by Brian Lumley
Augeren’s hands came out from under his robe. Hero had not noticed them before, but the light was marginally stronger now, the luminescence in the cavemouth a little brighter. The hands were human enough—basically—but larger, powerful; their nails were thick as blades, pointed and sharp-edged. Augeren reached out with one of those hands and Hero winced. He wanted to close his eyes, but couldn’t for his life.
The great claw of a hand went behind him, sawed at the rope tied between his bound wrists and ankles. It parted, so that his body straightened like a bow when the twine breaks. For a moment that was even greater agony, so that Hero couldn’t help but cry out. But then, as the pain began to ease, he closed his eyes, let out his air in a great gasp, allowed his sweat-soaked head to bump down on the hard rock floor.
And at length Augeren repeated: “A Leng-thing? Like the horned ones from across the gray peaks, do you mean? I have sucked the bones of Leng-things dry. They are foul, not to my liking. I am not one of them; I am not their kin; I have not come out of Leng at all. But long, long ago, I was—or my ancestors were—what you are now. I am a half-and-half thing, yes. But a Leng-thing, no.”
A half-breed! thought Hero. But what had been the other half? Out loud he said: “Who are you; where do you come from, and why do you hate human beings?”
Augeren’s strange sob sounded again. Hero couldn’t decide if it was a real sob, the sound of genuine grief, or a sort of suction as the monster drew air around that ghastly tool in its malformed mouth.
“Quester,” said Augeren, “in a little while I must kill you, as I’m sure you know. The juices of your bones will be rich, and I shall grow strong on them. But I would kill you anyway, for you are correct: I do hate you, all of you. But there’s a burden on me and I want it lightened, and perhaps it would be made less if I told my tale. Also, with you there is no need to make a quick end of it. You are tired, tied, helpless; more important, you make no outcry. For much as I hate you, I would hate futile cries for assistance even more. Aye, and you are curious about me. You despise me, perhaps fear me, but still you are curious. Very well, listen:
“For as long as is remembered, the men of Inquanok have kept apart from the men of other lands. They say it is because they are a race apart, that the blood of gods flows in their veins. Also, they are secretive, so that their ways may not be copied by outsiders; they keep their laws and rituals to themselves.
“What is more, for almost as long as is remembered there have been Veiled Kings of Inquanok, though commoners have never understood the system of succession, or indeed the origins, of their Veiled Kings. Likewise the priests of these kings, or of the gods they worship; theirs, too, is a cryptic genesis. But the laws of the kings, and the way they are applied by priests and officials, are known and understood very well indeed. Inquanok does not have much by way of crime or sin, for its punishments are severe. Let me explain:
“A thief in Inquanok has the offending hand cut off. If he persists his other hand is amputated. After that he thieves no more. Cheats are ‘cheated’—that is to say, everything they own is taken from them, so that they must start over again. Murderers are escorted to the temple, where the Veiled King’s priests receive them. They go in but do not come out. Do you understand?”
“The punishment fits the crime,” said Hero. “The rest of dreamland’s populated regions have similar measures, though rarely so harsh.”
“Ravishment, too, carries a harsh penalty,” Augeren continued. “Perhaps the most severe. A man accused of rape is stripped naked and banished north.”
“North?” Hero frowned. “But … nothing lies to the north. Certainly nothing hospitable. Only the quarries, the foothills rising to the gray barrier peaks, with unknown lands beyond and finally Leng. If a man is banished north he usually dies, or lives like a leper in the lee of the gaunt gray peaks, on roots and berries and whatever he can trap. Or climbs and probably falls, else is taken by Shantaks or gaunts …”
“ … Or wins through and descends the far side, to face the unknown terrors of whatever wastelands await,” Augeren carried it on. “And perhaps gradually ascends to Leng—there to be captured, tortured, finally devoured by almost-humans. Aye, and if he does none of these things but sneaks back into Inquanok … then he is taken to the temple.”
Hero nodded. “Let no man ravish in Inquanok,” he said.
“And yet they do, from time to time,” said Augeren. “One tot too many of muth; or a woman whose charms are resistless, a temptress who goads and then cries out in the night; or simply a man who cannot control his lusts. And so, once in a while, another naked rapist will be found plodding north to a fate undreamed. And all such men, you understand, lusty types, and some even bestial.”
“Most, I should think,” Hero agreed.
“The gaunts get them usually,” said Augeren matter-of-factly. “Not Shantaks, gaunts. The Shantaks fear night-gaunts, and many of the latter who dwell on high, in the peaks, are trained, which makes them especially dreadful creatures to the Shantaks. No Shantak-bird would dare take a human attempting to climb the gray peaks. Did you know that gaunts can be trained?”
“I know a youth who trains gaunts, aye,” Hero answered. “He has a power over them.”
“Others have powers, too.” Augeren sobbed again.
Hero found himself morbidly fascinated. “What do the gaunts do with the climbers they take?” he asked. “And what has that to do with you?”
“Certain caverns in the gray peaks are gates to the underworld,” Augeren answered. “Do you believe me?”
“I do,” said Hero. “Mount Ngranek on Oriab is likewise a gate to the underworld. Down there at the roots of dreamland lie the Vale of Pnoth, Zin’s vaults, black seas of pitch, great ruins without name, and many another nameless thing. I know, for I’ve been there.” He couldn’t suppress a shudder.
Augeren was impressed. “And returned unscathed! Then you’re a quester born for sure! Alas, the quest for Augeren is your last. But tell me: are you still curious about me, or should I simply kill you now and have done? For sure as the dawn draws nigh I grow hungry, and I’d as soon be filled and sleeping through the day as sat here boring you.”
The word “boring” got to Hero. “Curious?” he croaked. Somehow he managed to get his knees under him so that he kneeled, scratched his back against the rock wall behind him. “Never more so. Indeed I’m fascinated! So say on, Augeren. Except …”
“Yes?”
“First tell me what happened to my friend. The burly fellow? He’s a quester like myself, you see, and I just wondered—”
“Then stop wondering. He won’t be coming to save you.” Augeren’s many-faceted eye glittered. “He’s dead, your friend. Fell into my trap in the dark. A great pit …”
Hero hung his head, felt grief, anguish fill him like a flood. He gritted his teeth, looked up. “And did you …” he choked, “did you—?”
“No,” Augeren shook his monstrous head. “Why should I climb down there to feed on him when there was the boy’s father—or you? I kill, and then I eat. But once a body is cold, then the marrow of the bones quickly—ah!”
For Hero had turned his face away, was silently cursing into the hollow of his own shoulder, biting on the collar of his jacket. And Augeren said: “But see, now you hate me as much as I hate you.”
Hero controlled himself—a gigantic effort of will—and looked up again. He prayed that the tears in the corners of his eyes didn’t show, for he wouldn’t give this damned thing that much satisfaction, and said: “Please … please go on. The underworld. Men are taken there by gaunts. Why?”
“New blood,” Augeren answered at once. “A guarantee of continuity. They are placed where their unnatural lusts will best serve the denizens of the underworld. Especially the Lords of Luz.”
“Denizens of the underworld? Monsters d’you mean? Gugs, ghouls and ghasts and such? I don’t understand. And just who are these Lords of Luz?”
As Augeren took up the tale agai
n, so Hero commenced sawing at the rope between his wrists, slowly, painfully working its fibers against a projecting edge of the rock at his back: “Do you know what a dhole is?” the monster asked him. Saliva spurted from the corner of Augeren’s distorted mouth, driven out by his restlessly churning probe. “But of course you must know, for you’ve seen the Vale of Pnoth. Actually, I doubt if you have seen one, though perhaps you’ve been close. But to actually see a dhole is to die—usually. And yet I have hunted dholes and killed them! Not alone, of course, but as a member of the hunt. However, let that be for now …
“Well, there are dholes in all of dreamland’s subterranean ossuaries. Wherever bones are tossed or piled or otherwise accrue, there dwell the dholes. They dwell deep down under the roots of the great gray peaks, too. Down there, in the lightless dark, they go about their curious labors, heaping the massive paleogean remains of monsters extinct since a time when dreams were in their infancy, and the dreamlands themselves were new-formed of the subconscious fancies of the first men. For there in a cavern vast as all Inquanok lies a prehistoric graveyard of beasts; and where better to find dholes, eh, than burrowing in the rustling dark of endless leagues and unknown fathoms of bones?
“But let me first describe the geography, however vertical, of the subterranean places—the better for you to understand the rest of my tale.
“If a man be borne by gaunts through the upper orifices of the gray peaks and down through those hollow mountains into the underworld—which indeed is the only way in, for the peaks are like hollow teeth in a skull—first he will find himself in Luz. Luz, therefore, is the uppermost of the land below, inhabited by the elite”—Augeren gave what sounded like a slobbery snort—“of these sunless regions. Beneath Luz, and accessible only through a fissure constantly guarded by the Lords of Luz, lie the Downs of D‘haz, where dwell the halflings of which I am one. There, too, in the walls of that mighty, tilted cave of fungi and etiolated grass, dwell the Url. They are worms big as a man—indeed their trunks are like unto the trunks of men, but their limbs are vestigial and they burrow with spadelike snouts. They live on oil seeped by the centuries through the honeycombed rocks which form the walls of D’haz … on that, and on a richer diet by far, of which more later.
“Several chimneys go down from D’haz into the great dhole ossuary, whose extent is largely unknown. It must be vast, however, for there dwell dholes in their hundreds, and with them their attendant parasites, whom you might best think of as tick-men.”
“What?” Hero stirred a little, used the opportunity to saw again at his ropes. “Tick-men? Are you talking about human parasites—on dholes?”
“Not human,” Augeren slowly shook his head. “Though they probably were, once upon a time …” And eventually he continued: “Beneath the dinosaur boneyard, on the nethermost level, there lie the Pits of the Unknown Things. Of them, quite obviously, I can tell you nothing—except that they wage constant war with the dholes and live on their flesh. Also, that the dholes in turn live on their flesh.”
Hero grimaced. “The whole thing sounds hideous,” he said. “A much-magnified hell!”
“But as yet you have not heard half!” Augeren answered. And he went on: “The gaunt kidnappers of men—they will take any man curious enough to venture to the foot of the gray peaks, you understand, and not just licentious, banished criminals—are trained by the Lords of Luz. These so-called ‘Lords’ have bred gaunts especially for the carrying of men down into the underworld. And there, in Luz, the Lords explain to such luckless men what is required of them. It is an ongoing process which has continued since the first Veiled King and his priests came out of the north into Inquanok the city, which occurred in a time immemorial. Since when there have been many Veiled Kings …”
Hero cocked his head a little to one side and frowned, sawed at his ropes, covered his sawing by repeating: “The Veiled Kings come from the north, eh? Into which you seem to read a special meaning …”
“You will see, quester,” answered Augeren. “You will see.”
“I see part of it already,” said Hero. “I think. But if what you’ve told me is true, and if I’m correct in what I’m beginning to suspect … why do the men of Inquanok accept Veiled Kings at all? And why do they continue to banish men north?”
“But the men of Inquanok do not know of this underworld,” answered Augeren. “Indeed, you are the first man to know of it who has not been there. They do not know where the men they banish go to, only that this banishment is the decree of the Veiled King and his priests; and in any case, who are they to question such things? And why should they dream to question the origin of their Veiled Kings, eh?”
Hero lolled against the wall of the cave, worked harder at his ropes. His wrists were on fire now, for he dared move only them and not his arms. He dreaded that, as the light improved with dawn which must surely break at any moment, then Augeren would see the faint jerking of his muscles, his twitching face, the sweat on his neck in the vee of his shirt which was no longer cold or spawned of fear. “Tell me more,” he said.
Augeren nodded, but a little reluctantly, Hero thought. “I grow weary,” the monster said, stretching. “Still, I ate well and slept a little in the night, and indeed I have unburdened myself somewhat. And since the tale is begun I might as well finish it.” He shrugged. “You have until then. What is a little time, after all?”
“To you, not very much,” Hero answered, making light of it. “To me, a great deal.”
Augeren did something with his horrific face which might have been a smile. “You are a brave man,” he said, “for which reason, when it is time, I shall make a quick end of it. Until then …
“This is what the Lords of Luz tell their newly arrived prisoners: that they are to be taken down into D’haz and there penned with female tick-things, taken when their host dholes are slain! There will be progeny—halfling progeny—and as long as this continues, as long as a man can father halflings on the tick-women, so long shall he live. But if he cannot, or will not … then his bones will be broken and him lowered through one of the many chimneys into the dhole ossuary.”
Hero was aghast, his mouth a round “O” in his face. “This is monstrous!” he finally declared.
“The entire underworld would seem monstrous,” Augeren nodded, “to a man like you, used only to the sane, safe places of the dreamlands.” Hero might have argued the point there, but: “Let me tell you more,” Augeren continued.
“Halflings like myself—and yet greatly unlike myself—go down into D‘haz and hunt dholes. When they kill a dhole the carcass is netted and drawn up through a chimney into D’haz. Like carrion insects, the halflings drag the huge body up ramps hewn in the walls, and into cavern abattoirs there—in fact they are not abattoirs, for the dholes are already dead, so let us simply call these caves blood-houses. There the dhole bodies are pulped until their juices flow down runnels into the rocks, mix with the ages-seeped oil there and—”
Hero gulped, cried out, “I know, I know!” And, stomach heaving at the thought, he said: “The Url worms in their burrows slurp it up! Thus the halflings feed the Urls!” Then, dreading the answer his question must bring, he nevertheless asked, “But why do they feed them?” And to himself: All you gods of dreams, if you really do exist, please give me strength to bear this horror out to its end!
“Why do halflings tend and feed Urls?” Augeren thrust his face a little closer. “Because the Lords of Luz command it! Any halfling who fails in his duties risks broken bones and a one-way trip to the cavern of the dholes. That is why. And why, you are wondering, should the fate of great, pale, mindless worms be of any concern to the Lords, eh?”
“Why indeed?” Hero felt faint. Augeren’s breath was a stench.
“Because the Urls are the next in the chain, the next phase!” the monster hissed. “The next step in the descent to monarchy.”
He sobbed in the light which crept ever stronger into his lair; and such was the horror of Augeren’s face
that Hero fixed his gaze beyond it, on the bare rock wall of the cave, rather than stare continuously into that travesty of a visage.
“Worms?” said Hero, feeling his voice begin to crack under the strain. “The next phase?”
“Indeed!” cried Augeren. “Oh, yes! And now see where human lust and bestiality has brought us, and now ask why I hate you, all of you! For now the halflings—of which I was one, remember, part-tick, part-human being—are made to mate with the Urls! Aye, and I have already described the punishment if they should fail in their duties, or prefer not to perform them at all.”
“But …” said Hero, frantically, fractionally sawing. “But …”
“Aye, but—but—but!” answered Augeren nodding. “But only think of it! Only imagine those pits of depravity! Only let your mind dwell for a moment—a single moment—upon the issue of such matings! First the union of men and tick-women. The tick-women are flattish, like elongated lice, or the pale crabs that inhabit cavern pools. Their skins are leathery, and yet their shape overall is humanish! I am the product of such a mating, and yet I am a poor product, a freak. Yes, a freak, but even more a freak—by halfling standards—than you might ever suspect. For there is too much of the human side in me! My brothers were more nearly ‘normal,’ if you can imagine that!
“Ah, quester, but if only you could have seen my mother! Great hands like claws for gripping the sides of her dhole host; six udders on which to feed her brats; two eyes like this single insect orb of mine, which can barely ‘see’ at all in your understanding of the word; and her mouth, like mine, complete with a drill of cartilage plates with which to penetrate the flensed bones of her dhole host’s victims!”
“You’re a loathsome thing!” Hero blurted. “But by the many gods of the dreamlands, I almost pity you.”