The Screaming Skull

by Rick Ferguson

  So it went, with the apparition guiding them at each stage of their journey: through the dark dungeons beneath the former inn and down the endless stone staircases, until the man-made tunnels gave way to natural stone catacombs enlarged and reinforced over the centuries. Along the way, Redulfo paused intermittently to mark with Light charms the path of their return.

  They came at last to a narrow crevice in the rock through which they could only squeeze single-file. Through it they went, until they found themselves within the Chamber of Malacoda itself, where the shit had gone down. At one end of this high cavern stood the immense obsidian doors of the Hellmouth; their carved runes, once glowing red with Hellfire, were now dark. The opposite end was now sealed by a wall of jumbled stone. And there I was, lying inert on the ground before the Hellmouth doors.

  Redulfo dropped to my side and felt for my pulse. He looked up and nodded—I was still alive. Amabored turned to the translucent girl, still shimmering nearby.

  “Whoever you are, thank you,” said Amabored. “Thank you for finding our friend.”

  “Your Quest must yet be born,” said the girl, and her voice sounded as if it came from the end of a long tunnel. “And by ending the devil’s terrible hunger, you have each proven your worth.” She turned to Lithaine, standing uncomfortably nearby. “Until we meet again, my beloved.”

  “Stop calling me that!” Lithaine snarled.

  “What is your name, young maiden?” asked Malcolm.

  “I am the Glorious Song of El,” said the girl, bowing before the men. “You may call me Madrigel.”

  Before Amabored could summon a suitable insult with which to jab Lithaine, the girl vanished. Malcolm dropped to one knee and clutched his sword pommel to his breast.

  “A true herald of the Star Maiden!” the paladin exclaimed. “My liege, you are truly blessed to have the favor of a Celestial.”

  “If anyone mentions that girl to me again, I’ll shank you in the belly.”

  “Duly noted,” said Amabored. Then the men turned their attention turned to me as I moaned and attempted to roll over. They helped me to sit up. My headache was immense, as if some malevolent god had dropped a planet on my head, and it would be some time before I could even begin to piece together the events that had transpired after I donned the Screaming Skull.

  “Elberon, what happened?” Amabored said. “Where’s Melinda? The Skull—is it gone?”

  I took several beats, and then the enormity of Melinda’s sacrifice fell upon me like a sudden fever. Leaping up, I seized Amabored’s shoulders.

  “We have to save her!” I cried.

  “Save her?” asked Amabored. “Save Melinda? Where is she?”

  I pointed to the Hellmouth doors. “She sacrificed herself. For those kids. I have to save her, Amabored. If I have to cross the Nine Circles myself to find her, then by the gods, I will.”

  28

  Another nine years would pass before I could fulfill my promise to save Melinda—and yet only six months would pass until she returned to Redhauke in a litter borne by a phalanx of Cloud Riders. If that paradox doesn’t twist your brain into a pretzel, it should.

  If even a single strand of the web of events supporting the Quest would have failed, then the entire enterprise would have collapsed. As the Celestial sent to Woerth to stand against the Violet Queen, Madrigel’s chosen mission was to ensure that no strand did fail. She had appeared to Lithaine in Doomtown so that we would end Malacoda’s slaughter of innocents—and, in so doing, I would enter the city, meet Melinda, and come to possess the Skull. Two years later, she led my friends to find me in the devil’s chamber so that I would, nine years hence, descend into Hell to save Melinda—even if she also ended up saving me. Had Melinda died, then she wouldn’t have been around to parlay with the Rat King. Both Skull and Girdle would have fallen into the hands of Lord Eckberd, and we would all have died on his gibbet. In turn, Koschei would have conquered the Free Kingdoms, thrown down the Celestial Stairway, and opened the pathway for the Violet Queen to devour Woerth. You’ll have to forgive us for feeling like pawns.

  As essential as Melinda was to the Quest, so too was Cassiopeia. I never understood why that fucking Ki-Rin appeared to her, and not to me. Hadn’t he revealed to me that my destiny was to complete the Quest? Hadn’t he resurrected my friends and me and told me that we were each essential to its completion? Thanks to the Astral Telescope, I can now watch that asshole reveal the Quest to Cassie. In so doing, I learn the truth: The Ki-Rin didn’t trust me. He knew me too well; I was insufferably lazy and an unrepentant procrastinator. Had he left me to my own devices, Koschei would have conquered three-quarters of the Free Kingdoms before I decided to do something about it. I needed a woman to light a fire under my ass—so he found one to do it.

  It was the day before Cassie confronted us, and we watched Sklaar’s tower explode when Garrin assassinated him with a satchel full of dwarf boom-clay hidden under the old wizard’s desk. Cassie was practicing her mace-work in the olive garden outside the Temple of Athena when the Ki-Rin appeared, accompanied by overwrought pyrotechnics and a musical score entirely suited to his bourgeois sensibilities. Momentarily terrified, Cassie hit the dirt and covered her head. Only after the Ki-Rin spoke did she stand and face him.

  “Behold!” the Ki-Ri said, appearing as he had to me in a vision, reposed on a green hill beneath a blue sky with fluffy white clouds skidding behind him. His voice boomed off the walls of the Temple courtyard. His lion-mane rippled in the breeze. His white teeth gleamed. “I bring you tidings, fair shield-maiden. You have been chosen to fulfil a great mission. Athena herself commands it.”

  “Um… who are you?” asked Cassie, recovering her gumption.

  “I am the Herald. You have been chosen. Prepare now to receive enlightenment, and to take up your sacred Quest!”

  “Look, pal, I’m pretty busy. Take it somewhere else.”

  The Ki-Rin broke character. “No—you look, lady,” he said, his ringing orchestral accompaniment decreasing in volume. “How about you just let me get through this? I spent hours working on this presentation. There’s a lot of exposition to get through. I don’t want to be here any more than you do, so let’s just make the best of it, shall we?”

  Considering this plea, Cassie nodded her consent. The Ki-Rin faded from view to be replaced by a vision of the Dread Keep itself, towering over the blasted ruins of the Dread Plain.

  “This is the Dread Keep,” said the Ki-Rin. “Home of Koschei the Deathless. You’ve heard of him?”

  “Of course,” said Cassie.

  “After five hundred years of sleep, the Dread Lord has awoken,” said the Ki-Rin. “Tomorrow, his army will arrive outside this city. His warlord will demand the head of someone you know—the fighter Elberon. You must not allow this to happen. You must help him get out of the city alive.”

  “What’s Elberon got to do with Koschei? Is this about that skull he keeps talking about?”

  “Elberon and his friends are the chosen ones charged with completing the new Quest of the Dread Plain to throw down the Deathless One.” At Cassie’s look, the Ki-Rin nodded. “Yes, I know—hard to believe. In fact, I can’t imagine any lot less qualified. That’s why we need you to guide them. Otherwise, Woerth is screwed.”

  “Okay. Let’s say I buy what you’re selling. What do I have to do?”

  “Ah—glad you asked! Prepare to be dazzled.” At that, the image of the Dread Keep faded and was replaced by an image of Koschei himself—a figure cloaked in black and bearing fell weapons. As Cassie watched, the figure broke apart into ten separate objects.

  “These are the Ten Phylaxes of Koschei the Deathless,” the Ki-Rin continued.

  “Ten Horcruxes? What are those?” Cassie interrupted.

  “Not Horcruxes, for crying out loud. Phylaxes,” said the Ki-Rin. “Five of Koschei’s preserved body parts. Five of his most powerful weapons and relics. Each one bears a piece of the Deathless One’s soul. You must find each of them before yo
ur enemies do. Only by collecting all of them can you hope to destroy him. Let’s review.”

  As Koschei introduced each Phylax, its image rotated forward and grew to fill the frame of the Ki-Rin’s display. First, a jeweled, horned skull rotated forward.

  “The Screaming Skull,” the Ki-Rin intoned. “Elberon possesses it already. Keep it out of Eckberd’s hands.”

  The Skull was replaced by an image of a warrior’s jeweled leather girdle. “The Girdle of Gargantua,” the Ki-Rin continued. “Elberon has it also. Ditto on keeping it away from the bad guys.”

  Next, there appeared an image of a long, black, rune-covered scythe. “The Scythe of Souls, also known as Soulreaver. It’s already in the hands of your enemy, so you’ll want to get it back—if you can.”

  Next, an image of an utterly black kite shield. “The Shield of Sorrow—likewise in your enemy’s hands.”

  “The Bad Brain,” the Ki-Rin continued, as the shield was replaced by a pulsing green brain. “It lies in the Temple of Pain Eternal, on the Sunless Sea.”

  Then came the image of a pair of glowing eyeballs with red pupils shaped like cat-eyes. “The Awful Orbs. They’re lost—but you must find them.”

  “The Horrible Heart.” Cassie next saw the image of a black, beating heart. “It beats within the chest of Lord Eckberd himself. Good luck getting it from him.”

  An image of a red, throbbing man-organ, the sight of which made Cassie visibly nauseous. “The Fell Phallus. I’d stay away from it, if I were you.”

  Then, an image of a black ceremonial mace with rune-covered flanges and an ebony shaft topped with the snarling head of a lion. “The Mace of Malice. You’ll need to pry it from the dead hand of the Empress Wilomina. Good luck with that.”

  And, finally, the image of a gleaming golden crown studded with diamonds and rubies. “And, last but certainly not least,” the Ki-Rin concluded, “The Crown of Chaos. Also lost—though the Wise may know where it can be found.”

  The image of the crown faded, and the Ki-Rin appeared again, visibly pleased with himself. “Find these Phylaxes you must, before your enemies find them, or kill you,” he said. “This is your charge. Without you, Elberon and his friends will never complete this Quest, and the Woerth will be lost.”

  For a moment, Cassie was silent. Then something within her seemed to stiffen, and she stood taller. “Okay, friend. When we’ve collected all ten of these Phylaxes, what do we do with them?”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said the Ki-Rin. “Your odds of success are so low that it’s best to take this thing one stage at a time. Get the Phylaxes, and then we’ll talk.”

  With that, the Ki-Rin bowed theatrically. The unseen orchestra swelled again to a crescendo. With a final flourish of trumpets and timpani, the Ki-Rin vanished, leaving Cassie alone again in the olive grove to contemplate her misfortune.

  “Fucking hell,” she said to herself, and headed back to the temple.

  29

  Had Garrin not greased Sklaar that following day, things might have turned out very differently—or they might not have, depending on your point of view. We might have tried to turn over the Skull and Girdle to Sklaar, despite Cassie’s dire proclamations; once the wizard learned that both were irrevocably tied to my fate, he might have waxed me where I stood. Or, it might be that every aspect of the Quest was preordained, with a chain of causality stretching back to the earliest movements of the Machine Elves in the First Universe. Who the hell knows? Redulfo the Black told us that he had proven free will was now built into the fabric of Woerth, but what did that mean in practical terms? How could we use that knowledge to save the world?

  Whether or not free will exists, there were certain inflection points along the path of the Quest where the fate of Woerth truly did hang in the balance—points at which the outcome was not preordained. As the young Redulfo told us, success becomes possible only when all other options have been exhausted. My final confrontation with the Arch-Devil Malacoda was such a moment. Had I not prevailed, the Woerth would have become the Violet Queen’s lunch.

  “I CHALLENGE HIS SATANIC HIGHNESS MALACODA, DIRE MALEBRANCHE OF MALEBOLGE AND VASSAL OF BEELZEBUB, KING OF THE EIGHTH CIRCLE AND LORD OF FLIES, TO THE JUDGEMENT OF MINOS!” I had cried out, as the caverns around the Hellmouth collapsed around us.

  “SO, YOU WANT TO PLAY GAMES, LITTLE MAN?” Malacoda had roared. “ALL RIGHT—LET’S PARTY.”

  The devil had touched my arm—and I found myself standing in an arena in Limbo, the First Circle of Hell.

  Later, I would become well-versed in the geography of the Infernal Realm. At the time, I could only guess that, by invoking the Judgement of Minos, I had given Malacoda the power to transport me there. As to where he had taken me, or why, I couldn’t begin to understand. Shit, I didn’t even know what judgement I had invoked. I knew only that, by invoking it, I had momentarily prevented the devil from making me his bitch.

  I was still wearing the Skull, which provided the hyper-clarity of total awareness even as it beclouded my vision within a veil of blue Hellfire. I stood at the center of a massive arena, around which loomed the towers, columns, and battlements of what I would one day come to know as the great city Hades, the capital of Limbo. Above the city and the extended landscape of Limbo loomed a black sun, like a permanent eclipse in the sky, bathing the land in a pale corpse-light that illuminated the city while providing scant warmth. This orb, I would later learn, was the Black Sun of Hell, a gift of light and time from Kronos to Lucifer. During my later sojourn there, I would come to lust after and loathe that cursed orb like a lover scorned.

  Across the field from me stood Malacoda, still clutching his mace, still leering at me with the utter certainly of impending victory. Around us, the stands of the oval arena were full of demons, devils, and the damned, all gathered together to watch whatever entertainment we were about to provide. On the ornate gallery at the center of the ima cavea sat the high nobility of Limbo: lords and ladies of the Fallen, gloriously bedecked in their finest raiments, the various hues of their corrupted flesh carved with runes proclaiming their house allegiances, complemented by their jeweled horns, and debased by their ritualistic piercings. Before this crowd, three High Princes of Hell sat at a long marble table. The first was a fierce devil with massive horns, a leering tongue, and red rune-carved skin; the second, a giant-sized man with obsidian skin, black feathered wings, and eyes glowing with Hellfire; the third, an immense green-skinned demon with a mummified lower body, bearing a crook and flail and wearing a white crown topped with ostrich feathers. Behind this lot was a tall, black throne. On that throne sat the most immense being I had ever beheld: fully thirty feet tall, a pale king with a Grecian beard and a muscular, alabaster body. Instead of legs, a long, scaled serpent’s tale depended from his torso and coiled around the throne. On his brow sat a silver crown so large that I could see the damned souls attending to this being from within its carved chambers. This, I could at least surmise, was Minos—King of Limbo and Judge of the Damned.

  From the gallery there came the peal of trumpets, as to whatever ceremony I had committed myself commenced. The middle demon stood, outstretching his black wings, and spoke. Though he stood at least fifty chains from me, his voice boomed and echoed throughout the wide arena.

  “My lords and ladies of Limbo,” said the demon prince, “Welcome to the Field of Judgement. As a High Judge of the damned, I, Prince Rhadamanthus, have the honor of addressing you today on behalf of his Royal Satanic Highness, the great King Minos, Lord of Limbo, Royal Patron of House Sathariel, and Master of the great city of Hades. We are gathered here this day to witness the final judgement of Minos regarding the enmity between His Satanic Highness Malacoda, Dire Malebranche of the Eighth Circle of Malebolge, and Prince Elberon of Woerth.”

  At the announcement of his name and title, Malacoda bowed before the King, so I figured I should do likewise. A low thrum and buzz came from the crowd. Seated on his throne, King Minos remained silent and immo
bile; he might have been a statue, were it not for the blazing white light emanating from his eyes.

  “Lord Malacoda, Prince Elberon,” continued Rhadamanthus, “Do you both accept the Doom of Minos, should it befall you?”

  “BETCHYER ASS,” said Malacoda.

  “I DO,” I said, through my booming Skull-voice.

  “So mote it be,” continued the judge. “As neither of you are counted among the damned, to be bound by the judgement of Minos you must each serve at the pleasure of an editor. Is there someone here who will serve as the editor of Malacoda? If so, let him now speak.”

  On the gallery, the assembled nobles rose and stepped aside to allow passage for what I can describe only as a giant, black, hairy, loathsome housefly. Supporting himself with a black scepter, the giant fly-devil shuffled forward on his hind segmented legs. A small red crown sat askew atop his bulbous head.

  “I will sponsor Lord Malacoda,” said the devil-fly. “Although he long ago failed me on the field of battle against the mortal man Arturus, he has remained a faithful vassal to House Golachab. Should he prevail today, I will release him from his long prison.”

  “Very well, King Beelzebub,” said Rhadamanthus. “Lord Malacoda, do you accept your King’s charge?”

  “WITH PLEASURE,” said Malacoda. He bowed before Beelzebub. “MAY YOU BATHE FOREVER IN THE BLOOD OF INNOCENTS, MY KING.”

  “So mote it be,” said the winged demon. “Who now will sponsor Prince Elberon in this contest?”

  Crickets—I got crickets. Not one being in the great arena spoke on my behalf. Finally, there came another voice from the gallery—one I recognized. Jo Ki-Rin stepped forward from his seat near the rear.

  “I’ll sponsor the kid,” the Ki-Rin said.

  There was more hubbub from the crowd. The three judges conferred together, and then Rhadamanthus spoke.