Gog (Lost Civilizations: 4) (16 page)

“No sound now,” Keros whispered.

A vast trap door rose from the floor. It was a twenty-foot slab of marble, hinged at one end. It swung back and hit the floor with a boom. Out of it slithered an oily, evil shadow. It billowed. It rolled. It clouded like dense smoke. The stench was vile, a mixture of odors sulfurous, carrion and burned-out, gutted homes. It roiled, boiled and filled the vast room. Keros felt as if he were sinking into evil, into a dark that he would never escape. He threw an arm over his eyes. He pressed his nostrils. Bessus croaked and gagged. Through slit eyelids, Keros watched the torches grow dim. The radius of their light weakened. Soon, the priests seemed like a tiny oasis of light in a surging sea of blackness.

The tread resumed. Gog—at least Keros was certain it must be he—rose from the crypt. The vast being cloaked himself in the swirling shadows. His steps vibrated the floor. Behind him, rattled chains and stumbled a manacled captive. Keros tried to pierce the shadows. For an instant, he had the sense of an unblinking, solitary eye turned toward him, an eye evil in knowledge and dreadful in power. Then, a slippery thing, like a giant eel or snake or tentacle, lashed into view. The shadows congealed and thickened.

“Mighty Gog!” shouted the priests, their dull eyes transfixed, their manner drugged.

The First Born grunted. The chained captive rose in the air as something black held him around the torso. The man screamed and entered the shadows of Gog. A moment later, a meaty, heavy slap told of his placement upon the altar.

“Gog! Gog! Gog!” chanted the priests, their torches tiny points of light.

“Tell us the future, O Gog!” wailed the leader.

Shadows parted. Wet, blubbery skin shone and an impossibly huge shoulder seemed to hunch. Crunching sounds, of breaking bones or bursting limbs, emanated from the altar.

“Gog!” screamed his minions.

Sickened and horrified, Keros yanked Bessus to his feet, dragged him from the idol and into the open spaces.

The thirteen priests moaned and swayed. Their torches crackled, as if from far away. They worshipped their terrible master.

Bessus was ghost-white, was shaking, and he gobbled silently. Keros drew his Bolverk-forged blade, encouraged in this den of wickedness by holding a weapon. As the First Born moaned in ecstatic foretelling, Keros, and his outcast beastmaster, put their feet onto the hidden stairs. As noiselessly as mice, they raced down, until they entered pitch-darkness. Then they crept, holding hands, Keros tapping his blade against the wall.

“What if there are deadfalls?” whispered Bessus.

“Why would there be?”

“Gog is cunning, terrible and filled with malice. Oh, we are doomed. I had forgotten how awful and dreadful he is. We dare not go on.”

“We dare not stop and wait for Gog’s return.”

Bessus trembled anew.

Keros shook him.

“Why did you seek me out?” shrieked Bessus. He ripped out of Keros’s grasp.

Keros lunged, but the beastmaster skipped back. Keros listened, and was rewarded by a sly step to his right. He crept nearer. Bessus shuffled a little farther. Keros followed. Then, the rustle of clothes told of Bessus’s growing boldness. Keros lunged and grabbed Bessus’s arm.

“No!”

Keros didn’t waste anymore time or sympathy. He used the pommel of his dagger and punched Bessus under the ribs. The explosive cough told most of it, Bessus’s slumping completed the tale. In that bent-over, wheezing state, in the pitch-blackness, Keros led Bessus down a long length of stairs. Finally, he fumbled the lantern off Bessus’s back, unwound the cloth that had kept it from rattling, and handed it, and the tinderbox, to the beastmaster.

“Light it.”

Bessus struck sparks. The flashes of light showed horror-filled eyes. Black moss and fungi clung to the walls. Old bloodstains marred the steps. Then the wick caught, and lantern-light only made the scene more horrible. Bessus lifted the lantern. Keros clutched his dagger with a white-knuckled grip.

“Lead the way,” said Keros.

Bessus faced the depths. The lantern rattled as his hand shook.

“Use two hands.”

Bessus did, and started down the stairs.

Keros inspected the cyclopean blocks. Water damage, moss and muck hadn’t had much impact, even though this passage felt thousands of years old. He wondered about Tamar, and said a silent prayer for her safety.

“Look,” said Bessus.

There were grooves in the floor and a huge boulder-wheel to the side. This must have been what they had heard before.

Bessus wrinkled his nose. Keros gathered saliva and spit, trying to get the awful taste out of his mouth.

“Gog’s lair?” whispered Keros.

“His ways are higher than our ways,” Bessus half-chanted.

“Higher, beastmaster? Doesn’t that stink tell you anything?”

“With training, you can ignore it.”

“Ignore it? Bessus, we’re given a sense of smell so we can avoid evil.”

“Gog is not evil,” said Bessus.

A dry laugh was all Keros could manage. Then they entered the moss-laden lair of Gog.

Chapter Seventeen

The Oracle

I lay at his feet ten gold bars, twenty silver sacks and slaves both comely and strong. To the one hidden in shadows I bowed, and with my dagger cut my wrist, dripping blood on my oath, binding my soul with awful spells. Then did Gog speak. Then he beheld my future. Now my sire is dead, my uncles slain and I am the king of the land.

-- Testament of Zoar

Tamar shivered as Adoni-Zedek stepped into the room. The lean priest, with his red silken robes and with a bare skull dangling from his throat, seemed vile and evil. His gaze was pitiless. The shaven scalp seemed right for him, the trident tattoo perfectly matched with his demonic soul. He had sucked-in cheeks, and instead of lips, he had a slit for a mouth. His eyes—they had a soulless stare, like a cobra about to strike.

The others cowered, bowing, dropping to their knees.

“She is free,” said Adoni-Zedek, as if she were rabid, as if they were cretins for allowing such an outrage.

The watch leader hurried to rectify the oversight. He snapped his fingers, and priests lunged at Tamar. They thrust her into an obscene sort of chair. They slammed her chest against a board, and her teeth clacked painfully as they pushed her chin onto a wooden slat. Leather straps went around her head, pinning it and squeezing her skull as they tightened cinches. They stretched her arms onto the table and strapped them down. Iron bars
snicked,
as they secured her torso and legs.

“Better,” said Adoni-Zedek, as he drew a razor from his robes.

Beads of perspiration pooled on Tamar’s face. Despite her resolve, she shivered.

The hellish priest, his skin much too white, smiled as a “Hello” oozed from his crack of a mouth.

She stared into his snaky eyes.

“I’m told you spoke with Zepho.”

Tamar wanted to tell him that it was a lie, a mistake, a terrible misunderstanding and she would like to go home now, please.

“We can’t find Zepho,” interrupted the watch leader.

Irritation crossed Adoni-Zedek’s lean features.

The watch leader bowed several times, each repetition deeper than the one before.

“Yes, yes, you’re sorry that you’re alive,” Adoni-Zedek said. “Now tell me the facts, quickly.”

“She claims Zepho fell off the acropolis.”

“And that didn’t strike you as strange?” asked Adoni-Zedek.

“It did, noble one, but the rats—”

“What about them?” Adoni-Zedek interrupted.

“They weren’t there.”

“
Where
weren’t they?”

“At the base of the acropolis, noble one, at the mouth of the meat chute—the rats were not there.”

“Ah…” Adoni-Zedek glanced at Tamar, and then he told the watch leader. “She hides truth.”

“Such was my own belief, noble one.”

“You’ve checked the base of the acropolis?”

“Yes, noble one. The rats were gone, or they were when we checked. We found a rat boat.”

“Which seems perfectly obvious since she is a rat hunter,” said Adoni-Zedek.

“I don’t understand, noble one.”

Adoni-Zedek moved around the table.

Tamar strained, but her face was strapped down, and she couldn’t turn her head. He could be doing anything back there. She screamed as he pressed a razor against her neck. He didn’t cut her. He merely let her feel the cold steel. She squeezed closed her eyes, and wondered if before the night was through if she would curse the name of Keros.

“You didn’t meet with Zepho,” Adoni-Zedek whispered in her ear. He had hot breath. “You climbed the acropolis’s face and Zepho found you, and you pushed him over.”

“Impossible,” said the watch leader.

There was a moment of silence before Adoni-Zedek purred, “Do you wish me to interrogate
you
, watch leader?”

“Mercy, noble one.”

“I have none to give to chattering fools,” said Adoni-Zedek.

The watch leader paled.

“How did you banish the rats from the meat chute?” Adoni-Zedek whispered into her ear.

“Zepho—”

He pressed the cold razor against her neck. “Please, my dear, no lies, not tonight, not unless you wish to inhabit my skull.”

“What?” Tamar asked.

The evil priest moved back into sight, pulling up a stool and sitting at the table. He put a clammy hand on her strapped-down forearm. His fingers were long, smooth, with polished fingernails, long fingernails, lacquered perhaps, hardened and sharpened like claws. “It is a bloody process, my dear.” He showed her his teeth in a parody of a smile. “I peel your skin from you, and chant to those on the other side. As I lift your skin and take your life, I tease your spirit into here.” He thumped the skull onto the table, so that twin gems in the eye-sockets winked with candlelight.

“You can do that?” she whispered, feeling as if someone had rammed a pole into her stomach.

“I assure you, it isn’t easy, but….” He squeezed her forearm. “Speak, rat hunter, tell me the truth. If you do, I will merely feed you to my beast. He hungers for tender flesh such as yours.”

Tamar had to clamp shut her mouth, otherwise she would have screamed loud and long. She might never have stopped.

He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“You must believe me,” she said, in her most convincing tone. “I met with Zepho, and he had an accident. It was terrible, and I really didn’t mean it.”

Adoni-Zedek didn’t sigh, glare or even shake his head. “I see,” he said simply, and he stood. He tapped his chin a moment. Then, his eyes alighted on the stinkpot, which was yet unopened. “What is that?”

“It was on her back,” said the watch leader.

“What is it?” Adoni-Zedek asked her.

“Zepho’s magic formula,” said Tamar.

Adoni-Zedek lifted an eyebrow. He turned to the watch leader. “Give me several of your men. I’m taking this little liar to my room for….” He chuckled. “…For a visit with my skinning knife.”

***

As the thirteen priests chanted his name, and as the blood ran red under his warty grip, Gog stood transfixed, rooted, his single eye squeezed shut, surrounded by the towering idols of the Old Ones. In this wicked fane, this evil, ancient Temple of Magog, the idols of Dagon, Moloch the Hammer, Azel, Anak and the others, seemed to radiate and call out to the nether world of spirits. A warp within the cosmos, a tear, a rent, a widening of his power singularly occurred here. The sacrifice oiled the mystic mechanisms. The
feel
of ancient abilities and beings strengthened him in his gift. He, who could transverse the eldritch paths, concentrated his power upon the possible futures.

Dark images swirled within his inhuman mind. Glimpses, scenes of what could be, might be, ways and possibilities opened before him. Gog struggled to control the visions, to choose. It was always difficult, draining and hard. The more an event concerned him, the more it took from him. He breathed heavily. A moist, sickly sweat oozed from his being. He called out vile words, bound himself further and deeper into depravity. There were so many images, so many choices, ways and possibilities. Ah! He decided. Down this road, this choice, yes, yes, these were indeed his plans. Surely, here lay power, prestige and oh, his most secret hope that he dared not dwell upon too long, lest the One, his Enemy—no, better not even to conjure Him with deep thoughts.

Gog peered into a future, and he groaned in misery. No, no, this couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. He had foreseen each trouble and worked hard to eradicate it. He allowed himself to be swept along this time-stream, to see if he could find the source of this trouble or misstep. Fighting visions as they unfolded was like trying to swim upstream of a raging whitewater rapid. It simply wasn’t possible.

In his vision, armies marched in serried ranks. They were the wrong armies, those of his enemies, all together and under one dreadful banner. Huri, in eagle-feather headdresses, jogged in front of the hosts, their black bows strung and copper hatchets dangling from their leather belts. He counted seven clans, seven! The Mountain Eagles, the Panthers…. Gog roved beyond the primitive Huri. He studied the tribes of chanting Shurites. Each of the Ten Tribes had sent warriors. He saw sling-armed Massa, they with heavy bronze balls that could be hurled at terrific velocity, able to smash shields. The Kedar, with the agility of mountain goats, marched beside the Amalak. Mentally, within the vision, Gog shook his head. This was wretched, unbelievable. Behind the Shurites followed Elonites in chariots. Something unforeseen had gone wickedly wrong. Elonites and Shurites were blood foes, sworn enemies… yet they marched together. The proud nobles in their shining armor held aloft chariot lances. War dogs, huge, vicious beasts ran behind the rattling carts. In the dust of the chariots, toiled armored swordsmen from Thala and spearmen from Further Tarsh. Their huge round shields were incredibly distinctive and the manner of tight ranks of phalanxes quite horrible. Soldiers from Carthalo tramped with flint-armed Arkites, from the mountains far to the south of Shamgar. Taken altogether, the armies crawled upon the hills and through the plains, armies as numerous as ants, legions, hordes, a vast throng come to wage war against him, Gog, the First Born of supreme brilliance.

Against these hordes, there stood only a pitiful handful of giants. Big warriors, tall and dangerous, to be sure, but so few, so paltry and looking so dispirited. With them hunched a ragged band of fiends, those furry, bear-like beings, with their long-handled axes and eight-foot swords. From the way they glanced over their humped shoulders, Gog took it to mean they would soon turn traitor. Almost, he couldn’t blame them. Gibborim, with cloaks thrown over their faces to hide them from the sun, dug holes in order to escape the day. Because the Nephilim cowered or showed fear, sullen Nebo tribesmen grumbled as Defenders whipped them forward, or they pretended to stumble as they whined of the uselessness of facing the approaching armies. Pale-skinned men of Dishon bore their barbed spears. They drew up their cloaks and glanced at one other, realizing only now how horrible their bargain with Gog had been. They would die, cursing their stupidity. Frightened nobles of Pildash blew their conch horns as they sounded the retreat. They did not intend to die, not as long as they could run and had breath in their bodies.

What had led to this path of disaster, defeat and misery? What fatal choice had he made so this lay ahead for the pathetic remnants of the hordes of Gog? He couldn’t see it from the armies before him. He searched their ranks to make sure, studied their leaders, peered at the banners and discovered nothing, no clue, not even a possibility.

Grimly, within the inner sanctum of the Temple, Gog struggled to understand. Slowly… could… hmmm. Perhaps he hadn’t been strong enough. His enemies had united because he lacked power and strength, to cow them sufficiently. Yet he didn’t know how else to augment his armies.

Ah…. Perhaps that was the answer, or
an
answer.

Gog withdrew from the vision, found that the blood on the altar hadn’t yet congealed and so oiled another path, a different future or possibility. In his new vision, he sped far, far away, east, across the swamps. He went to the shores of the Sea of Nur. Pebbles lined this shore, a vast field of them that led into the green waves that lapped upon the shore. In this green sea, this placid body of water floated a ship, a barge of some sort. He recognized people on the ship. What was the half-Nephilim from Giant Land doing here? Mentally, Gog shrugged. Perhaps Vidar would do something in the near future to truly recommend himself. Because it was a vision, the barge moved supernaturally fast. The pebble shore changed to rocks and boulders and then to a semi-swamp. Vines, creepers and palms grew on this shore. Marching out of the water waded a giant beast, a monster, a thing: ah, the mighty behemoth, he with the cedar tail. The behemoth roared, and the vines, creepers and small palms trembled. O, truly a monster without compare, such was the behemoth.

The vision wavered, flickered and almost winked out. So the First Born Gog, son of Magog, concentrated for a final lap of knowledge. He had to know more. He lusted to discover the key to avoid that wretched end at the hands of all his enemies marching as one.

In his vision, as if they were dolls—they were so small, and far away seeming—he saw a party, a few men, with wagons and beaters, and… and… beastmasters! Ah, he understood, or he was beginning to.

The images shifted once again. At the end like this—when his strength waned—the scenes started shifting, so he couldn’t concentrate upon just one vision and carefully examine it. They became maddening, because they gave him a glance enough to entice, and whet his appetite for more and more knowledge, but not enough to
know
. Still, he saw another army, a mere remnant of those who had earlier stood against him. Perhaps a tenth as many warriors marched against him this time. Leading his forces, shaking the very ground, trod the behemoth.

Then—

Gog’s single, red-rimmed eye flew open. Around him stood thirteen priests, their arms trembling as they held aloft their guttered torches. Hundred foot idols towered round him. The lurid light flickered off bronze, iron and marble.

Behemoth. He must send men to capture the creature. Ah, the Sea of Nur, which lay east across the swamps.