by T. C. Rypel
Grimmolech nodded curtly.
“What of Lamorisse, Father?” Roman asked.
“Rene’s tragic intemperance doubtless caused his own demise,” Grimmolech said with disdain.
“That…seems likely from what I’ve heard,” Roman agreed.
Blaise laughed gruffly. “An easy trap to fall into. There is a wonderful variety of carnal diversions here to stave off monotony. It’s easy to—”
“You were placed here to learn control, Blaise,” Grimmolech shot back by way of censure. “To ply the subtleties of terrorism. To prove your abilities at manipulative gamesmanship, your superiority and fitness to rule lesser beings. Thus far, you’ve fallen well short of my expectations. You are not here to push the limits of hedonistic endeavor. You take these beings too lightly, as mere playthings. Their faith and capacity for self-sacrifice are stumbling blocks that we cannot overcome without perseverance. Don’t take too much pride in your superiority. There are lessons to be taken from the brutal history of this sphere.”
“And Lamorisse?” Roman asked again when his father had restored his equanimity.
“Learn who the leaders are,” Grimmolech said evenly. “Instill fear in their children. And after they’ve lived with it awhile, we’ll extract vengeance in kind.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Surely you must thirst by now.”
The lycanthropic form of Simon Sardonic peered up through the crusted oubliette grating. His eyes radiated hatred. There was no malice in Grimmolech’s expression now but only something oddly resembling paternal anxiety.
Simon hadn’t kicked over the loathsome bowl this time. He was desperately thirsty, and now that night had brought the painful transformation into the Beast, the bowl of blood had begun to smell maddeningly appealing.
“Perverted monster.” Simon abruptly chose torturous self-denial and kicked over the bowl with the snap of a clawed foot.
“Your spirit is mighty,” Grimmolech allowed. “You could be a magnificent ally.”
“Go to the hell you’ve earned,” Simon told him in a parched voice. “You dare suggest I could ever be your ally? Set me free and see what an enemy I make.”
“I have seen, and you’re a formidable one indeed. If only these priests hadn’t conditioned your mind so. You direct a prodigious faith into such inglorious pursuits.”
Simon rasped back, “Servant of Satan! God will have His vengeance for what you did to my sainted mother, to my father—”
“Is that what they told you? Tales of ‘Satan’ and half-truths? Would you like to hear my side of—”
“Lies! Your special area of knowledge—” Simon’s throat was on fire, his words strained and broken. “—the Deceiver’s bequest to you—”
“Truth is relative, Simon. Surely you’ve learned that. Let me tell you about us. About this world I’ve asked you to join, the world you deny my captive son inside you. We came, seeking dominion, from another world which coexists with this lesser one. You learned something of the secret of these congruent worlds in Africa, I believe. We have rediscovered some of the ancient magical effects which facilitate travel through the gateways between worlds. We have even learned, as you’ve seen, to remake parts of a world, if need be, to suit our purposes. To transpose portions of one world onto another, as we wish.
“I am a High Lord of arcane arts on my world, arts which can only be understood as magic among these primitive peoples. Earth magic. The Power of the Spheres. Power which transcends that of any weapons your people might conceive. Balaerik and I are related. You might call him my cousin. He is an operative, an agent of the cross-world isle of Akryllon—of which I think you’ve heard. King Klann the Invincible, eh? By the way, in overthrowing King Klann’s efforts at taking back Akryllon, you helped us perpetuate our cause. We thank you for that. You see—we’re not complete enemies, are we?
“Balaerik is involved with coordinating efforts at controlling this Terran sphere by manipulation of its political and social systems. He placed my sons in charge here in Burgundy so that they might practice exercising local control. I’m afraid they’ve bungled it rather badly with their ostentatious displays of power, n’est-ce pas? They’ve much to learn of subtlety. Never show a monster where a shadow will serve, eh? Superstition and doubt are useful tools. Keep them on their heels, uncertain of whom to trust, what to believe, and—”
“Why? Why do you do this?”
“Well, now at least we’re engaged in conversation…That’s a distinct improvement, Simon. Why do we do it? We do it for control, of course. For power over lesser beings. We need achievement. And there’s a certain degree of desire to bring order out of the chaos of these…alienated spheres, of course—once they were a system accessible to all. You see…we’ve attained practical immortality, and immortality alters morality, forces one to adopt ambitions that keep boredom from destroying the mind. And control of all that can be known and achieved is everything. The ultimate ambition. It’s a complex and intriguing pursuit.”
“You’ve sold your souls to the Devil.” Revulsion laced Simon’s hoarse words.
“There you go again, circumscribing a higher order of life with a simplistic moral and mythic code. Don’t you see that you were raised by the wrong side of the power struggle? You don’t fit their scheme—they reject you! Why do you continue to aid Christianity with your contradictory savagery? Don’t you see what a paradox you represent? We at least have made a commitment that is clear. We’ve chosen immortal rule over eternal subservience. What we do is right, under the circumstances. Practical. Your morality is meaningless in the greater cosmic context. We offer practical immortality in exchange for obedience, for abandoning useless devotion to a God who has long since abandoned the cosmic system. Who left humankind amidst fields of untold riches and commanded them not to touch. Do we ask so much? We offer wonderful gifts to a strife-ridden, theologically torn sphere—”
Simon barked out a scoffing sound. “There’s only one thing wrong with this immortality you’re so fond of offering. Someone can forcibly separate your evil soul from your all-too-delicate corpus.” He spat toward the grating.
“But we may live on, so long as we’ve been foresighted enough.”
“And yet…eventually you fail…God’s judgment is all that remains…for eternity.” Simon gasped and swallowed hard to force his dry throat to form words. “You steal time from its endless source…and in the end—your end—you owe a debt which can never be repaid. There are no bargains when you barter against eternity.”
“And you know all these things for facts, do you?” Grimmolech asked haughtily, cocking an eyebrow.
“You—you must be Satan himself!”
Grimmolech’s long fingers curled about the rusted grating. “I blame myself for this. For leaving you among those priests who poisoned you. Had I acted with expedience against them earlier, you’d be with me now. You and my son. But I was preoccupied, and now I pay for my lack of foresight. But the priests paid more dearly, didn’t they? And soon your friend Gonji will pay. He who made you so willful in this wayward direction you’ve chosen, keeping my son from fulfillment. I may even feed Gonji to you one night during the lunar dominance. Would you like that?”
Simon snarled at him and cast him an obscene gesture.
Grimmolech tsked. “I thought it was immoral to do such things—let me have my son!”
“Your son goes before God when I do.”
As if in reply to hearing himself mentioned, the energumen fled Simon’s tortured body again. This time he manifested himself as a little girl with a physical malformation that caused Simon to shut his eyes and pray for deliverance even if it meant death.
“Papa,” the apparition said, already crying this time, “I’m so thirsty, so hungry. Make him eat, Papa. Make him. He does things to hurt himself—”
�
��I know, my son—”
“—it hurts me! It hurts me much worse than it hurts him. He’s a monster, Papa, a—”
“Be still!” Grimmolech composed himself at once. “Go back now. Show me how strong you are.”
“But, Papa—”
“Show me your pride! Show me the courage of a son born of my seed. This is your world for now!”
The grating rattled in the grasp of Grimmolech’s fury before the sorcerer strode away.
Simon listened to the puling sounds the spirit made until it could no longer remain outside his body. He put up a struggle against its re-entry for the small satisfaction of adding to the creature’s discomfort.
“Daddy’s a tough old goat, eh, kid?”
* * * *
They tortured Simon daily. He was exposed to extremes of heat and cold. His flesh was burned and flayed. He was denied food and drink. Now and again predatory creatures were flung down into his cell, and he would be forced to fight from his confining chains against things that bit and clawed at him, hit and run, in the darkness. Always there came a chill of discovery when next the light shone into the oubliette and he saw the shape of his latest kill—each one more hideous than the last. Some of these bizarre creatures had never crawled beneath the sun of the present earthly sphere.
Simon’s extreme tolerance for pain and his ascetic life, as well as his prodigious resiliency—which, he intuited, exceeded that of the Farouche themselves—kept him alive, ever on the path to recovery. But each new assault on his battered body seemed to set him farther back from full strength, and each increment of recovery was outweighed by the next enervating outrage. He began to despair of his ability to suffer this treatment much longer. His solaces were two: daily meditation and prayer for deliverance; and the theatrical agony of the energumen within, whose cravenness seemed to sting its father’s pride.
The nameless cohabiting spirit itself finally brought an end to the torture. One night an overambitious mercenary shot the beastly Simon through the leg with his pistol. Grimmolech’s son raised such a commotion with his screaming and ranting as he repeatedly fled Simon’s pain that the guilty mercenary was ordered murdered at once. Grimmolech sent a squad down into the cell in the morning to treat the now-human Simon’s wound. Three men held him down while the demon-father himself removed the leaden pistol ball and applied an unguent that exhibited immediate healing efficacy.
As the energumen stood outside Simon’s body, thanking his father in the most fawning terms, Grimmolech seemed to ignore him, all the while watching Simon’s stoic lack of concern.
A new tack—a small quantity of pure water and raw fish were now supplied to Simon once daily. This he resignedly partook of. His strength returned slowly, and the energumen positively reveled in the repast, counting himself honored by his father and somehow triumphant over Simon. And at night, when the werewolf transformation was complete, raw meat would be lowered into the dungeon chamber. The wolfish body was electrified with yearning at first scent of the meat, and ordinarily Simon would indulge its passion, seeing no harm, though he knew Grimmolech would be counting this as his victory. It was only when the scent was unmistakably that of human flesh that Simon would spurn it despite the raving and cajoling of the demonic spirit. That was Simon’s token triumph.
Now they also began leaving Simon aids to suicide—for if he would willingly take his own life, the energumen and its man-wolf body would be freed. One day a noose would be fixed to the grating above his head, within reach of his neck. Then a vial of poison. And later a dirk. But sharp objects were quickly eliminated when the nameless spirit reported that Simon had tried to use them to file through the links of his chains.
* * * *
Simon returned to consciousness one morning after the reversion to humankind to find himself in the grasp of several burly brigands. Grimmolech stood before him, bearing a bowl of blood again.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but this is necessary…”
After a brief, fierce tussle, Simon’s mouth was forced open, and Grimmolech poured the coppery liquid inside. Simon gagged on it, tried to spit it out, but the mercenaries seized him by the throat and forced a reflexive swallowing reaction. His belly churned as the warm blood trickled down.
“The blood of your brothers—my sons, that is,” the High Lord of evil told him. “You’ll find that it possesses interesting properties. You’ll not be able to spill the blood of a Farouche, should the opportunity ever arise. You see, Simon, we mean to have either your death or your cooperation. One way or another.”
Simon spat flecks of blood into Grimmolech’s face.
He was beaten insensible and denied food and drink again for three days and nights. On the third night, blood and human flesh were lowered into the oubliette again. After a tremendous struggle with the instincts of the ravening Beast, he kicked the offending cannibalistic feast into a corner of the cell.
* * * *
“Father—I’ll die here soon, if you don’t save me,” the energumen pleaded, appearing as a comely youth nearing manhood, but pierced by several gouting wounds. “He means to die here. And then I’ll die, too.”
“Be still. I’ve come to speak with Simon Sardonis,” his father replied. He had descended into the cell rather than speaking through the grating this time.
“Don’t you care about me, Father—the flesh of your flesh?”
“Reenter him and lock yourself away at once!”
The energumen blanched, embarrassed to be so addressed in the presence of his bitter enemy, but he acquiesced.
“I wish he’d obey me like that,” Simon sneered. “What now, bastard of swine and maggot?”
Grimmolech smiled. “You never cease to amaze me. Every day a new insult. I do admire your indomitable spirit. It’s obvious you’re not going to take your life, and I question my son’s…” He looked away an instant, changed his tone, genuine emotion seeping into his voice. “If only—if only, Simon, my craven son could be such as you are. You—the most promising spirit of domination in my acquaintance—fatherless. And I—disappointed in my own issue. I—I may as well be without sons for the disappointment they’ve given me. Simon…what can I possibly offer that might entice you to join us?”
Simon’s expression contorted with incredulity. “You—you’re not only evil. You’re a lunatic.”
“What can they possibly offer you out there?”
“Salvation.”
“Salvation? You’ve killed a thousand men in your time. On what will you base this nebulous notion of salvation?”
“God is mercy without end, and He has sent His Son—”
“Enough of this blather! This is your world. And so it shall be—forever. You—shall—be—ours.” Grimmolech strode close to him, taking a step to punctuate each word.
And when he carelessly stamped near enough, Simon grabbed him by the throat. All the vengeful hatred of a tortured lifetime infused his crushing grip for an instant, and then—
He felt the object of his wrath pull free as if from the playful stranglehold of a child.
“My blood was also in the measure you drank.” He met Simon’s horrified gaze with a look of serene conquest. As though there had been no battle waged at all. “Don’t you see, Simon—you can’t win. It’s impossible for you to end your quest after vengeance. Join us, Simon.” This last was spoken in an exhorting whisper.
Simon slumped onto the floor. The energumen separated from him again, looking foully coy…
And in a passable semblance of Claire Dejordy.
“I just remembered something, Father,” the creature said, smiling at the accursed warrior’s shock. “Something you might offer him…”
Simon was dumbstruck, unable to move, as the energumen spoke of Claire, though it could speak no ill of her, by some merciful mandate of their cohabit
ation.
“So…you want a mortal woman?” Grimmolech asked softly after he’d heard the creature out. “Why didn’t you say so? We’ll find her for you. Soon this will be her world, too…mon fils.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lightning split the sky above the treetops, and an ominous rumbling of thunder vibrated the ground beneath their feet.
“Let’s get on with it,” the cavalry captain from Normandy ordered impatiently.
The gravediggers glanced at Jacques Moreau, and it seemed to the magistrate as if they were blaming him personally for having to be about this ghoulish work. All were apprehensive at the site of the hidden grave, for it was clear that something had churned the earth freshly—it was not as the rebels from Lamorisse had left it when they’d consigned Rene Farouche to the ground. Even the cruciform planted there hadn’t done its warding work.
Moreau felt the sweat trickling down inside his sleeves, the gusting wind chilling him to the core. A minor cavalry captain had been the field marshal’s response to the town’s plea for representation from Paris. And he seemed anxious to be done with this business. Short-tempered and imperious, the captain might almost have been hand-picked by the Farouche themselves.
A sense of doom hovered over the gathering. Jacques felt a wild urge to flee. It was all too clear what would happen when the grave was opened and the mouldering corpse of Rene was exhumed. They’d be accused of murder, in spite of the fact that they’d set this up themselves; their irrational accusation about lycanthropy would militate against them. It was as simple as that. Why hadn’t Moreau seen it before?
Because he was a poor leader and administrator, that was why. And now the whole town would pay.
The horses grew skittish, save for that of Roman Farouche. The duke’s delegate sat smugly astride his black charger. By some fiendish method of control over the animal, he’d caused it to lower its head and stare unwaveringly at Moreau alone, like a bull about to charge.
