The Serpent Tower

Chapter Twenty-Four

What now, Rik thought? He had the talisman the Serpent Man required. The question was whether he could trust it. He did not see what else he could do. He was trapped on the Tower. The Tower raced through the sky uncontrolled. If the Serpent Man had told the truth it was only a matter of time before the god’s heart exploded killing them all. As ever, it seemed, he had very little choice in the matter. He glanced back over his shoulder. The Nerghul still fought with Ilmarec’s tame demon.

He caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye. He turned, raising the sword to protect himself. A tall Terrarch woman entered the chamber. Rik recognised her from Asea’s portrait as Queen Kathea. She had entered through another door.

Understanding flooded into Kathea’s eyes. She looked at Ilmarec’s dead body and then at Rik, and then she screamed in horror. Rik strode forward and put his free hand over her mouth. He did not want her screams to attract either of the two monsters.

He spoke slowly and softly, “Your majesty, I mean you no harm.”

A small muscle pulsed in her jaw, he could feel it. He kept speaking as quietly and persuasively as he could. “Nod if you understand what I am saying.”

She nodded.

“I have come here to free you, and to take you to Lord Azaar’s army. There are some problems. We need to get out of the Tower. You need to follow me.” He uncovered her mouth.

“We can’t get out of the Tower. It’s in flight and Ilmarec was the only one who could control it. We are all doomed.”

“There is another.”

“You lie.”

“Your majesty. You can stay here if you wish and you will certainly die, or you can come with me, and you may yet live. Which is it going to be?” Her response surprised Rik.

She walked over to Ilmarec’s corpse and started kicking it.

“Bastard,” she shouted. “Stupid, treacherous bastard. I knew it would all go wrong.”

“Your majesty, we don’t have very much time.”

The kicking ended and sobbing returned. “Are you ready to go, your majesty?”

“Let’s go,” she said. Her voice was calm, icy, in control. Her eyes were wet with tears, but her face was frozen into the formal mask of a Terrarch princess. “Lead the way.”

“It will be my pleasure.” He gestured at where the two demons fought. “Run past those two things as fast as you can go!”

The Nerghul felt the first faint stirrings of fear. Not for itself, but that it might not be able to complete its mission. The creature it fought was strong, quite the strongest thing it had ever encountered. The suckered tentacles sheared flesh from its bones. Worse than that, their icy touch seemed to be sucking all the animating energy from the Nerghul. It was weakened and depleted in a way it had never felt before. Nonetheless, it was not going to give up. It writhed and pushed against the demon’s embrace, sinking its own talons into the rubbery skin.

Just then, it sensed a death in the next chamber. The demon’s hold weakened slightly. The Nerghul twisted an arm free and reached forward grabbing a handful of its opponent’s eyestalks. Exerting all its might, it tugged them free. The demon’s struggles became weaker. The Nerghul bit and gouged at its flesh. Long minutes passed as its foe became weaker. The Nerghul sensed victory as the demon began to dissolve into slimy protoplasm.

It turned to pick up the scent once more.

Rik led Kathea down through the winding corridors. He ran as fast as he could and still maintain a sense of direction. He feared that every second would be his last. In his mind’s eye, he pictured a great sunburst explosion tearing the Tower apart. He pictured it ploughing into the ground with enough force to kill everybody on board. It was all he could do to keep his racing monkey fears under control and recall the path back to the Serpent Man’s vault. He prayed as he had not prayed since his youth that they would be in time, and that the creature had not been deceiving him.

The Nerghul pulled itself along. It was badly hurt. Chunks had been torn out of its leg, so it limped, supporting itself with its arms. It needed time to heal but it wanted so badly to kill its prey, to savour the taste of fulfilment that it could not stop. It forced itself to move on. Its target seemed to be heading back the way it came. It was only a matter of time before it overtook it.

The great loops of moving pathway carried Rik along the convoluted way into the heart of the Tower, past empty chambers full of strange moulded machines. Incomprehensible runes scrolled past on the floor beneath his feet. The light burned dim and green and the warm fusty atmosphere grew more intense. Kathea looked at him.

“What was that?”

Rik listened. He thought he heard the echo of something moving, coming from behind them.

“I think we are being followed. One of the demons must have survived.”

“I thought the thing that attacked the Shaa Khyraa was your ally.”

“I regret not.”

“Then you should be afraid. The Shaa Khyraa would not long survive Ilmarec’s death. His soul was what bound it to our plane of existence.”

Rik thought about the Nerghul. The creature seemed destined to dog his footsteps. There appeared to be no way to escape it. He smiled with grim humour. It was a race between the destruction of the Tower and the undead demon to see which would kill him. He thought for a moment that he had entered a place beyond fear then realised it was the effect of the combat drugs.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I wish to hell I knew.”

They came at last to the chamber of the sarcophagus and stood before the Serpent Man. Its gaze met his. The process was smoother this time and far less terrifying and he found establishing mental contact with the Elder One much easier.

You have returned.

I have, and I have kept my part of the bargain.

I see that. You have done well, human, and I am grateful to you. A sense of the Serpent Man’s weariness and sorrow entered him.

What must I do now, Rik asked.

It is too late to save the Tower. The wizard has started a process that cannot now be reversed.

Then we must all die.

No, I can save you and the woman. I can save the lands below.

Why would you do that? We have not been kind to you? The thoughts came out before Rik could stop them. He knew he was wasting time but still he waited for an answer. There was nothing else he could do now anyway.

I am the last of my kind on this world. The others have gone. They may be dead or they may be returned to the stars but they are nowhere within hailing distance of this vessel. I cannot join them. I am dying anyway. I would not needlessly kill others.

You do not want revenge.

You have killed the only one I would be revenged on. I owe you a debt. I will repay it. You have done what was needful and I thank you for it.

Hope leapt in Rik’s heart. There was just the slightest possibility he would get out of this alive after all. What must I do?

Place the amulet round your neck and command the Sarcophagus to open. Images of the command procedures, the swift, strange shifts of mind needed to open the way flickered through his brain. Rik followed them, and the lid of the Serpent Man’s coffin hissed open. It split into two and the crystal sections withdrew into the stonework, leaving the Serpent Man exposed to the air. Thousands of tiny filaments withdrew into the walls of the coffin. Slowly, weakly, like one who has not moved in a thousand years and whose limbs were barely responding, the Serpent Man drew himself upright. Rik moved to help him. He lifted the ancient being up. It was as light as a child, almost weightless. Rik wondered if its bones were hollow like a birds.

Thank you, the Serpent Man said, his words echoing deep inside Rik’s mind. You have my gratitude. There were several layers of alien meaning underlying the words that Rik could not decipher so he helped the ancient one to the altar it had indicated and placed him on it.

Put the amulet around my neck then you and your companion must get inside my sarcophagus. Rik’s mind baulked. He did not want to take the Serpent Man’s place in his tomb.

Do it. We do not have time to argue. I am dying quickly now and there is much I need to do. If you would live you must get into the coffin.

Gently Rik placed the Serpent Man down on the altar. He gestured to the sarcophagus.

“Get in,” he told Kathea. She just looked at him in panic. “Get in. We don’t have time to argue.”

“It’s a trick,” she said. “It just wants us to take its place.”

The coffin did not just preserve my life. It was an escape mechanism in case something went wrong with the vessel.

Looking over his shoulder, Rik saw something that filled him with dread. The Nerghul had dragged itself into the chamber. He did not want to face it. He clambered into the coffin. Reluctantly, seeing what he had seen, Kathea did the same.

Before the crystal dome of the sarcophagus slid shut, the undead monster emitted what sounded like a horrible scream. It held a world of frustration and horror. The voice of the Serpent Man spoke within his head.

There is one thing you can do for me.

“If I can, I will,” he said aloud.

There are none left to speak the rights for me in the Ancient Tongue of my people so if all fails I may not be able to enter the Nest of my ancestors. At the full of your moon, remember me, and speak my name in a high place, and perhaps they will hear me, and forgive me.

“I do not know your name.”

It is Shang Tach.

“I will remember you, Shang Tach. My name is Rik.”

The hideous face of the Nerghul pressed itself against the coffin lid. It was directly opposite Rik’s own. He looked into its red eyes and saw the hunger there. It opened its torn mouth and grinned in triumph. Its claws scrabbled on the crystal seeking to break it.

Suddenly the sarcophagus tipped backwards and began to slide down a dark tunnel. The Nerghul held on, although it was crushed and flattened between the tunnel wall and the coffin. As the sarcophagus moved, it picked up speed. Kathea held Rik tight and whimpered in his ear. He did the same back.

A horrible sensation of vertigo filled him. They raced through the tunnels, going ever faster. The tunnel walls glowed greenly. Rik suspected they were not moving quite as fast as they ought to since the pulpy mass of the undead creature must be providing some drag. The thing looked boneless now, partially jellied but still its lips moved and its eyes blazed with hellish hatred.

They were out into night and darkness. Above them, beyond the Nerghul’s shattered features, the Tower glowed massively, receding into the distance, rising on a pillar of green light into the outer darkness. It glowed as brightly as the sun at noon, and Rik wondered how long it would be till the explosion ripped it apart.

His own heart threatened to tear its way out of his ribcage. He was uncomfortably aware that these were the last few seconds of his life. There was no way he and Kathea could survive hitting the ground from this height without being turned into so much jelly by the force of impact. Already he could picture the ground rising to meet them.

Suddenly visibility was blocked by grey mist. Had they died already and entered the netherworld, he wondered? It took him a few seconds to realise that it was only the clouds. They must be moving with terrible speed. As they exited from them, the cloud’s underbelly became visible.

Rain slapped against the crystal now, and looked like tears running down the nightmare face of the Nerghul. Somehow, it still managed to cling to the sarcophagus.

“We’re going to die,” whimpered Kathea. Rik did not disagree with her. The sarcophagus had started to rotate. He could see lights below them now and in the distance. It looked like they had not moved as far from Morven as he thought. Or perhaps this was some other town entirely. The sight of the ground, such a long way below, made his stomach heave. He fought down the urge to vomit. It would be a disaster in enclosed space like this.

The earth rose was appalling speed to greet them. Rik found himself shouting the words of the prayers he had learned in the orphanage as he waited for death to embrace him.

He could see woods now, then the tops of individual trees. He thought that should not be possible but then realised that the sarcophagus was emitting its own peculiar green glow. Their motion slowed and they smashed through the upper branches then there was a sudden shock as they impacted on the earth below.

Rik exhaled. He was still alive. Then another horrific thought occurred to him. What if the coffin did not open? They were trapped within it with an ever dwindling supply of air. There was a hissing sound, and the crystal clouded over. He pushed against it and it opened, and he stepped out into the warm air of the summer night. The future Queen of Kharadrea stumbled out by his side.

He glanced skyward, through the space the sarcophagus had cleared as it ploughed through the greenery, and saw only clouds. Suddenly, there was a flash of enormous brightness and what seemed like a green sun appeared to glow brightly above and behind the clouds, making them seem like an enormous green roof over the world. The glow lingered for a long time before it vanished, and Rik knew that the god’s heart had broken and the Serpent Tower was no more.

He turned to Kathea. “Come on,” he said. “We’d better get you out of here.”

The Queen of Kharadrea sobbed aloud in fear and pointed to the ground behind him. Rik felt something grasping for his leg and looked down to see the monster that had dogged him was trapped beneath the sarcophagus. Already, with terrible fiendish strength it was forcing its broken limbs to move, to try and raise the coffin. Its limbs flopped horribly, as if bone had been turned to jelly, but still it moved.

Filled with the crystal calm of the drug, Rik drew his sword, bent down and began to saw off its head. Once the Queen of Kharadrea had calmed down she helped him build a fire and burn it.

After it was done Rik said, “Come on, Your Majesty, let’s get you back to the army and put you on your throne.”