The Alabaster Staff - Edward Bolme [116]
"No," hissed Demok, "I am a whole heap of trouble!"
"Announce Kehrsyn and Demok here to see Tiglath," said Kehrsyn, showing a poise that surprised even her, given the situation. "I have her sufferance, and you will not harm this man."
"I can see that," said the Tiamatan pressed against the wall.
The third man sheathed his dagger and gently pushed the point of Demok's long sword away from his stomach.
"I'll get her," he said.
"Tell them they're here on urgent business," added the man against the wall.
"While we wait, why don't you put down your club and help your friend here?" asked Kehrsyn.
The man nodded and dropped his weapon, then carefully moved to his fallen comrade and helped him to the relative safety of one corner of the cloakroom.
That done, Kehrsyn leaned over to Demok and said, "Please put your weapons away. Tiglath won't take the sight of them very well."
"Tough," grunted Demok.
"She'll take it as poorly as you would," elaborated Kehrsyn.
Demok considered that, then sheathed his weapons quietly and efficiently. Kehrsyn noticed, however, that he rested his hand on the pommel of the quick-drawing short sword. Just in case.
In just a few moments, Tiglath came bustling along, wrapped in a thick robe. Her little dragonet sat on her shoulder, flexing its wings to keep its balance as she walked.
"My dear," she said, "I'm coming to think that you're a storm crow."
"You don't know the half of it," said Kehrsyn. Tiglath cocked her head. "The guy I work for, it turns out he's Zimrilim, and he brought back Gilgeam."
"Gods, no…" Tiglath gasped. "You-you're jesting!"
"He must have kept the body hidden all these years, and he used this ancient magical wand and these potions and-"
"Zimrilim," echoed Tiglath, still with a tinge of disbelief, "resurrected Gilgeam?"
Demok shook his head and replied, "No, not resurrected. More like… animated. Mummy, perhaps."
"Yeah, like that," said Kehrsyn. "He was all wrapped up and stuff, and he just ripped his way out of the wrappings and grew in size and-"
"Fiery hells," swore Tiglath, "he… animated… a god? To be his pawn?"
"Yep," said Demok.
Tiglath put her hands to her head as if to keep it from exploding under the pressure of that new revelation.
"He must be mad…" the priestess said, speaking primarily to herself.
"Well, yeah," said Kehrsyn.
"To even think of forcing a dead god back into its corpse is… is unconscionable. Only the very highest undead would be capable of holding Gilgeam's intellect. Such an act… even creating a greater undead being… it would excise the higher levels of the corpse's mind, leaving only the basest and most violent processes in place." She looked up at Kehrsyn and Demok, as if remembering their existence. "That's the basis of animation, you know. You take a human and stimulate only the basest, most animalistic desires, their simplest instincts of hate and hunger. It makes them easier to control and ensures their hostility if they are encountered out of one's control. Doing that to a divine being like Gilgeam would be insane. Think of all of the heinous acts he committed in his life, when he had some semblance of self-control! How much more, then, when his higher brain is wiped away, leaving only a vague sense that nothing is right within his own mind!"
"Well, that would pretty much fit with what we saw," observed Kehrsyn.
"Didn't like having a master," observed Demok.
"And Zimrilim, after all these years! I knew we should have searched harder for his body!"
"Don't bother," said Demok.
Tiglath rocked back on her heels, looking up to the ceiling. "So if what you said is true, Zimrilim made him some sort of greater undead, which means he'll have all of his instincts and many of his mental faculties. He won't have much of a sense of identity, which means we won't be able to reason with him. He is almost certainly mad… not that he wasn't mad enough already when he was alive."
Tiglath turned to her followers and said, "Full combat regalia, people, move!" She