The Darker Lord

by Jack Heckel

  I smiled back, but could tell that my effort wasn’t good and decided to ditch it and any other niceties. I cut straight to the point. “We need to find a couple of our friends that stopped in here earlier. There was a Hylar looking all glimmery, and a dark-haired woman with one black and one white eye. Have you seen them?”

  The skull “smiled” (if you can call it that) a little wider. “Nice to meet you too. Yes, I do enjoy my work here at the help desk. How was my day? Good. How was your day? Fine? Excellent.”

  “I’m sorry, Gray,” I said. “We’re in a hurry and—”

  “Why should you be sorry, sir?” the skull asked. “There is no reason for you to want to exchange small talk with me. You are in a hurry and need help, and I am manning the help desk.” He deliberately turned to look at the sign above the desk that said help. “I love manning the help desk here at Student Records and answering questions that have nothing to do with records or students. I am a very helpful person by nature.”

  Something in me that I am not proud of made me say, “Technically, you’re not a person at all, but the spirit of a person reanimated from the afterlife and tethered within a magical construct etched into your former body’s skull.” Susan elbowed me in the ribs, but she was too late.

  Gray gazed at me, the balefire lights in his eye sockets twinkling. “What a wonderfully accurate observation, sir. Thank you for correcting my misstatement, and reminding me of the accursed nature of my existence.”

  Susan pushed me to one side. “I’m sorry, Mr. Gray, he is very distressed and we are in a hurry. It is important that we find his friends as soon as possible.”

  “I was in a hurry when I stepped off that curb,” the skull said by way of reply. “Now, as your friend so kindly reminded me, I’m dead.”

  Susan took a deep breath. “I’m sorry to hear that. Perhaps if we told you what records his friends were looking for you could point us in the right direction?”

  “Point you in the right direction? Certainly! Capital idea!” boomed the skull. The “smile” dropped from his face. “By the gods! Will you look at that! My fingers are missing! As are my hands and arms and shoulders and the rest of my body! Someone help! I’ve been stolen!”

  I’d had enough. “Come on. We’ll make our best guess and go from there.”

  “But that would take forever, Professor Stewart,” Susan argued.

  The skull’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously? You’re Avery Stewart? I’m a big fan of your book.” He cocked to one side and studied me. “Hmm. I thought you’d be taller and less of a jerk.”

  “You read The Dark Lord?”

  He rolled the glowing points of light around his eye sockets. “Are you kidding? All the undead in the Necromancy Department have read The Dark Lord. The plight of the semi-lich was inspiring.”

  “Really?”

  It shook its head sadly. “I could tell you horror stories about the conditions we demi-liches are forced to live in. One word: asbestos.”

  “Appalling.”

  I would have happily continued conversing with Gray, but Susan brought my attention back to the task at hand. “That is awful, Mr. Gray, but we need to find Professor Stewart’s friends. Could you—”

  “Downstairs: Annex QQ, vault 7734,” the skull said before she could finish her question.

  All four of us stared at him. I hadn’t seen him use a divination spell or consult his logbook. “How can you be sure?” Susan asked.

  “First, Hylar never come to Student Records, and, on the rare occasion they do, all the banshees lurk about in the corners moaning over them. Second, we had a special memo from the Administration about your friends—hand delivered, no less. I can’t tell you how unusual that is these days. The bosses have figured out that animating a skull costs far less mystical power than a whole skeleton, so wherever possible, they are cutting staff . . . down to the bone.” He laughed at his own joke. “Get it? To the bone? Because we’re all dead?”

  Gray started to natter on about how he was trying to break into stand-up comedy, but I wasn’t listening. That creeping feeling of doom had returned. The one that made my stomach want to try and crawl its way out of my throat. I swallowed. “What did it say?”

  “My flyer?”

  I realized that Trevor and Tanner were both holding little multicolored cards with a picture of Gray floating in front of a microphone under the tagline Bone-rattling laughs. “No, the memo. The hand-delivered one.”

  “Only to send them and anyone who came in here looking for them straight to 7734. You should be more than a trifle concerned.”

  When I didn’t respond, he sighed and stared at a small scrap of paper on the desk. His eyes flashed green and the smell of smoke filled the air. He glanced from me back down to the paper. I followed his gaze and my blood froze. I grabbed the slip and stared at it. “I see.”

  “Sorry,” Gray said.

  “Yeah.” My voice sounded hollow. “Thanks.”

  I began walking to the elevator. Susan and the T’s followed. Behind us, Gray shouted, “If you survive make sure to come to my show. It’s this Thursday from seven to nine. There’s a two-drink minimum. Oh, and remember, a happy campus makes for better magic!”

  When we reached the elevators, I punched the down button. Trevor asked, “What’s the matter? At least we know where they are.”

  I looked at him. It was like looking in a mirror from six or seven years ago. He was so earnest and keen. “Do you remember our agreement? Well, it is time to implement Rule Three.”

  Trevor and Tanner looked at Susan. “Not to call you Professor Stewart?”

  I went through the rules in my head and realized they were right. “No, I mean Rule One. It’s time for the three of you to run.”

  They all protested at once. “No way!” “Why now?” “We aren’t going to abandon you, Avery.”

  “This is something I have to do alone. Your paths must . . . Listen, just take Harold—” I pointed at the imp, who had fallen asleep atop the statue “—and get as far away from this place as possible. I’ll contact you as soon as I can. If I’m not back in a couple of days, go to Professor Stonehammer in the basement of the Subworld Studies building. Tell him where I’ve gone.”

  I pulled out a pen and scribbled the dwarf’s cubicle number on the back of the paper I’d taken from the help desk. The elevator arrived and I stepped inside. I pushed the button for floor 7734. I watched their downcast faces disappear behind the closing doors. I told myself it was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. The skull had burned the number 7734 into the paper so it was facing me upside down. In that arrangement, the number spelled out exactly where I was going, and I was going to hELL.

  Chapter 16

  In Triplicate

  Traveling in a metal box to hell can make one pause and take stock of one’s life. How did I get here? Could I have made better choices? Should I have paid more attention in Demoniac Mysticism? Why had I never questioned Financial Aid when they asked me to identify my relatives, along with the locations of their burial plots, when applying for a loan?

  I was still lost in this last thought when the elevator doors opened. Two strange beings entered the elevator. One looked like a green catfish that grew legs and arms and decided to stand up and walk around. I thought he was an Aot-ouk, but I’d never met one so I couldn’t be sure. They were from a subworld that the Mysterium had rendered off-limits. The second one appeared to be Cthulhoid from its squidlike tentacle head, but his coloration was a bit less green and his tentacles were thinner than I expected. I wondered if he were sick. The Aot-ouk carried a toolbox and a clipboard, while the sickly Cthulhoid pushed a wheeled bucket with a mop.

  We were on floor D1, which meant we still had miles to go before we got to my floor. I stepped over to the side. They both nodded politely, although the Cthulhoid’s tentacles twitched toward me. The Aot-ouk pushed the button for floor D2, while the Cthulhoid-ish creature pushed D3. I tried not to stare.

  “So, you
have to go down to the vault?” The Aot-ouk spoke with a gargling voice.

  “Yeah, the whole place got slimed.” Squid-head sighed, wriggling his tentacled face in disgruntled resignation. I don’t know that I can explain what it looked like.

  “Bummer,” the Aot-ouk commiserated. “Slime is hell to get out of carpets.”

  “I hope it’s really slime and not some kind of pudding or jelly. Why are you getting called down to the shrine?”

  “The barge across the river is leaking again.” He shook his head. “I’ve told them a thousand times, you can’t keep patching the thing indefinitely. The whole hull needs to be stripped and resealed. But do they listen?”

  The light for D2 lit up accompanied by a soft chime. The doors slid open and the Aot-ouk stepped out. “See you later, Bill. Good luck with the slime.”

  “Sure thing, Frank. You too.”

  The doors started to close, but then Frank, the Aot-ouk, stopped the door and stuck his head back in. “Bill, you should come up when you’re done. There’s going to be a little party for the sphinx later on. Everyone’s going to be there: the bugbears from Systems, the troglodytes and trolls from Logistics . . .”

  “I’ll think about it,” Bill said noncommittally.

  “There’s going to be cake,” Frank said in a singsong voice, pulling his head back as the doors slid shut.

  The elevator started moving again. Bill and I stared at each other for a second. He spoke. “They always promise cake. The cake is a lie.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so we shared an awkward elevator silence. His tentacles twitched in my direction a few more times until he glanced at the panel of buttons. “Gods, buddy. You sure you pushed the right button?”

  I nodded.

  He leaned on his mop while a tentacle scratched at his head. “My advice would be quit now. Screw it. No paycheck is worth going down to 7734. I knew a guy that went down there because his landlord wanted proof of employment and next thing you know . . .”

  His voice trailed off as another soft chime issued from somewhere near the ceiling and the elevator slowed to a stop. Above the door, the lighted sign read D3. A group of Dark Hylar (who, despite their name, strangely are very pale) were waiting to get on. Bill began to maneuver his bucket past them.

  “What happened to the guy? Did he ever come back?”

  Bill turned and leered at me evilly, his face tentacles twitching. “He came back, all right . . . ten years later, and missing a couple of limbs. I think it was an arm and a leg.”

  Just before the doors shut fully, he put his hand between them and addressed the elves. “By the way, he’s going down 7734 . . . voluntarily. So, I wouldn’t mess with him. Put me straight off eating his brain.” He took his hand away, and the doors closed.

  The elves fixed me with a collective look of terror and crammed themselves into a corner of the elevator. They stayed like that until the lighted sign read Q1. As soon as the doors opened, the three hurried out.

  The elevator continued its descent into the depths. I was alone with my thoughts. They were not encouraging. I thought about Dawn and Eldrin a lot. If anything happened to them I would never forgive myself. I also spent some time thinking about myself. How had I let everything go sideways? The day had started simply enough . . . if this even were the same day. I had lost track of time since returning. And what about my destination? I had heard rumors about this building, but shrines and sphinxes? Were there more Bills and Franks lurking behind other employees only signs on campus? Who were they? How had they gotten here? I had never really thought about how the university used subworlders and the undead for cheap labor. Now that I did, it made me feel even less certain that I was on the “right” side of things. It was when the lighted sign over the door hit triple digits that I began to think about my destination. How was I going to survive a trip to what the Mysterium considered hell?

  On this last point, I resolved that if this was a suicide mission, then I was going to go out in a blaze of glory. I concentrated and tried to seize a primary line of magic, but found nothing accessible. The elevator was clearly shielded. On a whim, I pulled out Griswald’s key again and focused my intention through it. The metal spun and twisted, manifesting teeth left and right, until it looked like a miniature aerial. Mystical energy flowed through the key into my body. Another impossibility. A shiver ran through me as I realized how little I knew about this thing, or the scope of its powers.

  “What are you?” I asked.

  Thankfully, the key gave no answer. And because there was no way to resolve the fundamental question of what the key was or why Griswald had entrusted it to me, I instead prepared myself for hell. I spun patterns of power with a feverish abandon: fire, cold, lightning, and necromantic effects whirled and twisted until the very air roiled and crackled. If there was something waiting for me on level 7734, it would regret it.

  The soft chime sounded.

  The elevator slowed.

  The doors started to open.

  I tensed, my nerves hanging on a knife-edge.

  The crack between the elevator doors widened, and I could see a large, brightly lit room. Then I saw the demon. He was squatting behind a low wall directly across from the elevator. A ragged cloak of abyssal gray covered his skeletal frame. Six arms, each ending in long, lethally clawed hands, extended from his sides. Tattered parchment wings jutted from its back to brush against the ceiling. His head reminded me of a gorilla’s, except with the jaws and snout of a crocodile. He looked up from a large tome he had been examining. I gave him no chance to act, but thrust the key at him like a spear, unleashing all my power.

  A maelstrom of energy cut across the distance between us, shredding reality as it went. The demon had no time to react, no time to dodge, no time to counter. Nor did he try. Nor, apparently, did he need to try, because with every inch of every foot my spell traveled its effect seemed to halve. An indistinct miasma of smoke was all that struck the demon.

  He waved it away with a mild grimace of disgust and pointed a clawed hand at a small plaque posted on the low wall: respect the health of those around you. please, no smoking. A cartoon picture of a man coughing, his head enveloped in a cloud of smoke, accompanied the words.

  The demon snapped his jaws. “May I help you?”

  He seemed annoyed, which was understandable. I mean, no one likes secondhand smoke. I composed myself, concealed the key beneath my robes, and stepped off the elevator. The doors slid shut behind me. “Um, is this level 7734?”

  “Oh no. It’s you again. Yes, Professor Stewart, this is Level 7734 of the Student Records Office, Confidential Files Desk. How may I help you?”

  I looked about uncertainly, but I didn’t remember anything. The room was enormous, and had been subdivided into row upon row of head-high cubicles. Dozens of people, maybe more that I could not see, of every persuasion, race, species, and reality were scattered about in the cubicles. No one seemed to have noticed my entrance, and the place was hush with the sound of scratching quills and the soft rustle of pages being turned.

  The normalcy was a bit disorienting. I had been expecting utter horror. I hadn’t been expecting run-of-the-mill bureaucratic passive aggression.

  I tried to recall why I would have come here in the past, but there was nothing other than a strange sense of frustration. I slowly stepped forward. “Why was I here last time?”

  “You were looking for information on a student named Vivian, who had dropped out. You refused to fill out the forms, and made quite a scene. Before you ask, we still don’t have any information on her, unless you are willing to fill out the forms.”

  “Sorry about that. All I’m trying to do today is find a couple of my friends that came by earlier: a student named Dawn Stardust and Professor Eldrin Leightner. Did they sign in? One is a Hylar . . .”

  The demon smiled his crocodile smile—very disturbing—and slid a single sheet of paper across the counter toward me. “Why don’t you go over to cubicle Z-23 and fill in
their names and descriptions on this information request form, and I’ll see if one of our interns can find them for you. With a good description, it shouldn’t take us long. But if you don’t fill out the form, I can’t help you, and I’d rather not have a repeat of our last encounter.”

  I actually would have been quite happy to relive my past if it meant I would also remember it, but I didn’t say that. I had one mission: Eldrin and Dawn. I examined the form suspiciously. It only had a few lines to fill in: a couple to identify me, and a couple to identify who I was looking for. “Is this it?”

  “Would you prefer if it were more complicated?”

  “I suppose not.”

  The demon smiled again. Every time he smiled, I got the uncomfortable feeling he was deciding how best to remove the flesh from my bones. “You will find cubicle Z-23 over there.”

  He pointed to a line of cubicles running down the right side of the room. Each one had a little plastic laminated sign attached to a thin metal rod, and each sign had a unique alphanumeric code. I followed the numbers and letters to the assigned spot. Maybe the best explanation for Eldrin and Dawn’s delay was that we weren’t dealing in a human timescale, but in bureaucracy time. I also took some solace in the fact that I had obviously been here before and survived.

  Z-23 was identical to every other cubicle in the place: a simple three-sided box with walls slightly lower than eye-level. The only furniture was a small stand-up desk, and the only other object in the space was a refillable quill pen fastened at the end of a thin chain bolted to the tabletop. I glanced about to make sure no one was lurking. There was a fellow to my right, but he was so old it looked like he might be filling in his own death certificate. I stepped up to the desk, grabbed the pen, and studied the form. There didn’t seem to be any danger, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I tried to summon a pattern of seeing, but the power kept slipping away from me, evaporating as quickly as I could draw it. In the end there was nothing to it but to fill in the boxes on the form. When I got to the end of the page I noticed a small arrow; underneath was written: Please complete both sides.