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Standing there, he observes the Thing That Cried In The Night.
It cries no longer.
Freed, it leans toward him, a tower of smoke, a beard without a chin…
Raising the star wand, he traces a pattern of fires across its middle.
It continues to advance.
The fires run the gamut of the spectrum, vanish.
It begins to vibrate, and his hands adjust the wand.
It coils about him, then draws back.
Standing there, above the clouds and all, he unleashes lightnings upon it.
An humming sound occurs.
The star wand vibrates within his hand, emits a whining note, grows brighter.
The Thing falls back. Set strides across the sky, attacking it.
It drops, falls, retreats, toward the surface of the world.
Pursuing, Set stands upon a mountaintop. Somewhere, above the moon, the Prince and the General follow.
Set laughs, and the heat of an exploding sun plays along the creature’s length.
But then it turns and strikes, and Set retreats across the continent, mushrooms of smoke rising in his wake.
Storms shake their curly heads. Ball lightning rolls across the sky. The perpetual twilight is brightened by a tongue of flame which falls upon his pursuer.
It advances, however, and mountains fall where it passes. Far below, the ground trembles, and the shoes upon his feet track thunderprints where Set passes, turns, turns again.
The rains pour down, the clouds thicken. Flame-tipped fu
The creature comes on, striking, and its path is incandescent, then gray, then incandescent.
The wand rings like a bell, and the seas outleap their bounds.
The creature is assailed by all the elements, yet still it advances.
Set snarls, and the rocks grind together and the winds tear the tent of the sky down the middle, flap it, rejoin its halves.
The creature cries once more, and Set, with one foot upon the sea, smiles within his glove and delivers whirlwinds and concussions. Yet it advances, and the air grows cold. The typhoon rises beneath Set’s hand, and the lightnings descend without letup. The ground is broken, sinks within itself.
Set and the creature strike simultaneously, and the continent is destroyed beneath them.
The oceans begin to boil, and an aurora borealis of all colors covers the entire sky.
Then three needles of white light pass through the creature, and it retreats toward the equator.
Set follows; chaos follows Set.
Thunders above the equator, and the lash, lash, lash of the star wand through the sky…
Smoke the color of grass fills the middle air. Destiny’s lackey, Time, repaints a backdrop behind it.
There is a cry, and again a chiming, as of a bell, as the chains of the sea are broken and the waters rise up, swaying like the pillars of Pompeii on that day, that day when they were broken, inundated; and the heat, the heat of the boiling oceans rises with them; and now the air is dense and unbreathable. Employing temporal fugue, Set crucifies the creature upon the smoldering sky, and still it cries out and lashes at him, draws back. The armor of Set is unbreached, mundane though it is, for the Thing That Cries has not touched upon him. Now Set unleashes beads of blaze that are like unto a Guy Fawkes display. The creature erupts at nineteen points, collapses upon itself. Then comes a mighty roaring, and the lightnings lance once more. The Thing That Cries In The Night becomes a bowling ball, an eight ball. It wails then to break the eardrum, and Set clutches at his head, but continues to bathe the creature in the light of his wand.
Then the screaming comes from the wand itself. A pink blade of fire descends upon the creature.
It becomes an old man with a long beard, miles high, suddenly.
It raises one hand, and there is light all about Set.
But he raises his wand and darkness devours the light, and a green trident forks forth to strike the creature upon its breast.
Falling, it becomes a sphinx, and he shatters its face with ultrasonics.
Collapsing, it becomes a satyr, and he castrates it with silver pliers.
Then it rears, wounded, to a three-mile height, cobra of black smoke, and Set knows that the moment is at hand.
He raises the star wand and makes an adjustment.
INTERMEZZO
Armies clash in the fog on the planet D’donori, and the golindi mate on the graves of the slain; when the crown is torn from Dilwit’s head, he will be without a scalp; again, Brotz, Purtz and Dulp are blinded by their neighbors; on the world Waldik there is wailing and darkness; out of the ruins of Blis, life comes forth once again; Marachek is dead, dead, dead: color it dust; the Schism has begun on Interludici, and also the evening rains, with a purported vision of the Sacred Shoes by a monk named Bros, who may have been drug-crazed; a mad, mad wind blows beneath the sea in the Place of the Heart’s Desire, and a green saurian who lives there frolics in the autumn mist, constellations of bright-bellied fishes wheeling everywhere.
His arm is around her waist, and together they watch the pictures that form within the frame, there in the House of the Dead. They watch Osiris, as he sails across the sky on his black crossbow, upon which is mounted a thing that can smash a sun. He rides alone, and the yellow eyes never blink within that face which ca
Vramin traces two lines with the tip of his cane, extending the courses of the vessels. The picture changes to the place where the lines intersect. There lies the twilight world, and its surface undergoes upheavals as they watch.
“How if it that they could know the place?” asks Isis.
“I do not know- Unless… Osiris! He found a note. I watched his expression as he read it.”
“And…?”
“Horus. Horus must have left him the note-telling him the place.”
“How could Horus know it?”
“He fought with Thoth-probably within Thoth’s own mind, and Horus can look into a man’s head, know what he is thinking. Sometime during that encounter, he must have stolen this knowledge from the Prince, who is normally proof against such skills. -Yes, at some time he must have let down his guard for an instant. He must be warned!”
“Perhaps Typhon will yet provide for his safety.”
“Where is Typhon now?”
They regard the frame, and all pictures flee.
Black, black, black. There is nothing.
“It is as though Typhon does not exist,” says Vramin.
“No,” says Isis. “You look upon Skagganauk the Abyss. Typhon has withdrawn from the universe, to seek his own way along the undersides of space as men know it. It may be that he, too, has found whatever note Horus left.”
“That is not sufficient insurance for the Prince. The whole project may miscarry-unless we can reach him.”
“Then go to him quickly!”
“I ca
“One of your famous gateways…”
“They only function within the Midworlds. I draw my power from the tides. I ca
“In my chariot.”
“Of the Ten Invisible Powers?”
“Yes.”
“Then let us use it.”
“I fear- Listen, Mage. You must understand. I am a woman and I love my son, but I also love my life. I am afraid. I fear the place of that conflict. Do not think the less of me if I refuse to accompany you. You may take my chariot and you may ride in it, but you must keep your own company.”
“I think not the less of you, Lady-”
“Then take this pendant. It controls the Ten Powers that drive the chariot, and it will give you additional strengths.”