Sorcery in Shad Page 23

  And this was the same phenomenon which thus far had deterred Teh Atht from making a descent of the chimney aboard his flying carpet; for try as he might, he could only get so close to that twisting green flux of awesome energy before being shoved violently away. His white magick and the unimaginably dark magick of the Great Old Ones simply did not and would not mix! So that when Iniquiss and her brood had come on the scene and spied him across some small aerial distance, he’d still been aimlessly circling the emerald spiral of alien energy, vacillatory to the last as he pondered what to do next. At which time, obligingly, the twister’s stalk had shortened, drawing its flat cap down out of sight.

  But meanwhile …

  In the arena and the amphitheatre which overlooked it: several entirely unscheduled occurrences, the first of which had devastating effect upon the Yhemni onlookers.

  Now, in certain of Theem’hdra’s steamy jungles and hothouse regions, in the walls of olden pyramids and crumbled ruins, there dwelled a species of yellow scorpion; likewise in the massy walls and floors of Black Yoppaloth’s palace, where they’d bred mainly unsuspected for a thousand years. Shy of men and of daylight, this especially virulent scorpion was seldom observed, and when seen invariably avoided.

  Picture then the hysteria which spread rapidly through the amphitheatre when thousands of these deadly stingers were discovered acrawl about the feet of the spectators; and not only in the amphitheatre, but also down in the pit of the arena itself, where the arachnids converged in streams upon Yoppaloth’s monstrosities – but not upon the girls or the surviving men!

  A second unforeseen event, one very likely connected with the first, was this: that the great greenstone statue of Ahorra Izz, which stood in the circle of gods close to where the virgins had been thrust into the arena, was now a-shimmer in much the same way as Yibb’s with an eerie light – except that in the case of Ahorra Izz the glow was red. And where Yibb-Tstll came greedily flowing from his statue, cloak billowing and trio of tentacular arms reaching, now Ahorra Izz moved in that mechanical way of his species out from his likeness to block the way.

  And so the two simulacra faced up to one another, neither one of them capable of harming the other, but nevertheless fixed in a weird stalemate; while behind Ahorra Izz, seeing how that arachnid intelligence protected them, the girls crowded in a close pack. All of them except one, who had gone to her knees in the sand as if in an attitude of prayer.

  And this was the third event of moment, for indeed Orbiquita prayed – that she be granted the last of her three requests. ‘Iniquiss!’ she cried. ‘Now hear me, if the distance between is not too great. This boon I beg of you is unheard of, I know, but still I most earnestly implore it. This one last time, for however brief a spell, give me back my lamia semblance and the lamia powers that went with it. For just a little while, pray let me be the creature I used to be!’

  Following which she could only wait, to see what, if anything, transpired.

  Amidst all the uproar – of Yhemni spectators where they leaped and careened, some of them even toppling into the arena after feeling the deadly stings of incensed scorpions; likewise of shrieking hybrids, by no means immune to those same stingers – hope welled up in Tarra’s bronze breast. That special magick Teh Atht had told him about, his magick, was working for him at last. What? – and was there any other man in all the Primal Land could claim Ahorra Izz for a champion?

  As the milling monstrosities in the arena fell back a little and tried to save themselves from their new, far smaller adversaries, so Tarra grasped his Suhm-yi friend’s elbow and said: ‘Amyr, now take this sword and give me back that knife. I think the tide’s turning our way. Now’s my chance to come up against Yoppaloth.’

  ‘What, with only a knife?’ Amyr was astonished. ‘And him able to strike like lightning, so swift the eyes can’t follow?’ He shook his head, kept on fighting. ‘I think not.’

  Tarra hadn’t time for arguing. He threw down the Yhemni sword at Amyr’s feet, said: ‘Use it or not, as you wish, but I’ve no need of it. My sword is on that dais, with Yoppaloth, and I’ve a feeling it’s the one weapon in all the world that can save us.’

  Amyr stooped, picked up the sword, gave Tarra the knife. ‘I’m coming with you,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Tarra’s answer was direct, ‘stay here and help save these brave lads, if you can. They’re just about all in. But what’s between Yoppaloth and me requires only the two of us.’ And with that he was away, weaving through the beleaguered hybrids toward the onyx dais. A pair of corpses got in his way, which were fearful things to look upon but not much as fighters; he smashed them into many pieces and carried on.

  And atop the huge onyx block which was Tarra’s target, the first intimation of failure – or of victory? – had crossed Yoppaloth’s unbalanced mind. Like a man in a dream he saw events coming to a head, and for once was powerless to stop them. In one small corner of his mind – a corner containing a last dim spark of sanity – Black Yoppaloth knew that his case was hopeless: even ‘winning’ he would lose, for when the Old Ones came they’d have no use for him. But in the mad part of his brain, which was by far the greater part, still he thought he might hold them to their pact. Oh, he’d be a lonely immortal, for sure, in a world emptied of all earthly life; but at least he’d retain his soul. Wouldn’t he?

  He saw the steppeman coming at a run, saw some way behind the Hrossak a beautiful naked girl, also running, and behind her the flowing, green-glowing manifestation of Yibb-Tstll. If the monster-god couldn’t get at the bulk of the girls where they sheltered behind Ahorra Izz, at least he could fasten upon this one who’d somehow become estranged from the group. But the fate of the girl was no concern of Yoppaloth’s; her approach faded into insignificance compared with the approach of Tarra Khash, his face a mask of grim intent.

  A pity it had come to this; there had been that about the Hrossak which appealed. Curious, but Yoppaloth had genuinely liked him! But…he had warned him not to come here. And in any case, what would be the loss of one perfectly ordinary man set against the destruction of a world full of men? Yoppaloth took up his hideous weapon, propped its handle against his sandalled right foot. And so he stood, like a guard at ease, calmly waiting for the steppeman to come to him. Which, obligingly, Tarra proceeded to do.

  By now the diminished but brilliant tornado of green light flowing up from the pit’s glassy throat seemed more solid than ever, striking emerald glints from Yoppaloth’s black skin and lending its phosphorescent fire to his eyes. Also, a strange massed sighing had commenced, faint at first but rapidly increasing in volume; not the sound of human voices, no, but rather the rushing of the winds which blow in the lungs of the Earth itself, or those of the alien gods known to inhabit it.

  ‘Almost time, Tarra Khash,’ said Yoppaloth as Tarra skirted the pit and skidded to a halt in the sand at the foot of the dais. ‘The time I’ve waited for and dreaded for almost a thousand years. You should have heeded my warning and stayed away; for you see, we’re both in the same boat. To win we must lose! And yet – I knew you would come.’

  ‘Winning – losing – I only know you have to die!’ Tarra answered. ‘And I only wish it wasn’t so.’ He hurled his knife straight for the other’s throat – and the necromancer stood stock still, not even attempting to move. The knife seemed to bend around him, a blur of steel which should never have missed its target, but which did by inches! And Yoppaloth laughed.

  ‘Protected, Hrossak!’ he cried. ‘Had you forgotten? Immortal, and protected by the magick of the Old Ones – especially now.’

  Tarra sprang up the steps of the dais and faced the madman only a pike’s length away; and still Yoppaloth stood there, apparently unconcerned, even smiling his cold, cold smile. Cold, aye, and now Tarra could feel the bitter rime of nameless gulfs reaching up to him, working on his marrow. He had to bring this thing to a conclusion, and right now.

  Yoppaloth saw his mental anguish, said: ‘Care to try again, steppeman? Perhaps wi
th this?’ He reached out a foot and kicked Tarra’s scimitar unerringly to the other’s feet. Instinctively, Tarra half-stooped for the sword, heard Yoppaloth’s caution: ‘Except it’s no game we’re playing this time, Tarra Khash!’ Then—

  In a gleaming blur of motion, Yoppaloth hoisted his weapon, whirling it to point direct at Tarra’s middle. Tarra saw the wicked knives and barbs of the thing, all lying flat and close to its pointed metal head. He knew what those terrible tools could do to his guts, grimaced at the thought – and continued the downward sweep of his arm toward familiar gem-studded hilt! But his apparently foolhardy move was a feint; not once did he take his eyes from his opponent; he saw Yoppaloth take a forward pace almost as if he moved in slow motion.

  The pike came lancing at him but Tarra twisted his crouching body, grabbed the staff of his opponent’s ugly weapon and turned it aside, grasped and lifted his scimitar. And the Suhm-yi sword seemed almost to come to life in his hand! Yoppaloth was within range, vulnerable as never before. So Tarra thought. He struck for the other’s neck…and the blade of the scimitar shivered to a halt only a skin’s thickness from the veins that pulsed there. It vibrated in Tarra’s iron grip as he strove to force its razor edge into flesh – but the protections of the Old Ones were too strong, or he was too weak.

  The sighing of alien spheres had risen to a howl that drowned everything else out, and the whorl of green light from the pit was so dense, so cold, that time itself seemed frozen atop the dais. For Tarra, anyway, if not for Yoppaloth. ‘Protected!’ the madman shrieked. ‘Until the very last instant, protected! If you’d waited but a moment longer…but now, farewell!’ And he drew back his pike and drove it point-blank at Tarra’s middle.

  Tarra closed his eyes, if only to deny Yoppaloth the sight of the horror written in them, and waited for the torment to begin. Already he could smell hell’s brimstone breath, and—

  …Brimstone? And that gasp of utter astonishment – Yoppaloth’s? As a vicious squealing of torn metal ensued, Tarra opened his eyes – upon a fantastic scene!

  A moment before: there had been the impression of a gorgeous girl standing close by, and of the nightmare god Yibb-Tstll closing on her with ropy arms extended. All seen on the periphery of Tarra’s awareness, blurred and out of focus in the tension of traded blows. But now …

  The girl was gone, disappeared, and in her place—

  Lamia!

  And Tarra knew which lamia she was. Twin scars on his neck itched furiously – even at a time like this – and a strange, fascinating pungency was in the air.

  Orbiquita stood beside the dais, Yoppaloth’s pike trapped in a hand like a nest of scythes. She stripped away the brightly gleaming blades and grapples, twisted the lethal head of the pike until metal screamed, then nipped it off and hurled it down on the sand – and Yoppaloth was left with only a pikestaff.

  Now! came Suhm-yi mind-voice in Tarra’s reeling head. Now or never, bronze one! I feel it – whatever it is – mounting to a crescendo!

  Alone Tarra could never have struck that final blow, for his entire body ached with the cold of dark dimensions, which was freezing him solid through and through. But he was not alone. The Suhm-yi Sword of Power was with him. It sliced toward Yoppaloth’s neck, sliced into it and cut three-quarters through!

  Then Orbiquita snatched Tarra from the dais.

  Behind her, wildly threshing, the simulacrum of Yibb-Tstll flowed this way and that. Cloak billowing with loathsome motion and eyes sliding in crazed orbits all about his head, his confusion was obviously boundless. He had pursued a girl and now perceived a lamia! No easy victim this, but upon the onyx dais—

  Yibb-Tstll flowed swiftly toward the onyx steps. Yoppaloth would be his victim. And why not, since the so-called sorcerer had failed to keep his compact with the Old Ones? Tarra Khash looked on, saw Yoppaloth’s anguished eyes – his sane eyes – gazing into his own. Finish it, those living eyes begged him. Don’t let him have my soul!

  Yibb-Tstll was on the dais, leaning over Yoppaloth in the veritable flood of green energy from the glassy pit. Tarra ducked out of Orbiquita’s protective grasp, aimed his stroke true. And with that simple, merciful act the Gate Between Spheres was closed; and in the next moment, several things happening simultaneously, defying human senses with their rapidity and shattering finality.

  One: the ages caught up with Yoppaloth at once; as his head leapt free, so he crumbled into smoulder, was blown away in the blink of an eye. Not even bones remained, and Yibb-Tstll groped namelessly in dust! Two: the singing of the spheres went from a shriek to an equally deafening silence, was quite simply shut off – likewise the sentient, shining, pit-spawned twister – leaving Tarra and every other living creature in the arena staggering. Three: Yibb-Tstll’s simulacrum froze, literally turned to ice-cold stone atop the dais, and the onyx sheen of his form became as one with the massive slab of onyx where he stood. Four: Orbiquita took Tarra into her arms again, except that now and for always they were the arms of a beautiful girl. Five: the Hrossak’s bulging eyes took in at a sweep the area of the arena and amphitheatre, and refused to accept what they saw. Lamias flew like a flock of vile, gigantic birds, harrying the last of the Yhemnis where they fled through the exits in a mad rout; and in the central space, midway between sand and vaulted ceiling, a carpet floated on air, where with his incredible retainers sat a small man in runic robes, holding out a wand toward the dais and looking just as astonished as Tarra Khash himself.

  The wizard flew his carpet close to Tarra and Orbiquita, said: ‘I’m Teh Atht, and I’m old and tired. But it seems the world is safe again, Hrossak, and unless I’m mistaken we’re alive, you and I.’

  ‘Am I?’ said Tarra.

  ‘We’re all in your debt, steppeman,’ the wizard told him.

  ‘Are you?’ Tarra’s eyes finally focused. ‘You owe me favours, do you?’

  ‘Indeed we do!’

  Tarra’s knees finally gave way and he sat down in the sand. ‘Then do you think you could possibly explain what has happened here?’ he said. ‘But before that – is there any chance you could first get us the hell out of this place?’

  EPILOGUE

  Tarra Khash was not unmindful of his friends, even the fearsome ones. In Shad, later that night, after much had been explained and many tales told, he walked with Orbiquita through deserted streets (the Yhemnis would not come out of their jungles for long and long) and when they were alone under a clear, moonlit sky gave thanks to Gleeth for Amyr Arn’s assistance. Likewise he praised Ahorra Izz for the part he and his minion scorpions had played in this thing; and finally he offered silent thanks to Iniquiss and the Sisterhood, who probably didn’t hear him and wouldn’t much care anyway, for they never had a lot to do with men – except when they were hungry.

  He thanked Orbiquita, too, in a manner mutually agreeable, by means of which he discovered that his interest in women was not extinct after all, and she that her transition was going to be worth all its attendant trials. But that’s not to be gone into here …

  Now, as they made their way back to the encampment’s fire, their arms wrapped about each other, meandering in their walk as lovers are wont to do, Tarra’s mind unmazed itself a little and matters hastily discussed began to fall into place and make sense. ‘Curious Concretion!’ he suddenly said.

  ‘Your pardon?’ Orbiquita’s head was in the crook of his neck, her perfume in his nostrils. She too had been dreaming. ‘Did you say something?’

  ‘Something your cousin, Teh Atht, said,’ Tarra answered. ‘About the end of it, back there in Yoppaloth’s arena of death. In that final moment, when the Gateway was to have been forged through Yoppaloth – when I killed him before Yibb-Tstll could take his soul – the wizard put a certain spell of his, a thing called Curious Concretion, on the dais and on Yibb-Tstll’s simulacrum. I’d seen it work before, this spell, but then it had been diluted by distance and other circumstances. In the arena, however, he gave it all he’d got, and he struck when I struck, which
was precisely the right moment.’

  ‘The trouble with spells,’ said Orbiquita, who still retained a little lamia knowledge, though it was diminishing as she firmed more fully into her delicious human female form, ‘is that they eventually wear off.’

  Tarra shook his head. ‘Not this one,’ he said. ‘The Old Ones would have come into this world through Yoppaloth, except he was already dead. I should have taken his place, been obliged to complete the compact, except I was no longer on the dais. Result: Yibb-Tstll’s simulacrum copped the lot. Curiously Concreted for all eternity, immortalized in onyx! Him and the dais both …’

  They arrived back at the encampment in one of Shad’s squares not far from the waterfront. Loomar Nindiss and Jezza were there, where the sole surviving Hrossak of Yoppaloth’s mercenaries – a lean, handsome adventurer, much like Tarra himself – seemed to be paying the girl a deal of polite attention; also the last Northman, who just happened to be the one who’d lost his shirt that time, when Tarra had watched their gaming. Tek Mangr was his name, and he’d been busy (with the ages-accrued instinct of all Northmen) filling a sack with Yhemni loot; now he stood guard over spoils and encampment and virgin girls all. Then there was the tow-headed youth, who also prowled to and fro around the campsite area with a great Yhemni sword in his hand; and also Amyr Arn, sitting silently on his own, doubtless dreaming of his Inner Isles and how he’d soon be home with Ulli Eys; and lastly Teh Atht. The wizard’s familiars were also about somewhere, but he’d thought it best that they keep out of sight. In all, a pretty polyglot band.

  Orbiquita spoke to Teh Atht: ‘Cousin, I’ve your promise that tomorrow you’ll see these people safely back where they belong?’

  Seated by the fire, he nodded. ‘It will keep me busy a while; but after what all have been through – and the DOOM avoided – what’s a little time? I can afford it, I think.’ And to Tarra: ‘Mind you, if I possessed that sword of yours, I’d likely end up with all the time in the world, eh?’