The Tower of Bones

by Frank P. Ryan

  Alan saw how the Garg King’s eyes widened, already turning to his shaman whose eyes were wider still.

  ‘Your surety, if you please – King Zelnesakkk?’

  The Garg King lifted a wing talon and spoke: ‘The guest of the Momu has my blessing – the Eyrie Nation offers surety of her safety and protection.’

  The shaman wheeled, a mixture of rage and bewilderment transfixing his features. He shambled over to slump down in a position at some remove from the King. As he did so there was another watery explosion in the centre of the pool. More of the Cill warriors materialised from thin air at the far edge of the pool, causing the Gargs on this side to rise from their seats. They watched the Cill lift an enormous green sphere, dripping a rain of phosphorescent droplets, out of the water. Alan stared in amazement. Its filigreed surface looked like an enormous dandelion clock, some twenty feet in diameter. The Cill warriors slit open its roof and lifted a figure from its interior, a slim, elegant female, barefoot, with a body-hugging silken dress of emerald green, whom they led into a seat by the side of the Momu. Although the face and head of the figure were covered in gossamer, Alan caught a glimpse of auburn through the veil.

  ‘Kate!’ His throat was suddenly dry with emotion, his voice struggling to emerge from his lips. ‘Kate!’ he roared through his oraculum, the sudden eruption of its rubicund light startling everyone in the chamber.

  In his mind there was an impression, like a tiny candle of light opening on darkness – then the candle exploded into an emerald sun. As Alan stumbled around the periphery of the pool the figure reached out to him, climbing tremblingly to her feet.

  ‘Kate!’ He couldn’t believe that he was actually holding her, that Kate was in his arms.

  ‘You said you would come for me – and you came!’

  He kissed her – he never wanted the kiss to end. They only broke the kiss when they were forced to separate their lips just to breathe.

  ‘There’s so much I want to tell you.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Webbed hands on the ends of willowy arms enfolded both their shoulders and the voice of the Momu sounded gently in their minds. ‘Come – come – young bearers of hope, on whose shoulders so much now rests. You have not arrived at this meeting by chance. The Fates, praise them, have brought you amongst two wronged peoples, their histories corrupted by a monstrous tyranny. Come now! Be seated here beside me. Be one with me in this communion.’

  ‘I love you!’ Alan whispered, still clinging to Kate’s hand.

  ‘Tonight!’ Kate whispered as they parted and took their seats to the right and the left of the Momu.

  Tonight! He folded the whisper into the depths of his being.

  As the two sides, arranged in their opposing semicircles, made ready to parley, another rumble of thunder provoked a hail of grit and stones from the cavern roof. The Momu waited for it to subside before taking to her feet and bowing ceremoniously before the King and his ministers, addressing them through her gentle, melodious voice.

  ‘We have no time for the platitudes of civilised greeting. Our peoples have not communed in eons, time in which our cities were reduced to dust and your people were reduced to slavery.’

  The King’s neck slits contracted, as if one with the Momu in profound emotion, and he glanced at his son before he replied. ‘Momu – Queen of the Shadow People, whose world is the changing of the tides – would you speak to me in the same vein of rebellion as my son, Iyezzz-I-Noor? If my welcome is guarded, it reflects my fearful heart. Though the high shaman might augur otherwise, I am too salted by experience not to recognise truth, even when doom-laden. I am in receipt of grave tidings from the honour guard that has recently fled the Tower.’

  ‘Grave tidings, my Lord?’

  The King ignored the stare of the shaman to look towards his son, his eyes filled with emotion. ‘Likely what you, Iyezzz, have augured for some years. The Great Witch has taken leave of her senses – whatever senses she might ever be presumed to have possessed. She sacrifices all to this demon she is resurrecting. She sings to it, night and day, as it thunders and roars and causes the very mountains to shake.’

  ‘My Lord, the Great Witch is close to resurrecting the soul spirit of Fangorath.’

  ‘You perhaps understand more of her purpose than I do.’

  ‘She seeks consummation. Union of spirit with one a thousand times more dreadful than she. A being half divine and wholly of darkness. But even this, terrible as it might appear, is only the first step in her ambition. Olc seeks to reopen the Third Portal of the Fáil. What then, if she succeeds? What do you think will become of the proud Eyrie Nation – or indeed the sole surviving city of the Cill?’

  The King rose to join her on his feet. ‘How then do we confound her?’

  Iyezzz stood and roared: ‘We fight. At least if we die fighting, we die with honour.’

  The Momu spoke gravely, lifting Alan and Kate to their feet. ‘Though the situation is grave, not one but two oraculum-bearers have come among us, bearing a mission of hope from an alien world. Is this not the omen we have long prayed for?’

  ‘A stripling lad and a girl of little more than skin and bone. You think these will defeat the Witch, who is resurrecting a demigod?’

  ‘I have come to know just one of these. Let me introduce Greeneyes. I weep a thousand tears of gratitude for this girl whose courage and kindness saved the life of my child under the very nose of the Witch.’

  The hoary old head was shaking. He stared at Kate in meditative silence. ‘This is not the Léanov Fashakk!’

  ‘Yet still the Great Witch fears her.’

  Alan stared from the King to the Momu. The Léanov Fashalck! He had heard this expression before. It was Mo – Mo had pressed herself between him and the Legun incarnate at the battle of Ossierel.

  The King’s hand appeared stiff as he raised it into the air, as if he were struggling to prevent it trembling. ‘We clutch at straws. Must we, in this time of apocalypse, place all of our hope in children?’

  His words brought a powerful sense of déjà vu to Alan, causing gooseflesh to spring up over his entire skin. They echoed the words of the High Architect, Ussha De Danaan, when she had addressed all four friends as chosen. But Ossierel, with all that it had held dear, had fallen.

  A Penitence of Blood

  From her Tower of Bones the Great Witch crooned her hymn of triumph, even as her many tentacles, thick as pythons, slithered and scraped homeward from the marshes and caves and sewer-like ravines in which the last vestiges of life in her blasted landscape still attempted to skulk and hide. Another thunderous eruption from the pit caused the Tower to judder, and in its wake a craquelure of splintering ran over its bony walls. Even the surrounding packs of wolves were cowed into silence for a while before they howled anew their chorus of anticipation over the ravished landscape, gathering close around the Tower as if sensing that the time for change was drawing near.

  A new age dawns, pretty ones!

  Faltana, whose own heart quailed with the colossal violence that was invading her beloved Tower from the thing that brooded within the pit, gathered what little courage she had left to encourage the others to come deeper into the great chamber and bow before their mistress.

  ‘Your deliverance, beloved one!’

  But her mistress was so consumed with gloating she appeared not to notice.

  ‘Hsst!’ Faltana waved to the succubi. All within the Tower had been summoned to gather by the pit, from which the thunderous roars shook the floor and walls and ceiling about them, as if a volcano readied itself to explode. The fury never abated now, night or day, invoking such a terrifying prospect that the sentinel Gargs had taken to the skies and abandoned them to their fate.

  ‘Sing!’ she hissed. ‘Children of Olc, celebrate your joy!’

  The eyes of the succubi stared back at her, unable to hide their terror.

  ‘Sing!’ she commanded, moving among them with the Garg-tail whip. ‘Sing! Hail the glorious day!�
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  Without realising it Faltana had drifted to the very edge of the pit, with the rumbles and roars ascending through her naked feet. ‘Oh, sing!’ she shrieked, her own voice faltering as a crackling boom almost pitched her headlong. It was followed by an incandescent torrent of energy, seething to the very rim of the pit. Faltana had come to recognise the baleful nature of the rumbles. It was a voice of a kind. A roar so rage-filled it had no need of words. The succubi were creeping backwards, many pressing against the outermost walls of the chamber, fighting with one another to be nearer the exit. Faltana wished that, like the Gargs, she had wings that would carry her away. The walls around her were deeply split and fissured as if, with just a final terrible eruption, the entire Tower would disintegrate and the thing below would consume all within its blazing red furnace.

  ‘Sing!’ she screamed.

  Too loud – she realised her mistake as the multifaceted eyes blinked awake, the pulsating furnace coming alive in their depths.

  What is the meaning of this shrieking? How dare you profane our thoughts at the very imminence of our communion?

  ‘My love – my adored one! This thing – the fury below! Forgive my saying so, but you have such immense courage – courage enough for all of us. We, whose days are so filled with the mundane, while yours are consumed by the divine. Forgive our faltering hearts, too easily overwhelmed with fear.’

  What nonsense is this?

  ‘You are so bounteous in your wisdom – so immense in your comprehension of what we cannot even begin to fathom. Forgive the timidity of your children, who cannot sleep with worry.’

  Worry?

  ‘It’s just that – my beloved Mistress! To such timid hearts and minds as ours – why, it seems so dreadful it may not be controlled.’

  The insectile eyes of the Witch shifted focus to take in the terrified sea of faces that filled the chamber. Showers of splintered stone and ash were falling from the ceiling, matting the already bedraggled hair of the succubi. Glowing splinters were spiralling through the air, causing the foul smell of singeing hair. The Witch’s voice, now sounding in every mind, was deceptively soft, with just the faintest of sibilant purrs.

  What need have we of control? Is it not the point of such union that Fangorath cannot be controlled?

  ‘Majesty – manifold joys fill my heart to be thus reassured. Come – let us sing – let us celebrate the imminence of consummation!’

  Be quiet! Are we alone in this desert of stupidity? Are you so visionless you cannot grasp the wonder? Fangorath the Almighty, Destroyer of Worlds – did he not confront the very Goddesses, complacent in their thrones? Surely he must be reborn in all of his strength and power. Why else would we become one?

  ‘Of course – forgive my limitations, beloved Mistress – in such … such a great and numinous presence …’

  A numinous presence indeed!

  ‘In … in truly a godly presence … the very proximity to such a being …’

  Another growl thundered from below, shaking the floor under Faltana’s feet and ascending through her bones from her ankles to her skull. The charnel stench arising from the pit clogged her nostrils. But even in attempting to put a few more feet between herself and the lip, it brought her into closer proximity to those terrible redpulsating eyes, while from behind, her back was burning from the rising maelstrom. The succubi were whining, crushing one another in their attempts to pull back against the walls, as far back from the caldera as they could get, but the fury was so intense it was blistering their exposed skin and igniting their hair.

  The voice in Faltana’s mind had risen from a whisper to a harsh hiss. You cannot sleep, you say, fearful of what will become of us? Or is it what will become of you?

  ‘Mistress – so deserving of our love – our caring!’

  Is it possible that all of you, our misbegotten children, care only for your miserable mortal selves?

  ‘Oh, no – my dearest, dearest love. It is you, you alone, we care for.’

  Why then, have no fear. You all will share the blessing of union with us – you who so love us, you couldn’t possibly desire otherwise.

  Faltana could not conceal the crackle of terror from her voice. ‘Such joy – my beloved majesty!’

  A pity you, personally, will not witness our glory.

  A tentacle, as slender as a whip, stroked the empty eye socket of the chief succubus as Faltana prostrated herself before the glowering eyes, perilously close to the lip of the red-glowing pit.

  You allowed our captive to escape.

  ‘My fault … My most grievous fault!’

  Desist from this spineless caterwauling.

  ‘As you wish … muh-muh, my beloved Mistress.’

  As we wish?

  ‘Absolutely – your very desire is my heart.’

  We do have such a desire – and you will fulfil it.

  ‘Merely name it, muh-muh my heart.’

  The tentacle stroked Faltana’s cheek. Fangorath – does he not hunger? And his coming so imminent. He requires feeding. Be good enough to see to it.

  ‘Gladly – gladly will I do so! I – I will command your servants – thuh-thuh they will find suitable meat.’

  A momentary exhilaration glowed in the Witch’s eyes, and they blinked, slowly and purposefully, as she registered the ruin that had once been her chief succubus. The ground trembled, as if in anticipation.

  His hunger is best satisfied with live meat.

  Faltana shrank back, as if she wished that the cracked and fissured bone might swallow her. Her flesh trembled like jelly with every floor-jarring thunder from below. Deep in the great multi-faceted eyes of Olc she saw the red glow come vigorously alive, become truly one with the fiery furnace that crackled and roared at the very lip of the pit.

  ‘Live meat, my Mistress? Then – then live meat shall it be. I – I will command it. It will be forthcoming in an instant.’

  We think you will provide a sufficiency – for the moment.

  ‘I – I, Excellency?’

  What use have we for a chief succubus who has lost her wits? Did you not offer to satisfy our every desire?

  Faltana felt the Garg-tail whip torn from her grasp, and tossed towards the cowering herd of succubi. ‘But – but you would not – you could not …’

  Your successor has been chosen. Hashiri!

  Faltana’s eye wheeled to where a tall, bony-faced succubus, vigorous and youthful, detached from the cowering mob. A recent scar already disfigured Hashiri’s left arm, extending all the way from her elbow into her hand – the same hand that now picked up the Garg-tail whip. A warning against future disappointment of her Mistress’s expectations.

  Inform this piece of meat of our instruction. It is our desire that it takes the necessary steps, backwards – bowing obediently as it does so.

  Hashiri picked up the Garg-tail whip. She flexed it, staring at the former chief succubus, who was trembling against the blazing furnace of the pit.

  ‘My beloved, my heart – you surely would not ask this of me? Have I not served you with every mote of my being?’

  You have served none but yourself – but we shall not waste another moment in useless debate. You cannot imagine the immortal glory of what is to come. Yet even the dirt-born such as you may redeem yourself. You may offer the sacrifice of your living flesh and blood to our transubstantiation.

  ‘Brave heart – ask and I will do it for love of you.’

  We do ask it. Only thus shall we forgive you your venal weaknesses – and your excruciating stupidity. Be so penitent as to offer yourself to the pit.

  The Witch’s eyes turned to Hashiri. The Garg-tail whip arced, then struck Faltana’s left thigh above the knee, raising a livid weal. Faltana screamed.

  ‘Please – say you but jest with me.’

  But we do.

  A last spark of defiance rose in Faltana’s outraged throat. ‘I will not do this – I deserve better.’

  The Garg whip arced again, discovering the s
ame weal, this time drawing blood. As Faltana screamed it arced again, and again.

  The Witch tentacle stroked, with exquisite sensitivity, the tormented flesh where the whip had scourged.

  ‘Stop this – desist, my beloved Mistress. Or …’

  Or what? Do you so quail with each stroke of the Garg tail? You, who were so profligate with its infliction upon others?

  ‘You – you spied on me?’

  Observing your weakness was delicious, moment by moment.

  ‘You’ve been cruel – taken out my beautiful eye. And for what? For no transgression. I was ever dutiful. How dare you use me like this – how dare you abuse me.’

  The whip cracked, finding the target of her calf. It cracked, again and again.

  Sing, pretty ones. Sing to the glory of the rising power!

  The succubi, scorched and blistered, shrieked their song, relieved that the fury of their mistress was turned on somebody other than themselves. The chamber reverberated with the rising chorus of their chanting, eliciting a sympathetic roaring from the pit.

  ‘Feed the beast! Feed the beast!’

  Faltana had fallen onto her knees, but still she clawed with her nails at the cinder-filled floor. She was consumed by her own rage, the rage, even in the face of hopelessness, of a servant abused.

  Several larger tentacles approached her, thick and muscular, nudging and pushing at her, ignoring the slaps of her hands. They tugged at her arms, ripping the fingernails from where they were attempting to find purchase. Then, rising between the mounds of her breasts, they encircled her throat, slyly embracing it. Then they began to squeeze, so the veins of Faltana’s throat stood out like bloated cords.

  ‘Oh – be-lov-ed. Plee-eea-se!’

  There was a murderous thrashing of several thick tentacles before the screaming wreck of the chief succubus was consigned to the flaming maw.