Zombies, Werewolves, & Unicorns

by Stephen D. Sullivan

  “We called,” Persha said. “Shouted our heads off. And I even tried a locating charm—but it was no good. My magic is nearly useless in this place.”

  “It’s the Blood-Red Queen’s curse,” Al-Shakir added.

  Robellar scowled. “These passageways you found, did they lead to the treasury?”

  “Whether to the treasury or the throne room or ever deeper into the pit, who can say?” Al-Shakir replied. “They are a maze. Surely only the Blood-Red Queen herself knew their secrets.”

  “The sun is setting,” Robellar noted. “We need to keep moving. The throne room can’t be far now.” Lita shuddered and clung to him as though she would never let go. Her golden jewelry rattled slightly as she quaked.

  “What about Wharkun?” Rik asked, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer.

  “He can catch up,” Robellar replied, turning to go.

  “If he doesn’t, it’s larger shares for the rest of us,” Memnon added with a grin.

  Rik resisted the urge to lop the Midknight’s head off. The former pirate hadn’t known the derenki long, just long enough to know he liked Wharkun better than either Midknight.

  At least there are more of us now, Rik thought. Eight if you don’t count Lita. That should make Al-Shakir happy. He didn’t believe in the bodyguard’s magic numbers, but for survival, nine was better than six.

  “What about Reifworm?” Persha asked, looking around for her fellow mage. “Is he scouting ahead?”

  “He had . . . an accident,” Robellar replied.

  “You could say he cut himself out of the take,” Memnon added slyly.

  “Squashed himself out, is more like it,” Antiope put in. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice the bloodstain in the last hallway.”

  Persha staggered as though she’d been struck in the chest. She went pale and nearly backed into one of the vine-filled niches lining the passageway. Rick caught her just in time, and supported her as she regained her bearings.

  The young mage buried her face in her hands. “So much knowledge . . . so many years of experience . . . lost forever!”

  “The gods often take those who plumb their secrets,” Rik said. He intended the homily as a comfort for the young mage, but wasn’t sure it came out right.

  The Midknights exchanged sardonic glances.

  “We’ll need your advice more than ever now, Persha,” Robellar said, his voice calm and commanding.

  “Of-of course,” Persha replied. She smudged away her tears with a dirty sleeve. “I-I found something else in the dungeons while I was searching for Lita. I wanted to show it to Reifworm, but. . . .”

  She choked back another sob and reached into her robes. With trembling hands, she held out a rough-hewn black crystal. The stone had twelve nearly regular sides and was half again the size of a man’s fist. Its center glowed with a faint emerald light.

  “What is it?” Robellar asked. “It’s like no treasure I’ve seen before.”

  “It’s some kind of trap!” Lita said fearfully. “I know it is!” She buried her head on the baron’s shoulder.

  “I believe it may have something to do with the spell that destroyed the castle,” Persha told them. “Its aura is similar to the enchantment I sense in the vines and the destroyed walls.”

  “A spell?” Memnon asked. “How do you use it?”

  The young mage shook her head. “I don’t know. It seems incomplete, somehow. Perhaps it was part of a greater enchantment, but it malfunctioned. Lian Fyre was the best battle mage of our era, and Izanti is even more powerful still. Their magics are beyond anything I can fathom.”

  “Guess, then,” Robellar commanded.

  Persha screwed up her face in concentration. “Perhaps shattering it. . . ?” she suggested.

  “So it’s a grenade,” Rik said. “Like a fireball gem.”

  “It could be,” Persha replied, “though obviously much more powerful—at least, in the right hands. Whatever it is, I hope we won’t need it. It could be very dangerous. Besides, other than ourselves, we still haven’t seen any living thing in the palace. We should be relatively safe.”

  “Lack of enemies hasn’t stopped people getting killed,” Antiope observed.

  Persha took a deep breath. “Yes, but largely through their own carelessness,” she said.

  “Poking his nose where it didn’t belong is what got Reifworm squashed,” Memnon said.

  “That’s why we should be doubly cautious—especially with an enchanted object like this,” Persha said. She gazed at the baron. “We should take this home and study it—unlock its secrets. Think of the advantage a weapon designed by Izanti or Lian Fyre could give your armies, Milord.”

  Robellar extended his hand. “Give it here.”

  Persha handed him the stone, and he stowed it in a large leather pouch hanging from his belt. “Be careful with it, my baron,” she warned. “I can’t stress enough how dangerous it might be.”

  “Everything in this accursed place is dangerous,” Robellar replied.

  “Including us,” Memnon boasted. Grif and Brak hissed in agreement.

  “Come on,” the baron said. “Time’s wasting.”

  The light continued to wane as they trekked through the deserted, vine-covered corridors and up a winding stairway to the next level of the palace.

  The stairway debouched into one end of a long, wide hallway; another stairway, even more clogged with vines, descended from the corridor’s far side.

  On one side of the hall—the south, Rik judged by the failing light—stood a great bank of windows, stretching from floor to ceiling, twenty feet overhead. The vines covering the room’s walls and floors had shattered the windows’ panes of glass, though the opening’s crosspieces remained intact. Broken red glass formed a mosaic of shards amid the dry flora blanketing the floor.

  Moldering red and black curtains bracketed the window casements, but no breeze disturbed the draperies. Ornate furniture—gilded chairs, couches, and tables, all smashed to pieces by the invading vegetation—lay scattered around the room. Dusty tapestries, some more than fifty feet long, covered the wall opposite the windows. The hangings depicted the most depraved warfare and torture—hideous practices clearly sanctioned by the Blood-Red Queen. Fortunately, so far as Rik was concerned, the invasive vines obscured many of the hangings’ more grisly details.

  “I may not know art,” Antiope joked, “but I know what I like.”

  “Shut up!” barked Robellar. Clearly, the atmosphere of the palace was finally unnerving him.

  In the middle of the tapestries stood a huge pair of gilded doors, leaning askew on their broken golden hinges. Withered vines, like a great russet tide, spilled out of the doorway into the room beyond. A creeper the size of a tree trunk ran between the doors and out the window opposite before snaking down the side of the keep.

  “We’ve found it!” Memnon gasped. “Those have to be the doors to Sanguinarre’s throne room!”

  Rik wasn’t listening to the Midknight. Something about the vines in this room had caught the former pirate’s attention. Cautiously, Rik crossed to the tapestry wall to get a better look. Where previously the vines had been verdant green or withered brown, some of these appeared almost . . . red. What’s more, as he stared at them, Rik could almost swear they moved—pulsing softly in the fading daylight.

  He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Could it have been a glimpse of the pulsing vines that lured Reifworm to his grisly death? Or was the movement merely a figment Rik’s overworked imagination? He reached out to touch one of the red creepers and then stopped, remembering Reifworm’s fate.

  Crash! Both of the big doors smashed to the floor as the Midknights and the basilisks pulled the golden gates down to gain better access to the room beyond. The doors’ impact sent clouds of gray and brown dust into the still air. The crimson glass on the floor shivered.

  The mercenaries, the mage, and the baron gasped in wonderment. Rik rejoined the group at the portal’s threshold and stared into the roo
m beyond.

  The queen’s chamber was enormous, easily twenty five yards wide and twice that long—so long, in fact, that in the failing light, it was difficult to make out the far reaches of it. The hall’s gilded walls rose thirty feet before arching into a great dome. A bank of graceful windows, curved outward like the edges of a scallop shell, dominated the far wall. Before the magical vines had ruined them, the windows must have been spectacular; now their empty oval panes looked like pale eyes, staring across the shadowed ruins.

  The glowlight in Persha’s hand flared and pushed back the darkness, and the entire room glittered. There was gold everywhere: tables, chairs, divans, grotesque statuary, the obscene friezes carved into the walls, barbed scrollwork and decorations—all shone from beneath a thick layer of brown and crimson vines.

  Rik didn’t have time to figure out whether the furniture was solid gold or merely gilded before something more caught his eye—jewels. Thousands of glittering gemstones lay amid the decaying vegetation. Rubies, emeralds, diamonds, sapphires all glimmered in the glowstone’s light. Some of the gems were set in the room’s shattered furniture, others were part of abhorrent mosaics, and still more were fitted into the jewelry wound around the bodies of the room’s many skeletons.

  Nearly two dozen corpses littered the chamber’s vine-strewn floor. These were not the bodies of servants, or guests, or victims like those they’d seen in other parts of the ruins; these were Sanguinarre’s prized guards, courtiers, and devotees. The bracelets entwining their limbs, the diadems circling their foreheads, the jeweled girdles around their bony waists, and the glittering curved daggers at their hips all spoke of the Red Queen’s favor.

  Rik looked at Lita, hugged close to the baron. Her jewelry, too, glimmered. The girl clutched nervously at the ruby pendant dangling from her throat.

  These people were like her, Rik thought. They were courtesans devoted to the queen—and their devotion got them killed. He silently vowed never to get killed for an employer, especially not Robellar.

  A sudden shout shattered the silent tableau.

  “Now this is what I signed on for!” Memnon said, grinning. He sheathed his sword, put his hands on a stout vine, and vaulted across the throne room’s threshold. “That’s a lot of loot for seven people!”

  Eight, counting Lita, Rik thought.

  Memnon stooped and began pulling a bejeweled arm band from the nearest corpse. As he did, a sudden swirl of wind filled the room. Red dust rose from the floor and shaped itself into a monstrous visage. The face was huge, taller than a man, with burning red eyes, pointed ears, and curving horns atop its head. The fact that the thing was transparent didn’t make it any less terrifying.

  Antiope shrieked.

  Memnon stood, startled, and dropped the arm band. Before he could react, the frightening apparition rushed across the room and hit him full in the chest.

  The demon-headed specter knocked Memnon from his feet and pushed him back, across the room and out the doorway. Rik reached for the Midknight as he shot past, but, as with Chun Ping, Rik’s attempt to save his fellow mercenary came too late.

  Everyone watched in horror as Memnon crashed out the antechamber windows, shattering the skeletal mullions. The red and black curtains next to the windows billowed outward with the rush of the Midknight’s passing. The demon head went with him, vanishing like mist on a summer afternoon as Memnon plummeted from its grip. The Midknight screamed as he fell—a high-pitched, terrified wail that ended with crushing suddenness.

  Rik and Al-Shakir rushed to the window and peered out. Two bloody smears on the castle walls indicated the route of Memnon’s departure. The Midknight’s broken body lay almost directly below them, on the shattered cliff at the top of the rockslide which had claimed Chun Ping. Beyond the Midknight, Rik could still make out the tree-impaled corpse of the pirate captain, a black silhouette against the darkening jungle.

  Back in the anteroom, everyone else had frozen as Memnon and the specter rushed past. Antiope quaked uncontrollably. Robellar shook as well, and even the basilisks seemed paralyzed.

  “It’s just a spell!” Persha whispered, almost pleading. “We’ve nothing more to fear. It’s just a demonhead spell—some form of residual magic. It’s spent now. We’ve nothing more to fear!”

  “Nothing to fear!” Antiope shrieked. “You silly little bitch! That hex just killed my man!” She lunged across the space separating them and slapped the mage across the face, hard.

  Persha staggered back. Antiope strode forward to hit her again, but Brak stepped between them.

  “You want to fight, lizard?” the Midknight asked, drawing her twin shortswords.

  Grif stepped up next to Brak, though neither of them replied to Antiope’s taunt. Both basilisks held their saw-toothed swords at the ready.

  “Well, sod you,” Antiope said. “Sod you both! You’re not worth killing.”

  “Enough!” barked Robellar. “Memnon’s death is tragic, but we’ve reached our goal! We’ve found what we came for. I’ll kill both you and the basilisks before I let you ruin this, Midknight.” He took a step toward the throne room and motioned for the rest to follow.

  “You first,” Antiope hissed, her eyes full of hatred and anger.

  Al-Shakir pushed past his boss. Hefting his big oval shield and greatsword, the bodyguard climbed over the vines into the wreckage-strewn chamber. When no new sorcery rushed up to kill Robellar’s man, the rest of the group clambered into the throne room behind him.

  They spread out near the door, searching the corpses, prying free the spectacular jewelry. The basilisks gnawed through the limbs of the skeletons to obtain their prizes. Antiope’s lust for gold soon quelled her recriminations over the death of her lover.

  “Find the crown jewels,” Robellar ordered. “They’ll be worth more than all the rest combined.”

  Rik stood, fastening a ruby and pearl bracer around his left wrist. “If the queen’s corpse is here,” he said, “it should be near her throne. I’m guessing that would be the big golden chair on the far side of the room.” He grinned. Now that they’d won their treasure, the perils of the journey didn’t seem so bad.

  Robellar kicked aside the corpse he’d been picking over; Lita shuddered and gritted her teeth. “Of course,” the baron said. “Good thinking, Armstrung. Remind me to offer you a captaincy once we get home.”

  As if I’d take it, Rik thought. He gave the nobleman a curt bow and smiled sincerely.

  Just then, the setting sun dipped below the horizon, and the sky beyond the far windows turned brilliant crimson. The silhouetted throne loomed large in the blood-red light, as if beckoning the fortune hunters. The group moved quickly toward it, Robellar and Lita in the lead, each member of the group excited by the prospect of even more spectacular treasure.

  As the explorers walked, the withered vines tugged at their legs, and the bejeweled corpses shifted slightly on the floor.

  Persha cried out, and they all turned as she pulled a long thorn from her ankle. The blood dripping from the spike glistened like rubies in the sunset illumination. “It’s nothing,” the mage said, “I—!” Then her eyes went wide, and she screamed.

  The others whirled, following her stare. A body dangled upside-down in an alcove on the far side of the room: Wharkun—their missing comrade. In the dimly lit room, none of them had noticed the big derenki. His blue eyes stared blankly at the floor; his throat had been cut from ear to ear. Red, pulsing vines wrapped around his corpse, as though they were feasting on the dead warrior’s blood.

  “Gods of Mercy!” Antiope gasped.

  “How in the name of the Seven Hells did he get here?” Robellar asked.

  “I brought him here,” Lita said. “Just as I brought the rest of you.”

  “Wha—?” Robellar began, turning toward his paramour. As he did, Lita plunged a jeweled dagger into his chest.

  V. The Blood-Red Queen

  The baron gazed down at the weapon protruding from his breast, his face a mask o
f shock and horror.

  “Sorry, ‘my love,’” the girl purred. “But this is the real reason I came with you.”

  “W-why?” Robellar gasped.

  “To serve my queen,” Lita replied. “I wasn’t here when they slew her, so I’m the only one left. I am Kellita of Isla Sangre—acolyte of the Mistress of Pain and the last of my kind. The enchantment surrounding the island kept me from returning on my own. Now, thanks to you and this company of fools, I am home, and Sanguinarre will rise again!”

  She let go of Robellar and he slumped to the floor, his blood seeping into the pulsing red vines at her feet.

  Al-Shakir screamed, “No!” and leaped toward the girl. As he did, the blood-red creepers sprang to life. They whipped up off the floor and twined themselves around the bodyguard’s arms and legs, suspending him in the air like a fly caught in a web.

  Kellita pulled the dagger from Robellar’s body and cut Al-Shakir’s throat. The big man gasped and his hands jerked open reflexively. His weapons and shield clattered to the floor, useless.

  As Al-Shakir died, the vine-tangled corpses of Sanguinarre’s dead servants rose to their feet.

  “Teats of Kabree!” Antiope cried, barely lifting her twin swords in time to fend off a skeletal claw.

  Kellita laughed and gestured toward the rest of the warriors, directing the hideous, undead army to attack.

  Rik and the basilisks sprang to action, hacking at the limbs of the nearest corpses, while, at the same time, yanking their own feet free from the entangling vines. Rik glanced toward the doorway, hoping to make a speedy exit, but animated skeletons and a sea of writhing vines blocked his way.

  “Fingall’s balls!” he muttered under his breath.

  Persha shrieked and backed toward the left-hand wall of the room, stabbing at the ropy tendrils with her dagger as she went. The vines kept reaching for her, like a wave of striking snakes.