HNAR

Early morning light broke through the darkness like a hammer smashing charcoal. The darkness would not just melt away with the sun's warmth, rather it seemed solid, like slate. The sun had to chip and crack its way through ebony shards, bringing little light to the desolate landscape.

Desolate being a kindly term, as the impossibly dead vista that lay under the darkness had no life to give back to its revealer. Only that darkness could find a mate in this land, a land that made darkness real.

Not all could be like this bleak region with its dead and ghostly trees, its empty ravines, its stony land. Snow-capped mountains could be seen in the distance, hinting at life on their far slopes. Water would be there, but none but the wildest imagination could see this land wet and alive.

There was one anomaly here, the broken mass of rubble half-hidden under the dead trees. What once must have been an impressive building of granite blocks was now fallen with age and dust. Strange writing could still be seen on some of its chipped facade, runes that bore no resemblance to any modern script, that almost hurt the reader's eyes if stared at for too long. Hidden under these blocks were great stone steps leading down into more darkness. The center of the steps were worn deep, showing the passage of eons of use, use that ended eons ago.

Darkness and death. That was what this land conveyed, that was its essence. This was the land of Ssefered, God of the Damned.



Hnar reined in his horse and raised his hand for the others to stop. The sun was now high enough to reveal the crossroads they'd arrived at.

His small band had ridden hard the past fortnight since leaving the inn on the far side of the mountains. The passage over the mountains had been surprisingly easy with no blizzards to strand them. Now they were on the very edge of this ghostly land, where the road forked into and around it. No recent tracks were seen in its dust; a sane man would choose the border route leading around the accursed land, but no sane man would ever find himself here. Except himself, Hnar thought.

Hnar was a large man, standing a good half-foot taller than the largest of his band. His black hair fell in a tangled mass on his broad shoulders, framing a strong face that showed the scars of many past conflicts. Those shoulders were covered by a tunic and cave bearskin, his legs buckskin and boots. Many in his band wore animal skins, but some wore leather and cloth. Hnar wore both, and he preferred his long sword and bow to mace and daggers. His scars showed that his preferences were not always the best.

Turning in his saddle he waved to his band, signaling his men to follow him on the road leading to the dead land. His band silently acknowledged his wish and their mounts began as one to enter into the strange land.

They ate as they rode, breaking off pieces of bread and cheese, washing it down with skins of sour wine. These were gifts from the inn. As they rode into the dead region, their horse's hoof beats muffled by the thick dust, Hnar thought back to the week spent at the inn, where his band and his plan had cohered into one...

"Hnar, you know, you know well, no one has returned from Ssefered's Dead Land for centuries, if not a thousand years! No one alive now, here or elsewhere, even has any family legends of entrance into Ssefered's land and returning! The land is dead, its air is dead, and anyone who enters it is dead also! That land is so damned even the mountains themselves move around it. Hnar, it has been there since the beginning."

"As have our people, Ro, in one fashion or another. There is nothing on that land or under it that I am not prepared for, or we would not be here. You know that, as do you all!" Hnar looked about the inn as he raised his mug. "This is the foulest-tasting swill I've ever had!" he finished as he took a deep draught.

"We fight a god, Hnar! You cannot say that you are prepared. Not only a god, but Ssefered himself!" Hnar noticed that the innkeeper actually quailed when Ro spoke Ssefered's name.

"'The god that was old when the world was young,'" Hnar finished for him. "'Whose first minions wore scales rather than skin, who swam and flapped in the seas instead of walking like man.' We've all heard the stories, haven't we?" Hnar's band numbered fifteen in all, counting Ro. Fourteen mugs were raised in answer. Ro's sat dormant.

"To kill a god! Think, man, what you ask us to do! We have followed you without question for years, myself for ten. You know we will fight for you, fight with you when there is a foe to fight! But a god! Watch! I strike the candle's flame a mortal blow." Ro's dagger danced through the table's candle's glow. "But it is still there! I sink this blade into flesh, it is no more, it is dead. I sink this blade into the flame, the flame burns all the brighter. That is Ssefered, Hnar. We will only cause anger, and then we will die for it."

"If that were true we'd already be dead for our plan. Ssefered's still a great god and knows paths across all the kingdoms. He knows us, he knows what we plan. But why doesn't he stop us now? Take our breath from us as we sit?"

The walls echoed with joyous shouts. "My life's breath for you, Hnar! You speak truth!"

"If the corpse god can't stop us now, he will not when we break in the walls to his devil-den!"

"Listen to them, Hnar, you will lead them to their deaths! They fight for you freely as do I, and they fight well, but now you lead them to a land that knows no life. They will enter and die, as will you and I. I implore you, spare them!"

"I spare them with this, Ro!" Hnar reached into his tunic and pulled out a leather pouch bulging with something inside. "From the Sorceress Sittee. With this in Ssefered's lair, Ssefered will be no more. You know Sittee's charms and spells. We will not fail."

"Pah! What do you have, a sliver sunk into one of her sores? What good is her pus against a god? Let us ride back to Mezza in the morning, we have enough loot there to last us well four winters or more. We will find other ways to die, Hnar."

"But not today, and not here, Ro. This talisman Sittee made from things that were young when Ssefered was. They are from the forces that keep his Dead Land isolated, that help the mountains move around it. It is made from that which will make Ssefered die. Then the Dead Land will live again, and be ours! We will be kings!"


And here they were, Hnar thought. They'd made much progress into Ssefered's land during his musings. According to the parchment map that he'd pulled from his tunic the Stairway of the Damned was close. Hnar looked into the distance and signaled for his band to follow him off of the road. He began to head for a grove of ancient, dead trees. They were there within the hour.

The band dismounted amidst the eerie forest's remains. How the dead boles remained standing through the ages they couldn't fathom, and none dared touch them. They were trees of a type no longer seen in the present world, and still carried with them a sense of other-worldliness.

Hnar called his men about him to review their strategies. Tall Ro, fair-haired and broad-chested; Apsze, he of one ear; Mairle, whose eyesight rivaled the eagle's; Ffreu, last of the line of Ahr, and all the rest gathered to him.

"Well, you see the stairs over there. You know where we are now, you know the legends are true up to this point, anyhow. What we'll find once we enter the labyrinths, you've heard about. It may be worse or not, we'll find out when we arrive. No matter what, it will be bad. If Ssefered has already passed, if his shadow-slugs are gone with him, there will still be...other things left behind. Your broadswords and axes will work on these, but against Ssefered they won't. I alone have a weapon that will destroy him, the talisman I have shown you! How Ssefered will react when he reaches us, I cannot say. But I feel we will know at that time when it arrives! And that time is for me, not any of you! The sorceress said that once freed from its pouch the talisman will draw Ssefered's essence into it, devour it, and then they will both become as nothing! See! The talisman is not of this world, or even from our heavens. It is from such a Hades as that which spawned Ssefered. When..."

"Wait, Hnar, wait. Now you tell us we're not needed? Our swords are useless? Why then bring us here? Isn't your foul talisman worth more than the whole lot of us?"

"Mairle, your sword is worth more to me than all of this land around us restored to its former worth. You know that. But what we fight today is not made of this earth, is not made to lodge your sword within. Hear me, though! There are other things that have lived here since the dawn of time. Ssefered has sheltered them, has given them sustenance when there was no other. That's what your swords and bows are for; I cannot fight them and Ssefered all at once!

"You see, Ssefered will not fight with swords,either. The fight will be as a god fights, by bending our minds, by stretching and shaking this realm. Be careful of what courses through your minds as we begin battle. Watch for the shape changers!"

"How will we know, Hnar?"

"Will you be able to see Ssefered, Hnar? How will you know when to unshield the talisman? Why not bare it now?"

"Yes! Yes! Unsheath the she-witch's muck! Kill Ssefered here in the sunlight!" Hnar's men shouted their excitement at the forth-coming battle.

"Good plan as all that, I will not. Sittee said that the talisman's power is most potent in Ssefered's lair because of the nearness of both of their pits. Here, in the open, even in the Dead Land, the talisman's power would be weakened. I must take it down the stairs, down into Ssefered's gullet, and with it as my sword and guide, hew my way out again leaving the loathsome toad-god's tubing to be sent into eternity! And you all will come back with me!'

But isn't that Ssefered's eternity, Hnar? Ssefered's a god, not a demon to sent back to its pit. How can we seal a god from one part of its own creation into another?" Mairle asked.

"Because we will. Ssefered was not the only god that created the world. Ssefered's rule is not supreme, there are gods that rival his power. The talisman is the product of one."

"A god that may be Ssefered's equal, if not his inferior. How do we know that Ssefered cannot return from whatever land we send him to?" This from Ffreu.

"Because that land will end when Ssefered enters it. See!" Hnar held the pouch aloft again. "This is a portal! It is a doorway that only opens one way and opens only once! The pit that it opens into is not Ssefered's and neither can survive the other. When the toad-god enters his new realm both will destroy the other. There can be no return for Ssefered as he will no longer be, nor will there be a land from him to return from!

"We kill a god today! When that god dies, the death that covers this land dies with him. This entire kingdom will live again as it did before Ssefered's shadow fell over it; then it will be ours to rule! We kill a god and we will become kings!"

A mighty cheer greeted Hnar's words and the men waved their bows and beat their swords against their shields. They were united again behind Hnar just as they had been so many times before.


The sun did not travel far into the stairway's depths, the darkness beat it back to the land's surface. The steps coursed downwards interminably, the torches Hnar and the others carried became useful almost immediately. The light they cast on the stairway's walls showed faint traces of paint, murals faded so as to be almost indiscernible. Without slowing their downward descent the men looked at vistas and creatures unknown and unseen in their present world.

One thousand, two thousand steps, still the stairway sank into the earth. The walls remained dry; Hnar thought they'd encounter mold or some other type of cavern life by now, but still nothing. Normal fungus and newts would be welcome; anything else, perhaps not.

The stairway ended as abruptly as it began. The band's torches showed them to be in a vast, tiled chamber. The light didn't reveal the ceiling nor the far walls. Ro picked up a piece of broken tile and threw it into the darkness. No sound returned.

"What does your map say, Hnar? Where are we?"

"My map only takes us through the mountains to the stairway. What lies underneath it is uncharted. From here on we follow our senses. See a path is worn in the floor? We shall follow that!"

They set out into the chamber's gloom following a path that had been worn deep into the floor, as deep as the steps were worn. It took them well into the chamber, but still no boundaries were found. No echo returned the sounds of their passage, no water dripped from the unseen ceiling, no wind hinted of doorways or rifts leading into any other caverns. Just the Stygian darkness and the steady sound of nothing. The path ran straight and deep.

"Hnar, look!" Mlakcicco called out, waving his torch to the left. Hnar held his torch out and could see some small mounds on the chamber floor. Mlakcicco broke into a lope towards them.

"Wait here, the rest of you! Come, Ro!" Hnar followed Mlakcicco.

They reached the mounds shortly and hunched down to have a close look at their discovery, the torch's light combining to make the surreal scene easily surveyed.

"Look, Ro, our predecessors!" Ro looked at the skull Hnar held aloft. "Your family? Not mine." Hnar ran his thumb over the two knobs that were on the skull's forehead. Human-like though it was, there were subtle differences.

They looked at the helmets and weapons that lay scattered at their feet. "Here, see if this was someone that your sister knew!" Hnar threw the skull back to his band and had cries of disbelief returned.

"These have been here for a long time. Whatever befell these creatures...What covered these bones, skin or scales?" Ro bent to pick up a sword, its hilt unusually long and tapered. "This is not made for my hand. Here, we stand in a hollow! There is a path here, also!"

"Then we shall follow this route. Perhaps what interested these demons will still be here for us. You! This way!" The rest of the band quickly caught up with Hnar, Ro, and Mlakcicco.

They walked on in silence, stepping over and around the bones which littered the floor. Slowly Hnar began to notice a sense of alien-ness around him, a feeling of other-worldliness even more pronounced than what the chamber held itself. He tried to pinpoint its source within him, but its subtleties made that impossible. Hnar attributed it to the eerie remains on this ancient battlefield. He stepped over a booted skeleton, boots impossibly wide for a man.

"Ro, do you sense anything odd? I mean, other than these old lizards?"

"For a short time now, yes. Not an odor, this cavern still holds no smell or sound for me."

"We must be wary. This could be how Ssefered announces his presence, with small sense distortions. If you feel anything amiss in your thinking, in your mind, thoughts or visions that have no place in your memory, let someone know immediately." Hnar reached for his breast, feeling the amulet under his tunic.

The chamber must have been huge beyond belief. They'd still not encountered any evidence of walls or stairways leading to different levels. The throngs of creatures that it had been host to in past millennium had to have also been beyond imagination. Hnar wondered what the ceiling looked like, if it was decorated as the stairway had been, or if it was covered with stalactites. No stalagmites were on the cavern floor, so Hnar imagined not. No need to have one of those fall on me, but with the dryness of the Dead Land, stalactites weren't expected...

"Hold! Listen, do you hear it?" They stopped as a unit. Softly, faintly, as sound could be heard, the first they'd heard since they entered other than their own. A slick, slithering noise, perhaps something moving rapidly over the floor. But there was something else, an intermittent slapping or soft thudding as if one or more heavy objects wrapped in leather were being dropped from a small distance. The sounds seemed to be some distance off, but were nearing.

Thinking fast, Hnar decided that the best thing to do was continue on the way they were. "Quick! Let's see if there's a wall before us or a way out of here! Watch where you step!"

Hnar set off at a fast trot, the rest close behind. The torches cast enough light to allow them a brisk pace, and they soon covered a fair amount of ground. Hnar tried to judge the direction of the noises but found he'd lost them in all the noise that his band made with their progress. He knew they needed to find an exit fast, one that wasn't clogged with whatever it was making the noises.

Hnar was the first to see the steps. The stretched as far as the torch's light permitted them to, disappearing into the gloom both directions. Or, if they were not steps, platforms or tiers of a sort, each being approximately thigh high. They were made of a material as black as the gloom that had blanketed them for so many hundreds of years, and they rose into the darkness. Hnar gestured with his torch, indicating them as the band's destination.

"Stairs for a giant? No, look, more lizard droppings." Mairle pointed to the scattered bones on the lower steps. "What now, Hnar? Climb or see what comes?" They could hear the thuds and the slithering noise getting closer.

Hnar quickly looked upward. "No noise that way. Up we go."

They climbed onto the first level and stopped for a moment. Having felt no noticeable reaction from being on the alien artifact, they continued upward. There were twenty levels.

"Here we are, Hnar, the top. Now what?" They were on a small plateau, the flat table top of the steps. The torches showed it to be bare of alien traces.

"We won't have long to wait to find out! Listen!" The slithering had gotten louder and sounded like it was on the staircases lower levels.

"Ro, remember Ssefered's treacherous ways! When you strike, make sure you don't strike our own!" A scream sounded from the far end of the plateau.

Hnar swiveled in time to see a torch hurled into the air and a flash of something covered with silver scales wrap around one of his band, jerking him over the plateau's edge. The screams brought the chamber's first echoes.

"Back to the slime which you came from, foul worm!" Hnar ran to the end of the plateau, swinging his sword. The rest of the band readied their weapons and looked over the edge.

Hnar never made it their. After a few steps he felt himself lifted into the air. He swung his sword blindly, disregarding his own instructions to Ro and his band. Hnar's movements were slow, like the traveled through molasses, and he couldn't feel anything tangible holding him aloft.

He looked down on the top of the pyramid, now illumined in a ghastly green glow. Hnar saw it to be a vast altar, Ssefered's sacrificial altar. He saw his men fighting an indescribable creature, a monstrous snake-like thing with the great claws that had made the thumping noises. He watched his band slaughtered one by one, Ro's head severed with a single mighty slash. The creature turned its gaze in Hnar's direction for a moment. Green beams shot from slitted eyes, hitting Hnar an almost palpable blow. He lost consciousness.

When he awoke Hnar was no longer in the chamber. He was suspended in the heavens; here there was light from the stars themselves. Hnar gazed on glowing nebulae, galaxies shining in their unfiltered beauty. Hnar spun in a slow pirouette, hundreds of thousands of stars returning his stare. He raised and lowered his head, trying to take the universe all in as much as he could. He was enraptured, the beauty was almost painful. With a start he realized that his gaze was being returned; the heavens formed a massive face.

Eyes thousands of light years apart, thousands of light years in size sparkled from under a crown made of the heavens themselves. The rest of Ssefered's face covered an immeasurable distance, the whole of eternity, that which had ever been and would ever come to be and he knew that Ssefered was allowing him this insight, that the god was allowing Hnar to see him as he really was, as he existed. An indescribable intelligence shown from the god's face with a magnificence that was overwhelming, a knowledge that was unbearably beautiful in its enormity. Hnar felt tears spring to his eyes, knowing that madness dwelt there, that no mortal could meet that stare and remain sane. He had met a god face-to-face in that god's own realm. He let out a silent scream of ecstasy and rapture that would echo forever in that universe but would be heard by no one.

Battling the murk that was clouding his mind, the intrusions of thought he knew were alien to him and were from Ssefered, Hnar knew he needed to take immediate action or die. He began to bring his right arm up towards his tunic, to bring out the amulet. The intrusion in his mind sensed danger, and shafts of lightening-hot pain shot through his brain, making his body feel as if it were on fire.

He pulled the pouch out into the open and fumbled one-handed with the tie. Hnar felt mental blows on his fingers, like they were being broken with a sledge. Bursts of visible pain exploded across his eyes, his senses now so distorted he could even smell his pain. The pouch opened almost in spite of Hnar's efforts and the amulet fell into Ssefered's emptiness. Hnar fell with it.

He slammed into the altar's surface, he was back in the underground chamber. Ssefered was gone. Hnar had killed him. He looked across the plateau.

His band had also died. They'd stabbed and hewn the altar's guardian into many pieces, but none had survived. When Ssefered had died, when he and the amulet were simultaneously destroyed, he reign over the Dead Land was ended.

Hnar felt a slight draft as he arose. The realization of what he had done, what his band had done, helped clear his mind of the last wisps of Ssefered's influence. He walked over to the nearest of his band's bodies, that of Ffreu, and picked up the still-burning torch. He raised it high above his head.

"Know you all that you did not die in vain! You will always live in my land, you reign with me forever! It was our hand that struck Ssefered his mortal blow! God killers be we all!

"So say I, King Hnar!"