The Apocalypse Script
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Book 1 of the Nisirtu Series
The Apocalypse Script
By Samuel Fort
Second Edition
Copyright 2014 Samuel Fort
https://samuelfort.com
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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among mankind.
Proverbs 30:14
Prologue - February 4th, First Year of the Second Era
Part 1 - September 21st , Final Year of the First Era
Chapter 1 - The Assignment
Chapter 2 - Afghanistan
Chapter 3 - Fiela
Part 2 - September 22nd
Chapter 4 - Quarantined
Chapter 5 - Legend of Tiwanaku
Chapter 6 - Arrival at Steepleguard
Chapter 7 - The Tablets Revealed
Chapter 8 - Moros
Chapter 9 - Her Father’s Ring
Chapter 10 - Paupers in a Limo
Chapter 11 - The Ziggurat
Chapter 12 - The Return of Fiela
Chapter 13 - The Terrors
Part 3 - September 23rd
Chapter 14 - The Morning Pudding
Chapter 15 - The Contract
Chapter 16 - The Picnic
Chapter 17 - The Apocalypse Script
Chapter 18 - The Scripts
Chapter 19 - Empyrean Glossa
Chapter 20 - The King’s Madness
Chapter 21 - The Meeting of the Four
Chapter 22 - Fiela’s Intercession
Chapter 23 - The Wedding Night
Part 4 - September 24th
Chapter 24 - Nocte Sicarius
Chapter 25 - Daybreak
Chapter 26 - Trucks
Chapter 27 - Family History
Chapter 28 - Guests
Chapter 29 - The Devil in the Details
Chapter 30 - Lilian’s Angst
Chapter 31 - The Fading Light
Chapter 32 - The Rod
Part 5 - September 25th - Dawn
Chapter 33 - Green Light
Chapter 34 - The Poisoned Kiss
Chapter 35 - Lilian’s Respite
Chapter 36 - Lady Del
Chapter 37 - Falling Rocks
Chapter 38 - Duke of the Ordunas
Chapter 39 - Shock Troops
Chapter 40 - Flashback
Part 6 - September 25th - Dusk
Chapter 41 - Lilitu’s Speech
Chapter 42 - The Attack
Chapter 43 - Breach
Chapter 44 - Betrayed
Chapter 45 - Resurrection
Chapter 46 - Fiela Denied
Chapter 47 - The Sillum
Part 7 - September 26th and 27th
Chapter 48 - Sparks
Chapter 49 - Fire
Chapter 50 - Family Album
The Ardoon King
Glossary of Terms
Prologue - February 4th, First Year of the Second Era
“Stay where you are!” The command came from a prone man atop a detached semi-trailer buttressed by snow-covered sandbags. The barrel of the man’s rifle extended just over the edge and its scope glinted as the sentry aimed in on the newcomers. The trailer completely blocked the road and on either side of it were walls of stacked concertina wire sheathed in ice.
A minute passed, and when no further commands came, the man below yelled back, “My name is Vedeus.” Switching to the secret tongue, he added, “Peth-Allati of the Tenth Kingdom.” He motioned with his head toward the shivering, robed figure sitting behind him on the horse. “With me is Persipia, a noble daughter of the Eighth. She is ill and seeks refuge.”
Vedeus waited for a response that didn’t come. The man behind the rifle on top of the trailer didn’t move. More minutes passed, during which the only sounds were the howling of the frigid wind and the snorts of the ragged and weary horse beneath him. Plumes of steam rose from the animal’s frosted snout as it drooped its head in exhaustion. The long slog up the mountain in knee-deep snow had taken two weeks and there had been little to forage.
The man was perplexed as to why he had not been ordered to identify himself, dismount, or lay down his weapon. Perhaps speaking the secret language of Agati had been a mistake? But the odd fellow in the city below had assured him that his kind guarded the passes. If that was true, speaking the secret language should expedite Vedeus’s safe passage. If his contact in the city was wrong, however, and slaves guarded this pass, the use of any language but English was likely to be a mortal error. Most of the slaves couldn’t distinguish Agati from Russian and the only thing they feared more than a foreigner was a foreigner with shotgun across his lap.
He was jarred by the sound of a squelching radio on the wall above him. It had been months since he had heard such a sound. Almost no electronic devices worked since the collapse. A muffled conversation between a guard he couldn’t see and some distant master followed.
“We shall not be allowed in,” murmured the woman behind the Peth, wringing her gloved hands against his stomach. “I am a traitor. If the Annasa allows me inside, it will only be to torture me.”
“I was assured by the one who cared for you that you would be admitted and treated properly, Miss.” Shaking the frost from his beard, he added, “At any rate, our lot is cast. We would never make it back to the city and even if we did, you know what waits for us there. The stench of a hundred thousand corpses and the cries of the infected and starving. Better to die here, in the peace of the mountains.”
“We could go elsewhere,” protested the passenger weakly.
“No. It is the same everywhere. I have seen it with my own eyes. The scripts were effective beyond measure. We have succeeded. The world is dead.” He spat into the snow. “All hail the wisdom of the Nisirtu.”
“Surely some kingdoms have survived.”
“Perhaps. But where are they?”
The girl could not answer, of course, and the truth was that her new protector had his doubts about the survival of any of the kingdoms. Three of the ten were wiped out during the rebellion. The location of the other ruling families was unknown to him. He had spent months traveling across the plains in an effort to reach his own only to find the estate abandoned and looted. The House had left no messages for its subjects.
Less than a year ago he had been told that the Nisirtu would be insulated from the collapse. He had been told that there might be some short-term discomforts but that these would be the labor pains required for a glorious rebirth of the world. In time, he was promised, the Nisirtu would reassert itself and again place its heels on the necks of the slaves that had unknowingly challenged the invisible order’s dominance.
Had that been a lie or a delusion? Or had he been told the truth? Was he giving up too quickly? It had only been six months since the collapse. He could have kept riding, perhaps to the coast, in search of an answer.
Yet his dreams warned him to find refuge soon. There was something horrific coming for him – for everyone. Something more horrible than Cage’s disease, or radiation, or hunger, because the thing that was coming was sentien
t. It had a mind, and that scared him. He imagined he could feel the thing’s breath on his neck when he slept, though his dreams assured him that it was still far away.
A man in winter camouflage appeared to the right of the trailer and began removing a section of concertina wire that had been attached to wooden boards to form a makeshift gate. When it was withdrawn another man appeared, this one riding a white horse.
Persipia, seeing the man, gasped.
“A lord of the Peth!” she exclaimed.
“Yes,” replied Vedeus stoically, trying to conceal the emotion in his own voice. The appearance of the figure now approaching them was proof that not only had he finally found his own kind, but that these people had a hierarchy. Rules. Order. He hadn’t realized how much he needed order in his life until he began roaming the fields of anarchy months ago.
The figure on the stallion that moved slowly toward them was bearded, as were almost all men now, and was dressed in the black combat armor of the Peth-Allati. A red cloak churned in the wind behind him. Only Nisirtu military officers of highest station were allowed cloaks but more indicative of the man’s status was the brilliant ceremonial breastplate he wore atop his real body armor. Silver and adorned with intricate cuneiform calligraphy, it shimmered beneath the dull winter sun.
“Peth Vedeus,” boomed the man as he approached with his right hand raised in greeting. “I am-”
Persipia startled both men by throwing herself into the snow and beginning to crawl forward. “Lord!” she cried, “Have mercy and take me to the king! I am promised to him!”
Vedeus and the other man quickly jumped from their horses. The Peth lord reached the woman first and lifted her into his arms effortlessly. She weighed almost nothing.
“You will meet him soon,” he assured her.
Grasping his collar, she pleaded in a hoarse voice, “Tell him I am here. Tell him to protect me.”
“From who, Lady?”
“Her,” whispered the woman. But then her eyelids slowly closed and her body went limp in his arms.
“She has had a hard time of it,” said Vedeus. “Her mother, a lady, was brutally killed shortly before we began our ascent. She was unwell even before that, and the lack of food and warmth this past week has put her into a state of delirium. Until we reached this place she uttered hardly a word to me.”
“She will be cared for,” replied the Peth lord. “The queen has sent me to retrieve her. Bring the horses. I will carry the woman through the gate.”
The traveler took the reins of both animals in one hand and began following the other man through the opening in the wire. There were tall trees on either side of the road and the two men trudged into their shadows.
“Shall I not hand over my weapon?” asked Vedeus, seeing two figures in white camouflage emerge from the trailer and fall in behind him. Both wore black masks across their faces and carried high-tech carbines with laser sites.
“That will not be necessary.”
Not necessary? I am stranger carrying a shotgun…
The road on which he found himself zigged and zagged upward and the many abandoned cars parked on it formed a maze of sorts. The entourage walked for another ten minutes in silence. Vedeus began to worry that he not been disarmed because he would not be traveling as far as his escorts - that a bullet might find its way into his head at any moment.
“What shall be done with me?” he asked at last, looking over his shoulder at the men with guns.
The figure ahead said, “Don’t worry, Vedeus. The Fifth Kingdom is in need of soldiers like you.”
The emaciated warrior jerked his head forward and said with astonishment, “The Fifth Kingdom stands?”
“The true Fifth Kingdom, yes. Here, in these mountains, and below. Our spies have been watching you for some time. Tell me, what was the name of the man you spoke to in the ruins of the city before you began your journey here?”
“He did not give me his name, or else I do not remember it. I found him tending to the girl and her mother and he insisted I bring the girl here.”
“Why would you acquiesce to such a request?”
Vedeus had asked himself that same question a million times. Since he did not know the answer, he told the man ahead what he had begun to tell himself. “He spoke the secret tongue and I felt pity for the woman.”
“I see,” said the Peth lord without inflection. He walked another ten paces and said, “You will be examined by our medical team, fed, and allowed a chance to wash up and sleep. After that we will talk. I believe roasted turkey is on the menu. Does that suit you?”
Here, at last, Vedeus broke down. Icy tears streamed down his chapped red face and onto his filthy and matted beard. “Suit me?” he croaked. “To lick the pan it was cooked in would be a feast.” His growling stomach prompted him to ask, “How far is it to your camp?”
The other man laughed. “Camp? Vedeus, you have reached Steepleguard.”
“I do not know the name,” admitted the Peth. “The man in the city told me only to seek refuge at the top of the mountain. You have a fortification, then?”
“Of a kind.”
The group had reached a bend in the road. As they turned and began a sharp ascent up a wide path cleared of snow, Vedeus came to an abrupt stop. Perhaps a hundred yards in the distance was a hill on which had been constructed a building of monstrous size. It was a city unto itself, four stories tall and as wide as a football field. Stone towers marked its perimeter. Each of its hundreds of windows was aglow with a warm yellow light. Smoke rose from a dozen chimneys.
He thought he could hear music and he smelled….oh gods, is this possible? Somewhere, in some unseen kitchen, bread was being baked. As the scent wafted over him he thought his knees might buckle.
With the unconscious girl still in his arms, the Peth lord turned to face the new arrival. “Welcome, Vedeus, to the Fifth Kingdom of the Nisirtu.”
Part 1 - September 21st , Final Year of the First Era
“My son, why do you hide your face so anxiously?”
“Father, do you not see the Elf king? The Elf king with crown and tail?”
“My son, it’s a wisp of fog.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Der Erlkönig (1782)