Assassin of the Damned (Dark Gods)

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Can you punish the evil thing for what it did?” the lycanthrope asked.

  Erasmo stroked his spade-shaped beard. “Do you wish its scalp?”

  “Yes! Give it to me.”

  “Done,” Erasmo said. “After we return, we shall hunt the world for him. Now let us be about our task. The way is open, but only for tonight. We must hurry, for we have far to go.”

  The lycanthropes traded glances. The chief opened his jaws, perhaps to point out that granting a thing hadn’t yet produced it.

  Erasmo already gave instructions to the black knight. Then he set out at a brisk pace for the building the mist had entered.

  ***

  I watched the building from hiding, suspecting a trap. They knew I was here. Erasmo had promised the lycanthropes my scalp. The more I considered it, however, the less certain I became. Erasmo had given me no consideration other than as a future promise to the lycanthropes.

  The building was silent and dark, but was it empty? It was of brick and mortar construction, with iron-grilled balconies on the second floor. The weather-beaten sign had eroded beyond readability. Yet I knew it. The Alchemist Shop.

  I approached from a back alley and like a shadow vectored toward a window. Every sense strained.

  I crawled through the window. Heavy tables held dust and broken glass. Some tables lay on their sides. By the shrouds of cobwebs, I knew no one had entered here for ages. I moved softly, careful to avoid particles of glass. One crunch could give me away. The next room smelled dusty for good reason. Paw-prints mixed with hoof marks showed me their trail. I followed through a corridor, into a large room and to a solid wall, and there the tracks disappeared.

  I doubted they had become spirits like Lorelei. I ran my fingertips along the brick wall. Toppled benches, low tables and iron discs lay strewn on either side of the trail. Each thing had lain for ages. Except…I noticed coins that had recently made a dusty path of their own, maybe made it only minutes ago. By the extent of their journey, it seemed the wall had shoved the coins.

  If a pivot stood here in the wall…

  I went to the opposite side as the iron coins. I ran my fingers along the base, the ceiling, the corner. Ah, I noticed footprints and followed them to a niche in a sidewall. There was a candleholder in it. I tugged. It resisted. The bottom of the candleholder had a cunning hinge, hard to see right away. I tugged harder. It moved, and something clicked. I hurried to the wall and pushed. It swiveled on a hidden pivot, and I thought counterweights. My end went in. The other end swung outward, and I saw how the wall had shoved the iron coins. The alchemists had been cunning artificers.

  Ah! There were the paw and hoof prints. I entered the secret room, and my shin brushed a stretched wire. There came a soft click. To the sides, steel cords twanged.

  I would have died there, but I was the Darkling. Before I understood my danger, before my mind recognized the threat, I threw myself toward the floor with catlike reflexes. A crossbow bolt hissed overhead. Another kissed my leathers. The third punched into my thigh. It slued my leg that way and pivoted my torso the other.

  I clamped my teeth together at the pain. Whoever had designed the trap had taken into account someone like me.

  The bolt had missed bone and entered into the fleshy back of my thigh. I slithered to the wall, but the trap had swung it shut. I leaned against the wall and felt my thigh. My night-vision was useless in a pitch-black room. The bolt had sunk deeply. I clutched it, and yanked.

  A groan tore from my throat. Thankfully, it was a smooth-pointed bolt, not barbed. I pressed the flesh against bone. Sticky substance oozed out, but it wasn’t blood. In a matter of seconds, the oozing stopped.

  I found the tripwire and slid my hand to one end. I discovered a mechanism, and by fiddling, reopened the wall. I limped outside and bathed in the healing moonlight.

  Erasmo must have known about the trap beforehand. That he knew implied that he and the alchemists had been partners. How deep had the conspiracy run?

  I shook my head. What did it matter now?

  I tested my leg. It was stiff, sore and partly healed. I limped into the Alchemist Shop, followed the trail, clicked the candle and warily entered the secret room. I used flint and tinder and lit an old torch. There were cages in here. Each held a chained skeleton inside. I followed the dusty trail. The corridor led past doors. One room had stacks of iron ingots. Another had thumbscrews and racks. I ignored the doors thereafter. The corridor led to stone steps sized for giants. They led down.

  A faint stir of air startled me. I drew my knife and limped down the stairs. They curved and went farther than I expected. They ended at damp soil where ancient barrels held a meeting. I lifted the torch. At the end of the cellar, timbers shored up the earth like a mineshaft. Not more caves. I hated caves.

  Tracks showed me they had used the mineshaft. Screwing up my resolve, I followed after them. My shoulders hunched of their own accord and my muscles tightened. I moved warily. Lorelei had spoken about doors to another Earth, a ruined place. Maybe she had really meant a gateway to Hell. Several twists later brought me before an ironbound door. Its hinges were as long as my forearm. I remembered Erasmo had told the knight he had to bring a key. Maybe the key had been for this door.

  I sheathed my knife and limped to the door. The handle was icy cold and a terrible sense of doom filled me, of wrongness. I shrank back. I hated the door. It was profoundly evil. If Lorelei was right, Erasmo had used it once and returned with the plague. He had begun the hideous dying in Perugia. If Lorelei was right, a dead Earth waited on the other side, together with an olden trumpet of doom. How could there be other Earths?

  “He stole your wife,” I whispered.

  I snarled, and tugged at the door. It was stuck fast. I looked around and wormed the end of my torch into a rocky crack. Then I put both hands on the handle, and I heaved. The door slid open an inch. I yanked again, and used my newfound strength, the one that had allowed me to lift a wagon full of corpses. The heavy door slid open several more inches. I peered through the narrow opening. There was nothing but swirling blackness on the other side—a strange vertigo that hurt my eyes.

  I retrieved the torch and thrust it through. The tunnel was cast into pitch-blackness. I pulled the torch back, but the flame was out. I put my hand where the flame had been, but didn’t feel any heat. I touched the charred wood. The flame had gone out long ago.

  I tossed the guttered torch aside and listened to it clatter. Then I plunged through the door, the gateway to a dead Earth.

  -20-

  —I landed on sand and rolled. I scrambled upright, drew my knife and whirled around. With shocked horror, I saw nothing but dreary sand with the ghastliness of salt. The sand shifted in slow tides. Far on the bleak horizon were the Alps. Yet they lacked snow or any sign of greenery. To the left I spied a razed town, its ruined towers the sole sentinels of this shifting desolation. The worst was the sky. A vast and looming moon filled a quarter of it. The moon was a burnt husk, and despite its abominable size only gave off faint light. Then a comet blazed or a falling star. It burned in the heavens and I heard a distant roar before it vanished into the horizon. Seconds later the ground shook, maybe at its impact. Other fiery stars streaked overhead, illuminating this fallen world.

  How could I return without a door? How could Erasmo return? Or had the door been a trap?

  Then I noticed a haze before me. A particularly intense comet illuminated it. It was the door.

  I backed away and almost tripped over a man. He lay staked down, with his ankles and wrists cruelly bound with wire. His eyes bulged in death. He had bitten off his tongue. With sick loathing, I recognized him. It was Erasmo’s father. The implications were perverse.

  I sheathed my knife. The heavens roared and light filled the sky. I slumped at the dazzling display. It was too bright. The impact exploded upon my ears and the ground trembled like an earthquake. Moments later, the air shrieked and the heat became unbearable.

  I struggle
d to control my terror. I was Prince Gian Baglioni of Perugia, a patron of the arts and a member of the ongoing Renaissance. I had reason. I must use it. So I scrambled after Erasmo’s tracks. Sand had already drifted into them or been blasted into them. This was a desperate place. Erasmo was mad or indeed consumed with lust for power.

  The first angel must have long ago winded his trumpet, along with the second, third and fourth angels blowing theirs. Wrath and judgment had fallen on this world. The comets must be the finishing act, the period that capped this Earth’s doom.

  I followed their tracks and ran, until in the distance I saw specks. One speck was bigger than the others, the black knight on his horse, no doubt.

  Three times comet-born blasts hurled me from my feet. The endless tides of this dreadful world worked to obliterate every sign of life. When I rose from the third blast, the specks were gone.

  I hurried, fed a trickle of strength from this world’s bloated moon. Finally, I came to a huge fissure, a cyclopean zigzag in the sands. Had the others entered the fissure? Faint tracks said yes.

  I slipped over the edge. Fortunately, the way was not straight down, and soon I trudged at a steep angle. I passed smaller fissures, jagged scarps and gray boulders. The falling stars that passed overhead briefly lit the area like a dim sun. I followed paw-prints and boot marks. There were no more hoof prints, however. The horse hadn’t entered the fissure. Of that, I was certain. I wondered what had happened to it.

  An agonized howl focused my attention. I moved from nook to scarp to boulder. The ground trembled. Rocks loosened and rattled downward. Air screamed across the fissure like a colossus blowing pipes. We were all insane to be here.

  A lycanthrope howled again. The knight grumbled, but I couldn’t hear his actual words.

  I stretched out on a gray boulder. Fifty feet down the lycanthropes in humanoid form crouched forlornly like primitives, with their long arms wrapped around their knees. The black knight crunched across sand as he paced back and forth. He carried his triangular shield and morningstar. Erasmo—

  I saw the hole, the dug up sand and dirt around it. Erasmo must have squeezed into the hole. With all these quakes, didn’t he fear cave-ins?

  The lycanthropes rocked to-and-fro. One whined.

  “Quiet,” the knight said.

  “We must leave,” whined the lycanthrope.

  “Soon,” the knight said.

  “Not soon,” the lycanthrope said. “He will never find it, never. We must leave.”

  The knight kept pacing.

  The lycanthrope lifted his head and howled.

  Did I wait until Erasmo climbed out of the hole or did I go in after him? Why did it always have to be about holes and caves? I might try to hit Erasmo with a stone as he emerged. Could I trust the others to just sit there and wait? The lycanthropes might catch my scent. The black knight had supernatural senses.

  I selected a stone and hurled it high and long. It was a simple stratagem. I counted on their fear, their hatred of this place. The stone hit with a thud.

  “What was that?” a lycanthrope cried.

  “The wizard said this world was dead,” whined the other.

  “Quit jawing about it,” the knight said, “and follow me.”

  The lycanthropes scrambled to their feet and slunk after the knight. Whatever else Signor Orlando was, he was brave. He clanked in a determined stride, his shield ready and the spiked ball of his morningstar swinging from side to side.

  I had little time and couldn’t afford to expose myself long. Anyone of them might glance back. To work down the boulder and the escarpment would take too long. I judged the hole, and I knew I was mad. It must have been this world.

  I jumped, plummeted and landed soundlessly. As a normal man, I would have at least broken an ankle and probably thudded in an inelegant sprawl. My Darkling-sight showed me that this was more than a gopher-like hole. The opening revealed a cave. I hesitated because of it. Then I spied torchlight as if it flickered off a cave wall. I drew my knife and dashed in for the kill.

  ***

  I heard fingernails scratch rock. I heard grunts and hard breathing.

  “You’ve got to be here, you whore,” Erasmo said low under his breath. The words echoed in the cave. “All the signs…the portents…. You’re here. I know it.”

  I nodded. Erasmo had always been impatient.

  The cave trembled. Sand rained from the low ceiling. A dislodged stone from the ceiling struck my neck. It made my gut clench with terror so it was hard to keep going. A second later, the digging resumed. That helped unlock me, although I found it impossible to rush in. The best I could manage was a slinking shuffle.

  Unlike our boyhood treasure hunt, this time Erasmo dug. Would he have become a crazed sorcerer if my axe hadn’t chopped his foot? Yet a ruined foot wasn’t reason enough to push a man to these extremes. What had urged Erasmo to stake down his own father? Why had his father been here with him?

  “Where are you—” Erasmo grew silent as the scratching quit. A wild laugh tore out of his throat.

  Now was the moment. I glided around rock.

  Erasmo had dug into the side of the cave. The end of his torch was thrust into sand. It flickered and shadows jumped and writhed on the walls. He knelt and tugged at something in the hole.

  “Need some help?” I asked.

  He looked up wild-eyed, noticed my dagger and licked his lips in his obscene manner.

  “Gian!” he said. “I can bring you back to life again. I can break the Moon Lady’s hold over you.”

  “But can you restore my dignity?”

  He laughed nervously. “If you join me, I can make you a god.”

  “You wear my likeness,” I said. “You’ve stained my good name by being me. How can you restore that?”

  He brought his hands out of the hole. “We used to be friends.”

  “Where’s Laura? Tell me, and I’ll make your passing quick.”

  “Gian,” he said, and he eased his right hand upward.

  I lunged. He twisted like an eel and hurled himself back. My knife sliced his shoulder. He screamed. Smoke billowed. And the amulet on his chest flared with brilliance. I’m not certain what happened next. His back thudded against a wall. The flame within his black amulet, the flickering tip, zeroed in on me. I leaped after him and a flash blew me backward. At least, that’s what I thought at first. Then I saw the living flame. It had legs, arms and a fire head. It sizzling self lit up the small confines of the cave and poured heat. It was smaller than me, and it watched with eyes that shined like the sun. It blocked me from my old friend.

  I made ready to stab the living flame. It took a step at me and raised fiery arms.

  “Hold,” Erasmo told it. “Gian, drop the knife. Kneel, and give me fealty, and I’ll let you live.”

  I flung a stone, one of several that I carried in a pouch. It lifted a lock of his hair and clicked against the cave wall behind him.

  Erasmo shifted behind the flame. “Don’t you understand?” he shouted. “I’m a Lord of Night. If I say the word, my flame will destroy you.”

  “You had me chained to an altar,” I said. “You stabbed me in the guts. But I’ll always keep coming. I’m remorseless as death.”

  “Lay down your knife and I’ll give you life again,” he said. “I’ll give you Laura, your children.”

  “Where are they?”

  “In a safe place. But you have to kneel now, Gian. Pitch your knife to where I can see it. I’m losing patience.”

  “You’re playing for time,” I said. “You’re hoping the black knight will save you, the lycanthropes.”

  Erasmo peered around the flame’s shoulder. I faked a throw. Erasmo ducked like a ferret. I laughed and the flame cackled brighter, angrily, it seemed.

  “Don’t do that again,” Erasmo said, “or I’ll unleash the flame. He’ll burn you to death. I don’t want that, Gian. I want your help. I know you don’t believe me, but I wish to learn about the Moon Lady. You can tell
me things I don’t know about her.”

  “What did you promise your father?” I asked.

  “…That was a mistake. I admit it, although if you knew the circumstances, you’d realize I had no choice.”

  “No. We can always turn from evil. Fight me, Erasmo. Wash away your guilt with your blood. It will be like old times, just you and me in the sand arena. You always wanted to be a knight. Now is your chance to die like one.”

  “You fool. Don’t you understand what would happen to you if you actually won? The door to our Earth would close. You’d be trapped here. Doomed. I’ve opened the door with spells that took years to learn. The Moon Lady sent you after me, but she doesn’t care if you survive. You’re a javelin she has hurled at me. I’m your path to life. Or do you want to die on this dead world?”

  I leaped at the living flame, smashed my shoulder against it. The flame staggered back. It had weight like a man. My garments smoldered from the contact. Then I was past it. Unfortunately, its flames blurred my vision. I stabbed at Erasmo, felt flesh part and heard him groan. Then flaming hands latched onto my shoulders and heaved. I sailed and smashed against rock.

  The cave trembled then—from a comet, not from me. Sand and stones rained down. Before I could scramble up, the flame aimed its clenched fists. Fire licked upon me. I bellowed in agony and my flesh bubbled, and I tried to crawl away. Through a haze of pain and dazzling brightness, I spotted Erasmo. He clutched his smoking side as blood dripped between his fingers. He spoke a harsh word. The living flame turned from me. I groaned at the pain, at the throb of my fried flesh. Erasmo spoke again. The flame leaped at him, dwindled and sank into the black gem, which I realized had been dark during the fight. Now a flame flickered in the gem as it angrily watched me.

  Through the stink of my cooked flesh, I dragged myself at Erasmo. Agony lanced my scorched forearms. It throbbed upon my face. I could only see out the right side. The left must have melted into something hideous.

  Erasmo raised a bloody hand as his features contorted with hatred. He spoke with painful wheezes, so I know my cut had hurt him.