by Chris Turner
Risgan ducked in terror. He knew no counter for that strike. Just as he was mumbling his last prayer, a huge arm swung about of ancient sandstone and fingers creaked about the beast’s ruffled neck. The isk’s rasping caw became an absurdly soprano-sized squeak as the giant megaret tossed the brute on high in an arching loop to fall broken in a jumble of boulders a hundred paces away.
Risgan flinched, jaw agape. The doomed men leaped back. Astounded cries fell from their throats. The other two isks uttered squealing fanfares and took to the sky. One marauder did not escape. Two flexing hands curled around its midsection and squeezed hard.
Guts and feathers fell in glooping pools. Grabbing torches, the men raced for cover. They scrambled for their lives out into the open barrens, eager to escape the macerating grips of the stone men, who all seemed to come to life, creaking and groaning around them with the magical impetus and unfathomable weight of their massive limbs.
The thuds of mammoth feet fell closer. The companions fled blindly into the darkness. The booms seemed to echo across the steppes like gongs of fate. Flight appeared futile. The companions found themselves surrounded on all sides by walking giants.
Risgan rallied his men. He knew there was no recourse, and yet something odd rankled him about these stone menaces. Why had they not killed them earlier? It would have been easy to trample all of them while they ate their fowl by the fire. Why now, these seven wonders, in such an odd quixotic moment?
His suspicions were confirmed when he stared in stunned silence at a small figure who stepped out of the hidden recess of the underground tomb... it was a man in likeness of the foremost megaret. He glided toward them with a graceful placidity, feet barely touching the sand. The figure’s arms were crossed in reverie, his eyes glared sternly at their cowering lot, his figure limned in the copper light of the campfire that still burned meekly. The ghost, if such was a ghost, had a bearded chin, wide-spaced amber eyes, a body that glowed with a luminous yellow aura which wore an ancient blue tunic and a flowing gown in the style of the lost nobles of Zanthia.
“Here now,” he cried, “what’s all this scuffling and scampering about, you pests?”
Risgan searched for words. “Ghost, we meant no disrespect or sacrilege to your haunt—or are you a phantom?”
“Nay, I am the projection of a real man. I was once the mightiest of the seven magicians of Mirdask, now deceased as you see in these statues. I am Evref, the last.”
Risgan nodded in understanding. “What of your giants? Are they to kill us or merely stare us down as if we are delectable prey?”
“You are lucky, pilgrim,” came the apparition’s appraising voice. “You did not steal the venerated garland from my brow which was wise. I watched you from the corner of my eye. You placed it on my brow. The others who defiled my resting place... well, better not to speak of them. To answer your question—my giants are simulacra, limestone semblances of our past might. We are seven lords! Seven statues for seven wizards! We infused the statues with our own mana before we expired—at times on whim, to re-experience the life of mortals, if only in partial glory. My magic was the strongest, and hence, I am master of my brothers and harbour the ability to glide in a man’s form, and not the inconvenient outer-covering of my peers.”
“A boon. A peerless achievement.”
“I agree. And your own quest?”
“We seek the lost treasure of Lim-Lalyn. For endless leagues we have plodded to lay hands on it.”
The wizard rubbed his chin with amazement. “To get to this place, you must cross the lands of the ghoul men, which I do not condone, then you must cross the sacred canyon of Gothonia to come to the brink of the farthest bank of the ancient riverbed. A journey of many leagues. Only I can guide you to Lim-Lalyn. It lies at the heart of a sheer cliff of a dried-up river called the Mazomun in days of old. Even saying this, I doubt that you will find the boon which you are looking for.”
Risgan renounced such possibility. Instead he posed a delicate question, “I feel we are indebted to you, Evref, for service in dealing with the isks. It would be presumptuous of me to ask for another favour.”
The apparition gave an orotund chuckle. “I have exhausted my supply of entertainment through the aeons, and now with nothing else to do, I shall reduce myself to offering safe passage and thwarting these ghoulmen who are a menace to the world and have committed terrible outrages against us all. They are several levels below the isks! Now, I am awake in all my glory and feel a new vigour!”
“A happy coincidence,” commended Risgan. “And what of the feckless geographer whom I shared words with who claims to have seen the ruins of Lim-Lalyn?”
The apparition snorted. “This geographer is a fantasist. It was not Lim-Lalyn he saw. Likely the site of Bar-Shagoth which contains several notable cenotaphs and sarsens. It lies several leagues farther south.”
“I suspected as much,” muttered Risgan gloomily. “You cannot trust anyone these days.”
The apparition agreed. “Now, if you will excuse me, I will return to my bedchambers where my brethren sleep. They pine in my absence. In the morning we shall embark on this grand journey to Lim-Lalyn!”
The apparition made a signal; the giants lumbered back to their original positions around the fire in their semicircle.
Risgan made a brief acknowledgement of the plan and thought to take his peers aside. He instructed them to tend to the minor wreckage of their camp.
“If I might add, douse your fire,” the magician called back to Risgan. “It attracts the elder isks, who do not fear flame like the others. Withal, minister to your magician—he seems to have a slight headache.”
Risgan gave a perfunctory wave. Kahel, kicking at the nearby mangled body of the giant isk, stooped to savagely carve off its head. “How loathsome this skull is! I will keep it as a memento. Stuffed and groomed, it will make an impressive piece on a lord’s mantle.”
“Leave the evil thing alone,” advised Risgan in disgust. “How do you expect to haul it back?” Together with Jurna, he crept back to the megaret camp, humbled and reflective, while Kahel, with help from the remaining men, hoisted his grisly isk head. He yet remained distrustful of the stone giants who frowned down upon them and had mysteriously come to life. Now they stood silent as death. Kahel, in a moment of whimsy, slung a rope over the shoulder of one of the largest megarets and hoisted the isk head as a warning, that other predators which might think to prowl and plague should reconsider. Risgan grunted his distaste. The immobile stone giant did not seem to mind.
The companions doused the fire and all returned to their blankets, exhausted.
* * *
That evening, all snored soundly round the last glowing coals. Kahel silently woke Hape with a sharp prod. He knew Hape shared his sentiments against Risgan, and he put a dry finger to the vagabond’s lips. “Shh! The others are fools, these relic-hounds! I covet this garland. Right from the very moment I saw it. The gold alone is worth a fortune. It shall make us rich. Rich, Hape, rich. We shall ride with Balael—to Xumanthe, and from there to Bazuur.”
Hape hissed out a defiant note. “Do you think it’s wise to cross the magician? The theft of the heirloom seems a senseless risk, considering we are mere mortals. The magus, the ghost he is, seems an unforgiving adversary.”
Kahel blew out a sarcastic gust of air. “Quit your warbling. The geriatric’s as soft as a hen.”
Hape’s grunt of dissent hinted otherwise. He cited the ghost’s own dire prophecy of those who would commit thievery against his brotherhood, but Kahel gave a muffled grunt. “If the statue has living eyes, we will simply blindfold them with our scarves.”
Hape blinked, battling misgivings. And so, he was cajoled into participating in the sketchy plan that Kahel had hatched, which included his own sneaking down the stair into the altar room and making off with the wizard’s golden garland.
“Why me?”
“Because you are more light-footed and unobtrusive then me. I admit, in the be
ginning,” confided Kahel, “that I was befuddled by that grim half moon of statues, yet after pondering the gains, it was as clear as day. “With this one item,” Kahel advised Hape, “we will be wealthier than kings! To Douran with Risgan and his dogged scheme of scrounging for bric-a-brac! Why risk our lives? For a few tawdry mouldering relics, a few sentimental tokens? Bah! I’ve already had my share of his overweening command and self-asserting airs. I want my spoils!”
Hape put a hesitant hand to his quivering chin. Kahel’s exclusion from adjudication of the maids of Gilmin’s had certainly left him bitter.
“Besides,” Kahel continued blandly, “we will be long gone from this burrow before the magician, or whatever it is, discovers the loss and can do anything about it.”
* * *
Several hours later, in the dead of the night, Risgan awoke to a stressful dream, one which included giants coming to life and seeking to rip off his head.
And yet, around him megarets were creaking to life, limbs and joints springing with fury. Several were clutching boulders and tents in vindictive authority. Balael, Hape and Kahel were nowhere in sight.
He cursed. A huge set of hands and grasping tent-like fingers came reaching for his neck. Risgan ducked. A packbeast was flattened and its hide scattered nearby. The other mounts were crushed, along with their supplies and the choicest bulk of relics.
Risgan stumbled petrified into the darkness. Boulders rolled. Huge masses tumbled like acorns by the stone giants’ force. While Dagbar trees splintered Risgan caught a glimpse of Moeze and Jurna scrambling for safety, hands protecting their skulls. He scrambled to shelter, hiding himself under a half-torn tarp. Only by sheer chance did he escape the grim notice of the giants. The fiends had poor eyesight in the dark.
Throwing a curse to Douran, he snatched up a near-dead firebrand and plunged himself between the boulders and away from the den of terror with Jurna and Moeze staggering at his heels.
The three scurried across the cool desert floor, running pell-mell up a not-far-off incline. To Risgan’s surprise, he found the rest of his crew cowering behind a clutch of boulders at the summit.
Under the wink of the glimmering torch, they hunkered down in terror. Below, booms of cracking stone sounded, with a vengeance that would make even an isk cringe as the seven giants uprooted dagbar, stone and weed searching for a certain lost item.
What could it be? A glowing figure with luminous aureole hovered disconsolately about the campsite, pointing here and there, rummaging in the saddlebags and the dead pack-beasts. Finally the figure motioned a fist at the stone minions, which could only be considered instruments of death.
Risgan spoke in a hurried voice. “What has come over these juggernauts to wage war on us? It makes no sense.”
Jurna gave a sullen reply. “Kahel and his cronies have purloined some valuable item from the old mage, I bet.”
“What?” Risgan cried, struggling to keep his voice even.
“They stole the mage’s golden garland, what else?” growled Jurna. “What do you think?”
Hape moved his fingers in a nervous circle. “’Twas only on a whim that we executed such plan.”
“You idiots! What got into you?” cursed Risgan.
“’Twas Kahel’s idea,” accused Hape selfishly.
Risgan gave a sullen cry of outrage.
“Everything would have gone to plan had Hape not botched up a crucial step,” muttered Kahel. “Hape had his hand on the garland and was removing it from the statue’s crown but it slipped and clanked to the stone. If not for that cock-eyed wizard who had put some warding spell up...”
“You might have succeeded,” finished Risgan sombrely.
Hape made a peevish gesture. “How was I to know Evref had laid a spell on the treasure? Better to have called on Moeze, who is much more qualified at things like this.”
“Leave Moeze out of this,” Moeze grunted, gritting his teeth. His head still ached terribly from the isk swat.
Risgan risked a glance into the darkness. He saw in the flickering flame in the shallow vale below the stone giants shambling about, hurling rocks, stamping feet about the ruins. They were looking for both the garland which was not there and the treacherous relic hunters.
“What a predicament,” he hissed bitterly. The others shivered in their boots and Risgan suddenly struck his hand in a fist. “I know! There’s one way to thwart them.”
“How’s that?” demanded Moeze.
“We should throw these three out there as sacrifices,” suggested Jurna darkly.
“Too late, look,” moaned Balael. The juggernauts were even this minute mounting the ridge on which they hunched in a dour huddle. The guardians at last had divined the band’s hiding place.
“Woe is upon us,” wailed Hape.
Evref, indeed, was leading the minions, the brotherhood of Mirdask, up the incline, gliding on ghostly legs, barely moving, wrapped in a voluminous robe. He glowed like a vindictive tyrant with eyes burning an incandescent yellow.
Risgan’s fingers reached in his tunic and clutched a familiar shape. He rubbed the wish bone with a fervent hope, struggled to draw its mystical power from its cold surface and end this nightmare.
To no avail. Though he called on the wish bone’s power, he found he could not concentrate. One had to believe in the magic to make it work. Difficult to do under the circumstances. Moeze’s feebly jejune magic, likewise, was ineffective against the indomitable colossi who clambered up after them.
“Where is the cursed garland?” cried Risgan desperately.
Kahel reluctantly withdrew it from his pack.
Risgan snatched it up and examined it with loathing. “We shall use this wretched thing as a bargaining chip.” He crept to the highest boulder of their hideout, composing brave steps, and stood limned in the moonlight like a bleak pariah. “Evref!” he called out brassily, “claim your prize!”
Risgan held the gleaming wreath high.
“Never!” cried the apparition. “I will watch at a safe distance your demise. Throw down the garland, outlander, or forfeit your lives. My minions will delight in crushing you!”
“Never.”
Risgan swiftly doffed his tattered woollen vest and fiddled with something in his pack. “Think again, Evref! If you do this, you will destroy your only chance at your treasure. I will destroy it myself by flinging it down this sinkhole, which gapes at my side where you will never see it again.”
The ghost paused. “This is an unreasonable gambit.”
“As is your assault against our persons. We were once a team, remember? You offered us guidance to Lim-Lalyn. Now you seek to destroy us. I will leave the garland here on this stupa-stone and we will part in amicable terms. What do you say? Do you accept my offer? You to the west, we to the east.”
“Place the garland,” commanded the apparition. “If I discover any tricks, I will terminate your lives.”
Risgan gave a curt nod. “As you wish.”
Pale as a ghost, he prepared the package in a burly sack. Faced with the impossible, Risgan let his gambler’s instinct guide him. He knew he had nothing to lose, for here beat forces beyond his comprehension. Much to Jurna’s horror the preparation dragged on, who sensed Evref’s impatience and who knew Risgan only too well.
The spectre grew restless and shouted up in impatience. “Hurry up, rogue! My patience wears!”
“All in due time, Evref. The flaps and folds of my knapsack hinder the garland’s wrapping.”
“Never mind your knapsack. Leave the garland where it is and I shall retrieve it.”
As Risgan made his leave, the spectre floated up, grasping at the knapsack, but the giants seemed not to halt their insatiable climb; indeed, they looked even larger and more eager to inflict damage on Risgan’s crew.
Risgan crouched down with his fellows and bellowed out in dismay, “Call off your dogs, Evref. We have fulfilled our duty. Leave and take your package.”
“Never!” Evref thundered. “You h
ave cheated us, Relic Hunter; at any rate, you must suffer the consequences, so prepare to die.”
“Look again!” shouted Risgan in exultation.
As Evref tore open the sack, he discovered to his dismay that it was only a soiled night sweater. He gave a bawling rasp. Inhuman rage filled his heart and his curses rang to all corners of the desert.
Jurna, apprehending the trickery, gave an astonished croak. “You switched the garland?”
Risgan held up the treasure.
Kahel gave a stupefied howl. “And you accuse me of chicanery? Now we are all doubly dead.”
Risgan grunted: “You are in hardly a position to point fingers, trickster. Now fly, the blight has been loosed.”
The thieves fled up over the crown of boulders and down into the neighbouring valley, eager to gain the next hill, perhaps a half mile distant—they hoped before Evref’s minions could detect their ruse. The hill was a sunburned scar of rock, looking like a moonlit ghost, a crow-haunted crag in the dusky light. The stone giants came lumbering after them, feet pounding on the naked earth like a hundred blacksmith hammers. Risgan knew Evref’s guardians would haunt them to the ends of the earth. They must hurry...
Several pitch black caves presented themselves at the highest terraces of the ridge, staring down at them like pools of death. With their last waning efforts, the fugitives climbed the last feet. They plunged recklessly into the nearest cave.
“Quick, down into the gloom!” Risgan breathed determinedly. He waved his torch. He had coaxed it to bitter life with tinder and flint. “The giants cannot follow us here.”
The band acknowledged the fact and grunted and moaned.
Under Evref’s direction the stone demons came lurching after them, dismantling every block and alamorphic stalactite and misshapen stalagmite that cursed the ridge-cave complex. They would not cease their drubbing until they had flushed out the infidels.
Risgan found the cavern cramped and dark. He plunged on with his fellows through a dim tunnel with every bit of haste. He breathed hope, cursing every bit of foul luck that had assailed them since the traders’ post and the foolish treachery of Kahel. Ever on to more unsettling and stifling burrows the twists and turns took them. Twice they discerned gnawed bones strewn in a damp crevice. A baston sloth’s? Then a leering snout sprang out at them without notice. Jurna cut down the creature with a decisive sabre chop. A quick glance revealed it as some hybrid of ghoul man and mountain graw. The feeble light of Risgan’s torch showed movement of sinister shapes rustling in the darkness. They fled in terror, constantly bumping into each other in their frenzied panic, trying to make progress. The five threaded a path to the other side of the tunnel, clocking up bruises, scraped thighs and knees and banged skulls.