Swords v. Cthulhu

by Jesse Bullington

  The air over the symbol trembled. The thin shell of substantiality that gave weight to our world cracked. From within the hidden depths between things, a force of pure Prima Materia reached out. Tendrils of formless void spilled from the confines of the sigil, caressed the walls of the arena, and all they touched dissolved into nothing. A far section crumbled into a landslide of broken masonry and broken bodies.

  The Colosseum erupted into bedlam. The free men and women of the Empire routed for the exits, trampling the weak underfoot. I stood, watching. It felt like looking into Titus’s eyes as he died, the same leap of joy in my chest. This well-deserved decimation would hide my disappearance when I fled tonight. I smiled as the screaming crowd rioted.

  Except the antithetical force flowing from the sigil looked to be overflowing the bounds of three-dimensionality itself. It billowed out, an infinite hunger that would swallow everything and continue outward still. This was no beast. This was universal annihilation. Fear gripped my guts.

  “The sleeper awakens,” murmured the barbarian girl beside me.

  “When… when does it stop?” I stammered.

  “Soon. Our reality ends when God awakes and shakes off this dream, chases the nightmare of this world from His mind.”

  A jolt of realization. Finally comprehension, and suddenly I couldn’t feel anything but claws of panic piercing my body. I had done this. I dashed into the tunnels, sprinting for the chamber beneath the arena’s center, directly below the heart of the sigil. The wizard’s final summoning room.

  The halls leading to the room were a charnel house of dismembered corpses and loose viscera. I couldn’t imagine what force had done this. I grabbed a spear from the body of a guard that looked to have been turned inside out, and bolted past a splintered door.

  The wizard inside hung in the air, suspended by nothing. His skin had split along every line that had been tattooed onto him, turning him into a patchwork of flesh. I didn’t hesitate, simply charged and thrust my spear straight through his chest. It burst from his back, and he sagged to the floor. The ground shook as another section of the Colosseum collapsed somewhere above us. Screams continued unabated.

  “You’re too late,” called the young voice behind me. I turned to see the barbarian translator slowly approaching. “It is time for God to rejoin His world. The real world.”

  I felt the terror of the Aurelius from my dream, the one who didn’t want to be extinguished. Everything was ending.

  “Why?” I demanded. I looked back to the wizard sprawled on the ground, spear jutting from his chest. “This world has existed for eons. We could have eons more if you let him sleep!”

  “This world is broken,” she replied. “The root of all interaction is violence. The only law is the use of force. You try to hide it under a veneer of justifications and proclamations, but even civilization is just the most powerful deciding what violence to inflict.”

  She stood beside me now as I looked down at the wizard. There was something about the lines of split skin on his body that warped my vision. I followed one with my eyes and it ran concave, but when I looked at it in whole it presented as convex.

  “Every comfort and laugh is bought with the pain of others. Every meal is born of the flesh or the toil of the vulnerable. This world must end. May the next dream be less of a horror.”

  The red lines in the dead barbarian’s skin came together to create an eldritch scrawl, and I realized they mirrored the sigil above us. They pulsed with a malevolent beat. I pulled my knife from my belt and crouched over the wizard.

  “Fuck your theology,” I spoke. “I want to live.” I pierced the wizard’s skin where two lines met and slashed upward, deforming the sigil. Something in the substance surrounding us shivered.

  “No!”

  The barbarian translator tackled me, smashing me to the ground. Pain spiked through my rectum as I landed. An elbow dug into my eye, fingers clawed at my hand gripping the knife. I heaved my legs up wildly.

  It was just enough to throw her off balance, and the elbow slipped from my face. I surged upright, or tried to — the crown of my head connected with something hard and I felt a crunch as the girl’s nose broke and spurted blood into my eyes. I yanked my head back, my skull blossomed in agony as it cracked against the stone floor. We were both worthless in combat, but her fingers had come loose when her nose had broken, and I at least had some idea what to do with sharpened metal. I jabbed wildly into her side, over and over, frantic and blind. Somewhere after the eighth puncture she slid from me. I rolled over, wiped blood from my eyes, lunged back to the wizard’s body. I slashed wildly at the red sigil etched into his flesh, breaking that blasphemous sign. The light in the room bent bizarrely, the darkness wavering. Slowly the solidity of the world began to return. The ground ceased its shaking.

  To my left the girl hacked wet coughs.

  “Only delayed… ” she gasped. “God cannot sleep forever. Why prolong this hateful… hateful… ”

  I pulled away from the wizard’s flayed corpse, put my back to a wall, and slipped the knife back into my belt with shaking hands.

  “We will find a way. With the right knowledge and magic, we can leave His mind.” My words rang hollow in my ears.

  She gurgled. I watched the young girl I’d murdered twitch, and bitterness twisted my face into a grimace. She wasn’t wrong. The final arbiter was violence. How else could a physical world work? But I didn’t want to die. I crawled to her side, took her hand, and I did the only thing I could do.

  “I am sorry,” I recited. “You had to die so that I may live. I don’t ask your forgiveness; this is the way of life. But know I wish this world was different.”

  The Final Gift of Zhuge Liang

  Laurie Tom

  Zhuge Liang was dead, and with him, Shu Han’s greatest hope of a unified China. The prime minister’s star trembled in the night sky instead of falling to Earth with the death of the great sage. Zhuge Liang had promised that it would remain until the Shu army had withdrawn, so their enemies would not know of his passing.

  But that was small comfort for Jiang Wei, who entered his mentor’s tent to pack Zhuge Liang’s possessions for travel back to the river lands. Outside, Yang Yi marshaled the soldiers in accordance with the prime minister’s final wishes. No banners of mourning would be hung, or the soldiers of Cao Wei in their fortress would know that the Sleeping Dragon now slept for good. The Shu withdrawal would be quiet, orderly. Once they were safe, then they would mourn.

  The tent flap opened again and Ma Yun stepped inside. He clasped his hands and gave a slight bow. “I thought I would find you here.”

  “Did Yang Yi send you?”

  Jiang Wei outranked Ma Yun, but the two had become friends over the six years and five expeditions that had made up Zhuge Liang’s attempts to pacify the north. Though others were contemptuous of Ma Yun and his oddly light voice, the soft timbre of a eunuch, Jiang Wei knew better. Ma Yun had been born a woman, but considered himself a man.

  “No, I am simply concerned about your wellbeing,” said Ma Yun. “My men are helping load the carts, and they do not need my oversight for that.”

  “Then you should rest. We’ll be marching soon.”

  Ma Yun knelt beside Jiang Wei and said, “We will both rest when your work is done. Do you think I could sleep when you do not?”

  Jiang Wei sighed, but handed his friend a lacquered box. “Still stubborn,” he said. “As soon as Sima Yi realizes we’ve abandoned camp, he’ll lead the Wei army in pursuit of us. The prime minister’s star will have fallen and they’ll know that he’s dead. We need time.”

  “You’ll think of something. You have been his student these past six years. There is no better strategist to succeed him, and you know these northern lands better than anyone.”

  Six years ago Jiang Wei had been an officer in the Wei army, until a paranoid commander had suspected him of collaborating with Shu. After he had fled for his life, Zhuge Liang had been the one to offer him refug
e and gave him a position in his army. Now, at the prime minister’s final request, it would be Jiang Wei’s duty to pacify the land he had once called home.

  “You could always dress a wooden figure in the prime minister’s clothes and stick it in his carriage,” said Ma Yun. “Wheel it around, and from a distance Sima Yi might think that the prime minister is still directing the battle.”

  His voice was playful, but Jiang Wei could almost take the suggestion seriously. Sima Yi’s greatest weakness was his tendency to overthink the traps Zhuge Liang had laid for him. That was why the Wei army remained safely ensconced in their fortress rather than facing Shu on the battlefield. Even the prime minister’s attempts to insult the tactician’s honor had failed in the wake of Sima Yi’s paranoia.

  Which gave Jiang Wei an idea.

  “What about this? When we withdraw Sima Yi will follow us, like a wolf after the deer. He will expect a rear guard, but he will not anticipate an ambush, not when he sees the prime minister's star fall. We’ll only leave enough men to draw him out, while the rest of the army pulls back.”

  “If he takes the Wei army out of the fortress, a single division is not going to be able to fight them all,” said Ma Yun.

  “He won’t know that. The prime minister was a master of ambuscade. If the men fight like the entire army is at their backs, Sima Yi will think we faked our retreat to draw him out. He’ll run if he believes the prime minister is still alive.”

  They could catch them in the Xiagu Pass. The Wei army would have to narrow itself to get through, and there was an overlook covered with trees that would hide ranks of archers and footmen. Give the commander enough doughty horsemen to charge through the Shu side of the pass and the Wei vanguard would feel like the whole Shu army was pressing down on them.

  Ma Yun grinned. “I see why the prime minister thought highly of you. Who else sets an ambush when they’re running away?”

  “Yang Yi would have to approve.”

  “He would gladly do so, and lead it himself.”

  And he was Ma Yun’s superior, which meant if Yang Yi led the ambush, then Ma Yun would be among those who stayed behind.

  “It’s a worthy gamble,” said his friend. “If it meant the rest of the army could escape safely, I would hold off all of Wei alone. And I trust your strategy. Few men have ever outsmarted the prime minister, and you are one of them. That is why he has entrusted all this to you.” Ma Yun indicated the whole of the tent’s interior, but that wasn’t entirely true. Jiang Wei would not replace the prime minister in political affairs, but in war the campaign plans would fall to him.

  “Will you notify Yang Yi that I wish to see him?” said Jiang Wei.

  Ma Yun clasped his hands and bowed before standing. “Yes, Commander.”

  Yang Yi was more of a minister than a warrior. Logistics was his strength, but he had good subordinates beneath him, men like Ma Yun, who could be trusted with their own judgment on the battlefield.

  Jiang Wei picked up a heavy set of books from beside Zhuge Liang’s deathbed, surprised by how the very touch of them gave him a sensation of age and decay. They shouldn’t have lain so long beside a dead man. They were so old they had been written on bamboo slats rather than paper, and the script was antiquated, in the Qin style. These were not the prime minister’s own works.

  The word Leng was inscribed on the first slat of each of the books, followed by a volume number. Jiang Wei unfolded one to find a treatise of some sort, something that the prime minister himself must have studied, but he could not ignore a feeling of wrongness about it, of something vile seeping from the bamboo.

  Zhuge Liang could read the stars better than anyone. He could call on the wind, the fog. Perhaps this was where he had learned such things.

  The book described terrible ceremonies, demons that Jiang Wei had never heard of, and obeisances that must be made to such creatures. He did not think the prime minister would have dabbled in such arts, but perhaps his enemies might. Zhuge Liang prepared for many things, and did not leave anything to chance when adequate foresight would provide.

  That was why the Shu army, although half the size of the Wei, had managed a stalemate on the Wuzhang Plains.

  Still, the rituals and symbols disturbed Jiang Wei, and he did not know this land of Leng from whence the books had come. They placed it far to the west, beyond the barbarian lands but before the palace of the Queen Mother of the West. Though Zhuge Liang had not left these books specifically for his successor, if he was to serve as the inheritor of the prime minister’s will, then he would have to understand these as well.

  It was not until he felt a hand on his shoulder that he realized he had spent more time reading than packing. Yang Yi had arrived, his lined face written with as much concern as the gray that streaked his beard.

  “The prime minister would not expect you to rise immediately as general in his place,” said Yang Yi. “Give yourself time to study. After all, he entrusted you alone with his strategies, and not until his final hour. He knows even you will need time to read them.”

  Jiang Wei bowed his head, ashamed, not because he had been found idle, but because it had not been Zhuge Liang’s stratagems he had been reading. He folded the book back. “I understand,” he said. “I only pray that Heaven does not find me inadequate.”

  Over the next few nights they left the cooking fires lit, as though the camp was still full of soldiers, while the Shu officers led the army out in stages by cover of darkness. Jiang Wei took the rear guard. His soldiers were seasoned veterans. If Yang Yi’s ambush failed, Jiang Wei’s men would still allow the bulk of the Shu army to escape, but it would be costly. He couldn’t let it come to that.

  At daybreak the day after their departure, his scouts came to him with word of Sima Yi’s pursuit. By now they had reached the Xiagu Pass and Yang Yi’s men were in position, Ma Yun among them. They would see the Wei vanguard coming on horseback soon. Jiang Wei would slow the rear guard on the other side of the pass, forcing Sima Yi’s eager soldiers to push through the ambush to reach them.

  Let the Wei tactician think that he had caught up to his fleeing foe.

  But as the sun crested the mountains, Jiang Wei did not like what he saw. A gleam on the high ground of the pass. Though swords must be sheathed and arrows still in their quivers, it was not impossible that some errant soldier’s spear had caught the light, and if he could see it, then Wei could as well. If it came to Sima Yi’s attention, then the Wei army would not enter the pass, and Yang Yi did not have enough men to take them head-on.

  In retrospect, he should have considered the sunlight, the time of day Sima Yi would catch up to them. Jiang Wei knew immediately what Zhuge Liang would have done to correct this mistake, but he was not the prime minister. He didn’t have the power.

  But he knew a little now. The second volume of the books from Leng discussed the fog.

  He ordered a soldier to the wagon that carried the materials bequeathed to him by the prime minister, and the man returned with the book placed in a satchel. Jiang Wei verified that it was the right volume before slinging the heavy bag over his shoulder. Now he just needed a suitable view of the battlefield.

  Jiang Wei called over one of his lieutenants and said, “I have a few preparations of my own before the Wei vanguard reaches the pass. I should be back shortly, but if I do not return before the ambush begins, I need you to take your horsemen to reinforce Yang Yi.”

  Some of the men cheered, believing that he would pull off a stunt equal to that of Zhuge Liang, but Jiang Wei knew better. He was not his mentor. But Shu had done much for him, given him a home when his own had cast him out.

  Jiang Wei would do what he must.

  He rode his horse to an outcropping on the southern side of the pass and carefully dismounted, holding his bladed spear. The bamboo slats clacked as he unfolded the centuries-old script and laid the book at his feet. Jiang Wei drew his knife and prayed for his parents’ forgiveness, as he had no animal that he could sacrifice i
n this moment of need.

  In a patch of dirt he drew what the book called the Sign of Qi, written with the character for air or vapor. The sign itself did not match any word he knew and the sight of it made him shiver. There was a strangeness in how the lines came together, making angles where there should be none. He could look at a portion of it and it was just a symbol, but to look at the whole invited a sinister impossibility.

  Jiang Wei sliced the fat part of his hand with his knife and clenched it into a fist, squeezing drops of blood on to the Sign of Qi.

  In the next moment, mist writhed from the shadows of the peaks and sloughed down the mountains as a thick cloud. It hid Yang Yi’s men from the Wei army below, and a moment later, hid the rest of the world from Jiang Wei.

  Then the howling began.

  Their voices did not sound like any wolves he’d heard, and he could hear the sound of feet slapping against stone and dirt. For beasts, they did not seem interested in hiding from their prey.

  Jiang Wei could barely see the ground beneath him, and sidled close to his horse, but the mare reared and screamed, eyes rolling white, and nearly kicked him as she plunged back down and galloped into the fog. It was not like her. He looked at the sign he had drawn, blood filling the crevices in unnaturally even measure, except where a single stamp of his mare’s hoof had ruined it.

  He wasn’t sure if that changed anything, any more than he had expected that the fog he called would cover him as well. It was thicker than what he remembered seeing around the overlook where Yang Yi’s men were hidden, and he had an eerie suspicion that the fog around him was different. He had not fully read the books from Leng.