The Story of King Zutophax of The Gustah

Here’s the draft opening text of my latest endeavor, a fantasy novel that is swiftly growing out of control….

For many years, King Zutophax ruled the lands of the mighty Gustah Mountains and The Vast Plains below them. He possessed the further southern forest kingdoms of Welki and Telki. The dusty lands of Vanzylt and Rymsalsi to the east paid tribute to Zutophax and relied on his protection from the Empire of Onquesta and the kingdom of Poortemta. These two waning powers participated in unending conflict between themselves hence any mustering of the Gustah armies proved rare. North of the mountains, stretching into the eternal unknown of the arctic wastelands, lay the Oliane Steppe, populated by mysterious nomadic tribes and beasts of dark origins. To the west churned the sea.


Integral to the king’s legend was his devotion to the god Hartem and Hartem’s wife, Demnasa. The story told across the far reaches of his influence and beyond placed a young, newly crowned Zutophax in the catacombs beneath Hartem’s temple carved into the dark rock of the Gustah convening face to face with the boisterous deity, the god of both war and peace, and the undeniable lord of his fellow gods. Zutophax pleaded to Hartem’s vanity and promised the god many wars in exchange for years of calm and prosperity. In an additional appeal to Hartem’s wife, Demnasa, the goddess of the harvest and childbirth, purveyor of the energy of all life, Zutophax presented a plan to provide exuberant amounts of what the gods most desired—the worship and sacrifice that roiled the cosmic realm to fuel their strength and magic.


The shining armies of the Gustah conquered what remained of the borderlands between the plains and Welki and Telki. He subjugated the twin forest kingdoms and decimated the wild lands of Vanzylt and Rymsalsi. He installed his brothers as princes there. He annexed waterways and fertile lands from the faltering Empire of Onquesta. He attacked Poortempta and removed the kingdom’s mad boy-king from power. Then for decades he played the two nations against one another in order to keep the peace he had promised Hartem and Demnasa. This peace provided much wealth and happiness for the people of The Gustah. Zutophax and his subjects recognized the chief god’s approval as the source of their prosperity and performed endless sacrifices to his name.

The king of Gustah achieved a number of feats in his travels and wars that established his legend beyond his borders. Hartem’s assistance in many of these achievements spawned jealousy and angst amongst the ranks of the gods. Many of these triumphs involved the destruction of other gods’ plans, creatures, or favored heroes. Zutophax and his armies exterminated the Glorm, forest trolls beloved of Xelshas, God of the Trees and Swamps. Hartem sent winged minions to drink dry the catches of water below the forest, starving the Glorm from their subterranean fortress. Zutophax’s warriors slew them to the last female and cub. In the deserts of Vanzylt, Zutophax and his brothers bested a family of giants after Hartem cheated their goddess, Shamkai of the Sand, in a game of chance in which Hartem won the total of the giants’ armory. Hartem blinded Golgorahm’s favorite dragon in order that Zutophax could slay him on the shore of the River Onquesta. Hartem revealed to the king the secret passage through the mountains in Rymsalsi that led to the Sanctuary of Viltide where Fowmyar, The Storm God, hid the magic shield, Artimah. These and many other victories raised Zutophax to unprecedented fame and power as well as making him the subject of ridicule and jealousy.


During his march to the River Onquesta, Zutophax fell in love with a maiden named Sermaina. She travelled in the company of rebel barons from the now dethroned royal family of Poortempta. Zutophax’s warriors captured the party and brought them before the king. Zutophax was struck with love for Sermaina the moment she looked into his eyes and he took her for his wife. By ancient law, only women of the Gustah could wear the queen’s crown and Zutophax held loyal to the law. Sermaina would never be queen or wield the formidable powers afforded the title. To Zutophax’s despair, Sermaina proved barren of ova and could not bear children. Zutophax sacrificed and pleaded with Demnasa to repair his beloved and provide him with heirs. After heated congress betwixt Hartem, Demnasa, and her priestesses, the goddess relented and gave Zutophax two sons and a daughter, Selmaina. Under the arrangement, to Sermaina’s lasting sorrow, Demnasa took Selmaina as her own and stole her away for secret machinations known only to her.


The sons of Zutophax, Aphax and Siliphax, grew strong in the years following the disappearance of their sister. Tutored by Aniskartool, Gustah’s royal wizard and High Priest of Hartem. Aphax stood tall and golden, the very reflection of his famous father. From the time he could stand, Zutophax’s warriors bade lavish affection upon Aphax. Their love for him vexed the king for he worried it might soften his heir and curdle his lineage. In frustration, Zutophax gave standing orders for floggings if any of his men coddled the prince. His intervention and the loyalty of his soldiers indeed preempted any possible spoil of the boy. In his teens, he could best many of his father’s elite fighters in the endless duels in which his father insisted he partake. Aphax took command of his father’s cavalry in his nineteenth summer, performing decisive maneuvers in battles against the unified armies of Vanzylt. Aphax and Siliphax stood at their father’s side as he tumbled the severed head of the hated Vanzyltian queen down the steps of the Irpnaqi Pyramid.


On that white morning, with the haze of human steam obscuring the cheering multitude of the liberated Vanzyltian people gathered below them, young Aphex discovered his love for glory and victory, an emotion destined to ruin him, destroy his kingdom, and scar the entire world of Kem.


In recent years, Zutophax’s eyes kept further south than the forest lands, into the rich trading empires who exploited greater access to the oceans and the prolific rivers laced through the Gustahnian plains and all the lands between. As a man, Zutophax suffered few weaknesses but as ruler, the king lusted for control and subjects. He knew the trading realms in the deeper south enjoyed unsurpassed flavors of such control. Only in his later years had he discovered the usefulness of gold as a weapon instead of a simple spoil of war. With patience true to his legend, Zutophax plotted and spied against them for years.


*


One of Gustah’s essential religious pageants came in the spring. Demnasafyax celebrated Gustah’s devotion to Demnasa and her continued blessing of the harvest. The festival involved thousands of people from every vein of Gustah culture with special attention and duties assigned to the farming families. The Demnasafyax of Aphax’s twenty first year held particular importance as the first celebration of the festival in a year of absolute peace. The lands were calm and subdued, the subjects of Zutophax scattered across his vast realm satisfied and healthy.


At the height of Demnasafyax, when the maidens of the court tossed their bouquets into the green fires of the ritual vessel and the kingdom’s highest ranking warriors bowed at the feet of the elected members of the farming families, a cry of anguish halted the music and laughter. Those members of the court most familiar with the voices of the royal family knew at once that shrill scream belonged to King Zutophax’s wife, Sermaina.


Aphax, Siliphax, and their closest confidant, Gartisix, bounded from the floor of the ceremony to Sermaina’s side on the royal platform. Dark blood speckled her screaming face. Her sons grabbed and prodded in attempt to find her wounds until Gartisix shook them from their frenzy for he tracked Sermaina’s unmoved gaze. There in the shadow of the royal dining table lay King Zutophax in a creeping pool of blood, his throat open, his eyes affixed in subdued horror.


Aphax ordered the hall sealed and gathered the guard about the table in defense of his mother. He climbed atop the table, sword drawn. He demanded the culprit found. He vowed grave tortures for the murderer and stomped his feet against the table which scattered the feast and hushed the terrified assemblage of nobles into cowering huddles.


Old Aniskartool approached with his slender staff held high. The warriors tightened the gap before him, prompting reprimands from the wizard.


“Aphax!” he bellowed. “Tame these buffoons so that I may tend to your father!”


“Your master is dead, wizard! And the assassin is here in the hall!”


“Damn you, boy! Let me through! His wounds may reveal the fiend! If you and your brutes haven’t already ruined our chance with this ruckus!”


Aphax gave the guards the order and they sidestepped just enough for the old man to push through. After a forlorn glance at Sermaina, he bent into the space above the king’s seeping wound and sniffed. He pushed his fingers into the glaze of blood on the stone floor then shot to his feet, banging his head against the edge of the table as he went.


“There!” He pointed his staff over the helms of the guardsmen. The room shifted concert in the direction of his insistence.


“Where, old man?” Gartisix said as pounced to the tabletop.


Aniskartool struggled his crooked body to Gartisix’s side. “There!”


A pair of glassy eyes stared back at them, a servant girl, her hand drenched in blood.


The room gasped.


Before Gartisix could move, Aphax leapt past him, over the ring of soldiers, stamping across the backs of cringing nobles.


“Aphax, no!” the old man yelled.


Even as the words left The High Priest’s lips, Aphax slung the wide blade down into the girl’s shoulder and clove a quarter of her body away in an explosion of gore.


The room had stalled, transfixed by the speed of it all.


“Impulsive clod,” the wizard whispered. “Gartisix, get down there and find the blade the child used on our king. Bring it to me after. Hurry!”


In a precaution against further conspiracy, Aphax removed his mother’s regular guard and replaced them with six of his most trusted cavalrymen. He then requested the High Conclave of Demnasa—the seven priestesses sent from far flung regions for the festival—to treat his mother in her quarters.


*


Deep in the bowels of Gustahphax Castle, amidst a slow dance of torch shadows and the heavy osmarah of mildew and sweat,
Aphax and his brother received counsel from their father’s advisers. A steady parade of slaves and servants escorted in and out of the meeting brought them no closer to a motive for the king’s assassination. More than once the older, wiser men extinguished the grieving Aphax and Siliphax from brutality born of their loss. To Aniskartool’s surprise, only one of the wretches had suffered mortal wounds before his arrival.


“Sons of Zutophax,” he said as he made his way to the table in the center of the room, “men of the King’s Council, it appears we have suffered a mystical crime.”


“Mystical?” one of them replied.


From some hidden pouch beneath his robes, Aniskartool produced a leather rag and dropped it to the table with authoritative flourish. The rag rolled open to reveal a common kitchen knife, crusted with the blood of their dead king.


He motioned Gartisix forward. “My boy, with which hand did thoust touch this blade when I asked thee to retrieve it?”


Gartisix glanced about the room with reticence then he showed the High Priest his right hand.


Aniskartool heaved a heavy wet breath into the soldier’s palm and then examined the hand front and back, all while peering down his nose as if assessing some jewel or fine fabric. Finally, he patted the man’s arm and shooed him aside.


“This blade has been tampered by magic. A dark spell. A very difficult spell.”


“You’re suggesting that knife possessed that girl to murder my father,” Aphax told himself as much as relaying his deduction.


“I’m not suggesting anything, prince. This is a statement of fact.”


“There are but a select number of magic wielding people this far north,” one of the older men commented.


“I can think of only three individuals in Gustah proper with the expertise to craft such an incantation,” Aniskartool said, “One is a fellow member of my Circle, one is a ranking priestess of Demnasa, and the third is sitting at this table.”


Aphax perked in shock. “This priestess—?”


“Not to worry. I have just left your mother’s quarters. Ruyadsaftooli is the priestess in question and she is beyond suspicion, I assure you.”


“Then pray what is your conclusion, Aniskartool?” Helbalifex, the dead king’s chief general, asked in weary cadence.


“Beyond the Gustah’s ancient borders, the number of capable sorcerers climbs. And the further south one goes, the greater those numbers increase, exponentially.”


“We need to send envoys.”


“We could do that, Helbalifex, but to whom? Imperial courts well aware of our late king’s meddling in their affairs?”


“Men who,” Aphax said with a finger pointing into the tabletop, “wish our nation ill.”


“Political postering,” Aniskartool said. “Fiery rhetoric. Diversions.”


“Murdering a king is a bold diversion,” barked Siliphax.


“Give us counsel, wizard!” Helbalifex shouted. “Gustah demands swift revenge!”


Aniskartool banged the foot of his staff against the floor. “Have you given any thought that hot blooded, unthinking revenge is the fruit our antagonist hopes to reap from this atrocity?”


“What is our play then?” Aphax said. “Where do we look and how do we proceed once we know our enemy?”


The old man tapped at the knife with his long fingernail several times then gathered it back into the rag.


“Our foe is indeed south of Vanzylt and Rymsalsi. You will be sending messages to your uncles with news of Zutophax’s murder. They will announce the deed to their subjects. We will send instruction on how to read the ambassadors from Vashar and Jemhway. The southern empires are wily and quick. Their foreign agents will prove difficult. We must not act rashly. Our window of opportunity is minute and any ballyhoo will foul our efforts. Aphax,” he reached out to touch the young man, “you are Zutophax’s heir. You are our king now, regardless of the coming ceremony to make it legitimate in the eyes of the people. I beg you to follow my every instruction.”


To a man, the weight of the kingdom seemed to have traveled through the catacombs and stairwells, past the servants and the guards as some phantom serpentine creature hunting them by scent of their anxieties, constricting them and holding them captive in the silence of the moment.