by Jack
Though there were many small openings, the slot of Viola and Master Jack went through the largest, an exit of massive height and girth, the tunnel beyond like some mighty throat that whispered and mumbled with what for all the gird sounded like distant choral music. Though far below the round peaks of the shunned hill, air seemed to shift and move in that throat, bringing along with the drag of their quarry, the tangy stink of the sea.
‘The Grume!’ Sprawle muttered. ‘Can you smell it?’ Cilestine nodded.
As the three wended through dripstones hanging like carnivorous teeth from the hewn ceiling or rising from the paved floor, Sprawle could well imagine them descending into the very gullet of Sucathes himself.
If one can believe such things, the lurksman scoffed inwardly. Yet whatever massive bulk was meant to come along this mighty passage, it had clearly not yet done so.
Ahead the choral murmur began to resolve itself into definite singing and soon enough into tangible words ...
Hi O! Shiggeloth! Hyr thy pegen sop!
Haeg to thee aenlig famuli of Suthas!
Harken as thy cynn sange dethe
ofer thou afaerende wepan welas,
Of Maegan Sucathene!
Hi O! Shiggeloth! Hyr thy pegen sop!
Gripan them gast and mod in fyrht
And aefter don wael abeodan
of us to thou maegen dryht,
O! Maegan Sucathene ...
On it went in bizarre tongue, a song at turns strident and demanding, at turns plaintive and beseeching, reverberating over and over upon itself in the mighty chamber until with each pace closer it became an almost painful booming. Pressing on into this clamour, they spied a small doorway on the left and Sprawle quickly ascertained that Master Jack had gone through this lesser way, while Viola had continued on.
This was the path they kept.
All too soon the three met another massive portal, oblong and opening out to the most profound foreboding. Here the chanting song resounded in full and pounding volume, and suddenly, over it, the single high voice rang clear:
Succedere, O! Sigilot Magni! Succedere!
Vos off a dulcis ego deferre!
This Sprawle understood well enough. It was Tutin, the old language of erudition and the Empire, droned indelibly into him at the hands of Master Tope through the long afternoons of young years at the juniary, and he grimaced at the import of the words. Come up! had been the cry, Come up! O Mighty Shiggeloth! I have brought a sweet morsel before you!
Shiggeloth? Sprawle wondered briefly. I thought these fools served Sucathes ...
There came a sudden flash, some manner of flare launched from well above them, lighting the murky scene starkly as it trailed down in a lazy arc that struck the chanting dumb and near blinding Sprawle in its abrupt glare. Clutching at the wood over his face, blinking rapidly to clear his dazzled sight, he was grateful when the flare dropped steadily before them to disappear down some long drop, leaving a sickly sweet scent.
In the lingering light as Sprawle’s sight returned, it was clear they had come to a small, roughly circular shelf of rock that jutted into a cavernous bottomless amphitheatre, the oddly light air sighing ever so gently on their cheeks. The gigantic door where the three now stood was flanked by columns carved from the jet rock like the facade of some historied edifice. Within the great clash of odours here, of the sea, the aromatic flare, of cold ancient stone, of perhaps a hundred men in various states of cleanliness, the smells of both Master Jack and Viola were strong indeed.
They are here!
A faint light came from somewhere high beyond the great door, and the three edged vigilantly out into the amphitheatre, the sagaars’ dance reduced to a pent rocking motion.
High and directly above them was a throne-like balcony cut in the sheer rock. On it stood an arrogant figure, partly luminous in Sprawle’s superior vision, face masked behind white striped with four horizontal bars of red. Here at last was the elusive ‘Master Jack’. Wrapped in a heavy, fur-collared cloak of the deepest purple, his arms were raised, his fingers twirling odd figures in the lurid smokes that rose from the metal stands at either hand. Crested with a high three-corner hat sporting a ray of five large white feathers, it was apparent he was the grammaticar — the leader — of this degenerate cult. Arranged on either side of their leader upon steps chiselled from bare stone curving from the height of the crested grammaticar down to well below the shelf, stood two lines of pasty forms — maybe three score or more on each side. It was the entire conventicle of helots, every one robed in thick red and masked in white bearing one, two or sometimes three bars. Long sinuous tubes were fixed before them, bending away from their mouths to run down in to the occult darkness of the abyss. Silent now, they too had their bare arms stretched, the flesh there torn and bloodied as they swayed from side to side in practised unison.
None seemed to heed the intruders.
Clearly, in the throes of their ‘summoning’, the fictlers were not expecting an expedition of rescue.
Succedere, O! Sigilot Magni! Succedere!
The grammaticar cried again, flourishing a flammagon that with a spark and cough of flint and pan, released another perfumed flare.
This time Sprawle shut his eyes in the nick, and in the fading blaze, he could see before him at the very edge of the shelf a high-backed chair of carven stone and he knew who he would find seated there. As if to confirm his certainty, a small figure sagged sideways in the seat and there before them was the drooping, insufficiently wrapped figure of Viola Grey.
Before Sprawle could act, a great dread assailed him, rushing upon them all suddenly — adherent and as yet unseen invader alike — up from that gaping abysmal hole, bringing with it a horrid, nigh-maddening fishy stink mixed with the vinegar reek of the sea. Quickly, Sprawle pushed at a slot on the side of his sthenicon to deaden the stench and spare himself its worst. Before him something glistening and loathsome reeled from the pit, something so grotesque as to defy reckoning rising from the infinite depths. Thrice perhaps a man’s height, its movements as it scaled the precipice before the sacrificial seat sounded like the slap of wet leather. Surely it had not come all the way from the waters of the Grume? At its appearance the worshippers together began a great ululation of unhallowed joy that shrieked and leapt about the stones of the drear amphitheatre.
Viola in her swoon barely stirred.
A bizarre gibberish — more felt than heard coming from this grotesque thing — smote the party, shrieking in their inner beings of sodden brooding hatred sunken but living still in crushing sightless deeps. With this came dread images printed directly on the mind’s eye of the vile inescapable degradation of the human race, whose only escape was to give over yourself and willingly join the horror.
For a flash, Sprawle fought not to throw himself down appalled and grovel to be granted this one slender escape. Could it be that the falsegods did truly dwell in the bleak ocean deeps, brooding and waiting to be freed and then to visit horror upon mankind? How was it possible that such bee-rumours — fantastical folk tales — typically the credo of the credulous and the weak were actually true! What will Atticus make of such a thing?
With astounding presence the Pail sisters leapt forward, the elder sagaar seizing the abducted girl.
A sibilant piercing squeal, thick with wrathful frustration, drowned all other noise as the Shiggeloth beast realised its morsel was being stolen from its very grasp.
Spurred into action, Sprawle bellowed wordlessly and fired his heavy hauncet pistol at the rising behemoth come in from the sea.
And with this chaos reigned.
* * * *
Rueing every degree the sun sank on its meridian, Atticus Wells stood alone upon the bank of the road and peered intently up into the darksome wood. In the interminability of waiting, Door had taken the carriage on to find a place to turn it about so as to be pointing the correct direction for departure and to prevent the horses from becoming too cool and so unable to leave promptly s
hould hurry be needed. Wells had insisted on waiting at the foot of the ambiguous path. His assistant had gone out and only after some time come back with the lentum right-facing and an apology that it had taken him a fair trial to find anywhere roomy enough to turn about, but still Sprawle and the Pail sisters had not returned.
Closing his eyes, Wells listened for any clue of his friends, of anything. There was nought but the jink of harness and thump of hoof, the creak of crooked boughs and sigh of drooping needles. Yet it was too hushed; even the mournful whistling calls of the choughs that had rung so persistently during their journey here were stilled.
A cracking sound above, followed by a clatter of dislodged pinecones and hillside soil. Up in the trees, hurrying forms descending fast towards him. Figures skidded and skipped a dangerous career between the trees, ignoring the winding and safer route, making a more direct path of their own. Gasping great gulps of air, the rescuers slid the last yards and sprang on to the road. Yet only two of the original three returned.
‘We must fly!’ Sprawle cried, the rescued Viola in arm, the girl barely sensible under the influence of some stupefying draught.
‘Where is Paraclesia?’ Wells asked hotly. By the strained look on Sprawle’s face and the unquiet humours surging beneath his skin, he almost did not dare the question.
‘She is ... she is dead,’ Cilestine answered, her voice hard and thick, her grief hidden behind egret mask.
Door already flicking the horses to start, the three survivors and their young charge sprang aboard the lentum and the party fled the dismal bastion of Case Nigrise. The horses whinnied loudly in protest at the ferocity of their flight, Door did his utmost to build and keep pace yet not tip the carriage upon its side in the tight turns.
‘We uncovered more than our damsel and her captors,’ Sprawle explained ominously as they were jostled violently in the hurrying lentum. ‘Master Jack and his thralls were in a cavern that must reach even to the sea, calling up some sea-born beastie the very moment we arrived. No doubt this beastie — this Shiggeloth — was to eat poor Viola but Cilestine snatched the girl from under its very maw as it went for her. Paraclesia leapt to challenge the Shiggeloth and kept it bayed while Cilestine carried Viola away. I shot at the thing and Paraclesia wrestled bravely, yet four times her size it over-powered her. My grenadoes did little to it and we were forced to flee ... Men we can face but not some monstrous evil summoned up from the deeps too.’ The lurksman pressed his palms against his eyes.
Her mask removed, Cilestine said nothing but clung to the frame of the carriage door and her face set cold, peered back to see if they were pursued.
‘What is this Shiggeloth anyway?’ Sprawle vocalised his original thought. ‘I thought these fools served Sucathes or somesuch!’
‘It is, from what little I have read, the famuli of Sucoth,’ Wells returned. ‘Its servant...’
‘So are we to conclude falsegods as real!’
‘So it might seem.’ Wells could scarcely credit it himself.
As they bounded along, he took a phial from one of the padded pockets hanging from the protecting sash that bound his middle and unstoppering it, waved the open neck under Viola’s nose.
The girl grunted, her groggy, wildly rolling eyes snapping into clarity.
‘It’s hartshorn, m’dear,’ Wells said as if by way of greeting. ‘Very invigorating.’
She blinked at him uncomprehendingly for a beat, then her whole expression went round with alarm and an agony of horror. Realising she was free, Viola tried to spring away and out of the carriage, but was tumbled from her seat by the precipitous and dangerous careen of the lentum cab.
‘Fear not, Viola Grey,’ Wells cooed with especial calmness. ‘You shall see your mother again.’
The girl stared at him hopelessly, barely grasping his words or her salvation. Already in an attitude of defeat, she capitulated quickly, sagging where she had been thrown.
Suddenly the team’s wild nickers turned to shrieks of fright. Door cried out so loud as to be heard over the crash and rattle of their progress. Something unhallowed hissed and jabbered in a loathsome simulacrum of speech. The cabin lurched more violently yet and its occupants realised they were being lifted off the very ground. For a beat the whole fit was suspended then with a mighty shock and the wails of terrified and agonised horses, it crashed back to earth.
Stunned and momentarily immobile, Wells lay on his back, head spinning, realising he was collapsed across the door of the lentum half crushed and tipped on its side.
‘Out! Out!’ someone cried. ‘The Shiggeloth has caught us!’
... Sprawle’s voice?
A strong grip seized the sleuth and he was hauled clear of the wreck. Door had him, carrying him now under strong arm like an invalid child, striding as fast as he could up the steep embankment flanking the road. Horses screamed still, and gripped firm in Door’s grasp, Wells caught sight of their foe.
They had all seen their share of monsters, yet there was something disconcerting in the frame of this beast: tall as three tall men — big even from one hundred yards — its massively broad shoulders came in sharply to a narrow cylindrical waist, its strange triangular hips from which came three long, strong, oddly-jointed legs, and its elongated skull ending in a fish-like fin. Running down the face was a great vertical mouth extending down the what ought to be the chin and thick ropey neck to the midst of its chest. So this was the Shiggeloth, devoted servant-monster to Sucathes the Devourer, its very reality portentous with dire implications on the truth of the sunken falsegods. Even as he watched the mighty famuli devoured the last horse, stripping the poor nag’s armoured shabraques with its curling arms like a child peeling an orange, its gory perpendicular mouth quivering and yawning perversely as it ate. Swallowing a last mouthful, barrel trunk bloating with this equine feast, the Shiggeloth turned and cast about as if looking. Though it possessed no eyes, it fixed its dire attention upon the tiny fleeing figures of the carriage’s previous occupants scrabbling up the further slope and away from Case Nigrise. With a peculiarly sibilant and triumphant hoot, it pivoted awkwardly and strode on tripod limbs to catch them, its long supple arms writhing with the jaunting rhythm of its walk.
A bleakness and hopeless terror took grip of Wells’ soul.
Door stumbled and slipped upon the slick of pine needles underfoot, sending his chief tumbling as he sought to catch his fall.
Clutched in Cilestine’s arms, Viola screamed.
Despite himself, Wells froze, watching this incomprehensible horror of the deeps stride towards them, and some small, removed part of him wondered matter-of-factly if he was finally done in.
There was a flash and a sharp crack. One of Sprawle’s grenadoe detonated with a flat thump on the Shiggeloth’s flank, engulfing the creature in a rapidly expanding deep red fizz.
The dark enchantment broke.
Wells scrabbled to stand. Helping Door to do the same, the sleuth made his own way up the cleft in the hill now, forcing his ungainly legs to move at pace with great agonising gyrations of hip, pulling himself along by his arms, too.
With a great whooping, fictlers appeared on the road far to left below, several dozen of them and more still sprinting in their long red robes, catching the party now that they were beset and their transport a ruin.
At the top of the cleft the rescuers found a long ridge that ran off southwest into further gloom. Achieving the higher ground, Cilestine put Viola into Door’s care and without a parting word or a second look, veered away into the trees and down towards the fictlers. Regretting this last goodbye, Wells knew her intent, to take the fight to their pursuers and purchase them all some distance.
Its aberrant mouth wide with hooting rage, the Shiggeloth swatted at the foul air as Sprawle threw yet another grenadoe, slowed but coming on still, crashing through limb and trunk as if they were mere twigs in its increasingly maddened career.
From the left — beyond even the chasing fictlers — blared a sudden and sh
ocking roar.
‘What new horror has come to defeat us!’ Sprawle cried angrily, pivoting, a third caste already in hand to hurl at this new threat.
Bearing down the knotty road, throwing trees of its own aside as it came, loped a second monstrosity half seen through the woods, a horned, bearded giant of hairy terrestrial aspect, heedless of the little fictlers running terrified from under its cruel cloven feet.
‘The Gutterfear!’ were the cries of the terrified helots of Sucoth.
Bellowing stentorianly like a beast defending its territory from a rival, this shaggy newcomer gave challenge to the smaller Shiggeloth. Thwarted, the famuli did not hesitate but turning aside from its pursuit, sprang nimbly from the height with appalling dexterity in a creature so large, and in that single bound grappled tremendously with the larger Gutterfear.