“‘And the second?’ Although I was sure I already knew.
“‘The second is purest folly. A frontal assault. Here they come!’
“The villains, unappreciative that everything comes to him who waits, had massed on the other side of the entrance and were running in, zigzagging across the floor in an attempt to reach cover. Cabal fired and missed the first through. I took a little more time, in the poor light of a few torches that had been thrown in, and put a bullet in the wretch’s chest. Cabal fired once more at the entrance, and then I heard his revolver clack uselessly. He snapped the cylinder out and studied the chambers. ‘A cautious man. He didn’t carry a live round under the hammer. Five shots. I’m out.’ He closed up the pistol resignedly and dropped it to the floor. ‘Make your shots count better than I did mine, Enright.’
“A couple of the bandits had reached cover and were firing over our heads, probably trying for a lucky ricochet. They stood an excellent chance of getting one, too, given the confines we found ourselves in. Happily, ammunition became a concern and they slowed to some desultory sniping. I lay there behind that boulder knowing what it was to really be between a rock and a hard place. My rifle’s magazine held only another four rounds and there had to be at least eight bandits left. Our death was a certainty, and the only choice left to us was how easy we made it for them. I’d made up my mind to make it as difficult as possible, and I suspected that Cabal was of the same liver. After a few minutes, the ringing in my ears from the close gunfire had subsided to the point that I could hear the surviving bandits arguing amongst themselves. ‘What now?’ I asked Cabal again, with less urgency this time. There hardly seemed much point.
“He sighed, picked up the useless revolver, and fidgeted with it as he replied. ‘We wait while the better option occurs to them and they wall us in, I suppose.’
“‘That’s not very optimistic.’
“He laughed humourlessly. ‘I don’t see many grounds for optimism.’ He looked past the edge of his boulder at the pool. ‘You wanted to know who Umtak Ktharl was.’
“‘If we’re to die in his tomb, I might as well know who I’m going to be sharing eternity with.’
“Cabal nodded. ‘That’s fair. Very well. Every schoolboy knows of the Great Hass Majien and his Ugol hordes. The stories talk of vast hordes of horsemen sweeping down from the Irthat Steppes with Majien at their head in his ubiquitous war chariot. Nothing could stand before their unparalleled ferocity, expert horsemanship, uncanny archery, little ponies, comedic moustaches, and so on and so forth, ad nauseam. Utter rot. I researched this period in some detail and I’m confident that the horde barely exceeded a thousand undisciplined men. Any defending army worth the name would have wiped the floor with them.’
“‘You’re saying the history books are wrong?’
“‘I’m saying the history books have rationalised how a bunch of foul-smelling thugs managed to defeat every force thrown against them. The truth is too ugly for the historians in their ivory towers, so they’ve come up with the myth of an unbeatable army. The Ugol were unbeatable, but that’s the only true part of it.’
“‘They had a secret weapon?’ I ventured.
“‘No. Yes, actually. Yes, in a sense, they did. A secret weapon. Umtak Ktharl. He was the Great Hass’s vizier, adviser, majordomo. Actually, I think he ran everything and the Hass was just there as a more acceptable figurehead. The Hass could roister and doister and do all that nonsense. Umtak Ktharl, on the other hand, was evil incarnate.’ I looked questioningly at him, but he was disassembling the revolver for his amusement and wasn’t aware of me. ‘I first became aware of him when I read of something called the Red Snow,’ Cabal continued. ‘Red snow that fell from a clear sky, and where it touched human flesh it dissolved it. And every flake sighed as it ate away the meat from a man’s bones, the sigh of a tiny ribbon of vital essence leaking away into thin air. Entire armies were reduced by it, kings lived in fear of it, and it was only one of the novelties in Umtak Ktharl’s bag of tricks. Some were much, much worse. Who would stand against an army backed by a warlock like that?’
“‘A necromancer,’ I corrected.
“He seemed to be about to lose his temper, and took a moment to swallow his irritation. I affected not to notice.
“‘No,’ he said finally, and his voice betrayed no emotion. ‘Not a necromancer. They are men of a very different stripe. This warlock was the reason for the horde’s success. The only reason. Kingdoms would be abandoned at the very whisper that the Great Hass and his éminence grise were coming. If Umtak Ktharl was entombed here, it explains why the horde withdrew soon after they passed through this land. They very wisely appreciated that the jig was up and it was time to cut and run.’
“‘Not a pretty story.’
“‘No.’
“‘There’s still something about this place that I don’t understand. Why the pool, the spring?’
“Cabal looked at me again and smiled that ugly, cold smile of his once more. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ He looked over at the pool and made as if to speak. Then his expression suddenly became horrified. ‘Enright! What’s that by the gutter? Over there, man!’
“I followed his glance. Near the gutter that fed spring water into the pool, there was something dark and ophidian. As I watched, it moved slowly and cautiously towards the running water. I blinked and then appreciated the illusion. The tail of the black snake ran back towards the body of the bandit I had shot — the flattened perspective, of course, it was obvious. ‘It’s blood, Cabal. Only blood.’
“The effect on Cabal was astounding. He sat up, presenting himself as a beautiful target, and started yabbering at the bandits in furious German, pointing frantically at the dead man. Fortunately for him, my reactions were better than those of our persecutors. I dived across between cover and tackled Cabal, flattening him behind his boulder even as a shot whizzed through the space he’d occupied a moment before. I hadn’t been expecting gratitude, but I was unprepared for the vitriol Cabal blazed at me. Not much of it was in English, or even German, but what little I could make out doesn’t bear repeating.
“‘I just saved your life, Cabal!’ I bellowed in his face. ‘They would have had you otherwise!’
“‘Them?’ he barked back. ‘I’m not afraid of them. The worst they can do is kill us!’
“Suddenly, I became aware of a bubbling sound, like a great cauldron coming to the boil. Risking a peek by the boulder, I was astounded to see that the water in the pool was boiling. Beside me, Cabal said with sharp anger and desperation, ‘Blood! It’s too late, there’s blood in the water!’ And so there was; the slow trickle of blood from the bandit’s body had finally reached the gutter and thence the pool.
“I was never very bright at school in my divinity classes. Our teacher, Doctor Chatt, was a patient man, but even he must have been sorely tried by my complete inability to absorb anything at all. Or at least I’d always believed none of it had stuck until, looking at that extraordinary pool, its surface boiling fiercely and seeming to glow with subdued red, like the sea over a submarine volcano, I heard dear old Chatt’s voice speak to me over the distance of years. It was a lesson about John the Baptist, and somebody had asked what baptism meant. ‘It is the washing away of our sins,’ Chatt had replied in that dark, wooden voice of his. The washing away of our sins. And then I understood.
“Umtak Ktharl had been having his sins washed away for seven centuries. Seven hundred years of pure water driving over him as he lay at the bottom of that strange pool, seven hundred years of corruption being sapped from him. And he, a seemingly bottomless well of sin, hadn’t been purified one wit. In an instant, I saw it all. The Great Hass finally realising that his vizier’s goals surpassed those of any mortal man; the secret construction of this place; the luring of Umtak Ktharl here under some pretext and then plunging him into the pool before he recognised the trap. As generations had been born, flourished, and died away, Umtak Ktharl had lain here, rendered powerless by
the never-ending purity of a mountain stream, powerless but still rotten to the core of his foul soul.
“At least, the purification had been never-ending. Until the blood of a wicked man had spilt into it and it had been polluted.
“As I watched the boiling increase in intensity, Cabal slumped down behind the boulder and commented, rather flippantly, I thought, ‘Oh, well. There’s the end of the world as we know it.’
“‘Is there nothing we can do?’ I started to ask him, but he hushed me with a raised finger.
“‘I’m thinking,’ he said. And, as he thought, Umtak Ktharl rose from the waters.
“He seemed to half climb, half float from the pool, an Oriental who should — judging merely by the elements of his face — have been in his forties. But there was something wrong in the way they worked together, perhaps caused by the uncertain light or my own state of mind, something that made him seem ancient beyond belief. The water streamed from his high brow as mercury across glass, and fell hissing like drops of lava to the rocky floor. He was dressed in a long heavy robe of the type favoured by the Ugol in centuries past, but it was dark and featureless, hanging about him like a bed of weed, dank and horrid. It had no right to have survived its long immersion, of course, but mere physics were of little consequence in that cave at that moment.
“All of which were mere details beside those eyes. I cannot even begin to describe them, for as soon as I saw him I looked away. But I know one thing of a certainty, and that is that they were not human. I knew nothing of this … man’s history and have never gone to pains to find out since, for I have no desire to learn what precisely takes a man’s eyes and replaces them with the voids that I glimpsed. Perhaps his eyes were black orbs in his skull. I hope so, for the alternative was that he had no eyes at all but saw through sockets filled by something so wrong for this world that they were not simply beyond description but beyond apprehension.
“My sanity was saved by the bandits, who, seeing only the warlock’s back, opened fire. Umtak Ktharl staggered very slightly under the rain of bullets, like a man snagging his toe in a loose carpet but catching himself in plenty of time. He seemed, if anything, faintly exasperated. Then he turned and set foot on dry ground for the first time in thirty-five generations. The instant they saw his face, the firing stopped. There was a moment of utter astonishment, and then one man made a horrible high, whining scream of terror and bolted.
“It was the signal for a general rout. The surviving bandits threw themselves back into the passage, kicking and trampling those who were too slow. I saw Umtak Ktharl lazily wave his hand and the hindmost bandit burst into fire, an unnatural fire of grey flames that consumed him within seconds. Yet he continued to scream even as he fell into ashes and for some moments afterwards. His fate inspired his companions to yet greater exertions and, in a moment, they had gone. Their nemesis followed with insolent leisure. Cabal and I were left alone, listening to their dying screams echoing in the entrance cave.
“‘Bullets don’t hurt him,’ I said somewhat hopelessly.
“‘No, they don’t. It would be a salutary lesson to those vermin that violence doesn’t always get them what they want. Of course, it helps to be alive after a lesson to appreciate the nuances.’
“His flippancy was starting to irritate me, and he saw it. ‘Look at the bright side,’ he added. ‘I think I have a plan.’
“‘Yes? What is it?’
“‘Can’t tell you. In the first place, there will be a lot of improvisation. In the second, I don’t have time for explanations if we’re to keep up with Ktharl. We mustn’t lose him. Come on!’ He threw the disassembled revolver aside and, having seen that devil’s imperviousness to bullets, I made to do the same with my rifle, but Cabal stopped me. ‘It might not kill him, but it can certainly attract his attention. Hold on to it.’
“We moved quickly but cautiously back up the passage to the entrance cave and happened upon the remains of some of the hapless bandits.
“No two of them had died in the same fashion: one body lay unwounded but gelatinous beside a pile of steaming bones that I took to be his skeleton; another sat upright leaning against a stalagmite, his head brilliantly alight, the flame consuming his flesh as a candlewick does the wax; yet another lay sprawled on his back, having apparently vomited up his heart. These were men who only minutes earlier I would willingly have killed myself, yet at least I would have offered them a quick and humane death. This, however, was far, far beyond the pale.
“‘Why?’ I asked Cabal. ‘Why has he done this? Surely he has it within his power to kill quickly and painlessly? Why these … these monstrous acts?’
“‘Fear. With his power, he can vanquish an army. With his reputation, he can conquer the earth. And he’s probably rather out of practice anyway, I should think. These are the equivalent of piano exercises to him.’ Cabal looked at a human arm protruding from the cave’s wall, a victim it would take pickaxes to extract. ‘These are simple party tricks for somebody like Umtak Ktharl. He’s still working the cricks out. We must catch up with him before he gets back into his stride.’
“Another scream from outside showed that he hadn’t got far. From the shadows of the entrance, we watched as the last of the bandits was dangled by his ankles from a tree at the edge of the clearing. For a moment, I thought Ktharl had somehow bound him there when, with a sick sense of horror, I realised that even the trees were doing his bidding. The bandit wasn’t tied to the branch — the branch was actually wrapped around his ankles like a black snake. The tree leaned slightly, making a ponderous creaking, and then, with unbelievable rapidity, swung the terrified man at the trunk of a neighbour. His screaming stopped the instant his brains were dashed out.
“‘Your plan, Cabal,’ I whispered, still shaken by what I’d seen. ‘Quickly, what is my rôle?’
“‘Are you good at thinking on your feet?’
“‘As good as any, better than most.’
“‘Good. Get to those bushes over there. Act when you see my signal.’
“‘What signal?’
“‘You’ll know when you see it.’ With this, he walked once more straight towards his enemy.
“Umtak Ktharl saw him coming and turned to watch, mildly interested. He raised a hand to make one of the lazy gestures I now associated with an ugly death, and then Cabal did the most remarkable thing. He threw himself prostrate before the warlock and started babbling at him in some odd tongue. Ugol, I suppose. An obviously educated man — and a European to boot — grovelling in such a way before an Oriental was a demeaning sight, and it seemed to take even Umtak Ktharl aback slightly. He lowered his hand and listened to what Cabal had to say. Then he spoke back — a question, by the sound of it — in a strange high voice, thin and complex, like birdsong. It was fascinating and I could have watched for some time, but I remembered Cabal’s plan, such as it was, and crawled on my belly to the cover of the bushes, my rifle held firmly in my hands for instant action. Reaching them, I climbed to my knees and furtively parted the leaves to see how Cabal was getting on.
“He appeared to be making some headway, as he was now on his knees with his head bowed. There seemed to be some sort of question-and-answer session going on. I guessed that this was the first part of Cabal’s plan, to gain the monstrous lich’s confidence. Then what, I had no idea, nor could I guess my part in it.
“As it happened, I didn’t have to wait long. Cabal had somehow ingratiated himself in the space of fifteen or twenty minutes that he was allowed to rise to his feet, although he had to maintain a respectful distance and his head stayed bowed. He was speaking quite loudly and fervently, and reminded me of adherents of those religions less civilised than our own.
“Then suddenly, unbelievably, he pointed straight at my hiding place. I was stunned for a moment, and then the true import of Cabal’s ‘plan’ struck me. There had never been any intention to stop Ktharl, only to save his own neck in the apocalypse that he knew was coming. And I was to be the first sac
rifice to his survival.
“Swearing bitterly, I brought my rifle up, aimed straight at Cabal, and fired. I’m a good shot and my aim was true, but the bullet never arrived. That accursed Ktharl, that disgusting abomination that should have been dead seven hundred years ago, simply reached out and plucked the ball from the air. He studied it, lying in his palm for a second or two — eminently unimpressed by the best modern science had to throw at him — and then he raised his hand to his mouth and blew gently. Some instinct made me dive to one side, but not fast enough to avoid being winged by that selfsame bullet as it shot back at me as fast as from any rifle barrel.
“It was plain that I couldn’t fight him. My only chance was to escape from him and his new cur, Cabal, in the forest, get back to civilisation, and try to convince the authorities of this incredible story. I slung the rifle over my shoulder and started running. I risked a look back and saw Umtak Ktharl sweeping after me across the leaf litter as if he were gliding across ice, Cabal running doggedly in his wake.
“My only advantage was speed, but even that would be lost if I became exhausted. Ktharl was inexorable, his steady progress indefatigable. I considered my options and decided to forget about losing them amidst the trees, and instead try to find a dwelling with, I hoped, a horse. I finally understood why it had been so important in Cabal’s plan for me to leave the cave, because in doing so I had also left behind any chance of reaching the horses stabled there. Furious with myself for trusting him, I ran and ran and ran. My path was along and down the side of the hill in the direction I guessed the Senzan border lay. On reaching the base, I struck out across the forest floor and hoped for the best.
“Every time I looked back, Umtak Ktharl was there. I don’t know why he didn’t just kill me there and then; it must certainly have been within his power. Perhaps he had another use for me and that was something I didn’t wish to think about, and which spurred me onwards with still more desperation. It was a nightmarish situation, one that I hope never to repeat and, God willing, never will except within nightmares. My wounded arm bled steadily, my headlong flight preventing any hope of its closing. As the seconds of running turned into minutes, I had the unappealing thought that Umtak Ktharl was somehow tracking me by the drops of blood I left in my wake, that he could smell them, perfumed with my fear.
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