Songs of the Dying Earth

Inevitable. Rid the earth of Graebe and the ultimate reward is yours, Watchman.”

“Graebe the Inevitable,” he repeated dully.

She struck a pose, with the moonlight highlighting her bare breasts and naked hips. “Is not the prize worth it?” she asked, smiling at his discomfiture. “Send him back to the hell he comes from, and I shall let you ascend to a heaven that only I can provide.”

Pelmundo stared at her for a brief moment.

“He is as good as dead,” he vowed.

Pelmundo knew that he could not face the creature without enchantments and protections, so he headed to the high outcroppings beyond Maloth and sought out Umbassario in his candle-lit cave.

“Greetings, Mage of the Glowing Eyes,” he said when he was finally facing the old man.

“Greetings, son of Riloh.”

“I have come—” began Pelmundo.

“I know why you have come,” said Umbassario. “Am I not the greatest magician in the world?”

“Except for Iucounu,” hissed a long green snake in a sibilant tongue.

Umbassario pointed a bony forefinger at the snake. A crackling bolt of lightning shot out of it and turned the snake to ashes.

“Does anyone else care to voice an opinion?” he asked mildly, staring at his various pets. The snakes slithered into darkened corners, and the bats closed their eyes tightly. “Then, with your kind indulgence, let me speak to this foolish young Watchman.”

“Not foolish,” Pelmundo corrected him. “Impassioned.”

Umbassario sighed deeply. “Does no one listen to me even in the sanctity of my own cave?” His glowing eyes focused on Pelmundo. “Listen to me, son of Riloh. The golden witch has bewitched you, not with magic, but with what women have been bewitching men with since Time began.”

“Whatever the reason, I must have her,” said Pelmundo. “And I will need protections and spells against such a creature as Graebe the Inevitable.”

“Graebe is mine!” shouted the magician. “You will not touch him!”

“Yours?” repeated Pelmundo, surprised. “A creature like that?”

“You protect the city against thieves and ruffians. I protect it against greater evil, and Graebe is the weapon I use.”

“But he sucks out men’s souls with those great prehensile lips and feasts upon them!”

“He sucks out diseased souls that no one else would have,” said Umbassario.

“He dismembers his victims while they still live.”

“You seek a reward, do you not?” said the magician. “The dismemberment is his.”

“He threatens the golden witch.”

Umbassario smiled. “Then why is she still alive? After all, he is Graebe the Inevitable.”

Pelmundo frowned. It was not a question he was prepared for.

“Then I shall tell you,” continued Umbassario. “If you were to enter the hollow tree in which she lives, you would find a golden loom, upon which your witch is weaving a tapestry of the Magic Valley of Ariventa.” He paused. “The tapestry is hers, but the loom is Graebe’s, made from the bones of a golden creature he killed in the netherworld. Your witch does not want you to perform a heroic deed to prove yourself worthy of her. She wants you to eliminate a creature that only seeks what belongs to him. And if she was as helpless as you seem to believe, he would long since have obtained it.”

“If he is Graebe the Inevitable, why has he not?” asked Pelmundo.

“Because he is drawn to souls like a moth to flame, and she has none.”

“You must not say such things about her,” admonished Pelmundo.

“Is your love of life so fleeting that you dare say such things to me in my own cave?” demanded Umbassario. “Did you not just see what happened to my favorite snake?”

“I meant no offense,” said Pelmundo quickly. Then his spirit stiffened. “But I will have the golden witch, and if that means I must slay your creature, then I will do so.”

“Despite what I have told you?” said the magician.

“I must,” replied Pelmundo. “She is everything I have ever wished for, everything I have ever dreamed of.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” said Umbassario with a secret smile, “and of what invades your dreams.”

“I am sorry it has come to this,” said Pelmundo. “I do not wish us to be enemies.”

“We shall never be enemies, son of Riloh,” the magician assured him. “We shall just not be friends.” A final smile. “Do what you must do, if you can — and remember, you have been warned.”

“Warned?” said Pelmundo, frowning. “But you have told me nothing about Graebe the Inevitable.”

“I was not talking about Graebe,” replied Umbassario.

Pelmundo turned and left the cave, and began climbing down over the rocky outcroppings. When he was finally on level ground, he considered going to a lesser mage, but he knew that if Graebe was truly Umbassario’s creature, only a magician of equal power could supply him with the charms and spells he needed.

“Then I shall have to defeat you as I have defeated all other foes,” muttered Pelmundo, staring off toward Modavna Moor, which separated Maloth from the Old Forest. “Be on your guard, monster, for Pelmundo, son of Riloh, is on your trail.”

And so saying, he began his march around the village and into the foreboding darkness of Modavna Moor. The mud seemed to grab his foot with each step, and to hold it tight, as if to say, “Foolish man, did you think to run from Graebe the Inevitable?”

Suddenly he saw a Twk-man mounted on a dragonfly. The dragonfly circled his head twice, then perched lightly on a leaf.

“You are far from your stomping grounds, Watchman,” said the Twk-man. “Are you lost?”

“No,” answered Pelmundo.

“Then beware lest you be found,” said the Twk-man, “for Graebe the Inevitable is abroad this day.”

“You have seen him?” said Pelmundo. “Is he near?”

“If he were near, I would be elsewhere,” said the Twk-man. “Endlessly he searches, both for his loom and the witch who took it.”

“Then you have nothing to fear,” said Pelmundo.

“I have a life and a soul, and I wish to keep them both,” said the Twk-man. “You would do well to preserve yours while you still can.”

“But you tell me he wants Lith.”

“He searches for her,” corrected the Twk-man. “But he sucks the souls of whatever crosses his path.”

“Fly ahead, Twk-man,” said Pelmundo, “and tell him that his fate is approaching him inexorably.”

“Approach Graebe the Inevitable?” gasped the Twk-man, clearly shocked.

“Then fly away — but know that after today there will be no more cause for fear or alarm.”

The Twk-man tapped his dragonfly, and circled Pelmundo twice more. “I have never seen such suicidal madness before,” he announced. “I must burn it in my memory, for surely no one will ever go searching for Graebe again.”

“Not after I slay him, they won’t,” promised Pelmundo.

“It is very odd,” said the Twk-man. “You do not look like a man who wishes to race into the gaping maw of his death.”

“Or his destiny,” said Pelmundo, visions of Lith’s undulating golden body dancing in his mind.

“She must have promised you much, Watchman,” said the Twk-man.

“She?” repeated Pelmundo.

“Did you really think that you were the first?” said the Twk-man with a laugh. Then he was gone, and Pelmundo was alone once more.

“Father,” said Pelmundo softly, “I pledge the coming battle to you, for after I have slain the Umbassario’s nightmare creature my triumph shall be written up in song and story, and the day will come when as Chief Curator