Kothar and the Wizard Slayer

by Gardner F Fox

  "And you have, Kothar. But I must make test of this statue, you understand that. It may be a cheat, a mere copy. Eh?”

  Kothar did not betray himself. “It may. It isn't.”

  “No, no. But we shall test it, you and I.” He rose, his gesture telling the barbarian there was work to be done in his necromantic chambers. Kothar weighed the chances of dragging out his Sword and leaping at the magician.

  He decided against it; this apparent friendliness of the wizard smacked too much of a trap. He wasn't even sure this was the real Antor Nemillus before him. Lori had warned him against doing anything stupid. He would wait, biding his time.

  He followed the mage upward along a narrow stone staircase to an upper floor. There was a great apartment here, walled with stone and with a high, vaulted ceiling from which, hung many cages at the end of chains. In the cages were bats and toads, black cats and newts, together with other small animals from which Antor Nemillus was wont to draw the things he needed for his incantations. Long counters were laden with crucibles and alembics, while the walls contained various magical instruments.

  In the center of the flagstones which formed the floor, a red pentagram was shaped of crimson stone, before which was placed a prie-dieu on which rested a massive volume bound in leather, thrown open at a certain conjuration. The false eidolon had been set up behind this lectern.

  Antor Nemillus invited Kothar to step into the pentagram with him, with a wave of the hand and a friendly smile. "Let me demonstrate my magicks, barbarian—so that you will know you have made the right choice in coming to me."

  The Cumberian shifted his sword closer to his hand. The false eidolon would not work. How could it? Antor Nemillus would know he had been betrayed. Therefore, so that the magician killer might not destroy him with some magical spell, he would run cold steel into his flesh as soon as he made the discovery.

  He stepped inside the pentagram, followed by the mage.

  Antor Nemillus put his hands on the open book, began reciting from its pages in a deep voice. As those words washed, across the vast chamber, Kothar reached for his dagger-hilt. His iron fingers locked around its braided haft.

  He held the dagger ready, but could not use it.

  For this incantation which the magician-killer was using turned the blood in a man's veins to ice. He stood there motionless, unable to do more than see and hear. Though he strained, his muscles were locked in a paralytic spasm. And the necromancer went on reciting. The far wall of the chamber turned to fog, drifted away, opening a cantraipal door into those nether spaces where swung the worlds of Belthamquar and Eldrak, Gargantos and Dakkag.

  And—the world of—

  Omorphon!

  Swiftly went the chamber across those abysses. Sweat stood out on the barbarian's forehead as his body swayed to the tricks of his eyes. The pentagram was, the only floor beneath his war-boots. It swept at terrifying speed above those black gulfs of emptiness, racing always onward toward—

  A glowing, up ahead. A whiteness that seemed to crawl as might a maggot across the dark deeps of space! And in that whiteness—something that twisted and turned, writhed and wriggled. Even Kothar did not need to ask what it was. Or who was turning its flattened head toward the moving pentagram.

  Wicked eyes in a serpent head, wise with the knowledge of the ages evil, stared at the on comers. Larger grew Omorphon. Larger, larger, until it filled the universe about them and the pentagram with its two human riders was no more than a midge before those beady eyes.

  "I see you, mage. My servants complain that you gave their victims the disc with my symbol on it, as a protection against their—hungers.”

  "I did, dread Omorphon. Before I knew they were to be victims. These six whom I intended to feed to your servitors are nothing to me. They shall be fed to your fiends yet. I have sent soldiers to fetch them from Radimore.”

  “It is well. But why come to me now?”

  “There is an eidolon in my chambers. I suspect it is not the true eidolon of the mage Afgorkon who lived fifty thousand years ago———“

  "And still lives, Antor Nemillus, in his own Worlds.”

  “Ah, does he so? Then perhaps the eidolon is not so false as I imagined.”

  "There is a way to test it. Long ago Afgorkon and I were—good friends. The spell of stone tongues will make it speak, if it be that true eidolon.”

  "My gratitude, great Omorphon. And to show my good will, send your servitors to my chambers, where they shall find their feast awaiting them.”

  The serpent god inclined its head.

  Instantly the pentagram was moving back across those vast infinitudes of space. There was no wind, no sensation of flying other than the fact that the stars moved slowly to left and right of them. Those tiny blue points of light came and receded, and Kothar felt that they were traversing unfathomable stretches of mega-cosmic emptiness.

  The pentagram firmed.

  The stood in the chamber of Antor Nemillus once more. And across the great-room-grouped together, and unmoving as himself—the Cumberian saw Red Lori; with plump Nemidomes and old Phordog Fale flanking her. Flarion and Cybala stood to one side, the belly-dancer half fainting in her terror.

  There was fear on all their faces, even on the lovely features of the witch-woman. Possibly her green eyes showed more horror than the others, for she knew what was to be their fate, she understood that Omorphon the serpent deity had aligned itself with the mage of Zoane in his quest for supremacy, on Yarth.

  To die by Omorphon's servitors was not a nice death.

  “Kothar!" she whimpered. “Aid us!” Antor Nemillus turned, smiled at the barbarian. "Tell them, Kothar. Tell them how you stole the eidolon of Afgorkon and brought it here to me.”

  “I did as he says," muttered the Cumberian. "And now to test that statue,” nodded the mage.

  With long, pallid fingers he turned the pages of the book until he came at last to the spell of stone tongues. And he recited what was written there, faintly smiling when he heard Red Lori moan in her anguish, and saw Nemidomes wipe at the sweat running down his face.

  The eidolon was silent.

  "What?” cried Antor Nemillus in pretended dismay. “Does not this spell work? Omorphon himself said I should attempt it, and that if the eidolon spoke with me, it would prove to be that fabled simulacra of dread Afgorkon.

  "So speak, statue-speak!”

  The magician waited, shaking his head dolefully. "It seems it is no more than ordinary stone, perhaps it was even conjured into being by Red Lori who has appointed herself my nemesis. Is it so, redhead?”

  Red Lori was silent.

  "Too bad, too bad. In such case, I must blast it, then summon the servants of the serpent god to—feast.”

  Cybala shrieked, head thrown back and quivering.

  Antor Nemillus laughed, lips twisted in a cruel smile. "The dancer is blameless, I feel, yet Omorphon would not like it if I withheld her from their eating.”

  The belly-dancer moaned and sagged against Flarion, who held her in his arms. The youth was white with the abysmal terror that held him in its grip; like Kothar, he could fight anything animal or human, but he knew a primal fear where demons of the nether spaces were concerned.

  And yet, he drew his sword.

  Kothar felt a faint throbbing coming to his war-boots from the pentagram. He was puzzled by it. It sounded like the beating of a giant heart, but where in Zoane would such a heart exist? Throb, throb, throb! It made a steady cadence throughout the town house.

  Antor Nemillus did not hear it, apparently. Or if he did, he was so familiar with it that he paid it no attention. Instead he turned and Smiled coldly at the Cumberian.

  “Did you know this eidolon was false, barbarian? Are you part of the plot against me, whereby Red Lori would pull me down to death and make empty vaporings of all my dreams? I could use a man like you, but not if you are one of these conspirators. So I abjure thee. Speak!”

  Kothar fought the magic that flooded his g
reat body, fought and groaned against the telling, but the magic of Antor Nemillus was stronger than his muscles. His lips writhed back and his tongue curled to life.

  "The eidolon is—false! It was made by the witch-woman and given to me to bring to you, that you might betray yourself so we would know you for the magician-killer. It succeeded of its purpose but—"

  "But the knowledge will do you no good! For I have condemned you all to Omorphon, who will feast on your energies through his servitors. See! . . They come!”

  The mage swept his black-robed arm in an arc.

  The walls faded. Leaping across the void, sweeping with dizzying speed toward their world, were the eerie beings whom Kothar had battled in Radimore. He saw their curving gray shapes, their fog-like fiendishness, and knew they were all doomed.

  He groaned. Underfoot the throbbing was becoming louder, more menacing, and he wondered if these were the sounds made by those oncoming mist beings. He strove against the spell that held him in thrall, fighting vainly to free Frostfire so that he might go down fighting, at least.

  Nemidomes was a whimpering mass of wet flesh pressed against a stone wall. Phordog Fale was rigid, eyes wide as if he already looked on that land which is said to exist after death. Red Lori was biting her knuckles, and Flarion stood over the crumpled form of the unconscious Cybala.

  They were like hogs to the slaughter. Antor Nemillus threw back his head and laughed. His laughter only echoed the swirlings of the serpentine things through the vanished chamber wall and onto the flagstones. Cybala awoke, screamed.

  And at that moment, thunder shook the house.

  Chapter Eight

  So terrific was that awesome burst of sound that Antor Nemillus looked upward; even the gray life-drinkers paused. A brick fell from the vaulted ceilings, missing the barbarian by a foot. The thunderclap shattered their eardrums a second time, and now the building swayed. Antor Nemillus cursed in his pentagram and sprang toward his open grimoire.

  The stone wall quivered, stones fell.

  A great hand—a thing of stone and rock, hideously carved and with strange spells and incantations limned on its rock surface—reached in the opening it had made, and stabbed forward. Blunt fingers closed around the squirming, screaming necromancer.

  "Dread Omorphon! Awful being of the nether hells—aid me!”

  Antor Nemillus tried to fight it, but his hands could do nothing against the solid rock out of which that other hand was formed. The fingers tightened, and now the magician began to swell curiously at chest and legs, as if other parts of his body were being forced into them by that frightful grip. His face became purple with congested blood. His eyes bulged hideously, a trickle of blood ran from his open mouth.

  The magician tried to cry out, could not.

  Another hand came into the chamber, making its own opening by crashing through another part of the wall. It slapped at the whirling gray fog-things, smashing two of them flat, and as it did, tiny scarlet bubbles burst and splattered a malodorous ichor across the flagstones. The other serpentine beings squealed, shrieked, turned to flee.

  The stone hand was lightning, darting as might a human hand after flies, catching up those things and squeezing them until they plopped and died, gushing that noisome fluid, Only two got away, darting back into the spaces vaguely glimpsed behind the stone wall. The others lay in tiny puddles of their own slime, lifeless.

  Antor Nemillus finally burst. His chest and legs—or what had been these portions of his body—were so filled with that which had been in his middle that the skin of his torso and his thighs exploded. Bits of blood and flesh flew here and there.

  The stone hand holding his body opened its fingers. The dead magician dropped to the flaggings, lay inert, And the spell on Kothar went away.

  The big Cumberian shook himself, leaped from the pentagram to catch Red Lori the witch-woman as she swayed oddly, overcome by the reaction to her terror. She sagged against him, let him lift her up and hold her close.

  “You did what you planned to do,” he growled.

  "But not—this way,” she breathed.

  She stared at the huge stone hands, gruesomely stained and soiled, as they withdrew out of the openings in the walls through which they had come. Behind them, Flarion was lifting Cybala from the floor. Phordog Fale was pushing away from the wall where he had been so close to fainting. Nemidomes was still sobbing fitfully, the aftermath of his fright making him shiver like pale jelly.

  “Are we truly—saved?” whimpered Cybala. “If the gods so will,” growled Flarion. Kothar carried Red Lori, whose legs were so shaky she did not trust her weight to them, across the room toward a narrow window. They stared out at the city of Zoane in the fading sunlight of a late afternoon, seeing its streets clogged with men and women staring upward, silent before the awe that held them.

  "Look,” whispered the witch-woman.

  The barbarian saw a stone statue—the eidolon of Afgorkon—grown to an immense height. Its shadow, cast by the setting sun, appeared to dance across the rooftops of the city. It towered high, titanic, an incredible monster from the worlds of magic. Blood and ichor dripped from its stone fingers. It had no face. This was its awfulness, its cantraipal horror.

  It turned on a heel and walked away to the west. Toward ancient Radimore, Kothar thought. Its stone feet made muted thumpings on the ground, that came upward to the flagstone floor of this town house chamber; it had been these he had felt as he stood within the pentagram with Antor Nemillus.

  “We must follow,” breathed Red Lori.

  "But why? Your task is done.”

  She stirred against him. "Have you forgotten the sacrifice? He must be offered a living maiden. Otherwise, he may choose to stay within our world—like that.”

  "Florian won't like it,” Kothar growled.

  The witch-woman smiled cruelly. “It doesn't matter what he likes. Or the girl, either. Their destiny is linked with mine, they must, obey.”

  She stirred against him. "Have you forgotten?" She paused, then called, “Phordog Fale! Nemidomes!”

  The magicians came hurrying across the floor to her. They seemed to have recovered a bit of their normal color, and something of their old bravery.

  "We must return to Radimore at once," the woman told them. “We have one last task to perform. Flarion! Cybala! Come you with us.”

  They went down the stone steps away from the shattered chamber and out onto the cobbles of the courtyard, where there were horses waiting. Kothar swung Red Lori into the high-peaked saddle of her bay mare, then mounted up on Greyling. At a canter, he led the way into the crowded streets of the city. And as he did so, he urged the gray warhorse nearer the mare.

  "Stay you close to my stirrup, Lori,” he muttered.

  The men and women of Zoane were in holiday mood, as if some enormous weight had been lifted from their shoulders. They were drunk, reeling about with wine-skins in their hands, their garments half torn from their bodies. An air of Saturnalia was everywhere, a forgetfulness of daily living, a need for merrymaking.

  “They may prove dangerous, they may seek to drag us from our saddles to join their revels. I'll break a few heads, if need be, to get us through.”

  The people ignored them, they were too concerned with their drinking and their wenching to bother about six strangers. Toward nightfall, their mood might turn ugly. The barbarian knew it was the way of drinkers at feasting time. He touched the gray warhorse with a toe, urged it to a faster canter.

  He could hear words occasionally from the mob.

  “———gone, we can live again!”

  "Aye, no need to fear the taking of our wives and daughters for the use of Antor Nemillus and the king!”

  "It might be a good thing if Midor died, as Well!”

  "To the palace, then. Kill the old goat.” They came to a few streets where town houses stood fence by railing with one another, away from the throngs and the merrymakers. It was quiet here, Kothar sensed a frightened face or two peering o
ut from behind draperies and shutters. From here he could see a little park ahead, and beyond that the start of the caravan road to distant Romm and Memphor.

  Once on that highway, they would make good time.

  All that night they went at a gallop along the hard-packed dirt of the trade road, until they were well within the boundaries of Tharia. Then Kothar turned from that highway eastward toward Radimore.

  They came into the ancient ruins at midday, weary with long riding. Red Lori swayed oddly in her saddle; she was near her limits of endurance, the big barbarian realized. He leaped from the saddle, caught her as she lifted a leg over the kak, lowered her to the ground.

  "I'm weary. Weary,” she murmured. “Then sleep,” he nodded.

  He caught her up in his massively muscled arms, walked with her to the inner court where he had fought the mist-beings of Omorphon, and laid her down upon the pile of soft grasses that had been her pallet.

  "I will make sacrifice later, Kothar,” she murmured, smiling and letting him drape her in his fur cloak.

  He waited until she was sleeping before he turned and went in search of Flarion. He found the youth with his arms about Cybala in a darkened corner of the quadrangle, whispering to her.

  "Mount and ride,” he told him. “Travel toward Ebboxor, where I will meet you—when I can.”

  Cybala pushed her black hair back from her eyes. “Does danger threaten us here?”

  "It threatens you, girl. Red Lori plans to offer you to Afgorkon as a sacrifice.”

  The belly-dancer gasped, shrank closer to Flarion. “Is this why she chose me to accompany you? That she might slay me—when Afgorkon did her will?”

  “Mount and ride, stop asking silly questions!" Flarion smiled faintly, “We travel at once. And, Kothar—my thanks!”

  They ran lightly toward their horses. Their mounts were weary with the long night galloping, but Flarion would walk them, with the girl beside him, until fresh strength came back into their legs. Then he would mount and gallop toward Ebboxor to the north. It was imperative they leave Radimore, be far away when Red Lori awoke.