Many months journey southward from the verdant lands of Avestium lies the Karthosian desert, amongst whose wastes strange tales are told, and stranger still are the realities upon which they are based. Woe to he who would be king, for ambition is its own condemnation, and for all the glittering assemblies, the pleasures to sate a man’s soul, greater terrors lie unseen; to ensnare and gloat over the most towering egos, for when mortals make sport with the doings of eternity, agony shall be their portion.
I, Sennar, King of Bahab, dictate this last testament upon my deathbed; my words are taken down by a mute priest, bereft of his tongue, and they shall be sealed within a clay vessel to be broken only by the next monarch of this land of rock and heat. Bahab is but a fertile valley to each side of the River Sysuphane, snaking from the unknown south into the unknown west. Forever it flows, bringing the gift of life, yet none have ever returned from its vastness to paint the shape of our world, leaving us with but the vastness that is our own.
Battle wounds have laid me low and the healers can do no more. Each day I call for the Elixir of Modrane, knowing it cannot help, but unable to let it be, and therein lies my fate. Ah, would that I had never tasted of its perfumed poison, but who does not crave power?
Not even I have seen the makings of it, for the priest-kind keep it secret. Among the tombs of our ancestors move the darkling ones whose eyes behold nether-worlds, and who descend into hidden crypts to perform the most arcane of rites, distilling the elixir, it is said, from the ichor of bodies a thousand years dead. I cared only for its efficaciousness, the energy which overcomes the drinker; and well it should be that it is reserved solely for the palate of monarchs. Who but a king could cope with all that attends the privilege?
Every king is ambitious, his craving for power his undoing, for once the Falcon Crown is his, all is lost. Well I recall the thrill of strange heat washing through me as the first drop of elixir anointed my brow, then the rush of furious intoxication, more than any liquor could possibly bring, as the draft passed my lips. Then, to the roaring approbation of the people, the diadem was placed upon my head, and it felt all potency was mine. No land could stand before me, my armies would conquer, all plunder would flow along the great river to swell forever the treasure vaults of my capital, carved from white rock beneath the blue heavens.
Such are the illusions of the soul, for the world takes little stock of ambition. Roaring legions followed me as a living god, and we did battle a hundred times, returned a tide of captives, gold and strange beasts, but Bahab outlives us all and to the gods of the wastes we shall pass. Ten short years I lasted, drinking deep the draft of might as I built anew the grandeur of my realm, yet mortality is ever mine and a sword stroke brought me to this, my final testament.
Know, ye who read, as I fade; I alone can tell ye. Eschew the elixir, for it is the carriage of demons. I say this as I sip it, propped against soft cushions as a slave wafts me with a fan of feathers and the dark priest at my side duly records my words. Refuse the temptation, for all doom is bound up in its piquant strangeness.
I shall be dead soon. I seem to stare into eternity now, and barely notice my family, my wives, concubines and many children as they file by my bedside in the morning light, and at last leave only the priest to complete my tale. It is the abyss into which I look of which I would speak, for now the veil is lifting and I see beyond the terrible gulf without shape or form, yet more terrible the shrieking host to which it is abode. And I know them.
Every King of Bahab, back to the first monarchs to raise the goblet of Modrane, is there–every one in torment, every one crying out, doing dread battle with each other in furious quest, and from this precarious point between life and not-life–for I cannot call this travesty death–I understand why. Why my fury was trebled upon my coronation, and why I shall join the lost in their shambling, insane existence one step removed from the world we know.
The elixir addicts not only the body, but the soul, and the dead feel yet the craving–without relief except to possess the next mortal addict, in a terrible occult rage, and thus live again: slave to the draft, an endless cycle of misery to face, inevitably, the not-dead once more in their place of purgation. I stir in my discomfort, the pain of my wound a hot reminder that ego has its price, and just for a moment my insanity lifts, that I recall the simple life of those whom such dubious greatness has never touched.
So heed my words, ye who would pluck the crown from my dying brow. Take it, reshape this land in your own image if you dare, but spit away the vile concoction of the crypts, for upon its alabaster vessel is writ thy doom. Smash it, outlaw its making, change the laws and customs of our land, revel not in its false majesty, for all is illusion and chaos.
Ahhhh… I fade, I fade. And for all my desperate words, the dead kings are laughing, for they yet possess me, and try as I might to deny it, I must quaff the elixir, sip by feeble sip, as the wings of death enfold me.
THE END
Mike Adamson holds a PhD in archaeology from Flinders University of South Australia. After early aspirations in art and writing, Mike returned to study and secured degrees in both marine biology and archaeology. Mike currently lectures in Anthropology, is a passionate photographer, a master-level hobbyist and journalist for international magazines. You can find more about Mike and his writing here.