Amazonia - Inanna's Ghost

Grabbing the sheathed Rune sword nestled behind me, I get to my feet and follow the others toward the door. As I pass through the chiming bead curtain, Dancer and Troll are standing there with Dancer looking worried. "Domina, we heard everything. Do you want your armor?"

I shake my head. "There's no time."

Lys, riding on Karl's shoulder, adds, "If Inanna is just the raised dead, I should be able to gain control." She looks at me. "With a bit of help from your Domina."

"I hope it works," Timur says as we head out the door into the afternoon's cold air, "because if she cannot be controlled, she has to be destroyed."

Dancer and Troll grab their weapons and follow us as Ishi gives the prince a dark look. "Inanna is my sister."

"Your dead sister," Timur growls as we stride between the buildings on either side toward the main street. "Your dead sister who possessed Cermet and killed one of my guards."

"She would never do that. It was that necromancer's doing."

"Cermet is under my hand," Lys says, "and would never pick up a spear, let alone kill a guard, without my orders."

"But-"

"We'll find out once we get there," Karl says, "and act accordingly." Ishi looks like she wants to keep arguing, but shuts her mouth as we reach the main street and turn left toward the Temple District.

Bukhara's still subdued, but life's slowly returning to normal, with people walking together in small groups, either heading towards somewhere specific or visiting the scattered shops that have reopened. The groups pretend not to notice us, but hurry past as we reach the plaza beside the main gate and turn right toward the district's walls.

The stone statue of Yun-Kax that stood over the Temple District gate must've been smashed by hammers and the pieces carried off, for all that remains is the base. We stride through the open gate, the soldiers in brass armor bowing to Prince Timur as we pass them by and continue forward.

As we approach the black pyramid that once was the temple of Ghash-Kimil, a half-dozen women in black robes are huddled together in the warmth of the late afternoon sun, keeping well away from the robed figure with a cowl over her face, waiting in the shadows of the open entrance.

As the group gets close to Cermet, the fear she gives off causes all of us to slow our steps and stop, except for Lys, who jumps down off of Karl and hurries over to her side. "Cermet, what happened?" The Revenant necromancer drops to her knees before Lys and the two of them begin speaking in hushed voices. After a short time, Lys pats the dead woman's shoulder and turns towards us. "Ishi, someone other than Inanna turned your sister into a spirit powerful enough to possess Cermet, and forced her into using her skills to reanimate Inanna's body."

Ishi gasps. "You are telling me Inanna has become a Shade?"

"Evidently so. Cermet shared Inanna's mind during her possession, and the Shade has an overwhelming compulsion to make Bukhara a city of the dead, with all the corpses in the charnel pits raised, and all the living changed into Revenants." Lys sets her fists on her narrow hips. "In addition, I am to become a full blown Lich myself, serving her by keeping everything going."

"Over my dead body," Timur growls. Rage gives his face an evil look. "Lys, how difficult will Inanna be to destroy?"

Bells of Hades, this isn't what I signed up for. "My prince, if she's anything like the dead I commanded the other night, she might have no choice but do as I command."

Timur grimaces. "As a Shadow Knight."

I nod as Lys adds, "I will add my voice to yours, and between us, we should be able to put her under our hands-"

"Wait," Ishi says, her expression torn between anger and fear. "Let me speak with her first, reason with her, and see if I can talk her out of this." Lys glares at her, and Ishi adds, "Please, I have to try."

"Speak with her then," Timur says, catching Lys' eye, "but if this fails, we will take matters into our own hands."

Witchlight lanterns have been placed at regular intervals along the main corridor leading inside, until it reaches the dead, grey tree in the central chamber, with incense burners beside each one. But the scent of Frankincense cannot entirely mask the stench of old death. Ishi wrinkles her nose before turning towards the other three priestesses. "Sybil, even if my sister is being reasonable, you remember her old prejudice against your race."

"Considering what the Daemo Princes did to her during the war," Sybil says, "I understand her hatred and will remain here with Cermet. However, on the chance she is not the sister you remember, it might be prudent to leave Xaman here as well."

Xaman seems relieved as Akbal says, "I will come with you. If I am to serve Inanna, I must risk it."

Ishi nods. "Agreed. My prince-"

"I will come along as well," Timur says in a voice allowing no disagreement.

I raise my hand to stop Ishi from speaking as I put my head close to his and murmur, "My prince, no one would dare fault your courage. Yet you're the key to destroying the Sasnayam empire. I trust in my skills, but if your Shadow Knight's not strong enough to stop Inanna..."

I leave my words hanging and he grimaces. "I see your point. I will still go with you, but remain out of the fray. Agreed?"

I incline my head as Ishi nods once and heads down the corridor with Akbal beside her. "Dancer, Troll," I say to them, "you are to remain out of the fray as well and guard the prince. Understood?" Neither looks happy, but both nod, Karl falling in beside me as Lys leaps back onto his shoulder. We start down the corridor after the other two.

We pass by passageways leading off the main corridor, and shadowed stairways going either up or down, the incense losing the battle against decay as we reach the main chamber where the grey tree stands, and go inside. Standing in front of the tree is a dark haired woman, tall as Asena and just as powerfully built, her flesh desiccated like a corpse left in the desert sun. She's wearing a clean linen shift someone must've dressed her body in and holding a spear like a queen's scepter.

At her feet lies a dead soldier in leather armor. A pool of blood around him has begun congealing, the buzzing of flies a faint hum as Ishi stands at its edge, waving her arms as she speaks to Inanna's raised corpse in an unknown language. Akbal stands like a silent shadow beside her. Inanna's glowering at her sister as she listens in silence, and I'm getting the feeling this isn't going to work. "Dancer, take the Rune sword a moment."

Dancer grasps it by the sheathe and I strip off my tunic. "Az," Timur says as his eyes widen, "what are you doing?"

I adjust the leather breast binders protecting what remains to me as Dancer holds the sword in my direction, hilt first. "The tunic will only bind my arms if this turns into a fight."

"We've seen her fight in less," Troll says with a leer. I give him a dark look and he grins. "Yes, Domina, I'll shut up now."

Shaking my head, I pull the Rune sword from its sheathe. "The other reason is this: I want all of you to see what the transformation into a Shadow Knight does to me, especially you, my prince."

"I owe you that and much more," Timur replies, "with the inn only a part-"

Akbal cries out, and I whip around as she falls to the stone floor. Inanna's holding the spear like a club, and is now pulling it back as Ishi drops down beside the fallen priestess. "Why did you do that?" Ishi says in Greco-Roma. "Akbal only wants to serve you."

"I struck her a light blow," Inanna says in a rough voice, as if her throat is damaged. "If she wishes to serve me, teach her necromancy, then have the Fae make her a Revenant so she can help you carry out the commands I have given you." Inanna holds the spear over her head. "Carry them out or I shall strike you next."

Troll chuckles. "So much for being reasonable."

Indeed. "Antonius," I say to the Rune sword, "it's time."

A feeling of almost unholy glee washes over me as the black runes on the blade begin to glow. Then the pain hits and I double over, a scream ripped from my lungs as my flesh contracts and transforms while my skin goes grey. I can't stop screaming, it hurts... please make it stop, make it stop... I'm dying...

No, I'm alive again! Wild, high pitched, shrieking laughter echoes through the chamber as I straighten, Inanna stepping over the corpse with the spear held out point first. "Shadow Knight," she growls as I stride 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 stands barefoot in the pool of blood, she throws it at my chest.

The Rune sword blade licks out and knocks the spear away. It hits the floor with a rattling clatter and slides across the floor as I say, "Inanna, the Daemo princes are dead and so are you. Accept that you do not command here and never will."

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

Horns at each temple curl several times as they rise up into the air, which I'd expected. But the whitish miasma inside and surrounding her body is nothing I've ever seen before. "You are not what you were in life, and if I decided to hack off your head, the Shadow mana in your flesh and bone will leak from you like liquid from a pierced wineskin.

“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's against my nature, but I take one hand off the hilt and hold it out in a welcoming gesture. "Join us."

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

Then slips on the blood and goes down, one large hand catching her fall as both knees bang against the stone floor. I grasp the Rune sword hilt with both hands as she moves to rise.

I flick the blade tip to the spot between her eyes and she stops. "Move once more and I'll blind you, then cripple your body so bad you'll never fight or walk again."

"I no longer need eyes to see," she replies as she glares up at me. "Why is everyone resisting my right to become queen?"

"To start," Lys says as she leaps onto my shoulder and settles 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 says, "but there it is."

Lys rolls her eyes as Inanna snarls, "I do not care what you weaklings want-"

"Then I will make you care." Ishi wears a human face like a mask, with three different faces underneath, and as she stands up, the crone face pushes itself almost, but not quite, against the mask. "Submit to Lys or I will speak the lesser words of unbinding."

"You would not dare!"

In reply, the human mask falls away, leaving the crone's face in its place. Withered lips whisper several words, and the human face returns as the crone fades back with the other two, while the whitish miasma streams out of Inanna's body like smoke. I move the blade out of the way as Inanna's corpse pitches face forward onto the stone floor in front of me.

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

Ishi sighs. "I was truly 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 asks.

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

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

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

"Her," Ishi says. "Inanna, did Tanit do this to you?"

The Shade visibly cringes. "Speak not that name. Sister, I implore you-"

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

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

"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 change twisted his view of life and the world, so he may have well encouraged her to do so, but 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 says, "wouldn't it be noticeable?"

"Not if she is masquerading as a living priestess of Ghash-Kimil," Akbal says, still kneeling on the floor. At her forehead, she wears 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 begins pacing back and forth beside the pool of blood. "Tanit must have planned this over the course of decades. Muzen had boasted about throwing her dying body into the catacombs, as we called the charnel pits before Ghash-Kimil raised a pyramid over them, and when Muzen kept his promise, Tanit was waiting to set her plan in motion."

"And then what?" Lys asks. "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 says. "My lady, there was a woman who came out of the east not long after Bukhara became a satrapy, joined Ghash-Kimil’s temple, and is now their chief priestess in Tesiphon. Rumors came to my ears that she whispered the plot to Ghash-Kimil, letting them take all the credit."

"And then set up the double-cross," Ishi says, stopping next to Akbal. "Ghash-Kimil would have been forced to rush back to Tesiphon once the purge of their temple began, leaving her to clean up the mess in Bukhara as it was her idea in the first place. Tanit would have then found or brought with her a man totally loyal to her, changed him into a Shadowman, and then begun turning all the soldiers into Shadowmen under him."

"Beginning with the Sasnayam governor," Karl says. "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 says. "By the time the Sasnayam empire knew what was going on, it would have been too late."

"Except Prince Timur overturned the table," Lys says, glancing at me, "and the Reaver Knight was not what she expected. Az, shall we see if we can enlist Inanna to the cause?"

In response, I crouch down with Lys still riding on my shoulder. "Inanna," I say in the tongue of the dead, "will you follow my orders and let Lys have control of you?"

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

Lys and I trade a smile, then she jumps down and places her tiny hand on Inanna's broad forehead. After a moment, she lets 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 replies, bowing her head, "and can keep her functioning."

"Since we are speaking of serving," I say, turning towards Timur, "my prince, I remember how Etruscan funeral games were set up, having fought gladiatorial combats during several. If you want, 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 laughs. "What a slap in the face to the Sasnayams that will be, their sacred pyramids used as spectator stands." He nods. "Do so, but return to your normal self afterward."

I bow to him as Lys says, "We can begin measuring the amount of Shadow mana needed to keep them all working. I will set this up with Cermet at once."

"I can also assist you," Akbal adds.

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

"I know," Ishi says 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 starts waving its arms frantically as the crone face replaces the human mask. "Sweet sister, I beg you, do not do this. Let me return-" Withered lips speak a word and the ghost begins fraying like smoke in a strong wind. "No, please! I..." Inanna's voice changes as the ghostly form shreds. "Free at last! Ishtar, beware... Tanit..."

Inanna's ghost dissolves as her voice fades and is gone.