Hellblazer 2 - Subterranean

by John Shirley

  “No, no, I disagree,” said Scofield, hoping he wasn’t too obvious in his stalling. “Look, there are really very few mercury pellets, and the corrosion is left over, it is old, it is not of recent origin—”

  “Nonsense! Look at that pitting! The solution eating away at the cauldron is hungry for the final ingredient! Once we pour in the tincture, the full solvency, the universal solvency, will transmutate into highest potency, and the solution will eat through the cauldron in seconds!”

  “But . . .” Scofield pretended to have a coughing fit. He made it last as long as possible.

  “Perhaps you haven taken ill; I advise you to go to the infirmary. I can handle this.”

  “Respectfully, seneschal, I am the more experienced with the Solvent, I must stay, and I do believe we must not put the final ingredient in too soon, or . . .” Here he managed another reasonably believable coughing fit. With the fumes there, it wasn’t hard to do.

  Blung cocked his head and looked at him skeptically. Clearly becoming suspicious. “I’ll wait a few minutes, but already the last stream of sand falls through the hourglass, Scofield! We must do the King’s bidding, and soon!”

  Scofield thought: I’m being a fool to try and stop him. I must let him do as he wants, or I’ll die with all the rest . . .

  ~

  “The Lord of Stone is the real key to his power, then?” MacCrawley asked musingly.

  “He is,” Constantine said, taking out the key to the final room beyond the rejuvenation projector chamber. Both of them ignored the pleas and babblings coming pathetically from behind them. “The great machine run by the crankers gives him rejuvenation and some of the energy running the palace—heat and light. But his magical control extends from right bleedin’ here.”

  “However did you manage to get the key to this room?” MacCrawley asked. “I’ve been looking for a way to get at it these many months.”

  “Sex opens doors,” Constantine said, opening the door.

  “Oh I see. You used the new queen . . . cunning of you.” MacCrawley irritated Constantine hugely with this remark. “I just hope, Constantine, that you’ve not got us in deeper than . . .” MacCrawley broke off as they entered the chamber, gazing with awe up at the Lord of Stone. He remembered himself and bowed low to the elemental. “Great Lord of Stone, king of earth elementals, I honor you.”

  The Lord of Stone’s reply rumbled through their minds, and grumbled in the walls, the floor underneath . . .

  Honor me by ending my captivity—a captivity brought about by one of your own ephemeral, deceitful, underhanded kind. I hold all your perfidious species responsible. But if you release me, magician, you have nothing to fear! Someone must pay the price, but it will not be you.

  MacCrawley bowed again. “But there is the matter of the suppression of ritual magic; your own magic power is siphoned off to stop anyone’s magic but the King’s. If it takes magic to release you . . .”

  There is a way. John Constantine, go you to the wall, behind me. There you will see the bones of two men, and the tools they brought with them here to enlarge this chamber, so that the Gloomlord could steal my magic the more effectively.

  Constantine walked around behind the sphere and found the bones of two men, both with their skulls severed from their necks. They’d been executed here, it appeared.

  Culley did not want anyone to know what was in this room, and he killed the two after they completed their work to keep the secret. Now take up the chisel and hammer you see lying there, and take three steps in the way of your left hand . . .

  Constantine picked up the rusty tools, which had lain there undisturbed for generations, and took the three steps, to stand before the back wall where water was trickling thinly down from a crack.

  Now raise the chisel and strike, three times, just under the place where the water drips.

  Constantine did as he was bid, striking hard, and on the third blow the crack widened with a creaking sound and water sprayed out, hitting him in the chest. He stepped hastily out of the way. “Bloody hell that’s cold.”

  The water was about the same as might run from a garden hose with the spigot fully open. It gushed toward the dais and began encircling it, making a pool on the floor around it.

  Constantine put the chisel down and returned to MacCrawley, as the Lord of Stone rumbled, Thus the Lady of Waters is freed to surround the stone on which stands my cage. The power the Gloomlord uses is the elemental power of stone, darkly transubstantiated for his purposes. The power of the Lady of Waters is another manner of energy which blocks his power within the pool. Here you may now perform ritual magic without the interference of his spell of suppression . . . but always staying on the stone platform, within the circling water.

  “Splendid!” MacCrawley chuckled. “Let’s be at it.”

  Constantine was already at work, hunched over on the dais, murmuring magical formulae as he set about marking the dais’s floor—a foot above the water, dry but enclosed by it—with the chalk he had brought, inscribing sacred signs, names of power, runes of invocation, and relevant alchemical symbols within a circle around the sphere. He worked quickly, concentrating intensely, not allowing himself the luxury of the slightest lessening of close attention to the work, still angry with himself for the time he’d wasted after the feast.

  He finished circumambulating the caging sphere, but hadn’t yet closed the magic circle.

  He looked significantly at MacCrawley. “The blood,” Constantine said. Simple as that.

  MacCrawley nodded and drew a magical dagger from his waistband: a lucky find in the King’s library, picked up on the way here. Its slim silver blade was incised with magical symbols, its handle made of human bone carved into the shape of a seraphim. He used its point to prick his arm, dipped the blade in the blood and completed the circle with it; Constantine, after cleaning the blade, did the same with his own blood, so that the circle was completed by blood from both men. Then he laid the magic dagger across the edges of the circle, pointing outward.

  The two magicians then walked around the spherical cage of energy, going in opposite directions, passing one another three times, chanting sonorously in Latin: “Libertas consummatio, regio silex!”

  Liberate completely the King of Stone!

  “Libertas consummatio, regio silex!” Not merely saying the words, but making them resonate through their whole being, thinking their meaning, projecting that meaning through the clearly formed mental picture of the magic circle, like directing light through a magnifying glass to sharpen its power. And magical energies thrummed in the air, making Constantine’s mouth go dry, his pulse pound, his eyes misty . . .

  They heard boot steps drumming from the corridor. The King’s men had found Balf’s victims. They were coming . . .

  Constantine felt an impulse to panic, to despair. It was too late! But he focused his mind, the current from above flowing through it, once more, and he chanted more forcefully than ever, his voice merging with MacCrawley’s:

  “Libertas consummatio, regio silex!”

  And so saying the two men met face-to-face, chanting certain names of power which cannot be repeated here, that consummated the consummatio . . .

  The Fallen Romans crowded into the doorway, raising their weapons. A crossbow bolt flew past Constantine’s nose; another went between his legs, punching a hole through his coat. The soldiers charged.

  And were met by a stone fist.

  The spherical cage, till now powerful enough to keep a giant made of stone trapped for centuries, had simply popped like a soap bubble, banished by the spell Constantine and MacCrawley had performed, and the giant was wading through the soldiers, knocking them to the left and right, like a man smacking cockroaches off his table.

  Vermin! the Lord of Stone thundered, making the surviving Fallen Romans stagger with the psychic intrusion. Your kind have kept me pent long enough! You are the servants of the vile one who put me here! I will kill all who stand before me! He smashed his fist
on the floor, which opened under four of the soldiers, swallowing them up. They scarcely had time to cry out before it closed up over them.

  Constantine cleared his throat. “I say, great guv’nor of stone, I wonder if I could persuade you to hold back a bit; most of these silly bastards don’t know any other life. And there are other people out there who need to be protected.”

  I promise nothing, John Constantine, except that I will kill neither you nor the man MacCrawley! This is the bargain! Any others you wish to protect keep out of my way!

  So saying, the Lord of Stone turned and stepped on two surviving Fallen Romans who were trying to crawl away. Crushing them, indeed, like cockroaches.

  Constantine winced and looked away. I did the right thing here. Millions will die up above unless I carry on with this. Still . . .

  The Lord of Stone smashed the doorway to widen it for his mighty frame and hunched to go through in pursuit of the fleeing soldiers.

  Constantine turned and saw MacCrawley grinning, the dagger in hand, stalking toward him. Constantine backed away.

  “And now, Constantine, it’s your turn to die,” MacCrawley said, relishing each word. “The Lord of Stone may choose not to kill you, but I promised only to forbear until His Lordship here was liberated! Now be a good fellow and die, you bastard. A special corner of Hell is waiting just for you!” He slashed the knife artfully at Constantine, cutting through a corner of his trench coat’s collar. The little triangle of cloth fell away as Constantine, backing off, tripped and fell on his arse. MacCrawley stood over him, grinning. “Just toying with you; I’m good with a knife, Constantine!” He raised the knife, preparing to throw himself at Constantine, shouting his curse—and then froze, looking down in horror.

  The floor had opened up under him, and he was sinking down into it; the stone seemed to have gone soft around his feet, and he sank till it closed up around his waist. Constantine got to his feet and backed just out of reach, coolly lighting a cigarette. “I forgot to mention the other bits of my deal for arranging to release his nibs. First the Lord of Stone’s got to swear to use his power over stone to lift the village of Tonsell back up to the surface. Second, he’s got to keep you contained after his release, seeing as I knew you’d try to kill me right out of the box, soon as the ritual was done. He’s been watching you—can watch from any rock or stone.”

  “Constantine!” MacCrawley roared, flipping the knife around and throwing it, trying to transfix him from a distance. “Goddammit, die!”

  It was a clumsy attempt. Constantine easily side-stepped the knife and went to pick it up off the floor. “Right, I’m off. Enjoy your new digs.”

  “What? You can’t leave me here!”

  “You’re not entirely alone. Door’s open now, you can hear Smithson babbling in the next room. You two can gabble a while together, in harmony. It could be quite entertaining. I’m sorry”—he blew smoke at MacCrawley, making him cough—“that I won’t be here to enjoy it.”

  Then he turned on his heel and walked out, whistling, stepping over the broken bodies of Fallen Romans as he went.

  He knew that MacCrawley would think he was stuck there forever, was going to die of starvation trapped in rock. But the Lord of Stone wouldn’t have permitted that, since MacCrawley was one of those who’d freed him. He’d release him, in good time. Maybe he’d survive the ruination of this place, afterward, and maybe he wouldn’t.

  It was easy to see where the Lord of Stone had been. There were the bodies of pallid soldiers strewn in his wake. There were big holes smashed through intervening walls; there was rubble everywhere, the walls and floor rumbled, and screams were heard in the distance.

  Out in the throne room two of the pillars had been knocked over, one of them having smashed across the thrones. The ceiling had collapsed in many places, but he was able to pick his way through the smoking rubble to cross the room. He hurried down the side hallway, ever faster, till his breath came in rasps, trying to get to Maureen and the boys.

  They were huddled together in a corner of the servants’ quarters, frightened by the intermittent shaking of the walls and the screams, though the boys were trying to look heroically unconcerned.

  “Come on, then!” Constantine shouted at them as the floor shook and more screams came from without.

  “What’s going on out there?” Bosky demanded.

  “The Lord of Stone is taking his vengeance! Now come on and follow me; we’ve got to scarper out of here and make sure Scofield does his job!”

  Maureen nodded, smiling with new hope, leading the boys as they all followed Constantine out the door. “Does this mean we get out of this place, back to the world up above?”

  The ground shook; someone, not far away, wailed in despair.

  “With luck, that’s just what it means,” Constantine said. Trying to sound as if he was sure of it himself.

  He just hoped it was true.

  ~

  The King woke to find a dead man draped across him.

  He groaned and rolled aside, letting Spurlick’s body slump away, and sat up, looking woozily around. His head throbbed, and the room seemed to tilt first to one side, then to the other. This was no mere hangover—he had been drugged!

  He took a deep breath, and drew a little magical energy from the air, making himself steadier, and then looked around . . .

  She was gone. The queen had drugged him—had tricked him with the help of that ungrateful wretch, John Constantine. He had been taken in like a country bumpkin. They’d murdered that wanton old bastard Spurlick too, he saw. And there—one of his guards, struck unconconscious.

  But surely the imp in his headboard had done something about all this?

  He turned to stare in shock at the headboard. It was gone! Released from its prison! The imp, too, had colluded against him!

  So now—where to find the conspirators?

  But what was the time? Was it not time for the Universal Solvent to be poured? That must take precedent.

  Afterward, there would be countless ages in which to exercise an exquisite vengeance . . .

  ~

  “Lumptydumptyhorry, I shall make him sorry,” sang the troll to himself, striding into the bubble-shaped alchemical transfusion chamber. “Lumptydumptygleep, I shall make him weep!” The great central shaft was here; the five vanes turned and crackled their purple energy to their electrodes. But the Il-Sorg, as expected, were gone. Only the power of the Lord of Stone had kept them here; with the Lord of Stone set free, they had returned to their hell-realms, to caper in celebration, Balf supposed, dancing upon lost souls like a winemaker stomping grapes.

  “Lumptydumptyskreek, I shall make him shriek,” Balf sang, as he took the tools from his belt, the tools he had fashioned in his hiding place, near the Stabbing Falls. There were just two. One was shaped exactly like a Phillips head screwdriver, the other like a flathead screwdriver. He was unaware of the existence of these tools in the upper world; these just happened to be the shapes he needed.

  He took one in each hand now, as he dodged under the electrodes, slipped past the discharge of dark electricity, and stepped up to the adjustment box on the central shaft. He pried it open with the flathead tool and with the other, turned a single screw inside it.

  The shaft squealed . . .

  And stopped turning.

  Far below, the crankers, those gray, scabrous laborers in absolute darkness, suddenly found themselves straining to turn their cranks. The cranks would not respond. Continuous pressure only made them snap off.

  The crankers, fearful and confused, gathered in their place of resting, except one who, more enterprising than the rest, snuffled around the edges of the base of the machine, expecting to be driven back by the gripplers . . . only to find the gripplers were not there. Instead his probing fingers found a six-inch-thick slick of paste on the stone floor. Sustained in this world only by the power of the Lord of Stone, the gripplers had melted away, their base souls returned to Hell.

  Several level
s above, hurrying on his way to the secret tunnel that would take him the short way up to the cauldron of the Universal Solvent, Balf sang, “Lumptydumptyslimper, I shall make him whimper . . .”

  ~

  “You have been trying to stall me, Scofield,” Blung declared. “Admit it! Something is going on; I sense a diminution of the King’s power, and look! The Il-Sorg are gone!”

  Scofield looked and was relieved to see that the balefully glaring demons were gone. “Thank God for that. Constantine’s succeeded!”

  “Has he indeed?” asked King Culley, coming onto the top of the scaffolding. In his hand was a sword and just behind him were two Fallen Romans, one with a crossbow, the other a pike. The King, Scofield noticed, was growing elderly at this time of day.

  “My King!” the seneschal exclaimed, bowing. “I have been concerned—”

  “And well you should be!” Culley growled. “I woke but minutes ago—drugged by that treasonous witch I made my queen! My power is diminished for now—but I can kill you, Scofield! ‘Thank God Constantine’s succeeded’ you said? Traitor!”

  Culley raised his sword to strike. Scofield shouted, “No!” and rushed past him, leaping off the scaffold toward the stone floor edging the sump. He struck with blinding pain, realizing he’d shattered his ankle. He tried to hobble on the other foot but a stabbing hurt came a moment later, as an arrow from a crossbow struck him in the back.

  He fell onto his face, feeling pinned like a butterfly, every small movement redoubling his pain.

  “Good shot, soldier!” Culley crowed. “When I regain control, you shall be Captain of the guards!”

  “But with the Lord of Stone released, my King . . .” the seneschal said fearfully, looking toward the doorway below.

  “He will soon tire of killing the Fallen Romans!” Culley declared confidently, taking the vial of the final ingredient from Blung. “I will conceal myself from him, and when he has at last returned to his vast realm, I will lead my armies to capture the thousands of new slaves who will descend to us! I will restore my youth, and summon other magics to support my reign! Now, Blung, pour in the final ingredient! Let those greedy slugs crawling the upper world begin their suffering!”