Milo felt a heat that did not touch his skin but his soul radiating from Ambrose, and despite the terror that filled him, he turned and beheld his bodyguard.
Ambrose stood in the tunnel the same as he would anywhere else, his jacket straining around his lumpy form, but he was more. Not just taller and broader, though the tunnel seemed to strain to contain him, he was suffused with an alien light that seemed to smother Milo’s pitiful skull lamp. He was a black sun bleeding enervating red light, a corona of crackling wrath surrounding his hands and head.
Eyes that had become bloody stars turned to regard Milo, and he saw strange twisting symbols form amidst the dancing flames swaddling Ambrose’s hands and face. They were writing, words of living flame.
Milo could read them if he wished.
If he dared.
Across gulfs of infinity, a voice whispered a promise.
Milo’s heart seized in his chest and his hands flew to his face, unwilling and unable to bear what he saw. The skull lamp fell to the matted floor, and its light winked out. Mercifully, the world returned to darkness.
It was some time before Milo found the strength to grope for the skull. To his uncomfortable surprise, he saw as the light returned that both his monstrous instructors and his terrible guardian remained. Ambrose was just Ambrose again and the ghuls were no longer cowering, but it was a long, strained moment before anyone said anything.
“So,” Milo murmured, slowly meeting the eyes of all in attendance, “I believe we had somewhere to be and someone to meet, right? Perhaps we should just get going.”
7
A Threshold
It took a little more cajoling to get the ghuls to comply, and from the onset, Milo could tell it was a ruse. If Ambrose even sniffed, they twitched and cowered.
On they went, down the woolly-floored tunnel, the two ghuls loping in front, just at the edge of the illumination cast by the skull lamp. Milo’s legs had begun to stiffen from the bruising treatment they’d received earlier, but he kept up well enough. An arm’s length behind him strode Ambrose, quiet and brooding.
The passage wound slowly down into the earth until Milo was certain they had to be several stories deep. The thought of so much earth pressing down around them, not to mention the company he was keeping or their destination, had Milo feeling very small and very vulnerable as he walked through the dark. The tender yet venomous glow of the goat skull in his hands seemed a small comfort as they marched on.
After a time, the ghuls began to whisper to each other so softly that Milo couldn’t tell if they were using their blasphemous language or not. He thought about demanding they speak words everyone could understand, but he reminded himself that he was going into someone else’s territory—their home, even.
He decided it was probably wiser to be diplomatic.
“Is it much farther?” he called, squinting at the ghuls’ dark, iridescent forms.
They were inky puppets moving across a black curtain, distinguishable only by their movements.
“We will come upon the first gate within the hour,” the female ghul, the one related to the Bashlek, called back. “Once he learns what walks with us, he will seek to stop us, but I think I can persuade him to let us pass.”
“The court after that will be another matter entirely,” Milo’s ghul warned. “It is already a wonder they were convinced to allow a human, much less a celestial mutt.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t mention anything about my pedigree,” Ambrose called from the rear. “No need to waste our time and yours with arguments with some gatekeeper.”
To Milo’s startled surprise, the two ghuls stopped dead in their tracks, turning as one to look first at Milo and then beyond at Ambrose, who came up behind his ward’s left shoulder. For five long seconds they stared at the big man, then made an awful bubbling sound like blood from a torn throat. Finally, they clacked their fangs together.
It took Milo and Ambrose a moment to realize the awful noise was laughter.
“There is no gatekeeper,” the royal ghul remarked as the mirth subsided. “Only the gate. You must remember that among the shayati, things do not work as they do among mortal men.”
Milo and Ambrose exchanged concerned looks and might have asked more questions, but the ghuls had begun to move again.
“I am not sure if that was meant to be a threat or not,” Ambrose whispered, addressing Milo directly for the first time since the revelation at the foot of the underground stairs. “Whatever is up ahead, you need to stay close to me. I don’t trust these troglodytes.”
At the word “trust,” Milo couldn’t repress a bitter snort.
Trust was growing scarcer.
“What?” Ambrose asked, sensing something off in Milo’s manner. “What’s wrong?”
Milo gave the big man an unimpressed deadpan stare.
“Oh come on, just spit it out already,” Ambrose growled. “Are you a blushing lady I’ve been courting? Just tell me what’s going on in that magical brain of yours.”
Milo ground his teeth together, shuffling the skull to one hand so he could knead between his eyes with a thumb.
“You complaining about trust just strikes me as funny,” Milo said in an overly precise manner, his voice icy. “Especially considering that we’ve been working together for weeks, and you didn’t mention that you aren’t human.”
Ambrose breathed out a long sigh behind Milo and muttered a few exasperated curses.
“Technically, I am human, or at least part of me is,” the big man reminded him, keeping close to Milo’s shoulder. “If your mother was Russian and your father wasn’t but you lived among Russians all your life, wouldn’t you just call yourself Russian? It’s the same with me. Especially if you know nothing about your father except he isn’t Russian.”
“I’m not sure it’s the same,” Milo muttered, but the parallels to his own story robbed some of his indignation. “But keep talking, and maybe I can find my way to seeing things your way. What’s your other half, then?”
Ambrose fell silent, and Milo imagined him chewing his lip beneath his mustache as he’d seen him do before.
“All right,” Ambrose said softly, his voice low and sullen. “I’ll tell you, but you have to remember that I know almost nothing. I’m a byproduct of this world, this darkling reality, not a guide through it.”
“Fine,” Milo said with a nod. “You don’t know much, but you know more than me, and right now, that’s enough.”
“My mother was a shepherdess near Toul in France,” Ambrose said, obviously making an effort to keep his tone level and calm. “My father is Oro’zion’Nrzim, former Keeper of the Tree, He of the Flaming Sword.”
Milo threw Ambrose a sidelong look meant to convey his confusion, but the big man was walking with his eyes fixed on the ground.
“Not to be rude,” Milo said, drawing Ambrose’s attention, ”but so far, the only part I understand is that you are half-French. That is ironic considering our current allegiance, but not particularly revealing.”
Ambrose chuckled, but it was a shallow, mournful sound.
“My father is an angel,” Ambrose said, his voice becoming as hard and flat as ice. “A fallen warrior of Heaven who took my mother on May 22nd, 1813. Same day Wagner was born, if you can believe it. I think Napoleon also won one of his great battles around then too.”
Another chuckle, this one even more hollow, passed the big man’s lips.
“Busy time in the world, I suppose.”
Milo gaped at his bodyguard, his pacing slowing so much the ghuls noticed and hissed for them to keep up.
“So, you are a century-old half-angel,” Milo breathed, the words coming out of his mouth feeling strange, almost wrong. “I suppose if there are things like magic and ghuls that live in the bowels of the earth, why couldn’t there be angels?”
Ambrose nodded, the two now walking side by side.
“The term used in the Bible and other Christian works is ‘Nephilim,’” he offered. “Though
I’m not sure if that referred just to the ones in Genesis. You know, a specific breed of half-angels, or all half-angels. The ghuls have their own name for us, and obviously, they know enough to be scared.”
Milo looked ahead and saw the ghuls throwing sharp glances over their stooped shoulders. Whether it was fear or hatred or both on their faces was impossible to tell in the gloom, but there was no denying they’d heard what had been said, and they weren’t arguing.
“So, there’s a lot of you then?”
Ambrose raised his head and cocked an eyebrow.
“You’d figure one would be enough, wouldn't you?” he said with a grimace that couldn’t quite bring itself to be a smile. “There are obviously some of us from ancient times, but otherwise, no, there are not many of us. In the century of traveling and warring I’ve put in, I’ve heard about half a dozen others like me and only met two face to face. One seemed like the real thing up to the end, and the other could have been, but somehow he seemed so different I wasn’t ever sure.”
It was Milo’s turn to raise an eyebrow.
“In the end, does that mean what I think it means?”
Ambrose looked ahead, pretending to scrutinize the ghuls.
“So, you’re the only one left?”
The big man shrugged and gnawed his lip for a moment.
“I suppose I am until the next time some godling decides a mortal is worth going to Hell for.” He gave Milo a sidelong look. “We’re a rare breed, true enough, but as long as there are pretty women, we’ll never go extinct.”
Milo gave a nervous laugh, but it was half-hearted, and not just because of the implications of angels and Hell and therefore Heaven and a God to rule it began to weigh on him. He knew many of the boys at the orphanage had been dogmatically orthodox by dint of their dead parents, while others had been violently atheist, again by dint of their dead parents. Milo, with no memory of his parents, had never picked a side. The truth was that given what he’d seen, when the chips were down, both types were the same. Like any outcast cynic, he’d taken to quietly mocking, but now, walking in the dark with ghuls and something like Simon Ambrose, his flippancy seemed more than a little cavalier.
They both fell silent as they trudged along, the ghuls’ voices ahead so soft they could barely hear them over their own scuffing footfalls on the turfed tunnel floor.
The weight of Milo’s thoughts along with the oppressive darkness might have engulfed him in melancholic black musings, but a curious spark flared as he brooded. He looked at Ambrose, hope suddenly burgeoning inside him.
“So, you’ve been around for a long time?” he asked tentatively.
“As some would measure it, sure.” The bodyguard grunted with a nod. “But the longer you’re around, the more you come to understand that what little time you’ve been around, it never seems like very long.”
The curious spark flared and ignited a flood of questions that Milo only barely managed to contain.
“You’ve seen quite a bit then?” Milo probed as gently as he could.
“Are you about to ask me if I was there at some big event or met some great historical figure?” The big man snorted as he shook his head. “I promise you the answer will probably be no, and if it isn’t...well, let’s just say you're bound to be disappointed.”
Milo drew up short at that, pondering for a second why that thought hadn’t occurred to him. After all, it was the most natural thing in the world, but his interest wasn’t in anything so mundane.
“I was more thinking about the other things,” Milo said, finding himself at a loss for a word to use that didn’t sound silly. “You know things that are, uh, magical?”
Ambrose gave a little head-bob of understanding and adjusted his rifle on his shoulder.
“You hoping I’m kind of a field guide to the dark and mysterious world behind the curtain?”
Milo studied him carefully.
“Are you telling me you’re not?” he asked, holding his breath with anxious excitement as he waited for the answer.
Ambrose let out a deep sigh that turned into a resigned splutter.
“I’m afraid I’m going to be a disappointment on that score, Magus,” he declared. “Jorge put me on this detail because I’m the most dangerous weapon that doesn’t require wheels, and I don’t spook easy. That’s it.”
Milo couldn’t keep from frowning.
“But you just said you’ve heard about other Neph, er, Nephilim, and even met some?”
“Sorry, that’s it,” Ambrose growled, ready to bristle but thinking better of it when he saw Milo’s downcast expression. “Sure I’ve seen strange things, any man on campaign has, but almost all of them could be chalked up to the madness and strangeness that comes with war. I’ve heard rumors and witnessed what I couldn’t explain, and I’ve met at least two of my kind, but otherwise…”
His voice trailed off, and he shook his head before giving a derisive snort.
“Funny thing is that Jorge had hoped for that too when he brought me on after learning what I was. You and he must be cut from the same cloth because his face looked a lot like that, too.”
Milo attempted to reset his face to neutral, but it was harder than he thought. Suddenly having something to care about was a reality he was still adjusting as well.
“Quiet now,” the she-ghul called from up ahead. “Silence as we approach the gate, and do not speak unless spoken to.”
Ambrose nudged Milo in the arm, and it was all he could do not to lose his grip on the skull lamp.
“See, you’re about to be up to your eyes in this magic business,” the bodyguard whispered. “You’ll be sick of wonders and mysteries soon enough.”
Milo wanted to tell him it was unlikely, but he shoved the thoughts aside as his body began to tingle with a heady combination of fear and excitement. His chest tightened as his steps quickened, and a voice in the back of his mind warned that he was rushing to his doom.
Nerves caused Milo to breathe heavily as his viridian light played across the surface of the gate.
When the gate looked up and regarded him, Milo found he couldn’t take in air.
* * *
It was a wall of bone, or more precisely, it was a wall of bones.
Columns of vertebrae formed curving pillars that reached from floor to ceiling, and between them, a veritable thicket of ribs intertwined into a woven osseous mesh. Situated at seemingly random intervals along the assemblage of spines and ribs jutted skeletal arms, their joints held together by scraps of flesh that glistened black in the lamp’s green-hued light. At the center of the gate was a ring of eight bare skulls without their lower jaws. Milo would have assumed the skulls were all from humans, except on closer inspection, he saw that the teeth lining the remaining mandible were long and curved like fangs. The skulls revealed a cavity in the wall that seemed to be little more than a dark pit where the jagged edges of broken bones could just be seen.
Each skull was mounted on a stump of the spine, and every one of those stumps had their skulls pointed directly at Milo.
He tried to tell himself it was just a trick of the light and the nature of their empty staring sockets, but as he crept closer, he realized the gate was intent on him, just him.
The ghul princess stepped forward and performed a vulturous curtsy before raising her voice in her wicked language.
“Do you know what she's saying?” Milo whispered as quietly as he could to Ambrose.
Ambrose gave a quick shake of his head, adjusting his grip on his rifle sling.
“This is all new to me, Magus,” he murmured back. “Allies or no, I say be on your guard, no matter what happens.”
“Silence,” the other ghul growled.
Ambrose bristled, but Milo leaned forward and watched intently.
After she finished her baleful whispers, which Milo now guessed was some sort of ritual, he couldn’t suppress a shudder when he heard the bones rattle against each other and then slither this way and that.
The
skulls that had been watching Milo turned as one and regarded the ghul in front of them with hollow stares. The troglodyte princess muttered one more declaration, then the skulls began to slide around the cavity until four were lining the top and four the bottom. Above them, skeletal limbs spasmed to life and reached over, gripping each other to form ovoid hoops. The bones inside them whined and hissed as black vapors rose before congealing within the hoops.
There was a titanic rasping breath from within the skull-framed cavity, and Milo felt air drawn across his face toward the awakening gate.
The skulls flexed like scaled horny lips around the yawning mouth of the cavity, while above, the churning pools narrowed to scowl at the ghul before the gate. With a spasm in his mind to make up for the momentarily frozen organ in his chest, Milo realized the entire gate had become the vast simulacrum of a face.
“IMRAH MARID, DAUGHTER OF BASHLEK MARID, YOU ARE KNOWN TO US,” the gate announced in a deep, cavernous voice. “FAZIHR JUBAL, SON OF HAMOTH, YOU ARE ALSO KNOWN TO US.”
The gate then directed its gaze to Milo and Ambrose, turning from one to the other.
“YOU ARE NOT KNOWN TO US,” it declared, cold breath hissing between the fangs of the arrayed skulls. “HOLD FAST, OR YOU SHALL BE CONSUMED.”
Milo and Ambrose exchanged concerned glances, but neither moved.
More skeletal limbs extended from the gate, some emerging from the layers of ribs and vertebrae. They gripped the walls, floor, and ceiling of the tunnel, and with a sound like a thousand splintered fingers raking stone, the gate dragged itself forward. By reflex, both men tensed, and Milo prepared to run, Ambrose unlimbered his rifle. The dark, liquid eyes fixed both of them with a cautionary glance but did not repeat its warning. It didn’t need to.
The ghuls shuffled back to make way for the gate, sliding around Ambrose and Milo.
“If this is some sort of trap,” the bodyguard said in a soft, deadly whisper even as he stood perfectly still, “I will make certain you both are sent to Hell screaming.”
World's First Wizard Complete Series Boxed Set Page 8
