Iced on Aran

by Brian Lumley

  Exhausted one minute, he seemed galvanized the next. He shot to his feet, set off at a fast if wobbly pace eastward. They’d hidden their tiny sky-yacht in a copse of evergreens on Inquanok’s very border when they first arrived here. Since their invitation to Inquanok had been other than strictly official, that had seemed prudent. Now Hero was obviously in a hurry to get airborne again and out of here. Which would suit Eldin well enough, except:

  “What of the quest?” he asked, hastening to catch up.

  “It’s over,” said Hero, his eyes scanning ahead.

  “Over?” Eldin’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean … in that cave back there … Augeren?”

  Breath burst from Hero’s lips in a hiss. He turned swiftly, his eyes burning, and bunched up Eldin’s jacket front in a tight knot in his two fists. “Don’t!” he warned, shaking his head jerkily. “Just … don’t.” Then he turned away, hurried on.

  Eldin stayed a little to the rear after that. “You don’t intend to report your … findings to those Inquaknackers who asked us here?” he carefully inquired after a little while.

  “Kuranes can do that,” Hero grated, “after we report to him. As for questing, to hell with it!”

  “This is your last?”

  “It is,” Hero nodded, “while I’ve still got my sanity. If I’ve still got it.”

  Eldin came up alongside but a little apart. “I expect you’ll tell me about it,” he said; and immediately followed up with: “—in your own time, of course.”

  Hero looked at him and some of the harder lines fell from his wan face. “That clout you gave me in the cave was probably the greatest favor you’ve ever done me,” he said. “So I’ll tell you this much now: Augeren’s dead, or good as. And if he’s not actually dead at this very moment, then he soon will be. Now then, can the rest of it wait till we’re safely up into the clear blue yonder and out of here?”

  “Safely?” the older quester raised an eyebrow. “Are there more dangers, then—which I don’t know about—here in Inquanok?”

  “Enough and more than enough,” said Hero, “and we’ve a way to go yet. How many miles? Ten?”

  “At least,” Eldin nodded. Then the Wanderer related how Augeren had lured him into taking a stunning tumble, and how that same monster’s shrieks of terror had finally snatched him awake at the bottom of a shallow pit. Climbing out, he’d been in time (but barely) to drag his friend to safety before Augeren’s lair and the cliff caved in.

  Hero listened to all, nodded, made no answer. And shortly thereafter they began to stretch out their pace a little …

  Two hours later saw Hero breathing easier and Eldin somewhat winded. But the younger dreamer wouldn’t pause. At last they crested a rise and saw a spur of foothills projecting from low-lying mists. The sun was brighter now, sucking up the damp air, and away to the north the jagged fangs of gray mountains were seen to penetrate slow-moving clouds: the gaunt gray peaks. Hero looked at them for long moments, finally shuddered and turned away.

  “Chilly, aye,” Eldin agreed, then saw the look on Hero’s face and added: “Or p’r’aps not?”

  Hero made no answer …

  Now, tramping downhill, it was easier going. They angled their route toward a stand of trees, whose tops were just showing green through the mist, in the lee of a second spur maybe three miles away. That was where their sky-yacht was hidden away. When they’d first arrived here and sought out one of the underground movement’s leaders in Urg—a burly, bearded trader, oddly hearty for a man of Inquanok—whose name was Heger Nort, he’d promised them to set a discreet watch on their boat and make sure no one stumbled upon it. If he’d kept his word, doubtless someone would be monitoring their approach even now.

  But then …

  “Inquanodes,” said Eldin. “Three or four of ’em. Atop that knoll there, see?”

  Hero saw. The party waved at them a good deal, urgently, but refrained from shouting; then they came hurrying down the steep side of the knoll to intercept the questers on the plain between the spurs. It was Heger Nort and three conspiratorial colleagues.

  “Treachery!” said Nort, without preamble, as they met. “One of our lot was a quisling for the Veiled King—rather, for his priests. Which amounts to the same thing. He must have told the priests there were dubious outsiders—you’ll excuse my way with words—in Inquanok. Anyway, he’s been taken care of, permanently! But last night a good many priests left the temple in a hurry and set out in all directions, but mainly north. We suspect they’ll be looking for you. So we came looking for you too, to warn you.”

  Hero nodded. “We’re grateful. But anyway, our business here is finished now.”

  “Eh?” Nort looked puzzled. “Your quest’s at an end, you say? Care to explain?”

  Hero sighed. “It seems I’ll have to,” he answered. “Very well, I’ll give you the gist of it. I’ll not say what I personally suspect, but let you make up your own minds. I’ll tell it as we go. After that—it’s all yours.”

  And tell it he did. Two miles later they stood all six at the fringe of the firs and the story was finished, at least in outline. But Hero had framed his tale so as to make no direct accusations. During the telling at first there’d been the odd question from the men of Inquanok, but as the story progressed they’d listened in silence, their expressions gloomy, then ghastly, finally outraged and fearful. Eldin, too.

  “No wonder,” the Wanderer commented as they entered the copse and made their way through the undergrowth to where the sky-yacht was hidden, “no wonder you were so up-tight-lipped about it! I’d have felt the same. But you’ll feel better now it’s out of your system.”

  “I won’t feel better till we’re aloft!” Hero declared. “Then I’ll feel better …”

  Assisted by Nort and his friends, they began shifting a camouflage screen of fir branches from the sides of Quester; she floated inches above the pine-needle floor, anchored to a tree. And it was then that a whey-faced man emerged from the little vessel’s cabin.

  “Hum Tassler!” said Nort. “Sleeping on the job, eh?”

  “I …” said Tassler, his Adam’s apple wobbling. “I mean …”

  Behind him, sprouting suddenly like some strange toadstool from the cabin, stood a priest.

  For a moment the tableau held: the men of Inquanok looked shocked, caught red-handed; their faces fell. Hero went deathly white, drew air in a hiss. Only Eldin seemed unaffected. He laid hands on Quester’s side.

  “Well, then,. and what’s this?” said the Wanderer heartily. “Piracy? And damn me if one of the pirates isn’t a priest! Here’s us, a couple of skyfarers come ashore to provision up and make minor repairs, and we’re boarded like smugglers the minute we lower the gangway!” he winked at Hero, who for his part stood wide-eyed, nostrils flaring, starting up at the priest on board the yacht.

  The priest was masked and hooded, robed in a black cassock that hid all but the curled toes of his black lacquered shoes. Behind his queer mask and under his hood, his flesh seemed a pale pink, but his eyes, where they peered from slits in the mask, were aglitter with avid curiosity—and maybe with more than that. Tall, he was, and his stance peculiar: as if he held himself aloof, away from commen men, or as if he leaned backward. The sleeves of his cassock were abnormally wide, almost bell-like, and yet were cinched at the wrists. Upon his large hands black gloves, so that no part of him showed except for the eye-glitter and pinkness behind the mask. For a few moments he said nothing, but merely gazed down on the men of Inquanok, examining each in turn. Then:

  “These two questers, whom you believe to be mercenary sellswords,” he began, his voice high and quivering, “are spies of a foreign power. Whether they are here of their own accord or were invited is another matter, one which is to be investigated. For now the Veiled King has ordered that they be taken before him for judgment. Their crime is this: that in order to gain illicit access to Inquanok’s mysteries they invented a monster, Augeren. This supposed ‘evil creature’ is in fact a
member or members of a group of subversives opposed to the Veiled King’s rule, a traitor or traitors who have committed vile murder in order to justify the presence here of these so-called ‘questers.’ All shall be dealt with accordingly. I note that you four are with these outsiders, and so assume that you are members of the subversive band. What have you to say?”

  “Plenty!” growled Eldin, drawing the priest’s attention.

  “Careful!” warned Heger Nort in a hoarse whisper. “Their word is law! In private we can work against them and say what we like, but face to face—these priests are powerful!”

  “What about my story?” Hero grated from the corner of his mouth. “Are you all daft? Do you think I made it up? You know what must be done!”

  Sheepishly, sullenly, the men of Inquanok looked at each other. Heger Nort seemed about to say something, do something, but:

  “Well?” said the priest, a sneer, almost a snigger now, in his tittering treble. And when there was no answer: “Very well, perhaps you can make amends for your participation in all of this. Indeed, perhaps your part in it was small. We shall see. Now bind up the strangers at once. We make haste for Inquanok.”

  “What?” Eldin roared. “I’ll tell you where you make haste for, priest—you make haste for hell!” He swept a brawny hand across Quester’s gunnel, knocked the priest’s feet from under him. Down came the tall, cassocked figure with a squawk of rage, a lank black bundle tumbling over the side of Quester and thudding to the pine-needle floor of the copse. As he fell, so Hero stepped forward, and as he scrambled to rise both of the questers caught at the bell-like sleeves of his robe and tore them loose. They had tried to trap his arms and failed, but in so doing revealed his arms. All of them! The thing in black was stunned, but only for a moment. Then three fat, pink, tapering tentacles uncoiled where true arms should be, at each side of the thing’s body, whipped out to wrap like ropes about the necks of the questers. With a massive, unbelievable strength, the creature lifted the pair by their necks, commenced to hang them. At the same time the priest’s eyes glittered behind his mask, fixed themselves upon Heger Nort and Co. defying them to intervene. Those eyes glared hypnotically at the four men of Inquanok on the ground, but not at the fifth. On the deck of Quester, Hum Tassler had been forgotten.

  Before the arrival of the others, Tassler had been surprised by the priest and had spent a whole morning in his company; and Tassler knew that there was scant chance of a pardon for him. The priest had said as much. Well, he might as well be hung for a lion as a lamb. He took out a slender dagger, kneeled quickly on the gunnel, stabbed the tall priest high in his back.

  The priest gave a shrill, bubbling shriek; his tentacles released Hero and Eldin, whipped backward to engulf Tassler. But the man on the boat had already withdrawn his knife, wrenched the priest’s hood back and open, and snatched his black leather mask from his head. Now, in all his horror, the priest stood literally unmasked.

  “A Lord of Luz!” choked Hero through a badly bruised windpipe, pointing at the staggering thing. “Now see him for yourselves! Now know who and what these priests of Inquanok’s Veiled King really are!”

  As Hum Tassler stabbed again at the Lord of Luz and was snatched from the deck and hurled down for his pains, so the men of Inquanok came out of their trance. Then, as one man, they fell to it with a will—and they literally tore the former “priest” to pieces bare-handed. It might have taken quite a long time, if in the end Hum Tassler hadn’t managed to slit the hybrid creature’s throat …

  When it was over, and Nort and his friends stood drenched in stinking ichor, staring at the mess, Hero and Eldin took the opportunity to get aboard Quester. Eldin went below and started the tiny flotation engine, and as the bags in the keel and under the deck filled out, as Hero cast off. Up went Quester, floating lighter than air through the trees, and still the men below stood grim and silent, their eyes fixed on the remains of the thing they’d killed.

  Then Nort shook himself, spat on the ground and looked up. “Hero, Eldin!” he called after them. “We’ve a lot to thank you for. I do so now. Maybe next time you come to Inquanok you won’t have to sneak in, eh?”

  “That’s up to you,” Hero called down. “It’s all up to you now. But personally speaking, I don’t think you’ll be seeing us again. Not if I have any say in it.”

  Eldin came from below, leaned over the side and looked down. “He’s right, you know,” he shouted. “You Inquanoggins might be happy in this dreary, twilight land of yours, but there are fairer places far for the likes of us.”

  “The gods our ancestors put us here,” Heger retorted as the sky-yacht drifted higher. “They must have had their reasons.”

  “It’s not your blue-blooded ancestry that worries me,” was Hero’s parting shot. “Not who spawned you but what you, albeit unwittingly, have spawned. Will you see to it, Heger?”

  The bearded trader shouted, “If I can, be sure I will.”

  “Then farewell!” And with that they set sail for Celephais.

  A week later they made report to Kuranes at his Cornish manor-house in Celephais, and a month after that he called them to him with some news. There had been a mass uprising in Inquanok: the false temple there had been destroyed until no two stones stood one atop the other, its “priests” were wiped out to a man—or thing. A simultaneous attack on the Veiled King’s palace had proven singularly monstrous: eleven good strong men had died before the Veiled King succumbed, and even then the horror had had to be burned. Beneath the palace and temple a veritable nest of maggots had been discovered, with endless labyrinthine tunnels and halls whose purposes … but here Kuranes refused to go into detail. And the questers did not press him.

  Now, however, he could tell them that their intervention had been a grand success in more ways than they’d previously suspected. Augeren was dead for one thing, and that had been their original objective; but more than that, the rule of immemorial successions of Veiled Kings was at an end, and their priest minions exposed for the sub-human monsters they were. The new government of Inquanok, headed by one Heger Nort, was already changing the twilight land’s laws: there were courts now, and a proper judiciary system. No more men, whatever their crimes, would be sent north naked as babes to test the terrors of the gaunt gray peaks. As for priests—legitimate priests, that is—well, there were many temples and so many priests, but a new law in Inquanok said priests would go bareheaded and with shaven pates, and their limbs would be plainly visible at all times.

  Even this was not the end of the matter. Heger Nort was talking of organizing a punitive expedition into the underworld, and had asked for Kuranes’ help. Specifically, he had stated that if a certain pair of questers—

  Which was the point at which Hero and Eldin bade the Lord of Ooth-Nargai good day, and left his manor house with something less than customary decorum.

  Now heading, in the twilight of evening, for a favored tavern on the waterfront, they breathed easier, and Hero uncharacteristically opined: “Bollocks!”

  “Lot’s of ’em,” Eldin agreed.

  “Not for a king’s ransom!” Hero spat out the words.

  “And certainly not for a Veiled King’s ransom,” said Eldin less vehemently.

  “That’s one quest I’m well and truly finished with!” Hero declared. “I don’t even want reminding of it, not ever!”

  “Except—” said Eldin.

  “Not ever!”

  “But you still haven’t told me about my name!”

  “Your name?” Hero looked taken aback. “Old duffer, d’you mean?”

  The Wanderer snorted like a horse. “How old are you, lad?”

  “Eh? My age? Dunno, exactly. Thirty-odd, I suppose. Maybe thirty-two. Why?”

  “Because if you want to make thirty-three, watch your lip!” said Eldin “But you know what I mean—and you’ll listen to me and answer me even if I have to tie you down first! Back in Inquanok, when we were dissecting Augeren’s name, which as it happens was pretty de
scriptive of the beast himself, you said—”

  “—I said I remembered your name’s meaning from some old book in the waking world,” Hero cut in. “Yes, I know. But try as I might—and I have tried, hard—it’s gone. I’ve forgotten it. You know how it is with these flashes from the waking world?”

  “Hmm!” Eldin rumbled, plainly disappointed. He caught Hero’s elbow and drew him to a halt on the threshold of the tavern. “Forgotten, have you? Now that couldn’t simply be a case of convenient amnesia, could it?”

  “I swear I’ve forgotten!” Hero protested. “But if ever I re-remember …” And to himself: Better if you don’t know, old lad. Better far. For Hero remembered Eldin’s love of a good warm fire to sit by, the way he always looked lovingly into the flames—and the fact that he invariably kept a pair of flints, his “lucky firestones,” close to hand—and the way he’d once burned Thalarion the evil hive city to the ground, not to mention a certain tightwad inn! And he also remembered how the Wanderer had blinded Augeren …

  Oh, yes, a fire sign, Eldin, without a doubt. But letting him know it would be like blowing on embers, wouldn’t it?

  “Anyway, the hell with it!” said the Wanderer. “There’s booze for the buying and my throat’s afire.” He held open the tavern’s swing door and inclined his head. “Shall we?”

  “By all means,” said Hero, “let’s douse the flames. In fact, let’s damn well drown ’em!”

  And passing in, they let the door swing shut behind them on a perfect night in dreamland …

  End note

  eldin, elding:

  One or that of fiery disposition;

  a firebrand; fuel for a fire. Arch:

  eilding, eldr, fire.

  Old Scots Dictionary