On the instructions of his patron deity, Geffard had raised his personal altar in the darkest corner of the cabin. The space had seemed even darker since. Somehow neither the lamplight nor whatever natural illumination leaked in from outside could clearly illuminate the skull, crossed Bowie knives, candles, crucified serpent, miniature coffin, and other ritual objects swimming in the gloom.
Geffard would have preferred to use the grand altar in the central cabin below. Empowered by countless rituals of mass devotion and sacrifice, it had more energy in it. But since he needed to confer with his god in private, that would have entailed banishing all his troops and supporters from the salon for the duration, and that didn't seem like a good idea. He didn't want to shake their confidence by making them wonder if he had something to hide.
He knelt before the altar, grimacing for a moment at the chill that shrouded it. He raised his arms and said, "Heviyoso! Pie Jupite-Tonne! God of the thunder and the lightning, father of storms, please, come to me."
Nothing happened.
"Father," said Geffard, "it is I, your son, who calls. The plan has gone wrong. The bitch has broken the spell. She and her followers are marching against me. I need your wisdom."
Still nothing.
Since the night they sealed their covenant in the god's palace on the Island Below the Sea, Heviyoso had always come when he called. Geffard struggled to quash the fear that something was terribly wrong. "Master," he said, "I beg you, accept this sacrifice and reveal yourself to me." He picked up one of the heavy knives and lifted its point to his right eye.
The wraith's plaited dreadlocks and the strands of golden braid attached to the epaulets of his riverboat captain's uniform stood on end. Abruptly the cold air smelled of ozone, and almost seemed to buzz against his skin. Something laughed, a rumbling like rhythmic thunder. "You can keep your eye," a bass voice said.
Geffard looked up. Above the altar loomed a vague figure seemingly composed of black, churning storm clouds, its long, narrow eyes flickering, its murky features constantly seething and changing with the roiling .of the vapor. Though logic suggested that to fit in the corner between altar and ceiling it could be no larger than a child, Geffard's mind insisted on perceiving it as vast, huge as a skyscraper or a mountain.
"Master," said Geffard. "Father. Thank you for speaking to me. But why the delay? Did Marie's gods try to block your path?"
"No,,3 said Heviyoso. "I just thought it would be amusing to see you squirm. Did I unsettle your faith in me?"
"No," said Geffard, struggling to mask a pang of annoyance, "of course not."
It was strange. Before he had ventured in search of Les Mysteres, he'd imagined the storm god to be as primal and straightforward as the force of nature he personified. Certainly that was the way in which the myths depicted him. But Heviyoso had proved to possess a sly, malicious side, almost as if his nature derived less from the clean, elemental cloudbursts of the physical world than from the hellish tempests perpetually raging in the Abyss.
But Geffard didn't have time to ponder such ambiguities now, "Do you know what's happened?" he asked.
Heviyoso chuckled. "Better than you."
You don't have to sound so happy about it, Geffard thought bitterly. "Many of my: men are gone. The Black Spiral Dancers lost some of their shamans as well, but not all of them. If the ones who are left can conjure up enough Banes in time, I can still muster a force as large or larger than Marie's."
"You're forgetting," the storm god said, "even the majority of your own warriors are unaware that you've made common cause with Baka, wolfmen, and demons. Certainly the general populace has no notion that you're behind the recent attacks on the Queen and her supporters. Should they find out, they'd turn on you in an instant. No, your allies must stay hidden."
"I follow what you're saying," Geffard replied, "but then how am I supposed to win?"
"Ah," said Heviyoso, "that's the question, isn't it? I wonder if we can stumble on an answer."
"Please," said Geffard, "don't toy with me, not now. You gave me your blessing to ally myself with the Spectres. You said the plan was a good idea."
Heviyoso chuckled. "And if you can't trust me, who can you trust?"
"Well...yes."
"Do you ever recall your descent into the Abyss?"
Geffard frowned. "Of course, Father. It was the most important event in my existence. I reflect on it constantly. But—and I ask this with all respect—is there a reason for us to talk about it now?"
"It was a bold undertaking," the storm god said. "The Abyss is a fearsome, bewildering place, a maze and a trackless wilderness with hurricanes blowing through. And you'd never set foot in it before. Granted, you had your magick to sustain you, but still, few neophytes would have wandered in so deep without a guide."
Geffard held in a sigh. If Heviyoso insisted on squandering precious time chatting, there wasn't much his priest could do about it. A further display of impatience would probably only amuse the god, prompting him to draw out the consultation even longer. "Tradition says that the supplicant has to descend alone, Father. And I was desperate to make my pledge."
"Indeed you were," said Heviyoso, his vaporous countenance writhing. "Desperate to teach all the arrogant ladies a lesson. But I'm curious. Were you never troubled by the suspicion that you may have gotten lost and never reached the Island Below the Sea at all?"
Geffard blinked. Swallowed away a sudden dryness in his throat. "I don't understand."
"And here I thought you were such a clever fellow. The Abyss is full of tricksters and shape-shifters. What if one of them showed you the landscape you expected to see? Appeared to you in the guise of one of the entities you hoped to find? What if you didn't give yourself to Les Mysteres but to something else?"
The Creole hesitated, then said, "My father is teasing me. Testing my faith again. I know you're Heviyoso, lord of the rain. But just for argument's sake, suppose I learned otherwise. You would still be a great and generous god, the patron who gave me true power and has aided me countless times since. I would worship you no matter what."
Heviyoso laughed. Lightning flickered through his roiling body, and sparks danced popping and crackling on the knives atop the altar beneath his feet. "That's a good answer, my child. A wise and dutiful answer. I chose my servant well. Such being the case, let's discuss how to plant your posterior on the ivory throne."
"Yes, please," said Geffard.
The god chuckled. "The tension in your voice! Relax, little bocor. Your situation isn't so desperate, quite the contrary. The Africans are playing directly into your hands."
"In what way?"
Heviyoso explained. Geffard's lips stretched into a grin.
TEN
When the Smiling Lord charged, Montrose backpedaled, simultaneously drawing his smallsword with his right hand and one of the Walthers with his left. "Halt!" he cried.
The Master of War kept coming, his steel soles clanging on the pale marble with its inlaid pentacles, his purple mantle billowing out behind him. Montrose opened fire.
Without breaking stride, the Smiling Lord spun his halberd. Metal rang on metal. Impossible as it seemed, the demigod was deflecting the bullets. And if any did streak past his guard, they glanced harmlessly off his armor.
The pistol clicked, out of ammunition. Dropping it, still retreating, Montrose invoked his Harbinger Arcanos. Cool shadow welled from his pores and flowed across his skin, and he shifted to the left.
The Smiling Lord veered to follow him. Montrose wasn't surprised. He would have been amazed if any of the magics at his command could hinder one of the Seven.
The Deathlord hurtled into striking range. The halberd whirled at Montrose's skull. Ducking, dodging, and jumping back, parrying only when necessary lest the heavy weapon break his lighter one, the Scot narrowly evaded the first flurry of blows. Finally, taking advantage of what seemed an opening, he lunged past the halberd's spiked ax head and thrust his point at one of the eye holes in Prin
ce Mars's visor.
The Smiling Lord skipped backward so quickly and cunningly that Montrose barely perceived it. The thrust fell short by two inches. The lengthy halberd should have been too cumbersome for any man to wield easily at such close quarters, but the seraph spun it over his head and then it flashed at Montrose's groin.
The Scot leaped back. Before his boots touched the floor, the halberd's point was streaking at his belly. Parrying, he jumped back again, reeling until he could catch his balance. He saw that the pole arm had notched the forte of his blade.
The Smiling Lord glided forward. "You fight well," he said. "I always said so. You've already lasted longer than most men would."
"I don't want to fight you," Montrose said, retreating. He allowed his useless mask of invisibility to dissolve. Perhaps his powers of levitation would prove more useful; although, a master Harbinger himself, the Smiling Lord could fly right after him. "I only opened fire in self-defense. I've come to help you. Probe my mind if you don't believe me."
"Demetrius—my friend—already did that." Pouncing, closing the distance which separated them, the Smiling Lord attacked.
Once again, Montrose gave ground. The halberd grazed his thigh, just a nick, but enough to send ripples of Oblivion, alternately burning hot and numbing cold, streaming down his leg. Meanwhile he feinted, disengaged, probed, striving to find or create an opening in the other wraith's seemingly impenetrable guard.
At last a beat in sixte followed by a deceive appeared to make the spinning halberd falter. Montrose levitated straight up, as if he meant to soar over the Smiling Lord's head and strike him from behind, then he plummeted into a crouch and drove his point at his liege lord's groin.
The Deathlord twisted, and the darksteel smallsword glanced screeching along the tassets of his armor. One armored foot lashed out with a snap kick. Had it landed, the attack might have broken Montrose's neck, but, still using his powers of flight, he bounced backward, out of range. The Smiling Lord's toe rang against the Scot's blade and nearly knocked it from his grasp.
The Lord of Murder halted, once again becoming so still that he seemed altogether inhuman. Montrose took advantage of the pause to ready his remaining automatic. "A waste of time," said the Smiling Lord, a hint of mockery in his voice. "You're better with a sword than with a gun; not that your blade will save you either." He glided forward.
Montrose retreated, squeezing the trigger. As the Smiling Lord had warned, the shots did no damage. Where, the Scot wondered desperately, was Louise? Why didn't she attack?
The halberd swept up and plummeted at Montrose's head. He sidestepped and parried in prime, only then discerning that, now, impossibly, the pole arm was striking at his ankles. He sprang upward and the spiked head whizzed under his soles.
He extended the smallsword and hurtled forward in a sort of aerial fleche attack, simultaneously squeezing off the last shot in his gun. His point punched between two of the overlapping rings comprising the Deathlord's gorget, then popped back out as he rocketed by.
The demigod took a lurching step, catching his balance, and for an instant Montrose dared to hope that either his sword or his final bullet had done some significant damage. Then the halberd flew out of nowhere and the spear point slammed between the ribs under his left arm.
Pure reflex carried him racing onward, directly away from the attack. Otherwise the spike would have passed through his entire torso. Still, he could tell the wound was bad. Waves of black fire washed through his substance, eroding his strength and awareness. When he touched down on the floor, his left leg tried to buckle beneath him. Without meaning to, he dropped the Walther.
"Now that," said the Smiling Lord, "was a jolly good try. It's time to put an end to this." He swung the halberd into a high guard. Montrose raised his sword, and then a soft thump sounded from the direction of the onyx altar.
The Smiling Lord pivoted toward the noise, and, blocking out the pain of his wounds as best he could, Montrose rushed him. Turning back instantly, the Prince of Bloodshed struck at his opponent's knees. Levitating above the blow, Montrose tried to continue his charge, but the Smiling Lord's weapon instantly leaped up into his path. The outlaw had to freeze to avoid impaling himself.
The Deathlord stalked forward, feinting and striking with blinding speed. Giving ground, Montrose desperately looked for an opening, an opportunity for a riposte or a counterattack. At first the seraph didn't give him one, but then something rustled off to the left.
The whirling halberd seemed to slow a bit. Montrose darted to the Smiling Lord's left and thrust at his leg. His master parried the blow, striking sparks from his blade.
Expecting an immediate riposte, Montrose leaped backward, but the Smiling Lord didn't seize the initiative. Evidently he was still trying to determine the source of the noises.
The Cavalier could have told him. Louise must be making them with her telekinesis, hoping to distract him. And the trick was working to a degree, but not enough to turn the tide in Montrose's favor.
But perhaps the Scot could enhance the effect. "If I were you," he said, "I'd surrender now. You may not get another chance."
His master laughed. "Such bravado, even with the poisons of Oblivion gnawing your flesh to rags. I wish you hadn't turned traitor, James. I truly am going to miss you."
"You really don't understand, do you?" said Montrose, trying to inject a note of pity into his tone. "I assumed that if you could see through my veil of invisibility, you could penetrate theirs, but evidently not. Nevertheless, it's obvious, they're here."
"No one is here," the Smiling Lord replied. Montrose thought he heard a hint of uncertainty in the other ghost's voice. He prayed that he hadn't imagined it. "No one but you and me."
"You're mistaken," Montrose said. "Did you think I came here to slay you? I knew I couldn't single-handedly defeat the Avatar of War. But I did hope I could divert you from your conjuring long enough for your spell to weaken. I suspected it wouldn't have to fade very much for the other Deathlords to break its grip, and now they've come to settle accounts with you."
It was a preposterous bluff. Anyone capable of perceiving mystical forces could discern that the intangible mechanisms of the Smiling Lord's ritual were indeed spinning out power a bit less efficiently than before. But the floor was still vibrating beneath the Prince of Murder's feet, the wands, talismans, and alembics still rattling on their shelves, proof that the earthquake still raged, and thus, that the other Deathlords were still fighting on the lower levels of the donjon. A moment of coherent reflection should have sufficed to assure the Avatar of Violent Death that Montrose was talking nonsense.
But as Montrose had hoped, Louise didn't permit the archangel time to think. Her psychokinesis cast down the black altar, shattering it. A shelf of scrolls and grimoires toppled. A section of floor banged and cracked, the fissure splitting a crimson pentacle in half. Three barrow-fire torches jerked themselves from their sconces, whirled about like green comets orbiting an invisible sun, and then flew at the Smiling Lord.
And, maddened by the paranoia Demetrius had so cunningly and persistently induced in him, Prince Ares believed the worst. That, shrouded in cloaks of darkness so cunningly woven that even he couldn't see through them, his peers had assembled to destroy him. He brandished the halberd and the torches simply ceased to exist. He barked a word of power and the space the brands had circled exploded in a burst of dazzling white light.
Montrose took a deep breath, steadying himself, then charged the Smiling Lord. The Scot beat the other man's weapon, whipped his sword over it in a Coupe, and lunged. The Smiling Lord skipped backward, and the attack fell short. Montrose redoubled, trying to take up the distance, then realized he was plunging into a trap just in time to keep the halberd from gutting him.
Yet when he wrenched himself frantically backward, the Smiling Lord didn't pursue him. He was too busy lashing Out with his sorcery at the sundry noises and disturbances Louise created. As far as the Deathlord was concerned, the
re were far greater threats than Montrose assailing him, and striking at them took priority.
The Scot was certain that Louise?s tricks couldn't deceive the Smiling Lord for lorig. Befuddled or not, Prince Ares would soon realize that if his peers had truly gathered to destroy him, their assault would have been far more deadly than anything the Heretic had thrown at him.
Teeth gritted against the pain of his injuries, Montrose circled around behind the Smiling Lord. The demigod's armor clanked as a hail of ivory?, silver-bound staves, wavy-bladed ritual daggers, golden, begemmed chalices, and alchemical glassware battered him. None of it did any noticeable damage or even made him flinch or stagger, but it served to draw his attention to the barrage's point of origin. He chanted, and space folded in on itself, grinding a/section of shelving and a piece of floor to rubble.
Montrose floated off the floor and hurtled forward, sword outstretched. He expected the Smiling Lord to whirl and strike at him. Instead his point plunged through the other wraith's voluminous purple cloak and slammed deep into his back, either punching through his armor or sliding through the narrow gap between his backplate and the taces encircling his hips.
Sure that he'd landed a killing blow, Montrose felt an instant of exaltation. Then the Smiling Lord spun around, jerking the outlaw's smallsword out of his grasp in the process. Montrose tried to float backwards and up to give himself sufficient room for a full-force savate kick to the other ghost's head, but the Smiling Lord seized him in a telekinetic grip and smashed him to the floor.
Pain screamed through Montrose's injured body. He struggled to break through the shock, to scramble to his feet, but the Smiling Lord's Arcanos held him down like a butterfly mounted for display. Evidently deciding his lieutenant posed a significant threat after all, the Avatar of War raised the halberd to behead him.
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