Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  At first it appeared there was nothing there at all. Then Valentine seemed to glimpse a complex pattern of shadows or stains on the floor and walls in the far corner. Finally, like an image on a movie screen coming into focus, the dark blotches turned into a gaunt figure, which shrieked, scrambled up from its crouch, and charged him with arms outstretched.

  The dwarf backpedaled frantically. Crimson eyes shining, hooves clopping, Alexander interposed himself between the two ghosts and reared. The motion carried the stallion's head through the shack's relatively low ceiling.

  Peering between Alexander's hind legs, Valentine saw his would-be assailant squawk and recoil. Huddling back down in his corner, shuddering, the tenant of this shabby, one-wraith Haunt began to whimper. Evidently sensing that the fight had gone out of the stranger, the spirit horse settled back on all fours without lashing out.

  Valentine edged closer for a better look at the other ghost, then grunted in surprise. He'd seen countless bizarre deformities among the Restless, but never one like this. The stranger seemed to be made up of spirals of skin with nothing at all inside, like a mummy with both the actual preserved corpse and half the bandages missing. With no muscles or mass to his frame, he might well have proved unable to harm Valentine even if Alexander hadn't intervened.

  "Take it easy," said the dwarf. "I don't want to hurt you. I just came in here to get out of the Maelstrom."

  The empty man made a mewling sound.

  "Come on," said Valentine, "check me out. Three feet tall and no weapons. Do I look like some kind of ruthless outlaw?" He eased closer to the stranger.

  The other wraith gasped and pressed himself back against the wall. Through the gaps in what passed for his body, Valentine glimpsed a white shape behind him. An object he was evidently trying to conceal and protect.

  The dwarf hastily raised his hands and stepped backward. "Don't panic. If you don't want me to come any closer, that's cool." Outside, the wind screeched, and even shielded by the walls, Valentine's skin prickled. "But I can't go away until the storm ends."

  The empty man eyed him. It was difficult to read his expression when strips of his face were missing, but Valentine thought he looked a little less frightened.

  "I'm Valentine," the small man said. "What's your name?"

  The other ghost didn't answer.

  "Can you talk?" Valentine asked.

  The empty man made a whining sound.

  Valentine sighed. Evidently his unwilling host was a Drone, a spirit whose mind had crumbled. Not exactly stimulating company, nor the ideal companion for riding out a Maelstrom.

  "It's okay," said the dwarf. "You don't have to talk. I just hope you don't mind listening. If I run my mouth, I'll feel more real, and the storm won't take me. I'll bet this was your fruit stand when you were breathing...."

  As he chattered on, the empty man turned his back, picked up his treasure, and studied it with single-minded intensity. Valentine saw that it was a piece of ruled, three-ring notebook paper, conceivably a letter from a loved one which the Drone had carried with him into death. Meanwhile the wind howled louder, and the Nihils in the structure around him seethed and glittered. One crack in the floor abruptly yawned wide enough to admit a Spectre, and the jester held his breath until it closed again. Several minutes later, he heard the thunderous tread of something huge enough to shake the earth, but the colossus passed on by without investigating the shack.

  "Thank Fate that's gone," said Valentine. "Man-sized doomshades are bad enough. We don't need King Kong knocking on the door. A giant like that, you'd almost think it was a Malfean."

  A band of shadow oozed through the tatters making up the Drone's back. He whined, and, shoulders hunching, lifted his paper closer to his eyes and stared at it even more fiercely than before.

  The storm wailed, and the note began to steam. First the ink dissolved into wisps of blue, and then the paper itself melted into curls of white vapor.

  The empty man clutched the letter to his lips, kissed it repeatedly, frantically, and then tried to stuff it in his mouth. But by that time, the last of it was gone.

  Hands upraised, the Drone threw back his head and gabbled out his grief. Bands of black fire rippled through him, more rapidly now, eroding him.

  Valentine scrambled to the Drone and wrapped his arms around him. His embrace squashed the loops of skin inward. "Don't let go!" he said. "Don't let the Void take you!"

  Seemingly oblivious to his presence, the empty man wailed on. The shadow washing through his form alternately seared and chilled Valentine's flesh, but the dwarf forced himself to hold on.

  "The paper doesn't matter," Valentine said. "It was only a souvenir. What matters is what it stood for. You were alive. Somebody loved you. Try to remember."

  The empty man sobbed. Waves of shadow washed away his left hand.

  Valentine was all but certain the Drone was a goner, but his heart refused to accept what his brain had determined. At that moment, he wanted to save the stranger as much as he'd ever wanted anything in the world. Which was ridiculous, considering that the other wraith was not only a stranger but barely sentient. But knowing the impulse was crazy didn't weaken it.

  He squirmed between the stranger and the wall, took the Drone's head between his hands, and pulled it lower, forcing the stranger to look him in the face. Motes of shadow swarmed across the empty man's eyes.

  "If you can't remember who you were," Valentine said, "then just pay attention to me. I see you. I'm talking to you. You may be dead, but you're alive, too."

  The empty man whimpered and gave his head a tiny shake. Darkness surged upward from his toes to his head, erasing him. The power of the Void burned Valentine's hands like barrow-fire, withering them in an instant. Gasping, he lurched back against the wall. The tiny Nihils in the rotting planks nibbled at him like lovers. Crying out in revulsion, he staggered away and slumped down on the floor. Alexander watched him, his red eyes gleaming in the gloom. The wind howled. Gradually the pain in the dwarf s hands faded, and his fingers straightened.

  Mulling it over, he couldn't imagine how he could have saved the Drone. Dwelling here in isolation, his mind rotting, the stranger had allowed his universe to dwindle down to one pathetic keepsake. And when it vanished, he lost his only reason for existing.

  And Valentine felt a terrible kinship with him. After all, he was alone, too. He'd given up Montrose, Daphne, Belinda, his place in the Hierarchy of Natchez, and everyone and everything else that meant anything to him. He'd had good reasons, but the empty man had probably had his reasons for winding up in this miserable shack, also.

  "No!" the jester snarled. "That's stupid. I'm not anything like the son of a bitch, and I'm not going to end up like he did."

  Alexander cocked his head. The storm laughed.

  On the march from the docks to the Citadel, Bellamy had noticed a number of differences between the ghosts of New Orleans and those of Natchez. The latter seemed to keep many more slaves, and to possess a greater abundance of material goods, no doubt due at least in part to the labors of the Artificers and their infamous Soulforges.

  But some things remained constant. Like their neighbors downriver, the abambo in this city tended to make their homes in ruinous structures alive with the memory of ancient misery. The Citadel itself was a case in point, a cluster of massive brick buildings atop a hill, their shadowy, rat-infested corridors all but shrieking of misery and despair. It seemed likely that at one time, hapless Quick workers had toiled here in appalling conditions.

  Antoine sucked in a deep breath, as if the emotional energy were something he had to inhale. "Tasty," he rasped. "My compliments to the chef."

  "I can feel the power," said Marilyn. Despite Bellamy's advice, she'd decided not to use her wheelchair. Smelling of blood, fever sweat, and disinfectant, bundled up in her long coat, her sparkling aura predominantly violet and gray, she limped heavily along with the aid of a silver-headed malacca cane. "But I can't drink it in the way you three can. I wo
nder if I could learn."

  They rounded a turn. Ahead was a pair of double doors. A sentry in a green sash stood to either side, a rifle in hand and a gaunt, hairless creature—a hideous blend of man and dog—crouching at his feet. Barrow-flame lanterns radiated greenish light and chill.

  One of the envoys' escorts, a Legionnaire Centurion whose mouth had been sculpted into a fixed, exaggerated grin, said, "Are the Anacreons ready to see Queen Marie's people?"

  The guard to the left of the door nodded. "Yeah, Sarge. You can take them straight in."

  Antoine snorted. "They fuckin' better not keep us waiting."

  His aged features jade on the left and crimson on the right, Titus scowled at the alligator. "Mind your attitude. Whatever you think of the Stygians, we came here to make them our allies."

  Antoine rolled his eyes. "I know that, old man. I'll make nice."

  "This way, please," said the Centurion. Gliding through the substance of the doors, he ushered his charges into the room beyond.

  The audience hall was a large, high-ceilinged chamber illuminated by hissing torches. Unlike the hallway outside, the place was relatively clean. Some wraiths who could exert power on the warm side of the Shroud had evidently made an effort to clear away the worst of the cobwebs, dust, and grime. Banners emblazoned with a bewildering array of symbols—a black bird of prey, a fountain of fire, a hand dropping coins into a bowl, a question mark, a stylized roulette wheel, an eye, and the hourglass emblem from the soldiers' sashes among them—hung from the steel beams crisscrossing the ceiling. Patterns of small round holes in the floor revealed where lines of workbenches or something comparable had once been bolted in place.

  The assembled Hierarchs fell silent and gaped, reminding Bellamy yet again of what an odd quartet he and his companions made. A wizened shaman with a two- tone face, a talking animal in a neckerchief, a maimed Quick transsexual with the telltale sparkles of a sorcerer flashing in his halo, and a white man who evidently had the confidence of the monarch of New Orleans.

  The three dignitaries enthroned on the dais at the far end of the room regarded the ambassadors more impassively. On the left sat a small man in a contemporary gray suit and maroon tie, his head concealed by a green hood: Nathan Shellabarger, the Emerald Lord's agent. In the middle was a swarthy, beak-nosed guy in conquistador armor and a steel domino: Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, the Smiling Lord's follower. And on the right was a thin old woman with a bowl full of the Stygian coins called oboli and a large black hourglass—presumably the model for the images on all the sashes and flags—reposing in her narrow lap. She wore a long, dark, schoolmarm-ish dress, her gray hair was pulled back in a severe bun, and round, steel-rimmed spectacles perched precariously and somewhat comically atop her glazed white mask of Tragedy. Mrs. Duquesne, whose service was pledged to the Beggar Lord.

  Titus bowed, and the other envoys followed suit. Marilyn grunted and froze doubled over. Bellamy prepared to leap across the Shroud and help her, but slowly, trembling and clutching her cane in a white-knuckled grip, she managed to stand upright once again.

  "Good evening, Lord Titus," said Gayoso.

  "Thank you, my lords and lady," Titus replied. "Allow me to present my companions. Antoine, I believe you already know."

  "For a pirate," murmured someone in the crowd.

  "This," continued Titus, nodding toward Marilyn, "is Marilyn Sebastian. A mage, as you probably noticed from her aura. And this"—he waved a hand in Bellamy's direction—"is Frank Bellamy. When breathing, he was an FBI agent. More recently he helped my sovereign defeat a plot to usurp her throne. All four of us speak with Her Majesty's voice."

  "To be candid," said Gayoso, "your visit could have been better timed. At the moment, we're striving to purge every trace of Heresy from the province. Without intending any disrespect, I must tell you that the last thing we desire is emissaries of the Dark Kingdom of Ivory importing their own brand of false dogma into our midst. Particularly when they also flout law and custom by revealing our stronghold to a mortal."

  "Please excuse a poor, ignorant foreigner for having the impertinence to interpret your own rules to you," Titus replied. "But if I'm not mistaken, Charon's Code would forbid me to show your Haunt to Miss Sebastian only if she had no previous knowledge of our world. Plainly, that's not the case. She can perceive us as easily as she can her fellow mortals."

  "That's true, milord Anacreon," Marilyn said. "For instance, I can see that you're dressed like Gortez, but with a modern pistol holstered on your right hip."

  "The mage sees clearly enough to suit me," said Mrs. Duquesne dryly. "And whether you wanted Marie's envoys; to come upriver or not, Lord Gayoso, they have come, and I for one am curious to heat why. Why don't you stop grumbling at them and let them tell us?"

  The Spaniard's mouth tightened. "As you wish,"

  "We've come to ask for your help against a common threat," Titus said. "A menace that could devastate your own territory if you don't take measures to stop it. It was Mr. Bellamy who first warned my queen about it, and I'd like him to tell you about it now."

  As an FBI agent, Bellamy had grown accustomed to reporting to. colleagues and superiors on the progress of an investigation. Still, gazing up at the masked faces of the Anacreons, he felt a bit self-conscious. Ignoring the sensation as best he could, he told them the story of the Atheist conspiracy. Of Milo Waxman's death, his own murder at Dunn's hands, and most of what had happened sine®; The one thing he. edited out was Astarte. He hadn't been able to persuade her to stay away from Natchez, but he didn't have to let these Stygians, who were, after all, Titus and Antoine's enemies, know about her existence. Not yet, anyway.

  When he finished, the three Governors stared down at him in silence for several moments. Finally Shellabarger said, "How much of this can you prove?"

  "The Atheist murders are a matter of public record," Bellamy said. "So is the hysteria they've inspired."

  Gayoso grimaced. "I very much doubt that a few Quick maniacs running amok could create problems on our side of the Shroud."

  "And yet throughout history it's happened over and over," Titus said. "Disasters in the mortal world echo in ours. The fall of Rome coincided with the first great Maelstrom. The Black Death and the bombing of Hiroshima triggered others equally destructive."

  "You can't compare gigantic calamities like those with the murders of a handful of people," the Spaniard replied.

  "I believe it's the climate of terror and despair that truly matters," Titus said, "not the circumstances which inspire it. Surely you agree that shadow storms have become unusually frequent?"

  Gayoso shrugged. "I can remember other seasons when we had to suffer through the same thing. But we didn't imagine diabolical conspiracies of Aztec Spectres and werewolves to account for it. We chalked it up to random variation. Surely you can't deny that there's nothing more random than the Tempest."

  "But don't you detect a taint of corruption poisoning the minds of your people?" Marilyn asked. "We've heard rumors of an abnormal number of rapes, petty disagreements erupting into duels—"

  "Nonsense," Gayoso replied. "If the people have been a little, shall we say, boisterous of late, it's because they're jubilant over the destruction of the Heretics. And because I've permitted a rough element from Under-the-Hill to rejoin the mainstream of society in exchange for their services to the Inquisition."

  "We've also heard that quite a few of your citizens are losing the struggle with their shadowselves and dropping into the Void."

  "You always lose a few souls when the Maelstroms blow. If you belonged in our world, you'd know that."

  "I don't believe this," Antoine growled. "We came here to help you clowns—"

  Bellamy stepped on the gator's tail. Antoine shot him a resentful glance, but fell silent.

  "I apologize for my friend's rudeness," said Bellamy. "But I have to admit I share his surprise. We did come here to help you, asking nothing in return. Why are you being so skeptical?"

  "As I
said," Gayoso replied. "We're purging the Heretics from our midst. Perhaps that dismays you. Perhaps you'd like to divert us from our purpose by sending us on a wild-goose chase to ferret out an imaginary threat."

  "Give me a break," said Antoine. "What do we care if you persecute your own subjects?"

  "Some of the Heretics no doubt worship your own false gods," Gayoso said. "In any case, it can't please you to see a Hierarch army winning victory after victory against religionists of any stripe. Perhaps you're worried that once we've purified our own lands, we'll march south."

  Titus cocked his head. "I hope that wasn't a declaration of war, milord Anacreon."

  "No," said Mrs. Duquesne firmly, "it most assuredly was not." Her spectacles began to slip off. "Drat this thing." She removed the gleaming white mask of Tragedy, revealing a thin, austere, intelligent face, then replaced her glasses. "Lord Titus, it would help us take your story more seriously if you could tell us when, where, and how your Aztecs and wolfmen propose to strike."

  "Unfortunately, we've told you everything we know," Bellamy said. "But if we look, we'll find the answers we need."

  "What a confident young man you are." She turned to Gayoso. "Do you know, my lord, for once I can't fault your logic. Queen Marie might indeed wish to see the crusade fail. The whole notion of Aztec doomshades rising from the Tempest after five centuries to reconquer America does, on first hearing, seem unlikely. Yet the Empire has often found itself under attack by enemies even more ancient than that.

  And perhaps the very outlandishness of our guests' story argues in its favor. Titus is sharp enough to concoct a more plausible lie."

  The shaman sketched a shallow bow. "Thank you, milady," he said, with only a hint of irony in his voice.

  Gayoso twisted toward Shellabarger, "And what's your opinion, milord?"

  The small man in the sack-like hood hesitated. "I think our visitors gave us a very weird story that was pretty short on details, the details that we in Natchez need to know, anyway. But obviously, we don't want to run even a small risk of some enemy taking us by surprise. So I suppose it wouldn't do any harm to check into it."