The Alabaster Staff - Edward Bolme [102]
Massedar returned the corpse to its original position. Then, his outstretched hands gripping the edge of the table, he leaned low to Ekur's ear.
"Ekur," he said.
The body did not move.
"Ekur of Shussel, answer thou me," he commanded.
Kehrsyn shuddered and closed her eyes as she saw the corpse's mouth move. It made no noise other than the wet, sucking sound of an unattended tongue flopping around in a dead mouth. She realized that, after the nightmare of two days past, she couldn't bear to keep her eyes closed. Instead, she opened them and stared at the ground, shielding her eyes from the abomination taking place on the table.
"Thou must inhale," said Massedar.
There followed a guttural, empty, choking sound of air being pulled past dead flesh.
"What is thy wish, my lord?" asked Ekur, in a sighing, falling, monotonous voice, his diction listless and slurred.
The remaining air exited the fat, dead lungs like a death rattle.
Kehrsyn heard a cork pop. She cast a quick glance up and saw that Massedar was pouring some of the contents of the small glass bottle into Ekur's slack jaw.
"Swallow thou that," said Massedar, "that thou mayest speak only the truth."
The body swallowed it noisily, open-mouthed. Kehrsyn looked away, gooseflesh crawling over her like a million scarab beetles.
"Thou hast conspired to betray me, Ekur of Shussel. What is thy goal?"
The body inhaled again, a horrid sound that made Kehrsyn wince and curl her lip in disgust.
Again, the slurred voice came in a hollow, even-paced decrescendo, saying, "Thou art weak in the face of Bane… Bane shall take this land from the dead hand of Gilgeam and drive the-" the body inhaled again, slowly, noisily- "Mulhorandi back to the River of Swords… Unther shall rise, and I shall lead them to glory against the pharaoh."
Again the lungs rattled their way to emptiness.
"With whom hast thou conspired? Speak!" said Massedar, the anger in his voice was palpable.
"We schemed with Tiamat and Furifax to steal the Alabaster Staff…" said the airy, dead voice, "then we turned one pawn against the other… I-" another hideous snoring inhalation-"will use the staff to raise an army of undead and defeat the Mulhorandi forces… their own dead shall rise to-" the wet noise of flaccid inhalation sounded yet again-"serve me… and I shall rule this empire for our new lord god Bane… thy devotion to-"
"Enough!" barked Massedar.
His explanation aborted, Ekur let the rest of his air escape his cold lungs.
Massedar scowled at Ekur's body, drumming his fingers on the side of the table and thinking. Kehrsyn realized that she was unconsciously holding her breath, waiting for Ekur to breathe again. The silence was unnerving. She glanced up, freakishly hoping to see Ekur's chest rising and falling, so that she'd feel less awkward about breathing herself. Instead, she saw the green striations beneath his skin starting to fade and suspected that Massedar had little time left for his grisly interrogation.
"Where lieth the Alabaster Staff?"
With a fleshy, wet breath, Ekur said, "It was brought to the Bow Before Me… they sent it to a lair I know not of."
Massedar twisted his lips in frustration. He clapped a hand over Ekur's nose and mouth so that he couldn't exhale. With a grimace, Kehrsyn turned her head away. She realized she was holding her breath again, in sympathy for the image of Ekur being suffocated, and she forced herself to breathe.
"How shall I find the Alabaster Staff and recover it?" Massedar asked, pulling his hand off Ekur's face.
"Two days hence at midnight the-" he inhaled-"ritual begins, in the Deep Hall beneath