Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  "I realize it wouldn't be easy to shut down the Soul Forges," the Sister said. "I don't claim to know how we could get by without them. But I'm confident we'd find a way. After all, they're an invention. They didn't ahvays exist. Freeing the thralls would change »ur world in a fundamental way. Perhaps we'd find it had changed us as well. Perhaps we could all Transcend."

  The Reaper made a spitting noise, turned, and disappeared through the wall.

  After his exit, the discussion lost momentum and the Sister's audience began to drift away. To her surprise, the old man in the S&M hood tossed a worn copper obolus on the gurney. She couldn't tell if she'd actually moved him or if he was merely rewarding her for a few minutes of diversion.

  Either way, she thought wryly, she'd be happy to take the offering. She'd learned the value of money from childhood on, and her long mortal career as a nun and abbess had disabused her of any notion that clerics didn't need cash as much as anyone else. She hopped to the floor and picked up the coin, wincing at the ache that twinged through her fingertips. Oboli were frequently unpleasant to handle. Some wraiths believed it was because the coins still had a vestige of human consciousness suffering inside them. Unfortunately, few other Soul Forged goods emitted similar vibrations, and thus it was all too easy to overlook their gruesome origin.

  As she slipped the obolus in her pocket, she took a final look around the ER, wishing the accident victims life, or, failing that, a happier destination than the Shadowlands, Then she slipped outdoors.

  The pounding rain had ebbed to a drizzle, though lightning still flashed to the west, out over the wide expanse of the Mississippi. The cool air smelled clean. For once, the Shroud notwithstanding, she didn't catch even the subtlest whiff of decay; although, to her eyes, the pines at the edge of the parking lot looked twisted and blighted, with dry brown needles, and oozing chancres mottling the bark.

  Skirting the large Nihil hissing and shimmering in the middle of the asphalt, her mandolin slung across her back, she headed down a narrow side street. Soon she reached one of Greenville's Haunts, an area of dilapidated, abandoned clapboard houses three blocks square. Legend had it that in the 1840s, one of the residents of the district had brutally beaten a slave, and the unfortunate woman had cursed him with her dying breath. Shortly thereafter, a terrible disease resembling a fast-acting leprosy had swept through the neighborhood. Horrified by its virulence, the city officials had taken extreme measures to contain it. Armed sentries had patrolled the perimeter of the area, shooting anyone who tried to leave. The municipal leaders had even considered burning the district down, but feared that the fire, too, might spread to the city as a whole.

  The Quick had tried to demolish the old houses on any number of occasions since, but so far the local wraiths had always managed to sabotage their efforts. The miasma of grief and despair still festering in the shuttered bedrooms and moldering parlors was far too bracing to surrender without a fight.

  As the Sister strolled, she looked for someone who could direct her to a market or a venue where Sandmen and genuine Chanteurs performed. At the moment, no one was in view. Perhaps the downpour had driven everyone indoors. Rain couldn't hurt a wraith or even get him wet, but some spirits disliked the tingle of the droplets falling through their bodies. No doubt what many actually disliked was any experience that served to remind them they were dead.

  So many ghosts pined endlessly for the lives they'd left behind! The Sister occasionally fell prey to the same longing herself, but when she did, she fought hard to quash it. At best, it was a demoralizing distraction from the quest for Transcendence. At worst, it could lead a wraith into unspeakable crimes.

  Prompted by such reflections, she began silently reciting the Pledge of Athena. I am dead, and death is a journey. Spirit clothed in light, risen and sundered from my chrysalis of mortal clay—

  Somewhere behind her, something made a soft, brushing sound. She turned smoothly, her weight centered, the way her sifu had taught her, only to discover there was still no one in sight.

  It was quite possible that she'd imagined the noise. Or that it had had nothing to do with her. Still, the Underworld was a dangerous place, especially for missionaries and other subversives, and it paid to be careful. She spent another moment peering about, straining her hypersensitive vision to the utmost.

  She didn't see anything threatening. Somewhere to the north, a Quick baby started crying, a sweet, vital sound, and, like the scent of the rain-washed air, blessedly undistorted by the Shroud. A few feet away from the infant, a man emitted a groggy groan and clambered out of his waterbed. The mattress sloshed.

  Now smiling at her own edginess, the Sister turned and walked on. Just as she completed the second paragraph of the Pledge, she heard the noise—a stealthy footfall?—again. This time it sounded a little closer.

  She whirled. Stare as she might, there was still nothing to see. Just the moonlight silvering the glistening streets, and the feverish glitter of the Nihils defacing the decaying houses.

  Unfortunately, just because she couldn't see anyone didn't mean there was no one there. Certain wraiths, Harbingers, for example, could become invisible. She strained her ears, listening. Lacking a heartbeat or the need to breathe, the Restless could be extraordinarily quiet when they wanted to be, but they were also preternaturally perceptive. Sometimes it balanced out.

  But not this time. Down along the river, frogs chirped and the current murmured. Engines moaned, and car tires hissed over wet roads. But she still couldn't pinpoint anyone creeping along behind her.

  Maybe no one was. Or perhaps he was simply good at it. In any case, now that she was concerned about the possibility, the chances of her actually enjoying the night life of Greenville, Mississippi had dropped to just about nil. She decided to head directly for her skiff and get away from land as soon as possible.

  As she turned toward the river, a figure ducked behind an overgrown hedge on the other side of the street. Startled, she jumped, and soft laughter pulsed through the dark. There was something odd about the rhythm of it, though she couldn't say precisely what.

  In any case, the mockery angered her. Though she generally tried to avoid violence, she was no one's helpless victim, and she would have liked to ram the laughter back down the wretch's throat. But it wasn't a practical notion, not when there were also someone skulking along behind her.

  She wondered who they were. Conceivably Legionnaires, though the locals hadn't persecuted missionaries with any great zeal in the last couple years. Nor did Hierarchs generally play cat-and-mouse games. Halt-or-vve'll-shoot was more their style. Most likely it was the Reaper who'd accosted her and one or more of his friends, come to enslave her. The notion made her muscles clench in fury.

  But whoever it was, they wouldn't get her. The Sisterhood had trained her too well. She turned back toward the north and started to run, only to glimpse a flicker of motion in the darkness directly ahead.

  Now truly alarmed, she lurched to a halt. Was she completely surrounded? If there were that many people after her, why couldn't she catch a good look at any one of them? And why didn't they just close in for the kill?

  She couldn't imagine, but by hanging back, they'd given her a chance. Pivoting, she dashed across a weed-infested yard, up three steps, and through a warped door with a few flakes of yellow paint—the mark of the old-time quarantine—still clinging to the wood. In a musty foyer, she turned and ran south, plunging through the exterior wall ot the house, across a strip of coarse grass, and through the side of the derelict home next door.

  A wraith's power to flit through solid objects gave him an advantage when trying to evade pursuit, even when the pursuers were ghosts, too. The quarry could always dodge behind a wall, thus escaping the hunters' scrutiny, and then flee in a different direction. Intelligently employed, the tactic generally served to shake even alert and energetic adversaries off his trail.

  And so, for the next few minutes, she ran, constantly changing course but trying to gradua
lly work her way downhill toward the river, hurtling through rotting walls and filthy, broken windows, across yards where rats rustled through the underbrush and streets with weeds poking between the cobblestones. Periodically she tried to spot the hunters, but without any further success. She supposed that was all right if they'd lost sight of her as well.

  Unfortunately, her strategy had one drawback: It took energy to slip through solid objects. Finally, panting just as if she still needed air, she bounded up a flight of rickety stairs and into a small bedroom, where a tiny skeleton lay in a cradle, and the stale air screamed with ancient heartbreak. A ghost in a gingham dress stood staring down at the dead baby. She slowly raised her head to regard the Sister with vacant eyes.

  "I'm sorry for intruding," the missionary said, peering out the windows. No one was in sight. "I just want to rest for a moment, and then I'll go." She could already feel the grief trapped in the room revitalizing her.

  The other ghost returned her gaze to the bones. Her own predicament notwithstanding, the Sister couldn't help wondering if her companion had spent the last one hundred and fifty years doing nothing but staring down at the remains of her child. It was a ghastly thought. Perhaps she could come back later and talk to the poor woman, convince her to abandon her vigil and—

  She felt something rushing at her back.

  Her hands snapping up into a guard position, she sidestepped and pivoted to face the newcomer. In the gloom, all she could make out was a hulking figure with something strange about its head. Agile as a panther, he hacked at her with a jagged- edged two-hand sword.

  Ducking, the Sister silently called her own weapon, and the leather-wrapped hilt of the darksteel knife with its owl's-head pommel popped into existence inside her fingers. She feinted a kick at her attacker's crotch, then lunged in close, stabbing at his breast.

  Her adversary twisted aside, evading the thrust. Unable to use the sword at such close quarters, he slammed his elbow against her temple, driving a spike of pain through her skull. Off balance, she stumbled toward the fungus-spotted, Nihil-riddled wall. From the comer of her eye, she glimpsed him charging after her, whirling the sword above his head for a lethal stroke.

  She could see that she'd never recover her equilibrium in time to ward off the blow. Struggling to focus past the pain in her head, she willed herself completely insubstantial.

  She caught a last glimpse of the wraith in the gingham dress, still staring down at the cradle as if she were all alone. Then she tumbled through the side of the house and out into the night.

  When she hit the ground, she did her best to roll, her mandolin shattering beneath her. By good luck as much as facility, she managed to avoid serious injury. As she scrambled to her feet, she peered frantically about, expecting to see her attacker leaping down after her, or his accomplices charging toward her. But everything was still.

  Her head and left hip aching, limping slightly, she turned and ran, trying to understand how the swordsman had tracked her, how he'd appeared so suddenly in the little nursery, and why his companions weren't already on top of her. Once he'd located her, he should have signaled them to move in. None of it made sense.

  Her strategy of evasion hadn't kept her safe before, but, lacking any better plan, she held to it, working her way out of the Haunt and into a Quick public housing project, rows of identical gray concrete-block buildings with slogans like generation last and blood and silence spray-painted on the walls. Now every move through a solid barrier brought a throb of pain.

  Ahead of her, six giggling teenagers, four boys and two girls, were squatting in a circle. Their auras flickered a murky violet with malice and excitement. As the Sister ran by, she saw that they were dissecting a writhing guinea pig. The animal's glistening gray viscera bulged through a long cut in its belly.

  All but exhausted, the Sister peered back down the street. She didn't see any pursuers. Praying that at the moment, none of them could see her either, she tried to step into a small barbecue joint that had already closed for the night. For a second, she could feel the wall resisting her intrusion, clinging to her like flypaper, and she imagined herself getting helplessly stuck halfway through. But a final wrench of her shoulders and a last exertion of will carried her on into the interior. The shadowy diner smelled of hickory smoke and half-spoiled pork. The inky fissures in the back wall hissed.

  The Sister scurried around the greasy counter and hunkered down beside it. They can't check every room in every building, she thought. If they didn't see me duck in here, maybe they won't find me. She resisted the urge to peek over the counter, for fear that one of the hunters would look through the window and see her. Instead she listened with all her might, hoping her ears would warn her if any of her enemies drew near.

  For a minute she couldn't hear anything but the Quick, their breaths hissing, hearts thumping, and bowels gurgling, babbling, chewing, and grunting in the apartments all around her. Then she seemed to catch a different sound, but she couldn't make out what it was. Not a whisper and not the creak of shoe leather. Not the click of a gun being cocked, nor the metallic sigh of a blade leaving its—

  Abruptly she realized that the hissing of Nihils behind her had grown infinitesimally louder. Just as her head snapped around, a long vertical crack gaped open. It still shouldn't have been wide enough to admit the swordsman, but somehow he flowed through it anyway, sweeping his jagged weapon down at the top of her head.

  Kneeling, she couldn't fling herself out of the way in time. All she could do was try to deflect the blow. She whipped up her arm and the sword skated along it, gashing it, leaving a trail of momentary numbness that abruptly flared into pain.

  The swordsman kicked her in the chin, flinging her back against the counter. From the sharp crack and the fresh jab of agony, she knew he'd broken her jaw. Suddenly her vision was blurry and dim. The jagged blade swung up for another blow.

  Reflexively she scrambled backward, through the substance of the counter. Once again the coarse, gummy matter fought her, clutched at her, but somehow she dragged herself clear. Desperately, she struggled to her feet, certain that her assailant must already be leaping over the pitifully inadequate barrier she'd placed between them.

  But he wasn't. He was still standing by the wall, watching her frantic efforts to get into a fighting stance. He laughed his disturbing syncopated laugh, and as her vision swam back into focus, she finally saw what made the sound so peculiar. It was coming from both of his wedge-shaped, jet-black reptilian heads.

  The head on the right licked its upper fangs with a gray, forked tongue. Then the apparition stepped backward, and the Nihil oozed shut in front of it.

  The Sister trembled. Her arm and head throbbed. Absurd though it was, she could have sworn she felt a living heart pounding with terror in her breast.

  Though wraiths didn't need to breathe, her sifu had taught her the proper way to do so to facilitate meditation. She forced herself to take long breaths and let them out slowly. After several exhalations, her pain and fear lost some of their edge.

  Her impulse was to resume running, but she resisted the temptation. Headlong flight hadn't helped her so far. Her only chance was to think, to figure out what was happening to her.

  Now that she'd gotten a good look at him, and seen the singular method he used to sneak up on her, she surmised that the swordsman was a Spectre. In the Shadowlands, where wraiths of all persuasions engaged Masquers to sculpt them into gaudy monstrosities, simple freakishness was no indication that a spirit had sold himself to the Void. But most of those who took on such forms opted for the exotic allure of an angel or a sphinx, useful modifications like retractable claws or spiked knuckles, or the macabre humor of a devil's horns or a grinning skull-face. Few sane ghosts aspired to look as hideously inhuman as the two-headed bipedal crocodile.

  Moreover, nearly all of them, even Harbingers, whose arcane skills had been invented to allow them to negotiate the Tempest, considered such travel a perilous enterprise. Whereas, she n
ow suspected, the reptile man was traversing it with ease, while peeking out into the Shadowlands to keep track of her. Only one enemy had ever actually attacked her because there was only one. Exploiting the chaotic spatial distortions of the storm, he'd materialized behind her, ahead of her, and then off to the side, all in a matter of moments. Convinced she was sorely outnumbered, she'd run and so squandered her strength.

  And any second now, he'd pop up behind her to finish her off! She fought to quell another surge of panic.

  He'd stepped through a Nihil. Evidently he could flow through any such opening, even the smallest; but maybe he couldn't emerge where there were none at all. If she could find such a place, he might abandon the chase, and at least he wouldn't be able to leap up out of nowhere.

  Her skin crawling with tension, constantly turning this way and that, she edged toward the window and peered out at the street. Then she laughed, and her eyes throbbed as if they could shed tears.

  Nihils, most no bigger than hairs or grains of sand but Nihils nonetheless, pocked and creviced every surface. The walls, pavement, ground, lampposts, fire hydrant, overturned newspaper box, and parked cars all glittered with a poisonous sheen. Dear God, had there always been so many?

  She supposed there had. Loath to recognize the voracity with which Oblivion was eroding the world, she'd simply avoided looking at them. At any rate, it was apparent that she couldn't possibly find some untainted corner of creation in time for it to do her any good.

  Such being the case, she might as well make her stand where she was. She told herself firmly that she had a chance. She now understood the Spectre's tricks. It hadn't even seen hers. As it happened, Freda Schmidt, the founder of the Sisterhood, was an accomplished Spook, and most of her followers learned at least the basics of the rowdy guild's Arcanos. The Sister herself had often used the magic to good effect, when pain and fatigue weren't hampering her efforts.

  She moved to a clear section of floor, making sure there were no Nihils immediately under her feet or in the ceiling above her head. Then she reached out with her mind, trying to feel the tables and chairs around her, and the metal rack, laden with bags of potato chips, Moon Pies, and other snacks, standing by the back wall.