Hero of Dreams by Brian Lumley

and we might just be able to start an avalanche and-“
    “-And send that great horror to hell! Yes, lad, I like your idea. But the way I feel, you might yet end up seeing this thing through on your own!” And Eldin coughed up a great red blotch and spat it onto a patch of snow.
    Inadvertently, as they fled for the slope that climbed to the final crest of snow, the two found themselves drawn to look back again at the thing that pursued them: Yibb-Tstll-a loathsomeness from the dead spaces between the stars-whose living visage made his previously stony aspect seem almost warm and friendly by comparison!
    Greenly illumined, Yibb-Tstll seemed to flow tower-ingly, purposefully toward them. The god’s feet, or whatever other members propelled him, were hidden beneath his billowing cloak. His eye-that single eye, where recently there had been two-was now alive, redly glistening, quick with a hideous mobility. It slid over the surface of the demon-god’s pulpy face with a swift and apparently aimless motion.
    The empty socket which once had housed the other eye-the great emerald that now jounced against Hero’s thigh-moved in similarly pointless circles and dripped a black pus that steamed where it splashed on the stony ground. But if the movements of Yibb-TstU’s hideous orb and its companion socket seemed aimless, the determined way in which he now moved after the dreamers most certainly was not!
    What few gaunts remained had gathered themselves to the huge monster and disappeared beneath his weirdly fluttering cloak. Their presence there did not, however, slow him down, and for all his vast bulk he flowed effortlessly up the final slope, obliterating the tracks that the dreamers had left in the thawing snow.
    Now, approaching the crest of the snow-ridge, the two struggled through clinging, knee-deep snow that drenched their legs, slowing and tiring them until at last, almost exhausted, they reached the very top. And there they were finally obliged to call a halt; for at their feet, as if some giant had sliced both snow and mountain with a massive sword, a sheer fall of rock went down and down for thousands of feet into mighty, misty deeps.
    Before them the seemingly bottomless chasm-where the morning mists now boiled upward, climbing the sheer face of rock toward them-and to the rear the lumbering god of unknown dimensions beyond dreamland, bent upon the recovery of his emerald eye … and certainly upon less mentionable things.
    “Thinistor Udd lives!” croaked Eldin. “See, the green light follows the god like a long trail, winding away back to his temple. It was the wizard sent Yibb-Tstll after us.”
    “Whoever sent him, I’ll jump before I give myself up to that" Hero pantingly declared. As he spoke a warm glow bathed their backs: the sun, risen at last on what could well be their last morning in Earth’s dreamland.
    And still the horror came on, his stench reaching them like the breath of an open tomb as he climbed the slope of snow. Down on all fours went the adventurers, frantically shaping great balls of wet snow which they propelled down the slope toward Yibb-Tstll’s hideous form. Gathering snow and momentum as they rolled, the balls smashed into the monster god with the impact of boulders; but what they had in weight they lacked in consistency, flying apart and tumbling past the lumbering giant in wetly bouncing fragments that avalanched down to the plateau of the keep. And Yibb-Tstll was impeded not at all.
    Less than fifty feet separated the pair at bay from that awful Being when the latter’s cloak suddenly burst open to release upon the beleaguered dreamers the few remaining gaunts. Balanced precariously on a narrow and infirm ribbon of snow, Hero and Eldin were hardly in a good position to do battle with the creatures; it was as much as they could do to protect themselves. And still the terrible form of Yibb-Tstll came on, his single eye sliding over his face more rapidly now, perhaps in nameless