Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

Having been sacrificed, the rat was then cooked, and portions of it were served to both Witchlord and Weaponmaster. They ate it without any qualms whatsoever (while confined in the Fulch, Guest Gulkan had several times eaten raw rat, therefore had no objection to the same article when cooked), and found it perfectly palatable, for it was not a filth-eater, but, rather, a pampered creature which had been properly raised expressly for the purpose of consumption.

Having thus fed, Witchlord and Weaponmaster were escorted through the Gates of Filth (for thus was the innermost door named), where they were ordered to halt in front of a small altar set amidst a sea of mud. A greenish phosphorescent light shone dimly down from the roof, and this was supplemented by flaring torches.

"Halt!" said the high priest.

For the ceremonies were not yet over! Before the questing heroes could be allowed to proceed any further into the inner depths, Aldarch the Third must first consecrate their mission by sacrificing a frog.

A frog was produced. It was a brown frog spotted with purplish strawberry-shaped markings. It had been securely trussed with threads of gold, and of silver, of purple, and of crimson. Guest Gulkan and his father were invited to kiss this animal, which they duly did, pressing reverent lips to the coldness of its skin. Then the high priest placed the sacrifice on the altar, and withdrew.

Aldarch the Third then stroked the frog with his finger, and hummed to it, then sucked on his finger, then let a glob of saliva fall to its cool flesh, then used his finger to spread his spittle across the animal's skin. Guest watched closely, for the Mutilator was wearing the ring of ever-ice on the very same finger which was stroking the frog, and Guest wished he could think of some way to win possession of that ring.

Then the Mutilator drew his knife.

It was a small knife, a weapon made with a back-breaking curve which ended not in a point but in a bead. A bluish bead.

Bluish? Greenish? It was hard to tell, for, after all, the Stench Caves were lit by the green glow from the roof combined with the flaring torchlight, which – as any interior designer will tell you – is scarcely the kind of illumination to be using when one is trying to match colors. But, despite the limitations of the light, Guest Gulkan was fairly sure that the bead on the end of the Mutilator's knife was a kind of blue or green. It looked to me made of porcelain, and so reminded him of the hideous coffin in the Mutilator's bathroom. Yet. The sight of that bead stirred a deeper memory. What?

The Mutilator jabbed at the frog. The animal convulsed. And Guest remembered.

Standing there at the Stench Gates, Guest Gulkan once again remembered the vision which had long ago beset him in the mainrock

Pinnacle. His vision had transported him to a room where a grayskinned stranger had slapped him, then had jabbed him with a hooked knife, terminating his vision, and precipitating his return to the realities of the mainrock.

Aldarch was the gray-skinned stranger.

The knife which had sacrificed the frog was the same knife which had assailed Guest during his visionary transportation.

And.

And!

The demon Ungular Scarth had said -

In the Temple of Blood, in the octagonal chamber which housed the Great God Jocasta, the jade-green demon had told Guest that a special knife needed to cut through the force-field which imprisoned the Great God. Anaconda Stogirov, High Priestess of the Temple of Blood, was in possession of one such blade.

The other -

"Wah!" said Guest.

And his father, who had been waiting for a cue which would tell him his son was ready for violence, slammed the Mutilator with his elbow. Down went the Mutilator! Guest grabbed for the Mutilator's knife.

"Mazara!" screamed the Mutilator, rising from the mud. Guest slashed him across the cheek. The Mutilator reeled backward, and Guest kicked him in the crutch. As Aldarch doubled over, Guest grabbed the man's head. Slammed it with his knee. The ripped the ring of ever-ice from the Mutilator's finger, and crammed it onto his own hand.

"Come on!" cried Lord Onosh.

So, realizing he did not have time to decapitate the Mutilator, or to skin him alive, or to organize his roasting, Guest chopped him on the neck – hoping the blow would kill – then went pelting into the darkness.

Witchlord and Weaponmaster fled at full pace. A dozen paces took them to the first of a multitude of corkscrew turns in an ever-branching tunnel. Then the Stench Caves widened from tunnel to cavern, and the Witchlord tripped, and went down. He fell heavily, winding himself. Guest, conscious of the cries of the guards who were in hot pursuit, grabbed his father. The cavern was lit by the unearthly green phosphorescence from overhead, but here and there were patches of darkness. Guest dragged his father toward the nearest such patch, not knowing whether it was a maw or a womb.

It proved to be a pocket of rock-shadowed mud. Cold mud. Wet mud. Slickery mud which absorbed Guest and his father as they plunged into it, going in up to their waists, and going in just in time – for moments later a good two dozen of the Mutilator's guards came pounding into the cavern.

As the guards raced into the cavern, Guest noticed the chip of ever-ice in the ring on his hand was gleaming in the darkness, vibrant with its own inner light. Hastily, he plunged it under the mud.

The guards went pelting past. One slithered, slid, then went sprawling with a belly-flop. One of his fellows kicked him, swearing in fear, rage and panic. Green light slick-sliced from the guards' swords, making Guest uncomfortably aware of the fact that his own weapons were as yet unavailable for his use, since they were firmly attached to his swordbelt. In his hand, he still had the little knife he had won from Aldarch the Third, but he doubted the wisdom of cutting anything free while he was waist- deep in mud, for he might loose his steel to the slime.

Abruptly, the leading guard halted.

Then cried out. Guest thought he had been discovered.

A moment later, with a roar, a thing with a great many tentacles lunged from the mud and seized the guard who had halted and shouted. The guard screamed, then screamed no more, for a tentacle forced its way down his throat. Even as Guest watched, aghast, the tentacle abrupted through the guard's back.

The guard thrashed in spasms. Then the monster of the murk tossed him to one side. He hit the wall with a sick glap-slup of bursting organs, then folded up in a crumpled heap on the mud of the cavern floor.

And while all this was going on, the murkbeast had simultaneously grabbed most of the other guards, and was variously squeezing them, crushing them, waving them about, or munching them down to satisfy its appetite.

As far as Guest could make out by the dim green phosphorescent light from the roof of the cave, the murkbeast had no feet, no legs, no means of perambulation. Rather, it appeared to be rooted in the muck on a thick stalk. It made him think of a toad which had been grafted onto a sea anemone and equipped with the tentacles of an octopus (tentacles dreadfully reminiscent of those of the therapist Schoptomov).

While Guest was still staring in fascinated horror, the murkbeast finished its feast.

Then the cavern was still, but for the noisy vomiting of a cowering survivor, and the groaning of a man a man who had been crushed but uneaten.

When the survivor had finished vomiting, he started crying, then exited from the cavern, exiting from this scene of living nightmare. But no such easy retreat was available to Witchlord and Weaponmaster. For if they retreated, they would run into Aldarch the Third; and, all things being equal, Guest would far rather take his chances with the murkbeast.