Prologue

The dig was all there was. Arms shoved forth from bent backs into red soil. Every bead of sweat dropped to the dirt below, darkening it like a deep earthy wine. Dust filled the air, making a choking mist of sand to suffocate the lungs and pervade all view. If the working men did not have their scarves wrapped about their faces, they would have choked on that which they excavated, dying to be buried among the poor souls who had found their final resting place underfoot.

Overseeing the dig was a man in khaki pants and an undone button-up shirt. This was Dr. Nathaniel Glanton. Sweat dripped from his brow as he paced along the ridge overlooking the excavation site. They had started this project months ago, and it was just now paying off. A young girl playing in the desert had found jewelry at the base of an escarpment, barely concealed beneath a small pile of sand. Upon analysis, they found the artifacts to be the likely possessions of a socialite in ancient Haranian society. From there, the search was on. Clay pots had surfaced, then aged iron weapons. When they uncovered an entire building structure buried underfoot, it dawned on the researchers that they had found an entire city.

When excavators discovered an audience chamber with a massive throne of time-weathered gold, Nathaniel knew what they’d found. The old myths of the fallen Haranian theocracy could be traced to these lands. Below their feet lay the buried ruins of Maraketh, the capital city of God King Cyrus. This find would ensure that Nathaniel was a rich man, esteemed in the field of archaeology. No textbook would be complete without acknowledging he and his team’s discovery. Museums around the world would owe their prized Haranian artifacts to his work. Back at the university, he was a shoe-in for tenure and early retirement. Everything was working out beautifully in his favor. Once this dig was done, he could return home a great man.

“Dr. Glanton,” said a hurried voice. Nathaniel turned to face the research assistant, who came running against heat and gravity. “We got it to open."

Last week, one worker accidentally leaned against a portion of wall that swung open against his weight. The hidden door led to endless spiraling stairs leading down, down, down. At the end of the staircase was a chamber door that had been closed for at least a thousand years. After days of struggle, they had finally pried it ajar. Dr. Glanton descended the stairs with torch in hand, led by his research assistant and flanked by two workmen. When he got to the dark doorway, he grinned and the butterflies in his stomach fluttered their excitement. A shiver brought the hairs on his arms standing at attention. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the obscurity to receive his fortune.

The torch flame bathed the room in red heat. Nathaniel took a stride forward to observe his environs. Stone walls spun upward around the circular, wide chamber. Flame light stretched into the shadow until the glow extended beyond its reach, fizzling out into a looming expanse of darkness. At the center of the chamber was a pillar of stone standing overhead. Upon its coarse stone face was an ages-dry sheen of black. Nathaniel took a closer look at the monolith, inspecting its jet-dark stains.

“Blood,” he said. The others shuddered, but not Dr. Glanton. All he could do was draft his award acceptance speeches in his head as he marveled at the discovery of the century. He felt the rough, flat face of the shrine and discovered that it wasn’t flat at all. The impressions of two eyes were worked into the stone. Black splatter covered them so they were hard to see from a distance, but this close, with his hand upon their grooves, Nathaniel felt as though the eyes stared into the center of his being.

Just then, a great wind pulled the chamber door shut. Before any of the four could react, the gust blew out Nathaniel’s torch. Darkness swallowed them, and all the research assistant could do was cry out.

“Don’t panic!” said Nathaniel. “We’ll just get another torch.” He stumbled his way to the door in blindness and gave a push.

It didn’t budge.

Now panic started to threaten. It had taken days to pry the door open. How long would it take to open it again? What would they have to live off for a week in this ancient prison? Would it become their tomb? No, it does not do to think on such things. They would get out of here, somehow. He just needed to think.

“No, no, no!” The research assistant threw himself at the door. “Help! Help us! We’re trapped!”

“Quiet!” said Nathaniel. “Let me think of a way out! We need to stay calm.”

“Calm? We’re stuck down here, Dr. Glanton.”

Before Nathaniel could respond, the room glowed red again, this time a deeper crimson. Dr. Glanton turned to the center of the room, expecting to see the torch lit again by an active ember. The light did not come from the torch, though. It came from the shrine.

Red glow emanated from beneath the black crust of splatter. The workers backed up and made to run, but they could not move. As their feet left the ground, they floated in the shrine’s orbit. Slowly, their skin bubbled and dripped from their bodies until they were flayed by boiling heat. Screams gurgled and were snuffed when the men’s jaws fell off and their tongues waggled limp from their heads. As Nathaniel watched in horror, the men were reduced to puddles on the ground. 

“Dr. Glanton,” said the research assistant. The young man’s hand grabbed Nathaniel’s shoulder, steaming flesh bubbling. Nathaniel looked to his left and saw his assistant’s face oozing off his skull. Skin gave way to sanguine muscle, gave way to slop of red dripping through teeth, until even the bone curdled like milk. Nathaniel screamed.

Suddenly, Nathaniel couldn’t even hear his own scream. He checked his hands to make sure they too hadn’t melted, and surely enough they were intact. He felt the air rushing past his skin towards the glowing altar, but heard no howl of wind. A void of sound pervaded existence. He turned to face the red pillar, which was all that existed. He did not hear the voice, but felt it deep in his gut.

YOU WISH FOR GREATNESS, NATHANIEL GLANTON?

The eyes drew him in. Before he blinked, Nathaniel was on his hands and knees before the altar.

“Y-yes,” he muttered, the liquid remains of his companions pooling about him.

THEN ACCEPT THE GREATNESS THAT CAN ONLY COME FROM ME.

The fluid human remains began to collect where Dr. Glanton’s body met the ground. The pooled viscera crept up his fingers and started spreading up around his skin. Nathaniel looked at his hand in horror as the bloody mush traveled from wrist to forearm, then past his elbow. He tried to tear it off, but felt his flesh rip. He screamed as the wound healed and the liquid corpses spread across his body. Then the melted remains reached his open mouth, creeping down his throat to silence the scream. Vision turned red as the crimson solution welled up and seeped beneath his eyelids. That’s when bones began crunching, elongating, twisting out of socket until Dr. Nathaniel Glanton’s very form was a faint memory.

ARISE, SARGANTANAS.

Slowly, Sargantanas lifted from the floor to face his master. He was the color of blood, one with the glow of the shrine before him. Where Dr. Nathaniel Glanton’s eyes once received the world, twin pits of white light glowed with apathy for the realm of the living. He was naked, so his master materialized a black cloak to clothe him. Sargantanas stood before Astaroth, staring into the eyes of power itself.

“I am ready to do your bidding, my master.”

THE WORLD IS OPEN TO US ONCE MORE, SARGANTANAS.

“He still gives you power?” Sargantanas referred to the ancient one, the so-called God King Cyrus, Astaroth’s last host. In life, he had brought millions of deaths in the master’s name. Then, one General Acacius had stood against him, bringing an end to his powerful reign.

HE RAGES IN GEHANNAM, GROWING IN HATRED EVERY DAY. 

“Good, master. Even death could not break your bond.”

I SENSE THERE ARE FORCES GATHERING TO STOP MY RETURN. THE ASTRALA SEEK DESCENDANTS OF THE TRAITOR ACACIUS. THEY WISH TO USE THE TRAITOR’S BLOOD TO UNDO MY BOND WITH THE WRETCHED GOD-KING. YOU MUST FIND AND PURGE THEM, SARGANTANAS. PURGE THE WORLD OF ACACIUS’ BLOODLINE.

“Yes, my master. It will be done.”

With that, Sargantanas rose off the ground and took flight. He burst through the ceiling of the shrine room, breaking through layers of sedimentary rock until he crashed through the ruins of the throne room, then out of the palace. He levitated over the ruins of Maraketh for a moment, reflecting on the folly of man. These puny mortals had built shrines to their own greatness, which outlived their architects only to disintegrate all the same. Darkness was eternal, though. Once all the light of the universe was snuffed out, it would consume all once more.

***

Over the next year, Sargantanas would kill countless descendants of the traitor Acacius. Newborns were slaughtered like lambs upon the altar. The elderly on their deathbed saw a horrid final vision glowing with red. It did not matter who Sargantanas had to murder. The bloodline of Acacius had to be cleansed from existence. 

In the wreckage of a small apartment, Sargantanas finished his latest task. He dropped the limp body of a young woman, her head lolling at an awkward angle after his grasp had snapped her neck between thumb and forefinger. She slumped next to the tiny corpse of her son. Kneeling over their bodies, he prayed to his master for the next target.

OLIVER HARKER, said the deep inner voice. FIND AND KILL OLIVER HARKER.