Empire of Rust Complete Series Read online

  EMPIRE OF RUST

  The Complete Novel

  by V. J. Chambers

  Two hundred and fifty years after the zombie apocalypse, the surviving humans live under the rule of a regime which denounces technology and knowledge as the source of the Scourge…

  Gabriel, son of the emperor, has a vision. Though most people are forbidden to learn to read, his privileged position allows him access to find out about the past. He knows about democracy and freedom. He’s intent on bringing knowledge back to the people and freeing the world of tyranny.

  But he doesn’t count on a band of rebels in the north, who are erecting a trickster magician as a pretend messiah, who want to spearhead a revolution to tear down the empire.

  Nor does he foresee his sister’s marriage to a necromancer—a man who can control the revenants, who can lead a revenant army, and whose talents are so intense a threat that Gabriel will be rendered powerless against them.

  The revenants surround the empire all the while, tearing at the fences, pounding on the walls, their jaws open and gaping. Hungering. For flesh.

  Empire of Rust was originally published in six parts. This is the complete text of the entire novel.

  EMPIRE OF RUST

  © copyright 2014 by V. J. Chambers

  http://vjchambers.com

  Punk Rawk Books

  Smashwords Edition

  Please do not copy or post this book in its entirety or in parts anywhere. You may, however, share the entire book with a friend by forwarding the entire file to them. (And I won’t get mad.)

  EMPIRE OF RUST

  The Complete Novel

  by V. J. Chambers

  ONE: NECROMANCER RISING

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ezekiel, son of the regent of Caroly, had been waiting in the receiving room of the governor’s mansion for over half an hour. He knew because he had been watching the clock near the entrance. It was one of those tall grandfather clocks—something created before the Scourge and kept in good condition. It even donged at each fifteen-minute interval. Ezekiel was beginning to feel impatient.

  He knew that the emperor was an important man, and that he might not have all the time in the world to meet with visitors, but given the circumstances, Ezekiel hoped the man would arrive at some point.

  After all, it was only a week ago that the message had arrived at Ezekiel’s father’s home. Ezekiel’s sister Honor—betrothed to the emperor’s son Gabriel—had been killed in a horrible accident. She’d apparently fallen off a balcony. In cases of death away from home, it was customary to send the remains back to the family, but Honor’s body hadn’t been sent.

  Ezekiel’s father wanted the body back, and Ezekiel was there to make sure she went back home.

  He eyed the clock. It was going to dong again in approximately ten minutes. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to wait around that long.

  Across the room, a door opened, and a young man came through it, walking quickly.

  Ezekiel recognized him immediately from the betrothal feast two years ago, when his sister had come to court to marry this man. It was Gabriel, the emperor’s son. Ezekiel cleared his throat.

  Gabriel looked up but kept walking. He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  “Sir,” said Ezekiel, “I’ve been waiting here for your father for quite a long time.”

  Gabriel stopped and looked Ezekiel up and down. He smiled at him, an easy grin that lit up his face.

  Ezekiel looked down at his feet. He wasn’t about to let himself be caught up in gazing at this man. Not the emperor’s son. How deeply did these abominable attractions he felt go, anyway? If his father knew, he would… He swallowed. But that was the reason he was here, wasn’t it? He was here because his father was ashamed of him, and because Ezekiel had to find some way to redeem himself. Hadn’t he begged for a second chance? Hadn’t he promised he could curb his predilections?

  “My father is the emperor, and he comes and goes when he pleases,” Gabriel was saying.

  Did Gabriel think Ezekiel was an idiot? He knew who the emperor was. “Of course.” Ezekiel was still looking at his toes. “But given the circumstances, I’d expected him to be conciliatory.”

  “The circumstances?”

  Ezekiel raised his gaze to Gabriel’s. Gabriel still looked confused.

  He doesn’t know who I am, Ezekiel realized. And why should he? They’d only been introduced once, at the betrothal dinner. Ezekiel only remembered him so clearly because he was good looking. It was his curse, the unnatural way he felt. Other men didn’t pay such close attention to the men they met. Besides, Gabriel was an emperor’s son and Ezekiel only a regent’s. It was unlikely that Gabriel would have taken notice of him in any case.

  Ezekiel felt uncomfortable under the other man’s gaze. If only he weren’t so good-looking. Ezekiel cleared his throat again. “Um, well, it’s regarding Honor.”

  “Right.” Gabriel sucked in air with a noisy whistle. “That was such a shame. She was young. Such a waste.”

  “I’m here about her body.”

  “Really?” Gabriel made a face. “Well, I never saw the body.”

  “You didn’t?”

  Gabriel shrugged. He crossed to a table and began to examine the candelabra in the center. “It was madness that night. What with the escape from the dungeons, her body wasn’t even discovered until she’d been dead for hours.” He raised his voice. “Mark! These don’t match the ones at the entrance.”

  A servant boy scampered into the room from one of the other entrances. “Excuse me, sir?”

  Gabriel held up the candelabra. “This doesn’t belong in here.”

  Ezekiel tensed. How could this man be so cavalier when talking about the death of his intended bride? Hadn’t he cared for Honor at all? Ezekiel knew that the marriage had been arranged, but most were, except in certain cases of third wives. And while many husbands weren’t overly interested in their wives, they were at least sorry to learn that they’d died.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said the servant boy. “I’ll remove it at once.”

  Ezekiel was beginning to grow angry. How dare Gabriel interrupt this conversation to discuss the decorations? He probably wouldn’t be doing this if he knew who Ezekiel was, but that didn’t matter. A fiancé should have some kind of concern for his intended herself. For her memory.

  “Good,” said Gabriel. “And find the proper one, please.”

  If Ezekiel were honest, the entire betrothal had always seemed strange. Honor had come to court two years ago. They had all expected that she and Gabriel would be married within a few months, but the months had stretched on and on. There was always some excuse or reason that the emperor’s son had as to why he could not marry yet. He’d dragged his feet.

  “Yes, sir. What should I do with this one?” said the servant.

  Ezekiel’s hands clenched into fists. He cared about his sister, and this was hard to take.

  Gabriel tapped his chin. “You can place it in my chambers, I suppose. Or perhaps in my wife’s, if she fancies it.”

  “What?” The words ripped out of Ezekiel’s mouth.

  Both Gabriel and the servant turned to him in surprise.

  “You have some objection to the placement of candelabras in my house?” said Gabriel, but he didn’t sound angry, only amused.

  “You have a wife, sir?” Ezekiel struggled to keep his voice even. “So soon after the death of your betrothed?” Ezekiel was beginning to think dark thoughts. He was beginning to wonder exactly how “accidental” his sister’s death had been.

  Gabriel actually had the decency to look uncomfortable. “Yes, well, it was unexpected. But necessary, given the circumstances. I’m sorry, I don’t
believe I caught your name.”

  “Ezekiel.” His voice shook in rage. “Son of the regent of Caroly, sister to Honor, who you have so easily forgotten.”

  Gabriel’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

  Ezekiel glared at him.

  Gabriel flushed. “You must think I…” He fidgeted. “Listen, had I known that it was you—”

  “I was sent here to collect my sister’s body,” said Ezekiel. “But now I think I’d like to find out exactly how she died.”

  * * *

  Michal, daughter of the emperor, squinted at the slice of cake she’d been given. It didn’t look particularly appetizing. There was no frosting, just yellow spongy-ness. She poked it with her fork.

  “Stupid, isn’t it?” said Elizabeth, the daughter of one of the councilmen.

  “Is it?” said Michal. She wasn’t even sure why she was eating this cake. She’d been in the middle of a nap when her servants had come in, woken her up, and insisted she attend. She might have refused, but she was bored. Lately, there had been lots of things going on at court. The death of her brother’s betrothed and then his hurried marriage to some common girl from town (which had made her father angrier than Michal had ever seen). All of that had been quite stimulating. But in the past few weeks, everything had calmed down. Michal was bored. Eating cake was something to do, at any rate. But she wasn’t sure why she and all the noble unmarried girls at court were all being fed this sub par concoction.

  She peered over at Sarah, another daughter of a councilman. She wasn’t even eating the cake, just rooting through it with her fork, looking positively terrified.

  Elizabeth was talking. “I don’t see why they even keep doing it. Why, there hasn’t been a necromancer in over fifty years. The wife isn’t anything more than a symbol at this point. It’s all completely unnecessary.”

  Michal looked at her in surprise. “This is the necromancer cake?”

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth. “You didn’t know?”

  Michal shook her head. She found a seat at the table and began eagerly tearing through the cake. Well now, this was possibly the best thing that had happened to her in months—no years. This could solve all her problems.

  She was the only daughter of the emperor left unmarried. It wasn’t for lack of interest on the part of suitors. Michal had simply refused all of them.

  Generally, it wouldn’t matter if she did refuse. It was unlikely that nobles got much of a choice in who they married, after all. But she and her brother Gabriel were both children of the emperor’s second wife—his favorite. Their mother had given birth first, much to the chagrin of the emperor’s first wife, who’d been trying to get pregnant for over a year when the emperor wed again. The first wife was horrified to know that her child would not be the heir. She’d managed to give birth to one child, the emperor’s second son, Michal’s half-brother Simon. But the emperor had always favored Michal’s mother anyway. She was the one who’d given birth to his heir. Gabriel.

  Of course, Gabriel was really a massive disappointment, at least from her father’s point of view, and she was too, if it came to that. Her father only tolerated them because he still liked their mother best.

  Still, her father was getting impatient. He wanted Michal married already.

  Michal didn’t want that. At all.

  She wasn’t against the idea of marriage or anything. She liked men, and she wasn’t opposed to being with one and having children and everything.

  But the thing she didn’t think she could stomach was sharing him.

  As a little girl, she’d never known there was any other way of things. All of the nobles married that way—three women to one man. She thought it was normal until she found out from her servants that they didn’t have to share their husbands. Amongst the common people, it was one woman to one man. The end.

  Michal couldn’t believe it. Why on earth was everything so different for the common people? She’d asked her mother about it, but her mother had only repeated the things that were said in worship meetings. Don’t question. Acceptance is transcendence. Needless curiosity is what led to the Scourge.

  In other words, Michal’s mother didn’t know either. No one did.

  Maybe she was crazy or heretical, but Michal found it unsettling that her whole society functioned on principals that no one understood. No one bothered to ask why. They thought asking why would lead them all to ruin. And they were fond of saying that it was working fine, wasn’t it, so there was no reason to change.

  Same with this necromancer cake. They still served it to the women because it was the way things had always been, not for any other reason. Michal had made short work of her slice, cutting it into tiny pieces with her fork.

  Elizabeth was sitting next to her, slowly doing the same thing. “It really is stupid, Michal. There’s no reason to do this.”

  “Well,” said Michal, “they wouldn’t change tradition, would they? We do what we’ve always done, the way God decrees it.”

  Elizabeth smirked. “And we don’t question.”

  “Nope,” said Michal. “After all…” And they chorused it together in a mocking tone, “Acceptance is transcendence.”

  Elizabeth sighed.

  Michal pushed away her cake. “There’s nothing in mine.”

  Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “You want to find it?”

  “Yes,” said Michal. There was a bean cooked into the cake. It was in one of the slices. Whatever girl found it would be betrothed to the next necromancer.

  “But why?”

  “Because,” said Michal, “if I’m the necromancer’s intended, I can’t marry anyone else.”

  Elizabeth furrowed her brow. “Um, how do you think we ended up eating this cake in the first place?”

  Michal shrugged.

  “Bethany, who was the last necromancer’s-wife-to-be, got married.” Elizabeth poked at her cake. “You can absolutely get married if you’re the necromancer’s intended.”

  “But you have to consent to it,” said Michal, lifting her chin in triumph. True, most women didn’t want to be the necromancer’s intended. It wouldn’t be a pleasant prospect if a necromancer did rise. “Bethany wouldn’t have gotten into that marriage if she hadn’t wanted it.”

  It was Elizabeth’s turn to shrug. “I guess not. But everyone wants to get married.”

  Michal didn’t say anything. Instead, she was thinking about how much easier it would be as the necromancer’s intended. If men inquired about her hand, she’d simply say she was already promised. She could be promised to the necromancer indefinitely. Until she was far too old to be married, in fact. This was her way to be free of marriage entirely.

  “You do want to get married, don’t you?” said Elizabeth.

  Michal went back to her cake. She sorted through it again, just trying to make sure that there wasn’t anything in there that she’d missed. Then she changed the subject. “What did you think of the dress that Eve was wearing at the banquet?”

  “The blue one?” said Elizabeth. “It was hideous.”

  Michal smiled. “Wasn’t it just?” She leaned in close, as if she was hanging on Elizabeth’s every word as the girl prattled on and on about the blue dress. But in fact, Michal was looking around the room at the others. Most had given up on their slices of cake, which were in disarray on the plates—not a one had eaten it. The girls were now talking and laughing together.

  Except for Charity. She wasn’t talking to anyone. She had pushed the plate away, and she was staring at it in horror. Michal couldn’t be sure, but she thought that Charity was shaking.

  Michal’s heart leapt. There. That was where the bean was. She made excuses to Elizabeth and got up from the table. She picked up her plate and went to sit down next to Charity.

  Charity turned. Her face was white.

  Michal slid her plate of cake in front of Charity. Then she took Charity’s cake.

  Charity made a tiny noise in the back of her throat.

  Michal used her fo
rk to push aside pieces of the cake. Sure enough. There it was. The bean. Michal grinned.

  Charity’s lip started to tremble. “Please… I don’t think I can—”

  “Got it!” called out Michal, holding up the bean.

  All the girls in the room turned to look at her.

  Charity sputtered. “But-but—”

  “Shh,” Michal soothed her. “The bean was in my cake. I’ll have to be the necromancer’s wife.”

  “But you’re the emperor’s daughter,” said Charity. “And the necromancers kill their wives at least half of the time. You’ll be in danger.”

  Michal rolled her eyes. “Well, there would have to be a necromancer for that to happen. And a necromancer hasn’t risen in over fifty years.”

  * * *

  Darius blinked.

  It was the first time he’d been able to see clearly in weeks. He was looking up at the sky, but his view was crisscrossed with vines and branches.

  He closed his eyes again.

  Where was he?

  Did it matter?

  The last thing that he remembered clearly was standing on top of the wall outside the city of Jeffsotow, a long spear in his hands. He was driving it into the revenants’ skulls. Every time the blade went into their perfect, unmarred, young faces, their foreheads collapsed. They looked like broken dolls until the brackish black goo started to ooze out of the wound. Darius didn’t know what that goo was. Old blood congealed over the ages?

  Most of the revenants had been made during the Scourge, so they were quite old, and anything inside them must be old as well. Of course, it wasn’t unheard of for a man or woman to be bitten and catch the virus nowadays, but most were killed as soon as they changed.

  Like me, he thought.

  He should be changing soon.

  He remembered standing on the wall, wielding that spear. And then one of the revenants had wrapped a hand around the shaft and given it a tug.