Hellblazer 2 - Subterranean

by John Shirley

  “Back off, you!”

  The soldier turned the pike’s spear point to Garth and caught him just under the sternum. The old man yelled in anguish and staggered back, clutching at his belly. Blood seeping out between his fingers, he turned to look down at Bosky. “Boswell . . . you were always the . . .” He didn’t manage to say it, but the sad twitch of a smile on his mouth said it somehow. And then he pitched over backwards, off the landing, falling from sight.

  “Granddad! No!” Rifle still clutched in his hands, Bosky scrambled back from the encircling soldiers, got to his feet, and looked over the cupola’s edge—and saw Granddad’s body far below, sprawled lifeless on the rocks. Afire with rage, he turned and swung the rifle at the skull-faces, shouting, “Sod the lot of you ugly bastards!”

  The nearest soldier blocked the rifle blow with his pike, while another stepped in and swung a short-sword at Bosky’s head.

  This is it, Bosky thought, seeing the sword slash down at him, his sense of time protracted so he could watch it come. Now I’ll see my da again, and Granddad.

  But the soldier had turned the sword so it struck him with the flat of the blade, hard on the side of the head. Bosky staggered, and then his knees buckled. He was out cold before he hit the stone floor.

  ~

  “John!” Geoff whispered. “That woman with the queen, she’s the mum of my mate Bosky!”

  “Is she? What’s her name?”

  “Maureen, I think.”

  “Seems to be a lady in waiting now. By the way, have I told you lately to belt it up? The less said the better.”

  The King was a very old man who was dressed in kingly raiment that, to Constantine’s eye, could’ve come from a costume shop’s catalog. Leading a short procession to the thrones, he came stumping along with his bony cane, his wife just behind him, Maureen behind the queen, holding the queen’s train, her lips parted, eyes darting around; a frightened woman, Constantine supposed, but holding up bravely in the circumstances.

  Other people had showed up to gather under the gaudy columns, talking and tittering, some of them sitting on palanquins carried in by slaves. Constantine took them to be the courtiers, as decadent-looking a bunch as he’d ever seen, and he’d been to California. They wore a mélange of robes, kimonos, sashes, Arabic robes, everything of some form of satin or shiny silk, woven with strands of precious metals, the collars lined with gems. Many of the women had their breasts exposed, the nipples encircled by gemstones glued onto the skin, some of them with the gems in concentric circles covering the entire breast. Some of the courtiers were of the pale, skullish variety; these typically wore what were clearly artificial noses of intricately etched silver, affixed over their own stubby snouts; others represented a variety of races from the surface world, though when he looked close Constantine made out a good many deformities: one eye strikingly smaller than the other; some were missing chins, or had extra fingers, or were wanting fingers; others had grotesque overbites. A few of them were superficially attractive, but who knew what deformity of inbreeding was hidden under their clothing?

  This garish, repellent crew, some two hundred of them, laughed and tittered at the prisoners. A skullish man with a false nose, his face painted black, licked his lips and blew kisses at Geoff between puffs on a hookah that he carried under his arm like a bagpipe. Many of them were smoking some peculiar substance; Constantine didn’t recognize the smell but it had a mushroomy quality.

  “Well at least the higher classes here are more or less the same as the aristocracy on the surface,” Constantine muttered to Geoff.

  “The nobs up above don’t look as bad as this lot.”

  “Not on the outside. You ever read The Picture of Dorian Gray? Maybe this is where the upper class keeps its souls hidden.”

  Geoff visibly shuddered.

  The King and queen were in their thrones now, and Maureen was sitting on a cushion behind the queen’s throne. Constantine found himself looking at her; he was drawn to her, somehow. Their eyes met. He smiled—and winked. She returned him the flutter of a smile but wrung her hands on her lap. She was probably worried about her son as much as herself.

  You’ve got enough people to take care of, Constantine told himself. You were smarter when you were the only one you worried about. Now it’s Chas and this Geoff. Don’t add a woman you don’t even know.

  But he knew he already had.

  “Bring the guests forward . . . and the prisoners, too,” the King said.

  The whole lot in the center of the room were chivvied forward, so it was still difficult to tell who was guest and who was prisoner, which was perhaps an omen, an insight into this kingdom, and MacCrawley went down on one knee before the throne, intoning, “Great King Culley, as arranged, I bring the man who offered up the little community of slaves recently added to your retinue, in exchange for your miraculous favor . . . as discussed.” He added an odd emphasis to this last word.

  “That pig,” Geoff hissed. “Lord Smithson was in on it!”

  “Geoff,” Constantine growled, “I’m getting tired of . . . Oh, sod it.” And he turned and gave Geoff a hard slap to the side of his face. “Silence, apprentice!”

  Geoff looked at him with outraged astonishment.

  “Who is this?” the King asked, his attention drawn to Constantine by the slap, as Constantine intended. “Perhaps they are the magician and his apprentice who have asked for an audience?”

  Constantine raised his eyebrows as if impressed. “Your Majesty is perceptive.”

  “Magician?” MacCrawley snarled contemptuously. “Him? Nothing could be further from the truth! A charlatan, merely, that one!”

  “Your Majesty!” Constantine said, just managing to sidestep past the guards and stepping forward to give his courtliest bow. “Allow me to introduce myself . . .”

  One of the soldiers raised his sword to strike Constantine down for advancing, but held back when the King raised a commanding hand. “Let him be, I will hear him! There is something about him that promises amusement! And I weary, at this hour. I am desperate for amusement!”

  The courtiers giggled and sniggered at that, some of them caressing their crotches and muttering to themselves.

  “First,” the King said, “I should like to know how you found your way here unescorted, and what your purpose was in coming.”

  “A very good question, Your Majesty,” MacCrawley said, looking coldly at Constantine.

  “Ah yes,” said Constantine, relieved that the King had not heard about his escape from the crankers at the bottom of the shaft. But he had to come up with some explanation for his presence and he wondered which lie to tell. He cleared his throat, and settled on one. “Why, I came by an old tunnel, from above—one used by the druids, I believe. I followed a guiding sprite—some call them Will-o’-the-Wisp. Traditionally, they lead the traveler wrongly, but of course enslaved to my will, the creature led me aright, her glow providing me with light on the way down. A little-known tunnel; I will show it to your advisers, when Your Majesty likes. As for explaining my purpose here, I had heard of Your Majesty from Scofield’s grimoires. I came to see if your realm was still as marvelous as described, and if I could be of use.”

  “Oh what a crock,” MacCrawley scoffed. “Your Majesty—”

  “Great King!” Constantine interrupted, inclining his head respectfully, as he stepped closer, jostling MacCrawley to cover up the thump of the fist-sized crystal he dropped into MacCrawley’s greatcoat pocket. “I am here to serve you, O King! It would be bullsh—ah, disingenuous to say that I don’t expect something in return. Your kingdom abounds in riches and there is great knowledge here to be gained. In return, I—”

  “Don’t trust this rotter, Your Majesty!” MacCrawley said, pointing an accusatory finger at Constantine. “This is John Constantine! He destroyed the good works of the Servants of Transfiguration, a brotherhood that has brought you the new slaves you now enjoy!”

  Constantine looked at him pityingly. “Rotter? You
’re such a prat, MacCrawley. I’ve come here to serve His Majesty and to entertain him however I might!”

  Smithson looked at Constantine skeptically. “He does look a bit shabby, this man. Like someone who’d try to ask one for a shilling outside a pub.” But everyone ignored Smithson. He noticed their indifference to him and scowled.

  “So you’re a magician, Constantine, eh?” the King asked, his voice quivering with some secret amusement. “Why not impress me with your ability? Give me a simple demonstration of your power—nothing overwhelming, merely something . . . impressive.”

  “Very well, Your Majesty.”

  But what? It was gloomy in here. The spell of illumination might be impressive without making anyone feel threatened. Constantine gathered his inner power, his prana, focused it through the lens of his attention, sent the energy down through his upraised hand, muttered the appropriate word of power and then cried out, “Ignis Ico, Ilaturs—multus plus plurinum!”

  And nothing happened. No light burst forth.

  He looked in puzzlement at his hand. He’d found enough power in himself; it should have worked . . .

  Then he became aware that the courtiers were laughing uproariously, and the King was wiping away tears of hilarity. MacCrawley was merely sneering at him. “You idjit,” he said. “The King is amusing himself at your expense. No magic will work in the palace or in the cavern. Except for the King’s.”

  “Heh heh, yes yes yes,” the King said, still chuckling. “I’m afraid I played a little joke upon you, John Constantine. There is no magic in this cavern but mine. Once you step through the great doors, your magic will not work. And indeed, did you not notice that none of my men carry firearms? We are well aware of firearms, but I promise you, no firearm will work here, either. I instituted that enchantment so that should the men from the surface come, they would have no more power here than my own people—less! For the armies of the surface dwellers use no swords, no crossbows, eh?”

  “You are indeed a powerful magician, Your Majesty,” Constantine said, and he meant it. He was impressed by Culley’s magical achievements. But then again, he reflected, Iain Culley had had many centuries to develop his ability, his knowledge. Still, there were vulnerabilities in this man and overconfidence was just one of them. His cyclical senescence was another. And Balf had mentioned a core, a vulnerable center to his magical power, beyond the machine driven by the crankers . . .

  “You pretend to be impressed,” King Culley remarked, eyeing Constantine shrewdly. “Perhaps you are impressed—or perhaps not. Just so that you respect my power, and so that you do not try anything foolish, while you are my guest, I will demonstrate it a little further for you. Bring the prisoners forward, and loose their bonds!”

  Surly, scarred men who looked around with unconcealed hatred at the sniggering courtiers, the two prisoners were brought forward, released from their chains. The King nodded at the Captain, who gave each of the prisoners a sword. The two men were within six paces of the King Underneath.

  “You two tried to escape the work that was set for you!” the King said, in the tone a judge uses right before levying a hefty fine. “But I am willing to give you a chance at greatness! You hate me—I can see it in your eyes.” He stood up, leaning on his cane. “Come then and kill me. Succeed, and you may go free! I hereby declare it!” And saying this, the King went very still. Constantine knew what that meant; an inner process was taking place within the sorcerer.

  The two men rushed toward the King—who simply raised a hand, sending twin bolts of purple lightning which struck the men before they took two steps. Both were flung backwards, somersaulting, arse over elbow, to land in burning, charred heaps of bubbling flesh, cracked bone, their eyes cooked out of their skulls. Twitching but quite dead.

  The King yawned theatrically and the courtiers burst into dutiful applause, many of them laughing gleefully and shouting “Bravo!”

  Constantine bowed, thinking, If he’s that powerful when he’s in his aging state, what about when he’s been rejuvenated? A dangerous man. It had not escaped him that the King’s thunderbolts had been the same kind of energy he’d seen crackling from the rotating vanes in the chamber below. He derived them somehow from the same energy source.

  “But I have one weakness,” the King said, sitting back on the throne with a sigh, “and it is no use denying it, since you can see it for yourself. The temporality of my rejuvenation. And you claim, Constantine, you want to be of use—can you help me overcome that problem?”

  “I believe I can, Your Majesty,” Constantine said.

  Smithson opened his mouth to say something but MacCrawley shook his head at him and turned to the King. “Constantine lies, Your Majesty! I have promised you the full resources of the Servants of Transfiguration to solve the problem! If this man, with his feeble ability, could do anything about aging, he’d have rejuvenated himself!”

  Constantine chuckled disdainfully, pretending that shot hadn’t gone home. “And if this old prat here could help you, Your Majesty, he’d have done it by now. And certainly I cannot pretend to be a patch on your sorcerer’s robe, O King.” He put on his best high-magic diction: “But a new perspective can sometimes solve a problem that years of analysis have failed to discover. And it could be my recent research in the outer world, in rejuvenation, has given me the edge, here.”

  “Oh? You’ve found out something new about rejuvenation?” the King asked, leaning forward, interested.

  “Your Majesty, this con artist—” MacCrawley began.

  “Silence!” the King shouted, and then gave himself over to a coughing fit, brought on by the shouting.

  The queen—an odd little blond, who looked like she might’ve come from the upper world not so long ago—patted him on the back till it had abated.

  “Thank you, my dear. And by the by, what do you think of this new magician? Should I have him skinned alive and fed to the crankers? Hm? Or perhaps put him at work on one of my special”—he glanced at MacCrawley, and a look of closed cunning came into his face—“projects?”

  Watching the King, Constantine suspected that MacCrawley didn’t know about the sea-poisoning project. Which would make sense; the Servants of Transfiguration would want Britain intact for their own exploitation.

  “Oh, I think he’s kinda cute,” the queen said, looking vacuously at Constantine. “I think you should give him a shot, I mean, like, it’s all good. What the hell. Um—My Lord and King.”

  “What the ‘hell’ indeed,” the King said, gesturing to a steward, who brought him a glass of something that might’ve been wine. He drank deeply, then went on, “What a curious expression that is. Perhaps one might more forcefully say, ‘What particular hell.’ For there are so many; more than six billion, I believe. And yet we are reluctant to give up our little hells . . .” He spoke bitterly, wiping his mouth with a shaking hand marked with age spots. Then he looked hard at Constantine. “I can see the gift in you, and you used the right incantation for that failed spell of yours, just now. It seems you are indeed a magus. Here then is my decision: the two magicians—or consultants, since I am the only magician in this realm—will come with me to look at my rejuvenation device. And offer their contrasting advice. I will choose. But if either one tries to confound or mislead me, I will kill him quite horribly, with the help of my faithful courtiers. Welcome to the Palace of Phosphor, in the realm of the Sunless.”

  There was a tittering, giggling cheer at this, from the courtiers, and the hair stood up on Constantine’s neck.

  9

  THE ONLY WAY TO PRESERVE BEAUTY IS TO KILL IT WITH ICE

  Bosky was sorry he’d woken up. He’d been dreaming of walking with his father down a country lane on a spring day . . . Perhaps more a memory than a dream . . . A sunny day, his father putting his hand on his shoulder . . .

  And then he woke to find himself chained to a wall in a dimly lit chamber far underground, and his head was throbbing with pain, and it was cold and his granddad was dead
and his mother might well be dead and he was disarmed and would either be enslaved or dead himself soon.

  Would’ve been better to stay unconscious, forever.

  He took a deep breath, groaned at the pain it brought, and sat up, looking around. Glowing stalactites illuminated a natural cavern that had been given double duty as a dungeon; it was about the size of a barn, with a number of men chained up in it, the chains affixed to the drippy stone walls, and a man in a black hood was staring through a barred window in the locked door. Staring at him.

  Bosky looked at the other men, most of them deep in the sleep of exhaustion. A curious chemical smell rose from them, like paint remover. There were several dozen of them, some of them the pale skull-faced men, but many others clearly from the village, almost in a vegetative state. And very sickly, half-covered in gray scales. There’d been a lot of people in that little Roman-looking town in the big cavern. Why weren’t there more of them here? Maybe because the work being done in that cave with the bubbling pit was killing the workers; the King didn’t want to use his own subjects for it. One of the men in chains was sitting up, muttering to himself. A naked man with dirty, lank hair, his body covered with gray scabs, a glum face. “Vicar?” Bosky called. “Vicar Tombridge?”

  Tombridge looked over at him. “Who’s that?” he asked, barely interested.

  “It’s Bosky. You remember; I came to have my bullets blessed. The most amazin’ thing happened in your chapel, an angel sort of woman, who said she was the Lady of Waters, appeared in the baptismal—”

  “A demon,” said the vicar dismissively. “Just another demonic trick, another guise.”