by Jack Conner
“Raulf, you didn’t look long enough. If you had, you’d see that they’re not asleep. They’re simply very focused, probably tapping into the Sabo.”
“So?”
“Maybe we have visitors. Why else would Junger and Jagoda be so focused, unless they were directing an attack—or at least keeping tabs on something or someone who’s entered unexpectedly?”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“Captain, we’re supposed to be allies, the Balaklava and ourselves, are we not? And as such, I don’t think they’re entitled to withhold potentially valuable information from us. I suggest you go over there, in as friendly a fashion as you can, and ask them what they’re up to. If they don’t give you a satisfactory answer, then I’ll know for sure they’re keeping something from me—from us.” Her face turned grave. “Do you understand the gravity of this, Captain?”
He didn’t like the tone in her voice, nor did he like the flicker of amusement in the crowd of ass-kissers when she delivered that last line. “I get it, alright,” he said. “More fucking power-games.”
“Captain, if you can’t control your language—”
“Malie, don’t treat me like one of your lackeys. I’m Raulf D’Aguila, second in command of this outfit, and I know every inch of your glorious body—and once your mind as well.”
Slowly, she leaned back in her throne. “Captain, later we will speak privately of this incident. If I have offended you, I apologize. But, as a matter of course, I must demand an apology from you at once.”
“Fine.” He bowed his head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers.”
Her wings flexed involuntarily, her black feathers stirring with the movement, and for a second he was relieved to see a small smile on her face. What’s more, the smile seemed to be genuine, and briefly he thought he might be looking at the old Malie.
“Very well, Captain. Now carry out your orders.”
As he approached the border dividing the immense chamber—and the Collage that stood planted there—he said, “Hey, big guy, care to let me in?”
That strange blunt limb shot out, the human petals peeled back, and once more he was faced with the torso of the youthful-looking woman that seemed to be the mouthpiece of the leviathan.
“Good evening, Captain. How are you?”
“Well, thanks. You?”
She smiled. “Can’t complain. As you’ve probably heard, I got an opportunity to see the outside world tonight—the first time since I’ve been assimilated into the Collage. It was nice. The lake was pretty, and I got to shoot the finger at Roche Sarnova himself.”
“I heard about that. I appreciate your assistance back there. If your lords hadn’t come through for us by delivering you, the Castle would’ve had several Libertarian soldiers to interrogate—and they’d be much more inclined to confess than your bosses’ zombies.” He paused, uncomfortable.
“It’s all right, Captain,” she assured him. “I’ve become accustomed to my condition. Calling me what I am doesn’t offend me. But to tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’m a zombie at all. I don’t know what I am.”
“You’re the Collage.”
She frowned. “Maybe I am. I don’t know. I don’t think about it often, really. Strange how my mind is wandering.”
Raulf glanced toward the two black thrones that rose above the decaying swarm of zombies on the far side of the room, and he understood. Malie had been right; Junger and Jagoda really must be very occupied right now—mentally speaking—and they’d fallen lax on keeping this Collage under tight psychic reins ... which meant that for the moment this woman was now more able to think for herself. If Raulf had ever been interested in just what she was, or what her relationship to the Collage was, now was the time to investigate.
“Do you remember who you were, before?” he said.
“Before? I don’t understand.”
“Before you were assimilated into the Collage.”
“Oh.” Her gray eyes grew misty. “I think I was a ghensiv. I was up in the Castle, in a bar, waiting for a john, when this tall smelly man approached me. Yes, I remember now. It was that Kiernevar, I think—a very strange one. He said he’d pay top dollar for me, took me back to his room ...” She shook her head. “It’s not very clear. I just remember being brought back to life by Junger and Jagoda, and being placed here.”
“What was your name?”
“My ... ? Oh, I think it was ... I don’t know. Different names with different johns, you know how it is. Sonia. I think that was it; it’s hard to tell for sure.” Again, she fell silent, but then her gray eyes sparkled. “Yes, that was it! And I remember something else—”
Her face lost all personality. For a moment, Raulf was frightened for her, a feeling only enhanced when, in a voice peppered slightly with a Jamaican accent, she said, “Spying on us, are you, good Captain?”
“Junger?” Raulf said. “Jagoda? Is that you?”
“In the telepathic flesh, my man. What were you up to, anyway? You’ve a crush on dear Sonia, is that it? Or do you have something more sinister in mind?”
“I’ve just come for a visit.”
“Your access is denied for the moment. We’re far too busy to hear any of your Mistress’s grievances. If she still insists on a meeting, we’ll allow you to return in one hour, no less. Now, Captain, I suggest you depart—or you too may find a place in our Collage.” Sonia, or at least her face, smiled mockingly. “Then you and Sonia can be together forever.” She laughed—a strange and brutal sound that didn’t die even after her torso had withdrawn back into the monster’s arm.
Raulf spun away, perplexed and frustrated, and returned to report to Malie.
Her eyebrows shot up as he finished, and she leaned back in her seat. “Very interesting. They didn’t even offer a cover story?”
“No.”
“How odd. It’s almost as if they’re baiting me, isn’t it?”
“Malie ...”
“Yes, Captain?”
“I don’t think they’re baiting you. Remember, hon, the world, especially theirs, doesn’t revolve around you.”
“Captain, I do appreciate your frankness, but surely even you can see that something fishy is going on. If they didn’t even offer you a cover story, they must be very busy, which means that they must be controlling many of their zombies at once. Of course, I’m sure controlling the Sabo is no easy trick, since it’s pretty much omniscient in its own little world and would demand a lot of their attention, but they’ve been doing that since before our arrival and have never even paused. So it must be something else. Maybe they’re listening to their spies up in the Castle, or maybe they’ve sent some more—” She snapped her fingers. “That redhead is gone, the one that was sucking them off awhile ago. Remember her?”
“I don’t pay them as much attention as you do, and if you want me to continue being frank, I suggest you follow my example.”
Maleasoel didn’t seem to be listening. “She was in a very good condition—as good as a zombie can get. They didn’t keep her so well preserved just to give them head, I’m sure. And I haven’t seen her anywhere lately ...”
“They have other rooms,” Raulf pointed out. “They could’ve sent her to one of them.”
“No. They kept her well-preserved to serve a purpose, a rendezvous with someone up in the Castle that might not suspect she’d been zombified, maybe, or to seduce someone.” She frowned. “I wonder what they’re up to.”
“Surely controlling a single zombie wouldn’t require such focus on their part.”
“True. So they’ve sent a whole squad of deaders up to the Castle ... or maybe farther into the Sabo, to greet our visitors. That must be it.”
“Maybe the Sabo’s turned on them,” he suggested. “Maybe it’s trying to wrest back control of its mind, and that’s why they’re so focused.”
“We must investigate.”
“I’m not sure that’s necessary.”
“Round up
a platoon, go into the Labyrinth and see what you can find.”
That stopped him. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me, Captain. Our supposed allies seem to be fighting with the Sabo over something; likely we have visitors they don’t want us to know of. Now, the Sabo feeds off of fear, so it would send its parasites to relentlessly attack the visitors and eventually kill them. The Balaklava seem to have other plans—as you suggested, they’re warring with the Sabo, trying to use its monsters for their own ends, and it’s resisting them. On top of that, we can also assume that they’ve sent zombies up into the Castle; but we can’t do much about that. We must do what we can by determining what visitors we have here in the Sabo. Junger and Jagoda said it’ll be over in an hour. We don’t have time to waste.”
“But if I go out into the Labyrinth, what guarantee do I have that they won’t send their parasites after me?”
Her eyes darted over his shoulder, and he knew where she was looking: to the soldiers and mindbenders that guarded the Libertarian Army’s nuclear weapons.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “They wouldn’t dare to harm my second-in-command.”
Unless they think you have a new runner-up in mind. For the first time, it struck him that he might have outlived his usefulness to her, at least in the area that she was now most concerned with—politics. Perhaps his earlier gruffness had been a serious error, and she was using this new crisis to rid herself of him. But what choice did he have but to follow orders?
“Go,” she said. “You have your orders. Just make sure you don’t fail me.”
“So be it,” he said, keeping the malice in his voice as subtle as he could, but unmistakable just the same.
Without saluting, he stormed off to gather his men.
* * *
Eyes darting all about, Byron followed Lyshira down through the jagged network of tunnels the Balaklava had burrowed inside the Castle. The passages twisted off in all sorts of directions, and he wondered just how many rooms they provided access to. The network seemed limited to the lower stories only, but Byron was sure that given time the assassins would complete their network of fissures and jags until it would ferret them anywhere in the whole structure. The thought made him shudder, and he asked himself again why he’d agreed to join Kilian and Loirot on this fool’s errand. Because they’re family, and because I had nowhere else to go.
Finally, Lyshira stepped through a hole and into the catacombs, and the three werewolves followed.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she said. “Are you ready to go the rest of the way?”
Dusting himself off in his usual meticulous way, Loirot said, “I don’t suppose there are any bathtubs down here? I never really got to complete my last session, did I?”
Her voice was sly. “Next time I’ll help you clean. Four hands work faster than two. This way, gentlemen,” she added and showed them the way down the brick-walled passageway.
Byron caught Loirot staring at Lyshira’s naked backside and could only shake his head. Like a moth to a flame. The Balaklava picked their bait well.
Lyshira led them through several secret passages and then into the dark halls of the Sabo. She had explained its pertinent properties on their way down, but Byron still wasn’t quite sure what to expect. All he knew was that it scared him, and it wasn’t a feeling he enjoyed.
Lyshira seemed to know her way well, and it wasn’t but ten minutes until she said, “We’re almost there.”
“I hope they have someone for me to eat down here,” Kilian said.
“I thought you didn’t want to stay long.”
“It depends on your masters’ offer.”
“Whether we accept it or not, I hope they plan on reimbursing me for my suit,” said Loirot. “Those tunnels wrecked it.”
Byron chuckled. “You should’ve just worn your towel.”
“Don’t worry,” Lyshira promised. “I’m sure your compensation will be adequate.”
The moment of levity died a second later, when she ushered them around a last bend and into an immense chamber with a diameter of at least four hundred feet and a high domed ceiling from which hundreds of long rusty chains dangled. Some fell almost to the floor, while others held big metal bird cages—large enough for several men—a hundred or more feet off the ground. Byron’s jaw fell open.
“So?” said Lyshira, gesturing grandly. “What do you think?”
“There’s not going to be a bath, is there?” asked Loirot.
“Oh, there will be a bath, alright—a bath of sorts, anyway.”
“So where’s Junger and Jagoda?” snapped Kilian. “You said they were going to meet us.”
“When I said that, I was telling the truth. But things have since changed.” She tapped her temple. “They’ve just told me that their presence is demanded in their main chamber, otherwise the Mistress Maleasoel would grow suspicious and would take action farther than she has already.”
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind.”
“Well, damnit, what do we do now? I didn’t come here to sit on my thumbs until your bosses had a clear spot in their calendar. If they don’t come, and I mean soon, I’m getting the hell out of here.”
For the first time, Byron detected a hint of malice in Lyshira’s face when she said, “Oh, I don’t think that will be so easy, Kilian.”
“I presume that was some sort of threat. Get your masters here or else I’m pulling the plug on this, right here and now.”
“Kilian,” cautioned Byron. “Take it easy. We’re going to be okay as long as you don’t pitch a fit.”
“Pitch a fit?”
“Don’t be upset,” said Lyshira. “My masters have sent someone else to meet you in their stead. He should be arriving shortly.”
“That’s better,” said Kilian. “When can we expect him?”
“Soon. In fact, I think he’s almost here.”
All of a sudden, the ground before the quartet bucked upwards, and something large broke through from beneath. As the monster erupted from the ground, it flung thousands of chunks of earth in all directions, and the shower of muddy shrapnel rained on the werewolves. When it subsided, the werewolves were afforded a look at the new arrival. Although Byron had no name for it yet, what he saw was the foremost portion of a big mud-shark, sticking out from the ground like ten feet of organic missile, fins and all.
“Fuck,” said Loirot, too confused to wipe the new mud from his clothes—which were probably too far-gone to worry about now anyway. “Lyshira, don’t tell me that’s who we’re supposed to deal with. What the hell is it, exactly?”
“It’s a parasite,” she said, plucking a patch of mud from her hair. “And no, that’s not who you’re going to deal with.”
The mud-shark opened its mouth and stuck its tongue out as far as it would go. Atop the tongue stood a very tall and familiar figure, looking down from his slavering pedestal to grin insanely at the crew.
“Ah, hell,” said Kilian.
“Good morning,” said Kiernevar. “I trust your trip here was not too unpleasant.”
A sinking feeling overcame Byron. He could accept the presence of a beautiful naked zombie, could accept the presence of a living maze and even a weird worm-like fish with big teeth and whiskers sprouting from its face. But there was one thing he could not accept: a rational Kiernevar.
“I don’t like this,” he said.
“Me, neither,” Loirot agreed.
Kilian nodded. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
The werewolves got two steps before they realized that a score of armed zombies had gathered at the tunnel from which the crew had come.
“I told you it wouldn’t be easy,” said Lyshira.
“This wasn’t the deal,” growled Kilian.
“Deals change, my friend.” She glanced to Kiernevar. “Remember, I don’t like him either. Were it not for him, I might still be alive and the Heir to the Dark Throne.”
“I should’ve let you kill
me, shouldn’t I?” Kiernevar said. “How terribly impolite of me. Ah, but then your blood did taste good, sweet and pure like a mountain spring ... Well, maybe not that pure.”
Her visage hardened, but she said nothing. Perhaps her own strength held her back, or perhaps it was the manipulation of her lords.
Kilian withdrew a pistol and pointed it at Kiernevar’s head. “You still a zombie, K?”
For the first time, Byron realized that Kiernevar no longer had shit smeared all over him, nor did he wear a loincloth. Instead, he was completely naked, and Byron wasn’t sure just whether or not that was an improvement.
“No,” Kiernevar answered.
“I don’t get it,” said Loirot. “What’s going on here?”
“In my opinion, you all deserve each other,” Lyshira said. “Anyway, my job’s finished.”
“You’re leaving us?”
“And high time, too.” She stalked off toward a distant archway and disappeared. Loirot watched her go sadly.
“Shall we begin?” Kiernevar said.
“Begin what?” said Kilian.
“Our reunion, of course.”
Kilian swallowed. “Just why the hell are you speaking in the proper pronouns now and not wearing shit for clothes?”
“Insanity is usually caused by a chemical imbalance of some kind within the brain. Jean-Pierre’s blood wasn’t strong enough to correct this; Laslo almost did, but he kept such a tight lock on my mind it was a wonder I could even speak at all, let alone heal. Then Junger and Jagoda’s blood ... well, they gave me some to help me through the Arena, but that was it. No extras for Kiernevar. But then, when Ruegger savaged me, my allies did at last take care of me.”
“No,” said Loirot. “They didn’t. I wasn’t there, but I heard about it. They sent a handful of deaders disguised as monks to defend you, knowing full well that wouldn’t be enough.”
“That was just a distraction. Their real feat was in disguising some of their better kept zombies as Castle Guards, and it was these that carried me off to my prison cell ... only I never got there. They delivered me straight here, where Junger and Jagoda gave me good blood, lots of blood, and now I’m strong. Too strong for a zombie, but not yet strong enough for Balaklava. But whenever Laslo tried to grow himself back, they would clip off his extras, and save them—and it was to me that they gave these gifts. Now I’m chalgid, and the chemical imbalance is almost gone. Soon I will have more. Kiernevar will yet be king!”