by John Shirley
She sent her messengers two days apart. Both returned on schedule. She paid them their remaining wages, and then waited.
It wasn’t hard to spot the first contingent of Maqqi. They’d tried to disguise themselves as merchants and bodyguards, nearly two-dozen of them, wearing dirt-colored robes with hoods, but the timing of their arrival and the way they carried themselves – like priests, not men of business or security – was immediately transparent. As they entered, shaking off road dust and peering around, the heads of the Sleeping Devil’s usual guests turned, weighing their worth. Zolamin hoped no one else would rob the Maqqi before her plan could unfold.
Seated behind a support pillar in the shadows of the second level, she looked down on the ground floor bar as they presented a heavy trunk to the innkeeper, who inspected it, then made a pre-arranged gesture.
The trunk held the money her messenger had demanded.
She moved to her room, which faced out onto the empty plain that stretched across Hyperborea. Perching in the window with a flask, she waited.
Several hours later, a lookout rode in from the east, leapt from his mount, and rushed into the inn.
After a few minutes, the disguised Maqqi appeared in front of the Sleeping Devil, led by the young messenger to where Y’n-Tharqqua’s box waited, unguarded and alone, in the sandy waste. His task finished, the young messenger fled.
The lead Maqqi stopped, made a sacred sign, and threw back his hood. It was Nin Zaggadolh, as she’d hoped…because she desired more than just money. She also wanted vengeance.
The priest knelt before the box and tenderly opened it.
His scream of outrage was audible even over the noise of the inn below her.
She grinned and glanced at the wrapped bundle on the floor behind her – at the dusty blankets that held Y’n-Tharqqua.
The Maqqi turned back to the inn, drawing swords, and for a second Zolamin felt a stab of anxiety. If she’d timed this wrong, if her lookout had made a mistake…
The priests had almost reached the inn when the sound of thunderous paws rumbled across the plains. They stopped, peering to the east, at the approaching dust clouds that hid the riders.
Then, as they neared the inn, the twenty Dulambri warriors riding in on dinicti were revealed.
The Maqqi panicked. Some tried to rush into the inn, only to find the heavy doors already bolted. Left with no escape, they turned to face the enraged Dulambri.
The fight was bloody and fast. Twenty minutes later, only Nin Zaggadolh still stood, facing the last two Dulambri. The priest’s left arm was already gone, and he staggered from blood loss and shock but fought on against the smaller Dulambri.
Zolamin was done waiting. She paid the Sleeping Devil’s innkeeper; her fee included a better cart and faster steeds, and a round of drinks that she hoped would slow any of the thieves who would surely pursue her. She unbolted the door and stepped outside, sword already drawn. She paused only long enough to slay the last two Dulambri, leaving Nin Zaggadolh to watch as she collected the money both parties had brought to redeem Y’n-Tharqqua.
“Whore…” It was all Nin Zaggadolh said before he died.
She had no time to spare for the dead priest, especially now that she had his god, his money, and his life. She whipped her gastorns; she hoped to make Uzuldaroum in two days, where she would sell Y’n-Tharqqua to Avoosl Wuthoqquan.
And then, once she’d claimed that final payment, she would kill Y’n-Tharqqua. Because what she’d seen in the box – what now rode with her to Hyperborea’s capitol – was no god. When she’d looked inside the box, she’d expected perhaps a roiling cloud, a blinding light, something so alien it defied understanding…but she found instead something that might once have been human. It was no larger than a child, but pruned and bleached by the centuries; its hairless skin was grey, the eyes closed but fluttering beneath translucent, blue-veined skin.
The force of the visions staggered her:
Y’n-Tharqqua is a thing of only a few millenia, unique and curious / he lives apart, watching, knowing he can never be part of the world but nonetheless fascinated by it / he watches the others evolve, fight, and slaughter / he falls victim to their avaricious thoughts, losing his own / Y’n-Tharqqua retreats into the solace of sleep, and his disturbed dreams repay the favor to those who drove him mad.
The dreams ended. Zolamin blinked, to clear her vision. She still stood poised above Y’n-Tharqqua, whom she now knew was no god, but something that could be slain. She laughed.
Now she headed to Uzuldaroum, where she would live the last of Y’n-Tharqqua’s dreams before ending the monster. She gave no thought to the forty dead men she’d left at the Sleeping Dragon Inn; she knew the Dulambri and Maqqi clans would recover, and would find something else to worship soon enough. Some part of her screamed in protest, told her to stop and kill the thing in the box, to give the money away and leave Hyperborea forever, to spend her life trying to forget Y’n-Tharqqua’s cursed visions…but that part was buried beneath the weight of djals.
Instead, she gripped the reins tighter and thought about what name Hyperborea’s grateful whores would call her.
Having Set Out to Be Vanquished
By Garrett Cook
The toad,” said the elder, “has eaten.”
“Then he can eat again,” said the young man, defiant. “I will be sacrificed. You will not stop me.”
The elder shook his head.
“If we feed him again, then he will expect two next month. I cannot allow you to do that. Die fighting the Voormis, if you want a noble death.”
A woman had taken her leave of the young man, and she had taken his senses with her, as women often do when they take their leave. He had come to the elder to tell him that he wished to give himself to Tsathoggua, the toad that was death. He could see no semblance of a future, no purpose for him as a craftsman, as a soldier, as a priest or as a man. And there were few in the village who would dispute this.
“I would die before I killed a single Voormis and men would die protecting me from harm. I want to be of help, and I could be of help by sating the hunger of the gods.”
The elder sighed. The youth before him was obstinate, indeed unskilled with a sword, and showed no knack for any trade. And there was no persuading him otherwise, so all he could do was send the dead boy on a fool’s errand during which he would, of course, be killed.
“Atlach-Nacha,” the elder mumbled.
“Hmm?” the young man’s ears perked up.
“Atlach-Nacha. You can give yourself to the spider.”
The young man’s sunken heart bobbed to the surface again.
“Is the spider a terrible, ferocious god?”
“Yes,” said the elder, “one of the worst. Its hunger is nearly insatiable.”
“Then I shall go forth and I shall feed it.”
The elder embraced the poor suicidal youth.
“May your journey be safe as it can be.”
He set out with the elder’s blessing, dubious though it was, weaving, ducking and hiding, struggling to stay warm in the wide white wastes. Though he shivered, though he suffered, he was intent. He had surrendered the prospect of living well, so was unshakeable, imperturbable in his desperate drive to die well. In town, they would remember his name forever and they would speak of him forever as a noble, upstanding man who had chosen to die as best he could. The thought kept him warm and kept his eyes sharp for foraging and hunting.
Indeed, foolishness, death wish and lack of skill could not contend with his determination. He came at last to the cavern where he would find the spider. It shimmered with promise and its wide open maw brought to mind the hunger of the gods, a hunger he would sate to become a redeemer of men and a hero in the eyes of the villagers. He was afraid, in part, to die, but more ecstatic by far. He had meditated and dreamt of nothing; but, his journey blessed by promise of spiderteeth and eternal digestion and the time when he would no longer have to live with the burden of being the ma
n he was becoming.
He entered the cavern, frightened of what was inside it, but with a heart that was joyful, perversely joyful to know that this had to be the place. Walking through, he found lizards of a million colors, birds of brightness, birds of strangeness, plants hanging upside down from the roof above him quietly humming songs, sawtoothed gnomic fiends who leapt from the dark to frighten him, then returned to the shadows, the unfathomable shadows they came from. He wandered a great while and in his wanderings, he felt he could find most anything here except the spider, except the promise of dying well.
He spent what felt like days in the cavern, days during which his zeal even for dying began to wane. There was no end of wonder and confusion to be had among the shapes and concepts around him, among the dreams and the phantasms, but there was not the thing he wanted. He realized that he had come to the wrong cavern. He had heard stories of this place and they brought little consolation. The cavern was connected to the spider’s lair, but the caves did not meet for a great long way and he was sure to perish in here among the archetypes before he could reach the spider.
The girl frightened him at first. He was sure that she would peel away her face and reveal something foul beneath it. She was not a day over thirteen, dusky skinned, hair thick darkness, opaque shadows. Her dress was white as she was dark, her feet bare. She held a candle and the fiends that would frighten backed away from her.
“You are tired and hungry,” she said.
“Are you him?” he asked her, not quite lucid.
“You are tired and hungry,” she said, cutting through the night with her little candle, “rest and eat.”
“I will not rest until I find him. I need the spider.”
“Rest and eat,” she replied.
And he felt the urge to rest and eat. He hated her for the urge to rest and eat. She made him feel less than a man, tinier and slighter than her, and though her candle was substantial, she was tiny and slight indeed. He followed her for not very long. Her home was close, or it wasn’t and she moved quickly. It couldn’t matter less which was which. The cabin was full of light and the smells of better food than he deserved. This wasn’t the way to death but he did not turn away.
“You’re welcome here,” she said, “my mother and sister are always expecting. Rest and eat.”
He came in and there was food upon the table. A girl was seated there, his age, not young as the dusky girl. Her hair was blood. Her face flushed. Her eyes green as green could be, greener than a man who dwelt on the tundras had ever seen, greener than the Earth had given up yet. Her dress was white and plain as the dusky girl’s. Her smile was sad but inviting. It seemed likely to taste bloody as her hair, sweet as the hut smelled. He hated her because she distracted from the task at hand. The hut and the food and the rest distracted from the task at hand, the task of dying well.
“Will you sit?” she asked. And he would sit. He took a seat at the table beside her and the dusky girl sat down beside him. A white haired woman, old as any he had seen, was at a hearth nearby. She was stirring a cauldron as it cooked.
“Company. We’ve been expecting company,” said the white haired woman.
She ladled the contents of the cauldron into three bowls.
“Don’t look into the bowl,” she said, “just eat. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” he said. She served him a bowl. She did the same for the other women and sat down with a bowl of her own.
He tasted the soup. The broth was filled with chunks of meat that he did not recognize, but the taste danced upon his tongue, alternating between a great many flavors, but never did they clash. His stomach filled with joy. His body filled with joy and he thought of the only joy he’d known on his journey.
“I am looking for the spider Atlach-Nacha,” he said between bites.
“Odd thing to search for,” said the young woman with red hair.
“If he wants it,” said the white haired woman, “he will find it.”
“I want nothing more,” he said boldly, “I have come to die in its jaws.”
“Then you’ll find it,” said the dusky girl, placing a hand on his shoulder, “you seem like the type.”
When he was done eating, the white-haired woman led him to a comfortable bed. He lay down on it with no reservations, no protest that his journey was slowed down. He dreamed of the spider’s jaws again, accomplishing his quest, growing so big in the spider’s stomach that it never needed to eat again. He sighed and moaned in his sleep until he was roused, suddenly, violently.
A young woman, naked and golden-haired, was lying on top of him. Her skin was wet and joyful, the weight against him felt nice. He tried to remember the woman who had once lain on top of him and what color her hair was, but it faded from his memory. The spider in his dreams and in his heart had eaten the girl that drove him to find it. Had she golden hair like this woman? Were her nipples and lips rose pink like these?
She brushed his lips gently with hers. It was not a kiss but an inquiry. His breathing grew heavy in reply to it, his manhood, numbed from cold and numbed from self hate, rose in reply. He did not know this woman but he knew her. And as she answered his body by sliding him inside her, he knew her better. She was smooth and life was easy and they moved together forceful but calm, whims uncontested, wants the same. Life grew quiet as he respired excess thoughts.
And as the scent of a man pleased and a woman pleased perfumed the night, he drifted to sleep again. He did not dream of jaws. So calm and clear and still was he that he dreamed of nothing at all. There was nothing he could have dreamed of.
When he awakened, a girl of around twelve, pale, covered in freckles, hair blazing orange, was seated on his chest, a mischievous smile on her face. He felt as if he had met her someplace before, but it could not be. He looked to his side, confused.
“My sister,” the orange-haired girl declared, “has gone out to gather flowers.”
“I don’t know what…”
“Come to breakfast,” said the orange haired girl.
She crawled off his chest and went to the kitchen so that he could dress. He did so hastily, remembering that he needed to resume his search for the spider. The village was depending upon his being devoured. There was no telling what consequences invoking the god’s wrath would visit upon them. At least this is what he told himself. He was calm and satisfied and refreshed, and thus he had to return in his mind to his quest and the import of his life, which could be measured only in the gnashings of primordial teeth. He went to the kitchen to find a dark-skinned woman, face ancient and craggy, hair wispy and grey, at the cauldron.
“My daughter has gone to gather flowers,” said the old woman, “we will eat when she returns.”
“I thank you for your hospitality,” he said, “but I will have to take my leave. I am seeking the spider Atlach-Nacha. I am to be sacrificed, so I will need to move fast, lest the spider be displeased and visit pain upon my village.”
The orange-haired girl giggled.
“Sacrificed. You must be very proud.”
“You may leave,” said the old woman, “if you wish.”
“Thank you,” he said, “for understanding. It is most important that I find the spider.”
Though he said this, he took a seat instead of heading out the door. It would be unwise of him to embark on this journey with anything but a sharp mind and a full stomach. Even though he was seeking death, he was moving with purpose, and to move with purpose takes strength, insight and energy. There was also a part of him that had a sneaking suspicion that these three women knew something of Atlach-Nacha and if he stayed here to eat, he would be able to find something out, perhaps even the location of the monster’s lair.
The blonde girl soon returned, in her arms a bundle of flowers of all imaginable colors, which she solemnly handed to the old woman. The old woman kissed the blonde girl on her forehead and tossed the bundle of flowers into the cauldron, filling the kitchen with a sweetness that made the young man’s stom
ach growl, but made his heart feel very light indeed.
The blonde girl embraced him, kissing his lips.
“I am grateful that you decided to stay and eat,” she told him, “the spider is fierce.”
“What do you know of him?”
“He sits,” she said, “between here and the world of dreams. Do you ever dream?”
“Only of the spider,” he said.
Her eyes moistened with tears.
“That’s terrible.”
“We should talk of other things,” said the old woman and the young man was quick to comply. They conversed, laughed, ate and drank through the day. They got up and danced, all four of them, to a music of no discernible origin. The name of the spider was not spoken. The jaws of the spider were not contemplated. The young man felt as if the world was oddly fresh and beautiful and though he was still in a cavern, vast. They were together until nightfall, full and content.
“It is late again,” said the old woman, “you should stay in this place.”
He did not protest or bring up his quest or the jeopardy his village would be in if he were to accept their hospitality another night. He stayed up with them until the time came where he was weary to tuck himself into the comfortable guest bed and turn in. And when he did, he was at ease, not anguished not tossing, fright far away from him. He dreamt of nothing and was not jarred by the hand on his face that awakened.
The young woman’s skin was a healthy brown, her hair black as black could be, her waist slender, her legs long and powerful, her buttocks round and firm, her breasts heavy with dark nipples, her mouth small and thin. Her brown eyes were calm, but passionate and expectant. She was lying beside him, quiet, naked and ready for his touch. He traced her body with his hand, letting out a sigh that grew tall and vast in the quiet of the hut at night. He let his lips follow where his hands had traced, then continued downward feeling the bristles of dark pubic hair against his face, smelling her excitement and at last planting his lips on her, thrusting his tongue into her and drinking deep of her until the quiet vanished, replaced by pleas for pleasure. Pleas that he answered joyfully until once again sleep claimed victory over him.
