The Kingdoms of Evil

by Daniel Bensen

  Burning struck-out libraries. Gibberish. Freetrick cursed his stupidity as the shadows of his convoy crawled across the lava-lit walls. This close to the core of Clouds-Gather's central shaft, the air was baked hot and dry, stinking of ash and sulfur.

  "For there it was on the schedule with which my lord furnished me, was it not?" DeMacabre was saying. "Find a teacher of necromancy, and then the coronation ceremony. And as they say in The Rationalist Union, 'thus it was written, thus it shall be.'" There was a gristly chuckle from the giant crab.

  "Yes!" Said Feerix. "So we must practice. Choose your victim, Feerborg!"

  "Feerix," said Freetrick, "I'm a complete novice. I think you're going to have to wait." As long as possible. Forever, preferably. On the other hand, though, Freetrick suspected he needed training in necromancy to fight off everyone else who might try to kill him in the mean time.

  From in front of them, DeMacabre somehow contrived to make a noise that sounded like a grin. "May I congratulate my lord on his guile."

  "And may I congratulate him on his cowardice." The voice rose like a venomous flower from the smaller, much more elaborately garbed person walking beside her father. Bloodbyrn DeMacabre had decided to enter the conversation.

  "Horrible morrow, my lord." Bloodbyrn turned like a rotating super-nova in red and black.

  "Nice hat," said Freetrick.

  "I thank you." She completed her rotation, and a hole in the blood-colored chaos opened to reveal a pale hour-glass of face, neck, and the inevitable uplifted cleavage. "Shall I walk beside you, my lord?"

  "Okay?" Concentrating determinately upward, Freetrick counted four eyebrow rings, three silver studs in various places, and a jeweled golden hoop through one nostril. The furry, monkey-like goblin she was carrying could have worn that hoop as a collar. The serried ranks of Dark Nobility around them paled in comparison. "So…Bloodbyrn. What's up?"

  "I am sure I do not take my lord's meaning." Bloodbyrn slowed her pace to match his, her hat expanding in Freetrick's vision like a dying sun. "I see now it was a mistake to study the Rationalist language, as it has become clear that my betrothed speaks only the language of the slatterns in their dens and the urchins in their gutters."

  For truth's sake. 'Slattern'? "I meant, how are you, Bloodbyrn?"

  "As well as can be expected, my lord."

  "That isn't," he gestured at the goblin, "one of the ones Feerix used to attack me, is it?"

  "Sadly, no."

  Bloodbyrn stared at Freetrick until he coughed and asked, "Uh... you're not mad that I postponed the un-wedding?"

  "Why should I be angry, my lord?" Bloodbyrn said, eyes rimmed with black kohl and steaming with irony. "Is it my place to question the decisions of the Soon-to-be-Ultimate Fiend?" A hooked eyebrow ring jumped upward, "however asinine they may be?"

  "Uh..."

  "The next time you feel tempted to make a decision, my lord," she hissed, "I suggest you stop, and think, and then do not make it."

  "And if you ask my father," she said in a normal voice, "about the details of Skrean laws concerning un-marriage, children, and succession, you may ascertain the depths of the pit into which you have—so glibly, my lord— plunged."

  "Now," Bloodbyrn looked Freetrick up and down with an expression that should have etched tracks into his iron armor. The goblin, now riding on her shoulder, picked its nose at him. "I believe I have made myself clear."

  Feerix cleared his throat. "I applaud your cruelty. Horrible morrow, Dark Lady Bloodbyrn."

  Freetrick nearly collapsed as Bloodbyrn's burning glare left him and turned to wither his half-brother. "Horrible morrow…Feerix."

  The prince's face twisted. "So. You dare show your face to me again after the duel we shared, you and I."

  "Why, Feerix? Because I won it?"

  "You did not win!" Feerix leaned across Freetrick to spit at Bloodbyrn. "You cheated! You distracted me."

  "I won," she said. "My blood clot was in your brain. And yet I let you live. I imagine that was humiliating for you." She turned slightly, and addressed the air. "I do hope no one now blames me for your mental ineptitude."

  "Bitch! I shall kill you!"

  Freetrick wiped spit off his cheek. "How about we trade places?"

  "There is no need, my lord," said Bloodbyrn. "For I have nothing to say to this mollusk of a man."

  "Mollusk? Mollusk?" Feerix's next words were a whisper directed at Freetrick. "That is like a slug, right?"

  "Yes."

  "Mollusk! I shall show you who deserves the title! Servant! Bring me my gauntlet!"

  "Young Feerix, do be quiet." The voice was ancient, with an evil, gristly hiss that made Freetrick think of scorpions. But only really bad scorpions. Scorpions the other scorpions would never talk to, for fear of being told deep and dreadful things that would shatter their fragile arachnid psyches.

  "This is neither the time nor the place." The thing walking next to DeMacabre pivoted on four enormous, jointed legs and Freetrick saw it wasn't a giant crab at all.

  Or at least, not the kind of monster he thought it was. It was a chair. A huge, mobile chair, made of what looked like twisted wood draped with shaggy furs. The man sitting in the chair, the man who had been talking so intently with DeMacabre turned his head to see Freetrick. Orange light flashed off a silvered monocle. Teeth were bared in the lava light.

  "Feerix, boy! By reacting so to the young Dark Lady's insults, you confirm them. You have your place in the circles of power, be content with that for now! And let your elders and betters rest their ears."

  Feerix mumbled something down the front of his armor while Freetrick and the ancient villain in the mobile chair stared at each other.

  "My lord," DeMacabre bowed as he walked, then put a hand on one of Freetrick's armor's metal spikes. The weight nearly toppled him. "Have you met His Fiendishness the Dark Prince Teirchoke, the Jaded, Despot Noggor? I believe he is…oh…what would it be my lord's sixth cousin, twice removed?"

  "Exactly so, Dark Lord DeMacabre," said the decrepit necromancer from his pile of shambling furs, "For my dynastic line was founded by Yogchoke, who was great-uncle to Othborg the Hideous, both of them being descended from Graswug Kinslayer." The monocle winked in its nest of concentric wrinkles. "It is unspeakably terrible to make your acquaintance, my lord." Dark Prince Teirchoke the Jaded made a small, palsied bow.

  "Nice—I mean terrible—to meet you," said Freetrick.

  "Do not mind young Feerix," the old man quavered like a malevolent accordion. "He is nearly as much an idiot as my own grandson, you know," He said to DeMacabre. "Though not so much as my son was, Tempest help me."

  Feerix made a noise like he was crushing rocks between his teeth.

  "But please allow me to offer my condolences, my lord," Teirchoke continued, turning back to Freetrick, his chair still carrying him steadily forward as they walked.

  "Condolences?" Freetrick did feel in the need for consolation, but he hadn't expected anyone in Skrea to sympathize.

  "My condolences," said Teirchoke, "on the death of your father, king Wrothborg, my lord. May the blood never dry from his hands."

  "Oh," said Freetrick, "yes. Uh, thank you."

  Monocle and teeth flashed in tandem. "Such a shame you were unable to kill him yourself, my lord."

  Freetrick sighed. "Yes," he said, "I guess someone else beat me to it. I uh, don't suppose you know who did?"

  Teirchoke merely smiled, his face like that of an ancient and vicious shar pei. "It was me, my lord."

  ***

  "Burning libraries." But Phinneas spoke the curse without venom, his voice pitched as if making a simple observation.

  They burst from the forest as if borne by explosions: lizard-men and goblins, and of course wendigos, which appeared to be men.

  Kendrick spun, and as the joy at the chance to kill rose, his attackers seemed to slow. Kendrick's heart thundered in his ears and the monsters seemed to drift through air like cold syrup. He watched as his hand
moved with slow deliberation to his sheath, fingers curled around the hilt of his dagger. His feet left the ground. His arm swept out. The blade slid across the monster's throat…

  And they crashed together into the dirt. Kendrick's compact weight bore down the goblin and its throat was open before it had a chance to even touch him with its claws or teeth. It shuddered and wheezed through a severed trachea and Kendrick noted how the monster's face was stretched forward, the jaw underslung and elongated. Its eyes, though, were human enough, and the pain and shock in them was like a warm balm to Kendrick's soul. Would Madene disapprove?

  Kendrick rolled back to his feet and swung around to face a thing like a hairy, long-armed man, teeth huge in an undersized head. He brandished his dagger and its, big, mobile lips closed over its fangs. So it knew to be afraid of him. Good.

  "Naobel!" The second goblin went down in a skelter of limbs. "Naobel!" Kendrick screamed again, and light blazed from the amulet on his chest. The monster howled, and Kendrick kicked it savagely the bright, hot joy of another's pain briefly washing over and obscuring his own.

  "Naobel!" And two lizard-men flinched back from him, squealed, and brought up clawed hands to cover their faces. A wendigo's human face twisted as the light washed over it, going from grinning savagery to wide-eyed horror. With a wordless shriek, the monster collapsed, clutching at its hair and weeping.

  On the ground, the long-limbed monster writhed as its fur sloughed from it. Its teeth were falling from its mouth, and its skull was deforming, bloating. "Naobel!" When Kendrick kicked it, the skull tore apart like a rotten pumpkin, pressurized brains exploding out.

  "Enough."

  Hairy, muscle-chorded arms snaked around him from behind. Kendrick screamed the name of his god, but the light from his talisman only illuminated the monsters before him, and the one behind only tightened its grip. Kendrick's ribs creaked, he kicked, he gasped, and he was still.

  "Enough," the monsters' leader said again, more quietly. "Well," the wendigo turned slowly, surveying the clearing. The bodies of Levanick and the Paladin had been joined by several monsters: lizard-men shot, ogres, goblins, and the other wendigo torn apart by the power of Between. Phinneas stood before his own pile of monstrous bodies, held captive by another ogre.

  "That…was…lovely," said the wendigo. It was heavily-built rather than tall, with deep-set eyes and a heavy jaw. Its hair and beard were clipped short over a face rendered brutal by a broken nose and a wide, inhuman smile.

  "What a mess," the monster cracked its knuckles together as it grinned at its prisoners, "what a fine, fine mess. Just the sort of thing I should expect for dealing with Naobelites." It glared at the body of the Paladin. "I cannot say I am sorry you shot him, although it is a shame you did not hurt him more."

  The wendigo walked toward the body of the Paladin, face down in a pool of blood. It stepped deliberately into the blood, then bent and dipped its finger into the pool. Straightening, it held the finger before its eyes. "Strange," it said, as if to itself, "I expected the blood of the Paladin would feel different from the blood of other men." It stuck the finger into its mouth, closed its eyes, then shook its head. "How disappointing."

  "Don't—!" Kendrick tried to shout before the ogre holding him squeezed and all the air rushed from his lungs.

  The wendigo looked at him. There was a moment when the tightness of the skin around mouth and eyes, the swivel of the head on the neck, the hunch of the shoulders, betrayed the monstrous mind behind the human face and body. But then its apparent humanity reasserted itself. The wendigo straightened, its face smooth, and once again it appeared to be a rather short, stocky man. Its eyes slid coldly over Kendrick as it scratched at its beard with a blunt-fingered hand and licked its lips.

  "Ah," it said, "the boy. Yes. You surprised me. I predicted you would side with your Paladin against the Rationalist. I was looking forward to making you kill him, in fact."

  The ogre holding Kendrick jabbered something too debased to understand.

  "No, we have to take the boy alive, too."

  It gobbled back at him.

  The wendigo prodded the body of the Paladin with a booted toe, "I think that would be rather putting all our eggs in one basket," it said cryptically, "but if he dies, I shall let you eat the corpse."

  The other ogre, the one holding Phinneas, spoke. This creature's mouth and throat, apparently less perverted than those of the monster that imprisoned Kendrick, made almost recognizable sounds. "Kang we ee' tha Bvukurm den?"

  "What Bookworm?" The wendigo raised an eyebrow at Phinneas, "Oh, him? Certainly. But first," its eyes slid to Kendrick. "I think I do want to try that experiment." It smiled.

  The only way you can tell it's a wendigo…Kendrick shuddered.

  "What is your name, boy?" asked the monster, picking its way across the fallen bodies to stand before Kendrick.

  Kendrick spat at the vile creature.

  It sighed, "Just trying to be polite. Courtesy is important," it continued, ignoring the spittle oozing down the front of its shirt. "Even here on the boundary between Light and Dark. Especially here. Wouldn't you agree?" It stepped forward, and before Kendrick could move, it grabbed his lower face. "Do not spit at me again, by the way." Its voice was still calm, slightly amused. "Or I will hurt you." Its thick, blunt fingers dug painfully into his lower jaw. "I think you know you shouldn't give me an excuse to hurt you."

  Kendrick did know. To the wendigo, his pain would be sweet as honey. As sweet as the suffering of monsters was to him. Kendrick, squinting painfully downward at the beast's face, saw it smile again.

  "Now, as I said. An experiment." The wendigo continued. "I want to find out something, little Betweener, little engineer, little Kendrick. Friend to the new Ultimate Fiend. "I want to confirm something I suspect. Gablinger, release him."

  The ogre's hairy arms relaxed and pulled away. Kendrick was left standing on free, his face still encased in the fingers of the wendigo.

  "Now," the wendigo said, "you know I can kill you nine ways before you can blink, little Betweener, so do not do anything stupid. Just listen."

  Kendrick breathed through his nose, trying to think of ways to kill the abomination.

  "My Queen" said the wendigo, "has use for you, little Betweener, little engineer. Little friend. That is a use that will keep you alive."

  Kendrick could pull suddenly away. But no, the ogre was still behind him. It would surely grab him if he tried to get away, and kill him if he attacked its master.

  "But I think we need to prove that you have use, little friend," continued the Wendigo.

  Well, did it matter if he died? Surely if he slew this vile wendigo, the side of Good would benefit. Did Kendrick have that courage?

  "So," the wendigo moved aside, still gripping Kendrick's jaw. Behind him, Kendrick could see Professor-Colonel Phinneas watching them, still held captive by the other ogre. "Kill the Rationalist, little Betweener. Kill that Rationalist, and I will let you live."

  Ice flooded Kendrick's veins. Somewhere, the other wendigo, the one he had touched with the light of Naobel, wept and wailed like a madman.

  Phinneas's eyes were on him. Phinneas, murderer of the Paladin. All thoughts of suicide fled. Kendrick felt his nails digging into the skin of his palms and forced his hands to relax.

  "Why?" He managed to croak.

  "Why? Why not?" The wendigo smiled. "This is the man who shot your Paladin. What more reason do you need, Betweener?"

  Kendrick looked down at the Paladin. The Light of the Mountain, slain by this sneering Rationalist. Kendrick's fists were clenched again. He could feel them hitting the flesh of the man, breaking his bones, plunging thumbs into his eyes…no.

  Kendrick shook his head, remembering Madene. Phinneas was a human being. His real enemies were the monsters, always and only the monsters. The monsters who…

  "The Paladin was cooperating with you," Kendrick said.

  "Oh, he told you that, did he?" The wendigo rolled its eyes. "S
tupid of him. But you understand why, do you not?" It gestured toward Phinneas, who was staring at them coldly, "This man was leading an army through the Bulwarks to end your way of life forever. Surely for that he should die."

  Kendrick shook his head, violently.

  "No?" The wendigo's voice had turned soft and cajoling. "But you'll enjoy it so much, little Betweener. Hurting him."

  "No." But even as Kendrick said the word, he was thinking. Killing humans was wrong, yes, but wasn't Phinneas an enemy of his Nation? And furthermore, if he could gain the trust of these monsters…and it would feel so good to stop that man's breathing with his hands .

  The chief wendigo chuckled, while the other wendigo whimpered from the ground.

  Kendrick looked up into those inhuman eyes, and saw his own reflected there.

  What would Madene tell him to do? Yes, to kill a human was Wrong, but in doing so, he would be able to later kill many more monsters, saving many more humans. Besides, Phinneas just killed two Betweeners, and how many more in his career before that?

  "And most of all," it said, "think about how much fun it would be."

  "Yes." Kendrick smiled, stepped forward.

  And something rose up from the ground and smashed, screeching and flapping, into Kendrick's back.

  He jolted sideways as the other wendigo bounced off him. "Don't!" it shrieked, "don't don't don't don't don't do it! Oh…oh Naobel!"

  Light sparked from the three talismans, the monsters all flinched, and Phinneas took this opportunity to drive his elbow into the ogre behind him.

  "Don't!" the insane wendigo howled, "Oh please. No more pain."

  "Tempest above!" snarled the lead wendigo, "I do not have time for this. Someone kill the damaged one, then the Rationalist, then---"

  "Move," Phinneas said, "and I shoot your leader." He was standing free now, pistol out.