The Sword of Shadows

by Adrian Cole

  “So, Babbler, an oasis in a miserable land. The fruit is good and the water remarkably clear. I detect no sorcery here. Let us sleep until we leave.”

  “I will not sleep until we are gone,” replied the Babbler, his eyes suspiciously scanning the trees. It was at this point that Elfloq made his appearance. He stood on a bough some distance above the Babbler and waved a cheery greeting.

  At once the squire had drawn a narrow sword. Scyllarza was evidently on her guard, though she seemed more amused than concerned. “The creatures of this world appear to be as misshapen as the wretched lands,” she commented.

  Elfloq ignored the insult. “Would you be the lady Scyllarza?” he asked. “I am an astral traveller and recently my companion and I met a certain elemental on the world of Tartennian, Phunatast by name. He said that he had seen you collecting two fine elemental steeds from a smith he knew. Their trail has led me to this bleak world.”

  Scyllarza nodded, grimacing at the blue figure of Orgoom, who looked as fierce as any demon. “And who would you be?”

  Elfloq introduced himself and the Blue Gelder. “Our master seeks you, just as, we believe, you seek our master.”

  Scyllarza’s eyes flared. “And who would he be?”

  The Babbler rushed across to his mistress, hissing like an angered cat. “Do not heed them, mistress! This is a trap!”

  But she silenced him and asked again whom the figures served.

  “He is known by some as Fatecaster and by others as the Voidal.”

  Scyllarza gasped. “He seeks me? For what purpose?”

  “We are simply his servants, my lady. He asked us to find you.”

  “And then?”

  “Deliver his message.”

  “Which is?”

  “You must, uh, well, you must invoke him.”

  Again the Babbler interrupted, waving his sword in fury. “Kill them! They seek to destroy you, mistress! You dare not invoke the dark man. Did he not desert you? On Alendar, did he not slink away from you, leaving you at the mercy of its rulers? Call him now and he will destroy you. You know the laws that bind him.”

  She silenced him yet again. Since quitting Alendar, she had spoken to a number of sorcerers and sages. In Cold Yvar, the world of Sleeping Secrets, she had been warned by a seer of the dangers of seeking the Voidal. “Why must I invoke your master? Why does he seek me? Why does he not come to me?”

  “You know that his powers are incomplete, my lady,” said Elfloq. “He seeks to repair them and believes that you would help him. He cannot control his destiny alone. You must call him to you. You will not be harmed. You are protected.”

  “Lies!” snarled the Babbler and Elfloq was about to spit out a retort, when they all heard the unmistakable rumble of many hooves. Elfloq at once took to the air and, drifting up over the wood, discovered to his amazement that a very large party of horsemen was approaching it. The familiar returned promptly to the glade.

  “Warriors! I think it would be well to flee them.”

  Scyllarza called the horses to her at once. “Where shall I go to make this invocation?”

  “You will summon my master?” said Elfloq.

  “I have been searching for him for a long time.”

  “When these warriors have passed on, you can invoke him here, on this very world.”

  Scyllarza nodded. “The Babbler knows a place. Babbler, that sea. I doubt that we would be disturbed on one of the huge corpses you described.”

  Her squire protested, not eager to meet again the dark man that he had so treacherously revoked on Alendar. But he knew his mistress had made up her mind and would not be gainsaid.

  “Time is short,” she said. “Use the astral. You in the trees! Go with my servant across the astral to the sea. Wait for me there.”

  “Mistress, I —”

  “Take them!”

  “What of you?” called Elfloq, one ear on the horsemen.

  “Leave the horses with me. I will use them to outwit these warriors. But I wish to see these men first. Hurry!”

  Elfloq and Orgoom dropped down beside the Babbler, wary of him, and he of them, but Orgoom’s awful hands were enough to keep the sour-faced squire at bay. Scyllarza waved them all away and they slipped on to the astral at once. She whispered something to the two horses and they raced away through the trees. Upon their backs were two shadowy figures that looked human, the workings of Scyllarza’s illusion.

  * * * *

  When the steeds broke from the trees and raced up the hillside, the scouts of the warrior party saw them and at once cried out. The entire party of horsemen gave chase, certain that they had discovered something of importance, for they were Renegorn’s men, seeking the creatures of their master’s troubled visions. Scyllarza watched them all disappear over the hill, knowing that it would be some time before they realised they were chasing shadows. The elemental steeds would return to the astral, awaiting her summons. She turned back to the empty glade. Nothing now was likely to disturb its garden-like peace. Cautiously she set spells about its perimeters, to warn her of any unexpected and unwelcome intruders.

  Beside the pool she began to murmur a soft incantation; as she recited the strange lines, she set aside her armour and weapons and stood bathed in the sunlight that filtered through the foliage overhead. She walked around the glade, treading its mossy carpet as softly as a cat, touching each tree gently, speaking to the spirit within it. In a moment there were whisperings out in the wood and then movement as the first of the spirits she had called upon gathered. Faceless beings, little more than wisps, ghost-like, they ringed the wood at her command, isolating it from the outside world, making of it an enclosed universe. The flowers that bloomed within it seemed to draw something from Scyllarza’s workings and their colours flushed the glade, scenting it with a deep, rich fragrance.

  Scyllarza plunged into the icy pool, her powers quickened by its embrace. She swam below its surface to the far side and came up on to the bank, sleek as an otter. Water droplets sprayed from her as she shook herself and raised her arms, eyes closed in concentration. She could feel the power in this place focussing on her, coagulating, rich in magic.

  “Voidal,” she whispered. “Voidal, come to me. I invoke you. I invoke you and summon you to me. Voidal.” The words went out into a deepening silence and she watched the air stiffen, anticipating.

  A brief darkness flickered across the glade, but then was gone. The spirit guardians never moved, unable to interfere with the powers that had been set in motion. Then, as easily as a breeze, the dark man himself stepped into the glade, answering the invocation, as he always must. He stood on the other side of the pool, his green eyes immediately fixing on Scyllarza.

  “Scyllarza!” he called, with a smile. “So you did answer me.”

  She would have dived again into the pool and swum to him, but he was already in the water, arms propelling him across it in moments. She helped him out of the water as he laughed. It was a rare sound. He took her in his arms and kissed her gently.

  “Why did you leave me on Alendar?” she breathed.

  His smile faded, replaced by a familiar expression of frustration, anger held in check. “I had no power to prevent it. I thought the Dark Gods would at least allow me a little time there, but they were as impatient as ever. I believe they feared our alliance. Yes, feared it. What we felt between us on Alendar was a power they need to suppress. But I will deny them. I am no longer powerless.”

  She kissed him again. “Tell me of this later,” she said softly and they felt the ground gather them up, as if it were alive and protective of them. As they became one in their act of love, it was as it had been on Alendar, when they had first shared themselves and given the power of their lovemaking its release. The Voidal knew again that this was a vital key to the things he sought. He felt once more the rising of some inexplicable tide. It surged up in a wave and burst over him, and with its breaking there came a new understanding, as though he had crossed one of the barrie
rs that had imprisoned him for so long. Locked together with Scyllarza, he had become fused with her into one mind, one essence. The doors to many hitherto secret chambers stood ajar. Their passionate union had become a voyage of the mind.

  On that voyage, the dark man began to see further how the Dark Gods had tricked him and how they had used deceit as their principal weapon in binding him to their will. He knew that he had once loved a woman and that she had shared his great, unspoken crime with him. Yet the Dark Gods had always prevented further communion between them. And for reasons they dared not reveal. But here, pulling away the thick curtains of falsehood, the Voidal began to understand. As the powers flooded through him in this enclosed world of Scyllarza’s working, light played across truths that stunned him.

  The mendacity of the Dark Gods became clear. For they had led him to believe that with the loss of his love, irretrievable after the horrors she had undergone in Ludang, he had also lost powers that would also remain unattainable. Love had been maimed, set aside, to be no more than a memory. To share it with another, to raise up again the power set free by its working, would be denied him, just as the Dark Gods denied him so many other things. Yet they were lying.

  Here, in this glade, Scyllarza had taught him that. Her own past was riddled with grim secrets, the torment of guilt, forbidden pacts. She, like him, had been cursed, for on Alendar she had been snatched from her mother and flung down into the deeps of the castle, left for the elements and although she had survived, it was to be as half woman, half demon. The Dark Gods had cursed her, and set her wandering, as they had the Voidal. They must have known, he mused, that we would seek to meet again. They must know that between us, we create a key. We must tread with great care. The Dark Gods could have prevented this union. Somehow, it must serve them!

  The Voidal stood up, in shadow now, beneath the curve of a thick bough. The magic had extended its powers fully: Scyllarza had disappeared as if she did not exist. Already she had gone on ahead, across the astral. But something of her remained, for she had become a part of him. He had drawn her back into himself for the moment, aware of her power, as he was aware of thought, emotion, the pulsing of blood through his veins. It brought another rare smile to his lips. This much is in defiance of the Dark Gods.

  “And who am I?” he said to the pool, as he strapped on his sword. But the water was as motionless as a sheet of glass. He would know, he swore it. Out in the wood, he heard the soft whispers of the spirits as they dissolved back into their own secret places. This place was open to the world once more. The Voidal prepared to leave, to take the short step to the place where the others were waiting.

  * * * *

  Elfloq, Orgoom and the Babbler stood upon the curved chest plate of a huge, rotting corpse in the heart of the sea that was a vast morass, hung with vapours that bore the appearance of endless cerements strewn across yet more fallen giants. The carcass on which the beings stood was now no more than a metal husk, the armour that had clothed the warrior, its innards held together with bones eroded and gnarled by the mire. The figures walked about nervously, like fleas on a massive cadaver, none sure of their next move, all fearing the worst. The Babbler held tight his short sword, determined in his own mind to destroy these two demons at the first opportunity. Orgoom would already have slit the Babbler open from crotch to chin had he not been ordered by his master not to do so. Elfloq was eager to be away from this disgusting world, the very surface of which seemed to bleed endlessly with the wounds of its history.

  At last the air trembled and someone arrived. Scyllarza walked out from the darkness, an enigmatic smile upon her face. “I expected you all to be squabbling,” she laughed.

  Elfloq shuffled forward. “Call my master, quickly! We cannot remain.”

  “Why not?” she said. “Worlds are worlds. The omniverse is full of them.”

  “Invoke my master,” persisted Elfloq. “He means you no harm.”

  “I have already met him,” she said, pointing to the shadows behind her. As if in answer, the Voidal stepped forward.

  “It is done,” he said. “You have served me well,” he told Elfloq and Orgoom. He frowned at the Babbler. “But you I am not so sure of. The hate that smoulders in your heart is as clear as fire on a hillside.”

  Scyllarza put an arm around the little man warmly. “It is only his love for me that makes him thus. Is it not so, Babbler? But you must understand — the dark man and I are united in our cause. You must serve him as you do me. If you do not do so — should you seek to harm or defy him — you harm me. We go on together from now on.”

  “To seek what?” said the Babbler.

  The Voidal looked out over the mire, a grim smile of confidence on his features. “Certain things have been stolen from me. I want them. My memory, my identity, my soul. Your mistress has shown me how I may win them back.”

  “How, master?” said Elfloq with bounding eagerness.

  The Voidal laughed and gripped the familiar, tossing him up into the air like a child, and Elfloq fluttered his wings, hanging there, jaws agape.

  “How?” said the dark man for him. “I require the Sword of Shadows. In fact, I require all of the thirteen swords. Each one is in the keeping of the Seneschals of the Dark Gods. The Thirteen.”

  “But how will you wrest the swords from them?”

  “I will summon each of them.”

  “Summon them?” gasped Elfloq, almost with a shriek. “As well summon the Dark Gods themselves!”

  “Nevertheless, I will summon them. And then I will take the swords from them.”

  Elfloq dropped to the steel ground, eyes popping in stupefaction. Orgoom also looked uncomfortable. The Babbler did not understand and only Scyllarza looked unconcerned.

  “It will mean a struggle, Elfloq,” said the Voidal. “But what will it matter on this dead husk of a world? I will raise up the Thirteen and face their terrible powers. Let it be my challenge to the Dark Gods.”

  “But…but…if you…I mean, we…fail?”

  The Voidal, amazingly, laughed out loud. “Fail? Why then this time it will mean true oblivion. The Dark Gods have bent me to their will for too long. I spit upon their machinations! If I fail, they will have to make nothing of me. Perhaps it will suit me. However,” he said, turning to the three little figures. “You have all served us well. Better that you go. Find new masters and mistresses. If you wish your freedom, take it now.”

  Elfloq was astounded. His master had never been so sure of himself. What was it that had made him thus? Love? For he shared something with Scyllarza, that was evident. Yet, if he should triumph, the power he would gain would be — but the implications were far too staggering to think of.

  Orgoom merely grunted. “I stay,” was all he said.

  The Babbler was thoughtful as he approached his mistress. “Must you be part of this? It is madness.”

  “It is my fate, Babbler.”

  “Then let it be mine.”

  “Well, Elfloq?” said the Voidal.

  “You seem sure of victory, master.”

  “Nothing can be certain in this turbulent omniverse. Who knows?”

  “You can overwhelm these Seneschals?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Well, I —”

  “Well?”

  Elfloq muttered on for some little while, not actually stating that he would remain, but it was assumed that he would.

  “Then it begins,” said the Voidal.

  * * * *

  On his cold stone throne sat Shatterface, morose and thoughtful. There seemed to be no end to his lonely exile and fate appeared to have decreed that he would never break the chains imposed upon him. Twice he had sought to win his freedom and twice he had failed. Even though he had thrust the Sword of Madness into the Voidal, just as the Dark Gods had commanded, somehow it had been to no avail. The face of the brooding man was still masked.

  “Melancholy thoughts,” purred a voice from the shadows at the walls of his tower.

 
He looked up like one drugged to see a dim figure wavering in the glow of a solitary candle. “Have you come to mock, Asker?” he said, recognising the scarlet robe of the servant of the Dark Gods.

  “Not at all.” The Divine Asker approached him. “I would commiserate, though this would be of no comfort to you. But the Dark Gods know you have tried to serve them well.”

  “The accursed Voidal must be strangely empowered to have escaped the magic of the Swords. Did I not perform my task? Did I not undergo the rigours of death outside Ulthar, only to be woken up in this prison once more?”

  “Indeed. You have earned a reward for that.”

  Shatterface stood up, eyes shining behind his mask. “But the Voidal still roams the omniverse — even here the whisperings reach me.”

  “That is true. He is not without power. It is time, therefore, to make your last assault on those powers.”

  “And if I fail?”

  “It will be easier this time. But first, your reward. Do you have a mirror in this place?”

  Shatterface almost snarled with derision. “Mirror! To look upon the vile havoc your masters have wrought upon my face! Have you no pity?”

  The Asker ignored him and calmly drew from his scarlet robe a hand mirror. “Take this. Remove your mask and look at the left side of your face.”

  Shatterface made no move for a long time, but then clutched at the mirror. His mask gaped back at him. Then he retired to a dark corner. The Asker heard the gasps as Shatterface saw what had been done to him. In a while he came back to his visitor, proffering the mirror. He had put back the mask.

  “Half my face has been restored, just as was promised.”

  “The Dark Gods are just. Now — the remainder of your face. Doubtless you would have that restored?”

  “What must I do?”

  The Asker pointed to a bare slab that served as a table. On it rested a sword in a black scabbard. “Once more the Dark Gods give into your keeping the Sword of Oblivion.”