Black Sun Moon by Dylan Doose

Author:Dylan Doose
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781775235019
Publisher: Dylan Doose

Part III

The Deadmen’s Party

I have no illusions about the fact that I will forever rue the day I welcomed the Deadmen into my home. But what choice did I have? What choice do any of us have when the summons is sent and the wax seal of the Red Right Hand upon it is split and the words of terror and doom are read?

“The time has come. You have been chosen. Prepare thy home, for the Deadmen’s party is about to begin. The bells will chime, and so you must let them all in.”

There was but one thing to do: obey.

I see now that every step I took, every move I made, every quest for the king I completed, and every gift given and title granted led me to that end. I say that end for it has already come and gone. My life has passed me. I am dead, and all the hopes and dreams that used to revive me are dead now too. A phantom has written this, an ectoplasmic emptiness, transient and fading, always fading away into nothingness.

They began to arrive the hour before midnight, and the guests strolled in until the witching hour itself was upon us. First to arrive were the Shahidi, two of the mutated, many-eyed monks from across this world, and with them a sorceress—an ebon masterwork of human art made flesh was she. Nephite was her name. I bowed low and bade them enter. On their heels came the giant from the north, the druid who needed to tilt his head to enter even through the great door at the front of the home. Hardly standing taller than his waist was a dryad-nymph clutching to each arm. They tapped their goat hoofs in a little jig and kissed me on the cheeks with the fullest and most luscious of human lips as they passed by. “Where is the mead?” one of them asked. “Where is the ale?” questioned the other.

In his great voice with his northern accent, the man-giant asked, “Where are the mushrooms and the herbs?” He laughed, then, as fast as any snake, he bent down and leaned in so his nose was nearly touching mine. “Hmm? Where are the treats?”

“Right this way, oh mighty Stiggis…just march that way and find our Kehldeshi comrades already enjoying them,” said I.

Then the bell chimed below, and I knew more of the guests were arriving up from underneath the basement. The members of the Deadmen who voyaged from places further than across the world had arrived.

“Pardon me, if you will,” I begged of Stiggis and his dryads, and I hurried through the corridors and down the stairs, past the baths, to the hidden room. I pulled the secret lever, shown me by the man who last owned this dreadful shadow home, and hurried down the stairs. Ancient books and scrolls filled the shelves. Cobwebs looked like ghosts spawning from every one of the room’s corners. I found the second switch behind the obsidian-bound book, and a stone tile in the floor slid open.

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