The Face of the Deep

 Though short, the walk to the temple seemed to them both to last an age. Menepatros seethed with uncertainty and Tex waited for some betrayal, for guards to leap from the shadows or Menepatros himself to wheel about and draw his sword. They climbed the old ziggurat's steps in silence, pausing only so the prince of Nar could pay his respects to the serpentine idol looming before an unlit corridor. The sound of chanting reached them from far off, distorted by the odd geometry of the vast cavern. Attendants handed them both torches and Menepatros held his sword aloft before entering.

“Sometimes there are creatures in these depths that would rather we not intrude,” he said.

“So we're going to do it anyway,” Tex muttered.

The hall beyond the idol was so narrow that Tex had to squeeze in sideways, shuffling over the granite blocks with sword held before him and the torch behind. Gargoyles stood in alcoves to either side, lion's bodies with human heads whose agonized features were rendered so realistically that the stone seemed only a thin layer of dust over living beings. A voice called to him, unrecognizable at first as belonging to Menepatros. “The destruction visited upon Narakur was absolute. The swords of the conquerors were sheathed in hierarchs and kings. The final humiliation was the murder of the god Erebaia, though by then the cause was already hopeless. It was to be an eternal reminder of how far this once great land had fallen.”

All around him, just past the fitful flickering of the torch, was a darkness beyond night, one on which the mind might project any terror if one carelessly gazes into it, as though he walked into the primordial mire from which consciousness originally sprang in long-forgotten days of tooth and claw. “It is no simple thing, however, to kill one who embodies the world itself. Even in death Erebaia's blood flowed into the farthest reaches of the deep. When Ubashekar discovered this place he found altars of steel fed by that same blood.” The corridor turned and he felt its shallow incline, a long, steady descent toward destination unknown. “Exile from the surface made the practitioners of the old rites feral, twisted, barely human. But they knew. They drank lost knowledge, breathed it in.” Hot air blew from deeper in the structure. It was damp, heavy, and oppressive, and rolled over him in waves accompanied by a ragged susurration. Beads of condensed moisture trickled down the walls as though the stone itself were sweating. “The man made himself their emissary. But the people of Horon failed to understand. They did not share our dream.” As he walked the already imposing voice seemed to double, a sonorous noise that could have come from the walls or the passage ahead or from within his own skull, a voice from which all distance and dimension had been stripped such that there was only the sensation of the words themselves, deep in his head, in his bones. “In time they learned what strength there is in the Beast of Woe. Even in death. And the altars were slaked with the blood of man once more.”

The hall debouched into a vast chamber dominated by a pit as dark as the depths of space and about which a fringe had been carved from the cavern wall for the denizens of that place to look upon the face of the deep.

The sukallu, Ubashekar, seemed entirely a different man than he had in the throne room of the palace back in Anu Ra. He stood tall, imbued with an obvious vitality that should long ago have been lost to him. One hand rested easily on a staff of yew, carved to resemble a serpent with a lion's head. Beside him, silent but alert, was the myrmidon Menepatros in his expressionless mask.

“That's a neat trick. Did you fly express?” Tex asked.

“I hurried back at the first sign of trouble. You've made quite a bit for me, you should know.”

Tex shrugged. “Oh well.”

“How simple for you to say. You've no idea how close you came to undoing the design toward which I have been working nearly my entire life.”

“Well don't be shy, now. Go on, tell me about it.”

“Gladly,” said the sukallu. “When I discovered this cavern I was awed by its monuments, by their age and the ingenuity of their construction. I communed with the sad, degraded beings left here and decided the responsibility must fall upon me to resurrect this fallen land. To restore its lost greatness. But this could not be accomplished so long as there remained the hole in its heart left by the death of its patron.”

“So you told the king and he started rounding up people to give to it. To wake it up,” said Tex.

“Just as you say. And while he prepared the way at home I traveled the world, found an upstart kingdom, and made myself indispensable to its ruler. I waited for an heir to be born and poisoned the queen to ensure there would be no rival claimant. And when the time was right I sent for Asphodel, who was to take his place. A witch of Nar on the throne of Ersetu.”

“Sure. But what makes her so important? I thought she was just an apprentice witch.”

“She is no apprentice, but one of the most gifted necromancers I have ever heard of and the future of my family.”

“Some future. Look what you're doing here.”

“I see,” the old man answered, “though perhaps not exactly what you see.”

“Say you sacrifice enough people to bring your god back. Seems to me you won't have much of a country left. How do you know this thing will even do what you want?”

“The bond between a people and their god is impossible to dissolve. We will be blessed as we were in days past. How badly out of your depth you are when it comes to questions of theology.”

Tex shrugged again. “I'm just a simple country boy. I do what feels right and hope it'll work out somehow.”

“What a troublesome word, 'somehow.' The first refuge of a deficient mind. If a man abandons his reason, what then separates him from the animals? You,” said the sukallu, “are too strong to truly believe what you say. You came here of your own will, for a reason.”

“Come on. We both know I'm not the mastermind here. I was just following along.”

“It certainly can't be that prince. There was never any hope for him.” A regretful tone intruded, if only slightly, into his voice. “He might have been capable enough in time. Not exceptional, but adequate to the demands of kingship. He simply never had a chance. The weight of expectation was too much for him to bear. To prove himself, he embarked on some mad quest as if it is the act that makes the hero.”

“Then what does?”

“It is an innate quality only possessed by a few. Consider Asphodel, for example. She appears willful enough, and I am certain she believes herself free from my influence, yet what has her defiance amounted to? It has, in the final estimation, placed her exactly where I want. She has delivered the prince to our king, this time beyond the reach of salvation. She has ensured that when he dies the appropriate rituals will succeed, for the blood of royalty is a potent thing. What more could I have asked of her?” The sukallu tapped his staff on the ground and appeared for a moment to contemplate the gruesome figure of its head. “Poor Asphodel. All her life, a dog in search of a master.”

“I reckon you don't have a high opinion of anyone, do you?”

“I would like to. But how could I, when humanity refuses to give me a reason? I have searched – oh, how I have searched – but have found in the living naught but a pale imitation of the dead. So I sought out the old ways. Tried and true ways.” He sighed. “It was no easy task abandoning the land I had lived in for half my life. I could have remained with Pazugesar and been a man of some consequence. But there are times when a man must risk all he is and ever could be. That is the hero's distinction.”

Tex looked at the ruins about them, scarred things about the edge of the pit, eroded beyond all recognition. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Yes, I am aware that everything dies in time. Such is the way of things. Someday – today, possibly – you will return to the dirt from whence you came.”

“Eventually. Not here, though.”

“That bravado of yours is quite unnecessary.”

“I'm saying it's impossible for me to die here. If I did – and I won't – I'll wake up in my bed and go about my day,” Tex said. “Just a bad dream.”

Ubashekar was still and silent, the struggle within him evident only by a slight narrowing of eyes suddenly cold and alert. Though his body was not what it had once been he still had wits honed by a lifetime of political intrigue.

“You mean to say none of this is real to you, is that it?”

“Of course it's real,” Tex replied. “It's your world. I'm just a guest in it for a little while.”

“And an unwelcome one at that.”

“I don't control where I go or even really know how this works. All I can do is play the hand I'm given.” Tex smiled. “Soon I'll be off exploring some other world. No matter what happens here.”

“And supposing you speak the truth and this world is as ephemeral to you as smoke, why do any of this? Why fight?” asked Ubashekar.

“Because it's fun.”

The old man stared, dumbfounded. “Fun?”

“Well, yeah. I'm not doing this for money or because I care who's in charge of your country, and I sure don't care about the finer points of whatever snake religion you're trying to spread here. This is just what I do.”

“I can tolerate being thwarted by an equal,” said Ubashekar, “but a simpleton like you won't do at all. Menepatros, kill him.” Having given the order, he saw no need to observe its fulfillment and hastened to some point deeper in the dark expanse. The other swordsman stood, hand on the hilt of his enchanted blade.

“I must say, I've never seen an outsider quite like you. All the others die as any normal man,” said Menepatros. “I wonder what will become of you.”

“Keep wondering.” With that, the duel begun on the mountain resumed.