“Kane, we have both passed through that sickness and are now impervious to its foul touch. But it lives on in the raiment we wore while ill and can thus still be passed on to others. If the Horla could take possession of you, he will have you and I bear this contagion to La Rochelle and other Huguenot settlements, all of whom will gladly receive you with me in tow as the prize. And so would Pope Gregory, who would take you into the Vatican itself when he heard you came bearing a would-be Anti-Pope whose bid in Avignon you had aborted. For Fausta and her lineage are known to him.”
“Yet the Horla left your body, allowing the plague to overtake you. He risked your death, and a putrefying corpse in my train would gain me admittance nowhere,” Kane said.
Fausta smiled. “ ’Twas a risk, true, but he knew the strength of my young body and also my will, for he had been in my mind. But I was also in his.
“Kane, the Horla believes when the plague strikes indiscriminately–strikes even the Pope–Catholics and Huguenots alike will accept that there is only indifferent Nature and lose faith in a Divine Order of good and evil. Then men will readily lay down the swords they have raised for religious cause and willingly receive the type of kingdom the Horla offers.”
“Truly, we wrestle not against mere flesh and blood,” Kane said. “It seems, then, that we two who have passed through this pestilence must burn this palace, purge the disease by fire and destroy this demon’s arsenal.”
“Such a conflagration is not needed. Under the Horla’s control, I charged Rochefort to seal again the occult archives–and your own cell, where the pestilence spread when you broke through the wall. The Horla wants to conceal he has been freed; perhaps his cell is not hidden and what it holds forgotten to all.”
“But–will not the pestilence have taken root in Rochefort’s own body?”
“We cannot risk otherwise. He must not leave the palace alive.” Fausta smiled. “I believe that is in accordance with your own will, Master Kane?”
“Then, he has remained here? Why–?”
Kane cut off his question, for his eye noticed again the mirror he had observed when his head lay on Fausta’s lap. Her back was to it as before. Again, it seemed draped with the filmy veil. Now, however, he could focus on this odd mise en scène and see that the veil was not, in fact, hanging over the mirror but hovering in it, shifting and shimmering, and this amorphous shape did not allow Fausta’s reflection to pass through.
“Down, girl!” he shouted, his hand descending toward the long knife strapped to his calf. In an instant, the hilt was in his grasp and the blade whirling end over end toward the shape in the mirror behind Fausta.
Her eyes wide, Fausta was only momentarily perplexed at Kane’s command and the sight of him going for his blade. Then her keen instinct for preservation kicked in, and she dropped face down, just as the knife was flipping through the air toward her. It careened harmlessly overhead, and, as the knife shattered the mirror into a silvered hail, she heard an inhuman screech of rage.
“The Horla!” she gasped out, even as she felt herself grabbed from behind and hefted into the air. She fought, flailing about in the Horla’s grasp but unable to land a blow. Though the entity found her a snared lioness, he was unwilling to release her. In her struggle, Fausta’s fine gown was soon ripping and tearing into silken shreds dangling from her slim limbs.
Kane had drawn his sword while his knife was still flying through the air, yet while Fausta levitated in demonic rapture, writhing about wildly, he could not strike at the invisible Horla without risking wounding her.
The door to the chamber flew open, and Kane whirled, sword at the ready, to find Gaston de Rochefort there, grinning, his own long blade raised.
“Ho, great Puritan!” he said, crooning in mock salutation. “Shall we now cross swords or do you surrender since I have you at a disadvantage?”
“You’ll find my sword arm far more seasoned than your own,” Kane answered.
“What of it?” Gaston asked, nonchalant. “Are you not yet too weak from your illness for the exertions of battle?”
Kane smiled. “I daresay you have not been the picture of health yourself of late, Gaston. If you truly thought yourself my better, you would have already pressed your steel to your advantage instead of assailing me with your worm’s tongue!”
Gaston regarded his own blade admiringly, and Kane noticed for the first time a rust color along its edge. “Beware, Monsieur Kane,” Gaston said, “for this worm is a viper. I have treated my sword with a preparation which is fatal, should it enter the slightest wound. I have a new friend, you see, one who has thus armed me. More, he has entered my body and kept it whole against the pestilence to which, in his service, I was exposed. And now, yes now, I feel him entering me again–”
Kane looked back toward Fausta. He found her nearly naked from the Horla’s assault, lashed with silken cords harvested from the chamber to a pillar supporting the roof. She looked imploringly toward him, and Kane was startled to see fear on bold Fausta’s face.
“Yes!” Gaston shouted, and Kane turned to his enemy. “My every sense is heightened! I am transformed!”
Gaston’s face smoothed into the bland mask of an inhuman consciousness; a cold light seemed to descend over his features. Then spoke the Horla:
“Kane, I offered you Fausta and your life. Now you shall have neither, and Gaston de Rochefort will perform my will concerning you both.”
Kane smiled in response and raised his sword, trying not to betray that Gaston had spoken true of his weakness. Already his weapon weigh heavily in his hand, and a thin perspiration glazed his face and body, all from what would normally have been but minor exertions.
And only now did the decisive battle begin.
Gaston attacked. Kane thrust his sword forward, and the sound of steel on steel sounded dully against the cushioned acoustics of Fausta’s chamber. The noon Sun slithered along Gaston’s blade as though flame ushered forth from its hilt to strike his nemesis. Remembering the fatal consequences should Gaston make a touche, Kane adroitly dodged the strike, but his brow furrowed: the miss had only been just.
He rallied, his sword cleaving the air with its precision-honed edge and shaving away the left shoulder of Gaston’s shirt along with a layer of skin. The Frenchman swore at the sting; still, it was but a scratch compared to the beheading Kane had intended.
Gaston feinted, Kane moved to counter and was momentarily left open. In an instant, his enemy immediately followed through, driving the blade hard at Kane’s left breast. Reflexively, Kane started, raised and drew back his left arm. This move saved his life, for it shifted the intended target ever so slightly so that Gaston’s blade pierced not the Puritan, but merely his shirt and snared there.
Kane whirled away, the sword ripping free of his shirt as he escaped the perilous proximity of the poisoned blade to his flesh. Gaston fell back, swiping the sword left and right in the air to discard the bits of cloth that stuck there.
Kane took the moment to regain his composure. He pushed back from his face his cloying hair, damp from exertion and sickness, taking some relief from the breeze that rhythmically moved the tapestry that ran the length of the wall behind him. Still, torturous rivulets of perspiration ran down his forehead and stung his eyes. He could not help but repeatedly blink, knowing that a fraction of a second of blindness was the only opening his enemy would need.
Gaston’s blade was now free of the shirt shreds, and Kane noted that, where they had been, the poison was wiped clean. Gaston charged, his battle cry the unnerving wail of the Horla.
Kane bolted behind the tapestry as the breeze lifted it out from the wall. Gaston plunged his sword through the woven hanging, just missing Kane, as he continued to move behind the covering. The Frenchman withdrew and started to pursue, ready to stab through the fabric again. Then the Horla realized what Kane was about: more poison was now wiped from the edge of Gaston’s blade.
He waited for Kane to emerge at the other end of the wall, and
then Gaston renewed his charge. The words of the Apostle passed Kane’s lips a second time that day: “We wrestle not against flesh and blood alone.” At least while Gaston was its host, he knew where the Horla was. If he could decisively end their battle while the threat was combined into one, his disadvantage could be turned in his favor. But what could defeat both man and demon simultaneously, as he would need to do?
Then his sight touched on the salver Fausta had left on the floor by his pallet. He raised his gaze back to de Rochefort, a smile easing his grim features, which in turn caused the hitherto arrogant countenance of Gaston to slip and his pace to slow.
“The sword of the Lord and his servant, Solomon Kane!” the Puritan cried out in rally and charged his foe, ready to strike. Gaston recovered and resumed his rush to meet his nemesis head on.
Blurring steel struck, scraped, scintillated, sparks spewing out as though the air, pregnant with the combatants’ intensity, combusted about them. Again, Kane’s sword lashed, rasped the side of Gaston’s, but his breathing was ragged, competing with the grating of steel. The Horla that watched and waited from behind de Rochefort’s eyes took notice; Gaston smiled, and, his confidence restored, renewed the aggression of his assault.
Kane’s heart rioting with exertion, he fell back as Gaston put him again on the defensive. Soon he would be routed so far from his goal that his cause would be irredeemably lost.
He prayed under his breath, “Lord Jesus, transcend me; come upon me Spirit of God as you did Samson of old.”
Kane’s sword slashed down Gaston’s face from beneath his left eye to his lower jaw. The French man cried in pain, and balked, for, amazingly, the Horla felt the blunt of the wound equally with his host! The entity momentarily loss control of its instrument, and, seeing this, Kane meant to see it never regained complete mastery.
Kane beat him back, back toward the pallet where recently he had lain, where the golden salver still set with the remains of his repast. A quick, defensive parry from Gaston followed, then Kane’s crafty feint yielded an opening, and the Puritan thrust through the biceps of de Rochefort’s sword arm. He howled in pain and the Horla’s wails accompanied its host’s. Kane then unsheathed his blade from the Frenchman’s muscle with a torturous twist of the steel, causing Gaston’s sword to drop numbly from his hand. The pallet’s pillows on which he now stood shifted under his boots, tripping him to his knees.
Kane’s breath came in deep sobs, and his heart still thrust itself wildly against his ribs. He was almost faint, but he had to strike in this instant while the entity was still too stunned by the pain it shared with its host to abandon it. The Horla bleated desperately, “Fool! I have not come to bring a sword but peace unto the Earth!”
In response, Kane suddenly flicked his wrist down so that he brought the tip of his blade to the salver immediately by Gaston. Spearing through a crust of bread, he dipped it quickly into the goblet of wine, then thrust his sword upward, piercing the Frenchman’s throat and driving the sacramental sop directly into his gullet.
His expression austere, Kane held transfixed with the consecrated point of his sword both de Rochefort and Horla. It was the latter he addressed:
“You never partook of the bread and wine when Fausta was your host, when she thought she fed her ancestress’ spirit. For this wheat and grape signify the communion of the saints with the God you forsook. Aye, unworthy wretch, in receiving this, you enter unbidden the holy congregation of the Lord of Sabaoth! You affront his Holy Majesty, and shall you not receive due recompense? Begone into the abyss that is held for your ilk!”
Gaston’s straining eyes erupted in twin, bloody geysers. A great wind howled outward from his convulsing person, blasting Kane back as a darkness at midday descended over the chamber.
Fausta’s head recoiled as though from a powerful slap, clinching her eyes protectively against the maelstrom’s force. Windows shattered and shards reeled about the room. Feeling the surrender to unconsciousness he had so far managed to resist fully coming upon him, Kane launched himself across the room, landing against Fausta’s nearly unclothed body to shield it with his own against the glass projectiles. Locking his arms around the pillar against which she was helplessly bound, his head drooped at last, his chin coming to rest on Fausta’s round, smooth shoulder.
Two days later, Kane was ready to depart Avignon for the Huguenot settlement across the river. Boot in the stirrup of the strong, tall horse that was Fausta’s gift, he raised himself above her who stood, once again opulently robed, by the steed’s side. He wore his slouch hat, his sword was in its sheath, and his long knife on his calf. Saddlebags were generously loaded with provisions Fausta had also secured for his trip across France back to La Rochelle, but he would not be bearing her with him. He would report to those to whom he must give account the truth: the bid of the Anti-Pope of Avignon had failed. She no longer posed a threat to their religious freedom.
During his recovery, Kane had thought much upon his enemy from the occult archive in the old Papal palace. “He was held in that unclean place until his appointed hour, but your machinations brought him forth before his time,” he told Fausta. “It was God who led me here, lass, not to abort your threat, but that of the Horla.”
Still, one of the Horla’s more arcane statements puzzled him. As he prepared to take his leave, he now asked Fausta if she understood what the Horla meant when he said that the whole Earth was already out of joint at his coming; that hours, days and seasons were moved out of place, though men had only now recognized that it was so.
Fausta’s dark brows knit as she considered this saying. Then she answered: “In Rome, Gregory seeks to redress the straying of the vernal equinox by readjusting the calendar year. His learned men say ’twas due to a slight mistake Sosigenes of Alexandria made in calculating the Julian calendar. If what the Horla spoke was true, this resulted, not by human error, but from some catastrophe to the Earth attending the Horla’s arrival.”
“He and his ilk,” Kane said. “He claimed there were others, and they, no doubt, shall attempt to fulfill where he fell short.” Kane brooded. “I wonder, when shall that day come upon the Earth? When, according to the Horla’s vile gospel, truth is no longer valued as a matter over which men should strive?”
Fausta smiled pensively, a trace of melancholy in her voice. “’Twould be a world with no place for Solomon Kane,” she said.
The Sun had now slanted shadows lengthy and cool and choice for travel, and as he made for the river, for France beyond it, and a war he understood, Solomon Kane did not deign to look back at Avignon, the city of the winds.
Travis Hiltz returns to Tales of the Shadowmen with a light-hearted tale featuring Arnould Galopin’s space-time traveler, Doctor Omega. This story, which segues directly from the original 1906 novel (available from Black Coat Press), sees the Doctor’s path cross that of another cosmic wanderer in…
Travis Hiltz: Three Men, A Martian and A Baby
Space, 1917
We drifted along, the crew of that most wondrous craft, the Cosmos, through the vast ocean of the aetheric space-time continuum. In every direction there stretched out a canvas of swirling colors, some of which I did not even have names for.
“Enjoying the view, Denis?”
Turning from the breathtaking panorama, I faced my host, the mysterious savant, Doctor Omega.
He was tall and elderly. His white hair slicked back, except for one rebellious tuft. His attire was a black frock coat, several years behind the current fashion, black trousers and polished-to-a-shine shoes, the characteristics of an educated gentleman.
“Amazing as always, Doctor,” I told him. “I could stare at it forever.”
“Forever is quite a long time, my boy,” he said, patting my shoulder. “And there is still so much more yet to see. Besides, you’d miss lunch. Ah, look there!”
I glanced in the direction he pointed and watched as what looked like a mountain went floating past the porthole. It was bigger than any earthl
y mountain and tiered, like some enormous wedding cake.
“What is it?” I asked in breathless awe.
“Hard to say at this distance. Could be a planet that follows its own natural laws, the relic of some alien civilization or merely a misplaced mountain,” he said, with a shrug, as we watched the behemoth drift away. “There is no end of odd items drifting about.”
Hours passed and I was to learn first hand that the tiered planet was one of the more mundane objects drifting through space-time. An army of metal men tumbled past the porthole, like snowflakes glittering in the otherworldly light. We were passed by another spacecraft, shaped like an improbably large white running shoe and then a man, dressed in a soldier’s garb, holding on for dear life to the flying carpet upon which he rode.
My eyebrows had shot up in surprise so many times that the muscles in my forehead began to ache. The fabulous soon became the norm and I was able to pull myself away from the porthole as my brain tried to process the endless parade of wonders that I witnessed.
“Is there much danger of collision?” I asked, remembering from past travels that there was peril as well as wonders in the aether.
“The dimensions that we travel through are indeed full of flotsam and jetsam,” Doctor Omega informed me, not looking up from his book. He had grown tired of the view and retired to an armchair in the far corner of the room. “But it is also of such infinite size that the odds of collision are...”
I was never to hear what the odds were, as the ship shuddered and echoed like some enormous bell. Both the Doctor and I tumbled to the metal floor and slid about, like dice in a Parcheesi cup.
Doctor Omega managed to wedge himself into the corner, between his chair and the wall, while I was only successful at acquiring a collection of bruises and bumps, before grabbing hold of a table that has been bolted to the floor.
Tales of the Shadowmen 4: Lords of Terror Page 8
