Kellory the Warlock by Lin Carter

Author:Lin Carter [Carter, Lin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2016-04-13T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

THE SHADOWY THING

In the same instant that the Warlock brandished his Staff before the clot of darkness, and drove it fleeing from the actinic glare of his witchfire, the spell that had held the Hawks of Khun bedazed ceased on a sudden. Khun himself shook his head and rubbed his eyes: had even he dozed off, when he should have been alert? Shamad threw himself at the old man’s feet.

“Lord, the Whispering Death has driven mad the sentry, Uruzahn! Lord, we have put him out of his torment!” panted the chieftain.

Irritably, Khun nudged him with one booted toe. It was not a gentle nudge. “What of the Warlock, fool? Speak!”

“The Northman pursues the Death, and the woman pursues the Northman,” stammered Shamad. Khun’s eyes flashed.

“Aha! By the beard of my father, events begin to move! At last!” With a curt command to hold the men here, the old chief sprang upon his pony with an agility that belied his years. Seizing the reins, he tugged its head about in the direction to which Shamad pointed a trembling arm, and whirled off in a clatter of hooves.

The light of the three moons painted the undulant sands with dust-of-silver. Kellory followed the retreating thing out of the city, through a gap in the crumbling walls, and into the Sea of Sand. Ever it fled before the blaze of his Staff, and ever he pursued. His face was grim and merciless, his eyes like green-litten ice, lips clamped tight; it was even as he had guessed—the source of the Evil lay beyond the city, amidst the shifting sands. That was why the tribesmen had found nothing of importance within the walls…

From time to time, he caught a clear look at the thing. It had no real form or shape or substance; like a blotch of darkness, a smear of gloom, it was, a clotting of shadows, opaque near the center, but the edges were filmy, drifting and eddying like ink in clear water. But it was deadly, and dangerous beyond belief: an icy breath blew from it, frigid as the black wind that blows between the worlds, and the nearer he came to it, as it glided ever before him, his flesh crawled as to the foul contagion of some cosmic uncleanliness.

He knew it for what it was, now. The vital residue of some powerful intellect, gone mad with hate, strong beyond belief—strong enough to taint and stain the very earth of its resting-place with undying and cunning and sentient Evil.

And he knew its identity, although he could hardly believe it.

He followed it down the slope of dunes, and up the rise to the crest of the next. And cold fear touched his heart.

O Azzamungandyr, Lord of the Mysteries , he prayed to his god in the depths of his heart, a fearful contest lies before me. And I have not recovered the fullness of my Power…!

Then, and quite suddenly, the shadowy thing turned at bay, snarling soundlessly at him. It would

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