The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack (40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Tales) (110 page)

“Most of the things you do are observed—
most
. There are times, I imagine, when our eyes are not on you. It is a busy omniverse. At the moment, much is transpiring. Strange forces are working, and we cannot see everything. Why should Darquementi be concerned about you, eh?”

“Because of my master?” said Elfloq, but at once wished he had not.

The Asker laughed softly. “Yes, your forbidden master. The Voidal.”

“Though, of course, he—and thus I—are the slaves of the Dark Gods.”

The Asker gazed across what seemed a vast distance. “I wonder.” After a moment he had recovered himself. “Now, what is this business you are on for the Weaver of Wars? He sent you here to invoke your master, did he not?”

Elfloq knew better than to lie this time. “He did, knowing that it would be the end of me.”

“Apparently he thought so. Well, it does not suit the Dark Gods that you should meet your doom in Ulthar—at least, not through the invoking of your master. However, it does suit the Askers that the Voidal comes here. The Dark Gods have work for him. Ybaggog must be destroyed. Otherwise he will bring to the omniverse an incomparable darkness.”

“Given a little more time, I would have made the men from the South—”

Drath appeared, set down wine and then withdrew solemnly. The Asker smiled at the earnestness of the familiar. “Elfloq, Elfloq, have you learned nothing? You would have sacrificed those men needlessly.”

“But the importance of the task—”

“Which is?”

“Destroying Ybaggog?”

“Is that the will of Ubeggi? To bring the Voidal here to destroy Ybaggog? No, little one. Ubeggi has other designs. Jealous of his power, he wishes to see your dark master locked away forever. And how will that serve your own ambitions, eh?”

Elfloq studied his feet uncomfortably. Did the Askers know everything?

“But what of justice? Do you not respect it, even a shade? The two travellers were harmless, reasonably good men. What sins they have committed may well find them out, but do they deserve to meet the Voidal’s power? Of course not. I realise you acted out of terror, which is understandable. It is a typical ploy of Ubeggi. But you must be fair. Some other person must bring the Voidal here.”

Elfloq leaned closer and whispered, “Drath?”

The Asker laughed aloud and slapped the table. “Stars of the Abyss!”

Elfloq shook his head. “No, not Drath. Foolish of me. You mean Snare, or that double-dealing worm, Orgoom
2
.”

“Oh, you have no liking for the Blue Gelder?”

“Betrayer! First he serves Ubeggi, then is freed by my master, and now he serves Ubeggi again.”

“And yet he acts as you do, to save his hide. He bends with the winds of chance. Had he not done so, he would not have lived so long. Remember, he does not love Ubeggi, though he may take the guise of a willing slave to him.”

“Snare, then! The vile demon-priest, Ubeggi’s servant. Or that repugnant half-face, who now also serves the Weaver.”

“Shatterface? Neither he nor Snare would be foolish enough to call up the dark man.”

“Then who?”

The Asker took a hurried drink of wine and became silent for a few moments.

Elfloq stared at him. “
You
will call him? You? Ah, then as an Asker, you must have the power to revoke the curse that falls on he who—”

But the Asker was shaking his head. “No, I must take the consequences.”

Elfloq was staggered. “You do this willingly?” This was a trick. There was some devious, underhand scheme running through this.

“I will do it,” said the Asker. “I will tell you why, even though you may not believe me.” He drank again of the wine, then pushed it away. “My name is Vulparoon, and once I was the highest of the high in the order of the Ascendant Mages. I was called to the Divine Askers
3
and after a long initiation joined them and served at Holy Hedrazee. I did the work of the Dark Gods, the Punishers, and for a long time I did nothing to earn their displeasure. However, Darquementi remarked to me one day that I was considered a moderate, and that I did not seem to seek out evil and crush it as devotedly as one of my calling should. My absolute dedication was in question. I came before the Most High of the Askers, and I reeled under their probes. I was found lacking. The Dark Gods, they told me, are never to be questioned, always to be obeyed, and all that is done in their name is just and fair. Their enemies are to suffer, endlessly, until they decree otherwise. Just as your master, the Voidal, pays for his sins by walking eternity. Serve as an Asker should, they told me, or go from Hedrazee.”

“They rejected you?”

“In a way. But you see, they are just. Even in sending me out, they have given me the chance to atone.”

“For your sin of moderation, if it is a sin, they sent you here to invoke my master!”

“It was not an order. I do this of my own free will.”

“Why not flee? You are free of them.”

“Am I?”

Elfloq did not have to answer.

“I will flee afterwards. You see, I know the dilemma of the Askers. They fear this Voidal. It is not easy for them to keep him locked up inside the void they have made for him. They want him shut away, just as Ubeggi does. Devoured by the one who dreams out there, and whom all fear. If Ybaggog consumes the Voidal, I need fear no penalty for summoning him.” He strode to the door and in a moment was gone.

Elfloq was surprised by what seemed to have been a genuine show of affection, something he rarely met. But he snapped out of his semi-trance and was about to pursue Vulparoon when he saw others arriving. Hunched in the doorway was the gangling Snare, a cruel smile on his white face. He was pulling at the ear of a Blue Gelder, whom Elfloq knew to be Orgoom, and Snare twisted the ear so that the ugly creature tumbled into the inn. He was as small as Elfloq, with a blue, hairless skin, his eyes wide, his once human hands turned into terrible sickles, the work of his master, Ubeggi, whom he had once tried to desert.

“Greetings, master,” stammered Elfloq, shuffling backwards and banging into a table. “All is as Ubeggi wished. My erstwhile master comes.”

Snare spat, his eye catching the shadowed movement of Drath. “Here! Food and wine! The working to bring us here has exhausted me. Though you got here fast enough, familiar! Tried to flee my web, eh? Bruised your wings?” His long neck dipped down, his hideous face leering as though it would turn the very cats to stone.

“I wouldn’t be so foolish,” Elfloq answered with feeling. “I’ve waited patiently.”

Drath quietly set cold meat and more wine down and Snare wolfed the food. He scowled at the innkeeper. “Is this true? Or did he try to flap his way out of my trap?”

Drath smiled. “He wasted a little effort, no more.”

Snare laughed bitterly, spitting out particles of food. He pointed to the familiar.

“To business! Invoke your master. Do it at once.”

Elfloq had retreated as far as the window ledge and hopped up on to it again. “I knew how invaluable time was, master. Already he is summoned.”

“Again!” snarled the tall one, rising and flinging a tankard at Elfloq. It shattered against stone and several cats hissed in the dark. As soon as Snare saw them, he hunched down as if about to be attacked. “Damn these creatures! Can’t you get them out of here, innkeeper?”

Drath made no move to do so, but spoke softly to them.

“Ask him,” said Elfloq. “Ask him if my master is coming.”

Snare scowled horribly at Drath. “Well? Has he done it? Did he perform his disgusting ritual while awaiting us?”

Drath studied Elfloq for a moment, then nodded.

Snare strode to the innkeeper, mindful of the restless legion of cats that had been reforming since Vulparoon’s exit. “So he’s done it, has he? Then you’ll know the name that he called on, eh? What was it?”

Drath ignored Elfloq’s frantic mime behind Snare’s long back. “I heard only one word.”

“Yes?”

“Voidal.”

Snare whipped round and fixed Elfloq with a withering gaze. “So you spoke the truth for once!”

“Of course.”

“Excellent!” Snare turned upon the wretched Orgoom. “Time for you to earn your part in this, Gelder. Remember that Ubeggi has offered to restore you, to make you a man once more, if you serve him as you ought. I must go and prepare. Shatterface will soon be here. Wait for him and be sure that Elfloq does not try to wriggle away. There’s more work for that scum yet.” Snare guzzled the last of the wine and went to the door, kicking out at a cat that had strayed near him, and then was gone.

At once Elfloq rushed over to Orgoom. “Let us hurry away before Shatterface arrives.”

But Orgoom barred the way, flashing his curled sickles. “We wait.”

Elfloq drew back, appealing to Drath. “Tell him to stand aside.”

Drath came to them. “I understand little of what is happening, but I spoke for you just now, familiar. Perhaps I was atoning for almost letting the cats have you. Now I am curious about your master, this Voidal, whom so many people wish to inconvenience.”

“He is all-powerful. He will destroy Ybaggog, and after that, the Weaver himself. The Gelder is foolish to think Ubeggi is stronger.”

Orgoom’s face was set. “We wait.”

“You wait,” said Elfloq. “I wish to leave.”

“Why?” said Drath. “Since the Voidal is your master.”

Orgoom nodded. “You said he would be my master. I meet him and see.”

The door opened yet again. Elfloq hopped back with an inadvertent squeak as the new visitor stepped forward. It was Shatterface. His steel helm gleamed, only the hellish eyes visible, his tall body encased in linked mail.

“You are expected,” said Drath. “If you can do the things that your servant here promises, all Ulthar should welcome you, demon or otherwise.”

Shatterface turned his mask upon the man. “Where is Snare?”

“This is not my master,” said Elfloq, trying to inject a great deal of meaning into his voice, and indeed, Drath was quick to understand. This, he guessed, must be the last of the black envoys that the familiar had spoken of to the travellers from the South.

“Snare prepares way,” said Orgoom.

“Quite,” said Elfloq. “Why not sit and take wine?”

Shatterface did not answer, but he sat.

“Voidal coming,” said Orgoom.

Shatterface turned to him like a hound at bay.

“Invoked already?” He wrenched out his sword, and it sang evilly as he pointed it at Elfloq. “You’d like me to wait, wouldn’t you, familiar? I’ve not forgotten how your interference once cost me my prize, the restoration of my face. I should cut out your vitals and feed them to you—”

“Better to go!” Elfloq cried. “Ubeggi’s plans will come to nothing if the Voidal arrives and finds you.”

Shatterface lowered the frightful weapon. “The Dark Gods have put this blade in my hands. It is the Sword of Madness. When the time is ripe, familiar, I will have your head for a lamp.” He got up and marched away into the night.

“Strange company you keep,” said Drath. “Who is he?”

“He was once a god,” said Elfloq. “The most beautiful god of all, but vanity undid him. The Dark Gods punished him by destroying his face and by dispersing one half of it throughout the omniverse. Once they promised him they would return it if he helped them to destroy the Voidal. He failed them—”

“You were involved?”

“As a mere onlooker,” Elfloq said modestly. “But I fear that the Dark Gods have given him yet another chance to strike at my master, with the Sword of Madness.”

“Then if the Dark Gods and Ubeggi are united against your master,” said Drath, “the odds would not seem to be very good, wouldn’t you say?”

Neither of them had noticed the deepening shadow in the corner of the inn furthest from the embers of the fire. The cats stirred and arched themselves at something there, and Elfloq knew at once what had happened: the summons of the Asker had not gone unanswered. Orgoom drew back, more fretful than the cats. In a moment the darkness cleared a little to reveal a man sitting at the table, his attire blacker than that of the sky outside. Drath shuddered, recognising at once the power locked inside that form.

“Master!” cried Elfloq, hopping to the side of the Voidal.

“Elfloq? Have you been working your trickery again?”

“You wrong me, master, as always.”

“Indeed? How did I come here? Where is this place?”

Drath came forward. “You are in Ulthar, the city of cats.”

The Voidal nodded, though this meant nothing to him. He stared at the unhappy visage of Orgoom. “I know you.”

The Blue Gelder was shivering, shaking his head.

Elfloq grinned. “Orgoom, master. You once saved him from Ubeggi’s wrath. For which the Weaver has not forgiven you, but for which Orgoom repays you by going back to that vile heap of—”

“Yes, I recall some of my past. It is more of a dream. Orgoom is a renegade? Was it you that summoned me, Gelder? If so, you may have cause to regret it.”

“It was me,” interrupted Elfloq at once.

The Voidal scowled at him impatiently. “Silence, imp. Who was it?”

“But it was me!” insisted Elfloq.

The dark man looked at him with mounting annoyance. “It could not have been you, Elfloq. I told you once before that if you ever summoned me, it would be your undoing.”

“Yes, master. Indeed you did. But it was me.”

The Voidal stared at him for a long time. He knew that Elfloq was lying, for he understood clearly the complete terror in which the little familiar held him. Elfloq would never have invoked him, under pain of a dozen grim deaths. They had shared too many dark deeds. No one knew more than Elfloq of the dark man’s powers. The Voidal assumed that Elfloq, therefore, was hatching yet more schemes and lying for a deliberate reason. For the time being he would pretend to accept this. “It was you?”

“Quite so, master.”

“I see. Then I am bound by the laws of the Dark Gods whom I serve to obey your wishes. What am I to do for you?”

“
I
will tell you,” came the voice of Snare, grating along the walls of the night. He stood by the door, slick with sweat, panting with exertion. “Elfloq takes
my
commands.”