Lord Tophet - By Gregory Frost Page 0,1

it, a clop-clop-clop-clop that drew her to it, louder and louder every second and behind it, beneath it, a growing roar. The noise swelled, almost on top of her. She raised a defensive hand as a monstrous dark shape erupted out of the fog, giving her not even time to scream as it bore down on her. In that instant something grabbed hold of the hood at her neck and yanked her to one side. The fog roiled where she’d been and a huge creature with a great snout and a black glass eye surged past her so closely that she could see the sheen of its coat. Behind it came a large black carriage with curtained windows and skinny, wiry wheels thundering over the rough ground. Animal and carriage swept by and were swallowed in the fog as quickly as they appeared.

“Do you want to be squished?” asked the voice as Leodora’s hood was released.

She turned about. The figure stood behind her. He was tall, and the fog abstracted his features until they were smudges, like the features of the Coral Man that lay in her puppet case back on Colemaigne.

“What was that thing?” she asked.

“Your demise if you don’t learn to get out of the way. Standing in the middle of the road is never a good idea. You can be knocked down from both directions. As for what that was—surely you know.”

“A palanquin, yes, but what monster led it?”

“Oh, no monsters here. Then again, here is itself monstrous to you. We’re quite the world apart.”

“This is Edgeworld, then?” Briefly she glimpsed wet gray paving stones under her feet.

“I think it most unusual that you’ve transported here. That’s not how it’s done generally. Seems your gift wasn’t determined. I can’t recall the last time that happened . . . at least, not at our particular terminus. Who can say what’s gone on in Babylon? May-my, that could be a song title.”

She tried to steal nearer the speaker. “Do you write songs?”

“I’m thinking about taking it up. ‘Oh, what’s gone on in Babylon,’ late Enkidu inquired. ‘For I’ve been dead,’ is what he said, ‘and missed . . .’ Drat, I have no idea how to complete that rhyme.”

“I would offer to help, but I don’t know the story.”

“Don’t know it? How Enkidu died and the hero Gilgamesh went into the underworld and brought him back?”

She shook her head, then realized he probably couldn’t see the gesture any better than she could see him. “No,” she replied.

“Well, there’s a wonder. What are they teaching you in . . . where were you just now?”

“Colemaigne.”

“Oh. Never mind, then, they don’t teach anything there. Others build moments, minutes, hours. Not Colemaigne, not ever. Land of honey and surfeit.”

“What happened to it?”

“Hmm? Oh. Not surfeited anymore, is it? Blighted by Tophet, was Colemaigne. He, in the guise of Chaos, placed one hand upon the wall of a building, and from his imperishable fingers spread the web of decay. Sum and substance cracked and spilled out bitterness, in shoals of torment.”

“Who is Tophet?”

“More like, what is Tophet, if you’re going to ask. He’s done away with the who. For Colemaigne, he was the Destroyer, come from the far side of the world seeking vengeance.”

“But he didn’t destroy all of it.”

“Yes, and lucky the span was, too. He became distracted. Else it would have been a silent place forever.”

“What distracted him?”

“Something. Something to do with you, it was. Something to do with death.”

“Me?” She edged still nearer. “But it happened before I was born.”

“True. And false.”

She puzzled at that. “You know, though, don’t you?” she said.

“Goes without saying, dear heart, goes without saying.”

“Then why can’t you explain it clearly?”

“Why? Because. It’s necessary for you to find the answers to the larger puzzles of life yourself. They can’t be handed out, providing information that would change the pattern you have to walk. The maze. The labyrinth. It’s yours, I can’t go about altering its shape just as a courtesy. Your mettle is to be tested and no one’s to interfere in that. Besides, you won’t remember a thing I say.”

As he spoke, gesturing with caped arms, she stole ever closer, and before he noticed she’d slipped up beside him. When he looked down, she saw him clearly.

It was Soter’s face.

“Taking a peek at eternity, are you?” he asked, amused.

“You’re—”

“No, I’m not. This is a false body, an incrustation over my immortal spirit.” He winked. “For your benefit, I should add.”

From deeper in the fog came