The Screaming Skull

by Rick Ferguson

  “Not so fast,” I said, pointing. Farther down the hall, a dark-haired girl in a white dress stood near an open door. She glowed palely, as if spun from moonlight, the doorframe visible through her translucent body. She motioned to us to follow her. I glanced at Melinda. “Should we?” I asked.

  “I don’t have a better idea,” Melinda said.

  The girl disappeared through the door. We ran after her, and in a minute were through the door and charging down another rough-hewn stone hallway that sloped downwards at a fast clip. There was no sign of the apparition.

  We paused to take stock. “We’ll see her again, I wager,” Melinda said. She noticed the look in my eyes. “You’ve seen her before?”

  “No,” I said. “But I think Lithaine did. She must be the one who told him about the kids down here, when she appeared to him in Doomtown.”

  “Then she’s on our side. Let’s go.”

  We raced on. The slope sharpened, until we struggled not to remain upright. When we stopped to shore up our balance, the floor itself lurched forward. We toppled over and bounced down the hallway like a couple of drunken hedgehogs. With nothing to stop our fall, we continued thus until we finally fell, bruised and battered, into a deep stone pit.

  We sat up, took stock of our injuries, and collected our wits. A mass of hard, brittle, splintered sticks had broken our fall. We didn’t need the dim light from the torches far above to know that we had fallen onto a towering pile of bones.

  “Jesus, is that girl trying to kill us?” I asked, reaching for Melinda’s hand. Her lip was bloody, her legs bruised and scraped through her torn breaches. I had a gash on my forehead and a bloody knee. Holding hands, we waded down through the musty, clattering fall of skulls, ribcages, and thigh bones until we reached the bottom of the pit. As far as we could tell, we were alone.

  “Where do you suppose that tunnel leads?” Melinda asked, pointing behind me, where a rough, man-high tube snaked away into the bedrock.

  “Nowhere good,” I said. “I want to know what cleaned the meat from these bones.” I picked up a shin bone and examined it. “Some of them are still fresh.”

  Then a ghastly, deafening shriek shredded the air. Lurid red light, faint but gathering in strength, filled the tunnel. The stench of brimstone wafted from it. From deep within the rock tube came a loud, sickening burble, as of brackish oil bubbling in a pit. Some pale beast burning with Hellfire slouched through the tunnel towards us. The girl had led us into a trap.

  Melinda squeezed my arm, hard. “Wear the Skull,” she said. “It’s time.”

  “No reason to be hasty,” I said. “Maybe we can kill it, whatever it is.”

  “We’ll die if you don’t put it on. You know it as well as I.”

  So, here it was—my date with destiny. What would Redulfo say, four years anon, about success becoming probable only when success is your last option? This was as tight a fucking spot as he could hope for. We had to keep swimming or drown.

  I took the Screaming Skull from its pouch. As I detached it from its chain, it grinned at me. As I brought it up to my face, it radiated malicious glee. In the black hollows of its eye sockets lay hidden my secret shame, those cold thoughts of humiliation that crept through my mind on little cat-feet in the dark hours of the night. Even as the Skull lusted for me, even as it feared me, still it mocked me. It dared me to be anything other than the wretched failure of a man I was.

  Something hard within me still, some nugget of self-esteem buried deep inside, kept me from going down the rabbit hole. Fuck it, I thought.

  As I brought the Screaming Skull toward my face, the black chasms of its eye sockets filled my vision. Then I fell, plummeting into that darkness in free fall, losing myself. Had the Skull cast me into the Void? Would my mind wander, untethered from time and space, for eternity? Was this the Ki-Rin’s plan all along? Was it Saggon’s?

  After what seemed an Age, I beheld an atom of light in the darkness. It grew in my vision until it became a cold emerald flame, capering in the darkness. That flame was my goal. I came to it, or it came to me. It grew brighter and yet colder, until my soul lay exposed and frozen before it, until I merged with it. My soul and that flame were united, and I became one with the Deathless.

  12

  Earlier, on the Falcon’s ground floor, Amabored emerged from the shitter to find Lithaine waiting for him. I know this because I’ve combined the Remembrance potions with long sojourns gazing into the Astral Telescope. Through it, I’ve explored the nooks and crannies of this story to make certain that I’m doing right by killing my friends in nine days. Thanks to Redulfo the Black, I now believe in chance—and I dare leave nothing to it.

  “Proud of yourself?” Lithaine asked. Back down the hallway, the ricochets from Redulfo’s sorcerous machine gun rattled and jumped.

  “It was an emotional shit,” said Amabored. “It changed me, like Saul on the road to Damascus. You want to see it?”

  “If you’re done admiring yourself, then let’s go grease that fat fuck.”

  “Lead the way, sweetheart.”

  Down the dark, deserted hallway they jogged, until they entered the Great Hall with weapons drawn—but the vast ballroom was deserted. Upon the long oak tables lay the detritus of a recent feast: dirty plates piled high, half-eaten haunches of meat flung across platters, half-drunk flagons of ale standing at attention. In the fire pits, the coals still smoldered. Normally toasty from the combined heat of the half-dozen great fireplaces lining the walls, the hall was even colder than the Grand Foyer.

  “Stay squirrelly,” Amabored said. “We won’t get into that tower without a fight.”

  “That’s some astute analysis.”

  “Lick my balls, magic boy.”

  “Put ‘em on the table.”

  Banter thus exchanged, the two men crept toward the far end of the hall, where the entrance to Saggon’s Tower lurked. Though they expected imps or worse to bound around every column or burst through every door, they encountered nothing. When they reached the iron-banded double doors that led to the tower, they found them standing open. The ogre doorman was gone. Through the doors, darkness beckoned.

  “Why hasn’t he thrown more shit at us?” asked Amabored.

  “Maybe he’s not here,” said Lithaine.

  “He’s here. This is a showdown, and he knows it. Up the stairs, then.”

  Amabored thrust a torch into the coals and got it going. Thus, they started up the twisting stone staircase that wound up the tower to Saggon’s lair: Lithaine in front with bow locked and loaded; Amabored behind, guarding their six. Each time they passed an unlit torch, Amabored lit it with his own brand. Soon, nervous torchlight flung restless shadows against the walls. Now even colder than below, the air clung to their skin like wet leather.

  Barbarian and elf crept upward, their silence complete. When they rounded a curve in the staircase three stories up, they saw the first set of eyes: red, slitted, harboring malice. Then came the growl. Something hulking and inhuman lurked ahead.

  That something vaulted over the steps, its hulking silhouette filling their frame of vision. Lithaine put three arrows into it before it hit them. It struck the elf at full force, throwing him back into the barbarian, and the three of them rolled down the steps. The creature twisted around and attacked Lithaine with jaws snapping. Hot spittle lashed the elf’s face.

  Then the beast’s head was jerked back. Amabored’s blade flashed. The head sheared away from the torso in a fabulous spray of black blood.

  It was a wolf’s head: its jaws locked in a snarl, its double row of fangs dripping saliva. The torso was humanoid, covered in a thick gray-brown fur. Amabored kicked over the corpse.

  “A fucking werewolf!” the barbarian said. He tossed the head down the staircase.

  They had no time to ponder this news, for at that moment an entire pack of werewolves leapt around the curved walls. These were no puppy-dogs, either. They were ‘roided-out nightmares: teeth like saw blades, claws like iron
hooks, muscles like pythons roped around their limbs. Before he even knew what hit him, Lithaine took a bite in the arm that tore flesh from bone. His bow clattered to the steps.

  Behind him, Amabored split the skull of a werewolf, splattering the walls with blood and brains. If you’ve never split a skull with sword or axe, you should seek out the opportunity. I’ve split the skulls of men and beasts; of Chaos dwarfs, shadow elves, and red gnomes; of zombies, animated skeletons, ghasts and ghouls; of plague knights, harvesters, and crimson monks; of kobolds, goblins, trolls, and giants. Pretty much everything that has a skull, I’ve split it in twain at one point or another, and it never gets old. Ten years at least have passed since my axe last tasted blood and brains, and with each passing year I grow farther from myself. When I wander over to my trophy hall and grip the haft of my trusty Rod of Lordly Might, the feeling is strange, as if my hands and my axe haft are magnets of opposite polarity. That’s why this Remembrance potion is so dangerous. When you have the choice of reliving those golden yesterdays, when your youth burned as brightly as a comet romancing the sun, or of wandering through the bleak present, bereft of even the faintest starlight—who wouldn’t choose the past? Even as Amabored’s sword blade crashes through that werewolf’s skull, so long ago and far away on the vast wheel of time, I feel what he felt. We are one.

  “COOOOORRRNN-HOOOOLE!” the barbarian cried, as the dead monster fell away from him. Then the wave of beasts crashed down upon them.

  13

  For an hour on that staircase, they fought for their lives. Sometimes they gained ground, and sometimes they gave it back. They killed dozens of the shapeshifters, until their corpses clogged the steps, and the remaining werewolves were forced to tear through their own dead to reach their prey. Still more came. The stairs grew so slick with blood and gore that the two men were forced to fight from their knees.

  It wasn’t often that we lost serious health points; the dirty secret of the adventuring trade is that it really isn’t all that difficult. For the most part, you don’t meet anything you can’t handle. If you do, it’s pretty easy to just run like hell. Those dungeon traps, meanwhile, aren’t exactly designed by diabolical geniuses. Adventuring is easy money, though you’ll never hear an adventurer say it. Yeah, we lost a lot of clerics; we lost them at the rate of rock ‘n roll drummers. And Malcolm, we lost him. And Redulfo. And Bellasa. And my father and brother. And, finally, Cassie. For the most part, though, it was the tits.

  The assault on the Blue Falcon was one of the bad nights. On the staircase, blood mingled with sweat to drip into the eyes of our heroes. A werewolf broke through Lithaine’s frantic sword work and buried its fangs in his throat. The elf dropped like a gnome at an eleventy-first birthday party.

  Amabored drove his sword into the beast’s heart—and a dozen more rounded the corner. The barbarian knew he had come to it. He might slay one or two more, but the rest would gut him. And since he was alone, unaware that decades later I would be watching him at this very moment, I get to see him face death. As far as I know, there’s been no moment in Amabored’s life that he’s failed to find ridiculous—not even this one. And I’m happy to report that, at the moment of his impending demise, the fucker laughed.

  Then salvation came, as it always does, from out of the blue. Suddenly, leaping blades of violet light arced past Amabored’s head to smite the werewolves. Eldritch sorcery engulfed the beasts, and a raging firestorm turned them into bone and ash. Those not incinerated bounded down the staircase with their tails between their legs, presumably to hide somewhere until dawn.

  The savior was Saggon’s secretary: the shadow elf who ignored us whenever we ascended the tower to report to the Over-Boss. Racing down the staircase toward the two men, she was dressed for battle with a tight leather cuirass bound to her torso and twin hand-crossbows holstered on her broad hips. She also carried a harp—she was a war bard like Lindar, which meant she could chop off your head or fry you with sorcery, depending on her mood. She kind of terrified me.

  Ignoring the barbarian, she leapt over him to the dying Lithaine. As the elf’s life spilled from his savaged throat, she pulled his head into her lap, uncorked a potion, and poured the liquid over his wound. Then she plucked a mournful melody on her harp, her voice filling the tower with melancholy. Lithaine’s throat glowed neon blue. When his wound was closed, she poured another potion into his mouth. Then she turned her attention to Amabored.

  “It was stupid to attack this place without a priest,” she said. Her skin was the deep blue of dusk, her eyes like violet nebulae.

  “That may be true,” said Amabored. “But what we lack in brains, we make up for with recklessness. Why are you helping us? Aren’t you Saggon’s girl?”

  “I’m nobody’s girl. And that isn’t Saggon upstairs.”

  “Then who is it?”

  “Something else.”

  “But you don’t know what else.”

  “No. But it’s something worse than Saggon, I can assure you.”

  “Thanks for the tip. But you still haven’t said why you helped us.”

  The dark elf stood, slinging her harp back over her shoulder. “Because we are the Watchers,” she said.

  “The Watchers?”

  “The Tarkailya. We are tasked with guarding the Phylaxes and ensuring that the Quest succeeds. So it has always been.”

  “Quest? What Quest?”

  “It is seldom useful to ask questions until you know what questions to ask, barbarian,” said the dark elf. “Merely thank me, and trust that all will become clear.”

  “Okay. Thanks it is, then,” said Amabored. He kicked a dismembered were-corpse out of the way, sat down, took out his flask and offered it to the dark elf. She declined. He shrugged and drank deeply himself. His hand was shaking.

  “You were afraid for him,” the dark elf said, her voice softening.

  “I was.” He drank again.

  “You love him, then.”

  “It’s the other way around—he yearns for me tragically. If he was awake, he’d say so himself.”

  “No doubt.” The elf made a pillow of Lithaine’s cloak and laid his head upon it. Then she stood. Amabored stood with her. She smiled, and you might guess that Amabored felt a stirring in his loins. She motioned back up the steps. “The thing that is not Saggon awaits. Send it to the Void.”

  “My Lady Watcher, on that you have my word,” Amabored said, drawing a sword-cloth from his pack to clean the gore from his blade. “At least tell me your name.”

  “My villa overlooks the Sunless Sea in the great city of Night,” she said. “If you find me there, I’ll tell you my name.” She turned and leapt down the staircase, disappearing into the darkness.

  14

  In the Grand Foyer, the imps had regrouped. Malcolm and Redulfo gave ground slowly, the paladin parrying scimitar blows with sword and shield while the wizard laid waste with his sorcerous Tommy gun. Imps leaped at them by the dozens. Finally, the spectral weapon grew so hot in Redulfo’s hands that he cried out in battle rage. The spell finally ignited in his hands, and he was forced to banish the weapon back into the aether.

  “I’m out!” The wizard cried.

  “Fall back—up the steps!” said the paladin. The two men raced up the nearest marble staircase. Along the way, they flung over statuary, broke vases, and ripped down tapestries—anything to slow down the onrushing hoard of hellspawn.

  At the top of the staircase, Malcolm planted his feet wide, set his shield, and gripped his sword pommel. His raven hair was blown by unseen winds. His jaw jutted at an impeccable angle. He looked damned good, despite the imminent peril, and I’m not too uptight to admit it. The paladin could have had any woman in the Free Kingdoms, but he had taken the vow of the Star Maiden and thus committed himself to celibacy. That is, until the Empress Wilomina got her hands on him and started working his joint like a squeezebox.

  Pledging your life to the Star Maiden did, however, have its advantages. As the imps scrambled u
p the staircase, their forked tongues lolling, the paladin drew his sword and raised the pommel to his heart. A prayer formed on his lips.

  “Star Maiden, thou art blessed above all mothers in the universe,” began the paladin. His eyes were closed, and a veneer of calm lay upon his face. “Thy raiment of stardust is my armor. Thy loving gaze is my shield. Thy laughter is my blade. Bless my steel, oh Lady of logos, that I might rid the Woerth of this filth.”

  It was just as Wilberd would spell it out to me, four years later: Call on your deity once per battle, and there’s a five percent chance the god will answer your prayer. Malcolm rolled the proverbial pair of percentile dice—and the fucker rolled a five. Opening his eyes, he found his blade glowing. The light swelled brighter, until the sword shimmered in a luminous scabbard of silver light.

  “Not bad,” Redulfo said. “You’re a true believer. That’s rare.”

  “I place my faith in the Maiden, ‘tis true,” said Malcolm. He assumed his batting stance, sword cocked high over his shoulder. “And she places her faith in my steel.”

  “As do I,” said Redulfo. “Hold them here. Saggon must have a stash of enchanted weapons around somewhere. I’ll find something that can bring the heat, and then meet you back.”

  “Not a single hellspawn shall pass this staircase.”

  Redulfo saluted and tore away down the long balcony. The first imps reached Malcolm. His blade a blue comet, the paladin swung. Two imp heads popped free from their bodies and bounced away down the steps. Torrents of black blood geysered from their severed necks.

  “Blessed be the Maiden,” said Malcolm, and went to work.

  15

  I see Redulfo, speeding down the hallway. He’s impossibly young; it’s hard now to believe that any of us were ever that young. Spectacles perched on his nose, pointed chin thrust forward, his gait driven by frantic purpose, the wizard clutches his flute in one hand and carries a torch in the other. He’s listening for the music, for all enchantments sing to those who can hear.