by A. Attanasio
Duppy Hob pulled himself around from where he sat on the ledge of the roof and spun the crystal prism between forefinger and thumb. Spectra flashed, and needles of rainbow threaded through Ripcat's pupils and wove in the dark of his brain a vision of Irth.
Old Ric wandered across a vault of raw rock. Beside him, like a slender, tilted flue of milky white light reaching through the vault's dome, a Radiant One stood.
"Come along, Asofel—" Old Ric waved to the slim ray of light. "Broydo is just ahead. I can hear the screaming of the dwarves."
"We are watched." Asofel's voice descended softly from the narrow radiance.
The eldern gnome crouched lower and swung a look around for others in the caliginous chamber. Distantly, shrill cries knitted the silence with anguish. "I sense only dwarves dying."
"We are watched from afar." Asofel hung like a vertical fluorescent tube, shining dully off facets of hewn rock. "Regard the Necklace of Souls."
The gnome peered down at the crystals that looped the arrow embedded in his chest. Goat eyes stared back. "What is this?"
"Duppy Hob." Asofel's voice had thinned almost inaudibly. "Watch—and you will see him watching us."
In the prisms, Old Ric discerned tiny figures inside an agate slant of goat eyes. Two men stood on a rooftop in a skyline of dismal brick buildings and glass towers and near-featureless geometry.
Looking closer, the gnome eyed the beastmarks of a cat—the skin of light that the magus, Reece Morgan, had put upon himself. Ric had first glimpsed this aspect of the shadow thing in Lara's crystal on Nemora.
With a cold stab of fright, the gnome observed Lara's crystal prism in the hands of the second man, a youth with hay-nest hair and eyes black as boreholes.
"I see Reece Morgan in his beastmarks," Old Ric announced, his snub nose touching the Necklace. "And another—a young man with Lara's prism."
"That is Duppy Hob." Gazing at that devil, Asofel felt his light draining into a great night. "I have watched him from outside the dream. I have tried to see to his purpose, but I have failed."
"What?" Distracted by echoes of dwarf screams brightening in the tunnel ahead, Old Ric glared impatiently. "What are you trying to tell me, Asofel?"
"We are watched by the devil worshipper—and he has a secret."
The gnome stepped closer to the taut rope of light. "What secret?"
"That I don't know." Peering through the dream at Duppy Hob, Asofel's energy seeped across dark space and down into the black of the cold ground. "He is a master of darkness. He has a secret, a terrible secret that he keeps from me in a dark my light cannot penetrate."
"Then how do you know he has any secret at all?" The eldern gnome stood with arms akimbo, staring up at the long wand of light. "Asofel, since we left Nemora you have been—distant. You have not shown your face once. Don't blame me that this task has dragged on interminably. You're surly just because the shadow thing squats on the Dark Shore out of your reach."
"No. There is something more."
Old Ric's gray eyes sparked irately. "What now? Listen, if you want to leave the dream and return to our lady, go ahead. I understand. I can find Broydo from here."
"Hush, gnome." The Radiant One dimmed. "How am I to act effectively when I cannot see into the darkest corners of this dream?"
"You just want an excuse to leave." Ric dropped his arms to his sides and turned from the light. "Then, go. Speak with the nameless lady and see if her child moves again."
The thin shaft of light blurred as Asofel listened to the darkness. "The one who watches us holds the child's soul."
Old Ric spun about.
The luminous beam brightened. "I sense it now. I don't know how he has done this. He is the true shadow thing."
The gnome absorbed this with a startled expression of sudden conviction. "Then we must go to the Dark Shore—for the child's sake."
"I've told you, I cannot."
The gnome glowered and wagged a bulb-jointed finger. "You dare not."
"What does it avail us to squander our light in that darkness? Better that we confront Duppy Hob here among the Bright Worlds."
Ric offered a disapproving frown. "And how will we do that?"
"That is what he watches to see."
Shrieks leaped like rats out of the dark. Green shadows glowed upon the tunnel walls, and a clattering of metal plates banged closer. Dwarves rushed from around a bend in the tunnel, armor clanging.
Then Broydo leaped among them, serpent sword swinging. Helmets and breastplates crashed, and maggots skidded squirming into the cavern.
"Old Ric!" the elf exulted, gasping, sparking with sweat. "How did you find us?"
From behind him, Jyoti came running, an exhausted firecharm in her hand, muzzle and stock battered from use as a club.
"Asofel found you." Old Ric motioned to a dazzling cord that hung from the dark heights of the cavern.
The elf bowed reverently to the supernal being. "Radiant One—you are stronger yet. That gladdens me, for it grieves our enemies."
Old Ric crossed his arms in front of him, palms up, and Broydo clasped the gnome's hands in the elfen embrace. "I feared for you, Broydo, when we lost you in Saxar."
"And I feared for our quest—and all the worlds." The elf squeezed the gnome's hands urgently. "The magus that we seek is a beastmarked man. His name is Ripcat. The dwarves seized him." He tossed a wrung and grateful expression toward his partner, Jyoti. "This is the margravine, Jyoti of Odawl. We've been chasing dwarves through the charmways, trying to find Ripcat. We've shared the serpent sword and slain many dwarves, but we have found only more dwarves."
Jyoti gazed with a perplexed mix of dread, loathing, and wonder at the tall staff of light. So this is the Shadow Eater! She stepped away from the monstrous entity who had devoured her security squad and other innocents on the sky bund at Saxar. Its inhumanity revulsed her, and she wanted nothing to do with it. Yet, the stakes at venture now outweighed even her outrage at those deaths.
She let her eyes touch its brightness. Despite her antipathy, its presence filled her with portentous glimmerings, like faded instructions from a dream. She could not tell if this ray of astral fire promised good or further ill, and she kept the elf between herself and it.
"Aye, we know about Ripcat—and more," Old Ric told the margravine and the elf. "Asofel tells me that Duppy Hob himself is the shadow thing who holds the child's soul."
"The dwarves—" Jyoti spoke up. "When I first saw the dwarves in the grottoes under Saxar, they were chanting for Duppy Hob."
"The dwarves have stolen the soul of the nameless lady's child!" Broydo brandished the serpent sword.
"We must go to Duppy Hob and retrieve the child’s soul," Old Ric declared. "But the devil worshipper hides on the Dark Shore. And the Radiant One will not go there for fear of—"
"Not fear." Asofel's voice rang like a bell in the cavern. "My motive is never fear." The Radiant One thinned to a brilliant filament. "Any journey we make to the Dark Shore is futile and almost certainly fatal. My power is of no use there. I cannot eat the light that deep in the darkness, at the limits of the dream."
"That is why the devil worshipper hides there." Broydo vengefully poked his sword at the shadows, still wrought with Charmed strength from the serpent sword's killing frenzy. "He has taken the child's soul beyond our reach."
"Can you not appeal to the nameless lady?" Jyoti asked. "This is her dream. Tell her about Duppy Hob and ask her to change it."
Old Ric shook his head. "Duppy Hob has slowly accrued enough power in the dark of the dream—in the lady's unconscious—to influence the outcome of the dream. No, whatever can be done to save the lady's child must be done here, by us."
"There is another." The tall thread of light moved, tracking across the chamber to one of the many tunnels that intersected at this vault. "Now that the dwarves are silent, you can hear him."
Old Ric led the others to the tunnel touched by the line of white light. Wi
thout the guidance of Asofel, whose wider senses penetrated more deeply the dark corridors, they never would have found this one charmway among the dozens so quickly. Far away, weak yet distinct, a growly voice called,.
"That's Dogbrick!" Jyoti pushed past Ric and entered the charmway that led toward his voice. She emerged in a damp cave overlooking the stormy coast of Zul.
Sodden with sea mist and chained to the wall, Dogbrick lay folded upon himself. Deprived of Charm, he had shrunk, and his fur hung like brown smoke on his skeleton. At the sight of Jyoti, he stirred.
He had spent his last strength calling to the familiar voices he heard at the audible limit where sound and dream furl together. At Jyoti's touch, the Charm from her amulet-vest saturated him.
Strength began to return at once, and he lifted his head to see Broydo enter with an aged gnome pierced by a barbed arrow—the famous Old Ric, who had eluded capture at Saxar.
Charm flowed through him from a brace of power wands that Jyoti placed atop his back. Pain sloughed away. As soon as he could speak, he panted, "Lara—is on the Dark Shore. The dwarves—threw her prism—into the Gulf—"
"Rest, Dog—we know this." The eldern gnome knelt beside Dogbrick and read his beastmarks. The long mane and short crop of the ear as well as the massive jaws told Ric that this was an early breed of gnomish beastfolk, obviously a mongrel of many generations. He pitied the masterless creature and made soothing sounds as he examined the shackles.
"Lara—" Dogbrick rolled to a sitting position and tossed his head back and forth. Searching for her ghost in the grainy air, he did not find her. Charm from the power wands had already restored enough stability that he could no longer veer his senses toward the invisible.
"I still have my sword, Dogbrick." Broydo stepped forward, displaying the weapon. "But I do regret I did not use it well enough to spare you this pain."
Before Dogbrick could reply, the ground shook, sand sizzled in streams from the ceiling, and the cloudy horizon of the sea rocked.
Bellowing echoes resounded so loudly that sound became tangible vibrations, shaking everything around them. Broydo caught Old Ric as he toppled off his feet, and the two tumbled into Dogbrick.
He howled and pushed away Ric and his sharp arrow.
Jyoti rolled into a corner and gravity pressed her to the cold wall. The din of rocks exploding and crashing diminished swiftly to eerie silence. Through the cave mouth, peacock hues of sky flashed among torn clouds. The sea had vanished.
"What's happened?" the gnome called out from where he lay pinned under Broydo.
Dogbrick clutched the power wands to his chest, drawing strength sufficient to stand on the canted floor of the sea cave. Over the lip of the cave mouth, he peered out. Cobalt vapors of sky shredded to black and starry shrieks of eternal night.
"We're falling into the Gulf!" Broydo cried out, watching the last blue haze of sky evaporate into darkness strewn with Stardust.
"How can that be?" Old Ric struggled upright in the tilted cave. "Asofel!"
A ray of white light penetrated the dark cavern. "We've been trapped!"
"Asofel, what is happening?" Old Ric staggered toward the light. "Why are we falling?"
"It appears that we are inside a cage of rock," came the dispassionate answer. The Radiant One gazed across time to the dream's edge. "Ah! I see now. The dwarves designed this vault to peel off from the sea cliffs and plunge into the Gulf at Duppy Hob's command."
"By the blind gods!" Broydo clambered to the cave entrance and winced into the buffeting cold. Planet swarms glowed like smoldering rubble among comet smoke and star fumes. He slid back toward the others, his face blinking with fright. "We're falling!"
Dogbrick howled to realize he had been a lure.
"Please, Asofel!" Old Ric lifted his whiskery face to the light. "Do something!”
"There’s nothing he can do," Jyoti answered in despair for him. "We've fallen off the edge of the Irth. We'll fall forever."
Death on the Dark Shore
Raucous music blared from Empire of Darkness. Bald musicians in studded leather thrashed frantic sounds from their instruments on the caged platform above the dance floor. A maximum-capacity crowd surged below among laser rays and strobes.
The band kicked down shards of thunder and metallic shrieks. And the dancing throng convulsed rhythmically to a concussive, tortured song of speed-metal pain and loss.
The party's fury carried its anger and hurt to heaven, and the fierce music smothered the chanting from below, out of the city's pit. In the building's cellar, before the anvil-shaped altar, thirteen naked, hollow-eyed bodies knelt under fervent and droning invocations.
Duppy Hob presided over the gathering, striding before the altar. His ritual rant droned barely audibly above the tech-thump vibrations from above.
In the dark alcove that doubled as a charmway to Gabagalus, Duppy Hob's outpost on Irth, Ripcat squatted. Duppy Hob had placed him there. At first, the captive thought the devil worshiper was sending him back to Irth. But the charmway did not open. As he hunched and watched the skeletal acolytes chanting, he realized that he had been plugged into this alcove to serve again as an antenna.
The sole source of illumination in the cellar shone wanly from the altar's inset bowl of quicksilver. The city’s destitute comprised the spindle-shanked chanters, living zombies, glassy-eyed, stringy-haired, skinny, and hungry. Seven women and six men knelt before the altar of darkness, obedient to the demon. Under a filthy dawn, they would shuffle out to the streets to wander the city, begging for money and food until their master summoned them again.
Disgust churned in Ripcat at the fate the demon had imposed on these luckless souls. As a magus, he had loathed that this power fed upon the lives of others for fuel, and he had never practiced these abominable rites.
Ripcat wished dawn were upon them now. He shifted restlessly in the fetid cellar until Duppy Hob spun the crystal prism. Flickers of rainbows flurried, and the sickening malodors thinned away. Darkness brightened with trance force that obscured the chanters and the walls of glossy rock and revealed a vision—
Dogbrick, Jyoti, the elf Broydo, and a bald, wizened, pink-bearded gnome pressed against the back wall of a cave—and with them, a tall, luminous man with hair like sunlight...
Ripcat pulled himself free of the trance. The fetor of corpses hammered him. Duppy Hob, black robes snapping, rushed among the kneeling zombies. The spinning gem floated before him, directing him among the supplicants. He harvested the power of their decaying humanity, and their bodies slowly collapsed into mineral namelessness.
Rainbow light stabbed Ripcat’s eyes, and again he beheld the aged gnome with the arrow through his breast. He wore a gold cord of crystal prisms about his neck. With a gut cramp of dreadful anger, Ripcat recognized the eldern gnome. Duppy Hob had seized the Necklace of Souls!
Grasping that somehow the zombies' abhorrent ritual drew the Necklace of Souls across the Gulf to the Dark Shore, to Duppy Hob, Ripcat lurched against the dreamstrength of the trance. He snapped alert to the dark and putrid cellar and struggled to shove himself free of the alcove. He thought that if he swatted a few zombies, he could disrupt the demon's invocation and give his friends a chance of escape.
Stone-jawed with determination, he rose to his feet. Duppy Hob reared up before him, black eyes glittering with reflections from the spinning prism. Fans of chromatic light opened in Ripcat's eyes and converged in his brain to a sunburst of white light. He dropped back into the alcove, deeper into Duppy Hob's trance...
A sharp ray of light glinted upon the shackles chaining Dogbrick to the cave wall, and the restraints clanked open and fell away. The next instant, the ray widened, cooling to the image of Asofel. He wore white raiment whose glare nearly washed out his lynx-slanted face with its devilish, donkey eyes.
"We must brace ourelves with what Charm we have," the Radiant One warned. "We are going to strike the Dark Shore soon. What we must do there, we must do quickly.
As a being of light, I cannot long endure this coming darkness."
"Can we survive impact?" Dogbrick sat against the wall, rubbing a power wand against his sore wrists. "I have no amulets."
"I will share my amulets with you, Dog." Jyoti began unlacing her vest.
Dogbrick waved away her offer. "Then we will both die. Keep your amulets and save yourself, margravine."
"You can protect us, Asofel," Old Ric stated confidently, placing himself squarely before the Radiant One. "You have the power of giants!"
"I cannot help." Asofel crossed his arms. "To protect any more of you than the one I have been sent to serve would exhaust me."
"Then exhaust yourself!" Old Ric commanded. "The blind gods have brought all five of us together to serve the nameless lady. We cannot sacrifice these lives when we have the strength to save them."
Asofel stepped away with a rueful shake of his head. If he wished, he could step out of this dream. As a being of light, he needed to do what was just—and to return to World's End and report to his mistress seemed just. She should be informed of the true nature of the shadow thing, the malevolent strength that Duppy Hob had accrued deep in the darkness of her dream. Other sentinels could be summoned to help overcome the devil worshipper.
Yet, he did not leave. He knew that if he reported the true evil festering in the dream, the nameless lady, aghast, would of a certainty wake the father of the child. Then he would collapse the dream. Worlds bright and dark would cease to be.
Evoked by something strangely new, something akin to compassion for these creatures of shadow that aspired to light—he sensed now another, a higher order of justice. He walked to the brim of the cave mouth and gazed out upon tiny stars in the blackness of the Gulf.
The four mortals with him would almost certainly perish on the Dark Shore, and their loss did pain him—especially the gnome and the elf with whom he had discovered the vivacity of these dream-held beings. Letting them die would preserve his strength and purchase him the chance to destroy Duppy Hob and save all the worlds.
