Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  "Where now?" whispered Louise.

  "That way, I think," he said, turning to the left.

  It had always been impossible to walk through the Smiling Lord's palace without being reminded periodically of violence. Even the brightest, airiest halls, given over to the most peaceful and frivolous of pursuits, celebrated mayhem in one way or another. Nazi banners hung above the indoor tennis courts. A howitzer sat on display in the middle of an arboretum, and many of the residents, even those performing the least martial of duties, carried weapons and affected the uniforms of one military force or another, hoplites and pilots from von Richthofen's Flying Circus rubbing elbows with dragoons and condottieri.

  Now, however, the simple realization that one was inside a vast fortress, indeed, a shrine to armed conflict, had changed to a chilling feeling that actual strife was imminent. The dance halls, theaters, natatoria, and other recreational facilities were nearly as deserted as the commons beyond the castle walls. Servants and minor officials scurried through the corridors under the cold, watchful eyes of a plethora of sentries and patrols. Whenever Louise and Montrose neared a party of guards, he tensed, expecting them to order him to halt, or simply to open fire. But though some eyed the fugitives curiously, they allowed them to pass unchallenged.

  Finally the pair reached one of the many apartment complexes where the Smiling Lord's lesser minions made their homes. The Scot rapped on a black door with a brazen skull-face knocker. Receiving no response, he glanced up and down the hall, making sure no one was watching, then twisted the handle. The door was locked, so he lifted his foot to kick it.

  "Let me try," said Louise. She stared at the lock for a moment, and then the tumblers clicked. "Voila. Sometimes I can do that, when it's a simple mechanism."

  Montrose opened the door on a parlor containing a snooker table, a rack of cues, a stained-glass chandelier, and little else. Beyond it were two considerably smaller chambers, one of them crammed full of the chairs, sofa, stereo, bookshelf, and other amenities, which in another residence, might have occupied the front room.

  "I know the officials who dwell here," Montrose said, heading for the rear of the flat. "A married couple, so there should be clothes for each of us." He opened an ornately carved armoire.

  They began rooting through an eclectic collection of garments. She pulled out a pair of jeans, a matching denim jacket decorated with brass rivets, and a cotton work shirt, casual, modem garments such as she'd worn when he'd encountered her in America. "So even wicked Stygians sometimes marry," she said.

  "A few," he replied, coming upon a bottle-green suit tailored in a style from the Restoration era. It was similar enough to the clothing he'd worn in life to be comfortable, yet different enough from his black highwayman outfit that no one would mistake the one for the other. He lifted it out.

  "But you were never even tempted?"

  He thought of the many lovers, Thralls and courtesans mostly, he'd known since his anival in Stygia, women whose innate sensuality had been sculpted into a dazzling and sometimes unhuman erotic perfection. Each unique, yet somehow just the same as all the others. Beauties as intoxicating as sweet liqueur, and just as cloying once one had had one's fill. "No. The Restless can theoretically endure forever. That's a long time to bind yourself to one person, particularly with no possibility of children."

  "And especially when your selfish beast of a husband insists on taking up most of the space in your home with an enormous toy."

  He grinned. "Actually, Maria is the selfish beast, a fact which shouldn't surprise an Amazon like you. The table is her diversion." He started to unbuckle his belt, then faltered. For an instant, it had felt wholly natural to undress before her eyes, no doubt because they'd been naked together as mortal lovers, and again in the Artificers' dungeon. But now perhaps it wasn't appropriate. Flustered, he turned his back, and heard her do the same.

  As he donned his new mask, a cool, smooth piece of carved jade that left his lower lip and chin uncovered, Louise said, "I'm decent." He turned. The domino she'd chosen was highly polished gold. He could see the reflection of his face smeared across the front of it. "Are we ready to press on?" she asked.

  "As ready as we're likely to get, I suppose. Unfortunately, it isn't going to be easy.

  "You mean, unlike all the other hurdles we've jumped to come this far?"

  "I didn't mean it will necessarily be more difficult. God forbid. But you saw that the palace is crawling with guards. They didn't challenge us because we weren't trying to go anywhere important. But the suites of the Smiling Lord and his chief officers are a different matter. No one will be allowed in without giving a full accounting of himself."

  "So how do we proceed?"

  ''Scout around. With luck, we'll spot a hole in somebody's security. And if not, we'll figure out how to make one."

  She nodded. "Let's do it."

  For the next two hours, they prowled through the Seat, past innumerable displays of armor, weapons and battle flags, and countless grotesquely shaped fountains spewing cold, hissing liquid flame, inspecting the portals leading to the more august personages of the fortress. Soldiers of the Order of the Avenging Flame stood before every entry, guns at the ready. Frequently barghests in iron muzzles crouched at their feet, eyes burning, nostrils snuffling and flaring.

  "What do you think?" murmured Louise at last.

  "I don't know yet," Montrose admitted. "I'm confident we could fight our way past one of these groups of sentries, but the noise would bring a host of others down on our heads. We need to pass through with a minimum of commotion, and I can't see how to do it."

  "Perhaps I could divert them while you slip through."

  "Conceivably so, but unless you managed your subsequent retreat with extraordinary cleverness, they might well destroy you. I'd prefer to stick together."

  She smiled crookedly. "What's my paltry little existence, against the survival of all Stygia? You said that the Imperium is the only thing that keeps Oblivion at bay."

  He grimaced. "Be that as it may, we're not going to offer you up like some sort of sacrificial lamb. I think your career as a nun and a Heretic has given you a morbid craving for martyrdom."

  "No, I'm just getting more and more apprehensive. Time is passing. Open war could break out at any moment. What's more, sooner or later one of these patrols is going to accost us, just making a random check. We have to make some kind of a move. I can't bear the thought of you coming this far, only to—" She faltered, staring at the tall, arched double doors at the end of a branching passage. A lone Legionnaire, an AK-47 clasped in his mail gauntlets, stood before them. "Is that anyplace important?"

  "Yes," Montrose said, excitement thrilling along his nerves. "As a matter of fact, one of the Smiling Lord's most trusted ministers occupies that suite. He must have refused anything more than a token guard. Of all of them, he's the one who would. He's always eschewed ostentation. Defended himself by blending into the background."

  "Then this is it. Our best chance."

  "Yes. Keep walking. We don't want the guard to notice our interest." They sauntered on, and then, when they'd passed beyond the soldier's view, Montrose invoked his Harbinger abilities. Cool darkness welled out of his pores and flowed across his body. "Keep watch here until I call you."

  "Be careful," she said.

  He slipped back around the corner and skulked on toward the double doors. It occurred to him that the occupant of the suite might have declined an abundance of armed guards because he had less obvious defenses in place. Booby traps. Alarms. Magical wards. That would be thoroughly in character also. But it was too late to worry about the possibility now.

  He was two yards away when the Legionnaire somehow sensed his presence. Wide-eyed, the soldier pivoted toward him, lifting his assault rifle. Lunging, Montrose punched him in the jaw.

  The Legionnaire reeled backward, thumped against the double doors, and collapsed. Montrose grabbed for him and somehow managed to keep both the armored wraith a
nd his firearm from clanging down on the polished marble floor. Lowering them gently, he listened for the sound of reinforcements rushing to the scene. As far as he could tell, no one was coming. "Louise," he breathed, just loud enough, he judged, for her hypersensitive ears to hear.

  She hurried down the corridor, and he dissolved his cloak of shadow. "I heard you hit him," she said, "but I was close by, and expecting to hear something. I doubt anyone else noticed."

  "Good," Montrose said. He tried the doors. They were locked, and the unconscious sentry didn't appear to have any keys. "Can you get these open?"

  "I can try." She stared at the lock, but nothing happened. "All right, then, so much for finesse." With a sharp crack! the panels lurched inward. Montrose winced at the additional noise, but with luck, no one would notice it, either.

  They dragged the Legionnaire into a dark, high-ceilinged, sparsely furnished antechamber. From deeper in the suite came the whir of a computer, and then the rustle of old parchment. The fugitives readied their weapons and crept toward the sounds, through one gloomy, spartan chamber after another.

  Within a few paces, Montrose perceived that they were also proceeding toward a fracture in space. Frowning, he wondered what it portended, hoped it was nothing that would complicate his plans.

  Wan illumination flickered through an arched doorway. He and Louise skulked up to it and peeked inside. In the center of an austere study sat a clerkish little man in a gray tunic and breeches, alternately studying the monitor of a PC and an ancient map of the Isle of Sorrows drawn in faded bronze-colored ink. Heaps of books and papers lay atop his enormous oak desk, along with a leather domino and a darksteel dagger. The air smelled of dust, and barrow-flame candles burned coldly in the sconces along the walls. The disturbance in space emanated from a large freestanding mirror in the far corner. With its richly carved golden frame, capped with Charon's mask glaring out above a pair of crossed scythes, it looked utterly out of place in the otherwise drab chamber, but Montrose was certain its owner hadn't installed it for decoration. It was something akin to a Nihil, a magical gateway to another place, possibly intended to serve as an escape hatch.

  Well, he'd just have to make sure his fellow Anacreon didn't get a chance to scramble through it. He nodded to Louise, and the two of them rushed into the study. In an instant he had his rapier poised at the other man's throat, while she had her pistol aimed at his head.

  "Hello, Chiarmonte," Montrose said.

  As the Cavalier might have expected, the little spy master looked momentarily startled, but afterwards, didn't betray so much as a hint of fear. "Lord Montrose," he said. "My compliments on your flair for disguise. Chopping off all that red hair thoroughly transformed your appearance."

  "For the worse, I suspect."

  "Sadly, yes, but one must sacrifice to excel at any art. I hope you're going to present me to the lady."

  "My name is Louise," she said. "I'm a Sister of Athena."

  Chiarmonte lifted a thin gray eyebrow. "Is this the same Heretic," he asked Montrose, "you spoke of at your trial? She who betrayed you in life, and whose appearance in the Underworld inspired such overwhelming hatred that your Shadow seized control of you?"

  "Yes," said the Scot. "Our relationship has changed since then."

  "Evidently."

  "We didn't come here to hurt you," Montrose said. "If we had, we could have done it already. We simply need to talk to you. If we put up our weapons, will you give us a hearing before you reach for an alarm button or shout for aid?"

  "You have my word," the Venetian said.

  Louise returned her gun to its holster, and Montrose lowered his blade. "You'll recall," said the Scot, "that I warned the Court of unknown enemies plotting against the Empire in the vicinity of the lower Mississippi."

  "Of course," Chiarmonte said. "They were supposedly murdering Heretic priests and Pardoners, and dispatching corrupt confessors to poison people's psyches."

  "Well, I'm convinced that the same conspiracy is at work here in Stygia," said Montrose. "It's manipulating the Seven to go to war with one another."

  "How is that possible? How could one manipulate the gods?"

  "Fairly easily, perhaps, considering that they were already predisposed to believe the worst of one another. A cunning enemy could use his own troops to convince each Deathlord that his colleagues were raiding his holdings. Whereupon each of them would retaliate in kind, escalating the hostilities without any further impetus from outside."

  "But how would said foe insinuate his warriors into Stygia and keep them hidden long enough to initiate the process?"

  "I don't know," Montrose said. "But you once told me that no security system is impregnable, and I daresay our presence here in your quarters demonstrates just how- right you were."

  "I see your point," said the Venetian. "Still, do you have any hard evidence to support your hypothesis?"

  Montrose grimaced. "No. But doesn't it make sense? The Seven have been maneuvering against each other for half a century, but none of them has ever dared to wage actual war on the others. Because each had every reason to doubt he could win, and knew that in any case such a conflict might well cripple the Empire beyond any hope of repair. Why, then, is it happening now? Conceivably they've all gone mad, but I think someone has gulled them into believing that war is coming whether they desire it or not."

  "And consider this," said Louise. "Even if the coming civil strife doesn't destroy Stygia, it will almost certainly prevent you from acting to quell the trouble brewing in the Shadowlands. Do you honestly think the simultaneous emergence of the two threats is a coincidence?"

  The intelligence officer frowned. "I confess, I'm not a great believer in coincidence."

  "Then let's talk to the Smiling Lord together," Montrose said. "He'll listen if you ask him to. We'll convince him to stop the hostilities before they go any further."

  "Even if he believed you," said Chiarmonte, "I don't know that he could arrest them now."

  "He has to," the Cavalier replied. "Look, you and I know how the seraphim customarily communicate with one another. About the same way they condescend to us. They're haughty, aloof, mysterious, hoarding every secret and jealous of every advantage. That's partly why they distrust each other so, why this ludicrous situation could arise in the first place. If the Smiling Lord speaks openly for once, if it's clear that he's concerned for the entire realm and not just his own personal welfare, he can cut through everyone's paranoia. Particularly if they all privately dread the prospect of war, and unless they've gone utterly insane, they must."

  "It's an interesting idea," said the smaller man thoughtfully. "But I'm not sure it would be the best way to proceed. You see, though you've done an admirable job of piecing together a theory, there are aspects of the current situation of which you remain altogether ignorant."

  "What are they?" Montrose asked.

  Slowly, as if he feared a sudden move still might provoke the intruders to attack him, Chiarmonte pushed his chair back. The legs squeaked on the gleaming stone floor. Rising, he gestured toward the mirror behind him. "That's a doorway, Sister, as Lord Montrose has no doubt already perceived. If the two of you will follow me through, I'll show you something you really ought to see."

  Montrose frowned. The discussion seemed to be going as well as he could realistically have hoped, and he trusted Chiarmonte as far as he trusted any of his fellow courtiers. Still, he was reluctant to step from this quiet room, where he and Louise at least appeared to hold the upper hand, into the unknown. "Whatever it is, can't you just tell us about it?"

  "It wouldn't have the same impact," the Venetian said. "My friend, I'm a good judge of character, and I'm inclined to believe in you. I always doubted you wanted to carve out your own shabby little Shadowlands kingdom, whatever that ass Demetrius imagined. I think it equally unlikely that you've returned to our master's stronghold in the desperate hope of tricking him into embarking on some disastrous course of action, knowing full well he'll keep
you close at hand to chastise if it goes awry. I think that, despite the company you keep—pardon me, Sister—and all other appearances to the contrary, you truly are a loyal vassal of this Seat, striving to save your master and the entire Hierarchy from a calamity. But a show of faith on your part would help assuage any lingering doubts."

  Turning to Montrose, Louise said, "We knew we'd have to relinquish control to someone eventually."

  "True," the Scot replied. "We'll accompany you, milord Anacreon."

  Chiarmonte nodded, turned, and walked into the mirror, vanishing the instant he came into contact with it. Ripples of light streamed across the glass. For an instant Montrose thought he could still see the spy master's shadowy image on the other side, and then that too was gone.

  "I'll go next," said Montrose. As he stepped through, he felt a stab of bitter sorrow, a twinge of hunger, and the sensation of hurtling upward like a rocket. Then he stumbled from the magical doorway into a cave illuminated only by a barrow-fire lantern in Chiarmonte's hand. Louise arrived a moment later.

  "Where are we?" Montrose asked.

  "Deep below Charon's keep," Chiarmonte said. "Follow me, and watch your heads. The ceiling dips low in places." He moved away from the portal—visible on this side as a rippling in the air—and through an opening in the left-hand wall.

  As the three wraiths proceeded down the passage, Montrose perceived more zones of warped and fractured space. Indeed, the distortions were more easily discernible than any he'd ever encountered, even in the most chaotic reaches of the Tempest. They blazed like bent and braided lengths of white-hot iron, dazzling, nearly blinding his Harbinger's sight. He wondered what could possibly be responsible.

  Something hissed. A flickering light, possessed of a disquieting, indefinable quality, tinged the gloom ahead. Then the passage ended, depositing the trio on a ledge. Montrose gazed outward, then gasped.

  The ghosts stood partway up the craggy wall of a gargantuan basalt chamber, beneath a lofty dome of a ceiling graven with immense runes, and at the summit of a narrow path spiraling downward. Far, far below, seething like boiling oil at the bottom of a cauldron, was a lake of darkness. Montrose had the impression that it was swirling like a vortex, though he couldn't actually be sure. Though its depths were black as pitch, pale sparks and flames danced across its surface, the source of the stark, vaguely nauseating illumination.