Me!’
‘Which is why we’re still here, of course,’ W’soran said, as his acolytes helped him to his feet. Ushoran tensed. ‘All this time after the fact, we’re still here, trapped in this primitive shadow of Lahmia, forced to grub in the dirt like peasants.’ W’soran wiped a bit of blood from his lipless mouth. His eyes swivelled to Neferata. There was more than just disdain there. There was also a warning. Ushoran wasn’t the only one spinning a web. ‘Because the first to come wasn’t strong enough to do what needed doing,’ he added, still looking at Neferata.
‘Silence,’ Ushoran snarled.
‘What are you yammering about, old leech? What secret are you dancing around?’ Neferata said.
‘Have you ever wondered why our king wears no crown? The savages he rules so admire a fine crown.’ W’soran grinned.
‘Kadon’s crown…’ Neferata said, a number of things falling into place. Both W’soran and Ushoran started at that, but Neferata drove on before they could recover. ‘But that is not Kadon’s voice I hear, is it?’
‘In part perhaps,’ W’soran said with a shrug. ‘But as Ushoran said, there’s a reason you didn’t recognise it. Or maybe you did, but pretended you didn’t, even to yourself. You have heard it before, haven’t you, centuries ago? I know, because I was there when Nagash spoke to you.’ He looked at Ushoran. ‘We both were.’
Nagash. The name hammered into her brain like a nail. Nagash, the Great Necromancer. Nagash, whose name had been wiped from the historical records of the Great Land. Nagash, whose elixir of immortality even now pumped in altered form through her veins.
‘Nagash’s, not Kadon’s… It is Nagash’s crown,’ she whispered.
‘My crown,’ Ushoran countered, his hands twitching slightly. ‘And with it, I will rule even as he did. But my rule will extend unto eternity, as even his failed to do. I will not make his mistakes and I do not possess his flaws. But I will have all of his power…’
‘But you don’t. Not yet. Why?’ Neferata said. ‘Where is it?’
Ushoran hesitated, his smugness evaporating. He looked almost… afraid. W’soran answered her, and he sounded as hesitant as Ushoran looked. ‘Here. Right here and yet it is so far away.’
Ushoran went to the wall behind the throne, towards an empty niche where a statue might once have stood. He placed a hand against the stones and a hidden door slid open, revealing a set of winding steps. ‘There,’ Ushoran said softly.
‘Ushoran–’ W’soran began.
‘No. No, if she wants to see it, we shall let her.’ Ushoran looked speculative. ‘Perhaps… perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps this was the answer all along.’ He looked at the dark passage. ‘Perhaps this is the price he demands.’
‘Neferata, don’t,’ Naaima said as Neferata stepped towards the passage. Neferata shook Naaima’s hand off. Her handmaiden’s voice was drowned out by the sudden roar of silence that spilled out of the darkness. It was an absence of sound which muffled everything. Ushoran stepped within and she followed, hesitant at first and then faster. Her instincts screamed warnings of treachery and deceit but not for the first time in her life, she ignored them. She had to see what lay beyond. She needed to confront that which had drawn her here, even if it endangered her very existence.
‘Come and see, it said, and I came unto Mourkain and saw,’ Ushoran whispered hoarsely as they walked. His words rustled in the narrow tunnel like bats and the stones of the corridor beyond the hidden entrance seemed to vibrate in tune to his voice. Gently, she brushed dust from the stones, revealing the crude pictograms which had been scratched into the walls by the ancient builders. Like the hieroglyphs of home, these told the story of the tomb. The body had been found in the river that curled through the mountains, a crown in one hand. The body of a mighty man, larger than any man of the Strigoi, though reduced to ruin by unknown enemies. His features had been obliterated by old marks, like those made by claws.
‘Who was he, Ushoran?’ she said.
‘Can you feel it, Neferata?’ he said, ignoring her question as they reached the end of the corridor.
‘What is it?’ she said, shivering. There was a vibration in her bones. It echoed from the floor and the walls and ceiling, and it was as if she were inside some great, living organism.
‘The echo of a heartbeat,’ Ushoran said, not looking at her.
Neferata listened, and knew he was right. The thudding boom-boom-boom, echoing up from