Pillar Of Skulls

A blood-red sky; gritty, bare hills surrounding us. Somewhere nearby I hoped to find this pillar of skulls. Hopefully this time I would get some final answers, although I didn’t expect it.

We started combing the terrain; almost immediately, we ran into the first of many fiends. The numbers we faced were not sufficient to be dangerous, but I pushed the pace, knowing more opponents would show up shortly.

As we walked down a narrow canyon, I could hear the sound of tens, no hundreds of voices ahead. We passed under a natural arch of stone. I had found what I sought. The sight of this thing — this horrible, towering, pulsating thing — filled me with nausea, unfounded loathing, and a faint sense of familiarity. The innumerable rotting heads which made up the vast pile seemed to constantly shift and throb, alternately bickering, weeping, conversing, shouting and whispering to one another. Heads constantly bubbled to the surface of the stack from somewhere within its foul core, while others sank back into the grisly pillar. As I made to step closer to the Pillar, Morte hissed to me.

“Pssst! Chief! Chief… listen, I can’t let that thing see me. You've got to get me out of here… drop me off somewhere, pick me up later or something…”

“Why, Morte? What’s going on?”

“Eh… I don’t really like to talk about it. Let’s just get moving, yeah?” Morte’s voice trembled with fear; his eyes flickered back and forth between me and the massive pillar of heads.

“I can’t have you keeping so many secrets, Morte. You've got to tell me what’s going on here.” Morte sighed, unable to meet my stare. At last, he relented.

“Fine, fine… I'll tell you. There’s this pillar on Avernus, the first layer of Baator, built of the heads of all those who've led others to their deaths through lies. Well… that’s it right there. See, that’s where I ended up. Go figure.”

“So… you were one of those heads?”

“Yeah. I told an… exaggeration or two. It’s just that one of my suggestions—”

“Yeh mean lies!” hissed Annah. Morte continued, unperturbed.

“… one of my suggestions led to your death. One of them. Maybe others. I don’t really know; those memories are gone, now.”

Morte stared at my feet — I'd never seen him look so miserable. “Those memories, they… look, chief, I don’t even remember being human. I don’t remember what life was like before the Pillar…”

Dak'kon, staring into the distance, spoke quietly. “It is like cupping water in one’s hands.”

Morte glanced at Dak'kon, then me. “Yeah, I guess. And that’s pretty much the way of things when you die. You… forget. I figure I wasn’t a sterling member of the community when I was alive… but hells, who is?” Morte sighed again. “It’s just that I can’t help it. Nothing’s worse than being honest all the time. But look, chief: if that pile of heads sees me, it'll want me back — bad. You can’t let that happen!”

“Hold it… why didn’t you tell me you knew me back in the Mortuary?” Morte suddenly became defensive.

“Because I never know who you’re going to be! Some of your incarnations have been stark, raving mad! One time you awoke obsessed with the idea that I was your skull, and chased me around the Spire trying to shatter and devour me… luckily, you were crushed by a passing cart in the street. Another, ‘good and lawful,’ you tried to thrust me back into the Pillar, because ‘it’s where I belonged.’ “ Morte smirked. “That’s why. Besides, no harm’s ever come of you not knowing…”

“How'd you get free of the Pillar?”

“Well… you pulled me off, chief. I fought my way to the front of the Pillar — you've been here before, you know — yammering and howling until you had noticed me. I begged to be freed, swearing that I'd follow you, sharing my knowledge until your final days… I just didn’t realize how long that'd be until after you'd already torn me free.”

“And all the Pillar’s Knowledge…?”

“Oh, that… well, I also didn’t realize I'd lose most of the Pillar’s accumulated knowledge once I was out of it. Piking powers, did that ever set you off! But you kept me around just the same. And at first I felt ‘bound’ to you… that maybe your sorcery had turned me into some sort of familiar. But after a couple hundred years, I realized it was more than that… something deeper. More than just a debt of gratitude, too, though that sure as the hells had something to do with it. I just felt drawn, connected to you, somehow. Maybe it’s all your suffering, chief… your torment. I don’t know. Maybe I likened it to my own, when I was in that pillar.”

“Just how long have you known me, Morte?”

“Don’t know. Ages, I suppose. I've done all I could to help you find your way each time, but…” Morte sighed, then lifted himself up to meet my gaze. “You rarely make it this far, chief. I mean it; only four or five times, I think. This could be the time… the ‘you’ that makes it, finds out what’s going on.”

I took another cautious step towards the pillar, and all their conversation abruptly stopped. The dozens of heads that lined the pillar’s surface slowly turned to face me in unison. They regarded me silently, their breath fetid and moist upon me… until they noticed Morte cowering behind me.

Every head on the pillar’s surface spoke at once to make the thing’s voice — a terrible, burbling sound that bubbled forth while foul, stinging vapors and putrid corruption streamed from their mouths. “you again… tis been a long time, indeed.” Many of the heads began to gibber and drool, chanting “…skull, skull, skull…” gleefully, licking their lips, their eyes fixated upon Morte.

“What do you mean?”

“silence! we speak not to you, but to the skull. welcome back, little one. have you at last decided to return to the fold, to accept your final fate, to take up once more your sacred duty?” Several heads burst forth from the Pillar’s core, gnashing their broken teeth and wailing: “Yes, come back! Come back to us, skull! Skull…”

Morte shook with fear, his teeth rattling. “I can’t go back, chief! I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!”

“He hasn’t come back to you. But I had some questions, Pillar of Skulls…”

“the smell, ‘ tis strong. it shall cross the planes, soon, and bel will come.”

“The… smell? What do you mean?”

The heads’ eyes turned wetly in their sockets to stare at Fall-From-Grace. “the smell… her musk… the tanar’ri musk. the bittersweet scent carries, and will attract baatezu, soon. their lord, bel, will be angry.”

Morte added, “Oh, that’s just great.”

The heads turned their gazes back to me, though a few still snuffled noisily. “if you have questions for us, you had best be quick.” A few of the heads squinted and gurgled softly; I thought they might be laughing at me.

“As I said before, then: I had—”

Before I could finish, a portion of the pillar trembled as yet another head oozed its way to the surface. After some of the noisome slime had sloughed off, I recognized it as Pharod's. It spit out a mouthful of bloody cysts and croaked, “Annah, me darling child! Is that you?”

“Da! What yeh be doin’ in this place?” Annah cried.

The other heads remained mostly silent for a time as Pharod’s spoke… only a few whispered quietly to themselves, making wicked sidelong glances at Annah and her foster father’s head. “I was wrong, my dear girl, about the Sphere. It wasn’t enough, no, and now look where I've ended… I beg of you, lovely Annah! Save your poor father! Save me! Oh, please, save me! Save m—” But even as it spoke, Pharod’s mewling head began to sink back into the Pillar’s core…

Annah stared hard at the pillar, eyes narrowed, her fists clenched and tail rigid. A mixture of fury and anguish was smeared across her trembling face.

“I wish we could help him, Annah. It’s a tragic thing to happen to anyone.”

Annah smirked, spat, and turned away from the pile of rotting heads. She shrugged, but wouldn’t look at me. “No matter.”

“Did you love Pharod, Annah?” Annah turned, eyes blazing at me.

“He was my Da.” She bared her teeth. “I hated him. He only saw in me a way to scarper more bodies, more jink an’ more junk ta line his vault. ‘Annah dear,’ ‘Annah lass, yeh’re the most precious thing in me vault,’ he'd lie. An’ he'd lie. An’ he was weak o’ mind an’ weak o’ body. An’ he smelled o’ corpse rot an’ had all the feelin’s o’ a vulture picking at a corpse.” Annah’s voice lowered, but the fire in her eyes burned brighter. “And he was the only one ever ta show me a scrap o’ kindness. Is that what yeh wanted ta hear, is it? Yeh pleased now, aye?”

“enough,” bellowed the pillar’s stinking heads. “we tire of your insignificant prattle, and would know your business with us.”

The heads shifted sluggishly across the face of the pillar, nodding and murmuring before speaking in its ghastly voice. “ask a question of us, then, and be prepared to hear our demands — you shall render unto us a service for your answer.”

“How do I reach the Fortress of Regrets?”

The heads gurgled and croaked their reply through rotted lips: “we would answer that question for a service…”

“the skull… we demand the skull as tribute. return him to us, and you shall have your answer.”

“Don’t put me back in there, chief. Please!”

“cease your feeble protestations, skull! the decision is not yours!” The pillar’s many heads swiveled slowly to face me, their eyes narrowed. “too long has he cheated his fate; he is ours. were you to return him, we would be most well-disposed toward such a gift… we wish to savor his screams…”

I asked what other ‘gifts’ they would accept. They asked for the location of Fhjull Forked-Tongue, but I would not betray him, even though as a fiend he had obeyed only because of the strong compulsion laid on him by the deva Trias. The heads then demanded the modron toy, that allowed access to their experiment in Limbo, but there were still modrons inside the experiment; the pillar would doubtless soon trade the toy to some other fiend, and the toy would be used, betraying the modrons.

I asked them to name another gift. They wished Fall-From-Grace, to devour her alive, bathing themselves in her blood; failing that, they wished Annah’s fiendling blood. There was no chance of that, even if the pillar held the last scrap of knowledge about my condition in the multiverse.

There was something the pillar wished which I could agree to, a taste of my immortal blood. I agreed to this demand.

“approach us, then… yes, come closer…” The heads seemed to draw back within the Pillar as I approached it… Though I drew only a single step nearer, I suddenly found myself much closer to the pillar’s writhing surface than I had imagined. Before I could react, it pressed forward into me like a wave of broken bone and rotten, worm-infested meat. As the rancid darkness enveloped me, the pillar’s heads began to consume me alive…

I found myself standing before the Pillar of Skulls, aching and unsure of what, exactly, had just happened. What I was certain of, though, was that my body was somehow weaker for whatever ordeal it just suffered through. The grotesque heads leered down at me, grinning and smacking their lips… When the heads noticed I was again aware, they gave me the answer to my question.

“already you possess the key, and need only the location of the portal that shall lead you there. we know not where the portal lies, but might tell you its key: ‘regret.’ ” Many of the pillar’s heads began to weep and moan. “Yes, regret! Regret!”

“Regret?”

“yes… you must have experienced regret to breach the fortress. write it upon a piece of your flesh and your passage through the portal is assured.”

“And the portal… you say you don’t know where it is?”

“yes… only three have known the way. the first one was you… though you have forgotten, now. the second lies beyond the portal, and shall not emerge. the third one you have already met. they know of your condition, the fortress and your need to reach there… but they shall not help you. their shield is one forged from the cold metals of lies and deception, a thing you cannot hope to break with mere words. you must do battle with them.”

“Who is it?”

The heads remained silent for a time, giving me naught but smug smiles. Finally, they spoke, “you have met the liar — and not for the first time. the liar knows… but did not tell you. a petty betrayal between immortals…” Some of the decomposing heads rolled their eyes and snickered at me.

“Trias?” Who else but Trias, who had sent me on this pointless errand, who had thought nothing of betraying Fhjull Forked-Tongue?

“oh, yes… though we know him by his full name: trias, the betrayer!” The pillar shook with mirth, the pile of rotting heads tottering back and forth as it laughed at my distress. A few of the heads chanted mockingly, “Betrayer… Betrayer… Trias, the Betrayer…”

“Why would he lie to me?”

“the answer is not ours to give. you must seek him out yourself, and ask him.”

“How did he come to know of this?”

“trias exchanged words with you once, long ago, when you knew the way. you spoke your heart, and trias — in the way of all great betrayers — listened well to build your trust. short the conversation was, though filled with meaning. meaning and death is what you seek… two separate things they are for a normal man. but for you… one and the same.”

There were still some questions I wished the pillar to answer, for which I was willing to give more of my immortal blood. I asked if it knew who my killer, my enemy was.

The pillar remained strangely silent; some of its heads simply looked away, while others shuddered with pained expressions. Eventually, they gathered themselves and spoke once more: “we… do not know. those heads that once contained such knowledge have been destroyed — removed from us. we cannot answer you this question.”

I had one more question. I asked the pillar who I was. The answer could tell me much, and I was determined to have it. To my consternation, the pillar refused more of my blood, but what other gift would be acceptable to it?

I considered, and came up with a gift. One I was sure, well almost sure, I could reclaim. After all, I had done so once before. I told the pillar it could have Morte. The awful truth was, I considered him the most ‘disposable’ of my companions. I had never been able to bring myself to completely trust him. A thought had also wormed its way through my consciousness. If Morte was working for someone else, if he had some hidden agenda, surely he would admit it rather than return to the pillar.

Morte, not surprisingly, didn’t like my idea. I couldn’t explain my plan to him, either, without alerting the pillar of skulls.

“Whoa there… wait! Not so fast! Pillar… I could tell you where Fhjull Forked-Tongue is! Come on, don’t you want to know? So what if he gives you that, instead of me? Eh? What d'ya say?” I had considered this, but was unwilling to sell out the fiend.

“Hold it, Morte. We’re not selling out Fhjull.”

“What? Are you barmy?! You'll sell me out, but not that fiend?! The only reason he helped you is because he’s bound, cursed! What about me? Who got you out of the Mortuary, pal? Who’s gonna stand — er, float — beside you when you face down whatever’s waiting for you at that Fortress of Whatever?! Huh?! Huh?! not fhjull fat-arse, that’s for damned sure!”

“yesssss…” The stack of heads began to writhe and boil, heads thrusting to the surface to howl and babble before sinking back down. They drooled and chattered, “I cannot wait to savor his screams!” Another, “Screams be damned! The torment is what’s best for one so annoying as he! I shall yank his teeth out, spit them into his brain pan and shake him like a babe’s rattle!” And another, “Oo! Oo! I'll eat his eyes out!” I grabbed Morte and thrust him into the Pillar of Skulls. My companions were frozen; none could believe what I had just done.

The pillar heads cackled and sputtered with unholy glee as Morte was sucked screaming into the thing’s awful core, doubtless to suffer endless torment at the ‘hands’ of the other severed heads. As the commotion began to die down, its heads began cooing and whispering to one another. Suddenly, Morte burst howling to the surface: “Aiieeee! Get me out! Please! Please! I swear I'll never lie ag-!” …and just as quickly as he arose, he was pulled back beneath the pillar’s surface. The pillar was now ready to give me my answer.

“not who — what. you have been divided. you are one of many men — one in many men. each one — whether good or evil — A monster, who casts A shadow upon existence.”

“oh, yes.” The pillar’s heads narrowed their eyes and smiled grotesquely. “each time you die, ‘immortal,’ you cast a shadow… each time you die, another dies in your stead. these shadows… they gather, hungering for you, within the fortress of regrets. how many times have you perished, nameless one? how many hundreds… thousands… have died, because of you?” The pillar trembled with wicked glee; its heads pulled faces and gurgled mockingly at me. I had begun to suspect that each of my deaths had consequences, but now I knew the worst. Each time I died, an innocent suffered. I needed to end my unnatural condition; indeed, I needed to see I died no more deaths as long as I could cause such random grief.

“Is that all you have to say, Pillar?”

The heads abruptly ceased their laughter. “no. you bear many names; each has left their scars on your flesh:”

“lost one… immortal one… incarnation’s end… man of a thousand deaths… the one doomed to life… restless one… one of many… the one whom life holds prisoner… the bringer of shadows… the wounded one… misery-bringer… yemeth…”

“you are as silvered glass that has cracked… shattered, and the pieces scattered across history. only one piece is of import. regain that, and your life shall be yours once more. there will be a price. this price will buy you a chance. without the chance, you are doomed…”

“you have lost that which is never meant to be separated from man. your mortality has been stripped from you… lost. it exists, but you must find it before your mind is lost to you as well.”

The ‘paranoid’ incarnation had written these words in his journal; I had seen some of them in a tomb beneath the streets of Sigil. It all turned on my mortality. As I considered the pillar’s words, with a horrid scream, Morte burst howling to the surface.

“Gaaaah! Chief! Get me out! Please! Please!”

My hands shot out and grabbed Morte before he could be sucked back into the pillar’s core. The heads cried out in rage: “no! no! stop! you shall not take him again!” The heads began to lash out at me, biting at my hands and wrists with cruel, jagged teeth…

Seeing the pillar prepared to put up a tremendous battle, I pretended to back off. Just as Morte started to sink and the pillar began to speak again, I leaped forwards and grasped Morte. Only a single head managed to strike before I pulled Morte away, biting deep into my forearm… I jabbed it in the eye with my thumb and pulled my old companion free at last. The foul head’s bite, however, left me drained, exhausted… somehow, I knew I was now weaker than before.

“See, Morte? Nothing… to worry… about…”

The pillar’s heads gnashed their teeth and spat bile at me, bellowing with rage. “he is ours! ours! ours!” Abruptly, they calmed themselves. “ fine. revel in your victory, ‘immortal.’ we shall have him again, one way or another.”

I had found out all I wanted to know from the pillar. We hurried off; behind us, the pillar cried out in a loud voice that intruders were present. Fiends, attracted by the cry, began to attack us. Fortunately, the portal we needed to exit this plane was quite simply opened, and soon we were back in Fhjull’s hideout under the skeleton of Ul-Goris.