by Adrian Cole
Loptoc’s fingers couldn’t decide whether to pick at his teeth or his nose. Half way between them they became distracted and dug instead into his beard. “I would not give him fly-blown meat.”
“Then I have word that will interest you.”
“He is always a mine of news, this rapscallion,” Loptoc sniffed. “He never comes here without bringing a feast. I fear that such small repast as I have shared will be a poor exchange, and certainly insufficient.” He passed over a dark green bottle.
“I am not ungrateful,” Elfloq grinned, sipping the wine, which was deceptively good. “But, of course, there are things that I must know.”
“Does he seek knowledge for his Master, I wonder, or does he seek to add to his own trove of titbits? He would make a good Loptoc, I should say, for his nose is as long as mine, and his head as full of knowledge. But nay! Alas, his tongue is not so loose!”
Elfloq finished chewing. “I will tell you my tale,” he said, and at once launched into an involved and complex narrative concerning the fall of the mighty Csarduct Dynasty, which had bridged stars, and of the demise of its ambitious sorcerers. It was not like the familiar to give such an unprompted recitation, but he knew that it were best for him to tell his tale first, without asking for a random one of Loptoc’s. This would mean that once he had concluded his tale, he would be entitled to ask a tale of the Gossip. Indeed, protocol dictated that Elfloq could ask for specific information. Elfloq knew that had he asked his questions first, he would certainly have received evasive answers.
Loptoc realised at once that Elfloq was manipulating him, and under normal circumstances would have countered with an immediate interruption and temporary suspension of the tale. The two would then have haggled until a suitable arrangement had been agreed upon. However, Loptoc was intrigued by the momentousness of Elfloq’s tale (as the familiar had anticipated) and allowed him to go on.
Elfloq considered it to be in his best interests to leave out certain details of his story, rather than stir up a potential hornet’s nest of interrogation by his lone listener, but Loptoc was quick to sniff out some of the omissions, having expected Elfloq to be evasive.
Loptoc grunted, unable to disguise his fascination. “Then if the Seven sorcerers of Quellermondel have gone to their doom, why then, so has his Master, Quarramagus! He is now without a master, which is not well for him.”
Elfloq had grudgingly fancied that Loptoc might seize on this, but still, it would do no harm unless Loptoc happened to gossip to certain beings. “That small matter is in hand. I will have a new master very soon. All I seek from you is word of where I can find a certain person. I am sure that your whispering chimneys would already have divulged it, just as I am sure that your ears miss not a murmur that escapes from the city below, where men and gods alike converse indiscreetly around their hearths.”
Loptoc belched loudly, signifying brief contemplation. “Well, his tale was a good one, and one which I can easily barter below for things that I need. News of this person—can that be all he wants? None of my rich sagas? No long ballads—I have a new one fresh from the very lips of Glandrool the Voluptuary, who was cast out by his fellow gods for attempting the seduction of no less than three goddesses—”
“Spare me the bawdy ballads! All I ask is the whereabouts of one person,” repeated Elfloq.
Loptoc’s eyes narrowed and he dabbed at the soot on his cheeks. “He asks such a small thing. Perhaps I view it from a false position. Perhaps it is not such a small thing he asks. Perhaps, typically, it is a vast thing. Well?”
Elfloq hesitated, but there was no way he could avoid stating what he wanted. “I seek a man garbed in darkness. Some call him—ah, the Voidal, I think it was.”
Loptoc squawked as if a hot ember had bitten into him; his last chunk of meat disappeared down the dark chimney orifice. “Is he mad? Better he should summon up the Seething Plague, or demons, or Death! Does he speak that name so lightly? What can he want with such?”
Elfloq swigged at the wine, and it appeared to have an immediate effect. “It was he who brought down the Csarducts and their Mages—and he who freed me from my unsavoury service to Quarramagus. Why, I even had some part in it. Thus I am in his debt and seek to repay him,” gabbled the familiar, but at once realised he had volunteered information that he had meant to keep secret. The wine must have weakened his guard—he was not used to it. No doubt it was one of Loptoc’s tricks.
Loptoc looked even more aghast. “Repay him—with service? This is lunacy! But—wait. What is this? He has not told me all. His beautifully woven tapestry of the fall of the Csarducts is missing certain threads, and they would seem vital to the perspective of the work. What had the Voidal to do with it?”
“I was coming to that,” Elfloq said sheepishly. Reluctantly he retold his tale, including much of the information he had omitted earlier.
Loptoc snorted at the conclusion. “He escaped with his life,” he said, referring in his oblique way to Elfloq. “The Dark Gods spared him.”
“Oh, doubtless they had reasons,” said Elfloq. “But I have much to do. My stay with you cannot be protracted, alas. Will you say where the dark man may be found? Have you word?”
“Does he think the thoughts of the Dark Gods are at my disposal? Does he think such terrible beings would as much as look in the direction of this miserable place? Does he think a single one of Asylis’s inhabitants would as much as whisper a word of the dealings of the Dark Gods?”
Elfloq grinned. “Of course! And Loptoc the Gossip would hear.”
Loptoc mumbled sourly, not amused. “I suppose it is true that I am found owing to him. He has the right to ask something for his tale.”
Elfloq examined his clawed hands, attempting unsuccessfully not to look smug.
A sudden crafty grin spread itself over the sooty features of Loptoc. “Hmm,” he sniggered. “Fair swap, eh? Yes, I will deal with him as he has dealt with me. Two tales he told me. The first, concerning the fall of the Csarducts, was pretty but lacking in finery. He sought to obscure the facts—he thought it would be injudicious of him to let Loptoc know that he is in the debt of the dark man.”
“It hardly seemed relevant,” protested Elfloq feebly.
“But Loptoc found him out. His second tale was closer to the truth. Very well! I shall impart to him two tales also, a fair trade. This is the first:
“I have heard talk lately of a battle. Nay, a war, for I heard that it would embroil the entire fortunes of two great nations, the Poldarrians and the Vobandisheks of fabulously rich Elotrine. What turmoil! What bloodletting! All because the Houses of each nation worship gods that are the antithesis of each other, and minor gods at that! Yet how common this is among that rabble, mankind! Other nations have perished in their entirety because of these two gods. I have heard that the Dark Gods have decided to make an example of them both. By ending them for all time. Poldarrian and Vobandishek were not spoken well of and I assume that they will come to the brink of extinction, possibly topple over it.”
Elfloq nodded, enrapt. “I know the world of Elotrine. The dark man will be there, the axis on which the downfall will turn?”
“So went the whisperings from the chimneys.”
“Then I must speed away to this war with all haste—but first, Loptoc, your second tale,” gasped the familiar eagerly, though he could read a degree of impish triumph in the Gossip’s face.
“I am in no hurry to tell it. Later, when he reaches the world of Elotrine, then he shall have my second tale. I’ll send a hearth imp with it. He has my word.”
This last was a comfort to Elfloq, for Loptoc never gave his word lightly.
“You would not cheat such a valuable source of knowledge as myself?” appealed Elfloq, still dubious.
“No more than he sought to trade me half a tale garbed as a whole.”
“The dark man will be at the hub of this war between Poldarrian and Vobandishek?”
“I heard two erstwhile gods discussing how
the Dark Gods had decreed war on these Houses. They said that the dark man would bring disaster, and why should they lie?”
Elfloq considered, then nodded his thanks. “I’ll come to you again another time,” he promised, then was off, winging into the smoke and slipping at once on to the astral.
Loptoc gurgled, enjoying his wine. He had done nothing to invoke wrath or penalties. And he had a very excellent new tale to exchange down in his favourite kitchen.
Elfloq’s speedy flight across the regions of the astral brought him to the distant world of Elotrine, home of the two warring nations spoken of by Loptoc. The familiar spent some time winging about the world, darting in and out of the astral, but eventually he found what he sought.
He flew over a battlefield of immense proportions, which seemed to span an entire country. But there was little movement down there. Indeed, there was little life. Only broken things stirred amongst the corpses. There were whole fields of the slain. Countless thousands had died in what must have been a dreadful volcano of violence. Already the scavengers were gathering to the feast.
Anxiously Elfloq flew backwards and forwards over the battleground, nose wrinkling with the awful miasma of blood and death seeping up to him. He did see a few men moving about, but they were human scavengers, pulling at corpses, searching for loot. He had no mind to speak with them.
He heard a buzzing beside him and spun about, half expecting to be attacked by a blood-maddened vulture, but it was a small dark being even more diminutive than himself, a hearth imp of Loptoc’s.
“A message,” hissed the imp. They were not noted for garrulity. “From Loptoc.”
“Ah, yes, his second tale. Well?”
“Loptoc says, the war was yesterday.”
Satisfied that it had done its duty, the hearth imp disappeared.
“Yesterday,” echoed Elfloq. He cursed Loptoc’s cunning. “The dark man is not to be found here. Then I must look elsewhere.” He popped back to the astral. “Yesterday,” he muttered again.
Chapter VI
THE OCEAN OF SOULS
As the alert reader of my saga will have perceived by this point in the narrative, there are a number of strands to the work; just as the accomplished weaver must needs leave certain strands dangling for a time while working on various parts of his tapestry, so must I, too, occasionally desert my characters. Rest assured, however, that Elfloq’s part in the warp and weft of my saga is a crucial one—I have not abandoned him, as you shall learn in due course.
Meanwhile I must turn my attention to the threads I left hanging loosely earlier in my working, for at this point they are needed again in order to bring the wider picture into focus.
—Salecco, Shadow Loom Virtuoso
There are dimensions and dimensions, but as I have already been at pains to point out, there are also places neither in between nor beyond them and that seem to bear no tangible relationship to them. Thus it is with the Ocean of Souls, a limitless, timeless zone created by certain Gods who enjoy the creative diversity of reincarnation. It is a unique universe, to which none may come and from which none may go forth, save at the whim of the Gods who created it. It is a dream region, briefly glimpsed by the souls as they enter and depart on their short voyage back to the reality of a new incarnation in one of the dimensions that interweave the omniverse. The Gods who designed and constructed it alone know its secrets, its paradoxical workings; they draw into the Ocean of Souls those whom they will, and they release from it whosoever it pleases them to release.
It is an utterly dark place, for there are no suns or stars to light it, and no worlds coursing it. There is only the fathomless Ocean, rich with the dormant souls that dream, of former lives perhaps. It is a domain of sleep, of death between lives.
To watch over the Ocean of Souls and to attend to the duties necessitated by it, its Gods have placed within it a Keep, and have set within this Keep a master, a lord of the dead. He has many names. He it is who dispenses the whims of the Gods and sets the souls upon their way, scattering them about the omniverse as he is commanded.
In his Keep, the demi-god is called Necral—his sprawling domain is known simply as Skull Keep, and none save Necral and his few minions know of it. It has the vast skull head of a man and the body of a naked giant, reclining lifelessly in the emptiness that surrounds it as though drowned: it is the body of an old, deceased god, though it is preserved in its state for eternity, sorcerously embalmed, perhaps, and set to drifting in the Ocean of Souls. Within its immeasurable proportions, riddled with halls and cells, are the secret places of Necral, Keeper of the Ocean, where the chosen dead await their rebirth.
Ceaseless movement surrounds the corpse Keep, as though a plague of feasting worms have made the place their haven, but these are no scavengers, merely the shadowed minions of Necral. From out of the black ocean the Dead Fishers pole in their narrow barges, bringing to Skull Keep the chosen. Into the mouth of the forgotten god they take their burdens, to be received within by the Revivers. From the cavernous eyes of the skull fly the Sowers, carrying on their winged backs the reborn souls, taking them to whichever place they are to be incarnated.
Over all this presides Necral, watching everything from his sequestered chambers high in the skull of his Keep; he is as ageless and deathless as the Gods who have set him there. His emotions are a blank book, his thoughts secret, his place in the scheme of things fixed, unchanging. For only the Gods may bring change to this place of brooding doom.
Necral sent his probing intelligence up into the highest levels of the huge dead skull, wherein had been set the Chamber of the Omnivorous Eye. Here the bone room was dominated by a massive, glittering orb, constantly sparkling with sentient inner light, spreading its bright rays from a thousand facets. It was the Omnivorous Eye of Horabis, who had once been a great demon, but who had elected to serve the greater Gods of the omniverse by rendering his fealty to them—he had given up his one great Cyclopean Eye, which looked out at all parts of the omniverse. Necral was forever gazing into this miraculous Eye, for therein he could see all things. Mostly he took note of all those who were dying and nearing death out in the many dimensions, so that he could prepare a place for their souls in the great Ocean outside the Keep.
Scintillating light flashed as Necral’s mind probed down into the countless mirrors of the Eye, mirrors which turned their images inward to the room of bone. In each facet, men were dying, but one window on the dimensions attracted Necral’s fullest attention and he focused upon the events in it avidly.
It was a world called Elotrine.
There had been a battle.
It had been no skirmish, but a great, surging tide of chaos. Thousands of armoured warriors had died, bloodying acres. Perhaps kings had fallen—even Gods. Smoke eddied in gusts over the battlefield, while gaunt scavenger birds winged noisily over the slaughtered. Bodies were heaped in mangled piles, heads gathered in grisly mounds. Blood had drenched this field of mortals where the mirthless Reaper, Death, had sated himself avariciously. In the distance a castle burned, streaming out black tatters of smoke, spangled with red embers. A few figures moved like ghouls amongst the many slain. These were the robbers of the dead, who came to every aftermath, stripping from tangled cadavers what riches they could find.
There were five of them, working in a group, and already their arms were ringed with purloined bands of gold, their belts hung with trinkets and jewels taken from the dead. These armies that had clashed and destroyed each other had been of great Houses, men of pride and substance, fighting for powerful monarchs, used to the plunder of priceless kingdoms. Well could they have afforded to go into battle bedecked in riches. But such riches could serve them no longer. They would go to the Skull Keep with nothing.
Those five unsavoury brigands came across a heap of death-locked corpses and paused, using their bare feet to roll over the slain, noses wrinkling at the stench of death. One of the men smiled at what he saw.
“Here’s a pretty sight! What d’y
ou make of this, Gruul?” He pointed at the black-clad warrior he had exposed with his careless foot. The dead man was smeared in blood, his dark clothes clotted with it. The five bent over him hungrily like jackals preparing to feed.
“Mercenary, by his dress. Neither Poldarrian nor Vobandishek wears such black finery. What manner of fabric is this? Hoo! What jewels does he wear beneath his mesh of armour, eh? If he is a mercenary, I’ll warrant there’s a fat belt of gold!”
They cackled. A sword was drawn and its point hooked under the shirt of the fallen man. As the point thrust beyond the fabric, the man’s eyes flickered open; the thieves gasped. “Alive!” cried one.
But his companion spat. “Nay, nay, Thorg, you are mistaken.”
A grin spread quickly across the crooked features of the other and his companions chuckled at his meaning. The sword slipped deeper under the shirt of the reviving man, cutting down in a neat, precise incision. At least it would be a clean, painless death. The shirt frayed and fell apart, but there was no expression of pain in the open eyes, and more curious than that—there was no blood.
“Cut deeper, Aug,” grinned Gruul. “It is you who are mistaken!”
Baffled, Aug pulled away the whole of the ripped garment. As he did so, he flung up his arm to shield his eyes from what lay beneath. He cried out and staggered back, blundering into his rough fellows, who cursed him obscenely. Gruul avoided the tumbling bodies and the yelping Aug to stare down at the victim. Where his chest should have been was a gaping hole, not a neat, gushing wound, but a black abyss that looked outwards like some cosmic window into the deep reaches of star-pocked space.
“Madness and chaos!” shrieked Gruul, lurching back. Seeing this incomprehensible vision, the other men howled in confusion, turning and feverishly scrambling over the mounds of the dead in pell-mell flight.
The dazed man in black looked down at himself and saw the void: it seemed that he began to implode into it, collapsing within himself into a dizzy vortex of dreams.
