by Adrian Cole
Some vague, saurian form broke from the surface, rivulets of slime cascading back into the lake. Two baleful eyes gleamed like lights across the expanse of the dark mire and the shape of the awful head began to move sensuously in time to the echoing rhythm of the chant, hypnotised by the suggestive pulse. Rammazurk ceased his cantillation, but the echoing stone prolonged the sounds. He looked through the faint glow to where that awesome shape wavered.
"Eldereth, traverser of the pits, wallower in the entrails of time and knowledge!"
The miasma-shrouded thing out in the mire inclined towards the monarch, recognising the familiar summons-the call of a master to a servant.
"Eldereth the all-seeing!" concluded Rammazurk, returning the lantern-gaze of the huge elemental.
"So it is Rammazurk who disturbs the slumbering voyages of Eldereth," resounded the basso profundo of the latter. "What secrets do you wish to drag from my humble storehouse of erudition? And, more important, Omnipotent One, what will you give me in exchange?"
Rammazurk glowered out into the half-light. "You are in no position to bargain with me!" he snapped. "Would you have the denizens of the Mudwastes set about your intestinal realms?"
There came a reptilian hiss of anger from the mire, the sound of escaping steam. But Rammazurk was master here.
"Know, Eldereth, that the slime-demons no longer overawe me. So it will little behoove you to bandy words or threats with me."
"What do you wish?" came the sibilant retort.
"A curse has been layed upon me by my now departed spouse. Doubtless I can lift this trivial cantrip, but its exact nature is, for the moment, outside the boundaries of my memory. What do you know of the Voidal?"
Rammazurk looked into the gloom, confident that the elemental would shortly disgorge the relevant fragments of knowledge suitable for the countering of Yssylzi's obscure curse. Yet the weaving shape fell silent, brooding in its repellant lair. This was unusual, for it had, on previous occasions rendered up many useful secrets.
"Come now! Your answer! Satisfy me in this and you will be rewarded."
"This is rare knowledge you seek, Omnipotent Rammazurk. Perhaps the truth lies beyond the dimension of Phaedrabile."
The monarch looked annoyed, but then a familiar expression of avarice stamped itself on his sweating face. "Beyond Phaedrabile? Power from beyond Phaedrabile? But wait! How could mortal Yssylzi traffic with such powers? She is a worm to the divinities!"
"As you say, Rammazurk. But all mortals are vessels-catalysts."
"Refrain from your enigmatic riddles! Speak candidly. What do you know?" said the monarch irritably.
"Certain astral currents are forbidden to me; indeed, to all save the Dark Gods, Omnipotant One. I know only that your late spouse was a bridge between you and your destiny. The divinities mould all our destinies-all living things-so it is held. Yet you grow in stature and power-perhaps you will wrench your destiny from the Gods and mould for yourself a greater one."
Rammazurk seemed mollified. He nodded pompously.
"As for the Voidal," added Eldereth, "my knowledge is strangely clouded. Minute pieces of a picture are all that I can give you."
"Yes?"
"He is a man-mortal enough. From where he comes and on what mission, the Dark Gods alone know. They mask that secret jealously. But I conversed once with Juxatl of the Million Ears, who dwells in the heart of Thaumatand, the world of Spells, and he spoke of a man who once offended the Dark Gods, a man who perpetrated so heinous a crime against them that they flung him out on a wanderer's course, devoid of identity, soul or fate."
"And this is the Voidal?" interrupted Rammazurk.
"Yes. A man whom you need not fear, for he cannot kill."
Rammazurk looked puzzled. "Cannot kill?"
"So Juxatl advised me. The Voidal cannot kill. The Dark Gods have denied him that power."
"Then why should Yssylzi have invoked him-what powers does he have?"
"As I recall, he is a fatecaster. Whatever strange powers the divinities have given him lie in his right hand. No other knowledge of him exists, for he is followed by a cloud of forgetfulness. To recall too much of his passing is forbidden."
Eldereth again fell silent. Rammazurk had to content himself with the dubious morsels of information. He reflected on the words and, as he did so, the shape in the mire drifted closer.
"Even this little I have told you is indiscretion, Omnipotant One."
"So you seek a reward for your outrage? Well, you shall have it. Today I am generous, having cast aside the damning yoke of that vampiric bride, Yssylzi! 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 Hakkuf, where the fleshmen of Vybo cower. Soon Vybo's minions will be annihilated. I will see to it that the corpses are thrown into the Lagoon of Grey Movement. Doubtless you can reach the place and feed rapaciously."
"You are indeed a generous master," boomed the voice of the 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 demented subjects, all of whom sought to divert his attention with escapades of bestial and demonic vigour. Rammazurk indulged them in their outrageousness. Meanwhile, within the dark recesses of his skull, he awaited the news that the Voidal-or any strange being-had arrived in his domains. He had set his familiars to watch. They would miss nothing, neither in the realms of earth or astral.
At length, from high up in the cobwebbed, dust-laden vaults of the roof, came a flutter of thin wings. A gathering of membranous beings dropped and hovered about the ears of the monarch. The messengers, minute but humanoid in shape, chittered and gibbered in high-pitched voices. Two dropped daringly to the thick shoulders of the monarch and pressed their tiny heads to his ears. Rammazurk listened avidly to their words, nodding, visualising to himself the events they were describing: a strange being had indeed appeared within the very gates of the city, enquiring after the fortress of Windwrack. It must be the Voidal. Despite his preparations, a clammy kiss of dread touched Rammazurk's flesh.
"See that the stranger is guided here. I will make the last of my preparations," he said with a wolfish grin. His harbingers rose up and were lost again in the darkness of the web-strewn vaults. Rammazurk turned to one of the many revellers and gestured to him.
"Go to the Star Tower. Fetch me Dnizer and Gnazdres," snapped the monarch and the pale figure flashed away. Soon thereafter it returned with two tall, gaunt figures, almost identical in their sepulchral regalia. The cloying air of decay hung heavy about their shoulders, as though they were fresh come from a graveyard. Their devil-eyes looked hatefully at Rammazurk, but the latter sneared at their expressions.
"Ah," smiled the reclining monarch. "The two necrophiles…"
"Must you chain us forever for our crimes?" spat one of the skeletal figures.
"Be silent! You exist only to serve me. One day I may release you, but for now I require your metamorphic sorceries. I am expecting an unusual visitor. See to it that our host is liberally interwoven with the Werespawn. Let them sniff out the tricks of this Voidal. So… begin your necessary ministrations immediately."
The twin sorcerers turned to the throng and obeyed.
***
Outside the odious fortress of Windwrack, the city of Npardil sprawled unevenly across a dozen hills. In parts it was dressed with crumbling, antique temples, but mostly a bizarre jumble of hovels, raised up in parody of architecture, wherein dwelt the debased and retrogressive peoples of the diseased empire. It was at a remote gate of this shrinking city of hideous deviltry that the stranger had appeared. Beyond him was a silent sandstorm that obscured the land for miles and, in its weird silence, seemed to shimmer the workings of ancient sorcery. Already the newcomer had begun his enquiries, stopping first at a leaning household that passed as an inn.
The shadow-hung stranger bluntly asked for Windwrack, saying he had business there. At mention of the fortress at the heart of the city, the shuffling tenants of the inn drew into themselves and muttered only brief directions.
"What do you seek in the place of the Omnipotent?" asked one wizened man.
"There is one there who will help me."
The oldster spat into the fire, which seemed to hiss back at him. "You are a fool. You will find no friends there," he stated, turning away from the stranger, who nodded coldly. The stranger vacated the inn, watching the darting shapes in the air above, sensing their tiny eyes upon his every step.
***
Rammazurk fed excessively, chewing at the freshly steaming organs from creatures strung up, alive, in the freezing rooms of his vast kitchens. His twin sorcerors had done their work well, for they had drawn forth from some lurid realm the Werespawn. The participants in the orgy were transmogrified into bestial shapes, beings less anthropomorphic than men, sub-human and drooling with demonic lusts, barely controllable by the twin sorcerers so that their debasements became more frenzied. Amongst these altered ones were the blasphemous things drawn from the far reaches of the outer air, the Werespawn. These hopped about like huge fleas, tendrils flicking about like obscene tongues, caressing and then flagellating the ecstatic mass of revellers. Rammazurk was pleased for he was surrounded by an array of ghastliness and lunacy, bound over in chains of ensorcellment that were virtually unbreakable. Together with this, he had seen to it 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 double horns at the far end of the Hall of a Thousand Joys-rolled out reverberatingly across the huge Hall. Two gigantic doors, carved from single blocks of meteoric stone, swung ponderously open as the sonorous notes of the twin horns died. In the light that flooded infrom beyond, a single figure was silhouetted, dwarfed by the titanic doors. Pausing to gaze with bland indifference upon the now silent hordes of the orgy, the figure stepped forward, the sound of its boots ringing back from the high vaults.
Rammazurk stood up, motioning the pressing throng to open a way for the stranger. Down that long avenue of writhing humanity and sub-humanity the monarch and the Voidal stared at one another. Rammazurk's fiends hissed and grimaced, claws outstretched, sensing in this uncanny, black-clad outsider an enemy and a threat to their foul existence. But the Voidal gave them only a cursory glance of disgust and walked steadily towards the monarch of Sedooc. About him clung an aura, a palpable aura that spoke of darkness. Nothing barred his way to Rammazurk.
The Voidal was a man of good height, his spare frame draped in a dark shirt of nightweb, hands gloved, his legs clad in black leather to his thighs, his harness studded with silver, the accoutrements of the same glittering material. From an ebon scabbard protruded the fine-worked haft of a sword: the Sword of Silence, a blade that could not kill, but that had other grim talents. Why the Gods had given it to him, the Voidal could not say. His face was serene, clean of stubble-beard, pointed and classic in proportions, while the eyes were of piercing green, seemingly capable of probing the depths of the human soul. The hair was thin and 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 moving gracefully, purposefully. Yet, on that serene face was the unmistakable look of a man of melancholy; the look of a man in search of his own misplaced soul.
To the foot of the royal dais came the Voidal, eyes searching Rammazurk's, as though for an answer to unspoken questions.
"I have been expecting you," said the king, impressed by the physical presence of the wiry figure. Rammazurk remained outwardly calm, for one flicker of an eyelash would unleash incalculable power upon this newcomer.
The Voidal seemed surprised by the monarch's remark. "Expecting me? Why? Were you told I was coming? By whom?"
Rammazurk lifted a hand to signify 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-I am lord of all Sedooc. Who are you and why are you here, in my domain?"
The Voidal's serene features altered. He bowed his head sadly, shaking it. "My story is a strange one. I apologise for my apparent rudeness." He bowed to the monarch, who looked suspicious. The Voidal straightened up, his every move watched by a thousand pairs of eyes.
"I am here in search of knowledge," he said. "No more than that. I seek knowledge about myself, for I have no identity. My task is made more difficult by nature of the fact that I possess a tortured memory. Of the knowledge that I accrue in my interminable wanderings, only a fragment remains. I know not who I am. Nor where I am from. The Dark Gods mock me and trifle with me for their own reasons. Yet I know that here, in your palace, I am to meet with one who will guide me."
"How came you to Sedooc?"
"I know not. I stood on a fog-blasted plain, out of which your city materialised as in a dream. All I know is that I may find knowledge here and that, perhaps, a friend awaits me."
"A friend, you say?" The monarch looked sceptical. "What friend?" He was thinking of the grim shade of Yssylzi.
"Until we meet, I know not."
"What else do you seek?" snapped Rammazurk.
"Nothing."
The Voidal looked almost apologetic as he stood before Rammazurk. The monarch was half watching the black-gloved hands of the man and half watching the shadowed ranks around him. It was there, amongst the salivating demons of the Werespawn, that Rammazurk's insidious minions readied for the task set them by their unholy, treacherous master.
"I have among my vassals sorcerers and thaumaturges of repute," nodded the monarch. "You may learn your fate here. Perhaps my fortress can accommodate you," he smiled benignly, though a sinister shadow crossed his features.
The Voidal bowed. "I am indebted to you."
"Ah, yes. Indebted. But… you need not be." An almost inperceptible 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, the Voidal made no attempt to free himself, but he looked askance at Rammazurk.
"If you are to be my guest," said the latter, leaning forward ominously, "then you shall deliver up to me a small fee."
"Very well," replied the Voidal impassively.
"Hold out his right hand", said Rammazurk 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 peculiar sigils, carved there in some remote demon-hold in which the sword had been forged. Rammazurk stepped down and faced 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. His triumphant grin suddenly dissipated. He looked in shock at what he beheld. 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-but there was nothing. He was puzzled, for he had been told that the Voidal's strength was in his right hand.
"You… have no right hand," he said haltingly. The Voidal's face had clouded, as though some 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 said, returning to his throne, sword ready for an attack. The face of the Voidal changed back and, briefly, the strange man looked bemused. Rammazurk considered him for a moment, 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. Go. Windwrack embraces you. Take what you need."
The Voidal bowed, picked up the fallen glove and receded into the ranks of the expectant throng. Y
et none of them dared touch him, for the stink of fear bathed them all. Even the stormhounds by the pillars drew back, hackles rising as they sensed that about him that spoke of dark evils. Rammazurk drew two of his most beautiful concubines close and instructed them to stay beside the Voidal, to amuse him. They blanched, but they feared Rammazurk's wrath more than the eerie stranger, so obeyed.
Rammazurk continued thereafter 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 then whisper to the limbo-lost spirit of Yssylzi and that her curse was impotent. The monarch cackled in his drunkeness and waved for a platter of sweetmeats. Two servile bondsmen came forth, 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, wherein the subterranean chefs had entombed the best of their cuisine and spices for their monarch. 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 burst from his mouth in horror as he raised the lid and saw 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 leaped up and smashed the heavy tray from the startled grasp of the servitors, sending food spinning, catapulting the gnarled hand out onto the stone floor of the Hall. The cavorting beings drew back in disgust as the loathsome object turned and again pointed at Rammazurk.