The Kingdoms of Evil (21 page)

His nose actually moved up and down as his jaws worked.

"May death come swift-ly to you-ah enemies, and may it ling-ga long!"

And when his lips parted…how large
were
those fangs?

"Dahk one?"

"Guh?" Freetrick closed his mouth. "Thank you…sir-uh-man-uh-fellow," Freetrick stammered. By all that was true and holy, Skystarke was
smiling
. Freetrick averted his eyes as the lips peeled back. "It's good to know something-uh-one like you is guarding my apartments." He addressed this to the other guards as well, and their gnarled canines were almost soothing after Skystarke.

"Look, uh," Freetrick continued, looking frantically away from his captain of guard, "I'm…I'm actually waiting for Mr. — that is — Duke DeMacabre. Do---oh sweet
words! "
He put his hand up to avoid further accidental glimpses of those teeth. "do you know…where he is?"

Freetrick could not avoid seeing Skystarke frown, pulling his flexible lips into a cupid's bow and making his face unspeakable in entirely new ways. Freetrick actually saw the flesh around his eyes pull downward like warm elastic, exposing the undersides of Skystarke's bulging yellow eyes.
What was wrong with him
? Freetrick could see that the rest of his body was fairly normal—at least it looked that way under the obligatory pointy black armor—but the man's face was a rubbery nightmare.

"Sangboise scum! One such as he should nevah
day
-ah to instruct the Dahk One." The pitch when up so high on the first syllable of 'dare' that Freetrick felt his eyes begin to water.

"Uh. Yeah. Well, there's stuff I need to know. You know."

Skystarke did not approve, but clearly didn't want to contradict the Soon-to-be Ultimate Fiend. Instead he made a noise that was probably meant to be an embarrassed cough. There was silence.

Freetrick wondered if he should say something, but couldn't think of any conversational gambit that wouldn't result in more emotional scarring. Just trying to imagine Skystarke's answer to "so what did you do last weekend?" made Freetrick's teeth chatter. And he wasn't sure the ogres could talk. So they stood in silence, Freetrick looking desperately at his shoes while the ogres grinned past their under-bites.

When Freetrick heard the wingbeats of Mr. Skree, he actually felt relieved. The mist that shrouded the ceiling parted around the monstrous secretary's head and folded wings. Then Mr. Skree launched into a, what else, extremely lengthy update on the preparations for Freetrick's coronation.

"Great," Freetrick eventually cut him off. "So come and get me when you're ready. Until then I'll be walking around the castle with DeMacabre." Freetrick squinted into the gloom behind Mr. Skree, "So where is he?"

"Here I stand!" DeMacabre shouted the words from six inches behind Freetrick's head.

Freetrick jumped away and spun around. He managed to make sure his fluttery cape didn't snag on any torches or ogre toenails, and tried to fix DeMacabre with a stern glare. "DeMacabre. I've been expecting you."

"Indeed, 'tis I, my lord," DeMacabre smiled crazily and bent in bow. "If I may be so bold as to call you 'my lord,' Fiend. We will, after all, soon be family, no?"

Evidently, DeMacabre had gotten over the un-wedding postponement. That was…good. Plus with the Duke here, Freetrick had someone less hideous to look at than Skystarke. As long as he didn't examine DeMacabre too closely, anyway.

"…apologize
abjectly
for my tardiness, Malevolence," DeMacabre was saying, "there were certain tasks…" a knobble-jointed hand waved before Freetrick's nose. He caught a whiff of embalming fluid. "But enough of such tedium. Yes,
tedium
, my lord, when compared to the sheer
catharsis
of conversation in your monstrous presence."

It was going to be a long morning. "Thank you?"

"My praise is nothing but the honestly-engendered truth. True words as the Rationalists say. Ah ha ha." White lace spilled across black velvet as DeMacabre put one hand below his chest, as if his diaphragm needed extra support when he laughed. "Ah ha. But sorry I am indeed, my lord, to have left you so long, alone, waiting, forlorn." With each word, his voice dropped. "The thought of it would make an ogre
weep
, my lord, indeed."

Freetrick glanced at the nearest body-guard in his wall sconce. No, that ogre was smiling quite happily, his big round eyes pointed in slightly different directions.

"I wasn't alone. I was with " Freetrick gestured vaguely at the guards. "These guys." Skystarke's lean body stiffened.

"Oh?" The smile had disappeared. "Were you?"

"Yes," hissed Skystarke, "
we
gah-ad the body of the Soon-to-be Ultimate Fiend! We, and not you-ah puppets, DeMacabre."

DeMacabre drew himself up, peering at the guard with a raised eyebrow. "And you are? Identify yourself, monstrosity."

"Com-man-dah Skystarke of the Secret Police!"

"Can't be much of a secret if you keep introducing yourself like that," muttered Freetrick.

"I am sure that your display would impress me more had the last king not recently expired in his own apartments." DeMacabre's smile was like the expression of an ancient reptile, frozen by a million-year winter. "Neither very long ago, nor very far away from this spot, was it?"

"Now—" Freetrick began, then stopped, as he looked from DeMacabre's face to Skystarke's, and his brain screeched to a halt.

Skystarke was snarling. His upper lip curled, then flared, then
peeled back.
It receded like a window blind, laying bare a set of fangs that would have put the fear of god into a crocodile. The fleshy nose, then the eyelids, popped off the bone underneath, compressing into a wrinkled crest over the brows of the revealed monster.

Lidless eyes glared, the six inch teeth separated. A long black tongue slid out. Freetrick expected his commander of guard to speak, but then realized he probably couldn't. Not with his upper lip pulled back over his eyebrows.

For a moment, DeMacabre stood before Skystarke, his expression unmoving. "What shall we do
now
?" He said, lips still spread in a smile that Freetrick might have called hideous, if Skystarke hadn't presented him with a better example.

Skystarke hissed, his shoulders rising like the hackles of an animal.

"My lord?" DeMacabre's voice slid like a serpent through the greasy air. Freetrick noticed the slow ooze of blood down the man's fingers. When had he cut himself? "It requires but your
permission
." His voice shook with sickening emotion. The very air seemed to grow hot and heavy with rising power as red gleams kindled in his eyes. Ribbons of blood extended into the air around his hands, as if diffusing through dark water. "Then it will require but your
amusement.
"

"No!" said Freetrick, horrified. Then, "no no! Strike it out, everyone! Stop. I mean—Stand down, strike it."

The questing tendrils of airborne blood stopped, as if confused. "My lord?" said DeMacabre. Even Skystarke hissed at him in a sort of quizzical way.

"I mean it," Freetrick said. "I have no desire at all for either of you to kill the other one. I will
not
find it amusing. So stand down. DeMacabre, stop whatever the hell you're doing."

"Hell, indeed, my lord," said DeMacabre, but his stance relaxed. There was no sign of the blood that had covered his hands only a moment before.

"And you," said Freetrick, glaring at Skystarke, "Put your striking face back on."

Torchlight gleamed on bone as the captain of guard nodded. Then the upper lips slid down his forehead. Skystarke's hands came up, pulled down and pressed firmly, and the monster's human mask was back in place. He blinked.

"I obey the o-dahs of the Mas-tah of Dahk-ness and no one else!"

"Good. Very nice." Now that Freetrick knew where to watch, he could see the nose bob up and down over the fangs underneath. Freetrick smiled tightly.

"Now," DeMacabre's voice filled the silence like warm honey poured onto a knife wound "what lies on my lord's dark agenda?"

***

Zathara's palanquin surged upwards. Then it crashed down as the traitorous bearers all released it.

There was the sound of splintering wood and pain-filled howls from the guardsmen below. At the peak of the palanquin, Zathara was thrown onto her father's side. Ashes from the incense braziers flew up in choking clouds. Torn silk and ripped flowers flew.

Zathara was first out the silk-curtained door. She swung around the wooden frame of the palanquin and leaned out over the scene of carnage below.

"Zathara!" Neeshthura cried from inside. "Get back in here!"

Esteem flowed out of her mother. It was a stupid thing to say.

"Our palanquin bearers have all turned traitor!" Zathara shouted. "I see one guardsman killed. Another on the ground. And…" she ducked back into the palanquin. "We need to get out. One of the bearers is preparing to light us on fire."

"They dare!" Her father was beside her in a rush of perfumed smoke and a blaze of charisma. "You down there!" His voice rolled off the warehouses that lined the streets. "For your affront to the house of Suyamuga, you will die! Now everyone," he said in a lower tone, "we must jump. For the love of Love, make it look
good.
"

And Zathara was flying through the air. Love-Magic power spun her as she fell, billowed her wrap out, made it glow around her like flames. She struck the ground without a sound and stood to face their attackers.

The guardsmen were well-trained and loyal to the death. But the palanquin bearers were larger and more numerous. And it was clear they had had training too. One of the traitors died as Zathara watched. But the guard who had killed him now fell under an attack from two other huge men. A fifth assassin cast sparks from a flint wheel onto the draperies of their palanquin. And the remaining four had encircled the guardsman. Who screamed above the sound of steel and igniting fire: "Run my lady, my lord!"

"We have to help them." Zathara started forward.

"Zathara! No!" Neeshthura's hand grabbed her wrap. "We must run! Back to our districts. The watchmen we brought will---"

Mother hadn't come to grips with their situation yet. "Be outbid by whoever arranged this trap." Father had, though. "We have to get to my warehouse."

"Who would do such a thing?"

"It must be Sapo," said Father. "He's smart enough to discover our plans and stupid enough to think that killing us is a good way to stop them."

Zathara watched as their third guardsman fell.

"Zathara!" Neeshthura screamed again, and tugged her into a clumsy run.

There was a rush of air behind them. And their shadows shot forward across the cobbles. Their cowardice was outlined in the orange glow of their burning palanquin.

Esteem began to flow out of them.

"We're showing out backs to our enemies," Zathara managed to shout to her father. "They will use the esteem they gain to catch up. And. Kill us."

"Who would fight me!" She screamed at the remaining six assassins, outlined by the burning tower of their palanquin. The esteem, thank the Goddess of Love, reversed its flow. The killers appreciated a heroic stand. Their respect for her fueled the Love-Magic that threw Zathara's wrap up in a spectacular blaze of red and orange.

"Who would fight us!" Nashtang and Neeshthura stopped, too.

"I'm sorry." Nashtang spoke in an undertone to Zathara. Then he projected his voice again at the assassins. "We are the house seSuyamuan! How dare you turn against your betters, you dirt-encrusted mountebanks! Honorably drive your blades into your bellies now, or face
shame
at our hands!" His shoulders were back. His hand was on the elegant loop of his sword-hilt. He projected the Love-Magic glamour that made his clothes glow with color and his eyes sink into pools of shadow.

But it was clear the men were no simple bullies to be intimidated by a merchant-prince's charisma. They were trained assassins. They advanced. "Damn," Nashtang spoke to her, "I'm not cast for fighting."

No, you're cast as a wily and sartorial old merchant.
Zathara thought,
and I as a seductive young heiress. Neither of us fits the archetype that would impress these men.
But…

"I can change my casting, Daddy."

"Zathara, you've spent the last two years in The Rationalist Union," said Neeshthura. "I would prefer for you not to do any great works of Love-Magic."

The men were walking forward now. But they were moving. They moved like panthers, smiling.
They are trying to intimidate us, boys and girls.
She responded by raising an eyebrow and cocking a hip at them. Daring them with her broadcast unconcern.
You see, boys and girls, how we each try to make the other give up his esteem? The battle has begun even before the swords are drawn.

"No." Neeshthura continued. "We must drive them off with glamour. Ruffians, I understand your needs!" She called to their attackers. "You must be hungry indeed to sell your steel to a man so contemptible as Lord Sapo. For that man's slime corrupts all he touches. I know you have too much respect for yourselves to be swayed by talk to base gold, jewels, and women..." Her voice trailed away suggestively. "But give yourselves to the House of the Sunflower! And I swear you will know true honor and luxury."