by Martin Ash
'Issul, it is me! It is Leth!' He realized that she could not see his face, for he wore the sapphire helm. The men behind her were becoming more definite in form. Issul looked about her, clearly uncertain what to do, then focused back on him.
'Leth?'
'Wait, Issul!' He began to lift the helm from his head. There came the sound of drumming hooves. Rasgul raced past, his scimitar raised, speeding directly at Issul. He brought his blade down and around in a wide sweeping arc, the blow powerful enough to take her head from her shoulders.
'NNO-OOOOO!'
Leth screamed at him, aghast, but it was too late. Rasgul's momentum took him on into the base of the hollow. Of Issul, or her corpse, there was no sign. Nor of the men who had pursued her.
Leth sagged in his saddle, stupefied. Rasgul brought his horse around and trotted back up the slope.
'Nothing is real,' he said.
Leth could not respond. His heart was hammering against his ribcage. He was in turmoil, wanted to weep. Issul! Issul!
The image of his beloved Issul, alive when he had almost come to accept that she no longer lived . . .
Leadenly he turned his horse around. There came shouts from the others. Leth snapped back into awareness. Trin was galloping at full speed towards him. His face was filled with ravenous joy, his thin lips stretched wide across his teeth. Charging past Leth he cried out, 'I hear it! Yes! Oh, beautiful! I am coming! I am coming!'
The others were urging their horses to the gallop in pursuit of him. Leth, perceiving by the expressions of the Abyss warriors that they deemed this serious, did likewise. Trin had a lead of forty or fifty paces on them. He stood in his stirrups, one fist raised in jubilation. His mad cries drifted back to them on the sleepy air.
Trin led them far across the meadows, weaving between trees, into hollows, over swells. His horse was swift and strong, and they made no ground. They came up over the crest of a low rise and a horrifying spectacle greeted them. Twenty paces away in a shallow declivity three demonic creatures were crouched over Trin's outstretched body. One gnawed upon his hand; a second at his chest. The third held his bloody head against the earth.
At the arrival of the seven two of the creatures rose and faced them. They were almost human in form. They had smooth, hairless skins of dark mottled umber, high pointed ears, short blunt snouts. They drew back their lips to show rows of tiny needle-sharp teeth. Their postures were certain and challenging.
The group had come to a halt. Trin raised his bloodied head and screamed. 'Help me!'
It was plain from the sight of him that he was beyond help. The horses stamped their feet nervously. One of the demons took a step towards them. Leth drew his scimitar.
'No!' Rasgul held his arm. 'We can’t do anything. We must leave.'
'They are but three!' protested Leth.
Rasgul shook his head. He was backing his horse away, as were his Abyss companions. 'We can do nothing. Believe me!'
Leth saw the fear in his face. He looked back at the three demons. One of them began walking towards the group, extending a webbed paw and making a gibbering sound.
'Swordbearer, I will stay no longer,' said Rasgul. 'We can do nothing. If they touch you, you are dead.'
Trin no longer cried out. He lay motionless while one of the creatures continued to feed.
The Abyss warriors rode away. Count Harg glanced warily at Juson, then Leth. Then he quickly turned his horse and galloped after the others, with Juson close behind.
Leth stood alone. He looked into the approaching demon's eyes. They were black and empty. The thing spread its lips and gave a yapping laugh. Leth heard a sound, like nothing he had ever heard.
For long heartbeats he was spellbound. Was it music? A woman’s song? The sound of birds and unknown instruments, played upon the air. It was all these things and more. Such a rapturous sound! It soothed him, evoking the most marvellous thoughts and feelings. He glanced once more to Trin's ruined corpse. The demon took two more determined steps towards him. A sudden frisson of fear raced along Leth's spine, jerking him upright in the saddle. He yanked upon the reins, turning his mount, and galloped away. As he did so the sound faded from his ears.
iii
The image of Issul haunted Leth for the remainder of his journey across the Meadows of Dreams, to the extent that, had other phantoms manifested he would quite possibly have remained oblivious to them.
The company passed through the gate on the far side of the meadows and rode on for a short while before the decision was taken to rest up for the night, as many hours had passed since they had set out. They were in an area of rough, uncultivated land, the vast wall of the Death Abyss soaring high on one side, a couple of hundred paces away. On the other the wild land extended for half a league or so before falling sharply away. A small spinney with a little rill tumbling through provided basic shelter. Juson and two of the Abyss warriors began to gather wood and kindling for a fire while Dembarl prepared meat and doughbread to cook. Leth took himself off alone. He settled himself with his back against a tree, brooding deeply.
She had seemed so real. Even now he could not wholly persuade himself that what he had experienced was entirely illusory. The encounter had seemed replete with meaning. The sight of Issul had thoroughly thrown him, but had uplifted him also. It still did. As though, somehow, somewhere, she was alive, even though the evidence was stacked against this being so.
But what conclusion was he to draw from what he had witnessed? Issul had plainly been in danger. Who were the men he had seen pursuing her? Did this vision have some basis in reality, or was it, after all, nothing more than phantoms cast up out of the eerie properties of the meadows?
Leth heaved a leaden sigh, shaking his head. He wondered for his sanity, not for the first time. A profound melancholy was settling upon him, such that he found himself questioning his ability to carry on.
What is the meaning, the purpose of all this?
A twig cracked close by. Leth looked up to see Count Harg standing over him. 'Rasgul is concerned that you have placed yourself too far from us, Swordbearer. Dark things prowl the Abyss, especially after nightfall. Come. A fire blazes and meat is sizzling.'
'In a moment,' said Leth.
He watched Harg walk back to join the others around the fire. Darkness was almost complete now. The men were glimmering silhouettes, touched by the fire's orange glow. Leth felt intensely alone. These men, these warriors, no matter their capabilities, were slaves of another, and enemies to him. They might not know it, but they were each in large part the servitors and bound creatures of the Noeticist, Urch-Malmain.
What had they been before? Harg had been a noble, by station and nature. Of the others Leth knew too little to guess. But they were wholly in Urch-Malmain's grip now. They obeyed Leth's commands, even demonstrated concern for his welfare. They would to the best of their abilities escort him safely to his objective. That is, to Urch-Malmain's objective.
And then?
Leth climbed wearily to his feet. He could afford no sense of comradeship, no respect or affection for these men. Nor, he reasoned, was he right to truly despise them. They did not know what they did. They knew only that they had to do it. And he wondered whether the time would come, quite soon now, when he would find himself pitched against them.
iv
With the funereal light of morning the group rose. They re-kindled the fire and ate a breakfast of porridge and corn-cakes, then set off for Ardbire Keep, where dwelt the giant, Cerb Two-Heads. By Rasgul's reckoning the keep lay a matter of three leagues away.
The road continued its descent along the edge of the great Death Abyss. Sometimes it was narrow and treacherously steep, clinging to the vertical Abyss wall; elsewhere it traversed heath and woodland which spread wide before them. Always, ahead or off to the side, the Death Abyss yawned, its lowest point never quite visible. And in the furthest, lowest reach, illuminating the mists where earth seemed to dissolve into air, was a stain, a blot, a dark reddish glo
w which somehow Leth knew must be the place he was making for.
Sombre woodland loomed before them and the way narrowed, becoming the faintest trail which plunged into the woody fringe. Count Harg brought his horse alongside Leth's. 'Cerb Two-Heads residence is but a short way ahead now. My advice to you is to say nothing unless you are called upon. Let Rasgul conduct all negotiations, aided by myself if required. Above all, make no mention of the wolfheart cub. Cerb will stamp and froth and worse if he learns he has been deprived of such a rare delicacy.'
The trees grew taller and more closely packed, their canopy shutting out what little daylight there was, so that the way became dim. The path grew progressively more damp, then sodden. Patches of stinking black mud and gleaming water appeared between the boles of the trees; heavy grey moss festooned the limbs. Little by little the great trees now began to thin slightly due to the wet, insecure footing. Their forms grew more stunted. Though this helped dispel the dimness to some degree, layers of still white mist now hung over the land, hindering and bedevilling the eye.
The path upon which the seven rode took on the character of a narrow, natural causeway traversing a broad tract of bogland, and quite suddenly the dour grey walls of Ardbire Keep loomed high before them out of the murk. The Keep was lodged on a low flat hillock heaving out of the dark mass of the marsh. A gatehouse with high iron portcullis faced them, to which the path led straight. The Keep's outer wall, formed of massive granite blocks, stood forty feet high, shrouded in mist; behind it was the donjon itself, a huge hunched square edifice, mightily fortified, rising another fifty feet behind it. Several smaller turrets of varying heights and dimensions clung untidily about its crown.
The seven rode along the causeway to the great portcullis. Rasgul called out in a loud voice, 'Ho! Your Honour, Mighty Lord Cerb!'
There was a clanking above them, and from the battlements of the gate-tower a lizard-like head capped with a steel helmet peered down. 'Who are you? What do you want?'
'We are seven travellers, en route for the Lower Abyss. We humbly seek admittance to the mighty Lord Cerb's keep, and his permission to exit by the second gate, that we may continue on our journey.'
'Hmm,' said the lizard-soldier, looking them over with a mistrustful eye. 'Have you brought anything with which to barter for your safe passage?'
'Nothing, save tales of our recent travels in the High Lands,' replied Rasgul with a cool sideways glance at Leth.
'Lord Cerb has heard tales before,' rasped the lizard-head dismissively.
'Ah, but none so recent as ours, I would wager.'
'That may be so, but it is of no account if your tales fail to rise above the usual ruck of travellers’ reminiscences. Be warned, Lord Cerb extends no mercy to those who bring him bland and uninspiring anecdotes.'
'We believe Lord Cerb will have heard none as interesting as ours, for we are only just returning from the High Lands. Moreover, he is unlikely to have knowledge of the wonderful quest we are engaged upon.'
'Quest? What sort of quest?
'With respect, that must be for Lord Cerb's ears only. Yet you might tell him that it is a quest he might well be tempted to join us on. Indeed, we would be honoured by his company.'
'Hmph!' The lizard-head scratched his snout. 'Well, you may enter, I suppose, and wait within the ward while I inform His Grace of your arrival. But your tale had better be good. Lord Cerb's patience has grown thin.'
'Have no fear of that.'
The lizard-head withdrew and the porcullis was raised with tortured groans and rattles. The seven entered the ward before the great donjon itself. The portcullis was lowered again. Leth cast his eyes around and saw more lizard-headed guards on the parapets and elsewhere within the walls. They carried spears and shortswords, and in some cases bows, and wore mail shirts and leggings with, here and there, steel breastplates. Set into an adjoining wall some eighty yards away was another portcullis and gate.
'There is our freedom,' said Rasgul, aside. 'Let’s hope that Cerb is in good humour.'
A high double-door at the head of a flight of steep stone steps opened and out of the donjon strode the first lizard-soldier. 'His Gracefulness is willing to see you. Dismount, if you will, and step this way.'
Rasgul nodded to Leth and Harg. 'You two come with me. The others can remain here.'
The three followed the lizard-man through the door. They passed along a dim, high-ceiling corridor which stank of boggy-damp and ages of decay mingled with a faint taint of rotten food. Turning to the right they entered an immense hall. A huge oak table and benches occupied the centre of the floor. The ceiling was lost in the shadows overhead. Several suits of rusting armour stood before two of the walls. Various over-sized ornaments and vessels were placed here and there with little sense of order. In a huge vault of a hearth a hearty log-fire blazed. Before it stood the giant, Cerb Two-Heads, staring into the flames.
The lizard-headed guard strode foward in front of Leth and his companions, then halted and hammered the stock of his spear against the stone floor. 'The visitors, Excellence.'
The nearer of Cerb's two heads turned and surveyed Leth and the other two with a lugubrious eye. The second head continued to gaze into the fire.
'So I see,' the first head boomed. Massive in size, it was the head of a fair-haired man in middle-age. Big, drooping, fleshy purple lips showed a few crooked, decaying teeth. The eyes were round and pale-grey, set deeply beneath a gnarled and nobbled brow. A sallow tinge characterized the skin, which was heavy and slack and deeply seamed. The face was dominated by a large crooked nose, and the chin was broad and split with a deep dark cleft. The fair hair fell almost to the shoulders in lifeless greasy hanks. Leth could not make out the second head, other than a darker brown mass of hair at the back of the skull.
Cerb himself stood twelve feet high. His body was bulky and strong, his chest like a massive water butt, arms and legs as thick as ash boughs. He wore a heavy brown linen shirt, oatmeal coloured trousers and loose leather boots.
The first head peered for some moments at Leth, Rasgul and Harg, each in turn, then said, 'Well, I understand you plan to divert me. You have a quest. Is that so?'
'Indeed it is, my lord,' replied Rasgul. 'We are engaged upon a venture which we believe will have much appeal to the great and mighty Cerb.'
'Is this venture exciting enough to divert me from my discussions with my self?' enquired the first head.
'We would think so.'
The second head jerked upright and made a scoffing sound. 'That I doubt!'
'No, don't interrupt!' the first head retorted.
Now the giant turned away from the fire to face the three full on, and Leth was able to view the second head. In contrast to the first this was the head of a creature seemingly produced from a mingling of human, ogre and possibly other things. It had small, dark fierce purple eyes and a long twisted nose. The lower jaw was thrust forward, so that the lower teeth extended beyond the upper. Dark brown hair was pressed down upon a broad, heavy skull.
'We have entertained visitors like yourselves on previous occasions, and never have you given us a quest nor anything else worth leaving Ardbire Keep for,' the second head declared angrily. It peered closely at Rasgul, 'In fact, you look familiar to me. Have you passed through here before?'
Before Rasgul could reply, the first head spoke again in a milder tone. 'No, I think not. I have never seen this fellow before.'
'You were probably asleep,' said the second head.
'No, I think it is rather that your eyes and memory play you false. I have told you before, these matters are best left to me, for those very reasons.'
'My eyes are perfectly functional, my memory intact,' spat the second head. 'And I say I have seen this fellow before. I tire of this, anyway. His quest can be of no possible interest.'
'That is what you always say, without even paying me the courtesy of hearing what the quest might entail. I believe that to join these valiant fellows on a quest that might take us
far and wide would be very interesting indeed. It is a long time since we have left the Keep.'
'Not so! Not so!' fumed the second head. 'There is nothing these men can say that would interest us.'
'Now there you go again, speaking for me as though I have no opinion of my own.'
'Bah!' Cerb's second head scowled. 'Always you have to try to gainsay me. Why? Why can you never agree with anything I say?'
'Ah now, I think it is rather the other way around,' frowned Cerb's first head. 'You must surely admit that. No matter what I say or what views I hold, no matter what I even think, I can always rely upon you to find fault with it.'
The second head shook irritably from side to side. 'Not so! Not so at all! But I was quite happy here, gazing into the flames and thinking my quiet and serene thoughts. I am aggrieved at the disturbance, and I do not want to embark upon any quest or adventure.'
'Well, there you've said it!' declared the first head. 'You simply do not want to bestir yourself, no matter the reason. You are indolent, a dreamer and stay-at-home.'
'Not so! But I desire no surprises nor forays into foreign lands, nor adventures of any kind beyond the gates of Ardbire Keep. You know that as well as do I.'
'And I am tired of never going out!' declared the first head peevishly.
At this point Leth witnessed something extraordinary. It seemed that Cerb, being in disagreement with himself, tried to go two ways at once. That is, the second head turned away to regard the flames, and tried to take its body back with it. But the first head was inclined to move away from the fire towards the three men, and thus resisted the second head's effort. A struggle ensued, with each neck straining to draw the colossal body in the direction it wished to go. Cerb's body, drawn simultaneously in two directions, shuffled, twisted and lumberingly danced but remained essentially in one place.
Cerb's two mouths puffed and blew, then began to curse one another. The heads turned and glared each other in the eye. The four cheeks grew red, the two pairs of eyes bulged as the body strained to go two ways at once and its mighty muscles took it nowhere but in a slow, arduous circle. The eyes flashed; spittle flew.