The Kingdoms of Evil (11 page)

Another burst of light, a bass bellow from the ogre under the carriage, and Freetrick was on his knees, his skin on fire, blinded.

Pounding footsteps as the others rushed toward them. Bloodbyrn had her poisons and leashes ready. Mr. Skree had his claws and teeth. Erni had his gun. None of them were needed.

"Get out of here," said Swen, his talisman straining on its strap toward Freetrick, "get back in your carriage. And go home, Malevolence."

And Freetrick, held at bay before the holy talisman, did so.

***

Bloodbyrn waited, watching over her lord until the lines around his eyes eased and his breathing slowed. Then she, too, finally relaxed.

Outside, deep night had fallen; the burning Rationalist sun had relinquished its grip on the sky, and the garish blues and whites of the alien territory had dimmed to a much more tolerable black. Her lord's servant, Skree, was curled into a sleeping cocoon-shape, dangling from one of the rear eves of the carriage roof. The only sounds were the comforting screams of the carriage's ogre porter as it moved forward and a distant rumbling from ahead that might have been thunder.

The duchess-in-waiting of
Macabre
sighed and stretched against the padding of her seat. How unutterably relieving it was to be able to arch one's back without the eyes of that boy popping out at one. Now, with the Despot asleep, Bloodbyrn could behave as she liked, and never mind the tedious and disappointing business of aversion-training.

Bloodbyrn had rather looked forward to the chance to practice on the Soon-to-be Ultimate Fiend, but to be called upon to do so every time she bent forward or breathed deeply had grown quickly tiresome. Not to mention the ease with which she had subdued him, which was nothing short of embarrassing.

In her privacy, Bloodbyrn allowed worry to crease her brow. Why had her new lord not defended himself when she struck him? Why had he not killed the Futon, ripped apart its constricting folds, and leapt upon her? Oh, it was clear she attracted the Despot's lusts, but for some reason the man refused to force himself on her. Yes, she had expected romance in the cursed Do-Gooder nations to be different, but not
that
different, surely. If the woman's first retaliation sent the man off, whimpering like a kicked goblin, how did the Do-Gooders have any sex at all?

Feerborg was a necromancer of Skrea, and the dark power had bonded to him, but the man himself could hardly be less prepossessing. How would he behave on the other side of the mountains? Could the new Despot of Skrea possess hidden depths under this exterior? Did Feerborg, too, hide his secret self from all around him? Or was he truly the spineless worm he appeared to be?

Oh! Bloodbyrn smote her knee with a metal-clad hand. Why must her life be so fraught with difficulty? But no. She dismissed the childish thought. What Skrean concubine had ever chosen her lord, after all?

Bloodbyrn looked at Feerborg. In sleep, he lost that cringing expression he so often affected when awake. Now with his heavy brows drawn in and his mouth tight under his keel of a nose, the Soon-to-be-Ultimate Fiend looked very much like Feerix. He shared his half brother's body too - the tapering torso, the muscles not large, but well defined, the look of strength and control. And the way he had moved, when not imprisoned had been like a duelist, or dancer: someone who at all times knew the arrangement and position of his body.

This Feerborg had displayed rather more control than Feerix, in actuality. And there was that look of thoughtfulness to the face that the prince lacked thoroughly. Of the two surviving sons of Wrothborg, Bloodbyrn had to admit she had found more attractive. If only Feerborg was not...no. One must not let first impressions guide one. One must be optimistic. One must be courageous.

Bloodbyrn turned with a silent snarl away from the sleeping form of her betrothed and pressed her forehead against the cool wood of the screen. What had she been expecting, after all? A malevolent overlord? A vicious psychopath? A man who might shatter her defenses, laugh cruelly in her face as he chained her to his iron bed? Oh, but what were those but girlish fantasies? Reality, when it came, could never have been so grand.

At least now, with her lord asleep, Bloodbyrn could unclasp the silver winged skull from the front of her gown, thereby removing several sources of pinching. Her arms rose and fell against the leather cushions, producing a thump that was the only sound in the carriage out of time with their ogre porter's constant shrieking. How tedious travel was! How she wished that she were home.

Not Castle Clouds-Gather, with its endless stone corridors, its mists, its ever-shifting tapestries of deceit and betrayal. Not the Ladies' Academy, with its switches and riding crops and uncomfortable underwear.

There was a place far east of the Skrean capital, near the great River Moat. There, in the endless fetid swamps of Sangboire, loomed the Sarcophagus DeMacabre, within whose walls were kept all of Bloodbyrn's hopes and happy memories. Her mother's face...

Foolishness. Bloodbyrn pinched herself in the ear. She was becoming maudlin with boredom. She had half a mind to awaken the Ultimate Fiend, perhaps traumatize him. Yes, some creative cruelty might at least distract her from bitter memory.

A breeze blew through the carriage. It was cold, but with a faint rank scent, like rain and thunder, dust and old blood. A scent from beyond the mountain peaks. And yes, there, outside, under the light of the garish moon, Bloodbyrn could see the outlines of the stone cairns erected by the local people of this place, irregular and black against the blue of the rocks and ground. The mountain folk had yet to replace the circular capping stones that Mr. Skree had so kindly removed on their way down this pass, but Bloodbyrn fancied she felt the tingling pressure this place's guardian deity against her skin, sensing her intentions, pushing her out of this country. She was only too happy to oblige.

Impatience. It was a childish emotion and Bloodbyrn chided herself for it. Were they not on the road home, with the Pass of Winds itself opening before them, even as she wallowed in melancholy? Soon they would be over the mountains, her powers returning. One more day, and they would be at Castle Clouds-Gather, this journey done, and she would be placed to rule the Kingdoms of Evil, first as First Concubine, and then, once she had brought certain schemes to fruition, as its queen.

Bloodbyrn's fingers clenched. Queen. Yes, by the vital fluid of the Blood God. But she was not so naïve as to think the un-marriage and the coronation would represent any sort of end of travail for her. Quite the opposite. As queen, Bloodbyrn would face assailants from all sides. She would be tested, egregiously tested, and quickly killed if found wanting.

Her persona could not waver. There could be no mistakes borne of self-indulgence.

Bloodbyrn thought of the rabbit in its box. The rabbit she had released into the woods near the border crossing. Her hands stroked the ruffles of her costume, wishing for the feeling of fur, warm and soft, covering a beating heart she could not bring herself to stop. Thank the blood of her ancestors she had found the strength to release the thing. Her tenderness fetish was a risk, a foolish risk, and a habit she could no longer indulge.

Again her mother's face swam up from the depths of Bloodbyrn's memory, its expression tender and loving as it could never be in public. Her mother had indulged a tenderness fetish as well, and observe the result. Bloodbyrn's hands clenched in her lap. She must endeavor to be as cruel and vicious as possible to her lord, so that no suspicion of love could stain their relationship.

In time, rain began to patter against the roof and sides of the carriage. They were nearing the peak, where Rationalist clouds released a final spate of moisture before being dragged across the mountains' edges and into the Skrean Maelstrom. Surely it could not be long now. The wind rose, and as it did, the Soon-to-be Ultimate Fiend moved uneasily in his sleep.

Bloodbyrn closed her eyes against the chill, rainy breeze. She would of course do her duty when the time came; to that she had resigned herself. In fact, Bloodbyrn wondered if the time might come very soon, indeed. Skrean custom as well as her own plans demanded certain duties of a first concubine, and given what she had seen of him thus far, the new Despot could do little to prevent her from performing them.

Cruel fate, and cruel Goodness, for it had been The Rationalist Union that had done this to Feerborg. If the old Despot, may the blood never dry from his hands, had not allowed the babe's mother to escape across the Bulwarks…but such speculations were useless now. The Do-Gooders had done their insidious work on the boy; his upbringing could not be un-done. Skrea would tear him apart in months, even if she did not do so first.

As if in response to her thought, the rain intensified, bringing into the carriage the sweet puff of brimstone. Sleeping in the corner, Feerborg moaned and shivered. Bloodbyrn breathed deeply as she heard the rising moan of the storm. The pass was near.

Outside, though the rushing clouds had choked off the starlight, the storm lit the night with its own harsh illumination. Bolts of lightning zigzagged across the sky, tracing a spider-web between the clouds. Even here on the border, where the power of necromancy ran thin and weak, the pull of the Maelstrom rent apart the very sky. Bloodbyrn could not help but feel elated at the thought, and rather optimistic. This was the power she was reaching out to seize, after all.

The smell of Skrea lay heavy on the air now, dry and dead as old bones, deep and dark as new nightmares. Thunder boomed, and rain narrowed the visible world to a dim circle around the carriage, walled by staggered lines of stacked stone. Here the cairns were taller, and either Mr. Skree had been less than thorough on their path down the mountain, or the Betweeners had already replaced the massive wheel-stones that topped them. Wind rushed through the holes in the stones, and its ululation rose weirdly to wash around the carriage, catching and pushing them onward.

Rain, driven horizontally by the wind, rattled against the side of the carriage and flew between the gaps of the screen to wet Bloodbyrn's face and chest. Before she could react, a flash of white light bloomed against the night outside. The pattern of the screen and the stark shapes of her hands seared themselves in negative against her eyes, and so Bloodbyrn's lids were already shut tight when the thunderclap struck. The carriage actually tilted, as if the air had taken on weight, and Bloodbyrn's ears rang like bells.

What was this violence? The Betweeners had no such power, surely, and even if they had, why direct it against the carriage now, as they were leaving their nation's cursed territory? Even as she wondered, another bolt flashed into existence between the sky and the earth next to the road, cracking the very rock of the mountain, shattering the towers of rock like a boot smashing a line of anthills. This was not the power of Naobel, she realized. This was a manifestation of the never-dwindling wrath of the First God himself, receiving his prodigal son.

Sheets of rain poured down, while thunder rolled like the sea overhead. The lightning, striking now to either side of the road, cast insane, incandescent shapes through the screen. Flash, and jagged rock gleamed wetly under stone rings, immense and howling in the tempest.

Flash, and the living cushion around Feerborg was moving, rearing up in flabby waves toward the roof of the carriage. Flash, Feerborg's mouth yawned in a silent scream. His eyes were open; ink-black orbits bisected by lines of white fire, as bright and deadly as the lightning outside. The Ultimate Fiend rose from his seat, as the dark energy of his nation poured into him, mouth open in a scream. If only Bloodbyrn could hear it, but flash, and her hands were up, warding her eyes. The carriage rocked, and she fell against the screen.

There was ringing silence, and then, as Bloodbyrn's auditory powers returned to her, she heard the crunch of stones, the carriage's shrieking, and her lord's gasping.

"My lord?" she asked, cautious, not daring to hope.

"Where…am I?" Had her lord's voice taken on the harmonics of thunder, the cadences of necromancy?

"My lord Feerborg," she breathed to him across the space of the carriage, "welcome to the Kingdoms of Evil."

"Oh," said her lord.

Eyes like twin lines of lightning stared at her from the darkness. Sharp teeth flashed. "Ohh..."

"My lord?" she asked again, "Are you quite well?" Are you quite wicked, she wanted to ask, but didn't, though her heart beat faster at the thought of it, have you come into your evil, now that we are come to the territory of your terrible God of Death? Will you rise from that seat, eyes burning, and throw yourself upon me? Will you oppose my schemes with your own so that we shall tumble, screaming and clawing at each other, into the annals of Skrean history?