Brechalon by Wesley Allison

worse on your eyes. Stare at the
sun anytime, eclipse or no, and you risk damage to
your…”
    “ Anyway,” the boy interrupted. “I
got this glass so I can watch the eclipse. You can stare at it all
day through this and not get blinded. Can’t see a bloody thing
through it now though.” He tried to look at the head butler through
the small pane held to his right eye.
    “ Let’s hope it really works,” said
Zeah skeptically. “I trust you bought it from a reputable
dealer.”
    “ Sure. I got it at the potion shop
on Avenue Phoenix. They’re selling loads of them. If it doesn’t
work, they’ll be hip deep in angry blind people.”
    * * * * *
    “ It’s almost time now, Pet,” said
Zurfina looking at the sun, through the tiny window high up on the
wall.
    Nils Chapman was crawling on his knees next to
her. Shaking and twitching uncontrollably, he no longer had the
ability to stand on his own. This didn’t bother him, because he no
longer had the ability to think on his own either. He crawled along
on all fours drooling like a dog to the center of the
cell.
    Zurfina peeled off the filthy rags that had
been her only clothing since she had been brought to this hell hole
one thousand nine hundred eighty four days before. She tossed them
aside and sat down cross-legged in the center of the cell. Chapman
pressed against her, but she pushed him away, and closing her eyes,
she began to chant.
    “ Uuthanum, uuthanum, uuthanum,
uuthanum.” She repeated the word over and over again. Twenty times.
A hundred times. Slowly the room became darker and darker. She
continued to chant. The eclipse was at his height.
    Chapman screamed. Zurfina opened her eyes and
smiled. The four walls were walls no more. They were shining,
rippling, silvery surfaces like the surface of frighteningly cold
and deep water. Sounds could be heard from the other side—freakish,
awful piping noises that tugged at one’s sanity. Then the surface
directly in front of her bubbled and churned, touched by something
on the other side of that boundary between cell eighty nine and the
abyss beyond.
    “ Yes!” Zurfina screamed. Then she
began reciting a new set of words. “Uuathanum eetarri. Uuthanum
eetarri. Uuthanum blechtore. Uuthanum blechtore. Uuthanum
maiius.
    * * * * *
    “ So can you see the
eclipse?”
    “ Sure. It’s ace,” said Saba,
standing in the courtyard. Then he turned and saw who was speaking
and flinched.
    “ Would you like to take a look,
Miss?” he asked, offering Iolanthe the magic glass pane.
    Taking the almost opaque square, she held it up
to her eye and pointed her face toward the sky.
    “ Interesting. It looks like of a
halo.”
    “ Yeah. Yeah, it does look like a
halo, um… Miss.”
    “ It doesn’t feel like a halo,
though, does it?”
    “ Miss?”
    “ Look at it again,” she said,
handing back the magic glass. “This time, tell me what you
feel.”
    The boy looked again and suddenly shuddered.
When he looked back at her, his face was accusing. She had made him
aware of something he hadn’t noticed before. There was something
evil about the eclipse, and though he had looked forward to the
event since he had first heard about it from his mother, now all he
wanted was for the return of the sun in its full glory.
    * * * * *
    The thing on the other side of the membrane
between two worlds tested it once again, and a moment later it
burst through. It was long, thick tentacle, necrotic grey and
covered with suction cups. It searched along the stone floor of the
cell, tentatively at first. Then it touched the sorceress sitting
naked and chanting and suddenly it shook and thrashed throughout
the chamber.
    “ No!” shouted Nils Chapman and he
jumped in front of Zurfina. The tentacle found him and wrapped
around his waist.
    “ No!” he cried again, and then it
yanked him so violently that the snapping of his neck was clearly
audible, as it pulled him beyond the shimmering veil.
    Then the room was filled with a