The Screaming Skull

by Rick Ferguson

  Having taken a near-fatal blow from the spider assault, Wilberd wasn’t going anywhere. So, we gathered firewood, built a fire, left him a few days’ rations and another Holocaust potion, and then wasted no time in vacating that forest. We were reduced now to four fighters: Amabored, Lithaine, Malcolm, and me. Did we have enough firepower to take down Redulfo, with no sorcery to aid us? To ask the question was to answer it.

  Dawn bled over the horizon before we finally stopped for rest. A small, flat patch of land midway down the slope of the forested hillside served as our campsite. Before us loomed the Valley of Sorcerers, clinging to the flanks of the Shadow Mountains and shrouded in mist. Untold men had perished assaulting that valley. Their ghosts lingered still, their wails carried by the bitter mountain winds, their souls borne by the ravens that stood in serried ranks atop the pines. Many thousands more would die here in the next few years. Were the spirits haunting this land those of soldiers long dead, or those of soldiers yet to die? Who the hell can say?

  The Valley was originally the home of Gygax the Great and his partner Rigsby, until the two arch-mages, having been bosom companions since Koschei the Deathless was still Koschei of the Verdant Vale, came to blows over an unknown dispute that nearly leveled the Shadow Mountains from the force of the sorcerous duel that commenced. After the duel, one wizard had vanished, while the other had presumably died—and no one knew for certain which was which. What argument had precipitated this divorce, no one knew—not even Sklaar, who had been among the first apprentices trained by the two wizards.

  With the Workshop of Telescopes now deserted, the local Baronies made repeated attempts to march upon it and claim it for themselves—but not a single man-jack sent into the Valley ever returned alive. And so, the Valley remained deserted—until Redulfo the Black, newly resurrected by the Crimson Hand after we greased him, descended upon the Workshop and claimed it as his own. The dragon had then holed up in the valley for months, doing—what, exactly? Building an army, constructing a super-weapon, conducting research, hibernating, jerking off—who knew? We knew only that the Bad Brain was ensconced in the dragon’s skull, and that the only way to get it out of said skull was to cut off Redulfo’s head. Killing our friend a second time was a shit assignment, but what could we do? We were all pawns, and pawns are made to be sacrificed.

  We dozed, choked down some breakfast, and then began the long descent into the mist-shrouded Valley. The mist itself was cold, tinged yellow, with a sulfurous odor betraying its sorcerous origins, and we could only tremble at the thought of the horrors it contained. Still, our path was clear and danger-free—until we found the Rockfall. That thing sure wasn’t on any fucking map.

  We crested a crumbling ridge, the last obstacle before we entered the Valley proper. Once over the crest, we found our way blocked by a massive chasm—a jagged axe-wound spanning the valley’s width, its depth impossible to determine, its gaping maw filled with swirling mist stabbed through with sharp, rocky peaks and crumbling hillocks rising from the chasm floor. Or at least that’s what we thought—until one of the hills moved. All of them moved, in fact. They weren’t peaks or hillocks; they were giant rocks, boulders and shards of granite, all floating in the mist and rocking ever so slightly, like giant fishing-bobbers on a fog-bound lake. Occasionally the giant rocks and boulders collided, raining debris into the chasm below. Thanks to the mist, we had no idea if the rocks floated sixty feet above the ground, or six thousand.

  “Should be simple enough to get across,” Amabored said, scratching his head. “The rocks are close enough to jump from one to the next, all the way to the other side.”

  “Too simple,” I said. “If this thing isn’t a trap, then I’m a gnome’s ass.”

  “You’ve got fucking wings, dipshit,” Lithaine said to Amabored. “Just fly us to the other side.”

  “If you weren’t pulling taffy instead of listening to the Ki-Rin’s briefing, you’d remember that nothing magical flies in the Valley but the dragon,” Amabored said. “Clean the shit out of your ears.”

  “Why don’t you suck it out?”

  Lithaine was back to normal, at least. Malcolm stepped to the lip of the chasm, where an elephant-sized rock bobbed like a cork in the mist, close enough to touch. Extending a leg, he touched the rock with his boot. The rock bobbled and twisted harmlessly in midair.

  “Well lads, what do you say?” Malcolm asked, turning back to face us. “Do we belabor our next move, or do we simply charge ahead? We shan’t rest until we hoist—”

  5

  “—the cup of victory!”

  Nine years earlier, Malcolm stood resolutely before us on Halberd Street. His mailed hand rested on his sword pommel. His raven hair was blown by unfelt winds. Across the plaza waited the Blue Falcon, its towers thrust into the darkening sky, its black windows harboring malevolence.

  Yes, the paladin used the same words on both occasions. The two events are forever linked in my mind—initially, at least, because in both cases we were assaulting a fortified position with a suicidal lack of manpower. Thanks to Redulfo’s mirrors, the two events were also literally linked together. I’m still not sure if the time loop logic holds up to scrutiny, or why the resulting paradoxes didn’t collapse the universe. Best not to think too hard about these things.

  We were still recovering from the shock of Malcolm’s revelation. If we were to believe the paladin, then Lithaine was none other than the missing High King of Helene, chosen at birth by the Star Council as the true avatar of the Star Maiden. The council had snatched him from his natural parents, raised him as a living god, and then drilled him in the arts of elven sorcery, statecraft, and war. On his twenty-fifth birthday, they dragged him to the foot of the Tree of Illumination and set the Sapphire Crown on his head. At that moment, he became the absolute ruler of elvendom throughout the Free Kingdoms.

  We were gobsmacked. This was Lithaine, remember: an elf perpetually one misfired synapse away from uncontrollable battle rage, who needed no more reason to put an arrow into your heart than not liking the cut of your jib. You may as well put a rabid weasel on the throne. On the other hand, Lithaine’s will was indomitable; set him in motion, and he wouldn’t stop until the job was done, or he was dead. Unlike Alexander, Lithaine wouldn’t have wept when he ran out of lands to conquer; he’d simply find a reason to get pissed at his vassals and then reconquer all the lands behind him. The truth is that I loved the guy, more than I loved my own brother, and I knew he was damned sure better off on the road than on the throne.

  One night, about ten years or so after he was crowned, Lithaine sat at his desk beside the White Throne, shuffling morosely through the stack of trade agreements, treaties, and bills awaiting signature. Sighing, he set down his quill. He took a brief, longing look through a palace window at the rising full moon. Then he stood. From a stash behind the throne, he retrieved a short sword, a longbow, and a supply satchel. Flipping the bird to his guards, he launched himself headlong through the glass window and into the night.

  That was the last anyone in Helene saw of Lithaine; for fifteen years, the elf had wandered the Woerth in self-imposed exile. The Star Council sent their best knights questing for him. Malcolm was among these, scouring the Free Kingdoms for his missing liege, running down every rumor, turning aside at every dead end. Eventually, he became the last knight errant on a perpetual and fruitless quest to find his king, until he arrived in Redhauke, took a room, pinned his business card to the Guild bulletin board, and waited for paid sword work. By selling his services, he hoped to uncover some sign of Lithaine—and so he did.

  “If you think I’m going to let up on you, then your head is so far up your ass that it’s back on your shoulders,” Amabored said, poking the elf in the chest. Like me, he was mostly excited by the rich, unexplored veins of comedy unearthed by this news.

  “Let’s get this straight,” Lithaine said. “I’m no king. I never asked to be a king. Anybody who calls me a king will find himself short a head.” He whe
eled to face Malcolm. “That goes for you too. Call me your king again, or mention me to anyone, and I’ll cut your fucking balls off.”

  “As I rather value my testicles, young Lithaine,” said Malcolm, “You have my word that we shall not speak of it again, unless you speak it first.”

  “He may keep quiet, but I plan to win a lot of bar bets,” I said. “We’ll split the pot.”

  “You can say whatever you want,” said Lithaine, “because nobody gives a shit what you say.”

  Ultimatums drawn, we found ourselves back to the task at hand. Melinda knew as much as anyone about Storm Stonegorm’s haunted masterpiece, but she knew next to nothing about its defenses. Saggon, however, knew less—other than the well-trod path from his tower apartments to the larders, he never explored the place. As every door, window, crawlspace, crevice, and trapdoor within would be guarded by both sorcery and steel, the front door was as good a place to try as any.

  Whatever happened, I hoped to delay wearing the Skull as long as possible. If you possessed the skull of an evil demi-god, how eager would you be to put it on your shoulders? We had no idea what it would do to me, either. Would I be incinerated? Would it give me extra health points? Plus-enchantments on my weapons or armor? Extra strength, dexterity, or endurance? Or would I have to roll a saving throw to shake a curse? We cultivated pessimism as a survival skill, and this philosophy told me that the chance of something bad happening when I donned that Skull was as certain as anything could be in a probabilistic Multiverse.

  Our loins girded and our nerves more or less steeled, we paused to regard the Falcon, looming before us across Halberd Street. The stone gatehouse stood open, its darkened windows black and silent as a tomb. No guards barred entry. Perched on either side of the spiked wrought-iron gate, a pair of vultures regarded us. They chortled together, rustling their wings to herald our presence.

  “Vultures?” Redulfo asked. “Seriously?”

  “Saggon knows we’re coming,” Melinda said. She squeezed my hand. “You ready to rustle a pit devil, cowboy?”

  “I’ve already shit my pants, so I guess I am.”

  “What’s the worst that could happen? You get your heart ripped out by the devil and spend eternity in Hell. Big deal.”

  “Why don’t you wear it?”

  “If I could do it for you, I would.”

  “That’s what we guys say about childbirth.”

  “I know.”

  6

  We drew steel and started across the street. The silence was deafening. The bustle and din of Redhauke life had vanished: Every street empty, every door shut, every window dark and shrouded. Overhead, the clouds roiled. Before us loomed the Blue Falcon, its tower windows now glowing from some fell light within, its black spires stabbing the sky. The building’s long wings were outstretched arms, beckoning us into a fatal embrace.

  “The air is thick with melodrama,” Malcolm proffered, glancing around the street.

  “You get used to it,” I said. Even as it lay secure in a pouch lashed to my belt, I could sense the Skull leering at me. You’re its slave, a voice told me, and I couldn’t say if the voice came from inside my head, or from the Skull itself. No shit, I thought, but I’m not the one riding in a pouch. There was no fucking way I wanted to put that thing on my shoulders, not even if Koschei himself gave me a reach-around.

  We arrived at the gate. The vultures watched us. Lithaine put an arrow through one. It squawked and died while the other vulture flew off, cawing in protest.

  “Vultures,” Redulfo said, shaking his head.

  Inside the gate, the Falcon’s grounds stood dark and barren. Across the cobblestoned courtyard, the stables lay silent, no sign of horse or man within. The guardhouse was deserted. Lined with unlit oil lamps, the broad stone walkway led in a wide semicircle around the statue of Arturus’s Falcon to the main entrance. There, the twin iron-shod oak doors stood open.

  “Fucker’s thrown out the welcome mat,” said Amabored. “It’s all for show. He’s afraid of us.”

  “The guy has an army of imps and a pit devil inside,” I said, “and he’s afraid of us?”

  “He’s not afraid of you,” said Melinda. “He’s afraid of losing the Skull when it’s close at hand. Of course, he’s inviting us in.”

  “Fear not, my good lady,” Malcolm said, unsheathing his sword. “I serve at the pleasure of the Star Maiden whose shield protects the servants of logos.”

  “That and a copper will get you a hand job down at the Pit,” I said.

  The courtyard around us exploded, as giant geysers of stone and earth burst in a chain reaction like ripe blackheads. Shards of cobblestone and clods of dirt rained down on us. We threw up our shields to absorb the blows. The clearing dust revealed rows of coffins, thrust up from the earth in crooked ranks. From each coffin emerged a raging, frothing zombie—arms outstretched, clawed fingers grasping, eyes devoid of pupil, pale gray corpse-flesh glistening with grave-sweat.

  There were two hundred of them, at least. It might have ended there—but Malcolm, Paladin Knight of the White Rose, was on the case.

  “Stand back!” He cried, raising sword and shield as he faced the zombie horde. “Turn aside, foul denizens, or perish in the Void!”

  The white rose emblazoned on Malcolm’s shield glowed blindingly, until it launched forth a massive spectral assault. Lances of multi-hued light mowed through the zombies as a scythe mows through meadow grass. Two-thirds fell cleft in twain or thirds. Those closest to us were consumed by the holy light and melted away screaming. Within a minute, we were once again alone in the courtyard coated in dust and picking our way through the rubble.

  “That’s a hell of a trick,” said Amabored to the paladin. “Can you do it again?”

  “Not today,” said Malcolm as he wiped the dust from his pauldrons. “I’ve spent my seed, so to speak. Just as well—it’s impressive, but not nearly as enjoyable as sword work. Shall we step inside and see what else there is to slay?”

  “I’m warming up to that guy,” Amabored said to Lithaine as we headed for the door. “He looks a hell of a lot more like a king than you do. How did you come into your crown? You won a sweepstakes?”

  “If we make it out of this place alive,” said Lithaine, “I’m going to kill you.”

  “Get in line.”

  7

  Our plan, such as it was, would now be executed by three teams. Melinda and I would enter the catacombs below the Falcon; she would taunt the devil while I found the children, freed them, donned the Skull, shoved the devil into the Hellmouth and tossed the Skull into Hell with him. Meanwhile, Amabored and Lithaine would ascend Saggon’s tower, find that fat fuck, and cut off his head. That left Malcolm and Redulfo to fight a rearguard action to thwart any attempt to trap us inside.

  It was a dumb, dangerous plan reeking of failure. Our only comfort lay in knowing that Saggon faced his own challenge: He wanted the Skull, and he could get it only by taking it from my twitching corpse. Would the Skull infuse me with enough power to take on both the devil and whatever else Saggon sent after me? To find out, I planned to wait as long as I possibly could.

  On any other day, Saggon would have planted enough soldiers inside the Falcon to kill us before we got one toe past the threshold. On this day, we stepped unmolested into the Grand Foyer: an opulent, decaying space of vaulted ceilings festooned with shadows, with winding staircases of polished marble and lacquered mahogany that led up or down into the vast interior labyrinth. Dozens of doors led hither and yon. Faded oil paintings hung forlorn, dusty statuary pondered us from recessed displays, and massive tapestries draped rotten with neglect. On a normal day, the Foyer teemed with visiting supplicants, appointment-seekers, job hunters, beggars, whores, and public officials seeking Saggon’s favor. This evening, it was empty and silent. Only dim torchlight flickering from the wall sconces kept the foyer from darkness. Normally drafty, the room seemed unusually cold—colder even than the cool spring air outside—and our breath bloomed in
ghostly clouds before us. We spread out with weapons drawn.

  “How disappointing,” said Malcolm. “One expects a welcoming committee. Shall we march in and free those children, then? We may still have time for a late—”

  The paladin’s quip died in his throat, as the high shadow-draped ceiling erupted in hellish shrieks, and an army of imps rained down upon us. Not garden-variety imps, either, the kind we had slain by the hundreds during our adventuring careers—these were Ur-imps, bred in the forsaken pits of Malebolge to serve as cannon fodder in Hell’s armies. Driven by torment, their souls burn with no desire other than to die gloriously in battle. Their size ranges from dwarf to troll, their color from green to black to red. Their flesh they carve deep with spells formed from Hell-runes; their extremities they self-mutilate with piercings, insertions, and ritual debasements. Splintered horns curve from their skulls, cloven hooves depend from their cat-jointed legs, and their barbed tails lash out like bull whips.

  In short, they looked like any gang of youths you’d see lounging around Redhauke on a Friday night. Black venom flying from their forked tongues, they fell upon us.

  We learned soon enough that their hides were impervious to steel—the shock of my blade caroming off an imp’s thick skin nearly dislocated my shoulder. Neither Amabored nor Malcolm fared better. Lithaine shot a few arrows into a few eye sockets, while Melinda scored with a dagger to an open maw, but we were only playing defense. The imps rained blows upon us, until we fell back toward the front door.

  “Uh-oh,” Amabored called out. “I gotta take a shit.”