The Third War Part 1

Ablon parked the motorcycle with chrome handlebars in a dark alley, dismounted, and crossed the street.

He entered a narrow cobblestone street, already deserted at that time of night. Even though it's a big city, some areas of Rio de Janeiro, especially those in the center, preserve 19th-century architecture — three-story townhouses, baroque churches, and dimly lit roads — a legacy of the colonial past which continues to be present in historic areas, where pirates, Jesuits, and slaves once walked.

A few meters away, the old streets converge into a wide paved avenue, bordered by huge skyscrapers with neon advertisements on top. Along the sidewalk, underground holes penetrate the ground, illuminated by the light of night posts and flashing traffic lights. This is the aspect of the center, a conjunction between the old and the new, an architectural clash between the modern city and the extinct capital of the colony.

About fifty years ago, as the city grew, many people moved to more distant areas, and the center stopped being residential, becoming exclusively commercial. Almost no one lives there now, and the few residents are mostly beggars or outsiders who sleep in shelters or in the few guesthouses, mostly used by prostitutes.

At night, this is a ghost neighborhood, visited only by city hall workers who repair signs, traffic lights, and asphalt. When the day arrives, however, the neighborhood is invaded by the most heterogeneous crowd — executives in suits, cripples, beggars, peanut sellers, bus drivers, late students, and religious preachers. The movement only decreases towards the end of the afternoon, when the working day ends and workers return home. Some remain, having fun in bars or frequenting brothels, but everything ends before midnight, only to be reborn with the sunshine.

There was a pension hidden on the old side, the Hotel Montenegro, which Ablon had chosen as a refuge. He had managed to convince the owner to rent one of the large rooms indefinitely, which saved the inn's bills, which had already been almost given over to the cockroaches.

If there was a place in the city for a renegade angel to stay, this was it. The Hotel Montenegro was nothing more than a despicable boarding house, practically abandoned. And, even though it was a construction very ancient, the spiritual world was clean beneath the fabric of reality — no spirits dragging currents or specters coming out of the shadows. The former residents of the townhouse, as Ablon already concluded, had left no unfinished business to punish the soul. Contrary to popular belief, ghosts don't always torment the living, but angels can see them on the astral plane, and it is sometimes boring to watch the lament of hauntings.

The Hotel Montenegro was in agreement — isolated and obscure, a decaying hole in the decrepit city.

Ablon opened the door and entered the apartment. The room was large, old, with high ceilings and wooden tiled floors, which was probably part of the original construction. The room, wide and without partitions, occupied the entire third floor of the townhouse. The owner had told the renegade that the enclosure had been, in the past, a kind of deposit. A few months ago, upon settling there, the celestial had brought hundreds of unusual objects, artifacts that he had collected for around six thousand years. He never loaded anything on his travels, but he kept the items in hidden places, and now he had collected them in his refuge.

Thus, the hall looked more like a small museum. On the crowded shelves, they rested ancestral documents, witchcraft tomes, medieval tapestries, Hellenic treatises, Egyptian papyri, Spanish maps, and copies of original 19th-century books, including a manuscript of The Origin of Species, by Darwin. Other shelves held more boxes, inside which lay gladiuses, Roman swords, Japanese armor, Nordic shields, Sumerian plaques, Renaissance paintings, and other cultural icons that Ablon preferred to preserve, even if it was simply to not forget his own past.

Once the door was locked, the fighter took off his rubberized overcoat, which he used to protect himself from the frequent rain that fell without warning in that humid and hot city. He pulled out a chair and sat down at a massive mahogany table, cluttered with newspapers and magazines, which shared space with aged rolls of parchment, written in Aramaic. The warrior had been, for weeks, analyzing the periodicals and searching for connections between recent facts and old prophecies. Unfortunately, he had recognized the parallels and noticed the signs.

The signs of the Apocalypse.

For an outcast like Ablon, it was difficult to know what happened in heaven or hell. But, over time, he began to understand that spiritual events are reflected on the physical plane. That was how, for the first time, he noticed the signs — the signs that confirmed the last days of the earth. It started with what the prophets called "horsemen of the Apocalypse." There were no real knight entities assembled that embodied the prediction. But the renegade could perceive them in the wars in the Middle East, starving children in Africa, epidemics, false seers, and everywhere else death dragged its cloak.

Afterwards, the world situation deteriorated, and this had nothing to do with infernal or celestial forces.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the global economic crisis once again encouraged the expansionism of large powers, as happened at the end of the 19th century. The United States of America, shaken by political and financial problems, sought to expand their territories of influence, invading and occupying dozens of smaller countries. After the invasion of Afghanistan, the Americans advanced towards Iraq and then continued the operation, occupying Syria, Iran, and Libya, always under the pretext of self-defense. They lightly accused their enemies of possessing arsenals of chemical weapons, biological and nuclear, arguments that were almost always refuted by United Nations inspectors.

Establishing dominance over these countries, the Americans closed the siege on the Middle East, establishing solid foundations for their operations in Asia. To ensure the contingent of troops in occupied regions, the USA sealed a cooperation pact with the main European countries, led by Great Britain, Italy, and Germany. Thus, the so-called Berlin League was created, in allusion to the name of the capital that hosted the heads of state during the conference that formalized the agreement.

However, the need to establish an operations post in the East arose, and the landmark chosen was Taiwan, whose government gladly accepted the capital invested by Western patrons. But the alliance with the island did not go unnoticed in the eyes of China and North Korea, nations that, like the United States, wanted to expand their areas of influence and dominate markets. The two countries demanded the evacuation of Western companies from Taiwan, and their refusal led to the first major conflict of the 21st century, the Three Hundred Days War, which killed around three million people in just one year — military and civilians — and ended with the victory of the East. The Berlin League was forced to leave the island, and since then the two blocs have exchanged hostilities, like a pressure cooker about to explode.

China and North Korea understood that they were the League's main targets and decided to expand. In a campaign unprecedented in human history, the two armies invaded Japan without firing a single shot and occupied the entire archipelago, in the so-called Two Armies Offensive. They signed cooperation agreements with India, Mongolia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, but the final blow was yet to come. Unhappy with the growing poverty after the end of communism, the Russians embraced the Chinese cause with all their might, and the country joined the Eastern bloc, forming the Eastern Alliance, which received, in a few months, the accessions of some former Soviet republics.

Concerned about the loss of sovereignty, the Americans managed, after countless conversations, to gain support from Canada and precious Oceania, and continued their expansionist policy, invading Cuba and Panama. A new confrontation between the two blocs broke out in Turkey, the only Muslim country allied with NATO, an act disbanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Turkish government split, giving rise to two parties that took up arms and turned Ankara into a sea of blood, sinking the nation in a civil war. Each of the powers sent weapons and troops.

For the Berlin League, it was imperative to retain control of Turkey, so that it could form a bridge with the occupied countries of the Middle East. The Eastern Alliance, in turn, knew that if the enemies took the capital, it would open an invasion front from the south.

The stage was then set for a global conflict. On one side, the Berlin League, formed by the United States and Europe; on the other, the Eastern Alliance, led by China, North Korea, and Russia. And in the middle of these two blocks, the poor countries of Africa and Latin America remained neutral, now more concerned with defending their own borders.

It was in this calamitous context that the signs became clearer. Ablon knew that a clash of these proportions would culminate in an atomic confrontation, and he saw no salvation for humanity if that happened.

But this would all simply be another war, were it not for the permanent tears in the fabric of reality. Everyone, angels and demons alike, felt the membrane coming apart. And they understood, some earlier than others, that the Apocalypse was underway, and began to prepare for the Armageddon — the final battle that will decide the sovereignty of Haled, which will be open to spiritual invasion when the membrane falls.

Although everyone takes the prophecy about Yahweh's awakening as truth, it is best not to take any chances. Both celestial and infernal forces were already preparing their ranks for the greatest of confrontations and waiting for the outbreak of conflict.

The only ones who would be able to foresee the future — the malakins, a caste of angels, scholars, and wise men — said nothing more. They distanced themselves from heaven, and some held that they evolved to other spheres, immersing themselves in a deep trance.

The Aramaic scroll on the renegade's table was the original text of John's revelations, which narrates the prophet's vision of the last days of the world. Ablon had obtained this record by luck in Rome, in 119, a time when the Empire was under the command of Hadrian. The general had bought the document from a highwayman, who had stolen it from an Italian aristocrat. None of them — neither the patrician nor the thief — knew the value of what they were carrying. The text was copied when John was still alive, and the original must have fallen into the hands of some centurion in the years that the apostle was thrown into prison with other Christians.

Already at this time, in 119, the parchment was rotting, but the cherub managed to recover it with an herbal mixture, a secret recipe of the Order of Sippar, taught to him by a sorceress friend. The current biblical version of John is practically the same, except for some errors that the writings suffered when they were translated into Greek.

The apartment was lit only by the light from the night street lamps, which reached the bedroom through a large window. Sitting down, Ablon collected some papers and organized a pile of them. Then he got up and looked outside.

Everything calm.

He felt the weight of the Atlantic rune of peace, inscribed on the basalt fragment. He took the object out of his pocket and examined it under the dim glow of street lamps. Then he walked over to the phone and pulled the hook.

He started dialing.

BABEL, TO ANTIGA

Mesopotamia, 2334 BC

To Tower of Babel

The Babylonian military entourage left the site of the great hills and took the road through the rocky desert. Fifty elite soldiers, on their horses and buggies, escorted a single woman—a witch brought by them from Canaan by order of their king, Nimrod.

Attached by chains to an iron column affixed to the carriage of a common cart, the girl tried to find a comfortable position, but the bonds stretched her painfully. Her black hair was dirty, full of dirt, and her white skin was punished by sandstorms. She felt hungry, thirsty, and hot under the strong sun of the arid plain. From her wrists, handcuffed throughout the journey, streams of blood flowed. Gagged, she could barely breathe.

Shamira was known far and wide as the Sorceress of En-Dor, a name that indicated her village of origin. Sixteen guards watched her closely, surrounding the moving cart. They wore primitive iron armor and warhead-shaped helmets. Their weapons were the spear, the bow, and the long knife, and some carried shields.

In those Eastern lands, the captive was famous for her necromancy, the branch of magic that studies the dead and the spiritual world. She was considered a terrible witch, but the wise men understood that necromancers were not essentially evil. Dealing with the dead does not necessarily mean working for good or bad. Life and death are natural laws, to which everyone is subject, and necromancers must, better than anyone else, understand the neutrality of the life process.

At Babel, King Nimrod was not only the political leader but also commanded the army directly. In addition to being an excellent fighter, he never perished in combat, even after being hit by more than a hundred arrows. His people believed he was invulnerable, thanks to the blessing of the goddess Ishtar.

With his overwhelming strength, Nimrod had already overcome Sumer, Akkad, and Assyria—most of the world in the 24th century BC. But a tribe of desert nomads called the Children of Jafé challenged his strength. The sovereign could not find them, even as they inflicted heavy losses on the Babylonians. As if that wasn't enough, the tribesmen killed his father, Cush, burned his body, and crumbled the bones, keeping only the charred skull, which they sent back to their enemies.

In the process, they subjected the old monarch to a purification ritual, a sacred ceremony that condemns the spirit of the deceased to hell and frees the souls of those who perished in agony under his Cimmerian commands.

With the murder of his protector, Nimrod was plunged into insanity. While waiting for the final victory against the Sons of Japheth, he decided that, for him, the world of men would not be enough. His domains would also extend to the celestial sphere, to the land of angels, to the abode of God. To do this, he enslaved his conquered peoples and used them to begin the construction of a tower that, according to him, would reach the sky.

Shamira had already heard about the fabulous building, but she wasn't prepared for its appearance. When the party turned towards the plain, the sorceress saw the silhouette of a thin mountain rising in a spiral. They were then two hundred kilometers from the capital, and the sun was dazzling their vision. But, the moment the cart turned direction, she had a stunning revelation:

It's not a mountain—it's a tower!

"Observe, woman, the magnificent Tower of Babel, the greatest construction ever erected by the human race," the captain rejoiced, full of nationalist pride. "Enjoy this moment, for of all wonders, this is the greatest."

The Sorceress of En-Dor did not disagree. The monument was amazing. Not even in the modern era could one contemplate such an extraordinary building. She was good with numbers and calculated that its unfinished tip had already reached a thousand meters in height. From a distance, the structure was conical—wide at the base, tapering toward the top. The outer wall was flanked by a continuous ramp, which rose in a spiral, delimiting sections.

The framework was essentially made of stone and adobe, but on the lower levels, slaves worked on the finishing, preparing bronze plates to cover the walls. Access to the interior was now possible on the first floors, designed to house the royal offices. Staircases and scaffolding surrounded the bastille under construction, and sixty thousand workers toiled there. Like ants, they went up and down the external ramp, carrying out a continuous task, just like a dark production line.

The Tower of Babel was being built within the walls of the capital, which in themselves were already very high, adding fifty meters from the ground to the guardhouses. The walls, made of blackened iron, imitated a terrible black wave rushing over invaders. At the time, the Babylonians were the only ones skilled in iron manufacturing, which made their weapons unsurpassed.

The only buildings taller than the wall that Shamira could see were the tower and the ziggurat—an immense pyramid of steps covered in silver that housed, at the top, the golden throne of Ishtar.

"Under the protection of our lord Nimrod the Immortal, the people of Babylon will touch the edges of heaven," continued the captain, "and will invade the angels' stronghold. And we will rule the entire universe."

For Shamira, that speech was an abysmal delusion. Anyone who knew the slightest about the spiritual realms knew that the heavenly paradise does not exist above the clouds or the atmosphere but in another dimension, beyond the astral and ethereal planes, and was only accessed through rare portals, guarded by incredible creatures. No matter how high they climbed—they would never reach the sky they intended. The motivation of an entire civilization, she noticed, highlighted the ignorance of its sovereign—or the cleverness of those who controlled it.

"Hail, men!" shouted the captain, and the procession stopped. "It's time for lunch. But be brief. In three days, we will be crossing the gates of Babel and delivering to the Immortal the fruits of our mission." He looked away from the sorceress and then reinforced:

"Don't delay with the food or soften your heart. We are Babylonians, children of the earth and descendants of Adam."

Most soldiers traveled on horseback, but an advance team drove two-wheeled buggies—warlike vehicles reinforced with copper sheets. One of the frontliners was Captain Pazuno, a brute with black, frizzy hair. His beard was full and curly, and on his armor was engraved, in high relief, the face of a stunted bull—a symbol of national power.

For the light meal, the guards removed meat and bread from their wrappings and uncovered the water balloons. Then, Pazuno ordered one of the warriors:

"Nahor!" he called, spitting crumbs on the floor. "Feed the witch."

Dissatisfied and fearful, the young officer followed the command, not knowing why he had been chosen. Nahor, like most Babylonians, was a man full of fury and malice. His face was marked by scars from successive battles, and he was a lover of violence.

Climbing onto the cart, the soldier faced the necromancer, imagining, deep down, what secrets she was hiding. The girl, covered only by a torn woolen dress, had part of her white breasts exposed. Her black hair glittered in the sun, and her eyes were like black pearls on the seabed. But what excited the depraved man was not the beauty of her perfect body but her degrading situation—dirty, tied up, bloodied, and at the mercy of male ardor.

Fulfilling the order, Nahor pulled Shamira's gag and lifted the canteen.

"Are you thirsty?" he asked sadistically, taking a deep drink himself. He let the water run down the strands of his beard and smiled between his teeth. All wet, he brought his face closer to the woman's, looking for a forced kiss, but she rejected it, turning her face away.

The other guards burst into laughter, mocking their fellow countryman, despised by the infernal witch. The joke made the officer even angrier, and he pulled the girl by her hair, bringing her to his side.

"You Endorian viper! Do you think I'm afraid of your enchantments? I will show you all the strength of a legionary."

About twenty men were already crowding around the cart, awaiting the grotesque spectacle. They had lived with Nahor for some years and knew his reputation as a barbaric rapist.

"Careful!" mocked one of them. "She will curse you, and you will lose your power."

"To the abyss with witchcraft!" he replied, amidst the torrent of cruel laughter. "I'll make her bleed, now not just from the wrists."

Undressing, the brute placed his hands on the girl's breasts, at the same time tearing her clothes. In response, the sorceress did not react but began to mutter a dozen strange words:

"The Dingir and Kanpa. They Dingir ennul e and Camp."

"She's praying," suggested a scout, ironically.

"She's grateful to have found such virile men in the desert," added an archer.

Thirsty, Nahor lowered his hand to the woman's hips, but at that moment, Captain Pazuno looked at the sky and shouted loudly:

"Don't let her talk, you beasts!"

However, the soldier, entertained, did not stop his perverse impulses. He stuck his hand through her dress but soon felt a strange tingling between his fingers. He wrapped his hand around, scared.

"But Ishtar!"

The flesh of his fist was rotting, like that of putrefying corpses, and a colony of worms devoured the palm of his hand.

Nahor took a step back and noticed that the cart was infested with snakes—ferocious cobras that spat venom from their sharp fangs. Out of control, he jumped from the cart but fell in a daze, busting his knee on a sharp boulder. Panic overcame all pain, and the soldier dragged himself away, escaping from the snakes that were chasing him, until he was awakened by the captain.

"Get up off the ground, you coward," demanded Pazuno, shaking the guard, now with a broken leg.

With another sigh, the snakes had disappeared, and the rotten arm had returned to normal. He had been the target of an illusion, a psychic spell that only affected his mind, dragging him into invisible terror. None of the dangers were real—neither decay nor cobras.

The comrades did not forgive the mockery, and the depraved man did not react. The troops who once saw Nahor as a horrible murderer had lost all respect for him. He was now just a poltroon, running in front of the threats of a defenseless woman.

With the officer giving up, still stuck in a shameful situation, Pazuno took command. He climbed onto the cart and gagged the captive again.

"You're going to run out of food, you damned witch," he warned, tightening the chains tightly.

A safe distance away, with his tendon torn, Nahor trembled, sobbed, and prayed to his immortal monarch. He had tasted the sinister power of magic and might not return to full consciousness.

Oh, sublime Nimrod, deliver us from this aberration.

"Let's leave now!" resumed the experienced Pazuno, jumping into the cart. "Soon we will be in the presence of the Immortal."

As soon as he got into his car, the captain drew his bow, prepared an arrow, and aimed it at the middle of the entourage. Under the soldiers' surprised gazes, Pazuno fired an arrow, which flew through the air until it found Nahor's heart.

"This is what happens to every Babylonian who succumbs to sorcery," he explained, and the fighters swallowed hard.

The group continued across the plain, sunk in macabre silence. The rapist's body was left there in the desert, to later serve as food for lions.

The Hanging Gardens and the Silver Ziggurat

The train arrived in the capital three days later, at the exact time of the meridian sun. Babel was a fey mix of wonder and horror. Many times in En-Dor, Shamira had heard descriptions of the famous metropolis, but the reports were far from the truth.

The walls were made of solid iron, slightly bent outwards. On the bridge, guards with bows and lances observed the movement under the close supervision of their commanders in the armored guardhouses. The capital, huge by ancient standards, had a double gate of stone and metal, which did not open outside or inside like common doors but retreated into the walls when pulled by vigorous mammoths.

In the past, everyone had access to Babel because it was also an important commercial center. Then, with the rise of Nimrod, the Babylonians subdued all partner nations and began stealing their wealth instead of buying it. Thus, there was no longer a need—nor the interest—to receive foreigners, only slaves.

In the outer section of the wall, girdling the gates, two gigantic forty-meter statues depicted the image of a man with the head of a bull, one of the main symbols of the State. Shamira calculated that the "bull" was Cush, the deceased father of the present sovereign.

"Stop!" shouted an officer from the top of the wall to the approaching procession. His voice sounded very low, given the height of the walkway. "Who are those approaching the gates of Babel?"

"I'm Captain Pazuno," the commander announced. It was logical that they were Babylonians, but Shamira noticed a ritualistic pattern, as if they always presented themselves like this, no matter how many times they entered or left. "I bring to the Immortal our captive, the Sorceress of En-Dor."

The soldier on top of the walls fell silent, and his sentries assumed an expression of surprise. "Then you may come in, captain. Nimrod awaits you."

The gates parted with a scrape of chains, accompanied by the bellowing of shaggy elephants, and the group penetrated the capital of Babylon.

An unexpected scene was hidden within the walls. In contrast to the desolation of the desert, the metropolis was packed with people, a crowd that gathered in the streets. At that time, Babel had about one hundred thousand citizens and four hundred thousand slaves. These unfortunate souls, military and civilian nations conquered, walked along the avenues dirty like beggars, tied to shackles that forced them into constant movement. Following in single file, they worked nonstop on the construction of the cursed tower.

Not infrequently, they died of hunger and sunstroke, and their bodies remained tied to iron chokers for days until a soldier cut off the deceased or they were devoured by their own hungry colleagues.

On the other side of the social configuration were the Babylonian citizens, a people indoctrinated since childhood to hate those who were different. They walked like gods through the avenues, resting in the shade of the great monuments and eating eccentric delicacies. They wore white tunics, bronze bracelets, and gold necklaces adorned with blue stones. They almost always carried a copper rod with the upper end in the form of a hook, useful for whipping slaves, and they wore leather sandals.

Chasing passers-by with her eyes, the necromancer's attention was naturally diverted to the prodigious Tower of Babel, whose base occupied a third of the central area of the great metropolis. Up close, the suffering of the workers was visible as they walked along the external ramp and got into the scaffolding.

And so tall... How does it stay upright? The girl didn't know, but she wasn't an expert in the art of engineering. According to her mathematical reasoning, the building should have already collapsed. The height had already exceeded its width, and the lower floors would not be strong enough to support the levels above.

Between the gate and the tower stood a towering silver ziggurat, a two-hundred-meter-high pyramid with a golden throne at the top. This was the royal palace, divided into six floors, or courtyards, so wide that they held fabulous gardens covered with grass and decorated with rare plants, exotic animals, and fruit trees. The vivacity of suspended nature was made possible thanks to the underground water table, a submerged branch of the river Euphrates, which crossed the desert and sprouted in the capital.

The pyramid, entirely silver, reflected the sun's brightness, giving the impression that it had its own light. In fact, it was difficult to see it directly due to the intense glare, and so, during the day, it could be spotted for miles across the arid plain. In its sumptuous chambers, with silk cushions and golden swimming pools, the royal family and high-ranking soldiers lived, surrounded by a legion of domestic slaves.

On the eastern surface of the ziggurat, a long straight staircase cut through the steps and led to the pinnacle—a square terrace centered by a beautiful throne where Nimrod sat. Shamira could see him up there, motionless, impenetrable, defended by hundreds of guards who trained on the stairs.

In the common buildings of Babel, which lined the roads, the elite lived. Made of brown stone, they had a pyramidal shape, imitating the palace. These private mansions totaled between ten and twelve meters in height, and in them, each of the traditional families preserved their copious treasures.

Immersed in contemplation of the city, Shamira did not realize that she herself was the target of observation. Cautiously, passers-by stared at her with a mixture of hatred and aversion. They were deeply superstitious, and the sorceress supposed that this would have helped in the propagation of the myth of the immortal king.

Poor ignorant people.

Turning her face away from the streets, the necromancer realized that she was being guided, still harnessed to the cart, along the main avenue, directly to the Silver Pyramid in the royal citadel. A second wall circled the ziggurat, and its arched gate led to the staircase.

The convoy stopped in front of the inner doors, guarded by strong, sharp-eyed soldiers. Captain Pazuno got out of the car, said something to the sentries, and the gate bars opened. Shamira was taken from the cart by three armed men, who kept her hands cuffed and pushed her toward the stairs. Taking a deep breath, the necromancer gathered her last strength to overcome the walk, knowing that if she fell, she would be dragged away.

As they climbed, she noticed the city from above, struck by its magnitude. They passed by the hanging gardens, over the side patios, and she smelled the scent of the forest, so rare in that dry region. In certain places, between the trees, springs of water sprouted and expanded into small refreshing lakes, mimicking the vegetation of oases. The prisoner was thirsty and thought about how wonderful it would be to bathe in those pools.

Stepping firmly on the last step, Shamira saw the man waiting for her on the throne. He wasn't much different from his officers. Approaching 50 years old, he had a long braided beard and long hair. He was stocky but not very tall, and he projected a serious, irritated expression. The only weapon he carried was a golden scepter adorned with rubies, jades, and diamonds, decorated with a bull's head at the tip, carved in blue quartz. His clothes were also fabulous. He wore a sheepskin cape sprinkled with droplets of gold. On his chest, he carried a copper vest encrusted with pearls over a cotton tunic dyed blue. Protected by two muscular guards, he kept a huge pet tiger by his side, much larger than normal tigers. It was one of the great saber-toothed cats, a lost breed of felines preserved until then in captivity.

Shamira was thrown at Nimrod's feet, who stared at her mercilessly. At a gesture from the king, the men removed her handcuffs and gag. Relieved, she stood up with difficulty, and the soldiers moved away in an instinctive act of fear. But the En-Dor Enchantress was too weak to react. She felt devastated, exhausted, and hungry. Her dry lips were cracking, her skin burned from the trip in the sun, and her head throbbed.

"This woman is worthless!" complained the Immortal, upon recognizing the deplorable state of his captive. "Take her to the palace," he ordered the guards, "and bring her to me when she's in condition to serve me."

The woman said nothing but blessed her luck. All she needed was rest and a good meal, with which she could regain her strength. But best of all, she noticed, was the fact that the king was not a sorcerer—wizards identify each other with a simple exchange of glances. Ignorant in the arts of magic, the sovereign would need the girl's skills, and that would guarantee her life, or at least that was how she imagined it.

Dragged by the sentries, Shamira gave in to tiredness and allowed herself to faint.

She was sure that Babel would not be her tomb.

In the Colorless World

Shamira woke up immersed in a pool of hot water inside a fantastic room. There was no doubt that she was in the royal palace when she noticed the mosaic floor and pink marble columns that supported the ceiling of the room. An arched window looked outside, bringing in the cold night wind peculiar to the desert. Near the pilasters, a dozen oil pyres illuminated the room, and a threshold on the south wall indicated the exit, blocked only by a leather curtain.

Alone, with no one watching her, the sorceress realized that she was naked in the water. Her old clothes were no longer there, but a red robe lay on a silver chair in front of a table laden with food.

She then remembered that she hadn't eaten for hours and left the pleasant bath to satisfy her most basic needs. Without any shame, she ran to the round table and devoured the entire meal—a feast with bread, grapes, honey, and hazelnuts. She drank the water straight from the jug, without stopping to pour it into a golden cup.

It was only when her hunger subsided that she put on the red robe, embroidered with the traditional bull's head, and managed to reason calmly. She then spotted a pair of sandals on the floor and put them on. Now, she was protected from the cold and somewhat more relaxed.

She approached the parapet and confirmed that she was captive in the Silver Pyramid. From the window, she saw the hanging gardens in the side courtyards just below, concluding that this was the third floor of the six that completed the ziggurat. Craning her neck even further, she saw a breakdown on the second floor below. Twice as wide as the area of the third level, its garden had less dense vegetation, with colorful plants sharing space with tall royal palm trees.

Suddenly, the necromancer heard a noise, looked back, and saw a girl entering the room, crossing the brown curtain that delimited the threshold. She was 10 or 12 years old and wore a sober and lined robe made of raw cotton, with well-made cuts. Her skin was dark, but her features were fine, and her hair was smooth and black. Judging by the eccentricity of that palace, she could only be a slave.

Carrying a bluish crystal vase, the little girl went to the table and placed the container on it.

Wine, the woman inferred, from the smell of grapes. Prisoners must line up at the gates of Babel, she thought, ironically, finding the squeamishness in the treatment strange.

"My name is Adnari," the girl introduced herself, staring at the floor. She kept a serene and conformed face, like that of marionettes. "The grand servant selected me to serve you."

Shamira did not like the stewardship, recognizing the child's condition. She had never owned a slave, and that luxury did not match her lifestyle or her suitable character. She thought about saying something, but the words disappeared.

The girl left the room and disappeared into the hallway.

The Sorceress of En-Dor preferred to wait.

Now that she had come to her senses, Shamira was ready to sit down and consider the situation. Escape was, at first, out of the question. She did not think Nimrod was so foolish as to leave her unguarded, despite the window without bars and the door closed only by curtains. If she were caught, it could ruin everything and bury her dreams of freedom forever. Magic would also be of no use for now, unless she went flying over the walls—and the necromancer knew no charm of the type.

But if Shamira was a prisoner in material reality, perhaps she was not a prisoner in the unreal dimension. Since she was little, she had learned to project her spirit, taking her soul to travel through the astral plane. The astral plane is the shallowest layer of the spiritual world, the one that first connects to the physical plane. It's nothing more than a discolored mirror of the land of men, where ghosts roam—specters of dead people who still remain stuck with their pending issues. A living spirit, when projected, can glide through the air, pass through walls, and levitate in the earth's atmosphere. The soul remains connected to the body by a mystical silver thread, just like an umbilical cord.

Accessing the unreal dimension, the sorceress hoped to spy on the palace, obtain information about the king and his court, and look for the quickest way out of the ziggurat in case of a desperate evasion.

Obstinate, Shamira leaned back on a wooden divan, which completed the set of furniture, and expanded her mind. She gathered some silk cushions and began to concentrate, forgetting the existence of the tangible universe.

Her eyes blinked quickly, and soon her hearing faded. Shortly afterward, the darkness of consciousness gave way to a shapeless image, and gradually she felt as if she were emerging from a lake. She thus crossed the fabric of reality—or the spiritual border, as it was commonly called by the magi in the West. In a few moments, she could no longer hear anything, only the silence of the dead.

Then, she found herself floating in the middle of the bedroom, but her material body remained fixed, and she could now see it on the physical plane, relaxed on the couch. She distinguished the room again, but it wasn't exactly real, just a reflection, a colorless scene in leaden and bluish tones. The objects shone with a faint brilliant aura, denouncing that they were untouchable in the dimension of the specters—they could not be grabbed or moved, only passed through.

Searching the chamber, the necromancer did not find any ghosts, which intrigued her. A city like Babel, full of suffering slaves, must have had a legion of spirits, obsessed with avenging their own souls. Hundreds of workers must have died during the construction of the palace, and when men perish in agony, they generally become wandering, anguished, and committed to their revenge—sometimes for eternity.

Nothing. No shouts, laments, or dragging of chains.

Floating around the room, like an octopus gliding across the bottom of the sea, she noticed the presence of a spirit that crossed the stones on the ground. It was the soul of a dark-skinned girl and was linked to the levels below by the mystical silver cord, proving that she was also alive but projected into the astral.

And the little slave, reasoned the sorceress, recognizing the girl who had just brought her the jar of wine. She had gone to the afterlife to speak with the dead and had only found her most accessible servant.

On her face, the child had inhibited all repressed expression. There, in the spiritual world, she seemed much looser and festive. It was no wonder. On the immaterial plane, she certainly found all the freedom that had been denied to her. But from whom had she learned the projection technique?

"I'm Adnari," began the girl, still a little restrained. "Do you remember me?"

"I'm Shamira," she introduced herself, a little confused. Could this be some trick on the part of the king? How could the girl know that the necromancer would travel to the astral?

"The Sorceress of En-Dor. Everyone here in Babel knows you or has heard a story about you. I respect you. I was very happy when the high servant chose me to serve you. I really like magic," she said, with somewhat simplistic language.

"I noticed," replied the woman in a friendly tone. If the girl was projected, she had certainly learned this from someone with minimal knowledge of the occult.

"Don't be worried," added Adnari, as if understanding the prisoner's fear. "I won't tell anyone anything. The seekers would kill me if they knew I sometimes visit the colorless world."

The colorless world—Shamira liked the name.

"Seekers? Who are the seekers?" the sorceress asked, intrigued. She had to collect all the information she could, and this was the opportunity.

"They are the Immortal's advisors," Adnari explained. "They don't like slaves or outsiders. They live commanding us and pointing out everything we do wrong."

Shamira's face wrinkled due to the injustice, but Adnari comforted her:

"But it's okay. They never find me out. They think I'm sleeping with the other domestics."

"And from whom did you learn to visit the 'colorless world'?" Shamira asked.

"My mother was a sorceress, or a witch..." the girl hesitated, lost in the nomenclature. "She did magic."

"And how did you know you would find me here?" Shamira accompanied her question with a smile, so as not to scare the girl with her storm of doubts. The truth, however, was that she was desperate for a clue to get herself out of there.

"It's the first thing necromancers do, isn't it? Search the land of the dead? That's what I told my mom. And she also told me that many necromancers are evil."

"But not all," Shamira replied. "Our art deals with the nature of death, which is a very powerful, inescapable force. With so much power in their hands, some are indeed corrupted by evil, which is the easiest path to ascension. But this doesn't just happen to sorcerers; it also happens to warriors and monarchs. It's a weakness of men."

"And also women?" the girl asked immediately. Her eyes widened with curiosity. She was fascinated by fantastic subjects, as all children are.

"I meant it," Shamira smiled, complacently. For a moment, she wished she were a child again. Unsurpassable is the joy of childhood, when everything is new and magnificent. But, despite the delightful conversation, it was important to know about the ziggurat.

"Have you already traveled throughout the palace, Adnari?"

"All over the city," she boasted, with typically childish vanity. "I used to go to the treasure chamber a lot, but I stopped. I couldn't touch anything..."

"What about the king?"

"He's always up there, sitting on the throne. He never leaves the pinnacle, not to eat or sleep."

More superstitions, Shamira thought in disbelief, but then she pondered. Could she have been mistaken about Nimrod's magical ignorance? After all, who was she to despise superstitions? She was a sorceress and lived on inexplicable matters.

"How can a man not eat or rest, and on top of that be immortal? Is he a wizard or sorcerer?"

"No," replied the little girl, convinced. "The strength of the goddess protects him. The goddess who lives in the underground of this palace."

"Goddess? What is this goddess? A spirit, an idol, a totem?"

"I don't know," Adnari admitted, unhappy at not having the answers. "I went down to the dungeons, floating through the colorless world, piercing the walls, and found nothing. And yet, it's as if she doesn't have a soul, like us. But she exists! The slaves who work on the submerged floors said they had already seen her."

"A goddess, alive?" the sorceress mused, more to herself. She knew that the ethereal entities venerated outside of Canaan were nothing more than very powerful spirits, but they did not have the ability to materialize and pass into the material world. So, how could this goddess be "confined" in a dungeon, on the physical plane? Such a story was absurd.

"What about the spirits of common people, the souls of the dead? I didn't see any specters through the pyramid."

Adnari smiled, pleased to have the explanation on the tip of her tongue.

"The ziggurat was full of them, those ghosts, but now they're gone. They didn't like to talk much. They were apathetic, tired, and only grunted in the corridors. And then, one night, a light took them all in one hurricane."

The purification ritual! It was all very clear now. Cush, the father of Nimrod, who had built the palace, had been subjected to the purification ritual by the nomadic priests of the enemy tribe. For the ceremony, any spirit could be condemned, including the souls of those who died in suffering under his orders. The hatred of the ancient pyramid specters was directed at Cush, and when he was taken to sacrifice, the ghosts of the ziggurat found themselves free to go to paradise.