by John Shirley
Constantine nodded. “I get you, squire. I suspected it was Fludd’s Dire Containment, and I know the spell. But I can’t see how to end the spell without magic.” He rubbed his jaw in puzzlement, gazing at the pulsing sphere of power trapping the elemental. “And I can’t use ritual magic because Culley’s using your power to control magic around his kingdom. No other magic but his works, so we’re buggered, far as I can see.”
Some of your terminology is puzzling to me, but I comprehend the meaning. There is a way to circumvent his restraint on magic. If you can bring another magician, I will tell you then how it might be done.
“Right, then. I think I know another who’ll help me dispel it in exchange for a release from his own prison. I’d better see to it.”
Hurry! I go mad in confinement!
“You’ve been patient for hundreds of years, Lord of Stone! Be patient an hour further! And listen, there’s something else we have to clear up. There’s one thing more I need to arrange with you if I’m to let you go . . .”
~
One of the King’s grimoires tucked under his arm, Constantine pushed the door open into the throne room, expecting to be arrested . . . but no one was waiting for them but two dead men.
Outside the door, behind the throne, they found the two guards Constantine had tricked into fighting collapsed in a pool of blood, the smaller atop the larger, having bled to death from multiple sword cuts. They’d killed each other.
“Oh, how awful,” Maureen said.
“They’re all assholes, those skull-faced bastards,” Geoff muttered, remembering his capture.
“They couldn’t all be,” Maureen said, as they hurried past the dead men. “Anyway they’ll be found soon. There’ll be an alarm raised . . .”
“Come down this way,” Constantine said. “Down at the end of this hall there’s a cell. In the back, the wall’s been knocked down just today, thanks to our Balf. The tunnel back of the cell is one of Balf’s secret ways, and it’ll lead us to that bastard MacCrawley.”
They were relieved when they got into the cell, found the new entrance to the cave at the back, and, using a crystal of illumination, made their way through a half mile of tunnel to the corridor outside the cell where Bosky had been kept in chains.
“God I hate coming back here,” Bosky muttered.
On the threshold of the slave cavern they found another Fallen Roman; Scofield had killed this one, Constantine supposed, stabbed him in the back.
Comes more naturally to Scofield than me, Constantine thought.
The door was unlocked, and inside he found MacCrawley sprawled in chains, alone in the room, looking old and weary and sullenly angry.
When Constantine came in, MacCrawley leaped to his feet and lunged for him, stopping just short of being able to reach him when he came to the end of his chains. His outstretched arms, the fingers clutching, clawlike, swiped the air just an inch from Constantine’s nose.
“Kill you!” MacCrawley snarled, spittle running from between his clenched teeth. “Kill . . . you!”
Constantine blithely lit a cigarette. “Hello, MacCrawley! Comfortable little gaff you have here.”
“When I get out of here, Constantine, I’m going to kill that bastard King, end his magical suppression, and then I’ll call up the nastiest, lowest, foulest-smelling, ugliest, cruelest demons from Hell and I’m going to give you to them! And I’m going to see that they’re the laziest too, so that they take at least a century tearing you into bits! But I’ll see to it, Constantine, that once they’ve torn you to bits those bits will live, will suffer, each bloody shred still invested with your mind! And after a decade or so of that I’ll see you’re reconstituted so you can be torn slowly apart again and then, once again, I’ll see to it that—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Constantine said, blowing smoke in MacCrawley’s face, “brilliant, mate, lovely, looking forward to it. But in the meantime, how’d you like to get out of them chains and come up with me to set the elemental free, eh? What do you say? Seems I can’t do it myself.”
MacCrawley gaped at him. “What’s that you say?”
“You heard me. Haven’t you wondered why you’re here alone today, and not out there humping barrels? I’ve got this place wired, mate. We’re going to overthrow the King; you just said you wanted to do it yourself. And I don’t think he’s told you he’s planning to poison most of Britain. Might throw a spanner into the works for your SOT boys—I’m guessing London is your home base, yeah? Shortly destined to be un-livable if the King has his way.”
“What are you babbling about?”
“The Universal Solvent; the King’s going to use it to spread toxins through the seas, destroy the air around Britain. Survivors come down here and he enslaves them.”
“Why that’s utter . . .” But then MacCrawley, broke off, frowning. “Then again . . . it would explain certain things . . .”
Constantine nodded. “You’ve seen he’s been keeping something from you, I reckon, and now you know what it was. King’s power comes from keeping the Lord of Stone in lockup: the king of Britain’s earth elementals. But I can’t release the Lord of Stone myself. Fludd’s Spell of Dire Containment needs two opposite types to do the job. I reckon I’ve got just enough light in me to do the trick, and we bloody well know you’ve got enough dark. Well? What do you say? But you can’t be strangling me after I’ve let you go, nor turning me over to demons to tear apart—disappointing as it’ll be for you to do without it—as the King won’t stand for you to be running about free. So you need to take him down, and you need me alive and in one piece to do that, as much as I need you. Right: What do you say, old cock?”
MacCrawley’s hands clenched and unclenched. He glared. He breathed hard, in and out, staring. But at last he grunted and said, “Very well. I give you my word, I will cooperate with you to free the Lord of Stone.”
Constantine chuckled, reaching for the King’s keys, to unlock the chains.
“What’s so funny, Constantine?” MacCrawley growled. “Your sense of humor makes me bloody nervous.”
“Just thinking of something Oscar Wilde wrote,” Constantine told him, turning the key in the lock. “ ‘A man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies . . .’ ”
15
THE STAMPEDE OF VULCAN’S HORSES
The hourglass was trickling the last of its sand from higher to lower when Lord Blung, the King’s seneschal, arrived with the final ingredient for the Universal Solvent. He turned the big hourglass on its shelf himself; when the sand ran out, after an hour, it would be time to introduce the final ingredient into the solution.
Face wrapped in water-soaked cloths against the fumes, Scofield stood on the top of the rusty iron scaffolding that rose up to overlook the cauldron. He was alarmed, seeing the seneschal arrive. The time for the troll to act was near and there had been no word.
And he could see the Il-Sorg—transparent but maleficent demons like the ones guarding the alchemical transfusor of the great machine—watching him from their balconies of stone on the walls near the scaffolding. They kept a close scrutiny on him as if they suspected he might be about to betray their master. He could do nothing to advance Constantine’s scheme with the Il-Sorg there.
Constantine wanted him to delay the final step in the transmutation of the Universal Solvent until “everything is in place.” Perhaps he should not do as Constantine asked, even if the chance came. After all, it was all likely to fail. The King’s scheme would take its inexorable course, the country above would be destroyed in all probability, no matter what he did. Why destroy himself as well by becoming involved in useless conspiracies? If he played along with the King he might become seneschal himself one day, if he could contrive to get rid of Blung.
The present seneschal climbed the stairs to the top of the scaffolding, reaching the railed-off top where Scofield waited. The old man coughed as he looked into the enormous cauldron: a seething stone pot, banded with iron, forty feet across. Blung nodded, sat
isfied with the progress of the transmutation, but his expression was troubled.
“Is there something amiss, Seneschal Blung?” Scofield asked with all the innocence he could muster.
Blung tugged thoughtfully on his sweeping mustaches. “The King is still sequestered with his new wench. He should have finished his sport with her long ago. He should be here! I am loathe to interrupt his honeymoon . . . but suppose something has gone awry? Suppose the wench is treacherous?”
“Impossible; his imp protects him.”
“Yes . . . true . . . But if he does not come soon, I must investigate . . .”
Scofield nodded, looking at the vial containing the final ingredient, held in Blung’s hand. He glanced at the vial, and at the Il-Sorg. Who continued their baleful observation of him.
Perhaps, indeed, he should not play Constantine’s game.
~
Fallesco was glad he’d decided to turn the tables on Spurlick by following the underhanded courtier. Now he watched from the shadows of a nearby doorway as Spurlick shouted for the guards at the door to the rooms Bosky had been in. The Captain of the guards himself, leading a six-man patrol passing by, stalked up at the outcry. “Well? What is it?”
“Can you not see?” Spurlick demanded. “Look, the door is open! Your guard is gone! And the boy with the fairy blood is not here! Something is afoot! We must go to the King; these interlopers are interfering with his plans!”
“Just so!” Fallesco declared, striding up, his manner all authority and confidence. “Let us go to the King’s apartments!”
Spurlick glared at Fallesco. “Who are you to take charge here? I’ve long suspected your loyalty . . .”
“What’s that? I am the King’s librarian! I am the court poet! What role do you play, pray tell? Court Buggerer?”
The guards laughed and elbowed one another.
Before the sputtering Spurlick could continue, Fallesco said, “Come, let us go together to see about the King’s well-being! He shall decide what to do! Your keen observation here will not go unrewarded!”
“Very well!” Spurlick said sullenly.
Fallesco led the deputation through the corridors to the King’s apartments at the other side of the palace.
“No guard is in place here!” observed the Captain, nonplussed, as they arrived at the royal bedroom. “Something must be afoot indeed! Why haven’t I been informed?”
He rapped on the door. “Your Majesty! Forgive the intrusion, but mysteries abound! Is all well within?”
There was no response from within. “Why does he not respond, if only to tell us to be on our way?” Spurlick asked. “Captain—you have a key!”
“Only for use in emergencies . . .”
“This is emergency enough! Open the door!”
The guard shrugged and unlocked the door, as Fallesco toyed with his braided beard. “Hmmm . . . as King’s librarian and court poet, I am the highest dignitary here. I shall go in to see that all is well. Wait here!”
“What?” Spurlick shook his head. “By no means! We will go together! The King will know it was I who came to his aid!”
“Just as you like . . . Captain, we’ll call you if we need you.”
Fallesco opened the door—not too widely—and held it as Spurlick sidled in.
“Fallesco, open the door wider!”
“The King’s privacy must be preserved insofar as it can be!”
Grumbling, Spurlick entered, Fallesco coming behind him. He closed the door on the anxious, paper-colored faces of the guards, and turned to see Spurlick staring at the bed, where the King had apparently fallen asleep during coitus with one of the guards. Both men snored softly, the King with his arm thrown around the other man, his trousers about his knees.
Fallesco chuckled. “It appears the King’s tastes are more eclectic than I had supposed.”
Spurlick sensed something was further askew than a change in sexual preference. He approached the King. “My King, I’m sorry to disturb you, but I have reason to believe a conspiracy is afoot. There have been secret meetings, there are missing guards, and . . . My King? Why, I believe he has been dru—”
He never quite finished the word, his last sound being an eep noise, as Fallesco, clapping a hand over Spurlick’s mouth, used his other hand to drive a dagger into the courtier’s heart. Spurlick quivered, struggled flailingly for but a moment, and then went limp. “That should keep you out of mischief, Lord Spurlick.”
Fallesco let the dead man’s body fall over the sleeping men on the bed. The King stirred as Spurlick’s blood spurted onto him. The tyrant Culley would wake soon . . .
Fingering the edge of the dagger, Fallesco told himself that he ought to kill the King now. He badly wanted to, and it would be so very easy. But Constantine had said the King must be alive for the spell to be safely undone.
Sighing, he wiped the blade, returned it to its sheath, and went out to speak to the guards. “Gentlemen, the King is deep in conversation with M’Lord Spurlick. He wishes you to guard the door, and no one is to enter for at least an hour!” And Fallesco strode self-assuredly away.
The Captain stared after him suspiciously. Finally he said, “You two, guard the door. The rest of you, come with me. I wish to decide for myself what is going on. We will check the corridor behind the throne.”
~
Constantine and MacCrawley were just arriving at the door to the corridor behind the thrones when the Captain of the guards and four soldiers rushed up from the opposite way. They stopped, gawking at the two bloodied bodies of the sentries sprawled at Constantine’s feet. They looked at the dead men and they looked at Constantine. “Take them!” the Captain of the guards shouted in Latin.
“Well that’s just brilliant, Constantine,” MacCrawley said with disgust, as the guards started toward them, drawing their swords. “You’ve brought me here only to get us both killed.”
“Psychic attack, perhaps . . . telepathy,” Constantine suggested, wondering if it would do any good to run.
“What, all five of them? Don’t be stupid. Gentlemen—” MacCrawley put up his hands like a felon caught by the police as the guards surrounded them, raising their swords. “I submit to arrest, but I advise you to kill this conniving con artist. It is he who’s behind the deaths of these good sentries, not me! He’s tricked me into—”
Then a looming presence, a thud of heavy feet . . .
And Balf was there, rushing in from behind the guards, swinging a poleax made of petrified wood. He swung right and left, smashing bodies aside like a man with a machete cutting through undergrowth. Two of the guards screamed and panicked, stumbled into one another, and went down with a single brutal, bone-crunching crack of the poleax. The Captain of the guards managed to fire a single bolt from his crossbow, which stuck in Balf’s right shoulder a moment before the Fallen Roman’s crossbow and his bones were shattered by a single sweep of the troll’s great weapon. The Captain went tumbling, shattered within himself.
Balf casually plucked the arrow from his shoulder as a man would remove a thorn, and turned to Constantine. “I was looking for you in your quarters. The woman of fairy blood sent me; she said I should watch your back, and though the term is somewhat confusing I divined her meaning. Now . . .”
Balf turned and swung the poleax once more, smashing in the door.
“I do have a key,” Constantine muttered. He shot a sharp look at MacCrawley. “And you; I thought we agreed no treachery?”
“Well, in the circum—”
“Never mind, let’s get on with it. The noise of the fight’s been heard. More of those skull-faced bastards coming. Balf, off with you, take up your post near Scofield, if you would, squire.”
He led the way into the corridor, toward the last room, where the Lord of Stone waited.
~
Scofield was growing increasingly nervous. Coughing sporadically from fumes, Lord Blung was again examining the seething brew, the gigantic cauldron of preparatory solution for the Univers
al Solvent, and it seemed to Scofield that Blung’s satisfaction with the proceedings suggested he was about to pour the final ingredient into the mix. Whereupon the land above was doomed. And Scofield had not yet made up his mind about his part in all this.
His hope that his sabotage here would turn out for the best was based entirely on the word of a stranger, a man with an unsavory reputation: John Constantine. Many had come a cropper, relying on Constantine’s word. True, they’d mostly been right bastards. But still, even if Constantine was trustworthy, he might bungle the whole thing. The odds, after all, were against him. On the King’s side was the King’s power and his minions, numbering in the hundreds and thousands: the harpies, the gripplers, the army. Not to mention a number of sleazy back-stabbing eavesdroppers, like Spurlick, who hoped to curry favor with their sovereign, though of course they secretly hated him.
On Constantine’s side were one vain poet, two teenage boys, a woman far out of her depth, and an unpredictable troll. And there was Constantine himself, a notorious con artist.
The odds for success in the rebellion against King Culley simply didn’t seem good. And at any moment Blung might notice the hole in the ceiling, punched through from the chamber above by the troll. It was hidden in mist rising from the cauldron . . . most of the time.
Blung glanced at the hourglass. “It is just about ready to pour. There is no use in waiting for the King. Let us pour the final ingredient.”
“But it’s not yet a full hour.”
“You seem to be laboring under a misunderstanding,” Blung declared, with pompous condescension. “The final ingredient can be applied at any time in the last hour, Magus Scofield, once the solution seems ready. And clearly it is. Notice the flecks of mercury making tiny bobbing pellets at the edges; notice the strong smell of iron, alternating with sulfur. Notice the increase in corrosion at the edge of the cauldron. These are infallible signs!”