by A. C. Cobble
He raised his arms and screamed a curse at the figures, the spirits of the dead, the ghosts of Northundon.
Through the cold of the dream, he felt a sharp line of pain bloom along his side, clipping him as he thrashed within the vision. He stumbled, feeling a body shove against him, though he had no body of his own. Another lance of pain stabbed into his arm. Sharp steel, biting into his flesh, dragged across his skin, slicing it. He realized he was stuck in a vision, or perhaps more, but his body was still in the world and was under attack.
Oliver swung incorporeal hands, the hard, obsidian hilt of his dagger still in his fist, though he could no longer see it. He ignored the spectres below and their endless march. He felt… he felt a man flailing against him, striking at him, and blindly, he fought back. He gripped the sensation of his opponent and struck at it with his dagger.
Below him, the legion traveled on, walking across the landscape of the underworld, moving toward the incandescent fire in the ruins of Northundon. The line of ghastly phantoms had no beginning, but it had an end.
Oliver gasped and coughed, blinking, trying to clear his vision. A flash of the stone chamber, lit by the giant braziers, flickered in and out of sight, spaced with the nightmare march of Northundon’s sacrificed souls. Countless men, women, children, his mother… Except…
He blinked again and vomited black ash, the taste of the grave bubbling up his throat, spilling from his mouth. Spitting and hacking, he raised his dagger, looking around wildly then stopping short as he almost stumbled into the gold barrier that formed the pentagram. His hair stood up on end and he felt the bitter cold assail him again until he stepped back.
He spun and saw the marquees leaning against the wall of the chamber, his own blade in his hand, the other hand covering his right eye. Blood leaked between the man’s fingers and his lips were drawn back in a rictus of pain.
“You’re back,” he snarled. “How are you back?”
Oliver, spitting what he knew was bile and hoped was not the ash of human remains, shook his head, trying to regain his bearings. The marquess, he noticed, was wearing black silk robes like Isisandra. They were stuck to his body in several places, glued by blood. Blood where Oliver had stabbed the man, he realized. Rafael Colston had been his invisible attacker when he was… in wherever he had been.
“What did you do to me?” gasped Oliver.
“I gave you a preview of where you’ll spend eternity,” growled Colston, dropping his hand, revealing a gruesome injury to his eye. It wept blood, running down the old man’s cheek, along the line of his jaw, and dripping off his chin. “Did you find your greatest fear in that cold place, Duke Oliver Wellesley? The soul of the one you miss the most locked in eternal pain? The secret of the powder, Duke Wellesley, is that what you saw was real. That person, the one you love, their pain in the underworld was real.”
Oliver spit again and coughed. His mother… his mother had not been there, the spectres had claimed. His mother was not in the underworld. He shook his head, unable to comprehend what the marquess was telling him. His mother had not been there.
“Do not worry. You’ll be back to see them soon,” declared Colston.
Then, he tore off his robes, revealing an ancient naked body marred with bloody wounds where Oliver had blindly stabbed him in his panic. Thin limbs, a desiccated frame. Just bones covered in brittle, parchment-like skin. Like script on the page, tattoos flowed across that skin, covering the man from his forearms, to his calves, to just below his neck. Every bit of his body was worked with black ink.
“He’s an elder. The markings… Don’t give him time to call the spirit,” rasped Thotham from the floor. The old priest hacked wetly, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He shifted, inching across the floor and grasping his spear, but he couldn’t stand. The puncture to his back was too much in his already-weakened state.
Marquess Colston laughed, and Oliver realized he shouldn’t have hesitated.
The man’s tattoos swirled like smoke trapped in a glass lantern, crawling across his body, forming from letters and symbols into shapes and lines. Lines like muscles, shapes like wings. Wings and claws.
Oliver’s mouth fellow open as the man’s skin split wide. Pale, white flesh emerged through the torn outer layer, shedding it like a snake’s skin. A dried tattooed membrane fell to the floor and a hulking brute emerged. Muscle bound and naked, it stood twice his height and four times his width. Hands larger than his head clenched into fists. Legs thicker than his torso kicked aside the last of the dead skin. A voice like Colston’s boomed with maniacal laughter, filling the cave and bouncing back, its echo compounding as the terrible sound continued.
Wings — dark, bat-like, and huge — spread from the creature’s back, blocking out half the light in the room, stretching wider than a pair of carriages.
With a hop and several powerful beats of the bat-wings, the pale, naked monster flew twenty yards into the air, hovering there for a moment, before looking down at him.
“Frozen hell.”
The Priestess XVI
A sharp point of steel, attached to the end of a battle axe taller than she was, wielded by a giant muscle-bound wolf-man-beast, thrust down at her face. She didn’t have time to curse, didn’t have time to come up with a pithy quip. She could only act on instinct. She reached forward and hooked her kris daggers behind the wolf-man’s legs and hauled back, digging the sinuous blades into the back of the legs of the creature and propelling herself between them.
Her leather trousers slid easily across the slick, stone floor and she felt the tip of the battle axe crash into the stone behind her, cracking the centuries-old surface, smashing loose a shower of rock chips. But she was still moving and scooted clear, drawing her wavy blades hard across the wolf-man’s legs, severing the tendons as she scrambled away.
The beast howled, filling the chamber with its angry pain. It spun, trying to chase her, but its legs betrayed it and the beast collapsed with a yowl. It scratched and clawed at the stone floor but couldn’t find purchase on the smooth surface. She danced away, out of reach, and the wolf-man snarled helplessly at her.
“Duke!” she cried, turning to see what had become of the nobleman.
Her jaw fell open as she saw a… a thing… flapping twenty yards above Duke, who was still foolishly holding the tiny obsidian dagger like it was going to do a damn bit of good against a monster that big.
Then, the fiend dove, plunging directly toward him.
She meant to run to his aid, but instead, she was ripped off her feet, one arm held in the grip of the second wolf-man. She swung the dagger in her free hand, trying to stab the blade into the monster’s arm, but it caught her and held both arms in iron grips. She hung suspended a yard above the stone floor, helpless. She kicked at the creature, booted feet falling unnoticed against the rock-hard muscles of the monstrosity’s chest and stomach. Its hot breath gusted over her face as it opened its maw.
She turned away, avoiding the rank stench of the wolf-man’s breath, and saw Isisandra standing a dozen paces away, grinning in anticipation.
The wolf-man snapped at her, and Sam flung her legs up, catching the bottom of its jaw with her knee, clacking its teeth shut. The wolf-man shook its head and eyed her, peeling back its lip, barring its finger-length fangs.
She knew a glancing blow wouldn’t stop it again.
Grimacing, she closed her eyes, and her skin began to burn. It felt like a red-hot poker was being dragged across her flesh, the skin melting beneath the heat, each inch excruciating and infinite, but she knew that in the space of a breath, from wrist to wrist, her black tattoos flared bright red-orange. Scorching embers embedded in her skin made her twist and scream in pain, but it burned the wolf-man as well.
Yelping and staggering back, its bestial eyes stared in confusion at its singed and smoking hands. The creature whimpered in agony, clutching its clawed hands close to its chest.
She landed on the floor in a heap, immobilized from pain.
Ragged breaths, uncontrolled tremors, her skin burned.
“Finish her!” cried Isisandra, and the low rumble of a growl drew Sam’s attention back to the wolf-man.
Hatred burned in its eyes. It leapt at her.
Sam drew on a reserve deep inside, jumping to her feet. Power surged along her tattoos and through her veins. She swung her hand up, catching the giant wolf-man at the throat with one hand, and then she squeezed and spun.
Unnatural strength rippled along her arm, and the beast’s startled cry was cut off as she crushed its throat in her grip. She turned and tossed it into the center of the golden pentagram.
It fell and slid, legs kicking helplessly as it struggled and failed to breathe. As it flew through the air and slid on the ground across the golden bands of the pentagram, its flesh was flayed. Wide strips sloughed off the creature, blood streaking the black stone and golden metal floor. The creature thrashed and twitched, then quickly stilled. Mercifully, Sam supposed, looking at the strips of flesh and gore that trailed ten yards behind the beast.
Sam shuddered and let her arm drop, already feeling the exhilarating rush of power begin to recede. She turned from the wolf-man to face Isisandra. The girl stared at her, mouth open, astonished.
The Cartographer XXI
The hideous fiend loomed huge in the cavernous room, its wings outstretched, its pale naked body reflecting the light of the fires in the braziers. It hung twenty yards above him, the beats of its wings stirring his hair, filling his nostrils with a foul stench. Marquess Rafael Colston was gone, replaced by an ugly, pig-nosed, boar-tusked, bat-winged, goat-hoofed nightmare. A big, big nightmare.
“Frozen hell,” muttered Oliver.
Then, the thing plunged at him.
He flung his obsidian dagger at the creature but didn’t bother to wait and see if he struck it. Instead, he darted to the side, running as fast as he could. He jumped, sliding across one of the tables on the edge of the room, realizing as he did, the thing was slick from still-wet blood.
Less disgusting than… whatever it was that Colston had transformed into, thought Oliver as he dropped over the side of the table. He then squeaked in terror as the table was yanked away and tossed across the room.
Scrambling on hands and knees, Oliver skittered across the floor, barely avoiding a fist that slammed down onto the stone, and then getting tumbled as the leathery skin of one of the giant bat wings caught him and flung him against the wall.
He stood, his back against the rough, natural stone of the wall, and drew his broadsword.
The Colston-monster laughed at him, the cackling boom filling the room again. It swung its giant fist at him.
Oliver ducked, and massive knuckles pounded into the wall above him, raining a shower of loose rock down on him and shaking the chains bolted into the wall beside him. He slashed up with his broadsword, catching the thing on the wrist, drawing a thin line of red blood.
The monster snarled at him, and instead of risking another punch into the wall, it bent to grab him. Seeing the thin trail of blood dripping down the milky-white hand of the monster, Oliver had a flash of inspiration and feinted to the left. The monster moved with him on the feint then narrowly missed as he ran by the other way.
Oliver sprinted and then leapt forward, his body smacking hard into the stone floor and sliding. He sensed motion behind, and air gusted over him as an open palm swept through the space where he’d been running, narrowly missing him.
Stinging from the impact of his jump, he crawled forward on elbow and toes to Marquess Colston’s discarded clothing.
Heavy feet sounded behind him, and in a panic, he frantically pawed through the silk robe until he found a belt and a pouch. Frightened fingers worked futilely at tight drawstrings, and he knew he had only heartbeats left until the creature closed on him.
A low chuckle behind alerted him that time was up, so he spun, tossing the still-tied bag into the air and slashing at it with his broadsword.
The sharp blade cut through the fabric, exploding a cloud of black dust in between him and the monster, flinging the bag and the trailing dust into the fiend’s pale, tusked, pig face.
Oliver rolled away, holding his breath, blinking quickly to clear them of the black powder and the flashes of the lunar-lit underworld that it brought.
The powder drifted in the room, and the monster flailed its wings, trying to blow it away, but when the wings drew back to flap, it pulled in the cloud of powder toward its own face.
Oliver dropped his broadsword and covered his mouth and pinched his nose. He rose and stumbled away. The Colston-monster wasn’t quick enough and drew a surprised breath, sucking in the swirling powder that hung around it. Its eyes glazed, its frantic flailing slowed, and Oliver watched in amazement as a look of utter horror and hopelessness fell across the terrible face. The monster staggered, shocked by what it was seeing.
Oliver drew a breath of clean air then ran at the fiend, scooping up his broadsword on the way. He couldn’t count on the powder to finish it, and if it recovered, he was all out of ideas.
The Colston-monster, standing motionless, offered no resistance as Oliver slammed his broadsword into its gut, shoving hard on the blade as it pierced thick slabs of muscle and penetrated deep into the creature’s abdomen. Then, for good measure, he drew the blade back out and stabbed it into the side of the beast’s thigh, sawing with his sword, trying to sever the major artery he knew ran through the leg there.
A fountain of blood poured from the monster as he withdrew his blade. He stepped back, watching as it thrashed around, still in the throes of the powder, unable to see or sense him, and dying from the terrible wounds he’d given it.
Oliver turned and saw what appeared to be the shredded remains of one of the wolf-men down and unmoving in the middle of the pentagram. The second was whimpering and clawing at the stone floor, trying ineffectively to get to its dropped battle axe.
Sam was facing Isisandra, kris daggers held ready, when the younger girl stepped across the barrier of the pentagram, passing over the circular perimeter and then inside the center of the five-pointed star. The gold bands in the floor flared alight as she moved across them, reflecting a brightness that wasn’t in the room, bathing Isisandra’s face in the warm glow.
Oliver staggered up beside Sam, blood dripping from his wounds. It hurt. It hurt a lot now that the immediate danger of the Colston-monster was gone, but the marquess hadn’t struck him a fatal blow. He was still in the fight.
“You all right?” he rasped.
She nodded curtly.
“You ready to end this, then?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Oliver turned to face Isisandra who was calmly watching them both. “I told you this was over, Isisandra.”
“Come and get me, then,” she said.
Oliver and Sam shared a look then took a step forward.
“Stop, you fools,” warned Thotham, his voice weak and tight with pain. “Are you daft? Look at the wolfmalkin. That will be you if you cross the barrier.”
The old priest was on his feet, teetering. Blood covered the back of his robes, but his eyes shined with awareness. It wouldn’t be long before he was back on the floor, but for the moment, he was with them.
Oliver gripped his broadsword tightly but stopped his advance. He glared at Isisandra, trying to figure a way to get at her, but he felt… His amulet was burning.
“Spirits!” he cried, spinning from Isisandra to look behind them where a wall of shadow was coalescing along the edge of the room, blocking the mouth of the stairwell they’d come in. As Oliver turned, he realized the shadow wall covered half of the room. And it wasn’t a wall. It was a throng of shades, stepping from the living stone and advancing on them in a dark wave.
“This must be every soul s-she’s taken in here…” stammered Sam.
“They’re the weak ones, right?” asked Oliver. “We finished a bunch of them in the hallway above. There, ah, there are a few more this time�
��”
There were a lot more, he realized, patting his belt, wondering where his spirit-blessed obsidian dagger had gone. It was impossible to count the incorporeal shapes as they blended together and disappeared in the natural shadows of the room. There were a hundred… maybe more. Enough, he figured. Shaking himself, he raised his broadsword. He may go down, but he wouldn’t go down without a fight. As much of one as he could give.
“You can’t hurt them with that,” reminded Thotham. Then, he tossed his spear to Oliver. The old priest flopped back onto his bottom without the support of the spear to lean on. He grunted as his rear impacted the stone. Looking up at Oliver, he suggested, “Try that.”
Oliver hefted the weapon, thinking back to his arms training twenty years earlier, the last time he’d used a pole arm like this. Well, he thought, the joke had always been to stab them with the pointy end. It should work now as well as then.
“Oliver,” called Thotham, his eyes locked on the duke. “Kill me.”
“What?”
“Don’t!” cried Sam.
The old priest didn’t look away. He didn’t blink.
“Don’t do it!” screamed Sam.
Then, she charged the legion of shadows, her daggers held low, ready to slash and hack her way through them. There were too many, Oliver knew. Far too many.
“Enjoy hell, Oliver,” chimed Isisandra from behind them.
Grunting, he spun and launched Thotham’s spear at her.
It whipped through the air and then smacked into a shimmering golden barrier. It bounced back, clattering to the floor.
The girl laughed, and Oliver cursed, rushing forward to collect the weapon.
“I own you,” crowed Isisandra. “I owned you the moment I bowed before you in that carriage. You just didn’t know it yet. It’s almost sad, really, that you have to die now. When you do, Oliver, I’ll own you again. Anytime I want you, I will summon you to me. I have your blood and your semen, Oliver. I can find you on the other side whenever I want, do anything I want with your shade. Will you enjoy that, Duke Wellesley, bowing before me for eternity?”
