The Best Laid Plans â¦
All about the deck of
Shantak
her crew crouched and waited, weighed down with weapons and nervous in the knowledge that they awaited the advent of three of dreamland's most fabulous citizensânot to mention an entire grim of its leathery, most legended beasts. They hid in open holds ready to spring out at a moment's notice, behind and atop the cabin on the deck, beneath canvas covers and in the folds of furled sailsâso that with the sole exception of a lookout on the bridge, the ship looked and seemed completely deserted.
And yet the entire crew was there: humans (however degenerate), Lengites, and pseudo-aristocrat “masters”; and all of them grim-eyed in the surety of the imminent arrival of their enemiesâand then that there would be a deal of blood before that trio was subdued. Some there were aboard
Shantak
who, having previously felt the fury of Hero and Eldin, would gladly be elsewhere; but Oorn herself, through the medium of her High Priest, had ordered the taking of the three. Moreover, they were not to be harmed, not seriouslyânot immediately.
No, for these ex-waking-worlders had become so pestilentialâso dangerous and damaging to the schemes of the Great Old Ones, even to the Great Old Ones themselvesâthat they must now be handled personally. And Oorn had been given that honor, that small but significant task of removing
them forever from Earth's dreamland and so from the immemorial battle between Good and Evil.
As to how they had come to be worthy of her personal attention: they were too rapidly grown into legends. Legends were dangerous; living legends even more so. There were others like these two (these three, if Gytherik were included). There was Lord Kuranes of Serannian and King Carter of Ilek-Vad. Aye, and that damned de Marignyâhis meddling son, too, and the equally troublesome Titus Crowâbut none of the latter were here now. Present or otherwise, all had been responsible, in one way or another, for the suppression of the darker side of dreams.
Had not Hero and Eldin destroyed Thinistor Udd, a powerful ally of the Forces of Evil? And the centuried, mad First One who could have been such an asset to the darkside powers? Even Yibb-Tstll's dreamland avatarâin the shape of a huge stone idol carved in His likenessâhad fallen to their mischief and gone down in fragments; and who could say what other blasphemies might yet be ascribed to their devious hands if they were allowed to continue?
The Dukes of Isharra (those bungling dupes) had tried to deal with them and failed miserably; so too the Eidolon Lathi and Zura of Zura. And as for the horned ones of Lengâthose alien minions of the moonbeasts who served Mnomquah and Oornâwhy, they had proved less than useless! That was why Oorn Herself must now take vengeance upon them and see to it that they offend no longer. Indeed, that they
exist
no longer!
All of this Oorn had explained to her High Priest where he dwelled at the rim of her pit prison, and he had dutifully passed it on to dupes and worshippers alike. The questers were to be taken alive, ayeâand then sacrificed to Oorn Herself; fed to her in her pit, a delicious repast to give her strength for her impending mating â¦
And now they cameâout of curling, night-thickened mists of oceanâcame from the south on great membrane wings. A triangle of stealth in the sky, with Gytherik above, riding the
huge gaunt which was his personal mount, and Hero and Eldin below, where each dangled from the paws of lesser beasts. Hero was suspended beneath Sniffer and Biffer, that pair of most splendid night-gaunts, while Eldin (because of his greater bulk) had been given into the care of two somewhat sturdier if duller creatures.
Unerringly they cameâover the now submerged quays, flitting bat-borne across the mighty sea-wall where the mad ocean raced mere feet from the worn and weathered rimâbeneath wings trimmed for speed, and now for rapid descent as Hero pointed out
Shantak
where she was moored, somewhat apart from the bulk of the Lengite fleet. Down they swept, a black blur of motion in the near-darkness, a glint of steel, of slitted eye, the merest
hiss
of air across arcing membrane vanes.
“The females you seek are aboard
Shantak,”
the horned ones had informed without the slightest hesitation. “They have locked themselves tight in the cabin of the Dukes of Isharra, which they now defend for their very lives!” For which information they had been granted
their
lives. The grim had flown them to a mountain pass at the foot of that great range which went up to Leng's forbidden plateau, from where they had gladly scrambled into obscurity. With luck they might return to their homeland of eternal twilight and desolation, and without luck ⦠that was their problem. They had been only too glad to be released alive and intact, and free to use what little time remained in putting as much distance as possible between themselves and damned, doomed Sarkomand.
⦠Now the watchman on
Shantak's
bridgeâan Isharranâspied the three where they soared down silently out of darkness. A large and fearless brute of a man, he gave the alert, cried out once and once only as Eldin sprang down beside him, knocked aside his weapon, hoisted him up bodily and threw him down across the rail and into space. Then the rest of the gaunts were down and Hero and Gytherik crouched together on the deck, ears alert, listening to an almost painful silence.
“He cried out,” came Eldin's hoarse whisper from the bridge. “If others heardâ”
“Where the hell is everyone?” asked Gytherik, his voice hushed in the darkness.
“They must be asleep,” answered Hero. “Land-lubbers, these Dukes. You'd not expect to find them aboard. Still ⦔ and he paused, then shook his head. “It doesn't smell right to me,” he said, “but no time to worry about it now. So let's be at it, eh? The girls are in the main cabin, soâ” He strode up onto the bridge beside Eldin, and together they turned to face the humped, blanket-draped bulk of the Masters' cabin.
As Gytherik joined the pair, Eldin yanked aside a blanket and found the sturdy door. “Ula,” he hoarsely called, keeping his voice low and gently rattling the iron doorknob. “Una, it's usâHero and Eldin.”
Inside the cabin the girls had heard the single cry of the watchman in that moment before Eldin launched him into eternity. Now they heard the Wanderer's gruff query and sprang to the doorâwhere caution froze their hands even as they trembled on bolts and bars.
“Quickly, girls!” came Hero's unmistakable voice, vibrant in its urgency. “We haven't much time. We're here to take you out of this.”
Yet still they hesitated, and as Eldin rattled at the doorknob a second time Ula's fearful, breathless voice demanded: “Show your facesâat the small window in the door.”
Hearing her muffled cry, the questers pressed close to the tiny barred window and Eldin struck hot sparks to a taper taken from his pocket. In an instant the faces of the two showed a flickering yellow through grimy glass, and as Eldin snuffed out the little flame so the girls gasped their recognition and began tugging at bolts and removing heavy bars. Another moment or two and the door flew open, and female forms hurled themselves into powerful arms while Gytherik blushed with pleasure and youthful shyness in the darkness to one side.
“Hero!” the girls cried softly in unison. “And Eldin! Alive when we had feared you dead!”
Ula, peering about fearfully in the darkness, saw the gaunts where they clustered impatiently on the lower deck. She gasped and her hand flew to her mouthâ
“Shh!”
Hero warned. “They're only night-gauntsâand they're on our side.”
Now Una spotted Gytherik's shadowy form and she pressed closer to Eldin's massive chest. The Wanderer patted her soft shoulder and said, “This is Gytherik, and he too is a friend. He's the master of the gaunts there.”
“But where are all the Isharrans and those horrid Lengites?” questioned Ula. “There seemed to be so many of them â¦
Hero's skin seemed suddenly to prickle and he felt the shadows closing in on him. “So many of them?” he repeated the girl's words. “Here? ⦠When?”
“An hour ago at most,” she answered. “We heard them come aboard and thought the ship must sink with their weight, they seemed so many.” She clutched the quester tighter. “And Hero ⦔
“Yes?”
“We did not hear them leave!”
Hero and Eldin had time for one gnawing, agonized glance into each other's eyes. Thenâ
“We did
not
leave!” came the scornful, ringing voice of Byharrid-Imon Isharra. “And this time we have three of youâaye, and the girls too.”
Many things happened thenâhappened together, with mind-dazzling, stupefying speed as the Isharran trap was sprung. Black-robed figures fell from the roof of the cabin like giant spiders, slamming shut the door and placing their backs against it even as quester steel slithered from oiled scabbards. Gytherik called out to his gaunts, his youth's voice shivering in the night air. Holds were thrown open and squat, knife-wielding shapes poured forth. A gaunt leaped highâand fell soundlessly to the deck, its neck severed half
through. The rest of the grim lifted on violently throbbing wings; torches hissed into life, blinding with their glare; and out from their numerous hiding places sprang the rest of
Shantak's
crew, swords aloft to ward off swooping gaunts, all making for the bridge where already a frenzied crush surged to and fro in a mad melee.
The questers fought like madmen, hacking and slashing at all who stood before them; Gytherik too, fighting like a veteran alongside his mightier, meatier friends. Screams filled the night and blood splashed wetly in the torchlight, washing the bridge. Then the trio was inundatedâborne under, Ula and Una tooâby sheer weight of bodies, and vile paws and calloused hands grabbed up all five of them and rushed them to the ship's rail.
Blazing torches were hurled aloft to ward off fluttering, disorganized gaunts; hard fists delivered final blows to panting, scratching, biting, desperately kicking forms; and five figures were tossed from ship into cold night air. Gytherik was last to go, and as he shot headfirst overboard so he called out to his gaunts. Two of them, unafraid of the noise and the affray (Sniffer and Biffer, as might be guessed), having seen the descent of the girls and their would-be rescuers, were already diving through the night. Reacting to the gaunt-master's cry with impossible speed, they snatched his tumbling body from thin air and bore him swiftly away.
“Damn, damn,
damn!”
cried Gathnod-Natz'ill Isharra from
Shantak's
deck. His high-pitched, near-feminine voice was full of fury. “Those blasted gaunts have rescued their master!”
“But only him,” answered his brother in typically ringing tone, “and without his friends he's harmless. As for this so-called Hero of Dreams and his good friend Eldin the Wanderer, this time they are ours. Or ratherâthey are Oorn's!”
The brothers gazed into the torch-flickered shadows of
Shantak's
bridge. Corpses littered the planking and blood dripped blackly from bridge to lower deck. The ship stank of blood. A groan sounded where bodies sprawled thickest and
an arm lifted jerkilyâonly to fall back as life winked out. Pale for a moment, the Dukes turned back to the rail and their eyes stared with those of their depleted crew down at the scene some forty feet below.
There, caught in nets as they fell and now tight-wrapped in ropes, like human bobbins, the questers cursed and their women sobbed. Byharrid-Imon grinned cruelly and called down: “Curse and cry all you want, you four. Believe me, when you meet Oorn face to face you'll be glad you practiced!”
Hero stopped struggling and glared his hatred into the mad faces which grinned down on him from
Shantak's
rail. “So we're to have an audience with your monster Goddess, are we? Well, we've met such before. She can be no worse than the stinking scum she commands.”
“Can't she, indeed?” Byharrid-Imon roared with half-crazed laughter. “And who said anything about an audience, eh? No, no, my friends, not an audience exactly. You see, to propitiate Mnomquah's final plunge from moon to dreamlandsâyou four are to be sacrificed to his hungry mate!”
“Aye,” added his brother in shrill glee, “and sacrificed this very nightâright now!”
⦠Of Men and Gaunts
Bruised, bloodied and only half-conscious, Gytherik made no complaint but merely hung limp in the prehensile paws of his charges as, joined by the other pair of nightmarish creatures, they sped him back to the coast, across sea-wall and submerged quays, and up into the night sky toward Limnar Dass where he waited aboard
Gnorri II.
Had things gone as planned, this would have been a joyous trip, a victory flight. The five gaunts would now be flying in line abreast, with Gytherik riding his great gaunt on the flank and the questers and girls suspended beneath the rest of the line. The gaunts would be overloaded, to be sure, but not for long. Out over the sea they would be metâas even now they were metâby the rest of the grim, all three of them, who would then have taken their share of the burden.
That was how it should have been. Now, with the sole exception of the gaunt-master himselfâall dazed and battered and shaken upâthere was no burden; and the grim had lost a brave and worthy member.
With
Gnorri II
in sight Gytherik regained his wits and began to react to the cold night air gusting into his face. Sensing his recovery, the great gaunt which was his chosen mount slid beneath him where he dangled and took his weight. He held tight to the saddle, swaying a little as the grim descended to
Gnorri's
welcoming deck.
By this time the rim of the moon was showing like the crack of some false golden dawn all along the night horizon, but mercifully the heavens were still full of vapor, thin banks of cloud which obscured the mad yellow glare. In the sea, however, waterspouts were marching as before, and meteorites blazed across the night sky in fiery profusion. On the western horizon orange fires lit the land and made ruddy haloes on the underside of ashen clouds, and thick columns of smoke and tephra were aglow in the glare of freshly spawned volcanoes. The very air seemed charged with weird energies; and the thin clouds twisted and writhed as if tortured, even though the wind had fallen utterly away.
“Well,” said Limnar Dass when he had heard Gytherik's brokenly gabbled story, “at least with the wind fallen there'll be no chase, no unequal fight. But how did they know you were coming?”
Seated in the sky-Captain's cabin with his bruised head in his hands, Gytherik could only offer a miserable shrug. “I don't know,” he answered. “I only know that the whole thing was a mess, and that I'm lucky to have come out of it in one piece. If I hadn't been kicked half senselessâ” He shrugged again. “Certainly I would have tried to rescue themâand that would have been the end of me, too.”
“You think ⦠that they're dead, then?” Limnar had difficulty forcing the words out.
“No, not dead, not yet. As I fell I saw nets set to catch usâsaw the others bounce and tumbleâand the hordes who waited to leap upon them! No, not dead. They wanted to take us alive.”
Until now Limnar Dass had been calm, cool as a sky-Captain's training had made him. Training which had it that in a tight spotâwhen confronted by apparently insurmountable circumstances and difficultiesâstill there was always something one could do, as long as one refused to panic. Fine and proper advice coming from the lips of some hoary old Admiral who never in all his long career was so confronted ⦠but now? Limnar sprang to his feet and dragged Gytherik upright
and out of his chair. Face contorted in a fashion most unsuited to a man born of dreams, Limnar stared into the other's startled eyes, then shoved him roughly out through the cabin's doorway onto
Gnorri'
s bridge.
“Listen, lad,” the sky-Captain ground the words out of his mouth. “It's not just Hero and Eldinâthough without a doubt they're the finest, bravest pair of rogues a man ever knewânot just their lives we're talking about. Not even the lives of a pair of poor innocent lasses. No, this time it's everything! Everything, d'you hear?” And again he grabbed the youth's shoulders, his hands trembling with the urge to shake him.
At that Gytherik came out of his waking nightmare. The lines which made his young face haggard in the light of the ship's lamps took on a sterner mold. In ten seconds he seemed to mature by at least ten yearsâand abruptly he shook himself free from Limnar's grasp. With haunted eyes he looked at the moon, still rising, potent as some demon drug in the sky.
“You're right,” he told Limnar Dass then. “These two have become everything to me, but it's no longer just them. And Limnar ⦠tonight is the night! It must be. So what can we do? Is there anything we
can
do?”
Suddenly the sky-Captain's bearded face, whose lines never seemed quite so soft as those of other dreamlanders, broke into a craggy grin. He slapped Gytherik on the shoulder and jostled him back into the cabin, quickly poured two fat glasses of brandy and tossed his back. Gytherik followed suit and pulled a face.
“You know,” said Limnar, “you had me worried there for a moment.”
“You had
me
worried!” answered Gytherik with feeling. “But I know what you mean. At least I think I do.”
“Do you? Listen, we're dreamlanders, right? We're what Eldin calls
Homo ephemerans.
Which means that however we play it, our actions are governed by the dreams of men in the waking world. Our entire world has been built of their dreams since the first man dreamed his very first dream! And even
when they make the transition from waking world to dreamlands, still they seem to run the entire showâjust as we've seen in Hero and Eldin. Am I right?”
Without waiting for an answer, Limnar thumped the table and jumped to his feet. “Maybe it's just that something of those two has rubbed off on me,” he continued, “I don't know for sure, but I'm no longer satisfied merely to drift wherever dreams take me. Damn it allâI reckon it's about time we started to play our own cards!”
As if caught up in Limnar's fervor, lit by inspiration, Gytherik's face brightened for a moment. Then he relaxed and asked: “But what cards do we have to play? What can we do? Everything seems to be against us. If they were hereâwhy, they seem able to
make
things happen, andâ”
“But they're not here,” Limnar cried, “and
we
must make things happen!” He thumped the table again. “Now sit,” he said, “and let's work things out.” They sat and Limnar poured more brandy.
Gytherik sipped, thought, and frowned. He said: “Though the clouds boil, there's no wind. Our sails hang slack, so we won't be fighting any sky battle.”
“No,” Limnar answered, “but the enemy is stuck too. Until the wind rises we're becalmedâall of usâit's as simple as that.”
Gytherik nodded. “But we have the gaunts!”
“Too few,” said Limnar. “We can't launch an attack with a mere handful of gaunts. And that's not to belittle them, you understand.”
Gytherik began to grow despondent and it showed in his face. “You see? If those two double-damned questers were hereâwhy, they'd turn events in their own favor, make adversity work for and not against them!”
“Good thinking,” Limnar nodded. “So let's work on that. We don't have a lot going for us, so how can we use what stands against us? What, exactly, does stand against us?”
“The mad moon, for one thing,” Gytherik shuddered. “She rises even now, and if this really is the nightâ”
“The last night, for the dreamlands,” Limnar finished it for him. “Unless we can come up with an answer.”
“The mad moon,” Gytherik repeated, his frown deepening, fingers tapping on Limnar's table. “The last night. It's going to happen tonight.” His fingers tapped faster and his jaw began to fall even as his frowns lifted.
“What is it, lad?” Limnar asked, leaning forward to gaze into Gytherik's face. “You look as if you've seen a ghost. I can almost count your goosebumps!” But it seemed that the youth no longer saw him, only the idea growing in his mind.
“Turn adversity to our favor!” Faster still his fingers tapped. “Waterspouts and whirlwinds, volcanoes and earthquakes and roaring, raging tides!”
“Yes, ladâgo on.”
“Tides!” Gytherik whispered almost inaudibly, his eyes wide and staring.
“Tides,
by all that'sâ”
“What is it?” Limnar now pressed. “Come on, out with it.”
“The sea!” the gaunt-master suddenly shouted, springing to his feet. “The blessed sea!” Now it was his turn to lay hands on Limnar Dass. “The highest tides you've ever seen, lapping at the rim of the old sea-wall. What a knock in the eye
that
would be! Hero wanted to do it with earth, and Eldin with fireâbut they were both wrong. There's another element which they overlookedâanother way ⦔
“To do what?” Limnar now roared.
“To trap old Oorn in her damned pit!” cried Gytherik. “That's what!”
Limnar gaped, shook his head. “I don't follow you.”
“Of course not, for you weren't there. You haven't seen the old sea-wall and the waters raging, ready to break through ⦠Limnar, how much powder does
Gnorri
carry?”
“Powder?”
“Yes, powderâfor the cannon, man!”
Taken aback by the heat of the gaunt-master's excitement, Limnar could only gasp, “Enough to blow the ship to hellâif all barrels went up at once.”
“Oh, they will, they will,” chanted Gytherik, and he began
to dance in his fever. Then he rushed out onto the bridge, where a bemused and breathless Limnar Dass caught up with him.
“Up onto the deck,” cried Gytherik like a madman. “The powder, let's have it! Let's have it! Let's see what we've got. And Limnarâwhere's the nearest ship of the flotilla?”
“Right there,” the sky-Captain answered, beginning to fear for the youth's sanity. He pointed off to starboard, where the lights of a ship winked beneath weirdly rotating skies. “Becalmed, of course.”
“No matter!” cried Gytherik. “All to the good. If we're becalmed, they're becalmed. You said so yourself. They can't strike back.” Before Limnar could question this, he added: “A note, quick! A note to the Captain of yon vessel. We want her powderâall of it. My gaunts shall bear the note, return with the powder. Return loaded down with the black, beautiful stuff! A few trips and we'll have it all.”
Now, as the sum of Gytherik's babblings began to add up, Limnar became fired with the youth's enthusiasm. “Are you saying that you intend to blow a hole in Sarkomand's sea-wall?” he breathlessly asked.
“Right!” Gytherik hugged him.
“Damned
right, as Hero would say! We'll drown the damned place, seal old Oorn in her damned pit, smash the encampments of the damned horned ones, termen, zombies and Isharrans flat!” Then, eyes still burning behind dark bruises but softer now of voice, he added: “But we must be quick. The mad moon rises Lookâ”
Dreamland's rim seemed to burn beneath a mighty golden dome, to burn with a yellow glare the night mists could no longer hold at bay. Confused clouds cleared a path for mad moonbeams which put down their sick tendrils on the land like a glowing, cancerous horror of cosmic magnitude. Great waterspouts beyond number rushed here and there across heaving deepsâas if the very sea were trying to invert itselfâand a dull, continuous rumbling filled the air, subdued now but growing ever louder. Volcanic fires burned in a score of distant places, and meteorites blazed and hissed in the
heavens in such numbers that the sky became bright with their fire. Nothing like this had ever been known before in all the history of the lands of Earth's dreams.
For long moments the two stared at a world gone mad. Thenâ
“Ahoy the crew!” cried Limnar Dass. “There's work for you. I want all the powder brought up onto the deck right now ⦠and steady as you go. No accidents, if you please. Bundle the barrels together in scraps of net, gaunt-manageable in size, and get it done as quickly as you can. Come on, lads, bustle about. And listen, keep your chins up. We're not licked yet!”
To Gytherik he said, “I'll have that note for you in a dozen flaps of a night-gaunt's wing. And talking of gaunts, while I'm writing the note you'd best have an earnest little chat with the entire grim. Gytherik,” he squeezed the youth's shoulders, “I think your answer is the right one, possibly the only one. I think it will work.”
“Think it will work?” the gaunt-master answered, his eyes aflame with reflected meteorites. “My friend, you'd better pray it will work. It
has
to!”