Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  The Queen looked at Titus and Antoine. "What do you think?"

  "I'm with Frank," Antoine said. "Shit, I'll go farther. If we don't get rid of Geffard right now, within the next few hours, we might as well take a running jump into the Void and save him the trouble of sending us there."

  "I agree," Titus said.

  "But will the people stand for it?" Marie asked. "They love Geffard." Her mouth twisted. "He gives them entertainments. And we still don't have any proof."

  "If the testimony of a lowly white Lemure like me isn't good enough," Bellamy said sardonically, "then maybe this will help." Hoping the sight of the ugly thing would jolt her out of her funk, he pulled the tiny clay figurine out of his pocket, strode up the first two steps of the dais, and held it out to her.

  Her eyes widening, she flinched, then, slowly, her hand trembling, reached out to take the maimed caricature of herself. The figure quivered in Bellamy's palm. His skin prickled.

  "Stop!" Titus shouted.

  Bellamy tried to snatch the doll back. Moving just as quickly, possessed by the malevolent power of the image or her own shadowself, Marie lunged out of her seat and grabbed it anyway. Dark flame exploded from her hand, hurling Bellamy backward. She screamed once, then tumbled headlong down the steps, to sprawl

  Fluid pattered into fluid. Evidently, Montrose thought, he and Louise were approaching another fountain. Like his own master's stronghold, the Seat of Golden Tears contained an abundance of them, the difference being that the ones here dripped ordinary water instead of gushing cold, crackling liquid flame.

  He warily led his companion around another corner. The passage opened out into a chamber with rough, irregular walls, rather resembling a cave. It even had a dank, earthy smell. Beads of water oozed through the center of the floor, then shot upward, collecting in a pool on the ceiling.

  "The water's lighter than air," Louise said, her voice slightly muifled by the hood of her saffron robe.

  "Perhaps, perhaps not," Montrose said, waving his hand at a large trapezoidal window to the left. Storm clouds churned in the bottom of the glass. Above them was a topsy-turvy view of the Beggar Lord's artificial gardens, and, beyond that, the ramparts which defined the perimeter of his domain.

  To the Scot's amusement, Louise gave a start, her reflexes insisting that she was about to drop on her head. He might have reacted similarly once, before the practice of levitation had all but ground the fear of falling out of him. "Then we're upside down?" the Renegade asked. "Walking on the ceiling like flies? You'd think we would have felt the magic shift us around as we entered."

  "If that's what happened," Montrose said, gesturing toward an octagonal window on the other side of the chamber. Beyond it shone beds of orange and yellow tulips, and these, from his perspective, were right side up.

  Louise shrugged, the topazes on her heavy robe clinking. "Well, then something here, some aspect of this, is an illusion."

  "That's what I would have thought, but supposedly nothing in this labyrinth is an illusion in the ordinary meaning of the word, no matter how paradoxical or contrary to common sense." They walked on toward the exit at the far side of the room. He noted with satisfaction that the soreness in his wounded thigh had all but disappeared.

  "Why was the maze built?" asked Louise. "What purpose does it serve?"

  "Theoretically, the Beggar Lord rules over those souls who meet mysterious deaths. Some such find themselves driven to discover how and why they perished, or even to penetrate the fundamental secrets of the universe. Areas like this—I'm told there are many—were constructed to aid the seekers in their quest. Contemplating the enigmas here is supposed to unlock the mind and afford it glimpses of hidden truths."

  "Like trying to unravel a koan," said Louise thoughtfully.

  "I suppose," he replied. "Perhaps it works. Many of the greatest philosophers and metaphysicians in Imperial history owed their allegiance to this Seat, and few of them were renowned as thinkers or savants on Earth."

  unconscious on the floor with the figurine clenched tight in her fist and black waves of Oblivion streaming through her body.

  Stooping, the fugitives stepped through a low doorway. Though the wall outside had been made of stone, they now found themselves in a round glass chamber with a high, domed ceiling, like a bell jar. Montrose glanced around, then, startled, caughthis breath. Outside the room, visible from the waist up, loomed two giants in saffron robes. Peering upward, the taller one aped the Hierarch's movements to perfection, while the shorter mimicked Louise. To all appearances, the gargantuan figures had just stepped into a bell jar themselves, and outside its transparent confines towered two more titans, who dwarfed them as they dwarfed the wraiths. Though he couldn't actually see any farther, Montrose had the feeling that that pair was gaping up at an even huger duo, the progression extending onward to infinity.

  In the exact center of the room stood a table with a bell jar on it. No doubt when he gazed into it, he'd see a minuscule incarnation of himself, looking down at another tinier still.

  "Disconcerting, isn't it?" said Louise, a trace of humor in her voice. Evidently she was enjoying his discomfiture as he'd enjoyed hers in the previous chamber.

  He nodded. "A bit. I think I'd be more comfortable if I were either the largest Montrose or the smallest, assuming there are such. There's something particularly unsettling about being merely a link in the middle of the chain." His robe swishing, he started for the exit across the room.

  "I know what you mean," she said. "It undermines our certainty that we're the real ones. Tell me, where are all the mystics this wonderland was intended to serve? Why haven't we come across anybody meditating?"

  "I imagine they're busy with their duties," he said. "You don't think the Beggar Lord would allow his vassals time off for contemplation when he's preparing for civil war, do you? That's why I thought this would be a good place to rest and ponder our next move." Nearing the jar on the table, he observed that it did indeed contain two minute figures scurrying along, and felt a sudden desire to experiment with it. If he opened it and squashed the tiny Louise, would a giant hand descend from above and crush the woman beside him? If he smashed it, would the walls around him shatter too? Grimacing, he pushed the perverse impulse away. Most likely his Shadow had slipped it into his mind. He doubted that his dark half would ever stop troubling him as long as his betrayer was at hand to agitate it.

  "Still," said Louise, "everybody can't be on duty all the time. You'd think we'd see someone."

  "Since Charon perished," he said, struggling to keep a fresh attack of loathing from roughening his voice, "the Beggar Lord hasn't limited himself to harvesting the victims of Mystery. He grabs whatever souls he can, just like the rest of the Deathlords, so in all likelihood many of his newer subjects feel little need to frequent this particular facility. Nor, I suspect, are they encouraged to do so. In good times, the Empire has been known to smile on the pursuit of spiritual insight, at least via approved channels. In bad times, however, the ruling powers tend to suspect all such endeavors of being inherently Transcendental."

  Louise snorted. "Occasionally I see some marvel here that makes me think Stygia isn't a complete hell after all. But then it always turns out that you've wasted or corrupted it."

  He felt a pang of defensiveness, which instantly flared into a blaze of fury. "Who are you to judge us, traitoress?" he snarled. "Who are you to disdain anyone?"

  She halted, turned to face him, pulled back her cowl, and removed the mask beneath it. Above her, colossi did the same, revealing the same taut, lovely features.

  Montrose felt a flicker of dismay at the pain and anger in her face. "May I finally tell you what happened back in The Hague?" she asked.

  "Thank you, no," he said coldly.

  "Damn it, don't say that!" she snapped. "You do want to know. You want to know so badly that it's grinding you up inside."

  "Conceivably so. But even so, knowing you to be a liar, why should I listen to whatever new f
alsehoods you've concocted?"

  "I haven't deceived yOu on this side of the Shroud," she replied. "I have no intention of starting now, especially not here, in a temple devoted to truth. Nor do I expect you to forgive me. But as long as. we don't talk about it, it will gnaw at us, ruining every peaceful moment we might otherwise have had. Perhaps once you know the truth, we'll be able to work together without my presence being such a torment for you. And even if it doesn't clear the air, at least you'll have your curiosity satisfied."

  He stared at her for several seconds, then, said, "I already tried to slay you once. Should your story enrage me, I might do the same again. But if you're willing to run the risk, then say on."

  "First unmask," she said. "Don't make me confess to a blank expanse of cloth."

  Reluctantly he threw his cowl back, then pulled off the black crepe mask beneath it. The air felt'cold against his skin.

  "Thank you," said Louise. She swallowed. "Let me start by saying that I truly did love you."

  "I cringe from even imagining how you would have treated a fellow you disliked."

  She glared at him. "Just be silent! You can scoff and sneer after I'm done. I loved you with my whole heart. I would have died for you. I wished you could be with me every night.

  "But you couldn't, of course. You were busy planning the invasion of Scotland, and even an exiled, bankrupt princess has to be discreet. And one night, when you couldn't visit my bedchamber, someone else did."

  Despite all that had passed between them, all that he'd surmised about her true character, the declaration cut him like a knife. Grinning to conceal the hurt, he said, "How fortunate that pM were adaptable enough to make do with a substitute. Who was it, VanLengen?"

  "I told you to be quiet! No, it wasn't him, or anyone human.'

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "The maid had already gone," said Louise. Her voice and blue eyes took on a subtly remote quality as memory possessed her. "I read another few pages of Erasmus, then blew out the candles beside the: bed. And for some reason, that was when I saw him, when the light was gone.

  "He was waiting in the corner, watching me. His long, bony face shone pale as the moon, and his dark, deep-set eyes, glittered like soulfire crystals. I could barely make out the shape of his gaunt frame; draped in black, it blended with the shadows.

  "Though not handsome in any Conventional sense, he looked beautiful and dangerous. I opened my mouth to scream, but he shook his head and the cry withered in my throat. Unable to tear my gaze away from his, I groped for the candelabrum, thinking to use it as a club. I grasped, it but then suddenly he was beside me. He caressed my hand, my fingers spasmed with terror and pleasure, and my weapon thudded to the floor.

  "He held me and he raped me, though only with his touch and mouth. I knew I should cry for help or do something else to stop him, but I didn't. It was as if I'd been drugged." Her voice turned harsh with self-contempt. "Or perhaps it simply felt too good. At the end, he bit my inner thigh and drank a measure of my blood, slurping like a child guzzling porridge, and that felt the bestof all."

  "A vampire " Montrose said.

  "Yes. I fainted while he was drinking. When I awoke hours later, he'd gone, leaving nothing behind to prove that he'd ever been there. Even the marks of his fangs had healed without a trace.

  "I decided it had only been a shameful, lascivious dream. Perhaps he'd commanded me to think so. At any rate, I clung to the belief as long as I could, but eventually, after several visitations, I realized the truth.

  "Yet even then, my thoughts were murky. I'd forget all about him for hours or even days at a time. Often, when I did remember, I could only think of the rapture he gave me. I couldn't recognize that he was a demon, that he'd enslaved me and imperiled my soul, nor that when I yielded to him, I was being unfaithful to you, the one I truly loved. Occasionally, briefly, I would perceive exactly what was happening, but even then I did nothing to end it. My horror didn't energize me, it paralyzed me.

  "As the weeks dragged on, and the day of your departure drew near, the vampire told me I must do him a favor to repay him for all the nights of bliss he'd given me."

  "Convince me to make VanLengen one of my lieutenants?" Montrose asked, She nodded. "He said the man was his ghoul, whatever that means. By then my thinking was so twisted that;I did it without even considering the implications. Afterwards, gloating, the vampire informed me that I'd planted a Judas in your company. I begged him to permit me to undo what I'd done, but he only laughed. When he'd had his fill of mocking me, he vanished, arid never came to me again.

  "I vowed tell ygu the truth, but I couldn't. The vampire was still inside my head, muzzling me, making me smile and laugh and paint, forcing me through my normal routine as if I were: an automaton. I spent long hours praying, and earnestly discussing theology with my mother's chaplain, hoping that my acts of piety would break the spell." She smiled bitterly. "But obviously, they didn't."

  "No," Montrose said. "This can't be true. I adored you. I spent every spare moment with you. If some devil had turned you into his puppet, if you were secretly in agony, I would have noticed."

  "You were working round the clock, making your final preparations to sail. Your spare moments: were few and far between, and then you were weary and preoccupied."

  "I still can't believe—" he began, and then, abruptly, his certainty crumbled. The quest to recover the throne for young Charles had consumed him. Perhaps he had been too intent on his mission even to notice that the woman he loved was languishing under an undead monster's spell. The realization brought a pang of shame.

  "After I learned of your death," Louise continued, "I left my mother's house in secret, became a Catholic, and took the veil. Did you know that?"

  "No. Eyeri after I made it back to the Shadowlands, well into the 1700s, I never checked to find out how your life had turned out. It occurred to me, but for some reason, I didn't truly want to know."

  "I felt a need to dedicate myself to God, to atone for the hideous thing I'd done. I even gave up my art as a part of my penance. In time I achieved a measure of serenity.

  "Death took it away again, of course- I discovered what all we Restless, discover, that this afterlife of ours is nothing like what my religion had taught me to expect. But for some reason, unlike many wraiths, I didn't become cynical. I still had faith that a soid could find God, or at least goodness and wisdom. Eventually my .-catch led me to the New World and the Sisters of Athena."

  Feeling befuddled, Montrose-shook his head. "You said you weren't telling me this to gain my forgiveness. But surely the point of the story is that what happened wasn't your fault."

  "No!" she said fiercely. "That isn't what I'm saying. If not for the perverse, masochistic part, of my spirit, the part that relished my debasement at the vampire's hands, perhaps I could have found the will to. resist him. At any rate, I should have been strong or clever enough to do something."

  "Why did the vampire want the expedition to fail? Was he Argyll's agent? Or his secret overlordf"

  "He didn't say," Louise replied. "You have to understand how it was, James. All those hours pressed together in the dark, all those intimate things he did to me, his icy flesh burning mine, and he never even told me his name."

  Montrose shook his head. "I don't know what to say."

  "Just tell me how you feel. Has this helped to ease the pain at all, or have I only given you new reason to despise me?"

  "Well," he said hesitantly, "assuming that any part of your tale is true—"

  She grabbed him by the forearms. "Don't hide from me like that. It is true. You know it is. Now you be honest with me."

  He glared at her. "All right. The truth is, I wish you hadn't told me. Because hatred isn't the most troublesome emotion a man can feel. It's less crippling than confusion and ambivalence, and suddenly I don't know what I feel, or ought to feel, about you or anything else.

  "Could you have broken the vampire's spell if you wanted to badly enough? Hav
e I been right to hate you all these years? I'll never know, just as I'll never know who. your undead lover was. I knew my mortal life was a fiasco, but at least I imagined I understood who my enemies were, and how and why they brought me down. Now, suddenly, I discover that there were forces arrayed against me that I never even suspected. But I'll never, ever comprehend them, not three hundred and fifty years after the fact."

  "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I didn't realize it would affect you this way."

  "I'm sure you didn't," he slid, sneering, stepping back to distance himself from her. "You flattered yourself that it was your betrayal that set me on the path I've walked in the Underworld. That made me a fiendish. Legionnaire as opposed to a stalwart Renegade or a saintly Heretic. You imagined that if you could persuade me that you were actually worthy of my devotion all along, my ruthlessness and selfishness would fall away from me. I'd renounce the Hierarchy and revert to the gallant ass you knew.

  "Well, it's not going to happen. Even if you didn't mean to betray me, plenty of others did; even, at the end, my King himself. It all helped to teach me the true shape of the world, and so has everything I've experienced in the afterlife. I couldn't turn back into the fool you knew, even if I wanted to. And I don't. I'm happy as I am."

  "I wasn't trying to change you!" she said, then hesitated. "Or perhaps I was. Maybe I don't know what I was trying to accomplish. I just needed to explain."

  "Well, I l§©pi It made you feel better," he spat. They stared at each other in helpless, excruciating silence, she evidently having no more idea what to say next than he did, until the tramp of boated feet and the jingle of metal shattered the moment. It sounded like a group of armed men, moving briskly in their direction.

  Montrose nearly smiled. The threat of a band of soldiers was a welcome distraction from the bewildering knot of emotions aching in his chest. Hastily pulling his cowl over his head, he whispered, "Come on, this way."

  The passage beyond the bell jar divided at a Y intersection. Montrose and Louise skulked down the left-hand branch, and soon found themselves in an octagonal room where three geometric forms, each roughly the size of a medicine ball, sat in a line on the middle of the floor. At one end was a bright blue tetrahedron, clearly smaller than the yellow sphere in the middle, which was in turn smaller than the red cube. Yet Montrose's eyes simultaneously insisted that the tetrahedron was larger than the cube. He could already tell he'd contract a splitting headache if he looked at the tableau for very long.