this. Let me return—" Withered lips spoke a word and the ghost frayed like smoke in a strong wind. "No, please! I..." Inanna's voice changed as her ghostly form shredded. "Free... Ishtar, beware... Tanit..."

  Inanna's ghost dissolved as her voice faded, and a moment later she was gone.