Kultus Read Free

feeling the droplets of perspiration gather into a puddle on his palm. With a deft flick he sent his sweat flying towards the floorboards.
    Bending one leg he put an unsteady foot to the floor, trying to lever himself upwards on his powerful limbs, but the going was difficult. He was drained, as though some infernal machine had stripped his musculature of all power, leaving behind only dry and impotent sinew. Every movement sent a tingling pulse through his ligaments and he moved slowly, as though afflicted with a pox.
    Thaddeus managed to gain his feet, but the room insisted on spinning like a whirligig. It seemed violently set against him, bent on sending him sprawling to the ground. Quickly he closed his eyes, hoping that by blocking the sight of the room that was shooting past his field of vision in a blur of colour it might somehow allow him to stand straight. It didn’t work, and he stumbled all the way to one wall, feeling the pain of a table corner dig sharply into his thigh. Something tumbled from the table, crashing to the wooden floor with a crack and a smash. The pulsing light he could see through his clasped eyelids suddenly dimmed, and Thaddeus realised he had broken a lamp. Never mind; it wasn’t his lamp anyway.
    Before starting the incantation he had done his best to move all the furniture to the edge of the room. Considering the repercussions there could be from summoning the chthonian creatures of the netherplanes he supposed a broken lamp was a small price to pay.
    Thaddeus clung to the wall like a drowning man to a piece of flotsam. There he waited for the spinning to subside, with nothing but the inside of his eyelids for company. It would not have been so bad had the spinning been merely visual, but he could hear it too, whooshing past his ears like the wings of some great bird, sweeping past him, adding to the nausea. But he would not be sick. To puke was to give in to it, to show weakness. That was not Blaklok’s way.
    The stench of singed wood drifted up to him, the lamp he had smashed must be igniting the floorboards. There was nothing else for it; he would have to open his eyes. If the lamp had leaked oil everywhere it would not take much for it to ignite. If he were set afire when he was already feeling like crap it would not be a great way to end the day.
    Tentatively, Thaddeus lifted the lid of one eye. The room was still spinning its merry-go-round waltz, but nowhere near as fast as it had been. He glanced down at the lamp. The glass shade had shattered into several pieces at his feet but it had not yet spilt its cargo of oil. The flame still flickered from the lamp’s wick and it was scorching the wooden floor. He knelt gingerly and stood the lamp upright, taking a deep breath and willing the room to slow. It seemed to work, and Thaddeus managed to open his other eye and stand on both feet without the aid of the wall.
    The tingling in his limbs was beginning to subside and the shaking lessened. Like a rush of fuel to a combustion engine he felt the strength returning to his taut muscles. There was still nausea, the urge to vomit almost overwhelming, but it was the least of the side effects and the one he could tolerate best.
    His skin began to cool, and the moisture that covered his body cooled with it. With a shiver, Blaklok surveyed his room. The chalk pentangle was still intact, a wisp of grey smoke still rising from its centre where the object of his conjuration had so recently debarked. The salt circle he had laid within was now smeared and skewed across the floorboards. Between the two markings was the eviscerated rat. Even now, mere seconds after its demise, jinking flies were beginning to congregate to lay their spawn and feast on the fresh carcass.
    It had been a simple invocation. The circle of salt was merely a precaution. After all, the imp he had summoned had entreated him for aid, not the other way around. But old habits were hard to shake, and a protective circle of salt was