The Sword of Shadows

by Adrian Cole

  He was right, for in the devastated temple, the last of the men were stirring. Something had visited them and was working its poison. They were writhing upon the floor, trying to bury themselves like worms into the very earth, as if it could save them. In their midst sat an old woman, wheezing and cackling to herself, as if her mind had collapsed under the strain of the horrors about her. But the Voidal knew her and nodded.

  “So you are here, Kubashte. You have used the Sword of Plague.”

  “Yes, creature of darkness. I will sew my ills among your closest followers, for no one survives the crawling death I spread!”

  The Voidal walked through the carpet of dead and dying warriors to the hideous crone, holding out a hand to her. “If you are so powerful, put your plague into me.”

  Kubashte looked about her and chuckled gruesomely as she saw Elfloq and Orgoom gasp in horror, for great blotches had broken out on their bodies. Scyllarza, too, had become riddled with the plague. The Voidal ignored the moans of the dying. Instead he snatched the fingers of the hag and gripped them fast. At once the awful being shuddered, scores of boils breaking out on her body like living things as the Voidal poured back into her the diseases she had spread. When at last he released her, she was no more than a sack. She fell to the ground and burst into flames.

  The Voidal motioned his companions away and they saw to their infinite relief that they had been cleansed. Not so the warriors, though, none of who were spared. The fire quickly spread across the ruins, eventually muffling the screams of the last survivors.

  Elfloq hugged the swords, but they were cold, seemingly lifeless, their size diminished so that they had become as light as daggers.

  “The power of the hill is no more,” said the Voidal. “All that we have left to draw upon is our own resolve. Two Seneschals remain. I sense that Germunden is near.”

  Scyllarza drew herself up with difficulty. “Which sword?”

  “The Sword of Illusion,” said the Voidal. “The most dangerous.”

  They did not have long to wait. The Seneschal swooped down from the skies and alighted not far from them, a huge winged being, reptilian and ferocious, his outline wavering and changing constantly. At once he began to pour forth its repulsive visions, but the Voidal closed his mind to them and strode toward Germunden purposefully. He directed his right hand at the Seneschal, and to the utter amazement of Elfloq, the hand parted itself from the Voidal’s arm, dropped to the floor and began to crawl across to Germunden.

  “How can this be?” Elfloq whispered, knowing that his master had won back from the Dark Gods his own hand.

  Germunden’s blazing eyes gazed at the awful member and he took to the air with a shrill scream of fear. But the hand leapt upwards, grew in size and smashed the Seneschal down as if swatting a huge insect. Behind the maimed Seneschal, shimmering in the grass, was the Sword of Illusion. The Voidal walked to it and picked it up, thrusting it deftly into the writhing body. Germunden dissipated like mist.

  “Illusion against illusion,” the dark man laughed. “Mine was the stronger.”

  “The hand —” Elfloq began.

  The Voidal held out both of his hands. “Mine are as they are. What you saw was an illusion.”

  Scyllarza was frowning. “This was the easiest victory.”

  The Voidal frowned thoughtfully. “Yes, it is strange. But we have twelve of the swords. Elfloq, bring the others here.”

  At once the familiar obeyed. In a moment the swords were here, thrust into the hillside like grave markers. The Voidal surveyed the lands about them. “I still lack the Sword of Oblivion. But I have already seen Xatrovul. He took the sword after he had felled the Babbler with it.” He called out an angry challenge to the brooding skies.

  To the surprise of the others, they discerned a hunched figure toiling lamely towards them across one of the sloping hills. It was garbed in shadow, apparently weak, barely able to move.

  “A trap!” hissed Scyllarza, sword raised to strike.

  “Spare me, master,” came a tired voice, which seemed heavy with the weight of years.

  “Give me the Sword of Oblivion,” said the Voidal, himself wary of any trick. He was so close to his goal. The Dark Gods would be at their most dangerous now. They would gain so much pleasure at thwarting him when he was a blade’s width from victory.

  “I do not have the sword,” breathed Xatrovul. “It was taken from me. The Dark Gods have it.”

  The Voidal nodded slowly. “As I thought. But they fear me. Do they not? Well, is it so?” He made ready to destroy the last Seneschal.

  The figure slumped back pitifully. “Yes, yes! It is so. They fear you. Spare me, master. I served you well once.”

  The Voidal’s eyes burned into him, trying to see through the opaque glass of memory. “You served me?”

  “We were all your servants. Until the Dark Gods banished you and enslaved us. But I will serve you again. I will help you to recover the Sword of Oblivion.”

  “Kill him!” hissed a voice, that of Elfloq, who was standing beside the dark man, hopping from one leg to another. “He’s the last. Kill him, master!”

  But the dark man was deeply puzzled by the Seneschal’s words. He gathered up the twelve swords and said something to them. In the blink of an eye, a shadow wrapped around them and they had become a single blade. “I need the last one,” the Voidal said again.

  “Your soul, master,” Elfloq nodded. “But, what of the Sword of Shadows?”

  “When the Thirteen are one, they become the Sword of Shadows,” came the faltering voice of Xatrovul.

  Elfloq groaned. Gods of the Abyss, would this never be over?

  “Where is the missing sword?” grunted Orgoom, himself eager to be far from any further conflict.

  The Voidal smiled. “The Dark Gods do fear me. There will be a last journey, friends of the man who was to have none! To claim all that we are owed. I shall be restored.”

  Scyllarza put an arm about him. “So be it, but will we not rest first?”

  The Voidal held her, immediately strengthened by her. “For a while. Elfloq! You must visit Cloudway again. Bring me the fallen Asker, Vulparoon. I will need his guidance on our voyage.”

  “But, will his mind stand up to such a voyage?”

  “Just fetch him!”

  “At once, master,” said the familiar and took to the air. But he lingered for a moment, remembering a certain Vlod the Remover, who was sure to be watching over Vulparoon on behalf of Eye Patch of the Smile. As Elfloq pondered this queasily, he overheard a further conversation below. It was one which filled him with more dread than he could remember.

  “A voyage,” said Scyllarza. “And where will it take us?”

  “To Holy Hedrazee,” said the Voidal, leading the way down from the smouldering hill. “To the very sanctuary of the Divine Askers. To the halls of the Dark Gods. There they will render up all that is mine.”

  As they went from the grim place of death, the shambling figure of Xatrovul followed, like a tired dog following its master after an exhausting hunt. The Voidal did not look back at him, but the riddle that had been set him nagged at his mind. The Seneschals had once served him. What did this mean?

  PART SEVEN: GATE AT THE EDGE OF REASON

  Wars beget wars beget wars.

  Where does one war end and another begin? One could ask the same question of life, of the omniverse, of the gods. Some things are perpetual. There is only change. Change defines everything, even time.

  One war may justify another. Its end may justify its means. And in the case of war, the means are always sacrifices, invariably vast ones.

  —Salecco, who reserves the right to decide what sacrifices he would make to serve any cause

  The world was dying in the embers of sunset, a funeral pyre to the army that had perished. Scyllarza, Orgoom and the Voidal had been travelling away from the hill of the slain for most of the day, saying very little, their energies still sapped by the conflict. Around them the landsca
pe seemed withered, as if already the last of its juices had been drained from it by the clashing of those dark powers on the hill. Now, high above a cracked plain, the three survivors could see emptiness stretching away, a limitless expanse of settled dust, riddled with fissures. From out of it poked an occasional lump of eon-old armour, or a metal arm, frozen in a last impotent defiance of fate.

  “What do you seek?” said Scyllarza beside the dark man. His bleak mood troubled her, for he seemed to have withdrawn into himself, closing her out.

  “There will be a ship,” he murmured, as if trying to interpret a dream.

  “From where?”

  He shook his head. “It will take us to Holy Hedrazee and our destiny.” He said no more, holding her to him, sensing her anxiety. Their elemental steeds grew restless: they could feel the earth vibrating as though huge engines were locked away deep below it. Spurts of dust like miniature storms gathered out on the plain. The cracks there groaned like mouths and widened, the sound of splitting rock echoing across the land as chunks of it slid into the emptiness. A widening gash, canyon-like, ran for miles to the horizon, and as it grew wider and darker, huge clouds billowed up from its depths as if a monstrous beast was about to rupture the confines of its grave.

  Something speared up from the ground, followed by two more of these tall spines. When the black smoke thinned, the watchers could see that these resembled the masts of some immense ship. It was breaking through the crust of the shattered land, a black hulk from which the dust and earth spilled in colossal cataracts. The earth shook and burst, like a giant pod releasing its fruit. Around it the world was disintegrating.

  “Come,” called the Voidal and they rode down towards the chaotic plain. Above them reared the awesome shape of the ship, or beast, whatever it might be. It reeked of decay, as if alive but partially rotted. If it were a ship, there were no sails, no oars and nothing living aboard it. Yet something moved, for out of its endless length there came a wriggling snake, a narrow, limb-like bridge that flicked down to where the party stood. They dismounted, allowing the elemental steeds to disappear on to the astral. The Voidal stepped on to the grotesque bridge and indicated the dark opening from which it had emerged.

  “We must board,” he said, moved by a dubious instinct, and began the climb up the precarious strand. Scyllarza followed him, with a scowling Orgoom bringing up the rear. Out of the dust behind him came the drooped figure of Xatrovul, shuffling along as if on the point of collapse, face hidden. A weight seemed to burden him, as around him the world began to break up like surf upon waiting fangs of rock. The broken Seneschal lurched up the bridge as emptiness groped for him, dust fingers that he ignored in his reverie.

  Into the gut of the mighty ship the party went: once inside they climbed a stairway of web, woven by an invisible spider they were relieved not to see. Eventually they came up into the fading evening light on what must be the upper deck, where they could hear the doom of the world as the ship dragged itself from the last rocks and earth that had been its sepulchre for so long. The debris still poured from it like water flowing out of a mighty sieve. Now that they could see the world spread out below them, they understood the truth of its bizarre nature.

  “The War of the Falling Gods,” said the Voidal, “wrought utter chaos to many worlds, ripping apart the very dimensions. A kind of order restored parts of them and settled them here, on this world, but it perches like a stone on the lip of an even vaster chaos. The conflict I unleashed has torn asunder the last fabric of stability. Only this ship can steer through it.”

  “But what manner of creature is it?” said Scyllarza. “For it is alive, is it not?”

  “It is,” he nodded vaguely. “I cannot be sure yet. I only know that it waited here for me. That knowledge was locked inside me.”

  “By the Dark Gods?”

  “Perhaps. But it may be that once it served me. We will know soon enough.”

  Orgoom was pointing excitedly out at the shifting sands of the world. “Master! World is filled with creatures! Not dead!”

  There were cries and ululations, mingled with an unnerving dirge rising from the crumbling plain and the Voidal leaned over the side of the ship to see what caused the sounds. To his disgust he saw thousands of shapes crawling across the landscape, massed like maggots over rank meat. In places the surface could not be seen for the sheer numbers. Each of the wretched creatures seemed to be staring up at the ship, as if in torment, reaching out, eyes pleading, mouths emitting the frightful wails and shrieks that made up the dirge. When they saw the Voidal, their fingers pointed him out in unified accusation, their curses flung at invisible powers, calling for his damnation.

  He drew away, appalled, almost cuffed back by the weight of their bitterness. He was trying to unravel this mystery when he saw two figures on the deck below him. He knew them at once, relieved to see them.

  The first of them flew up to him, ugly face riddled with anxiety. “Master!” It was Elfloq, newly returned from Cloudway.

  “You have brought Vulparoon?”

  “Indeed. It was not easy. I had to persuade Eye Patch to dismiss Vlod the Remover, and he would only do so after I had regaled him with every detail of our exploits here. And Vulparoon is not himself, as you will see. He insists that the fiends of Hell are intent on tormenting him. But in coming to this ghastly place, I wonder if he is correct in his assumption, for what are those horrors below us?”

  The Voidal scowled at the reference to the innumerable masses below. But he strode past the hovering familiar and climbed down to where Vulparoon waited, bemused and quivering, though not mad.

  “You are under my protection,” he told the Asker. “No matter what befalls us, serve me and you will be shielded.”

  Vulparoon’s expression changed, as if he had been released from a nightmare dream that gnawed at his very reason. He drew back from the dark man, still afraid of him.

  “I have not brought you here to torture you,” said the Voidal. “Others may judge you. I cannot help that.”

  “What is that sound? Is this Hell itself?”

  “For those outside, doubtless. They are the souls of the people of this world, and perhaps many others besides, who have come back to curse me. But we will not remain here. The ship needs piloting to Holy Hedrazee. We need your guidance.”

  Vulparoon shook his head in amazement. “You wish to go there? Has the sliver of madness that was in Orgoom now lodged in you?”

  The Voidal involuntarily touched his shirt where the sliver was secreted. “No, I am not mad. But I will confront the Askers. And those they serve.”

  “Confront them?”

  “I did not bring you here to discuss it! Simply do as I command. Or would you prefer to join those out on the plains?”

  It was not necessary to repeat the question. Vulparoon sagged, his resistance shattered. “As you wish. I can guide the ship to Holy Hedrazee. But not until Evergreed has been appeased.”

  The Voidal frowned. “I should know that name. It has a ring: who is he?”

  “We stand upon his deck. This ship is Evergreed. You do not recall him?”

  “In time I will. How is he to be appeased?”

  Vulparoon barely masked his horror. “You must speak to him. He will tell you what he desires.”

  The Voidal controlled his mounting anger, knowing that Vulparoon could do nothing but obey him. He motioned for the Asker to lead the way down into the hold of the ship and Vulparoon did so. Scyllarza followed, and with her was Elfloq, his own curiosity bristling, as ever. Orgoom elected to remain on the deck, though the dreadful sounds from beyond the ship made even his skin crawl. He watched the lone figure of Xatrovul, slumped down near the base of a mast, but the Seneschal’s strength appeared to be ebbing fatally away.

  The Voidal and the others went deep into the clammy hold of the ship in almost total darkness, the stench that rose from below almost unbearable. At length they stood on a rubbery expanse that overlooked a huge, empty place, a caverno
us hold that resembled the innards of a beast rather than a construction. In that huge, curved vault there was movement as something shifted in its oily bed. It was hard to discern what shape it took, for it became a writhing mass, as if gigantic serpents had knotted together in their thousands. The poor light played upon organs that seemed to grow externally on the body of whatever leviathan it was that lived here. A membrane flickered and a huge eye opened, staring like a blotched moon at the figures. Incredibly, light shone from within the eye, bathing part of the monster’s body in a sickly green radiance. Vulparoon drew back from the awesome being. It appeared to the Voidal to be a hellish fusion of organs and limbs and convoluted serpents, the extremities linked into the sides of the ship, themselves forming a carapace. This creature was the living heart of the ship, which itself formed a shell around it.

  “Who comes before Evergreed?” called a thick voice that rasped and gurgled from some unseen orifice below.

  “What manner of creature are you?” said the Voidal.

  There was a long pause, the strange eye narrowing. “I know you, dark lord,” said the voice. “Only power such as you once possessed could wake me from my grave. I smell its odour upon you yet. They could not suppress you forever.”

  The Voidal’s memory shifted, partially focussing. “You served me —”

  “And will again. My body is weak. I have been entombed for countless ages, as you must know. But I will give you passage. My price is as it always was.”

  “Name it,” snapped the Voidal, unmoved by the unthinkable size of this ship-creature. Elfloq had hidden himself behind Scyllarza, eager not to be singled out by that baleful eye. He could feel the woman’s unease, and a quick glance at Vulparoon told him that he was the most afraid of them all.

  “Such impatience,” came the sorrowful voice of the monster.

  “I have waited lifetimes for what I want,” the dark man told it.

  “No longer than I have spent in my tomb. Have you no wish to learn how I came here, since your memory is so vague?”