The Doomfarers of Coramonde (16 page)

Andre
deCourteney was no longer an amiable, comfortable man. All present, from the
GI’s used to command to the intractable Van Duyn, obeyed his orders without
objection or hesitation. They adjourned to the courtyard with some of Andre’s
magical paraphernalia. He removed Calundronius from his neck and again placed
it within the pommel of his sword, confining his mighty talisman but thus
keeping it close to hand for need.

They evacuated
all the other residents of the castle to the main hall, instructing them to bar
the door; then Van Duyn was installed in a space traced around with colored
dusts and powders. There he stood reading from an ancient tract as the Nine-Mob
and Springbuck boarded
Lobo
and Andre began to delineate a far more
intricate design around the APC. Time passed as he completed it with many an
enchantment and much strange speech in unfamiliar tongues.

He turned and
jumped through the rear hatch, light as a cat, and stood in the very center of
the deck, stooped forward with his eyes shut. He continued to chant and the
Nine-Mob watched agape as a blue glow began to emanate from his body.
Springbuck knew that it was the magic of Gabrielle deCourteney reaching out to
enfold her brother and draw him to her.

Gil took his
position, staring in amazement out over the splash shield of the .50 as their
surroundings went to gray, just as they had on the road near Phu Loi. It became
mortally cold and he could not but hope that by some mistake they’d find
themselves back in Vietnam—not that he was fond of the place, but at least he’d
know his way home.

A split second
later he was looking out over a vast, barren plain, a place of cracked, dry
earth, radiating heat. He wasn’t sure if it was dark there or if his mind had
difficulty interpreting the data of that gruesome world; his senses seemed to
be operating aberrantly. In the distance, a reddish glow lit the horizon as if
some huge city were there. More than anything else, he noticed in that first
instant an oppressive sense of the alien, of a distorted atmosphere threatening
to fill him and smother with dread beyond mention. It was, he supposed, the
very essentially human part of him recoiling in primeval alarm, repulsion in
the core of his being, product of his total incompatibility with this place.
His soul in rebellion.

The air was
filled with menacing smells and unspeakable odors. Unintelligible sounds
reached his ears, suggestive of distant howls of pain and torment and
blasphemous laughter. He twisted around as the others pulled themselves up for
a better look.

Between
Lobo
and the limitless plain in the distance was a river a half mile or more in
breadth. It was filled with a glowing lava-like fluid, yet there were eddies
and ripples in its surface as if there were swimmers within. On
Lobo’s
side
of the river the ground was of black sand, drifted in low hills and valleys.
After his arrival in Coramonde, Gil half expected the misshapen building that
stood nearby. It loomed to their rear, lit with eerie auras and leaping flames
and its design was grotesque and disturbing, grating on human sensibilities.

Between it and
the APC was a high, gleaming-black wall which paralleled the river and ran in
both directions as far as the eye could see. The only visible access was a tall
double gate close by, shut and forbidding.

“The river,”
said Andre calmly, “is a little device the residents use to keep the Confined
from escaping. Just beyond the horizon, where the sky glows, begins the
infinite continent of Hell proper, where punishment is dispensed and the
mustering of the Hosts conducted. Behind us, beyond the wall, is the palace of
Amon, Yardiff Bey’s Lord and sponsor demon. He is an ancient being, chief of
forty legions. Tonight there will be high celebration in his house. To get
there we shall have to breach yonder gates. I know of no incident in time when
such a mass of metal as
Lobo
was transported to the Infernal plane. I
think that cold metal will have the requisite properties to deal with the
gates.”

Gil glanced
upward. He thought he saw, against the sky, darker figures soaring and gliding
threateningly through the air. Here and there on the sands around them black,
obscure shapes hulked or scuttled.

“What about
watchdogs?” he said.

“I don’t think
that the lesser guardians of the Pit will bother us, who are men of flesh and
substance and ride in a thing of metal. They despise true life and fear iron
greatly.”

“Except that
our armor’s mostly aluminum,” Pomorski said. “But, hey, won’t the… owner be
warned?”

“Possibly,”
Andre conceded, “but we will have to hope that the entertainment will occupy
the attentions of the dwellers in that place.”

The Nine-Mob
divvied up the WP grenades among them. Springbuck and Andre both refused the
offer of firearms; they were afraid that their lack of familiarity would lead
to some misfortune, and Gil had to agree.

“I wonder,”
said Pomorski, “if there isn’t something produced by burning white phosphorus
that they’ve filtered out of their light sources here?”

Andre replied,
“I am almost certain that in order to protect themselves from your grenades
those within the manse will have to take on substantiality in forms our weapons
can bite.”

Ready now,
mastering his spiritual vertigo, Gil settled his hands on the .50’s familiar
grips. He experienced a pulse of confidence, not of triumph or even of
survival, but simply the feeling that he was no easy quarry for man or devil,
and that any being who came against him would find the confrontation costly. He
gave Woods the go-ahead.

The engine
caught and they plunged at the gates as he braced himself and repressed the
urge to call out to Woods to stop. Their objective looked as if it could
withstand an antitank round. Yet when the prow of the APC struck the doors, he
thought they moaned, and they shrank and buckled from contact with
Lobo,
withering
from their hinges.

The APC sped
toward the manse and Gil gave the order to slow until speed and engine noise
were as low as was feasible. They drove up to the very doors of the building,
towering two-story-high panels, and stopped. The bedlam coming from within was
amazing; cries, mad laughter, wailing and shrieks mingled with music which set
mortal teeth on edge and made their hackles rise in alarm. Andre spoke into
Gil’s ear. “You and I shall look around while the others wait. Tell Al Woods to
take the machine off to one side of the doors.”

Pomorski took
the .50 as Gil took off his helmet and headset once again and grabbed Shorty.
Andre drew his sword from its sheath and they stepped out of the rear hatch and
watched the APC move away to the right of the entrance.

Then they
circled to the left bent low, running close to the wall. They paused after
thirty yards with a wide, balconied window above them.

“We’ll climb up
the cavern giltwork and take a look,” Andre said. Gil slipped the submachine
gun over his shoulder and they began the ascent. The carvings, horrid faces and
tortured human figures, man-woman-animal shapes and things less describable,
provided ample grip and footing. The material of which the building was
fashioned was coarse and abrasive to their hands and unpleasantly warm to the
touch. They pulled themselves onto the balcony in the perpetual half-light and
stepped to the doorway, keeping low and to one side.

The manse
itself was more immense than Gil had realized when they’d approached it. The
room into which they gazed was enormous. He spotted the twin doors, dwarfed in
relation to the titanic chamber; the ceiling was lost to sight. The walls and
the center of the place teemed with groups and individuals, people and things
which were not human. There were appalling combinations of animal and mankind
and other celebrants bearing no relation to either. But all had about them an
aspect of malice and evil. Fangs, shaggy flanks, horns, gleaming torsos, barbed
and scaly tails, clawed and webbed feet, restless talons, all of these there
were. Old, young, beautiful and hideous were spinning and capering in a
primitive, hysterical dance to music of insanity and hatred and abandon which
came from no source that the American could see. In that moment there flashed
into his mind the works of Hieronymus Bosch, inadequate and mild when held now
in comparison with the real thing.

At both sides
of the room were rows of tables laden with food and drink and set with black
candles shaped like tumescent phalli, which guttered with flames of various
colors but were not consumed. On a raised dais was a statue of the Goat. Gil
stared at it and terror rose in him again, for the red eyes seemed alive and
directed toward him alone. Then Andre placed a hand on his shoulder and he
regained some of his control.

A steady stream
of dancers was leaving their writhings momentarily to run to the statue and
kiss its hairy rump, then anoint themselves with salve. On the dais one figure
towered above the rest, an apparition with a wolf’s head, a bare, manlike torso
rearing on lion’s hind legs and having a thick serpent tail which twitched
behind it. Before it, on two bread slabs of obsidian were the forms of
Gabrielle and what appeared to be a baby, the latter wrapped in a coverlet.
Andre’s hand tightened on Gil’s shoulder in a grip which threatened to pulp it
until the magician became aware of his excess and relaxed it.

“My sister,” he
said anxiously, “there, in front of the Wolf. He is Amon, Bey’s liege and Lord
of this place. There’s Bey, standing next to Gabrielle’s slab.”

Indeed the
sorcerer stood near her, but offered her no harm and only saw to it that no one
approached her too closely. His face was closed to scrutiny and his exotic
ocular threw back light from its moon-cold silver and verdant malachite. He
watched coldly as the revelers anointed themselves with the sabbat ointment
compounded of poppy, hellebore, hashish and human flesh, rubbing it behind
knees, ears and arms, and on neck, armpit and chest. Here and there on the
cyclopean floor flame leaped from pits and troughs, fitting illumination for
the scene.

Gil asked Andre
the reason for the infant’s presence. “A sacrifice, in all probability. Yes,
the blood of an innocent.”

All color left
the soldier’s face, though it was not an expression of dismay he wore, but
rather one of anger beyond anger. Andre watched the interplay of the sergeant’s
features and nodded to himself, satisfied.

They were
distracted a moment later by the arrival of a new guest. The crowd cheered and
threw their hands up as a woman, a big, imposing blonde, rode out of the
shadows at the end of the dais and stopped before Amon. Her steed was a naked
man upon whose shoulders a sort of saddle had been fastened.

“That is Mara,
the ice witch,” said Andre, “Bey’s rival for Amon’s favor and often at odds
with him.”

“Who’s her… her
mount?”

“Perchance some
poor soul she—Ah, gods, no!” Andre leaned forward, staring intently at the
dismounted Mara, whose bearer kneeled docilely. “What madness is this? That is
none other but Thom, the Land’s Friend. Oh, my poor, poor comrade, how have you
come to this? Come, we must get my sister out of here.”

They clambered
back down, then sprinted to the track. Back behind the .50, Gil took over the
assault. He told the Nine-Mob what to expect but didn’t get graphic about it;
they’d soon see for themselves. And as he spoke the sergeant felt a tide of
emotion building in him, a yearning to bring some terrible retribution upon
those within the manse as though he,
Lobo,
all of them were instruments
of some higher justice.

They drew up
closer to the doors but with enough distance yet to gather momentum, as the
insane music from within crowded over the track’s rumble. Woods raced the
engine and they all braced themselves; then he slapped the APC into gear and
they tore across the black sand.
Lobo
hit the stairs before the doors
and shot up them in a single bounce, crashing against the high portals. Unlike
the gates at the outside wall these did not crumple. A shock ran through the
track’s occupants and jolted the vehicle, then the doors shattered to either
side. There was a reeling impression of stunned, demented faces drawing back in
sudden consternation as Alpha-Nine thundered down the center of the cavernous
hall.

No attack came,
only a general drawing back by those assembled, as Amon and his two lieutenants
stepped to the front of the dais. It took an eternity to get there, and Gil’s
palms were wet at the .50’s grips. Woods braked to a halt next to the two
slabs. There was an ancient crone hovering nearby, an enormous spike-studded
aclys held light as a feather in her decaying hands. Gil spoke into the
intercom. “Olivier, cover the old gal with the club. Al, kill the engine.”

Andre climbed
up through the cargo hatch and stood next to Gil’s cupola, noticing the
sergeant’s shaking hands as he did.

“Well, my Lord
the Wolf,” he said to the silent Amon, “I have brought another wolf to visit
you, hight
Lobo.”

The demon
answered in a deep voice, harsh with hatred and frightening in volume. “The
wizardling Andre deCourteney, come to join his sister with his new friends and
bringing the snot-nosed Springbuck, if I smell aright. I knew you were sniffing
at my windows, but I also knew that you’d come to me presently. Ha, so predictable
are you of the Terrestrial plane. Can I entice you to light repast?”

“Thank you,
no,” Andre answered. “Carrion and putrefaction do not attract me.”

“Then, why
invade my hall? In hastening the inevitable—for I would have had you here
eventually—you’ve upset my guests. Still, I suppose I should expect such
behavior from bothersome little spell-workers. Do you know that I am the final
word here? Come down from that clanking kettle, deCourteney, and we’ll let your
sister take a final look at you.”