Greyhawk Musings: A Fistful of Baubles, Part 3: The Black Heart

Blind, Milky-white Eyes

“Keraptis,” the crone whispered, the “s” slithering, long and lovingly. It was as though she were unwilling to release a most cherished memory.

Hradji held his breath as she beheld what only she could see with those nearly blind, milky-white eyes. When his patience failed him, he cautiously inhaled a dram of the acrid smoke that chocked the close quarters of her earthen hut, having already learned what a deep draught would earn him. A racking cough. And her mirth. How she could live is so caustic an atmosphere bewildered him. Her lungs rattled. Her voice rasped. She should have passed years ago, decades ago, truth be told, yet she lingered on; why, how, he could not fathom.

“And who would that be?” he wheezed.

The fire cackled. So too the crone.

“Have ye never heard of Keraptis,” she hissed, her measure of irritation equal to his.

“No,” he said, unsure. “Is he some long-dead jarl?” This Keraptis must be if this aged hag had caught his eye, judging by her obvious longing.

“Nothing so common as a jarl,” she grinned. “And not me lover, neither,” she said, having divined his thoughts. “He was a king for all Ages. He ruled over this land, long ago. No, he ruled over more, all he saw, over the whole of the northlands, and more. His realm reached unto Vecna’s to the west, Galap-Driedel’s to the mid, and Acererak’s to the south.”

“And who the fuck were they?”

“Ur-Flan! Them kings that tore these lands from the olven.”

Hradji recalled tales his mor and mormor had told of those mythic boogiemen, sinister tales, made more eerie by the hot crackle of fire swirling into the night, its light dancing across their beloved faces and twisting them in the telling. None believed them. They were all in good fun. Or so they said. The Flan could never have been the terror those fables claimed they once were. They had been swept aside long generations before by the people’s coming, and those feeble primitives had never risen again. They were a docile people, a meek people, a conquered people. “What do I care of dead Flan kings? They were no match for our steel.”

“Flan? No, not Flan. Ur-Flan.”

“Fables to frighten children.”

“Ye don’t believe ‘em, eh?” she growled, exasperated by his lack of awe that she so obviously held. “Them that didn’t bow to them paid a heavy price for their folly.”

Hradji was tiring of her cryptic warnings. “Enough prattle. Speak plain!”

“They were stricken by blight, and wasted.”

“A blight?” That sounded like all fairy tales. Obey, or the gods will make you pay… The truth was, the Red Death, what it most surely was, had swept across the Flanaess every century or so for as long Man had walked the oerth; so said the elders; so sang the bards. “I doubt they were the cause.”

“Believe what ye will, but it is said that they waste away, to this very day.”

***

The very air thrummed.

Surely, thou knowest me, thief; else why have thee come? When Hradji did not display the presumably expected awe, the glyphic, ghostly pate stated: Keratis beeth mine name.

“Keraptis, eh? Aren’t you dead?”

Keratis

The form darkened, its opacity radiating wrath. Dost thou presume to toy with me? it glared.

“No,” Hradji said, wondering if he ought to back away, and run. “All tales tell of your passing,”

Then thou hath come to rob mine tomb.

Hradji hesitated for longer than was prudent, pondering how he might respond to the accusation without admitting to the simple truth that he and his had set out for that very purpose. When he did speak, he said, “No … we stumbled across this ruin while taking refuge from a storm.” That did not sound plausible at all, he thought, considering how long, and difficult, their journey into these depths had been.

Its eyes narrowed. Not so. I see thy soul, and know thee and thine to be thieves.

Fear is the only enemy, Hradji’s father’s voice instructed him. It strengthened his resolve. “I’m no thief.” he repeated, his brow tightening.

The air grew more oppressive, and the crypt seemed to grow hot despite its icy pall. The phantasmal being did not, apparently, believe his feeble excuse; not that Hradji thought it would. What did he care what it thought, anyway? For all he knew, this was little more than trickery. An illusion, albeit a clever one.

“Alright,” he said, “I didn’t seek refuge from a storm. I sought this city out. And I will take what I wish, if I’ve a mind to. No one lives here. And no one has for centuries, either. It’s dead, a ruin.”

This city is mine, the aspect shouted. All within it is mine!

Hradji’s anger rose. Whatever this Keraptis was, he, Hradji Beartooth, was the son of a jarl, and not to be rebuked thus, like some lowborn serf. “I challenge that claim,” he bellowed back, holding the black eyes with his own steady gaze. “These mountains belong to my people, if to anyone. That makes Skrellingshald and everything in it ours. Mine.”

Skrellingshald? it raged. I have never heard of this Skrelling shald. Hast thou never heard tell of the majesty of Tostencha?

Tostencha, she had breathed….

Ah, you have….

Hradji suppressed the urge to shudder. Could this thing read his thoughts?

Its laughter boomed. This is the seat of mine kingdom, it declared.

“Was, you mean,” Hradji said, fully expecting a bolt of lightning to strike him at that very moment. When none did, he said, “Your kingdom is long dead. Your city is, too, crumbling, and infested with kobolds. And as far as I can tell, you’re dead, too.”

The visage darkened at Hradji’s bravado. Its black eyes deepened, as might a gathering storm.

Bow before thy king, impudent thief!

“I bow before no man,” Hradji said, clenching his axe tighter, “if you are a man, and not merely a shadow of what was.” He stepped closer, unaware of having done so. He was resigned to the inevitable melee, regardless how it may manifest. Either I can fight it, or I can’t. If he couldn’t, it had been toying with him all along, and it had never intended to allow him, or his people, to ever leave. Or live. It was better to meet his, their, doom head on than to grovel before whatever this apparition might be, be it a man, a projection, a shade, or a god.

I tire of this game. I might have found use of thee, or thine form, at the very least. No matter, you shall suffer the fate of those others who hath defied me.

Forthwith, it faded, its eyes the last to slip from sight.

The walls stirred. They writhed.

Hradji gestured, and his companions tightened together, weapons ready. They looked hither and thither into the black and the gloom, none sure what might come, but that whatever it might be, it would come now.

Wretched figures, moaning, howling

And it did. Wretched figures burst out of the darkness. What might have been men rushed towards them, arms outstretched, fingers clawing at the air. Moaning. Howling. What were these, Hradji wondered? They were dead, without doubt; a mockery of life. Flesh mouldered on bone. Tattered rags hung from those few still clothed. They pitched and collided as they closed with them, as though they had only faint memory how their limbs functioned.

Cinniúint threw a clutch of phosphorus dust into the air before him and a wall of fire erupted from the stone where the undead lurched, but not before half a dozen of the decrepit things had slipped within its grasp.

Ylva stepped forward, unmindful of the waves of putrid stench that enveloped her. She closed her mind to the sight of the fat green worms crawling in and out of their sockets and mouths as she raised her holy symbol and bellowed, “Begone, ye foul abominations!”

The dead thrust their arms before their faces; they howled; they screeched, if what rushed from their mouths could be deemed fear.

"BEGONE," she yelled

“Wee Jas finds your very existence a sin,” Ylva said, in greater command of her voice as her faith proved equal to the task of subduing these creatures. She strode toward the foul dead, and they backed away, within reach of the wall of flame. She thrust the hotly glowing icon before her.
“BEGONE,” she yelled, her voice shuddering the very walls. The rotted dead twisted, and turned, and reeled into that scorching wall, where they crumpled, exhumed, as parchment held to the flame.

The slap of wet flesh to aft alerted them to the arrival of yet more of these rotted dead racing to meet them. An ethereal, echoing laugher accompanied them, reverberating without end.

Hradji’s rage banished the eerie mirth. He brushed past Cinniúint as he met the onrush. As he did, his step became more lively, his advance twice that of Gunnar’s, who, try as he might, could not hope to match Hradji’s axe as it swept before them, felling those putrid abominations as he might saplings.

Angnar

What ought to be blood greased the floor before long. Hradji miraculously kept a step ahead of its pooling. Not Gunnar, who floundered, and lost his feet. He cried out as the dead swarmed over him, and might have buried him beneath their mass of questing claws had Angnar and Runolf not pressed their weight against the other, pushing, thrusting, and severing those limbs that sought them and their kin.

At first, Hradji didn’t hear the distant whisper uttering Enough of this foolishness. He only paid heed to the rise and fall of his axe. But, as the seconds passed, the whisper grew more insistent, until, like water poured on a flame, its soothing words quenched his very rage. Hold me out, and I will grant you the power to finish this quickly.

Puzzled, he lowered his axe. He was clutching the agate, unsure when he had drawn it forth. It throbbed and burned, as it had when he had first plucked it from its perch. Mesmerised by its radiance, he paid no mind to the melee writhing about him, oblivious to the flow of undead spilled into the chamber.

Good, the voice said. Raise me up.

He raised it, as bid.

Just as one of the dead burst forth and took hold of his throat, and lifted him off his feet. Its eyes were lifeless, milky pools. Its breath, if the air that wafted from it could be called such, was as rank as a mouldering corpse. Its other hand clawed at his face, his shoulder, his arm. He could feel its worms wriggling onto him. Biting him. Burrowing into him.

His axe fell from his grasp. He flailed. He groped for his dagger, and plunged it into its wetness, again, and again, and again. To no effect other than to release a greater stench that threatened to overwhelm him. He reeled. His vision dimmed.

Concentrate! the whispering voice bid. Repeat after me….

The bauble burned brightly, brilliantly, blindingly. He reached out.

And the bauble flared even brighter still.

***

Hradji woke to Ylva’s features looming over his. The air stank of rot and smoke. And soot. He remembered the wall of fire, the blind, milky-white eyes, the fetid breath. And worms and grubs slithering over his flesh. He brushed her aside. And struggled to sit up. He threw his arms up to inspection, and found welts where the worms had feasted on him. Where they had burrowed into him. The sudden sensation of their crawling and wriggling under his skin and up his arms and into his shoulders, deranged him. He slapped at them, he scratched and clawed. To no relief.

“They’re gone,” she soothed, taking hold of his hands and securing them. “You’ve nothing to fear.”

His will forced his arms into his lap. The madness abated, thankfully. Another phantom, he realized. “What happened?” he rasped. He could still feel the boney claws at his throat.

“You pressed that orb to the corpse and it turned to dust. A great many of them did.”

Hradji surveyed the chamber...

Hradji surveyed the chamber. There were, indeed, a great many trampled piles of dust all about.

“How exactly did you do that?” Cinniúint asked.

Hradji thought he saw envy in the Flan’s eyes. And unease in Scáthú’s otherwise emotionless olven façade.

“Where were you?” Hradji snapped at the elf.

“Killing the dead,” Scáthú said, oblivious to Hradji’s anger, or merely unmoved by it. Hradji could not divine which. “Where do you think I was?” the elf asked.

Hradji wasn’t sure he believed the elf. He had a habit of vanishing when trouble stirred. Hradji snorted and faced the mage. “What were those things?”

“Sons of Kyuss,” Cinniúint said.

Hradji fought to his feet, pushing off what help was offered him. “And what the fuck are they?”

“Short answer? Zombies.”

“Long answer?”

“Rumour has it that they are a punishment brought down on the unfaithful by an Ur-Flan warrior-priest named Kyuss, eons ago.”

… it is said that they waste away, to this very day.

“Ur-Flan…. This Keraptis was one of them, wasn’t he? Could he have made these Sons of Kyuss?”

“He was. Or is, if he still lives, and he could very well still. And yes, he could have.”

“How can he still be alive? He ruled over these lands over a millennia ago!”

Cinniúint’s eyes widened, ever so slightly. “I’m impressed. Where might you have learned that?”

The crone’s milky white gaze rose unbidden. “Fables to frighten children.”

“Remind me to never foster a child with the Fruztii.”

Hradji scowled.

Before he could rebut, Cinniúint said, “Come now; I doubt those fables were so thorough.”

“There’s an old woman who knows such things,” Ylva interjected.

“That fucking crone,” Hradji scowled.

Cinniúint ignored the outburst. “What did she tell you about Keraptis and the Ur-Flan?”

Ylva answered when Hradji did not: “That they wielded great weapons. And that they harnessed great magics and stowed them in orbs of power. It was she that interpreted Hradji’s dreams. It was her words that led us here.”

The bauble! Hradji thought, only then remembering it. Just then he had the notion that he had lost it. He panned about him. He groped frantically at his pouches and pockets.

“Is this what you are looking for?” Cinniúint asked, holding the agate out. He did not touch the orb. It rested on a flannel and not on his naked flesh.

Hradji snatched it back.

Cinniúint considered Hradji before speaking. “These orbs are not what you seek. You should leave them.”

“What?” Hradji blurted, shock, and disbelief, and anger painted across his face. “These orbs are the only thing we’ve found in this gods-forsaken ruin!”

“They cannot possibly help your people,” Cinniúint said.

“What would you know about it?” Hradji said, struggling to keep his anger in check. And failing.

“These orbs are evil. Unspeakably evil.”

Evil dwells there, greater evil than ye have ever known.

“Isn’t all magic?” Hradji spit.

“Is a sword?” Cinniúint countered. “These are different. These orbs are sentient.”

Hradji raised his palm, pondering the agate.

Don’t listen to this fool.

He means to have me for his own

“Beartooth,” Cinniúint said, “these artifacts are ancient. And horrendously powerful. You cannot possibly control them.”

The mage is lying. I am at your command.

“And you can?” Hradji said, chockfull of suspicion.

“No,” Cinniúint said, “and I expect that no one I know could, either; but I have heard tell of one or two who might.”

Don’t believe him. The mage covets me. He means to have me for his own.

Hradji realized then that the mage had steered them unerringly to this very place, never once searching any other room, any other vault. It was like he knew exactly where he was going.

Cinniúint said, “It’s the orb, isn’t it? It’s speaking to you ... in your mind ….”

“No, Hradji lied. “It’s not.”

It was obvious to Hradji that Cinniúint did not believe him. He suspected the others didn’t, either, reading each expression in turn. Scáthú certainly didn’t, but the elf and the Flan had always conspired as one, hadn’t they? And they were not one of them, not Rhizian, not Fruztii, were they? They had been foisted upon him by Marner, much to his chagrin. You will have need of them, Marner had said. For all he knew, Marner had set them upon him for the very purpose of stealing what he might find! As to the others, their doubt angered him. Ylva’s, especially; but she’d been fucking the Flan since they had taken to the mountains, so that was to be expected, wasn’t it? As to Fridmund, Gunnar, and the twins, how dare they doubt him! Had he not fostered them, had he not taken them unto his ship, had he not protected them? How dare they conspire against him!

“If there are other, more useful weapons of power buried here,” Hradji fumed, “find them!”

When they did not promptly do as bid, he shouted, “Now! Get about your business so we can be rid of this suffocating tomb!”

Gunnar was the first to obey Hradji’s desperate command. Then Angnar and Runolf.

Hradji tore down an obscene tapestry, revealing the alcove it concealed, and the sarcophagus within it. He thrust the lid from it. It clung to its perch, audible in its refusal to budge, until crashing to the floor, and cracking. Its dust, long undisturbed, roiled about him and the now gaping coffer. He shifted the remains within, heedless of and rejecting what respect this dead king might deserve. He was only Flan, after all. Had he any respect for his own remains, he should have gone to glory on a chariot of fire! There was nothing here of use! No sword, no shield, no functional armour, nothing! Only bones, and scattered scales of bronze, and shards of lapis lazuli. All else had gone to ash.

“I will not leave here empty handed,” Hradji muttered. He looked to the other tapestries, wondering if the coffins behind those were as devoid of riches as this one was.

Ylva had yet to obey, he observed. She did then, as she should already have, commanded thus by her future jarl; but not before she exchanged a word with that perfidious Flan. Hradji eyed the mage, and took note that he cast more than one glance at the dais. And at the orbs still atop their blackened candelabra.

You have need of us all.

Hradji raised the orb to inspection. It was dull again, a simple agate. It did not whisper. It did not glow. A flight of imagination, he thought; no more than that. He thought to throw it away; but the Flan would probably palm it while no one else was looking. Or he would have that slippery sycophant of his do it for him. I’ll not let him have them, Hradji thought, not a single one! “Collect them,” he commanded Fridmund, who set about to do just that.

Then bard mounted the dais slowly, softly singing:

“I now wish to end,

At home with the dísir,*

which Vatun did sendt.

Glad shall I drink ale with the æsir,

And in triumph I will sing,

for life’s moments are passing,

and I shall laugh before I die.”*1

He appeared more vivid for his septet. Brighter. Braver. Stronger. Glowing with confidence. But his eyes darted here and there. Rightly so; only moments before a malevolent aspect was floating overtop that very spot. In its passing, the darkness had returned, but that darkness did not appear to mollify the bard. His voice quavered. So too his hand as he reached for the orb closest to the ebon altar. His height was not equal to the task. He laid a hand on the altar, intent on mounting it to reach that highest of candelabra.

At that touch, the purple patterns of the walls flared darkly. The nightmarish silhouettes of red and black and purple upon the floor whirled and danced, their flow centered on the altar upon the dais. The atmosphere thickened. Sickened. And above him, it deepened, it drew, it sucked.

Entirely devoid of light. And life.

Ylva gasped, and Fridmund cast his eyes up and staggered back as a void coalesced where the frightful visage had once raged. Somehow, this void was far more fearsome than was that rage. If the temple had thrummed before, it verily throbbed now. It pulsed. It beat. And with each, that black heart at the centre of that vile subterranean temple grew, in feature, in volume, and in ominous depth. It was far blacker than the alter. Entirely devoid of light. And life.

Fridmund’s very soul recoiled from the void. It grew cold, his soul did. As did his flesh. Leaden and lethargic, as though caressed by the polar night. They froze as he made to distance himself from this horror. His strength failed him, and he fell.

One by one, the others fell in turn, unable to move, let alone act. Or flee. It was though the will to live had left them. They could only look helplessly on in horror as a presence undulated within the void. Only Ylva retained the will to resist. And yet even she could feel her Life failing. She raised her holy symbol, but could not keep it aloft, so heavy was the weight on her soul, her limbs. They fell. And then she too crumpled to her knees. Her tears flowed. Wee Jas, she cried, why have you forsaken me?

Dread inspired Fridmund. He scrabbled back, inching away from that emptiness with each ineffectual push and claw against the montage dancing across the ancient stone.

Fridmund's eyes screamed...

Until what might have been smoke, or an appendage of emptiness, curled out of the swirling void. Fridmund froze as It emerged. It licked about, as though tasting what might be before It. Another unfurled. And another. They grasped the edges of that undefined nothing and spread it wider. Despite Their ghostly appearance, They must have had substance, because, as They flailed about, seeking what They might, They collided with the candelabra, snapping them, sweeping them aside, scattering those baubles of agate and onyx and jade to the corners of the black temple.

The first snapped out and up and reared as might a snake. Fridmund somehow found the strength to rise. He turned to run. And for one moment, it looked as though he might succeed. Until a vacuous shriek wafted from the void. He spun. He froze. His eyes burned with such madness as the others had never seen. Fridmund’s eyes screamed. He might have as well had he not been so paralyzed by his terror.

The appendage snapped down. It curled around Fridmund. And as It embraced him, he blanched. He bleached. He became as faint as It.

And then, far faster than an eye could blink, It snapped back into the oblivion It came from. Taking the ebon void with It with a crushing boom.

And Fridmund with it.

To be continued….

*1 - Adapted from "Krákumál" (Lay of Kraka), translation by Thomas Perry, 1763

* - The dísir are associated with fate who can be either benevolent or antagonistic towards mortals. The dísir play roles in Norse texts that resemble those of fylgjur, valkyries, and norns, so that some have suggested that dísir is a broad term including the other beings.

Special thanks to Kristoph Nolen of Greyhawk Online and the Oerth Journal, who reached out to me to submit something to the Journal. If he had not, this piece might not/would not have been written.

It originally saw the light of day in Oerth Journal #36, and can still be found there, forevermore. I encourage you to download the issue, and many more, as the articles within are written by fans of the Greyhawk setting for fans to use as they see fit.

The Art:

Druido by ragzdandelion

Neon-Fish by sephiroth-art

Son of Kyuss, by Russ Nicholson, from Fiend Folio 1e, 1981

wip by dandelion-s

Bjorn by a3107

Rollo by forstyy

Thief-Garrett by bone36

Black-Void by kehven

The-pain-of-Achilles by derekoverfield

This is a work of fiction, penned by myself, set in the world of Greyhawk.

It is not to be copied or reprinted without the author’s permission.