All the Gods of Eisernon by Simon Lang

Author:Simon Lang [Lang, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
Publisher: Avon Books
Published: 1973-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

It was only imagination, Hennem-mishli told herself in the dense, disturbing atmosphere of the cell, imagination and the knowledge that generations of the hopelessly insane had gibbered here, drawing terror on the murky air with trembling bony fingers, and conjuring forth hordes of demons from the spouting volcanic fires that raged inside their skulls; imagination, surely, that caused enormous shadows to take on frightful, unwarranted shapes, at once strange and familiar. Imagination, that made a poke of dust move unnaturally, so, when there was no breeze to blow it, and only imagination that let mindless underground echoes quaver like low, monotonous laughter. Among the murmurs, did Dao laugh, too, his low, husky chuckle mingled with the insane dead?

She put her hands to her face and held them over her ears to stop the haphazard bombardment of thoughts that bounded and rebounded from the walls, floor, ceiling of the awakening cell; took a few steadying breaths and intoned carefully, “Make a loud sound, the clapping of hands and the beating on drums, sounds of gladness to Tadae; for see, in the East, the sun shows his face …” She faltered to a stop, listening, listening, certain that a mocking voice had sung the chant with her, only an instant late, half-a-note sharp. Still she was not frightened, Could not shake off the numbing grief that insulated her even from this madness, and made her only mildly curious, vaguely interested.

Her face, staring up at her from the gelatinous green depths of a long-unused fountain-well, was not her face at all, but a montage of menace; and the cot, when she tried it, accepted her weight with a thousand tiny shrieks, reeking of fear and presence. She sat up, eyes wide, lips parted. That was it—presence. A mental remnant of the many unfortunates who, interned, interred, here in this underground vault, this living burial, had awaited mercy and sanity and a return to life and sunlight. And cured, well, sane, had shed their sickness like dry snakeskin and gone on, leaving it here behind to rustle sibilantly, a residue of insanity, tangible enough to be scraped off the musty walls; a fine, ferocious mildew waiting to seep in through ears and nostrils and pores and work a kind of dryrot in the mind, a moldering decay, until the varnished veneer of civilization was corroded away and all that remained was the flayed bare flesh of the soul, the decomposition of the living mind whose parts fled screaming up axon, down dendrite, and off the edge of reason into the Abyss.

An apparition with yellow eyes and blue-painted face appeared at the barred doorway and said, “You re stronger than we knew, Hennem-mishli.” The voice put the vision in focus, a familiar face, accustomed to peering through peepholes, the bright, merry, yellow eyes of Sofyan, the Doorkeeper.

“Sofyan! How did you—” She faltered to a stop. She’d almost said, ‘How did you know where to find me?’ but that brought back Kles, and loss and grief, and she stood mute.

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