Oblivion Hand

by Adrian Cole

  It was Equumyrion, ridden by the old god, who seemed greatly agitated. The bright light that bathed them all served to send the oncoming lamias into renewed panic and soon they had scattered, disappearing into vaults and temples where they continued to shriek their outrage.

  “Ozbaak!” shouted Elfloq happily. “You have come at an opportune moment.”

  The Voidal watched the old god approach. “Vandi-Nuessa is destroyed as I promised. Listen and you will hear her anguish as the Sword of Light drains the last of her power.”

  Ozbaak came close to him, seemingly heedless of what had transpired. Shatterface was nonplussed, though his weapon was still poised.

  “You are the Voidal,” Ozbaak said to the dark man, staring down at the unconscious woman in the man’s arms. “I have recalled everything. I was a fool to have forgotten you—you, whom the Dark Gods have marked!”

  “You know who I am? What sins I have committed?”

  Ozbaak nodded his head in a mixture of sadness and scorn. “Everything.”

  “I see that it does not please you,” said the Voidal. “But will you tell it to me?”

  Ozbaak nodded slowly. “I may be wrong, but for the good you have done here, yes, I will tell you. All gods have deserted me, so why should I respect the rules they have forged? I shall tell you everything!”

  Shatterface pushed forward, a step from Ozbaak. “Out of my way, old fool! You prate about revelations, but I am here to wipe away all that he has learned.”

  Ozbaak glared up at him. “What is your part in this?”

  “Unlike you, I serve the Dark Gods. Here is my assurance of that.” As he said this, Shatterface drove home the Sword of Oblivion into the vitals of the old god, who sucked in a huge breath in surprise. His eyes widened, then began to dull. He slumped to his knees, gasping.

  Elfloq sprang forward, appalled. “You have murdered him!”

  “No,” said the Voidal, again loosing the woman. “Ozbaak is a god. The swords of the seneschals cannot destroy him, aged though he is.”

  “I have merely washed away his memory,” snorted Shatterface. “He will tell you nothing.” He pulled the Sword of Oblivion from the old god, who collapsed on to the cold stones. “I have but one stroke left to deliver, Voidal.”

  The dark man drew back, but Shatterface followed, supreme in the knowledge that nothing could foil his cause. He laughed mirthlessly as the Voidal lifted his right hand. “You would match your hand with my sword? Oblivion cancelling oblivion?”

  But the Voidal knew that the hand was dormant, its power temporarily absent. No, not absent, he realised, but in the sword. And there would be no escaping the bite of that power now.

  As Shatterface stepped inexorably nearer his victim, the air was suddenly filled with music, a swelling, dizzying wave of chords. And the music, so compelling, so utterly haunting, froze all of the figures in the plaza, as if the gods had woven a spell of a different kind. With it came a voice, a voice so pure, so perfect, that it reached inside each one of them.

  Grabulic, who had taken his instrument, Layola, from the mausoleum, played it now, and it was her voice which so enriched the air. Shatterface’s resolve wavered: in that song he heard the voices of his own past, the powerful echoes of all that he had lost. The Sword of Oblivion sank floorward, its tip resting on the stone.

  Another sound intruded as hooves rattled on the same stone; a snort of anger billowed from the flared nostrils of the great golden steed, Equumyrion. The beast rushed forward, leaping into the air, wings extended. With a crash it came down before the bemused Shatterface, who barely turned aside to escape a crushing. He lifted the sword, striking at the charger’s neck, but the blade rang on metal, useless against it. Shatterface regained his senses, but Equumyrion, eyes blazing, rose up and defied the puny man. It was over quickly as the horse trampled him, spread-eagling him on the plaza floor. The Sword of Oblivion rang as it skidded across the stones and was still. Equumyrion stood back in triumph with a last derisive neigh.

  The Voidal bent down to look into the eyes of the old god. Ozbaak was alive, but his breath came in rasps as though he was, after all, expiring. The music, too, gently subsided.

  “Ozbaak!” cried the dark man anxiously, holding the aged head gently. But the old god merely coughed and managed a weak smile.

  “I have paid for summoning you,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “You bring death, Fatecaster, but see, light returns!”

  A movement beside him made the Voidal look up. Shatterface, his body a bloody ruin, crawled like a smashed serpent towards him. “Voidal,” he said through his pain. “Voidal—this is not the end. I, too, am cursed with immortality, and this—body—is but a shell. This is not my end, though I wish it were. I shall find you again—”

  “But why?” asked the dark man softly.

  “Take off my helm.”

  The Voidal did so, seeing for the first time the face of the twisted form before him. It was hideous, a mass of flaking skin and crumbling flesh.

  “I will find you—and win back—my true face,” gasped Shatterface. His eyes closed and his head pressed to the stone. In a moment the body began to disintegrate.

  Elfloq meanwhile had sauntered over to the Sword of Oblivion and picked it up. The danger passed, the familiar had regained all of his old swagger. He swung the sword carelessly. “Here, master. Since the Sword of Light remains lodged in the carcass of Vandi-Nuessa, take this in its stead.”

  The Voidal rose and stared at the weapon. Then slowly he took it and sheathed it.

  Equumyrion lowered his neck and nuzzled his master’s head. The Voidal went to the old god and lifted up his ailing form, placing it carefully on the broad back of the steed, which seemed to please it. In a moment it had spread its wings and had risen up into the skies.

  “But—but—” began Elfloq, “how will you climb up to Nacramonte?”

  “It is no matter. Our work here is over. Look!”

  Overhead, Equumyrion climbed higher and higher as though about to quit the world altogether and soar out into space. As he did so, the body of Ozbaak began to glow, expanding and becoming a searing ball of light that encompassed rider and horse. Up and up they swept, the light spreading wider and wider, washing the landscape in bright hues, driving back the night dwellers below ground.

  “What is happening?” gasped Elfloq.

  “It is the old god. He is becoming a sun!” replied the Voidal. “See how he soars outward into Nyctath. The gods have not deserted this place. They have heard him—his punishment for summoning me is no punishment at all. Ozbaak has gone to rest at last, after eons of struggling alone. Perhaps he, too, had some terrible sin to wash away.”

  “Daylight comes! The worlds of Nyctath will be strong again,” said Elfloq, skipping round the Voidal like a child. He did not need to mention that the threats of Vandi-Nuessa no longer hung over him.

  “It will take time.” The Voidal looked down. “There are more transformations to come.” He pointed to the body of the woman. She was changing, altering as the rays of new sunlight daubed her in beauty. The bestial features of the lamia were melting like snow. New hues came to her cheeks; her hair rid itself of its tangles. The beast legs re-shaped and became human once more. The Voidal bent down and covered them with her gown. Her eyes opened, glittering with natural fire.

  The Voidal felt strange, forgotten emotions stirring within himself, for she was again a woman, and to him, above all others. “She is as she was,” he whispered.

  Elfloq looked pityingly at him. “But, master, how will you quit this place? You are bound here until summoned again. And she cannot travel with us.”

  Suddenly the woman stared at her surroundings. Her eyes widened in fear as she looked at the Voidal. “You!”

  The dark man reacted as if she had struck him. “You remember?”

  Her hands went to her head as though it ached terribly. “Gods, but what has happened? What has happened to me?” She began to sob, holding her head in her hand
s, shaking wildly and crying.

  “What is it?” said the Voidal.

  “Leave me, leave me! The memories! They scream at me. Gods, but they crowd in on me like an army—so many.”

  “But—it is over,” whispered the Voidal.

  “Over! But I see things—I have been the vilest of the vile for an age! I dare not recount the things I have suffered, the things I have done—here. No, I cannot believe such things!” Again she sobbed.

  Elfloq touched his master’s arm. “Perhaps by waking her, master, you have opened a door on her worst fears.”

  Someone cackled horribly and they looked across the plaza. Vandi-Nuessa tottered there, the Sword of Light embedded in her chest. Power ebbed from her visibly, but she pointed at the woman. “See how the Dark Gods mock you yet! You have freed her, but at what cost! She recalls it all, Voidal! But such foul memories will make her life miserable forever. Ask her and she will tell you all of it. Who you are, what you did, why you both were punished. But once the floodgates are open, she will never be able to face you again! She will live on the rack for eternity! Hah, but the Dark Gods are cunning!” With a last choking rattle of laughter, the lamia fell forward, the final energy spent.

  The woman was still sobbing, as if to compound all that had been said.

  The Voidal’s face clouded. He understood the depth of the deceit of his tormentors. “To live with such things could only lead to madness,” he murmured. “You deserve peace, even though I am to have none.”

  He drew out the Sword of Oblivion. “Forgive me. I cannot carry you from here. But your evil memories will not remain with you, nor will those that might have comforted you. Forgive me.” And he eased the Sword of Oblivion into her heart.

  Elfloq cried out in consternation. “Master! What have you done? She will remember nothing. Not even you—”

  “She will be free, Elfloq. Whatever pain she has suffered was through me. Memory of me would only be painful to her. She may even have hated me. I would rather not know. It is enough that she rests.”

  “Is she asleep?” said the familiar, for the woman had sunk to the stones.

  “Yes. She will recall nothing when she wakes. Let us find somewhere to set her down in comfort. There will be a new world waiting for her when she rises.”

  “And what of us?”

  “You are not chained to me, though I am glad of your service.”

  Elfloq helped the Voidal to lift the girl. “I have no love of these Dark Gods, who seem so cruel.”

  “Speak softly. They miss nothing, little familiar.”

  A shadow fell over them both. It was Grabulic. “They may not be cruel in everything,” he said. As if to demonstrate his odd statement, he turned. Behind him stood another woman, her face wearing a look of uncertainty, her fingers interwoven nervously.

  “Layola?” said the Voidal, rising.

  “The light has freed her,” smiled Grabulic, holding up his instrument. “She is restored.” He reached out for the woman’s hand and she took his eagerly. He pulled her to him and gave her a look of such utter devotion that Elfloq turned away, embarrassed.

  Layola let herself be pulled into the Songster’s arms.

  “You sing like the goddess you are,” the Voidal told her. “And you are both blessed. You have served out your sentences, I am certain.”

  “Then the Dark Gods are capable of mercy,” said Grabulic, fingers tenderly caressing Layola’s face. “Perhaps they will show it to you in time.”

  The Voidal’s features hardened. “One day I will be free of their curse. And then, perhaps, I will find her again.”

  Elfloq looked at the dark man’s unconscious woman. A single tear fell from the ugly features of the familiar and splashed upon her skin. But there was no time for sentiment. There was work to be done. Plans to be made.

  And so ended the beginning of the dark man’s quest. He had recovered something of what he had lost, but at a cost. And he was yet the pawn of the Dark Gods. My various sources, some of which are, I confess, more than a little dubious, agree on one thing: light finds a way into the darkest of crevices. After all, darkness cannot be defined without reference to light.

  I recall a fascinating conversation I had once in Effelgung’s preposterous Library ... but perhaps it will keep until I begin again this charting of the Voidal’s dark and tormented genesis.

  —Salecco, the Repressed

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Information

  Books by Adrian Cole

  Dedication

  Exordium

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII