The Ghoul King

by Guy Haley

  I nodded, wiped the vomit from my mouth, and ran to Quinn. He jogged away, and scooped up that of his gear he could find, his pack, the remaining flashlight, some of his pouches, and one torch. Together we went as quickly as we could out of the cavern, passing through one of the doors that Quinn said would be there. I was so relieved that he was correct, and still did not wonder how he knew. The doorway had its door attached, and we pushed it closed as the ghoul king began to make a grisly keening. We ran through, and Quinn swung the door’s sturdy bar shut, deep into slots in the jambs. The door was half-inch steel, blessed with thick stops of solid concrete all the way around.

  “It won’t hold it, will it?” I said.

  “No,” said Quinn. “But it will slow it down.”

  * * *

  Now we went upward, following short staircases and tunnels that ran up. It was drier there, no water on the ground, and the city less damaged, but it was dark and we were dependent completely on the flashlight. My ears strained the whole time, listening for sounds of the ghoul king breaking down the door, but I heard nothing. An eerie silence blanketed this section of the city.

  After half an hour the flashlight batteries were dying, but Quinn slowed, and pointed the failing beam at a cylinder door made of the same, imperishable metal as the door to the medical center. The devices associated with it were dead, and after prodding at the door panel a few moments, Quinn set his shoulder to the edge and heaved it open. It juddered and crunched as it moved, but move it did. I doubt I could have shifted it. As with the medical center a small chamber was beyond, but here the inner door was gone. I saw daylight again, brighter than in the angels’ chamber. Quinn stepped out to the edge and looked down, then up. He drew back his head.

  “I guess she wasn’t lying. The datacore’s gone.”

  “Did you expect it to be here?”

  “Not really,” he said. He stepped out into the corridor, allowing me the opportunity to slip through and take a look myself. “But I’d have felt mighty foolish if I’d not checked and it proved to be here.”

  I craned my neck. The cylinder chamber hung over a vertiginous void, ten yards across. The lower part of it looked like it was supposed to be that way, smooth walls disappearing into the deeps, holed with the round openings of ducts. The upper part was a confusion of broken pipes, floors, walls, wires, and girders. Something had bored down from above, and plucked out whatever had once been there. The walls, smooth and ruptured, were coated with filth, and a vile smell burned my throat, ammonia and shit.

  Quinn meanwhile had taken off his pack and was rooting through it He produced a coil of rope and held out one end to me. “Tie this off around your waist.”

  “We’re not going to climb.”

  “We are. This is the quickest way up, and it’ll lead us directly to the medical center.”

  “We should just leave,” I said.

  “Don’t you want what you came for?”

  “What about Rachel?” I was confused. I was sure she had hidden her plans from us all, but I felt a flicker of loyalty for her. “Did she betray us? You said she made a choice.”

  “That she did.” He looped the rope crossways over his shoulder and under the opposing armpit. He took the other end and tied it around my chest, securing it beneath my arms. “I’m going first. If you fall, I’ll need to take your weight.”

  “This is madness.”

  “Isn’t it just.”

  “There must be another way.”

  “Well,” said Quinn, replacing his knapsack on his back. “We can head back the way we came, try to hunt out a stair, but last I saw there’s a monster back there and more further on. This way looks ghoul free to me.”

  I looked up at the sky, then at the filth coating the walls. “It is for the time being.”

  “Uh-huh, we best climb quick then.” And he began to climb.

  He went easier than I. Quinn was strong, and swung up onto the broken spar jutting out over the door easily. But he was patient too, and he waited for me as I struggled after him, bracing himself where he could to haul me up. A lesser man would have left me to die. That’s when I started to see. His eyes and manner were cold, but he was a good man.

  Our progress was slow. If we’d had to climb the smooth part of the shaft, we would never had made it. My hands came away tacky and stinking with the ghouls’ filth, and I began to notice the rotted remains of animals wedged into gaps in the wall. This shaft saw a lot of traffic from the ghouls; it was their way in and out of the city. That scared me. All the while, light of the sun shifted across the top of the shaft. Light that had shone halfway toward us began to retreat upward, and an early dusk came to the underworld. I estimated it to be two o’clock or so outside. We’d been underground for five hours. Evening would fall in less than two.

  Quinn never slipped. I nearly fell twice. Eventually, he stopped in the broken throat of a corridor, and hauled me up. Both of us were covered in shit. My arms burned. We’d been climbing maybe forty minutes, and come a couple of hundred feet. Two hundred feet more of sheer, sharp cliff were between us and the surface.

  “We’re here,” he said. “Down this way is the entrance to the medical center.”

  “We don’t have long, we should carry on and climb out,” I said.

  “Be my guest,” he said. “But I’ve unfinished business here, and I’m not going until it’s done.”

  Technophilia

  A PASSAGE CURVED ROUND the shaft to bring us to a shut door. This opened out into a familiar-looking corridor. We went up the short flight of steps that we had climbed a lifetime ago, or so it seemed, and there was the platform lift, and the cylinder door outside the medical center. The outer door was still open, but the inner had shut again. I looked down the lift shaft. The platform was still at the bottom. There was no sign of Thomas, Rachel, or of the ghouls. Quinn leapt over the gap, landing nimbly on the narrow strip of floor on the far side. Then he took out the last three sticks of dynamite and placed them against the inner door.

  “Stand back,” said Quinn. He jumped back over the lift shaft. “Further back,” he said. “Go down the steps and crouch.” He walked all the way to the top of the stairs, kneeled, and aimed his gun.

  He fired and hit the dynamite with the first shot. It exploded at the impact. Quinn rocked at the blast, then dusted himself off. I ran after him.

  The explosives hadn’t been contained, and therefore the damage they had done to the door was slight, but there was a hole in the leading edge and the locking mechanism was broken. He motioned that I should grab the door, and he raised his gun.

  It took all my strength to push the door open. At least the bearings were smooth.

  Quinn walked into the medical center. I followed.

  Inside I was confronted by a pristine collection of technological devices. I had never dreamed in all my wildest suppositions that this was how the world once was. Screens filled the walls, devices of mysterious purposes blinked with lights. Everywhere was the hum of electricity and the sound of subtle machines working quietly. There were a number of couches with more devices on articulated arms hanging over them along one wall. In one of these beds, strapped facedown with his back exposed, was Thomas. Standing over him was Rachel.

  She looked at us oddly, and then the strangest smile spread across her face. Just the lower part. Only her lips moved; she was something that did not know how pretending to smile.

  When she spoke, it was with twinned voices.

  “Quinn, Knight of Atlantis, you have returned,” they said, and one was her voice, and the other was the voice of the device.

  “Yeah,” said Quinn. “I have a habit of not dying, it keeps me healthy,” he said.

  She laughed, a short burst that stopped suddenly. “We made the knights well,” she said. “You are hard to kill.”

  “I guess so,” said Quinn. He kept his gun trained on her.

  “What does she mean?” I said. “Is she an angel?”

  “She’s becoming th
e beginnings of one,” said Quinn. “Isn’t that right?”

  Rachel, the angel, whatever she was, folded her arms.

  “How are you going to survive?” said Quinn. “You’re one broken third of a triad. Your choir is dead. The datacore to this city is gone.”

  “Do your masters in Atlantis know you know so much of the workings of the angels?” said the Rachel thing.

  “I don’t give a damn for my masters,” said Quinn. “I just need to know my enemy.”

  “Do they know you have turned renegade?” she said. “They should have killed you all when your purpose was done. Keeping you alive was a mistake.”

  “A mistake agreed upon and ratified by the five Dreaming Cities of the Eastern League,” said Quinn. “Who are you to say otherwise?”

  “You may be right. Thinking as an individual grants false clarity, the power of communion is superior. I could be wrong.”

  “What is she talking about?” I said.

  Rachel approached me, that hideous smile plastered across her face. She turned a little so that I could see the chromium device parasiting her spine. “The suits outside in the city, they were all empty. All but one,” she said. “I have been here before.”

  I looked at her in surprise.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Because I was told not to, I know now why, of course, but then I was only following the advice of my guardian. Now we are one, I understand completely. I found the blessing out there, in one of those great suits of armor, the war panoply of the angels,” she said. “It was buried in the dirt. Overlooked.” She lowered her voice. “There were bones inside. It was then I began to understand the true nature of the angels. Or thought I did. I was being led to understand. I was allowed to understand. I am blessed.”

  Quinn’s gun followed her around the room. “You were a suitable candidate, that is all. Clever enough, but not too clever, ambitious, easily led.”

  “I need your help, Quinn. I need your help to finish the process.”

  “You tried to kill me.”

  “I had to act in haste. Now I need your help.”

  “What, so you can do the same to Thomas?” he said. “Become a binary searching out the third so you can do what? One angel alone against five cities’ worth?”

  “I want this.” The second voice dropped away, leaving only Rachel’s, her face softened. “I didn’t understand, but now I do. I want to do this. If I do, I can help.”

  “Help who?”

  “People. I can help give them the knowledge they need to prosper.”

  “And Thomas, does he get a choice? What about the poor soul you find to finish the job?”

  “If it concerns you so much, why do you not simply kill me?” The twinned voices returned. “I am weak, the integration process must be done correctly. I have no powers of rejuvenation until it is. Kill me now.”

  I looked at Quinn. His mouth narrowed.

  “You’re lying,” I said. “We saw the monster down below, the ghoul king. He wore the blessing like you do.”

  “Quinn has been educating you, I see. Be careful, that knowledge is among the most dangerous of all. If the angels discover that you know it, they will annihilate every trace of you.”

  “You’re still lying.”

  “I am not. One of my surviving brethren attempted to bond with a ghoul. They are savages, so naturally they could not be induced to work the equipment, so a raw bonding was attempted. It did not work. The ghoul has all the physical powers the blessing grants, but the mentality of the device was destroyed in the process. It is not and can never become an angel. If I were to bond fully without help, the same may happen to me. Rachel would go mad. I do not lie.”

  “Then why shouldn’t I kill you?” said Quinn.

  “Firstly, Quinn, the angels of Columbus were a useful check against the angels of the other cities. You know that, or you would not have chosen the path you did. Our ways were different. Our intention was to bring mankind back from the brink where he teeters now, and have him relearn the sciences of the past. Slowly, and carefully, so that the mistakes of earlier eons were not repeated. A kindness, we thought. A release from pain and disease and war. But the other cities’ choirs did not agree. Pittsburgh, Neork, Toronchigo, Atlantis, and Miami all turned against us, setting angel against angel.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” said Quinn. “You’re all as bad as each other. If I had it in my power, I’d wipe you off the face of the Earth.”

  “And who should rule then? People like the Emperor of Virginia, who promised his subjects freedom but brought only oppression and misery? You? You think yourself a moral man, Quinn, but you’re a killer, and every time you come close to taking up the burden of responsibility your gifts rightfully demand be yours, you run away.”

  Quinn breathed out hard.

  “If I cannot convince you to follow my philosophy, then I can offer other inducements.”

  “Don’t you dangle the location of my horse in front of me, that’s low,” said Quinn.

  “Your attachment to your animal is touching, even though it is as much a creature of the angels as you are. Listen, I will tell you where it is. Toward the ruins of Cincin is a place where the Shawnee come to trade. I shall provide you the exact coordinates. I will do so freely.”

  “Then what are you really offering?”

  The Rachel thing smiled again. “I have limited access to the ether. I know what you are attempting. I can give you the codes you require. Gene masking. Thought wave suppression. Everything you need to get into the Dreaming City of The Forest. I can give it to you. That is where you are going, isn’t it? That is why you came here. You would not have found those things. Not without my help.”

  Quinn’s face didn’t move.

  “Agree, you are about to, I sense it. Save us all some time.”

  “But she tried to kill us!” I said. “And Fillip is dead, and Thomas . . . Rachel, you . . . you’re not you,” I said.

  “I am more than I was. I am better.” She turned her attention back to Quinn. “So, what will it be? Aid me, and I shall enable you to achieve that which you have quested after these last years. Or kill me, and you shall never know peace.”

  Quinn kept his arm straight, gun aimed at Rachel’s head.

  “Shoot,” it said. “If you really want to. This place remains for a reason, Quinn. The other angels hold the power to destroy all elements of technology more sophisticated than a stone axe in this city completely. They did not because they cannot willingly extirpate one of their own cultures, not entirely. We understand, far more than humanity, that balance is required in all things, and that the elements of balance are often small and contradictory in appearance. Only together do they make sense. If I die, the angels of Columbus will return by other means. It is mandated by God. I offer you a chance of peace. There is a difference to be made here, a difference to you. Allow yourself this small indulgence, and do some good in the process.”

  With a great sigh Quinn relaxed the hammer on his gun and lowered his pistol.

  “I’ll do it,” he said. “So help me. But Thomas comes with us.”

  “No,” she said. “That I cannot allow. Before our joining we selected Thomas purposefully to be our binary, though she who was Rachel did not know that was what she was doing.”

  “And the third?” I said.

  “Think, Jaxon. Who do you think it is? Thomas is to be our Wrathful. There is one who must fulfill the role of Conciliator.”

  “Not me,” I said.

  “No.” She smiled.

  Robyn, I thought, she must mean Robyn. That was why she was so protective of her.

  “What do I do?” said Quinn.

  “I shall explain. We need not hurry. The ghouls will not disturb us. They will not enter here.”

  Rachel lay facedown on a couch. Automatically it adjusted itself to accommodate her, the arm coming alive to swing over her exposed back and the device clamped to it. Small puncture wounds wept plasma wh
ere the processes of the spine had punched into her back.

  “First you must actuate the full bonding of the device’s inputs with this body’s nervous system, and then monitor as the filaments achieve complete integration with the brain.”

  That was how it began. Quinn went to a screen, looked at it a moment, and began to touch it. Bright lines of red light shone from tiny arms that unfolded from the arm over the couch. They hit Rachel’s skin, and the room filled with the scent of scorched flesh. Evidently her heightened state of intelligence did not protect her from pain, and she cried out.

  I found a corner to sit in and watched for a while, horrified and fascinated by the esoteric ritual unfolding before me, and the dance of the machines around Rachel as this supplicant to the old gods of technology was transformed into something new. I intended to remain wakeful, but could not. My eyes slid closed and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Out of the Pit

  A GENTLE SHAKE awoke me. I came to with a gasp and surge forward that nearly knocked my head into Quinn’s.

  “We’re done,” he said. “We’re going.”

  From the couch Rachel spoke, and her voice had changed again, becoming one, neither hers nor the voice of the device. “Leave him here. I require his service.”

  “Oh no, you don’t have any business with him. He’s coming with me.” He held out his hand to me. “She can’t do anything, not yet. It’ll take a while for the implantation to take. She’s helpless, for now.”

  I looked at her, she did not move.

  “We should take Thomas.”

  “Too late for that,” he said, and I saw that he too had a silver insect embedded in his spine. I looked at Quinn. His face gave nothing away, but I can only assume he had done it.

  “How long?” I asked.

  “We’ve been here all night,” he said.

  “Should we wait?”

  “We best be gone before she recovers. I said I’d get you out of here, and I will.”