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On the Cover: Geb in his prime
This is the main page for the novel; which, begins after the author's preface. Each new chapter will be posted after the previous one on this page. A link to the most recent chapter will be provided: here and in the main link menu. For those readers who are unfamiliar with the Inner Sea setting a glossary is provided.
Author's Preface
Readers will find that this work diverges from the orthodox, that is, what has been published by Paizo. I have taken as my starting point the information contained in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The Inner Sea World Guide, yet, even as far as that goes, if the story needed to diverge, it did so. Having said that, it is my hope that the story that follows is both acceptable and enjoyable to the majority of people who tell their own stories in the Inner Sea.
This work was done independently of Paizo and its editorial staff. They are not to blame for anything contained herein. Indeed, they most likely have no knowledge of this book's existence. And while the intellectual property associated with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is theirs, all faults are my own.
I went back and forth on whether to write this book. First, the information in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The Inner Sea World Guide is not my intellectual property. I could be sued for using it if I attempted to claim it as my own and profit from it. My solution is to fully acknowledge that while I created many of the characters and wrote the novel, the world the characters act in is not mine. Nor do I wish to profit financially from this work. I'm giving it away. If you paid for it, someone has cheated you.
That begs the question, it takes months, sometimes years, to write, rewrite, edit, polish, and publish a work of novel length. Is it wise to utilize my time working on something from which I could not earn any profit when I could be working on something salable? Here I must admit to being a slave to the story. This story wanted to be told. Besides, I saw in the story a challenge. I saw an opportunity to push myself as a writer and advance my understanding of craft. That alone is worth the effort and is its own reward. My hope is that at least one person finds, reads, and enjoys this story. If so, I shall be doubly rewarded.
This story presumes that the reader has some familiarity with the Inner Sea setting. If not, I have provided a glossary.
I would rather be a slave to the poorest peasant than reign over the dead.
Homer: Odyssey, XI, c. 800 B.C.
A Pressed Flower, Grain Exports, Aired Thoughts, and a Warning
The Cinerarium, Mechitar, Geb, Pharast, 4711
A cinerarium is a container in which to keep the ashes of a cremated body. It was Geb's morbid sense of humor that inspired him to name his palace so ignobly. It is an apt name, however, for the immense pyramid, made not from sandstone blocks like those in Osirion--the country that long ago birthed and exiled the immortal Geb--but from feldspar, a stone comprised of granite, gneiss, basalt, and other crystalline rocks, was to be his home for eternity, as a true cinerarium holds one's mortal remains until time shall empty it.
Those massive blocks, quarried from the Shattered Range Mountains, were a plagioclase feldspar and thus were tinted red. The dawn sun made the massive pyramid--it dominated Mechitar's skyline, dwarfing the other pyramids, dwarfing even the Cathedral of Epiphenomena, Urgathoa's temple--pink. The noonday sun made it glow reddish-orange. The evening sun turned it the color of dried blood. The moon drained it of all color, turning it as pale as lifeless flesh.
Geb no longer occupied the pyramidal palace. He cared not for any of his palaces, libraries, summoning chambers, or macabre workshops; where, when he did care, he assembled rotting remains into semblances of life that more properly insulted it. Geb gave all such concerns over to his Harlot Queen, Arazni. She ruled the nation of Geb--he would, of course, name it after himself--in conjunction with Geb's hand-picked Chancellor and one time confidant, Kemnebi, and the Blood Lords, a collection of sixty elites, many undead, but not all.
The Blood Lords met in what Geb nicknamed "the mortuary" but what was really the grand hall of the Cinerarium. Off one side of this grand hall was Arazni's personal chambers, the other, Kemnebi's offices. Kemnebi had a home of his own, a pyramid a fraction of the size of the Cinerarium--one does not upstage Geb--yet he visited it so infrequently he often forgot about it. No Blood Lords lived in or worked out of the Cinerarium, only Arazni and Kemnebi. It was a cold, silent, lifeless palace; a massive, empty tomb.
On this night the dead met. A meeting of the Blood Lords was just concluded. The business of the dead, old and new, considered. The reign of the dead continued unabated. These meetings were usually presided over by Kemnebi, Arazni seated in a throne just behind him, a statue of Geb peering over her shoulder. Not this one, nor the two previous. Arazni was annoyed at the Chancellor's repeated absence, which forced her into bureaucratic duties she despised. The Blood Lords did not comment. They were not given to gossip. When the meeting was concluded they left--all but one.
. . .
Kemnebi had the keen senses of a predator. He was a predator. Geb bestowed upon him the blessing of vampirism. It was due to these vampiric senses that he heard the hinges of the iron door squeak, pause, then squeak again. He felt the air pressure in the room drop. He felt the warmth of life come into his space. Above all these sensations was the beating of a mortal heart, the rush-and-pause of blood in mortal veins, the iron-taste of blood on his tongue.
He knew a great deal from these clues. There were few beings, living or dead, but especially living, who had the courage or brazenness to enter his offices unannounced and uninvited. He knew, therefore, it must be one of the Blood Lords. There were only nine mortal Blood Lords. This narrowed the possibilities. As he ran through the list of potential visitors he heard the clack-clack of heels. A floral fragrance came to his nostrils. Still more clues.
He thought first of Narcisse, the former Duke Between the Rivers. He sometimes wore boots with heels, sometimes wore perfume, even cosmetics, but the lightness of the clack-clack ruled out the morbidly obese cleric of Urgathoa. There was a tiefling, that is, a human with demonic blood somewhere in her lineage, also a worshipper of Urgathoa, who--while mortal--shared a supernatural tie with a phantom, but he could not recall the tiefling's name, even though she was a Blood Lord. She would never assume enough familiarity with him to enter his offices without his personal invitation.
He thought next of She-mah-hon, an ostirius kyton, emissary from the Abbey of Nerves, sent to Geb by Aroggus to welcome those few undead who can still feel and those remaining mortals in Geb to the glory of the Abbey's lightless halls and endless tortures. She was an unsettling presence, like all kytons, a race given to disturbing body modifications, and was crazy enough to desire an impromptu meeting, but Kemnebi ruled her out. She was mortal, or so he surmised, but her blood held an otherworldly and disagreeable odor. He would have tasted it in an instant.
There was Baya-Iza, a noble from Zirnakaynin, the greatest of the drows' subterranean cities, come to Geb to study in the Ebon Mausoleum and continue the ingrained habit of merciless social climbing, of which, she proved a great success. Or perhaps Kimberly Silent Eyes, a Vishkanyas assassin clever enough to realize that if she killed her employer and took their place few would object. Both were recent additions to the ruling elite of Geb, but neither seemed likely. They were minor powers in the hierarchy of Geb, like the nameless tiefling, and could be ruled out. As the clack-clack neared he decided from the few remaining candidates.
"Saskia."
"Chancellor," said Saskia Kalff, stepping into the circle of light created by the candles on the shelf above Kemnebi's desk. "I hope I'm not disturbing you."
Kemnebi set down the pressed flower he had been contemplating and turned his head to look at his unexpected visitor. A moment of silent observation passed between the two.
Saskia was no more a friend to Kemnebi than was She-mah-hon or any of the others. This was the first time she had been in his office alone, or really, with the Chancellor alone in any setting. She knew him, of course, being a Blood Lord, but he was as unapproachable as any truly powerful leader is. By all rights she was as entitled to his time and attention as any other Blood Lord, but to act upon that right was dangerous.
Saskia found it odd that Kemnebi was contemplating a pressed flower. It brought so many questions to her mind she nearly forgot her purpose in coming. Of all the things she expected the undead Chancellor of Geb to be doing, pressing flowers was not amongst the likely activities. She looked down at him but made a conscious effort not to possess the demeanor of one looking down on another.
He had once been human, of the Mwangi people. Specifically he was of the Mauxi people, who denied kinship with the other tribes of the great Mwangi Expanse; a dense jungle cradled by mountains. The Mauxi people still speak the Osirioni tongue and unlike the brown-skinned Mwangi their skin often showed a tint of gray. Also unlike the kink-haired Mwangi, their hair was straight. The one trait they willingly shared with the Mwangi was patience.
Kemnebi was tall and athletic without appearing overly muscular. The nobility of his features fit him well as chancellor but would be equally noticed were he a common beggar. His nobility did not come from his station but from his being. His dark eyes were made still more enchanting by the gift of vampirism. He was handsome in a way that promised delightful ruination of any seduced by him.
That he was a practitioner of the arcane arts was well known. To be a one-time confidant of Geb was to share a love of necromancy with the immortal wizard-king. To rise and stay above the Blood Lords required a true mastery of the arcane, for the Blood Lords culled the weak from their own herd. Kemnebi had learned his necromancy from Geb himself, who, in turn had learned it from Hent-er-Neheh, one of his now mummified ancestors who taught him many a millennia prior, when both were still mortal.
That Kemnebi prickled with power was obvious to any who came near. To be chancellor of Geb required a keen knowledge of protective magics. What struck Saskia the most was not Kemnebi's power but his powers of observation. His gaze was attentive which made it unnerving, unnerving because he saw what was before him, not merely the reflection of his own desire. Kemnebi, seated, looked up at Saskia.
She was one of those rare practitioners of necromancy who did not lean upon that dark school of magic in order to surpass life, but to prolong it. Nor was necromancy her obsession, as it was for so many of her peers. She knew just as much about transmutation and alteration as she did about the school of death. In mortal years she was approaching seventy. In appearance she was approaching thirty, and had been on the cusp a long time.
She was a native of Qadira via Taldor. Her face was squarish with high cheekbones, framed by a mass of luxurious black hair. Her eyes were large and alluring, her eyelashes long and dark, lips full and red. A beauty mark lie just below the center of her right cheek. All that was seen of her creamy white flesh was her face, neck, and upper chest, as she wore a dark blue dress, a black corset, black satin gloves, and black leather boots. About her neck was a simple gold chain and an amulet with a blue stone. Tucked somewhere in her clothing was a song bird, now quietly nesting in its mistress's pocket. This was her familiar.
"Lilith?" Inquired Kemnebi. Lilith was a fellow Blood Lord, a member of the clique that had long ago formed around Arazni, a lich, like Arazni, and Saskia's mentor.
"She is well." Answered Saskia. "Our dear Marquis?" The Marquis Chevonde Garron was a vampire, Kemnebi's grandchild, in a sense. His sire was one of Kemnebi's "children," that is, a mortal he had embraced and turned into a vampire. Her name was Leah Ben-Reuven. Her memory was a painful one to Kemnebi as he had destroyed her in a rare fit of rage. Ever since then he had been especially kind to the Marquis and tolerant of his eccentricities. It was only by Kemnebi's leave that Chevonde was allowed to live beyond the borders of Geb. He had both a mansion in Katapesh and a pleasure barge in its harbor. He came to Geb only to attend the meetings of the Blood Lords. At all other times he kept livelier company.
It had been the Marquis Chevonde Garron who purchased Saskia from the slave markets of Katapesh. She was only seven at the time and Chevonde had elaborate plans for her. Thus began her tutelage in courtesan-ship and espionage. When Saskia was thirteen, polished in manner and speech, and knew what to look for in Arazni's court and how to secretly communicate that to the Marquis, she was sent to Arazni, the perfect child courtesan. Lilith put an end to it.
"A cute trick, Chevonde." She said during a meeting of the Blood Lords five decades prior.
"An amusement, nothing more." He replied.
"Would Arazni agree?"
"If she knew," responded the Marquis, "the child would be destroyed. Am I mistaken in believing you've taken a motherly role?"
"Don't expect any courtly gossip from our lovely Saskia."
"I would never. I only hope she remembers her eccentric uncle Chevonde favorably."
Much had transpired since then. Lilith had groomed Saskia for far greater things. At Lilith's insistence Saskia became a Blood Lord. Arazni was not hard to convince. She almost always took Lilith's advice.
"Has Lilith sent you?" Asked Kemnebi. The smile on Saskia's face gave him pause. "I do not mean to imply--."
Saskia stepped more into the candlelight. She reached down, her eyes and smile on him, and picked up the pressed flower. She contemplated it. "Perhaps a delicate necromantic spell," she said, twirling the flower in her gloved fingers, "has taken the life from this yet kept it whole." She looked from it to Kemnebi. "Is that what occupies our Chancellor and causes him to miss three meetings in a row?"
If Kemnebi could blush he would have. He had forgotten about the meeting. He had not, so engrossed had he been, even heard the Blood Lords just outside his door. As if reading his thoughts, Saskia added, "You failed even to send a representative to make your will known." She set down the flower, sat on the edge of his desk, and folded her hands in her lap. The song bird chirped at the disturbance but tucked its face beneath a wing and resumed its doze. "I make no accusations," said Saskia. She reached out and placed a hand on Kemnebi's. "I worry."
It was a bold gambit on her part. Kemnebi looked at her gloved hand, his expression unchanged. His eyes, though, spoke what his countenance did not. Saskia removed her hand to her lap but retained her casual seat. Despite her studied nonchalance, beads of sweat began to form on her brow.
Kemnebi's gaze moved to the flower. "In one of those." He said, looking now at the books. Saskia glanced at them and saw at once they had nothing to do with the arcane. "The legal codes of every nation of the Inner Sea," said Kemnebi, "that has a legal code." He looked up at Saskia. "Some do not. Some are not written down. Some legal codes are comprised only of parables and folk-wisdom kept in the heads of the village elders."
"Cheliax?" Inquired Saskia.
"A labyrinth." Both chuckled at this and for a moment the tension between them lessened. Kemnebi reached out and picked up the pressed flower. "No doubt the wife of some scholar found a better use for her husband's books." He set the flower down.
"This?" Saskia picked up a single sheet of parchment marked with columns of numbers.
Kemnebi glanced at it. "Grain exports to Nex." His gaze shifted, as if he now looked to Geb's northerly neighbor. "The population of Nex grows."
"Good." Announced Saskia. "We've an excess of labor and land." Both knew that legions of zombies worked the wheat, oat, and corn fields of Geb, the bounty of the land passing through decayed hands to Nex, Geb's former enemy. The soil of Nex could barely sustain life. Geb had seen to that in the millennia-long war between himself and his closest rival, Nex. Rare was it that two such wizard-kings should stomp about the land at the same time. That they did not keep a continent between them was due to ego. That they once shared a border and warred over it was due to folly. Saskia studied the null effect her words had on the Chancellor. "If economic matters make for poor--."
Kemnebi stood and began to pace in and out of the circle of light, alternately retreating and advancing. Saskia watched as he disappeared and reappeared. "Nex grows." He said. "Nex thrives. Nex evolves." He cast his glance at Saskia. "What of Geb? There is precious little life in Geb--."
"Precious?"
Kemnebi paused. "Yes, life is precious. You must certainly believe so. Given your--."
"I do."
Kemnebi resumed his pacing but did not speak. Saskia picked up the dropped thread.
"When any mortal within the boundaries of Geb dies," she began, speaking of a law Kemnebi certainly knew of, "they are raised as undead."
"Of course," mumbled Kemnebi.
"The poor go on to work the fields or have their skeletons added to the Bonewall. Those who can afford it, or who have secured favor, are brought back as higher forms of undead." When Saskia said higher forms a smile flashed across Kemnebi's face. He knew that those of wealth and station endeavored to secure a higher place in the hierarchy of Geb by becoming various types of undead, the more powerful the better. To be a mindless undead, or a type of undead devoid of free will, was the greatest fear of all of Geb's mortal inhabitants.
Again a moment of silence passed. Kemnebi was occupied by his thoughts. Saskia bent and looked once more over the open books. "I forgot," she said, turning a few pages. "You're redefining Geb's legal code." She looked up at Kemnebi. He met her gaze but said nothing. "It must be difficult." She added, ceasing to finger the pages. "Is it this that occupies you so?"
"All nations founded and ruled by individual personalities share the same fate." Said Kemnebi. "When those individuals no longer lead, they leave behind a vacuum."
"But Geb--."
"You must remember," interrupted Kemnebi, "that for almost all of Geb's history as a nation we were at war. Now we suffer peace." He smiled, but it was a forced smile. "A warring people know not how to manage peace."
"And so?" Asked Saskia, glancing at the legal books.
"And so I must establish the rules that shall govern peace, so long as it last." He shook his head. His pacing took on a more violent motion, an external sign of internal emotion.
"Geb hasn't fallen apart--."
"Nor will it." Announced Kemnebi, stopping at the edge of the candlelight, his face defined by the flickering flames. "It will stagnate. It will decay. It will die slowly, agonizingly. Finally, it will calcify. Meanwhile," he said, resuming his pacing, "the other nations of the Inner Sea will outgrow us, evolve beyond us." He stopped again at the edge of the candlelight. "And then--." But the look on Saskia's face alarmed him. She rose and looked past him to the door but Kemnebi knew it remained closed. She looked at him.
"No other Blood Lord would tolerate such heretical talk." She said. "Let alone Arazni or--Geb." She whispered the last, as if Geb would hear. She stepped to Kemnebi who stepped forward to meet her. Her movements were those of a panicked animal and she fell into him. He caught her, his hands around her waist, her hands on his chest. She looked up into his dark eyes and saw both the multitude of flickering candles and her own miniaturized self reflected within. "I pray you speak to no other as you've spoken to me." She parted from him, passed him, and hurried to the door. He watched her pull the heavy iron door open and slip out.