The Cataclysm
Page 31
The face was recognizable, barely, as having once been human, but now! Horrible! One cheek had rotted away, displaying a patchwork of grisly muscle and dank, decaying gum. Yellow teeth jutted like tusks from the slack-jawed mouth. The nose was a useless lump of cartilage and gore. Withered eyes rolled sightlessly in sockets.
The creature before me was unquestionably one of the walking dead — a zombie. It stood, pathetic and unknowing, awaiting the command of its master.
"Bear witness!" cried Erasmoth. "See the miracle of the gods!"
Kassandry watched him with rapture gleaming in her eyes. Her slender hands clasped before her, she paid no heed to myself, nor to the ghastly acolyte.
"You killed your own apprentice?" I gasped.
Your Excellency can imagine my shock.
"All of them!" he cried. "They know bliss now! Joy! An eternal freedom from want and desire!"
The other masked acolytes gathered close, removed their masks to reveal a gallery of horror. Each face was marred by decay, with peeling flaps of flesh and loosely hanging skin. Hair sprouted from the scalps of many; the pates of others gleamed as pure white bone.
"Who were they?" I cried. "Where did you find them?"
"They came to me!" Shrill triumph rang in the priest's voice. His words were addressed to the heavens, and it seemed that I overheard him as a mere eavesdropper.
"You tricked them, then killed them," I challenged him.
"They understood!" Erasmoth's voice hissed. "They offered their souls to the god! The god claimed them, and then gave them to me as slaves."
I noticed suddenly one of the zombies wore a black eye-patch covering one of its dead orbs. It all seemed some hideous joke, but I recognized, by that sign only, for his face was ravaged by decay, Tyrol Deet!
"This is your miracle?" I gasped, appalled. "The secret of undeath!"
"Approach the altar!" commanded Erasmoth. He reached to push me, but I avoided his shoving hand.
Kassandry took my arm, surprising me with the gentleness of her touch. I looked at her face, now so close to mine, and saw nothing but the rapture of one who believes she has found a greater truth. She paid no attention to me, save for the slight pressure of her grip upon my arm. Her bright eyes remained focused on the far side of the cave.
As if on command, fires surged upward from several of the great basins in the cavern, and for the first time I received a more accurate picture of this dreadful temple. It was monstrous, Excellency. Five pits belched columns of hissing flame into the air. The central flame was highest and flared as a bright red. Fires of blue and green surged to its left; a small fire of purest white flickered to the right.
The fifth flame I did not see immediately, and then I noticed it only as a shifting shade before the backdrop of several red pools of lava. Upon closer inspection, I saw that this was a fire of black! It absorbed the light around it, rather than casting illumination of its own, and thus was visible only by the outline of its greater darkness. Five fires, of black, white, red, green, and blue — the holy altar of this deity worshiped by Erasmoth Luker.
"Witness the power of my god," announced Erasmoth. The arrogance of his tone was now palpable. Clearly, he regarded me as little more than a tablet for the purpose of recording his mighty deeds.
Excellency, at this point in the course of events, I am afraid that my mind ceased to function with its usual acuity for detail and observation. Instead, I recall only a series of impressions — each, it seemed, more garish and terrifying than the one preceding.
I recall those five columns of flame. We were quite close to them, now, and I could feel the heat radiate from every direction. The spouts of fire sputtered and hissed and crackled, yet I could see no fuel of any sort. The pits were smooth bowls of black stone, deeper than a man's height, but rounded into the shape of a great cauldron.
The red flame — the centermost and tallest of the pillars — stood in front of the others. The black flame was farther removed from the group.
A circular depression, with four or five concentric rings of steps, allowed easy descent into the circle. Within the circle rested a block of stone, square and solid.
"Behold the altar of godhood!" Erasmoth cried. "Behold and tremble!"
A deeper pit opened in the floor before the altar. It was from this ghastly hole that the unspeakable odor flowed, as if all the foulness and perversion across the face of Krynn had been gathered into one place. The priest led me around this pit to stand before the altar.
Next in my recollection come images of my two companions — the woman, so slender and wanton in her god-inspired desire, and the man, his face distorted by shadow and by the intensity of his passion, as he focused upon the approaching ceremony. Kassandry, who had ignored me during the approach to this central altar, now turned her luminous eyes to my face.
She dropped her robe to the floor. She was naked, except for a belt of leather and steel gauntlets on her wrists. Two slender stilettos hung from the belt. Seizing one in each hand, she raised them toward the roof of the cavern.
Erasmoth, too, lifted his hands. Together the priest and priestess wailed a chant, repeating the beastlike sounds over and over, their voices rising to a pitch of ecstasy. I had no doubt but that the culmination of this ceremony would be the plunging of those razor-edged blades into my breast.
I confess, Excellency, that the thought of my duties, of the sacred trust of the historian, vanished from my mind. Fear consumed me. All I could think of was escape. The wailing of the clerics rose to a hysterical crescendo. Only a few feet away from me I saw steps that would lead me out of this unholy circle. Beyond — a desperate sprint away — the tunnel would take me to the surface. So convoluted was my own reasoning that I completely forgot about the gates of gold and silver that must eventually block my exit.
I sprang away from the priest and priestess, made a dash for the stairs. The two made no reaction; their chant continued without interruption. I reached the bottom step and leapt upward, passing in two bounds out of that hateful arena. Still Erasmoth and Kassandry chanted.
My breath came in ragged gasps. My heart pounded. I turned to look for the tunnel by which we had entered this accursed cavern.
But where was it? My surroundings looked different, as if this was not the place I had passed mere minutes before. Dark shadows stood in places where I remembered glowing patches of light. The five columns of flame still burned, however, and they gave me my bearings. I started in the direction I believed would offer escape. My feet skimmed across the smooth floor, and still the two clerics stood, locked in the grip of their unholy ritual.
I sensed the movement of the darkness against the fiery background. My heart chilled at the sound of approaching footsteps. Hands reached for me. The cloying scent of death was all around me. An arm, like a sodden piece of old meat, struck my chest, knocking me backward.
I collapsed into another animated corpse, and retched as I felt my hand sink into the rotted satchel of its belly. The zombies were all around me, reaching with horrible hands.
With a cry of horror, I broke free, lunging in the only direction that would take me away from the ghastly figures — back toward the pit and the Altar of Erasmoth.
"Come to us now, Historian!" cried the priest, ceasing his chant. Kassandry licked her gleaming lips. She held the two daggers high, crossing the blades over her head.
The ranks of the undead pressed forward, and in the surging light of the fires I could see scores of them. They emerged from the shadows around the periphery of the great cavern, shambling slowly out of the darkness to gather in an attentive circle around their master and mistress.
The close-packed ranks of the zombies pressed in on me, forcing me onto the top step leading into the circular altar pit, toward the doom that awaited me below. In desperation, I looked for some avenue of escape through the steadily closing circle. There were none!
"Make haste, Historian!" The priest's tone contained an element of irritation.
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nbsp; I could delay no longer. The zombies had driven me to the bottom step of the circle, and thence into the pit itself.
Kassandry's gaze locked on to mine. It was the priestess, in the end, who compelled me to step slowly across the floor of the circle, until I stood before her. Behind her was the black pit, which exuded that terrible odor.
"Now!" cried Erasmoth, raising his hands, his fists clenched in triumph. "In the name of the gods!"
Kassandry raised the knives, still staring at my face. I was transfixed, unable to break that hypnotizing gaze. I waited for the stabbing of that keen steel into my flesh.
Kassandry struck, slicing each blade through the neck, severing the two arteries that carry blood to the brain. But, as I live to write this, Excellency, it was not my flesh. Nay, and I swear by the sanctity of my Historian's Oath, Your Grace, she slashed her own neck as she stood before me! The priestess took her own life!
Blood spurted from the two wounds, drenching me. Kassandry remained standing, that same expression of rapture etched into her features. Then she started to topple forward and I — out of instinct — reached to catch her.
But Erasmoth knocked me out of the way. Kassandry's blood sprayed, slicking the smooth floor.
"I must make haste!" shouted the priest.
With surprising strength, he lifted her into his arms, turned toward the dark pit in the center of the circle, and threw the still-bleeding corpse into that blackened hole.
The five pillars of fire surged upward, their light illuminating the great cavern, washing across the senseless, unknowing faces of the zombies and the smiling visage of the triumphant priest.
0 wise Astinus, here, it seemed, my historian's instincts took over, rescued me as I teetered at the brink of madness. Shock welled within me and my legs grew weak, too feeble to support me. I remained senseless of the blood — Kassandry's blood — that stained my robe, or even of the fact that, for the time being, I had been spared.
I watched the proceedings with a sort of detachment — no longer was I a participant, as indeed I never should have been in the first place. I stared into that black pit. The zombies around us were still, and even Erasmoth's breathing had become slow and labored.
Then, from out of that obscene darkness, a hand reached forth — a slender, female hand, wet with blood. Another hand appeared, followed by a pair of arms. Then the face, now deathly pale, was visible — and then the mortal flesh that once had been the priestess called Kassandry.
The creature that emerged from the pit was dead, as insensate as the rank of rotting corpses that stood around us. The female zombie, her nearly naked flesh smeared with the gruesome refuse of the dark pit, climbed laboriously from the hole in the floor. The thing's — I cannot think of it, anymore, as female, or even human — movements were jerky and uncoordinated, as if it must learn to walk anew.
But the aspect that shocked me the most was the vacant stare of those once-bright eyes. Kassandry's gaze had been so intense, so vital, that it had fascinated me even as it made me quiver with uncertainty. Now the dull, deadened eyes of a corpse roamed sightlessly in that awful, pallid face.
"Before we proceed further," Erasmoth declared to me, "I want to show you something."
Numbly, still anticipating my imminent death, I nonetheless followed him. I believe I was in shock and would have jumped into the pit itself, then, if he had ordered it. My captor led me to the pillar of black flame.
"The black fire, as you can feel, radiates no heat," he said, as we approached the shadowy column.
Indeed, the flickering fire actually seemed to absorb warmth from the air. I felt as if I faced the open night, with my back to the comfort of a house or inn. A limitless well of cold seemed to emanate from the fire, sucking all that was living and warm into its black and soulless depths.
"A curious phenomenon, don't you agree?" he said. "Now, study the white one."
We moved to this pale phantasm. This column of fire was translucent and pearly as smoke, but possessed a definition of form and purpose that belied a vaporous nature. The chill of the blaze was like a forceful attack, like a blast of subfreezing wind across a field of ice. I recoiled, to the amusement of the priest.
"She saps your life, does this fire," Erasmoth said, "but gives you the eternal life of my goddess in return!"
"Life?" I cried, quite losing the impartiality of a historian, for which Your Eminence will no doubt chastise me severely. "How dare you call this evil abomination life!"
"Ah — but it is truly the greatest life!" responded the priest. "For it is life without end!"
"A life without awareness!" I retorted. "No life at all!"
"I did not expect you to understand," he announced, his tone filled with supreme arrogance, "but I have shown you the proof of a miracle. You, Historian, must take this message to the world."
"You have shown me proof of the presence of an evil god," I continued, still choosing my words with caution. "And that, in itself, is a remarkable discovery in this era when all gods were thought to have abandoned Krynn! But will you not tell me the name of this god?"
"Goddess," he corrected. "You already know her."
I looked again, realizing that I gazed at the five pillars of fire, the five colors… of evil dragonhood! "She is the Nameless One," I said quietly, "driven from the world more than two thousand years ago! She whose dark power once brought Krynn almost to the point of subjugation."
"The Queen of Darkness!" he shouted in ecstasy. "Mistress of the evil dragons, the five-headed wyrm!"
"Takhisis!" All of the horrors I had witnessed paled when compared with the menace raised by this dark priest. "Do you mean to tell me that she returns to the world?"
"Not yet, Historian, not yet, but her presence can be felt, by myself and others. She grows in power, and she is patient. She is not defeated. Never make that mistake, Historian. She will not be vanquished!"
Abruptly, he raised his voice, pointed. "Go, now! Take your notes and report to your master what you have learned! Let the great Astinus know and tremble! Let everyone know! The Queen of Darkness will return, and glory is the destiny of those who worship her name!"
His triumph ringing in my ears, I departed — precipitously, if the truth be told (as, of course, it must). The zombies parted, let me pass. The gold gates, and the silver as well, stood open for me. I ran through the sundappled courtyard, raced all the way down the winding trail to Halcyon. And even here, I do not feel safe.
Not because I fear the priest. If Erasmoth had wanted me, he could have taken me at his altar. My fear is deeper. It touches on the very survival of our world.
For I swear, Master Astinus — it is all true! The Queen of Darkness lives, and she longs to project her power into the world! She has found a cleric in Erasmoth. Will she find (or has she found) others?
What, then, can be the fate of the world?
Foryth Teel, In the cause of Astinus and the Great Histories of Krynn.
TRUE KNIGHT
Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman
Part I
Nikol and Brother Michael left the Lost Citadel and traveled the forest, now bereft of its enchantment, with the dazed and bewildered expressions of those who have undergone some awful, wondrous experience and who do not, on reflection, believe in it.
They had evidence the events had occurred — the blood of Nikol's twin brother and the blood of the evil wizard who had been responsible for Nicholas's death stained Nikol's hands. The holy medallion of Mishakal, which once had glowed with the blue light of the goddess's favor, hung dark around Brother Michael's neck. All the true clerics had departed, gathered by the gods to serve on other planes. The dark clerics, worshipers of the Queen of the Abyss, had not succeeded in their scheme to fill the void left by the departure of the other gods' faithful. The words of the strange mage, who called himself Raistlin, echoed in their hearts.
In thirteen days' time, the Gods in their
Wrath at the folly of men will hurl a fiery
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nbsp; Mountain down upon Ansalon. The land will
Be sundered, seas will rise, and mountains
Topple. Countless numbers will die.