by Jeffery Scott Sims
in Issue 107, December 2020
In the highlands of north-western Greece, verging on the marches of Macedonia, in those olden times the itinerant wizard Jacob Bleek followed as best he could the map imprinted on the parchment sold him dearly at Athens by the astute but vulgar Turk. Not a mage that man, yet wise in the lore and craft of same, for he had traveled to strange places, met with strange sages, and gleaned strange insights. The Turk thought only of profit in the main, so the alluring scroll which he acquired (best not ask how, for the fellow sniggered nastily when speaking of it) served him only as an item of trade. Dearly Bleek bartered, for gold the Turk demanded, and a favor. A favor of the heart he craved, and a vile and base one at that, requiring of Bleek a filthy spell to ensnare a young girl of the pure folk of Aristotle. The wizard cared little about the business one way or another, for the woes of common mortals fazed him not a jot, but the Turk’s crude recital of his desires and his greed (the sum of coin he charged of Bleek’s pitiful stash!) irked, so although the payee tendered the gold, the charm delivered proved different in kind from the peremptory request. Jacob Bleek did not tarry, not needing witness that the Turk shortly died, in a manner to shock and horrify those who beheld that hideous dissolution.
With cold delight Bleek would oft pause in his current venture to study the scroll he had gained. A scroll of Poteauje! That esteemed sorcerer, who in former years had awed his colleagues with marvels esoteric, vanished into the east a decade before, on the trail of fresh wonders, promising to reappear with arcane knowledge to astound the most jaded of adepts. Now, just since the rains of spring, rumors had swirled of his return. No man averred to have beheld Poteauje with his own eyes, but once removed there came a plethora of boasted encounters in obscure localities. Someone had seen, or maybe heard of his presence, not quite pinned down though never far off. Hard on the heels of furtive whisper trod the claims of the mysterious parchments diffused throughout this land, scrolls inscribed by the sure hand of Poteauje, scrolls hinting at the finds of his foreign delving, promising occult wisdom to he who could decipher the cryptic runes. The complete interpretation should lead the seeker to the man himself, the great necromancer ready to bestow what he had arduously earned.
Poteauje! At the feet of that famed scholar of the uncanny would Jacob Bleek abase himself when they met, if he could but partake of a thimbleful of that genius’ teachings. So onward he strode down lonely roads, when seldom resting tinkering mentally with the puzzle of the scroll. He would sink down to recline against a rock, laying aside his staff, wrap his black cloak as a blanket and squint into the maze of scrawled characters. By degrees weariness gathered, while light dawned in his mind. Scarce possible to believe even of Poteauje, that he had been vouchsafed such revelations. Mysteries of time and space, of life and death and hitherto unfathomed states of existence, of magical avenues to power; intimations only marked on the parchment, with the shocking verities awaiting at the feet of the man.
Came a sultry afternoon when Bleek plodded into the forlorn district where the map situated his goal, and soon thereafter he approached a miserable village of clustered thatch-roofed huts, where his initial action imparted to him fortune, both good and bad. He asked of those taciturn folk what they knew of Poteauje, and briskly followed the bad. At mention of the name they crossed themselves and cursed, and produced homespun weapons, crude but unpleasantly serviceable. They cried, “He speaks of the evil one. A demon comes among us, to commune with the blasphemous Poteauje! Let us kill him before he wreaks terror on our homes.” And so forth, most vexatious, especially tiresome as they immediately harmonized deeds to words and attempted to mob him with their knives and billhooks. Bleek, not wishing to perpetrate an inopportune massacre, dug into his bag of magical materials and cast a choking, enveloping mist into the eyes of his assailants. So veiled, he had no difficulty in absconding. As for the good fortune: well, one chuff-headed peasant had bellowed, “The stranger asks after the monster who lurks in the shunned cave!” and even had the decency to gesture at a line of cliffs leagues toward the southern horizon before Bleek’s charm obscured his vision.
So the wayfarer put aside all thought of enjoying the local hospitality, straightaway directing his steps toward those precipices of naked granite frowning above murk woods, now beckoning with surreptitious promise. Dusk inched about him amid the close trees, he still pushing forward, until darkling night forced him to prepare a hide where he slept unsound. Dreams troubled him—if they be dreams—for prior to slumber Bleek already had sensed his entry into a dominion where vibrated arcane power. He knew this force radiated from the person of Poteauje, that one’s very substance imbued with cosmic energy, and this pleased, for a mage who had attained that lofty level of intellectual supremacy could grant erudition immeasurable.
Before the first fingers of sun probed the forest gloom determination drove Bleek on. As he progressed the strange force intensified, he advancing as against a stiffening headwind. The common clay of mankind would have doubted, then quailed, finally fled from its potency, for it generated insinuations of dread that the ignorant could not withstand, while for Bleek it acted only as an enticement. He admired the cunning that marked out this region as a domain forbidden, the protective field shielding its cause, Poteauje, from the molestation of fools.
Bleek arrived at the southern edge of the forest. The craggy cliffs beetled above him, mostly unscalable. Sheer drops, teetering boulders, the upper reaches wholly inaccessible . . . save for a hint of forsaken path off to the right, around those standing stones, switch-backing up that near vertical slope, lost to vision at the approach to that high black crevice in the jagged granite. A serrated line of shadow amid folds of rock, surely the entrance to a cave. Suppressing the tingling of excitement, Bleek coolly mounted the vague trail. Physical exertion meant nothing to him; his own taskmaster, he strained against the gradient, tarrying only to gasp mouthfuls of air before climbing anew. Attaining the required elevation, he swung round an outcrop, panting, to behold the gaping hole through which he could pass with a stoop. Flanking the cavity, images daubed in crimson of loathsome quasi-human heads sporting fangs and swollen eyes glared a warning to those prone to fear. Jacob Bleek sneered a grin back at them and passed.
Massive psychic power beat at and around him, vigorous ethereal waves. He continued through the natural corridor to the limits of outside light, then moved on without hesitation, for ahead grew another, dissimilar style of illumination. A weird, greenish glow increasingly pervaded the passage, pale and cold. The rough walls fell away, the ceiling receded, and Bleek advanced, gingerly now, into a broad, semicircular chamber, where he looked upon a scene designed to shatter the mind and blast the soul.
The insipid emerald illumination, emanating from no discernible source, revealed an uneven floor littered with the dusty debris of fallen rocks, and rather more still of a grisly nature. Amongst the stony refuse lay scattered the wreckage of men, beyond a dozen, perhaps a score, bodies prostrate in crumpled armor, short swords and shields flung about, limbs splayed, those faces upturned beneath dented helmets exhibiting frozen visages of boundless terror. Vermin crept or scuttled among them, nibbling. These had been stout warriors of brawn, armed for battle, yet they had perished here to lie unburied, shrouded only by their own clotted gore.
The ostensible cause of this moldering mayhem sat imperiously upon a great chair within the compass of the slaughter, a kind of improvised throne cobbled from elements of the cave and native wood, situated atop a low stonework platform. He resided with a genial smile, that man with lined white countenance and piercing eyes of coal and diamond, and shock of unruly, leonine white hair, attired in a tattered robe of gray that exposed skinny arms more bones than flesh, and knobby feet calloused to a degree near reptilian. Close at hand were but plain foodstuffs and wine jugs, nor any other items of human necessity.
He leaned forward to speak. “Welcome, Master Bleek. It is indeed you. I detected your aura. I know your reputation. Tales of your soaring mystical prowess wing before you. I believe them. That suits me perfectly. What say, Bleek? Of course, as a matter of form I shall complete the introductions. Yes, I am in truth Poteauje.”
Jacob Bleek civilly bowed, then embarked upon fulsomely praising the name of his host, the magical scholarship for which he was esteemed, and referencing the stories, already rising to legend, of his intellectual conquests of late years, about which Bleek craved a friendly and comprehensive accounting. The visitor, having come on a mission of personal importance, was not one to mince words or waste time.
Poteauje laughed. The raucous sound cut at the noisome air, disturbing the bats hanging in upper recesses and sending them skittering below the granite ceiling. “Excellent, Bleek! You do me proud. You are just such as I coveted, the type of mind expansive and steeped in the requisite lore. I beckoned, I spread in the right places my calling cards, that one such as you would come. May there be more, many more!”
Poteauje cackled. “Impatience, young man? Yes, you have traveled far, earned my teachings I doubt not. Then you the story I shall tell. I wish to tell someone who can understand. Harken, Bleek.
“In pursuit of the ultimate limits of arcane wisdom I trekked into the east, often at hazard of my life, and after many a harrowing scrape came unto the fabled city of Elibama, whose sages are said to retain records descending from the primordial era of lost Dyrezan. The wildest claims proved pathetic underestimates. Their high ones took me in, and in return for unusual barter—a freakish swap, to well-nigh scar my soul—delivered to me their secrets of unnaturally enduring life. Ah, you perk at that, Bleek! As you should, for they told no lies. From them I bought and paid for a species of immortality, offering both longevity and immunity to physical cares of the animal flesh. This I have tested, to a remarkable extent. Look, Bleek; the evidence lies about you.
“I explain further. The boon of Elibama involves a concoction of manifold ingredients, some that you would recognize, others unique to their milieu, rare and costly. The key consists of a unique species of lichen, possessing properties as much beast as vegetable. I maintain a store. These elements must be mixed with a common component, the gathering of which excites perturbation among the masses. You see, the efficacy of the elixir depends upon a hefty dose of pure fluid siphoned from human brains. I go forth at times to make collection. Needless to say, the natives hereabout object.
“From their admonishments I reap the impression that they think poorly of me. In fact, after I had snatched a few women and children of the hod carriers, they complained to the royal authorities, who sent a picked crew of soldiers determined to convince me to mend my ways. You note the result of that meeting. Since they would not see reason, I had to employ my arts to separate their spirits from their bodies. I found the event delightful, although opinions differed on that score.”
Poteauje sniffed. “So, Master Bleek, thus the land lies. Within this secure zone I intend to build up my strength until, at my mental and physical peak, I go forth to seize my destiny. How the world will shake! I beg your pardon? Not very considerate of you, I must say, to draw attention to my currently attenuated condition. It fits not my narrative? Even so. The savants of Elibama failed to enlighten me as to a countervailing factor. The enriching process demands the highest quality of human essence in order to produce a sterling outcome, lest that abnormally aggressive lichen subtly feed on the host it ought to preserve. The brains of these man-shaped swine do not wholly suffice, scarcely affording bare maintenance. I need more, and must have better. The latter point looms especially large. The immortality of a mage, I discover, requires the cranial fluid of a mage.”
Poteauje stiffly rose from his seat. He shrugged. “There you surely grasp the motivation for my clever invitations, tossed to the winds from which only the finest wizards could deduce rightly and pluck them. One crossed your path, you decrypted it—well done, boy!—and it conveyed you to me. You are the first, perhaps the keenest of the lot. There will come more, in time, but for the present I begin with you. Bleek, treat your fate as an honor, for it is of the vital sap from your brain that I must partake. With that invigorating juice surging through my veins, I will gain unlimited strength along with the endless years.”
Jacob Bleek, not slow in his wits, recognizing the threat prior to its utterance, had already drawn out of his trained mind a spell to fortify himself against a psychic assault. Poteauje, naturally, sensed this in an instant. “My dear Bleek, must I waste my husbanded energies in a duel mysterioso? I think not. Why should I, when my loyal subjects strain at the leash to win laurels in combat for me.
“Attend, my friend. This new power I can also cast.” And Poteauje raised his arms, waved them in unison with a peculiar recitation screeched in a language ill formulated for human tongue, and at the conclusion something odd happened. The dead soldiers sprawled on the cave floor twitched, shifted, clutched at weapons, by fitful jerks lurched to their feet. Engorged rats dropped from them and fled, squealing. The lifeless swordsmen came together in perfect formation before Poteauje, turned to gaze upon Jacob Bleek, but they did so with vacant, chewed eye sockets, empty pits of stygian blackness that could not conceivably see, yet seemed to regard him with fiendish intensity born of the furies that roil beyond the grave.
Swords poised, they advanced. A frightful combat erupted in that green-litten chamber, the pageant of steel and flesh executed under the baleful eye of Poteauje. One man of mind vs. a troop of malevolently animated dead bodies! Bleek’s attackers thought nothing, desired nothing, performing as automata instructed to slay. They made the most of their opportunity. Blades slashed, clanging and sparking against stone, slicing the air, once ripping through an unwary bat. The swords flailed chaotically, even stupidly, yet in their mad lack of rhythm lay immediate death to their delegated victim.
Bleek could do nothing against them! His offensive spells of protection affected the minds of opponents, but these had none; the defensive spells functioned as short-term solutions, increasingly useless against foes who would not tire. True, by his arts he resourcefully deflected many a stroke, only the blades cleaved ever closer. He blocked with his staff, blocked again, and this time a mighty whack chopped it in twain. The halves flew. Bleek lashed off his ebony cloak and whipped it over the corroded, exposed skull of his current assailant, the horrid, toothy grin of death momentarily obscured by the thick fabric. The creature floundered, as more swarmed in.
The brain of a wizard races at a speed akin to the velocities found in the preternatural realm of light. Bleek realized he could not best this army of corpses at their game—except it was not their game—their murderous impetus lay elsewhere. His calculations grasped that key. He lunged back from the throng, ricocheted off a hurtful projecting wall, ignoring the pain maneuvered toward a lone warrior at the tail of the pack. Bleek wrestled away the cadaver’s weapon and, blanking his thoughts, charged up the platform straight at Poteauje!
Great Poteauje, wise, powerful Poteauje, taken unawares, gave a shriek as the sword point pierced his guts and burst out behind, spraying viscera across his makeshift throne. “Bleek, you fool,” he wailed, “how can you deny me my glory?” By will alone he endeavored to fight back still, but Bleek wrenched out the sword and bashed crazily with it, crushing the head and snapping limbs like so many sticks. He kept striking some time after Poteauje had clearly expired.
At a sound Bleek whirled. The corpse soldiers, staggering toward him, faltered, swayed, commenced to topple, slumping to the cave floor like discarded rag dolls. Presently only Jacob Bleek stood in that chamber. His back ached abominably where the jagged wall had dug into him; he panted and shivered, and surmounting his ailments he—like all wizards hardly an empathic fellow—felt an uncharacteristic degree of sadness at the loss of his kindred. He had imagined himself at the feet of Poteauje, imbibing valuable lore and learning from a mentor. Those feet, scaly and bloody, dangled before him, Poteauje a mere carcass, sprawled like a rent sack.
Ever practical, Bleek diligently searched the chamber. Tucked into a rock niche he found the priceless potion of Elibama. Having soberly deliberated, he cast it aside without regret. No, this was not the way. Other means must exist, and he would find them. Bleek had his own course to chart. He departed without a backward glance.
©December 2020, Jeffery Scott Sims
Jeffery Scott Sims has recently published a book of weird tales, Science and Sorcery III, as well as many short stories in various publications. His work has appeared previously in Swords & Sorcery.