Dark Kingdoms

by Richard Lee Byers

  Instinctively, he looked for Louise, and felt a pang :of profound relief when he saw she was thus far unscathed. She was still shooting, but was clearly focused primarily on using her Spook Arcanos. Pieces of furniture flew, tumbled, and skated across the room, slamming the irregulars backward and creating, cover for her as well.

  His withered hands weaving patterns in the air,, Titus had dropped the submachine gun to concentrate exclusively on magick. GrOssbow bolts thunked to a halt and hung in the air six inches from his body, as if they'd plunged into an invisible sheet of wood. With a boom and a flare, a mercenary burst into flame.

  Since the Heretic turn and the shaman were keeping the guards occupied, Montrose decided to devote his efforts to the Pardoners themselves. Unfortunately, with the combatants darting back and forth, and Louise's chairs, tables, and confessionals leaping about, he didn't have a clear shot at them. He levitated to the; ceiling, above the fray, where, presumably,, only a stray bullet or quarrel could find him, then flew on toward the doomshades;.

  In a moment, he was close enough to hit them easily. He aimed at the one On his far right, a small man with a three-piece suit, a watch chain and a gray goatee, who bore a distinct resemblance to Sigmund Freud. A gun roared, and pain ripped through Montrose's lower legs.

  Startled, his hold on his riiagick shaken, he felt hts cloak of darkness dissolve as he slammed down on the floor. Grinning, Mike Fink aimed his combat shotgun again. "I could only just barely see you before," he said. "But this time I'll hit you square."

  Montrose fired the AK-47 and flung himself to the side- The Mag-10 boomed, and a second cloud of pellets crashed into the floor just inches from his head. Scrambling to one knee, he squeezed the trigger again. Fink staggered^ and the shotgun bellowed.

  Two of the pellets punched into Montrose's shoulder, and he gasped at the pain. But the rest missed, and he knew the Roadblocker only held three rounds. "Surrender," he gasped.

  Fink sneered as if oblivious to the expanding rings of darkness washing outward from the bullet holes in his arms and torso. He dropped the shotgun and reached for the ax on his back.

  Wounded himself, albeit less seriously, Montrose knew he should gun the outlaw down, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He leaped to his feet and charged, swinging the assault rifle back to bludgeon Fink into submission.

  His thoughts collapsed into confusion, and suddenly he had no idea where he was or what he was doing. The huge man in front of him slammed an uppercut into his jaw, stunning him, knocking him down, and he still couldn't comprehend what was happening. It was only as the giant raised his ax that his mind unlocked. This was combat! Fink had used his Haunter powers to befuddle him, and now was about to destroy him.

  Montrose snapped a kick into the keelboatman's crotch. Fink grunted and doubled over. The Cavalier scrambled up from beneath his adversary and pounded the big man's skull with the butt of his rifle. After the fourth blow, Fink collapsed on his face.

  Montrose whirled. More possessed soldiers were charging him. It looked as if Louise and Titus were similarly hard pressed. Some of the false Pardoners shimmered from human form into the sort of hulking, reptilian, double-faced things he'd seen in Charon's vault. Hissing, obsidian swords lifted, they advanced to join the battle.

  But then Montrose's allies burst through the far wall.

  Antoine was in the lead. The alligator seized a lanky fellow in a Sandman's coat of garish multicolored patches, tore his legs off with a single wrench of his wedge- shaped head, spat him out, and scuttled on to his next victim. Just behind him, Bellamy shot a guard, then, pivoting, narrowly ducked the sweep of a cutlass. He fired again and hit the swordsman in the forehead. Valentine halted with only his face and shooting arm protruding from the wall, and then, looking sick with fright, twisted this way and that, trying to line up a shot.

  Smiling savagely, Montrose turned and shot the first of the onrushing Spectres, exhausting the AK-47's ammunition. He drew his rapier and sprang at the next doomshade, feinted, deceived the creature's attempt to parry, and drove his point into its breast. The monster tried to swing its wood-and-stone sword over its head for a return stroke, but disintegrated before it could.

  As the Scot charged the next Spectre, several lanky Africans fell into line beside him, assegais leveled, short, striped capes flapping. Together the wraiths stabbed and hacked their way through the remaining doomshades.

  All but one. At the periphery of the struggle stood a confessor who still clung to human form, a fat, freckled, friendly-looking woman in a purple gown. From Valentine's description, Montrose recognized her as Mother Prudence, the leader. She was surveying the carnage with a bemused, indulgent smile, like a parent watching her children play a boisterous, meaningless game.

  Montrose stalked toward her. She puckered her hps in a kiss, then, her bulk seemingly compressing to nothing, spun into a hairline Nihil crack in the floor like water swirling down a drain.

  With her departure, the black sphere and the floating lights within it vanished. The possessed soldiers, those who'd survived, collapsed as one. One of the Africans let out a cheer.

  Montrose didn't share his joy. Rather, he scowled at the Nihil in puzzled frustration. His Shadow's mocking laughter resounded through his mind, while outside, the Maelstrom howled on.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Bellamy trotted up to Montrose. The FBI agent's left sleeve was torn from wrist to elbow, and a bloodless white gash showed through the rent. "Something's wrong," he said. "This was way too easy. Where are Dunn and the wolfmen? Where's the demon-god that Marie told us to expect?"

  Montrose's respect for the other wraith's intelligence rose another notch. "Exactly. And where's Gayoso, for that matter?"

  A coarse bass voice growled out a string of obscenities. Montrose turned to see Fink rubbing his battered head, then dragging himself off the floor. The Scot stood en garde.

  Fink stared Montrose up and down. "You look like shit," he said at last.

  Reassured that his friend had returned to normal, Montrose smiled. "I probably looked better before you shot me." He drank in a measure of the emotional energy humming through the old building, then willed his wounds to heal. His flesh throbbed as it ejected the shotgun pellets, which clattered to the floor. "How are you?"

  "I've been better," the river man said. "It was like those Pardoner bastards locked me in a torture cell inside my own head, and something was cutting me up and feeding the pieces to my Shadow."

  "This would be the same Shadow you once claimed didn't exist?"

  "Fine, rub it in." Fink hesitated. "I'm, uh, glad you showed up when you did."

  "You can thank Valentine for that. Without him, the rest of us wouldn't have known what was occurring."

  Fink's eyes widened. "The midget? Are you kidding? Damn, and here I thought the night couldn't get any weirder." Behind him, Marilyn and Astarte finally rushed through the door. The mage peered wildly about, then slumped, letting her cane and her companion support much of her weight when she saw that the fight was over.

  "Do you know what happened to Dunn and Gayoso?" Bellamy asked.

  "I don't know any Dunn," said the burly mercenary, "but I heard Prudence say she destroyed the spic after he knocked off the other Governors. He thought she was going to make him the king of the province, but she double-crossed him."

  "After which," said Montrose, "rather than deploying the possessed men to take control of the Citadel and the Necropolis, she simply directed them to prowl about and murder any wraith they met."

  "That's tight," said Fink. The rest of Montrose's comrades began to gather around to listen to the conversation.

  "Because they never intended to conquer Natchez by mere force of arms,"

  Montrose said. "They have something else in mind. They conupted Gayoso and the local troops for the same reason they sowed chaos in Stygia itself. Essentially, as a diversion. To keep their foes occupied until it was too late to parry their genuine thrust."

  Bellamy f
rowned. "That doesn't make sense. We know there aren't a huge number of Aztecs. How could they possibly hope to control the province, except by maintaining their hold on the possessed men and exploiting them to best advantage? But you're right, Montrose. If that actually was the heart of the plan, then why didn't every one of them, and every one of the werewolves, for that matter, defend the ritual?"

  Marilyn was murmuring to Astarte, giving her a running synopsis of the discussion. The Quick girl grimaced. "If we don't figure out the rest of the Spectres' plan real fast, we're screwed, aren't we?"

  "I fear she's right," Montrose said. "It occurs to me that none of us understands what's happening to the Mississippi. Perhaps if I fly up and take another look at it, I can glean some fresh insight into the enemy's strategy. Meanwhile, the rest of you, recover your strength and heal yourselves. Titus, you help those who need it."

  The shaman nodded. "Be careful," said Louise. Montrose gave her a smile, then levitated through the ceiling and out into the night.

  The wind, blistering hot at the moment, gusted even more strongly than before, nearly stripping the tattered black mantle from his back. The gale howled from the north, then the southwest, and then, for an instant, from directly overhead, nearly smashing him back down onto the roof. A doomshade resembling a huge, headless butterfly, the sickly yellow markings on its tattered crimson wings in constant flux, swooped close, seemingly investigating him, but then flew on in search of other prey.

  The invisible grit in the air pinged and grated against his glossy black ceramic mask. He kept one arm raised to shield his eyes, until, fighting the storm every inch of the way, he finally rose high enough to get a good look at the river. Then he stared, transfixed with horror.

  At first glance, it looked as if the Mississippi were in flood, but in reality, the water wasn't overflowing its banks. Rather, the monstrous black Nihil on the surface was expanding to engulf the shore, while the curtain of murk advanced with it, twisting and splintering space as it came.

  All along, Montrose had wondered how the Spectres could consider the destruction of at least some of the Deathlords and the devastation of the Isle of Sorrows itself the lesser part of their plans. It hadn't seemed possible that any Earthly conquest, no matter how ambitious, could constitute as grievous an injury to their foes. But now at last he understood.

  He dove toward the Citadel. It appeared to him that the rampart of darkness had been moving slowly, with a dreadful stateliness, but now, abruptly, it was only a few feet away.

  When it swept over him, space knotted and stretched around him, threatening to tear him apart. His Shadow leaped up from the depths of his mind and tried to wrest control of his body away from him. Assailed from without and within, he battled the rift and his dark half at the same time.

  It took him several seconds to master them both. Dazed, gasping reflexively, he realized he was now in free fall. Straining, he pulled up just in time to keep from crashing to the ground.

  Flying under his own power again, he slipped back through the wall of the Pardoner's lair, noticing as he did that all the Nihils in the room had disappeared. Each of his companions, even the mortals, looked shaken. "What just happened?" Belinda wailed. "What was that?"

  "We fell into the Tempest," Montrose said.

  "Explain," Bellamy said.

  "That immense Nihil on the river has expanded to swallow the land. On both the east and west banks, I assume. It's like a cancer, eating away mile after mile of the Shadowlands, the stratum of reality, that lies between the local Skinlands and the Tempest. That's why the Aztecs aren't worried about having enough troops to control the province. The Tempest is crawling with Spectres who will rally to their banner, and moreover, they know that ordinary wraiths can't survive in this dimension anyway, not for long. Mortals won't be able to live in direct proximity to it either, at least not happily or sanely. You've seen how they fall apart during a Maelstrom, and this will be like a storm that never ends."

  Titus shook his head. "You.. .you must be mistaken. You're talking about a change in the basic structure of the universe."

  "The universe does change on occasion," Montrose said. "Once upon a time, there were no Maelstroms and no Shroud, or so I'm told. You can step outside and investigate for yourself if you like. I'd very much like to be proven wrong, but unfortunately, I'm not. I'm a Harbinger. I recognize the Tempest when it opens its jaws and swallows me."

  The old man sighed. "As do 1, of course. It's just that it's hard to admit such a thing. This is a greater disaster that I could ever have imagined."

  Marilyn whispered to Astarte. "Hey!" snarled the girl in black. "It sounds like you pussies are giving up!"

  "She's right," said Louise, "but we're not, are we? Not after traveling so far, and overcoming so many obstacles. Not with so many souls, Restless and Quick alike, hanging in the balance."

  Montrose drew himself up straight. "No," he said, "we're not. From my rudimentary knowledge of the greater mysteries, I assume that after one conjures an effect of this magnitude, one must labor for a while longer to stabilize it if it's to become permanent." He turned to Titus. "But you'd know better than I. Do you concur?"

  The shaman gave a jerky nod. "That's likely."

  "Then we have to find the rest of the Spectres and break up the important ceremony," Bellamy said.

  "But how?" asked one of the African warriors. "We could be pretty sure that the bogus Pardoners were hypnotizing the Legionnaires from right here in the Citadel. But this other ritual could be happening anywhere."

  "After Mother Prudence vanished down the Nihil, she presumably made her way to the Spectre stronghold," Montrose said. "Harbingers learn to track other spirits through the Tempest. Unfortunately, the structure of the place altered radically when it engulfed the city. That could have the effect of obscuring her trail, but I

  hope Titus and I will still be able to follow it."

  "I suspect you've spent far more time in the Ocean and are far more accomplished at this art than I am," the shaman said, "but I'll help you all I can."

  "Me too," Antoine rasped.

  Montrose looked down at him. For a moment, he thought he could see the grimy floorboards through the alligator's body.

  "Maybe you should stay here in the Haunt," Bellamy said.

  "Stick it up your.. .thing. You need me, warmblood, and I'll be damned if I'll let those double-faced bastards win." His toothy grin seemed to stretch wider. "With those scaly hides, they could give us reptiles a bad name."

  "I'm coming too," Marilyn said. "My perceptions still work, even if the rest of my sorcery seems to be on the blink."

  "Forget it," growled Fink. "You'll slow us down."

  The scent of her wounds and her drug-laden, feverish sweat wafting from her body, the mage smiled. "How fast do you think the rest of you will be moving, groping for a trail with the storm battering you? If I fail to keep up, you can leave me behind."

  "Everyone can come," Montrose said. "God knows, we're likely to need every hand. As a matter of fact, we'll enlist every able-bodied Legionnaire and irregular we encounter on the way out. Considering the madness and betrayal they've just experienced, I doubt they'll be much inclined to trust us, but perhaps I can impress them with the Lantern of Truth."

  "Let's do it," Bellamy said.

  Montrose stared at the patch of floor where Prudence had disappeared, trying to sense a direction. Titus and Antoine stepped up to do the same.

  The dark, narrow street inverted itself, Bellamy's senses screaming that he was dangling upside down, about to plummet into the endless abyss of the sky. At that instant, the gaunt, rotting things with the hyena faces and the six-inch claws surged out of the shadows.

  One of the creatures pounced at Bellamy. Still frozen with shock and vertigo, he failed to dodge the Sinkinda's first attack. Luckily, its aim was off, and its talons merely grazed his chest.

  The flash of pain jolted him out of his paralysis. Desperately, he shoved the creature backward
. Instantly it charged again. Fighting the instinct that insisted than the tiniest move could break the fragile adhesion holding him to the ground, he clumsily lurched aside and fired a burst from the assault rifle he'd picked up in the Citadel. The black soulfire crystals set in the front of the folding metal stock glittered with the discharge.

  The Spectre dissolved. Bellamy pivoted, seeking another target, and saw that his comrades had already disposed of the other monsters. The world flipped right side up again. The sudden termination of the sensory distortion, if that was the right word for it, was nearly as disorienting as its onset had been. Nausea squirmed in his stomach, and he staggered to regain his balance.

  The skirmish concluded, Montrose, Titus, Marilyn, and Antoine formed a circle to. confer, as they'd done at least twenty times since departing the fortress. Scowling, Astarte hovered at the mage's side, ready to catch her if her legs gave way. Antoine had stopped speaking about fifteen minutes ago, but was apparently still focused on the task at hand, communicating with grunts and thrusts of his wedge-shaped head. Meanwhile, the other abambo stood keeping watch for the next doomshade attack, huddling against the cold, stinging wind and trying to tune out the vile suggestions and feelings their shadowselves were putting in their heads.

  The landscape itself was changing. The Nihils were gone—once Bellamy thought about it, it made sense that you wouldn't run across entrances to the Tempest when you were already inside it—but other rifts, more varied in appearance, opalescent ripples in the air and fleshy, quivering fissures in walls, had appeared in their place. According to Montrose, nearly all led to other levels of the Tempest, though a few might open somewhere in the Shadowlands or even the Far Shores. A clump of slickly gleaming globules like enormous insect eggs clung to the side of a tenement, and a black fungus that smelled like vomit encrusted a lamp post. Vile, inhuman faces and creatures coalesced and melted away again in the clouds.