Swords v. Cthulhu

by Jesse Bullington

  “I am asking for the only chance I can find to save my brother, the path my Queen of Heaven has placed before me.”

  Aude put her hands on either side of Fierabras’s face, and felt his tears stream over her fingers. Then he kissed her gently on the forehead and took off his own rings to give to her.

  “I will meet you back at the Frankish camp when this is all over.”

  “Aude… ”

  From outside the tent they heard someone address the prince.

  “Go, before they find both of us in here.”

  Then he said, “I’m so sorry.”

  Aude trembled as she watched Fierabras dress in the monk’s habit and then slip out the back, glancing one more time at her before vanishing.

  Horns sounded in the distance. Olivier’s horn. There was just one more thing to do.

  The scepter was smaller than she had imagined, barely the length of her forearm, and encased in a coffin-like leaden container. The rod was made of a dark metal, the sides rough, as if it had been scraped into being from a larger piece of ore. Upon the end was, as Fierabras had said, a shriveled hand. More like a claw.

  A voice at the door commanded something in a language Aude didn’t understand, and in her fear she reached out and grasped the scepter. As she did, it grasped her back.

  Aude had expected a sensation of growing, but it was far from that. The little talons of the scepter dug deep into her hand, piercing through skin and wiggling in between her bones. The pain traveled up her arms like liquid ice in her veins, stopping just short of her heart.

  Then she was ripped in half. Part of her swelled and grew and filled with fury, she could sense that on the edge of her mind, almost as if her being had transformed into a second melody to the song of her soul. But there was no true consciousness there, just an awareness of its rage and fury. The giant.

  Her mind, her self as she knew it, was pulled down into a separate plane of existence. This raw, black world smelled of loam and mold — the roiling chaos that Fierabras spoke of with such fear. If she concentrated hard enough, she could see through the mist a gathering of shadows, the one that was now her body and the approaching army of the Franks. And Olivier, too. His sword, Hauteclere, glittered brightest of all. For only a moment, though, before the blackness thickened.

  Olivier had not been prepared for such a sight, in spite of Floripas’s warning. Upon seeing the giant, he wished that Roland had been selected for this task, and then hated himself for such a thought. Roland had the stomach for this sort of thing, for these hulking beasts and horrors out of Revelation.

  A giant it was, surrounded by yellow-accoutered monks, all humming in a low chant. It rose close to twelve feet high, with sloping shoulders covered in boil-covered skin, pock-marked, and the color of curdled milk. From its mouth emitted an unholy stench; Olivier found his eyes watering through his visor. Sulfur, perhaps. This giant who was once Fierabras had but one eye, black and pupil-less, and Olivier could never tell where it was looking. He suspected that it got on better by scent than by sight, anyway, the way it sniffed the air with its huge muzzle, somewhat more like a pig’s snout than a man’s face. Coarse brown hair covered its body, across its oddly sunken chest and down its vast, muscle-corded arms. For all its mass, it still moved with surprising agility.

  Olivier was not a born warrior; unlike Roland, who was at his happiest when he was hilt-deep in a Saracen. For Olivier, fighting required intense focus. Every step he had to think. And he had never been faced with such an adversary, let alone one ringed by nefarious, pagan priests. The more they chanted, the more difficult it was for Olivier to concentrate.

  Olivier. She could sense him now. Even brighter than Hauteclere. Because she was hurting him — or the beast her body had become was — and he was hurting her. With every blow, the blackness in which she found herself shuddered, and for a moment she could see through.

  It would pass. It would have to pass. She had to find the source of the rage, and save Olivier. She could already smell his blood.

  Aude was fumbling through her mind in the roiling darkness when she sensed someone else. One of the yellow monks. He materialized before her like a candle in the shadowed void. Part of Aude knew that such brightness ought to be a relief, but though it was golden yellow, there was an off-ness to its hue that made her afraid. It was more frightening than the darkness.

  “You are not the prince,” said the yellow monk, though the voice was in her head. “How dare you interrupt the ritual.”

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “In the eye of the beast. A world within a world. How came you to this mystery?” he asked.

  Aude knew the monk’s presence meant danger, but it also meant something else: an ebb and flow. She was not trapped as she had imagined. If they had both entered the eye of the giant, as he said, she could escape it. She could travel.

  “I came here of my own volition,” she said. “I am here to save my brother.”

  “Your brother is nothing but vermin to the Nameless,” said the yellow monk.

  “But the Queen of Heaven has sent me, and given me purpose,” Aude said.

  In that moment she conjured up the image of the Queen of Heaven as she had always imagined her. Not the mild mother to Christ, but the reigning and rightful queen, the bride of God Himself. Terrible and bright, her eyes kindled with holy fire and her hair streaming behind her, a great crown on her head made of the firmament. Part of Aude understood in that moment that She was greater than any mortal could comprehend, that She was older and more powerful and more terrifying. That all of Aude’s own prayers had gone deeper and farther than she had ever imagined.

  The churning darkness around her seemed closer to that version of the Queen of Heaven, the one she was understanding now for the first time.

  “I see,” said the yellow monk, and then he dissipated.

  Where he stood was a patch of light. Aude, what was left of her, followed it. As she moved, it moved. One step, another. The strange yellow light illuminated little as it bobbed ahead. But it was better than being trapped in the dark.

  There was blood in his eyes. Olivier lost track of time, of his many parries and blows, of how many times he had fallen. But the beast, this giant named Fierabras, did not relent. He could wound it, draw its blood, but only water came out of its wounds. And that fetid stench. And sorrow and blackness. There were others watching — Charlemagne himself had arrived, eager for the spectacle, and Roland besides, and Turpin and the other peers — but where?

  Aude came upon two figures then, in this world between worlds. One had the form of a woman, but in her face shone a thousand eyes, and from her swollen belly grew a thousand legs; a baby goat suckled at her breast. The other was a king, ensconced in a pillar of yellow flame. Behind him there was more to behold, tendrils reaching out like the arms of a starfish, hungry and wanting.

  “You have come into his domain, child,” the woman with a thousand eyes said.

  Aude heard her voice and remembered it. The Heavenly Mother. Her Queen of Heaven.

  “I followed your path,” Aude said, her voice no more than thought in the void.

  The flaming king flickered and expanded, then retreated again to the same size as the woman. “You have interrupted.”

  “I saved a boy who was afraid,” Aude said. “I am here to help my brother.”

  Fear was no longer something she was capable of, her body still transformed and infused with rage. She held onto that rage, even through the dark void between her soul and her flesh. She could smell the blood, her brother’s blood.

  “Death is coming on the wings of war,” said the crowned pillar of fire. “You may spare the life of your brother, but it does not come without a price.”

  The monster’s blow came so fast — so unpredictable and wild — that Olivier did not have time to react. And he was too tired, even if he had wanted to make a show of it. How did Roland manage this, day in, day out, always pitted against the greatest and the gr
andest warriors?

  Olivier felt certain that his name would not be remembered in any song, an unremarkable warrior beaten to a bloody pulp, while fat, jaundiced king Balan looked on and Charlemagne grunted in disgust into his beard.

  He struck the ground and was lost.

  Aude gasped to see the figure of her brother appear, floating before the yellow figure in the fire. The king had no face, but he was smiling.

  “I will spare him, but you must give me a boon,” he said.

  The Queen of Heaven agreed, though she said no words.

  “I will do anything,” Aude said.

  In this darkened realm, Aude saw the dripping blood on her brother’s brow, sensed the pain. But the rage did not go away. The beast on the other side of her mind was closing in to destroy this brilliant man, at all costs.

  “You are bound to the man Roland,” said the burning king, as if discovering a great secret. “You are promised to him. Pledge your bond to me, and link your life to his, and I will give you power over the beast.”

  “And I will take you, when the time comes,” said the Queen of Heaven. “And you will rise at my side, a suckling child among the thousand eyes.”

  Aude hesitated. Roland was the greatest of all the peers, but he was forever in the path of death. Such a pact would tie her forever to his fate. And the heaven she imagined… Well, none of that was worth it if Olivier lay dead by her hand.

  She would be consigned to a fate of madness, of eternal vigilance. Olivier would live.

  “What must I do?” asked Aude.

  The Queen of Heaven turned her eyes upward. “You need only to say the words. You know them. You have always known them.”

  The vision of Olivier intensified, and Aude saw his eyes see her and know her. But he was looking up into the face of the giant, and that was madness.

  The beast stopped mid-blow and Olivier fled back from the dream of doom. Above him the beast fell back, raising its shaggy head to the skies. It said something incomprehensible, and seemed to gasp and cry, and then: “I relent! I give myself to the Heavenly Mother, and bind myself and my betrothed to the Nameless. I relent.”

  Then it fell.

  Aude awoke to the familiar sound of Turpin clearing his throat. She reached up, and he grabbed her hand.

  “I saw her. I saw the Queen of Heaven,” said Aude.

  “You need to sleep.”

  Aude was changed. There was another thing inside of her. A promise that burned like acid. That would be there until it was released when, upon the field at Roncevaux, Roland would be cleaved into two. She saw it. She knew it.

  “Your brother would like to see you,” Turpin said.

  “Does he know?”

  “Yes, Fierabras told me. We managed to spirit away… the creature… you… your… whatever it was.” He was sweating more than usual. His voice sounded broken, afraid.

  “Then he is safe. Good,” said Aude.

  “Balan’s forces retreated as soon as the giant fell, but his son and daughter are among us now. Fierabras says he has been healed of the affliction, the yellow priests have vanished, and he has dedicated himself to the Mother of God and Christ Almighty.”

  Her body was once again her own. Bruised and tattered, her skin felt boiled. But it was still hers. “The scepter?”

  “Fierabras has kept it. He says it no longer works.”

  “You knew?”

  “I suspected. I have made my blood oaths too, Aude.”

  Every breath burned, but it was her own pain. Her own lungs. The promise she had given still seared at her, but she suspected in time she would become accustomed to it.

  Aude looked up at the ceiling, admiring the bright paint. Her old room. The room she had left as a meek child. Now she was not only a woman, but also a changed creature. Forever bound to Roland in a way he would not understand.

  “Aude… what happened?”

  “I told you. The Queen of Heaven saved me, and I saved my brother. And you saved me too. Go home. Take Maugris in your arms and tell him you love him, and forget about me.”

  “Aude… ”

  “Thank you, Turpin. I’d like to sleep now. For quite a while, I think.”

  And she closed her eyes, opening them in her dreams to a thousand more.

  The Living, Vengeant Stars

  E. Catherine Tobler

  Sleeping upon the ancient Camorian ice shelf with the northern winds ghosting down the mountains, Elspeth Ernine was warmer than she should have been, given the dark man enfolding her from behind. She tried to elbow him in the ribs, but he didn’t have ribs. He had a mouth, a terrible gaping hole, and he pressed it against her ear as the others in the party slept undisturbed.

  Soon, he whispered, and Elspeth shifted away from the voice even as he wormed closer, darkness made damp and corporeal. Within a fraying dream, he showed Elspeth the next place he meant for them to go, a temple shattered into and across a river churning with gelatinous masses of entrails and eyes. The stench of the place enveloped her as the dark man did.

  Had killing the invisible horror of S’tya-Yg’Nalle not been enough? Never enough, the dark man said, and Elspeth understood the enormity of what he wanted of them; saw in the far distance the colossal, tentacled beast slumbering beneath green waters, bound to the prison stones with chains as thick as tree trunks. This was the goal. These others paved the way, weakened the Great One as he slept unknowing. Why should I serve any longer? the dark man rasped.

  Elspeth flinched at the touch of the dark man’s not-hands on her arm, and shifted in her roll, to come face to almost-face with him. From her side she drew Feymal, the blade said to have issued from the unknowable depths of Holy Wood, seemingly wrought for her hand alone. She pressed its lustrous edge against whatever darkness served as his throat. They needed no words — touching was forbidden him. She would fight for him, because alone she could not overcome the horrors of Lowenhold Prison, the place that bound her sister. She would go for her and her alone, slaying whatever horror she must to get there.

  In a dissipating cloud of ink, he withdrew from one world and into another. Elspeth’s gray eyes flicked open to regard the cold, flat sky above. Snow blew down, soft flakes that would never amount to much more than a slippery layer of challenge to the morning’s journey. She had no desire to leave the warmth of her sleeping roll, but watched as Beryl Ghostsign did, feeding the meager breakfast fire.

  “Have you dreamed?” Ghostsign asked.

  “I dreamed.” Elspeth withdrew the crumpled scroll from her leather bodice. She pushed herself up on her elbows, to spread the map before her. As had happened before, the route they were to take had been marked by her dreaming self, showing a path across the ice shelf.

  “The River Tayl,” she said.

  Ghostsign exhaled her complaint into the chill morning air; Elspeth silently shared the sentiment. The river might be in a warmer region, but was known for its swamps and insect-laden air. Ghostsign shoved the remains of their leaf-wrapped rabbit into the coals and rocked back on her heels.

  “It must be done.”

  Elspeth watched her gather her gear, their three other companions beginning to stir from their sleeping rolls. They had been a much larger party not long ago, but monster by monster, they had lost members. Elspeth could not help thinking they had been culled, winnowed from an awkward bunch of primarily fighters to a select group of women who were masters of their crafts. Had the dark man planned it this way?

  The others knew of him — he had appeared to them all in the tavern a fortnight earlier, promising wealth and adventure if they took up his quest. The quest was death, plain and simple, and though the women had not known each other beforehand, they had grown to like each other well enough. Each was something to behold, possessing battle techniques Elspeth had not encountered prior to this adventure. She longed to know each woman better, but this was absurd. If they were all to die, what was the point? Perhaps, she decided, that was the point — to know their ways before they wer
e lost to the world. To preserve and keep what they knew, to see some part of them carried into the inscrutable future.

  Elspeth knew she could not be alone in having a secondary reason for making the arduous journey — people were rarely so single-faceted, and this kept her vigilant; any could turn for reasons none knew. They knew not of her sister, and Elspeth wondered whether they would think her judgment compromised if they knew she sought a treasure other than gold. But a person who wanted wealth or power? Such a person could never be trusted; Elspeth learned that the day her parents sold her.

  Winseris, their keen-eyed archer, rose from her sleep, barely rumpled from the hours spent abed. She dragged her fingers through her long fall of black hair, her face porcelain-pale in the cold morning. The cold did not disagree with her, Elspeth thinking her some great winter queen of old.

  “You dreamed?”

  Her black eyes rested upon Elspeth and Elspeth nodded. Elspeth showed her the map, and Winseris sneered at the path, an expression strange and uncommon upon her queenly features.

  “And what horror shall we find there?”

  Of the monster they sought, Elspeth knew little. “I saw only fragments, a black figure in the swamp, hundreds and hundreds of bodies writhing in the mud.” As she spoke the words, sickness washed through her and she bent her head between her knees. Disturbing images assaulted her mind, as if once she had thought on the thousand figures — the thousand young — she could not put them aside. They were hideous, bent and struggling to rise, pushing themselves from the mud as if being born from it. Elspeth retched until Keelan Basher pushed a waterskin into her hands.

  The dwarf was perhaps the kindest of those left, but there was something of her Elspeth could not quite fathom. For no reason Elspeth could discern, the dwarf held herself back in battle — dwarves were said to be fierce, and Basher was, but there was something she had not quite given herself over to, something yet beneath the surface.