‘There is a being in the omniverse who has caused the Dark Gods to be inconvenienced,’ said Hurranok. ‘He keeps interfering in their divine plans. He needs to be stopped. If you can do this, you’ll have won your place.’

  ‘They want me to defeat this being – devour it?’

  ‘They do. The Dark Gods could, but they want to test you.’

  Cadavarion laughed softly. ‘All the gods and demi-gods, demons and devils I have absorbed – all their power has swelled my own. Where is this being? What is this thing?’

  ‘He is named the Voidal.’

  The god again leaned back, his eyes slitting with suspicion. ‘Really? I have heard of this monstrous peril.’

  ‘Summon him, master –’

  ‘It is written in the annals of the laws of the omniverse that he who summons this Voidal pays a heavy price for his services. He is a focal point for the wrath of the Dark Gods. Again I say, this is a trick!’

  ‘A test, master. Summon him and defeat him. They says you has the power.’

  ‘I have a better idea.’

  Hurranok felt something very cold and clammy take a grip of his heart, not to mention his other vitals. The look on the god’s face heightened the feeling. ‘Us bows to your judgment, master.’

  ‘Summoning the Voidal reduces the power of the summoner and renders him the weaker to resist the effects of the payment. However, should another do the summoning, well, it would enable me to maintain all my powers. I think, on reflection, I will accept the offer of the Dark Gods. And you two fine gentlemen will summon the Voidal on their behalf.’

  Bluug’s face contorted into what those few who knew him would have known to be a smile. His delight at having been moved even higher up the evolutionary scale to become a gentleman earned him a glare from the god. ‘It amuses you?’ said Cadavarion.

  ‘You mistakes him, divine omnipresence,’ said Hurranok. ‘He’s but a simpleton. Don’t realize what you’re asking of us. If we summons the Voidal, we will be mashed up, squashed –’

  ‘Nevertheless, you’ll do it,’ said the god. ‘Otherwise the punishment I’ll meet out to you will be a thousand times worse.’ He leaned forward, his teeth bared. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’

  Both Hurranok and Bluug hopped backwards, nodding inanely.

  ‘So – no time like the present. Go ahead. Perform the working.’

  The two thieves stared at one another in horror, or some emotion closely linked to it. Behind them Duzzadrillo gently swung his rod of power and prodded them with it. In unison, they took a deep breath and recited the words of power.

  ‘We invoke the Voidal,’ they said. The air was very still. Somewhere far away in the mountains the ice continued to creak, but otherwise there was no indication that anything different had happened.

  ‘Is that all?’ said Cadavarion.

  ‘It is done,’ said Hurranok. ‘The dark man is coming. He will come to us.’

  ‘Excellent! Go back to your place in the lower fortress with Duzzadrillo and wait there. When our guest arrives, bring him to me and we’ll have our contest. In the meantime I will refresh my powers.’ With that he dismissed them all and turned his back, studying the far mountains once more.

  The sorcerer led the thieves out of his master’s palace and back across the wide plaza towards the lower structures of Yamazantra. They climbed the long stairway up to the balcony that overlooked it, turning back for a last look at the terrifying edifice that was the stone head of the god. All three of them drew back in consternation, and even the sorcerer’s face paled. For the head had come to life. Cadavarion Celestes was indeed about to refresh his powers.

  Stone cracked and moved as the cavernous mouth opened ever wider, the moonlight reflected in dazzling splendor from the rows of teeth.

  ‘He has occupied the stone,’ said Duzzadrillo. ‘He has shed his human form.’

  The thieves were transfixed, wanting to rush away to the lower levels and safety, and yet gripped with fascination by the horrific transformation. On the flat plaza, a white mist appeared and thickened, something taking shape within it. It was a huge, bizarre, multi-limbed being, the product of some terrible imagination, as though its creation had gone wildly awry. Tentacles and feelers sprouted from it in all directions and its hundreds of globular eyes reflected moonbeams hideously. An overwhelming stench radiated from it, as though it had risen from the foulest of pits and it gave voice to deep croaks that shook the walls of Yamazantra.

  ‘What comes?’ said Hurranok.

  ‘A god,’ said Duzzadrillo, though he seemed better composed than his charges. ‘From the Outermost Zones of Orbanzool. One of the great incarnations of Living Evil.’

  ‘Why is it here?’

  ‘You will see.’

  Once the mist had dissipated and the revolting god had been fully revealed in all its extraordinary hideousness, the thieves understood what was about to transpire. This was to be a demonstration of the power of Cadavarion Celestes, a preparation for the meeting with the creature they had summoned. As if to verify this, Cadavarion gave vent to a deep-throated challenge that rumbled across the plaza like thunder, rocking the monstrous intruder, which slithered forward on innumerable pseudopodia, leaving a shimmering trail of thick slime behind it.

  From out of the mouth of the living stone god there now appeared three enormously fat tongues, long and serpentine, dripping with steaming saliva. They reached for the oncoming rival god and fastened on to its coils and rippling flesh. A titanic contest ensued and the two thieves watched in stunned amazement as the floor of the plaza shook and thundered as if in the throes of an earthquake. Dust rose in huge clouds, rocks fell from above and several of the smaller towers fell and disintegrated as the two beings tore and clawed each other mercilessly. The tongues fastened on their victim, curling around it, growing in girth to several times their original size as Cadavarion poured mountainous powers into them, crushing and pulping.

  One of the tongues suddenly burst, scattering a thick rain of fleshy gobbets hither and thither across the plaza, living chunks of bloodied meat that slithered back into the melee like so many mangled slugs. Yet the other two tongues held fast, turning a deep crimson, filling with the life juices of their victim. The latter was moving less frantically, gripped so ferociously that it could hardly move, for all its frantic efforts. Slowly but inexorably it was drawn towards the wide mouth and above it the eyes widened with madness and the lunatic joy of the god in victory. As the colossal body came under the row of teeth, they clamped down upon it. The tongues withdrew, but the intruder was skewered like a rat on a sword. Blood and life fluids pumped from it, smearing great pools across the plaza. It wriggled and shuddered, its movements less exaggerated as Cadavarion began to feed.

  Hurranok and Bluug cringed in horror as the sounds of that revolting feast came to them. Duzzadrillo merely nodded, as though this entire gut-churning event was commonplace. ‘You see how his powers grow? All that this vile ambassador of nightmare embodied is now transferred to our omnipotent master. So it will be with your wanderer in the void.’

  *

  Back in the small chamber in which they had first awakened in this fortress, the two thieves listened as the footsteps of the sorcerer withdrew and the door closed. Hurranok turned to Bluug with a snigger. ‘That went well.’

  ‘We’s gentlemen now.’

  ‘After this, Bluug, we’ll be much more than that. Emperors will envy us.’

  Their amusement came to an abrupt end when they realized that one corner of the chamber was bizarrely shrouded in darkness, apparently a solid wall, a starless vault of space, cold and motionless. Something materialized in it, forming into a human form, a tall warrior, garbed in midnight black, accoutered with silver and wearing at his side a sleek, black scabbard. The man looked dazed.

  ‘You are the Voidal,’ said Hurranok. For some reason this creature filled him with far more dread than either of the two vast powers he had seen clashing up above in the plaza.

  The dark man shook his head dazedly. ‘Yes, that is all that I remember. The Dark Gods have stolen my other memories, and more besides. My identity, my soul. I was dreaming, but even the dreams dance away into that darkness.’ The black cloud from which he had emerged had dissipated like morning mist in sunlight. ‘Who are you, and who has summoned me?’

  ‘I am Hurranok, and this is my companion, Bluug. It was us, master. We called you to come to us.’

  The Voidal’s features were harsh, etched with a particular pain and his eyes were as hard as any diamond. ‘Then you understand there is a price to pay for your folly. I recall something of my new, enforced destiny. The Dark Gods mock me, always. I am forced to do their will, through those careless enough to summon me. I cannot spare you your fate.’

  ‘No need!’ said Hurranok with a twisted grin. ‘We are exempt.’

  The Voidal looked puzzled. ‘No one is exempt. The Dark Gods –’

  ‘Have absolved us of any sin! We was prisoners, for many lifetimes. But they freed us.’

  ‘A bargain,’ growled Bluug.

  ‘Yes, yes. Freed us if we came here and summoned you. Another will pay the price. A god. One who thinks he can devour you.’

  ‘I cannot undo what has been set in train. Who is this god?’

  ‘Cadavarion Celestes. He would duel with you. He wants your power.’

  The Voidal glanced down at his right hand. It was encased in a black glove. He raised it slightly. There were memories attached to it, humming around it like moths near a flame, but he could only catch brief glimpses of them. They hung like ghosts about him, evasive and mocking.

  ‘Where is this god?’

  ‘In his citadel, above us. We is locked in. I will call the sorcerer.’

  The Voidal strode to the door, fully awake now. ‘No need,’ he said. He twisted the handle of the door and pulled it open, still for a moment, listening. Then he was swallowed by the shadows of the corridor beyond.

  Bluug studied the door and its lock. The metal was molten, dripping, the thick wood of the door warped as if by ferocious heat.

  *

  Duzzadrillo heard the footfalls and leapt to his feet, ripples of terror passing through his frame like a cold blast of winter air. Beyond him, framed in the door to his chamber, the dark figure watched him. The sorcerer knew instinctively who it was – the myths and legends had not lied. This was the Voidal, a being who emanated power and with whom there was to be no bargaining. His will was not his own, his actions controlled by powers beyond all of them.

  ‘You are expected,’ said Duzzadrillo.

  ‘I have been told of a duel, a contest of wills.’ If the Voidal was angered by his current fate, there was no sign of it on his face.

  ‘Cadavarion Celestes awaits you.’

  ‘Very well.’ The Voidal’s eyes rested on the staff of the sorcerer, which the latter gripped in his terror, holding it across his chest as if to shield himself. The dark man stepped forward lightly and before Duzzadrillo could react, reached out with the fingers of his right hand and lightly touched the rod. It glowed vividly. Duzzadrillo fell to his knees, eyes filling with extreme pain, but before his mouth could give voice to that pain, he folded into nothingness, his essence immediately sucked into the rod. It clattered on the tiled floor, its glow slowly fading.

  The Voidal passed on and eventually came to the balcony that looked out on to the vast plaza and the huge face of the god beyond it, again petrified. The expression on the face of the gaping god was one of pleasure, like that of a gourmand who has partaken of a particularly delicious feast. Thick rivulets of liquid dripped from the teeth of the face, pooling in gelatinous chaos on the stones below. A god had passed here, the Voidal knew, but it had not perished. It had been devoured, absorbed.

  He entered the great mouth and climbed the steps beyond to the wide room overlooked by distant mountains, where the dawn was breaking in splendid shafts of gold and crimson, putting a blush on the ice fields. A single figure awaited the dark man. It rose from its sumptuous seat and came to meet him.

  ‘The one who was promised,’ said Cadavarion. In the growing sunlight he looked to be in superb condition, muscular, slightly bronzed, his hair streaming around him, his eyes sharp as the frost of morning. ‘Welcome.’

  The Voidal stood in silence, waiting. If the Dark Gods had manipulated him once more, it was their play. His clouded memory knew enough to understand that anything he did would be warped to their will and their schemes. A cold, crushing despair would have taken hold of him if he had let it, but he fought to remain indifferent.

  ‘The walker in the void,’ said the god. ‘Fatecaster. Man without a soul. So many dark things coil around you. You must wish it would all end.’ If Cadavarion had expected a reply, he had none. ‘It can end. Here. Now. For once it will be your fate that is cast.’

  A trembling in his right hand alerted the Voidal and although he tried in vain to keep his arm by his side and master the growing movements, he was powerless. It was not his hand. It belonged to his terrible masters. Now it began their bidding, lifting upward, almost in a salute. He felt himself pushed to his knees, as though in obeisance to the smiling god. His right hand fell and he felt it press its gloved palm flat to the polished floor.

  ‘I hardly think that will –’ began Cadavarion, but he immediately tensed, his senses alert to every shifting atom’s movement around him. ‘Ah,’ he said, suddenly pleased. ‘It begins!’

  The ground vibrated and the Voidal felt something surging from remote places within him, down his arm and into the solid floor. It was cold, livid energy, the power of the beings that had shaped his wandering for so long. He remained still, his eyes closed, and he listened. Somewhere far, far away, he heard a roar, a tumbling, thundering roar of foam and ocean surf. Waves rose in mountainous banks in an endless procession. The flat plains of sand before them shook to their coming.

  Cadavarion looked up, also reading the vision. ‘The distant ocean!’ he said, with a smile. ‘Is that your intent? You will draw it forward and unleash it upon Yamazantra. An entire ocean. Such a phenomenal force could burst a world with its fury. Yet not here, dark warrior, as you will see. Do your worst!’ So saying, he reached out with his own right hand and his arm began to extend like the writhing body of a serpent, quickly covering the ground between the two figures. Long fingers unfurled like the legs of a living organism and gripped the hand of the Voidal, lifting it from the floor, enclosing it, the fingers swelling until the entire fist of the dark man was hidden.

  The Voidal felt no pain. He stood, eyes still closed, inwardly watching that remote ocean as it churned and boiled, foaming forward like the host of an enormous army. Life teemed in those waves as countless shapes danced and wove, lithe and sleek as sea denizens, though these were demonic, screaming elementals, their teeth made for the death strike, their talons more deadly than any aerial predator’s. Their combined voices howled with the roar of the mighty waves as they raced on inexorably towards the distant spires of Yamazantra. They danced and swirled within a hurricane wind.

  Cadavarion saw them and threw his head back, laughing, his lips drawn back over his own teeth. His grip on the Voidal’s hand tightened and now the dark man winced, aware of the pain, the clashing power. ‘Bring the sea hags!’ shouted the god. ‘Watch them fall.’ His eyes were blood red, widening until they became pools of magma. The Voidal felt surge after surge of heat, running from the god, down his arm and into that closed fist. It burned and he felt his flesh boiling, molten. Again he dropped to his knees. The god stood over him, irresistible, indomitable.

  The floor to the chamber steamed, its paving slabs cracking and the walls suffused in a glow as the heat rose and rose, its unleashed force surging down, down, right through the very entrails of the city, so that every stone, every brick, every tile shook. The inhabitants screamed in pain and terror, racing this way and that to avoid the horrifying energy, the murderous heat, and many fell, lifeless. The city gates were flung wide and the exodus began as those who were able fled the monstrous oven.

  Cadavarion laughed the more, watching his vision change as the first bolts of heat clashed with the oncoming tidal nightmare. The screaming elementals were first to feel the blast and their front rank boiled and evaporated, while the huge, unfurling wave that bore them also turned to a steaming mist, dissipating in the rising dawn light. The ocean roared forward, but what met it was a greater force, the heat of suns, the energy of all the gods Cadavarion had ever devoured feeding that ultimate power. Wave after wave simply turned to sea mist, the creatures within it falling like dust to the plain.

  The Voidal understood, his tears of pain hot on his cheeks. At last the ocean fell back, a sudden tide dragging its decreasing waves away from the land it had invaded, leaving the sands churned and rucked like an immense blanket. Nothing moved. Nothing had survived. Countless bodies were heaped across the waste, sea creatures either scorched or stranded, left to die in the choking heat. It rose in shimmering waves, the land baking, burning. The walls of Yamazantra had become crimson, its empty streets stuffed with the dead, the tallest of its spires collapsed or leaning, a dust cloud draped around them like a shroud.

  Cadavarion released the Voidal’s hand. It was now no more than a ball of flesh and bone, glowing like an ember at the heart of a furnace. The Voidal’s arm fell to his side, a gesture of abject defeat.

  ‘It is done,’ said Cadavarion. ‘You are free of the curse they placed upon you. Go out from here and take your place among other mortals. Enjoy what little time is left to you.’ To emphasize his words, he turned his back and looked out at the mountains, where thick clouds were amassing, rolling in over the peaks, softening the daylight. After a while he smiled, lifting is arms. They were coming. The Dark Gods, or their Seneschals, their messengers. Coming to reward his victory. He would become a part of their absolute power.

  *

  The Voidal left the god’s chamber and returned across the plaza to the lower palaces, where he found the two thieves in the halls where the former sorcerer, Duzzadrillo had exercised his own powers. They drew back from the dark man, though they could see the confusion in him, his attitude of despair.