The Sword of Shadows

by Adrian Cole

  When they had come to the bottom of a steeply inclined tunnel, No-Name turned and pointed to the valve-like door ahead of them. “I go no further.”

  “What is beyond?” asked Orgoom, suspicious and ready to use his awful clawed hands. He had no wish to become the slave of Ybaggog and go about as those in the citadel did.

  “It is a portal that looks out over the vast spaces of Ybaggog’s mind. There his dreams sail past and he will choose one for you both, and in the reading of it, you will have your tasks. You and the man must go out and accept the Seeing.”

  Orgoom hissed and leapt back, almost colliding with the Voidal. “All this way for that? Not Orgoom!” he cried vehemently. Rather he would go back into Ubeggi’s service than bow to this monstrous deity.

  No-name suddenly rushed past both Gelder and the Voidal and ran back up the tunnel. He turned. “I have done my duty. Ybaggog is not to be denied. You cannot keep from him his due.” With that he fled, leaving the bemused Orgoom watching. The Gelder had no idea how to act, but on no account would he go through the valve to the place beyond. He had seen quite enough of Ybaggog’s revolting visions. Thus there was only one direction to take, and he began the cautious walk back up the tunnel. He had not gone far, however, when he saw movement beyond. No-Name must be returning.

  But it was not him.

  Something was squirming down the tunnel, clumsy and uncertain of its progress. It was a creature with an ovoid body that resembled a huge slug, with dangling limbs that were more like fins than arms. From the centre of its body rose a long neck, and upon this grew the head, like a bizarre fruit. It was human, but grown three times its normal size. Orgoom saw the staring eyes first, but as the thing came slithering down the tunnel, blocking it entirely, he recognised the head of Snare. It had been given a new and blasphemous life. As it saw the Gelder, it laughed evilly, its voice that of the man who had been Ubeggi’s slave. “No escape, Gelder! Not here.”

  Orgoom readied both hands, prepared to tear this disgusting abomination to pieces, but would it be possible? Could he destroy it? He waited, shaking with terror, and the thing that Snare had become drew closer, moved only by the fires of its madness.

  Behind him, Orgoom heard the valve hiss open and beyond it could sense the great void that was the dreaming mind of Ybaggog, the hell of hells. The Voidal was moving towards it. Orgoom turned, shielding his eyes, and tried to catch his sickles in the cloak of the dark man, but the fabric was like mist. The Gelder could not stop him.

  Snare screamed with maniacal glee. “You cannot save him! He belongs to Ybaggog now. The Dark Gods have thrown him out — they have no power here! Only Ybaggog can command. Follow him, Gelder! Follow him and plunge into the deeps of the Dark Destroyer. Drink!” Snare flicked out a whip-like tongue and Orgoom slashed it in half with a lightning chop. But the awful mouth spat out more of them. Orgoom slashed again, but as each severed part fell, it wriggled back and was absorbed by the round bulk of Snare’s body.

  The Voidal was through the orifice and stood beyond, eyes facing whatever was out there. Inside his body, the Sword of Madness began an awful gush of sound, twisted and painful, a crescendo of all that was frightful. The blade turned and shivered as if it, too, endured agonies. Orgoom’s ears threatened to burst as he lurched back to the tunnel wall and crouched there, almost melting into the walls. They seemed to be made of pulp, shuddering as if vibrating to the din made by the sword, as though its appalling sounds cut deep into them. Snare struggled on past Orgoom, no longer interested in the huddled Gelder.

  There was a timelessness about the Voidal’s encounter with the void. Ybaggog’s wild dreams and nightmares floated across the pit of his mind like vast naval fleets, some drifting across to the Voidal, whose own tormented mind was closed in on itself, chained up by the madness lodged in his vitals. The first of the Sendings enveloped the dark man, and something of its power seeped through. Huge aerial monsters were tearing and ripping at each other, scattering stars in their wake and crushing whole universes as they struggled in the wildest regions of the omniverse. Gods roared their fury and burst asunder, while billions of their servants fused into rivers of molten light that poured away into the abysses of oblivion. Entire pantheons were reduced to cinders as god after god perished, and the spreading plague of horrors spawned by the lunacy of Ybaggog devoured and devoured. In the memory of the Devourer of Universes, every struggle of the gods of the omniverse still reverberated, locked into a repeated cycle of perpetualness. All was confusion, chaos, tumult and turmoil, and on this ghastly diet, Ybaggog thrived.

  Yet the Sword of Madness had built its own wall of turmoil around the walls of the Voidal’s seething mind, so that as the visions came, staggering in their immensity, they struck the eyes of the Voidal and shattered like ice images before the steel hammers of a madman. Ybaggog’s universe shook to its roots, the entire length of it reverberating to the impact.

  The Dark Gods had not allowed for such a confrontation, for the Voidal picked out from the slivers of smashed image many things that had meaning for him. Shards of memory gleamed there and he snatched them avidly, repairing them until new visions came to him. As the mad god sent more of his awesome dreams across the void, the Voidal snared at will the pieces that he wanted. As long as the Sword inside him countered the oncoming Sendings, he was in command.

  The Snare creature rushed through the valve, made aware by Ybaggog of what had happened. The mad god commanded its beast. It wrapped its broken fronds around the hilt of the Sword of Madness and pulled, shrieking deafeningly as it did so. Orgoom could not watch as the sword fought like a living serpent to remain in the body of the Voidal. Snare pulled and pulled, inching the weapon out, his flesh charring, his limbs shrivelling and dropping off. Yet gradually the sword came out, until a last heave brought it free. Snare’s mouth opened wide in a crazed laugh of triumph, and then that ghastly head burst in a welter of smoking gore. Within moments the body began to rupture and then it, too, burst, its leaking remains flung far out into the void of Ybaggog’s dreams.

  Orgoom tore free from the wall of the tunnel, which had been absorbing him like a sponge. He saw the Sword of Madness fall at the feet of the Voidal, and looked up at the dark man. The latter stood with his back to Ybaggog’s lunatic void and abruptly looked down at the weapon with an intensely evil smile. In a moment he had picked it up and caressed it. He stared at Orgoom, and in that look the Gelder knew more terror than in anything he had yet lived through.

  “Orgoom,” said the Voidal. “The Sendings have not broken your mind.”

  “No, master,” said the Gelder, shivering anew. Plainly the Voidal was far from mad, and no prisoner.

  “Do not look at what lies behind me.” The Voidal said no more. Ybaggog must have understood now that the dark man was at his mercy, for he began to send out across that black space the most terrible of his visions. The Voidal could feel it coming like a tidal wave of lunacy, but he was ready. He raised up the sword in his right hand, grinning at the hand that was his own and no longer moved by the will of his tormentors, and waited. Eagerly.

  At last he span round. His eyes were closed as he flung the weapon, and it tore like a blazing sun across the interstellar vastness of that black mind, its point seeking the vision that raced to meet it.

  “To your feet!” the Voidal shouted, gripping Orgoom’s elbow and lifting him. They were both racing up the tunnel as the impact came. It was as if a score of universes had met and fused themselves. Soon the consequent explosion came: Ybaggog’s mind writhed and tore itself apart in the chaos that followed. His body felt the rigours of an immense seizure, followed by more, greater than the first.

  “What happens?” cried Orgoom, stumbling but still running.

  “Ybaggog’s power is disintegrating, smashed by a greater one.” The Voidal laughed horribly. “I have seen it.” He said no more, but laughed again. It was no longer the laughter of a madman, but laughter that spoke of some unimaginable secret, something that onl
y the dark man knew of, for in that laughter there was confidence that a god might envy.

  When they came to the plaza, they found that all of Ybaggog’s servants had burst like fruit, and the heart of the god was pumping madly, turning huge parts of itself to stone and dust. These cracked and tumbled. Orgoom whimpered in terror at the thought of what must happen to him, but the Voidal gazed at the carnage with a terrible smile.

  “I think this will not be the end for us, Gelder. Ybaggog will writhe and shudder for eons to come, locked away inside his own mad universe. His Sendings will torment only himself until the distant millennium when he rots at the edge of the omniverse.”

  “How we get out?”

  “Our work is done. We have all been used, even Ubeggi. The will of the Dark Gods has triumphed here, as I guessed that it would.”

  The Voidal ignored the terrible sounds of destruction around them and put his hand gently on Orgoom’s blue skin. “Go to sleep.”

  “We meet again?”

  “In some other hell perhaps.”

  Within moments the Gelder had slumped down, eyes closed, and soon after that he was gone. For a while the Voidal was left alone to contemplate the broken riddles of his own destiny, then he, too, slipped into the great darkness until the Dark Gods would see fit to wake him again.

  * * * *

  The inn was silent, the cats asleep, the embers of the fire burning low. Drath nodded to himself and closed the last of the shutters. Outside there was some kind of disturbance, the air stirred as if by a distant storm, passing mercifully beyond Ulthar. The innkeeper thought of the strange company who had visited the inn, their impact on this stranger world. It was over. Tomorrow night, what stranger dreams might come?

  Meanwhile, far from Ulthar, Vulparoon the Divine Asker listened with the keen ears of a bird of prey to the remote sounds, almost beyond the limits of hearing. Somewhere a mad god was falling, as mad gods did. The Asker smiled for a moment. But then he thought of the burden he carried, the knowledge that he must pay for the summoning he had made in Ulthar. Tomorrow, a week hence, ten years? Better not to know. But, as with death itself, let it be swift, he prayed.

  And Elfloq, the errant familiar, popped out on to the astral realm with a grunt of mixed emotion. He was thankfully free of Ubeggi and the revolting Snare, but what of his master? Elfloq squinted into the fog. He would have to begin again. Next time they would, he hoped, meet under more auspicious circumstances. But with the Voidal, one never knew. Only the Dark Gods really knew anything. Elfloq grimaced. Even in his scheming mind, he did not have the temerity to curse them.

  PART FIVE: THE SLIVER OF MADNESS

  And so again to Cloudway, most enigmatic of all havens.

  Fate wheels and deals and still the guests sit in as the dice roll, the cards fall. Still they play their hands, convinced that this time, they will control the flow of destiny.

  Only one card matters. Everything else is simply a preparation for its revelation. One card.

  The last one.

  —Salecco, who prefers to observe and record, rather than participate.

  Eye Patch of the Smile served wine for one. Rarely had Cloudway been so empty. The warden of the astral haven indicated the silent hall and its deserted tables with a nod of his head. “Busy times outside,” he noted. “Portentous events unfold, I feel.”

  The green-eyed man at the bar sipped the wine appreciatively. “This idlewine is faultless, host. Is this not a vintage sample?”

  Eye Patch smiled with something approaching secret understanding. “Indeed it is, sir. The very best idlewine.”

  “I am favoured, then. I have never tasted better. Better even than your Gundroot Smoothyear or your remarkable Ascapandrian Cream-of-the-Dew.”

  “The very best,” agreed Eye Patch, closing his good eye in a wink. “You are undoubtedly a man of great taste. I had guessed as much. Perceiving that, I chose idlewine for you.”

  “My thanks. Your knowledge of things generally is no less remarkable than the quality of your wine. I find it strange that you are able to judge me a man of taste. Usually I am a man without identity, fate or memory. You seem to take an alternative view.”

  Eye Patch merely adjusted his eye covering, which today was a regal purple, the patch one of scores that he kept in a locked casket. Rumours about the powers of these patches abounded in Cloudway, though only the host was party to the truth of the matter. “No man who knows his wine as well as you do can be bereft of memory. You have named the three best wines in the entire omniverse. Once tasted, never forgotten. Surely you cannot be an aimless man.”

  The other also smiled, the answer seeming to please him. “It is true. I am much travelled.” As if by afterthought, he took from his dark cloak a small, sealed jar and placed it on the counter. “This will test your knowledge, though. I doubt, good host, that you have ever seen the like of the contents of this jar.”

  Eye Patch stared at it, his smile for a moment dissolving as he concentrated. The contents of the vessel were murky and had about them an air of unpleasantness. “I think you are right.”

  “Will you keep this for me?” said the traveller, pushing the jar across the counter. “It is for someone who will shortly be coming here. His name is Elfloq. He is a being you could not fail to recognise, even should Cloudway be full to bursting.”

  “In that you are also correct.” Eye Patch took the jar and hid it away, again smiling. Then he had disappeared into the shadows as he collected used glasses from revels of earlier.

  The Voidal went to one of the large fireplaces where embers glowed comfortingly in its grate. Yes, he recalled those wines, and many other things besides. Not an aimless man? Yet it had been his lot since the curse of the Dark Gods had fallen on him. To have no purpose but theirs. He shook his head, bent down and lifted a handful of hot embers in his right hand. He blew upon them and flames sprang up like a torch. He licked at them, as if testing their reality, then closed his hand snuffing them out. His hand was unharmed. But he knew that the hand was his own, not the dread member he had carried for so long for his masters.

  From one of the tables there came a flutter of sound. The Voidal screened himself behind a large chair back from the view of whoever had arrived. Someone had dropped from the rafters high up in the smoky roof of Cloudway. The dark man smiled to himself, recognising the squat form and unmistakable bulbous eyes of Elfloq. The familiar folded his delicate wings and went to the bar, peering about him in obvious agitation, as though, as usual, all the horrors of the omniverse were hot on his metaphorical tail.

  “Host!” Elfloq called. In a moment he found himself gazing at the regal purple eye patch of that very being. The significance of the colour escaped him, but he had no mind to ask what it might be.

  “Elfloq,” said Eye Patch of the Smile, his features living up to his name. “Have you come to shelter here once more? Who have you offended this time? Swindled some god out of his due? Pinched the assets of an unwary sorcerer?”

  “I would never be so foolish,” Elfloq retorted, but he knew well enough that his host understood his nature all too well. “Bring strong wine. Nothing but the best, mind. Tutorbora Blue, if you have it.”

  Eye Patch snorted with amusement, Elfloq having named one of the most overrated wines known in the omniverse. “Of course. And is this luxury for one? Or are others to be privileged to share your generosity?”

  Elfloq shook his head in exaggerated sadness. “For one. I fear I am alone in the omniverse once more.”

  “With no master? Frozen stars, Elfloq, however will you survive? You seem cursed with atrocious fortune,” Eye Patch laughed, amused by the sour expression on the face of the ugly little being.

  “My master is truly doomed. Locked now inside a terrible universe, himself utterly insane. I tried to enter and aid him, but alas, the gate to the evil place closed on me as I flew away — that is, as I attempted to enter it.” Elfloq swigged at the proffered wine as if intent on getting intoxicated as quickly as
he could.

  “So the Dark Gods have locked the Voidal away, then?” mused Eye Patch. “Presumably he will remain incarcerated for all eternity and not disturb them again?”

  “I fear that is their intent.”

  “Then who will you serve?”

  Elfloq gripped the wine bottle tightly and strutted over to one of the tables. “That is a secret not fit even for your ears,” he grumbled.

  “Take heart. As long as your master is alive, you have life. If he is trapped, then you may roam the omniverse at will. It seems to me, Elfloq, that you are your own master now,” Eye Patch added, with a chuckle. He glanced briefly at the chair where he knew the Voidal to be listening, though the familiar remained oblivious to that.

  Elfloq banged the wine bottle down and turned, huge eyes alight. “Why — yes! That must be so. The dark man cannot control me. I may do as I wish.”

  He was about to launch into a dissertation on the possibilities of being his own master, when what threatened to be a lengthy speech was cut short by the abrupt and noisy arrival of a further party. A door had opened and slammed shut and in a blur of movement, someone had come in, practically tumbling, spinning as if tossed in by a storm or the hand of a giant. Tables crashed over and chairs toppled as the newcomer lost his balance and fell. Elfloq took to the air and hovered some ten feet from the ground, fully expecting this to be a curse upon him for the things he had said.

  Eye Patch approached, rolling up the cuffs of his shirt, prepared for any difficulties. There came a garbled stream of unrelated obscenities from the fallen entrant, mingled with snarls and growls and the most perfidious muttering that any of the onlookers, hidden or otherwise, had ever heard.