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“Will it function beyond the Midworlds?”
“Yes,” and she slides into his arms, and for a moment his green beard tickles her neck while her familiar gnashes its tiny teeth and knots its tail, twice.
Then she conducts him to her chariot on the roof of the House of the Dead, and he mounts it, holds high the pendant in his right hand, becomes for a moment part of a cleverly contrived tableau within a red glass bottle, is then a distant twinkle in the heavens Isis watches.
Shuddering, she retreats to the places of the dead, to dwell again upon the one whom she fears to face, who is even now battling the Nameless.
Vramin stares ahead with eyes of jade. Points of yellow light dance within them.
TO THE PLACE OF FIRE
Behind Vramin’s eyes is the vision distilled…
There stands the Prince, downward staring. The surface of the world’s afire. On the prow of the Prince’s boat stands the beast whose body is armor, whose rider sits unmoving, gleaming, also facing the place of conflict. The crossbow approaches. The cockleshell swings forward. The Hammer is cocked, snaps forward. Then, rag-tail ablaze, the comet comes forth, glowing, brightening as it races onward.
Somewhere, a banjo is plucked as Bronze rears and the head of the General swivels over his left shoulder to face the intruder. His left hand jerks toward him and Bronze continues to rear, up onto his hindmost legs and then springs away from the Prince’s vessel. Three strides only are taken. Mount and rider vanish. There comes a haziness, a crinkling, and the stars dance in that corner of the sky as though they were reflections within an agitated pool. The comet is caught up in this wind that is Change, becomes two-dimensional, is gone. Pieces of the broken crossbow continue on along the path the vessel had followed when whole. The cockleshell heads toward the surface of the world, vanishes amid the smoke and the dust, the flames. For a long while, the entire tableau is a still life. Then the cockleshell streaks away. It now contains three occupants.
Vramin tightens his hand upon the piece of bloody light, and the Chariot of Ten turns to pursue.
The conflict rages upon the surface of the planet. The globe seems a liquid and boiling thing, changing shape, spurting forth fiery fountains. There comes a series of enormous blazes and a mighty shattering. The world comes apart. There is brightness, mighty, mighty, and dust, confusion: Fragmentation.
Behind the jade eyes of Vramin, within which dance the yellow lights, there is this vision.
Hands clasped behind his back, the Prince Who Was A Thousand considers the destruction of the world.
The broken body of the world, its members splintered and crushed, rotates beneath him, flattening, elongating, burning, burning, burning.
Now he watches through an instrument as he orbits the ruin, an instrument like a pink lorgnette with ante
“What is it that you see, my brother?”
He turns his head, and the dark horse shadow is at his side.
“I see a living point of light, caught up in that mass down there,” he says. “Twisted, shrunken, weakly pulsing, but still alive. Still living…”
“Then our father has failed.”
“I fear so.”
“This thing must not be.”
And Typhon is gone.
Now, as Vramin pursues the cockle of Anubis, he sees the thing for which there is no understanding.
Upon the blasted heap of elements that was a world there comes now a dark spot. It grows, amidst the light, the dust, the confusion, grows until its outline becomes discernible:
It is a dark horse shadow that has fallen upon the rubble.
It continues to grow until it achieves the size of a continent.
Rearing, the dark horse is rampant over all. It swells, it expands, it lengthens, until the wreckage of the entire planet is contained within it.
Then it is framed in flame.
Nothing lies within the blazing silhouette. Nothing whatsoever.
Then the flames subside and the shadow shrinks, retreating, retreating, ru
Then there is nothing.
It is as if the world had never existed. It is gone, finished, kaput, and the Nameless Thing That Cries In The Night along with it. And now, Typhon, too, is gone.
A line comes into Vramin’s head: “Die Luft ist kuhl und es dunkelt, und ruhig fliesst der Rhein.” He does not recall the source, but knows the feeling.
Bloodbolt held on high, he pursues the god of death.
Awakening, slowly, manacled spread-eagle fashion to a steel table, bright lights stabbing down through his yellow eyes like electric needles within his brain, Set groans softly and tests the strength of his bonds.
His armor is gone, that pale glow in the corner might be the star wand, his shoes that walk upon everything are not to be seen.
“Hello, Destroyer,” says the wearer of the glove. “You are fortunate to have survived the encounter.”
“Madrak…?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“I can’t see you. Those lights…”
“I’m standing behind you, and those lights are only for purposes of preventing your use of temporal fugue to depart this vessel before we are ready to permit it”
“I do not understand.”
“The battle waxeth furious below. I am watching it through a port now. It looks as if you have the upper hand. In a moment, the Hammer That Smashes Suns will strike again, and you will of course escape it as you did the last time-by means of the fugue. That is why we were able to pick you up a few moments ago, just as Anubis did in days long gone by. The fact that you did appear testifies to what will happen shortly. There! Osiris strikes, and the Hammer begins its descent-Anubis! Something is wrong! There is some sort of change occurring! The Hammer is… is… gone…”
“Yes, I see it now,” comes the familiar bark. “And Osiris, too, has gone away. The Steel General-he it was.”
“What shall we do now?”
“Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. This turn is even better than we had hoped. Set’s occurrence recently by means of the fugue testifies that some cataclysmic event will still shortly occur.-Does it not, Set?”
“Yes.”
“Your final clash will doubtless destroy the world.”
“Probably. I didn't stay to watch.”
“Yes, there it goes,” says Anubis. "Wonderful! Now we have Set, Osiris has been disposed of, and the Steel General is no longer available to pursue us. We have Thoth precisely where we want him. Hail, Madrak, new Lord of the House of Life!”
“Thank you, Anubis. I didn’t think it could be that easily accomplished-but what of the Nameless?”
“Surely it must have fallen this time. What of it, Set?”
“I don’t know. I struck it with the full force of the wand.”
“Then everything is tied up neatly. Now hear me, Set. We wish you no ill, nor will we harm your son Thoth. We rescued you when we could have left you to rot-”
“Then why have you secured me thus?”
“Because I know your temper and your power, and I wished to reason with you before freeing you. You might not have granted me sufficient opportunity, so I insured it myself. I wish to deal with Thoth through you-”
“Lord!” cries Madrak. “Observe the ruined world! There comes over it a monstrous shadow!”
“It is Typhon!”
“Yes. What can he be doing?”
“What do you know of this, Set?”
“It means that I failed, and that somewhere amid the ruins a Nameless Thing still cries in the night. Typhon is completing the job.”