The ship lay becalmed on the great river. Its
sails were motionless, limp and heavy. Men sat on
the oar benches, the oar-handles gripped in massive
fists, waiting for the clang of the overseer’s hammer.
Silence lay upon the Hyssop, as men turned their
heads toward the great white fog that waited for
them, spreading across the wide reaches of the waterway
and up onto the land itself.

Niall of the Far Travels was uneasy. That uneasiness
was a coldness down his spine, a restlessness
in his every nerve. He stood leaning against the starboard
railing, eyes seeking to pierce that shrouded
whiteness which crept slowly but inexorably across
the water and its shorelines.

They were three days out of Angalore, almost
halfway to the great city of Urgrik, where he was to
take service with Lurlyr Manakor who ruled those
lands under his eagle banner. There should be no
danger along the river Thalamar, ships plied its waters
every day. There had been no word of trouble.
Not so much as a rumor.

Yet danger lay ahead. A barbarian sell-sword
out of Northumbria to the far north, almost an animal
in his instincts, Niall scented that danger. He did
not know what that trouble might be, yet it waited
there for the ship and for all the men on it.

A shadow touched the railing. Edron Hobbort,
who was captain of the Hyssop, stood scowling at
his side. “I don’t like this. It smacks of magic.”

Nial shrugged. “Magic? Aye, it could be. Or
warm clouds touching the land. I’ve seen fogs like
that, here and there across the world where I’ve wandered.”

The captain eyed him respectfully. He had
heard tales of this Niall of the Far Travellings in the
alehouses back at Angalore, from men who had seen
him in the palaces of the Kings of the South, or riding
with the dreaded Swordsmen of Chandion, or
even — so one old man had whispered — consorting
with the demon-priests of Farfanoll at the Unmentionable
Oasis which bestraddled the scarlet sands of
the Inner Desert.

He seemed young for someone to have done all
that, Edron Hobbort told himself. Yet there was a
shadow in those grey eyes, a sensitivity on his sunbronzed
face, that told the captain this youth had
been many places in his short lifetime, and had done
many things.

He asked now, “What would you advise,
Niall?”

“Turn back. I smell wizardry.”

Edron Hobbort scoffed. “There’s been no wizardry
along this river for a thousand years. Except
for Maylock, back there in Angalore and — you disposed
of him.”

“There is magic here. I can almost smell it.”

“Come you to my cabin. I have charts of this
river and its surrounding lands. Old charts and new
charts. You can see for yourself.”

They made their way to the cabin and after Edron
Hobbort had lighted an oil lamp and unrolled
parchment scrolls, they bent above these scrolls and
eyed them carefully. One after the other Niall discarded,
until only one was left. This last one was
very ancient, cracked and marred by Time, and it
crackled as he unrolled it.

“There,” Niall said, jabbing his finger. “Those
ruins . . .”

“ . . . are only ruins,” scoffed the captain.

“Na, na. They’re more than a pile of rocks.
There’s evil there, Edron Hobbort. Ancient evil.”

“Now, how can you know that?”

Niall straightened slowly. He tried to think, yet
could not. Almost dazedly, he passed a hand across
his broad brow. “I — cannot say. And yet — I
know. It’s as if — something whispered into my
mind. But it told me of an evil that has come recently
to life, back across eons of Time — and made its
home close by this river.”

Edron Hobbort snorted. “Nonsense. That ruin
has been uninhabited since Porthia Malvia was
queen in Angalore, and that’s about ten centuries
ago. We’ll go on. If the sails won’t work, the oars
will.”

He stalked from the cabin and Niall could hear
him bellowing to the oarsmen, to the overseer, who
began the beat with two bronze hammers in his
hands that he banged upon the drum before him. Instantly
the oars dipped, bit into the water, and Niall
could feel the forward surge of the ship beneath his
warboots.

He still leaned upon the table, his palms on that
old parchment map. Yet, uneasiness was strong inside
him, as though — as though some inner voice
were warning him of danger. He shook himself, angrily.
Was he turning into an old woman, to dread
whatever lay ahead of him? Na, na! He was a warrior,
a sell-sword. Had he not faced awesome dangers
in the past? Was he to be fearful of a fog now?

Almost unconsciously he rolled up that parchment
map and thrust it into its niche. Then he moved
forward into thick greyness, saw that greyness creep
across the deck to hide the rowers on their benches,
the piled crates of goods being shipped northward
from the lands of Korybia and Strumathis, the overseer,
as he banged away on the timing drum. Even
Edron Hobbort vanished.

And then those mists touched Niall.
He felt them sting his flesh, exposed where his
mail hauberk and fur kaunake did not cover him. It
stung his legs, naked above his fur-trimmed warboots.
He opened his lips to bellow his anger, for it
seemed almost as if a thousand tiny teeth were biting
at his skin.

The little bitings ceased.

Those grey clouds still surged about him, buffeting
his flesh, blinding him, seeking to crawl down
inside his throat — or so it seemed — yet there was a
calmness in him, an acceptance of that fog as if it
were known and recognized from long ago. From —
another time.

‘Sisstorississ’ work!’
Now where had that thought come from? Had
he, in his far travels, come upon that name? He did
not think so. He moved forward, to stand beside Edron
Hobborth.

The captain stood there, with legs apart, staring
straight ahead. He did not turn when Niall touched
his arm; he did not move. Niall drew back the hand
that had nudged at the captain. His flesh had been
cold. Cold! Now he peered more closely at his face
and saw that his skin was white as the snows that
cover the tip of the tallest mountain peaks in Northumbria
in the dead of winter.

Niall put up his hand, passed it across those
staring eyes. Edron Hobbort did not blink, did not
turn aside his eyes. “Wizardry,” whispered the
Northumbrian as he made his way down the coursier
which ran between the banks of oarsmen.

Every oarsman was white as falling snow, as
blind.

He made his way to the foredeck and stood
there with the wind blowing in his face, swirling the
fog about him. It seemed that he could hear tiny
voices in that fog, voices that cried out against him.
Underfoot, he felt the forward surge of the Hyssop.

No wind bellied out the sail, no oar moved. Yet
the ship moved on slowly, through those riverwaters.
Niall felt an iciness creep up his spine. He put
his hand on Blood-drinker, his sword, and brought
it out of the scabbard. He waited then, as the Hyssop
moved slowly forward.

In time he saw grey stones, where a wharf had
been, long ago. Here the mists were less, they did not
shield what lay ahead as they had done. It was as
though puffs of wind came up suddenly to disperse
them. Or — as though someone had whispered a
command!

When the ship bumped against the wharfstones,
Niall heard movement behind him. Skin crawling, he
watched the oarsmen rise up from their benches,
turn and begin to walk. He drew back, staring at
those blank faces and empty eyes. He watched them
leave the ship and walk onto the wharf and then
along a broken causeway upward onto a hill.

When Edron Hobborth came toward him, Niall
fell into step beside him. He sheathed his sword, he
walked as the others walked, as though asleep or
under a necromantic spell. Yet his eyes went this way
and that, and he searched the fog for some foe that
might attack.

Ahead of him he saw the stark lines of an old
tower, the crumbling ruins of buildings that were a
part of that tower. They stood stark and empty beneath
the grey sky; there was a menace about them
that made his flesh creep.

They came at last to what had been a courtyard
in days long since forgotten, and there the men stood
unmoving, as though awaiting a command. Niall did
not stand with them, but where he saw the outlines
of a door set between stone uprights, he moved
toward it.

Beyond the doorway, there was no fog, only the
empty desolation of the past. Niall walked swiftly,
eagerly, and in time he came to a flight of stone steps
leading downward. He took those steps, moving as
warily as a wild beast.

From far ahead, he heard a cry.

It was a wail of utter terror, of hopelessness.

Niall ran. He fled down the steps and along a
subterranean passageway, past many doors, until he
saw pale light ahead of him. And now he could hear,
mixed in with those wails, a harsh scrape of something
on stone, and a fearful hissing.

He came to an opening, he stood before a vast
chamber with a great opening in the floor, rimmed
with stone. Hung in that opening was a girl, caught
by chains dependent from the ceiling. Her long black
hair fell toward the opening, she writhed and twisted
in the manacles that held her by wrists and ankles.

Those chains were lowering her slowly into that
pit.

Niall ran forward crying out. The girl heard
him, turned her head, stared with disbelief at his
mail-shirted body, at his long yellow hair, at the
anger on his face.

When he came to the rim of that pit, he stared
downward and cried out in horror. A mighty snake
was coiled in the depths of that opening, its fanged
head rising upward, jaws gaping. Niall could see a
forked tongue, glittering white fangs, multi-faceted
eyes.

“By Emelkartha herself!” he rasped.

“You can’t save me,” the girl wept, still struggling.
“Nothing can!”

Niall felt his muscles tense. He crouched on the
rim of that pit and his eyes went upward to the
chains, saw them lowering the girl slowly. Slowly! It
was as if whatever evil brain had put her there wanted
that girl to know the agonies of approaching
death long before death touched her.
Niall leaped outward, over the pit.

The huge snake hissed in fury, fangs glittering
to catch him when he fell. His hands caught those
chains, they slipped, and then they clung.

The snake lifted upward.
 

Only for a moment did Niall rest motionless,
clinging to those chains. Then he was swinging them,
pulling with his arms, pushing with his feet. Back
and forth he swung them, toward one edge of the pit
and then the other. He could hear the links rasping
to that strain, he heard the pit-demon hiss in outraged
fury.

The girl hung motionless in her manacles, staring
upward at him.

Like a pendulum, Niall swung those chains.
They were dropping him more swiftly now, soon
that gigantic serpent would be able to reach the girl
with its fangs. Whatever he was going to do — he
must do soon!

He heard a link scrape on the stone rim. One
more swing! His muscles bulged in arms and legs
and back as he put all his weight, all his strength,
into his swinging.

Then he leaped. With one hand he held the
chains even as he swung outward toward the pit’s
rim. His warboots landed, scraped. He fell full
length. But his hand still held a link, and the girl fell
beside him onto the cold stones.

She sobbed, she wept with relief.

But they were not yet done with danger. Upward
over the pit’s rim came the fanged wedge that
was the serpent’s head. Niall cursed and yanked his
steel free of its scabbard. With Blood-drinker naked
in his hand he leaped to the edge of the pit, swung
the sword.

Steel grated on a serpent’s tooth, snapped it. Instantly,
even as the head was drawing back, Niall
curved the aim of his blade, cut upward under the
jaw of the massive snake. Through bone and sinew
and flesh went the edge of his blade.

The reptile hissed. That hiss was a sussuration
of rage and fury, of pain and agony. It reverberated
from wall to wall, from the bottom of the pit
upward.

Forward lunged that bleeding head. Outward
swept the forked tongue. The fangs glinted cruelly in
the faint light of the chamber. Niall could see the
brownish scales, which seemed like armor plate, tinted
greenish, here and there, as that flat head darted
toward him.

Niall swung Blood-drinker, drove it in an arc of
bluish light straight for that head. Deep into the
skull went the blade, the shock of the blow ran up
Niall’s powerfully muscled arm into his shoulder.

The giant reptile hissed out its pain and anguish,
its fury.

Bracing his thickly thewed legs, Niall tore the
steel from its living bed. Yet in that moment he felt
hate surge up about him, almost like a scarlet
mantle: not his own hate, but that of another. It was
a human hate, mingled with fear, and it shook him
for a moment as he yanked free his steel and watched
the skull-smitten reptile draw back, sink downward.

He whirled, sword in hand —

— yet there was no one there, only the girl who
crouched naked on the stones of the flooring, half
hiding her face behind a veil of fallen hair. His eyes
went from her to the chamber in which he stood
panting, blood and ichor dripping wetly from his
swordblade to the pavement.

“The wizard,” he muttered. “Who is the wizard
behind all this?”

The head of the girl jerked up so that he could
see her eyes through the spill of black hair, vivid and
fearful, tinted a pale yellow.

“Ulkarion,” she whispered, and with her whisper
a chill came into the air.

“Is that his name? The name of the warlock
who inhabits this ancient pile of stone?”

He knelt beside her, lifting out his dagger and
using it to pick the locks that held the manacles to
her slender wrists. She shuddered away from him
but he smiled at her.

“Na, na. There’s no reason to fear me, I’m just
a traveler on my way to Urgrik. Something bemused
my fellow travelers and —”

“But not you?” she asked wonderingly.

Niall frowned. “No, and that’s a strange thing.
They all became like the living-dead, but whatever it
was did that to them didn’t affect me at all.”

As the last manacle fell from her ankle, the
woman rose up, proudly naked in the dim light, and
raising her hands, parted her hair so that she could
see him the more clearly. For his part, Niall did his
own staring. She was beautiful, her black hair was
almost like a robe that hid a part of her nakedness
from his eyes, and her yellow eyes softened as they
regarded him. Slowly she shook her head.

“We can never escape Ulkarion, you know,”
she said softly. “He is a very potent wizard, he has
searched for many years for this place.” Her hand
rose, indicated the vast stones of the walls, the viper
pit, the dark entrances that lead into this vast room.

Niall rose to stand beside her. “What can you
know of this mage?”

She shrugged. “Ulkarion needs sacrifices for
Sisstorississ, the snake-like god who dwells in labyrinthine
hells far out in space. Long ago, Sisstorississ
was worshipped here in Kor Magnon.” She caught
the bewilderment in his eyes and smiled faintly.

“Kor Magnon is the name of this place where
we stand. Long and long ago, it was the lair of a race
of serpent-men who were worshippers of Sisstorississ.
They stole human sacrifices to offer the snakegod,
until the peoples of this region rose up and attacked
it.

“Kor Magnon fell, everyone in it was put to
death. From that day on, it has lain empty,
abandoned, until all record of its location was forgotten.
Yet Ulkarion searched for it, hampered only
by the efforts of another wizard named Iphygia.
Eventually, he defeated Iphygia and came here to
worship Sisstorississ, so that the snake-god would
make him powerful and almighty.”

The girl shrugged. “I was to have been the first
sacrifice to Sisstorississ — until you came along. I —
am grateful.”

Niall eyed her cautiously. “You know a lot
about this magician.”

“I was hand-maiden to Iphygia. When he destroyed
Iphygia, he captured me, Kathyla. I was to
have been his first sacrifice to the snake-god.”

The Far Traveler grinned. “Looks to me as if he
needs a new god. That one who came for you is
dead. I clove in his brain.”

The girl shrugged. “That was only the manifestation
of Sisstorississ. Sisstorississ himself is — beyond
death. Nothing can kill him.”

“Then we’d better get out of here.”

“It’s no use. There is no escape.”

Niall shrugged. “Stay here if you want, then.
I’m leaving.”
 

He moved toward one of the exits, black and
yawning in the stone. Behind him the girl stirred,
called, “Not that way, Traveler! That door leads to
certain death. There is a trap door somewhere ahead
of that walkway. If you put foot on it, the stone slab
would turn and drop you into everlasting fire, into
the very bowels of the planet.”

Nial turned; asked, “Then where?”

She ran ahead on bare feet toward a different
adit. “Our only hope is by this way. It may take us
to safety.”

He moved toward her, his eyes running up and
down her bared legs, her hips, the tilted breasts halfhidden
by her long black hair. “You seem to know a
lot about this place.”

“My mistress — Iphygia — did her own research.
She also wanted to find Kor Magnon and set
herself up as priestess to Isstorississ. She failed. Yet I
have talked with her about Kor Magnon and I know
it almost as well as does Ulkarion.”

“Lead on, then.”

He followed her swaying haunches across the
tiles and into a narrow tunnelway. Darkness closed
in around them, for it was black as deepest space
where they walked, and Niall could not even see the
girl ahead of him, nor could he hear the footfalls of
her feet. Yet his animal senses knew she walked
ahead of him, proudly yet warily, and once he felt
the brush of her hand, though only faintly, against
his arm.

“Beware here, Traveler. There are hidden traps
in all these corridors.”

He strode more warily, and after a time the
walkway rose upward at an angle, before it turned
suddenly and he could see the girl now, and also a
round room with two doors at its far side.

She started forward and as she did, out of both
of those entrances came a dozen liches — dead men
clad in scraps of burial garments, wielding in their
skeletoned hands rusted weapons that had been
buried with them long ago — and as they caught
sight of Niall and Kathyla, weird ullulations broke
from their skeletal throats.

The girl shrank back even as Niall leaped forward.
Blood-drinker in a hand — not one of these
mummified liches had blood, but that made no difference
— he ran to meet them. They moved slowly,
as though not yet aroused from the sleep of death, as
though they still dreamed in the sepulchers in which
they had been entombed.

Niall swung his sword, he ravened in among
them with his steel always moving, slashing, darting.
He was like an enraged panther in the fury of his
fighting. Skulls rolled, clicking on the tiles, boney
arms dropped where they were severed. In moments,
those skeletal figures flopped and rolled across the
floor, dismembered but still under the spell of some
awful wizardry.

The Far Traveler paused, glancing about him.
With his warbooted foot he kicked away a skull that
sought to bite him, then tromped hard on a boney
hand that still held a sword.

“Come along. There must be a way out of this
hellhole, away from magicks such as this.”

The girl shook her head, smiling faintly. “There
is no escape from Kor Magnon. Nor,” she added
darkly, “from Ulkarion, either.”

“If he’s flesh and blood, he can die.”

Her slanted yellow eyes slid sideways at him,
mockery in their depths. “Do you think you can defeat
Ulkarion, barbarian?”

He shook his bloody sword at her. “If he’s human,
he can die. If there’s a way, I’ll find it.”

She whispered, “Perhaps you can, at that.”
Her hand lifted, she beckoned to him. “This way,
now. If I remember the old scrolls, there should be
safety down this passageway.”

They stepped over the still flopping forms of the
liches and moved into a narrow tunnel which led upward.
Niall still held Blood-drinker in a fist; at any
moment he expected attack. He had no way of
knowing how Ulkarion could trace their movements
in these subterranean tunnels, but apparently he
could. The attack of the liches seemed proof enough
of that.

Upward they walked, with the girl leading the
way. Once she paused, her hand held high. They listened,
but even though they heard only the silence of
these long-unused corridors, Niall tightened the grip
of his hand on his sword-hilt.

He had no knowledge of how long he had been
without sleep, but even his gigantic muscles were
showing the effect of his constant walking, fighting.
His eyes slid sideways at the girl. She had stumbled
once or twice lately, he saw lines of tiredness on her
face.

“We need sleep,” he muttered.

Her eyes were fearful as they turned toward
him. “To sleep in Ulkarion’s lair is to die.”

“And if we don’t sleep, we die from exhaustion.”

She paused, thinking, “There is a place — mayhap.
It is not far from here, off one of these corridors.
There we may sleep a while, reasonably safe.”

Now Kathyla ran ahead, her black hair flying,
and Niall trotted to keep up with her. Along two
ramps they went, and then they came to a room off a
short corridor, a room hung with arrases and
drapes, quiet as a tomb, and almost as dark. Only a
tiny candle which Kathyla found and lighted, enabled
them to see.

The girl said, “You may sleep here, Niall. Without
fear.”

She settled herself in a corner of the room and
closed her eyes. Niall watched her a moment,
shrugged, and lay down himself. In moments, he
was asleep.

Later, Niall was to recall that he dreamed of
Emelkartha the Evil, that demon-goddess whom he
had known as Lylthia in Angalore, and whom he
had followed into the halls of her Eleven Hells. She
came to him in his dream, as lovely as he had remembered
her, and she put her hands upon his
closed eyes as downward she bent, to kiss him with
her blood-red mouth, soft and fragrant. Niall stirred
under that kiss, he strove to put his arms about her
nakedness, to hold her to him.

He struggled, but he could not move.

Emelkartha ran her hand down his side, to
where he kept the jewels she had given him when, as
a shadow, she had freed him from the manacles with
which Maylock’s warriors had fastened him, and
later brought him into a strongroom and told him to
take what jewels and gold he would. Niall protested,
mumbling. Did Emelkartha want those gifts back?

The demon-woman laughed, and her merriment
rang in his ears as his eyes snapped open.

Kathyla was crouched beside him, trying to
open that pouch at his belt in which he carried those
jewels. His hand stabbed downward, caught her
wrist.

“What’s this?” he mumbled. “Robbery?”
 

She tried to free herself, but he was too strong.
Kathyla stared at him with her yellow eyes, and for
an instant — before her eyelids fell to cover those
lemony eyes — Niall would have sworn he saw anger
and stark fear in them. She tried to draw away from
him, but his hand was like an iron band, holding
her.

“Na, na, girl. Would you steal from me and run
away?”

He laughed. “And do you think to discover the
secret in my pouch?”

Niall put his hand into that leather pouch and
lifted out a handful of the gems he had taken from
Maylock’s strong-room. He held them on his palm
so that the candlelight glittered on them.

To his amazement, Kathyla shrank back, averting
her face.

“What’s this? Do you fear a few jewels?”

“Put them — away. I have seen — enough!”

Niall did as she bid, but his eyes rested on her
averted face. He was curious. There was nothing so
terrifying about a few rubies, diamonds and emeralds.
What was there about them that so frightened
the girl?

He rose to his feet, shook himself. “I know not
how long we’ve slept, but it’s time to go. I have a
hunger in me to see blue sky and green grass. I’ve
been in these pits long enough.”

Kathyla rose also, but she hung back, away
from him.

“Come along, if you don’t want to spend the
rest of your life within these walls.”

He walked with swinging stride, his hand ever
near his swordhilt, his eyes searching the dark passages
down which he strode. Behind him, Kathyla
came at the trot, and he could hear her rather harsh
breathing. What was it about him that so frightened
the girl? Niall thought about other girls he had
known in his travels, and could think of none that
shrank away from him.

When they came to a branching corridor that
led upward, Niall waited until the girl came up beside
him. “This place is a labyrinth of walkways,”
he grumbled. “I’ve been going upward, but I can see
no way of escape.”

“We are near the subterranean dungeons of
that building which served as Kor Magnon’s temple
to Sisstorississ. Here were the victims fed to the
snake-god, here the people of Kor Magnon worshipped
that evil being.”

Niall nodded, putting a hand on her wrist, gripping
it. “Good. Once inside that temple, we’ll find a
way out of it.”

She shrank back, using her weight to hamper
him. “It is the temple of the snake-god. There, Ulkarion
will seek to rouse him from his far-off
worlds, to bring him here to — destroy us!”

Niall scowled. He did not like this talk of demon-
gods and warlocks. He was a warrior, a sellsword,
more used to fighting other men than battling
with demons and their hell-inspired desires. Yet
he understood that by going into that temple to
Sisstorississ, they would be risking a confrontation
with the serpent-demon. His broad shoulders
shrugged.

He could not stay in these pits forever. Besides,
he was growing hungry.

“Do what you like, girl. But I’m for the sunlight
and some fresh air.”

He moved upward along the ramp and into a
cellar where dampness and mildew glittered on every
stone of the walls. It seemed that he could hear a
thick chanting, which rose and fell in mesmeric harmony,
though faint and very far, far away. Those
rhythms seemed to seep inside his flesh.

Kathyla was there beside him, whimpering.

“Ulkarion is worshipping! He calls on Sistorississ
to rise upward from the lands where he dwells,
to come here and greet his worshippers!”

“Now how can you know that?”

“I have studied the ancient scrolls, the forgotten
writings of the ancients. As handmaiden to
Iphygia, that is.”

“Perhaps now, while Ulkarion is busy, we can
get away.”

“There is no escape,” Kathyla moaned, but she
ran beside him on bare feet, sobbing softly to herself.
 

They turned a corner, they ran up worn steps
hollowed out by the feet of long-dead men and women,
they slid against walls wet with dew, they came at
last to an archway. They peered in at a great altar of
blue stone set beneath what seemed to be a round
opening in the wall behind it. The wizard Ulkarion,
in flowing robes of black and silver, stood with upraised
arms before that black opening, chanting
those words which had been old when the world was
young.

Niall ran, with the girl beside him.

No one paid them any heed. The people who
stood chanting in the great temple, Niall was with
sickening revulsion, were as dead as the liches he had
cut apart with Blood-drinker. They stood in their
serements, the flesh shredding from their bones, eyeless
sockets dark in the candles’ light, and the sound
of their singing was as the wind whistling past a forest
of gravestones.

But with that eerie chanting —

— there was another sound!

Very faint it was, as if it were coming from the
depths of ancient earth itself. It moaned, it wept, it
cried out with soft whispers that promised unknown
delights and pleasures. Yet beneath that cacophony
of sound there was laughter! As a man might laugh
as he crushed an insect, as a monster might laugh as
it prepared some fiendish torture for a helpless woman,
so was that laughter.

Niall slid his sword out, yet there were drops of
perspiration on his forehead. Whatever made those
sounds — was coming closer! Closer!

Beside him, Kathyla moaned.
 

It came to Niall that the chanting in the temple
had stopped, by now. He heard a whisper of sound
and turned. The dead were also turning away from
the altar, toward him and the girl. Their eyesockets
were empty, but it seemed they watched them.

Beyond them was Ulkarion, on the dais before
the altar.

He was smiling cruelly and his arms were
making strange gestures.

“Fools,” he shouted. “Fools! None can escape
the vengeance of Sisstorississ! Behold — your
doom!”

3.

Niall whirled, sword up. He could see nothing
as yet, nothing but the entry way of the temple, dark
and ominous. Yet always the sound of those
invisible voices — and that eerie laughter — grew
louder, louder, until it drowned out every other
sound.

And then he saw them.

They were grey in color, and they rotated
swiftly, like tops with which some demonaic child
might play. They were twice as tall as a man and
there were so many they hid everything that was
behind them. They came on slowly, twirling faster
and faster, and here and there in all that greyness, it
seemed that Niall could see glittering red eyes. Eyes
that taunted, eyes that gloated!

Kathyla moaned.

“These are the demon-things that serve
Sisstorississ! Spawned in the depths of some unknown
hell, the serpent-god sets them free to do his
will! We are lost, Niall — lost!”

“Not yet,” he growled, and lifted Blooddrinker.

He hurled himself at those eerie servitors. His
bluish blade circled, swung. Through those grey
bodies went his steel, and it seemed to him that
where his steel touched them — green flames
danced!

Something screamed. It was not a human voice,
whatever made that sound. It seemed to come from
far away, yet it pierced his ears, it reached deep into
the soul of him, it fingered his nerve-ends. There was
no pain, only an — awareness. Yet even as Niall
swung his blade, he felt a numbness come upon his
arms, his legs. He fought that numbness as he
fought those twirling greynesses.

On the high altar, Ulkarion still chanted.
High and shrill were his chantings, filled with
fright and worry. Never yet had Ulkarion
summoned up the demon-god Sisstorississ, he knew
only from his readings of ancient scrolls what
Sisstorississ might do. He had no control over that
awesome demon, he stood in no pentagram, he knew
no words with which to control that which he had
summoned up.

Yet as he watched, he grew more hopeful. For
Niall was weakening. Aye! His swordstroke were not
as crisp, as sure. And where he faltered, those
twirling imps surged in upon him, at times almost
hiding him from Ulkarion’s straining eyes.

Niall raged. Were these things men, they would
have fallen away before the sweep of his sword. Yet
though some were damaged — he could see them
lying on the flaggings — there were so many others
they were all about him, touching him, weakening
him, drawing his vital life force from his body.

He tottered, nearly falling, and he heard
Kathyla scream in fright. He fought to put his back
against a wall and used his blade to destroy those
grey wraiths that swirled around him. But he could
not keep on fighting. The mere touch of that greyness
sapped his strength, weakened his muscles.

It grew harder to use his swordarm, more and
more of the twirling things darted in under his blade,
touched him to weaken him still further. And now
he heard the faint whisper of burial garments as the
dead of Kor Magnon moved toward him, their
boney hands outstretched.

Out of the corners of his eyes, Niall saw those
dead things put their skeletal fingers on Kathyla. She
screamed and fought them, but she did little more
than tear a burial garment or shred a bit of rotting
flesh from bone. They overcame her, lifted her into
the air and held her there with skeletal fingers as the
others came on toward Niall himself.

The Far Traveler rasped a curse as he sought to
spring from the wall at his back and reach the girl.
But the whirling grey imps had expected this, they
swarmed upon him and where they touched he felt
the sting of their greyness, weakened under it. Even
as he weakened, the dead stretched out their arms
and put their boney hands upon him.

He was lifted upward, still fighting. But now he
fought as a babe might fight, weakly and without
purpose. His right hand still clasped his sword but
Blood-drinker was like a weight attached to his
arm. He could not use it, it just hung there.

Like that, he and Kathyla were carried toward
the blue stone altar.

The skeletal hands put them down, to stand
before Ulkarion. The mage was rigid with triumph,
it glittered from his eyes, it could be seen in the
width of his smile.

“You die this day, both of you! You are my
first gifts to mighty Sisstorississ! The woman for her
beauty and her wisdom, the man for his strength and
the might of his swordarm!”

His black eyes studied Niall where he stood,
upheld in his weakness by those many boney hands.
Faint was Niall, and only dimly aware of what went
on about him. Wizardry had sapped his muscles,
turned them into water. He knew this, knew also
there was no sense in fighting against it. If he was
doomed, then he would meet death as bravely as he
had in the past.

To one side of him, Kathyla was whimpering.
She shuddered from moment to moment and on her
forehead were beads of sweat that testified to her
terror. Yet she was still beautiful, still lovely, with
that black hair and those burning eyes, and her body
— where the candleflames’ light touched it — shone
as enticing as ever.

Ulkarion stepped aside, gesturing.

Golden chains lay on the tiled floor, fastened to
plates of gold screwed into rock. There were many
such chains, but two in particular were foremost
among the others, and it was toward these that the
skeletal figures pushed them.

One by one, golden manacles were lifted,
clamped to their wrists.

They stood chained, after a time, and were
aware that Ulkarion walked around them, nodding
his head and smiling.

“The victory is mine,” he said softly to the
woman. “It is to my call that Sisstorississ shall
come, and not to yours. You have had a few hours
more of freedom, but that does not matter. The
demon-god will come for you soon. You he will take
first, and then this barbarian swordsman who has
made himself your champion.”

The black eyes slid sideways, touched Niall, and
in them was a faint shadow.

“As for you, swordman, I do not know how
you escaped the fog. No living thing is safe from it.
Unless one receives aid from the gods.” His lips
quirked into a mocking smile.

“Did you, swordsman? Have you invoked the
protection of a god? But that I cannot believe! Who
are you to have caught the fancy of some demonaic
being? Pah! The mere thought is ridiculous.”

His gaze went to the length of Blood-drinker.

“A good weapon, that. I shall make it mine —
after Sisstorississ has come for you. The demon-god
has no need of swords.”

Niall eyed him coldly. Were he free, were his
weakness gone from him, were those golden chains
that bound him fallen from his wrists — ahh, then
he would leap with his hands outstretched and his
fingers would fasten in Ulkarion’s throat and the
world would be without one more wizard. Something
of this Ulkarion saw in his eyes, for he drew
back suddenly, and his face was pale.

“Enough,” he rasped. “It is time for the Summoning.”

He turned, his black and silver cloak swinging
wide. Upward went his arms, in invocation. His
voice swelled, rose upwards, reverberated from wall
to wall. As magicians had stood since the birth of
Time, so stood Ulkarion and intoned his words and
phrases, that formula which would unlock the barriers
of space.

Niall listened, his body sick, his mind numbed.

Soon now, he supposed, Sisstorississ would
come from the void where he dwelt, through the unimaginable
abysses of deep space, to make his way
to this adit which had been created by those who
served him so many millenia ago. No man knew how
old was this temple, this stronghold above the river
Thalamar. Even the myths that surrounded it were
old. Old!

And yet —

He felt it first in his muscles. They seemed to
gather strength, they seemed to swell, to harden, to
band outward as they had always done. No longer
was that weakness so rampant in him. His mind
cleared, too, free at last of that paralyzing pall which
held him in its grip.

The powerful fingers of his big right hand
worked on his swordhilt.

Not yet, Niall. Oh, not yet, my warrior!

Shock held him frozen. That voice! Yet it had
not been a voice, not as a human would understand
a voice. It had spoken in his mind. But — with the
sweet tones of Lylthia, whom he had met in Angalore!
Lylthia — who was merely the human manifestation
of Emelkartha the Evil!
Soft laughter filled his ears.

You remember, do you? Know then, that neither
have I forgotten!
Niall stood bemused, only half believing what
was happening. It was not like him to hear voices
where there was no body to make them. Yet he knew
that Emelkartha was close beside him. Emelkartha,
who men named The Evil One, yet whose beauty was
like a flame inside Niall of the Far Travels. It was
she who had carried him to the threshold of her
Eleven Hells, then sent him back to Angalore. It was
she who had taken him in her arms, there in her
Eleven Hells and kissed him as no woman had ever
kissed him.

Aye, she had put her mark upon him!

He waited, every muscle tensing, and listened
with half his mind to the sombre chanting with
which Ulkarion sought to summon Sisstorississ. The
rest of his attention was concentrated on Emelkartha.

Why was she concerned with Kor Magnon? Or
was she concerned only with her own safety? Could
he care what happened here? Did the fact that Sisstorississ
was emerging from his own dwelling space
into the boundaries of Earth worry her?

“Why?” he whispered.

Inside him an anger was growing, very faint and
small. It was as if some strange fury — a godlike
rage — was deep in his innermost parts. He shook to
hat fury, quivering like a hound at the end of a
leash. His right hand clutched Blood-drinker.

Not yet, my love. There is a time to wait.

His muscles eased, yet he was ready.

Ulkarion had finished his chantings. He stood
with upraised arms, his black and silver cloak hanging
motionless from his shoulders. A silence grew
upon that vast chamber where he stood, as though
all creation held its breath.

His muscles eased, yet he was ready.

Ulkarion had finished his chantings. He stood
with upraised arms, his black and silver cloak hanging
motionless from his shoulders. A silence grew
upon that vast chamber where he stood, as though
all creation held its breath.

Faintly and from far away, there came the
sound of something slithering against the stone walls.
The hackles on the back of Niall’s thickly thewed
neck stood up. A faint reek of slime and corruption
came to his nostrils and he tensed, there in his golden
chains, waiting.

Ulkarion took a step backward. A shiver
seemed to run through his body, so that his black
and silver cloak rippled.

Beside Niall, Kathyla sobbed, eyes wide and staring.

Only that sound broke the funereal silence, as
vast coils rasped and churned against cold stone.
The coming of the snake-god grew louder with each
moment, and now Niall could hear a distant hissing,
rightful and unnerving.

Sisstorississ comes! Be ready, Niall of the Far
Travels!

What could he do, linked as he was to these
golden chains and manacles that held him prisoner
to the floor? He shook those chains so that they rattled,
and fought as if to tear them from the tiles to
which they were riveted. Yet inside him that anger
swelled upward, almost as if it were something alien,
something foreign to his nature.

Closer that rasping came. Closer!

Now in the deeps of that black hole above the
altar, Niall could see — a something. Red eyes, glittering
with hate, with fury, glowed in that ebon
darkness. Nearer they came, until now he could
make out that herpetologic head covered with scales,
win horns rising upward from the brow, the flickering
tongue twice the size of a tall man.

That head filled the hole, slid through it.

Kathyla screamed, a throbbing ululation of utter
terror. Even Ulkarion fell back a few paces, awed
by the sight of that which he had summoned up.
And Niall felt the fury rise up inside his flesh, until it
seemed to choke him.

All eyes were on that awful head.

Only Niall noticed that a strangely greenish mist
was rising up about him. It seemed to come from inside
his body, stretching outward. Like a verdant
smoke it rose about his chest — moved outward.
 

This is my power, Niall! Be not alarmed!

With awed eyes he watched that green fog slide
about him, and where it touched the manacles on his
wrists, it ate the gold. That gold it turned to powder,
so that the powder fell away from him and his arm
was free. In seconds, the other manacle was gone, as
well.

Niall rose to his full height, shook himself.

Now, Niall! Strike for Emelkartha!

He leaped forward like an arrow released from
the bowstring. One big hand hit Ulkarion, knocked
him to one side. Onto that black altar he leaped, his
sword held high, and like that arrow, he launched
himself at Sisstorississ.

As he swung his blade, he saw that the green
glow covered the blade. It touched the snake-head
even as his steel clove through the scales on that
head, drove deep into the brain-pan.

Sisstorississ wailed. In that wail was an agony
beyond words, and a paroxysmic rage that seemed
almost to shake the very altar on which Niall had
planted his warboots. That vast mouth gaped wide,
the red eyes flared hatred at the man who muscles
bulged as he sought to tear his blade from that skull
into which he had driven it.

The sword came free, glittering greenly.

Again Niall struck, and again.

Blood and a colorless ichor spewed forth, like a
fountain shedding its waters. Where that blood and
ichor touched, steam rose upward and a faint hissing.
Drops fell on Niall, but he did not feel them for
that verdant tint covered his entire body.

Twice more he struck before that titanic head
was withdrawn, back inside the hole and out of
sight. For an instant, Niall heard the scrape of scales
against distant stone, and then there was only silence.
 

Sisstorississ had fled! The victory is yours, Niall!

He turned, his swordblade dripping blood and
ichor onto the top of the altar. He stared at Ulkarion
who glared back at him disbelievingly. The archmage
was shivering, but with fear or with anger,
Niall did not know. Nor did he care.

He came down off the altar and moved toward
the magician.

Ulkarion lifted his hands, began to make archaic
symbols in the air. Niall felt a coldness touch
him, but even as it did, he leaped, swinging Blooddrinker
in a wide arc.

Ulkarion sought to turn, to flee.
 

Yet even as he did, the length of Blood-drinker
swept at him, its steel edge honed to razor sharpness.
Through meat and gristle, blood and bone, that edge
drove — and Ulkarion’s head leaped from his shoulders
and went flying through the air.

The body remained on its two feet for an instant,
then collapsed.

As the body fell, so also did the dead bones and
serments of the dead whom Ulkarion had raised
from the grave to be his worshippers. There was a
vast sigh throughout that chamber, and then a whisper
of sound, a click or two as grave vestments and
dried bones collapsed.

Niall found himself staring at a chamber empty
of life, save for himself and Kathyla. The dead lay in
heaps upon the tiles, and Ulkarion’s body rested lifeless
at his feet. The girl was staring at him with wide
eyes in which fright lurked with awe.

“You — drove Sisstorissis away,” she whispered.

“Not I. I had help from Emelkartha.”

“The Evil One? The Mother of All Wickedness?”

Niall grinned. “She’s not so evil. I have the notion
that she fights for that which she considers to
belong to her. Or maybe it’s her pride. What difference
does it make? She helped us, and I honor her
for it.”

He moved toward her, reached for his dagger.
He began to work the steel point against the golden
rivets that held the manacles to Kathyla’s wrists. In
time he loosed one, and then the other.

“We can go now. There’s nothing to keep us
here.”

Kathyla glanced down at the dead body of Ulkarion.
“He would have slain me,” she breathed.
Her eyes lifted, touched Niall.

“Go you, Far Traveler. I will stay here in these
ruins for a while.”

Niall eyed her wonderingly. “Now why should
you stay here, Kathyla? The world’s out there, waiting
for you, and this is a dead place, filled only with
the dead.”

She shook her head. “Trust me, Niall.”

He shrugged and turned away. He walked toward
the far end of the chamber, but it seemed that
as he walked his body grew more tired, so that occasionally
he stumbled. Once he paused to lean against
a pillar, letting his head hang. His eyelids were so
heavy! His brain so bemused! It was almost as if
there were some sort of spell on him.

Now — he heard singing.

It was a chanting such as Ulkarion had made,
and as he heard it, his very bones seemed to turn to
water. His hand clung to the pillar against which he
leaned, and his legs trembled. He could not move.
He tried, but his muscles refused to listen to his
mind.
 

Bare feet came running.

Kathyla stood before him, eyes glowing.
“Fool,” she whispered. “Did you not suspect —
when Ulkarion sought so hard to kill me?”

He eyed her dully. His brain was numb, but he
remembered the manner in which this girl had
shrunk away from him, the first time he had seen
her, still in those chains. She had never touched him,
or very lightly, nor had she permitted him to touch
her. It was a puzzle, one he could not solve.

“I am not Kathyla, but — Iphygia! Aye,
Iphygia the enchantress, the witch-woman, mortal
foe of Ulkarion. He and I sought to come here to
these old ruins, to what had been Kor Magnon. Ulkarion
knew! And so he tried to slay me, to offer me
up as sacrifice.”

Her lips smiled, but it was a cold and deadly
smile.

“Ulkarion trapped me with his wizardry, would
have given me to Sisstorississ, but for you. I owe you
a favor for having saved me, for having rid me of
Ulkarion.

“And yet — were I to favor you, I think you
would find a way to slay me. And this must not be.
For now Sisstorississ will serve — me! I will give you
to him, to do with what he pleases. It will not be a
nice death, Niall. The snake-god will be very angry
with you.”

Her laughter rang out, mocking.

Deep inside himself, Niall felt again that hatred.
He knew now it was not he who hated, but Emelkartha
herself, whose demoniac powers were represented
by that green cloud which had come from
him. She waited now, deep inside some corner of his
being, and he sensed that she was smiling even more
cruelly than Iphygia.

He shook his head. “Do you think Emelkartha
will let you kill me — when she stopped Ulkarion
and drove Sisstorississ back into his far abodes?”

Iphygia stared at him. “What are you talking
about.”

“Didn’t you see that green cloud that ate my
manacles?”

She touched tonguetip to lips. “I saw no cloud.
I — didn’t see how you got free.” She shook herself.
“Why bother talking to you? Turn around. I’ll put
you back inside those chains and then summon up
Sisstorississ once again.”

Emelkartha was stirring. Slowly she was expanding
inside him, as once before she had lifted out
of him and along his arms to shed his golden bonds
and coat the blade of Blood-drinker. He could sense
the hate, the fury in her. As she hated Sistorississ
and Ulkarion, now she hated Iphygia.

He could do nothing. He understood that, dimly.
He was only a focal point for her power. As that
verdant power grew within him, he lost his bemusement,
his lassitude.  He saw that green fire flow out
of him, along his arms, covering his chest, his legs.
And as it expanded, it drove out the magickal spell
under which Iphygia had placed him.

She did not see the verdant flame.  Her expression
was merely puzzled, for Niall was straightening,
rising away from that pillar, and he was smiling
down at her.

He raised his right arm.  He held no weapon in
his hand, but he could see that his arm was green,
that it glowed.  Iphygia stared at that arm, at the fingers
of his extended hand.

From the tips of his fingers, tiny green balls fled
outward.  They touched Iphygia, ran over her like a
malachite slime.  And now Iphygia threw back her
head and screamed.  Agony was in that scream, and a
deadly fear.

"No! Niall -- save me!"

He cannot.  You have offended me, Iphygis,
you and Ulkarion!  You would have brought back into
begin That-Which-Was-Conquered! For that, you
must die!

Niall watched, unable to move, as that green
tint ate at Iphygia.  In moments it consumed her, as it
had consumed the golden manacles.  A bit of dust
drifted to the floor, where she had been.

Go on, Niall of the Far Travels!  My work here
is done.

He stood alone in the ancient temple.  A cool
wind came off the river and moved through the
halls, the vast chamber.  Niall shook himself,
touched the hilt of his sword, and walked past that
which had been Iphygia.

In the outer courtyard, Edron Hobbort was stirring,
as though rousing from a deep sleep.  All about
him his men were staring, looking this way and that.
As Edron Hobbort caught sight of Niall, he came
forward.

"What is this place? How came we here?" he asked.

"Wizardry.  I'll tell you of it, on the way to
Urgrik."

Yet as he followed Edron Hobbort and his men
along the old causeway to their ship, he turned and
stared back at those crumbling ruins.  He thought of
Emelkartha and her powers, and he told himself that
he would sacrifice a fowl to her, once he came to
Urgrik.

He owed her more than that, but what sort of
gift could a mere man give -- a goddess?