by Adrian Cole
A cloud of the familiars thickened the air above his head like miniature imps, but his whispered words to the little beings made them subside, settling like a cloud on the rocks and fanged stone of the cavern. Rammazurk made cabalistic passes in the stagnant air, reciting a mournful and rhythmic chant that echoed back softly from the walls. The very stone seemed to throb and pulse to the arcane chant, the vibrations increasing in cadence and the first ripples appeared on the oily surface of the mire.
A vague, saurian form broke from the surface, rivulets of slime cascading back into the lake. Two baleful eyes gleamed like lamps across the expanse of dark mire, and the shape of the awful head began to move sensuously in time to the echoing rhythms of the chant, hypnotised by its suggestive pulse. Rammazurk ceased his cantillation, though the echoing sound prolonged the sounds. He looked across at the awesome, wavering shape.
“Eldereth, traverser of the pits, wallower in the entrails of time and knowledge!”
The huge thing in the mire inclined towards the monarch, recognising the familiar summons, the call of a master to his servant.
“So it is Rammazurk who disturbs my slumbering voyages,” came Eldereth’s basso profundo. “What secrets do you wish to drag from my storehouse? And more important, Omnipotent One, what will you give me in exchange?”
Rammazurk glowered in the half-light. “You’re in no position to bargain with me!” he snapped. “Or would you enjoy the company of the denizens of the Mudwastes?”
A reptilian hiss of anger sounded from the mire, like the escape of steam. Rammazurk was master here.
“The slime demons no longer overawe me. So let’s not bandy threats,” said the monarch.
“What do you wish?” came the sibilant retort.
“A curse has been placed upon me by my now departed spouse, Issylla. No doubt I can shred this trivial cantrip, but its exact nature is for the moment outside the boundaries of my memory.”
“Surely nothing eludes the mind of your omniscience, O divine lord—”
Rammazurk ignored the mocking tone. “What do you know about a creature called the Voidal?”
The monarch studied the gloomy silhouette, confident that the powerful elemental, infamous for its astral delvings, would shortly disgorge the necessary counterspells that would enable him to blast Issylla’s curse. But the weaving shape fell silent, brooding a while. This was most unusual.
“Come now! Your answer! Satisfy me in this and you shall be rewarded.”
“It is rare knowledge you seek, Omnipotent One. Perhaps the answer lies outside Phaedrabile itself.”
Rammazurk looked annoyed, but then an expression of avarice stamped itself on his sweating face. “Outside Phaedrabile? Power from beyond it? How intriguing. But wait! How could a worm such as Issylla traffic with such powers?”
“All beings are mere vessels, Rammazurk, catalysts.”
“Don’t fob me off with riddles! Speak candidly. What do you know?”
“Certain astral currents are forbidden to me, indeed to all but the Dark Gods. I know only that your late spouse was a bridge between you and your destiny. Some believe that the divinities mould all our destinies. Yet you, Rammazurk grow in power and perhaps will wrest your destiny back from the very Gods.”
Rammazurk seemed mollified and nodded pompously.
“As for the Voidal,” added Eldereth, “my own knowledge is strangely clouded. I can give you little more than pieces of a picture.”
“Yes?”
“He is a complete enigma. From where he comes and on what mission, the Dark Gods alone know. They mask that secret jealously. But I recall a conversation I once had with Juxatl of the Million Ears, who dwells in the heart of Thaumatand, the most potent of the Spellworlds, and he spoke of a being who once offended the Dark Gods, a man who perpetrated so heinous a crime against them that they flung him on a wanderer’s course, devoid of soul, identity or fate.”
“And this is the Voidal?”
“So it would seem. But he is man you need not fear, for he cannot kill.”
Rammazurk looked puzzled. “Cannot kill?”
“So Juxatl had heard. The Voidal cannot kill. The Dark Gods have denied him that power.”
“Then why should Issylla have invoked him? What powers does he have?”
“As I recall, he is a Fatecaster. Whatever warped powers the divinities have bestowed upon him lie in his right hand. No other knowledge of him exists, for a cloud of forgetfulness follows him. To recall too much of his passing is forbidden.”
Eldereth again fell silent. Rammazurk had to content himself with the dubious morsels of information. As he reflected on them, the shape in the mire drifted closer.
“Even this little I have told you is indiscretion, Omnipotent One.”
“So now you want a reward for your outrage? Well, you shall have it. Today I am generous, having cast aside the yoke of that vampiric bride! As to the nature of your reward, I have an army in the field this very moment: it is drawn up outside the walls of Hakyarkuff, citadel of the fleshmen of Vybo, an old adversary of mine. Soon Vybo’s minions will be annihilated. I will have their corpses cast into the Lagoon of Grey Movement. I am sure you know of it. Feed well.”
“You are indeed a generous master,” boomed the voice of the huge elemental as it subsided. Rammazurk grinned and withdrew from the ophidian depths of his fortress.
Shortly after his discourse with Eldereth, the monarch was again seated amongst the velvet and silk splendour of his divans, surrounded by the dirge of his subjects, who now sought to divert his attention with even more debased vigour. Rammazurk indulged them in their excessive outrageousness. But he was thinking of the curse, waiting for news that any stranger had arrived in his domains. He had set his familiars to watch, and they missed nothing, either in the realms of earth or astral.
At last, from high up in the cobwebbed, dust-laden vaults of the roof, came a flutter of thin wings. A gathering of membranous beings dropped down and hovered about the ears of the monarch, delicate as butterflies. The messengers, minute but humanoid, chittered and gibbered like excited children. Two dropped daringly to the shoulders of the monarch and pressed their tiny heads to his ears. Rammazurk listened avidly to their words, nodding, visualising the events they were describing: a strange being had indeed appeared outside the gates of the city, enquiring after the fortress of Windwrack. This must be the promised Voidal.
In spite of his preparations, a clammy kiss of dread touched Rammazurk’s skin.
“Tell my storm elementals, the Screamers, to abate. Let Windwrack seem a haven to this intruder. But once he enters, have them seal the skies anew.”
Rammazurk’s harbingers rose in a tiny cloud and were soon lost to view. The monarch beckoned to one of his revellers. “Go to the Scarlet Tower. Fetch me Dennizor and Nazzim,” he snapped and the pale retainer dashed away.
It returned soon after with two tall, gaunt figures, almost identical in their spectral regalia, a cloying air of decay heavy about their shoulders as if they had come fresh from a graveyard. Their devil eyes looked hatefully at Rammazurk, though he sneered at their expressions.
“Ah,” smiled the reclining monarch. “The two necrophiles—”
“How much longer will you chain us to your service for sins long forgotten!” spat the first of the skeletal figures.
“You exist only to serve me! One day I may release you, but for the time being I require your metamorphic skills. I am expecting an unusual visitor. See to it that the court is liberally interwoven with the Werespawn, those particular demons that serve you like hounds. Let them sniff out any tricks that this Voidal intends to unleash. Go, perform your arts at once.”
The twin sorcerers faced the apprehensive throng and began selecting victims for the possessions.
Outside the odious fortress of Windwrack, the city of Npandil sprawled unevenly across a score of hills, in parts dressed with crumbling, antique temples, in others a bizarre jumble of hovels, raised up in a parody
of architecture where the debased and retrogressive servants of empire lived. It was at a remote gate of this festering city that the stranger had appeared. Behind him was an oddly silent sandstorm that obscured the land for many miles, and he recognised in its shifting currents an element of sorcery.
Already the newcomer had begun his enquiries in the city, calling at the first inn. He asked bluntly for Windwrack, saying he had business there, but at mention of the fortress at the heart of the city, the tenants drew into themselves and offered only brief directions.
“What do you seek in the palace of the Omnipotent One?” said one ancient inhabitant.
“There is someone there who will help me.”
The oldster spat into the fire, which hissed back at him. “You are a fool. You’ll find no friends there. Only pain.”
The stranger left the inn, noticing now the tiny darting shapes in the air between the roofs, sensing their fiery eyes upon his every step. Beyond them the skies were shifting uneasily, the air moaning to itself, a huge beast stirring on the edge of wakefulness.
Rammazurk fed excessively, glutting himself. His twin sorcerers had done their work well, drawing forth the Werespawn. These were transmogrified revellers, sub-human, drooling things, barely controlled by the sorcerers: they hopped about like huge fleas, tendrils flicking out like obscene tongues, both caressing and flagellating the ecstatic mass of other revellers. Rammazurk delighted in the array of ghastliness, bound over to him in chains that were virtually unbreakable. Together with this he had ensured that the oldest and most protective of charms and cantrips hung his walls like black drapes. Let this Voidal come to him!
An ominous boom, the deep note sounded by the immense double gongs at the far end of the Hall of a Thousand Joys, reverberated around the walls. Two gigantic doors carved from single blocks of meteoric stone swung ponderously open as the sonorous notes died, and in the light that flooded in from beyond, a single figure was silhouetted, dwarfed by the titanic doors. It paused to gaze with apparent bland indifference upon the now silent hordes of the orgy, then stepped forward, the sound of its boots ringing back from the high vaults.
Rammazurk heaved himself upright, motioning the throng to open a way for the stranger. Down that long avenue of writhing humanity and sub-humanity the monarch and the stranger stared at one another. Rammazurk’s fiends hissed and grimaced, claws outstretched, but there was a kind of fear in them all. The Voidal gave them no more than a cursory glance of disgust as he began the steady walk towards the monarch of Sedooc. About him was cloaked an aura of darkness: he wore it like armour.
The stranger was a man of good height, his spare frame draped in a dark shirt of nightweb, his legs clad in black leather, his harness studded with purest silver, the accoutrements of the same glittering material, while from an ebon scabbard protruded the fine-worked haft of a sword, clearly no ordinary weapon, though what its talents were remained as yet, like its owner, a mystery. His face was serene, absolutely smooth, pointed and classic in proportions, while the eyes were a piercing green. The hair was silken, black as the midnight cloak that had been clasped to the shoulders.
As the Voidal drew nearer, he moved with the deadly silence of a spider, his long legs striding purposefully yet gracefully. Yet on the serene face was the unmistakable look of a man of melancholy, the look of a man desperately in search of something he might never find.
He came to the foot of the royal dais, eyes searching Rammazurk’s as if for answers.
“I have been expecting you,” said the latter, impressed by the physical presence of his visitor. But he remained outwardly calm. One flick of the wrist would unleash incalculable power upon this dark man.
The Voidal was surprised by the monarch’s remark. “Expecting me? Were you told I was coming? Who told you?”
Rammazurk lifted a hand, a demand for silence. “It is I who will ply you with questions. You are here under sufferance. I expect all those who visit Windwrack to show respect. After all, I am lord of all Sedooc. So, who are you, and why are you trespassing in my domain?” He seated himself, resting his enormous chins on his fist.
The Voidal bowed his head sadly. “I am afraid my story is a strange one. I must apologise for any rudeness.” He bowed to the monarch, who remained suspicious. The Voidal straightened, his every move watched by a thousand pairs of his eyes.
“I am here in search of knowledge,” he said. “No more than that. I seek knowledge about myself, for I have no identity, and my memory is a wretched, broken thing. Of the knowledge that I have accrued, only fragments remain. I neither know who I am or where I am from. The Dark Gods mock me and seem to trifle with me for reasons they do not share. All I know is that here in your palace I will meet with one who will guide me.”
“How did you come to Sedooc?”
“I cannot say. I stood on a plain blasted by fogs: your city materialised like a dream. All I know is that I may find knowledge here, and perhaps a friend.”
“A friend you say?” The monarch looked sceptical. “What friend?” He was thinking of the grim shade of Issylla.
“Until we meet, I don’t know.”
“What else do you seek?”
“No more than I have said.” He seemed almost apologetic.
Rammazurk looked at the black gloved hands of the man, one eye on the shadowed ranks around him. Among the leering Werespawn, the servants of the monarch readied for the task set them.
“I have among my vassals sorcerers and thaumaturges of no small repute. You may learn your fate here. Perhaps my fortress can accommodate you,” Rammazurk smiled, though it veiled a shadow of menace.
The Voidal bowed. “I am indebted to you.”
“Ah, yes. Indebted. But you need not be.” An almost imperceptible nod of the head accompanied the monarch’s words and in swift silence four shapes were at the Voidal’s side, pinning his arms in a serpentine grip. Surprisingly he made no attempt to free himself, though he looked askance at Rammazurk.
“If you are to be my guest,” said the latter, leaning forward ominously, “then you shall deliver to me a small fee.”
“Of course,” replied the Voidal impassively.
“Hold out his right hand,” Rammazurk said to his retainers, and they did so. Rammazurk then took from the folds of silk beside him a razor-sharp sword, the edge of which glowed with sigils, carved there in some remote demon-hold in which the sword had been forged. Rammazurk rose and stepped down to face the Voidal, eager to destroy the source of the being’s power. He unclasped the silver studs of the Voidal’s right hand glove, then drew it off. But his grin of triumph dissipated, replaced by a look of shock.
For there was no hand.
The black glove had covered nothing, unless the hand was invisible. The Voidal, still gripped firmly, could not move his outstretched arm, so Rammazurk tentatively felt for the unseen hand with the tip of the sword. But there was nothing. He was puzzled, having been told that the Voidal’s strength was in this hand.
“You have no right hand,” he said haltingly.
The Voidal’s face had clouded, as though a dark power from elsewhere had suddenly taken control of him. His features twisted, his eyes rolled evilly and he spoke in a scathing, reptilian hiss. “Since you have asked for it, you shall have it.”
Rammazurk drew back, nonplussed. “Release him!” he snapped, returning to his throne, though he was ready for any attack.
The face of the Voidal changed back and for a moment the strange man looked bemused.
Rammazurk considered him briefly, then waved him aside. “You are welcome, then. Later you shall converse with my underlings. For now, join the feast. I enjoy a celebration. Let us not mar it. Windwrack embraces you. Take what you need.”
The Voidal bowed, picked up the fallen glove and receded into the ranks of the expectant throng. Yet none of them dared touch him, for the stink of fear bathed them all, and even the stormhounds by the pillars drew back, hackles rising as they sensed that about him that spoke of
intolerable evils. Rammazurk drew two of his most beautiful concubines close and instructed them to stay beside the Voidal, and to amuse him. They blanched, but they feared Rammazurk’s wrath more than the eerie stranger, so obeyed.
Rammazurk continued to drink himself close to the shores of oblivion, for he could not unravel the enigma set him by the words of the elemental Eldereth. Later, mused the wine-sodden monarch, I will find a way to kill this Voidal and toss him to the slime demons. Let them tell the limbo-lost spirit of Issylla that her curse was impotent. The monarch cackled in his drunkenness and waved for a platter of sweetmeats.
Two servants came to him, bearing between them a golden tray upon which were strewn fruits and assortments of edible leaves; amidst the succulent organs and slices of meat nestled a silver dome, under which the subterranean chefs had entombed the very best of their diabolical cuisine. Rammazurk nodded distractedly as the silver dome reflected a beam of light from the overhead firebrands high above, and he casually reached out to lift the gleaming lid. The food that he was already masticating as he raised the lid burst from his mouth as he saw with horror what lay beneath. The lid clattered down the steps of the dais. There on the tray was a hideous object, putrefying and shrivelled.
It was a severed hand.
The forefinger of the foul thing was extended rigidly, directed straight at the royal person of Rammazurk accusingly, as though still imbued with life. With a strangled cry, the huge monarch wobbled to his feet and smashed the heavy tray from the startled grasp of the servitors, sending food spinning and catapulting the gnarled hand out on to the stones of the floor. The cavorting beings drew back in disgust as the loathsome object turned and again pointed at Rammazurk.