by John Shirley
Anyway some of it was shagging. Some of it was simply licking or whipping. And other things.
Head feeling like his brain was bouncing in his skull with every step, he stumbled down the hallway, passing door after door. He came to a place where the hallway cornered to the right. Down there, another long gallery of rooms. How was he to find his way out of here?
He tried to remember how he’d come here, but it was all a green blur. Had he shagged the plump woman? He thought he had, and rather thoroughly too, if he hadn’t hallucinated all that.
It was difficult to say for sure, because he was indeed seeing things. There were dark places above the doorways where the shadows had a tendency to thicken and squirm, becoming shapes that one moment were great spiders and the next were six-legged dominatrices; he seemed to see a black anaconda snaking along up there near the ceiling, but when he blinked it turned into the tube train he took to get back to his flat in London from the card room. He thought he saw himself looking back from the train window.
He hurried on, passed another open room, glancing at the people inside, then came to a dead stop, and backed up to stare at two people who looked as if they’d just had a shag on their clothes, strewn like a nest on the floor. They were people he knew. Gary Lester, and Constantine’s old friend Judith, the Tantrist from the Newcastle crew. Who’d burned to death.
That is, he had known them: they were both dead, long ago.
Now Constantine stared, trying to decide if they were ghosts or not. They looked just as if they were really there, but he was sure it must be more hallucination. Pretty sure, anyway.
“Well!” Gary crowed. “It’s our old pal little Johnny Constantine.”
Constantine knew he should walk on, but he couldn’t quite look away. “Gary, how, uh . . .”
“Not going to ask how we are, then, me and Judith?” Gary snorted. He fumbled about in his clothes. “Got some H in here somewhere, Judith.”
“That’d be lovely . . .”
“You want some, John?”
“Um, no thanks, mate, thanks ever so. Good to see you. Glad you’re not . . . in a worse place.”
“You mean Hell? Who says I’m not, mate? Who says you’re not, you silly bastard, eh?”
“What about me, John?” Judith asked. “If you don’t want drugs—do you want me? There was a time you weren’t so proud.”
She opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue; there was an eye on the tip of it that stared at him and blinked, before she sucked it back in.
Then they both burst into laughter.
Constantine backed away.
“Wait, John!” Gary called. “I wanted to ask why you let me end up like that, huh? Weren’t we supposed to be friends? Weren’t you supposed to watch my back?”
“I’m dead sorry, Gary,” Constantine said, and meant it.
“Dead sorry! I’m sorry I’m dead, mate! I’m a fucking ghost, how about you? But then you’ll be a ghost soon enough!”
They had another good laugh at that.
Constantine swayed and closed his eyes, shook his head. “They’re not there. They’re fucking not there. Blue Sheikh . . . someone . . . send them to someplace peaceful!”
He looked, and the room was empty.
He turned and trudged down the hall. And heard ghostly laughter, again echoing to him, following him. From that empty room.
“I’m right off this Emerald Mead shite,” Constantine muttered, picking up his pace to hurry down the hall. How the fuck did he get out of here?
“John Constantine,” someone called, as he passed a doorway.
He set his jaw and ignored them.
“John Constantine!” More insistently, from behind him now.
Constantine reluctantly turned and saw Fallesco, dressed only in silken trousers, trotting up behind him. “Are you all right, my friend? You look lost.”
Constantine glared. “You real?” He stuck a hand out and it stopped on Fallesco’s chest. “Seem real. How the bloody fuck do I get out of here?”
“I did warn you about the mead. Seeing things, are you?”
“I hope so. I mean—”
“I know what you mean, my friend. The hallucinations will pass fairly soon. Let me put on some clothes and I’ll take you back out. If you hear any screaming from the rooms we pass once we’ve gone around the corner, ignore it. It’s not what it seems. They’re facially mutilating, by prearrangement. It is nought but a faddish fashion statement.”
“Oh bugger. I’m going to be sick.”
“Right here against the wall, my friend. Do not concern yourself. The stewards will clean it up. That’s it, get it all out.”
~
Geoff had gotten hold of some form of beer instead of mead, but it had done a job on him, all right. His head throbbed; his mouth tasted like a family of small rodents had made a nest in it. He remembered some geezer without much of a nose explaining, in patchy English mixed with two other languages, that there were crops grown in some great subterranean cavern with a magically generated sunlight, including grain for beer. He and the noseless geezer—Flegg, he’d called himself—had a beer-drinking contest and the geezer had fallen over, out cold, and then Geoff had fallen over beside him. Noseless was still there, snoring next to him on a cushion beside the column in the throne room. Other people were snoring around the edges of the room. Bosky was nowhere to be seen; nor the king and queen. Nor Constantine. Nor Maureen.
Geoff got up and looked around, hugging himself. He felt grievously alone and depressed and cold and hungry and he wondered if his friends were all dead, killed by the King on some whim. Look what had happened to the village, after all. He remembered when he’d been abducted, something prehensile winding about his neck and the terrifying journey through the air, then the soldiers grabbing him, tying him up, chucking him in a cell for a while. The agonizing wait, the torture of not knowing what would happen, then. After an unknown time, they’d come for him, taken him under armed guard to the shaft down to the crankers’ workplace. It had looked like a bottomless pit to him. He’d thought they’d throw him down it, but they put him on that platform. Cranked him down, and down. And then Constantine . . .
Where was Constantine now?
“I should have listened to Bosky’s mum,” he muttered.
“Hello, my bright young fellow,” said the spiky-chinned old perv, startling Geoff so that he jumped a bit, stumbling against a pillar.
“What the bloody . . . Spurlick, don’t be sneaking up on a bloke like that. My head . . .”
“Would you like some water? I have a flagon here.” He smiled, seeming less pervy than other times, and Geoff gratefully accepted.
The water was heavy with minerals, but Geoff felt a little better afterward drinking deep. “Um, Spurlick—
“Lord Spurlick, if you please.”
Geoff wiped his mouth. “Right. Lord Spurlick. Seen my . . . my master? Constantine?”
“I have not. He wandered off with some female many hours ago. But you look fatigued! Come with me to my chambers, I will draw you a bath, and see that you are . . . relaxed.”
“Oh-h-h no thanks, guv, got to find me Master Magician and practice, like, turning people into Christmas crackers and whatnot, yeah? Ta for the water, talk to you soon.”
“Wait! I have . . . a further inducement!”
Spurlick glanced around and drew a leather bag from his doublet. He opened it, jiggled it in his hands. Within glittered a good many precious gems. “These are of value on the surface, are they not? Here they are mere . . . that is to say, here they are also of great value. Here, hold the bag, examine it. Great wealth is yours!”
“Whoa, those look like rubies, emeralds . . . diamonds! Nice.”
While he was looking at the gems, Spurlick was creeping closer, and Geoff felt his exploratory hands on his buttocks and crotch. “Yes, my boy . . . how you and I will cavort . . .”
Geoff stepped quickly back and, without hesitation, kicked Spurlick hard in the test
icles. The courtier made a sound that was, more or less, “Glee-eep!” at a high pitch, and doubled over, clutching his groin. “You wicked little—”
“That’s for your jewels, guv! You got your bag-of-gem’s worth off me just now, and something to remember me by!”
So saying, Geoff turned and simply bolted, tucking the gems away in his coat as he went.
And almost ran headlong into the King.
“What’s this?” King Culley exclaimed, as his guards rushed to stand between him and the skidding youth. “Where do you run from, boy?”
Come to a stop, Geoff was panting, looking from the King to the guards. The King was already late middle-aged at this time of his day, his face gone jowly, his eyes now edged with crow’s feet, his hair and beard going gray, his hands showing age spots and a tremor.
But the King seemed amused to see Spurlick come shambling up, still clutching his groin. “Ho ho! I begin to see! You were fleeing Lord Spurlick, yes? He has made unwelcome advances, has he?”
“Your Majesty!” Spurlick said, bowing, and wincing as he did so. “This boy has struck me a vicious blow and robbed me! He has taken a bag of gems from me! It is a breach of Your Majesty’s peace! I humbly request to be able to execute him personally, using the blunt, rusted sword traditional in the instances of terrible crime!” And he bowed again, this time with a courtly flourish.
“Blunt sword!” Geoff burst out. “Lord King, this bastard was trying to buy me with them gems and then he was fondling me up and down! I took the gems as a fee for fondling I never said he could have!”
The King chortled. “Ho, that sounds like the truer story, knowing you, Spurlick! Now sir, the boy has been paid for your fumblings, and you have been paid for your presumption! And I am pleased to have some amusement at a time of day when all seems bleak and dire! I decree that the boy shall keep the gems, and shall be held blameless. And if you object, Spurlick, you will indeed have access to the traditional blunt and rusty sword, but not as you had planned!”
Spurlick made a guttural sound, ground his teeth together, and then forced a smile and a very low bow. “I live to provide amusement for His Majesty. I can only thank my lucky ceiling lichen that I have been able to provide that amusement.”
“Do I detect bitter irony in that pleasantry, Spurlick?” the King demanded, his eyes growing cold.
“Not at all sire! I am utterly sincere!”
“The only thing that is entire about you, Spurlick, is your insincerity . . . but as you are sometimes useful I will let it pass.”
The King proceeded on his way, the guards tramping along behind, weapons rattling. Geoff turned to go, but not before hearing Spurlick mutter, “I will see to your downfall personally, boy. You may rest assured of that.”
Geoff walked away, toward the servants’ quarters to look for Constantine. But when he’d got to the door to the servants’ hall, he glanced over his shoulder, and saw Spurlick still watching him. And smiling wickedly.
13
LONG LIVE THE QUEEN . . . TILL THIS AFTERNOON. LATEST
“Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,” sang Maureen, sewing up a tear in one of the queen’s gowns. “Naught be all else to me save that thou art, thou my best thought by day or by night, waking or sleeping thy presence, my light . . .”
“ ‘O Lord of my heart’!” the King said, coming in, clapping his hands softly, beaming at her. “What a lovely sentiment, and what a lovely voice!”
“Oh, it’s just an old Irish folk song, Your Majesty.”
“Is it now? But do not think its meaning has eluded me, my lovely rusty-haired lady!”
“Its . . . meaning, Your Majesty?” she asked, looking nervously at the four guards who were there with him.
“Lord of my heart? Who else could it be but me! And of course I have been admiring you as well. But it was when I heard you sing that my mind—nay, my heart!—that my heart was made up!”
“What’s this all about?” Megan asked, coining into the sitting room. “Your heart was all what?”
The King’s face fell, seeing the queen. His eyes became flinty.
“You, lady, are under house arrest, until I have had a chance to declare our marriage annulled.”
“What?” At first she looked dismayed; then a thought brought a flicker of hope to her eyes. “So, I can go home? If I’m not married anymore I can go back to Beverly Hills?”
“I fear not. I have a use for you, as you will see. You annoyed me last night. You’re sickly and vulgar and I want you gone.”
“And you’ll marry this woman? She’s older them me!”
“Yes, normally I would prefer someone younger, but she has charmed me. Besides, there is magical value to being married to a fairy!”
Maureen must have looked startled, for he continued. “Oh yes, Lady Maureen, Spurlick has been following, and listening, and has reported to me that you are the boy’s mother and therefore of fairy blood! Thin the blood may be, but if your son bears the mark then the power is in it! I will have a great many uses for you, but first . . . the wedding night!”
The former queen turned to Maureen, her eyes full of tears. “You bitch! Don’t you know what’ll happen to me? What’d you do to get him all . . . all . . .”
“I didn’t do anything, Your Majesty!”
“No need to call her ‘Your Majesty’ after this,” said the King, yawning. “As for what you did, you sang! That beautiful voice, that meaningful song, and the fact of your ancestry . . . you are my destiny! For a time. And now . . .” He turned to the guards. “Take the queen to the Place of Bleak Pondering and lock her in. Give her a little water, that will be enough.”
“No!” Megan shouted, turning to run. But the guards rushed to her without hesitation—she was not the first queen handled thus—and dragged her out of the room, sobbing.
“Oh no,” Maureen said, her eyes filling with tears. “Poor Megan . . .”
“Yes, yes, poor Megan. Now, pretty yourself up. I will come later to arrange the ceremony; we will be married this very day!”
And the King turned on his heels and strode out, leaving Maureen simmering in a welter of emotion.
~
“How long did you say it’s been?” Constantine asked Maureen, aghast. He had come in to the servants’ quarters to find her sitting dejectedly on the cot and it didn’t occur to him at first, with his head still throbbing, to ask what was troubling her. Being a prisoner far underground was, after all, reason enough to be troubled.
“You’ve been gone at least twenty hours,” Maureen said, her voice betraying no reproach. “Maybe more.”
“Oh Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and St. Paddy,” Constantine said, sinking onto a cot, head in his hands.
I’m not worth the bog paper it takes to wipe me away, he thought. The time’s melting, nearly gone. Chas is fucked—Britain is fucked unless I can stop the bastard. It was all up to me and I dealt with it by getting pissed again.
“I wish I had some tea to offer you,” Maureen said, her voice hoarse, “but I’ve found a place to do a little cooking, and I’m told this lichen tea is rather like. It feels like it has caffeine in it.”
She went to the cooking niche and returned with a crude clay-fired cup of the brew and he made himself drink it down. It was bitter, but it did seem to clear his head a little. Feeling angry at himself and along with that, inevitably, sorry for himself, would do no good. He sat up straighter, took a deep breath, and said, “Right. We’ve got to have a plan. We need to enlist the queen.”
Maureen shook her head. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. She’s confined to her quarters. And Geoff heard that Lord Blung say she was going to ‘join the other queens!’ ”
“Long live the queen,” Constantine muttered to himself. “Till this afternoon, latest, if I know that bastard Culley. He changes them more often than Chas changes tires on his cab.” He looked at Maureen. “Who’s the new sacrificial lamb, then?”
She rubbed tears away with the heel of her ha
nd. “I’m afraid . . . it’s me.”
“What!”
Geoff came in then, with Fallesco. “I’ve found this rascal wandering about, looking for his friend,” Fallesco said. “I believe Spurlick was following him. Lord Spurlick can be quite skilled at not being seen when he chooses to. You’d best keep the boy here.”
“But where is Bosky?” his mother asked.
“Couldn’t find him,” Geoff said. “They’ve got him locked away somewhere, Mrs.”
“Locked away!”
Fallesco sighed. “The King has learned of his fairy blood. He’s to be kept prisoner and bled for its magical properties, a little at a time.”
His mother put a hand over her mouth, horrified. “Oh God. He’s going to bleed my boy dry!”
“No, Maureen, he ain’t,” Constantine assured her. “Wait—Fallesco, best check to see if Spurlick’s out there.”
Fallesco went outside their rooms and indeed found Spurlick lurking in the hall, trying to hear something he could use against them. Constantine, coming to the doorway, heard their confrontation.
“Spurlick, you have offended me,” Fallesco said. “This lurking at my back implies you think I’m up to no good!”
“What? Oh nonsense, I was merely, ah, that is—”
“Spurlick, as is my right, I now issue an oath-challenge! I challenge you to mortal combat, sword against sword, pike against pike, for the entertainment of the court! I hold my left hand in the air and call the world as my witness, and I hereby—”
“Wait! No need for haste! I apologize, and I will withdraw!”
Fallesco and Constantine watched as Spurlick scuttled down the hallway and was gone. They waited to be sure and then returned to the servants’ quarters; Constantine looked curiously at Fallesco. “Now you’ve made Spurlick your enemy too, Fallesco. Just wondering, mate, what’s spurrin’ you on to risk what you’ve risked: death, or a right-nasty living-death. You could cruise along at your orgies till you fall over dead from drink . . .”
Fallesco sniffed contemptuously at the word orgies. “I only indulge in that foolishness so that I will be there to listen! People talk more freely in their cups. I know where the bodies are buried, so to speak, Master Magus. As for what spurs me, one moment.” He checked, once more, to see that no one was listening at the door, before returning, closing the door carefully behind him, to continue: “It is simple; I wish to escape the Underlands. True, I was born here, but I have always wandered as far as I might in the Underlands, in the realm of the Sunless and beyond it. I have learned as much as I could. I am, you know, also the King’s librarian, and when I read of the surface world, I long to see it, to be part of it. But Culley will not allow me to go to the surface to fetch books; this is done through surface intermediaries, lately the associates of the unfortunate MacCrawley. It is they, also, who deliver the King’s wives to him, in exchange for gems . . . and certain magical favors. Those of us who were born below, stay below. Mine is the heart of a poet, sir! My spirit longs to soar through the blue sky of the surface world! So long as the King commands this realm, I am a prisoner here. He knows of my longing to be away, and his shadow watchers, his harpies, his Il-Sorg, his gripplers, all know I am not to be allowed to escape.”
