Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  Here and there, structures began to fall to pieces. One of the ruined Temples of the Shining Ones. A gleaming gray bridge linking the island to the warehouses, factories, rail yards, and fortifications in the Iron Hills. An apartment building in the form of a gargantuan statue: a slender, skull-faced dancing girl poised on one foot, which smashed two other edifices when it fell. Finally, as the quake grew ever more violent, portions of the Deathlords' palaces themselves beg;an to collapse. A barbican of the Skeletal Lord's ivory castle disintegrated in an avalanche of bone. A graceful amber minaret inside the Seat of Golden Tears shook itself to pieces. Bizarrely enough, the wind carried the fragments away as if they weighed no more than autumn leaves. The Beggar Lord's citadel maintained its. reputation as a realm of impossibilities even in the throes of its destruction.

  "Look!" said Louise, screaming to make herself overheard above the roar of the storm. "Look up!"

  When he did, he quailed. The thunderheads above the island marked the boundary of the Tempest^ and as a part of that chaotic realm, sometimes churned and twisted into peculiar forms, affording disquieting vistas to the wraiths below. But Montrose had never seen them as they appeared now, bunched into the semblance of a host of gargantuan faces, many so hideous and sickeningly alien as to be almost unrecognizable as visages at all. The assembly of titans filled the sky, diminishing the City of Dark Echoes to a child's plaything. In the forefront of the gathering leered a creature with two draconic sets of features mounted side by side on a single head.

  The giants were too huge, too ghastly, and radiated an overwhelming sense of malevolence. Montrose had the feeling that if he looked at them for very long, the sight would shred his reason. His eyes aching and his stomach churning, he wrenched his gaze away. "They must be Malfeans," he said.

  "Come to gloat over the death of Stygia."

  "How disappointed they're going to be,'" Montrose said, striving to believe it. Taking care not to look up at the dark gods again, he flew on, riding the wind when it blew from behind him, fighting it when it shifted and tried to drive him backward.

  The statues in the Plaza of Lost Stars had begun to topple. Heedless of the danger, a Crowd clustered around the huge black cylinder that was the Onyx Tower proper. Dazzling lights flashed behind the meurtrieres and narrow, shuttered windows as if a raging storm were trapped within the donjon. A number of the onlookers had chosen to kneel with their arms raised in supplication. Montrose suspected that they hoped the display inside the keep heralded the return of its imperial master, just in time to preserve his city from destruction.

  "The tower is so big," cried Louise into Montrose's: ear. "Can we find the Smiling Lord in time?"

  "I hope so," he replied, ascending past rank after rank of windows and machiolations. "Judging from the flashes, the other Deathlords are fighting on the lower levels. If I were Prince Ares, I'd hide on one of the upper ones, where they wouldn't be likely to stumble across me. That's also where Charon's maintained certain private areas, forbidden to all others, including, I'm certain, chambers for working bis greatest mag- -"

  The section of wall in front of them exploded. Huge chunks of stone hurtled through the air like a cloud of buckshot. Montrose reflexively spun around, shielding Louise's body with his own. Bits of rock stung his shoulders and rump, but all rhe fragments large enough to do real harm streaked past him.

  Turning again, still rising, the Scot peered into rhe ragged-edged breach. Beyond it was the ruined husk of what had once been an opulent ballroom. The crystal chandeliers had shattered into the glittering grit on the floor, the stately Corinthian columns were melting like snow, and sparks of the black fire of Oblivion danced about the interior walls, eating holes wherever they touched. At one end of the chamber loomed the Emerald Lord in his jade crown of thorns, verdigris-encrusted androgynous mask, and wheel-of-fortune amulet, chanting words of power. Suddenly he rolled his crimson dice, which tumbled as it bouncing along an invisible table, came to rest, and then flew back into his white-gloved hand. Something which could he sensed but not truly seen sizzled into existence before him, then leaped at the archangel on the other side of the room. Gaunt to the point of emaciation in his suit of black and white, a cloak the color of dust hanging from his narrow shoulders, the Skeletal Lord grunted, clutched his belly, and doubled over, aping the distress of a starving man, and rhe creature or spell plunging toward him winked out of existence. Meanwhile, the ruby-eyed mechanical silver rat which usually rode on his shoulder, now grown as large as a war-horse, savaged three luckless members of the Legion ol Paupers. Their comrades broke and ran.

  Shadow seething in the eye sockets of his ivory skull mask, the Master of Famine stalked toward the Prince of Chance. At which point Montrose soared above the hole, cutting otf his view of whatever would happen next.

  Drawing on his Harbinger senses, he studied the lofty expanse of tower still above him. Three levels beneath the root, portions of the black stonework shimmered and writhed. According to Demetrius, there was supposed to be an exchange of energies between the Smiling Lord and rhe subterranean vortex. With any luck, the spatial faults were a manifestation of the transfer, and a signpost pointing to Montrose's goal.

  The Cavalier alit on a small balcony. Even this high above the ground, a sturdy crenelated rampart protected the platform. The stonework shivered beneath his boots, a warning that if the earthquake and the battle of the Deathlords raged on unchecked, even the mightiest fortress in Stygia would shake itself apart in time.

  Louise twisted the handle of rhe iron-bound door. It didn't budge. "Locked," she said, and stared at it intently. With a crack, the panel flew open, revealing a room dominated by an ornately carved black oak armoire and matching canopy bed. "But not anymore."

  "We're lucky it was only locked," Montrose said. "The tower has been magically sealed since the Emperor's disappearance. Either he diel it before he sailed out to fight Gorool, or the Seven did it afterwards. I suppose they needed to dissolve the ward to get in themselves." They stepped inside. He gave her Chiarmonte's darksteel dagger to back up her other weapons. "I'm sure you remember what to do."

  "Hang back out of sight."

  "Exactly. The Smiling Lord is more likely to hold off lashing out if he doesn't feel outnumbered. And if we do wind up having to fight him, surprise may be the only chance we have." For the sake of her morale, he hoped she didn't realize what a remote chance it actually was.

  She touched his arm. "I love you,"'she said.

  "And I you," Montrose replied. "Shall we go preserve the Fmpire."'

  He stalked through the bedroom and down an almost lightles's .-corridor decorated with a collection of coffins and sarcophagi standing on end in niches along the wall. Louise was presumably trailing him, though creeping along so silently that, strain as he might, he couldn't hear her.

  His pathfinder's intuition led him up A narrow staircase. After a few paces, he discerned a soft greenish radiance shimmering down from above. The smell of bitter incense stung his nostrils, and he caught the voice of his liege lord, snarling syllables which, though the Scot had no idea of their meaning, made his skin crawl.

  At the top of the steps was a trefoil arch capped with a carving of crossed scythes, and beyond that, an enormous, shadowy chamber with a high, fan-vaulted ceiling, lit by the chill, wavering light of barrow-flame torches. Pentacles, their lines, arcs, and arcane runes inlaid in gold, silver, ruby, and jet, adorned the floor, while shelves laden with the tools of a supreme master of the Arcanoi—grimoires, wands, talismans, alembics, censers, ritual daggers and masks—stood along the walls. Probably evoked by the Smiling Lord's conjurations, worms of phosphorescence crawled on the magick circles and the sorcerous implements.

  At the far end of the chamber, before a lofty onyx altar which, judging from the triptych of carved scenes adorning it, Charon had raised in his own honor, Prince Mars chanted his spell while simultaneously performing a sort of martial exercise. The images :of the other Deathlords shimmered into
existence around him, and, reacting instantly, he struck and dispersed them, the steel solerets of his plate armor clinking on the pale marble floor and his halberd whizzing through the air. Space bubbled and fractured as he moved, and though he couldn't truly discern it, Montrose got a vague sense of the fearsome power flowing in and out of the rifts, and even of the black whirlpool churning on the other side.

  He removed ChiarrnOnte's domino and stepped out into the open. "Dread Lord," he said,"I've come to talk to you. To implore you to stop what you're doing/'

  His pole arm whirling into a guard position, the Smiling Lord pivoted toward the intruder. Montrose could tell that the Deathlord meant to charge him. The Cavalier's arms trembled with the urge to snatch out his pistols. He held himself motionless, harmless, instead. "Please," he said. "Despite what you've been told, I'm your loyal vassal, as I've always been. I beg you, just listen to me."

  The masked demigod settled into a defensive stance. Unlike lesser beings, when he stopped moving, he stopped completely, suddenly becoming as inhumanly still as a metal idol, his cold, unblinking gray eyes, perfect balance, and the impeccable line of the halberd as intimidating as: a cocked and leveled gun. Though by no means a true sorcerer himself , Montrose sensed the intricate mechanisms of the Smiling Lord's ongoing magick slowing a bit. Without the fuel of his conjurations, they would eventually grind to a halt.

  "Begone," the angfil said. "I condemned you, but I have more important matters to attend to. Flee now and you may survive."

  Flis mouth dry, Montrose suppressed a craven impulse to do precisely that. "I'll go when I've had my say. Surely you can suspend your enchantments for a few moments without your peers recovering their senses. From what I saw below, they're completely berserk."

  The visor hid the Smiling Lord's mouth, yet Montrose could feel him smile. "Are they? How wonderful."

  "It won't be wonderful if the fallout from your magick destroys the entire Isle of Sorrows. Don't you feel the tower quivering? Extend your awareness. Look outside. Buildings are collapsing!"

  The Smiling Lord stood silent for a moment. Perhaps he actually was clairvoyantly peering beyond the walls. "Remarkable," he said at last. "To be honest, I had no idea the spell would do that. But war always entails a certain amount of destruction. And perhaps it will even be better this way. Charon built the capital to his own tastes. Why shouldn't the new emperor remake it in his own image, even more glorious than before?"

  "You can't remake it if you scour everyone and everything away, right down to the bedrock," Montrose said. "Look at the Malfeans, laughing down from the storm because they think our doom has come at last. Flave you truly examined the vortex that's feeding you power? Can't you feel that it's wielding you like a weapon?"

  "You're mad," said the Avatar of War, a hint of pity in his voice. "I thought as much when you first betrayed me. I don't perceive any Malfeans or any vortex either."

  Montrose felt a surge of despair. His erstwhile master was more befuddled than he could have imagined possible. "They're there, nonetheless. You're the one who's not entirely in his right mind, Dread Lord, through no fault of your own. You've fallen prey to subtle enchantments and cunning lies."

  "That's rubbish. Apparently you've forgotten who and what I am."

  "A Lord of Death," Montrose replied. "A seraph. But that doesn't make you immune to deception. If you can't see your true enemies, then think. No doubt some of the other Council members do covet Charon's crown, but would any of them be so reckless as to try to seize it by armed force? It would be one against six, and besides, the Imperium is still struggling to recover from the Emperor's disappearance and the Fifth Maelstrom. A civil war could cripple it for all time. You princes are supposed to be wiser than that."

  "Indeed we are," the Smiling Lord replied glumly. "Fate knows, I had better sense. I was content with my station. But sadly, the others weren't. They sent raiders and assassins against their fellows, myself included."

  "No," said the Scot, "they didn't. Not until they believed they had to strike back in self-defense, as you do. Spectres committed the first few atrocities to set you against one another."

  "Impossible," said the man in armor. "I had visions of the other Deathlords conspiring against me."

  "Visions engineered by Demetrius, himself a Spectre."

  "The longer you blather on," said Prince Ares, "the more ridiculous your story becomes. Demetrius is my friend. The only true friend I've found since Charon anointed me."

  "He was a Doppelganger," Montrose insisted. "He murdered Chiarmonte. When I slew him, his corpse turned into an abomination with black scales and a double face. Similar creatures—"

  "'Slew him'"' the Deathlord repeated, his voice breaking. "Slew him?" He bellowed a battle cry and charged.

  SEVEN

  A hot, greasy feeling hung in the air. Creeping up Governor Nichols Street with his allies, Bellamy wondered if another Maelstrom could be on its way so soon, and winced at the thought of trying to fight while one was raging. But if they had to, they had to. Marie couldn't wait for better weather.

  He glanced at Astarte, stalking along beside him with an oval shield on her left arm, an assegai in her right hand, and a golden-hilted saber hanging at her hip. To his annoyance, she winked at him. By dint of holding herself stiffly erect and glowering while Titus did the talking, she'd carried off the first phase of her masquerade successfully. But as far as Bellamy was concerned, she still wasn't taking her situation seriously enough.

  He peered about, looking for enemy sentries, and didn't see any. Halting, he raised his hand and the other ghosts, perhaps sixty altogether, gathered around him. "The Haunt is directly on the other side of this place," he said, pointing at an old apartment house on the east side of the street. The usual cryptic graffiti—generation last, rat Monday!—covered its dilapidated gates, and the first gray light of dawn tinged the sky above its gables. Stinking garbage bags, the majority torn open and their contents scattered, sat heaped on the curb.

  "We'll sneak in as close as we can," Antoine rasped. "Once they spot us, give them everything you've got. We don't know how many guys they have, or what kind. They may have brought in reinforcements since Frank paid them a visit, but on the other hand, maybe they haven't gotten around to it yet. Les Invisibles don't like moving around in a shadow storm any more than we do. Those of you who can reach across the Shroud, make sure you kill any wolfman you see. Just because they're in the Skinlands, that doesn't make them harmless. Their hoodoo men can cast spells on us, or send those weird Sinkinda after us."

  "And," Titus added, his wrinkled face painted black and white and a Thompson submachine gun enormous in his withered hands, "though I trust it goes without saying, each of you will defend the Queen, even at the cost of your own existence. Though I hope that you, Your Majesty, will make such sacrifices unnecessary by not taking extraordinary risks."

  Astarte's mouth tightened. Certain she meant to argue, Bellamy tensed. But then she inclined her head.

  "Okay," Antoine said, "time for a little revenge." He crawled around the piles of trash and slipped through the weathered wooden panels of the gate. His companions followed.

  Beyond the gate was a courtyard with a magnolia tree rising in the center of it. Birds perched in the branches were beginning to sing. Distorted by the Shroud, the twittering had a harshness to it, just as the late-model Audi, Mercedes, and Lexus parked on the turnaround looked battered and soiled.

  The spirits stalked on, into an apartment where a television and a collection of tennis trophies lay broken on the floor. As they glided through the back wall, a woman in one of the bedrooms began to scream. Bellamy grimaced. He had no doubt that with their hypersensitive ears, the Creoles would hear her screeching. He'd just have to hope that the cries of one of the living wouldn't alarm them.

  As he and his friends approached the rusty, wrought-iron fence, he studied the crumbling antebellum mansion on the other side, a dingy white house with gray trim, so riddled with see
thing Nihil cracks that it looked as if it was about to disintegrate into a million pieces. The slave quarters, stable, and Creole kitchen in the overgrown yard were almost equally infested. Two guards with rifles stood atop the mansion roof. Fortunately, at the moment both had their backs turned and were gazing out at Barracks Street. An orange and white rental truck sat parked near the front door, with two more riflemen watching over it. A pair of Les Invisibles carried images of a mutilated Marie from the house toward the waiting vehicle. A hunched little Quick man, his aura murky as thick smog and his face a mass of warts and lesions, stalked along behind them, exhorting them to be careful. Given his ability to perceive the dead, he was probably a werewolf shaman.

  "Drat," Titus whispered, "they're already moving the dolls."

  "The hell they are," Antoine replied. He melted through the fence, racing forward faster than a human could run. The rest of the company dashed after him. The alligator had nearly reached the truck when one of the men on the roof turned and cried a warning.

  One of the Queen's zebra-caped warriors lifted her crossbow and put a quarrel through the sentry's throat, but the damage was done. Creole wraiths leaned through the walls of the mansion and began to shoot. One cupped his hands around his mouth and wailed, whereupon one of Bellamy's companions screamed and staggered, his left shoulder and half his face dissolving into iridescent bubbles.

  Titus bit one rifleman to pieces while his lashing tail knocked down the other. Whirling, he snapped the second man's head off, then rounded on the abambo with the statues. They frantically dropped the images, smashing one, and reached for the blades sheathed at their sides. The ugly little man raised his arms, hooked his fingers into claws, and jabbered ugly-sounding syllables. Points of light sparkled in his muddy halo.