Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  Becoming visible once more, Montrose leveled his rapier at the cowering Usurer. He'd thought Louise wise to intimidate rather than kill the doorkeeper. Someone might have missed her. But he doubted that anyone would look for this scrawny little healer, not for hours to come, and it seemed only prudent not to leave any witnesses to the slaughter.

  And yet he hesitated. Perhaps it was because the Usurer was a fellow Stygian, a countryman who'd never offered him any harm. Or perhaps he simply didn't want to listen to Louise decry his cold-bloodedness. At any rate, contemptuous of his own squeamishness, he said, "The grandees sent you away so they could practice their vice without the distraction of your disapproving stare. Thus, you never saw any of this. Get out."

  The Usurer scrambled through the door.

  Louise rested her hand on the blind man's brow. "It's all right," she murmured. "They can't hurt you anymore. Sleep, and heal." Rather to Montrose's surprise, the gladiator stopped shaking and twitching.

  The Sister of Athena stoGped and picked up one of the now-empty begemmed robes. "I saw what those sadists were doing," she said to Montrose. "'Vice' is a mild term for it. I thought before that it would trouble me to strike them down by surprise, but now I doubt that guilt will overwhelm me."

  For a moment, Montrose wanted to assure her that, while he had on occasion attended the games, he'd never engaged in any practices like the one she'd just observed. Grimacing, he wondered why he kept experiencing these witless urges t.O: justify himself. "The audience comes here to feel," he said. "Rage and triumph, terror and pain. But some people aren't satisfied merely to soak up the secondhand emotions from the stands. They desire a more intimate communion with the principals."

  "I understand," she said. "Just as I know that wraiths of all persuasions engage in the same sort of cruelties in the Shadowlands. But somehow they seem even worse in such a grandiose setting, and when the evil appears to be so thoroughly institutionalized."

  Not knowing how to respond to that, he picked up the other robe. With the topazes weighing it down, it was. heavier than he'd expected. He tried it on and was pleased to discover just how voluminous it actually was. He'd have to discard his hat—otherwise, he wouldn't be able to pull the cowl over his head—but it looked as if the habit would conceal his sword and cloak.

  Louise folded up her fedora, stowed it in one of her robe's internal pockets, and buttoned the garment up over her raincoat. Montrose eyed the Paupers' assault rifles wistfully, but decided not to push his luck by trying to hide one of those under his golden disguise as well. He peeked out into the hallway. He didn't see or hear anyone rushing to intercept them, so he and his companion headed back the way they'd come.

  "I still don't know about this," she said. "Two ministers and three Legionnaires leave their seats. The two ministers come back alone. Are you certain no one will be suspicious?"

  "By no means," he said, Striding past a cage containing a beast like a two-headed leopard with vermilion spots. The monster snarled at him, spattering him with fine drops of saliva. "But I'm prepared to gamble on it. It's a large group, they're all masked, and everyone's drunk on destruction. The euphoria will almost certainly linger while they travel back to the Onyx Tower. And even in these unsettled times, the guards are likely to pass the party through all together. They won't look closely at each individual the way they would if you and I tried to enter by ourselves."

  "When you explain it that way, it makes sense." They made their way through the gladiators gathered in the waiting room, then headed up the stairs. "I'm starting to believe we might actually pull this off."

  Smiling, he opened his mouth to remark that they made a good team, then suddenly remembered that this was the Lorelei who'd betrayed him to his death, who might yet betray him again if he didn't keep his guard up. Any inclination to make pleasant conversation with her died in a spasm of loathing.

  As they passed the doorkeeper, who had recovered her bludgeon and sat back down on her stool, the crowd in the amphitheater cried out. Somehow the noise sounded different than the cheering and gasps of excitement Montrose had heard before. Suddenly apprehensive, he quickened his pace, and Louise trotted to keep up with him. A ragged volley of shots rang out.

  The fugitives broke into a run. As Montrose scrambled into the interior of the stadium, a centurion of the Iron Legion, clad in the traditional gray garb and armor of the Ashen Lady's warriors, blundered around to face him, gaped, then fired a .45 automatic.

  The shot whizzed past Montrose's ear. Wishing that his rapier and flintlocks weren't buried out of reach beneath his cumbersome robe, he lunged at the centurion and kicked him in the groin. The Legionnaire doubled over. Montrose slammed the edge of his stiffened hand down on the back of his opponent's neck. He hit the warrior's gorget, sending a jab of pain through his own flesh, but the man in gray fell unconscious.

  Montrose peered frantically about, first making sure no one else was about to attack him, then trying to determine what was going on. The scene was so chaotic, and his vantage point at the mouth of the passage so inadequate, that for a moment he couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. Finally he discerned that the Iron Legionnaires and the Paupers were fighting one another. It was hard to imagine that any commander had planned such an engagement. There was no conceivable tactical point to it. It was more likely that, inflamed by the slaughter in the arena, aware that the Deathlords were preparing for civil war, some hothead had simply succumbed to the urge to lash out at the servants of one of his sovereign's rivals, thus sparking a general melee.

  But whatever had triggered the conflict, it was happening with a vengeance. Legionnaires fought hand to hand or blazed away at one another, heedless of the danger to noncombatants. Shrieking civilians streamed down the tiers of seats, fleeing away from the soldiers' battle and toward the exits, crushing and trampling one another. Others, maddened by their own combative impulses, attacked those around them. Daggers rose and fell, Masquers ripped other wraiths apart as if their bodies were made of paper, Chanteurs wailed, and brilliant arcs of Haunter lightning flared and crackled, drenching the air with the smell of ozone. Perhaps the rioters, all of whom were pledged to one Deathlord or another, imagined that they too were waging war on the partisans of their masters' rivals, though in reality, they appeared to be lashing out at random. On the sand, twenty swordsmen and as many spearmen stared up at the stands in astonishment, their own interrupted conflict quite forgotten.

  The Beggar Lord's ministers were attempting to escape the Coliseum also. In fact, aided by several Paupers who'd stayed out of the battle, and who shot or stabbed anyone who impeded their charges' progress, they seemed on the brink of success. In another few seconds they'd disappear into one of the tunnels leading outside, and Montrose's best hope of infiltrating the Onyx Tower would vanish with them.

  I he Anacreon snatched up the Iron Legionnaire's pistol. Trying to skirt the soldiefs' battle, he clambered up several tiers, then plunged down a row, with Louise scrambling along behind him.

  Despite his best efforts to avoid the maddened warriors, a soldier in gray charged him, a dirk in one iron gauntlet and a .45 in the other, bounding from one tier of seats to the next as if they were stair steps. Montrose leveled his own gun, but before he could pull the trigger, the Legionnaire fell backward as though he'd run into an invisible wall. Evidently Louise had bashed him with her Arcanos.

  The fugitives drove onward. A smiling, slender Haunter, wrapped in the traditional inky cloak of her fallen Guild, reached out for Montrose. He brandished the pistol in warning. But the other ghost, student of an esoteric art notorious for driving its practitioners insane, simply gave him a friendly pat. on his hooded cheek, then continued to peer about, taking in the mayhem. If her serene expression was any indication, she found the spectacle soothing.

  Suddenly the crowd surged, lifting; Montrose off his feet like an ocean swell. He glimpsed Louise helplessly falling; as well, and then he crashed down with his feet on one row of seats and his s
houlder on the next one down. The impact stung, but that pain instantly gave way to a host of greater ones, as running feet stamped down on his body.

  Terrified, he fired the automatic upward until it was empty, trying to drive the stampeding crowd away, Unable to shift his feet beneath him, he struggled to use his Harbinger powers to levitate. Finally there came a moment when no one was treading on him, and his battered, pain-ridden body lurched into an upright posturfe.

  He spun. Curled into a ball, Louise was using her arms to protect her head. She also employed her telekinesis in an effort to clear a space for herself, but couldn't thrust the ©nrushing Stygians away fast enough. Montrose dropped the pistol, seized a man who was about to trample her, swung him away, and flung him on down the tiers. Then he made a desperate grab for Louise's arm, and, catching hold of it, wrenched her off the floor.

  He peered ahead. The Beggar Lord's minions were .gone. He wondered if the grandees, would make it through the passage without being crushed. Assuming they did, there was only one chance of catching up with them now.

  He put his arms around Louise. Perhaps grasping his intention, she embraced him as well. He soared upward.

  It was a dangerous maneuver. He and Louise wore the robes of the Beggar Lord's officials, which presumably made them desirable targets to many of the frenzied combatants and, flying, they were bound to draw people's attention. Still, for a second he exulted, simply because he'd lifted himself clear of the crush.

  Then a Chanteur shrieked at him. His head throbbed, for an instant the world went black, and he felt himself falling. Something—an arrow?—pierced his thigh, and he felt waves of Oblivion, alternately cold and hot, pulsing away from the wound.

  "Fly!" screamed Louise. "Fly!"

  Grimly he focused his will. Pulled Out of his fall inches before he would have crashed back down on the heads of the crowd. Rose once more. Archers and gunmen shot at him. Zigzagging, he dodged some of the missiles, and, her muscles; bunching, Louise deflected the rest.

  Then the barrage ceased. He realized he'd flown high enough to lose himself in the floodlights' glare; no one in the stands could draw a bead on him. He soared on out of the stadium. Green light flickered in the bellies of the storm clouds overhead.

  "Are you all right?" asked Louise.

  "Probably not," he said. Clenching his teeth, he pulled the missile—a crossbow quarrel, he saw now—out of his flesh and dropped it into the darkness below. "But I can function. What about you?"

  "About the same," she said. "I got kicked in the head a few too many times, but I'll manage. What do we do now?"

  "Wait for our friends in yellow to emerge, then join their party. With luck, in their haste and confusion, they won't realize we weren't with them all along."

  They peered down at the panicked throng pouring out of the arena. After a few seconds, a clump of shadowy figures in voluminous robes and ragged surcoats struggled into the open. Praying that none of them would look up, Montrose swooped like a hunting owl, landing silently at the rear of the procession.

  A Pauper Marshal with a pistol in either hand turned toward them. "Move it!" he snapped. "I mean, please hurry, my lords. We have to return to the palace without delay."

  "We're coming," said Louise.

  With many a fearful backward glance, the party fled up the mountain, in the process leaving the last of the tenements and apartment complexes behind. The ornate—though often bizarre and grotesque—edifices looming on either side were often as huge as the hive-like structures on the slopes below, but in most cases each was the house of a single master, a wealthy merchant or luminary of the Court who, for whatever reason, chose to maintain a residence apart from its splendors.

  Then the procession rounded a corner, and suddenly the Onyx Tower itself came into view, its outermost walls dwarfing the mansions clustered around them as if they were doll houses. Looking tiny as ants, sentries patrolled the parapet, and behind them, countless spires pierced the sky. In the center of this forest of stone rose the mightiest structure of all, the colossal cylinder that was Charon's donjon, lightless and vacant since the Emperor's exequies.

  It was a greater castle than any which had ever existed on Earth, perhaps the greatest which had ever existed anywhere in the universe. Louise, who hitherto had only glimpsed it from afar, froze and stared. Montrose seized her arm and tugged her into motion once again.

  Their bodyguards herded them on toward a sally-port, insignificant as a mouse hole at the base of the prodigious enceinte. A guard stepped into view on a balcony fashioned in the shape of an outstretched hand. "Halt! Who goes there?" he cried.

  "Open up, idiot!" the Marshal snarled. "Don't you know another riot's broken out? We have to get these people inside immediately!"

  "Yes, sir!" said the guard, his voice breaking. The postern swung open.

  The procession hurried into a long, shadowy tunnel with inconspicuous murder holes dotting the ceiling. A few dim amber electric bulbs burned along the walls. The gate boomed shut again.

  The enceinte was so thick that it seemed to take forever to traverse the passage.

  But at last it opened on a small courtyard with a sculpture of a black marble question mark standing in the center, and faux rosebushes, the fragrant yellow flowers a miracle of the Artficer's craft, ringing the perimeter.

  Montrose had worried that once everyone was safe, his companions might try to engage him and Louise in conversation, but no one did. Rather, the group began to disperse immediately. Perhaps they were all scurrying to their posts in this time of crisis.

  The fugitives slipped through a trefoil arch and down a narrow passage that no one else had taken. "We made it!" said Louise. "We're inside!"

  Montrose smiled sardonically at the excitement in her voice. "Indeed we are. Now for the difficult part of the plan."

  Footsteps clicked up the marble corridor beyond the door. Potter reflexively sat up straight on his throne and made sure the head of his halberd pointed directly at the ceiling. As always, it was his task to look majestic and enigmatic, like a steel statue of some dark and terrible god.

  Two figures appeared at the entrance to the chamber. The first was Demetrius, wrapped in his toga, his. sardonyx helm reflecting the chill, greenish lamplight. Beholding him, Potter felt a sort of relief, an easing of the anxiety that gnawed at him day and night. The Oracle's companion was a hulking man shrouded in the red and yellow layered cloak of the Order of the Avenging Flame, with a matching beret perched on his square-jawed, crewcut head.

  Doffing his cap, the stranger bowed deeply, sweeping his mantle open in the process. Potter noted with satisfaction that the man's scabbard and holster were empty. Demetrius quickly closed and locked the door, then inclined his head as well.

  "Come forward," Potter intoned.

  The newcomers advanced up the length of the Lesser Gun Room, past display cases full of matchlocks., flintlocks, carbines, revolvers, pistols, shotguns, and automatic weapons. At the foot of the dais, they bowed once more. The man in red and yellow lost his balance and took a quick, lurching step to regain it.

  "Are you all right?" Potter asked.

  "Yes, Dread Lord," the other man replied, smiling wryly as he removed his scarlet, gold-trimmed domino. The vestige of a Scots accent rem inded Potter of Montrose, inspiring a fresh twinge of regret that the Grim Rider had chosen to turn traitor. "I'm simply not used to being this tall. I'm not one of those fellows who asks the flesh sculptors for a new body every month, just for the novelty of it. But in these unsettled times, it wouldn't do for anyone to observe Robert Fitzroy, Anacreon of the Penitent Legion and legate of the Laughing Lady, slipping into the Seat of Burning Waters."

  Fitzroy's demeanor was cool and composed. Though he almost certainly felt a measure of awe at being in the SmilingXord's presence, he possessed sufficient savoir faire to mask it. Nor could Potter discern any telltale glint of insanity in the diplomat's eyes, for all that the fellow served the patron demigoddess of those who perished by
dint of madness. The Deathlord couldn't decide if that was good or bad. A rational man might be more predictable, easier to read, yet harder to deceive.

  "Conditions are unsettled," Potter agreed. "As is my sworn duty, I intend to put an end to the current troubles before they damage the Empire beyond repair. Unfortunately, it seems plain that any such intervention will require fundamental alterations to the structure of the government."

  Fitzroy's eyes widened slightly. "How so, my lord Ares?"

  "I suspect you comprehend," Pottersaid. "When Stygia had a single monarch, the state was strong and healthy. Under the Council of Seven, it's sickening by the day. The present system is simply top cumbersome and rife with inconsistencies. It wouldn't work even if several of my colleagues weren't actively undermining it to. further their imperial ambitions."

  The Penitent hesitated. "You're speaking with great candor, my lord, particularly considering that this i$ our first discussion. May I be forthright as well, without giving, offense?"

  "Speak," Potter said.

  "My lady has heard rumors that you're scheming to seize the Emperor's throne yourself. Needless to say, these tidings alarm her, and thus far, your statements this evening have offered nothing to allay her concerns."

  "Then I'll try to do so now," Potter replied. "I don't aspire to be Emperor. My powers are formidable. You should hope that you and your Penitent comrades are never required to face them. Yet I know I'm no Charon, nor are any of the other Deathlords. None of us could hold the Hierarchy together by himself."

  "Then what are your goals?" Fitzroy asked.

  "First, to preserve my existence, by casting: down the traitors who have been trying to destroy me. Second, to restore peace and order to the realm by establishing a smaller group of oligarchs, who can govern efficiently, without constantly finding themselves at cross purposes, and who will be content with their offices. They Ought to be, wouldn't you agree? After all, the fewer the surviving Deathlords, the more power each will wield."