THE MASTER OF MOURKAIN
by Josh Reynolds 

Rotting meat hugs perfect bone, sliding through the shadowy hues of decay before it releases its stubborn grip. Like the world, flesh doesn't know when to surrender. Spirits chatter and screech, bound to flesh and bone by chains of black smoke. The Winds of Dhar and Shyish play across the razor angles of the Corpse Geometries, herding Ka like cattle, keeping them safe from outer predations. Safe and useful; more useful than when the stubborn flesh clung to perfect, unblemished bones.
All is silent. All is perfect. All is night, now and forever.
Come to me, Lord of Masks. Come to me, Prince of Lahmia.
Come Ushoran… Come!
Yellow eyes opened. A growl slid through his lips like a wolf on the hunt. Inhuman muscle swelled and then he was moving through the air, claws outstretched. He hurtled through the night, twisted limbs tensing in preparation for the impact of landing. He landed in the shadows of the alleyway and dove, almost swimming through the air, his twisted form moving with the grace of a dancer down towards the unsuspecting man. 
Alerted at the last second by some instinct, the man turned and then fell as shark-like teeth savaged his throat, cutting off first his air, and then his life, in a burst of blood and escaping breath. They were so fragile, he thought, gulping down the warm blood with the greed of a long-denied drunk. So easy to hurt and kill. But it had always been so for him. Even before the coming of the long night.
Blood and death had been his tools, long before he'd accepted the poisoned chalice from… 'Neferata,' he growled, chewing the name like gristle. It was her fault that he had burned, that Lahmia had burned. 'What do you rule now, eh?' he whispered, speaking to the darkness. Sleeping crows shuddered into wakefulness and flight at the rasp of his voice. They spun into the air above the city as he watched. Neferata was queen of nothing now but ghosts and bad memories.
Ushoran inhaled, tasting death on the air. Mourkain stank of it. A charnel odour clung to every brick and wooden beam. It was in the streets and in the water and in the air. The stink had been a gradual thing, growing over the course of centuries like mould spreading over wet stone. The people of Mourkain did not notice, their senses inundated and dulled by it. It had always been, and always would be, for them.
But Ushoran noticed, and revelled in it. For him, it was akin to the smell of ripening fruit. The stronger that charnel smell became, the closer to the time of plucking it was. Anticipation had grown in him over the span of years as he watched the brute settlement spread into something approaching a true city, like those he'd known in better centuries. The seeds of greatness had been sewn, and now was the reaping time. A long cat-like tongue speared through his lips to dab at the blood that coated his mouth and chin. He rose from his crouch and sprang from the side of the cooling body to the wall and then to the opposite roof.
He had been patient for so long, waiting for the right time without knowing when the right time would be. But it had told him. It had shown him. Eating away at frail flesh and cleaning it of weakness. Only in death was there true strength. The living could only carry it so far; now Mourkain was a city of the dead, though it knew it not.
It grew at night like a corpse-blossom, built by dead hands. He had seen the corpses of the newly dead and slaughtered prisoners taken in raids, resurrected by the dark magics to serve the whims of the master of Mourkain.
'Kadon,' he said, tasting the name. Kadon the Eternal, as he styled himself, or Kadon the Mad, as those who ruled in his name called him in illicit whispers. Mad or sane, he was Kadon the Unworthy to Ushoran. That was how he had thought of him all down through the long spiral of years as he waited for the right time to come. Kadon, who held something which was not his, and which could not achieve its full potential in the hands of the living.
Dust falls from the eyes of heroes and kings, and the dead are stirring in their tombs. They will rise and march and thrust the world into a silent, serene shape. The Corpse Geometries will bend and slide into formation for the dead, binding the fires at the poles and snuffing the stars themselves.
'But not for the living,' he whispered. 'That is why you called to me. Why you brought me here.' He looked up, his eyes searching out the square blotch of the giant pyramid, in the shadow of which Mourkain had grown like a nest of toadstools. It was a crude mockery of the great pyramids of Nehekhara, devised by barbaric minds and built by unskilled hands. The crookedly shaped stone that composed it was the source of Mourkain's grave odour. Kadon's first act as king had been to order it built. Why he had done so, and what it covered, Ushoran did not know, and the voice did not show him, but it made him uneasy regardless.
For some reason, he thought of fire. He had burned once, long ago, before he'd first heard the voice; as Lahmia had burned, so had its children. He shifted on his perch, suddenly uncomfortable. The voice had begun to whisper to him in the warrens of Nagashizzar, where he'd hunted rats and ghouls in the years after Nagash's fall, searching for… what? He still didn't know. Something gripped him with black hooks, reeling him along, plaintive and absolute in its voice. At first, he had thought that he was mad. He still wasn't sure.
It had called to him from out of the mountains that marked the edge of the world, and he had come, unable to resist it. It fled before him almost teasingly, like the wanton maidens he remembered so dimly from before Lahmia fell. They had laughed at him, but in the end, he had made them dance for him, with hooks and blades and pain. The maidens dance still, in the silent dust. They could dance again, for you, once you have done the deed, the voice purred.
It promised him things, in his dreams and lately, in his waking moments. It promised him all those things he had so long hungered for, since before the poisoned chalice and the eternal thirst. He had been a prince of Lahmia, but would never have been king. Even after his ascension into death, he had been trapped in the shadows. Left with the scraps and tatters the others had left behind. And in Nagashizzar, he had been treated as vermin. But now…
He threw back his head, smelling the wind. There was death there, as always, but beneath it, a sickly smell, the smell of new rot and festering corruption. It was the smell of age and weakness, of faded power and tottering decline. The savage mathematics of Usirian, god of darkness and decay, claimed all men, even those who professed to control death.
Kadon had been rotting on the bone for a century, and the smell of his decline now permeated his lair. Even his people could smell it, though they knew not what it was. Ushoran had watched them plotting and scheming, much as he himself had done in life. They sensed the weakness of their god-king and circled him like desert jackals. But he was still too strong for them.
Not for Ushoran, though. Not now. Once, almost certainly… the voice had warned him of that. It had warned him that Kadon could control all the dead, even beings like himself. At the height of his powers, Kadon was too strong, even for Ushoran, and would have made of him just another slave. Or worse, he would have unmade him entirely.
Now though, Kadon was failing. The flesh was weak, and the spirit dim. Like an ancient leopard, Kadon was blind and bone-weary, easy prey for a stronger beast. Ushoran had waited for centuries for Kadon to stumble, and now he would pounce. The thought lent him speed. He raced across rooftops of thatch and slate, inhaling the stink of a living city. He had prowled the edges of Mourkain for years now, probing its secret places and hiding from Kadon.
He was good at hiding. But the time for that game was done.
The voice rustled in his skull, night-black wings of comfort and confidence enfolding him. He had never been brave. Not in the way of warriors or kings. Ruthless, yes - hard and cold and with a grasp of necessity, but he had never been brave. Not until now. Now he would seize what he wanted. The voice had promised him a crown and a throne.
He sprang to the slope of the pyramid, his claws digging into the rock. With a grunt, he started climbing. Kadon had built his palace on top of the pyramid, like a ghoul squatting protectively over a bone-pit. From there, he had ruled over Mourkain from its birth through the pangs of growth that followed. And then it was to there that he had retreated, leaving his domnu - his lieutenants - to rule in his name. Men who wielded the carrion winds often grew apart from the world of the living. It lost its lustre and its hold on them grew frail. He had seen the same happen to W'Soran, both in Lahmia and then later in Nagashizzar.
Ushoran shook the memories off. W'Soran was not here. Neferata was not here. Ushoran was here. Ushoran was who it had called. He snarled and leapt to the ledge of a narrow aperture, one of hundreds that lined the pyramid face at this level. They were not quite windows, but they would serve. He slid inside and dropped silently to the rough stone floor. The air was musty, as one would expect from the inside of a tomb, and it was as dark as the depths of the mountains.
Only the domnu were allowed into the palace these days; Kadon had no living guards inside his lair, no courtiers or women. The corridors were crafted from slabs of stone. In its early years, Mourkain traded with the dawi of the mountains, and those folk had lent their talents to the building of this place. The stunted folk were masters of stone and iron, and it was on the back of their craft that Mourkain had flourished as it had. Now, however, no dawi dared to set foot here. They knew the stink of death-magic when they smelled it, and had left Mourkain to its devices as Kadon's madness became palpable. Trade had dried up, and now the wise men of Mourkain struggled to keep the intricate mechanisms and devices that kept their city alive functioning.
Ushoran clucked his tongue as he drifted through the corridors like a shadow. He would see to it that the trade routes were re-opened. The dawi had fortresses all over these mountains, and they would make staunch allies for his kingdom. He let his claws scrape softly against the stone of the walls. They fairly thrummed with power. Nagashizzar had felt much the same. Death coiled, waiting in the stones. Death and something else. The faint odour of smoke filled his nostrils and he pulled his fingers back and tried to banish the sudden surge of fear that tickled at the base of his mind.
He was getting close, he knew. The smell of the carrion winds was growing stronger. Like the pyramids of home, the corridors of this place moved across from east to west, and then up south to north in a zigzag pattern. It was like following a well-worn path. He sped on, running now, first on two legs and then on all fours.
Hurry Ushoran! The stars spin faster and faster as dust is stirred by hollow winds. The dead howl in their cages of breathing meat! Hurry, the voice hissed in his ears. The corridors gave way to a room, and Ushoran slid to a halt.
The throne room crouched in the web of corridors that surrounded it, nestled like a cancer in the heart of the pyramid. Smoking, glowing braziers were scattered throughout the room, their light revealing the tapestries of dried flesh and woven hair that adorned the walls, and skulls lined the upper reaches, where the curving walls came together in a converse ceiling. The eye sockets of these skulls glowed faintly, and their jaws began to chatter as Ushoran entered.
The throne was made from the ribcage of some great beast and spread across the rear wall. Its skull cast a deep shadow over the thin, withered occupant. That occupant leaned forward, wrinkled features twisting in a crooked smile. 'I smelled you, leech-man,' Kadon croaked. 'I smelled your sour grave stink the first moment you entered my kingdom.'
'Am I to be impressed?' Ushoran said, with a bravado that he did not feel. If Kadon had truly known of him, why had he never sought him out?
As if reading his thoughts, Kadon chuckled and stood. 'It wanted me to seek you out. But I did not want to find you,' he said. Old and bent but still strong looking, Kadon wore heavy fur robes that weighed more than he did, and leaned against an iron staff. At its tip, something squirmed. With a start, Ushoran realised that it was a hand. His eyes were drawn from the writhing fingers to Kadon's brow, where something beautiful rested.
It was all strange angles and sharp edges and it seemed to twist and swell like a thing alive. Ushoran recognised it immediately as the source of the voice which had drawn him down through these long years. He had seen it before, adorning the skull of Nagash, and that thought sent a shiver through him. Desire or fear, he could not tell. Its voice was no longer a whisper, but a thunderous roar, and his bones shook to hear it.
The crown and the throne beckoned to him. With one, he would be a king. With both, perhaps he would be a god. The god Kadon could have been, had he not been weak and frail and flesh. Only past the point of death could a man be both. Ushoran flexed his talons and snarled in excitement.
'I smelled your hunger.' Kadon chuckled breathily, watching him posture. 'It whispers to me, telling me men's desires.' Withered fingers stroked the crown on his head. 'It whispers to you as well, doesn't it?'
Ushoran said nothing, his eyes on the crown. Images battered at the gates of his mind. He recognised the great cities of Nehekhara, now long gone, cold and dead. Nagashizzar rose over the bitter waters of the Sour Sea, its peaks spewing smoke. Chariots hurtled across the wastes, drawn by skeletal steeds. Nehekhara was just the beginning. Mourkain was next, and then the realms of the north and the west, and the entire world.
He would rule a silent, perfect world from the throne of Mourkain. He would be the god-king of an empire to surpass Settra's. Crown and throne, Ushoran, the voice growled. Crown and—
Kadon touched the crown again, and the voice stilled abruptly. Ushoran shook the visions off and stalked towards Kadon, his claws flexing. 'It wants you, you know. It has ridden me to my grave. The flesh is weak,' Kadon croaked, making a fist. 'It wants you, but I pretended not to see, pretended not to know. It promised me everything, but it wishes to give all that I have won to you? No!'
Ushoran lunged, jaws wide, claws spread. Kadon thrust his staff out, and the mummified claw at its tip writhed as dark energies burst from it. Ushoran howled as his body was wracked with pain. His leap faltered and he slammed to the floor, his skin blistered and smoking. 'I let you come here now because I could no longer prevent it. But I can still kill you, leech-man.'
Rise, Ushoran, RISE… take us! Take the crown and the throne and the WORLD…
He roared, rising to his feet and crashing into Kadon. The stick-thin frame of the necromancer barely budged as the vampire hit him and he clawed for Ushoran's throat. Kadon's strength was astonishing and Ushoran found that he was glad that he didn't need to breathe.
'All is night,' Kadon snarled. 'The bones dance and build and all is quiet.' Ushoran hissed and ripped the necromancer off of him and smashed him against the floor. Kadon's eyes blazed hatefully as he squirmed snake-like in Ushoran's grip, his staff rattling away. 'It wants you,' he said. 'It would make a graveyard of the world and ride you through the gates, if I let it… but I won't. The world is mine, not yours. It promised me!'
Bone rubbed against metal. Ushoran released Kadon and spun. Eyes like green embers glowed, meeting Ushoran's own yellow ones. Two armoured shapes stepped out of specially prepared niches set in the wall to either side of the throne. They wore ancient armour composed of rotting leather and bronze plates and carried crude, square-bladed swords. Fleshless grins greeted his snarl. The guardians glided forward, their weapons at the ready.
Ushoran's flesh flowed like water as he moved to meet them. His centuries in the wild had taught him much; the flesh of his kind was as changeable as the morning mist. He revelled in the sweet agony of the change as his body broke down into a clammy fog and rolled towards the wights. As he swept past them, he resumed solidity and brought his fists together on either side of the skull of one. Ancient metal and bone crumpled and he snatched the sword from its hands.
He brought the sword up only just in time as the blade of the other came within a hair's breadth of splitting his head wide open. He growled and slid back warily. He was no swordsman. The only weapons he had ever used were his hands. The guardian moved smoothly towards him.
The only salvation is in oblivion. Only in death can they find freedom, the voice whispered to him.
'I grant you freedom,' Ushoran hissed, narrowly avoiding a vicious cut and plunging his sword through the dead thing's chest. He lifted it off its feet and impaled it on the throne, his brutal strength driving the length of the sword into the bone. Ripping off its sword arm, he turned and left it writhing there.
Kadon had gotten to his feet, seemingly none the worse for wear. 'I know you, leech-man. It knows you of old, so I know you,' he said. The crown pulsed angrily on his brow and the necromancer grimaced. 'It dreams of you, and tells me to give in. But I won't give it up. I took it from the hands of the dead and I'll not give it back!'
Ushoran threw himself at the necromancer with a growl. Kadon spat razor-sharp syllables and Ushoran's flesh writhed on his bones. He felt as if he were boiling from the inside out. Kadon circled him, still talking. 'It told me to put it on. It told me to bury him deep. To bind him in stone and mud, to put the weight of the mountain on his bones and spirit. Never to raise him! Not him!' Kadon grasped the crown and staggered. 'I did as you said,' he moaned. 'I did it for you and this is how you repay me? Perhaps I should put you back where I found you?' he mumbled.
'Stop talking,' Ushoran growled, lunging. Kadon's fingers cut through the air and tendrils of darkness flashed out, snagging his limbs. His form dissolved once more into fog and what plunged out of it towards the necromancer was a silver-furred wolf. Kadon gestured desperately as the wolf closed in, jaws agape, and the beast was flung back with an agonised yelp as black lightning crashed through it.
'Assume any shape you like, you'll never have what is mine,' Kadon said, snatching up his staff as Ushoran rolled onto all fours. The crown flared with a cold light. Kadon shrieked, as if it were burning him. Ushoran bounded forward and his jaws snapped shut on the side of Kadon's throat. The necromancer squealed and his staff caught the side of Ushoran's skull.
Ushoran fell flat, his thoughts rattling around his head like broken chips of stone. He sat up, sour blood and leathery meat dangling from his jaws. Kadon stumbled towards his throne, his hands clamped to his throat. Ushoran spat out the foul-tasting meat and got to his feet. His jaws tingled. There was a foul power in the sorcerer's blood, and it burned his throat like poison.
He wanted more of it.
He loped towards the wounded man, panting eagerly. The crown pulsed eagerly. Its voice purred encouragingly. Yessss, it said. Kill him. His usefulness has ended. Take me up… put me on and take the throne! King and god, Ushoran!
'No,' Kadon gurgled, his eyes rolling wildly in their sockets. The necromancer's will beat against Ushoran's for a moment, staggering him. Century upon century of power lashed him, holding him in place. The crown shrilled angrily in Ushoran's head as Kadon denied its will.
The necromancer dragged himself towards the wall behind his throne, towards one of the niches where his guardians had lurked. He laid a bloody hand on the stones and a hidden door slid open, revealing a set of winding steps. Kadon staggered into the aperture, leaving a trail of red in his wake. As he disappeared, Ushoran found that he was free to move again.
He quickly followed Kadon. 'Where are you going, necromancer?' he called out. The stones of the corridor beyond the hidden entrance seemed to vibrate in tune to his voice. The crown urged him on, its voice strangely faint. 'There is nowhere to run. I have hunted you across centuries,' Ushoran said, hesitating. Was that smoke he smelled?
Something that might have been fear rippled through him as the strange smell crept from the aperture and coiled around him. His lips peeled back from his fangs and he felt the desire to flee rise in him. Was it smoke? Was that the stink of pitch? He shook the thoughts off. What was down there? Where was Kadon going? There was nothing down there except… Ushoran snarled in sudden realization. There was nothing down there except whatever Kadon had buried down there all those centuries ago. He bounded after the necromancer, ignoring the strange fear which pressed down on him from all sides. He took the stairs three at a time. Ushoran could feel the weight of the pyramid on him here, and his senses prickled warily. 'Where are you going, Kadon?' he said again, though quieter this time. He stopped, listening. The rocks seemed to grind against themselves here, as if something moved beneath them. And perhaps it did, a small part of him said.
Crude pictograms had been scratched into the walls by those ancient builders. Like the hieroglyphs of home, these told the story of the tomb. He traced them with his claws, curious. 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 of Mourkain, though reduced to ruin by unknown enemies. Ushoran's claws tightened on the pictures, defacing them.
'No,' he hissed, looking away. It was one of Nagash's servants… that was who it had been, who it had to have been. But why did he smell smoke and pitch? The stairs wound through the guts of the pyramid like a scar, weaving down and to the bottom, to the deep black barrow that marked where Kadon had found the crown. Disjointed images of that time filled Ushoran's head, and the crown urged him on with desperate wordless pleas. Something was happening, he knew. Something was building in the rocks, like water released from a dam. In his head, the muted whispers of the crown had turned to shrieks. Ushoran felt panic grip him. He yearned for the clear night and the taste of blood. Instead, he continued on, his eyes straying to the pictograms again, and the symbol of the barrow's occupant. He knew that symbol. He had seen it often enough, before Lahmia had fallen.
'No!' he hissed again, shaking his head. It was one of the barbarians who had served Nagash, an opportunistic thief; that was who was interred here. A dark joke played on Kadon by the crown. Ushoran chuckled, but the sound faded as it left his lips.
The smell of blood grew stronger and he hurried on, pushing worry and curiosity out of his mind. Crown and throne, those were his only concerns.
Kadon was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, in a tight corridor which had been blocked off at the opposite end with a stone slab. The necromancer slumped against the rock, scrawling bloody signs on it and whispering raggedly to himself. 'Great king,' he wheezed. 'Prince of Lahmia, come forth…' On his nodding head, the crown sparked and screamed, a strange light flashing across its surface. It wanted no part of this, Ushoran knew.
What was Kadon doing? Was he trying to summon one last defender to his aid? He leapt down the final few stairs and loped towards Kadon. The necromancer suddenly jerked and frothed as blood burst from his ruined neck and splattered the stone. The crown fell from his head with a clang and lay on the ground, flickering weakly. Kadon was splayed out on the ground, his eyes rolled to the white and his jaw slack. Ushoran stumbled forward, reaching for the crown, his crown. After so long, at last, he would have a crown. No more hiding in the shadows. No more standing behind the throne. No, now he would sit upon it. 'Mine,' he whispered, stretching out his hand.
Crown and throne, Ushoran, it purred. God and king, Ushoran. All yours…
No, something said in a voice like distant thunder. Ushoran's head jerked up. The corridor, indeed the entirety of the pyramid, seemed to echo with that one word. The symbols on the walls seemed to dance and spin. He jerked his hand back and looked to the slab where Kadon had left his bloody marks. The blood had soaked into the stone. He stretched out a hand. The rock was warm. No, more than that… it was scalding! Ushoran jerked his hand back with a hiss.
'What?' he muttered. The crown cried out in his head, urging him to pick it up.
Fire blossomed from the slab and caught him in a searing embrace. He screamed shrilly as a familiar bitter reek filled his nostrils. It was the stink of pitch and burning pork. He caromed off the walls of the corridor, wailing and hammering blindly at the rock.
He heard the rumbling tread of feet and the sizzling of the flames that coated him from head to toe. Shrieking, he tried to flee, but wherever he turned there was fire… nothing but fire and his flesh burned, even as it had on that night so long ago on the fields before Lahmia.
Something as cold as the deepest river beneath the mountains brushed over him, freezing him even as he burned and he fell to his knees. A shape took form out of the flames… A man, huge, larger than the corridor could contain. This was what the magics of Kadon had served to bind here, deep beneath his crude pyramid. The spirit on whose back Mourkain had been built, whose essence tainted every crevice of Kadon's pyramid; the true master of Mourkain, its god and king and soul.
The crown screamed.
The last king of Khemri looked into Ushoran's eyes and the hatred the vampire saw burned him truer than any flame. Ushoran scrambled back, his flesh blackening and curling off as it looked down at him and judged him wanting. Words crashed against his mind, and he squirmed beneath their weight. He felt the burning poison of the stars in his veins and the terrible pressure of the crown. He felt the strength of a mind that had never surrendered to greed or fear. A name burst from his lips and it resonated through the boiling air like a thunderclap.
Hands made of smoke crashed down around him, threatening to crush him like a serpent. He crawled away, trying to escape. The crown's call faded as fear filled him, too full for anything else. A ghostly hand seized the crown and held it aloft. It seemed to squirm in that grip, as if in pain.
Take the throne, Ushoran, something whispered, its words echoing in the hollows of his soul, while the true master of Mourkain keeps his crown.
Burning, Ushoran fled for the second time in his life. He did not look back, not until he had escaped the confines of the secret corridor. Sobbing and snarling, he shoved the stone door back in place. Only then did the hateful fear and the burning agony abate. He turned and gazed blankly at the throne room. 'Scraps and tatters,' Ushoran said, staring at his claws, and then at the throne. It was his throne now for all that it was worth.
But the crown—
Ushoran howled.
And Mourkain's master returned to his slumber, crown in hand.