“Anything we should know before we go in there?” asked Younger.
“I remember it being pretty damned cold in Saggon’s office,” said Elder. “You might want to start a fire in the hearth. Use this.” He took a glass vial from his pouch. It was empty, save for a small portion of red liquid at the bottom. Younger took it with a questioning glance.
“Holocaust potion,” continued Elder. “Just a few drops—that’s all you’ll need. And now, ladies, I must be off. Try not to trip over your skirts. And you, magic boy—” with this, Elder pointed to Lithaine—“You told me to tell you to go fuck yourself.”
With that, the older Amabored launched himself down into the tower headfirst, his great wings spreading wide as he plunged into the darkness. The two friends stared after him.
“Could this night get any more fucked up?” asked Lithaine.
“I’m starting to like that guy,” Amabored said. “He reminds me of me.”
19
Amabored had snagged the Holocaust potion from Jaspin’s stash in the Red Library—the very place that young Redulfo was headed before we black-bagged him. Even amongst the wise of today, no one knows exactly who created the time loop that resulted in Redulfo killing himself; could it have been Gygax and Rigsby themselves? After all, the wizards founded the Workshop of Telescopes, and then created the Wilderness of Mirrors to defend it from assault. In that Wilderness, they included a mirror that would send anyone who stepped through it to the Blue Falcon on the precise night that we were assaulting it. After they helped kill Koschei during the first Quest, the wizards were instrumental in hiding the Bad Brain where, five hundred years later, Redulfo would find and become possessed by it, be killed by his mates, and then be reincarnated as a black dragon by the Crimson Hand, which then sent him to reoccupy their former haunt. That same Redulfo the Black then returned us to the Blue Falcon—through the mirror that Gygax and Rigsby created—to find the young Redulfo and wield him as the weapon that effectively allowed the older Redulfo to kill himself. Redulfo’s second death was a key milestone in the Quest that brought down both Koschei and the Hand. Had the two wizards known all along that Koschei would return, and booby-trapped time to ensure his downfall? Who the hell knew?
Seriously, reread that last paragraph. Does it make a lick of fucking sense? But that’s as good an explanation as any for how it went down.
That night, it didn’t take long for those of us who went through the mirror to decide that facing a black dragon was preferable to running for our lives in the Blue Falcon. The massive fortress-inn was already threatening to implode around our older selves, the great stone walls and thick oaken beams of the Red Library quaking from the force of the quantum tremors unleashed by the conflict far below. I grabbed young Redulfo by the shoulders and yanked him through the secret door, where the four of us—Amabored, Lithaine, Malcolm and me—regarded him with the shock of recognition seared onto our faces.
For his part, Redulfo the Younger merely squinted through his spectacles. “How did you all get in here? You look… different. Where the heck did those wings come from, Amabored?”
“Never mind that,” I said. “We’re here from the future, and unless you want us to fuck you up with some crazy-ass future-shit, just shut up and listen. Got it?”
“Got it,” said Redulfo. Behind me, my three older companions loomed ominously, ready to fuck up Redulfo with some crazy-ass future-shit, should the need arise.
“Good,” I said. “Right now, your version of Amabored and Lithaine is about to run into an ice-golem masquerading as Saggon.” We knew this because Redulfo the Black had told us so, right before we stepped through his mirror. “That fat fuck has something that we need to kill a black dragon. So, we need something that’ll help them take out the golem. See anything in here they can use?”
Redulfo looked around the Red Library, burgeoning as it was with shelves crammed full of all manner of tomes, scrolls, stacks of parchment, and magical bric-a-brac. Later, we’d learn that it was Jaspin’s own secret stash of magical booty, stored here for the day he rubbed out Saggon for good and assumed control of the Blue Falcon himself. His gaze settled on a bookcase stuffed full of sealed jars, vials, and tubes stacked on their sides. Spying one containing a small portion of red liquid, he snagged it and handed it to me.
“Holocaust potion,” said the younger wizard. “Just a few drops. Heat the place up and the golem’s ice armor will melt. Or at least, that’s what I’ve read.”
I tossed the potion to Amabored. “You on it?” I asked.
“On it. Any words for your younger self?” the barbarian asked Lithaine.
“Tell him I said to go fuck himself.”
“If you guys are from the future, why don’t you just all go kill the ice-golem yourselves?” Redulfo asked.
“Because we need to stay here and guard you,” I told him. “Interested parties might want to stop this little event from happening.”
When Redulfo the Black explained what would happen when we stepped through the mirror into the Blue Falcon, and what we would need to do when we got there, we huddled briefly to discuss the ramifications. Should we help our younger selves? What else should we do, or not do, to change things? Being time-novices, and certain that the dragon was going to fuck us somehow, we decided to say as little as possible.
As we sat on Redulfo the younger in the Red Library, waiting for Amabored to return with the petrified dragon phallus, I couldn’t help but think of my own younger self, about to wage the battle of his young life against a foe with whom he had no business tangling. Nine years of my life vanished in an instant, ripping open the emotional scars from my past to leave fresh wounds now raw and red. I saw Melinda, and my life in Redhauke, lost to the Quest. Melinda was about to sacrifice herself—could I save her the pain and psychic scars of her time in Hell? My mind’s eye found the scene in my memory—and suddenly the two me’s collided in time and space. I was up here; I was down there. I was down here; I was up there. We were me.
I knew then that there was still a chance to change her fate and mine, regardless of what Redulfo believed. All I had to do was give myself a heads-up. Did I want to? If I had a chance to do things differently, would I? There was only one way to find out.
“There’s still time to change things.” I projected the thought to my younger self. “Stop her. Take her out of the city. Start the Quest now, just the two of you, together. You don’t have to hurt her.”
“Who the fuck are you?” my younger mind projected.
“Your fucking conscience, that’s who. Just listen to me. Stop Melinda. Now.”
Just as I could see young Elberon’s future, so could he now see my past. He saw it all: Melinda’s fall and rebirth; my betrayal of her, and the furious pain in her eyes as she turned away from me in the Under-Canals. He saw her pregnancy, and its loss. He saw Cassie and me, us, making love under the Star Maiden’s hem in the lush olive groves of Collanna, the summer breezes caressing our sweat-limned flesh. I took first one and then the other of her nipples in my mouth. They were ripe pink olives, tasting of salt and sweat.
“And give up the chance to nail the hot blonde?” the younger me asked the older me. “No fucking way.”
“No, seriously. You’ve seen how much pain we cause Melinda. Don’t you want the chance to save her from it?”
“If you love Cassie, then isn’t it worth it? Wasn’t it meant to be?”
“That’s what I don’t know. Did I have a choice to hurt Melinda? Maybe not. But now you have one. Now that you know how it turns out, you can choose not to do it.”
“But we don’t know how it turns out, do we? Will the Quest succeed? Will you marry Cassie? Will she bear your child? If so, dare I deprive that child of life? That’s a lot of fucking pressure to put on me, asshole. It’s not my place to change the future. I’m as beholden to it as I am to the past.”
“It’s a fair point,” I said. “Look, I had to ask. So just go take down that fucking devil. And fo
r Odin’s sake, don’t forget to scream.”
The spell broke. I snapped back to the present—but the hurt, the loss, the guilt, the exhilaration, and my love for the woman for whom I betrayed another, remained constant. No matter where you go in the Multiverse, I thought—
20
—you always carry the same baggage with you.
Below and nine years earlier, the connection broke. The Hellmouth sprang back into existence. The massive iron-shod obsidian doors, carved from the souls of great kings, once again loomed before me. Before the doors stood Malacoda, Dire Malebranche of the Eighth Circle of Hell, a vicious piece of shit who had been condemned by Beelzebub to guard the Hellmouth for eternity as punishment for his failure to vanquish Arturus. Now, he passed his time by eating the souls of the children Saggon sent to him—and for that, he had to die.
“WELL?” asked the devil, his black tongue lolling. “ARE WE GOING TO PARLAY, OR PARTY?”
“Watch the children, Elberon,” Melinda whispered to me. “When he’s distracted, lead them out of here.”
With that, Melinda stepped forward to confront the devil. Sheathing her sword, she curtsied low, sweeping her arm out before her.
“Your Satanic Highness,” Melinda began. “All praise to your cruelness and malice. We thank thee for treating with us.”
“SAVE IT, BITCH,” said Malacoda. “I DON’T WANT YOU. I WANT HIM.” The devil extended a hooked talon and pointed it in my direction.
Startled, Melinda looked back to me. Her gaze met mine, and she nodded. Then she shrank back against the writhing flesh-wall to allow me passage forward. I took five steps toward the devil and planted my feet.
“OKAY,” I bellowed in my booming skull-voice. “I’M HERE.”
Malacoda roared with laughter. “TWO PHYLAXES, AND YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE ME,” the devil said. “FAT CHANCE.”
“TWO PHYLAXES?” I asked. “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”
“EVEN FOR A MORTAL, YOU’RE ESPECIALLY DENSE,” said the devil. “HERE’S THE SKINNY: I GAVE THE SKULL TO THE GIRL FOR KICKS. NOW INTERESTED PARTIES NEED IT BACK. SO, HAND IT OVER, AND I’LL ONLY KILL BOTH OF YOU AND EAT THE KIDS QUICK. GIVE ME ANY LIP, AND I’LL NOT ONLY EAT THEM, BUT I’LL ALSO PLAY WITH THEM FIRST—FOR A FEW HUNDRED YEARS.”
“I’D LIKE TO ACCOMMODATE YOU,” I said. “BUT I’M USING THE SKULL—TO RIP YOUR OWN SKULL OFF YOUR FUCKING SHOULDERS. YOU EAT KIDS, YOU DIE. SORRY, BUT THAT’S THE WAY IT IS.”
With that, I stretched forth my hand—an instinctual move, as wearing the Skull seemed to fill me with knowledge of how to manipulate Chaos. At my command, the doors to the Hellmouth parted with a great ratcheting groan, revealing a thin line of light that seemed to glow white and black at the same time. As they began to swing wider, I felt for a moment at one with Arturus, the greatest hero Woerth had ever known, as he banished the hellspawn and sealed the Hellmouth, so long ago.
The feeling didn’t last. Suddenly the doors ground to a halt. Then, even more swiftly than I had opened them, they slammed shut again.
“YOU’RE NOT FIT TO LICK ARTURUS’S BALLS, MORTAL,” the devil said. “NOW, LET’S TANGO.”
With that pronouncement, Malacoda strained forward with rippling black muscles against the immense iron chains binding him to the Hellmouth. For a moment, it appeared the chains would hold. Then, with great cracking pops, two of the links broke, and the devil was free. On his great hawk-talons, he galloped toward me—and before I knew what hit me, I was fighting for my life with a live pit devil. How many Fourth-Level fighters can say that?
His black, spell-carved arms outstretched, the remnants of his binding chains still dangling from his manacles, the devil’s talons gripped the horns of the Screaming Skull as he tried to wrench it from my shoulders. My own hands, now grown massive with fingers like links of polish sausage, were wrapped around the devil’s throat. His yellow eyes bore into my brain like a Mindworm of Tarsus.
The devil was as tall as three men. In my current incarnation, I matched him inch for inch. The Skull and the Girdle together had filled me with enough power to go toe-to-toe with this Fallen asshole. What would a guy be able to do if he managed to collect all ten Phylaxes? Forget about untold riches or world domination, because who needs it? Let’s just say I’d be popular with the ladies.
The more immediate question: Could I stop this particular fuckface, here and now? We were encased in Hellfire—the untrammeled essence of Chaos born when El divided himself, mated with Tiamat, and emanated the Multiverse—leaping from our entwined forms like solar flares. The power of it shook the very bedrock under the city, sending towers swaying from the Chimera Gate to the Harbor. Beyond the flesh-walls, the natural tunnel leading to the Hellmouth began to collapse, with massive shards of granite sheering from the cave roof. Somewhere nearby, Melinda raised up my shield as scant protection against the avalanche. The terrified children cowered around her.
No cavefall touched we combatants; we fought in a pocket universe built just for us, one in which only one of us could live. There was no need for words—we could read each other’s thoughts just fine.
“Go home, mortal,” the devil’s mind told me. “Hang it up. Chill out for a while. You’ve earned some time off. Don’t make me use your spine to pick your bits out of my teeth.”
“Sorry, chum,” I answered. “You have to answer for those kids. You’re a sick motherfucker, and I’m some motherfucking penicillin, motherfucker. I’m going to tear off your motherfucking head and shove it up your motherfucking ass.”
“I’m not your chum, pal.”
“I’m not your pal, friend.”
“WHAT IS THIS—CANADA?” the devil hissed aloud. Malacoda shoved me back, and a great pimple of Hellfire burst forth from our broken union to shower the fleshy, dripping walls of the tunnel with a suppuration of flame. The souls trapped within cried out, their screams ricocheting in my mind as I flew back a hundred yards and crashed into the ruins of the blood worm’s tunnel.
I leapt up. Rubble fell from my shoulders.
“OK, NOW YOU’RE PISSING ME OFF,” I said aloud. I drew my sword, and the blade burst into cold blue flames. The power of the Screaming Skull filled me with the opiate pleasures of madness. I would take a piece out of this fucker’s hide—that was that.
I advanced. The devil, now wielding a massive two-headed battle-mace carved deep with runes of necromancy, raced forward to meet me. His black hide capered with yellow flames. His bullish face spread in a leering rictus. His fangs dripped red with the blood of innocents. By the standards of Hell, he was quite stylish.
Out of the corner of whatever passed for my eye at that moment, I spied Melinda, attempting to slip past us leading a chain of children linking hands behind her. The children wore expressions that foretold a lifetime of haunted memories, should they survive the night. She got them halfway down the long tunnel before the damned souls trapped within the walls began to shriek the alarm, and the devil spied her.
“TRYING TO MAKE OFF WITH MY DINNER, ARE WE?” Malacoda roared, as the children shrieked with terror. “THINK AGAIN, MILDRED.” The devil’s horns glowed magma-red as fingers of Hellfire arched from their tips to seize the children, tear them from Melinda’s grasp, and drag them screaming back toward the Hellmouth doors.
“Elberon—stop him!” Melinda cried out.
Though her voice was distant, hobbled by whatever dark energy surrounded me, I caught her meaning. Cocking my arm back, I drove it with full force into the devil’s right eye. His bull-head rocked back—and as black blood spurted from the fresh cut above his brow, he laughed.
“TRY HARDER!” The devil bellowed with lunatic mirth. He jerked back his horns, and the tendrils of Hellfire enveloping the children flung them toward the Hellmouth doors with sudden and overwhelming force. As the children’s frail bodies rocketed toward the closed obsidian doors, the grasping, corpse-colored arms of scores of damned souls trapped within them reached out to seize the limbs of the screaming children. One by one, t
he children were pulled into the doors: their little bodies melting into them, their skinny limbs waving frantically until they vanished, their agape mouths and rolling white eyes melting also into them. All seven children vanished, until only the echoes of their screams remained.
“NO!” Melinda cried, as she raced for the Hellmouth doors. She flung herself against them as if her fury were all she needed to fling them open. Then she turned to me again.
“Open the doors!” she cried.
All right, then. “What are you gonna do with that mace, imp?” my mind projected into the devil’s head.
No mortal man calls an Arch-Devil like Malacoda an imp and gets away with it. These High Lords of Hell, with legions of Fallen at their command, take that shit seriously. But I was by now no mere mortal. Thanks to the Skull, I had become some strange mashup of Elberon and Koschei, powered by the wellsprings of Chaos from a thousand other worlds. Would it be enough juice to tear off this devil’s fat melon head?
Malacoda roared, swung his mace on high, and brought it down. I raised up my sword to parry. The force of the devil’s blow snapped the blade at the hilt. I held up the sword pommel to regard the space where my sword once was. Fucking hell.
“Oh, you’ll be fucking Hell, all right,” came Malacoda in my head. “I’ll see to it personally. You’ll be fucking Hell for the foreseeable future.”
The devil readied another blow. The mace head caught me square on the side of the Skull. While it wasn’t the skull I was born with, this one was definitely connected to my nervous system. Pain burst in my head like popcorn. Everything went white, then black. The tunnel floor leaped up and punched me in the teeth. The tormented souls in the floor cried their lamentations and tore at my mind and body with grasping, ragged claws.
There came the echo of footfalls, and then pain as the devil ground a hooked talon into my back. His laugh was a black rain that fell on my soul.
The Screaming Skull Page 34
