The Screaming Skull

by Rick Ferguson

  I raced to the ledge, but they had already disappeared into the night mist. Whether they reached the river valley, vanished into the aether, or were dashed on the rocks below, I couldn’t say. Turning from the precipice, I found Melinda’s dagger at my throat.

  “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

  “I’m a friend—” I began. Before I could finish the sentence, the woman swung the skull on its chain and bashed me in the head with it. Then she clocked me with her sword pommel for good measure. I dropped. Be miserly with your wishes, the bard said.

  15

  I didn’t know from trouble until Melinda bashed me upside the head with that fucking skull. According to Redulfo, I never had a choice; I was meant to find the Screaming Skull, to possess the Girdle of Gargantua, the Crown of Chaos, and the other relics that would collectively draw Koschei’s soul back to Woerth, and not only because my father arranged it. The Book of Fate is said to contain the record of all events that occur in the Multiverse: past, present and future, all written in permanent ink. If our future is already written—and time is not, as some elven philosophers propose, merely a mental fiction that prevents us from experiencing our entire lives all at once—then why try to change it?

  "Free will is an illusion. A fairy tale we tell our children,” Redulfo proclaimed during one of our late-night bull sessions at the Suds ‘n Shade. We sat swilling beer while Jaspin tended bar and chimed in when appropriate.

  “Fuck you, it’s bullshit,” said Amabored. “No force in the universe can tell me what to do. I write my own tale.”

  “If causality is a basic construct of the universe, then so is determinism,” said Redulfo. “You think you write your own tale, but your actions have been predetermined by forces set in motion since the dawn of Time. Choice itself is an illusion—your mind is simply justifying fate before it occurs. The future is just the past coming at you from the opposite direction.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” asked Lithaine.

  “The wizard has a point, and it’s not just the one under his hat,” I said. “Either everything is predetermined, or nothing is. Maybe we’re all just part of the machinery of the Multiverse. I glimpsed the First Universe, remember. I’ve seen the little fuckers that set the whole thing in motion.”

  “That was just the Flaming Telepath talking,” said Amabored.

  “Which I drank because the Multiverse preordained it.”

  “You’re both taking causality on faith,” said Melinda. “Who says every result needs a cause?”

  “Are you claiming that causality isn’t a natural law?” Redulfo asked her. “If you prick me, do I not bleed?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “If causality isn’t a fundamental force of our universe, there must be some case in which you can truly originate your actions,” said Redulfo. “Can you think of one? What action can you take that isn’t presupposed by an event outside of your control? By the time you choose to act, electrochemical activity in the brain has already made it happen. Again, the choice itself is an illusion.”

  “So, our entire lives are predetermined?” Melinda asked. “Why would El create a universe of automatons?”

  “You’re implying that El has a plan,” I said. “Maybe he’s just making up the universe as he goes along. And he’s writing our dialogue as we speak it.”

  “Then he needs to write us some better lines,” said Lithaine.

  “You’re all forgetting that this particular universe, as boring and derivative as it is, is but one of an infinitude of universes,” said Jaspin as he brought over another round. “The Multiverse teaches us to be compatibilists. Every action in the universe, however small, influences every other action. The movement of a single electron orbiting the nucleus of a single hydrogen atom begins a chain of events that leads to great natural disasters, mighty wars, and decisions that seemingly change the course of history. That electron itself was acted upon by outside forces. Causality isn’t a chain of events, you see. It’s a web of interconnected events.”

  “Now you sound like a Buddhist,” said Redulfo. “Compatibilism is weak sauce. Free will and determinism can’t peacefully coexist.”

  “Perhaps they don’t, in this universe. In the Multiverse, they must coexist. Think of the Multiverse as an infinite skim of soap bubbles. Every choice you make spins off a new universe. Turn left, and you create one universe; turn right, and you create another one. Your actions are predetermined only in the universe you inhabit at this instant. Because the number of possible universes is infinite, the future is always mutable. That’s why Amabored can perceive free will in a universe that Redulfo views as deterministic. The soap bubbles collide, connect, and then break apart again. Eventually, they burst.”

  “So, each of us is the center of his own universe,” I said. “We should be high instead of drunk.”

  “And free will is a prerequisite of the soul,” said Amabored. “We have it; animals don’t. When a dog licks his balls, it’s because he has no choice. When I lick my balls, it’s because I’m extremely flexible.”

  Jaspin brought over another round. Handing Redulfo a beer, the illusionist-turned-bartender eyed the young wizard with puzzlement.

  “I feel like you and I have had this conversation before,” Jaspin told Redulfo.

  “We have,” said Redulfo. “Just now. The Time Lords tell us that time can be traversed just like space, and that déjà vu happens when we accidentally remember the future. You’re not a Time Lord, are you?”

  “Just call me Dr. Who,” said Jaspin.

  16

  So, if I shit my pants right here on the throne, then I create one universe. If I get up and head to the can, then I create another one. Soap bubbles, my ass. The Multiverse is more a sea of snot bubbles expelled from the nose of a blind, idiot god. In this universe, my only concern is which of my two possible ends will come to pass. Will I live well into decrepitude, as the Astral Telescope promises? Or will the Woerth be destroyed in ten days by the Seven? When will my bubble burst?

  I’m not the first member of the Quest to receive a sneak preview of my fate; Redulfo received his during the showdown at the Blue Falcon. Unlike me, he refused to alter his behavior in the slightest. He was such a determinist that if you told him opening a door would result in his certain death, he’d just shrug, say, “That figures,” and open it anyway.

  His cynicism could be a downer, but his ability to think around a problem often came in handy. For example, we were high up in the Wyvern Mountains, caught in the icy grip of the Sorrowful Pass, when he nearly came through for us again. This was after we had slaughtered two-dozen snow giants in the Pellucid Palace and found the map that would lead us first to the Magma Hall, and thence to Mormant, city of the shadow elves, and ultimately to the Sunless Sea. Our cleric, Father Jethro of Tull, had slipped on a patch of ice midway through the pass and plummeted over the cliff-edge. It was a good two thousand feet to the foot of the mountain, which meant we’d hear his screams for long seconds before he vaporized on the rocks below.

  “For fuck’s sake—not again!” Amabored cried. Like the rest of us, he was bundled up in the fur-lined parka and trousers we had purchased at a premium at the gnome village we had freed from snow giant enslavement. Ungrateful rodents. Xingo was with us now, fulfilling our long-vacant rogue position, and even he agreed that those particular gnomes deserved extermination.

  “It wasn’t me!” I cried.

  Redulfo leaped to the edge of the precipice. He blew a short arpeggio on his flute. A wall of wind burst forth from the wizard like a dwarf shock grenade and blew down the crevasse. Within a second, it had caught up to Father Jethro and stopped his fall. The cleric now hovered a good seven chains below us, still screaming.

  “Nice work,” Amabored said. “Can you bring him back?”

  “It’s a Hover spell. Won’t last more than a minute. Lithaine—" Redulfo said, spinning towards the elf— “tie your rope to an arrow, and put it through Jethro’s
back.”

  One of Lithaine’s finer qualities is his lack of introspection. Without hesitation, the elf lashed the end of his +3 elven coil to an arrow and set shaft to string. Before he could let it fly, I grabbed his arm.

  “Hold on,” I said. “You want him to put an arrow through our cleric? Are you mental?”

  “Do it!” said Xingo.

  Redulfo only looked at me with that blank, hang-dog expression. “Lithaine, how many health points of damage does an arrow do?” the wizard asked.

  “One to six, unless I put it through his eye,” said Lithaine.

  Redulfo then called over the cliff-edge to Jethro, who hovered face down and focused on his impending doom. “Hey, Friar, how many health points do you have?”

  “Uh…thirty-eight!” came the distant, terrified reply. “For the love of Apollo, bring me back!”

  “The wizard’s right,” said Amabored. “A single arrow can’t kill him without a critical hit.”

  “You’re going to put an arrow through his back,” I said. “In what universe won’t that kill the poor bastard?”

  “Even if Lithaine hits a vital organ, the cleric has ten combat rounds before he bleeds to death,” Redulfo said. “Plenty of time to get a potion down his throat.”

  “Right,” Lithaine said, and let the arrow fly. The rope accordioned out behind the shaft. The arrow drove through the cleric’s leather cuirass and out through his belly. He shrieked in pain.

  “Hey padre, grab hold of the shaft tightly below your belly, or your weight will yank it out!” Amabored called down. He motioned me over, and together we took hold of Lithaine’s rope and pulled. Each time we hauled up another length of rope, the cleric screamed. We raised him one chain, then two, then three. For a moment, it looked like we might succeed.

  Then Lithaine’s knot unraveled. A +3 elven rope is supposed to hold a knot through fire and flood—but you need to tie a good knot. We could do nothing but wince as Father Jethro plummeted into the crevasse. His screams echoed against the knife-edges of the mountain peaks and were carried away by the winds.

  “Oops,” said Lithaine.

  Redulfo stood firm against my rueful gaze. “Did you have a better idea?” he asked.

  “Yeah—we should have put three arrows into him,” I said, clapping the wizard on the back. “Next time, think bigger.”

  17

  That episode was a node in the network of events that would become the greatest campaign of our early years, before the Free Kingdoms anointed us as saviors and the Talon Empire marked us for death. Ostensibly, we embarked on the campaign to track down the Bad Brain after receiving a hot tip. In truth, my Quest began when I boarded the Bilge Rat and left Redhauke for good—not to save the world, mind you, but rather to score points with a chick.

  Or perhaps it was the Screaming Skull itself that set this intricate machine of nefarious plots, blind chance, and foolhardy heroism in motion. What a pain in the goddamn ass that thing was.

  Melinda and I had been shacking up for nearly five years. I saw a little less of the droogs in those days. Amabored was busy with a buxom barmaid from the Suds ‘n Shade named Kirabelle. Redulfo was busy stirring Eye of Newt and Frog’s Breath into a big cauldron, or whatever the fuck it is they do at the School of Thaumaturgy. Lithaine would simply vanish for a few weeks, only to return in time to scour another dungeon. During these years, we progressed in adventuring levels steadily—once every fortnight or so, we snagged a dungeon opening from the Guild bulletin board, rode out of town, and spent the weekend slaughtering imps, trolls, basilisks, wraiths, dire wolves, mummies, skeletons, troglodytes, goblins, blood puddings, giant centipedes, and zombies with abandon. Apart from the hydra episode, we encountered nothing that we couldn’t handle. We had the occasional close call; with no rogue in our party, we were vulnerable to traps, and one of us would occasionally stumble into a spike-filled pit or a swinging pendulum. Thankfully, Redhauke apothecaries were stocked with Health potions.

  Meanwhile, we were hauling in so much treasure that we had to rent one of Jaspin’s vaults below the Suds ‘n Shade to store our loot. We weren’t rich, but good meals, soft beds, copious drink, and sturdy equipment were no longer the stuff of dreams. I had long since traded in my smelly leather armor for a set of chain mail with plate pauldrons and a stylish fauld with brass rivets. I had also traded my longsword for a new weapon specialty, which I practiced religiously at the Guild gymnasium five days a week: the double-bladed battle-axe. I took a +2 charmed one off a dead imp chieftain and never looked back; until you’ve buried an axe blade in your opponent’s breastbone, you haven’t really lived.

  And then there was Melinda. After our initial meeting of the minds, we fell into such an easy rhythm that we were a couple before we even realized it. Like me, she came to Redhauke with nothing; and like me, she turned to the Thieves Guild out of impatience. Blades, garrotes, and crossbows weren’t her only tools. With her flat face, pug nose, and wide hips, she had the look of a farmer’s wife, if not the vocation—but her smile was bright and disarming, her heart honest and open. She made friends easily, a trait which complemented my general misanthropy. Our sex life soon settled into a comfortable routine: she did most of the work, and I got most of the pleasure. Weren’t regular blowjobs my birthright?

  Did I love her? Hell, I don’t know. I sure told her I did.

  So, life was good. As a pessimist, however, I knew better than to trust to good fortune. The dam burst in midwinter of my fifth year in Redhauke. Four months had passed since the lemming imps had attacked the city. Since that dark time, the days had been fruitful and mostly pleasant; my mistake was to allow myself a momentary lapse into satisfaction. As I strolled one morning through the hubbub of the Godsway, the day was brilliant: as cold as a dawn swim in the Everdeep, with the sky blazing blue and the sun a bright copper plate fixed in the sky. The crowd around me pulsed and bustled, but I paid no mind to the humanoid stench. I had a woman at home, a profession I loved, and money in my pocket. What more could I ask of life? I dared to whistle.

  Big mistake. Odin waits for moments like this to take the piss out of you. I had just passed the fluted marble columns fronting the Temple of Athena when a fire-bearded dwarf slipped out of an alley bearing a leather-clad box wrapped in buckled straps. He stopped before me, bowed low, and presented his parcel with outstretched arms. It wouldn’t occur to me until much later that the dwarf get-up was a disguise—and not a great one, at that.

  “Be you Elberon of the Isles?” the dwarf asked.

  “Who’s asking?” I said.

  “Delivery for you, sieur,” said the dwarf. He knew me, all right. “Sign here.”

  “What is it, Frenchy?” I asked as I signed the receipt.

  “None of my affair, sieur. Have a good day.” The dwarf bowed, spun on his heel, and scurried away.

  A shadow befell me as serried ranks of bruised storm clouds overtook the sun. That’s funny, I thought. Hadn’t been a cloud in the sky before.

  Pausing in the street, I loosened the straps and removed the box lid. When I saw the gleaming white dome tucked inside, I recognized my doom.

  With as much strength as the girdle provided, I heaved the box in a high parabola over the Temple of Athena. It was too late. Inside the box, the Skull had already started to scream—that ball-shriveling wail of the damned I had come to dread. Around me, passers-by startled and looked upward as if bracing for a Luftwaffe strafing run.

  I knew what would follow. Unstrapping my battle-axe, I braced myself to face the crucible of death.

  18

  I heard the lamentations of the wolves before I saw them. Around the corner of St. Cecelia’s they came bounding—a dozen of them, each one as big as a nose-tackle, muzzles contorted in snarls, yellow fangs dripping with hot spittle, black merciless eyes limned in red. Passers-by screamed and scattered. One leaped upon an unlucky washerwoman, tore out her throat, and then came for me.

  Fight or flight? I was tired of running. Fuck the
se beasts, I thought. This was the best the Skull could throw at me?

  Naivety is charming in review but deadly in the moment. As the first wolf crashed into me, a figure hooded and cloaked in scarlet rounded a corner before me, stopped, and began to shake violently. As three wolves clamped their fangs into my arm and leg, the figure’s right arm split open like a blood-filled sausage. From the torso emerged a black, segmented insect leg topped by a jagged-toothed claw of bone. His jaw separated from his head in a crimson gout to reveal a pair of clacking mandibles.

  The insectoid was soon joined by a half-dozen cloaked men, each of whom transformed into some biological monstrosity built of segmented bodies, oily translucent wings, ragged claws, and prehensile stinger-shod tails. When one hooded woman’s skull exploded like a suppurating melon and a giant, gleaming mantis-head sprang from her shoulders, I screamed. You wouldn’t?

  The double-assault of dire wolves and insectoids fell upon me. With no axe room, I was forced into close sword work, opening the bellies of two more wolves before the horde brought me down. Claws and fangs pierced through my mail rings and bit into my flesh. When a wolf sank his teeth into my throat, I succumbed. Unless Jo Ki-Rin had another offer for me on the other side, this was it.

  Then, salvation. A whirling dervish of limbs barreled into the horde and scattered it like a stand of bowling pins. When the horde regrouped, my new ally—a bald human in a robe of simple homespun—set upon them. He bore no weapon, but he didn’t need one. As I collapsed onto the cobblestones with blood running into my eyes, he snapped a wolf’s neck, pulled an eye from a socket, and drove his leg through the torso of an insectoid. Within moments, he slew five insectoids and sent the remaining two battered wolves loping away with bitter yelps in their throats.