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Lich light

But their fate is worse, than which any death would be preferred,

Theirs is the intimate agony of death deferred.

(Lawrence Harding, “Abominations of the Sorcerer”)

Open the greened bronze portal and slip inside.

The corridor is lined with liches,

each draped in the decaying remnants of its clothing.

In your flickering torchlight the liches seem to grimace;

those closest to the doors may move their limbs a trifle.

You have nearly reached the end of the hall when you notice that

the corpse-pillars are wearing identical amulets,

which strikes you as peculiar.

You lean to examine one closely.

The amulets are gold.

They bear a peculiar Sign

that causes a nauseating wave of déjà vu to sweep through you.

It roils the muddy waters of your memory

without bringing anything recognizable to the surface.

Disastrously, lost in thought,

you have forgotten your torch—

the lich’s hair bursts into greasy flame.

You leap back, screaming,

shadows wildly swinging from your torch,

and the lich is screaming too.

Its rotten eyes roll wildly and it trembles as it burns.

Its hands twitch, as if it would raise them to its fulgent head.

Now all the liches are screaming,

and you begin to run,

back towards the massive doors,

down the center of the hall,

but as you pass between each pair of corpses,

their heads blossom like gas jets lighting.

The fireballs outpace you,

shadows careering and whirling,

and soon the whole hall is filled with

screaming corpses and the stench of burning hair.

When you reach the end of the hall you do not find the door.

The bronze bas-relief of ibis and stork

through which you entered the hall

has been replaced with a single polished slab of stone

bearing only a giant replica of the Sign inlaid in gold.

Your hands scuttle over the stone like crabs

whose sandy holes are stopped.

“The door was here! It was here!”

You come to realize that you are shrieking, just as

the cacophony behind you alters subtly, and you turn.

Something is there, in the center of the hall,

But it has far too many appendages,

and it is furred most monstrously.

With crooked chelicerae it gestures and your body begins to move—

not by your volition!

Another gesture, and the corpse-candles gutter out,

charred crania glowing dimly through the smoke.

As you lurch stiffly towards the vacant low stone pedestal that is your destination,

you feel the weight of an amulet thud onto your chest,

a frisson of horror slithers down your back,

and a terrible sound rises toward your throat—but comes not forth—not yet.

It will.