Songs of the Dying Earth

The Deodand moved closer, stopping only when Lixal raised a hand in warning. “Strange. I have never heard of such a magician as yourself, and other than that small talisman on your wrist, I see no evidence of power about you. If I wrong you, please forgive me, but you do not strike me as much of a wizard at all. Could you be mistaken?”

“Mistaken? Can you mistake this?” His irritation now become something closer to blind rage, Lixal waved his hand and uttered the Thunderous Exhalation of Banishment in his loudest and most impressive voice. The sky rumbled as if in terror at the great forces employed and a flash of light surrounded the Deodand as though lightning had sprung out of the creature’s carbon-colored pores. But the next instant, instead of shrinking into utter vanishment like a man falling down an endless well, as all the previous men and beasts struck with the Exhalation had done, the Deodand suddenly came sliding toward Lixal as rapidly as if the foul creature were a canal boat dragged by a magically superanimated donkey. Lixal had time only to throw his hands in front of his face and give out a brief squeak of terror, then the Deodand smacked to a sudden halt a scant two paces away from him as though the creature had run into a soft but inflexible and unseen wall.

Lixal looked between his fingers at the Deodand, whose hideous aspect was not improved a whit by close proximity. The Deodand looked back at him, an expression of bemusement on its cruel, inhuman features.

“A strange kind of banishment,” it said, taking a step back. A moment later it leaped at Lixal, fangs bared. Whatever had prevented it from reaching him before stopped it this time as well: the Deodand bounced harmlessly back from him. “Hmmm,” the creature said. “Your spell seems to have worked in reverse of the way you intended it, drawing me toward you instead of exiling me.” The Deodand turned and tried to walk away but could not get more than a step before it was again brought up short. “I am held like a leashed moon circling a planet, unable to move away from you,” it said in frustration. “But that talisman on your wrist seems to prevent me reaching you and completing my earlier intention, namely, to destroy you and eat you.” It frowned, hiding its terrifying pointed teeth behind a pouting lower lip. “I am not happy with this state of affairs, magician. Release me and I will go my way without molesting you further. You have my word.”

Lixal stared at the creature, who was so close he could smell its sour, feral scent, the odor of bones and rotting flesh that hovered in its proximity like the morning fogs that hung over the quarry. “I…I cannot,” he said at last. “I have not the capability to undo the spell.”

The Deodand made a noise of disgust. “As a both a wizard and Deodand-slayer, then, you are close to an utter failure. What are we to do now?” A look of calculation entered its yellow eyes. “If you cannot release me in the conventional way, you must consider removing your bracelet and letting me kill you. That way, at least one of us will live his life out the way the spirits of the void intended.”

“On the contrary!” said Lixal, piqued. “Why would I permit you to kill me? You may just as easily kill yourself — I imagine those sharp claws will work as efficaciously on your own jugular as mine. Then I can go on with my own life, which has much more to recommend it than your skulking, marrow-guzzling, baby-stealing existence.”

“Clearly we will not easily find agreement on this,” said the Deodand. “A thought occurs to me. Have you offended another wizard lately?”

Lixal thought immediately of Eliastre and the impression of dissatisfaction he had displayed at their parting, but was unwilling to broach the subject to the Deodand after such a short acquaintance. “Anything is possible in the rarefied yet contentious circles in which I travel. Why do you ask?”

“Because if so, it is likely that even death will not release us. If this misfiring of your incantation is the result of thaumaturgical malice, it may well be designed so that even if one of us dies, the other’s fortunes will not improve. For instance, I am compelled to be in your vicinity. If you die and become motionless bones, it is quite logical that I will be compelled to remain in the spot where you fell. Similarly, should you achieve the unlikely result of killing me, the corpse would probably still adhere to your person no matter where you traveled. The material shells of my tribe decay loathsomely but extremely slowly. In short, you would spend the rest of your life dragging my rotting corpse behind you.”

Lixal closed his eyes in disgust and dismay. “Eliastre!” he said, and it was a bitter curse upon his tongue. “I know this is his hand at work. He has treated me shamefully with this trick and I will have revenge on him, somehow!”

The Deodand stared at him. “What name is this?”

“It is the name of one we apparently must visit,” Lixal said. “That is our only hope to escape our unpleasantly twinned fate. Come with me.” He grimaced sadly. “I think we must steer clear of Saepia as we leave these environs. The townspeople now will have several reasons not to love me, and I will tell you honestly that they never cared much for you.”

Like two climbers bound by a rope, Lixal and the Deodand made their way through the forest and back to the camp outside town where the traveling troop was still ensconced. The players would have been at worst indifferent to the arrival of Lixal in other circumstances, but his companion filled the whole camp with unhappiness.

“Do not move,” shouted the apothecary Kwerion. “A terrible beast pursues you! Throw yourself down on the ground and we will do our best to slay it!”

“Please offer the creature no harm,” said Lixal. “Otherwise, and in the doubtful circumstance that you destroy it, I will be condemned to drag its stinking, putrefying corpse around with me for the rest of my natural days beneath our dying sun.”

When Lixal had explained what had befallen, the rest of the troop was much amazed. “You must find a sorceror of great power to help you,” said Kwerion.

“Or a sympathetic god,” suggested Ferlash, who was having trouble keeping amusement off his face.

“Surely someone as clever as yourself will find a solution,” said a girl named Minka, who had replaced the young woman who had given Lixal the bracelet in the role of the troop’s primary educational dancer. Minka had of late expressed a certain warmness toward Lixal, and though she was clearly disappointed by this latest turn of events, she seemed determined at least to keep her options open. “Then you will find your way back to us.”

“In any case,” Kwerion said authoritatively, “you must embark on your quest for salvation immediately!”

“But I think I should prefer to remain with you — the troop is headed back toward Catechumia soon,” Lixal said. “I would appreciate the security of company. I will find some way to incorporate the Deodand into our presentation. It will be a sensation! What other troop has ever boasted such a thing?”

“No troop has ever performed while infected with the Yellow Pestilence, either,” said Ferlash. “Novelty alone is not enough to promote attendance, especially when it is the novelty of horrid mortal danger, and is accompanied by such a dreadfully noisome and pervasive odor of decomposing flesh.”

The rest, even Minka, seemed to agree with the false priest’s objections, and despite Lixal’s arguments and pleading he and the Deodand were at last forced to set off on their own toward distant Catechumia with nothing more in the way of possessions than what they could carry, since the troop also saw fit to withdraw their gift to Lixal of his private wagon, as being inappropriate for one no longer appearing in their nightly dissemination of knowledge to the deserving public.

Lixal Laqavee’s first night in the wilderness was an uncomfortable one, and the idea that he was sleeping next to an inhuman creature who would happily murder him if it could did not make Lixal’s slumbers any easier. At last, in the cold hours before dawn, he sat up.

The Deodand, which did not seem to have even tried to sleep, was visible only as a pair of gleaming eyes in the darkness. “You awaken early. Have you reconsidered letting me take your life and now find yourself eager to begin your adventurous journey into That Which Lies Beyond?”

“Unequivocally, no.” Lixal built the fire back up, blowing until it filled the forest dell with reddish light, although the Deodand itself was still scarcely more than a shadow. He had no particular urge to converse with the ghastly thing, but neither did he want to sit beside it in silence until sunrise. At last, Lixal reached into the rucksack that contained most of his remaining possessions and pulled out a box which unfolded into a gaming board of polished wood covered with small holes. He then shook a handful of nail-shaped ivory spikes from a bag that had been inside the box and began to place them in holes along the outer edge of the board.

“What is that?” asked the Deodand. “An altar to your god? Some kind of religious ritual?”

“No, far more important than that,” Lixal said. “Have you ever played King’s Compass?”

The glowing eyes blinked slowly — once, twice, three times. “Played King’s Compass? What do these words mean?”