Black Nykövä
By
Daniel Stride
Once, I was Nykövä of Kuolinako. Bestrider of continents. Spawned in the heart of the Viiminian Empire – ancient, even then – I had a lineage stretching back through the days of myth.
Now I too am myth. They whisper of me on winter nights, when snow-drifts deepen in moonlit valleys, and hearthside embers die one by one. Those who hear my name shiver, and lock their doors against the dark.
Such fear, from the Grey Ocean to the Illuvian Sea.
Small wonder. Lifeblood stains my fingers, like rubies set upon the throne of Old Viiminia. Earth and stone alike cry out at my tread. Mother Death herself shuns my path.
But when the oldest and wisest of the story-tellers sit beside the fire, a midnight brandy at their lips… they remember my promise.
I shall return.
When the Nhagivat again flows with blood, I shall fashion a causeway from skulls, and dance across the sea to the music of slaughter. Lightning shall slay men in the streets and upon the hills, ere the sun perishes and night falls everlasting.
Such is the myth.
Like all myths, it is true, after a fashion.
#
I remember the day my father died.
The courtiers scurried about the Imperial chambers. Physicians paraded to and fro with exotic elixers. But neither lies nor hope availed: my father was as a brown-leaf forest, withered after summer drought, and that fever was the blaze that devoured him whole.
I, Princess Nykövä, was his only child. Ten years old, with the temerity to be born female.
The carrion-crows circled.
Whisperers there were, and stares.
I stared back.
For others, loss is tears and black dresses, frozen smiles, and silent screams. I am not others. I shed no tears, and froze no smiles, and from shoulder to ankle, my dress was of soft white silk.
The Chancellor himself arrived. He bowed before me. His beard swept the very sheen of his boots.
I curtseyed, as Nanny had taught.
In those times, Necromancers were our servants, and not yet our masters, but even as a child I saw the Emperor fix his seal to the Chancellor’s declarations. Maybe my father accepted this. Or maybe within his breast burned a spark of rebellion that, through me, became a fire that never died. If so, he was my sire in truth.
Silent, I followed the Chancellor into the inner bedchamber.
The Emperor lay propped against pillows, his face grey with plague. Eyelids drooped.
I leant close.
“Nykövä. Child. You... claimed your mother.” His breath stank of opium and elderberry wine. “You... are the last. Carry on the Blood.”
A smile, a last flicker of winter sunshine. The only smile he ever gave me.
The Chancellor coughed.
“Your Highness, the regency documents require your seal.”
A handwave from my father. I curtseyed, and vanished.
#
Nine days, the mourning lasted.
Bedecked in black velvet, the nobility knelt wailing before the Tower Gates. The Necromancers, from humblest underkarl to the Grand Council itself, laid wreaths upon statues. Their undead thralls stood upon street-corners, ringing silver handbells.
I watched from my window.
I was Empress.
#
Like my father, I affixed the seal. I too hid the might of the Necromancers.
The Chancellor was all-powerful, and I powerless. Whence this usurped authority? Necromancy. When Father Life lies with Mother Death.
I sat long in libraries. I read the Nine Authors. Others of our line had dabbled in the great art, centuries past. By my time, the Imperial family performed ceremonies, to prevent their own reanimation – but little more.
Necromancy places corpses under living command. The undead act whilst helpless, unknowing, and unthinking. As one of the Blood, such control ought to have been mine. To order the dead, as well as the living – for this I existed.
From ten to womanhood, I read and dreamt and schemed.
#
Years passed. I took lovers. The Chancellor cared not. Indulgent Empresses posed no threat.
How little he knew.
I despise salacious joys. Indeed, I oft slipped poison into my companion’s wine-goblet. A powder so swift and deadly, ere the sultry act was consummated a corpse lay naked upon my sheets. Blue-faced but useful.
Thence I practiced necromancy by candlelight. I grew deft. Not even the Chancellor suspected. I was too young, too debauched, a creature of jewellery and fete.
If merchants’ sons and stable lads vanished into the night, the mighty only shrugged.
I swelled my hidden host.
#
The moment came one Midsummer’s Eve.
Moonlit was that night, and the stars shone as crystal. Kuolinako, the Capital, slept off the holiday. The Grand Council yet laboured, administering the Empire in my name.
As cracks might break a dam, so I unleashed my army. The Palace Guards – creatures of the Chancellor – saw swords in their guts, and the cold smile of their Empress.
Ere they became mine in truth.
Then the undead rushed the streets, butchering wearers of the Necromantic Ribbon.
They broke down doors, and slaughtered those abed.
Long the carnage ran, until blood ran ankle-deep upon the stones. The Council Chambers were set alight, the ruby-glow a potent and terrible warning. The flames burnt through the edifice as fever had devoured my father.
The screams.
The clamour of greedy swords.
The crushing of foes.
Glorious.
I sat upon my snow-white steed, and commanded from the Tower Gates. The heads of the Chancellor and his concubine were brought to me in silver boxes.
In that hour I knew victory.
By dawn, I was the last Necromancer in the Capital.
#
I placed the Imperial crown upon my own head.
Kuolinako knelt as one. In their hearts, they knew this was no new age. No. This was the return. The glory of Old Viiminia and the ancient Blood.
#
Such was the beginning. And yet my legend has grown long and terrible. In time you shall hear it all.
Farewell.
Daniel Stride has a lifelong love of literature in general, and speculative fiction in particular. He writes both short stories and poetry; his first novel, Wise Phuul, was published in 2016 by small UK press, Inspired Quill. A sequel, Old Phuul, is due out in the near future. He likes chocolate and cats, and can be found blogging about the works of Tolkien (among other things) at https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/. Daniel lives in Dunedin, New Zealand.
By
Daniel Stride
Once, I was Nykövä of Kuolinako. Bestrider of continents. Spawned in the heart of the Viiminian Empire – ancient, even then – I had a lineage stretching back through the days of myth.
Now I too am myth. They whisper of me on winter nights, when snow-drifts deepen in moonlit valleys, and hearthside embers die one by one. Those who hear my name shiver, and lock their doors against the dark.
Such fear, from the Grey Ocean to the Illuvian Sea.
Small wonder. Lifeblood stains my fingers, like rubies set upon the throne of Old Viiminia. Earth and stone alike cry out at my tread. Mother Death herself shuns my path.
But when the oldest and wisest of the story-tellers sit beside the fire, a midnight brandy at their lips… they remember my promise.
I shall return.
When the Nhagivat again flows with blood, I shall fashion a causeway from skulls, and dance across the sea to the music of slaughter. Lightning shall slay men in the streets and upon the hills, ere the sun perishes and night falls everlasting.
Such is the myth.
Like all myths, it is true, after a fashion.
#
I remember the day my father died.
The courtiers scurried about the Imperial chambers. Physicians paraded to and fro with exotic elixers. But neither lies nor hope availed: my father was as a brown-leaf forest, withered after summer drought, and that fever was the blaze that devoured him whole.
I, Princess Nykövä, was his only child. Ten years old, with the temerity to be born female.
The carrion-crows circled.
Whisperers there were, and stares.
I stared back.
For others, loss is tears and black dresses, frozen smiles, and silent screams. I am not others. I shed no tears, and froze no smiles, and from shoulder to ankle, my dress was of soft white silk.
The Chancellor himself arrived. He bowed before me. His beard swept the very sheen of his boots.
I curtseyed, as Nanny had taught.
In those times, Necromancers were our servants, and not yet our masters, but even as a child I saw the Emperor fix his seal to the Chancellor’s declarations. Maybe my father accepted this. Or maybe within his breast burned a spark of rebellion that, through me, became a fire that never died. If so, he was my sire in truth.
Silent, I followed the Chancellor into the inner bedchamber.
The Emperor lay propped against pillows, his face grey with plague. Eyelids drooped.
I leant close.
“Nykövä. Child. You... claimed your mother.” His breath stank of opium and elderberry wine. “You... are the last. Carry on the Blood.”
A smile, a last flicker of winter sunshine. The only smile he ever gave me.
The Chancellor coughed.
“Your Highness, the regency documents require your seal.”
A handwave from my father. I curtseyed, and vanished.
#
Nine days, the mourning lasted.
Bedecked in black velvet, the nobility knelt wailing before the Tower Gates. The Necromancers, from humblest underkarl to the Grand Council itself, laid wreaths upon statues. Their undead thralls stood upon street-corners, ringing silver handbells.
I watched from my window.
I was Empress.
#
Like my father, I affixed the seal. I too hid the might of the Necromancers.
The Chancellor was all-powerful, and I powerless. Whence this usurped authority? Necromancy. When Father Life lies with Mother Death.
I sat long in libraries. I read the Nine Authors. Others of our line had dabbled in the great art, centuries past. By my time, the Imperial family performed ceremonies, to prevent their own reanimation – but little more.
Necromancy places corpses under living command. The undead act whilst helpless, unknowing, and unthinking. As one of the Blood, such control ought to have been mine. To order the dead, as well as the living – for this I existed.
From ten to womanhood, I read and dreamt and schemed.
#
Years passed. I took lovers. The Chancellor cared not. Indulgent Empresses posed no threat.
How little he knew.
I despise salacious joys. Indeed, I oft slipped poison into my companion’s wine-goblet. A powder so swift and deadly, ere the sultry act was consummated a corpse lay naked upon my sheets. Blue-faced but useful.
Thence I practiced necromancy by candlelight. I grew deft. Not even the Chancellor suspected. I was too young, too debauched, a creature of jewellery and fete.
If merchants’ sons and stable lads vanished into the night, the mighty only shrugged.
I swelled my hidden host.
#
The moment came one Midsummer’s Eve.
Moonlit was that night, and the stars shone as crystal. Kuolinako, the Capital, slept off the holiday. The Grand Council yet laboured, administering the Empire in my name.
As cracks might break a dam, so I unleashed my army. The Palace Guards – creatures of the Chancellor – saw swords in their guts, and the cold smile of their Empress.
Ere they became mine in truth.
Then the undead rushed the streets, butchering wearers of the Necromantic Ribbon.
They broke down doors, and slaughtered those abed.
Long the carnage ran, until blood ran ankle-deep upon the stones. The Council Chambers were set alight, the ruby-glow a potent and terrible warning. The flames burnt through the edifice as fever had devoured my father.
The screams.
The clamour of greedy swords.
The crushing of foes.
Glorious.
I sat upon my snow-white steed, and commanded from the Tower Gates. The heads of the Chancellor and his concubine were brought to me in silver boxes.
In that hour I knew victory.
By dawn, I was the last Necromancer in the Capital.
#
I placed the Imperial crown upon my own head.
Kuolinako knelt as one. In their hearts, they knew this was no new age. No. This was the return. The glory of Old Viiminia and the ancient Blood.
#
Such was the beginning. And yet my legend has grown long and terrible. In time you shall hear it all.
Farewell.
Daniel Stride has a lifelong love of literature in general, and speculative fiction in particular. He writes both short stories and poetry; his first novel, Wise Phuul, was published in 2016 by small UK press, Inspired Quill. A sequel, Old Phuul, is due out in the near future. He likes chocolate and cats, and can be found blogging about the works of Tolkien (among other things) at https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/. Daniel lives in Dunedin, New Zealand.
