Darkness Weaves

To the memory of Toad Hall,

and the Toad Hall crowd,

and Toad Hall days.

I say to you againe, doe not call upp Any that you can not put downs; by the Which I means, Any that can in Turne call up somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest Devices may not be of use.

-Letter from Jedediah Orne:
H. P. Lovecraft, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

In their castle beyond night

Gather the Gods in Darkness,

With darkness to pattern man's fate.

The colors of darkness are no monotonous hue-

For the blackness of Evil knows various shades,

Full many as Evil has names.

Vengeance and Madness, inseparable twins,

Born together and worshipped as one;

Nor can the Gods tell one from his brother.

In their castle beyond night

Gather the Gods in Darkness;

And darkness weaves with many shades.

(Fragment attributed to Opyros)

"He's evil incarnate! Stay away from him!" Arbas glared at the young outlander across from him and took a deep drink from the mug of ale the stranger had bought him. At present he felt only contempt for the free-spending youth who had sought him out here in the Tavern of Selram Honest.

Arbas--called by many, Arbas the Assassin--was in a foul mood. A sudden and ill-timed (suspiciously ill-timed, it seemed to Arbas) run of bad luck with the dice earlier this evening had stripped from him a comfortable pile of winnings and all his ready coin as well. The adoring tavern maid, who had been slipping teasing fingers over the lean muscles beneath his leather vest, then turned coldly aloof and left him with a scornful air. Perhaps it was a disappointed air, Arbas mused sourly.

Then had come this stranger, whose upper-class manner was in dubious contrast to the rough dress he displayed. The stranger had simply introduced himself as Imel and volunteered no further information other than cautiously chosen gossip. Seemingly he was an altruist solely devoted to keeping Arbas's mug filled to the brim with strong ale. Unconvinced, Arbas decided to let the fool throw away his money. He was not a man who got drunk easily. Eventually Arbas knew that the other would in some very offhand, so very casual manner, begin to talk about some rival, some black hearted son of a bitch--someone for whose demise Imel would pay.

Arbas had been professionally estimating exactly how much Imel might be able to pay when the stranger had abruptly demolished all the assassin's calculations. Somehow the conversation had shifted to the one man whose death the Combine authorities so fervently prayed for. With a gait Arbas realized that the outlander was seeking information about Kane.

"Evil? But then, his character is not my concern. Anyway, I'm not searching the slums of Nostoblet to recruit a household treasurer. I simply wish to talk with him, is all--and I was told that you can tell me how to reach him." The stranger spoke the dialect of the Southern Lartroxian Combine with a burr that marked him a native of the island of Thovnos, capital of the Thovnosian Empire about five hundred miles to the southwest.

"Then you're a fool!" retorted Arbas and emptied his mug. Beneath his hood the stranger's thin face flushed with anger. Silently damning the assassin's impertinence, he signalled a passing tavern maid to refill Arbas's mug. Carelessly he tossed her three bronze coins from his purse, making certain that Arbas noticed its weight. The tavern maid did, and she brushed against Imel's shoulder as she poured, smiling as she swung away.

"Fickle bitch!" mused Arbas illogically, studying the crimson imprint of her rouged breast on the Thovnosian's gray cloak. The assassin slowly sipped his ale, but gave no indication he had noticed the almoner. "Someone talks too much for me. Too damn much! Who told you I could find him?"

He asked me not to give his name."

"Names, names, please mention no names. By Lato! You'll give me the name of that loose-tongued lying bastard who sent you to me--or you can go look for him in the Seventh Hell, where he damn well belongs! With that price on his head, there's not a handful of men in the Combine who'd not sell their souls for a chance to turn him in."

About them the tavern was bustling with activity. The cadaverous form of Selram Honest could be seen near the door to his wine cellar. A smile was etched through the grease of the gaunt proprietor's face as he looked over the noisy crowd. Most were in a festive mood, loudly going about their pleasures, gambling, whoring, carousing. Boisterous thugs from the ill-lit streets of Nostoblet, reckless mercenaries in the dark green shirts and leather trousers of the Combine's cavalry, strange-accented wanderers passing through the city for unguessable purposes, seductively clad street tarts whose hard laughter never echoed in their too-wise eyes. Two blond mercenaries from Waldann were about to cast aside the bonds of long companionship and draw knives over same lethal quarrel intelligible only to themselves. A pretty-faced whore with curious scars spiraling each bright-rouged breast was expertly rifling the purse of the incautious seaman who embraced her. A balding, filthy onetime sergeant of the Nostoblet city guard was amusing several jeering rednecks with his whining plea for a drink.

Here and there small groups of men sat hunched over their tables in low whispers, hatching plans of which the city guard would give much to learn. But the city guard seldom ventured into the riverport alleys of Nostoblet except to collect bribes, and Selram Honest cared nothing for his guests' affairs, so long as they had money for his hospitality. Each man's business was his own. No one paid the least attention, therefore, to the hushed exchange that was taking place between Arbas the assassin and the stranger from Thovnos.

At least, no one with the possible exception of a one-eared soldier in nondescript harness, who had entered the Tavern of Selram Honest not long after Imel. The burly warrior's decrepit battle gear and glowering visage insured his solitude from enterprising whores or talkative drunks. On the hand that raised his alecup occasionally to his lips, there shone a carven silver ring set with a massive amethyst. The crystal flashed violet in the smoky yellow light of the tavern. But the silent man sat far across the crowded room from Arbas and Imel, well out of earshot. And if his gaze seemed too frequently turned in their direction, perhaps it was drawn by the dark-haired girl in multi-colored silks who danced upon the table somewhat beyond the two.

Imel remained in silent speculation for a moment, ignoring the smouldering anger in the assassin's dark face. This man was more difficult, more dangerous than he had at first judged him to be, and he was uncertain as to how deeply involved Arbas might be with his mission. At least for the present, he knew he must rely on the assassin. Diplomacy, then. Satisfy his suspicions, but tell him nothing important.

"Then it was Bindoff who sent me to you," said the stranger, smiling at Arbas's startled reaction on hearing the Black Priest's name. "Now have we a deal?"

Arbas's estimation of the Thovnosian underwent a radical change. He had half assumed the stranger was a bounty hunter and was considering a lonely spot for a knifing--but that he even knew of the Black Priest's connections with the man he sought was a telling point in his favor. Bindoff had guarded that secret with characteristic thoroughness. Perhaps, then, the man had in some inexplicable manner gained Bindoff's confidence. It might be worth the risk.

"Have you, say, twenty-five mesitsi gold [about two hundred dollars]?" Arbas asked casually. The stranger faked a hesitant pause--no merit in giving the assassin reason to think to ask for more. "I can raise it."

Arbas licked the foam from his mustache before replying. "All right, then. Bring it to me here two nights from tonight. I'll arrange for you to meet Kane."

"Why not tonight?" Imel urged.

"Not a chance, friend. Anyway, I guess I'll do me some checking on you before we go anywhere." Noting the stranger's annoyed impatience, Arbas quoted: "Happy in his folly, the fool embraced the devil."

The stranger laughed. "Spare me the scriptures. What is there about this Kane, though, that gives him so evil a reputation? Surely one of your position is unjustified in casting aspersions on anyone."

But Arbas only chuckled and said, "Ask me again after you've met Kane!"

Fed by cold springs and tiny streams of the highMyceumMountains far to the east, the River Cotras cut its twisted path through miles of rocky foothills, until at last it reached the wide belt of lowlands that circled the Lartroxian coast. There it began its rush to the western seas--a fifty-mile stretch of deep navigable channel through fertile farmlands and rich forests. The city Nostoblet stood along the banks of liver Cotras, where its waters first rushed from the low hills onto the coastal plains. By virtue of the wide river channel, Nostoblet was an inland port, receiving both exotic trade goods from the merchant ships that plied the western seas, as well as the wealth of the eastern mountains, brought down the roaring waterway on rafts by the half-wild mountaineers.

The hills behind Nostoblet were thinly forested and scarred by great outcroppings and canyons, where long ago mountain streams had slashed through the soft rock. Stone cliffs stood out in endless profusion, some rising hundreds of feet above the valleys below them. An almost uncrossable barrier, they guarded the plains of South Lartroxia, marking the limits where, as some scholars maintained, the ancient seas had once rolled.

The cliffs in the hills behind Nostoblet had been honeycombed with tombs in many places. The comparatively recent southern spread of the worship of Horment had instituted the custom of cremation of the dead. Consequently these tombs had been out of use for over a century now, and the paths that led to them had been unwatched by human guards for almost as long.

The people of old Nostoblet had always been a practical folk, whose religious habits had not required them to furnish lavish tombs for their dead. The custom of the wealthy in those days when the tombs were in use had been to lay their dead to rest in simple wooden boxes, which were set in niches within caverns that had been cut into the cliffs. None of the corpse's personal belongings were interred except the clothing he wore and occasional bits of jewelry of negligible value. (Consequently there was nothing to tempt a would-be graverobber to slip past the few soldiers who had guarded the tombs in the past--or to brave the inhuman guardians. For the tombs of Nostoblet were infamous for ghouls and other worse dwellers, and the ghastly tales of their hauntings made all of Nostoblet scrupulously shun the area even to this time.

It was along the tortuous trails which ascended these cliffs that two men laboriously picked their way one stormy night. Lightning shattered the night's total blackness at frequent intervals, illuminating by its glare the rain-slick rock path that they followed along the face of the bluff. Its unpredictable flashes lighted the pathway far better than the feebly burning closed lantern Arbas carried.

"Careful here!" Arbas shouted back. "The rocks here are really slippery!" Ignoring his own advice, the assassin half slipped on a glistening boulder, and in struggling to keep his footing he very nearly threw the useless lantern over the edge.

The Thovnosian muttered savagely and concentrated on staying on the path. One slip on the streaming rocks would mean certain death among the rubble at the base of the bluffs. From somewhere in the darkness below, he could faintly hear the broken roar of rushing water pounding through the flooded stream bed.

Still there was no trace of fear in his voice as he growled, "Couldn't you have arranged for Kane to meet me somewhere dry?"

Arbas looked back with a wet grin of sardonic amusement written upon his dark face. "Changing your mind about meeting him, are you?" He laughed as his companion answered him with a torrent of curses. "It's a good night for our purposes, actually--the storm should give us cover from anyone who might try to follow us. Anyway, you know well enough that Kane couldn't show his face anywhere in the Combine with that price on his head. And even if it weren't for that, he's not too likely to come running for just anyone, unless it's damn well worth his while."

He added pointedly, "You still haven't said why you want to see Kane, you know."

"That's something for Kane to hear," retorted Imel.

Arbas nodded solemnly. "Uh-huh. Something for Kane to hear. Uh-huh. Well, don't let me be spoiling any dramatic secrets now. Wouldn't want that, of course."

But the Thovnosian chose to ignore him and lapsed into silence for the remainder of the climb.

Dark openings arose from the face of the stone wall to the right of them now. These were the doorways of the abandoned burial caverns, hand-hewn passages forced through the soft rock by slaves long dead with their masters. More than high enough to permit entrance of a tall man were these silent openings, and by the lightning flashes it appeared that the vaults within were considerably more spacious. Once-sturdy gates had barred access to the tombs in the past, but all seemed to have been forced at some time over the years. A few of the stronger doors stood ajar on frozen hinges, but most were missing entirely, or hanging at crazy angles-broken relics of rotted timber and corroded metal.