by Marc Laidlaw
She didn’t think that physical alteration of the tomb was likely, but there were sorcerous ways of making a victim think the world had changed, which had the same effect. But that would require a mage of some power, and who would want to target the two of them with vexing spells?
Who indeed?
As if reading her thought and answering it, Aynglin said, “Uh oh. It’s him again.”
That shrill childish cry, like the laughter of a hyena, echoed around them. They walked forward into a vast room, its dimensions and its ceiling hid in shadow. Directly above the entryway was a broad stone balcony incised with a gruesome frieze. The laughter fell from above, and its maker capered and gestured obscenely in the heights, emoting malice and mischief.
“Looks like p00ter came back with some of his pals,” Aynglin said.
True enough. He was no longer alone. Four figures stood flanking him, wrapped in dark robes, their faces veiled in fog.
At first she saw no reason this should worry her. She took a few steps away from the wall, to get a better view of her adversaries, and at that moment she saw the archway vanish as if it had never been. She ran to the wall but hit solid rock. No seam, no keyhole, no latch, no sign that there had ever been an entrance.
Somewhere off in the shadows, she heard the sound of rusted iron grates and chains, and a ratcheting noise of gears. Skittering footsteps teetered on the edge of audibility, bony and chill. It could have been any sort of skeleton ambling toward them, but instinctively she suspected the worst.
“I’ll show you, bitch!” came the hissing voice above her. “You and your freshmeat are bonefood!”
p00ter’s face fairly glowed with gleeful evil, but his companions betrayed nothing. She assumed they were mages of some skill, judging by how easily she had been befuddled and led into this trap. Only potent mages could have summoned the undead legions now imminent. How p00ter’s ilk managed to gather powerful friends she had never quite understood, but it was not an uncommon alliance. From the fact that p00ter’s associates were unreadable, only barely visible at all, she had some glimmering sense of their power—and the trouble she was in.
As the first of the skeletal stalkers strode into the weak fringe of torchlight cast from the balcony, her worst fears were confirmed. It was a Foulmost Banebone, fully armored but with empty hands—which meant it would rely on magic only, hurling attacks all but impossible to anticipate.
Behind it, in rank and file, were more of its kind. And some similar number was coming upon them from the opposite end of the chamber.
She turned to Aynglin, grateful that she would have someone to watch her back, since she could wrap them both in a spell of deflection and add his power to her own. But it would require some quick study on his part.
“Now quickly,” she said, “you must do exactly as I say.”
But Aynglin wasn’t listening.
“Uh, sorry, I gotta go,” he said. “Later.”
Putting his hands together in a posture of prayer, he vanished.
p00ter’s laughter went up the scale, but she scarcely noticed.
Abandoned, betrayed…what next? She slipped a shortcut ring onto her finger and held it up to see if she could escape that way. It gave off a dull grey light, signalling its uselessness. They had sealed her in. Once she had fallen in battle, it might take hours to win back her remains, and she would need help to do it—especially with Banebones posted above her corpse.
With that thought, she realized what she had to do. As the foremost Foulmost Banebone rubbed its fleshless palms and began to mold a spiral of smutty light, she threw back her head and sent out a Clarion Call. Two answering Calls came almost instantaneously, and moments later she thought she heard a faint third response. But by then there could have been a sympony of Calls and she wouldn’t have noticed. She was too deeply caught up in battling for her life.
The first of the bony attackers sent its whipcord spiral swirling around her, a barbed line of wicked light that attempted to entangle and immobilize her. She stepped free of it, slicing the lines with her charmed blade.
Whiplight wasn’t a terrible spell in itself, and one Banebone was no more than an irritant. It was the sheer quantity and variety of attacks that would soon, inevitably, draw her down. For while the first Banebone followed its attack with another of the same, it was joined by its opposite, who had chosen a completely different attack.
Her motions slowed as the second wave of spells struck her from the opposite side of the hall. This spell was like green glue crawling over her, changing every powerful sword slash into a lazy swipe. She had one ring with which to counter the Viscous Flume, but she’d not had it charged in some time, and she had no idea how long it would hold out—especially if another skeleton flung a similar attack.
As the ring took effect, she tried to make the best of it. She lunged out at the source. Her blade bit deep into bone, but it was like hacking at metal. She managed to throw the Foulmost off its casting for a moment, by sending it staggering backward.
A toothed mesh of spiralwire looped down around her head and arms. As soon as she had freed herself of that, she turned to the second skeleton again, this time barking out a powercry as she hacked at a bare bit of vulnerable vertebrae below its gleaming helmet. Her laugh as the skull cracked against the floor for a moment rivalled that of p00ter, still howling from the ledge above.
This kill had an unexpected benefit, for as the scattered bones hit the floor, Jinrae flared with inner fires bright enough to cast the shadows of the oncoming Banebones onto distant walls of the cavern. The nearest skeletons were scorched by the glare of her new-claimed power. In the accompanying rush of energy, she clove the lead whipmaster through mid-torso, and continued to spin out into the midst of the legions like a raging top, her sword like a scythe slashing dry wheat. But not a single Bonebane actually fell, and those in the rear were beginning to cast healing spells on the advance guard.
The Banebones regrouped quickly. And her rush of gleeful energy had cost her dearly. She had forgotten the need for conservation. What she had just done in a moment she would have to do again ten times over if she wished to survive…and already she was nearly drained.
“Yeah, bitch, I know what you’re thinking. You hit me when I was alone…now how do you like it?”
She looked up toward the simpering figure on the balcony above, and suddenly she realized exactly who stood mocking her from among the safety of his sinister friends.
He had taken on a new name, to suit the regression in his personality.
He had revealed himself to be a vicious vengeful child, striking out in the only way he knew how.
What was worse, she had left herself open to be hurt. She had actually allowed this battle to matter to her.
She didn’t know whether to give up utterly, as Aynglin had done, or perform some explosive suicidal act in order to take him down with her. She had the ability to touch off an intense explosion that would obliterate every creature in the room in a single burst. But have done that, Jinrae as such could never return to the realm in this guise. It would be a truly final exit from this place.
She considered the ploy, then dismissed it.
She would not let him believe his victory mattered to her. She would play the game as if it were only that—a game.
Win or lose, she would not give him the satisfaction of thinking he had made her care.
Jinrae went back to her gory work with a will, counting each blow she gave and received, calculating exactly how long she could still hold out, watching the deadline loom.
In one hand she conjured orbs of buzzing flame and sent them streaming into the healers at the rear. The nearest ones she fended off with her blade. She put her back to the wall, which meant losing sight of the hateful form above her, but that was just as well. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She focused her attention on the skeleton army, and measured her way down the steepening slope to oblivion.
Suddenly she heard a ragged cro
ak with some faint kinship to p00ter’s laugh.
The vile fighter’s form went hurtling from the balcony and crashed down hard in the midst of the Banebones.
Dazed, still holding her attackers at bay, Jinrae watched p00ter stagger to his feet. The fuddled form rushing in her direction, saw her sword swing toward him, then turned and tried the opposite tack. Several of the Foulmost reached lazily to snag him; there were many bony fingers already twisting in the hems of his fringed cloak.
p00ter fell quite still and bowed his head, realizing that there would be no escape by regular routes. He put his hands together in prayer, striving for a swift exit, but an instant before he could pale and vanish, his bowed head was torn from his shoulders. His body exploded in a cloud of smoke and gushing sparks that looked like burning motes of blood.
The token bearing his ridiculous name landed at Jinrae’s feet.
“Farewell, p00ter,” she told it, and kicked the tag across the floor, hoping it would fall into some dark chasm, forever irretrievable.
An instant after p00ter’s death, three figures leapt down to touch the floor where he had fallen. At first she thought them his wizardly allies, but they were not. These bore mace and massive axe and luminous staff. Their faces were bright and clear, well known to her, personas of shimmering power armed with magic weapons.
“Woohoo!” they cried.
With screams of glee they laid waste to the Banebones. Jinrae’s exertions were all but unnecessary in this final melee; which was just as well, since her resources were almost completely drained. Even if she had been fully rested, any one of the three could have bested her easily in single combat. They swung their blades and hurled devasting spells at the skeleton mages. The towering monsters toppled like tenpins, smouldered and melted, pooled into wailing puddles of dust.
In no more than three minutes, the chamber was cleared of even the Leastmost Banebone. As for the wizards on the balcony above, they figured not at all in the final sweep, and made no further appearance. She suspected they had departed the instant the tide began to turn. So much for the friends that p00ter’s sort could assemble.
When they had finished, the rescuers formed a triangle with Jinrae at the center.
“Let’s blow,” said the one other woman, a youthful amazon with tattooed markings that made her look like a feral cat, and pointed ears tipped with a lynx’s tuft. She stood lithe and strong, wearing scarcely any visible armor.
“Right,” said the man to her right. He was completely armored. In fact, there was not the least bit of skin visible anywhere. His entire form was silver metal chased with moving figures.
The third was a short and bearded dwarf, clad in a cloak that dragged on the stone flags. He raised his staff and from its tip emitted a transport field that engulfed them all.
The dark air of the catacombs gave way to luminosity. Deep purple light with green underfoot, and a swollen orange sun shimmering up from the edge of the world.
They were standing outside, at the crest of the hill the tomb. Red flowers bobbed in the dawn breeze. Lights were just shutting off in Cowper’s Rest, as the sun’s rays groped at the distant brown buildings.
“Well, that was fun,” said the young lynx woman, Nyryx. “Can’t we leave you alone for one night without having to bail you out?”
“I was doing just fine,” Jinrae said.
“Then why the Clarion Call?” said the staunch little dwarf, Bloafish by name.
“We have troubles of our own, you know,” said the completely armored man known as Sir Candham.
“Anyway,” Nyryx pressed, “when are you coming home? You’ve been out a lot longer than any of us.”
Jinrae ignored the insinuation. She had more a pressing matter to bring up with them.
“I hope you know who was behind all that.”
“What?” Nyryx bristled. “Who?”
“p00ter…Venix…whatever he’s calling himself now. Your father hit a new low tonight.”
“What?” cried Bloafish. “No way.”
“I know you don’t like to see him this way, but I’m telling you—it was him. He set up that ambush, and you saw for yourself how it almost finished me. I should have known something like this was coming.”
“Don’t embarrass yourself,” declared Sir Candham forcefully. “It’s totally impossible.”
“I know him well enough to recognize him in any costume.”
“And we’re telling you you’re wrong,” Sir Candham said.
“How do you know?”
“Because,” said Nyryx, “we’re with him right now. We’ve been over here all night. He’s making us grilled cheese sandwiches.”
“What?”
“Well…it’s not like you noticed or anything. It’s not like anyone’s been able to talk to you. What’d you expect us to do?”
“Come off it, Mom.”
“Really. It’s time.”
“We’re telling you, he’s completely out of it. You’re imagining things. Get real.”
Jinrae stood speechless, her mind on the edge of grinding to a halt. She saw the pattern of suspicion underlying everything she’d believed that night. It was like her pain, a constant background to everything she felt. An undertow that continually pulled her in.
But if she was wrong…if her suspicions were unfounded. That meant there was a bottom to the pain. Maybe she had finally found that place. The three of them had shown it to her.
“Come on,” Nyryx said again. “It’s time to get going. Don’t you remember you said you’d pick us up in your car?”
“Oh god,” she said. “I’m sorry. I feel so…”
Sir Candham put up an admonitory silver hand. “Hey. Don’t. Just get going.”
Jinrae sighed. Nodded.
“Cool,” said Bloafish. “See you soon.”
The four of them bowed their heads, put their hands together, and stood very still. The unfelt wind toyed with the bright red flowers of the plain, but there was no one left to notice, and no one to hear the cries of dawn echoing from the mouth of the tomb.
* * *
“An Evening’s Honest Peril” copyright 2007 by Marc Laidlaw. First appeared online at Flurb #3, Spring 2007, edited by Rudy Rucker.
THE VICAR OF R’LYEH
“Let anything be held as blessed, so that that be well cursed.”
– Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers
Glorious afternoon, warm and breezy among green hills dotted with sheep. Looking down from his sylvan lounging spot upon the village with its twin spires, Geoffrey heard a mournful bell coming from the towers of Barchester Cathedral, and almost immediately thereafter noted a small dark shape making its way across the dewy grass from the open doors of the church. A faint distortion followed the pedestrian, as if air and earth were curdling in its wake. He blinked away the illusion, but the feeling of oppression grew until he clearly saw that yes, ‘twas the vicar coming toward him with some message he suddenly felt he did not wish to hear. Meanwhile, the tolling of the bell had grown appalling. As the little man struggled up the hillside, he seemed to expand until his shadow encompassed the town itself. Abruptly the vicar stood before him, the pale features of the meek country parson tearing into soft and writhing strands like the points of a wormy beard. The vicar scowled, revealing five segmented ridges of bone, teeth akin to the beak of a sea urchin. Geoffrey did not wish to hear the vicar speak, but there was no stopping his ears.
“You up, Geoff?” The voice, its accent inappropriate, was first wheedling, then insistent. “R’lyeh’s rising!”
He forced his eyes open. Somehow the phone had lodged itself between his cheek and pillow. The voice of his boss went on.
“Geoff, are you there? Did I wake you? I know you were here late, but we’ve got an emergency.”
“Mm. Hi, Warren. No. I was…I was getting up.”
(7:43 by the clock.)
“Calculations were off. Fucking astrologers, right? Anyway, we’ve got to throw ourselves into it. Mar
keting’s in a tizzy, but let them be the bottleneck. I think if we dig in—”
“Give me …” Shower, skip breakfast, grab coffee at a drive-through, traffic. This was bad. “…forty-five minutes?” Very bad.
“You’re a pro, Geoff.”
Very bad. Cancel all plans. Forget about rest until this thing was done. Already resigning himself to it. Exactly how off were the calculations? He’d soon find out.
Forty-eight minutes later, panicking over his growing lateness, Geoff spiraled down through increasingly lower levels of the parking lot. He was late, but he was worrying more about the dream. What did it mean? That he was becoming polluted? That his pure visions had become contaminated by the foul effluents in which he labored daily? It seemed more urgent that he get away. Finish this job and get back to what he loved. Put all this crap behind him. If he could just get through it.
As he descended, the fluorescent lights grew dingier and more infrequent; fresh white paint gave way to bare, sooty concrete; the level markers were eroded runes. Even at this hour, he found not a single free parking space until he reached the lowest level. At the end of the farthest row, he found a retractable metal gate raised just over halfway. Beyond it, a promising emptiness, dark.
His car scraped under the gate with half an inch of clearance. He found himself in a cavernous lot he had never seen before, darkness stretching beyond the reach of his headlights. This lot was anything but crowded. A mere dozen or so cars parked companionably in the nearest row of spaces. He pulled in beside them and shut off his engine though not yet his lights. Stairs? Elevators? He saw no sign of either. The safest course would be to walk back under the gate to the main level.
Slamming the door killed the light from his car, but enough flowed from the gateway to show a layer of dust on the adjacent Volkswagen. Geoff peered through the passenger window, shuddering when he saw a row of tiny plastic figures perched on the dashboard, winged and faceless except for tentacles and the keyhole eyes of superintelligent cuttlefish. The toys were self-illuminated, in the manner of their kind, and pulsed with faint colors that signaled their intentions to those who could read them. Scattered over the seats were piles of sticks and matted weeds. Also a fallen stack of books, and a spiral notebook open to a page covered with scribbles he took for treasure maps. What kind of treasure seeker plundered the recesses of a not very ancient parking garage?
