Swords & Heroes Story #19

The Sorcerer Weaves Magic in His Sleep by David Carter

Feb 18, 2025

S&S One Story at a Time

This is the second story in a row here at S&H eZine to feature a dead protagonist. I wasn’t worried about overusing the trope, however, for David Carter’s strange and intriguing adventure has a personality of its own. It’s a buddy tale with some sly humor (to which I’m partial) and the quest is just offbeat enough to engage and delight even the most devoted fans of the genre. And the writing style . . . again, full of unique takes. I even had to look up a few archaic words! But the payoff is worth it. Settle in to enjoy Carter’s latest fantasy. + Ed.

‘The Sorcerer Weaves Magic in His Sleep’ by David Carter

When the skies lost their final blush and the red sun sank behind lofty peaks, Gulgoleht and Bone-hungry came a-riding on a pitch-black mare. Gulgoleht bore a black, winged helm that did not glint and was clad in a rusty byrnie that rattled with every hoofbeat. He was the vestige of a warrior who once lived. A revenant, a living skeleton whose skull communed with hell spawns, for his friend, Bone-hungry, was a demon.

Gulgoleht and Bone-hungry rode to the east, their mounts thundering through the night past barren uplands, down meadows, and umbral woods where secrets were uttered by unseen mouths. The moon did not shine down upon the riders; its face stayed hidden by rolling cloudbanks.

Faster and faster, they sped in this last stretch of their journey, hoping to reach before morning the Mouth of Baal, the portal they must descend to reach the first level of Hell. As their mount galloped hard, they saw two great cliffs loom closer, the valley in between now spreading before them. Domed buildings dotted the land there, huge piles of gold whose luster was not utterly lost in the gloomy night.

Bone-hungry pulled on Gulgoleht’s byrnie. “These are the barrows I mentioned to you. They are ancient, built by a people lost to time. Hold! I…”—it sniffed at the air—“…I smell deviltry, dealings with a darkling prince. A wizard has called upon Zapisto, my master, or invoked the aid of a demon greater than even me.”

A little groan of worry sounded in its throat, but the imp continued after it cleared its voice in what might have been an attempt to drive away its qualms. “Nonetheless, past that city of the dead is the portal to Hell that we have sought for so long a time. But remember now, we need a human sacrifice to open the Door.”

“Yes, I know, demon.” Gulgoleht turned his skull completely around to stare at the rat-like imp he called his friend. Shadows played upon his skeletal visage so that he appeared to smile. “I also know that you are not as great as you think you are, Bone-hungry. I recall our encounter with the Helsman, that dreaded scarlet-skinned fiend who some say was a man who lived before the Flood, and how you fled from him like one gone mad. Or even our chance meeting with the Nightmare Maids. Ah, their guises were lovely, but, in truth, they were uglier than the grave. They made a craven out of you.”

Crossed, the fiend scoffed and fell to sulking.

It was a harsh sound that burst out of Gulgoleht’s mouth upon seeing the little devil’s face contort in shame. When his laughter ceased, he placed his fleshless hand on the imp’s shoulder.

“I must thank you, my friend,” quoth the skull. “Surely, without you, I would have been doomed to wander the earth till the end of time, but now am I coming to one who might send my soul back to that eternal slumber of the dead.”

“Yes, sleep, you say, and yet you love to speak overmuch. You are not any different from the living, Gulgoleht. You trifle away the life that has been given to you. But of what matter is that to me? Ride on, you fool.”

Gulgoleht unconsciously clenched his teeth hard as they continued their course. “As for the sacrifice,” he said after a minute or two, “a grave robber will suffice. For I recall you mentioning how there are men who scrape the gold off those domed tombs.”

Bone-hungry’s words came sharp, and not without a trace of resentment for Gulgoleht’s earlier jest. “Yes, but your memory is in part. Do you not remember how I told you that this city is shunned so that only the hardiest of thieves come by? What are the chances that you should happen upon one tonight? Fool, you ought to have abducted the shepherd boy or the widowed crone when I told you.”

To the imp’s stinging remark, the revenant made no answer, but as they passed the first few domes, Gulgoleht was convinced that Bone-hungry was right. He failed to find signs of any grave robbers about. Part of him regretted not abducting the persons the imp mentioned.

“I suppose we must find the wizard and sacrifice him. But I am not fond of sorcerers and their tricks.” Gulgoleht sighed, his loathing almost palpable. “Our encounters with them have been no joy.”

Bone-hungry found no humor in the revenant’s dismay, itself somewhat fearful of sorcerers since even the most mediocre of them could make a thrall out of it, as had happened on their last meeting with one.

“Quite right,” it groaned. “Wizard or hag, that thaumaturgist was the only human around for days.”

“Well, there’s nothing for it now. Onward then!” Gulgoleht clapped the sides of his mare and plunged deeper into the golden city of the dead.

They were soon lost amid the forbidding globes that erupted from the earth like gilded boils. Soundless, save their mounts’ hoofbeats and the clatter of metal that Gulgoleht bore; it was as though they ventured into some hidden world beyond the care of kindly gods. Surely it was, for it was the threshold of Hell, the Mouth of Baal lying at the end of the vale.

Things moved there, slithered silently just out of Gulgoleht’s range of view. For though his eye sockets were hollow, he had been endowed with a supernatural sight that allowed him to see, and this vision was like that of a wildcat, whose eyes peer further than man’s.

“We are not alone in this ill place, Bone-hungry.”

“Aye,” his vermin-faced companion grunted.

With not even a breeze blowing by, every single word they uttered was distinct, unnaturally so.

“What say you, Gulgoleht? There are other portals, though far from here. Let us take up our journey anew and travel to one of those.”

“Nay, my craven friend. I will capture this wizard and, with him, throw wide the gates that lead to Hell.”

The skull’s speech was firm; he would not be gainsaid. Yet at its end, sounds issued out of the murky spaces ahead. Footsteps that dragged or shuffled along came clear to them. Then it was a shrill keening that went on for a while, till, at length, that mournful voice was answered by another. It was a dirge uttered by the inhabitants of the golden city.

“I see a bright glow, Gulgoleht! I cannot endure such intense light!” Finishing its chatter, the imp went inside the revenant’s byrnie and hid itself from the coming radiance within the skeleton’s rib cage.

“So be it, my friend. I will fight this battle alone,” Gulgoleht answered whilst drawing his ebon sword, Blackburn, from its scabbard. The clouds parted overhead, and moonlight filtered through, yet that sword did not shine, though moonbeams struck it.

Further apart did the clouds split, fully unshrouding the moon. The silver effulgence spilled into that narrow valley, and the domes were ablaze in a golden glory. Their luster was unreal, much too bright than ordinary gold under moonlight. As the city was roused from its dark repose, so were its denizens.

There came the one who wailed first, its shuffling gait disturbing to behold. Forsooth, the whole of its body was repulsive. Pale and withered flesh clung to reed-like limbs, while the face was the grotesque parody of a man. Once it had been living flesh, surely, but now all Gulgoleht saw was an eerie glowing corpse walking through the alleys of the golden city.

Again, the drifting clouds veiled the moon, casting a pall of darkness upon the valley, but not before several other of these creatures slunk from the sides of the huge globes. Ghastly apparitions that did not cease to shriek, these mummies radiated a pale light that pulsed at times.

“These are ancient mummies roused to waking life! Yet they are not as I. Nay, they are soulless or at least mindless phantoms.”

Gulgoleht drove his booted heels into his mare’s sides and mowed down the first of the denizens. He sped on, yet the mummies, coming from all directions, hotly pursued him. They lunged at his mount and buried their yellowed teeth into her hind legs. Roaring in agony, the horse reared up, and Gulgoleht swung his sword. Moldering heads with scant hair toppled from shoulders then.

Still, they came on, and though the revenant fought hard and gallantly, he was compelled to abandon his mount and take to his feet. He fled into the shadows with Bone-hungry clinging to his ribs as the hungry creepers devoured his horse.

Gulgoleht was not so afraid as he was cautious. He reasoned his strength could not prevail against their numbers and did not want to waste time with them when he could be looking for the sorcerer who resurrected them. Night would be gone in several hours, and the portal to Hell could not open during the daytime. He would meet with Zapisto of the first level of Hell as soon as he might, for he yearned to return to the eternal sleep from which he had woken.

Rounding one of the golden barrows, Gulgoleht peered behind him, where he saw the faint glow of the creeping cadavers in the distance.

“I begin to wonder if the sorcerer has not been eaten by these things, Bone-hungry.”

“Possibly,” the diminutive demon murmured, safe in the revenant’s rib cage. “What will you do?”

“In this valley of the dead, there are only two ways out: the path through which we came and the opposite end that lies yonder. Since we did not spot these wraiths out in the open, I suppose they are bound to this place. And, who knows, perhaps they are like you and cannot endure sunlight. So let us make leave of this dale for now. I will return by myself during the day and search these gilded mounds for the wizard then—if there is such a person here. We are not certain of that after all.”

Upon the smooth surface of the huge globe he pressed against, Gulgoleht saw the reflection of a flaring silver light—a luminescence like that of the moon on misty nights. He whirled, slashing with a downward strike as he did so. At his feet now lay a severed head, the dried lips of the mummy making as if to breathe or speak. The body, whose garb was mottled with black mold, was quivering.

“This one moves after it has been felled. The lips twitch also—it talks!”

The head spoke with trouble, choking now and again. “Curses on the wizard...who roused us to dance...and play for him during the day...and to wander at night!”

“Speak to me, my kinfolk. You are not so different from me,” Gulgoleht replied as he stooped to pick up the head. He stared into its moldering countenance that vaguely resembled anything human and wondered if the loathing he felt for it was like those others felt for him. “I, too, was roused from eternal sleep, though I know not who did it. I go to Hell now to inquire of a darkling prince if he can send my soul back to where it belongs. I have asked the gods, yet they are reluctant to answer. Notwithstanding, I am in need of a human to sacrifice, and to this end, your wizard will suffice. Where is he?”

Gulgoleht held the head by its long, hoary strands of hair, and it swung subtly as it made a noise. It was a dry cackle that rose to booming laughter, whereupon Gulgoleht dashed the head against the golden dome, wary of the attention it might attract. He was not wrong either, for soon, a surge of pulsing silver light was threatening to overtake him.

He ran and did not turn back again till he was quite near the end of the vale, where he descried yet more of the hordes of these loathsome beings. Encompassed on all sides, he tried to gain the top of one of the golden domes, but his skeletal fingers could find no hold.

“Haste now, Bone-hungry! I will toss you up onto this barrow, and you must pull me up!”

The little hell-fiend grudgingly clambered down the revenant’s rib cage and was heaved up. Landing atop the gilded tomb, it pressed its belly against the sloping roof and reached a pasty arm down, whereupon Gulgoleht leaped high and caught the imp’s hand. Even as he gained the crest, the mummies sprang up but could not get hold of him.

Bone-hungry began to swoon as their foes converged down below, the brightness of their glare now affecting it. Thus, Gulgoleht stuffed the imp inside his byrnie again, and within seconds, Bone-hungry gave signs of health.

Exhaustion was clear in its voice as it groaned, “I cannot endure such intense light, Gulgoleht. It is not for cowardice this time that I do not join the battle.”

“Aye, let it be so. Rest for now, my fiendish friend.”

On its own, a single mummy could not reach Gulgoleht; but now they demonstrated that they were not altogether mindless. Gulgoleht gasped in amazement as he saw the decaying things clamber upon another’s shoulders, forming a ladder as it were, and of this ladder, they made use, scrambling up till they reached the mound’s crest. Or, at least, they would have reached the top, were it not for Gulgoleht’s sword that hewed down the living cadavers.

The battle thus went on: the mummies would form ladders out of each other and clamber up, only to be deterred by the revenant, who never showed signs of weariness but fought like a berserker.

Hours had flown away, the night tints giving way to the hues of a red dawn, with brisk breezes blowing by and whistling through. The valley floor was littered with ancient, mangled bodies, and still Gulgoleht fought, though now he perceived that the remainder of his foes were leaving into the heart of the golden city. At length, he leaped down, landing atop a heap of torn mummies. No more of those dread creatures assailed him, leaving him free to follow the last one he had seen depart from the fray. As he stalked the mummy, Gulgoleht caught sight of it disappearing inside one of the lustrous globes.

There, he searched the surface of the barrow but wondered at how it received back the mummy if there was no door to be found. He ran his hands over every inch of the gleaming mound and finally discovered a small niche that had gone unnoticed because of its resemblance to a mere scratch. Though many of the domes were still fairly smooth, others, such as this one, were weatherworn or bore traces of damage from when thieves came and scraped some of the gold off to sell the gold dust in distant cities.

Gulgoleht noted that this niche was not an instance of damage that was created by chance, for there was a symmetry to it. As he studied it, he thought it resembled a keyhole, and so he stuck his thin finger through, feeling a mechanism inside that moved at his touch.

“Gulgoleht, these domes reflect the morning light strongly. I crave the darkness; already do I begin to feel weak from their gleam.... Make haste!”

The revenant, quiet, focused his attention on his task. Only after the sun had fully risen in the east did the mechanism make a click!

“Ah, there it is!”

Gulgoleht pressed his palm against the surface and felt it give. A rectangular portion of the barrow receded inwards, and a gloomy room came into view. He thrust his skull inside and gazed about; finding no enemy to halt him, he stepped through.

Vapors swirled inside the barrow, winding around his gaunt body as he searched for where the mummy had gone. The floor was paved, he observed, with a great sarcophagus in its middle. Lifting the lid with a mighty heave, he half-expected the missing creature to leap up, but no such thing occurred.

No, instead he was greeted by a narrow stairwell that descended into the very bowels of the earth. Gulgoleht hesitated as he pondered what trap it might lead to. While he brooded, the portal closed behind him, plunging the room into absolute darkness.

Bone-hungry, feeling it safe to leave its refuge inside its companion, crept down as it wondered why Gulgoleht tarried.

“Descend, Gulgoleht,” it jeered as it crouched beside him. “Or are you the craven now?”

“I assume you will watch my rear?” quoth the revenant, pointing his black sword at the imp.

“Aye, I will watch the entrance here.”

Wagging his skull, Gulgoleht leaped over the ridge of the coffin and began his descent. Feeling his way down, the craggy wall soon grew moist with dew. His teeth clattered despite himself, for since he had risen from death as a skeleton, the cold had ceased to affect him. With each step he took, also, his limbs grew heavy. It was as though he were floundering in dusky seas, and he half-expected to drown, but without lungs, of course, that would be impossible.

After a long while, he saw a lambent glow at what must be the foot of the stairwell. The pale radiance pulsed and seemed to beckon him with an ungodly attraction. An evil hitherto unknown was there, he sensed.

“Beelzebub himself,” he muttered. And though it was Hell he yearned to soon travel to, yet now at such a close distance to so powerful a fount of evil, he wondered if it was wise to meet with the Lords of Iniquity.

Still, having come so far, he would not turn back and so crossed the threshold that led into a realm of uncanny wonder.

“Daylight…”

The sun shone as at bright noon inside that realm. How could a lone wizard have wrought such a miracle were it not for a Power who had lent him help? A Power who had deigned to listen to the prattle of a mere mortal?

Lo, that very mortal lay in some weird slumber there amid the paradise he had made: a meadow where ran rivers of glimmering blue and blossomed blooms of gay hues. All about the sleeping sorcerer there frolicked battle-mad warriors who clashed their shields together and smashed their blades against one another, while their fair mays sang paeans in honor of their many deeds.

“The sorcerer weaves magic in his sleep…”

As the last utterance flew from the skull’s mouth, the denizens of that bizarre realm turned to meet his gaze all at once. Menace burned deep in their scowls. Gulgoleht braced himself and met the first of many who rushed at him.

The skeleton warrior was mighty, yet these folk could not be felled. Their bodies would grow back limbs that had been severed by Blackburn, and fatal wounds would magically heal.

Though hard-pressed on all sides, Gulgoleht did not yield, his grip on Blackburn always firm as he swung it about. But now one came who struck fiercely at the skeletal swordsman, who, busy with two other foes, could not evade that strike.

Gulgoleht fought with one arm, the other hewed off and crushed to fragments under the heavy tread of the berserkers’ boots. Surely, these warriors, whose strength did not abate and whose bodies were always scatheless, would crush his skull, and who knows what would happen to his soul then?

His only hope lay in slaying the sleeping sorcerer, but though the wizard was close at hand, Gulgoleht could not reach him because of his many enemies. His byrnie hung in tatters, while shards of bone lay at his feet, his ribs broken and cracked in a score of places.

“Gulgoleht!” Bone-hungry shrieked then. “You have tarried for too long. I cannot go further because of the light. Have you found the mummy or the wizard? I hear sounds of war!”

“Bone-hungry, my fiendish friend! You must help! Come and snuff out that necromancer’s life, else I perish…”—Gulgoleht ducked under a swordswing—“…and I know not what will become of my soul should I die this second death!”

“Nay, my skeletal companion! I cannot save you!”

Gulgoleht sighed as he parried a blow, and as he smote at his nearest adversary, he caught sight of Bone-hungry timidly peering from the side of the opening that led into this sorcerous domain. The imp shielded its eyes with a hand, a doubtful look on its rat-like face.

“Niddering! Have I not risked myself for you many times already, and will you not save me this once?”

“It is not for cowardice, Gulgoleht!”

But, as Gulgoleht was about to answer, a blade threatened to lop off his skull. In that same moment wherein he would have died the second death, the skeleton warrior opened his jaws and bit hard on the sword, saving himself as he stayed the swing.

What had been an unfair battle became carnage. They hewed off his remaining arm and fractured his tibia, till the bone broke and he fell backward, always biting onto that sword lest his skull should shatter. Even so, his teeth were cracking, and he knew he had little time to live. Being but a skeleton, he knew no pain, yet it stung his soul to die, not knowing where his spirit would fly to. Moreover, he thought the demon who had traveled beside him for so long would have saved him. That Bone-hungry did not, and that it was therefore no friend in the end, was true pain.

His vision wavered—was swallowed by an empty gulf where no light shone. He ceased to bite onto the sword between his jaws, expecting the end to come at last. The sword clattered as it fell limply, its sound bouncing off unseen walls. Close to its metallic echoes came the dull sounds of things slumping to the earth.

Was this void his new abode? Neither the cloud-locked realm of Heaven nor the blazing pit, but instead, an emptiness like that of space?

Not so. He heard a wheezing breath.

“Bone-hungry, my friend?” Gulgoleht cried.

There the demon lay, atop the wizard it had slain. Its countenance was drawn, drool and blood running down its chin where scant beard hair grew.

“Aye, friend,” it coughed as it wearily clambered down the sorcerer’s bed of stone. “I killed the sorcerer while the warriors were busy with you, but not without much pain. The light was my bane…”

Then the lesser demon crawled beside Gulgoleht’s skull, which alone remained of all the revenant’s bones.

“We shall perish together here, Bone-hungry, if, indeed, demons can perish. I know not.”

“Nay, I have invoked my master Zapisto of the first level of Hell.” It paused to gather its breath, and the seconds that passed by between its words were not without a sense of poignancy. “Though we lie far from the portal that would take us to him, it might be that he shall answer.… I offered the wizard’s blood to my master when I tore his windpipe, you see.”

“Perhaps. Yet I am fain to have you as my friend,” quoth Gulgoleht.

“Aye.”

“One would do much for a friend, you know. We never spoke to the sorcerer, yet I am certain he conjured these dead ancients for lack of friends. Did you see his face? He slumbered with a gentle smile on his face, surrounded as he was by such glorious company.”

Bone-hungry coughed and grinned, only now remembering that glance he had of the seamed visage. “Perhaps.”

The Sorcerer Weaves Magic in His Sleep © 2025 by David Carter (4000 words) All rights reserved. You may restack this story via Substack but please do not republish elsewhere. Banner and clipart by Gilead, used by permission.

About the Author: A budding author whose first story, “In the Wake of the Red Sun,” was published in Die By the Sword Volume II by DMR Books, with a second story, “Kai-zur the Godless,” published in the anthology Sword & Scandal, brought to you by J. Manfred Weichsel and everyone who supported the Kickstarter for the anthology, David Carter continues to weave tales of fantasy as a means to glimpse at worlds just beyond our own, where lies beauty as well as carnage. As a Christian, the basis of most of his tales naturally consists of personal tragedies and the grievous struggle between man, sin, the devil, and faith. Check out his Indie Author Spotlight here.

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