Tales of the Shadowmen 4: Lords of Terror

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  “What tyrant is this?”

  “Does it matter? When we pass beyond the edge of the worlds, and traverse time and space to his sanctuary, I will show you a bit of his wickedness. The wars I have foreseen–they will go on and on! The weighty taxation on the poor to build a guilded nursery for himself and his playmates! He is a monarchical absolutist…the very thing you despise! And he will trample France, the nation you love, under his perfectly formed, exquisitely booted feet!”

  “And if you are so powerful, why can you not take this shortcut yourself, stab the fellow yourself, and take the same path to exeunt, eh?”

  The sorcerer scowled. “I am not the only magician in this land. There is one, secretly engaged by Queen Anne, who still works for the crown–or more specifically, for that scabrous conspirator, Cardinal Mazarin!”

  “Mazarin? The Premier Ministre? Mazarin is a Jesuit! He would have no truck with a magician!”

  “He would prefer it thus, true. But in fact that Italian wretch has become aware of my motions, certain conjurations of mine have come to his attention, and he has become alarmed. His own magician is a dwarf of sorcery, scarcely more than a mere chiromancer, but he stumbled upon a rather effective crystal of time-seeing and in it he saw that I intended to destroy the tyrant. So he set a swordsman to guard the tyrant against me: a lackey, a bootlick for tyrants. But–a great swordsman. I confess I fear him. You see–he, also, has…panache. His ‘plume,’ too, is quite powerful, and I’m not sure I can manipulate him magically…and then again, there is the small matter of a charm, with a certain saintly relic inside; it has been placed about the tyrant’s neck by that low-rent alchemist. And that too keeps me at bay. But the charm will have no effect on you. And as for the swordsman–why, Monsieur, you are well known to be the equal of any swordsman!”

  “Ah well. In my day, perhaps.”

  “You are only 36! You are at your prime. Would you have your life ended at a mere 36 by a falling log? The ignominy! A great man like yourself? The author of The Death of Agrippine and The Pedant Imitated? The hero of the Siege of Arras and the greatest swordsman of Paris? But now, attend: Here is a fourth consideration to compel you: You will learn if you are indeed a more masterful wielder of cold steel than this…this oaf sent by the Cardinal to protect the tyrant. Unless…you are afraid?”

  “I? I fear no man! I am Cyrano de Bergerac! I am…” His voice trailed off as he became aware of a dull rippling sensation in the vicinity of what had been his head. He was vaguely sensible that some aspect of this proposal was befogged by that rippling sensation. Some bell of warning rang within him: Beware. Something clouds your mind…

  But he was overwhelmed by what had happened, disoriented by the loss of his body. And how he yearned to be reunited with it! This floating about was not something he understood. He was a man of action–not a wisp to be puffed away like the last exudation of a chimney! It was true, as well, that he did despise tyrants. And there was the matter of the murderer. And the chance to see Roxanne again.

  “Yes,” Cyrano heard himself say. “I will undertake this mission–if you will return me to my body. Although how you can do it without permitting the unfortunate intrusion of this block of wood, I cannot guess. It would indeed be inappropriate for me to die thus, I who have shown that so many others were block-heads by comparison. And so, if you don’t mind, I dislike this vaporous state.”

  His voice trailed off again as he found himself swirling like a human dust-devil. The figure of the Magus made certain sorcerous passes–and then Cyrano was falling through a spinning tunnel, back into…himself.

  A wet reverberation, a metaphysical impact, and he was back in his body, standing, now to one side of his own doorway, staring at the short wooden beam yet hanging in the air over the spot where he had stood.

  “But–time is still arrested!” Cyrano exclaimed.

  “Yes. Your body now moves freely through the crystallization of this moment. It will also move a short distance into the future…and there it will rejoin the flow of time. Meanwhile, this moment will remain crystallized. You cannot move that beam from its place however hard you try! Later, you will return to this place, and this time. If you destroy the tyrant as I request, I will return you to this spot, but one step to the right of that falling block. Time’s flow will resume for you, and the block will strike the ground beside you. You will be unhurt and free to resume your life and hunt down your enemy. Free to see your Roxanne again! Free to live past a mere 36 years, to explore the outer reaches of philosophy! But if you do not do as I ask–you will be returned to the exact spot from which you were plucked. And you will be brained by that falling block! Do you understand the choice?”

  “I do, Monsieur Magician.”

  “Very well. Turn and approach the wall. Do you not see the crack there, in the wall? Observe! The crack widens! What was only big enough for an ant now gapes open sufficiently for two men to walk through, side by side! It is a transient opening through space and time…”

  It was as Alcandre maintained: a crack in the wall of the building groaned and quivered and expanded, wider and wider. Within it was a churning quagmire of nascent possibilities…

  Into which strode Cyrano de Bergerac.

  They traveled through material barriers as a man strolls through a ground mist. They passed through thick outer walls, through locked doors; they passed beyond cornices and curtains–and as they came, the Magus showed Cyrano visions of the future. They shimmered through time and space, until Cyrano found that he had fetched up in a high-ceilinged, ornate corridor, outside a large, beautifully carved, closed door.

  “Surely this is a palais,” Cyrano said, looking around at fine tapestries and golden candelabra, as Alcandre appeared at his elbow. “I have never seen quite such splendor, though I have been a guest in some very fine mansions.”

  “Yes. In our time, just a few years ago, this wing of the palace was still being completed.”

  “A few years ago? I had thought we were traveling some distance into the future, to some faraway time, but–”

  “Silence! Would you go back to submit to that block of hard wood?”

  “I have no desire for the Sword of Damocles, wooden sword or no, to descend upon me–but I must know–”

  “Bah! Enter and see the tyrannical malefactor for yourself!” And with that Alcandre reached out to the knob in the center of the door, turned it, and pulled the door, creaking, ajar.

  Feeling odd and unreal, Cyrano loosened his sword in its scabbard, licked his lips, and stepped through into the chamber. The Magus followed, closing the door behind them.

  This was an antechamber to a bedroom, Cyrano supposed–candelabra on wooden tables stood to either side of the doorway to the inner room. But two men in finely figured helmets and cuirasses stood beside the candelabra, each man tall, and neatly bearded, each leaning on a long pike, and each wearing the livery of the king.

  They looked at Cyrano with astonishment–then they rushed him, pikes lowering as if to doubly spit him.

  “Intruder!” one of them shouted.

  Cyrano reacted instinctively. Jumping to the right, he snatched the nearest pike, just under the blade, as it slashed past him, jerked it from the astonished man’s hands, and slammed its butt into the guard’s forehead. The guard fell over backwards, quite unconscious. With the same motion, Cyrano had blocked the other pike, but now the second guard made as if to rush past him out the door, to cry the alarm.

  Cyrano swept the pike under the second guard’s feet, and tripped him. The guard’s helmet banged to the floor, rolling away, and Cyrano, reversing the pike, slammed the flat side of its blade expertly down on the back of the guard’s head.

  The man gasped, and went limp, quite unconscious.

  Cyrano dropped the pike. “Big cumbersome things. Not a weapon for a real man–a weapon to keep real men at bay!”

  “But you used it very well, Monsieur,” the sorcerer remarked, sounding impressed. “Your skills have not been
exaggerated.” He licked his lips. “Perhaps we should take a moment to cut their throats? Just to see that they remain quiet.”

  “By no means! These are doubtless good, faithful men, only doing their duty!”

  Alcandre shrugged. “As you will. And now–we proceed–for there is one who must undoubtedly die this night–”

  “Who goes there?” interrupted a deep voice, from the inner door to the bedchamber.

  Cyrano looked up to see the silhouette of a Musketeer stepping through the doorway. Beyond the Musketeer, in the light from a stub of candle in a silver holder, a slender male figure, of no great size, was visible sleeping in the largest bed Cyrano had ever seen. Stirring restlessly, but still asleep. The Musketeer closed the bedroom door behind him.

  “There–you saw the tyrant! He sleeps!” hissed the sorcerer. “Win past this ruffian and kill him and all will be well!”

  Cyrano’s gaze had fixed on the Musketeer–though he was dressed as a Musketeer, no musket was to hand. The man was armed with a scabbarded sword and dagger. His hat was rather like Cyrano’s, white plumed, but far less battered. His breaches and weskit were of blue silk, burnished by the candlelight, and his coat the finest cut; he wore the ribbon of a high officer. At his cuffs and ruffled about his neck was the finest white lace. His face was in the shadow of his hat brim.

  “An assassin!” the Musketeer burst out, drawing his sword. Then–he hesitated. “But–do I not know this man? Were we not together at Arras? Did I not see your splendid duel at the Hotel de Bourgogne, in which you extemporized perfect rhyme even as your sword sought your enemy? How could I mistake that…profile? Are you not known as Cyrano de Bergerac?”

  So speaking, the Musketeer stepped forward into the candlelight. Despite his finery, he had the lean, weathered face of a warrior. The bristling black mustaches and pointed goatee did not conceal two long scars on his face, nor an expression as severe as the beetling clouds of an approaching thunderstorm.

  It had been some years, but Cyrano now recognized an old acquaintance: Charles de Batz de Castelmore, Count d’Artagnan. Once the fabled companion of Porthos, Athos and Aramis, d’Artagnan had put aside his roisterer’s ways to serve the Premier Ministre and the crown.

  They had not been friends, Cyrano and this Musketeer–d’Artagnan was not of a literary bent, and had not always appreciated Cyrano’s sense of humor nor his notoriety for free-thinking, which d’Artagnan, in his middle years, had come to regard as mere anarchism. Nevertheless, they had a powerful mutual respect, forged at the siege of Arras.

  So it was with regret that Cyrano de Bergerac drew his sword.

  “Monsieur,” Cyrano said formally, standing en garde. “I ask you to stand aside. For several good reasons, I am bound to destroy the tyrant who sleeps in yon chamber, and would not destroy you also.”

  Charles d’Artagnan snorted. “Did you really think I could step aside? You would not think of me in such low terms?”

  “Not at all, sir. The request was a matter of form, merely.”

  “And may I ask who is that who stands in the shadows behind you? What influence does this figure have upon your actions?”

  “That is my own affair, Monsieur d’Artagnan. And now…”

  Cyrano saluted him with his épée, d’Artagnan returned the salut–and Cyrano thrust testingly. d’Artagnan parried easily and riposted, with coup droit; Cyrano performed a contre-riposte, to which the Musketeer returned a contre-attaque; Cyrano parried with a false attack that became a feint, then a coup lance; d’Artagnan performed a grazing froissement and then lunged; Cyrano parried and for a moment they were grappling corps-à-corps. Then a dégagement initiated by from d’Artagnan and they were apart, again en garde, involuntarily grinning at one another.

  And then Cyrano lunged. Count d’Artagnan parried…

  And so it went, back and forth across the room, faster and faster, swords blurring, crossing with a sound like a percussionist’s triangle jangled by a madman; only the occasional minor touché was effected, with d’Artagnan getting a few shallow cuts on his upper right arm, Cyrano taking one one just above a nostril, so that blood ran into his mouth, and a scratch over the collarbone; but, equally matched, neither swordsman gained significant ground.

  The two duellists became heated, the hilts of the flashing swords slippery with sweat, their eyes glittering like their sword-tips, their teeth bared with feral intensity. The fight was a curious wedding of cerebral tactical intensity and competitive animal fury.

  After a particularly furious exchange of sharp steel, d’Artagnan stepped back into one of the tables holding a candelabra, rocking it so that the candle holder fell onto the floor, near a tapestry.

  “Arrête!” d’Artagnan cried, and Cyrano nodded, stepped back, to give him a moment to smother the flames.

  As d’Artagnan succeeded at this, Alcandre slipped from the shadows and hissed, “Cyrano! Now you fool–while his back is turned!”

  Cyrano whirled on him with narrowed eyes, shaking with the affront of it. “What do you think I am?”

  “Merci, Cyrano,” d’Artagnan said, turning away from the ashes, the fire now smothered. “And now…” He performed his salut, Cyrano returned it, and poised to fight…

  But just then the door to the inner room opened and a sleepy, rumpled young sovereign stood there in his silk nightshirt and bare feet, scratching himself. “See here, guards, where is d’Artagnan, he is to sit beside my bed! And what was that great crash that…” Then he stared, blinking, at Cyrano, realizing this was not one of his guards. “But who is this? What has occasioned here?”

  The Count d’Artagnan turned instinctively to the young king. “Your Majesty! Go back into the other room and bar the door! I will protect–”

  He did not finish the sentence, for the sorcerer had stepped up behind d’Artagnan, and struck him from behind with the fallen candelabra.

  And Charles d’Artagnan crumped to his knees, badly stunned.

  “What!” Cyrano cried, outraged. “That is a carton noir! It is not done, magician! We were engaged in combat between gentlemen!”

  “Gentlemen? He is a murderous hireling of that Italian bastard Mazarin–and this pallid little tyrant!”

  “Who’s a tyrant?” asked the young king, blinking in confusion. “And what have you done to my friend! d’Artagnan is quite dazed! Guards!”

  “Kill him, Cyrano, before he brings the palace down upon us!” the magician urged.

  But Cyrano, gazing at the young man, felt some of the fog that had blurred his mind evaporate. “But–that is my King! This is Louis! The Fourteenth Louis! He is but a boy!”

  “Mazarin is to die soon enough–and this boy will take full command of the nation! He will bring upon it wars and poverty! Do you not remember what I showed you?”

  Cyrano remembered–as they’d traveled to this place, he’d seen, away in a metaphysical distance, the raveling and unraveling of time: he’d seen the building of Versailles, the self-indulgent glories of the court, and the wars–the Wars of Devolution, the Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, the War of the Spanish Succession…

  “Guards!” Louis shouted.

  “Kill the tyrant!” urged the magician. “And you will not be struck down! You will live, Cyrano! Refuse and I will return you to your fate!”

  The Count d’Artagnan struggled to rise, blood rising from his head. “No…the King…”

  “Odd,” Cyrano remarked. “ ‘Struck down’ did you say? The worthy d’Artagnan is here struck down, struck on the head by a foul blow–just as I was to be. Such strokes are the signature of villainy! They are struck off by the same diabolical hand! I believe it was you, sir, who paid to have me assassinated with a block of wood–so that you could manipulate me to your villainy!” The sorcerer’s scowl deepened; his eyes flicked. He did not deny it. Cyrano went on, “No, Magus–I am no marionetted believer in the monarchy, and I am not a floundering abaser before the Church. But I know duty when I see it and I know the diabolic
when I smell it! And who is better equipped to smell it? No, sir magus–my eyes are opened! You spoke of some distant tyrant but this is the monarch accepted, for better or worse, by the people of France! It is to them I defer–not the crown. Why should I kill King Louis? And why do you wish it done?”

  “Why–in a few years, when he is grown a man he will cleave closer to the church, which will send its agents to hound me, to destroy me! I have seen it! It must be stopped! I will not be persecuted! I have used all my magic to this end! And as for you–kill him…or die yourself, Cyrano!”

  “I refuse! He is not even armed! Am I to strike down a youth in his nightshirt? Am I a slinking footpad? No! The fight with my esteemed opponent has cleared my head of your dire influence…Again–no! I will not strike him down!”

  The young King looked back and forth between them, puzzled, on the verge of shouting for help again–but falling under the magician’s mesmeric influence himself.

  “Kill him, Cyrano!” Alcandre persisted. “–and I will give you your Roxanne! She will love you as you always dreamed she would!” the magician crowed, leering. “I will use my magic to bend her will to you!”

  “Dog!” Cyrano burst out, scarcely believing his ears. “You expect me to insult her by despoiling her will–her very being? Never!”

  “Then, Cyrano, you will die, and–but wait!” The magician’s gaze had fixed on the confused young King. “He is not wearing the charm!”

  “The charm?” Louis muttered dreamily, his hand going to his throat. “It was uncomfortable to sleep with, an angular thing that woke me when I rolled on it, I put it aside–do you mean that it was truly…?”