Cold: Chapter Nine
In which the city of Inquanok holds many secrets.
Chapter 9
I studied the night-gaunt, that horrific, oily thing that wanted to grab me with its huge, black claws. Not the most appealing mode of transport, but the only one I had at my disposal at the moment. Meanwhile, the crack in the ground had almost reached Jubin. He scrambled away from it as quickly as he could, but it wouldn’t be fast enough.
My moral imperative gave me no choice. I leapt off of the snowbank, landing next to Jubin and wincing involuntarily as I grabbed at his claw-like hand.
“What are you doing??”
“Saving your bony ass!”
The crack approached at lightning speed, and in it I could see a reaching darkness, a black so profound as to suck the light out of the landscape around it, tendrils of shadow fingering outward and infecting the snow.
But somehow, against all odds1, Jubin and I flung ourselves away from the crack and rolled onto clean snow. The world stopped shaking. I caught my breath and looked around.
Behind me, a great black scar rent the ground, veins of darkness reaching outward from it, continuing out of sight in both directions. Beside me, a bewildered ghoul gasping for a breath that reeked as it plumed outward from his skeletal maw in my direction. Ahead and above me, half a dozen oily, taloned creatures that waited.
“That, my friend, was reckless and unnecessary,” Jubin managed between gasping, rattling breaths.
“You don’t leave a soldier behind,” I said. It had been true in the war, and it was true here.
“Even a ghoul such as myself?”
“I don’t care who or what you are.”
“You have my eternal gratitude.”
“Something tells me that’s more valuable than when a human says that.”
Jubin gave me a grin made of bone and rot. “Alright. Now that we’re past that danger, let’s get you onto one of these night-gaunts.”
“You sure these things are friendly?”
“As I said, for now our interests are aligned.”
“What happens if they stop being aligned?”
“Let us…not think about that for now.”
We stood, carefully, finding our footing in the deep snowbank. One of the huge, shimmering, black creatures swooped down toward me, extending a claw. I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth, and jumped.
The huge claw grabbed my hand and pulled me upward until I found myself encased within a black, spined nest of sorts. Jubin sat next to me, eyes closed, breathing.
We flew for an unmarked stretch of time. I felt the wind rushing past us, penetrating just a little here and there between the tightly closed talons in which we rested.
“So, my dreamer friend. Do you have a name?”
Jubin’s question startled me out of a sort of daze. I blinked and reoriented myself to my surroundings.
“Ken Fields. Did…did I never introduce myself to you?”
“Nor to my friend Henshaw.”
“Shit, I’m sorry. I guess I’ve been…you know, in my own head about stuff.”
“Understandable, Ken Fields. It is, however, nice to make your acquaintance.”
“Likewise, Jubin.”
I shook his claw properly, doing my best not to flinch.
“Should you ever join my world, your name would be Kields.”
“Uh…” I said. I didn’t want to say “oh hell no,” or something else rude, but I had no intention of becoming a ghoul.
“It is ok,” Jubin said with a smile. “A long time ago, I was like you. Human.”
“What made you, uh…I guess I’m asking…how…?”
“You know the story. Ghoul meets boy, ghoul marries boy, boy converts to ghouldom?” Jubin gave me the ghoul equivalent of a shit-eating grin before continuing.
“I was on the brink of death from a horrible and incurable cancer, and I had a fever dream. In that dream, I came here, to this place. And Mordiggian came to me in that dream, blessing me and cursing me to become what I am. I believe I died that night, in your world, and I awoke renewed, as a ghoul.”
“Who is Mordiggian?”
“Our God.”
“May I ask what your human name was?”
“Jeff Rubin.”
“Hence Jubin.”
“Exactly.”
“And Henshaw?”
Jubin thought for a moment. “Something like…Henry Shaw, I believe.”
These ghouls clearly had a fascinating and rich cultural life, one that I could never hope to fully understand.
“Thanks for telling me,” I said.
“When you get home, would you look for my grave? It would be in Arkham, near the university there.”
“You have my word,” I said.
“I won’t know you’ve gone there. I just…it would be nice to know that someone acknowledged my human body after all these years.”
“Do you want me to bring flowers?”
“Place a stone on the grave marker. I was Jewish once.”
“Again, you have my word.”
After another period of uncountable time, I felt the night-gaunt losing altitude.
“As we prepare for landing, please put your tray tables up and your seatbacks in the upright and locked position,” Jubin said, again giving me that skeletal grin. I snickered a little.
“So how long ago was it that you…transitioned?” I asked, not at all feeling confident about using that word.
“1999,” Jubin said. “October 25. I…time moves differently here, but I believe I have been here longer than I lived as a human. At least it feels that way. What…when is it, now, in the world?”
“2037,” I said.
The night-gaunt’s claw opened, and I saw stone ground below me.
“Grab on to one of the talons,” Jubin said. I did so, and the night-gaunt lowered itself close enough to the ground that Jubin and I were able to jump down safely. As soon as we did so, the night-gaunt flew upward and away from us, joining his comrades in the sky.
I looked around me, seeing soaring black spires that spiraled and stretched toward the sky, a massive cityscape that shimmered in a deep twilight that caught the subtle hues in the dark walls, which swirled like oil slicks as the light hit them. Deep shadows crossed the black stone walkway on which we stood. Figures robed in brilliant hues bustled about and only glanced up to acknowledge us briefly before continuing on their way.
“Welcome to Inquanok, the Onyx City,” Jubin said.
Onyx. I remembered something. The Cold One’s cult favored onyx for their killing weapon.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, because it was. A kind of goth Oz, stylized in blackened technicolor.
“We must speak to the priests. They’re in there,” Jubin said. He pointed to the tallest spire, a thin tower that corkscrewed upward, its black spire framed by a massive full moon.
“Why is this city made of onyx?”
“The residents of Inquanok have been mining onyx for hundreds of years. There are massive onyx quarries nearby, controlled by the city. It is the most readily available stone anywhere near here.”
“And I’m guessing that the Cold One’s minions might be stealing onyx from those quarries?”
“Yes,” Jubin said, blinking at me in apparent surprise. “How did you know?”
I told him about the sacrificial ceremony I’d seen, the onyx mallet the priest had used to shatter the sacrifice. About the pilgrim in Leng who’d offered to shatter off my hand with his own onyx mallet.
“Ah,” Jubin said. “Well, you’ve certainly connected the right dots, so to speak.”
We walked through the city toward the priests’ spire. Ahead, on a hill near the center of the city, I looked with interest at a crumbling and abandoned building that might have once been a palace. Jagged and broken onyx lay in piles around a structure that looked like it might have exploded, or imploded.
“The Veiled King’s palace,” Jubin said. “It’s a long story, but the people of Inquanok overthrew their monarchy a long time ago. There was once a temple to all of the Elder Gods, but now the priests here focus their worship on Nodens and Nodens alone. And while Nodens is far from a benevolent or even a benign god, worship of Nodens has brought prosperity and peace to the city.”
“Sounds nice,” I said.
“It is imperfect.”
Something occurred to me. “Who are all of the Elder Gods?”
“You really don’t want the answer to that question.”
“I don’t?”
“Not if you wish to keep your sanity.”
I nodded and put my hands up. “Loud and clear.”
“Halt, in the name of Nodens!” The voice came from my left. I looked over to see a figure in gold robes, pointing a spear at a terrified man.
“What’s that about?” I asked.
“I assume the man is a minion of the Cold One.”
“Do we know that for sure?”
The guard forced the man to his knees, pointing an onyx spear at him.
“I swear,” the man said, “I worship Nodens. I don’t worship the Cold One. I swear. Please. Please. I have a family.”
His pleading, sobbing words hit me right where it hurt, and I had an almost inescapable urge to help this man.
“You are hereby accused of being a traitor to Inquanok. The sentence is death,” the guard said.
“Summary judgment without trial?” I asked, my voice as sharp as the point of the guard’s spear.
“It is the way here,” Jubin said. “I…don’t love it. But it keeps the peace. Come, the priests await.”
Next Chapter→
Free image from here, slightly edited. Not AI.
I rolled dexterity and got a 2 (extreme success).
I enjoyed this one, but I must admit I haven't read the previous installments. I'm intrigued. Also, since I haven't read them, I'm not qualified enough to participate in the poll. :)
(and "I saw nothing")
Mon dieu this needed another round of edits. Stand by.