Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  Montrose strolled from one group of irregulars to the next, inquiring about their welfare, joking with them, and listening to them boast about their valor in the battle. Most of the ruffians seemed to feel they'd won the victory over the Heretics more or less single-handedly, and never mind the jibes of their comrades, who heckled the storytellers with accusations of poltroonery, martial ineptitude, or both.

  Ordinarily the Stygian could have performed this duty gladly, taking satisfaction in the sight of every survivor, grateful that a visit from their commander could distract the men from the loss of fallen friends and the pain of Their wounds. But tonight, with hatred, frustration, and indecision grinding together inside him, it took a Herculean effort just to smile, pay attention to what the guerrillas were saying, and offer an appreciative response.

  But at last the chore drew to a close. The final casualty was an amputee in a blue leather mask who was using a long spear for a crutch. The wispy shape of a new lower leg and foot, not solid enough to support his weight as yet, depended from his stump. Montrose kidded the fellow, a former highwayman, about his predilection for chubby women, clapped him on the shoulder, and bade him good night. Then he trudged over to one of the dilapidated tenements and slumped down with his back against the cracked brick wall.

  After a minute he wished he'd gone farther away from what remained of his army. From where he was resting, he could hear the whimpering and weeping of the captured Heretics, whom his men, enraged by their near defeat, had brutalized even more thoroughly than usual. The moans reminded him of the one prisoner whom he was holding separately, on the roof where they'd tried to murder one another.

  A hulking form lumbered out of the gloom. "I made the count," said Fink. "We lost half our men."

  Montrose nodded. "That was about what I estimated."

  "Percentage-wise, it's even heavier losses than on our first raid." Fink shrugged and sat down. "But it's war, right? People are going to die. What matters is that we won."

  The Stygian sighed. "I suppose."

  Fink cocked his head. "What's troubling you now, Anacreon? The Sister of Athena? What's the story on her, anyway?"

  After a moment's hesitation, Montrose said, "I knew her when I was alive. Her name Is Louise, and she was my lover. She also betrayed me to my death."

  Fink grinned. "Ouch. No wonder you were so eager to torture her, So what are you moping around down here for? Go pay her a call."

  "I want to," Montrose said. "You can't imagine how badly I want it. But I'm afraid that if I do, my Shadow will grow even stronger."

  "Mask and Scythe, man, are you going to let a little thing like that stand in the way of sweet revenge? Judging from past experience, if your Shadow does slip its reins, all it's likely to do is make you hurt Heretics, and that's what you want to do anyway."

  "You have a point," Montrose said. "This is one of those occasions when my dark side and the rest of me are in accord. But there's another problem." He described his encounter with Katrina.

  '"Forbear,"' said Fink at the end of the story. "In other words, show mercy."

  "Yes."

  "Are you sure it was the same knife?"

  "Absolutely," Montrose said. "Before Katrina picked me up, I met a Spectre wearing Louise's form. Evidently the creature was telepathic, and plucked her image from my mind. Katrina as much as told me the encounter was a portent—the Tempest is like that—meaning, no doubt, that I was destined to find the real Louise later on, but I was too thick to understand her."

  Fink grimaced. "Your Ferryman was too cryptic by half. If she knew you were going to run into our friend on the rooftop, she should have told you flat out."

  "She may not have known," Montrose said. "I'm no Oracle, but I'm told their insights are often jumbled and incomplete."

  "Well, I think she scammed you, because she realized you hated Louise too much to pledge to spare her. And I say the trickery releases you from your promise, particularly since it was given under duress."

  Montrose smiled ruefully. "I've been telling myself the same thing, but I'm not convinced."

  "Well, who gives a piss anyway," said Fink. "Just break the damn promise. It wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

  "No," Montrose said. "But you know, I've always tried to keep my word. Even when I was back-stabbing my way up the ranks of the Hierarchy, if I actually made someone a pledge, I did my best to keep it. Considering the sins I did commit, it was probably absurd to cleave to that one scruple, but nonetheless, I did."

  Somewhere in the gloom, an irregulars began to sing a love song about a lady named Michelle. The fellow was no Chanteur, but he had a pleasant baritone voice. The gentle strains of the ballad made a stark contrast to the anger seething in Montrose's breast.

  "I wonder," said Fink, "why the Ferryman even cared. What's so special about this one Heretic?"

  "I have no idea. Katrina implied, in the vaguest manner possible, that the business with the knife was linked to some mysterious challenge I have to face. It sounded like gibberish at the time, but now that we've stumbled onto the business with the false Pardoners, I wonder."

  "Has it occurred to you," said Fink, "that you have to punish the bitch? She's a dangerous rebel. She killed half your soldiers. Even if our boys would sit still for it, it would be treason to let her off the hook."

  "I know," said Montrose. "As a matter of fact, I even told Katrina I wouldn't keep the promise if it meant neglecting my duty. But I can exercise some restraint. I don't actually have to tear Louise apart with my own hands."

  Fink leered. "But you'll regret it if you don't."

  Montrose nodded. "I will indeed." He stood up. "I need to make up my mind, and I'm not getting it done down here. Perhaps if I see her again, I'll he able to decide."

  "Sounds sensible," said Fink. "Give her a welt or two for me."

  Montrose entered the tenement and climbed the stairs. As he neared the roof, he faltered. I don't have to do this, he thought, surprising himself. I never have to look at her again ifl don't want to.

  But even as he framed the thought, he realized it was a lie. He did need to see her, even if a part of him cringed at the prospect. He stepped through the substance of a door with flaking paint and out into the moonlight.

  Louise lay near one edge of the tar paper roof, her slender body wrapped in an extraordinary quantity of chains. Either Montrose's men had wanted to make certain she wouldn't slip her restraints with her Spook Arcanos, or else they'd simply decided to make her as uncomfortable as possible. A red rubber ball gag with a black leather strap filled her mouth, distending her cheeks, and a blindfold covered her eyes. A bored-looking guard with a crossbow sat on the parapet beside her.

  Montrose hesitated again, then urged himself forward. "I want to be alone with her for a bit," he said to the sentry. "Wait on the stairs." Louise's head jerked around at the sound of his voice. The guard rose and sauntered to the stairs.

  As Montrose knelt beside the captive, sorrow and a kind of bitter nostalgia rose inside him, not replacing his hatred but coexisting with it. Dear God, he thought, what we shared together made me so happy, even in the midst of a desperate time. How did we ever come to this? Discovering that he wanted to see her eyes, he slipped the blindfold off. They were the same clear blue that he remembered.

  "Yes," he said, "it's truly me. Who would have thought we'd meet again, on another continent, after all these centuries? It's a strange world, isn't it?"

  She gazed up at him beseechingly. It made him grateful for his mask. He suspected his face was contorted with hatred or anguish, but he was in control of his voice. His tone was light, conveying the message that she was a miserable creature scarcely worthy of his notice. That he valued her as little as she had him.

  "I find myself in a ludicrous situation," Montrose continued. "I'd like to spend the next few months torturing you, and send you to the Void when that grew tiresome. I'm sure you aren't expecting anything less. But before I knew who you were, I promised a benef
actor I'd show you mercy. What would you do in my place?"

  The strap securing the gag snapped, and the rubber ball popped out of Louise's mouth. Montrose reflexively lifted his hands to defend himself, but she didn't try to strike him with the object. It simply dropped to the rooftop.

  "I'm sorry, James," she gasped. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know you were leading the purge. If I had, I never would have tried to destroy you. I would have arranged to meet with you. I would have found another way."

  "As you did three hundred and fifty years ago?"

  She gaped at him in horror. "You.. .you know about that?"

  "Oh, yes," Montrose said. "Your fellow Judas VanLengen was kind enough to enlighten me."

  "I swear, I never wanted to betray you," said Louise. "I loved you—"

  For some reason, that blatantly false claim disturbed the precarious balance of passions in Montrose's mind. "Liar!" he exploded, battering her with his fists. "Liar!

  Liar!

  She made a choking sound and went limp. Her head rolled sideways. Perhaps she hadn't yet fully recovered from the clubbing Fink had given her, and Montrose's blows had aggravated the injury anew. At any rate, he'd beaten her back into unconsciousness.

  He hit her six more times before he was able to stop. Shuddering, he curled his fingers into hooks and reached for her eyes.

  And then, somehow, he seemed to see himself from the outside, as an observer might. He beheld a gloating sadist about to inflict atrocities on a helpless women, and though the prospect thrilled him, it sickened him as well. He had a vague intuition that if he allowed himself to become such a vile, perverted creature, even for one brief interlude, he might never recover his true self again. He leaped to his feet and scrambled back several paces, like a mortal recoiling from a poisonous snake.

  Still his body quivered with the lust to maim her. He turned his back on her, and the compulsion eased slightly.

  "I won't hurt you anymore myself," he said to the unconscious woman. "I won't even have you destroyed, not completely. But you will pay. I'm shipping you to Stygia, tonight, with instructions that you go to the Masquers, or the soul-forges." He pictured her twisted into the shape of a hideous barghest, the magic in her iron muzzle warping her mind into that of a beast. Or sculpted into a torch, silently screaming as her crown of freezing barrow-flame devoured her. Or shattered into a handful of oboli, each coin retaining a splinter of sentience, just enough to suffer for eternity.

  He smirked at the thought of her agony, then winced at another surge of shame and self-disgust.

  "I'm sorry," he muttered, just as if Katrina were present to hear him. "I believe you were trying to help me when you extorted my pledge, and I wish I could keep it. But this is as close as I come."

  He hurried to the stairwell before he could change his mind. Ss he descended, he sensed his restive Shadow stirring, swelling, invading his conscious mind. He frantically struggled to muster the will to repress it, until, suddenly, the world seemed dim and far away. He felt as if he were drifting off to sleep.

  Chiarmonte, an Anacreon of the Order of the Avenging Flame and the Smiling Lord's spymaster, was a small, gray man who generally carried himself with the diffidence of a mild-mannered clerk. He'd once told Potter he attributed much of his success as a confidential agent of the commune of eleventh-century Venice to his unassuming demeanor. Now, however, he stood at parade rest with his iron mask cradled in his right hand. Potter, ensconced on a golden throne with red velvet cushions and eagle-claw feet, had the unpleasant feeling that he knew the reason for the other wraith's stiff martial posture.

  "You've come up empty, haven't you?" the Deathlord said.

  Chiarmonte flicked his eyes at Demetrius, who was standing in the corner of the smallish audience chamber, the bluish light of the nearest barrow-flame lamp glinting on the sardonyx helmet tucked casually under his arm. It was a subtle gesture, but Potter had no difficulty interpreting it.

  "You can speak freely in front of Demetrius," he said impatiently, exasperated that, even with his life in jeopardy, his lieutenants still insisted on playing their courtiers' games, angling for his favor by subtly casting aspersions on their fellows. "Your report, please."

  Chiarmonte inclined his head. "Of course, my liege. I regret that I have 'come up empty,' thus far. The Legionnaires assigned to guard the park on the night of the attack appear to be loyal. None of them deviated significantly from his story—"

  '"Significantly?"' Demetrius interjected.

  Chiarmonte's thin-lipped mouth tightened at the interruption. "When you torture a man and his loved ones," he explained, "and refuse to accept his story, he's likely to offer a second one eventually, even if the original version was true. But none of those alternate stories checked out. Which is to say, in my professional opinion, the men kept faithful watch over the perimeter of the park, but failed to see the assassin slip inside. As far as our agents have been able to discover, so did everyone else who happened to be in the general vicinity."

  "Perhaps it isn't all that important to identify the specific man," Demetrius said. "He used a distinctive weapon, the ravages of old age. Which suggests he was working for the Ashen Lady."

  "I wouldn't leap to any conclusions," Chiarmonte said. "It's conceivable that some other enemy devised that means of attack precisely because it would divert suspicion to the Seat of Shadows." He gazed into Potter's eyes. "Frankly, Dread Lord, I think it would be rash to assume that any of your peers instigated the attack. Our informants in their households don't know anything about such an a scheme. And you have a plethora of known enemies. Heretics, Renegades, Spectres, the Dark Kingdom of Jade—"

  Potter shook his head. "None of them has access to the highest levels of the city."

  "They certainly aren't supposed to," Chiarmonte conceded. "However, any defensive system can be breached."

  "Perhaps," Potter said, "but I have other information indicating that someone on the Council is plotting against me."

  Chiarmonte lifted an eyebrow. "Since I'm your chief of intelligence," he said a bit ironically, "perhaps it would be appropriate for you to share it with me."

  Potter supposed he deserved the rebuke. The Venetian probably did have a right to know. But the Deathlord was reluctant to confide his troubling visions to anyone but Demetrius. They were too personal. It would make him look too human, and too vulnerable. "It's intimations derived from a mystical source. You don't need to know the specifics. There aren't any, really."

  Chiarmonte sketched a shallow bow. "As you wish, Dread Lord," he said, his tone now entirely neutral. "Undoubtedly, you know best."

  Wonderful, Potter thought sourly, people are trying to murder me, and he has injured feelings. "You're entirely right about one thing," he said, hoping to mollify the man, "it doesn't have to be the Ashen Lady who sent the assassin. Even if it was, we don't know lnnv many other Deatfiferds were in on the plot. And until we do, wc can't retaliate."

  "I'll continue to iSSBSsugate," Chiarmonte said. "I'll also confer with the captain of the household guard ah'SQt. tightening up security."

  "Good," said Potter. "Carry on." Chiarmonte bowed and, exited the chamber. "Idiot."

  Demetrius cocked his head. "I've always thought him competent, if unimaginative."

  "If he were competent, I wouldn't be in this predicament." potter sighed. "Or perhaps that isn't fair- I don't know what to'believe. I feel as if I'm not thinking straight. And that I might even be losing my bond with mv ma-k. The power inside it seems sluggish a$$lir away. If I could tap it as easily as I used to, I would have crushed the assassin the instant I sensed his presence, I keep vyotiderinL! if some me has laid, n curse an B3H."

  "It so," Demetrius replied, moving closer to thff throne, "it's such a subtle malediction that iiotjR oi your servants, with all our various Arcanoi, can detect it. I think you're simply under stress, and iecditig the rffieeis."

  "I hen see if yi hi can. ease tny apprehension,!*Pi >tter said. 'Aery h>r me." flic Greek Ir u
vvnkx 1, but to Potter's relief, for once he didn't need to be coaxed. "Very well, my lord. As ir happens, I stumbled on i:n<;w technique while perilling a volume I found in one of your libraries. I suspect someone .salvaged the tome from the ruins of the old-time Oracles' guild hall;..''"

  "Do you think it will serve tis better than the cards, ot'«sttKlvin« the, patterns in the clouds and lightning?"

  Demetrius smiled. "We'll find out."

  The Greek set his mask on the dais supporting the thtone, then opened the leather satchel hanging at his side, A wavering glow shonelhrth, staininu his swarthy hand and the folds of his toga. He reached mrs the bag and brought out a ball of luminous, opalescent jelly. Soul stuff, smelted but nor yet transformed into wood, metal, or some other less disquieting material.

  Demetrius saicl, "Please remove your gauntlets," Pott er complied, and the Oracle handed him the glowing mass. It was cool.to the touch, and oozed and squirmed feebly in his erasp.

  "Knead it," Demetrius said. "Roll it around. Handle it until it feels right®' von." Feeling a bit like a chile! playing in mud or making snowballs, Potter manipulated the material tor about fifteen seconds, then, handed it back.

  Demetrius hackesi two paces away from the throne, down the scarier runner that ran from the dais to the door. Frowning with concentration, murmuring incantations, he began to draw long curling tendrils from the central mass. Occasional ripples of darkness, symptomatic of the Oblivion gnawing at the heart of all thingSj.pulsed through the strands of light. Crude faces formed gnd dissolved, some blank and mindless, a few contorted m anguish, and one grinning and mugging with demented glee.

  Before long .the mass became a structure rather like a shrub, with multiple stems rising from a common base. The Oracle slowly, carefully released his creatioji, and it floated, unsupported in the air. Then, murmuring once liiore, lie moved to Oite of the lamps, removed the fluted chimney, and put the fingers of his left hand in the flame.

  The residue of soul plasm clinging to his skin kindled instantly. Potter winced, but Demetrius didn't appear to be in any pain. He touched his hands together, setting the right one ablaze, and then returned to his creation. He began to caress the various tendrils, reminding Potter of a harpist plucking the strings of his instrument.