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John R. Fultz & Jonathan Burns
"There is a Thing that crouches, worlds and years remote,
whose horns a demon sharpens, rasping forth a note to shatter
the donjon-keeps of time, and crack the sphere of crystal."
- Clark Ashton Smith
I.
In the jeweled city of Cerngoth, greatest of all the cities of Mhu Thulan, stood the ivory Temple of the Seven Gods. Each morning as the bright rays of the rising sun painted the temple with the hues of blood and gold, the High Priest Jasu'un Toth knelt before the great ruby altar at the feet of the Seven Idols and prayed for the prosperity of Cerngoth's king and people.
He prayed to Karakal for protection against the everlasting darkness which lurks beyond the sky. He beseeched Lobon for defense against all the enemies of Cerngoth, earthly or demonaic. He uttered whispers to Zo-Kalar for prosperous births and healthy babes. He sang to Nath-Horthath for the fulfillment of dreams and for the wisdom to guide Cernoth's King. To each god Jasu'un made supplication, asking favor or begging for a continued absence of divine wrath.
And then he rose, walking out into the bustling streets of mighty Cerngoth, casting his gaze across the griffon-carved wharves of stone, and beyond to the blue cerulean waves of the Hyperborean Sea. Great galleys from distant Atlantis and chill Polarion sat moored at the wharves while barefoot sailors hoisted bales of exotic fabric, fruits, and spices, coffers full of foreign gems, and barrels loaded with sparkling alien wines from far-off lands. Through the streets thronged with eager merchants, rushing laborers, and palanquin-borne nobles the High Priest walked clutching his sapphire-headed rod of office, and the crowds parted before him like gentle waters beneath the keel of a splendid and proud galleon.
Toward the glimmering domes and spires of the King's Palace the High Priest traveled, ignoring the outstretched hands of sweet-vendors and fruit peddlers who offered him edible tribute. For Jasu'un Toth was a man of little appetite, his only hunger being for the grace of the Seven Gods, without which he would surely starve and waste away like a beggar amidst famine. Yet the gods had smiled on him thus far, for Cerngoth prospered.
Entering the grand hall of audience, Jasu'un bowed before the black-bearded King Numanthees, who sat high upon his great throne of darkest ebony while scroll-bearing advisors read to him the latest news from afar. Of great Uzuldaroum to the south, they spoke, and of dusky Mu in the East. Of these and many more distant kingdoms the King was informed, and after he heard all that his sages had to tell he waved them away, and a golden chair was brought for the priest.
And then was the time when Jasu'un imparted the will of the gods to the King of Cerngoth, and the broad-shouldered monarch asked for such advice as he might need in governing the affairs of his land. When their speech was done, and the King had grown tired of listening to the words of sages and priests, he summoned forth his musicians, and Jasu'un sat listening in wonderment to the melodies of the finest harpers, lutists, pipers, and singers in all of Mhu Thulan, while the black-skinned dancing girls from the jungle-kingdom Tscho Vulpanomi whirled and contorted in a festival of lusty beauty.
Such were the days of Jasu'un Toth, High Priest of the Seven Gods in Cerngoth, for the land did fairly swell with prosperity and health. There were no lepers to beg for his holy touch, no blights or floods for his divine grace to quelch, and no marauding armies upon which to call down the wrath of the gods. Thus it was a golden age of peace and plenty in mighty Cerngoth, and the people thereof were ignorant of the dark evils which slithered and chanted in the less blessed lands of Hyperborea.
Yet the handsome face of Jasu'un Toth was often vexed with worry, or darkened in solemn contemplation amid the lion-guarded temple gardens. For one as wise as the High Priest of Cerngoth surely knew that even the brightest Golden Age cannot shine forever beneath the gods' fickle stares...
* * *
In the darkened house of the warlock Izzamandiuth, among the statues of gargoyles which lined the carpeted halls, and the skulls of rare and fearsome creatures which hung along the walls, there stood a black door of onyx carved with the face of a leering, horned demon. None of the sorcerer's servants ever passed beyond the door, and Izzamandiuth carried always its golden key within the folds of his rune-stitched robes. During those darkest nights when the moon was lost in the black, starry void above sleeping Uzuldaroum, strange and disturbing sounds could be heard coming from behind the black door, where Izzamandiuth had gone to conjure forth demons from the foul hells beyond and beneath Hyperborea.
A vast magical knowledge had Izzamandiuth gained over the years from such captured infernal spirits, enough to make him the most powerful and respected sorcerer in all of Uzuldaroum, the splendorous city of central Hyperborea. All in the vast, gleaming metropolis knew the name of Izzamandiuth, and he could be seen at times walking the crystal-paved streets alongside Trinius D'vor, Prince of Uzuldaroum, as the two discussed the philosophy of long-dead sages or the intentions of various foreign ambassadors and scheming nobles. The tall sorcerer was indeed famed in the city as a chief advisor to the Prince, and tales were often whispered at nighted taverns about that time Izzamandiuth delivered the Prince from the claws of a vicious demon summoned by some enemy of the Royal House. And people have seen Izzamandiuth strolling the Royal Gardens with the fair Alithria, cousin to Prince D'Vor, and they said that the dark-eyed sorcerer intended to marry the golden-haired maiden of noble lineage. Some said he would then lock her in his walled house of green stone and none should see her ever again. Others said that there was obvious love shining in the dark eyes of the wizard, and he would fain make her a queen by his magic.
Behind his black door tonight, Izzamandiuth consulted with the crimson-skinned demon which his conjuring had brought recently into the living world. The stench of the demon filled his nostrils, but it was a smell he long ago learned to ignore. The demon writhed like a snake on a hook inside the runic circle which was its prison. Narrow pupil-less eyes gazed at the wizard in futile hatred as it gnashed its fangs in a mute longing to taste the flesh of this frail being who was its tormentor and jailer.
'Tell me again, what does the omen portend?' asked the sorcerer, his voice firm and cold as stone. The demon smiled, grimaced in mock pain. With a laugh it spat out words like the clatter of gnawed bones: 'The happiness of mortal things, the joy which they seek, these are like the darkest sea, bright and clear on the surface, yet beneath lay the terrors of the truth.'
'Cease your fiendish philosophy and answer my question if you wish release,' demanded the wizard. 'The omen...' A wave of his hand set the demon to slithering on the floor as waves of agony washed its blistering skin.
'The...moon of blood...' it said, red serpent-tongue licking the smoke-filled air, 'Signifies the death of dreams, the coming of one who rips aside the veils of illusion...the black heart of nothingness....'
'Who is this one of whom you speak?' asked the wizard. 'Name him!'
The demon screamed in its enforced pain. 'His...name is not known to us...he is the many forms of evil...and he serves...the Blind Lord of Idiots...'
The wizard turned his gaze toward the green stone of the wall. The moon had been red as fresh-spilt blood for nearly a fortnight, and the Prince had demanded an answer. He ran over in his mind again the theological and demonological texts which he had lately read, gleaning nothing that resonated with the demon's telling. He turned again toward the fiend.
'Who is the Blind Lord of Idiots?' he asked. The demon quivered, howling like a dying wolf.
'Do not make me say his name, Master!' The infernal contorted with agony again as Izzamandiuth's hands formed an eldritch symbol.
'Speak it! Tell me the name!' The demon screamed and flopped like a gutted fish on the green flagstones.
'Azathoth!' he screamed, 'The Minion of Azathoth has come!'
With that the house of Izzamandiuth began to tremble, and the floor beneath his slippered feet began to sway and rock. Trails of dust fell from the ceiling. The flagstones shifted, ever so slightly, a fractional movement which readjusted their alignment by a less than minuscule degree. The demon leapt from the broken circle like a blood-stained hawk, anxious claws grasping for the sorcerer's face...and faded into a moaning black mist as an ancient word left Izzamandiuth's lips. The mist whirled like a cloying fog about the wizard's robed legs, and dissolved into nothingness as the earth's tremor subsided.
Standing once more on firm, unmoving ground, Izzamandiuth contemplated the demon's final words. In the morning he would accompany the Prince to the Royal Library and peruse once more the antique texts of long-buried sages for mention of that horrible demon-feared name. He must prepare, for the blood-red moon, the trembling earth, and the tortured demon had told him that the peaceful spring of mighty Uzuldaroum was near its end. He made his tired way to his private chambers, where servants poured him wine and bathed the sweat from his body. Then, laying his conjure-weary body on silken pillows, he fell into a dreaming oblivion.
* * *
In a remote and lonely tower of blackest jade, Ooth'zar the Necromancer practiced his dark, forbidden art. His retinue of servants within this lonely spire were living mummies stolen from forgotten tombs, and they worked tirelessly to serve his every need, draped in their perfumed robes of violet gold-trimmed silk. The guardian at the door of the jade tower was a black-mailed warrior's animated skeleton, plundered from the mausoleum of distant Cerngoth, that jeweled metropolis of Mhu Thulan which sat in splendor by the Hyperborean Sea. The mute guardian hoisted ever a great black sword of strange metal which had been purloined from a far tomb on a nameless isle.
Within the tower were chambers more apt to fit a princeling than a brooding mage. Silk from beyond the Orient sea and ornate tapestries of dark grandeur imported from fair Atlantis draped the necromancer's chambers. The upper levels of his dark tower were given to his laboratories, and crypt-like chambers for storing the bodies not yet put to use in his eldritch research. In these laboratories the solitary mage worked to divine ever more of the secrets which separate life and death. Pouring over ancient books and scrolls from his immense library and speaking with the animated skulls of ancient sorcerers, he had plumbed the depths of the darkest art of sorcery, and achieved powers which few cared to know or experience. The fine antique jewelry: rings, amulets, and the golden band which adorned his brow in fiery emeralds, all were plundered from the tombs of lost emperors and kings, gathered in his many travels through dead and decaying lands where forgotten kingdoms once rose proud and arrogant against the fire of morning, and now lay broken and humble beneath the uncaring stars.
The Tower of Qoth'zar rose high among the wooded hills east of a great nameless desert in the far east of Mhu Thulan. Only the tiny village of V'hixia sat nearby enough to know of the Necromancer's presence. The villagers lived in fear of his dread powers, but since he had as of yet never molested them, they bothered him not. Of occasion he would send his fairest veiled zombie-maiden into the village for the rich pomegranate wine which southern merchants traded there, or an item of livestock to be spitted and roasted at a solitary feast in his shunned home. Much of the necromancer's time was spent traveling the lands of Mhu Thulan and beyond, searching for an undiscovered tomb or fresh graveyard ripe for exhumation. Dark rumors of what the mage kept captive in the catacombs beneath his terrible tower were sometimes whispered in the village's darkened inn though none knew the truth of the tower's secrets, and none would dare venture an attempt to gain such knowledge.
Of late a foul wind had taken to blowing out of the bitter desert, carrying a black fog which chilled the countryside, withering the fresh fruit on the vines of the necromancer's orchard, and the moon turned red as blood in the night sky. But, being not a Seer, Ooth'zar understood not the portent of these happenings, and focused his attention foremost now on the study of brittle antediluvian bones...
* * *
Where the nameless desert collided against the jagged peaks of the Mountains of Nephtarya, Nod the Seer dwelt in his humble cave atop a high cliff. For many years had he dwelt in hermitous isolation, his only companions the dry desert wind, the eagles of the mountains, and the great sabre-toothed cats which prowled the peaks at night. But not always had Nod been sequestered in his remote cavern.
In his youth he was said to have been a great warrior, fighting among the ancient armies of lost Commoriom, though that fallen city of Hyperborean legend had now lain dead amid the wild eastern jungles for centuries. For it was well known that Nod was far older than any mortal man; some even said he was in truth immortal, as are the gods themselves, though Nod had denied this many times. It was also told that before tall Commoriom was abandoned by its million inhabitants under the curse of an ancient, forbidden evil, Nod was general of the greatest army in Hyperborea's long history.
Against the savage and prehuman Voormis who swept down from the demon-haunted Eiglophian Mountains, Nod led the armies of Commoriom in battle to preserve their fair city. Though in the end a greater and more terrible doom than the threat of bestial hordes would claim Commoriom. It was whispered, too, that Nod foresaw the coming of his city's doom, yet none would listen to the ranting of a young soldier. The power which had nestled in him had at last emerged in the prime of his youth; he had the second sight, the ability to see beyond our world. And from that time forward he abandoned the way of the warrior and left Commoriom, haunted by the futile visions of its impending doom which would not leave his thoughts.
Into the wilderness Nod had fled, alone and bewildered by his emerging powers of divination. He wandered far across the breadth of Mhu Thulan, and south through the jungles of Tscho Vulpanomi and the sea of fire which burned beyond. And north past the isles of Polarion, into the cold wastes where the ice demons whisper of their hatred for warm-blooded things. For years Nod wandered the length of vast Hyperborea, and his friends became the spirits of the sky, earth, and waters. Never could he rid himself of the Arcane Sight which set him above mortal men, rather it only grew within him. Some said he had at last embraced the power which the gods had given him, some said he resented it still. Yet alone he dwelt now, far from the unbidden visions of others' fates, and away from the constant questions of those who wished always to know the future, yet were unwilling or unable to change it.
Copyright © 1997 Peter A. Worthy
