Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
Ebony paint covered the walls and ceiling of this room. A sable carpet covered the floor. The scent of henbane, assaofetida, and hellebore root filled the room. All the furniture in the room was lacquered black.
A hulking black monstrosity with a string of gleaming yellow eyes dotting either side of its head lunged at the open door.
Beldin rushed forward, driving his shield into the thing’s mouth to keep it bay. Vlad came in quickly behind.
They were trapped in a stalemate. The beast’s massive claws threatened Beldin, but it was too distracted by the shield lodged in its mouth. Its jaws were massive and corded; Beldin’s shield groaned under the weight.
“Do something!” shouted Beldin.
Sebastian hesitated. Hurling an orb of acid might his friend. He opted instead of a bolt of magical energy, but the thing shrugged it off.
Vlad drew his crossbow, aimed, and fired. The beast ignored the bolt sticking out of its head.
The door on the opposite side of the room opened and closed. Then suddenly someone yanked hard on the carpet.
Losing their footing, Beldin and the creature flew up into the air. But where Beldin landed on the floor, the beast smashed through a trap door that led to a forty-foot drop.
Kham was visible at the other end of the rug.
“Where have you been?” asked Vlad.
“Talking to the flaming-haired dwarf in the red room. Nice enough, but not very helpful.”
“You could have helped us,” said Sebastian. “Instead of setting off all the guardians at once.”
“You’re alive, aren’t you?” said Kham. “I consider that being helpful.” He lowered himself through the trap door.
A large square grid was painted on the floor in the middle of the room. The grid was five ten-foot by ten-foot squares long and wide, a total of twenty-five squares. A huge capital letter was painted in the middle of each square. There was a door on the other side of the room, but to reach it they would have to step on several of the painted squares.
Sebastian mulled it over. “It’s all in Hasturic: Gohen, Orare, Hazah, Eraro, and Nehog.”
Kham peered at the letter in front of him. “And that means…”
“Eraro means shapeshifters. That’s all I know.”
“Great, so I don’t want step on Eraro.” Kham swigged a potion. “In fact, I don’t plan to step on any of them. He took a running lead in the hallway before the room.
“No, wait!”
Kham leaped, clearing the room and slamming into the door on the far side of the wall.
“He made it,” said Beldin with relief.
“Oh sure,” Kham called out behind him. “I just can’t see anything.”
“Blind again?” asked Vlad. “One day I’ll teach you how to blind-fight.”
“Yeah, thanks, that’s helpful. I’m going to keep going.”
“But you can’t see!” shouted Sebastian.
“Skiz will guide me. SKIZ! Wake up!”
Kham felt his way out of the room as his pet rat poked its head out of his haversack.
Sebastian sighed. “I will fly over it, perhaps that will make a difference.”
He flapped across the room, landed, and turned around. “I don’t feel any different.”
“I’ll try a different approach,” said Vlad. He ran across it diagonally. No effect.
“Beldin, maybe you should…” began Sebastian.
Beldin walked straight ahead in the same path Kham had taken.
“Or you could do that.”
The dwarf smiled at Sebastian. “It takes more than words to blind a dwarf.”
They passed four dungeon cells. The back and side walls of each cell were made of stone. The front wall was a grid of iron bars. In one cell was a longhaired man holding a paintbrush and a bucket of paint. He was huddled in the corner of the room, staring rapturously at a highly realistic painting of the moon on the back wall of his cell.
Vlad battered the lock open.
“What are you doing?” asked Beldin.
Then Vlad stepped inside the cell with the man and stared at the painting of the moon.
Sebastian looked away. “Don’t look at it!”
Kham felt his way back to the cell. “What’s going on?”
Beldin frowned. “Vlad seems to be enchanted. He’s staring at a painting of the moon.”
Kham reached into his haversack and pulled out a can of paint.
“Where?”
“Straight ahead of you.”
“Not going to have much use for this paint anyway,” Kham muttered to himself. Then he pulled back and threw the bucket.
The can collided with the wall, spraying black paint everywhere. The moon was covered.
The man in the cell blinked. Then he immediately set to scrubbing off the paint.
Vlad shook his head in confusion. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” said Beldin. “Kham was finally being useful. Let’s get away from here before that guy starts painting another moon.”
Beldin was focused on Vlad. Vlad’s eyes were still adjusting from the enchantment. Kham was blind. And Sebastian had little peripheral vision due to the Pallid Mask. So none of them saw Drak Scarbelly and his two companions, bound and gagged in a corner of one of the other cells.
Sebastian looked around. “Looks like an alchemist’s laboratory.”
The room had long wooden tables and myriad wood shelves filled with strange flasks and glassware: alembics, calcinators, sublimators, athanors, retorts and distillation apparatus.
The door slammed shut behind them.
Kham turned. “What was that?”
Vlad tried the door. “We’re locked in.”
There was a soft hissing noise.
“What’s THAT?”
Beldin’s voice was resigned. “That’s a black powdery cloud being released into the room.”
The cloud moved as though it were alive. They struggled to cover their nose and mouths.
Kham collapsed.
“Black lotus!” shouted Sebastian. “It can make your dreams come…” He collapsed before he could finish.
Vlad reached one hand towards Beldin, as if trying to convey some desperate message. Then he fell backwards off the table to the ground.
Beldin looked around and, frustrated and helpless, bellowed in rage. “It’ll take more than that to stop a—“
Kham dreamed of Camilla, Cassilda, Naotalba and Aldones.
Camilla entered the throne room, her nightgown dirty and torn, her hair stringy and damp. She held the Stranger’s robe tightly to her breast.
Her gaze wandered until she saw Aldones. She smiled broadly, paused a moment, and then danced around the room, waving the robe in the air like a flag.
“As if summoned, she appears,” said Naotalba in wonder.
“Great joy, father,” shouted Camilla, “for the Yellow Sign is found! Great joy to all who see it! Great…”
“Traitor!” snarled Aldones. “You sell us to the priests and the mob! What price your treachery? What profit your crimes?”
Camilla stopped, uncertain and confused. “Dear father…”
Aldones turned to Cassilda. “It is a simple matter, your majesty. If she is mad, that’s one thing. But if she simply acts of it, if she is indeed a traitor, then we must stop her.”
Cassilda eyed her daughter as she spoke to Aldones. “Your explanations wheel like a flight of sparrows, Aldones. I am growing impatient.”
“Hardly,” said Aldones.
Naotalba ignored him. “Did she not see Carcosa’s rising tide?”
”No one sees it now, priest,” said Aldones.
“She, like her brother before her, has dropped your dynasty’s veil behind,” he responded to Aldones. “So crossing from your destiny to mine.”
“So she’s with you, then?”
“Surely she has chosen madness wisely—”
“Riddles!” shouted Aldones. “Riddles! While war wages about us, ruin closer by the minute, you rhyme and preen and gloat! I’ve had enough!”
“I am content to wait,” said Naotalba. “The time cannot be long in coming.”
“But father, how is Uoht?” asked Camilla. “I had him arrested…“
Aldones interrupted her. “The traitor admits it!”
“…as you asked me,” she finished.
“Calm yourself, Aldones,” said Cassila. “She sounds to me as though her madness retreats a little, if such a thing were possible. Hear her out.”
“If you will not defend your dynasty, I will!” Aldones grabbed a musket from a guard’s hands and aimed it at Camilla.
Naotalba dove to the ground. “Save us!”
Cassilda rose to her feet and screamed. “No!”
Aldones fired. The musket flashed with fire and smoke and Camilla crumpled to the ground. As the explosive sound echoed away, absolute silence reigned.
“So. ‘Tis true. ‘Tis all true,” said Cassilda, resigned. “After a fashion.”
Aldones seemed to be stunned after what he’d done. “Cassilda…”
“Only ‘twas you.” Cassilda calmly drew her sword. “’Twas you who sent Uoht to the tower, to his death. And now…”
“Dear wife!” exclaimed Aldones.
“To cover your lies…”
“Not true!”
“Aldones,” Cassilda said deliberately. “It is you who are the traitor.”
Aldones dropped the musket, almost throwing it away. He shook.
“You lied to me, you slack-brained piece of human filth. How long were you lying to me? How long? Just today? A week? A year? When have you not lied to me, to all of us?”
“No! I… I…” Aldones looked about wildly. “Naotalba. Yes, Naotalba…”
Cassilda took a step down from the throne, growing in her anger as Aldones shrank. “What?”
“He bewitched me.”
Cassidal took another step. “Try again.”
“I…I was mad.”
She stepped off the dais. “No.”
“It’s not my fault. I…”
“Draw your sword.”
“But she was a…that is she…ah!”
Cassilda swung her sword at Aldones. He backed away hurriedly and drew his own blade. She swung her blade in a wicked arc at his head, and Aldones only barely blocked the blow.
“Murderer! Liar!” She wounded Aldones. “You have destroyed us!”
“I sacrificed the present,” shouted Aldones, “for the future!”
“Tell me—was it ambition or just a natural sense of cruelty that drove you?” She struck another blow.
Aldones recovered his poise slightly and mounted a stronger defense.
“Destiny drove me.”
“Please…”
“It was always my destiny to repudiate your dismissal of me. You’re such an idiot, Cassilda. You never had the will to do what was politically necessary.”
“Necessary?” Enraged, Cassilda drove him back. “Necessary? What was necessary?” She slashed Aldones’ arm. “Was Camilla necessary? Was Uoht necessary? Our children; our future, that was your sacrifice, for your anger and your ego. Were all the murders necessary?” She slashed his other arm. “The lies?”
Aldones retreated, afraid. “Cassilda!”
“The torture—was that also politically necessary? Or did you just enjoy it?”
“Cassilda…”
“Why won’t you die?” She lunged and stabbed him through the thigh.
“I…I only wanted…to save us.”
“See how you have condemned us?”
Cassilda knocked Aldones’ sword from his hand and he fell against the throne. She raised her sword for the killing blow and struck.
Even as the breath left Aldones’ lungs, spells that had been in place for just such a contingency went into effect.
“He is dead, your majesty,” said Naotalba.
Cassilda was still shaking in her rage. “Is truth so easily dispatched?”
“What shall we do now, your majesty?” asked the priest.
“I don’t know.” Cassilda paused. “Dispose of the body.”
In the center of the otherwise bare room was a ten-foot deep sunken pit filled with liquid. A thin glass sphere floated in the middle of the pit. Inside the sphere can be seen a large silver key.
“In Carcosa, the black lotus can make dreams come true,” Sebastian explained as they entered. “It is likely that Kham’s dream took him somewhere else. If he did not return by the end of the dream, then he is still there.”
“We’ve been in the Dreamlands twice before,” said Vlad. “Hopefully he can find his way back.”
“I dreamed I was falling,” said Beldin. “Fortunately, it didn’t come true.”
“I dreamed…” Vlad shuddered. “Let’s just say I don’t want to sleep out in the forest anymore.”
Sebastian sighed. His wings were covered in feathers. “I dreamed Illiir gave me the gift of flight. Only I already have it. I woke up with these feathered wings.”
“Who was behind that amber-colored light?” asked Beldin. The light had healed all their wounds while they slept, and it faded as they awoke.
“Aldones, I think,” said Beldin. “I believe he is watching over us somehow.”
“And here’s another silver key.” Sebastian pointed at the glass sphere. “Perhaps we need more than one.”
Beldin flipped a silver piece into the pit. It sizzled and disintegrated. “Acid.”
Vlad peered into the pit. “I suppose if you tie a rope to me I could try to…”
Sebastian made a gesture. The glass sphere floated past Vlad and landed at Sebastian’s feet.
“Oh. Right.”
Sebastian stomped on the glass and it broke easily. He snatched up the silver key with a flourish.
“Beldin, let me see your key.”
Beldin held up the first silver key they had found. They appeared identical.
“They seem more ornamental than anything,” said the dwarf. “There’s not enough teeth in these keys to make them of much value, but they are made of solid silver.”
Vlad nodded. “Then we’d better find the lock. Let’s go.”
A pentagram surrounded by a circle was painted in white on the floor in the middle of the room. An amber colored candle burned at each point of the pentagram. A hunting horn of amber hung from a peg on one wall.
Vlad was filled with dread. “What is that?”
There was movement in the darkness in the center of the pentagram.
“Hello, Vlad Martell. We meet again.”
Standing in the pentagram was a ten-foot tall humanoid covered with a dull gray scaly skin. Its gaunt body was hairless. Ivory fangs protruded from its mouth and its fingers ended in metallic talons. Its eyes glowed like smoldering coals and two huge bat-like wings grew out of its back.
“The Honor of Cadic,” said Vlad.
Beldin looked from the devil to Vlad. “You two know each other?”
“Please, call me Urumeh,” said the devil.
“Don’t listen to him,” said Sebastian. “He’ll say anything to get out of his prison.”
Urumeh looked bemused. “An interesting irony, given your mask and wings.”
“How do you know this thing?” Beldin asked Vlad.
“We…” Vlad fumbled for words. “Took the Chalice of Midnight from him.”
“Don’t you mean stole?” asked Urumeh. “I fought hard to save that world, but it was lost to the Unspeakable One’s minions. Knowing that I could not so easily be destroyed, they imprisoned me here. And now that Aldones Stefan Ambrose has arrived, Carcosa is being built anew.”
“So it was Ambrose who caused all this!” exclaimed Beldin.
Vlad just glared at the devil prince.
“You have two keys. You will need three to escape this prison. Release me and I will tell you where the third key is.”
“I doubt that sincerely,” said Sebastian. “You are not to be trusted.”
“And you, who attacked your friends, are? You, who even now wear a mask that conceals your features? You, who shares the very same ichor that runs through my veins? Set me free. We are brothers, you and I.”
“Enough! I won’t listen to this any longer.” Sebastian stalked out of the room. “Let’s go.” With a grunt, Beldin followed after him.
“Consider carefully, Vlad,” said Urumeh. “My troops lost the fihali homeworld to the k’n-yan. You nearly lost your own to the King in Yellow. You are alone in this world. Only I am powerful enough to resist its bonds.”
Vlad turned towards the door. As Urumeh saw his potential rescue chances diminish, his voice became more urgent.
“Decimus made a deal with Losknek! He traded far more than my Chalice!”
Castle Ambrose: Part 16 – Entrance to the Land of the Ghouls
Vlad composed himself. “You’re sure it’s in here?”
“We’ve been over this,” said Sebastian. “The key can’t be anywhere else. We dealt with the hellhound kennels and the great worm. Neither of them had it.”
Beldin made a face. “I practically swam through that worm’s entrails looking for it too.”
“But…does it have to be ghouls?”
Sebastian sighed. “We will make this quick. On my count, I will unleash my most destructive magicks. Clean up whatever still moves when I’m done. Ready?”
“Ready,” said Beldin.
“I guess,” said Vlad. “I can smell them through the door.”
“One.”
Vlad gripped his sword and shield. He had nearly been turned into a ghoul, dragged by the things in Freeport into their warren.
“Two.”
It took all of Father Peg-Leg’s magic to reverse the curse. It was a painful process.
“Three!”
Beldin kicked open the door. Six hideous ghouls, ears cocked to listen, were caught unawares. Flames from Sebastian’s fingertips washed over them. The stench was overpowering.
Vlad gagged, unable to continue. The ghouls’ bodies burst like rotten fruit under the intense heat, leaving nothing but split carcasses behind.
“Stay here,” said Sebastian. He dove into the pit.
A few moments later, he flapped out of the hole with a chest in his hands. He placed it before Beldin.
The dwarf bashed it open with one blow from Windcutter. He eagerly opened the chest.
Beldin held up a silver key. “The third key.”
“Thank gods!” said Vlad.
“Now we just have to find the lock they belong to,” said Sebastian.
Castle Ambrose: Part 17 – The Gate of the Silver Keys
Beldin squinted at the amber statue of a lion. It stood between them and a silver gate with three large keyholes.
“I guess that’s the guardian,” he said skeptically.
The massive amber lion’s head turned to track Beldin’s movements.
“Yep,” said Vlad.
“All right then, let’s get on with it.” Beldin rushed forward.
The amber lion moved much quicker than the dwarf anticipated. It jumped into the air and pinned him to the ground with its bulk.
Sebastian gestured and searing rays of energy struck the amber lion, only to bounce off harmlessly. “It is immune to my magic!”
Beldin was pinned beneath his shield. “Try something else!”
Vlad hacked at the amber lion. Grungronazharr bounced off its hide, utterly ineffective. Still, it was enough to distract the guardian. The amber lion lifted its head in a mute roar at Vlad.
“I have something else,” said Sebastian. “Stand back!”
Vlad danced back. The lion turned its attention back to Beldin, preparing to bite his head off.
A pale blue sphere crackled in his open palm. He threw it at the amber lion.
The lion froze as the blue light spread from where the sphere struck it. Cracks formed in the amber. Seeing the guardian fracture, Beldin kicked upwards with his feet.
The amber lion collapsed into chunks. A scroll fell to Beldin’s feet. He tossed it to Sebastian.
Sebastian read it: “To Those Who Would Be Free: The secret that will break the curse surrounding Castle Ambrose and lift the gray mist is engraved on the inside lid of Aldones Stephen Ambrose’s casket. To summon King Aldones’ tomb from beyond space and time, four magical items are needed. The four items, The Enchanted Sword of Sylaire, The Viper Circled Mirror, The Ring of Eibon, and a potion of time travel, can all be found in Carcosa, our old homeland. Touch ring to viper’s tail. Anoint the sword with the potion. Shatter the mirror with the sword, and King Aldones’ tomb will appear. Search first for the Gate of the Silver Keys.” Sebastian looked up. “There are some scribbled notes as well.”
“Guess we know what to do next.” Vlad stepped over to a keyhole. “Hope Kham is on the other side.”
Beldin walked over to a keyhole. “Hope SOMETHING is on the other side.”
Sebastian took a position at the last keyhole. “All together now. One, two, three.”
Castle Ambrose: Part 18 – The Inn of Bonne Jouissance
Thanks to Sebastian’s spell, he seemed entirely normal to the locals at the nearby inn. He looked like his old self, when they had first met him, sans wings. The other guests, a couple of traveling mercers, a notary, and two soldiers, acknowledged their presence with all due civility. Beldin, on the other hand, drew rude stares.
Vlad cleared his throat. “I’d like to introduce Beldin Soulforge, the key attraction to our traveling circus!”
There was a collective sigh of relief. Some patrons came closer.
Beldin glared at Vlad. “Am I some kind of circus freak now?”
Vlad chuckled nervously. “Of course! Why else would we be in a crowded inn where nobody knows us?”
“What does he do?” asked one local.
“He tosses men, of course!” Vlad said theatrically.
Beldin cracked his knuckles. “Want a demonstration?”
The local was undeterred and more than a little drunk. “Sure.”
Vlad pushed the man gently away. “Trust me, you don’t.”
After a couple of drinks at the bar, they moved to a table to talk in private.
“From what I can gather,” began Sebastian, “we are in the Inn of Bonne Jouissance. It lays on a road to Hastur and Alar. Hastur, Yhtill and Alar are the three major cities here, with Hastur being the capital.”
Beldin grunted. He was still unhappy about his role as a circus freak. “Those names match up with the notes on the scroll. What about Sylaire?”
“As in the sword, right.” Vlad sighed. “It’s due east of here. Sylaire is supposedly inhabited by an evil lamia that seduces men.”
“Let’s go.” Sebastian was about to cast a spell when Vlad grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t.” He looked around.
“Why not?”
“Arcane magic is an offense punishable by death.”
Sebastian dropped his hands at his sides. “Then I guess we’re walking to Sylaire.”
Castle Ambrose: Part 19a – The Enchanted Sword of Sylaire
The area around Sylaire was brown, open moor studded with druidic stone pillars. Sebastian patiently explained that Sylaire was both the name of the ruined castle and the name of an enchanted land.
They jogged across a grassy field, halting under the eaves of a forest of tall and shapely trees: lichen and moss cover them. Leaves twirled down to the earth.
“Stay close,” said Sebastian. “They say that a great sorceress lives in these woods, a witch of terrible power. All who look upon her, fall under her spell and are never seen again.”
Beldin snorted. “Well, here is one dwarf she won't ensnare so easily. I have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox!”
The path into the enchanted land led through a stone arch. Beyond the arch the trees were larger and greener than those in Carcosa. Even the seasons seemed different, as the sun shined longer and winter seemed very far away. They climbed a winding way among the great trees as the last rays of evening sun stream through their trunks. They ascended the path until night fell.
In the enchanted land only one high, round tower stood where the mighty castle of Sylaire once was. In the blue glow of a moonlit night, they climbed a twisting stair at the bottom of a tower, past glimmering lights of silver and blue. Far above, the silhouetted shapes of the shadowy tree-branches loomed.
A curving walkway lay before them, leading up a low stair to an archway. Three-pronged, golden leaves were scattered about. Slowly, they gathered before the arch. With a glow issuing forth from her, a Lady descended to meet them.
Thick-curling chestnut hair, bound by a light silver fillet, billowed over her shoulders and burned to red, living gold where the sunrays searched it out through the foliage. Hung about her neck, a light golden chain seemed to reflect the luster of her hair. She wore a bodice of vernal green velvet, baring the upper slopes of her breasts, clung tightly about her as a lover's embrace. A purple velvet gown, flowered with pale azure and crimson, molded itself to the sinuous outlines of her hips and legs. Her slender feet were enclosed in fine soft leather buskins, scarlet-dyed, with tips curling pertly upward.
Vlad and Beldin stared in awe. Sebastian bowed his head in greeting.
The light dimmed, and the Lady Sephora halted before them. Her eyes focused on Sebastian. “The Unspeakable One knows you have entered here. What hope you had in secrecy is now gone. Three there are here, yet four there were, set out from Ambrose Castle. Tell me, where is Kham?”
Sephora read the answer in Vlad’s eyes.
“Kham did not pass the borders of this land.” Her voice fell in sorrow. “He has fallen into shadow.”
Vlad nodded slightly.
“He was taken by the black lotus,” said Sebastian. “For we went needlessly into the net of Carcosa.”
Beldin bowed his head.
“Needless were none of the deeds of Kham in life,” said Sephora. “We do not yet know his whole purpose. Do not let the great emptiness of Carcosa fill your heart, Beldin, apprentice of Elabac.”
Beldin looked up at her words.
“For the world has grown full of peril. And in all lands, love is now mingled with grief. A werewolf stalks Sylaire. Destroy it, and I will give you what you seek.”
Castle Ambrose: Part 19b – The Enchanted Sword of Sylaire
Sephora gave them careful instructions that would enable to find the werewolf's den without delay. It was easy to locate the den, for well-used paths ran toward it with little deviation. The place was the mounded remnant of a tower that had crumbled down into grassy earth and mossy blocks. The entrance had once been a lofty doorway: now it was only a hole, such as a large animal would make in leaving and returning to its burrow.
Light poured through several apertures, latticed with wandering tree-roots, where the mound had fallen in. The place was a cavern rather than a room. It stank with carrion remnants. The ground was littered with bones, broken stems and leaves of plants, and shattered or rusted vessels of alchemic use. A verdigris-eaten kettle hung from a tripod above ashes and ends of charred faggots. Rain-sodden grimoires lay moldering in rusty metal covers. The three-legged ruin of a table was propped against the wall. In one corner was a litter of dead grass. The strong, rank odor of a wild beast mingled with the carrion stench.
Beldin and Vlad entered. Sebastian launched himself into the yawning cavern’s heights.
A billowing cloud of mist engulfed them.
“Magic!” snarled Vlad.
From out of the mists bounded white wolves the size of men. Their icy cold breath scorched both warriors. Vlad struck one and was rewarded with a yelp. Then they retreated back into the fog.
“We can’t keep this up,” said Beldin to the heavens. “On the next attack, do it.”
Vlad nodded, holding Grungronazharr before him. “I’m ready.”
Before the wolves could strike again, time a blast of flames exploded all around them. Vlad and Beldin were unharmed.
“That cleared the terrain a bit,” said Beldin.
“That wasn’t me!” came Sebastian’s voice from above.
Bounding out of the fog came a creature even larger than the wolves themselves. It had white fur, but it loped in a poor imitation of a man. Blue flames shimmered from its hide.
Beldin lashed out, only to drop Windcutter in pain as the flames shot up the haft of his axe. “He’s protected somehow!”
Vlad struck out at the werewolf, but the results were the same.
The werewolf howled, and the other three wolves joined it.
“Now Sebastian!” shouted Vlad.
More flames blasted the terrain, the wolves, and the two warriors. The fire sent the winter wolves scurrying, but the werewolf was relentless. It grabbed Vlad by the throat and hurled him across the clearing.
Beldin advanced on the lycanthrope, but before he could close it unleashed a bolt of lightning. Beldin was knocked backwards from the jolt.
The werewolf howled again, but this time in pain. A sizzling hole burned through its shoulder, an orb of acid cast by Sebastian somewhere in the depths of the cavern’s ceiling. It turned and surged toward Vlad…
The mad werewolf sprang as if hurled from a catapult, and his red, open gorge was spitted on the out-thrust point. Vlad’s hand was jarred on Grungronazharr’s hilt, and the shock drove him backward. The werewolf fell thrashing at Vlad’s feet. Its jaws had clenched on the blade. The point protruded beyond the stiff bristles of his neck.
Vlad tugged vainly with Grungronazharr. Then the furred body ceased to thrash — and the blade came easily. It had been withdrawn from the sagging mouth of the dead ancient sorcerer, Malachie du Marais, which lay before Vlad on the flagstones.
They returned Malachie’s dripping head to Sephora’s tower. The light of early morning set the leaves of the trees on fire with a blazing yellow. The sunlight streamed through the trees, but beneath their great trunks the land was yet dark, cast in blue.
“Every league you travel north, the danger will increase,” said Sephora. “Nor will you find safety in Yhtill. By river you have the chance of outrunning the enemy to the Alar. And now, as promised…” Sephora extended a silver blade to Vlad.
“My gift for you, Vlad, is the enchanted sword of Sylaire, our most powerful weapon. Use it wisely.”
They left wordlessly, enchanted by Sephora’s mere presence.
“Farewell,” she waved after them. “There is much you have left to do.”
Castle Ambrose: Part 20 – The Potion of Time Travel
Sebastian’s negotiating skill and disguise eventually enabled them to find a black market contact in Alar. They were to meet the contact behind an alley, a seller of potions who was willing to risk the Inquisition for a gold piece.
Beldin and Vlad flanked Sebastian as they stood over a barrel with an open flame. It was the only light source nearby, illuminating Sebastian’s sharp features as he waited.
A cloaked figure slid out of the darkness. “I am here.”
Sebastian looked around. “No guards? Security seems very tight in Alar.”
“The Immemorial City has suffered much as of late,” whispered the contact. “A curse is raging that animates the dead. It’s worse in Hastur,” his white smile indicated that he very much enjoyed that fact. “Thanks to the Inquisition, we have put a stop to such animations.”
“Yes, about that. I trust this place is safe for our…particular form of trade.”
“It is,” said the man. “You listed a variety of potions. I have them all. You have the gold?”
“I do.” Sebastian nodded to Beldin, who thrust a bag full of doubloons and imperials at the man.
The contact exchanged a bag with Beldin. It clinked with the sound of potion vials within. “Healing, strength of a bull, and more. It’s all there.”
Beldin handed the bag back to Sebastian. He rifled through its contents. “The potion of time travel is missing.”
The man smiled. “I saved the best for last. Tell me, Stranger. Do you know the sentence for those who practice arcane magicks?”
Sebastian took a step back. “I do.”
Beldin and Vlad raised their weapons.
The man threw off his cloak just as bright lights illuminated them. Beneath his cloak was an old man with white hair and piercing eyes, dressed in bright yellow armor. “Heathens! Know that you stand in the presence of Elhalyn, Grand Inquisitor of Alar! You’ll not animate any undead this night!”
With a shrug, Sebastian shed his magical disguise, revealing his true self. The Inquisitors gasped in fear.
The dark-kin spread his wings wide. “I am no mere necromancer, fool! I am the Phantom of Truth! Do you dare deny me what I seek?”
Elhalyn looked startled, but he held firm. “It was Alar that sent you! You dare to defy us?”
“I dare,” boomed Sebastian, “because I have come from Hastur to seek out the traitor in your midst. There is someone here,” he looked around, stopping at Elhalyn, “who worships the Old Gods. One of you is a heretic.”
The Inquisitors stared at each other. Sebastian slowly raised an arm, about to point at the source of heresy.
“Enough!” Elhalyn reached into his robes. “If you are indeed the Phantom of Truth, then you know that the vials I gave you are merely colored water. Let us shake and be done with charade, so that you may leave the honest and pure to their tasks.”
Sebastian took his hand. Elhalyn slipped a vermilion vial from his cuff into Sebastian’s palm as he did so.
“A mushy hand, as was foretold,” said Elhalyn softly. “He really is the Phantom of Truth.”
The Inquisitors drew back. Sebastian pointed at them all. “The dead King hunts and eats the gods. The skies are darkened, the bones of the earth-god tremble, the planets are stilled, and the Hyades made cold. For they have seen the King, appearing in his power, the dead king who hunts and eats the world.”
Elhalyn and his Inquisitors doused their lights and disappeared into the darkness.
“I can’t believe you pulled that off,” said Beldin.
“Believe it,” said Sebastian. “Elhalyn is a cultist of the Unspeakable One, masquerading as their Chief Inquisitor so that he can ferret out his rivals and steal their power, in much the same way I extorted him into handing over the potion of time travel.”
“Wow, maybe you really are the Phantom of Truth!” exclaimed Vlad.
To Sebastian there came privily the marshal of Alar, together with the abbot Theophile, whose worn features and bowed form displayed the ravages of mortal sorrow and horror and humiliation. And the two, albeit with palpable hesitancy, asked Sebastian advice and assistance in the laying of the beast.
"You, Phantom," said the marshal, "are reputed to know the arcanic arts of sorcery, and the spells which summon and dismiss demons. Therefore, in dealing with this devil, it may be that you shall succeed where all others have failed. Not willingly do we employ you in the matter, since it is not seemly for the church and the law to ally themselves with wizardry. But the need is desperate, lest the demon should take other victims. In return for your aid we can promise you the Ring of Eibon that you seek. The Bishop of Alar, and the Archbishop of Hastur, are privy to this offer, which must be kept secret."
"That will suffice," replied Sebastian, "if it be in my power to rid Yhtill of this scourge. But you have set me a difficult task, and one that is haply attended by strange perils."
"All assistance that can be given you shall be yours to command," said the marshal. "Men-at-arms shall attend you, if need be."
“All doors, including those of the abbey of Yhtill, will be opened at your request,” said Theophile in a low, broken voice. “Everything possible will be done to further the laying of the fiend.”
Sebastian requested two stout horses, which the marshal was able to procure presently. Vlad and Beldin rode forth from Alar toward Yhtill, taking a direct and little-used way that ran through the werewolf-haunted forest. Sebastian flew over the treetops.
Swiftly they rode, while the sun sank in a redness as of welling blood among the tall trees; and soon the darkness wove its thickening webs from bough to bough, closing upon them like some inexorable net of evil. Deeper they went, into the brooding woods; and even Sebastian, the master of sorceries, trembled a little at the knowledge of all that was abroad in the darkness.
Undelayed and unmolested, however, they came to the abbey at late moonrise, when all the monks, except the aged porter, had retired to their dormitory. The abbot returning at sunset from Alar, had given word to the porter of their coming, and he would have admitted them; but this, as it happened, was no part of Sebastian’s plan.
“I have reason to believe the Beast will re-enter the abbey tonight,” said Sebastian told the porter. “We will wait outside the walls to intercept it.”
After committing Vlad and Beldin’s mounts to the porter's care, they returned to the space before Theophile's window and began their long watch.
Pale and hollow as the face of a corpse, the moon rose higher, swimming above the somber oaks, and pouring spectral silver on the gray stone of the abbey walls. In the west the comet flamed among the lusterless signs, veiling the lifted sting of the Scorpion as it sank.
They waited hour by hour in the shortening shadow of a tall oak, where none could see us from the windows. When the moon had passed over, sloping westward, the shadow began to lengthen toward the wall. All was mortally still, and they saw no movement, apart from the slow shifting of the light and shade. Halfway between midnight and dawn the taper went out in Theophile's cell, as if it had burned to the socket; and thereafter the room remained dark.
Unquestioning, with ready weapons, Vlad and Beldin stood by Sebastian’s side in the vigil. Well they knew the demonian terror that they might face before dawn; but there was no trepidation in their bearing.
The warriors stood nearer than Sebastian to the forest, facing it perpetually according to a strict order that he had given. But nothing stirred in the fretted gloom; and the slow night ebbed; and the skies grew paler, as if with morning twilight. Then, an hour before sunrise, when the shadow of the great oak had reached the wall and was climbing toward Theophile's window, there came the thing Sebastian had anticipated. Very suddenly it came, and without forewarning of its nearness, a horror of hellish red light, swift as a kindling, wind-blown flame, that leapt from the forest gloom and sprang upon them where they stood, still and weary from their night-long vigil.
Beldin was borne to the ground, and Sebastian saw above him, in a floating redness as of ghostly blood, the black and semi-serpentine form of the Beast. A flat and snakish head, without ears or nose, was tearing at Beldin’s armor with sharp, serrated teeth. The teeth clashed and grated on the linked iron.
Sebastian cast a spell, blasting the Beast with a bolt of energy. The Beast relinquished Beldin on the ground beneath it, and writhed back like a burnt serpent. The body and members of the Beast were loathfully convulsed, and they seemed to melt in the manner of wax and to change dimly and horribly beneath the flame, undergoing an incredible metamorphosis. Moment by moment, like a werewolf that returns from its beasthood, the thing took on the wavering similitude of man. The unclean blackness flowed and swirled, assuming the weft of cloth amid its changes, and becoming the folds of a dark robe and cowl. Then, from the cowl, a face began to peer, and the face, though shadowy and distorted, was that of the abbot Theophile.
Vlad, who had yet to join in the fight, turned suddenly. Vlad struggled mightily as the beast threatened to overcome him. First he shuddered towards Beldin, then towards Sebastian, lifting and then lowering his blade, sweat dripping from his brow. The Beast sought to control the Milandisian when it could not reach the dark-kin’s mind, but mighty Vlad fought it with all of his being. Gathering his will, Vlad shook off the effects and struck back at the thing with his blade.
The face melted again into waxy blackness, and a great column of sooty smoke arose, followed by an odor as of burning flesh commingled with some might foulness. And out of the volumed smoke there came a single cry in the voice of Theophile. At last, the sable fumes began to lift, ascending and disappearing amid the boughs, and a dancing golden light; in the shape of a will-o'-the-wisp, went soaring over the dark trees toward the stars.
The stench of burning passed from the air, together with the mighty foulness; and of what had been the Beast there was no longer any trace. Beldin rose, unharmed beneath his mail, and he and Vlad stood beside Sebastian, saying naught.
“The Beast came upon us unaware,” reported Sebastian to the other monks. “It gained the abbot's cell before we could prevent it, and had come forth again, carrying Theophile with its snakish members as if to bear him away to the sunken comet. I exorcised the unclean devil, which had vanished in a cloud of sulfurous fire and vapor; and, most unluckily, the fire had consumed the abbot. His death is a true martyrdom, and will not be in vain: the Beast will no longer plague the country or bedevil Yhtill; the exorcism I used is infallible.”
The Brothers, who grieved mightily for their good abbot, accepted this tale without question. And for his efforts Sebastian was granted the Ring of Eibon.
The ring had come down from ancient Hyperborea, and had once been the property of the sorcerer Eibon. It was made of a redder gold than any that the earth had yielded in latter cycles, and was set with a large purple gem, somber and smoldering, whose like was no longer to be found. In the gem an antique demon was held captive, a spirit from prehuman worlds, which would answer the interrogation of sorcerers.
“Do you think they would believe the truth?” asked Beldin.
“Thin is the veil betwixt man and the godless deep,” said Sebastian. “The skies are haunted by that which it were madness to know; and strange abominations pass evermore between earth and moon and athwart the galaxies. Unnameable things have come to them in alien horror and will come again. And the evil of the stars is not as the evil of Carcosa.”
“Ever since you’ve started wearing that mask, you talk very strangely,” said Vlad.
Castle Ambrose: Part 22 – The Viper-Encircled Mirror
There were strange and disastrous portents in the aspect of the skies: flame-bearded meteors had been seen to fall beyond the eastern hills; a comet far in the south had swept the stars with its luminous bosom for a few nights, and had then faded, leaving among men the prophecy of bale and pestilence to come. By day the air was oppressed and sultry, and the blue heavens were heated as if by whitish fires. Clouds of thunder, darkling and withdrawn, shook their fulgurant lances on the far horizons, like some beleaguering Titan army. A murrain, such as would come from the working of wizard spells, was abroad among the cattle. All these signs and prodigies were an added heaviness on the burdened spirits of men, who went to and fro in daily fear of the hidden preparations and machinations of hell.
In Hastur, tales of the grave giving up its sheeted dead were rife. They were admitted without question by the guards at the city gate. Hastur was already thronged with people who had fled to the sanctuary of its stout walls from the adjacent countryside; and no one, not even of the most dubious character, was denied admittance. The walls were lined with archers and pike-bearers, gathered in readiness to dispute the entrance of the dead. Crossbowmen were stationed above the gates, and mangonels were mounted at short intervals along the entire circuit of the ramparts. The city seethed and hummed like an agitated hive.
Hysteria and pandemonium prevailed in the streets. Pale, panic-stricken faces milled everywhere in an aimless stream. Hurrying torches flared dolorously in the twilight that deepened as if with the shadow of impending wings arisen from Erebus. The gloom was clogged with intangible fear, with webs of stifling oppression. Through all this rout of wild disorder and frenzy, Hali, like a spent but indomitable swimmer breasting some tide of eternal, viscid nightmare, made his way slowly to the podium.
“I am Hali,” he told the crowd. “And I was a pupil of Nathaire, the necromancer who animated the colossus that even now ravages our land. Nathaire binds and hurls into the bitter depths of the Black Lake certain victims, such as were designated to feed the hunger of Him That Slept Beneath. And I believe those who constitute the body of the colossus are the same that were fed to the Thing in the Lake. I have a solution, a powder that I have crafted that will cause the dead to return peacefully to their tombs and lay down in a renewed slumber of death.”
There was a mounting hubbub in the streets, and above the shrill, dismal clamor of frightened voices, the far-off roaring of the giant. Hali shouted louder to be heard.
“The dust must be blown into the beast’s face. I have enough for three attempts. Who will take up this challenge?”
Sebastian stepped forward. “We will.”
They had no time to lose if they were to post themselves in a place of vantage from which they could throw Hali’s powder into the nostrils of the hundred-foot colossus. The city walls and even most of the church spires, were not lofty enough for this purpose. But the great cathedral, standing at the core of Hastur, was the one place from whose roof they could front the invader with success.
It was a certainty that the men-at-arms on the walls could do little to prevent the monster from entering and wreaking his malevolent will. No earthly weapon could injure a being of such bulk and nature; for even a cadaver of normal size, reared up in this fashion, could be shot full of arrows or transfixed by a dozen pikes without retarding its progress.
Hastily Sebastian filled a huge leather pouch with the powder; and carrying the pouch at his belt, he joined the agitated press of people in the street. Many were fleeing towards the cathedral, to seek the shelter of its august sanctity; and he had only to let himself be borne along by the frenzy-driven stream.
The cathedral nave was packed with worshipers, and priests whose voices faltered at times with inward panic were saying solemn masses. Unheeded by the wan, despairing throng, they found a flight of coiling stairs that led tortuously to the gargoyle-warded roof of the high tower.
Here Beldin and Sebastian posted, crouching behind the stone figure of a cat-headed griffin. They could see, beyond the crowded spires and gables, the approaching giant, whose head and torso loomed above the city walls.
The limbs were rounded into bossed, enormous thews, like the limbs of giants; the flanks were like an insuperable wall; the deltoids of the mighty chest were broad as platform; the hands could have crushed the bodies of men like millstones.... But the face of the stupendous monster, seen in profile athwart the pouring moon, was the face of the Nathaire — re-magnified a hundred times, but the same in its implacable madness and malevolence!
A cloud of arrows, visible even at that distance, rose to meet the monster, who apparently did not even pause to pluck them from his hide. Great boulders hurled from mangonels were no more to him than a pelting of gravel; the heavy bolts of arbalests, embedded in his flesh, were mere slivers.
Nothing could stay his advance. The tiny figures of a company of pikemen, who opposed him with out-thrust weapons, swept from the wall above the eastern gate by a single sidelong blow of the seventy-foot pine that he bore for a cudgel. Then, having cleared the wall, the colossus climbed over it into Hastur.
Roaring, chuckling, laughing like a maniacal Cyclops, he strode along the narrow streets between houses that rose only to his waist, trampling without mercy everyone who could not escape in time, and smashing in the roofs with stupendous blows of his bludgeon. With a push of his left hand he broke off the protruding gables, and overturned the church steeples with their bells clanging in dolorous alarm as they went down. A woeful shrieking and wailing of hysteria-laden voices accompanied his passing.
Straight towards the cathedral he came, as Sebastian had calculated, feeling that the high edifice would be made the special butt of his malevolence.
The streets were now emptied of people; but, as if to hunt them out and crush them in their hiding-places, the giant thrust his cudgel like a battering ram through walls and windows and roofs as he went by. The ruin and havoc that he left was indescribable.
Soon he loomed opposite the cathedral tower on which they waited behind the gargoyle. The colossus’ head was level with the tower, and its eyes flamed like wells of burning brimstone as it drew near. Its lips were parted over stalactitic fangs in a hateful snarl; and it cried out in a voice like the rumbling of articulate thunder:
"Ho! Ye puling priests and devotees of a powerless God! Come forth and bow to Nathaire the master, before he sweeps you into limbo!"
An insupportable terror seized Sebastian. He sought to move, but found he could not. It was then that Beldin, with hardihood beyond comparison, rose from his hiding-place and stood in full view of the raging colossus.
"Draw nearer, Nathaire, if indeed it be you, foul robber of tombs and charnels," he taunted. "Come close, for I would hold speech with you."
A monstrous look of astonishment dimmed the diabolic rage on the colossal features. Peering at Beldin as if in doubt or incredulity, the giant lowered his lifted cudgel and stepped close to the tower, till his face was only a few feet from the intrepid dwarf.
Then, when he had apparently convinced himself of Beldin’s identity, the look of maniacal wrath returned, flooding his eyes with fire and twisting his lineaments into a mask of malignity. His left arm came up in a prodigious arc, with twitching fingers that poised horribly above the head of the dwarf, casting upon him a vulture-black shadow in the full-risen sun. Beldin saw the white, startled faces of the necromancer's pupils, peering over his shoulder from their plank-built basket.
"Is that you, Stranger?" the colossus roared stormily. "I thought you were rotting in the Castle Ambrose — and now I find you perched atop of this accursed cathedral which I am about to demolish! ... You had been far wiser to remain trapped in the mists."
His breath, as he spoke, blew like a charnel-polluted gale on the student. His vast fingers, with blackened nails like shovelblades, hovered in ogreish menace. With his eyes so focused on Beldin in the cathedral, Nathaire’s colossus did not expect the arrival of Vlad, held aloft by the magic of the Sword of Sylaire. As the twitching fingers descended towards Beldin, Vlad emptied the contents of the pouch in the giant's face as he flew, and the fine powder, mounting in a dark-gray cloud, obscured the snarling lips and palpitating nostrils from his view.
Anxiously they watched the effect, fearing that the powder might be useless after all, against the superior arts and diabolical resources of Nathaire. But miraculously, as it seemed, the evil lambence died in the pit-deep eyes, as the monster inhaled the flying cloud. His lifted hand, narrowly missing the crouching dwarf in its sweep, fell lifelessly at his side. The anger was erased from the mighty, contorted mask, as if from the face of a dead man; the great cudgel fell with a crash to the empty street; and with drowsy, lurching steps, and listless, hanging arms, the giant turned his back to the cathedral and retraced his way through the devastated city.
“You,” Sebastian said to Vlad, recovering some of his composure, “are a true hero.”
The colossus muttered dreamily to itself as it went; and people who heard it swore that the voice was no longer the awful, thunderswollen voice of Nathaire, but the tones and accents of a multitude of men, amid which the voices of certain of the ravished dead were recognizable. And the voice of Nathaire himself, no louder now than in life, was heard at intervals through the manifold mutterings, as if protesting angrily.
Climbing the eastern wall as it had come, the colossus went to and fro for many hours, no longer wreaking a hellish wrath and rancor, but searching, as people thought, for the various tombs and graves from which the hundreds of bodies that composed it had been so foully reft. From charnel to charnel, from cemetery to cemetery it went, through all the land; but there was no grave anywhere in which the dead colossus could lie down.
Then, towards evening, men saw it from afar on the red rim of the sky, digging with its hands in the soft, loamy plain beside the river Isoile. There, in a monstrous and self-made grave, the colossus laid itself down, and did not rise again. The ten pupils of Nathaire, it was believed, unable to descend from their basket, were crushed beneath the mighty body; for none of them was ever seen thereafter.
“For your efforts, we bestow upon you the Viper-Encircled Mirror,” said Hali. “Use it wisely.”
Sebastian touched the Ring of Eibon to the viper’s tail on the mirror frame. The serpent uncoiled enough for the ring to slide over the tail. The ring then slowly moved up the viper’s body until it circled the head like a collar. The viper’s tail was once again gripped its mouth.
Vlad anointed the Enchanted Sword of Sylaire with the potion of time travel. The blade glowed bright gold. Then he touched it to the mirror.
There was a high-pitched humming. The mirror, ring and sword shattered into thousands of shards.
The healing amber haze surrounded them once more. The world of Carcosa faded away and they found themselves on a seemingly endless plain. A massive, square, fifty-foot tall tomb made of amber colored marble stood before them.
Carved over the entrance was the name “Aldones Stephen Ambrose.” On the door was painted the Ambrose family crest; A black shield with a gold phoenix. An amber crown was painted above the crest.
“This is it,” said Sebastian. “This is his tomb.”
Fortified by every potion, protective spell, and wand Sebastian had in his possession, he looked over his shoulder at the two warriors. “Ready?”
“Ready,” said Beldin, hefting Windcutter.
“Ready,” said Vlad, wielding Grungronazharr.
Sebastian threw open the doors. To his horror, sleeping on a pile of coins was a dragon with black scales.
They didn’t wait for it to rouse. Sebastian unleashed a furious blast of flames as the two fighters circled it from both sides. The black dragon roared in pain and shock and then quickly retaliated, firing a blast of acid that nearly melted Vlad’s shield.
Beldin struck at one of its forelimbs. The dragon reared up, flapping its wings. One claw nearly decapitated the dwarf.
Sebastian stayed at the doorway. He unleashed a stream of floating translucent yellow jaws that assailed the dragon at every turn.
More acid sprayed in an arc as the dragon lashed out blindly. Vlad dove to the side as a whipping tail cracked the solid rock where he stood.
Finally, it was over. With a shrill wail, the dragon’s head hit the ground.
“We’re lucky it was asleep,” said Beldin. “That was a young one.”
Vlad seemed proud. “Our first dragon.”
“There are many more guardians,” said Sebastian. “It may not be our last.”
Castle Ambrose: Part 24 – Fire and the Second Guardian
Flames leaped and crackled off the walls and ceiling of the long corridor.
“Are we in hell?” asked Vlad.
Sebastian shook his head. “Another guardian’s lair. It looks like it is possible to walk down the corridor without getting burned as long as you stay in the center of the hallway where the heat is least. My magic will protect you from the rest.”
Beldin and Vlad nodded and advanced ahead of him. It was difficult to hear each other over the roaring of the flames.
As they neared the end of the corridor, the flames coalesced into a massive conflagration with yellow eyes.
“Elemental!” shouted Sebastian.
Beldin struck at the thing, but Windcutter sliced right through the flames.
Sebastian lifted one hand and a sphere of cold appeared in his palm. “This should help!” He threw it, and a great blast of superheated mist billowed up where the ice hit the elemental.
The elemental surged forward, the superheated flames causing the edge of Beldin’s shield to begin to melt.
“I’ve got it!” Vlad thrust his flame-quenching blade, Grungronazharr, into the heart of the elemental. With a shriek, the flames abruptly went out all around them.
“Everyone all right?” asked Sebastian.
Beldin nodded. “Just a little singed.”
Sebastian counted to three and opened the next door.
A fourteen-foot tall giant thrust its club through the doorway, slamming Sebastian backwards back into the flame-filled hallway.
“Giant!” growled Beldin. “He’s mine!”
The dwarf barreled into the room, rolling beneath the stone giant’s clumsy swing. It had gray, rock-like skin and wielded a large stalactite as a club.
Wham! The giant swung the stalactite downwards where Beldin had been a moment before. The dwarf rolled to his feet and swung Windcutter in a wide arc, slashing the giant’s left calf. It roared in pain but swung again.
WHAM! Cracks appeared from the impact, but it just missed the dwarf. He rolled to the other side of the giant and came up again; with the same motion, Beldin hacked into the giant’s ankle.
Bellowing in agony, the giant collapsed to one knee. Beldin bashed the stone giant’s kneecap. As it fell, he struck it in the face, splitting its head in twain.
Sebastian joined them.
“He used to BE a giant, right?” Vlad asked Sebastian.
Castle Ambrose: Part 25 – Earth and The Third Guardian
“Down!” shouted Vlad.
Foot-long spikes jutted through his shield. A man-faced lion with bat wings and a spiked tail paced before them.
“Manticore,” said Sebastian.
“Now you tell us,” said Beldin. A spike protruded from his shoulder.
With a roar, the manticore batted Beldin’s shield aside, forcing the dwarf to backpedal. Sebastian drove it back with a blast of fire from his hands.
Vlad threw his shield down, useless with all the spikes protruding from it, and wielded Grungronazharr with both hands. “Come on then!”
The manticore hesitated. Then it bounded forward, wings spread wide.
Vlad slid under its paws as it passed, thrusting his blade upwards. The manticore’s forward motion eviscerated it. It landed, all too human-like face twisted in agony before Sebastian.
Beldin yanked the spike out of his shoulder and opened the door to the right.
“Great,” said Vlad.
The hallway was filled with mud.
Beldin stepped out onto the surface. Thanks to Cho Sun’s ring, he didn’t sink.
Sebastian flapped his way in, hovering aloft.
With a deep sigh, Vlad waded into the muck, waist deep.
Beldin paused. “I may be able to help.” He concentrated, and the mud sluiced to either side, providing a sticky but firmer path to the door at the far end of the hallway.
“Careful,” said Sebastian. “It won’t be that easy.”
Like the fire elemental before, the mud on either side of the hallway suddenly collapsed together to form vaguely humanoid shape with dark mud for eyes.
Sebastian was ready. He blasted it with flames, but the magic dissipated harmlessly off of it.
“Mud golem!” he said. “It has to be.”
There was a moment where the mud golem loomed over Vlad. Then he disappeared inside it as the thing engulfed him.
Sebastian started an incantation and stopped. “I may hurt him!”
Beldin growled. “You want to eat somebody? Eat me!”
The dwarf easily ducked beneath the golem’s clumsy swing as he charged straight into the thing’s body. With a ferocious body slam, Beldin knocked Vlad out the back of the golem, taking his place.
Vlad sputtered. “What the hell did he do that for? I had it under control!”
The golem suddenly froze. Its ballooned outwards as large bubbles appeared in the mud that constitutes its body. Then it burst, spattering everyone with mud. Beldin stood unharmed with arms outstretched in the center.
Sebastian opened the door, only to be assailed by multiple gouts of flame.
“Hydra!” shouted Sebastian. He flew into the room.
The reddish hydra’s heads tracked all three of them as they entered. Six maws gnashed and snapped.
Beldin waited as one head tried to snake around his shield. Then with a quick strike, he decapitated it.
Two more heads grew out of the wound.
“Damn it!” shouted the dwarf.
Sebastian flapped backwards. He didn’t have much height in the rooms, but it was enough to stay out of the hydra’s reach. “It breathes fire, so we can’t stop the regeneration that way…”
Vlad held his blade up before him as three gouts of flame raked where he stood. The fire bounced harmlessly off of him.
Sebastian lifted one hand. A green sphere appeared in his open palm. “But acid should do nicely.”
He threw it at the base of the hydra’s body, where the five heads were joined. It shrieked in pain and two of the necks sizzled right off of it.
“Keep it busy!” shouted Sebastian.
“I thought we were!” shouted Beldin. He rolled to the side as two heads tried to bite him from different angles. Vlad took up the defense, bashing one of the hydra’s head in the snout with his shield.
Another orb of acid struck the beast and another head fell. With just two heads left, the hydra divided its attention between the two warriors.
Sebastian’s third vitreous orb struck, between the nape of the two necks. The body stumbled blindly for a moment before laying still.
“I’m getting sick of these guardians,” muttered Beldin. He kicked the door open.
In the center of this room was an ornate mahogany casket. The casket rested on a raised dais. A silver candelabra and an iron brazier stood at the head and feet of the casket. The candelabra held burning amber candles, and perfumed smoke rose from the brazier. A large tapestry covered all the wall space, depicting the murder of Aldones by Camilla.
Carved into the inside lid of the casket were the words “Burn the tapestry to break my curse”. A skeleton wearing a crown of gold lay inside the casket.
Sebastian set fire to the tapestry.
A man dressed in rich yellow robes and wearing a golden crown and other fine jewelry suddenly appeared, stepping out of the smoke and ashes.
“Aldones Stefan Ambrose.” Beldin recognized him from the last time they met in Freeport.
Aldones stretched and said, “Thanks, I’ve been trapped in there for ages.”
The tomb disappeared and they were back outside of the Cresh House in Freeport.
“And thus the war between the masked men and the naked is at an end,” said Aldones. “The King in Yellow has come again to Carcosa…and failed to come to Arcanis, as was foretold. There was much that needed to be undone, which you have completed and by doing so, reforged the Covenant of the Sign.”
“So it’s really over?” asked Vlad. “The Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign? The Unspeakable One? All that?”
Aldones smiled. “We have triumphed in the war. And thus I am the inheritor of the King in Yellow, and have reclaimed the Dynasty.” He turned to Sebastian. “The price was the fixing of the mask. And you have paid it.”
Sebastian reached hesitantly for the mask on his face. “I can…remove it?”
“You could always remove it, poor tortured Sebastian.”
Sebastian removed the mask. He handed it to Aldones.
“Although you may not fully understand, you all had a part to play. Hastur, Yhtill, and Alar, and indeed all of Carcosa, were corrupt. The King in Yellow needed Arcanis to change it; he needed his Stranger, his Phantom of Truth. And you played your parts well.”
“But all the madness and suffering…” began Beldin.
Aldones nodded his head sadly. “The King in Yellow is our god, but he is an incomprehensible being. Your world, when exposed to ours, goes mad. And the converse is true…it is why I was not myself when we first met. All I knew is that I had to get back to Carcosa.”
“And what of our friend?” asked Vlad.
A slight grin crept across Aldones’ lips. “They’re sleeping behind you. It was thanks to Kham that our world exists at all. He dreamed it up, after all, and it was his dreams that helped you succeed—he sent you the amber glow that healed your wounds.”
“They?” Sebastian turned around. Slumbering peacefully in the alley was Kham, Drak Scarbelly, Rask, and Prolk.
“All those who did not belong in Carcosa have been released.” Aldones became more serious. “Be warned, that includes some who may not be so grateful.”
Sebastian nodded. “And what of you?”
“I will return to build my world. Even now, it is returning to what it once was. I am the father of all in Hastur. Carcosa will no longer be necessary, until in due course of starwheels we lose our way again.” He paused. “But for your travails I will bestow one wish on each of you. Step forward.”
They looked at each other. Sebastian stepped forward.
“Sebastian Arnyal, when you first sought to lead the King in Yellow away from Arcanis, you planned to take him to hell with you. But you are a whole person, Sebastian, not a half-breed. And by sacrificing yourself, you proved that you are more man than devil. And yet, you are what you are. Do you wish me to make you human?”
Sebastian blinked. “No. I…I like who I am.”
“As well you should. Do not be ashamed of who you are; I know you loathe those feathers. Fortunately, they are mere props for our play. Shake them off.”
Sebastian looked hesitantly over his shoulder. Then he concentrated and unfurled his wings. The feathers fell off of it, as if they had been glued to him.
Vlad stepped forward next.
“Vlad Martell, you fought heedlessly without concern for your own safety. You slew the colossus and countless other foes. You already have a powerful sword, but it shall be even more powerful still. You will find that it will now warn you of traps before you stumble through them and allow you to perceive invisible enemies before they stab you in the back.”
In its scabbard, Grungronazharr thrummed.
“And you, Master Dwarf. Please come forward.”
Beldin stepped forward.
“You are a defender of the weak, of the downtrodden, of the frail. Your warm presence will protect your charges from cold hearts. Your shield will be more powerful still.” Beldin’s shield glowed with a bluish-white light.
He handed each of them a brooch, formed of black onyx with the Yellow Sign inscribed in gold. “Keep this to remember me by. Now my time here is at an end,” said Aldones. “And so the King in Yellow withdraws his protection of Arcanis…”
“Protection?” asked Sebastian, incredulous. “Wasn’t it the Unspeakable One who started the war on our world? A Valinor appeared and gave the Emperor his blessing to start a civil war. Thousands will die because of your so-called King!”
Aldones lowered his head. “Alas, that was not His doing, but that of his half-brother, Leviathan. Now that the King is leaving, his half-brother will extend his will upon Arcanis. Only the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign kept Leviathan’s minions in check. Beware…Leviathan has no play to complete, no purpose. He only seeks to awaken, and when he rouses, all of Arcanis will shudder in his wake.”
Thanking them again, Aldones spoke some arcane words and, with grand gestures, disappeared in a billow of smoke.
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