Oblivion Hand Read online

  Copyright Information

  Copyright © 2001 by Adrian Cole.

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidepress.com

  *

  “Well Met In Hell” is a fully revised version of The Coming of the Voidal, a chapbook published by Spectre Press in February 1977. “The Universe of Islands” is a revised version of the story published in Airgedlamh magazine in Autumn 1980. “First Make Them Mad” is a revised version of the story published in Fantasy Tales, volume 2, no. 4, in Spring 1979. “The Ocean of Souls” is a revised version of the story published in Fantasy Crossroads 15, January 1979. “Astral Stray” first appeared in a slightly different form in Heroic Fantasy, DAW Books 1979. “Ever the Hungry Night” is a revised version of “All Things Dark and Evil” which appeared in Weirdbook 13 in 1978. “The Lair of the Spydron” was originally scheduled for Phantasy Digest (1979), and “Urge And Demiurge” for Weird Adventures (1980) but sadly both magazines folded before the tales saw print. They are published here for the first time.

  Books by Adrian Cole

  The Dream Lords

  A Plague of Nightmares

  Lord of Nightmares

  Bane of Nightmares

  Madness Emerging

  Paths in Darkness

  Wargods of Ludorbis

  The Lucifer Experiment

  Moorstones

  The Sleep of Giants

  The Omaran Saga

  A Place Among the Fallen

  Throne of Fools

  The King of Light and Shadows

  The Gods in Anger

  Star Requiem

  Mother of Storms

  Thief of Dreams

  Warlord of Heaven

  Labyrinth of Worlds

  Blood Red Angel

  Storm Over Atlantis

  Dedication

  Originally the components of this saga were written as short stories and in the main they were either published or scheduled for publication in the small presses that flourished around the late 1970’s, and I am indebted to the enthusiastic support of the editors and artists who first brought the Voidal to the light of day. This volume is dedicated to them and their own heroic endeavours:

  Jim Pitts

  Jon Harvey

  Wayne Warfield

  Dave Sutton and Steve Jones

  Jonathan Bacon

  Robert Fester

  Gerald Page and Hank Reinhardt

  Paul Ganley

  And to the fond memory of Dave McFerran

  Exordium

  During the countless millennia of my exile I have been able to ruminate extravagantly, though not without exasperation, upon the more esoteric laws of my fellow Deities. Perhaps, in the spirit of accuracy, I should say my former fellow Deities, as I have no doubt that they would take exception to any presumption of mine to claim equality with them now. As an exile I am not entitled to the status I once enjoyed, though in reality I remain as I was. A god is a god is a god. I simply live apart.

  It is an unwritten but embarrassing fact that certain things cannot be destroyed. Certain powers are eternal and remain so, resisting all other powers. I am one such power, but what I have begun here is not my story. No, my personal history would make dull reading and would scandalise no one. I make no secret of the fact that my reputed avarice for knowledge earned me the insular existence that I now endure. The pain of loneliness, like all other pain, atrophies and decays eventually. But no one wants to be ignored. And it has been a long time since anyone did so much as acknowledge my presence, even with a curse.

  I feel it is time I caused a stir of embarrassment again. In case I really have been forgotten.

  So then how do the gods put an end to the aforementioned eternal powers when they consider it in their best interests to do so? Since we are talking about immortality, death is not an option. Imprisonment? As a temporary measure, but all prison walls crumble as the eons slide by. One could suggest the application of unending pain, but I have already commented on the deterioration of pain. Constant pain dulls and earns the victim’s contempt, though I would not wish the theory put to the test in my own case. There is always the bestowing of madness, but madness is relative, and being largely unpredictable, is never easy to control. Besides, madness is something I would only recognise in someone else.

  Since my exile so frustrates me, you will understand that few things give me as much pleasure as those which frustrate my tormentors. Thus my history, this partial revelation of secrets, this presentation of indiscretions. I refer to a repressed power: the gods have decreed it a sin even to contemplate this ejaculation of darkness. Ironically I was exiled for less than the injudicious study of this particular entity.

  I refer to the enigma known as the Voidal.

  Few will know the name, but for those who do, it is synonymous with nightmare and deep unease, which is why it is so beguiling. This dark entity could not be destroyed, though the gods had set their corporate powers to reducing it to nothing, motivated, if you have not already guessed as much, by their fear of it. They took from the Voidal his memory, and with it his understanding of his powers, his soul, his identity, and the greater part of his sanity, as you shall discover in the history that follows. There was little of his own will left to him, but they could no more wrest it from him than they could his life. He could go nowhere unless he was summoned, and yet the gods placed upon him such a mantle of terror that only fools dared call him, as you shall also learn. And they set him adrift in the fathomless deeps of his own nightmares, believing he would be lost forever in their paradoxical inconsistencies and could never rise.

  Why? Why did they do this? What did they fear? The question haunts him throughout his bleak quest. As it has me. It is a fragmented history and much of it remains dark and obfuscated, for I have woven it from whispers, myths, hints and rumours. And my work has been hampered by the shadows that ever seek to close in over the grim traveller himself. They may yet be your companions.

  —Salecco the Esteemed, of Escaloc, Author of The Extrapolation of Exactitudes, Towards the Cognizance of Random Creation, Nascent Darkness: Our Responsibilities and various other Works currently invalidated under the Divine Sedition Acts.

  Chapter I

  WELL MET IN HELL

  The demon who gave me the bones of this story was in a state of advancing lunacy on the occasion of its garbled narration. It was told to me long before my exile, but in my enthusiasm for such choice morsels of grotesquerie, I secreted the unexpurgated details among my private collection. It is, I believe, the first reference to the Voidal after his own banishment. In retelling the tale I have found it necessary to remove surgically much of the demon’s verbosity, together with a number of references that would serve only to confuse rather than to enlighten the reader. I trust, however, that I have retained something of the mood and flavour of the original, repellent though it is.

  For in prefacing my history with this tale, I begin at the very depths, where darkness coils upon darkness.

  —Salecco, once Esteemed

  There is a world that even the most audacious demons fear, where sane Gods do not tread, whose shifting landscapes ebb and flow like dark tides of the mind, ever restless, ever haunted. Beyond natural laws, at the far reaches of reason, shunned by all but the perverse in spirit. It has many dimensions: they twist and fuse, baffling the mind itself with their deranged patterns, their layer upon layer. A veritable universe, unique to itself, enclosed, locked.

  This is Phaedrabile.

  It has known many empires, spawned many wars, its demigods rising and falling over the eons, careless of life, of pain, delighting in the dark cloak of entropy that is its only true god.

  At the time of the Csarduct D
ynasty, many of Phaedrabile’s dimensions toppled to the relentless crusades of these self-styled overlords, their vast armies swarming, driving before them a veritable tide of refugees, man and demigod alike, who sought ever darker places in which to secrete themselves from the contagion of conquest. The Csarducts may once have worshipped at the grim altars of the gods of Phaedrabile, but at the height of their greatness they had supplanted them with their own images.

  Among those who fled was the sorcerer monarch, Rammazurk, a creature of limitless lust, a slave of extremity, whose hunger for forbidden knowledge exceeded by far the depravities of his contemporaries. Into the very entrails of Phaedrabile he wriggled, creating for himself the nether hell of Sedooc, a labyrinthine kingdom of sorcery. With him he took his repulsive entourage, and they burrowed like maggots in the charnel house of their creation. Far from the eyes of the Csarducts and their own sorcerers they wallowed in new depths of chaos. Rammazurk the Omnipotent, as he called himself, ruled subjects to whom clung only the faintest vestiges of humanity.

  Rammazurk trafficked with terrible powers: they bestowed upon him their awesome gifts, and he used these to strengthen his defences against intruders, locking himself and his corrupt empire deeper within itself. He distorted the elements themselves, enslaving monstrous storm elementals and binding them to him, wrapping them about his haven, Windwrack, the stronghold at the heart of his empire. The Screamers raved incessantly about the upper turrets and parapets of the huge castle: no one came near, man nor god. And while the winds of madness fumed outside Windwrack’s walls, hell seethed within.

  Far down in the echoing halls of Windwrack’s labyrinths, a world away from the guardian Screamers, in the Hall of a Thousand Joys, other shrieks and howls reverberated, though this was no storm, unless it were a storm of passion. The obese monarch had decreed that for a month there would be a feast, a brazened orgy that would celebrate his glory and mock not only the Csarducts but also the very gods of Phaedrabile itself. For Rammazurk had lately breached a trove of hitherto undiscovered lore, sorcerous powers previously shunned by even the most adventurous or foolhardy of mages. And he felt himself a step nearer divinity, immortality.

  He filled his halls with a veritable flood of sycophants, all of whom were too terrified to deny the monstrous ruler the slightest whim.

  And such a feast! There were strange and vile foodstuffs brought forth for stranger quasi-human appetites to consume. Many were the night-spawned denizens that whispered and susurrated at the edges of the festivities, hovering between light and darkness, and they were summoned and cavorted with obscenely under the bleary gaze of the vast monarch. Humanity had lost its shape, its path, in the seething, cacophonous revels.

  Rammazurk himself presented a grim spectacle, a bloated maggot atop a mound of sprawling acolytes, his naked folds of flesh dripping with sweat and wine, his bloodshot eyes sunk deep in the immensity of his face. Depravity epitomised, he snarled his derision for all gods but himself.

  He was gloating over his new secrets for a particular reason: they gave him power over a principal wife, of which he had many, and whom he had long sought to destroy and toss into the abysses of limbo. He had favoured her years before, for she was only partially human and possessed sorcerous powers that he had yearned to savour at the time. It was said that her mother had mated with several of the slime demons of the Mudwastes (an area notorious for failed expeditions) who themselves were reputed to traffic with the devils of the astral realms.

  Thus Issylla was born with her mother’s seductive wiles and her father’s features and peculiar astral powers. Her relationship with Rammazurk had been a tormented one, but he had profited from it in the doors it unlocked for him. He had added to the grotesque components of his court.

  But Issylla had nothing fresh to offer him now. And she was no longer the pliant, obedient creature she had once been. Until only recently she had held his powers at bay: this was soon to end. He had found the means to dispose of her.

  Now, with the month-long feast waning about him, his countless courtiers sated, the obese one rose sluggishly to his feet like some beast of the ocean, dragged from its natural element, and gestured at the thralls who yet danced and sported across the hall. Slowly they turned until all watched the towering mountain of flesh, relieved to see the ghastly smile, the hint of new pleasures. The monarch was evidently not yet so full that he could not savour one last act of indulgence.

  “Where is Issylla, most beloved of my wives?” Rammazurk belched.

  The momentary silence was broken as the queen stepped forward voluptuously, her painted breasts thrust out invitingly at the swaying tower of blubber that was her husband. Her open audacity was clear for all to see.

  “Ah,” burped the monarch. “My jewel! Unparalleled sorceress of my halls. Most delectable of my treasures.”

  Issylla revelled in her hold over the monarch. She knew well enough that he had become bored with her long since and that he loathed her, but she knew he was powerless to destroy her. But somehow, in his wicked eyes she saw something new, and within her a sliver of cold fear twisted. She smiled beguilingly as Rammazurk gestured to the inner rooms of the palace.

  “Let us momentarily leave our devout followers,” he breathed. “We have not indulged ourselves in intimacy for too long, my jewel. There are depths to our needs as yet untrammelled. Let the people feast in our honour while we pleasure ourselves.”

  Issylla could think of nothing more repugnant to her, but she maintained her seductive pose. She knew the deceit of which her obnoxious spouse was capable. And she knew of his recent delvings into power: she dared not fob him off until she knew what new secrets he had dredged up.

  “But first,” he said, “let us clean away the filth of the past few weeks.” He clapped his podgy hands together and at once six muscular retainers stepped forward, each bearing a huge ewer of beaten gold. Their biceps strained as they raised them.

  Issylla’s smile evaporated, but it was too late to spin out a curse or weave a protective charm.

  “I am sure you will not mind cleansing yourself for your liege!” laughed Rammazurk, with a nod to his men.

  Immediately they cast the contents of the ewers over the queen, and as the sparkling liquid cascaded over her, she began to scream, the pitch rising as the steaming concoction bit into her like acid. She stumbled to her knees, beating at herself, her palms slamming into her already molten eyes. The laughter of the king rose above her terrible wails. Her skin was sloughing off like a reptilian coat, dripping to the floor in a thick, viscous stream.

  “The slime demons no longer protect you from me, you whore of a thousand beds! They tramp their stinking realm at my whim now! You’ve lost your protection. Your magical aura is of no avail. Feel the revenge of Rammazurk the Omnipotent. I have only just started!”

  Other retainers rushed in upon the unfortunate Issylla, thrusting at her flesh with barbed javelins, ripping and tearing while the onlookers cheered like demons. The stormhounds, chained to the pillars, leaped up, straining at their chains to get at the flesh, anxious to sink their fangs into that rich meat. And Rammazurk tittered uncontrollably as the disgusting scenario unfolded.

  Satisfied that the former queen was dead, the king waved the stormhounds forward and they were let loose on the spoiled flesh, snapping and tearing, their wild eyes daring anyone to interfere with their grisly work. When they had finished, dragging away the last of the dismembered bones, they had left only a steaming, pulpy mass. Rammazurk smiled contentedly at the congealing pool of blood.

  As the torchlight played upon that dark pool that once had been his queen, other light seemed to shimmer there, strange light that was no reflection, but that seemed to have its source within the reeking pool. Rammazurk’s features melted and became a stare shaped from foreboding. Mutters and murmurs rippled through the assembly. Something was coalescing, using the blood as a sickly medium in which to sculpt a bizarre form, drawing upon the very air for its substance.


  Rammazurk knew intuitively what amorphous mass it was that suddenly drew itself up like a column of mud and excrement: it was powered by the undead will of Issylla. From a black orifice where a mouth should have been issued a faint, sombre voice. A limp, dripping limb flapped out and gestured at Rammazurk, who drew back onto his throne in horror, while his houris ran screaming from the foul apparition.

  It was a voice that insinuated itself throughout the entirety of the Hall of a Thousand Joys.

  “Rammazurk the Omnipotent! Slayer of children, destroyer of the weak, defiler of beasts! Hear me, most accursed of men! You have spat upon the gods for too long. Know that I, Issylla, invoke my last curse upon you, granted to me by the demons that already prepare to suck me into their scalding embrace. The masters of the unknown dark curse you, and grant my invocation! Though I can never reach your realm again, I pass to you my final execration. I send you your bane, Rammazurk.

  “I invoke the Voidal!”

  No sooner had the grim words been uttered than the shape began to dissolve, slopping down into the pool of blood from which it had so odiously formed. In a moment nothing was left save a dark stain. In all the hall, not a sound was heard. Slowly all eyes swivelled to Rammazurk as he gazed from his silken seat. Even the feeding stormhounds had fallen silent, afraid to offend forces they could not see, but felt all too palpably.

  Rammazurk hardly noticed his vassals. He frowned in puzzlement. It was no surprise that his dead wife should curse him. He had expected it, even if it had been a trifle dramatic. But she had disturbed him. She had invoked something alien to his knowledge. The Voidal. Although he searched his memory for a hint of the name, nothing came to light. He was not afraid: Issylla could be no match for his sorcerous defences, and yet he was uneasy at hearing an unfamiliar name.

  He drew himself up slowly and waved at the silent watchers. “Why so solemn? Continue the feast! Issylla is no more, her curses hollow. Enjoy the feast!”

  He left them and their renewed revels and made his ponderous way to remoter parts of Windwrack. Down through evil-smelling tunnels he went, through slime-walled pens where winged familiars skipped about his feet, crimson eyes gleaming up at him, anxious to serve. The monarch held out his hand and winged things alighted, cloaked in strands of sooty web. Through a maze of spell-hung corridors went the huge figure, careful not to disturb the mantle of conjurations he had woven here. At length he reached a high grotto hollowed out of the obsidian rock, and here he stopped at the shores of an oily expanse of phosphorescent mire.