Queen of the Dark Things

by C. Robert Cargill

  Yashar sighed. “The Thousand-faced Djinn,” he said.

  “Yes. The five squabbled from sundown to sunup over who would get to sink her but could find no accord. Until, that is, Duke Dantalion proposed a wager. He bet the other four dukes that he could bring to an end more lives aboard the vessel and connected to the ship than any of the other dukes. The rules were simple. They could use any of the powers at their disposal but could not sink the ship in open water nor kill anyone by their own hands. Once the remaining crew and passengers had reached their destination, outside involvement was strictly forbidden, and they would watch the wager play out to its last. The remaining four dukes were intrigued by this, realizing that together, dueling against one another, they could take the grandest ship yet to sail the seas, and destroy her in the most glorious fashion imaginable.

  “Duke Astaroth, who was already in Amsterdam, seducing many to heresy and sin through the perversion of a local Rosicrucian order, inspired a series of events and secured a position aboard the ship for one of his most corrupted playthings: one Jeronimus Cornelisz. Cornelisz was already a man of little moral character when Astaroth found him, but by the time he was done with him, he was absolutely diabolical. Astaroth knew that such a man, aboard a vessel carrying a kingdom’s worth of riches, would not be able to resist trying to take them for himself. And thus the game began.

  “Dantalion made the next play on the day the ship’s passengers came aboard. He inspired a number of the crew, chief among them the ship’s master merchant and fleet commander Francisco Palsaert, to fall in love with a wealthy young traveler named Lucretia Jans. Such was the power of Palsaert’s affection for the woman that he would try night after night to ply her out of her garments with wine and liquor. But Dantalion saw to it only to strengthen Jans’s love for her husband, whom she was sailing to reunite with—a man she had no idea was already dead of the fever. Travel by ship takes a long time and there is little privacy, and the passions of the men for her overwhelmed them, consumed them, and brought them to squabble amongst themselves.

  “Focalor’s play was much more masterful. Dantalion’s wager was wise. He knew that Focalor could bring down a ship with a single storm, and often did, but wanted to reserve the right to run the ship aground if he needed to. While he expected Focalor to use his powers over the wind and sea to steer the ship toward some deserted island, he was no master of the sea. He didn’t know about the isolated reef and chain of small dead islands off the coast of Australia that Focalor would subtly nudge them toward.

  “And now the stage was set. Cornelisz had begun arranging a mutiny, supported by a number of the men as equally in love with Jans as Palsaert, and it would have been bloody and violent were it not for Focalor’s impeccable timing. When the ship finally ran aground on the reef, the chaos that ensued was assured. The ship’s most essential and highest-ranking crew members manned a lifeboat headed for their original destination, with the aim of sending a rescue party, leaving none other than Cornelisz in charge. Terrified of having his mutinous plans revealed to the survivors, Cornelisz arranged to divide them among the several small islands.

  “Focalor kept the rains away, dwindling the supply of water much faster than anticipated. Some died of thirst, others for stealing rations to stay alive. Berith inspired many to murderous rages, while Astaroth drove even moral men to execute thieves and the mortally ill. Dantalion convinced Cornelisz to draft a loyalty pledge, which he made the few remaining sign. But it would be Bune who would make the most daring and brilliant play.

  “By this point, Bune had not claimed a single soul for his own. His gift was far less direct than most, and so he had long learned to be patient in applying it. Bune’s touch can turn a dying soul he is responsible for condemning into a demon of his choosing. Instead of staying behind for the carnage of the islands, he chose to follow the lifeboat. He knew that Focalor couldn’t resist the chance to drive men to thirst, so he followed the officers, keeping them safe from storm and tide. With his help, they arrived safely at port and sent back the rescue party they had promised.

  “By the time they arrived, full-scale war had broken out among the survivors, and it was left to the rescue party to quell it. And this is where Bune’s genius had become clear to everyone. As he was responsible for the rescue, he was also responsible for the capture and execution of Jeronimus Cornelisz and his fellow mutineers. Their souls were rightfully his. Before they were finally hanged for treason, each had one of his hands cut off at the wrist. Cornelisz in turn lost both. There they were, dangling in the sun, their last breaths escaping their bodies, Bune touching each one, swallowing their last breath for himself, turning them into demons under his thrall.”

  Colby’s eyes went wide. “Kutji. He turned them into kutji.”

  Orobas nodded. “Indeed. Their souls were his now, and he commanded them to seek out everyone who had signed that traitorous pledge of loyalty or who had escaped prosecution for their mutiny, and—here was the stroke of genius—their descendants. They were to take their victims’ hands and then their souls, and turn them into kutji, just like them. In that way, Bune’s play was potentially limitless. Dantalion had stipulated connected to the ship in his wager. And these unborn souls were now connected. Bune promised the kutji that once they had secured the soul of the last remaining descendant and made themselves whole by finding their basket of hands, they would have peace. And thus, that is exactly what they’ve done for the last four hundred years.”

  “Why has it taken so long?” asked Colby.

  “Two mutineers, both of whom had committed terrible crimes, threw themselves upon the mercy of the court and were afforded special circumstances. Their death sentence was commuted and they were instead punished to banishment, given a rowboat, and pointed to Australia. Australia was not yet settled by colonists and the Aboriginals thought them simply to be of a dreaming from across the sea. With two of the ship’s crew still technically at sea, the wager was unfinished, and Bune spoke with a Clever Man belonging to the nearest tribe. He tasked the Clever Man with finding the strangers, taking them in, and protecting them from any spirits that might come for them. This the Clever Man did in exchange for wisdom and an abundance of food in the coming season.

  “When the kutji finally arrived to claim their souls, they found themselves at odds with a Clever Man more clever than they, and the two survivors soon wed and fathered children whose lineage went on now for four hundred years. Once the Clever Man was gone, they were free to claim the souls of the descendants, but by then, they were scattered throughout the land, protected by a dozen other Clever Men. It has taken them four centuries to track down every last descendant of the Batavia’s mutineers. Now, only one remains.”

  “Kaycee,” said Colby.

  “Kaycee Looes, direct descendant of Wouter Looes.”

  “Why didn’t they just kill her?”

  “They can’t find their hands. To this day, they have chopped off the hand of every soul they’ve gathered, sending a kutji after its shadow to find its final resting place. But they’ve never found it. Once they discovered that Kaycee could dreamwalk, they believed it to be divine providence. She would lead them to their hands. So they made a pact with a wise old Clever Man already in league with another powerful spirit. He agreed to help cut the cord that tethered her to her body in exchange for the assurances he would need to keep her body alive and protect his people from their wrath once they found out.”

  “Mandu?”

  “Yes.”

  “But he didn’t cut the cord. I did.”

  Orobas looked long and hard at Colby, waiting for all the new information to sink in.

  “I cut it. I cut the . . .” Then it hit him. “Mandu tricked me into doing it.”

  “He did.”

  “WHY?”

  “No one knows but Mandu.”

  “Well, if this is Bune’s curse, why don’t you just have him remove it?”

  Orobas stamped a hoof on the ground and pointed to
Colby. “Good thinking. But he can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Two reasons. One, a curse is just a bargain struck without benefits. Bune set the rules of the curse, and now he cannot renege on them. He set the rules of the kutjis’ existence, and now it has to play out to its last. And two, Bune is missing.”

  “He’s one of the five miss . . .” Colby trailed off. “The five. Your missing five demons. They’re—”

  “The five dukes of the Batavia.”

  “She’s trying to unmake her curse.”

  “I told you, she can’t. The five dukes, no matter how involved they are in her . . . situation . . . they cannot unmake what they have made. And she knows that.”

  “So this is revenge,” said Colby.

  Orobas nodded, his mane bouncing behind him. “This is revenge.”

  “She’s binding them to pay for their part in having bound her?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not seeing my part in this.”

  “The part where the girl whose cord you cut and left in the desert with a horde of shadows has begun amassing an army of the damned, meting out revenge on those she feels have wronged her?”

  “You just said Mandu—”

  “Does she know that? Does she even care? She’s been out there in that desert for ten years, wandering without a body, unable to go home. Never sleeping, never eating. Consumed only by rage at her own confinement. We’d heard of the terrible things she was doing, the rounding up of the spirits of dreamtime. But we had no idea it would lead to this.”

  “How did she even summon a demon to begin with? I mean, if you know—”

  “Dantalion was the first to go. She didn’t summon Dantalion. She found him.”

  “Found him? How do you find a demon?”

  “Weema’s Rock,” said Yashar. Again Orobas nodded.

  “I don’t understand,” said Colby.

  “Dantalion is a djinn,” said Yashar. “The Thousand-faced Djinn. He can look like anyone. Put thoughts in the heads of men. Can inspire love even between the worst enemies. But he’s still a djinn. And powerful though he is, he still has to sleep. Weema’s Rock. You’ve been there.”

  “The place where we met Mandu? And you . . . oooooh.”

  “It’s in the middle of the desert, far from any songline. No one goes out there. You can sleep for years without ever being disturbed. Only a precious few Clever Men know of its existence—the ones we trust to watch over us while we sleep.”

  “Oh my God. Mandu told her. I remember now. He pointed out to the desert, described it, and told her that one day she would . . .”

  “She would what?” asked Yashar.

  “Find her destiny. She was always going on about some destiny. Wouldn’t stop talking about it. There was something great in her future that she couldn’t wait to get to.”

  “Destiny is a thing crafted by spirits but chosen by men,” said Orobas. “It may have been born in the will of others, but she has chosen the path set before her.”

  “You’re the great oracle. So what’s her destiny?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? You have to know. It’s the one thing you do.”

  “We can no longer see her future. Just as we can no longer see yours. That’s how we know that you’re involved.”

  “You can’t see my destiny?”

  “No. Your future has become . . . uncertain.”

  “Because this involves you?”

  “Because it involves the Seventy-two.”

  “How did she even bind a demon, anyway? She shouldn’t have that power.”

  Yashar shook his head, waving a dismissive hand. “There are dozens of ways to bind spirits, Colby. You know that. Bottles, sacred objects, permanent triangles and pentagrams. Even I know how to trap a demon. I just know better not to try.”

  “But to summon and bind five?” asked Colby. “There’s got to be something more to it. Someone has to be helping her.”

  “It would appear not,” said Orobas. “She is doing this entirely on her own.”

  “On her own with an army of spirits.”

  “Yes. But none that could do this.”

  “Okay, but what I still don’t understand is why you all don’t just get together and form some super-demon assault force of doom and just rain on Australia like it was fucking Judgment Day. Binding one demon is a terrifying enough proposition. But sixty-seven? There’s no way. She’s not that powerful. She can’t be.”

  “We just . . . can’t.”

  “You just . . . ca—” Colby broke off his mockery, the color in his face draining, leaving him a pale, ghostly white. “Oh my God. She found the ring.”

  Orobas didn’t answer, instead looking away, across the bar, his expression strained.

  “Kaycee found the ring, didn’t she?”

  Orobas looked back at Colby, nodding bitterly. “Yes. She has the ring.”

  CHAPTER 42

  SOLOMON THE WANDERER

  AN EXCERPT BY JONATHON WALTERS FROM HIS BOOK ABANDONED RELIGION: STORIES AND EPICS OF THE OLD WORLD

  While there is no empirical evidence of his existence, King Solomon is mostly considered an historical figure rather than a religious one. No artifacts remain from his reign, nor is he mentioned in historical documents of any kind. And yet, he is a pivotal figure in most of the major religions, assumed to be, at least in part, based upon an historical one. That said, the beliefs surrounding him differ from religion to religion. While it is generally accepted that he was gifted with almost supernatural wisdom, many of the stories revolving around him involve his suffering at the hands of his own foolish decisions. Meanwhile, other stories hail him as a demon summoner, only able to overcome their trickery by God’s intervention. In the strangest tale, Solomon is gifted with a powerful ring that both gives him great power and sends him on a most unlikely adventure.

  Just after the death of David, King Solomon found himself ruler of a wealthy and growing kingdom. While David’s rule had been great, his son sought to move quickly out of the shadow of his father. He commissioned the building of the largest temple the world had ever seen, but its construction proved problematic. Surrounding his kingdom were stones of marble that shone bright pink in the sun. But the Torah forbade the use of iron cutting tools, iron being considered the unholy alloy of the Devil. So he tasked, at great expense, every available man in the kingdom to its completion, including his own young concubines.

  One, a young boy, soon fell ill while working on it. When Solomon saw the boy so thin and pale he asked of him, “Do I not give you twice the pay and food of any other man? Why are you so thin and sickly?”

  And the boy answered, with shame in his eyes, “My king, you would not believe me if I told you.”

  “You are my most favored and I trust you with all my heart. Tell me what is wrong with you and I will not be angry.”

  “My king, at night, while asleep, a demon visits me and sucks at my thumb. He steals half my pay, half my food, and each night half my remaining life.”

  Solomon, love him though he did, was not sure whether to believe the boy. So that night he crept into the boy’s chambers and waited in hiding. To his surprise, in the darkest hour of the night, appeared Ornias, a lesser demon, who stole the boy’s rations and wages before suckling his thumb.

  Unsure of what to do about the demon, Solomon fell to his knees in the temple and prayed that God give him the means to protect the boy. It was then that the Archangel Gabriel appeared before him, throwing a ring before Solomon’s feet. Gabriel instructed him to cast the ring at the demon and that the symbol upon it would burn a brand in its flesh. Any demon so branded would have to obey the wearer’s every command and could not in any way harm him.

  So Solomon waited again and in the darkest hour of the night Ornias again appeared. This time, as he set to suck at the thumb of the boy, Solomon cast the ring as he was commanded, and the ring then burned a glowing brand in the demon’s
flesh. Solomon put the ring back on, commanding the demon to stop and kneel before him. And thus the demon did.

  It was then that Solomon realized the solution to his construction problems. “Tell me,” he said to Ornias, “where I might find the rest of your brothers.”

  Ornias shook his head. “I cannot tell you that,” he said. “For I do not know. But I do know where Asmodeus is, and he is the lord of us all. He knows where to find each of us and his word is our law. Find him and find us all.”

  “Summon him,” Solomon commanded, and he did.

  Asmodeus appeared, moving immediately to smite the king, but Solomon cast his ring at him and burned the brand into his chest. Asmodeus howled in pain, but fell to his knees when commanded.

  “Bring to me the demons under your command,” said Solomon, “so that they might build me the greatest temple to God the world has ever seen.” And though he did not want to, Asmodeus began to summon them one by one. Soon Solomon had an army of demons thirty-six strong with which to build his temple.

  The demons built it quickly, raising a temple higher than any man knew how, burnished with gold and sculptures of the angels. When it was done, Solomon marveled at the mastery of its craftsmanship. And so he turned to Asmodeus and asked him, “How is it that these demons follow you so loyally? This temple exalts all which they oppose. How could they build so well a temple to the Lord?”

  “My powers, my king, are weakened by your ring. Perhaps if you took it off I could show you.”

  Solomon consented and took off the ring.

  “Hand it here and I will show you why they obey me.”

  Solomon handed the ring to Asmodeus, trusting that the demon could not harm him. At once the demon grew in size, one wing touching the earth, the other reaching well into the sky. The demon grabbed Solomon and swallowed him whole. The ring burned in his hand, so he cast it away as far as he could throw it, sinking it deep into the sea. Then he belched out Solomon, hurling him four hundred miles, well out past his kingdom and over several others before dumping him alone in the desert.