Oblivion Hand

by Adrian Cole

  As the mooncoral rose higher above the level of the phosphorescent sea, transmogrifying into a harder, more resilient rock form, the life within the city also changed, migrating upwards and mutating. Dwelling in the uppermost Tiers were the great Houses of the Csarducts and their principal acolytes, familiars and Conquistadors. Below them in the Secondary Tiers dwelt the mass of the city’s inhabitants, servants of the rulers; below in the Tertiary Tiers were the low-born, those that still interbred with the lesser dwellers of the sea, who were undermen and who did the menial labours of the higher Tiers. In the underwater Weedcoves dwelt the strangest of the city’s inhabitants: these were the amphibious Orgae, ocean dwellers who had once been masters of Moonwater, until the scions of the Csarducts had imposed upon them their cruel slavery. Now these Orgae served as sea-harvesters and as helpless, jaded servants to the whims of all the Tiers of Quellermondel. Many were the indignities heaped upon them.

  While Quellermondel rose in majestic blasphemy towards the seven aquamarine moons, symbol of the rise of Csarduct glory, its submarine catacombs thronged with a race whose destiny seemed to end in ruin and extinction. High above them the rulers laughed: from far across their engorged Empire they had come to Moonwater, preparing for the new crusade that would spread worlds at their feet.

  Two figures, both small and squat, peculiarly batrachian in facial characteristics, dropped soundlessly upon an isolated arm of mooncoral, high up above the sleeping city of Quellermondel. Shadows crossed the seven moons, shadows that had been drawn by sorcerous fingers like veils, for there was undoubted evil abroad. In the twinkling glow of the distant ocean the two figures were limned like gargoyles, their scaly skin a deep green. Bulbous eyes reflected phosphorescent light from far below as the thick heads turned to study the shadows. They were alone. Satisfied, they drew together, fused in their conspiracy.

  “Not at your Master’s side this night, Owlworm?” croaked the first, a hint of amusement in his tone.

  “No, nor thee, Elfloq? There’s sinister work afoot,” replied the other, pointing. His thin arm waved upward like a twisted stem of bone, singling out a dome set high above them in the shade of the rearing sorcerers’ towers. From the few slit windows of the dome came faint, unnatural light; it had not shone from that cold place for many a long year. Too many black ghosts walked its echoing galleries for comfort.

  “Strange work indeed when there’s not a place for we familiars,” said Elfloq, scowling at the dome. “Quarramagus sent me from him long since with strict words that I shun him until summoned back. Most strange.”

  “Aye, and Zomakh likewise sent me hence,” nodded Owlworm, tugging at his lip thoughtfully.

  “The Seven have dredged up many a filthy relic of lore before now. Yet I don’t recall having been cast out, dispensed with. Not before this night. Are there deities we know nothing of, Owlworm?”

  The other familiar looked out over the sea. “You know as much as I do. Who knows the extent of the Gods? Who can guess the far reaches of their power?”

  Elfloq grunted. He prided himself on his knowledge of the labyrinthine mysteries his master trod, and to be shut out from a new enterprise irked him. “So you are no wiser than I am?”

  Owlworm hawked and spat. “Even less, I suspect, knowing your keenness of eye and ear for—detail.”

  “Oh, I know nothing,” muttered Elfloq. So, he mused, Owlworm would be no help to him and his sounding out of the other five familiars had also been fruitless.

  “There is one thing I did notice,” said Owlworm casually, picking at his nose with studied indifference.

  Elfloq tried not to appear piqued. “Yes?” He was always burning to hear the least breath of gossip, as his fellows well knew.

  “Well,” went on Owlworm. “The information is hardly priceless, but at the same time it is not completely without value—”

  Elfloq puckered his features sourly. “Tell me what you know and I will hang a price on it. Not before, my wily friend.”

  Owlworm snorted. “A small spell from your master’s trove will suffice—”

  “First the titbit,” growled Elfloq.

  “Very well. We are agreed that some new and dire conjuration is in progress,” said Owlworm, again aiming a noisy hawk in the direction of the dome.

  “I’ll not dispute that. The Seven have been preparing strong cantrips and spells these last nine cloudpasses. Binding spells of surpassing power, too. But this much we all know, having aided in the preparations.”

  “Hmm,” went on Owlworm, enjoying his brief moment of power over his fellow, who so rarely needed enlightening on matters of news in the city. “I have sensed several ripples on the astral realm.” He fell silent, allowing his words to hover as though weighted with awe.

  Elfloq grimaced, unimpressed. “Ripples? But the astral is a cauldron of movement, perpetually. What ripples?”

  “Most odd. They began not here, but distantly.”

  Elfloq nodded, biding his time patiently.

  “Something,” said Owlworm, with feigned momentousness, “moves beyond. Beyond all the regions we know, beyond all the planes, real or astral. Something outside all experience.”

  “Yet there are other dimensions—” put in Elfloq.

  “Whatever disturbs the astral sea with these ripples is not fettered by any dimensional barrier. There may be Old Gods awake. They watch.”

  Elfloq sniffed, knowing that the supposed revelation was over. Yet it had served him to a degree. “You should be the Prophet’s familiar and not the Necromancer’s,” he muttered.

  “Is my news of value?” said Owlworm.

  Elfloq chuckled. “Arguably.” He leaned over to his companion and spoke softly into the tufted ear, reciting a simple spell for him.

  “My thanks,” said Owlworm. “So—I’ll not linger. Will you accompany me elsewhere?”

  “Not yet,” said Elfloq with a shifty glance at the dome.

  Owlworm nodded, spitting, then spread his delicate, membranous wings and slipped away into the air and out of view. Elfloq remained on the arm of mooncoral, mulling over what he had heard. He was deeply disturbed, for the omens were decidedly unhealthy. Earlier he had conversed briefly with Dagwort, familiar of Jundamar, Mage of Prophecy, trying to sound him out as to the potential of this conclave of sorcerers, but the tiny familiar had been tight-lipped and evidently far more distraught than he habitually was. No good would come of any of it, Elfloq deduced.

  But I would know more. I will see what I may. Then, like a wisp of air eddying up into the darkness, he flitted toward the great dome and to one of its slitted windows.

  Each of the Seven guarded his knowledge and powers jealously, sharing what various secrets he had hoarded in the name of the Csarduct Dynasty as infrequently as possible. They rarely met outside the hallowed halls of their overlords, the Csarduct families, who came and went on Moonwater and their Empire as they pleased. Yet now the Seven had come together, and after many long discussions and muted whisperings had agreed to unite to perform one particular conjuration, more ambitious than any other previous working. It was to be the result of an age of scheming and surreptitious plotting, for the arm of their lords was long and there were few places where the shadow of the Csarducts did not fall. Furthermore, the conjuration that they planned required the combined sorcery of them all, for the dangers inherent in its performance were colossal.

  Yet if it were to succeed—and it must!—the Seven would usurp the Csarduct thrones and rule in their stead, all Phaedrabile would bow to them, and no god would stay their hand.

  Jundamar, Mage of Prophecy, had hinted at the possibilities first, for he claimed to have foreseen the debacle of the Csarduct Dynasty: his tremulous, discreet revelation soon reached the ears of all the others and the meetings began. Lucedrix, Mage of Knowledge was consulted, and thereafter spent many wearying periods in his tower, searching for clues as to how the Seven could accelerate the downfall of their masters.

  The Csarducts had decided to c
ome to Moonwater in force, seeking oracles, guidance for the new crusades. Lucedrix had then found a weapon, but fear made him caution his colleagues against its use. However, Quarramagus, Mage of Spells, avowed that he could set up a barrier to bind the terrible weapon, if the others would lend him their strength. And so they had gone beyond idle speculation.

  Now, inside the ancient dome, where once the arcane priests of the Orgae had practised their unsavoury arts before being ousted, the Seven had gathered to begin their own unholy rituals. Cloaked in grey, their faces smooth and devoid of features, blanked thus by certain of their magics, the Seven had described for each of themselves a charmed circle; they sat within them, surrounded by invisible guardians, focusing their wills and concentration upon the large pentacle that was the central point of the gleaming floor. Around this pentacle the sorcerers had erected their strongest spells and incantations so that the air hung blackly like a wall of power, unbreakable. Thick magics hung like incense, and terrible sigils flickered like beads of light, spangling the smooth walls. While the Seven remained seated in their potent formation of circles, nothing could form and tear free from the central pentacle. All the combined sorcery they had gathered about them had never before been so co-ordinated. Silence cloaked them as they concentrated. Nothing moved within the pentacle. Even the air there was still.

  “Let the summoning begin,” came the sonorous voice of Quarramagus, breaking the silence. “I have compounded the strength of our barrier. That which we invoke cannot break free.”

  “I have sown the air with the Incantations of Pain as set down by the Highmost Nehacc. They will be the scourge of anything moving outside the charmed areas,” said Quar Mordo, Mage of Pain.

  “I have made ready the dreams that will hold he who comes,” said Endellys, Mage of Dreams.

  “I have found the myths relating to he who comes and I am ready to question him,” said Lucedrix, Mage of Knowledge.

  “I have spoken to the dead, who will take him when we are done,” breathed Zomakh, Mage of Necromancy.

  “I shall rip from him the secrets of immortality to enhance my own lore and render us all beyond death,” said Tephlemytho, Mage of Immortality.

  “And I,” said Jundamar, Mage of Prophecy, “have been shown many paths, all obscured by shadows.”

  This had an unsettling effect. Quarramagus directed an angry retort at Jundamar. “The time of the invocation is at hand! Do you falter in our purpose? We must be strong!”

  Jundamar was silent, but then he whispered, “Forgive me. I am ready. Let it begin.”

  Quarramagus nodded: he began a cantillation, slowly, rhythmically and low in an alien tongue. It was taken up by others until all of the Seven chanted in unison. The air pulsed with the evil sounds. Within the pentacle a gentle diffusion of light began, its source unknown.

  Quarramagus spoke. “Hear us, ye who dwell in the timeless void between the dimensions. We invoke you. Come to us. Come, Voidal. We invoke thee.”

  A careful scrutiny of the obscure records of Lucedrix had shown that to invoke the mythical dweller in the void it was but necessary to call upon his name. Now the inner light grew in intensity. For brief seconds the vision of the Seven shimmered disjointedly. They closed their eyes, focusing again, then saw a man standing in the centre of the pentacle. He was garbed in black raiment, with high leather boots, a shirt of nightweb, and with a jet cloak draped behind him like a storm cloud. At his side was an ebon scabbard and within it a glimmering blade. All these things the Seven had anticipated and all that they knew of the Voidal they had been careful to counteract with the awesome barrier of thaumaturgy that surrounded the pentacle. Yet the most difficult part of their scheme was yet to follow.

  The eyes of the Voidal flickered open as though he had been in a trance, or perhaps a listless dream. He stood serenely, unable to see beyond the rim of the pentacle, where black mist seemed to rise. He smelled sorcery and was wary.

  “Voidal,” came a croak from the wall of night.

  “I am he,” said the man in black, recalling his name.

  “The Dark Gods have chained you, forcing you to perform their petty deeds.”

  “I am he.”

  “You are the immortal one, who can neither die, nor kill.”

  A sardonic smile crossed the face of the Voidal. “These are riddles, voice from the shadows, and I’ll answer you with more. I am he and yet I am not he.”

  “You are without name, without destiny, without soul.”

  “You have named me Voidal, which is no name, but a curse. Those Dark Gods you spoke of—they hold my destiny, and my soul.”

  His words were answered by silence. But beyond the ring of night, one of the Seven growled quietly to his fellows. “I sense a snare. Be wary. None of these answers is satisfactory. Part of his curse is that he has no memory. And yet he knows something of himself.”

  Silence fell again. The Voidal was patient. Then a voice drifted out of the darkness. “Do you recall your past?”

  “A little. In dreams, perhaps.”

  “Speak of it!” hissed the voice.

  “Is my fate to tell of it? You have invoked me, yet I do not come of my own accord. My past is not clear to me. It rests about me like a torn mantle, yet it is mine and mine alone. Why should I divulge it when I have striven so hard to wrest it from the Dark Gods?”

  The voice grew impatient. “You have been invoked! You must obey us!”

  “You are not my masters. It is they who must have sent me. They move me like a pawn and I am powerless to resist. We are all their vessels.”

  These words brought a distinct murmur of unease from the ring of darkness, but the cold, imperative voice of Quar Mordo speared the air like an icy javelin. “We are vessels of none! We bow to no gods! We have brought you here for our own purposes. You no longer serve these Dark Gods. Our combined powers mock them, wherever they skulk. Aye, skulk! We shall wrest your power from them with ease. You will see.”

  “Your destiny sits in our hands now, Voidal,” added the mocking voice of Endellys.

  But the sharp features of the Voidal revealed no emotion. No smile, no contempt, no fear. “If I am in your hands, I am indeed your pawn.”

  “He laughs behind his face,” whispered Jundamar, but was ignored.

  “We do not seek to manipulate you,” said Quarramagus. “We seek the source of your power. We shall steal that from you, Voidal. After that we will do you a kindness, for you may wander where your own will takes you.” The sorcerer laughed.

  A slight frown of puzzlement crossed the Voidal’s face at this, but he remained very still.

  “Hold high your right fist that you keep from sight within your cloak,” Quarramagus told him. “Hold up the Oblivion Hand.”

  Slowly the Voidal drew out the hand, looking down at it with a grimace of loathing. Holding it from him, he raised it, fist clenched.

  “The hand of the Fatecaster,” said his tormentors as one. “The key to your power. We have studied all that is known of its vague secrets. If it has been a curse to you, then our deeds here will be a blessing.”

  The black-gloved hand was oddly lifeless. “A blessing?”

  “You have no need of confusion, nor of fear,” said Endellys, now more soothing. “See, I will bring you dreams that calm any torments of the Dark Gods.” As he spoke, a soft wave ebbed out from the darkness like cool air and in its blanket the Voidal felt the stirrings of images that writhed, worming into his mind, drawing out from him all his concern, his doubts and his fears. Slowly the visions—bright these, not the tortured, enigmatic sendings of the Dark Gods—burrowed deeper into his psyche. He quickly began to succumb and a strange, lethargic peace settled over him.

  The Seven observed. Endellys gloated over what he had done. In the pentacle the man in black had dropped silently to the floor.

  “Now,” said Quarramagus. “Our real test begins. Whatever powers work through this creature will put our mettle to the test. All of you, remember your parts in t
his.”

  Once more the Seven became a softly chanting unit, the flow of energy from their potent cantillations drifting into the pentacle, unlocking with occult keys their ultimate designs. The right hand of the dreaming Voidal, which had been so lifeless, now stretched its fingers as though coming awake. It was the only part of the slumped figure that moved. Inside the pentacle a deep blue aura formed, coating the hand, sheathing it like silken mist. The mist pulsed; inside the hand its veins throbbed like wires, livid with force. As the voices of the sorcerers rose, so did the strange hand detach itself from the fallen body, and like a drugged arachnid, it began a lurching crawl across the pentacle. The blue aura moved with it, surrounding it completely. Gradually it neared the edge of the pentacle, well away from the body, then stopped.

  A sigh broke from the combined ranks of the Seven as they saw that they had achieved their prime design. Their mumblings ceased and they looked upon the glowing hand in awe. Lucedrix spoke in triumph. “See! The very hand of the Fatecaster! The Oblivion Hand. By this grim member are the dooms sealed of those whom the Dark Gods have marked. It shall do their work no more, for we shall never return it to their minion, this Voidal.”

  “The hand will do our bidding now,” agreed Quarramagus. Around him the other sorcerers breathed more easily, for the great spells they had worked had been taxing.

  “What of the Voidal?” said Quar Mordo.

  Quarramagus stared coldly at the inert figure. “If he is immortal, as the writings say, he cannot be destroyed. He must be sealed away. Endellys has conceived a plan.”