This Young and Hopeless World

The sphinx hadn't spoken since the first stone was laid by man a thousand years ago. But now it watched with intensity toward the horizon. The sun was low over the young world as Romu stood abreast the magnificent beast. Mountains have yet to form, but the distance was vast enough to overcome their elevation atop the guardian's pedestal of sand and rock. They watched together, a guardian of knowledge accompanied by a humble guardian of mortals, watching toward a horizon of ready-to-harvest grain. The year was getting late, and the wasted yield was just one more casualty of the nation's degradation.

With the waning light, columns of fire lanced from the sky, and lightning responded from the earth as the God-King took battle to the Serpopards. Romu knew if this feebleness was lost then the flying benu would torch the fields with wings of fire, crawling apep will claim the homes of the people to enslave the women and hoard the wealth, and countless hungry ammit will consume the dead on the field, dig up the graves of the poor, then finally resort to consuming the orphaned children the failed kingdom left behind. He knew all of this, yet if the nation prevailed, and the God-King returned triumphant, Romu feared the consequences may be even worse.

The sun was lower still when fire ceased to illuminate the clouds. Romu held his breath, awaiting the knowledge of which fate would befall them. The sphinx would already know, of course, what ultimately would result from each ever more frightening option. The guardian had rested when giants first appeared, and toppled the oblesks. It did not take flight when the floods came, drowning seven thousand people in the night, the reports of the dead still resonating in the wise Romu's memory. The sphinx hadn't bothered to rise from slumber when the plague had ripped through the suffering people, killing half and making half the women who remained infertile. This guardian cared not for such trivial things. But now, in the presence of this conflict, the beast was vigilant.

The plumbs of the royal chariot crested the horizon. The sphinx reared back, flexing it's mighty torso and unfolded it's obsideon wings for the first time in Romu's life, and it fled its eternal post. This action felt like a death, and the history of nations fled with it.

The chariot was returning alone. Romu looked toward the palace. That is where they must make their final stand. He would muster the remaining guard, loyal or not, and attempt to stave off annihilation for a few hours yet.

But the chariot turned. It was not headed to the palace, it was headed to the open tomb. Romu took off in a rush to the chariot of his own. If the God King was dead, then maybe the day could be saved. He would assume command, hold back the invasion, and the nation could survive under the rule of someone, anyone. Mounting, he whipped his horses and took off to intercept the lone vehicle. In time he passed it, pulling reins to turn around and catch up to the side of the royal transport.

Amunthra, the royal healer, a bent man crippled by age, crouched with vigor over the prone body of the God-King, who's face was nothing more than a pile of bloody rags and metal devices giving structure to a mutilated head. It was split, sickeningly, brain exposed from an axe-like claw. Romu was thankful to not have to look into the God-King's eyes. They had changed in these last years, becoming glossy and yellow, like they where made of foul ichor, and they unsettled him as much as the cruel, even lewd commands that came from their owner's mouth. The chariot had no driver, but three of the God-King's priestess wives ran as flankers, beautiful warrior oracles who protect his body as well as sire his sons. They where bruised, and beaten, and tired, and there where only three; Bet, Anakt, and Lokthal. All the others must be dead. Ramu pulled up along side, pace now at a full gallop. The battle weary oracles had discarded their shields and armor in order to maintain the pace.

'Is he alive?' Romu asked. The old Amumthra laughed without humor, 'If he is so easily slain what kind of god would he be?' Romu cringed, 'Just let him die, Amumthra. We all wish this, and he is in no position to dissuade us.' The young Bet almost chuckled from an arrogant secret as she ran but Amumthra gave Romu a glare of caution only an elder priest could give the Mortal Guardian. 'He is in better condition then he may appear.' As they rode through the waiting gates to the upper city, The God-King raised his hand in a silent plea. No, a pointed finger, blind beneath the wrappings and soaking gore, pointing toward the waiting tomb. It was designed for this occasion. If the God-King would die this day, his tomb was ready, there to move him into eternal afterlife, no matter the state of his world above.

So the king was going to die after all. Romu cheered within himself. Let Amumthra pursue duty, and let the wives remain protective, up to the moment they where finally all rid of him.

Then a shadow descended upon them, and the mighty sphinx smashed into the ground before the retinue, obsideon wings carving earth and a hiss halting the horses in place, dragging the chariots to a standstill. Her mouth opened and her voice cried out the first word of the millennia, 'NO!'.

The voice of the mute carried an authority unsurpassed even by the God-King. The guardian's will was only assumed in most instances, but her authority was never questioned, and she has never been challenged. Romu paused in breath to hear her speak, but gathered his nerve and turned his horses. 'To the palace then. We must muster a defense. They will be here soon...' He realized he had turned alone. The oracles awaited Amumthra, who stared the beast in the eyes. He was old, nearly frail, but his conviction and defiance showed true the young warrior he once was. 'We proceed,' he said. A moment passed for the sphinx to comprehend what was being said. The surprise of the defiance taking root in the twisting of her face, and she roared. Like the quaking earth the beast roared. She knew where this choice would lead, and the anger was peppered with both sadness and fear. Romu was perplexed. 'You would defy the sphinx, Amumthra? For what? The will of this... king?' He struggled to keep his horses from bolting, the mythic titan before them giving off an aura of divine judgement. Amumthra looked to Romu, stoic, but almost with a concerned plea glazing his eyes. 'I have to ask you to trust me, my friend. Ignore what you know, ignore what the guardian of knowledge herself knows, and trust me. Which monster is to be more feared?' The priestesses braced, spears leveled at the ancient titan.

How could he do this? Why are they dying for this tyrant, this son of Nyarlethotep, this bringer of famine and plague and death? Here on the brink of extinction we are to slay our final guardian, forsake our last protector, for him? Humanity is surely doomed.

Amumthra pulled his kopesh and began to cite the Alckemmet powers. The beast launched toward the God King, and Romu aided the protectors of his enemy in the murder of the last being truely loyal to the land.

With the sphinx dead, they rushed onward. The screeches of the first benu tore overhead and a column of flame cascaded from a beak dripping burning oil, igniting the drying and neglected harvest. Straight into the vaulted entrance of the magnificent tomb they rode. It was a titanic pyramid, many times the size of even the palace itself, and they rode through a forest of archways before reaching the inner doorway. Muscular sentinels stood with mallets on each side, guarding weight-bearing pillars. This tomb could only be locked once, and no serpopard would be permitted to enter, whether Romu, the priestesses, or even the God-King himself has returned from the depths below. The entourage dismounted. Anakt and Lokthal tenderly moved the strange king's body into their arms and began the decent into the bowels of the tomb. Bet and Amumthra shared a glance of nervousness before they followed. There was a secret, and Romu began to realize he was not a part of it. He eyed the guards and commanded, 'This door remains unsealed until the last possible moment.' Stated with more nerves than nessesity. When they nodded back he followed the procession.

They lit torches to navigate the treacherous staircase descending into the cold earth. Romu had never set foot in here, as only the annointed where allowed. Etchings covered the walls and the stairs in total, leaving no space spared from the chisel and paint. It depicted the people building cities, walls keeping the monsters at bay, and the God-King's father standing above them all under a sky of writhing chaos and empty eternity. Amumthra started rambling, part to himself, and partly for acclimation for Romu. 'In a thousand years, this city will be swallowed by the desert. We will be forgotten, our conquerors will be forgotten, but this chamber will remain. Preserved forever. Until the world ages, and mountains rise land from the sea, and all that is splits to move and recombine into a new land in many millennia to come. We enter the chamber of time, fhtagnagl, afojdo ebumna, an eternal pit.' Roma knew not of what Amumthra spoke, as he did not know how to speak what he recognized as the language of the gods.

The stairs eventually came to an end at the head of a final doorway. It too could be sealed by a hammer and pillar, the tool waiting patiently just beyond. Anakt took the burden from her sister-wife and moved the God-King into the room's center where a symbol was etched into the stone, and a ring of torches where being lit by Lokthal. The rigid God King began to move a little, and waved off his wife, able to stand upon his own feet, impossible with his injuries. So much blood. He was blind behind his field bandages, but he knew where he was. The room had a pedestal, covered in instruments of embalming and effigies to carry various organs and essence. A goblet awaited, and the God-King motioned for it, carried with haste by Anakt. She poured in some prepared wine, and assisted the God-King in its ritualistic stirring. It would be a final offering for them to share before the inevitable, and while it was suppose to be a somber affair, only Anakt seemed to have some sadness within her. Hatred for the tyrant ran deep through them all. Bet wringed her spear nervously. She really was so young, Romu thought despairingly. Her terror a microcasm of all the beautiful lives stolen by this madness.

The God-King raised his hands to his face, and pulled back a portion of the wrappings, revealing more of his mangled head. His eyes where completely gone, a deep gouge from tooth or claw took their place. Romu held in his bile, the pain must be excruciating, but he admitted this brought him a small amount of seditious joy. The God-King raised the goblet to his lips and sipped, before passing it back to Anakt. She took hers, and proceeded to pass it to Lokthal, followed by Bet, and Amumthra. Only Romu the Mortal Defender refused, taking pride in this last obvious piece of defiance, even if the God-King didn't have the ability to notice.

In front of the God-King, propped up at an angle, lay the open sarcophagus. However, with his eyes gone, he could not see that something was amiss. Runes etched the inside of the sanctuary, and no one in the chamber was preparing for the preservation of his flesh. With a sudden call from Amumthra, the oracles and he attacked the God-King. Bet pierced his heart from behind, and the other two wives cut him at the calves to drop him to his knees. Amumthra pulled his kopesh, and with strength remembered from his youth, he cleaved the tyrant's head from his shoulders. Within a flury of seconds the deed was done, and the God-King had not made a sound. They ushered the body into the sarcophagus. He was shoved in face down, Bet kicking it unnecessarily. She screamed. Invasion be damned, she would enjoy this moment to be rid of this monster, a roar of emotional release bursting from her throat. Lokthal placed the head between the legs but Anakt began to cry. The poor girl. She had held on the longest of them all, surviving his cruelty years longer than most wives. That was survival, but it seems doing what's right takes even more strength. Amumthra strained to shift the lid in place and began anointing it with oils to seal it from both sand and curse. The God-King was known to be powerful, and they would take no chances.

Romu couldn't believe it. 'How could we do this? Why the treachery now? The kingdom is being torn apart and we murdered the sphinx, all just so that we could betray him in the end?' Amumthra tried to explain between mystical mutterings, 'He can't die, Romu. Just as his father couldn't die. Nyarlethotep left because he became bored with humanity, and left us a plaything to his infernal son. This was our only chance to remove him for good. He thought he would survive this ordeal through an eternity of patience under the sand, but now we have stopped him.' Romu wouldn't have it, not ready to condemn his morality as the others have, 'This is not how you kill a god! You do it in public, in the face for all to see. You disrespect him, discard him, renounce him. That is what takes away his power. Not by treachery in the shadows! How will history remember him? A martyr? Mysterious ancient hero who build wonders? In three thousand years he will be venerated!' The word foul in his mouth.

'It's the best we could manage. We had no choice.' Amumthra whispered almost to himself.

'I will have no part of this,' Romu declared and he turned to leave, ascending the bleak steps of the tomb alone. 'We killed the guardian of knowledge, Amumthra. Now we are staring into the infinite void of the unknown. Whether we defend from this onslaught or not it is too late for our people to survive this world. All hail our legacy. All hail our shame... And we have only ourselves to blame.'

Romu was gone. Amumthra continued to whisper to himself, 'We had no choice... We had no choice...' Lokthal tried to console Anakt while Bet bleated. Spitting at the sarcophagus and allowing herself to smile despite everything they faced.

'That is correct, you had no choice at all,' a voice droned. The assembly froze. A rasping, hollow and familiar, came from the enchanted sarcophagus. 'Your choices where made for you.' Fear crept into the back of Amumthra's mind. 'You have all betrayed me in spirit before, behind my back, over my body as I lay injured, and in your minds.' Lokthal took intentional steps back, the strong, quiet warrior priestess discovering cracks in her unwavering calm. Bet began to shake, affixed in place, joviality struck from her. 'Open this tomb, one of you, and I may forgive you, in part. You have cared not about your boisterousness before now, yet you fear retribution like insects.' Anakt's heart raced, and she looked about the room for reassurance, but there was none. 'I have been dead most of my life. My eyes where my Phylactery. I did not loose them in battle as I have led you to assume. I preserved them years ago, and have just given them to each of you.' Amumthra looked with terrible realization at the goblet they shared. He grasped it, the fabric of deflated eyeballs clung to the bottom, mired in the soup they drank. One final curse. 'You are all my Phylactery now. We share my immortality. I cannot die until you all do. You are bound to my will, and I have eternity to punish this transgression.'

The next moment happened all at once. Amumthra threw the goblet and cried out in desperate defeat, the artifact shattering against the wall. Anakt flung herself toward the sarcophagus to release the God-King, terror overcoming her wavering will. Bet responded with a hurl of her spear. The strike was true, passing through her sister's neck and spine, but she did not fall. Instead she turned to her sister in betrayed disbelief, reaffirming that they were all dead now, and such rules would not apply for them. Anakt tore her gaze from her sister blankly, and whimpered as she cracked the seal to her master's imprisonment. It was Lokthal that had acquired the hammer, and struck the pillar supporting the locks in the room. The door slammed shut, a hundred thousand tons of rock and sand began to pour from the roof. The stairwell beyond collapsed, each step separating and sliding downward, becoming one of a thousand lances of rock to barricade the door from the outside. Above the guards at the entrance to the inner chambers would be doing the same. Perhaps Romu made it out in time, perhaps not. It seemed to matter little now. The God-King's evil laugh filled the shrinking chamber, a thunderous cacophony emanating from his split and severed head. In seconds the chamber filled, isolating this evil until it would be disturbed again, all five of them trapped together, buried in the sand of this young and hopeless world.