by Robin Jarvis
Ma Skillet cackled softly. “He no hear you,” she said. “Triton, his ear just for me. When he in trance only my voice and my command do he obey. See how happy Mother Lotus make him.”
A glad smile had alighted upon Thomas’s face and with his mind’s eye he gazed on the wondrous vision that continued to grow and unfurl before him.
There she was, Bess Sandibrook, sitting in a sunlit meadow of waving grasses and beautiful wild flowers, but no bloom was as lovely or as rare as she.
In her fingers she twirled her glinting, chestnut hair and the light that flashed and gleamed across her mousebrass revelled in her soft brown eyes.
“Hello, Tommy Stubbs,” she greeted in his dream, tossing her head to one side and grinning at him. “Why’d you go off and leave me all alone like that? I missed you terrible sore I did.”
Thomas’s whiskers drooped and a note of distress crept into his whispering voice.
“But I promised you,” he uttered thickly. “I said I’d go after Woodj. You know that.”
“Well I changed my mind,” the captivating angel told him. “It’s you I want, you’re the only one I could ever love, Tommy.”
Woodget turned away as tears streamed down his friend’s face and he threw the rat a despising look.
Yet around them the other customers were hooting and thumping their claws upon the tables in encouragement.
“Forget about Woodget,” the rapturous vision continued. “Kiss me Tommy—you know you want to.”
Thomas held his breath and reached out to caress the mouse maiden’s comely face, but all he touched was the flour-plastered fur of Ma Skillet who leaned forward, puckering up her lips and fluttering her heavy, soot-daubed lashes.
Still under the hypnotic spell, Thomas kissed her revolting lips, unable to smell the stale stench of her fur or the fetor of the rat’s putrid breath and did not see the flour flaking from her face and fall in crumbling deposits upon the floor.
Braying whoops of delight issued from the other patrons and Woodget glared at them murderously.
“Quiet!” he cried angrily. “’Tain’t funny!”
But they only laughed all the more at his pious squeaking and stamped their feet for further entertainment.
Thomas leaned back dreamily, his nose and cheek covered in white dust and his beaming mouth besmeared with the greasy, vermilion lipstick.
Ma Skillet smacked her lips gleefully and stared around the bar proudly, rocking backward and forward—revelling in her callous teasings.
“You let him go now,” Woodget commanded.
The rat considered Thomas a moment or two more, then shrugged. She had had her fun and there were other, more important matters to think about and arrange.
“Just so,” she nodded. “Mother Lotus set Triton free. He must like this damsel very plenty, yes?”
The fieldmouse said nothing but watched sullenly as she lifted her claws before Thomas’s face to break the enchantment.
“Bess!” Thomas blurted suddenly. “I want to come home! When we get rid of this evil, let me come back to you—please!”
Woodget spluttered and stared at Thomas aghast.
“But I’m scared, Bess,” Thomas continued, oblivious to the fieldmouse’s calls for him to be silent. “We’ve got what the enemy’s after. I don’t want to be caught and be poisoned like the others. I wish we’d never seen the ninth fragment!”
All around Woodget the room seemed to darken and he swallowed nervously. What had begun as a cruel, teasing game by Ma Skillet had ended in disaster. Now everyone in the bar knew who they were and the evil that they were carrying.
Every hostile face turned in his direction as the raucous mirth ceased, and at last Mother Lotus shifted her gaze to look on Woodget with a steady, deadly light shining in her almond eyes.
“Your friend Triton has big mouth, yes?” she muttered but her feverish breathing betrayed the excitement that was mounting inside her.
Woodget grinned sheepishly. “Poor old Tom,” he gabbled. “Gets a bit carried away sometimes, he do. Wunnerful tales he comes up with. You don’t want to go a believin’ any of them Missus.”
But it was too late and he knew it. The rat drew herself up to her full, squat height and, without taking her eyes off the fieldmouse, clicked her claws.
Immediately the stools and chairs of everyone else in the bar scraped upon the floorboards and the customers rose behind her—standing tall and threatening in the gloom.
Ma Skillet pointed at the leather bag.
“You show Mother Lotus what you keep in there,” she said coldly.
Woodget scrambled to his feet and gave Thomas an urgent shove. “Tom,” he cried. “Quick—Tom. Your sword!”
But Thomas was still under the spell, all he could do was gaze lovingly up at the ugly, bloated rat and murmur shyly to her as though she were the lost sweetheart of his life.
“You give Mother Lotus the bag,” she snapped, a horrible edge grating in her voice.
At that, her brutish clientele began to creep forward, their eyes glinting a bloody red in the lantern light.
Woodget backed away. “I won’t!” he answered flatly.
Ma Skillet sneered and, behind her, the sinister crowd hissed. Then to his horror, the fieldmouse saw that each of their tails was cloven in two. The rats, the ermine, the weasels—each and every one of them was a member of the serpent cult and Woodget felt faint from fear.
The white-faced rat laughed horribly as, from beneath the silk dressing gown, her own tail twitched into view and with a loathsome peeling of flesh it divided—just as Dahrem’s had done.
“So,” she crowed hideously. “From Hara you escape and straight to me you run. Such empty heads you is. Did you not know? Did the big warriors not tell you? Was the tongue of Sadhu still? Know now, here the Black Temple has risen again. You have fled to Sarpedon’s own land, Master Cudweed.”
Woodget choked and staggered against the wall in shock. Instead of taking the last fragment to safety, he and Thomas had delivered it straight into the serpent cult’s clutches.
Now Ma Skillet’s blubbery bulk stood between him and the doorway and he glanced fretfully at the horrendous figures behind her—there was no chance of escape.
“The fragment!” she insisted. “Mother Lotus will see.
Advancing with her claws outstretched, the rat checked herself, then tittered as a more entertaining thought struck her.
“But wait,” she chuckled insidiously. “Poor mousey afraid. If you no give bag to me—then perhaps to Triton you will.”
Turning back to Thomas, Ma Skillet commanded him to stand and still under the sway of her foul arts, the mouse obeyed.
The almond eyes glimmered with a golden light as the rat bent her power upon him and slowly, Thomas drew the sword from under his cloak.
“No,” Woodget cried as his friend advanced towards him with closed eyes. “Tom! Wake up! It’s me—Woodget Pipple!”
Ma Skillet cackled. “You give bag to Triton,” she told him.
Thomas strode closer and the tip of the sword blade was brought ever nearer to the fieldmouse’s chest.
“Now,” the rat uttered viciously, “stab he through the heart.”
Woodget stared into Thomas’s face, but he was totally dominated by the infernal influence of Mother Lotus and the blade pressed painfully against his breast bone.
A trickle of blood pricked from the fieldmouse’s skin and seeped into his reddish gold fur as his bewitched friend prepared to thrust the blade deep into his body.
“Tom...!” Woodget wailed. “Please!”
Not knowing what he was doing, Thomas drew back the sword and plunged it forward.
At once there was a blistering light as the sword burst into blue flame and, before it could pierce the fieldmouse’s flesh, the steel vanished in a shower of silver stars, leaving Thomas to stumble forward—blinking and shaking his head in a confused daze.
Woodget wept and rubbed the shallow wound in his chest the
n turned to Mother Lotus who was shrieking in fury.
“What happen?” she squawked. “Where sword go?”
Behind her, in the bar, the group of bamboo rats suddenly began to snarl and as one they lunged forward—only to fall back in dismay as a burst of emerald light flared into the gloom and tongues of turquoise flame came leaping into their midst. Yowling in terror, the creatures cowered from the scorching fires which formed a searing and impenetrable barrier between them and the entrance.
Confused, Ma Skillet whisked around at their yammering, amazed at the supernatural inferno which separated them—then above the din a resonant voice rang clear and defiant.
“Be still, servant of the twining tyrant—lest you are thrust into the hottest part of the flames and your wickedness melted clean off your bones.”
At the sound of that voice, Thomas was released and he rubbed his eyes to stare about him. “What’s going on?” he cried.
But Woodget was hopping up and down with joy and punched the air with his small pink fists.
Standing in the open doorway, with a great, bulging pack upon his back, was a diminutive and startling figure, but to the mice his presence was more welcome than a whole legion of Haran warriors.
Clothed in the familiar crimson velvet gown, embroidered with golden symbols—was Simoon.
In one paw he clasped his staff, whilst the other was raised to ward off anything that might be hurled at him, magical or otherwise.
Ma Skillet glared at the jerboa with absolute contempt. How dare he interrupt her? Who was he to interfere in the business of the Scale?
Compared to her flabby bulk, he was little more than a sand flea, yet she could see that about the rayed stars which surmounted Simoon’s black and silver staff, a pale light glowed and glimmered.
Obviously there was more to him than his outer appearance suggested, yet she was not afraid or daunted—the same was true of her also.
“I am come to liberate my young friends,” Simoon’s calm, assured tones told her. “Do not hinder me or your hide will shrivel.”
Ma Skillet planted her feet wide apart and took from beneath her dressing gown a golden dagger, decorated with the image of a twisting serpent—engraved with words of power and control.
“It is you should fear,” she hissed menacingly. “You foolish to enter here.”
Growling, she strode toward him, but the jerboa merely chuckled and tapped his staff upon the ground.
To the rat’s astonishment, the dagger flew from her claw and went flying across the bar, plunging through the flames and over the heads of her frightened and scorched patrons, before embedding itself deep into the far wall.
Incensed, she sprang at him but, with a wave of his paw, her bloated body was thrown back by an unseen force which propelled her into a stack of chairs that came crashing about her head.
Ma Skillet slithered to the ground where her obese weight pounded upon the floorboards. Then, with a smile lighting his enigmatic face, Simoon bowed to Thomas and Woodget.
“Come,” he told them. “Whilst the creature composes herself and her crew are held back by the flames, let us depart.”
The mice hurried over to him. “See Tom!” Woodget cried. “I always knowed he were a real magician. Mister Simoon, we got the ninth fragment...”
“Hush,” the jerboa instructed, “save the tale for friendlier surroundings. Your plight is not yet ended—this is a hazardous place and you might have done great evil by coming here. To thine own land you should have returned and taken the Irish nomad’s burden to the Handmaiden of Orion for safekeeping and wise counsel—not into the very den of the enemy and certainly not on this most perilous of nights. Let us pray we can yet repair the damage wrought by your folly.”
“Alas,” came a shrill voice, “the harm is done and you have lost.”
Simoon and the others turned and, striding through the open doorway came the dishevelled figure of the water vole whom Ma Skillet had previously thrown out.
Yet now all traces of intoxication were banished from his bearing and a haughty disregard was upon his face.
“Did you truly believe your journey from Hara was unmarked?” he asked Thomas incredulously. “The lidless eyes of the Scale are not so blind. It was I who allowed you to venture here unmolested, but now the trap is sprung and your emissaries ended.”
Woodget eyed the ragged-looking creature curiously, there was a vile, deriding quality to that voice which was strangely familiar.
Then the vole raised its paw and, over the threshold, dim threads of gloom came seeping. Into the Lotus Parlour they streamed, to entwine and curl about the stranger, gathering into an inky darkness which swiftly enveloped his unkempt form until his shape began to shimmer and stretch.
“Green’s grace, deliver us,” the jerboa murmured, and to Thomas and Woodget’s consternation there was fear in his voice and his paws were trembling.
Before him the unnatural column of swirling blackness reached up to the ceiling and then, with a trembling of the air the blackness fell away in light strangling ripples, but the vole was nowhere to be seen.
Woodget caught his breath, for there, in the creature’s stead there now towered a menacing and sinister figure swaddled in a black, hooded cloak.
With a sweep of his powerful claws he cast the garment from his head and lit by the glare from the crackling turquoise flames, a hideous, sadistic face was revealed and the mice gasped in fright.
Like a piece of the blackest night, he appeared—a living embodiment of darkness, the essence of the deepest well of shadow given visible form and clothed in mortal flesh.
A sable from the remote northern wastes was he, and his sharp, arrogant features were richly clad in his sleek, luxuriant fur.
Within the glossy darkness of that gaunt, raven visage, the two narrow slits of his eyes burned a fierce yellow and gold—blazing with monumental malice and unquenchable hatred.
Above his glowering brows reared a high, domed forehead and scraped tight over his skull, a mass of dark hair fell about his shoulders.
Disdainful and sneering, his awful, wedge-shaped face distorted with pride and unbridled conceit as he stared down at the three forlorn figures and when his thin lips parted, a row of savage, cruel fangs shone white and sharp.
“At the last we meet,” his malevolent, nasal tones addressed the jerboa and the mice cringed at the sound of it for now they recognised that pitiless voice. Upon the steps of Kara they had first heard its discordant bragging—for there, standing before them, was the High Priest himself.
“Many times have I sensed your presence,” his foul voice continued to snipe at Simoon, “striving to part the veil in your furtive yet clumsy attempts to seek me out from afar and observe my movements. Such childish antics you do engage in. I trust my deeds have kept you entertained—for assuredly they have not assisted you in any way.”
Simoon stared up at him, jutting out his chin defiantly. “Hold your duplicitous tongue, shadow of the serpent,” he cried, but his voice was thin and woeful. “Meddle not with the wanderer of the ancient pathways, the treader of the forgotten track will not be merciful to such a one as you. Yet even now, it is not too late. If you abandon the hellish ways of your foul demon and embrace the true giver of life and hope then even you could be spared.”
“Into the eyes of your death do you gaze!” the sable snorted. “Yet you persist in this puerile cant! You have wasted enough time, old one, the days of your flitting across the oceans and weaving your asinine webs are over. The end of your reviled world has come and the second reign of the Glorious Master is dawning.”
Glancing over to where the turquoise flames still blazed, the High Priest muttered under his breath and at once the fires were doused.
From the floor, amid the splintered wreck of the chair stack, Ma Skillet picked herself up and waddled over to bow low before him.
“Forgive me Brother Priest,” she said feeling awkward. “Mother Lotus, she not know you before.”
The sable returned the bow. “You were not meant to,” he replied in a boastful drawl. “When the High Priest of Sarpedon walks in the guise of another, no eyes may pierce the shadows of his deceit. Do not upset yourself, sister. Though perhaps one day I might return the discourtesy of that rude expulsion, the High Priestess has done well. The Mighty One will be most pleased. This fateful night the rejoicing will be greater than we ever imagined.”
Tracing a curious sign in the air with his claws he held out his palm, then, from the far wall, her dagger jerked itself loose and came floating back for him to catch and he returned it to the corpulent rat, before looking back at Simoon.
“Such simple feats are mere party tricks,” he cackled scornfully. “But is that the height of your wisdom, little burrower of the sand? You ought to have remained in the dry desert instead of daring to come between the Dark Despoiler and his rebirth. That was a task beyond the measure of your base talents.”
“Beware the wrath of Simoon the prophet and obeah pilgrim,” the jerboa told him. “If you will never renounce the Coiled One, then the ninth and final fragment of Gorscarrigern’s most infernal work I shall withhold from your grasp. By the power of the Green I deny it to you and though the nine stars may blaze for an eternity, neither you nor your descendants will ever see the egg made whole nor witness any rebirth of ancient horrors.”
Lifting his staff above his head, he called out in a loud, ringing voice, “Neri Arkitchu Berakka!” and at once the room was ablaze with a dazzling explosion of fierce blue energy.
Ma Skillet shrieked in dread as the blinding bolts blistered about her, and the rest of the cult members recommenced their yammering.
Clasping his paws together, Woodget stared about him, transfixed and enthralled by the fabulous display of the jerboa’s strength and at his side, Thomas was finally convinced that the magician was no fraud.
All about the seedy bar the searing spikes of sapphire flame rampaged, driving the rats, weasels and ermine insane with terror, but in the middle of the miraculous, fiery spectacle, encompassed by Simoon’s unleashed might, the High Priest loomed tall and unafraid.