by Brian Lumley
But now the remaining eight were rapidly recovering, blinking their crimson eyes, and moving their heads from side to side, groping dimly with their minds . . . and finding the mind of the Warlord open and waiting for them. He spoke to them with his mind, at the same time speaking out loud so that his friends would also hear him:
`Mercy is something of which you've no knowledge, ice-priests. You could no more understand mercy than you could show it. So be it. 'Your destruction here and now should come as no surprise to you; it's what you would do to us if the roles were reversed. Even so, you'll decide how many are to die; the matter is in your own hands. There are questions I will ask - to live you must supply the answers. But before we begin, just to be sure we understand each other — '
He again lifted his axe and struck mightily at the second pillar. The blow failed to completely shatter the icicle but severed the neck of the shrivelled being encased within it. That dweller in the ice was not so lucky as the first, was briefly aware of the doom rushing upon him, and his mental shriek was awful to hear in the moment before the keen edge of Silberhutte's axe cut it off. One more shattering blow followed — and a further creaking of ice, a toppling of frozen flesh, a second vast puff of poisonous vapour and settling cloud of fine, blasphemous snowflakes — before the thing was done.
Now only two figures remained on the nearer rim of the pit, but the crimson eyes of the five who now twisted their necks to gaze across from the other side of that volcanic blowhole — which, through nameless centuries had sustained the evil lives of the ice-priests and now, with utter equanimity, was taking them — surely mirrored their disbelief, their fury and hatred, their fear of these strangers come across the lightyears to exact a vengeance for deeds ancient, monstrous, and without number.
'In what you have done,' came the booming voice in their heads, weaker now but still full of acid hatred, 'you have signalled your own unenviable end!'
'You take,' grunted Silberhutte , again lifting his avenging axe, 'a lot of convincing. Don't you understand? You're in no position to threaten. You're beaten!' And moments later yet another ice-priest screamed his last and toppled to boiling oblivion.
Now the eyes of the remaining six- were- bulging as before, the veins of their awful heads pulsing malignantly, and again there came that tension in the air that forewarned of a further manifestation of their power.
De Marigny, snatching up the pouch from where it had fallen, shook the dregs of Annahilde's dreaming powders into his palm and held up his hand where the ice-priests could see its contents. Then, clenching his fingers over the small heap of precious grains, he cried: 'No more of your tricks — or I'll send you straight back to hell! You're not the only ones who deal in nightmares, but I fancy mine are worse than any you might dream up . .
For an instant the tangible electric feeling went out of the air, and de Marigny believed he had convinced the ice-priests against any further use of their powers. Then —
With a roar and a crash fire licked up from the central pit, a mad gout of leaping flame that indiscriminately enveloped both ice-priests and adventurers in a moment, overwhelming all and spilling them in a blazing torrent down the length of the tunnel! Burning, feeling his skin cracking and peeling from him even as he heard Moreen's scream and saw her hair blossom into licking flames, still de Marigny thought to open his hand, thought to hoarsely utter one last command to Armandra's familiar winds — if indeed the winds themselves were not already consumed in the devouring fire.
'Go,' he told them, his voice a cracked whisper in the inferno. 'Again — the powder — in their faces!'
And perhaps because he felt those precious powders snatched from his palm by eager, frantic gusts of air, and so knew there was at least a chance that this was some ploy of the ice-priests and not a genuine eruption brought on by Silberhutte's feeding of the lava pit, de
Marigny was the first to recover from the effects of the illusion. Even so he was awed by the power these beings commanded, that depleted as they were, still they could so readily employ man's elemental and immemorial fear of fire.
For he had actually felt the terrific heat of the thing, had felt-his eyes melting and his skin being crisped and stripped from his body. He had seen the ice-priests themselves engulfed and had heard in his head their telepathic shrieks of agony. And all a great illusion, a living nightmare conjured by these sole survivors of ancient Theem'hdra.
And so de Marigny recovered first.. . . to see Moreen, unburned, curled on the cold floor where she had fallen, mercifully fainted away from all shock and terror; to see the Warlord frenziedly beating at himself, at his clothes, in a final attempt to quell the `fires' that smothered him and consumed his flesh; to see the mouths of the ice-priests snap open in a concerted rictus of horror as once again the even greater horrors born of Annahilde's powders gripped them; and also to see the cave of ice, unaltered, blue and luminous and bitterly cold as ever!
And it was de Marigny, too, who, as the Warlord was released from his private hell of flames to fall trembling and white as snow to the icy floor, grabbed up his friend's great axe and cut down one, two, three of the stricken ice-priests, toppling their encased figures into the pit in a passion of loathing more desperately ruthless even than that displayed so recently by Silberhutte himself. Only the choking vapours that rushed up from the seething pit forced him back from his task - the vapours and the hideous 'snow' which they immediately formed - but then he stepped forward again to cut down a fourth and fifth ice-priest, and would have continued with the sixth and last had not Silberhutte, recovered but staggering still, stayed his hand and wrested the axe from him.
Only then did de Marigny fall back to lean panting against the glistening wall, nausea growing in him as he realized that he of all people - a truly 'civilized' 'man - had been gripped in what could only be described as a berserker rage. He who had so recently wondered at the Warlord's - inhumanity? - now knew that he would nevermore criticize his friend's instincts, for indeed the ice-priests more than deserved each and every stroke made against them.
Not this last one, Henri,' Silberhutte was panting, shaken but sound, still astounded to find himself unblackened by fire. Not him, my friend, for he's all we have left, and he has the answers we need. He'll supply them, too - by God he will! You tend to the girl - I'll see to him.'
With that the Warlord lifted up his great axe before him and poised it inches in front of and level with the pulsing, bluely veined dome of the ice-priest's head. Then he lowered it until its keen, slime-spattered blade was almost resting on the forepart of that being's loathsome skull. The eyes of the ice-priest opened wide in terror, and he audibly sucked in air as Silberhutte began to speak:
`The weight of this weapon is not inconsiderable, ice-priest. If I let it fall, it would probably crack your head wide open. And if I added my own weight to it - then it would split you to your rib cage! At this very moment I am tempted to do just that, and at the first hint of any further trickery I will. If you doubt me, try me. It will be the last thing you ever do. Do we understand each other?'
Slowly the obscene head nodded, crimson eyes focusing briefly, shrinkingly on the blade of the axe where it glittered dully through thin, pinkish blood and drying brain matter.
`Good,' said the Warlord, his face cold as the ice that formed the walls of this inner adytum of evil. Now then, before my arms tire as the weight of the axe numbs them — where is the time-clock? Where is it, ice-priest? And if you would live, you'd best tell me no lie!'
5 A Mind Unlocked
`Hold your axe steady, Warlord, and believe me when I say there is much I can tell you,' the ice-priest answered. He looked down from his great height, ignoring as best be could the thin edge of sudden death poised before his face; but the booming power was gone from his telepathic voice and it was more like a whisper now, running frightened through the minds of the adventurers. 'If the time-clock is your primary concern, then its secret is easily told. It is close by, not far from here
— you can reach it in a very little time.'
`Where is it, exactly?' Silberhutte demanded, placing menacing emphasis on the last word.
'Do not rush me, Warlord, for I will not lie. And once more I beg you, hold well your axe. If it falls, your questions go unanswered and I simply . . . go!' Now the ice-priest seemed more in control of himself, had gauged the urgency of his enemy's need and was using it to prolong the questioning.
`He's stalling!' said de Marigny. 'He's avoiding giving direct answers.'
`Could it be,' the Warlord spoke to the ice-priest low and dangerously, 'that you believe your two brothers will return to rescue you? If they do come back before we know what we need to know, then you will surely die.'
`And should I fear this?' the crimson eyes of the ice-priest went from Silberhutte's face to the blade of the great axe. `Warlord, lam already dead! If you do not kill me, Ithaqua will when he returns.'
'Why 'should he do that?'
'He will surely kill any that you leave alive, for we will have failed him. He has no patience with failure. However, if you and your friends are still here when he comes - then he may let us live.'
`It was your task to trap us for. him?'
`What profit to deny it?'
`When will he return?'
The ice-encased figure offered a mental shrug. 'You might as well ask when will the wind blow. He commands his own comings and goings.'
Listening to this conversation, de Marigny found his natural curiosity becoming piqued. Also, now that there seemed to be no further immediate danger, he felt the cold beginning to grip him, biting to his very bones. Quickly he took a pinch of Annahilde's warming powder, offering another to Moreen as, rapidly recovering from her faint, she got to her feet and began uncontrollably to shiver.
Silberhutte, too, had sensed the relaxation of danger; now he lowered his axe to the frozen floor. After all, what possible harm could this one ice-priest do them, when they had already disposed of nine such monsters?
By now de Marigny's curiosity had the better of him and he took up the questioning. 'Why are you here on Dromos in the first place?' he asked.
`We were "rescued" from olden Khrissa by lthaqua - who may say how long ago? - when the common people turned against us. They would have overwhelmed us by sheer weight of numbers, and so we fled to Ithaqua whom we worshipped. He brought us here. I tell you this happened, indeed I know that it was so, but I personally remember little of it. My memory does not extend beyond the ice of the caves, the great snows of the upper world, the lava pit and its sulphur fumes.'
`Then how do you know it was so?' asked de Marigny. 'Ithaqua has on occasion reminded us of our debt.' `Debt? He has kept you here on this great snowball ofa world - encased in ice for millions of years - and you consider yourself to be in his debt?'
'Without him, we would have been dust aeons gone,' the ice-priest reminded, and after a pause continued: `Occasionally he provides diversions .
`Diversions?' de Marigny repeated. 'Here on Dromos?'
`Of course. He brings us women from time to time, from Borea and Numinos, but they are nothing more than brief amusements. On the other hand he promises that once he has you three in his power - then that he will give us a green world of our own to rule. Perhaps Numinos, or Borea - even the Motherworld.'
`Well,' said the Warlord, 'that's one mad dream we've put paid to.'
`Three of us yet remain,' the ice-priest retorted. 'With our powers, three should be sufficient - at least for any minor world.'
`Three,' the Warlord mulled over the number, frowning as it set him to wondering. 'Why were only three of your brothers free and wandering abroad in Dromos when the remaining nine were encased in ice?'
For answer there came another mental shrug and the ghost of a laugh. Ithaqua made the rules, Warlord. Perhaps he feared to have more than three of us free at any one time. Fit and well and working as one - strong and mentally alert and not drowsing in the ice - who can say what our limits would be? Such illusions as we could create might fool even the Wind-Walker himself.'
By now Moreen was almost fully recovered from her faint and already the warming powders were working in her blood. She had only half-heard the conversation between the two men and the ice-priest; her naive mind was still staggering from the dizzy turns events had taken. But as she became more conscious of her surroundings and what was taking place, she realized that something was very wrong.
The Warlord — that massive and sometimes brutal man — as if engaged in casual conversation with an old friend, leaned on his axe and gazed up at the ice-priest with an almost bemused expression on his face. De Marigny, one arm loosely about her waist, seemed equally unconcerned. The entire atmosphere was completely unnatural — the more so because the crimson eyes of the lone ice-priest blazed hypnotically and bulged in their sockets as if at any moment to leap from their owner's monstrous head!
Moreen felt the hypnotic spell of those eyes and instantly averted her gaze. What was it the ice-priest had said? That his illusions might fool even Ithaqua himself?
`He's fooling your she screamed, tugging at de Marigny's arm and lashing out with her foot at the Warlord's shins. `Don't look at his eyes!'
For a moment, caught off-balance, the two men looked startled; then their eyes met and their jaws dropped in spontaneous astonishment. It had been so close, and they had been so completely hoodwinked. But now their faces hardened as they too averted their eyes from the hypnotic gaze of the ice-priest.
The awful head of that ice-encased figure had commenced to shake violently from side to side — one of the very few movements its owner could readily perform — in frustration and rage. Triumph had indeed been close, only to be snatched away by a slip of a girl. Carefully, insidiously the ice-priest had worked his hypnotic spell, drawing the Earthmen into a web of false security — but now that web was torn aside, and the evil spinner himself stood exposed to the gaze of the adventurers.
Silberhutte quickly stepped around behind the last ice pillar, out of range of the evil, powerful eyes of its prisoner. He reached around to the front of the icicle with one hand and cupped the ice-priest's small chin, trapping his head and holding it still. With his other hand the Warlord gripped his axe close to its heavy head, reached around and pressed the naked blade of his weapon to the spindly giant's trembling throat.
`Look away, Henri, Moreen,' the Warlord commanded. It's between the two of us now. Your He spoke to the ice-priest in a withering telepathic blast of anger and loathing. 'I want all of it, everything, and no holding back. Open up, ice-priest, and let me see what's hidden in there, in that black pit of nightmares you call a mind. Do it now, creature, while I'm still fool enough to let you live!'
And so powerful was the Warlord's command that it could no longer be denied. For a single moment only he probed at the innermost recesses of the ice-priest's thoughts, at the tightly guarded core of that being's mind — then broke through triumphant to the secrets hidden within. He looked — and he saw!
He saw all the pent-up evil of nameless aeons, the festering frustration of centuries unnumbered, the lightless horror of a million lifetimes spent in the abstract — but not always abstract — contemplation of hideous tortures and the endless plotting of mad dreams of conquest. He saw what the final destiny of olden Theem'hdra was to have been beneath the crushing heel of the ice-priests had they gained full control in that primal continent; and not only that but the fate of the universe itself if ever beings such as these were allowed to expand and overflow like pus into the clean and healthy worlds of space and time. These things and many others he saw and knew now why Ithaqua himself had seen fit to restrict the activity of these ice-priests whose depravity, whose lusting after all things loathsome, whose delight in the diabolical and sheer potential for total horror were so immeasurable.
He saw the many possible fates considered by the ice-priests for himself and his companions, the insufferable tortures and degradations plotted for them; and if he shudde
red at what had been planned for himself and de Marigny, he positively shrank from the diseased diablerie of Moreen's unspeakable fate. For the ice-priests had been promised the girl when lthaqua was done with her, and their intentions toward her were far more complex, detailed, and depraved than his. It was surely a terrible thing in itself to envisage the girl ravaged and brutalized by the Wind-Walker, yes, but then to be thrown to the ice-priests with their less mentionable anomalies and deviations including at the end, group anthropophagy while yet the girl lived! - that was to glimpse the essence of hell itself, pulsating like sentient slime in the cesspit minds of these most foul and detestable creatures.
Yet even now the ice-priest held back, refusing Silberhutte access to one final pocket of closely guarded knowledge, an almost complete set of answers to the Warlord's all-important questions. Closing his eyes and baring his teeth in a grimace of concentration against the frozen surface of the ice pillar, the massive Texan wrapped a knotted mental fist about the ice-priest's mind and squeezed . . . squeezed . . . and once more crashed through to a treasure trove of secrets.
Primarily he was seeking the time-clock; yes, and at last, finally he knew its location. For all at once he became aware of the most intimate details of this entire subterranean labyrinth of ice caves and tunnels, became heir to a plan of the frozen underworld which was immediately and as plainly recognizable to him as the lines in his own palm; so that now, in his mind's eye, he could see the time-clock where it stood, not too far distant, with de Marigny's flying cloak thrown carelessly about its base.