Glen Cook - Working God's Mischief

Despite tonight’s abuse and his previous debility er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen rose halfway up, climbing an old serpent staff he had brought out of Dreanger. His face was ghastly pale, twisted in disbelief. He could not fathom how this had come upon him-till he acknowledged the hand of the Night, and no faction of that which aspired to delight er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen.

A snake-dagger appeared in his left hand, blade its body and head its pommel. Its eyes burned, one lemon, the other a deep lilac rose. He extended that pommel toward his uninvited guests. Those eyes waxed brighter.

Bonecrusher flew. Heartsplitter thrust. Blinding light burst from those demon eyes.

But Death chose to avert its gaze from everyone.

The earth heaved ferociously at the critical instant.

The Dead City shook to a grandfather of an earthquake. Everything standing began to come apart. Brother Candle, minutes after having taken custody of the Ansa twins, went down hard. The youngsters helped him up, showing reverence as they did so.

He began a prayer to the Good God on their behalf. There was no point trying to flee the epic disaster about to come.

Kedle hustled, determined to rejoin Lord Arnmigal. Her leg did not hurt. The pain dwindled when she was sufficiently engaged. Then Hope was beside her, pleasantly warm despite the heat of the Idiam. She hissed, “Get thee down and cling to the ground, dear one. Now!”

The earth began to stir.

Pellapront Versulius. Pella wondered how he had come to have the same name as a fictional character. He wondered what had become of the blood sister he had not seen since he ran into the man he now called father. Would his life echo Piper Hecht’s when his own lost older sister resurfaced several decades down the road?

His past seldom occupied him. Mostly he did not care. Other than Alma, whose comforting arms he did recall fondly, there were few good memories. There were plenty from the years with Piper and Anna and the girls. But sometimes, when the waiting stretched, he could not help sliding off into bouts of wondering.

He did that while leaning on a ready falcon, trying to stay awake. That was a struggle common to the company. A plague of drowsiness had set in.

Then the ground heaved. Parts of the bluff slid down. Left of where he had been told to expect it a huge head began to emerge, shedding stone and adobe. It was a black of a sort that devoured light. It leaned back to consider the moon.

The falconeers did not stand around with their thumbs in, gawking. Weapons not charged with godshot fired immediately, whatever direction they were laid. Those properly charged quickly shifted and ranged-and the first to declare spoke fewer than forty seconds after the Mountain opened its womb.

Godshot hit the revenant at the nape of the neck. Two balls passed through what in a human would have been the brain stem. They exited through a piggish right nostril. The rest rattled around inside the devil.

It continued to emerge from the earth, ever more spastic, while trying to face the roaring that presaged its pain. Moonlight splashed an ugly, apish face drawn in both amazement and agony.

Gods were beyond challenge. Gods were the source of pain, not its object. That was the supernatural order. That was the Tyranny of the Night.

Crews stricken shaky by the magnitude of the demon nevertheless adjusted their aim. Another falcon bellowed. Shot hit the rising form with a wet, resounding splat! The demon swayed, groaned louder than any falcon’s shout. It freed a seven-clawed hand, reached for one of the nasty mortal engines. The soil around the devil, though hard to see in the moonlight, shivered, danced, boiled.

Every falcon with a clear sight line fired during the next twenty seconds. The Asher revenant was too close to miss. One blast tore the reaching hand off between wrist and elbow.

Nassim was ashamed. He suffered from a terror so deep that he clung to Old Az in a ferocious, moments-from-death hug. His faith had been murdered. The demon shrieked like a mortally wounded war elephant. It leaned toward its attackers, head lolling as though it was about to come loose altogether. The severed hand hit the ground with the impact of a man-size tombstone. The demon bellowed again, then grew a new hand equipped with even more daddy-longlegs fingers. It snatched up a falcon, pulled it in for examination.

Pella’s falcon spoke again. Silver-plated grapeshot hit the monster in the face. The meaty splat! was plain even to ears that had been near a falcon. Gangrenous pocks spotted that face. Parts melted, dripped away. The monster began to subside. The falcon it had meant to study dropped from its hand. A brace of unfortunate gunners fell with it.

Then the great face resumed rising and regaining its ugly original form.

Falcon doctrine was set. It was fixed, established, and acknowledged by the men who served the weapons. They pursued doctrine ruthlessly, now. Every weapon able to bear fired as briskly as it could. Those without a clear sight line moved to find one. Once godshot charges ran out crews used what they had. No Instrumentality had yet shown itself fully immune to physical law.

Every hit weakened the monster. That was the design. But it kept pulling itself together. Its enemies grew weaker each time it did.

Several invaders collapsed, too weak to go on. Rates of fire declined. The falconeers worked slower and slower.

A timely salvo melted more godstuff. The emerging Instrumentality stopped moving.

And the night filled with shrieks.

In Asher’s salad days the Choosers of the Slain would have been hornets to his tiger. Asher revenant was a shadow of the horror that had been. Its strange flesh sagged under the weight of the godshot it had absorbed. The poison of all that never stopped poisoning.

The flow of stolen life energy ceased.

And the Choosers, fattened in the Wells of Ihrian, went for the devil’s eyes. Other Shining Ones, equally well fed, followed on, wielding weapons gleaned from the Great Sky Fortress. They hammered, stabbed, slashed, and strangled. Seldom before had Instrumentalities ever joined in so malevolent, deliberate a plan to destroy another major Instrumentality for all time and ever, in all the worlds.

Lord Arnmigal and Hourli each lost their footing twice because the earth would not lie quiet. Both were down, facing a Rascal trying to get to his feet, when Hope and the Widow arrived. The latter tripped. She fell forward onto Hourli’s back. Hope had no trouble staying upright. She charged the bug-eyed sorcerer, who recognized her as a serious Instrumentality targeting him for some extremely special attention.

Er-Rashal squealed the first word of some prayer, invocation, or spell. Hope blurred. Her hands clamped on his throat.

The gale generated by Hope’s sudden movement extinguished Lord Arnmigal’s time candle. Almost anticlimactically, from his point of view, er-Rashal’s head popped off.

What?

The pretty girl had a grip that savage?

A man might ought to keep that in mind and not get on her bad side.

Reality wavered. Lord Arnmigal heard the roar of falcons. He had not, before. Their bellowing lasted a short while, then was replaced by the shrieks of Fastthal and Sprenghul. Other Shining Ones added their own ferocious commentary.

The confrontation between Instrumentalities ended before Lord Arnmigal and the Widow climbed back high enough to see the slag heap that had wanted to become Asher renewed. Aldi and Hourli had gone ahead, joining the assault by skipping the space between.

The Instrumentality carcass resembled newly excreted magma. Heat boiled off. Scarlet winked through cracks in its crispy black crust. Nearly invisible little Instrumentalities cavorted around the heap, jubilant. The monster would never claim dominion.