Swords v. Cthulhu

by Jesse Bullington

  Mauno’s gaze returned to the throng of women that flanked his court.

  “It will not do,” he said. “The bishop will fail. We need a wizard. Who among you can find one?”

  There were gasps, then silence and discomfort. Eyes darted, but none made reply.

  “Father, I can fetch you a wizard,” said Princess Aili, stepping forward. Even in the shadows of the hall her golden hair seemed woven of summer sunlight.

  Mauno’s ringed fingers clutched more desperately at the throne. Chipped nails chiseled at embedded bird beaks.

  “This troubles me, Daughter, but in truth comes as no surprise. I would dissuade you, but I have spent half a lifetime with you. And with your mother. I have learned better. Take my personal guards. Bring the wizard to me. The fate of our people cannot be left to the false god of the invader. Henrik may collect taxes and bribes as well as any Birkarl — but I fear the power he wields does not extend beyond the bridge of his nose.”

  “I will not fail you, Father. I would avenge my mother, our queen, as readily as you. Sooner, given my way.”

  Then, turning to the court before her, “Hounds and horses! I’ll need you four and no more. We return with the wizard or sleep forever in graves of snow!”

  But as she clutched the white fur cloak tighter around her strong young frame, Aili knew it would take all her wiles to convince Tähti to stand before Mauno.

  II

  Tähti’s bodice was laced tight in soft brown leather. The room was vault black save for the crawling runes. Sigils flickered like candlelight over every hand of wall, ceiling, and floor. A single lantern hung from a taut chain. It was the only stable object in a room that swam in darkness and firefly symbols. The blackness ebbed and rocked like a ship on autumnal tides or the stretching of a moonlit beach seen through a glass bottle bottom.

  Tähti stood deep in concentration and ceremony. But that focus was broken by the sound of hoofbeats. A thick tapestry riddled with dark constellations stitched into velvet voids was drawn aside. Ice wind fled within the tower window in search of warm life to extinguish. Tähti watched Aili dismount her steed, a bodyguard at each shoulder. Both gripped cruel axes on hefty wooden poles. These two men crept out of sight in either direction. Tähti was unsure which emotion to embrace — the annoyance, the amusement, or the dagger-tip of danger. The tapestry fell back into place, slicing off the wind’s tendrils from its great invisible vastness.

  Aili approached the narrow portcullis of the tower. Pale stone rose out of the groundsnow. It looked like a bleached skull with a lantern jaw. The thick wooden door behind the barred maw of the tower swung aside, but the metal gate stood fast.

  “Princess Aili. You were not expected for another moon. But if you come again in friendship, then I am more than happy to extend my hospitality to you. And to your sneaking soldiers.”

  “Shush, Tähti. Cannot your welcome be sincere? I have longed to see you again.” With that, Aili approached the bars, gripped them with her gloved hands, and kissed the wizard. The cold of the metal gate made her cheeks flush even as her lips bloomed with warmth and the taste of herbs and incense.

  “Such sweetness,” said Tähti. “Call your dogs in from the cold. I shall welcome the three of you.”

  Inside, the guards eyed Tähti with suspicion. They were clearly upset at marching in the front rather than scaling the icy back wall. Such is the folly of warriors, thought Tähti. There was a fire in the courtyard. Hot lingonberry mash, hard bread, soft cheese, and mulled wine would occupy the men while Aili held court in the tower proper. As the princess ascended the ladder, Tähti gave her rump a pat from below. A gloved hand swatted down in response, but Tähti caught it, twisted and released it in one swift motion.

  In the starry chamber, Aili removed her gloves to massage her wrist, while Tähti lit an array of black candles. A small flame erupted straight from one curling fingernail. The smell of molten wax brought Aili pleasant memories. This parlor trick had impressed on her last visit. In the warm upper chamber, she clutched her robes close even as Tähti’s cloak seemed to disappear with a quick wrist flick. Next came the eyelock, and the embrace. And Aili’s robes fell unbidden. The kiss reignited the bonfire between them.

  Then she broke away.

  “This is not what I have come for, Tähti! Not this time. My king has need of one such as you. And you are all that I know.”

  Tähti scoffed. “Since when has a king in Kvenland had any say over its subjects? Let alone an exile such as I? I cannot be bothered. My work here is of greater import than you can imagine, my dear Aili. Come without escort next time, and I will show you many wonders. My, how fair you look... ”

  Tähti’s bare hand brushed Aili’s cheek, when a distressed manscream issued in the window from without.

  This time Tähti tore the tapestry from the hooks on which it hung. Aili stepped into the wind and saw one of her soldiers down below locked in dire combat with… what she could not say.

  “Blast you, Aili. You did not warn me of the third man. I have defenses… ”

  In the instant Tähti flicked the cloak back from nowhere to shoulders, Aili had already pulled on her gloves and rushed down the ladder.

  Outside in the scattered snow, all three warriors were engaged, circling something that shambled along. An axe was embedded in its curdling side. But the only blood on the ground was red and all too human. One warrior held a withered forearm close. The hand looked shriveled, as if caked in salt. His gaze skewered Tähti with mistrust and hatred.

  Another greataxe was lost to the creature’s moldy torso. But nothing seemed to slow it. The wound belched forth a bubbling liquid that froze in the air and fell as grey lumps into the white snow. Those lumps crawled together, fused, and disappeared into deeper drifts.

  Aili stepped forward, bitter, determined. “Bring me my broadsword!” she called. One of the warriors sprinted toward the horses and promptly returned with her weapon.

  As the fiend loomed over her men, she drew cold steel and flung aside the scabbard. Her first swing lopped off a chunk that would have left any man counting his life backward from three. She whirled for a second swing, knees bent, using the ice beneath the snow to her advantage. The great blade sunk, stuck, hit something harder than bone. Then a grey tendril snapped out and caught her wrist. The supple reindeer hide of her glove sizzled and smoked.

  Tähti stepped between the mindless servant and Aili’s ponderous troop, raising arms in the air and chanting in a language that rang of dust and sunlight unknown for thousands of leagues. The creature’s body grew swollen and took on a slight glow from within, then gradually fell into submission. First Aili was released. Then the weird thing crept back into winter, leaving two crossed axes and a broadsword piled in a smooth ring of tundra. Tähti’s arms lowered.

  Aili picked up her weapon. Tähti’s gaze lingered on the fresh notch in its blade.

  “Curse ye, witch,” said the wounded man, glowering through clenched yellow teeth and gums that seeped blood.

  “None set eyes on my watcher without uttering a cry of warning,” Tähti replied. “Such is its glamour. You should have told me there were three of you.”

  Aili rubbed her wrist again, dropped her blackened glove in the snow, and gave a grim nod. A moment later, a dazzling head blow robbed the wizard of consciousness.

  “Aye, but there were four of us,” said the wounded man to Tähti’s crumpled form.

  “The last only kept his voice because he is mute.”

  III

  Mauno slept little but did much dreaming. His life had been so simple for so long. Hedda was strong, wise, beautiful. Her temper was fierce, but such was the fate of one who married a queen. He always healed — or scarred. It mattered not. Though at times she seemed far more apt to trace his scars than humor his words and desires.

  The loss of her was so fresh. Too great to bear. Yet the alternative was to admit the weakness of his programming — to relinquish all and live a cold life of toil. No, it w
as far better to stand ready. He had watched her long enough to mirror her will.

  As the dream died, he watched her ride into the northern wastes once more... then woke in a fit to a knock.

  “Come,” he said as the tail of Hedda’s horse disappeared into the ceiling.

  “Qu… Majesty, Princess Aili returns.”

  “With the wizard?”

  “She rides with five horses and five men.”

  By the time Mauno was dressed and escorted to the great hall, Tähti had begun to stir and murmur. But the incantations were silenced with a crack to the jaw from the wounded man’s one good hand — a hand that now seemed doubled by the strength of its phantom twin. Tähti’s vision dissolved momentarily into a gyroscopic star field, then contracted into focus on the uninviting dawnface of Mauno.

  A torchbearer stepped closer to Tähti as the examination began. A robust villager called Lalli tore away Tähti’s cloak.

  Mauno leered with scorn at Tähti’s slender kneeling form. Breasts bunched into a form-fitting corset. Two lean arms with long nails were pinned back and bound. A cascade of jet-black hair ran down the full-length gown, tattered and frayed, above slender black boots.

  “I ask for a wizard, and you bring me a witch?” Mauno shouted.

  A guard handed him a mug of black morning tea, which he took and held steaming below the new white strands that striped his autumnleaf beard.

  “Which are you, then? ‘Tis a wizard we need. Speak now.”

  “Which do you fear most? For that is what I am,” Tähti answered, eyeing the one-handed man warily.

  The blow came, just as expected.

  “Father!” Aili strode before Mauno, still dirty from the night’s long ride. “Tähti is a wizard, and you would do well to woo this magic to aid our cause.”

  Just then, the door to the hall burst open, and rays of firstdawn beamed in. A silhouette stood in the doorway. Its shape left no question — the headpiece worn by Bishop Henrik was unique in Kvenland. He stood for a second, shadow against blinding sun, then collapsed in a heap.

  Henrik came to in a seat near the throne, but not on its dais. Mauno was keen that the bishop’s hat should not reach higher than his own head. It was superstition, but also something Hedda might have done. He’d mused about having the hat stolen or destroyed, just to put an end to the matter. Then Henrik regained enough of his senses to begin to babble.

  “… all die. Nothing means anything. Haystacks… not haystacks. Those were its toes!”

  Mauno stood. “Bishop. Where is your company? Did your One God intervene?”

  Henrik looked around the room in confusion, his face a canvas stretched over a ruined frame. Finally, “The Beast! It has come for your Godless lands. Only I will survive. You soulless barbarians will be swept beneath it. Engulfed! So I bore witness in the north. The Sami showed me glyphs… ancient carvings. A whole village gone. So much blood. Not haystacks… Mountains with blades for toes!”

  He looked around, begging for understanding and finding only a room full of vicissitude from those who had just begun to put faith in his cross and his beads and the lies that he believed. Scowling worst of all was a pagan girl, on her knees, dressed in black, hands bound at her back.

  Tähti spoke. “You are mad, priest. As all who gaze upon the Old Ones are.” Then turning toward the throne, “Mauno. I’ll forgive your insolence once. Return me to my tower. I never trusted your queen to leave me unmolested, either, so I hid away, I studied, and I learned much. I would have kept that knowledge for myself had your daughter not thawed my heart.”

  Shock grounded through the room, quick as lightning.

  “In defense only of Aili and myself, I have woven magicks that keep all your people out of sight. But every instant I’m away, that veil collapses, and blind eyes turn toward you. As long as I remain here, we are all in peril.”

  Mauno was silent. Considered. Decided.

  “Strip the witch!”

  One warrior grabbed Tähti’s hair. Another cut the black gown off with one long knifeswipe. Tähti’s tiny nipples were revealed. And well below them, something resembling a penis. And below that…

  “Abomination!” cried Bishop Henrik, slowly recovering a semblance of nerve.

  “So it is a wizard you’ve found us, Aili. This is an ill omen.” Mauno shook his head.

  Aili stood stunned in silence.

  “Kill it!” shrieked Henrik.

  “Good Lalli,” said Mauno, addressing the strapping farmer who had proven his fealty. “Take Henrik to the lake and clean him up. Make him eat something.”

  “My King. What of this book the witch brought?” asked Lalli. He was tall and strong, rippling arm muscles gleamed in the morning torchlight. The strength of the fields was in him. His harvest kept them from eating bark by winter.

  “Burn it,” said Mauno.

  “No!” Tähti screamed. “It… it cannot be undone by fire. There is only one way to be free of the magic in that book. Heed!” Tähti’s lip was split. Blood trickled down cleft chin.

  Lalli flipped through the pages in the black leather volume. “It is nonsense. Gibberish from the Arab lands with perverse depictions of Pohjola etched inside.”

  “And how would you rid our hall of this evil, witch?” asked Mauno.

  “There is but one way. Set it in stone, wrap it in skins, cast it afloat. Only then will its evil latch onto another,” Tähti lied.

  “Let it be done,” said Mauno. “As for this thing… I side with the priest. Slay it in the snow. Let its blood not touch the floor of our hall.”

  At this, Aili regained her composure. Queen’s blood coursed through the princess’s veins. She stamped before the throne, faced her father, found her voice.

  “Mauno! This is my prisoner. Her life is not yours to take.”

  The King squirmed on the seat he had barely begun to warm. He glanced at the elder women. In those eyes he observed only contempt. A sliver of his soul missed his wife more in that moment than any that had yet come. But no. Weakness would not do. He rose and spoke, with sneering lip and shoulders slumped.

  “Take it to the cellar and toss it to the bats. We must prepare for war. Death comes to our kingdom today!”

  Tähti began to protest, but another swift blow brought silence. Then the wizard was dragged away, and Mauno left the hall with an escort and a simulacrum of pride.

  Aili stood alone. She gazed up at the chimney as the sootsmoke sucked through it and gold light burned a halo around its edges; then she found her heart and raced outside to the prison cellar.

  IV

  Tähti sat bleeding in the frozen straw. There was no seeing the bat dung in the darkness, but neither could it be ignored. The stones of the cellar were built around a natural cavern in a hillside, choked in withered ivy and packed with ice. Only a thin sheet of daylight ramped in from the sturdy wooden door, alighting dust particles ached from bat bowels. Then the light departed and all was darkness; already the sound of clashing blades and hopeless fear was resounding from the village outside.

  “Tähti,” came Aili’s voice in a fierce whisper.

  “What trick is this, Princess? You capture me by force then come to gloat? You sold my fate as surely as you sealed that of your people.”

  “My father is a fool, and mayhap you are too. But no matter — my heart still lies with you.”

  “You… don’t reject me? You have seen… ”

  “Yes. And I only love you the more for it. I would never be parted from you, Tähti. But our world is ending here. Please, come to my aid. I need you now.”

  In the darkness, Tähti limped to the door, stumbling over old bones, and nearly retching from the smell.

  “Then free me, Aili. I will do what I can to save us.”

  “I have no key.”

  Silence. Then, “Do you have a knife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aili, to do this, I will need blood.”

  A moment later, Tähti heard Aili take in a deep and su
dden breath. Then a knife blade soaked in Aili’s blood issued through the slit in the door.

  “Stand aside, brave princess,” said Tähti.

  As Aili backed from the doorway, Tähti saw the strand of light return, stronger now as the sun rose higher in the midmorning sky.

  Aili heard a chanting from within the cellar. Then her eardrums compressed as thunder clapped. The wooden door burst into charred rubble from an eruption of crackling blue energy. As the smoke dissipated, Tähti staggered out cold and naked, blinking in the daylight. Aili wrapped her great white cloak around them both. As the warm fur touched their shoulders, she gave Tähti a little pat on the rump. Tähti leaned her bruised head on Aili’s warm, forgiving shoulder.

  The two stole to a nearby hut and found winter garb for Tähti. Aili bound her own knife wound with care. Then she stowed supplies in a bag and whistled for her beast. The herding dog obeyed and rushed to her side, and the three crept toward the village outskirts. None were watching. All bodies raced toward the hillcrest to watch the End come.

  It was as the Bishop said. There could be no word but Mountain for that which slowly dozed its way across the landscape. Each minute it grew larger and cast its shadow longer. Where warriors crossed its path there looked to be a scuffle of brambles and blood, then nothing. Where sheep stood in its way, bones crunched through reddened wool, then nothing. And still it lurched on, misshapen patches of hillside, flesh stretched wide over the bulk of crumbling castles, eyes of inhuman size popping wide and rolling blind behind thick cataracts of mucous. It was Old. And it was Hungry. Or perhaps it knew nothing of senses, only destroying out of its own unearthly nature.

  Mauno sat on horseback, in armor for the first time. A battalion of warriors rode or stood beside him.

  “Where is the bishop?” he called.

  “Slain, your majesty!”