Tock refreshed his grips on my fur and we made for the farm, double-time.
The clockwork mouse dismounted at the edge of the pig pen. He explained everything to our porcine companion while I caught my breath.
“Hm,” Wil said, lying on his side as usual, “yes. Very unfortunate about your master, Ms. Fennick. Perhaps I’m not alone in this world after all.”
Tock and I both knew what he meant, but were afraid of admitting as much.
“It seems as though my master has gone missing as well,” the hog said. “I’ve not seen him in, hm, two days? Three? Time is so easily lost when one’s belly isn’t full of carefully arranged gears; though that’s not something I’d expect you to understand, Mr. Tock.”
The hog tried to smile at his own observation, but couldn’t quite make himself do it. He looked sad, even though he was straining not to appear that way. I could relate.
“What do you think about this ghost?” Tock asked. “Or the gargoyle?”
“Yes, well, the ghost is clearly the leader of this cult you’ve been investigating. And the gargoyle is her muscle.”
“We already figured that. If you could tell us anything else—”
Wil rolled away from us. “Terribly sorry for this rudeness,” he said, “but I’d rather be left alone now. Good luck with your cultists, and the Game to follow.”
Tock wanted to keep pressing the matter, but I wouldn’t let him. I snatched him up in my mouth and carried him back to Ada’s place, then continued on to my own home.
I’m normally up before daybreak, but that morning, I just didn’t have the energy to pull myself out of the chair. In fact, I’m not sure I even moved a muscle before I heard the clicks of Tock’s tail.
“Don’t you ever knock?”
“I’m a mouse. What do you want me to knock with?”
I put my chin on the arm of the chair, so I was looking out the window rather than at him. “What do you want?”
“Apparently my master was up to some investigating of her own last night, while you and I were out.”
I inhaled slowly, let out the breath. “Okay.”
“Fennick, come on—this is serious stuff.”
“And I’m listening to it. What’s the problem?”
The sound of grinding neck-gears told me he was shaking his head.
“The ghost,” Tock said. “She’s performing her ritual. Tonight.”
As much as I wanted to ignore the world’s problems and just sleep the day away, I had to admit my blood turned a little cold at hearing that.
“Ada’s figured out where it’s happening. She needs us to help stop it.”
I faced him. “What about the others?”
“What others?”
“The players of the Game. Wil said they’d all be interested in stopping this thing.”
“Yes, well—Ada’s not Hetfield. She’s not great at convincing people to do things. No one even believes her that this cult is real. The only people who do believe it are already dead, with their spirits stuffed inside a mummy.”
“So it’s up to us.”
“Yep.”
“Does Ada have a plan?”
“It mostly amounts to: kill the ghost once she’s corporeal. Are you in?”
I asked myself what Hetfield would do in that situation, then realized I was wasting my time—the answer was obvious. I hopped off the chair.
“Just tell me where I need to be.”
I had one last errand to run before joining Ada and Tock on the hilltop where the ritual was to take place. I arrived at the pig pen just as the sun was starting to set.
“We’re going to take them out,” I said. “Ghost, mummy, gargoyle and anyone else who wants to be a part of that ritual.”
“Very good, yes,” Wil said. “And you’re telling me this because . . .?”
“I thought you deserved a chance to get revenge on the ones who killed your master.”
I got a look at his big black eyes. They appeared to be wet from recent tears, though Wil would never admit to that.
“Hm,” he said. “Yes. It’s a lovely thought, I’m sure. But I do believe I’m finished with all this business. I’ve no more interest in this Game, or these cultists, or anything else that gets good, honorable men killed for no just reason.” He closed his eyes, exhaled. “Best of luck to you and our clockwork comrade, Ms. Fennick.”
I didn’t ask him again. We all had our own ways of dealing with loss, and I wasn’t about to judge his method.
After a long journey under the stars, I got to the base of the grassy hill where everything would come together. Tock found me there and guided me over to the bushes where Ada, the Tinker, hid.
“Good to see you, fox,” she said. “Don’t worry—we’ll avenge Hetfield yet.”
She ran her hand over my ears, just like my master used to. I licked her fingers.
Overhead, we saw a shadow cut through the sky. The gargoyle had reached the hill.
“The ghost and mummy are already there,” Ada said, pulling her goggles over her eyes and checking the dials on some wand-like contraption she was holding. “When the moon is a touch higher in the sky, they’ll begin. We should move into position.”
I asked Tock if there was any more of a plan than the last time I’d inquired. There wasn’t.
We split off from Ada and circled to a different side of the hill. Ideally, she’d distract the gargoyle and we’d kill the ghost. Or maybe the other way around. As long as the outcome was the same, I didn’t really care about the methods.
Atop the hill was a stone altar flanked by flaming braziers, before which floated the translucent form of the ghost. At her side, the mummy was having even worse shakes than before—either he’d been roughed up while tackling more of the players, or he’d absorbed so many essences that he was about to burst. I hoped for the former.
The gargoyle stood before the other two. He was an imposing figure, to say the least. There were only a few robed cultists present, presumably the higher ranking members of their order.
I wanted to just sprint across the hilltop and go for the mummy’s throat, but Tock convinced me to hold off until the ghost had gone corporeal, because that was the only way we were going to kill her. So I waited, as much as I hated it.
And then the moon was high in the sky, and the ritual began.
The ghost was chanting, but it was clear she wasn’t a solid form yet. I found myself wondering what kind of timeframe we had—once she became corporeal, how long would it be before she summoned the Old Ones? That was something I didn’t want to have to worry about, especially since I had a new concern on my mind:
We’d been spotted.
“Well, looky here—if it isn’t the rodents that busted out of my cage.”
I don’t know how the cultist had snuck up on us, but I wasn’t going to let him ruin things. He reached down to grab us and I let him have it with all the force in my jaws. The man screamed and recoiled and gripped his bloody hand with the other one, and as Tock and I ran away, I spit out the finger.
The ghost had surely heard what was going on, but she continued with the ritual anyway. I saw her starting to take form . . .
We bolted across the short grass, but dug our paws into the ground and slid to a stop when the gargoyle landed in front of us.
“The master wishes not to be disturbed.”
He raised his foot into the air, its wide shadow peeling over us.
Then he got hit by a lightning bolt.
It wasn’t one of the standard vertical ones you see coming from a stormy sky, but rather the horizontal variety that apparently shoots forth from Ada’s mechanical wand. The gargoyle stumbled back and fell, his grey chest blackened and cracked.
“I think she’d been saving that for the ghost,” Tock said. “Here’s hoping there’s another charge left in the thing.”
A general panic filled the air as we raced around the feet of the cultists trying to catch us. Someone went to grab Ada, but paid for
it when she stuck him with some concealed device that made his mouth foam and legs go rubbery.
The Tinker shoved the disoriented man aside and raised her crossbow. It looked heavier than the conventional model of that weapon, and boasted some unusual modifications. She aimed at the ghost, who may or may not have been solid by that point—it was hard to tell for sure.
A cultist moved to take the bolt for his master, but Tock and I got tangled up in his feet and tripped him. Before he could stand up, a tiny hatch opened in Tock’s side and fired a dart into the man’s neck. He got woozy, swayed on his hands and knees, then dropped flat.
Ada took her aim and fired. Her weapon made some sound that crossbows don’t normally make, like a bottle exploding from inside pressure. The bolt soared through the air on a tail of white fire, straight at the ghost’s head.
It stopped halfway to its intended target when it struck the gargoyle’s outstretched hand. He’d recovered just in time to lunge and block the shot. It seemed to give him one hell of a smart, but that only made him angrier. He rose up and towered over us.
The mummy, convulsing so hard now that he was bent partway over at the waist, moved to join the battle.
“No!” the ghost said. “Stoneclaw has this under control. I need you here!”
Like a good servant, the mummy obeyed.
Tock and I got separated as the remaining cultists scrambled after us. The gargoyle moved on Ada and took big swings with its clawed hands, which she narrowly avoided. She tried a number of tricks on it, her devices filling the air with smoke and flashes and the smell of gunpowder, but nothing seemed to slow it down.
Just when I thought I was about to break into a clearing and make a dash for the altar, a prone cultist I’d assumed to be dead reached out and grabbed me.
“You will not stop the master’s plans!”
I tried to bite his fingers, but he kept them away from my mouth. I felt one of his hands move to the back of my neck, and I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to resist if he twisted.
Then there was a scream, and I was released.
I turned around expecting to see Tock drilling a hole into the man’s cheek with a gadget from his tiny arsenal. Instead, I saw 400 pounds of pork biting at my attacker’s face.
The screaming cultist rolled away, got to his feet and stumbled down the hill.
“And don’t you consider returning anytime soon, thank you very much!”
“Wil,” I said, panting. “I owe you one.”
The hog shook some of the cultist’s blood from his chin. “Yes, well, I do believe that fellow deserved every bit of it. Now what say we go help the young lady and her mouse over there, Ms. Fennick?”
I looked where he gestured and found that Ada was on the ground, her leg bloodied, the gargoyle standing over her. She was trying to scoot away. Tock was on her chest, bravely standing between his master and danger.
Wil and I ran over. The hog threw all of his weight into a charge, but knocked himself silly on the gargoyle’s stone leg. He wobbled and fell next to Ada. I moved into position next to Tock, who had dismounted from his master’s chest to meet the beast. The gargoyle sneered, showing sharp stone teeth like stalactites. He’d been struck by lightning, shot by a crossbow, and hit with who knows what else. And yet, here he was, standing over us without looking even the slightest bit fazed.
“Well,” I said to Tock, “looks like this is it.”
He nodded as we backpedaled. “It’s been fun, Fen. I would have enjoyed playing the Game with you, even if we didn’t end up on the same side.”
The gargoyle’s fists raised above its head.
“Were you an Opener or a Closer?” I asked.
“Probably shouldn’t say,” Tock said, as the gargoyle took one final step forward. “You never know what might—”
There came an ear-piercing banshee’s wail, which quickly turned wet and choked off. The gargoyle whipped around to face the altar. I maneuvered to see past the stone beast, and got a good look at what had happened.
The ghost’s corporeal form was dead on the ground, covered in her own ruby blood. Standing over her was the mummy, his claws dripping red.
. . . Claws?
The mummy’s limbs and torso had grown large with muscle, stretching and splitting the surrounding bandages. Tufts of brown hair stuck out from between the wrappings, and where once there had been a featureless face, there was now a slavering muzzle. I knew those jaws anywhere.
Hetfield. He was alive, and he’d resisted transforming under the full moon just long enough to keep the ghost fooled.
The gargoyle emitted a pained scream, its head tilted back as a column of white light shot forth from the ghost’s body and disappeared into the night sky. With its master dead, the stone creature turned its furious gaze on Hetfield. It opened its jaws and roared, and despite the labored breathing that followed, it took a wobbly step toward the wolf-man. It then took another, and another, with each of the movements proving slower and less coordinated than the previous. Hetfield stayed on his guard, hands up and ready to strike, but the caution proved unnecessary: before the gargoyle’s foot could raise a fourth time, its body froze completely—it was a statue.
I went to move forward, but Tock cut in front of me.
“Wait!” he said. “It’ll kill you!”
“Hm, no,” the recently recovered Wil said, “I think not. You see, gargoyles are closely bound to their masters, and never outlive them for long. This poor fellow’s just a hunk of old stone now, I’m afraid.”
Ada let her head drop back and smiled. Hetfield tore the rest of the mummy wrappings away from his body. I ran, hopped into his arms and licked his face.
“We did it,” Ada said. “You were right.”
Hetfield carried me over to her and the others. He used some of the mummy bandages to fix up the wound on her leg. His hands were surprisingly dexterous, for a wolf-man.
“I don’t believe Hetfield can speak in that form,” Ada said, and Hetfield nodded to confirm, “so if you’re interested, I’ll explain what happened here.”
Tock and I couldn’t communicate verbally with our masters at that hour, so we showed our interest by sitting side-by-side and looking at Ada attentively.
“As you’ve probably guessed, Hetfield got the better of the mummy in the cabin.”
“Well of course, that much is plainly obvious,” Wil said, though to the people on the hill, it just sounded like a bunch of oinks.
“He knew that the immediate threat to the players was gone,” Ada went on, “but he still wanted to get to the source of the cult—their leader, the ghost. So he hid the mummy’s bones in a closet and donned its wrappings to learn more. He came to me—and only me—with his plan, knowing that he’d need help, but wanting to ensure no one else found out who the new mummy really was. It was necessary to keep the secret tight.”
I gave Hetfield a hurt look. He lowered his wolfish head apologetically.
“He wanted to tell you,” Ada said to me, “but you were new to the Game and we just wanted to be sure you wouldn’t share the information with the wrong people.”
So that was it, then. All this time, he’d been alive. As much as I was disappointed for not being let in on the plan, I was too overwhelmed with joy at the thought of having my master back to really care. We were all pretty happy on the hill, just then.
Hetfield was just helping Ada to her feet when we heard a creaking sound coming from behind us, like something bending under a great force.
We all turned to the gargoyle. Its skin was cracking and splitting, a white light spilling out from inside it.
“Oh, yes!” Wil said. “Now I recall that last bit I’d forgotten about gargoyles: shortly after they’re petrified, the energies used to summon them are . . . hm, let’s say, ‘released.’ ”
“Released?” I asked. “You mean—”
“That fellow’s about to explode, yes. Very much so.”
Ada and Hetfield seemed to know what was goi
ng on. They were already hobbling down the hill.
“Come on!” I said, and threw Tock onto my back. He grabbed on with all the strength left in his little paws.
“Oh, you needn’t be so dramatic, Ms. Fennick,” Wil said. “The explosion certainly isn’t so mighty that we can’t withstand it. If everyone would simply turn their back fat on the statue over yonder, I’m sure we’ll get through this without a scratch.”
The hog rolled away from the gargoyle and closed his eyes, a content smile on his face.
“Wil, I really think we should go.”
“And I really think I deserve a nap, what with all the, hm, battling and so forth I’ve done of late.” He settled into the grass and let out a tired breath that made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere.
The gargoyle’s flesh groaned as the energy inside it expanded. While I was confident that Wil knew what he was talking about in regards to his own safety, I didn’t think he realized the rest of us lacked the cushioning he had.
So after saying goodbye and wishing him luck, I let Wil doze off. The rest of us, not trusting in our back fat, did what was necessary to escape: the mouse held on tight, the wolf-man carried the Tinker down the slope, and the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy hog.
Zach says: A Night in the Lonesome October is unique among Roger Zelazny’s books, in that it’s a story everyone will like. Lord of Light is one of the greatest novels of all time, but not everyone enjoys science fiction; The Chronicles of Amber will forever be my favorite fantasy series, but there are a lot of people out there who don’t care to read about swords and spells and monsters and myths. (The fools!) The story of Snuff, however, is something you can recommend to anyone, regardless of their tastes. And, chances are, they’ll love it. There’s just something endearing about that lovable dog and his valiant (albeit homicidal) master. I can only hope that A Night in the Lonesome October sees publication again some day (be it in physical or digital format), because it would make all my shopping for Neil Gaiman’s “All Hallow’s Read” holiday a lot easier.
Lovecraft eZine Megapack - 2012 - Issues 10 through 20 Page 60