Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  "Okay," Bellamy said, "watch this." He pushed his free hand through the substance of the dais. "Ordinarily you can't shift or break objects in the world of the living, because they exist on a different level of existence. If you choose, you can move right through them as if they weren't there."

  Astarte thrust her hand inside the dais, pulled it out, slipped it in again. "This is so cool!"

  "Not if you need to affect things on the far side of the Shroud and don't have any way to do it. Then it will drive you crazy. Anyway, don't try moving through solid objects while other abambo are watching, not unless you absolutely have to. Since you're new to the Underworld, you might not do it right the first time, and that would blow your disguise."

  She rolled her eyes. "You worry too much. I've got the hang of it. Look." She moved her hand rapidly in and out of the pedestal, and then, seeing that he wasn't going to change his mind, sighed. "Oh, all right. I'll be good. Show me more." She turned toward Marie, and her smile faded. "Oh. This is obviously the Queen, and those black stripes are the Oblivion poison sloshing around inside her."

  "Yeah," Bellamy said.

  Astarte gently touched the comatose woman's face. "We'll help you, Your Highness. I promise." She lifted her gaze to the glowering wooden statues, and the excited smile flowed back onto her lips. "Who are these guys?"

  "Two of the Orishas. The gods of the African wraiths."

  "They're awesome," Astarte said. She studied them for another moment, then wheeled and hurried to one of the torches burning along the wall, tugging Bellamy along behind her. "It's cold," she said, grinning, the wavering green light staining her features. She reached for the flame.

  "Be careful," Bellamy said. "It can still burn you."

  She held her hand just outside the hissing barrow-fire as if savoring the ghastly chill, then hauled Bellamy onward to a web-work of seething cracks in the wall. "What are these?" she asked.

  "Nihils," said Bellamy. "Openings into another part of the Underworld. Hell, or someplace equally unpleasant. Some of the holes are big enough to fall in, or for evil spirits to pop out of. You don't want to go anywhere near those."

  Perhaps hoping to peek into that other realm, she leaned close to the Nihils.

  Bellamy fought the urge to yank her back. As far as he knew, openings this small were harmless, but still, he was no more comfortable watching her bring her face close to the nasty things than he would have been seeing her play Russian roulette with an unloaded gun.

  "They're beautiful," she said at last, pivoting toward him. "Everything is."

  The happiness Bellamy had felt when she came into his arms was giving way to frustration. When he'd visited her in the country of the living, the chill of his touch and the knowledge that death would soon snatch him back into the Shadowlands had kept the experience from being as joyful as it should have been. And now that she'd come to him, her exuberance was having the same effect. Not that he wanted her quailing in horror at her surroundings, but it was hard to feel truly close to her when their perceptions were evidently so different.

  "'Beautiful,'" he said wryly. "When I look around, I see dirt and damage. Sometimes sounds hurt my ears, and things smell rotten. The Shroud makes the whole world ugly. I was afraid that when you entered the Underworld, the same thing would happen to you, but I guess live people are immune no matter where they are."

  "Oh, I noticed that it's darker here, even though, somehow, I can see better anyway," Astarte replied. "Just like I noticed that the mansion seems like even more of a ruin. But that doesn't mean that things aren't beautiful, just that it's a weird, spooky kind of beauty." She grinned. "And that's the way the spirit world should be."

  Bellamy shrugged. "Maybe so, but most of the ghosts don't like it that way."

  "I'm ready now," Titus called.

  Bellamy and Astarte hurried back to the dais. "What do you want me to do?" the latter asked.

  "You, stand clear," said Titus to Bellamy. The FBI agent reluctantly released Astarte's hand. "You, young lady, sit down and try to stay still. The ritual may cause you some discomfort. I've never attempted to sculpt a living soul before."

  The Quick girl touched the ring in her eyebrow. "I can take a little pain."

  "Good," Titus said. He reached into a pouch at his belt, brought out a pinch of dust, and tossed it into the air. The grains flashed and popped, disintegrating before they reached the ground. The sorcerer then held out his hand and a bronze scalpel appeared in it, as if an invisible nurse had placed it there. Humming softly, Titus began to caress Astarte's features with the blade, indenting her skin but not quite breaking it.

  "Why is she like this?" Bellamy whispered, looking on.

  "Like what?" Antoine replied.

  The FBI agent hesitated, groping for the right word. "Giddy. Like a kid at Disneyland."

  "How do I know?" said the alligator wraith. "I'm not a hoodoo man or even a two-legger, to understand how you warmbloods think. But maybe it's got something to do with the fact that she hasn't really died. Her mind hasn't split into pieces like ours, so she doesn't have a shadowself working to twist and spoil every wholesome thought like we do."

  "Maybe that's part of it," said Bellamy, "but I suspect it's not the whole story."

  "Well, then, how about this? She's asleep, right? So to her, this is a dream, not quite real. That lets her mind file off the rough edges. I don't know what you're complaining about. You ought to be glad she likes it here."

  Bellamy grimaced. "Not if her judgment's so. impaired that she can't look after herself."

  "We'll look after her," the reptile said. "Seeing as how it's either that or listen to you whine. Hey, she's starting to change."

  Although Titus had appeared to focus on Astarte's face, the transformation first affected her legs. With a series of cracks and pops, they grew longer, first the left and then the right. The Quick girl twitched repeatedly, her halo flickering, and Bellamy winced in sympathy.

  "Are you all right?" Titus asked.

  "Fine," she said, her voice rougher. "Don't stop, get it over with."

  The shaman began to chant and to shift the scalpel around Astarte's face more and more rapidly, until the bronze blade was a blur. Bellamy waited for the knife to gash her, but somehow, even when she gave»an involuntary jerk, it never did.

  Her pale skin darkened, then lightened again. Scowling, brandishing the scalpel, Titus spoke four words. His sharp tone reminded Bellamy of a dog handler bringing a disobedient animal to heel. Astarte gasped and stiffened. Her skin blackened, but only for a few seconds.

  "Stop," Bellamy said. "It isn't working, and you're hurting her."

  "I'm okay," Astarte grated. "I can feel the change almost taking hold. I just need one or two more, zaps."

  "So shut up," Antoine said to Bellamy. "Let Titus do his stuff."

  Bellamy grimaced. "All right. We'll give it another minute."

  Ignoring the FBI agent's outburst, the old man continued his magick. His voice dropped to a cajoling murmur as he recited a rhyming incantation. The cadence of the unknown words had a soothing quality which reminded Bellamy of a nursery rhyme. The scalpel stroked Astarte's face slowly and gently, and she stopped flinching.

  Somewhat reassured by the changes in the ritual, Bellamy relaxed slightly. Then, suddenly, Titus bellowed and slashed the bronze knife across Astarte's eyes.

  Her aura blazing orange, the mortal screamed and clutched at her face. Fearful that Titus would cut her again, Bellamy launched himself at the shaman, but something snapped shut around his leg, tearing his skin and dumping him on the floor. Twisting his head, he saw that Antoine had him in his jaws. The FBI agent reached for his gun.

  "Stop it!" Astarte cried. He turned and saw Marie's golden eyes gazing out of the Quick girl's face. This time, the new color didn't bleed away. "He didn't do any permanent damage."

  "I had to: use a drastic technique to break through the resistance'," Titus said. "The rest of the change should be less stressful."
<
br />   "I'm.. .sorry I assumed the worst," said Bellamy gruffly. He felt his Shadow writhing in the depths of his mind, enjoying his discomfiture, "lis just—"

  "just that it's difficult to stay calm while someone's ripping out your beloved's eyes," Titus said. "I understand, but now be quiet." He turned back to Astarte. He stroked her cheek with the tip of the Scalpel, and her features flowed into new shapes.

  Antoine released Bellamy's leg. "That's the second time I've gotten a taste of you," the: gator said. "If you make me bite you again, it'll be. your own fault if I eat you.

  "Am I that delicious?" asked the human, climbing to his feet. His leg throbbed, and he reached out with his mind, found one of the echoes of ancient sorrow still reverberating through the Haunt, and tapped the energy to heal himself. "Hard to believe. But I won't say you didn't warn me."

  In another minute, Astarte had Marie's body. She was as tall as a tall man, with skin like gleaming ebony and a face like Nefertiti's. Stepping backward, weaving his hands in mystic passes, Titus put the finishing touches on his work. The black leather jacket, tank top, and faded, tattered jeans became a snowy, floor-length, off-the- shoulder gown. A crown of ostrich plumes shimmered into being on the Quick girl's head. Her halo faded until it was less a visible corona than an indefinable impression of strangeness.

  Titus's incantations droned to a stop. Astarte asked, "Is it—"

  And then faltered, no doubt because what had emerged from her throat were the richer, more measured tones ofthe Queen. "Done?"

  "Yes," Titus said, "and it's a perfect copy if I do say so myself."

  Grinning, the pain of the transformation evidently forgotten, Astarte scrambled to her feet. "Where's a mirror? I've got to see."

  Titus winced. "A perfect mask, but everyone will see through it in an instant if you don't behave like Her Majesty. She would never bounce up like you just did, or speak with such unbridled enthusiasm. She's dignified. Aloof. Some might even say haughty."

  "A bitch," said Astarte. "I can do bitchy, can't I, Frank?" She winked at him.

  "Marie is a monarch struggling to protect her people in a desperate time," Titus replied, anger lacing his voice. "She's also the voice of the gods."

  Astarte shrugged. "Whatever."

  "just look cold and arrogant and let Titus and Antoine do the talking," Bellamy said.

  "No problem," she said. "Honest. Just because I'm acting like me right now, that doesn't mean I can't be her when the time comes."

  "It has come," Bellamy said. "We have to get on with this. Let's go muster your troops. The guards will watch over Marie and your body until we return."

  "I'm sure we can find a mirror on the way," Antoine said sardonically.

  "Get him!" a deep voice shouted. His horned cap flopping, Valentine whirled, irrationally certain that someone was after him.

  But no. For a change, someone else was being harassed. A lanky wraith in a top hat, cravat, and cutaway coat dashed down the moon-lit street, bounding over a seething pothole-sized Nihil in the pavement. Six other ghosts were hot on his heels, but it looked to the dwarf in motley as if their prey might have a chance of outdistancing them. But then, howling, a ghost in the lacquered armor of a samurai sprang through a tenement wall and landed square in the fugitive's path. The newcomer's skin had a lemon-yellow hue and his blue eyes and long, upswept eyebrows an exaggerated slant which could only be the product of a flesh sculptor's magick.

  Like Valentine, he probably had no idea why the miniature mob was chasing the man in nineteenth-century clothing, but he also didn't care. Swinging his katana like a baseball bat, he hacked open the fugitive's stomach. The stovepipe hat tumbled off and rolled across the cracked, pitted pavement.

  The wounded man stumbled a few more paces and collapsed in a heap at Valentine's feet. "Help me," he moaned. "I didn't do anything."

  The dwarf wanted to help, but was afraid that if he tried, the mob would hurt him too. Fear froze him in place until the other wraiths overtook their prey, laid hands on him, and dragged him back up the street. The bogus samurai marched along beside them, looking smug, his curved sword on his shoulder.

  "Why are you doing this?" wailed the captive. "Why? Why?" He kept asking until someone silenced him.

  Valentine peered about, looking for Legionnaires. After a moment he spied three of them, two common soldiers and a Centurion, all wearing black raptor patches, a token of their allegiance to the Fifth Legion and to Governor Gayoso, and the green sashe|fi emblazoned with an hourglass, which were the uniform of the entire ragtag army of Natchez. The trio were casually examining a selection of jewelry—grave goods most of it, cherished mementos which newly deceased wraiths had managed to carry into death with them—on display in an open-air market.

  The Centurion, a small, sharp-featured woman, her graying hair chopped short and restrained by a braided leather headband, turned in Valentine's direction. The dwarf gestured toward the mob and its victim. The Centurion sneered as if Valentine were an imbecile for thinking that she and her comrades might bestir themselves to investigate such an insignificant disturbance.

  You useless bastards! Valentine thought. Quivering with disgust, he turned and tramped on down the hill.

  He'd only gone a few paces before his fury at the Legionnaires crumbled into disgust with himself. He hadn't lifted a finger to help the man in the cutaway coat, either. He told himself that, puny freak that he was, he couldn't have helped. Had he tried, the pursuers would have squashed him like a bug. But that reflection only made him loathe himself the more, because it underscored the point that he was the genuinely useless one, too feeble and stupid to help a man in trouble, or locate his beloved Daphne either. The last time he'd seen her, the child prostitute had turned him away in favor of a larger man proffering a larger fee, but he scarcely blamed her for that. He wished he could turn himself away and be reborn as an altogether different person.

  He trudged on past another decaying brick house. Behind a cracked, grimy window, two naked wraiths sat playing gin. One, a redhead with a raw white wound where her left ear should have been, crowed and laid the rest of her cards on the table. Her companion, a pudgy brunette who was missing both ears, her eyebrows, and her nose, cursed, tossed away her cards, picked up an iron knife, and took her left nipple between her thumb and forefinger.

  Valentine hastily averted his eyes. He supposed that he shouldn't be shocked. The Restless were notoriously prone to bizarre and even perverse amusements. Probably their Shadows were to blame.

  But a few months ago;, the upright citizens of the Necropolis surrounding the Citadel had practiced their less savory diversions furtively. Now, increasingly, the deviance was all out in the open. The climate in the supposedly respectable district seemed little different than that in the lawless quarter called Under-the-Hill. It was almost enough to make a person believe that some amorphous but terrible danger really was threatening the entire territory, as the more paranoid members of the populace had been whispering for some time. As Montrose had claimed when the Stygians came to arrest him.

  Montrose. Valentine's eyes stung as if they could still shed tears, and he furiously blinked the sensation away. The inquisitor's downfall still weighed heavily on his conscience. Montrose had befriended him and he'd repaid him with treachery, stealing the Cavalier's journal at Gayoso's behest.

  No! he thought. It hadn't been a betrayal. Montrose had been the traitor, a false servant of the Hierarchy scheming to conquer his own kingdom in the Shadowlands. It had been Valentine's duty to help his master bring him down.

  But no matter how hard he tried, the jester couldn't quite believe that, because he'd known Montrose. When he'd first arrived in Natchez, the Stygian had wanted nothing more than to complete his crusade against the Heretics as rapidly as possible and return to the luxuries of the Onyx Tower. Later, possibly without even realizing it himself, he'd begun to enjoy his sojourn on Earth, but that was because he relished the challenges and excitement attendant upon his mission,
and the camaraderie of desperadoes like Mike Fink. It didn't mean he'd coveted a throne here. No, damning as the journal seemed, there must be another explanation for its contents.

  Nor could Valentine delude himself that he'd actually stolen the book out of loyalty to anyone or anything but himself. He'd taken it because Gayoso commanded him to. Because otherwise the Anacreon might have cast him out. And while his court jester position could be humiliating, and even painful when the Spaniard chose to kick him around, it still afforded him the only security he'd ever known in his brief, squalid life or since. The prospect of losing it terrified him.

  God, Valentine thought, he was pathetic.

  His path led him into one of the precincts of the Quick, a warren of tenements scarcely less rundown than the derelict buildings of the Necropolis. An overturned and burned-out ambulance blocked one intersection. On the next street over, the bloated corpse of an old man hung by its neck from a lamppost. Judging from the stink of putrefaction, it had been there for some time.

  Unlike some ghosts, Valentine wasn't inordinately interested in the affairs of the Quick, but he had heard that the mortals dwelling along the lower Mississippi had been having their problems too, the so-called Adieist murders and countless outbreaks of senseless, savage violence. What in Charon's name was happening? Was all this unrest a sign that the last days had arrived, and the Void about to devour all the universe at last?

  Sighing, the dwarf struggled to push such thoughts aside. It was ludicrous for him to speculate about the vast, hidden forces at play in the world when he was helpless even to manage his own petty existence with any dignity or honor. He trudged on, into Under-the-Hill. The breeze carried the silt-and-pollution smell of the river.

  The streets were crowded as usual, as Fink's irregulars swaggered about pursuing their pleasures, and merchants and entertainers pandered to them. Montrose was gone, but the prosperity his crusade had brought to Natchez—an affluence based on slave-taking and plunder—remained.