The Maelstrom Eye tcc-3

by Roger E. Moore

  Vorr was on his hands and feet on the instant, crossing the stone face for the opening. He had claimed the right of first entry into the lich's pyramid. He had reasons other than sheer glory for wanting this particular honor. When he got to the entryway, he grabbed a bag from his side and emptied its orightly shining contents into his hand, then flung them into the space beyond. The two-dozen pebbles each had permament light spells on them. Without further delay, Vorr pulled his huge sword free, gripped it with both hands, and jumped down into the space where the left cargo bay door had once stood. He looked into the pyramid.

  The dead were waiting for him inside.

  Another maddened war cry erupted from his lips, and Vorr leaped into the thick of the sword-wielding skeletons before him. His sword whipped out and around, shearing through skulls, spines, and rib cages. The filthy stench of decay and rot assailed his nostrils and filled his lungs. The dead surged for-ward, fearless, mindless, reaching at him with bone fingers and thrusting with dulled sabers and long swords. In a parody of the living, the animated nightmares came on by the dozens, perhaps by the hundreds. The lich had packed the cargo bay with them.

  Wild screams sounded behind the general as scro and ogres poured into the room and joined battle with the undead. Earsplitting shots rang out in the bay as starwheel pistols and heavy arquebuses were fired at point-blank range into the skeletal army. Bone fragments ricocheted from the walls and door, scattering across the room.

  Vorr's sword swept tirelessly through the dead, severing hands and arms, chopping through their old weapons like a razor through flesh. He spun as he advanced, hewing at every side, eschewing any tactic except slaughter. I'm killing the dead, he thought, and laughed even as the white dead continued to come at him in droves.

  A bright tongue of flame flashed into being to Vorr's right. It was the war priests again, he knew, and fought on. The hoard of spell scrolls captured from the elven world of Spiral had been unexpectedly rich. Flame-strike spells burst up from the rear of the room, enveloping the skeletons packed there and incinerating them at once. Waves of searing heat washed through the room and across Vorr's exposed face, but he hardly noticed them.

  The ranks of the dead thinned out. Scro and ogres had already found the many ladders leading to levels above and below the cargo deck, and they swarmed up and down, their swords and axes ready. Vorr made a roundhouse swing through two skeletons charging him, shattering them like glass, then made for one of the ladders leading up. He clutched the hilt of his sword with one hand as he climbed, not daring to sheath it again. Several of his troops immediately followed him.

  Vorr remembered the pyramid in the Glowrings Sphere, and how its lich had placed two helms within it, one at the pyramid's apex and the other atop a small building in an open space in the middle of the pyramid. The fastest way to either locale was straight up. The middle helm could be reached by leaping across a balcony that ringed the open space; the apex would take many ladder climbings to reach. The false lich would have nowhere to run. Vorr could hardly wait.

  Vorr reached the next level up. Nothing waited for him there except for other scro, pouring up the other ladders. Seeing no sign of combat, Vorr continued up the ladder to the next level. It was then, in the dim light from above, that he thought he saw something moving over the open hatchway. He hurried his climb, taking the steps four at a time in hopes of catching whoever was there off guard. He tensed, preparing for rocks or worse to be dropped through the hatch onto him.

  As his head and shoulders hurtled up through the hatchway to the next level, something huge with thick claws swiped at his head. Vorr tried to duck but succeeded only in negating pan of the blow. Iron claws tore away his steel helmet and slashed his left cheek open to the bone.

  Vorr let go of the ladder. He found his grip on his sword, then thrust it with all his might into the umber hulk standing right beside the ladder. His blade struck the 'hulk's leather belly and tore through it, driving into its vitals, all the way to its back and out. With a deafening inhuman squeal, the 'hulk lurched back, almost dragging the sword from Vorr's fingers. A moment later, it lunged again, its four alien eyes aglow. A death scream sounded from across the room, where a scro doubtless had worse luck with another of the monsters.

  There being no room to swing his blade, Vorr again thrust his sword into the creature, aiming for its head. The monster's claws slashed down into his armored shoulders as the sword's tip plunged into the 'hulk's open mouth, between its mandibles, and broke through the back of its skull. With all the strength he could muster, Vorr swung his sword aside at the same time, so the 'hulk's momentum carried it past the general and flung it away into a siege machine nearby. The sword cut its mouth open to twice its normal width. The giant beetlelike monster crashed through wooden supports and ballista bolts, rolling over and over in a tangled heap of shattered wood and rope.

  Vorr jumped from the ladder and charged the umber hulk. The creature was getting to its feet again when the sword came down and split its head apart.

  For a moment, Vorr had time to take in his surroundings. Dim red light spilled down from overhead glass fixtures, relics of a forgotten age. This floor was barely forty feet square, with a twenty-foot-wide square opening in the middle of the room surrounded by a low stone wall. Ballistae and catapults were positioned here, crewless but in good condition. He was on a weapons deck. He heard another scream and spotted movement across the room.

  A second umber hulk looked up from the ladder hatch it had been defending, having been half-hidden by the low wall ringing the center pit. The 'hulk started upon seeing Vorr, then charged around the pit for the general. Its eyes sparkled with magical light, attempting to drive the general insane as it had doubtless just done to some scro who had subsequently fallen from the ladder to the depths below.

  Vorr noted that the ballista to his left had been loaded, no doubt by the skeletons serving the false lich. He dropped his sword and grabbed the ballista's wooden frame, dragging it around and toward him so that it faced the oncoming 'hulk. Before the monster could understand what was happening, Vorr found the trigger and pulled it. The ballista fired its bolt with a loud bang as its taut rope slammed into the bowlike crosspiece.

  The 'hulk stumbled as the bolt hit it and passed through it, shattering against the stone wall beyond. The beast got up with a gurgling squeal, appearing unusually slow and uncoordinated. Vorr snatched up his sword and dived around the ballista. He hewed at the umber hulk until its ichor splattered the floor and walls, and the monstrosity fell back with a curiously childlike shriek. The sword rose and fell ceaselessly, one stroke with every heartbeat, until the heat of battle rage left Vorr for a moment and he saw that the fight was long over.

  An explosion boomed through the pyramid's corridors and halls. His chest heaving, Vorr suddenly looked around and saw a half-dozen troops cheering him, their numbers still pouring up from the two ladders leading to this level. One raised a long, leather-wrapped device in both hands as his comrades screamed approval, and he held it out to the general.

  Vorr blinked, then he stepped forward suddenly and grasped the bulky object with a free hand. He threw down his sword and tore the leather covering free of the device.

  Black steel glistened in the red lights above. Twin bolts of polished metal, wicked notches cut in their barbed heads, projected from the double-barrelled end. His troops had brought his harpoon-bombard, loaded and ready.

  Vorr looked up at his troops, who stamped the stone floor, raised their black-gloved fists, waved jagged swords and axes, and called his name. Their screams and stamping grew ever louder and louder, until it became like a physical thing, like a wall of power.

  Slowly, like the opening of a door into an old, familiar torture chamber, a smile came to the general's lips.

  Vorr whirled, the harpoon-bombard clenched in his hands, and he leaned over the low wall to look down into the next level. Below him was the primary helm, resting atop a stone block perhaps fifteen feet across. The
ancient throne there was smashed and empty. There was only one place left for the lich to hide. He looked up to the next balconylike level, and he remembered the way the Glowrings Sphere lich had raised its rotting hands in front of its face to ward off the last blows Vorr had rained down upon it.

  Vorr looked around and spotted the one ladder left in the room that led upward. He ran for it, holding the bombard in one hand as he nearly leaped up the rungs. He reached the next level, which was laid out much like the last, though with no weaponry. In fact, this level contained nothing at all- except one last ladder, positioned adjacent to the walled opening in the center of the room. The general climbed away from the ladder from the weapons deck and reached the last ladder up in two strides. His free hand caught the rusted wrought iron.

  "How is a blonde not like a hammership?"

  The voice was an inhuman scream. It was deafening and mad. Vorr looked straight up.

  A thing let go of the ladder fifteen feet over his head and leaped down at him. It had not been there a moment ago.

  Vorr had just enough time to swing the harpoon-bombard up and squeeze both triggers. The weapon went off next to his right ear and eye; the explosions maimed hearing and sight with concussions and powder burns. The massive thing landed right on him anyway, its clawed hands larger than anvils and its goat-skull jaws open wide in insane laughter.

  Vorr's grip was torn from the ladder by the impact, and he was knocked sprawling to the floor. For a wild second he thought the huge creature was an undead chimera or lion, but it had only one skeletal head within its great, ragged mane. Brass scales covered its hide. Demonic bat wings whipped into the air on either side of the beast. Vorr kicked up into the beast's chest and abdomen, feeling thick ribs snap and flesh tear as his metal-plated boots ground in. He couldn't bring the harpoon-bombard up to strike, as the creature held his arm pinned down with both of its own great forearms, each fully half again as large as Vorr's own. Vorr's other arm was trapped beneath the creature's mass, crushed against his chest. The monster's strength was relentless.

  "How is a blonde not like a hammership?" the beast screamed again, bright purple flames dancing in its eye sockets. Vorr now saw the butt ends of the two barbed harpoons protruding from the monster's maned shoulders on opposite sides of its head. The spears had gone straight into the beast, but it had barely noticed them. Purple-black blood spurted from the wounds and spilled down its scraggly mane, dripping on Vorr's face and armored chest.

  Suddenly, the monster belched a cloud of white gas from its mouth, the opaque mist blinding Vorr but doing no other harm. Twisting beneath his attacker's weight, Vorr found the leverage to free his left hand. His fingers came up beneath the monster's jaw and found its scaled throat. Vorr's fingers clenched the loose skin tightly, then he quickly raised his legs from beneath the beast and wrapped them around the beast's back, locking his heels together across its spine, just behind its great black wings. He squeezed with his legs, using every ounce of strength to crash the monster's windpipe shut at the same time.

  The skull-headed beast jerked its head back and bucked, trying to leap away from the leg-lock, but could not get its footing. The goat-skull face came down abruptly, snapping at Vorr's face but missing by only a foot, held back by Vorr's left arm; it then tried to breath gas on him, but only wisps of white vapor came out. Vorr saw the creature's eyes turn from violet flames into golden ones.

  The creature released its grip on Vorr's right arm with both hands, attempting to drag his other arm away from its throat. The bombard instantly came up, propelled by Vorr's right arm, and he jammed its barrel straight into the monster's nearest eye socket and pushed.

  A flash of white lightning burned the air for a fraction of a second, spilling from the creature's eye and playing along the bombard barrel into the air in a dozen directions. Neatly blinded, Vorr felt nothing and realized the bolt was magical, so it could not harm him. He pushed on the bombard until something in the monster's skull broke, and the barrel was suddenly thrust out the other eye socket.

  "That's not the answer!" the beast shrieked. Without warning, the monster exploded. A huge circle of interlocking bolts of lightning took its place, snaking across Vorr's limbs and chest in a wild dance-and the lightning vanished, leaving no trace of the beast.

  Vorr fell back on the floor, his feet thumping into the stone. He half sat up, still exerting himself against the monster's now-vanished throat. After a second to look around, he quickly got to his feet. Nothing was left.

  All was quiet again, except for a horrible ringing noise in his ears. He looked up the ladder again and saw that the hatchway was open at the top. If the false lich was anywhere, it was up there.

  Slowly and deliberately, the general drew a long dagger from a thick sheath at his belt. He reached for the ladder again, placing the dagger in his teeth, and started up.

  "Worked my last defense, hidden no more, has not," said a familiar voice from the top room. "My astrosphinx much trouble to collect was. Immune to spells, I see, the treacherous general is, and I on the helm sit, spells of my own gone for this ship to feed. Bad my condition looks."

  Vorr continued climbing. He was halfway up.

  "To bargain for my existence I should like," said the voice. "Material items you will take. Knowledge from my head you will not. Perhaps this knowledge valuable is?"

  Vorr reached the top of the ladder. Cautiously, he peered into the room beyond. As expected, the room was very small, roughly cubical and barely fifteen feet along each side. No decorations graced the walls, as far as he could see. He crouched slightly, then charged up the last few steps and leaped free of the ladder and into the room, turning to see if enemies stood behind him.

  The room was almost empty. An undistinguished helm sat against the far wall. In it sat the false lich, motionless. Next to the helm chair was a rickety table of rough-hewn wood, on which sat a few small items, including a jade bowl, a small cloth sack, and a mirror on a stand. Vorr recognized the mirror at once as the one Skarkesh had relied upon for scrying on Teldin Moore. He supposed the lich's medallion was in the sack. Four torches burned against the walls at eye level, their flames giving off warmth and odor but no smoke.

  "Not good enough was our bargain?" asked the robed skeleton. "Not good enough for the scro general to keep his word to an old one? More does the general want-perhaps the Spelljammer as well as the treasure within it?"

  "You betrayed us, Skarkesh," said Vorr softly, turning his fall attention to the skeleton. The huge knife turned in his hand. "You set out own soldiers against us. You meant to sabotage our fleet once you got the cloak from Teldin Moore." Vorr took a slow, quiet step forward.

  "Lie you do, lie to justify treason," hissed the skeleton, "and unwise it would be to carve on these old bones. Immune to magic maybe you are, but to ignorance not. The Spelljammer find I can. The cloak find I can. Of more I know, much more, but not for telling when this body… dead is."

  Vorr came closer. He was six steps away. The knife blade's tip rose. "I weep for you," he said.

  "These treasures yours are," said the skeleton, making a brief gesture toward the table. "The seeing disk of the Spelljammer, yes, and a magical mirror, for spying upon Teldin Moore-"

  "— and scro allies," Vorr finished, five steps away.

  "Norscro allies, fool!" snapped the skeleton. "But good it is for the projecting of my image, to allow the casting of spells to charm or compel action, to plant a traitor among the friends of Teldin Moore and reveal all their plans upon the making! A traitor among them now is, and Teldin's secrets to me it has been sending all along!"

  Vorr glanced at the mirror. Four steps. "Who?"

  Skarkesh made a tiny gesture with one finger. "Who? One word, then, am I worth, then with galley slop to be put out on a jettison when it I speak? Done it is." A skeletal hand reached out toward the table and made a gesture at the mirror's surface. Immediately, the silvered glass turned black.

  "Watch you must, and learn," whispered
the false lich, never turning its luminescent eye sockets from the general. "If bargain for existence I must, all clever secrets shared with the general alone will be."

  Vorr kept his attention focused on the skeleton, then gave a fast look at the mirror when he saw an image forming on it out of the corner of his eye. He did not recognize the person there, but he memorized the face and clothing. The person would not be difficult to locate among Teldin's followers.

  "Of great value that one is, beyond worth to me as a spy. Alive must that one be taken when all others are cut down.

  Sufficient that is to keep your interest?" Skarkesh stared impassively at the general. "Satisfied you are that these bones must together stay? Willing you are to work with this old one to gain the Spelljammer?"

  Vorr glanced once more at the mirror, but the image was fading, to be replaced by the normal mirror's image of the torchlit room. He looked back at the false lich. A thick thumb slid against the edge of the knife blade, feeling its sharpness. A bead of red appeared where blade and skin met. "No," said Vorr.

  He lunged forward. The lich snatched the jade bowl at its side, flinging it and its contents at the general.

  Vorr instinctively turned his body and raised his arm to block the blow, trying to prevent any liquid from splashing in his face. He had almost reached the helm when the gloppy substance in the bowl struck his chest armor, spattering pieces of green goo everywhere. Vorr grabbed for the skeleton with his free hand.

  The false lich simply vanished in his grasp. A new monster took shape on the helm, a smaller one that easily evaded his grasp and hurtled past him, under his outstretched arm. It looked for all the world like a withered bright-red spider with a serpent's head and pale, glowing eyes.