Assassin of the Damned

— 20-

I landed on sand and rolled. I scrambled upright, drew my knife and whirled around. With shocked horror, I saw nothing but dreary sand with the ghastliness of salt. The sand shifted in slow tides. Far on the bleak horizon were the Alps. Yet they lacked snow or any sign of greenery. To the left I spied a razed town, its ruined towers the sole sentinels of this shifting desolation. The worst was the sky. A vast and looming moon filled a quarter of it. The moon was a burnt husk, and despite its abominable size only gave off faint light. Then a comet blazed or a falling star. It burned in the heavens and I heard a distant roar before it vanished into the horizon. Seconds later the ground shook, maybe at its impact. Other fiery stars streaked overhead, illuminating this fallen world.

How could I return without a door? How could Erasmo return? Or had the door been a trap?

Then I noticed a haze before me. A particularly intense comet illuminated it. It was the door.

I backed away and almost tripped over a man. He lay staked down, with his ankles and wrists cruelly bound with wire. His eyes bulged in death. He had bitten off his tongue. With sick loathing, I recognized him. It was Erasmo’s father. The implications were perverse.

I sheathed my knife. The heavens roared and light filled the sky. I slumped at the dazzling display. It was too bright. The impact exploded upon my ears and the ground trembled like an earthquake. Moments later, the air shrieked and the heat became unbearable.

I struggled to control my terror. I was Prince Gian Baglioni of Perugia, a patron of the arts and a member of the ongoing Renaissance. I had reason. I must use it. So I scrambled after Erasmo’s tracks. Sand had already drifted into them or been blasted into them. This was a desperate place. Erasmo was mad or indeed consumed with lust for power.

The first angel must have long ago winded his trumpet, along with the second, third and fourth angels blowing theirs. Wrath and judgment had fallen on this world. The comets must be the finishing act, the period that capped this Earth’s doom.

I followed their tracks and ran, until in the distance I saw specks. One speck was bigger than the others, the black knight on his horse, no doubt.

Three times comet-born blasts hurled me from my feet. The endless tides of this dreadful world worked to obliterate every sign of life. When I rose from the third blast, the specks were gone.

I hurried, fed a trickle of strength from this world’s bloated moon. Finally, I came to a huge fissure, a cyclopean zigzag in the sands. Had the others entered the fissure? Faint tracks said yes.

I slipped over the edge. Fortunately, the way was not straight down, and soon I trudged at a steep angle. I passed smaller fissures, jagged scarps and gray boulders. The falling stars that passed overhead briefly lit the area like a dim sun. I followed paw-prints and boot marks. There were no more hoof prints, however. The horse hadn’t entered the fissure. Of that, I was certain. I wondered what had happened to it.

An agonized howl focused my attention. I moved from nook to scarp to boulder. The ground trembled. Rocks loosened and rattled downward. Air screamed across the fissure like a colossus blowing pipes. We were all insane to be here.

A lycanthrope howled again. The knight grumbled, but I couldn’t hear his actual words.

I stretched out on a gray boulder. Fifty feet down the lycanthropes in humanoid form crouched forlornly like primitives, with their long arms wrapped around their knees. The black knight crunched across sand as he paced back and forth. He carried his triangular shield and morningstar. Erasmo-

I saw the hole, the dug up sand and dirt around it. Erasmo must have squeezed into the hole. With all these quakes, didn’t he fear cave-ins?

The lycanthropes rocked to-and-fro. One whined.

“Quiet,” the knight said.

“We must leave,” whined the lycanthrope.

“Soon,” the knight said.

“Not soon,” the lycanthrope said. “He will never find it, never. We must leave.”

The knight kept pacing.

The lycanthrope lifted his head and howled.

Did I wait until Erasmo climbed out of the hole or did I go in after him? Why did it always have to be about holes and caves? I might try to hit Erasmo with a stone as he emerged. Could I trust the others to just sit there and wait? The lycanthropes might catch my scent. The black knight had supernatural senses.

I selected a stone and hurled it high and long. It was a simple stratagem. I counted on their fear, their hatred of this place. The stone hit with a thud.

“What was that?” a lycanthrope cried.

“The wizard said this world was dead,” whined the other.

“Quit jawing about it,” the knight said, “and follow me.”

The lycanthropes scrambled to their feet and slunk after the knight. Whatever else Signor Orlando was, he was brave. He clanked in a determined stride, his shield ready and the spiked ball of his morningstar swinging from side to side.

I had little time and couldn’t afford to expose myself long. Anyone of them might glance back. To work down the boulder and the escarpment would take too long. I judged the hole, and I knew I was mad. It must have been this world.

I jumped, plummeted and landed soundlessly. As a normal man, I would have at least broken an ankle and probably thudded in an inelegant sprawl. My Darkling-sight showed me that this was more than a gopher-like hole. The opening revealed a cave. I hesitated because of it. Then I spied torchlight as if it flickered off a cave wall. I drew my knife and dashed in for the kill.

***

I heard fingernails scratch rock. I heard grunts and hard breathing.

“You’ve got to be here, you whore,” Erasmo said low under his breath. The words echoed in the cave. “All the signs…the portents…. You’re here. I know it.”

I nodded. Erasmo had always been impatient.

The cave trembled. Sand rained from the low ceiling. A dislodged stone from the ceiling struck my neck. It made my gut clench with terror so it was hard to keep going. A second later, the digging resumed. That helped unlock me, although I found it impossible to rush in. The best I could manage was a slinking shuffle.

Unlike our boyhood treasure hunt, this time Erasmo dug. Would he have become a crazed sorcerer if my axe hadn’t chopped his foot? Yet a ruined foot wasn’t reason enough to push a man to these extremes. What had urged Erasmo to stake down his own father? Why had his father been here with him?

“Where are you-” Erasmo grew silent as the scratching quit. A wild laugh tore out of his throat.

Now was the moment. I glided around rock.

Erasmo had dug into the side of the cave. The end of his torch was thrust into sand. It flickered and shadows jumped and writhed on the walls. He knelt and tugged at something in the hole.

“Need some help?” I asked.

He looked up wild-eyed, noticed my dagger and licked his lips in his obscene manner.

“Gian!” he said. “I can bring you back to life again. I can break the Moon Lady’s hold over you.”

“But can you restore my dignity?”

He laughed nervously. “If you join me, I can make you a god.”

“You wear my likeness,” I said. “You’ve stained my good name by being me. How can you restore that?”

He brought his hands out of the hole. “We used to be friends.”

“Where’s Laura? Tell me, and I’ll make your passing quick.”

“Gian,” he said, and he eased his right hand upward.

I lunged. He twisted like an eel and hurled himself back. My knife sliced his shoulder. He screamed. Smoke billowed. And the amulet on his chest flared with brilliance. I’m not certain what happened next. His back thudded against a wall. The flame within his black amulet, the flickering tip, zeroed in on me. I leaped after him and a flash blew me backward. At least, that’s what I thought at first. Then I saw the living flame. It had legs, arms and a fire head. It sizzling self lit up the small confines of the cave and poured heat. It was smaller than me, and it watched with eyes that shined like the sun. It blocked me from my old friend.

I made ready to stab the living flame. It took a step at me and raised fiery arms.

“Hold,” Erasmo told it. “Gian, drop the knife. Kneel, and give me fealty, and I’ll let you live.”

I flung a stone, one of several that I carried in a pouch. It lifted a lock of his hair and clicked against the cave wall behind him.

Erasmo shifted behind the flame. “Don’t you understand?” he shouted. “I’m a Lord of Night. If I say the word, my flame will destroy you.”

“You had me chained to an altar,” I said. “You stabbed me in the guts. But I’ll always keep coming. I’m remorseless as death.”

“Lay down your knife and I’ll give you life again,” he said. “I’ll give you Laura, your children.”

“Where are they?”

“In a safe place. But you have to kneel now, Gian. Pitch your knife to where I can see it. I’m losing patience.”

“You’re playing for time,” I said. “You’re hoping the black knight will save you, the lycanthropes.”

Erasmo peered around the flame’s shoulder. I faked a throw. Erasmo ducked like a ferret. I laughed and the flame cackled brighter, angrily, it seemed.

“Don’t do that again,” Erasmo said, “or I’ll unleash the flame. He’ll burn you to death. I don’t want that, Gian. I want your help. I know you don’t believe me, but I wish to learn about the Moon Lady. You can tell me things I don’t know about her.”

“What did you promise your father?” I asked.

“…That was a mistake. I admit it, although if you knew the circumstances, you’d realize I had no choice.”

“No. We can always turn from evil. Fight me, Erasmo. Wash away your guilt with your blood. It will be like old times, just you and me in the sand arena. You always wanted to be a knight. Now is your chance to die like one.”

“You fool. Don’t you understand what would happen to you if you actually won? The door to our Earth would close. You’d be trapped here. Doomed. I’ve opened the door with spells that took years to learn. The Moon Lady sent you after me, but she doesn’t care if you survive. You’re a javelin she has hurled at me. I’m your path to life. Or do you want to die on this dead world?”

I leaped at the living flame, smashed my shoulder against it. The flame staggered back. It had weight like a man. My garments smoldered from the contact. Then I was past it. Unfortunately, its flames blurred my vision. I stabbed at Erasmo, felt flesh part and heard him groan. Then flaming hands latched onto my shoulders and heaved. I sailed and smashed against rock.

The cave trembled then-from a comet, not from me. Sand and stones rained down. Before I could scramble up, the flame aimed its clenched fists. Fire licked upon me. I bellowed in agony and my flesh bubbled, and I tried to crawl away. Through a haze of pain and dazzling brightness, I spotted Erasmo. He clutched his smoking side as blood dripped between his fingers. He spoke a harsh word. The living flame turned from me. I groaned at the pain, at the throb of my fried flesh. Erasmo spoke again. The flame leaped at him, dwindled and sank into the black gem, which I realized had been dark during the fight. Now a flame flickered in the gem as it angrily watched me.

Through the stink of my cooked flesh, I dragged myself at Erasmo. Agony lanced my scorched forearms. It throbbed upon my face. I could only see out the right side. The left must have melted into something hideous.

Erasmo raised a bloody hand as his features contorted with hatred. He spoke with painful wheezes, so I know my cut had hurt him.

“You spoke about my father. He begged me to stop. And once he realized I despised his advice, he tried to free the plague before I could drag it to our Earth. The plague was in a lead casket, a forgotten doom, I suppose. It had never been used on this wretched Earth. We had gone through Hell to find it and had slain an ancient guardian to make it ours-mine! But I didn’t need him anymore. He’d served his purpose. So I killed him, staked him in the sand as a marker and created a spell to blow off whatever drifted onto him. Do you know why I refused his cries of mercy?”

“Come whisper it in my ear,” I said.

“He made me accept your apology after you’d maimed me with your axe. He shouldn’t have done that, Gian.”

I’d never reach him. So I raised myself from the floor, picked up a stone and heaved. He grunted, and staggered against the wall. I’d aimed at his head but hit his chest. Only having a single eye had marred my accuracy.

He raised a hand and panted a chant. I groped for another stone. The cave shook as I grasped it, and the cave above me collapsed. With a horrible shushing sound, tons of sand poured down. Like a giant fist, it smashed, pinned and then buried me alive.

Only vaguely, did I hear Erasmo or even understand. It came as if from far away.

“Burning to death is agony. But for you, Gian, lingering in deathlessness buried alive is worse.” He might have stamped upon my tomb. “Think on that, assassin.”

***

I struggled for mastery of my terrorized emotions. My flesh throbbed with searing hurt, and my worst fear had arrived. I think I screamed. Sand filled my mouth. Sand surrounded me. I could not move.

In the blackness, in my tome, the fiery pain eventually dwindled to gray agony. I had no idea the length of time that took. I was alone, trapped beyond anyone’s help. I wanted to weep. Erasmo surely hurried to the door to Earth. He would shut it, lock it and resume being me as a Lord of Night. I’d miserably failed. The Moon Lady’s assassin, the killer in the dark, the famed Darkling-it was a moronic jest.

I tried to thrash. It was impossible. There was no air to scream. I was as good as a corpse, and on a dead world. I should have struck first, not talked. I’d tried to be clever. Successful assassins were ruthless. I’d acted more like a knight, a prince.

With a wrench of will, I shook out those thoughts. I had to act. Act? What could I do?

With all my strength, I tried to heave upward. Blackness threatened my coherence. I relaxed as much as a man could with horrible burns. Was this it then?

I tried to wriggle my fingers. One moved! Hideous excitement almost overcame me. Concentrating, it was terribly difficult, I began to dig with a slow rotation of my hands. Torments threatened my thoughts. They came as fears, pain and a mindless yammering that almost destroyed my focus. Digging was tediously slow. So would be a recounting of it. Eventually, like a grave worm, I slithered out of the sand and into the trembling cave.

It reminded me that outside striking comets blew sand everywhere. I cackled laughter, and spat out dirt. Did I really think I could find Erasmo’s tracks? And what did it matter if I could? I might have traded my soul to the Moon Lady if she could have helped me then. I didn’t want to die on a strange Earth, a dead world waiting for its final destruction. I was an alien here. If I died, would I go to its Hell or Heaven?

Died! I cackled more mad laughter. Then I snapped my mouth shut.

“Crawl, Gian. Keep fighting.”

I wanted to hoot derision at myself. Instead, I dragged my battered torso toward the cave entrance. During the journey, I discovered that my left eye had indeed burned out. I refused to touch my face after that and learn the full extent of the burns. My forearms looked hideous enough.

The cave threatened to collapse each time a comet hit. Erasmo must have weakened it when he’d sent all the sand on me. Finally, however, I emerged into the moonlight. If it had been day, I knew I’d have been dead.

Unfortunately, this world’s moon lacked the same recuperative powers of mine. Had there ever been a Moon Lady on this Earth? Still, there must have been something. I gained a perceptible amount of strength and greater clarity of thought.

I used a boulder and dragged myself to my feet. I felt like a reed in a storm, and I began to lurch, dragging my gamey leg, the one shot in the thigh by a crossbow bolt.

The climb upslope was an epic struggle. The salty desert with Erasmo’s outline tracks caused me to sink to my knees. I shuffled forward like that, tried to climb to my feet and found myself sprawled on my belly. I crawled and comets blazed overhead. Hot air shrieked and made my burns relive their agony. It was then I realized this was Hell. Erasmo had lied. Lorelei had lied. Others Earths-they’d thought me a fool. Everyone has sought to use me. I roared curses. I raved and slammed my fists in the sand. The ground trembled, and it was only by degrees that I realized a comet had done that. As hot air shrieked its mockery, I fought to my feet. I swayed, and before I fell, I lurched in the direction of the tracks.

Time blurred and the comets seemed like demons howling at my stupidity. Somehow, I would get even.

I stopped and blinked gritty eyeballs. The tracks had disappeared. There was just shifting sand. It was time to hurl my coin as faraway as I could. Maybe my soul would find its way back. But for me-

A last rational part wondered if I’d passed the door. With agonizing slowness, I turned and shuffled back, following my tracks. I examined the ground like a lover memorizing a maiden’s face. The ground trembled. I swayed, and then I saw it: a faint paw print.

Oh, you clever schemer. Erasmo must have removed the spell from his father’s corpse.

I looked around, saw nothing new but refused to panic. I needed wits, strength and the luck of the damned, whatever that was. I pitched down my pouch of throwing stones. Then I shuffled around it in a widening circle. After the third circuit, I noticed a hump of sand. I thumped to my knees and dug, and I found Erasmo’s father.

I waited until a comet blazed and I saw the haze of the door. I laughed. It was a crazed thing. Maybe Erasmo had set a trap in our Earth. Maybe he had locked the door. I crawled on my knees to the hazy image. What would happen if he’d locked it? Did it matter? I struggled to my feet, staggered and hurled myself through.