Carnival of the Soul

by Cebelius

  It was pitch-black beyond the light of the lone torch that hung in the torture chamber, but Terry didn't mind. The darkness made it easier for him to concentrate on his tremor sense.

  At first, Terry thought he would sneak toward his goal, but as he passed through the now dark guardroom and up the stairs to the next level of the dungeon, the thought flew out of his head. There were living people down here ... at least, alive in whatever way the Wildervast allowed, and he wasn't going to leave them.

  His tremor sense revealed each heartbeat, and he found that none of the doors were actually locked. They were simply constructed in such a way that there was a latch only on the outside secured in a simple horizontal eyelet. With no window to see in or out, that was enough. Every time he came to a living person, he opened the door and said, "You can run if you want, or wait. I'm going to kill Koschei."

  Some people didn't stir, others did, but Terry moved with purpose down each hallway, finally encountering resistance on the third level.

  He felt a tingling that made him peek a corner before turning it, and with a sharp 'thwap!' a crossbow fired and the bolt chipped stone off the wall.

  Terry rounded the corner as he slid Asturial's sword from his shoulder and made the thirty feet down the hall before the guard could reload. The man was like Volai in some ways. He had a serpentine body, but he was slim and had only one set of arms.

  Terry thrust. The massive blade didn't penetrate the guard's chestplate, but it did crumple it and knock him back. Terry drew the sword back as he reached out with his left hand and flicked his new claws across the exposed throat of his assailant.

  Blood followed his fingers in glistening arcs, and the naga collapsed, gurgling.

  Ten feet beyond the crossbowman was a second guard, this one a minotaur, but instead of facing Terry, he slammed a bell once and ran up the stairs screaming, "Alarm! Intruders from the dungeons! To arms! Secure the doors!"

  Well shit.

  Terry wasn't exactly sure what they would do to 'secure the doors' but he would prefer not to get stuck in the dungeons. Resolving to come back and free the rest of the people from their cells once he accomplished his objective, he ran after the guard and caught up to him just as the minotaur made the top step onto the second level of the dungeons.

  With no hesitation, he shoved Asturial's sword directly up the man's ass, though he winced as he did so. The man's scream of agony was brief and faded away into a death rattle. As Terry shook the twitching body off the blade he couldn't help but mumble, "Sorry dude, shouldn'a run."

  He waited a moment, head tilted to listen, but all he heard were the increasingly ardent cries of those others still imprisoned within the dungeon. There was no further bell, no more shouts of alarm, and that made him curious. He'd passed guards on the first three levels of the dungeon. They should have heard the bell, and they definitely should have heard the dying scream of the second guard.

  But there was no one to greet him on the second level, and after another moment listening he went back to opening doors.

  The guard room on the second level was empty, with a single lantern left to burn unattended on the table.

  Terry's imagination began to supply him with all sorts of reasons why there was no one else down here, and none of them were good. He heard a noise behind him, and turned to see one of the people he'd freed shuffling toward him.

  She was waifish and as she stepped into the dim light of the lantern, he could tell that she was unlike any person he'd so far encountered. She had a woman's body, but her head was entirely that of a horse. She had a sable coat with a blaze of white between her eyes, and otherwise wore only dirty rags.

  "Can you take over opening the doors?" he asked her.

  Ignoring his question, she asked, her voice rusty from disuse, "Who are you?"

  "Terry Mack. The doors. Can you open them for me?"

  She tilted her head curiously. "Why?"

  Closing his eyes and begging God for patience, he said, "Because I need to get to Koschei before he realizes I've been down here. Will you please free everyone else here for me?"

  She seemed to ponder her answer for a moment before nodding slowly. It seemed to Terry that she was dazed, as though she'd been imprisoned for so long that her mind was having a hard time keeping up with the change in circumstances.

  "Since you asked so nicely," she said at last, and moved to take up the lantern from the table.

  He didn't wait. He took the stairs up to the first level three at a time and raced down the corridors to the last guard room, hoping against hope. But the door at the top of that stairwell was open, just as the room below was abandoned. No one had responded to the alarm.

  Okay, what the hell?

  Terry questioned his good luck, but he didn't wait for answers, moving down the halls as quickly as he could while still concentrating primarily on his tremor sense to warn him of hidden traps or people. There simply weren't any.

  Now that he wasn't a freaking mouse, the castle seemed a lot smaller. He made the main entry hall a few minutes later and it was likewise empty of life, but what Terry did see there made him smile.

  Near the open door were several bodies with long, black-fletched arrows protruding from them. Looking past them into the bailey of the keep revealed more of the same. Standing in the middle of the room, her silver bow in hand and an arrow nocked, was Euryale.

  She didn't turn her head from the door to what Terry presumed to be the throne room, but her snakes flickered their tongues at him as she said, "Hello Master. I was told to tell you these words: 'He doesn't yet know.'"

  Terry thought about that, then nodded. He lifted Asturial's sword and couched the cross-guard against the back of his shoulder as he walked toward the two-story double doors at the far end of the entry hall.

  "People may come down that hall in a bit. Don't let them in, but don't kill them either if you can help it. Just send them away. You wait here for me," he said quietly. "I'll be back soon. I love you."

  He expected her to protest, but all she did was nod slowly and say, "I love you too, Master. I wish I could do more, but I can't risk it. Good luck."

  The curse kept my bonds from following me here. Now the curse is lifted, and Baba Yaga said she'd take Asturial back. Thinking about it, I'd be stupid to think no one would come to help. Baba Yaga wants this guy dead.

  Terry reached out with his free left hand, and pushed one of the doors open enough to slip through, then deliberately closed it behind him.

  Unlike Volai's grand hall, this throne room was set with two long tables and fireplaces centered in the walls behind each, though neither was lit. On a dais at the far end of the hall was a third table, higher up and set perpendicular to the other two. All along the walls rusty iron brackets held lit torches, casting the room in dully flickering light.

  There were banners hung from the rafters, but they were dingy and so ancient that what remained of their imagery was completely unrecognizable. The tables were splintered and worn. The room stank of stale beer and sweat.

  A quick glance around confirmed only two other people, and Terry stalked down the space between the tables and stopped in the middle of the room to look up at the ancient human man seated at the high table's place of honor, with Vlad the Dreamer flanking him on the left.

  He was ancient-looking, his white hair wispy and wild around a craggy face with deep set eyes and a slash of a mouth under a beak-like nose.

  He stood up, and Terry saw he was long-limbed and wore a black tunic trimmed in gold, across which hung a bandolier full of vials. A club hung from his belt, and as Koschei walked around the end of the table and began to descend the steps, Terry noticed that there was a band of metal spikes around the end of that club. A dagger hung from the other side of the belt, but the man made no effort to draw either. Terry waited, and the man stopped on the bottom stair. Vlad followed him like a shadow, taking up a place behind and to the left of Koschei, his blue eyes impassive as he watched.

&
nbsp; They regarded each other for a long moment in silence.

  Finally, Koschei spoke. His voice was cracked and old, and had a vague slavic accent.

  "You know that I cannot be killed. All that you have done here is annoy and cost me servants."

  Lifting the sword and holding it aloft, Terry said, "You won't mind giving me a free shot then? I'll bet I can kill you given a chance."

  "A free shot? You speak nonsense. A sword does not shoot. Perhaps you are mad, and that is why you assail my castle. I should not be surprised. Human men who retain their lives by chance or artifice on Celestine invariably lose something else. In your case, sanity. Die then. Vapor should suffice for one such as you."

  Koschei pulled several vials from his bandolier, but before he could throw them Terry remembered what the sultry oracle had told him, and shouted, "A cut for a cut!"

  The ancient warlock hesitated, his head tilting in renewed curiosity. His heavily gnarled features shifted, and it took Terry an embarrassingly long moment to recognize the expression as the vestiges of a smile. The creases in his face ran so deep that they all but hid the corners of his mouth.

  "You ... wish to play the beheading game, with me?"

  The BEHEADING game?!

  Struggling to keep his composure, Terry stalled for time, asking, "I assume you know the rules?"

  "Of course. I have played it many times. Your insanity is confirmed, but I am amused." He slid the vials between his fingertips back into their places on his bandolier, then pulled it up and over his head, handing it back to Vlad as he asked, "I presume you want the first of the two cuts?"

  "Yes."

  "Hm. Very well, I agree, but given you know the nature of the game, I will have my servant confirm your mortality before we begin."

  "Will you submit to my spell?" Vlad asked, his body language and tone studiously neutral.

  "I will," Terry said.

  Vlad approached Terry and held out his staff. The spider stayed in its web, but its eyes gleamed dully in the light from the torches that flickered uneasily in their sconces.

  He spoke words of power that reminded Terry of Russian, and his eyes glowed briefly before he turned and said, "He has many bond gifts and other power that improve his grip upon life, but none to save him from the loss of his head. He carries no artifice that might save his life."

  He tilted his head to glance back at Terry as he added simply, "This template is mortal."

  "Once you are finished, I will use your sword for my own cut," Koschei said calmly, indicating his spiked mace with an idle gesture as he added, "My own weapon is not suited to the game."

  "That's fair," Terry said, still a bit worried about how this would work. He'd been told that he would have Koschei's soul, and having it, could kill the man. But he didn't feel like he had anything special, and Koschei certainly didn't seem to sense it. What if something went wrong? What if there was something special he needed to do?

  I just have to trust that this was a good idea. Kalty's phrase was clearly meant to be used here. It wouldn't have meant anything to anyone else.

  It wasn't really all that reassuring, but at this point he knew he was committed, so Terry shook off his doubts and readied himself as Koschei stripped off his tattered shirt. His body was lean but wiry, old but obviously strong. There wasn't a spare ounce of fat on the man, and his muscles twisted like steel cables under his wasted skin as he lifted a hand and spoke sonorous words of power.

  Light gathered under his outstretched palm, then fell like gentle rain, revealing a large, weather-beaten stone. The rock looked like nothing so much as a narrow altar, pitted and blood-stained. It stood between them, and there were rounded divots taken out of the stone, centered on each long edge, one on Terry's side, the other on Koschei's.

  The old warlock put his hands behind his back and leaned forward until his shoulders were pressed to the stone and his head hung in the divot on Terry's side as he said simply, "I look forward to a clean stroke. You will insult me if, in your incompetence, you miss."

  "I wouldn't dream of it," Terry muttered as he stepped to the side and lifted the sword, taking a firm grasp with both hands.

  As he lowered the sword to Koschei's neck, then lifted and lowered it again to judge the arc of his swing, the surreal nature of what he was doing threatened his calm. He knew that if this didn't work, he was honor-bound to put his head on the block.

  He also knew that what he was about to do was murder if his blow did kill. Koschei hadn't exactly gone through any kind of due process. He didn't have Prada's bloodlust and self-assurance to blame this time. Terry was taking the authority to kill another man — in cold blood — entirely on himself.

  Koschei was evil. Of that he had been convinced. But that didn't mean Terry wanted to kill him. This wasn't like what had happened with Theseus. He wasn't charging in swinging in a fair fight, full of righteous fury. He was going to kill a man by playing a trick on him, a trick set up by a woman who — if not also evil — had at least done her fair share of dark deeds.

  All this passed through his mind as he took another practice swing, trying to steel himself for what he had to do. Yet as he lifted the sword one final time, he knew that he was about to confirm something that he had suspected about himself since Florence. Something he had been desperately trying to deny ever since.

  Murderer.

  The word whispered through his mind, but it wasn't the memory of someone else's voice. It wasn't a recollection of any one of his countless nightmares.

  The voice was his.

  An odd calm swept through him then, and he knew that if Koschei survived this cut he would have no problem putting his own head on the block.

  His death was already long overdue.

  "Any last words?" he asked.

  "Strike true," Koschei said.

  Terry put very little force behind the swing, not wanting to throw it off. He knew the sword's own weight would carry it through; all he had to do was guide the blade.

  Koschei's body jerked, then slumped backward off the altar as the head fell, bounced once, then rolled onto its side.

  The blade slammed into the stone flooring with a tremendous clang, but Terry was looking at the head.

  Koschei blinked at him. The head's eyes widened a bit, then lost focus, but remained open to stare unseeing at his killer.

  Dropping the sword, Terry felt weakness surge through his body, and he staggered to lean on one of the long tables, turning away from the staring, empty eyes of Koschei the Deathless.

  The voice in his head now was Koschei's, and it only said one word. He knew now why he had picked up his fingernails. Koschei's soul had told him to. The dead warlock's presence in his mind was now starkly outlined, a place of dark awareness, knowledge, and power.

  Terry squeezed his eyes shut.

  "Rather anti-climactic, yes?"

  Vlad was amused. It was obvious in his tone. "You seem shaken. Did you truly expect Baba Yaga's plan to fail?"

  "No."

  Terry's chest hurt. He felt an ache in every limb, and he shook his head. "So do you serve her now, or me?"

  He looked at the tiger shaman, who considered him for a moment, then said simply, "You."

  "I release you to go to whatever final destination you deserve."

  "You trust that I will know what I truly deserve?" Vlad asked, still sounding richly amused.

  "I release you only to your just end," Terry said, and their eyes locked.

  The shaman's smile vanished. He nodded solemnly and said, "I see. Very well. We will not see each other again, Terrence Mack."

  "I sincerely fuckin' hope not."

  Vlad hesitated a moment, then took his staff in both hands and broke it over his knee.

  Instead of the sharp crack of wood, the break unleashed an unearthly scream. Vlad the Dreamer dissolved into a crimson vapor, clothes and all, then dissipated, leaving Terry alone with a headless corpse and the voice of an evil man reverberating in his mind.

 
; Murderer.

  29

  Night Rider

  Opening the door and stepping out of the throne room earned Terry a hug and kiss from a very affectionate gorgon.

  She curled into his one-armed embrace, his other being occupied with Asturial's sword. She plucked at the bandolier of vials he'd hung from one shoulder and asked, "Spoils?"

  "Yeah, something like that. They belong to me anyway."

  He looked past her at the modest crowd of people, all in rags, all female, gathered in the far corner of the hall.

  "What's with them?" he asked. "They didn't want to leave?"

  "No," Euryale said, not bothering to turn her face from him. "Well, yes, they want to leave but no, they didn't. I think most of them stayed to find out what would happen with Koschei."

  Looking up at them, Terry glanced back at the throne room and said, "Would you do me a favor and go get his head? Show it to them. That should answer their questions."

  "Sure!"

  Euryale slipped past him and was back a few moments later, holding up Koschei's head by the blood-spattered hair.

  One by one, the former prisoners turned and walked out of the hall. A few of them spit or flung curses, but most of them were dead-eyed and simply turned away once they had what they wanted.

  Terry watched them go in silence. Given his encounter with Renardine, he knew what most of these women had been once. He knew what had happened to them here.

  "You don't want to keep any of them?" Euryale asked. "Some of them look like they would be pretty if you cleaned them up."

  "I'm pretty sure that's the very last thing any of those girls wants right now," Terry said softly. "Better to open the cage door, and let them find their own way. Besides, most of these women — if not all of them — are already dead. We can't take them back to Celestine."

  "Already dead?"

  "Apparently, the carnival outside is where they find out what their next lives will be like."

  "Oh neat! Did you learn anything about your next life?"

  Terry smiled wryly, thinking about Peter and Shu. He thought about the fact that a saint had offered to take him through the gates of Heaven. An offer he had felt compelled to refuse.