so swiftly did she move.
Neferata felt a strange sense of recognition and realised that Nagashizzar and Mourkain shared more than a legacy of death; Kadon, whether he had known it or not, had recreated Nagash’s citadel in his own crude fashion. Thus, when they reached the antechamber to Nagash’s throne room she knew it at once for what it was.
She barrelled through a thick curtain of spider-webs and dust, sliding across a rough stone floor on her feet and hand, her claws leaving thin canyons in the stone. She tossed Morath down. ‘On your feet, necromancer, we’re here.’
Morath climbed to his feet and held up the glowing hand. The corpse-light illuminated a great swathe of the massive chamber. It was a crude parody of the antechamber to the throne room of the great palace of Khemri. Even Nagash, it seemed, had not been immune to nostalgia.
The doors to the throne room were little more than unfinished slabs of bronze now gone green from verdigris and their hinges were braided sinew, long since fossilised into immobility. Morath hesitated, staring up at them. Strange char marks covered them, and he said, ‘There was a battle here.’
Neferata looked at him. ‘Can you open them?’ she said flatly.
‘W’soran taught me,’ Morath said. ‘It will take me a few minutes, however. I am weak,’ he added, at her look. ‘These past weeks have been difficult. I am merely mortal, woman, unlike you.’
‘Why did you volunteer to come with me, Morath? W’soran wanted to send Melkhior, and in truth that might have been more convenient,’ Neferata said, annoyed.
‘W’soran is frightened,’ Morath said, looking at the door. ‘He fears the crown and its hold on Ushoran. Aye, and on him as well, and you,’ he added. ‘He is planning something. To flee, I think. And when he goes, only some of his students will go with him. The others will be disposed of.’
‘You want protection,’ Neferata said.
‘Wouldn’t you?’ Morath looked at her. ‘Isn’t that why you came to Mourkain?’
‘No,’ Neferata said.
Morath grunted. ‘No, I suppose not, eh? Well, you’ll soon get what you want, won’t you?’
‘And you’ll get what you want,’ Neferata said. ‘I’ll need an advisor, Morath. A man who knows his people as well as you seem to would be invaluable.’
Morath looked at her. ‘Do not offer what you cannot promise.’
Neferata sniffed. ‘Can I not? When the crown is mine–’
‘You will not be you any longer. Or so W’soran says,’ Morath said darkly. ‘Even Ushoran is not Ushoran. Not any more. He grows less and less like the man I once served, and more like the thing he is – bestial and rapacious and too hungry for this world.’
‘But you could keep me from becoming that way, Morath of Mourkain,’ Neferata said, clutching his arm. ‘Unlike Ushoran, I know how to listen to those who serve me!’
‘Really? Because you ignored the fears of your handmaidens to undertake this journey,’ Morath said. He jerked his arm free of her grip. ‘I must concentrate.’ He stretched out a pale, thin hand and stroked the air. A pall of dust rose, puffing from the edges of the doors. Then, with a groan as deep as the mountain itself, the long-immobile doors began to move. They rumbled inwards, shaking the ground beneath Neferata’s feet.
Flagstones of black marble paved the path inwards, and the path itself was lined with elaborate and grotesque columns which stretched up into the darkness to support the arched ceiling. Morath’s wheezing breath echoed strangely in the space. Neferata strode ahead of him, her eyes adjusting easily to the darkness.
The room itself had seen much activity, despite the sealed doors. There were great gaping holes in the stone walls and immense char marks scored the spots where there were no holes. The black marble on the floor had been seared to slag in places and more than one of the columns had tumbled into pieces. Intuition told her that the rat-men had likely burrowed through Nagash’s throne room after the Great Necromancer’s death, and they had left evidence of their presence, including piles of old droppings and huddled, miserable piles of gnawed bones.
The centre of the room was marked by the presence of more than a dozen ancient corpses, scattered haphazardly in a rough circle. Morath grabbed her arm as she started forwards. ‘Abn-i-khat,’ he whispered, pointing with the skeletal hand. A glowing stain marked the floor.
She kicked a body aside and it crumbled into dust. ‘What was this?’
‘A rite of some kind was conducted here.