Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  "Good work," Montrose said. Eager to be rid of his chains, he hobbled forward.

  "Wait," murmured Louise. His muscles tightening, he pivoted back around to face her. "I..."

  "I don't wonder at your hesitation," said Montrose, sneering, but keeping his voice low. It would scarcely help his men's morale to perceive how much he and the missionary despised one another. "What could you possibly have to say to me?" He spied a fallen silver visor, snatched it up, and pressed it his face, where the minor magic woven into the metal held it in position. For some reason, concealing his features made him feel a little calmer.

  A crossbow cradled in his hands, a quiver of quarrels on his back, and his saber sheathed at his hip, Montrose glanced backward, taking a last look at the Drones trudging aimlessly about on the ledge, or simply staring catatonically. To his surprise, he felt a twinge of guilt. It seemed wrong to abandon any captive who'd made it to the top of the cliff.

  Scowling behind his silver mask, he pushed the senseless impulse away. He owed these wretches nothing, and in any case, their idiocy was their ultimate prison. If he couldn't free them from that—and no one could—it would be pointless to imperil his own existence or that of his comrades to herd them through the tunnels.

  "I know how you feel," murmured a feminine voice. He hadn't heard Louise creep up beside him, and he gave a violent start. "The poor creatures. I pray that somehow, someday, someone will find a way to heal them."

  Why the imposture? he wondered bitterly. Why pretend to be compassionate when she knows I know her for the ruthless bitch she truly is? Probably for the benefit of Artie and the others, or perhaps her hypocrisy is such that she simply can't help it. Twisting away from her, he surveyed his other comrades, all now unchained, clad, and armed as well as possible. "Shall we be off?" he asked. "Liberty is just a brisk stroll away." They babbled their assent. "Good. Just remember to be quiet. If there's another force headed in our direction, we want to hear them before they hear us." He led them into the first passage.

  With only a few dimly glowing greenish crystals set in the walls for illumination, the tunnels were as dark as the pit. They also had just as many bewildering bends and forks as he remembered. The first time he came to a dead end and had to turn around, Charles muttered something to the wraith beside him. Montrose missed the words, but he caught the anxious tone.

  Artie sauntered to the head of the column, his new shotgun cradled on his shoulder. "I was so worried about getting out of the hole, I half forgot what a maze we'd have to run if we did. I'm getting this craving for cheese."

  Montrose smiled. "Our hosts' precautions do seem a bit rococo, don't they?"

  Artie snorted. "That's Artificers for you. Rube Goldbergs, every one of them. One gadget—or security measure—might do the job, but why stop there when you could build five or ten?"

  Two staircases swam out of the gloom ahead. Montrose paused to study them, then rejected both in favor of the arch between them. Some of his companions whispered to one another. They might not know the way out, but they knew they were underground, and would have to climb to escape. The Scot turned. "Patience," he said. "Neither of those is the right staircase. I know because I'm a Harbinger, a pathfinder, just as I told you. I can guide you to the exit, and I will."

  "I trust you," Louise declared. "We'd still be stuck in the dungeon if not for you." Montrose led them on down the passage.

  "I trust you, too," Artie whispered. The pale jade glow of a wall crystal gleamed on his sharp nose and bushy eyebrows. "Sort of. But I'd feel better if I was sure your talents really apply to the situation."

  "They do and they don't," Montrose said, just as softly. "I can perceive twists and fractures in space. That doesn't help me navigate an ordinary three-dimensional labyrinth. But I've also developed an aptitude for choosing the proper direction in any situation. And I tried to memorize our route when my captor marched me in. I recall some of it. Don't tell the others I'm groping my way, all right? It would only rattle them to no purpose."

  "I haven't blown your cover so far, have I, even though you won't trust me with the secret of who you really are. But if you keep making wrong turns, the others'll figure it out for themselves. Any chance of you opening a Nihil? I wouldn't mind being dumped in the Tempest to get the hell out of here."

  "Alas, no," Montrose said. He led the column into a tunnel that sloped gently downward. Behind him, someone growled an obscenity. "That particular feat is fairly easy in the Shadowlands, but more difficult in Stygia, where, in a real sense, we are inside the Tempest. It's paradoxical, like trying to plunge below the surface of a lake when you're already on the bottom. I'd either need to be one of the great masters of my Arcanos, which I'm not, or exploit a major fault in the dimensional fabric. And I don't sense one anywhere in the immediate vicinity."

  The longer they marched, and the more cul-de-sacs they ran up against, the more nervous Montrose's companions became. Though he understood that, having expended precious energy to heal their wounds, they were weary, the Scot still marveled that, armed and tramping away from the hated pit, they seemed more apprehensive than they had when trapped inside it. Perhaps despair had made them reckless before, and now the hope of actually escaping, together with the concomitant reflection that a danger or a wrong move truly mattered, had rendered them timid. Or perhaps their Shadows were chipping away at their resolve.

  The Anacreon led them up a staircase into a small pentagonal chamber with a trefoil arch in each wall. Beyond one of them, at the end of a short corridor, was another set of steps, again leading upward. Montrose paused, pondering, and then headed for the opening across from that one.

  "No!" exclaimed Pierre. Montrose turned. "I remember this room. We have to keep climbing. Take the next set of stairs."

  "I recall the place myself," the Scot replied. "But I didn't come down those particular stairs, and I doubt you did, either. In any case, I sense they won't take us out."

  "I don't want to quarrel with you, James," said the other ghost, scowling. "I too am grateful for what you've done. But if your powers were reliable, you wouldn't have us retracing our steps so often. We're running out of time, I say this is the way, and I'm going to use my own judgment." He strode through the arch.

  Suddenly Montrose's intuition screamed that the short passage wasn't merely the wrong way, but dangerous. "Stop!" he shouted. Louise, who was closer to the archway, lunged through, hands outstretched to seize Pierre and drag him back.

  Dazzling, freezing barrow-flame blasted from a concealed nozzle in the wall, catching Pierre in mid-step, incinerating him. Ripples of shadow, almost invisible inside the glare, dissolved the last vestiges of his substance. The blaze winked out, and a tomahawk, a spear, and a glass eye, all fused by the fire, thumped to the floor.

  "Damn it!" said Louise, her arms still uselessly extended. "Damn it! If I'd moved a second sooner!"

  Or if I'd realized a second sooner, Montrose thought. Over the centuries, he'd led countless men to destruction. He'd thought he'd grown inured to it, but for some reason, this death galled him. Perhaps because Pierre was no soldier, merely a desperate civilian struggling to survive. Or because his demise might so easily have been avoided.

  "Put a maze on top of the pit," Artie said, sounding sick. "Then put death traps in the maze. Rube Goldberg. God, I hate Artificers."

  Montrose turned to his companions. "Pierre was right about one thing," he said. "We're probably running out of time. Much as we might like to, we can't stand here grieving. Will the rest of you follow my lead now?"

  "Yeah," Artie sighed. The others nodded.

  Several minutes later, the party reached a staircase a hair wider than any they'd encountered before. A green crystal glowed in the left-hand wall, about two thirds of the way out. Montrose let out a long exhalation, surprising himself. He hadn't realized he was holding his breath.

  "What's up?" Artie asked.

  "I know I recognize these steps," Montrose said. "What's more, I'm certain I
can find the way from here. We've nearly reached the Soulforges."

  "Great," said the abolitionist. "And still no guards trying to stop us. Maybe none of the smiths did make it away from the pit, and nobody knows we're coming. Or do you think we really might have slipped past them by going up one tunnel when they were coming down another?"

  "I don't know," said Montrose. "Either way, I never believed we'd be this lucky. I assumed we'd encounter opposition, probably at a point like this. If I were trying to neutralize a band of escaping prisoners, I might well have deployed my force at the top of those stairs."

  As if on cue, a jumble of noise, shouts and the crackle of gunfire, echoed down from overhead. Charles yelped and jumped backwards. Another man jerked up his rifle, presumably to fire at the top of the steps, though the gun wound up pointing at Artie's skull.

  Montrose struck the weapon out of line. "Calm down!" he said. "Can't you tell nobody's shooting at us—not yet, anyway. The sound is still a ways off. Something else is happening."

  "It sounds like somebody's attacking the Artificers," said Louise. "Perhaps that's why no one has intercepted us. The hunters rushed back to the surface to oppose the greater threat."

  "Maybe it's your Sisters of Athena!" said Charles. "Or some other Renegade army! Somebody who's come to rescue us!"

  "Conceivably," said Montrose. Privately he thought it quite unlikely, but on the other hand, he couldn't think of a more plausible explanation. "But the mere possibility doesn't justify dropping our guard. Come on."

  They crept up the staircase, the echoing shots, battle cries, shrieks, and clangor of blades louder with every step. As they neared the forging chamber, the air growing steadily colder, it became obvious that the fight was just ahead of them.

  Montrose lifted a hand, and the fugitives came to a halt. "It might be helpful to know exactly what's going on before we all blunder out into the midst of it," he said. "So I'm going to scout ahead." He concentrated, straining to invoke his Harbinger abilities.

  It was more difficult than he'd expected. Evidently, whether he'd quite realized it or not, he was as exhausted as his companions. Though no longer requiring sleep as mortals did, his body craved rest in some safe and quiet place. Finally cool darkness seeped from his pores and spread across his skin. The others exclaimed as he vanished from their sight.

  "It's all right," he said, "I'm still here, merely invisible. Stay put until I return."

  He skulked up to the arch leading to the huge, high-ceilinged workshop. Noxious vapors stung his eyes. Beyond the opening raged a chaotic struggle between the Artificers and a band of wraiths in black clothing and armor emblazoned with arcane symbols sacred to the servants of the Void. Each of the attackers wore a full-face mask or a helmet that concealed his features. The prisoners of the smiths hung in the fires, abandoned, their substance burning away to nothing. Even the mindless Drones had begun to scream.

  Montrose thought it a strange scene, and for more than one reason. Though some of the Spectres displayed inhuman anatomy—glittering scales, curling ram's horns, or wicked talons—such as a wraith might hire a Masquer to create, as far as he could tell, none possessed the kind of hideous, asymmetrical deformities often manifested by the servants of Oblivion. Nor was any surrounded by a visible aura of dark, malignant energy. Moreover, it was extremely rare, though by no means unheard of, for any foe, Spectre, Renegade, or Heretic, to conduct a raid against Stygia itself.

  He grimaced. He'd ponder the oddities later, after he'd extricated himself from this odious place. Dissolving his veil of shadow, he trotted back to his companions.

  "What did you see?" Charles asked.

  "The Artificers are fighting a war party of Spectres," Montrose replied.

  "Is there any chance at all we could slip through the room without getting tangled up in the battle?" asked Louise.

  Montrose shook his head. "I don't see how." It occurred to him that, masked in darkness, he might be able to do it. But he'd have to abandon the rest of them, and that was out of the question. He was no longer the idealistic fool Argyll had hanged, but he still took pride in being an able general. "I'll just have to find an alternate route through the rest of the maze." He peered about, listening to his intuition, and then conducted the column down another tunnel. The ghastly chill of the fires abated slightly, while the sounds of battle grew gradually fainter.

  Before long the fugitives began to pass a series of apartments. Frowning, Montrose noted that the Artificers had profited in the service of the Smiling Lord—indeed, had feathered their own nests far more opulently than their master could have imagined. Even the smallest rooms, presumably the quarters of the humblest apprentices, were crammed with an abundance of furniture and trinkets. Montrose knew ministers housed in the Onyx Tower itself who were less blessed with material possessions. Unlike the amenities they provided for others, many of the guildsmen's goods had frozen, anguished faces projecting from their facades, as if the artisans reveled in the knowledge that their craft required the destruction of living souls.

  Montrose rounded another corner. Six feet in front of him, the corridor terminated in a blank gray wall.

  "Oh, shit," said Charles. He sounded as if he were struggling not to cry.

  "Blast!" Montrose snarled. "I was certain—and by the Scythe and the Lantern, I still am." He stared intently at the surface until instinct told him where to put his hand. A rectangular stone yielded beneath his touch. With a grating sound, the wall slid aside, revealing the darker, narrower passage beyond. The floor was a mosaic of black, white, and crimson stones about eight inches square, seemingly laid down in a random pattern.

  "Pretty slick, jimmy," Artie said. "Of course, we should have figured that if the forgers got a kick out of mazes and death traps, they'd go in for secret passages, too."

  Montrose stepped forward. His intuition screamed a warning, and he froze.

  "What's wrong now?" Charles wailed.

  "This hall is boobytrapped as well," Montrose said. "I'm sure of it."

  Charles's face crumpled. "We're never going to get out!"

  Louise squeezed his shoulder. "Yes, we will," she said firmly. She turned to Montrose. "Surely the mechanism isn't designed to kill everyone who tries to pass through. What would be the point of putting a snare like that in a secret passage?"

  "None," the Anacreon replied. "And I believe that if we set our feet on the proper blocks, we'll be all right." Not that he had to tread on any of them. With his Arcanos, he could fly through. But he feared he was too exhausted to ferry them all down the passage, one at a time, and he'd be a shabby excuse for a commander if he asked them to depend on his judgment when he didn't appear to trust it himself.

  "Everyone, step exactly where I do."

  He moved gingerly forward, peering closely at the parti-colored floor. He didn't know if he was actually seeing a difference among the flags, something so subtle he couldn't articulate it, or being guided by pure instinct, but either way, and much to his relief, he found that he could distinguish between the trigger stones and the safe ones.

  His companions crept after him in single file, their stolen shoes squeaking and scuffing on the floor. Someone panted. Louise murmured a prayer or meditation under her breath. Artie seemed to be reciting both parts of a comedic dialogue, something about "Who's on first, what's on second, and I-don't-know's on third." Montrose wondered if that was his notion of a transcendental meditation.

  The Hierarch suspected that the Artificers employed a formula to traverse the corridor safely. Now reasonably confident of his ability to spot the trigger stones before he trod on them, he attempted to work out the pattern, but to no avail. Whatever it was, it was too complex to decipher on the fly.

  He supposed it didn't matter. Not as long as he could tell—

  Crossing his legs, he stepped on a white stone, which yielded infinitesimally beneath his sole. Three barbed darksteel blades, stacked vertically, shot out of the wall. Charles squawked. Invoking his power of f
light, Montrose started to hurtle forward, but could already see that he wouldn't get out of the way in time.

  Just as they were about to pierce his torso, the blades rang. The middle one snapped in two and the others bent sideways, missing him, as if someone had struck them a mighty blow with an invisible club.

  Montrose turned. Artie was clutching Charles, holding him up. Evidently, startled, the pudgy young man in the kilt had lost his balance, and might have stumbled onto one of the trigger flags if the comedian hadn't grabbed him. Trembling, Louise was leaning against the wall. Montrose realized that she'd used her own magical talents to save him.

  He didn't know what he felt—surely not gratitude, not after all that had passed between them—or what he should say, but felt he must say something. "Are you all right?" he asked gruffly.

  "Yes," she wheezed. "That little stunt was hard for me. I'm not really that good a Spook."

  "I'm starting to wonder if our pal Pinky here is really all that hot a Harbinger," said Artie, leering, but with a slight quaver in his voice. "Level with me, Natty Bumppo, how many box tops did you have to mail in to get your diploma?"

  "I hope you don't begrudge me one little mistake," Montrose said dryly. "But if you're reluctant to follow me any farther, by all means, feel free to navigate your own course back to safer ground." Sure that his companions no longer remembered which stones were safe, he gestured at the yards of hallway behind them.

  Artie peered backward as if considering the option, swallowed comically, and said, "Uh, thanks but no thanks, fearless leader. On further consideration, I'd just as soon stick with you."

  "I thought you might," Montrose said. "Is everyone ready?" Louise inclined her head. Charles gave him a jerky nod. "Then come on."

  They reached the end of the hall without further incident. Another secret door led them into a circular vault, where a carved design of hammers and flames decorated the ribs in the ceiling. Beyond a lancet arch extended another corridor, and at the end of that was a foyer and a tall, narrow iron door.