by Brian Lumley
‘Yes?’
‘—It’s only that people trust him. I mean, I know it sounds daft, but it’s the truth. For all he’s a crazy butcher, he commands respect, even loyalty. Damn me, I respect him!’
‘Ah! said the other, and sat back in his chair. Then he straightened up, looked directly into Tarra’s eyes. ‘When you said he was no more a mage than you yourself, you came nearer to the truth than you knew. That magick you speak of is very special, Tarra Khash, a natural earth magick which men seldom aspire to. It explains your mutual attraction, yours and Yoppaloth’s. And now I know why Ahorra Izz, Orbiquita, Amyr Arn and others I’ve seen or spoken to like and respect you so well. For it’s a magick you share with him, do you see?’
‘Me, magick?’ Tarra could only snort, shake his head.
‘Aye,’ the white wizard nodded his huge black curly head, ‘a magick which might yet save us all …’
The whirling cloud over Shad was slowly descending, lighting up the city’s roofs and domes and minarets with a reflected green shimmer. Where before the city had been hushed, silent, now sounds came drifting on a wind stirred up by the lowering twister. The massed sighing of a great host of people! And then other sounds – screams! And finally the roar of a crowd’s voice lifted in savage applause.
‘The games in Yoppaloth’s arena of death,’ Tarra gasped. ‘They’ve started!’
‘How long will they go on, before—?’ Teh Atht left the unspeakable unspoken.
‘There are a lot of slaves to die first,’ Tarra answered.
‘Then it’s high time I was on my way back to my own body,’ said the other. ‘With luck I’ll see you again, presently, in the arena of death.’
‘What?’ Tarra felt the hairs rise up on the nape of his neck, but despite his dread, he understood well enough what Teh Atht meant.
The black man smiled a strange smile, and – was changed in a moment! Gone now Teh Atht, and the Yhemni taverner Moota Phunt returned to his rightful body. His eyes opened wide; he sprang up, fell down in a faint.
Tarra got to his feet, stood over the fallen man. He felt faint himself – both from excess of drink, and from the stink of DOOM which now hung almost tangible in the hot, jungle-perfumed air – but no time for fainting.
Time for only one thing now …
Teh Atht was back in his own body, on all fours on the gummy floor of the astrologarium, to which he adhered quite admirably. He cancelled the spell, stood up and dusted himself down, called hopper and flitter to attend him, and likewise the liquid one out of his astrological plasm. One glance at that miniature universe, where its wheeling spheres moved ever closer to completion of the pattern, told the white wizard that time had very nearly run out. In a matter of hours, the stars would be right. And before that he must be back in Shad.
Then, familiars three in attendance, he donned his Primary Robe of Runes and materialized his favourite wand; and moments later he and his troupe sped out from a high balcony, making all speed for Shad aboard his fantastic flying carpet. Faster than ever before, that wonderfully woven vehicle arced skyward and raced south, and Teh Atht in the prow pointing the way with his wand, never worrying that he might burn the carpet’s power right out of it, but only that he get to Shad in time.
Except…in time for what?
At about the same time as Teh Atht crossed the Lohr, Orbiquita and her ex-sister escorts were descending toward jungled Shad. Black Yoppaloth’s palace, by virtue of the many lights along its five tiers and the roar of the rabble echoing up from its vaults, was at once apparent; Orbiquita directed she be delivered there, where exactly being determined when she spied, on the roof of the third tier, a high-walled garden with many marble archways leading into the building at its back. For there beyond these ornate archways she’d spied rooms of fine furnishings and piled cushions, where languished a dozen gorgeous girls all scrubbed clean and clad only in silks and perfumed oils. Black Yoppaloth’s harem, beyond a doubt.
The garden itself was deserted, however, for all twelve of the girls were huddled together within their quarters; and so unseen the lamia flock deposited Orbiquita there, before bidding her farewell and taking once more to the night sky. Following which she was quite alone, but resolute in her pledge that if her Tarra was in bondage to Yoppaloth, then that she’d find him here somewhere.
There in the garden she quickly shed her outer garments and hid them in a bush, and attired as scantily as the rest entered into the harem and found her way to huddling with the other girls. And all the while she was trying to think what best to do next. A problem which was taken out of her hands at once, for at that point precisely came an amazing diversion!
A white youth, little more than a stripling, arrived at the great latticed doors to the harem, beyond which stood a huge Yhemni eunuch. The guard started up and set about the stranger at once, to chase him away, but the boy had a knife. Before the black knew what was happening, Loomar Nindiss had slit his throat, taken the key to the harem and used it to slip inside. There he tremblingly approached the cowed girls and drew out his sister, Jezza, from their midst.
No longer chained to her companions, she left them easily enough (albeit reluctantly, for they’d all become familiar as sisters to her) and went with Loomar into the garden; the others followed after – Orbiquita likewise, to see what was happening – and began begging the youth to rescue them also. Loomar, beside himself with anxiety, frustration and regret, could only shake his tousled head; all their pleading must go for naught. His own and Jezza’s escape would not be easy; any attempt to steal away the rest of the girls en masse would be madness!
Then he’d scaled the garden wall, and uncoiling a slender rope from his waist had drawn up Jezza after him. A moment more and the pair had disappeared from view.
As Orbiquita and the other girls trooped back into the harem, several of them began arguing that they should raise the alarm. If not, when the dead eunuch was discovered, which must be shortly, then they’d all be implicated. And Black Yoppaloth’s rage would be great. At this point Orbiquita spoke up, her voice softly sibilant as she said:
‘No, we had nothing to do with it, and none can say we did.’ She closed the doors, reached a slender hand through their latticework and turned the key in the lock, then tossed it down alongside the dead guard. ‘There, and now when he’s found we’ll not be suspected – and those two will be away and running. For the guard and his key are out there, and we are all safe in here, and the door is locked. All is as it should be, with the exception that a eunuch is dead.’
‘That and the fact that we number only eleven!’ one of them tearfully protested.
‘Strange,’ said Orbiquita, very quietly, ‘for I make the count twelve!’
Sure enough, when they checked they found she was right, and only then did they notice the stranger in their midst. They drew back a little from her then, but Orbiquita merely put a finger to her lips, turned her head a little on one side and cautioned them. ‘Let it be,’ she warned, her eyes very bright and feral. ‘Or believe me, you’ll have more to worry about this night than Black Yoppaloth’s anger.’
And then, because she looked so strange and seemed so certain, they said no more …
Atop Na-dom’s flat summit, a fretted needle spire of rock like a finger pointed skyward. And through the stem of this tallest crag, a hole like an oval eye, through which a man might gaze into the heavens on all the stars shining down on Theem’hdra. And the hole in the rock was the Eye of Gleeth, which Amyr Arn had used aforetime, and many a priest of the Suhm-yi before him.
The moon’s orbit was taking him behind that lone spire even now, and soon his silver orb would fill the hole exactly like an eye, with the dark occluded section of its surface a huge eyeball gazing toward the east and somewhat south – gazing in fact upon far Shadarabar. Amyr Arn looked in that same direction, followed the silver swath of the moon across the Crater Sea, and saw auroral lights where never those lights should be. A green, crawling, sprawling aurora �
� a great emerald blotch disfiguring the horizon – weird and unhealthy there in the far south-east. And:
‘Gleeth!’ Amyr cried in his silvery voice. ‘There! Now you see it for yourself. Strange dark forces are at work in the Primal Land. Even in the sky, which is your domain, they manifest themselves. Now Tarra Khash is surely at the heart of this mystery, and I fear for his life. Indeed, I fear for all Theem’hdra! And so I beseech you, Gleeth, old god of the moon, look down in favour on the Hrossak this night, and aid him if you can.’
A lone cloud drifted across Gleeth’s face, when for long moments his rays were dimmed and their pathway across the crater sea faded to a thin gleaming. When at last the cloud passed, the moon had swung more surely into position behind the spire, so that indeed Amyr fancied he gazed upon some vast cycloptic eye set in a face of stone. But when he would have called again upon Gleeth for his assistance—
Hold! came the voice of the moon-god, in his ears or mind he knew now. Say no more, Amyr Arn of the Suhm-yi. I have seen and understand all. They call me ‘blind’ and ‘deaf, but I am neither one nor the other. I have made myself blind to many of Man’s doings, true, for they were not fit to be seen; and certainly I have been deaf to many a man’s exhortations, which were unworthy. But in you yourself I can find nothing ignoble, and in the Hrossak Tarra Khash only a very little. You are both singularly rare creatures. Which is as well, for these are singularly rare times.
Now hear me: I feel in my orbit a tremor, the dreadful lure of stars and planets acting upon me in unison, and I know that calamity strides in the star spaces, bearing down upon this region of space and time. And you are right: Tarra Khash is the key, his is the single power by which a cosmic catastrophe may be avoided. I say ‘may’, for events teeter upon a very narrow rim, be certain! The Hrossak cannot win on his own. Others know this, too, and rush to his side even now. And you? Would you also stand beside Tarra Khash on this night of nights?
‘Would that I could,’ Amyr breathed, hardly daring to speak in case he broke the spell. ‘But how? His troubles lie in Shad, far away over mountains and rivers and plains. Grim peaks, great deeps, burning deserts separate us. There are days and weeks of travel lying between. Do you speak in riddles, old moon-god?’
Do you remember, Gleeth answered, when you fired an arrow into my eye? And how I swallowed up that arrow and shot it out many miles away to kill the northern barbarian Kon Athar? This will be similar. Except it will require a deal more of faith. Faith in me, Amyr Arn. Your forefathers were the most faithful of creatures. And you?
‘Only tell me what I must do,’ Amyr replied.
Now quickly, said Gleeth. You see the silver swath I cut across the Crater Sea? It leads to Shad. Only follow it.
‘But…how?’ Amyr felt his silver skin grow cold.
Like the arrow. Run, dive, shoot yourself along my moonbeam path – to Shad!
‘Hurl myself down?’ Amyr’s round eyes grew rounder still.
No, not down – along! and I’ll set you down safe in Shad. But quickly, while yet I stand in the oval of the pierced spire.
Faith? And did Amyr have such faith? And if he had not, what then?
‘Old Gleeth,’ he cried, ‘I put my faith in you!’ And he ran to the rim of Na-dom and hurled himself headlong into the glare of the moon’s silver path …
Two meetings occurred almost simultaneously: the first between Tarra Khash, Loomar Nindiss and his sister, and the second between Teh Atht and the lamia Sisterhood. The first was relatively down to earth:
Tarra Khash, loping through Shad’s deserted streets toward the ziggurat palace, came round the corner of a building and almost collided with a pair of fleet shadows hurrying in the opposite direction. He instinctively reached for a sword which was no longer there, then fell into a defensive crouch. And:
‘Caught!’ Jezza gasped. ‘Oh, Loomar, what now, my brother?’
Keen eyes pierced the green-glowing gloom. Came recognition!
Tarra took a deep breath. ‘Loomar Nindiss!’ he sighed. ‘And Jezza. How’d you get her away?’
The youth fell into Tarra’s arms, hugged him. ‘Tarra Khash!’ he gasped, getting his wind. ‘I never thought I’d be so grateful to see a Hrossak!’
Tarra caught up Jezza and gave her a quick hug to reassure her, then shoved her into her brother’s arms. ‘Quickly,’ he said, ‘tell me what’s happening and how far it’s gone. Also, how you got away.’
‘Yoppaloth set me free,’ said the youth. ‘Out of deference to you. He told me: “Go, enjoy your freedom while you can. And thank Tarra Khash that he befriended you.” After that, I killed a harem guard, snatched Jezza, came here. But as for the rest: the tournament has begun, and men are dying in the sorcerer’s arena of death. Now come with us, Tarra, and we’ll flee this place. Maybe we can steal a boat, and—’
‘No,’ Tarra shook his head. ‘All of this ends – tonight. Maybe for me – for you, too, and the whole world – and maybe, just maybe, not. I can’t come with you. I’ve a date with Black Yoppaloth in his infernal arena.’
‘You go to the palace?’ Loomar couldn’t credit his own ears. ‘To kill Yoppaloth? Five thousand blood-crazed Yhemnis attend the games; you haven’t a cat’s chance in hell!’
‘Cats have nine lives,’ said Tarra, simply. ‘Now go, hide yourselves in the city. If all comes to naught fleeing will do you no good anyway. If all turns out for the best – maybe I’ll see you later.’
‘Very well,’ said Loomar, ‘but take this with you.’ He gave Tarra a knife, which the Hrossak at once recognized. He snorted, said:
‘Just a lad, they never did search you.’
Loomar nodded. ‘I was a lad,’ he said, ‘once …’
Then: Tarra wasted no more time or words but turned and loped into the shadows …
The second meeting, between Teh Atht and the lamia Sisterhood, happened like this:
As the white wizard followed Theem’hdra’s eastern seaboard south and soared above the mouths of the salt lochs where they opened into the Eastern Ocean, so he spied Iniquiss and her brood coming in across the Straits of Yhem at a somewhat lower altitude. Knowing the lamias of old – and knowing also that they had taken Orbiquita to Tarra Khash, and that therefore they might have news of him – he turned westward, dipped down toward them and flew parallel for a while.
Iniquiss spotted him, scowled, flew closer; at which hopper, flitter and the entirely liquid one made themselves small as possible and crowded behind their master. ‘Ho, wizard!’ she called out. ‘How now? And is this a chance meeting or what?’
Teh Atht inquired after Orbiquita, learned her whereabouts as last known, then quickly explained his mission. And he likewise hinted that the lamias might care to take a hand in whatever was to proceed, for all the world’s creatures would be imperilled together if the Old Ones were allowed to return – lamias included.
Iniquiss gave what he said some little consideration; Orbiquita was owed one last request; perhaps it were not well to desert her at this eleventh (almost twelfth) hour. ‘Very well,’ she called out, above the cackle of her protesting lesser sisters, ‘we’ll return to Shad at once. But don’t let us detain you – go on ahead and save a little time.’
Teh Atht required no more urging but turned his carpet south again, and in a little while crossed the Straits of Yhem …
Amyr Arn’s flight on Gleeth’s moonbeam carrier seemed languid as liquid silver, but in fact it was accomplished with speed and no small measure of discomfort, the latter coming at journey’s end. From first leap into space from the flat summit of Na-dom, his silvery hide and its contents had been disassembled, had flowed into and along Gleeth’s beam, had sped over the Primal Land like a fleeting moonshadow, finally to be reassembled from dappled silvery light close to Yoppaloth’s palace in Shad – over a moat of crocodiles where the ziggurat’s lower east wall faced the jungle!
Splashing down and gathering to himself his wildly whirling senses, the last Suhm-yi male saw needle-toothed
snouts ploughing the scummy water in his direction, made at once for the ziggurat’s slimy, water-lapped wall. No entirely human creature could have hoped to scale that slippery surface of vertical marble blocks – not in the area where it met the water – but Amyr was not human.
His spatulate fingers (one less to each hand than in human beings) found crevices others would miss, and the suction of his fingertips never failed him but left astonished crocs chewing on weeds where a moment earlier his slender body had knifed through water, and Amyr already his own height up the wall, and going for all he was worth. Like a lizard he climbed, and into the first window he could find, and from there following the arena’s swelling roar down dripping, disused, nitre-festooned stairwells and along winding corridors, until he’d passed through something of a maze to find himself in a dungeon of sorts, where an archway covered by a grid of iron bars at last blocked his way. But here the arena’s noise was an uproar, and beyond the bars—
—Black Yoppaloth’s arena of death! And even if there had been no bars, the sight Amyr saw then must certainly have stopped him dead in his tracks …
XII
TO WIN IS TO LOSE!
Tarra Khash looked down on that same mad scene of death and destruction; down on it, aye, for he’d entered the ziggurat palace at a higher level and come here by a different route. And never a man to challenge his presence in this place, for all of the palace guards – and the majority of Shad’s citizens, too – were here to witness Yoppaloth’s monstrous games. What Tarra (and Amyr, too) saw was this:
A circular arena, all ringed about by statues of a great many gods, their circle being broken in only one place where stood a square, blood-hued onyx dais. And in front of the dais, going down to depths beyond imagination, the glass-throated pit of which Yoppaloth II had spoken, out of which and up through the chimney above, passed the writhing tail of the greenly illumined twister.
