Tithe to Tartarus: The Dark Avenger's Sidekick Book Three (Moth & Cobweb 6)

by John C. Wright

  The cave led to a series of tunnels. There was no clear path there as the wooden boards now forked and forked again. Apparently, many workmen had been busy for a long while hauling crates from several entry points into this underground world.

  They came across a chimney in the roof worming upward. Directly beneath was a broken coffin, which had apparently been pulled down from its resting place. The labyrinth path swerved here, and came to a second chimney, and a third, all with crawling channels leading upward to the broken bottoms of despoiled graves. There were many more forks and tunnels leading left and right to other fresh graves.

  It was a labyrinth. They would have soon been lost, but Matthias calmly pointed out the turns as the ghost told him.

  They came suddenly on another flight of stairs, leading down and down through a wide gap into a great open space. The walls to either side opened wide, and the stairs grew broad. The roof was left behind. Below was a cavern akin in size and shape to the one Yumiko had seen in Is-Elfydd.

  2. Mists and Magic

  Yumiko gasped at the size of the cavern and at the width of the buried valley it held. As they began to descend the stairs into it, Matt said, “You are probably wondering how such large, empty places could be below Queens without the roof collapsing or the river seeping in. All these caves were carved out by the sea long ago at the command of the mermaids, and they are only partway resting in our world.”

  She said, “I was not wondering. I assumed it was magic.”

  He said, “It is magic indeed, but magic is bound by rules as iron hard as the rules of physics or ethics but hidden from the eyes of men. Do not think these things happen for no reason or as in a dream.”

  Yumiko said, “I meant I thought it was magic as in my ring, which can reduce mass.”

  He said, “Very much like your ring or Gil’s sword.”

  “His sword? It does not seem anything like my ring.”

  Matthias smiled. “They work on the same principle.”

  “What principle?”

  “That the Creator made both seen and unseen, and it cannot be unmade. Matter or energy can be combined or changed in form but neither created nor destroyed. Sins can be atoned by another in your place but not merely wished into nothingness. Where do your visual elements go when you turn invisible? Or where does your mass go when you turn weightless? Is it destroyed?”

  Yumiko decided that Matthias had the spirit of a schoolteacher. She said, “It goes into a realm of mist. Nothing is destroyed.”

  Matthias said, “So it is with Dyrnwen. The sword makes visible and palpable the unseen fire of the spirit, for the blade glows more brightly the nobler the hand who wields it. The blade pulls fire out of that world into this.”

  Yumiko was doubtful. “I have seen no fires in the mists.”

  “Then you have seen only the lower parts, where sad ghosts linger. There are high places there. Bright beings dwell in them.”

  3. The Infernal Lake

  Down they went. A reddish glow, dancing and rippling, could be dimly seen in the distance, and the tall black shadows of some intervening columns of stone blocked their view.

  Like a furnace under bellows, the red light suddenly turned orange and bright and leaped upward. Before them was a wide circular cave, interrupted with many columns where stalagmites and stalactites had grown together. Midmost in the cave was a lake of burning black fluid. Fires danced and smoldered here and there across the surface, which was boiling. From this the light came.

  The lake was large, interrupted by many stalagmites that rose like islands in the black fluid. A shoreline of pebbles and black sand reached to the left and right in a great circle around the lake.

  At the far side of the lake, opposite them, were a dozen or more pavilions with banners. Only one of them had a lamp inside, casting a glow through the silk tent walls. The rest were dark. An area to the left of the pavilions had been fenced off as a corral wide enough to hold a dozen horses but empty now save for palfreys.

  Beyond the pavilion, set in to the wall of the cave, was a tall door. Yumiko had seen this door, or one like it, not long ago. It was as big and broad as a gate in a castle wall, peaked at the top, with massive hinges and hasps. The doorknob, even from a distance in the bad light, gleamed and glittered like a ruby larger than a softball, winking with red fire.

  There were two arrow slits piercing the cave wall, one to either side of the door. Bright light shined through the slits. The horizontal slit was near the bottom of the vertical slit, which gave them the aspect of upside-down crosses.

  Before the pavilion was a trestle table. Human skeletons red with blood and gnawed remnants of haunches of meat were piled on the table, amid many black candles.

  Between the feast table and the fiery lakeshore was a narrow space of sand and rock, where many hulking, furry, lupine shapes lounged. One or two stirred, or paced, or lashed a tail or flicked an ear, but most were still and silent, as if torpid with sleep after much feasting. In the flickering shadows of the stone columns, it was hard to estimate the numbers, but it was easily over two hundred.

  To either side of this shore where the werewolves were gathered stood a tall line of Egyptian statues in stiff postures. Each was twice the height of a tall man. They wore narrow beards and carven headdresses or miters or crowns either bulbous or peaked, and hieroglyphs were incised down torso and leg. The stone hands held wooden flails or curved bronze swords like sickles.

  Firelight glittered balefully in the blank eyesockets of the statues, and Yumiko understood that these were alive and malign.

  4. The Watchman

  Down the final flight of stairs went Ruff, Gil, the warhorse, Yumiko, and Matthias. The column of agitated flame dancing across the infernal lake died down, and the orange light returned to a sullen and scattered red glow. The great cavern was lost into shadows. The light from the fiery lake was visible in patches. The lamp from the one occupied pavilion, the candles on the grisly feast table, and the glowing arrow slits near the tall door were as dim as stars on a foggy night.

  The stairway passed between two tall stalagmites rising like boar tusks from the uneven floor. Yumiko saw a heat signature coming from one of the stalagmites. She raised her bow and shot. The shaft slid hissing through the air to the right of Gil, who flinched in surprise, raising his shield. A man wearing a wolfskin cloak, many gold necklaces, and an expensive pair of running shoes, now swayed into view. His chest was painted blue with woad. A Tommy gun was in his hand. An arrow was protruding from his neck. He fell to the ground with a sigh.

  Ruff inched forward and sniffed. Gil bent down and pulled out the arrow. He stared at the hypodermic needle in the tip. “What is this?”

  “Tranquilizer,” answered Yumiko. “I am trying not to kill as many people.”

  Gil said, “Well, Cousin, you and I do not think alike. You rob him of his chance to fight me. I cannot slay a sleeping man, nor is it wise to leave him alive behind me.”

  Yumiko pointed with her bowstaff at the ram horn the guard wore on a strap about his shoulder. “I did not want him to give the alarm.”

  “I am not come like a thief in the night.” Gil took up the guard’s ram horn in his hand. Gil had a lance strapped to his steed. He took the lance and sprang lightly into the saddle. “What does our guide say? Is this the place?”

  Matthias looked at a point in midair where nothing was visible, and said, “Yes. But there were more wolves here before, and a magician, and a cavalry of strange knights. He says that the dark door appeared as the Lord of Wolves performed the black mass and feasted on raw human flesh. He calls it the Devil’s Own Door.”

  Yumiko said, “I saw that door inside a magic shop on Park Avenue and Lexington. A hob in a bottle told me its name. The Tithing Ground is beyond it.”

  Ruff barked. Gil said, “Ruff says this is their way out. The wolves are going to use it to go up into the city.”

  Matthias said, “It is a moon-door. In the same way a mermaid pouch makes mor
e space fit into a narrow volume than should, a moon-door remove the space between two points.”

  Gil said, “I used to have one leading to my attic. Why haven’t they used it yet?”

  Yumiko said, “Can a moon-door point at different targets?”

  Gil said, “My attic door would follow us from house to house across country, so, yes, I guess they can open into more than one spot.”

  Yumiko said to Matthias, “Ask the ghost who passed through that door last?”

  Matthias said, “Our guide says that thirteen strange knights came, and one was posted here to guard the door, but that nonetheless thirteen went through the door.”

  Gil said, “Thirteen minus one does not equal thirteen.”

  Matthias said, “In elfish math, it does.”

  Yumiko said, “The thirteenth man was Tom. They disguised him. Tom went through that door. The wolves are waiting here because that door, at this moment, does not open up into the magic shop. The door opens up on to the Tithing Ground! Today and now Tom is being tithed!”

  Gil said, “Then you have to get to the door, Cousin. Hurry! I will lure or drive the Red Knight away from the door. I go right; you left. Go!”

  Now Gil turned to Matthias, and leaned down from his saddle. “If I do not make it back alive, here is a letter to give my mother, and here is one for Nerea.” Ruff barked. “And tell the Green Knight to tell his dog that Ruff died bravely, too. Follow her. She may need your help.”

  Yumiko sprinted off down the dark sands. Matthias made the sign of the cross and ran off after the girl in black.

  Gil saluted them with his lance and rode the other way down across the black sand at the edge of the fiery lake, going counterclockwise, blowing a blast that rang and echoed from the unseen cave roofs above.

  5. The Wolf Pack

  Gil now threw the ram horn away and readied his lance and shield. Rabicane trotted, then galloped, and then charged.

  Not scores but hundreds of the round, humped shadows gathered around the feet of all the stalagmites or resting on the black sand now stirred, and stood, and reared up, eyes blazing. Hundreds more of the lupine shapes, eyes glinting, began to appear between the columns near the cave wall, where folds of rock or tricks of shadows held dens and tunnels driven back into the stone.

  Howls, terrible howls, split the air and smote the ear.

  There were werewolves gathered on the sand before her, but Yumiko twisted the ring, rendering herself unseen. These wolves, one and all, hearing the horn call and seeing the armed and armored knight on his huge steed running along the far shore, dashed into the fiery waters. They were licked by flames, but their werewolf fur was unburnt and unhurt.

  Yumiko was terrified, certain he would be killed. She glanced back, wondering where Matthias was. She saw the Hounds of Saint Anthony, a great and invisible host of shadows, pouring down the stair and across the black sand, following Gilberec. It was like seeing a black cloud of some gas heavier than air rolling out from a spigot and spreading to fill a volume. Some hounds ran on the cave’s black sand, some through the cave’s black air.

  Gilberec encountered the first wolf and impaled him neatly on his spear. The monster did not die, but snapped at the wooden haft with his teeth, yowling and yammering. Gil yanked the bloody spearhead free and plunged it in again, but the monster, undaunted, pressed forward, snapping. Gil with Herculean strength hoisted the spear up, hauling the living animal aloft, overhead, and sent it spinning and screaming from the tip of his lance and into the lake of fire.

  Two and three and a dozen wolves were leaping upon Gil in the next moment, but Rabicane jumped over them and trampled them with mighty hooves while the spear of Gilberec darted left and right, as swift and deadly as the horn of a unicorn in wild wrath.

  Splashing through the red mud, Gilberec reached a spot where the beach was narrow, and only three or four could come at him at a time. But the werewolves were not afraid of fire and were not burned by the boiling lake, and so half a hundred came swimming and wading and splashing through the black and boiling liquid, surrounding him.

  His spear lodged between the jaws of a dreadful wolf and was lost to his grasp. Now he drew his fair white-hilted sword, born in the forges of elfs. The blade, which burst into flame, white hot, was as bright as the flames from thirty torches. The wolves yowled, dazed and maddened by the light.

  Ruff climbed to the top of a stalagmite. He had donned his green hat and green gloves, so now he had hands like a human. Tail wagging, tongue lolling, he lifted up the Tommy gun the watchman had dropped and opened fire. A roaring, shattering staccato of thunder gushed from the gun. The werewolves were annoyed, as if by bee stings, but the bullets were not silver and hurt them not.

  Yumiko ran on. There were no wolves between her and the dark door. But a line of tall and impassive statues stood along the wall to her left, and she saw their bleak eyes moving, following her.

  Ahead, standing before the door itself, was a knight in red, fully armored, and on his horse, his lance above him, pennant dangling. His helm was lighter than what he had worn to joust, but his shield and coat were the same. The heraldry on the shield she knew well: Sable, a dolphin uriant embowed Gules dented Or. This was Sir Garlot. On his back, writhing and blowing in unearthly winds, was his great Cloak of Mists.

  She hid behind a stalagmite, fearing that his cloak gave him the power to see her. But his helm was turned the other way, where the armies of werewolves were chased by and retreating from the Swan Knight. Smoke and fire came from the wounds of many wolves, and dozens had fallen. Scores and hundreds more remained, and more and more poured up out of openings and crevasses in floor and walls.

  The dogs of Anthony the Anchorite descended like a crashing wave. The wolves near Gil now twisted, and shuddered, and screamed in madness. Yumiko could see the shadowy dogs pulling the dark wolf-shaped spirits out of the spines of the possessed men or yanking them out of their throats. A dozen of them and then a score, two score, more, suddenly turned from wolf creatures into naked men wearing wolf pelts or wolf cloaks.

  Their eyes were dazed and bestial, and their mouths were spitting foam and shouting wordless shouts. The dreadful intelligence of the werewolves was gone, the power which allowed them to assume the shape and strength of wolves was gone, and their immunity to wounds and fear was gone.

  The ones Ruff had previously shot now fell down dead, slain by the self same bullet wounds the werewolves had ignored, but, to which mere human flesh was not immune. The hundred or so wading through the burning lake had all their human flesh turn red and black in the surly fires. They screamed and floundered, inhaling flame directly into their lungs. When those near the shore, coated with the boiling and burning fluid, ran out onto the sand, the sticky black fluid clung to them, and flames lashed out at the hair and skin of those they stumbled through.

  Had they been able to coordinate, to rush at Gilberec with their hands, or to pick up stones from the cavern floor and hurl them, their numbers would have surely prevailed.

  But a human being running on all fours, naked, armed only with the puny fingernails and puny teeth of a human being, was no match for a fully armed and armored knight on horseback no matter their numbers. And these were not all young and athletic men either but included many thin and weak and sickly who yearned for the potent bodies of wolf monsters.

  As for the true werewolves, those dread spirits forced to relinquish their human hosts, Yumiko could see the terrible battling in the middle of the air. She heard the snarls of dogs and the howls of wolves.

  Spirit was fighting spirit, and shadow was fighting shadow. She could see the shapes reflected in the smoke above the burning lake or reflected in the leaping shadows dancing across the crags and cracks of the walls and cave roof. It was horrible.

  The great sword of Gilberec rose and fell, and burning men in wolf cloaks ran in circles, their blood catching on fire, fire billowing from their mouths and spurting from their eyesockets. The beach was narrow. Many fell in
to the lake of fire, and, as they did so, flames from the disturbed surface shot into the air. First one, and then many columns of fire rose up, roaring and blisteringly hot from the black surface. The heat began to crack the pillars holding up the cave roof.

  Yumiko frowned up at the cave roof, for little streamers of dust were beginning to sift down through the dark air.

  Now a great chunk of roof came whistling down through the air and struck the lake. An immense gush of fire, yellow mingled with white, rose up from the splash.

  6. The Red Knight’s Squire

  In that light, Yumiko saw Sir Garlot drive his spurs into his steed. At his shoulder was his squire, the one who had wanted to kiss her. They were only twenty or so yards ahead, and the fires from the burning lake and the glory of Gilberec’s bright sword lit the whole scene bright as day, sending black shadows leaping across the rough and broken ground and walls.

  The squire raised his trumpet to his lips and blew. The men in wolf pelts shrieked in reply and drew back from Gilberec, some crowding near the cave wall, others crowding and whimpering near the shore line. This left an empty lane between the two crowds.

  Into that lane now came Sir Garlot, riding atop Tachebrun. Seeing Gilberec had no spear in hand, Garlot cast his spear aside and drew his sword. The two men saluted each other by flourishing their blades.

  Yumiko ran toward the dark door, furious at herself for having paused. But the squire was still in the way. She shot an arrow at him, but the hypodermic head did not penetrate his coat of rings. The youth drew his dirk but could not see his attacker. She whirled a boomerang toward his head, catching him in the throat and meanwhile spun a weighted chain from her kusarigama around his knees. She yanked, he fell, and now she was able to impale his exposed calf with a throwing knife carrying a hypodermic of tranquilizer clamped at its point.